Into the Abyss

Game Master Brolof

I should, perhaps, note that Rahlmaat has a constant arcane sight cast on herself. Given her take-ten Spellcraft check is 37, she'll probably have identified every magic item and effect on the entire party by the end of our conversation here, unless someone has something that would keep her from doing so.

Liliyas sniper rifle may be higher then that but I am not sure.

I actually have little idea of what Liliyas sniper rifles identify DC would be. It could possibly be high enough if mythic undetectable and being intelligent factors into it (it is +3, with 2 enchantments on top and legendary otherwise), which it may do but I have no idea RAW. She also had it hidden behind her folded wings until the vow scene.

Oh, my tounges is currently keyed to Elysian, I do not atm understand undercommon, but I could switch to it with a standard action.

On Liliya, Rahlmaat would see constant ant haul (Belt), constant remove fear (ring), constant general sucubus stuff.

Rahlmaat would pick up that her 2 Tokarevs at her belt are mundane, but well made.

Generalized combat routine

Liliya plans to scout ahead invisibly, when sighting hostiles inform party telepathically, including about estimated capabilities.
She will move to a concealed position and start firing in the surprise round.
If discovered, she will mirror dodge towards the party upon getting hit.
She would consider mirror doding directly above/above behind our mellees in certain situations, to make use of the fact that she is basically wielding a D12+11 AoO reach weapon that hits touch AC. And ideally keep full attack shooting from there. She does not provoke AoOs from shooting from threat.

in case we get surprised
Teleport above Radamare or Britta (probably Radamare, because Radamare can get Britta back up, which is not the case vice versa, and I think Britta has more cunning wizard tools to pull a fast one on enemies) which makes either of them be protected by a gun emplacement.
Probably move action sardonic writ to remove a mental condition on someone.

funny tricks/Semi diplomatic combat
-I can targetted shot somebodies weapon (unless its locked to him) away from "fairly long" range, simply by hitting touch AC. If we have long ranged telekinesis (Just mage hand may be enough? Britta has it, probably scales pretty decent with her caster level) she can then joink it. This may be an option if we are dealing with Demons, and just want to show our might rather then murder them (so we can send them vs the Qlippoths as meatshields instead after estbalishing dominance). Depends on initiative order.
I can also joink it myself, but need to be within 5 feet of it, swift action using my grasping cape. Targetted shot is a full attack action, cant use it in surprise round.
-If somebodies flight gets dispelled midflight, I can teleport to him/her and catch him/her. Will cost my full action but beats falling into acidic entropic lava filled with Qlippoth Tentacle sharks.
I am very happy that Rahlmaats flight is not dispellable.
-If someone gets paralyzed mid flight, i would rather remove the paralysis assuming its mind effecting.

Here is a more organized list of longer than a day buffs that Rada will cast on each party member the evening before we set out, in line with the earlier post. Not listing shorter buffs here since the availability of those will be situational.

Per earlier post, if there is one additional hour/level cleric buff that you really want precast on you before we start, let me know.

Radamare can also keep an aid spell active on every party member at all times (except Gathroc, who’s immune to positive thinking). Listing it with the long spells since it will be effectively constant, even though it’s actually minutes/level. If it’s OK with you, DM, I’d prefer to just assume an average result for temporary hp (1d8+10=14) rather than roll d8s every 15 minutes of the day.

Enduring Blessing, extended freedom of movement (48 hrs) - various benefits.

aid (14 minutes at will) - 14 temporary hit points and +1 morale bonus to attack rolls and fear saves.
extended mass planar adaptation (38 hrs) - acid resistance 20 and immunity to harmful Abyssal environmental effects.
extended mass lesser reversion (48 hrs) - once during the spell duration, when brought below half hit points, you can dismiss the spell as an immediate action to heal 1d8+19 hit points.
extended delay poison (38 hrs) - poison does not affect you until the spell ends

Enduring Blessing, extended freedom of movement (48 hrs) - various benefits.

aid (14 minutes at will) - 14 temporary hit points and +1 morale bonus to attack rolls and fear saves.
extended mass planar adaptation (38 hrs) - acid resistance 20 and immunity to harmful Abyssal environmental effects.
extended mass lesser reversion (48 hrs) - once during the spell duration, when brought below half hit points, you can dismiss the spell as an immediate action to heal 1d8+19 hit points.

