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Lady Elaine Ophœlia Stavian wrote:
I missed the end after that, but as I gather, we concluded Book IV. I'm sure Books V and VI will just be Eutropia's coronation and our well-deserved retirement...

Aw, you guessed.


Thanks for doing these, by the way.

Lady Elaine Ophœlia Stavian wrote:
Apparently, Pythareus had murdered the sage after an argument, and his father helped him cover it up

It was the other way 'round.

I do wish you all had gone with the original plan, which was for Kandor to distract the monk while the rest of you fought the undead. That could have gone in a very interesting direction...


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From the notes of Martella Lotheed:

After giving them a week or two to rest and recover, another urgent mission had come up for my agents. As expected, Yander Merkondus had gone to the north -- to the crucially important trading town of Yanmass. Since then, I've had troubling reports from the area: the local regiment of Taldan Horse Guards disappearing, increased bandit attacks, and, in possibly unrelated news, the rise of some kind of cult. I sent them off with instructions to investigate the problems and, if at all feasible, win the Mercantile Council of Yanmass over to the Loyalist cause.

After discussing Wilfen's involvement with the project with the rest of the group, it was agreed that he would be put on duty relaying messages and kept relatively out of harm's way. However, my understanding is that he read his poetry aloud on the barge during the trip to Yanmass, much to the delight of Lady Virgilia.

I had instructed them to speak with Mercantile Council member and known loyalist Rudin Autun upon arrival. He was quite thrilled to be graced by the presence of nobles such as Aridai, and gave what information he could. He directed them to speak fo a local conspiracy theorist, Caradinna Farkin, who had gone uncharacteristically silent. He also mentioned that Yander Merkondus had hired his own investigator into the troubles the town was having, one Grammell Taychar, and that they would likely present their findings at the next Mercantile Council meeting in a few days' time. He had heard of the cult ("The Cult of the Twilight Child", apparently), but knew little about it and suggested they might learn more from Chief Enumerator Abrun Palliettor, the town's high priest of Abadar, perhaps when they met him at the Council meeting.

After finding lodgings, Virgilia and Aridai went to confront Yander and Grammell, but were soon... encouraged to leave, so they learned little. Later they went back to invisibly spy, but still learned little. They have hired a network of locals to keep them apprised of their movements and other events. So far, they have learned that Grammell and Yander mostly do not bother to leave their inn, and been told that there is a "dryad" in one of the parks that no one appears to have seen except a fairly untrustworthy witness. My agents' investigations also uncovered that a higher percentage of Loyalist caravans are being attacked by the bandits.

In the night, Len and Virgilia experienced a peculiar shared dream in which they separately disrobed and planned to consume one another, but they awoke before much happened. Len was able to identify the dream as being of some kind of extraplanar origin, but knew nothing beyond that.

When the group followed Rudin's advice to talk to the Caradinna, she addressed them reluctantly through the door and told them they should investigate Orvestikar Manor, where she had seen Taldan Horse Guards go in but not emerge. Len sensed something was amiss, and Virgilia climbed a tree to spy upon Caradinna. After a while, the woman who had spoken to them emerged... with the real Caradinna's body! She spied Virgilia in the tree, and attempted to kill the girl. Aradai, Len, and Gael, who were nearby, soon came to help, and eventually the woman was subdued.

During an interrogation afterwards, she gave a confused account of having been hired to kill Caradinna by two nondescript woman and possibly a dog. Gael identified her as being a victim of mental enchantment. The group encouraged the woman to return with them, and at first she was reluctant to leave Caradinna's lead-lined house, but eventually they convinced her -- although they remained suspicious of her, as charming her into murder seemed like it might not have been overly difficult. In Caradinna's house, they found strange notes talking about the "secret masters" of Yanmass.

The group next went to Orvestikar Manor, a ruined mansion a few miles outside of town. Outside, they discovered a curiously realistic statue of a Taldan War Elephant, and upon walking inside, they set off a trap that brought a pile of rubble down upon their heads. Venturing further within, they found a number of Taldan Horse Guard petrified as well (about half a regiment, according to Gael). A voice from the darkness told them to stay back.

Discussion led them to learn that the speaker was the medusa Aresphena, who had been dwelling in the ruin for some time. She eventually came into view (wearing dark glasses), and claimed that the Horse Guard had invaded her home and attacked her for no reason she knew of. Only one of the guard attacking her had escaped, a woman who had run into the woods behind the Manor. My agents offered to take Aresphena back with them so she could be housed in a safer location, but decided to come back to do so the following day, when they could acquire a cart and means of transporting her back into town so that her presence would not cause a panic.


Neither -- a new player has joined! (Or rather, a player previously with the group has rejoined after a long break.)


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From the notes of Martella Lotheed:

With our usual chronicler separated from the group on a special mission, I will attempt to give a brief summation of recent events.

I have sent the team, for the moment excepting Lady Elaine and Lord Wilfen, to Tanager Jubilee at the Palace of Birdsong. The ultimate goal is to gain enough support by from the nobles and citizenry of the area to eventually oust my half-brother Bartelby and secure the County of Meratt as a support base for Princess Eutropia.

