True. Mr. Winky's perception probably means that he could read the runes from further away, maybe even outside their area of effect, especially if they are written larger than normal (which I don't see any reason you couldn't do). You could use this tactic for carpet bombing, but I don't think it would work for doing more than 6d6 damage to one creature, since any other runes inside the AoE would be destroyed.
Maybe you could place several of them in a circle, outside each other's AoEs but with their AoEs all overlapping. You can do up to 5 this way (assuming they are all laid out on a plane... you can get at least 7 if you start suspending them off the ground... if you can also place them lower than the target, you can get that number up to 8 or 9), but the overlap area would be very small. You can get more overlap with fewer sources. Placing them at the corners of a cube is easy, and turns out to be just about ideal in terms of overlap.
30d6 (5 runes, pentagon or pyramid formation) would give an average damage of 105 (minimum 30, maximum 180), which is nothing to sneeze at. 48d6 (8 runes, cube formation) gives you 48-288 with an average of 168.
If you place them at the minimum distance from one another, with no overlap, but taking advantage of the fact that the target extends into the space of the all of them, you can go for an icosahedral configuration (12 points). That would bring the damage up to 72-432, with an average of 252, but you're risking some of them missing. While laying out an accurate cube requires an accurate 90 degree reference angle ("good enough" is fairly easy, really accurate is not), but you can measure out a perfect icosahedron with just three equal-length sticks.
Yous follows da map to go to da horse house. Yous is attacked by seagulls! There's three regular seagulls 'n' one big one, almost as big as Boar. Da big seagull haves big beak dat droops down under.
Kn: Nature DC5:
The "big seagull" he is describing sounds more like a pelican.
Da Bosun rolls a bunch of dice, then after growling at the results and spitting on the floor, says Yous all goes first. But yous can't reach da seagull 'cause theys flying above yous.
Erin speaks up for the first time. I... sing? she says, uncertainly, like a chicken.
Chicken's song makes yous all better at fightin' 'n' more brave.
Nikeisha is fine for items, and won't care much about two GP.
Quint needs a 45gp armor upgrade (minus whatever he can get for his current armor) and a 50gp set of tinker's tools. He should also buy some new clothes (mostly for flavor purposes) and some other little things, and he needs 10gp for the material components to cast FInd Familiar.
After playing pathfinder, it feels really weird to be scrounging for the cost of mundane items at level 3...
I gotta disagree on that one. The thing about not being able to see might be true of "invisibility" in any sense that it might exist in the real world, but I don't think that logic applies here.
The Invisibility spell is an illusion, but more specifically it is a glamer. "A glamer spell changes a subject’s sensory qualities, making it look, feel, taste, smell, or sound like something else, or even seem to disappear." Something glamerred to be invisible appears, to some subset of the senses, to not be there. It doesn't allow light to pass through or bend around something, it just makes it imperceptible to certain senses. When you're invisible, light still hits your eye normally, but someone standing on the other side of you will also see that light (btw, they don't just think they're seeing it, because glamers are not mind-affecting). There is also no save that allows you to see an invisible thing (only one to resist being unwillingly turned invisible), so unless the invisible character is also under the effect of a spell like See Invisibility, he should not be able to see himself or his gear.
Now, the implications for an invisible person's vision are interesting. I think it's clear that the eye would still focus light onto the retina, and the retina would still sense it (though there would be no way to observe this from outside the eye, because either the eye and its interactions with light are invisible, or (if you use See Invisibility), they aren't. Eyeglasses would also function for the wearer. They would not be able to see the glasses, but they would be able to see through the glasses, just as if they were visible (though another creature would not see this distortion of light, even if that creature was also under the effects of an invisibility spell). One can, of course, imagine alternate fictional physics under which this might be the case (like if there was an "invisibility dimension" in which creatures can see one another, but non-invisible creatures can't), but that's not how the spell works.
Now, what about eyelids, blindfolds, hands held in front of the eyes, etc? These are more grey areas, but I will point out that being able to see your eyelids and being able to see what's on the other side of your eyelids aren't necessarily the same thing.
Also, if we have anyone who can cast Message, we should have them somewhere they can communicate to everyone. It looks like the 5e version doesn't allow a reply, but if the messenger can see people, they can at least reply with hand signals, or someone inside to act as a distraction/early warning can have some predetermined action to signal a warning, and can answer yes/no questions by making some innocuous movement like coughing or brushing hair off their face.
Jun, that's what option 3 is. I don't think anyone is in favor of a frontal assault. IF we go in, the plan will be some sort of elaborate heist, which is why I said it would be fun. Even Hack is talking about sneaking in, rather than busting heads.
