GM Nomadical's Outpost VI 4-09 Through Sea and Storm (Inactive)

Game Master Nomadical

Wow, 25 years. I feel a right baby only celebrating my 22nd wedding anniversary this year.

I'm wondering if I should move into melee range to try and tank one hit as they rest of you guys are getting hammered.

I can get out of range to fire without attracting any AOOs due to uncanny mobility. Though that grab would be a killer for me.

I honestly don’t remember where Azara was before he moved into melee. The Giant has 15’ reach. Did Azara provoke? If not, then Grump certainly did with the movement.

Grump should've waited for Gunnz to render the giant FF before moving in, so that's on Grump for provoking the AoO.

Post updated - from Zhengzhou China. Or at least the cargo ramp at the airport. FWIW, it's a city of 12 million people that 99% of people in the US have never heard of. (As a reference, NYC is only 8 million.) Heading to Almaty, Kazakhstan shortly.

Looking back at the map more closely, I'm pretty sure Azara provoked. If not, let me know and I'll redirect the damage to Grump.

Yup. Azara provoked. I was at least 10' away.

I figured I have enough left to take a hit or two and shooting wouldn't have been very effective (though given how the dice have been going, no less effective than what I am doing.)

Doh! Sorry, I thought I had posted and was waiting for y'all. Post coming shortly.

Ouch.

So the operative feature uncanny agility says:
You are immune to the flat-footed condition, and your opponent doesn’t gain any bonuses to attack rolls against you from flanking you or attacking you when you’re prone. Furthermore, covering fire and harrying fire don’t provide any advantage against you.

Which is why they did trick damage to me, even though their tricks couldn't flat-foot me.

I assume it is just that Gunnz missed, rather than that they are immune to trick shots?

I just realised my online sheet had my attack bonus two too low. Must have been a while since I updated that part of the sheet. No worry about last round, that is my mistake, but I have the correct attack bonus for this round, even without adding in FF.

Ouch.

So the operative feature uncanny agility says:
You are immune to the flat-footed condition, and your opponent doesn’t gain any bonuses to attack rolls against you from flanking you or attacking you when you’re prone. Furthermore, covering fire and harrying fire don’t provide any advantage against you.

Which is why they did trick damage to me, even though their tricks couldn't flat-foot me.

I assume it is just that Gunnz missed, rather than that they are immune to trick shots?

Correct. You missed by 1. If the target could have been flat-footed, you'd've hit.

And correct for how the damage applied to you also.

I just realised my online sheet had my attack bonus two too low. Must have been a while since I updated that part of the sheet. No worry about last round, that is my mistake, but I have the correct attack bonus for this round, even without adding in FF.

No, I'm not gonna TPK y'all (a very real possibility, I'm afraid) cause of a simple mistake. I'll retcon your attack in my next post.

We really need to focus fire on just one of these giants.

Taking heat (literally) from both will be a massive pain.

Oh thanks! In that case the 2nd shot would likely have gone to the other giant, just to get a bleed started on it before I return to focusing on their operative.

This is the fight I was worrying about a LOT.....I almost had a party wipe at higher tier (5 players...not 6, so no adjustment). Not an easy fight...and yeah....I had 2 operatives at the table...and both went 'Oh Sh*t' when I said that their trick didn't go off on their 'take 10' on their auto-trick....both started to go through anything that might help them on any rolls on their trick skill after that...

They also (unwisely) didn't go rest before coming back....and had fought the storm giant husks right before. They were all full SP and HP...but daily uses (spells, etc) were mostly tapped out....and a few were down a few RP.

I am glad the developers and writers are getting better at making higher tier scenarios--both be fun, interesting story, and not be a combat slog (4 full combats)...but I will say that in doing so, they are making the combats that do happen....a LOT TOUGHER. ;-)

@Gunnz: Please double check all of your character sheet and the tagline. I just realized that your tagline says Operative 8. This is a 9-12 scenario, so I hope she's actually level 9.

Your bleed damage should be doing Bleed 9, not 8. Your Trick Damage should be 5d8 at level 9, not the 4d8 you've been rolling. I'm attacking versus the AC's in your tagline, are they right? Are you short a level 9 feat?

I really don't want to kill such a cool character because of such a big oversight.

I'm going to have to double check, she should be nine as my tracking spreadsheet has this as her 25th chronicle, but I seem to have one missing from my archive of the actual chronicles. Paperwork time.

Either way, I'd never advanced her to nine, no wonder I'm making hard work of the scenario.

Just a heads up....tomorrow is when we head off on our anniversary trip. I will attempt to post 1 time a day (minus the 22 hours+ I am off/on a few planes). But if you need to bot me...go ahead. At this point Azzirm will likely keep using his singing disk.

