Skills (Kn. Geography, Handle Animal, Perception, Disguise, Survival x2)
+1 WIS
New Magic Talent: Protection (Obstruction)
Just waiting on Zyxtyvia and for Marvin to finish posting the level-up changes.
*reposted to all my games*
FYI, I'll be traveling for the holidays. Leaving tomorrow and won't be back for about a week. I'll have internet access for most of that time, but because my library stays at home, there won't be any significant Gameplay updates until I return.
Oops, sorry, I omitted the basic +saves, +hp, +BAB since there wasn't really any choice involved.
+1 Fort/Will
+1 BAB
+8 HP
+1 CL
Zyxtyvia takes another level in witch:
lvl 4 STAT Boost- +1 to DEX
+1 to WILL
+4 HP
2 new spells/day - Glitterdust (2nd), Enlarge (1st)
1 new Hex- healing
+1 to Arcana, Nature, Planes, Perception, Spellcraft, UMD, Bluff
*reposting to all my games*
Well, Celestine has excellent smuggling and personal warping capabilities. XD For anything we need to move in or out of the town.
Visually, she'd probably want to look like someone common to the area, preferring not being noticed in the first place to having to lie all the time.
To start with, Marvin will adopt the appearance of an experienced hunter just reaching middle age.
Some things we could work on:
1. Stirring up mutiny among the soldiers
2. Rumors of monsters (a dragon perhaps?) roaming the countryside killing livestock and/or farmers in order to split up the soldiers if some of them head out for a few days to hunt down the dragon
3. Poisoning water supplies
4. Bringing in diseased refugees
5. Encouraging a ghoul infestation if we can find suitable undead to capture
6. Framing a few higher ranking officers with high profile crimes
I like options 2, 5 and 6 best, though 5 requires us to find some undead to coerce first.
Zyx has the ability to make one of the soldiers appear as evil with infernal healing and with ventriloquism can make that person appear to be speaking infernal for added chaos. Use that on a high ranking leader...she also has profession: Cooking
She will use either a beggar peasant girl disguise or a mature female cook disguise.
Already backed it :D
I'm backer #4. Celestine's backer #1.
I can prove it, too. ...Admittedly, it doesn't really mean anything, but it's fun to have that spot. XD
SoM Update: a rough draft document's been revealed that highlights one class and two spheres.
The Armiger infuses weapons with sphere talents and gets to make AoOs when cycling through them. It gets Quick Draw that eventually becomes a free action. Looks pretty cool.
The Athletics sphere deals with running, jumping, climbing, and swimming. Investment can give you a climb and/or swim speed, the ability to wall jump, wall running (a la Prince of Persia), and the ability to climb on enemies.
The Sniping sphere is (obviously) focused on making a single powerful ranged attack each round. Range penalties are reduced, and you roll extra damage dice that stack with Vital Strike. Investment lets you ignore partial cover/concealment, perform ranged combat maneuvers, and designate a location as your threatened area.
Just finished reading it, and it looks cool :D
Hey, guys. Been a while. I just thought I'd throw you folks a line and apologize for essentially just vanishing on you a few months back. My laptop more or less bricked itself, and then there was a pretty weird upheaval in my personal life that made me forget about forums in general for a bit. By the time I got a new computer, I didn't have any bookmarks or anything and pretty much just spaced on the fact that I was in games at all, which is not my brightest moment, but there it is.
Regardless, though, those are all basically just excuses, and I feel pretty bad about it. Dropping out is one thing (life happens), but just disappearing without a word is far worse, and not really excusable. Things have settled down a bit for me, and I found myself thinking about joining a new game, at which point my brain twinged and reminded me I'd been a huge unintentional jerk to you folks, so...anyway, I wasn't looking to rejoin the game or anything (that feels like it would be a huge unnecessary disruption to what you've got going on), but I felt like you deserved some small apology, and there you have it, such as it is. Keep on being evil, and have fun!
I've added a map of Aldencross and a floorplan of the "Lord's Dalliance." Pick any room/s (up to two) you'd like (except for the proprieter's, of course). It's editable, so feel free to add a label or whatever.