BTW, at one point, I started designing a heist module that was intended to be run as a "going over the plan" scene interspersed with a series of flash-forwards, during which the actual gameplay happens (including parts where you continue to go over a plan that bears no resemblance to what's actually happening because something unexpected happened and the characters had to improvise). You also need the obligatory twist at the end where it looks like the plan has failed, but it turns out that there was actually a whole other plan all along that solves the problem (still haven't figured out how to make that part work). If we run it that way, I totally change my vote to option 3.
So, trying to recap where we left off before the recent site troubles, it looks like Fin has asked Luna a question that she hasn't responded to (though Psalm's answer is probably sufficient, and last we heard from Luna's player, he was having internet troubles), Galador is waiting for Nikeisha to choose an arcane focus, and Nikeisha is waiting for Lindaer to say something so that she will know that she doesn't need to keep stalling. Jun will require an interaction at The Bloody Dagger before he can find his way to Fin's. The rest of us are pretty much blocked until one or more of those things happen.
The headdress magically increases your competence (the type of bonus it provides). I don't see why that wouldn't work while writing a letter. I think the +3 bonus should apply, which might be enough to make the difference. Also...
Ozzy reads the letter and makes some suggestions on the wording.
Diplomacy Aid Another:1d20 + 9 ⇒ (14) + 9 = 23
Edit: Figures. I should have just written my own damn letter :P
Ozzy scrambles to her feet, appearing once again behind the massive manticore-murderizing mechanism. She looks around and, spotting the formerly-flying frightfully-fugly-faced freak fallen to the firmament, she jumps into the air, pumping her arms in triumph. She then runs over to the beast and, narrowly avoiding Iorskan's flames, climbs on top of it and jumps up and down, laughing as the beast's bones crack beneath her heels.
Ozzy lets out a WHOOP! when she sees both harpoons find flesh. That's how it's done! Her scarf streams behind her as she leaps through the air to take hold of the second Ballista. She plants her feet against the base and throws her weight backwards, pulling the back end down to point the business end at the sky. She pulls on the handles, holding herself nearly horizontal above the ground as she brings the weapon's sights to bear. She grasps the release lever that will send the a third harpoon plunging into the beast's gut, then holds only a moment as the manticore scrapes its massive wings through the air, seeing if it will slip from its place in the sky, before transferring her full weight to the lever. As it snaps free, the tension she is using to hold herself aloft disappears, and she drops out of sight, falling the last few inches to the ground and landing on her back with an audible OOF!
More Ballista action!:1d20 + 5 ⇒ (20) + 5 = 253d8 ⇒ (6, 7, 5) = 18 No way she'll crit twice in a row!:1d20 + 5 ⇒ (8) + 5 = 133d8 ⇒ (7, 5, 5) = 17
Lying on the ground behind the ballista, Ozzy doesn't see the harpoon fly true and bury itself deep in the Manticore's chest. If as I suspect, that's enough to kill him, maybe it enters his chest by way of his face?
You didn't roll initiative for Happs, so I guess I'm running him on my init? At any rate, he couldn't possibly have rolled worse than a 3...
Happs pauses for a moment, smiling to himself before realizing that the job is not finished. He steps heavily, rushing to the other of his pair of ballistae.
Can Happs keep up the streak?:1d20 + 2 - 2 ⇒ (7) + 2 - 2 = 73d8 ⇒ (6, 3, 6) = 15
The adrenaline threatens to make Happs heart beat out of his chest, and as he takes hold of the ballista, he reaches for the release lever too early. The harpoon flies into the forest canopy, embedding itself in one of the trees.
Ozzy waits, gripping the handles at the rear of the ballista with white-knuckled intensity. Her shimmering red scarf flaps exaggratedly in the morning's cool breeze. In the days since the supplies she ordered arrived at Olegs, she's worn a different outfit every day, sometimes changing several times a day, though she carries no obvious luggage with her to keep all these outfits in. The outfits range from a tunics and breeches to pearlescent scaled leather, but all include a long, flowing scarf and find links of chain armor spilling out at the edges. All that remains of her old outfit of tattered leather armor are the long boots, the goggles, and the metal dome at her shoulder. Today, her attire is a whimsical mockery of the uniforms Garess's people wear, matching their cut (and somehow perfectly tailored for her scrawny frame, despite the nearest tailor being hundreds of miles away), but with garish yellow and black zebra stripes running down the sides the sides. She's been getting plenty of use out of her Sleeves of Many Garments.
When she spots the first horse galloping through the underbrush, she immediately swivels the oversized crossbow to point just above the canopy, directly over their heads. She drops low, letting her goggled eye sit just above the harpoon's fletching so that she can look down its length and past the razor-sharp barbs on its tip.
ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump
She can hear the far-off horses' hurried hoofbeats growing steadily louder. In a flash, enormous wings appear above the treetops, lifting a grotesque lion-thing with an anthropomorphic face that even a mother flying-lion-thing would be hard-pressed to love. In less than a second, she lets the harpoon fly, silently pledging to improve that face by putting an extra hole in it.
