[PFS_CORE_Aerondor] Bonekeep level 2 (3-7) (Inactive)

Game Master Aerondor

So, I was just telling my friend (my local VC) about Bella's untimely death and he asked if the magic item, assuming it is a necklace of fireballs, made a saving throw too. With the +7 bonus.

Kinda funny that I referred to the red ogre as wearing a red necktie. Lol.

The necklace was the second save GM A rolled after the ogre, and it was a 1 (!?).

That's the thing that ticks me off about how this is written--yes, it takes a long chain of events to line up (magical fire attack on the ogre, ogre blows save, necklace blows save at +7), but if they line up most or all of the party is going to be toast. OK, from a risk analysis perspective the designer might say consequences very high/probability low means an acceptable risk, but low probability/high consequence events shouldn't be considered acceptable unless you've driven the probability to a very low level.

One other thing, and keep in mind that I don't know what else is ahead: suppose that blue and red were switched in position. Deluge would be going after blue while Two Blades and Tere tried to take down the one with the necklace using nothing more than physical attacks. Let's say we succeeded, and took the necklace from the body of the red ogre. Bella's chance of IDing the thing isn't a sure thing by any means; if we don't identify it, one of us carries it with. What if there's a monster with a fire attack between us and the exit? We'd have a bomb with us.

The item got a one for its save.

It was the second d20 roll in that first dice tag

There is no need for body recovery at the moment, as you have live characters who can evac bodies.

@Pau, yeap, missed that use of reroll.

Jeez. Ok, cool about body recovery. I figured that Nat 1 was the save for the necklace.

Is it cool if I watch the game still even though Bella's dead? First PC dead in a PbP.

That's the thing that ticks me off about how this is written--yes, it takes a long chain of events to line up (magical fire attack on the ogre, ogre blows save, necklace blows save at +7), but if they line up most or all of the party is going to be toast. OK, from a risk analysis perspective the designer might say consequences very high/probability low means an acceptable risk, but low probability/high consequence events shouldn't be considered acceptable unless you've driven the probability to a very low level.

One last comment--this reminds me of something from Emerald Spire Level 11, The Tomb of Yarrix, by Wolfgang Baur. It definitely qualifies as a low probability/high consequence event, and I associate that sort of thing with old-school D&D. Which is fine in its place, but it's not consistent with the design philosophy behind the vast majority of scenarios written for PFS.

I'm an old school D&D gamer & had subscriptions to both Dungeon & Dragon magazines. I remember Wolfgang's adventures in those pages quite well. And Chris Perkins. Willie Walsh as well. Those guys are in my top 5 fave adventure writers.

That's why I love these Bonekeep scenarios; Deadly AF, but that's the fun of it for me!

Bella had a rod of extend spell & she shoulda used it with protection from energy & another spell or two knowing she was in a deadly dungeon. I was lazy/not thinking. Oh well. I still had fun!

p.s. I think I own Emerald Spire but I've never played it or read it. I'm not opening your spoiler.

I had a protection from energy spell and a resist energy wand. I never thought to cover all four elements. That would be a bit extreme. Those spells are usually fired off after you realize there is a good chance of seeing that damage type. In this case there was absolutely no warning. So it is basically one of those 'oops, you're dead' situations. Like a medusa, or feeblemind, or other spell where if you miss your ST you die. It happens. At least in PFS they put in rules to get raised so it hurts but is not too depressing, and I knew up front there was a good chance of this happening.

Exactly, Deluge. If I saw an enemy using a fire spell against us "Yep! Toss up a protection from energy!"

It is not that low a probability of the ogres failing a save. They seem to have been designed with a low reflex save in mind to be honest, and the scenario as written specifically talks about this likelyhood.

For mid level parties, a fireball or similar effect (burning hands?) is not really that unlikely an option.

Please note that the first ogre also failed its reflex save against the flaming sphere as well. So while I was somewhat arbitrary in picked the ordering of the ogre with the necklace, you were not that unlucky in getting it on the second ogre.

I just checked my stats. After 117 tables of PFSv1 play... this is the first time I have killed a character.

I'd think a fireball would be less likely than burning hands; with a 20' radius, wouldn't a single fireball fill the room?

ETA: it just occurred to me that PF fireballs don't have the OD&D "expand to fill the available space" feature, so using one would have been feasible.

