It still gives me a chuckle, the outsider and the slave take this round. Then the hired help is the only one with sense enough to capture an enemy to pump for information.
Why are we bothering to help you nobles again? At this rate we can start a mercenary company and be better off. Cut a deal with the attacking house and get a nice fat payday for it. >:)
Smart nobles may want to consider switching sides, it's the drow way. :P
I wonder if Jaraxle is hiring? He appreciates good talent regardless if race...lol.
Honest question, am I the only one with any type of healing magicks?
Natively. As in without wands and no UMD check? Ya. I think so. I don't see the problem. (He says whilst repressing a maniacal giggle)
Good point. Weird with 9 players. Although our investigator can use wands too.
Really? Hmm...i thought about giving Nate UMD but i wanted him to be nonmagical....most if my chars have spells. I was trying to play outside my norm...bad timing.
Or Fantastic timing, depending on your point of view.
If you take a liberal definition of "Healing" Saeras got some too!
Although I must admit Touch Treatment is sorta narrow at this level, but when you approach level 10 it can take care of quite many conditions : P
(Also UMD)
Well we have a fair number of spellcasters so give them wands. At low levels and outside combat infernal healing is better then CLW and it works fine on our vampire blooded friend.
Anyways we can pick up minions or cohorts when we go higher level that can cover that.
Under alchemist it states they can use spell trigger items but not spell completion items (except with umd)...
Btw GM is the one who picked this team...lmao.
Alchemists is my favorite class...
Hey! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
I always peek...lol.
Apologies about my choppy posts today. I am at work using my phone.
Laptop at home is priceless.
Normally I do about 90% of my posting from my phone.
I work as a CNC machinist so i peek at the games inbetween parts cycle times. Some are longer than others which you can tell by my posts lengths.
I do enjoy PbP format. It allows for gaming at work.
Same here. I'm a Sign Language Interpreter and I have assignments at various times of the day. It's never consistent. Therefore my posting happens all over the place.
I was in 5 games but two died.
I wanted to play my mesmerist for this but he was tied up in one of the games that just died last week. Funny it was a drow game too but surprise he is a half orc..lol.
I am glad. I am enjoying the brawler.
I guess I'm lucky - I post from home and since i am an artist, I set my own schedule 90% of the time... My only slow periods are when I go to classes or have a home game or something...
Sucks to have to work at a paying job I guess...
I'm in the electrical field, small company and work is slow so my times a little loopy. Other times things are so slammed I am lucky to get enough time to sleep. But I always find time to post, got to love modern technology.
I work overnights but only sleep like 3 hours a day, and I can totally post at work so.. im pretty lucky too
I am assuming that most of us are Eastern standard time?
Either that or a lot of you are up late!
Btw we might want to find an infernal wand too.
Yep. Eastern and up really late.
Just wondering but can you smack someone under the effects of drow poison awake? I'd like to get some info from our sleeping victim quick if we can.
Pacific time here, but up early AND late.
GMT +1, so it isn't that late just yet :P
Just wondering but can you smack someone under the effects of drow poison awake? I'd like to get some info from our sleeping victim quick if we can.
Best I can think of is a heal check. However, that only gives them a competency bonus on their saving throw. And looking at the poison description, they could be out for a few hours.
@poison - Presented an out for that which might just work; the DC is only 13 so with a +5 his chances should be somewhat good!
@course of action - Hmm. I seem to recall a particular part of drow law which really should guide us in these coming moments. Particularly the part governing house-to-house conflicts. Gimme a moment to see if I can't find it ...
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Found it!
If one House of a city openly wars on another, and fails to eradicate it entirely in a single attack, the survivors of the ruined House can call down the city's justice on the attacking House. When this occurs, all Houses combine forces to wipe out the offending House. Houses who send assassins and saboteurs against each other for years will be forced into an open battle by the cityís ruling council, with the same results as above. This type of no-win scenario allows the internal strife of drow to be strictly controlled, so that drow communities are not torn apart by continual, bloody warfare.
Most internal combat therefore takes the form of eternal manoeuvering for small advantages. Underhanded in-trigue, poisoned knives in dark alleys, vicious trade rivalries, and dirty dealings are all a part of normal drow life.
So the main question is, do our drow society in this little game of ours follow this? If so, focus should really be on making sure they fail to eradicate us in a single attack (and what would a complete eradication be?). Then we can simply point the long arm of the law at their house and plunder it for all its riches ... :D
Those books were a really good read. I may need to dig them back up. Well done, Saeras.
Yes, this law is strictly enforced. "Complete annihilation" means all nobles of the house are dead. Only nobles have the ability to accuse other nobles of anything, so if nobody saw it happen and no nobles remain to bring a charge, no crime was committed.
However, wealth gained from enacting this law doesn't go to the accusing house. It is forfeit to the city and is used to boost funding to the three schools.
What you meant to say was "wealth they didn't see me stuffing in my pockets ~//~ is forfeit" - right?
:P
Also consider antitoxin administered!
If it follows the forgotten realms setting for the most part.
To completely eradicate a house. You must kill all nobles of that house's main family down to the last child. Nobles that are distinct enough from the core family may or may not be offered to switch sides, taking on new names and a much lower position in the rival house. Commoners tend to be given the choice to switch sides and absorbed by the rival house and slaves as always are seen as property and claimed as such, they are simply changing masters.
