Nathaniel comes back this round, maybe he can do enough damage that I don't feel too bad about it...
OTOH, Evalee still has Summon Monster. If she dismisses Semsephiel and uses that (as standard action SLA), she could potentially do some real damage with the right selection...
Honestly I've been on both sides of this scenario many times. The classic "you are not a jedi yet" sort of encounter, and this has been one of the most enjoyable and well executed smack-downs I have been in.
It's a hard move to pull off flawlessly.
It's encouraging to hear that you guys are enjoying it, especially the players that got knocked out early. I know waiting for a combat to end when your character is lying helpless on the ground can get really boring (or worse).
Just wanted to point out that you hadn't actually posted Ashyr's turn, yet. And yes, this is a lesson in tactics that will come in handy.
Yeah, just finished it.
BTW, I'm on a business trip all this week, so I may have less time to post. Just FYI.
There is also some extreme weather on the forecast, and we may lose power, so I may lose the ability to post at all. If that happens, I'll let you know :P
Strategically, I think that fire is hands-down the WORST element to choose as a focus. That said, I'm pleasantly surprised at how fun Ashyr is to narrate.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the mighty and powerful Pogug will react face-to-face with Halador.
BTW, I'm on a business trip all this week, so I may have less time to post. Just FYI.
There is also some extreme weather on the forecast, and we may lose power, so I may lose the ability to post at all. If that happens, I'll let you know :P
To update you guys, I got evacuated from my trip, and the highways flooded overnight. I'll be home tonight, so I should be able to get a good post up then.
The trip is only a few hours up the coast, so depending on how long the cleanup takes, I might be back for the end of the week. If that happens, I might be even busier than expected then.
To update you guys, I got evacuated from my trip, and the highways flooded overnight.
o_0 I'm glad you're ok.
Erin, I had an idea. What if for one of the second level spells I get next level I learned levitate? It would be an easy way for Chi to gain altitude, though not quite as broken as true flight.
Hmmm, I think I'm going to rule that Chi's gliding requires him to be otherwise falling freely. You could use levitate to get him up in the air, but he wouldn't have any more control of his movement than a non-flying creature until you dismiss the spell (a standard action).
I was wondering how Pogug's ego would take being beaten. I'm glad to see that he was never beaten at all! He still has, after all, all of his teeth.
Erin, I had an idea. What if for one of the second level spells I get next level I learned levitate? It would be an easy way for Chi to gain altitude, though not quite as broken as true flight.
Yeah, that could be fun! Of course, we might want to wait until Erin can afford those muleback cords you mentioned, so that Chi can carry her without getting weighed down. And judging from the past two fights, some boots of the cat would come in handy as well.
I made a sketch of Evalee and Semsephiel, because I wanted to work out exactly what Semsephiel's claws and mouth looked like. (I had vague ideas, but nothing concrete.) I'm not a very good artist (I am a terrible artist) but if you want an idea for the basic shapes I imagine when I imagine Semsephiel, here's a link. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qaxAceLPMBld-mYXwC2m5AQJn8eJXUaYp8hibGP SWpI/edit?usp=sharing
Semsephiel both looks unmistakably fiendish, and humanoid enough to disguise as a not-monster.
Erin, I'm cleaning up some info in my notes, and there's a discrepancy between your character sheet and the statblock on your profile. Do you currently have a shield?
I'm going to assume the shield was intended to be used with your lance, and you got rid of it when you retconned that to a lucerne hammer.
Oh, nice catch! Yeah, I scrapped the shield when I switched over from using a lance, since I no longer have a way to wield my weapon in one hand. I'll make sure to take the bonus out of my statblock.
Here's my idea for getting the flag: First, we leave Chi in the tent overnight. Chi will hide until the time is right, at which point Chi finds some gap in the fabric (it's a collapsible tent, it isn't air proof and certainly not determined squirrel proof) or makes one, grows to medium size, and then glides away with the flag in their mouth. Second: we take some of our earnings and use it to hire, like, fifty untrained laborers to do non dangerous work. We dress them all in bedsheets with holes cut out for the eyes, and send them to try and climb the tent. This is a good contingency in case the squirrel fails us, and also allows us to hide in the crowd with our own sheets. I doubt the carnival champions would attack the untrained laborers, since they aren't trained warriors and even weak attacks could kill them. They also serve as a distraction, and with Pogug inspiring their strength they actually stand a decent chance of making it to the top. Third: Ashak hides some distance from the chaos, and makes a break for the flag of it looks like everyone is too busy to stop him. Fourth, Evalee summons air elementals from under her bedsheet to retrieve the flag.
The idea is to both overwhelm the defenders with audio/visual stimulus and to have a s many different win conditions as possible.
Familiars don't get speak with master until level 5, and maulers don't get it at all. Without that, you can't communicate those instructions to Chi.
You're not going to find 50 untrained laborers willing to help you attack a carnival at night while wearing bedsheets.