Hey, wait! I have my Desperate Bargain boon! If someone can use Bella's wand on her before those temp hp from the boon go away would be great. Although, if you all are planning on leaving the dungeon, I won't use it.
Nevermind. I took about 100 hp of damage putting Bella at about -50 hp. She's dead-dead. Temp hp won't be enough to get her to -12 hp.

"Presented with a choice between damnation and domination, you chose the latter and might choose it again. As an immediate action when you are reduced to fewer than 0 hit points, you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to 2d10 + your character level that last for 3 rounds. During these 3 rounds, you are confused as per the confusion spell. Each round, you may attempt a DC 18 Will save to remove the condition. At the end of 3 rounds or when you successfully save against the confusion effect, all remaining temporary hit points are lost and you resume dying if your hit point total remains below 0. Once you have used this boon, cross it off the Chronicle sheet."

Two Blades and Ny'a can both use CLW wands without UMD checks, so it's worth a shot. I think if we're only down Deluge we can continue (famous last words, I know...).

I just checked my stats. After 117 tables of PFSv1 play... this is the first time I have killed a character.

Two characters! Lol.

I'm trying to find that thread on the Paizo PFS forum where people post their dead PCs.

Two characters! Lol.

I'm trying to find that thread on the Paizo PFS forum where people post their dead PCs.

Three, but one got better.

IF you could try to not put a link to the game into the death thread that would be good. This is the first time that Bonekeep L2 is playing in PBP, so keeping the surprise for others would be good.

Yeah, Ny'a's dead. She just gets to keep playing. She needs raise dead like everyone else.

Thank goodness the ogres were the 3rd encounter. I still get a chronicle for the adventure.

"Characters who die during an adventure and are raised receive full XP for that adventure, as long as they completed at least three encounters (or as long as they completed at least one encounter in a quest)."

Just a handy haversack. Probably could fit a halfling, but Deluge? Not!

Hmmm...got a question about this in the raise dead spell description:

While the spell closes mortal wounds and repairs lethal damage of most kinds, the body of the creature to be raised must be whole. Otherwise, missing parts are still missing when the creature is brought back to life.

When they say "whole," do they mean "intact?" Because if two of us have handy haversacks and the rules don't mean intact as long as we have all the pieces, we just might have a solution.

(j/k, in case it wasn't obvious. We'll rig up a travois with longspears and cloaks, and Harpua can drag the bodies.)

Off tramping for a few days, will be back in about three days.

Have fun!

Enjoy!

Pau checking up on AC

Base AC 19
+2 Dex,
+ 1 Deflection,
+ 1 NA, <- what is this from?
+ 1 Monk,
+ 3 Wis,
+ 1 Dodge),

PFE would increase AC by 1 vs evil opponents (current foe is not evil) as it doesn't stack with deflection.

Barkskin adds +2 (when did you get barkskin put on you?)
Mage armor is +4

So that does give 25. I'll adjust the damage as the second attack would have narrowly missed.

Post from Thursday July 7, 3:59 am. It was shortly after everyone died, so it would be easy to miss (for the Barkskin).

I’m wearing an amulet of Natural armor +1, listed in my gear section.

Does the barkskin stack with the amulet of natural armor? As far as I can tell, it stacks with a creature's existing natural armor bonus, but not with magic items that give bonuses to natural armor.

(Not that it matters for the combat; it'd just be more healing needed.)

Ahh, NA - Natural armor. Of course.

And no, barkskin doesn't stack with the amulet. You just get the better - so AC would be 24, or 25 vs evil opponents.

That's one of the things I really dislike about the system, having to figure out the stacking conflicts is a real pain at higher levels. No such thing as a perfect system though and a small price to pay for someone with a degree in math.

In going through my previous posts, I realized that it wasn't Tere who'd recently gotten a wand of prot/evil, so it's a good thing we haven't needed it yet. (We might have been using Bella's, though.)

Sigh. I had thought of moving back there but then realized that I would be alone and forgot to move the token back.

Yeah, they hurt when they crit. Reading through it, I didn't think this encounter was going to be quite as brutal as it turns out. But this is Bonekeep.
Guess they want to keep your bones.

@Two blades, happy to have your body elsewhere if you wanted, and can adjust the position of Pink as required.

@Tere, even stealthed, you still need that acrobatics check to get through the square of the golem. But if you fail, I won't take an AOO.

Has that one acted yet?

Nope.

The intent was to not go in once I realized that the set up was not a good one for a rogue and let the heavy hitters deal with them first. Hard part of not playing in person.