Before sinew of the seige weapons massive bowstring completes its first reverperation, Ozzy has dismounted the device, and is hopping briskly to the second waiting weapon, while the bandit tasked with reloading the apparatus begins to heft a second harpoon into the place so recently vacated by the first.
Quint enters the alleyway, resisting the urge to immediately look for a place to hide (since that might look suspicious to anyone who might see him from the street), but stepping silently to avoid any new attention.
Stealth:1d20 + 8 ⇒ (13) + 8 = 21
Seeing the number of open doors he needs to move past, Quint looks around for any place he can climb. If he can make it to the rooftops, he might be able to bypass anyone who might spot him.
Perception:1d20 + 3 ⇒ (1) + 3 = 4
Clearly, that was a failure, so back to plan A...
None of the barrels are stacked high enough, and in the rain and wind, Quint completely fails to spot a column of loose boards to his left that would make ideal hand- and foot-holds. Despite his experience with sneaking across roofs, he decides that the watery slickness combined with the wind might make that route too dangerous, even for him. Had he looked a little longer, he might have noticed a dip in one of the roofs for drainage that would have kept him completely concealed and safe from falling.
Turning his sights back to the alley, Quint moves silently toward the first door. This one is closed, and music can be heard from within, but he has to stay low to remain out of view of windows on both sides of the alley.
Stealth:1d20 + 8 ⇒ (16) + 8 = 24
Next, comes the back door to the Prancing Stag. As he approaches, Quint listens for a safe moment to pass.
When he gets close, Quint hears lopsided footsteps from inside coming his way, and quickly ducks behind a nearby barrel, just in time to see a tall, skinny boy emerges, carrying a large bag of refuse from the kitchen and dumping it in the alley before going back inside. There were times when Quint would have had to dig through such a bag to find his supper, but today, he had a belly full of chicken, coins in his pocket, and a mission to save lives other than just his own.
When the boy goes back inside, Quint continues to make his way down the alley. He sneaks a glance into the open bag as he passes. Already, what would once have looked like a smorgasbord nearly turns his stomach, and he pauses a moment for the feeling to pass before attempting to pass the next open portal.
The next doorway is on the other side of he alley, and has a haphazard array of barrels across from it. Judging from the sounds coming from inside, Quint judges that this must be some sort of smithy. It's too noisy for him to be sure of hearing any footsteps that might be approaching, but as he approaches the barrels, he realizes that there is just enough space for him to squeeze behind them, allowing him to pass the doorway unexposed.
And a couple more stealth rolls for good measure, which I can narrate after I have a better idea of my progress...
For Diplomacy, maybe we should all get fancy, matching outfits of some sort, to make us look more professional. Or maybe official-looking badges or something.
For bluff, maybe something that moves in a distracting way that draws attention away from the attempt, like a long silk scarf, or a fidget spinner.
Stealth and perception are tricker, especially given Mr. Winky's unique morphology. For perception, maybe a special hood that focuses light and sound, or just something to protect his eyes from the wind so that he doesn't have to lick them as often to keep them moist and clean (which both eidolons do instead of blinking, if I hadn't made that clear, making their names sort of ironic). Stealth might be some kind of clothing made to fit his unusual body that can be quickly inverted, to switch between a sky blue side (for camouflage against the sky during the day) to a black side (for night time/hiding in shadows).
Psalm, Cat is tiny like weasel but has 40 ft speed. I think it might be the smallest and fastest of the wild shape level 2, not sure though.
Remember what our GM told us about cats in this setting. They don't exist in the wild. If you see one, you know it's somebody's familiar (or, apparently, a wildshaped druid).
Ozzy can be heard sobbing late into the night, until eventually, Mr. Winky fades away into the girl's shadow as she finally falls asleep. When the sun's rays wake her, she groggily goes through the motions of her morning ritual out of habit, not even opening her eyes. After she finishes, she continues to lie there, trying futilely to delay the onset of the morning. She raises her arm, trying to throw it over her face to block the light that filters ruddily through her eyelids, but she has no shadow to block the sun.
A long, slimy tongue drags itself across the girls face. She starts awake, her eyes opening wide, and she sees large, shadowless beast standing over her. Its thick, dark grey fur blows in the morning breeze. The beast's bulbous eyes look down at her expectantly.
Mr. Blinky! she exclaims, sitting up and burying her self in the beast's fur as she wraps her arms tightly around where the creature's neck would be, if it had any discernible neck. When she does this, she can feel that the skin underneath isn't fully healed, but it also feels tougher somehow. Where before, he felt like he was made of nothing but fur and claws and teeth, she can now feel flesh there too. It feels leathery. Hardier than before. She continues to embrace the beast that has been her constant companion since she was so young. The tears begin again, soaking into his fur. This time, they are tears of joy. Her constant companion has returned.
