KC's Age of Worms

Game Master Kobold Catgirl

I feel like anyone that doesn't suit up with fire resistance (assuming that's an option) when seeing clouds of steam wafting out of a cave mouth deserves whatever happens next. (Though actually, 'whatever happens next' wasn't the 'deal with a fight inside a lava tube' that I was expecting.)

Farukh's slapping Time upside the head and making it sit up and do tricks definitely made this one a lot more cake-walky, though.

Buffed Cuetzpalli is damage incarnate. The more time we have to buff, the worse he gets. Then again, we've been at this a while (in-character I mean), and we're supposed to be basically super-heroes at this point. I don't have an issue with how it played out, given how prepared we were.

Edit: And crits.

I feel like anyone that doesn't suit up with fire resistance (assuming that's an option) when seeing clouds of steam wafting out of a cave mouth deserves whatever happens next. (Though actually, 'whatever happens next' wasn't the 'deal with a fight inside a lava tube' that I was expecting.)

Farukh's slapping Time upside the head and making it sit up and do tricks definitely made this one a lot more cake-walky, though.

Considering you're in something of a race, not every party would take the time.

I don't want to put my finger on the scales too much, but this particular adventure is a little unyielding on these matters, so here's some meta-knowledge that your PCs could probably infer, considering they have all day to think about such things:

- There was no guarantee given that either party passes these tests, so there's no "grading on a curve". In other words, simply passing more tests than the other team isn't enough. You will need to somehow arrive with the Living Feather of the Roc King.

- There are multiple solutions to the hurdle you've encountered here. The hatchling idea was honestly a pretty good idea, and I might have done something to work it in if I hadn't posted when I was tired, but I guess rocs weren't capable of asexual reproduction in 3.5.

- These tasks are worded pretty deliberately in some cases. Slaying the Nightmare Beast was non-negotiable because the task explicitly mentioned slaying it.

Implying we need to be the first to slay the nightmare, or we fail. That should probably be our next destination then....

Oh, you killed the nightmare beast. That was the guy in the cave.

>_< Sorry

It's all good! I didn't call him a nightmare beast until now.

While Astraden can prepare Raise Dead, I don't believe she has the diamonds at the moment.

...Well, damn. It wasn't until right now this second that it dawned on me that we've never had a 'pool money to buy raising diamonds' discussion. We suck at long term planning. This is what happens when four out of six of the party are chaotic! Ugh, I literally have thousands of gold I'm just sitting on. (Asterisk note: we should definitely do that once we're back to civilization and there are jewelers available. We should also, if there's time, put up the cash to have Astraden make a raise dead scroll, in case anything happens to her then one of us can bring her back...)

Time to start digging, I guess.

Please forgive Astraden for derailing any reasonable suggestions made here. Sometimes us not getting through adventures is because of difficult decisions. Sometimes it is because we actively work against making a relatively simple decision.

(OOC, I do absolutely think the flower is the right way to go, but it doesn't really make sense for Astraden to push for it now after her dismissing it for comedic purposes.)

KC, while I was taking a dip back in the archives, I recalled (read: came across after having entirely forgotten) this particular magic item in the making. Has it been long enough that Lowri might have finished it?

This kind of decision feels like a real game-pace killer, right when we were building up some steam. I personally would rather have us fail in game than stall out here for three months because no one actually cares what we do enough to make a convincing argument for one choice over another.

Let's go ambush some bads

I think that's a good call.

Eben, somehow I'd forgotten about that 2019 pre-student-teaching-program plot hook! Yes, though it would be unlikely to reach across planes.

Basically, if the group wants to commit to "let's phone a friend and resurrect the roc", that's totally fine and a perfectly viable strategy, albeit risky. If the group wants to commit to "let's ambush the other team and steal their stuff", that's also a perfectly viable and risky strategy.

It sounds like the votes are for the latter, so we'll go with that and the party can establish their plans. There is no reason why you can't resurrect the Roc King after killing the enemy team, if you so please--it would eliminate the bulk of the time crunch.

I keep thinking there's a "King of Roc" joke here, but I can't find the right setup for it.

Darl is a high priest. He must have the means to raise his minions on hand, right? Maybe we can snag a 5K diamond offa him.

Maybe if you ask him very nicely.

