Pirate Vaults (Inactive)

Game Master Pirate Rob

Very nice notes!

I am impressed. Oorgatch is just staying in his character.
I am a dude playing a dude playing another dude!

As a general note I'm not a stickler for where your minis were on the map before rolling initiative. I'll generally move you to a sensible arrangement based off of recent descriptions, or if need be ask you to exactly position yourself before revealing the exact danger.

Can’t really make use of it. Still a chance that at level 2 I rebuild into the fighter, not really sure this is going to work for me.

Yeah, I know that. But as you pretend to be a 'dumb club smasher', Scarred One would assume that you may want to upgrade your club to Morningstar.

And with regards to rebuilding, in your case, it would be funny if Oorgatch would turn out to be a caster of sorts. Hiding his magical abilities/to afraid to not stride the beaten path of orcish warriors, etc.

Unless I get a really interesting idea, that isn't likely to happen.

I could see a fighter build with a caster archetype, but we'll see. Just waiting to see what inspires me, and what the team needs.

I have a post-it on my monitor that says "chalk!" to remind me to use the chalk to mark our path, just in case we need to backtrack, or someone needs to find us. (As soon as it was established that no one ever uses the chalk in their pack, I took up the challenge lol.)

But I'm already tired of looking at that post-it, so I'd like to simply establish that Sendoksi will mark the rooms as we go, as much as he is able to, so that I don't have to look at the post-it forever. Thanks!

Oorgatch will give Sendoski all of his precious chalk.

I'm stuck in a government ID verifying queue for many hours today. I'll get to the game tonight, but likely won't be for several more hours.

When folks get a chance can you list your chosen background? I'm working on the town bit and there are some potential minor benefits.

Bibliophile here. I’ll add it in the slide too.

- Starwatcher background (added to slide).
- In the player notes (done by Doug Hahn) I've added a loot list at the bottom where I listed all found items. When one claims a thing please add it to your sheet and let's remove it from there. It will be easier to update it as we go, then later scan through the posts.
- Regarding the haunt - burial huh? I watched the ring, burial does not work on haunts :P I was certain that there is a mystery to solve, that someone poisoned kobolds with that bottle, and we would have to be the angels of vengeance etc. That is why I started to identify the items hoping that there is something there ;)

- Starwatcher background (added to slide).

- In the player notes (done by Doug Hahn) I've added a loot list at the bottom where I listed all found items. When one claims a thing please add it to your sheet and let's remove it from there. It will be easier to update it as we go, then later scan through the posts.
- Regarding the haunt - burial huh? I watched the ring, burial does not work on haunts :P I was certain that there is a mystery to solve, that someone poisoned kobolds with that bottle, and we would have to be the angels of vengeance etc. That is why I started to identify the items hoping that there is something there ;)

Great idea regarding the loot. And I'm with you on the poisoning. There is probably more to the story there. When we return to town, we should visit Crow's Casks and have the liquid identified.

Yay more than one person here is willing to track loot! Excellent.

I also have a Loot Spreadsheet that I would prefer to use instead of noting it in prose format, if that's alright. I've found it gets messy after a while otherwise.

You can edit the sheet to add and claim any treasure by selecting your character on the dropdown.

It tracks the status of each item and sell value, as well as wealth by player as a quick way to help visualize the distribution of treasure.

@Yan - awesome, I removed what I wrote in your notes doc. BTW. We found:
3gp
20sp
Which gives 5 GP right? In the sheet, you made it 3.2 g.

I am more than happy to leave treasure management in y'alls hands.

I am more than happy to leave treasure management in y'alls hands.

I am happy to do things, that can make GM's life easier. Usually, GM puts way more work into the game than anyone else at the table.

I have one explanation and one question.

I never played in PF1, my PF2 experience boils down to society play and Plagueston AP. In neither of those I used to identify magic nor did I identified items, so I need to get used to that. In most games, GM's were simply saying: you found a +1 Morningstar, you found Owlbear talisman etc.

