I will narrate things in a less whimsical fashion going forward.
And I genuinely appreciate that you wrote me direct messages about it, like, in a play by post, there is no other way to have feedback.
There will be some time before we exactly meet, the whimsicalness was party influenced by concerns voiced previously about avoiding grimdark.
How is the new writing style?
Enjoying it. I like the dangerous tone on the kalavakus. They should be scary! (That must be a kalavakus demon that just teleported to Wulfric's side, right? Verene would know. Oh, I also like the pictures of enemies being presented conveniently below the map.) I'll have to think about what to do. Probably try to single-target disable him.
@Lili: Merixia's AC with her standard buffs: 21 armored + 2 deflection magic circle vs evil + 5 natural ironskin = AC 28. Saves are correct without buffs. With buffs, she has +2 resistance from magic circle against evil and +2 morale from heroism. (She got the knight's pennon of battle and hung it on her backpack.)
Since Merixia has those three buffs up, her AC is properly 28 right now. The buffs are noted in her status line, but the AC in her status line is pre-buffing. So the crit won't confirm and the claw misses, but still 14 damage from the lucky arrow.
Oh, also, everyone the fireballs might affect has Merixia's protection from energy (fire) up, for 120 points of protection. So you still make the saves, but whatever fire damage you would take, subtract it from 120 instead. When the spell has protected you from 120 points of fire damage total, it is exhausted.
How is the new writing style?
Excellent, thank you! Nicely menacing.
Since Merixia has those three buffs up, her AC is properly 28 right now. The buffs are noted in her status line, but the AC in her status line is pre-buffing. So the crit won't confirm and the claw misses, but still 14 damage from the lucky arrow.
And here we have an example of my tendency to make mistakes in math, I forgot that ironskin scales. I'll go fix that now.
I switched some demon types around in the fortress, as written, there would be 2 named Succubi and one named shadow demon (as well as one Nabasu, who has a name, but no mechanicaly adjustments etc.).
I am also opening a betting pool on what the gestalted class of the Kalavakus is.
Note:
--Mechanically, slapping an Antipaladin gestalt is almost always the mechanically strongest option. It would also be boring. There will be a few such antipaladins, but not everywhere. The smite good also overemphasizes rocket tag, which I try to avoid.
I don't really know how gestalt works for PCs, much less monsters, but I'll guess... sin mage wizard. Just because gemstones inset in a creature reminds me of the Runelords.
Not a bad guess!
Waiting on Azira/Wulfric and Elliot.
An inquisitor of the slavery inquisition
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Reading back up now, a lot of things happened. But will get a post up at least to break inactivity and get into the habit of it again.
YAY!
A fair bit of the Abyss and their politics/histories is homebrewed, but I got pretty good reviews from players.
Little tidbits:
KN Planes DC 20, automatical pass if you worship Besmara
One of the possibly largest "Air Sea battles" ever took place about 600 years ago in Nocticula's realm of the Midnight isles, a vast Besmaran raiding fleet, lead by Besmara herself, set sail from the Maelstrom to raid the richest place of the entire Abyss.
Nocticula had a mighty fleet herself, and the armed forces of midnight eternal were forewarned oweing to an excellent spy network.
The Battle was cataclysmic, one midnight isle, a continent sized floating island made from the corpse of a dead demonlord, either sunk, or was exploded by the attacking Besmarans, or was exploded by the defending Nocticulans. Nobody knows what, but 99% of the participants of the battle, on both sides, were really suprised when it happened.
The demons employed heretofore unseen tactics, useing their ships as carriers for fliers and teleporters, rather then exchanging direct fire, and these tactics initially allowed them to keep the distance from the Besmaran Battlefleet and run rings around them, cheweing up Besmaras supporting Flottila in the process.
Besmara however is not easily bested, and, useing a divine intervention, teleported the most elite part of her fleet as well as her own sea wraith into the middle of the demonic formation.
