GM SpiderBeard's Second Darkness (DrEvil Group) (Inactive)

Game Master Barvo Delancy

Also, shadow demon is not summoned, and shouldn't be an insurmountable challenge for this group.

Ain't skerd. Don't know to be. :)

Now that Magnus's weapon is magic and good, we can get some damage going on here. Just gotta keep him alive now.

I think Trig is right about Protection From Evil. It blocks all compulsion and charm attempts from evil sources.

Where do you guys see that protection from evil? The only one I saw being cast was on Lyr.

All, I am on vacation and traveling starting tomorrow morning for 2 weeks. I hope to have some connectivity while traveling, especially during the first week of the trip, but please bot me when needed to move the game along. During that time my posts may be shorter as I may be posting from my phone.

Well that's not -quite- how I expected to write Reva out but I'll take it. Stupid whale.

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Quick note on posting - Saphren is at a slower pace and it's okay for others to miss the odd day. So I'll keep going at whatever rate the group can match until things settle out.

Unfortunately, Magnus has not posted in well over a month. I normally remove after an unexplained month of absence, but since he's been with the game for so long (and I adore Magnus as a character) I'm going to keep him as GMPC until we're done the chapter which should be a week or two. Here's hoping he's back and in action soon.

Good call on Magnus. I hope he returns as well. Trig, any insight?

Apologies for my absence. It's bee a crazy week. Please NPC me as needed. I'll be back to normal posting within the next day or two.

I've not been in touch with him either.

If you don't mind me asking, what were your plans for Reva?

One thing I wanted to ask you to consider, GM -- undercasting for summon spells.

Occult adventures introduced undercasting, where spells that were spellname I-IX or something like that could be 'upgraded' for free when you got a new spell level.

Undercasting Spells

Some psychic spells can be undercast. This means that the spellcaster can cast the spell at the level that he knows, or as any lower-level version of that spell, using the appropriate spell slot. When a spellcaster undercasts a spell, it is treated exactly like the lower-level version, including when determining its effect, saving throw, and other variables. For example, a psychic spellcaster who adds ego whip III to his list of spells known can cast it as ego whip I, II, or III. If he casts it as ego whip I, it is treated in all ways as that spell; it uses the text and the saving throw DC for that spell, and requires him to expend a 3rd-level spell slot.

Whenever a spontaneous spellcaster adds a spell to his list of spells known that can be undercast, he can immediately learn a spell in place of each lower-level version of that spell he knows. In essence, he loses each earlier version and can replace it with another spell of the same level that is on his spell list.

OA did not explicitly make the summon monster spells undercastable. However, it would be simple to implement. I was planning on swapping out summon Monster I anyway since it's not very powerful, but this would give me a little bit of a greater flexibility in spell choices going forward.

I'd have moved her to a recurring NPC and agent of the Iomedeans as the next chapter takes you to her homeland, with some half-formed ideas that would be spoilery ;)

As for undercasting, I'll check into it. The short of it is that rather than having to know Summon monster I, II, III, etc... you just need to know the highest cast you can of that spell, and that frees up the lower spell slots. Answer forthcoming.

Sweet! Level up! That was a tough fight!

I'll miss Reva but at least she went out in an epic battle.

hp: 1d6 ⇒ 6 Woot!

My third level spell is the real puzzler. Summon Monster III is the obvious choice, but there's a lot to be said for Haste.

I'm also swapping out Color Spray, which isn't much use any more, for something else. I'm not sure what -- Magic weapon could be useful since we don't have any currently.

A note on hp - I advertised this game as half +1 for hit points, but if you wanna roll you can roll. You just have to do it consistently from hereon out.

As for undercasting, I did some reading and mostly just see people going "Gee it would be cool if sorcs could do that". So... sure, let's give it a shot. Zoso, this applies to you too if you want to get into cure X wounds spells.

I'll take Summon Monster III then since it will allow me to swap out SMI and II for other 1 and 2 level spells.

I'll swap Color spray according to the normal rules where a spontaneous caster can swap 1 spell known every even level, and swap SMI and II by taking SMIII. New spells are: Vanish, Magic weapon, Create Pit.

