GM Jhaeman's Dawn of Flame, Chapter Six: "Assault on the Crucible"

Game Master Jhaeman

Welcome to the final chapter! Please check in here so I can confirm you're in for Chapter Six. Please make sure your character and inventory sheets are updated and ready to go.

It's a propitious time of year to start the next chapter, because in my home games I give each player a special holiday gift: a red poker chip--and each of you now has a virtual one. You spend spend this red chip to turn any single d20 roll on the table into a number of your choice--guaranteeing a hit is a critical hit, a saving throw is a guaranteed success (or an enemy's failure), and so forth. But you only get one, and when it's gone, it's gone--so use it wisely!

"HELLKNIGHT ARMOR?!"

In-character jokes aside, yo!

Have a Pahtra drinking her religious worries away lmao.

I’m here!

I'm here, but my stuff is not updated. It will be on the weekend though. Just too slammed by work to get it done before that, sorry. I need to finish updating the loot sheet, selling stuff, and buying gear. The ship should be good to go though. Sorry I am behind.

Didn't update much, couldn't update much. all I had the money to add was just better armor

I'm here. I haven't bought the armor yet, but I'm about to do it .)

Dot

Ok folks, it's official--everyone's here! Please head over to Gameplay and lets get this show on the road.

Okay, loot is now under control.

Total from sales: 48,869
Divided: 9,773 each

______

Swapped out the longarm for Hop to this:

Advanced Arc Emitter
Level 9; Price 13,200
Proficiency Longarms
Damage 2d4 E; Range 30 ft.; Critical —
Capacity: 40 charges; Usage 10
Special: blast, stun, unwieldy

It was the best longarm we had in loot.
(Or at least the highest level. I don't know longarms well.)

_____

Personal purchases:

I bought the following Aeon stones

Clear Spindle -- No need for food
Turquoise Cube -- retroactive +1 if you miss a roll by one (once a day)
Bright Yellow Cabochon -- +4 decipher old writing / can cast comprehend languages once a day
Kehtarite Oval -- +4 circumstance bonus to saving throws against the burning condition, automatically extinguish nonmagical fires near you.
Viridian Balbis -- +10 to any movement speed you have
Dark Blue Rhomboid -- +2 insight bonus to Perception and Sense Motive skill checks

(and already had this one)
Iridescent Spindle -- No need to breathe

Starting from your departure from Kahlannal, the rest of this adventure has a sort of sliding scale/countdown thing that tracks both how quickly and how effectively you impede the invasion. The final result affects what happens in the Burning Archipelago. The adventure indicates I shouldn't go into further detail, other than noting that time is of the essence and that things like taking an 8-hour rest, downtime days, etc., should be a last resort.

Here are the details on the antipathy transponder the anassanois installed on the Sun Diver:

Critical Damage Effects: Any penalty due to critical damage to sensors applies to Piloting checks to utilize an active antipathy transponder, as well as to the DCs for foes to successfully scan for a ship that’s using an antipathy transponder.

Effects on Crew: Crew members exposed to an active antipathy transponder more than once or for more than 1 hour during a 24-hour period become fatigued.

Purpose: An antipathy transponder is designed to repel sensor scans with a mind-affecting compulsion.

Activation: To activate this device, you must deactivate your normal transponder, rendering your starship unable to send or receive communications.

Effects: An active antipathy transponder allows a ship to evade notice from passive sensors that might detect you, providing the pilot makes a Piloting check (DC 10+1.5xtier of the vessel to be fooled; to fool a fleet, use the highest starship tier among them then increase the Piloting DC by 2); the pilot gains a bonus to this skill check equal to the bonus the starship gains from defensive countermeasures. If the check is successful, the fooled crew will not actively scan for your vessel (if the fooled crew has a reason to scan the area your starship is in, the antipathy transponder doubles the bonus against active scans your vessel has from defensive countermeasures). If starship combat starts while an antipathy transponder is active and enemies have only become aware of your presence due to the initiative of hostilities, your pilot gains a bonus equal to your bonus from defensive countermeasures to the Piloting check to determine order of actions during the first round of that starship combat.

Limitations: Any attempt to actively scan from a vessel using an antipathy transponder increases the Computers DC for that scan by 2. If your starship does anything other than move or actively scan (such as attack, attempt to enter the Drift, etc.), the antipathy transponder fails to work. An antipathy transponder has no effect on creatures who already know your starship is present (an hour must pass of them being subsequently unaware of the ship’s presence for it to work again).

@Zharis, thank you for counting the money. It's a lot of work. It turned out not so little, I want to note!

@GM, please remind me, do we still have any prisoners, or did we exchange them all for someone else? I vaguely recall some efreeti in stasis from the beginning of book 5, but... I could be wrong. There were too many events. Thanks .)

@Tulgram: I *think* all the prisoners were turned over, but I have to admit I don't remember off-hand. In any event, the four stasis pods aboard the Sun Diver are now filled with your DCI friends, so I'm going to say that any prisoners were incarcerated by the anassanois after the Spire battle.

OK, I don't mind about the prisoners. I'll assume that Tulgram traded "his" prisoner for some services like removing infernal symbols from armor. Although the main reason that it can overcomplicate the game now is, of course.

