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"Who sa' tha' they needed t' be uni'? Y'all nee' a dri' t' hel' li'en u'. Ale? Fresh fr' a keg I ju' brewed!"
"Well said, although I will pass on the drink for now, thank you. Frankly, I am simply impressed at the number of us that have found each other in these times, to become family, as Agraic sai...er...hinted at. We should most certainly take pride in the accomplishments of our peers, and in the good taste of those who feel drawn to the same jewels and gems that we are."
Star Chaser (Lúrëandilúnon in Elvish), the Kyanite Sage (Gem Info) A friend is simply an enemy who has not revealed himself:
Name: Star Chaser (Lúrëandilúnon in Elvish), the Kyanite Sage (Gem Info) Alignment: Neutral Good Race: Snowborn Half-Elf Class: Ancient Lorekeeper (Lunar) Oracle 11 Description: Star Chaser is a snowborn half-elf who was raised in the human town of Aaminiut near the Crown of the World. His hair is white and eyes a luminescent icy blue. Always with him is the white wolf named "Elvanna" in memory of a tragic figure from his travels before joining the ranks of the Jeweled Sages. He wears celestial armor beneath his dark blue traveling clothes and carries a quarterstaff bearing entwined black-and-white symbols of Nethys upon it.
Star Chaser assesses the situation and the fact that the elf resisted his first spell. Noticing Thrash yelling...something...and the party moving into flanking formations, the snowborn makes a decision. Furrowing his brow, Star Chaser grips his quarterstaff tightly and advances to try and help Jan flank the caster. (Movement) (Avoid AoO from elf, if he's armed) Once in position, Star Chaser readies an action to use his quarterstaff to shoot Magic Missiles at the elf, should the elf begin to cast a spell. (if needed)
Celestial:
"Powers of the north, grant protection and shielding" Star Chaser will intone a spell, placing a hand on Odd's shoulder, casting Shield of Faith on her before she undoubtedly will seek to rush forward into the fray.
He will then adjust five feet forward to get adjacent to Jan, planning on moving further once the rest of the phalanx does.
Star Chaser casts Detect Magic and studies the scrolls and potions to help identify them (will roll if you'd like, GM), and will comment; "The only item here I can make use of is the wand, in an emergency. The rest are potions of healing and invisibility, which I feel should go to those more likely to be hit by blades and bows for the former, and to those in the heaviest armor for the latter." The half-elf then tilts his head to one side, locks of his hair obscuring one of his bright blue eyes as he looks at Zirt. "I am not sure I caught all of what you were saying during the confusion of battle, dear one...after my comment that you were too cute to potentially scare members of the Aspis Consortium, you said something I could not comprehend and then tried to steal a weapon. I know little of the ways of halflings or Aspis agents, and so I am curious for future tactical considerations...is such an act thought to be intimidating to those such as they?"
If only one Halfling remains up, Star Chaser will utilize his Staff of Entwined Serpents to strike at him/her with two magic missiles, one in the form of a black snake, the other a white snake!
If both enemies are still engaged when Star Chaser's turn comes up, he will do something else instead. If neither are still ambulatory, he will instead go to the notes that the Aspis attempted to burn to make sure they survived alright.
Star Chaser has absolutely no idea what Zirt's on about now since she's speaking some foreign language or something. Seeing how the combatants are spreading out, he decides he has a better shot at the one facing off against Jan. He raises a hand and fires a Snowball at the halfling there while keeping himself in range to be able to lend aid against the other if needed - also unsure what Thrash is shouting about as well.
(DC 18 Fort Save or Staggered for 1 round, if that was a hit)
Fire? In a restricted Pathfinder library? Nooooooooooooo! Star Chaser will take a 5-foot step forward to maintain the phalanx formation and will cast Create Water, dumping up to 12 gallons of water on the burning materials (though he will actively stop once the fire is out if it takes less), and will use his Move action to carefully adjust how much water he's using, while looking oddly at Zirt and muttering: "کیوں تم نے ان کا کوئی مقصد ہنسنا بنانے کے لئے کی کوشش کر وقت خرچ کر رہے ہیں ؟" Aklo: "Why are you spending time trying to make them laugh to no purpose?"
