Shadows of Gallowspire

Game Master Shadow_Fox

Congratulations to those selected and looking forward to a fun game. Please introduce yourselves, discuss your characters, etc. You can make small edits - i.e. change feats, skills, spells, etc. to be a more in-tune party. However, you cannot edit your class/race/etc. I know it's going to be hard without a cleric but you have some channel energy. I am sure you will make it work.

High level play is a lot of numbers crunch, so please try to assist me as much as possible. I love links to uncommon feats, abilities, spells, magic items. In combat, please post your modifiers and penalties to hit and damage as well as any buffs.. Also format your characters with hps, ac, saves, perception, etc. to make it easy for me to just take a view at your character profile and not have to click on your sheet.

I will roll for initiative/perception/etc. to speed things up and keep the game moving.

Also decide if you would like to be strangers or a members of an existing party at the intro to the game in Caliphas.

Any questions, let me know!

Hi GM!

Thanks a ton for the invite! Very happy to be here, as I love the horror atmosphere of this AP and I think the characters will connect really well. I will be adjusting the last details on the sheet soon, and please feel free to let me know any other things you'd like me to change or better explain.

As a party, maybe we should all put some gold together to buy some healing wands.

As for knowing each other: I built my background basically allowing us to go either way, but I feel it's a good hook if this party of players had been together for some time; it makes things definitely simpler.

Thanks again and let's get this party started! :)

Roet, I did have one comment. Any chance for infusion in your build? Seems like your buffs would benefit the party. Just a thought.

It's a good point! Maybe I should replace ability focus with extra discovery and get infusion to help the party. Roet is a lot more built around his physical side than Intelligence, so my quantity of extracts is a bit more limited than it would be for a full Intelligence-focused alchemist, but it might still be helpful. Let me review the sheet and I'll get back!

thx GM!

Hi guys!

I'll fill up with some scrolls with my residual gp tomorrow.

We're a bit high level for wands of CLW, don't you think? Alchemist extracts and Paladin LoH should suffice I think.

Thanks for choosing me GM!

I'm sure I'll need to tweak some of my build, probably my gear. I'm thinking the rallying enchantment on my armor is going to be useless with 2 paladins in the party, for example.

I have pretty much everything hyperlinked in my profile, because yes it is very easy for high level characters to get overly complicated very quickly. And in combat I always post all of my modifiers and whatnot, and I believe my header is already up to date.

@Roet - Happy to pitch in for healing wands, although note I'm a dhampir so I'll need my own.

I always vote yes on infusion. I practically see it as a tax for the extract-using classes.

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Since we're all playing high-level characters, I suggest we do a quick breakdown of our builds so we can all adjust our builds accordingly.

Zed is a melee striker with a lot of buffs/utility. He is extraordinarily good at locating and tracking undead, and just as good at putting them to rest. He has no teamwork feats like a normal inquisitor, instead being able to brand undead (and any other evil) foes in order to gain bonuses against them and make it easy to locate them. Most of his buffs are for himself, but he can hand out some choice buffs like protection from evil and freedom of movement if need be. He can use as well as counter invisibility, and he excels at dealing with enemy defensive buffs, getting around their damage reduction and dodge chance and mirror images and whatnot. He's not a tank, but he's got a respectable AC and can switch his judgements as an immediate action as well as use divine interference to keep himself healthy for a limited amount of time on the battlefield. So he doesn't want to be first into the fray, but he's more than capable of taking a few lumps.

Out of combat he's a great scout and interrogator, although if you want to change anybody's attitude by anything other than intimidate you should look elsewhere.

Thanks for the selection, GM! Happy to be playing with the rest of you.
I will happily copy and paste Zed's profile - thanks for that!

As for the character, if we need more healing, I'd be willing to swap out the oath of vengeance archetype to get some channels. Let me know.

As for my character breakdown, Gaelan is all melee, all the time. He has good initiative and will happily wade into combat first. He has no ranged weapons. With power attack, he can do about 25 damage per swing. When he smites, he can go nova damage. He likes to crit doing so often, threatening on a 15-20. His fearless aura makes party immune to fear in 20' radius aura and he can bump it up to 40' with a second level spell. As for skills, he can be a face in the party, although with Sola in the party, he can't match her +30 skill. He has tons of immunities, so so AC, and good saves. He can fly in emergencies with his celestial armor. Skills he contributes are Nobility, Religion, and Spellcraft (+17 in each).

