Wrath of the Righteous for Paladins

Game Master trawets71

Don't see enemies on the map. Moving forward...

We are on Map #2, on the right hand map with the red 'X's on it, in the southeast corner.

Just a heads up. I'm headed out of town this afternoon. My laptop is broken enough I can't take it with me, so I won't be back online/in games until sometime Sunday afternoon

I do not have the ability to manipulate the map at this time but should tomorrow evening.

I need to do my various actions for the five rounds, and then place myself so I am not immediately subject to the level-draining gaze attack upon the doors opening.

Edit: if Ian uses Rally, we all have a much better chance of not taking any more permanent negative levels from the gaze. I would even risk being in front of the doors when they open.

Edit: if Ian uses Rally, we all have a much better chance of not taking any more permanent negative levels from the gaze. I would even risk being in front of the doors when they open.

Consider it done, his next post he will Rally

Long gone, in fact it looks like you have cast protection from evil a couple times since then

I had two Protection from Evil's prepared in spell slots, and I can use Divine Source for a third.

We got all of our spell slots back (at the cost of a Mythic Power use) when we used Recuperation after summoning the Planetar.

I wasn't doubting he had the spells slots. There is no need to cast prot from evil if circle is up and running.

I was waiting on Dadna to post before opening the doors. I think she is the only one we haven't heard from since I ask for actions or ready.

Ian calls out to his celestial heritage and hears nothing when he speaks but wills his shield to shed light. At lease he thinks he does. He can't see anything still but is immediately hit by some that drains the life out of him 5 negative levels.

Are those 5 levels permanent?

Those levels are not permanant. I believe they go away in 15 hours.

What can Leothar see or hear?

It has been 3.5 years since we faced one of these guys before, when we were 6th level. There is a ton in Discussion from 2021 about how difficult its Darkness, Silence, and Enervation are to deal with.

We haven't really gotten any better at handling such things. But we do know its capabilities in character.

It took us 19 rounds to beat that last one. An excruciatingly long game of cat-and-mouse.

What can Leothar see or hear?

You can see nothing inside the room. You can see in the hall where you are standing. You can hear nothing.

You have no idea if either path is blocked as you can't see what is ahead of you and can't hear what is going on with Dadna.

So Ians light doesn't illuminate enough to see into the doorway of the other door?

Leothar can see in the hall that Ian is radiating light towards the eastern doorway and presumably into the room.
So Leothar goes forward blindly into the darkness through the western doorway, trying to get to where the light should be.
If his way is blocked, he gives up and retreats.
If his way is not blocked, he hopefully kills a demon
Spending a round to move stuff out of the way is near-certain death by Enervation. So he will not do that.

I'm not sure I understand. Ian's light would overcome darkness and should be offsetting deeper darkness enough for those with darkvision to see as if they were in an unlit room. Is this another effect?

And Enos doesn't know better, so he might be in trouble. He wasn't here last time.

I'm confused about what Dadna can see but Leothar cannot. I presume that Enos is completely blinded, as well.

So, obviously my readied Glitterdust will not be going off, because the trigger called for seeing the demon, and I cannot see.

I'm also feeling a bit confused about what's currently happening. Here is my understanding:

1. Ian and Enos opened the doors.
2. The party is covered in darkness and silence.
3. Dadna went to charge into the room, but found her way blocked by a bunk (that she can see?).
4. Leothar wants to move into the room blindly. If he runs into something, he's withdrawing out of the room, instead, and around a corner.
5. Ian used his innate Daylight SLA, which sheds light within 60'.
6. Enos attempted to move into the room and then take one step to the left of doorway.

Do I have that understood correctly?

Light works in straight lines from the source and then spreads, it doesn't go around corners well. From here Ian is standing the east west hall, those with darkvision can see in, as well as the hall to Ian's north. From Ian to the south there is a triangle area where those with darkvision can see. I have outlined, badly, the squares that can been seen with darkvision from where Dadna stands, the rest of the room can't be seen into.

So, obviously my readied Glitterdust will not be going off, because the trigger called for seeing the demon, and I cannot see.

I'm also feeling a bit confused about what's currently happening. Here is my understanding:

1. Ian and Enos opened the doors.
2. The party is covered in darkness and silence.
3. Dadna went to charge into the room, but found her way blocked by a bunk (that she can see?).
4. Leothar wants to move into the room blindly. If he runs into something, he's withdrawing out of the room, instead, and around a corner.
5. Ian used his innate Daylight SLA, which sheds light within 60'.
6. Enos attempted to move into the room and then take one step to the left of doorway.