Star Chaser pushes past Zirt into one of the smaller autopsy chambers to give him a better view of the scene. Raising a hand, he sends forth a spell at the nearest enemy (blue). "اپنے مالک پر سانپ کی طرح بند کر دیں ، اور اپنے اتحادی پر حملہ !" Aklo:
"Turn like the serpent on its master, and strike at thine own ally!"
Star Chaser follows along with the group, and assists in healing the men (and is also willing to expend CLW wand charges to help them). Muttering to himself as well at the word "Aspis", he hits himself with the wand of Shield (+4 Shield bonus to AC for 1 minute) the moment before the party moves to enter the structure.
Star Chaser once again lets the wand he carries drop and dangle from its cord (free action) as he takes a five-foot step behind Odd, raising a hand and aiming towards the largest of the statues (Durvin Gest), creating a magical ball of snow and ice to fire at it!
Celestial:
"Cold of the north strike at my foes!"
He then re-grasps the wand, and awaits to see what happens next (move action).
Star Chaser calls out, "!مجسموں بہت مشکل ہیں ... اور کسی نہ کسی طرح وہ ہے ... ذہن ؟ کسی نہ کسی طرح متاثر کیا جا سکتا ہے کہ دماغ ؟ ایک بڑا آپ پر قبضہ مت دو ، اور چھوٹوں پرواز کرنے کے قابل ہو سکتا ہے" Aklo:
"The statues are very hard...and somehow they have...minds? Minds that can be affected somehow? Don't let the big one grab you, and the little ones might be able to fly!" The Oracle then raises his hand, pointing three fingers - one each at the largest statue as well as the (green and red) two smaller ones closer to him, firing three beams of light in cage-like shapes!
Celestial:
"Moonlight imprison thee!" Star Chaser casts Light Prison at the three indicated constructs, requiring each to make a DC 18 Reflex Save (see spell link for more). Following this, he grasps his wand of Shield from where it dangles on its weapon cord.
Star Chaser will seem to come out of being excited at the combat, and than apparently regain his ability to comprehend what is being said, and will use party members' wands on them as they wish.
"I am sorry I was not able to blind that second one...I will endeavour to try harder next time so none of you get hurt so badly..." He trails off, and nods at whatever direction the majority of the party wants to go. "Someone mentioned heading for the gates, I believe?"
Star Chaser advances a bit behind the front-liners, holding up his empty hand at the (blue) rhino, speaking more mystical words:
Celestial:
"Moonlight blind thee!" Star Chaser uses his Moonbeam Revelation, firing a beam of pure silvery light into the eyes of his target. (+Inspire, -Into Melee) (+Inspire)
Star Chaser sees the beasts and is able to react quickly. He lets his wand dangle from its weapon cord, weaving a mystical divine spell in the air as he chants:
Celestial:
"Magic of the Gods, enrage thy foes into falling upon one another!" (The southern-most creature must make a DC 17 Will Save or be affected by the spell Murderous Command for 1 round)
Star Chaser, having not been in a battle of any sort for quite some time, fumbles a little bit getting two wands out of his haversack, using one of them and returning it immediately to the bag: (= Temporary HP / False Life / 3 hours or until expended) He keeps the other wand (Shield) in-hand, along with his quarterstaff.
Celestial:
"I hope some of you will still be able to understand me..." " .یہ صرف زبانیں ہیں کیونکہ میں نے دباؤ کے تحت استعمال کرنے کے قابل ہو. جائے گا "
He nods, though, at whatever Thrash said, and will move where the rest of the party goes.
Star Chaser
Special: As noted privately, I have GM'd this scenario once before, so I will refrain from making any strategic decisions for the party, but will still do the best, tactically speaking, that I can!
Regardless of how well (or not) she does, Star Chaser cheers Zirt on at all of her tasks, highly amused by her enthusiasm. For some strange reason, despite not being the most physical or agile of the party, he decides to give the Obstacle Course a try. "You only live once, as they say...right?"
And then, mumbled weakly with his face in the mud only moments later. "...well...that was different." Afterward, Star Chaser excitedly joins Jan in the symposium, sharing how belief in a single god or goddess seems to be less popular the closer to the Crown of the World, especially among the Snowcaster Elves... (+3 for check involving Elven culture)
After a smile at the corners of his mouth in response to Zirt's question, to which he replies, "Ακριβώς ένα τυπικό χαιρετισμό , αγαπητέ μου." Elven:
"Just a formal greeting, dear one." Farg's comments, as well as the arrival of others, causes him to put away the wand and brush a silver lock aside to observe the newcomers. He appears slightly confused at first at the patois of their speech, but does seems keenly interested in it.
