Bought a house and am moving this week. I'll probably be slow.
Congrats!
Yes, congrats!
In totally unrelated news: you know, back in that fight with "Daisy" the halfling mage in the sewer under Helm? About two and a half years ago?
We didn't kill the large constrictor snake she had.
...
Why didn't we kill that snake? It had a +17 to hit and minimum damage of 16.
...
Glad I don't do sewer maintenance for Helm. It'd be quite dangerous. They've got a genuine sewer monster now.
Thanks!
That was a fun fight. Sewers are classic. Good and funny point about the massive snake. There are even bigger loose threads still in Helm... We'll see if they ever come back up.
On Sunday, I ran the final fight of Rise of the Runelords for my real-world group. I'm sad that we had to end the campaign remotely. I wanted to be sitting there and watching them as they fought him. Instead they were just voices over Discord.
Karzoug had three banes.
The first bane was: Silence. Amazingly, nothing in his stat block gives him any magical way to deal with magical silence. He does not have the Silent Spell feat, nor does he possess a metamagic rod of Silent Spell. Every last one of his spells has a verbal component. Once the bard's cleric cohort got near him with Silence on a pebble he was in big trouble.
The second bane was a celestial tyrannosaurus summoned by the party wizard. It got in close, bit him, and grappled him with Grab. Since he was in Silence, he could not use Dimension Door to zap himself out of it or anything. He did have a Telekinesis spell running already, which therefore did not need to be cast. He attempted to snatch the pebble from the cleric's hand and toss it far, far away. But the spell allows a Will save to avoid having something snatched from you, and amazingly enough, clerics are spectacular at Will saves. The cohort passed that DC 30 with a 33. Karzoug was then out of options, and on its next turn the tyrannosaurus swallowed him.
The third bane was my fallible memory. Karzoug was wearing a Ring of Freedom of Movement. That grab attempt should have automatically failed, which would have allowed him to simply walk away from the area of Silence and resume kicking ass. Unfortunately, I straight up forgot about it *despite making a g*#*** flow chart of his defenses*. By the time I realized my mistake he had already been swallowed whole and the party was rejoicing. It would have been a dick move to retcon it at that point.
That said, I did inform them that being inside the tyrannosaurus gave him total cover from the point of origin of the Silence spell, and thus he was free to try casting inside. The party promptly fed the silenced pebble to the tyrannosaurus wrapped up in some trail rations. Just like feeding a dog a pill.
Meanwhile, Karzoug had no particular options in there. His glaive is not a light weapon, and so he could not use it. He had telekinesis going still, but it doesn't actually damage things, so that didn't help. The silence had 12 rounds remaining, so I started marking off damage (and reducing it each round due to Stoneskin). The party healed themselves up. They realized towards the end that the Silence was going to wear off three rounds before the Summon Monster spell ended. So the bard cast Silence on another pebble and fed *that* one to the tyrannosaurus, too. All in all, he was in that dino's gullet for 15 rounds.
It didn't kill him. His Stoneskin wore out one round before the end, but he still had a fair number of hit points left when the dinosaur went *pop* and dumped him on the floor.
Naturally he immediately took a whole bunch of readied attacks to the face.
And he survived those!
Because it had been so long, we rolled a fresh initiative.
Karzoug rolled a 2 on the die, and so everyone in the party got to beat on him. He didn't make it. The bloodrager -- Skrag, cub reporter for the Urgir Herald -- got in the killing blow. Before landing it, he paused and said "Karzoug! How does it feel to have failed at everything you tried to do? Our readers will want to know!"
Karzoug just stared at him blankly, because they were still standing in an area of magical Silence. Everyone could see Skrag talking, but nobody could hear what he said.
"That's what I thought," Skrag said, and bisected him with Tony (his inexplicably named axe). Later he noted down the answer as "No comment."
And thus ended Karzoug the Claimer, Runelord of Thassilon.
We are going to hold one more session -- an epilogue, basically, allowing the players to wrap up their PCs' personal stories. And then, at long last, I will be done running Rise of the Runelords.
And boy, am I ready to be done with it! We started around this time of year in 2012, and I was ready to be done with it five years ago.
Congrats on finishing rise of the runelords! It's certainly a slog!
Here on these boards I'm on a group that is on the final book. So sadly I won't be able to open that spoiler as of yet.
