GM Harrow’s Curse of the Crimson Throne - AE

Game Master GM Harrow

Very sorry for my slow posting.

Last week we had a plumbing problem, thought we got it fixed.

Only to find out yesterday we did not. May have to talk a lot more with contractors and other fun things.

Yikes. That sounds like a rather serious problem.

Oh boy. I hope the plumbing problems can be truly fixed soon, Shane.

Thank you.

It LOOKS like the sewage/plumbing problem is fixed.

It did last week as well, but we'll find out for sure.

Hope it is. I had an issue with my washing machine drainage that wound up only getting fixed when I was hooked up to the city sewer line.

Fingers crossed for you, Shane.

Well, if no one else wants to use that armor and rapier, I'll claim them for Shrike to wear for now. I expect we'll sell them on eventually, though. The +1 chain shirt bumps her AC by one. An effective +3 weapon with +2d6 damage against humans will be +1 of attack and a few damage better than her +1 branch spear (though not a full +7 average damage because she's giving up the additional bonus damage for a two-handed weapon vs. one-handed.) Kandru's channel healed her cut hand for 1 damage, so thank you Kandru.

Pava can't get dex to damage with a rapier otherwise they'd be putting their hat in the rings. And they're wearing armor like that already!

Long-term they'll want an Amulet of Mighty Fists, but until then they would happily be the steward of the Amulet of Natural Armor

I think Shane would be interested in the Amulet of Natural Armor too but that's because he's a scaredy cat :) But Pava is more likely to get into the thick of things so they may need it more

While that's true, Looking at your AC, I'd say you need it more. At this level, just about everything is going to have a really good chance of hitting a 13.

Okay. Hell of a week. Internet troubles. I'm using a hotspot but can't for long. Put Shane on the map where you wish.

And I think I'm back *Knock on wood*

Shane's major concern now is finding a cure or immunity commonality learning what the Bad Doctor and other sources might reveal here. Of course he doesn't have some of the skills that would help but hey. :)

I'm back!

Looks like the plan is to use a Major Image of the late Dr. Davaulus to lure the Queen's Physicians and the Gray Maidens to the upper floor, then once those are dealt with release the healthy Varisians.

I'll need a Bluff check from Shane for the first bit. If it's successful, we'll skip the actual fight and declare the remaining enemies in the warehouse defeated. If not, there is a chance that some of the sick patients might suffer as a result of collateral damage during the fight. I'll try to expedite either as much as possible.

Welcome back, GM! I hope you had a good trip. I'm back at home now too, as of late last night.

And yes, that does seem like the plan. If all goes well, the 15 now-healthy, mysteriously immune Varisian citizens can go straight home, and we will work out what to do with the 60+ seriously ill people downstairs after the guards "tending" them are dealt with.

From the description we got, most of those downstairs are too sick to stand up or walk. So far the suggestions for helping them are either a) send them to a temple, with the temple being responsible for their presumed evacuation; b) have doctors/healers come to them here; or c) ask Kroft to get involved and evacuate the sick to healers elsewhere while spreading an official cover story that she took this action because the people in charge were cultists who were only masquerading as Queen's Physicians, not real Queen's Physicians. (Correct me if I'm wrong on any of that.)

I don't know how feasible (a) is with the temples already as full of the ill as we have been told they are. Maybe the request might go down better if Audria and/or Kandru asked their contacts?

Option (b) seems even harder, since I can't think of any named individual healers unaffiliated with a temple that we currently know about. Alchemists yes; doctors no. We'd have to find them first before asking them. Although being able to give them (or the temple healers) some of these magical masks to prevent them from becoming infected themselves while treating the sick would surely be a powerful draw.

Option (c) seems like the easiest for us, but exposes Kroft to some political risk. As of right now, we are not acting under her orders at all. She kind of sent us to Carowyn Manor, but based on what we found there, we then chose to ambush the Gray Maidens and QPs, and to infiltrate the Hospice and kill more of them including Doctor Davaulus, all with zero input from her. She has plausible deniability if we're just rogue agents. She loses it if she cooperates with us, unless we come up with a cover story, like Pava said; even if we do that, the Queen (or whoever is pulling the Queen's strings in the government, etc. etc.) will know it is a lie and Kroft will become their known enemy too.

Here is hoping they fail those saves because that bluff was weak.

Anything we can do to stop the physicians from escaping or do we assume they get away while we take down the Grey Maidens?

Since you're on the upper level/catwalks and they are on the lower level, someone with high Acrobatics might be able to jump down and pursue. You can also target them with ranged weapons, but unless you have Precise Shot there's a chance one of the sick people might get hit instead.

If you want to pursue/shoot them give me some rolls in the gameplay thread, but keep in mind there's 4 of them and you're also fighting the Gray Maidens, so at least a couple of physicians will likely get away.

You can also target them with ranged weapons, but unless you have Precise Shot there's a chance one of the sick people might get hit instead.

*Ranger with Precise Shot/Rapid Shot/Manyshot + Human Favored Enemy waves*

I'd like to try (although Audria will likely chew me out for shooting fleeing enemies in the back). My ring of feather falling makes getting down easy. Once outside, I can call down Galewing and have him intercept any that manages to evade the first rounds of arrows.

How many Grey Maidens and Physicians are we dealing with?

That sounds like a good plan!

There are 2 Gray Maidens and 4 Queen's Physicians. The QPs have an AC of 16 and 34 HP, so give me some attack and damage rolls for a couple of rounds and let's see how many Elric can take down.

That went…very well!