Enduring Blessing, extended freedom of movement (48 hrs) - various benefits.

aid (14 minutes at will) - 14 temporary hit points and +1 morale bonus to attack rolls and fear saves.
extended mass planar adaptation (38 hrs) - acid resistance 20 and immunity to harmful Abyssal environmental effects.
extended mass lesser reversion (48 hrs) - once during the spell duration, when brought below half hit points, you can dismiss the spell as an immediate action to heal 1d8+19 hit points.
extended delay poison (38 hrs) - poison does not affect you until the spell ends

Enduring Blessing, extended freedom of movement (48 hrs) - various benefits

aid (14 minutes at will) - 14 temporary hit points and +1 morale bonus to attack rolls and fear saves.
extended mass planar adaptation (38 hrs) - acid resistance 20 and immunity to harmful Abyssal environmental effects.
extended mass lesser reversion (48 hrs) - once during the spell duration, when brought below half hit points, you can dismiss the spell as an immediate action to heal 1d8+19 hit points.

Enduring Blessing, extended freedom of movement (48 hrs) - various benefits.

extended mass planar adaptation (38 hrs) - acid resistance 20 and immunity to whatever harmful Abyssal environmental effects an undead isn’t already immune to.

As noted previously, I am packing a few extra freedom of movement spells, but if any of the others end or are dispelled, don’t count on getting them back unless and until we get a full day of noncombat downtime… which, depending on the adventure tempo, might or might not be anytime soon.

Cool, since temp hp from different sources stack:

Liliya can vampire touch herself for 6D6 damage, convert this to temp HP (last 1 hour) and then get healed by Radamare, bringing my temp hp cushion to (on average) 35.
I am super fine with just averaging this as well.

I think Britta can pull this trick too, but she actually needs a spell slot.

Radamare: Aid won't work on me, but you can feel free to have it on the rest of the party.

Eventually, if you give me the funds, I can make a wand of Freedom of Movement so you can use those slots for something else. I can make it at the lowest level and Britta can add her own intelligence and CL (plus more) when she activates it. She also doesn't have to use a charge if she wants to use a mythic point.

Rahlmaat and others: As for Arcane Sight or detect magic, the magical auras of magical effects on Britta and magic items she carries can’t be detected. The boy "Ward's" magic wand detects as magical though and her dragon also would detect as a summon.

Liliya: Yeah, but Britta doesn't like to get hit, so she probably wouldn't like doing that to herself lol. She'd rather use a Greater False Life spell. You can think of Ward as her temp HP lol. I also have on an ablative barrier and don't take non-lethal damage. So it's kind of temp HP too.

She has mage hand and telekinesis (decently powered).

I'm fine with you just taking the average for Aid.

Radamare: Aid won't work on me, but you can feel free to have it on the rest of the party.

Hm. Are you immune to the whole spell (mind-affecting compulsion), or just unaffected by the morale bonus but eligible for the temp hp?

Re wands, I'm up for setting aside some of any wealth we find for a party fund to get wands and stuff that would be useful to the party as a whole.

Brolof, FYI, Rada is mostly trying to get a sense of whether this is

a) one of those missions where the party is racing a timer and has to push through as many encounters between rests as possible.
b) one of those missions where the party probably shouldn't stop for six months of downtime in between forays, but doesn't need to sweat too hard about resting or taking the occasional few days of downtime if opportunity arises.
c) one of those missions where the party -can- stop and take six months of downtime with no worries (I already figure it probably isn't this last one given the planar earthquakes and demons in the process of losing an abyssal civil war and all).

Rahlmaat, nothing on Radamare blocks arcane sight for now. At the moment, it's just gear, her own aid and extended freedom of movement, and an azata's constant self-only effects (see invisibility, detect evil, holy aura). Concentrating as a standard action reveals that she does have spellcasting or spell-like abilities, that these register as both arcane and divine, and that the most powerful spell or SLA available to her is Strong.

I am eligible for the temp HP, but not the morale bonus, so not completely resistant. Maybe I'll save my Greater False Life for when those run out then.

All my gear should register to any magic sense, expect *maybe* my armor, which might be too high? But, probably not. It's the only thing I can think of that wouldn't.

