Bountiful (Ad)venture: DM Yttras's Ruins of Azlant Table 1

Game Master Yttras

Whirlwind Attack + trip should be legit under the basic rule of replacing melee attacks with trip/disarm/sunder attacks. It's definitely an interesting idea and I like the imagery. It's something I'll keep in mind as a possibility.

I think my biggest problem is figuring out what weapon to use while underwater; can't seem to use a glaive effectively. Maybe I need to sneak in TWF and dual-wield wakizashis?

I dont know if this is actually valid, but GM dependent you may ask if you can Combat maneuver on a whirlwind attack. This could make whirlwind attack an option at level 9 if your build allows. AoO trip seems potentially potent.

I'll have to look into that when I have a chance, but trip has an underwater equivalent, called off-balance (which is a form of flat-footed).

I'm sorry I haven't posted the pre-game information yet. Busy Christmas trip ended in missed flight, which has made an already busier than expected trip even busier. I should get everything posted tomorrow.

I think my biggest problem is figuring out what weapon to use while underwater; can't seem to use a glaive effectively. Maybe I need to sneak in TWF and dual-wield wakizashis?

There will be ways to deal with that coming up in the course of the adventure, and the campaign notes specify changing treasure to accommodate not having a town.

If I had munchkinned properly and be abberant/aquatic rather then black blood/aqautic I could have had whirlwind trip and vital strike at level 9, due to abberant having improved disarm and thus having deft maneuvers, which would have meant AoO trip at abberant bloodrager reach, but well, I conciously limited my munchkin tendencies on account of having a 40+ point buy.

If you're heading the whirlwind/trip route, I'll let that be your schtick and do something different! Though it'd be pretty funny if I backed you up with whirlwind/disarm.

@Yttras--thanks for flagging that there will be some workarounds for underwater combat, and maybe the concept of "off-balance" in connection to trip attacks. Missed flights are the worst. I admit to checking compulsively to see if anything's up, but you should totally take your time.

@Li Shin - the Aquatic Combatant feat will let you use a glaive underwater at full damage.

There is also equipment that removes the penalties, and spells such as Free Swim.

I dont think I can go whirlwind and trip, need feats for vital strike and reduction of party murdering :) I can go whirlwind and vital strike though.

There are AC benchmarks?

My general rules of thumb are:
1) 15+level is "fair," 20+level is "very good," and 25+level is "excellent"
2) A tough melee bruiser will have about 2*CR in attack bonus

Brother MacLaren isn't going to be very good on AC for a while, since he doesn't have an easy way to get Shield, and Shield of Faith lags behind at low levels. Eventually he'll get there.

Ana is going to be all over the place on AC, CMD/CMB, to hit, and damage. If I gave it as much thought as the rest of you my head would explode.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to play her build from the standpoint of RP. I like the idea that her failed experiment that gave her the scarring was her trying to make a proper rage mutagen before she was ready. So she still has granules of healed over glass with the attempted mutagen in her system. She gets worked up and stuff happens. Lot of stress she doesn't know how to deal with.

Also, it would be a good explanation for picking up auspicious mark. That's such an amazing rage power.

Edit: I did swap around some stats. Nothing major, but just to fix some mechanical stuff that was bothering me. Swapped her 16 from CON to DEX because a bonus to reflex and being able to eventually wear a breastplate sounded better than a HP a level and a +1 to her best save. Then I put her 15 in CON rather than WIS because it literally makes zero difference outside of ability damage and being reduced to less than 0 health... which seems like where you would want the higher to be CON.

@Ana

you will probably be quite fine automatically damage wise, on account of 19 STR, Rage, mutagen etc. .

