Aardvark's "What a Royal Pain" CotCT Campaign (Inactive)

Game Master Troy Malovich

Neva, treating disease takes a heal check with the DC of the disease to be able to add the +4 to the Fort saves.

Also, go ahead and cast any remove diseases you memorized, as it is the next morning (I rolled disease after you all slept, and you awake with the results). Or do you mean to wait another day first?

Sorry for the delay. I've posted my attempts to treat disease and speed up our healing of ability damage. Once I know our status in the morning, I'll memorize and cast spells. Who is still infected? Or newly infected? What's current ability damage?

Don't want to use my scroll of lesser restoration, as that is for when we're in a dungeon.

Sadly, you cannot heal ability damage while still bearing the affliction. You can use that second roll as a treat disease for yourself (nothing says you can't do it).

Okay, so Neva and Rutter will be staying in their quarters during the sickness. What are the rest of you going to be doing during the day they are indisposed?

Once I figure out the timeline, I'm going to try and start putting the date in my posts, to make the passage of time more clear. If I have room in the box I may just add it to the map links.

The rest of us can go to the temple and look at the box while those two recover...

Aardvark -- When you said ability damage can't be healed during the affliction, is that by any means (eg - no magical restoration) or just not by means of treating wounds?

Sorry, I meant to write naturally. So only magic can heal the damage from an affliction if you are still afflicted.

So, rest, full rest, or long-term care would have no effect on recovering the damage.

Roger that.

I'm a bit lost. Where are we here? Waiting to divvy up the loot? Waiting to find out the results of the heal checks? Memorize spells and cast? Sorry if my confusion is gumming stuff up!

I'm mostly confused about the checks we need to make for the disease (fort each morning?), whether a heal check can help us with them, and whether or not there are any spells that Neva can cast to help us.

I'm thinking the timeline was something like:

Day 0: we killed the vamp spawn, contracted the disease
Day 1: we got worse (I don't know if Neva already cast anything or can cast anything), others went to Vault, brought things back

As for what's next, as much damage as we've taken, I think Neva and Rutter would stay bedridden. Maybe the others might see if those bird-masks are available, or are there any mysteries we're still wondering about?

Here's how I saw the timeline:

Day 0: Fought Vamps, went to hideout with Felgar
Day 1: Rutter and Neva woke feeling like poo-poo, so the other three went to the bank and retrieved the goods.

Beyond that, I left wondering

Now, since most Clerics pray for spells in the morning, Neva could have prepared the spells she wanted on Day 1. Or did she intend to wait until the next day, to see if it got better or not first? Or does Pharasma have a different time that spells are prepared other than dawn, requiring Neva to wait another day before memorizing the remove disease spell?

Ah, I also thought we were experiencing damage on Day 0. [You gave us the damage right after the fight with the vamps, before we had searched the toy shop.] That's why I cast remove disease on Rutter prior to resting. I also thought that I was providing long-term care and treat disease on Day 0.

But no matter! I am not going to argue that I've sicker longer! :-)

So, on Day 1,I would have prepared for another day in the plague-ridden city:
0: create water, detect magic, light, resistance
1: protection from evil, sanctuary, bless, detect evil, and cure light wounds (D)
2: lesser restoration x 2, remove disease, remove disease (D)

There is no data on when Pharasma grants spells, but I think Neva would groove on the rebirth part of the goddesses portfolio and likely get her spells in the morning.

So, this should mean the following:
Day 1: Rutter and Neva wake up feeling like crap. While the others go to the bank, Neva casts one remove disease on Rutter, and fails. She'd then cast another.
Caster Level Check: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (8) + 4 = 12
Crud.

Depressed and angry, Neva would cast lesser Restoration on Rutter to repair Con damage:
Healing to Con damage: 1d4 ⇒ 1

Now thinking that the stubborn halfling doesn't really even WANT TO GET BETTER, she casts the spell again.
Healing to Con damage #2: 1d4 ⇒ 2

Somewhat mollified, she would sit down to rest and then treat disease all day.

