Yeah, and several of those are great for character building and tie in well together with the shattered star AP book. :)
It's basically a Varisia+ bundle. Seems nifty!
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I'm probably just going to go ahead and drop at this point. The pacing is just impossible for my brain to keep things inside of it, I'm afraid. Feel free to bot her. She still has her Veil SLA available, and her CLW wand, but she's out of spells.
"I... do still have a bit of magic prepared for keeping up appearances." Lily says after a moment. "We had intended to use it on yourself and your prefered guests once we got a bit away to throw off scent trails, but now it seems significantly less useful, given that the rain and sewer will do that splendidly. Perhaps we should simply repurpose it to allowing Miranda and I to act as a rearguard?" she asks with a small shrug, looking back in the direction they've come from.
Terrible for advertising. No one ever knows you're wearing it :p
"...Right." Lily says after a moment of hesitation. The fact that Boros tended to almost always have all of the answers, and knew exactly how to phrase things to win others over wasn't particularly comforting. It was almost as if he'd already gone through all of the inevitabilities in his head and planned for them. The man's abilities to convince others of the right path would likely have been well-received only hours before, but now there were so many doubts and worries nipping at the woman's mind. "We should definitely save everyone, simply because it's the right thing to do... would that there were safer ways. We should keep moving."
Lily really didn't have anything to add to the exchanges; it seemed perfectly sensible to get all of the older folks to a nearby shelter to spread out from there - truth be told, she'd thought about going with them, prior to Varuzhan telling them no. Between the two arguments against, she really doesn't have much voice, though she does turn to Boros; "Do you feel that our hideout will fair better than the barber shop? How many can we hold, compared to it? I wish to help as many as I can, but telling them that their friends will be at risk if they choose to hide or go there seems... unfair." Boros's insistence that they not go to a place they felt was safe had made the young woman wonder if they'd freed these people at all. That, coupled with the inquisitor's urgings from above left a pit in the center of the aasimar's stomach... perhaps Boros wanted them to fail?
"We should take advantage of the rain's blessings. They won't be able to follow scent trails as we've discussed. They also won't be able to use any of their plants or any of the known enemies to trace us... if they've leveraged more unknowns, we can't deal with those. We should lead these people to safety, and quickly." Lily suggests to the others.
You're not my real dad. :V
Lily looks over all of the people who just burst into flames at the inquisitor's spell, eyes narrowing. She wasn't capable of healing all of them, but maybe she could at least help a little... "Aqua." She intones, swirling a single finger in the air and then presses her finger forward against nothing, permeating the air with water, which comes cascading down on as much of the crowd as she can reach.
Lily steeples the fingers on her right hand, bringing them to her lips, before blowing, a crimson flame running across the intervening space to leave the people climbing down, and the wall they were on, coated in the ruby light. "The ones in red just climbed down from Thrune's lapdog." she says, calmly, almost sounding annoyed. "Probably plants to follow us out into the city."
"Alright, there's your chance." Lily says to the prisoners as she sees Miranda and Boros step out to begin the assault. "We have to get out before my spell on the accuser wears off. So let's move. Aldous, Kaylee, stick with me, please." Lily says as she moves out into the dark of the night, under what she believes is a cover of fog. She stops on her way to check on the downed men, however.
You could make a wall of fog at the top of your vision, though, mimicking an obscuring mist spell... Fwiw.
Lily raises her voice, calling out over the din, "Noble Watchmen, Rethink your actions! This place, and these people do not exist. Should they be true threats to society, they will return to the light, but should their innocence be in doubt at all, their blood will be on your hands, and in the streets! How will your boss explain all of the dead in the streets if you continue with this course? Defending an empty warehouse?"
Ultimately, I don't think it's something 'to be fixed'. One of the problems I'm having is that it simply seems to be 'not for me', not that there's anything wrong with it in particular. Everyone else seems to jump in to excitedly play their character, but I don't really get that from this game. The depression spell has amplified that to make it sort of a chore to post even in the games that I absolutely love. I don't know that it is 'learning' that you need to worry about, either. You're not lacking as a DM, IMO... it's just too slow and I'm just not 'into it'. I probably shouldn't have wasted your time the first time I came back. :(
Right now, I'm holding on to wrath of the righteous (but letting our bard take over my cohort), my superhero game, and my magical girl game. The latter two I find very easy to post in, and the former I... Think I'd have to be very, very bad to let go of. I've made some good friendships there, and even met a couple of the players face to face. Unfortunately, I can't really build that sort of connection to this game. The pacing is far too slow for me, so when I get anxious about something (spending weeks needing people to succeed on multiple saves to stop getting eaten by rats, as an example), we just sort of stay in it. I felt like I might like the game more once we hit four (Lily more than doubles in power at level four), but I just don't know. It's just like... Reading a book a paragraph at a time. I just find it really hard to jump in and do things becaus I never really get into it. Part of that may be how empty Lily really is as a character. I've never done much with her besides her concept, which isn't really interesting to roleplay from. That's not on you guys, but on me. Also, V, I was getting treated around two years ago, and had been getting treated for one-to-two years before that (it runs together). But the psychiatrist I was going to pretty much only ever prescribed me antidepressants, despite my main concern being the anxiety. I can deal with being unhappy sometimes. I can't deal with getting irrationally upset with loved ones... but they never treated it. I think I've grown to better understand that I'm likely either bipolar or cyclothymic (likely that latter, due to more hypomania than mania). Looking back over my life, I can see a lot of poor decisions that I made because I felt good... i.e., stopping my antidepressant regimen and no longer going to a psychologist, because I felt like it didn't do anything for me. And... the truth is, I think it made the anxiety worse.
