I'm not going to spoiler too much, but what Catina remarks here may be worth to keep into account. Your absence would be noticed, that for sure.
Since I misunderstood the situation I guess what we do is down our lesser restoration potions and then try again with everyone attacking the mirror as one.
If we can wait the eight hours for spells, that's great. Depends on if the risk of being caught outweighs the benefits of the spells.
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I'm a little worried about the timeline after a long rest - Would the rest of the guests at the manor start waking up? Would it be noticed that we're not there? However, if that sounds like our best option and we need the spells, then I'll agree to the rest.
Hmm, I hadn't fully considered the timing aspect. I do have a few things left, and a good amount of those necromancer's scrolls.
Perhaps I felt not so confident since my own spells are so diminished and I didn't prepare well - but I do still have full health. If we can use our potions to heal as much ability damage as we can on our melee fighters, and try to fight with smart tactics and our other resources in the rest of the knot, I think we could press on. Considering the time pressure and the fact that we did manage to get passed the shadows, perhaps we can find the puzzle box and get out.
If, in our further exploration, we encounter more foes that we simply lack the (magical) resources to deal with, then maybe we should consider resting. Let's try to get people's strength back up (especially Alessandro's) and see if we restore enough points that we feel confident moving forward.
I don't think we HAVE to destroy the mirror or the shadows, Varius. On the map we are past the shadows. We'll have to deal with them when we leave but we might just be able to run through.
Good plan, heal up the best we can and see what lies next for us.
I'm on board with that plan.
Also, sorry for my spotty in-character posts the last few days. The puppy is taking up a lot of time, and then there's lack of sleep from broken nights. I have two weeks off from work at least, so I should be able to find the time again to make active and detailed in-character posts.
@Faustinia: Yep, that was my mistake, because I deleted the label I had put on the map. Anyway, the unbarred cell was one of those on the right , the third one starting from above. That cell, unlike the others, did not contain any dead prisoner.
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Varius, looks like we posted at the same time with very different ideas of how we should fight this devil. :)
While we can still edit our posts, do you think we can reconcile our strategies? I think picking one or the other is better than splitting between two. If you like my idea to draw it out, you can change your post. But if you think your idea could work better, I can change my post.
I was just about to post. For what it's worth, I would side with Varius's tactic in this case. Pushing him to the corner prevents him from using the halberd effectively, with its nasty bleeding wound. By contrast, we can more easily deal with the beard disease, once this is all over. Also, retreating to draw him out risks him using a summon next round.
I'll make an in-game post now, trying in-game to make the case. I'll post my combat action, assuming that we push forward.
Nah, leave it.
Edit: I suppose you could maybe still edit your action, but leave the part about Faustinia suggesting the retreat?
Did I miss a detail? How is the devil out of the cell?
"The bars of the door start to tremble and fall.
The devil smirks unpleasantly, with a hint of insanity in his fiery eyes. He tightens the grasp on his glaive and charges forward!"
Sorry guys, hectic day. I'm going to post in the evening.
Alessandro, could you please clarify your position? Did you step into the room?
Wait? The door wasn't open? I guess I opened it then. I'm so confused. And dying again.
Petals' hammer does not like you Alessandro :)
Petals surely doesn't know what resists healing means. She can't ask without stopping her singing so she can try.
Giuseppe, just a quick check. Are you sure about the DR on Varius's attacks? He did mention wielding silvered short swords, that's why I ask.
What she said, I can put it in the attack code but Varius very specifically bought silver weapons after Faustinia scolded him. :D
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This is a little tangential given our more pressing combat concerns, but I was doing sone character sheet tidying around my skills and I believe I'm short a language known. I have 3 ranks in Linguistics plus an Int bonus of +4, so I should know Common plus 7 others; I think I neglected to take another language with my first rank in Linguistics at character creation.
If you all have any time to speculate on another good language to pick up after your tactical considerations, I'm open to suggestions! I'm not sure what to pick. Currently I have Aklo, Celestial, Common, Elven, Halfling, Infernal, and Terran.
Oh, I didn't realize it in the hurry of the moment. I will add the damage in my next post, Varius. Anyway, to the purposes of the combat, nothing changes, since the barbazu still stands despite Varius attacks harmed him fully.
@Faustinia: Abyssal...*cough*...shadowtongue...*cough cough*
Varius, have you been adding the +1 damage inspire courage gives you?
An useful link for whoever will claim the glaive...
And an important implication I was not aware of...
Any character whose alignment does not correspond to that of the item (except as noted by the asterisks on the table) gains one negative level if he or she so much as picks up the item. Although this negative level never results in actual level loss, it remains as long as the item is in hand and cannot be overcome in any way (including by restoration spells). This negative level is cumulative with any other penalties the item might place on inappropriate wielders. Items with Ego scores (see below) of 20 to 29 bestow two negative levels. Items with Ego scores of 30 or higher bestow three negative levels.
Catina do you want to handle the healing this time. With the magic weapon, you'll be more prone to going into combat.
