"It's a body, it won't move," Rex insists. "But if we'e not quick, the other one might get away, and it'll take as many swords as you have right now."
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As Rex slips away, his disguise changes, from that of a young barmaid to an older, more raggedly-dressed servant woman. Her illusory left sleeve is tattered by imaginary claws, while faint red lines of phantom blood appear on her shoulder; her face is covered with both mud and bruises. "Help!" the woman calls out. "There's some sort of... tiger... monster..." and sees the corpse and points, "Oh, just like that one! Do you know how to kill it? I can lead you there, quickly, before it gets away and attacks some other poor soul." and she points down an alley in the opposite direction of where the other guards had left to search.
Rex, still in disguise, pops his spring-mounted crossbow out of a large sleeve and fires three special, aligned bolts at the Rakshasa.
He smiles as one of the bolts hits the Rakshasa in the neck with an unsettling smack.
Note to all my games: My monitor just broke, which means I don't have normal internet connection. It'll be 1-2 weeks before it's fixed, so expect slower posting.
"Not sure," Rex replies, "But it's invisible."
"Scroll?" Rex asks, a single word, as he slips the scroll of Align weapon into his hand.
Rex will follow, in his disguise of a nondescript young girl in appropriately plain servants' clothing.
Rex can take the glasses of true seeing if nobody wants them, since he'll be the one firing the most attacks.
"I'd prefer to slip away after," Rex replies. "My weapons and clothing are both hard to spot."
Oh, also, a note to all my games: I'll be donating bone marrow next week. I expect this to be mostly incapacitating wednesday-friday, but how much energy I have in the week before/after to post to games may depend on how much residual pain I'm in from the drugs/procedure etc.
"If you think we're drawing heat, the scrolls might be enough. Though holy water can be purchased legally—it's unholy water that people worry about."
Er... the shenanigans we came up with were that a +1 Bane arrow fired from a +2 bow would become a +2 Bane arrow, but +2 Bane was the minimum to overcome alignment DR.
Er... uh oh. I've forgotten how we were going to use Evil Outsider Bane to overcome the Rakshasa's DR (that gets us to +3; where was the extra +2 coming from?) Also, we still need those scrolls of Align Weapon for my arrows and such.
"Good," responds Rex, from the shadows. "Let's go kill something dangerous."
"And work much better against the weak. Do we even know his ledger system, or handwriting? If it's a prosperous enough guild, the books are likely in some kind of shorthand or code."
Right... I'm just realizing the insanity of the theft once we get up close. A few scrolls of align weapon, and maybe some holy water, would probably be good enough.
Sorry... I got a little confused by the whole transition to "train robbery." But stealing powerful items from a guarded location seems about 100x more suspicious than buying them from a temple, which was originally vetoed as too suspicious.
Err... wait, so we're robbing a heavily-guarded caravan for some extremely cheap ammo/scrolls that we could have easily bought?
At this point I'm ready to just follow orders, pivot in place and shoot, as long as I wind up with access to align weapon or a scroll I can cast from.
Holy weapons are less powerful in this case than bane weapons, but more expensive to buy/produce, though.
Holy weapons = negative levels, though...
"Small weapons. I can give myself room to hide them."
"Right," Rex responds, shrinking into the form of an attractive but poor female half-elf. "Should I try to get a job inside as a barmaid?"
"So what am I doing exactly? Just point and shoot?"
"Rex. I'm just here for the job."
"It'll take a strong poison to bring down a creature like that," Rex comments, "Though I can provide a few weak ones, if necessary."
Nope, Alexia. Falcon's Aim's improved multiplier doesn't stack with improved critical's improved range, so the best I can do is 17-20/x3. I can't cast align weapon, and neither can Jidhuun. However, dev FAQs suggest that I *can* read it from a scroll, using a caster level check, though it might annoy my deity for a while afterwards, possibly having short-term repercussions on my spellcasting. Jidhuun can actually just use Bane to punch through alignment DR, so that should be okay.
"Right, then. We'll need a scroll or two of Align Weapon. I can probably take the thing out, but working as a team would be appreciated, especially in handling allies or bystanders. Anyone who can use a scroll and piercing weapon will be useful. Holy water's nice, but with only one day to prep before the takedown, might not be an option."
Evidence suggests Bracers of the Falcon stacks with crossbow training, but isn't as good as Improved Critical. 19-20/x4, on average, increases damage by 30%; 17-20/x3, on average, increases damage by 40% (there's a reason why Falcatas are exotic), though boosting confirmation rolls (relatively easy) pumps damage up more. ...and that's probably more than enough discussion for the rest of the party. Basically: Bolt Ace isn't as powerful as Pistolero, but it's still a really sweet archetype for assassins. * * * Without Abundant Ammunition, the Weapon Balm is useless because of the time it takes to apply. We could still use some Holy Water, if nothing else just to throw at the thing. But you can buy Holy Water without raising too many eyebrows, it's used in lots of spells.