I began by informing "Lady Virgilia" that I did not know who she really was and did not care, but that I would like to employ her if she felt, as I did, that our goals were mutually compatible. I warned her that she might wish to tell her companions the truth before they realized it on their own, but she seemed confidant that they would not. In any case, I asked her to forge some documents establishing the group as the heirs of Lady Allis Betony, giving them possession of her estate and making them Tribunes of the town of Stachys.

I then assembled the group, and have added to their ranks another agent of mine, Commander Kandor Den. I judged (correctly) that his military background would be of use in this mission. I informed them of the precariousness of Eutropia's current position, and the nature of their task -- win friends and support, first at the Jubilee and then however they saw fit once they took up their residence in Stachys.

They arrived by coach (despite a bizarre preoccupation with the dangers of coaches they all seemed to share), and were greeted by Bartelby, along with his sycophants Lord Titus Lotheed-Casava and Sir Gul Guisarme. Titus, alas, had been present at the Exaltation Massacre, and seemed suspicious of Len, although he could not quite articulate why. The group was soon assigned a guide to the festivities, a young bard in training with the sobriquet of "Purple Finch".

Numerous chats took place over the Jubilee. To summarize conversations that took place over many hours and events: Lord Aridai, I think, will have the support of Dame Parthena Crabbe as long as he continues to woo her daughter Sepsinia; a trade deal is already in the offing from Dame Crabbe if the vinyards of Stachys are restored. Kandor likewise won the approval of Baroness Adella Voinum thanks to their shared military history, and she offered support for his endeavors. Len found a likeminded soul in Archbanker Lady Paril during a game of Trucco and may have won some support there. Len had less luck winning over Sir Gul based on a shared aversion to the atrocious treatment of nonhumans at the Jubilee. Virgilia once again ran into Yander Merkondus, who suggested she consider wedding Bartelby! Onora Piscum, the former tribune of Stachis, seemed less than enthused to be replaced, although said she would consider taking on the duties of her former position at the same salary.

At the tournament, Kandor won the day, with Aridai coming in second (much to his own surprise, I think). Baron Okerra in particular was filled with admiration at their skill; they may have won another supporter there. Aridai noticed that Lady Lucretzia Marthane appeared to be more skilled than she was showing, but he was unable to find much out from her.

After the tournament, Aridai and Virgilia spied an assasination attempt against Bartelby, a tripwire attached to a crossbow! Bartelby dying at that point would, of course, have been disastrous, because without the support of the locality, if he is removed my uncle Panivar would step in, which would be infinitely worse. Aridai threw himself in the way of the poisoned bolt, saving Titus. The incident was blamed on "The Night Swan", and a single black feather was found on the crossbow.

During the feast (served by servants dressed as livestock... ugh.), Titus grew increasingly insulting, and seemed likely to challenge Len to a duel. In discussing how to avert this, it was decided that Kandor would provoke Titus into a challenge instead. They battled to first blood, and since Titus was quite drunk, he was humiliated in the fight. An excellent strategem, although I think they should be wary of Titus when he is sober!

After that came a chariot race of halflings pulled by dogs, with guests encouraged to throw blinding powder at the contestants. Ugh again. This is when Len noticed Sir Gul's disgust and pulled him over for a chat. Aridai won a considerable amount of money betting on the outcome.

Dancing followed, with many of the conversations and deals discussed above taking place. To everyone's surprise, Panivar's wife, Veleto Lotheed, came and joined the festivities! Rumor has it that she is ill and perhaps not in her right mind. She danced with Kandor and attempted to, er, seduce him, before Bartelby, in a rage, escorted her away.

And with that, the group was shown to their rooms.


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From the notes of Martella Lotheed:

While most of Lady Elaine's memories are accurate, in the interest of conveying the facts fully, I am appending some minor corrections based upon the reports of those others present:

Lady Eliane said wrote:
I advocated that all members of our group arm and armor themselves from the locker we found, and while Malphene and Imistos did, Len and Lady Gael preferred to remain vulnerable and defenseless.

Others have stated that Lord Wilfen acquired both armor and weapons, Malphene and Lady Gael selected armor but no weapons, and Imistos took neither armor nor weapons, although, as was later revealed, he was secretly armed.

Lady Eliane said wrote:
When we identified it as an illusion, its creator — a deranged Halfling mage

From the descriptions given, this was not a halfling but a gremlin.

Lady Eliane said wrote:
Dagio turned out to be a ratling

According to the fascinating autobiography of Eroa Glendower recovered by Aridai, Dagio was not a ratling, but a very large rat - Glendower's former familiar


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I'm not sure "offered" is entirely the correct word for "said I'd prefer to GM this the way I normally GM Pathfinder and suggested that this would be the AP where I'd be the least at cross-purposes with the way it was originally written". :)


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This has made me think about what the standout modules for me were in each adventure path I've played most or all of the way through, and why. They were (with some spoilers, but nothing, I think, that gives a lot away):

RISE OF THE RUNELORDS
Book 1 (Burnt Offerings) and Book 2 (The Skinsaw Murders)
Reasons: The many interactions with a colorful cast of NPCs in Sandpoint made it feel like a real home (when we were given the opportunity to move away in Book 3, we didn't take it; why on earth would we want to leave all our friends in Sandpoint?) This sequence also culminated with a fantasically memorable final battle against the original, unrevised Xanesha, which our (overpowered, house-ruled) characters managed to bring to a desperate draw. Book 3 and Book 4 were also good, but we bogged down in Book 5 and did not play Book 6.