The Seawraith instantly rammed the Siren, the flagship of the midnight isles, and engaged in a savage melee resulting in the massive demonic battleship being cleaved in twain. The demonic fleet scattered as their flagship fell, which the Besmarans took as their signal to start the wholesale looting of an Abyssal realm.
Alas, as the Besmarans split to loot and plunder, the defending demons rallied, quickly established a fairly cohesive command structure and started to eliminate the split up Besmarans in detail, opting to avoid the Sea Wraith herself and seek to sink literally everything else.
The Sea Wraith did succeed in looting 2 midnight isles (the midnight isle of Nahyndri being one of them), but was forced to limp back into the Maelstrom with only a dozen supporting ships remaining, out of the hundreds of vesells that initially participated.
Both sides claim victory, The Nocticulans due to sinking some 95+% of the invading fleet, the Besmarans due to sinking the Nocticulan flagship and looting 2 midnight isles.
Nocticula certainly made more of this, as essentially fighting a full deity like Besmara to at minimum a draw, in an open massive battle which is not normally a part of her portfolio, greatly increased the prestige of her armies and especially navies/air forces, even more so when compared to the complete trouncing the Demon Lord Aolar received at the hands of Desna millenia before that.
Math, huh? Let's see here...
1d8 longsword
+2 enhancement
+7 Dex
+8 precise strike (not multiplied on crit)
= 1d8+17 base damage
plus
+8 smite
= 1d8+25 normal smite damage
or...
+16 smite for 1st attack
= 1d8+33 1st smite (vs evil outsiders)
the extra "+2+1" I thought was from heroism and flagbearer, although I just looked them up to double check and heroism is just an attack bonus, not a damage bonus. However, since Wulfric is not enslave, he's going to activate inspire courage which will give that +2 back.
So, the first attack would have done 1d8+33+2+1 base damage, and another 1d8+25+2+1 from the crit (because everything but the precision damage is doubled), for a total of 2d8+58+4+2. Rolling an 8 and a 1 on the d8s, that's 73 damage; minus 10 for his special resistance is a total of 63 damage from the first attack. Second attack is correct at 36.
Also, a resistance that completely negates bonus smite damage until we reach 11th level (unless I'm lucky enough to crit) is pretty formidable; I hope we don't run into that too often.
Ah, the precise strike is precision damage ok, I though you were either erraneously thinking that smite evil is precision damage, or forgetting the extra bonus on the first attack you hit.
Corruption resistance is only on the Paladin, Antipaladin and inquisitor spell lists, you could cast it yourself (and have it for an entire dungeon), although it would be gimped due to Paladin caster level.
I am not sure if Verene or Merixia can nab spells from there.
There is also an Aasimar alternate racial trait that lets you cast that once per day.
That is a potent, though poorly written, spell. Unfortunately, I’m not a spellcaster at all (my archetype gives it up), but I might have to look at picking that up on Radiance at some point.
You could also at some point retrain your racial spell like ability (Glitterdust) for it (aasimars can get it via the incorruptible alternate racial trait), which would let you get that as a once per day cast at your character level.
Or, if you tell me you really want it, I can conceive of a way to alter things at a plot appropriate moment.
There is a fair bit of time to do that after taking Drezen, and spoiler, the antipaladin in Drezen is already dead, and while there is one more demon with alignment based abilities in Drezen that demon is a bit odd.
Oh, as written, the average Baphometan mook in the next act is a Antipaladin of 6th to 8th level, I will have a bit more variety.
In terms of options for Elliot:
--He is next to Merixia
--He is unharmed, Merixia has some superficial damage
--While botting, I had him take the wand of dimension door in his left hand, so he could grab Meri and D-Door to the Horned demon. This would leave the 2 archers, 2 Brimoracks and Schirs to attack at range, but they probably arent going to do much.
--He could also go postal at them, note, the Schirs are bracing for impact with polearms, I dont recommend charging.
Thesius is up as well. Don't want his turn to get lost in the shuffle!
Indeed!