☠ Season of Ghosts w/ DM rainzax ☠

Game Master rainzax

Kazuki has scored another ID on the strange creatures for the party...

@Kazuki: If you're taking suggestions, I'm curious about their saves.

Here's a Macro for the Spirit Calmers:

[ dice=Diplomacy to Calm Phantom (mental) vs Will DC (18)]1d20+X; 2d8[/dice]

I'll take the first d8 on a failure, or double them on a critical success.

=)

Don't forget your flat checks to target folks!

Concealment

Question:

Under which scenario are folks operating:

A) This combat taking place before "tomorrow's" Daily Prep
B) This combat taking place after "tomorrow's" Daily Prep

We'll see where our assumptions are at, and make a ruling.

=)

I assume this is before prep, since it happened before we completed 8 hours of rest.

I assumed it was before as we were attacked before our shifts ended.

Assumed before. Vekka is operating with the prior days spells still used up.

And in his sleepy fog-of-war Vekka forgets his dimensional assault spell. Doh! Next round.

Hero Point to Vekka for demonstrating how to properly do Concealment Flat Checks in his most recent combat post!

Wooo. I'm useful :P

I assumed it was before. Lan had not used any of his spell slots on the previous day.

Struggles to get 60-90 minutes consecutive prep time - perhaps this evening!

Will push along presently!

Good luck Kazuki!

Good luck Kazuki!

Thank you! I'll post a little bit later today. I have some chores to take care of and errands to run.

@Vekka

Going to save spellcasting to your initiative counts. 1-minute duration is mighty short outside of encounter mode.

If you have a 10-minute spell, you would have time to cast it well out of range of earshot and still have some duration remaining.

In general, I will let you know if you get a "free" round of prep!

Fair, I thought we might get into init quickly, given the tenseness and urgency of the situation. But yeah, let's wait until it really starts.

@Vekka,
Had the Scout Quest succeeded, you surely would have. Because it failed, there are too many unknowns. Just because you as a player have a Birds Eye view of the map, doesn’t mean you share that with your character!

(Indeed, you are going in blind, with no actionable info beyond what I intentionally-vaguely shared as a result of failed Scout Quest!)

@Kazuki,
Those trees on the map (lots of them) will likely fully block any ranged attacks made into the clearing. (I know you were trying to overcome volley but you might have thrown the baby out with the bath water here…)

If this changes your pre-encounter choices, please fix it in Gameplay and on the Map as soon as you can.

I may progress us forward this evening (6 or so hours from this post) so heads up!

No need for change. I think Vekka is positioned to rush in.

Can Kazuki see over the fallen tree?

Can Kazuki see over the fallen tree?

Yes.

GM Tip: Lots of info in the most recent combat post - you are advised to read it over a couple times at least!

=)

This is an FYI that I'll be away in nature next weekend, June 8-9. As this is a weekend I expect minimal disruption and i will return to resume posting Sunday evening (US/Pacific time).

This is one complicated encounter. Looks like we have multiple victory conditions, from stopping the ritual to killing the enemies first, to rousing Kazuki's mother to stop the ritual herself.

I didn't get a chance to ID the ritual's specifics. It may be faster for those with Religion or Occultism to shut it down than to kill the enemies first. We'll find out soon.

If we're going for killing, I suggest we focus on the underlings first - fewer chanters should slow down the ritual.

Waiting on one saving throw then will move us along!

Auntie Wu,
Blinded references Precise Senses which should help inform your Heal (◆◆) vs (◆◆◆) decision.

”May have to deal with you next…”

As an OOC note, I welcome Lan taking some damage. It seems odd, but Lan hasn't actually figured out what his pearly white aeon stone does yet, because he has yet to be damaged!

It looks like we might not make it to Vekka's turn before end-of-tonight (and I leave in the morning). If you want to bot him over the weekend, he was intended to shift to skill checks that could disable the ritual.

Activating our Bot Tree for Vekka!

➤Auntie Wu
Kazuki
Lan
➤Sigurd
Vekka

Advice on Botting Vekka? He mentioned disabling the ritual, but his skills are +3 Occultism & +2 Religion.

Also Sigurd is the current sacrifice? Zoudou needs to be debuffed before we can realistically damage her, her AC is high enough a -1 or -2 would help out. Maybe Zoudou could attempt to grapple her?

Well, from a purely practical perspective, Vekka (25' speed) can't reach the altar with enough actions to Disable, so I think we're definitely going off-script.

