GM Rednal's Legendary Planet AP (Inactive)

Game Master Rednal

@Vincent: You can do that pretty easily! And it’s actually kinda OP in the right games. Just play a Magus with Wand Wielder, and you can cast spells from a staff while fighting with a longsword in the same round. In a game that sees combat interspersed among days of travel (e.g. a pirate or caravan campaign), you should have plenty of time to recharge any staff you want, letting you effectively gain access to an arbitrary number of powerful spells/day, including some of the cool touch spells that Maguses don’t normally get. Or use an SoP wand instead of a staff.

If you want to do it with *Vincent*, I think there might be a way to get a wand inserted into your shield? There’s definitely a spell that hides a wand inside a sword. And VMC Magus would eventually get you Wand Wielder, though not until high level.

Nah, not with Vincent. He's got his "cool thing" already.

And I want to actually fight with both staff and sword, not cast spells through it (though that's part of it too). Melee two-weapon fighting like Gandalf defending Gondor, but also capable of spell slinging (like fighting Saruman?).

Quarterstaff Master lets you one-hand it, though you're taking the -4 penalty for nonlight weapons.

Yup, that's the problem =P. I'll figure something out, some day.

You're always welcome to ask your GM for help. o wo/

First I'd need to find a game for that character concept.

For this one, Vincent's all about the shield, and shield related special abilities. :D

Have you taken a peek at the Spheres of Might playtest yet? There might be some good shield things coming in that system, and I'm planning to make it available when it's done... XD

P.S. Rednal, everyone acted I think

Yup, I know. o wo I just haven't had dinner yet, and I usually do my daily posting stuff *after* I eat. I try to be consistent about the schedule that way. XD

Ah! Got it. Weren't sure if you were on a "check once per day" or "check often, update once" sort of schedule.

I check for PMs and posts in the Discussion thread more often, and will usually respond much faster to those. o wo/ I pace myself for the gameplay posts, though. I'm, uh... well, I run a lot of games, and it helps me avoid burnout. XD

Yeah, avoiding burn out is super important for successful games.

And yeah, I looked at the first stuff they put out, but haven't looked since they showed off the first two spheres and a class. I think they were talking about being able to buy into the system via feat access, in addition to classes that use it natively?

There's a couple ways to enter. I think Archetypes were unlocked on the Kickstarter, which helps. XD There's a much bigger playtest now.

Good call, Phai.

Vincent, do you want a Muleback Cords? Or a Bag of Holding? Either one would take a few days of crafting, but I can buy the necessary materials before heading through the gate.

Nah, I'm good. I managed to get my weight down a bit, so I'm only hitting medium, and that's only until the next time we level up, so I can just tough it out until then. Thanks though.

@Child: Are you immune to nauseated?

Creatures with the nauseated condition experience stomach distress. Nauseated creatures are unable to attack, cast spells, concentrate on spells, or do anything else requiring attention. The only action such a character can take is a single move action per turn.

If not, you may want to save that action for when you get to act normally again. :)

Ah, right. I always get it confused with sickened. Can I still take a swift action?

Per the quote, it seems not, since it calls out that move action as "the only action" a character can do.
I assume you mean to reconfigure into water-mode, which may well also fall under requiring attention. At least that was my interpretation when I included you with the water breathing...I know you are regularily not dependent on that kind of support.

Hey, Rednal. Any word on whether I can take swift actions while nauseated?

You cannot. While Nauseated, you are explicitly limited to Move Actions - compare to Staggered, which allows for 'shorter' actions. There's also a FAQ on this if you'd like to read it.

Can we get some more details about our surroundings? So far it's just "underwater, and some plants that might be seaweed." Can we see land? Can we determine where up is? Is the gate we came through still there, or did we somehow get shunted out mid-journey?

I suppose you can take the time to orient yourself by spending an action to do so: Perception Skill: Intentionally searching for stimulus is a move action.
My reading was that spontaneously and for our decision-making right after arrival, that's all we get to work with.
I simply worked with the assumption that if I can make out reefs, and plants, then I can figure out "up", which should be away from ground, and in the direction of where sea-weedey plants grow.

I think after we dealt with the inmediate situation(which quite possibly could mean serious trouble for groups, if several members have bad fortitude saves and start drowning instantly) we'll have a chance to get a more accurate read of our surroundings.

The character must make a DC 10 Constitution check in order to continue holding her breath. The check must be repeated each round, with the DC increasing by +1 for each previous success.

When the character fails one of these Constitution checks, she begins to suffocate. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hit points). In the following round, she drops to –1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she suffocates.

Your average Wizard may need help, quickly...but with that Reflex Save, stuff like Rogues or Bards are also not out of Danger automatically. The shutdown of Mythic Power is the nasty addition, as it not only eats up the action of whoever attempts to use it, but penalizes them on top.

