Our group really is the worst at interacting with NPCs.
We still haven't established who is the leader of the party for any of
1. What's our overarching goals?
2. How do we interact with NPCs?
3. Who calls the shots for tactical strategy?
So, when someone comes up with something really creative and takes the leads on one of these, something awesome happens. But when nobody has cool ideas and takes charge... nothing happens.
Time to do what Illia- does best and recklessly barge forward.
I think it's less of a leadership thing and more of a character personality thing. None of us are actually very good at being social.
I'm always in favor of Illia barging recklessly forward. It tends to work more often than not.
I get the feeling Illia's usual tactic is going to backfire.
Also my post seems to have been fully ignored...
Sorry! Was at a conference and busy, so waiting to see if anyone posted something.
Also, yes, Drisquar had ideas. They... might be good ideas. I will give Illia- the chance to change her plan, if she wants to. (Note that a bunch of druids were offering to come with you and create mayhem as a distraction, but the teleportation wouldn't be able to bring said druids easily).
Illia-, if you do decide to teleport the party 750' away (and they're okay with it), no follow-up actions; something happens exactly one round after you teleport to within a mile of Greengrave Keep.
So fully ignored that I can't find any post in which anyone suggested ideas. Link me?
Anyway, my general principle is that, regardless of whether it's a good idea, if the thread is stalling, Illia-'ll port in.
It was literally two posts above yours on Tues. I posted at 7:59 pm, you at 10:11pm:
I saw that post and saw nothing in it that I would consider meaningful, namely because in the following days you never posted any plans.
Sorry, but I view "Hey guys I have a plan..." days pass with nothing said, as not a plan.
Also, I was under the impression that it wouldn't be too hard to bring a bunch of squirrel druids along.
~~
Finished updating Illia-, given her two extra feats and maneuver swap. I did take the +2 Initiator trait, but I'm treating it like it is for spells where that boosts your effect but doesn't open up 6th (in my case) level abilities. Still haven't picked a discipline for my battle prowess, but I'm not ready to decide yet.
Also, I'm a time lord now.
Illia-, if you're talking about the "time stop whenever" stance, I'm pretty sure that's a common forum misreading.
Of course, if your character is teleporting off on her own while the party sits around and discusses, we can also play it that way.
Oh I'm sorry, I was waiting on the other players or the GM to respond first.
Not all of us like to go off half cocked whenever they get bored, ignoring the scene and assuming things will just automatically go your way.
Sorry for trying to be team/good player.
No need for anyone to get mad.
But i also have very little chance of meaningfully contributing against the BBEG without some buffs from someone. I cant do holy weapons and some of the defenses affect me.
Alright. I'll try some triage.
It's just annoying that literally two days after I post, Illia goes off and does her own s*~&, and that apparently my waiting was too freaking long without a reply.
Like what? There's been plenty longer waits and I was trying to be considerate of the rest of the group, GM included.
Here's the stuff I grabbed from Riven Hourglass, feel free to clear up any misunderstandings you see.
Riven Hourglass
Clockwatcher (level 5 feat pick, lvl 1)
Counter
Become not flatfooted/surprised, usable when flatfooted/surprised, obviously. Allows you to act in a surprise round even if you can't see the enemy.
Temporal Body Adjustment (level 5 feat pick, lvl 4)
Counter
Ignore any one negative condition inflicted on you, ending it, other than death/damage.
Time-Thief's Talon's (level 6 exchange, lvl 5)
Strike
Melee or ranged, one attack, weapon damage as normal + 2x initiation level, also regain 2x initiation level hp if it hits.
Chronal Fission (level 5 pick, lvl 5)
Stance
May initiate a counter each round without using an immediate action.
~~
Allow me to explain my thought process, Monkeygod.
I had just seen Anaxian post here in the discussion about how bad we we were about interacting with NPCs. I took this to mean that he was unhappy with our pace, and that he wasn't going to post any response to your post from three days ago, having checked in, and only seen fit to post in the discussion. This may easily be a misinterpretation on my part, but it's what I thought.
Then I thought, Ok, it's been three days, that feels like a long time, everyone but Meri has either posted or passed, Meri probably doesn't have anything to say either. We're probably just stalling because no one's taking the initiative and we're about to force our poor overworked GM to make something up to motivate us into action, AGAIN. What is my job as Illia-? Funny silliness and forcing the plot forward with reckless teleportation. This seems like a job for.... reckless teleportation!
That's what I thought, I'm sorry it caused conflict in the group.
Okay, Chronal Fission is pretty insane.
That said, it seems we've sorted this conflict out! (Spoiler: I'm at least 50% confident that your next mission will include "recover what's left of Illia-'s body so someone can resurrect her via Limited Wish")
Right, okay. Illia- jumps away and back in the span of 6 seconds. Please proceed to discuss attack plans!
Also, does anyone have anti-scrying spells up besides Anaxian's Nondetection? Asking for a friend ;)
(EDIT: no, wait, I'm an idiot. Carry on).
