Oh, sorry. Yeah, it's down. I meant to check this before nightfall on Friday, but forgot. Go wild. (It was summoned, and was going to vanish on its next action, but now it doesn't get that!)
To get Thesius and Elliot, Azira would have had to activate the Advance action prior to moving.
Sleet storm is still up as well, correct?
I totally missed/forgot that it had a 30’ radius… Azira would have know that though, I think. If it’s alright with our GM, I gladly will have done that (since getting you two to safety was really the whole point of using it).
@Thesius according to the post, sleet storm was dispelled.
Ah, I missed that. Thanks for calling that out. I'll be getting up a post a bit later.
Yeah, I'll allow the "I did it before moving" retcon. Seems reasonable and keeps the game state stable.
When I previewed that post, no one had posted ahead of me! Let's say Verene goes first, hm? So none of those lovely hits from Azira is taken up by mirror images, since I'm pretty sure either one of those CL checks will take down the spell.
That seems reasonable.
Sounds good to me!
(You always beat me on initiative anyways)
Verene summons up a spell that the champions foes have been far too fond of casting of late, hurling a wave of dispelling magic at the vrock. At first it seems almost as though it will fail, but with a swelling of power, she forces the images to disappear.
I'm putting this in Discussion because it's slightly long. The reason I said the CL check is vs. the original spell DC, is because she's targeting a specific ongoing spell on the vrock (the mirror image) rather than the vrock generally as a creature. In the dispel magic description, that would be under this section: "You can also use a targeted dispel to specifically end one spell affecting the target or one spell affecting an area (such as a wall of fire). You must name the specific spell effect to be targeted in this way. If your caster level check is equal to or higher than the DC of that spell, it ends. No other spells or effects on the target are dispelled if your check is not high enough to end the targeted effect."
Basically, if you know and name exactly what spell you are targeting (e.g. if you can see that the target is under the effects of a mirror image, or you can see the sleet storm right in front of you), and you give up any chance of dispelling any other spell currently affecting a creature, the DC of that caster level check to dispel is equal to whatever the original spell's DC would be, not to the 11 + caster level that it would be if you were attempting to dispel any one spell affecting the target. Usually this is an easier DC, sometimes it's about the same, and occasionally it's harder.
So for example, when the tiefling sorcerer attempted to dispel the sleet storm back here, the DC would have been 10 + 3 (spell level) + 7 (Int modifier) = 20, not 11 + 10 (caster level) for 21. But, as the sorcerer's caster level check result was high enough either way, it didn't matter.
P.S. And once again, I totally forgot to apply Foretell to Verene's CL checks vs. the mirror image! So the results also would have been two higher. But fortunately, it didn't matter.
Not a lot of healing, but figured Thesius falls behind often in regards to the damage others are doing.
Verene: Huh. I misread that. Oh well. Good to know! That is less than 11+CL, so you definitely beat it.
To be fair, it's not totally clear in the text of dispel magic if "the DC of that spell" is referring to the ordinary '10 + spell level + stat modifier' DC of the spell, or the '11 + caster level' DC mentioned earlier in the description while explaining how to decide which if any of the spells on a single creature are actually dispelled by a broad single-creature-targeted dispel. I'm basing my certainty about what is intended on this thread asking about this issue where James Jacobs agrees that the DCs for the two cases are different.
Feeling unwell the past couple days, please bear with me.
Verene: Yeah, that was what I was confused by, I guess. Seems legitimate, then!
Merixia: Hope you feel better soon!
EDIT: I'm not feeling up to botting a level 8 mythic character at the moment, so I'll give Merixia another day before trying to do so.
Feel better Merixia!
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Thanks, folks. I pushed myself way too hard, crashed and burned for several days as a result. Maintaining my "I am a confident, skilled, and totally neurotypical professional, no autism here folks" mask at a large, crowded, noisy, overstimulating career fair while talking to a bunch of strangers took a lot more out of me than I anticipated. I pulled it off well, but I paid a price for doing so.
Fortunately I'm feeling more alive now, so let the battle commence!
Glad you're feeling better, Merixia.
As of the beginning of Round 8, Verene is out of Foretell for the day, sadly, so subtract that +2 from your attack rolls etc. if you had incorporated it.
Everything okay, Elliot and Merixia?
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I'm fine, just got a little busy. Very glad that holy water works on vrock spores, the thought of using mythic power to cast bless of all things was painful.
Sorry, I'm not feeling up to posting today. I think that posts should resume as normal tomorrow.
Take your time, GM. We'll be here.
No worries. Looking forward to your next post
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I was, it seems, just tired. Now I should be able to get a post in later today.
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Drat, I thought for sure Thesius had killed Red. If she was visibly near death but still standing Verene would have used the magic missile wand on her instead, and maybe spared Thesius that attack by killing her outright so she didn't get a final standard action through Orc Ferocity. It's hard to write conditionals that do what you actually want. The vagaries of PBP, I guess.