The "not so big" thing with Pathfinder is that "to hit" is essentially a resource that, if you have enough of it, you can trade for either AC or damage.
Power attack (which you should get at level 2 automatically because elephant in the room and you will will +1 AB then) lets you trade 1 to hit for 3 damage, which becomes 2 to hit for 6 damage when you hit 4 BAB.
Combat expertise lets you trade 1 to hit for 1 AC, hich becomes 2 to hit for 2 AC when you hit 4 BAB.
Fighting defensively lets you, if you have 3 (skill ranks) in acrobatics, trade 4 to hit for 3 AC.

When you attack its a bit like poker, you try to guess the enemies AC against your attack, and then decide if you need your full to hit bonus or can trade some to hit bonus away for either moar damage or moar on your part.

Alexandr will have +5 to -2AC swings while fighting, just to keep the enemies guessing if he is turtling or going all out.

I am pretty sure that this AP will not require a very high degree of mechanical optimization. Most don't. They are written for a party of 4 with 15-pt buy. We have a party of 5 with outstanding stats and a ton of free feats.

We'll be fine.

So I don't think we all need to be walking around with 25+level AC all the time. It's just that there are tradeoffs, and damage needs to be healed.

We may not have ready access to Wands of CLW, unlike PFS. Channel should provide decent out-of-combat healing at low levels.

@Alex- I'm very familiar with the Pathfinder system. I just don't want to wrap my head around optimizing to hit and damage with so many variables to Ana's combat already in play. Sorry if I didn't get that across. I've actually played 3.5/Pathfinder for more than fifteen years.

I am planning to play Ana a bit brute force rather than turning to feats for to hit and damage. Her limited feats will likely go to defensive boosts like dodge and iron will. Plus, augmenting her with rage powers like auspicious mark.

I have been spending some time browsing feats for odd birds that might fit Ana's build though. I already found one that might be hilarious (even useful) in Believer's Boon. The family domain's granted power let's you transfer a condition from another creature to yourself. Not only could this help with Alex's poor will save (I'm making saves for two now.), but would also allow Ana to espouse upon this skill that has been passed down the Armat family FOR GENERATIONS!

@Brother

God approved bonus to your rolls.

That feat is pretty cool for gorrumite warpriest or clerics "Oh Great Gorum, do you approve of my smeshing this fool?"
"More smeshing less asking brother."

Let's face it, every god approves of smashing on some level. Just ask Calistria.

I don't see myself in the players/characters list. Is the gameplay thread up and I can't see it, or is something else going on? Been quiet.

I don't believe gameplay is up yet. I dotted the nonexistent gameplay thread because it seemed like that was possible, which did allow me to see any updates to these threads.

Here (finally) is the further information on NPCs that I promised. I’ve put it all in one post instead of 5 PMs for ease of access, but please only read the “Important Colonists” section and the one labelled with your character’s name. This will give you a starting-off point for developing relationships with other colonists over the course of the adventure, and contains information that other players may not know at the start.

Sorry about not getting this out when I said I would. Between heavy snow, car troubles, and sickness, its been a long start the the new year. I should have the opening gameplay post up today.

Don’t stress, GM. We are here when you are ready.

In the same boat as you DM. No worries.

edit: Ana picked up a few more A names. Alliterative appeal indeed!

If it helps, I don’t think you should feel pressure to handle all of these different NPCs at the same time in an introductory post. You can just throw us all into the same place and we can start building our group story.

Gameplay post is up.

Embarrassing--I totally missed that. Thank you!

@Ana
Yeah, lots of A-List names in this one :), I got one as well.

Oh, so the gameplay thread is up. I completely missed that.

We should be able to move on later today, Alexandr. I've been working on getting a map set up for the next section of the campaign, but its taking longer than I expected to get everything to work, technically speaking.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough.

There are two vast differences between Alexandr's actions and Ana's.

1) Alexandr asked Brother MacLaren to be complicit in his act of slave- prisoner-with-job-taking (the job being providing information) by asking for a Stabilize. Brother MacLaren just said that he personally would not do that since the foe had not chosen to surrender. He wasn't stopping anyone else from making a Heal check. On the other hand, Ana did not say "Hold the goblin still so I can kill it." This is a huge difference. Given our clear differences, the best thing is to just focus on my character's own actions to the greatest extent possible. Do what I think is right, and not do what I think is wrong. I do not think this party needs a leader, and think it would just lead to problems. If there are specific decisions where we all have to agree, we can vote.

