GM Xavier Kahlvet's Hell's Rebels 2e

Game Master KingTreyIII

When Edrakk opens the door, he finds a simple, concrete room with no windows whatsoever. What he is a bit surprised by is that he also hears singing—not the best singing, but certainly not bad either.

♫ ”…When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes…” ♫

So…a long long time ago (I think right after the beginning of the campaign), I reached out to Chance and made one request of him: The player was not to use/parody/etc. any songs from the musical Les Misérables when he was singing as Chance. Say hello to the reason: I did not want Chance to inadvertently stumble upon this song and screw up my plans.

Because, since Chance is a master in performance and (presumably) mulled over The Song of Silver in his spare time, Chance quickly recognizes that what Jackdaw was singing was a section of The Song of Silver. Jackdaw does indeed know the lyrics.

Now, obviously, I’m not Chance’s player, so I don’t know with certainty, but the combination of 1) needing to go through Hellknights, 2) abandoning his friends, and 3) missing out on learning both a piece of music and a powerful ritual against devils would turn the suggestion of “go home” to be against Chance’s self-interests.

This is one of those instances where you could just say “well, if you say so, then I won’t complain,” but I am genuinely asking for your opinion here rather than expecting you to take the obviously “optimal” choice here.

First, let me say: Yes! Finally!

I put up a short post before I saw this discussion post, and deleted it right away.

If it were just “self-destructive or obviously against the target’s self-interest,” I might be torn about the right answer. But that’s just the description of the conditions for the initial effect, not for whether the suggestion is broken before the duration runs out. The duration of the spell after a failed save is 1 minute or until the target completes the suggestion, or until “the suggestion becomes self-destructive or has other obvious negative effects.”

I think that for Chance, walking away from the one person who can teach him the lost lyrics to an historically important piece of music - one that is important to the history of his home, Kintargo - and which is, as you said, also a powerful ritual that he has been thinking about for long time, and risking their death or recapture, would have obvious negative effects (not getting to learn the lyrics) (in addition to the others you mentioned - abandoning his friends only to face numerous Hellknights alone).

I swear, every time suggestion comes up, everyone becomes a genie and nitpicks every little word of what’s said XD. That said, you leaving would definitely have negative consequences, and it is fair to say that Jackdaw coming out and clearly knowing the lyrics is definitely the lynchpin in the fact that the suggestion is now definitely broken.

Also making me rethink how the heck I’m gonna word some suggestions moving forward.

I swear, every time suggestion comes up, everyone becomes a genie and nitpicks every little word of what’s said XD. That said, you leaving would definitely have negative consequences, and it is fair to say that Jackdaw coming out and clearly knowing the lyrics is definitely the lynchpin in the fact that the suggestion is now definitely broken.

Also making me rethink how the heck I’m gonna word some suggestions moving forward.

Damn it, man, I’m a lawyer, not a genie!

Archives of Nethys Remastered is up!

So, I was rereading camouflage dye and it's...really weird. It doesn't make you nonmagically invisible, it allows you to use certain Stealth actions without needing cover or concealment. so...we were actually running it wrong.

Rereading the rules for Sneak, Edrakk would've needed to START the Sneak as either hidden or undetected. But again, the dye doesn't immediately make you hidden.

So the order of operations is that Edrakk would need to ◆ Hide (likely represented by staying still long enough for the dye to properly conceal your presence) THEN ◆ Sneak.

I kinda forgot how unforgiving the stealth rules are when you're not fully behind a wall or completely invisible.

So, I was rereading camouflage dye and it's...really weird. It doesn't make you nonmagically invisible, it allows you to use certain Stealth actions without needing cover or concealment. so...we were actually running it wrong.

Rereading the rules for Sneak, Edrakk would've needed to START the Sneak as either hidden or undetected. But again, the dye doesn't immediately make you hidden.

So the order of operations is that Edrakk would need to ◆ Hide (likely represented by staying still long enough for the dye to properly conceal your presence) THEN ◆ Sneak.

I kinda forgot how unforgiving the stealth rules are when you're not fully behind a wall or completely invisible.

Understandable!

No flat check to target Edrakk,as brought up in Discussion.

Would the mistform elixir apply here?

Jisara does go before Vitalis, so you do have an extra action you can take, Vitalis.

Now, I'll need to be the bearer of bad news, Vitalis: when you critically fail a check to Trip, then you fall prone. (You didn't crit-fail the Disarm, FYI)

It's ok. Vitalis is having one of those days.

I was more asking if that would’ve changed any of your actions. Or is Vitalis just ending his turn prone?

I didn't think you'd let me trade out an attack that missed.

