Laprof's page

Isn't it a utter nonsense that the most powerful vampire in the AP doesn't have a second coffin, just in case? Sorry, just an outburst.

thank you

What about digging a tunnel? It can be done without any material.

To be fair, I think warning your players that it's obvious to their characters that this creature isn't going to stand around for half an hour is a good idea. This isn't a strategy or a tactical gambit that could either succeed or fail. It's just common sense.

Done, thank you all

The calikang's strenght is 25.
It could also cast a lightning through the well and roast the bard. There is nothing about it in the description of the item, but I think that the user should see the place she is going to shape, which means that she must be at the bottom of the well, visible to the calikang.

This is my idea as well, yet I didn't want to discourage my players. But I guess it would mean turning (more than) a blind eye on it. Thanks.

My PCs want to use a Lyre to avoid fighting a Calikang.
Lyre of building

This is the map

[img]https://imgshare.io/images/2021/04/23/soluzione.jpg[/img]

There is a well in the ceiling at 6 meters, within the reach of the Calikang (4,2m tall 3m reach), they want to build a wall as in the drawing, forcing him in a section of the room. The wall needs 30 minutes to be built, I guess: how will the Calikang react? Is it going to oppose the making of the walls, by slamming it? I guess it is but not sure, this is a quite unusual way to use the item.

PS I'm not even sure it can be put in such a narrowed space.
calikang

coming on the rules forum to ask if your house rules are real rules seems kind of silly. none of your rule decisions for this battle seem to be raw they are all house rules. the rogue should not share a space with the monster, you can aim flame strike wherever the caster wants not wherever the GM tells him to.

you can easily flame strike the top two or the bottom two without hitting the rogue since he should be to the left of the monster and not inside him. just because the flame strike(or any other aoe) hits a monster does not mean all his squares take damage(and therefore things in those squares also get it) that is not how it works.

grappling does not pull people into your square and even if the monster has swallow hole so he is now sharing a square he still wouldn't get hit because the monster would give him total cover. sorry but you are wrong, pretty much everything you said and did is wrong by the rules.

I'm here to learn, if I wanted to do as I wish I wouldn't be here asking for advice would I?

No need to be hostile.

Thanks to anyone who helped

But if you've ruled that the Chuul grab/grapples the rogue, and picks him up and transfers him to his mandibles/tentacles (Move Action) and is now trying to use Paralytic Tentacles ability to paralyze/eat the Rogue, and the Rogue is now inside the Chuul's space like this:

0X
XX

Then I don't see how the Rogue wouldn't be hit by the Flame Strike because he's sharing the same space as the Chuul (The Rogue is in direct contact with the Chuul's face, at this point in time), and he would have to make a Reflex save with penalties for being grappled. Tbh, if this is the case, the Druid would be better off casting Liberating Command first.

This. And the gnome was 41 of 96 HP, so he'd probably died if hit by the FS.

In my opinion he can't, unless he desn't care burning his friend. And yet aiming an exact spot during a combat is rather difficult, even if his friend wasn't in the way I don't think the strike could affect two creatures without burning the boat and half the pier in the process.
Am I too strict?

Three chuuls attacked the group and one grabbed the rogue. Can the druid hit two of them with flame strike, being the chuuls positioned as shown in the pic?

positions

thank you

I have a NPC with Greater Invisibility, flying next to the ceiling, standing still in a low light zone because he knows the PCs are coming. He has cast a Mislead to trick them into a fight with the illusion. One of the PCs has True Seeing: what does she see? I guess she can see that the creature is fake, but what about greater invisibility? Does the NPC glow to her eyes or does she have to make a Perc check against his Stealth before she can detect him?

Given that the exploration of Walcourt may take more than one trip into the house, the group may change their decision upon the second or thrird tmie they enter the house.

They skipped the ground floor as they found the secret passage to the shaft (alas they missed Vassindio's corpse). Unless the two vampires force them to retreat, they will come back just once.

(...oh right this was multiple weeks ago so situation has probably resolves in some way already :'D )

We are a bit slow, so the games are still on. They're about to meet a couple of vampires (I changed the encounters in Walcourt in order to make them less repetitive), Vahnwynne and Manthritor Thrax, and I hope this will be challenging enough to let the players understand that they won't make it against Ilnerik unless they bring something new to the fight.

