GM Tyranius (PF2) Blakros Deception (Inactive)

Game Master Tyranius

The way the influence system works is you have to discover (Discovery (Secret Academia Lore, PFS Lore, Society, Arcana, Perception) ways to be able to influence the person.

Yes, I get that part.

You don't know how best to influence the person until you discover which skills work best.

What happened to straight up Diplomacy?

The NPC's have varying influence skills with escalating DC's. If you succeed at your secret discovery check you have the choice to unlock the lowest DC Influence skill.

What do you mean by "choice"? Why would I not want to know the Skill with lowest DC to influence?

Once we find that Skilll, can everyone attempt to use it?

Resistance and Weakness can give you a bit of roleplay opportunity to give you bonuses towards your influence checks.

I still don't understand how this works, what the game is trying to convey when you post "Personal Bias, Resistance, Weakness." Does the Discovery check reveal what they specifically are along with the lowest DC? Or do we get a choice from the list? What if I choose Personal Bias...how do I use that mechanically?

If you succeed at influence checks you will get influence points. The group as a whole wants to get as many influence points as possible.

Yes, that part is not confusing.

What happened to straight up Diplomacy?

Diplomacy is still a thing. These last two influences (Dharmi and Nigel) are treated as encounters for this scenario as they try to use the Influence system instead.

What do you mean by "choice"? Why would I not want to know the Skill with lowest DC to influence?

You choose what information you wish to discover. Of course Influence will get you the points you need so that will likely be your first choice but Weakness / Resistance may give you bonuses if you are aware of them.

Once we find that Skill, can everyone attempt to use it?

Yes, Once you have discovered the Influence everyone may use and roll for that instead of trying to discover more.

I still don't understand how this works, what the game is trying to convey when you post "Personal Bias, Resistance, Weakness." Does the Discovery check reveal what they specifically are along with the lowest DC? Or do we get a choice from the list? What if I choose Personal Bias...how do I use that mechanically?

You only get a choice of uncovering one of them. Personal Bias will just give you a hint into Nigel's personality and background. This may give you clues into which skills may be helpful towards influence without giving away what they are exactly.

I am visiting family for the next 2 days. I might not have time to post until Wednesday.

Does the second attack from red not have a penalty?

Yes it does, thanks that got lost in my formatting so Khunbish will just be Dying 1 instead of Dying 2.

My apologies for posting slowly - the past several days were a little busy. Thanks for botting me. Unfortunately, Oskar has used all his level 2 and 3 spell slots, so he could not have cast Sound Burst (it's a level 2 spell but he has it as a signature). I don't know if you want to bother retconning but if you do a likely alternative would have been a 3 action level 1 magic missile (he's currently got 3 level 1 spell slots remaining). Sorry to make extra work and no worries if you want to just let it go!

Ah, all good. I was going off of your header showing you had a second level spell. I can certainly make it a magic missile then.

Magic Missile: 3d4 + 3 ⇒ (4, 3, 2) + 3 = 12

Will update the tracker.

Ah, all good. I was going off of your header showing you had a second level spell. I can certainly make it a magic missile then.

[dice=Magic Missile]3d4+3

Will update the tracker.

Yep, forgot to update after I used the last 2nd level slot. Will do so now. Thx.

I also manually added in the +1 for Inspire as well.

@Anjo- You failed you check earlier against these creatures so further recall checks against them will be fruitless. Additional Knowledge

Source Core Rulebook pg. 505 2.0

On most topics, you can use simple DCs for checks to Recall Knowledge. For a check about a specific creature, trap, or other subject with a level, use a level-based DC (adjusting for rarity as needed).

This brings us to one of the big problems with RK and how PF manages this. As written, this is against a specific creature. If it's against a creature type, then the GM should award the +1 to hit against all the creatures and not just one, right?

I have spoken with a few of the other VO's and other sources on this. Seems that the majority of folks have been doing additional recall knowledge checks on a failure as long as it is a different target. So we will go with that due to your Monster Hunter Feat as well as the MasterMind Rogues ability since these both use an action to complete.

I am happy either way, but as you note Monster Hunter is suppose to work against a single creature.

Yeah, I think the RK mechanic on monsters is one primary area where PF2 made no progress over PF1. The fluff of whether it is remembering or whether you knew it to begin with is still a mess. I know they've tried to allow a broader range of uses against creatures, but that is wholly arbitrary.

Indeed it certainly isn't clear between those two abilities and I have seen it several different ways now.

The game is now reported into the Convention and below are your chronicles.

Chronicles (Link)

Please let me know if there are any errors so I can correct the immediately.

Chronicle looks good. This was an interesting game and I enjoyed playing it with all of you. And thanks to Tyranius for running!

I realized today that we all made a mistake that should have made the encounter more difficult. Anything that targets a concealed creature requires a flat check whether it requires an attack roll or not, whether it is beneficial or not.

So any spell that required a save, any healing spell, even battle medicine would have required the DC 5 flat check if the target was within 15 feet of a nightmare. (There are competing schools of thought on magic missile, personally I'm in the camp that it too requires the flat check.)

Yes good. Point on that. All targeted spells need to have a Flat check. including Magic Missiles during concealment since it is a chance of targeting the incorrect spot.

Since it was an aura anyone within it should have had a flat check for spells against them. I will certainly have to remember that for next time as this is already an incredibly difficult fight. Apologies for goofing the concealment portion.

You guys did well on it though blocking the nightmares off at the pass. When I played my group was scattered all throughout the rooms and it turned into painful chaos as these hit hard!

Chronicle looks fine!

Thank you for running. Very interesting game. Thanks to all for playing.

I have to say that my PFS1 character who played most of the Blakros themed games would have happily run back to very negatively report Nigel in the most unpleasant of terms possible. :)

Oh, absolutely. Most of my characters would snitch on Nigel at the first opportunity, but this one happens to be big on redemption.

Thanks for running, GM. I thoroughly enjoyed this one!

Ironically, I've always liked Nigel and would ordinarily be completely inclined to let him off the hook. But Oskar just can't pass up the opportunity for "his" script to end with Nigel's "tragic" disgrace.

Downtime, Performance, expert proficiency, persona mask, storied talent: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (9) + 14 = 23 Storied Talent lets Oskar attempt a task up to his level, which is 5 (about to be 6 but I think that doesn't shift until after the downtime roll).

DC for level 5 is 20, so this is a success. Expert proficiency earns 1 gp/day, so total downtime earned is 8 gp.

They make it a hard decision as well, knowing that Nigel allowed all that mess in the past as a way to siphon money from the family.

You guys got the influence required right o the dot as well with 16. If you had gotten any less Nigel wouldn't have explained his situation or reasoning at all. He just would have seen you out the door.

If someone wants to write up a good argument and post with all of your evidence I will roll for Hornietelle.

Downtime

Lore: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (13) + 7 = 20

I have to say, I am disappointed with the Chronicle options for ending the mission. I didn't want to expose Nigel to his own family, I wanted to tell the truth to the Venture Captain. I also wouldn't say he is "incompetent' In fact, he was quite competent in siphoning off so much money to make amends. This feels like that Morrowwind game where none of the dialogue options represent my desired outcome.

earn income: lore (herbalism): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (11) + 8 = 19

That just scraped a pass, so 7sp x 8 days = 5.6gp

Just wanted to thank the GM for running this game. Appreciate the time and effort GMs put into running games and dealing with all the rules snafus.

Thank you GM!!!