Kingmaker

Game Master Jovich

Oh dear.

Well it was nice knowing you all.

Maybe we can run but I do not see us getting across the river unless it lets us go. It can likely fly faster than we can swim.
I really doubt it will let us go with the kiddo.

None of us have Magic Missie much less Maze so magic is a no go.

The Stirge trick won't work again because with the bonuses that thing has to to-hit and Init it's likely touch AC will mean 20's only. Same for Jackob I suspect. Might be able to get it into the upper teens with Bless, Divine favor, and Shillelagh up. But that is at least 3 rounds of prep. (Haunted curse means getting the oil for Shillelagh is a Standard action)

One option would be for Rillka to spam Invisibility as we fall back. Or some of us to sacrifice ourselves to allow Rillka to get to the kid and invisible them out. From what I can see of our sorcerer's spells used that leaves at least one of us visible if she shrouds the kid. At those hit and damage numbers that means that person is likely dead. I would happily volunteer but I am already invisible so tossing me in the fire will not free up a spell.
Plus I do not think invisibility will get the survivors across the river unseen. The invisible swimmers would displace water and we are back to the flying vs. swimming problem.

I am drawing a blank as to how we survive here. Anyone else have any ideas?

I don't have any great ideas, except for hoping I can make a brief difference by enlarging myself. I'm willing to fight until the kid is free, then see where things stand for making an escape.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all, and if not I hope you had a peaceful weekend!

With the Holidays I know it's tough, but hopefully people will be able to pick up their posting and you guys can figure out who is going to do valiant actions.

I am not fond of the situation, but it is what it is.
I know my character will most likely die in this encounter as he will hold the line as the other flee with the child. I may be able to give you about 6 seconds...maybe.

Hmmm....

How to come out of this alive?

1 Fight. Everyone dies. Tig still being tortured/eaten.
1.1 Kill Tig and fight. Everyone dies but the Wisp has no prize, everybody looses.
1.2 Free Tig and fight. Everyone dies. Best chance for Tig surviving.

2 Run. Everyone dies. Can't survive crossing the river as a group with the Wisp after us. Tig still being tortured/eaten.
2.1 Scatter. Some die Tig still being tortured/eaten. The wisp would have to choose who to chase. Those folks would die but one or two might get away.
2.2 Kill Tig and scatter as 2.1 but the Wisp has no prize.
2.3 Free Tig and scatter. Best chance of some of us escaping. More targets means divided opposition.

3 Mixed options. Some fight some run/scatter. Decent chance of some survivors. This forces the Whisp to choose who to fight. Go for the runners the fighters might escape and vice versa. Tig still being tortured/eaten.
3.1 Kill Tig and mixed option. As option 1.1 with a chance of survivors. Wisp looses whatever benefit the captive Tig was providing.
3.2 Free Tig and mixed option. Second best chance for Tig surviving. Some chance for some of the runners surviving.

Resources that can improve the odds.

Rillka's invisibility spells. Cast on Tig and some of us forces the Wisp to play 3 card monte to decide who to kill. Most useful in a Scatter scenario so long as the invisible folks split up and the Wisp/Lizards do not have Scent/See Invisible.

Rhavi's reduce person potions. Assuming Tig is Small this will drop them to Tiny which means +8 to stealth which is a small increase in survival chance. Not useful if Tig is Medimum. Given that the S/M line is 60lb Tig is most likely Medium.

So best options. Invisibility on Tig/Anyone Rillka wants to have a change to live. Invisible folks scatter. Visible folks either fight to the death, scatter, or surrender as they wish. All these options buy the runners time to escape. Perhaps a rescue expedition could be mounted by the survivors and whatever forces/posse the Kingdom can muster.

Well, it was fun...I will pop in every now and then to read the posts. IF we are able to get through this (doubtful)...we need another tank as I am getting VERY tired of being taken down in round 1 of the battles. If you need to flee with Tig do so. Do not worry about my character as if I stabilize, I will be taking the place of Tig.

Well, it was fun...I will pop in every now and then to read the posts. IF we are able to get through this (doubtful)...we need another tank as I am getting VERY tired of being taken down in round 1 of the battles. If you need to flee with Tig do so. Do not worry about my character as if I stabilize, I will be taking the place of Tig.

