Protectors of Golarion (Wrath of the Righteous AP)

Game Master Sensen

Ah, I see. Yes, I was confused because in that picture you showed us, he clearly has the unholy symbol of Deskari on his helmet, not Baphomet's, and also the glaive is designed like a grasshopper/locust. Joran's picture also had a Deskari symbol, on his shield. I guess there was some mix-up between designing/art-directing Staunton (and maybe Joran) and writing up the rest of the backstory for him.

If we want to say he's always been a Baphomet/Templar of the Ivory Labyrinth cultist, maybe he and the glaive (and Joran's shield) should officially, in our game, just not have those symbols, and then Verene would not have thought it was weird or asked the question.

Yeah, Joran definitely shouldn't have Deskari, as he's Droskar's cleric. I'm less certain of Staunton's thing, but I'll treat him as a Baphomet worshipper for the purposes of our game.

Okay, cool. Then I'll change my mental image to the symbol being Baphomet's, and please strike Verene's question from the record. :)

I hope everyone had/is having a happy holiday! I should be back to fairly regular posting now. I do want to warn you all though that I will be out of country from the 14th-21st (of January) and will try to post when I can during that period, but there's a real possibility you might not hear from me at all during that window.

I'll say that so long as you take reasonable precautions, you won't have any fear of being forcibly transformed into an undead version of Staunton Vhane. Verene's suggestion with rest eternal would certainly help stop him from spontaneously arising.

Sorry about the absense all! My vacation started yesterday and I am currently in a vacation resort. I should be back to posting starting monday evening.

I'm not sure how to advance things - I don't want to skip over anything someone else has to say, but I don't think there's much else I can offer. That being said, I will attempt to get a short post up today.

Really pertinent question that I'm not honestly sure where to investigate: does the death of the dominator release dominate person from the victims? I don't recall if we actually settled on that.

Really pertinent question that I'm not honestly sure where to investigate: does the death of the dominator release dominate person from the victims? I don't recall if we actually settled on that.

We discussed it back in September, starting here, and the RAW answer is that no, the death of the dominator does not release them, and the duration (and saves to break the effect) plays out as usual. I think you said you would rule this way too. This is because there just isn't any specific rule for spells and other magical effects addressing the circumstance of death of the caster. So the general rules regarding duration are all there is, barring a houserule. E.g. if a spell requires continued concentration, it ends, but if it has a defined duration, that is still its duration regardless of whether the caster has since died.

With dominate person the subject would receive a new saving throw every day for whatever remains of the original duration of the spell (1 day/caster level), because the caster is not around to spend a full round each day concentrating on it; casting protection from evil on the dominated person would also allow them a new save; dispel magic would grant a caster level check to attempt to dispel the effect; etc.

Merixia used stone shape to fix the broken bridges. Does Verene think that spell or expeditious construction could clear a path through (or over, or around through another wall) this rubble, GM? Taking 10 on any needed Knowledge checks, etc. (E.g. her take-10 Knowledge [Engineering] is 28 and Arcana is 34 right now.)

Expeditious construction wouldn't really help, no, and stone shape might, but not a lot - it wouldn't be a single cast and fix, because it's a wall of rubble (I don't think I was clear there, apologies). So she could use it to make one (or a few) of the larger pieces into a less offensive one, but there'd still be a fair few large chunks blocking the way.

Sure, but could she instead use stone shape to make a small but passable tunnel through one of the 5' thick stone walls? Like e.g. where I've marked with a yellow X on the map. We discussed the potential for using stone shape to come into the courtyard an alternate way back here, and decided against it only because the walls were too thick and it would take too many casts to let multiple people on horses through. But these walls are only 5 feet thick, not 20 feet thick like the exterior walls, and we don't need a horse-sized hole.

Aha! Clever. Yes, that should work. No magical protections against it or the like.

Mythic spellcasting opens up a lot of creativity that you probably wouldn't ever see without it, honestly, because of how people tend to choose the spells most useful for combat.

Absolutely! It's going to be strange confining myself to only the spells I have prepared in Hell's Rebels.

My next post is gonna be huge, and you're going into combat, so this might take a bit tomorrow. This combat is going to be tough for me. Again.

Everything going okay with you, Elliot and Thesius? I hope holidays went well.

Holidays got busier then I would have liked. I'll be getting caught up and a post tomorrow. I hope everyone's holidays went well.

