GM ShadowLord's Reign of Winter

Game Master The Rising Phoenix

Sorry for the slow posting lately y'all. It has been a very busy season at work which has left less time to focus on all my online games. We had some big layoffs a couple months ago and everyone is recovering from that. less people = more work for the rest of us now.

I am hopefully getting back to a more normal schedule now and will be trying to keep things moving at a better pace. thanks all for your patience on this game!

Callix, how much time do you need to try cleanse the remaining blindness at the least?

I think we have these current issues:
Ashling blindness
Callix blindness
Letitia deafness

Ok, seems Callix has been out for a week on all her games. Maybe she went on vacation and found no connection or she found some other issue. Let's hope she comes back soon.

On the meantime, I see she can prepare 3 level 3 spells per day, but all her slots for that level are already taken. On other situation I would wait for player input, but I think we can assume she will be ok with preparing 3 remove blindness/deafness after our full rest.

That way we can keep moving forward with the adventure.

Sorry, yes, I'm on vacation and have poorer connection than expected. And yes, it's just 3 - so I can fix everyone still afflicted -- but not with a Speak with Dead.

This spotty connection will persist until Aug 8 - sorry for the late/after the fact warning.

So Baldurs gate 3 came out. Anyone else playing

Still half-way Wrath of the Righteous game :)

I watched a few trailers and videos explaining how Baldur's Gate 3 will work a couple of years ago. It looks good, but for whatever reason it is not calling me.

I keep meaning to run through Wrath of the Righteous a few times but I've only done an Azata playthrough with an Ashling build ironically. I'm working my way through a Lich path next

I loved Kingmaker, but keep hearing horror stories about bloatware and spyware in Wrath, so I've not pulled the trigger on it.

I tried wrath and lost interest after leaving the city and getting into the army management sub game which I felt was poorly explained.

The spyware stuff from my understanding was your basic game data collection Telemetry nonsense. But there is a setting to turn that off i believe. It's been a bit since i checked though

As for the army management you can set the difficulty for that separately to story mode for little to no consequences. Unlike in kingmaker where you can't. Even then its still a little annoying to deal with so i get it. It can be fun seeing your army change depending on path.

Ah, I know the feeling! After I recruited clerics and hellknights, the mini game has become enjoyable for me, as a break from long conversations and dungeon delving.

I don't know about any spyware, I saw they have removed some data collection service on a recent update.

Yeah you're path and choices change what recruits become available. Lich gets big undead armies as their normal army dies or something

Azata gets a mishmash of azata, faeries and chaotic nonsense.

It is not memory, it is called thread search tool and it is one of the great advantages of play-by-post relative to other ways of playing, and I love it >_<

My pen-and-paper GM would love we remember any plot that spans more than a month gameplay, hahaha

Oh well, damn i forgot that was a think lol

Before i do anything, have we done a detect magic in the room yet. Just seems like something to check, then again everything is baba yaga related so it'd be weird if something wasnt magic

Llewellyn did, waiting for results :)

Oh good, like i either nothings magic or everything is magic

Letitia has detect magic ready to go too. It's a cantrip so it's free to cast. If Llewellyn needs assistance identifying something, she can help.

unfortunately i dn't have a PC for gaming, so i have to wait to play Baldur's gate until they figure out their XBOX issues and release that version. Really looking forward to it, I loved Divinity Original Sin 2

As someone whose played Divinity os 1 and 2, and baldurs gates. I can confirm it has signs of Larians style but all the 5e goodness.

Like there's this hag fight you have 1 turn to combat before she teleports away. You aren't supposed to be able to kill her. However the game totally lets you without penalties

Not played BG3 yet, but one thing I read made me laugh, apparently if a druid in a big fat owl bear form jumps/falls onto a mob it can do massive damage.

Not played BG3 yet, but one thing I read made me laugh, apparently if a druid in a big fat owl bear form jumps/falls onto a mob it can do massive damage.

Yep. Fall damage and weight based damage is real. Also Surrounding people with Explosive barrels and blowing them up to not have to deal with their dungeon

When I have doubts about lightning matters I keep coming back to this Illuminating Darkness blog post from Paizo.