Do I have that understood correctly?

1. Yes

Light works in straight lines from the source and then spreads, it doesn't go around corners well. From here Ian is standing the east west hall, those with darkvision can see in, as well as the hall to Ian's north. From Ian to the south there is a triangle area where those with darkvision can see. I have outlined, badly, the squares that can been seen with darkvision from where Dadna stands, the rest of the room can't be seen into.

Ah, that helps, thank you.

Yes, Enos is in the room so that Leothar can enter behind him (if he chooses).

So are we falling back then? Waiting until the darkness fades? And can we ask the Planatar to deal with this? Stumbling around in the dark, unable to see any enemies…we’re not equipped for this.

The Silence and the Summon will fade a lot faster. They are rounds/level and we timed our re-entry just perfectly to suffer their effects.

I do have a plan for what I would ask of the Planetar but let's see if we can get out of this without anyone dying.

Enos can't get into the room, there is something blocking the way.

The GM did not indicate as much, so I thought perhaps there was no barrier or I accidently went around it.

Sorry, Leothar. Ardriel doesn't have darkvision natively, so he couldn't have seen your motion and movement. I moved him a different direction that I felt made the most sense based on his location.

If I made it out of the silence radius, he does have darkvision now, however.

Did I miss our round counter? Are we in a new round?

Not sure how far you will try to move before using Wild Arcana.

I moved my token on the map to my new location.

No new round. Ian and Dadna had used their turns already and I think everyone else has now.

-8 levels. Well. Dropping power attack and I’m at +7 to hit. No smites left either, so Dadna is not going to be of much use. The demons are still invisible to us and we have no easy access to them. Ian also has -5 levels.

I’m not usually one to be defeatist, but I’m not seeing how we are overcoming this. So we shut the door and get the Planatar’s help? I was thinking of waiting out the darkness but they might have it at-will and we have our only daylight active. I’m thinking we ask the Planatar.

It’s not very heroic…but it beats fumbling around in the dark while the two demons slowly pick us to pieces.

Or we know our weaknesses against their tactics and retreat to augment our defenses or strategize. Even if the planetar won’t leave his post, we can bring allies with abilities we lack, have them cast when we arrive, and stay back out of sight and out of firing lanes. Daylight on everyone, for example.

And I’m just talking out of my hat. It’s not defeatist to make a tactical retreat against overwhelming odds so you can come back.

I can attempt to Dispel the Silence field with my Legendary Item spellcasting. As long as we are within Ian's Daylight aura, anyone with Darkvision can see. That now includes me, and the original Nabasu is still my Smite target.

We could also spike the doors closed so the original Nabasu can't get out, wait until the Enervations wear off, the Summoned Nabasu dissipates, and the spell durations run out, and then try and catch the original Nabasu off-guard.

I think we can take this guy once the Summons expires (it is rounds/level, right? Do we know that?) and if the original one is all out of Enervation (I think we know it is normally 3/day from our fight with the first one). He hit Leothar, then Ian, then Dadna. But he may have a Mythic ability to recharge it, or it could be at will.

Still, Leothar has Step Up (new feat which I hadn't used yet and so wasn't thinking about) which is at least something of a defense against Enervation. Get in his face, then if he tries to 5' step and Enervation he needs a concentration check to use the SLA without provoking, and even if he passes that, he still takes an AOO for using a ranged attack in melee.

Also, he's at -4 AC and saves from the Sword of Valor.

The area-effect drain ability is still bad, but it grants a save and is only 1 level at a time. Still means that Dadna can't be anywhere near there. And since Ian can't see even with Daylight, then he doesn't need to be there either.

Leothar can hold Ian's shield for the Daylight and take the lead.

That's my suggestion. Pull back a little bit, wait for the Summons to expire, and go after him. Then go to the Planetar and the casters in our army and beg for Restorations.

Not knowing exactly how long it would take to get through broken furniture was a huge problem for me when I was trying to figure out what to do, which is why I fell back. Being delayed for a round and double-Enervated would have killed Leothar without him even getting a hit in. Just a futile and pointless death. Obviously the demon is going to push more furniture in front of the door this time, but if it is out of Enervation then having to take a round to smash stuff (which I can now estimate based on Dadna's experience) is not so bad.