Star Chaser smiles in greeting to all who join the group, and chuckles at Thrash as he retrieves the horseshoes. Reaching into his pack, he produces a slender wand, and offers it forth. "In all things, luck can sometimes make the difference between something amazing and something...regrettable. If you would each like a touch of that luck for the day, I am happy to provide..." OOC:
Tall for a Half-Elf but slender, with hair of silver and eyes an icy-blue, a young man with a wry smile, dressed in dark blues with hints of black and white approaches the gathered Pathfinders. "Ένας φίλος είναι απλά ένας εχθρός που να μην αποκαλύψει ακόμα τον εαυτό του," Elven:
"A friend is simply an enemy who as not yet revealed himself," "And so I bid you greetings and fair tidings, my fellow Pathfinders. I am known as Star Chaser, from lands far to the north of any nation of Avistan, here to learn from the Society, and lend it what mystical aid I can." He leans a bit on his quarterstaff wrought to appear as twin serpents entwined as one, his only apparent armament. "Desna holds an honored place among my people and I would be honored to pray with you, fair warrior-priest. As for games...well - in affairs of fair tongue I do revel - for the boldness of action, I shall perhaps best aid by cheering you on."
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We're partway into the Shackled Hut, and my players spend some part of every session wondering why they're even here. Elvanna's a terrible tyrant, sure, but as far as they can tell so has every other Jadwiga dynasty been -- and Baba Yaga is also clearly awful if she keeps installing awful queens every century. Why should they intervene in the succession of power in this crummy kingdom if all the options are awful? "Because gaes lol" is not a style of GMing I'm fond of. The part of the discussion where they say, "To save the rest of the world from winter," always raises the possibility that maybe they can just travel around to all the various baronies, picking off the local Jadwiga and closing off portals one by one rather than escalating to the capital. "You broke it you bought it," has been what keeps them on track so far: they attacked Nazhena's tower, and Waldsby gave them shelter, so tracking her down is the only way they save the villagers from retribution. But...the villagers' lives will still be terrible under the next queen, so they're still not really motivated to find Baba Yaha per se. I'm expecting that once they find Nazhena, and with her the hut, curiosity will take over and they'll be off to the races, but keeping them interested in that track has been a trick. Are there things Nadya or Uncle Ringierr can say to keep motivation up? Help the players feel like this transition of power is something that actually matters to them?
I've played Kingmaker, like it a lot, and have been saving the books to play it again. But I'm also planning to switch to Pathfinder 2E or D&D 5E after my current campaign wraps up -- so I'm happy for the just-announced 2E Kingmaker book. That makes my existing Kingmaker books superfluous, and I see a lot of people really wishing they had a set. I'll make mine available -- all six AP books plus the map folio -- for cover price ($135 total) plus actual shipping cost, if somebody wants them. First come, and we can work out details in private message.
