I think focusing on the wizard might be a better tactic. That pit will keep it locked away for 5 rounds, which should hopefully be enough to bring down even a level 7-8 wizard. I've only got a couple of damaging spells (i.e. that bypass DR), but darn it if I'm not going to use them. I really hope this guy has scrolls, because I'm not going to have much in the way of spell slots when this is all over.
For the golem, I have two Grease spells, which, while it would be nice to save at least one for the commander, I can throw one at the golem, hopefully tripping it. From there, a bunch of focused fire will hopefully bring down an ice golem. I don't have much of anything with fire damage prepared or even in my spellbook, so the best I can do is support.
In any case, I can't imagine retreating, letting the mage prepare and summon backup, and putting the castle on guard will leave us any better off than we are now. They might not have a ton of healing, but I've got nothing to deal with 100 guards and at least two more commanders.
I just noticed my HP has been off since we leveled to 4. I added 1 con to go from 15-16 but never added the extra hp to levels 1-3. So my max hp should be 44.
I do agree we focus on the wizard, but the rest of us will have to get to him which means breaking down the southern locked door. As for retreating, I'm willing to see how focusing on the wizard goes, but I don't think its a bad option. Even if the castle is on alert we still have an advantage. 3 of the 4 commanders are out of commission. Their cleric pool are dead. Their ability to ask for help is also eliminated. Also to our knowledge they don't know about the passage that got us in here.
Hopefully the wizard fired off his powerful spells and we can take him before having to deal with the golem again.
If I burn a hero point, I can probably keep him from casting for one more round, which is hopefully enough time for you to break down the door/Kiffex to escape the web and bring Silence along.
Once we’re done here, I think our next priority should be eliminating the commander. It looks like his room might be on the next floor up, and there’s major incentives to catching him off guard- especially if he’s off duty and out of armor, even more if he’s asleep and can be CdG’d, as likely the highest-leveled character in the fortress, with the Magister (hopefully) the second-highest.
As for how the wizard is doing, assuming he’s level 7 and has an INT bonus of +6 (going on the Web DC), he should have two level 4 spells, 3 if he’s a specialist. Stoneskin and I’ve storm are both level 4, so he’ll have at most one more level 4, and a ton of level 3 and below.
So Asturu hasn’t posted in a little over a month. Is he still with us?
Nope. :-(
Really? Man... that stinks. And I hadn't even realized it's been a month. Wow.
So... who wants to take over trapfinding (lockpicking)/second knowledge character?
If you want to you can. That's totally fine by me. Personally, I don't really have the time, BUT, I can manage if no one else wants to. At least until there's a point we can have him exit stage left anyway. Which hopefully isn't too long because I really know nothing about an alchemist. As long as I don't have to do alchemist type stuff I'm good. :P
*blinks*
Ah, that's what you meant. Umm... I guess I could bot Asturu with GM permission(?), but I was more referring to who wants to take over the skill monkey role. I only have enough skill ranks to cover magicky-type stuff and have a couple points left for extra knowledges, and my class skills aren't ideal for a lot of things.
Now I gotcha. Sorry, just here recently I've gotten so used to players just taking over pc's in my other games(me included) I just figured that's what you were talking about. I've ran like 3? here lately I think? Not all at the same time though. A couple of other players in a couple of other games have ran one as well.
Well that's definitely not Morthos then. He has practically no skills to do anything with.
Hmm...
Being predominantly a fighter, Raven is... ahem... ill-equipped to handle skill-monkey and trap-finder roles to say the least, even with the extra skills ranks from the Advanced Weapon Training and Advanced Armor Training options.
A possible solution would be to take advantage of his death and vampiric rebirth to more or less do a bit, or actually a lot of rewiring, basically using the fluff of his metamorphosis to a vampire to explain some massive crunch restructuring. Given his newfound strength and resilience (so to speak, mind you) it would not be too far-fetched to have him steer away from the way of the sword. Who needs a pointy metal stick when he can punch people to death?