She'll use a charge from the wand to heal him up to his new HP total.
He pauses. "I still think we can win this without bloodshed. If we ignore the Stag Lord's men, while providing enough of a force to deter them from banditry, we win. We don't have to play by their rules. If they're going to be a problem, then let them come to us."
No! Ozzy growls, looking up through tear-soaked eyes. She has been silent all thought Norry's interrogation, and the others may have forgotten she was there. They have to die. Her cheek quivers. ALL OF THEM! Auchs, the STAG LORD... She turns to Norry, ...and you. As she says this, she thrusts her spear into the helpless archer's chest.
Sorry. She'll calm down when Mr. Blinky is back, but right now, she's in no mood to talk about peaceful solutions. I tried not to do anything rash until Norry had served his purpose.
While I don't see any reason a bow couldn't operate with a chain in place of its string, such a weapon would be so inaccurate that you would be hard-pressed to hit the broad side of a barn with it if you were standing in the barn's shadow at midday.
As the morning went on, they eventually began to pass other travelers nearing the end of their own journeys to Rydwyrna. By starting so early, they had assured that they were well ahead of any other travelers leaving the city that day. Those who were ahead of them, of course, had a full day's head start, so they spent most of the day walking in solitude, just Dutch, Talbert, and the owl.
I take it the bird is a permanent fixture on our little quest? They had been walking for hours in silence, and Dutch didn't bother to keep the frustration from her voice.
Talbert was oblivious as usual, lost in silent thought. He stopped and looked around for a moment before spotting the owl perched in a nearby tree. It had been following them all day. Dutch waited expectantly until, as if he had only just remembered that it existed, Talbert replied flatly. Oh. Yeah. He then continued moving down the road as if nothing had been said.
Dutch stood for a moment, clenching her teeth and fists, and looking around exasperatedly before jogging a few steps to catch up. She wanted to scream at him. Never in her life had it been this difficult to get a man to talk to her (she was much more accustomed to dealing with the opposite problem). She was bored. Does it have a name?
What?
Does it have a name? She repeated, fighting the urge to smack Talbert in the back of the head.
Does what have a name? Talbert asked absentmindedly, without bothering to turn around.
The BIRD! Does the bird have a name?
Oh. Talbert said lightly, still failing to notice the growing irritation in Dutch's voice. I haven't really thought about it.
They returned to walking in awkward silence. At least it was awkward for Dutch. Talbert didn't seem to notice. She decided to try a different tack. What does a well-educated owl say?
A what?
A well-educated owl. What does it say?
Why would an owl be--
It's a joke! Dutch interrupted.
Oh. Talbert said, then was silent a moment longer. Dutch was beginning to think he had gone back to ignoring her when he continued What's the owl's field of study?
A well-educated owl says "WHOM"!
After another moment of walking in silence, Talbert stopped and turned to Dutch. You did, he replies in a confused tone that says "what other answer could there be?"
Stopping to look at him, Dutch quirked an eyebrow. Huh?
You said the owl was well-educated, then you asked who said it was well-educated. "A well-educated owl, says whom?"
That's not-- She paused, trying to mentally untangle things before deciding it wasn't worth it. JUST NAME THE DAMN BIRD! she shouted, and stormed off down the road ahead of Talbert, no longer interested in talking to him.
Ozzy looks uneasy at the suggestion of sending one of her eidolons away. She moves close to Abaos and speaks hesitantly in a low voice. Actually, Mr. Blinky and Mr. Winky... well... you see... the thing is, they're my imaginary friends. They turned real to protect me when I was stuck in the shadow place, but... it hurts them if they go too far away from me.
They start losing hitpoints if they go beyond 100ft. I can cast unfetter to let them go further, but the duration is only 20 minutes, that they need half of that to come back if they don't want to lose the hitpoints when the spell runs out.
The guards should be suspicious and want to detain you guys for a while, but roleplaying that sounds really boring to me, so unless anyone has some particular interest in that interaction, I think we can just assume you manage to talk your way out of it and move on.
Assuming they don't find any danger, Ozzy will follow.
Ozzy Appraise:1d20 + 1 ⇒ (20) + 1 = 21
By magical light emanating from her spearhead, Ozzy inspects the shiny substance within the cave. It looks familiar. She pulls out a gold coin to compare, and the color is a perfect match. Hey guys, I think somebody melted a bunch of gold pieces into this crack for some reason! I wonder if there's some way we could change them back...
That would be a good idea for an NPC that wouldn't outshine the party, especially if you kept the NPC one level behind the party (which wouldn't interfere with access to wands, but otherwise keeps his power level lower).