Wow, Melia that Soldier's Soul story was amazing!
Congrats on finishing an AP. I've never had a group survive long enough to get that far, and even the idea of spending 9 years running a game terrifies me! It is very sad you were not able to end in person after all that time :(
Out of curiosity, do you know how many sessions it was?
Woot woot! Showing us all it is possible :D
Thanks! It's traditional, originally. I first heard it on the Jim Henson series "The Storyteller". This is a retelling which preserves most of the same details, but adjusted to fit into a polytheistic RPG world.
Rise of the Runelords is the first AP I've finished as GM. We're (I think) about a third of the way through book 6 of Curse of the Crimson Throne in another group, where I'm a player. I expect to finish that some time this year.
I've also finished Kingmaker as a player (it took two attempts and six or so years), plus I sorta-kinda finished Kingmaker as GM. Sorta. That was a campaign for a soloist that took seven years -- eight if you count the first year when I wasn't the GM. It was complicated. Basically the PC started as level 1 in Kingmaker, left after the end of Book 1, had a custom homebrew adventure elsewhere in the River Kingdoms for a long while, then circled back and I ran the end of Kingmaker for her (all of Book 6, plus cherry-picking the Rushlight Tournament from Book 5). But the plot was so heavily modified at that point that it barely resembled Kingmaker anymore. The PC ended at level 20 mythic tier 10.
Oh, and I forgot to answer the question about how many sessions it was. I don't know. But I may be able to find out.
Congrats Mel!
Finishing the move to the new house tomorrow so I will update as I am able later this week, most likely.
Congratulations. I only ever finished two campaigns, and both were homebrew with me as GM, and lasting a couple years each with weekly sessions.
Back when I still had spare time to run some prep work for the sessions. Never had as much luck as a player - so that is an extra virtual thumbs up for you.
It's going to take longer to find a story than I thought, sorry. Uni assignment is due in a week and I spent the weekend smacking my head against Shaders.
Life happens, and finishing your university assignments is much more important than posting in PBP games. Do those first.
Inspired by this post on Reddit, I've been toying with an idea for a build: a sneak-attacking druid using Flame Blade as their primary weapon. The basic idea is to get sneak attack from three sources: the Crocodile Domain (3d6 total, starting from level 6), variant multi-class rogue (4d6, starting at level 7) and the feat Accomplished Sneak Attacker. The sneak attack progression looks like this:
1-5: nothing
6: +1d6 (Crocodile Domain)
7: +1d6 (VMC Rogue)
9: +1d6 (Accomplished Sneak Attacker)
11: +2d6 (Crocodile Domain, VMC Rogue)
15: +1d6 (VMC Rogue)
16: +1d6 (Crocodile Domain)
19: +1d6 (VMC Rogue)
This is a heavily feat-dependent build. I've got a couple feat progressions worked out, depending on whether you're using Strength to govern attack rolls with the flame blade or trying for Dexterity.
If it's Strength, then it looks like so:
1: Elemental Spell
3: (replaced by VMC - Trapfinding)
5: Flame Blade Dervish
7: (replaced by VMC - Sneak Attack)
9: Accomplished Sneak Attacker
11: (replaced by VMC - Evasion)
13: Quicken Spell
15: (replaced by VMC - Uncanny Dodge)
17: Something else?
19: (replaced by VMC - Improved Uncanny Dodge)
Dexterity to attack feats:
1: Weapon Finesse
1: Human Bonus: Elemental Spell
3: (replaced by VMC - Trapfinding)
5: Dervish Dance
7: (replaced by VMC - Sneak Attack)
9: Accomplished Sneak Attacker
11: (replaced by VMC - Evasion)
13: Quicken Spell
15: (replaced by VMC - Uncanny Dodge)
17: Flame Blade Dervish
19: (replaced by VMC - Improved Uncanny Dodge)
In the Dexterity path, you have to spend your first two feats on Weapon Finesse at level 1 and Dervish Dance at level 5. There's just no better way to get them. And, unfortunately, that pretty much locks you into being a human in order to get all the feats you need. The Elephant in the Room feat tax rules would help with this, since everyone effectively counts as having Weapon Finesse. Under those rules, you could get Dervish Dance at level 1.
