I don't see a thread for this and my campaign just had its first character death so... here we go!
(Warning: Obituary details contain spoilers!)
Name: Finley
Ancestry: Sprite
Class: Alchemist/Druid
Cause of Death: Cursed vengeance
Location: Literally one hex away from the capital
Chapter: Season of Bloom
Details:
A lover of nature and animals, Finley was very interested in the magic ring the party found that could charm any animal. Also easily distracted, the little sprite didn't bother to use the ring until months later, when giant monsters began attacking the kingdom.
After tracking down one such monster - a manticore - Finley was able to use the magic ring to charm and befriend it. The party named it Fluffy and made plans to make it an unofficial member of their kingdom... until the next day, when the ring's curse triggered, causing Fluffy to attack Finley to the exclusion of all else.
Caught off guard, Finley was first pinned to the ground by spikes and then crit three times in a row, ending his existence mercifully quickly.
Finley is survived by an extremely large extended family (at least, there are a lot of sprites who claim to be related to to him) and his role in the kingdom will likely fall to one of them.
Not sure if this is the right forum or what would be the right forum. :)
My partner and I are currently working on creating our first "we might actually sell this" module. The module is written and being edited, and the part where it needs to go from a text document to a PDF document is rapidly approaching.
Problem: I've never touched InDesign before in my life, nor any similar programs (I don't even know what similar programs exist).
At this point I'm looking for literally any advice, but especially: Is InDesign the best tool for this job? What are my other options? Where could I find good tutorials for using InDesign, especially tutorials relevant to this specific kind of project?
TIA for any help at all, and if this is the wrong forum sorry and please let me know where to ask!
I'm running Kingmaker as an evil campaign, and one of my players wanted to get into making Soulbound Dolls. So, here is my write-up for the process I came up with. Feedback welcome!
Doll Body (Item 4):
Cost: 30gp
Craft DC: 19
Description: This is a Small-size wooden body with articulated joints, suitable for turning into a Soulbound Doll. The specific features of the body, such as its shape and appearance, are left to the crafter’s choice – however, for best results it should be at least vaguely humanoid. The body has a slot – usually on the chest, neck, or forehead – in which a filled soul gem may be placed. Setting the gem requires ten minutes of work and a DC 15 Craft check; on a critical failure, the gem is damaged in such a way that the soul fragment escapes it (although the gem can be repaired for reuse with 5gp of materials and a further DC 15 Craft check). On a success, the doll comes to life as a standard Soulbound Doll with the same alignment as the soul fragment. On a critical success, if the doll body was supplied with a filled soul gem that was also created with a critical success, the resulting Soulbound Doll has the Elite adjustment.
Once a Soulbound Doll has been created, the soul gem cannot be removed without destroying the doll. However, if the gem is destroyed but the doll body is relatively intact, it may be repaired and reused.
In theory it is possible to create more advanced doll bodies with additional abilities, but even if researched such constructs are likely to require either more complex soul containers or a steady supply of filled soul gems as they burn out their soul energy.
Fill Soul Gem (Ritual 2):
Cast: One day to prepare a ritual circle plus four hours to conduct the ritual (see text); Cost: 50gp in non-consumable materials (such as powdered silver) for the ritual circle, an amethyst worth 20gp, and 10gp worth of consumable materials (rare oils and candles); Secondary Casters: 1
Primary Check: Occultism (Expert) DC 23; Secondary Checks: Arcana DC 18
Range: 10 feet; Target: One dying creature (see text)
Description: This ritual ensnares a fragment of a dying creature’s soul, using it to charge a soul gem that can later be used to create a Soulbound Doll. In preparation for the ritual, a special ritual circle 10 feet in diameter must be inscribed in a cool, dry location and etched with powdered silver and other reagents. Properly creating the circle required a DC 18 Craft check and a day’s work; on a critical failure, the materials are wasted, while on a critical success the circle provides a +2 circumstance bonus to Fill Soul Gem ritual checks.
