DM Stalwart |
I've put the links to the Arkona palace maps below the header, so you should be able to see them. Since it looks like Lilith may be doing a little aerial recon soon, I'll put this in a spoiler to help move things along.
Feel free to keep up the conversation as long as you need.
Hours: 1d4 ⇒ 3
Soaring over the Arkona estate, you see that the gates to the compound are not completely sealed to visitors. Anyone attempting to gain entrance is met by a group of six house guards. Those granted access are escorted through the elaborately manicured, immaculately landscaped grounds to the palace.
Palace Arkona is perched atop the highest point of the isle comprising Old Korvosa. Two neighboring outbuildings appear to be the homes of the palace servants and guards. The grounds are open, decorated with tiny copses of trees, exotic topiary animals (such as elephants, cobras, and tigers), beautiful flower gardens, and exquisite fountains. The palace is a breathtaking structure built in the Vudran style, with golden pillars, high windows that rise to tapered points, minarets, and domes decorated with slender spires.
Peeking inside through the windows, you see walls made of epony and carved with depictions of elephants, tigers, monkeys, and peacocks, all with shimmering mother-of-pearl eyes. Doors are made of mahogany and carved with images of a strange Vudran deity Knowledge (religion) DC 30 to identify The deity appears as a six-armed, four-faced giant who rides a tiger with human hands for paws. The rooms inside the palace are spacious and grand -- ceilings are 20 feet high in most rooms.
Palace Entrance A black marble arch depicting dozens of elephants standing one atop the other frames a great ebony door in the south wall of this wide and airy entrance hall. Above the door, a single one-eyed elephant sculpture looks out over the hall, its eye a glittering bloodstone the size of an apple. Tall windows grant a commanding view of the palace grounds.
There's an interior garden visible through the large glass dome in the center of the palace. The garden appears to be a teeming jungle, full of exotic tropical plants and a riot of colorful birds filling the chamber with song.
The walls surrounding the ground are 15 feet high, decorated with ornate embellishments but still sturdy enough to be defensible. A five-foot wide walkway is how the guards patrol the perimeter, who do so in pairs. The rest of the grounds are patrolled sporadically, generally by pairs of guards, but there are still numerous servants tending the immaculate gardens so the grounds are hardly deserted.
Most of the animals in the grounds are birds such as peacocks and tropical songbirds, but a few white-bearded monkeys swing in the branches of the trees inside the grounds. The largest mammals appear to be a strange type of antelope with long, spiraled horns. A small herd of around six wander the grounds.
Sa'Kage |
My guess is Chamidu or possibily Dhalavei. Only because I ran a
cult of the Ebon Destroyers one shot last year.
Alenaya |
Ok...I think I have everything done on my sheet, save some fluff which I will send to Stalwart.
Question to DM: I would like to use my remaining funds (2100 gp) to buy materials to have crafted some poisons before-hand using my feats and abilities. So, theoretically, I should be able to have 6,300 gp worth of poisons ready to go, correct? Is there a link to prices for unchained poisons that I'm not seeing?
Also, a link to the unchained poisons rules would be helpful. I found some rules, but wanna make sure I'm looking at the same ones you are.
Sa'Kage |
Looks like d20pfsrd is having hosting issues so I can't link to the right page at the moment :(
Sa'Kage |
Eris do you still want to try and talk your way in? For what it's worth I assume it'd mechanically be easy for Kage to carry a Kitsune over a wall - he's plenty strong enough had has +13 climb.
Sa'Kage |
Cool. So in summary here's my "plan".
1. We goad Jagen into doing something dumb, more than likely he'll bull into the compound a make a LOT of noise.
2. Astrid / Nordusk try and kite a bunch of guards away.
3. We sneak in from the opposite direction from Jagen, and try to take advantage of the chaos. Having a flying scout should be a big advantage :)
We simply don't have enough information to come up with anything more elaborate and besides battle plans almost never last more than the first few minutes of an engagement anyway.
Sa'Kage |
Stalwart do you need anything more from us before we put this plan in action?
DM Stalwart |
Not a thing! I've been trying to figure out some way to push this along without removing player agency. I'm still not sure if you're going to follow Jagen's orders or not. I'm interested in seeing what you do.
If you want, we could fast-forward 3 hours and Lilith can relay everything she observed while scouting.
Sa'Kage |
Quick question. Where is Jagen in the Mantis hierarchy? Is he actually in a position to give orders or is he just being a blowhard? (my impression is he's nobody special)
DM Stalwart |
If you decide to use the time to try to gather information, roll and I'll give you what you learned. But it'll be best if you let me know what sort of info you're trying to gather: names/identities of guards and staff? Casing the joint like you're planning a robbery? Kinds of food/goods that go inside? Etc.
Sa'Kage |
Folks I'm going on my semi-annual transatlantic business trip and will be traveling this weekend and next. I expect to have internet access at the hotel so I should be able to post, but I may be slower at responding than usual. Please bot if needed.