Now question:
We were tasked to investigate the tower, Before we got there Yan wanted us to go back to Otari. I thought that he got overexcited by side quests and wanted to leave the main task for later. When we entered the tower the magic was too hard to comprehend and lock rather hard to open (DC 25 with +7 mod means you need s**t load of picks ;)). Are those clear signals that to investigate the tower we need higher levels? As I had at least a few other ideas on how to move us forwards ;)

I don't mind us going to Otari, but I also don't want to make it harder for GM by going a completely other direction than we should. (as he did hint that we don't need to go to Otari until later).

Good questions, Scarred One.

There will be table variation, in that some GMs just hand wave things, sometimes that they shouldn’t, for expediency... especially in PFS. In those games, time can be a limiter, even in online games, so more rolling and chances for failure, etc., can be seen as an inconvenience

As for taking side quests, etc., and playing around the site... sure, we can do what we want, but many GMs will make helpful suggestions. If you really want to stay on site, just let us know, and we can RP it out!

——

On another note, what does the party think about trading some of our loot for a set of Infiltrator thieves tools, and a mess of picks? The +1 could make a big difference later.

In the case of the average lock, it would mean I needed to roll a 17 instead of 18... a 33% probability increase to succeed, and reduces the chance of a crit fail by 12.5%. Not great his level, but it will have a large effect in 1-2 levels, I think.

I expect to be expert in thievery by level 4 (level 2 is probably going to be deception)

I honestly don't mind going back to the town, but I wonder if I am missing hints that others are reading. I just was wondering. I am a rather, go-with-flow kind of guy.

----

With regards to loot, yeah I am all for it. It seems that the lock is the most difficult opponent right now ;)

If we don't have to sell the Morningstar +1 we should also consider:

Transfering runes

To some other weapon.

While browsing the rules I 'discovered' something in Pick a lock action - apparently broken locks can be repaired with crafting and repair kit. I actually did not know that, sharing if someone also missed it.

Yan is just easily distracted; he also thinks there might be people in need of help and would prioritize that. Also he wants a nice lunch. Out of character, I think we basically need to find the key to get up there.

Transfering runes takes one day, so we're stuck with the weapon as-is till we get some downtime.

Infiltrator thieves tools are a level 3 item and 50 gp. I am not sure we could access/afford them but I am happy to chip in. I put my leftover starting GP on the loot sheet.

To help out with a bit from behind the curtain.

PFS scenario design is a lot of here's a goal and you'll always be the appropriate level and always have the appropriate tools etc. Go forward until that's done.

Because of the longer adventure design in APs there's a lot of running you into or at least adjacent to things you're not ready yet. Foreshadowing or something.

Figuring out what's going on with the tower and dealing with it is the big mystery of the first level of this dungeon. I think the theory is showing you the locked door first and then finding the key later is more narratively rewarding. You have some clues but likely need to investigate and learn more.

This first level especially is really approachable in a variety of ways. One could have walked around and looked in the barred window into the tower room and the blood and strange room would have been the first thing you saw etc. There's a nice sandbox to play in with a variety of workable paths. The side quests are all woven into the location, helping drive you to interesting spots, but also giving you information on the very puzzles and mysteries within. Completing them also frequently gives tangible benefits

As a note PF2 has quite a bit of things that are clearly supernatural but aren't "magic". Haunts being one of the biggest examples, but there are others as well.

As for the magic, the tower is connected to a high level artifact that's somewhat of a macguffin but not fully turned on yet. At the level ranges of the AP figuring it out by rolling high enough on an ID check isn't ever going to work, you're going to have to piece it together as you continue to delve deeper etc.

I think exploring further rather than brute forcing your way through the lock at this point is more interesting but that's just like my opinion man, Either way will get you there in the end.

@GM - thanks for the explanation.

Greatly appreciated!

Took potion ID cost out on the loot tracker.

Thanks, Yan, I've added my 5 GP to the party loot. I have no use of them for now.

I noticed replacement picks on the list... I think we can just fix them with a repair check, right?

