DM Voomer's Age of Ashes

Game Master Voomer

Okay, I need to update my stats at some point with the +1 leather armor added...

I am thinking, at some point, when it makes sense, that I may train Catalina out of the mirror... or, when I can get another implement, I may have her train into another weapon (the rapier) so she can do some close combat. I don't know! The chalice is also an interesting thought since it can add some healing to back up Lisi.

Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Lol

Okay hear me out.

Wand implement. Call it a gun, shoot derps at 120 ft for 4d4 + charisma, without rolling. It's just a save.

So you can flavour that as the gun and use a completely different archetype if you want to do melee stuff.

But that's just me tossing ideas into the ether. You do what you like.

I'm also thinking that you can't have two of the same Implement, one as your first implement and the other as a second implement. So Weapon as first implement and Weapon again as second implement may not work. I'm not entirely sure on that though.

That's also why combination weapons like a rapier pistol are in high regard for Thaumaturge. The rapier pistol is definitely one single 1-hand weapon.

Imagine this half angel walking into a fight with a rapier-pistol and wand akimbo.

Step aside, monkeys! I'm here to kick ass and blast you all to high heavens.

I need to look into the action economy of that, but... basically a walking artillery battery.

Wand implement is basically a cantrip. 2-action to cast and does d4 damage that scales with level - which can be upgraded to focus spell levels of damage, but not every round. So it does make Thaumaturge into a pretty good switch hitter between ranged damage and melee.

The biggest problem is that it doesn't trigger any of the Thaumaturge's applied weakness abilities. Exploit Vulnerability and Implement's Empowerment both only work with weapon and unarmed strikes - not flinging magic.

Which seems like an oversight in the class design to a lot of us. But it is very clear and unambiguous as it is currently written.

Yeah, it does look like I can't have both a rapier AND the pistol. But that rapier pistol looks cool as hell.

Wand implement is basically a cantrip. 2-action to cast and does d4 damage that scales with level - which can be upgraded to focus spell levels of damage, but not every round. So it does make Thaumaturge into a pretty good switch hitter between ranged damage and melee.

The biggest problem is that it doesn't trigger any of the Thaumaturge's applied weakness abilities. Exploit Vulnerability and Implement's Empowerment both only work with weapon and unarmed strikes - not flinging magic.

Which seems like an oversight in the class design to a lot of us. But it is very clear and unambiguous as it is currently written.

Well, yes, but ... ~375 fireballs per hour at level 17. Or 600 weaker fireballs per hour.

If you pick the weapon implement, there is an added value in the "call implement" action. Meaning you could summon the weapon from up to 1 mile away, I think?

Good for sneaking things into social events or places where they check you for that kind of thing.

Y'all are a lot more up on the PC strategies, so I don't have much to contribute, but let me know if Catalina is wanting to get something unusual, because she may want to put the wheels in motion now so that Crink has time to try to track it down (assuming it is something he could track down -- uncommon items are on a case by case basis).

Caiten, thanks for the links! I have added them to the campaign info. Let me know if I should be doing that differently than I did.

Catalina: Crink does have ammunition, both regular and some various special consumable ammunition -- let me know if you are interested in any special consumable ammunition.

It sounds like folks don't have much shopping to do. I'll give folks another day and then move the action to the Shelyn temple.

I think that the rapier pistol is only uncommon because all firearms and the gunslinger class itself are uncommon. That is so that the GM has rules-level authority to restrict the campaign setting to not include firearms. But you can still use the uncommon tag for making things harder to get too even if it is in the setting.

As for the links, I see them on the campaign info page, but the links in the campaign header that shows up on my campaign list page still has the outdated and broken links. So - the links in the 'short description' need updated too, not just the 'full description'.

Y'all are a lot more up on the PC strategies, so I don't have much to contribute, but let me know if Catalina is wanting to get something unusual, because she may want to put the wheels in motion now so that Crink has time to try to track it down (assuming it is something he could track down -- uncommon items are on a case by case basis).

Caiten, thanks for the links! I have added them to the campaign info. Let me know if I should be doing that differently than I did.

Minor thing. If you want to keep the links in the campaign info tab, which is great - you can remove the links from the campaign header. They are broken links anyway.

Except the roll20 link, I suppose.

