[Gameday XIII] #5-09 - The Traitor's Lodge (Inactive)

Game Master Mustaparta

Day job result is in the Recruitment threat.

Boon?: 1d20 ⇒ 12 nope

Thanks for running!

Is it just me, or was that an incredibly blitz adventure?

Boon?: 1d20 ⇒ 19

Instead of a Day Job check, I would like to attempt to finalize a report to the Society per Season 8 Grand Lodge Objectives:

DC 15 Intelligence check: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (14) + 2 = 16 Splendid!

For faction journal card purposes, did we Resolve a combat encounter nonviolently through bribery, diplomacy, trickery, or a similar tactic?

Boon Roll: 1d20 ⇒ 4

Wither, can you fill the Chronicles so I can report the game and send chronicles? Thanks!

Done, thanks for running.

boon!: 1d20 ⇒ 16

@Rogarch, for reason I can't understand RPGChronicles erases the replay-tag when I try to check it.

For faction journal card purposes, did we Resolve a combat encounter nonviolently through bribery, diplomacy, trickery, or a similar tactic?

No. Valais wasn't hostile at any point.

----
boon: 1d20 ⇒ 14

boon roll: 1d20 ⇒ 15

Boon: 1d20 ⇒ 16

@Mustaparta - The reporting looks good on my end. Now I am just waiting on the chronicle sheet to be posted. Thanks for running. :)

Here are Chronicles. Let me know if anything is missing.

Right, so we're rushed out the the maze and lose out on 20% of the payout? When Arxoias said that we can come back later, she means coming back after Koth'Vaul is gone and search the entire basement.

I really don't like the "if you don't explore the map in the correct order Koth'Vaul shows up and screw with you" design. Without metagaming (i.e. characters token/minis are put on the upper left corner of the flip-map/vinyl map which means there're more to the right than left), we wouldn't know which door lead to more content and has a 50% chance of missing out.

Thanks for running. :)

Right, so we're rushed out the the maze and lose out on 20% of the payout? When Arxoias said that we can come back later, she means coming back after Koth'Vaul is gone and search the entire basement.

Agreed - and getting gypped out of the Boon(s) is even worse! I thought this had been weirdly quick; if we can call backsies and continue, I'd like to.

ARXOIAS Rosenthal wrote:

Right, so we're rushed out the the maze and lose out on 20% of the payout? When Arxoias said that we can come back later, she means coming back after Koth'Vaul is gone and search the entire basement.

Agreed - and getting gypped out of the Boon(s) is even worse! I thought this had been weirdly quick; if we can call backsies and continue, I'd like to.

The ghostly minotaur on the cover has been skipped, if you're wondering.

My main concern was avoid getting you TPK'd by Koth'Vaul who, as I understood from scenario, is still going to be around even when you would be back.

We absolutely can try to earn that boon and missing gp, but everyone needs magic weapons in the final maze encounter (which has the minotaur). It will be more than just combat as navigating it is going to be difficult. If you don't directly challenge the demon, you could explore to the left of staircase. Everybody wanting to continue?

Devaan would be just as happy to get out rather than face a demon, but he wouldn't go against the will of the group.

At this point, I realize that full rewards require going everywhere, killing everything, and stealing returning to a safe place for study everything...

Well, we had 8 hours of Greater Magic Weapon going on two of our our martials, and Arxoias can make people's weapon Ghost Touch via Legacy Weapon.

I picked her so that she can be a support in fighting the ghostly minotaur and not just shoot everything to death like normal Gunslinger.

As Redelia explained earlier, we can continue to play after the convention is over as long as the report are in before the deadline. I would like to vote for keep going, so that we can experience all the content.

OK, I'm going to need to put on my official hat here, rather than a player at the table. Once chronicles are issued or the game is reported, players can't make other choices. The only way things can be changed is if an error was made. In this case, I've looked over the relevant part of the scenario, and an error was made. There was another part, and we did the thing that triggered that other part, so that other part has to happen (GMs aren't allowed to decide that a part of the adventure is too hard and skip it. They can only choose to skip 'optional encounters'.) Thus, we do need to do the part that we have not yet.