I read “you can repair them by replacing the lock picks” to be an option. Maybe I misunderstand the intent of this statement.

On the other hand, it may be that are going to go through a lot of picks this adventure.

Okay, so here's where I display my lack of game knowledge, mostly from not having played characters higher than fourth level in PF2, but also from not playing many melee types. And I still probably have some PF1 thinking and habits left over.

If the morningstar is +1 that means it has a rune on it, (which I didn't realize) and we'd rather move the rune to something else than sell the whole thing. And moving the rune takes 24 hours?

I'm just putting the pieces together to make sure I follow what everyone else seems to have intuited.

I thought we needed the gold from selling the morningstar because we wanted to buy something else, but I"m fine with whatever we decide to do!

Yes, we can get the rune moved. Would cost 3.5gp for one of us to do it (with the magical crafting feat). Note that this could be reduced to half by taking more time.

Not sure what it will cost someone else to do it, but based on crafting rules might not be more.

So, are magic items in PF2 simply mundane items with runes on them that can be moved around?

If we find a +1 weapon, are we always able to assume we've really just found a +1 rune that can be removed and put on something else, or are there items that are magic in and of themselves and can't be deconstructed?

First the disclaimer, I played some society games but a lot of rules I haven't even touch ;) With that in mind my responses:

@Oorgatch:
- Thieve's Tools states that: 'if your thieves' tools are broken, you can repair them by replacing the lock picks with replacement picks appropriate to your tools; this doesn't require using the Repair action. If you wear your thieves' tools, you can draw and replace them as part of the action that uses them.'

So if you broke your lock, you can replace it using replacement picks.
Now are replacement picks 1-time use or multi-use I don't know.

Pick a lock in a critical failure states: 'Fixing them requires using Crafting to Repair them or else swapping in replacement picks (costing 3 sp, or 3 gp for infiltrator thieves’ tools)'

That would mean that you can simply take out a repair kit and fix your broken lock pick. How many times can you do it before you need to buy a replacement, I don't know.

@Sendoski - I think there are both: runes and magical items.

Runes consist of +1, striking, greater striking etc. All those can be moved. The same goes for +1 runes for armor
But there are also Magical weapons and I think this magic effects you can't simply move.

Ya a nice bit of pf2, BBEG fights with a greatsword and you use a flail? Just transfer the rune at a 10% cost after collecting your loot. PFS doesn't charge you any extra for said service beyond that 10% material cost. I'm charging you a service fee at the moment but it's the sort of thing this AP hooks you up with eventually as you help out the town. As mentioned above you can also do it yourself with magical crafting.

For picks I think the note about repairing them is in error. Basically any time you critically fail you will need a set of replacement picks to make the tools functional again.

I read again for the zillionth time and changed my mind. You can repair them, just takes the time instead of hot swapping new picks.

Named magic weapons effectively can't be deconstructed into component parts. Also they are limited to adding higher "fundamental" (+1, striking etc) and can't add other runes like flaming etc.

Hey Folks,

I just wanted to let you know, that so far I enjoy this AP a lot. I like the fact that the team is interacting with each other and the paste of the story. I like the personalities of other team members and I am interested to see where they will all develop.

Also, I like Scarred One and how he fits all of the above. And for all that thank you!

I believe in giving credit where the credit's due, good job all! And thanks to GM Rob for running this!

Hey Folks,

I just wanted to let you know, that so far I enjoy this AP a lot. I like the fact that the team is interacting with each other and the paste of the story. I like the personalities of other team members and I am interested to see where they will all develop.

Also, I like Scarred One and how he fits all of the above. And for all that thank you!

I believe in giving credit where the credit's due, good job all! And thanks to GM Rob for running this!

I completely agree! I look forward to reading this AP every day. We've had some fun character moments, and I'm sure we can find more!

Agreed. And seconded on sendoski’s question!

<3

Didn't Writ say that we should go there at night time?

Truth.

As long as we're not running up on being fatigued in the next few hours, Yan is fine continuing!

You're good for a few more hours of adventuring.