Once the ritual circle has been created, a creature that is unconscious and at 0 hit points must be placed within it and remain in that state for the duration of the ritual. Once the ritual has been started, the target is placed in a kind of stasis: Even if they were poisoned or dying before beginning the ritual, the magic keeps them on the edge of death until the ritual is either completed or interrupted. This does not prevent the target from being healed, either from outside interference or their own natural abilities (such as regeneration), which of course ruins the ritual.
The strength of the target does not affect the outcome of the ritual, as only a small fragment of their soul is captured in any case; however, unwilling targets (that is to say, any target that would be unwilling if they were conscious and aware) receive a Will save against the primary caster’s Occultism DC; if the save succeeds, the target dies but no fragment is trapped. For this reason, weaker individuals are typically used if unwilling, to reduce the risk of wasted time and effort.
Once completed, the ritual has the following effects:
Critical Success: The target dies and the amethyst becomes a filled soul gem of unusual quality with an alignment matching the target; if combined with a doll body of similar quality, the result will be a stronger than usual Soulbound Doll.
Success: The target dies and the amethyst becomes a filled soul gem with an alignment matching the target.
Failure: The target dies but no soul gem is created. The consumable materials are wasted, but the amethyst may be reused.
Critical Failure: The target dies and the amethyst shatters, ruining all the consumable materials. There is a higher-than-normal chance that the target’s body or soul becomes some sort of vengeful undead, especially if they were unwilling.
Regardless of the outcome of the ritual, the ritual circle can be reused as long as it is not damaged. Ritualists should be warned, however, that any undead created by a botched version of this ritual are likely to attempt to destroy the circle – seeing it as being as much responsible for their wretched fate as the caster.
Heightened (5th): The heightened version of this ritual allows multiple soul gems to be created in one go using a larger, more complex ritual circle that is 20 feet in diameter (200gp; Craft DC 25). Each target needs their own amethyst, but only 20gp worth of consumable materials are used regardless of the number of targets. The ritual can target up to five creatures, requiring one secondary caster per target. Each unwilling target makes a separate Will save, but the result only determines if the ritual fails for them individually. However, if three or more targets succeed their saves, the primary caster suffers a -10 penalty on the check for the ritual.
Note that the write-up for Soulbound Dolls says that resisting should be Will vs Craft DC; however, I changed that to Occultism because I split the process into two parts that my PC will have to learn separately.
Also this ritual is slightly "stronger" than Animate Object, since it's a 2nd rank ritual that creates a 2nd level creature, instead of 3rd for 2nd. I think that's justified that with the additional complexity and needing a sacrifice, though.
Currently having a bit of a debate on the Fantasy Grounds forum about this, and I want to double check here that I am correct:
If you have a party of 6 players, a Severe encounter has a budget of 180 XP. However, upon defeating a Severe encounter, a party of 6 players is still awarded 120 XP, the same as a party of 4 players would receive for a Severe encounter.
Just sharing here some rules I have been using for a while to get my PCs to be more excited about treasure they find in a dungeon. I don't convert all dungeon treasure to ancient items, but individual items here and there, and it has definitely resulted in my PCs using more of what they find and selling less.
Some groups might struggle with the verisimilitude of "you can find these in just about any dungeon but you can't buy them", but my players have accepted it as just part of the game.
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Ancient items are rare variants of more common items, often found in old ruins and other places frequented by adventurers. Mostly created by old and dead civilizations, the methods for recreating them have largely been lost; ancient items cannot be crafted. They also have a reputation for being fickle and unreliable, especially if they frequently change owners. As a result, those who own an ancient item are typically reluctant to sell it, but in turn few people are willing to pay what such items are truly worth. Mechanically, ancient items have a sell value equal to that of the common equivalent, but cost at least five times as much as the common item for the average adventurer to purchase, if they are available at all. Ancient items also always need to be invested to function.
