"Pathfinder "Shattered Star" session 6" Topic
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Mardaddy | 25 Jan 2015 1:14 p.m. PST |
Last session: TMP link The PC's needed to head on back to Heidmarch Manor (the Pathfinder Lodge in Magnimar) to rest up, buy some more consumables items they expended, and meet up with the rest of the party before continuing on. As it so happens, in two days it is New Years Day, and Magnimar celebrates in style, with the Serpents Run (coliseum) putting on events and opening up the grounds for public access. Sheila Heidmarch (the Venture Captain of the Lodge) introduces the PC's to a new companion who wishes to join in their exploits – the party, which now consists of: the half-elf Gunslinger, the elf Ninja, a human Cleric/Sorcerer, a Shoanti Barbarian, an elf Fighter, and the newcomer is a human Cleric/Wizard concentrated in the Travel, Fate and Luck (who is double-down on buffing everyone else, has almost zero combat ability.) So the party goes to the Serpents Run after checking in with Kasadei (a contact they have with the City Watch) who informs them that traditionally New Years is a crime wave in the city due to everyone going to the coliseum. The Council of Ushers this year has decided to have the watch step up patrols and only keep a skeleton crew at the Serpents Run. The Hellknights and local churches that provide their own additional watches are going out in force through the city as well. The day of the celebration, food and drink and mock gladiatorial battles, hydra-baiting, golem fights, animal races, with fireworks planned later that evening. This year is the first year a contingent from Korvosa came to participate in the golem fights, and they are dominating the competition. During the dinner-time public access, when the carts and folks are allowed on the coliseum grounds from the stands, a fire erupts from one of the fireworks carts, but it is not a natural fire, more a ring, from which pours elementals; sixteen small, five medium and three large fire elementals, with a Salamander leading and directing them. Racing around the grounds with their 50ft movement rate, they start setting alight carts and guests. At first, everyone is in shock and freezes. Then panic sets in, as the four thousand citizens that were on the grounds struggle to make to the nearest exit. A scant few who feel themselves capable close and engage the elementals, and nobles and others in the stands either make a getaway from the chaos, or again, those capable and willing start to descend the stairs from their stands to help put down this attack. Among the panicked civilians on the grounds, they do recognize a face from earlier dealings, "The Amazing Zograthy," a seedy, con-artist, fortune-telling, pesh-addicted informant that was the contact Sheila had for meeting Natalya; he is wild-eyed, running away like the others and being jostled by the crowd in mutual panic. The PC's engage the elementals with varying levels of success. The Gunslinger fumbles with his musket, causing a jam that is going to take 2 rounds to fix, it is during this fix that he also looks around the stands of the coliseum. A successful Perception check notes that three people in the stands are not moving to an exit OR down to the grounds, but seem to be closing in at angles to Sheila Heidmarch, they are walking awkwardly, keeping hidden whatever they are holding in one hand. Through all the screams of the crowd, the fighting going on, the licks of flames and the occasional magic being cast at the elemental beasties from what few casters are on the grounds and in the stands (and happen to have some offensive magic for the day), the Gunslinger tries to yell out a warning to Sheila and to the party, who are almost all engaged with an enemy, so distracted by the enemy at their direct front. The Ninja and the Elf Fighter hear the Gunslinger, but only the Ninja is in a position to do anything about it. Next round, the thugs in the stands raise hand-crossbows and fire bolts at Sheila, she is hit twice. Gunslinger still has one more round of fixing his weapon, Ninja can get a bow shot off and wounds one of the thugs, the other PC's are making headway with the elementals. The Barbarian especially has the opportunity to enact cold damage 3x a day with his hits and is tackling a large fire elemental with the help of two City Watch. Casualties are mounting with the civilians, as after four rounds, 27 have now been burned to death by these elementals. The buffing Cleric/Sorcerer is doing his part, staying out of reach area and enacting his Fate and Luck abilities for the benefit of the members; they needed them a couple of times as ST do sometimes fail, and having a successful re-roll kept two of them from catching on fire for additional rounds of damage. The fighting Cleric/Sorcerer is had a bit of bad luck, a fumble bent her sword for a -4 to hit and damage until fixed, so she decided to withdraw and center herself to benefit the most people while channeling healing energy over and over, saving a few downed but not dead City Watch and keeping the Barbarian in the action. The thugs closed on a wounded and down Sheila (she failed two of her DC24 saves vs poison) dropping the hand crossbows and pulling out daggers. The "CRACK" of a gunshot from the grounds and one of the thugs is killed. the other two stabby-stab before the nobles and others can get to Sheila to help her or are really aware of what is happening. The ninja bails on the combat on the grounds and max moves to the wall of the stands to climb up to where Sheila is, that will take one more round. The Barbarian polishes off the large fire elemental with a critical hit he confirms with a second "20," and the two other large elementals are dispatched with damage they have accumulate so far and a handy Ice Storm from a caster in the stands. |