I ran the first part of Lost Star last night, and was generally pretty happy with the experience. Players: I've been playing various PF/D&D-family games for close to 30 years, mostly in the GM seat. My crew last night was fairly diverse in experience: one has played in multiple PF1 campaigns, but is a pretty casual/social player -- just wants to sit down at the table and roll dice; no homework, has never read any more of the rules than necessary for their characters. Another is currently playing D&D5e with past 3.5 experience; the third played lots of AD&D2e and a few sessions of 3 and 4. The 4th was an absolute newbie to tabletop RPGs, but assured, "I know the general tropes, I am a nerd." Prep: I took a skim of the rulebook to get a feel for things, then read the first part of the adventure and made a couple of characters to get a handle on character creation, reading rules more deeply as-needed. Overall, I like some of the paradigm changes made, like standardizing the format of class abilities into "feats" with a common presentation, making domain / bloodline powers a special spell type, etc -- but it requires a lot of flipping around the book; I'm glad I sprang for dead-tree! Nobody else prepped anything (one downloaded the rulebook ahead of time). Character gen: I made a couple characters ahead of time to get the hang of it, then started the session by walking the table through making the remaining characters needed as a group, as a way to give everyone some familiarity with the character sheet, math, and book layout. This seemed to work well? The characters I made ahead of time took about 1.5 hours each, because I was reading rules as I went; at the table, we were able to do it in 45 minutes. The roster: * Half-elf ranger (two-weapon / double slice)
Play! We RPed the quest-giving part a bit before going in and made it through the first 5 rooms of Lost Star in about 2.5 hours total play time. [spoilers=lost star spoiler]
The old-school player with the goblin rogue made good use of stealth and darkvision to scope out the troupe of goblins in the main room, then approached them with his "captive" gnome, telling the goblins that he was a new recruit, this gnome was his lunch, but there were more for everybody back towards the entrance (where cleric and ranger lay in wait in the tunnel). The goblins took the bait, but I called for initiative as they approached the trap, using Deception for the rogue and gnome, Stealth for the would-be ambushers, and Perception for the gobs. Cleric and Ranger totally flubbed Stealth checks, so the goblins weren't immediately massacred, and had a good running battle among the columns. The rogue sneak attack sapped one of the gobs to interrogate later, and got enough good intel to avoid the fungus hazard -- but also enough fear-driven hyperbole that they're even more confused about Drakus than before. (Their tongue-in-cheek theory is that he's actually a *giant* vampire, so big that only one fang will fit in any given goblin, so he has to eat two at once.) They investigated the centipede room for completeness, touching off a fight notable for some of the vermin using their climb speed to go up and over the dwarf who was trying to tank the doorway, dropping into the rest of the party behind her.
We ended the session there. Three characters were down to half hit points after three battles; cleric used a channel to heal some of that, but otherwise no expendable resources used beyond arrows. (The cleric mostly hit stuff with her hammer, to great effect, and the sorcerer made heavy use of cantrips.) Scattered Thoughts Character gen is definitely easier once you've done it three or four times! Players found the options they had flavorful enough to quickly inspire personality, both in the pre-gens I provided and in the ones made at the table. While I do feel that 1 initial ancestry feat may be too few, being forced to pick just one gave the goblin rogue's character something to immediately build it (it was "eat anything"). However, the number of different sets of options they had to make choices about was a little confusing -- again, the rogue being the main example due to having so many skills, and both a skill feat and a rogue feat at first level as well as three fixed class features that are...not class feats despite seeming like they could easily be? The character sheet seems very full / crowded despite lacking defined spaces for some important things (lowlight / darkviz, e.g.) -- but I like that all the math is made very visible by the layout. 3 Action Economy seemed easier to grasp the less experience people had with past games! The total newbie had no problems getting it, while the 3.5/5e player kept trying to take free 5-foot steps (to avoid non-existent AoOs) and treating 2-action spells as single actions (b/c they're 1 standard action in 3.5, and 1 action in 5e). That said, once the experienced PF1 player realized her cleric could do things like Stride / Strike / Stride in one turn, she was rolling out tactical movement that she never has in past PF1 games. That combat in the large room especially was more mobile than our combats typically are, with the adversaries also able to move around more nimbly without near-guaranteed death-by-AoOs. The exception was the sorceror, since he was trying to maintain concentration on dancing lights while slinging attack cantrips -- he was stuck in place while the dwarven tank pinballed around the room. Damage output seems potentially very fast, with second attacks often effective enough to be worth it and critical hits coming with some frequency. If my dice had been hotter, I could see the PCs getting in trouble *fast*; it'll be interesting to see how a boss fight plays out. It hasn't come up much yet, but I expect resource depletion paralysis to come up as an issue -- with the sorc having three daily pools (spells, power, resonance), and the cleric four (same + channel), each with a smallish number of points in it, the temptation to hoard may strike hard. Shields are an interesting wrinkle in a few ways. The cleric only used hers when surrounded by enemies, as part of Strike/Strike/Shield, because mobility was otherwise too compelling -- while the sorcerer's dancing lights concentration meant he only used Shield when he was moving -- Concentrate/Stride/Shield -- and couldn't cast two-action spells. I appreciate that this active-shield mechanic adds / forces these tactical choices, though I'm not sold yet on it necessarily improving fun. (Also, Shield Block was an action neither sorc or cleric used, once they realized it could cost them their shield even for a while -- this may end up an "only to avoid death" tactic for those players.) The organization of the rulebook is...not great? At least in terms of at the table reference, I was again super glad I'd gone for the paper book, and my compliments to whomever created the index: maybe best I've used in an rpg book, and I used it...a lot. I frequently had to handwave, "let's call that a -2" or "let's assume that's 1 action" on the spot, then look up the right rule when I had a minute, to keep momentum going -- but my PF1 reflexes were nearly always right when I made these calls. Obviously 4 characters in 5 encounters only gave me a small taste of the system -- we didn't get into resonance, leveling up, multiclassing, dying/healing/resting, or even using most of the spells characters had prepared. But we had a good time, and everybody seemed enthused to keep going, so hopefully I'll have more to say on those soon!
