A place for out-of-character discussion
Please note that I have set the starting date for this table to September 12, 2024, which is a few days after Gameday starts.
I have found that a slight delay in start date makes it easier for me (and, I hope, my players) to ease into the game following the "rush" of activitiy that accompanies the start of Gameday, its specials, and other tables.
Even given the later start date, I anticipate that this table will conclude on or before November 17th, the end of Gameday. Along those lines, I would ask players to review my GM profile, which includes my expectations regarding posting rates and my approach to botting PCs.
Permission should now be granted
My apologies. The link should work now.
I am heading to a local convention tomorrow and celebrating a birthday. My posting between now and Monday may be limited. I hope to get another post up later today, but otherwise I will pick things up again sometime Monday.
What con?
Making sure that I understand the situation correctly.
The avalanche is moving from South to North?
Is there room East or West that we can use to get out of the way?
Per my best efforts to conflate the map with the location description, it appears that the avalanche originated on a nearby eastern peak and is traveling westward, across the high ridge at the top of The Eye, where the party is.
Are we currently at the 'high ridge atop a staggeringly sheer scarp'?
Is there shelter available within reach of a dimension door spell?
If not a shelter, how high would Silgil have to be to avoid the snow slide.
An avalanche is treated as a Colossal creature. The space occupied by a Colossal creature is 30 feet high. A party member must move "up" at least 30 feet to escape the avalanche.
Going into full transparency mode, I am using the avalanche rules found here.
Based upon my random roll, the avalanche was spotted while it was 3500 (7x500) feet away from the party. The avalanche rules state that avalanches of snow and ice advance at a speed of 500 feet per round, which means the party has 7 rounds of actions the avalanche strikes.
The adventure text tells me that the avalanche is 100 feet wide. The avalanche rules state the bury zone in the center of the avalanche is half as wide as the avalanche’s full width or 50 feet in this case.
The party is 20 feet from the center of the path taken by the bury zone. Therefore, to avoid the bury zone of the avalanche, a PC must move over 5 feet within 7 rounds. To clear both the bury zone and the slide zone, the PC must move over 30 feet through the snow within the 7 rounds.
For the purposes of this encounter, at the time the avalanche was heard, I have assumed that the party was stationary on their dogsleds, having stopped at the top of the ridge to check the map and to get bearings.
Can we escape this? How?
I see a few options:
Stay on the dogsled and Mush. The PC tries to direct the dogs to move the dogsled and any PC on it out of danger. To successfully move the dogsled outside of the bury zone, a PC must succeed at a Mush action (DC 12 Handle Animal check). A PC may not take 10 on this attempt.
Then, to move the dogsled outside of the slide zone, the PC must succeed at 2 additional Mush actions. A PC may not take 10 on these attempts. This option is an extrapolation from the dogsled rules that I think is reasonable, but allows for some dramatic tension.
Shelter in place. The PC simply braces for the worst. The PC may attempt the Reflex save for the bury zone, take any damage, then dig their way out. With a successful Survival check (DC 15), I will allow the PC to gain a +4 bonus if they remain stationary. The PC may grant the same bonus to one other character for every 1 point by which the Survival check result exceeds 15.
Shelter nearby. The PC jumps off the sled and makes a run for it. To avoid the avalanche completely, the PC must move more than 30 feet. The snow here is heavy and, without special means to traverse it, it costs 4 squares of movement to enter each square (move 5 feet) covered with heavy snow.
Fly above it. The PC (along with whatever others they can transport) simply ascends into the air above as the avalanche travels below them. To avoid the avalanche, a PC, dog, or item must ascend over 30 feet to avoid the avalanche entirely (or at least over 10 feet to avoid the bury zone).
Planar travel. The PC (along with whatever others they can transport) moves to another plane to avoid the avalanche. I don’t think anyone has this ability, but it would work.
Other Creative Solutions. I am willing to consider any reasonable proposal.
Unhitching the gangline, which is attached to the dogs, from the sled requires a move action. Once unhitched, the dogs can run off on their own. An unhitched sled weighs 100 lbs.
Sorry for the silence. Handling some work things and hope to get a post up sometime tomorrow.
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FYI: I'll move home this week end, and so won't be online before next Monday/ Tuesday
Desynthia will once again use a Summon Monster II to summon 1d3 eagles with Celestial trait
Celestial Eagle stats Init +2 Ac 14/13/12 HP 5 (7) Fort+3 (+5) Ref+4 Will+2
Melee Talon +3 (+5) (1d4+2), Beak +3 (+5)(1d4+2) Str 10 (14), Dex 15, Con 12 (16), Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 7 ; DR 2/Evil for Celestial Bloodline, +4 STR/CON from Augment summoning feat; duration 5 rounds
Not seen an effect that causes a weapon to make a Fort check before. Is that my Fort save or something else?
