Protectors of Golarion (Wrath of the Righteous AP)

Game Master Sensen

Yeah, let's wait for tomorrow. Also, nice scene @Merixia. It felt appropriately cute for the two of them :)

Thanks Elliot, I enjoyed the RP. :) Two terribly earnest and awkward people, stumbling their way through a romance. :) The fluff makes a nice contrast to everything else.

Verene will also be waiting on preparing spells tomorrow until we understand better what we might need. But almost certainly invisibility and fly, as she said. Seems like a good idea for the casters to be invisible if we're planning on adjusting the characteristics of the bridge or the slopes in any way not far from the enemy army (stone shape, expeditious construction.)

Something Thesius said reminded me: where did the army come up out of the riverbed to attack Paradise Hill in the first place? Would that be an easier place to get back down? What if we retraced our steps a bit, and instead of going north to Paradise Hill, went south to Southbank? If nothing else, they seem pretty dug in where they are, so the army wouldn't be in danger while making the crossing from either the cultist army, or from defenders inside/on the walls of Citadel Drezen.

This is less important, but I wonder what Aravashnial means by 'gamey.' To my understanding, that just means having the flavor of wild rather than farm-raised meat (or e.g. old mutton rather than young lamb), and is largely dependent on the animal's species, age and diet; it's not a quality that can really be affected in any way by cooking methods. Translation difficulties in expressing an Elven concept, maybe.

Cooking techniques can definitely reduce the gaminess of many (maybe all) meats. Brining, milk baths, and acidic marinades can all work, as can braising, especially if using a braising liquid that’s got some acid (like tomato sauce or some vinegar).

Under GM Worldwound's linked geographic maps, the second slide seems to show we crossed over around Keeper's Canyon before we went to the lost chapel and retrieved the potions.

Verene will also be waiting on preparing spells tomorrow until we understand better what we might need. But almost certainly invisibility and fly, as she said. Seems like a good idea for the casters to be invisible if we're planning on adjusting the characteristics of the bridge or the slopes in any way not far from the enemy army (stone shape, expeditious construction.)

Something Thesius said reminded me: where did the army come up out of the riverbed to attack Paradise Hill in the first place? Would that be an easier place to get back down? What if we retraced our steps a bit, and instead of going north to Paradise Hill, went south to Southbank? If nothing else, they seem pretty dug in where they are, so the army wouldn't be in danger while making the crossing from either the cultist army, or from defenders inside/on the walls of Citadel Drezen.

This is mostly your GM not realizing exactly how steep those walls were, but assume that they went up somewhere off the map. And yes, it's quite possible that'd be easier.

This is less important, but I wonder what Aravashnial means by 'gamey.' To my understanding, that just means having the flavor of wild rather than farm-raised meat (or e.g. old mutton rather than young lamb), and is largely dependent on the animal's species, age and diet; it's not a quality that can really be affected in any way by cooking methods. Translation difficulties in expressing an Elven concept, maybe.

Probably, yeah.

Merixia, it looks like the total coast for all the retraining will be 900 gp, and 20 days total retraining time if you spend 8 hours a day training - assuming you're going with the archetype.

It'd only be 675 gp and 15 if you stick with the vanilla cleric, looks like - though you'd normally need to find a cleric of level 7 with the appropriate class feature, I'll give you a bit of a waive.

Merixia can make an offering to Ragathiel with the value equal to the above costs - ideally items taken from dead evil creatures, and rather than needing to spend the days training, she'll have it happen by night - in her dreams, so to speak. If she doesn't get enough sleep, that day won't count for training.

Does that sound good?

I am so relieved that this isn’t going to be another amnesia situation, oh my god. Whew. The offering sounds totally reasonable, as well as a good way to dispose of an unholy weapon or similar item. That said, I am worried about the inevitable boss fight when we get into the keep proper. If the boss is tough enough to challenge the rest of the party, at best Merixia will be kind of useless. At worst she’ll be dead. I can muddle along until then, but I really like this character and don’t want her to die. And I doubt this siege will take twenty days. We don’t have the supplies for that, and every day we spend besieging Drezen is another day for demonic reinforcements to respond.

