GM supervillan's 1-35 Voice in the Void [Gameday IX] (Inactive)

Game Master supervillan

For all OOC chatter

Slides are linked to above, and in my GM alias header.

Please check your Initiative and Perception modifiers.

We are due to get underway on Tuesday, but feel free to introduce your characters in the Gameplay thread :)

If you've not already done so, please ensure that your character sheets and headers are up to date.

We start on Tuesday.

Catushlara are you level 5 or 6? Your sign-in said level 6. Also, I believe you are a Feat short.

I forgot to apply my new level. I am a Level 5 Cleric/Warpriest 1

We are underway!

Just so we know what sort of roles our characters typically play (and so I can better prepare my infusions), what are your preferred/typical roles for your characters? I see we've got a pile of casters and hybrids.

Dale is usually mostly a skill monkey and unreliable bomb tosser and problem solver. I did take the infusion discovery last level and can share my extracts:

Is anyone interested in something like enlarge? shield? I usually try to leave one or two slots of each level open for problem solving but can premix something if it'll be extra helpful.

Dale is also a fantastic surgeon if anyone is interested in a nose job or maybe a tummy tuck.

*Barring any input on infusions Dale's are set. He uses his 12hr ant haul during 'adventuring time'.

I typically use my whip for zone control with Frostbite and Trips. Increasing the range further with enlarge wouldn't be a bad thing at all .

I am fine with keeping it in reserve as well.

Goe Lem is very much a melee combatant. Often starts with a buff spell. He is very slow, so expeditious retreat wouldn't go amiss if you happen to have it. Otherwise any defensive or offensive buff is appreciated.

Thanks for the responses so far. I'll leave some slots empty at the moment and we can reassess a bit more once we've gotten down to see what likely is in our way.

Dale does have expeditious retreat in his formula book. I've also got some of the healing options and lesser restoration. Unfortunately I don't have access to level 3 extracts yet so some other removal stuff like remove curse, disease, etc are off the table in that respect. He does have a stack of see invisibility scrolls if that pops up as a problem.

Lara prefers using her naginata for close range fights but will she will either light it up with fire strike or holy strike as needed. She does not care much for channeling. She has wands for that.

Kioshi is a generalist wizard really.

Nothing special. He usually casts haste at the start of combat.

Catushlara you've left a lot of your spell slots open. I assume that's deliberate.

Added the other prepared spells. Here's what I have prepared:

Cleric
Level 0: Detect Magic, Guidance, Read Magic, Mending
Level 1: Abundant ammunition, Bless, Divine Favor, Remove Sickness
Level 2: Protection from Evil(Communal), Hold Person, Align Weapon
Level 3: Searing Light, Prayer

Warpriest
Level 0: Light, Resistance, Stabilize
Level 1: Shield of Faith

So for light Dale does have an ioun torch but that's about it. Maybe a stray sun rod from eons ago.

As far as SOP: I suggest perception and detect magic at any doors/intersections, and of course anything 'runey'. If we come across anything like statues, books, furniture, anything like that then Dale will have to look at it since that's what he does.

Dale's perception is decent, not as good as Goe's. He also has a wayfinder that can detect magic and a stellar spellcraft/knowledges. Actually, I think I'll just consume my INT cognatogen now too.

I will cast Resistance on anyone who will try to open any doors or scout ahead. I can also cast Detect Magic.

Hey Dale, where did you get the wayfinder with detect magic from?

Pathfinder Society Primer: Discerning Wayfinder 5PP

http://dreek.nl/PFSVanities/Pathfinder%20Society%20Field%20Guide/Wayfinder% 20enhancements.html

This site lists a lot of the vanities including Wayfinder enhancements. Jade is one of my favorites.

Discerning Wayfinder is practically a must-have for alchemists and investigators ;)

Mine has the Holy enhancement.

A quick review of your character sheets shows the following:

Catashlara - light orison, wayfinder, lowlight vision
Dale - ioun torch
Goe Lem - darkvision
Kioshi - lowlight vision
Malvic - lowlight vision
Sirius - wayfinder, lowlight vision

I'll assume that those of you with a light source keep them activated and proceed accordingly.

