I think we are waiting for your character to take their action Magnius.
Sorry for the delay, was celebrating my grandmother's 95th bday today!!
checking in
I think our GM is busy with RL issues.
Sorry guys -- this is all my fault.
Yes things are busy; it is an absolutely insane time for administration at the end of a semester.
But that's not what got me.
The other morning I came to post Winnow's and the Ormyr's actions and saw I didn't have their stat blocks with me at work (where I am in the mornings when I usually post). I remember having thought about taking them home over the previous weekend in case PC actions were posted on Sat or Sun; I wanted to be ready to continue the encounter.
So, stat blocks not at work, I figured they were at home.
That evening I forgot to look for them and the next morning, in a rush to get to work, I only looked at home on my desk for a few hurried minutes -- didn't find the stat blocks, and had to run out the door to go to work hoping I would find them at my office desk under some papers or something.
No luck.
Now I was certain the stat blocks were at home. That night I tore my place apart (that was Thursday evening) looking for the stat blocks. And I can't find Winnow and the Ormyr.
It's Friday morning and, having looked (I think) exhaustively at both work and home for them, I've concluded that they were left somehow at either my friend's house where I play on Friday night or at another friend's house where we did a one-session adventure on Saturday night.
But I have a feeling I'm going to have rewrite the stat blocks.
So this time it's not my crazy schedule, it's my losing stat blocks -- arrrgh.
I was thinking the Ormyr is going after those kids -- doing a chian lightning or something that will affect Winnow first and most -- the Ormyr is more pissed at Winnow than y'all.
Winnow, who will be begging forgiveness of the Ormyr, will still go after either The Bogeyman or Magnius (I'll probably roll 50/50 to determine) or I'll check what he can do to Dispel the Glitterdust -- Gr Invisibility is a powerful tool for Winnow and he won't want it undone by a pesky little low-level spell.
I know as a Priest he still has two or three Swift Actions per day through Divine Blessing (the primary Class feature for Priest); I'll have to check to see what he can do. I think I remember his Concentration is +29 so he ought to be able to cast defensively -- but that's something I can't guess; I have to know. Likewise, I think his Synthesized Eidolon's ridiculous AC is 31, meaning Magnius' attacks missed, but again, I have to know for certain.
Tonight and tomorrow night I'm going to check my friends' houses and if I find nothing, I'll rewrite the stat blocks Sunday after the Vikings play, and post 2nd Rd actions then.
Again, sorry -- this is all my fault, silly stupid blundering. (I'm not accustomed to misplacing things.)
Again, sorry -- this is all my fault, silly stupid blundering. (I'm not accustomed to misplacing things.)
You might have to get used to it. My experience indicates losing things only becomes more frequent as you age. :P
Less flippantly, I can well understand it is a very busy time of year and things like misplacing stuff do happen. Don't stress on my account.
Ray, after losing one too many big posts or a ton of work on a long as heck PC sheet thanks to Paizo's tomfoolery,
I have started writing up my important characters and posts in Google docs.
This is a gods send for two reasons:
1) Docs auto saves, which means there's no way to lose your work.
2) You can access them via smart phones, letting you work on them whenever. I've sometimes gotten inspiration while lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. It's nice being able to grab my phone, and add something or make an adjustment.
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Awesome Magnius.
And also, Winnow is at my friend’s house; he found the stat block among some gaming papers. WooHoo!
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Dammit Winnow! Can't you do anything right?!
Azlain can ask me three questions about the Ormyr (about its AC or good or bad Saves or other SU and SP abilities or CR, etc.)
Yaos can ask me one question.
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And feel free to talk tactics here guys. I was not expecting you guys to attack Winnow -- looks like my description of him hit a nerve -- but now that you're in -- feel free to discuss how best to win this fight.
As of right now, Magnius can only hit Winnow on a 17 or higher as his AC is apparently a 31. That's with all of the various bonuses.
That's a really small chance to hit him, so we need to try and debuff his AC.
You know what would be really funny?
If I had another scroll of Glitterdust...
A-Men, Girlfriend!
We clearly need to get Mindy a wand of Glitterdust....
Yes please!
Clarifying, since I'm not sure it ever came up before-
Azlain's big armored pauldrons are Familiar Satchels. They are hollow with "arrow slits" cut into them, and an open hole in the back where Mindy can slip in and out of.
When she is with Azlain, she's inside one of them unless I say otherwise.
We clearly need to get Mindy a wand of Glitterdust....
Yaos too.
I would like to know The Omyr's special defences if I may.
I can't help by Glitterdusting, I am out of level 2 spells.
Not at all. Imagine it like she's inside a small bunker with arrow slits. She can still be targeted, she just has Improved Cover. She can still see out and fire out with her bow or with spells. She just isn't going to be flying around delivering touch spells, potions or stealing things from people.
