AtomicGamer's page

Thanks,

Well, we're not using traits, unfortunately. (it often feels like the GM is running 3.5 with a Pathfinder patch, more than a true PF game)

Only the core book itself is allowed by default, anything from another book must be reviewed on a case by case basis.

I don't think the GM who disallowed Unchained Rogue is likely to allow Unchained Barbarian, but I'll think about asking.

Scout is cool, I may be able to get that, although I'll miss Uncanny dodge a bit

Thug archetype is pretty cool, but I vetoed it like almost every other archetype because it wants to take away trapfinding. (I almost feel like the developers are thinking 'what were we thinking with trap finding? How can we phase it out?')

I actually have intimidate as a move action from some background system the GM is using instead of traits, which is pretty cool.

I'm basically a trapfinder, intimidator and occasional scout.

Because I have the scent ability and I want to be able to use it to track.

Hi folks.

I'm playing a second level half orc greataxe wielding rogue. She's a brute, but I also keep some emphasis on skills and viability in other situations.

One thing I did was take Keen scent at level 1, mostly because I think it's a cool and thematic ability to have.

Now, level 3 is coming up, and I'm greatly tempted to take a level of Barbarian.

Fast move, martial weapon proficiency, medium armor proficiency and rage, those are all solid benefits.

In addition, I'll get survival as a class skill to use with my scent.

I am worried about losing out on skills (int 10, so I'll take 2 ranks of survival, 1 perception, 1 disable device), and also about long term, whether I should have taken a martial class like fighter, that would've also given me heavy armor proficiency (14 dex, so at high levels, mithril full plate would be cool)

Also, if I do take Barbarian, should I eventually get 2 levels and get Reckless abandon as a rage power?

Anybody want to provide thoughts or insight? I'm interested in staying a viable melee combatant (The GM does not approve of Unleashed Rogue). The GM is also reluctant to accept archetypes, though those might be possible.

But I also don't want to lose out on my characterization. She's a bit of an outsider, ran off with her mom from the orc camp where the mom had been kept prisoner at a young age, grew up in greyhawk city helping her mom with thieving and swindling. I'm thinking of grabbing dazzling display and Shatter Defenses at some point. She's a bit of a perpetual outsider, but who bonds very closely to those she considers friends and doesn't betray people who trust her and she trusts.

I'm still wondering how my group survived, we got there without finishing some in town stuff, so we were still at level 2.

There were 5 of us (Human Fighter, Human Paladin, Gnome Sorcerer, Half-Orc Rogue and Human Cleric), and we are using action points. Without them I'm pretty sure we'd have been TPKd.

(I'm still playing in the game so I'm trying to avoid spoilers)

Hey, I've got a question about the Conjuration school and spell resistance.

The general consensus where I've asked around is that Conjuration manages to be far too powerful when compared to the other schools because unlike say necromancy, evocation or transmutation, it's spells tend to bypass spell resistance.

I get that the rationale for it is "Well, after you create the acid, it's just acid, not magic acid, so why should spell resistance count?" and such.

But it just strikes me as such a huge balance anomaly, especially at higher levels where spell resistance checks are harder.

Has there been any thought towards considering all attacks by conjured items or creatures 'magical' for purposes of Spell Resistance? Especially if, like the summoned creatures you describe for summon monster, they aren't an actual creature or substance pulled from somewhere, but an idealized version created by magic?

Of course, this wouldn't apply to Planar Ally or Gate that actually summon an actual creature from somewhere.

I think you can be of noble blood, and thus get all the physical benefits, without being an actual noble.

Say, the offspring of a noble and a whore, for example.

Two central options are available, at least one of them has been used with at least a modicum of success.

1. Persuade the GM to make an aquatic campaign.

2. Make a regular merfolk character, then find a suitably powerful witch to cast a polymorph on you to turn you into a human, you'll probably only have to pay her with something you don't REALLY need. (the ability to speak or something, just learn sign language or take a class that can get you telepathy)

It's a low powered campaign, that just transitioned to average power. There is no market for magic items, no high adventurers that are higher level than us, but on the plus side we've been able to find disproportionately powerful items to compensate.