Very reasonable on the costs and everything, but the timeline does seem pretty awkward. In this situation, we just don't have the number of days the retraining system assumes you have, even if the 'training' happens at night.

To add to this perhaps, the last in-game day also took 4 months of real life writing time to go through. Unless there is an unexpected period of extended downtine, and the fights per day continue as they have, it's going to be a very long time for Meri to get that retrain. It's more reasonable for Elliot perhaps as his retrain should only take 5 days and he asked Aravahnial to help him to that the day we found the potions (2 or 3 ingame days ago I believe, if we can assume he does the retraining off-screen)? But even that is a pretty long time.

As a side note, if the same mechanic of doubling (?) mob HP of the last fight is applied to every fight and they all become 8 rounders, it will have the effect of significantly slowing down the story. This is not meant as criticism, but an observation, and I wouldn't presume to know how to upscale mobs better. But to maintain soms sort of tempo there'd have to be compensation elesewhere like skipping a portion of other fights or such. Or we'd have to get stronger I suppose, which Meri's retrain might help with a bit.

Allowing one to retrain while sleeping is pretty generous. While it's been pretty back to back lately, I assumed the adventure path does have planned periods of downtime. The problem we face is that things take longer in real life because its PBP. I myself have been talking about retraining and have planned to do so once we hit a period of downtime which likely means I may pay more because of the fact we'll probably level before then.

I get wanting to feel relevant, but a good part of what we're facing are a) bad rolls and b) different character designs.

All said, I do want Meri to feel relevant so I'm fine with GM Worldwound hastening this. I just wanted to note that he's being pretty generous as is.

The next big period of downtime is post-Drezen capture, unfortunately.

All said, I do want Meri to feel relevant so I'm fine with GM Worldwound hastening this. I just wanted to note that he's being pretty generous as is.

Oh, believe me, I know. I've played with some very strict, by-the-book GMs in the past. It just kind of sucks to feel useless in combat. But hey, maybe fighting two-handed and being less stingy with my spells will help enough for Merixia to contribute meaningfully to the fights ahead. I'm certainly going to give it a try!

While it's not a lot, Thesius also generally has his first level spells open and they get used for healing as a secondary source. Cure Wounds Wands are also great for after combat healing. Even more so when we have party members that can recharge them.

Maybe the party investing in a bigger healing wand would help as well. Something like a Cure Serious. Maybe with a higher caster level then minimum as well.

Unfortunately, I'm feeling a touch burned out right now, so I'm going to give Azira a chance to post before replying. I may not be able to get a post together today, though. Apologies.

I feel that. I hope you get to feeling better soon.

While it's not a lot, Thesius also generally has his first level spells open and they get used for healing as a secondary source. Cure Wounds Wands are also great for after combat healing. Even more so when we have party members that can recharge them.

Maybe the party investing in a bigger healing wand would help as well. Something like a Cure Serious. Maybe with a higher caster level then minimum as well.

The problem isn't me saving spells for healing, I've been relying on channeling and the wand for a while. The problem is my tendency to treat my daily spells as Too Awesome To Use. That's what happens when you spend the vast majority of your tabletop RPG time at low levels. :P I just have to keep telling myself that it's okay to cast several buffs instead of one or two.

@GM: Rest up and feel better soon!

Sorry- having 0 ranks in engineering and spellcraft, I was just listening and trusting others to make an educated decision. I can make a quick post to that effect though.

I'm sorry to hear you're feeling burned out, GM. As always, we appreciate what you do, and please let us know if there is something we players can do to keep the game fresh and interesting for you.

I was a bit worried about the time involved in retraining when we first started talking about this, which was why I suggested maybe there could be a special quest or service or something Ragathiel might ask of Merixia instead. Like a little side thing just for her— retrieving some holy item currently in a demon's possession, or killing a Big Evil evildoer currently hiding in Drezen, or something like that. That way, the change wouldn't happen immediately, but also wouldn't only happen like a week or more after we've done all of what's in Drezen (and presumably are at least like L9-10, which would dramatically increase the cost.)

