Seraphimpunk's Way of the Wicked

Game Master Seraphimpunk

First off, we have a lot of useful stuff from these two heists. Who wants what? What items look particularly valuable for making our attacks smoother?
Loot doc

As far as planning our attack...I'd like to take the wizard out, but the cleric should be a lot easier. I believe his bedroom was somewhere near our secret door, while I believe the wizard and lord live in the keep.

We could try and scout more, but our disguises have been blown almost every time so I don't think there's much chance of us getting away with any kind of infiltration.

My vote is we try to kill the cleric, making sure he's very dead, and weigh our options then on coming back to try again or just going forward with killing the lord and opening the bridge.

stabilize oil, that'll work even on the dhampyrs right?
someone w/o other healing should have that, in case they need to be sure to save someone.

for ash i'd like to nab the:
potion of sanctuary, oil of erase, potion of ant haul, and potion of hide from animals

for leo i'd like to nab:
a potion of shield of faith (one of the two). a potion of cure light wounds, a potion of endure elements, maybe one of the oils of light just for some odd purpose.

i marked them on the loot sheet.
neither Ash nor Leo can use any of the avail scrolls.

I like taking down the priest. separate and destroy. and if his room is on the ground floor like that , all the better.

and hey. i can cast summon monster II ( just... only for Evil ). gimmie dat scroll. ( yoink )

and reset your stat blocks if they need updating. still 4th level, but getting close to 5th! I'll get started presenting the castle when you guys sneak in later tonight or tomorrow .

Should we shank a few more peasants then?

it wouldn't avail you any

I know, but I just really wanted to type that phrase.

I also vote priest first. Taking down the healer is often the best first move.
I am also nervous we have not sabotaged the porticulous or bridge yet. We really should make that sooner than later. Once this is done we can send the signal. Then we can go after the wizard or any other bosses while a hoard works its way to the town and castle. I would like some degree of this wrapped up by then so we can meet the old Bugbear and show him our secret passage which will allow for a flood of flanking they will not expect.

I'm still looking over the loot list and will reply today, but I think a good portion of these will be awesome for our back line casters for sure.

Definitely priest first.

I'll take one or two of those Mage armor scrolls for Spawn.

I think the only other spell i can use is greater invis

Yea, I can use any of the spells since it was an arcane caster scribing them, and it should give me more options in combat (since I often am not that useful) but want to make sure others have first pick.

scroll of bear's endurance (although this may be better served by Leo)
scroll of cure light wounds (potion preferred, but scroll is fine)
potion of endure elements
scroll of mage armor
scroll of mount (CL 4th)
potion of remove fear
scroll of protection from evil

Would be my shopping list.

So once we split our loot, make a run down the tunnel to grab the priest? Do we remember what time we saw him putting around last time near our secret path? Ideally we grab him while he would be sleeping?

i can't cast bear's endurance. just bull's strength. =P

Neji, you want a potion of cure light wounds?
or cure moderate wounds? i can craft one tonight

Neji, you've seen the priest already?

Yes, let us deprive the priest of his life.

testing... testing...

Yeah, I'll look for the post, but when we attacked the captain, I remember our goat mentioning the priest was wandering around near our secret passageway.

Ash I will take a moderate any day, thank you.

That was an acolyte. Remember, I talked to him? Scared him a little.

Victor does see a man in vestments moving down the hall to a cracked open door, definitely not a soldier or a servant, more likely one of Father Donnagain's Acolytes. If you want to shoot, you can.

Know. Religion: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (18) + 8 = 26 | Bluff: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (3) + 5 = 8
Oh Victor, all these humans look alike to me. Praising this and praising that; like so many hens don't you know. Are you wearing mascara? It appears to be running.
Welllll, much to prepare, spells to memorize, hammers to sharpen. I should go.

Fool!

cool k, so presuming i survive going back to rugby tonight, we'll start killing a priest.

ok.
so the day passes.
a potion is made. people pick what they want from the loot, and you regroup after dark.
its late evening on Oathday, the 5th of Kuthona. You have two weeks until your deadline is past and your mission is considered a failure.

i've moved the game tokens into the dwarven vault beneath the keep.
and i'm going to clean up the map a little. what's the plan? attempt to stealth to the acolyte's quarters? disguise and stealth ? if everyone can check their disguise score is correct on their sheets, i'll grab them and roll your disguises.

any spell requests from forsythe, or i'll just leave them in place.

and what time will you begin attempting this skullduggery?