Skills: +1 to Perception, +2 to Spellcraft, +1 to Intimidate.

That should be about it.

I made my character at level 4. I don't remember if I was supposed to level him up after I was selected or not, but I guess I've been a level behind everyone.

Am I a level behind the others, or should I level up twice.

Hah, there was a miscommunication there then, sorry Lyr! When I took over this game I was recruiting for a level 4 second darkness game too and must have got wires crossed. I've read your character sheet a million times and never noticed the level gap. Take two levels.

...and call me in the morning!

There's a huge wall of text to process in my last post, so do that and level yourselves up. Then let me know what you're remaining actions are. If you're exploring the remainder of the cave, if you're doing anything regarding Zincher and the remaining akata, or if you're gonna get the hell away from Devil's Elbow ASAP.

Working on it. Saphren will want to search well in here, including under the water before returning to the camp and confronting Zincher. Thoughts? Is there any compelling reason to leave? I would like to find more skymetal but that seems to be slow going and I guess we need to report in about the dark elves soon.

Here are my details for leveling.

Saphren takes another level of Rogue.

Per the agreed rules of leveling he gains 5 hit points +1 for con and +1 for favored class, for a total of 7.

His BAB goes up to +4 and all three of his saves increase by 1.

His Danger Sense goes up by 1 to +2 and he gains a rogue talent. He takes Combat Trick to pick up Mobility.

And he gain 8 skill points, putting points in the following:
Acrobatics +1
Disable Device +1
Perception +1
Sense Motive +1
Stealth +1
Swim +2
UMD +1

Questions on "The Story Thus Far""

- House Azrinae has designed a weapon using ancient magics of some sort to call down meteors from the sky to Golarion

What do we know about House Azrinae?

- Agents, lead by a male named Nolveniss are operating out of Celwynvian organized a team to go to Devil's Elbow to set up the weapon for a test run

What else do we know about Nolveniss?

- Shindiira and Depora were sent to set up the weapon, which they did by inscribing glyphs in these caves after imprisoning a siren, a note says the glyphs were destroyed when the meteor hit

Siren??? Have we found the Siren? Do we know what happened to it?

- Shindiira had charmed Clegg Zincher, the Riddleport gang leader, to capture akata above ground so she could return with them

Did we know he was charmed?

- House Azrinae is one of the more powerful drow noble houses according to what Lyr knows.

- Nolveniss is a male drow in charge of the above-ground activities in Celwynvian, a major elven city in northern Varisia. He was a (competing) object of affection between the two drow women you fought at the conclusion of each chapter and is doing something called The Armageddon Echo.

- YOu have not found the siren (yet). There are legends on Devil's Elbow mentioned in the past in the game about a siren who was with the man who founded the Witchlight settlement, who was then killed by the townsfolk.

- Shindiira mentions in her journal that she kept Clegg charmed.

Thanks for the responses. I am feeling a little more informed.

We likely should not hang around long as the elves need the information we have. And if we play it right Clegg should be greatful for us freeing him of his compulsions - if he is capable of ever feeling gratitude.

Loot tracker - who is to update it? Should I? Saphren has mentioned desiring a few things. How do we want to proceed with loot?

So although I said I'd remove Magnus come end of Chapter - that's taking a little longer than anticipated and he has been gone a very long time now. So sadly we'll bid him farewell. If he can return to fulltime play by post gaming I'll bump this group up to six to bring him in.

So with that said, I'd like to welcome Jesse! He was one of the applicants for the Second Darkness games (which is how we got Zoso), and applied with the tiefling Cherry. Since Cherry is a rogue I've asked him to have her as a different class, or come in with a different character. Welcome!

Alright! Welcome! I'll miss Magnus, I hope he comes back.

I'm not the new guy anymore!

It's good to see you again Jesse! Had a blast with you in recruitment. Feel free to drop in questions or thoughts about the party while you're buildings the new character/class.

Welcome Jesse. I am the party rogue, though you will see Saphren is a little unconventional for a rogue. :)

Hi folks! I tend to be very flexible about the kinds of characters that I play, so this could go in a couple of different ways.