Pathfinder Society Primer: Discerning Wayfinder 5PP

http://dreek.nl/PFSVanities/Pathfinder%20Society%20Field%20Guide/Wayfinder% 20enhancements.html

This site lists a lot of the vanities including Wayfinder enhancements. Jade is one of my favorites.

Thanks a lot!

I will buy it for my investigator Andor! :-) He is level 9 and it was really going on my nerves that he could not cast detect magic.

I didn't know about that, my alchemist bought a wand of detect magic.

How I do Knowledge checks in combat

As you've seen from the gargoyles encounter, I present nested spoilers for monster ID checks, with pertinent information behind each spoiler. I run combat knowledge checks this way for two reasons. Firstly, it is much faster for PbP; waiting for a GM to reply to specific questions from multiple PCs slows combat considerably. Secondly, the alternative whereby we go around a table and each PC who beats the DC asks for *different* pieces of info breaks verisimilitude.

I do strive to make the information relevant to the PCs though. If you were all blaster mages then DR would be a low priority, SR and resistances much higher priority.

Sounds good. I do appreciate the speed of it all for sure.

On my next turn if Malvic is not stabilized I will take a five foot step back and cast Stabilize on Malvic.

Thanks, sorry for dropping immediately. I still have a ways to go on being at risk of dying if you want to focus on the gargoyles.

This fight seems extremely difficult looking at the number of attacks, attack bonus and high damage. What tier is this? I know it doesn't help with the relatively low AC/HP of some players but dang.

In order to get out of this alive we're going to need to come up with some plans of action.

Dale isn't much of an in-combat healer, basically just some CLW wand use to stabilize people, which against this damage output just won't do much other than delay the inevitable. We need to focus down at least one of these guys to have a chance. Keep them from getting 3-4 attacks each on us in a round is a good plan too.

Tier 6-7. But written for a party of 4. You are APL5.0, and as there are 6 of you, you play 6-7. With 3 level 6s and 3 level 4s I'm confident you have the resources to succeed.

However, you are a very squishy party against melee opposition. Level 4 front-liners will need to be wary.

I have heard some horror stories about Season 0 since it pre-dated the Bestiary but I wasn't sure if Season 1 was the same.

I am surprised Blue is still up with that much damage, so it has to be close.

But yeah, I am a little low and squishy. So I will have to be much more careful.

A weak step back channel may be needed to stabilize the fallen, even if it heals the enemies a little bit.

If we live through this we'll need to play things safer and with more precombat buffs on melee to avoid them getting KO'd so quickly.

Gaining that iterative on the greatsword and two natural attacks is rough. Definitely learned my lesson about playing up as melee though.

I knew I forgot something! I forgot to buy heavy armor after taking Warpriest. I'm only wearing a Mithral chain shirt.

I'm normally willing to retcon if I think there's been a misunderstanding that would lead to significant loss or character death.

Sorry for the slightly clumsy start there folks. Those gargoyles' statblocks are bespoke, but the attacks line was quite wrong. If this scenario had been written a few years later, they'd just be Giant Advanced gargoyles (two simple templates applied). Same CR - fewer hp but better AC.

Sometimes I think the Advanced template is overused and undercosted - it can make some monsters way more powerful than +1CR reflects - but this is an instance where it would be cleaner and more simple.

Don’t worry GM. We did it after all. :-)

Not an issue. I like having some difficult encounters. Easy is boring.

This is the first time I actually had to use channeling during battle. Not a very good healer :)

Let's resolve the "shopping vs buff duration" dilemma.

Dale's got a couple of buffs running that last 1 hour.

It would take over an hour to run back to the Grand Lodge, purchase a couple of wands, and get back to the Museum. The Museum is in the Wise Quarter. The Lodge is in the Foreign Quarter. They are not adjacent (although they're not at opposite ends of the city either).

You don't have unlimited time. Nigel wants to open the Museum in the morning.

