The person that is playing the goblin wants to do a dwarven inquisitor now.
Would a cleric of Desna fit better than a mystic especially since it was a clerio of Desna that helped lead the rebellion against her the first time?
man you lost me, rebellion against who?
According to Irrisen book there was a cleric of Desna that led a rebellion against the daughters of Baba Yaga. They lost.
Hmmm I cant recall what that rebellion is called but there are still some of them hanging around. what's a goblin have to do with this now?
The player was thinking of doing a halfling cleric of desna.
Would a wizard be a better fit for this AP than a witch?
Hey pend, alchy doesn't actually qualify for, or use very well, arcane archer. It doesn't technically cast spells or have a caster level. You'll have to hand wave that. If you don't, explosive missile is good, as is mummification (immune to cold and non lethal). I had a gunslinger alchy, he did ok. Focused shot might be useful for when he runs low on bombs.
Yea I think the Alchy not technically casting spells is weak. Basically his extracts arent spells but they are because they come from him. He's considered a caster and yet he's not.
Pretty Lame IMO.
I'm going to let it ride, it's not PFS. He MIGHT not even go arcane archer, but I'll leave the option open, SSG has some cool alchemist gadget stuff where you switch out a alchemist feature (like extracts) and pick up other things...the direction is enhanced archer.
He MIGHT take some levels of ranger. I'm going to wait to see what he wants to do and find a way to accomdate it, I dont see anything mind blowing or world breaking about an alchemist arcane archer. Nor do I see anything about Arcane archer that couldnt be reskinned and "alchemical archer" TBH.
OK so the next installment of as the world turns, or the winter witch and her group of mistfits.
The Alchemist player didnt make it for the second game in a row, so I dropped the character for the time being, until such a time as he could make it.
The Alchemist is replaced with a dragon blooded sorceress. Another new player. Since the alchemist didn't do too much last session as an absentee, I didnt make any explanations, "the alchemist is now the sorceress" the end.
Moving forward, the group got harrassed by fire from bows of the spritlings in the trees.
They rolled extremely poor perception checks and just couldnt find the buggers for a while.
They decided to keep moving forward while getting snipped. 1 damage here, 2 damage there, followed by high pitched maniacal laughter and more really bad perception checks.
So sure enough the three sprites encounter became three sprites, an atomie and a "talking stag".
The group was already rattled thinking the forest it's self is attacking them ( I guess I was doing a really good job of describing a wicked enchanted wintry forest...and dead frozen crows in the trees certainly helped) Then came upon this stag, they only thing they could see.
The sorceress wanted to shoot it, but the druid was objecting "It will make the forest angrier" he says. "Maybe you can ask it for help? " says the witch "You talk to animals don't you?"
"I dont think I do" says the druid. "maybe other druids do, but that's not my thing"
"Well give it a whirl and see what happens" says the sorceress.
So the Druid says, in common, to the stag "Who's side are you on?" and the atomie acting as the stag answers back "That's a funny question"
"Shoot it, that's not normal" the druid says to the group.
the Sorceress levels her crossbow on the stag and gets a crit! I pull a card from the crit deck that says Lung shot. The sorceress rolls normal damage and 2d6 non lethal. Dropping the Stag with one shot like a skilled hunter.
The Barbarian starts charging the down Stag shouting "Dinner is served!"
And the atomie and the sprites all start screaming" "aaaaaahhhhhaaaahhhhhhhheeeeeeeehhh"
in a really high , creepy shrill.
"Now you've done it" the witch says "You really pissed off the forest"
Done with subtly, the sprites come out from cover and start shooting and the atomie jumps up from the fur of the stag to attack the barbarian.
"Run!" shouts the witch and starts barreling down the trail, in the direction they have NOT been yet.
"Wait for me! Screams the sorceress as she follows the witch (both of them got the highest initiative)
The magus is the next to go, sees one of the sprites and misses it wih her crossbow.
The Druid silently runs after the two casters.
The barbarian seeing the atomie that hopped up from the stag says:
"ewww this things got mites! no wonder it was talking"
With his mighty cold iron long sword and a good roll the atomie becomes paste.
