@Morga: I know each player flavors their spells in their own way, so a spell cast by one PC may manifest very differently from another. For my part, when Autumnn casts Haunting Hymn, I'm just using the flavor text in the description of the spell:
You echo a jarring hymn that only creatures in the area can hear.
which suggests that only the targets can hear it.
Fair. I'm playing Morga as kinda snarky right now, since the snakes didn't attack until Autumn started messing with things.
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After the knowledge rolls come back, it might also be interesting to feed these clockwork serpents to the gluttonous demon (Warah's idea).
Hooray for the level up! Here are my Level 3 choices for Autumn (and her profile should be up to date now).
Skill Increase: Expert in Deception
General Feat: Ancestral Paragon -> Natural Ambition -> Reach Spell
2nd rank spells: Add Invisibility, Illusory Creature (and Stupefy from bloodline)
Swap Charm for Phantom Pain (signature spell)
Vildran's wizard 3 level up:
Skill: Arcana to expect
General feat: Incredible initiative
Spells: translate (old comprehend langs), invisibility, blazing bolt
Pick up robust health - Bonus healing= to level and immune to battle medicine for an hour. Upgrade Occultism to expert. Pick up bravery - will save expert and success vs feat is crit success. Whenever I gain frightened, reduce value by 1.
I'll add it to my profile soon.
Morga is not feeling well and will post tomorrow morning.
Morga is not feeling well and will post tomorrow morning.
I hope she feels better soon!
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I'm back, and all is well. I'll work on leveling up in the next 24 hours.
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Morga is leveled up. I chose Ward Medic for my general feat, so she can treat wounds/disease on two people at once. It may not be as necessary now as it would've been earlier, but it makes sense for her to take it.
Spells prepared:
Cantrips: Guidance, Haunting Hymn, Needle Darts, Stabilize, Vitality Lash
1st: Bless, Fear, Sanctuary
2nd: Blood Vendetta, Warrior’s Regret
I had not had the pleasure of doing lock picking "rules as written" in play by post until this game and its somehow even more cumbersome than in real-time games, where I already didn't like it. I was considering what house rules might work for PbP to fix this and have mocked up a couple options below. If you guys are interested (particularly Autumn since you're apparently the main lock-picker extraordinaire), we can switch to one of these rules.
For the semi-simple rules, my goal was to reduce it to a single roll outside of combat, but also add an outcome that is an interesting complication rather than just "pick the lock again". This is essentially similar to how I handle it in my real-time game.
For the super-simple rules, they kind of hand-wave lock-picking out of combat, since the bottleneck ends up only being time. Considering that Vildran will soon be able to succeed very reliably at repairing any broken picks, I think it's probably "close enough" to modeling the way the game actually plays out, though its a little boring of a resolution.
Pick a Lock [2A]
Requirements trained in Thievery, you're holding or wearing a thieves' toolkit
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Opening a lock without a key is very similar to Disabling a Device, but the DC of the check is determined by the complexity and construction of the lock you are attempting to pick (see above). Locks of higher quality might require multiple successes to unlock. If you lack the proper tools, you can use improvised tools which impose a -4 item penalty to your attempt.
You can choose to take your time when you pick a lock, extending the time needed for this activity to 10 minutes. If you do, you gain a +4 bonus on your check and on a success or better you gain enough successes to open the lock. However, the result of the check is "permanent" - if you fail or critically fail you have exhausted your knowledge of this particular mechanism and can't attempt it again until you gain a level. This typically necessitates finding an alternate way to bypass the lock.
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Critical Success You unlock the lock, or you achieve two successes toward opening a lock that requires more than one success. You leave no trace of your tampering.
Success You open the lock, or you achieve one success toward opening a lock that requires more than one success. You leave behind damage that indicates the lock was picked on close scrutiny.
Critical Failure Your attempt is a disaster. You break your toolkit, leave behind obvious signs of your tampering, and for lower quality locks irreparably jam the lock (destroying it). Fixing a broken toolkit requires using Crafting to Repair it or else swapping in replacement picks.
