Clebsch GM Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path

Game Master Clebsch73

Aelith has no buffs that would alter their stats like that, so there's no worry there.

Took some time to fill out some of those stats in the header, very few of Anarya's spells messed with those.

I will also endeavor to remember to use past tense and split up hit and damage rolls in the future.

I can do past tense, no worries.

Guillame's statblock in his profile is shown with bloodrage off. Technically, urban bloodrage gives him more than one option for bloodrage, but in practice he's only really ever going to put the whole bonus into dexterity, so I'm okay with changing it to show bloodrage as on by default.

I'll also change his header so the bloodrage stats are first and the non-bloodrage stats are in parentheses, for consistency.

Thanks. The header stats don't matter much when not in melee, so don't worry about including non-raging stats there. I can look at the profile if a save or something else has to be made outside of melee.

Aelith has no buffs that would alter their stats like that, so there's no worry there.

Took some time to fill out some of those stats in the header, very few of Anarya's spells messed with those.

I will also endeavor to remember to use past tense and split up hit and damage rolls in the future.

Thanks.

Unless Anarya or Ellena have changed their minds about posting in past tense, let's henceforth try to remember to make posts in past tense. Since we are all probably playing other games that use present tense, don't worry if you forget about this request. I often find I've posted in present tense and need to edit to change things to past. That's why I always proofread my posts, something I encourage everyone to do.

If I or any of you forget the past tense thing, it's not a big deal. I just think it gives the posts a more literary feel.

I assumed that most fiction authors use past tense, but then I noticed that one of my favorite authors, Neal Stephenson usually writes in present tense, at least in two of his books, Snow Crash and Cryptonomicron.

Just processing the first round actions of your enemies. Looking at Guillame's profile, his AC when in bloodrage is as follows:

AC 28, touch 18, flat-footed 20 (+8 armor, +8 dex, +2 natural)

Without Bloodrage Bonuses
26, touch 16

That looks like it takes into account the Dex bonus from Bloodrage. You also said he was hasted and blurred while in bloodrage. Haste should add a +1 dodge bonus to AC. It does not look as if that was factored in, so until contradicted, I'm assuming the Bloodrage AC is

AC 29, touch 19, flat-footed 20 (+8 armor, +8 dex, +2 natural, +1 dodge)

If this is correct, adjust the profile and header to reflect it. Thanks.

Edit: I just noticed something. Guillame does not have any armor listed in his gear. Where is the +8 Armor bonus coming from in this AC listing? I see he has the mage armor spell, but that usually only gives +4 armor bonus.

It appears the armor bonus comes from the Enduring Armor Mythic Path ability. That says the bonus is +3 plus the mythic tier (=3). So it seems this should be +6. Where is the other +2 armor bonus coming from?

Edit 2 I notice the same thing on Aelith's profile. Enduring armor is +3 + mythic level (3) so it seems that should be +6 Armor. I assume there is something else that accounts for the extra 2 points, but I'll need you to point it out.

Thank you for reminding me of the +1 dodge bonus from haste, I did in fact fail to account for that.

The extra 2 points are coming from Mythic Paragon increasing my effective tier for the purposes of Enduring Armor.

Thanks. That makes sense. I assume Aelith has a similar boost.

This is one challenge of being the GM or such a high level group. It is hard to keep track over everything. I'm generally not checking up on everything in a PC build, but I happened to notice this because of how I narrate attack misses. I use the result of a melee attack that misses factored against the Touch AC first, so see if contact was made, and then if the result beats the Touch AC, I assume some element of the armor was responsible for the hit missing. It's just a color element.

I also need to get familiar with the new PCs and the new abilities of Anarya and Ellena.

Anarya is mostly the same character, with a couple tweaks to her build/ability scores. She's dropped 2 levels of Oracle and replaced them with 2 levels of Holy Vindicator, a more martial prestige class which focuses on new uses for channel energy. She's spent two of her feats to mitigate the prestige class's slower spellcasting progression, since I did not want to fall behind as our only primary caster.

The biggest two changes to Anarya's build are Mythic Channel Smite and Vindicator's Shield.

- Mythic Channel Smite: Anarya can spend a swift action to expend a use of channel energy to enhance a melee attack. This grants her a +1 bonus per die of her channel (+7), and delivers the effect of the harmful channel to the target struck. If the attack misses, she can spend mythic power to channel energy as a free action.