I'm going to have to double-check, she should be nine as my tracking spreadsheet has this as her 25th chronicle, but I seem to have one missing from my archive of the actual chronicles — paperwork time.

Either way, I'd never advanced her to nine, no wonder I'm making hard work of the scenario.

Any updates on this?

This late in the scenario, I'd almost think that if Gunnz was still 8th level, she's still earned the rewards for the mission, but would need to hold the chronicle sheet 'til she reached 9th level, applying all the goodies at that point.

Yes she is 8th. I went though all the chronicles by hand and had a chronicle for another character in the wrong folder and counted against her rather than them. Arghh.

I think keeping it with her is the best option and I'll drop a GM chronicle on her to make up the difference.

Thanks for the update. We're almost done, though there's still some important RP to go through for reporting purposes. I guess you can just hold the chronicle until you apply the GM one, like if you'd played a pregen. No problem.

Sorry for being mostly gone. Been a great vacation...and still have another week!

That last fight....is brutal. GM Nomidical can tell exactly, but I think that fight is CR+4 for 6 lvl 9s... and the 4 player adjustment is a big helo.

If we had 5 players...unless that 5th player was a full front line, or massive damage output....that fight can be easily a TPK. And playing up.....well...quad attack is never fun unless you are the GM

As Jim mentioned, here's a peek behind the GM Screen.

The undead giants were CR 11. The fire giants on the beach were CR 12. The adjustment for 4-player was to reduce AC, saves, and attack bonuses, and reduced HP by about 8%. As level 11 operatives, they could trick attack for a lot of damage, or they could Triple Attack as you saw. If the Triple hits on 2 or or more of the rolls (albeit at -4, and at an additional -2 for the 4-player adjustment) then the damage can be pretty massive. But as Gunnz saw, getting trick attacked even once can be pretty huge too. Obviously, the tactic became use Trick when they needed to move anyway, and use Triple when they were standing in place. Either way, it's big damage, and with only 3.9 PCs (cause Gunnz was kind of "out of tier") to soak up that damage, I was seriously concerned after that first round.

But you survived, despite my and my wonderful ally Dice Bot's best efforts.

RNG really didn't do us any favors.

If it mattered, Grump kept a Mystic Cure 4 in reserve, just in case Gunnz (or anyone else) got taken out.
It acts as a Breath of Life for up to 2 rounds.

Luckily we didn't need it.

With what GM Nomadical said...each fight we had wasn't a push over.. all I think are CR+3 or CR+4 at either lower or upper tier. The writer expected players to have to go full out on each fight. That is why each encounter was on a different day (unless you try to finish the husk fight and then leave the ruin without resting.....had a party do that).

I honestly like this format a bit better TBH....

I'll get this reported shortly as we conclude the RP re: the full disclosure.

I'll try to mark up the chronicles as I usually do, but it I can't figure out how to do that with the RPGChronicles thing, it may not happen this time.

But! I just learned that there's a follow-up to this mission. #6-04 Secrets Long Submerged will be out in late June.

I'm offering to run that for this group. I assume that Gunnz can get a GM credit and get leveled, and if you want to we can recruit for 2 more, or just run with the same 4 players.

With that said, though, I'm supposed to run a PBP for PaizoCon unless my table gets culled, and I can't run two scenarios at once. So it may be a while before I can get to it, or maybe not. I can certainly arrange to keep you all in the loop if you're interested.

I felt like the beach one was easier but because it was more straightforward. If we would have been a group of morlamaws armed with sonic weapons, the undead giant fight would have been easier but just adding the water element to the fight severely limited what we could do.

I'd definitely be interested in playing the follow up and I'm not in any hurry.

Nomadical - I thought that this group worked together rather well & would be happy to play the follow-on mission with all of you (Nomadical included).

I seriously doubt that Grump will reach anywhere beyond 11th level, so just let me know when you decide to get the crew back together.

Day Job Profession (Poet): 1d20 + 18 ⇒ (20) + 18 = 38

In what is some of Azara's best work to date, he writes an epic with rather sensual and romantic undertones titled "Towering Inferno."

Likwise, real happy to play the followup. Gunnz will still be the baby of the group.

dayjob(dancer): 1d20 + 18 ⇒ (17) + 18 = 35

Yeah, sorry I became increasingly afkish near that end....the trip to Croatia (Zagreb and then Rovinj)...and then a 3 day quick trip to Disneyland Paris kinda made it hard to get connected to Azzirm.

I did enjoy this...and would love to continue the story (though I will also unfortunately be prepping it at the same time...I think I am running that scenario locally in 4-6 weeks).