* Since we're 6th level, Cherry could be multiclassed with a couple rogue levels and several levels in a fighting class (most likely candidate would be swashbuckler). Having a rogue level or two gives some lovely sneak attack damage anyway!
* Or, I could make a totally different character to fill the group's need for a hard-hitting front-line beast, subject to DM SpiderBeard's approval. On this angle I have a couple ideas in the realm of an Ulfen bloodrager or possibly an armored battlemage or an armor master fighter, though these are just very hazy notions at the moment.

Any preference? Also, while I'm batting around ideas, does anyone want to have a pre-formed tie with the character that comes out of this -- relative, rival, former adventuring partner, lover (or ex), met at the Gold Goblin's Cheat the Devil event, etc.?

While I wish it were otherwise, it looks like you are replacing Magnus. That means a pretty good AC and con and and BAB I would think. He was our tank.

Yeah, I am just trying to come up with a couple variations on the tanky archetype. Cherry could be built in such a way that she Dex tanks. The armored magus, while it loses the hyper-optimization of spell combat and thus causes Guide writers to turn up their noses at it, is pretty good at tankiness and improves at higher levels, though it hurts from lack of a shield. Armor master fighter is of course solid at tanking, but that's the area where I don't really have a concept yet. The bloodrager would be a meatbag tank, basically trying to outrun the enemy in damage output before running out of hit points. I also have an eldritch knight build that is pretty tanky because it relies on using Still Spell all over the place.

I did a check of your characters and it seems you have plenty of range, so being able to anchor the tough enemies and go toe to toe is the mechanical niche to fill.

Given that our primary foes so far are drow, who tend to do melee in a dex-tank style themselves, having someone like that on our side is a very good idea. The enemies will often be choosing the battlefield that suits them, so making sure we can take advantage of the same options they do is a great approach.

One of the sneaky little advantages that Cherry has is that she has Fiend Sight x2, which means she not only has superior darkvision, she can see in magical darkness -- and she has a racial trait that gives her a damage bonus against enemies who can't see her, too!

Here's the alias for Cherry Razarin, the tiefling rogue/swashbuckler. Cherry's basically a bartender who struggled through hard times and decided that she would get rich or die trying! She has since become embroiled in the craziness in Riddleport.
PROS: 25 AC is actually higher than Magnus'! She can see in total darkness, and even in magical darkness. When she stabs flat-footed or flanked opponents it's devastating. She can probably keep up with Saphren when sneaking (thanks to a great Stealth skill) and might even be able to aid him in disabling traps (an extra +2 is always a good thing). The two of them could tag-team in dark areas and sneak around quite handily.
CONS: Fort and Will saves are pretty much garbage - even drow sleep poison will be a problem for her. Not as many hit points as Magnus, though she'll probably pick up Toughness eventually.
DEVELOPMENT: Level 7 will be swashbuckler, and she'll pick up the Fencing Grace feat, which will improve her damage output. Level 8 will be another rogue level, then it's swashbuckler all the rest of the way.

If you guys are "ennhhh" about this character, I can make a different alias to check out; the ones I have rolling around in my head are, as previously mentioned:
* Elf armored magus - AC is not quite as good, but nice damage output with the spellstrikes
* Halfling armor master fighter - really good AC, decent speed, doesn't hit super hard but can really tie enemies up
* Human bloodrager (steelrager) - Ulfen warrior who runs around in full plate crushing things with an axe. Not great saves but a hard hitter with a solid AC. Could have the Antagonize feat to really control the field.
I would be happy to flesh out any of these to a complete alias, if desired.

A couple suggestions:

What if you did Slayer instead of Rogue? That would help with HP and Fortitude.

If you do go Rogue, why not unchained rogue? Get Dex-to-Damage and skill unlocks.

If you don't, why not use Fencing Grace to get dex-to-damage with the rapier? Inspired Blade Swashbuckler will get you Weapon Focus (rapier) as a bonus feat. Actually you could do both. Get dex-to-damage with the sap using uRogue, and fencing grace for the rapier.

Slayer doesn't fit my concept of the character thematically. I'm going to pick up Fencing Grace next level. I'm working the character both conceptually and mechanically and I'm looking to have them both fit the image that I have of her. :)

I haven't run any Unchained characters so I haven't looked at any of those builds.