Alright. Depending on Winnow's action, I may change my action. Probably not though.
...
Magnius, it is your turn to act.
A CMD higher than a 24 and an AC that I can only hit on 17+??
I'm out of this combat. There's literally nothing I can do, other than pray the dice like me....
A few things,
It's a general rule of thumb that if you won't allow the PCs things, you shouldn't give them to the NPCs.
Now, that doesn't include things like making use of classes or feats from sources the PC don't gain access to,
But if you ban your PCs from using the Synthesis Summoner then you probably had a really good reason, which means using it for an NPC is probably not a good idea.
Same with making NPCs gestalt when the PCs are not. It gives them more options and abilities, such as rather strong 'armor' that your semi melee focused PC can barely hit....
I do too, but it's obvious Ray didn't intend for that to be the case, and this is also an encounter that doesn't really do anything to further the point of the game.
At this rate, we'll leave Cheliax and begin the actual adventure some time around spring or summer.
But, as I said, I can't do anything at this point. I have by far the highest attack bonus with all my buffs up, and I still can barely hit Winnow.
So, I'll just sit this out. I don't play games to be frustrated and annoyed and unable to actually play.
I've always strongly disagreed with the guideline that NPCs shouldn't have access to rules-features that PCs can't also access. Though I know some DMs do see it as a guiding principle. ....And while my giving the entries in the Bestiaries as examples of my argument seem a bit outlandish, it does give a pretty stark realization that PCs shouldn't have access to rules options that NPCs do (One can't make a PC Dark Slayer or Troll, for example.) But there are other examples, such as Templates (and in this case, an Archetype).
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I share the concern, separate from this encounter, that our campaign is moving too slowly. And I've been successful in my recent effort to get to the Boards more frequently in the past few weeks, all in an effort to better move the game along.
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Metagame:
As mentioned, I was not expecting y'all to decide to attack Winnow; I wanted him to become an ally of the party for when y'all eventually make your way to Nisroch. But I have no problem with y'all's decision to kill him, or, as The Bogeyman has mentioned, maybe he (or y'all) gets away and becomes a future villain. Now, I did not water him down when you attacked, except to nerf his Nightshade bodyguard from CR 16 to a unique CR 12-13.
But I knew when y'all started prepping for the attack that it was going to be tough. I'm still confident you can come up with a way to win the fight -- or successfully run away.
When I design an encounter, I try to make it so that there's at least a decent chance PCs can hit it, it can hit the PCs, etc.
For example, I try to make it so the most combat oriented PC needs to roll a 15, or maybe a little lower, to hit the enemy's AC. That's a rather solid chance(I suck at math, so idk the percentage, lol).
I try to do the same with the enemy's attack vs the most armored PC, even if I need to tweak/fudge numbers a bit.
Unless it's a boss fight, of course, this means the PCs have a solid chance to beat the baddie, but it also can challenge them, and *maybe* win.
I also don't create what I would hope to be a potential ally as some sort of twisted, freaky child abuser/molester. I can't think of any of my players from over my 20+ years of gaming who would be okay with that.
I totally realize there's rules and cults, and such that allow for that, and I have no problem with them existing, but that doesn't mean I want that stuff in my games. Even when I'm playing an evil PC.
There's lines people and characters don't want crossed. For both myself and Magnius, child abuse/molestation is absolutely a line crossed.
Wait, so the creature I banished at the start of the fight wasn't Winnow's synthesized eidolon?
Wait, so the creature I banished at the start of the fight wasn't Winnow's synthesized eidolon?
Nope, that was an entirely separate *bodyguard* for Winnow, that was apparently a CR 16 that Ray decided to nerf for us, after he realized we wanted to attack Winnow....
Jeebus. I thought I'd dealt with the eidolon.
You're not out of the fight, btw. You still have options. Out think the problem. Here's my suggestions-
Wait until after Mindy goes each round. My goal with her is to keep him wasting his actions to deal with whatever annoying stuff she throws at him.
Use touch attacks. Azlain has Tangleburn bags. You've seen him use them. You know where they are on his bandoleer. Come get them and hit Winnow with burning glue.
Use Combat Maneuvers. His CMD is going to be lower than his AC because Summoners don't have full BaB. Dirty Trick and Trip are awesome ways of screwing over an enemy and setting them up for allies to hurt.
The trick is not to think in terms of damage, but instead in terms of forcing Winnow to make choices where he has no good options. Keep him on his heels and buried in status effects. That's how you win fights against high-CR enemies.
Why do you think I attempted to trip him?
Apparently, his CMD is identical to his AC, at a 31. Which is rather surprising, but what do I know? Ray is using all sorts of rules we know nothing about, so maybe he has a way to jack up his CMD...