You will not be the only corpse left on this field.

We have no offensive actions that can even annoy this thing. Judging from its initiative bonus it has a minimum AC of 22.(Init bonus of +15 assume Imp.Init feat for +4 leaving +11. That gives a minimum AC of 22 {10+11dex +1size}.)

I hit AC22 on a 16 due to Bless, if I can flank that drops to a 14. My average damage is (1d6+3) 6.5 or 2hp inflicted per round if flanking.

Albert does a little better at 5.5hp/round if flanking, 7 if flanking and enlarged.

Rillka's wand does 3.5/round

Rhavi averages 2hp/round or 2.6 if flanking.

So we have its average of 10.45 (misses in a 1) vs our average of 14.5 but our average drops to 7.5 once Albert drops in 2-3 rounds. Assuming this thing has at least 35 hp (my total, good a guess as any) there is no way we can drop it barring a deeply improbable run of critical hits on our part.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

I do not know what the writers were thinking when placing a creature this powerful into a module designed for these levels. I mean come on +18 to hit...HOLY S#*+ BATMAN.

Well we were warned this is a sandbox and there were a couple of exit ramps before our doom was sealed.

Running after the L.King fight would have been smart esp. if could have snagged a helpful informant from the village for Rhavi to talk to. We might have got enough info to guess at Will-o-the-Wisp or at least some more info. If nothing else we would be going back at full resources.

We also made a tactical error in fighting this thing in the doorway. If we had been able to draw it outside then we could get a double flank for at least a turn or two. Or maybe not. We just do not have the to-hit and HP to survive this fight even in optimal conditions.

Even if you were full you could only take 4 average hits Rillke 2 and rest of us 3 each. Albert with full Images might manage 5-6 barring bad luck.

Against ac 22 I do not see even with your challenge active and enlarged Albert flanking how we manage enough damage.

Yeah even in the best possible conditions this is a barely winnable fight.

Plot wise it is also a trap for good aligned rulers/parties. You hit this book at 4-5th level and that is when you learn the kid is missing. Can you see a good aligned party telling the mother to wait for them to grind a level or two before they head that far south? An Evil/neutral party, no issue, kid brought it on themselves. We'll get around to it when we can. But a good party or Paladin/King. No way to say no. So that means facing a L.King and Wisp at 4th level.

From a personal standpoint I would NEVER use a Wisp against a party below 10th level without massive lamp-shading and likely specialist magic items. The immune to magic thing likely makes at least one player in an average party useless. This is NOT FUN and should be avoided. If there were a way to bypass the immunity via clever play that would be another story and let the offensive spell caster feel they could contribute.

I think Kingmaker may have some design issues.

So what are you thinking for your next character?

I agree with Jackob that RP wise, this one seemed very pressing. But you had to pull out a lot of stops to track him, and you skipped on looking into anything else as you did so. I doubt most groups could probably manage to track Tig consistently enough to find him before the tracks were gone. The DC's for your group were already getting high enough that you were about to start consistently failing them which quickly drive the DC up higher.

@Sir Andreas, I am sorry to hear that you are not having fun with Sir Andreas. I do think the dice have been mostly unfavorable to your group in the lizardfolk village and should not necessarily be representative of what he will face always going forward. The probability of both crocodiles hitting you, or even just on hitting in the opening round, was not very good. The king never missed, and although that was more likely to happen, it was still not very likely. This round, you had about an equal chance of tanking a hit or going down. The dice went slightly high instead of going slightly low, so down you went. When we figure out his fate we can discuss options. If nothing else, Albert is big enough to grab him and run away with him. And that might be what you all want to plan on doing if you trust Jackob's math. I would not necessarily plan on playing Tig though, he is a child and not really of adventuring age.

And just so everyone is on the same page. Immune to magic means SR spells, the same thing you would see on a golem. There are lots of spells that do not have SR and are thus effective. Now hitting the blasted thing with a touch attack might require a miracle, but its possible to use non-SR spells against it.

