Something Wicked This Way Comes (Inactive)

Game Master Fanguar

Ok sounds like a plan. I agree its a little metagamy, but I think that it's better than the alternatives.

@Xanos: Hunting beasts is an organization action. Here's a LINK to the WotW rules. We can use them as written. If the people want to go after something more dangerous or specific, then we will probably do some skill checks or combat rolls, depending on how well the operation is planned out.

@Haruk: I'm kind of leery of having more permanent minions in the party, especially outsiders. I mean there are the current rules for binding devils and finding true names and what have you, which might be ok, but it kind of depends. I think it would be fine if outsiders were part of you minions, if level appropriate.

Let's get going.

So the flow of actions will be:
1. PCs give plan for the week X.
2. DM presents complications (if any).
3. Resolve complications.
4. Resolve PCs actions (crafting, organization actions, etc).
5. PCs give plan for the week X+1.
6. Repeat

In the gameplay thread, please post what your PC is going to do for the first week. If you don't have any particular action, feel free to just provide some general RP. Please remember that there are 3 blessings that need to be given each day (every 8 hours). If any are missed, then the ritual fails and must be started again. Travelling between the Horn and Farholde takes a day.

So if I understand the rules right, our evil organization starts off with stat points equal to our collective positive charisma modifiers, which is 12:
Albrekt (Cha 15): 2
Haruk (Cha 20): 5
Molasbar (Cha 10): 0
Rose (Cha 14): 2
Sariana (Cha 8): 0
Xanos (Cha 16): 3

They can be distributed amongst the following stats:
Ruthlessness
Secrecy
Survivability
Connections
Espionage
Loyalty
Max starting score is 4. Scores range from -5 to +10. I don't have an opinion yet on how to distribute the scores.

We also get to pool our actions. I've used the table to translate our stats (Cha + level) into actions, total is 38. That seems really high, am I misunderstanding something?
Albrekt: 7
Haruk: 10
Molasbar: 4
Rose: 6
Sariana: 3
Xanos: 8

Ok, so we can do +2, +2, and then 4 +1s. 2+2+4=8

I'll do Connections +2, Ruthless+1, Loyalty+1 and Espionage+1

Xanos, if you want, can then do Secrecy+2, and Suitability+1.

These are our evil organization stats, as I do not believe any other PCs took leadership, other than Xanos and I.

So if I understand the rules right, our evil organization starts off with stat points equal to our collective positive charisma modifiers, which is 12:

Albrekt (Cha 15): 2
Haruk (Cha 20): 5
Molasbar (Cha 10): 0
Rose (Cha 14): 2
Sariana (Cha 8): 0
Xanos (Cha 16): 3

They can be distributed amongst the following stats:
Ruthlessness
Secrecy
Survivability
Connections
Espionage
Loyalty
Max starting score is 4. Scores range from -5 to +10. I don't have an opinion yet on how to distribute the scores.

We also get to pool our actions. I've used the table to translate our stats (Cha + level) into actions, total is 38. That seems really high, am I misunderstanding something?
Albrekt: 7
Haruk: 10
Molasbar: 4
Rose: 6
Sariana: 3
Xanos: 8

Rose, officially, you need to take leadership in order to contribute to the evil organization(stats and actions).

Unsure if Fang is sticking to this requirement or not.

Either way, you did make one mistake: Actions are based on level + Cha modifier not your Cha score.

Meaning Xanos and I have 1 action per week.

Okay, thanks for clarifying all of that. Seems much more reasonable. Though now I really wish I would have taken Leadership. I'd really like to make an organization of corrupted Mitran sisters.

Is the blessing just "pour unholy water over the seal" or is there more to it? Is it something that an undead minion or a severed hand could do? (does it require speaking?) Could Hex or Vex do it?

Okay, thanks for clarifying all of that. Seems much more reasonable. Though now I really wish I would have taken Leadership. I'd really like to make an organization of corrupted Mitran sisters.

