Delays delays delays. My tactical map got lost or deleted and I'm recreating it, in addition to other little annoyances. I'll have it done tonight and should have us starting out the actual battle tonight as well.
Thanks to those who are still with us... I swear we will get this damn game off the ground!
As to Jhaelwyn's tactical estimate, I think that particular situation would lie outside her expertise.
Sounds good! Good things are worth waiting some for!
Battle map is recreated and up in the Battle Maps link. I've switched to using google docs, cuz I can't seem to settle on a tactical solution and this one seems to work for a lot of other campaigns.
Red boxes indicate rough terrain. I'll try and get the corresponding post up at lunch today. In the mean time if you check in before that please take a look at the map and make sure you can move your character icon around.
Works for me.
Would it be possible to add a shape to indicate where the mantids are / may come from?
I am thinking where to place Gork there.
Btw. map looks very cool.
Thanks. My meager art skills don't suffice for much, but I've got an abiding interest in cartography so I've been working on my map-making. The tool is called Inkarnate, and produces some snazzy-looking results with a minimum of work.
Also as to the mantids, your last intelligence on them has them towards the middle of the map, amidst the vegetation. You'll need to place yourself at one of the map edges to start with, though, and we'll go from there.
We are not yet in combat initiative.
OK, we'll be engaging closer than I'd imagined. That's fine. If we've gotten to here without them noticing, then does anyone object to my flying up to scout their position more precisely? Or even better Jhaelwyn flying up to scout as that would let her figure out the best spot to position us and herself using her knowledge. I'm thinking we won't even need to be too fancy with my crossbow to draw them to us, we can probably just make noise from this side at the same time that the Ghost Noise goes off at the other and hope it splits them for long enough for us to have a couple rounds or so with just half of them.
I can probably extend the map somewhat, if people want to engage at further range.
I'm sure we can work with this. As long as we can get to the edge of that map without them noticing us I'll take less room than we were expecting.
Can confirm that that I can move my icon.
Should we go for a Jhaelwyn fly-by then?
@Maps: Do you have the pro version or are you running with the free one?
I usually use pyromancers.com for background and some objects like trees, chests, boulders, desks 'n stuff and then add anything beyond that directly onto the slides.
But yours do a much better job for anything height-related which I struggle greatly with.
I picked up the Pro version. The tool was neat enough that $25 for a year was an easy sell, at least as a one-off to give it a try.
Hello! I was just told that I will not have access to the internet over a vacation I'm taking until the 10th of February! Apologies, I was under the impression that I'd still be in touch.
Dearly sorry for the FURTHER disruption, guys. I wasn't aware I'd be cut off for this and thought I'd continue as normal.
I have, however, been in touch with Surtur and hopefully the added warning will be sufficient to bring him back into the group! Uh.. review your tactics, I suppose, and have a lovely week or two.
Have a lovely vacation! If we do get Surtur back that would be excellent!
I'm back, and will be posting later today! Thanks all for your patience.
Weeh!
I'm going to wait until tomorrow to see if Surtur gets back to posting before botting him and moving forward.
After this, I think I'll have Histrok essentially decide what Surtur will do - I'll do the looking up of stats and such, Histrok, but please let me know what his overall actions should be.
Also, please remind me who is currently protected by antivenom?
The large hobgoblin icons on the map represent five of the guys each. I just can't make a group icon yet due to being at work.
OK, we can make that work for now. Surtur's role in the battle should be fairly straightforward anyhow.
Surtur distributed the antivenom to everyone this time around (presumably a dose for Ham as well.)
Looks like we're waiting on the Mantids for initiative at this point before Jhaelwyn tries to distract some of them from some other direction.
Paging Gork (and maybe even Surtur?).
Just to make sure it's plain, the soldiers will be treated as 'important' NPC's and thus I'll be keeping track of whether they are dead or alive even after going into negatives. One of your boys is down, but not dead yet.
Boop! I'm down with a cold and the creative juices aren't quite flowing as intended. Sorry :/
If I'm holding it up, please just have Jhaelwyn fly + ghost sound for her turn. Otherwise I should be back in a day or two!
