And here's a place to for a pre-game mustering chat, if you want to compare notes and discuss what shopping you may want to do at the start of the adventure. You're heading to River Country to deal with river pirates who've been harassing/waylaying supply boats headed up to Mendev for the crusade.
|
OK. I'll start. Vermin is a melee druid. With a 14 Wisdom he does not cast de-buffs or save-or-suck spells. Most of his spells are self/pet buffs but he does have a few blast type spells for when he can't melee. He seldom carries healing but has a wand of cure light.
Vermin has good perception and can track well. He has a decent knowledge Nature and can assist sometimes with diplomacy. His pet is faster and tougher than him with a better AC and better hit points but its damage is sub par, for one more level… Then things will get interesting.
Vermin's one big trick is that he is a Saurian Shaman. That means that when he shape shifts into dinosaurs he does so as a level 8 druid. Which means he can go huge. There are a couple aquatic forms he can take if needed. Oh, and he can fast summon dinosaurs and reptiles as standard actions so, even in animal form he can drop crocodiles into tight places.
Look forward to playing with you guys.
|
Natty is just your normal rogue, except he favours bludgoening weapons as his main hand weapon, he uses a dagger or similar in his off hand, as he can fight with 2 weapons. He has so far got into lots of scrapes, often by scouting a little ahead, using his dark vision to good effect. He is surprisingly healthy looking, with a healthy constitution score. He carries a wand for healing purposes but will more often give it to a cleric who can use it properly. He is pretty good at finding traps if they are there ....
An he must go shopping ....
|
|
Ser Cadwgan (Cad for short) is a...well a cad/bandit (original name, huh?), so he wears light armor and combines the skills of a fighter and a rogue.
As a rouge, he is not stealthy at all (+3), so he won't be the scout for the group. He's not that good at finding traps (+9 Perception), but he is good at Disabling them (+15 Disable Device). Trapfinding +1 included in both of those already.
He looks like a common hedge knight/sword & board fighter. Based on character description, I've been asked, "What kind of paladin has sneak attack?" Looks can be deceiving. In combat, he prefers to fight dirty, using his Bluff skill (+14) and Improved Feint to set up his Sneak Attack damage.
Out of combat, he is a good liar (+14 Bluff) and slightly better than average faceman (+6 Diplomacy/Sense Motive).
Cad's not a great swimmer (+6), but his armor check penalty is 0 through good use of special materials. He also has a wand for healing that he will hand over to the group's healer.
|
|
Vermin has a wand and is good with that. But for that to really be fair, everyone should have a wand, right?
Oh, and Vermin is not going be be much good as a healer in combat. He likely cannot even get to his wand as he will often be shifted into something. He would be willing to loan out his wand before shifting though.
No worries. Welcome back. Linarra's been awfully quiet, but hopefully things will start picking up when the smoke and pirates start pouring out of the building.
Also, be warned, I've an extensive business trip next week. I still should be posting on most days. I'll warn you if I end up having to miss a day. (Friday is going to be tough, but I'll probably get something in very very late/early Sat)
Thanks for the heads up. We'll be wrapping up Bessies Bayou any second now, and we'll have you rogue the heck outta the place for traps, etc., if you're offline. Then there'll be some setup for the final action sequence.
|
|
Hawk,
Thanks for your thoughts. We are thinking along the same lines. Vermin already packs one Barkskin and one Longstrider. And I had thought of the Resist Energy, Communal, if we can learn what energy is normally used.
I am thinking Resinous Skin would be good for Vermin in melee animal form. He also usually carries one Greater Magic Fang, and usually casts that on Sparky. Depending on terrain effects I could get an hour of Feather Step on everyone with the communal version of that spell. I am also thinking a Delay Poison cast in advance would be nice. Lasts 6 hours.
Not sure what we will learn about who we are fighting but if they had a ranger/druid/oracle/cleri with an animal companion Vermin could cast Hide from Animals. That could be fun.
Also, along with Frostbite, he could use the days before the event to create quite a few Goodberries to hand out. Not sure thats a good economy of actions to eat a berry for a hit point. I wonder if we could start with a small handful of berries in our mouth. :)
Vermin could have a lot of berries if he really wanted to.
|
Featherstep looks good, especially if we can create difficult terrain. Looking over the druid spell list Stone Call seems like a good choice. I assume Entangle wouldn't work in a plantless arena. Having us being able to take 5' steps while denying them to the enemy is powerful. Reach weapons and/or enlarge person potions means full attacks + AOOs while denying them full attacks.
|
|
Ok. Here is Vermin's prep.
The night before the contest Vermin gives everyone who will take them 8 goodberries. Each will heal a hit point when eaten and you can benefit from 8 a day. I am not sure how many the DM would let you eat at once, or if you can hold them in your mouth. The description does not address this. I would think as a standard action could eat all 8. He will also cast Frostbite on everyone that wants the spell. This arms you with a melee touch attack that will do 1d6+6 points of nonlethal cold damage and fatigue the target, no save. Fatigued is a good rebuff. Each person can use this attack 6 times before the spell is consumed.
Supplies Vermin will consume - Before the match Vermin will drink his AntiToxin for +5 on saves against poisons for an hour. He will cast Longstrider on himself and Sparky from his wand, and then offer it to anyone who can use it (it is personal so you have to have the spell on your list or UMD it to get the benefit. And then he will have someone cast Mage Armor on him from a wand.
