Strange Aeons - Solo (Inactive)

Game Master Just a Mort

All right. The private messages are in a mess (they don't notify users) so we should start working out on how you're going to solo Strange Aeons here. If you're interested, that is.

Firstly, you are given Gestalt – the rest of your boat trip is used to unlock your gestalt powers. I would assume you're going to synthesist summoner it. Doesn't really bother me at this point of time.

Yes I know you'll be getting no loot for book 3 – but I don't see it as much of a problem since later you're going to exceed WBL since you'll get all the loot in the AP for yourself.

The story will restart when you're at Cassomir, having dropped Leonard off for treatment and rented a little room to yourself, so you can continue the dreamquests.

If you do synthesist summoner/summmoner of any variety – whenever you come in from real world to dream world, your eidolon won't be present, since your dreamlands for is a reflection of your real world self, and in order to get into dreamlands, you essentially fell asleep. Which dismisses your eidolon.

A few clarifications: Lupine robes will not work for dreamlands rituals – since a clarification with Mark Seifer indicates that any buffs to ritual checks must be able to last the duration of the ritual – and even inspiration use on the ritual would require you to maintain the use of inspiration throughout the entire duration of the ritual(basically it has to be free use).

Words cannot begin to express how up for doing this I am :-)

Thank-you!

You are right, however - I will need some time to do some number crunching.

Apart from going Gestalt, I assume all the original 'PC creation guidelines' still apply?

EDIT: Or is this simply adding Gestalt on top of the existing PC?

Either way, I can work with it :-)

Add gestalt on top of the existing PC. The class restrictions are now removed.

There is no point in continuing the experiment now.

Hmmm... Well, for a Solo, the 'optimum' build for 'tooth and claw' is Ranger/Synthesist, but I will certainly be interested to see how Wizard/Synthesist works ;-)

I'll tweak a few aspects of his build, and get back to you :-)

I've always been partial to Pally/Syn.

Though I did get issues with a certain mind thrusting spamming lich. If I had quis/syn then had I passed those saves I'd have been fine. Again I tie one hand behind my back by insisting no quadpeds, and I need to use manufactured weapons.

You did Wizard/Syn in Carrion Hill anyway.
If nothing else syn lets you ignore your physical stats and gives you a rather large extra pool of hp.

Ah yes, but that was 'low' level ;-)

In an AP, where the monsters tend to be of a couple of flavours, the 'Favoured Enemy' bonus *really* starts to stack up!

Still, there are plenty of buffs that a Wizard can give to help to mitigate the differences...

Question: Is it alright if I spent some of the rest of the boat trip crafting?

I had 16000gp that was earmarked for that exact purpose ;-)

Go ahead. Wait a minute. I do remember everyone had about 13k in WBL (no you do not get the WBL of whatever your party had), then you gave Claude equivalent of a +2 AMOF. That would be about 8k in expenses. Not to mention a Greater Hat of Disguise which would be 6k of crafted value. Where did the other 16k come from?

ATTENTION GAMERS: ... After Raising Claude, and paying for Restorations for him and Seamus, as well as buying •two• new Wands of CLW... ......each PC receives 13,016.73gp

Attention Gamers: ... Each PC receives 1440.81gp as their share of the loot we are selling. ... ———- ... Now, Vincent? Leonard? Which one of you wants to claim the +2 Int Ioun Stone that is the ghost's receptacle?

So yes the value...eh doesn't quite add up to 16k.

Especially since I need to acquire about 1400gp more to be able to afford the next amulet upgrade, and will need to devote a further 20 days to it ;-)

Here

Your amulet is a +2 amulet in terms of cost, which cost you 8k. To get to a +3 would require you 36,000 - 16,000 = 20,000.

Half of that would be 10k(for the purposes of crafting) and you said you were lacking 1.4k gp, so it would mean you only had around 8600 gp according to your calculations. Since Dreamlands has no loot you can convert into Golarion money, where are you getting 16k extra from?

Not quite accurate - Howard never bought anything all campaign (nor did he claim any items), prior to starting crafting, so you need to add up *all* of the loot acquired since the start of the campaign:

1587.06
3577
1526
2887.21
13016.73

= 22594.

