I'm playing blind as well, but I share Lope's worries here. As you can get from my post, I feel comfortable arguing in favor of letting Guisarne go if we agree to it, but it seems the riskier option, unless taking him to court is really not going to work due to his influence. I don't think we have anyway of preventing him from striking back if we let him go.
I don't believe we can allow Guisarme to go back to Birdsong. Bartleby will compel him to stay in all likelihood and then we've gained nothing. Best outcome is if he chooses based on our persuasive arguments to leave the county on his own. I think we can guarantee him safe passage and then who cares what happens to him. Or Triphylla and Cyrene can escort him somewhere and we pull a Keyser Söze on him.
Can you clarify if you're having this conversation in Sir Gisaire's presence?
We moved a bit aside to discuss this privately before. But if it helps streamline things, we can just go with him hearing.
Anyway, if others agree with the proposal, my plan was to just basically repeat to him this idea, so if it helps, just assume Lope, or someone else, will communicate the decision in those lines.
I wonder if we're being given an opportunity to turn Guisarme against Bartleby to expose the Count's gross mismanagement. Feels like a reach, and at this point I'd be happy for him to just be gone. But if we have a chance to leverage him against the Count that might be worth trying. Give Guisarme the chance at that redemption arc previously mentioned by DM. Might appeal to Guisarme's survival instinct.
Triphylla is ready to switch to bad cop at any time.
I found out that Lope and Voinum were going to be targeted.
Evidence from today suggests that Lope is target one, so Cyrene's plan is to wait, foil the attempt on Lope and then, if need be, move on to help Voinum.
So are we really going to let Triphylla go to the baroness alone? I think we would be better off staying together and, truthfully, if we aren't here for Lope's assassins then they will likely try again, or show up at the Baroness' and can be cleaned up all at once.
I don't like it, but I don't want to have an ally die if it can be prevented. It's not like we have insight into the assassins' schedules. I also don't know why Voinum would be targeted. Maybe she does. Anyway, I thought the consensus was that we were going to visit the Baroness and not sure what changed the plan.
The normally slow rate of pbps meaning a lot has happened to distract us? I'll admit I am leaning towards going to baroness as well. I'll bring it up in a post sometime today.
I think the journey from one place to another takes the better part of a day at least so going to Voinum would likely mean Lope is gone when/if the assassins come back. The upside is at least we know if they're working in Stachys they probably aren't also at Voinum's place.
If need be Cyrene will happily stay and be the welcoming committee, but she might need some back-up in that case.
Female Human Wizard 7 | HP 38; AC 11 | CMD 10 | TAC 11 | FAC 10; F +5|R +5|W +8; Init +1; Perc +13
Sorry, I haven't been able to post much the last days. I agree that going to help the Baroness should be our priority, and I think we should all go - especially Cyrene! This is your field, it would be weird to have you sit it out.
Sorry I've been busy, just got a chance to look into this properly. The Voinum residence is something like 3-4 days travel away. Generally I'm fine with people going off on side quests but this time it might be a bridge too far.
Can I request you all either stay or visit the Baroness.
I say we stay and deal with our assassin so we actually know what's going on and if there even is anyone else or whether our guy was moving onto her next. :)
Yup, my initial idea was to take haste to the Baroness, but something Cyrene and the GM said made me think the action was coming to us instead.
I would just do the Stachys first, just because we had laid out our plans already and even committed some rolls, but it seems the majority is about going to the Baroness, so let's go do that first :)
It's been a while since we last leveled up (July 2023) and it seems we are by the end of second book while typical level at end of book 1 is already 4!
As it happens I was thinking of leveling you up after this next encounter, so you might want to start thinking about upgrades. The AP assumes you'll be level 6 by part 3 of this book.
What's the definition of "momentarily" in Pathfinder? I was reading on reddit and some say this powder trick will make an invisible target visible until the target's next move/standard action. Wondering if I would have been better off throwing a tanglefoot bag. Not looking to retcon, just for future situations.
Unless somebody can find a better ruling, I was thinking of giving you a +5 circumstance roll on your perception check for this once they move and start leaving footprints.
These killers are tough, too! I think Triphylla's done 68 damage already. You could be in for a long fight. Having said that, I have often thought we were fighting above our weight class and then it's over pretty quick. So what do I know.
Hope I didn't make any mistakes, that was complex and I had to edit a few times since I kept on missing things (e.g. the haste that affected cyrene which affects all the following rolls).
Oh! Right, Slashing Grace got nerfed by errta and it does not work with spell combat, but Dervish Dance does... If you want to have a mini-rebuild when you level up after this combat I'm happy to allow that.
Been thinking about this and there's nothing particularly overpowered about using the aldori dueling sword vs dervish dance with a saber, especially after level 3. So I'm making a narrow house rule that you can use use slashing grace with an aldori dueling sword AND spell combat at the same time - no penalties.
Alright ladies and gentleman, congratulations and welcome to level 6. Please post your leveling updates. We will be moving onto the final chapter of book 2 shortly. I suspect given the way you've played thing the last chapter will be rather shorter, but that's OK!
Sweet! I forgot to follow up - did we get Sir Guisarme's stuff like we would have if we'd killed him? Did he have keys or other helpful items for sacking the Palace Birdsong?
I'd like anything to buff my AC, so a ring and an amulet at least if allowed. The armor is an upgrade too if people don't mind. (At least I don't need the armor!)
Might be worth keeping one of the masks in case we need to plant blame somewhere else but that's just a thought.
Darkvision may be useful someday. See invisibility seems good. The Bag of Holding is pretty sweet. What would the party rather buy instead? Triphylla is looking for an Amulet of Mighty Fists.
I'll just throw this out there, Triphylla can be the party tank. I would rather use the AC related loot which could get her a high as AC 33 with dex mutagen and dex rage. I haven't checked my math on that but it's something close to that if not exact.
Re Triphylla's question, yes you get Sir Gusairne's stuff including his key and the following:
wand of cure light wounds (34 charges), antitoxins (2); Other Gear +1 breastplate, +1 light crossbow with 25 bolts, mwk light mace, cloak of resistance +1, golden holy symbol of Abadar, mwk manacles, seneschal’s badge, signet ring, 193 gp
Naturally I'll leave loot distribution to the party but I'd mention visiting the Cassomir markets if you want to go shopping is entirely possible.
And thanks for the house rule DM Fang Dragon, it is very much appreciated, and it simplifies keeping up my combat template :)
@Cyrene @Triphylla, we have enough assassins that there is enough AC objects for all the melee characters in the team and Lope can give the ones he is using (+1) to Valeria or Diana.
About the mask, it is an exceptionally good item, and I think it fits very well with Cyrene. Lope could do good use of it as well, but it is not something his character should want to toy with.