I note that all Backgrounds published so far include a "free" / unspecified ability boost. Unless the intent is to save space for future Backgrounds that might specify both boosts and have none free, this seems unnecessarily repetitive. Would it make sense to instead just add a fifth free ability boost during the "four free ability boosts" step of character creation and save space in the Backgrounds? (I note that the optional "rolling ability scores" rule on page 21 specifies that you omit the free boost from your background -- which suggests future backgrounds couldn't have two specified boosts without breaking this, and seems another point in favor of moving the free boost out of the background so that it doesn't have to be negated here?)
Hello! My copy of the Starfinder CRB jumps from page 320 to page 353. Then when it gets to page 384, it starts back at 353 again. So I'm missing 22 pages (pp321-352), and have a different 22 pages twice (pp353-384). I purchased the book from my FLGS, but when I called them just now, they said it was something I should contact the publisher about. How should I proceed?
I'm planning a campaign for my home game set in Westcrown during the Chelish civil war, in part looking at what Abrogail / House Thrune were up to during that time, and wondering what published resources would be useful background reading as I put this together. I've got the Inner Sea World Guide and Council of Thieves. It looks like the campaign setting guide "Cheliax: The Infernal Empire" would be good, as well as AP #100 for the discussion of Aroden's church. What else would be of interest?
I was one of the folks who pledged for the Print Pack Add-on and didn't get into the fulfillment manager until the Emerald Spire hardcover had sold out. I am at this point satisfied with the alternative print pack option that Goblinworks offered -- except for the fact that I haven't seen an order for it in my account yet. On Sept. 29, goblinworks customer support said they had all needed info from me and would be passing it over to Paizo, but I still haven't seen an order show up in my account. I could understand it not shipping yet (since my Oct. 6 order was just processed for shipment today), but considering how long it's taken to get to this point, I really would like to know it's in the queue somewhere. Any help?
Perhaps you're curious, as I was, how the existing critters break down by type. Short answer: if you're looking for an underpopulated niche in CR 1 - 4, think about dragons and oozes. Or, if you think popularity means it's a good bet, try animals, magical beasts, and outsiders. Numbers are based on a download of the d20PFSRD's Monster DB -- note that some monsters end up double (or triple) counted if they appear in multiple sources, such as an AP and Tome of Horrors Complete and a Bestiary. full #s by CR and type:
1.0 aberration 11 animal 36 construct 3 dragon 1 fey 16 humanoid 17 magical beast 22 monstrous humanoid 8 ooze 5 outsider 16 plant 6 undead 14 vermin 16 2.0
3.0
4.0
(I'll note that I can also slice the list by environment, but I'll just keep that to myself for now... :p )
Background, my Oracle seems to be the "arcane" caster, the "ranged" combat strength, and the crowd control for a 4-man party. Woo. I'm looking for advice on 3rd level spells and lvl 7 / 9 feats in order to help cover these. The party: * Elf Oracle 5 (Heavens mystery / Blackened curse) = me
The two halflings are siblings, and both took the "Precise Strike" teamwork feat. They and the fighter can take apart anything that enters melee range in about 1 round -- but we're overall a pretty squishy party, and don't have much ranged power. My general combat MO is to self-buff with Shield of Faith and Prot. From Evil if I can see combat coming, starting with Color Spray, Hypnotic Pattern, Hold Person for crowd control, then Burning Hands to soften up groups of minions or Summon Monster II, Scorching Ray to deal with single targets. Feats so far are Combat Casting (since my ranged is still not very range-y), Spell Focus (Illusion), and Spell Penetration. I'm trying to map out the next couple levels worth of spells & feats. Feedback welcome (other than "kill off the halflings and make them make new characters") -- here's my thinking so far: Feats:
Spells:
In contemplating a rakshasa lich* as bbeg, I realized that the rakshasa has DR 15/good and piercing, and the lich template adds DR 15/bludgeoning and magic. Do the two types of DR stack -- meaning that a good, magic morningstar is the only weapon able to bypass? * a rakshasa is only CL 7, I realize, while a lich must be CL 11. I haven't decided yet whether to apply class levels to suit or just handwave for a home game, but that's not really the point.
