All's Well that Ends in a Well

Game Master Choon

We are, yes. I tend to give 24 hours at least before I push forward, so they still have some time. Life and differing time zones can mean slight delays from time to time.

Yeah, sorry, I forgot to post last night before going to sleep. My schedule's changing a lot day to day because of the whole vacation thing.

We are, yes. I tend to give 24 hours at least before I push forward, so they still have some time. Life and differing time zones can mean slight delays from time to time.

Wasn't trying to push. Like missing an AOO there are times people may not realize there up. When I posted last night I thought I was the only one who hadnt acted yet lol

I'm confused. Maglin did you take a 5' step, teleport, then cast invisibility? The way I read it (tired and exhausted so it may totally be on me) is you 5' step, cast invisibility, teleported, and reappeared next to Ignatzia?

Sorry, I was really busy today. I'll have a post up in a few hours.

I went invisible then teleported. It's very reasonable for the gargoyle to just attack the square it saw me disappear from, but I don't think it will suddenly turn to the square I relocated to and then attack that. It's probably just going to charge Ignatzia and get off a few points of damage before she runs away.

<.< >.> How do you know...? :P

:(

I went invisible then teleported. It's very reasonable for the gargoyle to just attack the square it saw me disappear from, but I don't think it will suddenly turn to the square I relocated to and then attack that. It's probably just going to charge Ignatzia and get off a few points of damage before she runs away.

But... Why? I mean with a 5ft step and run action you'd be safe now

The monster could hear him running and find his square.

The miss chance is huge and they need to pass the perception check, but still.

The monster could hear him running and find his square.

The miss chance is huge and they need to pass the perception check, but still.

then he should have done that and use the miss chance to draw some heat off me lol

Alright, post is up! Hope it's enoug- I'm pretty out of it today, hopefully tomorrow will be better.

GM Choon wrote:

The monster could hear him running and find his square.

The miss chance is huge and they need to pass the perception check, but still.

then he should have done that and use the miss chance to draw some heat off me lol

With a run action he'd be inside... Speaking of people who don't know when to disengage combat though....

Unrelated: Ignatzia is inside.

Your Move GM. Technically your many moves and full round actions.

Can't 5' step and run in the same turn.

That being said, it was still a better idea, I have the run feat so I can run really far and probably would've only taken 1 AoO. This way I get to hang out and maybe cast more spells if I want to, but uh...I don't. Although from the looks of things I might need to do something to try to save Cain...

He might appreciate it. :)

I would love a buff spell

My spell list:

1st-Protection from Evil, Grease, Color Spray, Silent Image, Obscuring Mist, Comprehend Languages, Mage Armor, Feather Fall, Crafter's Fortune, Alarm, Mount, Hold Portal, Enlarge Person,
2nd-Resist Energy, Glitterdust, Summon Monster II, Web, Invisibility, Levitate, Aboleth’s Lung, Create Pit, Flaming Sphere, Make Whole, Pyrotechnics, Rope Trick, Cat's Grace

I can use my arcane bond to cast any spell on there. I had planned to go grease and then invisibility next round. That way you probably escape the grapple and probably don't get grappled again before you disappear. Then we just need to get inside.

If I can get inside I would have time to cast Thicken skin, then they'd need a 19 to hit me if they are regular gargoyles (grappling is a weakness I hadn't realized and that wouldn't help that but with the roof, it would be hard to pull the same trick they are trying now
Wait....
Regular gargoyles don't have grab or improved grapple.
Does that mean I get an attack of opportunity?

-game specifically calls or grappling in the tactics block.
-game doesn't give monsters feats to do what they do without getting murdered.
-yes, Cain, go for it. :)

If I can get inside I would have time to cast Thicken skin, then they'd need a 19 to hit me if they are regular gargoyles (grappling is a weakness I hadn't realized and that wouldn't help that but with the roof, it would be hard to pull the same trick they are trying now

Wait....
Regular gargoyles don't have grab or improved grapple.
Does that mean I get an attack of opportunity?

Are you aware that the party is choosing to disengage and run, not fight?

-game specifically calls or grappling in the tactics block.

-game doesn't give monsters feats to do what they do without getting murdered.
-yes, Cain, go for it. :)

Ha!

