The Seer's Journey - DM Downrightamazed

Game Master downrightamazed

Larger and smaller creatures get size bonuses and size penalties on Strength checks to break open doors as follows:

Fine –16, Diminutive –12, Tiny –8, Small –4, Large +4, Huge +8, Gargantuan +12, Colossal +16.

A crowbar or portable ram improves a character's chance of breaking open a door (see Equipment).

Toran should have a +10, since he is large~, to his check and could succeed on an 18, if you are allowed to use aid another. then his check could be as high as +16 with everyone assisting.

If i'm being to metagamey please give me a good smack!

No, that's awesome, great to know! Thanks!

Your welcome~ =) I was reading over the rules when I found it. I'm not a rules lawyer by any mean but I keep finding that my Herolab forgets important details...

Like Lin is Immune to Cold and whenever I pop out silver dragon it comes out with immune to fire...

Yeah, so that prompted me to look at everything! There are some neat rules, that I didn't even know about lol! =)

Does this version of the Skyknight banner work?

I've been waiting to do that particular stunt - pop out of Stealth and let fly with an Extended Flaming Acid Arrow - for close to a year. :)

A pity there was too much to SAY to add anything witty to the mix.

Awesome pic Damian =) and yes it worked this time~

Yeah! Love the banner! Looks great.

Banner is totally rad Damian. Only request, is it possible to see a larger version of it?

Anything bigger would look terrible because of the pixelation. I made it on MS Paint.

Ah, ok. Now worries then. It still looks fantastic. Great job!

I'm sorry, but I just gotta point this out. Why are Brook and Sarish still sitting on the ground? That just doesn't make any tactical sense at all and Brook was specifically ordered to keep Cassandra safe. That is obviously much easier done by being airborne, yes?

Personally I don't find comments like this to be very helpful or very much fun, and I don't feel that they add anything to the game. If you want an NPC to do something, then I reckon you'll get faster results by directly telling them in-character to do that thing, nawmean? If, however, you're unhappy with what an NPC is doing and want to yell at me about it or seek an explanation or something, then I'd really prefer it be done here in the OOC thread, if it has to be done at all. And, lastly, if it's a general question for the group to verify something and then perhaps propose a correction, that would also be a conversation better suited to this here OOC area. :-)

Now. Could you clarify what it is you're trying to get done with that comment? Or will you be doing so IC?

Hey, sorry man, my intention was in no way to cause anyone any negative feelings in any way. Also I do hear and completely understand what you mean by any such comments better to be made here in the OOC.

I don't even think that I was complaining per say about anything, just stating what I said, that I didn't think it made sense that Brook and Sarish would have landed in the first place or remained grounded in the second place when the single best defence is their ability to be airborne.

I wasn't sure what I may have missed or not, so I just checked back. Damian's last order to Brook was " Brook, get Cassandra up in the air!", the command to Brook was Lin telling him "Brook, Sarish come to me, stay close to the wall and stay close to Keythan!" But she never told him to land.

Even as I'm writing this though I can see how it may seem I'm making a big(ish) deal out of nothing. And of course in the long run it isn't a big deal at all. Really, all i had wanted to do was point out that it seemed to me that Brook should still be in the air. But I do sincerely apologize for it coming out it a way that may have bothered or brought offence to anyone.

It is just a game after all (although a mighty, mighty Fun one at that).
So, hopefully all is well and, Game On! : )

Hopefully those wolfguards are visible now... I assumed they were after attacking and laughing, etc. Please change my post as needed to fir DRA ^^;

I wonder how much damage the Furnace golem took in the end? >.>;

And now that the Baron is on fire, it will be interesting who decides to put him out...

I'm assuming it will be Kelne~ ;)

Were Karthan still able to act, he'd throw another of those burning acid arrows out. More fun for the entire family. But at least you can see Ormir and that fire damage more or less counters his fast healing for a few rounds.

Hopefully, someone has a way to deal with him turning to gas and heading to his coffin when he's dropped...

Would sun arrows work against him. Jorzan gave me all of his arrows.

Would sun arrows work against him. Jorzan gave me all of his arrows.

Well not all, he had a bunch because some of the others didn't seem to want/take any. But yup, they're pretty much designed for vamps.