Technically, the elemental thing might work, since you can summon them for 3 minutes and Evalee knows the necessary languages to give them instructions, but I think I'm going to say that a party member (one of the five of you, plus Semsephiel) has to be the one to lay hands on the flag.
Btw, they don't have to do damage. "Tagging you" (a touch attack) is enough, though they can also use their spells and weapons.
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Solid reasons why none of that would work and a preemptive strike against abusing summon monster.
x)
I must say, I was more or less expecting that. Hence why I put it on the discussion instead of having Evalee propose it in the game play. The sheet-ghosts would ruin the entire mood of the night time stealth op. Still, it was worth a try. :P
I'm pretty sure that Chi can understand common, just not speak it. But the rule that it has to be one of us six prevents us from leaving the rodent anywhere.
Yeah, Chi was my first thought as well, but with Int 6 and no ability to speak I doubt he could do much more than sneak around and warn me of danger through our empathic link. I don't think he can even understand Common, actually, unless I put ranks into Linguistics or something.
Fortunately, we've got several other party members with good Stealth bonuses - Pogug at +13, Erin and Ashak at +14. We could try to sneak in from several sides at once, so if one of us gets spotted they can run without giving the others away. If we're lucky, we might be able to find some deodorizing agent or something at the magic shop in case they have guard dogs or the like. Pogug in particular will be very useful: he could keep us all in touch with message, scan for magical alarms with detect magic, charm a guard in an emergency, and maybe even yank down the flag with mage hand.
As for Evalee and Nathaniel, I'm sure they could provide a pretty good distraction if we need one. After all, what's more distracting than a couple of summoned horses charging into the circus? Maybe with strings of light in their manes for a bit of added flair.
And if we're summing elementals, you can forget about air elementals now and forevermore. Evalee could instead summon a small aether elemental, otherwise known as the most ridiculously useful creature in the history of summoning. These little guys have got flight, blindsense, natural invisibility, and some pretty amazing telekinesis for good measure. With a +8 Knowledge (planes) bonus Evalee should certainly have heard of them, and they speak all four elemental languages so they'll be easy enough to command. Plus they're strong enough that Erin or Pogug is within their light load, so if telekinetically snatching the flag doesn't meet the win condition they could just lift one of us up there to grab it.
Yeah, Semsephiel doesn't have the DEX for sneaking around, even with maximum investment, I planned for him to take the Skilled (stealth) evolution in the next couple of levels. And I figured Evalee would be OK until she learned how to turn invisible. :(
Still though, they aren't as useless in this kind of scenario one might first think, just looking at the numbers. Perception checks have a -1 penalty for every ten feet, if Evalee follows far enough behind the rest of the group they should be able to tell her where it's safe to go and where it isn't.
On the topic of aether elementals: how is that CR 1? How? I can't think of any possible way a level one party could fight one of those. It's invisible!
Sure, if I can summon those I will. I'll just forget my eidolon altogether and summon elementals to win my fights. :\ But I think that I'm just going to pretend that I didn't see that bestiary entry, because it would trivialize every encounter.
I was thinking along the same lines, Erin. The non-stealthy providing a distraction and trying to avoid being overtaken/tagged while the stealthy sneak in and abscond with said flag. Alternatively, I'm good with the cheap wins, if Evalee can summon that thing and it can provide the W. :)
In another game that just finished, we had a wand of summon monster II with 4 charges left and I had a bead of force. We knew the game was about to end, so no point in conserving resources. Also, 4 out of our 5 characters were casters with Summon Monster on their spell lists. We passed the wand (which I now realize shouldn't have worked, since it is a full-round casting time, but the GM allowed it) to all cast it 4 times in one round. We made 4 small aether elementals and sent them in to attack, then threw the bead of force in after them. The main baddy made his reflex save to avoid being trapped by the sphere, but all his minions (one of whom was the same level as him and a higher-level caster) were thrown around inside the bubble until the walls were stained red. When I brought up the plan, the GM offered to just call the encounter beaten without rolling anything.
Though the small elementals have some DCs that aren't hard to overcome as levels get higher, they're still pretty brutal, and combining them with summoner abilities can easily become broken. I'm not going to say that you can't use them at all now (except, as already mentioned, they can't just retrieve the flag for you), but I reserve the right to change my mind about that.
Btw, teamwork and stealth are unofficial goals here. While they're fun to think about, strategies involving throwing an unstoppable monster at the problem or wrecking shit instead of getting in stealthily will be looked down upon. Remember that in the fight with the champions, winning wasn't really the goal. Again, in this case, it's more about seeing how you tackle the problem than about whether you achieve the goal.
Yeah, aether elementals are pretty ridiculous. In one game I've been playing a beast-bonded witch with an aether elemental familiar... that she permanently possesses with their Twin Soul ability. With the agility patron familiar bonus she's got an 80 ft. fly speed, and she augments the natural invisibility with mask from divination as a poor man's mind blank. When you throw in the blindsense and those lovely elemental immunities, it's a pretty amazing chassis for a spellcaster.