Final ability damage at the end of Day 1, prior to taking our next save vs. the disease:
Rutter: -1 Cha
Neva: -2 Cha

I've already succeeded at the rolls for Treat Disease on both of us, so I think we're ready to advance to Day 2, and see how we fare on our checks with the +4.

Did I get all that right?

One mistake on the ability damage: Only Rutter's Con damage was healed, so...

Rutter: -1 Cha
Neva: -2 Cha, -2 Con

Regarding the nurse blocking the entrance: Neva has no patience at this point, so she's unlikely to have any ideas of how to charm her way by or get through this.

She's considering _hold person_, but I wanted to give someone else a chance to do something smart before I cause init to be rolled.

The smart thing, if someone has the skillset (Jethro, if you're still with us?) would probably be an intimidate or bluff, some angle like, "The doctor will be very unhappy if you turn away people who can help."

Rutter's with you, though. Rutter's happy with saying something smart (in the mean sense, not intellectual) now, and then staking out the Hospice, following the nurse home, and killing her in her sleep. And then we'll try our luck again tomorrow morning, when they're reeling from someone not showing up to work, and maybe they have someone less experienced working the desk.

Vyshael's not the patient sort in the first place, so he's pretty much on board with Rutter and Neva's plans himself. :)

I was going to try Intimidate, but I do not have it. I am about to physically remove Helga.

Neva's going to attempt hold person and we'll just move on by, unless someone has a better idea.

That sounds brilliant.

I'm just looking for clarification of intentions here. Didn't you guys just come here to see about getting the bird masks? Or were there other plans on the agenda?

Also, reminders:
The new organization of Grey Maidens has more authority than the Korvosan Guard.
Field Marshal Kroft was cooperating with any requests coming from Dr. Davaulus and his physicians.

This is by no means a "no" or "don't", as much as maybe adding a little perspective that can sometimes get lost over the pace of a PbP (especially my slow @$$ pace).

I don't think we should take any overtly hostile action against her (with witnesses around) and I'm including hold person as hostile, even if we don't coup de grace her. Charm person would be okay, but I'm guessing we don't have it. I'm serious about Rutter's plan to follow her home and kill her in her sleep.

Our main purpose was to see if there were masks around, but a secondary purpose was (1) to see if patients were really being treated (this was Rutter's secondary purpose - the proclamation warning against declining treatment still has him suspicious) and (2) to actually help (this was Neva's purpose).

I don't think we're after anything crucial, so a roadblock here shouldn't normally hang us up, but I think (1) as players, we don't really have any other hooks to follow and (2) as characters, I think we would be pretty frustrated to encounter someone who is in a position to help people, and clearly doesn't care.

I am so willing to just push my way in yelling the docs name, but it appears that we do not have anything good enough to offer if I do that.

If I'd had my domain spell of Memory Lapse, I'd use that to retry the Diplomacy check. While I did well on the roll, I didn't hit 25, with is often a cut-off point.

And if Jethro is around, he could probably sweet talk the woman.

Conversely, we could sneak in some other way? Neva doesn't like these strange doctors and their oddly-named door wardens!

Sadly, I have neither illusion nor enchantment spells -- so there'll be no useful magical assistance from me in this case.

However, using either Diplomacy or Intimidate, I could try to boost Neva's success -- or, of course, there's always Bluffing or going to get "permission" from the Maidens.

Ok, so I did some reading last night to see if I could figure out if we're missing something.
Starting back at the beginning of this Adventure, I've retraced about a 3rd of our journey so far:

1) We started off by hearing rumors of a strange ship that was sunk in the river. We tried to follow up, and even sent a water elemental down, but it seemed a dead end.

2) We decided to try and find Blackjack, , as that seemed our best course of following up on suspicions about the Queen after the botched execution of Trinia Sabor, the painter. We were distracted by....

