[PF2] March of the Dead (GM Watery Soup)

Game Master Watery Soup

No need to change your character on my/his account! It is a good tension. I can tell you out of character that I won't play a hostile/antagonistic character with other PC's... so Lawric will find a way to lean into tension without it being disruptive or hostile.

Just letting people know that I am intentionally leaving space if people what to engage in it. And if I need to adjust something in how I am playing Lawric I am very happy to do that as well.

I think its a bit quiet as were in a bit of an exploration mode, and so things slow down as we go door to door and provide direction - unless there is a particular stimulii to play off (eg the chest, the cat, noticing something peculiar) there can be sections where the interplay reduces.

Now we have a battle kicking off we will get all lively again.

No hassle with the graverobber thing, Thurgan isn't one for worrying about the possessions, he only gets funny abit the remains - and ensuring burial rites etc.

So, to be fair, I think the biggest responsibility for the game dragging is on me. There are two main reasons for this.

1. I'm no longer a twice-a-day poster at any time of the year, and this summer has been pretty busy on top of that. This is unlikely to change, although on a regular week, I usually get to check 4-5 times.

2. I've often not posted when I've had a chance to, because, with 5 PCs, I've been trying to get a quorum of 3. Much of this adventure is sandbox, and I don't want to pull people around, since many decisions you make do have downstream effects, such as Galimus recognizing you may need time to prepare shelter.

This second part is changing. Pandak's player is unable to keep up, and he'll be exiting the game. This means that we'll have 4 PCs, and a quorum of 2 to move forward with party decisions.

Ahhh cool - but sorry to see a player go!

It can be a bot complex in a sandbox, but I think we're at ;east progressing through the town ok, seems like what happened to the town will likely be coming our way at some point, hence our discussion about fortifying a spot :)

It is a fun game so far though, and I'm keen to keep building the feel of us as a group.

Niaquin and Thurgan - Orcish culture
Thurgan and Lawric - Pharasma
Lawric and Galimus - graves, and sanctity vs graverobbing.

Over time I think we could expand these out.

Yeah I am trying to think how animist aspect, or shaman aspect clashes with Pharasma, do speaking with ghosts mean that they did not come to rest? Is there a clash there? BUt i failed to explore it yet,

Yeah sorry to see Pandak leave. Unfortunatelly my performanceat this table is far from satisfying (like even keeping me satisfied, and feeling good about myself), I will try to change it, but my situaiton is also a bit changed and I can't post as frequently as before.

There shouldn't be any clash, animists aren't necessarily dealing with the dead (and might never deal with the dead).

From the class description:
Apparition: Apparitions are spiritual entities who generally lack the power, cohesiveness, or attachments to enter or affect the physical world. Unlike a ghost or phantom, an apparition does not need to have ever been a living creature and could be the spiritual memory of a particularly meaningful location or event.

So the apparition you might be dealing with is the emotional imprint of a wedding, the echo of a great fire that demolished something important, the energy of the woods... might never involve a dead thing, and doesn't have to involve the divine (eg Pharasma).

I get the feeling I'm going to be typing the word "vitality" a lot in this adventure...

Clarification: did those of us who beat 10 in initiative wake up? Or do we still need to make a DC 10 perception check on our turn.

Yes, only Galimus is still asleep. The rest of you are conscious, but still prone and unarmed.

When reading the discussion before the Gameplay is ominous...

I think the issue is the action economy funtimes - that they get through the barricades so quickly, it cuts down the numbers but there wasn't even enough time for a pet to stand up in the time it took for them to get through the barricades and make their way inside AND get all their attacks - I would have expected a round or two as they fought their way in, but this just leaves people unarmoured and in some cases, still asleep on a poor roll - more a criticism of the writer :p

IN this case Grump is still prone because both he and Thurgan are subject to the Grabbed condition - so Grump can't stand.

Sorry, I should have made it clear - nobody's Grabbed. Grab takes an action with the Remaster, and the zombies only Strode and Struck. I'll delete the "plus Grab" from any second attack, since they won't have actions to Grab.

Also, regarding starting with more actions, I'm open to it on future nighttime encounters - there's supposed to be an element of surprise (for the characters), so I thought it would be appropriate to start like this. In the future, we can have a discussion about sleeping in armor, or having different sleeping arrangements.

The zombies are big bags of hit points. If not everyone has a dagger, it'll show up in the treasure.

Guys… I think they are trying to kills us….

I am trying hard not to put on my metagame hat, but this combat feels pretty daunting- and I certainly don’t expect the authors to end with just one wave of undead. I think Lawric will be very lucky to have more than 1 heal spell left when this one is said and done. We need to figure out a different plan after we put this wave down

I am trying hard not to put on my metagame hat, but this combat feels pretty daunting

Y'all are doing fine, by the way. When I played this, we decided to leave a barrier unreinforced to "bait" attackers into a trap, and the gambit did ... not pay off.

If you haven't noticed, the rest of the scenario isn't super punishing, combat-wise, and yes, you'll get attacked again before the night is over, but you'll also have time to prepare with the knowledge of how these encounters are going to play out.

Also, remember that this is run in Adventure Mode, so if you're barreling headlong into a certain TPK, you could coincidentally trip over the corpse of a former priest who was carrying a dozen 3rd-rank Heal scrolls.

I'll also admit that I've been forgetting about the cat. Befriending the cat was supposed to have mechanical benefits (initiative bonus, but we could change that to a prep round).

It's all good! I hope you (or the team) didn't interpret the aside as dissatisfaction or questioning. Just making sure I am not being wasteful with Lawric's limited resources while still being able to contribute something to the defense of our little home!

All good, it's a rough fight but we're doing ok - the writer obviously had some ideas in mind, and I kinda robbed myself as in campaigns I normally had some armour-jamas (light armour) for my melee to sleep in etc - a habit PFS has got me OUT of... :p

Mea culpa.

I believe that I didn't, or didn't consistently, apply weakness vitality to all the Strikes in the last encounter. Please speak up if you notice me forgetting it again.

Thanks for the clarification regarding vitality- it makes the possibility of 3 action heal bursts a little more mechanically feasible!

Paizo.com will be going down at 8 am Pacific on Monday, November 3.

I will probably make a post over the weekend, and then hold the game until the site returns to full functionality (which may be after the site officially comes back up and limps along with bugs).

You can E-mail me at pfswaterysoup (gmail) if something goes awry. I'm also on Discord, waterysoup6233, but I check that, like, every 2 months.

Anyone want to do an over/under on when the site actually does come back up? My bet is sometime Thursday.

I would guess Thursday as well, but if you called dibs, I'd take Friday over Wednesday.