[Gameday XI, PFS1 CORE]#4-25: Glories of the Past Pt 3 - The Secrets Stones Keep (5-9) (Inactive)

Game Master Aldizog

Discussion thread.

Hi all. Glad to be in the game. I am pretty sure I have played with some of you in the past.

Stormy is a melee based druid with a large cat. Her spells are primarily buffs with a couple healing spells. Her skills of note are Knowledge (nature) +11, Perception +13, and Survival +14. With a Charisma of 8 she is not a face.

Khellek, well... is a scholar. Knowledge skills are his thing. And buffs. But when it comes to actually *doing* anything... well... less useful, and any hp damage he might accidently do will be trivial.

Stay behind the lady with the cat.

Hello people. I am excited to get started. Sylvester will be staying in the back and blowing things up, moving around and blowing things up and even occasionally moving up to the front to blow things up. In other words your typical sorcerer. :)

He will be accompanied by his travelling companion, Shaggy. Shaggy enjoys belly rubs, apple cores and the occasional bone to gnaw on.

We'll be starting in a few days, so feel free to chat here about tactics and capabilities.

I thought that the plan was to stay behind the lady with the cat. That is Sylvester's plan anyways. :)

Is it really possible that the party Bard has an Int of 28? That just does not seem right on so many levels. He can go and get drunk at the pub and still be smarter than the party Wizard. ;)

Oh yes. Khellek is Smart.
He also has skill focus in... a lot of knowledge skills.
But that is his thing. He is a know-it-all with a sharp tongue.

Doodle is more of a melee dragon disciple. But she has a couple decent every day spells as well.

May be worth discussing some spells tactics here.

Khellek tends to start with inspire courage which stacks with most other things. I often layer heroism on folk, either extended or a regular one. It sounds like we may be in there for a while, so I might not bother with an extended one before we go in.

Bless gives a morale bonus to attacks and saves vs fear. It doesn't stack with heroism, but at least at the start, that is not likely to be a problem. Only thing to note is we can't stack it with IC for saves vs fear.

Bless (morale) saves vs fear
IC (morale) saves vs fear/charm
Heroism (morale) saves (more general, and bigger bonus than IC) all saves.
Haste (untyped) reflex saves.

IC (competence) attack
Bless (morale) attack -
Heroism (morale) attack - Overwrites bless.
Haste (untyped) - attack - stacks with other two.

IC (competence) damage
Enlarge (size) damage

Enlarge (Size) Strength

Enlarge (size) AC penalty
Haste (untyped) AC bonus

If we get to a situation that someone else needs to make an INT check, I also have fox's cunning available. With his newest hat, that is a bit redundant now, but could be situationally helpful for others.

As a matter of interest, does anyone speak dwarven?
Aside from haste and the occasional heroism (I'm looking at you Doodle and Grog) mostly I use spells for healing. Don't expect a lot of direct damage from Khellek. He talks a big game with his crossbow, but... its still just a crossbow.

My character would appreciate a Heroism spell at any time. Being a sorcerer and only sixth level he can use some help in the saving throw department.

I had already posted that Stormy speaks Dwarven. Somewhat out of character for her but it's from a boon. Might be the first time it's come in handy. :)

Heroism is great for any front line fighter. Great for me. Might even be better on Shade, the large lion. I am quite happy to accept an Enlarge unless the quarters are tights. I usually fight in human form as shape shift forms are just now getting interesting. I need to go look up some info for melee forms. Too bad that Enlarge Person and will not work on th8e cat. I don't think it will work on Stormy ih animal form either IF that from has already made her large.

Most of my spells are self buffs. I could switch out a Greater Magic Fang (for me) into a communal Delay Poison. Its quite nice not to worry about poision during a fight.

@Stormy -Effective immunity to poison is always a good thing. Poison effects come up often and being immune means you do not have to worry about effects like Cloud Kill or Stinking Cloud either. :)

Oh nice. Which boon gives you dwarven? I need to go collect that one.

