Welcome!
I always do my best to run a friendly game. I want people to have fun and everyone to be able to laugh when something crazy happens.
I really want everyone to be able to post at least once a day, preferably more. If you are going to be away from the game for a short period (such as attending a convention, on a short vacation, or needing to do some business travel), I would ask that you please post here so everyone involved knows.
Below I give some examples for how I like things. I don’t mind variations on what I give, but please do try to include the same sort of information. I request it because it helps me keep the game flowing.
Chronicle information
In order to be able to generate a PFS chronicle, I ask that each character please provide me the following information:
Player name:
Character name:
OPF #:
Character #:
Faction:
Pathfinder training:
Downtime activity with rolls (Usually Earn Income):
At the appropriate time, I will ask that you also post any items you may receive from Pathfinder Training. That will happen after the game starts.
Character Profiles
Please have a profile header displaying a brief overview of your character's current status. It should include your AC, Saving Throws, Perception, Exploration mode activity, conditions and expendable daily resources.
In the character profile, please include a complete stat block. You may put it under a spoiler if you wish, but if you do please put it under a single spoiler. I do not want it split across multiple spoilers.
If you have your character sheet on a different site, please have a link to it in your character’s headers. This allows me to pull it up from any post by the character, rather than having to go to the profile and from there to the external sheet.
You can look in the PbP GM Kit for pregenerated characters done in BB Code and use those as examples.
Botting
Botting is when someone else makes a roll or otherwise does something on behalf of your character. Bot is short for robot.
Please include instructions in your profile and some general tactics in case someone else needs to bot your character. I highly recommend this include the dice expressions used for common actions. It is alright if you put this in a separate spoiler from the stat block, but once again please don't split it over multiple spoilers.
If there are resources you don’t mind being used up by botting, please say so. If there are resources you never want someone using, it is alright to say that as well.
If it makes you more comfortable, you could specify who you want to run your character when you can’t post.
If your character has any reactions, I ask that you have something in your Botting instructions about when you want this used. It is alright if you make it a separate section under a different spoiler provided you make it clear what it is. If it requires a roll, please have the dice expression there as well. The reason is that it can really slow down a PbP if you need to serialize actions between multiple people.
In my experience, creating a bot structure can help with your own posts as well. Assuming you put complete dice expressions in the botting directions, it makes it easy to cut and paste.
Criticals
In PF2 the determination of when something is a critical is based on exceeding the target difficulty by ten. Any strike that exceeds the enemy AC by ten is a critical.
Normally you will not instantly know the target value. I do not tend to share the ACs of enemies in battle. If you have something special that happens on a critical (such as a weapon with the Deadly or Fatal trait), I would prefer that you also provide the critical effect as well. Generally this would be done as additional damage.
Mister Oakleaf shoots at the groo.
Range 60’, Propulsive, Deadly
Axel Miner swings at the groo,
Fatal d10
Initiative in PbP
I will roll all Initiative checks for PCs and NPCs, sort them, and organize them into blocks. I will bold the names of characters that should act. I will take the NPC actions in order and reserve the right to delay an NPC in order to make them act with a group of other NPCs.
When it is your turn to act, please post. Do not wait for someone else to post just because they had a higher Initiative. If you know what you want to do but want to wait for someone else’s action to go off first, just say that.
Here is an example of how you could post before another player but have it go off after another player:
Sir Cumference waits for the elven archer Mister Oakleaf to get done firing his arrow before charging the Wily Snark.
I (and many other PbP GMs) do grouped Initiative in order to keep the adventure moving. In PbP people will have different posting schedules and often live in different time zones. Waiting for posts in order could make a single round of combat take days to resolve.
Within the rules, it is as if everyone within the same Initiative block delayed until they could post.
Rules Questions
If there are rules questions, please post them in the discussion thread rather than interrupting the gameplay thread with rules debates.
In closing
Come join me for a fun game!
This scenario tends to run long. One of the big reasons it runs long is the number of NPCs there are and the decisions the players much make relating to those NPCs. There are well over a dozen different NPCs and I will do my best to make each of them a different person.
Fortunately we are doing this in PbP. That in many ways makes it easier to depict the NPCs and does not extend the game as much as it would in a live game.