- Vindicator's Shield: Anarya can spend a standard action to expend a use of channel energy to grant herself a sacred bonus to AC equal to the number of dice in her channel (+7). This lasts 24 hours, but ends if she is struck with an attack roll. So her AC is 35 at the start of a fight, but if she gets hit once, it drops down to 28.

She can also spend a standard action to inflict bleed damage on herself for a small bonus to various rolls, but until she gets to a higher level, that won't be particularly efficient so I'm unlikely to do so very frequently.

Also, if anyone would like to see Anarya's new sword Truthwatcher in action, I've posted a new art commission in the Discord!

My luck on the rolls so far has been rather bleh. Yet another one on an attack roll this round, and the attack that hit rolled abysmal Sneak Attack damage.

Oh, I had forgotten to update Anarya's Touched by Divinity trait with her new spell-like abilities. I've updated her stats accordingly, so she is now running with shield of faith, barkskin, and heroism.

I've updated her stats/buffs with those bonuses, though if you'd like I can leave those off for this battle since I had forgotten about them!

My posting time got eaten up spending time with unexpected visitors from out of town this morning. My next chance to post will be this evening or the next morning.

Breakdown on the Shadowdancer's Shadow:

The ability states that the Shadowdancer can "summon a Shadow, an undead shade." It uses the typical Shadow stat block, with some notable exceptions:

1. It shares the Shadowdancer's Alignment
2. It cannot create spawn
3. It gets +4 to its will save Vs Channel Energy to resist Positive Energy damage, and cannot be turned or commanded
4. It can communicate with its Shadowdancer
5. Its hit point total is half that of its Shadowdancer (so 71/2= 35)
6. It uses its Shadowdancer's BAB and Base Saves

As the Summon Shadow ability also mentions a save against a negative level AND the inability to replace the Shadow for 30 days should it be destroyed or dismissed, the Shadow isn't meant to be summoned and dismissed on a whim. It's a constant companion. Malnolu "Momma" Maernvalsa stays in Aelith's shadow (Mechanically floating incorporeal through the floor in the space beneath Aelith) until it's time to act.

I was just going to make her turns when I made a post for Aelith, since any time the Shadow is going to act, she's going to coordinate with Aelith anyway. She should technically get her own spot in initiative, if you want to roll for her. She has a +1 initiative modifier. I should have discussed the plan with you ahead of time. Regardless, the plan going forward would be for her to ready/delay to line up her actions with Aelith.

As a summoned creature, you get to control it (Assuming it is like most summoned creatures and will attempt to do what you want it to do) and make the rolls for it. I was not sure if you were referring to "Mama".

Anything I should know about your two companions in spirit, from a game mechanical perspective?

That should be everything mechanical about "Momma" that needs to be shared. "Poppa" is simply a Legendary Item from Mythic Tiers with the Intelligent, Undetectable, and Upgradable traits, giving it mental stats, the ability to speak, the same alignment as Aelith, passively making Aelith undetectable while they're invisible, and the ability to spend gold in a ritual to increase its enhancement bonus. Depending on interpretation, said ritual could grant it new enhancements like Bane or Flaming, but it definitely allows for increasing the +1 bonus to hit and damage.

Thanks. Does Aelith summon Mama just when needed in battle, as here, or is Mama in some sense always present? I got the latter impression from the sense that Aelith is constantly receiving communications from Mama. When summoned, how long is Mama able to remain?

Aelith: when you get a chance could you make up a complete set of stats for Mama? Either put it under a spoiler on their profile or create a separate profile for Mama. Thanks.

Just got back from LARP, much farther away than usual this time, and the 9-hour drive home took a huge toll on me. Gonna be at least a day or so before I can read/post anything.

I had a great time out there. Hope everyone's doing well!

Glad you had a good time. I'll have to look into attending this. What is the full title of the event?

Glad you had a good time. I'll have to look into attending this. What is the full title of the event?

It was a Star Wars: The Old Republic LARP called The Forgotten Empire, run for charity. There's four games a year, run during the summer months, and this was the final game of 2022.

More info can be found here!

On the topic of Life Link/Shield Other, I had done the math wrong because of how sleep deprived/exhausted I was, even after a day of rest. When the damage is split for Shield Other, if the total amount is odd, Anarya takes the extra 1 damage for her ally.

