GM Kiora's Wrath of the Righteous

Game Master Kiora Atua

I will be unavailable to post until late this evening... have a good night! :)

No, u.

Similarly, I can't post all day because of my drive to Mongolia. If we get into combat, Isilme gets to choose my actions.

I kind of want to ask why you're going to Mongolia.

Similarly, I can't post all day because of my drive to Mongolia. If we get into combat, Isilme gets to choose my actions.

Why not just default to The Xanderghul, i.e. Dancing bears on balls making moaning sounds filling the air with the scent of sex.

He's there for the stir fry, of course!

Ary is at work and will delay til after Mokug.

Any opinions on using light at the moment, guys?

Feel free to use light. At this point we need to move fast.

Ary, you should've moved with your weapon draw :P

Need to get Mokug controlled quickly or he's gonna shred Val.

I can't see anything on the map due to it all being pitch black until I draw my weapon and kiora turns on light for me. That was not my whole turn and I do plan to move and act. I simply could not do so then without randomly moving my token everywhere to try to figure out where things were.

I also cannot do anything -now- because my power is out, so I don't have a computer to see roll20 anyway.

So... Feel free to bot me so my turn isn't completely forfeit.

Ah, I see you aren't the cheating type, Ary. I'm disappointed honestly.

I kind of want to ask why you're going to Mongolia.

To renew my visa! It's only good for a 60-day stay, so every 2 months I leave the country, take a U-turn, and come right back in.

Interesting, was the trip any fun?

Yeah, not being the cheating type has just made dynamic lighting really frustrating for me.

Let's say I work for eight hours (I often do!) And action has happened. I feel behind so I try to catch up. We have a map that shows where everything is. I try to post actions to catch up, but then I can't see anything. Isilme has randomly left the room and I don't have any idea even what door she went into, and she's gone through several rooms, but I don't know which, and I don't feel comfortable moving my token into other rooms one by one as Kiora may have moved something in behind her...

Then you have entire pitch black maps like what I opened up last night. I could see something like eight squares. I have zero indication of which direction the fighting is. I have zero indication of which direction allies have moved, zero indication of who would get my buffs if I rallied... It just all hammers home how screwed my schedule is for trying to be a part of things.

Don't get me wrong, I love roll20 and it's made a huge difference in how much we communicate... And I don't want to see any of the features go away, but I just don't have any options at my disposal that help me understand what's going on and I feel like that's Ary's job.

Add in that I'm the only player who has normal vision on one of my characters and that character mostly relies on the others for light (she doesn't have to, but spending her entire turn to be able to see is kinda annoying and it also prevents her from stealthing) and that I'm one of two characters limited to like eight squares of vision max (Ehren counts as well, but he has the badgering or air elemental or stone elemental if push comes to shove, and I don't think he's been in this particular situation yet) and it's just... Very disorienting.

And I get that maybe that's the intent. But imagine playing Pathfinder with your friends and you're forced to sit with your back to the board because it's dark and you can't see and you just have to go 'i walk south, what do I see?' while everyone else is fighting to the north. Because you're also playing when no one else is in the room that can even tell you 'the sounds of battle are from the North'.

I dunno. It just makes the game a lot harder to get into and interact with and even now that my internet is up, I still have no indication of the locations of anything. :(. And kiora isn't here for me to even go 'hey kiora, which direction makes sense to go?'

Edit: I moved. I think I moved Anevia into cover. If Ary can move more than 30 feet this round, feel free to move her south of Annabelle.

Yeah. Xanderghul happened to be in a corner, which meant I couldn't see anything, and even with a bunch of shifting around to see where stuff was, I was still confused and it still took me like 10 minutes to figure out what direction Isilme and Val were in.

I make my players turn around when their characters get blinded, though ;)

Yeah. I'm fine with not seeing the board. I'm not fine with Marco! 12 hours later... Polo! Especially not when I effectively give up one of my character's turns just so people don't have to wait eight hours for me to get off work... not that she could have really done anything with the turn anyway.

As for Roll 20 - I put tokens I don't want you to see on the GM layer and only keep them on the map layer if a player is aware of them. So I expect you to move your token around to "see" the map. You won't bump into a spoiler, so you cant cheat.

The lighting dynamics are meant to help you visualize what your character can see which facilitates targeting. It also helps me understand what concealment modifiers might be in play for a given token. They aren't meant to keep you from seeing the board.

I also have walls enabled so you couldn't go into a room that I haven't "opened" anyway (more relevant for dungeons).

I have the ability to choose tokens to "see" from, its a bummer that roll 20 doesn't have that functionality open for players. If they did, I'd give you guys a spectator token to explore maps with.

I think in the future I'll give hard perception DCs for you to beat ahead of time if we're in a situation that is pitch black for non-darkvision characters. (pretty rare situation though)

Yeah, I'm fine with it being a rare thing! And I totally get it's a weakness (though I plan for Anevia to pick up see in darkness later). It's just that I wanted to make sure that I didn't bottle up the frustration until it became the norm. You can't know how difficult it is to work with if I don't say something. :)

Sorry if I came off super edgy about it.

Is there any way to make it so allies are visible? That way I can follow the sound towards the sound of Valaria's fighting or the like? That would fix a lot of the issues I might have with it when we aren't both on at the same time. Randomly wandering around is another option that I'll keep in mind moving forward.