@Karthan: Was thinking about that too. Maybe Lin could take a really big inhalation? ; )

All the Seers gang should have stakes on them though, and the necklace of garlic.

Hey, here's a thought, what happens to a cloud of gas when it's frozen??

Or, maybe Zan could follow it and lead us to the coffin?

Just brainstorming and throwing ideas out there...

You know, if the Dominated people are/were within 10 feet of the aura of Sir Justahl, his Aura of Resolve might give them another +4 to their saves.
IF Domination qualifies as a Charm; it's not real clear in the rules. I know Enchantment/Charm were in the same group in previous editions, but now? I suspect that's a GM call now.

Aura of Resolve (Su):
Immunity to Charm spells and abilities. Allies within 10 feet gain +4 morale bonus to such saves.

By my reckoning, there are two different varieties of enchantment spells (and abilities) - charm and compulsion, with compulsion typically being higher level. Dominate person and the like are compulsion effects. It's worth noting that paladins gain immunity to compulsion effects at 17th level, as part of the Aura of Righteousness feature. In other words, it looks as if Justahl can't pass on any benefits against Ormir's domination ability.

Yeah, from what I can see, Justahl, the victims of vampiric domination don't get new saves until it tries to change its orders or make them do something against their nature, etc. So unless your aura automatically grants a new save, it won't help ATM.

Okay, the OOC in the IC thread is getting a out of hand again, so let's have our discussion about scrolls here where it belongs. First off, yes, Karthan should not have been able to use his scroll the way he did. That's my bad. I didn't know scrolls were a two-round deal until Gray asked about it, which brought me to this bit, which I quoted earlier:

Activation: To activate a scroll, a spellcaster must read the spell written on it. This involves several steps and conditions.

Decipher the Writing: The writing on a scroll must be deciphered before a character can use it or know exactly what spell it contains. This requires a read magic spell or a successful Spellcraft check (DC 20 + spell level). Deciphering a scroll is a full-round action.

Deciphering a scroll to determine its contents does not activate its magic unless it is a specially prepared cursed scroll. A character can decipher the writing on a scroll in advance so that she can proceed directly to the next step when the time comes to use the scroll.

Now, I know that nobody said anything about deciphering scrolls ahead of time, so everyone should require two rounds to use a scroll. One for deciphering, one for use. If there is some other way for a scroll to only require one round, I am of course totally all ears, you guys know that. But you gotta back it up from RAW. Just because you bought the scroll, that doesn't mean you know how to read it. I can sell you a magazine written in Polish and point to an article and tell you exactly what it's about, but you still won't be able to read it. It looks like per RAW, scrolls require reading.

This may be one of those rules no one likes, c.f. the metagame-y +3 DR bypass rule from before, but it's still a RAW rule, and not one I see sufficient reason to house-rule away.

DRA: Karthan used a See Invisible scroll that's been part of his inventory pretty much since the start of the game.

Any scroll which has been properly identified with a Spellcraft check can be read in one round. It can be read in two rounds if you haven't done the ID AND have Read Magic prepared. Using Spellcraft in combat to ID a scroll is probably a VERY BAD idea.

Whether or not buying a scroll means it's deciphered for you as part of the purchasing process is a GM ruling. I'd say that if more than two days have passed since purchase, it should largely be considered deciphered.

I'm going to be at a convention this weekend and next weekend. Feel free to NPC Karthan as needed to move the plot forward.

Having to spend two rounds to cast a low level spell, every time would make pretty much make any scroll under 5th level or so basically useless. An adventurer who forgets or doesn't bother to spend the few seconds ahead of time to read what is on the scroll on his possession doesn't sound like one who would it make it past expert level, let alone 8th.

I completely understand your RAW ruling, but to me this seems one of those things which falls under the banner of 'common sense'. We don't RP sharpening our swords, we don't RP replacing our spell components and we don't RP [i]actually knowing what is on the scroll we dished out our hard earned GP on'.

To me this rule seems to be for situations where one has found or looted a scroll in the midst of battle or some such.

Anyway, this is all just MHO that I'm throwing out there. I am of course completely fine with accepting whatever your final ruling is boss.