At last night's session, my Oracle, trying to retrieve an item from deep water, used Summon Monster II to get a squid, grabbed hold, and had the squid tow him to the bottom and back up with its 240ft "jet" speed. My GM lets me get away with a lot (obviously), but I like to come up with "real" rules before trying things a second time, so how should this have worked, if at all? I'm guessing this would need a Handle Animal "push" to get the squid to play along, and some sort of strength check on my PC's part to hold on -- assuming those, what kind of speed can I expect here? Squid's strength 15 means my rather waifish elf is a medium load, even in armor, which would knock the squid's jet speed from 240 down to a still ludicrous 160ft under standard load rules. Is this any kind of a reasonable way to handle this?
Decided to do some character gen and run through some encounters, in a playing-both-sides-of-the-screen fashion. 15 point buy, using level appropriate slices of Rise of the Runelords. (Will attempt to avoid outright spoilers by [roviding general gameplay summary, not blow-by-blow.) Used the bullet updates/corrections provided by SKR in the various “discussion” threads as of 11/26. Some of my reactions consider the “week 1” blog post, but I didn’t assume anything out of that in character creation. Char gen reactions, 3rd level:
Schedule-permitting, I hope to walk these chars up to 6th and 9th levels for more testing – they were definitely all interesting enough for me to want to keep working with them!
It seems several older threads have partially addressed my question of how different dice methods compare to point buy -- but typically only address the point buy equivalency of the average array created by a certain dice roll method. Several posters mentioned the problem of variance from that mean, but without stats. I figured I'd try to fill some of that in. Method (via Python scripting):
Conclusion: I've long been a hold-out on point buy, thanks to my 1e/2e habits, despite knowing the variance issue. By visualizing just how skewed the characters in a party can be, though, I think I've convinced myself (as both GM and player) to make the switch. 3d6: of 10,000 stat arrays rolled, 4,444* were dropped because they had at least one score below 7. The remaining arrays had a mean of 8.04 points and standard deviation of 8.80 points. That is, about 2/3 of characters rolled via 3d6 fall somewhere between a -1 point buy and a 17 point buy. ...But we also find characters as bad as a -18 point buy, or as good as 46 points. Histogram.:
-18 : * -17 : * -16 : * -15 : * -14 : * -13 : * -12 : * -11 : ** -10 : **** -9 : ***** -8 : ******* -7 : ******* -6 : ************ -5 : ************** -4 : ******************* -3 : ********************** -2 : ************************ -1 : **************************** 0 : ********************************** 1 : ************************************** 2 : *************************************** 3 : **************************************** 4 : *********************************************** 5 : ********************************************** 6 : ************************************************** 7 : ******************************************** 8 : ****************************************** 9 : ****************************************** 10 : ************************************** 11 : ************************************* 12 : ******************************* 13 : ***************************** 14 : ********************************** 15 : ************************* 16 : ******************** 17 : *********************** 18 : ***************** 19 : *************** 20 : ************** 21 : ************* 22 : ************ 23 : ********* 24 : ********* 25 : ******* 26 : ***** 27 : **** 28 : ******* 29 : **** 30 : *** 31 : *** 32 : ** 33 : *** 34 : ** 35 : ** 36 : * 37 : * 38 : * 39 : * 40 : * 41 : * 42 : * 43 : * 46 : * 4d6, drop lowest gives a mean point buy cost of 20.5, and standard deviation of 10.6, with only 1,543 of 10,000 arrays discarded for sub-7 scores. So 2/3 of characters rolled this way fall between a 10-point buy and a 31-point buy, but we also see characters as low as -10 points and as high as 64 among our 10,000. Histogram.:
