A.k.a "manual/oral" flamethrower
Also known as firebreather’s oil, this bitter liquid is harder to ignite than common oil but burns quickly at a low temperature, making it ideal for exotic performers such as fire-spinners and flame-spitters. You may spit a mouthful of keros oil past an open flame (such as a candle, tindertwig, or torch) to ignite it, creating a brief burst of fire. If you use it to attack, the attack is a ranged touch attack with a maximum range of 5 feet that deals 1d3 points of fire damage. If you roll a 1 on your attack roll, you accidentally inhale or swallow some of the burning fuel; you take 1d6 points of fire damage and are nauseated for 1 round. A bottle of keros oil holds enough for 10 mouthfuls; taking a mouthful from the bottle is a standard action (the Rapid Reload feat reduces this to a move action). Crafting this item is a DC 15 Craft (alchemy) check.
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*grumbles about yet another ENG->ZHS translation that omit important stuff*
Still need to hit the AC with -4 penalty, though. And I've been searching for the answer for whether alchemical splash weapon's direct hit bypass the single target effect immunity of swarm, but no one seems to be able to point to a explicit rule for it. But what I do find, is that scorching ray works against them as the man James Jacobs said so.
Well, there may not be an explicit rule, but there is an implicit rule (seeSwarm Subtype for the complete text):
(...) "A swarm takes half again as much damage (+50%) from spells or effects that affect an area, such as splash weapons and many evocation spells." (...)
As the normal splash damage from a splash weapon is usually 1 damage, adding 50% brings that to 1.5 damage which rounds down to 1 damage. So the bolded text doesn't make any sense - except if the swarm is subject to the direct hit damage.
(Also, the alchemist class didn't exist at the time the Bestiary came out. Therefore, it's not a valid argument to point there and say "but it make sense for this class!" just because an alchemist adds his INT modifier to splash damage.)
*grumbles about yet another ENG->ZHS translation that omit important stuff*
Still need to hit the AC with -4 penalty, though. And I've been searching for the answer for whether alchemical splash weapon's direct hit bypass the single target effect immunity of swarm, but no one seems to be able to point to a explicit rule for it. But what I do find, is that scorching ray works against them as the man James Jacobs said so.
Well, there may not be an explicit rule, but there is an implicit rule (seeSwarm Subtype for the complete text):
(...) "A swarm takes half again as much damage (+50%) from spells or effects that affect an area, such as splash weapons and many evocation spells." (...)
As the normal splash damage from a splash weapon is usually 1 damage, adding 50% brings that to 1.5 damage which rounds down to 1 damage. So the bolded text doesn't make any sense - except if the swarm is subject to the direct hit damage.
(Also, the alchemist class didn't exist at the time the Bestiary came out. Therefore, it's not a valid argument to point there and say "but it make sense for this class!" just because an alchemist adds his INT modifier to splash damage.)
The questions lies within whether the direct hit of splash weapon count as "effects that affect an area". The line you quoted appears in almost every thread discussing this issues on Paizo forum and seems to be the only text that can be used to argue it that way.
The clause "such as splash weapons", grammartically, refers to their area-affecting aspect, which we know the splash damage is. The phrase "such as" introduces examples of effects that affect an area. This does not redefine all splash weapons as inherently being "area effects" for all of their mechanics.
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I think the reason a splash weapon is very effective against a swarm is that you treat the swarm like a single creature for the attack roll, but the splash weapon breaks and covers more than one of those tiny (or smaller) creatures.
The Swarm subtype says:
A swarm has a single pool of Hit Dice and hit points, a single initiative modifier, a single speed, and a single Armor Class. A swarm makes saving throws as a single creature.
This must be for simplicity, as nobody wants to roll 300 or more attack rolls or saving throws.
It further says:
A swarm of Tiny creatures consists of 300 nonflying creatures or 1,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Diminutive creatures consists of 1,500 nonflying creatures or 5,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Fine creatures consists of 10,000 creatures, whether they are flying or not. Swarms of nonflying creatures include many more creatures than could normally fit in a 10-foot square based on their normal space, because creatures in a swarm are packed tightly together and generally crawl over each other and their prey when moving or attacking.
If the target was a normal creature, it would partly cover it's surface, not just the point of impact. The damage of a splash weapon stems from the e.g. acid covering and affecting an area of skin (e.g. of a human), not from the light bruise.