We just entered level 2 on a slow progression.

The rest of the team are:

A Cleric 1/Fighter 1, mostly a healer, but uses a tower shield and a disproportionately powerful mace we found.

A Sorcerer 2 with the infernal bloodline. He mostly uses sleep or color spray, but has a massive diplomacy skill as well.

A Druid 2 who's melee focused with a large cat companion.

A Rogue 1/Sorcerer 1 with the elemental(air) bloodline. He uses vanish to sneak attack with his elemental ray or his shocking grasp spell.

I hate to bump my own posts.

The character just got reintroduced yesterday. (the whole half celestial thing is the result of actually breaking out of Elysium in a convoluted way)

I've got the character's personality and backstory pretty much done. I think the elemental bloodline would be cool for a 'Fires of Heaven' kind of deal.

But yeah. Still kinda wondering about whether my ideas are good or just meh.

Hey guys.

I'll be playing a Half-Celestial Paladin (A Chaotic Good variant, that's pretty much the same mechanically, only gets bluff instead of diplomacy as class skill). I've been wondering about some of my options.

Firstly, for various PR reasons, I've got Savant for Perform: Storytelling, and since the Half-Celestial is a Quarter Elf. (half elf race, but since she's now a half-celestial...well) she got a free skill focus which also went into storytelling. I'm wondering if taking two levels of bard to get that massive modifier (+15 at level 2) into Diplomacy and Sense Motive. (I can use the magical knack trait to make bard slightly more useful for utility spells also)

I'm also wondering if I should at some point take the Eldritch Heritage: Elemental (fire) bloodline feat chain

If I did, I would cover fire resistance, one of the big ones Half-Celestials don't get, and eventually raise my base speed by 30 feet, which should also translate into a higher flight speed (which is by Half-celestial definition, 2x land speed). I'd also get a ranged ray of fire to use if melee isn't feasible, which sucks on the baseline, but with smite evil is at least workable.

At the moment, I've got Power Attack as a feat.

Stats, after racial modification are:

Str. 18
Dex. 16
Con. 16
Int. 14
Wis. 9
Cha. 20

Any ideas for what I should do, or comments on the ideas I've put forward?

I don't know any paladins like that.

If players are playing it like that, they've probably missed something when they read the definition of 'Good'

LowRoller wrote:

Evil are always free to evilly plot against other evil while good are not free to plot against good, it's totally unfair!

Unless a good religion has a schism, then the two good sects are allowed to kill each other.

If they think it's ok to kill each other over a difference of opinion, they are by definition non-good. A case could be made for neutral, but definitely non-good.

Remember that unless they are an evil cleric, antipaladin ór evil outsider, they don't register with an evil aura until they have at least 5HD.

I'm not an idiot, and going into cleric with wisdom 7 would be just that, idiocy.

Ok, the GM just dropped a bomb on me which changes things completely.

She's getting the Half-Celestial Template. (which has a TON of nice bonuses, including, not inconsequentially, +4 to three ability scores and +2 to the other three)

I also have the option of making her as a Bard 2, a Paladin 2 or a Bard 1/Paladin 1

This means I could easily make her into a melee character (by using the 5 points to raise strength to 14 and con to 12, then two of the +4's to make them 18 and 16, respectively)

Or I could push dex up to 20, making her a VERY effective flying ranged combatant.

I gotta say, going full half-celestial melee-paladin is very appealing. But a ranged flying full bard would also be very cool. The Half-celestial template would give her a bunch of paladin flavor, even without actual paladin levels.

Thoughts?

Eh, we started as 10 point buy in a cursed world, making everyone in it into total mooks. We broke the curse and now people are generally more powerful, ramping everyone up to 15 point buy retroactively.

I basically just wanted a ranged bard, who wasn't a total imbecile if it came to melee and who might get a +1 damage to her ranged attacks through strength.

certainly, dex 16 is an obvious choice

Being a bard guarantees that my spellcasting will never be 'powerful', but losing one/two levels in the progression isn't so bad, particularly if I take that trait the would let those levels count for caster level at least.

