Curse of the Crimson Throne (complete) (Inactive)

Game Master Whack-a-Rogue

Happy dance time for reinforcements not coming. Eating up resources is the name of their game.

That's the good part of the lack of ladders: each level becomes self-contained. ;-)

@Usawoti: In case you were curious, blood veil is the plague that Torsten helped stop earlier in the campaign. It's quite nasty because it's incurable without magic.

@Usawoti: In case you were curious, blood veil is the plague that Torsten helped stop earlier in the campaign. It's quite nasty because it's incurable without magic.

Three more queens fall before your attacks. The battle seems to be almost over when the blood pool erupts, forming the shape of a legless dragon that immediately unleashes the fury of its breath weapon!

STR Drain: 1d6 ⇒ 6
@Both of You: Fortitude Save DC 27 (disease) vs blood veil. There's no onset period, so if the save is failed, you'll immediately take 1d4 CON and 1d4 CHA damage.

Did we take 6 pts of damage to strength? If so, please deduct three from all the pertinent rolls and let me know so I can deduct it from his attacks.

Yes, there's no save on the STR drain.

Sorry, I didn't count the - 3 on my rolls, I will the next time around

In news unrelating to this game, drbuzzard sent me a PM, told me two shields was just silly and he didn't look any further.

Writing up the Queen's actions took a while. She has a lot of moving parts - as a final boss should. ;-)

Two shields is silly? I disagree with every fiber of my being. A pair of shields with the edges honed to a razor edge is amazing. It is like a pair of sword nunchucks. Almost as dangerous to the enemy as to the user, but so awesome that it is worth using for that reason alone.

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And the Queen is absolutely terrifying. As far as final bosses go, she's great.

Yeah, I thought the two weapon fighting with a specific dwarf weapon would be grand. especially one he could put down, deal with traps and then pick back up. I politely responded that it wasn't as silly as having a dwarf named grumpy who's deity is 'Walt Disney.' Apparently grumpy is from his home game and is a shoe-in. I also pointed out that the 'investigator' has no training in disable device. Anyway, there will be other games.

Now back to your regularly scheduled battle:

@Both of You: Fortitude Save DC 33 vs entangled. On a failed save, the next successful attack against Ileosa deals equal damage to you.

So does freedom of movement (from the sword) prevent the entanglement?

@Usawoti: It does! Told you the sword was great. ;-)

@Usawoti: It does! Told you the sword was great. ;-)

I never doubted it's greatness :)

Does that go for the difficult terrain caused by the blood as well?

Trying to decide if I want to tempt casting instead of channeling.

The difficult terrain is coming from a magical effect, so I believe freedom of movement will apply.

cool, I will probably try and soften her up a bit, but I don't know that I want to be standing beside her to do it.

Just saw Torsten's post, a flank may be helpful, removing the images may be as well. YBD if Usawoti uses Mass Death Magic can he target her and the seven mirror images potentially removing them?

Good question! I had to look that one up. ;-)

According to the Paizo FAQ, you can't specifically target or aim for a single mirror image. As such, Mass Death Magic won't work.
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In my experience, there are two ways to deal with mirror image. The first is to unleash as many attacks as possible as missed attacks can destroy images. Both TWF and Flurry of Blows are great for this. The second is to close your eyes or otherwise blind yourself. The 50% miss chance for total concealment is currently better than the 87.5% miss chance for seven images. ;-)

Don't forget to track your current bleed damage (if any), as some of Ileosa's abilities are based on the total amount. Speaking of bleed damage, it'll take 30pts of healing to end it - although since Usawoti blessed both of you before entering the pyramid, that shouldn't be a problem. ;-)

I've regularly been forgetting the bonus from Robustness. Sadly that's only 16 pts to add to my 50, I'm going to go back and double check everything.

Fighting the devils he was -44 hp, 7 of which are bleed He then used the temp HP, until the end of combat, where he channeled 42 with the robustness that would have put him full.