In exchange for the difficulty of acquiring them, ancient items come with several potent benefits. Any save DC associated with the item uses the bearer's class or spell DC, whichever is higher, and the bearer can substitute their own attack roll or spell attack roll for such rolls the item would make. If an ancient item can cast a spell, that spell is heightened to half the level of the bearer rounded up. Ancient weapons and armor also typically (although not always) increase in power with the bearer; such items cannot be inscribed with fundamental runes, but instead receive those bonuses based on the level of the bearer, as though using the automatic bonus progression rules from the GMG.
Ancient consumable items - which are almost always Talismans - are not consumed on use and instead function with a frequency of 1/day.
Staves are never ancient, but wands can be. An ancient wand has a DC of 6 for the flat check the first time per day it is overcharged; this DC increases by 5 each subsequent time that day. When the flat check to overcharge an ancient wand fails, it can no longer be used that day, but is not destroyed and functions normally the next day. Unlike other ancient items, the spell contained in an ancient wand is not heightened based on the level of the wielder.
Reviving this because my players just about killed me last session.
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Rogue: "Ah, I see the Lamp Eaters are here."
Monk: "...Lamp... Eaters...?"
Rogue: "I've thought of several epitaphs for them, that's one of the more polite ones."
Monk: "Do you mean epithets?"
Rogue: "No, I don't."
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Barbarian: "After careful consideration, I think we should take her offer."
Monk: "Yes, I can see you've been deep in thought; we are an hour into dinner and there are only five empty plates stacked next to you."
Sorceress: "Actually I've been eating them."
I'm a big fan of how Magus turned out, but both me and my players are a little unhappy with how few spells are a good fit for spellstrike. In the hopes of making the class more versatile without raising its power level too much, I'm testing out the following pair of house rules for it:
--Cantrips that require a saving throw instead of a spell attack roll can be spellstriked with, using the attack roll in place of the saving throw (so a critical success on the attack roll has the effect of a critical failure on the saving throw). The feat Expansive Spellstrike allows you to also apply this rule to non-cantrip spells that require a saving throw, in addition to the other effects of the feat.
--If a spell you are spellstriking with normally has multiple targets, choose targets normally. One of the targets (the primary target if the spell has a primary target) must be the target of your spellstrike. Other targets of the spell resolve the spell normally instead of as a spellstrike (each target makes a saving throw, or you make separate spell attack rolls against those targets, whatever is normal for the spell).
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My goal here is to give more more options for spellstrike choices (electric arc is now on the table!), and also to make multi-target spells not strictly worse than single target spells for spellstriking.
As far as possible concerns, I'm wondering if this makes Expansive Spellstrike too much of a "must pick" (although honestly it's probably already in that category), or if there are any spells that would be outright broken by this choice.
Kineticist: "Now watch as I form this elemental energy into a blade of pure metal!"
Fighter: "Um... yeah... my sword is made of metal too?"
Just had that mental image come up and had to share. :)
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More on topic, Elemental Weapon is amazing and definitely one of my favorite things about the class. Although by my read - do you need Martial proficiency if you shape your blast into a martial weapon? Or does it still count as an unarmed strike?
EDIT: Missed the line that says that strikes use your proficiency with blasts. That's pretty cool.
Fire kineticists being the only ones who can actually do elemental damage with their basic elemental blast is my only real disappointment with the kineticist right now.
Please please please can we switch air's blast to electricity damage and water's blast to cold damage so that the elemental damage-focused class can actually do elemental damage?
If I only got one wish for this entire playtest, it would be that.
Earth totally makes sense to deal bludgeoning damage, but three out of four elements (and I imagine with wood and metal it's going to be five out of six) dealing physical damage is just a huge let-down.
Ideally, wood would be piercing damage and metal slashing damage. That way, we would have fire, cold, electricity, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing as options - half elemental and half physical.
Thanks, Paizo. This is definitely my new favorite class. The flavor and the mechanics gel so well, I'm just so excited to play it. I love the new implements so much, and the tweaks to the existing ones.