2) The octogoblin was not a prisoner in Brother MacLaren's eyes. It had not chosen to surrender. If it had chosen to surrender, and he had agreed to grant it quarter, then YES, he would be extremely angry at somebody else who killed the prisoner. That wasn't the case.

The game rules make it very hard to choose to fight to the death - it is trivially easy for a foe to violate that wish and take you prisoner instead, unless you have Endurance, Diehard, and Flagellant (need to be a 7th-level worshipper of Zon-Kuthon). Brother MacLaren will generally respect foes' decisions if they choose of their own free will to fight to the death. He will stabilize the dying or deal NL damage if there are extenuating circumstances (such as if they are colonists subject to the laws of Andoran and we can give them a fair trial with full rights and protections).

If anybody else doesn't like this, they are free to take ranks in Heal or dip a casting class with Stabilize and be responsible for all of their captives. But it is how I am going to play my character. I'm not going to be personally complicit in abusing the -Con buffer to gain captives for interrogation. Foes who choose to surrender and offer information in exchange for their lives are a different case.

Alexandr, ironically enough not just because whom he follows, will attempt to gain victory, ideally by killing the least numbers of sentient adversaries. If there is one thing every Irriseni knows then its that things can always get worse, and todays enemy becomes tomorows buffer zone against a greater threat.

He does, rather strongly even, and born out from a few years of military experience, believe that extremely few people actually choose to fight to the death, with most simply not, erraneously or not, seeing surrender as a viable alternatives while also being prevented from fleeing. Also, the chaos of battle itself dumbfounds people who should and want to surrender, but are too confused to do so.

In most cases, people who choose fight to the death do so because they are incredibly firm believers in some type of ideology, or because they perceive their adversaries as foes who will never give quarter.
Alexandr does not think that Goblins are particularly ideological, and he most certainly does not think that he is comparably to a Qlippoth, a Daemon or a Demon Lord like Deskari where surrendering would be an insanely bad idea.

Last but not least, healing a wounded enemy and letting him go in return for information, or to bring information such as "We are not here to genocide you" back to his own people is imho textbook chaotic good to neutral good behaviour.

Many encounters in APs have a morale section in the stat block indicating whether they wish to fight to the death, flee, or surrender.

Some foes will try to surrender if below a certain HP threshold or if certain of their allies are defeated.

Stabilizing the wounded and letting them go with no strings attached? That's mercy.
Taking prisoners back for a fair trial for their crimes, to a legal system that they are under the jurisdiction of? That's justice.
Taking captives so you can force them to serve you? That's the part where I find it not okay. Definitely not textbook CG in my opinion.

I don't think we're ever going to see eye-to-eye on this, so if you want to have your growing assemblage of prisoners, I suggest you get Stabilize, Create Food and Water, and maybe a Portable Hole or something. Again, I just control what my character does.

A dip into battle oracle with the possessed curse on level 1 is probably possible. I can just take the revelation for for essentially weapon focus axes, and would in effect trade one less AB for +2 to will saves and an inbuilt second save vs possession.

Actually, Oracle level 1 spells are pretty neat for me.

--Moment of greatness doubles my STR bonus from blood rage, which is a morale bonus. If we see a battle before it happens, I can preact it, and hit with 19+8=27 STR. Gets even better the more I go down Bloodrager.
--I think Ana would also enjoy that spell.
--Liberating command is a get out of a grapple/binding for party members, at a +2.
--I am sturdy enough to cast protection from evil on possessed party members.

On top of that, reroll saves vs domination possession, +2 to will, pick up weapon focus so the - to BAB isnt that significant.

