[PFS2] 1-13 Devil at the Crossroads (GM Watery Soup) (Inactive)

Game Master Watery Soup

Please post the following information:

Player Name (optional):
Character Name (required):
Character PFS number (required):
Character Faction (optional):
Character Level (required):
Downtime Instructions (optional):

Slides are up. Please fill in Slide 2 with your preferred icon in default marching order, Perception modifier, and Initiative specifying your default exploration activity.

Also, let me know if you have GM glyphs or anything else that gives extra Hero Points.

Player Name (optional):B Viggers
Character Name (required):Khaul Irontores
Character PFS number (required): 100387-2002
Character Faction (optional): Vigilant Seal
Character Level (required):6
Downtime Instructions (optional):Crafting (assurance, expert, 6.4gp I thinbk)

Player Name (optional): Dave Chua
Character Name (required): Farnguy
Character PFS number (required): 196157-2007
Character Faction (optional): Verdant Wheel
Character Level (required): 5
Downtime Instructions (optional): Herbalism Lore

Player Name: Warah
Character Name: Nal Bagura
Character PFS number: 289224-2001
Character Faction: Horizon Hunters
Character Level: 5
Downtime Instructions: Underworld Lore

Player Name (optional): PaleDim
Character Name (required): Arfsnarf Ah’sneeze
Character PFS number (required): 272301-2001
Character Faction (optional): Horizon Hunters
Character Level (required): 6
Downtime Instructions (optional): Earn Income (Fortune Telling Lore)

I hope Clacky rock gives you a bonus for your day job!

Indeed :)

Player Name (optional): kuey
Character Name (required): Zhao Kang
Character PFS number (required): 215076-2002
Character Faction (optional): Grand Archive
Character Level (required): 6
Downtime Instructions (optional):
(Kang is Field-Commissioned, so has 12 days of DT. He had earlier spent 1 DT to start crafting a scroll of darkvision, 3rd rank)
3DT: scroll of darkvision (3rd) (spend 15gp)
Auto-success with Assurance in Crafting L5 DC20 (2gp/day)
7DT: scroll of darkvision (3rd) (15+14gp) spend 1gp to buyout (total cost 16gp)
2DT: start crafting scroll of dispel magic (3rd)

Sorry took a while to get ready. Kang is levelled up.

Alright, we have 6 in Gameplay and 5 in Discussion. Mindartis, can you post your signin information here as soon as you can?

@Zhao how do you get to do crafting at L5 rather than L4? I thought we did downtime tasks at our level -2. Inquiring crafters are keen to get more coin!

Under the organised play guidelines for downtime, task level for Earn Income is at Level - 2. (In a non-PFS game, it would be set by the GM based on what’s available in the settlement you’re in so I guess PFS needed a way to standardise.) For crafting, however, it just follows standard crafting rules where you’re limited to items of your level.

It’s debatable whether crafting is worth it though, compared to earn income. There is the 4 days of DT to start crafting an item for which you get nothing out of. That’s why I went with field commission to get 12DT but losing the school items has been painful. But it fits my concept for Kang, to be a walking utility box, so let’s see how far I can take it. :)

Oh.. sorry, I saw the 2gp/day and was thinking that was your earned income. A nice tidy sum indeed.

Khaul does crafting for character reasons (and to keep his shield in good nick), although it has come up as a useful skill in enough adventures now that it was worthwhile as a skill in its own right.

It’s debatable whether crafting is worth it though, compared to earn income.

The math revolves are the answers to two questions. (1) What's the level of the item you're crafting, relative to your Earn Income level? (2) What's the probability that you would spend cash to buy the item you would craft?

If the answers are (1) high (at least EI Level+1, preferably EI Level+2) and (2) high (at least 75%, preferably 90%), then Crafting is amaaaaazing. If the answers are low on one or both counts, then Crafting sucks.

(Note that if you have the HH boon that allows Earn Income at Character Level, you never want to Craft unless you get access to a formula higher than Character Level - you can just EI at CL and buy it outright without the 4 days of lead time.)

And, needless to say, Crafting items you don't need is a waste. There's a non-obvious aspect to this, which is that Crafting takes a long time (short Crafting suffers from the lead time problem, ideally your Crafting takes a whole level, 30-40 days of downtime). This means that by the time you finish Crafting something, your Character Level is going up or has gone up, and your items are now CL-1. You'll have a level or two to use it before it becomes obsolete and underpowered.

