Xanderghul
3 - wall of nausea instead of force punch,
2 - symbol of mirroring instead of bull's strength
1 - alarm instead of grapnel, second enlarge instead of magic missile
0 - message instead of spark or prestidigitation.
* Wall of nausea can be paired with spike stones to trap enemy forces coming down a road.
* Symbol of mirroring's illusions last rounds per level outside the aoe, so we could have forces rotate in and out of the melee to get the benefits while minimizing the foes who do.
* Alarm lets us set up a warning behind our forces while we fight at the southern bridge. With mental alarm and message on isilme/xanderghul connected to captains, we should be able to relay warnings fast.
* Message lets us connect 7 (8-Xanderghul) + 8 captains along with our group in an area as large as two 180' circles 180' apart. Worked well in Mantarin, and should allow us to keep things well organized here in case things change quickly.
Ary or Hinagiku should read Act 10 of the Lymirin Discourses. Y'all will be in the thick of it, and +4 sacred AC bonus vs flanking is pretty serious. It's good enough to make you want to get flanked :P
I *really* think we should try to set up a situation where Ary intruder's end bull-rushes a charging army during the battle. Doing so would be huge morale-wise for our forces, and exceedingly demoralizing for our enemies. Using enlarge person, she can cover a pretty huge area with her 20' reach.
I'll take dancing lights as well, it's a pretty useful spell for signaling. Thanks for the advice.
+4 vs. flanking enemies doesn't do anything against troops, remember. I think I should read Act 2 :o
I generally rule that you are flanked when you are inside a troop (and vice versa, if you are fighting alongside your own friendly troops, you can get flanking bonuses from them).
This made the babau troop you were fighting very dangerous, as they could flank and sneak attack.
Getting AC in a troop wouldn't really help against the troop (the troop ignores AC) but it would against any regular foes also attacking you within the troop.
I'm ok with that Xanderghul. We can save Act 10 for when we head into the citadel to get the sword and fight Vhane.
Speaking of shadow stuff, I just found this rad spell which I feel that I must take despite its [evil] tag... it's so good!
I'm guessing it's evil because you become a pseudo undead creature? Which is kind of odd. Detaching your shadow seems like it would be a Plane of Shadow related thing.
It's silly that they made it evil. Shadowdancers are able to call non-evil shades, there's no reason that you should have to turn undead to occupy your shadow, and that it should be considered an evil act :P
Otherwise it's a really cool spell. Not sure why they felt the need to cripple it like that.
I imagine that temporarily turning yourself into an undead creature as opposed to animating your own shadow is where the line is drawn. I mean, I suppose it's just semantics at that point, but you're still dallying with the Negative Energy Plane there.
I don't suppose Xanderghul would have any qualms with using it, though. It's not like it requires some horrific act or material components to use, it's just putting your mortal soul (if you have one) in jeopardy.
I don't feel very crippled by that. As long as Kiora doesn't have our paladins murder me for using it.
Ary likely wouldn't even really notice it as 'evil'. She might have to explain why Xander's body suddenly spouting out an invidiak isn't what just happened, but...
But she's been very understanding of using 'bad methods' to get good results. It's not as though she's saying 'yes, torture!' but more 'it's your sacrifice'.
* * *
Sorry for not posting much. I just kinda vegged out yesterday. Today was fun and funny, though. My coworker complained that I wasn't doing enough. So I offered to trade duties with him. *Devilish smirk* All I do is win. :3
I think that the knowledge that there are Crusader slaves under weak guard should inform our decision to free the slaves -before- we perform any major maneuvers... unless it's to ensure we have a strong position, first.
Do you think that should adjust our plans?
I worry if we rescue them *too* soon, the demons in charge of protecting them will kill them. I'd rather we start freeing them when we have a chance of actually protecting them from the vrocks and half-demon that are up there.
We'll have to be able to take them out, and move fast to kill off all the harpies, since they'll be able of incapacitating our troops, and I'm the only one who can really counter them.
The half-demon will also likely be capable of doing AoEs including blasphemy.
Oh, we need to make sure all clerics have bless at least once too, for the vrock's spores.
I agree with Isilme. Plus, if we free them first, we will be giving away our presence and might get surrounded the the different troops of paradise hill, which would be bad.
Sorry about the crates Ary, I totally forgot (got carried away by Xanderghul's need for supervision.
Alos, Xanderghul, are you enjoying Germany? Where are you exactly?
It's fine! I forgot to open them, and then kept waiting for Kiora to tell me what was in them, then got zombified for a few days. :P
I'm having a good time :) I'm in Hamburg, a port city in North Germany, and I'm going to Berlin for a couple of days today. I saw some live jazz last night in a really rad basement club. Felt so old-school. And I'm going swing dancing on Friday night!
Zombie Ary got cured? ;)
Nice. I think Berlin its much more interesting than Hamburg (I went the latter for a conference). When in Berlin, make sure to visit the Pergamon museum. It has full buildings from antiquity that have been transported from Greece and Babylon (Iran/Iraq?). It's really impressive. If you are interested in history, their national history museum is pretty good. It has cool armors but also allows people to see what led to Nazism and such.