You all are having quite the lengthy mental conversations in these matters of a few seconds of conversation with Korada.

Well, telepathy is thought speed and Liliya has communicated telapthically, as her main mode of communication, for milennia.

Talking feels actively slow and unsecure in terms of communication security for her, also, you can only have one conversation at a time while talking, while telepathy has no such limits.

Also, verbally mouthing off in the presence of her superior is not the bestest idea, mentally sounding out possible allies is completely reasonable. As is establishing herself as a font of interesting information. She also loves to gossip.

She is a bit too hostile towards hell to include Gathroc, Sabrina is not really there and Britta was actively refusing telepathic communications before.

Yeah, once negotiations are done, she will be open to telepathic communication. Plus, I'm sure they have Detect Thoughts active.

This is why cunning Succubi learn, and a young age of around 300 or so, to periodically put images of tasteful pornography they recently participated in in the front of their minds, and then detect who was detecting their thoughts, by looking if anyone blushes, they then verify it was this person by thinking of that pornography again, but replace whoever they were intimate with with whoever they are suspecting of trying to read their minds.

Would obviously not work vs Shamira.

But its pretty effective against non-Arsheans/Calistrians.

You all are having quite the lengthy mental conversations in these matters of a few seconds of conversation with Korada.

I'll give a peek behind the spoiler tags: I've been calling out Radamare's telepathic conversation as pausing or trailing off whenever the out-loud conversation picks up. Int 12 and no native telepathy suggests to me that carrying on simultaneous conversations out loud and in mindspeech probably isn't a skill that comes naturally to her.

I need to post soon. I was hoping for Sabrina to post, but they haven't even responded to my DM. Might be super busy IRL, I don't know.

I think Sabrina said they were there, but just silently watching, so go for it.

You all fine with me doing relevant knowledge X instead/in addition to sense motive when applicable for Liliya bluffing? Liliya is not looking to actually do PvP, but well, her bluff is obnoxiously high (even more so when what she says is very reasonable if slightly misleading), and being completely upfront and honest would imho be massively out of character for a Succubus, even a very reasonable one.

I typically don't roll for players unless it's in good humor and I want them to know my lies (also if they have a chance to make the DC), otherwise, I will just keep the true motive to myself or just put hints of it through my post or in the thought boxes.

Radamare is the only one who could (Sense motive 28) catch my bluff of 37, although her odds to do so are pretty bad as its still a difference of 9.
In that particular case, it does not require peack machiavellian genius to figure out what is going on, and I would argue that reasoning what is going on is, generally speaking, a lot easier then rolling sense motive vs a high achieving succubus.

I think I already dropped telepathic hints to some that knowing what Liliyas incentives are.
Liliyas hierarchy of needs is:
1: Stay alive
2: Maintain her position (Kill Qlippoths while doing what Shamira tells her to do)
3: Ideally strengthen her position by networking with an unusual and powerful cast of characters. Ideally turning them into allies by both incentives, and by playing up common enemies. If she can credibly pretend to others in the Abyss that she has such allies, thats not as good as actually having them but still pretty decent.
4: Look to become a nascent Demon Lord herself, perhaps by dealing the finishing blow to a Qlippoth Lord, however, grabbing a Qlippoth Lords essence is pretty risky, and she does not want a confrontation with Shamira right now, but could consider to become to Shamira what Shamira was to Nocticula prior to her ascension.

Yeah, I generally don't find it necessary to roll bluff on allies unless it's something that would really change things if people knew you weren't being fully up-front about things. In this case Liliy's motives are obvious enough I wouldn't have thought it necessary.

Interesting, maybe a regional difference?
My PnP tables roll well, metric tons of bluff/sense motive/knowledge politics (typically from history, local, or nobility) dice per social encounter. The GM then kind of plays it by the ear.
The reward is that you can find out what your quest give actually wants, maybe get hints of sidequest, can negotiate better for improved rewards or improve his attitude to you by showing that you are a professional and know what he/she/it is talking about.

At my tables, I generally will support pulling the GM aside and letting the GM know what's really going on behind the scenes. I typically don't allow PvP of any kind, even emotionally or psychologically backstabby. That means, if you have a character who is planning on harvesting the souls of the party, only the GM knows what they are truly thinking.