COUNCIL OF THIEVES
Maybe Book 2 (The Sixfold Trial)
Reasons: The play. But not a lot of this AP stands out in my memory; my character kind of lost interest in the overarching plot and eventually spent a lot of time and money trying to turn her Westcrown townhouse into a dungeon she could lure unwary adventurers into.

KINGMAKER
Book 1 (The Stolen Lands) and Book 6 (Sound of a Thousand Screams)
Reasons: Book 1 is one the better sandbox adventures I've played, and introduced a number of memorable NPCs who ended up being key features throughout the entire AP. In Book 6, the devastating Blooms hugely raise the emotional stakes as it looks like all our hard work building the kingdom is about to collapse; then the final boss fight against Nyrissa was one of the closest (and longest) battles I've ever fought in Pathfinder. Books 2 and 3 were also good, and I think Book 5 struck me as the weakest, although the tournament was pretty fun.

JADE REGENT
Book 3 (The Hungry Storm)
Reasons: Another great cast of NPCs, slowly accumulated through the first two books, meets the fantastic setting of a winter arctic crossing. A good villain adds a lot here, too. Books 1 and 2 were also all kinds of fun. (We bogged down in the later game, although that partly had to do with Life Issues outside the game itself, and did not play Book 6.)

SHATTERED STAR
Book 2 (Curse of the Lady's Light) and Book 4 (Beyond the Doomsday Door)
Reasons: Great enemies made both of these books ... as well as THAT TRAP in Book 2, which much to my delight caught my character. Curse of the Lady's Light ended with a running battle throughout the whole dungeon with an enemy we just. could. not. defeat (and vice versa), while Beyond the Doomsday Door finished with an enormous bang of an impossible fight. Books 1 and 5 were also good, the GM replaced Book 3 so I can't really comment, and Book 6, although it started with a bang, was probably the weakest here.

STRANGE AEONS
Book 1 (In Search of Sanity) and Book 3 (Dreams of the Yellow King)
Reasons: For both of them, the overwhelming sense of dread, terror, and real fear for the characters' minds, couple with great settings in both. Books 2, 5, and 6 were also fun, and Book 4 was the weakest.

RETURN OF THE RUNELORDS
Book 6 (Rise of New Thassilon)
Reasons: The real sense that the whole world was collapsing gave this one supremely high stakes, and then the time travel setpieces as we raced to undo the damage were fantastic. I also very much liked Books 1, 2, 3, and 4, but felt Book 5 had a bit too much irrelevant side-action unrelated to the real plot. (This was also a problem in Book 6, honestly, but the better aspects of Book 6 overcame that.)

Also of note: I have played just over halfway through Iron Gods but it's on hiatus for the moment; so far, I've liked Book 1 (Fires of Creation) best. I've just started Wrath of the Righteous, and between the inciting incident, the cast of NPCs, and the setting, it's hard to imagine that Book 1 (The Worldwound Incursion) isn't going to be up there with my favorites.

So, looking it over and not for the moment counting Iron Gods and Wrath of the Righteous, my distribution of favorite books have been: 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6. It looks like I have somewhat of a preference for earlier books (this doesn't surprise me; I find high-level play bogs down sometimes), and I seems not to like Book Fives.

I seem to like:
Memorable casts of NPCs, especially ones who stick around for a while
Vivid settings
Epic battles against memorable villains
Emotional investment (which can include such things as the dread and terror of Strange Aeons, the hometown fondness of Rise of the Runelords, or the sense that we are truly fighting a high-stakes war to save things that matter to us in Kingmaker and Return of the Runelords)

I am less fond of:
Sideplots in the late game when things should be coming together for the ultimate finale (this may be why I seem to have an issue with Book Fives)
I'm also not a fan of find-it-kill-it-move-to-the-next-monster dungeons, and there are always a few of these (sometimes even in my favorites), but my GMs have usually done a good job of upping the interest level in these

(I also hate TPKs, but so far that hasn't been a major issue. Not a huge fan of character-dying-and-being-brought-back either, but I've come to accept it as part of Pathfinder.)


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Another player in this campaign here.

The standouts for me were also Book 1 and Book 3. Waking up without your memories in a creepy asylum is a heck of a start, and the book maintained a creepy, disturbing, and truly frightening tone throughout. As for book 3, the combination of the dreamlands and the players racing to keep their own minds from collapsing were both great.