Thanks, M. Yeah, talking doesn't really help, because it only highlights how little I understand why I feel this way beyond 'things went wrong a long, long time ago' and the like. I'll cycle back, eventually.
I've been dealing with major anxiety lately. Normally I go in phases of expanding and contracting. I'll stretch myself too thin, and then I'll rebel against all of the responsibilities and expectations I've gathered for myself. I feel like I can do it, so I try, and I really do my best. But eventually I wind down. All of the optimism and energy I can muster slips away, and I'm left mostly as a shell of myself, moving forward like a ghost. I've been falling towards despair for the last few weeks. I've been feeling more and more like nothing I do matters or makes a difference. And I've struggled against that. On Friday and most of Saturday, I had really good days. Things seemed better... Then my anxiety lead to defensiveness, lead to a fight, lead to someone confirming all of my worst fears. The things I know are true when I'm most unhappy. And now I'm skittering at the edge of a really deep depression. I'm letting you guys know this, because I need to limit what I feel responsible for, so I can limit my anxiety. I need time to repair. I've decided, in tandem with my slow descent into depression, and my inability to connect with my character, that I should drop this game once this particular part of the story is over. If you're happy to just use her abilities to move us out of the prison, then I'm also okay with leaving now.
It was all on twitter, usually later than was necessary. :o
"How are we going to get everyone out?" Lily asks, chewing her lip. She realized that the plan had always been to get theirs out, using the tools at hand to do so, but now that she could see the people they wouldn't be saving, it was a lot harder not to see them as people that needed saving.
Lily takes a moment to reload, before stepping around to be able to see what's going on in the now-opened doors.
Lily simply nods to Miranda as she moves over to join her, drawing her wand and tapping her once.
Lily moves across the room, stabilizing people. "I think the cells are still to the east. It doesn't make sense that they haven't reinforced each other, yet. Who needs to be patched up before we move in?"
Lily points her crossbow at the newly arrived foes, letting her bolt fly, hoping to end this quickly, now that the creature was gone; there wasn't much stopping it from returning and continuing to cause havoc, after all... and they were in a rush.
In hindsight, it was pretty much 'He appears!' 'Roll fort to do anything!' you both fail. Then 'Roll reflexes and fort to do anything!' And by the end of it, I think you had to roll an 8+ twice just to get the opportunity to move or swing, and the dice did not enjoy our company. :P
I go after you so it's next round that you'd get the acrobatics bump. I've got like a 1/3 shot of doing any damage with a bolt, and like probably only a 50% chance to even hit -at best- of hitting our foe based on rolls. That means that I could spend 6 full rounds to get an average 1-3 damage in. I don't have anything I can do or offer other than healing, or aiding you. It's just waiting for someone else to do something for me at this point, while my bless and faerie fire keep him visible and easier to hit.
Feel free to change my aid to an Acrobatics Aid, given that that seems more important, and actually has a higher success rate, so V will be more likely to be able to move this round.
With all of her allies being swarmed and right next to the target, Lily didn't really have any options... so she waited for a moment. "Va... V. If you focus on the Swarm, it will be less able to assail us. You are the most capable of destroying it. Otherwise, we should stay out of the rats."
Yeah, a +3 will monster shaking off all the will saves on the first try, starting a fire under the party, and them standing in it, everyone's rolls sucking, there not really being a good option, the fire now probably migrating under two characters again... *sigh* It really sucks how nothing-but-support Lily is, given how little we're able to do right now.
Lily simply withdraws out of the way, ducking away from the foe, and doing what she felt was ideal in the situation of rats swarming everywhere: Spread out, and get away. With luck, the others would follow suit, and take out the accuser in short order.
