The Pyramid of Shadows (Inactive)

Game Master 137ben

Well that was an unexpected plan. Let's see where it goes....

Hrmph, a swarm of devil mosquitoes turned out to be a lot more dangerous than I expected.

Yeah, no area attacks for us really. Our wizard is multiclass and these things resistant to low-level AoEs because theyre usually fire.

Yea, I ought to have checked what area effects you had available before deciding to put a swarm in here.
Still, it's far from unbeatable. Yessai almost affected it with her fear shroud (it just made its save). Also, there might be something else in the room that could help....

I tried coming up with a melody for what the harpy just sang, and it sounds awful.

I will be out and busy all day tomorrow, and probably won't be able to post. I will be back Sunday (or possibly really late tomorrow night).

Ah, really sorry about this, but some personal things came up, so for about the next two weeks I won't have access to my laptop or the internet quite as much as normal, so I'll get you to bot me for a while DMB. Sorry for the inconvenience, I will try to post and/or confirm actions you put up.

Okay, real life comes first.

FYI, i'm currently primarily posting from my cell phone, dealing with crappy Hawaii hotel wi-fi (it's like they expect me to go outside or something) for four days until i fly to a different hotel with unknown wi-fi potency for an unknown number of days.

So, while i will be posting, they will be slightly more infrequent and most typically brief.

Copy/pasted to all games.

Okay, Tenro.

Flying tomorrow so may not post.

Okay. Have a safe trip.

So I assigned Hozela's skill ranks when I first introduced her months ago. By shear coincidence, she has a +12 bonus in the one skill you were all lacking, and I didn't even realize it until now....
Well, it's not entirely a coincidence, given that she is a sorcerer and so already had charisma as her highest ability score, and UMD as a class skill.

Nice!

heh, sorry for my quietness - had a couple of busy days at school getting prepped for a couple of exams

Any more these days I'm at a loss as to what to do. Our group doesn't appear to have the combat power necessary to fight our way through, and we seem to be coming up short on the diplomatic end as well. If you all want to try for the temple of madness we can do that, but IIRC that corridor was rigged with teleportation traps. Also there's no guarantee we wouldn't find ourselves facing a combat situation just as bad if not worse than what we're walking away from here.

Comments and advice greatly appreciated.

Just a quick correction: there were teleportation traps in the corridor on the far west, not the one you are in now.

I know what you are capable of combat-wise, and am creating encounters accordingly.

Diplomatically, your characters all seem to want different things from the NPCs, so it sometimes seems like you are hindering each other in negotiations. Plus, bad luck has been a think for you.

Yeah i stay out of diplomacy when i can but if posts are lagging i feel required to do something even if i wouldnt do it as the character.

I do have a general loss of what to do though. Too many factions who each want contradictory things and each task seems insurmountable, even if only in my head.

My intention was for the Pyramid's inter-faction politics to be fairly complicated, so in that sense I sort of succeeded. In some sense it's a little like a micro-version of Sigil, except it is filled with low- and mid- level characters and the name "The Cage" is somewhat more accurate.
I also wanted it to at least seem hard to overcome. Almost everyone who is trapped in the Pyramid tries to escape before (usually) giving up. The pyramid's been around for 300 years, and no one has escaped yet, so it can't be easy.

Maybe I went a bit overboard, though.

At any rate, the fragments of Karavakos do have enemies aside from yourselves, they just don't have the coordination and/or strength to destroy the Karavakos fragments on their own.

Here are my thoughts:

Combat-wise: We don't have a lot of synergy happening - we don't really have a healer or channeler - no great AoE blast power which hinders our ranged capability.

Personally my character is almost non-conversant in ranged combat, and needs to get pretty close to enemy casters to be functional. Moreover, as there are only four of us (five if we count Hozela, six if we count 'Darion's bird ;P) we can't really co-ordinate much in the way of tactical advantage.

Losing Thomas and Midioto has been difficult in terms of capacity and having more characters to push the narrative.

