Protectors of Golarion (Wrath of the Righteous AP)

Game Master Sensen

Oh, sure. We can do that soon-ish. I'll try to figure out a good place to to it, because the combat's going to take a bit of focus from me, so I'd not be able to do it justice at the moment. We can probably do it in the downtime post-wardstone stuff.

Sure! I didn't mean to do that right away, of course. Would take away from the action. Just if/when we make it back to the tavern or such.

Oof, is it too late for me to make a post with Merixia buffing herself prior to combat? I saved several spells for this.

Could I perhaps request this as well for Elliot's Cats' Grace? It lasts 5 minutes and he definitely would have used it here if his player didn't simply forget about his level 2 spells (it isn't one of his common buffs, and not used before). :') #Singledadlifewithshortpostingwindows

I'll go update the profile fully as per the level up post earlier. In the meantime... to keep things moving I'll roll what Elliot tries to do.

Updated the profile, posted the action but internet suddenly failed. I'll post the backup from my desktop when i get home from work and it is hopefully fixed, all cables and such are fine on my end.

You can do that, Merixia, though keep in mind that your buffs will drop by a round for each one you cast. Elliot, that's allowed, too, but it will knock another round off of each of your buffs.

Half-fiends have DR/magic but not DR/cold iron, is the important thing I was trying to have Verene relay there. May mostly be important for Thesius as I think everyone else does not have to choose between magic and cold iron.

Indeed. They don't even have DR/good.

I'm going to be on vacation for a week starting tomorrow. I'll have more free time, so keeping up with the game shouldn't be a problem at all, but I'll be limited to only posting from my phone so I may need some help with maps and whatnot.

Quite alright, Azira.

I'm going to feel rather embarassed if this final door appears to be the only unlocked one in the fort, and the wardstone is just sitting there otherwise undefended :')

I guess from a tactics perspective it was defendable to wait for everyone else to reach the top floor and instead have Irabeth take the hits in the meantime? As Elliot could theoretically die here if Irabeth + Verene + Azira + his second turn fails to finish it... hm.

The high-damage hits from Azira and Elliot both did a lot - it probably could have survived another round if either of you hadn't rolled quite so well.

The smashing thing is a fair point. Let's say Elliot tries UMDíng the wand once instead and if he fails he applies his oil to save time on everyone's buffs?

UMD: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (19) + 8 = 27

Okay, he succeeds in Using the Bless Weapon wand on Righteous Eclipse rather than having Irabeth do it.

Three 8s in a row? How the hell did I do that?

Divide those up as you please, I had my flu shot yesterday and math isn't happening right now. Super excited though, we're finally at the Wardstone! :D

The smashing thing is a fair point. Let's say Elliot tries UMDíng the wand once instead and if he fails he applies his oil to save time on everyone's buffs?

Okay, he succeeds in Using the Bless Weapon wand on Righteous Eclipse rather than having Irabeth do it.

Sounds good to me.

Lol- what an excellent time for my luck to start balancing out!

Hm, I wasn't really expecting the door to take so long. I guess she doesn't have Power Attack like Merixia does and was only attacking one-handed. Well, whatever. In-character, Verene would have used another charge of the shield wand, handed it off to Elliot and been ready to go, even though now, out of character, I don't think I need to use that charge. (Both of us using the wand should put us each at 9 rounds remaining if we're standing next to each other and each use it in the round before it looks like Irabeth with smash through - using and handing it off is a standard + move action, then using it and putting it away is a standard + move action, so we should have the same number of rounds remaining.)

Verene's profile should now be completely up to date for level 5. I decided to go with Craft Wondrous Item and Spell Penetration for the two feats. Both extremely boring, but useful. Verene can get started crafting ability score bonus items for other PCs if we hopefully have some downtime soon, since her per-day spell slots will be too precious for a long while yet to use any of them on minute/level single-ability-score buffs. I still like Toppling Spell, but it can wait. Other feats and arcane discoveries I'm considering for the future are Split Slot (L7), Steward of the Great Beyond (L9), Time Stutter (L10 Bonus), Craft Staff (L11), Staff-Like Wand (L13).

P.S. Azira, we only found a scroll of divine favor, not a potion, so Azira probably can't use it. In general potions of divine favor don't exist.

P.P.S. Merixia, if you run out of space in one field for your combat header, you can put a lot more information in two other fields. They will appear in this order: "Gender," "Race," "Classes/Levels."

I remember this came up when I tried to buy another divine favor potion at the Heart—and I ended up switching it out for shield of faith—but I thought the GM said that we’d found a potion previously and that one was ok to keep? If I’m misremembering that conversation, or if the GM would prefer, I have no objections to switching that one to a shield of faith also. If we did that, my banner would still be correct (instead of my AC appearing to be 2 points too high).