I see a number of options for you:

1. You all continue as you are. Malvic doesn't get his wands.
2. You wait a couple of hours. Malvic gets his wands, but Dale's buffs expire. Then you continue.
3. The rest of you continue, in the hope that Malvic catches up.

Options appraisal (GM perspective):

1. Malvic feels unable to contribute as he normally would without a wand of Shield, and does not want to continue. Your GM would like *everyone* to be having fun here. I can tell you that not all of the enemies here are as full-on melee as the gargoyles, if that helps. Which is not to say that they aren't dangerous.

2. Dale's buffs expire (plus Kioshi's couple of short duration spells). Dale would feel less effective than he'd like to be. Dale could brew another cognatogen whilst he's waiting for Malvic to get back, which means he's just down a Heroism and could get it back via another alchemical allocation extract.

3. If you don't stop somewhere, you'll most likely finish every encounter area within 2 hours. Probably less than that. If Malvic only completes the gargoyle encounter then he's getting a 0xp chronicle (albeit he'll have some gold on it). This is not an outcome I want.

It's up to you as a group what you want to do. If you want my opinion as a player, option 2 seems to be minimally disruptive.

Malvic,
You could wait for me to engage and draw some aggro.
I can fight defensively to be just a bit more durable.
You can use my potion of enlarge person. That would give you reach and You can attack from behind me.
Unfortunately, I flubbed my concentration on the communal protection from evil.
Does anyone else have a defensive buff they could cast onto Malvic?

In-character, I don't like the idea of stopping in the midst of a rescue mission.
Out-of-character, I don't want you to not be having fun.

I'm fine with option two, I just wanted to state my annoyance of having to stop mid adventure for an item that if it was so important you should have had it already.

Go do your shopping and I'll brew up another cognatogen and mix another AA and a lesser resto to clear some of the 4 str damage I'll have.

Onward!

Honestly, if Dale has such an issue as this was my first time playing up a two level gap, I can just bow out taking the 0xp 0gold chronicle. Not that that helps the group at all being down a person on already a tough APL for some members.

This isn't a normal situation: Playing up a 2 level gap in HP. That isn't something that is common and I underestimated the increase in damage and the lack of two levels worth of HP. The tizzy over your buffs just to put my character at more undue risk is absurd as it is a team effort where you want all characters to be able to fill their role and survive.

That and I will make sure not to share a table with Massee in the future, I can do without the passive aggressive player.

I have Protection from Evil, Communal and a wand of Protection from Evil. I haven't used my Shield of Faith either.

Ok, let's just calm down a bit. This is a game. A pastime we do for recreation and fun. No need for sniping from anybody at anybody.

I think that we can handle this with a bit more care and tactical planning. However, I obviously can't promise that. The unknown and dice make that impossible.
If Malvic would feel more comfortable with the wand, out-of-character, I am willing to put on a temporary hold in place.

Kioshi can just change one of his 1st level spells with ‘ quick study’ to shield and cast that. Would that be an option?

I apologize. I posted that in a cranky mood. I'm fine with taking an hour break. Its been a long summer. Let's put this behind us and pilfer some museum secrets.

Kioshi can just change one of his 1st level spells with ‘ quick study’ to shield and cast that. Would that be an option?

Shield is a range 'personal' spell. There are a few casters that have ways to cast personal spells on someone else. Do you have that?

Oh no! :-( Sorry, forgot that.

I am speaking to Dale and Malvic's players via dm.

Normal service should be resumed shortly.

Yeah, I will stick around. We worked out all the issues. I came off a little rough in my reply so I apologize to everyone for that too.

Again I am dearly sorry for having to grab the wand. I was wholly unprepared for playing up and I do not like having to do stuff like that. Now that it is settled, I am ready to take out any frustrations on everything else lurking in the museum tonight!

Anyone with Shield on their spell list or with UMD, please feel free to use my wand before we go into rooms. I can't use it on you due to the personal range but you can use it if you have the ability. Also use my wand for out of combat healing. It is the least I can do for slowing us down.