He will cast the following spells on himself and Sparky - Greater Magic Fang and Barkskin on Sparky. Resinous Skin, Feather Step, and Barkskin on himself. He can offer up to two more Barkskin spells, but that will mean he will not have any second level spells when he fights. It might be nice to have a few blasts for closing. He could also cast Slipstream on someone for additional movement if that was desired. Not sure how slipstream will interact with pits.
His Spell Slots will be
1st level - Produce flame, Faerie Fire, Charm Animal
2nd level -Burst of Radiance (can blind), Stone Call
3rd level - Either Feather Step for everyone or memorize Ice Storm but use it to drop a gator on someone.
Vermin plans to start the game in huge raptor form.
Sorry I'm late to the discussion tab:
No vegetation, so no Entangle.
8 goodberries crammed into mouth as standard action is fine. Have 'em in a paperpouch/whatever, so you can retrieve and eat ala potion (i'm imagining an edible teabag-like container with berries in it). Holding them in your mouth is problematic: no way you can talk/communicate if you've got goodberries in mouth, and tough to imagine you could keep from chewing them, etc, if you're active in combat in any way. But used like potion is perfectly reasonable. Vermin, you can even have it tied with string around neck, so you can use claw to rip it off neck, and cram in mouth while in Allosaurus form (as long as a party member is willing to tie it on after you transform--probably a safe bet...as long as you promise not to eat them while they do it). It'd still be move action to retrieve, standard action to consume (since you'd need to be careful not to mash the berries).
Frostbite is a bit problematic to cast the day before, because there's simply no practical way to "Hold the Charge" for that long, i.e. "If you touch anything or anyone while holding a charge, even unintentionally, the spell discharges."
If you want to cast it just before you enter the arena for check-in, that's okay--being careful for ten-twelve minutes is reasonable enough. But you better have your shield or weapon in hand when it's cast on you, and not plan on changing what you're holding until after your 6 melee touch attacks. (if you pull a potion, that's one use, etc. Potion would survive the nonlethal damage, edible goodberries pouch not so much).
Make sense?
Works for me.
|
|
Just because I had not seen it before and what Luca said made me curious enough to do some research here is a recent thread and discussion in the rules forum.
So the arguement is basically that a free action can't be made outside of your turn unless explictly said otherwise.
A creature with the trip special attack can attempt to trip its opponent as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity if it hits with the specified attack.
Now in my opinion since the rules for Trip are more specific then the general rule and state when you can take the free action then you can trip as part of an AOO.
Personally I hit the FAQ button in the thread I linked above.
Honestly, I'd never thought about this issue before Luca brought it up --i've played PFS games where wolves and dogs tripped as part of AoO (happened in my very first game run by local VC irrc).
In this scenario, it's not exactly the monster "Trip" ability, but rather an extraordinary ability called "Takedown." That's just semantics and wording, but fwiw, there is no mention of "free action" in its wording (unlike Grab and Trip.) And obviously, there's a lot of discussion about this, spanning from last week all the way back to 2010, but no official ruling/FAQ.
All that being said, since y'all can use it in your favor (and have), I don't feel too bad in my take on it... :^)
|
|
Out of curiousity what exactly is Helkit? I assume Cavalier since she uses challenge?
I only ask because if there is an archetype of Cavalier that I am unaware of that replaces a mounted animal companion with a normal one it would be extremely interesting to me.
On a seperate note - I am sort of glad we did not have to fight a Behir :)
Helkit was actually a build that would be illegal in PFS: she was Mad Dog Barbarian and Huntmaster Cavalier: they wrote in an exception into the scenario to be able to combine her two class levels for determining the level of her Animal Companion (standard PFS, they wouldn't stack.) Basically said her extensive time training for the arena helped her train up her thylacine as well.
|
|
This character has leveled only with PBP games heh.
It went really well, thanks for the game and helping to carry a level 3 through it. While though I didn't feel like Hawk was deadweight obviously more levels would have helped. However I'd like to point out that the streak of not using a CLW wand continues!
To echo Luca - any word on the chronicle sheets? I just sent a PM to the GM but I don't want to have missed anything either.
Hey Everyone: finished prepping the chronicle sheets when I realized I forgot your Boon rolls. Everyone roll a single raw d20. You want a Natural 20 or a Natural 1. Sorry, I have no re-rolls to offer. And according to gm central, the roll must happen in Gameplay thread, so go over there to make the roll. Chronicles will be in your hands later today from me, and if you make the boon roll, those'll come from paizo.
Everyone except Cad, I sent you a private message to your Paizo inbox with a link to your chronicle. It's my first time trying this, and I used Dropbox. If it doesn't work for y'all, let me know, and I'll try something else (probably go with jpg and google docs).
Cad, I wasn't able to send you a private message, so here's the link to your chronicle:
Cad Chron
Let me know if you're able to access it.
Thanks,
Uktar
Linarra
You still have a boon roll coming (raw d20)--please make it over in the gameplay thread. I need it to before I can send final report to paizo, so if I don't hear from you by the end of the day, I'll make the roll for you (in the gameplay thread, so you'll see the result).
And everyone, thanks again for a fun game. Hope I get a chance to play with y'all at some point in the future.
Cheers,
Uktar.