** spoiler omitted **
Hurgah lets out a roar of triumph as the floating assassin burns even further. He turns to Moonpate, a feral grin on his face.
"Come, friend, and help us burn this coward with the flames of vengeance. He will spend his last few seconds regretting he ever crossed Moonpate the Potentate and Hurgah the Reaver!"
"Indeed!"
Witnessing the awesome explosion and the appropriately fried villain in obvious distress, Moonpate conjures an arcane bow and with a final syllable of power unleashes a sickly green arrow aimed to end the assassin's life for good.
Acid Arrow ranged touch attack:
-----
With a savage hiss, the emerald arrow knifes into the floating assassin, knocking him off balance and into an awkward spinning cartwheel.
-----With a savage hiss, the emerald arrow knifes into the floating assassin, knocking him off balance and into an awkward spinning cartwheel.
First round acid damage:
Second round damage:DC17 Spellcraft check:
Spellcraft
It's Donkor then Sceptre to finish the round.
-
Donkor’s pupils disappear as his eyes become twin pools of white. He stares into space, casting his vision into places beyond the ability of normal mortals.
He quickly rattles off his findings:
“Suekahn is there. Two corpses. Four more of Khymrasa’s guardsmen still alive. Two are trying to flee, two stand against him. The giant doors to the chamber with changing scenery, they have been flung open wide.”
Ah. Sorry. I plum forgot I was controlling that guy.
No worries! I still enjoy toss'n the Donk around.
But my Sceptre post seems to have vanished. Rather than blame the boards, this time I'm going to have to accept that the more likely scenario is that in my sleep deprived state I hit "preview" instead of "Submit post".
Under bombardment from below, Sceptre begins casting frantically while spinning in the air.
Concentration check for Sceptre versus continuous acid arrow damage, DC 13: (“success”)
“Yarrrrrrrrgh!” escapes from Sceptre's lips as he summons the mental will to ignore the burn and focus on the critical task at hand.
"POP!" All of a sudden the sniper vanishes from the tunnel, making his escape.
Hurgah, Moonpate and Halstadt all saw Sceptre casting, however. They might, in theory, at least be able to identify his spell choice.
It’s vanish! Sceptre’s still in the tube!
Initiative for Round 3
.
.
.
Xaven - 21 (but with the helpless condition)
Hrokon the Assailant (and friends) - 9
Lydia (Mithral Scarab) - 8
Gandel - 7+
Breach - 7-
Karek - 7-
Suekahn - 9-
The Reaving Pharaoh (with his last round of shield and enlarge) - 1
Halstadt 'Cricket' Morgrym - 1
Moonpate the Potentate - 1
Donkor - 1-
Sceptre - 0 (suffering continuous acid arrow damage)
On delay: Xerissa Auraraun
Jail Break
Breach and Xerissa take note as the strange pale tracings of lines that are slowly flowing along the floor ahead of them finally reaches the chamber beneath the tunnel shaft, the spot where 'Team Polymorph' is located.
But the bizarre phenom sliding along the floor – whatever it is – is not after Team Polymorph. It’s target is Xaven.
The strange collection of eldritch lines glide underneath the halfling, aligning him at its center.
“That away girl!” cries Xaven as he rolls over on to his front. “Now you gotta do it! Go ahead!”
The glowing spectre on the floor coalesces into some kind of alien rune, a circle of glowing lines and patterns glittering along the floor. It begins to emit a menacing throb of light and sound.
“No, you gotta do it! Do it hard.” The halfing cries as he grits his teeth, thrusting his bound hands in front of him “Don’t worry bout me – just let her rip!”
The glyph explodes! A geyser of firelight and manic energy cascades in a tight radius around the halfing.
Xaven is suddenly free.
Though with Breach, Lydia, Donkor, Karek and Gandel almost upon him, that might be a matter of perspective.
-
A fair point! And yeah, that was a pretty easy check for Sceptre. I was surprised by that.But technically, Sceptre was not casting at the time of the fireball or the burning disarm. We only count damage at the time of actual casting, otherwise spellcasters would almost never get their spells off.