I'm thinking being a paladin with a couple of bard levels will be less of a hit to the paladin, than being a bard with a couple of levels of paladin will be to the bard.

Imagine if you will a level 1 half elf bard with the following stats.

Str. 12
dex. 14
con. 10
int. 12
wis. 7
cha. 16 (including +2 racial)

She has an additional 5 points to spend on chargen, but these are final.

How stupid would it be to multiclass into paladin, where should the 5 points go if she did, and would it be better to focus on the paladin side or the bard side?

I'd say human druid, taking eye for talent to increase the mounts int to 4.

The druid himself would be an advisor type of background character (he could buff, heal, etc. but wouldn't be a central figure) the horse would be more proactive.

Later, when the druid has enough levels to cast awaken, he could awaken the horse and you'd take over the horse as a full pc, leting the druid fade into the background as a less and less important npc.

Thanks for the advice.

If anyone's interested, here's what I wound up wishing for.

It's perhaps a bit under-optimized, but my character found out that she could wish for an item to appear so long as it was on the same plane, but if it was on a different plane, the wish would fizzle, she could however wish to know exactly where it is, anywhere in all the worlds, and then, if it were on another plane, she could wish to go there.

Obviously, this is overanalysis, but that's the sort of girl she is.

So wish 1.

1: I wish I knew where the amulet was (she specified further exactly what amulet) = Found out it was on this plane.

2. I wish The amulet appeared right here in front of me. = It did

At that point the King in our party immediately struck it with his super-mace, causing it to explode in a shower of sparks. He fell down dead and just then, the queen entered, inconsolable at the loss of her husband, she proceeded to attack my wizard, unarmed. I cast color spray to take her out, then used the final wish.

3. I wish that the scepter and Crown of the dwarves appeared in my hands. = They did.

Then when the queen recovered, I explained my actions, the fact that the king sacrificed himself willingly and then offered her the dwarven crown and scepter as a peace offering, which she accepted.

All in all, a pretty nice session.

At this point, we level up to level 2, retroactively change from 10 point buy to 15 point buy and start using hero points.

I believe we have enough of the bard's body left to only need one wish. As per the resurrection, which we would be duplicating, we only need a piece of it. I think the clause about two wishes is for the cases when you don't have any of it on hand. (though reading wish and resurrection seems to be slightly at odds when it comes to that, on one hand, wish is just duplicating resurrection, which should work just like resurrection, but the clause in wish about needing two spells gives me pause)

We've discussed some of this, and while we are generally of the mind that wishes generally within the same sort of frame of power as the suggestions would work in an Aladdin-like fashion, we do intend to have them inflict unintended consequences if they go over those limits.

My GM has said for example that wishing for limited immortality (not aging, not dying of old age) would probably work, but with some inconvenient side effects, trying to wish for more (say, active regeneration or something along with it) would inflict some sort of dire drawback.

But stuff like, getting her memory back, should be fine with no drawback.

In addition, the Efreeti will try to fulfill the wishes with the minimum expenditure of magic, so if I wish for the scepter, the magic of the wish would be used to locate it, and he might then use his plane shift ability to go fetch it. (so it's a bit more powerful than a regular wish, in that the efreeti will try to see it out himself if that's what's required)

Note, I'm not gonna try to metagame to cheat.

The wizard doesn't want to die, she's not going to die herself to break the curse....at least not unless it's utterly the only possibility.

Hey.

Ok, I don't know if you've read my previous posts, or my summary of the game so far...

Anyway, long story short, it's a game set in a world where there's a major curse that's stopped people (and monsters) from leveling.

We recently found out that the curse was cast by an epic elven necromancer 3000 years ago, focused on a necklace, and according to him, could only be broken by a king of men, striking it with the knowledge that he would be giving up his life to break the curse.

I've lost a very nice level 1 bard, but my new level 1 Diviner is faced with a very interesting choice.