My players are about to clean up Walcourt and (hopefully) save Eirtein Oberigo. How on earth would they look for other noble families' support since Oberigo owe them so much? I think they would simply ask him to put in a good word among other nobles instead of risking their neck with Ciucci and Marthis. They have the tendency to skip parts of the AP with no regrets even when they could take advantage of the the outcome.
Did I miss some tips in the book? Has anyone any suggestion about this issue?

My Players, given that Ilnerik wants to destroy the Morrowfall, decided to keep it in a secret place and not to bring it along into Walcourt. Sigh.

thank you

I searched in the forum but I couldn't find anything, so here's my question: can a druid use Wild Empathy on feys? Jinkins for examples.

The description says: At the mere sight of a vrykolakas, the viewer must succeed on a DC 20 Will save or be paralyzed with fear for 1d4 rounds.

Yet the vrykolaka can disguise itself. So I wonder, when should an opponent roll the Will save? At once or only when she sees through its disguise?

It depends a lot on the kid.
My 9yo son's played several times with different PCs and he's faced dragons and undead, and he's willing to run a game himself. He's also lost a PC, the GM told him "He wasn't a good guy, your new PC is far better" and my son moved on and never thought of it again.
Yet his older friend (11) lost his PC and couldn't sleep at night.

About the second issue, I have little experience but I think you could pay attention to descriptions of places and monsters. The more you make the situation detailed, the more they'll be into it and enjoy it, no matter how big, bad and terrible their opponent is. BTW, I'd say make their enemies not humans, keep them in the fantasy world.

Oh, I almost forgot...they like magic items (who doesn't? :D) and who cares if they're lvl 1. They like feeling powerful and invincible even more than we do.

Well, I don't know if I've made myself clear or if my blabbering's been useful, I hope so!

PS As far as I noticed, kids prefer playing their "inner hero", yet sometimes they agree to play a pre-gen char. Don't be strict, if they want to be something different or weird, let them do it, they'll enjoy much more.

PPS My son loves the word "suddenly..." and me keeping the tone "mysterious", but I guess this is subjective.

It comes to my mind the Dismissal spell. In order to dismiss an outsider you have to roll against his SR and then he rolls a Will ST, am I right?

Help me to understand how to deal with failures:
1) you roll higher than SR, but he rolls a good ST -> not dismissed
2) you roll higher than SR and he fails his ST -> dismissed
3) You roll lower than SR -> not dismissed

Can you cast a new Dismissal in both 1) and 3)?

You could go a more storybook/Monster Hunter route if you felt so inclined.

Pit Fiends have a ton of treasure on them, and some of that will be some pretty sweet magic items. Those fangs? Tie them onto your amulet of natural armor to increase the bonus by +2, or double the rate of your natural healing and make you immune to bleed. It's tail? Why, that's a +3 flaming whip, now. It's wings could be fashioned into, well, wings of flying. Look through one of it's eyes to benefit from True Seeing. In the fiend's foul, unfathomable heart? A single Wish.
Etc.

This is one of the best parts of GM'ing, for me. Finding ways to reward my players that fit within the world and the story they are telling, but are also mechanically useful and valid.

What about a Talisman of Breath of Life with the Devil's blood? or a Philactery...since the pit fiend was Liebdaga the Twin, who could cast BoL upon himself once defeated...it would work as the Lesser Talisman of Breath's Life

1) Sidonais motive for starting this mess is unclear. Make it a harrow reading by a Varisian fortune teller, that he would never sire a male offspring.

God bless you, I was almost in pain trying to figure out why S. would want an infernal child and then being shocked when he had it.

Just for clarity, Pit Fiends are Devils not Demons (or Daemons). This presumably means that one can make Demonic Implants out of them - I do not know if there is an infernal equivalent.

_
glass.

You are right, of course, but I can use the devil's blood in a similar way.

Best use for parts from a Pit Fiend is resurrecting a Pit Fiend...

I hope they won't...

That's what I think as well, but I'm afraid there will be discussion about it...

Amazing ideas Quixote, thank you. I'll use some of them for sure.

I suppose you could potentially look into Demonic Implants, if you want to make literal use of body parts.

Speaking of blood: Aura faint evocation [evil]; CL 5th

How would this "evil" affect a NG PC?

Thanks Pounce!

From the rules, I know of Blessed Keepsake.

