GM Badblood's The Dragon's Demand

Game Master Lance K

Just to speed things up a bit, as I'm assuming the party would examine the bookshelf before trying to open it.

Irlana notices that there seems to be a tiny mechanism built into the lock of the iron bookcase. It looks like a spring-loaded mechanical trap. Usually, these types of traps don't trigger if the lock is opened with the correct key but do go off if the lock is tampered with.

Irlana points out the mechanism. "I'm pretty sure that's a trap. It should be safe to open IF we find the key. Without it we really need to just document it and leave it alone for now. And we can't break it or that'll be decreasing the value of the items for the family or to be auctioned."

"Maybe if we find the the mage's bed chamber or desk?"

Falcon nods in agreement Yeah, let's go ahead and explore around see if we can find the keys

So this scenario is interesting because adventurers are accustomed to picking up anything that's not nailed down; and in this one your party is presented with an abundance of wealth. But you're not "supposed" to pick it up.

Like I said in the Gameplay, I'm not going to tell you if there are specific repercussions to taking things for yourself; but your reputation amongst the townfolk is important in this module. Belhaim is a very small town, and everyone is watching you and gossiping constantly. If you do decide to steal something from the manor; then you want to be subtle about it. You may also have trouble selling anything that you find in the manor.

The main thing is, play your character! I think all this wealth lying around would tempt anyone!

One side thing, is that Appraisal is actually mildly useful in the module! I think I've only seen Appraise come up two or three other times in all the scenarios that I've played or GMd. I don't think its important enough that you need to be worried about not having it. I also assume that as adventurers you know the value of common gems and are good at guessing how many coins are in a pile of treasure; but that you might not know "exactly" how much an art object is worth until you try to trade it.

I am going to be in west Africa for the next 10 days. I’ll have some internet and ability to post, but don’t hesitate to bot me to keep things moving!

Okay, thanks for the heads up! Hope you have a great trip!

Have fun!

At the hospital, awaiting birth of my kid please bot

Congratulations! Let us know how it goes!

Indeed! Congrats! It was many years ago but I remember both of mine very well.

Gonna give you guys a hint here ...check the slides. The party found a clue earlier that I think you forgot about

I am back!

Yep.... Forgot.
"Repair hinges of secret door in clockwork lab."

I have actually completely forgotten where my bites come from.

The cloak of fangs. It's 5 rounds per day that you have to activate as a swift action. It would be a secondary attack with a weapon, but not bad because it benefits from challenge.

Ah yeah - in thus case I just wanted the "all 3 damage types"

DID we find a bag of dust?

You have not.

Hope everyone has had a good holidays!

Everyone is going to go up another level after this, and there will be about a month of downtime at the end of this section. You can use a week of that to go to a bigger town and make whatever purchases you want.

You just need to:

Decide what to do with the prisoner in the light prison
Decide if the party is going to keep anything they found (including the items in this cave)
Report to the Baroness

But feel free to plan how you want to level up your character. Level 4 is going to be a big one, there's level 2 spells learned and everyone gets a +1 to an attribute.

Rules question, because I think this works but haven't found a "Yes" or "No" online.
At 4th level I get the wandering spirit. If I use Tribe the spirit ability I get is:

Tribal Cooperation (Su): The shaman gains a teamwork feat as a bonus feat. She must meet the feat’s prerequisites. As a standard action, the shaman can grant one of her teamwork feats to all allies within 30 feet who can see and hear her. Allies retain the use of this bonus feat for 3 rounds plus 1 round for every 2 levels the shaman has. Allies do not need to meet the prerequisites of this bonus feat. The shaman can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + her Charisma modifier.

I'm thinking to take the Passing Grace teamwork feat:
Benefit: Whenever a healing spell or an effect would restore you to above your maximum hit points, you can redirect excess hit points to an adjacent ally who has this feat. This ability functions only for effects that require an action to activate—fast healing, regeneration, and other passive effects that restore hit points are not shared.

Now here comes the question because it sounds almost broken. I grant the Passing Grace feat to everyone, then Channel energy to heal. Everyone gets 2d6 healing. Everyone that heals above their maximum can then pass the excess points to an adjacent ally. So basically, if any allies aren't hurt they automatically pass their 2d6 healed points to allies that were hurt more than the 2d6. ??

Also, since the wandering spirit is a daily select, instead of Passing Grace I could select the Lastwall Phalanx Feat....:
Benefit: You gain a sacred bonus to your AC against the attacks of evil creatures and a sacred bonus to saves against the spells and abilities of evil creatures equal to the number of adjacent allies who also have this feat.