Of course, I had a previous in-person game that had two PCs plus a rotating cast of party NPCs to make up for the fact that the party was a rogue (who was a REALLY poorly-optimized archer build, and almost never got sneak attack damage unless I bent the rules to make it happen) and a typical big, dumb fighter. The first NPC was a life oracle who, as Iorskan suggests, didn't really participate in encounters, but they were still relying on that character too much, and the story dictated that she had to die. After that, I had a string of NPCs who, despite being a level behind the party, all turned out to be more powerful than them, and were filling a lot of vital story rolls because the players hadn't considered what skills and abilities they would need to cover with a 2-person party.
I eventually solved the problem by strongly suggesting (in the way that only a GM can) that both PCs to take Leadership, so that I could get them controlling a more diverse set of characters. I built cohorts tailored to each of the players who had the types of abilities that the party needed. The whole experience turned me off to the idea of party NPCs.
The guard seems skeptical, but concedes. Keep them out of trouble, and I don't want to hear about that one, the guard indicates Pogug, wandering around alone. He gives a signal as he walks back toward the other guards. They let you pass, not pointing their weapons at you, but definitely keeping them ready.
As you pass through the gates, you are struck by the scale of the seaport layed out ahead of you. The long thoroughfare ahead of you stretches on for over a mile before it curves out of sight, following the coastline. It is flanked to the right by miles of docks filled with every type of ship imaginable. The docks bustle with activity, with all manner of goods being loaded and unloaded. To the left, shops, warehouses and factories stand in a row, waiting to accept the goods the ships carry, and offering their own wares for those ships to take away when they leave. Behind several rows of such buildings, a 40ft-high wall marks the boundary of the city's lowest tier. Though much of it is obscured by 2- and 3-story buildings, you can see switchbacking staircases leading up and down at regular intervals along the wall.
Nearby, you see a shop with expensive clothing displayed in the window. A closer inspection would reveal that these are damaged in transit, or are last year's styles that failed to sell in the shops on higher tiers.
Beyond that is a fortified warehouse into which workers load shrouded crates under guard. The next building has thick cables rising at an angle to a station atop the wall. A gondola hangs from the cable, lifting crates to the next level, while passengers stand on another that lowers in synchrony with it.
The smell of sea air is unmistakable here, but it's not the fishy smell indicative of the seafood processing district located deeper in the city. That is where you know the Artificery can be found.
I believe Boddy is a recent graduate of the arcane order, which is part of the reason Quint came along (he's looking for an angle to get into the academy).
And, in the west corner, the champions of the Sirensong Traveling Carnival: He holds out his hand to indicate the western end of the ring, several figures emerge in sequence from behind the stands.
Ashyr!
A skinny halfling steps silently forward from behind the northern end of the western stands. He wears a skin-tight bodysuit that covers him from head to toe in shimmering black, with equally black boots and padded vest worn over it. The costume is completed by a mask that looks like a face made entirely of flame. Not a millimeter of flesh is left uncovered, leaving you and the spectators alike to wonder what the halfling underneath looks like. What is he hiding? You can imagine his skin being covered in horrible burns... or perhaps this is a protective garment, intended to prevent exactly that?
Ashyr carries a long chain of fine links that wraps several times around his left hand, hangs down near the ground in a long catenary between his hands, and swings in wide circles from his right. A spike on the swinging end of the chain glows white-hot, trailing red-orange flames behind it. As he takes up his position on the west end of the ring, he takes the weapon through a series of maneuvers, wrapping it around different parts of his body to alternately increase and decrease the length of the swinging portion. When it is long, the spike swings in a lazy arc, but when it shortens, its speed multiplies, becoming a blur and stretching out a long streak of flame in its wake. Then, as the flaming tip nears the ground, one of his black boots, which you can now see is made of a soft, flexible leather, kicks up into its path, intercepting the chain just above where it meets the spike. Suddenly, the chain has a new fulcrum, and the spike whips in a tight circle a blinding speed around the toe of the boot. After only about 270 degrees of rotation, the chain slips free of the boot's toe and rockets forward at a breakneck pace, so fast you are sure that the flames will be extinguished. They do, in fact, dwindle to almost nothing as the spike flies through the air, the chain slipping through Ashyr's right hand as it joins the left. But when the chain snaps taut 20ft from Ashyr's hands, the fire bursts back to life, and you can feel a wave of heat wash over you, even from across the ring. Before the spike can hit the ground, the halfling gives a quick tug, and the flaming spike returns to its swinging pattern.
Perform: dance:1d20 + 14 ⇒ (12) + 14 = 26
This rhythmic dance continues as the other champions are called forward and the crowd watches in amazement.
Halador!
For a moment, you don't see anyone. You only hear a sound. whooom... whooom... whooom...
You are expecting to see another figure walk out from behind the tall stands, but are surprised instead to see the top of a shaven head appear above them.
WHOOOM! WHOOOM! WHOOOM!