Thank you Cellion—I also find the lockpicking rules a bit bothersome. Given my 1e background where the standard is to Take 20 to pick a lock whenever time is not an issue, I think I’d prefer the super simple house rules. I think complications arise naturally in time sensitive situations (e.g. trying to break into a castle before the guard patrol returns) and we can use the official rules then.
Unless I hear otherwise I'll assume we aren't ret-con'ing the last attempt and that Vildran still needs to do the repair.
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Yep, no retcon, but going forward we'll use the "super simple" house rule above. I've copied it into the Campaign Info tab for future reference.
Do we need to rest after leveling up to get our 2nd-level spell slots?
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Normally, you'd need to take a long rest to prepare your new slots. I'm fine if you take 10 to prepare *just* your new slots, since spontaneous casters don't have to worry about that.
I do love spontaneous casters. :)
Morga grumbles about how annoying it is that the Guidance spell can only be useful once every ten minutes,
I shudder to think how grumpy Morga will be when she learns that Guidance is useful only once every hour. :)
Normally, you'd need to take a long rest to prepare your new slots. I'm fine if you take 10 to prepare *just* your new slots, since spontaneous casters don't have to worry about that.
Oh good. Vildran will be fully stocked then, as we head down.
I do love spontaneous casters. :)
Morga grumbles about how annoying it is that the Guidance spell can only be useful once every ten minutes,I shudder to think how grumpy Morga will be when she learns that Guidance is useful only once every hour. :)
D'oh! Mixed it up with Treat Wounds & the Continual Recovery feat, which I think I took on another character and keep thinking I took here.
FYI: I will be away in nature (specifically on a river and out of cell range) and unable to post starting Friday evening 5/23 through Monday evening 5/26 (US/Pacific time). Being a weekend, I hope this minimizes the disruption and I will resume posting that Monday evening (5/26).
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FYI: I will be away in nature (specifically on a river and out of cell range) and unable to post starting Friday evening 5/23 through Monday evening 5/26 (US/Pacific time). Being a weekend, I hope this minimizes the disruption and I will resume posting that Monday evening (5/26).
Got it! I'll cover for you while you're away.
Thank you! It's also paizocon, so if anybody is spending time on that regular games may slow.
Just a heads up since I forgot to mention it - I'm traveling for the next week and a half, so posts will be coming at odd times.
FYI: I will be away in nature (specifically on a river and out of cell range) and unable to post starting Friday evening 5/23 through Monday evening 5/26 (US/Pacific time). Being a weekend, I hope this minimizes the disruption and I will resume posting that Monday evening (5/26).
Reminder. Hoping for low disruption since it's paizocon weekend.
Reminder. Hoping for low disruption since it's paizocon weekend.
Thanks. I've got you covered.
@San: Just making sure--you know you can also take your turn, in addition to the reactive strike?
Yep, I wanted to let Morga take her turn before I did mine just in case things changed. Didn't notice that happened a couple of mins after I did the reactive strike.
@San: Please note that I’m not trying to tell you how to play your character, but I do want to mention some tactics, just in case you overlooked them.
For your last turn, you could have instead Stepped into a flank with Morga and attacked Yellow twice with an unarmed attack. This would have effectively increased your 1st attack by +4 (no volley, off-guard), turning it into a hit, and your 2nd attack by +5 (no volley, off-guard, agile) for the same average damage (1d4+3 and 1d8+1 both have average damage 5.5). Of course, this also would have left San more exposed to attack.
We’re closing in on the big boss encounter and I just want to make sure we don’t miss simple tactics like this (bad rolls are one thing, but poor tactics are another). If you did see these tactics but chose to retreat to safety instead, I totally support that—I’ve certainly played Autumn that way. (I mean, she just cast Shield on herself rather than trying to help the party with her 3rd action!) Just making sure this wasn’t overlooked.
