Since it might take me awhile to sort through all this new stuff, if you want to continue with my current character while I work on it, I'm okay with that.
Since it might take me awhile to sort through all this new stuff, if you want to continue with my current character while I work on it, I'm okay with that.
That's genuinely what my previous post was meant to do for you; I literally used a text comparer to look through what changed, and I laid out to you what you might be interested in based on the general vibe of how you've built Vitalis.
Ok. I'm back from my busy weekend. I downloaded the new book and I have your notes. I'm going to try to hammer out this character update this week if not sooner.
Only thing that changed on my end was replacing enervation (which is no longer on my spell list) with vampiric maiden (because that sounds cool as hell).
Ok. I went through everything. I just need to update the character sheet. I'm going with a lot of your suggestions with a few other changes.
Also, Retributive Strike does NOT have the holy trait, which means that the persistent spirit damage you deal from it does NOT deal extra damage because a creature is weak to holy. (This is also true of the other subclasses’ reactions, but I know you probably don’t care about that)
Under Sanctification: All of a champion's "strikes" have the holy trait and retributive strike is a "strike".
I'm dropping Deity's Domain (at level 1) because I've never used it and am taking Nimble Reprisal instead. I will lose the 2nd focus point though.
I'm dropping Order Training (at level 8) and taking Expand Aura instead. (I'll lose the Liberating Step reaction and have 1 less mental and bludgeoning resistance)
I'm keeping Radiant Armament.
Your newly-dubbed blessed armament (the thing that lets you put a weapon rune on your halberd) had some wording removed that makes it so that the bonus rune you get from your class feature DOES apply against the normal property rune limit, which was not the case before. Basically, you have to choose to get rid of devil-bane, holy, or thundering right now. Silver lining, though, is that you can now choose to make your bonus rune fearsome (which was previously only available to evil champions).
I'll drop the devil-bane rune so the weapon is within the property limit. It can have thundering and holy. And the holy can be switched for other properties per the ability. But I will default it to holy.
And I'll take the Blessed Counterstrike as the replacement for Blade of Justice.
Everything else should be the same or similar. I will update the character sheet soon.
The extra focus point is easy enough to replace, we just gotta get you a helm of zeal.
This elaborate helmet is emblazoned with the divine symbols of a deity chosen when the helmet was crafted. You gain a +2 item bonus to that deity’s Divine Skill.
Activate—Rally to the Cause ◇ (concentrate) Frequency once per day; Effect You gain 1 Focus Point, which you can spend only to cast a devotion spell. If you don’t spend this Focus Point by the end of this turn, it’s lost.
Activate—Divine Fervor ◇ (concentrate) Frequency once per day; Trigger You’ve just used your champion’s reaction; Effect You gain an additional reaction you can use only for your champion’s reaction. You lose this reaction if you don’t use it by the start of your next turn.
It's "only" 1,250 gp, though I can't craft it since I am not a champion of Shelyn. I wouldn't mind a hexing jar, either, come to think of it.
Ooh I like that item.
It even has an upgraded version, though it's level 18 and 21,000gp. The item bonus is +3 and you can get the extra reaction once an hour.
Well I'm only about 300 gp away from affording it and have a free head slot, so I know what I'm going to get next (as long as it is available somewhere).
Thanks, Jisara.
Ok. My character sheet is updated. I'm good to go.
Ok. My character sheet is updated. I'm good to go.
Just waiting on the same confirmation from Edrakk.
Ok. My character sheet is updated. I'm good to go.Just waiting on the same confirmation from Edrakk.
Yep, should be good.
After this combat, the next point of interest is the section of the map covered in magical darkness (blue circle on slide 3). I believe only Jisara has darkvision, so she’s the only one that can even ineffectually see through it (she treats the darkness as “dim light”). So y’all would open the next door, see a curtain of pure darkness, while Jisara would see SOMETHING massive move before disappearing from sight.
My question is: what do y’all do? You do have the floor plans, so you do know that there’s an ascending staircase nearby (but you’d have to venture into the darkness to get to it). You could also just backtrack back to the gift shop (pink circle on slide 3) and then start exploring the rooms counterclockwise from there. OR y’all could…go into the darkness and fight the thing with a bunch of flat checks, but I doubt you would want a repeat of Vitalis’s experience in the blood pool room.
I could spend 10 minutes to change the property on my weapon from Holy to Brilliant. Then use the Brilliant ability:
Activate—Shine Bright [one-action] (concentrate, light); Effect You plunge your weapon into darkness to return the light. Attempt a counteract check with a counteract rank of 5 and a +19 counteract modifier to end a magical darkness effect whose area is within reach of the weapon.