The last two books contained a lot of nice touches for fans of cosmic horror literature, which I appreciated, and the whole finding-out-the-person-you-don't-remember-you-were-was-awful in Book 2 also worked well. But neither ever quite equalled the tension and terror of 1 and 3. One reason is that, as has been mentioned, high-level D&D and terror are hard to pull off. I agree Book 4 was the weakest of the set, although the Old Infirmary as adjusted by our GM was suitably creepy.


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We just had the battle against Hellion. It was pretty epic.


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Name: Azriel
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Druid (Menhir Savant) 17
Adventure: Rise of New Thassilon
Location: The Courtroom in the Boneyard
Catalyst: Grappling the High Justice

The Gory Details: While battling the High Justice, Azriel, in the form of a large tiger, leapt upon the enemy and began grappling him. The High Justice took advantage of the fact that this conveyed the grappled condition on Azriel as well to devour his soul.

Both Azriel and Ice, incidentally, are fine now thanks to the party cleric.


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Name: Ice Cracking in the Afternoon Sunlight
Race: Merfolk
Classes/levels: Bard (dirge bard, sound striker) 17
Adventure: Rise of New Thassilon
Location: See below
Catalyst: See below

The Gory Details: I'm posting some extra details for this one because it was my character and I thought it was pretty hilarious.

After going through the sarcophagus teleporter in Zinlun's Tomb, the bard found herself alone, being attacked by Zinlun the Awakened Demilich and his Fossil Golem minions, with the rest of the party unable to come through to help her because the lid was off the sarcophagus on her side and she was unable to get to it.

In the epic solo battle that followed, she was hit with Reverse Gravity, Glitterdust, Mage's Disjunction, three Disintegrates, three Fireballs, three set of Magic Missiles, four attempts to devour her soul, and innumerable bite attacks from the Fossil Golems. Thanks to a string of lucky saves, a Greater Aegis of Recovery, two Heal scrolls, and a whole lot of spells, magic items, and bardic performance, the combat ended when, burdened with seven negative levels and reduced to single digit hit points, she slew Zinlun.

Then, the very next day, in the very next encounter at the entrance to the court in the Boneyard, with her full party at her side, fully healed, fully buffed, and newly raised to 17th level, a Sinister Sphinx leapt off a pedestal and killed her in the surprise round.


Name: Akkumsah
Race: Oread
Classes/levels: Monk 12/Occulist 1
Adventure: Temple of the Peacock Spirit
Location: Xanderghul's Resurrection Chamber
Catalyst: Two golems and a Mage's Sword
The Gory Details: After the party was done chatting with the resurrected Xanderghul, and vice-versa, discussion quickly changed to violence. Frontliner Akkumsah bore nearly all the attacks from the two golems and the Mage's Sword cast by Xanderghul. The flurry of attacks brought her beyond the gates of death within a few rounds, but the party's cleric was able to revive her immediately with a Breath of Life, and shortly thereafter the tide of the battle turned.


Name: Szarlej
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Cleric of Cayden Cailean 9
Adventure: Runeplague
Location: Kendall Plaza, during the Crimson Festival
Catalyst: The Peacock Phoenix
The Gory Details: While the rest of the party was fighting Peacock cultists down below, Szarlej flew high above the crowd and decided to take on the Peacock Phoenix single-handedly. A few bite and claw attacks later, Szarlej was very, very dead.

(The rest of the party paid to have him raised from the dead before the day was out.)


I got super into it. My character hated being an aasimar and was absolutely delighted to switch bodies. For awhile I decided she went temporarily insane and thought she *was* Sorshen, but she got over that around the end of Book 4. But she still pretended to be Sorshen a couple of times during appropriate situations, and took to sometimes calling herself "The Last Azlanti". Good times.


One of my most successful evil characters was an aasimar cleric of Asmodeus I played all the way through Shattered Star. What helped was:

1) She was fiercely loyal to the Pathfinders, who had helped her get out of a very bad situation, giving her motivation not to betray them and perform tasks as assigned. (She actually thought of one of the Pathfinder-associated NPCs as more her mother than her real mother ... although that got interesting at the end, as you'll see.)

2) She got along well with her fellow PCs, who were pretty much neutralish types. She eventually started dating the tiefling alchemist. (And why would she betray them? Not only did she like them, they were the front line soaking up the damage she would have taken otherwise!)

3) The faith of Asmodeus in particular is VERY strict about the Lawful part of Lawful Evil. You are supposed to obey the laws of the land you are in. So, no random murder or selling people into slavery unless she was in a place where that was legal - and she wasn't.

The evilness caused some interesting events towards the end of the Adventure Path. She'd spent a decent chunk of the game trying to figure out a legal way to kill her (hated, horrible) real parents. When she finally did, along with a crowd of other people (and was perfectly within her legal rights to do so), the woman she considered her "adoptive mother" was HORRIFIED and they basically never spoke again. My character was very hurt, especially as she'd been protecting that same NPC by immolating that crowd!

My character choice also had the interesting result that Magnimar was at one point saved directly by the intervention of Asmodeus (can't reveal more without possible spoilers).

Fun times.


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I'm going to come down on the side of the guy selling drugged pastries and running a blackmail operation being evil.

Why not just own it? You've managed to create evil pastries. That's not something everyone can say.