Your call as to where I am, (but I would prefer on the current plane, alive :).

Moving this so we don't clutter up Gameplay; this is more appropriate for Discussion.

Unfortunately I think the portals are one-way; at least the first one was.

If that's the case, the last person in the room could wait by the portal and announce our forward retreat to Ny'a; she can dash across the room with Acrobatics to avoid an AoO and follow the last one out (but forward).

Oof, two Acrobatics vs CMD +5, that won't be easy, though. At least we'd be using Harpua's +8 instead of Ny'a's -4.

Yeah, first question is: is this portal one way?

I'll be away on vacation for the first two weeks in August, and will be slow to post--we're camping, and I'm not bringing a laptop.

Either way I think BTITD is dead. He went through the portal, and would have landed ended up walking through Tere. Pink would have 5' stepped and then struck.

That said:
I'll double check if that crit confirmed on the second hit though (not got pdf in front of me) as if DBITD had stuck next to Tere the hard corner would have provided cover and +4 to AC, and it was a second attack.

Sadly even with the extra +4 to AC for cover, that 15 plus its secondary strike attack bonus is more than TBITD AC, so the crit is confirmed.

You have not gone back through any portal yet.

I don't remember the map layout on the first round, but was the pink one close enough to Two Blades that it could have moved up and attacked twice?

Rules here are pretty unclear, but it seems evident that movement through Teres space is not permitted by the rules, so I'll rule the move wasted but not attract an aOO

I'd love to hear your reasoning, because I don't agree. Tthe Acrobatics skill definitely allows moving through an enemy's square. It requires an Acrobatics check vs Tere's CMD+5. If that fails, the golem would end its movement in the last open square along its path before Tere, and Tere would get an AoO from the failed attempt.

Since that potentially puts the golem in the first square beyond the portal, I'll wait to post Ny'a's action for you to respond.

I think the point is that it doesn't know Tere is there, so it doesn't even try to get past him using Acrobatics. Its initial plan was (I assume, based on what the other one did) to take a 5' step and attack the square that Tere attacked from twice. Instead, it ran into Tere, realized that something invisible was there, and attacked that square once instead. Tere could take an AoO at that point, I agree, but he wouldn't. The player knows that the golem would hit him anyway, but the character doesn't want to reveal his presence before he can try to hide again immediately.

Ignore my question above; I hadn't realized that the lower right square isn't part of this area.

I was rethinking this. My reasoning was as Tere. Generally if you are attracting an AOO you are taking an action that you know is risky.

Original action - Golem moves, hits the square with hidden Tere, rules say he cannot move through the opposed square. He stops one square early. However that has another golem in it, so he can't stay there either, so has to step back further. It's a slightly odd situation rules wise with effectively two squares of movement forced to avoid sharing a square with another creature. Were it a player in this "forced movement" situation I'd generally not be taking AOOs.

But quite frankly I think the team is going to need all the edge cases working in their favor to get out of this so if Tere wants an AOO he can have one.

However if Tere doesn't want to reveal his location (understandably enough) then that becomes a moot point. However if you do want the extra attack, you are welcome to take it.

I'll skip the AoO.

Since the golem doesn't end its move adjacent to Tere, does it still get an attack?

And I’m here, I’m just waiting for everything to be resolved before moving in and attacking.

So I figure he couldn't hide while doing this, but in a 5' wide corridor can Tere climb the wall and brace himself across the hall next to the portal? That way, Pau can be out front and Ny'a can heal him while he and the golem play Irish Stand-Down.

The golem attacked around the corner thus the penalty on its attack roll.

If Tere wants to climb up the walls he can do so, but you'll need to sheath your weapons. Happy for folk to squeeze if they are friendly, effectively Tere would be doing that up at the ceiling.

Luckily Ny'a is small, even on her attack dong.

Before Tere acts, I wanted to bounce ideas off of Pau and Ny'a. I'm thinking that since everyone but Ny'a is down lots of HP and Pau does the most damage, Tere is going to go full defense again, be stealthy, and try to dodge past the golem. He doesn't have much chance of success at the latter, but if he fails he's the most likely to be missed, and will in any case give Ny'a another round to heal Pau. If he succeeds, then all three of us can attack the golem at once. How does that sound?

Fine by me. I was thinking something similar. If Pau delays, Nya can hit him with one more heal before he moves in and attacks again.

Can you just trade places with me or something, Tere? I can’t hit the thing with the minus and it’s going to drop me sooner than later even with the minus.