Don't forget, everyone has 1 reroll that expires on the 16th.
In answer to GM's query about posting -
I actually have trouble keeping all the clues/information/goals together in my head as I am posting. Not sure of a solution but it makes me hesitant to post too specifically at times.
I agree with Amaria. I am having issues with what clue is suppose to go with which trial. In addition, Tara is not really the greatest with diplomacy, so I try to let those who focused in it go first.
Okay, I'll try to figure out a way to make those more clear and distinct. Thanks for the input!
To help with clarity, I'll be using this discussion thread to review your current investigations. All of this information can also be found in the Campaign Info tab at the top of this thread.
Re: Surgical Tools
The surgical tools in question were found while investigating the charges that The Beast was abducting villagers at the night in the town of Morast. (You've already given testimony on this at the trial earlier in the day.)
Villager testimony: A mob lead by a villager named Lazne managed to wound The Beast in Morast, then chased him to a nearby island that served as the local Boneyard (graveyard). Before the villagers could deal with him, The Beast was attacked by an alligator-like creature and disappeared under the water and was presumed dead.
Searching near the Boneyard, you found several strange items that did not appear consistent with the Beast, such as a damp artisan's outfit, a detached human face, and a leather-bound case filled with fine surgical tools, made of silver with amethyst handles imprinted with a raven.
You recognized the raven symbol as the maker's mark of Zbraslav Hora and Sons, who have a workshop in Anatomists’ Alley in the Surgeons’ Flats area of Lepidstadt. Speaking to Hora, you discover he sold it to Vladka Kostel who works for an auction house named Ledov’s Chirurgery Merchants. At the auction house, you learned the description of the man to whom they sold these tools. Speaking to the townfolk of Lepidstadt, you learned that someone named Radniche matches that description and he owns a chirurgery supply shop. You are now visiting that surgical supply shop for more information.
Please let me know if you have questions!
I think we have, at the least, a grave-digger on our hands.
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Thanks for the clarifications! I was afraid I'd lost the plot as well.
Feat suggestions? Extra revelation to be able to talk to the dead for 5 rounds a day could prove useful in this court case, but perhaps not so useful in the long run...
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Did we carry any of the children's bodies back to town with us?
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As far as I am aware, Tara wrapped up as much of the remains and is carrying them on her person. (Hidden in a bedroll, so they are not immediately out on display, but still...)
After transporting the remains back to the town, Stefan stated that he stored them in his doctor's office. If Tara wanted to carry some of the remains hidden on her, I have no objections as the GM other than potential carrying capacity issues.
Vivian
Rogue 3/ Inquisitor 2
Bab+1
Saves +1
Hp +5+2=+7 (total 38/38)
Sneak attack +1d6
Trap sense +1
Skills (11)
Acrobatics +2
Appraise +1
Bluff +2
Climb +1
Diplomacy +1
Disable Device +1
Perception+1
Sleight of Hand +1
Stealth +1
Feat: Persuasive +2 to Diplomacy/Intimidate
Would the court let us speak to the dead body in the courtroom?
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In order to Speak with Dead or its equivalent at the trial, you'll need to petition the court for permission with an above average DC Diplomacy check. As an alternative, you could use Speak with Dead outside of the trial, but still testify truthfully about what you find out.
Tara
Cleric of Pharasma 5
Hp 5+1 = 33
Channel Positive energy increased to 3d6
Skills:
Diplomacy +7
Bluff +4
All other skills remain the same
Feat: Improved Initiative
Access to 3rd level spells.
No new Hero points, you only receive them in this game for doing something appropriately heroic and succeeding at it (such as cleansing the haunted prison where you received the first point).
As such, I'm not going to set a hard limit to the number of hero points you can have at once, so if you get more than three and want to save them until the final encounter, that's fine with me.
Question: Since my shield is all but worthless as a weapon against the incorpreal, I am thinking I can just hold it for more AC but not take the penalty (or as much as one). Seems that's the consensus on some sites, but couldn't find one on Paizo's site, someone asking. I think it amounts to a +1 to my attack bonus, but still that's more important than losing 2 AC, I think.
