GM ShadowLord's Reign of Winter

Game Master The Rising Phoenix

Congratulations!

Take your time. We'll be waiting.

Congratulations! That's nothing but good news. We can wait. :)

That's awesome! Congratulations!

Ok, while our GM deals with the new creature at home, I thought it might be about a good time to order our loot and share benefits. We are finally at town and this might be a good time to sell and think about purchases.

The selling allows us to share a 2700 gp bonus to each member of the party. In the following list I include this amount plus the gold you have not spent from previous shares.

From the equipment we have that no one has really claimed I made a list of what might be interesting to split, and I have made a distribution trying to keep a wealth per level balance as fairer as possible. I have made a thorough inspection of everyone profile, so some of these objects you will find out you have claimed before, but I am including them in the list again because you did not write them down in your profile equipment.

Samuel
bag of holding (type II)
rimpelt
3786.45 gp

Alec
composite longbow (+2 Str)
potion of feather step
3879.92 gp

Letitia
screaming bolts x2
mwk light crossbow
scroll of remove curse
scroll of unseen servant
radosek's cauldron
scroll of hold person (did Letitia use this one already to learn the spell maybe???)
wand of color spray (23 charges)
3802.5 gp

I was trying to determine which scrolls Letitia has spent to learn spells. I noticed you learnt false life from Radosek but did not added it to your known spells.

Callix
amulet of natural armor +1
bladed belt
ring of feather falling
Ushanka of the Northlands
scroll of resist energy (cold)
scroll of resist energy (fire)
2902.2 gp

Ashling
mantle of the black rider
composite longbow (+2 Str)
4013 gp

Other stuff (anyone interested or we sell?)
alchemical fire x2
scroll of endure elements
potion of feather step x2
potion of cure light wounds x13
potion of undetectable alignment
potion of cure moderate wounds x3
feather token (bird)

Please, any change you want to make or any purchase planning, let me know, or update yourself your character tab in the treasure sheet in addition to your profile, so we keep good track of everything going forward.

I would say we should never get rid of potions of healing - and in fact, they should be shared around -- being able to dump a flask down one's throat in an emergency is very useful.

Assuming we *can* shop - my priority is a +1 throwing axe (preferably cold iron) - so that I can use my newfound power to give a weapon property rather than a +1 (especially since my primary axe is already masterwork).

The bladed belt is useful as a way to have a weapon when we otherwise wouldn't - but without a way to mask it's aura, I don't know that it'll fool anyone anymore if we are ever forced to disarm. Might be better to sell it as well so I can look for a Belt of Incredible Dexterity.

... however, at the moment, I'll make no such changes, given that we've yet to find a stable place to buy or sell... ;)

Thanks for the equipment breakdown, Samuel. You caught a few things I'd missed or failed to put down on my character sheet.

Ok, let's sell the belt then. We can still keep it while we are in Whitethrone as it seems probable we might have to infiltrate. I think even if they use detect magic they will only find another transmutation aura, like any other magical belt, which is good. They would have to take the belt for 3 rounds to identify it.

Besides, I think we should heal from last combat before we bash into the thugs shack

a lot of info dropped in this post, with a lot more to cover. feel free to ask questions and we can RP through more explanation on any of these topics.

sorry y'all, slight retcon there. Letitia is right that the palace is way out on the lake and very hard to get to. in my read-through I didn't realize that and was under the impression that the hut was in front of the palace. It is in the market district which is in front of a small palace called the Water Palace, which is technically not really a palace but a garden and bathhouse. having the name "palace" made me think it was the actual palace...

also, much more importantly, You are all now level 5!

you know the drill, adjust your sheets and be sure to update the information on the Google Slides with your updated HP, saves, etc.

I suppose, technically, from a mechanical standpoint, I should take the magical rapier.

However, level 5 Warpriest:

* +7 hp
* +3 skill points +1 FC {Acrobatics, Knowledge: Religion, Heal, Perception}
* +1 level 1 spell
* +1 level 2 spell
* Fervor increase (to 2d6)
* Sacred Weapon increase (to d8)

(And the rapier is Cayden Cailean's favored weapon!)

