GM Bold Strider's Dragon's Demand - Flaxseed Lodge (Inactive)

Game Master rpblue

Still messing a bit with Lukas' level up. I like your idea, Strider, of taking one of the level 8 Ki powers, but none of them are really grabbing me. There are some flavorful ones, but I'm not sure which one to pick that would necessarily come in handy.

I agree that Weapon Focus is a bland choice, but it would be useful much of the time, without spending ki. It would let me hit more often using Power Attack, upping my damage potential, which is pretty important. So, I'm thinking I'll go with Weapon Focus and Elemental Strike.

The only other alternative I've dreamed up, as you hand out templates and such to dead characters (which is good fun, I don't mean to criticize at all!), is the possibility of a Dex to damage feat for my unarmed strike. I recognize this is a hot button issue for much of the Pathfinder community, and I'd get it if you said no, and I'll just go with the other approach I'm considering. So let me know what you think and I'll be ready to go soon afterward.

@Gil: If you are paying for the extra spells, then you can scribe them. There is already a way to do that without needed scrolls.

@Lukas: Weapon Focus isn't a bonus monk feat, so it's not really an option. As to a Dex-to-Damage feat, those feats (though limited) already exist. Offhand, I can think of Fencing Grace and Slashing Grace, but you would have needed to build towards those in the first place in order to have them at this point. As for other options, you can sell off your amulet of natural armor to fund an Agile AoMF.

This may seem harsh, but you are the tankiest person in the party who expended a lot of effort into Trip (control). You outclass the rest of the party by about 10 AC, so if I start allowing custom adjustments to your class, then you become the tankiest person with good damage and good control. The trade-off for an eighth level power was because you sacrificed a feat for it. Gaining a Dex-to-Damage bonus feat or even Weapon Focus as a bonus feat is purely a trade-up with no cost.

I think elemental strike is a good choice to increase damage, however I think you are just going to have to pick from the base monk bonus feats for your level 6 upgrade.

@Sarasha: On that note, the bonus to AC and the addition of the DR is too much for an offensive based character, so let's just leave it as DR 5/- with no bonus to AC.

Hmm, guess I misunderstood. I thought we were exploring some slight variances from the rules, given that we're not playing strict PFS and you've already got house rules that differ from canon. That's why I proposed taking Weapon Focus as a monk bonus feat, since it seemed to make sense from a flavor perspective and your combat maneuver house rules make a lot of the monk bonus feats irrelevant.

If that's not how you see it, I'll understand, though it basically leaves me with Mobility as a semi-desirable option from the bonus feat list and not much else. If you are interested in some flexibility on the bonus feat list, I'd ask you to consider Weapon Focus, Greater Trip, Jabbing Style or other style feats, maybe Bleeding Attack.

And if you don't want to mess around with the bonus feat list, I might ask to retrain a bit away from such a trip-focused build, perhaps switching my style strike and a feat or two. I went into it as an entertaining experiment - it's sometimes been effective, and sometimes not. The funny thing is, I never went into this expecting Lukas to be tanky at all, but that's how he's ended up.

And if you want me to go with straight RAW on this and no retraining, I'll take Elemental Fury and probably Mobility and I'll be done.

There's a number of feats that RAW can be taken as 6th level bonus feats. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yTXRGZHbC5scMEGXa5wzFlH3aUsdaS70EjUDlfd lbZc/edit

Alrik - The URL you posted takes me to a message saying the file doesn't exist. I've looked pretty extensively at the monk bonus feats, and checked the list of bonus feats in Hero Lab, the SRD and Archives of Nethys, they're all pretty limited, especially with the way Bold Strider has grouped the combat maneuver feats for this game. I don't mean that as a criticism of those house rules, I think they make a lot of sense. It just has an impact on the monk bonus feat value that I didn't anticipate.

My computer's SSD burnt out, so I no longer have a desktop until it gets fixed. I can't move forward with the module without the PDF. I'll keep you lot in the loop. Sorry for the delay.

As for Lukas, I will think on it some more.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Wow, bummer! Very sorry to hear it, hope you can get it sorted out.

And thanks for thinking on it!

The replacement arrives in 7 days, hopefully. I will get out a substantive update then.

Loving the RP.

-Posted with Wayfinder

I'm back in action, boys!

As I'm in a great mood due to my computer having its issues resolved, save a minor cord issue with the HDD, I will grant you a bonus combat feat, Lukas. Go crazy.

Great news all around! Thanks, Strider.