So if you hit the AC (which is needed for a direct hit with a splash weapon), you actually hit more than one of these tiny creatures and therefore deal the direct hit damage. Otherwise, you wouldn't need to hit the AC of the swarm to deal just the splash damage - you could just throw the splash weapon at the ground adjacent to it.
As the sentences "You cannot deal the direct damage of a splash weapon to a swarm." and "You cannot attack a swarm directly with a splash weapon." are both not present in the rules, I conclude that it must be allowed to try to do so.
I also could not find any errata or FAQ to clarify these rules which means that the developers think it's clear enough as it is written and there's no need to clarify. And they had more than enough time since these are CORE rules.
I am open to a different interpretation, though! ;-)
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*grumbles about yet another ENG->ZHS translation that omit important stuff*
Forgive a linguistically-malnourished American, but what does ZHS stand for in this case?
I try to look it up, and the most prominent thing I get is...some high school in Florida that gets its own Wikipedia page. :P
Also, forgive my absence, all; suffice it to say, I have had better weeks than this one.
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*grumbles about yet another ENG->ZHS translation that omit important stuff*Forgive a linguistically-malnourished American, but what does ZHS stand for in this case?
I try to look it up, and the most prominent thing I get is...some high school in Florida that gets its own Wikipedia page. :P
Also, forgive my absence, all; suffice it to say, I have had better weeks than this one.
That's Chinese :)
*grumbles about yet another ENG->ZHS translation that omit important stuff*Forgive a linguistically-malnourished American, but what does ZHS stand for in this case?
I try to look it up, and the most prominent thing I get is...some high school in Florida that gets its own Wikipedia page. :P
Also, forgive my absence, all; suffice it to say, I have had better weeks than this one.
ZHS-> Zhongwen Simplified
and ZHT is Zhongwen Traditional
I did some light digging and there aren’t any posts by Yoshi’s player on any of their PCs since June 17th. I hope they are ok.
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Also, forgive my absence, all; suffice it to say, I have had better weeks than this one.
ZHS-> Zhongwen Simplified
and ZHT is Zhongwen Traditional
Huh; I was tempted to guess something German.
I did some light digging and there aren’t any posts by Yoshi’s player on any of their PCs since June 17th. I hope they are ok.
He's a Venture-Lieutenant for one of the world's most important cities, so between being busy and being Russian, I can fathom any number of obstacles that need not involve anything too grim (I haven't been able to update my Kaspersky security software in years, it's all so much more h*@#%&#+# than I even dare dig into here).
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I've decided that damaging splash weapon do full damage on direct hit to swarm, after my cat broke the screen door and flies come in the house. Kill them all.
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Snake -2No acid damage? Is it resistant?
No, it's just me braindead at work and can't do math properly X_X. The acid should go through DR just fine.
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I want to apologize for how often I've been AWOL from this game; I guess I was demoralized by all the buffoonery with the traps earlier, and I realize I'm still kind of struggling to 'find this character's voice' (as I believe I mentioned, she started out as a joke)....
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I just realized last night: What I'll do is make her a 'psychic warrior'-style Mesmerist; I have another character who's also teetering on 2nd level who I may instead make into an Urban Bloodrager (she used to be my candidate for 'psychic warrior', but there were flaws in that that got in the way, so I'd been waffling on what to do) - this swap'll be almost perfect (although I'm still not entirely sure what to do with the other character)!
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Hello everyone, folks!
It's been a long time, guys, more than two months. I apologize for such a disappearance. I've always said that this can't happen to me. And every time I've said "never" in my life, life itself "taps me on the nose" and shows me that «never say never».
I'm sorry for leaving you like that. I had a very difficult period emotionally, and for quite a long time. I will appear on this forum for two weeks, and then I will leave again for a month on a yoga and meditation retreat. So there's probably no point in joining to this game, but in any case, I want to apologize again for disappearing like this. Life can be hard sometimes.
See you in quieter times in other games. Hug!
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So as I told the DM just now, I am sincerely sorry for my failure to "stick with" this game; I tried, but I've just sort of been crashing, and not just here.
I replied to his notification that whether I continued with this game was conditional on whether this adventure is "evergreen" for 1st-level characters, but on further consideration, I am overextended, I have been struggling to keep up with ALL my games, not just this one, and it would probably be wise of me to take the opportunity to withdraw.
Again, my sincere apologies to all concerned (I need to rethink this character anyway).
Sorry for being nosy but I just realized that Ouita have CLW wand. Maybe Angus could use that to keep people up......