We stumbled upon a VERY powerful mace, which in turn let us beat down a heavy doorway that closed an ancient abandoned dwarven city.

Inside there, we've found a variety of stuff, including the royal treasury, which our detection magic tells us has around 50 magic items inside it, but our mace cannot break the door down and it can only be opened with the Scepter of the dwarven king (which also opens other doors and enables some magic items) which was lost to a goblin raid centuries ago.

We've also found a lot of small stuff, some nice stuff and one gamechanger.

My character found a brass lamp, containing an Efreeti, who is rather grateful to have been found after 3000 years of lying around hidden under a floortile in a library, and is rather cooperative.

In addition, he has made my character the offer of giving her three wishes if she sets him free.

Using some shenanigangs, we've gotten the dwarves to accept our human rangers claim to the kingdom of men (since the mace he wields belonged to an ancient human king, and there's nobody around to dispute his claim) and he married the queen of the dwarves in an attempt to make a new kingdom of men and dwarves in the newly opened city.

Now, this is where it gets tricky.

My wizard will definitely want to break the curse, now that she knows about it and the necklace. She MIGHT also make the wish that she personally were exempt from it, but the GM assures me that this would be one of those 'wish can't really do that unless it attaches several annoying strings to it'.

Most likely, she'd want to wish that the necklace were right here with her, so that it could be broken. (possibly by our king of men) But that might not work.

She'd also want to wish for entry to the dwarven vault, most easily by wishing she had the lost scepter.

Thirdly, some of the rest of the group will want to use one of the wishes to bring back the dead Bard. (who was an entertaining and nice person, whom they miss)

Fourthly, my wizard has only spotty memory of her past, she will want to fix that, possibly with a wish, and fifthly, she might want something completely different (immortality? Flight? Transformation into something else? A spellbook with lots of cool spells?)

Anyway, any suggestions or advice would be welcome.

Helping Nazis might not change your alignment.

But it probably means that your alignment isn't Good, so you might have mislabeled it and it might be in need of correction. (probably not chaotic either)

An absolute minimum "Cooperation against an even greater evil for a very short time." might be ok.

Also, you're failing to realize that at this high a level, just throwing bigger/meaner blobs of hitpoints at the party isn't really good encounter design.

The party has powerful spellcasters, they can only reasonably be countered by other powerful spellcasters at this point

I'm not sure you can grapple as part of a pounce.

Edit: Also, I'm not sure an outflank attack can give another outflank attack.

Also, your monsters should withdraw or move away to deny them full attacks on the second round, AoO's beat being subjected to full attacks.

Also, they're just being smart, don't change the premise from under them, just be smarter yourself, use enemies who employ tactics and use terrain, spellcasters who use powerful protection spells, illusions and summoned monsters.

Get a +1 Speed weapon.

None of these are easy to accomplish at level 1.

There's a reason for that, a second attack with your main weapon is very very powerful.

Donald Duck is certainly a moderately high level commoner. Very little drive or initiative of his own, but keeps getting into all these whacky hijinks with his uncle and his nephews.

He's even pretty skilled, for a nobody, he can fly, knows the basics of thousands of different jobs, has rudimentary knowledge of treasure hunting, etc.

Of course, his ability scores are all very-low-to-barely-medium, at best. coupled with his personality quirks, it make him pretty useless overall.

Still, relatively high level commoner, I'd argue.

For a sorcerer, Expanded Arcana is very nice (add a spell to your list of spells known)

So is Spell Focus in a school you use a lot.

Spell Penetration is one of my favorites as well.

You might want to THINK about Craft Wondrous item though, if crafting is something you think you might enjoy.

It's a sword (an obviously phallic weapon). As such, it's slightly larger and more damaging than a regular one, without coming off as grotesque and requiring two hands. (as a greatsword)

"I never thought I could shoot down a German plane, but last spring I proved myself wrong."
-Grampa Simpson

It's nice of you to articulate it. But it's really very basic strategy. Maximize your strength while minimizing your weakness.

The pure, undiluted essence of min-maxing.