Fighting the queens, -14, - 13 - 46 - 72 (27 of which is bleed)

So at that point Usawoti was - 145, He channeled 49 with the 16 from Robustness he would have been -80 and the bleed would have stopped. The queens next attack did - 32 (13 of which is bleed) Then she changed to the dragon and did - 83 (13 0f which was bleed)

So that's a total of 195 HP damage, and Usawoti is at a negative 15 hp with a constitution of 18.

Does Serithtial have any tricks up it's sleave?

Harrow Card?
- If you fail a saving throw against a death effect, you're stunned for 1 round but negate the death effect. This protection can only be used once.

The dragon's 70HP attack was necromatic. If it was a death effect, then rolling that 1 might count for the harrow card, leaving you stunned instead of on death's door.

Thanks! I had forgotten about the harrow cards. I'm hoping the magical sword can intervene and then Usawoti will heal himself. If not, we have to go that route.

Serithtial will, of course, cast cure moderate wounds, giving you 2d8+10 (+ up to 16 more depending on the result rolled). I'll also remind you that you can spend +1 channel use to gain the benefit of a feat you don't currently possess.

Prerequisites: Quick Channel or Quicken Spell; channel energy class feature.

Benefit: When the damage from an attack or an effect would reduce you to 0 or fewer hit points, you can expend one use of channel energy (of a form that would heal you) as an immediate action to heal yourself. The healing affects only you, even if it would normally affect others.

This would cost you three uses: one to gain Quick Channel, one to gain Reactive Healing, and one to use the feat.

The harrow card applies as well, if desired. :-)
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Because both of you have access to a large amount of healing, an important part of the strategy for this fight is counteracting the bleed damage. As you're seeing, it adds up very quickly. In addition, it hasn't come into play yet, but the queen deals extra damage vs enemies at 20+ bleed or at low HP. In addition to channeling, don't forget that you have the Self-Renewal talent, meaning you can spend two spell points to heal 1d8+32 (due to Robustness) as a Swift action. You can also spend a Standard action to activate your blessing, healing 160hp and curing your STR damage.

I'd not seen reactive healing and hadn't remembered the self renewal talent being a swift action, but will keep that in mind. Iwas planning on using activating the bless this round, but had underestimated the amount of damage the queen would do.

Just saw your post in game. Will Serithtial be using the healing to prevent Usawoti from falling unconscious, basically interrupting Usawoti's turn, or will Usawoti fall unconscious, then be healed by the sword? Obviously I'm trying to keep him from being unconscious.

Been awhile since I was on the edge of my seat for a combat. This is great. :D

Serithtial can act at any time; it's up to you. ;-)

hmmmm, if Serithitial can act anytime, I'd prefer it heal him after he fails the save and before he goes unconscious, that way he can use his standard for the blessing and still get in a feint attack.

Sounds good. Feel free to roll the healing yourself. :-)

ok, didn't know if you wanted Serithtial to say something snarky or not. Things are starting to get pressed for time here, I'll get the post up in a couple hours.

Remember, Serithtial can't talk - only give flashes of emotion via empathy. Make with that what you will. ;-)

Sorry about the delay, I think I got it right.

I'm planning on getting a post up in the morning. If Torsten destroys the dragon, I'll ready an attack for when the queen shows back up. Time to try out Enervation... I know she has to have spell resistance, but it has to be worth the chance.
Edit: Unless there are a mirror images grrrrr

With 15HP left, could you get yourself back up to working condition? I'd hate to see Usawoti die. I mean, I have a scroll of resurrection...but Torsten also needs to be alive to use it.

@Torsten: Usawoti should be back to full health thanks to Serithtial's emergency healing + using his blessing to cast heal.

@Usawoti: The mirror images are gone, but she does have Spell Resistance. The number to hit is 22. :-)

Regarding the dragons, you'll be happy to know that creating them expends 'charges' from the artifact-level blood pool. Thanks to your efforts, while there's still plenty of blood, all 10 charges have been used, so it's just difficult terrain with a Reflex save to avoid falling. ;-)

Should there be no IC reason to let the dragon form, then my vote is for Usawoti to take Serinthal and to put it down before it forms.

OOC, though, it sounds like a really fun challenge. Thoughts?

I was thinking there was no reason to let him form either, but I wasn't sure what we could do to stop it. If you think plunging the sword in the middle then he will do that. We''ve got folks coming over soon so the post will have to wait until later.