In PnP, that would be keeping it all in the 'thinking' brackets and having so high a bluff we never can tell unless we have a detect thoughts spell going on. At our tables though, you can roll as many bluffs and/or sense motives you want to NPCs.

Honestly though, from Britta's perspective, she's not worried about you two. You are already put in her "this is an evil person and any kindness is just lies" box. It's the others she more accurately worries about as she isn't sure if they are telling the truth. Call her racist, but she just assumes if you are a succubus, short of the one most recent example, you are statistically going to want to devour, destroy, and do everything that every other demon in the abyss does; just in a more seductive way. Gathroc she doesn't assume, as there are many reasons people become undead. I don't think she would suspect him to be lich-like, but she probably knows what he is (+35 to identify him, currently).

GM: Can we get a description of the town around us? What is the location architecture like? Construction of the city? How far away is the place we are staying? What kind of location is it? Tavern? Apartments? Can you explain many of the odd sights we are seeing as we look around upon coming out of this room? All of these are details Britta will wishes to know. Also, there are numerous downtime spells she is starting to prepare now that they are concluding the meeting. Can I also put in mind and potentially give rough descriptions of potential businesses I see along the way? One of her desires is to go into a store and bless it, primarily magic shops that don't have knowledge of the prosperous room or business booms spells. She also may be putting the Ears of the City spell on someone (probably Liliya). Also, in the area, are there any visible blighted lands? Any areas devoid of water? Deserts? I imagine we are like...in space or something, but our "island" might have these terrains. She also enjoys renewing such zones as long as its blight doesn't come from natural sources (sort of druid-like behavior).

Harvesting souls is, in Liliyas opinion, overrated.
Liliya actively suspects that the Abyss is massively shortchanging demonkind, by essentially joinking most of a mortal souls essence before the demon resonsible for its corruption gets anything from it.

Lets say a CR10 mortal dies and goes to the Abyss, he becomes a Cr 1/4 flesh taco of a Larvae. Where does the remaining strength go? Most of it is gobbled up by the Abyss, a smallish part goes to the demon who corrupted the soul (if that applies and if that demon is around when the soul is judged).

She gets a lot more from turning the CR10 mortal into a willing vasall, (whose CR may well further increase while serving her, and she is really good at diplomatical vasallisation) and having that mortal shoot her Abyssal or infernal rivals with supercharged eartrealm weapons, and then joink the essence and resources of her recently ventilated rivals, which is actually quite digestible for her.
If she wants to eat Larvae, which she like all demons does, she either buys them or has her vasalls beat up someone for them.

She does not care very much if her vasalls become Larvae after death. As a matter of fact, not fully corrupting her vasalls to chaotic evil means they are more controllable and likely to be loyal.

Yes, she is not a typical Succubus and yes, thats why she has beyond morality. To be actually efficient and pragmatic :).

GM: Can we get a description of the town around us? What is the location architecture like? Construction of the city? How far away is the place we are staying? What kind of location is it? Tavern? Apartments? Can you explain many of the odd sights we are seeing as we look around upon coming out of this room? All of these are details Britta will wishes to know. Also, there are numerous downtime spells she is starting to prepare now that they are concluding the meeting. Can I also put in mind and potentially give rough descriptions of potential businesses I see along the way? One of her desires is to go into a store and bless it, primarily magic shops that don't have knowledge of the...

The first post gave hints of it, but the city has a unique architecture in comparison to the rest of the planes. It resembles at a glance if someone took the high-tech parts of Numeria, and mixed them with organic stone shapes. Everything is made of this same blue stone however, likely what the planetoid the city is built on is made of.

The city itself is actually very small in terms of width, making up for it with height. The most populous residents, the Shulsagas who built the city, can all magically fly and thus build tall skyscraper-like structures. At the least, the streets at the very bottom don't have any gaps or anything. It's technically entirely possible to navigate the city by foot, just will take a while thanks to all the stairs.

You are all floating on a giant rock in the Astral Plane. The rock has some grassy areas on it actually, with EXCESSIVELY tall and narrow trees growing on it.

Sorry I haven't posted much, but Gathroc only has two ranks in Planes(just enough to qualify for Hellknight). One of the downfalls of a class with only 2+Int skill ranks.

