GM Kiora's Wrath of the Righteous

Game Master Kiora Atua

neat...ish.

#Badatcharisma.

Yeah, it's a shame you can't determine it as part of the mythic ability. On the up side, there's plenty of buff/utility spells available through the domains, including some absurdly powerful magic like miracle and time stop.

I was more looking at the ones I -had- to take to start - good and law.

Law's gonna be pretty lame given the group makeup. Half my list is basically 'screw half the party' :P

Hey, guys. Remember that whole 'blasphemy' thing? Yeah... I can do that to us, too! But with the power of order.

Ahh yeah, I remember kvetching about that in discussion last time we talked about it. They should've made you choose one alignment for each of the first two divine sources instead of two for the first unless you happen to be neutral.

The 'order' thing might hurt us as much as them ;p

Okay, I've lost track of who's where. Who's close enough for my to charge right now?

The current situation is outlined under "battlefield description".

But to summarize:

You are 60' from Tian'ran/Hinagiku.

You are 100' from 6 cultists.

You are 100' away from the kellids in the opposite copse of trees.

You are also 100' away from the illusionary barricades that Isilme is maintaining. There are 2 cultists standing there.

You are 160' away from everyone in the web. That's basically everyone else.

I guess I'm just going to go kill the champion then.

Ahh yeah, I remember kvetching about that in discussion last time we talked about it. They should've made you choose one alignment for each of the first two divine sources instead of two for the first unless you happen to be neutral.

The 'order' thing might hurt us as much as them ;p

I'm at least taking Selective Spell at some point so I don't daze the party with friendly fire.

Oh man, Divine Anthology has a Desna-only Divine Fighting Technique that bards can swap out a Versatile Performance for. The first rank of it gives cha to hit/damage with starknives :o

Ho-ly sh*t. They keep making good things for martials! And bards. I love this!

Where's all the shiny new stuff for druids and other Green Faith worshipers? D:

*shakes his fist vengefully*

Might be some good stuff for druids in Divine Anthology. Haven't seen a full list of what's in it yet :)

@Ehren: They gave vital strike buffs for druids!

So, like, if you've ever wanted to be a super huge hippopotamus and vital strike some guy for like 32d6, you can now add fatigue or faerie fire or entangle wisdom times per day!

Sheesh. I'm pretty sure Druids were already the most powerful vital strike build to begin with. The Cave druid that gets ooze-shape gets some absurd forms. Carnivorous crystal ooze has a 7d8 slam as a medium ooze :o

Isilme where do you get a list of what is published in what? Or did you mean you were not done reading?

Interesting point I just realized, per web -

These masses must be anchored to two or more solid and diametrically opposed points or else the web collapses upon itself and disappears.

So you guys would have needed to set up a situation where the army was specifically running in between two trees (or boulders or whatever) 40' apart.

I'm gonna say there were some conveniently placed trees that made this happen this time.

Just letting y'all know, I'm enforcing this in the future :)

I mentioned that back when Caggrigar pulled it out on us. ;P

Whoops!

Then it sounds like we're even steven. ;)

Huh interesting.

Where is the captains horse?

The horse is caught up in the webs :(

Isilme where do you get a list of what is published in what? Or did you mean you were not done reading?

The Divine Anthology stuff I read in the product discussion thread on the messageboards here. It seems like some people got their pre-orders already and are sharing some (but not all) of the goodies in it.

Interesting point I just realized, per web -

Web wrote:

These masses must be anchored to two or more solid and diametrically opposed points or else the web collapses upon itself and disappears.

So you guys would have needed to set up a situation where the army was specifically running in between two trees (or boulders or whatever) 40' apart.

I'm gonna say there were some conveniently placed trees that made this happen this time.

Just letting y'all know, I'm enforcing this in the future :)

Huh, you'd think it'd work just fine to use it like a sticky net. I mean basically when you cast it, it would tent people in the web, even if there weren't some place to anchor it. Even web on the ground would be a pain in the rear to deal with.

F-You, Paizo. Hit "post" and it took me to the front page of the messageboards, no chance of recovering my post.

Ugh, hate that.

I copy posts to the clipboard for that reason haha.

I usually do as well, but the mouse is a real nightmare to work with in this little cubby where my lab computer is installed (in a rack with all my equipment). And normally Firefox lets me hit back and preserves the text as long as I've previewed it (which I did), but for some reason it decided just to totally lose that page.

I've posted a decidedly less detailed and exciting post detailing my attack because I don't have time or energy to rewrite what I had earlier.

