Jelani's The Witchwar Legacy (Inactive)

Game Master Brian Minhinnick

@All: Give me a few more moments. I am breaking out the big descriptive guns here~

@Vega: Thank you! :D

Or... *random silly thought* ...do you mean a tiny (stick) figure of Dorialis being torn in two between a mobius and a lemniscate!? O_O

I was just happy to hear that Dori hadn't torn her lemniscate. That happened to me once and I was limping for a month. >_<

Give me a few more moments. I am breaking out the big descriptive guns here~

No worries on my end! I just realized how unprepared I was to narrate the same scene, so I took this time to prep for my own moment in the spotlight.

I like the lemniscate better than a mobius. I tend to prefer symmetry personally. Definitely your choice though.

maybe a mobius twisted through a lemniscate.

And posted. Sorry for the stupidly long wait. Work was a killer.

I like how different Ophelia's and Gror's experience of this is.

This is sooooo like that scene in the Power Rangers Movie.

Poppy: just because I can, HERE is your symbol, isolated and with the grey watermark that overlapped it slightly removed.

EDIT: hahaha, I was just doing some research on the number 108, both for it's mathematical properties and the mythology behind it (as it is also an important number in many martial arts)... when I suddenly realized... this is the 108th post. ^_^

Yay thanks!

Hey another rules Q:

Does Magic Fang affect all my claws or just one single claw?

Magic Fang applies to "one natural weapon", so one single claw. Greater Magic Fang is what you'd need to enhance all of your claws. (and/or multiple castings)

EDIT: the few times this was asked in the Rules forum, it was also given such interpretation by most. In particular, it must be noted the difference between "one attack" and "one attack type" or "one attack form". It is also like this with he Reach evolution, it applies to only one single attack, not attack form (so a 10 tentacle Eidolon still needs reach 10 times to get all 10 tentacles reach). Another example would be how Weapon Focus (longsword) applies to all longswords in your hangs, while the Heirloom Weapon trait applies only to that specific weapon. LINK, LINK, LINK and LINK.

What he said Gror.

Also... ignore my minor typing dyslexia. "Hangs"? Really? *facepalm*

*pretends to ignore all the other typos in shame*

So I was thinking about stuff, and just to make it easier and more cool for everyone, you can all have the eschew materials feat for free.

:O

Hurray for avoiding that awkward moment when we're all rearing to go on this epic world saving mission and all communally have to make a pit stop to go shopping for strange reagents and spell components some of us know nothing about! :D

*makes a scene of dramatically removing the spell-components-pouch from himself*

Or those of you with only one object manipulating limb want to use a metamagic rod :P

Hey all, I was MIA today handling my RL Pathfinder group/getting ready to launch another PbP campaign. I'll hop in and do my summon and show you the symbol I picked for Cho tomorrow!

-crosses fingers- Hope I got into that PBP game you speak of!

Edit: :( guess I didn't. Oh well.

Thanks Vega & Jelani, I *thought* that was the case, but I wasn't certain. I'd forgotten that Greater Magic Fang could give them all +1.

Thanks Jelani!

-crosses fingers- Hope I got into that PBP game you speak of!

Edit: :( guess I didn't. Oh well.

That was the hardest decision ever to make. The only reason I felt even kinda' okay about it was that you're still in Reign of Winter, otherwise I may have thrown myself off a building trying to decide! :P

I have chosen the I'itoi as Cho'ankai's symbol. It is the symbol of a trickster god that led people from the underworld to the surface, a myth of the Hohokam people. I'm adopting it for Cho'ankai and his tribe, implying that his people receeded into the darklands during the Age of Darkness and a figure such as this guided them out of their perceived "realm of the dead" back to the surface.

The Symbol.

And for thos einterested, much more about its meaning can be found at that link.

technically, because this is bright light,

Dorialis shadow form provides a 20% miss chance.
In dim light against humans she has concealment. Anyone with low-light or darkvision can still see her and only have the 20% miss chance.
In darkness those with darkvision can still see her and only have the 20% miss chance.

That's why I was wanting the magic darkness item. Then only when a higher level light spell was cast would low-light and darkvision see through.

Thought that was the greek symbol of the Minotaur and labrynth

Nope. The symbol often used for the minotaur had it in the center of the labyrinth, while the above symbol has a human at the top edge of the maze, which itself is depicted to look as if the center was the sun radiating light. There is another symbol for the minotaur, which was often found on coins and thus had two sides, one of just the labyrinth, the other with the minotaur surrounded by a semi-circle of balls/stars. The minotaur was also often called "Asterion", it's proper name, which is also the name of the monster's foster father.

