[PF2E] Otari/Abomination Vaults Adventure Path (Inactive)

Game Master Sam C.

Hellewen has a survival skill of +3. A little at least :p

She also has a Crafting skill of +5 and a Basic Crafter's Book which *might* be what one would use to alchemically stabilize the venom? I'm not sure. I glanced at the 2e mundane/alchemical crafting rules, saw they were somewhat more reasonable then 1e and then kinda never read the rest. Will look it up this weekend!

Have a water skin that she'd be willing to part with if we need a vessel.

To stabilize the harvested venom into something that lasts longer than 24 hours, you would need the Alchemical Crafting feat, an alchemist's lab, and a formula for Hunting Spider Venom. The latter is a level 5 item (with a cost of 8 measures, in case you're curious), which is a problem for the party because Crafting specifies that you can only craft items of your level or lower.

So unless you get outside work done in that regard, this dose of poison is a use-it-or-lose-it item for 24 hours after its harvested. That said, however, if you can't find something down here worth hitting with a DC 21 (and yes, that's higher than what the spider itself required with a bite attack) poison, I'll be very surprised indeed.

Huh. Maybe our dose would be more concentrated in an all-at-once way.

And good to know I can procrastinate a bit more on those crafting rules :p

So I'm still feeling my way on the timing of moving things along. Should I allow for a bit more character interaction (or character maintenance, in the case of the injured) or step right along?

Oh, and my status bar now includes handy links to campaign materials, for your convenience!

Seems like we can keep going at the moment.

I think we have someone with a healer's kit if I'm not misremembering? Might be worth to give them a chance to try it if so.

Inva is down down some HP.

Eser can treat wounds and is at 11 hp herself. Both Inva and Eser have been treated in the last hour. Folks OK with waiting around a bit? I don't get the sense we're on a timer.

Waiting seems fine.

The only timer is that of the disease check on Eser and Inva, and you both can spare an hour from that.

Right on, thank you, posted healing checks. Busy few days coming here, please bot if needed.

Busy few days coming here, please bot if needed.

Nah, no botting here, remember? You go be busy and then come back and resume :D.

Hey, if we're spending an hour here resting anyway, can Rik'tik go back to the surface and see if he can find some tools? I haven't checked, but Rik'tik's +5 survival might be as good as it gets.

Yes, of course. Would you like to play it out in thread or just a more generic "Rik'tik went, did a thing, and came back later" post? Oh, but in either case, do expect a bit of interaction with Tamily, she's going to be curious to see Rik'tik come up with just Grasz.

Also, I'm assuming you're talking about tools sufficient for harvesting and stowing critter bits and juices? Preferably while granting a Survival skill bonus? Because I can throw something together for the former, but the latter will almost certainly--based on comparable pricing of other bonus-granting kits--be out of Rik'tik's financial reach at the moment.

That said, if you're concerned about the modifier, recall that Aid is still a thing. Because the check to harvest venom is trained, I'll likewise require that the aid for this task is trained as well--messing with venom is probably not a task for laypeople to attempt--so that leaves Hellewen. But I'll also rule that Eser's Medicine skill can be used for an aid check (knowledge of general anatomy) in this instance.

The former--enough to do the job without a penalty!

Oh yeah, that you can definitely find. It'll be a set of Artisan Tools (so that price and bulk), but geared specifically for use with the Survival skill. So you'll have tools, storage, and other sundry materials sufficient for processing hides, preserving meat, and harvesting useful fluids.

Since kits are apparently meant to be a low-maintenance piece of gear in 2e (no meaningful restock costs or uses before depletion listed), I'll apply that to your Survival kit as well. But as a practical matter of storage, I'll rule that the kit has everything you need to process four Small/Medium (or two Large) hides, 20 meals worth of preserved meat, and two dozen doses of juices/fluids.

How's that?

Sounds awesome! Though I can’t afford Artisans tools—it’s 4gp and I have 2.1gp.