I have been reading along however.

That's too bad, but if I am usually playing a character that has little social talent in a situation, I'll typically post my thoughts or just subtle movements based on what's said, just so others know I'm there. There is a lot of people who make characters and then ghost games, never to post again, so it's nice to have an assurance that people are there, even if the character wouldn't necessarily speak.

Did you all know that the mobile version of the Paizo Site's been under maintenance for a while? I didn't and assumed the entire site was having issues. Fun!

It wasn't working for me on the main website for most of the day.

Post is out, tell me if I missed anything. There was a lot to go through.

All my PbP characters are blabbermouths. PbP is imho better then PnP for that because you dont hold the thing up for everyone.

If they dont have knowledge/social skills, they are going to flirt, talk tactics/strategy/history/worldbuilding to other characters, bragg or a combination thereoff.

Awesome post btw Brolof!

Yeah, I found the website down over the weekend, or if it was up, it seemed to be only for a few minutes at a time.

Should be mostly caught up now. For now, work calls, but I'll catch up to the morning next time I post. I could bring us to Vlorus next post unless we have anything else going on in the meantime.

I'm ready. Let's get into it! Enough of this social/research/finding secrets of the universe nonsense (joking! I'm having fun). It won't matter if we all die in two seconds. :P

I'm not sure Britta's dragon can withstand Gathroc's fear aura, so whenever he is near, the dragon will fly around out of its range. Meanwhile, while other people are shaken, Britta could play a game of checkers with the undead.

I failed, but I have high enough bluff to pretend I am totally fine :).
Having good fun as well. Banter is good.

I really think Gathroc wants to stabbifying something though :)

You may be right. Also, I think we can safely say we've lost our Sabrina. No word for 2+ weeks and no activity on the account. Shame. You know...I need bodies in between me and the baddies. I'm going to have to force you to be a melee character Liliya if the others go down lol. Hmm...unless I use a transformation spell...yes...In any case, one down, off to the races. May death greet us all!

Before I forget: Britta is going to be giving out a "caster code" that she is going to use. This way you will know if an effect is not truly real, to avert your eyes, or to draw close to her or disperse. This should let others know battlefield positions as I make posts without letting the enemies know I mean "come closer" or "avert your eyes" and they do the same.

I could see this having disastrous consequences with my Shadow Conjuration Stinking Cloud. They may be immune to mind-affecting and disease, but they aren't to shadows, and neither will Gathroc or anyone else immune to such things. But giving a heads up, you know it's not real.

I can summon a Babau :). CR6 will no doubt tank really well at this level:).
I dont think he would last very long, and he may immidiatly run the hell away from Gathroc.

Actually, he can just try to dispell magic point something all the time. Its at will and actually has some utility.

I do have DC25ish charm monster at will, +37 to bluff, and could credibly
and could offer any non Qlippoth in Vlorus we find refuge in Luralune as well as my patronage in return for loyal meathshield services, which is proabably a reasonable deal.

Like, iirc Gathroc can debuff will saves by existing?

Don't forget Rahlmaat's a pseudo martial character!

Actually, I can semi tank, it costs me a mythic per turn though. And I do actually ahve 15 foot reach with a fairly comical number of AoOs.

Rahlmaat's melee capabilities depend a lot on how much preparation time she has for melee, given how many spells she can throw at the issue. Particularly defensively she needs a spell or two to help.

In a pinch, I can be under (Rahlmaat has hover) or over Rahlmaat and provide AoOs at 15 feet.
I have like 10 and they do somewhat hurt.
Kind of bad vs AoO though.
The AoOs are just 1d12 +11 or so (I have no way of getting CHA to damage outside of my turn), but they do crit on 19-20 for x5 and go vs touch ac.

Its mostly for crit fishing to regain grit honestly.

I am fine doing this as long as my mythic power is >10 and my alabastar trappings are still up.

Had my covid booster shot today. Mostly okay, but a bit sore and tired. Gonna post shortly.

I've known Sabrina's player for many years now(we've been in a few other games), and they do occasionally disappear like this without warning, but also come back. I think they have a bit of a hectic IRL.

I can actually make a decent amount of AoO(9 total) and I add +6(my tier) to attack and damage when making them.