I always figured the minotaur was Jason Bulhman. *rimshot*

Now the question is (for me, at least)... do I add the flaming leafy Yin Yang symbol to the foreheads of my current images of Vega in Eidolon form (ONE and TWO), or leave it as is? <--- these links are now to the updates images.

*ponders*

EDIT: examples have been removed as the links are no longer functional.

This is awesome.

^_^

Done.

btw: the above links to the "TEST" images will no longer work, as they are now in the original file locations and the "test" ones have been removed (I really have no desire to have files named "TEST" in my image index). On that note, you may have to "reload" the original images to get your cookies updated to show the new pics.

Yes, the site I use for image hosting uses the image file name to create the urls. That way when I update an image, all links to it remain as is and show the new image instead.

Couple quick comments in response to Gror's OOC.

A) Enlarge person. Keep in mind you all count as an outsider or your base race, whichever is worse for you. Since enlarge person only works on humanoids, that means you can't cast it on each other. However the Share Spells (Ex) allows you bypass that for yourself only. So you guys can cast enlarge person on yourselves, but not anyone else in the party.

B) Out of people potentially going into melee Vega and Poppy are by far the most durable. They both have ACs over 50. Followed by Dorialis, who has a 36 and will be 50% miss/invisible the majority of the time. Then come Gror and Cho'Ankai. I've jiggered the enemies so that if one of the tougher mobs in the Veil should have around a 50% chance of hitting Poppy or Vega. That means stick together, don't get surrounded, watch your health. You're going to be putting out TONS of damage, but you're also going to be taking a ton of damage. Play it safe.

Thanks Jelani. I'm pasting it over here as well, since this is the right place for the discussion:

--------

Switching ooc here, to write more compactly and include things you’d see as well as what Gror will say.

Gror is clearly best in melee, and if he can charge & pounce on a foe within 80’ he’ll do so. When fighting a mix of casters and non, he’ll often target the casters, and see if he can grapple them to make casting that much harder for them. His AC should be reasonable...but is significantly lower than some in the party. His saves on the other hand are very strong, especially against spells and spell-like effects.

Support he can offer:
* Melee support! If you want an incentive for foes to stop attacking you and pay attention to someone else, Gror’s your dwarf. For foes he can successfully grapple, he'll be able to make attacking others hard to do. And foes he hits will often be shaken for the following round.
* Litany of Righteousness doubles damage of all hits from Good attackers for one round to one foe. The foe gets SR but no save. If all goes well, Gror will be using this for as many as he can of his 3rd level spells, and maybe his 4th as well. When there’s a big baddy (assuming he’s evil) these’ll be rounds where it makes sense for all to strike them while they’re under the effect of the litany.
* Flanking - since he's large, he can offer flank to several other.

Support he may need:
* Healing - I expect him to be a target often, due to his high melee damage output. He carries wands of CLW and Lesser Rejuvenate Eidolon, but they don’t help much if he’s getting dangerously low in combat.
* Transport - if a foe is very far away and would be hard to reach without several rounds of 80’ double moves, a shortcut (e.g. Dimension door/teleport) will help him start dealing damage sooner
* Buffs that improve to hit or dam / hit (enlarge, heroism, gr. magic fang) will always be appreciated, and ones that improve AC can’t hurt either.

Any items you wouldn't have had before being a summoner will come with a small paper tag explaining their use and function. So don't worry about needing to identify any "new" items your character will find in the chest.

Another thing that occurs to me many people aren't conversant with is flying rules. Make sure you read up on the fly skill. Moving upward at greater than a 45 degree angle, turning quickly, hovering and moving less than half your fly speed in a turn all require fly skill checks. If you are flying under the power of wings, getting hit can cause you to lose altitude. Keep in mind you get a bonus based off your mobility rating and a bonus/penaly based on size. You don't automatically fail on a 1, so having a fly skill modifier high enough can mean auto-success on all of the above.

