Curgyr's page

I suppose this can be a place to ask any questions about this element of the AP, to discuss it, to tell stories about it, etc., but I opened the thread because I have a specific question.

In the interest of contributing the idea that the thread might continue beyond the first question, I'll point people to the Community Created Content thread for cleaned-up maps of the citadel! I know I've seen it come up in other threads, and it's a really fantastic thing that was made and put out for us to use by Ruzza!

Here's my question:

Under "Basic Repair Activities", it very specifically says that "[a]s with Crafting or Earning Income, the PC can continue on with the activity after the roll, continuing to make progress at the same rate and cost." So you only need to roll once, and then you carry on with the repairs, presumably stopping and starting again if you need to (Administration and Organize Labor requirements notwithstanding). "Upgrade Activities" doesn't have this specific text. Instead, it says "[e]ach upgrade activity requires a successful skill check to complete a day's wroth of work. On a critical success, the PC's team completes 2 days' worth of work that day."

Since the repairs only say that each activity (but cleaning) only requires "a successful Crafting check" and that a critical success allows you to "complete 2 days' worth of work each day" (and then tell you how that one check can be used to keep on going) and the upgrades lacks this text but seems more specific about how a roll takes a day ("2 days' worth of work that day", how a check completes only a day's worth of work), do my players have to roll a successful Check for every day (or 2 days, on a critical) required by the task?

I'm tempted to say they can just roll once, like with repairs, but I don't know if this is an extra cost in micromanagement/risk for the complexity of upgrades?

My sorcerer player had an interesting question: animal form is two actions, meaning you can begin the round by, say, Sustaining dancing lights to provide the party vision and then become a bear. The question is whether, in this hypothetical scenario, the sorcerer-turned-bear could continue to sustain dancing lights (or, let's be honest, flaming sphere).

While a bear, you are under the effects of the polymorph trait, which specifies that you cannot cast spells (or activate items), speak, or usually engage with manipulate actions that require hands. You can use the Dismiss action, however, which shares the same traits as Sustain a Spell.

My initial thought is yes. Polymorph even says "if there's any doubt about whether you can use an action, the GM decides"! But I was curious what people thought / if there was a definitive answer. "Yes" is an acceptable answer for my table, but I always feel like I'm missing something when my players ask a question and I can't find an answer!

My group and I really enjoy the way goblins "are" in Pathfinder 2E! Especially after they met the Bumblebrashers and got to RP with some non-hostile goblins. Sadly, none of them are playing a goblin - something they found particularly sad once they realized some of the ridiculous heritage feats available to goblins. So we decided that we would make a "B-Team" that are all members of the Bumblebrashers, and that would give them a chance to not only play goblins but to test out classes and ideas they were interested in. The idea was that they would keep pace, in level, with their own "A-Team" characters (to see all the class options available to their new classes) and that we would play a short adventure with them at a good breaking point in each subsequent book of this AP, while their regular team was gallivanting around on new continents. We thought it would be a fun way to keep the Citadel and Breachill in our campaign beyond just "where we stop for some downtime".

So... Meet Bumble's Brashers!
(And help give me some ideas for them!)

When a group of adventurers showed up to help the Bumblebrashers reclaim their home, it was agreed that their mascot, Big Bumble, might serve the tribe by clearing out the cultists. After all, they had chosen a terrifying and powerful mascot to represent them. The group was, of course, warned that she wasn't very good at telling friend and foe apart, but the hope was that she would be every bit as fearsome and incredible as the goblins naturally assumed she'd be. They also drew a map, to be helpful.

As the strangers ventured away, the tribe waited, anxious and curious, for news. Eventually they returned, carrying a great brown pelt with them. The pelt of Big Bumble! The adventurers brought promises that their mascot might live on in the form an ingenuous craft they would engage in the moment they had time. But, more than that, they brought an amazing story! Big Bumble, released from her room, became a fury. The group hid from her, and could only relay what the battle had sounded like, but they found her body, dramatically posed in a pool of blood and water from that annoying roof-drip, the munched and mutilated bodies of their feared tormentors in her wake.

With just enough details to wildly exaggerate and extrapolate greatness from, a story of complexity that short attention spans attributed to some cleverness Big Bumble herself was involved in (in reality the oddly involved Rube-Goldberg-with-a-bear-esque plan my players concocted to free and direct the bear without seeing her themselves utilizing ropes and carefully held doors), and a near-holy artifact handcrafted for them to immortalize Big Bumble, there has been talk among the tribe that Big Bumble may have become more than just a mascot...

Our usual Fighter player is playing a Razortooth Bard whose muse is the concept of Big Bumble herself. He wildly attributes traits and opinions to Big Bumble that a bear simply cannot hold, and has eagerly built you up in his mind to fit his idea of what she should be.

Our usual Alchemist is playing a Barbarian of some kind (Unbreakable Goblin?), and is - obviously - going to be a Bear Animal Spirit Barbarian, empowered by the rage and drive that Big Bumble exhibited in her final rampage through the cultists.

Our usual Sorcerer is going to take over the bomber role as Charhide Alchemist who is the classic goblin arsonist. The connection to Big Bumble isn't yet established, if there is one, but we're very excited for the feat that lets a goblin set themselves on fire!

Finally, our usual Cleric is going to be an Irongut Rogue who likes to steal food and other things, too. Probably admired Big Bumbles imagined gluttony, even though that was mostly directed at other goblins!