All that I have left is finding out what's expected of a patrol, what's expected by a patrol, and how to fool both. Once we set someone to handle that situation, I'm good to go with my current loadouts. :)
I thought we agreed to execute Arta? She's *way* too dangerous to allow to recover.
Isn’t that what just happened? :P
I’ll look over the plans and everything later today, but I don’t think what we learned affects anything too greatly.
Ary actually didn't execute Arta, if you read it. :P She couldn't go through with it. :(
If someone else wants to go kill someone who's currently defenseless, I won't be able to stand in your way, really. :P I tried, but... it wasn't in Ary to do it. I tried to convince her, but my reasoning just wasn't good enough. (hence, her trying to talk herself up)
Also, we need a lot of bless spells able to be cast, if I'm remembering right. I way overslept and am now frazzlebrained. :O
I had to read it again a few times.
Sorry! When I saw Arta referred to as a “body”, I thought you had just dumped her corpse in front of the cultists. :P
Yup, it was a bait and switch. :3
I had to read it a couple of times to get that too.
On the matter of the plan, I think the idea of luring the cultist forces into a position where we can ambush them and take them out is potentially still our best bet. We're still pretty outnumbered and we need to pick targets carefully to avoid getting overwhelmed. The monstrous forces we heard about from the cultists are interesting. It sounds like a lot of them aren't exactly friendly or working particularly well with the cultists. We might be able to rely on them not showing up until we provoke them to keep numbers down. We definitely need to either make good use of our archers or get fly or something similar on people to deal with the harpies if they come out or when we raid that area.
#1 - Xanderghul needs to try and remember spot's name so we can try summoning him to aid us. It costs us 750gp to try, and we can negotiate the remainder of the price. Worst case, we get a bard out of the deal for hours per level, which will be useful if the harpies are mucking with us and Isilme can't cover everyone.
#2 - We need to get the southern or western gate to ring the gong, or ring it ourselves. We *cannot* march until the gong has been rung, though we can set up some of our troops in ambush.
#3 - Sosiel keeps Dismissal and drops holy smite for lesser planar ally (see #1). We use dismissal on the vrock leader's mate in concert with dirge of doom. Vrocks have crappy will saves, and with a debuff we might be able to send one of the two straight home.
#4 - We get ready to use Val + griffon to tackle the other vrock, which needs to die super quickly so we can be prepared for the chimera and possibly the drake riders. Having a group of paladins with bows prepared for the chimera will help. Having a dozen paladins all smite it and open fire simultaneously will do massive damage, especially with inspire courage. It has to die before it gets a chance to aoe fire-breath our forces.
That said, the plan of action:
Our infantry hide among the buildings near our garrison next to the path towards the bridge. The cavalry prepares to ride out. Ehren heads near the bridge and prepares to trap it with stone spikes on the side opposite ours. The bridge is roughly 100' wide, so Ehren should be able to cover almost 40' of bridge completely with spikes (10 20x20 squares). When the enemy troops marching hit the spikes and stop, we attack. Troops engage from the side, while archers fire at the troops on the bridge. Cavalry rides around and attacks from the east (or north) depending on how stretched out the enemy is. Isilme will go along with the cavalry so Kule can be at the head to debuff the enemy forces.
I am open to suggestions for tricking the southern gates (which I think is the best bet at this point, since they are expecting us there), but I suspect the best thing is for Xanderghul to sneak around invisible, get into position and use an illusion. Ideally the illusion stays for a while, as they will probably take their time to engage the crusader forces while everyone marches. Once they've committed, Xanderghul abandons it and flies back with beast shape and invis.
Spot and the Shantak (or the Shelynite angel and the Shantak) aid the troops in their battle adjacent to the bridge, with Markus nearby to ensure the skeleton behaves. The skeleton stays behind the troops to make use of its reach to gank enemies without exposing it to too much damage.
Hinagiku, Ary, Val and Isilme will be with the cavalry to begin with, joined by Ehren and Xanderghul when he (or they) return. message will be set up from Isilme to several leaders, and when Xanderghul is present, he will also join in to try and maximize the number of leaders we have linked. After that the group will mostly try to respond to high priority theats: Vrocks, Chimera, other major demons, drake riders, harpies, anything we haven't accounted for.
How's that sound?
Xanderghul already failed the Knowledge check, so summoning Spot is out of the question for the time being. We'll have to settle for the more generic option.
A griffon won't be very useful against a vrock, unless it's just there to run interference. It would be incapable of bypassing its damage reduction. Val just needs to bless one or both of her starknives and go to town on it. I agree that the archers should focus on the aerial targets, though.
You should tell me when you expect me to do things like this, as I don't have major image, invisibility, or beast shape prepared.
Spell list is updated.
I also altered Ehren's daily routine to exclude endure elements but include greater longstrider.
Xanderghul - we're early enough in the day I'm okay with changing your spell lists, but I am -not- okay with changing them once the plan is finalized.
Something worth mentioning:. Unless the link I haven't clicked says otherwise, I suspect the chimera does cold breath (white dargon)
I don't recall: Do the align weapon scales work on natural weapons or just unarmed strikes?