Also, also... Voomer, while we have you here, would Crink have a ring of sustenance?

Yes, I slowly edge towards making my plan of turning Caiten into a walking factory a reality.

Automaton does it better by default.

Are you avoiding using the Caiten alias to not give me ammunition for the argument?

I still know he's an android. It's well established at this point.

Edit: Lol I just noticed. Nevermind.

Voomer - I would be interested in whatever special consumable ammo he has! Fern didn't really have us track ammo, so I haven't been. If you want me to track ammo, I can do that. That means she'll want to buy at least like, 50-100? bullets. (I was trying to look up more info on pricing/amounts/weight, but Archives of Nethys says an error occurs when I try to look it up, lol)

Let's put it into motion now that Catalina is interested in that rapier pistol...see if he can hunt something down. Catalina has the gunslinger archetype so she does have access to this as per the rules (as far as I can tell, unless there's contradiction I don't know)

I just went through and checked - I have 10 characters now that have played in actual games (or at least will once Kabit's game starts). Which seems like a lot to me.

And Finoan often stood guard all night. That was just part of the character. I don't think we ever milked that for doing extra downtime stuff like crafting though.

There wasn't a ton of need/space for crafting in Plaguestone (where Fin was played, for the audience), really. It was super bare-bones. A lot of the shop, etc. stuff were things I plugged in.

I fixed the second set of links too.

Catalina: No need to track ammo, since it's pretty cheap. Crink does have standard ammo to purchase and we can assume you buy a bunch. You can look at the consumable special ammo and tell me what you're interested in. He probably has common consumables and probably needs to seek out uncommon consumables.

I think my rule of thumb for uncommon items will be that, unless there's a good reason for them to be available in town, usually it is something Crink needs to track down -- unless I just decide I don't want to make it available. This applies to both the ring and the rapier-pistol. Crink is happy to try to find them and when all the requests are made here in the discussion (and it seems we are reaching that point), I will put a summary in the gameplay thread.

The only things I can think of that I actually need are maybe learning some of the newer divine spells that have been printed recently. But those would be more of a Temple of Shelyn thing rather than Crink's hardware store.

Wow, if y'all have some shopping suggestions for Lisi, I'd appreciate. I am indeed still recovering from pyeloplasty.

Oh, searching for the rapier-pistol is fine. I wouldn't expect something like that to be easily available anywhere other than a big city that specializes in such a thing, tbh. I meant more that I know she's allowed to have them in general, haha.

I was looking through special bullets and was interested in Crink looking around for exsanguinating ammo and eroding ammunition.

It looks like most special ammunition is uncommon, so she'll make the request and then Catalina will be ready to roll!

I'm thinkin' wands. Wand of Longstrider is nice. Protector Tree comes to mind as well.

Wow, if y'all have some shopping suggestions for Lisi, I'd appreciate. I am indeed still recovering from pyeloplasty.

Glad to hear you're okay. What's up with UT stuff in this group? Are we all cursed?

But... items. A few suggestions here from me.

A goz mask - allows you to see through fog, mist, or smoke for 1 minute. Well paired with a Cloud Pouch or Horn of Fog. Or a mist spell.

Anylength rope is a fun one. You can cut it into smaller pieces and reassemble as needed.

Rope of climbing while we are at ropes.

I dunno. What are you after?

Goz Mask is great and yeah, that plus Obscuring Mist is great. My UT stuff is apparently congenital (har har?) and I guess...maybe I'm done...with surgery...for a while. Fingers crossed.

Rope of climbing is good.

Dang, I dunno. Lisi is kind of blaster and control, I guess. So fog is good. Longstrider buffs people and P. Tree gets in the way?

So far I've got Crink looking for a ring of sustenance, a rapier pistol, and eroding ammunition. Lisi, let me know what you think you want (if common) or want Crink to look for (if uncommon and ok by me).

Also, I've decided the Town Council has decided that each of you can select a common consumable up to level 8. If Catalina wants a greater exsanguinating bullet (common, level 8) she can have that, or she can have something else. Everyone else, let me know what you would like.

Okay, so... A common consumable item up to level 8 is a Serum of Sex Shift.

So I suggest at least one other person takes that as well, in case Oren wants to shift back just in case.

What?