I'd also like everyone to make a macro of their typical AOO for me and put it at the top of your profile above all your stats. I will do the same for monsters in my profile. To avoid AOOs holding up combat, I'd request that you roll on yourself when you provoke, and I will roll for you when the monster provokes. I will use the macro in your profile to expedite this. Something like this:

[dice=AOO claw (power attack, magic fang)]1d20+x[/dice
[dice=Damage]1d6+x[/dice

2/round, 15' reach

... one of the tougher mobs in the Veil should have around a 50% chance of hitting Poppy or Vega. ...

^ See this? This right here? That's terrifying. I was planning on Greater Evolution Surge for Fast Healing 2 post combat to deal with most of my healing needs (240 hp healed over 12 minutes, and it's via an evolution, so it works normally on the Eidolon, and Synths share in the Eidolons evolutions, so it's one of the few/only ways to heal both your HP and your temp HP from the same source), but if they'll be hitting that often and hard, I may need some in-combat healing more often as well (and my personal healing capabilities are... limited to say the least). O_O;;

Also, I completely forgot to mention the use of my Prayer Wheel of Ethical Strength. I had intended to pretty much always use it, as even in normal worldly affairs that DR shift is more useful than naught.. however, I did completely forget to mention it, so I leave it up to you (DM) to say if I have used it earlier today or not. Obviously I'd prefer to have used it, but I'm really fine either way.

Anything with hours/level or 24 hour duration is fine to assume you have up at all times. If one of the adventuring days goes longer than 12 hours, I'll just put out a reminder to people that they either need to rebuff or update their stats. In fact, if something matches those criteria (mage armor comes to mind) just put it on your sheet in your normal stats. Those are what I'm going to be referencing during combat if I need to find your numbers, and unless you guys are perfect at listing all your current buffs in every combat post, then I might miss something.

Also, it might not matter that much since this is most likely going to be a one-off scenario, but does anyone want to volunteer to be the loot record keeper for the party?

Edit:If this game/group goes well and I keep enjoying it as much as I have so far I might run a Dungeon magazine adventure for 3.5 called The Storm Lord's Keep. Maybe.

Oh man I remember the Storm Lord's Keep. That was one of the first "epic" adventures I think, in that there was a chichemec in there somewhere, or something.

Yeah, it's 21st level. Second of three published epic level adventures that I know of. It'd be kind of a lot of work to convert though, so I'm not making any promises.

You could always run the Moonscar and scale the monsters up. That's another 17th-level adventure.

To follow up on Gror's discussion of general tactics/strengths/weaknesses...

If he has the choice, Vega will always opt for diplomacy first. If there is a way to succeed without any loss of life, that is what Vega will try to do. Vega also knows that such is not always possible, and will never willingly allow his beliefs to put others in harms way... as such, he will almost always be in the middle of melee as well.

Strengths

His ability to avoid blows completely is his greatest strength. I have a feeling that Blur is going to be one of my favorite spells. His saves are decent, and he is completely immune to every elemental energy type.

Offensively, while he can move about quickly, he prefers to remain relatively still, allowing enemies to waste energy running around as he pummels them into submission. Vega always uses nonlethal damage unless there is no other choice. Things that remove this choice: fighting undead, fighting constructs, when using natural attacks (bite and tail slap), and using shurikens at range. Like Gror, pretty much everything will be Demoralized/Shaken after he hits it (+38 Intimidate for free on every attack that does nonlethal damage).

A favorite tactic when Vega can full attack is to open the Flurry with Dim Mak (first attack targets Touch AC and is a Stunning Fist attempt DC24 and also gains a free Intimidate to demoralize). Even if they don't end up stunned, chances are very high they will be shaken. The next attack is as normal, but if it hits, all the rest of his attacks for this round and the next are made against Flat Footed AC. The first of those (5 more attacks) will likely be an Elemental Fist for extra damage, then a series of regular attacks. The shaken condition lasts for a number of rounds equal to the total damage dealt, and critical hits add 1 round of Frightened as well. If the foe is already shaken from Gror or someone else before Vega attacks, then he targets FF AC after the first attack instead of the second. Following rounds I may use Ki for an extra attack instead of Dim Mak, depending on how I feel at the time. ^_^

(and if by some miracle we get to level 17 (once per hour) I can Flurry of Blows/Pounce when I charge, and in that charge I can move at 10x my speed ... *dreams*)

Defensively, if Vega "starts and ends his turn in the same space" he become immune to Trip, Bull Rush, Reposition, and anything that forcibly moves him or attempts to make him prone (except for teleportation magic... that immunity comes at level 16). Also (when he starts and ends his turn in the same space) his CMD goes up by 2 points.