It's a variation on the Robin Hood theme. Steal from the dead to give to the living.

A small bastard sword in the off-hand is, perhaps mechanically a good idea.

But it's still ultra-lame.

Get two weapon fighter archetype, it's nothing to be ashamed of if you didn't know about it.

Remember that exotic weapon proficiency doesn't give a plus to hit.

In my group we have a very simple rule.

It is up to you to be on top of what your abilities do, what bonuses you get and everything of that nature. If a mechanic of the game determines whether you live or die, it's up to you to be 100% on how it works. The GM will adjudicate to his best ability, but if he makes a wrong call, and nobody corrects him before the result is 'final', the call stands.

Finding the right answer, checking backwards to see what you did wrong, is generally a good thing and helps you get it right the next time. This applies to the next time this happens, but never chances what already happened. (there is some leeway within the round, if it is caught early enough, especially if it's important, but not much further than that...never after the entire session)

This usually ends up helping the players slightly more than the GM. But it also ensures a certain flow, encourages being on top of the rules and voids arguments after session.

In that vein, Sneak Attack needs to be nerfed, and the Fighters Bravery is OP

ah, the good old tradition of the bizzaro-thread.

If someone played a sorcerer, played to level 3, then started taking levels in Cavalier and Ranger instead of progressing to level 4 of sorcerer, and then was surprised that he was still stuck with 1st level spells while the party wizard had 3rd level spells, it wouldn't be the fault of the Sorcerer-class.

For example, obscuring mist says that if something is 5 feet away it has concealment (attacks have a 20% miss chance). Creatures farther away have total concealment (50% miss chance, and the attacker cannot use sight to locate the target).

Just to be absolutely sure, 5 feet away means adjacent creatures and 10 feet or further is non-adjacent, right?

I'm really in love with the foresight subschool of divination. Keep the bonus to initiative and the 'always act in a surprise round' ability, but get a better 3+int power and a better 8th level power

I like air too, but haven't played it. Fire seems good for low level damage, but doesn't scale well.

Conjuration and Transmutation are large, powerful schools. You should, at the very least, never select those as opposition schools unless you're looking for more of a challenge.

To OP:

You're basically saying "I created a campaign that specifically strips away what gunslingers need to be effective, and now I'm surprised that gunslingers aren't effective."

Having a poverty, extremely low wealth campaign that stays that way for levels on end with no respite (or even time so that crafting characters could compensate a little bit by making things themselves) is MUCH more damaging to mundanes than magical characters.

A sorcerer is nearly unaffected, whereas a gunslinger is almost completely axed.

So, I ask you, why didn't you just tell the player that a gunslinger wouldn't really work in this campaign?

It's been a ton of fun so far.

Btw. that's another reason for making wizard.

the sorcerer is LE and charismatic. With my CG bard gone (who had a childhood friendship with him) there's not much to prevent him from dominating both the group, and everything else.

A competent wizard will at least be an alternate source of information, and intelligent enough to moderate his influences at least, if not challenge him directly.

I'm thinking I'll make the wizard CN.

Well, the sorcerer was the one who identifies stuff, he took them for study. (nobody complained)

He then called the ranger to see him and the two secluded themselves in the smithy to guard 'their precious' That's where they had the ritual and brought my char there. The cleric did follow, but basically, the rest of the group doesn't know that the item is so powerful, or really that they're hoarding it yet.

The GM is a great believer in the idea that once he rolls something, it's a fact.

He said he had decided that since nobody was adventuring and gathering them up, magic items were somewhat overrepresented outside the beaten track.

As such, he said he had decided that the witches den should have a few minor items, one moderate item and a single major item.

When it came to the major item, he said he rolled it randomly and said it kept coming up 'roll two more times on the same table' or something like that, but even shaking his head in disbelief, he felt compelled to let his decision stand.

The ranger is currently wielding both, but we're trying to convince him and the sorcerer (who have formed a sort of power block within the party) that it's a better fit for the cleric. (at least the armor is)

We set out to hunt for the witch, it was known approximately where we might encounter her, since the dwarves had been living in fear of her for decades, fearing to go out of their mountain at all.

