Defense of Brookside

Game Master caster4life

I am more than happy for Hal to take over the book-keeping for me. No need for me to do all those rolls.

Can I push even further and ask what the rules for Spell Research are?
Specifically I'm kicking myself for misreading Mage's Crawl Space. I'd like Hal to research a version that works on earth. I'm happy for it to be a higher level spell. Specifically I'm seeing something that creates a small bubble (like crawlspace does), but about five feet down in sun-facing earth; potentially even 'earth with grass on it'. The bubble is protected from collapse and seepage, but anyone can dig through the five feet of earth (at about 2 cu ft/min with a shovel to get to the person inside (it is not extradimensional).
Upon the spell expiring, the mage leaving, the space being breached, or the spell being dismissed, the stuff in the 'bubble of space' rises up to the surface.
Yes this is very much modelled on "a hole six feet in the ground". Yes, I am hoping to use this to have him Project or Possess while his 'dead looking' body is buried. Tell me if it is thematically problematic - I can get largely the same effect with Rope Trick.

As I said, Hal is more than happy to see the Viscount - and he'll even clean up if the party asks him to. Won't hold a grudge if asked to stay 'in reserve'.

Would like to flag a request for a few scenes. Some of these could be smushed into other scenes.
1. Group planning for what information they still need; remembering Hal's primary goal is killing the Reaps before they kill him or his family, and secondary is stopping a war. This may well be done with the Viscount. I know the group is pretty good at plotting from previous reading, but I'd like to have a plan I (the player) can refer back to.
2. Shopping/scribing montage.
3. (Potentially) Getting someone to deliver a message to his group so he can push for gossip on nobles and houses in order to get the information identified from #1.
4. (Potentially) Possible divination frenzy to try to get the information identified from #1.
5. Hal confronts his greatest fear; full length mirrors (or more accurately, extradimensional spaces).

On #5 I have Hal trying to purchase/make an untuned planar fork and then linking it to the material plane - once trapped helplessly forever in an extradimensional prison, twice shy. Mostly this'll just be background, but checking Plane Shift still works the same? So if he cast it he'd be lost hundreds of miles from home on the Material Plane, but at least he'd be on the Material Plane.
I figure once he's got that he'd be willing to push through and use spells like Mirror Tranport again.

Hey guys, sorry I've been silent 5he past while, my family's had COVID (we're all recovering well, so no worries) but it has sapped my focus quiet a bit. I'll try to catch up tomorrow and read through the many posts I've missed.

Oh, dear. Sorry to hear that, Fyrtor. I hope you recover well!

EDIT: Also, just to double check, we're not planning on hiding any of the info from the Reap hideout from Viscount Turick, right? We're just going to hand over the papers and tell him what's in them.

I am hoping he'll have recent information that will let us identify or at least narrow down which council members might be involved in this plot.

@Fyrtor: that sounds terrible! Good to hear you are recovering well though. Uh, sorry for asking so many questions in Discussion.

@Mel: that was my understanding.
What are we hoping to get get out of Turick? We're just cementing an alliance so we can ask for help later?
He has no other interest in taking down the Reaps, right?

What are we hoping to get get out of Turick? We're just cementing an alliance so we can ask for help later? He has no other interest in taking down the Reaps, right?

As far as I can tell, his interest lies in uncovering corruption on the Iustian council. I don't know that he's invested in destroying the Reaps as an organization, but they are part of that corruption. Which means he has to deal with them.

His motives are less clear. I can think of several reasons why he might want to do what he is doing:

• Political Power: taking down another house would create a power void for his own to fill.
  
• Wealth: perhaps the corruption is interfering with his own private interests; removing it would improve his income.
  
• Personal Animus: perhaps he knows where the corruption lies and hates the person/people behind it on a personal level, but needs evidence to destroy them.
  
• Ethical Considerations: perhaps he is ethically committed to lawfulness, leading him to oppose corruption based on abstract ideals.
  
• Loyalty to King Stephen: They were friends growing up; perhaps he is trying to save his friend from becoming a tool of corrupt elements on the Council.
  

It could be any mixture of those. Or other things I haven't thought of.

We have established a relationship with Viscount Turick, but he doesn't know a great deal about us. We show up out of nowhere, crack a case he's been working on for him, and take down a den of extremely dangerous criminals at his behest.

He has to be wondering, at this point, who we are and what we want. Operatives of this caliber do not appear out of thin air. Who are we working for? One of the other nobles in Iustia? A foreign power?