As for party funds, he can contribute only 3031 gp.

Also, guys, please chime in on the mercies if you want any changes. I can cure Fatigued, Diseased, Exhausted, and Paralyzed conditions.

I would prefer if we were an established party, but either works.

Huzzah, thanks for the pick!

Sorry I didn’t chime in sooner, or more fully right now, but I’ve been slammed with work today. My profile has links to almost everything, and my banner should be up to date, I think. I know my name is a mouthful but in formal settings I’ll mostly go by Dame Solanis (Dame being the female version of Sir), and after often being called just Solanis in military settings, her nickname will be Sola.

In terms of roles, I’m a buffer. I’ll post a list later of all the buffs I grant all the time, and I have inspire courage (or battle herald buffs), and can pass out teamwork feats some times. I’ll post more later tonight when I have more time.

Edit: my diplomacy is actually +35 now that I sorted my gear

Hmm, apparently I could have just waited and made a longer post now since everyone else had already gone.

In combat, Sola is primarily a buffer. She has a banner on her longspear and as long as she's holding it in both hands she always grants all allies within 30': +2 morale bonus to attack and damage rolls, +2 morale to saves vs charms (and fear, though it sounds like Gaelen will trump that a lot of the time), +2 resistance bonus vs mind-affecting effects (although I assume everyone has at least a +2 resistance bonus already), +10' to their movement speed, and a +1 dodge bonus to AC if you move at least 10' in a round. I'll figure out a way to put that in my banner or something for easy reference. On top of that I'll be using an active buff pretty much all of the time (usually inspire courage, for a +3 competence bonus to hit/damage, but I have other options too). And I can use tactician 1/day to grant a teamwork feat for a few rounds, but then I also have an ability from an archetype where if we spend a minute laying out a plan I can (once during the next hour) grant everyone a teamwork feat for 4 minutes (and I can use this ability repeatedly). Right now my teamwork feats are Lastwall Phalanx (which I don't want to give up for story reasons, but is also really awesome) and punch through (which seems handy but I'm totally willing to trade it out if there's something else people would prefer). Like Gaelan, I don't own a ranged weapon (since I have to keep 2 hands on my spear) but I naturally have white, feathered wings that allow me to fly, so if need be I can take my spear to the enemy.

Outside of combat, Sola is pretty much a straight up face. As already mentioned, I have a ridiculous bonus to diplomacy. I also have +29 to intimidate and +23 to perform [oratory] (to keep up morale during those long nights). I speak a handful of languages but none of the ones for things we'll be fighting because diplomacy is for rallying allies not sweet talking evil. Oh, and I can gather info in 1d6x5 minutes (instead of 1d4+1 hours) if we need to ask questions in town.

As to the other questions... I'm all for starting out already knowing each other. That lets us skip the awkward 'what do I call you' and 'wait, what can you do' stuff. My background has me wandering Ustalav for the last 10 levels killing undead and other threats, and just helping out the people however I can, so there should be tons of ways I could know any of you. And, the healing I have is very minor, just 2d6 from my lay hands, and no mercies (although, once per day I can use it to give someone +7 sacred bonus to attack rolls and fear saves for a minute); I have about 2k gold and don't mind chipping in for items to help with, but we might want to think less about just hp recovery and more about status removal? If Roet picks up infusion, all 5 of us will have some ability to restore hit points, but aside from his restoration infusions and Gaelen's mercies we might be low on the ability to handle things like blindness/deafness, curses, or even poison.

Edit: I see that a bunch of you took heroism as a spell known... it's a good spell but it won't stack with the +2 morale bonus that I give all the time, so it won't be quite as useful in this party (it'll still give +2 to saves beside charm/fear, and to skill points, but I wasn't sure if we'd need 3-4 people who can all cast it with its slightly diminished usefulness).

Re-edit: I probably know Gaelan from the POI chapter meetings (Paladins of Iomedae, I don't imagine there's a huge number of us in Ustalav, especially not of our level/reputation)

I see that a bunch of you took heroism as a spell known... it's a good spell but it won't stack with the +2 morale bonus that I give all the time, so it won't be quite as useful in this party (it'll still give +2 to saves beside charm/fear, and to skill points, but I wasn't sure if we'd need 3-4 people who can all cast it with its slightly diminished usefulness).

you're right. For myself, I don't need the attack boost anyway, well maybe for my ray spells, but the bonus to saves and skills is critical. As a full caster I have no problem keeping this up, I have enough spell slots by now.