Aravashnial stands unsteadily holing the furniture to steady himself. He then turns and talks to the corner of the room, not being able to see you still, "I thank you greatly for your assistance in getting to the Library. On our way where we stopped and checked out a cache I knew of to see if it was still safe. Here is what was in there." He uncovers a pile of items on the table and sits. You can see eight potions of cure serious wounds, four potions of lesser restoration, 10 +1 evil outsider bane arrows, a chime of opening, a cold iron warhammer, a cold iron dagger, a wand of magic missiles (CL 5th, 31 charges), and a wand of daylight (24 charges).

Did anybody remember that we had a Wand of Daylight? I know I had forgotten it. It wasn't on the loot tracker sheet. I don't think we ever sold it.

I thought I remembered seeing something about that, but since it wasn't on the loot sheet or my sheet I thought I was misremembering.

I can use it with UMD.

Enos can, also, but Ardriel has a better bonus.

We can all use it without a UMD check, since Daylight is on our spell list (well, except Ian since he has no spell list).

I am just astonished to realize that we have it after what a nightmare Deeper Darkness has been for our party in multiple battles.

It's not the solution to all of our problems, but it's a big, big help.

Would be seen as spiteful if we cast it on an arrow that we shot at the nabasu? Just thinking out loud, of course.

Lets do it.

I would cast it on something less fragile. I believe that arrows that hit their target are considered destroyed, which could be interpreted to end the Daylight effect.

anyone got a sling?

I believe that all ammunition is considered destroyed when it hits its target if you go strictly by rules as written and ignore logic.

good thing it's not the same for cast-iron cookware then :)

I think we'll do much better to cast it on someone's armor.
An unattended object can easily be hurled out of the room, covered with a sheet (there were beds in the room), whatever.

I also think that we don't go back in until the summons expires, and Dadna doesn't go back in at all unless she can get a Death Ward from the Planetar. Save at -8 against a permanent negative level from the gaze? Not good odds.

Yeah. But at -8 what else can she do? She might as well be a Dwarven torch. It isn’t like she is going to be able to hit anything. And with reach she can be behind everyone else.

So if the Planetar can cast Death Ward, that suppresses all penalties from negative levels that you have, and prevents you from gaining any more. Dadna would be back to fighting strength.

It's one of the spells I find myself missing the most in this AP.

The Nabasu, we know from experience, has two level-draining attacks.
One is Enervation. I think the one original demon is all out and the summoned one has one shot left. No save, SLA ranged attack. Step Up or Readied actions provide some minor defense, as does staying in back.
The other is the death gaze. Area effect, hits everyone (staying in back is no defense), grants a save, probably (Su) so can't be disrupted.

You guys don't have your loot bag with you. That is a fair bit of weight to be carrying around unless you have somewhere to store it all. If you do great. What is the plan?

While talking is a free action you only have 6 seconds total so a long strategy session is out. Dadna and Ian have gone this round.

I think we need more information on the current situation before deciding on our actions.

A wand is of negligible weight. Assuming it had to be carried in the big bag of loot doesn’t necessarily follow. I have no prior knowledge of the wand as a player that I recall.

DM: You’ve heard the ideas we have thrown out and as you say, we have limited time. But you have a clearer idea of the world than we do - are any of the ideas obvious non-starters for the characters that we don’t realize as players?

If you go back the way you came at 20' movement you are looking 1-5 minutes. You haven't gone the other way but would guess similar.

When Ian shut the door. His daylight kicked in and the silence went away.

Ian wouldn't know if the doors lock automatically or not. He picked them to open them, that wouldn't let him know of the insides. That being said you haven't noticed any door but the one lock after it was closed.

While a wand is if negligible weight if an item isn't on someone's person then it's in the loot bag back at camp.

I don't think any of the ideas thrown out are impossible.

@Dadna, where did you want to move to?

I'm really not sure. We are fighting shadow demons. I don't know their stat block, but given that they are shadow demons, we can't really rely on a locked door holding them in. If we retreat to ask the plantar for help, there's a decent chance that they get out. And given how they are roughing us up, one can only imagine what they'd do to our much lower level army.

We have a daylight up. Hopefully they are out of enervations. My honest vote is to move in as one, with our daylight inside the room lighting it up so we can finally get to grips with them. Plus, it is heroic. We just freed Drezen...to have us retreat with our tails between our legs is such a letdown.

And if Dadna dies? Well, it would be a heroic death and would be fitting for her character. I'd enjoy writing up a sad ending, adding her to my list of fallen PCs, and making a new one. Perhaps a trickster, this time.

So...yeah. I say we charge in like a horde of paladins, and in the future make sure that we have all wands on us.