Elven team in Campaign Elves vs Dwarves -- Dwarves and Gnomes Keep Out (Inactive)

Game Master Chainmail

I agree Wil. Firey swords are way more paladin-y anyway. :)

Okay, some of it was unclear, and it was my job to clarify it.

By posts it is clear Wil, Suny, and Talon are close to the door. A strong case can be made for everyone else getting out of the way.

My indepent helper has added some input: Azlain was asking for someone to 'take 20 on the door'. If there are no immediate threats, that would have assumed a long time looking. Suny would have missed the trap taking twenty. As the mechanism was in the door, no one could have to aided her. Talon taking twenty would have easily seen the triggering device. My passive perception roll for Talon was the equivalent to allowing him to 'take 10'. Which means he did the standard cursory search before sticking the arrow in the lock.

Azlain's awareness that something was going on by the ticking and the noticing no one looked over the lock carefully meant he probably would have quickly left the area.

Taking 20 (or a long hard search) costs nothing but time and can be used at obvious dangerous places (chests, doors, etc.).

I like your solution in game thread. Just a heads up ill be posting off phone for roughly two weeks.still posting though, just might be shorter and not as well formatted.but will do my best.

Can we get an updated map?

Edit: Nevermind... forgot that it was in campaign info

To jump right into our more tactically minded play-style, here are my thoughts-

First, this is a natural bottleneck. If we can get them to come forward into the channel, we can make short work of them. THat means Wil and Talon need to pull back. Ideally we want a tank character at K10, L10 and M10 (I'll take L10 once the other guys are clear)

Everyone else gets to play ranged support for this one. Don't waste spells or abilities unless it's absolutely necessary.

They'll be making 2ish attacks on me a round. By keeping my AC high I can take that for a while. If we do it right we can give back more than they can dish out.

Guys, play along with them. This is their turf and Talon is yet again a liability

What? Play along? Why?

Wild plan is to recover Talons and pull him back to our healers and get azlain to back him up in the way azlain described. But Talons is unconcious and needs some backup! Lol

With ya 100% azlain.

Big damage taken generally from that trap, and obviously these gnolls are sneaky as hell. The group needs to survive more than I do. And who knows, maybe they wont kill me instantly

Just Withdraw to avoid AoO and drag Talon with you. Dragging/Pushing people doesn't provoke AoOs without certain feats.

Paladin abandoning a comrade...

Dishonorable

Evil humanoids threatening unconcious comrade...

Smiteable...

Seeing the look on their faces when Azlain smashed their head in.

Priceless :)

For everything else there's Caster/Bard.

Haha, I love that idea. Also love being back on my feet and healthy.

Hey Talon, how come you don't have a character picture?

I never found one I liked really, and don't tend to bother with them. Plus, I have been playing Talon 10 years more or less, and other than that he is an elf with a bow, I don't know what he looks like. Well actually I do. I was given a drawing of him that my girlfriend made for me, but Paizo doesn't have anything like it on their forums, so Talon remains as ever in my head lol.

Sounds awful I know. Might have to start looking for a proper sanctioned picture here, but somehow i like how his appearance can be left to a persons imagination.

Fair enough.

When I make characters on these forums I tend to come up with a concept, then the mechanics, then search for a portrait I like, then write the description. Sometimes the portraits even spark some kind of thematic idea that gets me to redo a skill or trait.

Of course, I haven't been playing any character nearly as long as you've been playing Talon. :)

Eh, the picture for Talon when he is an NPC is pretty close to what he might look like. Never really decided. Always been more interested in what my character can do and still survive than what he looks like. He is really developed compared to when he used to be. Still, he has gotten to this level only twice before, so am very curious how the build will continue. There are some feats that would be perfect for him, but fall outside of the core rules and thus I can't use them which means more creativity is needed.

I am becoming fond of Azlain though. Really want to explore his background.

Thanks. :)

When I built him I had no idea what the setting/story was like so rather than shoehorn a concept in I decided to have the character be as clueless about the world as I was. I didn't want to go with an amnesiac, so I was left with "how do I make a blank slate interesting?"

So far I'm enjoying it.

Glad to hear it. Now if only Talon wasn't so pathetic. I seem to be downed about once a level right now. Not a good average.

I've noticed he tends to get hurt an awful lot for an archer.

My advice is to attach yourself to Wil. Target his targets to focus fire and stay close enough that if you get nailed he doesn't have to break ranks to heal you. Basically just camp right behind him and fire over his shoulder. Against enemies in front of him he'll give you Cover to your AC and granting you Evasion against AoE.

In combat, any round that you aren't Full Attacking is a bad round for the group. By all rights you should be our primary damage dealer, but that only works if we keep you safe and protected so you can fire.

We don't have a rogue, so I put our stealthiest first. Talon and Suny are it for that. We lost our rogue, but I figured some hurt was better than a TPK.