It's been over a week since we've heard from Elliot, and five days since it's been his turn. I hope everything's okay.

Yeah. Ever since COVID, I worry when someone drops off the face of the internet. :(

Likewise. I'm pretty sure he mentioned that he'd be pretty busy early this year, so I'm hopeful he's (mostly) alright. Nevertheless, I'll try to bot him tomorrow - not sure what he'll do, but hopefully it'll be okay with him when he comes back.

I do hope we see him pop back in soon.

Weren’t we in the area with the rubble? I thought that was what Merixia used her stone shape on.

My understanding is that you went to the west of the room and used it on a wall that (we'll handwave Joran as telling you) wasn't behind rubble. So you slipped out into the corner of the room. Otherwise, stone shape wouldn't have helped you - it works on one object, not a whole bunch.

That was my understanding too, just because stone shape is pretty limited in total volume shapeable per cast. The pile of rubble is thick, while the wall a bit farther away is relatively thin.

Unfortunately, it looks like you may have to bot Elliot again, GM. Hope we hear from him soon.

Yeah, seems likely. I'll get one up tomorrow. Today's session was a little exhausting.

Sorry for the continued absence, everyone. I found out the hard way that company duties do not really end during holidays and between finishing the backlog and just being a single dad, I had very little time and energy left to write. More positively, the backlog is now mostly finished so I'm now actually starting to get posting again.

I was planning to jump back in today but found it wasn't my turn in the new fight, and there is too much in the past to really react to in a single post since his last one. Let's say Elliot gratefully accepted the healing, bashfully apogolized to Merixia for having to magically glue him back together, chuckles over the shapeshifting comments and resumes his position near the front to protect everyone to the best of his ability, including Vhane and Nurah.

As for the current fight, I thought I mentioned it a few times in the past but in active combat scenario's like large scale fights, or now exploring an enemy fortress, he will keep casting Shield from his wand until it runs out. His Shield wand was fully charged until he got here from his trait recharging it daily, so that's essentially 50 minutes of it he has it. With Shield and Merixia's protection from Evil increasing his deflection bu 1, his AC should be 28 which makes the initial melee hit on him miss unless it is vs flat-footed. I am sorry for the bookkeeping; perhaps I'll just Mythic Finesse this one day to just wear a real shield instead. Also, his Visualization of the Body has ended since he was more or less forced to heal himself with it in the rpevious fight.

You’re back! And you’re okay! :D I’m sorry to hear that your holiday wasn’t actually a holiday, but happy that you’re less busy now.

What Merixia said.

Apologies about the forgetting, Elliot - this is why I ask so often to remind me about the pre-battles buffs, since I forget them so often. That being said, I've adjusted your HP in the notes and moved you back such that the vrock wouldn't have had the chance to attack you. I'll summarize what it does do shortly.

I also just didn't remove the visualization from the status bar - I did remove the effect, so I've done that now. That said, I don't think Merixia put protection from evil on Elliot - rather, she put it on Wulfric and Nurah - reasoning that you need it less than they do, I assume.

Uh, I think that's everything.

I had three of them, and put them on Elliot, Wulfric, and Nurah. Two from my SLA and one in my 1st level domain slot. Verene took care of herself and Thesius, and Azira has paladin saves so she didn’t get one.

That’s fair, lol

Good to hear from you again Elliot, and I'm glad you've mostly conquered the backlog.

Please note that while protection from evil should add to everyone's AC here (though at least one person also has a ring of protection that it wouldn't stack with - maybe just Azira?), its resistance bonus to saves doesn't stack with anyone's cloak of resistance, because that's also a resistance bonus. So don't add +2 from that to Verene's saves - the bonus from her cloak is already calculated in her status line save values. She and everyone else does have a +2 luck bonus to saves right now from Foretell. I've also noted in the status line Verene's current AC and then that all those values are +2 against evil. Lacking shield and haste, but counting protection from evil, she's currently sitting at only 20 AC vs. evil creatures. So, you still have her a bit too high, GM.

Hey all, I hate to do this but I am on my way to Belize right now for a work thing and I just found out that part of our time there is a team-building excursion, during which I might have zero internet access. I’ll do my best to keep up but if I go silent for a few days that’s why, I’m sorry, and I promise I’ll be back soon. Feel free to bot me as needed.

Glad to see you back Elliot. Hopefully things start slowing down for you.

Enjoy your trip Azira!