I’ll pause here. Even if the last survivor does not surrender, he can’t outrun Galewing’s 100 ft fly speed.

Also, that’s actually Galewing’s first attack since he and Elric joined the game. About time I got some use out of a rather expensive class feature :-)

Given the morass of ethical concerns we're already in, I don't think Audria's going to be feeling like doing a lot of chewing out.

I am finally entering Hospice loot so far in the loot sheet and I see we got two keys off of Davaulus - I'd like to see if we can find what they go to before going down to the lower levels. The handwaved fight here was six additional Gray Maidens (two from the catwalks, two guarding the downstairs lift doors, two guarding the experimentation room doors) and four additional Queen's Physicians (all roaming the downstairs with the patients), so I am just recording the exact same types of stuff on them as the alleyway fight examples. That's masterwork leather armor, masterwork club, healer's kit for the QPs and regular full plate, regular heavy steel shield, composite longbow, arrows, regular longsword for the Maidens. Let me know if any of that is wrong.

I believe both Pava and Shane expressed interest in the amulet of natural armor +1. You could roll for it or just decide amongst yourselves, but it isn't marked as on someone yet.

The King died on Desnus 8 and it's Erastus 3 now, so about two months.

I can't find the exact posts now, but I could swear Shane was told that the Arkonas had given the Queen this warehouse months ago - as in, before the plague, as in, they might have known this was about to happen. Similarly, I think Abella was told a little more about the Red Mantis as an organization, including that the only kind of assassinations their religion forbids are hits on currently serving legitimate rulers like kings. I'm not sure we ever did get that information in exactly those words though.

Slang notes:

Scratch Money. (Did I use this because of [spoiler] about the Arkonas? I'll never tell.)
Beefwit A fool or bumbler
Mill Break into, rob
Rusher A thug, bully-boy

Before exploring the rest of the building, everyone please go ahead and level up to 8.

Yay, level 8! Shrike gets an iterative attack! I'll have her changes up by sometime tomorrow. Thanks GM.

Audria's leveled. Went with upping her Wisdom, so now she's got a +1 modifier. She also got another 1st level spell slot, but that's about it for her this level.

Woohoo!

Pava picks up another level in Brawler, I begin to correctly calculate the unarmed damage boost they got last level (oops), and it starts applying in part to other close weapons (daggers, klars, saps, etc). They also pick up the Shatter Defenses feat for even more flat-footed goodness, and get Brawler's strike to overcome DR with punches.

Hit points : 4+1 (favored bonus) +1 (for Con) for total of 6
Saves: +1 to Will
LEVEL BOOST to ABILITY SCORE: +1 INT (Total 20!)
New Starting Language: Dwarven (See he knew it all along)
BAB: +1
FREE NEW SPELLS: Stoneskin, Non Detection (Communal), Illusionary Wall, Secure Shelter
Skills (Lots of extra thanks to Int boost): +2 to Bluff, +1 to Knowlege Arcana, +1 to knowledge Dungeon, Local, +1 to Knowledge Local, +1 to Knowledge Nature, +2 to knowledge Planes, +1 to knowledge Religion, +1 to Perception +2 to Sense Motive, +1 to Spellcraft/ +1 Knowledge Engineering, +1 Knowledge History, +1 Profession Gardener

I think that's it.

Shrike changes, level 8:

+1 Ability Score Increase (choosing Dexterity, now 19)

HP +7 (now 61: 5 from half 1d8 round up, 1 Con, 1 favored class bonus)
BAB +1 (now +6/+1)
Will Save +1 (now +9)
Fort Save +0
Ref Save +1 (now +10)
CMB +1 (now +8 [+10 w/ finesse weapons; +12 with branched spear])
CMD +1 (now 22)

+1 Vigilante Talent (choosing Cunning Feint (Ex): The vigilante can feint as a move action or in place of his first attack during a full attack. At 8th level, when the vigilante successfully feints, the opponent is denied its Dexterity bonus to AC against all attacks until the vigilante’s next turn.) In the classic way of rogue chassis types, in general Shrike is a very 'selfish' character mechanically, but this class ability is something that all the physical attackers should benefit from.

+1 Damage on Lethal Grace (now +4)

Skill Upgrades: 8 (6 class, 0 Int, 2 background)
+6 Bluff (now +12: 7 rank, 3 class skill, 2 ability score) Shrike has been paying attention to Pava's technique. Gotta boost those feint attempts!
+1 Perform (Dance) (now +13: 8 rank, 3 CS, 2 AS) (background)
+1 Knowledge (Local) (now +7: 4 rank, 3 CS, 0 AS) (background)

Elric's profile is updated.

The main news is that he can now fly on Galewing!

Other than that, he took a 1+ stat bump to STR, picked up Favored Terrain: Water (he's a Marine, after all) and got Weapon Focus (heavy blades) as a bonus feat.

+1 to the usual skills plus a bit extra to swim.

Kandru is now leveled up to Level 8!

+6 HP (now 57)
+1 BAB (now +6/+1)
+1 Will (now +12)
+1 Fort (now +9)
+1 CMB (now +6)
+1 CMD (now 17)

+1 to all invested skills

Aura of Protection 8 rounds/day

+1 Wis

So is the south door skeleton not a magic trapped skeleton? Let's go through that one first then, yeah?

Works for me as well.

Love that plan. Maybe there's a magic trapped skeleton key!

Hurray for a nice quick takedown! The map is still blacked out beyond the south door, so I'm not sure what we see in here besides the cultists, to know if we should be searching the room, moving on, or something else.