Yeah, please take care to rest, GM. I second Verene in her appreciation and suggestion. The roleplaying in this campaign is great as are all the NPC's, and the fights are good too. If there's something we can do to help you, please let us know.

@Azira I figured that an Elliot who doesn't use magic will lose to your paladin in a spar pretty much all the time unles she lets him win :) Even aside from smite, non-buffed Azira vs non-buffed Elliot has six points of ac, 3 or 5 more to hit per swing, deals almost double damage per swing, potentially has more attacks per turn depending on how Elliot fights and potentially has access to both healing, parry and reposte and precise strike. The only way Elliot would stand a real chance is if he goes all out with buffs (particularly blur to negate precision damage and shield to even out durability) and mythic arcane strike on the damage front and he wouldn't do that out of principe, especially not for a friendly spar. He wants to be at full strength if the crusaders are ever actually attacked and everything else is secondary to that. I picture him as more of a sidekick type of character who isn't in it for any personal glory. Ooc I'm also fine with that, in practice he serves well as a secondary tank and pseudo ranged damage dealer due to his aerial mobility, which I picture his main role in the group is.

Doing my best to recover my spark, so I hope to get a post up today or tomorrow. It's a bit of a high-tension period for me, but I think I'll be able to manage.

As a word of warning, though - in a couple weeks I might be without my computer for a few days - it's in need of repair, and the repair estimate's 3-5 business days, so if I am unfortunate enough to lose it over the weekend, it could be a full week.

Oh boy, computer troubles are never fun. Crossing fingers for you that the repair goes smoothly and swiftly, GM. Take your time — I hope your stressors decrease soon.

Look at this great item I found, called the Scavenger's Stone! No weight or volume limit to the objects it can be used to mend, and it has charges so it could potentially be recharged with mythic power. And it's cheap. Verene could make this in a day, if she spent the full 8 hours on it and didn't go adventuring. By this RAW description, we could just repair the entire bridge by spending 10 charges to smash the stone against it. This is something we'd definitely want for repairing things in Drezen too, I imagine, even if that happens mostly in downtime.

Oh, huh. So you could! That's an option if you want to go for it. It is a goblin item, but I think that Verene's well-travelled enough that she could plausibly have heard of it before.

Okay, I admit to being overwhelmed with what everyone's saying. Can we summarize what the plan is? Because there seems to be so many options going on.

To answer Verene's question in the gameplay thread, I wouldn't bother preparing make whole.

So, the plan is, in short, for Thesius accompanied by Azira and Elliot, all three invisble and with the Fly spell cast on them (You'd have to rule how mana second and third level spellcasts Aravashnial can donate to us), to fly to the remaining 2 siege towers and then for Thesius to stealthily sabotage the siege engines on top of the towers. If we can, we will not fight at all. Thesius previously rolled high on hos engineering when inspecting the siege engine we already sabotaged and his result was that he could sabotage/remove key subtle comp9nents to prevent it from firing. That is what the sabotage team is going for off-screen (preferably off screen for story momentum) If it fails, the backup plan is for the three of them to fight their way out if needed.

I guess you need to rule whether the sentinels are wachtinfg for invisible enemies and if they detect Thesius doing it. Then if he fails, whether the sabotage succeeds anyway and what the cost for this is. Logically the three of thrm would take damage and lose class resources fighting their way through to the goal.

The second team, everyone else, is going south to repair the bridge by whwtever means necessary/viable. You'd have to rule how many spells and which kind it costs everyone. Presumably it will be casts of Make Whole and Stone Shape for columns.

After that, presuming that eventually works on both teams, they meer back up and the army attacks the cultists to the south gor their supplies.

What Elliot said. Also, Merixia wants to know if Sosial can help with stone shape duties. If he can't, she'll be completely tapped out of MP and 3rd level spells other than her domain spell.

Yep, agreed with Elliot. And you can mark back two uses of mythic power or second-level daily spells — since her make whole isn't helpful on the bridge, Verene will prepare and cast two invisibility for Thesius and Azira, and then Aravashnial's got the last one. Verene's spells for today are now chosen and refreshed in her profile. She's already cast two invisibility and one fly as part of the sabotage plan.