So when it is active we all get +1 to AC and saves per person in our group.... Only against evil creatures, but. :-P

Tribal Cooperation is a pretty awesome ability; its basically like Tactician but with more potential uses per day. And gaining Passing Grace through an ability like Tactician or Tribal Cooperation is a great combination!

Its a good combo, but I wouldn't go so far as to say its broken. First off, Tribal Cooperation is a standard action to activate and unlike Tactician it never becomes a more efficient action. Shaman's are full casters and that standard action could be used to cast a spell. There are also some positional limitations to it. The allies have to be adjacent to each other to pass along the hit points. That might mean not taking advantage of flanking or having to maintain a tight formation that makes you more vulnerable to area affects in order to benefit from the bonus healing.

The nice thing about the Wandering Spirit is that you can try it out and if you don't like the results there are plenty of other good spirits to take instead, so I say go for it! I'll be intrigued to see how well it works out for you.

Since a few people have read magic, I assume that someone will eventually use it on that scroll, which is a scroll of permanency. This is a valuable item, whether the party choses to sell it or use it themselves.

Permanency

I only figured on that for out of combat healing. We frequently have unbalanced hurt and that combo would help heal up the worst hurt without wasting points.... Thanks!

Sell it? No way! Might take some time to decide what to use it on....

What is the caster level? It determines what can be made permanent and the chance of failure when used.

Ilvaria is the only one that can cast it, but there's still a chance of failure.

This is such a great campaign. ;-D

I am fine with selling or using the permanency spell.

It's level 12. And you will need to provide your own diamond dust and whatever spell you want to make permanent.

I was reading the rules on Permanency. Great for an arcane caster, but still requires the higher caster level for the base spell. And, I can't cast the spell on the scroll without risking a DC32 UMD role. (And being 9-11 level for the base spell) The Lore spirit arcane enlightenment hex doesn't let me cast arcane spells. It lets me choose arcane spells to temporarily put on my shaman spell list and prepare them as divine shaman spells. And, I'd have to boost my Int up to 15 to have access to a 5th level spell.

With all of that it's not really worth the risk.

The mithril scroll case is probably worth some too.

It should be easier for Ilvaria, since its an arcane spell on her spell list. She would have to do a caster level check and there is a small chance of it backfiring on a failure. But if it doesn't backfire you can keep attempting to recast it without using up the scroll or material components.

Fleshing out some of Tanssi's combat abilities next level.

Reach on the claw attacks
Trip on the bite attacks

Spells:
Glitterdust
Haste

Should be a good time!

Been thinking about the Permanency scroll and now I think we should sell it. Ilvaria's the only one of us that can use it and she indicated being fine either way. It adds a bit more coin to the treasure.

I agree on the sale of the scroll- I have no real use for it.
Perhaps something for it comes up later, but its hard to imagine at this point in the story

We still have the treasure from the goat monster too, right?
Link to the post
masterwork halberd
black pearl worth 400 gp
pair of shears with handles made from polished bone and mithril blades worth about 300 gp

The party has a choice that they can make here. Maffei will stay in town and can join the group as an NPC party member if you decide to return her swords to her (which are her personal property and not part of Hunclay's estate).

She is pretty strong, as she is essentially a monster with some rogue levels. She has pretty great defenses as well as she is under a constant blur effect, and is immune to sneak attacks and critical hits, along with evasion from being a rogue. Her attacks can do cold damage along with sneak attack damage. And to boot she can cast shadow evocation as at will. (interestingly, she is only a level 1 caster, though)

She starts off really strong and might even over shadow the PCs at this point in the adventure. On top of all her awesome abilities she also has incredible stats, with her lowest one being 17. And on top of that she can be "upgraded" because she currently has negative levels that could be theoretically removed (There is a scroll of restoration for sell in one of the temples, normally it would be beyond the purchase limit of Belhaim).

On the other hand, you could take her swords to sell or to use but she will not join you in that case.

Irlana is happy with giving her the swords and having her along. If we keep the swords I think we'd have to try to explain why they aren't part of the estate. (since they were in the house) Besides, having another front-liner can't hurt....

This is a great RP opportunity. :-D

Only for that reason I’d give her all weapons and bring her along. Maybe you can increase the difficulty of the encounters?

Just a note that I’m currently not really “feeling” Ilvaria.

