[PbP Gameday XI] Race for the Runecarved Key - GM Thread (Inactive)

Game Master Lady Ladile

I'm fine with a moment of Lissala-granted clarity for some last words. But what if there's a silence effect? Or paralysis? Or sleep? Or they do a stupid and plane shift the assassin away? This bit's a little too fragile for my tastes.

Plot trumps everything. If you need an explanation, Lissala is a goddess and lets the assassin punch through any effect conjured by mere mortals.

The scenario seems to contradict itself. After a team defeats the third wave, are they done, or do you keep moving up? And what do I do for my table (15+) since there are only three possible waves for them? (this is assuming they don't tap out, of course)

If a table defeats the third wave I would give them the option of either winding down or continuing onward (and moving up accordingly on the challenge factor). For winding down, I'm imagining a scene where the immediate threats in their vicinity are handled and they can take a breather while the rest of the Pathfinders are fighting in the background and taking care of the rest of the threats, if that makes sense. If a table doesn't fancy twiddling their thumbs waiting for the rest of the tables to catch up and *really* wants to continue fighting, I'd allow it but with an up front reminder that doing so could be quite dangerous (and that they've already accrued all the credit they can get for this section).

For our 12+ subtier tables, I'd just repeat Wave 3's enemies if they wish to keep fighting. Same caveat applies that going beyond a third wave won't get them any additional credit.

Regarding the Chase mechanics: Say the cards are A, B, C, D, etc...

The players start on card A. If a PC tries to move three cards and succeeds at both challenges on card A, do they move to card C or D?

three cards further would be D. The normal move is referred to as 'moving one card,' so it would be two cards to move to C.
(I did let them only move two if the assassin was on C, of course...)

Wow. Ok. The tiger companion in my tier 1-2 game made it to the assassin's card on the first round. I have a feeling the rest of the party is going to have a very hard time catching up. O.o

GM Ladile wrote:

GM Nowruz wrote:

Hello, I am super sorry but I have an emergency at work and can’t keep the pace up until Wednesday.

Would it be possible to have a replacement GM please for the next week?

This is the link to my table.

Again, apologies for the inconvenience caused. :-(

Meant to reply to this earlier as well but working on getting you coverage!

If you did not get coverage yet I can pick this up later tonight after running errands. My other GM sub table is back on track..,

Thanks for everything again!

I’m back!

:-)

So, uh, what happens if the team kills the assassin before the end of the chase? The archer at my table has a really high damage output...

Normally you'd begin encounter 4D if someone catches up to her (and whether the rest of the group is close or not). Even if a solo PC catches up and drops her before everyone else catches up you'll still have the assassin utter her curse (cutscene moment) and then proceed to 4E. They actually have a very brief window to search her for the Key and such before the portals open up so I'd handwave any stragglers from the group catching up during that window.

Ok, my table just destroyed their third wave. There is no more advanced wave in the scenario. Do I just repeat the last wave again, or tell them they are done?

(None of my waves of bad guys even got to act.)

If a table defeats the third wave I would give them the option of either winding down or continuing onward (and moving up accordingly on the challenge factor). For winding down, I'm imagining a scene where the immediate threats in their vicinity are handled and they can take a breather while the rest of the Pathfinders are fighting in the background and taking care of the rest of the threats, if that makes sense. If a table doesn't fancy twiddling their thumbs waiting for the rest of the tables to catch up and *really* wants to continue fighting, I'd allow it but with an up front reminder that doing so could be quite dangerous (and that they've already accrued all the credit they can get for this section).

For our 12+ subtier tables, I'd just repeat Wave 3's enemies if they wish to keep fighting. Same caveat applies that going beyond a third wave won't get them any additional credit.

Hopefully that helps! :)

Hey everyone,

Make sure you're keeping up with the key points tracker. According to that, most groups are still in the cathedral...

Well, my group is still in the cathedral. :-/

Still in the cathedral. The summons are about to wink out though, so we should be in the street before too long, I hope.

Yeah, my group got out only a little bit ago. They wanted to fight and those summons/CC took them a bit to get through. Chase is chugging alone though.