Note that Dervish Dance is only in the build to allow you to use Dex for attack. Since Flame Blade does not add your Strength modifier to damage, you don't get to add your Dexterity to damage either. Two feats on a feat-starved build is a pretty tough price to pay for that. Hence the Strength track. Everything gets simpler if you just use your Strength for attack rolls as normal.
Elemental Spell is a must, since many enemies either have native fire resistance or can cast resist energy [fire]. That shuts down the build pretty hard. If you can qualify for it, sneak attack may well add enough damage that the creature takes some despite their resistances -- but it's still better to avoid it. Especially since energy resistances scale up much faster than the equivalent DR. So having Elemental Spell on tap so you can make a Frost Blade is well worth it, on the theory that comparatively few monsters are resistant to both fire and cold.
And, unfortunately, I couldn't find a good place to put it other than first level, where it is essentially a dead feat because there are no druid cantrips that deal energy damage, and you wouldn't want to waste a first-level spell slot on one anyway. But all the other feats have requirements that need to be met first.
Flame Blade Dervish helps with energy resistance, of course, and the extra speed boost is always nice. The Charisma-to-damage aspect is nice but hardly build-making. You have to be able to cast Flame Blade before you can take this, and since the level 3 feat got replaced by VMC, level 5 is the earliest opportunity. In the Strength approach I slotted it in at level 5. In the Dexterity approach it got moved way, way later because there were more important things to do.
Sneak attack is pretty central to the build, so Accomplished Sneak Attacker is pretty much a no-brainer. But there's no way to take it until you have at least one sneak attack die already, which doesn't come online till level 6, and the level 7 feat got replaced by VMC. So level 9 for that.
Quicken Spell should be obvious.
I thought about going Feyspeaker Druid. That has some obvious advantages. It switches your casting stat to Charisma, which synergizes nicely with Flame Blade Dervish. It makes you a spontaneous caster, so you don't need to explicitly prep Elemental Spell versions of flame blade, but can just pull them out on demand as a full round action. And finally, it gets you access to a small selection of sorcerer/wizard spells of the enchantment or illusions schools -- meaning you could pick up Greater Invisibility at level 10, which is obviously terrific for a sneak attack build. Oh, and of course, more skill points more better.
On the other hand, it comes with some serious disadvantages. It cuts your BAB from 3/4 down to 1/2. You're attacking touch AC, so that's not a huge problem at later levels, but it's going to be painful during the early levels (which are already going to be rough since sneak attack doesn't come online until level 6).
It also removes your proficiency with medium armor, which is kind of a bummer since you're going to be in melee all the time.
I keep going back and forth on whether Feyspeaker might be worth it.
This is very much a build that would be most fun at mid-to-high levels. It comes online at level 6, hits its stride around 9, and I think it's at its peak around 11-13.
Anyway, I thought I'd post this here and see what you all think. What tricks am I missing?
It's a really interesting build. I like using flame blade to do touch AC attacks. That certainly helps given the low BaB.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/archetypes/paizo-druid- archetypes/nature-fang/
I'd personally go Nature Fang Druid. Studied Target will help out alot, given that you won't be wielding a magic weapon. It gives +1d6 sneak attack at lvl 4, and gives slayer talents every 2 levels. That will add alot to your damage potential.
Kaz beat me to the suggestion, but yeah Nature fang is the way to go for this build.
Yes, I think that might help a good deal. Extra sneak attack slightly earlier, and a good boost to its combat skills. Not to mention some nice talents -- cheap heavy armor proficiency, Ranger weapon style feats, and I'm always fond of Fast Stealth.
I've been thinking about that dwarf caiman familiar that the Crocodile domain gets you. It's size small, so it can technically flank with you. It's nice when a sneak attack build comes with a built-in flanking buddy. I think the Mauler archetype for that, though, giving it a bit more combat oomph.
And with a land speed of 10 feet, it doesn't have a whole lot of scope for tactical movement. That can be at least partly remedied with Longstrider, though, through Share Spells. By the time you get sneak attack you could cast Longstrider on the caiman outside the dungeon or encounter area and expect it to last through all but really unusually long delves.
Pardon my silence. I have been moving and very busy. Getting back to it now.
So glad that I held onto that hero point for so long! 72 points of nonlethal avoided is well worth it.
And welcome back! Completely understand the fatigue that is moving.
My goodness. Exciting things seem to be happening, somewhere.
