Billy can roll them but he needs to roll a ritual casting check for each card drawn.
I am going to say you can undercast the ritual if you want. Casting it at a lower level means the DC is lower but you get fewer cards.
Also, just to note, the DC for a level 6 ritual is normally 35. The experienced harrower feat brings that down to 30. You also cannot use fortune effects on them as they are downtime activities.
So that's a fail for Slick's ritual then?
So we now roll 6d6 for each ritual to determine which cards we have to use over the next month and then we burn one whenever we feel like re-rolling a corresponding check? Sort of like 6 limited Hero Points?
On the rerolls, Billy gets a +4 bonus and Slick gets a -4 penalty to the rerolls. Do I have that right?
Not quite, Billy must make a primary ritual casting check for each card he draws.
Not quite, Billy must make a primary ritual casting check for each card he draws.
So Billy rolls a d20 vs a DC of 30 for each of the 12 cards and that determines what the bonus or penalty (or noop) is for that card?
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Yes, its one fortune telling check per card and then a roll to determine the suit for each card.
Drawing for Billy
Harrowing Ritual Level5, Fortune Telling Lore DC 28: 1d20 + 16 => (20) + 16 = 36
Drawing for Slick
If I read this right, Slick ends up with:
3 Keys (failure, success, crit success)
1 Books (success)
1 Shields (success)
Given a choice, I would probably have preferred a few Hammers in there, but I guess beggars can't be choosers :). Reflex is his worst save, so those Keys will likely come in handy.
The DC for rituals is based on the very hard DC of a task level twice that of the rituals level. The feat removes the very hard adjustment.
That makes a level 5 ritual DC27. Taking that I see for both of you:
Billy:
Crit: Shields
Fail: Keys
Pass: Books
Pass: Books
Fail: Stars
Slick:
Pass: Keys
Fail: Keys
Pass: Books
Pass: Shields
Pass: Keys
A pass allows a reroll. A fail allows a reroll at -4. A crit pass gives a reroll at +4.
Suit effects:
1—Hammers (Str) Strikes (both melee and ranged)
2—Keys (Dex) Reflex saving throws
3—Shields (Con) Fortitude saving throws
4—Books (Int) Skill checks
5—Stars (Wis) Will saving throws
6—Crowns (Cha) All other checks (including flat checks)
The DC for rituals is based on the very hard DC of a task level twice that of the rituals level. The feat removes the very hard adjustment.
Ah, I was looking at the DCs by Spell Level and adding the +2.
Slick:
Pass: Keys
Fail: Keys
Pass: Books
Pass: Shields
Pass: Keys
Wouldn't Billy's nat-20 on Slick's last card push it up to a Crit?
So it would, missed that.
Just waiting on Nubnonk to post in Gameplay and I will kick us off properly.
o Since we each received 5 cards, do they count as part of our 5-card investment? Specifically, do we choose 4 of these new cards along with our Paladin or Brass Dwarf so we have no more than 5 to choose from?
o The ritual says: "The target of harrowing must describe a set of events or course of action they intend to attempt in the near future." My intent was that we would claim we were investigating our dream vision. Is that an appropriate topic, or should it be broader than that?
o The ritual says: "Duration: 1 month or until fulfilled." I'm guessing "fulfilled" means when all 5 cards are used. If we want a new set of ritual cards sooner, can we choose to dismiss the remaining cards? Or happen to trip over some stairs to trigger a Reflex save, to use up the Keys card if we don't want it?
o Lastly, are these rerolls like Hero Points in that we get to know if the roll failed before we choose to reroll?
o Since we each received 5 cards, do they count as part of our 5-card investment? Specifically, do we choose 4 of these new cards along with our Paladin or Brass Dwarf so we have no more than 5 to choose from?
No, the Harrowing Ritual has no connection to the card you have received which are magic items.
o The ritual says: "The target of harrowing must describe a set of events or course of action they intend to attempt in the near future." My intent was that we would claim we were investigating our dream vision. Is that an appropriate topic, or should it be broader than that?