In this case, daylight has a special feature that nullifies any darkness spell, so in the area of the daylight the darkness is suppressed I do understand.

So i have darkvision from my curse

Our friendly neighborhood half orc has it

Who else has it?

Doesn't matter much for the current situation, just curious

Just the two of you. The rest of us are uncursed human-types.

Might be unresponsive for a few days. Bot as necessary. Just found out my granny passed so.. funeral stuff. I'll be in touch

Sorry to hear that. Condolences.

Sorry for your loss.

Please accept our condolences.

I'm sorry to hear that, Ashling. Take any time you need, we'll be here when you're back

Take your time, sorry to hear Ashling :(

Alrighty, I'm back boys and girls

I'll post when i can, November December holidays gets real busy. Posting this from my phone, fighting hags is what i typically call a "serious face" fight

I should be able to later tonight

Ok, people, let's be proactive and have our round done so the party is ready to progress and the GM can wrap up the round and follow up when he has a chance to post.

I was about to say the Spiritual Weapon should still be locked on her, but as soon as Callix lost sight of her, it would have returned to hover next to Callix.

Since the rules say the spiritual weapon strikes as a spell and not a weapon, I don't think concealment would apply. It also says it continues to attack the current target until the caster changes targets. So I'd argue that it would keep attacking despite you not seeing her in the fog.

Actually it seems the weapon goes back to the caster not when you lose sight of the target, but when you lose sight of the weapon itself: "If the weapon goes beyond the spell range, if it goes out of your sight, [..] the weapon returns to you and hovers"

As the weapon enters into the mist, sight is lost and it returns to Callix, but because Callix is now in front of the hag, she can see the weapon and hence, the spiritual weapon can do its attacks on the hag.

As about mischance, I would argue spells that require an attack roll to strike, still are affected by mischance. You would do so for a scorching ray for example.

In any case, just roll your spiritual weapon attacks Callix including mischance. If the GM has a different interpretation, he can ignore the attacks or the mischance rolls.

That said, since Callix closed into the fog last round, I assume she can step toward Llewellyn (who cried out) and find the hag?

I am pretty sure you can follow the sounds of combat and into the mist. It is better if you can roll your attacks as if that is the case Callix. If for whatever reason the GM judges you cannot, it can always be adjusted, but in the most probable scenario your turn is done and we can progress. So please provide your turn as if you found the hag.

In general I want to call everybody to be more prospective and roll with things. If you have doubts if something might work or not, just try out, and include a contingency action in case your assumption is false and it will not work.

Some campaigns run with a more short cycle and asking questions is more feasible. Others run with a days cycle like this one, and can benefit incredibly from taking assumptions and rolling with them.

Makes sense to me, Samuel.

I will also be posting when i can, it will be a little bit sparse with the holidays though.

For spells, I usually play it as any spell that needs a hit roll would need to follow any applicable modifiers to attacks like cover, miss chance, etc. if it is a save or suck kind of spell, it would not need to roll to hit or a miss chance and the target would just take their save.

The hag does indeed have the ability to see through the fog, which is why they started the combat with it.

Of course now it should be pretty straight-forward with the party surrounding her and no more fog to protect her!

Hi folks,

I'm about to be away for 10 dayss - but with the usual "post-trip" recovery time, I think it's safer to say I'm away 'til Jan 14th (so we can all be pleasantly surprised if I'm online sooner).

Please feel free to bot Callix while I'm gone. She'll probably grumble and drink, mostly, though also slicing things with her axe as needed.

Enjoy your trip Callix!

Yay level 9. Need to choose a feat, this is always difficult because there are so many :)

@My Red Sun. I can't remember which sources are available for this campaign, are skill unlocks available? What about the Hurtful feat?

Fifth level spells!!

Yay!

Picking up baleful polymorph and cloudkill.

@My Red Sun. I can't remember which sources are available for this campaign, are skill unlocks available? What about the Hurtful feat?

We are not using Skill Unlocks for this campaign. Feats can be taken from any first party paizo publication for 1E, so I don't see any reason Hurtful wouldn't work. I also don't have the Monster Codex, so I don't know for sure, is it a feat meant to only be used by monsters? the Nethys page you linked doesn't say anything about having to be a monstrous race to use it as a prereq, but if there was some sort of limitation like that for the whole book then you wouldn't be able to take it.