He is likely willing to use us to advance his goals. But at the same time he's got to learn more about us -- figure out how we fit into the broader picture of events in Iustia. If he fails to do that it could easily come back to bite him later.

That's what he wants from us.

As for what we want from him, I think you and I want different things out of this. Our goals line up, but we're approaching from different angles.

Mel's primary goal is to prevent Iustia from starting a war. In order to do that, she has to figure out what's going on amongst the power players in the kingdom. Who is pushing for war? Why? What liabilities do they have that she could exploit to undermine their efforts?

This whole elaborate scenario of infiltrating the Reaps, stealing their ship and then raiding their compound? She participated in that strictly in order to buy an in with Viscount Turick, who she believes can supply a whole lot of the information she wants, and perhaps serve as a useful ally in shifting the course of Iustia to a less warlike path. She doesn't like the Reaps, and if we happen to take them down along the way, great. But she wouldn't usually go out of her way to pick a fight with them. In this case, they got in the way of her broader goals.

Meanwhile, Hal has a deep personal investment in taking down the Reaps -- partly for vengeance, partly to protect his family. I think you might say of Hal "If we happen to prevent a war in the course of taking down the Reaps, great. But he wouldn't usually go out of his way to meddle in the politics of Iustia."

So I can see why Hal may not be super-enthused about the meeting. But for Mel this is the result of a lot of work. And she hasn't even met the man before!

On a side note, last night I finished playing through Curse of the Crimson Throne. We started on January 6th 2018, and took 78 sessions to finish. My notes are currently 96 pages long (single-spaced).

With no particular spoilers, the last fight was pretty epic. It ran 28 rounds and took ten hours or eleven hours spread across three sessions in July, September and October of this year.

My PC, Bint, went into negatives I think seven times overall, but only three of those exceeded my CON score. Thank goodness for Breath of Life(s). In the course of the fight our cleric burned two Mass Heal spells, I think 4 more regular Heal spells, and 7 uses of channel positive energy just keeping us alive.

I am happy to report that Bint got the final killing blow on the BBEG, using the same mundane shovel that had been his weapon since level 1.

Hal, I'm pretty happy with PCs researching spells in general. An earthen version of mage's crawlspace sounds totally fine to me. It would just be level 2 still since it would be easier to cast but also easier to dig into.

You'll need 25 gp*spell level of components that are flavored appropriately and one hour of work for each attempt at casting your new spell. For spells with costly components, you also need to provide those with each attempt. The DC for the new spell will be 10+10*spell level. You get a +1 bonus for every failed, previous attempt on that spell. Of course, I have to approve the balance of any spell.

As for those scenes, feel free to initiate some of them off the side in a spoiler if they don't require whole group coordination, e.g., shopping or contacting certain folk. We just don't want too many offshoot threads at once.

Also, I'm realizing I've been too implicit with some key information because I thought it was clear; on reflection, I'm not sure I came out and said it anywhere. Whoever this noble working with the Reapers under security of blackmail is, he is also the one who collaborated with them on the treasury heist.

I am tempted to let Viscount Turick know that we are working with Count Aral. Thoughts, everyone?

Congrats on finishing an AP! Sounds like a great fight. I’m in the last book myself. Can’t wait to experience that as well. :)

@Mel: While his vendetta is a driving goal, Hal was sincere in his desire to pay the group back for rescuing him, and the Bishopric for trusting him. He'll help you even if this is the last we see of the Reaps.

Seven times in one fight? That's crazy!

If you want to tell him, I say go for it. That's one more level of the Turick>Aral>Bishop>Village tree!.

@Brookside GM: Cheers! Definitely will do that when there is some time then!

@All:
I really had to fight the urge to have 'Don' say something like "Traditionally to stop such a man one deprives him of his magic, geases him to long life, locks him in an extradimensional prison, and throws away the tuning fork. Transition to undeath does nothing to escape such a place, and pacts and precautions that take place after death often expire if the soul remains affixed to the body."

@All: I have 2 sick kids at home, still - during what was supposed to be 2 weeks of vacation, but I end up having less time to post than when I am at work.(due to less time with the computer overall).
Apologies for the impact this has on posting frequency. It's dragging on for weeks now...I am here and I will try and get a post in tomorrow if possible.