He turns to say "I got it" and sees the others running "Wait! where are you going! I'm purifying the dinner!"
The three players stop realizing the whole party isn't following.
The sprites are concentrating fire of the magus who, they have been picking on mostly the whole time (I kept rolling d6 and getting her number mostly, "5")
The barbarian being the closest to the tree they are in, sees one and starts climb the tree, in a rage to get it (he lept from the snow and rolled well enough to start off two branches up)
this startles the sprites enough to move around suddenly, and the Witch sees two of them, she moves back closer and throws a dagger. Splat! lands one solid. I describe a sprite, the size of a dagger, with a dagger sticking out of it's back.
The sorceress decides this looks like fun and follows suit, throwing a dagger, but only causing one damage. I have the sprite give her a look like 'are you serious? Im already dying over here, gimme a moment!'
The other two sprites start shooting the the barbarian as he climbs the tree, really ticking him off. So making a strength check the barbarian starts shaking the tree wildly.
Knocking the wounded sprite out of the tree
"Fetch" the witch says to her fox familiar. and the fox takes off after it.
The witch decides to cast ray of frost at another sprite she sees. she rolls a crit to hit, I draw a card, which says she turns invisible (weird but ok) but the spell does no damage to the sprite.
The sprite in the snow dies a grizzly death as the fox makes it a chew toy.
the fox and the barbarian are now both climbing the tree and the remaining sprites shreik and climb higher in the tree for a better vantage point to shoot from.
Invisible in the snow the witch runs forward. Having not been able to see anything until now, the druid sees the witches footprints and says "Look, there is something in the snow!" and fires an arrow at the witch. But he rolls a 2 and misses.
With crossbows, the sorceress and the magus wound the two remaining sprites and the fox catches up to one finishing it off the barbarian falls out of the tree (rolled a 1 followed by a 4 on a climb check) spooked out of the tree by the fox, the sprite bails to another tree and gets nailed in mid flight by the druid.... "Oh That's what you all were trying to get, and here this whole time I thought you were fighting the TREES...." said the druid.
Needless to say, this was a really funny fight.
the barbarian skins the stag and cuts what he can up for meat.
The druid and the witch cast healing magic (the only spells they have) and after a short break they move on.
Coming up on the snow man, the party mis hears my description and puts two arrows in the snow man before I RE-read the description.
Here in alaska they have guys y the side of the road waving signs to get you to do things like come into the tax man, or buy direct TV and one of the guys who has been doing this for a year is really famous because he dances, does flips, spins around an even works in the rain.
Well for about a week now he's been wearing a frosty the snow man outfit.
So they heard "snow man with a sign" and thought it was a living snowman, and shot it.
So now that that realize it's a snow man, with a sign, they STILL suspect it of treachery (and in this forest who can blame them?) And so the witch casts detect magic on it. And yes there is magic (the trap and the magic mouth)
the sorceress casts burning hands on the snowman when it comes to life and says "can't...."
the snowman doesnt get to finish the sentence, the sorceress melts it. No one goes any closer to the melted snowman, they continue on.
The party comes to the creek where they are confronted by the ice elementals. the party is still on the bank. And I had these two meeting together to confer on their patrols when the party walks up.
I remind the druid of his call cold channeling ability, and he tries to use it "Do my bidding, minions" he commands. The elementals, who I decided to play like merry and pippin after the battle of isengard (I don't know why) turn to him and say (the rolled an 18 and a 19 on their saves) "Would you mind? We are conferring"
"Yes! we are reporting to each other as to if we have seen any trespassers"
"Aren't they trespassers?"
"Well yes I suppose they are"
"Are you trespassers?
"Well they did get past the snowman"
"Well yes I suppose they did"
"Well then" Clearing is his icy throat "Go back wence ye came"
"That was very good, wench, I like that I'll have to use that in the future"
"thanks"
"Yes now, as I was saying, Go back Wence ye came!"
This confused the party terribly.
Frustrated, the druid sends an arrow at one of them nicking it.
