GM 7thGate's page

Discussion thread for The Dalsine Affair. Link to slides.

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st to 7th level characters (Tiers: 1-2, 3-4 and 6-7).

Your mission takes you to the Taldan capital city of Oppara where the intricate web of political intrigue and ages-old religious conflicts threaten the Pathfinder Society’s presence in the land. When Baron Jacquo Dalsine’s cousin is implicated in a recent attack on Society allies, the situation becomes even tighter for the Pathfinders, and at the end of the day some members of the Dalsine family may not get out unscathed.

This will be a Gameday XII game, set to start September 4th. Preference in recruiting will be given to filling out a table with in-tier characters, followed by a preference for high tier over mid over low tier, then party composition. Please post which character(s) you would be interested in playing with for which tier(s).

You have received an unusual summons to meet District Councilmember and priestess of Abadar Jostlyn Ferqqyr at the Vault of Abadar in Absalom’s Ivy District. Upon arrival, Ferqyr is already waiting at the compound’s main gate flanked by two stern paladins of Abadar. The priestess waits quietly, with a nod as each of the Pathfinders arrives.

"Greetings. I have your mission briefing and materials as entrusted to me by Sorrina Westyr, per our contract with the society. We will proceed when all are present."

Hi everyone, and welcome to the game!

I've taken a short look through everyone's characters, and I'll do a more detailed one soon to make sure I have a good idea how everyone's abilities function and make sure I understand where the numbers are coming from. We have an APL of 9, so with 5 people we will be playing High Tier with the 4 player adjustment.

Since I've got all the important bits for reporting from the recruitment thread, I would just like everyone to post a couple bits about your character here to start; who is your character and what are they like? What sorts of special things can they do, in or out of combat? And is there anything your character does that is especially complicated rules-wise or might need a GM ruling about how they function?

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 7-11.

Remembered as the Ruby Phoenix, the legendary sorcerer Hao Jin disappeared without a trace centuries ago never to be seen since. The Pathfinder Society has spent much of the past decade exploring her vast museum demiplane, yet in recent years the demiplane's very existence has begun to unravel, threatening to cast its contents into the void. The Society's leaders believe that only Hao Jin herself might be able to repair her creation, and a new lead at last reveals where she had gone: the realm of perfect law, Axis. As elite agents, the PCs must track her down and convince her to save the tapestry demiplane and all of the creatures that live there.

Welcome everyone! One slot is reserved for Mustaparta, and the rest will be chosen based on tier, party composition and prior scenarios played related to the Hao Jin Tapestry.

You have gathered in Manaket's Swordmeet Lodge, having been summoned by Venture-Captain Obo for a mission of some importance to the Pathfinder Society's efforts in the Worldwound. Incense hangs heavily in the air as the Pathfinders gather around a low table to wait for the Venture-Captain to arrive for the briefing...

Hi everyone, and welcome to the game!

If everyone could please go ahead and post some basic information with your character's alias you'll be using.

Player Name:
PFS Number:
Faction:
Day Job Roll:
Who is your character and what are they like?
What cool things can they do?
Is there anything your character does that is especially complicated rules wise or needs a GM ruling about how they function?

Please make sure your character sheet is either typed out in your profile or linked from it for reference.

For combat, I’ll be doing block initiatives, and I’ll roll for everyone as part of the encounter starting for speed. If you have any single use abilities for initiative like Heightened Awareness or Natural Divination, let me know if you intend to use them ahead of time so I can factor them in.

I have some slides prepared, and I'll look at getting them up tomorrow.

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 5–9.

Few are as adept at fighting demons as the Riftwardens, an organization of spellcasters dedicated to protecting the boundaries between the planes. Many are already committed to the Fifth Crusade in Mendev and are unable to assist the Pathfinders directly in the society’s upcoming expedition into the Worldwound, but if the Pathfinders assist the Riftwardens elsewhere, perhaps a small number of the mages might be free to return the favor. Unfortunately, this means entering the godless nation Rahadoum, where several Riftwardens have recently disappeared.

