Male Human Ranger 14 (Freebooter and Skirmisher) - HP 122/130, AC 29/T: 16/FF: 25 - Perception +19 - F: +14/ R: +14/ W: +8* - CMB: +18 - CMD: 34, Speed: 30*, Init. +4
"We're Pathfinders, Zurnzal. We honor our word. Give us the information now and just go. We won't pursue you, but we can't just wait around for that long."
"We're Pathfinders, Zurnzal. We honor our word. Give us the information now and just go. We won't pursue you, but we can't just wait around for that long."
If we let him go we may as well agree to his terms. After all, if he has lied then I can totally find him in about 10 minutes with discern location and I can assure you if I have to do that the rest of your life will be short and unpleasant Zurnzal.
”Pleasure doing business with ya! The scrolls in the northeast corner, hidden with a bunch of old Pathfinder Chronicles. Let’s go boys.”
With that, Zurnzal and his team of half-orc alchemists make their way towards the staircase. Just as Zurnzal—the last one out—reaches the base of the stairs, he looks over his shoulder at the Seekers.
”Vahlo made a b-line toward Skyreach with the Grandmaster on his tail. Pleasure doing business with y’all. Remember: twenty minutes of loitering.”
With that, the half-orcs disappear from sight.
The Fight you Didn’t Have:
Zurnzal was a weird brawler/assassin that focuses on dirty tricks, but the threat were the four alchemists: one drank an extract of giant form I to turn into a troll and assist Zurnzal in melee, another was supposed to jump around the battlefield with walk through space and harrying the backline people, and the other two drank caging bomb admixture and pelted with bombs at a range (one usually readying to disrupt spellcasting; I had Red drink the extract and Yellow ready and was going to do the other way around the next round), including dispelling bombs, force bombs, and frost bombs.
Hard Mode Adjustment for the Fight you Didn’t Have:
Before entering the repository, Zurnzal consumed numerous elixirs from an alchemist who is now elsewhere in the Grand Lodge, including death ward, freedom of movement, shield, spell immunity, spell resistance, and stoneskin.
Anariel sighs a little, I really dont like letting him go. I suggest, once we are done with this situation we hunt him down and explain why his actions were not appropriate. In the meantime lets grab that scroll and restore Grognar. Xanaphia, can you activate it for us please.
Xanaphia nods at Anariel. "Agreed. Let's finish our current mission first though." Xanaphia heads to the northeast corner as directed by Zurnzal and casts detect magic in an effort to locate the scroll. Once she's got it, she brings it back and uses it to return Grognar to the realm of the living.
Xanaphia finds the scroll alongside a manual of bodily health +2. She rushes over and casts the spell on Grognar over the course of 10 minutes.
A few seconds after the spell finishes and the half-orc is brought back to life, the stairwell leading out of the Repository violently fills in with stone and the walls of the Repository glow with a faint glow—the Venture-Captains among the party have never seen or known of this method of sealing the Repository.
Grognar (with his goz mask and see invisibility[) and Anariel (with her blindsense) notice a hulking behemoth of a centipede invisibly lurking in the center of the Repository, shadowy wisps swirling off from its plate-like chitinous exoskeleton! No one else can feasibly make the Perception check to be in the surprise round. Gonna say the Blindsense is not enough for Anariel to be able to identify quite yet. Putting the ID check below for when someone actually can identify it, though:
ID Centipede: Religion 34:
This is a nightcrawler, one of the vicious undead that dwell in the Negative Energy Plane known as nightshades. Nothing really too interesting about these guys—DR/good and silver, SR, a slew of SLAs—it’s mostly just a really massive beatstick with some SLA-versatility that can swallow you whole.
With a flicker Anariel once again changes her form to that of a massive golden yellow giant. She quickly weaves a spell around herself, vanishing from sight. Suddenly a beam of acid lashes out from empty air through the fog.
Free action to switch to sun giant form so I can access my gear if needed, casting greater invisibility, followed by quickened intensified dragons breath for 60' line of acid and then 5' stepping to try and vaguelly conceal her location. Stat line is updated with sun giant stats.
Grognar (with his goz mask and see invisibility[)...
Here’s me being stupid. I meant to say “Thereus,” not “Grognar.”
Centipede Reflex:1d20 + 14 ⇒ (4) + 14 = 18
The centipede chitters in pain as it steps over and casts a spell not that anyone other than Thereus can see it. It’s a greater dispel magic in a 20’-radius; barely able to get everyone in it if I center it in the middle of the air.
Dispel Check:1d20 + 19 ⇒ (19) + 19 = 38
Dispels Anariel’s mind blank (acts as a targeted dispel magic, so it can choose to dispel a specific thing and it knows she had it on her; she knows generally where she was because it saw where the dragon’s breath originated), everyone else has a random magical effect on them dispelled, and the greater magic weapon on Grognar’s greatsword also gets dispelled (because that’s a separate “target” for the area dispel).