I only went a little crazy, focused mostly on trying to amp up my damage output. Here's what I did:

Took Elemental Fury as my Ki Power.
Took Mobility as my monk bonus feat.
Retrained my Style Strike from Leg Sweep to Elbow Smash.
Took Jabbing Style as my bonus feat from Strider.
Sold my +2 Amulet of Natural Armor and bought an Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists.

I guess I need to roll for availability of the AoMF.

Available? >30 = yes: 1d100 ⇒ 72

Excellent

I guess I need to roll for availability

Lukas, I am unaware of this rule. Is it in the PFS Guidebook somewhere?

Sorry. I should have been more clear. I mean that you get a general combat feat instead of your bonus monk feat. Also, you don't really have time to retrain, so you can't retrain your style strike.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Lukas wrote:

I guess I need to roll for availability

Lukas, I am unaware of this rule. Is it in the PFS Guidebook somewhere?

This is based on the size of the town we're in, related to these rules in the Core Rulebook. I think Bold Strider had set slightly different values, based on there being a 70% chance of a given item being available, but that was before you guys rode in to save our butts, so you wouldn't necessarily have read about it.

...I mean that you get a general combat feat instead of your bonus monk feat.

I wondered if that might be what you meant, but I felt I had pestered you with so many questions, I thought I'd just go with it. I'll drop Mobility.

Also, you don't really have time to retrain, so you can't retrain your style strike.

Bummer. I guess I was looking at this as a bit of an OOC rebuild opportunity, rather than a cinematic retraining montage that would actually take real time, since the point was made very clearly that my trip build was going to continue to suck and others were building completely new characters. If that's not how you were thinking of it, I'll keep trying to trip things.

Also, you don't really have time to retrain, so you can't retrain your style strike.

Bummer. I guess I was looking at this as a bit of an OOC rebuild opportunity, rather than a cinematic retraining montage that would actually take real time, since the point was made very clearly that my trip build was going to continue to suck and others were building completely new characters. If that's not how you were thinking of it, I'll keep trying to trip things.

DMBS - I guess I didn't make it clear this was a question - is there no way I can retrain my style strike?

There is no chance to retrain the style strike before heading to the dragon's lair.

I don't think that I made a point that said your ability to trip would suck and others are building new characters because they died.

Ok, got it.

I didn't mean you made that point, sorry I wasn't clearer. Jeb talked about trip builds not being viable for long.

Bringing the climbing shopping over to OOC table talk vs in-game since it's completing our in-town prep.

A scroll with 5 x spider climb is 750gp, so we could just bite the bullet on that if it's available.

I'm not sure how meta we get here, did our Iroran friend keep all the treasure on our fallen allies? What little do we have to spend and are capable of buying in this town? With the semi-TPK, passage time also has gotten a bit wonky as well.

Also - Did we address the major points of preparation for the dragon?

Resist energy? (Cobb has this, but potentially not enough for all)

Something to counter/bolster against fear (our new paladin?)

Anything to help with the party for one big epic fight - haste, blessing of fervor, bless, aid, heroism?

Since everyone who made a new character got new gear, then all of their gear was kept by the mummy. Only Sarasha kept her gear as she elected to keep her character.

As for shopping, I'm not sure very many people (if any) bought consumables for the fight against the dragon.

Did I miss us getting a loot distribution? AFAIK I'm still down to literally my last gold piece after buying my initial gear before joining the party at 4th level.

I mean, you had all of the gear given to you at the town before leaving for the tomb, in the tomb by Tula, and what you found at the monastery.

I will be travelling for work Oct 3-12. I still expect to be able to post some, but likely with less frequency.

Do we have a plan? If so, can someone definitively state it and we can move forward?

It appears the plan was to (return to town and) purchase expendables. However there seems to be a lack of funds. Alrik has spent all his cash on gear and has 0 GP available. He has also already purchased a number of expendables which might come in handy when slaying a dragon, such as potions of fly and scrolls of resist energy.

I bought two scrolls of Spider Climb. Enough for myself and one other person.

Myself- Scroll of Spider Climb
Katja- Scroll of Fly
Alrik-
Sarasha- Slippers of Spider Climb
Lukas-
Cobb-

Unclaimed expendable- Scroll of Spider Climb (1)

Looks like we need 2 more scrolls of Spider Climb if Lukas has that kind of gold. If not I can probably follow Sarasha up and bring slippers back down to someone else. Either that or Kayja can fly them back and forth for the rest.

Seem like you figured out four people. Need someone to bite the bullet and just say what you are doing. If you don't have the funds, then be creative. Someone seems to have already suggested something that will work.

Since it seemed we didn't have any idea what kind of wealth we have, I went through the thread and tried to capture times we acquired wealth.