Lilith Stark |
@Stal: If she is being protected by Stoneskin, then the spell only ignores the first ten points of damage of each hit if it wouldn't bypass DR 10/adamantine. If not, then that is some crazy DR.
Sa'Kage |
Yeah was about to say stoneskin is DR10/Adamantine. There might be some other source of DR too but I don't know what if anything would stack.
Sa'Kage |
So way back I thought about building Kage to take the Red Mantis PRC. It is very flavorful and most of the abilities are kind of neat buuut it's 3/4 bab d8 hp with charisma based DCs. The prayer attack in particular has a silly low DC 10 + red mantis level + charisma mod.
I think Stygian Slayer is better mechanically while still being a Tier 4 class power wise.
Eris Triguna |
Yeah RMA is really neat, but its so ridiculously MAD its hard to work effectively. You really want DEX, CON, CHA now (before it was probably STR as well but you can kinda dex to dmg now, and its hard nailing all of that down.
Lilith Stark |
I'm a little confused about the flow of battle. Are the "nobles" hostiles? They've been acting incredibly strange: one second they were fighting us and now they've just stopped.
Sa'Kage |
My take is they are supremely arrogant outsiders who normally have nothing to fear from "mortals". They're toying with us.
Sa'Kage |
The step up chain is pretty sweet vs casters and archers. I suppose there is the disruptive feat too, but I'm not sure if a slayer can get that.
Oddly the most reliable anti caster (at low to mid level) seems to be a Magus with the Lingering Pain arcarna.
Sa'Kage |
I'm assuming the mantis have no problem accepting contracts from both sides of a conflict. As far as Kage is concerned the queen has shown poor judgement over whom to kill and probably shouldn't be in power.
Dax Thura |
But this isn't one of those areas. We don't take contracts on sitting rulers. Like her or not, she is the queen. And I repeat, we don't take contracts out on sitting rulers. If she can be deposed, then she becomes fair game. Until then, it remains black and white.
btw I can't remember her name, that's why I'm playing the pronoun card so much.
DM Stalwart |
Just a heads up, my laptop computer is in the shop, so I have to post using my phone, which makes it a lot tougher for lengthy posts. Feel free to debate a bit more on this topic, since I probably won't be able to move this forward until I get the computer fixed. So, this weekend if I'm lucky, and the first of next week if I'm not.
Sa'Kage |
I'm not terribly familiar with Golorion so I wasn't aware of the prohibition on killing rulers. Looks like that's pretty strong so I think Kage will side with Jon-wyn.
However Kage is perfectly willing to lie in order to see the mission through. So I suggest we go along with Eris proposal but as a bluff.
Does anyone object? If so please suggest an alternative plan.
Lilith Stark |
Because of class alignment requirements, Lilith is Neutral Evil, so she's fine with only following the letter of the law while totally ignoring the spirit.
As a player, I'm honestly fine either way, but thanks to that ridiculous DR, I just don't think we're going to win a battle of brute force. If they catch us lying or suspect treachery, then combat with powerful, durable foes in the middle of an enemy stronghold is a very real possibility. As for lying, I'm also fine with that, but as a fair warning, it isn't one of this character's strong suits.
If you want to commit to such a path, if it isn't too meta for Stal, then it might be best to lie to Lilith as well so she doesn't ruin the charade. As of right now, she's siding with Eris because she sees fighting as suicide.
Eris Triguna |
Just a heads up on lying. Remember that like, even Eris, who maxes it higher than everyone here, only had a 50% shot really at beating the (probably) weaker rakshasa's sense motive. Openly lying to it, is going to be /really/ risky for anyone other than Eris tbh.
Remember, the prohibition against rulers only applies if they came to power legitimately. For instance, if it was hers birthright, then we wouldn't really be having this discussion. Coming to power by, say, trickery (ie poison for instance), marks them out as a specific, called out exception to Mantis doctrine.
Eris is happy making the deal because she knows that if Kalepopolis isn't proving queens legitimacy in a satisfactory or valid manner for our rituals, then we dont have to honor the contract against the queen, and we still get to him. The burden of proof and proving the Queen is a RMA target is on Glorio - he has no standing to be angry if his proof doesn't meet our (high) standards - and no matter what, we still get Kalepopolis.
In my mind, the only thorny issue is whether we can take up our own contracts, and I'd understand completely if someone is against that.
Alenaya |
I will admit, I don't know a whole lot about the inner workings and rules of the Mantises. Neither does Alenaya, though, as she really just joined to get funding for her research, a constant flow of customers, as well as opportunities to test her works.
If the legitimate ruler thing is a major thing (seems like it is) then I'm in agreement with Eris and Lillith, in that if she is proven illegitimate, then she is fair game. Assuming someone in our group is willing to take the heat if us taking our contract is an issue. I consider Alenaya to be a kind of a low-ranking member of the organization, so she wouldn't agree to anything, but would go along with whatever.
Eris Triguna |
I'll take the heat of taking a contract is an issue. Remember, I want to be Vernai at some stage and this is pretty much what Vernai do.