Marco Theseus Cain wrote:

If I can get inside I would have time to cast Thicken skin, then they'd need a 19 to hit me if they are regular gargoyles (grappling is a weakness I hadn't realized and that wouldn't help that but with the roof, it would be hard to pull the same trick they are trying now

Wait....
Regular gargoyles don't have grab or improved grapple.
Does that mean I get an attack of opportunity?

Are you aware that the party is choosing to disengage and run, not fight?

Yes but you are disengaging to somewhere you can't really run away from, and they will eventually get through the barricades

Okay, so there is nothing in the rules that says he mind thrust power can't be used through walls, or that I even have to see the target to use it. But I feel like I should ask you first choon.

I think I have to hold my turn for now. If Cain can't get in on his own I have a few things that might help. If Vuzi gets stuck I can help her. If they both get in I'll be shutting and holding the door. If Vuzi gets in and Cain wants to not bother with it then I'll go ahead and shut the door all the same once Vuzi gets in.

Here's my spell list. Feel free to ask for anything that might help. I've been trying to avoid burning up all my spells since we just got here.

Oracle Spells Known (CL 4th; concentration +9)
2nd (4/day)—align weapon, cure moderate wounds, false life
1st (8/day)—bane (DC 16), bless water (DC 16), cause fear (DC 16), cure light wounds, protection from evil
0 (at will)—create water, detect magic, guidance, purify food and drink (DC 15), read magic, stabilize
Mystery Bones
Sorcerer (Tattooed Sorcerer) Spells Known (CL 4th; concentration +9)
1st (6/day)—ear-piercing scream[UM] (DC 16), mage armor
0 (at will)—acid splash, disrupt undead, mage hand, mending, spark[APG] (DC 15)
Bloodline Undead

Bane on them would be nice
When cane gets inside I could also use a cure light

I can cast wizard's cure light wounds, which is just invisibility, as long as we're all onboard with looking to recharge spells as soon as we get inside.

I'm pretty sure we need to burn spells or else some of us will die, and lives is a much more valuable resource than spells.

I don't think it's that bad. We were ambushed. People spread themselves thin intentionally because they never heard this song. We suffered because we were uncoordinated and I think people were more interested in showing off/trying out new abilities and doing their own thing rather than you know, staying alive. Even after the GM pointed out that this was very quickly going kill us and said we should very quickly get to the Mausoleum. This could of been done with 2 rounds back I think, and still has the chance to be done this round. Everyone besides Cain is inside. He's strong enough to survive the AOO to get in this round. If he doesn't want to I could help out.

To be clear, I'm not innocent in this. I am saying though that if we can't play this cooperative game cooperatively then we better hope our back up characters can find a better way to do it. As it stands, one of us came close to dropping. The half of us that took damage aren't even half gone, and it shouldn't take us a full days worth of spells to get through each fight while the GM is cutting us breaks.

I'm not opposed to recharging and starting fresh the next day, if more for re calibration then recharge, but we're a few level 1 extracts away from full health as it is now.

I'd be willing to bet we could've done better, but I don't know exactly what the mistakes I made were. I don't think we intentionally spread ourselves thin or showed off, that wasn't what I was trying to do, at any rate.

Let's take a look at what happened and other people can give advice and insight which I lack. I mostly look at my own actions.

Round 1.

At this point, I still didn't have the same info some of you did. I didn't expect this encounter to be quite so difficult and wasn't aware they could fly until after I'd acted for the round. This is the post where the GM introduced them without mention of flying. Not that the GM necessarily should have, since it seems like something everyone else feels is obvious.

Here is what I said in the gameplay thread. Specifically, I wanted us to pull back to avoid getting flanked and to bunch them together. I had AoE spells in mind when mentioning that they bunch together, specifically glitterdust and create pit. At the time I think we were in roughly the diamond we specified as our marching order. This means frontline was ~30ft south of me. I think Vuzi and Ignatizia were a bit south of me, and I seem to remember Dalkk being a bit to the west.

This post is the one where I talked about why I chose to use summon monster R1. As I remember it, I didn't anticipate the combat being too rough and didn't see a particularly good opportunity to use any of my other spells. I figured R1 was the best time for a summoned monster and that it would be good in this situation since we were surrounded and needed more melee bodies. I also didn't think I'd be safe casting a fullround spell in later rounds.

I think this was pretty solid decision making. Clearly I thought so at the time as well, since I didn't bother asking for help in the discussion thread.

What should we have done? What should I have done? How can we make sure that in the future those things happen?

Round 2.

