Seraphimpunk's Way of the Wicked

Game Master Seraphimpunk

Temperance stomps off grumbling about that good for nothing, half-wizard, half-useless hellspawn...

i found some mushrooms under the tree! wanna try them? Anyway, what do you think about the plan?

victor, shape up, and let us buy the scrolls or just share. It's a good idea for us all to be able to heal each other.

We're not the best at making traps. Spike filled pits may be a bit beyond us, unless you can conceal them magically? I'm the only one that has any work ethic to dig a pit.

Temperance: that really is a s~$@load of scrolls. um. you might need a full round action to find scrolls you want in combat, sans a handy haversack. unless you only keep a small selection of scrolls "combat ready" in your bag or whatnot.

i'll also check the trap section of core book n see what kind of defenses / craft checks might be possible in the two days. feel free to suggest magical solutions you have access to. ( like Forsythe prepping some spell the 2nd day or a spell victor has ).

What is the link to our group gear? I have been using an Google Spreadsheet version which I think is old. 4-way loot doc is also dead, right?

I put Ash & Leo's stuff in here, and yours is in here: link , Z updated Temperance's scrolls in here : Treasure & S~$*

I'll reuse 4 way doc later on when it comes time to divvy new treasure out

Victor, those are not your scrolls but tools of our collective master. You have been moping around here all week, would you prefer to be back in the stockades or ripping this town's sleepers awake to our greater glory. Stop being a b@~@*; we already have three. Know your place in this knot or by my hand I will tear you from it.
Intimidate: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (20) + 9 = 29

hahahahahaha. Oh, you found a nerve there, didn't you? This girl is long overdue for a fight.
rolling my neck and shoulders
No offense Victor, Temp was being moody, but you should know by now, a lady is always right.

Begins summoning myEidolon
Now where is my pretty girl? There you are beautiful. Come here, It's time to play my dear.
Pulling at nothing, then tendril of smoke and miasma begin pooling

Upon seeing the shore I now wish we had caltops. Hindsight as it were. Well, I am happy to help you with digging pits Mr. Dark and Handsome, but you are correct; I see no ethics in work. I do have a concern though, and I am no expert at Rangers, but are they not trained to notice such creations, especially on terrain they are well accustomed? Hells, some may even consider this beach their favorite and know each rock by name. Perhaps if we could have the pits in path when the sun is in their faces? I read that in a book somewhere. I will admit, outside of campfire duty, the great outdoors are not my strong point.
Survival: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (15) + 4 = 19

BTW, did we confirm they are Rangers? I think I read that in a previous post, but now I am uncertain. What where their "likely" classes? Did we here how seasoned they were to infer lvl or CR? What, typically, did the rangers have for arms and armor when they would ride out?

ok, a CR 1 pit trap is 20 ft deep. a CR 1/2 sounds reasonable for a 10' deep pit. Crafting it w/ either a Craft(traps) check untrained, or maybe someone has knowledge (engineering) ? with a base craft dc of 20...

... how about for every 48 hours of labor you put in, you can dig one 10x10 hole. 4 guys digging for 12 hours. 1 guy for 48 hours. up to you. If you have a shovel in your inventory, you can make twice as much progress. ( 1 pit in 24 hours ). [ i'm more wagering that no one actually has a shovel in their equipment... so they gotta find stuff to use as shovels to dig with. ]

Varning's Men are mounted, have a typical bow, dagger, longsword of most guards, as well as a lance and combat trained horses. Varning carries the same as his men, but has full plate instead of some kind of chain armor.

They seem fairly seasoned, the off duty ones you saw seemed to be capable men. All the guards seem capable. But you've never seen them in a fight.

Being a ranch kid that had to dig A LOT of pits, some for feces, some for graves, as a teenager with a shovel in normal dirt (not hard/clay/sand/wet/rocky), I could dig a 6'x3'x6' in about two hours. I, by no means, was busting ass to do it either, it was not a favorite chore. My point being, it doesn't take that long in normal dirt to dig pits. Take away the shovel, or make the ground out of adobe and you have a six or eight hour job, but not 24 or 48. That would be some serious mining at that point or maybe using our hands. Add in more than one person and begin halving the time. Add in a Retriever, in our case Golden, and you can have a pit that sized in the same time using paws and determination to get the gopher/rabbit alone. end ranching knowledge

Well, we can fashion shovels out of branch wood if these trees are of hardy substance. They will be crude, but should work. I also see a four legged Eidolon and a Skelly over there who I bet could really get a good start on the ground with their claws. Perhaps we could lightly bury the Skelly near their path as a jump up surprise attack?

