Noctifer Umbria's page

I'm fine waiting too.

Plus there seems to be a serious RP decision on whether Jassminder decides to shoot the Forlarren.

I'll make it three; weekend is up and I'll be watching football.

Noctifer's eyes narrows when he hears the remaining forlarren mention "Dag(something)"...

"Is it here? But where? Only 2 Glitterdust; I can't be wrong."

Noctifer continues to watch for signs of another creature besides the forlarren or for one of his allies to find Dag, even if it's by being attacked by it.

Delay, hoping to catch sight of Dag.

Readying Glitterdust in case Dag makes an appearance or at least if Noctifer believes he can identify a 10' area he might be in.

Jassminder gives a one-shoulder shrug, as she draws the bowstring back and prepares to fire one of her cold iron arrows at the unsuspecting creature. "If I Fall for this, I'm taking you with me. Just so you know."

Assuming this is a surprise round which means standard action only, not a full-round action

[dice=Longbow]d20+9
[dice=Damage]d8+3

[dice=Confirm]d20+9
[dice=Critical damage]3d8+9

I need you to buy me a lottery ticket. :P

Jassminder has one hand drawing an arrow from her quiver even as the others are speaking; but she holds fire for a moment. Her face is thoughtful. "I'm not a murderer. I could be, easily, which is why it's important that I'm not. The shadow mastiff was one thing, they're bad news. But these..." She shakes her head before looking at Noctifer. "I'll cover you if you want to try talking to them."

Readying an action to open fire if/when hostilities start

"Forlarren tend to take more after their fiendish fathers than their fey mothers, although they do inherit the resistance to weapons other than cold iron. They hate other creatures for being granted the love and acceptance that they themselves are not and will viciously use their claws to try and rip them apart. I don't see Diplomacy as an option."

Noctifer (and I believe Marcus) are both waiting for Jassminder to fire first. She doesn't have any of the feats/traits/etc. to bypass cover provided by allies.
The hope/plan was that in attacking them (since we can't see Dag) that if Dag makes an 'appearance', so to speak, Ussaile might be able to Faerie Fire him or Noctifer might be able to Glitterdust him.
At least that's what I thought.

Noctifer waits with the rest of the group for Marcus and/or Jassminder to initiate combat.

If that's what we're doing.

"Good point. I think Noctifer and I should still try to approach the area stealthily slightly away from you so he does not see our full strength at first." Marcus says reprising the situation.

"I'd like to agree but we may need to be in close contact with the others. Ussaile can see Dag and 'point him out' for me to cast Glitterdust on him."

The lighting is dim and unlikely to get any brighter. I messed up and described where you were going as a “clearing” a couple times but it’s not; the trees are going to stay close enough together to keep it dim. (You’re effectively in Mirkwood if that helps you visualize things.)

Is the plan to wait ten minutes for Ussaile to prep another faerie fire, then drink darkvision potions/cast See Invisibility and stealthily move forward? Would you prefer I roll stealth for you or would you like to roll it yourselves?

Sounds like it. Those without low-light vision should also use the Nightdrops.

The faerie fire lights up the startled mastiff, who swivels its head to look at your group just in time for an arrow to pierce through its eye. It stumbles to one side, groaning, before the second and third arrows put it out of its misery.

With this obstacle removed you can freely follow the stream. If Nadia's hunch is correct Dag should be less than thirty minutes away.

How close do you want to try to get before doing pre-battle buffing? Also, will you be trying to approach stealthily or no?

As stealthily as possible I would think and I'd recommend any hour per level buffs now and probably even 10 minute per level ones too.

Xanther never needed to cast that second Remove Fear; Jassminder killed the mastiff before anyone else took their first turn. Poor thing, all it wanted was a drink of water...

Nah it was an evil creature bent on destroying us. :P

Noctifer eyes Jassminder and her bow.

"It's howl causes panic in a 300' range."

I am very sorry for my sudden disappearance. I ended up in the hospital unexpectedly and was in no shape to post. I'm still recovering but doing much better now.

It's going to take a bit for me to catch up but I should be able to move you all forward either today or tomorrow.

Like Xanther said take your time and focus on getting better.

So who are we waiting on?

Apparently no one.

Then let's go.