DW makes this helpful post. He advises that I use enlarge person and that the gargoyles are likely to be quite a bit tougher than I had thought. I was expecting us to stand our ground and expend resources but still be able to win, but now I expected it to be harder.

The critical mistake and lack of coordination here was, I feel, that I still expected to stand and fight them instead of running. I was still going off the plan of DW drinking his mutagen and drawing weapons, not moving to create an escape route. In retrospect, I'm sure that escaping was a better choice, but since it hadn't been mentioned yet it didn't cross my mind. The doors looked pretty thick with foes until Dalkk repositioned, too, so I doubt I would've seen it as a viable option unless someone directly pointed it out.

How could this have been avoided better? If we had all decided to run this round, I bet we would've been much better off.

Casting enlarge person. I chose to do this because I wanted to secure the left flank. Emily and Simon were on the left front with 1 gargoyle between them and another flanking Simon (I think?). Cain was engaging said flanking gargoyle and two others, one of which was entangled. The left centre seemed stronger than the right centre, and I figured enlarged melee DW would make it so that we didn't have to worry about it in the future and could concentrate on the right flank. I hoped and assumed that the front would hold a few more rounds, although this may not have been the case.

What spell should I have cast under the assumption we would stay and fight? I think enlarge person is a pretty clear winner here, but I could be wrong. What about if we were planning on escaping? That seems like a more complicated question.

Small earth elemental. I directed it to the right flank. I expected enlarged DW and Simon/Emily to secure the left and was worried about the foes on the right killing us.

How could we have coordinated better? Assuming we had, would this still have been the move?

I chose to attack the gargoyle which was flanked by Cain and murderous command gargoyle. I hoped we'd all focus fire it and kill it this round, but didn't say so. I feel good about the decision and bad about not mentioning it to Cain, since it's definitely difficult to tell who everyone's attacking in this format.

Was this decision incorrect?

Overall, I feel the lack of communication and coordination this round led to our downfall.

Round 3.

By now I'm in full retreat mode, and it seems pretty clear from, for example, this post that this is correct. I felt no need to make additional note of this to other players.

Here I mention that "I can cast invisibility on myself to try to evade them once you guys get inside." I didn't specifically phrase this as a question, which I regret, because I was hoping for someone to suggest a better line. I didn't want to burn another spell, but didn't see a better, cleaner way to disengage. There was, and this was an oversight on my part that I also regret. I feel that, considering the assumptions that I made and information I took as given, my actions up to this point were fairly good, but this was not. I should have run inside and taken an AoO on the way. Healing is cheap, spells are not. I felt better about casting invisibility because I felt everyone had read that post and approved of that action, even though my phrasing was ambiguous, and I can easily do better in the future.

In any case, I did at least make the strategically correct move of disengaging. Invisible Maglin and inside Maglin are pretty much the same in terms of both being extremely safe from attacks.

I feel that I know how I could have done better here, but maybe I'm missing something.

Round 4 (in the future)

I can just go inside assuming Cain does as well. But is that a good assumption to make? Cain, what are you planning?

The way I see it, you've got an AoO and your standard action to kill the gargoyle west of you. If, as Dalkk suggests, you both fall prone, then you can spend a move action to stand and Quick Runner's shirt to go inside. You eat an AoO from the gargoyle south of the erstwhile earth elemental, but that seems a price you can pay, and staying outside is likely to result in swift death. So I'm assuming you're going to do that, and based on that assumption want to just go inside and not cast more spells.

Does that sound like a plan? Do you feel that this was effective communication?

I don't think that there is much that we could have done different.
1. We were surprised by a highly mobile foe. Which is a terrible thing.
2. They locked the melees up tight with superior numbers and positioning, leaving no time to buff or otherwise prepare - which is a real bad thing again.
3. They had enough numbers to spare a few to attack the back-row while keeping the melees locked. Which is bad again.
4. They are worst-case enemies for me and Emily, since many-weak attacks sucks against DR. Put a barbarian with a +1 two-handed axe and see him crush one foe per round.
5. GM rolled well for them. Three 15 in a row against me for example. A near crit against Marco iirc (?). That's also bad ;-)

All in all, they have us surprised, outnumbered, out-positioned and yet we underestimated them, but only for a few seconds of ic-time (two rounds after all), then we decided to ran for it.
I think that this is solid. Maybe we should have run from the start, trying to regroup in a better place and fight them there. But then again, we underestimated the encounter (as did our GM).
Maybe its healthy to have such an encounter BEFORE entering the dungeon.
Will teach us something after all.
Run if the battle is not in your favor to try again.
Everyone played the Dark Souls game series? We should operate under the same assumption.