Tempy hands Victor a scroll of expeditious excavation.
Hey Victor, scribe this real quick. Then prepare a bunch of them tomorrow.

Can't believe I forgot my shovel. I always have a shovel when I go adventuring. Well, I don't want to dig, but I bet I can fashion the covers that go over the pits easily enough. And maybe some spikes.

Crafting pit covers: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 2 = 6

Holy crap. I ALWAYS have a shovel on every character and have never had occasion to use it. Now the time I leave it off I find myself wanting to dig holes. Curses and splashes.

And yes, I have a ton of scrolls. I have a list of them in XL and I just copy it to each new spellcaster and buy them all when I get about $1000 and lvl 1 scrolls start to get trivially cheap. Awesome for situations like "dig a hole". I can add scroll boxes (I usually buy a few, may have forgotten this time since I seem to have gone inventory-stupid with this game) that will hold 10 each and index them nicely. And I can put a few of my favorites in pockets until I have my handy haversack. For now, assume FRA to draw a scroll seems fair.

Grumbling under his breath...

..then
Yea, yea, I'll do what you want. Everyone always sides with the pretty girl. I can only cast 2 per day though, so don't expect much.

...grumble grumble grumble

After giving Victor something to do, Tempy sets off to craft magnificent pit trap cover things. A few times one of the knot comes by to help or gives a piece of advice, but she waves them off, confident she knows what she's doing.

Since she rolled a 6, she doesn't.

When she finishes after several hours of intense work, she has 1 roughly 6'x6' construction. It doesn't lay flat on the ground, it bows up to about a foot tall. It has various mismatched branches lined up in straight lines and criss-crossed with vine across wood, holding it tightly together in an entirely unnatural way. There are leaves and branches stuffed in the many gaps in the frame and parts of her now-missing cold-weather gear are shoved in some of the larger holes.

Ok, well, I thought this was going to work, but I give up. I have no idea how to make a pit trap. How's the digging going?

lets say 8 hours to dig the pit. 16 without proper tools. I've never dug a deep pit, but most of the chatter here how long does it take to dig a grave? from people that do, or observe others dig, seems to be that the first three feet can go pretty quickly, but the dirt removal on deeper pits becomes more labor intensive. So if you just want to dig up some ground and make it difficult terrain, 3 ft is fine. but for an actual pit that'll deal 1d6 damage, lets 16 hours with your available tools and in the rocky/sandy ground by the lake shore. I'd love to add a check to make it go faster, but i think resource allocation of man hours is more your limiting condition here since none of you actually have Craft (trapmaking) (i think)

Can't you just make illusions over the pit covers?

haha my first pit digging rules lawyering /rancher trolling online. Win. Yeah, those rules sound fair. Extra points for forcing you to research gravedigger chatter and statistics.

lol. better than getting a stopwatch and forcing you to drive to alaska and dig.

Its too bad Exp. Excavation doesn't scale with caster level. One 5 ft cube at a time = 8 castings to make a 10 ft. pit. Victor can contribute, but I don't know if it'll pay off much.

Thank you for helping Victor, but a little less of your sass young man.

Looking towards Gridlock and talking in a baby voice
Now, Gridlock here, he fell behind, left us girls to fend for ourselves, and look at him now. The model gentleman! No grumbling from you. Huh Gridlock? Who's a good boy? Who's a good little man?

Let's get to work. I'll leave the excavation discussion to the wizards of our age. Even a three foot trench will break a horse's legs and toss its riders.

Loran, Forsythe dear, mind if I borrow your pets to assist Leo and I on the big dig? Leo, would you take down a couple sturdy and straight branches we can fashion into wooden spades?

I assume Loran's Eidolon or Gridlock wont have any issues working the ground with their paws and claws. I will assist Leo on turning live or fallen wood into spades to assist. I think it is safe to assume the four of us will do a majority of the work and I am banking on the Eidolon and Skelli not tiring as fast.

Absolutely feel free to use Grizzbit for digging. He is, quite literally, tireless and will do whatever I say.