If I can, I'd do.
Move
Trip
Stand
Regrip

Hero Points reset in a week

I'm just gonna let y'all know that the First Warden is NOT looking good after that Retributive Strike. As in, if you don't put her down this turn, then she's probably gonna do a two-action harm to heal herself on her next turn. Maybe a Restorative Strike for the one-action version.

As y’all may know, I currently work as an independent writer selling AP conversion guides on Pathfinder Infinite. I decided I’m gonna finally start working on a proper conversion of Hell’s Rebels to the Remaster to sell on Infinite.

I was very hesitant for a while because the Silver Ravens as an organization took their name from the silver raven figurine of wondrous power, which is such a major OGL-ism that it’s not even funny. Thus I thought that the name “Silver Ravens” was kinda gonna be on the chopping block. But with a bit more research, I found out that Paizo actually included the Silver Ravens in a blurb on Old Cheliax in the GM Core. AND they also went out of their way to include the Silver Ravens in the glossary of that same book.

Anyway, I guess this is a long-winded way of saying thanks to you guys. I know things haven’t been easy, and we still haven’t quite bounced back from the difficulties from earlier in the year, but y’all have really helped me to understand this system and be able to fine-tune my ability to convert from 1e to 2e (as well as giving me a helpful medium in which I can look back on the campaign for easy reference).

Also (if I may get into shameless self-promotion territory), I’m gonna be dropping a new conversion guide tomorrow on Infinite for Tyrant’s Grasp if any of y’all are interested.

I think your conversion of Hell's Rebels has been great so far.

Good luck with your guides. I think its something that people will be interested it.

next you're gonna say you've all stopped needing to eat."

Did I forget to mention the four rings of sustenance the First Warden was wearing? (Obviously a joke)

Edrakk Chrysanthemum wrote:

next you're gonna say you've all stopped needing to eat."

Did I forget to mention the four rings of sustenance the First Warden was wearing? (Obviously a joke)

"She's an undead!! Why does she even need them??!?! She doesn't eat!!!!"

Do we have any teleportation or are we sneaking back out?

I say we Weekend at Bernie's our way out. Chance can play a magical tune to make the Warden's corpse walk. And we can have it wave at any guards asking questions. They'll totally believe it.

In this case, the only thing you can do to prevent this is to somehow completely annihilate the armor, such as by throwing it into a volcano.

Easy enough, Kintargo has plenty of volcanos.

Chance snaps his fingers. “Oh! And we haven’t even told you that the Queen has her hands full with fighting her own rebels right in the heart of Cheliax! The Glorious Reclamation has her forces tied up pretty well, at least as of the last intelligence we uncovered.”

Additionally, something that kinda got retconned in is that this is around the same time that Sargava (soon to be known as Vidrian) is fighting for their own independence. So Cheliax REALLY has its hands full.

Hero Points have reset

I may just need a mental refresher but why did we need to cast this Song of Silver? It seems like it is just a large area buff spell, which is beneficial, but was it necessary? Is it because of the part that prevents devil teleportation?

Also, side note, I guess I thought Kintargo was larger than it actually is. I didn't think a mile radius would cover the whole city but I guess according to the scale on the map, it does.

The ritual is primarily used to level the playing field.

There are two things that devils have over mortals: resistance to physical damage (except silver) and the ability to cast translocate at will. Yes, the ritual does basically nothing for Vitalis specifically, since his attacks are already silver and holy, but for the rank-and-file Silver Ravens it’s a major boon—as the fight against the First Warden showed, being unable to get over physical resistance makes things very difficult.

Additionally, suddenly removing all but the most powerful devils’ ability to translocate makes it a lot more difficult for the devils to mobilize troops. Being able to teleport 120 feet within line of sight makes the devils able to suddenly appear and sneak attack anyone. Now they have to go the old-fashioned way and are more likely to give warning of their attack.

And on a crit success, the ritual actively BENEFITS the Ravens, as it now makes all attacks in the area trigger the devils’ weakness to holy, and gives a select few a bonus against all divine effects (which is pretty much all of a devil’s abilities).

Yes, on the surface it seems lackluster, but the “behind the scenes” effects of the ritual are massive.

Also, 1 mile around the Opera House is very much meant to get the entire city plus a bit extra.

Yeah, the "your attacks are now silver and holy" is a big big deal because it lets the rank and file stand up to devils with just regular weapons, not needing expensive and enchanted ones to even have a chance.

Plus, to arm each of the rebellion’s 387 (unnamed) members with just an unenchanted silver dagger (44 gp) would cost just over 17K.

No pressure! Will Shensen be available as a secondary caster for perform checks?

She'd be insulted if you DIDN'T ask.