Rogue Eidolon wrote:
Yes, as a friendly and peaceful barbarian of Sarenrae (Blade of Mercy trait to do nonlethal damage) and Desna, the "Sun and Moon Spirits", he believes in not killing any living creature ...

I had a paladin who operated on the same principle. One of my favorite characters ever.


Buri wrote:
A horde of those things is like asking why a bunch of shadows haven't wiped out life on Golarion.

My explanation for this kind of thing is that there actually aren't that many monsters in the world higher than CR 3 or so. It's just that the PCs happen to run into every single one of them in a short time and limited area because they are Destined Heroes.

It's the same reason every village isn't run by a group of 20th level adventurers in an impregnable castle with their rule challenged by another group of 20th level adventurers from the next village over. 99.99999% of people who decide to go "adventuring" die at first level, killed by a goblin. You just happen to be playing the ridiculous outlier who isn't (well, most of the time, early TPKs aside.)


One factor is that in a fight against a single foe, a single lucky roll (like a critical hit, especially if playing with something like a crit deck) or a single unlucky roll (like a failed save) can sometimes really turn things around because they have no backup to heal them/step up/whatever. If such a thing happens early on, it can make fights pretty brief.

In some ways, that's a good thing, because it can turn the corner on fights that are otherwise lost causes. But it can reduce the tension a bit if it happens in round 1 or 2 ...

One thing that I've wondered a bit is why the "single giant monster" -- sometimes with assorted screening minions of much lower power -- seems to be the default end-of-module encounter. A fight against a party of 3-4 with assorted powers evens up the action economy and makes a single brutal takedown less likely to end things all at once. (I mean, there is a reason that's the standard for adventuring groups; it's what D&D is basically designed for.)

I realize that's harder for the GM, but we are talking about what would generally be one encounter in a book.


Olwen wrote:
Hey, Kandamereus attacked you because he was provoked: you had just said he was incompetent and needed to be replaced.

He was incompetent! He had exactly one job to do and he screwed it up!


Yeah, throughout the module, Olwen had Sheila taking the stance that the Sihedron would help Magnimar defend itself against the terrible threats facing Varisia in the post-return-of-Karzoug era. Some hints Olwen gave in the second module that Sorshen might still be alive out there somewhere helped to cement this.

As for Xin, I think we went to check out his palace with a relatively open mind about what he would be like, but our conversation with the axiomites at the gate, coupled with our first encounter with him right past the gates, had us firmly convinced that he was a card carrying member of that Raving Psycho Loony Party and had to be dealt with as a threat to Magnimar.


We started making jokes about how assembling the Sihedron was going to trigger the apocalypse 'round about the second module, so it wasn't exactly a terrible shock ...

However, it did end up negatively affecting the relationship with Sheila Heidmarch in a somewhat roundabout way. After a busy day spent saving Magnimar from the tsunami and assorted monsters, an angry, torch bearing mob, led by my character's parents, came to Heidmarch Manor blaming Sheila, the Pathfinders, and us for causing the problems besetting the city. We managed to convince about half the crowd to disperse and go home, but the rest remained there, angered, and someone threw a lit torch onto the Manor.

At that point, my character incinerated the remainder of the mob, including her parents. (And turned from LN to LE at that moment.)

Sheila was horrified and her close, almost motherly relationship with my character was shattered.


I would have found the AP to be an incredibly tedious, endless dungeon crawl if we hadn't tried to talk as often as we tried to fight.

Groups we successfully talked-to-rather-than-fought included the Tower Girls, Brast the ghoul, a few devils, the smith from the plane of fire, the fire giants, the scylla, and the axiomites at the gate of Xin's palace.

Groups we tried to talk to but they attacked us anyway included Xin, the aboleths, and the Grey Maidens.

And sometimes, we were at first unsuccessful and got attacked and then brought them around (the troglodytes, Oriana), or were at first successful and then screwed up and got attacked (Gnaeus, the guard Marilith, Kandamereus the mummy).


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How to create a compelling high-level boss fight is actually something I've been grappling with in my own GMing/adventure design. In Pathfinder, I'm personally coming to the conclusion that the most effective ones have huge defensive abilities and good but not overwhelming offensive ones.

The basic principles being:

Bosses that get taken down quickly aren't as much fun
Bosses that can take you down quickly are also aren't as much fun


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We were a pretty talky bunch, too, but we generally gave up on it once someone actively started to kill us. Although there were a couple of exceptions even to that (Oriana springs to mind.)

We tried to talk Xin down when we first encountered his presence, but he seemed pretty much supervillain-level crazypants and ordered us killed, so we decided that was not a fruitful approach.


From what I recall and my perspective as a player:

The magus did, in fact have magical lineage (shocking grasp).

The barbarian had reckless abandon and come and get me, but not dazing assault.

The alchemist seemed quite well-built mechanically to me, and was designed and played by the player who probably puts the most thought into how to build characters from a mechanical perspective.

My cleric was designed primarily to be a decent area-effect blaster and have good charisma-based skills, and (see above) could pull off some quite powerful effects by the end there, but I think it certainly would have been possible to create a more optimized build. I did indeed have no dips or dazing spells.