Level 5 Winter Witch

+4 hp
+ 8 skill points (2 class, 4 Int, 1 FCB, 1 human)
(Intimidate, Kno: Arcana, History, Planes, Local, Nature, Perception, UMD)
THIRD LEVEL SPELLS!
dispel magic, ice spears
Feat: Extra Hex (Healing Hex)

It is, which means my Sacred Weapons works on it even though I don't have focus.

However - with a throwing axe, I get the benefits of my Ulfen Weapon training (+1 damage), Weapon Focus (+1 to hit), and slashing grace (Dex to Damage) -- so it would be a big step down.

Hmm. Yeah, you're at cross-purposes. Of course, you could see about retraining to fencing grace. I think all you lose is the Ulfen Weapon training.

Tough call.

Level 5

HP +6
Feat Iron Will
Favoured class bonus +¼ grit
Class Features Musket Training (Dex to damage, yay!)
Skills
Acrobatics
Bluff
Perception
Sense motive
Survival
Disable Device
Intimidate

Level 5

Class Fighter (High Guardian)
Saves +2 Fortitude
BAB +1
HP +8
Feat Shield Brace
Skills +1 Perception
FCB {Human} +1 to CMD to resist grapple and trip.
Class Features

Obligation (Ex) - At 1st level, a high guardian can spend 1 minute of focused concentration each day to select a single ally as his obligation, vowing to keep that person alive for that day. Once he has chosen, he can’t change his obligation until the following day. If his obligation dies, the high guardian must atone for 1 week before he can select another obligation.

Right Hand (Ex) - At 1st level, a high guardian can take a 5-foot step as an immediate action, as long as he ends this movement adjacent to his obligation. If he takes this step, he cannot take a 5-foot step during his next turn and his total movement is reduced by 5 feet during his next turn. This ability replaces the bonus feat gained at 1st level.

Neglected my feat (was debating a few) - but figure that the way Callix keeps getting knocked down, Toughness was the way to go.

Level 5 Winter Witch

+4 hp
+ 8 skill points (2 class, 4 Int, 1 FCB, 1 human)
(Intimidate, Kno: Arcana, History, Planes, Local, Nature, Perception, UMD)
THIRD LEVEL SPELLS!
dispel magic, ice spears
Feat: Extra Hex (Healing Hex)

I just realized I have a scroll of dispel magic so there's no sense in me picking that up since I can add it to my repertoire. So, I'm going to pick up fly if that's okay with the GM and then add the other spell later.

yes, that's fine with me. until we actually get things moved forward feel free to adjust whatever you are doing with your level ups.

new map is up. unfortunately this is a big map (one of those 1 square = 10 feet), so you'll need to zoom in pretty close to see. I've added a token for Ringheir and the cart. if you're not able to zoom in enough to move around (I know it might be tough on mobile) let me know so i know i need to pay more attention to where you say you're moving and move the token for you.

also, now you have to decide how you're getting in. do you try to let ringheir do the talking? do you bluff your way in? does alec start the timer on his wolf form to get you through the gate?

I say we first let Ringhier do the talking. He's the supposed expert. Then we'll see how that goes. If it starts to turn south, then Alec can try out the pelt and see if that helps us.

Oops! Sorry, I guess I went reckless forward once more.

Well, I hope Samuel's bluff is good enough to avoid putting us into danger and R can do the rest with his talking.

crossed-fingers

Ok, I decided it might be fun to change Samuel's avatar while he is disguised as a Varisian Jadwiga, but I plan to recover his traditional avatar once we are done with Mission Impossible :)

I don't know, I like this one :)

I see Alec's status line says he is severely injured. That is probably an error because I do not remember we suffering huge injuries for a time back, but if that is true, this is perhaps a good moment to use the Heal skill to treat deadly wounds and recover some HP as the documents will probably take more than 1 hour to complete.