I would like to make sure Anevias bow is aligned before we engage.
Is there something I should prepare over endure elements?
Align weapon scales work on natural weapons.
I think our plan should be set in motion before the patrols are scheduled, so that we do not need to impersonate our enemies.
This is exactly how I saw the plan going, except that I would suggest having the stone spike casted once 1/3 of the troops are on the bridge. That way, a large number of them will be stuck on it, not only the first few. Ideally, we want to have their apparent commander be on the other side of the bridge so that it is hard for them to direct the troops that are being ambushed.
The infantry should definitely have the arches with them so they can shoot down the people on the bridge from the river bank. Also, I suggest that the attack begins with simultaneous casting of stone spike and a volley of arrow. The goal would be to get the volley to take them by surprise before they can ready shields or things like that.
Thinking about the next step of the battle, once we have ambushed their troops, and once the enemies to the south discover that they are fighting an illusion, we need to use a diversion so that they have to split their troops. That way, hopefully, we won’t face the whole rest of the army after the ambush. Ideally, another illusion of troops would be good. If not, then maybe ringing a gong to the west or north, anything to sow confusion in their ranks.
I'll trade out burst of radiance for an invisibility, and haste for beast shape I. I think I can be ready to do the plan then.
Xanderghul also grabs two potions of longstrider from our hoard, and claims the scrolls of hide from undead, lesser animate dead, and silence from Poot. He also claims the potion of invisibility and the lil boi's silver dust.
I think I still have a potion of fly to get airborn to deal with flying enemies, assuming I didn't forget to update my sheet at some point. That should let me play interceptor when the airborn enemies start to come in. I can start on the ground with the army until they show up, then take off as soon as the big guys come in. Given the chimera's age and reputation, I'm betting it's extremely jacked up, so we're going to have to focus it down as soon as shows up. Other than that, I think most of Isilem's plan should be okay.
I misread part of Daisy's post so I eated my own post. :0
Sorry my post wasn't as clear as it could have been.
Also, we should ask our Desnan priest to prepare this
spellat some point.
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I just need to know the result of Ehren's scrying attempt. I'll go ahead and pick up from the next morning, though.
EDIT: Actually, I'll wait a bit since it involves Isilme, and she made herself sparse in-character, and there's now DRAMA in the watchtower. :P
But on a completely unrelated note, Black Panther was really, really good. :O
No, you're good! I just misread a line and it went from 'It's... not really a big deal, I just couldn't go through with it.' to 'Uh. Wait. Someone killed her?'
Because I missed 'failed' in the line. Which changed how I read it which -also- caused Ary to jump to a conclusion she wouldn't draw based on what I'd read, not what she'd heard. :3
Sorry about the delay, friends, I'm going through an incredibly stressful time at work that combines an insane workload and some uncertainty about the future so its been hard to muster up much energy when I'm home to do anything but veg out. I'm gonna try my best for you tonight.
Hope things calm down for you soon! Or become more certain, at least. :P
We're hardly going to blame you for needing time, especially if you're that busy. Just take care of yourself, we can wait a day or two.
You've got this. :)
Hang in there (if there is still trouble)!
Thanks for the kind words, friends :)
Doing better now, less stress, but still a lot of work :(
Welcome back, Kioralady
If practical, I'm gonna have my illusory soldiers die to the garrison's ranged attacks over a couple of minutes and then beat a retreat into the surrounding buildings, crying "No! Our soldiers on the other side can't get through!"
Thoughts:
Soldiers should be hiding amongst the ruins, staying indoors out of sight. The highest level ranger we have (Illivan?) should blow one of the cultist's horns once the enemy is in position, at which point the hidden archers will open up on any fliers first, and the bridge second. The infantry will push forward into the flank of the enemy troops, or if they are all on the bridge, to trap them there.
The cavalry will begin moving when the horn blows, Isilme will *also* carry a horn, and if the cavalry is charging into a situation where Kule might affect our troops, she will sound it twice, upon which all soldiers will use their shields to block line of sight towards the horn's sound to avoid accidentally getting caught. (As a side benefit, all of the cultists should turn to look at the horn :P)
If we want to leave some people to defend the catapults, we could also have the catapults fire on the bridge, which would likely do serious damage to the cultists trapped there. I think doing so could be beneficial, but might draw more attention to the garrison than we want, risking the civilians.
Any objections or modifications?
Hinagiku: If you want to go with the cavalry, we have a ton of stockpiled potions of longstrider. With your monk speed boost that should make you as fast as a horse.
I wouldn't have the catapults fire on the bridge, for fear of accidentally collapsing the bridge.
Technically, Ary is our highest level ranger ;P
Seems fine, I'm just a little worried about being surrounded. As long as we get our troops engaged with solid blocks of forces I'm comfortable responding to threats as they come.
I think collapsing the bridge wouldn't hurt us at all. If we were to try to use it to get to the front of the citadel, we'd end up fighting the ghouls *and* they'd just drop their bridge, preventing us from going at the front gate. If that's gonna happen, I'm not sure what we lose by destroying the bridge near us.