GM Otha’s The Moonscar (Inactive)

Game Master Otha

Generally Flint can fire 5 arrows per round on a flurry. He can add an additional arrow with Haste and another arrow if he expends a KI point for a total of 7 arrows per round maximum.

To drill down a bit more deeply Zen Archers can flurry like regular monks but with their bows. This allows Flint an additional two attacks per round on a flurry although one of them is at -5. So three attacks due to BAB, one extra attack at full BAB and another one (granted at 8th level) at -5. And of course all of the attacks are at an additional -2 penalty due to flurrying.

I hope this explanation helps. Unchained monks are a pain but Zen Archers can be great so you have to love the math especially when you multi-class. :)

A pure Zen Archer 17 could put up 9 arrows a round with a flurry (with Haste and KI). That is a lot of arrows.

Gotcha!! I had forgotten about the flurry. :-)

It is in the Zen Archer Handbook. Always be ... flurrying. :)

Yeah, I have a Dwarven zen archer 3 / inquisitor 7 so very similar build. I just did not go the flurry route as I’m going all inquisitor now so that I have to rely on rapid shot etc so I totally forgot the flurry with the bow. :-D

So you were out at sea during Ian!?! Wow, that sounds scary. Did you have to stay inside or were the storm effects not so intense where you were?

Sorry, missed this earlier…

Actually, we would’ve never known there was a cat 4 hurricane in the Caribbean if not for the news. Anticipating its trek, the captain switched the two ports, hitting the Bahamas first and then Haiti second, and the weather was perfect at both. The sea got a little rough when they finally reopened Port Canaveral, but only for 3 or 4 hours…we were much safer on the ship than the poor folk who were in its path on land…

Funny how that works, huh?

If Theodric cannot stand up to a flower what chance does he have when he enters into a den of supernaturally beautiful and charming women? :)

It is going to get interesting.

If Theodric cannot stand up to a flower what chance does he have when he enters into a den of supernaturally beautiful and charming women? :)

It is going to get interesting.

I can't wait for your virgin ass to save Theodric's! :) :) :) he will be in deep, DEEP trouble... ;)

PS: I thought unchained monks couldn't be zen archers... have I lived a forced 'zen celibacy' in error?!? ;)

Flint's past personal life is a mystery even to me and I would like to keep it that way for my own personal sanity. He will be glad to rescue you in any way he can. :)

Unchained monks cannot be Zen Archers. Flint is very,very chained, hence his great Will saves and the convoluted mathematics required to determine his attack bonuses. I mistyped up thread. :)

@Agata

I'm going to give you the same advice Flint gave me. Cast the spells that may be extended more than 24 hours the night before. It gives you more flexibility, though not as much so for a prepared caster as for a spontaneous cater.

I've used this tactic in the past, including with Agata, but something about it always rubbed me the wrong way and I've finally figured out what it is: in order to have pre-cast a long duration spell (say Mage Armor) the day *before* the adventure actually starts (call it Day 0), in order to give yourself another available spell slot on Day 1, you have to "know" that nothing is going to happen on Day 0. So on Day 0 you prepped Mage Armor, but never cast it on yourself because you knew that there was no risk because the adventure doesn't actually begin until Day 1, and then you waited until 11:59pm at the end of Day 0 to cast it to give yourself the benefit of it for the whole next day after you wake up.

But there are two problems with this.

First, without metagaming, there's no reason for a character to "know" that they won't need Mage Armor when they first wake up each day. In game, there's no reason for them to know that it is Day 0 and the adventure doesn't actually begin until Day 1.

Second, even if you handle this by saying, no, the character *did* cast Mage Armor at the start of the day 0 and then they simply renewed it (perhaps with a pearl of power) to cast it again at 11:59pm on Day 0, well, won't they need to keep doing that for each successive day? In other words, even though they don't need to prep Mage Armor for Day 1 (because they've already cast it at the end of Day 0), if they don't prep it for Day 1, they won't have any way of casting it at 11:59pm on Day 1 to make sure that they are covered on Day 2.

In short, I can't see anyway that this tactic doesn't involve somehow "gaming" the, er, game.

So that's why I no longer use it (and honestly, Agata's got tons of spell slots and hexes and scrolls etc. - she doesn't need extra help!) but I have no objections to others who do like to use this tactic.

Zaarah would love heroism.

When you think it is appropriate you can cast at your leisure. :-)

I cast it, extended, at the end of the last fight so go ahead and include it in your stats for this fight.

I typically have extra charges in my 5 rods of extend if you need them, one of which is not a lesser.

That's great to know - Agata only has two lesser extend rods, which she's now used 5 charges of (Heroism x2, Delay Poison Communal, Investigative Mind, See Invisibility). The one that is not lesser, is it the kind that supports spells up to level 6, or up to level 9? If we get a chance to rest and swap out spells this might change some of my spell choices if you have a higher level extend charge available.