I'll try for a Craft (Traps) roll... My modifier is only a +1.

Traps: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (19) + 1 = 20

I'll also be memorizing Desecrate and casting it a few hours before we expect the patrol to arrive. That will help Grizzbit and, I believe, Loran's Eidolon. It will also be nice to have when I animate their dead bodies. Loran: +1 to attack, dmg, and saves

Engineering: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (5) + 9 = 14 & Engineering: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (1) + 9 = 10 to know how to properly craft two wooden shovels,
Engineering: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (17) + 9 = 26, Engineering: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (18) + 9 = 27, Engineering: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (17) + 9 = 26 to know how to properly craft three pits,
Engineering: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (1) + 9 = 10, Engineering: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (2) + 9 = 11, Engineering: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (18) + 9 = 27 to know how to properly craft some impaling spears the the bottom strong enough for falling men and horses,
Engineering: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (10) + 9 = 19, Engineering: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (15) + 9 = 24 &Engineering: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (15) + 9 = 24 to know how to properly craft a cover for said pits and traps.

If anyone can aid, please feel free to. Goat GM, I am doing three rolls based on trying to create three pits, traps and covers. This will be me working, but also leading our team on their assisted constructions of the items. So take the rolls as you see fit assuming a group effort and toss out the second and/or third creation if time is running short. I will not risk having a blatant half finished product giving away the good ones.

My, untrained crafts are also +1 if you want to roll on actually crafting as opposed to engineering. Let me know.

yeah, the clawed undead, and the... i don't even know what Loran's eidolon is anymore... are ok for churning up / digging up the earth. craft on the shovels and pits, with those rolls and one or two helping you, you can manage to make some pits with basic spears at the bottom. they're not professional, and they look a little obvious to you, but you all know where they are. ( DC 15 perception instead of 20 b/c of the rush job. what do they say? you can get it cheap and fast, but not good quality, never all three?

Ok, sounds like plans are set. I'll start the encounter tonight around noon PST.

Deal. If Temp can add in some illusion to help hide the pits or as a damsel in distress to distract from the pits all the better. Something that takes advantage of their heroics over wisdom, like the bugbear idea or a known running fugitive that would drive them to charge forward without studying the ground?

Oh, uh. Neji, Temperance, Will, how bout you each place one of the 10 ft. pits and mark it on the map?

My work is being a pain about Google shares, but I will log in with my phone soon and try to set some pits. I assume it is clear the walking path of the enemies? Right or left, mid beach or something?
What do the light blue rectangles and yellow square equal?
Is the whole shore difficult terrain? I take it out boat and ramp are not really there in this particular fight?

blue rectangles, the solid rock outcropping.
yellow square, their fire pit area.

i was just trying to make it evenly decided to speed it up. i placed three pits, any of you can play with them, place them, and let me know when to continue.

they're coming from the right / east.

Placed them tentatively on the potential path to the fire-pit. I'm also hoping the rocky outcropping helps hide some of the work done. I'll chat you up in Google docs if you're online there.

OK, I placed two options,
1. Near the trees where the pathing is the narrowest. This will catch them wheeling in and we can jump them from behind at the trees near the right-most end of the map which I labeled as the Eastern Attack Position.

2. Right in front of the campsite rocky outcropping as they approach and attack either from below (which I labeled as the Southern Attack Position) or again from behind at the right most trees.

I tried to separate the pits to cover ground and keep a 10' separation to increase chances.

What do you guys think?

Hmm...I was thinking closer to the trees so that we could use them as tactical advantage during the fight. If they're cavaliers a bunch of holes in the ground all around us would screw up their charging lanes with big mounts/increase the chance they fall in a hole.

I'd also like the pits to be between us and them so they are encouraged to come towards us over them. If they're off to the side, we can assume that one of them with their sharp eyes will see the hastily prepared traps and alert their allies so no one may fall in at all. That would ruin the fun and waste a lot of backbreaking work.

As for illusions, that is not my specialty. I'm better at enchantments. But I have a scroll of silent image that I can use as well as any arcane caster. It will require me to concentrate, but will provide enough illusion to cover the 3 pits if they're close together*. As a scroll it's not a powerful as if I could cast it myself, but unless they are concentrating on the illusion, they won't even have a chance to notice it. If we do the rest of our disguise right, they'll be charging towards our aid and won't notice it until they fall in.