As players, you should track your own impressions of the NPCs — who they are and what you think of them.
Would people like me to create a Google Doc that you can all edit to take notes in?
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Bret, I think that the Google Doc for Players Notes sounds great.
"Hello all, I am Tess of Tosof."
Mechanically, I am a Level 4 Ancestry Oracle (still need to level Tess's character sheet to 4). I have an extensive botting spoiler if people want to look at a character with a botting spoiler. I'll be posting again when I level more, but here's the short version of Tess's personality: she's a rather upbeat and perky duskwalker elf who proudly tells everyone she is about four months old. Given that her mom is a rather powerful morrigna, Tess is very much interested in finding some undead to slay. Most of the time when she has shown up for undead, she has discovered con artists instead, which has been most vexing.
Nice to meet you all!
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1=Martial (if moderate curse, your Strikes gain a +1 status bonus to attack rolls and a +2 status bonus to damage.)
2=Skillful (if moderate curse, +1 status bonus to skill checks and perception.)
3=Spellcasting (if moderate curse, non-cantrip spells without a duration gain a status bonus to their damage and healing equal to the spell's level.)
4=Tess’s Choice
★ ---- ★ ---- ★ ---- ★
Okay, I think I am set up here. I am a 2-Glyph GM and so will have 2 Hero Points to distribute to other players.
So... I have questions for the other players...
Who is your character? What's their personality, where do they come from, and what do they do to help the party?
What can the party do to help you be awesome?
What's been your character's favorite scenario so far, and why?
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Player name: B Viggers
Character name:Khaul Irontoes
OPF #: 100387
Character #: 2002
Faction: Vigilant Seal
Pathfinder training: Swords
Downtime activity with rolls (Usually Earn Income):
Earn income,
Success: 1.6GP.
Khaul is Stoic. With a capital S. He is a fervent follower of Torag an will likely try to sneak in a message or two of thanks to him. He'll happily take out his hammer and fix any shields as soon as he can after combat. And also happy to fix the odd broken bone or two (either medicine or lay on hands). Torag is just happy to see things fixed.
I have a (light) botting line set up.
For reactions, I just use them the first time I can. Which is basically when someone near me is hurt. If it is me, I shield block to reduce damage by 7 (NB, shield has hardness of 7 rather than 5 due to shield ally) - if it is an ally then I use glimpse of redemption to reduce their damage by 5 an enfeeble the naughty person who hit them.
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Player name: Mr Tea/Nick Tiplady
Character name: Bastian Sunbright
OPF #:2396874
Character #:2008
Faction: Radiant Oath
Pathfinder training: Swords
Downtime activity with rolls (Usually Earn Income):
I'm just updating Bastian's character sheet. He's just finished the 3x99 special with Khaul!
Who is your character? What's their personality, where do they come from, and what do they do to help the party?
Bastian was a foot-soldier in the Runelord of Envy's army millennia ago, who accepted arcane tattoos as a way of trying to improve his station in life in ancient Thassilon. His family were murdered by agents of the Runelords and he wishes to make sure that no one else suffers from their depridations.
Trapped in time, he found himself in a new world when Xin-Edasseril was released. He was oppressed no more and now had an opportunity for a better life. He initially fled the area, but realised he wanted to help others with unjust rulers. He dedicated himself as a Redeemer Champion of Milani.
He joined the Pathfinders as a way to reintegrate, protect and learn about the modern world. He likes it much better here.
He's a Snowborn Half-Elf with magical tattoos. He is very positive and prefers a peaceful resolution to problems. He can't stop himself from talking about the past.
What can the party do to help you be awesome?
Teamwork! Bastian enjoys being in a strong team that makes plans.
What's been your character's favourite scenario so far, and why?
The Burden of Envy - smuggling people out of Xin-Edasseril from under the nose of the Emerald Guard. It was also where he was stuck in time for 10000 years.
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My, what a religious party! Tess herself is a Pharasmite, because Mom is a psychopomp morrigna.
★ ---- ★ ---- ★ ---- ★
Who is your character? What's their personality, where do they come from, and what do they do to help the party?