I love that Mirror can make shadow clones. I love that Tome can take an overnight study break and then be Legendary in whatever Lore they want. I love that Lantern just completely shuts down invisibility but doesn't interfere with your allies using illusions. I love Chalise having a basically total panacea. "I have no idea what is in this, but it fixes everything."
Haven't been this excited about a class since 1e Kineticist, honestly.
Now excuse me, I'm off to make a regalia/tome/wand Thaumaturge named Gideon Ofnir...
Is it just me, or is the guillotine golem absolutely terrifying?
I ended up making a couple adjustments to its abilities on the spot, but if I had run it as written 3/4ths of the party would have gotten decapitated. +36 to hit means that its first attack has a roughly 50% or higher chance to crit a 17th level character, which then triggers a DC 40(!!!) save or die. That is a "very hard" DC for a 17th level character. To not instantly die.
What was other people's experiences with this creature?
Oh boy am I worried this will become a mess.
Okay, some ground rules: Slavery is an abomination. This thread is not the place to disagree with that. I'm not interested in debating the ethics of slavery. Also, the fact that Society players could buy slaves was awful, and I'm not interested in debating that either. I have no love lost for players who want to play slavers.
With that said:
I feel like the complete removal of slavery as a concept from the setting does real damage to the character spaces for those who oppose slavery. It removes the raison d'etre for Liberators, the Bellflower Network, the Eagle Knights, etc. Several of my players have come to me about this news, concerned that characters they previously played just... Don't fit in the setting anymore, because their concept was fighting against an evil that no longer exists.
It is also hard for me to personally conceptualize a world in which awful horrible evil exists but slavery doesn't. How does Hell exist, and what do we call the tormented souls there if not slaves?
On a related note I feel like there are a lot of things in the setting that are effectively slavery, and will continue to exist, but just aren't going to be called that and somehow that's okay? Like for example vampire spawn.
Idk. I'm still processing all of this, and very interesting in hearing other people's opinions.
Oh my goodness Paizo the amount of love and adorableness that was poured into this ancestry is just too much. There's a feat for stitching yourself up! There's a feat for being hard to sneak attack because you are just fluff on the inside! There's a variant of poppet that is brought to life by a child's earnest wish and I'm not crying you're crying. <3
The psychic has a couple class features that are, word for word, mechanically the same as other class features, but the name is different. For example, they have Evasion, Resolve, and Greater Resolve, but those features are called Precognitive Reflexes, Walls of Will, and Fortress of Will.
I understand that you are going for flavor, but I feel like this is a) needlessly confusing, and b) potentially needlessly limiting if for example a feat is added at some point that keys off of having Evasion.
On the other hand, Weapons Specialization is called Weapon Specialization but has unique flavor text. In my humble opinion, this is a much better way to go about this.
EDIT: Also I just realized this is the wrong forum, if a mod could move this to the playtest that would be lovely. <3
So if a Magus wants to combine Spellstrike with a line, area, or cone spell, they can do that with a 2nd level feat. An archer magus can full on shoot fireballs around with just a 2nd level feat (and obviously some way to cast fireballs). That's fantastic!
But if a Magus wants to target three whole people with Fear, they need to be 20th level, using a melee weapon, targeting people who are adjacent to each other, and spend their whole turn to do it.
I don't get it.
What is the power level concern that prevents Magus from having a version of Expansive Spellstrike that reads "when you cast a spell that can target multiple creatures as part of a Spellstrike, you can target the full number of creatures but must include the target of your Spellstrike"?
I love you guys. I'm one of your most ardent defenders. 2e is my favorite game system ever published. The quality of your adventure paths in terms of the writing and the characters and the stories is absolutely incredible.
But you guys have been doing this for well over a decade. And for some reason, still cannot manage to publish maps that actually have aligned grid squares.
For those of us who use a VTT to run your adventures - which is a lot more of us now for obvious reasons - the frustration of not being able to fit a map to a grid because different grid squares on the same map are different sizes is... well, extremely frustrating.
Spending half an hour fighting with an image editor to try to get a useable map is extremely frustrating.