Ok, so why not uRogue?

... because as noted above I haven't ever run an unchained character so I'm not familiar with those builds? :D

PRD link

The uRogue is pretty much a straight upgrade from the normal rogue. All the same archetypes and most of the rogue talents work exactly the same. You take the rogue chassis and add Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat, the ability to sneak attack creatures with concealment (not as important when you have darkvision, but there you go), and dex-to-damage with one weapon of your choice at level 3.

First - I want you to play a character you want to play, so do not be too swayed by what I say next.

Second - I'd rather you not double up on my rogueness. Not a huge deal OOC but IC Saphren is so gonna be bothered. :) He'll refer to you as "the lesser rogue" and other such terms of endearment :P I like the slayer option too, though I have never even read those rules. I have played with slayers and admit they are quite effective.

Third. Trig is right. There is no downside to using unchained rogue. I converted even though I am a strength rogue. Huge upside if you are a dex rogue. You are shooting yourself in the foot not taking unchained.

And you are likely not gonna like my final comment but I have made it towards other candidates so will make it here. We have no unusual races in our group. The previous DM wanted it that way and and its one of the things I like about this game. Its up to GM SpiderBeard of course but I recommend we keep the races core only. RP goals aside I see Tieflings and Aasimars basically as getting advantages over other players in starting points as racially their point value is worth close to double the next core race. And I am not sure you have done this but it becomes even more of an advantage when you take the alternate racial forms and basically dial in the perfect stat bumps for whatever class you want to play. That bugs me. If I ever allow Aasimar or Tiefling races in one of my games it will be the base races only.

I had a great time playing with Cherry and her cocktail proficiency! So I would recommend not sacrificing her to the 'rebuild scalpel.'

One of these would probably be the best bet,
* Elf armored magus
* Halfling armor master fighter
* Human bloodrager
just to mesh with that's already going on.

Also a note from what I've discovered as a newcomer, the mood of the game is a bit more somber than our recruitment thread. In game, the party has had almost half of its members die over a course of two days. Along with the drow and darkness themes, the times have a heavy weight on them. So I guess it's just something to think of, what character personality would blend well with this particular world.

A good point Zoso. With Reva's recent passing you cane expect an even more dour Saphren for a while. Perhaps if/when we get her raised that will pull him out of his funk.

Sounds like Cherry's out of the running then, though her sunny disposition might've been a nice contrast! (Incidentally, I didn't take the inspired blade archetype because crit fishing has never worked out for me -- in my entire history of playing PF, I have confirmed one crit ever.)

Back to the drawing board!

I don't mind tieflings at all -- they're not that uncommon in the setting, and they're not as powerful as aasimars. I don't see that Cherry has anything but the base tiefling race, which is actually suboptimal for a swashbuckler since you get a penalty to charisma.

Yep, but I liked the character conceptually so I rolled with it. Originally Cherry was just built as a rogue anyway, I was working on something that could accommodate the group's need for front-line power.

To clarify, I agree with Saphren that the ability-bonus picking and choosing is a little over-the-top.

Indeed - my usual barometer is to build a character who is a good contributor to the group's fun both via characterization and by means of mechanical systems.

I actually think that Cherry would be a good addition to this group. We don't need to double down on the somber and I enjoy some levity in my games. It's been a pretty grim chapter, but we're moving onto new content very soon and things will change as that happens.

Also, update will be late tonight. Thanks for yoru patience!

I tweaked Cherry with unchained rogue. I'm working on the elf armored magus at the moment - I did some work on the bloodrager but couldn't quite get it where I wanted, so I put that on the back burner for now.

I actually think that Cherry would be a good addition to this group. We don't need to double down on the somber and I enjoy some levity in my games. It's been a pretty grim chapter, but we're moving onto new content very soon and things will change as that happens.

Also, update will be late tonight. Thanks for yoru patience!

You know, Zoso would enjoy someone to bounce happy optimist ideas off of.

You know, Zoso would enjoy someone to bounce happy optimist ideas off of.

Funny, you mentioned a different kind of bouncing back in the tavern...

Also, the magus (armored battlemage) is MAD as hell. Argh. (EDIT: I mean multiple ability dependency, not angry.)