Liking the Verene smacktalk here :) As well as Meri's spirited charge.

Assuming we make it through this, I think i'll have Elliot go down the wand magus path soon and do some maneuvers/debuffs with spell combat along with a true strike wand.

Reading a bit more into specific rules for touch spells and spell combat, it seems that unused touch spells are lost whenever you cast a new spell. However, activating a wand does not count as casting a spell. So you could hold unused touch spell charges and still use wands... if touching the wand or any object with the free hand didn't immediately set off your held charge?

If so, fortunately, it seems that by using either the weapon wand spell, fusing it into righteous eclipse and keeping the hand free, or a monkey tail? belt, which grants a prehensile tail like meri's for five minutes per day, you can temporarily get around this.

If all goes well, he should be able to do a combination of trip + frostbite nonlethal damage + fatigue + entangle + free intimidate check for shaken if the frost damage hits. Of course, there's lots of rolls feats and checks involved to make it possible but it does sound fun to go down the debuff route.

Hm, I wasn't really expecting the door to take so long. I guess she doesn't have Power Attack like Merixia does and was only attacking one-handed.

Or your GM just forgot that those were options. That would be silly, though. I didn't even think to check her for Power Attack.

Mind you, she probably wouldn't have dropped her shield, but the power attack thing is entirely legitimate.

I think your read on the wands and touch spells is correct - if it's a touch spell that affects an object, it might go off, but other than that, it should be fine.

Anyways, I'll try to figure out all the math going on when everyone's posted. Assuming my migraine doesn't stop me from trying.

Sorry you have a migraine, GM. That sucks, I hope you feel better soon. We're not waiting on any players, right? Elliot, Azira, Merixia and I all posted our actions for the first round yesterday and Thesius doesn't go yet.

Azira, we haven't found any potions of divine favor in this game, just one scroll of it. A quick Ctrl-F of the loot sheet confirms that. I believe the confusion comes from you buying two potions of divine favor the first time we bought items at the Defender's Heart without anyone thinking about it or catching it. If you have two on your sheet, that's where they're from. But it wasn't discussed until the second time it came up, when we were preparing for this assault on the Gray Garrison, and you offered to switch it to a potion of shield of faith and Worldwound GM agreed to that.

In the post you linked I said I would replace the new one I just bought, because I still thought we found the other one(s). Like I said, no object to switching the other one(s) now.

Sure, whatever you and Worldwound GM agreed on is fine of course. I just wanted to clarify that the ones you had on your sheet were there because you bought them even earlier than that discussion, not because they were ever found as loot.

Elliot, I'll be interested to see what you can do with debuffing as a magus. I don't think I've ever seen a build that's not primarily a damage-per-round-focused striker. I don't quite understand why casting a spell from a wand wouldn't 'count' as casting a spell for all purposes not called out by specific rules (like that it doesn't provoke and you can't apply feats/abilities like Augment Summoning to it.) But I'm sure it's been discussed to death on these forums and there's a good reason.

I also did a deep dive into the Mythic rules for the first time last night, and now think I don't need Spell Penetration/Greater Spell Penetration at all, because the Eldritch Breach path ability is absolutely bonkers. So if Worldwound GM is okay with me changing my mind again, I'll replace the Spell Penetration feat with the Persistent Spell metamagic feat.

P.P.S. Merixia, if you run out of space in one field for your combat header, you can put a lot more information in two other fields. They will appear in this order: "Gender," "Race," "Classes/Levels."

Ohhhh! I had no idea. Thanks, Verene!

Feel better soon, GM! I get migraines too, they're hell on earth. Oh god I'm going to die, please god let me die. That kind of pain.

@Verene yeah, Eldritch breach is really good in this demon campaign. I'll probably go dual path as the first one myself but that would otherwise be my first pick. On the wand thing, there is an official Faq stating that activating a wand does not count as casting a spell. Or at least, you do not count as casting a spell.

"Items as Spells: Does using a potion, scroll, staff, or wand count as "casting a spell" for purposes of feats and special abilities like Augment Summoning, Spell Focus, an evoker's ability to do extra damage with evocation spells, bloodline abilities, and so on?

No. Unless they specifically state otherwise, feats and abilities that modify spells you cast only affect actual spellcasting, not using magic items that emulate spellcasting or work like spell casting."

The only reason that matters for Elliot is that he wouldn't waste unspent touch attack charges if he were to start alterating doing damage and using the Wand Wielder? Arcana to use a true strike wand and highly accurate maneuvers with such.