Funny, I thought you'd picked Krekie's brains about the composition of the enemy team, but not yet. I guess that justifies taking a 3.5 rogue along, if nothing else. Here's what you know of the party composition as far as I can find. Captain Seabeard, the orc pirate left on the shore with his skeleton crew, said that there was "a mind flayer, efreet, tieflings, kenku--all that lot".

What do we want to ask with the divination and who do we want to scry on? (Feel free to answer in game.)

I could have sworn we got some info from Krekie. Let me see if I can rummage.

EDIT: Nope, looks like we jumped straight from bribing Krekie to dealing with the third eye/key thing to our epic fight with the xill. I guess we forgot a pretty basic part of 'recruit the bad guy to the team' in the midst of all that mind frying and offscreen fighting.

Hello everyone! Sorry for the temporary absence--a hurricane took out the power over the weekend. I'm gonna see about getting caught up now!

Sounds like there's a lot of that going around! Glad you're doing alright!

Tactical discussion time- aside from the divinations and wind walks, what else should Astraden (or Carina) prepare overnight? I think we talked about the possibility of using her 8th-level spell slot to cast holy aura on us all, but another thought I had poring over the cleric spell list- spellscar looks like a pretty nuclear option way to mess up the day of a couple high level spellcasters (plus a SLA-using efreeti noble). Probably protection via holy aura is the safe choice, I just giggle over the potential chaos dropping a wild primal magic zone on top of the enemies would cause.

Aside from that, I think we decided that silence is our best bet to try and avoid blasphemy spamming. I'd say cast it on Farrukh while we're at a distance and then have him do whatever time dilation funkiness he can to run in and stand right next to Darl as fast as he can. I'll also be running Countersong in case he still slips one off. I don't think there's much we can do about Zyrxog's mind blast, except hope we roll well. Maybe not all cluster together so we minimize the number of people he can stun. Holy aura would help keep him from dominating anyone, though, so there's another point in its favor.

Also, another casting of resist elements or two would go a long way. We can assume flame attacks from the efreeti, but Zyrxog also had chain lightning in his repertoire, if I recall.

Oh, and KC, if I may bring up another long-forgotten plot point...

Grin is a 7th-level illusionist wizard with access to a metamagic feat which enables him to make his illusions impervious to true seeing, but any outside interaction with the illusion—including it being touched by a creature, or, say, an invisibled person being extra loud—breaks the spell without a disbelieve save necessary.

Since I've seen him use the feat in question, would I be able to make use of it via an AP? (And if so, what's the level adjustment?)

I will probably say no, purely because I do not remember that very well and I'm pretty sure I didn't actually design it, much less remotely balance it for PC use. I don't know, I'm rusty on my PF1 game design and reluctant to rock the boat.

I'll try to get a post up tomorrow!

It's starting to hit me that I will almost definitely want to fundamentally rebuild almost every encounter in the AP going forward, so I may as well lean into it and give the monsters some more interesting class options.

It makes me think about an alternate DM of the Rings take where they get all the way to Mount Doom without a hitch because they forgot they even had the Ring. "Wait, it was getting heavier? Were we tracking encumbrance?"

In Bored of the Rings, that doesn't quite happen, but it's kinda close.

Tactical discussion time- aside from the divinations and wind walks, what else should Astraden (or Carina) prepare overnight? I think we talked about the possibility of using her 8th-level spell slot to cast holy aura on us all, but another thought I had poring over the cleric spell list- spellscar looks like a pretty nuclear option way to mess up the day of a couple high level spellcasters (plus a SLA-using efreeti noble). Probably protection via holy aura is the safe choice, I just giggle over the potential chaos dropping a wild primal magic zone on top of the enemies would cause.

Oh you have got to be shitting me. Astraden has had 8th-level spells all this time? Did I just revert to an old character sheet at some point and forget to update her spell slots? Can't believe this.