That is fine. I will probably treat each book part as a separate segment which is valid for the ritual.
o The ritual says: "Duration: 1 month or until fulfilled." I'm guessing "fulfilled" means when all 5 cards are used. If we want a new set of ritual cards sooner, can we choose to dismiss the remaining cards? Or happen to trip over some stairs to trigger a Reflex save, to use up the Keys card if we don't want it?
No, you cannot dismiss the effects. You cannot try and game away cards to carry out a further ritual as the reroll must be related to the task you are pursuing. Trivial rolls will not count.
o Lastly, are these rerolls like Hero Points in that we get to know if the roll failed before we choose to reroll?
Yes, you will know the result before rerolling. Note, you cannot use a HP reroll and a card one as both are Fortune effects.
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I am in the process of writing a Rituals guide and using our experience here to guide the writing. When it's ready for a look-over, I'll post it here so that you all can take a proper gander at the first draft.
Cheers, its a little underused area of the game. I quite like that they have a bit of a place in this AP.
One thing to note for everyone. This Friday I go into hospital for a minor operation. I dont expect to be in overnight but I wont be posting much on the day and posting may be less frequent for a few days afterward.
One thing to note for everyone. This Friday I go into hospital for a minor operation. I dont expect to be in overnight but I wont be posting much on the day and posting may be less frequent for a few days afterward.
As I've alluded to already a couple of times, Saturday and part of Sunday I will be winging my way back to California from Spain. I will occasionally have connectivity along the way, but it is best to assume that I will not be posting during the weekend. Given my trip and your operation, maybe we should just agree to take the weekend off.
Best of luck on the procedure, GMAndrew. Wishing you a speedy recovery.
Safe travels, Slick! Weather's been nice here. To be fair, it's California, and it's always nice. Mostly.
Dramiil gives Slick Guidance from a distance, as one does.
Guidance does not stack with Inspire for Attack rolls, but if Slick needs to save (ikely) or make a skill roll (unlikely) it might help.
yep, Saves work!
Slick will now benefit from Nubnonk's Exploit Vulnerability due to Share Weakness! Happy massive damage, bud.
Looking forward to it.
Let me get this right. Your Exploit Vulnerability will uncover a weakness of some sort (presumably Silver or Good) and Slick's sword will now magically be able to inflict that type of damage. Do I have that right?
That's right! Assuming that the weakness cancels out the resistance, it probably evens out to just your rolled damage. But it's nicer than losing 10 off the top.
And note that regarding Weakness, that extra damage from Weakness would never get doubled on a crit. On a crit, you would double-damage, then any resistance and weakness applies as normal after that.
GMAndrewW -- During this first battle, I realized I have too many spells that do similar things. I wanted to ask permission to swap out one of my (mostly redundant) 5th level spells, Painful Vibrations, for something that might prove more useful.
If you allow it (and it's totally fine if you say no), I'd like input from the other players on which of the following to replace it with:
Gaseous Form: Would allow someone to turn into vapor for 5 mins to get through a crack or gain a fly speed. (Not normally useful, but maybe perfect in the right situation.)
Invisibility Sphere (heightened to 5): Group invis for 1 hour. (But not useful in battle.)
Shadow Siphon: Counteract an enemy's AoE spell to do half-damage instead. (I can imagine we'll face a high level AoE spell where this could save the party a ton of hp.)
Something totally different (from Occult tradition).
If our GM declines, no worries. I can swap out when we eventually level-up. So I'd still like player input. If anyone has any thoughts, please chime in. Thanks all!
Sorry, my days got super packed for a bit there. I'm here! And I'll use links for odd abilities. Still figuring out the Psychic myself.
GM, are you making the Fort save roll for Dramiil (secret) or do I roll that for his tetanus? Really, Golarion needs some vaccines...
I like Shadow Siphon. Seems useful for mitigating damage!
I hadn't seen the Shadow Siphon spell before, and I really like it! I vote for that in a heartbeat.
Also, I think the GM is doing secret Recall Knowledge checks, but it's probably no big deal.
