Rise of the Runelords - Pathfinder Society (Inactive)

Game Master JCServant

Yo, Z: Change your statline to say || Per +9 Darkvision 60' || or similar, maybe.

Good point, Meggeki

:P

"Is it safe to walk to the next room?" Brenton whispers.

"Megekki goes.", Meg says softly, advancing slowly, hoping for stealth, or for the hallway to channel enemies onto his Lady's hidden runes.

Megekki takes the lead as you all walk down the long, dark hallway.

If no one is going to cast light spells or something, you will quickly end up with the blind condition with those who have no dark vision. If this is the case, everyone can make a stealth check. If you do cast light, a stealth check is not needed.

Not sure what everyone wants to do. I'm kinda waiting to see if anyone wants to walk down stealthily before bringing in the light and walking down, which Brenton is perfectly willing to do. So if we want to go together; vamos.

Ameiko gets tired of waiting. Most of us are no good in the dark. She breaks out a sunrod.

You enter the next room.

This strange room is a fifteen-foot-diameter sphere. Several objects float in the room, spinning lazily in space—a ragged book, a scroll, a bottle of wine, a dead raven surrounded by a halo of floating and writhing maggots, and a twisted iron wand with a forked tip. Yet perhaps the most unnerving aspect of the room is the walls, for they are plated in sheets of strange red metal that ripple every once in a while with silent black electricity that seems to coalesce into strange runes or even words far too often for the effect to be chance.

As you walk in, you also find yourself weightless, the effects of some sort of levitate spell.

You see a bottle of wine, a scroll, a book and a wand.

Ameiko looks at the wine bottle. My...my father ... this belongs to dad. It was in his office in the glassworks. I'm not sure what it is doing here.

1d20 + 9 ⇒ (2) + 9 = 11
1d20 + 9 ⇒ (14) + 9 = 23
1d20 + 9 ⇒ (11) + 9 = 20

As she floats around, she looks at the other objects.

I do not recognize the book. It seems to be magically preserved...about a religion. The scroll is one of burning hands (CL3). The wand is Shocking Grasp...it has 28 charges. I do not use this type of magic myself.

"Stop! I am floating!", Megekki warns.

the list of objects leaves out the raven?

You do see another exit on the opposite side. The door is open.

Brenton should still have detect magic, if not, he refreshes it.

The odd placement of items convinces him of the room being trapped in some sort of way. He takes 20 to look for traps. He tries to identify the walls.

Knowledge: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (4) + 6 = 10

He turns his attention to the book.

Knowledge Religion: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (14) + 6 = 20
Appraise: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (12) + 1 = 13

"Stop! I am floating!", Megekki warns.

the list of objects leaves out the raven?

Yeah, for the sake of convenience, I'm putting the important items separate. You see the raven, but it's not magical, looks pretty dead and generally of no interest to you. In fact, let me update that list now.

Wine (Ameiko's)
Book of Unknown Religion (Kn: Rel & Appraisal)
Scroll of Burning Hands CL3
Wand of Shocking Grasp 28 Charges.

The book is a magically preserved but still ancient prayer book dedicated to the worship of Lamashtu, the Mother of Monsters. It is written in Abyssal and is worth 100g.

"I would very much like to read this. Just imagine all the information it must contain." Brenton says as he looks over the book.

Lets pretend Brenton reads it so we can go straight to selling it.

The book reads as much like a bestiary of the world’s most horrif ic and cruel monsters (along with numerous woodcut illustrations of how they kill) as it does a religious text. If you spend a week reading it, your knowledge : religion will increase by one point.

We need to read Abyssal, first, right? Or does Read Magic or similar work?

comprehend languages

As you float towards the next door and open it up, you see quite a sight in front you.