Anyway, we need to move this along, its stagnating and some of us are rather set in opinions (which is fine). So after thinking on it, how is this to a solution.
Agree to the proposal conditional on the evidence that IF we were to take on the contract for Queen Ileosa, it has to prove unequivocally that she is a legitimate target. If the evidence is not sufficient - we can decline the contract freely.
The advantage of giving conditional acceptance is that it brings our target into the room, thus allowing for an assassination opportunity. If information is good and sufficient then fine, we can make a decision about whether to take on the contract on the queen. If the evidence is not suitable, we can make a claim that either we get to kill our target anyway (not our fault is information is worthless), or alternatively, go for a double cross, just kill him on front of the rakshasa and make our escape.
To put it out there, I'm not really in favor of a double cross regardless, I think the encounter is well beyond our abilities. Your standard Rakshasa is CR 12, and there's at least two of them, one of which stronger than your average Rakshasa. Likewise I don't think the Labyrinth option Jon mentioned is suitable either. Also note that if you intend to fight this out, I'll be next to useless (with them being outright immune to most of my spells, or having sky high SR).
Lastly, for personal and party safety, I'd prefer tying our mutual goals together (talking here about Rakshasa and us). Decline his offer, and I don't see him letting us walk out of here freely - we know that he wants the Queen dead, we (technically), work for the Queen as an organisation, he wouldn't want to take the risk we report back and he ends up on her hit list as well.
Jon, if you disagree with just a conditional acceptance, I encourage you to find a solution, because I don't see an alternative. I'm not belittling your objection (its extremely valid), but unless you think we can kill all the enemies here I don't see options to move this ahead. By all means, if you see something I don't, speak up, but otherwise I'd prefer we at least implement the above strategy and see where it takes us. Fair?
Sa'Kage |
Question, if Glorio proves that. Doesn't that make the contract on Kalepopolis null and void?
Sa'Kage |
Level up
+6+2 HP (fcb -> skills)
Feat: Shatter Defenses (Saw tooth saber) -- Yay finally!
+1 on all existing skills
+1 bab
At 7th level, a stygian slayer is able to use spell completion and spell trigger items as if he were an arcane caster with these spells on his spell list: darkness, forced quiet, modify memory, nondetection, obscuring mist, phantom steed, shadow walk, and wizard spells of the illusion school of spell level 0 through 4th. The slayer’s uses his class level as his caster level for this ability.
Weapons x2 sawtooth sabers +1 2335g
Amulet of natural armor +1 2000g
Belt of giant strength +2 4000g
Cloak of resistance +1 1000g
Mask of the mantis 6000g (I assume we are counting this towards WBL)
Ring of protection +1 2000g
Wand of mirror image CL 3, 17 charges 1530g
Scroll of displacement CL 5 375g
That brings him up to 23475g
Horizon Walker might be an interesting direction to take Kage later on, depending on what Slayer's Camoflage actually does in this game.
Alenaya |
Level Up:
HP - + 5 + 2 Con + 1 FCB = +8
BAB + 1
+1 3rd Level Extract - Gaseous Form
+1 all current skills
Feat: Extra Discovery (Precise Bombs)
8,173 gp to spend. I forget where we said to look for prices on poisons. Also, open to suggestions on items while we all get leveled up.
Dax Thura |
Level Up: Arcanist
HP +4 Con +1 Base 36 = 41
FCB to Skill
BAB +1
Will +1
Disable Device +1
Escape Artiste +1
Intimidate +1
Knowledge (arcana) +2
Sense Motive +1
Spells:
Glitterdust
Invisibility
I thought the mask was 'free'. I'm already at 22,900 if not.
If it is free, make both kukri +1, which would bring me to 22,900.
Sa'Kage |
Oh well in that case Kage will add the cruel enchantment on one blade :)
Eris Triguna |
My laptops been dead for about a week (been typing in phone) but it means I cannot really complete a level up until it's fixed. Hopefully this happens tomorrow.
Sa'Kage |
Stalwart would you like us to RP our little trip to the armoury?
Eris Triguna |
Does Eris get to stock up on items as well? I'm probably looking into Robes of Arcane Heritage / Charisma Headband increase if I do, although I'll still need to find the time to purchase them. Also as far as rp opportunities go GM, Eris is probably going to make meeting the guests a priority.
Alenaya |
Well, I was planning on making some poison...but got a question: are we using the absurdly long craft times to make poisons as printed? Because frankly, I find it dumb that it takes weeks/months to make a poison.
Example:
Wyvern Poison costs 3,000 gp.
Convert to silver = 30,000.
DC = 17
Make Check, using a 10 as example: 38
Math = 38 x 17 = 646 sp progress in 1 week.
Total time(30,000/646) = 46.4 weeks.
If DC Is raised by 10 to speed it up, Total time = 29.2 weeks.
WEEKS! To essentially squeeze poison out of a wyvern's stinger! Ludicrous.