Of course, once I get my shield up to +1 or something, that will go away.
Well, incorporeal attacks ignore armor and shields unless they are magical force effects. That being said, I'm not entirely clear on your question.
Stefan is leveled up...
I just leveled him up in Hero Lab, and it looks like I hadn't used it when I leveled him up to 4th. I erred when I did that manually, and forgot to take the +1 to one ability score. This would have put his Int to 18. It's there now!
Wizard (necromancer) 5
+5 hp (27)
Grave Touch and Turn Undead increase to 7/day.
Concentration checks increase to +9 (+13 when casting defensively)
Lots of skill increases (see profile for specifics); lept Diplomacy, Heal, Know (arcana and religion) and Spellcraft at max. Dropped a few other points here and there.
Gained Sylvan and Celestial as new languages
Gained Craft Wondrous Item as a bonus feat, and took Improved Initiative as the L5 feat.
Gained third-level spells: Took lightning bolt and vampiric touch as new bonus spells. I also spent some money to copy dispel magic and illusory script from the Splatter Man's spellbook into Stefan's own.
(No bonus to BAB or any saving throws.)
I guess the question is, do I reduce my attack bonus by the dual wielding amount if I am not actually planning on using the shield as a weapon? I would think not, but I wanted to make sure.
If you don't actually attack with the two weapons, you don't take the penalty to you attack rolls, Bert.
I'm having work done on my house that generates fumes, and we can't be in the building for the next 48 hours. We're therefore taking a mini-vacation. I may not get a chance to post again until Monday. Please bot me as needed.
Vivian, Tara, and Stefan all look good. Once Amaria, Bert, and Sophie get a chance to update, we'll move on to the next day.
Trying to decide on a feat for level 5. Either Extra Revelation or something martial. Any suggestions?
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Bert is done.
+9 HP
Feat: Weapon Focus-Lucerne Hammer +1 to attack
Skills: +1 to diplomacy and climb
Ready Pike +1 class thing +1 to hit and damage if brace a weapon with brace capability.
Alright, it's been a week. I'll gamble on Extra Revelation: Voice of the Grave paying off one way or another. Level up changes should be posted soon
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In case anyone was interested, I'm trying to keep Stefan's build pretty close to Core-only.
Amaria: Good luck with the house and kids, just let me know when you are finished updating your character.
Stefan: If that's what you want to do, that's fine with me. Although I do hope you don't turn down any non-core spells or items you may pick up along the way.
Sophie: While we're waiting for Amaria to finish up, if you want to go ahead and decide how you want to deal with speaking to the remains and what questions you would like to ask, we can run all that in the interim. Out of the four small corpses, three appear to male, one appears to be female. What follows is a synopsis of what you found in Hergstag in case you need a refresher.
• The events occurred approximately 7 months ago.
• The three witnesses for the prosecution state that the village’s children (Maarten, Karin, Rachel, Gaard, Allen, and Ellsa) vanished one by one, only to return as ghosts. Then one day the culprit was found—the Beast of Lepidstadt. It boldly walked into the village with one of the dead children, a girl named Ellsa. The witnesses all recall seeing the Beast laughing as it carried the child’s broken body. As soon as the locals saw the Beast, they set upon it with pitchforks, but try as they might they couldn’t catch it, and the Beast escaped into the swamp. The poor innocents it killed continued to haunt the village, and before long became too much for the locals, who soon abandoned the cursed village.
• The Beast states that he was present there at that time. He befriended a young girl named Ellsa who was not frightened by his appearance. He claims that a ghost that walks at night killed a number of children by stealing their souls. The ghost turned one of Ellsa's friends into a ghost and that ghost lured her to its master's lair. The Beast tried to fight the ghost to save Ellsa, but could not hurt it. He then returned Ellsa's body to her Father, but the villagers chased him out of town.
• During this interview you notice that when the Beast cries, he looks like he's laughing due to the stitching holding together his face.
• One of the prosecution also adds that of the six children who died, one—a girl named Karin—died in her own bed 2 days after the Beast was driven from Hergstag. Her father heard her screaming but by the time he reached her she was dead, without a mark on her and with no signs of entry.