I had an idle thought cross my mind about that dose of venom, and thought I'd get ahead of a potential issue that the thought brought up.

Per the rules, that dose is sufficient to coat the working surface of one piercing or slashing weapon (as it's an injury-type poison). So that normally means one dose will do the largest sword or a single arrow, either way.

This makes little sense to me, and probably will make just as little to all of you as well, so I'm considering the following campaign rule that a single dose will suffice for the working surface of one piercing or slashing weapon (regardless of the weapon's size compared to other weapons) or 10 pieces of piercing or slashing ammunition. Thrown weapons (like darts or shuriken) are treated as weapons in this instance, not ammunition.

To balance this, I will rule that poison, once out its sealed container and applied, will remain effective for 24 hours. After that, it becomes inert.

(Of course, that then asks the question of how some ancient trap can still have effective injury poison applied, to which I will answer "A wizard did it.")

Thoughts?

Re poison

Won't this mean poisons are much more effective on ranged attacks? You'll get to use it x10 times as much.

Unless poison coating actually lasts for more then one successful attack in this edition, which I haven't checked :p

(There's also the sensible matter of how many times one could coat say Tiny arrows ... :p)

Re money

I can spot you 3gp :)

Re name

You mean this beautiful name I honourably stole from a lotr name generator isn't perfect :p?

(Luckily I mostly post from my pc so autocorrect isn't a worry at least :p)

Re poison

Won't this mean poisons are much more effective on ranged attacks? You'll get to use it x10 times as much.

Unless poison coating actually lasts for more then one successful attack in this edition, which I haven't checked :p

(There's also the sensible matter of how many times one could coat say Tiny arrows ... :p)

Re money

I can spot you 3gp :)

No, poison lasts just one attack (or Strike, to use the new terms) and only remains on the weapon if the attack is a full miss (but not a critical miss); since ammo is destroyed on use, hit or miss, it doesn't matter if the poison is expended for that.

And your point regarding Tiny arrows is actually what prompted that initial thought of mine. Because I got to thinking about Pfil dipping her little thorns or whatever they are and wondering if she could dip two on account of the small size of each. (And no matter what else may come of this, Pfil's ammo and weapons get the same amount of coating as any other character's, no special benefits due to size in this case.)

That then led to thinking about coating arrows in general, and from there to wondering if one of you was eventually going to raise the issue of "why can we only do one arrow per dose?"

Now on to the larger question, yes, it would make ranged attacks using poison more effective. However, I take into account the cost of injury-based poisons (which, unless you have a particular class ability, is the only sort you can use), their effectiveness versus their cost, and the fact that as the DM I can control what poisons are actually accessible to some degree. There's also the factor that I can't control, that being the success of attack rolls. A string of missed attacks could see even the most inexpensive poison become a waste of money. Finally, while poison may not have a stigma in and of itself, if someone comes up with a bad case of dead due to poison, eyes will inevitably turn the party's way (especially if the poison is one that they're known to use frequently).

And on the player side, if one of you wants to invest in the necessary skills and equipment to make frequent poison use viable, why shouldn't you get a bit of a decent payoff for the investment?

But, of course, this is why I'm soliciting your opinions on the matter.

I don't feel strongly about the alternative poison rule. We can always try it with the spider poison and, if it turns out to be too strong, just say that the particular spider's poison was especially potent.

Primarily using a ranged weapon, I would be stupid to say no to that proposition.

However, I DO think that getting more mileage out of a dose should come at a cost...coating multiple arrows totally makes sense, but it also means less poison per arrow.

Also considering

Source Core Rulebook pg. 458 4.0

Multiple exposures to the same curse or disease currently affecting you have no effect. For a poison, however, failing the initial saving throw against a new exposure increases the stage by 1 (or by 2 if you critically fail) without affecting the maximum duration. This is true even if you’re within the poison’s onset period, though it doesn’t change the onset length.