I would definitely like the exsanguinating bullet!

All the items I want are on the to search list. I'm good.

Gotta get Oren outfitted :P

Do we know what kind of breath weapon Belmazog has?

No one you have talked to has indicated whether Belmazog has a breath weapon or, if so, what kind of breath weapon. Hezle was your best source of information, but she never saw Belmazog in a combat situation. Her devotion to Dahak would support speculation of an orientation towards fire, while the boggard spellcasters you encountered were partial to acid damage spells.

OK. Now that Nethys has updated, can we look at Remaster here? There are some rather notable changes to Witch (one of the few Remaster things that I actually consider major changes).

I am looking at Faith's Flamekeeper patron and I am happy with the Phase Familiar choice (Patron's Puppet is not as useful IMO - other than for certain patron styles). There are also some new Witch feats such as Super Ghost Kamikaze Attack that I will be looking at as well as changes to old feats such as Cauldron. I don't think any of my feats that I have already are being changed dramatically (like Cauldron is changed, but I don't have it). Any new feats like Ceremonial Knife that I could have right now but don't, I'm willing to do in-game retraining if I want to get them.

There are also some tweaks and improvements to the game's core. These tend to be on the level of normal errata rather than a major change like the Witch changes. Some things that I am aware of are:

* Disarm: the effect lasts indefinitely (or until the enemy spends an action removing the penalty) instead of until the start of the enemy's turn.

* Refocus: removed the restriction preventing characters from refocusing all of their focus points back-to-back after a big battle. (Hmm... Looks like the action itself hasn't been updated on AoN. Check the Focus Point rules in PC1 instead to see the difference).

* Swap Item: With an interact action you can both put away one item that you are holding (such as a weapon) and draw a different one. This prevents leaving your weapons laying around unattended on the battlefield.

* Shields are both strapped and held: Similar to Swap, the intent seems to be to avoid having character equipment left unattended. When you release a shield because you need your hand free, it doesn't drop on the ground. (Discussion from rules lawyers came to a quick consensus that you do still have to re-grip your shield before you can use it again. The difference is that now the shield follows you around rather than being left on the ground where you dropped it.)

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One of the other major changes is the removal of alignment. That is a fairly major change that we may decide to not make. The campaign books are written with alignment on all of the NPCs. I don't see any need to scrub that from them. Or our own characters that also have alignment chosen.

Alignment damage being replaced with Spirit damage is something that I think we should look into. Alignment damage being a gambling game to see if it works on this particular humanoid enemy isn't fun and makes Pre-Remaster Divine Lance a much worse spell.

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Another change that is definitely errata (because some of the other books like Secrets of Magic have errata listed to do exactly this) is the change to cantrips to remove the spellcasting attribute bonus damage from them. So the new Divine Lance, in addition to doing a more reliable damage type, also does a different dice expression of damage. Instead of 1d4 per level with ability bonus damage, it does 1d4 per Rank with 1d4 bonus damage.

That change for the players is slightly bad according to the numbers. Same maximum, but lower minimum damage. In practice we are talking a couple of points of damage - which isn't going to noticeably change the 'rounds to kill' rating of any of these cantrips.

The change for GMs though is more significant. It means that NPC enemies that cast cantrips don't need to have a listed spellcasting attribute bonus in order to know how much damage they deal. Which is good - because they don't have that stat listed. Previously it was always just ambiguous how much damage Ray of Frost dealt when cast by an enemy.

Wow, cool, Caiten!

Based on the knowledge that we don't know what we don't know about Belmazog, Lisi will get a scroll of healin' ;)

One that Lisi may be interested in is that Remaster Druids don't have anathema against metal. So metal armor and shields work fine.

And speaking of shields, there are also Shield Runes available. They let you buff up the defensive stats for a shield when you use Shield Block. It lets you have specialty shields that don't get destroyed in one hit.

Thanks so much for researching and summarizing all that, Caiten. I didn't see anything that really concerned me. I do want to retain alignment, because I think it's useful, but I'm fine switching to the remastered divine lance with spirit damage. So I guess alignment would retain some narrative relevance or might be relevant in some other situations. Do other people have any concerns with adopting the various changes highlighted by Caiten?

And I think we still need Caiten and Oren's (up to) level 8 consumable picks.