I think youall have done well so far. The factors Simon mentioned above are a recipe for TPK usually, but you guys have done very well in holding and getting inside so far. Even if the actions so far haven't been perfectly optimal across the board, they have been effective. No one has really wasted a round so far and remember that this is your first combat. Usually you get a pack of goblins or something to cut the party's metaphorical teeth on, but this is Rappan Athuk. Even I underestimated this fight.
I suspect that this encounter is meant to herd you inside, though the book doesn't say this explicitly. I also suspect that it's a mood-setter. You know that getting out is just as hard as getting in, so what do you do? Do you go in only a little ways and try to escape with your loot past the guardians, or go all in and hope to find a better way out?

To add to the reasons why the cards were stacked against us last round- I had already scryed ahead and determined that there was no ambush waiting for us. We didn't have a reason to expect one.

If the rouge checks a door for traps, and says there are no traps, you don't continue to search for traps because you don't think there are any. It will be all the worse for you if there are traps, because you won't be prepared for them at all.

Also, choon- did you see my earlier post about using mind thrust? Not in IC, but in this thread.

Furthermore- I was planning on using my share pain buff once we got into the dungeon. I was thinking of giving it to Simon and myself- Cain seems like he has things covered in the DR department.

A bit more importantly- we know knew the demonstrable effectiveness of ambush tactics. Going forward, does anyone have any suggestions on how we can both avoid those tactics ourselves, and find ways to ambush enemies.

Also... If we do want to try and win this encounter, I could use my true terror power to stun two enemies at a time, then let Cain rip into them. Costs a lot of power points, but it might be nice to have a clear path out of the dungeon.

I also have mind thrust, which if I want to can buff all the way to dealing 4d10+2 damage, which should completely bypass DR. Also costs a lot of power points, but again- having a clear enterance out of the dungeon might be worth it, even if we have to start actually adventuring after resting for the rest of the day.

Just a thought.

The target is "one creature", so you typically have to locate or see the target and have line of effect to that target. That would preclude casting through walls or any other solid barrier.

There's a lot I'm referring back to, please forgive me for not using quote tag.

@Maglin Those decisions are all made in a vacuum. As were mine. Which is my point. You didn't know what I was planning (and I think I went off plan without telling anyone once I had new information) and I didn't know what you were prepped for after your bait and AOE plan didn't seem viable. I would hazard a guess that no one else knew our individual plans either.

@Simon Absolutely right. Bad situation. I like the Dark Souls assumption.

DW Duck wrote:

Marco Theseus Cain wrote:

If I can get inside I would have time to cast Thicken skin, then they'd need a 19 to hit me if they are regular gargoyles (grappling is a weakness I hadn't realized and that wouldn't help that but with the roof, it would be hard to pull the same trick they are trying now

...

Are you aware that the party is choosing to disengage and run, not fight?

Yes but you are disengaging to somewhere you can't really run away from, and they will eventually get through the barricades

It's still a good idea to buff ourselves and bottleneck them so I approve.

Our tank/front line didn't seem to have an idea of what others were working towards or agreed with til the last minute. I tried (IC) to get some communication, but I truly didn't know if Cain would do anything but "Attack the nearest enemy (3 to 4 at the time) and (dice)" until he fell or if he was intentionally trying some kind of stratagem.

Even standing at the door I didn't know if everyone wanted to run or hold their ground.

I think our MVPs during that encounter are Vuzi and Thrune. Both were effective and seemed to work together.

For the future
I think we should develop a general strategy for how we work in combat (as Simon suggested) and when an encounter starts try to get everyone under one flag. It doesn't have to be the best plan, but we'll execute a poor plan better together than 3 different great plans on our own.

to be entirely fair, there's only 4 remaining. with a round or two to heal and buff we could go back out there and finish them off so we can have a secure exit point

to be entirely fair, there's only 4 remaining. with a round or two to heal and buff we could go back out there and finish them off so we can have a secure exit point

Your right. Without the DR and the environment being in our control, we could totally wipe them now. Thing is though our GM allowed my enlargement to go off early, opened the door for us magically, removed their DR, and warned us that he was using sub optimal tactics.

I really, really, really don't want to tempt the fates and take advantage of our GM's generosity.