It then quickly casts another spell and a massive cone of frost covers the Pathfinders (narrowly missing Fletch) blue cone.
The other centipede that was definitely, absolutely there from the very beginning likewise quickly casts cone of coldadjusted the colors on the cones to account for the two different creatures.
Green then casts another spell. And because of Anariel's current position, everyone is currently within 30' of one another. The centipedes are barely out of range of Anariel's echolocation due to the height difference, so she can't perceive them to use Spellcraft on what they just cast.
Will hold off on saying the results of these saves to see if anyone wants to use their folio rerolls or other random rerolling abilities. Also, adjusted some errors I made on the initiative card.
EDIT: Copy-paste error and forgot Fletch's reflex save:
Fletch Reflex for Half:1d20 + 14 ⇒ (18) + 14 = 32
HARD MODE: Smoke and Mirrors
Round 2
======================
Anariel [30’ above ground]
Xanaphia (-50)
Grognar (-50)
Fletch (-26)
Thereus
Red (-96 from “1” attacks [before DR])
Green
======================
Male Human Ranger 14 (Freebooter and Skirmisher) - HP 122/130, AC 29/T: 16/FF: 25 - Perception +19 - F: +14/ R: +14/ W: +8* - CMB: +18 - CMD: 34, Speed: 30*, Init. +4
If Fletch sees his companions attacking something shrouded in mist, he will don his own goz mask (I figure that's a move action to retrieve and a standard action to put on.)
Anariel flies forward and down, to ground level, bringing both enemies into range of her blindsight. Peering through the fog she can also see one of them!
Settling into position Anariel breathes out two quick, enormous blasts of flame at the twin centipede monstrosities.
Defensively casting empowered, intensified dragons breath, using a use of metamagic adept to negate the cast time increase followed by quickened intensified dragons breath. Depending on the outcome I may take a free action at the end of my turn to change my shape.
If they both survived then at the end of her turn Anariel switches form to that of a medium earth elemental, contracting her size away from the horrid things. Statline will be updated momentarily.
Xanaphia, unable to see what’s going on in the fog but knowing she and her allies were hurt a bit, casts a mass cure critical wounds on herself and fellow Pathfinders.
healz:4d8 + 18 + 1d4 - 1 ⇒ (1, 7, 1, 5) + 18 + (1) - 1 = 32
Fletch, I will remind you that you are a 2-star GM, meaning that you barely succeeded at the DC 27 mass hold monster, Thereus, however, didn’t except for the fact that he has a ring of freedom of movement, which for some reason makes him immune to a mental effect, because that makes sense. Meaning that Thereus’s full-attack went off, so he killed Red.
Green chitters angrily as it crawls up and bites at Anariel! Emergency force sphere doesn’t help because it’s under you.
Swift to smite green and 5-foot step to get closer for point blank shot. Deadly Aim using Adaptive Seeking Holy Bow. Thereus has +5 AC to the smited creature
I moved to ground level on my last turn and I will certainly EFS that bite attack which will also negate the cone of cold on me
Quote:
Anariel flies forward and down, to ground level, bringing both enemies into range of her blindsight. Peering through the fog she can also see one of them!
I can’t see what’s over there but hopefully, I can keep the other Pathfinders on their feet while they take care of it… Xanaphia channels positive energy.
channel:9d6 ⇒ (4, 4, 2, 1, 2, 6, 4, 4, 6) = 33
Then activates her aura of heroism. (Swift action Heroism to all allies within 30')
FREEBOOTER'S BANE: The Freebooter and his allies within 30' who can see or hear him gain a +3 UNTYPED bonus to weapon attacks and damage rolls.
Summary - 2 arrows hit AC 34, doing a total of 53 damage. Another hit AC 32 for 28 damage. Another hit AC 29 for 26 damage and the last hit AC 19 for 24 damage.
Anariel, in elemental form, sinks into the ground and earth glides away from the horrible thing that tried to bite her. Popping out of the ground next to Thereus she grins at him, This adventuring lark is exciting, isn't it! before turning back to the monstrosity lurking beyond the wall of fog. With a wave of one hand she sends a barrage of glowing blue orbs through the fog to smash into the creature.
Casting Battering Blast, spending an arcane pool point to increase my caster level to 21 so that I get an extra orb. Blindsight means I suffer no miss chance for the fog.
Freebooters bane may well also apply to those adding 3 to each attack and damage and to the bull rush below.
Bullrush, Int mod (14) +CL (21) +30, one roll per orb that hits:4d20 ⇒ (6, 12, 14, 3) = 35 for a 79.