I believe that the DC in this case should be at -2 of the base value.

I think we could dial things in around that.(Spreading around poison may still be too strong, then we can go to -3 or -4, until it "feels" right in that it won't clearly overshadow using it in melee).

So a single melee, thrown ranged, or ranged attack at full DC, or a maximum of 10 pieces of ammunition at -2 DC for each dose of poison?

Sounds reasonable enough.

I've also tweaked rules for the free Recall Knowledge check to learn a creature's basic traits, reducing the DC for this check (only) by 2. This should make it easier for the party to recognize really basic creatures, but still make the rarer creatures a bit of challenge to identify.

Also, there weren't any bodies (aside from the party's) in that cavern left with blood in them after the spider got done eating. And spider juice is colorless, so useless for that purpose. Instead, you went with a bit of luminescent fungus juice. Your poisoned arrows' fletching has a faint, bluish color to it that glows in low or no light. Not enough to betray stealth, but enough to be seen clearly by you up close.

For the record, I meant the rats we fought before. Even if Tamily had her people get things in order I expected to find some blood there - because as you said spider juice won't work. But the fungus juice is perfectly swell. :)

Hmm, so I said "peek head around corner" and it appears that Gin did an entire flying circuit of the room? Should I be more specific in the future?

Mmm, no. Looking back, I realize what happened. I actually had Gin fail the Stealth check in a completely different way that didn't involve fully entering the room.

However, Paizo did a forum thing and the post was sacrificed to the backtrack limit error demons. So when I rewrote it, I totally forgot that he hadn't actually entered the room. However, the final result would have been entirely the same; he attempted the Stealth check, the things in the room got Perception checks to notice him trying to be sneaky, and (assuming nobody looked at the spoilers) four of them succeeded at their checks.

Given what's happened, are we in initiative now?

Not quite. While the barricade won't actually stop them for more than a round, if there's nothing on the other side to catch their attention--and give them a reason to break past it--they'll return to the room from which they came.

So you could A) fall back into previous cavern and hang out for a few minutes until they lose what little interest they're capable of; B) rush forward deeper into the caves ahead and hope that your passage doesn't entice them to follow; or C) take advantage of your slight defensive position and the fact that they have to come to you in a narrow tunnel to engage.

So initiative won't be necessary until you settle on a course of action here. But you only have a moment to decide.

Welp. These things certainly didn't steal the fish :p

Aye, but I don't think Tamily would be comfortable having them in the extended Cellar, either.

Dispatching them may earn us a bonus - so far she's not been stingy with payments and services.

That, and I'm not comfortable moving forward past them either, when some commotion(like a battle) might get their vastly limited attention, and have them shuffle to attack us from behind while we're already engaged with whatever awaits in those caves(besides diplomatically inclined kobolds willing to worship Riktik).

So I'd prefer option C.

Seems like we are either expanding the fishery by a lot or making the kobolds’ home much safer from outside threats (and possibly from themselves).

Welp. These things certainly didn't steal the fish :p

Well, if it were something suitably death-related like surstromming, they might be guilty. But otherwise, yes, it's quite unlikely that these are the source of this particular problem.

Aye, but I don't think Tamily would be comfortable having them in the extended Cellar, either.

Dispatching them may earn us a bonus - so far she's not been stingy with payments and services.

That, and I'm not comfortable moving forward past them either, when some commotion(like a battle) might get their vastly limited attention, and have them shuffle to attack us from behind while we're already engaged with whatever awaits in those caves(besides diplomatically inclined kobolds willing to worship Riktik).

So I'd prefer option C.

Well, there's also the fact that undead generally make for s+*@ neighbors no matter what. Even if you leave them alone, they have this nasty habit of eventually making a nuisance of themselves regardless. So getting rid of them when you find some, even if you're actually in the area for something completed unrelated, is something akin to a public service :D.

Seems like we are either expanding the fishery by a lot or making the kobolds’ home much safer from outside threats (and possibly from themselves).

