Agents of the Darklands, Part 2: In Company of Forgotten Evils

Game Master thunderbeard

The only way to do it that I have found is to be an Antipaladin. Aura of Cowardice is really mean.

Ah, right, good old antimatter paladins. Add 'em together and they cancel each other out.

Sorry for all the editing. Anaxian is smarter than his player. I had to figure out the best order to do everything in.

Shnikies. DC 29...

I'm a Necromancer. This is kinda my thing.

Oh, Anaxian, Arcane Mark is one of the best offensive spells in the game. (Spell Combat+Spellstrike? Or my personal favorite spell, Umbral+Tenebrous+Shadow Grasp+Persistent+Heightened Arcane Mark?)

The mastodon can't beat your stealth even on a nat 20, though.

...

Also, I love when enemies are druids, because nobody ever actually knows how to *fight* druids.

Murder them?

My previous party's experience was "repeatedly fireball the giant tree they live in from a quarter of a mile away."

Also, I was very sad when I noticed the one handed req on spell combat. Otherwise I was envisioning "I am Thok, big bad magician, who knows many mighty magics! Power Word Kill!" as he whacks away at you with a greataxe with arcane runes for "power word" inscribed on it for its name. And then using said arcane mark spell combat trick to "Quickened Power Word Kill!"

Illia-, that's basically what a bloodrager is, though.

That spell is particularly b%$%*&!!. Normally I feel kinda bad when I drop giant things on enemies. This time, it seems appropriate.

Dropping an object on a creature requires a ranged touch attack. Such attacks generally have a range increment of 20 feet. If an object falls on a creature (instead of being thrown), that creature can make a DC 15 Reflex save to halve the damage if he is aware of the object.

Anaxian is invisible, via Greater, so there's no way I would think the mastodon would be aware of the attack.

Oh, right. Damage is higher, though it's still only about halfway dead. Will edit the GM spoiler. Carry on.

Rules question, do you fly faster down than up?

Yes, unless you have a perfect fly speed. Going up takes 2 squares of movement.

Falling is still pretty much the fastest way to get down. Unless you're Dris, I think he actually flies downward faster than normal gravity carries things. He cheats.

I do not, and you can't prove it :P

...wanna bet?

I could make a stopwatch to time it!

Your science is lies and sorcery :P

Well sure, but it's also repeatable and predictive. :D

If you repeat the lie enough, it becomes the truth

Falling is still pretty much the fastest way to get down. Unless you're Dris, I think he actually flies downward faster than normal gravity carries things. He cheats.

Actually... a human has a terminal falling velocity around 130 mph. Drisquar tops out at 120 mph. Case closed.

* * *

Also, umm... I just realized that Antilife Shell doesn't affect outsiders. This fight is going to be a lot shorter than I thought.

My initiative modifier was 6, last time I checked, where did you get 17?

My initiative modifier was 6, last time I checked, where did you get 17?

...no idea. Whoops. You still beat him, though.

A thought, would martial abilities and psychic abilities count as different sources than arcane/divine as far as source severance and similar abilities are concerned?

Yeah, neither are arcane. They're their own categories of magic.

I realized I've got an unspent feet, and I've got several maneuver picks/swaps I need to organize. I wanted you guy's input on whether you'd want me to have this or if you think it'd hurt the team more than help.

"Benefit: Creatures within 30 feet of can be affected
by fear effects even if they are normally immune to
fear. Creatures within 30 feet of you that are normally
immune to mind-affecting effects can still be affected by
fear effects, although they gain a +5 resistance bonus on
saves against such effects."

Well, it says 'can' which indicates that you should be able to pick who's effected by it. Not sure if it allows for cherry-picking between individual allies and enemies though. That's a GM call.

Nah, it doesn't allow cherrypicking. (I'm in a game with the opposite—our paladin has a trait that gives everyone +2 vs intimidate, and I'm an intimidator, but Oh Well)

It's a stance, so I could switch out of it as necessary. Comes with some other fun intimidate abilities, like +3 Profane AC/Saves vs shaken/fightened ext. and treating all shaken/frightened ext. as good aligned for profane damage.

