I'm off to GenCon in the morning. I'll see you fine folks on Monday!
Except for those of you I'm seeing at GenCon!
I'll probably check in pretty frequently, actually, so feel free to carry on.
Hello! I'm off on vacation. I'll be back on Saturday. Have a great week!
Hi, folks! I haven't forgotten you. Quite the opposite. But Real Life has been taking it out on me a bit over the last three days. I'll do my best to post tonight. Thanks for your patience.
Quick question:
I'm torn about which way to go here. If we were playing face to face I'd run a fun side adventure where you get to mix it up with a demon alongside the Brothers of the Heart ('cause you know that "keep the civilians safe" thing is going to go sideways sooner rather than later) and let you connect to the larger feel of Ptolus. It's what Ptolus does best.
On other hand, that would take a single gaming session face to face. In this format it would take months of real time.
On the third hand, I don't want Ptolus to just feel like "generic adventuring city", either.
On the fourth hand, I can try to bring the Ptolus flavor narratively by describing how that side quest goes.
So, now that I'm four-handed and you're fore-warned, whaddya think?
I would enjoy playing the scenario out but I agree it would take a large amount of "real" time. I would also very much enjoy a narrative of the fight. So I guess if I were to cast a vote it would be for the fourth hand.
Jamey and I talked this over and we are on the same page. Playing out the side adventure would be fun, but for the sake of keeping the main story going without a month long detour, a narrative of the side quest would be ok by me.
A narrative side quest works for me
I'm good with that. It'd be fun to play out, but I know we'll be saying "What the heck was Pythonesse House?" months later.
Hi all, I am back! Happy with the group consensus.
Hi all, I will be overseas from this Saturday morning until late on the 16th. I will try to log in from time to time but am not sure I'll be able to.
Be safe among all them foreigners! :-p
I'll blend in more there than I do here! ;)
Back now! Looks like Holys is temporarily being used by Taunell but I will chime in again when appropriate.
I'll be out of town from Thursday to Sunday inclusive, and probably won't have access to the forums. Happy Thanksgiving, to those who celebrate it.
Thought you might like to know that I have written a guide to the Pathfinder Transmuter Wizard.
You can find it here: Tarondor’s Guide to the Pathfinder Transmuter Wizard
The discussion page for it is here: Discussion Page
Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!
And happy Thursday to everyone else!
Out of interest did the Acid Splash do visible damage? Holys doesn't have the skills to know immunities so is going by experience.
Well, it is very minor, but I think you’d notice that it worked, yes.
Though into may be time to break out bigger guns.
Yeah, this thing is nastier than I thought!
I am heading out within the hour to the airport and may not have access until I am back on Sunday.
Back! Thanks Velika for the help there!
Happy to help! It's kinda what a bard does, I'm learning.
Heheh. Much appreciated. With his BAB, I am not sure Holys could hit the side of a barn wall.
While our characters battle in their cave of ice, Nick and I are in our own "cave of ice" up here in NH. Brrrrrr!
Yep. 13 degrees Fahrenheit here today.
Happy New Year!
Happy new year, all! Chilly and dry here but at least not too windy. I was out walking the dog at 6 this morning, refreshing to be out in a silent city!
I just want to remind you that we are running both Night of Dissolution and The Banewarrens, either of which would be ambitious on their own. We're nearing the end of the first of 13 chapters, so we may have to forgo diversions and keep at the main story to get anywhere.
I'm traveling internationally tomorrow. I will likely be out of pocket until Friday. Feel free to bot Tilver as we find out what kind of demons is stomping the castle to bits.
Folks, I'm not making myself clear.
There aren't too many places in the story where going your own way derails the story, but this is one. In a face-to-face game I'd have plenty of ways to bring the story gently back to this point, but frankly it'll take weeks of wrangling in the play-by-post medium.
I'm asking you, out of game, not to leave the area until you have at least gotten through the ice and into the next room (there are only two rooms left in Pythoness House and the story gets fairly wonky if you get as far as you've gotten and then immediately retreat.
Understood! I had been taking the shaking as "flee now" rather than "deal with this" so good to know.
How to people propose we get past the ice underwater? Casting fire spells underwater makes steam, which could help. However it requires tough checks which Holys may fail (DC 16 concentration at 1d20+8, which should be ok, and then a check DC21 caster level check at 1d20+4). Worth a shot? He has 5 1st-level slots left for Burning Hands. Eventually he will should succeed but it could tap him out for whatever is beyond the ice.
Assuming the ice on the far end is about the same thickness, I think we should be able to get through the ice by smashing it again. It took 2 minutes for Silas to chop through on this end. I don't think he could hold his breath long enough to chop all the way through it in one try, but if he swam the 30' (2-3 rounds), chopped for 1 minute (10 rounds), then swam back to get some air (2-3 rounds), then he should be able to break through in 2 trips. The 10 rounds of chopping count double for holding breath purposes, so he'd need to hold his breath for 24-26 rounds each trip. Silas' 14 Con means he can hold his breath for 2x14=28 rounds before he needs to start making Con saves. He'd take some cold damage (1d6 nonlethal per minute, so 3d6 or so?), but we could heal that.
Tilver could try and go with Silas, though he does not have a slashing weapon.
Underwater my slashing weapon does half damage. Double the time you have there. Piercing may actually be faster as the water wouldn't mess with it depending on if they gave the ice any hardness.
I'm going to try the spell once.
Well he did some damage, after 2 attempts! If not broken through, it should save the others some effort.
Late night at work today, followed by an early morning tomorrow. I'll get back at this tomorrow night.
I'm out for a day or two. I'm sick as a dog.
Yikes. Hope you feel better soon!
Folks, what's happening?
I've been unable to get on here this week (timeouts and 'scheduled maintenance' messages each day), seems to be working now!
If I understand correctly there's a locked door and a rumbling beyond it? And we've now opened all chests and done our best to identify their contents?
Yep!
Can I take a 5 ft step through the doorway next turn?
A note on the Chaosomaton fight:
Don't feel bad. This is a hugely unfair fight. Not only does this thing get 6 attacks per round, it has a very high AC. It's designed to be well above your ability to tackle. My previous group did take it down, though they had one dead and one unconscious and burned all their Hero Points just to survive, so it's not impossible.
Nonetheless, it's supposed to be obvious to you that this is an overwhelmingly dangerous encounter. If it wasn't obvious before, I hope it is now. Killing this thing isn't necessary to the story.
It's probably my fault for encouraging you not to leave the basement. Well, let's face it: we all wanted to know what was behind that door!
Given our high ACs for Silas and Tilver, I'm willing to gamble on a fighting retreat. If Tilver can be healed, he and Silas can attack and move back slowly, possibly taking an AOO as we retreat over a couple rounds. If we can get this thing squeezing, into the doorway, that would help too. Silas can move back while Tilver tries to keep it at bay in the doroway.
This will give time for everyone else to get out before we flee. The downside is if it rolls 18+ again, then we're dead.
Ok, so are we fleeing? I'll cast this action since I should be ok to survive one attack if it comes to that.
Since I asked you to stay, I’ll point out that you can do as you like now.
What do you think guys? Is this is a fight we can win? Velika is out of spells, and Holys and Dain are down to a couple of 1st level spells each. Or do we hand over the weapons and bluff our way to keeping the All-key (which is what we really came here for)?
I'm willing to try a bluff. I don't think we can win this fight. I vote we hand over the weapons - they don't seem like such huge game changers that we would be shaking the world by doing it. And if we get information from them, maybe we can fight them again on a better day.
I am against giving it to them, but we are pretty battered.