Vega will always try to position himself between enemies and allies, so if they try to move around him, he'll at least get an AoO (possibly stacking on a Stunning Fist to the AoO to literally stop them from getting to anyone else).

Support wise (in addition to being a flanking buddy), Vega can use 1 Ki as an immediate action to give one person within 30' of him a reroll of any failed attack roll or saving throw. The only caveat is that you must be able to hear Vega, as it is flavored as a word of sage advice given at just the right time (either as a sensei giving instructions on martial techniques, or the all too common "look out/duck!").

Vega have a +40 Perception and +26 Sense Motive... He's good at noticing things! :D

Vega also starts each day with a free Divination about upcoming events (no further than 1 week into the future).

Weaknesses

Vega's relatively low con means he doesn't have that many HP and is somewhat weak against things requiring a Fort Save. While the theory is his AC and DR would mitigate the low HP, it is still a very serious issue to worry about.

His own healing abilities are limited. He did not invest in wands or potions, and so is pigeon holed into using Ki to heal (24 HP per point spent), spells (the rejuvenate spells and greater evolution surge for fast healing), natural rest, and aid from others.

While - as a martial type - Vega can keep on going for a long while (as long as he had HP, basically), his coolest abilities (Dim Mak, granting rerolls to allies, etc) are limited by his Ki. He only has so many points per day, and I plan to keep at least 1 point in reserve at all times (some abilities only function while he has 1 point of Ki in reserve).

Vega cannot penetrate DR/Adamatine (until level 16). He has shurikens to deal with this, but he only has so many.

His desire to preserve life - even those of enemies - means he'll often end up right in the middle of the most dangerous of areas/situations.

While Evolution Surge (lesser and normal) can grant him flight, he does not fly inherently. He does however have a +42 to acrobatics to jump (even without casting the Jump spell and/or Cat's Grace), so he can potentially reach creatures flying up to 30' in the air (check result of 62 on a natural 20 divided by 4 = 15.5' + 5 feet for my actual space + 10' reach w/bite. A roll of a natural 1 still gets me 10.75' high before body space and reach)... So that may limit his capabilities in some situations.

While he can grant others a reroll on saves (in a limited way as mentioned above), he has no way of rerolling himself. If he fails a save, he fails.

Other things to know

While Haste will give Vega an extra attack and a bonus to hit, AC, and reflex saves, it will not increase his movement speed (he already has a +40 enhancement bonus inherently)... though it will increase his Climb speed (yes, Vega has a climb speed)

If there are many foes around us, Vega may Dazzling Display to make them all shaken right off the bat rather than going in to melee them one at a time.

20 uses of a Healer's Kit and a +15 Heal skill means Vega can take 10 to treat deadly wounds on each of us once per day, healing 20HP in addition to natural healing from resting and long-term care. (though each time I treat deadly wounds, it uses up 2 uses of my kit, so I can only do this 10 times right now)

(and if we somehow even get to level 15, I will then have Spring Attack and Combat Patrol, which (especially combat patrol) will greatly increase Vega's ability to tank and defend others... yes, I have made a general plan for advancement should it happen)

Hm, other than Book 6 of several Adventure Paths (which could be awkward to jump into), there isn't too much high level content out and available for Pathfinder (that I know of). Everything else I can think of would require conversion of various degrees. (most of the ones I can think of are actually 2e AD&D high level modules)

Rod of Seven Parts (10-12)
Dragon Mountain (10-15)
How the Mighty are Fallen (11-14)
A Paladin in Hell (15-20)

Note that in "How the Mighty are Fallen" one of your quests is to hunt down, slay, and harvest parts of the Tarrasque. At levels 11-14. How things have changed.

1e:

Queen of the Demonweb Pits (10-14) (again, at the end of this one, you face off against Lolth herself)

you know what, given what you actually face in the older modules and what they'd end up being converted to in Pathfinder, pretty much any 1e/2e AD&D module that is above level 10 could be considered "high level" (though I haven't seen the content of them all, so I could be wrong).

Official 3.5 that I know of:
Lord of the Iron Fortress (15-17)
Bastion of Broken Souls (18-20)

*shrugs*

There is an amazing Dragon Magazine adventure (epic, but it could be re-tooled) called the Quicksilver Hourglass that would be really amazing to see converted.

