Evasion is a matter of the save. If that make the save they won't take much, fail they take it all. Burning hands it still best bet IMHO.

Also, I agree, if we open the door and they are no in that room anymore we fall back to the room that had the frogmen.

The spell has a DC of 18, and three of them have taken zero damage so far.  (GM lists them as 'healthy' which means 100%.)  That means that either they've all rolled >28 on both saves or they've rolled >18 and have Evasion talent.  I'm doubting the former.

Anyway, I can't believe that they are more than +12 on the reflex save, so the spell ought to catch a little more than it has.  They've just been lucky.

Is this stupid frog still up?  Let's kill it.

Edit:  Oh, it ran away.  (Reading comprehension FTW.)  Anyway, it seems like the monkeys have moved elsewhere, but I'll rejoin and be ready to cast, if you like.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:44, Fri 20 Nov 2020.

Fall back to the westward room. We can hole-up in there and Treat Wounds. I'm guessing here, but I'm imagining the monkey-men holding their attacks until one of us opens the door and said someone will get massacred. We'll really benefit from getting rid of those Wounded conditions if possible.

We can still do our door plan, but the narrower halls will help us.

If you look at the history you'll see you burnt the monkeys just fine, but they were healed full (or close to it) by Arnellia's burst heal.

The key for the burst heal is that the wording changes between a 2-action and 3-action heal.

The base spell has a wording of this on targeting:



So willing creature means if you cast this at an enemy they probably won't accept it, right? However when you upgrade to 3-action the targeting changes:



It changes from "willing creature" to "all creature" so this will heal friend and foe alike.  A 30' burst just hit everything so both the toady and monkeys received healing as well.

Well..  Shit...

DM, Thanks for the explanation.


LOL.

Just so there's not a hold up or misunderstanding, I'm pretty sure Nez means she's lining up behind the fallback position door...

Also, can Yarr or Sularius get a pot shot off in the frog?

In reply to Maerk (msg # 34):

Did I miss something, but how do we know that the Monkeymen are moving when the doors not even been opened?

We don't know. Maerk hasn't felt any resistance against the door, so they're either waiting in ambush for someone to open the door, they're flanking us, or they're getting out of Dodge.

In any of those circumstances, I don't see opening the door having a benefit. Let's fall back to the room where the frog-man was, and try to barricade ourselves in a bit with the furnishings, at least long enough to get a Treat Wounds... Maerk's been healed up significantly (thanks by they way) but, if I understand correctly, he's still got the Wounded 2 condition. We're about one series of ranged attacks away from a TPK...

So is anyone opening the door or is everyone just retreating back to the former frog room?

The idea of hitting with the AOE attacks first was to counter any ambush. It's a standard Infantry room clearing technique. If you know or suspect your enemy is waiting in a room in ambush you toss in a grenade first. We just happen to have two grenades.

Anyway, I guess we're falling back.

FYI now seems a good time to point out this:

https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=82



So this is how you can "ready" an action for if the enemy charges you etc. Of note is that you only get a single action so most spell casting cannot be set as a readied action because it requires 2 actions to cast.

HOWEVER some spells, like Heal, that only require on action can be set at the ready.

Other note is that when you ready an action your turn ends so do whatever else you were going to do first.

Enemies can ready as well, can they not? This is why I didn't think we should open the door. If the monkey-men are all holding an attack with their trigger to be 'if the door opens', well...

With them healed back up, and several of us diminished and 'Wounded', I'm sticking with my position that we did the right thing by falling back and taking a breather.

Yes enemies can ready actions.

The intent with falling back and barricading the door was to buy us 10 min for Treat Wounds.

If we can't hold out... we'd best have a "Get outa Dodge" plan.

It needs to be ten minutes of rest though, not 10 minutes of contested athletics checks.

All the furniture in these rooms have been smashed into pieces. Even with a hammer and nails (that you probably don't have) there just aren't pieces long enough to really hold back anyone.

I would say you can get a bonus on a contested athletics check or turn the area in front of the doorway into difficult terrain to prevent charging and holding the door closed but it isn't going to hold them back on its own.

There is the complication that judging from the sounds they are not being passive, that they are actively trying to hunt the party down and it sounds like they have reinforcements judging by the additional croaking.

Finally just as a reminder in 2e knowledge checks are an action and I would say concentrating on a perception check is an action. This would mean focusing your full attention to try and find out where they are, how many there are etc.

Just as a reminder you might want to double check the map and update your positioning. Right now it looks like the party is very spread out and might not be in an ideal position for combat.

It was also discussed about running away. I don't know if that is still in the cards or if the party has committed to holding the room.

@Maerk - Yes you can hold the door shut. You don't even need a free hand because the doors swing inwards so you can just lean against it with the same effect.

I did mention that I'd start the Read Aura back in the room, though I didn't give a specific location.  Let's say Q19, so I'm ready to send a burning hands past Maerk when he opens the door.

I'm not gonna open the door, our enemies may force it though, in that case, we should hit and run, or run now.

Are we ambushing them when they come in the door or leaving?  It doesn't much matter which, we just need to actually decide that.

I have one buff spell left and who gets it depends on where people move to.  I can cast Magic Weapon one on person's weapon; who will benefit the most from it?

If we are really concerned about making it out of this alive, I recommend and tactical withdrawal outside to regroup. It's my understanding that with the staircase blocked, the door we came in is the only way in or out. So we could theoretically bar it from the outside and make sure none of them leave.

Personally I think that the decision really hinges on how much firepower our casters have left.

I am down to cantrips and Magic Weapon.  Yala has used combat medicine on everyone and I have on a couple of people.  Mind you, that's almost exactly what I came INTO this with lol.

I have one infused reagent left I can use for anything.

THIS is the exact reason Yala sat up the plan she did to prevent this from fully happening. Now we're cornered, likely surrounded, out of healing. She's not an amused elf, the fiery redhead in her is about to come out.

Moved here, posted in wrong thread. Sorry.

Let's consider: these guys hit as well as we do, and now that the four likely have reinforcements, they're at least equal in number, and they do about as much damage as we do, and they don't have Wounded conditions hanging over their heads...

We better git while the gittin's good... Maerk will hold the door while the rest of you escape, if it feels like he's not going to hold out, he'll split too, hoping the debris stacked in front of the door and caltrops slow the pursuit long enough for him to get away as well...

How's that sound?

Also, I'm too lazy to make a new character... ;-)

It seems to me like we can get out through the south hallway that Sularius recon'd. If you all head that way, Maerk can hold the door until the last moment and then chase after you to try to get away. Did I read something wrong?