Wow Mechapoet, that was a masterpiece of a post! And also the others, very good posts!
I've got my post prepared. Paizo has been having some issues until now.
I'm cool with taking the glaive for resale or the such. It hink Varius is the only one can use it and his very strong aversion to diabolism means he's unlikely to make use of it as it currently stands.
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Actually, the glaive is a martial weapon and given our party's classes and multiclassing, all of us have proficiency with it except me (even Catina, since the glaive is Shelyn's favored weapon). It does have some benefits, but the penalties are steep.
Pros:
Magical
Keen enchantment
+1 damage from enhancement bonus
Neutral:
+1 enhancement bonus cancels out -1 to hit penalty from negative level
Cons:
Negative level from not being LE includes -1 penalty to most d20 rolls, as well as to CMD, plus having 5 fewer hit points, plus counting as a level lower for spell casting
Will try to mentally take control of its wielder (although it's only a DC 5 Will save to resist it) if we try to use its spells not in its alignment
Having it around, it will try to cast bleed on anyone who's dying within 30 feet, including us
If we desperately need a magical weapon, it's good to have nearby. But if no one is actually wielding it, then it's best to leave it behind given the penalties one incurs just from holding it.
Otherwise, it's decent as treasure for us to take on our way out. Since the story of Shelyn involves her trying to redeem an evil glaive, I'm sure the church will pay us for it. Perhaps they could even exorcise the evil soul in it.
I'm with Faustinia on this one, although I'm not sure that we should leave it behind. The text on the permanent negative level says "[...] this negative level [...] remains as long as the item is in hand and cannot be overcome in any way".
I interpreted that to mean that we could stow it (in a backpack, strapped to our back, etc) without incurring the penalty. Only by having it in hand and trying to wield it, would the penalty kick in. Or is that too lenient a reading of the rules?
Sorry for not waiting for you Catina, but today I had to post now or never. Besides, there was a majority already in the decision ;)
That's OK, sorry for not checking in. I was going to post later this morning, but dog training was crazy and I really needed a breather...
Will get a post in later today, promise.
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FYI a mistake I made in the past was asserting Varius doesn't read infernal when in fact I specifically gave him that language what with his education and all. So I'll just assert his Infernal is terrible. Like somebody who took high school language lessons and barely passed.
Sorry I had some issues connecting to the Paizo website this weekend. I hopefully will be able to post later today.
Serious problems on my PC with paizo site still, but phone can hit it... Ugh
Same here. Pc doesn't work. Phone does, as long as I don't use WiFi. :(
Uhm, strange. I'm lucky, perhaps, but Paizo has been working for me in the last few days! But I'm hearing people are having troubles as well, so don't worry. Let's hope they fix the site soon.
Oof. I check when I don't have time to post and it works. When I do have time to post, it's down. Hopefully it'll be good going forward.
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Hey everyone! I just wanted to give a heads up that I'll be out of town this weekend. I don't know if it will affect my posting much (certainly I should have time tomorrow morning while I'm on the bus for a few hours), but this is just a heads up in case it does.
Hey Giuseppe, it looks like when you copied your combat template, you left in some stuff from the last fight. Is there any other information that you meant to include instead?
Oh yes, please disregard the whole round 1 section of my post. The rest is correct.
Hey everyone, Faustinia let me know before about her absence and I was expecting her to miss a post. But as for the others, what has happened? Can I expect a post from you today? We need to get the game moving, otherwise we risk running out of steam. And trust me, doing so in summer is not good for the health of a campaign. So, if you're still with me, let's get back to the game!
Sorry sir. Was waiting on your answer to Faustinia last night, and got distracted with father's day weekend today. I do plan on posting today... soon.
Yes I will too. Just been busy. Will post when I can.
Was waiting on your change to the post so I knew my action - and then missed a day unfortunately. I'm here!
Some OOC discussion seems in order. There's not much chance that we can lure the spider swarm into the fire room, since they've already webbed Varius. Should we hope for something there to bring with us? The risk, of course, is that we add another deadly encounter and have to deal with bad guys on both ends...
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From what happened last round with the spider swarm, it doesn't seem like they're extremely dangerous. They seem to do minimal damage (and a lucky roll for us resulted in only 1 damage), with their main danger being a little bit of Strength damage poison and the nauseated condition - again, luckily those have fairly low DCs.
Varius also managed to break free of the web this round, so perhaps we will be able to flee. But I think just killing the big spiders we can hit with our weapons is a good focus for now. You're right that it could be very dangerous to run into another combat encounter while we're being attacked. If we can knock out the giant spiders, luring the swarm into the fire room sounds like a good follow up to me. I think I was also checking people's equipment and I saw some oil, but I don't remember who has it. Varius maybe? It might be possible to light that with the torch.
If none of that works on the swarm, I may be able to use the locate object spell I prepared (apologies for such a weird utility choice in this our time of more offensive spell needs) to find a splash weapon?
How does all of that sound?