Please remove me from this game so it no longer shows up in my active Campaigns tab?
Sorry, I thought marking the PC as inactive was enough. Apparently I also need to do that for player...
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@GM: Has the mummy(?) the same stats for a group of 4 players or should there be any adjustment?
@Angus: As we would have a TPK anyway you could try and use your acid flasks - maybe we get lucky that way. (But I doubt it, though, as the mummy wasn’t down when it was at -25, so you need at least 2x acid and roll high...)
@GM: Can Angus use a melee touch attack to empty the acid on the part of the mummy that he sticks to (he is grappled)?
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Morale The adherer attempts to flee the crypt if reduced to 10 hitpoints or fewer, though it does not retreat deeper into the tomb. If cornered and unable to reach the surface, it fights to the death.
It was below 10 hitpoints here but did not flee?
And even if it could not before knocking down Ryan and Newt, you then talked Angus into channelling that brought it back to 11 HP. Had Angus kept his action, according to its tactics the adherer would flee and we all would survive.
Also, shouldn't we have gotten a level up after the first tomb?
I thought there's something written about the PCs being level 2 before entering the second tomb in the adventure...
We will be playing only the sanctioned portion of this AP volume (part 1 & part 2) in standard/PFS mode,
Unfortunately in PFS mode, characters don't level up mid-module/sanctioned content, and will only receive chronicle(s) after finishing the entire sanctioned content.
There is no adjustment as the AP is written with the assumption of 4 players instead of 6 in later seasons of PFS1.
The monster's morale states that it will attempt to flee when reduced to 10 hp or less, but "attempt" doesn't mean it automatically turns tail the moment that threshold is hit. In this case, the monster was still surrounded by multiple armed PCs who remained fully capable of striking it down, if dice allowed. Moving blindly past you guys would almost certainly have resulted in it taking more damage or death, which defeats the very purpose of fleeing. A more logical survival response is to first deal with the immediate threats hindering its escape, then look for a safe avenue to retreat. That's why it fought on instead of suicidally disengaging into danger.
It's also worth noting that I ran the monster much less lethally than I could have. I deliberately avoided pinning grappled PCs so you can still attack; and I did not 5ft step to grapple the cleric despite having the chance, for many rounds. I did this because I wanted to give the party opportunities to turn the fight around and survive.
On top of that, the cleric's decision to channel in a way that healed everyone, including the monster, prolonged the battle. Had he possessed the Selective Channel feat like Kyra or position himself more carefully, the monster would have been defeated much earlier, since it benefited from channel healing twice before Angus decided to withdrew, and once more after. I explicitly reminded him that the monster was in channel range, so the last channel was an informed gamble on his part.
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I know a TPK can feel rough, especially after so many rounds of fighting hard. You pushed the monster to the edge, and if not for a ridiculous streak of terrible rolls and a few tough tactical trade-offs, the fight could easily have gone the other way.
I think the biggest factor that tipped the balance was, unfortunately, having two players withdraw from the game, which means the party lost about 40% of its melee strength. With only three frontliners and limited healing, you still managed to bring it down to just 5HP. Its death was almost certain if you'd had another samurai and/or a raging bloodrager, who would have spread out the incoming damage as well and helped you stay up and fighting longer.
I know losing due to non-dice factor out of your control is very frustrating, and Newt raised a valid point about monster fleeing. So the monster will give Angus one last slam that prevents Angus from shooting at it when it escape, but also still allows Angus to heals everyone back up. So you have a TPK, not a TPK.
At this point, if you wish to end the adventure here, the payout would be 1.5xp, 2 prestige point, a boon for the first dungeon, and 1000gp, well above the gold/xp ratio of average scenario for lv1. You could also try to continue to clear out the dungeon for the full reward, but be aware that unfortunately it's not going to get easier.
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I know a TPK can feel rough, especially after so many rounds of fighting hard. You pushed the monster to the edge, and if not for a ridiculous streak of terrible rolls and a few tough tactical trade-offs, the fight could easily have gone the other way.
I think the biggest factor that tipped the balance was, unfortunately, having two players withdraw from the game, which means the party lost about 40% of its melee strength. With only three frontliners and limited healing, you still managed to bring it down to just 5HP. Its death was almost certain if you'd had another samurai and/or a raging bloodrager, who would have spread out the incoming damage as well and helped you stay up and fighting longer.