Doh! Fixed the hit points. I also had forgotten to update the cheat sheet on the campaign tab so I did that too. Samuel and Ashling, I think you guys are behind on that too.

Thanks for letting me know, I have forgotten! It is done now.

I think Ashling still has to update her character to level 5 (her profile is still Oracle 2/Fighter 2). She has not been very active in the late weeks, with all the problems rampaging around the world, I hope she is ok.

moving answers to the discussion board:

1. for the potion making. either option would work to disguise your potion brewing. as long as you were taking steps to hide it in some way I'll say that your hosts were probably too busy to pay close attention to what you were doing unless you were being obvious about it.

2. for the ranger's terrain: I'm going to rule that you are currently in "urban" terrain rather than "cold" terrain. IMO the ranger's favored terrain is more about him being experienced in living out in the wild in cold weather, able to track things better and find food and guide his allies through a wintery landscape. it's more about the terrain than the weather. it's iffy since "cold" is a condition rather than a terrain, but i think it makes sense when comparing it to the other options for a ranger to pick for their terrain. and if i counted anywhere that was cold as cold terrain, you would have that bonus in a vast majority of encounters through the entire AP.

it's not making too much of a difference in this encounter either way, but it's better to specify it now than when it could really matter more.

In an attempt to figure out how a mirrorman might be possible at all, I found a couple of pictures of them. O man I would pee on my pants and run away if I ever see something like that.

That is one of the coolest monster I have seen in a long time.

Does anyone know if they are Baba Yagga folklore or something made new for Pathfinder?

yeah, the mirror men are really interesting monsters. very creepy with the blank mirror faces.

as far as i can tell these were invented just for this AP. I don't believe they are in any bestiary. i don't know of anything in Baba Yaga lore about something like this, but there are plenty of instances of mirror portals or scrying in different witch tales.

the lore for these is that they were created fairly recently by the current queen as a better focus for their mirror sight spell. they are constructs specifically designed to have portable mirrors around the city that the witches can use to spy on the people.

Okay great. I'll deduct 25 gp for a couple potions of mage armor.

I'm going to skip time forward a little bit here. go ahead and do any buying and selling you want. post here in the discussion thread if there is anything specific your PCs are looking for if there is a question of how available it would be. any basic upgrades to weapons/armor/cloaks is easy to get ahold of, and most magic items that you can afford at this level should be pretty easy to find in a large city like this. whatever you might need the Heralds will handle finding for you while you wait. unless we're looking at something very specific or hard to find you should have everything you need by the time the Heralds kick off the next piece of this adventure.

Looked over the split again, and I'll say that I don't think the Ushanka is really worth the 4500 it's priced at because of the skill bonus -- of course, I'm saying that because I rely on Alec for our survival rolls.

Before I start "shopping", let me say that I think we should definitely invest in a new healing stick.

Right, that done -- From what I understand of the suggested split, above, Callix has 2900 gp -- which includes the 2,700 "everyone" gets -- and a Ushanka she doesn't really care for. (Of course, Callix rather than Ashling has the bladed belt per that split, so...?)

Assuming that is the case, and that she sells the Ushanka (unless we get some sort of better trade credit), she'd be looking at a budget of 5,152gp -- plus the 203 she's got in her pockets already.

So, not enough to find a Belt of Dexterity unless I want to get nothing else, sadly.

So, I'm thinking:
- +1 Darkleaf Cloth Lamellar (1,810gp)
- +1 Buckler (1,155 gp)
- +1 throwing axe (2,308gp) [can't afford the 2,000gp for a cold iron one]

That leaves her with 82gp (plus whatever small coins she's got).

However:
- If she can have her current buckler enchanted, that gives her back 155gp (otherwise, she'll sell the masterwork buckler to recoup 77.5gp]
- She'll also sell her masterwork chain shirt, getting back 125gp.

So, operating under the "paid to have her buckler enchanted" scenario, Callix has 362gp, a magical weapon (though not one good against fae), and between the armour upgrades and the amulet of natural armour from the split - AC 21 with no armour check penalties and a max dex bonus of 5.

