Happy belated Thanksgiving to all who celebrate. I think since this is a holiday week for some, we can waive our requirement for people to chip in within 48 hours, etc. I'm planning on picking up with a GM post next week unless people start chiming in and the train begins to move again. Next week I'll prompt you all onto your next step if you haven't already chosen whichever way you'd like to go.

I am feeling a lot better after sleeping for 12 consecutive hours after my sister finally picked up my nephew. I love him, but taking care of him is a lot.

Hi I am still here. Holiday week very busy. I'll post tomorrow

@clanjos Glad youre feeling better!

@PatientBean Makes sense, we'll be here!

@wanderingwolf Hey I want to have Fleur investigate the office to see if she can find out what may have happened here, like did someone come in to find something and did they.

@PatientBean Alright sounds great! Roll Fleur's perception and reply with the result here!

Is it fine if Saur makes the same check? Perception is his best skill, so he should probably also attempt to have a look around. He'll gratefully tuck away the new potion from Starfinger and start his investigation as well~

@PatientBean Fleur takes a moment to survey Teacher Ot's office. Apart from the disarray already evident to her when she entered the room, presumably from the office being ransacked, her keen Elven attention is drawn to the desk itself. The desk is made of strong wood, yet it still exhibits a crack from the force of something heavy. As she stoops to examine the crack, she notices a small wooden mask beneath the desk, amidst the murkey water.

This mask appears to be carved in the visage of a rabbit, and its cord has been torn, suggesting that it was pulled off in a struggle.

As she casts her eyes about the room, she also notices a set of damp footprints that lead out of the office and into the hall.

@Digizel Yes, Saur can also search the room. Please roll Saur's perception and post it here.

@wanderingwolf Ah, just a 16, so probably not much to be found but what Fleur's already found, I presume?

@Digizel Saur notices everything that Fleur has just mentioned to the group, with one caveat: rather than seeing the mask, Saur is drawn to a pile of papers littered on the floor behind Teacher Ot's desk. There's something odd about them, but he's nots sure what.

Please roll an Investigation roll for Saur!

@rush99999 and @vertigo, what are Jenk and Ele up to right now?

@Digizel Saur notices everything that Fleur has just mentioned to the group, with one caveat: rather than seeing the mask, Saur is drawn to a pile of papers littered on the floor behind Teacher Ot's desk. There's something odd about them, but he's nots sure what.

Please roll an Investigation roll for Saur!

Sure thing, but the Investigation activity says I need to roll a Recall Knowledge check that I can make apply, but I'm not sure which ones might apply to a pile of papers since I don't know what could possibly be on them.

Looking a bit closer, I'm realizing that the issue may be that these Recall Knowledge checks are tagged Secret. And this time I understand why, if I'm not supposed to know if I have one that applies or not without a success. So, here's what I think might be a good compromise, or you can roll for me, I'll leave it up to you~

Here's my roll on the die: 15
Arcana, Occult, Society, Lore (Dragon): +1 = 16
Religion: +3 = 18
Crafting, Lore (Kobold, Military, Cavern): +4 = 19
Nature: +6 = 21

Those are all of my Recall Knowledge results, so instead of asking what to roll, I just did all of them and will let you decide the highest one that applies here, if that works for you? If not, feel free to roll this one for me xD

@Digizel Sorry about that. I ought to have phrased that differently; something like 'would Saur like to investigate the pile of papers'? Then you could have told me which skill Saur would have liked to use to Investigate with and I could roll Recall Knowledge with that skill.

Thanks for posting these modifiers!

As a result of a separate, secret roll:

Saur sifts through the piles of papers and debris and finds a small sheet of paper among them. The paper is marked with a strange rune and several notes analyzing various aspects of the rune in the margins. Using Saur's knowledge of nature, he is able to recall that this rune is related to conjuration magic and that the analysis of this rune is actually incorrect and led to false conclusions on the part of whomever penned the analysis in the margins. At this point, that's all Saur can divine from the small sheet.

I'll have a post for Jenk done sometime tomorrow.

@Digizel Sorry about that. I ought to have phrased that differently; something like 'would Saur like to investigate the pile of papers'? Then you could have told me which skill Saur would have liked to use to Investigate with and I could roll Recall Knowledge with that skill.