Because we kinda glossed over it, Anaxian re-shrunk his lead ball after the fight with Mr. Mammoth.
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And because it worked so well the first time, I'm thinking I might want to re-use that tactic.
Larger scale though. Let's consider this funny and horrifying option-
Big Anaxian can lift (and fly with) a comically large amount of weight (115,000 pounds)
With surprisingly little cash work and the Fabricate spell Anaxian can make a solid cube of lead that is roughly 15x15 feet (4.6 meters square). (we'll put a couple sturdy handles on it for ease of lifting)
That cube would be a viable target for Animate Object. Now our cube is a creature, and a viable target for easy teleportation. We take it to the Worldwound.
Now, our animated friend Cubey gets lifted into the air by Big Anaxian and flown up to some completely absurd sub-orbital height above the Demon's fortress/lair/temple/whatever.
Dris and Little Anaxian help triangulate and aim. True strike gets involved. Maybe there's some other enchantments and buffing happening too. It's a party.
Here's where it gets a little nuts. Cube, being a creature, is a viable target for Freedom of Movement. We've already established that Dris' freedom of movement lets him ignore air friction and wind resistance, which is a part of what makes him faster, more maneuverable and stealthier. That should work for Cubey too.
So, then Cubey is dropped, and has no terminal velocity.
A little math later and we discover that Cubey, falling in an effective vacuum from a couple miles up, hits the demon's base with the kind of impact that would turn the whole general area into a smoking crater.
So, all that said, GM, is there a reason this wouldn't work? Are we allowed to throw meteors at our enemies?
You'd need a f***ton of lead to pull that off, though we could do it with stone.
Let's actually work this out. Escape velocity is about 25k mph. Human terminal velocity is around 120 mph.... it's hard to find a good terminal velocity calculator. However, we can assume that each radius doubling falls ~2x faster. So assume the projectile, being gargantuan, tops around 1k mph. Yes, this tops out at 5000d6 in 3.5 (however, each doubling of kinetic energy only goes up one size category in PF, so we're actually only looking at 128d6 damage, spread out over a sizeable area—enough to level a structure, but not the walls of force protecting it.
Assuming a generous 500' range increment, we're also looking at a DC 1000 or so Know (engineering) check to accurately target the thing...
1) wouldn't be throwing. Just dropping. All we'd need is to be straight above. Without air friction there wouldn't be any deviation from "straight down." It would be damn near impossible to miss as long as we were lined up right. Whatever we are directly above would get hit.
2) Terminal velocity is a matter of wind resistance. Without air friction there is no terminal velocity. It just keeps speeding up until impact.
3) f***ton = 57 tons. By using the cost of lead sling bullets, and the crafting rules, we can figure that raw lead is 2/3 copper pieces per pound.
4) If the projectile is Lead it's a Huge Creature (gargantuan object). If the projectile is stone, it's much, much bigger. (about 60 cubic feet)
1) wouldn't be throwing. Just dropping. All we'd need is to be straight above. Without air friction there wouldn't be any deviation from "straight down." It would be damn near impossible to miss as long as we were lined up right. Whatever we are directly above would get hit.
2) Terminal velocity is a matter of wind resistance. Without air friction there is no terminal velocity. It just keeps speeding up until impact.
3) f***ton = 57 tons. By using the cost of lead sling bullets, and the crafting rules, we can figure that raw lead is 2/3 copper pieces per pound.
4) If the projectile is Lead it's a Huge Creature (gargantuan object). If the projectile is stone, it's much, much bigger. (about 60 cubic feet)
1) "Straight down" is harder to gauge than you think. It would use indirect siege weapon targeting rules, just with a really generous range increment (but even if you set the range increment to, say, 1 mile, we're talking -200 to your targeting roll)
2) I'm comparing it to base item terminal velocity to get a kinetic energy multiplier
3) Hmm, iron is priced at 1 sp per pound, and lead is generally rarer than iron.
4) Yeah, here the size category is by weight though.
Well if illia took him to near the roof, then popped straight up then that would be perfectly straight up.
Huh, I can teleport with bizarre precision, so maybe, but I'm not sure how well the height would play me.
Twine is cheap. Attach a 10 pound weight to the end and spool it out from directly above and we can effectively measure a straight line perfectly.
Lead sling bullets are priced at 1 sp for 5 pounds. That's purchase price. The crafting rules give us the manufacturing/raw materials price, which is how I got my numbers.
As for the impact, this awesome website determines that Cubey will hit the ground at about 562 miles per hour, which is a bit shy of twice terminal velocity.
Err, that site is very simplistic. If you dropped it from space, you'd hit 25,000 mph. Sounds like you're dropping from lower, though, which is probably fine.
I was figuring something just shy of space. Sub-orbital. At some point the air will get too thin for Big Anaxian to fly in. (though a Fly spell would fix that. We could go to space if we wanted to)
Good luck Illia!