Ugh, awful :(

I mourn the loss of your previous, detailed post <3

I'd pre-roll but I really want to see what happens before I post.

pretty much that. So... another really late-night post it is.

Why are we having to save against our own illusions? Per the rules, a character that is "faced with proof that an illusion isn't real needs no saving throw". We discussed previously that Xanderghul was going to be using shadow conjuration to produce web, so we *know* it's an illusion. Therefore it shouldn't require a save at all. There is still a 20% chance of it being effective, however, since it's a shadow spell.

Well, sure. But with that logic, then the army would automatically disbelieve the shadow conjuration for simply knowing that it is an illusion (as communicated and demonstrated by their leaders with the higher will saves). This would leave the 20% effectiveness - so at the beginning of combat only 20% of the army would have been caught in the web, significantly changing the encounter. I'd like to stay consistent with the original ruling for this combat, because that is fair.

But in the future I'm happy to switch to that ruling (that simply KNOWING that an illusion is an illusion is sufficient to completely trump shadow conjuration) - this significantly nerfs the effectiveness of shadow conjuration in mass combat since only 1 unit needs to succeed on a will save to allow everyone else auto-disbelief. Indeed, the captain would have not needed to roll will saves at all under this paradigm, since she succeeded on a spellcraft check to ID the cast as Shadow Conjuration.

Previously I generally ruled that "proof" is something tangible, not simply knowledge - for example, if you tried to touch an illusionary wall with no tactile dimensions to it, and your hand went through it, obviously that wall is not real. That would provide proof for an auto-save. Shadow conjurations are interesting in that they are quasi-real - so what "proof" is there? Even on a successful saving throw, they can still affect you as if they were real.

Thoughts?

That's not true though. They made an initial save when the spell hit, that's instantaneous, before any communication can happen. If they fail that save, then they cannot benefit from auto-success, they can only get a new save to disbelieve at +4. Someone who is ensnared in webs and physically cannot move is not suddenly going to realize the webs are illusory just 'cause someone else claims they are, as they have evidence to the contrary.

Giving the commander +4 because he knows the spell is incoming is fine, but auto-success should almost never be possible prior to the spell being cast.

Logically, the act of disbelieving something requires you to have something to disbelieve. He knew shadow conjuration was coming, but not what form it would take. Therefore he can only really benefit from a +4 to the save "I know something illusory is coming, so something that happens next might be an illusion". He cannot auto-succeed in that case.

On the other hand, if he had overheard us plotting that "we are going to use shadow conjuration to cast webs", and he saw Xanderghul casting shadow conjuration, and then webs appeared, you could justifiably argue he had auto-success.

Except in this case, the captain called out it was illusionary before the spell was complete - in reaction to deciphering what she could hear of the spell while it was being cast.

I would agree with you if the spell was ID'd after it was cast, but it was ID'd during.

I'll think about it :P I'm not changing anything that's happened in this combat so far, though. You'll just have to live with the captain having 5 more HP.

Here's a gedankenexperiment on the subject of auto-success from spellcraft identification of a spell that is being cast:

Imagine Isilme is casting silent image and the captain identifies the cast. Upon completion of the cast, per the spell's rules, nothing is a perfectly valid form for the illusion to take. There is nothing to save against, nor is there even anything to disbelieve, but he knows the spell was cast. Clearly at this point he cannot have disbelieved the spell, as he has yet to see anything or interact with anything.

If something appears next to him immediately, perhaps it's an illusion. An illusion was cast, so it's highly likely, but he has no tangible proof other than coincidence of the appearance. But what if the thing appears half a second later? Or five seconds later? Or a minute later? These are all valid possibilities for the spell, but if auto-success can be determined prior to the spell being completed, that means that he would immediately be aware of an illusion no matter how many hours or days later that illusion finally appeared.

Logically, at some point then, it must be that he just has a +4 bonus to a save against the thing that appears, instead of auto-success. But there's no logical breakpoint in time to transition from auto-success to a +4 bonus to save after the spell completes, therefore the logical answer is that he cannot auto-succeed on a saving throw just from knowing that the spell was cast unless he can unambiguously identify what the effect of the spell is going to be before it happens.

Hahaha. Ugh, you. <3

I've been wondering, what kind of restrictions do you have in mind for researching spells? You mentioned before that we could research race-restricted spells and whatnot, so I am a bit curious.

Could I dredge a spell up from some old 3.5 splat book that didn't get translated into Pathfinder?

Could I research an original creation, like a spell that gives anything Ehren summons a unicorn horn that does aligned damage and shoots rainbow lasers?