When: late night as usual. Ideally when the priest or acolyte would be asleep. Do we roughly know their schedule at all in all our conversions/investigations? Know. Local: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (10) + 8 = 18

Stealth: I'm a +8;
Disguise: I'm a +1, +10 for the circlet;

I can't look at spells from work, but can check the Asmodian domain lovin' when I get home tonight, in appox. 3 hours.

I'm +15 with the circlet for disguise and a +3 for stealth

I think we should disguise*, then enter the vault and stealth. We can even use a 4 round silence spell to help us move quickly and quietly to his bedroom. It's about 100 feet + the time to climb up from the vault through the trap door, so we could conceivably get in there and open the door and make the kill before it expires. Then we escape as quietly as possible, if our cover isn't blown then we can go right back through our entrance. I'd prefer to take his body with us if we can.

Tempy's disguise is +13+10 (disguise self)+10(alter self). She will alter and disguise as the priest himself.

My request is silence instead of desecrate.

I would say we start at about midnight.

*For the disguise process, I think our in-character actions should be to: disguise (Tempy auto-aids everyone for a +2), look at each others' disguises to find flaws, then re-do any that anyone notices to be off (repeat until successful). You could just adjudicate this as a bunch of take-10's (which would be 10+2+10+Cha=22+Cha untrained).

Agree on all fronts.

Assuming we snuck Griz's case into the Inn, we should also drag it to the end of the tunnel, just prior to the tower's secret door. If we need him, Fortysythe would have far to go to release him.

2nd—desecrate, ghoul touch [D] (DC 16) Silence, hold person (DC 16), sound burst (DC 16)

1st—bless, cause fear [D] (DC 15), Doom, cure light wounds, cure light wounds, Protection from Good, Shield of Faith, obscuring mist

0 (at will)—detect magic, mending Stabilize or Guidance, purify food and drink (DC 14) Resistance, read magic

I nominate Doom over Cause Fear as we often take on single opponents and a DC15 fear for HD5, is too easily avoided. Second fearing opponents on stealth runs, rarely goes well.

If Griz is not going to be used, swap Desecrate for Murderous Command.

If she does not already have Protection from Good or Shield of Faith in another format (scroll/potion), I would rather she use a CLW wand and cast Prot and Shield. If she does, keep the CLW.

Dump Ghoul's Touch as the area affect isn't so great for friend or foe.
---

To Tempy's offer, my adjudicated Disguise would be: 22 + 5 = 27, otherwise
Rolled Disguise: 1d20 + 1 + 10 + 2 ⇒ (9) + 1 + 10 + 2 = 22 w/ Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (12) + 8 = 20

only prob I don't think we have a CLW wand. her prepared cure lights are backups in case you need healing, since she can only spontaneous into inflict. I swapped the Sound Burst for Silence to aid the party stealth. Ash is fine with it being cast on him, all his magics activate on drinking or pouring. can't swap out ghoul touch or create fear, those are her domain spells ( and she's just got the one domain, Undeath )

no details on their personal schedules have been heard among the rumors. if you had to guess, since they're not nocturnal, he must sleep at night and get up early for morning services in the temple.

heh i may make a little perl script that just auto generates , checks, and rechecks disguises. but it seems that its effectively taking ten to me, and that's simpler. so go for that. ( taking 12 with temp's giving everyone aids )

ah, I thought someone had one...definitely keep the cast-able CLWs then. I was wondering on the domain spells, that makes sense.

Ha! I was thinking the same kind of thing! I was just going to write up a block of rolls to post that you could re-post as needed until everyone had a good disguise (python script or XL file might save time as disguise skill and perception checks change, but requires me to program for a game...bleh). And then I realized that it's going to be pretty damned close to taking 10. So yea, I like that idea.

Anything you want to do before emerging from the dwarven supply room?

drink dex mutagen

hands extract of darkvision to Temperance. we need you able to target things if the lights go out. drink this. it'll give you darkvision for 4 hours.

once we're ready to ascend:
drink extract of expeditious retreat
drink extract of shield

Thank you Ash, this should help.

I drink the extract and cast Mage Armor on myself, otherwise no pre-infiltration buffs.

Mage Armor, Scroll
Shield, Cast
Message, Cast
Summon Fiendish Viper and have her Stealth: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (8) + 15 = 23 in clothes around my arm/ wrist.

Should I have Spawn out already? it takes a full round to summon him with my spell

Might as well, Loran. He can follow a bit behind if you're worried about him being too obvious.

Also, Grizzbit could join.