(I do, however, tend to optimize a bit more than I sometimes do when I play in Olwen's games, because he has no major qualms about having a TPK/end of campaign if that's the way things go.)

As a group? Well, we made decent use of tactics (flanking was a major issue), and we did put some real thought into shoring up our weak points (and we found that we definitely had some) with appropriate magic items whenever we discovered them.


Olwen wrote:
I can't say she was wrong… Especially since Viv had a luck blade with one wish (from Beyond the Doomsday Door), which she could have used to resurrect/raise Draco on the spot if needed.

Yeah, one reason the fight never reached peak tension for me, even with the loss of the Sihedron, is that we never ended up needing to pull out that particular Big Gun.

Olwen wrote:
... and a quickened maximized empowered intensified fireball.

For those curious:

As an theologian of Asmodeus with the Ash domain, all my fireballs were automatically intensified without raising the level via the Domain Secret ability.

I had used a block of incense of meditation, meaning all of my spells were maximized without raising the level.

I had Spell Perfection Fireball, meaning I could apply Quicken to fireballs at will so long as that did not raise the total above ninth level.

Prep an empowered fireball as a fifth level spell (which, as a theologian, I could actually do in multiple slots using Focused Domain), and viola - Quickened Maximized Empowered Intensified Fireballs. A thirteenth level spell for the cost of a fifth level spell slot.

(Incidentally, since I was also using a Candle of Invocation, I was able to toss off some Maximized Empowered Silent Disintegrates, too.)


leo1925 wrote:
1) Ok i haven't brushed up my knowledge of sunder rules but i seem to remember that you can't sunder a weapon with higher enchentment bonus than the weapon you are using for sunder, i will have to go check.

I just double-checked the rules for both the Sunder maneuver and the Damaging Objects section, and didn't see that one.


leo1925 wrote:
3) Ok that makes sense, still if i was in his place i would ask the cleric to risk the save since it seems that Viv was the caster sort of cleric (unless the barbarian was using his FCB to buff the superstition even more, then it might not be worth the risk).

He didn't have to roll very high to make the save; although I don't remember the exact number, it was definitely a significantly better than 50% chance that he would save and the spell would be wasted. After a couple of memorable failed attempts at healing him in-combat, he decided to switch tactics. And to be fair to him the drop-out-of-rage-die-get-Breath-of-Life tactic worked well for him a couple of times during the campaign.

Don't get me wrong, this was a tactic that caused significant eye-rolling on the part of my cleric whenever he used it, and it failed rather spectacularly at the last there, but it definitely wasn't a crazy choice.


Honestly, I don't think the Sihedron was ovepowered; it was an artifact, it's *supposed* to be powerful. It was really nice to be able to use it to good effect.

The problem was that the final dungeon was a bit underpowered. We did get a bit lucky in the fight against Xin (it could easily have gone differently), but ... even without the Sihedron, he never seemed as great a threat to us as, say, Nyrissa was.

Also, despite all the Thassilonian history sprinkled throughout the campaign, it still felt like he popped up as the Big Bad at the last minute. Compared to say, Jade Regent, where you periodically encounter assassins sent by the Big Bad throughout, Xin seemed much less well integrated.

(Bear in mind, I overall found the campaign great fun, much more so than I thought I'd find a "dungeon crawl" campaign. It had good points and bad points, but was on the whole very nice.)


Olwen wrote:
So what's the final death tally? Viv 1, Laslo 1, Draco 7, and Nasim 0?

Laslo 2, I think -- killed first by the shadows under Windsong Abbey, and later by Cadrilkasta's Prismatic Spray.


1) I'm the player whose character (Viveltre Vanderale, cleric of Asmodeus) activated "THAT TRAP". My character was affected by it the whole game, and never reversed it. (Frankly, since she had some ... issues with her original body, she was actually delighted by it.) It was great fun to roleplay, and we benefited from it at least once when I

Spoiler:
managed to convince a Scylla that I was Sorshen and ordered her away.

Although I am not sure it was mentioned in the campaign description, my character kept her old body around, Gently Reposed, at first in a closet and then in a Bag of Holding. During certain situations, she brought it out "so she could watch". My character was not entirely sane.

2) We did save Magnimar from that threat, using

Spoiler:
A scroll of Miracle, which incidentally meant that Magnimar was saved by the might of Asmodeus.

3) Yes, but the Sihedron meant we never had to worry about running out of healing resources; it was infinite healing as long as we had the time.


I think it's safe to say that this campaign had a clear winner:

Death: a confused Draco (-24) hacked by an incubus and a confused Oriana

Death: Draco (-24) sizzled by the conjunction of three sea drakes' balls of lightning, falling unconscious, and die to the end of his rage and his aegis of recovery not healing him enough.

Death: Draco (-31) pummeled to death by wave after wave of Groetan mummies.

Death: Draco (-30) as he left rage in an attempt to get healed by Viv.

Death: Draco (-90) ripped apart by Skullcracker, Jubbek's smilodon, after Draco had killed his master.