3.5/Custom - you have to run it by me, first, but I'm open minded :)

As long as its within power level of other spells of the same level I'm pretty chill. I don't want to blanket statement and allow all 3.5 though cause I'm aware there's some powerful stuff out there.

So you want to summon THIS?

Yes.

3.5/Custom - you have to run it by me, first, but I'm open minded :)

As long as its within power level of other spells of the same level I'm pretty chill. I don't want to blanket statement and allow all 3.5 though cause I'm aware there's some powerful stuff out there.

How much money and time might it cost?

Money: 1,000 gp per spell level.

Time: 1 wk per spell level (or rather 7 "workdays"/ lvl)

You must succeed at both a spellcraft and a knowledge check (arcana for arcane caster, religion for divine, I'll take nature for druid) - DC 10 + twice the spell level for each day worked. You can employ up to two assistants to help you with aid another, but they also have to invest the same amount of time you do. If either or both spell research checks fail by 4 or less, you make no progress. For each check that fails by 5 or more, your research has led to poor results and you lose a day of progress toward completing the spell.

So, as an example, if Ehren wanted stone shield - an Oread only 1st level spell, he'd first need 1,000 gp in "components". This consists of stuff like books written by/about oreads, spell components, equipment, etc. He would need to buy this stuff at a large city with access to libraries - Kenabres or Nerosyan would do for now, though you could conceivably grow your holdings next book to have such resources as well if you put in the effort.

Then he needs to spend 7 8 hr work days working on the spell, for each day of progress he must succeed at a DC 12 spellcraft and K. nature check. After 7 days/checks are made, he'd be able to prepare the spell as normal.

Enterprising spell designers should look to the rules in Ultimate Magic for guidance as to how to initially balance spells. As a general rule of thumb, though, if you can show me what spells you are trying to model your new spell after to justify its intended spell level, the better your chances are of getting it approved.

Hm. Alright. So if I wanted to learn burn corruption, you previously stated that I could find an elven wizard who knew the spell and copy it into my spellbook like any other spell.

Do I instead have to spend 5,000gp and 5 weeks researching it?

No, as a wizard you can simply copy spells from other wizards and learn them that way. Ehren, as a druid, does not have the ability to learn spells from other druids. He just has a druid spell-list that he can prepare from. To add spells to that druid spell-list, he must research them.

What you can't do is take a racial spell as one of your free wizard spells you get from levelling up.

However, if you say, wanted to learn a cleric-only spell, you would need to research yourself an arcane-equivalent.

Hm. Alright, I get it. Cool.

I'm planning on taking some Pathfinder Savant levels, so if there's cleric and druid spells I want I'll just take them for free as a class ability.

Ooh, ooh, lemme try!

I was looking at align fang and mass align fang from the 3.5 Spell Compendium. (I know, I know, it always comes back to DR/alignment for me!) They're level 2 and 3 respectively, and align all of a creature's natural weapons for 1 minute per level.

The obvious comparison is to align weapon, which only affects one weapon. And it has no mass version, only a communal one, which is more justifiably 1 spell level higher. Another logical comparison is to magic fang, which only affects one natural weapon; it takes its greater brother 2 spell levels later to affect all of a creature's natural weapons.

Sooo my gut feeling is that some kind of tweaking is necessary.

And then there's sillier stuff like summon elemental monolith, but I don't think I'm gonna get into that at this point. :P

I'd say I'd allow align fang and mass align fang at level 3 and 4 respectively, assuming you wanted them to affect all natural weapons.

If you're willing to take them only affecting one natural weapon then you can do it at level 2 and 3 instead.

That's off the top of my head though :P I'd have to think about if I'd be willing to let it go for a lower spell level.

greater magic fang comes in 2 levels later because of the scaling bonus it gives. Only having the ability to bypass alignment with all the natural weapons would be reasonable for a 2nd level spell.

mass align would probably be better as a 4th level spell, as it's a weak effect, but in general mass versions of spells are 4 spell levels higher than the original (e.g. fly 3rd, mass fly 7th; CLW 1st, mass CLW 5th; hold person 3rd, mass hold person 7th)

communal, on the other hand, could reasonably be considered a +1 level form. Also a version like badger's ferocity could bring the spell level down to third instead, since it would require concentration to maintain the effect.

Can't finish post. Anevia will try to use the cover of the fake Web to regain stealth.

I'm fine with levels 3 and 4. By the time Ehren gets the chance to research those spells, he won't have any shortage of spell slots.

Also, oh no! I'm almost out of magicks! D: