Dwarves of Gold Peak

Game Master Nathanael Love

Well, I'd say that you already are.

don't say you aren't contributing. Your large numbers of attacks make Gage much more helpful xD
Also Gage did just about nothing but barely survive that last fight xD

Hopefully, we'll fight something that Gage speaks the language of that isn't immune to ... a large list of things xD
Then I can do fancy things and be super helpful :D

Also, yay Improved Dirge of Doom!

I think that battle was a good demonstration of how buff-dependent Rubius is! He definitely didn't contribute as much as normal. Didn't help that he rolled pretty badly against the thorny entanglement...

But when he is fully buffed he is terrifying

Yeah inquisitors are pretty buff dependent. I do love them a lot.

What do you think of the relic hunter archetype?

Loses judgement, domain, bane, greater bane, second judgment, and third judgment. And spellcasting is restricted!

Gains occultist implements and focus powers. Which in my experience are amazing. Stat boosts, resistance to saves, and an incredible amount of useful SLAs from dispelling magic, to flight, to adding enchantment bonuses to your weapon (including bane).

Yeah occultist powers are amazing. But if I recall correctly, their bane ability takes a standard to enact instead of a swift? That's a big difference if you don't know what you're fighting every day. But relic hunter certainly isn't a slouch. I just haven't played an occultist so it's hard for me to weigh in on the relative power levels.

I had a friend who built an occultist. IIRC, he basically could get full BaB and half casting in addition to some very smexy powers, but he needed a full round or two to buff before doing anything in combat xD

Because of things like that standard action Bane xD

Re: Level up.

I did that already. Put a point in Linguistics to learn the lizardfolk's language, if that's possible. Do you have a name for it, or just "lizardfolk language"? Lizardfolkish? Geckospeech? Lizargot? :P

Let's just go with "Lizardfolkish"

Ah, I should have been more specific about the casting.

My intent was very much not to cast the moment the first ones enter the Area specified(the spell range is much longer) - I wanted to catch as many as possible in the spell area simultaneously!
That is also why the front is "doubled" instead of a full enclosure around our position.
Basically I wanted to catch them 15 feet further left than they are.(so that they can move ahead through 4/5 more fields of spikes at half speed(and unable to retreat easily), or turn around and exit through 2/3 more fields of spikes while breaking off their assault.

I was not very specific, but even so, I think it would be reasonable to at least try and catch BOTH assaulting lines of Centaurs so they can't simply move aside and circle around.
Dvalin has the wisdom to do that, even if I wrote "about 60 feet", rather than "about 45 feet". :/

(I am assuming they have sufficient self preservation to NOT try and charge straight ahead through the spike field.)

Regarding mobility: Thanks to Cinder Dance, I actually have 30 feet speed and can ignore 5 feet of difficult terrain(including 5-foot steps) - 20 at level 10.
That, and 9 hours of Overland Flight at 40 feet(thanks to slow and steady).
Not as fast as our Monk, and not as 'efficient' as a Phantom Horsie, but decent enough since it's all "passive" and does not need activation of any sort.
Mostly posting to state that I'll be trying to keep Overland Flight active while we travel. Dvalin will still 'walk' as much as possible(he sees the tactical advantage of flying but is more comfortable on the ground, in contact with earth and stone - I did not put points in fly on purpose) but it should be online for most events happening while we are on the move.

noice ^^

hmmm that's a good point. What do we offer?
Maybe we give away a tablet that can summon one category of elementals? :3

Not a bad idea!

In theory. Not sure if we want to empower an organization of slavers with a private army.
The moral implications of enabling them to basically attack and forcefully enslave a large, otherwise safe community would be questionable...

It's not that I have a better offer to make, but maybe we should first hear them out.

Well...it has charges. If we omit that, then it’ll eventually bite them in the arse.

They get an army for a day, still - plenty enough to attack and break the resistance of a settlement - I doubt they'll expect to have an "at will"-army and figure it's a one-shot...plus omitting important information about what we are offering to make it seem more valuable is also...cheating, in a way.
(Just saying in that case we may as well try and take the Axe by illegal means to begin with, arguing that clan stormhammer never had the right to sell it to begin with(plus they are involved in lots of shady business, what with the murder prince and the dark brotherhood...)-)

That and the"our people are about to be killed and we need that axe to avoid it" argument.

I forget, did we get any cash? It might be that Gage can't afford anything nice to wear xD

He didn't even need a bath, given his enchanted gloves were sufficient for cleaning himself more thoroughly than soap and water ever could.

