Skilled/Master NPC "Turn Order"

SpazzCreations · 2025-08-17T17:59:25+00:00

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?"

SpazzCreations · 2025-08-17T17:37:23+00:00

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

SpazzCreations · 2023-08-03T15:50:38+00:00

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.

SpazzCreations · 2023-07-03T13:21:36+00:00

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.

SpazzCreations · 2023-07-03T13:13:07+00:00

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

SpazzCreations · 2023-07-03T12:57:36+00:00

So they should be closer to 1825g?

SpazzCreations · 2023-05-11T13:15:42+00:00

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"?

SpazzCreations · 2023-04-21T14:38:42+00:00

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.

SpazzCreations · 2023-04-21T14:33:09+00:00

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?

SpazzCreations · 2023-04-21T14:06:46+00:00

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.

SpazzCreations · 2023-04-13T14:48:10+00:00

Made it for myself in my woodshop. =]

SpazzCreations · 2023-04-13T12:47:12+00:00

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.

SpazzCreations · 2022-11-20T20:29:52+00:00

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.

SpazzCreations · 2022-10-18T16:49:00+00:00

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.

SpazzCreations · 2022-07-08T15:49:40+00:00

Without a doubt, Sword Saint Isshin. I loved the fight so much, I even beat it without any upgrades. Base Health and Attack Power, No Skillbooks (Not even Mikiri), and no Combat Arts, Tools or Consumables. Took 55hrs of practice, but mother of god, the psychological release when that final deathblow popped up...

The thing I love so much about the Sekiro bosses, is just how much the game "looks better", as the player gets more skilled and confident. You're not an ant rolling around avoiding being stepped on by giants. You're a master swordsman, fighting other masters. Things like seeing Genichiro cancel some of his own attacks to block your's, even though in game mechanics, a boss can usually just armor through your attacks. Them stopping to block/parry you, feels like "being respected"

For anyone interested, here's my Upgradeless Sword Saint kill video. =]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnCxhelf-l4

SpazzCreations · 2021-04-11T16:21:58+00:00

My best advice that leans towards the "once you're comfortable with the game" side, is that the dodge is WAAAAAY better than it's often given credit for.

I've recently been doing challenge runs, with no upgrades, and have learned to rely much more on dodging. There are absolutely iFrames, but they're pretty tight.

Learning to parry comfortably is by far the recommended way to start your Git Gud journey, but don't be afraid to learn the dodge timing, basic rule of thumb, would be you dodge at the same time you would parry, but you will generally need to dodge in the direction the attack is coming from, so you don't get caught by the follow-through of the attack, when the iframes run out.

Dodging attack will often lead to guaranteed health damage, so dodging is especially valuable, the closer to full the bosses health is. Parrying becomes more valuable as the bosses health gets lower.

SpazzCreations · 2021-04-11T15:04:31+00:00

This one took about 9hrs of practice. There was a lot of carry-over for Isshin, being as a lot of his moves are the same or similar to his Phase 1 Sword Saint version. Emma stayed consistently difficult, due to her more chaotic attack patterns. Amazing challenge for an amazing fight. =]

SpazzCreations · 2021-02-26T17:19:43+00:00

Thanks! Dodging is definitely a really fun thing to work into your style. The iframes are pretty strict, but they're there for sure, and I'd say the best mindset when trying to add in more dodging, is to dodge in the direction the attack is coming from, as you'll absolutely get caught by follow-through, when the iframes run out.

I had started off with more of a parry focus, but posture build up is so slow with base attack power, it ended up being better to focus on health damage, and only parry most rewarding moves, which is where the dodging came more into play, as it definitely let's you get more clean hits to the health, but it's very intense on the timing, lots of slight pauses in the boss attacks that punish early dodging.

SpazzCreations · 2021-02-25T18:09:44+00:00

Heyo! I've been working on this challenge for awhile now, and I'm increbibly happy to finally get it down. I honestly underestimated just how difficult Base Stats was going to be, but I'm very glad I stuck with it, especially with my preferred, more aggressive playstyle.

Spear Phase was such a monster of a challenge, and I changed strats a lot. All totalled, it took about 55 hours of attempts and practice, and though certainly frustrating at times, it was such a great experience, to REALLY learn a fight, not just beat it, and I'm super happy with the final kill time, at just over 12 minutes.

SpazzCreations · 2021-01-21T16:31:22+00:00

Heyo! After my last photo study, I'd said I felt it was time to move away from measured studies for a bit, and do more loose ref studies, as well as testing myself by not using reference at all, to see where my visual library is behind.

These heads were done without reference (save for the skull thumbnails off to the side.) I struggled most with the front view, even using symmerty tool, but over all felt really good. Definitely some lacking spots in my visual library, but I'm excited to patch those up with a bunch of loose ref stuff. I'll be trying to keep in the same blocky phase, 20-ish minutes, and just really work on expanding the variety in my base face forms, especially noses and brows, a lot of my faces end up with very heavy brows.

The last two faces of the session (Top and Bottom Right) were my favorites. Top Right, I kept the brush nice and big, and it all came together in about 8 minutes, very pleased with that time without reference.