• Your investigation into Karin's house conclusively demonstrated that whatever killed Karin did not climb the house’s walls or force entry into her room.
• You also discovered that all the children returned as wraiths to haunt the town. It is highly unusual for this occur if murdered by the Beast, but not completely out of the question.
• The party fought a more powerful wraith on the hill southwest of town. Inside its lair you found the skeletal remains of 4 children. None of the remains show signs of obvious trauma.
Sophie can speak with the dead for 5 rounds a day (30 seconds). The dead take -2 to their will save against Sophie if they need to make one to resist answering a question (usually because of alignment opposition, I think)
Sophie would like to ask each of them "Who or what killed you?"
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Let's give Amaria a couple of more days to update, but I plan on moving forward either Sunday or Monday.
Character sheet has been updated. Biggest changes are new spells, a new feat, and sickened immunity.
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Can we combine any of the bullet points from the spoiler into one presentation? Some of them seem like they could reasonably go together.
Sophie seems like the best person to present the interviews with the ghosts. Along with that, she could probably also present one or two of the pieces of evidence about the wraith, right?
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You can combine information together, yes. The bullet points have no intrinsic meaning besides organizing the information into more easily comprehensible parts.
Bert has a little more diplomacy now, but +1 is like..yeah.
Vivian has +10 Diplomacy
as a rogue, I can talk about the "house-breaking" and/or the Beast seeming to laugh when he cries
we should keep the most obvious clues for those who don't have a great diplomacy bonus
Amaria +11
Vivian +10
Stefan+7
Tara+7
Sophie+6
Bert+1
If I recall correctly, each presenter can only give testimony about one fact of the case, correct?
Stefan could give expert testimony about the state of the child skeletons we found in the barrow: How the bones showed no signs of trauma at all, consistent with being killed by the life-draining touch of a wraith.
Yes, basically you can only give testimony about one fact or piece of evidence. If you need to pull from other evidence to give your testimony more credence, that's fine.
So, now that I am reminded of that, let me amend my statement to Sophie made earlier in this thread and say that in the example she gave, it would be best if she just focused on interviews unless she also needed to reference the other evidence about wraiths to get her point across.
I'm giving you guys a lot of leeway on this, but you're still only getting one Diplomacy check per player so it's best to spread the information around to give everyone a chance to convince the Justices.
Unless someone wants to go through the Hergstag evidence and assign testimony for each PC, I would suggest that you all just start posting your particular PC's testimony and Diplomacy rolls and let the others pick from whatever is left until everyone goes.
So who wants to present what evidence?
i will present the battle with the wraith on the hill and the bones we found, which can lead into Sophie's testimony from the children.
I like that idea. I was trying to figure out the best way for someone to introduce the with before I bring up the children.
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Between testifying about the battle with the wraith and Sophie's interviews with the dead, Stefan could present evidence that none of the skeletons showed any signs of physical trauma, which is consistent with being slain by a ghost.
We should also call the Beast to testify in person, to get his story out in his own words, and also to demonstrate to the jury that when he cries, his face looks more like a grimace because of how his mouth is stitched together. I'd say Vivian might be best to present that.
The Beast will not testify on the stand for various reasons, but you can try to make him cry while one of you testifies.
To get things moving, I think most of you are good to go to start posting your testimony.
Tara will testify about the cry/laughing.
Paizocon is a bust this year.
Flight was eventually canceled after a six-hour delay. There were no flights that could get me there today (Friday), with the possible exception of getting on standby for a 8:30 PM arrival. Best guaranteed seat would arrive at 1PM Saturday...which would have meant missing half the con.
I made the decision to just cancel the trip.
So many flights were canceled that there were no rooms at any hotel with airport shuttle service, so I had to take an Uber across town to a so-so Hampton Inn. Checked in at 2:30 AM. At least I got five hours of sleep.
And there are no flights home today, either. Soonest is a 6PM Saturday flight. I'm looking at a one-way car rental for a 5-hour drive home... assuming that I can get a car.
"Disappointed" doesn't really convey how I feel right now.