How are we on clerical stuff like condition removal etc? I guess the Paladin can LoH some stuff, and the dhampir can cast most of it off scrolls without UMD? Otherwise my sorcerer has naturally high UMD.

Good stuff. Gaelan will switch out Heroism for Bladed Dash. I can opt for healing blindness instead of paralysis with LoH if you prefer. I would say Gaelan's primary weakness may be his lack of Darkvision as I didn't buy him any goggles or such. He can cast Light at will and has Low-Light.

I agree with Sola about being an established party with some levels together under our belt.

I’ll get Infusion, so I can also create extracts for stuff like cure and restoration spells. I’ll review my list once I get to it.

Despite being an alchemist, Roet is (for at least 6 hours everyday, but even outside of it) a melee character as well - a literal beast with bite, claws, wings and spikes, high AC and element resistances, besides things like pounce and a breath weapon. He will never dish as much damage as some of our peeps here, but still enough to be dangerous. He also acts as a scout and brings trapfinding and good perception/disable device to deal with it.

He had a good chunk of skills and support spells so I hope he can help on this matter too.

The coolest thing is for RP though with his double personality thing - when he mutates, he becomes someone else, including an alignment change. If we were a group before that knew each other, then you guys already know Mr. Heineous. In any case I look forward to the interactions.

I would say Gaelan's primary weakness may be his lack of Darkvision as I didn't buy him any goggles or such. He can cast Light at will and has Low-Light..

Since my char's theme is "Bringing Light", my sorcerer has the Darkvision spell. It's 12 hours per casting and I have 8 2nd level spells per day. So, if our light spells don't suffice anymore, I can hand out Darkvision. As a human I need it myself, too.

I am glad the party is coming together. Roet and Aja, please format your characters in the Race/Class Tab as the other 3 players have done with your principal stats and x per day abilities. I have created the Gameplay Thread if you want to dot (see link at top of thread).

Gaelan could get Blended View, as an elf, and Aja could get Dimdweller as a Human. However, I kind of like the nonoptimized thing and having to deal with these issues :)

@GM: I’ll get to my computer later tonight and do the sheet review/header formats here.

Cheers

@Eudamonia - Thanks for the breakdown. Knowing things like that (how heroism isn't a good spell to take) is important information to know for tweaking our builds.

I agree on being an established party.

I'm down to carry some scrolls of condition removal stuff. I'd prefer to not use one of my valuable spell slots on knowing it though.

@Aja - Could you break down your character for us? It seems like a blast & battlefield control build with some minor buffing, just based on a quick review, but I know it's very easy to overlook things on a high-level build without intimidate knowledge of it.

That being said, we seem to have a pretty damn good balanced party!

My family just got a Xmas tree and we’re decorating (and watching Elf), so I’ll be slow to respond for much of today. I’ll add daily abilities (and my static buff) to my banner later though.

Also, we should talk about what the dynamic with Mr Heinous is like (and what Roet as a player is hoping for). I can easily see Sola feeling like she has to provide some clear leadership for him to keep him from going too far.

@Aja - Could you break down your character for us? It seems like a blast & battlefield control build with some minor buffing, just based on a quick review, but I know it's very easy to overlook things on a high-level build without intimidate knowledge of it.

That being said, we seem to have a pretty damn good balanced party!

You're exactly right. Aja is primarily a blaster, especially against undead. His bloodline gives him Searing Light as a first level spell, which is a great anti-undead ray.

His secondary role is controlling and buffing.
For this I picked the typical (boring) arcane staples. Blasting is not always useful - and someone has to cast Haste, doesn't he? Sorcerer is not as versatile as a wizard, but I hope to have a spell for every situation.

Soul Warden gives me access to every thinkable way to handle undead, from detecting, hiding, channeling over commanding to halting.

Aja can handle social situations very well, she's very easy to talk to but very determined. Also have Profession (Midwife), if we're facing that kind of problem...

Is that okay for my banner?

Alright I swapped out Heroism for Dimensional Anchor. I don't think we have any way to lock down teleportation and whatnot right now, and it doesn't require a save, so Zed should be pretty decent at using it.

I also dropped the rallying quality on my armor, since we have much better protection from fear in the party. I might pick up a metamagic rod or something.