So yeah, I can see why we might want to slowly close the Bestiary and look the other way. I was mainly thinking of it as a precautionary scout anyway, sneaking ahead and alerting us of danger. We could probably accomplish the same thing with an earth elemental if need be, with earth glide and tremorsense and all, or just go with an air elemental if we want to try lifting a party member up to the top of the tent.
Yeah, that sounds pretty broken. Probably even more so than the aether elementalist bloodmarked skinwalker I built who flies around in bat form using telekinetic blast. I sometimes like to take these OP ideas and run an AP for myself as a solo campaign, and I tried that one gestalted with unchained rogue. It was basically able to one-shot anything I came across except for the CR26 ancient dragon at the end. In fairness, most of them tend to end up wildly OP just because one character is accumulating XP that is meant to be split 4 ways. They start out tough with a level 1 character going up against stuff meant for 4 of them, but the character quickly jumps to about 4 levels ahead of the expected progression before settling into about 2 levels ahead, which is still usually enough to brush aside most encounters.
If nothing else, I find that to be a good way to familiarize myself with a module or AP if I want to run it for a group. I haven't done it here, for reasons that should be obvious.
I meant aether kineticist, in case anyone was wondering what the heck an elementalist was.
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Map is updated. Scroll down the page to see the new stuff, and you can ask any questions about the layout here.
Ashak counted out the coin purse but I didn't actually ask how much was in it? What were the winnings so we can split them?
I was waiting because you wouldn't have counted it all out in front of him. I'm going to say it was 1000sp. That works out to 20gp per PC.
Well, that's 200 days of common labor worth of pay, so not a bad haul for a nice butt-whipping. Especially since they were kind enough to heal us afterwards.
That is one impressive supermap conglomeration. How long did it take to make?
Between image searching for the various components, photoshopping them where necessary, and placing them in the google drawing, I probably spent a couple of hours.
The main background image was significantly lighter in color palette than everything else. It looked a lot less impressive before I remembered that photoshop has a tool for matching one image to the color palette of another.
So, is everyone ready to proceed to the Artificery? Any other stops anyone wants to make?
Evalee and Semseph are ready to go shopping. :)
Ready to go. :)
All set
Same.
Sorry for the delay. Had another crazy week, but gameplay post is up.
Hmmmm... Chekhov's crossbow? I'm tempted to spellcraft that thing. And if I'm tempted, Evalee's already done it.
Does that tell me anything at all?
I'm really enjoying Sephy's inner monologue. It reads like an experienced role-player at a table with a bunch of newbies. You can tell he's been burned before.
Hmmmm... Chekhov's crossbow? I'm tempted to spellcraft that thing. And if I'm tempted, Evalee's already done it. [dice=Spellcraft]1d20+13
Does that tell me anything at all?
That does not meet the DC to determine its properties. If you want to know, you'll have to ask :)
I'm really enjoying Sephy's inner monologue. It reads like an experienced role-player at a table with a bunch of newbies. You can tell he's been burned before.
Thank you! But while Semseph is deliberate and risk-adverse, I'm one one of the least patient people I know. I get twitchy when the party stalls in front of a door for too long, mitigating risk to an extent that would please Sephy would drive me slowly insane. XD
I once played Carrion Crown on the outernet. The party met to discuss composition before the game began. I, having memories of the group slowly making their way through a different adventure path, volunteered to play the party scout and trap disabler. The And not did I disable traps. (Well, haunts mostly.) Enter Sir Kyras Williams, a paladin that was more focused on saving throws and armor class then anything else. He was very eager to unravel the main plot, and would brook no argument for slowing his pace or displaying caution.
I made many saving throws over the course of Sir Williams' career ... but he forged on regardless, undaunted. And I never had to wait for someone else to roll stealth, perception, then disable device. :P
Is it possible to slide under the side of the tent? Or do you have to go through the entrance/flaps?
There's definitely an edge there, but you might need to work a stake or two out of the ground to make an opening large enough to get under.
Was Evalee's nap long enough to regain spells, or am I still running on fumes and cantrips from the staged fight?
Good question. No, you have not regained spells since your fight. You'll have to make your attempt tonight with whatever you have left. Remember, this is a "tag, you're out" situation, so you shouldn't need any healing. If you want to take any of them out, you'll need to incapacitate them using the same rules as in the fight.
Also remember that if you don't succeed tonight, you'll get two more attempts on the following nights.
We won't be able to outmaneuver the guards on horseback then. :(
Well, we have three people who are stealthy enough to make the attempt and three people who are serving as a distraction. I say, we the distractions try to approach from all sides, and the stealthy folks follow in their wake.
I was thinking the stealthies might want to get into position first, so that they can make a break for it when the opportunity presents itself.