Crafting is really fun and in-character for a lot of builds, but it's not grossly overpowered. I've got several crafters - my alchemist (Alchemical Crafting), my investigator (Magical Crafting worn items), and my witch (Magical Crafting potions). If PFS offered a larger variety of things to do with Downtime, I'd probably stop crafting with all three.

I'm awarding a Hero Point to Kang for quite possibly the best outcome of Glitterdust that I've ever seen - and they weren't even invisible! You negated not 1, but 2 crits!

Thank you, Kang! We'll throw you a party with glitter bombs.

Woohoo, that turns out better than expected!

I'm going on a camping trip this weekend, so I won't be able to post from Saturday until later on Sunday.

Sorry work got overwhelming then down with the flu. Going to try to catch up now.

Of course, it would be an awfully short scenario if the first suspect it presents us is the guilty party, but Nal's super pissed about the danger her team is in. Mother hen/bear syndrome.

Sorry work got overwhelming then down with the flu. Going to try to catch up now.

That's always rough. Hope you're feeling better!

We won't tell your spouses![/b]

Hahaha! How would such a rod-up-her-shirt woman get multiple spouses?

I'll be on vacation from 9 to 22 Dec. Will be checking in when I can, but I might miss posts. Will try to leave botting instructions, but that could be challenging for Kang whose schtick is to be very versatile. :P

We'll just use up all your best spells in the next fight and leave you with cantrips for the rest of the scenario. ;D

Don't forget all his scrolls that he has painstakingly crafted since level 1. :P

And all his infused reagents, too! :)

Apologies for not posting recently. It has been a busy week in school with Finals approaching.

Good luck on your finals. Take the time you need. Catch up on sleep, too. ;)

Alright, I've extrapolated on your influence successes, and fast forwarded you through a lot of investigations about Nordvick, Annavinia, and Dehliana. If you can't follow it, I've used Selik's speech to summarize.

"I want to have another gander at that picture too. Someaut tells me there is more here than is seen on the surface."

I'm going to use GM fiat to veto this. Your characters really have no reason to be re-examining rooms that, to your characters' knowledges, were very thoroughly searched.

Frankly, it's true, you missed something (there were multiple nat 1s on the Perception checks in that room). But, it's not unrecoverable. The scenario provides one official mechanism for getting the information in another way, plus, I've planned a backup to the backup.

In character, maybe if the whole house were searched with no sign of the artifact, characters might go back through rooms they've searched before, and I'd roll a second Perception check for each room, but barring that, I hope you'll trust me to get you all the information you need.

Makes sense to me.

Oh, I was more wondering if there were other relatives of the inn's founder kicking around. Blood of the family wouldn't have to have been our resident sorcereress.

Arfsnarf's idea of drawing out the vipers is great. Let's do it!

Nal opens the door, dropping her backpack into the doorway. Well, this is unexpected and not covered in the scenario. I'm going to say that it does work - if the reaction triggers, the door is propped open - but that it is difficult terrain to enter the room. In addition, I'm going to make a DC 15 flat check, and on a success, one non-magical item in your backpack is going to take 3d8 damage (Material Statistics). Does that sounds fair? We can discuss in Discussion if you have a counterproposal; the reaction is triggered by someone entering the room, and nobody has tried to enter the room this round.

The door is colored green to indicate it is opened. If anyone moves into the room, it will partially close, and I'll color it yellow.

Nal, throwing a splash weapon into an unoccupied square would only deal splash damage to adjacent squares (1 for a lesser bomb). If you get permission from Khaul to take the splash damage, we can retcon your target to one of the actual snakes. Or, you can revise two actions.

Easier question first: If Khaul is okay with 1 splash damage, Nal will aim directly for a viper. If not, she still grab the alchemist's fire, but back up one step to the north instead of throwing it.

Now about dropping the bag in the doorway: I had forgotten that Nal was carrying the sack of flour. She would've dropped that before grabbing the alchemist's fire. If the sack of flour was big enough that she'd feel confident it could prevent the door from slamming shut, that's what she'd use. If it's too small, we'll go with your proposal for handling damage to one non-magical item in her pack. Sound good?

Also, I will be traveling Dec. 21-28. I may be able to post in the middle of that, but certainly not on the 21st or 28th. Feel free to bot me if needed.