Retraining is an option. We have quite a bit of downtime coming up.

Or, you could just wait until 9th level.

Haruk wrote:

Ok, so we can do +2, +2, and then 4 +1s. 2+2+4=8

I'll do Connections +2, Ruthless+1, Loyalty+1 and Espionage+1

Xanos, if you want, can then do Secrecy+2, and Suitability+1.

These are our evil organization stats, as I do not believe any other PCs took leadership, other than Xanos and I.

As mentioned, Xanos has basically put Haruk in charge of the organization. Xanos is already managing about 25 undead minions. That's enough for me as a player.

Thanks for taking care of the bookkeeping on this, Haruk.

I actually enjoy this aspect of gaming, as Doomed Hero/Xanos knows from our time together in Agents of the Darklands.

Hey Fang, need an important GM call:

Officially, our minions/cohorts are the ones who carry out organization actions.

Cohorts can add their relevant modifier for whichever action they are assisting with, but are unavailable for that week. If the action lost Survivability, the cohort needs to make a Fort save vs the DC of the action or die.

However, it seems like several of the PCs might want to aid the actions.

Is that possible? And if so, should they work the same way as a cohort?

Xanos Week 1 looks like this-

As a reminder, between Xanos and his hand-familiar, he crafts at a rate of 4k per day. I'm rounding a bit on the time values listed below, and not bothering to roll craft checks on anything with a low enough DC that I can Take 10 on.

Farglass- 1 day, 3.7k (party item, for scouting)

Circlet of Speaking, 1 day, 2.4k (party item. This will allow Haruk to use Diplomacy to adjust the disposition of captured animals rather than Handle Animal)

Headband of Int +4, 8k, 2 days (for Xanos, because it's about damn time he got one. That eats up most of my remaining cash.

In my off-time I'm going to use the "working weekends" Downtime rule to make some spare change. make a Craft check. Divide by 1/2. That's how much money you earn that week via crafting.

Craft: Alchemy, Crafter's Fortune, Aid Another: 1d20 + 22 + 5 + 2 ⇒ (2) + 22 + 5 + 2 = 31 15.5 GP.

Xanos,

Is there any way you can combo that circlet with Haruk's headband of Cha? Otherwise, in order to make use of it, I'm going to have to switch tween items, dropping down to an 18 Cha.

Also, depending on Fang's answers, and if Rose wants to retrain leadership, and whether or not any of the PCs can and are willing to help with org actions will determine what Haruk does during the week one down time.

Finally, assuming we only have the 2 actions, do we want them to both be 'capture animals'? Otherwise, I have a few ideas in mind myself.

Other stuff Xanos is doing this week-

Animating the dead Treant and controlling it with a Command Undead Spell. GM, was the Treant standard, or did it have extra HD or templates?

Having the Vamps collect poison from the pool in the caverns, and applying it to Boggard crossbow bolts.

Trying to figure out if the nasty halucination drug the Boggard Shaman takes (the one that Rose tried) can be applied to weaponry. (GM? How is the drug dosed?)

Selling the spellbook I've been carrying around (since I've now learned everything in it). This will require someone to take a trip to town. Adds 1485 back into the party funds

Xanos, Is there any way you can combo that circlet with Haruk's headband of Cha? Otherwise, in order to make use of it, I'm going to have to switch tween items, dropping down to an 18 Cha.

Yeah, no problem.

Basically, you want a Charisma Headband with an added Hat of Disguise effect.

So, we figure out the base cost of both. 8k and 900. Then we add 1.5x the lower cost to the higher cost.

So, since you already have the charisma headband, adding the Disguise effect to it would cost you 1,350 gp.

Alternative option, pending GM approval- Since you actually have both items, Xanos could combine them into one item for half the cost of the cheaper item. So, it would take 450 GP to turn them into one item. There's no actual rules for this, but the math is the same as if we added the disguise effect to the headband and then sold the circlet.

assuming we only have the 2 actions, do we want them to both be 'capture animals'? Otherwise, I have a few ideas in mind myself.

