A raven who had been perched on the back of a chair when you came in bobs his head and opens his beak. "I am Brennus, quite likely the only sorcerous talking raven you'll ever likely meet."
He spreads his wings and gives an odd approximation of a bow. "I have a particular... fascination with arcane lore and magical artifacts, which is the part of dungeon delving I find particularly interesting. I'll leave the chopping to you."
A raven who had been perched on the back of a chair when you came in bobs his head and opens his beak. "I am Brennus, quite likely the only sorcerous talking raven you'll ever likely meet."
He spreads his wings and gives an odd approximation of a bow. "I have a particular... fascination with arcane lore and magical artifacts, which is the part of dungeon delving I find particularly interesting. I'll leave the chopping to you."
Nice to meet you! Menenclair smirks. A sorcerous raven's certainly something I've never heard of. No disrespect intended, of course
Since Caks declared actions can’t happen till whatever’s in the box appears… I’m going to delay his actions. Barry is up.
I hate to be a PITA here... but it's important that you read and comprehend the post I'm making. I've spent all morning asking people to revise posts because they didn't follow the text in the original post... Things are slow enough in PbP without having to constantly revise and re-request things.
As a DM I'm responsible for enforcing the rules, and keeping the game moving forward, and I'm sure it's frustrating for us all to have to constantly repost... so I would implore you all to please pay attention to the details of not only my posts... but your characters abilities and spells. Sometimes there are small but important details that also have to be backtracked to enforce. I'll try to make things clearer. Would it help for me to only BOLD actions when they are required of the players?
As previously mentioned, this is a very RAW (Rules as Written) game so let's just pay a little more attention going forward.
I'll be able to post later today, but wanted to address the material component question.
It doesn't make sense to me that you can treat a hunk of Magic resistant cold iron like clay and just pinch off what you need as a material component... but I'm trying to run this as a RAW campaign. This is more a case of RNW (Rules Not Written), but I'm not the enemy of the characters so here is my judgement.
You've had the chunk of Cold Iron for a while and know how you intend to use it as a material component, so in the past you've had the chunk of Cold Iron molded into Ball bearings, Nails, and sharp-edged slices in advance and kept them in your component bag.
Even an expert blacksmith can't find a chunk of iron and magically make it into whatever shape is most useful in four seconds.
Does that make sense? You can still use it as a material component, but you can't just shave whatever shape you want off it.
That's nice of you to say it's been pre-shaped into different shapes, so thank you for that. It also makes the spell more flexible so can be more useful to fight skeletons and other things with damage type resistances in the future. I appreciate that, thanks, that's really cool.
I want to make clear I am not arguing with you now. For the sake of discussion, though, I think if you're trying to run a RAW campaign that in this case you're inserting your own homebrew canon into what is on the page.
Let's all make sure we're reading the same thing. The spell description says:
Needle Darts
PFS Note Any spells which require metal to function require the PC to be in possession of at least one chunk of that metal or an item made of that metal.You shape three needles out of a piece of metal in your possession and send them flying in a tight group toward one target. Make a spell attack roll against your target's AC. The needles deal 3d4 piercing damage and might cause bleeding. The needles impart any special properties of the metal that forms them; for instance, cold iron needles deal additional damage to creatures with weakness to cold iron. All the needles are made of the same metal, and the metal returns to you after the attack.
Going line by line, it (PFS, at least) requires you to have a chunk of metal. There is no requirement that the metal must be sharp or in any particular shape, the caster just has to have a chunk of metal.
"You shape three needles" is part of the spell description, as in it is describing what the magic does. It doesn't say "you must shape three needles", as in taking the time to craft 3 needles in the middle of a 2 dot action. If we're trying to imagine what can happen in the midst of combat I don't think a caster trying to make 3 sharp metal needles in a 4 second timespan makes sense. Even if I had a ball of clay or splintery chunk of wood I don't think I personally could make 3 sharp needles out of it in 4 seconds; hence magic.
The spell as described does piercing damage. There's no ambiguity about that, it's right in the description. Anything other than that is homebrew.
Personally, I like your interpretation that a spellcaster would have pre-prepared and can use Needle Darts to do multiple damage types. That's a good homebrew ruling and I would like to keep it because it benefits Rail. But you can't add requirements to a spell because you don't think the way it's described makes sense and still call it RAW.
I really hadn't intended to change the type of damage Needle Darts did, but to give the cold iron additional material components for other spells... such as Telekinetic projectile. I still intended Needle darts to do piercing as per the spell... so the only rule I'm really expanding is the make-up of the material component, not the function of each individual spell. Sorry about the confusion.
If it's easier, we'll just continue with the way the spell reads, and I can alter it in my imagination. In this case your normal damage killed the Gremlin, but it would have taken extra damage if needed.
Caks... can you move your token. I noticed you mentioned that you moved but didn't move on OBR.
I believe your speed is 25, but since the table is 3' high you would need to take an action to "Leap" up to get the "Off Guard" situation. The table is higher than Caks so it would have partial cover to melee attacks as it is up on a 3' tall table.
[ooc]Not that it matters much since you missed anyway. A reach weapon might nullify this cover.