In regards to the Aldencross map, market day is three times a week in the central hub. As it turns out, that's today. :-) In case you're curious, since Aldencross is shaped like a wheel, the "Lord's Dalliance" inn is the big L-shaped building at the far end of the right spoke - just across the street from the "To Balentyne" label.
Marked! o wo
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Open, "make a plan" things can be pretty hard in Play-by-Post, so perhaps it would help if we all basically talked in here and settled on something to do?
I'm curious who lives out in the house out in the woods in the bottom right of the map.
@Marvin: In-character, you're currently unaware of its existence.
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Regarding planning stuff, I'd suggest everyone giving me a general "here's how I want to spend my days" post. I'll make summary posts in Gameplay as new information/noteworthy events happen. Use the Discussion tab to do the actual planning.
Basically, unless you attack Balentyne (in which case, we'll do standard combat/dungeon crawl-esque posts), it'll probably be easier to run things a la Downtime style.
Celestine's a bit distinctive, so she'd probably use some mundane makeup and such to disguise herself, gathering information about resources. I'm definitely leaning towards wanting to use that soup to poison the guards and make infiltration way easier, so she'd probably be looking for things that could do that. XD
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Oh, yeah. One of the last things we want is rushing through without info. XD I just, y'know, don't wanna get so caught up in that sort of thing that we stall.
Yeah, definitely work on getting more information. For the next few days I'll probably spend my evenings at the inn, making friends and chatting up about local happenings to see if I can get any information.
During the days, I'll look around town to see if anyone needs hired help, whether it's something simple like manual labor, a bit more professional like accounting, or something more exciting like bounties or monsters that need slaying. I'll make liberal use both mundane and magical disguises to tailor my appearance to someone appropriate for each of the jobs that I am searching for that day.
If my job search turns up anything, I may take the job for now for the opportunity to pick up additional information, or the fact that the job exists might be a good opening to sow dissent. We'll see :D
For the rest of you, Marvin is available late each night if you need to discuss ideas or plans with him, or if he has information to pass off to you.
One quick reminder for everyone: Balentyne's your real target. Aldencross is just collateral damage.
Well, I think I've made my thoughts on using poison fairly clear, assuming we can arrange for it. XD Sicken the guards, warp in, open the gate... go from there?
Balentyne is a castle a little ways from the town. There's a picture in one of my recent Gameplay posts. You're dealing with something larger and significantly better defended than Brandescar Prison.
It is true that Balentyne is the main target but they still get their supplies and are supported from the town of Aldencross. I say we investigate the town as much as we need to, to figure out any gaps or weakness in Balentyne's security. Balentyne water most likely comes from an internal well, but food, wine, lumber, clothes etc must all come from the town. Figure out who gets by without being checked or who is a trusted agent for the castle and exploit that.
Good plan. :-) As there's well over 100 soldiers in Balentyne, an unplanned direct assault will probably be a TPK.
Yeaaaaaah, I think we'd like to avoid that. XD
The only thing I caught from that was "probably." =P
I'd like to be able to go meet Mad Martin to see if he can give up any useful information as he rambles to the birds, but I can't think of any good way to get there since my flight skills are still lacking.
The poisoned soup plan is a good idea, but we'll need to find a good deal of poison first. Perhaps we should try to work on acquiring a good quantity of quality ingested poison, and in the mean time we can search for more leads? Ideally, we can set up a few things to happen independantly of us, to make an actual assault much easier.
At some point we should also eliminate the birds in the rookery, so the soldiers can't call for reinforcements when the actual assault happens.
Update made. :-) Let me know if you want to change what you're doing. Otherwise, I'll jump forward another day or two.
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Compiled Info
"Have you ever been to Balentyne's choir hall? Amazing! The priests are such beautiful singers, and sometimes the stone saints that adorn the place join in the chorus. Such a miracle!"
"Mad Martin is a strange one! He tends the rookery in the Watchtower. They say he never leaves except for necessities. He talks to the birds like people has named every one!"
"Lord Thomas Havelyn is the most honorable and capable commander that Balentyne has ever had. If he can't keep the Watch Wall working, then no one can!"
An elderly villager affectionately referred to as 'Mama' Giuseppe is almost done collecting the ingredients she needs for her famous beef stew. She's clearly one of the town icons - no doubt due to her friendliness and weekly tradition of delivering a giant pot of good homecooked food to the Watchtower to add a little variety to their meals. It's very evident that Aldencross and Watchtower Balentyne have an almost familiar relationship with each other.
