GM says it's two stories high, which I interpret as 20'. We don't actually need the last person to drop down, since Wraith can cast Mage Hand and bring it down after us. Geborah doesn't know that, though.
Alternately, a successful Acrobatics check DC 15 would mean a deliberate drop of 20' only does 1d6 nonlethal damage.
Well I'm a little too busy with work to post true actions and people can assume that I'm open with my current cantrips in formulating the plan....
Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends and Happy Thursday to my Canadian friend
Hey guys, just letting you know I've had a family emergency come up, and unexpected house guests. I will be unable to post Saturday. Hopefully, I should be able to post late Sunday night and again late Monday night. I will be able to post regularly by Tuesday. Sorry for holding up the game, and feel free to bot me as needed.
Thank you for your patience.
It’s okay, Jezabel. I’ve gotten overwhelmed with the holiday weekend as well. Might not be able to update until tomorrow.
hi i'm back.
Hope you all had a good holiday too!
i'm updating Balam..
just to be clear.. i have the chain shirt, the steel shield (light?), a longsword, and the longbow?
Am i offbase on anything?
thanks!
I'll be botting FireSkorn - got a message saying he was temporarily unavailable, but he should be back later this week.
Was about to ask were Geborah saw the map then reread the Gm's last post, really need to stop skimming through things.
We're a stealthy lot!
Part Five: Vampire Rebellion Below Karcau: the Ensparkling.
I just want to say, I'd read this.
I would too as long as its action packed and not this whole vampire lovey dovey tripe that's too common right now
Oh, Pauline gets lots of action in it.
Hahahaha. I would definitely rather read your vampire smut, than whatever creepy cannibalism smut Jezabel managed to nab off that shelf. Sparkly or otherwise.
Lol so what's the plan, unlock the bedroom door, sneak in surround the bugger and then all coup da Gras the man, between all the attacks im sure he'll wake up dead somewhere
And then Grumblejack and I eat him. Or, part of him, at least.
After I sacrifice him for death knell if possible, if not I might try a nibble of the man
Seeing as a coup de grace is an auto critical hit with a Fortitude DC to survive equal to 15+Damage dealt, I suspect a single person could kill him with that, never mind all of you. After all, he's a Wizard. How good could his Fortitude save actually be?
You never know when someone is hiding a high fort save class just in case
Just making sure someone wrote that last potion in their inventory.
Yeah late night for me I'll try to update my equipment this weekend to include new weapons and scrolls
Who ended up taking the longbow?
There were 2 longbows you looted from the guards outside your cell block.
Alright everyone ok with Balam taking one of those
Balam and Tatienne should have a complete set of the guards' gear each...they're the only ones with martial weapon proficiencies.
Geborah has the warden's CLW potion. Wraith has one of the daggers from the veil; if no one minds, Geborah will take the other.
I also have one of the clubs
Which other dagger? The warden's one that Jezabel has?
Tatienne has a dagger from the veil at the moment. It is an implement, so it is needed to use her abilities. She can use the longsword as an implement tomorrow, but that doesn't help now.
If Geborah asks for it, Jezabel will give her dagger to her.
To record an arcane spell in written form, a character uses complex notation that describes the magical forces involved in the spell. The writer uses the same system no matter what her native language or culture. However, each character uses the system in his own way. Another person's magical writing remains incomprehensible to even the most powerful wizard until he takes time to study and decipher it.To decipher an arcane magical writing (such as a single spell in another's spellbook or on a scroll), a character must make a Spellcraft check (DC 20 + the spell's level). If the skill check fails, the character cannot attempt to read that particular spell again until the next day. A read magic spell automatically deciphers magical writing without a skill check. If the person who created the magical writing is on hand to help the reader, success is also automatic.
Once a character deciphers a particular piece of magical writing, he does not need to decipher it again. Deciphering magical writing allows the reader to identify the spell and gives some idea of its effects (as explained in the spell description). If the magical writing is a scroll and the reader can cast arcane spells, he can attempt to use the scroll.
Here are the rules regarding deciphering magical writing, such as a single spell in another's spellbook. That roll would have to be made for each spell - the read magic cantrip automatically succeeds on the check. Until such time as you have deciphered the spellbook, you won't be able to use any spells out of it.
For those who are interested, I've created a feat progression to become a half-fiend. It is 7 feats in total, and will result in you gaining the full benefits of the template if you take all 7. Here is a link, and I've also linked it from the Campaign Info tab.