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Eudamonia, what are you asking about with your banner?

Shadow_Fox asked us to add our daily abilities to the info that appears on our posts between our profile name and picture... I've always called that the banner, though I now recognize that having a 'banner' class feature that title now becomes confusing.

I was trying to ask if the way I formatted by daily abilities was alright with the GM, and whether having my passive buffs spoilered like that would be enough for the rest of the party to remember them (and be able to double check them easily)?

Also (@Gaelen), my personal preference (fwiw) would be for you to keep paralysis, on the grounds that getting paralyzed in combat is way worse than getting blinded. Blindness effects are more likely to be permanent than paralysis, but we can use scrolls or whatever for that outside of combat.

Ah, what you guys are calling "banner" I usually refer to as "header". Either/or, I suppose.

I like it, easy reference. You should also include the range of the ability.

Sola, the headers are fine. You will just have to remind me the radius of the banner's ability.

We can start the rping portion of the game in the Gameplay thread. The party will be an established adventuring group having recently closed a gate to the Abyss, from which demons emerged, in Vellumis, the largest city in Lastwall.

The post is mainly exposition. Hope it's not too much.

I updated the sheet to get infusion, did a quick review on the spells and updated the headers here. I hope it looks better now ;)

since from my background, I was roaming Ustalav for quite some time, I took the Background skill Lore (The Whispering Way) with 11 ranks in it. Could come in handy.

Good to have an expert on the organization, Aja! Gaelan posted in the Gameplay thread too. Shadow Fox, that was a nice summary of the AP. No worries about its length.

@GM- I added the ranges in my buff spoiler, but I'll try to call them out in combat posts as well.

@Fellow players- do we want to talk at all about when/how each of us met? Strictly speaking, its not necessary but it would help me (at least) understand our dynamics a little better?

POI meeting works for me, Sola.

@Fellow players- do we want to talk at all about when/how each of us met? Strictly speaking, its not necessary but it would help me (at least) understand our dynamics a little better?

I'd like to make this up while we go.

Aja- are you saying you want to let the dynamics develop through gameplay, or that you want to make up how we met on the fly if/when it could be pertinent?

Apologies for the delay, I had an extraordinary busy weekend. I will be able to read the gameplay thread in depth and make a post tomorrow.

I would say our best bet is that we are an established group but that we came together fairly recently so we don't have to worry about writing a bunch of history. That's the easiest approach, imo.

Aja- are you saying you want to let the dynamics develop through gameplay, or that you want to make up how we met on the fly if/when it could be pertinent?

The latter would be my preference

Oh... alright.

Well, I guess everyone can just start out calling me Dame Solanis and we'll navigate getting to know each other as we go?

I'm not opposed to knowing some people ahead of time, if anyone else would prefer to have known each other a little longer. @Gaelan- it seems like we've probably done things together for the church before, shall we figure we've known each other for at least a few months (or maybe a couple years)?

Zed has a family lineage in Kavapesta, and a reputation as a hunter of undead. So much so that his reputation preceeds him, and intelligent undead or necromancers may know about him ahead of time. Although hunting the things that go bump in the night has not necessarily earned him a sterling reputation amongst the living; more it is a case of "monsters fighting monsters". Zed has had a lot of internalized self-hatred he has had to come to terms with, and had done the vast majority of his career as a N aligned character, only somewhat recently coming to terms with his purpose and shifting to a NG alignment.

Alright, caught up and posted! Looks like we're taking the "kick down the front door" approach, which is always likely to end with a lot of combat!

I believe I've finished updating my crunch. Changed from character creation:

- Removed "rallying" quality from armor
- Changed out heroism for dimensional anchor
- Bought a bunch of potions and a wand of inflict light wounds (for self healing)

I'm 100% ready to go!

I think at our level we probably all have a reputation that proceeds us.

I still have punch through as my second teamwork feat, and I'm still willing to switch that out if anyone has any other ideas?

I also still have about 2,000g that I'm willing to invest in healing and/or status removal wands/scrolls/etc. Do we want to talk anymore about that or are we just kind of spending our own extra and hoping it works out?

I think at our level we probably all have a reputation that proceeds us.

Fair. 12th level characters tend to alter the entire landscape they're in.

I still have punch through as my second teamwork feat, and I'm still willing to switch that out if anyone has any other ideas?