I know I want mine to be Capture Animals. You can do whatever you like with yours.

Xanos' new Int headband gives him ranks in Handle Animal and Diplomacy, so I'll be able to do some of the training.

Can any of us or our minions cast Charm Animal? Is there an ranger or druid in our ranks?

GM, I need a clarification-

The larder on the first floor is enchanted, so nothing in it goes bad or rots.

Since the Minotaur that was killed in that room is perfectly preserved, could Rose bring it back to life with Breath of Life?

I had meant the Circlet of Speaking, unless that's not actually solely for me? You can wear a hat(head) and headband(headband) together.

Oh, I see where the confusion is. The circlet of speaking isn't something we wear. It's something the animal wears. It lets them talk.

If the rituals are simple then Sari can do them, all this downtime basically translates for her to a lot of practise time and little else unless she gets a hellhound pack.

Sorry I don't have much to contribute here - I've never played WotW before and Sari definitely wasn't built with this sort of stuff in mind... now if I retrained to Vampire Warrior Poet... then she'd be more useful!

Maybe Sari could do some scouting? With her super high stealth and perception, and the fact that she can deal huge amounts of Non-Lethal damage, she could be very good at finding good guard critters and bringing them back.

Now that she can do! :)

Rose Silversting wrote:

Okay, thanks for clarifying all of that. Seems much more reasonable. Though now I really wish I would have taken Leadership. I'd really like to make an organization of corrupted Mitran sisters.

Retraining is an option. We have quite a bit of downtime coming up.

Or, you could just wait until 9th level.

Yes, I'd like to either just swap my 7th level feat or, if necessary, spend a week retraining (aka recruiting my first minions). I see now that this part of the book was designed for the Leadership feat. And I guess I need a Headband of Charisma +2 to actually take actions.

If you have the cash for supplies I can whip out a headband for you on day 5 of this week. I left some days unfilled so the party could make requests.

Only 970.4 gp on hand. But is there some sort of group fund also?

Should be. I just spent a chunk of it, but we should still have more. Our treasury is pretty well stocked right now.

Molsabar, you were tracking the loot sheet and party resources, right?

Counting the coinage that we found in the treasure room, that is 45,500 gp in value for us. That works out to 6,500 gp for each PC, and 6,500 gp to the renovations budget.

I did the division of the stuff we found in the Horn. Albreckt was tracking what you had prior to Rose and I coming on board.

How much money should we each have right now? I've got 4k of items and 4k of wealth (and there should be a wand of silence somewhere). Is that right or not?

Wow - you lot been chatty. A guy takes a nap in his coffin for a day or two and misses all the fun lol.

@Kleine Schwester: Believe we all have 6500GP or thereabouts available. Albrέkt has 6.3k to spend.

Like my fellow vamp I can also conduct the rituals as there's nothing overly requiring his blunt force talents at present (unless anyone has any specific tasks for him).

He'll also put himself front and centre for any liaising with the 7th Knot and trips to Farholde. Opportunity to bait them and feed on the smorgasbord of citizens would be too tempting.

In addition to any guardian harvesting Sariana is undertaking, the vamps need to also stock their larder - Boggard ichor is so passe nowadays!

Whew, lots of stuff to parse here, I’ll try to address them in order.

RE: Contributing to organization without leadership: Going to say no, since the organization is basically the replacement for the minions gained from leadership.

Re: Retraining feats to take leadership: Yes you may do this.

Re: Who needs to do the ritual: It does require speaking

Re: PC’s serving as cohorts for organization actions: This is fine, but this would prevent the PC from being able to contribute to dealing with any complications/combats that arise during the week they are performing the organization action.

RE:Treant: It was a standard 12hd treant

Re: Hallucination Drug: It’s an ingested poison.