I did move my token.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding.
Let's assume the table is 3 feet high.
P1 is on the table, and thus is still in the 5-foot cube.
Why would Caks need to leap if RAW, Caks can reach any part of that 5-foot cube.
By 'partial cover', I assume you mean 'lesser cover'? P1 isn't behind anything or anyone.
I don't know what to tell you. I've had to move you token manually the last two times you moved, but not anyone else. Perhaps you should sign out of OBR and back in. That might help.
Sometimes we have to project things into the game that are not specifically covered by the rules. I try to remain consistent with that. The reason I mentioned "leaping" was because if Caks wanted the creature to be flat-footed to him and get his extra damage he'd have to actually be able to reach him. Caks is barely able to see the top of the table as a small creature, and the creature might be at the limits of his reach. Imagine trying to hit something above your shoulder height with a small weapon... Hence, the cover penalty (Yes minor -1). Caks would still offer the Off-guard bonus to Barry it just doesn't make Physics sense in my mind.
If you notice Caks got off two attacks, so I didn't assume he lept on the table, just mentioned it as a possibility. I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but if we're going to debate every decision, I make the game is going to go longer than necessary. How did what I ruled affect the gameplay? Caks moved and got off two unsuccessful attacks just like he posted. I just ruled that the creature gets a +1 to his AC due to the size of the combatants. Caks can decide to attack using that adjustment or spend an action to get up on the table and get his sneak attack damage. It's a game of choices.
Is this in the rules??? Every possibility in combat can't possibly be covered in any rules set... If so, why have a GM? Nothing changed about what Caks attempted, I just preemptively mentioned that there would be a penalty. I don't think adding a little spice to an unusual situation is too much, but apparently it is???
I'm taking the weekend off the decompress... but I gotta admit it's not fun to have to argue everything :-(... especially when there are no real penalties to what we're arguing.
I've logged out of OBR. Waiting to log back in.
I'm not so much arguing about results, but, since you are a stickler for RAW, it is confusing when you go beyond RAW into real-world physics.
And, it makes it confusing to determine what our characters want to do if we know we can be blindsided by appeals to real-world physics.
I understand what you are saying... but did this have any effect on the game situation? You still did what you wanted to do, and I didn't blindside you I stated how I believed it will affect going forward. As I said there is no way to cover every situation in game rules and some things are as obvious to me from their omission as from their statement. There is no rule in the game about what to do if you are attacking something that would be difficult to reach... so I made a judgement, which you were informed of before it affected your actions.
If you all expect me to never make a judgement call, we're going to get paralyzed by not having a rule to follow. There isn't a rule in the game that says you can't walk around killing babies, but it makes sense.
You stated you moved up and attacked twice. I let you but told you that the target would not be off guard to you unless you somehow adjusted the height difference. If you were 8' tall this wouldn't apply. I also mentioned that as long as you were on the same level it would have soft cover. To me these make sense even if they aren't spelled out in the rules. it's impossible to make rules for every situation.
You should be in OBR now. Hopefully that will fix the issue. Anytime you can't get in just reach out on discord because I get a notice there, while if you ask here you might have to wait till I check things.
While Caks is not moving, I have moved Caks' token five feet south. Do you see it moved?
Thanks. It seems to be restored to functioning order...
I'm going to be unavailable to post till Wednesday.
Trade Show this week. I'll be AFK till Thursday at the earliest.
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40-XP for solving the Box
120-XP for defeating the Pugwampis
Caks... Barry... Celenton... You still with us?
Absolutely still here; Celenton was listening.
Truth be told, he needs the practice ;)
He will chime in shortly
Caks doesn't have the skills to get involved in these discussions.
Caks doesn't have the skills to get involved in these discussions.
Not sure what skills you need to give your opinion on what to do next?
I swear I wonder if my posts are even being read. You all have 3 potential leads provided by Shelia.
1) Find out what happened to Natalya
2) Find out what item she and her gang discovered
A) She belongs to a subset of Sczarni, theft probably involved
C) She disappeared - Sczarni are looking for her too.
D) Zograthy
1. Zograthy
2. Perhaps taken by Nyladese Slavers
3. Perhaps picked up by City Watch
Yeah, looks like we've got 2 votes for Zograthy right now and 1 each for the other 2. Though maybe people want to split up? I don't like splitting the party but we could talk it out.
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We should stay together and (1) question Zograthy, then (2) City Watch, then (3) Slavers.
We should stay together and (1) question Zograthy, then (2) City Watch, then (3) Slavers.
I like this sequence also
Sounds good to me.
Did anyone take the dagger or the ring from the puzzle box? I assume we're splitting the silver.
Could we just sell the items? They're not particularly exciting. Unless the Gentle Landing ring is a hint that we're going to be falling off of something later.
SB, I don't feel like entering a tent and talking to a conman falls under Exploration Activities. Even if it does, the GMG says
Characters can always drop out of a continual exploration activity to perform a discrete one
So even in our case where all the PCs have declared Exploration Activities (Rail is usually Investigating), we should always be able to say 'ok now my guy does X'. To me, Exploration Activities are supposed to help a DM adjudicate what a PC can be doing outside of an encounter so you can keep things running smoothly and know in your head what PCs are doing when you hit us with an ambush or something. For instance
Likewise, if a player says they’re looking for traps and keeping their shield raised and covering the group’s tracks, ask them which is most important to narrow down the activity.