Hopefully the formatting isn't too hideous. Here's what I have so far:

Items Sold Value Sale Value
Bag of Gold – Upfront 250
Lock Box Gold 65.3
Candle of Truth 2500 1250
Studded Leather Armor [2] 50 25
Masterwork Chain Shirt 250 125
Dagger [4] 8 4
MW Shortsword 310 155
Composite Shortbow (+1 Str) 150 75
Wand of Dominate Person 1800 900
Bag of Gold 2 348
3197.3

Items Purchased Quantity Cost
Scroll of Daylight 1 375
Scroll of Remove Fear 1 25
Potion of Darkvision 2 600
Cold Iron Daggers 6 24
Sun Rods 6 12
Tanglefoot Bag 2 100
Tangleburn Bag 2 400
Nightdrops 1 250
Ioun Torch 1 75
1861

So we've sold just under 3,200 GP worth of stuff and purchased 1,861 GP worth of stuff.
I didn't include the +1 Dagger in the sale items; I can't remember who had it but someone didn't have a magic weapon?
I also pulled the Scroll of Continual Flame; it's on the Oracle spell list and, while L3, Xanther can activate it by rolling at least 2 on a CL check.
Xanther: I subbed out the Miner's Lamp for an Ioun Torch since the Ioun Torch doesn't need fuel. If you want Xanther to have the Miner's Lamp we have plenty of coin to spare.
In fact the group has 1,336.3 GP remaining if anyone wants to purchase anything else.
Marcus suggested nets?

Ideally I'd like to hear from Ussaile but we haven't heard from her in a bit so not sure how long we want to wait.

So, should we roll for what's available?

I would prefer if a player feels an item on the loot sheet is necessary for his PC that they claim it. If they don't 'need' it hopefully we can put it in the community pool to purchase items for use.

Noctifer is good at ranged attacks so he can carry either the Tanglefoot or Tangleburn bag. I'd say at least two of each of those just in case; the Tanglefoot bag is quite useful even at this level.
Does Jasminder have cold iron arrows?
I'd also recommend items like Holy Weapon Balm in case we face more shadows of the undead variety.

Let's work on a finalized list and hopefully have it done by the end of the weekend?

Anyone who doesn't have a cold iron weapon should buy one (or ammo for a bow/crossbow) and possibly scrolls of Magic Weapon since they're relatively cheap.

We might also want to see if anyone has this:
Holy Weapon Balm

And maybe scrolls of Protection from Evil in case we have additional undead shadows to fight.

Potions of Darkvision are 300 GP so we should spring for at least 2 of them, one each for Jassminder and Ussaile.

Nightdrops are 250 GP but that's for 5 doses and gives low-light vision for 1 hour.

If you want a 'cheap' mundane light source just go for a Sunrod. They're only 2 GP each, don't have to worry about them going out or irritating the fey in the forest by having fire.

I think Cold Iron has to be bought at the same rate as regular ammo so you'd need to spend 2 GP but get 10 bolts. Noctifer has 40 cold iron bolts if you're worried about spending coin.

If we don't sell the (+1 Str) Shortbow, Noctifer is proficient with it but I'd need to buy some cold iron arrows for it.

I think both Tanglefoot and Tangleburn bags are worth the 50 GP and 200 GP respectively. Tangleburn's fire should eliminate it's ability to 'hide' from us targeting it with Glitterdust or something similar. Or give Ussaile a chance to grapple it since she'll know what square it's in.

"I also suggest we should also refer to the Lamp Blighter in code. So we do not alert it to our intentions." Xanther adds. "I propose 'Uncle Lambert', with time as direction and distance. So when Ussaile says, 'by the way, I have a meeting with Uncle Lambert at 6:25'. What she really means is the Lamp Blighter is at her 6 o'clock, 25 feet away."

Noctifer chuckles, "You and your numbers! Ingenious though and I agree although it will certainly understand the code but hopefully that first advantage in our favor will prove decisive."

I would go with interpretation 1. Daylight + Darkness = Ambient Light, but both spells are still technically active. Another casting of Darkness would have no effect.

A third level Continual Flame would work but you'd have a hard time getting Miklos to cast it for you right now. Currently all his third level spell slots are dedicated to Remove Disease. You'd have to convince him that Dag is a more immediate threat than tallowthroat and the potential undead shadows that might appear from tallowthroat victims.

FYI (and Nadia would know this) lamp blighters can't actually fly. They have wings but no fly speed. Sorry, I realize now the picture was misleading but it was the best one I could find.

The problem with interpretation 1 is this section which is in both the descriptions for Daylight and Darkness:

I'd say sell the wand and the dagger to use the cash.

I agree that if the daylight bottle only gives a 5' square then specific rules trump general rules.

If the blighter can cast darkness at will then darkvision is far superior to daylight, obviously but there it is.

Since the blighter can fly, a few tanglefoot bags would be great and that gets to why I was recommending taking some huntsmen with nets. They may get lucky if it gets low enough.

The +1 Dagger is the last thing I'd sell unless every PC has a magical weapon. As the undead shadows showed anyone without a magical weapon could be up the creek without a paddle.