...but it's probably not worth worrying about this round because Anarya is likely about to heal it all away shortly anyway, heh.

Sorry for the delays, but I will have to wait until after work today to get you a write up of Momma's stats, as well as an IC post.

For now, Momma is always around, dismissing her would mean risking negative levels and bars her from being summoned again for a full month. When she's not needed to help in combat or provide look out, she floats in the ground immediately under Aelith's space and follows them. Aelith and Momma can communicate with each other, but it's verbal on Aelith's part and little more than ominous whispers from Momma as far as anyone else can hear.

Aelith's page has a spoiler section for Momma now, and I have made a post! With four attack rolls all under 5 on the dice. At least Momma's attacks target touch.

20 didn't confirm on a touch attack?

I'm not yet familiar enough with Guillame's character to remember that the magic projectiles are touch attacks, so it will help to include that in the attack roll info. I'll have to ret-con some things depending on how the critical damage changes things.

While it is brilliant use of the game mechanics to create a character which can dish out multiple touch attacks with a more or less permanently hasted character each doing 12 to 17 damage of a sort that is generally not covered by DR, this could prove to be unbalancing.

We'll see how things play out at first. I may have to beef up the NPCs considerably, either giving them more hit points or something else that may make battles more balanced.

If a creature has SR, would Guillame have to overcome SR? If so, would he have to do it for each attack? Is there anything else you are aware of that would make the attacks less likely to hit 75% of the time other than high dex to make touch AC higher?

I'm not trying to hamstring the character, just wanting melees to be as exciting as possible.

One other clarification on Guillame's weapon. Is there any limit to how many times he can use this ability?

I'll be away at LARP today but should be able to post tomorrow.

Understandable, I should have mentioned touch again, since we're so new.

The way Guillame's ability works is that he can shoot these spell cartridges whenever he's under the effect of arcane strike, and he gets the benefit of arcane strike whenever he's bloodraging. If he runs out of bloodrage rounds, well, you can probably guess that he's much much weaker.

It hits against touch AC and does x4 critical damage because it is still a weapon attack from a pistol. This is also why SR doesn't apply.

His build is incredibly feat-heavy, to the point where I expect him to take precise shot at 17th level. This means the -4 penalty for shooting into melee will just about always be relevant, and that's in addition to enemies getting soft cover if his firing angle passes through another creature's square. And of course, he provokes AoOs by firing.

Honestly, I'm not surprised you're concerned. Maybe we wait and see how he does against more dexterous opponents before we decide on anything concrete?

It is good for the group to have a good ranged attack master, since one of the departing PCs filled that role well.

Are there any forms of DR that are effective against the ranged attacks?

So, I went on a bit of a dive just now to figure that one out! It's obviously not usually the case that a weapon attack could deal force damage, so I had to cross reference a few things to be sure.

Force is not a type of energy damage, meaning it does not automatically bypass all forms of DR. This is reinforced by the fact that the spell cartridges feat itself mentions that it counts as magic for the purposes of DR.

Since force damage is not bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing, it won't bypass any of those, nor can it be considered any special material like silver or cold iron (until the pistols have a high enough enhancement bonus, of course). It also won't pass alignment-based DR, or DR/Epic, and it will obviously never bypass DR/-.

I'm surprised to learn this, honestly, but it makes sense! My conclusion: The one and only DR Guillame can bypass currently is DR/Magic.

Thank you. Knowing how Pathfinder structures its rules, it probably took checks at many different places to be sure of all that. I'm less inclined now to think it an unbalancing feature. Lots of creatures have various kinds of DR at the levels we are dealing with now, so that will tend to balance the high likelihood of multiple hits each round.

Perhaps this was covered before, but I'll ask again rather than go hunting through old posts. Is force armor, such as Mage Armor or the Mythic force armor employed by Aelith and Guillame, included in the Touch AC vs. this weapon?

I looked at the section on touch attacks and it says armor does not affect it, which presumably would include force armor. Force armor does, however, block an incorporeal touch attack, for what its worth.

Most instances where a touch attack is used, the purpose of the touch is to deliver some magic effect and so physical contact is all that is needed, for example, Ray of Frost or alchemist's fire. A projectile doing force damage could be that sort of thing; the magic projectile need only make contact and the magic then goes directly into the target so armor, force armor included, would not affect it.

