Way of the Wicked (Inactive)

Game Master Aku Warashi

DM Aku, am I correct in assuming the horses are tied down for the night?

Also, Fausto should now be "Enlarged" for the next 4 minutes (after his attack), but I have no idea how to make his mini 10'x10'.

I was planning to have him 10ft large after his action, since it only happens at your turn. (Meaning he is still medium at the beginning of his turn.)

And yes. Horses are tied down.

Cool, thanks!

Fausto could always Delay until after your action if he wants to be big this round.

Sounds like Fausto really needs to invest in some Spellcraft ranks. If he was able to recognize the spell being cast on him, he might not have chosen to resist it.

Playing in character is fine, but resisting a spell from an ally that has both a Verbal component and a Touch component seems pretty paranoid to me.

That was a Full-Round casting completely wasted. I know that if someone made me lose a spell and a full round's worth of actions, I'd be pretty annoyed.

Sounds like Fausto really needs to invest in some Spellcraft ranks. If he was able to recognize the spell being cast on him, he might not have chosen to resist it.

Playing in character is fine, but resisting a spell from an ally that has both a Verbal component and a Touch component seems pretty paranoid to me.

That was a Full-Round casting completely wasted. I know that if someone made me lose a spell and a full round's worth of actions, I'd be pretty annoyed.

Yes, the guy is paranoid and likes to plan things out meticulously. He didn't like the fact that someone was making decisions for him without consulting him. In game time, we had been planning this attack for days and I thought that Nahia could have told him what she was thinking of doing.

Nahia and other PCs may be (should be?) mad but I hope the players behind these PCs are cool about it. Don't forget that it's a game. :)

From a player view point, one can be pissed because of that, I mean, that was a whole round to cast a ‘prepared’ spell. It’s not like Nahia has tons of those to spare.

But from a character view point, it makes sense. I mean, you never actually got in a fight together, that’s the very first time you are crossing swords (or chakrams and bows in this case) with the enemy, and if you take a closer look at the gameplay thread, I may be mistaken, but Nahia did not told our newcomers what we gifts were.

Anyway, in a particular hard and troublesome combat, that would have been bad. But this one is a piece of cake. (at least I hope it is.)

xD

Well, to be fair, there is no touch component (it’s short range), just verbal and somatic.

And I can easily understand it from a character perspective, especially in an evil campaign. Fausto hasn’t ever fought with us before, and may not believe that he could trust us. Paranoid, yes, but it seems like evil characters usually tend to be.

I’m with DM Aku on this one and just happy that we discovered this in a fight that is looking like it will be fairly easy instead of something more difficult later. I’m sure we’ll figure some way to work this out. With our past party members I was trying to make potions of Enlarge Person instead of casting it anyway (they walked away with both of them : /).

Anyway, no worries on this front. We’ll RP it out after the fight.

Potions are a great idea. More time efficient.

Potions are a great idea. More time efficient.

Much agreed and definitely one of the reasons that I was making them. Also, Enlarge Person never really stops being useful to two-handed melee. If the party agrees, once we get done with this and back to town, I can pull some cash from the party fund and make one or two more, depending on how our timeline works out.

Oh, and to ask, DM Aku, will the rangers be doing any moving out of the tents (or becoming exposed as their tent burns down) before my turn?

Yeap, they are. Not all of then, but some.

Yeap, they are. Not all of then, but some.

Very good. I should be able to reach any of them in that tent with my slumber hex.

Thank you!

UpdateD the gameplay thread.

Oh, I was going to, just double checking things.

EDIT: Oh, you meant you had updated the gameplay thread. Cool!

Yeah, sorry. xD

Quick rules question that relates to Rose's build-

Is Intimidate (not Shaken, but the Intimidate skill) considered a Fear effect? Are Paladins immune to intimidation completely, or just from being Demoralized?

