GM Raltus' - Slaying Giants

Game Master Raltus

I figured it was you since everyone else is kinda martial, Dain is ranged?

Since you will level tonight is there anything people want to change before 2nd level?

The witch is a bit behind on getting the spells, like lesser restoration on 4th level, instead of third, but that should be good enough.

What do you mean by change before 2nd level? Rework of the first level?

I have a hedge witch character in another game that was built for support and the roleplay fun. The fighting stuff is really hard to accomplish. There are a few cool debuff spells in the list, but if you don't want to go into melee you have a hard time. There is Spectral Hand to deliver touch spells, but the limited number of spells per day doesn't allow for such expensive strategies.

Combat viability was not given until about level 9, when there were enough spell slots and the cool spells like dim door. But if you aren't bored by not dealing much damage in a fight it can be fun anyway.

But if you want to be more effective in the typical debuff role the witch plays really well, then it hurts a lot that you have to use your first Hex for healing and lose the one at 4th level for the spontaneous healing with the archetype.

Only with undead heavy campaigns this becomes the killer feat. Unlimited CLW against undead.

Out the door, one heal touch each, line on the left.

I sacked my feat for the slumber hex, so I would have SOMETHING to do in combat.

But I'll make this work.

Hmm... I didn't really think it would be too useful against Undead. but I suppose it could be against a lot of them.

I'm actually not sure what to pick up when I level up.
The obvious hex is Evil Eye but it's mind effecting again. I could try to buff the party... With Fortune or Ward, that would give me something to do when we run into things immune to mind effecting.

The problem is that whatever youtake, to make it good you'd need two. Evil Eye and cackle. Or Ward and Scar. Though ward, scar and heal is a really strong combination. You could lean back and do the buffing and healing from afar.

Btw, are we going to call it a day in game? I think having the extra HP would be nice for the basement of evil.

If you want a great debuff that is not mind affecting, take misfortune. It is only one round, but having to roll everything twice in that round for the lower result does really suck. And misfortune can be extended by cackle too.

Only thing that is then missing is someone who can cause save or suck effects.

You will be facing a lot of giants, Evil eye is good but eventually that -2 won't equal out to to much.

Go with where you want the character to go really.

a -2 is a 10% reduction, so not bad

A witch tag team would be nice. One does evil eye, and one does misfortune.

As we are talking chances - probability for a rolled number after misfortune:

Hill Giant with Will Save +3 vs Slumber Hex DC16 needs to roll a 13, but has a 84% chance to fail.
vs. Hold Person (DC17) the giant would fail with 87.5% chance.

And both, sleeping and paralyzed allow for a CDG. I guess Yorikata will buy herself some unwieldy high crit weapon to finish the work Lanneth starts (not that multiplying helps that much if you have almost nothing to multiply to start with).

So whatever you take, if you go for the hex route to debuff, you need Cackle at 3rd level, to take advantage of the debuffs yourself the next round.

A fun thing is both those penalties will apply to the fort save to not just flat out die from the CDG.

"If the defender survives the damage, he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + damage dealt) or die"

Also I found (again) that you have Ill Omen on your spell list. Misfortune is better in almost all regards, so if you go for Misfortune, you might want to exchange that Spell for something else.

With not having used it so far and Raltus' offer, that should be ok.

I found (Gran't' told me) a cool archetype that matches perfectly to Yorikata and would make the tag team Yorikata/Lanneth even cooler.
Sylvan Trickster (Rogue Archetype).

I'd give away the trapfinding and uncanny dodge, but I'd be able to choose witch hexes as rogue talent. Which is cool because:
1. I always struggle to choose one of the rogue talents as not many of those are appealing to me.
2. I could evil eye the enemies, before Lanneth hits them and as Supernatural Ability I could do that even in fox shape.

Besides that I'd get wild empathy, which also matches a character who'd like to live as a fox.

Is that ok with you, Raltus?

"My thanks Lady Lanneth. That was a nasty one." He says as he stands and grabs a bed sheet and wipes off the remaining poison and looks as his wound as it closes.

That's bold. I wouldn't dare to use the bedsheets from a plaguehouse :P

It was over 50 years ago that the plague house burned down, so it should be good. I will not be that mean to poor Balder.

@Yorikata the Fox

If you want to add the archetype that is fine with me, You will still have Disable device right? Always good to have that on someone in the party.

I won't be able to disable magical traps but I can disable locks up to DC32 with taking 20 already

Edit: I have to check how that +12 (for second level) comes to be. Probably I'll lose 2 with Trapfinding gone.

I'll lose that 1/2 level bonus to perception to spot traps and to disable device, so I'm still at +11 and intend to keep that maxed.

Level up to 2nd
+5 HP
+1 Ref Save
+1 BAB
+9 skills points, that let me cover even more stuff.

Rogue Talent: Evil Eye Hex
Gained Evasion for the human/kitsune form

Changes due to taking Sylvan Trickster Archetype
Lost Knowledge(Dungeoneering) as class skill
Lost Trapfinding

Gained Knowledge(Nature) as class skill
Gained the ability to chose witch hexes for Rogue Talents
Gained wild empathy - now I can diplomacy animals too, sort of

I also changed the introduction to the backstory a bit. It read Yorikata was always a shy girl, who liked to keep to herself...
I'd say that is not true with Yorikata being bold and talkative in Trunau, so I adapted that to her actual behaviour.

