Garethane turned back into an elf, so flying is right out at the moment.
Will move my token when I'm at a computer right now posting from my phone
Oh, makes sense. He hadn't turned back into an elf when I posted, so I thought it might be faster. Guess it's obeying family members time, though honestly that shaman needs to die.
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The will-o'-wisp is the really dangerous target. Really high AC and invisible and immune to almost all magic.
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Ok folks, reality check time.
We have to flee this encounter.
We can't beat the will-o'-wisp. It's AC 26 and invisible. It averages 11 points of electrical damage per attack and it's not going to miss.
I have one see invisibility spell, which is personal range so I can't cast it on anyone else, and even with that, I still need a natural 20 to hit it. I have one magic missile which is the only magic that can affect it (nobody has maze) and I can't do enough damage to kill it in one shot.
Anyone else trying to hit it has to not only hit AC 26 but also beat the 50% miss chance for swinging at an invisible creature, and that's assuming you even pick the right square to attack.
We cannot defeat the will-o'-wisp and it will kill all of us if we stick around to try.
If by flee you mean get the kid out safely and leave, all for it.
Oh yeah, kid comes with us.
We can come back after I have a wand of magic missiles or something. :)
I, uh, really got to start reading the discussion board before doing my posts...
If I make the 50/50 roll, perhaps the magic missile would be enough to scare it away?
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Look at the bright side, at least you made your save and aren't held.
So, uh, no 50/50 roll, eh? Didn't even spot the right square?
Yeah, definitely time to beat feet.
So, uh, no 50/50 roll, eh? Didn't even spot the right square?
Yeah, definitely time to beat feet.
With the exception of the Shaman, I'm playing this one directly from the book. The will o' wisp in question has the advanced template on it and as such its AC is higher than 26.
So, uh, no 50/50 roll, eh? Didn't even spot the right square?
Yeah, definitely time to beat feet.
Or wings if you got 'em!
The will o' wisp in question has the advanced template on it and as such its AC is higher than 26.
Wait? So we’re even more out of our league than we realised?
How did the original AP expect this to go? Why is such a brutal encounter so near our settlement?(Not that I haven’t dotted brutal encounters all over my own hex-crawls, but assuming this encounter is supposed to take place soon after completing book 1, how were we supposed to be ready to take on an advanced will o’ wisp?)
So basically anyone other than possibly me, needs a Nat 20 to have any chance of hitting, and it's immune to most spells.
It's an Achilles' Heel encounter. If you have a sorcerer who can spam magic missile and someone has glitterdust, it's a cakewalk. Otherwise TPK
Rhiannon pretty much has the right of it.
Since you all are fleeing (rightfully so), I have no problems telling you what exactly you are fleeing.
This faintly glowing ball of light bobs gently in the air, the nebulous image of what might be a skull visible somewhere in its depths.
Will-o’-Wisp CR 7
CE Small aberration (air)
Init +15; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +19
DEFENSE
AC 30, touch 30, flat-footed 18; (+7 deflection, +11 Dex, +1 dodge, +1 size)
hp 58 (9d8+18)
Fort +4, Ref +14, Will +11
Defensive Abilities natural invisibility; Immune magic
OFFENSE
Speed fly 50 ft. (perfect)
Melee shock +18 touch (2d8 electricity)
STATISTICS
Str 5, Dex 33, Con 14, Int 19, Wis 20, Cha 18
Base Atk +6; CMB +0; CMD 24
Feats Alertness, Blind-Fight, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse
Skills Acrobatics +23, Bluff +13, Escape Artist +22, Fly +33, Perception +19, Stealth +27
Languages Aklo, Common
SQ feed on fear
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Feed on Fear (Su)
Any time a will-o’-wisp is within 15 feet of a dying creature or creature subject to a fear effect, it gains fast healing 5.
Immunity to Magic (Ex)
Will-o’-wisps are immune to all spells and spell-like abilities that allow spell resistance, except magic missile and maze.
