DMDM's Wrath of the Righteous (Inactive)

Game Master Douglas Muir 406

If we don't see the dragon, I'll be cool with that as a player. If we do, that's awesome, but based on my (admittedly limited) experience into Wrath of the Righteous, if Armasse Fest is coming up, we'll be seeing her very soon...

Takka's chief concern at this point is finding someone with some degree of authority to tell his fear to. Even though in his dream, the voice (which I think may have been the Wardstone itself, calling that right now!) said the Wardstone would soon be fixed, that crack has Takka worried - granted, that whole dream has him confused and questioning himself, but if he can alert someone to it, he'll feel better. He wants to make sure somebody knows that can actually do something.

At this point, that may be either Irabeth (she seems like the most logical choice, since she seems friendly towards him and is commander of the Eagle Watch, so she could feasibly do something about it) or someone else (maybe even Kir, though he seems a bit too out of it to concentrate... such a crybaby, you'd think he'd had his skull pierced by some locust demon-oh wait...) Basically, if he can get someone to look into it, he'll feel better.

After that, he'll probably try to find Constantine and the others so he can inform them too... assuming nothing Bad(tm) happens to them before such time...

I am going to post up a dream sequence to cover the night and hopefully that will let this part wrap up without any more trouble....

Balek is going to cach up on the local Sarkoran community, ask everyone else to keep an eye out for Sir Constance (a local boy), and ask if anyone knows anything about kobolds.

Would it be possible to switch from iconoclast to spellbreacker when the retraining time comes(it fits the miko idea better and is more useful)

May have to wait on posting for a bit -- just got back from a long trip, and am more exhausted than I planned on being.

A general note on retraining: if you want to go this route, an opportunity will arise soon in-game. Consider carefully what you want to do. Feel free to post here on the discussion thread.

Some classes require particular resources -- mounts, weapons, what have you. I'm fine with putting those resources in your path in-game, within reason. For instance, if Takka remains a cavalier, he will soon get a chance to pick up another mount. If you need a particular sort of weapon, you might encounter an enemy who wields it. And so forth. Note again the "within reason" part.

I think SCG will stay pretty much as is, until we level up.

I think I will make Takka go into Oracle, though I can't decide between the Battle or Flames mystery, so I'll pose it to the group to decide which would be better.

If Takka takes the Battle mystery, he'll be more of a support/buffing/healing role, with some light reach combat support. If he goes with Flames, he'll be more of a blaster type with a focus on fire spells (like Firebelly - gotta have that fire breath!), along with some healing and ranged combat.

Which would you guys find more handy? Blasting or buffing?

I think we need as much close combat people as we can get, we only have SCG for melee, Balek and Haruka prefer ranged combat and Osei is a wizard.

I can also consider focusing on conjurations (not the specialization, necessarily) to help with melee. I planned to take feats like Augment Summoning, Summon Good Monster, and Sacred Summons (once I go Magaambyan Arcanist and have an aura).

We did lose our bard, so the party buffing melee-er might be great to have. Another option at 7th level is Leadership, to fill out our melee if needed.

Me? Ranged combat cleric. I might throw a few summons around, but clerics have too few feats to do everything at once the way some classes can. :)

Oh, and buff spells. Let's not forget buff spells.

I can see the benefits either way.

However, looking at feat progression and given the direction I've started taking Osei, it might make more sense to go Loremaster (or just straight up wizard) instead of Magaambyan Arcanist. Would require a small amount of retrining. Ahh, so many build choices.

I very much like the flavor of the MA, but I'm not really sure how he would obtain a druidic/good-themed wizard training in the Worldwound/planar travel. Perhaps my imagination is limited at this point. Yes, the holiness aspect of MA makes sense if he's in contact with many divine influences, but the druidic aspect and ancient methods handed down at the actual school in the Mwangi Expanse don't mesh too well.

Thoughts?

Druids? Sarkorans are your friends.