"well that's not in compliance now is it?"
"No that's not very compliant at all"
The ice elementals attack
The witch gets the best initiative runs forward to thump one with her quarterstaff.
She has the frost foot hex and I explain the ease at which she runs across the snow and onto the ice to the other players.
"Yeeeeaaa she's a 'human'" the druid says with his fingers to make quotes.
The witch bonks the nicked one in melee and the sorceress being melting one with burning hands.
the barbarian, rushing forward, promptly breaks through the ice and begins swimming, poorly, in scale mail, shield, a winter outfit and most of the parties plunder, since he had the best carrying capacity.
'hold your breath we are fighting over here" the magus says she she spellstrikes the melting ice elemental with her whip from shore.
The first icy goes down.
The second one attacks the witch but misses (she was using mage armor)
and the sorceress decides to melt the second one since it works so well on the first.
a repeat of actions, melt, electrocute, staff to the face and an ineffectual arrow and the second icy is down.
using her whip, the magus and the druid fish the barbarian out.
Who is now WET in icy cold conditions.
The party decides that stopping here and making a fire would send up smoke and they would be seen and get ambushed, that they need to make it the old sentinel lodge in the not too far distance.
They Strip the barbarian down and dress him the the still dry dresses of Lady Argenta that they witch had put in her sack back at the first encounter. Ripping them up and using the mending cantrip "See I knew that would do SOMETHING" the druid days they make a layered suit of dressed and petticoats for the barbarian to wear under his scale mail.
Hillarious.
On Ward!
Trudging down the trail, the come upon the farmers frozen feet sticking out of a snow bank, pull him out take his items and unceremoniously leave as fast as they found him.
Also pretty funny.
during the bandit encounter, the party rolls well on perception, and beats the bandits on initiative, and bandits dont get their ambush.
the Sorceress puts a crossbow and nearly point blank range in one of the bandits faces.
Rushing from cover one of the bandits slashes the witch across the chest bringing her down to 1 hp
The other one, bursting from cover, his disarmed by the magus with her whip.
Frustrated the bandit rushes her with his shield to bash her, but instead gets bashed by her shield (she is a skirnir)
The druid closes to melee with the bandit that wounded the witch and they trade a few rounds of missed, until the druid beheads the bandit with a cirtical.
The barbarian beheads the one with the bolt in his face and the witch scratches the last one to death that was tripped by the magus's whip (she has hag claws, does 1d4+3!)
At the end of the fight. The magus is down to 5 hp, the witch down to 1 hp. the druid and the sorceress are un harmed and the barbarian still has 11 hp (still the most in the party even with a wound)
The party is cold, fatigued, and out of spells. They press forward.
They see the Sentinel Lodge and realize it is obviously occupied.
the party has decided to pull back, hide in the under brush and the druid is going to use his healing skill to try and treat wounds.
This is where the session ended.
I would say so far, the Winter Witch has only been slightly less effective than a normal 1st level witch, only because she picked a hag based feat and a winter witch hex, rather than being able to start with two hexes.
She cast one spell that was essentially useless (not realizing a cold spell wouldnt work so well on a cold critter)
But other than that her frost foot hex HAS been really useful considering what a PIA it has been for other characters to move around.
Thanks for sharing this!
Ok so last week, they did the lodge fight:
pretty much just battle they stormed the castle. a little blood thirsty the party was worried about having to retreat back into the cold if things didnt go their way, as such, the hit in full force.
they killed the cook before she had a chance to do much, I played her as described be she didnt get past round 2.
The party mowed through the bad guys pretty quick; but it took them quite some time to figure out there was an upstairs, and never found the down stairs.
after going up the stairs, they spend a good amount of time in the first room, looking at the map.
Laughably, the barbarian was the one with knowledge geography (druid has it just no points allocated)
when they went in the second room, Rohkar was ready, the skeletons got the partys attnetion and the invisible rohkar slipped out (although how initiative and movement when, he ALMOST walked straight into the witch..being as they couldnt see each other, one due to invisibility the other due to a wall in the way)
Rohkar skulked down stairs and made himself some zombies, which slowly wandered upstairs.
the barbarian held the zombies at bay at the stairwell and the rest jumped out the window.
