I'll go with normal advancement speed, thanks.
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Bold Strider - I'll stick with that number, and add a question: is it possible to get these chronicles applied on slow track? Not sure how the level breaks would work in that case. If it doesn't work out, go ahead and apply them at normal speed to my -14 and I'll apply them at the appropriate levels.
I'm pondering what to do with a Grippli as well. My first thought was an archer hunter, now I'm leaning towards a cleric, as I don't play a lot of straight spellcasters. With their Wisdom bump, plus small size and Dex, they can cast from the back and be pretty safe. Haven't begun to think about what god I'd worship.
Lukas is more than a little surprised when his friends revive him, and his eyes widen when they tell him how they slew the great dragon! As each of them receives their noble title, Lukas can't help thinking about where he came from, a simple porter on the docks of Cassomir, and where he's ended up. He just shakes his head in wonder at it all, amazed not only that he's survived, but that he'll go down in history - and hopefully the books won't mention that he lay on the ground bleeding while the others defeated the dragon...
Wow! Not only did we not die, we completed the module! Thanks very much, Bold Strider, for getting us through it. As Alrik says, it was a long one with some rough patches, but I had a lot of fun with it. As I understand it, we're supposed to apply this to a new PFS number, right? Assuming that's the case, I'll put it on 80015-14. Thanks for your patience, everyone, as I conducted my little experiment with the unchained monk. Still pondering how I feel about it, but I had fun playing with you all!
Lukas just manages to summon the energy to continue to not bleed to death.
Lukas takes a deep breath and darts forward, getting in close to the dragon and kicking at it, even vainly attempting to trip the monster!
As I said, just basing my thinking on our current situation: all but one of us are wounded, some badly, and one is unconscious; our protection spells are not applied to all of us; some of our best buffs have been used up; and we're facing a dragon. So I raised the notion of fleeing, which is now moot because we'd never get out of here. So we fight, and maybe don't die. I'm not trying to be wimpy, I enjoy a nail-biting close fight quite a lot - but these are pretty rough odds.
Ah, yes, thanks for the painful reminder. I guess our fate is sealed.
Question for DMBS and my fellow dragon victims: is running for it a viable option, getting the heck out of here and scattering like rodents? I don't have a sense what things are like immediately outside the dragon's lair, if we'd just be on an open plain of doom or if there's a chance of some cover. I'm also not sure we could even outrun him long enough to get outside before we're in combat. But we're wounded, many buffs are gone, and he's ready to play so, as much as I want to wrap up this final fight, we should consider all options here. Maybe our druid friend can give us all helpful abilities and we'll triumph over adversity! Maybe.
As Cobb calls out, Lukas knows Sarasha is nearby and he says quietly, "Hop aboard, Asha, I'll get us out of here quick!" He picks up the lithe figure and moves hurriedly toward Cobb's voice.
If the grioth is not down:
Lukas calls out, "Cobb, you can see, right? Is the last minion still to my right?"
"Guys, we gotta get out of this darkness, or we're really dead," Lukas says nervously as he makes his way toward Asha, calling out once or twice to locate her and her opponent. He swings blindly into the space the grioth should be in, but misses.
Lukas reels in pain as he's attacked from all sides, stepping out of the middle of his foes and attacking where some of the strikes seemed to come from.
"This seems like a really bad idea..." Lukas mutters to himself as he moves toward and into the wall of darkness, following Alrik's voice and calling out to Katja to guide him to her. Once he reaches the elf's side and has some idea where their foe is, he lashes out, swinging his fist through empty air!
Lukas continues to hustle down the hall carrying Sarasha as she squirms and wiggles to pull out scrolls and use them.
Lukas says, "Sorry about this, but I think it's the best way." He scoops up Sarasha's small figure in his arms, only hesitating slightly at her not-quite-dead nature, and hustles down the hall toward their friends.
Lukas whispers fiercely to Sarasha, "Come on, we've got to get back with the others!" He waits a moment for her to move, then hurries back towards the rest of the party.
Lukas gives Sarasha's proposal a nod, adding quietly, "I can come with you, so you don't die again. If you can die now."
Lukas calls on his inner discipline to protect himself from violence, then nods at Tessa's suggestion to explore to the east.
I will be travelling for work Oct 3-12. I still expect to be able to post some, but likely with less frequency.
Ok, got it. I didn't mean you made that point, sorry I wasn't clearer. Jeb talked about trip builds not being viable for long.
Also, you don't really have time to retrain, so you can't retrain your style strike. Bummer. I guess I was looking at this as a bit of an OOC rebuild opportunity, rather than a cinematic retraining montage that would actually take real time, since the point was made very clearly that my trip build was going to continue to suck and others were building completely new characters. If that's not how you were thinking of it, I'll keep trying to trip things. DMBS - I guess I didn't make it clear this was a question - is there no way I can retrain my style strike?
