GM Jhaeman's PFS1 # 1-03 (#31) "Sniper in the Deep" (Inactive)

Game Master Jhaeman

General Notes:

I try to post every day to keep things moving, and if you can keep a similar pace, that would be great. We all have real life interruptions of course, so if you can't post and we're in the middle of something like a combat, please give me bot instructions or I'll assume your PC does Total Defense.

Please place a good array of information in your character header. Knowing your PC's armor class, Perception mod, Initiative mod, etc., saves me a lot of time when doing posts. If you need help figuring out how to format that, we can help you. I don't keep track of your character's hit points, expended spells, etc., so please update your tagline when you take damage or expend resources.

If you're new to Pathfinder, Pathfinder Society, or play-by-post, you are very welcome! Just let me know--I'm always happy to help, and we have a great community here..

If you want to earn extra GM love, posting a full character sheet in your profile is great. That way I can look stuff up and answer my own "how did they do that?" questions. Related, if you have some crazy weird or complicated build and want to explain anything, here's a good place.

You'll need a picture of your character for the grid scenes.

Finally, role-playing is good! Please give your PC some personality and engage with the other PCs and NPCs. I'll gently move us along if we're dwelling too much in one part of the scenario.

Any questions, ask away!

Included are some in-between adventure equipment that my character is purchasing. None of it is specifically useful to a nautical adventure. ;)

Scrolls: Mirror Image (150 gold), Vanish (25 gold).

Potions: Mage Armor x2 (100 gold)

Blood boiling pills x2 (150 gold)

Bandolier (.5 gold), rations, 3 days (1.5 gold), scroll case (1 gold), scroll box (5 gold).

Total cost to be deducted from starting gold is 433 gold. His starting gold is now 5'749 gold.

Great start to the RP! I'm grinning. We'll wait another 24 hours or so for Calabaza Blanca and then get started with the briefing.

I don't know if I've ever GM'd a scenario with so many animal companions/familiars--should be interesting! I will flag for everyone that I do take their presence seriously--by that, I mean that I do have them roll saves vs area effect spells, I count them for the purposes of spells that affect a limited number of creatures (like teleport), and have them be subject to the same environmental effects/hazards (heat, cold, drowning, etc.) as anyone else. I know some GMs sort of handwave or forget about animal allies, so I just want everyone to be aware up front so there's no surprises down the line.

@The Rock: Re: Purchases: great, thanks.

Wow did I forget how complicated this character would become if I stacked two AP credits on without playing in between :)

I am looking at pre-game purchases now.

Builds like this are much better in PbP than live as tracking your three pools (KI, Panache and Luck) are a piece of cake to manage in the tagline of your character. This is good as you will be constantly be spending and regaining points as you play.

On reflection there is certainly some immediate/swift action congestion in this build. Having choice in your actions (and more endurance in your build) is often a good thing IMO. :)

Luck and Panache are a single pool. I think all classes with one of those abilities (Grit also) describe how they combine.

Sleuth

Makes book-keeping a little more simple.

Polly is a sometimes-participant in combat. She mainly spams Guidance. Once per day she can let one character roll twice for initiative and take the best roll.

Assume she'll do that for our bard when we face any sort of "boss fight".

Good point there about the Luck and Panache being part of the same pool. It is great when someone else notices something you missed. Thanks. :)

I have a couple of mouser PCs ;)

Neither as high level as Calabaza yet though.

Do I need to post pre-game purchases? Do you usually record them on chronicle sheets?

It sounds like we may have a split party, with part of the group follow Hestram's orders to leave immediately and part of the group having breakfast, a seance, etc. I love splits, and I'm definitely not one of those GMs who insists everyone stay together all the time. For clarity though, could I please have everyone nominate which of the following two groups you're in:

Group A: Staying behind for 1 hour.

Group B: Leaving immediately.

Thanks!

@Calabaza: I think posting pre-game purchases is a good idea for transparency. I can record them on Chronicles (but it's not a requirement).

@The Rock: Yes, I assume PCs begin any scenario with spells prepared from the previous day (especially since some start in media res).

Sell old armor to buy +2 mithral chain shirt
Buy wands of barkskin, bless weapon and see invisibility
Upgrade Belt of Dex to +4

Calabaza would be group B, and follow directions.

Group A. Breakfast is an important part of the day.