Death: Draco (-86), sizzled a bolt of Cadrilkasta's storm breath.

Death: Draco (-40), badly timing the end of his rage when, half dead, he was facing the clockwork reliquary.

The fellow had lives like a regenerating Time Lord.


The communal spells are useful when everyone's going to be facing the same problem. Which does, in fact, come up a fair bit.

Communal tongues, communal water walk, and communal resist energy have all come in handy for my characters at one time or another.


GM:
Tentative shopping list:

Clay Golem (purchased in Magnimar, teleported illegally to Westcrown), 41,500 gp
Cloak of Resistance +2 to +5, 19,000 gp
Pale Green Prism Ioun Stone, 30,000 gp
Luckstone, 20,000 gp

I think the only one T&A enterprises are capable of making is the luckstone. If so, I'll ask for that one; if I am wrong, I'd be happy to ask them to make the Ioun Stone instead.

I am not having luck find free mapmaking software to detail my townhouse; will a detailed description work instead?


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I'm going to have to go with Kitty D'Kshandr, my naïve, ultra-good paladin who refused to kill anything, anywhere, ever. When attacked, her preference was to defeat her enemies, tie them up, and then read aloud to them from the pamphlets she carried around with her, which had titles like "Being Good: Why It Is Better Than Being Evil!" (Several of her foes started begging for death after only a couple of minutes of this.)

Obviously, she wouldn't work in every campaign, but in the low-combat, low-magic, heavily social/political campaign she was designed for, she was a real treat to play. One of her shining moments came when the guardian of one of the rare magic items her group was at that point questing for told them he would only give it to someone "with the purest of hearts", and before he was able to say anything else, the rest of the group started interrupting with, "Great! Just give it to Kitty, there. Are we done here?"

I'd love to play her again some day.


Killer Power wrote:
... it took Kendra to -13. As her actual constitution score was 12 (because of the wyvern's poison) this actually meant an untimely meeting with her god in his grove.

Just as a quick note, by RAW, Constitution damage does not work this way:

"[Ability] damage does not actually reduce an ability ... Damage to your Constitution score causes you to take penalties on your Fortitude saving throws. In addition, multiply your total Hit Dice by this penalty and subtract that amount from your current and total hit points. Lost hit points are restored when the damage to your Constitution is healed. A character with a Constitution score of 0 is dead."

Ability damage only ever has certain specific effects, and for Constitution, lowering the point-of-death is not among them. Ability drain is the one that would do this:

"Ability drain actually reduces the relevant ability score. Modify all skills and statistics related to that ability."

You may, of course, have been playing under house rules or something, in which case no worries, but I thought I'd mention it.


My gnome queen didn't have much a problem being taken seriously, but that was possibly in part because she was a paladin and once word gets around that the little brightly colored ruler is smiting trolls and such, it's harder to write her off.

So my advice might be, do some badass stuff. Once you've saved the Kingdom twice or thrice, no one's going to say, "But, on the other hand, he is very short."

Heck, if your character is a bard, write some great songs and poems about how you saved the kingdom whether they're strictly speaking true or not. Bards should be great at PR campaigns.


I think the most broken character I ever played was Lilith, who was, by the end of a full 20 levels of campaigning in 3.5, a Wizard (Focused Necromancer) 5 / Divine Oracle 3 / Loremaster 7 / Master Specialist 1 / Archmage 4.

She had the magical lineage trait for Enervation, and also took it as the spell for an Arcane Thesis feat. With appropriate metamagic feats, this eventually let her cast a chained split maximized empowered enervation followed by a quickened chained split empowered enervation, promptly bestowing 14 to 24 negative levels on everyone in a 30' wide circle.

That was fun.


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In our game, Jhod was a very conservative type, but it was never assumed that Jhod unquestionably represented Erastil. It was implied that there were more liberal wings of the church, and that Jhod just happened to be a bit of a narrow-minded traditionalist.

This was actually great fun to roleplay, as Jhod was the kingdom's high priest and my character, the Queen, was a very progressive gnomish lesbian (paladin of Arshea.) Jhod was a dissenting voice and a bit of a thorn in our side on a number of issues, but we needed him because bascially there was no one else capable of filling the position for a long time. Things came to a head when my character proposed marriage to her female half-orc cohort, and Jhod had a meltdown. So we had to go into serious damage-control mode to keep him from quitting the Council, which would have been bad for the kingdom.

Later on, the other characters suggested replacing Jhod with either one of my higher-level followers or the Calistria worshipper we met later on. My character actually nixed these ideas on the grounds that we *needed* a conservative voice on the Council, or we were making ourselves deaf to the wishes and beliefs of the not insignificant portion of the population that agreed with Jhod.

Great fun.


I had a great time playing a Paladin of Arshea. Tireless Warrior for Freedom! Also sex.