Lukas studies the being that looks so much like Sarasha for a long moment, and a faint smile crosses his face. "You're in there, aren't you?" he says, his tone both contented and curious. He nods a couple of times thoughtfully, then turns to Tessa. "I think you're right," he weighs in, "we take the fight to the damned dragon and get this over with. I think if we take it down, we won't have to worry about any of its minions, they'll know we killed a dragon. And if we don't take it down...well, we won't have to worry about its minions that way either, will we?" Lifting his chin bravely, he tells the baroness, "We'll take care of the dragon, and the rest will take care of itself."
...I mean that you get a general combat feat instead of your bonus monk feat. I wondered if that might be what you meant, but I felt I had pestered you with so many questions, I thought I'd just go with it. I'll drop Mobility. Also, you don't really have time to retrain, so you can't retrain your style strike. Bummer. I guess I was looking at this as a bit of an OOC rebuild opportunity, rather than a cinematic retraining montage that would actually take real time, since the point was made very clearly that my trip build was going to continue to suck and others were building completely new characters. If that's not how you were thinking of it, I'll keep trying to trip things.
I guess I need to roll for availabilityLukas, I am unaware of this rule. Is it in the PFS Guidebook somewhere? This is based on the size of the town we're in, related to these rules in the Core Rulebook. I think Bold Strider had set slightly different values, based on there being a 70% chance of a given item being available, but that was before you guys rode in to save our butts, so you wouldn't necessarily have read about it.
I guess I need to roll for availability of the AoMF.
Excellent
Great news all around! Thanks, Strider. I only went a little crazy, focused mostly on trying to amp up my damage output. Here's what I did: Took Elemental Fury as my Ki Power.
Wow, bummer! Very sorry to hear it, hope you can get it sorted out. And thanks for thinking on it!
Alrik - The URL you posted takes me to a message saying the file doesn't exist. I've looked pretty extensively at the monk bonus feats, and checked the list of bonus feats in Hero Lab, the SRD and Archives of Nethys, they're all pretty limited, especially with the way Bold Strider has grouped the combat maneuver feats for this game. I don't mean that as a criticism of those house rules, I think they make a lot of sense. It just has an impact on the monk bonus feat value that I didn't anticipate.
Lukas' eyes widen in disbelief as Sarasha announces herself, but discipline makes him bite his tongue. I saw her fall! She was dead, and we could not save her! But she is somehow here... He gives her the most welcoming smile he can muster given the circumstances, saying in an uncertain tone, "It is good to see you on your feet again, Sarasha..." Turning to Alrik, he adds, "It is as she says, we've been to the dragon's lair, and defeated some of its minions - though not without cost. We wish to return and finish the job, and any help you can offer would be welcome." Lukas then looks long and hard at Cobb and Tessa, as if to reassure himself that they're who they've always been, and not some undead version of their former selves. He considers ordering a stiff drink, but again calls on his inner discipline, taking a calming breath and seeing if anyone else steps forward to help fight the dragon.
Hmm, guess I misunderstood. I thought we were exploring some slight variances from the rules, given that we're not playing strict PFS and you've already got house rules that differ from canon. That's why I proposed taking Weapon Focus as a monk bonus feat, since it seemed to make sense from a flavor perspective and your combat maneuver house rules make a lot of the monk bonus feats irrelevant. If that's not how you see it, I'll understand, though it basically leaves me with Mobility as a semi-desirable option from the bonus feat list and not much else. If you are interested in some flexibility on the bonus feat list, I'd ask you to consider Weapon Focus, Greater Trip, Jabbing Style or other style feats, maybe Bleeding Attack. And if you don't want to mess around with the bonus feat list, I might ask to retrain a bit away from such a trip-focused build, perhaps switching my style strike and a feat or two. I went into it as an entertaining experiment - it's sometimes been effective, and sometimes not. The funny thing is, I never went into this expecting Lukas to be tanky at all, but that's how he's ended up. And if you want me to go with straight RAW on this and no retraining, I'll take Elemental Fury and probably Mobility and I'll be done.
