Hollow's Last Hope (Inactive)

Game Master nilesr

As Niles pointed out I could use Hero Points to power more rounds of bardic performance. I may end up doing that, but I'm currently thinking using recall + save or suck spells may be more impactful vs the king and the shaman. Any thoughts?

If we can get the same bonuses as Inspire from a single spell, for a longer duration, without using Hero Points at all, I'd say that's the way to go.

As for the king, I'll leave that up to you. All I can do is hit him with my stick. If we get him flanked, then I can make our stick-hitting better by sharing Precise Strike, but that would require him to move forward some. He already reduced his AC by at least 1 by enlarging, so there's that for a bonus.

If anyone wants to head to the altar, be my guest. I'd actually recommend two people, and one should have a decent Will save. I'm pretty sure that the shaman is going to have some kind of caster levels and the save-or-suck spells(like color spray) to go with it.

Also, not to tell you how to play or anything, Lucanor, but you do know that Bless is an excellent buff, right? This would probably be the time to use it, since Silas is out of Inspire rounds and Bless is almost the exact same(+1 morale to attack and damage, +1 morale to save vs fear). It's 1/minute a level, or 3 minutes total, so it should get us through the whole fight with plenty of time to spare on just a single casting.

First, I'm always glad for tactical advice.

That said, I thought I'd already used it recently and didn't have time to pray for it again? Maybe I'm confused on that.

EDIT: Huh, it would seem I AM confused. Last time I used it if the search function is working was a fight with shadows

Keeping track of resources used has proven to be tricky since this has been a veeery long day for our party.

Why is everyone ignoring the king? Never mind the guards, he's the melee threat...

I'm using this spreadsheet to keep track of Baldur's consumables while I DMPC him.

Why is everyone ignoring the king?

He was out of the fight for the last few rounds, and the fewer mooks he has to flank with, the better. Now that he's out of the pit and prone, though, I'll start swinging at him. Should get some nice hits, what with the -4 AC penalty from prone and him provoking AoO's(with that reduced AC) when he stands up. So stay near to him, Silas. Don't back up until he's actually standing.

Ok, I posted the round summary and THEN read Michaels post. So, Silas ignore my 5' step I took for you. Go ahead and post your round 5 and 6 actions and I'll retcon them into existence.

I'd keep moving forward, Hecktor. Let Baldur cast light, and then get to work stopping the shaman. I have a feeling that even with my AoO's, this fight against the king is gonna take more than 2 rounds, and then it's probably going to take another 2 rounds to close in on the shaman.

Is the grease spell still around the king? Might be hard to melee around him if so

Though I'm tempted to go after Hecktor and help him, or even our little choker buddy

Yes, the grease persists for 3 rounds, remember the number it did on the ogre zombies earlier.

You could go after Hecktor if you want. I should be able to stand my ground against the king for the most part, especially if Silas is able to get back on his feet and rejoin the fight.

Just don't forget about your judgements and stuff, because you might want to try dropping that shaman quick.

If an NPC has a name...it'll be a mess if finding out he was plot significant to save. :)

Rats, shame the kid died. I actually thought the king would have taken longer to kill and was going to hit harder than he did.

The kid did not die, he is unconscious next to the altar, Tyran Moonsilver died, he was the Halfling Bard you met earlier's traveling companion.

Lucanor, cast Magic Weapon on Hecktor if you have the spell. If we're up against another shadow, non-magical weapons have no effect at all while magic weapons do half damage. Otherwise, we're going to be relying on you to cast Disrupt Undead as pretty much our only chance of doing damage, since Gared still has the only magic weapon in the group.

Silas, that wand of CLW should be able to be used as a weapon as well since the shadow is undead. Also, it's a touch spell so if you miss the touch attack, it doesn't waste the charge.

I'll try to get to where I'm adjacent to both of you so that I can use Bodyguard if it tries to attack. Since it targets Touch AC, it's got an easy time of hitting us.

Not true! Baldur found a magic battleaxe stuck in that Gelatinous Cube earlier in the dungeon. +1 Battleaxe

Well then, looks like I'm back in the fight.