The rhythmic noise gets louder as the man moves south of the stands and rounds the corner. He's about 6-foot, 13-inches tall, and must weigh at least 400lb, all of it rippling muscle. We wears little besides a breastplate and a subligaria, and his skin is heavily tattooed. His face is painted in a terrible visage, and he carries what looks like the the trunk of a medium-sized tree, its bark stripped smooth, and tribal markings painted along its length.
WHOOOM! WHOOOM! WHOOOM!
As he swings the tree trunk, you can see that it has been hollowed out, the end left open so that the air rushing past makes a sound that resonates eerily in the hollow chamber. As he covers the distance in only a few steps, then comes to a stop, he swings the club a few more times, finishing by meeting it above his head with the open palm of his other enormous hand.
WHOOOM! WHOOOM! WHOOOM! BOAOAOAOAOAOAOA
The hollow club reverberates for a long moment.
Perform: percussion:1d20 + 14 ⇒ (8) + 14 = 22
A cheer rises from the crowd.
Zeera!
You are wondering what horrifying beast will appear next, when a beautiful young halfling woman with long, blonde hair strolls out and enters the ring from the north end of the western stands. Her bright smile is enough to make at least Nathaniel's heart skip a beat. As you look at the smile, you can see that she is murmuring something that you can't quite make out. At that moment, she completes her ritual, and a horrifying beast bursts into existence in front of her.
And Simeon!
The beast looks like a large baboon with dark grey fur, and a lighter mane surrounding each of its twin heads. The two heads stand over 5 feet from the ground with its knuckles planted firmly planted on it. Its twin maws are full of razor-sharp teeth, and one lets out a thunderous, lion-like roar while the other howls like a wolf. Both heads then turn to your group, locking you with a gaze that makes your blood go cold. The girl circles the beast from the right, and lovingly scratches the beast behind one of its four ears. The head on that side turns to nuzzle her, while the other continues to stare daggers at your group.
By this time, the crowd has gone silent in anticipation.
Gregor Maleffect moves toward you and speaks in a low, but still commanding voice before leaving the ring. Win or lose, he says, sounding skeptical of the former, give them a good show.
I'll give you a chance to narrate reactions before rolling initiative. As before, you can cast any spells you want on yourselves or your team before combat begins (this includes things like beginning a bardic performance/rage song, btw), just nothing affecting the other team. In either case, the rounds for these effects will begin with the first round of combat.
Btw, there are some obvious similarities between some of these characters and some of you guys. I built all of these characters for my in-person group months before I opened recruitment for this one, so unless you guys have been looking at my notes, I can assure you that these similarities are entirely coincidental.
Zarine's performance continues to fail to impress the crowd. Assuming that she doesn't actually want to attack the unconscious bat, I'll divert that attack to Erin... Her arrow flies across the field and strikes the newly-fallen bat rider. Erin takes 2 points of lethal bludgeoning damage. Because the glancing blow does minimal damage, the audience does not notice that her attack did lethal damage (this time).
Healing is not against the rules, nor is it what the audience will want to see. You will have to try harder to keep them on your side if you do it, but it could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
From the Performance Combat rules wrote:
Magical Healing: Crowds tend to dislike the use of magical healing; some crowds even see it as cheating. On a turn when a combatant casts a healing spell or other healing effect, or uses a healing spell trigger, spell completion, or use-activated item (including forcing a potion of cure light wounds or similar potion down the throat of an opponent) she must make a performance combat check. Success yields no change to the attitude of the crowd, but any failure reduces the crowd’s attitude by one step.
The 19th. Let's see, what day is it today? Quint counts days, doing arithmetic in his head. Living on the streets, the calendar is usually the least of his concerns. The only time it really comes up is around the Academy's admissions, but they had come and gone this year, and again, he had been denied a scholarship. If he wanted in, he would need to find a way either to earn the outrageous tuition or to get the archmage to take notice of him. The posting on the board was the best opportunity he'd seen to do either one.
Wait, that's today! Quint looks around, seeing that it is already getting dark out. Is it too late? It can't be, I have to be on this mission! Quint takes off at a run. Nothing will stop him from making it to the Black Pegasus.
He takes a shortcut, jumping across rooftop. The roof tiles are wet, and he would normally move across them more carefully, but today he has a purpose. This isn't just evading the constables, his opportunity to get into the academy is at stake. With each passing moment, he convinces himself with greater certainty that this is his chance, and he can't let it get away.
Acrobatics:1d20 + 6 ⇒ (7) + 6 = 13
As he runs across the rooftops, he can feel the sky darkening by the second. He spots the shingle he's looking for. In the torchlight, he sees the image a dark stallion, rampant, with darker wings outstretched behind it. Almost there.