For that matter, having to use a third party program to extract decent quality images from the "interactive maps" in the first place is extremely frustrating. The fact that the interactive map PDFs are password protected boggles my mind.
Please, Paizo, please. Throw a bone to your VTT players. Find a way to provide maps that have an actual, consistent, aligned, ideally 50x50 grid.
So my party just finished book four and got the guiding chisel.
The party crafter is now insisting that making winged boots out of marble is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
I don't even really blame her. Holy CRAP that is a powerful item. I've never seen anything like it. It basically by itself completely reframes the "how does Crafting compare to Earn Income?" discussion.
I'm certainly not going to nerf something my player is so excited about, but I'm definitely still a bit in shock.
Is it just me? Anyone else have thoughts on this item?
This is something I've used in a couple battles of my Age of Ashes campaign, and it has been very well received by my players, so I thought I'd share it here. The idea is to give certain creatures - it works especially well with giant solo monsters - a more dynamic, chaotic battle style to really sell how massive and destructive they are.
Giant Monster Initiative
A creature with this ability does not act on its rolled initiative. It still rolls initiative normally for the purpose of e.g. determining when its reactions recharge, when the duration of effects counts down, or when it takes persistent damage, as well as to determine when its multiple attack penalty resets. At the beginning of combat, the creature cannot act at all until its rolled initiative.
From then on, instead of acting on its rolled initiative, the creature takes a single action at the end of each PC's turn. It cannot ready actions or hold its initiative; however, it can take multi-action activities by spending an appropriate number of actions over the course of multiple PC turns. In that case, it is often obvious after the first action that the creature is preparing some sort of complex or powerful assault; however, it does not have to make any choices related to the activity until the final action. If circumstances change by then such that the creature is no longer able to use the activity when it would take the final action, the actions spent preparing are wasted but it can choose a new final action.
If a creature with this ability becomes Stunned, it simply loses the appropriate number of actions (or rounds worth of actions if it is stunned for a duration), starting from when it becomes Stunned. If it is Slowed, then it loses actions starting from its rolled initiative each round until it has lost actions equal to its Slowed value. As usual, if it is both Slowed and Stunned, then each lost action counts towards both. If the creature becomes Quickened, it takes the extra action on its rolled initiative.
Just a random thought, as I'm building a Magus for playtest purposes. Considering spells are typically balanced around their number of targets... is there really a need to lock the Magus to one target with Striking Spell?
Would it break anything if a Magus could Striking Spell someone with Chain Lightning and have it actually chain, or Striking Spell someone with Fear and include several other foes as targets at the same time (without weapon damage obviously)?
Are there spells whose effects or targets would be hard to resolve in this case?
...Magus has a better version of Quicken than Wizard does.
I've been a vocal proponent of Quicken Spell; I think it's badly undervalued, and it's been a literal lifesaver to the bard in my Age of Ages campaign.
But I do find it hard to buy that Magus should have a stronger version than the full casting classes do.
The rules on critical specialization say that they apply when you "make an attack" and "get a critical success"; they don't specify what kind of attack it has to be.
Am I correct in reading that since the Trip action has the attack trait, this would mean that for example if you are using a fauchard to trip someone and get a critical success, you could move them 5 feet in addition to tripping them?
A 4th level spell that basically always wastes an action, has a decent chance of inflicting slowed 1 for the rest of combat, and against undead and outsiders is guaranteed to waste an action and has a 50% chance of completely wrecking their action economy? Plus the possibility for useful information AND no Incap trait?
This post has spoilers up through book 4; you have been warned. :)
So one of my PCs - a goblin bard by the name of Chimes - took an unexpected shine to Voz Lirayne after she survived their first encounter. As a result, I brought her back for a rematch (you can probably find my other thread somewhere in this forum, The Revenge of Voz Lirayne).
Well, despite being planned to die AGAIN, she survived that also. Later, in book 3, Chimes needed someone to teach her the spell talking corpse and decided to try contacting Voz about it using the dreamstone she acquired in the Dreamgate waystation.