Thanks for chiming in, everyone. Unless Slick (who's currently traveling from Europe to the US) objects, I'll plan to swap in Shadow Siphon. Either now, or when we level up, depending on how our GM rules.
On a side note, I hadn't seen the spell either. It feels like a Secrets of Magic or Dark Archive spell. Was surprised to find it's always been in the CRB!
Making amendments at this stage is completely fine. Feel free to make whatever changes you want. I will probably fix things finally a the end of the first part of book1 to give people a chance to get used to what their characters do and how they work. After that you can use the regular retraining rules.
@Dramiil, you dont need to make another fort save yet, the Onset time is 1d4 days. When it coms up I will roll it for you. Someone can treat disease on you but it will take 8 hours out of your available time and time may well be important. You know you are diseased so you could seek a Remove Disease but as its based on a Counteract check you may want a higher level version cast if you can afford it.
Got to California in one piece.
We haven't found any loot yet, but we're bound to. In other APs I've played (and am still playing), the GM set up a Google Sheets spreadsheet for us (read: me) to keep track of things. When we level up we decide how to deal with the loot we picked up and what to buy with the proceeds. Should we do something like that for this AP or are there any other suggestions?
How to deal with Dramiil's disease...
The obvious approach, as Billy and the GM have stated stated, is the Treat Disease action, but given the apparent DC of this disease, this may not help all that much. It looks like Dramiil failed his +18 Fort save with a 29, which means the DC is 30+, which means that he needs to roll at least a 12, but more likely something nearer 15 to make his save. Billy will need to use his Medicine +20 with Treat Disease to roll against the same DC just to give Dramiil a +2 to his roll (or +4 on a nat-20). Billy needs to roll at least a 10 and more likely something nearer 13 to do this, with a non-insignificant chance of crit failing and giving Dramiil a -2 instead. That's a lot of high-rolling to clear the disease, and the odds aren't all that great of success. If he fails and goes to Stage 2, then he'll have to do this already low-probability sequence of rolls twice in a row to clear it.
The other options involve using a Remove Disease spell cast by someone with a high-enough spell DC to have a decent chance of counteracting the disease's DC. Might require multiple castings to finally achieve a success. If none of us has this spell in their repertoire, then we could try to find a powerful healer to cast it for us, presumably at some cost. We could also pay for Antiplague potions, but at best, the Greater Antiplague (Level 10, 160gp) will only give Dramiil a +4 to his next saving throw, so we may need several of them. Given the lack of cash-on-hand, we can't really afford to either hire a healer or purchase potions.
If the GM is allowing the tweaking of spell repertoires, then maybe someone should pick up Remove Disease and prepare to burn a bunch of their Level 3+ slots at the end of the day.
Otherwise, it looks like we may need to start making contingency plans in the very real event of Dramiil's death by tetanus. :)
You are in Absalom so acquiring spellcasting services up to your level is no problem whatsoever.
You are in Absalom so acquiring spellcasting services up to your level is no problem whatsoever.
Right. But for a fee I take it. It's not like we're Pathfinders with the free delousing service the Grand Lodge provides after each scenario.
I don't know it the money we were allotted at the start of the adventure for lower-level permanent items was a fixed sum handed to each of us, or if it was more of a "up to 500gp of items" deal. Either way, Slick has less than a silver piece to his name on paper, so if we are to pay for such services than we're going to have to find some loot pronto!
Yep, standard spellcasting costed, I linked it above.
Welcome back stateside, Slick! Hope you had a good holiday.
I do appreciate how much more deadly diseases are in 2E compared to 1E. In 1E diseases weren't particularly bothersome after early levels. But when you have the risk of critical failures, like you said, you can have a really bad time!
I do feel like the counteract check of a Remove Disease spell is probably one of the safest, most reliable routes to go, but it would be best coming from someone at or around our level instead of the minimum level. Next level I can take the Intensify Investiture feat, which will allow me to use my Class DC for any invested item instead of the item's DC (if it's lower), but that doesn't help with single-use, uninvested items.