I can't find anything on if holding a wand would trigger unspent touch attack charges. The touch rules state that touching anything immediately dissipates the charge, but at the same time a magi can channel a touch spell through his sword, which doesn't dissipate it. Anyway, assuming that touching the wand even with wand wielder would dissipate it, it requires a further workaround through the weapon wand spell or such. Is it worth it? I don't know, but it does sound good to have flexibility, and i prefer teamwork abilities over things that only benefit me usually.

Alright, are everyone's status bars up to date? I'm going to try to figure out what the buffs are now, but it might be harder than I'd like.

EDIT: I'm also somewhat distracted by all the big posts forthcoming, so forgive me for not chiming in before now: I think we should probably swap them out for the future, but at the moment the buff is, uh, moot. You'll see.

I don't mind you changing that feat, Verene.

As for touch attacks on wands - I would say that the weapon wand spell would bypass this concern. However, without that, I think that touching the wand (without some other thing I'm missing) with the hand endowed with the touch spell would trigger it. Of course, I'm not sure how it would handle the spellstrike aspect, because that allows the spell to be channeled through the weapon... Which I think would be essentially touching the weapon to send it through.

Does that seem fair? I am just sort of rambling there.

I’ll switch my potion to shield of faith—since apparently I erroneously bought all those divine favors—so my banner should be correct.

As for touch attacks on wands - I would say that the weapon wand spell would bypass this concern. However, without that, I think that touching the wand (without some other thing I'm missing) with the hand endowed with the touch spell would trigger it. Of course, I'm not sure how it would handle the spellstrike aspect, because that allows the spell to be channeled through the weapon... Which I think would be essentially touching the weapon to send it through.

Does that seem fair? I am just sort of rambling there.

Sure. I'm just going to assume Elliot magically somehow sends the charge from his free hand to and through the weapon every time he wants to as there is no explanation for how spellstrike works otherwise. I'll assume weapons are different than wands though and that the weapon wand spell bypassing the touching the wand problem is a fine solution/workaround. It fuses into the weapon core and nothing indicates that would triggers spell charges being lost or the wand damaged when it is activated from there.

I'm not sure what you mean with the headers and swapping them out for the future but I'm sure all will become clear :) Mine is up to date.

Thanks GM! And yes, my status bar is up to date.

It occurs to me that maybe we are all still stunned and can take no actions, including doing things like laugh or talk. So if that's the case, please ignore the last two paragraphs of that post. :)

Lol- I wondered about that too! That’s why I did most of most me as thoughts and just a brief answer at the end.

I believe that this epic scene calls for a suitably epic soundtrack!

Other then some equipment updated, Thesius should be up to speed for character profile and his general character information.

I'm torn between initially boosting how long Thesius can keep up his Archaeologist's Luck or increasing his untrained skills.

It occurs to me that maybe we are all still stunned and can take no actions, including doing things like laugh or talk. So if that's the case, please ignore the last two paragraphs of that post. :)

I might make some allowances - but yes, you are all stunned.

Fortunately, the explosion took your scythe-wielding friend out. She could actually have been hugely threatening - her AC was bonkers, and had she taken just a little less damage from Azira, she'd still be up and ready to fight.

GM, would you mind if I swapped a point of Perception for one in Spellcraft? That way if I do decide to take Divine Scion, I'll be ready in two levels.

And since it's obviously a cleric-focused PrC, do I get domain spells with the +1 level of divine spellcasting class? Domain Specialization is pretty weak if not. I've looked online and there doesn't seem to be a consensus.

I don't mind, but you will be leveling up to six soon, if you want to put the point in then.

As for the +1 divine spell casting thing, yes. It counts as a new level in the divine spell casting class for the purposes of the spells per day, and that includes domain spells. I'm not sure whether it'd count for domain powers, but that's an argument for another day.

Are we aware of the others? And If we can't talk and are stunned I think our reactions are limited to thoughts, correct?

You are probably aware that the others are seeing the same, but yeah, no communication really.

I'm going to post one of these flashbacks daily, and give you a chance to react to each, but I'm not going to hold up if no one responds in between posts. Just a thing to let you explore your character through their reactions to what they're seeing, if you want.

I’m enjoying the visions but I wouldn’t complain about including two or three in each post instead of one (if you have enough time/energy). That would speed things up a bit and also give us a little more room to pick which visions we really respond to beyond just posting or not posting?

I’m enjoying the visions but I wouldn’t complain about including two or three in each post instead of one (if you have enough time/energy). That would speed things up a bit and also give us a little more room to pick which visions we really respond to beyond just posting or not posting?