Also time is a factor, if a surviving noble waits to long to charge the offending house in front of the council. The council may ignore it, kill the accuser to settle the matter, absorb the surviving noble into a house of their choosing, or do something else entirely.
As things stand we have the matron and one of her heirs alive. Along with a few nobles. We could easily accuse the rival house and watch the council take care of things if we escape. The council will divide up everything from the fallen house as they deem fit. House Kewadin will see a good bulk of the rivals assets to offset their loss but every house will get something for playing their part.
Depending on things House Kewadin may drop in rank regardless. If their losses are greater then their gains when all is said and done.
That's just my take, the DM may veer off the setting.
Edit- I got ninja'ed repeatedly but I don't care. Stand by what I said. :P
Sounds complicated...lol.
Good thing i just need to stay alive from all others that exist around here.
No trades!
And I somehow completely missed Saeras' post in the gameplay thread. This is what I get for trying to read on mobile.
Honest question, am I the only one with any type of healing magicks?
I do have healing spells on my formula list. I just didn't take any of them for... some reason... :U (That will definitely be something for next level!)
Hey! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
Now that I think about it... You did turn down my vitalist suggestion. It's almost like you don't want us to be able to heal. *squints*
All caught up! Sorry, it took so long, had an eye exam earlier(hoping to finally get LASIK surgery!) and have just been taking it easy since. I'm off to work my first ever GenCon tomorrow, so my posting will be spotty. Please bot me as needed!
GM, how far down actually is it to the cavern floor below us? I assume it would be much too far to shimmy down a rope or something but am just curious to get a better picture of what we're looking at.
Hmm I was thinking more or Saeras softening up our captive for the nobles to question; mostly because I'll be out all day today :P
But otherwise I'll start pumping him once I get back : )
@Vantrag you will need infusion discovery to pass out any extracts but you can use a wand. Nate has one if you could?
Nice rping everyone. I was smiling as i was reading.
@Gm may we just take 5 on clw wand out of combat?
Just like to point this out, as it has come up before. Intimidate only works on enemies, it won't work on PCs or allies as it effectively makes them enemies upon the end of duration. Also like diplomacy, some people you just can't intimidate anymore then you could negotiate in certain instances.
Personally in my opinion Bluff is the perfect and most nonrestrictive skill to manipulate and handle interactions. You just have to be creative with it and it effects allies and enemies equally. Diplomacy is a close second, only it fails when it hits the morality/code wall that everyone has in some form. You can trick someone into doing something that would get them killed, you can't convince someone to do something that would get them killed for example. At least not anyone with a strong sense of self preservation.
If the DM wants to houserule otherwise, it will of course change things. But I would warn that it's not wise to try and intimidate Vicalan unless your fully prepared to treat him as an enemy.
P.S. Vicalan will take over as best he can for Saeras if the DM post before he gets back. ;)
Agreed. Bluff is very powerful in the right..err...mouth (mesmerist).
Ok, lots of GM questions while I slept. Lets get to it.
I'd like to try and recall anything I'd know about House Vandree's possible enemies and allies that I might be able to guess whom they were fighting before they got here- is there anyone that they particularly dislike whom we're also enemies of?
You recall, with a slight reminder from Phae, that House Vandree is number 17 in the ranking of the houses and makes regular forays to the surface. Much of the surface world's knowledge of the drow comes from them. They are slave traders, weapons dealers, artifact brokers, and generally not nice people, even by drow's standards. Their Matron, Bassvlad, has borne a staggering 34 children, all of whom have died in some fashion save for her current heir who will be attaining the rank of Senior Priestess in Arach-Tinilith soon. They have unusual magical power for a house so "low" in rank, much of which is owed to the surface world "trade".
They are fiercely competetive with House Horlbar, the 12th house. they are known for their long memory as well as their unique rule by two matron mothers. Since the death of one means the death of the other, however, this unusual situation does seem to work (from the outside, at least). They have numerous prosperous farms in the mantle and run regular caravans into the underdark, thus competing with House Vandree for outside trade.As you are thinking, House Elistreev comes to mind. This young house makes much of its money by selling its engineering and construction services, much like your own, but, in addition to skilled slave workers, the house has both drow and duergar engineers (who are either employees or members of the house--not slaves!)
Additionally do I know anything about their particular combat tactics that could affect what our strategy here is, like do they have many spellcasters, or something like that?
They are strongly magical, though their experience with surfacer forces makes them less predictable in their tactics. It is likely that they have blanketed the outside of your entire house in Deeper Darkenss spells to prevent eye witnesses to what is occurring. Additional tactics really depend on what stage of the attack they are in, so it's hard to say anything more.
GM, how far down actually is it to the cavern floor below us? I assume it would be much too far to shimmy down a rope or something but am just curious to get a better picture of what we're looking at.
Height of your stalactite: Approx. 5,000 feet. Only nobles could hope to jump off it and live.
@Gm may we just take 5 on clw wand out of combat?
Sure.
Once home i will properly fix related crunch from wand usage. Anyone may benefit from it as long as our new boss lady approves...lol.
Height of your stalactite: Approx. 5,000 feet. Only nobles could hope to jump off it and live.
Unless you have wings. ;)
Unless you're a special snowflake half-breed abomination, yes. :P
We do have a strange bunch...
Aw you say the sweetest things. :D