The focus would shift towards unarmed combat and subterfuge and Knowledge skills (his alternate racial trait of Memories Beyond Death and the fluff in his background explaining it do set a bit of precedent, though the trait itself would become mostly redundant and would probably be replaced with something else, such as Perfect, which probably fits the eerie beauty of an undead elf). Basically he would trade his fighter and brawler levels for investigator and monk (in name only for the extra unarmed strength and general resilience) levels, probably with archetypes (such as the Scaled Fist unchained monk archetype that shifts the focus to Charisma instead of Wisdom).
It would require a bit of time though, as Raven dies at 5th level. But what it would mostly require is express GM permission and a bit of tinkering with it to see if it actually works, as, say, vampire feats eat up more than a few of a PC's general feats.
Personally, I do not mind having to change Raven mechanically, just as I do not mind keeping him as he is (though he would retrain at some point out of his Weapon Master archetype). As I said at some previous post or other, I tend to have concepts and/or builds going through my mind quite often. :-)
I will be out of town for the next four to five days. Posting will be difficult so if needed, please DMPC away.
I figured this might turn into a mess when I noticed Snowheart's post was 1 minute after D's post.
I thought we were all lawful? If that's the case, what's up with all this chaos? ;)
Yeah, I'm gonna just stand by and see how all this mess plays out. You know, I think somehow someway you could turn this scene into one of comedy. It really feels like there's a way to make it funny. Keystone Kop type funny. :)
@GM posted just above you in case you're gonna overlook it.
LOL! Thanks. This streak of cross-posting is insane.
The golem returns at the end of my turn. So, I’m going to cross my fingers that the golem isn’t magically tied to the magister and has a terrible Perception/Sense Motive, and maybe can be tricked by a good enough disguise and a good bluff roll to stop attacking/take orders from me.
GM, would attempting to trick the golem into following my orders require a Hero Point?
Hmm. I think I'm going to have to say no. Methods of controlling a construct have never been terribly clear to me (I'm open to any rules or discussions) but, as is, I think it's just under the magister's control as he's the one who has animated it.
Alright, so, things are definitely getting more difficult here but the fight with the magister may have used up fewer resources than the opening salvo could have suggested.
It doesn't take a genius to realize, though, you are now confronted by Lord Havelyn, a paladin of Mitra. You also have in the hallway with you an ice golem and, though he has surrendered and is out of Havelyn's view, the magister.
So... through the grace of Asmodeus, everyone gets to level up immediately. You will gain the benefit of additional hit points, spells, uses per day, etc., but you will still be down however many hit points you may have used, spell slots you have spent, etc.
For example, if your Level 4 HP total was 30 points, you have 12 points of damage, and you gain 8 hit points at 5th level, you would now be at 26/38 hp.
Power spike time!
I’ll have my level up posted tonight, but with 3rd level spells and two new feats, this fight should be... fun.
So apparently Paizo boards aren't notifying me when there are new posts on the discussion thread.
I'll update my character shortly. With Affriya's last channel I should be at full HP. I'm leaning towards taking Channel Smite over Weapon Focus for my level 5 feat. (Level 7 feat will be Cornugan Smash) If anyone has any other feat suggestions I'm open to them.
Also what is the plan here? Try and quietly kill the Magister while the fake magister tries to bluff our way out of this?
Man we are in a rut on this one. This is gonna be interesting. Either kill the Magister at which point he calls out. Heck, he may call out any way whether we try to kill him or not. OR don't kill the guy and we've got Mr. Superdude and his cronies and we still have Magister guy to deal with.
Honestly I don't think there's any quiet way to kill this dude. Unless we can hit him one more time and kill him instantly. Hoping we hit. And hoping he's got jack for hp's left. And hoping we hit. Wait, have I mentioned hoping we hit? :P
Well, to sum it all up, Timo, I've got no idea. :P
Will try to get Morthos done by tonight. But it may be tomorrow.