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I already have an idea for their first adventure. We agreed we wanted to do a level 1 "get used to the classes" romp before jumping into the first place we planned to play them, which would be level 6 or 7 - sometime during Cult of Cinders. So I decided that Breachill would face a new crisis just a few days after "Big Bumblefest", a festival thrown in honor of the clan's savoir, Big Bumble (and the adventurers who helped her), where the party's homemade item would make its debut (my players are scheming to turn Big Bumble's pelt in a Chinese-dragon-like puppet that two/three goblins can wear and dance around in).

Goblins tried to attack Breachill. They were singing about "Bumbles" and "brashers" and incomprehensible things, and some townsfolk think the local tribe is responsible. They aren't! Now, the tribe is in trouble again, and it's time for new champions to save the tribe. Sure, those adventurers helped save them from Calmont and they were instrumental in Big Bumble's apotheosis, but they're busy, and these four goblins are inspired! So they go out searching for these goblins that are continuing to give their kind a bad name.

Well, it turns out, the Bumblebrashers aren't the only tribe in town with a new god. With the death of Ralldar, a nearby lesser barghest is hoping to muscle in on territory that used to be his. Now, he obviously hasn't used the territory in forever, but barghests are territorial and I'm thinking no one would want to mess around the old stomping ground of a crazed greater barghest that's refusing to move on to new pastures. Now that rumors of his death have spread, though, it's time to muscle in. So a regular barghest is trying to unite smaller goblin tribes and has its eyes set on the Bumblebrashers and the town of Breachill, and it's up to this party to stop it!

I'm only looking for a session or two, and that might be ambition. I'm thinking they discover what's going on and convince some goblins to mutiny - maybe there's a tribe or two that wanted to live kind of neutral lives but is scared - or maybe there's another tribe they can drive to disorganization by killing the Hobgoblin leader that's not the barghest's lieutenant? Hopefully it ends in a pitched battle setpiece again a (weak adjusted) barghest with some NPC support.

I do maybe want to touch on the difference between goblins who remain like the evil goblin stereotype and the Bumblebrashers, and maybe bring in some pieces of their interactions with Hobgoblins, and maybe a barghest trying to be a new goblin god isn't the best way to do that. But what I really want is an opportunity to discuss some of the lore behind Ralldar, because it's cool but the PCs don't have a lot of ways to get that in Hellknight Hill. Between what they see in his cave and what he'll yell at them in combat, I anticipate they'll figure a lot of it out, but I think this plotline might be a way to introduce some more of it, with goblin dialogue and "villain speeching" from the new barghest. What do you think?

I have what should be a simple question about the Cleric Feat "Healing Hands" that, for some reason, I can't really figure out. The Healing Hands Feat says you roll d10s in place of d8s when you cast Heal. That much is easy to understand; what gets me is the 2-Action, single-target version of Heal, which reads: "The spell has a range of 30 feet. If you’re healing a living creature, increase the Hit Points restored by 8."

To me, Healing Hands should increase that 8 to a 10, but nothing explicitly states that. My understanding of the design principal is that you're essentially rolling 2d8 but one is assumed to be the max roll. This is also supported by the Heightened text which scales the +8s evenly with he additional rolled d8s. So a 2nd level Heal which rolls 2d8 does the equivalent of 4d8 if half of them rolled max. My interpretation is that it should then scale to 1d10+10, in the same way as if you'd rolled 2d10 and one had rolled its highest value. Intuitively, this is how my formula brain is breaking down the structure of the spell, but I can't find anything that states this. Do I have the wrong idea, or is it important to keep the +8 the way it is?

Hello!

I have a player looking to make a Bard and he's got some questions about Reach Spell. I think I know the answer, but we were wanting some clarification. It states that it increases the range of spells that have a range by 30 feet. He wants to know what effect that has on, say, Grim Tendrils, which does not explicitly have range but has an area.

I'd think the answer is "it does nothing" - and I'm almost entirely sure the answer isn't "60ft line" - but I also thought an argument could be made for starting the 30ft line anywhere within 30ft as opposed to originating from the caster. The rules for range and area states that an area spell with a range can center/begin its area from any space within range. The rules for increasing the range of Touch spells state you increase range from 0. Technically, "Touch" is a specified range - so the spell "has a range" to satisfy the requirement of Reach Spell - but I suppose an entertaining argument could be that spells like Grim Tendril are also "Range 0" spells that can become spells with an area (that isn't effected by Reach Spell) and a Range of 30ft.

Like I said, I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is. But... thoughts?

I have four players. Not a one is trained in Thievery or possesses Thieve's Tools. Now, I understand that these types of skills are pretty fundamental in an adventuring party, and yet here we are. I'm not against saying "you can't do it so you miss out" on some things, such as unlocking a door that might lead to a quicker/safer route or accepting that my players simply don't understand the plot-hint-in-form-of-mysterious-book because they are hypothetically abysmal at Religion and/or Society, but some of the gear in this adventure is literally locked behind a Thievery check.

Any idea of what to do?

For smaller lockboxes, I can force the players to pay an expert to pick the lock for them. Might be fun. For larger lockers and stuff, that doesn't work. I was thinking you could just break the box, like a door, perhaps at risk of damaging fragile items inside. Certainly, there are generic hardness/durability rules. What would y'all go with?