Tomorrow, I might not be able to post. I am going on a hike and will be away from the computer. I might be able to post at the end of the day. Just letting everyone know.

Working on catching up... got hit by a bus... I mean my 2nd covid vaccine kind of knocked me out yesterday.

I am back, I will fall down and post something in 10 h or so.

@Oorgatch I hope you will feel better soon.

Feeling much better already! Thanks!

So we can't stand this much longer; these things are halfway to 2-shotting half the party after one attack each because they are clearly higher level than us… and they each have 3 actions coming up.

We may want to tactically retreat and return later with a plan of some sort.

If not, we definitely do not want to stand toe-to-toe with them because they need an 8+ to hit on Map 1, and a 12+ on map 2 if they have claws, etc. This means there's a lot of incoming damage we cannot outheal and at this rate, won't outdamage.

To this end I have moved Yan back but kept him in range to mitigate damage so we can fall back if needed. This is just my OOC suggestion; I happy to coordinate with the party.

Maybe going through SKULL DOOR was not an awesome idea!?

LoH status to AC is allies only. Corrected slashline. Thanks.

Yeah I agree, we should fall back. Btw. I knew at least one GM who would not put monsters attack modifiers so that players don't draw the above conclusions based on +10 or +13 to hit modifier (so metagaming). And yeah we need some strategy for this fight, and we still don't know what ???? are ;)

[dice=hey uhh don't eat them please]1d20+7

Shouting back at you from the far side "Stingy says he won't eat you as long as he gets fed. I can go get some maggot steaks but it'll take a minute. You got anything faster?"

We can just move though, I think. it's 2 squares of difficult terrain (one through the back door and one through the front). We could all get through in one full round, after delaying for whoever goes through first since Scarred One delayed.

As long as Stingy doesn't block a door.

Yan also has rations he can throw. The dried meat in them might entice Stingy.

E: or the fish from lunch!

Sendoski follows Yan and the others out of the pen, keeping a hand on Naught so the cat doesn't jump off and go for the fish.

"If nothing else, at least we know what's through those doors. Let's try another way in."

Head toward the smaller door?

I assume you meant this for game play?

Ok, I looked into the spells and:
- Disrupt undead - cantrip, Fort save, positive damage
- Hydraulic push - bludgeoning damage, and potentially push away. But it requires for me to actually hit ;)
- Magic fang - allows enhancing the unarmed attacks to be +1 striking
- Magic stone - creates up to 3 +1 striking disrupting sling bullets so 2d6 bludgeoning damage +1d6 positive. We could get 3 slings and 3 of us could take 1 shot with those.
- Pummeling rubble cone of bludgeoning damage with reflex save. Even on success, the enemy takes damage which would trigger the weakness.
- Shillelagh - makes a club +1, 3d6 bludgening damage weapon but only in Scarred One hands :(

I think that would be it. So we could get slings, Scarred One could cast Magic stone and pass them around. Everyone loads them and on the first round, we open the doors and takes a shot. Maybe that would take one down? But I am not sure how well are we shooting (ok I had a look and it is bad :D)

So, Magic fang on Oorgatch fists. Greese on the floor to separate them?

But then again, those spell slots compete with Heal :( So maybe 2 heals, and we try to bash one to pieces and retreat. Any ideas?

With several of us knowing Medicine, the magical healing is probably less critical.

Plus, we can see about buying some scrolls of Heal.

Finally, on your spell list... don’t discount using the 3-action heal to both heal and harm!

If we sell the wolf fang talisman and caltrop snare we have 14 GP. This is enough for a bludgeoning weapon for Oorgatch (light mace; .4 GP), and a scroll of Heal for Scarred One to use (12 GP).

Scroll of Heal (level 1) is only 4gp. We could get three of them, then.
Which is even better!

I have a question:
3-action Heal has a material tag. That means that the caster needs to hold the material pouch/mistletoe or whatever, is that correct? I never say a caster using an action for that, but hey I never saw people using chalk and here we are ;)

Given no guidance for spells, I would take: Pummeling rubble and Shillelagh.