GM Harrow’s Curse of the Crimson Throne - AE

Game Master GM Harrow

So if Audria gets bit, does that mean she's now a Hellknight?

Or a forcibly inducted new member of the wererat gang... Anyway, Lisrek seems like a nice kid, and I am intrigued by the mention of his great-aunt. So sure, let's follow this stranger into the sewers/Vaults! I'm sure it will be fine and nothing will go wrong. :)

Knowing Audria, she'll probably turn into a were-mouse anyway. :P

I think Audria's going to grab her armor and weapons from Zellara's. I'm sure that someone in the party would insist on it at any rate.

Hi everyone, heads up that I will be travelling between December 20th and December 31st and may not be able to post. I'll have my laptop with me and the AP materials, but last time I tried to log on the Paizo forums from my laptop I got hit with the infinite relog bug. :)

Either way, happy holidays to those who celebrate.

If it's what happened to my laptop, I think a cache clear should solve that, but I also certainly wouldn't begrudge the break :-)

Have a good trip, GM! And yeah, the one time that's happened to me, it wasn't happening with other browsers. Clearing the cache on the first browser fixed it.

Web Dev here, generally if you have issues logging into a website, clear your browser's cache. That will fix it 99% of the time.

Hey all, so a couple of people I game with had a sister and her family lose everything in a housefire this week. They're all safe, though sadly they lost both their dog and their cat. There's a GoFundMe to help them get back on their feet. If you could, please consider donating.
Link to the GoFundMe.

Pava thinking about riots

Huh, come to think of it, we weren't told by Shane that wererats have DR/silver. Can we assume that is common enough knowledge that he wouldn't bother mentioning it?

Oh I can correct that. Shane likely would add it on if they're committing to facing one.

One thing about adamantine, You don't have to worry until you run into DR 20+ or DR/epic. ;)

Huh? What do you mean, Audria?

Okay, I went back and checked and it's hardness 20, not DR. I could have sworn that Adamantine bypassed DR.

Ohh. Yeah, only magic weapons bypass multiple forms of DR, based on how high the bonus is. Adamantine ignores hardness (making it good for sundering armor) and of course gets through DR/adamantine, but wouldn't get through DR/silver etc. To be honest, I kind of assumed you got the adamantine glaive in order to be really effective at sundering Grey Maiden full plate later.

Honestly, I hadn't even thought of that, but now that you mention it, it does sound like something that Audria would do. Degrade their capabilities and force them to surrender.

Can you use an AoO to do a combat maneuver if you don't have the Improved feat for that combat maneuver?

Yep, my understanding is that you can generally do any combat maneuver that can be performed in place of a melee attack as an attack of opportunity, no feats required. So, Disarm, Sunder, and Trip. Shrike has used AoOs to trip, for instance.

I'll admit, I didn't expect were rats when I got the mithril dagger

Thanks Shrike! Much appreciated. :)

I'll admit that I haven't read through the Anniversary Edition yet, but I think they were ratfolk in the original.

Either way, I think we should go say hi to Girrigz and see if we can talk some sense into him.

We hope it won't come to a fight, but if it does, note that the dagger will take a -1 penalty on damage rolls, as a slashing or piercing silver weapon, Audria. Still way better than eating that DR 10 every hit though. As far as I know, weapon blanch doesn't give the same penalty, but let me know if that's wrong.

Thanks for the reminder. I'll get Audria's sheet updated.

Also, I think I forgot to update my LoH's when we last rested. I don't think I've used them since then.

A silver morning star is my go-to backup weapon for dealing with DR/silver. Fairly cheap, light and deals both B and P dmg.

If you really want to cover all your bases, pick up a silver battle aspergelium instead and load it up with some holy water to deal with those pesky skeletons or incorporeal undead.

Morningstar or cestus are my standard go-tos too, but this time
a) I wanted something that could plausibly be a component of Pava's special weapon
b) I like the extra maneuver help
c) A lot of their damage is the sneak attack anyways

Apologies, but I am holiday traveling later today and maybe out of regular contact until late the 26th. I'll try to get a post or two in but may not be daily.

Silver morningstar is definitely a good option for Strength-based characters. Audria not having something like that currently is just due to the OOC mixup with adamantine vs. DR, I think.