Moment of Greatness applies to one roll or check per subject, after which it is discharged for that subject. It's a good spell to have but it will not double your Rage bonus for an entire combat. Still, one attack roll may be all you need in many fights.

I most often use it to double the Heroism bonus on a crucial save, or something like that.

Normally, I would mostly use it to double the will save morale bonus from rage, but I am a mixed blood rager so I dont get that.

I am actually looking into getting "extreme mood swings", probably at level 9. We do have a walking source of booze afterall, and Nox can cast heroism.
The mood swings would up all of the rage and heroism boni by 2, and I could then double one for one action from moment of greatness, which is a possible +8 bonus to a will save (assuming moodswings is added first and it is then doubled) or a +6 if it is the other way round.

Another aspect is that I plan to have whirlwind attack by level 7. The STR bonus is a lot more impactfull with that.

Ana isn't going to be dipping into classes other than Alchemist/Barbarian.

She would probably appreciate having it cast on her though.
Which Aleksandr is going to do anyway because it is:

Target The caster and allies within a 50-ft. burst centered on the caster
Duration 1 minute/level or until discharged

I love reading your all’s plans about taking a level of this or a splash of that!

As a sorcerer, I will not be dipping a level anywhere, lol. I will talk about my spell selection with you all as we level. With a strong front line like we have, I’m perfectly happy being the support guy to make you all even better!

The plan with Ana is to go primarily barbarian. Ragechemist is something you really need to build around if you're going to take more than a few levels. It's drawbacks and bonuses go deeper and deeper. Ana is likely to only take two, unless I convince myself another d6 on bombs, second level extracts, and another discovery are worth two levels when I could be advancing rage and rage powers.

Generally I'm not a fan of dipping as it makes it harder for me to roleplay. I tend to combine classes when I see distinct combinations and potential characters come out of them. Alexandr highlighted just how high her strength could go, and that is definitely a part of the character. Her skillset, strength, and abilities all have the potential to go a little further than the norm for your average alchemist or barbarian.

Of course, she won't be able to meet those self expectations all the time. Most of the time she would require a good deal of luck/serendipity. To me that is the essence of a barbarian. Hitting like a truck or acing a skill check one moment, and not even being able to rage the next.

Every character I make has some aspect of myself tied into it. Ana is my life choices versus my potential, and having to wonder if another path in life would have been better. Learning to live with her choices, embrace her fervor, and maybe become something more than she would have been otherwise.

Needless to say she excites me mechanically and as a roleplaying opportunity. I think we have a very interesting combinations of builds and characters here as well.

I am not expecting anyone else to splash into anything, I just think that an Oracle splash makes unexpected amount of sense for my character. I also think that moment of greatness and either liberating command or protection from evil give me a lot of utility in terms of saving allies, from grapples in case of liberating command or from posession in case of protection from evil. I am leaning towards liberating command currently, its a jungle, I kind of expect tentacles, vines, giant spiders, more tentacles etc. Not even Nocticula likes Tentacles.

The good thing is that these 2 spells are in the cleric list, so even if I choose wrong, McLarren can retrain me in terms fo spell selection.

Liberating Command's utility relies on caster level to a much greater extent than Prot Evil or Moment of Greatness.

It will be a very good spell for Brother MacLaren and possibly Nox to have.

But even then it is helped out a lot by the target having some Escape Artist ranks.

True, its just a +2 if I cast it, and escape artist does not seem to be a class skill for anyone but Li Shin. We are reasonable dextrous, but between ACP and most things that do manage to grapple anyone probably having 20+ CMD its not particularly strong.

Ye, prot from evil seems better.

Also, MacLaren can have it prepared, and use it as a CLW if it doesnt come up (unless I misrember how clerics work), if reconnaissance indicates we face grapplers.

I do not recall her having a noted dislike for tentacles, but then I haven't been in that act of the game in a while. My only knowledge of pathfinder tentacles involves a different NPC.