Blink blink Holy sh*t, that's an at-will ability.
I'll definitely have to make a GM call, because this particular darkness is a bit weird in that it's a bit more complicated than "one large casting of a high-level darkness spell." It's actively being sustained by the Hell Engines (the things that are sustaining the consecrate effect on the entire temple).
Long story short, for that ability you'd need to get a nat 20 on the counteract check, and it would remove a 20-foot radius burst of darkness (centered approximately where you used Shine Bright) for 1 hour. But again, that’s an at-will ability, so it’s DEFINITELY better than nothing.
Ok, that sounds hard. It was a thought though. Maybe sneak out and buy some darkvision potions or scrolls instead.
As I mentioned, I'm leaving for vacation. I will be back on Thursday 8/29. I won't be doing another post until then, so you can bot Vitalis as needed.
Hero Points reset in a week
Ok, that sounds hard. It was a thought though. Maybe sneak out and buy some darkvision potions or scrolls instead.
Chance has 1 scroll of darkvision at rank 2, and two scrolls at rank 3 - enough to give him, Vitalis, and Chance darkvision for an hour each.
Ok, that sounds hard. It was a thought though. Maybe sneak out and buy some darkvision potions or scrolls instead.Chance has 1 scroll of darkvision at rank 2, and two scrolls at rank 3 - enough to give him, Vitalis, and Chance darkvision for an hour each.
Again, that'll just reduce the DC 11 flat check to a DC 5 flat check. Better than nothing, mind you, but still.
I'm back from my vacation.
I'll start posting again tomorrow. I've got a week of work to catch up on, but definitely at some point.
FYI, I'll be at a local convention this weekend, so it may be a bit before I'm able to post.
Hero Points have reset
(Vitalis, this conversation is very explicitly NOT directed at you.)
So…I had a realization today: On top of my already stress-inducing situation currently, the fact that I’ve had to practically micromanage the players to get something resembling a consistent posting schedule for this game has been pushing me to the brink of burnout.
Now, I’m not saying I’m ending the campaign. However, I came into this because I wanted to have fun re-running an AP that I previously ran in 1e; I did not sign up to regularly remind people to post.
And to be clear, this is not me trying to place blame on anyone, this is me legitimately asking for help and assistance.
I have found myself worrying about people’s posting consistencies to an obsessive degree. That’s not good, because I have a very, VERY damaging insecurity about coming across as a nuisance to people, so when I need to remind someone to post, I feel like I am projecting the image of a micromanaging supervisor to those people I need to remind, and thus creating a slowly-building resentment toward me.
Is that catastrophizing? Yes. But that’s unfortunately how my accursed brain seems to operate.
I want to keep going with this campaign, I REALLY do! But…it’s not sustainable as things are currently. Like, I am legit in the middle of a panic attack as I am writing this. I CAN’T keep feeling like I’m single-handedly shouldering the burden of this campaign’s continuation.
I understand that it’s been almost 4 years, and A LOT of stuff changed over the course of those 4 years, but I will remind everyone what the agreement was when we entered into this:
I expect posts as frequently as possible, with a bare minimum of once per day (with some leeway on weekends; I personally do not look at my PbPs on Sundays).
With this combat, it’s taken between 3 and 4 days for a single round to go by. And that’s WITH me pestering people to post through Discord, etc. We can and should be better than that.
I love you guys, and I love this campaign. I’m still just as excited to post today as I was when we started this nearly 4 years ago. This is basically my cry for help here: please either try to post more consistently, or be honest and let us know that your life has changed so much that a PbP just isn’t in the cards for you right now.
I'm sorry for my particular issues in posting--I just moved into my school apartment a week ago, and am still getting settled. I feel fairly optimistic that my posting will pick up soon, once I get more settled in my classes, but I'll definitely try to get better at keeping up. I really hope this game can continue, and I'm confident that I'll be mostly able to, but I definitely understand where you're coming from, and I'll try to do what I can.
Hang in there Xavier. You are doing great.
I know how much work you are putting into this. Don't get discouraged.
Xavier - I suspect that I've been the worst about this lately, and I apologize. I have had a number of work deadlines over the last few months that have kept me busy and exhausted. I'm hoping to be past the last of them this week, and will work on getting my head back into my PbP games.
One of the least important things, but Vitalis, could you change the word "juggernaut" in your hotbar to "sacred body" (since that's the new name of the ability)?
Fixed.
Hell +18 or Religion +15. If neither apply, +11 on any other Lore check with Untrained Improvisation.
Correction: +14 with Untrained Improvisation. I forgot to include the +2 Int and my level is 12 not 11.