Thank you a lot, GM Choon, for not making us do a back and forth where we post about walking over to the hole, then looking in it, then inspecting for traps, then poking it with a stick. That's good PbP work there.

I'm really uncomfortable with taking advantage of the GM's generosity to make the game easier for us. If they stood outside the doors, let us buff up, and attacked with claws when we opened them we'd probably be fine. But what would happen is we'd buff up, open the doors, and then have to walk outside to get them to surround us again. We'd know they were coming but it'd still be rough.

It does seem like a pretty awesome first encounter.

For the future

I think we should develop a general strategy for how we work in combat (as Simon suggested) and when an encounter starts try to get everyone under one flag. It doesn't have to be the best plan, but we'll execute a poor plan better together than 3 different great plans on our own.

Okay. We should do that now then, right?

Should we agree to not post our second round till we've each done some coordination in the discussion thread? The first round our characters haven't had time to get their bearings yet, so I'm alright if we aren't on the same page for that one round from a realism perspective. Assuming, of course, that the encounter isn't one for which our default assumptions apply.

Default assumptions:

1) We can win

2) I won't have to expend multiple second level spells

3) Can can survive at least three rounds of full attacks. Simon and Emily can survive at least two.

4) what else?

My actions:

My plan is to cast a big control or AoE spell if circumstances are begging me to. So if we see eight enemies walking towards us in a narrow room, I'll use web to try to split them in half and let us fight four at once. If we see a brick of enemies which look like tough guys with low will saves, I'll shoot a glitterdust.

If no opportunities present themselves, I'll fall back on Enlarge Person and Summon Monster. Enlarge person doesn't seem like a great buff for our party, since no one uses strength except for DW.

Will things go better if DW stands in the front? Maybe in circumstances where we aren't expecting an ambush he does, and if we are he stays in back? I did just use the phrase "circumstances where we aren't expecting an ambush", but I actually think we can do a decent job predicting this. Here, for example, there's one entrance and one exit, so it's unlikely we get ambushed. If we're walking through a gigantic cave and can't even see the walls which might be honeycombed with goblins, we can expect to get ambushed.

I also have a bunch of extracts for utility and buffs. No one has asked for a buff yet, which is not a good sign. My main two buffs are Enlarge Person and Long Arm. Shall I prepare several copies of Long Arm for Cain? Make another CLW? I also have True Strike, which is good for maneuvers, shield for Simon, and expeditious retreat.

At the very least, Simon and Cain should let me know their #1 preference.

Your marks have been tallied. You may view them within.

For buffs:
- I love shield. Just perfect to up my ac to a neat height. So lots of 'em.
- Others... Long arm might be a neat backup, so I can attack from behind a tank or something, but to situational for my liking.

Combat strategy:
- Simon & Emily are really simple. Straight melee havoc. If possible I will work with Marco, letting him pull the enemy and finish them off with blade, bite and claw...
- if the above isn't practical, I'll revert to summon natures ally, cover spell (mist), buffing (barkskin) or a little bit archery
- I'll probably end up in the front most of the time due to scout role. So a vanish extract would be nice to carry around if I ever stumble over something I really don't want anything to do with...

Can't make a long post, but I can totally make a shield extract and give it to you for you to carry Simon. I'll do that at the start of every morning going forward.

Maglin you have infusion discovery on your alch side to right? So you should be able to do the same or similar?

Enlarged I think is most beneficial when we need to take up space rather than tank. The +2 STR does little for me, the -2 DEX hurts. My CMB isn't bad though, so going big is amazing for applications like today. Stop someone at a tunnel, little bit of reach, and added CMB. If the party wants to lean into this idea more though I can make that happen as soon as we have some gold to spend, let me know and I'll put it on my build list. I do think that for tunnel and door blocking purposes it's better spent on me. Cain, Simon, Emily do a lot more damage when they're free to move without a -2 to AC.

I really like the idea of a reach kitty. Simon you would know more than me on this than me, but I believe with the reach you threaten 2 squares out.. which means you flank from 2 squares out. Would that help much on your build? What if Emily had reach?

Vanish isn't an extract, unfortunately.

Current plan regarding extracts: 1x shield for Simon, 1x long arm for Cain. Long arm is much better on Cain since his damage rolls are higher and he's more durable. It will let his area of control extend much further. Enlarge person is better at this but imposes a -1 penalty on attack and AC which is not compensated by the +2 strength like it normally is.