See, that's what I thought too at first, but here's the problem I ran into with that, though: From my perspective, I just know that there are papers here and they're probably important since the DM is bringing my attention to them specifically. I didn't have info on what's on them or anything. I didn't have any way of knowing what skill could possibly be applicable since I didn't know what was on them or anything. Didn't really have a reason to even think Nature was even remotely applicable to it, as far as I can tell? So I wouldn't have had any idea what to put forward what to try. And even if I did know it was a rune, I'm not sure I'd have ever been able to figure out that anything other than Arcana would've worked.

In fact, if you didn't tell me to do a separate Investigation roll, I wouldn't have even considered Recall Knowledge being applicable at all. So I just kind of assumed that you'd just pick it out for me and tell me what I got if I was successful. Hence why I just dropped all my numbers for you.

So out of curiosity, since the decision's been made already, am I just doing a dumb and missing something there? It wouldn't surprise me, honestly; I do have a bad habit of overcomplicating things xD

As a result of a separate, secret roll:

Saur sifts through the piles of papers and debris and finds a small sheet of paper among them. The paper is marked with a strange rune and several notes analyzing various aspects of the rune in the margins. Using Saur's knowledge of nature, he is able to recall that this rune is related to conjuration magic and that the analysis of this rune is actually incorrect and led to false conclusions on the part of whomever penned the analysis in the margins. At this point, that's all Saur can divine from the small sheet.

Sounds good then! I'll have my response up shortly then. I'd like to have it done before I go to bed, but if not, it'll be done tomorrow for sure~

@Digizel Recall Knowledge is a tricky skill to nail down. Coming from DND, I didn't really have a good grasp of what it is used for or when it is most useful. This is probably down to me being a new DM, so I'm bound to miss the mark on things. In this instance, I probably fudged things a little too much and skipped a step, which would have made the whole thing make more sense.

Step 1 would have been: Saur sees an interesting pile of papers. Search the papers
Step 2 would have been: Saur finds a small piece of paper with a rune on it. Do you want to investigate?
Step 3 would have been: Saur recognizes the rune... etc.

While reading about Recall Knowledge I found this:

You might need to collaborate with the GM to narrow down the question or skills, and you can decide not to Recall Knowledge before committing to the action if you can't don't like your options.

Which makes me think maybe there ought to be more narrowing down of skills and questions used. The Adventure I'm using has preset data and DC's for things like "The player can use Nature or Arcana to Recall Knowledge for this with a DC of..." And that's it. It doesn't really coach the GM through much else.

In my experience playing in the Pathfinder Society, where time is of the essence for a 4 hour session, the GM often says something like "You can choose Nature or Arcana to Recall Knowledge in this situation. Or you can choose a different skill at a higher DC. Which do you choose?" I'm not a fan of this approach since it feels more like rail-roading than allowing players to think for themselves.

All in all, this is probably my bad with skipping a step above. My apologies; I'm still figuring things out as I go!

Ahh...I see, I see. This is starting to make some kind of sense now. I appreciate what you're going for there~ I suppose questioning back and forth with you is probably how I'm supposed to figure out what might be applicable. Since I suppose I'm aware that fey and druid magic could be nature focused, I might be able to come down to being able to use nature with a bit of dialogue and ask if that's applicable.

If that's how the module structured this part, I think the reason it says to let them make those specific checks is because a character with the relevant skills would be able to recognize that it's a certain kind of magic by default, with the DC just being whether or not they can successfully decipher it. But I'm fine with this as well, I think. It just takes a bit more thought and effort xD

No problem, you're all good. Makes me feel a bit better that I'm not the only one trying to figure things out xD

But while I've got your attention Wolf, I do have a quick question regarding the game. When it comes to the footprints we're beginning to follow, is there only one set? Or does it seem like more than one person walked out of the office? And if so, could Saur try to figure out how many there might have been, or if they might've been dragging something or someone? Usually stuff like that leaves different kinds of trails, but I'll leave it to you~

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Oh yeah ALSO, a reminder to the group as you guys post: Saur turned over the sheet he found to the group to see if they might be able to figure out what its purpose is. Idk if the module allows for more than what Saur picked up on, but it might not hurt to roll them Arcana bones if allowed.

You know, I have a pretty high Arcana score. @wanderingwolf Can I roll for Arcana on the papers to see if I get anything?

20 if I am able to