(I only did this for the time Cobb was present, starting in March)

Here's the items and how we appear to have allocated them...

Note some of us were very wealthy level 6 PCs (standard WBL for level 6 is around 16,000gp).

It appears Sarasha acquired 71,615gp in items since we began.

Cobb acquired 9,530gp since he began and at 10,894gp is just over 5,000gp behind average level 6 WBL. Without any other gains, he just has the 55 odd starting gold from his original purchases left to find a way to climb a cliff (or to sell his bow/arrows). He can contribute but since he only really has the new bow to sell, he's looking to some of the wealthier folks to maybe help here.

I'm not sure how much we can do, but I imagine if we still have Sir Echtyr's circlet, that should sell as a tradegood and let us find a way to spiderclimb a group up the cliff, assuming a buyer can be found for the the circlet, and a seller of some sort of way up the cliff could be found.

Otherwise, it's a 300ft long rope and a slipper delivery mechanism.

We should ensure everyone has what they think they have, as clearly some of these items are very helpful and valuable.

Thanks for all the hard work, Cobb. Looks good to me, except I don't show (nor did I remember receiving) a Ring of Force Shield.

As I already have way more in value than anyone else, it's up for grabs.

If anyone wants to make a case for the other items, I'm receptive.

If you follow the link, it looked to me at least like you wouldn't object to the ring, then there was a brief discussion if it would work for Lukas, which didn't seem to pan out, so I imagine it defaulted back to you since he never took it.

Given the time crunch, I'm not sure if there's any opportunity to really "sell" big expensive items in town in this semi-AP, so GM Bold will need to weigh in on what we can do with the wealth. If nobody plans to use the ring of force shield, I'd imagine it would make sense to swap it for something, anything, available in town that we could use to face a dragon.

@GM Bold: How can we handle liquidating any of the found loot? And what can we procure? Could we get 5 scrolls of spider climb? Could we pick up a wand of bless or a wand of cure moderate? Potions of enlarge person? Potions of shield of faith or barkskin? A scroll of heroism or two?

Per the rules, you can find anything in the town up to 1,000 GP (75% chance) and there are 3d4 minor magic items and 1d6 medium magic items.

I used this item generator to come up with these items.

Minor Items:
Necklace: Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists; 2,000.00 gp
Wand of Inflict moderate wounds (2nd Level, CL 3rd); 4,500.00 gp
Armor: Hide +1/Bolstering; 4,165.00 gp
Melee: Light mace +2; 8,305.00 gp
Armor: Banded mail +1; 1,400.00 gp
Ring of maniacal devices; 5,000.00 gp
Shield: Heavy steel shield +1/Blinding; 4,170.00 gp
Slotless: Bead of force; 3,000.00 gp
Slotless: Page of spell knowledge (2nd); 4,000.00 gp
Chest: Vest of escape; 5,200.00 gp
Melee: Light flail +1; 2,308.00 gp

Medium Items:
Scroll of Telekinesis (arcane, 5th Level, CL 9th); 1,125.00 gp
Melee: Greatsword +3; 18,350.00 gp
Belts: Belt of equilibrium; 12,000.00 gp
Wand of Bestow curse (3rd Level, CL 5th); 11,250.00 gp
Scroll of Wall of force (arcane, 5th Level, CL 9th); 1,125.00 gp

---

Looks like Wand of CMW is out.

As for the scrolls, wand of bless and potions. Let's check.

Scroll of Spider Climb-High is Good: 1d100 ⇒ 100
Scroll of Heroism-High is Good: 1d100 ⇒ 33
Wand of Bless-High is Good: 1d100 ⇒ 14
Potion of Enlarge Person-High is Good: 1d100 ⇒ 44
Potion of Shield of Faith-High is Good: 1d100 ⇒ 41
Potion of Barkskin-High is Good: 1d100 ⇒ 11

Spider Climb #: 1d6 ⇒ 5
Heroism #: 1d3 ⇒ 1
Enlarge Person #: 1d6 ⇒ 6
Shield of Faith #: 1d2 ⇒ 2

There are five (now three) scrolls of Spider Climb available, one scroll of Heroism, six potions of Enlarge Person and two potions of Shield of Faith.

---

As for selling loot, you can get half for any item, per the usual rules. This is up to a 5,000 GP hard limit. As in, you can only sell a single item for up to 5,000 GP, but as many items as you would like.

If we don't have enough money for spiderclimb Alrik can use his potion of fly to get up. But looks like we should be alright...

We are literally a single fight from the end. I just need you guys to make a move.