Tess was born about 4 months ago -- and yes, she is an adult elf. But duskwalkers are born fully formed. Her mother formed her in Geb, because Mom has a rather obnoxious sense of humor, and wanted to show Tess that you cannot always slay undead immediately. You have to consider your circumstances first. Tess is upbeat, optimistic, and sometimes naive, but she loves everything there is to being alive. She's a serious foodie.
Because she was forged out of the souls of multiple people who deserved a second chance, the different souls that comprise Tess often fight to see who is in charge. So Tess will cast spells or fight in melee depending on who is in charge.
What can the party do to help you be awesome?
Tess also appreciates Teamwork, and will try to offer flanks and other assistance.
What's been your character's favorite scenario so far, and why?
Tess also loved Burden of Envy, because she genuinely loves helping people however she can.
We are currently at 21 challenge points with the five characters that have dotted and deleted in gameplay.
I will be checking with the last player that signed up. They had a first level champion character and the table is going high tier. Pathfinder 2e doesn’t do well with large gaps in party level, but I will see what they want to do. They could play a level 3 pregen.
Thank you for the more involved backgrounds for the characters. It is fun reading them. I look forward to seeing how the party deals with the challenges in this adventure.
I will post once I have a set of slides ready.
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Player name: biochemcrazy
Character name: Vinny Santorini
OPF #: 236808
Character #: 2002
Faction: Horizon hunters
Pathfinder training: Scrolls
Downtime activity with rolls (Usually Earn Income):
Who is your character? What's their personality, where do they come from, and what do they do to help the party?
Well, as far as me goes, I just like to blow things up.
...
Vincenza (Vinny) Santorini grew up an only child in the city of Taldor. She was well taken care of by her parents, who owned a flower shop. She attended primary school and helped out in the shop, learning the intricacies of flower arranging and bouquet making. Her heart was never really in it though, and one day, while Vincenza was working on a large order of corsages, the alchemist's shop next door suffered an...accident. The entire storefront exploded, and Vincenza was blown right through the front window. She found herself in that explosion, and after recovering her hearing, she enrolled in university to learn the fine science of alchemy.
These days, Vinny hires herself out as a demolitions expert, choosing jobs that pay extremely well. She joined the Pathfinder Society for the prestige and for the lucrative treasure hunting and blowing-things-up opportunities it is likely to afford.
Vinny is a 35 year old woman, average height and reasonably fit. She has long dark hair that is always pulled back, and dark eyes that look just a bit...crazy. She has a dry and sarcastic sense of humor and enjoys pulling pranks. She has a serious love of coffee and orders it at every tavern she visits. She really does just like blowing things up, but if she can get paid to blow things up? That's the best!
Mostly she throws explosives, but Vinny also has a hand crossbow she can use in combat. She's relatively sneaky, thief-y, and crafty. She also has good knowledge of society thanks to the customers in her family's flower shop.
What can the party do to help you be awesome?
Vinny does best when she is not forced into melee combat, she is much more effective at range. Party members who are good at melee help her reach her maximum potential!
What's been your character's favorite scenario so far, and why?
Escaping the Grave has been Vinny's favorite so far. She enjoyed fighting the zombies, as they are quite flammable!
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Hello Everyone! Nice to meet you, looking forward to playing with everybody.
Player name: Geoff
Character name: Faerinaa
OPF #: 228480
Character #: 2001
Faction: Envoy's Alliance
Pathfinder training: Swords
Downtime activity with rolls (Usually Earn Income):
Who is your character? What's their personality, where do they come from, and what do they do to help the party?
Faerinaa’s a half elven woman with medium length black hair. She is 5’4” tall and thin, and is usually dressed in leather armor and wearing a rapier while adventuring.
Faerinaa was born in Absalom, in the Puddles district. Her elven father left before she was born, and her mother was always busy working or drinking. Faerinaa grew up on the streets and fell in with a local gang, doing odd jobs and acting as a lookout until her teens when she started stealing to support a growing Shiver habit. When the Fiendflesh Siege hit Abasalom, Faerinaa went looting in the areas hit by the invaders and got caught and mortally wounded. While bleeding out, a group of pathfinders defeated the invaders, and a cleric of Sarenrae saved her life.