Level up to 2:
HP: + 6
Will + 1
BAB + 1
+ 11 Skill Points
Hex: Misfortune
Spells added: Ear-Piercing Scream, Mount, Comprehend Languages

Level up to 2:
HP + 9
Fort +1
BAB + 2
Skill Pts +6
Bonus Feat: Just Out Of Reach
Special: Bravery +1

Level Up
HP +8
Fav Class HP +1
BAB +1
Skill Points +6
Armor Prof etc
Skilled Kinetecist

Correction: HP +8

Balder you are not doing heavy armor?

How is everyone bunking up? How are rooms set up?

Do we have a floor plan?

Balder you are not doing heavy armor?

Whatcha mean?

I guess he means, why you're still in a light armor, while you have heavy armor proficiency.

But on that topic: We're level two and haven't got any treasure yet. That limits us a bit on the 'buy heavy armor' front. Though I can totally understand that someone is not willing to sacrifice 10 foot of movement and gain a large ACP just for a little more armor.

Level 2

HP 5+3+1=+9
Bab +1
Fort/Ref +1
+1 all skills
Combat Style: Archery Point Blank Shot

Post in gameplay finished.

About room setup. I guess, as we didn't know each other before there is only one reasonable way to decide which rooms we are in.

We all like silence in the night and don't want drunken night owls trampling past our rooms, so everyone tried to get a room at the end of the corridor. What do you say?

Everyone in one room, double watches!

There is no grid, but from the looks of it, you could place half an army in one room. Besides that, I don't think we're that close already ;)

I guess he means, why you're still in a light armor, while you have heavy armor proficiency.

But on that topic: We're level two and haven't got any treasure yet. That limits us a bit on the 'buy heavy armor' front. Though I can totally understand that someone is not willing to sacrifice 10 foot of movement and gain a large ACP just for a little more armor.

Pretty much nailed.

I played a Brawler in Rise of the Runelords and didn't know there were giants and pretty much got smooshed in every fight just trying to get to the giants but with their reach they would hit me like three times before I could get to them to hit. So I'm trying to avoid that happening again.

To be fair: The rules tell, you provoke only once for an action like moving in, even if you have to pass three threatened squares.

Yorikata transforms into fox shape and back into human shape, once she is out from under the bed. Standard Action, Move, Move, Standard, done, check. That's the rules.

But in RP you have a tiny standard fox sitting on a chair changing into a human (which is the equivalent of ending a beast shape II, 4th level spell), is rather a big thing.

I have no idea how that would look like, but I assume it would be impressive. Not the painful bone rearrangement described for lycantropes. A straight morph from one form to the other would make sense. But some magical mist with glitter would be my preferred version of it.

To be fair: The rules tell, you provoke only once for an action like moving in, even if you have to pass three threatened squares.

Then either my GM was just beating on my PC for fun or every giant had feats that let them attack every square o_O

That is what everyone and his uncle knows:

This is what Raltus ruined my Combat reflexes fun with, as I too didn't know.

But even if you don't know that, you should know, that you need combat reflexes AND the dex value to be able to make that much AoOs. RotRL would be stone giants, and they don't have the feat. In fact I cant remember any monster so far that works with combat reflexes.

Addendum
I checked the bestiary and it looks like Combat Reflexes is in use more often than I thought.

It looks like all demons, lot of the devils, and a larger number of high CR enemies have it. Lowest one being the Barghest CR4, highest the Tarraske. For Giants it was only the Storm Giant.

Yes, it should be the exception and not the rule.
Normally when it happens it makes my players all look at each other and go "Oh No" as they just realized this is a much harder fight then they thought.

@Raltus
I get the idea what is going on. We go to sleep and someone whose feet we stepped on with the investigations is coming after us in our sleep.

But there are a few things about the setting that leaves me puzzled. The Ramblehouse description in the player's guide is lacking about details and so I assumed we'd have a private room with one bed and a locked door. This would make it hard for intruders, as the cheapest lock to a sleeping room is a bolt on the inside.

If this is a larger room, like six bed bunk, without a lock for abvious reasons, then I'm hesitating to simply stab them to death based on appearing in the wrong room.

They are private roomish, from the description that I have, it also says they can come through the windows which again I agree could be bolted shut. The Doors since you are basically in a "hotel" would have to be a door key lock since the Owner would have to be able to get in as well.

Before I post I just wanna make sure of what's the concensus here.
So the attack did 16 points of damage instead of 8 correct? Which leaves me with 6Hp left? But I wasn't on max HP to begin with so technically I might be on 0 or unconscious.

Told you Balder was cursed :)

No they rolled 8 damage total, the DC if it exceeds your HP is 10+ the damage dealt. In this case it would be a DC of 18.

You still have 6Hp left and can now act

Nope.

"You automatically hit and score a critical hit. If the defender survives the damage, he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + damage dealt) or die. A rogue also gets her extra sneak attack damage against a helpless opponent when delivering a coup de grace."

And I didn't make the save, and the auto crit which is double yes?

I rolled 2 die, so you took the damage you could

Ah so it's not doubled. Gotcha.

Is this encounter supposed to tell players that they need to set a watch even in the city?

Because it sure seems like that's what it's implying.
Unless the idea is just to capture the PCs, because there's a reasonable chance here of a TPK if the party doesn't set a watch.

My next character is either gonna be a spiritualist or a pyromaniac sorcerer. Just sayin :P