At lower tiers, if the bad guys manage to win initiative in the cathedral it can potentially turn the fight into a protracted thing due to their stated tactics. The last time we ran this special in PbP I had a Tier 1-2 table and the cathedral fight took them a while to get through, even with fairly good posting rates. Luckily the chase seems like it usually goes more quickly.

At tier 12-15, the enemy didn't do any direct damage, though a black tentacle did hit once. They just gummed up the battlefield, and when the party decided not to rush outside, it made the fight take quite a while.

I may have also made things harder for my table with starting positioning. My 8 cultists came through separate windows spread throughout the cathedral, almost like they didn't want to be fireballed.

Just now got out of the cathedral. Those potions of displacement the cultists drank did work. Coupled with their tactics of "be annoying wastes of time", they bogged down the PCs until after the fourth round.

"5' step and wall of stone!"
"I back up, take a running leap, and clear the wall. Grapple!"
"Miss because displacement. 5' step and wall of stone, but tall instead of long!"
"..."
"And the caster across the room drops black tentacles, catching half of you and creating difficult terrain."

They did end up summoning a couple of at-will teleporting hound archons, so I'm ad-libbing things a little on the chase.

Speaking of... in the 10-11 subtier, the assassin's "before combat" section doesn't have anything she needs to do. However, she has scrolls and potions of buffs in her gear. Should I use those buffs as if they were in her "before combat" section, as dictated under "running the chase"?

^Yes, go ahead and have her start buffing up with however much time she has until the group catches up with her.

^Yes, go ahead and have her start buffing up with however much time she has until the group catches up with her.

Well, the good news is that since the DCs don't scale, the party has someone that got to within a card of her immediately. That triggered her "cast greater invisibility" tactics, and the wizard has See Invisibility up.

The bad news is that in this tier her contingency is probably going to come into effect really soon. Are there any known rules about moving BACKWARD through cards? Because she's forced to by the wording on that contingency, and that may put her behind one PC.

To my knowledge there aren't any set rules about going backward on chase cards. Looking at the tactics, I'd just allow the Dimension Door to bypass whatever obstacle or hazard exists on the card she'd be warping to.

To my knowledge there aren't any set rules about going backward on chase cards. Looking at the tactics, I'd just allow the Dimension Door to bypass whatever obstacle or hazard exists on the card she'd be warping to.

That's what I was going to do. The issue is what to do about a PC that has to move backwards. Creatures two cards away have partial cover and concealment per the rules given in the scenario, so that's line-of-sight, and that's only 60' away. Glitterdust has a much longer range and is a pretty automatic choice for most parties.

In my case, the order is PCSpellcaster-PCMelee-Assassin. If this goes exactly wrong, she's going to be teleporting to a point after the alleyway's clutter but before the fruit cart, which means the PC who immediately moved three cards is going to be on the wrong side of a still-present cart. I'm leaning towards making that PC pass the Fruit Cart check to get to the battle.

Ahhh, gotcha. In that case yes, if that happens, go ahead and have the PC make the Fruit Cart check!

Ahhh, gotcha. In that case yes, if that happens, go ahead and have the PC make the Fruit Cart check!

OH YEAH!

Happy Halloween for those that celebrate! It looks like we'll be wrapping things up tomorrow evening, so look for my closing post around 5p CST time :)

And that's it! Everyone should have a post from me that wraps up the special. Thank you again to everyone for volunteering to GM and help make this event happen in the first place - couldn't have done it without you!

Don't forget to have your players (and yourselves) roll for boons before closing out and reporting your tables :)

What's the procedure for rolling for boons?

Everyone (including the GM) rolls a flat d20. If they get a 19 or 20, they roll a d3 to determine which boon they win. There is a section on the reporting sheet to note if anyone won anything.

I may need help issuing chronicles for my table. I don't have a computer and only use RPGChronicles with my phone to issue them. I have no way (and don't know how) to issue chronicles digitally.

Since every table is "the winning table(s) in each subtier", everyone also gets the bonus chronicle, yes?

Since every table is "the winning table(s) in each subtier", everyone also gets the bonus chronicle, yes?

I was wondering about that myself.

Since every table is "the winning table(s) in each subtier", everyone also gets the bonus chronicle, yes?

Yes! ;-)

No, the bonus chronicles were only available at one or two conventions.