I think that we should call it a day and not continue as the game has been reported, the chronicles have been issued and the convention is officially over. The GM made a call (good or bad) and we should just live with it and move on. :)

I don't really think there is a choice to be made here. The GM cut the adventure short by not having part 2 of the adventure start as we were on our way out, even though we had accumulated enough points to trigger it as we went back out. That's not a 'GM call' because it's not something that the rules allow. The scary unknown thing that we believe is coming soon will not be an issue once part 2 of the adventure starts.

I should point out that doing part 2 won't change the boons, though. The first boon is for doing the room we didn't get to, and the second is crossed out because of our factions.

I'm going to step out of this discussion, because I'm uncomfortable being a player at the table and the VO involved in unraveling things. I've asked another PbP VO to come help us out.

Hello. I'm the Venture Agent for Flaxseed and I've been asked to come revue and make a decision.

Mustaparta, please run the remaining encounter(s) that were triggered but that you did not run.

GMs are not allowed to skip portions of the adventure that are not flagged as optional. While player decisions in scenarios may cause them to avoid or miss an encounter, that is not the case here.

While I appreciate you trying to avoid a TPK, please don't hide encounters to protect the players. They will very likely surprise you with how easily they deal with it and, even if they don't, that is a risk the players and characters take.

If anyone has any objections or wants to discuss further, please send me a private message.

Thank you and thank you all for being part of the lodge.

I happen to have a pristine wand of infernal healing on me; DM, would you allow me to retcon that I'd earlier entrusted it to someone who could use it (so Rogarch or Devaan)?

I happen to have a pristine wand of infernal healing on me; DM, would you allow me to retcon that I'd earlier entrusted it to someone who could use it (so Rogarch or Devaan)?

Ok.

Does the minotaur's movement provoke? It left Wither,Ekanta, and Mika's threatened area based on Google Slide's editing history.

Now that I think of it, its clear that it does provoke. Go ahead and roll.

Ekanta Hanoi wrote:

I happen to have a pristine wand of infernal healing on me; DM, would you allow me to retcon that I'd earlier entrusted it to someone who could use it (so Rogarch or Devaan)?

Ok.

Much obliged.

Devaan, would you do the honors?

Sure. I hope you don't mind that I'll probably be jabbing myself next.

Fair enough.

@Wither: Wait, time-out; WTH are you doing? Poison - especially if it does Constitution damage - is worthless against the Undead; your character would surely know that as a matter of common sense. I hope you will forgive me for kibitzing, but you'd be better off with a cure X wounds spell (I forget what you have prepared, but IIRC, wands do not provoke!), or your shillelagh if it's still in effect, or even a spontaneous nature's ally.

@Wither: Wait, time-out; WTH are you doing? Poison - especially if it does Constitution damage - is worthless against the Undead; your character would surely know that as a matter of common sense. I hope you will forgive me for kibitzing, but you'd be better off with a cure X wounds spell (I forget what you have prepared, but IIRC, wands do not provoke!), or your shillelagh if it's still in effect, or even a spontaneous nature's ally.

So incorporeal is undead, I really didn't know that. Thank you for telling me. Nature's ally doesn't have magic attacks so it's useless here. I'll change the action to a strike if allowed.

So incorporeal is undead, I really didn't know that. Thank you for telling me. Nature's ally doesn't have magic attacks so it's useless here. I'll change the action to a strike if allowed.

Well, not necessarily, since you put it that way, but if you see something incorporeal that's normally anything but, like a minotaur, yes, it's probably some kind of ghost.

Nature's ally doesn't have magic attacks so it's useless here. I'll change the action to a strike if allowed.

The use, hypothetically, would've been to harass, take up space, and/or attract attacks - you're right it probably would not have been the ideal option.

BTW, Wither, I'm still curious about your patron Deity (if you have one).

I'm confused about where we are right now, literally and figuratively.

Was that really the final battle???

I believe we're before the...

We absolutely can try to earn that boon and missing gp......If you don't directly challenge the demon, you could explore to the left of staircase. Everybody wanting to continue?