Still messing a bit with Lukas' level up. I like your idea, Strider, of taking one of the level 8 Ki powers, but none of them are really grabbing me. There are some flavorful ones, but I'm not sure which one to pick that would necessarily come in handy. I agree that Weapon Focus is a bland choice, but it would be useful much of the time, without spending ki. It would let me hit more often using Power Attack, upping my damage potential, which is pretty important. So, I'm thinking I'll go with Weapon Focus and Elemental Strike. The only other alternative I've dreamed up, as you hand out templates and such to dead characters (which is good fun, I don't mean to criticize at all!), is the possibility of a Dex to damage feat for my unarmed strike. I recognize this is a hot button issue for much of the Pathfinder community, and I'd get it if you said no, and I'll just go with the other approach I'm considering. So let me know what you think and I'll be ready to go soon afterward.
Bold Strider - got any fun ideas for monk bonus feats or other things to spice up Lukas as he levels up? You're usually pretty inventive with such things. I'm not feeling very creative about it, but I guess if we can't come up with anything else, I'd ask if I could take Weapon Focus with my unarmed strike as a monk bonus feat. I'm considering my ki power options also. Thinking about Elemental Fury, maybe the True Strike qinggong power for when I really need to land that trip attack, not sure what else. Will try to have leveling done by tomorrow, would appreciate input and options!
I think the main reason why Lukas might feel a bit weak is that he tried to specialize in something that he can't be very good at ...tripping. Tripping is good at low levels but CMD rise quickly as CR increase and since we've been facing all these monsters he's had the same problem that Jeb faced with his spell DCs. That may be part of it, but the main thing I think is that Lukas was really just an experiment in playing the Unchained Monk, once it came out. When our opponents haven't been flying - or been monks with insanely high CMD - the tripping has been reasonably effective, but it has become less so as we've gone up in levels. I knew going in that I was likely to have trouble tripping the dragon at the end of the module, but I've been having fun with him so decided to forgo some optimization. And since he didn't die in that last fight (which speaks to at least some utility...), I don't know that I have the option to make any wholesale changes.
I didn't say that clearly - I meant at this level we won't have the option of dropping Haste all the time. But at 5th, we should have it some, you're right.
Cobb and Bold Strider make some good points (though it's a pretty rare fifth-level party that's rocking a haste spell). I think a bard or evangelist cleric would be very helpful, just to have some general buffs up for combat. Lukas could take another level of monk and get an additional attack each round with the BAB increase, or he could pick up a level of cleric (or warpriest, inquisitor...) to diversify a bit, be able to do some self-buffing for the tough fights. Curious what people think of that approach. Also would like to think about how to boost Lukas' damage output. He can hit pretty hard with Power Attack, but if I used it in the last fight I would never have hit. I could take the Elemental Fury ki power this level, to add 1d6 energy damage to each hit, but it's of limited duration and uses. Any other thoughts? One last question: did Jeb ever level to 5th? His sheet says he's 4th, and based on his stats, he has the spells of a 4th level oracle (though even with that, he should have another level 1 spell). It's a moot point now that he's dead, but it might have made a difference not having him be a 4th level character.
Lukas grits his teeth in frustration and steps away from Kanjougas, moving back towards Tessa and Cobb. "What in the hells is the Dark Window? If you need someone's help in closing it, why would you attack them first? None of what you're saying makes any sense!"
I wish our approach to this had only one flaw! Little does he know... "Yeah," Lukas says reluctantly, "I was kind of hoping you wouldn't spot that so quickly. But who's to say? Could be you try to get past me and I put you in your place." He glances over his shoulder, wondering what Jeb is doing flailing around right behind him, then says to Kanjougas, "I think you want to know if you can take me, so you won't just waltz by. Think you can hit me, old fella?"
Lukas steps closer to Kanjougas, standing over Sarasha's fallen form. Bracing himself for the worst, he calls out to the creature, "Go ahead, show me what you've got!"
Looks like Jeb's post made our decision, though I expected we were going that direction anyway. If Tessa is going to take this thing down, it will need to be with fire - we did see that fire did extra damage to it earlier, so there's a solid in-game reason for her to do so, even if she normally uses cold spells. Lukas can try to keep it focused on him for the moment, fighting defensively or getting in the thing's way and going full defense (for a 33 AC), so there's a chance for those in the back to blast it. But I'll be lucky if I last more than a round.
Okay, gang, I think the mummy's ultimatum merits a moment of discussion here. I do not see how we defeat the thing. It evades Jeb's Fire, catches Cobb's arrows, can barely be hit in melee (and seems to have some DR?). Knowing mummies in general, I'd say we try to burn it, but we haven't been terribly effective in our efforts to do that. Having said that, no part of me wants to leave Asha and Celes to be sacrificed to Irori. So what the heck do we do?
Lukas swings fruitlessly at the implacable mummy, his fists and feet feeling like they're striking stone. After failing to hurt their for even slightly, Lukas takes a step back and says, "Gang, we need a different plan! I don't know what that plan is, but we're dropping like flies! "
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