I started a conversion on the Quicksilver Hourglass actually. I was going to run that because this epic game that was proposed here on the boards was taking waaaaaaaaaay too long to get started. I actually poached Vega and Dorialis from that recruitment thread :P Hourglass is a 25th level module, rife with content from the epic level handbook. I got a few encounters in before I decided it was a hell of a lot of a work, and not really fair since the PCs wouldn't have access to epic feats/magic. The adventure actually culminates with fighting a god, and I don't even have the epic level handbook, or deities and demigods. So yeah. Not gonna happen.

I decided to run this instead (since it's the highest level PFRPG adventure out there), and combine it with the synthesist super hero idea I'd been kicking around. Honestly, there's not that much difference between your stats here and those that were being thrown around in the epic level game. Less gear, no 7th, 8th, 9th level spells. But for 12th level characters, you guys are badass indeed. The Storm Lord's keep should be more manageable if I go that route. At 21st level the epic content would be limited, and there's a sidebar that tells how to scale the adventure down to non-epic levels.

Here's the first encounter that I converted from Quicksilver Hourglass:

And that's just the friggin' doorman and his pets. >_>*

I will get my post up early tomorrow. I had a very busy day today.

Continuing the tactics discussion...

Miss Poppy is going to focus on crowd control during battle. Her main tactic will be flying around the battlefield spraying rainbows and stars at the bad guys and making them stop and look at the pretty colors. She'll use Colorspray, Hypnotic Pattern, and Rainbow Pattern for that. The saves against these spells will be pretty tough to make, plus I've got Awesome Display so she can hit more monsters, even multiple ones with high hit dice. I plan on using Evolution Surge sometimes to get extra Charisma before a battle, too. I've also got the Greater Piercing Metamagic Rod I can use on three spells per day to help get through spell resistance. Other crowd control spells include Silence, Dispel Magic, Grease, Wall of Fire, Ghostbane Dirge, Baleful Polymorph, and Obscuring Mist.

As for buffs and party support spells, she's got Protection from Energy, Haste, Greater Invisibility, Stoneskin, Resist Energy, Protection from Evil, Dimension Door, and Teleport. Greater Invisibility is one of my faaaaavorite spells but I don't plan on using it on Poppy too much, since the whole point of Poppy is to be a distraction. Her AC is 50, so if she draws some fire, that's okay. I also don't plan to use Dimension Door or Teleport on myself very much since with wingless flight and +19 Fly skill, Poppy is extremely maneuverable. I'd love to use Greater Invisibility and Dimension Door/Teleport on other party members, however. Especially on Gror! Can you imagine being attacked by a large invisible teleporting stone gargoyle????

Poppy will be the main healer, so after the battles she will freshen everyone up if they don't have the means to heal themselves. In addition to healing, she's got the spells to remove curses, diseases, poisons, enchantments, ability damage, fear, all the nice divine stuff. She has Resurrection, but we need 5000 gold for that :) Hopefully we won't have to use it! She also has a wand of Infernal Healing and a wand of Lesser Rejuvenate Eidolon.

She has Spray of Shooting Stars, Fire Wall, and Chain Lightning that deal electricity or fire damage to support the damage-dealers if need be. She has five attacks with her horn, hooves, bite, and tentacle. And she can summon an otherworldly being that can scare an enemy to death. Really looking forward to that one!

Question for everyone: Since we all can have Haste, do we want to do a rotating Haste-casting or should we designate who will cast it? Since Ophelia and I are the main support staff, maybe the two of us should take care of it. I can't think of another spell that is as important as Haste that we all can have that we'll want to at least try to use every combat.

I'm so excited to try out all this fun new stuff! The only thing I'm worried about is having too many options!

I added a link for the encounter map and EXP to the campaign info tab. I will be making a gameplay post shortly as it seems people are heading up the stairs.

*facepalm*

I can't believe I missed Josiah teleporting away.

*shame*

Well, at least it got some of Vega's methodology out in the open for others, anyways. *tries to make the best of his goof*

:/

Also: GOLEMS!? NOOOOOoooooooooo....... *starts to ignore what he actually knows about them*

Question: will consumables/ammunition be used up in this fight? Or is even the knowledge of "it gets used up/it will be replaced afterward" too meta at this point?

No, this is your stuff. Anything you use here will be permanently gone. However you do know that you won't die here. So it's up to you whether it's worth it or not.

Cool, thanks. *goes and works on his post*