EDIT: plus Mai makes a good point. Would be pretty silly to buy a scroll and not even know if you got the right one or not and then wait until you're in combat to find out

Bilbor just manages to duck the barbarian's wild swing and decides it's time to get the hell out of there
5' step
Cast Read Magic!
"Wait! I bought Teleport! Not Talk to Animals! Crap!"

Chiming in on the scrolls issue, I'm not inclined to stick strictly to the RAW here. Putting on my GM hat for a moment, my personal ruling would be that characters keep track of the contents of every identified scroll in their own possession as a matter of course (within reason - anybody trying to carry two dozen scrolls for every eventuality will receive a stern talking to). So if they've bought a known scroll, they will have deciphered the script in order to make use of it.

This saves on bookkeeping, in that nobody has to write notes on their character sheet as to whether they've deciphered a scroll or not, and there are no arguments around the tabletop about whether or not a character succeeded on a full-round spellcraft check to decipher a scroll however long ago (as there are no consequences for a failed check, they could just take 20 if need be). In real life games, players can't simply scroll back a couple of pages to settle the matter.

The clincher, for me, is that this is an issue where the prompt player response to a strict ruling will be to specifically state that henceforth, their character will spend however long is necessary to decipher any newly purchased scrolls on the spot. This being the case, my inclination would be to make the inevitable response retroactive and have done with it.

I completely understand your RAW ruling, but to me this seems one of those things which falls under the banner of 'common sense'. We don't RP sharpening our swords, we don't RP replacing our spell components and we don't RP actually knowing what is on the scroll we dished out our hard earned GP on'.

EDIT: plus Mai makes a good point. Would be pretty silly to buy a scroll and not even know if you got the right one or not and then wait until you're in combat to find out

Okay, so, for the third time; this has nothing to do with knowing what you bought. You know what you bought. That is not in question here. I am not disputing that, and nor is RAW. You know which scroll is which.

The mechanic, as I see it, is to reflect that casting a spell from a piece of paper requires reading and understanding it. Knowing what spell is on it is completely different from reading and understanding said spell.

The clincher, for me, is that this is an issue where the prompt player response to a strict ruling will be to specifically state that henceforth, their character will spend however long is necessary to decipher any newly purchased scrolls on the spot. This being the case, my inclination would be to make the inevitable response retroactive and have done with it.

Ah. Good point. I guess it goes along with Jorzan's point (which is also solid) that since I don't enforce any of the other pecuniary details of adventuring (sword sharpening, fussing with spell components, etc.), it seems silly to suddenly pick up this one.

Okay, so; final ruling. I'm gonna go along with the "everyone pre-deciphers their scrolls always all the time" rule as stated by Kelne above. I will do a post describing the results of Gray's casting it at the Baron (since he already rolled attack/damage), and then Gray will get his full turn next round.

Thanks for chipping in and helping resolve this, everybody. Much appreciated.

Jorzan wrote:

I completely understand your RAW ruling, but to me this seems one of those things which falls under the banner of 'common sense'. We don't RP sharpening our swords, we don't RP replacing our spell components and we don't RP actually knowing what is on the scroll we dished out our hard earned GP on'.

EDIT: plus Mai makes a good point. Would be pretty silly to buy a scroll and not even know if you got the right one or not and then wait until you're in combat to find out

Okay, so, for the third time; this has nothing to do with knowing what you bought. You know what you bought. That is not in question here. I am not disputing that, and nor is RAW. You know which scroll is which.

The mechanic, as I see it, is to reflect that casting a spell from a piece of paper requires reading and understanding it. Knowing what spell is on it is completely different from reading and understanding said spell.

Apologies for any frustration my lack of clearness may have caused you here. Difference in semantics. When I used the word knowing, i didn't mean "I know I just bought a scroll of X" I meant "I know that it is a scroll of X i just bought because I just read it and thus verified that that shifty eyed merchant didn't rip me off". I think it would be pretty par for the core that with any and every scroll purchase, the buyer would immediately read and verify the scroll on the spot, to make sure that he did indeed just get what he purchased. I tried to make a silly example of what not doing that might result in, in my little 'story'.

Anyway, not trying to continue the argument as you've made your final ruling (and a good one in MHO ; ), just trying to clear up what I was actually saying.