Let's wrap up this CR 16 combat so we can heal with the wands and immediately start another combat!
This is my explicit permission to correct me if I don't adjust the numbers on Thesius' HP on my next post, because I won't fight through it at the moment. xD
Ah, I wasn't saying we should retcon anything, just lamenting that I hadn't phrased the conditional more effectively.
So, I was only kind of kidding about it being a CR 16 encounter. That battle was the vrock (Konneshka), a sorcerer with 4th-level spells (Issen), 4 brimoraks, 4 half-orc archers with 1st-level ranger spells (so at least L4), 4 gargoyles, and 3 dretches. And the brimoraks, gargoyles and dretches at least seemed souped-up in terms of how much damage they could soak. That's probably a CR 14 encounter at least, depending on the enemies' actual enhancements. 17 enemies killed in 8 full rounds, when they get off a surprise round, isn't really that bad. I do think it would have been better to focus fire on the sorcerer and vrock, and for Verene to have spent a mythic point protecting everyone from fire in that first round rather than use that standard action for Foretell, though - the brimoraks really chipped away at us. Of course, in the surprise round, the brimoraks were not visible.
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It was a bit of a slog yes, but i do feel the overall challenge seemed appropriate. So kudos for that from me, gm. This is probably the first fight where i felt like the mythic abilites were actually needed to win.
It also changed my perspective a bit on what abilities are good and which aren't. I feel like the teamwork feats Elliot is going for now do not seem to have much value, i'll probably retrain those for other ones when we can.
I mean the flying and dispersed enemies with ranged attacks didn't help.
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It was a bit of a slog yes, but i do feel the overall challenge seemed appropriate. So kudos for that from me, gm. This is probably the first fight where i felt like the mythic abilites were actually needed to win.
That was the goal, yeah. It was, for the record, two encounters worth of enemies, plus an additional six. So, uh, yeah. Not going to happen every time, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't quite a walkover the way that some have been.
(There were several templates assigned as well.)
In the AP, it's just the vrock. Which might've been good enough for a 4 person 20-point built party as a warm up, but obviously not for you guys.
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Teamwork feats can be pretty good, but they're kind of situational and rely on a level of coordination that we aren't always great at. The coordination part we could probably solve pretty easily with better communication (and that might make them worth keeping, maybe). The situational piece is less in our control. Because they mostly all require specific positioning, they can usually only be used against flying enemies if most or all of us are flying, for example. Similarly, they tend not to be great against weaker opponents because we either kill them before people are in position or someone has to make a dangerous move to get into position quickly enough.
My advance ability (the one that gives everyone a free move) could actually be really useful in setting us up to benefit from teamwork feats in big fights, but I can only use it so many times per day, and we'd all have to be on the same page to do it. I'd honestly probably (already) use it more often if it didn't slow down combat so much in PbP, but I can start using it more if we want to try our hand at playing more tactically as a unit? (Although, I will say, when I use fleet charge instead, that is a tactical decision too- closing with the BBEG and doing a bunch of damage right away is my best bet for getting it to focus on our tank/me.)
edit: for the record, I enjoyed the slog!
I think it went well overall, and definitely felt challenging at times. It might be the first time I have ever seen a round/level spell cast by a mid-level caster actually run out of duration.
@Thesius, have you claimed one of the two ability score belts we currently have? They're +2 Strength (from the ghoul in the tomb) or +2 Constitution (from Staunton just now). Whichever you choose, Verene will take the other.
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Might be for the best he take a Belt of Giant's Strength +2 and then he can effectively use that +1 Composite Shortbow (Str +3) we have.
Great! I'll mark it as held by him and the Con one on Verene.
Teamwork feats can be pretty good, but they're kind of situational and rely on a level of coordination that we aren't always great at. The coordination part we could probably solve pretty easily with better communication (and that might make them worth keeping, maybe). The situational piece is less in our control. Because they mostly all require specific positioning, they can usually only be used against flying enemies if most or all of us are flying, for example. Similarly, they tend not to be great against weaker opponents because we either kill them before people are in position or someone has to make a dangerous move to get into position quickly enough.
My advance ability (the one that gives everyone a free move) could actually be really useful in setting us up to benefit from teamwork feats in big fights.
Yeah, that could be an option. Use advance to get everyone adjacent to one enemy and then wait for the first crit which grants everyone an extra attack. That said I don't know if the concept of teamwork feats in general is worth the number of feats it costs Elliot at the moment, or the delay we'd get with Rally + the mythic power use of Azira... he could instead take something like Studied spell and Lunge to generate more full attacks and actually hit enemies through their DR with elemental damage, which would then also debuff them from his other feats. I get the idea Elliot might be trying too many things at once.
Unrelated Question: Does anyone know how readied actions work vis-a-vis a surprise round? Especially if the action readied is "I'm going to hit/charge whoever's first through that door" and the readier's initiative doesn't exceed the readied person's when it's rolled?