"There's a pack of Dwarves in town led by a grumpy short fellow named Barnabus Eisenbauch. They're here to fix up the watchtower - or so I've heard. A hard working fellow ... just don't try to challenge him to a drinking contest. He'll drink you under the table every time!"
- "Those dwarves are a thieving lot! I heard one of them was caught picking a man's pocket."
- "Did you hear about prisoners escaping from Brandescar? Were they ever caught?"
- "Do you know how the 'Lord's Dalliance' got its name? It was once a brothel! I hear there used to be a secret passage to the basement that allowed the Lord of the Watchtower to sneak in here and have a good time. Of course, it must have been sealed up years ago."
- Most of the local food comes from farmsteads south of town. Wheat fields, apple orchards, vegetable patches, and pasture for sheep and cattle are everywhere.
- Unlike other places, the forests surrounding Aldencross aren't owned by local lords. This means that even the poorest of peasants can freely hunt both fowl and deer. As a result, venison is frequently on the town's menu.
- The village reeve is a man named Dominik Vallison. He owns both the general store and the mill, owns a large estate in town, and is a lover of education and culture.
- Aldencross' local church is a small building that was rebuilt only 20yrs ago after a fire. The chaplain (Father Donnagin) also manages Balentyne's spiritual affairs, so he's rarely in town. As a result, the chapel is run by a humble man named Brother Justin of Travismere.
- Surprisingly, Aldencross has a small magic shop. 'The Illuminated Scroll' is run by a middle-aged wizard who's old friends with Balentyne's battlemage.
- One of the town's newest shops is 'Master Caldwin's Cauldron' - an alchemist shop. Teryth Caldwin (the owner) is a recent arrival who's regarded as a talented (but odd) healer.
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Growing a bit impatient and bored with menial labor Erick decides to investigate the magical shop, the Illuminated Scroll. While all seems pleasant enough he is actually watching the owner and for any signs of additional help within the store. Erick also looks around for something large enough to carry a body in, like a crate or box big enough to fit an adult male.
If the store is not busy and the man is alone Erick pounces on him and places him into a sleeper hold (DC 16) before outright choking the man to death.
Locking the door he spends the next several minutes arranging the body in the crate as he will have a gift for his companions waiting in their room.
I feel like if anything is going to get us all killed, it's Erick. XD I still like my poison idea, but I also want to get moving.
*Looks at the part where you're choking a guy to death*
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Oooooh, right. o vo Only the party and our friends are people.
I caught a bit of a cold over the weekend. Nothing too bad, but it's left me feebleminded. I should be back to normal in the next day or two.
Feel better :D
Just an FYI, as I may not have been clear enough in the mission briefing: the easier you make Sakkarot's job, the better. A horde of monsters vs a fully-manned-and-defended castle is going to get massacred. The goal is for the army to essentially march in and get straight to the looting and pillaging. Poisoning the stew's all well and good, but if that's the only way you weaken the garrison, Sakkarot's forces will be in for a REALLY bad time. That's why you were given an entire month; as long as you're subtle, there's a lot of havoc to be wreaked. ;-)
I was under the impression the poison might only incapacitate them, really. XD Although if it permanently reduces their numbers...
My thinking with the monster in the woods strategy is that if we can manage drawing out a group of say... 20 soldiers into the wilderness when the horde arrives, that group is going to have a bad time, and it further depletes the castle's resources. Their initial response is fairly small, and if that group is torn apart (literally) I'd expect them to escalate their efforts.
As for the town... there's always good old fashioned arson to drive up the chaos a few notches. Bonus points if we can set the castle ablaze.
i am all for eliminating key defenders of the town and the castle before the attack.
Indeed. XD Also, this should be obvious, but it's probably best to make heavy use of our disguises anytime we're doing something they'd rather we didn't...
Agreed.
Give me some info about Marvin's dragon attacks. Frequency/time of day/standard tactics/etc. Also, is he going solo, or is anyone assisting him? Finally, as there's a ranger patrol out right now, is anything going to be done about them? Once I know this, I'll be able to move forward in time.