After the siege, Faerainaa swore she would turn her life around and try to follow in her savior’s footsteps, helping others and she was helped. She began attending services at the church of the Dawnflower and applied to the Pathfinder Society, where her well honed thief skills and quick reflexes served her well. The Pathfinder Society rounded out her knowledge, and she proved to be remarkably quick to pick up new skills. After joining she had success on a number of initial missions and has continued her devotion to Sarenrae. Though she will never be a full cleric of the goddess, she has been blessed by the Dawnflower with some holy power; Faerinaa takes this as a sign of her redemption, and is extremely grateful.
Faerinaa is very skilled; she’s trained in almost everything (except performance and survival), and is very sneaky from her time as a thief. She’s quite good at stabbing things as well, and tends to do a lot of hiding in combat to make it harder to attack her. She has the Trap Finder feat, so automatically gets a perception check to find traps even if she isn’t Searching. She’s an expert in Stealth, and has the Quiet Allies feat to help her team sneak by enemies. She has a cleric dedication, so can cast a few cantrips (Shield and Guidance).
Faerinaa has a lot of offensive punch in melee and pretty good defenses but is a bit fragile. She tends not to close to melee immediately, but poke in with her crossbow and hide if she can for the first round, then move into melee on the second round. She usually tries to be hidden at the start of a fight, and defaults to Avoid Notice for her exploration activity unless active searching is needed.
What can the party do to help you be awesome?
Faerinaa likes flanking buddies, and loves terrain where she can get concealment for hiding after stabbing someone. Getting enemies to stand next to bushes or flowing draperies or the like is her favorite.
She also really, really likes people who can cure or help with poison; she's managed to get poisoned on a surprisingly high percentage of her missions, and tends to have a rough time of it.
What's been your character's favorite scenario so far, and why?
Faerinaa loved Escaping the Grave. The investigation and scouting was very enjoyable and she got to sneak around a lot of very non-observant zombies.
So there are three glyphs and one campaign coin.
Does anyone else have any glyphs from GMing or campaign coins?
Let’s plan to start the adventure on Monday. I will put up a setting post before that so you can start doing character introductions.
I have added links to the maps and a document you can use to keep player notes in. I only have the map link in my header, both are linked in the campaign information.
I have posted an introductory scene. Please use this as an opportunity to introduce yourselves to each other in character.
I am also going to experiment with using the latest version of Doug Hahn’s macro spreadsheet. If you could please fill out one of the sheets for your character that would be helpful.
I'm going replace the image/token for Bastian to my preferred one if that's ok.
Fine with me, provided it doesn’t look like one of the other avatars being used.
Yes, anyone with glyphs should distribute them. No one can receive more than one hero point from glyphs. If you have Convention Hero on this character, declare it.
Also pick out your school consumable if you are not field commissioned.
Do you remember which scenario gives Convention Hero? I don't remember which character I have it on!
It should be listed in the Org Play boons tab under Chronicle Boons if you have earned it.
If each of you could fill in one of the sheets in the character macros sheet (link is also in the campaign information), that would make it much easier for me to do secret rolls.
Tess has already filled in the first sheet for her character.
If you have questions, feel free to ask them here.
My glyph goes to Vinny, the 2nd level PC.
Sorry, limit one glyph per person. Either Bastian or Tess needs to give their glyph to someone else.
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Our Who's Who list of NPCs keeps growing. I've put all the named NPCs so far into the document in aphabetical order. Does this list work for everyone so far? Let me know if I have missed any names.
Just a note on the skills spreadsheet, the check box for Send to GM should be checked for any skills that have secret rolls and you want to attempt the rolls.
If you are trained in the skill, you probably want to check that box. I checked it for a couple of you that had listed Lore skills.
You probably want to leave it unchecked if you are untrained in the skill. Too high a chance of critical failure.
I noticed a few of you are concerned about traps and such.
Faerinaa has Trap Spotter, but you still might want to consider having someone doing Search as an exploration activity.
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Can we move up to start closer to the tower? I assume we're mostly sticking together moving through here.
Also a few terrain questions:
--how far of a drop do we have between the different levels?
--Are any of the stairs or other terrain difficult or greater difficult terrain?