... did that question make sense? I hope so.
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I think we talked about this once tangentially a long time ago when addressing the fact that actions cannot be readied outside of combat because readying is a special initiative action, which are "ways to change when you act during combat by altering your place in the initiative order." No combat = no initiative order = no readying*.
If a surprise round is happening, that's different**. Standard actions can be readied in a surprise round as normal. If the readied action triggers during the surprise round, it goes off, and the readier's initiative count drops to that point in the initiative order for all remaining rounds.
However, if the surprise round ends and Round 1 begins, and you reach the readier's initiative count again without the readied action triggering yet, then the readied action from that surprise round is simply lost. The readier would have to ready that action again in Round 1 if they wanted to stay in place and attack 'whoever is first through the door' but no one has come through the door yet.
*Many GMs (me included) rule that even outside of combat, you can 'ready' a non-attack action that triggers in a time-sensitive way exactly when you want it to. Like, "When the enemies are three-quarters of the way up the slope, I release the chock holding the boulder," or "As soon as the wizard casts fireball into the other room, I immediately shut the door between it and us."
**And I would say a surprise round only happens if one side in the battle is truly unaware of (at least part of) the other side. Something like simply being in adjoining rooms with a closed door between them, when both parties know and are preparing for the fact that there are enemies waiting beyond the door, should not be enough to grant a surprise round to either party. For a surprise round, opposed Stealth vs. Perception checks need to have happened, or something else contextual vs. Perception.
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Aha! Thank you. Now that you've said it, I do recall discussing it. (The link totally had nothing to do with that.) Anyways, it's probably not important for the next encounter...
Anyways, it's probably not important for the next encounter...
Lol.
Not especially prepared to launch a new combat today, so I'm holding off. Have some information for Thesius instead!
I have one more precombat prep, if I may. Is everyone ok with Elliot equipping the +2 amulet of natural armor we recently found of Vhane, which hasn't been claimed yet? He's been getting beaten up quite badly these last few fights. I'll donate his old +1 one to the loot list if so.
Sounds good. I've marked it as being on Elliot. (And that +2 Cha band on Azira, as I think she expressed interest in that.) The older +1 armor amulet should probably go to Thesius or Merixia then — I think neither one has a neck slot item yet. Which of you wants it, guys? Roll for it?
Thesius can have it, I have enough 2nd level spell slots to keep ironskin active for as long as we usually fight each day.
I'll throw on the belt sure, although Wulfric took eagle's splendor for situations like we're in right now which limits its value for me somewhat.
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Sigh...
So, I'll do my best to keep track of all this as we go, but for the sake of convenience (and transparency), here's a break down of my current AC and saves:
AC
normal- 30
vs evil foe- 31
vs evil outsider- 33
Fort
'normal'- +17
vs evil foe- +18
vs evil outsider- +21
Ref
'normal'- +18
vs evil foe- +19
vs evil outsider- +22
Will
'normal'- +18
vs evil foe- +19
vs evil outsider- +21
In addition- I get +2 vs any effect with the evil descriptor (like dread bolt or unholy blight) from my angelic blood, and +2 vs confusion or insanity (from my campaign trait, iirc).
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Good idea to make a reference sheet, Azia. I went and recalculated Elliot's stats as well. I seem to have undervalued his actual ac. Also, I thought he had a +1 amulet of natural armor but he doesn't; he instead has a +1 ring of protection. So the +2 amulet of natural armor would actually boost his ac by 2.
Base AC: 10 normal + 5 armor + 6 dex (dex is capped at 6) + 1 deflection +2 natural = 24 AC/T17/FF 18.
Including shield spell: 28/T17/FF22
Including Frog Form +1 size: 29/T18/FF23
Haste and protection from evil would each add another +1 to all AC values.
So his Max AC values under all buffs are currently 30/T19/FF24 with +1 vs evil, which is what he starts the next fight with.
Base saves: +6/+2/+6. Scores: +2/+7/+1. Resistance cloak: +2/+2/+2.
Total normal saves: +10/+11/+9.
Frog form adds +1 ref for +10/+12/+9.
Heroism adds +2 morale to all.
Haste adds another +1 ref.
His heroic medal adds +2 to willsaves vs confusion and insanity.
His max saves are currently +12/+15/+11.
@Gm I updated Elliot's stats for the next fight in his header.
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Your efforts are greatly appreciated, folks. It's not easy keeping track of all the buffs at this stage of the game. (And it's only going to get worse as we get more mythic and normal powers! Yay!)
Thankfully, the fact that like bonuses don’t stack (and there’s only so many types of bonuses) will help mitigate that some. That said, I didn’t figure haste into my chart, so if that gets cast again I’ll have to make some updates.
Elliot cast haste before we opened the door, so time is ticking. We may want to try to nuke the succubus while we have it in hopes of breaking the enchantments.