A level 1 casting of silent image is (4+1)*10=50 cu ft, so that should be just enough if they're 10 ft apart in a line. It would have a DC 11 will save, but only if they interact with it or spend a move to focus on it, which is unlikely since there will be more interesting things going on.

A shame it isn't Mott's patrol. I could assume his cheating wife's form and have one of you boys be my Captain Eddarly. Seeing us in the act would get his blood boiling even faster than a damsel in distress.

But with what we have to work with, I'd say a couple of bugbears and undead teaming up to rob, rape and muder a couple of women and an innocent child should be enough to bring the goody goodies to us. For the victims, simple peasant garb should suit us. Being hot won't hurt. I suspect most knights fancy a roll in the hay with a grateful, hot and widowed maiden of low enough status no one will care. And let's make it look like we're headed to town rather than away from it. Our farm was attacked and we are heading to Balentyne for protection. Pull a wheel off the cart, maybe put an illusion of a dead farmer on top of one of the pits with a bugbear's axe sticking out of his skull. Forsythe, Neji and I will cower and scream. The works. We shouldn't have to use our story, but good to have one in advance in case we do.

I'd say once the fight begins and our cover is blown, those of us acting as victims should shift into bugbear forms (a goblin for little Neji). It will take a seconds concentration to shift forms, but in case one or more of them gets away, we don't want them to ID us or think that there are treacherous humans teaming up with bugbears in the area. Bugbears have a reputation for being crafy and devious predators, so an ambush like this would be right up their alley. Plus a couple of bugbear casters should scare the crap out of the townsfolk and they may send out more patrols to track them down.

If none of them manage to get away, all the better. We can rest and recover, then limp back into town in our original disguises, saying we were attacked on the road and our goods were lost. We'll need to stay in the inn to recover our strength of course, and wait for the roads to be made safe again before we journey on. That way we won't have to adopt a new set of disguises and pretend to be different people.

Tempy is very bossy, but those are just suggestions. I'm happy to adopt corrections/alternatives even if I may bicker in character.

I setup position Z to represent my suggestion and moved the cart/party around to represent what I'm thinking b/c that's easier than trying to describe it more.

Operation Z looks good to me and is far better planned than most plays I've seen, but I abhor plays and often end up roasting the theater, so who am I to critique. As for size, I know I have been in this pit all day, but I'm my suit makes be quite a bit taller. I'm afraid I'll be playing the roll of voluptuous farm tramp, scared out of her wits with the attacking skeleton and wild beast (Loran's Eidolon), why conjure beasts when already have candidates at the ready?

Sounds good to me. Before I prepare extracts for today, should i make us all some healing extracts for after the battle? or would any of you like to summon a fiendish pony to do your bidding? I think I'll be in bugbear disguise from the start.

I can certainly summon you a pony, or eight if you need, but I fear they will only remain on this plane for a minute each. They are very busy ponies and have pressing meetings to attend

I'll be in dwarf disguise. As close to one of the dwarf laborers as I can remember.

Why not, in case someone flees? Could be useful to have them think dwarves and bugbears are working together. At the least they will be confused.

I have prepared only two curative magics, so I believe some healing extracts would be quite useful.

Outside of that, I will try to bring down their strongest fighters with enchantments. If I cannot, I will revert channeling the Dark One's wrath against them.

I tuck my ears under my bandana and adjust my too-tight-for-my-body Dilettante's outfit to look bloodied and ravaged in just the right areas to tug at the hearts of old men and crotch's of the young. I give myself Mage Armor and offer it to any who can use it, then ready my scroll of Eagle's Splendor, prior to casting ponies.

When it is go time I use my scroll, spend a standard to summon a dire pony and assume the role of the recently attacked.

Disguise: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (10) + 5 = 15.
I'm guessing it shouldn't be too hard of a DC to look like a farm/merchant tramp. After all, the disguise is more so hiding the Eidolon runes and claws. I can't remember if you ruled if the circlet of disguise worked on the suit or not, but I am guessing no. If so, add the modifiers to my roll above.

Sexy Damsel in Distress: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (18) + 8 = 26
Screaming, being irrational, scared out of my wits. If only a pack of men on horses would come save me

oh i thought you took me up on the scroll for potion offer. i scribe your scroll, and made a potion of eagle's splendor for you. if not its fine i'll scratch it off.