Hence why I said it was the relaxing aspect that was the draw :)

That, and you don't smell yourself - so you could be clean but still have BO :)

I'd say it's more like taking your car through an automatic car-wash instead of doing it by hand. It's much faster, but you might miss a spot...which probably doesn't matter to anyone who isn't sniffing your armpits.

Hehe, I suppose that holds true if you consider personal hygiene a chore - or really enjoy washing your car.

What I meant is that for pure efficiency, a cold shower is fine.
A long hot bath has more of a psychological purpose - getting clean is a secondary effect(and many people do shower off before relaxing in a bath).

Same as with cooking and flavors. You can exist healthily on a very basic and bland diet. Adding variety, spices, or generally detrimental ways of preparation don't benefit the purpose of providing substenance - it serves the purpose of making the process enjoyable.
Pralines are usually not healthy. They are not cheap. We do not consume them for regular "food purposes" - only because we enjoy them.

Thats what I was getting at - just because there's a "more efficient" way available does not invalidate the purpose of the "less efficient" approaches. Your comment about not needing a bath seemed to insinuate that it may only serve the purpose of cleaning oneself.
So since in the very post before, Dvalin took a bath, I figured I should possible explain that he very much does so to enjoy it, to relax, a spiritual thing even - rather than just "cleaning himself".

Well, now we're getting into something different. I completely agree that taking one's time to do something can be greatly enjoyable. Far more than snapping one's fingers and having it done.

Example time!

I spent 2.5 weeks in the Mojave Desert, living out of an armored personnel carrier with 6 other guys. The only water was for drinking, so washing came down to how many baby wipes one brought with them. I remember washing my face with some water For me, the answer was "not enough." When we got back and I took a shower it almost felt spiritual. I don't think that water ever felt that good. So I agree with you 100% on why taking a shower/bath can make sense in a world where magic is available.

However, even with me really taking my time to get clean, could it have been as clean as prestidigitation? I don't think so. Because cleaning comes down to what tools you have to clean with. Take washing one's hair for example. How clean does it get? With prestidigitation, one would magic one's hair to be clean. How clean? Magically clean. I don't think that any product can beat that. However, it would only be clean in a single cubic foot. Which means that it would be possible to "miss a spot." And unlike conventional washing, that spot would be untouched. So if you were washing your hair, then it could never be as clean as prestidigitation. But with prestidigitation, you could have a huge clump of hair that is dirty, next to clumps that are completely and utterly clean.

The same for clothes. Got a stain on your white shirt? Good luck. With prestidigitation? Yeah, that stain will be gone. But if you only prestidigitate that stain gone, then you will have a cubic foot of shirt that is completely clean and the rest which is untouched.

And with that, you've made me put more thought into magically cleaning one's clothes than I ever thought that I'd do...

Well, I got 2 other characters heavily depending on it :)

One elven gal keeping meticulously clean using presti - and one wizard obsessed with appearances and cleanliness - so been there :)

The thing is, for clothing, it works as advertised and should be significantly more effective than manual washing or polishing.
There is one object and everything not part of that thing, everything you can remove, is removed.
It becomes more complicated on matters like oxidation - if a blade is rusted, the chemical composition of a part of the metal changed - you can possibly remove the patina, but undoing the rusting is beyond mere prestidigitation.

But it gets really complicated when you want to clean a living being. It is a very 'crude' spell, with little "fine manipulation". But organic beings are complicated.
Dandruffs/Dead skin cells in your hair is one thing - but technically your hair is also "dead". So what should it remove there? How does it know the definition of "clean"? What about your skin? There's a protective film covering it...and where does it draw the line? Does it work like an aggressive peeling? Or just soft-cleanse your outer defensive barrier?
Your mouth is a veritable cauldron of different bacteria and microorganism - many of which are part of normal organic operation and even help out - others are aggressive or causing bad breath. The question is if the level 0 cantrip can determine your 'agenda' and smartly decide what to act against and what to leave alone. Considering that it does not allow a lot of fine-tuning otherwise, I came to the conclusion that prestidigitation will work fine to remove 'crude' dirt, such as if you had to wade through mud - but will have difficulty with more complex patterns (e.g. sweat which is organic in nature - while removing it from your shirt is easy enough, doing so from your body may cause complications.)

Of course, that's only my interpretation - I love prestidigitation! I try to have it on all my characters. But it's still a Level 0 Cantrip and that implies that it comes with severe limitations to it's incredible usefulness.
Just some more food for thought :D
(But by all means, handwave all that and say it simply keeps Dwarfs ultra-clean :D after all, my point was simply that a hot bath is enjoyable and not just for cleaning - just figured I may share my insights as well as long as we're going into detailed analysis) :)

All fine here?