I've put the Loot List into a spreadsheet. I took out the Wand of CLW and the Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds. I left in both the +1 Dagger and the Wand of Dominate Person; we can decide to 'pull' items from the list if we wish. If we keep the +1 Dagger and Wand of Dominate in the 'sell' pile we'd have 4,424.3 GP to work with.
If we remove the +1 Dagger, the total is 3,272.3.
If we remove the +1 Dagger and the Wand of Dominate, the total is 2,372.3.
If we remove the Wand of Dominate, the total is 3,523.3.

I am also not a rule expert but the above reasoning makes sense and suggests that the bottled sunshine is not our panacea.

If Daylight requires an opposed check to counter the Darkness then I would prefer the Darkvision potions, if only because they don't need you to be lucky - they just work.

For Glitterdust, remember that what made it work vs Ilquis was that we knew where to target it; we're going to need See Invisibility as well (apologies if that point's already been raised, I know I missed a fair bit; but it's important enough to be worth raising twice).

Replying to both players; this is the spell description for Daylight:

Daylight

This is the relevant portion:
"Daylight brought into an area of magical darkness (or vice versa) is temporarily negated, so that the otherwise prevailing light conditions exist in the overlapping areas of effect.

Daylight counters or dispels any darkness spell of equal or lower level, such as darkness."

So it would dispel the Darkness. But! at the risk of giving our GM "Evil Ideas" (tm) in ye olden days of 3.5 in Living Greyhawk and Living Arcanis there were creatures like the Lamp Blighter and what they would do is take advantage of the reverse of the text in Daylight and, since they cast Darkness at will, it would take it 2 rounds to make the area magically dark - again. Now that likely means 2 rounds of standard actions but, since it's a flier, that's not as big of a disadvantage as it would be if it were ground based. It's a very well picked monster since it has two difficult to overcome (at L4) means of defending itself.

I think we players should start by agreeing on what we want to sell from the loot, what we want to keep, so we know how much we have to spend. Then decide what items to buy.
Another 'cheap item', just to throw this in there, that I'd advise buying (because it's a weird rule area) are Nightdrops.

Jassminder Shah wrote:

Jassminder nods approvingly as Noctifer seamlessly recites the events so far, listing details she would consider unimportant like names. He may be a chatterbox, but this is good work. She frowns in thought. "Invisibility we can get around, one way or another. Magical darkness will be an issue, if it will overpower magical light." She pulls an ioun stone from out of her pouch; it burns with a heatless flame as it circles around her.

"This works in normal darkness, but even then only out to a few feet. Beyond that, I won't be able to shoot anything reliably." Not that being blinded prevented her from putting Ilquis down; but you can't rely on luck going your way every time. She puts the circling stone back in her pouch. "Can you tell me if that will work against a lamp-blight's darkness? Otherwise we're going to need two more darkvision potions." Noctifer and Marcus can see in the dark without problem, she knows that from experience. But she, Ussaile and Xanther will need assistance.

"Unlikely, unless you paid extra for it, but I'll check." Nadia casts Detect Magic, a spell you're all familiar enough with to not require any assistance identifying, then shakes her head. "No. The continual flame spell cast on that stone isn't strong enough to overcome a darkness spell."

"How about this item?"

"I think we should try and procure one Scroll of Remove Fear as well." Xanther adds. "Carried by someone who can use it effectively, other than me. That way, if I am disabled by a fear attack, they can rescue me."

"I can use a Scroll of Remove Fear."

Sorry all, it turned out to be Covid which flattened me for a few days. Catching up now, looks like I missed a lot!

Yikes at least you're better! We can take turns with the bicycle air pump to unflatten you if need be. ;)

Noctifer Umbria wrote:

Sounds good but we also have the issue of working on a budget. I'm sure most of the PCs were built with most, if not all, of their starting gold spent. So we'll need to see which items from the Loot will be sold/traded for the various items we need.

You'll get the standard 50% value for anything you sell, (aka what's listed on the loot sheet). That candle of truth is worth quite a bit :)

Yes it is. :) It could have some use in the module but, again, this comes down to what do we want to keep vs. what do we want to sell. And some of that is influenced by what and how much we're buying.

Grappled creatures are also easier to see... Kind of.

Quote:

A grappled creature cannot use Stealth to hide from the creature grappling it, even if a special ability, such as hide in plain sight, would normally allow it to do so. If a grappled creature becomes invisible, through a spell or other ability, it gains a +2 circumstance bonus on its CMD to avoid being grappled, but receives no other benefit.

But yeah Faerie Fire is not as good as Glitterdust. Darn Wizards getting all the good stuff!