SO, tangent...
I have hypothesised a cheap counter for teleport.
I'm planning for Hal to get teleport (any moment now...) and therefore would like to see that there are ways to stop it making heists pointless without someone having to buy a Teleport Trap. I think that in the same way architecture can be used to make a room hard to break into via locksmith, climbing, or sunder it should be able to design rooms that are hard to teleport into.
I'm also thinking of ways to reduce the gamebreaking aspects of teleport in my own games, without rendering the spell useless.
The rest of this post explores the idea. I'm fine for people to skip it, though I'd love feedback. Brookside_GM: if you want to just say 'nup', that's fine too - I can cope with a world where none of these ideas work just fine :)

THEORY
Teleport has trouble with areas of strong physical or magical energy. It doesn't SAY you can't teleport into solid body, but is strongly implied.
Dimension door - which is of the teleportation school - says you can't appear in a solid body.

In my head teleportation spells 'push' matter out of the way. This works fine for gasses and liquids, but not for anything else.

The obvious way to stop teleportation is therefore to fill the space with a solid object - like ice.
This is inconvenient for many spaces.

I had four ideas.

IDEA ONE
One idea I had was for a collapsible "grid" that could be brought down from the ceiling and locked to the floor. Think of those old pull-down elevator doors, but with bigger gaps and three dimensional.
The idea is to not leave a space big enough for someone to teleport in. When you want to use an area (or part of an area) you raise the grid. When you want security you close the grid.

IDEA TWO
The second idea is to grab a bunch of magical and physically energetic marbles. Heated ioun stones would be perfect, but I can also see an argument for electrified cold-iron beads, red-hot rocks, lodestones, etc.
These are then 'strung' at roughly foot intervals off the floor, but presumably need to be locked in place. Ioun stones have the advantage they can already 'lock' in place.
Anyone teleporting in will then be trying to colocate their body with a strong magical and/or physical energy.

IDEA THREE
The third idea is to have a space that continuously changes. Not just illusion, either. The idea here is that getting a mental 'lock' is harder.

IDEA FOUR
The last idea is to have a space that is hostile to all movement that doesn't have some form of key. This could be as simple as an animated ballista. This might be fine for a vault, but I see a lot of 'ED-209' problems making this unpopular with users.

I'm ignoring the classic 'extradimensional space'. Permanent demiplanes are expensive but have the advantage of requiring planar magic to enter. On the other hand that just pushes this discussion from teleport to plane shift.

Teleportation is one of the spells that my players voted to houserule, to prevent it's use like that...

Specifically, the roll ranges include more than "on target" and "off target".

It's more like "very familiar" is on-target from 01-40, slightly off target 41-70, moderately off target 71-95, and off target 96-99.
"Viewed once" its swayed like 01-10 on target, 11-35 slightly off target, 36-70 moderately off target, and 71-88 off target.

The new categories are that slightly off target you land in a random safe space within 1d100 meters, moderately off target is a random safe space within 3d6 kilometers, and fully off target works on a percentage from total travel distance as usual.

Additionally, we have a scramble roll. Every teleported player rolls a flat percentage roll(5% for very familiar, plus 5% for each step away from very familiar) - if that roll triggers, he is split from the others. So they may all appear within 1d100 meters of the target area, but the bard who scrambled may land in a completely different location from the rest of the party.

That means even with a familiar target there's a chance you land in a different nearby room - and with less familiar locations there is a very high chance that you only get in the vicinity, and it's more likely you land in a nearby location than exactly where you wanted to go.
As a result, using it to jump into a location that is not yours is a rather dangerous gamble.(especially if someone gets scrambled, which means you can't just teleport out and try again.)

It always kind of annoyed me that the basic teleport had such high accuracy even for obscure locations. Not feeling strongly here, I'm not GM, just figured I'll post how I'm usually handling it.

(I should also say that any cheesy tactics my players use, I also let NPC's use. Not to 'punish' them for creative thinking, that is welcome. But they do not exist in a vacuum. If they thought of it, chances are someone else did, too, and if nobody did, if someone hears of what they did, it will be considered by others. They are aware of that handling and fine with it, and work with me to try and prevent certain parts of the game from having the potential to break things.(like with teleport).)

I don't think I've ever seen Teleport used for short-distance travel. Dimension Door, sure.

We've generally ruled that basic Teleport does not allow you to teleport some place you have never been. You must travel there physically at least once and spend some time studying the area. After that you can teleport there.

Greater Teleport lifts that restriction, but you still need a clear, unambiguous description of the area.