Re: Fish Poison: The fish could be all harvested for twenty doses of the poison immediately or this pool could be harvested sustainably for four doses of poison a month.

Re: Combining the headband items: Going to say no to combining magic items.

Re: Breath of life on the minotaur: It doesn’t work. It’s not a time stopping effect in the room.

Dealing with the 7th knot: I can’t remember, but did the party ever set up how the other knot was going to be able to communicate with you? I know that you intentionally have kept them away from the horn. It really hasn’t mattered up until this point, but as they are your eyes and ears in Farholde, now I do need to know how long it takes for you to get their dispatches.

That poison is surprisingly good. I think harvesting 4 doses a month is the way to go.

How long have we been here? Can we assume we've been harvesting it, or do we have to start now?

I think the party been in the horn for like two weeks game time or thereabouts.

I imagine that you've been harvesting it since you've been here.

Waiting to see what Rose decides about Leadership before I post, as her decision will affect what I'm able to do.

Also, are the Vamp crew okay with helping on some of the weekly missions??

Hey, thanks GM Fang! Rose will retrain to take the Leadership feat, and will use the 2k in available gold to have a Headband of Charisma +2 crafted, which it appears can happen on Day 5. Can Haruk account for that expenditure?

I believe this means Rose can (1) contribute 3 stat points to the evil organization and (2) take an evil organization action.

The most obvious action to take in my mind is to Hunt Beasts to add to Xanos's collection. Someone tell me if there's something else that should be happening.

I guess this also means I need to have a cohort? Since I have in mind creating a corrupt sisterhood, I'd like a cohort that makes sense for someone who came from the Abbey of Saint Cynthia-Celeste. Anyone know if they are more cleric-like or monk-like?

Haruk wrote:

Ok, so we can do +2, +2, and then 4 +1s. 2+2+4=8

I'll do Connections +2, Ruthless+1, Loyalty+1 and Espionage+1

Xanos, if you want, can then do Secrecy+2, and Suitability+1.

These are our evil organization stats, as I do not believe any other PCs took leadership, other than Xanos and I.

Connections +2, Ruthless+1, Loyalty+1, Espionage+1, Secrecy+2, Survivability +1.

Rose let me know where you want to put your 3 points, keeping in mind nothing can be higher than +4 currently.

My suggestion would be to put at least 1 point into Ruthless, as that's the stat for Hunt Beasts.

Personally, I would like it if you added one to Connections and Secrecy to get them up to +3 and then 1 to Ruthless to get it to +2, but their your points, so do with them as ya will :)

I'm fine with your suggestion, Haruk. Let's go with it.

Also, are the Vamp crew okay with helping on some of the weekly missions??

Absolutely - will get me out of the Haus :)

Sari can help out with weekly missions. Also happy to do the run to town once/twice a week to pick up dead drops from the 7th knot.

Also, what was the eventual decision on Hellhounds? Did we say Haruk was getting them?

Week 1 crafting.

Since Xanos has the lyre covered, Molasbar's schedule will be:

Day 1, corset of delicate moves (1 of 2).
Day 2, corset of delicate moves (2 of 2).
Day 3, headband of vast intellect +2 (1 of 4).
Day 4, headband of vast intellect +2 (2 of 4).
Day 5, headband of vast intellect +2 (3 of 4).
Day 6, headband of vast intellect +2 (4 of 4).
Day 7, cloak of resistance +1 (1 of 1).

At the start of week 2, I'll be finishing the items for Molasbar and can move on to items for Rose, Albreckt and Sariana.

I don't remember who the corset is for, but I want it to be Albrekt.

Week 1, Haruk directs minions

Hunt beasts, Grumblejack assists:

1d20 + 9 ⇒ (15) + 9 = 24 Success, unless Fang makes it 'nearly impossible'. 1d10 ⇒ 4 1d2 ⇒ 1 constrictor snake.