Lastly, its worth remembering that not every encounter/fight is designed to be a death battle in Kingmaker. At some point the group does need to deal with the Will o Wisp in the book to finish everything, but that could be 2 or so levels from now. And even then, you may not have to kill it to win the fight. Not every bad guy is willing to risk their life if things go sideways for them. That is why there are notes on before, during and after battle for each monster. And in the case of this monster, with some prep you are all immune to what it does.

Admittedly, figuring out what is required to negate, defeat or use diplomacy with the different encounters is not always easily done.

In terms of RP, Albert would choose to try to save the kid at risk of his own life. I was hoping the fight would move to outside the tent, so I would need to squeeze. I probably should have used my pearl of power instead of enlarging, since corrosive touch isn't affected by SR, but I wanted to maximize reach if the wisp gave chase to Tig.

Albert I thing Enlarge was the right choice. The +1 to hit from the increased strength and the d10 damage from the Large scimitar are more valuable than one attempt at 4d4 damage. If anything the pearl should go to another Mirror Image. That is your best defense against the Wisp's touch attack.

GM Yeah not finding Tig and taking the Dead Child penalty to the kingdom for a level or three is likely the best outcome for this side-quest.

My math is likely suspect. It is founded on significant guesswork about the Wisp and I was a Liberal Arts major so I do not speak math gud. :7)

On the non SR magic front from what I can see we have access to Rillka's caster level 1 wand of MM, Corrosive Touch, Magic Stone, Shillelagh oil, and Shocking grasp. Most of those require hitting, have only a few attempts, do minimal damage, or some combination.

As far as escaping I do not see an option here either. We have stolen Tig and killed the L.King. Maybe it's mind works differently but that seems a grave insult to me.
Carrying the kings corpse across the river is not an option. His corpse and gear plus my gear puts me over 230lb which is my max heavy load and I am the best swimmer. We could just tie a rope to the body and drag him across but that would take time that we don't have.

This skull can fly, it is doing so right now. Assume a fly speed of 20/move action as a low estimate, that is still faster than our 15/full action swimming speed. We are literally dead in the water.

Note: I am looking at this rather pessimistically. Gm Coreyllon is likely to let us escape as TPK's are not fun. It is conceivable that we might hit a stretch of hot dice and at least do enough damage to this thing to make it think twice about chasing us.

All in all this is a VERY challenging encounter that we did not handle very well. No scouting/minimal diplomacy/not running after the L.King fight/etc

Suggested Plan Jackob tries to get Tig out of the mound by squeezing them past Rhavi. If we all delay until after the Skull's action and Rhavi runs at the same time that will give Tig and Rhavi the best chance to survive the AoO as the Skull will have 3 targets if I can find a way to drop the Invisibility. Maybe Rillka can drop the spell? Note this means leaving Albert to face the thing alone for a turn as they have acted this round. Or we could try to escape next round esp if Tig gets out/killed by the AoO as my action of getting them out is committed for this round. Then next round Albert can run with the King-corpse and then whoever survived the Skull's turn all run together hoping that we can survive the Skulls AoO parting gift. After that we try to cross the river but our survival at that point depends of decisions I cannot foresee.

If you choose to grapple to drag Tig it will drop the Invisibility.

Unfortunately, my pearl can only be used for level 1 spells.

If you choose to grapple to drag Tig it will drop the Invisibility.

In that case I will attempt to drag Tig along willing or not.

I am not unhappy but the dice suck balls. I just had hope for a better outcome to the end of a character I have been playing for the last 8 years.

Take the kid and run...everyone flee with Tig. My character is not dead yet and there may be a chance that the wisp takes me to replace tig. My character would be fine with that.

Just want to note I am having a major procedure on Tuesday, so I may not be as active earlier in the week. So long as I am up and the wisp is chasing Tig, I will attack it.

@Albert Best wishes for a successful recovery

Good luck!

@Albert, good luck on your procedure today and I hope you heal quickly!

Hey GM Coreyllon

Can I change my curse to Clouded Vision?

The Haunted Curse is nice and both it and Clouded would fit my background but it occurred to me that Haunted actively disincentivizes cooperation esp with a potion fountain like Rhavi in the party. Cooperation/interaction is hard enough in pbp without rules making it harder.