(they decided they didnt want to fight that many zombies)
The barbarian gets away and jumps too (they had a rope but everyone failed the climb checks, so it became a jump--except the barbarian who took a flying leap out the window being chased by zombies.)
Outside, they elected to set the place on fire, and shoot anything that came out (not knowing about the cellar and the prisoner)
Rohkar, with the place a flame leaves his zombies for distraction and makes a run for it (the party has never laid eyes on Rohkar)
I had a PC I was going to introduce this session who was also locked in the cellar, as a rogue I let her make a disable device check on the lock at a negative without tools, when she noticed the place was on fire, she escaped with lady argenta ,but the PC's making bad perception checks with smoke and fire, shot them with arrows and bolts before they realized they werent zombies (but ddint kill them)
In the wash, the party decided to send argenta back to Heldren, as they were going to investigate the map (they want to know what the portal is... they dont know it's aportal yet, but they want to see what it is)
The new PC, who is a cat folk, was not well received or trusted by the party, they elected not to take the character with them, and that character returned to Heldren with Lady Argenta and a horse they were given by the party (they kept another horse for "All their loot" they think they are going to get.
Although so far they do have a lot of stuff, seeing as they have picked up nearly all the weapons and armor so far.
The rogue player, a little insulted, has rolled up a human cavalier (hunt master) for todays game. (she has to BE an animal or play WITH animals) so this should work.
Her Character, Laurel Willowsbane (her father was a paladin well reknown for slaying a den of will-o-wisps) will be a former Sentinel, who was out hunting when the attack on the lodge was staged by Rohkars Raiders, she will present her self to the characters tonight, as she has been skulking in the woods ever since.
So far the witch hasnt done much again, as she lacks spells (or many) and her hexes she chose are not combat type. The characters are now level 2. The Witch has used her hag claws twice, and throws daggers)
Ill also add, although I have said it before, as a winter witch, and with the hexes she chose, the cold weather and movement has been a zero hassle for her.
Thanks for sharing this with us, Pend!
With heroes like these, who needs enemies. LOL
With heroes like these, who needs enemies. LOL
Well the players are a little inexperienced and slightly paranoid.
The druid screams zombies! and runs in the opposite direction any time he sees them.
Both the druid and the sorcerer are the "what has he got in is pockets??" type of people.
The sorceror pretty much wants to put an xbow bolt in it, if it doesnt look like and angel or the pope. (shoot first, search pockets later!)
the barbarian (as usual) hits for big damage, and as an armored hulk (at least at this level) really hard to hit, so an effect tank, who with an int of 12 (wanted more skills) isnt your typical dumb bard.
He's pretty efficient tactically and saves his rages for overwhelming odds or something that didn't drop after everyone else hit it first (he's got a low Dex, therefor 0 init modifier)
The barb is the best character so far, at least development wise, he's used his survival checks very well, and has effectively managed to help him and the half elf sorcerer from freezing to death (specially after he fell in the water)
Lots of good skills use so far, and the players are pretty well rounded, if someone didn't have the skill, someone else did, almost always.
This is turning out to be a skulking party, their go to skills are stealth, survival and bluff. (they lie ALOT)
Party Alignments are:
Witch (chaotic good)
Barbarian (chaotic good)
Druid (Chaotic Neutral)
Sorcerer (Chaotic Neutral)
Magus (Neutral)
and the New Cavalier (Neutral Good)
I GM/PC two characters on and off (the Barbarian comes late to the sessions, and the Magus has to leave early due to real life happening, not all the time, but frequently) so those two have less say in what goes on, just because of absences.
the 'decision makers' are the druid and the sorcerer right now, as the witch (my wife) has been spending a lot of time being quite, pretending not to be a witch.
Her character has just realized there is something new and different about her. Until the portal opened, she was not a winter witch, although her fox has been a pet as long as she can remember, she has spent her life thinking she was a human, adopted by and raised by two gnomes. Mr. and Mrs. Gnome have always known of her eldritch origin and capabilities. So she is just growing into the idea of being a changeling witch.