The sewers are a series of bottlenecks, and there's no pretty way for us to deal with it, except hope for some good stealth rolls, and some lucky disable device checks via Suny. It's always a few getting fried, while the rest have no way to contribute.

Our luck is a matter of record. I regret nothing! lol

Seltyn, I dont want to second guess you, but what you just said was "Because we lack a Rogue I put the Bard and the Archer out in front".

That doesnt make sense to me.

Wouldn't it be better to simply make due without scouts and take things slow and careful?

Seltyn, I dont want to second guess you, but what you just said was "Because we lack a Rogue I put the Bard and the Archer out in front".

That doesnt make sense to me.

Wouldn't it be better to simply make due without scouts and take things slow and careful?

No. We have 2 with the dex, ranks and class skills to scout. Suny alone would be toast. Talon can't see without her. I'm open to alternatives, but I don't see any.

We continue to get bunched up, unable to do squat. Had we all been moving together, there would have been a lot more damage to go around, and not enough healing to begin to compensate.

We could lay it all on Suny, or go as a group, and take damage we can't fix. We don't have darkvision, and she's just not that tough. I'm thinking there will be plenty more traps to come, and we've lost plenty of allies, already.

In a wide open area, I'd agree with you. Scouting is to properly determine which direction the enemy might be and to determine their strengths.

Like you said, this who place is a series of bottlenecks. We know which direction they are coming from, and their strengths are pretty much known to us (they've been sharing them with us for a while now)

On the upside, that means we only have to guard from the front and back most of the time.

So here's my thought-

Our biggest weakness right now is AoE in these tight quarters and having our Rear Line in front of the Front Line.

Cover grants Evasion. Full cover grants Improved Evasion. That means two of us with Tower Shields can act like one of those siege towers that protect the people inside until they're ready to be dumped past the defenses.

When we get to a door we take our time and make sure we're properly defended against traps before breaching.

When we get into melee we deploy the tower shields as cover for the ranged folks (propping them up like an artist's easel and leaving them behind while we engage)

Since we don't have the proper party makeup to take a stealthy approach, we're better off rolling in like a tank and making sure the fights start on our terms.

In a wide open area, I'd agree with you. Scouting is to properly determine which direction the enemy might be and to determine their strengths.

Like you said, this who place is a series of bottlenecks. We know which direction they are coming from, and their strengths are pretty much known to us (they've been sharing them with us for a while now)

On the upside, that means we only have to guard from the front and back most of the time.

So here's my thought-

Our biggest weakness right now is AoE in these tight quarters and having our Rear Line in front of the Front Line.

Cover grants Evasion. Full cover grants Improved Evasion. That means two of us with Tower Shields can act like one of those siege towers that protect the people inside until they're ready to be dumped past the defenses.

When we get to a door we take our time and make sure we're properly defended against traps before breaching.

Just stay way ahead.

When we get into melee we deploy the tower shields as cover for the ranged folks (propping them up like an artist's easel and leaving them behind while we engage)

Since we don't have the proper party makeup to take a stealthy approach, we're better off rolling in like a tank and making sure the fights start on our terms.

If you and Wil have tower shields, good. I don't see how that would help us find and kill ratfolk. We're taking mass damage, all the time, from things fighter types can't spot.

IOW, we move at 1/2 speed with you at the front. That could work. It's not like they don't know we're coming.

It's not like they don't know we're coming.

Exactly. No reason at all to play it quiet. :)

Seltyn Sevenleaf wrote:

It's not like they don't know we're coming.

Exactly. No reason at all to play it quiet. :)

We can't seem to get a shot at anticipating any traps. Let's try it your way.

To put things in perspective, this entire campaign was designed to be more difficult than average. It was for the extremedly jaded AD&D player. I have toned it down some, but it is meant to be hard. The bar set was set very high after the first encounter, where the party bested six previous elvish groups attempting the same encounter. One elvish group was TPKed in the first encounter, another lost three out of six.

The thing is we had someone who was virtually perfect for a social encounter, and we knew that if we failed then we would go splat. If we tried to kill them we would go splat. And so on.

That doesn't mean that we have tactics worth a damn that can help us in combat encounters.

In any case, perhaps you are right. Stuff stealth, let us destroy this place!

Shields up! Kick in the door! lol

Um... A god just closed that door. I'm sure he wouldn't be too happy if we continued to follow a continuum he doesn't like lol!

Um... A god just closed that door. I'm sure he wouldn't be too happy if we continued to follow a continuum he doesn't like lol!

I second that! lol

ps back on the net now yay, thank you chainmail for moving me. using a phone to post is very hard and not always wroth the results, BB codes are hit and miss.

Well, ok. Maybe not THAT door.

Yeah, not that door. Although he could just be talking about me falling over thanks to those mean balls of fire

What elven gods exist so that I can choose one to follow for Wil lol!

