DM Fang Dragon's: War for the Crown

Game Master FangDragon

You can always take the run full round action if you need to be closer to the manticore for Triphylla to do her thing.

I'm all for heroism but that seems foolish. Better part of valor. I'm a vote to flee.

IC I can see why your characters might find this a very scary encounter. OOC yes it's an APL +2 encounter, but it's blinded which is pretty huge.

This is an encounter that later you are asked, "Why did you kill that majestic creature?" And the answer is, "Because it was there." If we win I'm going to cut off its head to mount above the hearth at home.

Do we embrace the challenge?

Cyrene has no problem with shooting it to death and/or jumping on it in co-ordination. Given that it's failed its save we're never going to get a better chance.

(Also think about how cross it'll make Titus!)

Alright, you've convinced me, I change my vote. I know Cyrene is at a disadvantage but if Triphylla, Cyrene, and Lope can all meet at the manticore at roughly the same turn then I agree we have a chance to not die. Next round, Triphylla will consume one of her Expeditious Retreat extracts and then run toward it. She can be there in 2 rounds or 3 if she lobs a tanglefoot bag at it. I think we also need Valeria right behind us for healing. Julia is already the hero of the day for blinding it and can continue to support/buff the melee fighters or join in the slaughter.

Sounds like a plan - Cy will get one high damage attack the first time she goes in so she can probably manage a turn by herself if needed.

Lope can either advance and take one more round to buff or he could charge and get into melee now - then Trip can join in and Cyrene can attack and then fall back so she can come back in with better hidden strike the turn after.

Sounds like a plan.

We have her there! Go go go!

Going on a family vacation for a couple weeks. Will try to maintain regular posting but may not always succeed and posts will be succinct.

We have her there! Go go go!

Second crit... clearly Cyrene wants this thing's head on her wall!

(Although I might claim the tail to be made into my new whip...)

Thanks to Trip for providing the flank that lets me confirm again.

Amazing how things can turn around in this game, eh.

Is it possible through necromancy to enchant the manticore tail and use it as a magical whip that shoots spikes?

Maaaaybe. Custom magic items are possible, and more likely if they're based on some existing item.

You would need somebody to enchanted it with the suitable feats.

Is it possible through necromancy to enchant the manticore tail and use it as a magical whip that shoots spikes?

Hell, I'll have it as a whip regardless of the spike shooting - but it would be a cool extra feature! :D

Or does Trip want it? :P

I start to see some whipping competition on this party, curious to see where this is going to lead us... hehe.

Besides... I wanted to say quarry not quarrel in my last post '^_^

Hate to do this but I'm going to have to leave the game. Real life stuff is becoming an issue and I don't believe I'll be able to commit to the game as a consequence. For that I'm sincerely sorry. It's been a blast playing with y'all and I appreciate what we've managed to do together as an collaborative troupe. I hope the best for the game going forward and hope you all continue being awesome.

Thanks a bunch for the opportunity, guys!

Sorry to see you go Julia. Hope things clear up for you soon.

Best wishes.

Ah that's a shame. Thanks for playing and letting us know.

@All, I guess I'll open up recruitment. Any thoughts on what the party could do with?

@All, I guess I'll open up recruitment. Any thoughts on what the party could do with?

Sorry to see you go Julia!

Do we actually need anyone else? We still have 5 players and the party isn't horrendously unbalanced. Losing Julia leaves us lighter on magic but I don't think its a problem.

In other words I wouldn't burn a week of play time to do another recruitment yet - if we lose one more then maybe but IMO we don't need a sixth.

Cyrene, Valeria. Lope, and Triphylla. I still would like a Ranger or another magic user. This last fight would have sucked if that bljndness spell hadn't worked.

Well we've lost two players now which is why I was thinking of opening up recruitment. I don't know how things are handled on other tables but I was assuming we'd carry on as normal and work somebody in as and when they are ready, no down time.

And yes Cyrene I agree I'd only want to recruit one more player. Perhaps a full arcane caster?

I think a full arcane would be all we need so that should work. We can work them in as we go.

I'm going to give y'all a few days to think about this and on Sunday if there's agreement I'll make a recruitment post - probably give it a week. I aim to take your feedback (probably best via PM) into account when / if selecting a new player.

Sorry to see you go Julia, it has been a delight playing with you. Also, thanks for the effort of the heads up and not just disappearing, I always worry when that happens. Maybe you can join back after the summer if things calm down a bit for you, who knows.

Recruitment

I am up for having one more person joining us.

I liked what Julia's character was bringing to the party, both on personality and mechanically. Inspire courage have been working great for us, and she was doing meaningful things with her magic.

A full arcane is a nice option. But I would not limit the call in that way, we have the basics covered I think, and I would prefer people to be creative and join with a character that really inspires them, rather than shoe-horning them into a specific role.

That said, we are probably good enough with melee right now, and would prefer to see some ranged combatant/spellcaster, as the last combat has exposed this weakness on our group.

If other people want a new recruit then sure. :)

As for who/what - we don't have a full arcane or full combat. So anyone that can do one of those or a decent job of turning the rest of us into them would be good.

@Triphylla what do you make of the counts offer?