What followed was a series of RPs spread across the rest of book three and most of book four that ended up going in a very unexpected direction.
My player has recently collected all of the RPs, brushed them up a bit, and written them in short story format, which I thought I'd share in case anyone else is fascinated by incidents of minor characters unexpectedly becoming major characters. :)
After a fair bit of searching, I haven't found any form-fillable character sheets that have enough skill feat slots for a rogue or investigator. Is anyone aware of one?
Ideally an actual printable sheet, rather than a Google Sheets thing.
I am getting ready to convert Dungeon of the Mad Mage to 2e. I'm pretty comfortable doing monster conversions myself, so I was going to do conversions for illithids, beholders, intellect devourers, etc, but it occurred to me to check if anyone has done the work already.
Are there 2e conversions for those monsters out there somewhere? A cursory search on this forum didn't turn any up.
This spell was invented by one of my players in the very first 1e campaign I ever ran, and this is my attempt to convert it to 2e. This is a pretty rough draft, and I'd love to hear feedback.
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Rishak's Missile Storm (Spell 5) Evocation, Force Traditions arcane, occult
Cast [A] (somatic, verbal)
Duration 1 minute
Range 120 feet; Targets varies
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As you cast this spell, a field of twinkling points of light - fifteen in total - begins swirling around you. For the duration of the spell, as an action, you can convert some of the points of light into darts of force streaking towards creatures you can see. Each such creature in a 10-foot burst you designate is struck by one dart; the darts automatically hit and deal 1d4+1 force damage.
Additionally, if a creature you can see within range makes a melee or ranged attack against you, you may send three darts at that creature as a reaction. In this case, combine the damage of the darts before applying bonuses or penalties to damage, resistances, weaknesses, and so forth.
When you have no more points of light, the spell ends.
The darts launched by this spell are considered to be magic missiles for the purposes of abilities that specifically interact with magic missiles (such as a brooch of shielding).
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Heightened (+1) The number of points of light you create increases by three, and the number of darts you can fire as a reaction increases by one.
I've noticed a lot of PFS adventures are missing the Unique trait on creatures that really should have it, such as named NPCs.
This means that in databases collecting these rules elements - such as Fantasy Grounds or pf2.easytools.es - these creatures get mixed in with the Common bestiary creatures despite being both unique and in many cases adventure spoilers.
(Not sure if this is in the right thread, please move if not)
I'm writing a custom ability for a monster that triggers... well, the current wording is "when this creature is critically hit by an attack that deals fire damage or critically fails its save against a damaging effect with the fire trait...", but that is super wordy.
Could I write, "when this creature takes critical fire damage..." instead? If you read that in a monster stat block, would you understand what it means? Or is there an better way to word what I am going for?
For one, congrats on the #2 spot, Paizo! That's fantastic news, it's great to hear 2e is doing that well.
For two... That little paragraph about four classes not being enough seems very suspicious. And exciting. I hope the author of the article has good sources. :)
One of my players wanted to play a rabbit-person, so I homebrewed some up! I haven't designed higher level ancestry feats yet, since the character is for a level 1 one-shot, but I thought I'd share what I have done.
Had my first experience with this today... Ran an encounter against three carnivorous crystals.
And by "three" I mean by the end of the fight the party had killed nearly 15.
Whoever decided to give an 11th level creature the hit points of a 17th level creature and the AC of a 4th level creature, you are a mad genius and I salute your monster design chops.
I've always been disappointed by the "split" ability in previous editions, it seemed like it rarely came up and when it did it barely mattered. Having a creature that is practically immune to damage except damage that is highly likely to split it is, again, brilliant design.
On the other hand, I'm glad I use a VTT because tracking the hit points of over a dozen oozes was a pain even then.
I love this book so much. It has so many iconic monsters I was missing. Of course ironically it comes out AFTER I finish converting one of my homebrew adventures that could have used those monsters. :P
It's also really cool to see how well the monster creation rules work. I did a homebrew conversion of the cave fisher and the result looks almost exactly like the official version in the Bestiary.