For anyone's amusement that last battle featured
Merlokrep CR 5
Jekkajek CR 5
Bodyguards CR 2 x3
Vrregma CR 1
Shadow CR 3

Which I think is like an EL 7 or 8 encounter.....

We did a pretty good job of managing our resources, especially the rounds of inspire courage. I'm just disappointed in the fact that cavaliers get so few challenges every day. Compared to the Paladin's smite the challenges are weak, but we get them at the same rate.

But then again, cavaliers are a bad choice for the kind of dungeon-delving we've been doing, since a few of my better class abilities rely on being mounted and being able to charge. Oh well, I've been performing well enough as a plain fighter.

The kobolds LOVE you, man

2 of them. It might be a matter of time before the word spreads among kobold society.

You've been doing fine, at the end of the day you're still a full bab class so you can put the hurt on. Granted oath of vengeance paladins get to do their thing a lot more but that's because they are borderline OP in mid level play.

Ok, so, what do we do about my 2 groupies and their shaman leader? I'd say smash their heads in, but that would be a decidedly evil act since they did just help us. So it kinda rules that one out. We can't take them back to town, because they're kobolds and who knows what they'll try to do.

I also don't know how well telling them "leave and never return" will work.

Michael, I'd be willing to work with you on the Mount and Challenge thing. For instance if you find an archetype that replaces one with something else or you have an idea, I'd like you to enjoy your character and not feel that you are being hampered by the setting of the Campaign.

I was kinda worried about the mount stuff because I knew going in that a good portion of the campaign would be in dungeon type settings.

I think you can tell them you'll be back "real soon" and demand they behave themselves then at the earliest opportunity run for the hills. Either that or nuke the place from orbit, its the only way to be sure.

Alternatively, you could take leadership and have a couple of Kobold cohorts with class levels!

Or rebuild the monastery and have Kobold monks of whatever god you choose to worship!

I get to choose 2 level 2 bard spells. This is actually quite hard since there's at least 10 decent ones to choose from.

For thematic reasons (and for the crunch) I'm quite keen on blistering invective. Silas will rock at that with his sky high intimidate.

But what else? Here are some options:

Glitterdust seeing invisible stuff can be super important and the blindness debuff is strong.

Heroism is simply awesome.

Rage is good too especially with our party make up.

Cacophonous Call, nauseated is a very very strong debuff.

Alter self is a very handy utility spell, useful for disguise and getting darkvision.

Blur and mirror images are defensive mainstays.

Thoughts?

Hey Silas, the whole nuke from orbit, a common term? Seen it more than once on other forums. :)

This should explain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a88Z7YOh_us

Ah yes. Great movie. Should have known.

Rebuilding the monastery is definitely going to happen, and hopefully I'll be able to start it soon. Like, I plan on trying to do at least a few things here very, very soon.

I want to get the main gate rebuilt, hire some people to work on draining that pond that caused the library wall to collapse, and start getting the exterior walls extended so that I can expand the place a little bit. We've already discussed what we'd use the place for, but now that we know there's an entire basement that we can use as our personal space, I'm thinking keep the temple, expand for space upstairs, move ourselves in downstairs, and set up a kind of forest patrol and traveler's way station/refuge. Open the gates during the day, set up a light day patrol, and a heavier patrol at night that's got silver weapons.

Kind of like a local branch of the Fangwatch. Here's the layout I'm thinking of going for.

As for your spells, Silas, I'd say Glitterdust. It's useful now, and it stays useful for the entire game.

It's a toss up between Glitterdust and Cacophonous Call.

I'm marginally siding with Cacophonous Call because of Silas's feats - it's DC 18 (Glitterdust would be DC 16) and check what the nauseated condition does:

I shall defiantly buy some Glitterdust scrolls when the opportunity presents itself.

You don't have to buy them defiantly, just definitely buy them ;)

Also Michael....wow that is awesome.