Thanks so much for researching and summarizing all that, Caiten. I didn't see anything that really concerned me. I do want to retain alignment, because I think it's useful, but I'm fine switching to the remastered divine lance with spirit damage. So I guess alignment would retain some narrative relevance or might be relevant in some other situations. Do other people have any concerns with adopting the various changes highlighted by Caiten?

I have no concerns :)

At first I was considering the Jade Bauble, but then I noticed that it requires Master proficiency in weapons. I won't have that until level 11.

So probably a Stone Body mutagen.

Also, I am looking to buy some scrolls. Most of them to learn the spells from. Fly, Remove Curse, Implement of Destruction, and Holy Cascade. That is 280 gp though, so I will need to put that to the party to see about funding.

If I can find a teacher for those, I can learn them at half the price if I succeed at a skill check (which is far from guaranteed). But that also costs time.

Catalina should have some gp to throw Caiten's way to help out with scrolls. I just need to do the math on how much I'm spending with the bullets. She has a small stash of cash.

And I think we still need Caiten and Oren's (up to) level 8 consumable picks.

Oh crap, I missed all this convo. I'll look at some consumables

I'll take a Potion of Quickness for Oren.

Alright, fine. I'll take one for the team.

One scroll of Fly, please.

It is a consumable of level 7, so fits?

If that is not something you're okay with. Sex shift serum.

Yea I'm serious.

I do have to mention...

For Catalina, a greater exsanguinating bullet (apparently this was eliminated in the remaster, but it's fine -- last one in stock I guess!)

By that logic, the Thaumaturge, Gunslinger, Barbarian, and Swashbuckler classes have also been eliminated.

Which is clearly not the intent of the Remaster.

Well, fug. To the drawing board with me, I suppose.

I do have to mention...

Quote:

For Catalina, a greater exsanguinating bullet (apparently this was eliminated in the remaster, but it's fine -- last one in stock I guess!)

By that logic, the Thaumaturge, Gunslinger, Barbarian, and Swashbuckler classes have also been eliminated.

Which is clearly not the intent of the Remaster.

Yeah, I don't see how they'd be removed in the Remaster unless we're eliminating everything from non-Player Core/GM guide, which makes no sense in the spirit of the game.

I do have to mention...

Quote:

For Catalina, a greater exsanguinating bullet (apparently this was eliminated in the remaster, but it's fine -- last one in stock I guess!)

By that logic, the Thaumaturge, Gunslinger, Barbarian, and Swashbuckler classes have also been eliminated.

Which is clearly not the intent of the Remaster.

Obviously I'm not looking to eliminate anyone's character design, so if the remaster does that, then we won't adopt it. My comment was just because AON has a "legacy content" tag regarding exsanguinating ammunition. What does that mean, if not that it was eliminated in the remaster? Or is there a remastered version that I didn't find?

Yeah, the naming is a bit wonky. I'm not sure that there is a good way of saying the intent in a couple of words. It takes paragraphs to describe the difference.

And no one fully agrees on what has been left behind and what hasn't.

Pathfinder Society has guidelines for their own games. If anything is published under the same name, then it is errata and you use the most recent version. So Divine Lance and Fire Ray would fall into that category. Anything that was republished under a different name - no matter how similar the game mechanics are - are both still available. So Color Spray and Dizzying Colors are separate spells that are both available. A character could learn and cast both of them if they felt the desire to for some strange reason.

Most of the time, when it is pointed out, people will understand that spells and items and classes from additional books such as Guns and Gears and Secrets of Magic are still available even if they need tweaked slightly for the new terminology. Then there are some things that are published in the Core Rulebook itself that didn't make it into Player Core, such as the infamous spell Synesthesia (often considered an OP spell and a must-pick for Occult spellcasters). Was that actually removed because it was a problem? Or is it still available as a valid choice? Ultimately that is up to the table to decide. The game devs have said that all of the existing (marked Legacy) content is still compatible and so is usable if desired.

When Monster Core comes out, it is expected that it will have new Bastion monsters that are the replacement for the current Golem monsters that I hear make regular appearance in Age of Ashes. Again, that doesn't mean that Age of Ashes needs to use the new Bastion enemies. You could still use the Golems even though they are legacy.