This huge room looks like nothing more than an immense underground cathedral. Stone doors stand to either side of the main entrance, but beyond this, the walls are carved with strange, spiky runes. In the center of the room is a large pool, with a ring of polished human skulls balanced on stone spikes arranged in a circle around the deeper midsection. At the far end of the room, a pair of stone stairways leads up to a pulpit on which sits a second pool, this one triangular and filled with churning, bubbling water that looks almost like translucent lava. Yet while wisps of what look like heat and steam rise from the strange orange liquid, the room itself is deathly cold.

You see the three armed goblin, and behind him, a female quasit (Tiny) flying above a dark, glowing pool, holding a small dagger to her arm.

As you enter the room, she flies into a rage. She shrieks, accuses you of “daring to intrude upon the Mother’s sanctum.” She adds, And thanks to the death of those angry little goblins, my pool has new energy!

She slashes her own wrist with her dagger, allowing some of her blood to drip into the well. You immediately see the claws of wrathspawn come of the lip as they pull themselves out!

Wait until the rest of the goblins attack! I'll have enough for a whole army!!! Koruvas! My monsters!! Attack! Kill the would-be heroes of Sandpoint!!

You see three sinspawn come out. They are 40 feet away, along with the goblin. She is 45' away, flying.

Combat begins.

Brenton casts 'shield' and steps out of the way of the archers.

Megekki casts Bless, and moves to the other side of the door from Brenton. (I'm guessing Brenton stepped in and left/right, Meg is stepping in and right/left, leaving Z a clear field of fire, and cast space for the mage and bard. If I was at the door, and can 5' out of the way, then use the Move Action I have left to Copycat) Also, longspear ready to AoO

"Kill the spitter...", Megekki growls.

If he moves to the PFL, he will have a clear shot to the EFL. If he's behind you, he does not. You cannot create an opening for him, par se, as you could in a larger room on a grid. (Keep in mind, as well, the enemy is rarely directly ahead. Depending on the distance, they have to be in a rather narrow cone for an archer 5' back to have a clear shot...but I digress).

Ameiko stays 5' behind the PFL and uses her standard to begin singing. All allies are inspired, receiving a +2 morale bonus on saving throws against charm and fear effects and a +2 competence bonus on attack and weapon damage rolls.

We have three sinspawn coming at us plus the three armed goblin that almost took us out alone - VERY doubful that I will step to the PFL... What is my penalty for shooting then?

Question 2: What penalty do I have for shooting at the creature behind our PFL and the EFL?

Question 3: What if the creature is flying?

But what if you got REALLY lucky with your shots and KELLED him before he got to you? :P anyway... 1. Going with my original alternate rules... and you have 2 ppl in front of you assuming the wizard doesn't move up, the target gets a +3 to AC. But, remember to add 2 to your hit roll for the bard singing. 2. There are no creatures behind the PFL right now. But if you're trying to shoot at something BEHIND their guys while you are behind your friends, you're looking at bumping the AC bonus they get up to 4 (4 is always the max). Thankfully....3) she's flying above them, so she's really clear of them.

Zeriax ponders his options for a split second, and whispers to the others - "I go for the flying one - anything important I should know?" - while he lets fly.

Flurry of Attacks 1: 1d20 + 2 - 3 + 2 ⇒ (19) + 2 - 3 + 2 = 20 Damage: 1d8 + 3 + 2 ⇒ (2) + 3 + 2 = 7

Flurry of Attacks 2: 1d20 + 2 - 3 + 2 ⇒ (18) + 2 - 3 + 2 = 19 Damage: 1d8 + 3 + 2 ⇒ (2) + 3 + 2 = 7

Well..!! I'll be..!!

You boys and girls need to start rolling those knowledges immediately after these critters come upon us...

(Old-school protip: Two shots, two types of metals.)
(Scenario reminder: we were told 'quazit' in the journal, and she is _flying_ :) )
(Pedantic old guy: No one with those knowledges has posted yet.)

Meg cast Bless, that's another +1 for some purposes

Zeriax is new school, that old school hint would be plausible if ever anyone had shared with him that some creatures are more vulnerble to A, B or C materials, which has never happened.