If successful, target is shaken for a number of rounds. If I succeed by 10 or more I will use Aura of Obedience to turn the Shaken effect into a Command (DC 18 will negates). If I do not beat the DC by 10 I will use Frightening to turn the Shaken effect to Frightened for 1 round

Huh, I've never looked at all of this stuff combined before. Pretty neat.

So, demoralize is normally 1 round + 1 round per 5 past the DC. Frightening automatically adds 1 round and will let you turn shaken into frightened (for 1 round) if the shaken would have lasted 4 or more rounds.

So you are looking at 2 rounds + 1 round for every 5 past the DC. Doesn't that mean that you would have to beat the DC by 10 to be able to turn it to frightened?

EDIT:
Very good question. In 3.5 it was explicitly stated that anything immune to fear was immune to intimidate, but that sentence is not in Pathfinder.

A quick search doesn't turn up anything official, but the common sentiment seems to be that Paladin immunity to fear does not negate being demoralized, but it does negate any fear effect that would result.

I'm pretty sure the Frightened addition is possible at DC +5. It's been a while since I figured all this out though. I think it works like this-

DC = Shaken

DC +5 = Frightened

DC +10 = Commanded

I'm pretty sure the Frightened addition is possible at DC +5. It's been a while since I figured all this out though. I think it works like this-

DC = Shaken

DC +5 = Frightened

DC +10 = Commanded

You need 4 rounds of duration of the shaken condition to be able to upgrade it to frightened. You have 2 already from the base of 1 and the 1 extra provided by Frightening. So you need 2 more rounds of shaken duration.

The shaken duration is increased by 1 round for every 5 you exceed the DC, so you need to exceed the DC by at least 10 to be able to make someone Frightened. Unless you have something else increasing the duration of the shaken condition that I didn't notice.

So it looks like it works like this:
DC = Shaken
DC + 5 = Shaken
DC + 10 = Frightened and/or Commanded.

On an interesting note, it looks like you could actually use both effects at the same time, if you wanted to.

Hmm. Looks like you're right. Not quite how I thought it worked, but still cool.

Thanks!

No problem. Neat setup!

EDIT: Realized something that could be super neat! If the thing I posted earlier about Paladins not being immune to demoralize, just the fear condition it applies, is what we go with, that would mean that you could still technically use your Aura of Obedience to command them.

Exactly what I was thinking when I asked it. I can't make them afraid of me, but I'm pretty sure I can make them obey.

Super ultra duper busy today! I'm not sure if I'll be post today. I'll try my best tho.

Oh boy, hope I'm not in the burny tent. Poor Troost, cooked alive...what will my next character be? LOL

You're totally in the burny tent. : )

How about a Pixie Cavalier riding a Butterfly mount?

Super ultra duper busy today! I'm not sure if I'll be post today. I'll try my best tho.

No worries! Here's to hoping that things get better!

I’m back!

I had a presentation to the director of IT, of India country at Monday. The thing is, nothing worked as we hoped. It was a total fail.
So we changed to the next day (yesterday), and I had to make sure that this time it would work!

(And it worked xD)

Anyway, I’m back in my usual routine.

Hey Rose,

If that was your 3rd round post, then that happened before my slumber hex and the guy is injured and asleep.

Also, you still have a 4th round turn to post.

P.S. to everyone, yeah, it does suck when a post gets eaten. I always write my posts outside of the paizo boards first (in google docs usually) and don't erase it until I write or have written the next post. Many fewer lost posts that way.

Just trying to be helpful.

Normally I do that too. The Paizo boards are notorious for eating posts. Harder to do from my phone, which is most of my posting lately.

Coding dice and ooc from my phone is annoying. >.<

I wish I had realized the guy I was attacking was your slumber target.
Round 4 post coming in a couple hours.

Rose you may want to look into the Wayfinder app. it is specific to posting on paizo forums from smartphones, and automatically handles the basic coding etc. It's really nice if you're doing a ton of posting from your phone

I've looked into it. I'm using an iPhone 4s. It struggles with Wayfinder. I like Wayfinder and as soon as i manage to get a newer phone I'll be using it a lot.