I'll leave the other two, since that gives a good amount of utility.

Edit: enlarge person is a better extract than a spell, so I'll make that and use different spells.

What does melee havoc look like exactly? Is it different if we fight 2 enemies or 6?

OK, back at my computer.

I think the assumption that we can win is extremely dangerous.

I think we need to decide now how fast we want to go through this dungeon. Do we camp a lot and give each fight our best (spells, psion, mixes, etc) or do we play conservatively. I'm down for either.

I'd suggest that we work off our Marching Order idea. I think the goal should be for us to funnel enemies into the Emily/Cain/Simon combo. Next line is casters Thrune Maglin and Vuzi. From what I can tell the 3 casters are the squishiest, have the most freedom of movement, and are the most specialized. The better a job Thrune/Vuzi/Dalkk does at keeping stragglers from leaving the funnel the better the front line can work, and the more AoE effectiveness Maglin has. This also leaves us well suited for Vuzi to Heal and take charge with undead. I originally set up Dalkk as AOE/Debuffer as well, but I can work around that. From the back and with precise shot, I can supply damage from the back and tank if snuck up on.

I think our priorities need to be any enemies that break our line like they did with Simon/Emily and Cain. I think this would of played out different if they were all together. As much as possible I think we need to pile on an enemy that does this. Next I think we need called shots. If we take on the enemies 6v6 I think we have a high risk of failure. The more we can as a group target a single enemy at a time the more the tide changes in battle.

Please take these as suggestions, not commands. I am very open to discussion and as long as we have *any* plan I think we're stronger then if we have no plan. For the groups consideration I submit the following tasks based on what I interpret as what people want to do. Spoiler'd for the sake of space.

Front Line
-Core Damage
-Keeps The Baddies from the Casters

This is of course only for combat. This should perform well in close quarters, I worry about open space combat. I think that's where we suffer.

Please let me know your thoughts on this battle plan.

Looks like a starting point.

As DW mentions, the casters are more mobile. So if someone gets around the front and threatens the casters, they should do the movement to get behind Dalkk instead of Dalkk moving forward.

I can do a lot of soft funneling, and see funneling as the second best thing I can do in general.

The best thing I can do is split enemies forces and give us a temporary numerical superiority by utilizing economy of force.

I suggest that we modify the marching order so that we naturally walk forward as a funnel. I suggest

S-----C
---E---

Based on the assumption that S & C are tougher and also more voulnerable in this configuration than E.

We could also try

---C---
S----E

This puts S & E a bit far away from one another, I think, and I don't think either is durable enough to be the point. So I prefer the first configuration.

I think we should comunicate about if we think we can win and make a plan specific to our foes before we do anything each encounter. This might be a bit slow, but I think it's best for now until we get the hang of things.

Wow lot's to absorb.

There's one thing about the gargoyles that I haven't seen mentioned in the discussion. Choon said if their eyes aren't destroyed they will regenerate. Is it worth taking them out now when we'll find them up and running again in a few days?

@Dalkk: I'm not elemental. I have a Draconic Blood Feat that let's me do 1d6 electricity damage on melee attacks, and acid splash is a cantrip. 1d3 damage. Probably not worth it.

Don't forget my skill points are non-existent since Vuzi's dumb. She has a 9 intelligence. She doesn't have Know Religion. She only has Know History because it's a background skill and she had points to spend in that. I'm happy to take Know Religion if/when she levels again.

Oh one other thing. I've spoken to people who have played Rappan Athuk. The players have told me, without giving me spoilers, that running away is a perfectly viable option. There will be rooms that we cannot handle right next to rooms that we can deal with.

I like the first formation, but based on how your AOEs and the battlefield layout it may be more beneficial to keep them on the same line. You and Simon should coordinate on this.

Also, Cain mentioned before that his PsiCrystal is a heck of a mini scout. I like the idea of this being used a radar sweep, followed by Simon to disable traps and such, followed by Cain himself. Between Elven and Dwarven secret door detection only the most difficult secrets will evade us.

Very good point about Caster Line being more mobile then I am! I bet our GM might even be willing to let the Caster Line and Support line all take 5ft steps backward/forward to switch places as long as it's all on the same round.

If we feel an Attack from behind is not likely, a 4 person line of Melee in the front and 3 person line of casters behind would be pretty sweet too.