Sorry, I meant to write elongated boneless appendages. :3

I don't keep track of many spells when not playing a dedicated caster (Yes, alchemist, I know.), but I do know a few spells I find to be rather fanciful. One of my favorites is a second level spell called... let me check... Burst of Radiance. Amazing range, untyped damage so long as the creatures are evil, and even on a save they are dazzled. Oh, and you can include your allies in the burst. :D

Yep, burst of radiance is one of the strongest early level spells in the game! There are so many great second level spells. Glitterdust, Invisibility, False Life, Mirror Image and Burst of Radiance are all super duper awesome, just off the top of my head.

Burst of radiance is possibly the best 2nd level spell, especially when you first get it.

And as a martial character, I reserve the right to multi class in all sorts of unexpected directions based on need and or story!

@Ana, I think our WOTR GM made that, I dont think its Canon, but a very polite Succubus guard gave our group, before we had our audience, a list of 3 things to not mention to her Lady in Shadows.

1: Socothbenoth (unless we wish to mention that we killed him, humiliated him or inficted grevious bodily harm upon him)
2: Tentacles
3: Mythic Unicorn Horn dust (acts like super Cocaine and effects even the poison immune. Can randomly change your alignment while you are under its influence. Hangover intensity scales with the power of the user.)

One nice thing about Liberating Command is that it is V-only, so Brother MacLaren can cast it even when TWF'ing (before he gets Two-Weapon Drunkard).

As to Burst of Radiance, I will more likely prep buff spells and condition removal spells rather than debuffs or damaging spells.

Typical spell selection at level 3 for example might be:
Enlarge Person (D), Divine Favor, Liberating Command, Protection from Evil
Bull's Strength (D), Resist Energy, Suppress Charms and Compulsions

Good point about Liberating Command--gotta get in those non-somatic spells. A few of my other favorites are Command (99% sure MacLaren won't prepare that!) and Blindness.

I think share pain is also a second level spell. One of my favorites for a life oracle. Especially a divine herbalist. Sharing pain isn't so rough when you can heal as a swift, move, and standard.

One nice thing about Liberating Command is that it is V-only, so Brother MacLaren can cast it even when TWF'ing (before he gets Two-Weapon Drunkard).

As to Burst of Radiance, I will more likely prep buff spells and condition removal spells rather than debuffs or damaging spells.

Typical spell selection at level 3 for example might be:
Enlarge Person (D), Divine Favor, Liberating Command, Protection from Evil
Bull's Strength (D), Resist Energy, Suppress Charms and Compulsions

After the oracle dip it will be

One I hit Bloodrager 4:
Cheetah Sprint
Longarm
Shield

If you wonder why I like Cheetah Sprint so much:
Its not just because its a swift action spell on a Bloodrager, its not because it lets me charge/run at 350 feet or so. It is because it allows the following maneuver.

A fight goes bad.
Alex must still have rage up and be standing. He Delays until the last party member.
All alive Partymember grab one of Alexandrs body parts that is not his legs.
Alexandr cast Cheetah sprint, and runs 300 feet or so (he can "heavy load" up to 700 lbs while raging at level 4, which is enough to carry most if not all of the party) away carrying the entire party with him while making a roadrunneresque "meeep meep" noise.
Party can reset/heal/remove debuffs etc.

That Cheetah Sprint tactic does rely on a lot of "ifs," as it is only in a straight line (i.e. you have to use the Charge or Run action), and it doesn't affect your Swim speed. Kind of rules out both indoor and underwater environments, and requires that we be losing a fight.

For quite a long time you will have only 2 1st-level slots per day (1 base, 1 Cha). By the time you have 2 base 1st-level slots (level 9 Bloodrager), Brother MacLaren will have Dimension Door, Teleport, and Plane Shift as escape options. Nox may have some tricks too at that point.

Bloodrager is a great class and I do love my Strange Aeons Destined Urban Bloodrager, but the spell slots are tight for sure.