My goal was to not remain surrounded. I didn't really consider flanking against them or average damage. Our strategy at one point was to keep some space between us and the enemies but then everyone stayed still again. I also have two archer feats I'd like to use as well. Otherwise I'm just using basic strikes when I could have made other choices leveling up to have options in melee.
I think I mentioned this at the start of the campaign, but I'm happy to set up a Discord channel for you guys to do tactical discussion and ask any questions in real time, if you'd like. It can be quite hard to coordinate tactics in play by post otherwise.
That said, with the composition of this group, I suspect things will get easier over time as more and more powerful magic comes online.
I think I mentioned this at the start of the campaign, but I'm happy to set up a Discord channel for you guys to do tactical discussion and ask any questions in real time, if you'd like. It can be quite hard to coordinate tactics in play by post otherwise.
Thank you very much for the offer Cellion! That would be helpful for answering questions (e.g. is the Yellow cultist alive or dead after San’s attacks?, or Recall Knowledge) so that we can plan our actions correctly. I’d also be happy to use it to discuss tactics if the other players want to.
P.S.--Oops, I forgot about Bless, so Autumn's attack roll should actually be 18, not 17.
!! I also forgot about bless. Another game in has a champion aura on all the time and I forgot this one meant something different. Attack rolls vs the cultist should be 18 & 19.
I only check Discord when I'm posting anyway, but I don't have a problem with it otherwise.
Back! Ty for the bottom Autumn.
I'm fine with setting up a discord for other discussions. I can't check it during the day so I may be delayed anyway.
@Vildran: The Brass Belimarius is vulnerable to electricity; our GM made a mid-round update here that you must have missed.
I don’t know if you can change casting Frostbite to Electric Arc instead? You wouldn’t need to reroll, as they’re both 3d4 damage.
I was very very tired when I got back.
So yes please GM
In this case its no difference either way (enemy critically succeeded).
Hope you had a great trip Vildran!
I'll be traveling all day on Saturday, so if you could please bot me that would be great. I should be able to resume regular posting Sunday evening.
Yes! Ready to bit you this weekend.
The trip was great but my sleep hasn’t quite recovered yet.
As promised previously, see this link for the shared Discord. You can silence any channels that are for other games. We had some chatter in the Seven Rusty Dooms channel last year with just Vildran and Bastiano, but since everyone else wasn't in there we haven't been actively using it.
Sorry, no post Sunday. Travel hell.
I can bot more today.
FYI Will be away in nature next Saturday (6/7) and returning mid- to late-afternoon (US/Pacific time) Sunday (6/8) when I'll resume posting. This trip is just a portion of the weekend so I expect minimum to no disruption.
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FYI Will be away in nature next Saturday (6/7) and returning mid- to late-afternoon (US/Pacific time) Sunday (6/8) when I'll resume posting. This trip is just a portion of the weekend so I expect minimum to no disruption.
Got it! I can cover for you on Saturday; thanks for covering for me. I've reached my destination and now have internet, though it's a bit slow.
Rather than trying to have two people roll to ID, it makes more sense to assist the one investigation.
As promised previously, see this link for the shared Discord. You can silence any channels that are for other games. We had some chatter in the Seven Rusty Dooms channel last year with just Vildran and Bastiano, but since everyone else wasn't in there we haven't been actively using it.
Autumn, I think you're the last one we're missing in the discord if you'd like to join.
Autumn, I think you're the last one we're missing in the discord if you'd like to join.
Sorry, I don't have my Discord information with me on this trip so I'll join when I'm back home.
Also: I'll cover for Vildran tomorrow, but it turns out I won't have internet access on Sunday - Tuesday, so could Vildran please bot Autumn as needed for those days? Thanks!
No worries - when you get back let me know if you need me to generate a new invite link. They tend to expire after a few days.
I'll be able to bot when I get back later Sunday, sure thing!
No worries - when you get back let me know if you need me to generate a new invite link. They tend to expire after a few days.
Hi Cellion, could you please create a new invite link to Discord? As you foresaw, the old link has expired. Thanks!