Changes
~lose mage hand and ghost sound {ouch!}
~gain 30' darkvision and the ability to effectively use potions in combat. {yea!}

What do you say?

The operation went well. Thanks for the support.

I am glad that everything went well.

@Jackob, in the past games I have ran I have allowed retraining when people level. At that time if you want to change you can. But not in the middle of a fight.

Did you want to squeeze with Rillka to grab Sir Andreas? He would still be in the mound, but you could grab him this turn and drag him out next turn.

Re: squeeze and drag Yes I did want to squeeze in to grab Von Ulm. Is it not possible to get clear this turn? Either as a Move/pick-up/finish Move or as a Move/Drag maneuver? I don't see a corpse as having a high CMD. If the Drag maneuver is needed I'll take 10 for a 16 if I can or: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (7) + 6 = 13 if I can't.

Re: curse Perfect I swap this out when we level.

For some reason I had it in my mind that you needed to have a hold on someone to drag them, but that does not seem to be the case. Roll a CMB check to see how far you can drag him.

Rillka will take a 5' step to allow Jacob to move past without squeezing.

I made my readied attack and an attack on my turn. If a 27 doesn't hit, I don't think there's much I can do against this thing.

I think running is your best option Albert; we will have to hope that it won’t follow.
I should be able to take jolt and get away; but Halfling isn’t carrying you even at normal size.

Ok, I must admit I am at a bit of a loss here. Are you guys just really not enjoying this campaign?

This turn everyone could have just ran and moved further then this thing could move in a single turn and attack. Instead you are all just lining up to get hit again. Some of you, like the two standing right by the door, die out right if it hits and rolls well. I know Sir Andreas has indicated that he is not happy with his character. If you want to bring in different characters then that is fine. But I do not get enjoyment out of TPKing a group and this is starting to seem suicidal. So what is going on here? Is it that we are online and people are not communicating well?

If you all just continue to stand within 5 feet of this floating death skull, everyone will die. I don't want to tell people how to play their character, but killing PCs is not why I run any games. So, if you would like to coordinate and reconsider your actions, please feel free to do so. If you are happy with your chosen actions, then that works as well. Let me know.

Well since we do not have a clue as to what this thing is and we have no knowledge of how fast it can move, we are acting with what knowledge our characters have at their disposal. We know it can hit us very easily and it seems to be able to hit us at range. So running is our best option, but we still will lose a player or two or three.

I am happy with the campaign...I am not HAPPY AT ALL with the die roller, but I am happy with the campaign.

Now I am playing my character as I felt he would act. I am trying to give the others a chance to run away. I wanted to smash that thing back inside the hut and then run away like hell. Doing this by standing out of sight next to the doorway and as it comes out of the fur pelt door, I hit it. Now I am hoping that as it moves against fur pelt door, I can hit the area with my large shield. I should have a decent chance of hitting the damn thing. While I expect to do no damage at all I am just trying to buy time. If I hit it, then it flies back inside and is disoriented for a round or two. The party flees.

This would give them more time to flee and me a better chance at getting away. I am the slowest of the group. I do not want my character to die but I also do not want to ignore what my character is about. I again stress that I do not want my character to die.

I as a player know full well this thing can move almost double our speed and almost three times my speed.

I'm happy. It's just this is a harrowing situation for our characters. I do worry that the king dying will mess up the narrative, since he's the one character who's been the constant of the campaign.

I apologize; I love Rillka and the game; just been sick and didn’t look at the map.

The posts indicated Rillka had fired and retreated, but I see the token has not moved. I think Rillka could take hit with her Resist Electicity 5.
Given the update option, I would reposition Rillka 30’ from the tent, in the hope that we are all running.

I am a little cheesed, but at the game designers rather than anyone here.

I agree our only option if Albert and the King want to live is running flat out for the river and hoping neither the skull nor the lizard men want to follow.
I expect if we run like the cowards we are that the "God" will let us go. It will need to reestablish control of the tribe since we created a small power vacuum when we killed the L-King.

Letting us go is not the best tactical play for the skull but it is in keeping with genre/villain behavior.