Let's consider that voidglass blade sold for the cap of 5,000gp and that we purchased all of the:

Five (now three) scrolls of Spider Climb available, one scroll of Heroism, six potions of Enlarge Person and two potions of Shield of Faith.

Cobb will grab the scroll of heroism, and we can hand out the shield of faith and/or enlarge to front-liners. Everyone can spider climb up and we're good to continue on?

Okay. It seems you figured it out. Now, you all are in the room that I last stated!

Availability of Bracers of Armor +1, high is good: 1d100 ⇒ 34

Unless someone wants it, Sarasha trades in her Buffering Cap value 2000, sold for 1000 for a set of Bracers of Armor +1 1000 gp.

My previous actions to get to the top of the hill are still valid.

So, do I use my Fly scroll or the spider climb scroll? Either way I get up top, but if possible I would like to keep my fly spell from the dragon fight :)

Alright let's talk tactics before we move in for the final fight.

First of all I think we are really gonna have to step up our game a notch if we want to come out victorious. This means we really have to make our actions count and try to make the foes actions as inconsequential as possible.

1) Buffing: We need to get all our buffing (excluding round per level spells) done before we enter the cave. Since we have a Rogue who can hopefully tell us when we will meet the dragon this should be doable. Alrik will cast resist energy x3 (from scrolls), Fly (Potion), Shield of faith (from scroll) and Divine Favor in that order before combat begins.

2) Positioning: Looks like we have 3 folks looking to meet the dragon head on and 3 folks looking to harass it from distance. I suggest that in our first combat round (after haste goes off) the 3 distance shooters use their move actions to spread out across the combat map. My reasoning is that you 3 are the most dangerous tools in our shed, but you are all likely to not survive his full attack. If we force him to invest multiple turns in taking all of you out (and deny him the option to full attack because he has to take move actions) that gives everyone else time to deal more damage to him.

Sarasha would greatly benefit from flanking positions. However Lukas shouldn't be trying to set her up because he should be full attacking whenever possible due to flurry. Thus when opportune (i.e. not provoking attacks of opportunity and not forgoing his standard action) Alrik will try to set up flanks with Sarasha instead of full attacking.

3) Healing: We have no dedicated healer for this fight. Alrik will be healing himself with Lay on Hands but will only spend actions to heal other party members if he can't attack the dragon or if circumstances are extremely dire. Ideally Alrik will be enough of a nuisance to the dragon that he takes time to attack him. This can result in wasted actions for the Dragon as Alrik can recover 20 hps as a swift action.

Any other ideas/battle plans?

These are all the scrolls I have one me.

Scroll Mage Armor (x2) | 25 gp (created by me, CL 2)
Scroll Enlarge Person (x2) | 25 gp (created by me, Cl 2)
Scroll Resist Energy, Communal (x2) | 450 gp (made by me, CL 7)
Scroll Fireball (x2) | 450 gp (created by me, ref DC 14, CL 7)
Scroll Shield (x2) | 50 gp (created by me, CL 2, 1 minute/level)
Scroll Bull Strength (x4) | 300 gp (created by me, CL 4, 1 minute/level)
Scroll Cat's Grace (x8) | 600 gp (created by me, CL 4, 1 minute/level)
Scroll Haste (x2) | 375 gp (created by me, 1 round/level, CL 6)
Scroll Displacement | 375 gp
Scroll Fly | 375 gp
Scroll Lightning Bolt | 375 gp

Resist Energy is 10 mins per level so 1 communal should have us all covered.

@Sarasha: Bracers of Armor don't stack with your Chain Shirt. Also, you cannot use Flurry of Blows while wearing armor or using a shield, even a Ring of Force Shield. (Though you can deactivate it before you attack and reactivate it after you are done, though you also lose your AC Bonus if you chose not to wear armor.)

Okay, rejiggering...

I'll delete my latest post and rewrite it later.

Okay, recalculated. Please let me know if I missed anything.

AC 17(19) is without/with Ring of Force Shield.

With Shield, it is 18 as you lose the Monk bonus. Also, your Combat Expertise bonus is -1 to hit / +2 to AC since you hit +4 BAB, but you have to attack for it to be active.

Base AC: 16
w/ Shield: 17
w/ CE: 18
w/ Both: 19 AC

Right, thanks. Updated again.

Also, switched out Knuckle Axe weapon focus for Siangham, as I didn't realize originally that I needed Piercing damage for Swashbuckler panache.

So did we just manage to just stumble into the dragons lair unprepared?

Do you even need to ask?

Could I have gotten communal resist acid off before we headed into initiative?

Nope. However, you can use your first round of actions to cast it.