My two cents:

I think flanking is the most consistent way to get the -2 AC in general*, but that won't happen until at least next turn, and it requires two melee combatants. Vekka can move up and Spellstrike; the following turn, he can use Dimensional Assault (moving into place, getting a Strike in, AND recharging Spellstrike) and having two actions for Disable.

* Things like Demoralize and Fear are nice, but they only last one round, only give -1, and they require a roll (so generally 30-70% chance of success). Flanking gives -2 with no roll.

Going to leave these here for Lan:

Welp, time for me to do something dumb. Don't let my sacrifice go in vain.

If I actually survive, I'll spend an action to Point Out my location to Auntie Wu.

I'm half tempted to try to avoid death using my last Hero Point.

...but how many times are you going to roll 3 20s in a row?

Uh, I'll try to use it anyway.

Edit: I was Wounded 1 when Zoudou attacked. So the critical hit KO should take me to Dying 3 and then the last crit takes me to Dying 5. Not even Diehard would have helped.

Double Edit: Looks like important events have gone on. Should I start rolling up Sheela, GM?

Triple Edit: Hold on, GM and I are crunching Dying & Recovery Math!

Gameplay fixed - carry on!

Sigurd, how much Bulk are you carrying?

=)

Sigurd has 3 Bulk of equipment (assuming he is not holding the Katana or Shield, those are 1 Bulk each.)

OH NO!

If I can get to him, I can Lay on Hands for 12 HP, but that won't do much.

I'm still blind, but until the GM says otherwise, I can see him through the Wall, so I shouldn't need to Seek to find his body.

Lan has 1st level heals, too.

Vekka is going to be very reactionary this round, after witnessing the trauma.

The Party is Level Four now!

Let's take the weekend to update our characters!
Book One is nearly complete!

Coincidentally, I was playing around with Pathbuilder today and decided to finalize a level 4 Lan. Updated!

Sigurd all your links are busted!

These are the questions we had put together for Ugly Cute. Are there any we'd like to use here?

1. Did you see what happened to the other prisoners?
2. Do you know what the ritual is?
3. Do you know what this crimson fog is all about?
4. What is the ultimate goal of the entity that is orchestrating this uprising?
5. What is at least one super effective thing we can do to undermine their goal?
6. about Ugly Cute themselves - do they have a mission?
7. if Ugly Cute knows the whereabouts of Kazuki's mother?

Lan, Level 4 changes:

Class Feat: Fake It Till You Make It (gains skills when Assuming a Role)
Skill Feat: In Plain Sight (uses Deception instead of Stealth when sneaking in places where the Role isn't out of place)
Retrained Rank 1 spell: Wall of Shrubs -> Protector Tree
New Rank 2 spell: Resist Energy
New item purchase: ventriloquist's ring (+1 Deception)

Copy-pasting url links is hard.

When you are all ready, I’m going to step out of my “light handed” approach to GMing this sandbox, and instead not-so-gently urge the party to go deal with Mo Douqiu at the Cerluean Teahouse (W25) after reporting to one of the Town Leaders (party’s choice).

Quorum of three for Leader

This means a single Survival check puts us back in Willowshore, and go from there.

(After you interrogate the Acolyte, of course)…

At some point, you gotta nudge the players onto the railroad track.

Sounds like we should visit Matsuki on the Southern side?

1 vote for Old Matsuki.

No votes for Granny Hu.

@GM rainzax: Is the Wall of Ghosts still there?

These are the questions we had put together for Ugly Cute. Are there any we'd like to use here?

1. Did you see what happened to the other prisoners?
2. Do you know what the ritual is?
3. Do you know what this crimson fog is all about?
4. What is the ultimate goal of the entity that is orchestrating this uprising?
5. What is at least one super effective thing we can do to undermine their goal?
6. about Ugly Cute themselves - do they have a mission?
7. if Ugly Cute knows the whereabouts of Kazuki's mother?

Auntie Wu's proposed questions:

8. What is The Real?
(If the Wall of Ghosts is still there:)
9. What is the nature of the Wall? (As in: How does it work? What does it do? Is it mobile? Can we go around it in any way? Where does it begin and end? How thick is it?) (Okay, that's a lot for one question, I admit.)
10. How do we destroy the Wall?

Side note: The school year is ending, so the kids will be turning in their laptops this week. There'll be five of us sharing two laptops, one of which is a bit fickle with the internet. I should still be able to post daily, but feel free to bot me if needed.