This being said, I can imagine using parts of a demon to use among other things in a ritual to summon an even more powerful demon. Or as components to make a curse more potent. Or to have a victim eat/drink then becoming more and more corrupt. Or use them as a graft to become a vessel for demonhost....

They are made from demon, they are «such stuff as [nightmares] are made on». They are not made of organic matter, they are made of horror coalesced.

Thank you, so they could sell the parts for a fair price. I will certailnly point out that anything you do with a devil's part could be evil.

It's not super wow factor, but when all else fails, stuff like this can be extra crafting material, or spell components/foci.

That's the sort of things I lack imagination for...btw, as I said before, it will be material for evil spells or detect evil (as suggested by the blessed keepsake)

I don't know if it is the right forum to ask about this kind of problem.

My PCs've just defeated a pit fiend and, as usual, each one of them has taken a trophy.
Is there anything they can do with the devil's blood, claws, skin, horns and so on? I didn't find anything and I can't think of a single way to make them use their trophies

Does anyone have Sozin's handouts saved on their computer? It's a huge and impressive work and it would be a shame if it got lost. It would be great if someone can share it as well, so that I can translate them to italian for my CoT campaign.

PS I asked Sozin directly but it seems he is no longer on this forum.

Laprof wrote:

MrCharisma wrote:

It sounds like the combat is over, so checking the tactics is a good learning experience but it won't change anything for now.

I'd say change it so that the Ranger only needs 1 success to cure, and since the 4th save was a success (in retrospect) he's now cured.

The party has defeated the Demon but the Ranger took heavy penalties, and the party must now exit the dungeon and find a way to cure the CON damage.

How does that sound?

This is how I worked it out, based on your suggestion: he went to 1 Con and blacked out; the poison is still in his body and Restore is useless until they remove it (they have Detect Poison so it isn't a problem). They also know he can be sickened, so I guess they remove the sickeness as well. Their main problem is taking his body out of the dungeon (a weight issue, since the dungeon has been cleared).

At CON 1, he can be conscious and walk himself out. Stat damage will heal at a rate of 1 point per day.

The Ranger can technically continue to adventure, just be sure to avoid getting hit.

He'd be actually dead, but since the players don't know how the poison works and raising him would be a loss of time and money for the group, I told the ranger's player that he's 1 Con and unconscious. I'm just making the outcome of the fight less costly.

I'm glad this has been cleared up; when I was reading on my phone yesterday, I was very confused as to why a level 8 Ranger was facing something with DC 32 poinson....

_
glass.

the DC32 was my mistake, yet DC24 was way to high for his poor poor poor dice rolls.

It sounds like the combat is over, so checking the tactics is a good learning experience but it won't change anything for now.

I'd say change it so that the Ranger only needs 1 success to cure, and since the 4th save was a success (in retrospect) he's now cured.

The party has defeated the Demon but the Ranger took heavy penalties, and the party must now exit the dungeon and find a way to cure the CON damage.

How does that sound?

This is how I worked it out, based on your suggestion: he went to 1 Con and blacked out; the poison is still in his body and Restore is useless until they remove it (they have Detect Poison so it isn't a problem). They also know he can be sickened, so I guess they remove the sickeness as well. Their main problem is taking his body out of the dungeon (a weight issue, since the dungeon has been cleared).

so Liebdaga only attacks once every 3 rounds based on his "Strategy", they spent 12 rounds in combat with him and every time it attacked the ranger? Is the ranger the only tank?

Liebdaga makes 1 full attack then is staggered for one round. He also attacked and almost killed the other fighter, whose AC was "only" 31. During one of those staggering rounds he walked away from the fight to get some healing and the Devil turned to the ranger, passed his AC twice, with a claw and with the bite, poisoning him with his last attack, then died.

If you follow the normal poison DC calculation, given in my post above, the effect on the DC is much the same:
DC = 10 + 7 (con) + 7 (13 HD) = 24

Whether this saves your PC, is up to you.

I check this out at once. Maybe the second or the third roll could save him.

edit: his 4th roll was a 18, which actually is a success

Let me get this straight, an 8th level party is fighting a pit fiend, CR 20...

If this is homebrew, well, their (the players and the DM) game their business.

** spoiler omitted **

The game is not homebrew, I'm running The Council of Thieves and they've just met Liebdaga the Twin, weakened pit fiend (CR12)

To be fair, the party was well prepared, the Devil was able to hit the ranger twice. Rolling 6x4=24 attacks against AC33. One of those attacks was a nat-20 bite.