Anyone else want popcorn?
Why must everyone disarm me! I just want to get to use my fancy hyped up weapon to send your blood everywhere!
After this, I am buying half a dozen longswords.
Anyway, so you know DM, I edited my last post to include battle orders.
I dont have a quick way to get there. If i were to start now, you'd either be dead or back with the party by the time i got more than a mile or two
Anaxian and Drisquar, didn't you want to sit and plan things? Now you have the perfect opportunity to do so!
@Illia-: This is a demon that specifically specializes in fighting teleporters and using combat maneuvers. It's actually best at sundering, but it realized your CMD was too high for that to be effective when it missed a few disarms. And everybody tries to disarm you because disarming is great.
Also, did you ever stat up your cohort? Because should your main character become *temporarily inconvenienced*, that's one way to stay in the action. (You've got several teleport-y friends back in Escarra)
Time to invest in Duelist Gloves, a locking gauntlet and a weapon cord.
Or, if you like, I can just sovereign glue your weapon straight to your hand before every mission.
Also, I have the Hardening spell. It's a pretty good defense against Sunder attempts.
I statted up the bare bones of the character, then had to deal with a sudden CR 2 nerf, then got distracted by the potential of having dragon me as my cohort instead.
Regardless, my initial design was a lot of fancy abilities all centering around "Gives Illia- an extra full attack action every other turn."
Reminder- My last in character post now has my combat details for that round.
Question- Does this guy look particularly dexterous/dodgy over huge/strong? I was thinking about hoping his FFCMD was a lot lower than his probably unreachably high CMD and disarming my weapon back.
Ah! Missed the edit. Where does the extra +6 to AC come from again?
And he looks more strong than dextrous, despite being medium-sized.
Not +6. +9. When Fighting defensively, I get to add my charisma modifier to dodge against one target, due to my devil-trained/original fighting style (Osyluth Guile).
Targetting Illia-'s AC is hard to do. She was at AC 50, -6 for losing shield, but now fighting defensively she's back up to AC 56 against anti-telebro, and AC 47 against the other guy.
Nrrggh.... It's still one of my best options if they don't throw another save at me to swap maneuvers.
Right! Forgot about Osyluth Guile.
Uugh... One way or another, this is gonna take awhile.
Also, this is a use of Pinhole gambit I never thought I'd do.
Oh! Illia-, you're making saves vs slow each turn which you've made so far.
Grrr..... I can't let them get Monty too....
Shao may not know illia is part of a party, maybe one of us with spells can scry on her.
The main issue is that none of us actually know Illia's in danger. We have no motivation to scry on her.
** spoiler omitted **
Oh, hey, getting ambushed again. If I don't contact you again in a couple minutes then I'm dead! Wish me luck! Oh, and Anaxian can have proto-me if I die.
be prepared for possible counter-scrying as well
I have no idea how she sent that message.
Illia, how'd you contact us from so far away?
Meridian said she had telepathic bonds running. Dunno how, but I trusted that.
~~
As far as back up characters go, I thought maybe a druid-ee person would be a good fit, representing one of the initiates that wants to help retake greengrave but will immediately leave the party after that.
I have no idea how she sent that message.
Illia, how'd you contact us from so far away?
We put up telepathic hind before we came here.
What kind of range does that have? Wasn't she all the way back near our city?
Telepathic bond has a range of "1 plane"
* * *
So... I never expected the party to go recruit Mendevian crusaders. But let's keep this fun!
>Roughly pegging things to Golarion's calendar, this campaign started around the beginning of 4714 AR. Only about four or five months have actually passed. IIRC, this means the Fifth Crusade should be well underway—the heroes of WotW are big damn mythic champions, but they're still busy doing fetch quests to weaken Deskari and whatnot while the Worldwound summons a bunch of demons in preparation for a final assault over the borders and against the Mendevian capital to the South. I've wound the clock back by perhaps a few months to keep the Worldwound in its "classic" state.
>There's probably three ways I could see "recruit crusader allies" going:
1) I generate some decent crusader and/or angelic NPCs and run the battle en mass like we did vs the aboleths (only this time it wouldn't be 500 people in battle)
2) Everyone who wants to gets to create a mythic hero (do it sketchy and quickly, with stats filled in as necesary), and play that guy alongside their main character for the rest of this mission
3) I put out a short (<1 week) recruitment for pre-existing/orphaned "Heroes of the Worldwound" characters to join an extremely short homebrew adventure that involves raiding a castle full of demons in inventive fashion. If there's anyone we really like, they could also be offered the option of joining the campaign after the mission is over, but with a template (lich, graveknight, skeletal champion, psychic vampire, etc.) and a fall from grace added.
#2 and #3 sound good. I mean #1 sounds fine too but the others sound better.
#2 and #3 sound good. I mean #1 sounds fine too but the others sound better.
Combining 2) with either of the others is also fine, if only like one person wants to create a mythic hero everyone else can get a few shield archons or something if they want to