Our ranger scouts ahead, and runs into a swarm of rats.

He promptly decides to run away, and pretty much just outruns them and there is no encounter.

Shortly after, a raven approaches us and asks us what we're up to. We are understandably surprised at a talking raven, but Narcisso remembers that raven's are often helpers for witches, so he promptly shoots it with an acid splash. It hits, but doesn't kill the raven, though he whines quite loud.

My bard felt sorry for the thing, and convinced the others to spare it and the cleric to heal it. Then she talked to it and, using her fine diplomancy skill, convinced it to talk to us.

Apparently, it was quite a silly bird, but it was working for the witch, and told us she wanted to make a deal. We should help her get into the mountain, in exchange, we could take whatever was left from there once she left.

We argued among ourselves quite a bit, telling the raven to go away since we needed to talk about this first.

We also found a squirrel with a large nut (reminiscent of one from Ice Age) who I tricked into revealing it was also able to talk, though even less intelligently than the bird.

After making sure we weren't overheard, we made a plan to trick the witch into an ambush, told the bird we would do it, and one of us (me) went to see the witch to confirm the plans.

Meanwhile, the others went ahead and set up an ambush, we had won some high-grade alcohol in a drinking contest with a dwarf, in anticipation of using it against the witch, and they set up above the entrance to the dwarven hold, Bodkin the rogue ready to dump the alcohol over her head, Errol the ranger ready to shoot her with a flaming arrow.

The witch (actually a sea hag) eventually let my character go and told her to go wait for her at the entrance, once got there, her bird came and my char told it to go get her, on it's way, he spotted the ambush (though he didn't seem to realize it's significance and called out a greeting to our guys) they promptly shot him down and he was dead.

Danica (my bard) had to hide the body, and luckily was able to bluff the witch when she came, she was wary though, so she had her open the door for her, not really standing below where the rogue was hiding.

Panicking, he jumped down and threw it at her, missing and spilling half the alcohol. The arrow hit though, but even if it kept burning, she didn't catch fire.

With no better plan, Danica grabbed the rest and threw it in her face, immediately catching her on fire.

Long story short, we beat her and her two big spiders, but not before she put my bard into a deathly coma and reduced everyone elses strength's significantly.

They looted the witch (she had a potion of cold resistance, ring of animal friendship and a cloak of displacement) and brought my char inside, and did what they could. They morning after, the cleric healed them as much as she could and helped my bard make her save with several save boosting spells.

They then set out to explore the hag's den.

They found it somewhat easily, and it was stuffed with the bones of various dwarves, and some more magic items, including an improved ring of climbing and a +1 tower shield. (which none of us were proficient with)

Not satisfied, they looked around some more, until narcisso picked something up with detect magic. The strongest aura he had ever felt was somewhere behind a wall, right next to an even stronger one.

Rowan's cousin, they had brought with them, was able to use his dwarven senses to find a fault in the wall and knocked a hole it in where it was weak, and it turned out the hag's den was connected to an older structure.

They got past a couple of traps (a pit trap and a poison dart trap) and found the burial chamber of Harald the Brave. (see above)

His tomb was covered in ruins they couldn't read, and inside was a glowing mace and a magic chainmail.

They found out once they got back that it was a +5 Thundering, Lightning Burst Mace. (I think there was another enchantment but I forget)

As well as a +3 chainmail.

The sorcerer had a dream that night, in which he was instructed in the making of a summoning circle, the contract demon offered to save Danica's life, in exchange for her eternal service in the afterlife.

Having been revived for the occasion, she read over the contract and refused, feeling that an immortal soul wasn't something to joke around with.

She promptly fell down dead. (we decided it was more dramatic that way, mechanically speaking, she rolled her save the next day with all bonuses, but got a 1)

Damn, what are the odds of that?

When we fought the elemental (a CR 3 I think) we had a heavy crossbow from the Sauhaugin, as well as a trident that the Ranger used. The rogue came in with his own crossbow and the ranger also had a shortbow.