That's what he gets for employing guards who attacked Brook. Hopefully it will distract enough attention and break some spirits that Brook will remain safe.

I'm going to be at a convention this weekend and next weekend. Feel free to NPC Karthan as needed to move the plot forward.

Thanks for the heads-up, Ken. Have fun!

Sounds good to have a house rule on the scrolls situation.

@Damian: Yeah no kidding, I got one more man to beat down and then those three will be better off. Congrats on one Hell of a hit sir!

For anyone whose interested... I have finally finished Servais. Hope you enjoy.

Am I seeing that right and Livian just did 150+ damage?? O_O
Holy Moly! She a termanating machine of ranged deathj from above! Never again will I let anyone say that archers do not Kick Ass. Phew

Also, just a friendly reminder Livain, but she did take a shot or two damage herself, no?

Don't think any of us made it to RPG Superstar 2012? Oh, well. Life goes on. I'm proud of my item nonetheless, but it shares a lot of similarities with Spellblight Cage, including the weaknesses in the item that Ryan Dancey pointed out. It also bears a close resemblance to Haunting Glass, and few smaller similarities (gaze immunity) to Basilisk's Eye Sight.

Anybody else want to post their submission?

I would love to post my submission as I MISSED BEING ABLE TO SUBMIT IT BY 34 MINUTES...yes, true story. It was all finished and ready to go the night before, but I had wanted to take a last look in the morning when I was awake and aware. But next morning I forgot and when remembered later on, figured I could just do it when I got home from work, as I had thought that it could be submitted until the End of that day, not 2pm...Was more than a wee bit peeved, you might say, but c'est la vie, milk.split.not crying, all that.

Soooo, much as I'm eager to get it out there, I think I'll wait to take a shot with it next year. Apparently it's a pretty cool item.

Sorry those that didn't make it didn't though.

I like your item Damian, it certainly seems very unique to me. I know for sure the concept of trapping and then being able to use a creature's gaze attack would never have occurred to me.

Mine was going to be a bracer of returning. But I never got a chance to make it....or an item used in binding devils/demons....but que será será.

This would have been mine:

I, however, work full time doing game design. This makes me ineligible.

Looks like I was in the Keep pile!

I am off to a con in five hours. I'll be back on Monday. DRA, please NPC Karthan as needed. Figure he'll use Fireballs to deal with masses of troops. There's still two uses of the Widen metamagic rod left, and one use of the Extend rod.

Sounds good. Have fun, man!

Doesn't a crit failure cancel out your next attack Jorzan? I appreciate the help though and will continue my action as posted until DRA posts. He can redirect my attacks because right now I can't see the map. :( darn Google maps doesn't load right on my phone. :( but with my rolls a wolfguard and CL are out cold :) Suckers!

Either way Min is putting two of these guys down and will continue sleeping these fools until the room is full of men waiting for the finishing blow. Sword to the throat sounds brutal enough...

I may be NG but these have brought out Mins bad side, should have been striking him instead of a child. Now they get to faces his unbridled wrath. No mercy! Well... Unless Damian stops him, or Lin... Damn....

My house rule is that a critical failure will cancel out a successful hit. So if you have three attacks and two of them hit and one is a crit failure, then you only have one hit.

Immediate action: Use arcane point to invoke spell shield, bringing her to AC29 until the end of her next turn. 7/10 APs left now[/ooc]

WHAAAAAAAAAAT!

Okay, it's official. The Magus class completely irritates the s%%@ out of me. >:-| They may as well just re-write the description of that class to be: "Blow an arcane point to do whatever the hell you want whenever the hell you want." I've got one in my Monday night game and it's annoying there too.

This is nothing personal against Mai or Aylaeth, obviously; you guys are just playing what you want to play and doing it well, I'm just venting. Obviously I need to do my homework to understand that class better than I do but it seems there's no limit to the powers a magus has. They can just yank whatever they want out of their butt.

I guess from now on I'll have to design all my encounters thusly; normal CR for the party, CR+40 for the Maguses, to keep 'em busy for a round or two. XD

My house rule is that a critical failure will cancel out a successful hit. So if you have three attacks and two of them hit and one is a crit failure, then you only have one hit.