It would appear, however, that I had deducted the cost of the Hat (6000), but not the Amulet from that running total (8000).

I'll chalk that error up to the fact that it has been a while, but still, I apologise.

Nevertheless, that means I have 8594gp of material to craft with ;-)

Sure np. I just wanted to make sure the Maths was right(even if doing it ate some thoughts out of my head because it's Maths), since I kinda remember everything everyone says.

That is fair enough, like what you earlier said.

No worries!

My profile is currently in flux (I am part-way through the transition), but I should hopefully have something sorted out in the next 24 hours.

Alright, I have 'upgraded' Howard's profile.

I think he is (more or less) able to cover everything.

I have also tailored the Eidolon Upgrades to enable him to auto-pass the 'Dreamlands Ritual', so we don't need to worry about the chance of failure ;-)

Let me know what you think :-)

(Note: I have included the effects of all 'currently active' spells into Howard's and Claude's 'combat profiles'.)

Thanks for telling me earlier your sheet was still in-flux, because I was seeing all the spells that weren't previously there, then realized you were just using it as annotations.

Also I appreciate the alignment shift to CG. The best I can do as a GM is to forbid you from doing nasty things to NPCs. It'd be beyond my powers to ask you to be nice to them, even though I would rather that happen.

I understand gritty, I understand hard choices, I understand doing nasty things for the "greater good", but honestly the last part pushed me over the edge.

What use does it do in furthering plot engaging in random murder sprees?

Well, Howard was never exactly *evil*, and he has tried to do a number of good things.

I figured that after what happened with the group, and having had a couple of months to think about it, and focus on 'training up' the Voonith to survival in a humanoid world, would be enough of a justification for the alignment shift.

He is still very much a free-wheeling spirit, though - Chaotic to the core ;-)

Claude coming with you to Dreamlands? Or staying in the room?

Eh - just make sure plot is kept moving.

Coming along - We'll see if I need the support.

These guys are extraplanar so amof(extra planar) applies.

*Lawful hat on*

Unfortunately, they aren't outsiders, so it doesn't apply :-/

*Lawful hat off*

True. I screwed up. I think you do need to watch your hp, since the backlash is all to your base hp and not your eidolon. Also shield companion I believe eats into your base hp as well.

*pokes Howard with a claw*

Oh Howard, plot needs to be pushed to move. If you're unsure how to proceed you can always ask me...

Sorry about that - I just finished a week of night shifts, and had dozed off for a couple of hours...

I'm back, now ;-)

What's your schedule like, currently? Are you on dayshift or nightshift or what?

I am working week on / week off - I finished my week on this morning, so my availability is pretty open for the next week (although I will be at a Con Saturday/Sunday) ;-)

On weeks on what's your work schedule like?

I work 12.5 hours from 8pm? There is, however, usually some down time, so I can occasionally check the boards.

Probably when I get back home I will be poe ing though. No 5e since GM just started working.

I'll have a look on the pace, but if my dad is using my home computer I may start either doing hearthstone dailies or prepping book 5.

You can guess why I didn't bother prep book 5 earlier...

Yikes. 12.5 hours is rough. I'm not a night person.

Heh. Neither am I, which is why I had an impromptu nap, earlier ;-)

I would have thought in legal circles, though, that your hours certainly wouldn't have been much better? I know some of the young lawyers that I am acquainted with certainly complain about their hours...

That's why I'm working in a company as in house legal as opposed to a law firm. I like keeping my sanity intact, thanks =)

Keeping your sanity intact?

Are you sure you are running the right AP?

;-)

Maybe not :)

But I don't think there's anything too scary about this. Besides you don't spook easily nor am I the spooky sort of GM.

Well, not yet, at least (not that I am, personally, going to try and cross any lines).

Heh. You are, after all, a big fluffy kitty; how could you possibly be disturbing?

;-)

Paizo do have to walk a fine line; this is (theoretically) supposed to be a fairly family friendly game, after all.