Well, it's not really inane if the result of a flipflop decision because your DM felt like it... kills your character. :P So defining those things are important. Also, talking is a free action. So you can't even scream 'HELP ME!' when the swarm begins clawing your legs. Because free action. :P
Lily purses her lips. If she'd waited just a moment for the glitterdust... then her friends would be amidst the rats. She hadn't wasted her opportunity. "Step away, and make the swarms pick one of you." Lily says to the others, before snapping her fingers with an intonation "NERI!", causing a brilliant crimson light to flare in the corner behind the devil, and hopefully coating him in the crimson light that would make him visible even once her glitter fell away; something absolutely vital if they were going to escape without him simply following them invisibly.
"Not just yet." Lily calls over her shoulder to Miranda, not bothering to waste her ammunition on the thing that had just appeared. "We have company." she adds, letting her hand fall away from bracing the crossbow to form into a loose fist that she rolls out into a flat plane, parting her lips to blow on it, as golden motes fly freely across the battlefield to coat the creature, even as she's moving away from the expanding cloud.
Having audited myself, I believe I have -two- spells left. I think my 'how many spells I have' is an extension of thinking I was level 2 when I did my maff a LONG time ago. I've used 3 cure light wounds and 1 bless, and used one charge of my wand today.
Lily takes a step back from the doorway she's in and trains her weapon on the door she expects guards to be imminently coming from, lining up a shot for anyone busting through the door.
Combat reflexes is a fitting feat for a guard to have, I suppose. :P
I'm helping! :O
Given that the alarm was about to go out in a big way, Lily did all that she realistically could do. With a quiet prayer to Shelyn and a few stumbling steps forward as the power of inevitable violence took hold, Lily filled her allies with a little bit of hope. "It's time to move quickly."
Lily keeps her crossbow pointed just above the Halfling's head. "We found this one wandering about outside. she says, cooly, mask covering much of her features. "She said something about her lawyer friend being inside before she started playing dumb. I don't suppose you have any accommodations for her? Or a lawyer on-site?"
Well, consider the implications of someone bullrushing Lily. Her CMD will be atrocious at all levels, so a dedicated bull rusher won't fail. Then it rapidly becomes how many great swords of damage the guy can inflict by shoving Lily into an ally. I'd be personally hesitant to make bullrushing a go-to for damage over just hitting the thing. (In addition to the shove-off-cliffs opportunity)
Xd6 seems a lot high, making it so that a natural 19 bull rush gains a lot of appeal over hitting them with your axe. At higher levels, it becomes less of an issue as, if you don't invest in bull rush, you generally fail to bull rush. Shield Slam is a feat that I use often on my ranger, and it bakes the knocked prone into the free bull rush. I think damage on bull rush should be restricted to class features and environmental effects, personally.
The fact that Boros is almost automatically going to trip an alarm here makes me think it's probably better to attack. If we didn't have Boros just sneaking along behind us, I'd almost suggest we double down and ask them for the interrogation room and their specialized tools for airtight confessions. Then with the door closed and the not-demon in the room with us... ha, and hiya. BUUUUUT.
I'd suggest taking Miranda's route, if possible. Figure out if it's something they were trained to look for, if the system in place is set up to adequately safeguard against this event. It isn't uncommon for bad things to happen because of lack of training... And they're more likely to get some sort of demerit rather than outright fired if you can find a way to suggest they simply weren't going above and beyond. :) If you can't do that... It becomes clear that they did in fact overlook something that cost a large sum of money.
Pick your boss! In all seriousness, that sucks. Especially if it's literally 'pick who goes'. :(
Lily draws her crossbow, casts light on the quarrel, and makes sure it's ready to fire, training it just over Miranda's head.
"Setting fire... to a building... in the middle of a city..?" Lily plaintively says, taking her time with each part of the concept, and pursing her lips, giving Miranda a concerned look. "We are the good guys, right?" but then readies herself to deal with whatever the next situation was.
I think you really have to be willing to homebrew in order to take full advantage of starfinder's themes; I think that's going to be equally problematic for ancestry and backgrounds. At least for traits/alternate traits, you could typically come up with something that fit - like +1 to two skills and one is a class skill is a super easy sell. Use another stat for this one skill? Super easy sell. Niche +1 to hit or damage? Yup, easy. I'm the same way I always am: Cynically optimistic.
"So... what do we do about their records if we can't go in?" Lily asks. "It's sounding more and more likely that we don't have a perfect answer for all of this." she adds, twitching her lips back and forth, as she pulls the eldritch sign door closed. "So, is that a devil trick or..?" she asks the others, quietly.
"I'm curious as to why it exists... what it's for." Lily says, but then shrugs it off. Lily does a quick trace of the shape to help cement it into her mind for later study.
Not sure WH is my jam :P Thanks, though!
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