@Sylvester, I really think the legality of generic MW tools that are not explicitly included in the CRB is more "Expect table variation" rather than "yes they are legal" - and that is after looking up:

I am perfectly fine with your decision of allowing the MW-Tool for the Ride skill and not for the UMD skill for this game only. Case closed.

That being said and just for discussion sake only I think the following.

For Core games: MW-Tools should be valid and legal for all skills because of the text in the CRB which expressly permits them and the post from Mike Brock allowing them to be used by characters for all skills in society play. The additional language in Ultimate Equipment does not factor in as it is outside the regular scope of the rules of the game. From a practical standpoint as well there are much fewer ways of boosting skills in core than in standard play so one application of +2 to a skill is not ground breaking. Characters really need all the help they can get from the Core rule book.

For Standard games: It is quite a mess here. The different ruling from the Ultimate Equipment muddies the water and leaves the GM much more leeway to say no. Add in the fact that there are so many ways to get bonuses to skills that being able to pick one up for 50 gold seems way too cheap in comparison to most other methods (cracked ioun stones or a four leaf clover for example). I still think that there is a good case here to declare them all technically legal but at times it just feels downright cheesy considering the play environment.

So I have a few books in my satchel that are masterwork and provide a reference for making certain knowledge checks. Should I remove those bonuses as well?

There are volumes of the Pathfinder Chronicles that show up on Chronicle sheets and offer very specific Knowledge bonuses (i.e. to a subset of Arcana checks rather than all of them).

If you are talking about books as MW tools that would apply to all checks of a given skill... I suppose it makes really no difference. Khellek's Take 10 will hit any DC in this scenario, I think. So have at it.

Oh nice. Which boon gives you dwarven? I need to go collect that one.

I'll have to dig through my character binders to find it. I will do that for you, but later. But it's in a box in the basement. Unfortunately there are fewer and fewer chances to play 1e in person so I don't need the hard copies much. . I went to dragon con this year and there were NO 1e games offered. In past years there have been dozens.

Well, rats. Delay Poison, Communal is from Ultimate Combat so is not Core legal. Sorry. If anyone has a level 2 pearl of power they can get either a Delay Poison (7 hours) or a Barkskin (70 minutes).

I'll get things moving tomorrow.

Not meaning to get you too paranoid about traps, but those passive abilities are quite good for letting a party move at full speed and it really does slow you down to not have them.

If only you had a dwarf...

Sylvester's solution was quite ingenious, I must say.

Thanks. :)

People if you have not already please put your token on the map (slide 2) within the grid so we can get this show on the road. :)

@Khellek - This seems like a K-Local or K-History check to see if the orcs in this area have any sort of legal claim to this territory.

I am saddened at the fireball Sylvester. You wished to try diplomacy and I waited. Now you attack after my duel had been accepted? Combat would have been an option if I or Grog (likely a better option for the duel) lost.

I was surprised by that tactic as well.

Having one person fight while the rest of the party waits is not exactly a good time for the other players especially in PbP where the combat could last a couple of weeks. Heck, it would have probably been a few days of discussion just to decide who we wanted to use to fight them.

This is the most fun option for all concerned (I bet the orcs on the sidelines are cheering to get in on the action as well) and that is why I choose it. My character shared exactly why he acted the way he did in game. A sentiment that I am sure is shared by many of the other characters.

I will say that this is one of the least elegant parts of 3.X/PF - the transition from "out of combat" to "in combat". Always seems inelegant.

As I understand it, this would not be a surprise round, nor would Sylvester automatically get to go first. He can declare that he is casting his spell and then we roll initiative. That is my reading of the rules and has always been my experience in PFS.

But it's a clunky part of the game.

I would say that my character is about to cast a spell but has not begun his actual casting as his action has yet to come up.

Either his turn has come up and he casts his spell or it is not his turn. It cannot be both at the same time.

Yes.

@GM Aldizog - If the enemy caster is casting then we should be able to make Spell craft checks to determine what he is casting.

You need to be able to see the spell being cast.