That could synergize well with the Anaxians. They do lots of Fear stuff.

werent we going to parley with the druids?

It's cool guys, you're dealing with unkillable forest liches, maybe this is how they say hello.

* * *

Also, the squirrels were totally going to drop 42d6 of flame strikes on everyone, but the ever smoke blocks line of sight and ruins that idea.

You don't know this, but IRL I have a bunch of squirrels that love to dig up my yard. I hate them and often refer to them as "little f#*&ers."

With that in mind I hate these Druids more than I reasonably should.

I can't find anything in the rules that talks about which Command Undead targets are effected first.

Here's my thoughts.

When I go over my Control limit, I choose which ones are released.

The Channeling effects all undead int he area. The ones that fail their will saves are all under my control, but I have to choose which ones I keep if there are too many hit dice. The rest become uncontrolled.

Okay. We'll assume the squirrel that would have cast Greater Dispel doesn't, and instead is the squirrel you gained control of. You can issue commands, but you can't directly dictate its actions.

I think a better command for an intelligent spell casting undead creature would be

"Ignore your former allegiances and goals. Protect and serve me and my allies to the best of your abilities, doing your best to ensure no harm comes to us by your action or inaction."

Let's go with that and see what happens.

Alright. Will update in gameplay.

Sorry about the posting delay. I'm traveling today. I'll get my post in sometime late tonight or tomorrow morning.

Today hasn't gone as efficiently as I'd liked. I don't want to hold the game up, but I don't have enough time to type out my action string.

Here's what I want to do-

Little Anaxian orders the squirrel not to resist big anaxian's control.

Big Anaxian will use Undead Mastery (standard action) to take control of the squirrel (this is a supernatural ability, functions the same as channeled control undead, but can only be used against 1 target at a time).He will also move to flank with Illia.

Little Anaxian will use Quickened Channel again to try to nab another squirrel and use Magic Jar on the T-Rex.

If Magic Jar works, Anaxian will telepathically announce that he has control of the T-Rex, and his Phylactory will take over his actual body.

That sounds reasonable. I'm going to be on buses all day, though, so you might not see an update until very late.

By the way, if the flanking occurs before my attacks, me and Big Anaxian get +9 to hit instead of +2.

Ugh, Tactical Flanker is 100% ridiculous. Every equivalent effect I can think of is capped by level. Okay, updating now.

It still compares favorably to the cheese that is Cha to all saves. But yes.

Yeah, that one's pretty absurd (which is why it's so limited)

How do you want Undead Mastery to work?

Specifically, it's unclear when the "one save per day" is made, and whether they can make it as soon as you've released your other control effects over them.

Posting to all my games:

Life is in a bit of an upheaval at the moment, as I am in the process of moving, and starting a new chapter in my life.

So if I miss some time posting, you'll know why.

Alright. Moving things along a bit, but I figure I'm making up for the party's (the characters', not the players') hilarious lack of effort at actually holding a conversation. (Yeah, these guys probably are trash compared to you, but these guys' footsoldiers are the same CR as the Veiled Masters, and I don't exactly want to deal with the tedium of crunching the numbers as you fight twenty of them and possibly die in the process)

Oh, also: Shaorhaz is NOT a CR-appropriate monster, at pall. Just felt worth mentioning again that I never *expect* you guys to fight a significant portion of the NPCs you come into conflict with, but give you generally the option to do so.

But yeesh, this guy nasty.

"I'm pretty sure someone said shadow druid

Nope! Literally just a name, no other description or even mention of the fact that she disappeared about 100 years ago.

Meredian Adriatnaic wrote:

"I'm pretty sure someone said shadow druid

Nope! Literally just a name, no other description or even mention of the fact that she disappeared about 100 years ago.

Meredian is just being a b%~*@. :-)