Or he could be dedicated to an ideal and serve them all equally. :)

Once I know I will post a response. If we get going before we can then oh well~

@ Wil: Maybe the other elven god mentioned is NG. Too bad this one is chaotic.

Talon is far from useless. I just put him in a bad position. We knew it was trap heavy, and I thought our dexiest would be best to at least scout a bit, and maybe get lucky. It was a gamble, but stumbling right into a trap like that one could have killed or injured many more of us.

I still feel bad about not being able to help Radriel, and losing our poor cleric in her first encounter, just like that. We've suffered some losses, and for elves, that's hard to take. We don't have litters like rats!

We got some divine guidance from an ancient, little-known god, so we can run with that. I'm going on the presumption that we don't really comprehend our own significance, and that this is the biggest of a few clues we've gotten that there's more going on than we know, and that our role in the world is significant in ways you don't get at 3rd level.

Seltyn hates taking risks and not knowing what to expect, but that's where he is. This is far from a favored terrain for our party. Dwarves would pwn us down here!

Let's go after the ship, then. This is the opposite of what we're good at. We could go back and let Elorin shmooze the humans a little more, return to our island, and regroup. Seltyn needs some spells, and we need some better healing.

This place just isn't working for us. We fail another mission. We're alive. I call that a win.

Spider's up to something, too. We might be able to achieve our objective here if we talk to him. He's been a good connection to resources we'd otherwise never find, and he seems to like us...

Here, whut d'ye mean,

"Let's go t' yon ship, then. This be the opposite o' whut we'be good at."

There be nuthin' wrong about bein' on'a ship, nuthin' a'tall. (^_~)

Much cheers to all.

Will has lived among the humans. He has access to the Golarion gods=the new gods. Desna is an elf diety and worshipped by many, but is chaotic good. Wil's previous mercenary band worshipped Desna and gave regular offerings to her (may help explain why Wil was treated without prejudice). Ketephys and Findelara are also new gods that are elves. If Wil felt strongly about his elf heritage and his mercenary ties, he would probably have chosen Desna. If he was more concerned with a diety that matched the LG ethos, any of the Golarion LG dieties will work.

The only old god that is common knowledge is Corelon Lorethian. He is the creator of the elves. He is said to be the father of Desna.

Even in the elven enclave, the 'new dieties' have more sway and Desna is the main choice.

Wil will worship Corelon Lorethian then and in some ways pay his respects to Desna as would be befitting to the divine daughter of his God. :)

He said when meeting with the people who gave you the bow. Especially the human leader who gave it to you.

If your mother in law gives you a scarf for a Christmas present, she may not be happy to see it on someone else when she meets you.

Kill the children and heal the overseeing adults ? Or talking first?

If anyone's going to either of those things, it should probably be Wil.

before I get too deep in this, what's Azlain's share of the treasure pulled out of the rat queen? Last I heard we hadn't gotten a full amount worked out.

I'll be out of town for a week starting tomorrow. I'll be able to post from my phone but it will be less frequent. Don't let me hold up the game.

I am sure we can have Wil NPC your bad cop side pretty well. Although Azlain scares me a little now.

Glad I'm pulling it off. :)

joriandrake Fri, Jul 6, 2012, 01:57 AM

am interested in this game, elven side, but can't find details on character creation, or if there is room at all

EDIT: just found mention of char creation, but still the question is up about free room for a player, and also a question of the feat that gives a char two additional traits would be allowed to get traits at all

EDIT2: none of the archetypes for any of the classes is allowed, is this true?

I assume reading the recruitment thread or PM-s isn't typical lately, I am still interested, am reading this thread trying to keep away from the dwarven one, and have still no clue if there is even an open slot

Core rulebook only 15pt build.

Yeah its core only, 15 point build with the variations on elves as mentioned in the recruitment thread. Just out of interest, what do you plan on making?

as I hear what is most needed is a fighter or a cleric so I am thinking along those lines, if archetypes are allowed I would use only one per the two classes I think of

"Core book" doesn't say much to me, d20pfsrd.com is what I am using, I don't have a single book and make all characters with the help of that site, that is why I ask about the main archetypes like the two-weapon warrior for fighter. I never liked the majority of prestige classes in 3.x anyway, and love that you can choose a few archetypes to customize a char fitting your concept better, and keep it without ever needing to multiclass in most cases.

My main concept idea would be an elf from an elven noble House that defended borders at a mountain against ogres and giants for generations, something that is unusual for enemies of elves. The character would be stronger than average and a weaponsmith, and a two-weapon fighter with 2 levels in barbarian.

If a healer is more needed then my secondary concept could be better, I believe you also lack a rogue so perhaps an Archeologist Bard would be ideal, capable to look for traps, helpful with out of combat skills, and could still learn to cast healing spells.

This character would be an old scholar, trying to look for any ancient evidence of a treaty what would allow an end to the war with the humans and dwarves. I don't think I would have to multiclass at all with this char to fit the concept idea, but maybe 1 level in Oracle would work.