Hunt beasts, Albrέkt assists:

1d20 + 7 ⇒ (15) + 7 = 22 Success. 1d10 ⇒ 9 giant scorpion.

Built trap, Sari helps:

1d20 + 5 ⇒ (12) + 5 = 17 Probable success? DC 16 is difficult, while 20 is very difficult.

Checking in.

Sorry for the delay, kind of dropped the ball. Thanks for the bump.

Re: Trap building: It depends on the type of trap. It's basically a craft trap roll. Trap rules Though if Sari is building traps, she can't check for dead drops.

I've made a spreadsheet to track the ritual. It's basically a timeline of notable events and reminders of what we need to do. I have the first 20 weeks layed out (it's pretty sparse).

GM, please make any adjustments to the things we've already done that I might not have on the right days.

Molsabar and I can also use this to track crafting progress for projects that take longer than a few days. I've added those columns for our use.

Can anyone think of anything important that I've forgotten?

This sheet, and the Roll20 map, have been added to my alias (as per Haruk's earlier request)

I've added the incoming adventurers and new critters to the Caverns map.

Giant Scorpion is in C11. Reasoning: Int 0 means we can't train it. All we can do is feed it and generally leave it alone. Scorpions aren't aquatic, so the fish should be safe. The other nearby critters are Golgotha and the Nightmare. Even with Int 0 it should be able to tell that they aren't food. If it gets stupid, they'll destroy it.

Constrictor Snake is in C3. Reasoning: Encounters with Constrictors tend to be pretty one sided. Snake grabs someone. The rest of the party bash it to death. To make the most of our snake we need to make sure that it's not able to be easily attacked by the rest of the party once it makes it's grab. Snakes have a Swim speed and are ambush hunters. Haruk can use the new Circlet of Speaking to train the snake to use the water as an ambush point. It should be fairly easy to do once Haruk makes friends with it. If the snake learns to wait until a target is adjacent to the water, then strikes, it will get a whopping +8 AC bonus from the cover provided by the water. On the following round it can Grapple to Move and drag it's prey into the drink. That's about as screwed as someone is liable to get in an encounter with a snake. Later, once it's fully trained and friendly to us, we can move it to C15.

Anyone have any counter arguments?

The action list has 'trap building' as a Connections action. Though, the initial description says 'roll a Connections check to repair a trap' all of the language, including the name of the actual action, uses 'build'.

There's also a separate 'repair traps' action, so I'm guessing the description is just an error.

Sari only adds +1 to the roll, which would be a 16. Still a success for a 'difficult' task. So, it's okay that she doesn't assist.

Let her pick up the drop.

One more quick note. I've added "ninja" markers to all the guards and critters that spend most of their time hiding.

Interestingly, this includes Golgotha. Now that Al's loyal steed has been improved, he has a climb speed and a burrow speed. My suggestion is to have him climb up to the ceiling and burrow in, mostly because I think the idea of an armored zombie horse dropping out of the ceiling onto some poor sap is hilarious.

Fang, would it be possible to ritually call an Accuser Devil for a full day? They are CR 3. I would like to have access to one on the day the adventuring party is to arrive.

Until there's something more interesting to do, I guess it's more monster hunting for me for Week 2.

I would assume with the info of the incoming adventuring party, I don't think we'll be doing those actions during week 2. If we did, any PC/NPCs who assisted would be unavailable for the attack.

Week 2 Crafting.

Day 1, cloak of resistance +2 (1 of 3).
Day 2, cloak of resistance +2 (2 of 3).
Day 3, cloak of resistance +2 (3 of 3).
Day 4, amulet of natural armor +1 (1 of 2).
Day 5, amulet of natural armor +1 (2 of 2).

Day 6 and Day 7 are available for Molasbar to start crafting for others. Rose, Albreckt, Sari and Haruk, can you post what you would like to have crafted (and got supplies for) so Xanos and I can work it into our schedules?