Splitting the Enemy is useful, but I think it's more useful separating north from south as opposed to east from west. I'm hoping that the crowding will keep the front line small too. Of course, line splitting may have some crossover with the funnel too. You'll have to remind us of course of anything we shouldn't do. If you've webbed a group, I want to make sure I don't undo that by dropping a fire based bomb in that area. I'm sure we will all try to check ahead of time as well, but if anyone has a thing that could be undone through friendly fire we should make a policy of trying to undo that.

Wow lot's to absorb.

There's one thing about the gargoyles that I haven't seen mentioned in the discussion. Choon said if their eyes aren't destroyed they will regenerate. Is it worth taking them out now when we'll find them up and running again in a few days?

@Dalkk: I'm not elemental. I have a Draconic Blood Feat that let's me do 1d6 electricity damage on melee attacks, and acid splash is a cantrip. 1d3 damage. Probably not worth it.

Don't forget my skill points are non-existent since Vuzi's dumb. She has a 9 intelligence. She doesn't have Know Religion. She only has Know History because it's a background skill and she had points to spend in that. I'm happy to take Know Religion if/when she levels again.

Oh one other thing. I've spoken to people who have played Rappan Athuk. The players have told me, without giving me spoilers, that running away is a perfectly viable option. There will be rooms that we cannot handle right next to rooms that we can deal with.

Maglin has +14 Religious Knowledge and everything but Psionics. Thrune has +12 Psionics Knowledge. Knowledge religion wouldn't hurt for a backup. I just remembered when I saw your class that you are Oracle, Not Paladin.. do you have Detect Evil as an At Will like they do? I know it's not a stretch to guess that everything in here is evil, but I'd like to be sure before using up precious Evil Fighting resources.

That's good to know that running is considered viable by more than one.

For the gargoyles... I actually wouldn't mind feedback from The Choon on this one. I see a lot of cheese in attacking the GM weakened Gargoyles now... but I totally forgot that they resurrected. Because of all he did to make us not TPK the first fight I'd like to respect his feelings regarding taking advantage of his generosity vs fighting fair when we may be weakened on the way out. Of course we'd be stronger in theory by then too.

-Edit-
I have minor Alchemical Solutions for Elemental offense/defense but am not prepared at the moment for much. Anyone have any ideas here? Does 1 person want to step up and push elemental.. or do we divide it up? Like 1 person takes fire, 1 person takes acid, etc. Or do we just manage without it.

Vuzi Ognok wrote:

I just remembered when I saw your class that you are Oracle, Not Paladin.. do you have Detect Evil as an At Will like they do? I know it's not a stretch to guess that everything in here is evil, but I'd like to be sure before using up precious Evil Fighting resources.

No detect evil currently. I can take it though. It's on my spell list. I have protection from Evil and align weapon currently on my known spells list.

I'm almost positive everything down here is going to be evil, but that means they won't be be just to mess with us.

My vote is move on from the entrance, and deal with the gargoyles when and if we have to on the way out.

Can you take it in a way that is at Will? As a 0 level spell sort of thing? It would be lame to have to lose a spell for it, but being able to know when we walk in if those candles have an evil aura for example would help us.

Would detect undead tell you if the tomb 1) has dead in it 2) If it does, is it the kind that can move

I agree re: Gargoyles

Actually I have +14 knowledge psionics as well. Basically my thinking was that if I had all but one knowledge I'd be a failure as a human being, so I went with all of them instead.

I don't plan to actually level up lots of them, I just get a huge initial bonus for having a high int and being a mindchemist.

I second the suggestion to grab detect evil at the earliest opportunity.

I can do some fire damage with flaming sphere, but that's not one I'm currently planning on prepping. At level five I suddenly get a bunch more spells per day, and then I can prep the wombo combo of flaming sphere and pyrotechnics, which seems fine. The player's guide mentioned fire as a good thing to have.

Seems like cheating to kill the gargoyles. Plus I like the idea of being trapped.

Currently I have web and grease as control spells prepared. Typically web is going to block an entire hallway, so I'm guessing it'll more often split the enemy along a line parallel to our front instead of perpendicular. I think I'm going to have to post once in the discussion thread and then in gameplay only once we're all on board with what the spell will do. Grease is much simpler, and will probably mainly be used to prevent flanking, since the concave front seems vulnerable to being flanked.

How much healing do we need? I think I'm going to make 1 extract of CLW right now, unless someone suggests otherwise.