No, the bonus chronicles were only available at one or two conventions.

According to page 46:

That seems to say that all conventions not offering the second part will instead give the bonus chronicle. That could just be poorly-worded, though, or they changed the policy without updating the scenario.

I can tell you from when we ran this a few years ago, special chronicle sheets are definitely not available

explanation from last time of extra sheets

I may need help issuing chronicles for my table. I don't have a computer and only use RPGChronicles with my phone to issue them. I have no way (and don't know how) to issue chronicles digitally.

Hey R4I, I can get chronicles done for your table though it may not be until tomorrow morning since I'm working tonight.

explanation from last time of extra sheets

What she said. Also, thanks for jumping in to answer that for me Redelia!

Bummer. Would have been nice for them to edit/remove that sometime in the last decade.

On the other hand, I'm 20th level now!

explanation from last time of extra sheets

Hello everyone,

I agree with Nowruz; what's written seems pretty clear: if the second event isn't offered, give out the bonus chronicle instead.

I mean, if the Overseer GM says not to give it out, I won't give it out, but it seems like the scenario author wanted us to give them out for this event.

I don't know what else we can say. That text about special chronicles is there because the PDF has never been edited since it's original release. Paizo does not edit scenarios for those sort of reasons. As another example, there are scenarios that state the scenario requires pregens, but that is no longer true. The scenarios were not edited to make that change.

Also, to be blunt, even if you decided to give out the special sheets, you could not, because you don't have them. None of us in the PbP VO team have them, either. They only provided those sheets to the few events allowed to give them out.

Do we report the special at the same reporting page we use for other Gameday games?

Thanks for the great organization!!! :-D

Thanks Redelia!

Yes, report the Specials to the same Con Assist link for the rest of Gameday.

Event Name: Gameday XI
Event Code: 2708830

Reporting Links
Pathfinder Society (first edition) --1E Reporting Link

Pathfinder Society -- Core (first edition) -- 1E Core Reporting Link

GM Roll4initiative wrote:

I may need help issuing chronicles for my table. I don't have a computer and only use RPGChronicles with my phone to issue them. I have no way (and don't know how) to issue chronicles digitally.

Hey R4I, I can get chronicles done for your table though it may not be until tomorrow morning since I'm working tonight.

That would be awesome, Thanks! I have all of the players' info copied from the Con Assist site when I reported the game. I'll PM it to you now.

Thanks to everyone for running a great game!

Quick question on spellbooks. The cultists in 4B have books with "all conjuration spells" of subtier-appropriate levels. One of my players is questioning whether that means "all", or just "all in the Core Rulebook."

The statblock doesn't say that, and I'm not aware of anything that would impose that kind of restriction. Am I missing something, or does all really mean all?

Quick question on spellbooks. The cultists in 4B have books with "all conjuration spells" of subtier-appropriate levels. One of my players is questioning whether that means "all", or just "all in the Core Rulebook."

The statblock doesn't say that, and I'm not aware of anything that would impose that kind of restriction. Am I missing something, or does all really mean all?

I would probably rule that if it's a Core game, it's just the Core spells; I would want the Chronicle sheet to list them by name if they're going to basically become Additional Resources for a Core player. But if it's Standard, it's everything. "All" is pretty unambiguous.

shaventalz wrote:

Quick question on spellbooks. The cultists in 4B have books with "all conjuration spells" of subtier-appropriate levels. One of my players is questioning whether that means "all", or just "all in the Core Rulebook."

The statblock doesn't say that, and I'm not aware of anything that would impose that kind of restriction. Am I missing something, or does all really mean all?

I would probably rule that if it's a Core game, it's just the Core spells; I would want the Chronicle sheet to list them by name if they're going to basically become Additional Resources for a Core player. But if it's Standard, it's everything. "All" is pretty unambiguous.

Hadn't considered Core games, but other than that... basically what I was thinking. I'll see if anyone else chimes in before confirming that yes, this PC just hit the jackpot.

You could reasonably argue to restrict that to only spells from the hardcover rulebooks. I you were being strict, you could even argue it's only those hardcover rulebooks that were available for season 4.

Another thing to keep in mind is that they have to.pay for transferring any spells they want now; it's not like stuff on a chronicle sheet that you can buy later.