I know I owe a post to gameplay. Sorry for the delay. I'll try to get something up tonight.

As a reminder you have yet to fully influence Dame Crabbe.

I'll also mention that it is possible (but difficult) to fully influence Count Bartleby and later on kick him out with a verbal duel. You'll have to work out for yourselves if he's worthy of such mercy, however.

In fact verbal duels (with suitable setup) are a viable alternatives for killing most of the AP's main BBEGs which makes this AP really quite unusual.

Btw within reason feel free to assume you have a suitable outfit for the masquerade ball. It'd be interesting to see how exotic the evening ends up becoming!

Right now Cyrene isn't planning to take much part since she's meant to be Julia's maid and Julia is being taken ill.

Unless she ends up being needed for something.

Yeah regarding Julia being unwell, that gives me an idea.

The Jubilee is almost finished, soon on to part two which is a very sandboxy part of the AP. Your job is to sort out the (many) problems plaguing the Betony Estate, in order to build the public support that will allow you to oust Count Bartleby.

To make this work you'll need to be proactive. There's a lot of side quests, some of which Cyrene uncovered. You'll also need to be level 5, so please start work on leveling up. Note your level up won't take effect until after the jubilee has finished.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the submissions so far (via PM please).

The Jubilee is almost finished, soon on to part two which is a very sandboxy part of the AP. Your job is to sort out the (many) problems plaguing the Betony Estate, in order to build the public support that will allow you to oust Count Bartleby.

To make this work you'll need to be proactive. There's a lot of side quests, some of which Cyrene uncovered. You'll also need to be level 5, so please start work on leveling up. Note your level up won't take effect until after the jubilee has finished.

Will there be time after the ball yet in the current evening for influencing npcs? A +4 bonus is a terrible thing to waste.

Unfortunately no, but the night isn't quite over yet! There's a few social rounds left.

Re: leveling up, I'm leaning toward Extra Discovery for my feat and then Tumor Familiar. Any concerns, DM?

Scrapped Tumor Familiar for now. Beginning a multi-level dip into Barbarian. Triphylla is turning into Jennifer Walters.

Barbarian 1 (Elemental Kin / Urban Barbarian)

And more importantly, Congratulations Diana! Welcome to the game. Oh, all those beautiful skill ranks!

Hello everyone, and thank you for having me along! Can't wait to join you all.

@Triphylla Tumor Familiar is a bit icky but I'd allow it if we don't think about it too closely. If you're going to take a lot of barbarian levels you might want to consider Accomplished Sneak Attacker at some point.

@Diana glad to have you here! It think it's a good idea to introduce you immediately. As a minor Lotheed it would make sense if you were at the Masquerade Ball and Lope is looking for somebody to dance with.

The party wouldn't normally have any reason to trust a Lotheed, but we can work around that. Let's say Martella shared a special pass phrase with her agents: We have a mutual friend who attended the Sinora Academia, I met her at small cafe several blocks from the senate...

I'll send you a pm later Diana, there's some background information you'd know as a Lotheed that the party doesn't yet.

@Triphylla Tumor Familiar is a bit icky but I'd allow it if we don't think about it too closely. If you're going to take a lot of barbarian levels you might want to consider Accomplished Sneak Attacker at some point.

Totally. And I was thinking of going with the butterfly, but still, I know what you mean.

Planning a 2-level barb dip for now and the possibility of one additional level later. I haven't fully committed to the archetypes yet - this Will save is going to be the end of this character.

The pass phrase seems like a pretty good way to start things off, but I am still expecting some amount of mistrust from the party at the start (which I think can lead to some decent RP opportunities as well), as long as it doesn't prevent our characters from working together.

The way I see it, as things stand, Diana is either an excellent ally for their mission as part of the Lotheed family, or the most dangerous threat to it, since she seems to know about their mission. Keeping her around, either for her help or to watch her closely, seems like the best choice. "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer", right? :)

Just don't let the assassin get too close and then say the wrong thing... ;)

DM Fang Dragon wrote:

@Triphylla Tumor Familiar is a bit icky but I'd allow it if we don't think about it too closely. If you're going to take a lot of barbarian levels you might want to consider Accomplished Sneak Attacker at some point.

Totally. And I was thinking of going with the butterfly, but still, I know what you mean.

Planning a 2-level barb dip for now and the possibility of one additional level later. I haven't fully committed to the archetypes yet - this Will save is going to be the end of this character.

Maybe we could reflavour the Tumor Familiar as a Familiar Tattoo (keeping the tumor familiar mechanics)? There's (thankfully) not many details on what it takes to create either one, so we could just say Trip figured out the formula to make whatever magical ink is needed for a tattoo familiar.

Sure we could do that.

I'll move us onto part two tomorrow, that's basically a wrap for the Jubilee. Would be good to finalise the level ups before long!

I'll keep what I've got then and hope to get lucky when we battle the next mage.

Welcome onboard Diana! Looking forward to play together :D

I guess the interesting part of mutagen and tumor familiar is playing some kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? It seems a popular theme with Pathfinder alchemists. Anyway, I think it fits better with Epic Fantasy than the classic mantle of bombs build, so I am fine with it, as long as it is kept not too icky :P