That said it doesn't look like a broken feat to me so I'm fine with you taking it

Level 9

HP 1d10 + 1 ⇒ (10) + 1 = 11
Feat Martial Dominance
Class features Musket training 2 (+1 damage with muskets)
Favored class bonus +¼ grit
Skills
Acrobatics
Bluff
Disable Device
Perception
Survival
K. arcana
K. planes

As far as I can tell it's available for PCs although there is some table variance where some players have assumed it's just for monsters, but nothing in the rules actually limits it monsters.

* If you do not want to read the whole wall of text, the paragraph marked with the asterisk is the important one.

I have the Monster Codex. The Hurtful feat is listed on the section "Bugbear feats" as part of the options specifically available to that race. Those racial rules are not clearly restricted by race though. This is what the Bugbear entry says about these options (pg. 20):

New rules: "The following section details an archetype, new feats, a spell, and a selection of magic items favored by bugbears and wikkawaks."

Bugbear feats: "The following feats are common among bugbears."

And looking for general rulings on how this work, the only thing I found at the beginning of the book in the "How to use this book" section (pg. 5):

New rules: "Next come two pages of new rules elements common to the monster. These can include racial variants, templates, archetypes, class features, feats, equipment, spells, magic items, or anything else associated with the monstrous race or its allies. Many of these options are restricted specifically to a given race, but some can be taken by any characters who meet the requirements to do so."

*
I have found some races list the race as a prerequisite for those feats, for example the boggard Stunning Croak or the duergar Tough as Iron. The bugbear Hurtful does not list any race as a prerequisite, hence, I believe it was the intention to be generally available.
The prerequisites are listed in the book with or without race the same way as in the aonprd entries.
*

Hope that was helpful.

Besides, Monster Codex is one of the most helpful GM books I have. It contains extra rules and premade statblocks for a lot of common enemies. It is great to add some color to encounters, specially useful on those thematic campaigns where you get bored of just fighting the fifth wave of hobgoblins directly fetched from the Bestiary.

You can just swap one of the feats for something interesting, or change the common warrior for a premade spellcaster in less than a minute.

There are options for:
- Boggards
- Bugbears
- Drow
- Duergar
- Fire giants
- Frost giants
- Ghouls
- Gnolls
- Goblins
- Hobgoblins
- Kobolds
- Lizardfolk
- Ogres
- Orcs
- Ratfolk
- Sahuagin
- Serpentfolk
- Troglodytes
- Trolls
- Vampires

And the art is numerous, beautiful and inspiring.

Thanks Samuel.

Level up:

+1 Level of bard
HP: 5+2 -> 66 hp total
FBC: Extra 2nd level spell known: Acute Senses
Saves: +1 fort
Extra 3rd level spell known: Good Hope
Feat: Hurtful
Skills: +1 Perception, perform oratory, perform wind, Intimidate, +4 Kn: Arcarna
Bardic performance pool: 22 rounds
Extra spells per day: +1 lvl 1 spell, +1 lvl 2 spell

Full level up breakdown:

Witch 9
HP 4+2 =54 hp (fcb +1 hp)
Saves: +1 Fort, +1 Dex
Spells: one second level slot, one fifth level slot
Resist Cold goes from 5 to 10
Skills: 8 skills, +1 to Intimidate, Arcana, Nature, Nobility, Planes, Perception, Spellcraft, UMD.
Feat: Extra Hex (Cackle). It's been too long to go without Cackle.

I should be able to level within a day or so. By Wednesday for certain

Warpriest 9:

HP: +8 (5, +2 con + 1 toughness)
Save: +1 Reflex
New Spell slots: 1 x L1, 1 x L3
Warpriest Bonus Feat: Greater Weapon Focus (+1 to hit)
Feat: Dirty Fighting
Skills (3+FC): Acrobatics, Heal, Perception, Spellcraft

Say, GM, how would you feel about Callix going into the Evangelist PrC? I could swap Dirty Fighter for Deific Obedience in order to meet the pre-reqs.

Evangelist, Good pick. I thought Aligned class was bonkers