Happy with splash damage

If you use the hyperlinks in my GM profile, please be aware that I have picked up the low tier table of this game, so there are now two 1-13s that I am GMing. This is Table 1 / high tier.

I'm going to be on the road for a few days. Please bot as required.

If we are going back into the room and he is able, will likely try to use religion to finish the haunt.

I, uh, don't think I've given out any Hero Points (maybe one?).

Nominations are accepted, and I think I'm going to hand out 3 or 4. Heck, I'll hand out more if people give specific reasons why each character deserves a Hero Point!

Khaul deserves one for bravely going through the door first.

Khaul, for being our meat shield. Arfsnarf for the smart idea to draw out the snakes and deal with the haunt later.

Khaul and Arfsnarf as well.

Alright, Hero Points to Khaul and Arfsnarf, plus Nal and Farnguy for nominating.

Thanks for the Hero Point!

BTW, I'm willing to have Nal try to pick the lock on the chest. After checking for traps, of course. It would be ridiculous if it would even be possible for a 5th level rogue to succeed, considering the prize supposedly within, but who knows?

Also, I'm curious about why Zirzip became a boar to watch the supply wagon coming in. Was it the investigator that was his initial interest, and we just happened to be there? After the scenario is over, GM Watery Soup, would you like to share some behind-the-curtain information?

I can probably share some behind the curtains information now.

Overall, one of the things that's at least rare and possibly unique is that this scenario wasn't set out to be writen as a PFS scenario. It was the winner of a contest.

As such, there's a lot of backstory, and, honestly, probably a little too much. NPCs in PFS scenarios typically have limited exposition - nobody can count on a player having played certain scenarios in the past, or playing certain scenarios in the future. So, NPC stories are typically written to be started and ended in a 4-hour block. Each of the NPCs in this scenario has background and motivation more consistent with an Adventure or Adventure Path. It's very complex.

This is one of the reasons that the scenario runs long. I "speed ran" the seance at the beginning - when I played it (over VTT), it was 2 hours and 30 min in before we started exploring the house. (We ended up skipping 1 combat and still running 6 hours and 30 min, and on a non-pandemic weeknight would have burned through a lot of favors from our significant others playing until 12:30 am local time.)

So, going back to Zirzip specifically, his motivation isn't entirely given beyond what I've given out. In various places, he's implied to be tethered to the house, so I don't really know how he gets out that far. He's definitely looking for people capable of breaking the curse, so that's a possible motivation. In the text, he is one of the boars, which doesn't make sense since most people defeat the boars.

But Zirzip's main purpose is that he can guide you to how to break the Covetous Flame, he's the planned backup plan for the undiscovered instructions, that I hinted about earlier. If you dismiss him / kill him, I can also use Selik to steer you towards the necessary path.

Thanks! That kind of info makes the story richer. Much appreciated. :)

Anybody have a preference for which way to handle it? Nal's preferences are:

1. Use the other people's blood to destroy it. (Because too much power corrupts even the best-intentioned people. And why draw fresh blood when you've already got some?)
2. Use Annavinia's blood to destroy it.
3. Put it in the box and take them both to the Grand Lodge.

She'd recommend taking the box to the Grand Lodge, no matter what.

Arfsnarf voted for #3 in gameplay.

#3

A note on Kang's Recall Knowledge:

One of the quibbles I have with PF2 is the way that Recall Knowledge works for Rare and Unique creatures, especially boss-level creatures. The Ascendant is a Unique Creature 8, meaning that the DC for its Recall should be 34 (Kang would need a nat 20 to merely Succeed).

I consider this unreasonable and against the spirit of the game, so I'm using a variant rule where Recall will give general information about the class in general at lower DCs, some more specific information at higher DCs, and if somehow someone manages to hit DC 34, I'll give actual unique information. In this case, I've given some of the resistances and weaknesses that I vaguely recall from other devils, but not all of them, which I think is consistent with hitting an Easy DC.

This isn't exactly a discussion point, just a FYI. We can discuss after the game if anyone objects.

No objection here.

"Yer may be wantin to put the candles in the box. Ta put this to a quick end." he mutters.

Good point. Where is the box and where is the candelabra?

That sounds like a very reasonable interpretation of recall knowledge.

Khaul wrote:

"Yer may be wantin to put the candles in the box. Ta put this to a quick end." he mutters.

Good point. Where is the box and where is the candelabra?

You're kind of on a different plane or different reality. The box and candelabra will be there when you return.