Letitia has 3,300 gp, so by selling off the three scrolls of animate dead (which aren't on her spell list), she will have enough to buy a +2 headband of intellect.

That will be a nice upgrade, and then I'll be ready to move on, unless anyone would like some more potions brewed.

Well you do have a ton of useful spells; cure light, cure moderate, fly, darkvision, resist energy, and false life. I don't personally have a need for fly really, but darkvision, resist energy, and cure moderate would most certainly see some use.

Alec is hoping to get a +1 bashing darkwood heavy wooden shield. It's a little more than I have to spend right now but I think (and hoping) that selling off what loot we currently have will give me enough. Or I may hold off on the bashing portion and put the rest of his money towards a healing wand and potions.

Also, looking at the loot sheet, there's an unidentified robe and ring. I'm pretty sure we've leveled up since then and since Letitia has maxed out Spellcraft, she should be able to make a new check. Or we should be able to pay to have it identified.

One note, I think Letitia took the wand of spiderclimb with 13 charges and it's also on the loot sheet to be sold. There's also several items that have a note that they've been sold but the sale value is listed as 0.

I made a treasure update some months ago but we could not sell by that time so the idea was to sell now and share those items.

We only got the Marcian thugs items afterwards, thus the sold shall be still valid.

I took the natural armour instead because of the non-stacking with Shield of Faith.

That said - I'm not sure exactly what you're suggesting in terms of wealth balance -- I totally agree that useful items should go to the people who can use them - but I've always played that the less-useful items are then generally traded/recycled to those who didn't find cool stuff -- exactly to avoid what you describe. (In some parties, for example, the people who take stuff "buy" it out of their wealth share - and the party generally allows a debt to other members for future splits).

The game is very much designed that people have certain items at certain levels - and not having those can put us into a severe disadvantage. ANd what's more, I see no practical purpose in tying up so much of someone's WBL with an item that is only marginally useful at best -- talking in the abstract, here.

I mean, sure, it would be nifty if Callix were to take up the rapier suddenly because we found a good one - but that doesn't really align with her feat and design choices.

Anyhow, we should probably work out exactly what we're planning to do and how so people know what they have to spend/trade/etc in the market.

However, the only thing I'll be insistent about is the need for a new healy-stick.

I couldn't care less about wealth balance and I'm not a fan of incentivizing people to pick items that they have no interest in.

In my table experience, people pick what they want. If two people want the same item, one waits and gets first pick next time. This is a game about cooperation and I've never seen an issue with it.

When someone wants a new item, they don't get to sell the old item though. The old item goes back in the group fund until claimed by someone else or sold off.

I have put the animate object scroll, the ushanka, the bladed belt, the resist energy scrolls, and the rapier to sell.

My heart could not put the ring of feather falling to sell, I will take it with Samuel.

I have added a CLW wand to buy as party loot (whom will carry this one? whom is carrying the previous one and how many charges remain?)

Alec we have a composite longbow (+2 Str), I really think you should take it.

We get 3900 golds each of us.

Gold available for each of us (according to the purchases registered on the sheet for each character):
Samuel: 4986 gp
Alec: 5079 gp
Letitia: 4552 gp
Callix: 4102 gp
Ashling: 5213 gp

Samuel will get a belt of incredible Dexterity +2, 4000 gp

If anyone needs extra cash for what they want, Samuel can lend 986 486 gp

Correction:

Samuel buys 2 oils of silence. It is no fun playing a character not allowed to use the feature all his abilities revolve around.
-250 gp x2 = -500 gp

I will certainly do so!

I have no problem with you guys buying and selling what you need, I am not going to make things too restrictive as far as what is available. I will say that this campaign does limit the number of times you're in an area that is useful for buying and selling, so there will be times where it is better to make do with what you find and then sell it all for more useful upgrades at some point. your power level will tend to jump a little with a bunch of big purchases all at once after not buying anything for a while, but it should all work out in the end.

just make sure you decide on a system for handling selling fo good that have been picked up. does the sale value go to the person who was using that item before, or do all sales go into a party fund for an even split?