We've also generally played that Scrying is not enough to allow you to teleport someplace. The creature targeted is in clear focus: you can see them and maybe two or three feet around them, but after that it blurs out into haziness so quickly you can't really get more than a vague sense of the space around them. For example you could tell they were inside a building with a wooden floor, but you wouldn't have any idea which building.

I have occasionally used Teleport Trap in high level games with intelligent BBEGs who have access to such magic. And I did have a player use it in a game I ran once. But in general, barriers to teleportation that show up have generally been hand-wavy things like "the proximity of this area to the Plane of Blooper Reels means you can teleport in the area, but it's a DC 30 caster level check to teleport back to the city. Failure means you're stuck watching some hilarious short outtakes of unfamiliar forms of entertainment for a few minutes."

I rule that teleport trap is a level 5 spell instead of 7 and only 2000 gp to make permanent. So be careful where you teleport. It hasn't come up much yet before but now you know. The treasury is teleport trapped, for example.

I also like Idea 1 and think that's perfectly reasonable. You may or may not encounter it from NPCs who are trying to save money.

Thank you all! I feel much better about it now - Hal has a reason to be paranoid and a reason to belive precautions are possible.

Alright; I'm pretty much good for Hal's shopping trip. I have 2 dilemmas though. @Brookside GM, can I check this with you please?

The spellbook
I feel bad about scribing from the Mage's Spellbook, given I pushed to find out what it was. In theory a bunch of those spells could be found with lucky rolls, of course, but I like the story behind it.
While I am more than happy to just scribe the spells I like, I am also prepared to have Hal buy the book (or part of the book if we can separate the pages) outright for the cost the group would sell it for.

Spells
So, assuming spells like Teleport can be acquired from the book, I'm planning on.
1. Mage's Sanctum - I worked out in this combat this can be used as a really weird mist/silence spell, so there'll be at least SOME utility.
2. Possession or Magic Jar - up to @Brookside GM which is preferred, but they are essentially the same spell.
3. Permanency - it's just too good to pass up, even though there's not actual, uh, use for it at this point. Maybe permanencying Cursed Domain or defences?

Finally, if he gets access to the spellbook... and the min maxer in me is crying out... but Full Pouch. Yes, the second level spell. Pulling out a seemingly inexhaustible supply of snake oil and alchemical wierdness is just too in theme. I think I've found a way to make it a barely-suboptimal combat choice as well.
I'm more than happy to take feedback on why this is a terrible choice. Other contenders include Create Mindscape and Scripted Hallucination.

bonus
Mel mentioned using Sense Vitals on Coin Shot (back in #3446). Is this legal? If so, might make for a halfway decent combat backup. Follow up: is it then compatible with Named Bullet?

Thanks Túrion, that was a great summary. I think you've talked me into Possession.

On the topic of Possession, I strongly prefer it over Magic Jar. The Magic Jar mechanics are weird and have a tendency to cause serious head-scratching rules questions.

I'll also mention that a group I'm in recently had a random encounter that featured several Mire Brutes. They were giving us some trouble until our psychic, Cass, dropped her backpack and material components bag on the ground and cast Greater Possession on one of them. It failed its save. We finished the fight, collected her material components bag, and rode on her back the rest of the way to our destination.

She wore that Mire Brute for, I think, three days. Each time the spell would get near its end she'd go out in the woods, dismiss the spell, and immediately re-possess it with another casting of Greater Possession. Her casting was unimpeded, because as a psychic her spells have no verbal or somatic components. Most of her spells were totally unaffected by this change of body. Psychics do need material components, but only the expensive ones. Occasionally one of us would have to fish out some stuff from her components pouch, say if she needed that eye ointment for True Seeing. But most of her spells were totally normal.

When we knew we were heading into a big fight she cast Extended Alter Self on herself first, turning herself back into a reasonable imitation of her normal body. Only with stupid-high strength and constitution scores and a giant pile of hit points that she didn't really need to worry about losing because they weren't hers anyway. It's a good thing she'd dropped her backpack before possessing the critter, because none of our clothes would have fit her.

Things got really weird part way through the fight when she got hit with a Greater Dispel Magic, and the Greater Possession effect got dispelled. The original Cass then popped into being, leaving us with two of them on the field: OT Cass and Mire Cass. Mire Cass kept most of the buffs, like True Seeing and Fly and Haste. Happily it was easy to tell the difference. Mire Cass was the one screaming like a banshee and doing a very credible job of tearing apart the nearest moving target with her bare hands. She was very helpful in cutting down our enemies. When Mire Cass eventually turned on us, OT Cass regretfully spent an action on a fresh Greater Possession.