Okay, just a safe reminder. The person bound and gagged is Troost. Please don't kill him. <3

Aw, you spoil all our fun, lol

Ok, I updated the loot sheet. I'll be working to identify and appraise all of the stuff once we get back to town. Of course, there will be an RP post to that effect later.

@Born_of_Fire

I'm not sure if you are reading the gameplay thread, but you are up. :)

Sorry to hold things up but I was super busy this past weekend. I've gotta work today and then I will post something.

Ok, I updated the loot sheet. I'll be working to identify and appraise all of the stuff once we get back to town. Of course, there will be an RP post to that effect later.

As a lot of this loot can be identified as the rangers gear, maybe we should cache it somewhere else. We can pick it up after we destroy the tower.

Hmm, good point. Bring that up in game once we start packing things up.

And no worries born_of_fire!

Ah Seren, always willing to separate the parts and then put the bones back together. ^_^

lol. Cure light wounds is a miracle spell. it's like the torture never even happened! or even better, it gives your a redo if it's not to your satisfaction the first time.

Okay, I need some information:

What are you going to do with the ranger's body, will you do a clean up? Or let things stay as they are. And the horses? And the last remaing tent?

Command the skeleton to drag them into trees, hang them by their ankles from the trees and stand guard, attacking anyone who comes near?

That would send a message. :)

That or command the skeleton to eat them, in order of "intactness" over and over, so that as the meat and bones get chewed to mulch we just end up with a pile of terrible gore and a camp site.

Okay, tell me when you are ready to move on.

Hey Seren, you don't need to use the expensive onyx on him. Skeletons (and Zombies) lose all class levels and are only built off of racial HD. So all humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes,..., etc. base races only require a 50 GP onyx to raise as a skeleton.

Also, DM Aku, would there happen to be a semi-buried large rock nearby? Something I could levitate out of the ground so we don't have to spend hours digging to cache this stuff?

ya, I realized that after I posted But kept the expensive gem as from Seren's point of view the horse failed (but not completely) and she can't be quite sure whether it was the gem, the spell, or her technique. Figured overkill on the gem would at least negate one of those options. This way if the skeleton raises she knows at least her base technique is good.

Cool!

Here's a few things I've learned from playing a few necromancers-

The onyx component rules suck.

Not you have to have the right size onyx for whatever you are raising, which means somehow knowing how many hit dice or class levels a creature has before you raise them. For larger creatures, onyx of that size flat out doesn't exist normally (check the treasure tables. Onyx maxes out at pretty low cost). That means to get the onyx you need as a necromancer you need Polymorph any Object or GM fiat.

(Smart necromancers all own onyx mines)

An elegant house rule I stole from another GM changes the component from onyx to onyx dust. Then you can just measure out as much as you need until the spell works.

The False Focus feat will let you make low HD undead for free (and is thematically apropriate with Asmodeus as our patron). Once we get high enough level that we don't care about the cost anymore you can retrain it to something else.

Yeah, when I DM I usually change most of the gem/component rules to "A collection of <type> gems whose combined worth is at least<cost>"

It leads to fun things, like head priest of a small town getting assassinated, and the townsfolk collecting all of their diamonds and donating it to have him brought back.

Also, are we using the retraining rules?

Ya, I've always just used the core-rulebook catch all that you can assign any value to a gemstone to deal with Onyx values.

Gems: Although you can assign any value to a gemstone, some are inherently more valuable than others. Use the value categories below (and their associated gemstones) as guidelines when assigning values to gemstones.

In terms of the sizing, I look at from a character's perspective. Would I really know whether that dragon has 15 HD or 20 HD? unlikely. I would just know its big as all hell and approximately how much damage I had to put into it to kill it, but it would all be a guessing game at that point. Just take it as one of the inherent risks of being a necromancer.

I wasn't sure about retraining as we've never really discussed it, so haven't been building with it as an option.

I like the idea of taking the gear we scavenged north to the bugbears if there is time. I can put something to that effect in character after I get home from work, posting from my phone is problematic.