Diplomacy-wise: I see 'Darion and I attemptingthis a lot - conversing with the various entities, and Dee and Gem pipe in or up from time to time. I don't get the sense that we are working at cross purposes, mostly it feels as though we are given the same response wherever we go -

No, I/we won't join you nor help you; and
I/we will only help you/not kill you if you go and destroy x or gain y and bring it to me.

I'm not sure how many different promises/geas/blackmail related quests/bloodfeuds/wild goose chases we are on.

Overall/Musings Interestingly it occurs to me that if we were more powerful, we might try to rub some of these clans/associations out and be more proactive on the whole - right now it seems as if the stalemate of the Pyramid is a status quo we cannot breach. I admit this was what initially drove Yessai to attempt to destroy the blinking demon who was rumored to guard great treasures, in the hope that great treasures equated to powerful magicks/weaponry/an armory of sorts to fast-track our domination with kewl powarz.

Compounding our inabilities has been the concomitant endless attempts at traction, always being sent here or there, then failing to make headway, heading back to the pit of loose change and trying some new gambit. It feels like the more we explore, the more we find out just how inept our characters are, and the Pyramid, rather than growing as a flower, shrinks into a small area in which we can act with any competence.

One thing does feel weird about the Pyramid. Given the timelessness factor, and the lack of need for rest or sleep - beyond that needed for healing and restoring daily abilities - it seems as if we don't use that functionality as much as we could. We can basically rest our way to success - we are not always interrupted by wandering monsters (which I welcome by the way) and can literally bounce back from anything. Except maybe curses. And other permanent conditions.

I'm enjoying our characters, and our interactions with most of the denizens. Mostly it feels like a true dark/gritty fantasy adventure - endlessly frustrating, with death and decay, loss and betrayal at every turn. Kravakoss would be pleased.

And thanks as always to DMB for running this so far...and Gem, "Darion and Dee for still being here...

pretty good synopsis, basically everything i was thinking but didnt know i was thinking it, and put in a better way.

It's a good summary, Y.
I do feel I should point out a couple factoids you missed, though:
--For the most part, in negotiations you have asked other residents of the Pyramid to help you escape the Pyramid, but not really offered them anything in return. While all of the NPCs in the pyramid have goals, very few of them have "escape from the pyramid" as their primary objective. So, it sounds like you are offering them nothing in exchange for help with a very difficult task. That would require difficult diplomacy. You have been consistently rolling low on diplomacy at inopportune times.

--As most of the NPCs are not going to give you substantial aid without you giving them something in return, they ask you for something. You could offer them something else instead, if you thought of something. But since you don't have very much of your own in the Pyramid, most of what you can offer others is aiding them in accomplishing their goals.

--Your negotiations with Garash Vren were at least partially beneficial: you netted an ally in Hozela who you didn't have before.
--The Sahuagin have been helping you even though you haven't done much for them, because they have largely the same goals as you (don't get killed and get out of the Pyramid).

--While I did mean for things to be hard, if you think I've gone overboard, I can ramp down the difficulty if needed.

The problem with trading with the other factions is that for all practical purposes we have squat to trade with. We have the gear our characters brought with us and we have our various assorted skills, but that's it. It's not like we can get control of the local gem mine and then sell/trade gems for other goods and services.

The timelessness factor both helps and hurts. It's hard to figure out just how much time we've spent doing something. And while wandering monsters may not be as common in the pyramid as in other dungeons, nevertheless they do exist. Yes, we can rest, but we don't have a totally secure place to do so and no area we can call our "own". Just about everybody else we meet is rather firmly ensconced in an area that they have taken possession of. We haven't had the strength, and in some cases simply haven't wanted, to force people out of their areas to take one of them for ourselves.

