[GameDay XII] DM Carbide's CORE Year of the Shadow Lodge (T8-9) (Inactive)

Game Master John Woodford

@Silgil - If you could copy Shaggy over that would be great. I will create a stand-in image in the meanwhile. :)

Easy and done.

Thanks. :)

I totally screwed up the map trying to combine Bella & her wings into one image. Fixed it. Everyone's icons aren't in the spots they were originally in, though.

Don't worry; I have everyone in position.

Silgil could do a Burning hands on the swarm, but it will hit PCs. I'll do it with permission, or if Bella and Ibaz move away and make a way for him to cast it without harming them.

Give it a go. Khellek is likely to pull back and get a jar of alchemists fire or acid out, he even has time to toss it if he draws while moving. We need those beetles gone!

I'm ok with that.

My character has plenty of Burning Hands left on tap. Khellek if you could move at least two squares away from the swarm then my character should be able to ride in (and out) on his turn and cast a Burning Hands spell without frying your character.

Will move on my action.

The nature of this swarm is such that part of it stays with anyone who's been in it after they leave its area--hence the references to beetles clinging to Bella, Ibaz, and Khellek and continuing to bite them.

Oh wow! Ok. That's a pretty brutal swarm.

^It looks like you are saved by the bell and will not have to deal with the remnant of the swarm due to plot armour. :)

Score!

Cutscene- A high level pathfinder runs through the room and seeing the remains of the swarm summons a gust of wind to blow them all away.

Score!

Cutscene- A high level pathfinder runs through the room and seeing the remains of the swarm summons a gust of wind to blow them all away.

I wrote my cutscene before reading this ;-).

Speaking of which, are there any aid tokens in this game?

No, they hadn't come up with the concept AFAICT.

@Belladonna - You might want to examine your prepared spells to have something more effective to use in combat than Guidance for the boss fight.

Also expecting the party to incapacitate the opponent so your character can summon is not realistic (at that point what is the point anyways). Your character could have retreated to the previous room and begun to summon in relative safety.

I know this sounds harsh and that is not the intention but if people are too scared to offer feedback then how can other players improve their level of play. :)

I was thinking of pulling back & casting but i need a full round to cast a summon. I was also considering casting silence on or near Charvion. I'm just at a loss as to what to do. :(

I should also wait til later in the day to post actions rather than when I'm half asleep and distracted at work.

I think the primary problem is your spell selection. Clerics have a great spell list and a lot of save or suck spells that only require a standard action to pull off. These include in the core list (levels 1-3): Command, Sound Burst, Blindness and Bestow Curse which are all quite potent.

Silence and the Summon Monster line are powerful spells but they are balanced by the fact that they require 1 round to complete them. You need to plan for this by taking cover, casting Sanctuary, turning invisible or simply not caring if you are targeted. A character can always chain two consecutive standard actions together to complete a 1 round spell. So a character can use a move action to move, then begin a summon spell (with a standard action) and then complete the spell on the following turn with another standard action (and have a move action remaining).

Of course posting while tired and at work is not a good idea. It is not a fun idea either. :)

What about your Abolitionist special ability. Get some tavern toughs to help us out?

^Making all the knowledge checks both IC and OOC. Yes this is a good idea for next round. :)

Oh yeah! I've been meaning to bring out Riff and Raff. I always bring them out for the final battle too.

If it's okay with the GM, can Bella retcon her actions since no one has posted yet after her?

I would just retcon it yourself. I'm sure he won't mind, particularly when there are no rolls involved and the GM has not integrated your action into the plot yet.

Sure, go ahead.

Thank you!

Now that I'm at home, more focused, and able to soak in the previous posts, I was always unsure about this:

A character can always chain two consecutive standard actions together to complete a 1 round spell. So a character can use a move action to move, then begin a summon spell (with a standard action) and then complete the spell on the following turn with another standard action (and have a move action remaining).

Good to know. I think I've only seen PCs take a 5' step or a free/swift action before summoning. I had no idea.

The reason most folks don't do it that way is that it burns two standard actions instead of a standard and a move action. It's much more effective to do the casting in a single round. Better to cast a single action spell and move, then take the next turn to cast your 1 round spell. That way you get two combat actions over the two rounds. The disadvantage is that it takes and extra round for the summons to happen.