But about the stasis pods... Anyway, we'll have one available soon. It will either become free immediately before departure, or after a strong embrace from Tulgram a little later.

The usual holiday + intercontinental travel thing is going to take me away from PBP for about a week, I'm afraid. We'll learn more about Rekkart and Uzmat when I return. Happy holidays everyone!

Any knowledge check with a result of 42 when I'll see this creature with my own eyes

"answer 42", yes-yes...

Merry Christmas.

Hey, you do realize we need to edit the document if we're eventually going to move our character tokens and add them, right?

Which document are you talking about?

Maps & Handouts

@Amhesha: Thanks, should be fixed now.

Sorry about my absence. Had some unexpected complications added to my life. I'll try to get caught up and back to regular posting.

Wonder how Zharis will react to one of Amhesha's core memories being a dream of Pulonis getting drawn into the Maelstrom.

I mean, she likes fiction, so she probably wouldn't be upset about it, as long as it didn't really happen.

Thing is, Amhesha wants it to happen. But there's a 0% chance it happens any time during the player's lifetimes since. Ya know. We're talking about the fate of the planes here.

Zharis isn't worried about it ever happening. She might dream of a free homeworld sometimes, wanting it not to be a Vesk world, but she would never state that out loud or in public. She's a public figure and needs to stay away from internal politics. Taking a stand way out here and helping people won't interfere with her fan base, but closer, she would never act to endanger her family's reputation.

Yeah difference between "I want my homeworld to be free" and "f~&@ it, tear it apart and throw it to the Maelstrom." :3

She might dream of a free homeworld sometimes...

Which is kind of what happened in the second edition.

Experience Points (Instalment # 43)

Chapter 6 Role-specific XP Awards

Complete your individual role challenge below at any point during “Assault on the Crucible” to earn bonus XP equal to a CR 10 challenge. Each challenge can only be attempted (and XP can only be awarded) once, and you should state clearly you are attempting the role challenge before making any dice rolls.

I have +10 Perception and no Profession skills. I cannot make either of those checks, even if I roll a 20.

I have +10 Perception and no Profession skills. I cannot make either of those checks, even if I roll a 20.

They are high DCs! You might wait to level up and throw some ranks in Perception before attempting the check. And/or, don't forget that there are lots of serums, spells, class abilities, and stuff like Aid Another to increase the chances of success with a skill roll.

I have 10 ranks in perception, it just isn't a class skill for Soldiers (oddly) and I have no wisdom bonus. As for the professions, I only get 7 ranks/level, so at best, with my highest stat, I could get +13 if I had dumped all 7 into that and pass the check on a Nat 20. But I already leveled and didn't do that (and I don't think it makes any IC sense to suddenly have 7 ranks in a profession like that anyway).

At least until the end of the week, my responses are probably going to slow down a decent bit. Something pretty bad IRL came up.

Sorry to hear that... real life comes first. We'll still be here when you get back.

I return after a hasty move due to Circumstances (TM)!

Sorry, ran out of time today--will update tomorrow.

Didn't update anything else with regard to leveling up, but did change level and BAB and the specific stats for my claw attack.

Notes to remind me:

need to add an expertise talent, and lead by example to my sheet
also update HP and stamina 6/6, skill points 8+int=11

then look up how to do the rest to see if anything else changes

I'm away this weekend, but keep blasting away!

And an early heads up that I'll be away, sans computer, from 13-20 March. It's just one of those months!

I'm going on a retreat for 2.5 weeks. I will be without Internet or any connection, and I will return to the forums on April 13-14. See you later!

Experience Points (Instalment # 44)

I'll do it on Sunday/Monday.

It's too bad that this is the last chapter because I totally should have gotten a hat of disguise. That would be *perfect* for Zharis. I'm not sure why I am only thinking of it now. :) Such a missed opportunity.

I don't know what feat to take. Improved Initiative is the obvious one, but Xylian already has the highest initiative and still continues to go last because his init rolls have been catastrophic since book one, so I don't think it would help much lol.

For my level 11 Exocortex feat I'm taking advanced melee weapon prof. Flight would be cooler but doesn't work with powered armor.

After deep thought, I decided that Tulgram REALLY didn't like being cursed, and he became filled with an even greater rejection of magic in favor of science. So now he has a SPELLBANE feat that fits perfectly with the dwarven racial trait (racial bonus and insight bonus).

Spellbane: You gain a +2 insight bonus to saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities.

So, it's +4 in total .)

NNnngggh, misread that post. Can I walk that post back? I slept 4h and had an interview today.

Actually, I thought you wanted to start a fight (which is fine), but if you don't, let me just add some dialogue and see if we can save it.

Yeah, I MIGHT want to start a fight, but it'll be more... actually direct not "woops these aren't tools just lying around" XD

Just so y'all know I recently started a new job, 2 on/2 off 12 hour night shifts, so my schedule is kind of a mess right now. Just realized a couple of hours ago that I hadn't looked at Paizo in several days. I'll get used to it at some point.

Might finally be ending my long stretch of nemployment with a f#@%ed schedule myself soon, I understand