Since the elemental spent his time beating up the cleric and my bard, and turned into a vortex at least twice, these guys had time to whittle him down from range, then barely beat him with the trident when he closed to melee with them.

Anyway, afterwards, we headed to the dwarf city, my lore informed me that the dwarfs had an honor system similar to the vikings, and that any attempt to sell them the axe or trade it would get us a poor deal and little respect, while gifting it to them would oblige the dwarves to give us a generous gift in return.

We made it using my lore to locate the hidden door, and the rogue to find a hidden switch to open it, and got inside.

As it turns out, it was a mangy lot of dwarves that barely survived in the front hall of the city, having been locked out of it since sometime after the 'breaking of the world', having lost their craft of stonework and having no ability to mine, they were just wasting away there like little gimps.

Their leader was a drunk called Rowan, but he couldn't be king since his ancestor had lost the scepter and crown to a goblin raid, the scepter which would open the inner city with all their riches, btw.

We gave him the axe, which made him vomit drunkenly over my character, then walk back into his house to fall asleep.

Feeling a bit underwhelmed with his response to our generous gift (a +1 vicious axe) we stood around for a bit, talking among ourselves.

A young dwarf approached and told us not to bother with that old drunk, his aunt was a much more respectable dwarf who would know what to do.

His aunt, an elderly lady, proceeded to tell us that Rowan and his family were a bunch of miscreants, long since fallen from their old glory and that we should help her discredit Rowans younger cousin (next in line for leadership) which would let her son marry a dwarven lady of royal blood (from a different clan) and challenge Rowan for leadership. After some prompting by our (evil aligned) sorcerer, she expressed interest in having Rowan suffer an accident of some sort, though some of us didn't catch that. In return she promised to give us directions to a powerful magical item she had found when she had left the city as a foolish girl in her youth.

Just as we were discussing whether or not to become involved, Rowan called us out and said that since he was now slightly more sober, he felt it would be appropriate to give us something, in return for our generous gift, and after some discussion, agrees that we can select 4 of their 8 items of fine craftsmanship, as well as access to their forge and some material they had. (the ranger was trained in armorcraft and bowcraft)

Their items turned out to be a motley assortment of masterwork items, a composite longbow and shortbow, a heavy crossbow, shield spikes, a pick, a heavy shield and a light shieled and some other item I forget. We picked the ranged weapons, as well as a heavy shield for our cleric.

We then agreed to help the dwarves kill a witch that had been harrowing them for years, trying to find the entrance to their city.

(at this point, several jokes were made comparing the dwarves to smurfs and the witch to Gargamel)

In exchange for this, we would be given more material to work with at the forge.

The sorcerer approached papa-dwarf (rowan) and told him about the old lady's plot against him, this outraged the leader and he had the sorcerer bring her to him, and then they killed her together. Rowan was almost killed when he swung the vicious axe, but after almost leaving him to die, Narcisso the sorcerer found the cleric and had her heal him.

He went on a bit of a rant about how none of us had informed him of this plot except Narcisso, but he accepted the my character hadn't known about it, and the others got a 'well, so long as you kill the witch, I'll forget about it'

In a couple of weeks, we were properly outfitted. An old dwarf, the last one who could still read the old dwarven runes, had read us the runes on the wall, each more interesting than the last.

In summary, they revealed a few other interesting locations nearby, a cave where a foolish noble elf had taken his families greatest treasures to try to find a cure for his queens illness, but was killed by spiders, and the story of how, over 3000 years ago, the greatest heroes of the age, Harald the Brave, a king of men, the Smithking, a king of dwarves and the Elven King, had united their armies against some great scourge, and though the stories said they had been victorious, there was an eclipse that lasted three years, and after that, somehow, nobody could really DO anything. (well, the heroes who were already heroic could, but they couldn't fix things and eventually died out)

After that we started looking for the witch.

Since when does intent trump RAW?

Since playing the game as intended, if you know what the intent was, makes a whole lot more sense than continuing to use mistaken rules that you have been informed were not meant to be used as they might be.