I did know that, but wasn't sure if it also applied to a critical hit as well. But ok, if that's the case, Jorzan is gonna blow a HP to re-roll the critical miss, cause this action is just too cool to waste ; ) He has 3 left after this.

Might as well roll it here?

Re-roll Disarm vs WG#7 CMD24: 1d20 + 13 + 1 ⇒ (14) + 13 + 1 = 28 Success! So Both of them disarmed!

"Aylaeth"[ooc wrote:

Immediate action: Use arcane point to invoke spell shield, bringing her to AC29 until the end of her next turn. 7/10 APs left now[/ooc]

WHAAAAAAAAAAT!

Okay, it's official. The Magus class completely irritates the s+%~ out of me. >:-| They may as well just re-write the description of that class to be: "Blow an arcane point to do whatever the hell you want whenever the hell you want." I've got one in my Monday night game and it's annoying there too.

This is nothing personal against Mai or Aylaeth, obviously; you guys are just playing what you want to play and doing it well, I'm just venting. Obviously I need to do my homework to understand that class better than I do but it seems there's no limit to the powers a magus has. They can just yank whatever they want out of their butt.

I guess from now on I'll have to design all my encounters thusly; normal CR for the party, CR+40 for the Maguses, to keep 'em busy for a round or two. XD

Hee, hee hee, hee! I totally envisioned this response from you (as well as a furious rant and advice session in one of your 'How To Kill All PCs' secret DM groups) ; D

And to be honest, I totally understand. I don't think you've managed to do more than 15hp damage to Aylaeth since I started playing her(of course now I've jinxed her And put a target on her back) The crazy thing though is that she's not even min-maxed at all. She's just a vanilla staff/cabalist magus. Hmmm, ok well, not completely Un-optimized I guess, but really there's nothing special done to her, all by the book. Have to say though, as a player, the magus is one of my fav classes. (as was the duskblade in 3.5) Which is curious, as it seems that many on the boards think the class is not that great? Ah well, I'M having fun! ^-^

Magus is a well balanced class, its resouce/ability control require some planning but for people who are good at managing themselves in a fight they have the capability to do a lot of things.

Heck, even with the dragonrider modified like I have, its more of a utility/back up class still. I love rping it however and I get a few good hits in. ;)

Oh there's loads of classes that do far more damage in a scrap, like certain aellar archers and cavelier/bards, not naming any names. And even min, if you add lin's damage in, does a fair bit more damage per round than aylaeth. But like you say, she's balanced. She good at offence, good at defense, and adds some decent utility into the mix. All a Win far as I'm concerned.

I totally envisioned this response from you

You did? Oh man, that's really depressing. I need to do better :-(

boards think the class is not that great? Ah well, I'M having fun! ^-^

That's cool, and in the end it's all that matters. From my perspective, the main reason it's so frustrating isn't because I can't beat up on you, because that's never my goal. It's because I feel I can't even challenge maguses! How can I when they can just barf up an AP point to get AC 99 and their weapon +100 nuclear vorpal, whether their build is vanilla or chocolate or rocky road; as you say, it's hard-baked into the class.

But you raise a good point; being challenged in combat isn't every player's idea of fun. Some like that, but others prefer to go through a fight untouched and unhurt and just mash every bad guy, and I'd do well to remember that. *shrug*

Regardless, I feel my lack of ability to effectively challenge a given PC reflects poorly on my skills as a DM, and I will definitely endeavor to rectify this. Time to hit the books again, in my copious free time.

If it makes you feel better I struggle to feel like I contribute in any meaningful way during combat...

Don't worry dra, you challenge the hell out of us on the Monday night game. I mean look at the least few weeks of combat we had you dropped almost the whole group.

Shoot Mai! You do loads of stuff in combat. Granted Livain is the hell bringer with a bow. But you have contributed plenty and with your diversity in both class/skills you cover a lot of areas we lack.

Besides you did intercept that abomination when that soldier fell to his doom and tried to take it with him.

@DRA: A magus without anction points is just a fighter who can cast spells. :) Maybe we should lock Aylaeth in with the furnace golem! :o That would be a blast! J/k~

I look forward to all the racket outside. Did the Omirians win or... Is their a trio of dragons awaiting us outside?! Wolfguards, Vampires and Red Dragons, oh my!