Also, Audria, I think you did use your Lay on Hands on Pava once after the hag/shark fight. I believe that was on this same in-game day, Sarenith 17.

Derp. Thanks. I'll fix that.

To be honest, it'd probably be in character for Audria to get that confused, too.

Merry Christmas everybody! Hope y'all have a great one!

Merry Christmas to you, Adam, and to all celebrating!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Happy New Year, y'all!

Happy New Year!

Happy meow year everyone!

I am back home and ready to start posting again... after today's all-day hike. :D

I fell in love with the Grand Canyon on my US trip and I now have a goal to hike it rim to rim within the next few years, so I gotta train!

Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed your trip.

Welcome back, GM! Sounds like quite an undertaking, but no doubt a beautiful one.

Hey, I wanted to give y'all a heads up. My maternal grandmother is not doing well. She's hardly eating or drinking. I don't know how long she may have left. I just wanted to let y'all know what was going on.

Also, Tuesday is when I start having to go up to Tuscaloosa, AL twice a week. If I don't have a new job by February, I'll need to do that commute daily, and that will mean I likely won't have time to post much.

I'll keep y'all up to date on what's going on. Looks like 2025 is going to be a rough start for me.

I'm sorry your grandmother is poorly and the new commute is going to eat into your time, Adam. Hope things turn around for you soon.

Really sorry to hear that Adam. Hopefully the year improves

Me too. On the other hand, Nana's lived a long life. She's ready to see Papa again.

GM, sorry if it's been addressed, but can I ask what the situation with difficult terrain and light is? Which squares are difficult terrain? The room is all revealed to us as players, so is there a light source in here? Or, Pava: do you have the ioun stone out?

The difficult terrain is the stream of sewage, for which Pava should probably roll an Acrobatics check in order to get to their target. But I won't retcon stuff if they fail.

There are torches in the entrance cavern and a campfire further in, so there's enough light for people not endowed with low-light vision.

Cool, thanks GM!

Ah, sorry

Acrobatics: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (15) + 13 = 28

Hey all, an update on the situation with my nana.

They've stopped giving her medical care. At this point, all they can do is try their best to make her comfortable. I also found out that a great-uncle on my dad's side of the family passed away. If y'all could, please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Also, I hope that Audria's not getting on anyone's nerves. This is what felt right for her to try.

I'm sorry to hear it, Adam. I hope her passing is as peaceful as possible.

Me too. We all do. She's like my Papa James was in his last few days, now. We're just waiting. Goodbyes have been said and we're just waiting.

So sorry about everything you and your family are going through.

Thanks. I appreciate it, but it is part of life. The day we are born is the day we start dying. I just got the news a few minutes ago that she passed away. It hurts, but it's a bittersweet pain. We miss her, but she no longer suffers.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.

That should push Audria's check result to 30. Not sure Shrike would really want to help negotiate with these guys and make it more likely that they live to terrorism another day, but she can be ambivalent about that and still want to help out Audria. It seemed Aid Another was strongly hinted as being helpful/necessary here, so probably a very high check, and she's the only other one of this group trained in Diplomacy.

Audria's hoping, possibly naively, that she can turn Girrigz from a path of violence and destruction and that she can work with him and the other wererats to make Korvosa better. To be honest, I would not be pushing the talking option so hard if I wasn't playing a Shelynite, well okay, maybe if I was playing a Sarenrite. She takes the part about cutting a life short very seriously, which is going to make it really hard on her when we get to later events in this book and the next.

In all seriousness, if Audria's getting on your nerves, let me know and I'll dial that back. She's a goody-two-shoes, but she's supposed to be a likeable goody-two-shoes.

As a player, I'm not bothered by it at all, and in fact I like it. Sorry if I've given any other impression!

In-character, Shrike thinks these particular wererats are probably evil, have probably preyed on innocents before, and will probably continue to do so in the future regardless of any agreement they make with us, and so would prefer they had continued fighting and we had killed them. That's just her way, and her mentor-mediated interpretation of her own god's teachings, which don't have a lot of grey area. But I think that some contrast and balance between the two is good. If Shrike were sure of her suspicions, she would insist; since she's not, she'll defer to and support Audria's judgment. I hope I conveyed that appropriately, and if you ever think she's being too harsh, definitely feel free to tell me.