Would you mind me switching pcs at a reasonable point? Ilvaria is going to check on her sick elven friend out of concern when the time is right?

What are your thoughts?

I am totally fine with that, Ilvaria. This is a long module. You can make a brand new level four character with the standard wealth for their level.

Also, I was thinking about throwing in an extra encounter if you decide to go to the big city to shop, just to give you guys a little extra money/gear.

Don't worry about the difficulty too much. The scenario factors having her in, but if things get too easy I'll make some adjustments. She will cover rogue duties, so Andwise might want to consider retraining Disable Device during the down time if you do keep her as well.

I would LOVE to retrain DD into something more useful. It was only ever taken for party balance.

Totally makes sense GM! Thanks

So just tell me when a good time would be to say goodbye to the group.

I think you picked a good time to have Ilvaria leave.

What are you interested in playing instead? I'll have to figure out a good way to bring you in.

Thanks a lot GM!

Please give me until Monday to decide which character I would like to bring. I hope that is fine?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Super sorry for the delay. I am quite blank regarding a new character. Would it be ok to create a 4th level copy of an existing PFS1 character I have for this game?

I feel like the following options would be fun for me:

1. Female LN Aasimar Cleric of Horus 4
2. Female CN Half-Elf Vanilla Unchained Summoner 2 (I’d level to 4)
3. Female N Half-Elf | Unchained Summoner (Soulbound) 2 (I’d level to 4)
4. Male N follower of Pharasma and Brigh, mostly human Ifrit, Bard 6 (I’d level down to 4)

What do you think?

Sorry, I've been really busy with work and the kid lately.

In regards to the best character to pick, out of those options the best one might be a bard. The party will be losing an arcane caster and there is already a summoner and a divine caster in the group. The bard would bring knowledge skills and bard performance would be a big boost. And I'm assuming they would be able to swing a sword or shoot a bow; which is something the party could also use.

All the best GM! Family always first!

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The bard it is then! ;-) I already adjusted everything to level 4 in the profile.

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Regarding Character introduction: Eltran is obsessed with new knowledge so he could have heard about the wizard's demise and decided to visit the mayor for permission to explore the tomes he left behind? Maybe that is a good connection? Totally open to any other form of introduction.

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Regarding his build:

Eltran actually is a knowledge based character that cannot fight at all but he has bardic performance and can boost the group.

Here just a couple of points regarding my character:

He has four stacking archetypes: Chronicler of Worlds, Speaker of the Palatine Eye, Voice of Brigh, Sound Striker

BARD CLASS DETAILS
BARD Archetype: CHRONICLER OF WORLDS
BARD Archetype: SOUND STRIKER
BARD Archetype: SPEAKER OF THE PALATINE EYE
BARD Archetype: VOICE OF BRIGH

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I have confirmation that all archetypes stack.

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Eltran casts psychic spells and uses int for all bard abilities.

Is that ok for everyone else as well with Eltran joining the group?

Of course! This is a game. Play what's fun!

Okay, so I wanted to introduce Eltran to the party with a combat for two reasons:

1) To give you guys a chance to see how you can work together

2) Give you party a little more spending money, since for most of this module you're limited by the paltry economy of Belhaim.

And I thought a group of halfling and gnome bandits would be fun. Also, one of the nearby large towns is one that is majority gnome and halflings.

Unfortunately, that means I am throwing enemies at you whose main advantages are their high ACs and HP. Along with a long streak of low rolls, this combat is taking a bit longer than intended.

Ha ha .. thanks for that GM! I think it is fun! :-)

Sorry for my absence, but posting is nearly impossible for me now. I'm in intensive care at the Surgical Trauma Intensive Care Unit at Wake Med. Got an infection in my leg that turned into necrotizing fasciitis, or something like that. They've had to remove several pounds of skin and such, making my leg look like something from a horror show.

I will be back and would love to continue this game if possible, but will likely offline for an unknown period, possible 4-6 weeks.

All the best to you!!

Irlana,
I am so sorry to hear that.

My day job is a pharmacist in an ICU, so please feel free to DM me if you have any questions/concerns or just want reassurances about what’s happening/going on.

I would love to help however I can.

RxGus

I'm sorry to hear about what happened to you! Of course you can stay with us. I am happy to bot Irlana while you are recovering.

The biggest thing that is going to happen in the near future is going to be the party selling and purchasing items. There should be a decent amount of money; enough to buy some big Ten items. I'm not sure what Irlana would want to prioritize; but that is something we can retcon later when you have some more time to make decisions.