Darn I always read overrun wrong!
I thought (because: reason) that you could overrun a foe and charge-attack someone 'behind' the initial foe.
Plus, without a loooong feat chain, you cannot overrun more than one target - which is super weird in case of powerful, large creatures...
Have to think about how to play Gork once locked in melee...
I'll look into it. I might house-rule in some kind of overrun/ride-by/cleave combo. And at least once in melee Ham will also get attacks!
At least you and Ham both get extra attacks this time with Haste!
Drekisal: Yes, spiritual weapon cancels Sanctuary if you use it to cause damage. Casting it, by itself, does not.
@Overrun - There's some mount-specific feats though. This one would only be two extra feats - admitedly not perfect but at least it's not one of those stand-on-two-feet-and-try-combat-maneuvers chains :P
@Cold - I'm back : )
I'll get a post up in an hour or so!
This week's goal - get through another combat round each day! Get those posts up! Not that it'll necessarily last another round. Can you imagine how it would have gone if you hadn't had the antidote - or given it to everybody? :D
Yeesh. Seeing Gork's post and it being roughly equivalent to his combat post from last round, I for a moment thought that both of the resolution posts I'd put up yesterday (which take a not-insignificant amount of time to do) somehow hadn't gone through after all. Nearly had a heart attack.
Haha.
But really, there is not much else you had expected from Gork once combat started did you?
*Charge!*
*SmashTheBugsy*
*Repeat!*
;-)
Indeed. I'm also guilty of often setting up the conditions for relatively boring first combats, tactically speaking. I like to throw a small horde of enemies at the players first just for fun. I'll have to work on that.
Well, it seems at this point that Surtur won't be returning. Thus, I'm going to treat Histrok essentially as the Leader for ooc purposes (hope you're down with that, Histrok!). At some point in the future, Surtur will likely depart in an in-character manner as well so that Histrok can assume control both IC and OOC.
Hmm, as long as we're treating this as a council style thing where everyone has a role in decision making I can take point I suppose. IC Histrok is much better suited as an independent lieutenant helping someone else by getting things done to complement their plans. Having said that, I don't know that anyone else's character of the group that's left is well designed to lead the expedition (for various different RP reasons, and feel free to speak up if you think otherwise,) and we'll make do with what we've got regardless.
Yeah I'm not sure how much leadership material there is. Drekisal? But that'd defeat the "don't be obviously dragon-connected" point. Might be the best option though?
Drekisal is the most obvious choice, and his character is ambitious, though I think he was looking for more of a power behind the throne approach. He's welcome to chime in otherwise!
Also, I've just realized, I'm not sure how we're supposed to benefit financially from this hunt. Do we sell parts of the Mantids back at the lodge? How do the hunters make a profit and stay in business? We've certainly had a successful hunt (sorry Soldier Chalmers who I've just named our first casualty,) but I'm not sure how we capitalize on that now.
You can extract the choicest parts from a monster’s carcass to use as resources when crafting items.
Prerequisite(s): Craft (any) 1 rank or Heal 1 rank.
Benefit(s): You can attempt a Craft or Heal check, as though making a trophy, to gain usable resources from a creature that has been dead for less than an hour. Only creatures with a CR of 1 or higher yield usable parts. The value of the parts you harvest is equal to the creature’s CR squared × 10 gp (increases to CR derived from class levels or templates do not contribute to this value). This value can be used only as raw materials for crafting alchemical, masterwork, mundane, or magic items. Items crafted using creature parts must be made of a suitable material—typically bone or hide, with metal only in extraordinary cases. No more than a quarter of a crafted item’s cost can be supplied with harvested parts. Harvested parts remain usable for 2 days before they rot (unless used to craft objects or somehow preserved). Creature parts that are harvested in this manner can’t be bought or sold in most settlements.
So! So hopefully the Mantids individual CR is 1 or more :P Whiiich might be doubtful. But if it is we can try and make something fun out of them. Anyone want a new hat :P?