Why would Zeriax equate quazit with a flying creature? And WHAT is a quazit? An animal? :D

Pedantic old guy is right...

Bless reminder thanked ;)

1d20 ⇒ 31d20 ⇒ 121d20 ⇒ 12
Ameiko stares for a moment. As she's singing, she manages to communicate by improvising verses into the song.

The quasit that flies above, as small and fast as a dove,
Can be cut straight through to the liver, if you have cold iron in your quiver.
They also have deadly mind spells to cast, so interrupt her if you want to live to the last.

Don't you feel REALLY inspired now? Bardic knowledge is your friend :)

That will be useful for the next round I hope :D

knowledge: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (2) + 6 = 8

Zeriax is new school, that old school hint would be plausible if ever anyone had shared with him that some creatures are more vulnerble to A, B or C materials, which has never happened.

Why would Zeriax equate quazit with a flying creature? And WHAT is a quazit? An animal? :D

Did we buy you 50 cold iron arrows because they were on sale? :)

Well, they WERE on sale, but still. :)

Well, he would never use it on every single creature in there now would he? :D

It's an iron arrowhead. It's hardly meta to shoot things with it, when the meta and cheese of 50=infinite is counteracting the meta and anti-cheese of shot=totally destroyed. At some point, the meta becomes the physics of the world. Embrace the meta. :)

What's less ridiculous: You shoot things, and we get the arrows heads out of them, and mending the arrows, and hey, infinity! Or you shoot things, and we completely ignore the potentials of our abilities?

LOLz. Well, this is a good topic. My rule is, this is RP, and I dislike meta, but on the other hand, it's there's a G at the end for 'game'. If you see (as a player) see something you think is weak vs cold iron or silver, then feel free to try it (especially if I tell you that your hits do less damage). An experienced player is always going to bring more to the table than a non-experienced player, and I don't expect a player with 7 INT or WIS to throw his knowledge of tactics and survival (as a player) out the window (thereby increasing the chances everyone will die) in order to 'stay in character.' (Having low INT and WIS scores already carries enough in game penalties w/o players punishing themselves). I'm purposely vague in a lot of monster descriptions before KNOW checks are made to purposely make it harder (though not impossible) for you guys (as players) to know what you're really up against until you succeed those checks or find out through trail in error. However, if I find out you're looking up monsters or something on the net, in the book, etc....well, that's just cheating :P

As far as supply, my house rule is that when you buy 50 of any non-magical arrow, you basically get an unlimited supply. So, you don't have to track them down or anything. When you get magic ones, you have a 50% change of finding whole ones that miss...the rest are 'lost and broken'. I imagine I might let half of the ones that are 'lost and broken' to be mended (In other words, the broken) as long as the Caster was greater than the CL of the weapon in question. Anywho, ones that hit are destroyed and cannot be mended.

I agree with both of you, and of course with the 50=infinity rule, I can just simply STOP using normal arrows but... Well, in RP terms it doesn't make much sense, even though of course we can assume that it simply means that the price is so irrelevant for the average monetary gain from adventuring, that you keep buying it back with any actual impact on your finance - I guess I can go with that, I was just too caught up with the "in character" stuff I guess.

Emrys stays behind the front line for now.

knowledge planes: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (9) + 7 = 16
knowledge religion on cathedral: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (10) + 7 = 17

Round 1
Many cast/sing buffs as Zeriax shoots the flying one twice. They hit, but only do partial damage. Her wounds begin to regenerate at the same time.

Enemy's Turn
The wrathspawn move up first with the goblin right behind them.

On Brenton
Sinspawn Bite (Sinful bite): 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (15) + 3 = 181d6 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2
Sinspawn Bite (Sinful bite): 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (17) + 3 = 201d6 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 1 = 7
Brenton blocks one as the other bites him. Will save.

On Meggeki
Glowing Longsword (19-20Crit): 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (18) + 4 = 221d8 + 4 ⇒ (7) + 4 = 11
The twisted goblin grins as he slashes Megekki.