@Xanther: I can prepare 2 See Invisibility spells, and a 3rd if I drop Cat's Grace but I feel like that one may be useful for raw numbers.

I don't have as much PFS experience as others here but I know there are all kinds of archetypes which force tradeoffs for class abilities. I mention that because, according to Archives of Nethys, Glitterdust is a 2nd level spell for Witches. So we could buy one (or more) scrolls of Glitterdust and Ussaile could use them.

Good catch everyone! I was just, uh, testing you. Definitely didn’t forget to check if Glitterdust was susceptible to SR, no siree Bob.

To speed up the shopping (unless you want to roleplay it out), there is a 75% chance of any individual item 400gp or less being available. You can make your lists here in discussion, roll to see if they’re purchasable, and discuss alternatives if not. Does that sound good to everyone?

Sounds good but we also have the issue of working on a budget. I'm sure most of the PCs were built with most, if not all, of their starting gold spent. So we'll need to see which items from the Loot will be sold/traded for the various items we need.

Noctifer has a +7 to ranged attacks so he can also hurl one.
With 17 SR I don't give any of us a chance at penetrating that unless you have both feats.
DR/10 Cold Iron is no joke either; anyone who plans on fighting the fey who doesn't have a cold iron weapon needs to get one. Even if you do have one you may want to invest in a cold iron dagger and a wrist sheath in the case of a grapple.
Noctifer has a cold iron rapier but it isn't MW or magical. Hopefully we can find scrolls and/or oils of magic weapon for sale.
There's also some 'old school' remedies like a tanglefoot bag followed by bag(s) of flour to keep it visible.
I don't know how experienced all of you are with 3.X/Pathfinder so if you have a question about something Xanther, Noctifer, or Nadia revealed post it here so we can discuss it. :)
We should also 'budget' with the loot we have and see what we want to sell/trade for what items we need. Alchemical weapons are usually a great buy; a creature like this probably has a decent touch AC so it won't be easy.

@GM: Just a point of reference Glitterdust does not appear to have SR:

Glitterdust

"Saving Throw Will negates (blinding only); Spell Resistance no"

"Many thanks Nadia. It's not an exaggeration to say this information might save our lives."

"They also have magical arrows which can inflict bleed, fear or sleep." Xanther says, suddenly feeling more grateful for his elf ancestry.

He turns to Nadia "Thank you for your help. Do you happen to sell magical supplies as well?"

** spoiler omitted **

"And in case you think that's all they can do if its invisibility fails it will move into melee range and its claws do far more damage than their arrows. With lucky strikes or if attacking a helpless opponent they can even pluck out their victim's eyes."

"We also have the Bottled Sunshine to perhaps 'enlighten' his attempts to darken the area. Given its wings we may need to either ground it or get one of us in the air."

Noctifer will ask Nadia if she has, or know anyone in Karpad who has, for sale items such as a tanglefoot bag, potion of fly, scroll of see invisibility, and potions or scrolls of blur.

"Don't forget that when we seemed to be about to win the fight he sent the woman out to unleash the sunlight spell. An obvious signal for something I would think." Marcus chimes in.

"From what Neliana said that was to wait for Ilquis to escape us and give her new orders. I'm guessing he had some kind of escape plan or option to restart the ritual."

"On a perhaps different topic would you know anything about an item called 'The Midnight Mirror'?

@GM: Not replying to shorten the 'wall o' text'. :)

Noctifer retrieves his journal and begins reading his notes:

"There were seven corpses in total, all of which have been dead for about a week The PCs were told the names but they weren't listed out; Noctifer would include that information. I don't know if some or all of those were used to summon 'Dag' or if those were after its arrival. Ilquis used a wand of Dominate Person to compel Judy Potts, Neliana Mallus, and Fane Cline into helping him. When we interrupted their plans they had kidnapped Delian and Olya and had them in cauldrons filled with wax. The children were told they could 'survive without food for a few days' so it seemed Ilquis needed more sacrifices? Judy was ensorceled nine days ago, Neliana four, and Fane six. Ilquis had Judy selling candles in the store, ordered Fane to keep him safe, and had Neliana stay in the basement 'to protect him until the time came for the ritual.' Apparently Catalina was either working for Ilquis willingly or was the first ensorceled by the wand.
Judy gave us this information about what Ilquis was doing or if he was talking with anyone else: 'Otherwise sometimes I've heard him arguing with someone. I didn't see anyone else in the room but there was another voice. It said that this was stupid, that Master Ilquis was wasting his wand playing god over a bunch of mortals when they could have just stayed in the forest and grabbed a few lumberers. Master Ilquis insisted this was better because there wasn't any chance of the ritual being interrupted here.' And then this:
'The first time I heard them talking was six days ago, at night. I could see Master Ilquis but not the person he was talking to. They didn't seem to like each other much. Master Ilquis was saying that the other person, Dag-something, was the last thing he wanted to summon. Then three days ago I heard them arguing again, also at night. That's when Dag said they should just stay in the Ombrefell and take lumberers since Master Ilquis had wasted his wand.'
I think that's the extent of what we have learned about the fey situation; if any of my associates wish to chime in?"