Doodlevain and Stormy have line of sight to him at the moment (and even that is just barely; he would have Cover against their attacks). Either one can make a check if they wish on their turn, with the same modifiers as Perception (-1 per 10').

Sylvester does not have line of sight to the caster.

Actually they would be making the check as the spell is being cast according to the CRB (otherwise what would be the point). Knowledge checks are made on your character's turn. :)

If they wish to make a check then I will address it.

Have to say I am also not a fan of one player making a unilateral decision for the entire table. Pbp excels at character development and story-telling. I don't care for someone else deciding what I find fun, so using that as a justification is both disingenuous and inaccurate.

You turned what could have potentially been a cool character moment for someone else into just another boring combat.

This game is supposed to be collaborative.

@Fethril - Characters have free will and decide their own actions. It is that simple. If you dislike my character's action then feel free to bring it up in play where it belongs.

I really had no intentions on posting on this further. But this is absolutely wrong. Players have free will, not characters. I understand your decisions for your actions but you cannot act like you had no choice and hide behind a character's personality. You even provided out of character reasons for having done it; not wanting spend time idle while a duel took place.

Bringing such an action up in play is restricted because there is no method of having a PC arrested and no PVP is allowed. Yet your action will likely result in my PC being attacked and maybe even killed.

You did it though. Lets try to move on and hopefully play as a team.

I'm fairly certain nobody's character will be killed here.
You could have haggled down the oracle to 1,200 gp total, and I as GM would not have allowed any OOC pressuring of any player to "pay their share," and no more than one comment IC. If Sylvester had said at the outset that he wouldn't pay, then the others would have had to decide if it was worth paying a bit more themselves.

(Same applies to chipping in for a Raise Dead if needed - nobody can be coerced to pay. It is entirely voluntary.)

This fight will probably be a speedbump, so let's keep moving as Stormy said.

Yes, people's opinions are pretty entrenched at this point so I think that moving on is a great idea. As for being shaken down I have my standards (point to dragons, twice) and a bunch of orcs do not even come close. :)

I'm on my phone today so will update this evening.

BTW, we've not put stuff up for chronicles, but thought I should mention that Khellek is on SLOW advancement. Something to do with his age I suspect..

Pair of crits by the raging orc barbarian... at least one of the bad guys is trying his best to make this interesting.

Suddenly I'm happy I dropped a haste spell. For a moment there I thought was going going to be a waste of time.

Right. I am embarrassed to admit that I had forgotten the haste. It would not stack with the unnecessary Longstrider. GM Aldizog, could you allow Stormy the benefit of the doubt and so to switch the change of Longstrider for one of Shilelagh? That is her normal, non-shifting, first round action.

Obviously I need some kind of buff banner... I'll try to do better.

@Stormy - yes, you may make that change.

Cool, and thanks! - So her damage vs the barbarian is 17 instead of 15. Likely that will be the total result of the casting. :)

The dice roller helps to keep people humble. :)

The enemy barbarian is pretty tough. It seems almost certain that he would have defeated any one of us in single combat. :)

If he rolled all those 18s, yes.
Plus he was under a Shield Other from the oracle, because orcs are dirty stinking CE cheaters.

And Grog had bad luck on his attacks.

This encounter explicitly avoids a four-player adjustment (which you will elsewhere get due to APL): This encounter doesn’t need to be scaled. The PCs can easily bypass the combat elements by providing payment to Magra. Additionally, if they agree to the test of force, the participating PC can cry for mercy at anytime.

I'm really not sure about that last part. With the orc dealing 50-pt crits on a 15-20, you can quite possibly be dead before you realize you are in trouble.

Of course my character could have easily have defeated him with hit and run tactics with his spell casting but I doubt that any orc clan would ever respect that outcome. :)

I knew they would either cheat or not tolerate a loss. So my instincts were spot on.

Edit: How generous of the writer of the module to expect the PCs to pay a tribute (shake head in disgust). Of course it is a Season 4 scenario so I should have expected as much. :)