Well, not quite Kaz. But still very useful. Let's just say you'll appreciate not being FF for the whole first round since you would otherwise only act at the bottom of the first round.
I almost teleported us away, TBH. But fighting seemed more fun. :)
You definitely won't be bored! Also, fighting allows more room for you to pursue a lead.
<waits to see if the woman goes down before rolling to smoosh her>
Wow.
I'm sure that would mean something entirely different with more context!
I concur.
While aware that I have a dirty mind, urban dictionary seems to agree with me on that one.
Ironically enough I did not have that in mind when typing that. But I find it hilarious now that I see what it means.
*laughs quietly*
That's some heavy dwarf love there lol.
Thanks for the hero point! But I already had one, and we're capped at one.
In a totally unrelated note, we recently passed 5,000 posts in this game, which is certainly a noteworthy record. I have no idea how many games get that far, but I fancy it's not a great many.
Yeah it's definitely not many games that do that.
I was considering increasing max hero points to the normal 3 so I'll go ahead and do that. I don't want people to save their one hero point indefinitely for only do-or-die situations. I think hero points should also be used for situations where it just doesn't make flavor/story sense for a character to fail at something, even if it's not a vital roll.
Woo! That's nice. I'll happily take those, then.
Today, at long, long last, I finished running Rise of the Runelords.
The actual last fight was over a month ago on April 25th. I wrote up how our Karzoug fight (obvious spoilers under that link) went at the time. Today was the epilogue session, in which we wrapped up longstanding character arcs, and revisited a few favorite NPCs to see how their stories concluded.
There's no particular reason any of you should care, I guess, but just briefly:
Micah Valian Arneseph, half-elf ranger and the only PC to survive from level 1 to the end of the campaign, married his sweetheart Eri Valion at a fancy ceremony in Magnimar attended by all their friends (including Vernalia, a wyrmling copper dragon who did aerial cartwheels over the wedding party after the vows were exchanged).
Zoe the android wizard reconnected with a former colleague, Kane of the Technic League, and returned to Xin-Shalast to conduct research.
Wren Silver-Hand, the party bard, saved her family's tavern from being sold to pay off her father's gambling debts, and founded a bardic college of her own in a forest preserve outside Magnimar's walls.
Skrag, the half-orc blood rager and cub reporter for the Urgir Herald, used his newfound wealth to buy full ownership of the paper just so he could re-assign himself from covering gossip in the human lands. Now he has returned home to Urgir, defeated his rivals in both the streets and the sheets, and become a prominent local newspaper magnate.
Ronia, a cohort cleric of Ng, having managed to purge herself of her changeling ancestry and become a full human, is taking a long vacation to Aelyosos. She anticipates lots of swimming, tanning, and pool boys.
According to my email Sent folder, I emailed links to the Rise of the Runelords player's guide to the group on May 20th, 2012. And now, nine years later (almost to the day!), we are finally, finally done.
Congrats! A nine year long campaign that finished. Truly remarkable
Turion: You doing ok? The action is kind of waiting on you before the party can meet back up/move forward.
Kazador: Fine idea. What do you guys want to do right now? In terms of IC time, my accounting has you guys a fair bit ahead of Turion so we'd have to wait for him to post a little before you can meet back up. You were doing surveillance for a while and he just got to the bookstore. But make your decision based on what you know IC. We can always have you and Fyrtor RP for a bit as you go, maybe earn some hero points to keep you safe from whatever I have planned. *chuckles ominously*
Hej, I had some troubles with my ISP and access to Paizo. I hoped they would sort things out in time, but last weekend I sat down and arranged for a solution myself.
Apologies for the trouble, I'll try to post as soon as I can.
Sorry to hear that! Sounds frustrating.
Posting today, just saying, all good, I was deliberating over course of action and then had very busy time at work. But I'll get a post in today. I'm not missing again :D
Ok sounds good. That's the major determinant/holdup before you guys can reunite.
"To determine if a victim is surprised, he should attempt a Sense Motive check opposed by the assailant’s Bluff check rather than a Perception opposed by the assailant’s Stealth check." She had to successfully bluff and conceal her weapon, both of which she managed. So that covers the rules side of things. The rest is interpretation of your actions, which is certainly a gray area. The one thing that was clear in your intent was that you were suspicious of the woman but not certain that she was hostile and open to finding allies. I didn't allow a lot of back and forth to get clarification on things you might have meant because
1. That gives you extra OOC warning that something might be about to happen and more importantly 2. The party has been waiting a LONG time to resolve this party split and I'm not confident that I can get rapid enough posts between us to cover much ground. Especially since it's been hard for you to keep up with posting lately.