Tomorrow morning (and all subsequent mornings until the disease is cleared), Nubnonk can give Dramiil a Fulu of the Stoic Ox and grant a +2 status bonus to his disease save.
Otherwise I do believe that we are relatively cash poor right now. I have 7 gold and 8 silver. So unless we want to start doing some job checks to earn money and do it fast, we might just have to keep adventuring with the penalties from the disease until we acquire enough coin or items to deal with it.
The people of Golarion do have the ability to create vaccines, but they get expensive and have varying levels of effectiveness.
Regarding the disease ...
If Nubnonk can provide the Fulu (+2 status bonus), and if Billy can Treat Disease this evening (+2 circ bonus), and we buy a 3gp Antiplague potion (+2 item bonus), those would all stack for a whopping +6.
Question for GMAndrewW (since my Gameplay post was coming out way too long): Can we make a Society check on a) the elf in Billy's vision, b) Dieral Myrnese, or c) the Harrow Barrow? Or all of them?
Wondering if Dieral is the elf in the vision?
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I threw together a very rough loot sheet to get us started.
If GM could throw it in the campaign header, that would be access for everyone even simpler.
Regarding the disease ...
If Nubnonk can provide the Fulu (+2 status bonus), and if Billy can Treat Disease this evening (+2 circ bonus), and we buy a 3gp Antiplague potion (+2 item bonus), those would all stack for a whopping +6.
Bear in mind the antiplague item bonus wont stack with the item bonus from a resilient rune.
Question for GMAndrewW (since my Gameplay post was coming out way too long): Can we make a Society check on a) the elf in Billy's vision, b) Dieral Myrnese, or c) the Harrow Barrow? Or all of them?
Wondering if Dieral is the elf in the vision?
Sure, go ahead.
I threw together a very rough loot sheet to get us started.
If GM could throw it in the campaign header, that would be access for everyone even simpler.
Done
Bear in mind the antiplague item bonus wont stack with the item bonus from a resilient rune.
Ah, true enough. But a net of +5 is still pretty good!
I threw together a very rough loot sheet to get us started.
Thanks for setting that up, Nubnonk. Definitely useful.
I also love The Vision, but I probably still love The Empty Throne more. Any takers?
Regarding The Vision, Billy will definitely throw his fedora in the ring because with the card, he'd be at +18 to +21 in all 4 magic traditions -- not sure anyone would be that high. On the other hand, if the idea is to spread the wealth, then it makes sense for Nubnonk to have it, so 2 of us can be in the high-teens for IDs.
Because the Crown of Chaos background gives Billy a huge advantage when drawing a Crowns card, I'll make a harder push for any upcoming Crowns cards.
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Speaking of that, GMAndrewW, regarding the following reaction from the Crown of Chaos background...
Chaotic Destiny: (fortune)
Trigger: You fail a saving throw during a combat
Frequency: Once per day
Effect: Chaos intervenes on your behalf at the last instant as you fail a saving throw. Draw a harrow card and reroll the saving throw you failed. You must take the result of the reroll, but if you drew a card from the suit of Crowns, improve the result by one degree of success.
When it says "Draw a harrow card", is that from my current deck consisting of 1 card?
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No, that talking about a regular Harrow deck. Ignore any individual cards you have received as part of the adventure.
Welcome back stateside, Slick! Hope you had a good holiday.
Thanks. The trip went off without a hitch except for a couple of sprints across airports to make very tight connections.
I'm not sure I'd describe it as a holiday though. I split my time every year between California and Europe with a shorter trip to Australia to visit my family. I'll be here until the end of October, then back to Europe in time to catch a flight to Australia where I will spend November before returning back to Europe. Next year, we rinse and repeat.
Since we're likely to be working this AP together for a few years, you'll regularly see me drop off the radar for 24-48 hours when I take these long plane rides.
I have 198 gold, so there's that.
I can also do a Harrowing and Reading the Signs to get a Shields card and have a 1 in 3 chance of doing so, which will boost my Fort Save...
Slick is trained in the Arcane tradition and can cast such spells from a scroll if need be. Of the scrolls in question, probably Heroism is the one most useful to him.