Cool!
how are we dong grave knight? ritual at a certain level? feat tree? I can't remember what we decided.
Me either, as just posted in thread I've been fighting a head cold so the last few days I might not have been up to snuff when posting... But I just brought something up.... Personally I think are plan should be revised to ogre air drop since its only 10 ft down. Ogre jumps on guard, problem solved!
There are two guards, and Grumblejack is unarmed.
I believe Grave Knight will probably be akin to the Lich option presented for Way of the Wicked - significant financial cost, followed by a ritual, and a feat you have to take. I haven't quite decided yet.
Regardless, it is currently being worked on.
Jezabel could use the sleep scroll on them from the window as they pass by (or Wraith could so Jezabel could help in melee). Also, I agree that Balam could be down there invisibly waiting in ambush.
I'd like to save the invisibility scroll if possible. That could come in really handy later, like if we need to spring the gate, or create a diversion, or something else. Two guards should fall pretty quickly, if we can drop the one with the horn (I assume one has a horn) first.
Sleep, though, that could be good. What if we wait on the other side of the tower for the guards to come around and just stab/shoot them/put them to sleep?
Really though, I'm fine with the plan. More than likely the guards will think the money has fallen from the wizard's window, so I don't think it will raise any alarm before they're attacked. But maybe something less - ritzy, for lack of a better word, would be better? An article of clothing, some food, something that would cause them to pause, but not raise an alarm?
We can't be sure which direction the patrol will come. If we waited outside the tower and they came the way we weren't expecting, they'd spot us at extreme range with their bullseye lanterns.
We should totally have the sleep spell ready, but a few caveats: We don't know if the sleep scroll would affect the whole patrol. The ones we fought inside seemed about three hit dice to me; that would mean only one of them would succumb, and then only if they failed their DC 14-15 will save. Also worth noting, sleep is a one round cast, which means we can't finish casting it in a surprise round. We should definitely open with other stuff--otherwise, they'd have a chance to act (blow a horn?) if they won initiative. Let's try to dispose of them conventionally and save the sleep scroll for emergencies--such as if one just takes off running before we take him down.
The invisibility spell will only last three minutes, and we don't know what the time window is until the next patrol comes by. I too would prefer to save it for later use.
Sounds good. I like Balam's suggestion in the gameplay thread to only use a few coins and get them down there with magic so it's not too weird.
Ignore what I said about the Graveknight earlier. I've compared Lich, Graveknight, and Vampire, and the Graveknight is closer in power to the Vampire than the Lich (really, I think Paizo slipped up making them all the same CR adjustment - Vampires and Graveknights definitely get more benefits than the Lich does). I'm going to make it a 5-feat chain, like the Vampire.
For scrolls, the saving throw DC is equal to 10 + Level of the spell + the modifier of the minimum ability score needed to cast a spell. So, a level 1 spell requires an 11 casting stat, meaning a +0 modifier, giving the scroll of sleep a 10+1 (level) + 0 (modifier) for a DC 11.
Also, in favor of transparency, due to the fact this AP was designed for 4 PCs, and there are 6 of you, I'm making some changes here and there. One of them is maxing out enemy Hit Dice, instead of taking the average. Another is occasionally adding an extra enemy to balance numbers. These changes may increase or decrease depending on your overall effectiveness, as well as whether or not your numbers increase (you have the chance to gain allies who fight with you as you progress through the AP, some of which are quite powerful - and that's without counting the possibility of Leadership, which we will cross when we get there).
Geborah, good point on the direction of the patrols. That could be bad.
I think there's still a good case for the sleep spell, however.
We've got one window to jump out of for the ambush, right? How many people can be adjacent to the window? If they can all fit, Balam, Skorn, and Geb position should themselves so that they can see out the window. Taty, Jezabel, and Wraith line up behind Balam, with Wraith right behind him to hopefully take advantage of line of sight.
So, surprise round:
* Balam positions himself to drop on a guard and attacks (one action, drop is free). If he hits, he'll do 4-11 damage, barring a crit.
* Jezabel moves to window and drops (one action, drop is free)
* Taty moves to window and drops (one action, drop is free)
* Geb fire bolt? 2-7 damage, barring a crit
* RatSknorn: bomb 1d6+4. 5-11 plus 4 splash.
If RatSkorn, Geborah, and Balam hit, we're looking at doing 11 - 29 damage in the surprise round, unless the GM rules that anyone dropping can attack in the surprise round. If Taty and Jezebel can attack and both hit, we'll do another 6-15 damage, plus bleed, and another point of damage if Taty can buff herself before the ambush.