Finding a book in the library written by a Magaambyan Arcanist might work. Or just maybe there are some old priests of Erastil who know something.... ;)

As far as Takka's future, I have generally found that blasting can be fun, but it works better against lots of lower-range opponents (fireball doesn't do d6*level damage, it does d6*level*(number of targets) damage!). Buffing works very well to make combat guys tougher. On the other hand, right now we have two full arcane casters (Balek and Osei) so we're not likely to be short of buffs. Bottom line: do whatever you think will be most fun, it'll be helpful either way.

How difficult would it be for Haruka to become lawful neutral? (to take levels as zen-archer)

I am discovering as I go that Balek has a rich interior dialogue with himself that is seldom expressed on the surface... probably the result of active repression while growing up during and after the Third Crusade.

Getting it drawn out of him... that might be difficult.

Balek just needs some more of that Sarkorian applejack to loosen his tongue.

If you can find a few dozen bottles of it, that might work. ;)

I'll start working on that binding spell of a noble djinn to wish for an unlimited supply of the stuff. Reasonable usage of reality alteration, yes?

I am enjoying Balek's use of pithy little sayings, most of them seem right on for his character......

My favorite one is...

"For now, make sure you eat. Hunger drives many bad decisions."

Oh, good. I was hoping to convey an Erastilian voice there.

And, no, we don't have a short list of rules -- ten thousand years of oral tradition produces a list of mental tools for different situations, limited only by the capacity of memory to retin them. Something like this.

Okay, twenty-odd posts in 90 minutes. Bedtime here! Post what you're going to do, chat amongst yourselves.

Yeah, all, so ... safe places? Cathedral/temple? A temple (hallowed ground) might be a good start, but it's also a beacon crying out for destruction.

Walls of Air a Barbara Hambley reference?

Walls of Air a Barbara Hambley reference?

Good catch.

I suspected crazy molly to be more than a crazy lady (wanted to sense motive her) but would never have expected a dragon.(expected either a demon infiltrator or some kind of angel). Also WOW (great work Douglas (are you a fantasy author? If you aren't then you should think about becoming one))

Haruka will try to help Laurine, afterwards she will take out her bow and shoot at anything coming too close.

I was certain at least three references were to the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant....by Stephen R. Donaldson......

I was certain at least three references were to the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant....by Stephen R. Donaldson......

You mean a whiner given a deadly power?

Yeah, same here. I suspected Molly might have been maybe an agent of hers or something similar (you know how fantasy is, if you see a crazy old kindly lady, she's probably hiding some kind of kickass power), but not Terendelev herself. Awesome!

Takka's kinda battling an emotional tidal wave at the moment (his fears were confirmed, the kind old lady turned out the be Terendelev herself, freakin' demons all over the place), so he's just following along and babbling incoherently.

...., so he's just following along and babbling incoherently.

Sounds like an oracle to me!

Hambly and Donaldson: nice combination, have read both lots of times, but find both of them rather dark. Then again, this is a campaign against evil in its darkest hues... I'm going to enjoy playing "spot the reference" with this group, I think.

We need to get Felicia and the Alderman under control, and then run for safety. Not sure where it might be, if the Wardstone is broken. Balek grew up here, but doesn't really know much about things outside the local Sarkoran community.

Whatever we do, we mustn't split the party.

I'm tempted to bless everyone right now, but I may want to save it for a tight moment. Thoughts?

Hambly and Donaldson: nice combination, have read both lots of times, but find both of them rather dark. Then again, this is a campaign against evil in its darkest hues... I'm going to enjoy playing "spot the reference" with this group, I think.

Whatever we do, we mustn't split the party.

I'm tempted to bless everyone right now, but I may want to save it for a tight moment. Thoughts?

I also like the hidden references.

Never split the party!

Same with my shield spell it only lasts a minute and might need it more later....I did it too early at the safe house.....

Hopefully that perception check found an opening into the tunnels that misspent youth miscreants might know and be able to escape through.....

"multiplex of wing and eye" is from Chesterton's 'Lepanto'. The most bombastic battle poem in the English language,and surprisingly effective at soothing cranky babies to sleep.