Rules: Ability Score Damage, Penalty, and Drain

p.s.: Delay Poison is a 2nd-level spell, that is super powerful!

the last part is missing:

Obviously I counted -1 on Fort Save for each 2 points Con Damage, yet it makes DC32 out of reach

Laprof wrote:

Actually DC32 is pretty high. Once you fail the first ST your Con and Fortitude Bonuses go down and passing the following ST is even harder.

He had +15 at Fort ST but rolled a 6, losing 5 Con points....

The ranger's failed 3 TS in 3 consecutive rounds, lowering his Con from 19 to 7 (also good rolls by DM - me).

Are you sure you applied the rules correctly?

Unlike the more powerful "Ability Drain" power, the lesser "Ability Damage" does not actually "lower" your ability score.

Ability Damage merely adds a penalty to all statistics linked to the ability, i.e. as if your ability modifier was lowered by 1; the ability penalty is -1 for every full 2 points of Ability Damage, so the first roll of 5 points CON Damage only applied a -2 penalty [from the 4 points Ability Damage, the 5th point did nothing yet]. Ability Drain would have given a -3 penalty in this case, because it would have lowered the 19 CON to 14 CON, but Ability Damage ignores your actual ability score.

This means he probably had a +1 more CON during the fight.

And unless the Ability Damage to Constitution is greater than the Constitution score itself, you do not die from Constitution damage.

The Constitution damage also has no effect on the maximum negative hit points a character can have before he is dead. So the Ranger wouldn't die from hit point damage unless he is at or below -19 HP.

Rules: Ability Score Damage, Penalty, and Drain

p.s.: Delay Poison is a 2nd-level spell, that is super powerful!

I'll take a better look to the Devil's poison page, thanks.

In my honest opinion ..... huge pre-warning that the party was about to need some anti-poison measures.

Here I failed, maybe, so it's up to me to make the consequences less heavy.

1. The poison only needs 1 save. This means his chance of survival is no longer less than 0.1%. It's still only about 5%, but it's something.

2. The Poison can reduce you to 1 CON but won't kill you. This means he's still very fragile and could possibly still die in the combat. Even if they win they still have to find a way to restore 18 CON, so it's having somewhat lasting consequences for the party.

I would be inclined to implement both of those options if you want to give him any chance of surviving (or even just ret-conning the poison's Save DC to be ~10 points lower).

It's impossible that the ranger rolls even one good ST, because he failed the first, second and third one. So I think point 2 is the best they can get: the combat is over and they just have to get out of the dungeon, they will need a restore scroll and something to take care of sickness too.

They are at 8th level and the poison is exactly the one that Ferka's written down. The ranger's failed 3 TS in 3 consecutive rounds, lowering his Con from 19 to 7 (also good rolls by DM - me). He's just made it through blowing the final strike to the Devil and failed the fourth...None of his companions has anything against poison, since they prepared all their spells to face and deal damage to the powerful enemy.

He'll either be raised from the dead or remembered as a hero :p

Actually DC32 is pretty high. Once you fail the first ST your Con and Fortitude Bonuses go down and passing the following ST is even harder.
He had +15 at Fort ST but rolled a 6, losing 5 Con points....

Thank you. So the ranger's dead :(

I am quite sure about how stoneskin works, but just to avoid any misunderstanding: the ranger has stoneskin on him. The devil rolled a natural 20 and dealt 37hp, 10 ignored and 27 absorbed. It was a bite, which also hits the affected creature with poison and sickness. Do poison and sickness pass the protection being a nat 20 or it prevents the ranger from being sickened and poisoned?

What about this:

A caster can use the animate objects spell to instantly create a temporary construct. A permanency spell cast upon an Animated Object makes the construct permanent; however, it can still be dispelled or suppressed by antimagic.

Sorry, I know I'm annoying, but I must understand and I always feel like I'm missing something when I read an english text.

OK, I've found the 34. 20+EL to transmute a magic object. But one can dispel magic before transmuting it...maybe?

No, sorry, I'd use Dispel magic rules, which means 11+EL= 24

How did you find the DC34? I would use the counterspell rule that says If the target of your counterspell tries to cast a spell, make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + the spell’s level) which sums up to 15+5 (permanency)= 20 and 15+6(animate object)=21.