In the end, we let that Mire Brute go, spending a ton of spells to effectively air drop it back in the middle of the deep swamps it had come from. The GM announced it had gained a level of cleric out of the experience. We're not sure which deity. All we know is at some point during its long, harrowing experience, it thought "Oh God, what is happening to me?" And Something Answered.

Haha. I love that mire brute story.

Hal, I'm totally fine with you scribing before selling. Also, sense vitals, named bullet, and coin shot all work together afaik. The only thing is that I think coin shot has to be cast first to turn the coins into thrown weapons before named bullet can be applied to them. I guess you could cast named bullet on them as improvised thrown weapons before you cast coin shot, it just seems cheeky. XD But I'm known for being a cheeky PC (and sometimes GM) myself.

Túrion, Hal - do either of you know Sending? If not, can Mel buy a scroll of it that one of you can scribe? I really, really want to contact the Bishop and ask what Bishopric records show about Harcourt's business entanglements on that end.

Now that we more or less narrowed it down to two:

Well...we could dress up Mel as a Maid and sneak her into one of the estates. If she finds drugs, we got our culprit.

If not, we blame the other noble.

Just a suggestion :D
(Not a serious one, albeit I believe if could theoretically work )

@Brookside GM: Sweet!
@Melia: Hal can burn 2 slots for Sending... or potentially we could teleport? It's only a week's walk, right?

With apologies for how long it has taken, I present...

Mel's info-dump on the Lakefire Rebellion:
The Lakefire Rebellion is named for the Lake noble family that challenged taxation five years ago with many non-humans flocking to their banner due to recent laws advanced by Duke Beaumont that reduced rights of nonhumans. The Lakes were a powerful noble family frustrated by sharply rising taxes after Count Aral’s regencyship ended and Stephen became enamored by the idea of a professional army. Several other noble families flocked to the Lakes’ banner to protest the taxes. They hoped to negotiate rather than start a war but Stephen’s advisors recommended an immediate armed response, displaying the power of the new army. At first, the new units were unaccustomed to working together and the Lake forces won multiple successive engagements, raising confidence and bringing more forces to their banner. Making matters worse, the Lakes were supplied with weapons from an unknown source, despite an obvious royal embargo on the sale of weapons to the rebellion. The rebellion was known for burning tax-collectors in effigy, coming to be called “the Lakefire Rebellion” as a result with many of the rebels called “Lakeburners.”

After a few months of fighting, the New Model Army became more organized and experienced in their new style. During the Battle of the Long Mile, the Lakefire forces were devastated. Soon, the Lakefire forces were shattered and the leaders rounded up for execution. The entire rebellion lasted six months.

It's good I left earlier for other tasks. Túrion would definitely not have approved of Mel giving away detailed information on our strenghts and weaknesses.

(I don't mind as a player, but as character, I simply don't trust this guy sufficiently at this point. I feel we know too little about his ambitions and ultimate goals. (aka whatever hidden agenda he does not openly share).)

Some input from the rest of the party would be nice.

I figured Hal had left after his massive 'Boy you're great, but I'm so busy...' post, but I guess he could just be quietly reading in the background. It is an hour per spell.

For the record, given he can't fail the spellcraft (15+SL), Harold should take an hour per spell for 10 spells for a total of 10 hours to understand the spells.
Obviously, writing them in his book would take much, much longer.

Thank you.

So OOC planning:

I'm basically proposing a party split. Some of us go infiltrate the Harcourt estate, while others of us go and investigate his tax records.

Mel would like to go do infiltration. Maybe our INT-based castery types could do research in the archives?

I'd also be interested to hear if Turick has any other leads we might pursue.

Ah yes...sneaking. Kazador could come with you. He has +0 stealth, but could buy some magic to make that +5. The main reason would be to teleport us out if something goes wrong.

Up to you. Otherwise he'll go and try to read some books.

Fyrtor is a good sneaker (relatively) so would join in the infiltration. I don't have teleportation, but a much of other useful tricks. If we have time before we go I could respec my spells for a purpose built set as well.

Okay, so it sounds like we've actually got three avenues to investigate! And -- unless I've misread the GM's intent -- it sounds like these are things we can tackle simultaneously. Yay, party split!