Stone in Balrog's hand=Illearth Stone from Donaldson

Stone in Balrog's hand=Illearth Stone from Donaldson

Called that one....

I only made it to book 8...

It can't be the Illearth Stone: there aren't enough coruscating viridian aureoles raving "Don't touch me" and emanating clenched incarnadine flickers from it.

;)

It can't be the Illearth Stone: there aren't enough coruscating viridian aureoles raving "Don't touch me" and emanating clenched incarnadine flickers from it.

;)

Yeah ol 9 fingers is getting closer and closer to Balek half-hand.... ; )

I won't really start to worry until white gold rings start turning up :)

*sigh* You know, RNG, I could REALLY use a good roll here! Perhaps a nat 20 for a change? To balance out poor Takka's crappy luck?!

Don't worry Takka, you just save those natural 20s for something useful. Like catching pouches flung at you by tyrannical devil-worshippers! You know, the important things.

BTW, the preview for Pathfinder Unchained looks pretty great. If, you know, you are into more viable/balanced classes.

The biggest thing I see out of that is that monks are finally full BAB! Finally! I always thought it was kinda weird that they were a predominantly martial class, and yet they don't have a full BAB. A d8 HD, I can kinda see, since they're supposed to be about not getting hit in the first place, but 3/4 BAB?

Anyways, AWESOME!

Agreed. I have a monk character from 2nd Ed. I would like to rebirth into Golarion at some point. Unchained might be the prime opportunity to do it.

I'd like to see the rogue not suck. The rogue was weakish to begin with, and has long since been surpassed by other classes; in current PF, there's almost nothing a rogue does that can't be done better by a ninja, investigator, or vivisectionist. But, dammit, sometimes I don't *want* a stupid vivisectionist; I want a rogue.

They also appear to be cleaning up some of the dumber corners of PF. Like, those who-would-ever-take-that barbarian powers? Raging Climb now gives you an actual Climb speed. Long overdue.

Yes - rogue is one of the classes that has so much flavor and potential, but if you are ineffectual or outshone in potentially every action, it's super frustrating.

Part of it is that the focus of the game changed from sometimes avoiding combat/traps/whatever to always engaging in it -- and meanwhile other classes (bard and ranger, then the others Doug names) were getting lots of noncombat stuff so the rogue was getting squeezed from both ends.

I too would like the rogue to not suck, but some of it involves the types of adventures people are playing.

I am also a fan of Kirthfinder. Though at times it makes my head hurt.....

Part of it is that the focus of the game changed from sometimes avoiding combat/traps/whatever to always engaging in it -- and meanwhile other classes (bard and ranger, then the others Doug names) were getting lots of noncombat stuff so the rogue was getting squeezed from both ends.

If there's one element of classic D&D that PF has not really engaged with, it's traps. Most PF traps feel pro forma and tacked on because, you know, D&D adventures are supposed to have a trap or two. But there's rarely a sense of real menace, and most of them don't really engage the players very effectively.

To be fair to the PF folks, traps are hard, and good interesting traps are *really* hard. But they've kind of shied away from the whole issue. And, deliberately or not, they've pointed players in that direction -- look how many rogue archetypes involve swapping out Trapfinding. The implicit message here is "This thing is useless; trade it for something cool."

The rogue also suffers from being a skill monkey when the skill system is the one part of PF that most badly needs a revamping and upgrade. And, as you say, PF modules and APs haven't generally played to the rogue's strengths. PF has never done much with picking pockets -- sorry, "sleight of hand". Locks can be dealt with by a simple bit of magic. Face skills? You want a bard for that. Doesn't leave much for the rogue except stealth, and once the party is high enough level to spam Invisibility that's kind of pointless too.

Anyway. Here's hoping they fix it in the new thing.

Plus invisibility at higher levels gets shanked by stuff like Sense Heartbeat/Blood/Tremorsense and other insane stuff

Not sure who's awake....I do know 2 hit points ain't much......