An item attended by a character (being grasped, touched, or worn) makes saving throws as the character (that is, using the character’s saving throw bonus).
Do the sled chase rules account for the possibility that a PC has a fly speed, or if e.g. Desynthia summoned more eagles to attack one of the other sleds?
The full Dog Sledding rules provided in the scenario are on the this Slide. So, no. The rules don't account for such possibilities, but I will try my best to adjudicate if it is necessary.
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OK, thanks. Here's why I'm asking: Tere has a shadow companion that generally hides in his shadow. The companion has a 40' flight speed, so I wanted to have it fly at the Aspis sled teams and use its incorporeal touch attack to do STR damage to the dogs. Hopefully this would slow them down without actually killing any of them. This may be moot, though; according to the Bestiary, dogs have a 40' movement rate, and even if they're encumbered they're still moving pretty quickly.
How wide is the trail? Looking to see what type of spell would be needed to block it.
Unspecified. I am going to say, as wide as "plot"? A map is provided, but it is clearly not to scale for running the encounter as "intended".
I see the encounter as one that is to be fast-paced and exciting, providing an unusual backdrop for combat, and encouraging PCs to utilize tactics and combat skills that might be unusual for them (i.e, vehicle collisions, very close melee, constantly in motion, handle/brace-for oncoming obstacles, etc.)
I will consider individual circumstances and adjudicate them as they come in an effort to foremost be fair, then fun, and when possible, perhaps even somewhat "scientifically accurate". I tend to favor creative solutions.
In short, propose an action on your turn and I will adjudicate how well it works. If there are objections to my adjudication, I will briefly pause the game, encourage arguments, and then make a decision, possibly doing a retcon if necessary.
As a general rule, I suspect that I am likely to conclude that a dog sled is within Short range of a target only if the target is in/attached to a dog sled that is adjacent to that occupied by the caster. Any spell of Medium range or greater can be cast ahead of any non-adjacent dog sled and that a barrier of 10 feet of greater that appears ahead of a dog sled would require a successful Break or Turn to avoid.
The sort of "default" assumption for the encounter is that, for all use of combat/spells, the dog sleds must first be brought adjacent to each other. I suppose that this makes adjudicating things easier and also kind of makes sense since I would expect it to be difficult to focus/concentrate/cast on a particular area or target while bumping along at a speeding dog sled as it rapidly descends down a mountain.
Although it remains a possibility, I do not anticipate that this table will complete before the end of Gameday XIII, which is November 17, 2024. However, I will need to report the table before then.
To do so, I need the following from each of you:
1) Make Sure Your Reporting Info is Correct:
I will be reporting with RPGChronicles, the link is here. Feel free to provide whatever requested information is asked, but what is most needed is PC Name, PFS No., Faction, and Slow Track (if applicable).
Per below, if you want to be considered for a doorprize, make sure there is correct email information. You are free to provide any other missing info, but it is not necessary.
2) Provide/Confirm a Valid Email for Door Prizes/Boons:
Paizo has graciously offered up prize vouchers for Gameday. Winners will be randomly drawn from a pool of all players and GMs for reported games. These vouchers will need to be emailed, so players are encouraged to fill in their emails when signing up so that they can get their prizes when they win.
3) Roll for a PFS1 Boon:
A set of boons is available for winning PFS1 players. Each GM and Player of a PFS1 game has a 10% chance to win one of the lovely boons at random. Everyone at your table may roll a d20 and a roll of 1 or 20 wins. Winners will be asked to select the prize won (which I will provide in a dropdown field on the RPGChronicles report if there are winners). Winners must fill in their email addresses so the boon can be sent out to them.
I will get us started on the boon rolls:
See? It is all very simple.
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Question: Can Silgil use the whirlwind ability to catch and carry someone? Not sure since it says it depends on the whirlwind size and I'm not sure what the size would be. 10-20 (as noted for the small elementals whirlwind size) or small (based on the small elemental size noted in elemental body 1) or medium (based on Silgil's size)?
I plan to report the game this weekend for Gameday as I have been instructed, although we still have another encounter to go.
Please note that you may not play this PC in another game until you receive the chronicle sheet, which I will not distribute until the table has completed, which I anticipate will be before the American Thanksgiving holiday in about 2 weeks.
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Moved from gameplay to discussion...
See this post. He is delaying and waiting for the rest of the front liners to move forward. After they have moved, he will cast haste on them. I would have had him cast up front and caught everyone before they moved, but Radagast and Tere moved forward before I could post and the area of the spell will not capture them and the group in back. So now he will wait until after any other front-liners join them and then he can cast haste on the lot of them. Casters usually hang back and do not benefit from haste all that much so missing them is not all that problematic. Anyway, that is my reasoning.