The flying Quasit in the back gives more blood to the pool, but it dims. She curses and looks worried.

Status

5' Zeriax (19/19 Bless, +2 Song), Emrys (14/14 Bless, +2 Song), Ameiko (26/26 Bless, +2 Song),
PFL Meggeki (5/16 Bless, +2 Song), Brenton (6/13 Shield, Bless, +2 Song),
5' Sinspawn A (Perfect, ), Sinspawn B (Perfect, ), Sinspawn C (Perfect, ), Koruvus
45' Erylum (Perfect, ),

I agree with both of you, and of course with the 50=infinity rule, I can just simply STOP using normal arrows but... Well, in RP terms it doesn't make much sense, even though of course we can assume that it simply means that the price is so irrelevant for the average monetary gain from adventuring, that you keep buying it back with any actual impact on your finance - I guess I can go with that, I was just too caught up with the "in character" stuff I guess.

It's up to you. Just as long as you understand that, as a GM, while I frown upon certain forms of meta, I want you to feel comfortable, as a player, to use your experience as such to your benefit in combat. There may be times I feel you're being TOO meta, but it's been a while since I hit a player with that. (For example, I don't allow players to avert their eyes with they see a "Large lizard" until it turns someone to stone or they ID it as such...but its pretty rare that a player assumes every large lizard is a basilisk!

Zeriax takes on a more somber look as he sees the creatures' wounds closing almost as immediately as he wounds it - "Very well..." - he whispers softly as he strings his bow with cold iron tipped arrows.

Flurry of Attacks 1: 1d20 + 2 - 3 + 2 ⇒ (8) + 2 - 3 + 2 = 9 Damage: 1d8 + 3 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 3 + 2 = 9

Flurry of Attacks 2: 1d20 + 2 - 3 + 2 ⇒ (17) + 2 - 3 + 2 = 18 Damage: 1d8 + 3 + 2 ⇒ (8) + 3 + 2 = 13

Zeriax wrote:

I agree with both of you, and of course with the 50=infinity rule, I can just simply STOP using normal arrows but... Well, in RP terms it doesn't make much sense, even though of course we can assume that it simply means that the price is so irrelevant for the average monetary gain from adventuring, that you keep buying it back with any actual impact on your finance - I guess I can go with that, I was just too caught up with the "in character" stuff I guess.

It's up to you. Just as long as you understand that, as a GM, while I frown upon certain forms of meta, I want you to feel comfortable, as a player, to use your experience as such to your benefit in combat. There may be times I feel you're being TOO meta, but it's been a while since I hit a player with that. (For example, I don't allow players to avert their eyes with they see a "Large lizard" until it turns someone to stone or they ID it as such...but its pretty rare that a player assumes every large lizard is a basilisk!

Hey... I seem to remind... naaaaaaah.

Brenton tries to keep control of his senses.

Will Save: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (4) + 8 = 12

hero point to add 4 please.

Brenton hopefully keeps and attacks.

Attack Defensively: 1d20 + 3 - 4 + 2 ⇒ (9) + 3 - 4 + 2 = 10
Damage: 1d8 + 1 + 2 ⇒ (8) + 1 + 2 = 11

He tries to keep mindful of the archer and 5' steps out of his way.

Wrathspawn! Don't let them bite you, they are filled with rage and can infect you with it. Their anger can even resist the power of spells, concentrate to breach their defenses!

Emrys casts grease on the group of sinspawn and Koruvus, targetting the goblin in particular. DC 14 Reflex save

If Meg got the CopyCat out, please roll the miss chance

Similarly, feel free to roll AoOs as they present. Here is the one for them crossing 40:

AoO +3 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (1) + 3 = 4

Megekki steps on another phantom disco ball. The light in the room warps and shatters into spinning reflections from nowhere and shadows of nothing... And injuries didn't happen.

Channel 1d6 1d6 ⇒ 1

I'm calling shenanigans!

Move Action for another CopyCat

Brenton uses his