Also, I wasn't kidding when I said to stand behind me if a fight breaks out:

I have both Sudden Block and Parry Spell, which can be used against attacks vs allies who are adjacent to me. Does being me count as adjacent?
I've seen some weird rulings about that term before(in other games). Never paid much attention to the official definition for PF, as a lot of my characters never had abilities that really cared if an ally was adjacent or not.

Re booster, :)

Re tanking in general, all of our martial characters seem at least reasonably solid at the job of standing in front of an enemy, although spending mythic power to tank is a bit painful given the 3 points per day recovery rate in this campaign.

Re adjacency, anybody that you could hit with 5 ft reach is adjacent to you. The CRB glossary might be the place that addresses this most directly.

Melee Attacks: With a normal melee weapon, you can strike any opponent within 5 feet. (Opponents within 5 feet are considered adjacent to you.)

Re Sabrina, could just be busy due to the holidays.

Britta, I saw you offered a nondetection effect IC. That would be lovely for Rada since she has g. invis at will but no particular protection from ubiquitous true seeing or see invis (at least until mind blank as a domain spell next level). Since I'm sure the caster level check to defeat it will come up, what caster level is it?

Off to bed, IC tomorrow...

Oh, if I am background sperging too much, just send me a note.

Radamare: We may only really need nondetection at the beginning of our campaign, as the enemy may be looking for targets coming in. Once we are in, I'm sure they won't be paying attention. No one would be stupid enough to be within the qlippoth ranks right now.

She may take some time to make a scroll of it since multiple people need it. Caster level would be 18. It should only take her 2 hours to make. She can do it while people are eating breakfast.

Plane Shift: I am going to have Britta put her ooze in her backpack, as it doesn't need to breathe. That way we are 8 beings for the purpose of the spell. Also, I'm not sure a summon counts as a being for the purpose of the spell either, so we may be 7. In any case, just enough.

Gathroc: I don't mind it when people have a hard time or a busy RL. We all have stuff come up. I prefer to have a heads up and to know if they want us to pause or if they are cool with us continuing to RP. The last thing I want is to be chewed out because they come back from the holidays and see numerous posts when they wanted us to wait for them (this has happened to me before).

Booster: I need to get mine sometime soon. Maybe I should schedule that...

I'm ready. Let's get into it! Enough of this social/research/finding secrets of the universe nonsense (joking! I'm having fun). It won't matter if we all die in two seconds. :P

Off we go then to our probable deaths!

But seriously if anyone wants to continue any conversations or scenes in the Astral, I don't see why they can't also be continued in spoilers/asides/whatever. Trying to get going without cutting anyone off.

I don't mind having to catch up from time to time. I'm never on the boards on Sundays, and Mondays I often don't have quite enough time to catch up, but I should be caught up on Tuesdays generally.

Oh, also, I was thinking that Rahlmaat would use her Flash of Omniscience power to try to determine the best place in Vlorus to start our investigation. @GM Any problems with that? Should I roll the failure chance or you?

I'm typing up a post right now, I'm including the failure chance in that. Also, got a DM from Sabrina's player, they might not be available until the 15th due to leaving his country.

With all the crazy of my grandmother being sick(who is doing a fair amount better, but still has a long way to go recovery wise), plus the holidays, I totally forgot to invite people to my discord.

Please repost if you're willing to join, DM included. I'll set up a channel specifically for this game.

Discord is fine by me, Gathroc.

I'm going to add an active-spells spoiler to my IC posts, mostly so I don't forget what I have running.

Speaking of that last one, Brolof, I'm also going to update my short stats at the top of the post to account for temporary effects from spells, such as the perception boost from Britta's tears to wine. When I do that... planar adaptation protects from harmful environmental effects, but I doubt that the -2 to mental skill checks from being a nonevil person on a strongly evil aligned plane is really an environmental effect like toxic air or extreme temperatures. If you agree that planar adaptation does not help with that, I'll also update the perception bonus in the summary line to account for that, since it will probably be basically permanent throughout the adventure.

I'm typing up a post right now, I'm including the failure chance in that. Also, got a DM from Sabrina's player, they might not be available until the 15th due to leaving his country.

Great! Good to hear.