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Paizo has explictly stated that the rules in the magic section are wrong:

"Still Spell is really only useful for situations where you do not have one hand to devote to spellcasting, such as when you are pinned. You can attempt to cast a spell when grappled, and you must make a concentration check to cast it (whether or not the spell has a Somatic component). Still spell is also handy for casters who intend to wield weapons or shields quite frequently.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing"

LINK

"There is an incongruence btw the magic chapter and the grappled condition (and a few other spots). This will be cleared up, but the grappled condition wins out here.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing"

LINK

NOTE: There is another rule, not yet mentioned that maybe implies that if somone is grappling (e.g., controlling/maintaining a grapple) instead of being grappled, they cannot cast spells with somatic components: "To cast a spell with a somatic (S) component, you must gesture freely with at least one hand. You can't cast a spell of this type while bound, grappling, or with both your hands full or occupied." But for a couple of reasons I could detail I think this is one of the "other spots" indicated by Jason Bulmahn and should therefore be ignored.


My gnome paladin had a pony named Buttercup. She rocked.


Thank you.

I would still like to keep going with this, but in addition to reduced time I am having connectivity problems with Paizo that would make GMing extremely difficult. I don't know why, and hope it is resolved at some point ...


And when the great saga of this adventure is written ... Queen Lilac is going to have to have a talk with her wife the bard about the use of the phrases "almost useless", "not even there for half the fight", and "seriously, I think her pony ended up doing more damage". :)


Epic Meepo wrote:
Of Elephant Stomp, Kitsune Tail, Mounted Combat, Prone Shooter, and Weapon Finesse, only Elephant Stomp and Prone Shooter are in the running for worst feat ever. There is literally no situation in which either of those feats provides any benefit to any character taking them, ever.

Since Pass For Human (which was brought up earlier in the thread) is keeping one of my characters alive right now, I going to strongly suggest that it shouldn't be on the list either. It's highly situational, sure, but it's a definite, tangible, and quite high bonus if you happen to be in a game that calls for it.


Hey, there. I was one of the players in Olwen's game.

The Boggard were actually one of the sensible tasks for us to take on, because we often regarded contact with a new species as a diplomatic mission. By the end of the game, we were quite firmly allied with the fae, the kobolds, the centaurs, and the boggards, and had made treaties explicating the degree of independent government they had over their own lands, what areas we would leave exclusively for them and not develop with roads and farms, etc.

But the larger point remains. Book 1, we were explorers! Book 2, we were running a barony, but we were still adventurers at heart, and although we grumbled about the pettiness of some of the tasks it was nice to sometimes get back out on the road and get our hands dirty "for old time's sake".

But Book 3, we were starting to go ... Look, we're running a country, we're trying to get a Cathedral built in time for the royal wedding and are in heated political arguments as to whether it's going to be interfaith or dedicated to Erastil since the conservative religious faction in the kingdom is already having enough problems with the very progressive gnome Queen opting for an interspecies same-sex love match, not to mention the difficulties the bride's family causes when they arrive from the Hold of Belkzen, plus the kobolds are stirring up trouble again and we have to tell them to quit it while also placating them so we don't have a civil war on our hands, and meanwhile our neighbor to the east has disappeared and we're the only people in the kingdom capable of fighting the lich responsible, SOMEONE ELSE CAN EXPLORE THE STUPID MOUNTAIN HEX, OK?

Then by Book 4, the mechanics of kingdom building had simply become so unwieldy it was no fun any more. Not to mention that, like exploring, deciding to build a monument in Southport, our twentieth or whatever city, also started to seem a bit below our specific notice at that point.

Fortunately, our GM was very quick to react whenever we said "This part is getting boring", and adapted the campaign to suit.


Cassian:
Hey, Justin. Melilot would have brought up the following questions as things to hopefully cover in however you're getting your information from Sian. They may be ones you were planning on inquiring about anyway, but I figured I'd say, since these would have been the ones Melilot was particularly interested in making sure were dealt with:

1) Who are the twins?
2) Who or what was Sian trying to free?
3) And why?

Thanks!


Jess:
Hi. Also e-mailed this to you.

OK. I want to start by saying that there are two major reasons I didn't e-mail you directly about my feelings, such as they are, right away. The first is that I was pretty sure I was MAJORLY overreacting and didn't want to yell and scream and b%@!~ at you for no reason and wanted to calm down first. The second was that I realized pretty quickly that my dissatisfaction regarding game wasn't really all about Rev, it's more that Rev happened to be the character I was talking to when things came to a head.

Yes, I am somewhat miffed (and "somewhat miffed" is about the level of it) that you designed a character who injured other PCs without checking first that this would be cool with everyone. Melilot is not a crazy Rovagug-worshipper in love with Rev, and I basically felt like you were attacking my character and then entirely resisting the notion that another character/player might not be happy about that. Once I'd calmed down, I'd probably have wanted to chat with you about that OOC.

But my real dissatisfaction with game is stemming from the fact that I'm not having good interactions with many of the PCs, which is hardly all about you. I DON'T want you to pull Rev on my behalf, if that's why you're thinking of doing it. I'm still debating with myself whether or not to switch out Melilot and I will still be having that debate with myself whether or not you switch out Rev.

I'm not mad at you, and hope you're not mad at me for having a spoilered hissy-fit meltdown.

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