@Callix (and anyone else considering it): I am fine with you enchanting or upgrading existing items/weapons by paying the difference in price rather than buying a new item

By my rough accounting, there are 9 charges left. I believe Callix has been carrying it, given the spell trigger nature of it - though Letitia and Ashling also could -- and, in fact, I'd recommend one of them take the nearly-depleted one as a backup in case something bad happens to Callix.

Right, with 4102gp, I'll need to cut back a little - (I'm unsure as to whether that counts the 203 on my sheet, though). On the plus side, being able to enchant stuff we have helps.

- Enchanting a Masterwork Throwing Axe to +1: 2,000
- Enchanting my Buckler to +1: 1,000

Even with a +1 weapon, I'll hold on to the scrolls of magic weapon, as it'll let me (temporarily) enchant a cold iron axe if I need to -- but, I'm pretty sure that I put the masterwork handaxe back on the pile as soon as we got Callix's gear and the masterwork throwing axes (not that the 5-way split of the 153gp will be life-changing).

Sadly 1,102 won't buy enchanted armour. I suppose I could squeeze in a +1 on the already-owned masterwork shirt, but no weight savings and keeping an AC penalty -- and let's be honest, Callix is never going to have enough AC to avoid getting hit. (Maybe on an iterative). Might be better off with a Cloak of Resistance. I'll think on that.

I have no problem with you guys buying and selling what you need, I am not going to make things too restrictive as far as what is available. I will say that this campaign does limit the number of times you're in an area that is useful for buying and selling, so there will be times where it is better to make do with what you find and then sell it all for more useful upgrades at some point. your power level will tend to jump a little with a bunch of big purchases all at once after not buying anything for a while, but it should all work out in the end.

just make sure you decide on a system for handling selling fo good that have been picked up. does the sale value go to the person who was using that item before, or do all sales go into a party fund for an even split?

@Callix (and anyone else considering it): I am fine with you enchanting or upgrading existing items/weapons by paying the difference in price rather than buying a new item

In my experience, the item to be sold goes back to the party fund to be sold and split equally. In theory this keeps anyone from grabbing the most valuable item only to sell it and get a bigger share for themselves. In truth, this was never the (or my groups) intention, it just works out that way. We always pick one person to loot, that varies between games, and that person is responsible for keeping track of party funds, selling excess loot, and providing splits.

+1 darkwood heavy wooden shield [1257]
+1 enchantment to mw studded leather [1,000]

2257 spent, leaves 2822. I'll give Letitia 300gp to put towards potions.

Callix, please take 2500gp. You're a dex based character and reflex is your weakest saving throw. Please get a belt of dex!

Ok, with Alec's generous loan, Callix has 6,602 to spend.

So that's a Belt of Incredible dexterity for 4,000, and enchanting a masterwork axe for 2,000. (I need a +1 weapon to use my sacred weapon ability to grant a power to the weapon).

Was hoping to bump AC a little but the amulet of natural armour and dex bonus will have to do.

So, it turns out I only need 2,000 Alec and not 2,500.

I'll go edit my sheet to reflect those purchases.

sorry for the delay folks. had a medical trip over the weekend (plus friday), and was stuck getting caught up on work today. I will get a post in tomorrow morning that moves things along a bit more. thanks for bearing with me!

You are welcome! I hope all the trip was resolved positively for you.

thank you for asking, Samuel. everything went well. one of my daughters has juvenile arthritis, and we have to drive to another city that has the right specialists about once every 6 months. usually not a big deal, but it takes time.

____________________

Just so that I'm clear as we move into the clock tower, what kind of outfits is everyone going with at this point? is it still the case that Samuel and Letitia are dressed as Jadwiga with the rest of you in Southern garb as their attendants? or have the others chosen different dress for this part of the mission?

If no one objects, Letitia will be wearing the robe of useful items (though I view it more as party treasure since anyone can use it and the items are useful to the whole party). I also figure since it was Nazhena's, it looks like something a Winter Witch would wear.