DM Dan E's Legacy of Fire: Chapter 3 The Jackal's Price

Game Master Dan E

That's just because I absorbed all of their damage output... :)

Well I took a full attack from one but it was a total miss if I recall :). Sadly, Sajan probably doesn't have the HP left to survive a full attack from his next contestant. Then again, she may not have the HP to survive his either...

P.S- Khalid doesn't your custom feat make your fire bolt awesome VS these creatures (and you'd be attacking touch AC)?

It would be 1d8+5 damage, granted vs. touch AC. Tempest on the other hand, while still under hast for this round is two attacks that do 1d6+5 + (1d6)x1.5 cold.

Linah, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I can totally see how it makes sense from Nuveril's point of view but I can't help but be amused at Nuveril damning the failure to kill the weak mephit but being unhappy at fighting the lethal salamander.

Oh and this is going back a bit and doesn't matter but how was Grall firing two arrows a turn?

Acrobatics rolls the wrong way round unfortunately.

You don't know how tempted I was to erase the meaningless jump check since she couldn't fail it and just do like Khalid and post the bonus. Complete waste of a good roll. :P

Your honesty will be rewarded with good dice karma I'm sure!

Or at least a swift and fiery death. :P

In this life or the next :)

If Sajan, engine of salamander destruction, can avoid the 1s and stay up another round I think your looking good.

One of Nuveril's timely hammer crits wouldn't hurt either.

Dan loves high rolling on Sajan ..

I think love is a little strong. Relish? Still a bit much. Enjoy? Somewhere around there.

She's probably better of just smacking something else next turn but critically she can see the defensive but doesn't get to know you used your ki.

Where'd you step to, AK, A 10? You're not going to draw her onto land when you all just persuaded Nuveril to go toe-to-toe. Wasn't staying out of range and drawing them onto firm ground Nuveril's strategy to begin with?

EDIT: Sajan needs to admit to himself what he's doing: stepping back and hoping the salamander attacks the women instead. ;)

I didn't look at a map as there wasn't one provided and I didn't want to scroll up for an older one. If theres no eligible square I trust Dan to make a decision for me.

If Sajan hadn't been on this island drawing her attack, I think Linah would be dead by now. Its all very well sitting safely on the north side of the map screaming about letting them come to us, but no good when half the party haven't arrived to that end safely yet.

Not trying to draw attacks to the women, but Nuveril hasn't been hit yet I think so it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world... I'm banking on the fact that Sajan's the only one to have done significant damage not once, but three times in the combat. I think i'm still going to be her target.

Yeah, I actually had to get out a pen and a scrap of paper to work out who was where before I made Nuveril's move. I was totally confused before that. I didn't realize Linah was in the line of fire either before the new update. If Thratnias were to come after Sajan in his new square, she'd take an AoO from Nuveril to do it. I considered staying behind Sajan and not getting threatened, but I was actually hoping he might try to grapple her and hold her there where we could swing at her without risking her ducking back under the lava.

And that 18 points of damage she just took from the AoO begs to differ with your assumption that she hasn't been hit yet. ;)

Thats just your rage HP really though isn't it, not your real HP :D.

Strongly considered a grapple but I thought i'd take advantage of haste while we still had it.

Good point on the haste. Rage hp, she has 3 more than Sajan. Real hp, she has 7 less. Although I think the real disparity is the fact that his AC is 11 better than hers. ;)

I moved him to A,10 which seems best based on instructions.

I figured after attacking Sajan, cleaving onto Khalid, and abandoning the hit and run, there was enough of her on the island/above the lava to warrant a pit. Since it's just an extra dimensional space I figured the surface of the lava would be as good as most other surfaces. The deck of the ship could be broken from below like the surface of the lava could be broken from below, presumably with the same unlisted results. From above though, they both go into a 20'x 10'x10' pit with stone sides.

Your call. I just like making you work for it though. :-)

Fair enough :)

I'm ruling that "surface" means something vaguely solid enough for you to create the pit opening on. It doesn't matter if its half an inch thick (the wooden deck example) but I don't think lava (or water) is enough. Plus I don't think we get that far but if you can create a pit in the lava I would just see the surrounding lava flowing in (sloped sides remember) allowing the salamander to just swim out.

I have no desire to change your ruling and realise our module must follow various tropes.
I am posting this because, by bizarre coincidence, I was linked to it on FaceBook an hour ago.

:-D avid

Falling into Lava

Obviously salamanders have a greater density than PC races if they can dive beneath the surface. ;)

Well, these ones are certainly pretty dense! :-D

Your fancy science has nothing on every movie featuring lava ever. I'll take Holywood over elitest, commie scientists any day.

Or possibly I'll go with that because otherwise the entire encounter doesn't make sense. Bend before the power of lava swimming salamanders laws of physics!!!

Sorry its 9:30am here and I got approximately two hours of sleep in the middle of a work all nighter. Lets just hope I don't TPK everyone and wreck the campaign before I come back down.

Note if I do another encounter like this (who am I kidding this is Legacy of Fire there will be more lava), I'll take the time to mark the safe and non-safe squares. I didn't appreciate at the outset how much confusion this would cause but thats probably because my "pieces" don't care.

If you look at one of the previous maps C10 is pretty lavary and as you say the salamander was swimming there. I'll treat this as a move to A,11 which doesn't end up disadvantaging you.

Sorry; was in a hurry before leaving the house this morning and didn't take the time to read your post carefully. As you say, the madu missed anyway. :)

Not a problem.