This is why I am so frustrated. A 24 on a trip attempt seemed like it had a really good chance to knock him down, thus imposing a -4 penalty to his AC, but nope, that wasn't the case.
Aside from Azlain's Tangleburn bags, I have no other way to pull off touch attacks. We never got a chance to spend all our hard earned gold...
I get your frustration. It's a tough fight and it's never fun to feel useless. I'm not sure if it's intended, but your posts are coming off as a bit hostile. Should we take a step back and talk about how to make sure we're all having fun, and our expectations of the game?
If it isn't fun for any one of us, we're all partially to blame and should address it.
Well, for starters,
I *expect* that when the GM is told he's wrong about something, that he actually listens to his players, and doesn't bull forward assuming he's right. Which is exactly what Ray did earlier with the Blade Barrier situation. He utterly refused to listen to me, event when I went and got others' opinions. He just decided he was right, they were all wrong, and that's that.
It's kinda hard to not be a tad hostile after that.
It also doesn't help when the GM throws a CR 16 creature at us, even if it was nerfed. We got freakin lucky it was banished. Otherwise, it's likely we would all be dead, or near enough...
Other issues:
Forever ago, we had a plan to sell all our loot when we got to Westcrown. Somehow, that's gotten pushed aside/forgotten about, despite the fact that I bring it up every so often.
I would feel a little bit better about this combat if I had been able to upgrade some of my gear, as when I first built Magnius, it wasn't really for combat at all. He's able to mostly hold his own thanks to his class features, but his spells and magic items aren't really all that useful for combat.
I also feel like we've lost our way as far as the overall goals of this game goes.
Initially, we were supposed to gain some notoriety, get summoned before the Queen, and then go out and start turning other nations into allies/subservient states to Cheliax.
However, we've been 'stuck' in country for quite some time now, dealing with all sorts of political intrigue within the Empire of Devils.
And, honestly, that's okay. I recently read the new Cheliax campaign setting book, and we could absolutely spend *years* both in and out of game doing all sorts of awesome stuff within the borders.
Lastly, it does kinda suck we're still stuck at level 8. I know leveling isn't all there is to gaming, and it's not super important for me to enjoy a game. However, leveling up is a nice reward, and helps mitigate other 'issues'. It doesn't help that my next level would actually help me a fair amount in combat, as I'm taking my 4th level in Investigator, which gets me Studied Combat and Studied Strike, as well as +1 increase to my BAB....
Alright. Without retconning, what would it take for you to feel like you were having fun again?
I'll post my thoughts asap, sometime today I'm sure as it's pretty important. Hopefully we can all get on the same page.
1 I *expect* that when the GM is told he's wrong about something, that he actually listens to his players,
This is the issue I wasn't sure what to say about. I am no Pathfinder rules guru, so I can't buy into who is right. I can well understand where Magnius is coming from, been there myself. But generally if you are in a campaign you have to accept GM rulings. Hopefully this isn't an issue that we can't put behind us.
2 It also doesn't help when the GM throws a CR 16 creature at us, even if it was nerfed.
These were not intended as opponents.
DM Ray did too good a job of portraying evil scumbags and we all want to murder Winnow to death. Even when our characters are all evil.
When I started this campaign I didn't know Pathfinder or, especially, the setting. So I made a combat focused character. My skills are pathetic compared to some of the other PCs but I can conjure up a good army. But this isn't so effective in this combat. Yaos does really well against groups of foes, esp if she knows combat is coming. But a smaller no of powerful individuals... she does not do so well. Esp if they can eliminate leopards as a group or they can scarcely do any damage.
I know Magnius was a bit annoyed by the way Yaos was dominating a combat long ago. Just thought I would mention her limitations.
3 Forever ago, we had a plan to sell all our loot when we got to Westcrown. Somehow, that's gotten pushed aside/forgotten about, despite the fact that I bring it up every so often.
This is true enough. I want to divide up our loot and make some purchases. Let's do that next.
4 I also feel like we've lost our way as far as the overall goals of this game goes.
Initially, we were supposed to gain some notoriety, get summoned before the Queen, and then go out and start turning other nations into allies/subservient states to Cheliax.
However, we've been 'stuck' in country for quite some time now, dealing with all sorts of political intrigue within the Empire of Devils.
I was surprised at how long we spent in Cheliax. But I agree with Magnius that it is OK. It is also that PbP just takes a long time.
5 Lastly, it does kinda suck we're still stuck at level 8. I know leveling isn't all there is to gaming, and it's not super important for me to enjoy a game. However, leveling up is a nice reward, and helps mitigate other 'issues'. It doesn't help that my next level would actually help...
I also never quite got over the teenage boy thing at delighting at levelling up. And I would appreciate the power boost of being lvl 9 and purchasing some choice items.