Natural Invisibility (Ex)
Will-o’-wisps have the ability to extinguish their natural glow as a move action, effectively becoming invisible, as per the spell.
ECOLOGY
Environment any swamp
Organization solitary, pair, or string (3–4)
Treasure incidental
Every trapper and bog farmer living near marshes or swamps has his own name for these faintly glowing balls of light—jack o’ the lanterns, corpse candles, walking fires, pine lights, spooklights, rushlights—but all recognize them as dangerous predators and false guides in the darkness.
Evil creatures that feed on the strong psychic emanations of terrified creatures, will-o’-wisps delight in tempting gullible travelers into dangerous situations. In the wild lands where they’re most common, will-o’-wisps favor simple tactics like positioning themselves over cliffs or quicksand where they can easily be mistaken for lanterns (especially if they can set their traps near actual signal lanterns), allowing them to lure unwary travelers into perilous situations. On rare occasions, will-o’-wisps seeking easier pickings will move into a city and take up residence near gallows or follow along invisibly behind an army in order to harvest the fear of the dying men; why the vast majority choose to remain in the swamps where victims are scarce remains a mystery. Will-o’-wisps only use their electric shock ability under extreme duress, preferring to let other creatures or hazards claim their victims while they float nearby and feast.
Will-o’-wisps can glow any color they choose, but are most frequently yellow, white, green, or blue. They can even vary their luminosity to create patterns—many will-o’-wisps are fond of creating vague skull-like shapes in their glow to further terrify their victims. Their actual bodies are barely visible globes of translucent spongy material 1 foot across and weighing 3 pounds, capable of emitting light from every surface. A will-o’-wisp’s light is approximately as bright as a torch, and though they do not seem to use sound to communicate with each other, they hear perfectly and can vibrate their bodies rapidly to simulate speech.
While vilified by most other sentient creatures, will-o’-wisps are actually quite intelligent, if utterly alien in their reasoning. Sometimes organized into groups called “strings,” their society and goals remain complete unknowns to outsiders, as do their origins, though they have sometimes been known to strike bargains with those who can offer them vast quantities of appropriately frightened victims. As will-o’-wisps do not age, and are effectively immortal unless killed by violence, particularly ancient will-o’-wisps can serve as fantastic repositories of knowledge from the ancient past, although convincing one of these cruel creatures to cooperate with an interrogation can be a trick in and of itself.
Well, that's officially horrifying.
Just out of curiosity, anyone considering going into magic item creation later?
I'm a fighter so def not I
I could maybe do it, or get a recruit to do it. (Meridian is already able to make healing potions.)
I wasn't planning on it, but it does sound like a really good resource for our settlement. Set up a nice little magic shop. :)
In other ponderings... I wonder if there are people in the lizard clan that could kill the will o the wisp if they actually knew what it was. I know Celebeth stated it earlier, but maybe we should spread the truth a little and the king could sway them to his side.
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Mostly I want to be able to make sure that we have the magic weapons and gear that we really need, and that I can afford to equip my recruits. :)
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We've got Bokken for regular potions, Meridian for healing ones. A crafter would be a big advantage.
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I could probably, especially since it falls into kalamans seek for knowledge and gathering such knowledge
If you don’t want to earmark your feats for other uses, sure. Otherwise I’ll probably have the recruit that I pick up at 8th level handle it.
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I wanna mention a possible alternative for the lizardfolk issue.
While next game month I was going to suggest building a tavern to fulfill Terri's last wishes, we can pivot due to the emergency. (You kinda have to be flexible with your building in KM because of such emergencies.)
We can build housing and a foreign quarter, and theme it as a lizardfolk settlement within the town. This quarter takes up four lots and represents special stores and crafters dedicated to the kinds of things that these foreign folks do.