Level-up benefits:
+ HP
+1 CL
+0/1 Arcane Reservoir
+1 3rd level spell (+1 bonus from Int)
Feat: Spell Focus (conjuration)
Bonus Feat: Toppling Spell (metamagic)- because tripping is OP, as we just found out.
Exploiter Exploit (potent magic)
9 Skill ranks: Bluff, Diplomacy, Linguistics, Spellcraft, Perception, K (planes, arcana, religion, local)
New language: Sylvan
New spells: Haste, *something else*
Any suggestions for my other 3rd level spell? Haste is a given how many melee fighters we have, but I don't know what to go for as my other spell. Normally, Fireball might be good, but I have a sneaking suspicion I'll find it in the Magister's spellbook. I have a few that I'm juggling (Diamond Spray and Earth Tremor both look really cool and helpful, but there's others that would be good too...) but I'm far from decided if anyone has a recommendation.
EDIT:
*blink*
*blink*
Well, I just discovered that I never updated my status bar when we leveled up from 3 to 4. I should have had 23 this whole time, and now I have 30.
Daidalos may have a 21 INT, but that sure doesn't mean I do. (though that's more likely a Perception thing)
When we disarmed the wizard does that mean you have possession of the wand? If so, do we know what it does?
@Timo: Channel Smite is cool. I'm thinking about taking that one at some point. Not now but at some point.
@Daidalos: Man if there wasn't 80 billion to pick from it'd sure be easier to decide. I don't know, you could roll with the "Old Reliable" type spells:
Fireball
Lightning bolt
Dispel Magic
Invisibility Sphere
Then there's:
Rage(Kind of interesting)
Sleet Storm
Resist energy, Communal
Magic circle vs. Good
Ooooh, Heart of the metal is kind of cool.
HP's by the way:
So here is a question. I was perusing anti paladin spells and came across dancing darkness. Can the 4 orbs stack on themselves to make total darkness? Do all of us have dark vision?
If the answer to both is yes, could we envelope them in darkness and hit them while effectively blind?
I do have the wand, but I haven't had the chance to Detect it yet- it takes 3 rounds of Concentration, which we haven't gotten.
Heart of the Metal might be nice, if not for that material component- still might be worth having as a scroll though, just in case.
Plus, I'm certainly going to buy more spells once we're done here, so stuff like Dispel Magic (while helpful) isn't as great considering we've already taken down the magister. And I'm thinking we'll get more immediate use out of a damaging spell than anything.
Anyway, I'm thinking that I might be able to get off a Grease to trip up the paladin and slow down the others. I think we can probably not worry about the golem for now- it's stopped attacking, and we could probably just knock out the magister (for questioning- mages are super easy to keep captive if you confiscate all their toys. Especially ones without teleportation) to keep it from reactivating. Following that, we can focus on the paladin, who will (hopefully) fail his Reflex save (he's wearing heavy armor, after all) and fall prone- which would be awesome. The two guards can hopefully be taken out with an area attack that might also hurt the paladin. From there, Haste should do wonders if he isn't already dead. This is likely the toughest fight we'll face in the tower, so hopefully it all goes smoothly.
And if it doesn't? Well, I still have my backup mostly ready to go.
EDIT: I don't have Darkvision. I traded the racial ability for an at-will Light SLA, which I'm regretting and might retrain. Plus, I'm pretty sure the darkness doesn't overlap. It's just a touch OP and I'm fairly certain I saw a Dev comment on it somewhere at some point.
No internet at home currently due to imminent move as well as preparations for said move have made posting next to impossible. Should return to more or less normal some time in the next week.
So my choice is half + 1 or half + 1
Timo is leveled up in his profile
Affyria is leveled up as well. Third level spells (yay), a domain secret that permanently enhances one domain spell for free (thinking about going with bouncing suggestion although I really like enlarged unholy blight as well, need to think on it for a bit), and a second damnation feat, giving me +5 acid and +5 cold resistance, and her alignment will now detect as Lawful Neutral.