So due to combo of RL and RP reasons, the newest players to the group (druid and sorcerer) are making most of the decisions/ leading the group.
The barb player is there for 80 percent of the combats (just how it works out) but not much of the lead in, he seems to show up as soon as I say "roll initiative" lol
The Magus is 11 years old, so depending on play time, she has school in the morning, so usually isnt around for treasure, and the like.
the funny thing is, at the next weeks session, when I aks the group 'where did we leave off?' Shes always the only one who remembers (beside me)
Can't the witch UMD fire items? (my plan for my PFS witch).
Also, the second part does play up the elements, and some lovely RP chances as well.
witch doesnt have that great of a UMD yet.
she also doesnt have any fire items, they havent found that much just yet.
It's not so much that the witch can't shoot things with cold, so much, but that she's low level and spells are limited, the hexes she has right now (frost foot and tounges) are passive abilities.
she has shot ray of frost at a few normal humans, she doesnt have anything like snowball yet.
Her spells are few and limited, and she has been doing a lot of healing, as the witch and the druid are the only ones with healing spells.
the sorceress, however has been doing some NASTY damage with burning hands, and quite not on purpose as she is a new player, didnt know anything before hand and thought playing a red dragon blooded sorceress 'sounded cool'
the witch did however have a spectacular melee kill last night >.< I know , right?
Last night antics
Last night, after a brief introduction of the new PC, Laurel Willowsbane, the PC's set off across the icy bridge.
They decided to send the barbarian first (over 320 lbs of man, armor and gear) to test the bridge.
the barbarian almost failed his reflex check on the ice and proceeded with caution, The magus slipped and fell in, but made her swim check.
The Cavalier, slipped, fell, took big damage, failed swim check, went over the falls, took more damage, failed swim check and went unconscious.
She almost died 5 minutes after starting her character.
the Druid pulled her out (but took several rounds contemplating it)
the witch with frost foot hex crossed no problem, the sorceress fell in, but made a swim check and fished her self out.
With half the party soaked, they made camp on the far side of the bridge, damaged and freezing, crossing the bridge was a full days encounter (and took around 30 minutes of real game time to get past)
I decided not to pester them with overnight encounters, having decided that Izoze's former presence in the area had scared off or killed natural predators.
After the particularly painful bridge scenario, the PC's more or less breezed through the intermediate encounters (like the weasel).
The PCs spend quite a long time chasing the ghost of thora through the ice boulders, thinking she was real and physical, talking to it, they decided after a while that she was crazy, and if she wanted to freeze out here in the cold, they were going to let her do it.
They moved on.
Meeting the Doll, they had plans to take it, as a trophy, before they realized it was a live.
Is it a Zombie? the druid asked nervously, No... it's a doll. Ok I kill it!
The druid missed with all his arrows, the barbarian hopped up and down trying to reach the floating doll to no avail, the sorceress however snuck up on her with burning hands, which ticked her off, most of the rest of the encounter became the doll chasing the witch with her dagger and the sorceress chasing the doll with her burning hands.
The doll did some damage to the witch and the sorceress and froze them both in place for a bit, before the doll burned up like chucky in fire.
Eventually moving on to the portal.
the was a BIG PAIN in the aardvark encounter.
Visibility issues became a massive problem, coupled with movement issues and it being colder here, there were more survival checks, perception checks and wasted rounds with not being able to take an action, than there were combat rolls (ok slight exaggerations, but almost)
I began the encounter with Hommelstaub taunting them and declaring himself the harbinger of their doom. (I had forgotten about Izoze ATM.
I played Hommelstaub as slightly underestimating the party, assuming he could see better than them and he was at a semi decent range.
So he didn't go invisible or fly right off the bat because he didnt feel threatened (dumb move)
The PC's fell into disarray, couldnt see, failed perception checks calling out to eachother (disoriented) and survival checks to feel their way around, they became semi separated.
The Druid found an igloo and stayed in there for the rest of the encounter.