As he searches the streets for the sign, he fails to spot the loose tile on the butcher's roof. Stupid. he thinks to himself, as his body becomes light from freefall and time seems to slow. He knew that loose tile was there. I should have been watching for it. Hells, I've crossed this roof in the middle of a moonless night before, I should have been counting steps. If I lose my chance to a broken neck, I'll deserve it.
Acrobatics:1d20 + 6 ⇒ (17) + 6 = 23
Quint hits the tiles hard, diving into a slide down the side of the roof. He manages to get his feet in front just as the roof disappears from beneath him. He hits the ground and tucks into a roll that leaves dry dirt down his back. Two feet to the left and he would have hit the ever-present puddle in front of the butcher's shop.
There's always blood in that puddle. It's where the water collects when the butcher's lazy son washes the floors. It wouldn't do to show up with his only shirt soaked with mud and cow's blood. The hot, red trickle that he could already feel from where the sharp-edged tile slid across his arm would be bad enough.
Undaunted, Quint continues. Now on solid ground, he sprints even harder, holding his breath, though he knows it will will only make his lungs burn harder. He can hear the raucous crowd inside, and decides that it's a good sign. They wouldn't be so loud if proceedings had begun. The thought that the sheer number of people responding to the notice means more competition for whatever rewards are to be had doesn't even enter his mind.
He stops just outside the door and reaches behind himself to try to beat the dust from his back. Panting for breath, he runs his hands through his naturally wild hair. It's bright red, and greased to keep it under control and out of his eyes.
His hand brushes quickly across his pocket to ensure that he hasn't lost the tin he keeps the grease in, and is comforted to feel its cold, hard edges. His father kept a clean, white grease in that tin, but since he died, Quint has had to settle for what he could find, so its current contents are dark, and a leave dark streaks in his wild mane.
He enters at a brisk walk, hiding his haste as best he can, as if he is arriving precisely when he means to (as any true wizard should!). His large, gnomish eyes squint in the light as he surveys the room, taking stock of the situation. Adventuring alone is suicide. His fate will live or die on finding the right allies. Perhaps there will even be a mage who can write him a letter of introduction when this is all over, or at least teach him a spell or two.
I do not have a Mythweaver's sheet up. I know you told a couple of other people that it wasn't absolutely necessary, so I'd like you to look at my alias and see if it is good enough to stand alone. I like to think that I make very clear and complete profiles. However, if you look at it and still want the Mythweaver's sheet, I will do that in the morning. I don't mind having it, but it would be easier for me to only have to maintain the character in one place. I always build my characters using the online Mottokrosh sheets, but I typically only update them afterward in the alias itself. Anyway, your call.
I'll take a closer look at that later. For now, it looks fine, and you are on the list to be considered.
DarkDealer, as per the stealth rules you break stealth automatically whenever you make an attack roll, unless you're attempting to snipe, which is a move action. Just something to keep in mind, if possible it'd help me out if you gave a turn breakdown in ooc of Move action:___ Standard: ___ Swift:____ all in the order you take them so I can keep things organized. I don't need it all the time but when stealth is involved things like that get important. Regardless of stealth status, you still have concealment in the branches of the tree atm.
Correct. This was not a snipe per se, though I did make sure that I had two forms of concealment from everybody but the target (the tree and the mist). Also, the telekinetic blast doesn't have verbal or somatic components like a spell, nor does it have an obvious direction of origin, so there's not really any reason I'd be more visible after using it than before. Also, if someone does see me, I haven't really given them a reason to think I'm not just a bat, flying around and doing bat things. Given the setting, I'm probably not the only one hanging out in the area.
I'll try to remember to include the action breakdown each turn.
I copied over a whole batch of templates on the right side that I drew in another game using google drawings. Just have to copy/paste them when you want to use them (and remember to scale them to fit the current grid size).
If you do betray us, be very sure that you can defeat us all. So far, we've done this with a minimum of kobold blood, but if you betray us and fail to kill us all, we won't hesitate to burn out every last one of you, and put an end to the Truescale tribe.
Illiam won't bring it up in front of the kobolds, but he wants that wand. It doesn't make much sense for Chillel to carry it, as she already has her hexes. Of course, if Dolok wants it, I wouldn't be opposed to that, since it gives him a better tactical option than listening to the voices in his head that tell him to burn things.
Well, given the nature of the game, it is certainly fair to say that this story would be happening no matter what the makeup of the party was. The only thing that would prevent the existence of problems for the PCs to solve would be a lack of PCs, so if we really wanted to prevent the kids from being harmed, the easiest way to do that would be for us all to quit the game ;) :P
To put things in perspective, we can now expect typical "minion" creatures to be ~CR3 and bigger baddies to be as high as CR6. The monster statistics by CR table tells us that we can expect to see ACs of at least 15, while some could be higher than 20. Using those examples and what I think Kairon's stats are (extrapolated), his DPR with Weapon Focus is 4.95 vs. AC15 and 2.88 vs. 20AC. With Power Attack, it's 5.22 vs. 15AC and 2.61 vs. 20AC. As you can see, weapon focus is more effective against the higher ACs than Power Attack. If Mended does continue to throw higher CRs at us than the module calls for, that could tip the balance in favor of Weapon Focus.
