It looks like both Artegall and Nargun have a Belt of Giant Strength +2. So Bull's Strength would help some, but not as much - maybe Whisper?
Whisper could use the Bulls strength, as it will increase her attack damage and trip.
I've got a shield of faith that I could cast on someone if they need a +3 deflection bonus, and an Aid, but given the aid does not stack with our bless, I was thinking it would work as a Cure Moderate.
Mirela will cast the Magic weapon scroll right before we go in (on her bow), and hand off the the Spiritual weapon scroll and Wand of Cure Moderate to Twilight.
We may also have to Refresh the Pro Evil from the wand, as at this point the 1 min duration would have worn off from the last fight. That AC bonus does not stack with Shield of Faith so keep that in mind.
That leaves her with the following resources for the day:
1: Calm Animals, Detect Disease
2: Aid, Align Weapon (good), Calm Emotion
3: 2xRemove Disease
Touch of Good 3 remaining
Scrolls: Remove Fear, Endure Elements
Arrows Remaining: 32 Standard, 25 Blunt, 11 + 1 and 6 Silver.
That all sounds good to me, Mirela.
Artegall will take a charge from the Prot Evil wand if it is offered. Shield of Faith is probably best on Nargun or Whisper, as they are frontliners with less AC.
Artegall has one more use of Whispering Spirits which is either +2 AC/saves for 1 minute or else a reroll of a save. I think I will use the former and just hope I don't roll poorly on any saves vs disease; although, if I came into the game with Harrow Points, I would be able to use those to reroll Fort saves (not sure if I have any or not).
Twilight has taken Aid as a domain spell, which means it cannot be converted to a heal; I would suggest she use it on herself as I think she has the fewest HP.
Could Mirela use Twilight's 2nd-level Pearl of Power to recall Lesser Restoration, and thereby heal Nargun's Con damage? We probably want our tank as tough as possible. Unless there was another pressing use for the Pearl.
Did we use a Lesser restoration on me (by potion, scroll or spell) or not?
That would boost my HP. I don't care that much for the Charisma loss ;-)
Twilight could use her Pearl to cast that. I don't believe we have any other way to cast that right now unless she wants to pass the pearl to me, but given we can both cast this, I see no reason to switch it over.
Twilight did not prepare Lesser Restoration today, and so cannot use the Pearl to recall it. Mirela did prepare and cast that spell.
The Pearl only lets you recall a spell already cast that day.
The Loot Sheet does note a potion of Lesser Restoration though I don't know if that is updated.
It also notes a potion of Bear's Endurance which I would be happy to use if it is available.
I was going to use the status for a possible cure mod, not the aid. The aid is for the temp hp: healing before damage is actually taken =)
Twilight will tap Artegall and Nargun with the wand of prot from evil and use a subtle misdirection on whoever is opening the door for the short blur effect.
She can even use a blessing of the faithful for +2 sacred on AC for 1 round if desired. This could also be used for saves if that is preferred.
If Nargun needs some restoration, Twilight will offer the pearl to Mirella if needed.
OK so It sounds like:
1) Artegall gets a Pro evil from Wand and Subtle Misdirection on the round he opens the South door to see what happens. He also uses Whispering Spirits.
2) Nargun gets a Lesser Restoration (from Mirela via the Pearl of Power) and A pro evil from Twilight, and he sets up between the doors.
3) Whisper gets a Shield of Faith from Mirela and Bulls strength from Twilight, she stays by the the North door.
4) Mirela casts Magic weapon on her bow and stays back to shoot through the open door.
5) Twilight, casts Aid on herself, and gets the wand of Cure Moderate and Scroll of Spiritual Weapon.
We all set?
Sounds good.
Artegall will try to act like he is fleeing in panic to hopefully encourage pursuit.
If they don't fall for it, we have to attack their fortified position and can use both doors as was suggested.
One thing, I am going to wait on the bull's strength until we know that there is something behind the door. It only has a few minutes and I would prefer not to cast it and then find out that there is nothing on the other side.
I'm good with everything else.
Did anyone want the tanglefoot before we go in?
No problem for the Blessing for +2 skill checks.
The addition of a guidance is no problem as well. The Guidance will be cast before the blessing. The duration of all other spells will be 1 less due to the casting of the additional spell but it all works out.
Yikes, and still no sign of the Doctor and Lamm soundalike with yet another set of doors on the other side.
I wonder if the twitchy thing would be under their control if it were to get loose. Smash the tube and close the door, wait for the screams to die down and then just fight whatever is left?
On the other hand, it might just add yet another opponent to the already crowded room.
They are spell casters. They may be invisible…
But they may also have retreated through those double doors.
There are a lot of guys down here…. If we retreat we may need to destroy the bodies so they don’t have a bunch more zombies if we come back.
At this point I am done trying to think of any sort of clever strategy.
If we want to just charge in, fine, I'll do that.
If we want to fall back and regroup, okay.
If someone else thinks of something, great. I got nothing.
I really thought that suggesting we would go get the Guard would give them reason to chase us down. Guess not. It's particularly frustrating that it didn't even have a glimmer of success. Not even one enemy shouting "Get them!" or being tempted to chase. Nobody having to be ordered to hold position. Just no reaction, as if they all knew it was a feint.