If that pushes it then it needs to make a DC31 reflex save or be knocked prone, assuming it can be which I doubt given its a giant worm but you never know.
That is my turn, no swift action for me this turn as I used an immediate. If it tries to bite me again I am likly to EFS again.
Again, Grognar, the greater magic weapon on your greatsword got dispelled, so your attack and damage bonuses are 4 and 5 lower, respectively. You still hit by a huge margin, but still.
Only Thereus’s Manyshot and Rapid Shot hit. None of Fletch’s attacks hit.
The nightcrawler shrieks in pain. It once again casts a quickened cone of cold. Green cone.
It then steps back and attacks Grognar! And because he didn’t randomly roll before (and it might matter):
1d14 ⇒ 5
Grognar’s hunter’s blessing against aberrations got dispelled before. Still need folks (sans Anariel) to figure out what on them got dispelled from that previous greater dispel magic.
Gorgnar has a +5 weapon and one with greater magic weapon the dispel has no effect on the sword he is using. Apologies about not rolling dispel I really thought I did. I even went through and counted spells then did not write it up.
As Grognar cleaves through the nightcrawler the beast simply vanishes with the sound of grinding stone as the stairwell reappears and the fog covering the Repository vanishes.
Knowledge (arcana) 11:
That was a summoned creature.
The Pathfinders heal up as needed during the last ten minutes of the time they promised Zurnzal, and make their journey to Skyreach to confront Vahlo. They make it out of the forest surrounding the Repository when they notice a vastly ominous stormcloud gathering above Absalom, the eye of which centered around Skyreach and make their way there posthaste! You have no idea what would happen if you all choose to dawdle for even a second, so no time for any buffs besides a method of flight (you could obviously re-cast some stuff during that ten-minute period in the Repository, but that’s the last time you could do so).
Once within a few hundred feet of the building, they find the storm producing periodic bursts of sheet lightning illuminate the clouds as the wind gusts violently, stripping tiles off Skyreach’s tall towers. A deep red disc hovers above one of the towers on the building’s west side, and so the Seekers take flight toward the clearly-not-normal disc! Technically you can choose to climb Skyreach’s interior to get up there, but all things considered that would just be silly of you all to do. Map Updated
Okay, the scenario is very confusing with how it’s worded the placement of some of these things, so I had to make a few interpretations (including changing some of the altitude ranges for the side roofs because the scenario actually had it wrong). Likewise, I had to make a GM call with how a specific spell worked; I won’t tell you what spell just yet for the purpose of keeping it close to my chest for metagaming-prevention purposes, but regardless I thought I’d let y’all know. Also, I need to know by what method (fly, air walk, etc.) that each PC is using to ascend to Skyreach.
Features of this Encounter:
Red Disc The floating red disc is represented by the red circle on the map on the leftmost tower. It hovers 5’ above the top of the tower.
Height The heights of the terrain is on the map and is relative to the ground. The party’s feet start 150’ above the ground (and I’ll try my damnedest to put that height in the initiative card). Towers The towers of Skyreach are conical and slope relatively gently as they move toward the center; for every 10’ laterally that the roofs of the towers go toward their center, they rise 5’ vertically (hence the various ranges of height along those towers).
Storm The storm whips up severe wind—meaning that everyone takes a -4 penalty to Fly checks and ranged weapon attack rolls, Small creatures are checked each round (DC 20 Fly check in the air or DC 10 Strength check on the ground) and Tiny creatures are blown away. And let’s just say that those using air walk will have quite a road ahead of them.
I don't know of it affects anything but I rolled my own SR penetration and got a 44. I would also cast some buffs before we go up given what we see. Mostly it's likely to be renewing shield and mirror image along with communal electricity resist on everyone and renewing mind blank.
Given the giant storm going on Anariel wards the group with communal electricity resistance, makes sure her ring of invisibility is active and casts mirror image before they fly up to the top of skyreach.
Images:1d4 + 6 ⇒ (2) + 6 = 8
Anariel flies forward and up a bit to get a closer look at the wird red spinning disc.
Rising to 170', making an active perception check and I will roll a knowledge check in case it is relevant. I have no intention of going any closer to what certainly looks like an obnvious trap until I have checked it out for danger.
Perception:1d20 + 36 ⇒ (12) + 36 = 48 Knowledge:1d20 ⇒ 19 +39 unless engineering or geography in which case it is +22
Just to be safe, Thereus clicks his winged boots for 5 minute fly add "distance" to his bow using divine bond 7 minutes and spread out as well.
Also with the wind whipping around, From Goz Mask - Additionally, the wearer is treated as one size category larger and gains a +4 bonus on all saving throws made to resist the effects of wind.