Mardaddy | 25 Jan 2015 1:15 p.m. PST |
The Elf Fighter closes with the Salamander, but ends up moving through its area, provoking an attack of opportunity – tail slap and grab, he is down 17hp in that one attack and is now grappled. There are still another dozen combined small and medium elementals racing about setting fire to carts and causing havoc; and with a 50ft movements rate, they can easily overtake retreating civilians on foot. The casualty rate has risen to 40 civilians and City Guard dead. In an effort to help the Elf Fighter, the buffing Cleric/Wizard vanishes and moves to an area where he can enact a spell the next round to assist him. By the time the Ninja climbs up the wall to the stands, the nobles have already tackled and have the two thugs pinned, the Ninja observes their daggers have a purplish-black ooze on it, and recognizes it as poison. She feeds Sheila a potion of CLW, which helps against the wounds, but not the poison. A quick-search of the thugs finds vials of more poison, a decent sized gemstone and a potion of invisibility on each of them, but the nobles tell her, "That it is all evidence, you cannot take those, HELP HER, SHE IS DYING," and yes, sure enough, of the four wounds, Sheila did fail two more DC24 saves, bringing her STR down to 3. At zero, she will be dead. The barbarian has expended all his rage and is now fatigued. Feeling groggy, but with enemies still around, he presses on against elementals within his move-to-combat range. The gunslinger was making his way to the stands and is climbing the wall. The elf Fighter fails to break the grapple and during the Salamander's turn it maintains the grapple and does constricting damage, he is on the edge of blacking out. The buffing Cleric/Sorcerer casts a spell buffing the elf Fighter for escaping the grapple next round, and maintains his vanish since it s not an offensive spell and not directed at an enemy. Still intent on channeling, the Cleric/Sorcerer moves parallel to the Barbarian so he is always within range to heal him a little at a time as he takes on more elementals. She also heals two wounded civilians and another City Watch that are within the 30ft channeling effect. The Ninja succeeds a Knowledge: Local check to deduce there are two villa's near the Serpents Run they could take Sheila to try and find or beg a Neutralize Poison from. It is too bad so many of the clerics of Magnimar are out on those additional patrols. They choose the right villa out of the two, and in exchange for a favor from the PC party later, Sheila is fed the potion. The villa belongs to one of the founding families of Magnimar, who is the head of the Merchant's Guild and owner of six trade vessels; he was not in, but other family members who were made the choice to give up the potion as they recognized Sheila and saw the value in a favor. They headed back to the Serpents Run, Sheila's husband is there, and takes custody of her, intent on getting her home for rest. The elf Fighter, under the assistance of the spell, breaks the grapple, and the Salamander is hit with a Lighting Bolt from a caster somewhere, dissipating and fizzling it away from this plane of existence. The PC's dispatch the remaining elementals, and start to head for the thugs (except the buffing Cleric/Wizard who hangs around to channel, heal and minister to the wounded and almost dead on the grounds.) The City Watch is about to arrest the thugs, but the PC's are able to Intimidate from them that, "The Amazing Zograthy," hired them to kill Sheila. They touch base with Kassadei, who tells them, "The City Watch has been able to get nothing from the thugs, but if they told the you it was Zograthy, well, Sheila is loved by the Council, and high enough profile that a quiet, more personal retribution might be in order, and likely to be overlooked by the Council and the Watch." The PC's had been to Zograthy's place before, successfully gaining information that led to apprehending Natalya for the Pathfinders. They know he has a tent among the other tents and some carts in the seedier part of the district, and they know that anytime known "marks" are in the area, the carnies back each other up to prevent being taken advantage of. They do not outright pickpocket or steal, but if threatened, they mob up to defend their own. All this they were able to deduce through deft roleplay without any combat or confrontation in their previous dealings with him. They work out a plan to abscond with Zograthy from his place of business at the Carnival located in the Bazaar of Sails by donning disguises and having the Barbarian (who by the way is 7ft 2in) disguised as a half-orc and the ninja going in to see Zograthy while the rest hang out in the carnival itself, mingling with the seedy patrons and carnies. Long story short, the PC's slam Zograthy's face into a table, stunning him, and grab him to drag him out while six carnies come through the tent sides (which have slits they knew about and knew the thugs were there) to defend their fellow performer. The ninja activates the Major Image ability of the Shard of Pride, creating an illusionary wall of fire to diving three of the attackers while the Barbarian unsuccessfully tries to use Zograthy as a shield while three carnies pummel him with clubs. The rest of the party has no idea any of this is going on, as this is inside a tent and no shouting has happened yet. Once the Barbarian exits the tent with a stunned and grappled Zograthy, the carnies yell out the alarm and one goes to get help while six others grab clubs to help. One stays in place, taking out a whistle and blowing an alarm. I rolled 1d10 to see how many rounds before a City Watch patrol comes by – one round. I rolled another 1d10 to see how long before a patrol of Hellknights come to assist, six rounds. The unarmed carnie that was making to leave and get help, well… the elf Fighter attacks him from behind, killing him (below 0HP and bleeding out.) No one in the party has declared non-lethal damage on their strikes… At this point, players cross talk about how that is a really BAD idea, the player basically just committed MURDER against an unarmed person that was no threat to them whatsoever. |