This is a 1st edition Pathfinder Society game that I would like to run for Gameday starting on September 11th. I'll be taking people on a first come, first served basis. Please post with the character(s) you would be interested in playing.

One of the things about Pathfinder 2e that I found particularly interesting was the change to poison mechanics, since Poisons were terrible in Pathfinder 1e. Trying to determine the distribution of effects you can expect from poisoning a particular creature is actually rather involved with the multi stage affliction system combined with the critical failure/success system, as the fact that getting stuck at higher stages of poisoning becomes more difficult to escape in a non-linear manner as the save DC increases. Things get further complicated by the fact that some poisons with Sickened or Drained make it harder to escape later stages, and Virulent kicks in at higher levels.

There are a lot of practical considerations to poison use that don't have direct math modeling, like: Can you figure out creative ways to contact or ingest poison enemies (both are usually stronger)? Does combat last long enough to get enough of the effect? How valuable are the status conditions? Aside from these more qualitative questions, there's the main quantitative one, which is: for a given Poison and enemy saving throw, what does the damage distribution look like?

I decided to calculate this so I could get a feel for poison damage vs. enemy fort save to try and answer questions like: How effective would the poisons from a multiclass Alchemist be at adding damage to low level minions? How effective would alchemist poisons be vs. typical level -3 or level -4 minions? vs. even level or +1 or +2 bosses? How effective would an emergency Level +2 Poison consumable be at killing +1 or +2 bosses? How large of an improvement in damage can be expected from applying a negative modifier to the target saves in a particular situation?

To do this, I wrote a C++ program to simulate the outcomes for each posion and each fort save bonus between +0 and +39, and loaded the tables into the spreadsheet here: Poison Damage Analysis. The methodology isn't perfect; I made a simplifying assumption that each poison stage would do exactly average damage for the dice, rather than working out the distribution of dice results to add to the probability of the different damage outcomes. It should, however, suffice to give some intuition about the different outcomes to expect from a particular situation, with approximate PDF, CDF and average for the damage done.

I'm still playing around with the numbers, but some initial takeaways from my first question:
--Multiclassing Alchemist for poisons as a rogue may be ok as a damage add vs. lackeys, but it is pretty dependent on level and saving throws. Examples:
Lvl 2 w/ Level 1 Poison (Giant Centipede Venom) vs. Level 0 (Pugwampi): 9.44 Avg Damage
Level 2 w/Level 1 Poison vs. Level 0 (Orc Brute): 7.27 Avg Damge
Lvl 6 w/ Level 3 Poison (Graveroot) vs. Level 2 (Dhampir Wizard): 14.6 Avg Damage (Also Stupefied!)
Lvl 6 w/ Level 3 Poison vs. Level 2 (Bug Bear Thug): 6.3 Damage
Lvl 10 w/ Level 5 Poison (Hunting Spider Venom) vs. Level 6 (Annis Hag): 2.04 Avg Damage
Lvl 10 w/ Level 5 Poison vs. Level 6 (Lamia): 6.3 Avg Damage
Level 12 w/ Level 7 Poison (Giant Wasp Venom) vs. Level 8 (Lamia Matriarch): 20.46 Avg Damage
Level 12 w/ Level 7 Poison vs. Level 8 (Tricerotops): 5.63 Avg Damage
Lvl 14 w/ Level 9 Poison (Spider Root) vs. Level 10 (Dark Naga): 24.44 Avg Damage
Lvl 14 w/ Level 9 Poison vs. Level 10 (Gug): 14 Avg Damage

The middling examples made this look pretty useless; spending an action for an average of +2 damage against a minion (with high variance) is pretty bad at level 6. 24.44 damage at level 14 looks like it might be not too bad though, and some of the lower level cases actually look pretty decent.

I'm going to keep looking at different situations to get a feel for how poisons behave, but I thought I would share my work in case anyone else finds this interesting.

You have been stationed at the Grand Lodge in Absalom, awaiting assignment for a mission of utmost importance. Things finally seemed in motion when Venture-Captain Drandle Dreng sent out a summons for available agents. Specialized in the history of Absalom, Dreng is known for putting off-duty agents to work on sundry tasks when he finds them resting within the city’s limits.