3) The sick girl Brienna, who took several days of ministration. She lived in Trail's End which is close to the river where the ship was sunk, and so Rutter surmised a connection. After helping her, we went home to encounter...

4) Zellara's ghost, who did a reading for us here. [I better understand how to read these now that I've done one as a DM in my RotRL campaign, I found it very fun!] The big take-away about the present was this:
Evil plots are afoot to bring chaos and evil to many. I take this to mean the plague was not an accident.
As the final column of cards (the last paragraphs) are the "future" in Harrowing, this seems to be the foreshadowing: we will go on some type of a journey, deal with a bunch of two-faced people, and have a problem with evil men trying to grasp power, evilly (I think gender is neutral in this use...ie we can still have suspicions about the queen?).

5. After the reading, we were contacted by Vencarlo Orsini, aka Blackjack, who asked us to escort Trinia from the city, which we did.

6. We then went to the Vault of Abadar (for a great sequence, btw, loved that) and found out that most of the sick were in North Point and Old Korvosa, also next to the river.
We also learned that the Abadaran priests got sick at the temple, without seeing any sick people. I missed that last time.

Anyway, I'll try to do some more tonight, but hopefully this can guide us somewhere. I'm thinking the ship was source of the plague, and it might be worth taking a look. Although I'm not sure how we'd do that.

I appreciate the synopsis, I've been meaning to do the same. I look forward to more if you do get the chance. A couple other things I remember:

When we went to collect the body of the Shoanti, the necromancer wasn't home. Kroft said she wouldn't mind if he died. Maybe an excuse to see him would be to ask about the vampire spawn? He might be mad that we destroyed his lab, though...

When we visited that crime boss on the piers, he had a locked up pseudodragon that asked Neva for help, but we were in no position to offer it. Hey, maybe some of his thugs have died from the plague by now?

There's a couple 1st level spells that might help us explore the wreck, but they're non-core (still Paizo, but can't remember if we had any restricions). They'd have to be cast on each person going underwater (don't know how many spell slots y'all have per day), and then those swimmers will have to fight a shark, so we'll need to send more than just one. Vyshael's fairly martial, so Felgar and Vyshael?

Wiz/Sor 1: touch of the sea grants swim speed but not water breathing for 1 min/lvl

Clr 1: air bubble lets you breath underwater for 1 min/lvl

I suppose we could try to track down the actual vamps, but IIRC, the only clue we had are some Ustalav coins. Are those rare enough that the Abadarians would have noticed someone if they brought some to the Bank?

Finishing up a last day of work before a vacation (at a gaming convention)!

So, I'll likely be out of pocket through the weekend. I'll try to check in, but can't promise anything.

Neva's up for whatever we want to do next, and I'm sorry I don't have time to advance the discussion thread my own damn self.

Back next Monday.

In case anyone is in doubt: I have completely lost the plot at this point.
:-)

So, let's grab this line the DM appears to be throwing us and see where that goes.

Rutter, if there are some things to pick up, please lead the way.

I agree -- [To be fair, I wasn't here for the previous plot-set up..] ;)

We are ok. This is a hook we should investigate, then get to the boat unless we pull a thread that unravels everything with the cure investigation.

Sorry for the delay, but it's the end of the semester and I'm dealing with end of class work and preparing for finals. I may not be able to post often until after 14 Dec.

Good luck with finals, and thanks for the heads up. Take your week, make your grades, and then game with pride and abandon.

No worries here. Good luck!

An early "Happy New Year" everyone! May you all have a year of health, happiness and numerous postings.

Curse the natural 20s of my NPC enemies! What kind of shopkeep gets a 25 Will save?!

:-)

Ooh, a charm person victory for the shop keep!

It's not mind control, so I did my best to balance the whole "friend" vs. "burning sense of justice" thing.

Still, that's some terrible luck -- I'm a Wizard with Elven Resistances!