Fine with me if Slick takes the scroll, but don't you need Trick Magic Item to cast from such a scroll?
As for the other scrolls, yeah, maybe sell as loot? Billy has Trick Magic Item to cast Quench (don't think any of us are trained in Primal spells), but we prob don't need it with Dramiil's Decanter of Endless Water.
I had definitely forgotten that we could hold five cards as a hand for a single invested item. That's awesome.
Billy, do you want to roll off for the Vision? And does anyone else want in on the action? (Noting that we can always switch things around.)
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Slick: that's cool that you're able to split your time like that. At least, hopefully it's a good thing.
Selling the Quench scroll is a good idea.
Fine with me if Slick takes the scroll, but don't you need Trick Magic Item to cast from such a scroll?
Nah, Slick isn't just a pretty face with a big sword, he's had some arcane sorcerer training as well. He has access to the Cast a Spell activity for the Arcane spell list.
Aw, crap. Heroism isn't an Arcane spell; it's Divine and Occult. Looks like someone else will have to cast it on him.... like, say, Billy, who's good with both those traditions.
I think that, because of his archetypes, Nubnonk is trained in the Occult spellcasting tradition. He has innate spells from the occult tradition.
He also technically has message and ghost sound as innate arcane cantrips from the Messenger's Ring and Cloak of Elvenkind respectively, though I don't know if that confers any training.
I think that, because of his archetypes, Nubnonk is trained in the Occult spellcasting tradition. He has innate spells from the occult tradition.
From his profile, it appears that Nobnonk's occult spells are all innate and provided by feats of the Loremaster archetype. Being innate, you get to use the Cast a Spell activity to cast those spells, but only those spells; apparently it doesn't give one the Cast a Spell activity for an entire magical tradition.
Looks like Billy with Occult from his Bard class, and Divine from his Sorcerer dedication, can use Cast a Spell for the entire spell list of each of those traditions. It also looks like Dramiil gets access to Cast a Spell for the Occult tradition from his Psychic class.
Quench is Primal, so no one can cast it. Heroism is divine and occult, so Billy and Dramiil can cast it (on Slick, right? :). Slow and Telepathic Bond are both arcane and occult, so Dramiil, Slick and Billy can cast them.
Of the four scrolls, I suspect that Heroism is likely the only one that has any real chance of being cast, assuming we come across a situation where those +2 status bonuses to all one's rolls is worth throwing away 150gp of loot.
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Slick: that's cool that you're able to split your time like that. At least, hopefully it's a good thing.
It's mostly a good thing ... except for his time in California, he has to deal with the likes of me, from time to time. We used to work together, back in the 90s/00s, and friends ever since.
Billy, do you want to roll off for the Vision?
Sure, let's do that. I realized it's actually slightly more helpful for someone who doesn't have Esoteric Lore, since the 1/day activation gives others something you kinda already have as a Thaum.
Maybe Billy will start off with it, and as you said, we can definitely share it around depending on who winds up making more of these types of checks. Sound good?
As for the scrolls, Billy is happy to cast Heroism on Slick when we know we're heading into combat. As for Primal, Billy has Trick Magic Item, so he'll have a good chance at casting anything Primal we're likely to find. For a low-level spell like Quench, it would be automatic. But still, we don't need that one, thanks to Dramiil.
Regarding Thievery, Billy is expert with a +17 (thanks to his Archaeologist dedication). I think Slick is also trained. And sounds Nubnonk can be better than all of us with his temp Thievery? (thought he posted something like that, but can't find it now)
Aha, tricksy that. I'm enjoying the Thaumaturge class so far, but it definitely draws all of its magic from items, then. That's appropriate.
Nub also has Trick Magic Item and training in all four magical tradition skills. Think of him like a swiss army knife that can turn two of its functions into extra specialized tools each day.
I posted the aside about his temp Thievery OoC in the main thread. He's got a +21, but it's usually a +17.
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It's awesome to have such a long friendship like that. The first time I looked at a friend and realized that we could measure our friendship in decades, it was a special thing.