Well, several of them took hits without going down from our soldiers. I'd guess that they're CR more than 1. They were stated to be in the CR 2-3 range way back around page 2 now that I go back and look. At least some of the value must be in the venom sacks for us, but the other hunting expeditions must be doing something else with the parts.
So we should start harvesting. I can do either heal (+7) or craft alchemy (+10) checks. We should get everyone that has applicable skills working on it and we should start mentoring the soldiers to help out with such tasks for the future (whatever that looks like.)
I can also cast preserve on potentially as much as 90+ lbs. of materials within the next 2 days depending on how much we can harvest and how long we can wait for me to do it (that would use all my spell slots for the next two days.) That keeps them fresh for up to a week, and I'd imagine that I could repeat the process. If there's much more than that to be harvested and it's things that would rot then we probably need to head back to the Lodge with just this load of stuff. If not we can keep hunting. We'll need to wait to hear what the situation is to decide I'd think.
Drekisal *is* much more of the power behind the throne type, yes. But it's still early days--it wouldn't be much of a change to his character for his ambition to grow to the point of wanting to be the acknowledged leader, if we wanted to go that way.
If you want Gork to lead, just say so.
I mean, what could possibly go wrong? ^^
Various parts of the mantids are certainly saleable, and that is how the hunter camp survives, by and large. The venom sacks themselves are valuable (though no one else has managed to make an antidote, plenty of people use the venom for the usual purpose). Of course, if you sell them you can't use them to make more doses.
Jhaelwyn's rules apply to her harvesting for crafting purposes, and in addition due to the creature's general value, half of this total can be preserved and sold (or 1/4 of the total if you keep the venom sack for your own use). Lesser mantids are CR 3.
Hmh. Might be worth considering recruiting someone for the leadership role. Thoughts?
Or maybe just bow down to our kobold overlord :P
Possible, though I'd like to avoid additional recruitments so early. If one of you would like the leadership role and aren't super attached to your own character yet, you could drop the one and make a new one (or even just take over the general idea of Surtur, though I'd allow you to rebuild to your taste). Basically I'm open to ideas.
We could keep Surtur around as a puppet of Drekisal. :D
I'm fine with a Surtur proxy for Drekisal leadership. After talking with Drekisal about it Histrok could probably help make that happen.
Hmmm... probably we'll need some crisis to bring this on, though. Something to show that Surtur isn't quite himself anymore, or something along those lines.
We're early enough in the campaign that, for the sake of ease (cuz this campaign could use a bit of help if we're gonna really get into the swing of things) I think we should just hand Surtur over to you, Drekisal, to do with as you will. If you want the leadership role, take it! You can RP the interplay between Surtur and Drek as you please.
Essentially, I wanted the single-player leader to streamline decision making and planning rather than waiting for group consensus. Having our leader drop out (for RL reasons which he explained to me via DM) is certainly less than convenient.
So, what say you? Feel like taking over another character and becoming the player leader?
I'm okay with NPC Surtur but Drekisal calling the shots. Seems like a working arrangement!
Or someone re-rolling if they want. Though I myself like Jhaelwyn and no responsibilities :P
---
Also it seems like the mantids will happily cannibalize themselves. Might be worth investing in some ingested poison in the future? We could try and weaken the mantids for future hunts.
Were is minature gps technology when you need it?
Tracking them to their lairs via that approach would be helpful.
In the meantime: should we burn the mantids to prevent their kin to eat them and get stronger that way?
Burning them could be an idea though I'm slightly worried that they then will try and track down and eat the tasty bits we took with us. Maybe burn the most of them and leave a few as distraction?
And I'm sure there's some way to make an edible tracking device in Pathfinder!
I'm thinking Arcane Mark and a specially researched version of Detect Magic which sees/senses ONLY the mark, but at great distance.
Also I'm glad you picked up the 'back in greater numbers' setup I gave you.
Mm spell research. Could the harvested parts from the feat be used to pay for spell research?
And I'll try my best to pay homage when I can of course :D