The Masters of Golarion

Game Master tumbler

Just was throwing it out there, Pirate. I thought we'd all hit at once, not necessarily go in for a pincer maneuver. I was only bringing up the bait technique to see how everyone out of character would take to it. If people liked it, I'd have had Jake bring it up. But if the idea doesn't strike you, we don't need to go through with it.

I just realized something. We don't need to use live bait. A Permanent Image would work just as well if not better!

Everyone ready to rock? I think we have a semi-solid strategy worked out.

1) Mira distracts it with bigger, scarier illusions.

2) Casters pelt it with some magic.

3) Melee team moves in, preferably surrounding it.

Seems like a plan. Mira's got a CL of 17, right? I'll adjust Jacob's sheet to account for Greater Heroism. For the moment, I'll have Jake stay a bit further than 300' away. Once we lure that thing closer and get our melee forces to surround it, I'll post in the gameplay thread regarding the Will save and whatnot.

Also, if you're in the google drive file, please join the chat. We can all discuss things very quickly there.

's'all good. My main point really is that for our characters to perform a prescribed set of tactics, we should discuss/go over/determine those tactics in character, in game.

I think the bait idea is worth considering, and as I said before, there are questions I have with it regarding contingencies should things go awry. On the pro-lure side of things, Sir Orrin really is the only dedicated melee character. As such, I can see how unappealing a tactic of outflanking the creature may be.

And of course, Sir Orrin himself has his own objections to a bait/lure tactic, and even though I mentioned those issues already they are still a separate issue that may have made for some interesting discussion and role-play in the game. Indeed, whether I (pirate) think something is good really has little bearing at all to whether Sir Orrin thinks that same thing is good or not. What Sir Orrin does will be based on what discussions we have in the game, influenced - of course - by his personality and background.

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. I am building a post for Katja and taking in to account what everyone has said.

Lots of good info.

I have updated the map with Katja's position. I will have a post up soon. Had an appointment today and I took PTO for half the day. So I get a couple hours of being paid and not doing a thing. :)

Sir Orrin did not suggest splitting up and coming at if from all angles from a great distance. He even states that such would be foolish as it would be non-conducive to powerful short term buffs, and puts us all at risk of the storm, as we only have a 600' radius of calmer winds around Katja to really work with (another reason having Katja as aerial support flying above the Beast is a benefit, to keep us all in her radius of calm more easily while we surround the beast).

My apologies. I miscalculated based on what I thought the caster level was. The true radius is 1000'. All Katja's spell-like abilities are calculated at 25th level. I found this while I was perusing the dragon info the other day.

That's pretty useful. Especially with the time off thing.

It will last for 4+ hours. Quite useful.

If any one is feeling helpful, I'm posting froma cell all week, and can't get an icon on the map easily. Currently I'm a huge giant, keep me close to orrin

Do you happen to have a picture of what you want Val's form to be like? I can put you on the map if you need it.

Well, I am ready to go. I put in an image of badass storm giant for Val, and Mira sent in an army of Sir Orrins to distract the creature.

Hehehe, it's the original Sir Orrin! :D

I approve. ^_^

Okay, I have moved Sir Orrin up. I have also (tentatively) inserted aura templates around Sir Orrin. I could not figure out a way to pin them to him, but it is still possible to move it all as one unite via drag+click and/or ctr+click to select groups of images. (though it seems you can't drag-click while within an aura... you end up moving the aura instead... so ctrl+click to select multiple things within an aura is the way to go)

However, I say tentatively because having them out there has both pros and cons.

PRO: Easy to tell when you are in the radius of one of Sir Orrin's many aura effects.

CON: Lots of clutter on the map (both visually and for ease of selecting things within the aura).

I have moved all the aura layers as far down as possible so it should be easy to place, select, and move your tokens over top of it.

So yeah, for now I'll leave it to see what you all think. If you hate it, or think it would be better to just know that there are auras (and count squares to figure out if you are in it or not), then let me know here and I will remove them.

Oh, and I completely forgot! Just before Sir Orrin started to charge ahead, he would have used his Tactician ability (aka: give everyone tactical advice). If tumbler allows me to use it, we will all gain Coordinated Charge and Coordinated Defense as bonus feats for the next 13 rounds.

Tripped while mounted: I like your proposal for this. Would the ride check be based on the maneuver check of the attack? Being prone in the saddle makes a lot of sense conceptually. It keeps you from threatening, requires a move action to undo.