All that said, you are unconscious, not dead. Nelly has her actions and is quite a force in her own right.
That said, if I am aware I am being followed, then even if I am not certain she is hostile, I would be cautious. I pointed that out for the future - that I am not going to let strange people that seem to have taken an interest in me and MAY be hostile get within arms length without first asking them to stop and talk from a safe distance.
(As said, even within 'charging' distance felt safe as I trusted Nelly to be able to interpose herself and stop any charge - just not to within 5-foot step distance.)
I also don't contest the surprise rule you quoted, I am saying that before she gets close enough to make use of that, I would have 'initiated' - by asking her to stop and talk, and acting(=>Init) if she continued to approach - not necessarily to be hostile, but to move away from her indefinitely and e.g. force her to either drop the charade or try some other tactic.
I do understand the timing issue, and guilty as charged - even though my ISP trouble was resolved I did have issues with posting frequency admittedly.
That said, as written above I did not contest what happens, I went along with it, but I wanted to speak up about it regardless as letting her get right next to me seems a very idiotic thing to do as a pure caster and I wanted to point that out in case similar situations occur in the future.
While I do have a good Initiative, that seems a gamble I would not be willing to take with strangers - if she had used a lethal weapon, I would be completely out - even if she was not using Sneak Attack, any martial that rolls lucky on Init would get a surprise round AND a full attack in before I could even react - not that the current situation is much better on the grand scale of things, considering there are no allies except Nelly nearby(that is, even if she wins, I will be in serious trouble).
That said, I do believe I don't count as a creature with Regeneration despite the gimmick, so technically, I would be dying all the same - with 21 HP to start with, that leaves 47 nonlethal after reaching zero, which would be converted to lethal, resulting in -26/47 HP. Up to your interpretation though, I always found it weird that as people get more skilled they have a harder time knocking people out, accidentally killing them instead - and allowed them to make sure the person was left alive unconscious at 0 effective HP instead. Not sure on your interpretation.
Ok I understand what you are saying going forward. It is good to know Turion's standard operating procedure. Out of curiosity, how do you walk through crowds? It is difficult to be inconspicuous while avoiding bumping shoulders with people. Her original plan has to just sneak up and bop you in the crowd but rolled incredibly unlucky vs a very lucky perception roll for you.
My interpretation is that you've taken 47 nonlethal and 26 lethal. So you're at 21/47 HP with 47 NL damage making you unconscious. As the rules say, you don't deduct NL damage from your HP because it isn't "real" damage. So for NL to kill you in one hit, it would have to deal your max HP*2+con score NL damage.
Especially since "bopping me in the crowd" may actually have been more advantageous for Túrion compared to a low-traffic back-alley.
With crowds, Túrion would avoid the worst of it if at all possible. Also because he is very aware that he is just hiding very suspicious ears that would possibly call attention to himself. If Traffic is heavy, he would follow Nelly rather than the other way round, letting her go in front.
With her regular size large, reduced she is medium, which is still a very impressive size of dog - and trust that most people would keep at least a bit of distance to her out of self-preservation. (You don't - usually - randomly bump into wolf-sized dogs not knowing their temper).
@your interpretation: I started out at 21/47 HP - albeit some time certainly passed since the last battle so it could be argued I managed to regen 6 hours or so for +6 HP.
But yes, you are right, of course, nonlethal has to exceed max hp, not current, to turn lethal. So out of the 68, 47 would be nonlethal, then 21 remaining lethal - which would place me at exactly 0 HP, plus whatever I managed to regen in the past few hours. So slightly less bleak than I imagined.
I won't tell you how you have to play her in a difficult spot like this. Just curious to see how it plays out.
Do Fyrtor or Khaz know where the bookstore is? I don't think we went over it ever in character, but I would guess we at least know the name of the shop.
Yes you know it's "Mumblethunder's Fine Texts."
The action is waiting on Fyrtor and Kazador. What are you two trying now? Lmk in gameplay.