Think especially with the haste you guys will still carry the day but some heartbreaking rolls there (especially that 19 on Sajan with the secondary spear attack). At least I didn't crit.

Edit: Not to mention near max damage on Khalid.

not to mention that grall with a +15 to hit still hasn't hit yet this combat....

It has not been Grall's best combat but he's had a good run til this point. I'm still looking forward for some mano e mano action against the Carrion King.

You've got to let him live first... :-)

Bah, nothing can kill Grall...too many hit points...lol's :)

I wondered at the odds of Khalid not managing a 9 with two attacks.

Excellent apparently!

I wondered at the odds of Khalid not managing a 9 with two attacks.

Excellent apparently!

Of course...I burned all of my good rolls when the targets had disappeared....

What was that you were saying about honesty and dice karma? LIES!!!!!!

Now I'm raging....

Edit: Just realised Nuveril is going to have to trust Zeladiel to take care of the flamebrother if she doesn't do it herself. Horror!

Especially since he's the reason she was unable to fight effectively in the first place. >:|

EDIT: Not really mad at you, Pryllin, although this won't give Nuveril any more motivation to be Zeladiel's best friend. Just frustrating: I knew the good roll would go to the save. Another combat where Nuveril is able to make no contribution. At least she took damage without being able to deal any back and wasted rounds of rage. :P

EDIT again: If this were a RL game, I would totally be in the kitchen looking for something to eat now and telling someone else to roll my dice for the rest of the encounter and let me know what happens.

Thanks, dear Joana. I know you're not really mad at me. :-)
(That dice roller does need a good slap around, though.)

I'm thinking it's easier to play hostile relationships online because you have so much time to sit back, disassociate and be objective. At the table it's too easy to become personal because the negative emotions/comments are immediate and reactive.

I think Nuveril may become a puzzle to Zeladiel after resisting his haste. And everyone knows puzzles are only there to be solved. :-)

Heres Thratnias for those who are interested. Technically a CR7 although I think she was closer to an 8.

I did a lot of different versions for this encounter. Paizo flubbed the integration of the set piece with the rest of the AP so it was balanced for a level 4 party and thus I needed to make a lot changes.

An initial version had her with improved bulls rush and true strike and after thinking about it for a minute I realised I was being an ass. Punting someone into the lava was not only going to kill them but do it permanantly. A second had her with a long spear and combat reflexes and as the combat unfolded that would have been pretty nighmarish as well. I'm happy with how she ended up.

Oh and the barbarian flamebrother hiding in the pool and throwing mud at the rope was a suggestion of the module writer rather than me being mean :)

She doesn't speak Ifrit? Were those Ifrit spoilers meant to be Ignan? Can I read them? :-)

These creatures had the complete situational advantage on us. This is an actual example where their CR should be higher due to favored terrain IMO.

Grall is with Nuveril on this one...no contribution other than causing a bunch of uses of the CLW's wand but from his view Sarenrae chose Sajan to be her champion in this battle. I for one was glad Alex had the good rolls otherwise we were looking at a party wipe.

Can't wait to see if the chamber floor drops out if I pull the lever!!!! :)

She doesn't speak Ifrit? Were those Ifrit spoilers meant to be Ignan? Can I read them? :-)

Doh! Brain said Ignan, hands wrote Ifrit. Read away.

I certainly took into account the terrain for the overall encounter. It was a tough fight although to be honest I'm pretty happy with the difficulty of it.

Zeladiel translates them for everyone else to read too. :-)

Might have been useful during combat, but nothing vital there. I was waiting until I knew she could understand me before I considered suggestion, though we saw how effective that was. :-)

Grall is with Nuveril on this one...no contribution other than causing a bunch of uses of the CLW's wand but from his view Sarenrae chose Sajan to be her champion in this battle. I for one was glad Alex had the good rolls otherwise we were looking at a party wipe.

When will people accept Sajan is a champion of Gruhastha, not your damn sun goddess ;).

Well having been put to 9HP from a series of lucky hits by Thratnias, your contribution as damage soaks was appreciated both of you.

You mean Gruhastha is not just Vudrani for Sarenrae?

Well having been put to 9HP from a series of lucky hits by Thratnias, your contribution as damage soaks was appreciated both of you.

Nuveril wasn't even that. She took an AoO that never would have been rolled if she hadn't gone out there and part of the lightning damage that would have been yours alone (and which you saved against). The one actual attack she drew missed her AC so would have missed Sajan's by a mile. She did do 10 points of damage the one time she connected, though, which I guess ended up being important.

*Glares*

The 10 as it turned out was vitally important. Sajan took her to -5 or something. It wasn't far off the point where Zeladiel had to decide whether to save Linah and Khalid or Sajan or risk splitting magic missiles and possibly losing all three with bad rolls...

Someone was likely dying if the baddies got another attack.

Well, there you go. At least she accomplished something, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

Sadly, she doesn't have Grall's faith in a higher power to console her. :)

Looks like we will have to delay revealing the mystery of the lever for a little while. Heading to Brussels tomorrow morning to take my wife on a short break for her birthday. Probably won't have much time to post. Back home tue night.

Have a good time, travel safe.

Hugs to the lovely Marina :-)

You people and your lever obsession. ;)

Didn't the lesser flamebrother say we'd have to return to him after we killed Thratnias and he'd show us the way through, not that the way through was in the lava pits?