I (and Rutter) didn't really think it mattered if she escaped (and I've been too busy in RL to pose the question), but I was wondering if the +5 "if the creature is currently being threatened or attacked by you or your allies" should apply, even though we're kind of the instigators. I guess my reasoning is that our suspicion that she's a criminal (and might defend herself if we tried to arrest her) is enough for us to consider her a threat. Doesn't really matter in this case, but something to think about.

If it hadn't been an actual exile (self-imposed), but rather just a promsie to be good, the lack of penalty might have triggered a new save for being against Vyshael's nature.... to be honest, I was hoping Felgar'd yell at me for being an idiot.

Problem is, Felgar has no Diplomacy or Sense Motive skills. He would have to just take your word for it because no one else is around to actually converse with her. Felgar usually does whatever Neva asks him to do under these circumstances.

Important HP die-rolling rules to follow:

For HP, you can roll or take half (not half+1), whichever is higher.... with one stipulation. HP rolls will be included in the first post after the posts that say to level up, and only in the discussion thread.

So, if your first response to this post does not include a HP roll, I'm assuming you took half. Any rolls after your next discussion post, or in the gameplay thread will not count for HP.

I'm sorry to come off like a stickler about this, but there are ways to get around things in PbP. I'm not saying any of you do or are going to do it, but it makes me feel comfortable having a standard in place to prevent it. I know I have trust issues when it comes to dice, and even make my kids roll their rolls in front of me, just from playing with enough people to make it an issue so often that I feel I like to place security measures.

Leveling
+1 lvl rogue
HP: 1d8 ⇒ 3 = 4 +1 Con +1 Toughness = +6 HP
+uncanny dodge
+rogue talent: combat trick: power attack
+9 skill points =
+2 bluff
+2 diplomacy
+4 intimidate
+1 sense motive
+1 BAB
+1 ref

I love this character, and I love this campaign.

hp: 1d8 ⇒ 6

The rest to follow later.

HP: 1d10 ⇒ 7+1 Fav Class+1 Con+1 Toughness = 10

Leveled

Weapon Training - Axes (Two-Handed Only)
Dodge
2 Skill points
+1 Perception
+1 Intimidate

I think we lost Jethro a while ago. I haven't seen or heard from him in a bit.

HP (Wizard Level): 1d6 ⇒ 5 = 6 (7 with physical enhancement to con)

Wizard 4...
+ 6 skill points (yay, int..)
- Acrobatics, Knowledge (arcana), Spellcraft, Perception, Knowledge (Local) (x2)
+ 2 spells known(levelling)
- Glitterdust, Web
+ 1 2nd spell per day
+ 1 Will, +1 BAB
+ 1 enhancement bonus to battleshaped weapons
+ 1 hp (Favoured Class)
+ Arcane Armour Training

I went ahead and invited a player that's in a few of my other games. I seem to have bad luck whenever I bring friends new to PbP in to play, a lot of them don't stick with it so I'm done inviting friends.

Neva will recognize him as Faedrin from our other game.

Added cleric level
HP: rolled 6 +1 Favored Class
2+1+1 skills: Spellcraft, Sense Motive, Heal, Diplomacy
Feat: Iron will
This was a tough choice for me. I want to keep getting better at using a crossbow, and so I need Rapid Reload before I get Rapid Shot...but I didn't want to take Rapid Reload at 5th, as I won't have a second attack until 7th. I went with Neva's stubbornness. Extra channel was another option. And Spell Penetration, too! Anyway, it's tough to specialize a cleric for ranged weapons without worshiping Erastil.

I have 'iron will' penciled in for 6th level on my 'Rutter repair' notes. But, yeah, I was thinking last night, what with the plague, 'great fortitude' might be more useful.

Okay, so the player I invited built a dwarven crossbow ranger, and he was wondering if there would be any issue with him being related to Felgar. I'm fine with it, because it makes it easy to incorporate him into the group. Felgar, do you mind if he's kin?

Sure, I have no problem with that at all. He can piggy-back on my background and origins in the Stoutaxe Clan of the Mindspin Mountains. That would be fun.