The killings will continue until everyone is safe from everything!

Those skeletons have an armor class that's annoying me. AC is 10 + Dex + armor + a bunch of other stuff.

Well, those bony bastards don't actually have any armor--the stat block is quite explicit on what equipment they have--so their final AC has a +2 that I can't account for and it's like an itch in my brain, lol.

Is natural Armor still a thing? If so, possibly that, just not called out explicitly as it doesn't really matter?
(Since, ya know, touch and flatfooted and all that got really scrambled).
You know..."other bonuses" that basically let them say "a wizard did it" - without an equivalent to natural armor many large bulky foes (low dex, no armor - i know size doesn't really play into it :( ) would be rather easy to hit, despite proficiencies... - so I'd guess it may be that. :)

Nope, natural armor is out as far as I can tell. There are a few class abilities or feats that mimic the overall effect, but that's it.

I mean, at the end of the day, I suppose it doesn't really matter. But I do like having the numbers properly accounted for.

So what about proficiency? If they are "trained" with whatever armor they use("Trained in unarmored defense"), that's a +2, right?

That said, I did check a few creatures where the numbers still don't quite add up if there's no "other bonuses" going on.
This one(I am reasonably sure it won't feature in our current adventure) has an AC of 42 with a -1 Dex.

Legendary Proficiency would account for 8+18, or 26 of that(25 with the -1 Dex). So maybe I'm missing something there, but it definitely seems some enemies are simply "hardened" with what used to be natural armor, even if it's not a thing any more.

Ah, the proficiency in unarmored would account for it. No idea if they have such a proficiency, the stats blocks aren't exactly open like that. But it's close enough a reason to get it off of my mind.

Glad to be helpful.

Also, just saying I am absolutely fine with you rolling Initiative for me. Can't speak for the others, of course.
But as long as it's a "fixed" pattern I think nobody would object.
(With fixed pattern I mean E.g. Party first, alphabetical, then baddies. Or Baddies first, then Party, alphabetical - just pick either and stick with it => fixed pattern where nobody could suspect tampering.).

Unless you want us to roll Init which is also totally fine in a relaxed game but for streamlining, that is one of the things most often handled by GM in PbP.

Also, just saying I am absolutely fine with you rolling Initiative for me.

I am as well.

Ditto. I mean, you can't roll worse than what we're already doing. :)

Ditto. I mean, you can't roll worse than what we're already doing. :)

Oh, hey, that sounded like a challenge!

I'm also fine with us have a block template initiative that rolls the whole party's initiative.

Well, if Inva and Hellewen agree, then I'll go ahead and do that for party initiative in the future. I actually did consider it, but decided that it would be taking undue control of your characters. But since you've brought it up yourselves, that's a different matter.

Rolling initiative seems pretty harmless. Plus it might save us a week in pbp time :D

I'm somewhat disturbed to see that the party's initiative has averaged out to 11, the dice are weird sometimes.

Well, we aimed for block initiative - us in a congaline, enemies in a congaline, so we can alternate turns with the enemy and keep things moving :D

If we know there's enemies and we're about to fight soon-ish, would it be reasonable to start combat with an Element gathered :)?

It is vaguely like drawing a weapon (only that some "spells" require you to draw it again). But you can't have it "on" out side of combat by raw.

I'm going to go by RAW on this one, sorry. I don't have my kineticist file handy at the moment, but I suspect that gathering an element is an intentional part of the class's action economy (I think that's the right term, anyway); if they'd meant to for it be gatherable outside of combat, I believe that they would have specifically allowed for it.

No real opinion on initiative rolls. I endorse whatever is decided.

Alright then, duly noted.

Hmm, seems like the skeletons resist electricity. I've got a bludgeoning wind attack, but it's AoE and hard to aim. Anyone want a magic weapon buff or should I just keep attacking and hope for a crit fail on their saving throw?