General Notes:
I try to post every day to keep things moving, and if you can keep a similar pace, that would be great. We all have real life interruptions of course, so if you can't post and we're in the middle of something like a combat, please give me bot instructions or I'll assume your PC does Total Defense.
Please place a good array of information in your character header. Knowing your PC's armor class, Perception mod, Initiative mod, etc., saves me a lot of time when doing posts. If you need help figuring out how to format that, we can help you.
Please note that I don't keep track of your character's hit points, expended spells, etc., so please update your tagline when you take damage or expend resources so I know you haven't missed posts relevant to your character.
If you're new to Pathfinder, Pathfinder Society, or play-by-post, you are very welcome! Just let me know--I'm always happy to help, and we have a great community here.
If you want to earn extra GM love, posting a full character sheet in your profile is great. That way I can look stuff up and answer my own "how did they do that?" questions. Related, if you have some crazy weird or complicated build and want to explain anything, here's a good place.
You'll need a picture of your character for the grid scenes.
Finally, role-playing is good! Please give your PC some personality and engage with the other PCs and NPCs. I'll gently move us along if we're dwelling too much in one part of the scenario.
Any questions, ask away!
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Anthys is a fighter with solo tactics and a number of teamwork feats. This means that his statistics are very dependent on positioning.
If he is adjacent to 3 allies, he gains (all include increases from his Ring of Tactical Precision):
+3 AC if one of them has a heavy shield, or +2 for a light shield or buckler (Shield Wall);
+3 to any attack, save, skill check, or ability check 1/round (Scion of the Lost Empire);
+4 sacred bonus to AC and saves vs evil foes (Lastwall Phalanx, shareable);
+4 untyped bonus to saves (Shake it Off); and,
+1 dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves (from Heart of the Streets human option).
Even summoned creatures or Shadow Conjurations count as allies.
So from AC 28 and saves +12/+8/+8 he goes to, against an evil foe, AC 35-36 and saves +20/+17/+16 with an extra +3 on a save 1/round. He really benefits by being adjacent to allies.
He also gets +3 to hit and damage vs any foe damaged by an ally within the past round (Blood for the Empire). He can charge as an immediate action when allies charge (Coordinated Charge, shareable). This last one might end up being used if Berato's summoned creatures charge. Immediate-action charge followed by a full attack on his own turn. It was far more useful last scenario in a party with more melee fighters, but what we have is what we have.
He also has Difficult Swings, which may be useful at times.
He's got Barroom Brawler with Abundant Tactics to 5/day pick up a combat feat as a move action.
And, his shield is Arrow Catching, which defends adjacent allies.
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Adeah shoots things.
She may or may not be much help to Anthys regarding teamwork bonuses-- she isn't very useful in the front lines, so she likes to be within 30 ft but not in melee. She also doesn't have so much as a buckler, so no help for the Shield Wall feat. I'll try to remember to stay next to our drill sergeant when possible, but melee combat is not her thing.
Adeah has Solo Tactics also, but her only use for it is Friendly Fire Maneuvers which prevents enemies from gaining soft cover due to positioning. So everyone is free to use whatever positioning you like; she'll just shoot around you.
Thanks everyone, good intros so far! (I remember Xilt from Doom Comes to Dustpawn)
Folks can now add their names and pictures to Slide # 3.
I'll be assembling a list of Initiative and Perception modifiers from your taglines; if you have anything particular I should know about these stats (variations in certain circumstances, for example) just let me know and I'll make a note.
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Farrokh is a melee fighter if that helps? Or more specifically he's a melee wizard. He tends to vary what he does depending on what the group he is with needs, so in groups which are already martial heavy and don't have any casters he's happy to act as a support caster, while if the group have other casters and need a frontliner he is happy to focus on self buff spells and be the guy getting up in the enemies faces. In the last party he was in he was the only frontliner, so he went with the latter option which is always a lot of fun. As he is quite reliant on spells to do either role he needs to pick which option to go with, as he doesn't have enough resources to do both at the same time. How much time he has to get ready can also have an impact.
I've just PM'd our fifth player to hop into Gameplay, and we'll get a briefing going in 24 hours.