Meh, I misremembered enlarge metamagic, it only doubles spell range and not area of effect. Intensified unholy blight at level 10 is probably better anyway.
Affyria- If you’re going after the Damnation feat line, you may want to check out the Apocalyptic spell metamagic feat, which, in addition to just being a cool metamagic to begin with, also adds the [evil] descriptor to spells it modifies, which benefits from Malefecium. Stygian Spell does something similar, but it only affects [water] spells.
Cool trick. I haven't taken Malefecium yet, that's my next feat, since I don't have a lot of evil spells yet. Unfortunately the domain secret is pretty limited in the metamagic choices. In case you have any other good suggestions, my domain spells are: command, align weapon, suggestion, unholy blight, dispel good, planar binding, blasphemy, unholy aura, and summon monster IX.
Well, I was more thinking in general as a useful feat to take at some point. Or you could even get a rod.
Ooh. Focused Blasphemy at 15th, especially if you leaned into specialization a bit, would be devastating.
Yeah that is a sure winner. Probably sticking with bouncing suggestion, then intensified unholy blight at 10th, since I can only modify a domain spell once with the ability.
So is the plan to quickly kill the wizard so he cant assist and wake the golem and focus on the paladin?
Hitting the wizard shouldn't be hard as he is prone and has already taken 41 points of damage. If daidalos is right and he is level 7, with a con of 10 he would have an average of 30 hitpoints and a max of 42. Therefore he should be on the verge of death.
@Daidalos - yes he has heavy armor but he is a paladin so he adds his CHA to his saves
We could also try taking him alive (with nonlethal damage)) if anyone else wants to try- or if we just want to honor our “call off the golem and we might spare you,” which Daidalos wouldn’t mind. Or just kill him and hope he dies before he sics the golem back on us.
As for the grease? Well, constructs, fighters/warriors, and paladins all have Ref as their weak save, and besides that, I don’t have many better options. And with the level up, I can get Grease to DC 19, which, unless his Ref save is +9 or better (which, while possible, isn’t the most likely), has better than even odds of making the Paladin fall (heh).
IC, “Holy Warrior in heavy armor” kind of screams tough and mentally resilient, but clumsy.
Oh, I am aware. LE is all about the loopholes. I also noted that Daidalos might prefer him being alive- arcane secrets and all- I say kill away.
I don't think the orbs of darkness would stack, no, but an open to any input to the contrary.
A bit swamped at work but it looks like most of you are done. I know Raven is having internet issues, but if anyone else needs more time or has a question, let me know.
Unfortunately I will be away from my laptop for the next two days, so leveling up and posting will be difficult. Will do the best with what I have, though.
Hoping to get Morthos done tonight.
And he's pretty much done.
Rolling with Fiendskin. Yeah I think those feats are cool too. This is number three. Morthos now detects as "Lawful Good"(Due to Mask of Virtue feat). HA! That just seems too far-fetched but there you have it. :)
Resistance to Acid 10 and Immune to Cold.
And Morthos doesn't have Darkvision either but he will at 8th level. Does that help? :P
So to summarize our situation:
- Morthos and the Magister are out of view of the Paladin and his lackeys.
- Daidalos is disguised as the magister
- The golem is currently off
I think its on us at this point
Do you think Daidalos or myself should bluff that the golem went crazy and we just now got it back under control? Do the disguise circlets mask our alignment, or is one detect good from the paladin going to out us all?
The circlets are the equivalent of a hat of disguise, which in turn function just as the disguise self spell.
Right. I remembered it acting like a hat of disguise, but I couldn't recall if it had an added ability to hide alignment or not
<_<
Suuuuuuuuure they do.
O:-)
Okay, I think that leaves Raven and Ordy, but we can have (potentially) a couple of rounds of dialogue to see what y'all come up with in the meantime.