I have time over the two days to quickly brew two cure light wounds potions. I'll keep them as backups.

ash hands out 2 extracts of cure light wounds. Neji, Temperance, keeping one and the potions for himself.

Sorry, i can't brew an inflict extract. But you can heal yourself and Loran.

I figure once they come into view i'll drink my Speed drugs, quaff some Invisibility brew, and get into position to summon a poke-... uh. a Nightmare Pony. Breath fire on a few if i can get them in position, and backstab who i can. I'll try and move around a lot and help Leo in combat.

Nevermind, maybe i won't prepare to breath fire, False Life will be more useful. will drink it when we hear them coming, lasts 4 hours. false life temp hp: 1d10 + 4 ⇒ (5) + 4 = 9

So everyone likes Z in liu of A or B? I heard compliments to the plan. Ash and Leo are indifferent about it.

The afternoon on the 2nd day you are able to see the riders coming a bit of a way off, down the shore. Leo and Ash look like Bugbears, Neji is disguised as a tousled villager. Forsythe looks like a dwarven engineer. Loran and Victor disguised. You trigger your plans that'll last a few minutes.

• Leo uses Alter Self to gain +2 str and really become a Bugbear.
  
• Ash drinks Expeditious retreat and his Strength mutagen.
  
• Temperance casts Silent Image over the rushed pit covers, including a dead villager's body over one of the pits (the red X i guess), some FX, etc.
  
• Neji plays out her screaming damsel routine.
  
• Grizzbit feigns attacking
  
• Spawn feigns attacking
  

The patrol appears around the shore, and you see them spot the commotion. Rushing over in your direction. Firing a few arrows as they come. Varning vs. Grizzbit: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (19) + 4 = 231d20 - 1 ⇒ (14) - 1 = 13, Ichi .. Roku 2 vs. Grizzbit, 2 vs. Spawn, 2 vs. Leo : 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (20) - 2 = 181d20 - 2 ⇒ (1) - 2 = -11d20 - 2 ⇒ (12) - 2 = 101d20 - 2 ⇒ (3) - 2 = 11d20 - 2 ⇒ (6) - 2 = 41d20 - 2 ⇒ (13) - 2 = 11

Grizzbit damages: 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (1) + 3 = 41d6 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 2 = 8 Three goes through from two arrows.

I've marked where the riders get to with a double move in this round. I figure you are playing up the distracted attackers this round. R1 is the round following the volley, when I presume you're going to spring your Ambush. Last round ( zero ) you were flat footed. this round you're all not flat footed.

[ r1 ] [19: Ash], [14: Varning], [13: Victor], [12: Forsythe & Grizzbit], [11: Ichi & Ni], [10+: San .. Roku], [10: Leo], [9: Temperance], [8: Loran], [1: Neji] [ /r1 ]

Ash drinks his Invisibility extract. and move east a little. I'll stay behind the pits for now.

Varning brings his horse around, firing on Leo and Spawn.
Men! have at them! Get on those Bugbears and save those people!

Varning vs. Leo: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (14) + 6 = 201d6 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 3 = 9,
Varning vs. Spawn: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 21d6 + 3 ⇒ (1) + 3 = 4;

[ r1 ] [13: Victor], [12: Forsythe & Grizzbit], [11: Ichi & Ni], [10+: San .. Roku], [10: Leo], [9: Temperance], [8: Loran], [1: Neji] [ /r1 ]

[ r2 ] [19: Ash], [14: Varning], ...

His men look like they're going to charge Spawn and Leo

I belive I had that scroll from when we first shopped in town, but I may have mistyped it if you brewed a potion version. Either way I will happily take a healing potion. Thank you.

yah. i saw it on your equip list after i made my offer. i guess i presumed. and made an ass out of myself. =D. if you wanna keep the scroll thats fine, i'll just deduct brewing and scribing costs from my expenses. yay, its like doing a charge back with visa.=D

and neji has time to read her scroll of eagle splendor. if i missed anyone's minute/level that they wanted to do in the descriptor stuff, just sound off.

I assist, Tempy I believe?, with the Message pool prior to the fight. I would assume at this point we always have it up, but thought it was worth mentioning. Did I get a chance to summon a dire pony as requested? If I was not able to do this before the encounter, I will not do so as it would look a little weird now. That would be my only final 1 minute spell action