My apologies for being frustrated, but with their continued ability to fall back to well-established defensive positions I thought it necessary to try to disrupt their plans with some trickery instead of just plowing ahead, and I'm bummed that it failed so badly.
Someone else should call the play.
As Snart (Captain Cold) says in the Flash series: "Doesn't matter. There are only four rules you need to remember: make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan. Follow my lead and you'll be fine."
That was a good plan. They are probably well organised and tend to follows orders (Lawful evil). They probably think they are in a good, solid position to defend themselves, so why would they abandon it?
Now we just have to rush into the place and kill them before they kill us.
That's my kind of plan.
Well then, do Barbarian Plan #1 and I will back you up.
I really thought that suggesting we would go get the Guard would give them reason to chase us down. Guess not. It's particularly frustrating that it didn't even have a glimmer of success. Not even one enemy shouting "Get them!" or being tempted to chase. Nobody having to be ordered to hold position. Just no reaction, as if they all knew it was a feint.
I don't understand why they would chase you. From their perspective you've already plowed through a minimum of 2 large rooms full of zombies and physicians. Why would 8 cultists try to chase you down themselves? That's a death sentence, from what they've heard so far. They're holding their ground because that's what they were ordered to do and you're in between them and the door. They can't fall back because that's where their boss is and they can't leave because you're in the way.
I'm not arguing with you, I genuinely don't understand why these 8 NPCs would be motivated to try to chase down clearly powerful and well organized adventurers who have already beaten some of their best defended areas and one of their strongest casters.
You said you were going to flee and go get the Guard. If you leave, you leave. That's what they want.
Time for our "Here comes Johnny" little moment...
*Nargun looks at the door, then at his axe*
I think they would chase us because they see they finally have an opportunity to turn the tables on us, and finish us off before we come back with more allies. There's a pretty strong instinct to do so, and it has been exploited by militaries in many battles with feigned retreats. Perhaps I should have done more to appear weak (like smearing blood all over, holding a broken weapon, something like that).
Not sure that we'd be seen as that strong or organized; they basically only lost zombies and skeletons in that last room (3 of 4 Physicians escaped, plus the two casters), and most of our party was on the brink of death. The point of the Bluff was to give the idea that Artegall was scared of them - which is only a slight exaggeration. Scythes are nasty.
But, well, I don't know the class or level of these cultists, or what buffs they get from Unhallow, so maybe we really do outclass them.
We'll find out soon enough.
Maybe we are ignoring some clever option, or maybe the AP really does need us to just plow through.
Completely OOC, not pursuing immediately and giving them time to prep was a mistake. The mod assumes you can take this area room by room without giving the bad guys time to group up. Instead, the alarm got raised and the bad guys had an hour to prepare for an invasion. The last room in this temple is going to be real bad for you.
I've been trying to give you guys an opportunity to retreat.
Artegall I understand exactly why you are frustrated. Going forward Mirela will give you a bit more help on the planning. The problem is due to my brief stint as DM I know exactly what is down here, so I can’t be too aggressive on our planning for this part. This is the only part of the AP I read, so this won’t be a problem in the future.
As for the hour wait:
Honestly, there really was not much that could be done differently from the characters perspective. They had no idea where The Doctor went or that the lift was there. Once they missed him it was all but a given that this temple would be on high alert.
Given that we attacked the maidens in the hospice, and given the queens decree that even impersonating the physicians or maidens is punishable by death (much less killing one) leaving our flank open without backup when the grey maiden shift change happened was a really bad idea. If the sneaking had gone better we might have had a chance but the dice didn’t fall that way. It happens.
I think we have made the best decisions we could with the information we had.
We didn't go to the Hospice with backup because we didn't have enough evidence.
Once we had the evidence, we sent for the Guard, which took some time. We also took some time to interrogate prisoners. That seems reasonable.
Retreating would let them get word to the Queen who would then send a LOT of Grey Maidens after us, or reinforce this place so heavily that we would have no chance. I cannot see how it makes any sense to retreat. The situation is set up to make this raid do-or-die, not rinse-and-repeat. (Though I've clearly been making poor guesses about what the enemy will do, so maybe I am also misreading what they would do if we retreat.)
Maybe we could rest in here if we could barricade the doors and basically make the enemy prisoners in their own fortress.
Before you joined, the wererats told us they heard sound from under the warehouse but that there was no exit from under the warehouse to the sewers.
We are also Pretty far from the river, so it doesn't seem like there would be an exit from the river. So most likely either the hospice is the only exit, or there is an exit through another building.
If it is the first, then keeping them bottled up here would be effective, as possibly would just be resting in the hospice with the guard covering the exit. We just may have to fight through one of the rooms we have already explored before.
If there is a second exit, then no matter where we rest would make no difference as whoever wants to would have escaped already.
OOC: We are running pretty low on resources, so if this fight turns out to be as resource intensive as the last fight, you are going to have a hard time convincing Mirela to walk through the next door without resting, as she will assume if the spellcasters are not here, they fell back to an even more defended area, since that seems to be the pattern.