Seems to be a corner rule, so I'm inclined to interpret in the PC's favor and rule that force armor does not get included in the Touch AC in this case. What is your take on it?

Force armor would not apply to these touch attacks. They're touch because they're bullets, not because they're force. If he was firing actual metal slugs, it would still bypass Mage Armor.

I'm inclined to disagree with the conclusion that DR applies to force bullets. Force is an energy type, and DR does not protect against energy damage.

The Spell Cartridges feat does say it counts as Magic for the purpose of Damage Reduction, but I think that was just an unnecessary and irrelevant inclusion. Not all of these feats are written with a perfect understanding of other rules, so I think it just was a mistake.

It is my understanding that when Guillame fires his gun and force missiles come out, they are pure magic, not magic connected to a ball or bullet. I assume this since he does not seem to need to reload and can fire it many times a round.

The rule that makes a gun attack a ranged touch attack only applies when the target is within the first range increment. The implication is at close range, the bullets have such velocity, energy, and momentum, that they push through conventional armor and force armor alike.

Now if these force projectiles have no mass, the gun is just an aiming mechanism, and I see no reason why regular armor does not protect the same as for any other force weapon.

There are several spells that create a force weapon which uses regular melee attack rolls to establish if the attack hits. Spiritual Weapon, Spiritual Ally, and Force sword are three good examples.

They get no special benefit with regard to AC of the target.
They are not affected by DR. (Spiritual Weapon, for example, says "It strikes as a spell, not as a weapon, so for example, it can damage creatures that have damage reduction." (We could argue if the gun force attacks are made as a weapon or a spell.)
They are subject to SR. The spells generally require an SR on the first hit. If it succeeds then all subsequent attacks are unaffected by SR but if the first attempt fails, the spell fails.

We could haggle whether subsequent attacks need to overcome SR if the first attack failed to over come SR, since this is not the same as a spell with a duration, like spiritual weapon. But for economy I'd be inclined to say that if SR protects the first attack, it protects for all for the duration of the rage episode. The gun could be directed at other targets with SR and the process would reset.

This discussion should not be holding up the gameplay events. The action is in the PC's court at present and I expect you can mop up this crew before the end of the round. I just know these issues are going to come up and I want to clarify things while the fate of a single attack does not hang in the balance of the GM decision.

Sorry about the wait! I wasn't intending this to hold up anything, I've just been very scatter-brained this week since I've got a job interview coming up and had a lot to distract me.

As far as the force bullets are concerned, they're not spells and wouldn't be affected by SR any more than Anarya's channel energy or a dragon's breath weapon would, as they don't have a caster level.

If the sheer damage output is a balance concern, I think that treating them like regular bullets w/ touch attacks (just ones made of force instead of steel) and having DR apply to them (as mentioned in the Spell Cartridges feat) would make for enough of a balancing factor.

The force bullets are not the result of casting a spell, but it seems they should function in melee as other force weapons generated by spells. That is why I looked at spells that produce weapons which are made of force but require an attack roll to hit. They are not affected by DR. That leaves whether they get the gun's benefit of only needing to hit Touch AC at normal range.

Since SR only works against spells and Spell-like abilities, I see the point that the gun attacks are not subject to SR.

I still am on the fence about granting the force bullets the benefit of only having to beat the Touch AC when fired at normal range. Do force bullets have mass? Are they given high velocity by the extraordinary power of black powder exploding behind them? Those two features together give the rationale for why a regular firearm bypasses normal armor and similar bonuses. Even plate armor metal can be punctured by a high velocity, high momentum bullet.

I can see them having mass, since even a force sword would have to have weight and inertia to function as most weapons do. It's the high velocity part I'm not sure of since they don't actually require black-powder to work. It's magic, so we could say it does or say it doesn't.

Another way to look at it: does the gun recoil when firing force bullets? If it does, then there is some kind of Newton's 3rd law exchange of forces.

I'm a physicist, so that colors how I interpret this. Maybe I'll post a question on a Paizo forum to see what others think.

For now, we'll leave the Touch AC feature in place and see how it goes.