Our odds of dropping one guard in the surprise round aren't good. If we all hit, we do 17-44 damage plus bleed, probably enough to drop one guard.
We've still got Wraith to act, though.
* Wraith surprise round: Maybe he drops from the window and attacks with a club next round. He has ear-piercing scream as an offensive spell, probably not a good idea to use if we want to maintain our secrecy. He could start the sleep spell for the following round, however.
Depending on how initiative count goes, that could be really good. Probably about half of us will be able to act before the guards.
Round one:
Roughly, 9-22 damage before the guards act. Maybe both guards are down at this point, but I doubt it. If Wraith is one of the people that is able to act, then maybe there's one surviving guard and he goes down.
I don't know that we have a better option for Wraith than the scroll.
@GM, can we position ourselves to peek out windows to see guards approaching from either direction? If so, we can plan our ambush to take that into account (Taty can buff herself, maybe Wraith can start the sleep spell right before the guards come into view, getting the spell off when they are distracted by the coin bag)?
Yes to windows allowing you to look in both directions. Ear-piercing scream is only heard by the target, so it wouldn't give you away.
However, bombs make a loud explodey noise, and that probably would merit some sort of investigation.
Grumblejack will also not fit through the windows - he is an Ogre, after all.
Incidentally, Balam, here is the Graveknight feat path I'm going with right now. It's roughly based on the Vampire path, and should provide power on par with that.
Turning templates into feats is both enjoyable and tricky, because you have to strike the balance between not overpowering the feat for the respective level, but also not making the feat path so long that the player never gains all the benefits of the templates.
I suspect that doing so will only work if you are either playing a high-powered campaign, in which case you can give abilities to the players quickly, or else a campaign where you, the GM, know that the players choosing to gain these templates and abilities makes them more vulnerable to their enemies, like this one.
Yes to windows allowing you to look in both directions. Ear-piercing scream is only heard by the target, so it wouldn't give you away.
Oh, that's good news!
However, bombs make a loud explodey noise, and that probably would merit some sort of investigation.
Oh, that's not :)
The fewer coins there are, the quicker the guards can pick them up. We'll want them delayed for a few rounds to get our melee people down the rope. If she has more uses of the ability today, Tatienne can cast Size Alteration on Grumblejack so he can get out the window.
Wraith and Geborah can snipe from the second window. Geborah won't use Firebolt or Burning Hands for much the same reason Fireskorn won't be throwing bombs. She'll play safety, reading Forbid Action to cast on a guard who tries to raise the alarm. Wraith can scream some heads off, or Sleep if things go badly. If two people can stand side by side on the walkway, Balam and Tatienne can melee the guards, Grumble can melee with reach over their heads, and Jezabel can Daze until she has a chance to dash in.
Combat is unpredictable; with bad hit and initiative rolls we could have a tough fight. That's going to be true with any plan. If things go badly, we're full up on Villain Points. We could take a few more days to go over details, but perhaps we'll have more fun just going for it?
More coins is much more suspicious. I'd rather do fewer.
Btw any word from out ratty friend. Side note, coins in play.
GMPhntm888 any chance for a lich feat train.... No... Ok
Wraith would be terrible with a bow but will use one if required, was thinking on working my assassin skills to drop down and attack with the club.
we have the longbows, could it be possible to that someone who needs to jump can use the bows?
Yes to windows allowing you to look in both directions. Ear-piercing scream is only heard by the target, so it wouldn't give you away.
However, bombs make a loud explodey noise, and that probably would merit some sort of investigation.
Grumblejack will also not fit through the windows - he is an Ogre, after all.
Incidentally, Balam, here is the Graveknight feat path I'm going with right now. It's roughly based on the Vampire path, and should provide power on par with that.
** spoiler omitted **
coolios!! this is awesome!
Jezabel's not proficient with bows.
The AP does actually have a single feat that allows you to gain the Lich template, Wraith. However, as the prerequisites are well outside the capabilities of low-level characters, I haven't bothered posting it.
Short version: You aren't going to have the 120,000 gp to make your phylactery for a bit, nor can you cast 5th-level spells.
Nice sounds fantastic
GM, it is a 10' drop down to the guards, if I understand correctly? How many actions is it to drop and attack? Could it be a charge attack accompanied with an acrobatic check for the fall?