I think our kindly GM has lamp-shaded that the run away plan will work so I urge all involved to leg it with all possible speed.

Esp since our king does not have their sword (dropped when you died and I did not grab it when I dragged you away) so attacking is even more futile than normal. Think about this, a 27! missed. Look at your attacks, you will be hitting on a 20. We are simply outclassed.

Assuming that works we can come back with 3rd level wands of MM for Rillka, Albert, and Rhavi and Resist energy potions for everyone and pound this thing into mulch.

As Khalid (I am playing Baldur's Gate I EE at the moment) would say "Better part of valor! Better part of valor!"

If Rilka flees, I would move back further, too. I was staying to provide protection for the only one dealing any damage to this thing.

I am all for running but I do not think we can make it as things stand right now. That is why I decided to try and hit it with my shield as it comes out of the hut. I am assuming that it will be outlined with the fur pelt door enough for me to hit that area. I hope to hit it back inside giving us all enough time to run like hell.

I will be on vacation from Thursday through next Monday. I am not sure how much I will be able to post in that time, but I will prioritize trying to keep the story moving here.

If my idea is not possible then I will run with the others on their turn. My speed will place me in the end of the line.

You could try and bull rush it back into the mound. That might be easier as you know its hard to hit. It's CMD might be lower (no promises). But unless you have a feat or ability that I am not aware of, you cannot move an opponent with a shield bash. If you lack the Bull Rush feat though, it does provoke. So trying it may cause you to go down, and even if it doesn't, when you finish the move you would be adjacent to it and the Wisp would still be able to attack you.

Then I will run as well.

I will move Andreas today. I am on a jobsite and only have my phone at this time.

I know it has been said but I cannot find it. Where does it say when running you can only move in a straight line. It does not state that under the run feet. I move my character 60 feet in a straight line away from the hut.

Run in a straight line is defined in movement.

https://www.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Run&Category=Full-Round%20Action s

Rillka is good with helping, staying with Tig… finally someone my size!

I will post layer today.

So it looks like we lost a player unless anyone has news of our wandering alchemist. Re-open recruitment?

When we get back to town we will talk over a few options. But Rhavi has been out for closing in on two months. So I do think that she is probably gone.

Seriously people we are in no condition to fight a Flumph right now. Time to make with the feet.

Ok, so at this point I think we are down to four again. If we want to open up recruiting we can. Or eventually, you can all just take Leadership if you want to add backup power to the group. Feel free to chime in on whether you want to do another recruitment or stick with who we have.

Before we do that though I have decided that if people want to change up parts, or almost all, of their character, now is the time to do it. If possible, I would like you to try and remain as close as possible to the theme of who you are. But if you do not enjoy what you have we will take a moment to allow you to fix things.

I would rather Sir Andreas, as some kind of fighter type who preferably can still ride a horse, is in the group instead of wandering off into the hills and have a new random guy or gal join the group. So if you hate your class or feel like your choices for your class abilities/feats/skills/spells/etc. have not been working you can feel free to change them now. We will take a moment to let you fix those.

This game has gone through at least 3 GMs, many recruitments, and dozens of other changes. With all of that, players may have built characters to fit a group that just doesn't exist anymore.

Feel free to talk amongst yourself about potential changes. D&D is a group game and you can plan together and try to keep the feel of the group the same even if the mechanics change.

Albert, I am not sure if you have played a Magus before, but I do have a recommendation for a minor change if you would like to remain a Magus and you wish to hear it. I leave it to you if you would like any recommendations.

If anyone else has any desire for my thoughts, feel free to ask and I will provide whatever mechanical insights I can.

I have not played a Magus before. What's your suggestion?

I would recommend that you take the cantrip Arcane Mark.

It is a touch spell which means you can use it to do your second attack every round using your Spellstrike ability. Without this cantrip you cannot use half your class abilities most of the time which I find to be rather sad.

For whatever it is worth, in my mind its looks like the Zorro ability where he scratches a Z into his enemies.

I am largely happy with Rillka, but will look at the blood line mutations and archetypes tomorrow.
I do want change up spells known.
I will happily take any suggestions please!