I'm currently nauseated, but I already spent my move action trying to look around.

You can determine which way is up - it's much brighter that way. ^^ Doesn't take an action to see that kind of detail.

Yeah, the big problem for me is that A) reflex-or-die is not a type of save I was generally expecting, and B) no swift actions from nauseated means I'm stuck wearing encumbering armor with no way to get a swim speed.

Also, Phai: That's not a fortitude save. It's a CONSTITUTION check, and at this level, NOBODY has a good constitution check bonus (at least not without being able to mythic surge)

EDIT: Haha whoops, guess who forgot he had Endurance. I think I'm fine, somebody go save Isen.

Ah, I said Fortitude Saves, I meant Con Scores(which are intricately linked with Fortitude). That is why I said suffocation is not a joke, and tried to hand out water breathing first thing I could. -_- Blame the authors for not allowing that...water breathing would hardly be a spell one would hard-prepare going through a gate, they knew exactly what they did when they shut down mythic.

Also, I'm not sure if you can do the free action to invoke your uncle(not that you would need him with the roll). Mainly due to the "requires attention" part.

I bet you prepare water breathing (or precast it) before going through gates from now on though, huh?

I guess that's a DM call? It's a difference of +2, but also lets me spirit surge, which is important.

It seems like there's less of a ruling on free actions than swift ones. But if a barbarian can't rage, and nobody can actually surge against the effect... this is feeling like it was designed to be a literal death-trap, where the only thing that actually matters is how many members of the party make a single initial save.

...I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty sure they wrote this with the express intention of making you go "Oh @#$%". Invoking the Uncle requires a bit too much attention, given the condition you have. Swimming upwards is a good idea, though. o wo Y'know, given how reaching air would immediately negate the suffocation and all.

Well... this isn't a normal "oh ****" situation, because those usually let you use at least some of a character's resources. This is "you have a 30% chance of dying each round, can do nothing to modify those chances, and you need to make a couple successful swim rolls with nothing to modify those either or else you're just instantly dead." With DCs that appear to be set for a mythic difficulty, despite no mythic aid being allowed.

Which is all to say, from a balance standpoint, I really hope they fitted this planet with some druids willing to perform a Reincarnation or two for pay.

Man... not needing to breathe is great. =P

...They did mention you might need to help each other.

(Also, while the earlier bit with Basher may have helped people forget, this isn't necessarily an "easy mode" AP. There are times when death is a very real possibility, and how well you prepare for different contingencies will definitely have an impact on your ability to survive them. o wo/ Especially in regards to different planetary environments, because you're totally gonna see many different places over the course of the game.)

I guess? But "can't breathe" is a contingency most of the party is prepared for, just not in simultaneous combination with "can't act" and "can't mythic."

Also, I kinda figured Morphic Nature would do more than it's doing right now. But, learning! From now on, Child will go through every future gate with 100% paranoia, if he survives.

Aye. I get the part with helping each other. But the part shutting down Mythic IS savage. Not complaining.
*shrug* I died here, once, and am fully prepared to die again and again and again(I mean, I got one-shotted by a skeleton coming for me after winning init, after a surprise round).

What I'm really curious about is if you performed any kind of adaptation to account for the gestalt builds?
Because those add quite a bit of options/versatility/skills.
We are not in a easy spot right now, but I can only imagine the situation being much worse if we were single-classed.(even on the basics: less reflex saves, less skill points/class skills...-)

@prepare for stuff: I would have expected that tidbit of information to be relayed to us. It seems like an omission that does not raise my esteem for mister Sarlu. To be exact, it seems quite deliberate from him to not tell us about this.
Now I know about coteries and all that, but IF we return to Zel-Argose, I've got a mind of having a civilized chat with the shadow-dudes.

@Child: Morphic Nature f*cked up. I assume thats why I'm sickened for 5 hours after trying to dip into my Mythic Pool. I guess Sarlu's artifical gate is to blame for not being properly adjusted.

I approve of going through with paranoia. o wo ...Well, maybe not TOO much because you might freak people out if you come through with weapons drawn and look like you're ready to murder everyone, but various environmental adaptation powers/suits/whatever aren't a bad idea.

Coming through looking like a murder hobo is fine with me.
I can sheath my stuff. If they attack on sight, I would not have wanted to talk with them anyway.

But just watch the next gate affecting us with a Disjunction, or depositing us in an Antimagic-Field, or worse, an area of negative magical energy that makes active spells backfire on us, stunning us in a hostile environment for a turn per active spell level ^_^
I wouldn't put it beyond those writers to mess with us again on the next gate.
IC, of course, Phai would load up with all kinds of s#&# if given the opportunity(the other option I can see would be needing to hurry through once again...being chased by an immortal foe or some stuff like that).