Welp. I’m a little miffed. "Inquisitors" are now officially a weird ranger subclass. Which means I have to make a choice regarding the stats I’ve been using for Barzillai for the past 4 years.
Okay, I should’ve asked this during the Serpent of Darkness combat, but I’ll instead ask it here:
Are you guys more keen on clearing out the first floor (which you’re close to doing) before going up to the second floor? Or would you rather go up to the second floor after this combat? Bear in mind, though, that y’all do know that Barzillai is on the second floor, and y’all still have not found either of the Hell Engines.
I have the status: marinated? Haha.
As for your question, there isn't much left of the first floor to explore, I say we finish it before going up.
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HOLY CRAP!!!
I am finally DONE with writing my conversion guide for Hell's Rebels! All I gotta do is some basic formatting stuff and I'll have it up.
I really do appreciate y'all helping me out with this, even if it wasn't directly. That said, uh...I'm not gonna tell you to NOT give me money when this goes live on Pathfinder Infinite, but...don't freaking look through the conversion guide XD It's still my GM notes.
"You don't even know the proper terminology!!" Edrakk shouts back as he dodges the burning oil. "Roasting is a dry heat applied evenly, whereas you're using burning cooking oil, which would be frying!"
Me, who has no cooking knowledge, looking at the monster’s ability called Roast: Huh.
I'm no chef either but I believe Edrakk is correct.
◆Regrip Weapon
◆Strike Fiendish Oven
Point of order: it would be ◇ Release one hand, ◆ grab quenching potion, ◆ drink quenching potion, ◆ regrip weapon. It'd be easier to just let Chance spend one action to give you the potion than to try to take it yourself (especially since he already goes before you in initiative).
I misunderstood. I thought Chance gave Vitalis the potion with his action.
If I'm not holding the potion at the start of my turn, why don't I do this:
◆Strike
◇Release weapon
◆Grab Potion
◆Drink Potion
I can regrip on my next turn.
"You don't even know the proper terminology!!" Edrakk shouts back as he dodges the burning oil. "Roasting is a dry heat applied evenly, whereas you're using burning cooking oil, which would be frying!"Me, who has no cooking knowledge, looking at the monster’s ability called Roast: Huh.
Honestly, that was a half-remembered thing that I had to look up. I've been cooking a decent amount lately now that I'm in my own apartment, but I am by no means a master chef, lol.
Gonna be traveling the next little while, back home on Tuesday. :)
Enjoy!
Hero Points have reset
Edrakk, not getting a good view, adjusts his harness and starts running past Vitalis, but freezes for a moment at seeing the ghosts. He stumbles for a second but regains his balance, getting to the other side.
"Hold on, h-hold on, I know I've got something... aha!!"
Quickly, he draws a vial of salt and a few holy reagents he borrowed from Vitalis a while back (and forgot was in his pack until now) and hurls it at the ghosts!
Real question: where DID that ghost charge come from? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have prepared it with advanced alchemy, and I can't tell if that was you just failing to fully explain that you Quick Alchemy'd the ghost charge into existence.
Real question: where DID that ghost charge come from? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have prepared it with advanced alchemy, and I can't tell if that was you just failing to fully explain that you Quick Alchemy'd the ghost charge into existence.Edrakk, not getting a good view, adjusts his harness and starts running past Vitalis, but freezes for a moment at seeing the ghosts. He stumbles for a second but regains his balance, getting to the other side.
"Hold on, h-hold on, I know I've got something... aha!!"
Quickly, he draws a vial of salt and a few holy reagents he borrowed from Vitalis a while back (and forgot was in his pack until now) and hurls it at the ghosts!
Ah, yeah that was just Quick Alchemy.
Not super important, but just a note to Vitalis: Blessed Counterstrike only cares if a creature triggered your Retributive Strike, not if the Retributive Strike hit.
Not super important, but just a note to Vitalis: Blessed Counterstrike only cares if a creature triggered your Retributive Strike, not if the Retributive Strike hit.
Bump
I guess that's you saying I should expand my aura?
The enemy was close enough that I didn't need to earlier.
Sorry, that was more of me just trying to remind you about some of your new things from the Remaster; I apologize if it came across as condescending.
No, it didn't come off that way. I didn't forget. But friendly reminders of things are welcome.
Hero Points reset in a week
And because I was really bad and didn’t, y’know, give out any Hero Points this month, I’m just gonna give everyone one right now.
Ooh that smoothing aeon stone could be beneficial to Vitalis. With it, he could use Edrakk's titanic fury cocktail without the clumsy penalty. All of the benefits, none of the side effects.