Mardaddy | 25 Jan 2015 1:15 p.m. PST |
The Cleric/Wizard moves and heals the carnie, the ninja exits the tent, the three thugs beating on the Barbarian are keeping at it, and the other three are testing out the illusionary Wall of Fire, poking it with their clubs, they will recognize it is an illusion next round. The other carnie/thugs are closing. The Cleric/Sorcerer and Gunslinger head to the tent to help their party. The seven member patrol of the City Watch rounds the corner next round, rolling a "1" for initiative, so they go last. The Cleric Wizard casts Obscuring Mist, blanketing the whole area from vision 20ft centered on him for the next three minutes. Cutting it down to bare bones here, the PC party knocks out some carnies w/o killing them (Color Spray & Lingering Spell), goes back into the tent and cuts holes to make their escape along the shoreline, taking two minutes to hide behind some outcroppings and remove their disguises and split up, going different directions; except the Barbarian, who has to bathe in the ocean four minutes to wash off the greenish-body paint from his half-orc disguise. Yes, they still have a stunned Zograthy that they have pummeled occasionally to keep him in a half-conscious rag-doll-like-state. They meet up at a isolated locale and question Zograthy, who tells them he had nothing to do with the assassination attempt, he has nothing against the Pathfinders, "and remember? I was the one who leveraged Natalya leaving the Tower Girls to become an informant for the Lodge?" Sense Motive, he is nervous, defensive and probably in need of a pesh fix, but seems sincere. when the PC's describe the assassin thugs, Zograthy says, "They sound like the three guys that tried to shake me down for money three weeks ago – they probably blamed me out of revenge, I don't have gems like that to pay anyone ANYTHING." Zograthy is of the opinion the Aspis Consortium is behind the attempt. Although the Aspsis and Pathfinder Society are not direct immediate rivals by any stretch, it is not unheard of for the Pathfinder Society to stumble unto plots by the Aspis Consortium in opening trade routes and mercantile access AT ANY COST, even murder. Debate among the players whether or not to kill Zograthy since they basically assaulted innocents, botching this whole thing up and he is the only real witness that KNOWS who they are. Cooler heads prevail, and they bargain with him instead, at first offering him a fix of pesh. Seeing opportunity, Zograthy agrees to be silent for a payoff of 100 gold a month. The PC's balk at that, claiming not to have that kind of money, but offer him a one time 500gp pay off (BTW, between all six, they have about 4,500gp.) "500 gold will get you five months of silence, plenty of time in those five months to earn more gold to keep me quiet." When they inquire about any other form of payoff he would want, I thought it logical that he would like to learn "real" magic to augment his con-jobs, so that is what he proposed. "Teach me how to cast real spells, real magic, and I would consider us clear and even." To expedite things (it was getting late and I wanted to put this fiasco turn of events behind us and clear things for the next session back to the AP), I ruled the Cleric/Wizard would have to teach, as the Sorcerer's magic comes from her bloodline, so three successful Spellcraft DC15 checks in a row, followed by three Intelligence checks (me rolling under Zograthy's INT score) in a row and he learns the minor spell Prestidigitation. Any failure on any roll means it takes another week of teaching for him to "get it." All six rolls succeeded, Zograthy goes back to the Carnival, explaining to all that it was a HUGE misunderstanding, those guys apologized and all is well (I have a feeling the local Sczarni gang, "The Washside Wringers," are not letting this go this easy, and a 7ft 2in lanky "anyone" is distinctive, green paint disguise or not.) |
Mardaddy | 25 Jan 2015 1:16 p.m. PST |
DM thought: My intent from the get-go was for the PC';s to try to intervene with the thug assassins, but they focused on the OVERWHELMING number and power level of the elementals, so I had to power that down or that would have been a TPK right there on the floor of the Serpent's Run. The information they got from Zograthy would have been the same had they just walked up directly to him and asked, but they were intent on a different approach that almost got them arrested and now earned some ire from one of the five remaining Sczarni gangs in the city. In actuality, the assassination attempt and distraction of the elemental gate were a plot from the Korvosan contingent that was visiting. Magnimar and Korvosa are rival city-states, but not actively at war or wanting to destroy one another, but they do compete for trade resources and access. The Pathfidner Society members across the continent have time and again been instrumental in countering Asmodean plots, plans and aspirations. Not as a matter of policy, but they have been the occasional, "do-good-thorn-in-the-side," that the Asmodeans of Korvosa would rather not have as a presence in Varisia. So they want to shut down the newly started Lodge before it gains real traction here. All their previous attempts at more "subtle" plans and counters to the Lodge have failed, so they stepped it up with an assassination attempt that they hoped cannot be traced back to them. |
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