Agata wrote:

So you were out at sea during Ian!?! Wow, that sounds scary. Did you have to stay inside or were the storm effects not so intense where you were?

Sorry, missed this earlier…

Actually, we would’ve never known there was a cat 4 hurricane in the Caribbean if not for the news. Anticipating its trek, the captain switched the two ports, hitting the Bahamas first and then Haiti second, and the weather was perfect at both. The sea got a little rough when they finally reopened Port Canaveral, but only for 3 or 4 hours…we were much safer on the ship than the poor folk who were in its path on land…

Amazing to think that you were on the Caribbean at the same time and the weather was beautiful for you. I guess it's just a reminder that it's a *big* world. Glad you weren't in harm's way.

@Alie, note that Sweet Mawd carries 5 scrolls of haste, one in a spring-loaded wrist sheath, so if you have other spells you want to cast on round 1, she can take care of hasting the party. It won't be as effective as yours (minimum caster level, so only 5 rounds duration and only 5 characters affected) but still would give you some flexibility if you want it.

@Agata - Clearly you cannot cast spells before the adventure begins. I don't think that you are suggesting this but I just want to put it out there as that is clearly not legal.

Now casting overnight buffs come in two varieties.

Spontaneous casters: First off cast all the spells that you think that you will need for the day but then before you go to bed you can use up some of your extra slots to prepare for the next day by extending some of your hour long buffs. No gaming of the system required and this is very easy to do.

Prepared casters: This is harder. I generally prepare all the spells I need for the day and cast them during the day but I keep a few spell slots open. Then at night I will put up some extended spells with the open slots. The next morning when my caster prepares his spells he will keep these slots open but does not have to prepare the spells he cast overnight. Again no gaming of the system required.

I generally find this sort of prepared slot juggling works much better for wizards as they have more tools to take advantage of it. Fast Study really helps out here as does Mnemonic Enhancer.

@Agata - Clearly you cannot cast spells before the adventure begins. I don't think that you are suggesting this but I just want to put it out there as that is clearly not legal.

I agree with you, but I have seen people do exactly that. The adventure starts and they say, 'Last night I cast extended Mage Armor before I went to bed so I'm already covered for the day.' But I agree with you that this is not legal and it's what got me started thinking about the issues with this tactic.

Spontaneous casters: First off cast all the spells that you think that you will need for the day but then before you go to bed you can use up some of your extra slots to prepare for the next day by extending some of your hour long buffs. No gaming of the system required and this is very easy to do.

I hadn't thought about this (I've played more prepared casters than spontaneous ones, esp at the high levels where this tactic becomes more relevant because extended hour/level can get you through the sleeping hours) but this makes a lot of sense. A spontaneous caster with unused spell slots and unused extend rods can definitely get some use out of them before bedtime. If you assume midnight bedtime, 8 hours of sleep, 1 hour of morning PC preparations, and 1 hour for breakfast etc. then the adventuring day begins after 10 hours of spell duration have been used, so this tactic could have some use for any spontaneous caster level 6 or higher.

This tactic works better with Spontaneous casters or casters that can fill their open slots quickly like a wizard with fast study or even an alchemist. It works less well with a witch.

Yes, I was going to say that I'm not aware of a way for witches to fill empty slots after their morning preparations are completed. So I'm not sure that Agata could do this tactic via empty spell slots.

Of course she could get a spell back before bedtime using a pearl of power and then cast it extended but even then...
Day 1: cast Mage Armor in the morning
Day 1: use an unexpended pearl of power to get Mage Armor back and cast it extended just before bedtime: 34 hours duration.
Day 2: have the benefits of Mage Armor for the entire 24 hour day without using a spell slot
Day 3: have the benefits of Mage Armor until 10 am (from the original Day 1 11:59pm casting). At which point you prep and cast extended Mage Armor again - 34 hours duration. If no pearl of power is used at the end of the day then:
Day 4: Mage Armor cast on Day 3 will expire at 8pm.

Seems like a lot of bookkeeping work for not too much benefit. But of course I can see that it is different for spontaneous casters or Wizards with Fast Study.

Flint's past personal life is a mystery even to me and I would like to keep it that way for my own personal sanity. He will be glad to rescue you in any way he can. :)

No no: you can't try to be 'funny' and imprint your fantasies on Theodric then put a stop to my assumptions that Flint is completely lacking in the bedroom department.

Theodric knows why they call him 'Firetoe' and he has signed a NDA for the Decimverate on the subject as they told him that party knowledge of that incident 'may cause the dwarf's rate of fire to decrease substantially.'

Thanks for the heroism!!

Oops. I also had forgotten the -4 to Will save but the second save was a success nonetheless.