On another note, is it just me or is it really obvious that Paizo was thinking about Kingmaker while working on this book? :P Without spoiling who or what, there is definitely a strong representation of monsters that feature prominently in that adventure.
I was designing an adventure just now and I needed a monster. And as often happens I was flipping through the Bestiary getting annoyed because nothing was exactly what I wanted.
And then I thought, "I'll just build it."
And then I did.
It took me about twenty minutes.
When I was finished, I sat there for an extra five thinking "surely there is some step I have missed... what am I forgetting?"
I have a player who is somewhat upset that she can't get armor runes for her animal companion's barding, and I'm trying to decide how much of a balance issue it would be to allow it or if any changes should be made.
I'm not super familiar yet with the new animal companion math/balance so I'm hoping to get some advice here.
One of my PCs has in her backstory that her now-deceased family owed a not-insignificant amount of money to the Whispering Way.
Currently the party is just starting book 3. At some point in the book 3-5 range I'd like to tug on this plot thread by having some Whispering Way agents come looking to collect from her.
Does anyone have a good idea on a place where some necromancers would logically fit into the story well without being too disruptive? I'm not really seeing anywhere in book 3 that would be super logical (Kintargo isn't super friendly to the Whispering Way, obviously, and I don't see why the Scarlet Triad would be either).
Thread title. Posting this to request for FAQ/errata, since I am well familiar with the arguments on both sides and some official clarification (or an official "flavor text" policy) is I think needed.
Thread title, basically. For a spell I'd never heard of until my Bard player picked it out at 9th level, wow.
So far in both of the fights it's been used in, it turned a rough fight into a complete slaughter. It has the Incap trait, sure, but that doesn't slow it down as much as most spells - "save vs lose an action" is still really good against bosses, and you are probably only casting this if there are also mooks around to hit.
This spell might be my new gold standard of what control casters in 2e should be doing.
This order was originally declined because my card got cancelled due to suspected fraud.
I have since updated my card information, but the order has been sitting at pending for quite a while now. Is there anything else I need to do to help the order go through?
Echoing the barghest thread with some Book 2 spoilers...
My party just attempted the assault on the mine the first time. And "attempted" is definitely the word.
At first they were smart. The sneakiest party member snuck in at night - lucked out on which side she decided to approach from and found Hezle. Negotiated a truce, got some information, retreated back to plan an assault with the party. They lured the vrock away and murdered it quite effectively, then decided to approach from the direction of the vrock's nest since Hezle told them no one goes there.
And then everything went wrong. Upon seeing the full layout of the mine (it had been night before) they decided to be clever, and have the rogue snipe the people in the pit from the rim while the fighty types moved to block off the ramp so no one could escape.
Unfortunately, the fighty types did not do very well on stealth and were quickly spotted by the butchers at the bonfire. Even more unfortunately, the party forgot that charau-ka can climb, and so were not nearly as trapped in a killbox as they thought.
End result was the first time I have ever seen my players actually run away; they managed to kill a lot of the weaker enemies but were quickly pushed back by the butchers (which, I have to say, are really dangerous - their ability to rage, move, and still attack twice while healing and buffing themselves AND inflicting bleed made them a nasty nasty threat). All three of the front liners almost died during the rout and were only saved because of copious healing being on hand. And only some lucky and very dedicated sniping from the rogue stopped one of the butchers from releasing the mkole-mbembe, which certainly would have finished them off.
Everyone escaped alive, but they were beaten so badly that they decided to retreat all the way to Breachill to rest and recover.
A couple sessions ago my party had the distinct... honor... of meeting this fearless adventurer. The meeting was so memorable that one of my players made a comic depicting how it went down. It should be noted for context that Chimes, the typically funloving and easygoing goblin bard, is the leader and face of the group, and Ra'az, the half-orc warpriest, is very protective of her.
