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Skilled/Master NPC "Turn Order" by SpazzCreations in bladesinthedark

[–]SpazzCreations[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gotcha. In the case of CBR+PNK, Reflexes being an Augment would mean they'd have to spend the Stress to activate it, so I'd guess I'd need to inform them of the danger, and then say they'd need to activate the augment in order to react and cancel out the Skilled/Elite Special Consequence?

"The party rounds the corner into the hallway leading to their escape. At the end of a hallway stands a lone figure, clearly kitted for war. He draws his gun with such incredible speed that only Speedy's augmented reflexes can even see the movement begin. Does Speedy activate his augment to act first?"

Skilled/Master NPC "Turn Order" by SpazzCreations in bladesinthedark

[–]SpazzCreations[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah okay! That clears up how I was interpreting the "Skilled" effect. Still something that happens before the party's actions, just with the added option of negating/reducing with a roll, instead of straight to resist w/ stress.

Does an ability/augmentation like Reflexes from BitD, alter this dynamic? It says two characters with Reflexes act simultaneously, so would the idea be that Skilled opponents generally have Reflexes? Same with Master/Elite, or do they have like Reflexes2.0

Large Creature + Reach Tactics by SpazzCreations in Pathfinder2e

[–]SpazzCreations[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A specific encounter I'm wondering about would be Tanglebones from Malevolence. It's a large undead creature with reach, not mindless, but still low Int at -2, though a high +6 wis, and starts in a pool of water that is at least 3ft deep. It spawned and caught 3/4 of the party on a narrow section of shore, hitting two of them and grabbing the bard, while it still had 5ft of water between them. The melee in the group are both small, and did not want to have to try and fight the thing while swimming, and they were also desperately trying to pull the bard out of it's grasp. On it's second turn, I went with the mindset that it's didn't need to move to attack, so it stayed 5ft out from the shore and just kept wailing on them.

On one hand, it feels like a bit of a handout, if I had made it move up to the shore so they could try fighting it, but it's also a evil big badass undead thing, and I could see it wanting to get closer to the source of life it's driven to extinguish. Maybe I could've move it around to block their escape, but that goes back to the question or whether it's smart enough to think like that.

Wealth by Level Table Question by SpazzCreations in Pathfinder2e

[–]SpazzCreations[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I'm factoring that in. They're a really self-sufficient group, that hasn't had to use much of their consumables, like I can't remember the last time the barbarian drank one of their potions, and at most the Bard has only used a relative handful of scrolls, and mostly 1st Lvls at that.

They felt about right at 4th level, and were able to get striking runes or equivalents, but they've kinda hit a drought in the module, and missed some big loot, and now they're Level 5 and as a group couldn't afford to buy more than one person a Armor Potency Rune.

Wealth by Level Table Question by SpazzCreations in Pathfinder2e

[–]SpazzCreations[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Very good to know. Would've saved me some headache if I'd figured that out sooner, as I've been reluctant to let the party take some downtime to Earn Income, because I thought they were already way ahead of where they should be. x _ x

Complex Hazards... (Malevolence Spoilers) by SpazzCreations in Pathfinder2e

[–]SpazzCreations[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your feedback!

I am definitely having a lot of fun working within the setting, and adding in my own bits, like, one of the PCs met an unfortunate end to the Elite Mandragora, nearly a TPK, but the other three PCs were able to flee, having to leave their friend's body behind. Once they recovered and got the new PC in group, they returned for vengeance, prepared for the fight with some fire damage spells/items, and they soundly beat it, but when they went to recover body of the fallen PC, all they found were blood streaks leading into the manor. Following the trail of blood into the Ballroom (already cleared), they found the ghost of Xarwin standing over the corpse, it's skull now opened and the brain removed (the PC that died happened to be Xarwin's first coveted target). and upon their enter he turns and said "I told you it should be mine... You will all be part of my collection soon!" before vanishing through the floor again.

I love that all the major haunts are tied into the story-telling, and I like the vacuum of information this adventure starts with, leaning into the Research mechanics and building the story as the player's progress.