The one that is not lesser, is it the kind that supports spells up to level 6, or up to level 9?

Up to level 6. She is an inquisitor, after all.

@Theodric - Assume all you want about Flint's past but you cannot prove any of it. :)

@Alie, are you ok with Sweet Mawd taking the wand of enervation or would you prefer to hold onto it?

If you want it, that’s fine by me.

For the evening spell castings, we have
Hunter's Blessing x2 (Plant/Jungle, Outsider(evil)/desert)

And the usuals:
Mage Armor (Agata), or in the morning if she does not have one prepared at the moment.
Delay Poison
Greater Magic Weapon on spear and UC

Switching her cracked magenta prism ioun stone to intimidate

@Alie: don't bother with heroism while we're in the jungle but I'll take it (via my lesser extend rod) when we get to a dungeon if you can spare it. Thx!

@Theodric - Anything to help your character from being mind-controlled once we hit the castle/dungeon/lair is a good thing. I have to say (after looking at your combat line) that you could be potentially a great threat to the party. :)

Yeah... I was thinking the same thing. If they dominate him they'll be sitting back to enjoy the show methinks, as I can't imagine a meat shield on their side I'd be more scared of...

Edit: magic circle against evil via extend rod would last a good long while and when Theo is enlarged, would cover most of the party radius wise I think...

@Alie: don't bother with heroism while we're in the jungle but I'll take it (via my lesser extend rod) when we get to a dungeon if you can spare it. Thx!

Sure will.

@Theodric - Magic circle vs Evil is not really an option. It is not on the prepared characters' spell lists and the spontaneous casters do not know it. Still I am sure that it will all work out. Dominate Person is usually a 1 round spell so barring vampires we should be fine. :)

Stop talking about vampires!! :-<

1 ROUND?! Try 1 day/level!!!

@Theodric - I meant that the casting time of Dominate Person is 1 round duration so it is a difficult spell to pull off in combat. :)

Not really, unless you have a speed of 150, fly and have True Seeing on... and THEN have a PC that can somehow hit their AC to foil their spell! ;)

@GM Otha - As we are in a jungle and Flint's survival skill is quite high can we assume that Flint is renewing the party's water supply every day? He should be able to find all the water he needs around the plant-life by either cutting into them or digging underneath them (the DC to find water is low, 10 as a base and +2 DC per person supplied). If the water here is undrinkable then Flint would know this as well. I don't want to bog down the game thread with these sort of questions but I don't want to neglect it either. :)

Guys, I unfortunately have to cut down some gaming until next week Thursday as the workload in my job has expanded tremendously currently.

I will be back to normal again next Thursday! Please bot me until then.

Thanks for your understanding!!

Have a great week!

@Nowruz: take care! real life takes priority. Your PC looks pretty complicated though so you should add a botting spoiler under your alias so that the GM can just cut/paste that into the chat. Good luck with your workload!

We can just have him fade to black until he returns. This is probably the simplest solution for everyone.

Didn't think of that but ok, if the GM and player are fine with this.

@Theodric - Zaarah is hard to bot as she does not have a setting that is reliably effective and is completely brain dead. With pure casters you can simply toss out a spell (super easy) or full attack (or move and attack) with the martial characters (also very easy) and be reasonably happy with the result. Zaarah requires a lot more TLC to be effective.

If you want it, that’s fine by me.

Yep, that would be great - thanks.

Btw, I'm taking my kid camping (first time!) this weekend so I'll be completely offline from Friday until Sunday night.

@GM Otha - I have no idea if you want to bot Zaarah or not. You can simply use her hexes (like Slumber Will DC 25 on the giant for example) to save yourself a headache if you do not want her to disappear for a week. Magus+Swashbuckler is just a pain in the brain for a GM to bot. :)

The first thing Zaarah should do is use the black tentacles spell to neutralize as many of them as possible and save the squishies in our party. Agata is the witch with the hexes, not Zaarah. I'm betting you meant Agata.

Nope. I bet he meant what he said. ;)

Zaarah's sheet is hard to read so I can see why you did not see the hexes. There are Magi that can use hexes and she is one of them. So Theodric is right. :)

Clearly the giant is the much bigger threat (CR 17) but also easy to disable if you have high DC hexes and Zaarah goes before the giant but Agata does not.

The complexity of her build is one of the main factors why I am recommending putting her on ice until her owner returns. We cannot even agree on what she should do next. :)

I’ve GM’ed and played with Zaarah a lot; her patented first move in combats like this is almost always a slumber hex, so I’ll run with that. Will post in the morning…

Yep, the hexcrafter magus gets hexes as well as magus arcana. Fun times, especially with a witch also in the party. If we were playing in real time I'm sure we could work out some fun coordination with combos like misfortune & slumber but that's harder to pull off in pbp.