It doesn't seem like it's supposed to limit what PCs can do in a declared scene, it's supposed to help the DM have a mental picture of the PCs states when they enter an encounter or know what level of information to provide to them as they move from scene to scene.
I'm not trying to be argumentative or complain about anything you're doing, I am here to learn the PF2E rules and think this is a good conversation to have. I understand we're trying to stick to RAW and I specifically want to do that so I can learn the rules but that's why I think we need to talk this out.
I can give it a try... but the moment everybody starts making perception checks every 6-seconds, I'm going back to the stricter rules. this is designed to keep everybody from doing all activities at every step of the way.
In this instance the trip to the area was definitely exploration mode, and RAW there are (3) modes, Encounter, Exploration, and Downtime, so this needs to be assigned somewhere. In this instance I gave you the information about the area due to the fact that you were in investigation mode and wouldn't have done so if you were in search mode. There isn't a "Discrete Action" mode so where, as a GM would you classify this action?
It's a quandary, and a difficult rule to adjuvate. I try to be consistent with the way I interpret this rule, as if we don't retain this consistency it's going to turn into one of the numerous other d20 games that require the DM to constantly adapt to changing conditions... i.e. all players trying to make a perception roll every time the scene changes.
I know it's just used as an example, but Ambushes are almost non-existent in PF2e. Leaving me to interpret what you are doing is what I'm trying to get away from. You, by nature investigate so I gave you information...
Given that we're 87sp ahead at the moment, let's have him give us both
Maybe the secrets of the Universe ... and then a tarot reading to help us find Natalia
I swear I wonder if my posts are even being read. You all have 3 potential leads provided by Shelia.
Maybe I should post one of these.
I will cease posting to Discussion since it isn't relevant.I guess 4 people got 21sp and Rail offered 1 of the extra 3 to the guy
I don't disagree with you I just figured we'd start with the cheapest option and work our way up.
Looks like our Healer might have "ghosted" on us. Do you want me to try and find a replacement or go with what we have?
I think we could try to go with what we have. Keep the story going forward.
I don't know if any of you were here for our earlier "Social Encounters" posts, but that's where we are now. I assumed that Rail was using "Make an Impression" to change the man's attitude from Unfriendly. You could also use deception or intimidate if that was the chosen path... though sometimes combining social skills can provide unexpected results. If one of you knew him he would have started out as indifferent.
Sounds good.
Could we roll Society now to see if we know him? If not in this scene since it's already going, how can we determine if we already know an upcoming NPC in the future?
TBH since the guy grabbed the vial out of Menenclair's hand it's probably justified for our fighter to grab him by the arm or something.
The Social Encounter is a little used and often misused part of PF2e.
Just ask if you know him, tell me your Society bonus, and I'll make a secret roll.
After re-reading the core book last night (3rd times the charm), I came across more info on Social Encounters. Looks like we need to roll initiative for that as well but can optionally use social skills to roll for that... and the rounds don't necessarily last 6-seconds or have three actions.
ie... "I'm first in initiative so I'm going to attempt a Diplomacy roll to Make an Impression". Since this takes one minute nothing else happens till that activity is completed... Well unless a meteor falls on the party or something else fun. Here is where the GM must also make a ruling as if someone decides it's time to attack that would certainly interrupt the 1-minute activity... but you guys can fight that out.
Going forward we'll use initiative in Social Encounters as well. It depends on the initiative order about grabbing vials and such. For instance, if Z goes before M I might have him make a Thievery roll or some such against M's Reflex DC to grab the vial.
There are multiple exits if you have a key... (Also known as a sharp blade) as this is a temporary tent set up in this weird market.
@Celenton… this seems more like an intimate than a diplomacy, especially with the whole armor beginning to deploy. Either make an intimidation check or change your approach and go with diplomacy.
@Brennus… noted. Let me know when if you want to jump in.
Celentons action takes 1 minute.
If I see a point he would, I will.
I'll get up a post tonight. Time got away from me yesterday.
Not trying to tell you all how to play your characters or anything, but it's sometimes best to let those who are best at something do the task, and others assist them.
Since every +1 in PF2e matters a lot... especially when chasing crits, it's often best to spend your action assisting someone else instead of everyone trying their hand. Especially for higher DC's.
Caks would need a distraction of some sort, or to go around behind the tent and try to cut his way in, then make a stealth roll against his Perception DC before the Thievery check. Also, keep in mind that if the item must be removed from a pocket the DC goes up by +5
In this case anyone who wished could make their intimidate check to aid Rail who has the best chance of being charming and increase his roll to try and boost the chances.
Sometimes your character trying to accomplish things they're not good at can be more detrimental than helpful. I make DC adjustments depending upon your characters actions, but there are still DC's that have to be exceeded in order to succeed.
Because of the Pickpocket feat, the DC does not go up by 5.
I will be completely offline this Friday through Monday.