Ok, updated spell slots. And DankeSean, you CAN'T mention a spell like spellscar around Astraden's player and expect me not to take it.*

Cleric spells prepared (CL 15th, concentration +19)

• 0-level (4) - create water, guidance, light, stabilize
  
• 1st-level (4+1+D) detect law, liberating command, obscuring mist, protection from law (D), shield of faith, shield of faith
  
• 2nd-level (4+1+D) calm emotions, invisibility (D), lesser restoration, owl's wisdom, shatter, silence
  
• 3rd-level (4+1+D) dispel magic, magic circle against evil, magic circle against evil, magic circle against law (D), magic vestment, prayer
  
• 4th-level (4+1+D) - blessing of fervour*, communal resist energy, communal resist energy, death ward, divination, --(D)
  
• 5th-level (4+D) - breath of life, communal air walk, dispel law (D), plane shift, --
  
• 6th-level (3) - greater dispel magic, find the path, wind walk
  
• 7th-level (2) - greater scrying, summon monster vii
  
• 8th-level (1) - spellscar*
  

Remaining spells to be prepared after scrying.

Oh you have got to be s+@$ting me. Astraden has had 8th-level spells all this time? Did I just revert to an old character sheet at some point and forget to update her spell slots? Can't believe this.

I remember looking at your character sheet while we were prepping for Harrowdroth, noticed the lack of 8th level spells, and just assumed that Soul Warden cost you a +1 cleric level. Then actually looked at the class when I started (massively over-) preparing for this fight and realized that wasn't the case. I assumed you knew you had them and just had forgotten to put them on the sheet, but... kinda glad I spoke up now. :-)

The link to spellscar is borked, so for convenience of review: here it is. I think it only fair to point out that using this will create a LOT of extra rolling on KC's (and, potentially, our) part.

Gark the Goblin wrote:

Oh you have got to be s+@$ting me. Astraden has had 8th-level spells all this time? Did I just revert to an old character sheet at some point and forget to update her spell slots? Can't believe this.

I remember looking at your character sheet while we were prepping for Harrowdroth, noticed the lack of 8th level spells, and just assumed that Soul Warden cost you a +1 cleric level. Then actually looked at the class when I started (massively over-) preparing for this fight and realized that wasn't the case. I assumed you knew you had them and just had forgotten to put them on the sheet, but... kinda glad I spoke up now. :-)

Yeah, thank you for that. Unbelievable. We had access to 8th-level spells for at least three combats and Astraden didn't use any of them.

(I have stealth-fixed the spellscar link, now.)

Yes, both are allowed. Spellscar could be messy, but it's also a very Olidammaran spell.

Yes, both are allowed. Spellscar could be messy, but it's also a very Olidammaran spell.

oh god this is going to be fun

I mean, we might still all die.

But it'll be hillarious to watch.

This is going out to all the games I’m part of, whether as a player or as a GM. I won’t be able to participate for some time.

My mother is on palliative care for cancer and her condition has rapidly deteriorated over the last three days.

I feel that I owe you an explanation for my absence from posting. If you need to find a replacement player or GM, I understand. But for the time being I’m not ready to make any posts.

Oh, I'm truly sorry about your mom DCat. I hope you have the opportunity to be with her in the amount you and she need.

Yeah, take all the time you need, DC. Best wishes for you and your family.

Spend as much time as you can with her, this game's not anywhere near as important as your family.

Yeah, be with mom. We'll be here later.

Thank you all for your condolences.

So, we've just returned home from the hospital. We've said our goodbyes.

My mother passed away this evening.

*Hug*

Take care of yourself.

:(

Condolences, Cat.

Please take care of yourself, DCat. The game will be here if and when you're ready to come back, no matter how long you need.

Sorry to hear that, DCat. Definitely take some time for yourself and family.

Heads up to all; I'm out of town visiting family for the next week, and my ability to post (or even access the internet) might be severely curtailed for that time.

Followup: anyone wanting to continue the dialogue with Darl can just speak and assume Eben relays it, maybe with rolled eyes and a deep sigh for people not understanding the fine art of diplomacy, but relayed nonetheless.

Gotcha, take care!

I may be out for a few days or so. Going through a rocky spell.

Back from vacation. Take all the time you need, KC.

Oh, that's quite a Bluff check. I'll see what kind of Sense Motive check we're working tomorrow or Sunday and get a reply up.

Also, as an update for the non-Discordians, I ended up commissioning a friend of mine to rebuild this exceptionally complex encounter for PF1, since she needs money for a move anyways and I truly did not have the time. So that's going to simplify a lot, and allow me to get a proper Krekie rebuild.