[PFS2, Outpost08] 1-24 Lightning Strikes, Stars Fall (Inactive)

Game Master Watery Soup

Please use this thread for out of character discussions.

I will be setting up an RPGChronicles signin sheet shortly.

Alright, RPGChronicles sheet is up and linked in the header.

Slides are up and linked in the header. Please fill out your Perception modifiers as well as your default Exploration activities. The marching order isn't super important, but you can do those as well.

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We will be beginning on March 2, meaning I can't post any text from the scenario, but if you have extra time, feel free to re-familiarize yourself with:

1. Overland Travel Rules

2. Ways to increase your overland travel speeds (spells, items, etc.).

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Also, let me know if you have any extra Hero Points to give out (GM glyphs, etc).

I have two GM Glyphs.

And, uh... buying horses?

We are quite a magical group :D

FYI I'll be away in nature this weekend, 3/1-3/2 without access to post. I'll return Sunday evening (US/Pacific time) to continue posting (including to kick of Outpost games!).

I have two GM Glyphs.

Who gets 'em?

Ra'uf and Yakuthiel, please fill out the RPGChronicles signin sheet, linked in the header.

Ra'uf and Yakuthiel, please fill out the RPGChronicles signin sheet, linked in the header.

Done

Princess Clover wrote:

I have two GM Glyphs.

Who gets 'em?

Yakuthiel and Morrin.

Yay!

I also have a glyph for Clover.

Itka doesn't want to mess with caring for a horse. She will buy a scroll of Marvelous Mount for 12 gp. Her familiar will consume it, and she'll prepare it as many times per day as the group needs (minimum once for herself). Let me know if you want it.

She's happy to cast the spell in such a way that the "fantastical creature" has a side hitch for Ra'uf's chair. No sense in dragging him behind where he'd get hit with manure and have nothing to see but a large fantastical rump in front of him.

She will dismount if she has time before combat, since she doesn't want her mount to go poof.

Itka doesn't want to mess with caring for a horse. She will buy a scroll of Marvelous Mount for 12 gp. Her familiar will consume it, and she'll prepare it as many times per day as the group needs (minimum once for herself). Let me know if you want it.

She's happy to cast the spell in such a way that the "fantastical creature" has a side hitch for Ra'uf's chair. No sense in dragging him behind where he'd get hit with manure and have nothing to see but a large fantastical rump in front of him.

She will dismount if she has time before combat, since she doesn't want her mount to go poof.

One mount, please

@ Morrin1: Sure thing!

A cart is 3 gp and goes the speed of the animal pulling it, and has one pilot and one passenger. Ra'uf could be the pilot. A wagon is 25 gp, and also goes the speed of the slower of the two animals pulling it. It has one pilot and four passengers.

Do we have someone who could reliably pilot a wagon or a cart? Who has a good Nature or Driving Lore modifier?

She will dismount if she has time before combat, since she doesn't want her mount to go poof.

Okay. I will point out that your mount only has 10 hit points, so if you're ambushed with an AoE spell, you're likely walking for the rest of the day. If that happens, I will pro-rate the distance traveled based on the approximate time of day.

At 16 miles/day, you should have some buffer. And, of course, if you succeed at the shortcuts, you'll have even more.

Oh, I don't think I mentioned... Clover has a Marshal's Aura. That's more useful when she's in Inspiring Marshal Stance, but even as a passive ability it grants +1 status to saves vs fear to herself and to allies within 15 feet.

So far it looks like Itka will be preparing Marvelous Mount for herself, Arfsnarf, and Morrin. That's all her 2nd level spell slots. I might consider preparing it thrice at 3rd level too, in case we get ambushed by an AOE. Bonus: heightening it to 3rd allows them to walk on water for one turn.

For reference when I make Chronicles later:

Itka: purchased a scroll of marvelous mount (12 gp)
Itka, Arfsnarf, Morrin: Marvelous Mounts
Yakuthiel: purchased riding goat (8 gp)
Princess Clover: purchased war alpaca (30 gp)
Ra'uf: purchased some kind of mount, please specify

War Pony/Goat for 24 gp. Poppets are Small (unless they take the Toy Poppet heritage, but that makes them even smaller).

Dog of war on an alpaca of war, natch.

Alright, let's just vote between these three options. 1. Combat, 2. Skill, 3. 1-day penalty.

1. Skill 2. Combat 3. penalty

Alright, let's just vote between these three options. 1. Combat, 2. Skill, 3. 1-day penalty.

1. Skill 2. Combat 3. Penalty

Itka has +2 to both Nature and Survival, but +14 on Crafting.

We currently have five out of six that would prefer Skill checks.

Each PC needs to roll: Survival or Nature (or an appropriate spell from a spell slot) to locate the blockage, or Crafting or Athletics (or an appropriate spell from a spell slot) to break it. Creative solutions are allowed, although they may be at higher DCs.

...Ra'uf, 20 Nature is a Failure.

Who's rolling to locate the blockage (nature/survival), and who's rolling to break it (crafting, athletics, etc.)? Looks like Ra'uf needs some serious Aid to bump up to a Success, but Itka's unlikely to be any help there.

To be clear, the total number of Successes count, so attempting the check on your own may be more advantageous than Aiding someone else to a possible Success.

Itka will "aid" Ra'uf's Nature/Shortcut rolls by staying out of his way and keeping her mouth shut. No sense in risking a crit failure on an Aid roll.

OR, hear me out: we can go around and not die. (eyebrows waggle convincingly)

I am forcing you guys to have a discussion about this proposal before I ask for actions on Round 3.