If you want something that can be substantially more disturbing, take a look at Lamentations of the Flame Princess - there is stuff in their adventures that makes me wince (full disclosure: I know about it because I have read some of their Free RPG Day stuff; I have never actually played it, and I am not sure that I would want to).

Actually ROTR book 2 those haunts made me twitch(the arrrrghh we're all gonna die way) but as gore goes, you can make a suit out of human skin (yes, there was human skin leather I think in one of the Baldurs Gates games) and I will just give a yawn.

I think I could run Strange Aeons for kids. It'd just turn out rather Monty Pythonish where the adventurers bravely ran away away.

And when danger reared its ugly head, the brave adventurers turn their tails and fled.

*pokes Howard*

You were human the last time I looked. No I didn't say you were allowed to rebuild your character from scratch. Half elf, really?

Baldur's Gate II - there was a Skin Stealer that you could track down, who had been on a murder spree in one of the districts.

Later on, you could 'pretend' to be him, and craft a 'human skin suit' (which among other things, required the blood of a silver dragon, who was only trying to defend her unborn children).

That was probably the darkest part of the game (that said, I did find the antipaladin's quest line amusing - it included busting into Heaven, and removing his name from the Angels' personal hit list (a giant tome, containing the names of the 'irredeemably evil'), replacing it with someone else).

Despite the (by modern standards) poor graphics, I found that was a game with a lot of replay value (certainly a heck of a lot better than Icewind Dale, which I have only ever bothered to play once).

I screwed up the paladin ascension quest(yes, I played a paladin so I could wield that Uber hax holy sword for spell resistance), since I didn't even know detect evil was a thing. So my first Rpg experience was from computer games and not table top.

Heh.

I played a Rogue (as my primary). That allowed me to 'fake it' and use the Holy Avenger, anyway ;-)

After that, I tried most of the other classes (so I could experience the different 'stronghold' quests), but I will admit to having a fondness for the spellcasters ;-)

If you want to make minor tweaks to what you were previously, fine. But no you may not change race as part of the gestalt package. The strictest interpretation would be that you keep everything the same, just add gestalt. I know you've changed a feat or two but I'm not overly bothered. An entire change of race is a different story.

I always played fighters of some stripe because I couldn't be arsed to rest. Whada pain. Besides do you know how badly things lag on a nub comp when you chain several Isaac's greater missile storm together?

Howard please tweak back race to human. I did not give you a full character rebuild afterall. Also on why I thought that planeshift gets you to Dreamlands.

This is copied from the mod itself:

Seeking clues about the Elder Mythos, *NPC* used plane shift to come to the Dreamlands.

So since the mod said so - who am I to go against what the mod said?

Fair enough.

Specific trumps general (I am guess that the author simply was unaware of the ruling elsewhere). Glad to hear Plane Shift works!

Out of curiosity - what would you have done had the Shantak been killed when the party returns to Dreamlands?

The only thing I can think of(on current spell list) is overland flight on Claude, then he carries people in the bag of holding. Problem is I don't think he can carry everyone because bag of holding has weight limit too. A male human is about 130 lbs at the lightest. So at most you could only put 2 humans in the bag assuming it contained nothing.

The Shantak would be flying 80 miles in total to get to the moon.

This is just an exercise in problem solving of course.

I suppose the other alternative would be to use the Pnakotic manuscript to give teleport, then teleport the party there.

Yep.

Teleport was what I was thinking of.

Failing that, leaving the Dreamlands, going back to the Count's party, and then going out into the city to barter for transport.

Still a pain. Besides there is a distinctive possibility if you murderhobo everyone you might not find out where the took The Yellow King, anyway.

That means technically once past certain part of the Dreamquests, there was no need for the party to even remain on the Sellen Starling - but again why that didn't come up instead of trying to force NPCs to help, I have no idea. You could have ported yourselves to Cassomir, Katheer/ even Absalom, eventually etc.

Mostly, because APs need to be written *assuming* that the party doesn't have access to specific forms of high-level magic... although I agree, the chances of that are pretty minimal.

Heh. I *almost* asked if she had tried bottling laughter, as well, but decided that that might be impolitic ;-)

Also urm...yeah as what the module probably intended, you can't bring Dreamlands loot out into Golarion.