To work, you need to use a readied action to interrupt the actual casting, or some other special move like an attack of opportunity. Another interesting exception that doesn’t come up too often, in my book at least, is continuous damage (such as from Moonpate’s acid arrow)
However, continuous damage only counts as ‘half’ for the purpose of Concentration checks, so Moonpate’s 5 points of damage only increased Sceptre’s concentration check by 2 points (base 10 + 1/2 continuous damage + spell level)
Tangent: If you really want to nail a spellcaster and disrupt his spell, I recommend taking readied actions that are set to go off ‘if-and-when’ your opponent tries to cast. Then you can force the Concentration check. A group I play with does this routinely to great effect whenever they are up against a lone spellcaster (especially when playing a bowman). It doesn’t work nearly as well when the spellcaster has bodyguards who can punish the party if too many of its members are standing around doing nothing while they wait for someone to start casting a spell.
After including Xaven's most recent injury:
A Leap of Faith
Just as things could not get any more bizarre, a stone sarcophagus lid comes crashing down the shaft like a missile. While it lands close to Hurgah, it is not close enough that he is in any serious jeopardy.
("fails")
("fails")
Hrokon fails to hold on. With minimal grace he tumbles down the shaft, picking up more and more speed. An obscure orcish cuss-word echoes throughout the tube.
(“applies”)
There is then a second crash as the big man plows into the stone floor. For a second he remains still, but then slowly raises his head. A pained expression across his toothy face betrays the sheer number of cracked ribs in his body.
"Watch out!" Lydia cries as she hits the deck in the wake of the explosion underneath Xaven. The blast radius just misses her (and Breach and Donkor) by just a few feet. "It's some kind of moving glyph of warding!"
Then she scrambles to her feet.
Gandel will shout out to Hurgah, Pate and Hal, "The halfling is free!"
Gandel will shout out to Hurgah, Pate and Hal, "The halfling is free!"
-
"That's slanderous, good sir! My services cost far more than you could ever afford!"
"Don't hurt him! He's part of us! He was the only one caught in the blast but you could still feel it." Seeing the half-orc land with a thud, "Ha! Hurts' don't it, big fella?" he asks rhetorically. "Okay, just to be clear, that one," he points to Hrokon with his axe, "isn't part of us, is he?" He raises a questioning eyebrow awaiting confirmation, ignorant of how all this magic seems to be working.
Karek double moves so that he's in the epicenter of the action. If possible, he moves to be able to threaten Xaven and Hrokon with his freshly-drawn Earthbreaker.
"Don't strike the Half-Orc, he's on our side!"
"Ugh! This is getting confusing. What side are we on?!"
"Okay, just to be clear, that one," he points to Hrokon with his axe, "isn't part of us, is he?" He raises a questioning eyebrow awaiting confirmation, ignorant of how all this magic seems to be working.
-
"No, he's not part of what ever is connecting us.""But is he our ally?"
Karek double moves so that he's in the epicenter of the action. If possible, he moves to be able to threaten Xaven and Hrokon with his freshly-drawn Earthbreaker.
-
With that double move Karek can get front and center (in the firefly room to the south with Team Polymorph), but he can only position himself to threaten Xaven or Hrokon, they are about 20 feet away from each other--Karek will have to choose.
"The Half-orc's on our side too?! So... who the blazes are we fightin'?!"
"Beards and I," the halfling says, answering Breach as he motions to Halstadt, "were thinking we'd play gang-up on the teleporting fiend and then sort out the rest later - ain't that right Beards?"
"Hrokon, you just simmer and keep your butt down. The Dune Squad and I are 'besties' now and they're even twitchier than you."
Then he adds in a quieter voice:
"Though we mght have to cut Sceptre loose - he can't seem to get with the program."
“The feeling of Déjà vu has never been stronger." says Donkor shaking his head. "I warn you all again, this did not end well for my former colleagues in the Veinstone pyramid.”
"But that was totally different! Back then my team was totally trying to screw you over."
Hrokon, for the moment, appears silent - looking every bit as confused as Breach and Xerissa.