...part

BTW, Wither, I'm still curious about your patron Deity (if you have one).

I don't think druids are required to have one.

So Wither doesn't.

Ekanta Hanoi wrote:

BTW, Wither, I'm still curious about your patron Deity (if you have one).

I don't think druids are required to have one.

Nature Bond (Ex): A druid forms a bond with nature. This bond can take one of two forms. The first is a close tie to the natural world, granting the druid one of the following cleric domains: Air, Animal, Earth, Fire, Plant, Water, or Weather. The second option is to form a close bond with an animal companion.

So Wither doesn't.

The question of whether Druids need to have Deities is not really determined by the Nature Bond feature, but you're right, they don't. It's determined by the principles of the setting; for contrast, consider the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting, however, where ALL divine magic is granted/managed by an exceptionally "personal" superpantheon of gods, so Druids and Rangers there DO.

Since you're an "atheist", you might want to check out some of the exclusive feats available to the godless!

Yes, that was the final fight of the adventure. The ghost minotaur was the fight that the GM was instructed to go back and run for us.

The scary thing that is going to appear down below the party is supposed to flee from.

Also, I don't think that by the rules we can choose to go back down (if the adventure even allows it; it may not). The adventure had ended, and so we can't go back and redo our decisions from earlier; all that could happen was to fix the GM error of not running the minotaur adventure on our way back up.

So does that mean we get full gold for the adventure? :)

Hold on, can our earth elemental RawkNRole Earth Glide down to check the room and get the loot for us? That way we can do it without the big bad's detection.

Last time I checked, True Seeing doesn't allow you to see through the wall.

Gonna invoke the p.13 Creative Solutions here...

We already did defeat the 'big bad'. The GM is told to work really hard at getting the party to flee. If the party is foolish enough to ignore the warning, the result is likely to be a TPK the first time the creature who shows up acts.

I am saying that, while the party evade the creature, RawkNRole can check out the room for the missing loot as it can Earth Glide and the creature can't harm it.

Actually, Wither can do that as well, since a 6th level druid can Wild Shape into a small earth elemental.

In a sense, it doesn't matter what the GM decides. There is no loot in the rooms we did not explore. The only thing the rooms would have provided is more points for exploring. This adventure was written with the knowledge that many groups would not be able to explore that area because of being chased out, so there are not any negative consequences to that happening.

In a sense, it doesn't matter what the GM decides. There is no loot in the rooms we did not explore. The only thing the rooms would have provided is more points for exploring. This adventure was written with the knowledge that many groups would not be able to explore that area because of being chased out, so there are not any negative consequences to that happening.

There is loot in the room that we did not explore and is worth 20% of the final payout (700gp). If the player come up with a creative way to safely retreive it, I don't see why not.

It is not just one room, it is two, and there is not loot there. (B4 and B5) The combat in B4 is optional, so we can't lose loot by not doing that combat. And even if we lose loot, when we know something so awful is after us, waiting for an elemental to retrieve loot would in character be very unwise.

It's B3 that has the loot. It's a simple grab and go for the earth elemental.

Anything more awful than Shadow Demon cannot attack through the wall and can't harm the earth elementals. Anything weaker than Shadow Demon also cannot attack through the wall and can't harm the earth elementals. If it's Shadow Demon then it still can't end its turn deep inside the wall and we're well equipped to handle incorporeal threat now anyway. We should put more faith in our capability in resolving the issue without having to deal with the potential scriptted TPK.

In character, we are at risk even by waiting while the elemental goes back for things.

In character, at this point of time, demon's stronghold Drezen has been reclaimed, Nerosyan and Pathfinders has shown its capability to defeat an demon assault that includes something as powerful as Balor #5-00 Siege of the Diamond City, Wraith of the Righerous book 3 Storm King Khorramzadeh. Anything weaker than a balor should think twice before messing around in the Nerosyan alone and should not lingers here, since they come here with their real body so if they're dead, they're DEAD dead unlike summoned creatures.

B3 shows on the map as explored. And just because some really experienced agents defeated some scary monsters does not mean our relatively inexperienced agents are going to be so reckless.