When this comes up in my games, I base it off the DCs given in the Ride skill. Those DCs also happen to be ridiculously low. DC 5 to stay in the saddle. However, I have no qualms about it being an opposed check... though the only time I can see this coming up is if Sir Orrin fails to trip something by 10 or more points (which by the rules means he gets tripped instead), so there wouldn't be anything to roll against. Perhaps a penalty to the skill check equal to the creatures Strength modifier, or even strength score? I think that makes sense.

I guess maybe we should get in our final arrangements soon.

I am trying to think up a cool yet reasonable surname for Katja before the post limit cuts me off. Can anyone think of naming ideas I might consider?

May not be great, but I had a Silverbrow human character from 3.5 with the surname "Redthatch". How's that sound?

Also, I'm not sure if Sir Orrin's going to come back, is he? Should we start following him?

I think it needs to be something that disguises her true form. How about Silverscale? :D

I think it needs to be something that disguises her true form. How about Silverscale? :D

I like that. I will use it. Katja Silverscale. Has a nice ring to it.

*cannot hear your conversations from so far ahead, especially with the roar of his doppelganger army and the rush of wind through his hair*

*refuses to make a perception check*

^_^

Heh, well, might as well get started. We've been getting ready for over two weeks.

tumbler, I think we are ready to start.

Two questions. One, should we PM tumbler to get his attention just in case?

And two, do you want to roll to overcome SR, GMV? Seems like this thing most likely has it.

It needs to roll to overcome the SR some of us have. Mine is 35.

But chances are that this thing also has SR?

By the way, mine's 24.

The creature has no spell like or spell abilities, only supernatural and extraordinary. So no need for spell resistance checks on my end.

Thought as much. But I remember the Tarrasque and the Spawn of Rovagug pages mentioning SR, so I wanted to remind GMV to roll.

Should we all roll initiative now, or would we have a surprise round at this point? Or both?

Roll initiative over in gameplay.

You guys do need to make spell resistance checks.

I shall do so when initiative is in order and it's my turn. Or is this a surprise round? If I hear that it is, explicitly, I'll make my turn immediately.

It is not a surprise round.

We need to make SR against it when we cast spells, but we don't know it's caster level to make the checks against our SR.

But Tumbler just said that it doesn't have any effects that would be blocked by our SR. So that's really a moot point.

besides the storm of vengeance? Or is Kadji's calm winds alos removing the acid rain, lightning, and hailstones?

Seems to be like that's the case. Least, as far as what Tumbler has led us to believe so far.

I may be wrong, but I thought this storm - while possibly supernatural - was not actually a super-spell. It is not a modified Storm of Vengeance, but is actually the ultra-devastating (natural?) phenomenon that inspired mortal men to create the spell now known as the Storm of Vengeance. As it itself is not actually a spell, but actual winds and lightning and fire, it would not be hindered by spell resistance.

Just my thoughts. *shrugs*

Pirate/Orrin, that is correct. There are still some effects that penetrate the control weather, but they are supernatural, not spells or spell like abilities.

Separate topic: Is there a better way to roll initiative for everyone at the same time? It seems like a waste to go through a whole sequence of posting just to put up initiative and not actually do anything.

Also: If people wouldn't mind putting information that affects my action in a spoiler tag in your post I would love it. So current AC, SR, immunities, or anything like that. It should be easy to copy paste it from post to post.

Seems like a good plan. I'll put up a stat block in my future posts.

Also, we could always roll for initiative in this thread. Or have posts that's just "[ dice=initiative ] 1d20+X[ /dice ]" without getting into detail for the sake of expanding a post. Or both!

Also, I forgot to mention, the effects of Battlemind Link mean that Jacob and Validk both roll Initiative and use the higher roll. Before modifiers.

In this case that means that Validk's Initiative score becomes a whopping... 21! Blackjack! Yeah, usually that spell's initiative effect helps a lot more if there's a larger gap in Initiative rolls, but at least our spell DCs will effectively go up by 2 if we both use spells that would affect it in one round.

Everyone has their own way of doing it. IF speed/efficiency is the concern, I have seen it where the GM will roll everyone's initiatives all at once, so that in the GM's first post that would normally require everyone to roll, the end of the post would look like this:

Then there is the option of requesting everyone post in order, or have everyone post when they can and the GM gives a summary based on everyone's posts and the initiative order, and some have even done group initiatives, where the players all go at the highest character initiative, and the monsters all go at their highest initiative, and the order of events is the order in which posts come in.