Should Usawoti fill his and torsten's HP first just in case something explosive might happen?

Could do so…ooc we know we have 10 rounds. Whatever you think makes for the best scene.

I'll think about it while the real adults are having a conversations, be back in three or four hours.

Pity we don't have a magical "you must obey" bridle to put on him.

To answer Torsten's question from Gameplay, the only real benefit to defeating Kazavon is bragging rights. When he was originally slain, his spirit imbued itself into his skeleton, which was transformed into seven separate artifacts. As long as even one remains intact, Kazavon can be resurrected. The Crown of Fangs is one of these artifacts, and it isn't known where most of the others are - although one is rumored to be in Zon Kuthon's possession.

As you can see, permanently defeating Kazavon is outside the scope of this campaign: I'm guessing Paizo will bring him back in a future adventure path at some point. He's in the CR 25-30 range, so fighting him is likely to go extremely poorly for you ... but I've been surprised before. ;-) The expected outcome here is for you to use Serithtial to destroy the Crown of Fangs, but fighting a resurrected Kazavon is there as an option in case the Ileosa battle wasn't epic enough. ;-)

so, you have stats on this Kazavon fellow ??? I'm afraid to even ask what spheres he'll be swinging about...

*cough*time stop*cough*Spell Resistance 36*cough*two turns per round*cough*

After Kazavon kills us, we can start a new campaign! Wrath of the Righteous. Only instead of the World Wound, it's the fallout of us not destroying the crown and getting a TPK.

Come on, we can take 'em. You dwarves work good in tight corners, and he'll be cramped in this little room....just jump in his mouth and rip his head apart.

So, what I hear you saying is if we let the dragon kill us, YBD is obligated to start another AP for us?

Harrow Decision: Each of you can draw 0 - 3 cards from the deck. There are a mix of positive, neutral, and negative effects: all are powerful. Once the decision is made, there are no take-backs, but I've curated the possibilities to remove the forced alignment changes, soul-trapping, and other game-ending outcomes. :-)

So we can see the finish line from here, I'm thinking we draw the cards at our parting. So we need to get back to Korvosa and let the rebellion begin. TBD do you want to narrate that? Then once everything is good we say goodbye? Or do you want us to RP heading back and such?

Sounds like a good plan to me. I second the questions.

I don't think we need to RP the journey back to Korvosa unless you want to. There's nothing scheduled to happen. I think we can break the conclusion into three parts: clearing the Sunken Queen, starting the rebellion, and a final wrap-up post.

so here we are wrapping up, before we finish one question, would Usawoti be able to figure out how to destroy the soul-trapping gemstone?

So, I generally prefer not to jump in games at higher levels. It's hard to not justify doing when I get to play in a game ran by YBD and play with Grumbaki. Having played Usawoti to higher levels with a similar build certainly made it easy to transition to this game. It has been great fun and has improved my understanding of sphere's even more.

YBD great game, thank you. Grumbaki, I love Torsten's the story arch. I'm sad he didn't get to patch things up with his father, but your right, sometimes it goes that way. Maybe in another lifetime or so.

Destroying the gemstone is as simple as breaking it without touching it. Your earthbreaker, for example. ;-)

And that's it! There's a ton of work to be done in the city - especially as it's rulerless for the first time in a hundred years - but neither Torsten nor Usawoti seem like the type to want to take charge. ;-)

As you figure out your epilogues, there are a couple possible threads remaining. You've destroyed one of Kazavon's relics, but there are still six more scattered across the world. If you want to make certain he won't return, seeking them out is a suitable epic quest. I felt this had potential for Usawoti - assuming he doesn't want to simply return home and become Thousand Bones's successor.

The blood pool - while currently drained of power - is a powerful artifact dating back to the time of the Runelords. Permanently destroying it would be an extremely difficult undertaking, requiring blood from multiple powerful Evil Outsiders. I felt this had potential for Torsten, as he's well on his way to becoming something more than a mere mortal - assuming he doesn't want to simply go home and reopen his tattoo shop.

If you elect to draw harrow cards, they may lead to story hooks as well.