Yeah, thanks for letting us know, Azira, I hope you enjoy your journey.

Have a good time on your work trip, Azira.

Wow, marathon post GM! Nice job. Thesius's blink miss chance is 50%, not 20%, so I think the one dretch attack that got through should actually be a miss.

Thanks. It wasn't easy, but it was easier than last combat. Somehow.

Oh, right. The 20% is his miss chance. Notes adjusted.

Thesius does have the ability to cast Darkvision twice per day which gives 8 hours with each casting. If it was dark in there, he probably wouldn't have seen the Vrock before without it. Would it be fine to consider he cast it prior to entering the fort?

That's fine by me.

Oh dear, I didn't look at the encounters map to notice before that the newly summoned brimorak is supposed to have been summoned into the same square as Verene. It also does take a full round to summon creatures, I will say, meaning that they only come into existence at the start of the summoner's next turn. This is true whether it's by a spell or a spell-like ability. Let's just move on and say that Verene will move during her next turn, before the brimorak 'officially' comes into existence there.

Oops. Crap, I even wondered about that summoning thing. Thanks for correcting me, Verene, and I'll actually move things around so you don't have to do so immediately. In the future, I'll make sure to have the summoned creatures act the round after they're summoned. x_x

Radiance was once a powerful weapon, yet since Yaniel’s death the blade has become inert. When handled by a paladin, however, the blade suddenly glows with golden light and functions as a +1 cold iron longsword that radiates light as a torch on command.

I’m not sure what the original source of that text is, but it comes from the item description for Radiance, from the official prd.

... you know, I somehow totally missed that on my previous read of that page. Carry on!

Holy Desna, those rolls :O Unsure if I've ever rolled 4 critical hits in one turn!

As a side note, Elliot should still have blur meaning most attacks against him would have a 20%miss chance as well as blocking precision damage if any.

Is the 14 a critical threat? Really nice rolls overall.

Ah, thanks for keeping me honest. A 15+ is a threat, not 14. Must have been tired yesterday, thinking it fell in the 30% range.

You know, I noted the blur yesterday, but totally forgot to roll it. I think you only got hit once by a non-area attack.
Miss Chance, low misses: 1d100 ⇒ 45

My profile seems to be out of date for the last level. I'll work on getting that updated.

Hm... a couple of questions for you, GM. I want to apply Communal Protection from Energy (electricity) to allies in this room. Applying a touch spell to an ally is a free action, per Touch Spells in Combat: "In the same round that you cast the spell, you may also touch (or attempt to touch) as a free action. You may take your move before casting the spell, after touching the target, or between casting the spell and touching the target." The magic rules about spells with a range of touch additionally say, "Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets. You can touch up to 6[*!] willing targets as part of the casting, but all targets of the spell must be touched in the same round that you finish casting the spell."

So, can Verene cast the spell as a standard action, then move up to her speed, applying touches to up to 6 willing allies as free actions along the line of her movement?

*This is not directly relevant to the question, but a straightforward reading of this rule means that all communal touch-range spells with a Targets line of "creatures touched" can actually only have a maximum of six targets. That is not at all clear from the spells' descriptions themselves, which have no conditions about maximum number of targets or targets per level. It's also much weaker than other multi-target spells like haste, which can have up to 10 targets by caster level 10, 20 targets by caster level 20, etc.

I have not been aware of this. I've been imagining that if Verene has, for example, 60 minutes of duration to spend on fire protection, she can divide that so three creatures get 20 minutes or 20 creatures get three minutes, as long as she touches all targets in the same round as casting the spell. (It doesn't seem it should be that hard to touch 20 hands very quickly if everyone is crowded around in a circle and sticks their hands out for a circular high-five!) But maybe this is wrong? Please advise. Whatever the answer, I don't think it matters to our party-based combats. It has only been relevant in a flavor way due to wanting to protect our army.

My instinct would be to say that you can do the touch spell on up to 6 willing targets within a round/casting action, rather than six willing targets total. It would take longer to touch more people, so to speak.

I'd allow you to keep the "charge" on your touch if you didn't use the whole duration, though.

Not sure if there's really is any actual rulings there, but that's my instinct.

Okay, great. That seems good. So casting the spell as a standard, then moving and applying it to up to 6 willing allies can be done in a single round, as long as she can reach the allies within 1 move action. And if I wanted to apply it to more targets than 6, I could do that in the next round. Do I have that right?