--Does moving into the tower terrain need a climb check/is it elevated up 12 feet?
--Do we need to climb up to reach the bugs, or are they kind of crawling out of the middle of the stone pile and could be poked from the ground level outside?
I figure it is about 10 feet elevation between the courtyard and the upper level. Considering how big a castle gate tends to be, it probably is more but this is a convenient number.
Stairs are where they are shown on the map. Around the well would be uneven ground, as is the area of the tower that Tess climbed.
The area with the boulders does need a climb check to get to the top and it is 12 feet up.
I mentioned the sound of wings. These bugs will soon demonstrate that they can fly.
Yes, you could move closer. I don’t think anyone would still be outside the gate while Khaul has inspected the well and Tess has climbed the tower. Somewhere between the well and Khaul is probably good for a starting position.
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I think that we are suffering from the normal PBP exploration map paralysis. GM can you mark with an X the places we already explored, so that we know that we are actually looking at obvious places? And when we get a new map, should we show our path of exploration so that you can just take us through it until we hit something we need to deal with?
I've lost track of where we have been, and I want to keep checking out stuff.
It is an ever expanding list of locations.
Locations you have been:
Approach road
Gate
Wreck that used to be a well
Collapsed northeast tower
Great Hall of Keep
Locations you haven’t gone but would be aware of:
Roof of keep
Barracks
Stairs down in keep
Right now no one is taking the Search exploration activity and Bastian has not declared on the macro sheet what his exploration activity is.
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I will not be able to update for the next six hours or so as I will be hosting Org Play for my local lodge. This happens every other Wednesday.
Changed Tess and Khaul to Search for exploration activity.
I always grab from the spreadsheet for initiative, so when you want to change activity please just change the spreadsheet.
To keep things moving, please just give me an order that you are attempting to explore so I can quickly go through the areas that do not have anything you need to respond to.
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Happy with any order, but we'll be going past the well on the way to the barracks, so maybe that, then the baracks, then back to the hall, where I can try the roof. Then if we have energy for it, we could look underground.
Have we looked at the hole in the wall yet? We'd best check that out too to see what repairs will need to be made.
Other than a general description, I haven’t given the details of the repair job.
I was going to dump that all at once so that you could look at it and organize it.
When I do, do you want it in the player notes file or somewhere else? Some groups like separate files for each thing, others don’t want to have to deal with more than one file.
Is excavating a prolonged activity, like repairing the fort, or something we can do now with Athletics checks?
Prolonged effort, requiring you clean the fort (8 person days) before you could excavate stairs (12 person days).
Might want help from the villagers.
I was going to start the details of the fort repair the next morning, but if you want it now I can do that.
I’ve added the rules for rebuilding and initial task list to the player document. I have also added a slide at the end for those that would like it in a more visual format. I know with the dependencies it is much easier for me to understand in pictorial form.
Technically you haven’t been to the roof and wouldn’t know all those details, but given the amount of planning this takes I thought it best to provide that information now.
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Just did a big long IC post about repairs that got eaten and I didn't C&P it first.
Doing a little calculation we have heap of money for this. Even with the inefficiency of the six day tasks we can get this done reasonably reliably.
Khaul can lead the more difficult tasks, and with assurance in crafting (though would have through that would come in handy!) even the watchtower isn't a difficult ask.
Is anyone else trained or expert in crafting? I'm thinking I may be the bottle neck here.
Suggestions:
Day 1 we clean the approach, courtyyard and great hall. We use the whole village.
Day 2 Khaul leads one team and two pathfinders in collapsing the watchtower
three other pathfinders lead three teams in excavating the stairs.
That leaves some villagers free to do other things in the village,
I'm sure they have other things they would like to be doing.
- alternatively we have one pathfinder with a small team help, and another leads a cleaning team or does one of the special actions.
Day 3 Khaul leads rebuild of stairs to roof with two pathfinders and three teams.
Two other pathfinders lead two teams in cleaning the fort (dungeon)
if someone else is trained in crafting, they lead a team in repairing the well. Otherwise they lead a team in cleaning the barracks.
And after that we see how things progress. We also have those purple/pink actions (do we know about them yet?