The templars you are fighting are not particularly high CR (5), but six of them together make it a CR 10 encounter. There are a couple more CR 9-10, encounters to go, so we'll see how it goes.

I think if anything is overpowered, it is the mythic benefits that cause that. I'll probably just have to adjust the hit points of standard enemies to balance things out and may add the advanced template in some cases. Since there are just 4 PCs now instead of six, that will bring down the power levels some. But if enemies of similar CR to the character level tend to get munched in a few rounds with the PCs taking few serious hits, that may signal a need to make adjustments. It's not a big deal so long as everyone's having fun. I just don't want battles to be over so quickly, it takes some of the fun away, like shooting fish in a barrel.

@Anarya's player: good luck on the job hunt!

Thanks for the good luck, which apparently had GREAT EFFECT because the interviewer loved me and I'm almost certainly getting a followup interview.

This is huge for me. I haven't worked in a while, and this would be a significant leap upwards in my career path despite the gap in my resume. I'd basically be taking my boss's boss's job at a different company.

If I get this, it's going to change my life. To a massive degree.

Yes, super good luck on getting the gig, Anarya!

In a game using a modified version of 5E D&D, I created a character with a number of luck related feats and special abilities. Perhaps that luck is infectious. Anyway, I hope it continues through the process.

The next three days are going to busy with a variety of tasks that will interrupt my usual posting times. I'm getting a new computer and remodeling the room where I keep the computer. In addition to my school duties, I have a dentists appointment Thursday. I'll try to post sometime in the next few days, but it will not likely be every day.

I did manage to get a post to the gameplay thread over the weekend, but it apparently got eaten by the Paizo goblins. I'll have to repost.

Yesssssssss, just nailed another job interview! And I've got a follow-up from the last one coming soon. This has been a great couple weeks!

Kickass! The d20 is coming up strong for you!

So, to be clear, is there now an open secret passage that we can enter?

Yes.

I have very exciting news! I got the job! :D

I have unexciting news too, Guillaume has Covid and seems to be in recovery but may be another few days before he's able to respond.

Sorry for disappearing for a few days there. I tested positive for COVID on Friday and I was way too miserable to think about writing a post. Gonna try and get get one in.

Congrats Anarya’s player!

Hope Guillame has mild symptoms at worst!

Thanks for your concern. Saturday and Sunday were the worst of it, with me pretty much stuck in bed the whole time, but it's only taken a few days for me to start feeling like myself again, and I was well taken care of.

Today I feel mostly alright, with remaining symptoms being mild and likely to fade soon. I've had all my antibiotics, and I'm still keeping up with my fluid intake as best as possible, but I'd say I'm 90% of the way through it now.

The weirdest thing, though, is you'll never guess what my first symptom was. It was hiccups, of all things. I obviously didn't think much of that at first, but after hours of hiccups on Thursday and waking up Friday with very noticeable flu symptoms and the hiccups not having gone away, I had to at least do a Google search, and that's how I found out that hiccups are a very rare symptom of COVID. I decided to go to the hospital because breathing was a little painful, which is where I got the test and official confirmation.

Naturally, I'm looking forward to leaving this all in the past!

@Anarya: Congrats on the job!
@Guillame: sorry to hear of your illness and hope you are better soon.

Under the spoiler is some advice on getting vaccinated. If you don't want to venture into politics here, ignore it. I don't want to initiate a back-and-forth in the discussion page about controversial political positions.

I'm feeling a bit under the weather at the moment. I should be able to post but my pace may slow down.

It might be RL delays for everyone, but I just wanted to remind all that I'm waiting for posts from the players to describe where you all go next. I'm assuming you'll explore the other rooms at the NE and NW corners of the sanctum. You can also make some perception checks if you want to examine the main sanctum area with detect magic. There are also things that might be caught with a perception check or a knowledge check if you want to take a turn to look around.

Or you can make haste, pun intended, while you can to look in the other rooms for hiding enemies or stashed treasure.

Hope everyone has a great weekend coming up. Leaves are changing color here in Virginia and the weather has been mild.

I'll try to get a post up soon. It is the start of a new term and the administration changed the curriculum for the class somewhat, so I'm busy reviewing the new versions of the assignments and writing some new assignments. Once past this initial stuff, I should have more time to post compared to the past, as there are fewer assignments to grade, and one of the assignments is graded by software.