I don't know if I've missed anything related to the fey or not so if I have, please post it as dialogue for Nadia.

Taking 10 on Diplomacy for a 20 plus Noctifer will spend an Inspiration point:
Inspiration: 1d6 ⇒ 3
For a total of 23 barring any aids from the rest of the group.

"Greetings Mother Nadia, I am Noctifer Umbria. Some in Karpad may call us heroes but we're still quite a distance from such a title in my estimation. We come to you on the recommendation of Aunt Eugenia Boroi who said you would be the one to know about fey. In case word has not reached you we killed a fey creature named Ilquis that was a Lurker in Light. There is at least one other fey creature with either a name or designation of 'Dag'-something; our witness wasn't sure of its full name. It seems like Ilquis summoned this 'Dag', wasn't happy about it, and was hoping to use its help to summon something else. In fact the kidnapped children were part of a kidnapping ring that killed several residents of Karpad. This 'Dag' thought Ilquis and it should stick to the woodsmen working in the forest. I'm also sure some townspeople have sought your wisdom about curing the disease called 'Tallowthroat.' A development you may not be aware of is that Catalina died from Tallowthroat and birthed undead shadows. So we find ourselves requesting any information you may have on this development with Tallowthroat plus any information about the fey in the area, where they are, and what they might be trying to summon with all of the sacrifices."

Hi all

unfortunately I've come down with a bug, I won't be posting for another 12-24 hours or so at least. Please bot me as needed.

Ack! :( Get better soon!

And for some odd reason I didn't see Ussaile's or Jassminder's posts until about 20 minutes ago...weird!

Jassminder pauses with a forkful of food halfway to her mouth and closes her eyes, willing away her exasperation. "Are you incapable of a straight answer, or are you just abusing the fact that it would be wrong of me to hurt you?" She glances to Noctifer. "Can I get a plain answer from someone who speaks Taldan rather than Cryptic?"

Plan B is that she stabs one of them repeatedly with her fork until they spill the answers, and then seeks atonement somewhere. She won't do that, ever, and they know it. But a girl always needs to have a plan B.

"The plain answer is no one knows for certain what, or who, happened to Henric and Iozif. We heard speculation from Ionela about the rumors Ussaile is alluding to. Perhaps we'll learn more along the way?"

"Who's Iozif and Henric? Brothers? Uncles?" Marcus asks.

"Baron Stepan's brothers and apparently in front of him in the line of succession until they died. At around the same time from some type of 'illness'."

Sorry, busy few days, weekends have other commitments.

** spoiler omitted **

At lunch, Jassminder piles her plate high as if she'd skipped breakfast, which she didn't. Between ravenous mouthfuls, she answers Noctifer's question. "Xanther and I had a talk with Anya. There were lots of feelings but nothing useful to learn." She notes the tiefling's emphasis on his words. "And what did Eugenia draw your attention to?"

"She didn't know much of the history of Dimitri Boroi beyond what we learned in the library. She did say that Nadia, the hedge witch, is the person to talk to about fey and that, if there are any in the are, Nadia would know. So it appears she is our next stop."

When the group convenes for lunch Noctifer asks the others, "So what did the rest of you do and learn? Aunt Eugenia is certainly a devoted and attentive relative despite her current status."

Noctifer Umbria wrote:

I'm guessing we'll meet for a 2nd breakfast for Marcus and Xanther and discuss what we've learned? Except for:

** spoiler omitted **

I would agree. In character it makes no sense to just blurt that. Also sorry, post got eaten by Paizo and only noticed it today.

The server gets hungry too nom nom nom!

I'm guessing we'll meet for a 2nd breakfast for Marcus and Xanther and discuss what we've learned? Except for:

"So, what did the ghost say? Anything we can use?" Marcus asks. "Are we going to go speak with the loggers or go find the witch lady?"

"Actually one of the more important pieces of information Aunt Eugenia gave us is that Nadia the hedge witch is the person to speak to about fey. Hopefully she'll have a better idea what other fey are or might be around and what Ilquis and Dag were trying to summon."

Noctifer waits until the others partake of the food before making his selections...just in case...