Agreed. I'm enjoying the visions, they help bring home that this is a monumental change. An immensely powerful and unique phenomenon. That said, I wouldn't mind having more than one per post.

I agree with what has already been said. I don't think we need to rush it, but a little more per post would be nice.

Agree with everyone above. They are great fun to respond to though!

Yeah, that works for me too. If a writer/character wants to respond to multiple visions they can always choose to, and it maintains momentum better that way.

Sounds good to me, then! These are actually a lot shorter than I anticipated.

I seem to remember it was Khrarroumzadeh that killed Terendelev. Is that correct? I cant remember where this came up before.

He did, yes, at the beginning of the game. Which is, as has been noted, weird, given how easily she defeated him just ten or so years prior.

I hope that Knowledge (Planes) check is enough to know what kind of demon Minagho is. Also, question for you, GM: in the Hulrun vision, when you said Hulrun was preparing to launch the Second Crusade by burning guilty and innocent alike in the bonfire, was that a typo? I thought the wardstones were only created near the end of the Second Crusade (4645 AR), and the Third Crusade (beginning 4665) was the one with all the paranoia and Hulrun's 'witch'-burnings.

Yeah, I noticed that too znd had Elliot reflect on that in his previous post. It's easy to mix them up though when you have five crusades, and these memories start at the second since presumably the wardstone has no memory of the first? Which makes this 'potential future vision' from it odd as that implies it is omniscient to a degree and probably could have shown importsnt things from that era too? But well, hugely powerful artefacts are gonna do their own thing I suppose :)

You're both correct. I was going by what the book had written, which was, clearly, wrong. Oops. But yes, we'll just say that the wardstone's damage has it a little confused, inasmuch as it's sapient.

It's not intended as a hint that the visions are unreliable, to be clear. Just a mistype on the AP's part.

Assuming everyone chooses the Mythic Path associated with their campaign trait, their traits upgrade as follows:

Chance Encounter (Trickster): The PC gains a +2 trait bonus on Reflex saves. By expending one use of mythic power, the PC can take 20 on an Acrobatics, Bluff, Disguise, Sleight of Hand, or Stealth check without an increase in the time required to make the check.

Child of the Crusades (Marshal): The PC gains a +2 trait bonus on Will saves. Whenever she successfully saves against a mind-affecting effect from a demon, as an immediate action the PC can expend one use of mythic power to cause the demon to become staggered for a number of rounds equal to the PC's mythic tier. The demon can reduce this effect to 1 round by making a successful Will save (DC = 10 + the PCs' mythic tier + the PC's Charisma modifier).
Riftwarden Orphan (Archmage): The PC gains a +4 trait bonus on caster level checks to penetrate a demon's spell resistance. Once per day, she or he can recharge a charged magic item by expending one use of mythic power. Doing so adds a number of charges equal to 1d10 + his mythic tier to the item, up to its normal maximum number of charges.
Touched by Divinity (Hierophant): The PC can select a second domain granted by her affiliated deity. She can use the 1st-level spells of both domains as spell-like abilities a number of times per day each equal to her mythic tier. By expending one use of mythic power, she may use any of these two domains' spells as a spell-like ability, but may only use spells of a level equal to or less than her mythic tier.

Congrats on reaching mythic, folks.

Sweet, level 6 and mythic, and trait upgrades! Man, that's a lot of cool stuff to handle at once. Not that I'm complaining :)

I've gone back and forth so many times on which Mythic Path combination to go. Archmage is a given, and will be where most of his abilities go. But for a magus, taking the dual path path ability to also get some Champion or Guardian abilities also seems both flavorful and strong. Even only having just one of their base abilities is arguably worth it, but then i could fill his entire line with just good things from Archmage too... especially since he will be focusing on Righteous Eclipse as a legendary item on the side.

Sigh, i'll think about it some more tonight. If anyone has some advice i'm happy to hear it! Would guardian and champion go unused by the group if I didn't select them?

Level 6 abilities: wand wielder magus arcana. +1 bab, +1 all saves, + 1 arcane pool. Extra spells known: Deivon's Parry, Blade tutor's spirit (both level 1). Fcb: skillpoint. 6 ranks intimidate (for enforcer soon), +1 knowledge planes, +1 history, +1 perform. +7 hp.

Mythic abilities: ....

One question @GM Do we treat the wardstone's spell restoration as if it only recovered previously prepared spells (a level 4), or do we get to prepare the level 3 spells? Not that we need them probably with that insane list of extra buffs at the bottom of the spoiler? :O