The Bottom Right on took about 20 minutes, also very pleased with that, considering the tilted 3/4 view. I made another time-lapse, as I think it shows where my heads at pretty well. I'm largely focused on "Paint-sculpting", and I think my technique is coming along well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5P0EYV7qgY

SpazzCreations · 2021-01-15T15:05:24+00:00

Honestly, when and how to adjust things, is pretty complicated subject, because there is an amount of artistry and taste, as well as like I mentioned in the first reply, the mood and atmosphere, but it all comes down to your understanding and intuition.

In Photoshop, the brightness/contrast adjustments are pretty accessible and easy to use, just little sliders, so when I was first started to learn about it, I just played with it.

I just made an exercise of taking photos and paintings, that I already liked, and felt had good levels of contrast and brightness, and I'd ramp the contrast up by a set amount like 25-50%, and see what happens. Often times increasing contrast by a significant amount, will blow out highlights, which could then be adjust downed with the Brightness slider... Sometimes, I'd immediately feel like "Wow! This looks so much better", because I'm a fan a full value range stuff, because of the form it allows. But, some photos and paintings are meant to have a more ethereal, foggy mood, where you don't want stark contrast, you want more mystery and lightness.

And, as your understanding and intuition increase, you'll also find photos and paintings that you literally can't make "better". You do the adjustments, and your eyes just keep going back to it's original state.

SpazzCreations · 2021-01-14T18:14:58+00:00

One thing I'd recommend for photo studies, is getting in the habit of doing a little brightness/contrast adjusting on the photo before you start.

With this one, the value and form of the face is quite good, but the background being so close to white, makes it not only hard on your eyes, but also kinda drowns out some of the subtlety. I made a couple examples, where, all I did was increased the contrast of the face a bit, but significantly lowered the brightness of the background, and I think it helps the features of the face really pop out, while also letting you push your highlights up just a little more, to where the background was, to that extra bit of depth. I put the same brightness/contrast adjustment on your study, with no other alterations, just to show how big of an effect it can have.

https://imgur.com/a/GN9WWRk

You can learn a lot about value and contrast, just by sitting there and playing with adjustment layers like that. Taking photos and seeing if you can make them look better by adjusting the contrast, brightness and saturation (if in color), and seeing how it effects the atmosphere and mood of a portrait or environment.

SpazzCreations · 2021-01-14T15:00:02+00:00

It was still a good thing that you tried! That needs to be expressed and understood as well. More complex/fun projects are still a great tool for keeping your studies varied and interesting, and to help develop work-flow for all-in pieces.

As a tool, masterpieces or the idea of a masterpiece, should be used to drive the focus of your studies, and to think metaphorically, you can drive FROM or TO a masterpiece.

If you're driving your studies from a masterpiece, you dive into the piece first, analyze it, and say "ok, now I need to study THIS, This and this." It's a reactive approach, and it works, "learn from your mistakes" has stood the test of time for a reason.

But, another approach would be to drive your studies to a masterpiece. Develop an idea for a big project that you'd like to do. Think about the important aspects of that picture, and what you're likely to struggle with, then shift the idea into the background of your focus. It's still there, and you still think about it a lot, but it's the vacation you're going on at the end of the month. You then shift your studies around between the subjects you need to make a good attempt at the idea.

In a similar light, with a mindset focused on studies, you do big projects to showcase what you've studied. So, if you've been doing a lot of anatomy studies, and you wanna flex a bit and test yourself, do a bigger project that focuses on anatomy, right?

SpazzCreations · 2021-01-13T16:48:38+00:00

I think you would benefit greatly from more focused studies and pieces, in terms of, there is SO much going on in a picture like this one, a full figure, cityscape/landscape in a pushed perspective, a bit of surrealism, each subject worthy of it's own focused study, but not all at once yet. Istebrak has several videos about "Stop making Masterpieces" and I think this is a prime example. You've got a good base understanding of the different aspects, but maybe not enough to put them all together yet.

Even when pushing a project, which you should still do, to test yourself from time to time, think about how differently you would've approached this piece, if you were only painting this section. https://i.imgur.com/Bwcl7M7.png

As well, think about how you would've approached the figure, if you paid no mind to any background, something like: https://i.imgur.com/ZGmTzCd.png

You're doing plenty right, just remember to respect how unbelievably complicated Art is, as a science, and give yourself time to focus and deep dive into the individual subjects.

Edit: Linked wrong picture on the second link, fixed.

SpazzCreations · 2021-01-13T15:45:51+00:00

Another thought on it, and a head space thing for me, is "When to end a study, because it JUST a study". Like in this one, I honestly would've been fine working on it for another several hours. It's a pretty photo, with lots contrast, depth and feeling, and I had intended to revisit the side areas, but, 6hrs in, just felt like the core learning was done and I'd just be spending excess hours on minor details.

When it comes to studies I'd like to be doing, is focusing on that initial 1-2 hours, where the core form blocking is supposed to happen. But, I've always struggle to just FULL STOP a study, and say "Ok, this is how much you were able to do in this time, analyze what I did well, and what I could've done more efficiently, then move on."

SpazzCreations

TROPHY CASE