The upsides:
* +3 Economy is a pretty nice boost
* Gives us a strong story tie explaining how we help integrate the lizardfolk and take care of them for what might be an extended period of time until we can deal with the will-o'-wisp
The downsides:
* Actually causes a penalty to Stability, which is risky
* At 30 BP, it's super-expensive and will limit our options for growth for the next few months until we rebuild the treasury
Overall I think it's probably not a great idea, but if we think we have to wait on fighting the will-o'-wisp it will give us a strong story hook. It also shows that we're throwing a large amount of money and resources at keeping the lizardfolk safe and happy, which means the GM has fewer excuses to introduce problems like fights with local settlers, lizardfolk complaining about not having enough to eat or places to sleep, etc. :)
Anyway, just a suggestion in the interest of keeping our options open. I don't think it's feasible to keep the lizardfolk barracked at Oleg's for very long, and I don't think we can defeat the will-o'-wisp with just one wand of magic missiles (we won't be able to put out enough damage to kill it before the duration on see invisibility runs out). If we want to defeat the wisp, we need a way to get a lot of magic missiles into it really quickly, and I just don't think we're going to find a solution for that in the next week of game time.
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Yeah I think helping them establish a refugee camp near enough that we can aid them if needed, but distant enough to not cause issues might be the best bet while we amass the resources needed to take out the current Lizardfolk leadership.
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What are the rules for setting up another city grid besides our first one? Could we perhaps do that and put the foreign quarter there as a way to keep them close but distant, like Rhiannon said? Assuming we can’t sort this out any time soon, I’m fully behind the idea, however we can make it work.
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We can spend 1 BP to add a new city district adjacent to the main district. I was planning to have a scene in which Turcáno comes to Tove with a set of plans detailing different ways that the city can grow. The basic gist is:
* Since Erastil is a rustic god, you might have religious reasons to want to keep the city small.
* We can add more districts to increase the city size and get more space to make stuff. Turcáno (*ahem* I) has (have) drafted plans for an upscale district with things like a bardic college and a library, and a "work" district with stuff like a stockyard and a tannery. If we want the lizardfolk to form the basis of a separate district, it might well become the nucleus of a working part of the settlement with the aforementioned tannery and stockyard.
If we make a new district, it does hit our Stability because the city is bigger and harder to manage, but only by one point. Combined with the foreign quarter that would be –2 to total Stability, though, so we'd want to raise that again as quickly as possible, probably by finishing those mills and breweries that I talked about, in the following months. The tavern would have to wait. A few months down the road we'd want to rebuild the castle (27 BP), as it gives some massive bonuses.
Anyway, it's certainly a possibility.
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I love the idea of having a lizardman quarter. :)
I guess I'll mention it now: My next recruit was going to be a lizardfolk from this group, if we are able to arrange successful diplomatic ties with them.
Nice. Ties mechanics and story quite nicely.
Sounds good!
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Vesket may be too big to ride a horse, but I bet he could ride in a horse-drawn wagon.
Azen and I could grab a wagon and a couple extra horses, or we can buy 'em from Oleg.
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On the travel there, we can do the normal 8hrs travel for the 1st day, then do a forced march, especially if Tove can prepare any spells that grant greater endurance, stamina, Con boosts to make the fatigue saves etc. Or we can suck it up, travel as hard as we can and take the fatigue, then heal it all through channeling when needed.
Good thing about traveling with a cleric
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Apropos of nothing, are both the nascent kingdom and the capital city called Elkmark, or does one of them have a different name that I missed?
I too like the idea of a reptilian quarter. Chameleon-town? Or could we make the tavern the "Gillded Lilly"? Vesket's Swim up Bar has a certain ring to it...
Well, we can make a new district, put a foreign quarter in it, and have the lizardfolk move in. If we retake the old village later and Vesket and his companions decide to move back, we can always demolish the foreign quarter... though it's so expensive that it's probably best just to keep it.