You arrive at the meeting location, a deserted street corner far from the Grand Lodge, the constant drizzle of rain having driven most of the nearby population inside.

Hi everyone, this will be the discussion thread for this game of the Wounded Wisp. Feel free to post a short ooc introduction of who you'll be playing, and anything you would like your teammates to know about them. If you can also post your character's PFS number and day job roll, that will make it easier for me to find all the information to write up the chronicles when we're done. Also, please indicate if you've played the confirmation, since there may be some callbacks to that as part of this adventure.

I'm going to go ahead and get the gameplay thread set up, and everyone can do in-character introductions and preliminary roleplaying with each other when they're ready. I'll be looking to probably kick things off Tuesday or Wednesday, once everyone's had a chance to get a post or two in.

Hello everyone, and welcome to recruitment for a classic PFS run of the evergreen scenario The Wounded Wisp.

There are three spots spoken for, so I will be looking to recruit three level 1 or 2 pathfinders for the adventure. I'll take the first three interested people who post with a character in this recruitment thread, then look to get started a few days later this week.

Currently, we have a Cleric of Desna, an Alchemist with a fondness for explosives and a fisherman Lore Warden with net skills. I look forward to playing with you all!

You have been stationed at the Grand Lodge in Absalom, awaiting assignment for a mission of utmost importance. Things finally seemed in motion when Venture-Captain Drandle Dreng sent out a summons for available agents. Specialized in the history of Absalom, Dreng is known for putting off-duty agents to work on sundry tasks when he finds them resting within the city’s limits.

You arrive at the meeting location, a deserted street corner far from the Grand Lodge, the constant drizzle of rain having driven most of the nearby population inside.

More than 400 years have transpired since the Pathfinder Society began in a humble tavern that has quietly weathered the centuries without incident. When a routine errand there uncovers a clue left behind by one of the founding Pathfinders, it’s up to the PCs to solve a puzzle whose pieces are scattered across Absalom—and whose prize dates back to the Society’s darkest years.

Welcome to my Pathfinder Society play by post of the Wounded Wisp! Although I am still getting some of the specifics set up on my end, I wanted to get this set up so everyone could stop by and meet each other so we can get ready to start some time in the next week or two.

Everyone should start by registering on Paizo's site if you have not already. Once you are registered on Paizo's website, you should be able to stop in here to say hello and ask any questions you might have.

Before creating a character, you should read the non-GM parts of the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide (you can read the GM parts too, if you want, but its mostly about how to do all the paperwork and stuff). You can find that Here

You will need to sign up for pathfinder society and create a pathfinder society character to play. You can do this by going to My Account -> Pathfinder Society, where you can sign up and get a pdf of your registration card, and Register a new Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Character that will give you an alias to post with for the game.

I will post later this week going over some guidelines for play by post and posting some more links to information that might be helpful, but for now, feel free to stop by and ask any questions you might have!

I was recently wondering what happens if you have a readied action with a trigger on an event that provokes an AOO. The rules do not seem too clear to me about what order things should happen in. What if there are multiple AOOs/readied actions triggered from the same event?

Sections on AOOs and Readied Actions:

An attack of opportunity is a single melee attack, and most characters can only make one per round. You don't have to make an attack of opportunity if you don't want to. You make your attack of opportunity at your normal attack bonus, even if you've already attacked in the round.

An attack of opportunity "interrupts" the normal flow of actions in the round. If an attack of opportunity is provoked, immediately resolve the attack of opportunity, then continue with the next character's turn (or complete the current turn, if the attack of opportunity was provoked in the midst of a character's turn).

You can ready a standard action, a move action, a swift action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character's activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.

You can take a 5-foot step as part of your readied action, but only if you don't otherwise move any distance during the round.

I am mostly curious about the ordering since some of the readied actions/AOOs could invalidate the ability of the others to occur if they happen first. Examples would be things like using pushing assault to move the target out of range or taking a readied total defense action in response to a being attacked by a provoking combat maneuver removing the ability to take the AOO if it happens first.

Out of character discussion for Way of the Wicked.

Starting placeholder for a closed Way of the Wicked campaign.