Definitely Group A. Defying Hestram's outrageous orders is reason enough. You cannot order Mother Nature around! :)

F#*@ Hestram.

Malachi has his spells and Besmara don't care if he prays or not, so he'll go with group B.

Bought an Oil of Bless Weapon to replace what he used on the last adventure.

Thanks everyone!

For now, we'll feature "Group B" in the Gameplay thread. "Group A" is welcome to RP amongst themselves in this thread for now to represent being an hour behind. Once everyone's back together, we'll adjust accordingly.

@GM Jhaeman - Roughly how long a walk is it to the docks from the Grand Lodge? My character has Transport via Plants ability as part of his archetype so we might be able to catch up sooner. :)

He can bring along himself, his AC and Vina with one use of this ability. :)

@The Rock: I don't imagine there's a lot of trees down by the docks, and Vina wanted to spend an hour to do a seance anyway, so I'm just going to assume Group B's timeline is one hour ahead of Group A's for now, but that will very probably change before too long.

@GM Jhaeman - Understood. My character is praying for spells while Vina is doing her seance. :)

As The Rock prays and Vina conducts a seance, an aide unobtrusively lays a rolled scroll near each person.

Actually Vina is also praying for spells. It looks like meditation though:

"A druid must spend 1 hour each day in a trance-like meditation on the mysteries of nature to regain her daily allotment of spells."

The seance may come later as it will take an additional hour. If there is no time in the module for a seance, the previous seance's effect will still be in effect (24 hours duration).

Vina focuses on her meditation, ignoring the scroll and the being that carried it. There will be time for more reading afterwards, but this pre-dawn time was for herself, her feelings towards Kortos Island and the Inner Sea, and her current place in the cosmos.

Reality is like an onion. It has many layers. The magical, the natural, the ethereal, and many more. You can live your whole life looking at the outside of the onion and be fine. Some like to see the other layers, so they peel them, one by one. Some go right to the middle with non-subtle means, but those are usually ready to shed some tears, as they know they're using a knife to cut into the onion directly...

The Rock continues with his meditations as well his patience curbing his natural sense of curiosity. Everything in the proper time and place.

One boon of Mal's that I want to draw the party's attention to: Unparalleled Supplies.

This lets the party reroll damage dice, up to a total of 7 dice across the course of the adventure. It can be used on spell or weapon damage.

I'm happy for any of you to use this at any time, no need to ask. I track the available used in Mal's header as "Supplies".

@Malachi: Neat! I've never heard of that one before.

It's from one of the Exchange faction cards, I'll dig it out :)

ETA: seasons 8, 9 and 10 (possibly earlier as well)

^Quite correct.

Now we just need some big damage dice to re-roll and then we are talking.
Perhaps a vital striking barbarian with a great axe or something. Go big or go home. :)

@Malachi: Neat! I've never heard of that one before.

My ratfolk rogue also have it. It's great to reroll bad sneak attacks.

Mal uses a (d12) lucerne hammer when not natural attacking ;)

^Nice!

And they say that size (of your dice) does not matter. ;)

One boon of Mal's that I want to draw the party's attention to: Unparalleled Supplies.

This lets the party reroll damage dice, up to a total of 7 dice across the course of the adventure. It can be used on spell or weapon damage.

I'm happy for any of you to use this at any time, no need to ask. I track the available used in Mal's header as "Supplies".

I just realized... so do I! With 7 too. Remember, it works on spell and weapon damage.

Maybe next time wait for your backup before threatening the people in the bar? :)

The young treant stretches his roots further out, extending his branches wide. Closing his eyes, his bark shifts ever so slightly as he relaxes his face, stretching it out to such an extent that it effectively disappears, leaving him to look like a normal oak tree.

disguise, pose as scenery: 1d20 + 3 + 8 ⇒ (17) + 3 + 8 = 28

Two birds land on opposite branches, singing in the increasing morning light...

I have to admit, I'm a little bit pissed, both at players for splitting the party, and the GM for allowing it. I don't feel that's how PFS is supposed to work.

I have to admit, I'm a little bit pissed, both at players for splitting the party, and the GM for allowing it. I don't feel that's how PFS is supposed to work.

It's the first time in my entire PFS experience since 2008 that I see a scenario that penalizes casters for memorizing spells in the morning. So take your anger somewhere else, to be honest.