Hand Crossbow:
Rapid Reload:
Don't worry, I did my homework on *this* character. My crit rate is good, but when I get Improved Critical (likely level 11) it goes up to a slightly better 17-20/x3. I can also spend grit to attack vs touch, which gets really good with support spells like Named Bullet (mostly at real high levels, though, when warpriest kicks my crossbow damage way up). I can also attack at a range of 300' with no range penalty thanks to Warpriest. Of course, a full Bolt Ace can do even crazier stuff; at level 11 you can reload a crossbow as "not an action."
Whoooa, got it, I never knew they released yet another Ultimate Combat errata (what is this, #3?). So does this make Abundant Ammunition literally useless? (Also, a crossbow can make way more attacks than a bow. It'll take me until level 9, but then with dual-wielding I'll be hucking 5 arrows/round pre-haste, and by level 11 that's at 6 attacks with higher damage than a longbow) Forgot about Angelskin, but it would definitely be an AC hit.
Hmm. Holy Weapon Balm and Holy Water are both alchemical, which means they should presumably be duplicable with Abundant Ammo (unless GM says no; but unlike the fancy poisons I previously proposed, this alchemical ammo costs less than a typical adamantine arrow, which is what the spell is normally used to duplicate). ... so we might only need to buy one of each, and at those small quantities, many super-good temples will sell to you immediately without batting an eye. (I have an evil aura, though, so I shouldn't be going into temples in the first place)
Maybe we make it look like a contract killing with no direct guild involvement? Rex's signature—dead bodies shot full of holes caused by arrows that have since vanished—has previously shown up in high-profile assassinations, and was once used by his entire now-defunct death cult of religious assassins-for-hire.
Align Weapon is by far the most important, and it helps Jidhuun a lot as well.
Hushing Arrows are useless. Spell Storing arrows, targeted at the floor, work quite well. The damage output on something like Haste is dozens of times higher than Acid Arrow, though...
Hmm. Well, I forgot about my Silence Arrow. Which means (we'll need some scrolls, but...) both Jidhuun and I can cast both Align Weapon and Silence. If holy water arrows damage these things, we should be able to duplicate it with Abundant Ammunition. ...but yeah, we can't fight a Maharaja. Any way we can gather intel on what sort of spells it's capable of—or what its animal form looks like? Also, Glitterdust will punch through SR, and you've got other spells that could be really useful in a fight (Haste, etc). Jidhuun and Rex are both spec'd for piercing; Drovic's got Black Tentacles, Dispel Magic, and Vomit Swarm as spells especially useful in a caster fight. I'm not sure what combat role, exactly, Nyx has, but her knowledge is going to be the only way we know anything.
Can anyone else on the team cast silence? That takes spell casting out of the picture.
Ah. Good call. Rakshasas don't have the evil subtype, which means the bane trick isn't valid (or it would need a different subtype than "evil") But Align Weapon would be probably the most useful (and a scroll we can get from *any* temple). I don't know if Angel Quill arrows would be useful.
-Not sure what to do with the bar
As for the Rakshasa, we need three things:
2. That holy weapon balm, as well as some holy water, because both are neat (but not enough to kill a rakshasa without 3!) 3. A way to overcome DR/good. This is VITAL; without it, we won't be able to damage the thing, and it'll pick us off like appetizers (and we need to achieve 1 to KNOW about it). There are a few ways to go about this: -3A. A scroll (or three) of bless weapon and someone with the UMD high enough to use it. -3B. A scroll of Align Weapon, and an inquisitor to cast it (alternately, I can cast it from a scroll as a warpriest, though it'll burn a whole round of combat and my god will be pissed with me) -3C. A +1 Fiend-bane arrow. These are 360 gp a pop, and I'd probably need, like, 10 of them to kill the thing, so maybe not ideal. With grit, I can attack 3x/round, and roughly 1/2 of those attacks should hit; with Align Weapon, they pierce its DR completely. Holy Weapon Balm + Raining Bolts means an extra 2d4+2d6 damage per hit (an average of ~25). If the rest of the party throws down spells and smack downs to keep the thing from charging me or fleeing, I might be able to DPS it to death (possibly aided by damage melee or spells)
"Rex," the tall man replies, and his hair and skin change color to something slightly different. "The other details aren't salient. Maybe you've heard of my kills. I'm new talent, an excellent shot with a crossbow, and that's all that matters." "From what I understood, though, a rakshasa is one of those monsters that needs a holy blessing to take down, and that's not my expertise."
"Rakshasa are dangerous," Rex comments. "Perfect assassins. Most weapons won't touch them. How would we get around that?"
Soul Seer I find is most useful for fighting hidden undead. Darkness is the "poof, smoke bomb," though (it's a spell I can learn/swift cast at level 9, but I figure might as well stick with the classic tie fling here, or else replace the boon with another +2 Dex)
All that's fair and whatnot; but at least one tiefling should be able to throw down darkness, and I figure that's pretty thematic for Rex anyway.
That's true. Which is why a silenced tetori is the ultimate anti-caster. Still, really loving the amount of darkness and darkvision on this team. (And at level 9, I'll be able to cast silence on myself as a swift action, which is a neat trick).
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