Ferocious Loyalty, Outflank, Coordinated Charge, Lookout, never of those are bad options.

Allied Spellcaster might help against high SR opponents at this level.

Bonded Mind is fun for communication, deny enemies any kind of tactical insight.

Stealth Synergy is always a choice if the whole group wants to go quiet.

I also still have about 2,000g that I'm willing to invest in healing and/or status removal wands/scrolls/etc. Do we want to talk anymore about that or are we just kind of spending our own extra and hoping it works out?

I vote you guys go in on a couple wands of cure light wounds. I know they're absolutely god-awful for in-combat healing at this level, but you can't argue with the sheer volume of healing you get for the price out of combat.

I spent my own wealth on an inflict light wounds wand. I don't expect you all to foot the bill for my unique healing.

I also recommend keeping some spare money to the side for expensive material components, like diamonds and stuff for restoration and whatnot.

I also still have about 2,000g that I'm willing to invest in healing and/or status removal wands/scrolls/etc. Do we want to talk anymore about that or are we just kind of spending our own extra and hoping it works out?

a scroll of Restoration goes for 1700 gp these days.

I'll spend 5000 of my residual 7000 on Boots of the Earth and various cleric scrolls.
I'm not sure a wand of CLW is feasible at level 12. I'd rather just have Fast Healing 1. That's fully healed in 10 minutes. I'm interested in how a high level game without a cleric will go

Edit: Removing my comment because it was inaccurate.

And without a cleric is alright as long as we have access to restoration magic.

Ferocious loyalty is a morale bonus, so it doesn't stack with the constant morale bonus I already provide, and I don't meet the requirements for coordinated charge. Roet doesn't count as a spellcaster, but if Aja and Zed think the +2 spell penetration is worth it then I might consider allied spellcaster. With the amount of melee we have, I was thinking outflank might be a decent option. Anyone else have any thoughts?

I don't have a lot of offensive spells, really the only spell of mine that would benefit from Allied Spellcaster would be Dimensional Anchor, but I can use my judgement to help overcoming SR anyways.

Outflank seems like a much better options imo. Zed's armor gives him a ton of mobility (between advancing and giving haste as a free action), so I will definitely be trying to abuse flanks.

Another option for flanking is Precise Strike, for damage instead of accuracy.

Depending on if you play pre-errata or post-errata, the Boots of the Earth don't actually provide healing anymore. The Paizo team caught on that infinite healing for 5k was a little busted

I believe the nerf is for Pathfinder Society play?

Ahhh wait, my memory failed me. Thanks for correcting me Aja. Let me clear the record.

There was not an errata for boots of the earth. PFS (and PFS only) made a balance change where the boots can only be activated 1/day. A very...weird change they decided to make.

So it should be fine, I apologize for causing the confusion.

As for feats, I like Outflank, and in a party full of melee I like Broken Wing Gambit as well.

I completely forgot about Boots of the Earth. In my local in-person table, it was houseruled that its effects only work in combat, so most of us stopped buying it - it's truly great though, especially in a party without actual healers.

I like Outflank too, since I picture Roet and I will be the principal ones rushing into melee. These high level games tend to have monsters or NPCs who sunder items, so I will invest in having a a few spare elven curved blades. They may not be agile but at least I won't be completely useless if my principal weapon gets sundered.

Aja, I have no problem with the boots, especially in this party without a cleric. The only caveat I would put on them is that you have to wear them for 24 hours before you can benefit from them in order to prevent the party from sharing one pair of boots a day.

Aja, I have no problem with the boots, especially in this party without a cleric. The only caveat I would put on them is that you have to wear them for 24 hours before you can benefit from them in order to prevent the party from sharing one pair of boots a day.

Thanks. They're a real bargain, but don't provide any in-combat benefit that a selective channeling cleric could do.

@Teamwork feats: I obviously don't have any use for it, but Outflank is something basically an melee can profit from and it isn't too situational.
I would be very open to take Shake It Off next level, if many of us had it.

@Aja- I can give everyone certain teamwork feats temporarily with a class ability, that's why I was asking if there are things anyone would like. Shake it off is good but my go to feat to pass out is lastwall phalanx which gives +1 to saves and AC for each adjacent ally. That feat only works against evil creatures, but that should cover most of what we face. Do you think it would be worth taking shake it off just for the times we run into neutral threats?

No. You're right, that one will be better.