-10 : * -9 : * -7 : * -5 : * -4 : ** -3 : ** -2 : ***** -1 : ***** 0 : ****** 1 : ********* 2 : ********** 3 : *********** 4 : ************** 5 : ****************** 6 : ********************* 7 : ********************** 8 : ***************************** 9 : **************************** 10 : ***************************** 11 : ************************************ 12 : *************************************** 13 : **************************************** 14 : ***************************************** 15 : ******************************************* 16 : *********************************************** 17 : *********************************************** 18 : ************************************************** 19 : *********************************************** 20 : ****************************************** 21 : ************************************************** 22 : **************************************** 23 : ***************************************** 24 : ****************************************** 25 : ************************************ 26 : ********************************* 27 : ********************************** 28 : ******************************** 29 : ****************************** 30 : *************************** 31 : **************************** 32 : ********************** 33 : ******************** 34 : ******************* 35 : ******************* 36 : **************** 37 : ************* 38 : ************ 39 : *********** 40 : ********** 41 : ********* 42 : ***** 43 : ******* 44 : ***** 45 : **** 46 : **** 47 : ** 48 : ** 49 : *** 50 : ** 51 : ** 52 : * 53 : * 54 : * 55 : * 56 : * 57 : * 58 : * 59 : * 60 : * 61 : * 62 : * 64 : * Note that the tails on these graphs get even longer if I do 100,000 or 1 million samples, because in a large enough pool you eventually hit the all-7s and all-18s characters, and the curves get smoother with larger numbers, but the descriptive stats don't change much. Other rolling methods that want a graph?
For context, the campaign backstory here involves the PCs being among the survivors of a small city that was literally decimated in the first session of the campaign; they've been fighting off various threats to the remainder of the town ever since. They're now 7th level: fighter, ranger, cleric, bard, and 2 monks. Facing rumors of an even larger horde of humanoids gathering in the mountains and preparing for invasion, my party decided to ignore the series of large blinking neon signs saying, "Hey, go kill over here and kill the evil clerics leading the invasion," and instead try to take on the armies themselves. For example, the intel that the goblin horde and gnoll horde didn't get along, and would quickly fall on each other if not for the overlords failed to get the party to go cut off the head of the snake -- instead, it suggested to them that they could mop up each wing of the invaders in turn. Obviously, they went after the gnolls first. When they recon'ed that encampment, I managed to deter them from frontal assault with a large enough number of gnolls, but they found a pretty decent workaround, considering their lack of conventional AoE spells. They'd captured a hapless goblin earlier in the day, and decided bio-warfare was an acceptable means of preventing a second massacre of innocents. They used their usual approach to ethically questionable activities: the CG bard and cleric (both natives of the town and out for revenge) waited until the LN monks had trapped each other into an hours-long debate on the finer points of the laws of war, then went ahead and implemented their plan while the monks were distracted: * Hood the goblin and spin him around while making lots of noise, so that he's too confused to notice when, * The cleric slaps contagion on him, infecting him with bubonic plague before, * The bard "rescues" the goblin, apologizes for his ill treatment, and uses suggestion to send him down the mountainside to raise the alarm in the gnoll camp. (Sure, the gnolls aren't friendly to the goblins, but the goblin camp is hours away, and he doesn't want the party to escape, right?) The goblin trundles down to the gnoll camp, while the party hustles the other direction, and then asks how many gnolls will be killed by the disease. As a first estimate: * 35% of them will make their initial saves and suffer no effect (DC 17 vs gnolls' +4 Fort save -> 15% less than half are successful) * Once contracted, Fort save bonus will decline by 1.25/day (average 2.5 Con damage). A gnoll that contracts the disease has a .35*.3 = 10.5% chance of getting better after 2 days. * After this, the prognosis is increasingly grim, even if we're kind and use standard math rounding rather than always rounding down: Chance of getting better on day 3 is .3*.25 = 7.5%, day 4 is .25*.15 = 3.75%, day 5 is .15*.1 = 1.5%... * Out of every 1,000 gnolls: 350 are unharmed; 68 recover after 2 days, with 5 Con damage; 44 recover after 3 days, with 7.5 Con dmg; 20 after 4 days, with 10 Con damage; 8 after 5 days, with 12.5 Con damage ... and the remaining 500 or so die of Con damage on day 6. The hard part is figuring out how fast the disease spreads through the gnoll army after initial contact with Goblin Zero. Any good ideas? |