I do hear that the new Bastions are less of a problem to deal with than the Golems are. They actually behave like an enemy in a fight rather than turning the fight into a puzzle of 'did we guess the right spells to bring to battle?' that Golem Antimagic caused. See Brass Bastion for an example from Rage of Elements.

Thanks so much! Ok, so the legacy tag is no big deal. We will just ignore it, unless for some reason one of you think it was intended to be deleted in the remaster in a particular instance, and then we can decide how to proceed (probably I'll be fine continuing to use it if a PC wants to, unless it seems problematic for some reason).

And thanks for the heads up about golems/bastions. Food for thought!

Meebo is happy to translate the notes into code. She reports that the only instruction from Yasami's "Uncle" is to "keep it up -- sounds like you may be onto something interesting."

Could you give me a bit more information on the "Uncle's" organization and ends? Also, your background made a reference to Morta, but I'm not seeing interactions between Yasami and her in DM Fern's gameplay -- what do you imagine the interactions to have been?

To give a quick rundown, Yasamina was initially in Breachill on an information collecting mission for an organisation I did not name (lemme know if I should and whether I should flesh out these details in the future). It could be Restov's own intelligence network, or some other syndicate masquerading as the state and/or city thing. Yasamina does not know this. All she knows is that they helped her skip town and asked her to stay in touch by sending interesting tidbits their way. She reports to a person known as Uncle Elias, but as far as she is concerned, she has never met this person. Her handler is Meebo, who sends her reports to Elias.

Morta was mentioned in Yasami's backstory because the Age of Ashes player guide specifically points out Morta to be the local gossip, as an extension of that, someone Yasami would chat with once in a while. It's a very 'no smoke without a fire' situation. So Yasami sits down with Morta once in a week or two, they both pretend they are doing small talk, and then Yasami follows up on anything she finds particularly interesting on her own, then submits her report to Meebo.

As for the Morta-Yasami relationship, I don't imagine they are particularly fond of each other, or something like that. I imagine it's like the guy living across the street and you don't care for much, but when you bump into each other on accident in a bar, you sit down and shoot the shit for a while, then the relationship fades into indifference again.

So yeah, again - I can expand on that if you want me to. Let me know.

Ok, so Yasami doesn't know the nature of the organization she's working for. Interesting. Given that, it is probably most appropriate for me to flesh it out myself, but feel free to send me your thoughts if you would like to have input into it.

As for Morta, Yasami has approached her a number of times in the past to gather information, but Morta is not connected to Meebo/Uncle Elias? Or do I have that wrong? If Morta is unconnected to Meebo/Uncle Elias, what has been Yasami's pretense for visiting Morta with some regularity?

In terms of their relationship, it sounds like Yasami and Morta just aren't kindred spirits, not that that Morta did anything to Yasami. I know Morta has sold poison to Lisi in the past, and they had a good interaction, and Morta and Catalina seemed to have an immediate connection... I think that is all consistent with Yasami just kind of not liking Morta for her own reasons...

Ok, so Yasami doesn't know the nature of the organization she's working for. Interesting. Given that, it is probably most appropriate for me to flesh it out myself, but feel free to send me your thoughts if you would like to have input into it.

I will leave it to you, just for the sake of her not knowing what is actually up. I will say this. She was approached while she was at the academy, so I suppose she just assumed it was someone from the higher ups in Restov. And she did not investigate after her exile.

As for Morta, Yasami has approached her a number of times in the past to gather information, but Morta is not connected to Meebo/Uncle Elias? Or do I have that wrong? If Morta is unconnected to Meebo/Uncle Elias, what has been Yasami's pretense for visiting Morta with some regularity?

In terms of their relationship, it sounds like Yasami and Morta just aren't kindred spirits, not that that Morta did anything to Yasami. I know Morta has sold poison to Lisi in the past, and they had a good interaction, and Morta and Catalina seemed to have an immediate connection... I think that is all consistent with Yasami just kind of not liking Morta for her own reasons...

No, no, they don't exist in an antagonistic relationship. It's just "Meh". They're polite to each other, they chat once or twice a month.

I think Yasami just keeps her distance from Morta because she is scared Morta will figure her out.

Got it. I will fill in the story then. I'm going to put a bit more background about Morta in the gameplay thread...