Yes to both. I have a feeling this Stealth will be over soon :)

I will have Spawn out normally (not summoned from my spell) and will cast Barkskin on him (+2 NA)

gleefully pops the locks on the chest and commands Grizzbit to rise.

I've laid out a path from the hidden vault, to the cleric's quarters. It does involve going through the main barracks though. The main hall typically has guards. And the barracks hold sleeping soldiers. Is the path viable for you guys? My path is in red. discuss.

Well, by the unavoidable looks of it, silence and darkness will be our friend in this case. If we can book it to the priest, kill him, in silence, and get out of at least the barracks before the end of darkness, I think we will have a chance. Does anyone have any crowd control spells like entangle should we need to tie up a large mass o dudes?
What were the rooms 14, 15 and 16 again?

entangle won't work in the stone. Do we have any alchemist fires? after we kill him we could cause a distraction by burning out the barracks... especially if half the doors are locked. we could easily get mixed up in the crowd with the smoke and the disguises and make our way out.

how much more time before the army comes and this place has to be super weakened?

Damn, that is a good idea Loran, but you know, I'm biased when it comes to roasting piggies.

GMGoat: Do we know roughly what we need to do to the bridge and portcullis and where to do it? Were we able to devise a plan based on maps, and the dwarf notebook/plans I read so long ago?

between a skeleton attacking them, Spawn going to town and fire burning everywhere, I think the confusion would be enough for escape.

That is far worse than I thought. No rest for the wicked. We can try silently sneaking through with the lights out. But that's going to look pretty suspicious if any of the soldiers are awake. The room labelled 14, is connected to a room above it, which is labelled 26 on our map. How does that work? Who studied the layout again? What are those rooms?

Actually, how can we get into it 26? Wouldn't that be easier? It looks like there is a door in the courtyard. That seems less likely to be a problem than going through the barracks. A cloud of darkness wouldn't even be that obvious at night outside in the dark. And there may be fewer eyes looking at the courtyard than there are in the barracks.

Yes Neji, I have entangle, but as Loran pointed out, it's not effective inside a stone building. I can drop one in the courtyard though if the battle moves that way.

Loran, the army is waiting for us, we have about 2 weeks before we fail. So we need to move decisively. And I have 3 alchemist's fires. Between us we should have enough to cause some chaos.

Guys, I said crowd control spells like Entangle; I didn't ask if you could cast Entangle. I know it is indoors. I was asking what CC options we had. I wouldn't even get hung up on transmutation. I know we have fear, but that is a messy CC IMO.

Ash and I studied the layout when we stole the drawven plans book.

26 to 14 via F does look like the best option.A Soften Earth and Stone sure would be nice in that case.

i've put some text labels on the map to help out ( i hope )

14: vestiary
15: acolyte's cells
16: shrine
17: father donnagain's cell

I missed the ceiling-floor connection from the choir hall to the vestiary!
yep, that does seem like there's a way around.
26 is the choir hall

to open the bridge of doom, you have to deal with the gatehouse ( areas 18-21 and 25 above on the 2nd level ). no plan for how to do it, the schematics from the dwarves just left you a pretty detailed map of the keep.

you've got 2 weeks before you're f&+*ups. but you're in the "zone" of when you can summon the army with your flares.

I've got plenty of alchemist fire, and i can make for quite a splash when i toss them.
my darkness'll last 4 min, that + silence should get us from the flag room to the choir hall fine.

We should assassinate the Cleric quickly. Later, we can try to burnout the barracks and kill as many of the guards that way as we can. how quickly will the army arrive when we set of the flares? while the army marches on the keep we can take out the wizard in the midst of battle.

That's really helpful, thanks GoatMaster. Can you add a label for the Lord's chambers and the Wizard's chambers? I think they are 47 and 41, respectively, but that's a guess.

once the flares go up you're not sure how long it will take. but it won't be immediate. you'll be on your own.

i'll put up a few more labels

Well, I'm guessing moving an army through woods and river, a horde as it may be, will be slow. More than a few days, less than a couple weeks. I also assume, firing flares will no more than stir up more confusion than alert to a pending attack. If done from the woods, it could be argued, rangers were communicating to each other. Lots of assumptions. In the mean time we can pick away at the host. Going after the Cleric, Wizard and Lord will surly wake the defenders more than our previous actions and may lead to riders sent for help. To avoid that,we should do our best to hide the acts and take bodies with us to best delay immediate reactions by the goodie goodies.

Now, let's go in and get us a holy old man!