I don't think it is unreasonable for casters to want to prepare their spells in the morning. The only character (not person, character) that was being unreasonable was VC Hestram.

As for splitting the party it was unnecessary but it was done. For some inexplicable reason half the party felt the need to rush ahead without waiting for the casters to finish their spell preparations. You can hardly fault the GM for allowing that to happen. :)

In the end any three half-decently built PCs should be able to wipe the floor with a scenario one encounter. So I doubt it will matter that much either way.

@Calabaza
It's OK, every once in a while players go off the rails (notably in the interest of RP) and if we had to split the party, the first encounter is the one to do it in. And like Rock said, they are usually a cake walk. Just roll with it.

Also, I want to make sure you know I have no issue with your threatening them with the guards, Kit just has a snarky personality.

Calabaza Blanca wrote:

I have to admit, I'm a little bit pissed, both at players for splitting the party, and the GM for allowing it. I don't feel that's how PFS is supposed to work.

It's the first time in my entire PFS experience since 2008 that I see a scenario that penalizes casters for memorizing spells in the morning. So take your anger somewhere else, to be honest.

Since when do you have to memorize spells before the adventure? What GM has ever enforced that?

They are just RPing the fact that they would have memorized spells that would not be useful to an underwater expedition and would want to reallocate their spells when the nature of the mission is discovered.

Am I right?

My character stopped to pray because it was time to pray. Divine characters should be devout IMO. If there was an immediate threat or need he would have delayed his prayer but tracking down a lead on a magical doohickey hardly qualifies as a real emergency. :)

Same. My character also gets her spells in the morning AND she needs an extra 1-hour seance to fuel her spirit ability.

@Calabaza: prepared casters must memorize spells each DAY, which can be several times per adventure, just so you know. Sometimes I forget that some of us don't all have the same level of experience playing this game. If this was the source of why you are 'pissed', then unfortunately it's how the game works. Sorcerers and oracles don't have to prepare spells and have a fixed 'spells known' array.

Please, don't equate "a little bit pissed," with angry. It's nowhere near that severe.

Prepared casters only need to prepare spells to replace those they have cast the day before.

I have been playing PFS since season 4, and I'm a 5-star GM.

We go into adventures assuming you've had your spells prepared in advance. There are going to be adventures where you don't get any prep time. Heck, I hope I'm not spoiling much, but there's a scenario where you are attacked during the briefing, and it's a nasty fight. If you go into that assuming the prepared casters have no spells, it will be a wipe.

As for priorities? I operate under the assumption we do what Venture Captains tell us to, when they tell us to.

Understood.

I don't really believe in jumping to the exact orders of the VC at all costs especially when they are obviously being arbitrary and stupid (like in this case). Considering the amount of spicy individuals (read w**kers) in leadership I think this is a very good policy.

Now I understand that opinions among players and characters may vary. :)

Yeah... RP-wise it's a perfectly valid approach too. I'm just trying to limit Vina's metagamey knowledge of Hestram a bit... to suspend disbelief... otherwise based on his reputation most Pathfinders would probably just flatly tell him to kindly bug off! lol

Heck, I hope I'm not spoiling much, but there's a scenario where you are attacked during the briefing, and it's a nasty fight. If you go into that assuming the prepared casters have no spells, it will be a wipe.

I know this one. Or at least one scenario where this happens, there may be more. Calabaza is dead right about the one I'm thinking of.

There are multiple conceits in PFS, necessary for the functioning of a shared campaign. One of them, imho, is that PCs are "ready for action" at the start of the scenario regardless of whatever ridiculous circumstance they find themselves in. (Many early scenarios begin in media res and you get a scant briefing as a flashback scene only).

So I don't think it was at all necessary to take time out to pray for spells, or even just to pray for that matter. By the same token it doesn't vex me at all. Unless this is one of the early season outliers the characters who are present at the tavern will deal with the situation.

@GM Jhaeman: since we haven't gone into encounters yet, I can drop out if this would help you guys speed things up...

@Malachi - From a purely RP standpoint it is time to pray when it is time to pray. This is how faith/religion works for the truly faithful baring some sort of immediate emergency. Faith can be inconvenient at times, otherwise what value does it have?

I think that some people are making a little too much of this split in the party. There is no need to drop out or worry too much about this encounter. It will all work out and the party will be reunited soon enough. :)