I've been too busy IRL to check games that don't have the (new) button, but it has been a while, hasn't it? xD

Yeah, sorry guys- I got hit with a bad week at work along with continuing connection problems right at the same spot I ran out of pre-written story and needed to put in design work to move forward, I'll get us running again as soon as I have a chance.

Take it easy. Look forward to when it is good for you

^ that :)

Sorry, longer than expected delay, but we are back off and running.

We're back!

41 "damage" is probably the highest damage Gage will ever output xD
or 47, if GM rules that Silver Tongue can be used for this activity :3
(I personally wouldn't, but he's been lenient so far, so...)

On moons-

There are four of them, three of which have highly regular cycles-

The largest "the Year Moon" has an 800 day cycle- it's massive and takes up a huge chunk of the sky, but its only completely full on New Year's day every other year (and completely new on New Year's Day the other years).

The second largest is the "Month Moon" which has a 40 day cycle- it's full on the 1st of every month (and new on the 20th).

The smallest moon is the "Week Moon"- it has a 10 day cycle and is Full the 1st day of each 10 day weeks.

The Chaos Moon is a red moon, recently split in half, which as an irregular cycle.

(Calendrer for the world is obviously a lunar rather than solar calendar.)

So, any ideas on how to get the axe from the princess? Apparently they've been using the axe and it includes shape-shifter powers :s

Or they have a shape-shifter item as well? :O

I have drill this weekend and will be in the field, so I may be spotty on posting, but should be able to get on intermittently.

I'd say have fun, but that would be mean. ;)

What if he drills down to oil? That'd be fun, minus the mess :D

These guys are sounding more and more like evil shape shifters.
Also, how do we approach?

Gage can bluff with a power that can fool magical lie detectors/preventers.

Or shall we just say hi and try to trade? :3

@Gage: Just to be clear on that - Dvalin is not up for outright murdering someone for financial gain.
If she wants someone killed for no good reason, then the Axe is not worth it for him.
For Diplomacy's reason, I refrain from pointing such out in Character, but I will not be an accomplice to murder.
(especially if it's for something like some scholar pointing out that she is likely an evil dragon shapeshifted into an elf "just look at her hoard" *points agitated*)

(Mostly because I am neutral good. With some different alignment characters, I would sign up right away - as in, I have no problem with the task itself, but this char is not compatible with it.)

Plus, I have a feeling that tricking her will not go over well. If it turns out whatever solution we have is not "permanent" enough for her taste, I dare say she may be a bit miffed at us.

oh her problems aren't going to be teh same, alright. I'm glad you read it the way that Gage wants her to hear it.

Her set of problems will be different, but it might be because we become a very big problem for her ^^

Well, it seemed the more likely course you intended. Intending to try and murder her and her 3 wyrmlings(plus the court) seems...overkill.

The ambiguity was not lost on me, I simply figured you intended to pull a Snow White on her, not really killing the target but rather e.g. giving them asylum in Gold Peak.
(which means they are no longer a thorn in her side, but was definitely not what she intended as Solution).

Hence that she may decide we have wronged her - and I doubt Gold Peak needs more enemies, so we should carefully consider if the Axe is truly worth that. Even if she herself is too vain, she may send a contingent of troops or so to support our enemies if she considers US a thorn for making a fool of her.

"Assassination is the highest form of public service."

:D

But Genocide is a close second.

An army or two of elementals could possibly get the job done quite well...no doubt we'd need to take care of their champions or something like that, but if the son cannot be convinced, eradicating his source would also force him to reconsider.

(Even if some stragglers get away, they either will need many years to reform, or present a final enlistment of a lost clan. In the latter case, the solution is final, in the former, to stay in business, he will need to re-orient for a prolonged time, giving him ample time to see reason and likely also an accepted solution.)

I’m all for genocidijg the tribe with elementals. It would let us intimidate the son into submission without causing a diplomatic problem. It also shows off the strength of Gold Peak much more than an assassination would

Remember that the tribe itself is in the Burned Lands which is a several months' long journey- the equivalent would be Beijing to Tunisia on the Silk Road Caravan route.

Ah, apologies. I figured if they run their business from here, it would be closer. Like, I expected travel time, but not several months.
More like "Triangular Trade"-style.
That changes our options, of course.

In fairness, none of us have knowledge geography (well, except my familiar).

But yeah, lets go meet with the evil-son and then murder his face.

yeah, understood, and the map is in the folder but it doesn't exactly have a scale of specific miles which is why I thought I'd mention it.

Gage has knowledge Geo :p

He has EVERY KNOWLEDGE, lol