How does that work? The rule is that specific trumps general, so even though the rule for a full-round action has this feature:

The “start full-round action” standard action lets you start undertaking a full-round action, which you can complete in the following round by using another standard action. You can’t use this action to start or complete a full attack, charge, run, or withdraw.

this:

A spell that takes 1 round to cast is a full-round action. It comes into effect just before the beginning of your turn in the round after you began casting the spell. You then act normally after the spell is completed.

would seem to imply that if you spread the casting over two rounds the spell goes into effect "just before the beginning of your turn in the round after you began casting the spell;" that is, before you complete it.

@DM Carbide - Normally you would cast a 1 round spell as a full-round action on your turn and the summons would appear just before your initiative count on the following round. In effect your character is casting the spell throughout the entire round until just before his next initiative count on the following round and thus can easily be interrupted any time during the casting of the spell.

In the rare case (say a surprise round) where a player would split a summon spell over two rounds then the summons would appear at the completion of the casting of the spell. So in the middle of your character's turn after your character has expended his standard action (and thus completed the full round action) in round 2 of the casting.

I hope that this is clear. :)

That is how I would rule it as well.

Ditto, though the wording was ill chosen and obviously did not take into account that the spell could be split over multiple rounds. Luckily RAW is so ridiculous in this case everyone just ignores it and makes the assumption the spell goes off after completion in the second round.

Basically the caster is still venerable between rounds either way, which is, at least in my opinion, the intent of the thing.

So, Bella is good with taking a move action, then start summoning Lite-Brite as standard? Then in the round after, continue summoning for standard (Archon appears at end of standard action), then get a move or move-equivalent action at the end?

Is that how it goes?

Correct.

While that may have been the intent, and I'm good with ruling that way, that's not what the words say--it's unambiguous that the spell "comes into effect just before the beginning of your turn in the round after you began casting the spell." Was this ever addressed in an FAQ?

Basically the caster is still venerable between rounds either way, which is, at least in my opinion, the intent of the thing.

Silgil, autocorrect has done you wrong...unless there's a rule somewhere about premature, temporary aging while casting spells?

That was back in AD&D. Casting certain high level spells aged you.

^Indeed but now we are really showing our age. :)

If memory serves the Haste spell would age everyone one year each time they were a target of the spell. Ha, the clunky goodness of first edition AD&D.

Feeling vulnerable, the soon-to-be-venerable Bella sits by the riverside opening a can of worms. ;)

IIRC, both the caster of haste and the recipient(s) aged a year. That was one of the rules we usually threw out, but I was playing with a moderately heterodox bunch in those days. Well, one moderately heterodox group and one that was off in the stratosphere somewhere. Word to the wise: never let an idle mathematics PhD write your D&D variant. If you do, though, it helps to have grad students running games.

You guys are having way too much fun with that unfortunate autocorrect :)

Vulnerable! I meant vulnerable!

Given the glitterdust spell only mentions visual effects, it is not unreasonable to assume that it is a visual effect. I note also that glitterdust is one of the spells that dates back to 3.5 where it was specific to the hide skill. (hide and sneak were combined into stealth).

Recall that sleet storm doesn't make things invisible it blocks sight.

Sleet storm itself is a conjuration so the sound of the ice landing may well also impose a penalty on perception checks.

Let's not get distracted by a rules argument though.

One spell makes things easy to see, the other blocks all sight.

A spell does what it says, no less and no more. That being said I agree to not slow down the game needlessly. I will go with Plan B. :)

Thanks, all, for playing! I was overcommitted, I think, or I'd have been able to keep pace with some of the other tables.

For reporting, we're using RPGChronicles, which I was fearfully lax in setting up. Please sign up HERE, and let me know when you're done.

ETA: Please roll a d20 for a possible boon. Here's mine:

Boon check: 1d20 ⇒ 6

RPG Chronicles updated.

boon check: 1d20 ⇒ 4

Day Job:
Profession (merchant): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (7) + 8 = 15

Boooooon!!!: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (14) + 8 = 22

You work twice as hard as the rest of us (i.e. you already posted your day job roll here).

boon: 1d20 ⇒ 2

rpgchronicles updated.

You work twice as hard as the rest of us (i.e. you already posted your day job roll here).

Ah! Thanks. It was so long ago I forgot. I also screwed up on my boon roll. There shouldn't be a +8, obviously. I didn't win anything, anyway. :(

I also screwed up on my boon roll. There shouldn't be a +8, obviously. I didn't win anything, anyway. :(

Adding 8 would have made it tough to get a 1.

Boon?: 1d20 ⇒ 6