Arfsnarf: Survival +0 (nat 20 is a Failure!)
Itka: Survival +2 (nat 20 is only a Success)
Morrin: Survival +8 (nat 20 is only a Success)
Princess Clover: Survival +1 (nat 20 is only a Success)
Ra'uf: Survival +11 (nat 19 is a Success, nat 20 is a Crit Success)
Yakuthiel: Survival +2 (nat 20 is only a Success)

Ra'uf ends the Hazard with a nat 20, but Ra'uf is also facing -37 damage with 22 hit points.

I can't tell you what to do, but you do have 2 extra days banked. You'll lose 1 by going around, and Itka would have to prepare extra Magic Mounts until you can get to a town, since your horses are probably dead (I should technically have rolled for them, but they only have 10 hit points).

Discuss.

Also, peek behind the scenes: the hazard doesn't discharge if 4 of you succeed the secondary checks (Perception, Nature, etc.), but if PCs are attempting Survival, there's almost no chance of hitting enough to keep the hazard at bay.

I have prepared 3 more castings of Marvelous Mounts, so we're covered there. I vote to go around.

I knew to not even bother trying the survival check with Arfsnarf.

Fly lasts 5m, and while I'm guessing we're not facing 5m of rounds (50!!), he can only cast it three times, not covering the party.

Going around is looking really good at this point.

Also, we can't fly the whole caravan.

Difficulty of having to roll nat 20's twice convinced me to go around.

Well, at least one roll came through for me.

Around seems good.

Hero Point to Itka for suggesting to go around, and, because I forgot to award one after the krooths, one to Ra'uf for hanging in there and attempting a DC 30 Survival check!

Thank you!

I didn't realize leaving was an option once we were into it.

There's a phrase that says that if the PCs can't disable it, then they'll be "forced to go around", which seems like it allows a trial for a few rounds.

If anyone objects, we can always circle back. :D

Incidentally, having watched the bushes spray acid, it's reasonable to assume your characters realize that they have a 30' range. None of them could target Yakuthiel last round, or Ra'uf the round before, which is why I was rolling 1d5 rather than 1d6.

Schrodinger's positioning (attempt to compensate for asynchronous play) on top of Schrodinger's positioning (in-game magical effect that's actually supposed to work that way). Sorry.

Guess I should change the name of the spell so the GM doesn't get any latitude in deciding what body part I use for healing. ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ

I'm on vacation right now, and although the Internet works just fine, apparently, Google Slides does not. None of the pictures comes up. I think they blocked it or something. So I'll set y'all up for the encounter on Sunday.

I will be completely offline this Friday through Monday.

I'll be away in nature next weekend, Friday (4/25) evening to Sunday (4/26) late afternoon, US/Pacific time). I'll have signal but phone posting will be spotty. I'll catch up and resume regular posting Sunday evening.

[X] Primary Objective: Ensure the caravan meets up with the Gorumites within 10 days.

A belated apology for the amount of focus that I spent on the mounts at the beginning of the scenario, but hopefully, this explains why - the entire mission rests on getting there within 10 days. You got two buffer days, which was good, but if you look back, that required three Successes on three rolls. If you had failed any of those rolls, you would have gotten just one buffer day - and probably used it at the steaming fields. This is definitely one of the harsher Primary Objectives I've seen.

I don't remember it being this tough when I played it, but that was nearly 5 years ago. I do know my team got super lucky at the steaming fields, though. I think we had a high-Survival character who just binked a nat 20 on the second round (low-Survival characters who get a nat 20 only get a Success). I remember thinking it was a Trivial skill challenge.

[X] Secondary Objective: Defeat the Synthetic Khismar.

Treasure Bundles:
[X][X] Krooth guts
[X] Implants (krooth encounter)
[X][X][X] Blue Streak gear (ambush encounter)
[X][X] Blue Streak gear (final encounter)
[X][X] Robot parts (final encounter)

Reporting Boxes:
[X] A: PCs destroy Synthetic Khismar after talking with Baric the Bloodfist.
[ ] B: PCs destroy Synthetic Khismar before meeting up with Baric the Bloodfist.
[ ] C: PCs did not defeat the Blue Streaks in Annihilation Canyon.

My apologies for a delay in the Chronicles. I was a good boy and filled them out ahead of time. Then, I realized I forgot all the mount purchases.

Then, I realized this was a convention game. So I have to redo them. Either later tonight or tomorrow.

Bummer! No worries. Thank you for running this game. The flavor was fun, and the challenges were different from most other scenarios.

Who knew steaming fields would nearly be the death of us, right? Yeesh!

LOL

So I redid the Chronicles with the convention event number, and as soon as I finished, realized that the convention games have to be reported through RPGChronicles ... and I could have generated all the Chronicles with a push of a button.

What a fiasco. But it got done.

HERE are the Chronicles.

The game has been reported to HQ, and in turn, it looks like they've reported it to Paizo already. (It shows up on my GM character.)

Please check your Chronicles and your Paizo character to make sure everything is in order.

Other than that, thanks for playing, and hope to see you all at a future table!

Accounting lore (earn income): 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (17) + 11 = 28

Thanks for the game!

I'll add Itka's income.

Shadowplane Lore, DC 22: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (10) + 14 = 24
Success for 12 gp.

Chronicle looks good. Thanks again for running this!

I have to wonder where the title ties into the scenario. I thought there'd be more lightning and stars falling. ;D

Crafting (EI): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (19) + 8 = 27

Sailing Lore: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (14) + 9 = 23

Can I sell my goat back at 50% cost? As much fun as it was, I can't see much of a use for one going forward.

Now I just have to decide if I want that armor...