Now, if we had a secure area for ourselves, maybe we could take a significant stretch of downtime and start crafting some stuff. Dee can do alchemy, my character can do scrolls, I'm sure the other characters could do something, or learn to do something as well. Then we could simply detail somebody to hold the fort while we made runs trying to trade stuff. But without that sort of a base we pretty much end up as a wandering crew of under powered mercenaries with not much to offer any other faction.

The problem with trading with the other factions is that for all practical purposes we have squat to trade with. We have the gear our characters brought with us and we have our various assorted skills, but that's it. It's not like we can get control of the local gem mine and then sell/trade gems for other goods and services.

I know. And, while they don't know exactly, many of the NPCs you've encountered at least have a guess that you aren't loaded with valuable artifacts. That's why the bartering chips most of them have asked you for have been services and not goods.

As far as downtime goes, the Sahuagin's chamber is reasonably safe, unless it gets attacked (which has happened at least once, that you know of, while you weren't there.)

Thanks for the pointers DMB. I don' think the difficulty needs attention, we just need to find a chink somewhere...

What, there are Chinese in the pyramid!? :-)

[holds head in hands]

Yanno what? I'm gettimg to the point where I would relish just the odd bit of slaughter. Of cold eladrin guards. But Yessai is calmer, and more patient.

Worse luck.

Hmm, just about to enter exam week and the end of year 12 *excited and terrifed yaaaaay!*, so my posts may be a little slower

For those outside of Australia - these are the final big ultimate high school exams that generate arbitrary scores that may or may not have any bearing on the REST OF YOUR LIFE. Good luck Dee!!!!!!

Good luck De!

Yep, good luck!

Hiya, you probably noticed I haven't posted in like four days. Unfortunately, my posting is going to be getting even more irregular over the next three-ish weeks.
On the bright side, however, when January comes around I will have more free time than at any point in the last several years, so there my posting will pick up again in a handful of weeks.

No probs you deranged maniac. ;)

Oh, probs a good idea to mention that i'm still here and watching, just been a hectic week and i haven't had much to say in this little bit

I'm going to be away this weekend, and the first two days of next week. I might be able to post, but it is unlikely. I'll be back Wednesday.

Well, I slipped and fell at work last week, and when I cut the support off my wrist this morning Dad noticed that part of my wrist is protruding with a small bony piece. So i'm going to the doctor's today, and unless the divine winds smile on me, my ability to type maaaaaay be a little compromised. So, uh, will still be here, but I may only give limited input.

Ouch. Hope it turns out to be nothing serious.

Acccck!!! Hope it's ok Dee!!!

YOU WON DMB!!!!

I'm back from my trip, but I am taking a couple days to reorient myself. Sorry for delays.

No problem. Gives me more time to goof off. ;-)

No problem. Gives me more time to goof off. ;-)

same. i assume everyone is in christmas mode.

Yup yup...

Yea, no need to rush.

Happy Holidays, denominational or otherwise!

Happy birthday everyone born on December 25th!
And any other holidays that happen to be today.

On an unrelated note, I've been thinking...
so far in this campaign, I've been controlling the NPC allies you've had.
In Aubrey's pbps, Aubrey allows the players to decide the actions of allied NPCs during combat (and posts their statblocks on the campaign info tab).
What do you guys think of this idea? On the one hand, it has the potential to slow the game down. On the other hand, it would mean y'all would be doing more. I'd probably still have to control most NPC allies in out of combat situations, though.

As far as that goes, it doesn't bother me either way. i don't really like to control them so i let someone else roll their actions.

that said, i think it only slows it down if everyone is like me and avoids acting on NPC's behalf. if one person always rolls NPC #1 and one person always rolls NPC #2 then it would be just fine i think.

I think he mostly does it because he tends to run combats where there are so many things going on on the DM's side (either immensely complicated single monsters, or more typically large-scale combats with many enemies or well-put-together tactics) that he doesn't have time to also mess with PC-allied NPCs.

@DMB - I'm happy with you running the NPC's, as you are the final arbiter of what they will and won't do.

Happy 2016, everyone. I'm gonna try and get things moving again:)