Chance can cast two more 2nd rank invisibility spells, but he used all of his 3rd rank spell slots casting invisibility sphere to get the party here. It took me a minute to find the rules reference (Player Core at 298), but he has plenty of higher level slots left and he can use them to cast lower rank spells (without actually heightening the spells). With what he has left, Chance can cast invisibility sphere six more times (rank 4 x2, rank 5 x3, rank 6 x1).

#SorryNotSorry

Love the Lord of the Rings reference.

Nobody post in Gameplay until I have done so. And yes, I'm currently in the middle of a post and need a bit more information before I finish it.

I will again ask what it is you are trying to learn with Recall Knowledge, Chance.

Since the Song of Silver takes a couple of days, and Edrakk doesn't have anything to do to help along the ritual, would I be able to take the chance (ba-dum tshh) to purchase/transcribe some new formulae?

I brought this up:

And finally, I’m assuming that no one goes out to buy/sell stuff while The Song of Silver is being cast, as your bigger priority would be to maintain protection of the Opera House.

You WILL have that opportunity after this fight, though. Don't worry.

Y’all have one round to cast any buffs you think you’d need.

In my prep round, I'll drink my moderate potion of resistance (fire).

Also, since the Song of Silver grants Holy to everyone's weapons, when preparing his weapon with the Blade Ally ability, Vitalis will choose Axiomatic for now until the Song of Silver ends. So his weapon will be +2 Greater Striking Flaming, Devil-Bane, Holy, Axiomatic Silver Halberd.

Also, since the Song of Silver grants Holy to everyone's weapons,

Nope. No no no no. No it doesn’t. It only gives that on a crit success, which y’all didn’t get.

Also, axiomatic wouldn't even really help because (Pre-Remaster) you're fighting LE devils who wouldn't take lawful damage, and (Remaster) axiomatic doesn't exist/do anything anymore.

So his weapon will be +2 Greater Striking Flaming, Devil-Bane, Holy, Axiomatic Silver Halberd.

ALSO also, even on a crit success, the song of silver does NOT give the holy rune; it gives attacks the holy trait. Meaning it does NOT deal an extra 1d4 spirit damage (2d4 vs unholy), it just activates any weaknesses to holy that a creature may have.

In other, non-game-related news, I just finished and submitted the final assignment I had this semester. That means that I have officially, after 20 years, finished school.

Man, this feels surreal.

Nope. No no no no. No it doesn’t. It only gives that on a crit success, which y’all didn’t get.

Ok, fine. I'll add Holy the way I was doing it before. =(

In other, non-game-related news, I just finished and submitted the final assignment I had this semester. That means that I have officially, after 20 years, finished school.

Congratulations! That's great news. Make sure to celebrate.

@Vitalis: do you want the Titanic Fury Cocktail again?

@GM: Congrats!!!

@Vitalis: do you want the Titanic Fury Cocktail again?

Might not be a bad idea.

Congratulations!

What Chance is hoping to learn (in order of preference): special attacks, defenses, weaknesses. Hard to be more specific than that because I know literally nothing about Remaster dragons, except that color doesn’t correlate with energy type and that different dragons are tied to the four spellcasting traditions. I assume they still have breath weapons because that concept predates the OGL, but I don’t actually know.

I apologize - as much as what just happened & the start of this combat deserves a long role-play post, particularly from Chance, we’re about to start driving back to Chicago from Indianapolis and depending on the work waiting for me when I get back to my desk, I may not be able to post until late afternoon or evening. Rather than hold everyone up, I will put up Chance’s actions now and backfill his reactions to it all (So! Excited!) when I can.

I'm also still waiting on this from you, Chance. This section was definitely meant to be your time to shine, so you deserve to write a long-ass roleplay post about all of it.

Cast 4th-rank resist energy (fire) on Edrakk and Vitalis

If Jisara is casting resist fire on Vitalis, drinking the potion of resist fire would be redundant. Vitalis will use Edrakk's titanic fury cocktail instead.

Jisara wrote:

Cast 4th-rank resist energy (fire) on Edrakk and Vitalis

If Jisara is casting resist fire on Vitalis, drinking the potion of resist fire would be redundant. Vitalis will use Edrakk's titanic fury cocktail instead.

Scratch that, Vitalis. Because of position prior to initiative being rolled, she wouldn't be able to cast it on you, specifically. Since you have the potion, I think the best course of action would to get fire resistance on everyone as soon as possible, so she would instead move over and cast it on herself and Edrakk.

That’s fine.

Does the concealment from the dragon's spell work both directions? Also, does this concealment allow me to hide?