Mel wants to go infiltrate Harcourt's mansion looking for evidence. Who wants to do research on his business dealings, and who wants to go deal with this smaller Reap outpost?

You don't have to investigate all three at once. Just giving options.

I see. So what do we want to do?

On a totally unrelated note, I found a new VTT called Tableplop. I'm impressed. I think it might be the best I've found for play-by-post purposes.

It doesn't require hosting like Foundry or MapTool -- it's always online, which is important for asynchronous games.

Its UI is generally pretty smooth. And it works well on mobile! Which is nice.

The one slightly confusing thing I've run across is adding a map image. It works great if the map was designed to the same standards Roll20 uses (70 pixels to the square, and the grid goes edge-to-edge on the image). If you're using a map that doesn't meet those specifications it can require tweaking, or even doing a little math if you have one where the grid isn't edge-to-edge.

It's still in development, but it's looking very promising! I'm going to start using it in another game I'm running.

Happy to do infiltration or administration, but I suspect Hal is not a good choice for combat.

@Mel: interesting. I've been considering switching.

As this is PbP, I think it is best to just keep us together. It helps keep the game flowing, and the GM's sanity intact

I'm ok either way. I think Fyrtor would be best at either the infiltration with Mel, or busting the outpost with Khaz. The infiltration and research seem like tasks that can be done in smaller groups, the outpost, I'm not as sure.

The outpost is much smaller than the one you just did and could potentially be a two-person job, if they were pretty deadly people.

I'm ok with a party split here as long as people understand I'll skip them heavily if they don't have time to act and just narrate their arc to a conclusion to make it join back up in time, unlike my previous mistakes. In fact, I somewhat expect a party split and am trying to give a variety of tasks so everyone can contribute and have fun.

In that case, the blunt object that is Kazador is ready to cause some blunt force trauma

I am here, just saying. But that we didn't go ahead yet was good, because due to a major incident at work I've been sleeping a total of around 10 hours in the last 3 nights and spent most of the remainder of the day on work.
Things should MOSTLY be okay again tomorrow, so here's hoping.

No worries, Turion. I didn't mean that as a lack of appreciation for any of my awesome players. I just mean that going forward, I'm going to have to narrate slow halves of a party split to their conclusion so the rest of the party can move forward.

So three potential tasks, five players. At least two needed for the outpost. I'd guess Mel could do an infiltration alone, But I'd feel better with her having support. Research is ok as a solo task usually, but with enemies looking for us it is dangerous to be alone, even in basically public areas it seems. Turion has the advantage that with Nelly he can somewhat be his own backup, so long as Nelly can accompany him.

Thoughts?

How about this?

Reap base: Kazador and Fyrtor. Both are capable combatants, and both have some magical capabilities including a reasonable amount of healing. Obviously Kazador's more heavily martial and Fyrtor leans more to casting, but between the two of them I think they'd be fine.

Research: Túrion. He's got the high INT score and knowledge skills for it, plus Nelly as backup in case of trouble.

Infiltration: Mel and Hal. I'd be glad to have Hal's spectacular Bluff score along for the trip. Mel's reasonably diplomatic these days (+12), but not much of a liar at +4. I might need to concoct a new identity/cover story for Mel so that she can lie as little as possible.

I won't comment on the strategic merit of the plan since it's not my place either way. It just seems a reasonable division of labor for everyone to have fun, from a metagame perspective.

If that's the plan, enact it in gameplay.

I like it :)

That, and if the Research part is indeed just a few rolls of uneventful research, I can maybe get my other stuff done while waiting for you guys :D

Also, I totally concur regarding narrating branches for reunion. It makes sense. I just know I had slow-downs in the past as well, and just wanted to reiterate that I am here, even if not vocal.

I'm good with the plan. Khaz and Fyrtor play well off each other, and Turick has seen us work as a pair before.

Before we split Fyrtor will cast pack empathy on a representative from each split. It's not a telepathic link, but it's nice to be able to keep tabs on one another.

Also, as an aside, I realized as I was starting to update my sheet that I have no use for the cunning liar trait as my conversion inquisition coverts that. So instead of getting that trait with my background trait I'm taking forbidden knowledge. IT allows me to make knowledge planes checks with my knowledge religion, so long as that is acceptable to the GM :)

I figure it is a nice way to explain how I know and use elementals, coming from my religious background. I don't expect it to matter too often as we have knowledge skills far greater than mine from most party members.