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Another thing to consider is creating "macros" at the top of your character profile for things like Initiative and Attack of Opportunity. That would be the actual dice equation written out so that the GM can simply copy-paste it from your character profile into his posts when he needs to. That way, whenever an enemy provokes an AoO, the GM will simply roll your AoO for you and post the results immediately. The counter would then be true as well, where the GM (tumbler) would make a post or put in his (or an alternate) profile the current monster macros, so that whenever one of US do something that would provoke an AoO, we can roll it against ourselves.

It would look (in our profiles) something like this:

Of course, with the (parentheses) replaces with square [brackets].

Not saying we have to do this, but it is an idea in order to focus and speed up the process.

Some GM's will also include things like Monster Saves, AC, CMD, and SR so that we can roll all of those ourselves when we post, and likewise we have all of those in an easy to find place so the GM can roll them for us. However, with how complicated characters of these levels can be, I can understand perhaps not doing this, as there are LOTS of circumstances which will change these numbers based on the type of the attack (changing the value of the bonus, one of us may be immune, etc), and such nuances may not be obvious to anyone but yourself.

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tumbler: may I ask what type the creature actually is? You mentioned that everyone elses knowledge checks were enough to know this, and some of the numeric values of some of my skills/abilities changed depending on the creature type (for example: skill checks, hit and damage rolls, and AC and CMD vs Evil Outsiders).

Seems like a good plan to keep things tidy. I wasn't thinking making any AoOs myself (unless somebody thinks we NEED that 1d6+1 damage), but I can see how the macros could get useful.

I can see how some people might want to roll their own Initiative over letting the GM do it, but I'm fine either way. Speaking of which, I think that only CDL, and Tumbler have to roll Initiative still.

Also, CDL, when I realized you popped some Greater Heroisms to grant immunity to fear effects, I thought of something. Tumbler would need to let us know if we could buy a scroll for it or we could wait until a future level so Validk or Jacob to pick it up, but we could theoretically share that bonus with everybody using Heroic Invocation.

Also, is Mira going to be involved in the actual fighting itself? Should she roll Initiative separately from Nagato?

Don't cohorts fall under the eidolon/familiar/animal companion initiative clause? You know, they go on your turn. Otherwise, characters with fancy mounts would have some really problems.

"I go at the same time as my master and bestest buddy in the whole world, Sir Orrin! Sure I gots smarts, but he's got real experience. I trust him, and everything works better when I go along with what he wants. ...usually."

:D

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Personally, I've done it both ways. Cohorts acting at the same time as their master regardless, and as separate characters as well. Both ways work, but for streamlining combat in order to keep things moving at a decent pace, it's usually best (at least, in online/pbp games, in my experience of course) to have everything controlled by one player go/post at the same time.

Again, in my experience. tumbler will have to have final say, of course.

As for Heroic Invocation, it may be fine for the rest of you, but Sir Orrin and Carolinus would have to respectfully decline. The bonuses it gives are minimal for us (we already have moral bonuses coming out the wazoo), and becoming fatigued at the end of it!? Well, that is a HUGE penalty for a mobile melee character such as Sir Orrin. Crippling, in fact. We (Sir Orrin and Carolinus) will not willingly accept that spell, and will attempt the Will save to resist it if it gets cast on us (assuming we're allowed to by being informed of what the spell does. I'd hope we'd be good enough to each other to explain beneficial magics in full, rather than saying "this is good. Trust me" and then inadvertently screwing one of us over).

Again, it may be great for the rest of you, but not for Sir Orrin and Carolinus. To us, it does more harm than good in most situations.

(and yes, I'm playing around with a second alias/profile for Carolinus. Possibly for non-combat interactions, but mostly for organization. And someone else in paizo-land is already using the name "Carolinus", and it does not allow duplicate names, hence the "companion of SONS" addition).

Well, Fatigued gets swept away by Heal and a few other spells, I believe. Plus, the long spell duration, it's not so terrible. Not like we'll be caught off guard when it runs out.

I didn't know Cohorts shared Initiative, that's good to know for the future. Anyways, I think that the Storm just needs to roll and we'll have us our turn order.

Used my turn for Jake. Hope everything was acceptable. Unfortunately, I was FIVE FEET away from catching the storm within a Waves of Exhaustion spell. Though at least I didn't lose any spells to the Ethereal Plane via Blink. I call that a good go.

I have a funeral to attend this weekend, so I am going to be a little slow posting for an epic battle.

Sorry to hear that, CDL. If you need us to help with anything, let us know.