Okay, I have a story to tell related to Jisara’s turn:

Some time ago (before 2e was even announced), there was a person in PFS that I would irregularly play at the same table as, and it was…miserable. They were a munchkin, plain and simple, and practically made it their life’s goal to end combat on the first turn, such as by casting greater forbid action (attack) to keep any hostile enemies from attacking for the entirety of combat.

Now, their favorite spell was etheric shards, because it was basically a shapable, invisible AoE that dealt damage for each cube moved through, meaning that against creatures larger than Medium, it did exponentially more damage. And they would have to stand completely still so avoid damage whatsoever.

In a particularly deadly combat against a Colossal spider (where the party was desperate for anything they could get to prevent a TPK), this player cast etheric shards and the mindless spider went through and got shredded as it, mathematically, took over 400 points of damage.

Now, I bring this up because that one player and that one spell gave me massive PTSD with spells like that, and that PTSD was triggered from the implications of Jisara’s field of razors. Now, I will fully admit that I am biased because I have had unfun experiences related to spells that function similarly to this one, but I want to give my logic here.

Let me start with my conclusion: Field of razors deals damage for each NEW square (not cube) entered.

Now, to explain this, let me start with an absurd reading of the spell:

Example 1 let’s say that Rivozair takes 5 damage for every 5-foot cube she goes into with any part of her body. Let’s also assume that the field of razors basically acts as a 60-foot tall cylinder (it’s not, but I’m way too lazy to figure out the actual geometry for a hemisphere made out of cubes.). For Rivozair to move 5 feet north, she would take damage for each of the outer 26 5-foot-cubes of her space. So in this example, to move 5 feet north, Rivozair would take 130 damage. And in order to get OUT of the area as it’s positioned now, she would need to move 25 feet to the north, which means that she would be taking 5 damage a total of 70 times for a total of 350 damage.

Now, I might have let that go in 1e because that game was inherently broken, but 2e is MEANT to be a lot more balanced. So, for the record, the amount of damage Rivozair would take in that scenario is more than she would take IF SHE CRIT-FAILED A RANK 10 SPELL! (Ignoring the obvious that she’s immune to fire, because no duh.)

Example 2 Now, let’s say she only takes damage for each new 5-foot cube she moves into. She would still be taking 5*15=75 damage. Which is almost the same amount as she would take for crit-failing against a fireball of the same rank (3.5*12*2=84), but without a save (again, ignoring the fact that Rivozair is obviously immune to fire).

Additionally, the biggest thing is that the spell says that creatures take damage for each square traversed, not cube.

Example 3 So back to Example 1, if we replace cubes with squares, Rivozair would still be taking 5*16=80 damage, which means we go back to Example 2 framing of “basically crit-failing a fireball with no save.

Example 4 Now doing Example 2 with squares instead of cubes, it means Rivozair would be taking 5*5=25 damage to get out of the area. And again, while this is still a significant chunk of damage, it feels a LOT more reasonable for a rank 6 spell. A fireball would deal about 42 damage with a save, and field of razors both creates difficult terrain and increases its radius, while also being able to be avoided if a creature just doesn’t Stride. About half of a fireball feels about right in this particular instance.

Thus, out of all of these, I have to go with Example 4 as my ruling, because that has the correct feel for what this situation would result in from a balance perspective.

Does the concealment from the dragon's spell work both directions? Also, does this concealment allow me to hide?

Missed this due to writing my rant yesterday. Yes to both questions, but you would still need to take an action to Hide.

Okay, I have a story to tell related to Jisara’s turn:

{PTSD from overuse/misuse of etheric shards}

I can sympathize. During PaizoCon 2020 (the first virtual PaizoCon), Edrakk’s player and I played a certain high-level Season 4 scenario in which an early opponent had limited wish among its available spells. I read the scenario later; combat tactics suggested using limited wish in combat, but didn’t include any particular suggestion for how to use it. Our GM decided to use the spell to cast etheric shards, which was bad enough and would have done a fine job burning up party resources at the beginning, but it was worse than it should have been because the GM [mis]interpreted part of the spell description - “A creature standing within an area of etheric shards takes no damage as long as it remains completely motionless, but even the minor movements involved in attacking or defending in combat force a stationary creature to attempt a Reflex save“ - to include the movement from somatic components of spellcasting. Dispel magic? Wasted due to damage and a failed concentration check. Dimension door to the other side of the room? Same. My time oracle had a couple of useful spell-like abilities that the GM grudgingly admitted did not require any movement at all, but certainly not enough to end the encounter himself. We blew through a bunch of resources just to get through it and ultimately the final boss fight ended with a TPK (this was not the only questionable call by the GM). We paid the PP cost to recover & raise the characters, but it was still pretty dang unpleasant.