I know losing due to non-dice factor out of your control is very frustrating, and Newt raised a valid point about monster fleeing. So the monster will give Angus one last slam that prevents Angus from shooting at it when it escape, but also still allows Angus to heals everyone back up. So you have a TPK, not a TPK.
At this point, if you wish to end the adventure here, the payout would be 1.5xp, 2 prestige point, a boon for the first dungeon, and 1000gp, well above the gold/xp ratio of average scenario for lv1. You could also try to continue to clear out the dungeon for the full reward, but be aware that unfortunately it's not going to get easier.
Yep, I agree, GM about the players flaking out on us. I always roll my eyes when that happens, as a tough missions gets much tougher even though the rest of us have done what we were supposed to do.
I guess with what we have left, we should probably call it here. If that was the opening encounter, we will get legit wiped somewhere in this new dungeon, I bet.
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Well, actually, it wasn’t the opening encounter. We had a haunt first and then a big centipede.
But besides that, I agree - I also think we should call it here.
As we have three level 1 and only one level 2 character we most certainly will be wiped out, especially with no arcane caster. One or two magic missiles (and/or a few acid splashes), for example, would have made a big difference in this fight.
After this chronicle Newt will be level 2 with a way higher survival chance of such an encounter.
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When I said "it's not going to get easier", I mean that what you guys just finished was the 2nd groups/rooms of enemy in the second dungeon, out of , and this number does not include traps nor haunts.
Looks like the consensus is that we call it a game and everyone go home alive with one 1000 gp, and I don't think it's a bad decision. I will have your chronicle sheets ready either tonight and tomorrow. If you have a Day Job, you could roll them now.
Now that we know doing Mummy's Mask 1 as lv1 repeatable in PFS mode is a f!&$ing horrible idea, we can avoid doing it this way in the future Outside of raging Crowe swinging at 2d6+12 or Mind Thrust/Shocking Grasp specialist busting 5d6 damage, I can't really think of a easy way to deal with monster like this, at none of my character can handle it at lv1. Maybe a monk with Grease, Alchemical Grease, and Grappler's grease for +19 CMD vs grapple? Or kineticist.
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I concur wholeheartedly with calling this a learned lesson and fleeing alive, tails between our legs.
I appreciate the run and the effort put on by you all and our GM, thank you.
No dayjob here. Would any of the following faction journal card goals have been completed in our first half?
Recover a named text (typically listed in italics or quotes) OR obtain a unique magical item? I don’t think we did but it does not hurt to ask.
I concur wholeheartedly with calling this a learned lesson and fleeing alive, tails between our legs.
I appreciate the run and the effort put on by you all and our GM, thank you.
No dayjob here. Would any of the following faction journal card goals have been completed in our first half?
Recover a named text (typically listed in italics or quotes) OR obtain a unique magical item? I don’t think we did but it does not hurt to ask.
Unique Magic Item, the magic shield you guys failed to ID after you guys defeated the three little dolls in the first dungeon.
It's actually a Scarab Shield. It has its property listed on the sanctioned chronicle sheet, and Archive of Nethy do show the source being from this volume of AP (Pathfinder #79: The Half-Dead City pg. 61)(PFS Legal)
Source Pathfinder #79: The Half-Dead City pg. 61
Aura faint conjuration CL 3rd
Slot shield; Price 4,399 gp; Weight 6 lbs.
Description
This +1 light steel shield is fashioned in the shape of a scarab beetle—a creature that functions as a psychopomp for Pharasma, guiding the souls of the departed into the afterlife. Scarab shields are especially favored by archaeologists and tomb raiders for the protection they grant against guardians and vermin frequently found in ancient ruins and forgotten tombs.Once per day on command, a scarab shield grants its wielder a +2 sacred bonus on saving throws against fear and death effects for 3 minutes. At any time while this bonus is in effect, the wielder can end the effect as a swift action for a burst of healing energy. The wielder loses the saving throw bonus, but is healed of 1d8+3 points of damage.
In addition, a scarab shield can protect its wielder from swarms. If a mindless swarm attempts to enter the wielder’s space, the swarm must attempt a DC 11 Will save. If the save succeeds, the swarm can enter the wielder’s space and attack the wielder normally. If the save fails, the swarm instinctively avoids the space occupied by the wielder, completely ignoring the wielder for 3 rounds. This effect ends if the wielder makes any attacks, but the wielder may use non-attack spells or otherwise act without ending the effect. This ability functions once per day.
The game is reported. Your chronicle sheets can be found in this google drive folder. Let me know if you have other question.