The pearl of power I is not done, since it's still early morning and Verene has only worked on it a bit. She needs to spend four hours on it over the course of this day during meals, on watch, etc. in between any adventuring. If that happens, by the end of today, it will be done.

@Verene thanks, i'll mark that back.

Also, I apologize for the many typo's in the last two posts - I did them from my phone and the touchscreen obviously wasn't made for people over 6 feet tall :')

That aside, in good news today I've been offered a position as a partner in a medical company assuming I pass a certain trial for that in two weeks from now. I'll be studying very hard to make a good impression until then and as a result I might not be as active writing. I will try and keep up, however.

Hey, congratulations Elliot! Best of luck in your studying and trial.

Awesome, Elliot! We'll be rooting for you. :)

Sorry for the delay. Long day yesterday. I will be aiming to have a post up later today, but please do not let that delay progressing us forward. I'm fine with the chosen plans if that is what the party wants to proceed forward with.

Congratulations Elliot!

I'm also onboard for Elliot's plan (though I know it can be a pain for the GM to have a party split up, and would encourage you to just have Irabeth order us to stay together if that would be helpful for you).

Also, yeah, good luck, Elliot!

Congrats, Elliot!

Thanks for the summary, too. I'll work on moving us forwards, then.

Sosiel can prepare stone shape, and will do so with Merixia quite happily.

EDIT: Unfortunately, Aravashnial's 2nd level spell slots have to be divided - he's only got 3 slots plus one for conjuration. Illusion is one of his opposition schools, so he can only prepare one invisibility and either flight or make whole. Or some other layout of the same. Sorry for being so unclear - I was rather confused at what was supposed to be happening.

EDIT Again: He can, however, use his staff to cast one of the non-illusion spells.

Apologies, perhaps flight is a different spell but what we mean is Fly, the third level spell. Fly should not compete with Invisibility as a second level spell. However, Verene already casted the other two casts of invisibility so 1 cast of that from Aravashnial and however many third level casts of Fly he's willing to lend us lets the Sabotage group go on as written without any more resouces spent.

Correct, fly and invisibility are of different levels and should not compete for slots. Invisibility competes with make whole, but Verene isn't preparing make whole and didn't ask Aravashnial to either, since per your earlier response, GM, it won't be useful toward making the bridge passable. She asked him for one invisibility and two fly, and she is providing two invisibility and one fly, for a total of three each of invisibility and fly. If that is still a problem, let us know. Otherwise, we'll proceed with the plan as described by Elliot yesterday.

Okay, daily spells are prepared in my character profile!

Side note, Thesius also has the following as part of his Clever Explorer ability.

He can disable intricate and complex devices in half the normal amount of time (minimum 1 round) and open a lock as a standard action.

Dear God, I'm just totally out of it recently. You're right, fly is a 3rd level spell. I'm not sure why I thought it wasn't.

Setting that all aside, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to make a post today, due to overwhelming stressors, and I'll be sending my computer in for repairs on Sunday evening. Theoretically, that means I will have it back by Wednesday at the earliest or Friday at the latest, but if it takes longer, it'd be until Monday the 18th, possibly.

This does mean that the game is effectively on hiatus until my computer comes back, but I'll try to get a post up on Sunday if I can.

No worries. Definitely take care of yourself and know we appreciate you.

The heads up is appreciated!

I hope things improve for you soon! Don’t worry about us, we’ll be here whenever you get back.

Yeah, my best wishes to you Sensen. Take it easy and take good care of yourself. Personally a 10 day break suits me just fine with the test coming up around that time.

I hope a break will be refreshing for you, GM (and for you, Elliot). We'll be here when you get back.

Understood, GM, and thanks for the heads up. Like everyone said, take care and see you soon.

Just chiming in. I hope everyone's week is going well.

All fine here. Same to you, Thesius.

Mine’s been busy but otherwise fine. I’m looking forward to getting back to our siege!

Lots of snow outside, but otherwise I'm fine. :)

To keep with the current trend, I’m fine as well. Looking forward to getting started back up as well. I’ll be interested to see how the siege goes and how things play out after.

Alright, computer is back and repaired, and I'm ready to go (mostly).