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@GM Jhaeman - My character makes good use of buff spells and items so his Initiative and Perception modifiers will almost be higher than the base level. He routinely makes use of the Blood Boiling Pill (+2 to Initiative for 8 hours) as well as the Heightened Awareness spell to boost his Knowledge and Perception out of combat (+2 to Perception) and he routinely expends this spell to boost his Initiative at the first sign of combat (+4 to Initiative). So routinely his Perception will be 2 higher than his base tagline and his initiative in combat will be 6 higher.
He has many more spells that can influence both of these modifiers.
He uses the Heroism spell (+2 to Perception) often. He also has other spells like Anticipate Peril, Reduce Person, Cat's Grace and Grand Destiny (as well as several others) so these effects can come up from time to time.
@Everyone: I'm around and will be able to post fairly regularly this week, but I also understand that many folks will be travelling or (gasp!) spending time with their family. So no stress if you're not able to post (once the weekend comes, I may do some botting to get us going again if need be). And just an early FYI, I'm travelling through the beautiful and mystery state of Tasmania for a week starting January 6th and won't be able to post.
You never know!
My personal interpretation would be no, because Pathfinder almost always treats giant boulders, siege engines, and similar things as not affected by character abilities and magic items intended to apply against "normal" ranged weapons like bows and crossbows, etc. But given the RAW argument and that it's not going to be a game-breaker, I'm happy to allow it (in the absence of a FAQ or PFS ruling otherwise).
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Adventurers sleeping safely in a pocket dimension every night is just too weird of an AD&D-ism for me and feels beyond what a 2nd-level spell should do, especially in comparison to something like Secure Shelter.
(Moving to Discussion so it doesn't clutter up the Gameplay thread.)
Two counterpoints:
One, rope trick is not a failsafe; it leaves your entrance rope dangling in midair. Even the stupidest creature might be interested in climbing it, and any intelligent creature is going to either recognize it for what it is or at the very least know that ropes shouldn't be doing that and will probably want to investigate.
And two, even if you think it's beyond the pale for a 2nd-level spell-- surely it isn't beyond the pale for a 10th-level party?
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The Rope Trick spell has been around since 1st edition at the very least so it has a storied history in AD&D/Pathfinder. It is a niche spell that is effective at what it does but overall due to its limited nature it is less useful overall than the top,top tier spells of 2nd level.
My character can also drop an audible alarm spell around our campsite to provide another layer of defence. :)
@Farrokh: I'm normally reluctant to allow ret-cons, but since the caravan trip was hand-waived, I'll allow it in this instance. (don't forget the spellwriting costs and/or checks as necessary)
Good RP, folks!
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Assuming we are planning on attacking the ice devil, the other spell I was thinking of casting prior to the attack is angelic aspect. However, I've been agonising a bit over whether simply knowing we are facing a devil is reasonably enough to believe it could be a useful spell against such an opponent (i.e. if that view would be based far too much on my existing out of character knowledge about devils and what is a good option against them in the game)?
It's a tough question, but I appreciate that you're considering it instead of automatically metagaming. That leads me to think you can be trusted to make a good faith decision! (and honestly, I don't know)
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I'll hold off to see what Xilt comes back with in response to Farrokh's question here as if Xilt is able to provide additional information on the capabilities of ice devils it may help resolve the question.
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Anthys has the Fighter's Tactics Advanced Weapon Training option which basically gives him solo-tactics. so when Farrokh charged this round it allows Anthys to use Coordinated Charge even though Farrokh did not have the teamwork feat (or at least that's my understanding!).
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It would also work if, say, a summoned creature were to charge.
Fighter's Tactics is why he prefers to be amidst his allies rather than charging off on his own.
Adjacent to just 1 ally, he gets +2 to all saves from Shake it Off, and +2 sacred to AC and saves vs evil foes from Lastwall Phalanx. With more allies adjacent, it scales up.
Sorry for the delay everyone--new post coming in about 12 hours.
Just as an aside, I once had a player who would buff himself extensively with wands before every encounter, but because wands are minimum caster level, the first buff's duration would almost be expired before he got around to applying the final buff :)
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My posting is going to be spotty over the next few days--we have an inbound cyclone and I'm a member of the State Emergency Service.
Cyclone itself has mainly passed. My local area avoided (for the most part) the very damaging winds, but now has flooding risks due to constant rain. I'm headed out again in a few minutes.
@Farrokh: Actually yes, picking up an item does provoke an AoO--my mistake. As that happened last round and she's now dead anyway, we're just going to roll on.
@Everyone: Just an early FYI that I'm going to be away for a few days next week on a camping trip.