Ryll Korr's page

Honestly Graelsis , your problem is not the paladin, but rather the entire group for resting too often. You need to find some way to push them.

If you let your characters all go supernova every encounter and then rest, they are going to breeze through every fight and later your other PCs are going to be just as much a problem.

Part II: (this one is aimed at you paladins)

Let's assume that the mystical powers of Golarion would instantly take away your paladin powers for using wolfsbane this way.

As a paladin of the Dawnflower, if my ally were infected with Lycanthropy and my only option were wolfsbane. I would without question use it, even if it meant I would fall.

This is my ally, my friend! How could I watch him or her become an uncontrollable killing machine and live with myself? I would trade in all my power right now to save him if I could.

It is never wrong to do the right thing.
This is my life as a Paladin. If Sarenrae disapproves, we will have to talk about it later.

Part I:

This...

As is most often the case, the one thing a Paladin has to fear is a bad GM.

and...

Many times the difference between poison and medicine is merely dosage and application.

For example

A paladin won't fall by giving an apple to a friend. (I assume we can all agree here.)
But ...
1. Apples contain arsenic
2. Arsenic is a poison
3. Paladin must fall for giving an apple to a friend.

Intent and dosage people... you cannot possibly believe that Sarenrae would punish one of her Paladins for trying to cure someone of a horrid curse of Lycanthropy. It is as ridiculous as falling for giving a friend an apple.

Ryll Korr wrote:

As a Paladin of Serenae, I would under no circumstances accept the surrender of something beyond punishment or redemption, such as a lich, demon, dragon, monstrosity of Lamashtu, nor certainly any worshipper or spawn of the rough beast.

** spoiler omitted **

---
There are very specific acts that are clear cut...

So what ur saying is that some creatures are far from redemption even if you are as good as u can?

Ahhh little goblin ... I am not sure if you or your clan has ever encountered creatures such as these. I have faced many head on and yet still stand here. Unlike your kind, which have a penchant for violence but can also be reasoned with, bribed, or intimidated, there are such creatures so vile that they would never actually change their behavior or desires. Not that such a creature would ever offer surrender anyway, but what should I do if a Pit Fiend offered surrender with a "promise" to no longer hurt innocents? Believe such a foul creature? Hah, never!.

No, I have not decided such creatures are too far from redemption; they have decided that for themselves. Further, should you become familiar with the Code of Sarenrae, you might see that the Dawnflower sees no good in such creatures as well, especially those vile enough to worship the Rough Beast.

Should one show that it has truly changed or would like to, then yes I might consider it. Such a thing has never happened in the course of my adventures however.

As a Paladin of Serenae, I would under no circumstances accept the surrender of something beyond punishment or redemption, such as a lich, demon, dragon, monstrosity of Lamashtu, nor certainly any worshipper or spawn of the rough beast.

---
There are very specific acts that are clear cut evil. There is otherwise a lot of variation in what a Paladin would or wouldn't do based on code, justification of the situation, deity, interpretation of Golarion or regional law, etc.

The fight is much more interesting when the Fighter can't simply dim door next to Karzoug at lay into him. Instead, he has to run through a gauntlet of difficult terrain dodging spells/arrows and battling a dragons and giants the whole way.

-Skeld

Having played through this, I definitely agree, it was way more interesting and fun this way (though I do like crazy challenges).

Heh, Skeld made things quite a bit more difficult on us even over that, well except the Climb checks, as that would have been truly evil. We could not Teleport, nor fly, anywhere within Xin Shalast. There were no more shopping adventures once we hit the mountain ... :)

I will add that with the ramp approach, it was a little hard to keep the mini's in position on the ramps. With haste up <most likely for any party>, it was at least easier to get through the ramp sections without having to stop.

You may want to consider something that lets the characters stay in place, even something simple like toothpicks to jam into the board behind them, but at the same time this was only an issue for us a few times during the fight (who wants to be fighting from lower steps anyway ...)

No, it was more of all that pre-buffing strategy we did before going through the portal, then using the quill to find out that most likely our buffs were going to be stripped, and then re-doing the pre-buffing strategy just in case there was a chance that not all of the temporary buffs were going to be stripped ...

Most blessed Sarenrae, this is Ryll, your faithful Paladin who only recently defeated Runelord Karzoug, and I have a confession to make.

I cannot shake the feeling of disappoint I may have caused you while my friends and I were stuck in the Runeforge with all of the various minions the Runelords had left behind. After numerous difficult battles, we wandered down into the Sloth wing and encountered the disgusting, corpulent wizard, Jorimandus, who presumably had some hellish icor pumping from his heart. I knew this man was trouble and beyond redemption, but I decided to let him live his putrid life out, trapped in Runeforge, Rule of Refuse.

If you can recall, we had only just recently learned how big a threat Runelord Karzoug was to Golarion, and my main goal became escaping Runeforge and hunting Karzoug. So, when Jorimandus offered us a deal to leave him alone to rule the rivers of dung in exchange for information on defeating the denizens of the other wings, and on escaping Runeforge, I must confess that I agreed and kept my word.

My goddess, if feel as though the good fight has been won, but if it be your will, give me a sign and I will return to send the oozelord Jorimandus to the judgment seat of Pharasma.

Here is a link to the majority of pictures we took of the battleground ...

Album Link

So for me the most memorable moments of that last fight were:

• The Oh *bleep* moment when we realized Soril wasn't joining the fight anytime soon (about halfway up the major ramp).
  
• When all my attacks and saves hit the -8 point due to the various symbols after reaching the top level
  
• And the biggest was when I Burst of Speed through the Rune Giant's threatened area to establish a flank with Gorm or Tolgun, but completely and totally forgot the brilliant energy sword the giant was holding. Then, my fears were totally confirmed when the giant did 170 damage on a full attack vs. my non-armor/shield AC, bring me into Hero's Defiance land (I did prepare 5 of them I think though), and Tolgun says "I can't get there..."
  

I don't understand all of these "no healing during combat" people. We would have been complete toast without combat healing. Of course, we also have 7 character and are playing against supe'd up monsters, and so maybe that is it.

I really did enjoy the RotRL AP. The Runeforge especially was unique and a lot of fun. It had a great number of dragon encounters, which I love personally as well. I also really liked the Paladin, though I am almost definitely going back to full caster next time.

Oh, yeah, the thing that lets me transfer the Smite Evil ability to the party isn't a spell. It is the Paladin's Aura of Justice feature (11th level). It is hands down very likely one of the most awesome class features out there, especially when you have a large party. The only reason I didn't use it more often is that we rarely ever stayed within 10 ft of each other, haha.

Kill steal!

Actually, it would be awesome to keep track of who got the last killing blow in our campaigns ...

Here is the picture I took (guilty parties have been cropped out):

Linky

Ryll Korr wrote:

After nearly killing the party, and many innocents in Golarion, with a extremely poor tactical decision, (hey, it was late!), Ryll is retiring in Sandpoint.

Don't forget there's still a Barghest under Thistletop that Ryll talked about eliminating. You can probably take it all by yourself now.

-Skeld

I should hope so!

The 3d battle setup was completely awesome. Mcstretch took a picture at the start of every round; it would be great to get those into a album. I took one at the beginning of the fight that I could get linked in pretty easy.

After nearly killing the party, and many innocents in Golarion, with a extremely poor tactical decision, (hey, it was late!), Ryll is retiring in Sandpoint.