I think this is where someone's supposed to say "stop giving the GM ideas". ...But more seriously, I won't arbitrarily screw with you in that way. XD If you have foresight and prepare in a way that lets you overcome the danger, that diligence will be rewarded by actually overcoming it, and I won't just make up added dangers during the transitions to make it harder on you.

I am not worried about you. You can be harsh, but you've always been fair.

I'm worried about the writers of the AP. As said, their timing on shutting down mythic seemed too on-point to be an afterthought.
I assume that THEY will creatively mess with us again, knowing we'll prepare for the next transition. Which will probably be harmless, with the one AFTER it screwing us all over again :)

We can try the bungee cord method next time, where one person goes through with a rope and then the others pull them back through. Alternatively, we may be high enough level for certain magical spells like the one that creates mobile scrying sensors that can be programmed to go through and return with the information they've gathered.

Also divinations can help, even something as low as augury could help a bit.

I think the biggest problem for us right now is the nausea though, since it makes it hard to help the ones that are drowning.

Oh! Yeah, I have no problems with you as a GM, at all. I'm a little annoyed that the game-writers seem to have not differentiated between "difficult" and "arbitrary." When an effect has a random chance of killing off the party, with odds of survival only influenced by min-maxing defenses and not (at this point, at least) any clever thinking/careful play, it just encourages players to crunch numbers harder.

And yeah, nausea is a very, very powerful status effect—usually worse than stunning or helpless, because there's often no recovery-save option built into the effects that cause it.

Ah well, I guess we're all alive for at least the next round. I guess if "concentration" is the factor in free actions, I can dismiss my armor next round, which will help with ACP.

* * *

Also yeah Phai, I had the same thoughts about Sarlu.

You guys think this is bad. Wait until the shocking skeletal whales show up in a couple rounds.

Eh, if we're not nauseated at that point, I won't complain.

It does feel a little off, essentially going 'this is the one path you can take, now we're going to given you a save or die you can do nothing about.' I assume if we'd done better in the fight with Basher then Sarlu would have warned us, making this section a bit easier to prepare for, but it's the difference between 'hard' and 'unfair'. This one verges towards the latter.

Still, I have like 16 characters I wanna make, so if poor Isen snuffs it...

Well, speaking of Isen, the Battlemage's Handbook is out if you ever decide you want to dip into the War sphere and buff the party. o wo/

Hmm. I like Child, but his build hits "peak cool" around levels 5-9, so if I do have to replace him, at least I'll have spent some time being cool.

On the other hand... there's always the nuclear option

On the other hand... there's always the nuclear option

Hehe, I actually reused the original character I had for this AP in a home game a little while back since I did like the build. He died in our second session to a monstrous spider, so I decided it was time to put that idea to rest. To replace him I turned the NPC dog we had found into a skinwalker reanimated druid. Who.... promptly died shortly after and revived as a fetchling.

Well, Reincarnate is Shaman 4... 2 more levels and I can fix you guys up if _I_ survive.

@Basher fight: We would have done better if we had known what to expect, or if Oulek would have been in the least bit sensible about his timing.
Sarlu had said he wanted his possession back and Basher dead. There was literally no reason to give the sign to attack BEFORE the exchange was complete, except to screw us over by forcing us to act with Mrs. Sarlu still in the line of danger.
Plus I can see her dying in quite a lot of scenarios...which would, if my speculation is correct, diminish or negate Sarlu's command/sway over his minions. Her being alive at all should be sufficient reason to warn us of such a hostile environment.
So yeah, feeling quite hostile towards Sarlu, right now.

Also, Isen, I think your gameplay post after the altered situation is missing.

Vindictiveness doesn't always include doing the smartest things.

Aye, but running an upstart coterie with 7 established ones that would prefer not having competition would imply a certain level of intelligence.
That baseline level of "smartness" should have been sufficient to realize that was not an opportune moment. In fact, we would have been in a better tactical position attacking while the massive tank was moved through the entrance, rather than wait until Basher is standing on top again with a poison vial ready.
Literally any single moment before or after would have been more efficient, unless there was a hidden agenda involved.

So my thinking is:
Either Sarlu is smart. In that case he may have messed up on purpose during the transfer and had a reason not to warn us about the gate.
In that case, I feel entitled to being vindictive.

Or Sarlu is not smart. In that case he simply messed up because his tactical capacity is non-existant, and risked our lifes because it did not occur to him to warn us.
In that case, the other coteries would quickly remove him from power.

For that reasoning, if we do return to Zel-Argose and he's still around, I'll have to assume the former assumption chain to be true, and thus feel entitled to exact revenge. Balance in all things.

Sorry, Isen's action remain unchanged, so he's still trying to swim for it.