Also hey, did you guys want to recruit another? I think your doing fine with 4 but I don't mind adding one or even two more people. Gared is going to go NPC and Baldur is going to head back to the Mountains his task completed. Might NPC him also though...because Michael has some ties to the 5 Kings Mountains Dwarves.

No objection here.
An extra healing type might be nifty. If things get really bad a 2nd is useful.

When in town, Hecktor will have that pretty piece of armor we found earlier fitted to his size.
How much would that cost me Niles?

Yeah Niles 1 more would be cool.

Those plans look good Michael.

Another with some healing would be nice. We really burn through wand charges.

I know that Lucanor is okay with restoring the Dwarven Monastery, but as the religous type here he's focus is going to be Iomedae.

His other area of focus will be making sure these kids are going to be alright

Hmm, trying to decide whether to bump up my wisdom to 17 or my Constitution to 14.

I'd go Con, +1HP/level and +1 Fort save might be necessary to survive the coming adventures! Cue evil laughter...

Michael, you figure out how much capital its going to cost to rebuild the monastery. I'm thinking alot but I need to read UC a bunch more.

Also, guys I posted in the recruitment thread. Please check it out and see who applies and choose someone or someones to join us. You guys can talk about it here or through PM.

Hecktor 2d4 ⇒ (3, 3) = 6 x100GP= 600GP

Okay, you've scared me: Con it is. Which, even with only taking the half hit die +1 before Con option, was a huge boost :)

I'm going to go though and count how many charges have been used from that wand of CLW. I'm guessing it's roughly down to 1/3 left.

I'll try that spreadsheet moving forward :)

Working on getting my character sheet updated, and then I'm going to go back and make sure I've got all the loot tallied up on the log.

Niles, my mount gets an attribute increase at level 4 just like the rest of us. I'm thinking of putting it into intelligence, having it take a point in the Linguistics skill, and having it learn Common. Not to speak it, but just to understand it. So it would be able to do things like listen to more complex orders such as "go find so-and-so and bring them here." Of course, it's still only Int 3, so it's not going to be super bright, but still smarter than it is now.

Is that ok with you?

Also, since Baldur is gone now, I suggest we take that magical axe from him and either keep it for ourselves or sell it to go towards a magic weapon for someone else. Gared should probably keep his gear, since his was from when he was still actually playing, but Baldur just kind of showed up for about a week and then fell off the face of the earth before we even did anything. Because of that, I say he keeps the gear he showed up with, but anything that we found in the dungeon, we keep for those of us who are left.

Giving it an int of 3 would require it to become a magical beast.

I'm cool with it, but Adrienne would really be like a cohort now instead of a mount. Think Shadowfax from Lord of the Rings.

@Michael about Baldur, yes thats what I was thinking also, the only thing he claimed was the Battleaxe but that should go to you guys.

Well, she wouldn't need to become a magical beast. Animal companions and cavalier mounts are an exception to that rule. Otherwise the Paladin's mount wouldn't start at Int 6.

Here's a Paizo blog post explaining it some. Also, according to that post, I wouldn't need to give my mount a point in Linguistics to take a language, it would automatically gain one at reaching Int 3. That's something I didn't see when I skimmed it before, so that's nice to know.

Paizo Blog

Ok, I think I've got the loot sheet up to date. There are some things that I didn't put on it though. I left the ratty weapons and armor that were only worth 20% out of the list. We had two fights that had the ratty gear - the first kobold fight at the start, and the fight with the skeletons.

The first fight with the kobolds had 5 shortbows, 5 small leather armors, 5 clubs, and 5 shortspears. 20% value puts them at 2gp per armor, 0 value per club, 2sp per spear, and 6gp per bow. The 5 skeletons all had chainmail and shields(didn't say which kind), which at 20% value would be 30gp per chainmail, and 1gp 8sp per shield assuming they're light steel shields.

It totals out to 200gp worth of scrap gear, so I just wrote it on the sheet as 200gp rather than writing each piece of gear separately.

All ok with me including the Adrienne thing

Thanks for updating the loot list!

Incidentally I think that cloak of resistance should go to whoever has the worst will save. I've not checked but I expect that's Hecktor.