Perception
"Best listen to your little buddy, hot shot. Despite the little incident with the poisoned crossbow bolt, the pair of you have not managed to place yourselves quite as high on my personal s!&$ list as Sceptre and that Hell-spawned reptile-face. See that you keep it that way, and we'll see where the chips land once those two have been sufficiently dealt with. Hurgah growls to the fallen half-orc, while peering intently up the tube.
Hal will swap out Comprehend Languages for Cure Light Wounds on Hroken.
"Suekhan must not be allowed to claim any more victims so we are allies for now".
Cure Light
Karek gets next to Xaven.
Moonpate will move just outside of the shaft diameter and begin casting Summon III.
If I have it right, it sounds like Breach is going to delay (jump in and correct me if I've taken a liberty javelle).
Karek then ends his turn adjacent to Xaven.
Which takes us to you-know-who.
(You don't? Oh, Suekahn then.)
"Hey, hey there Muscles!"
"You're standing on an exploding glyph - you mind?"
The halfling makes a motion with his hands as if to usher Karek to take several steps back.
The noise of combat continues to echo down the shaft, punctuated by shrill human screams.
Hal will swap out Comprehend Languages for Cure Light Wounds on Hroken.
(We'll say Hurgah delays for the moment in which case this happens.)
Moonpate will move just outside of the shaft diameter and begin casting Summon III.
-
And then this happens (or starts to happen as it is a 1 round action).And here I was wondering where the menagerie of summoned creatures was this combat. . .
Donkor helps Lydia as she rises to her feet. The two of them join with Breach.
Initiative for Round 4
.
.
.
Xaven - 21
Hrokon the Assailant (and friends) - 9
Lydia (Mithral Scarab) - 8
Gandel - 7+
Breach - 7-
Karek - 7-
Suekahn - 9-
The Reaving Pharaoh - 1
Halstadt 'Cricket' Morgrym - 1
Moonpate the Potentate (and his latest summons) - 1
Donkor - 1-
Sceptre - 0 (suffering continuous acid arrow damage)
On delay: Xerissa Auraraun
Xaven slowly backs away from Karek and moves next to Hrokon. He tries to act casual, but his caution is obvious. As he moves, the mobile glyph he stands upon slides along the ground underneath him. Once the halfling reaches Hronkon, the two immediately begin to confer. They are trying to keep their voices down, but they are only a half dozen steps away from many ears in what has now become a crowded chamber.
"I don't like it Xaven,” begins the half-orc. “We help them, and then they’re just going to gang-bang us afterwards. They’re an army. I haven’t forgotten what their death priest is capable of.”
“I remember, I remember, but let me handle this. We’ve all been accidentally connected somehow.” Xaven then does his best to give Hrokon a layman’s description of the partial pact.
Hrokon nods. “Naw, as soon as it ends you’re screwed. Me, probably before that. You heard Mr. Shrinky. These guys mean business. Let’s just get the hell out of here, Okay?”
While the two speak, the half-orc retrieves his fallen tower shield, standing it up so the bottom of the coffin lid rests on the floor. Now that you can see it better, it looks as though the lid has been customized so that it has an arrow slit in its center, with a shutter to open and close.
There's an error in my initiative above, the Mithral Scarab delayed to match Breach's initiative.
Next up is Gandel, then Breach (and Lydia), then Karek.
Hurgah remains alert, intent on guarding Moonpate while he completes his summoning spell.
Stopping inside the threshold of the firefly room, Gandel eyes the glyph with interest.
"Psst! Karek!" the halfling whispers. "I bet he's bluffing. It probably has a cool-down before it can explode again."
Breach stays alert for a bad guy to hit. Not a moment or two later, a look of confusion appears upon his face as the smell of something burnt crosses his path. Sniffing, "Hey, you fellas smell that? Smells like burnt flesh. Who got cooked?" His attention turns toward downstairs. "If it's our demon buddy, I'm guessing he went downstairs, 'cause I heard something that sounded like fryin' flesh headed that way." Breach turns to the others, looking for conformation on his assumption.