Eventually the Sorceress found a different igloo, the barbarian found the false igloo, and fell in and received harassing fire from the sprites until the magus showed up. The Barb and the magus worked together to take out the sprites.
While this was happening, hommelstaub doesn't realize the witch could get to him in one movement (The DM forgot about her frost foot hex) and the Witch gets luck and walks right up on hommelstaub, with an "oh my!" look on his face the witch crits him with a dagger which not only does quite a bit of damage, but disarms his little sickle.
Smelling blood, the cavalier lets her dogs go. "Fetch!" and 'chester' and 'tommy' rush forward.
Oh my! switches to Oh no! as the dogs close in on Hommelstaub (forgot about scent too)
and one of the dogs crits, and the other hits.
The dogs turn hommelstaub into a chew toy they cant agree on.
Meanwhile The magus and the barbarian are assailed by a screaming Izoze (I remembered her) who alerts Teb Knotten something is up.
The other PCs her the sound of fighting.
The witch and the Cavalier find the sorceress in one of the igloos.
Wounded, the Magus breaks off a bit to get some range for her whip and then cant find Izoze again in the snow, the barbarian is able to drop her with a lucky crit from his master work axe but then cant locate the body or his axe again in the snow.
Wandering around in the snow for quite some time, the magus eventually finds the others (but not the druid) in the igloo they are in.
Teb finds the Barbarian. Not good.
Barb keeps his head, fighting defensively and shouting for the others.
The Troll is not getting a hit in.
No one really wants to go out and get lost int he snow again.
The witch goes out to see what she can do.
Locating the fight by sound, the witch comes up from behind Teb but his hide prooves too strong from her claws.
The barb, realizing he has some help, and a flanking position, rages, and switches to pure offense and lands some nasty blows.
Teb continues to focus on the barbarian, ignoring the witch who hasn't hit him yet, Teb still isnt able to hit the barbarian though (19 AC while raging)
With Tebs fast healing this looks like it is going to be a long fight, except the barbarian and the with crit, back to back, The barbarians crit lands for a massive 24 damage, but the witches calw crit (after pulling a card) says triple damage and con bleed! ouch! She reaches into Tebs chest, dealing 15 damage and rips his heart out!
The barbarian finishes with a decapitation.
Not too long after the blackrider comes through and I had the snow subside just so I could runt he encounter without people wandering around to find out who is talking.
The snow blindness thing is literally crazy and a big pain in the tail. I don't know if I would run it like that.
maybe just 20% concealment to anything farther than 5 feet away and -4 to hit anything farther away than short range.
add some wind in for difficulty flying and/or daggers/arrows.
But not being able to see farther than 5 feet was just horrendous coupled with reduced movement...it was kinda a motivation killer for the players, who most of them ended up sitting it out in an igloo)
Because of not being able to see or move, PCs never found or searched p4 and never got any of that treasure.
The PCs received the mantle. got their +2 stats and we have yet to reward them with boons (I'm going to give each one an item and a special ability according to their class, instead of meddling with mythic tiers)
The barbarian is getting a +1 Cold iron frost great sword and the joutin grip ability.
The druid get's a bow (I have yet to determine) and Zen Archery (wis to hit with a bow)
The Magus is getting a blackblade whip (effectively gaining a second archetype) except the whip is NOT her same alignment, and has hidden agendas.
For the Sorceress, she will get the crossblooded archetype, and add Fey as a bloodline, but, she will have all the benefits and none of the drawbacks
The Witch, and the Cavalier I'm still working on what their boons are.
I refuse to let this discourage my Arctic White Ninja with snowflake-themed shurikens and katana skis.
When I pick a theme I stick to it!
I may have stolen this for my back up character, just to let you know. But hopefully Issac the mammoth riding ranger will make it threw the whole adventure.
An oracle of flame cannot go all wrong.. problem? FIREBALLS!
Last night antics
** spoiler omitted **...
for the cav id say add the advanced template to the dogs and and let him call them from any distance. but as for the witch i got nothing
Hmm, I know it's been more than a year, but are you still playing this AP Pendagast?