Unfortunately, no. :(

Ideally there'd be a fog of war option that, rather than making things pitch black, would keep map revealed but very dark, but fog of war doesn't interact that way with the dynamic lighting.

Will be at work until this evening, hopefully everyone can post by then, see you!

Question: Anevia cast light on one of the crusaders for the other side right? So there should be a light source on each side. For low-light vision that should mean normal light in the entire room (40' radius from each side) while normal vision should see 20' radius on each side and a 40' radius area in the middle from each side that is dim light.

Nope, she gave it to Erin, on our side. We'd already split up. If I'd been thinking more cleverly, I'd have suggested Anevia go to the other side initially, but it's too late, now. :)

I am incredibly confused. I am at a different door now with Ary and Isilme than the one I was at when last I looked at the map. What's going on?

You are exactly where you were before. The map is odd in that the map section where we were is 1st floor of the city, first floor of the tower, and second floor of the walls. The place you're at is the second floor of the tower itself.

Just to reiterate, the square you're standing in *is* the door you were standing in front of. The square to the right of it was where you were before the door was opened.

Okay, that helps me understand. This map is horrifically awkwardly designed.

Yeah, I think it would have been better designed if it would have instead had the 2nd floor map where we were on the walls, and had a separate 1st floor map for if you want to go under it.

Yea

I will be unavailable to post until this afternoon, again, but I do not encourage pre-rolling at the moment unless you don't think you'll be able to post today otherwise.... until the cultists have all gotten a chance to move the map will be constantly changing.

Hey,

Ary!

The first time I fail, I take a -2 for how long? :P That's woefully missing. "Everytime you fail a will save, once per day, you permanently take a -2 to will saves." "Oh noes." "Oh yes." "No. I will not back down. Must maintain willpower at all times. :|"

It's definitely a good change from overprotective if someone manages to get her to stop being so... overprotective, though.

Re: Planning

Arta and the Shantak are not in play at the moment, but time's running out on that. We have to get up and kill the Shantak before Arta tells it to warn the other towers or citadel. We also need to kill Arta before she's involved in the fight, as she will likely be more powerful than Mokug. There is unlikely to be anyone even close to that level of power in the basements, and we can keep them closed in the short term without too much trouble. Additionally, a couple minutes tops isn't going to make a life-or-death difference in the army's arrival.

If we want, we could have one squad of 6 + Ehren or Xanderghul check out one of the basement areas and then the other. One squad of 6 should stay on this floor, and the rest of us should head up immediately.

Are you positive it won't make a life-or-death difference? :O

Well, I'm certain it will result in less deaths than Arta getting into our mooks while we're tooling around downstairs. She will slaughter them.

Just imagine if Mokug had been attacking our paladins instead of Val.

That said, having a group of 6 + 1 head down one side to check it out while we're upstairs would help avoid wasted time.

I think the idea is that we kill all of the mooks before Arta arrives. Isn't that the whole point of locking her away? It's just turning warp wood into a save-or-suck so that we can kill the mooks while she's trapped.

I think we should handle one encounter at a time, honestly. If this one stretches on for more than a few rounds, we can start to split up. Which way is upstairs?

- - - - -

Ary, the trait gives you a -2 to your second Will save after you fail the first.

Yeah obviously we clear this floor first. Pushing past cultists is a good way to get overwhelmed. But I bet we don't have more than 5-6 rounds before Arta is free. Once she is free she could come fight us or possibly flee to the citadel on the Shantak. If an alarm goes out, demons could attack during the storm, assuming any teleporters around.

People in the basement have to get through us on the other hand, which makes it unlikely they can do stuff.

So just to be clear, the current plan on the table is us and some of the soldiers moving up the tower while the rest hold the ground floor?

While they hold the second floor; Ehren is down below us causing chaos. We're going to wait to get the doors open (my vote is still for doing that! But we're going up instead cause everyone voted for that! :)) in order to focus on taking out Arta and her Shantak and Poot, so that we reduce the chance that the enemy can get to reinforcements.

Got called into work for an emergency. Won't be here until later tonight. Take the time to work out your plan :)

Anevia's current action is to delay until Ary's turn, so I'm not holding us up as much. :P

Ary moves to the stairs nearby.

Xanderghul:

You cannot move up the stairs in 1 round. it is 40' of movement and you are at the foot of the stairs after your last movement. So do you want to spend 2 whole rounds so that you can cast a spell before anyone else goes up the stairs?

I want everyone else to be 30' up the stairs.

Also, you need to bot me this weekend. I moved and I have no wireless.

Okay, thanks :)

I also vote for everyone going up at roughly the same time. :)

So everyone can't be exactly 30' up the stairs because you cant have multiple people on the same square and you don't have enough mooks to form a mook-troop. So I'm gonna form a little conga-line of dudes I guess.

won't be available until late, see you guys then :)

Ouch!

Pit should deal 6d6 if they believe it. 40 feet deep plus 2d6 spikes.

Thanks for that, Xanderghul :o

Please, don't kill the confused mook, he is providing AC to Hinagiku.

Gonna be at work for the next few hours, see you guys later this evening :)