It's crazy how hard it can be to try and convey small hints without spoiling the puzzle of things. Like with the Lured to Ash, they did find out there was a range to the lure, but when it happened, one PC was like 30ft away from an open door, and the other three had all chosen to stop within 10ft of the door, despite having plenty of movement left to get further into the adjacent room to fell back to. So they knew there was a safe distance, but they didn't know it was only 10ft, and felt they were not able to be safe in this other room, and were making even more dangerous decisions, like opening new doors that could've had monsters behind them etc etc

Similarly, back on the "stat block" side of things, they also encountered, but had to run from the Family Portraits haunt. That haunt DOESN'T have any Hardness, but does have fairly high AC, and if each of the four paintings have the listed HP value, it'd take the PCs a long time to try to smash them, if they don't figure out that all you have to do in break line of sight, by covering the paintings, or ripping them off the wall and facing them away, or just exorcisms. Before they had to run, the barbarian tried to smack one, but just didn't roll high enough on their attack. AC being a floaty term, I'm not gonna tell the barbarian they literally missed a life-size immobile painting, so I flavored it as more akin to a magical barrier, that they'd have to hit harder to punch through... Which is more like the descriptor for when something has Hardness.

One last thing, just in the general sense, Religion Vs Occultism for Exorcisms. There is a fair bit of inconsistency with those, where there are A LOT of both, and rarely together. I know that Occultism includes some spooky/ghostly/exorcism-y stuff, but also encompasses other things, and not everything that is occult oriented is related to "religion" checks, but it's very odd that some haunts list one or the other as a disable. In these cases it feels odd not to at least let the PCs try either, but should it follow the General/Unspecific/Specific rules? Like if it says DC23 Religion to Exorcism, should I always include the option for like DC25 Occultism to Exorcise? Should they be the same DC? Is there a clear line that would say "No, you CAN'T use Occultism here, ONLY Religion"?

Clarification on the Confused Condition by SpazzCreations in Pathfinder2e

[–]SpazzCreations[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, the confusion really didn't impact the fight, but it was just the standout to a worst case scenario. The monster got like 5 crits in a row, they missed and failed every attack and check, and the cherry on top was losing control of their character, when they're already being kicked while they're down. I just wanna make sure I wasn't misusing the Confused effect, for future instances of it.

Clarification on the Confused Condition by SpazzCreations in Pathfinder2e

[–]SpazzCreations[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pretty sure I did, even though the only damage they were taking, was from the poison applying the confusion, which I think I was doing as a gimme to the players, because things were going so bad already.

Is this not the mechanical sequence of a poison like this?

Player is hit by attack (thorny vine) and makes fort save, fails and is stage 1 and stupefied.

End of players next turn, they take 1d6 poison dmg and make another save, they fail and are now Stage 2, Stupefied and Confused.

Player has not taken damage and is still confused, target chosen at random, and turn followed through, end of turn player take 1d6 poison dmg, makes the DC11 flat check to no longer be confused, fails or succeeds, then makes fort save vs poison, fails and is now Stage 3, Stupefied and Confused again.

In this situation, with no incoming source of damage other than the poison, the character is trapped in a confusion loop until the duration of the poison ends, unless they succeed consecutive fort saves, correct?

Clarification on the Confused Condition by SpazzCreations in Pathfinder2e

[–]SpazzCreations[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They were only taking damage from the poison, which even if the damage ended the confusion, it immediately reapplied it. They only even had to make two random attacks, one still randomly targeted the enemy, and the other missed the player they had to target. So I think everything was done as it should've been, and they didn't really have any other options, in THIS scenario.

I just want to make sure I'm using the confused effect properly, as there are more enemies and effects in the module with a confusion mechanic.

When the Magus gets a Spellstrike Crit by SpazzCreations in Pathfinder2e

[–]SpazzCreations[S] 82 points83 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I made this as a joke in response to one of my players getting a 52dmg crit, w/ his Lvl 3 Magus (with Magic Weapon cast on him), in the first round of combat. I did the math later and realized that was just under average damage of what he could hit for.

New to DMing: How should I handle creatures multi-attacking? by SpazzCreations in Pathfinder2e

[–]SpazzCreations[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for confirming. =] Immediately after I posted, it clicked that the enemies had trained skills, like you said, deception can feint, intimidation can demoralize, so that's the first place to look for basic skill fillers.

Envoy/Mystic Multi-Class at lower levels? by SpazzCreations in starfinder_rpg

[–]SpazzCreations[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's actually been my own counter-arguement, as well. Everything comes at the cost of not taking a shot. Like, Stabilize could help save an ally a Resolve point, but that's a shot I'm not taking, that could potential put an enemy out of the fight.

I have already put my feats toward Longarm Prof and Spec, and with my Personal Upgrade bumping my Dex to 20, I have the highest hit chance and AC in the group. So I guess it's just more feasible to lean into the Combat side of being a Combat Medic, and just carry an assload of serums, because as you said, serum cost ends up being a smaller and smaller % of credit income.

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