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Maybe we go conquer his old village and he likes our town better and they ALL move in. :) Mutual defense, diverse culture... what's not to like?
Only problem is that I think the parents of the boy are going to be really pissed off unless we explain that the king let the boy go at the risk of his own life and that we're off to kill the actual kidnapper/torturer... tricky diplomatic situation.
Either way, maybe we should keep the foreign quarter so non-humans will feel like they have their own space.
Apropos of nothing, are both the nascent kingdom and the capital city called Elkmark, or does one of them have a different name that I missed?
The capital is Fort Redemption :)
Ok, I did not know that. I'll update the kingdom sheets appropriately.
I thought Fort Redemption was the new name of the Stag Lord's fort....shows how much I know.
I thought Fort Redemption was the new name of the Stag Lord's fort....shows how much I know.
Um, aren't they the same thing? Or is the Stag Lord's old fort the "ruined keep" on the campaign map?
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Our town is built around the Stag Lord’s ruined keep. I presume that both the ruins and the nascent town are now called “Fort Redemption.”
That's what I thought I remembered, but there were like *5000* posts to sift through...
Thanks for having a memory.
I have like, no money, or I'd've offered to pitch in on wand and scroll.
I can try to learn the spell from the scroll once Kalaman can't figure it out... assuming we have the 40 gp available for the material to transcribe it.
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It seems odd that no one has much wealth to speak of, at least among those who's characters have been around a while.
I can figure it out easily enough for the newer characters like Celebeth, Rhiannon, and Azen as they were built as 5th level characters and likely spent their wealth during creation.
So here's what we're gonna do:
For my older characters that were not built as 5th level characters, total up the gold piece value (not resale value) of the gear you have. Subtract that total from 10,500 gp and that's how much gold you have. Tove - do not count the value of the Stag Helm against your total.
That should give you a fair amount of cash to order things with.
Based on the above, Tove and Garethane are the ones way behind the curve on wealth.
Tove should have 3,750 gp in coin to spend.
Garethane should have 6,250 gp in coin to spend.
Dang, dude. Thanks for doing the math!
I'll be glad to contribute to the cause. See invisibility and magic missiles for all my men!
Unfortunately see invisibility is personal-range, so you can't put it into a potion, and if you read it from a scroll, it only targets you. I already have it, dunno if Kalaman does.
The fact that Kalaman failed the check to learn glitterdust basically makes our strategy against the wisp worthless. The problem is that a wand of magic missiles only does 1d4+1 damage per use if you get it at the base level. To do enough damage to defeat the wisp, we'd need, I dunno, 15-20 hits on it. Even with two wands that's like... 7 rounds of combat, assuming it doesn't just fly behind cover or something. And to hit it we have to see it, so I have to learn glitterdust, start with see invisibility so that I can see it, target it with glitterdust, then Kalaman and I switch to wands... but the duration on glitterdust will run out before we kill it. So I'd have to see invisibility again, then glitterdust again, and if we're still fighting it that long, it will have killed at least some of us. Assuming it doesn't just fly away faster than we can follow!
And that's all assuming I don't also fail the Spellcraft check to learn glitterdust!
Tactically, I don't see a sound strategy for defeating the wisp at this time. I think we may just want to fall back on making a foreign quarter in a new district and housing the lizardfolk for a somewhat more extended period, doing some more exploring to level up, and then tackling the wisp again when we are more powerful.
I know this will have story problems. The shaman will get more followers, the lizardfolk will be unhappy, there will probably be strife in the settlement. But unless someone else has a clever solution, I'm stumped for how to beat this advanced wisp with our current resources.
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If we can get Protection from Electricity on the Lizard King he could probably wreck it in melee if he can see it. Every blow reduces how much Magic Missile damage is needed. If we can get that on the party, it won't be killing anything.
The biggest problem is no one has enough of an attack bonus to have any chance of hitting without a Nat 20, making Magic Missiles the only option.