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I never noticed this before, but Loremaster’s Etude is a free action to cast but has a trigger. Weird way to structure it. Can I just use a free action to set it up and then the trigger causes it to take effect? I’m not certain how it is supposed to work when using it for someone else’s Recall Knowledge check. If it requires that I ready, please move me back behind Samantha and I will have only done the Triple Time and ready the Loremaster’s Etude.
On the question of should you give the DC of a check, I seldom did that in PF1 or Starfinder. When I did, it was generally a combination of laziness and wanting things to run faster. PF2 changed things and I am coming of the opinion that the DC should be given, especially in PbP. The reason is that the player knows if they fail at a check and has a chance to use a hero point. If you wait to tell them it is a failure, that slows the game down as the player then needs to have a chance to decide if it is worthy of using a hero point.
Still at the East Actuator, Kevan steps aside as the professor rushes in with a flurry of activity. Watching the gnome, he realizes he is rushing things too much. “Think it through professor. Work smarter and things get done faster.” He then considers what the professor was trying to do. He doesn’t even know what some of the tools the professor was using are. Finally he take out a crowbar and tries to use it to bend part of the actuator back into place. At first the bar slips in his hands, but he quickly recovers and is able to bend the casing to make better contact.
Mechanically, the actuators are blocked and each of the four actuators requires three successful skill checks to unblock it. You each have time to perform two skill checks before time runs out. Six characters each with two checks is a dozen skill checks. Four directions each requiring three successes is a dozen successes.I’m hoping that a crit success counts for two successes.
“Ummm…” Kavin seems rather surprised by the little metal ball coming out of the professor’s armor. Somewhat recovering, he asks “Can that thing operate a wayfinder?” Distracted, he does turn to continue his conversation with Tiger. “Are you a follower of Irori then? I was sort of hoping maybe you had gone to one of the distance monasteries. I’ve head some of them are aligned with the elements!” Pausing a moment, he adds “Then again, given your moniker I suppose you would be more interested in one specializing in the animal forms.”
Alright, if you’ve been playing a while then you’ve probably already seen these things. The biggest difference to me is in initiative. When I run a PbP, I do what I refer to as grouped initiative. Monsters separate groups of players actions. All the players between two monsters act in posting order unless they request to act after someone else. This keeps things going and reduces the incidence of retcons. Everyone has different schedules so it can really slow a game down if you wait for each person to post in exact initiative order. In game, it is as if people went into delay until they could post. I have seen others that have several people post in groups but apply it in initiative order. I don’t like that solution because it is more likely you will need to retcon someones actions because of changes caused by others that act before them but posted after them. The other thing is having a clear status block showing who may act and what the status of each player and NPC is. It probably lists what round number it is, some of the buffs, debuffs, and conditions, and may have reminders of special terrain or hazards. I use bolding of names to indicate which players may act. I tend to list damage totals of both characters and NPCs. I have taken to listing the player damage totals as XX / YY where XX is damage taken and YY is maximum HP so as to clearly indicate how close they are to going down. I do not list the max HP for monsters, but I try to indicate in the descriptive text when a monster is close to dead. When an NPC dies, at least for the first time I will use strike-through in the initiative block to indicate they have gone down. After a while I will clear them out of the initiative block. Some GM like to hide monster HPs more than that. That is fine with me as long as you give some sort of general indicator of how badly injured they are. Since I do enough GMing of PbP, I have also put together a general discussion post for how I run things. Here is a recent example for PF2 that I customized a little bit because the scenario involved (Headshot the Rot) had special rules for apply8ng credit and use of pregens. Note that I put the chronicle information high enough in the post that replies to the post have all the requested fields. Since you are using RPG Chronicles that is less important, but you may want to keep it in mind any time you request information from players as part of a long post. I have versions of that introduction for PF1, PF2, SFS and specials for each of the systems. I put much more focus on the need for speed in the specials. For each game I run, I create a Google doc with various bookkeeping notes in it. I keep the most up to date version of the turn status block there and edit that before posting. This is partially because of the Paizo forums historically going down at the worst possible time, and partially because it helps me track things. I also keep notes on status that the players do not see. I generally have pre-formatted text to do search/perception checks. If the group defines a standard procedure, I will have pre-formatted and spoilered text for handling that. The Google doc is more loosely formatted and tends to vary depending on the adventure since I am generally the only person who sees it. Hopefully some of the above is useful to you. I’m sure others have their own list of things that are specific to PbP.
A rather burly man follows Tiger up the gangplank. He has studded leather armor and carries a longsword at his waist. There is a small silver pendant around his neck in the shape of a stein. “Hi! I’m Kavin! Used to tend bar in Absalom, heard so many stories that I decided I should make some of my own!” He goes around offering to shake hands with each of you, smiling and saying “Pleased to meet you!” The grip is loose and friendly. When he hears Teki proclaiming themselves a goddess, he comments “Well, I’ve certainly heard of crazier things. Given the robes, you know the risks.” He asks Tiger “Where did you study the martial arts?”
A bard hears of your exploits and spreads the word. He is not too concerned about the details and as you are explaining what happened, he tends to adjust the numbers. Where you say there were only 4 kobolds, he replies with something like "7 Kobolds, got it."
Unfortunately, he hopelessly mangles the story trying to rhyme with Nashaxian. Perhaps it would have gone over better with a different crowd. |