I have to admit, this whole temple under the hospice took me by surprise. I was just expecting to sneak in and find out what was going on, likely resulting in a fight with the maidens and the head doctor before reporting back to Kroft. Not an extended dungeon crawl.
Kroft has been informed, I don't know if there is any other way out of the temple, but if we are really concerned we could wait for reinforcements.
The big wrinkle in all of this though is that technically this is looking like it is all by the queen's orders in some way, so the longer we linger or delay the more likely it is that the royal guard is going to catch wind of what is going on and they are more likely to reinforce the cultists while at the same time giving Kroft the order to stay out of the way (or just removing her altogether).
Talking strictly from in an character perspective….
The Guard is technically independent of the queen. So she cant order Kroft away.
She would have to force the issue with the Grey Maidens vs the guard.
I would guess she won’t do that given to this point she and the maidens still have plausible deniability. Now if the Grey Maidens are down here too, that changes things.
FIY I'll be on the roads from tomorrow till the week end (back on Saturday probably)
Ok for the bull's strength on Whisper
GM I think we are waiting on you.
My next action will depend on the results of those saving throws.
Made mine, but had to spend the last of my Inspiration to do so.
Nargun has a +8, I think (+2 base, +2 Prot Evil, +2 Iron Will, +2 dwarf). Not great odds, but if he fails he gets a save as his action on his turn. Assuming this is Hold Person.
Hold person is a reasonable guess considering there are Spiritual weapons flying around as well.
I’m very glad you made those saves, It makes it much clearer what I need to do here.
@Mirela, one thing you might keep in mind is readying to disrupt spellcasting.
Even though it would only be a single arrow instead of two from Rapid Shot, it could make more of a difference if you interrupt a spell.
I considered, but I’m assuming the casters have cover due to the tanks, and they already seem to have high AC. So that’s why I’m not doing that.
I figured freeing you up to get in their face would be better then maybe disrupting one spell.
I will be traveling for the next week and may have spotty access to the internet. Feel Free to Bot me if I'm holding up the game.
Only have a moment, will post this afternoon. Was going to use bit of luck on Mirella in case she posts before me. (roll d20 twice for all actions for the next round)
Wow, dice roller doesn't like Mirella. That's 2, 2 and 1 out of 4 d20 rolls.
It balanced out. I have had some fights that I didn’t roll under 10 all combat.
Oh and party is up again.
I'm waiting to go after Nargun, in case he can drop Blue.
I would like to get over to Whisper if I can, to help the wolf and to take advantage of those AOOs.
Sorry, I was sure I posted yesterday evening.. will do again!
Won't be able to post until Wednesday. Bot me if needed
Well that just went sideways.
Atticus, I actually have Align weapon (good) as my second level domain spell today. (It’s my default vs Featherfall if I don’t think we will be up high). If Nargun does not need it, should I put it on you? Then maybe Whisper and I take on the two remaining cultists while you and Nargun take on the Demon?
The problem is you are not close to me as I have to run around to the other door. So I could not put it on you this turn.
Whisper is not a valid target, and I have a handful of silver arrows if I need to flight this thing.
Twilight, I would guess the Spiritual weapon would hurt this thing, or you can focus on taking the other cultists down in case they can break any other tubes and release any more of these things.
Sure, Align Weapon would be helpful. Artegall can maybe do some damage here, but Nargun is the key.
Two Good-aligned attacks per round for 1d12+1d6+16 with a Raging Power Attack? If we can keep him upright and help him hit, he can do this. I would say that Twilight's best action is Blessing of the Faithful on Nargun to boost his attacks. Or else healing him.
I think the ones in the other tubes are dead.
The spiritual weapon from the scroll only lasted 3 rounds, it is gone now.
I can see a good argument to be had for either Artegall or Nargun. It might just be a case of whoever you can actually reach.
Nargun would be the most efficient person to get the spell, but then we are putting all our eggs in one basket so to speak. If he goes down, depending on how high this thing's DR is (assuming it has DR), then we might not have anyone that can seriously hurt it.
Nargun doesn't even need Align Weapon to hurt the thing - his attacks count as Good-aligned when he is Raging.
Artegall does know that this thing has DR/(good or silver). So he won't be doing much damage, but he's helping Nargun hit. He'll take an Align Weapon once someone can get to him.
Mirela can't get to Artegall right now. She could get to Nargun for Touch of Good or a healing spell or something.
Hey, that's a neat trick! Nargun become more good (or more divine depending on how you look at it) when he gets really mad =)
Divine Rage sounds spiffy.
I'm surprised (and concerned) that this thing it still up. I don't even think it is the final boss fight. We know there is the doctor and the Lamm impersonator (who can cast lightning bolts). Unless the Lamm guy is supposed to be the mastermind behind all this there I get the feeling that there is also still a boss to deal with on top of the two of them.
Wit a lil" bit of Luck, I'm just killing it right now. ;-)
Whisper is at 12 HP, Nargun what are you at.
Is anyone else hurt?
I have a bit of healing left, but I'm just about out of spells except my remove disease, which I think we want to save to see who is sick.
Oh and we should search the bodies.
23 HP left after un-Raging