Quite simply, if you don't hit, you don't do any damage. If you are mostly up against guys that you have a 50/50 chance of hitting, Weapon focus makes that a 55% chance of hitting. If you're going up against someone who you only have a 10% chance of hitting, however, weapon focus makes it 15%, or 150% as likely as without it, making it equivalent to a 1.5x increase in damage when calculating DPR. Of course, hopefully the situation isn't that grim, but it illustrates that to-hit bonuses can be more valuable than damage bonuses, especially when the damage bonus comes with a to-hit penalty, like with Power Attack.
After taking a moment to stare, Illiam says Um... I killed it, at first too quietly for the others to hear. After standing there for another moment, he turns to the others and repeats more loudly I killed it. Then he just turns back to continue staring.
"The special hell."
"No power in the 'verse can stop me."
"Mine is an evil laugh. Now die!!"
"Not as deceivin' as a low-down, dirty, deceiver."
"How do I know you won't kill me in my sleep?"
"Him. . . . . I'm sorry. Did you want to finish?"
"I'm referring here to people."
"No one likes the idea of hearing what you're thinking."
"My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle."
Looks like we're just moving along with the plan. Hopefully we don't end up with a jar of speckled daffodil root, crackled tinfoil root, or tickled toenail root :P
Anyone have a small mirror, or something reflective enough to be used as one? We could fashion a primitive inspection mirror to try to read the rest of the label...
It also tells us, btw (definitely out-of-character knowledge here), that she's too high-level for us to run into any time soon, except maybe in a "run away!" type of encounter, even with the elevated difficulty that Mended's been throwing at us. Even so, such an encounter alone would technically be worth almost enough XP to get us to level 2 on it's own, even split 7 ways. That is, if we were tracking XP (which I'm fairly sure we've decided not to, since Mended hasn't asked me to go back and calculate how much we've earned :P ).
And now, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there's the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come. Dreams of ever making it to level 2 :D
Full Name
Adrion Idaira
Race
| AC 12 (tch 12, ff 10) | CMD 11 | F +1, R +2, W +3 (+2 vs enchantment; +2 vs fear, death; -2 vs distraction, mind-affecting) | Init +2 | Per +7, SM +1 |
Dimdweller: Whenever characters with this trait benefit from concealment or full concealment due to darkness or dim light, they gain a +2 racial bonus on Intimidate, Perception, and Stealth checks.
Eldritch Delver: You gain a +1 trait bonus on all Knowledge (dungeoneering) and Knowledge (history) checks, and you may treat your caster level as 1 level higher for all conjuration spells of the teleportation subschool.
Elven Immunities: Elves are immune to magic sleep effects and gain a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells and effects.
Elven Magic: Elves receive a +2 racial bonus on caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance. In addition, elves receive a +2 racial bonus on Spellcraft skill checks made to identify the properties of magic items.
Haunting Regret: You take a –2 penalty on saving throws against the distraction ability of swarms and mind-affecting effects and on concentration checks.
Keen Senses: Elves receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks.
Low-Light Vision: Elves can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.
Mnemonic Esoterica: By reaching into the recesses of your past lives, you gain knowledge beyond that of most psychics. Select a single additional spellcasting class. Once per day when you prepare your spells, you can add one spell from this class’s spell list to your spells known and class spell list for 24 hours. This spell must be 1 level lower than the highest-level spell you can cast, and you cast it as if it were psychic magic. You can decide to change the spellcasting class from which you draw this spell each time you gain a new level.
Past-Life Memories: You add a bonus equal to half your psychic level (minimum 1) to all Knowledge checks and can attempt all Knowledge skill checks untrained.
Reincarnated: You gain a +2 trait bonus on saving throws against fear and death effects.
Spell Recollection: Once per hour as a swift action, an amnesiac can attempt to remember any spell from the psychic spell list of her choice from either of the 2 highest spell levels she can cast. When she does, she rolls on Table 2–1: Spell Recollection to determine the result. Because the mental stress of combat brings memories to the surface more easily, the amnesiac adds 1d10 to this roll’s result if she’s in combat when she attempts to recall a spell. Regardless of the result, the amnesiac expends an amnesia slot of the appropriate level for the spell she is attempting to remember; she must cast the spell remembered (if any) using that amnesia slot during the same round, or the spell slot is lost without effect.
Once a spell has been remembered in this way, the amnesiac can cast it as one of her spells known for the rest of the day (even if she failed to cast the spell during the round in which she remembered it), unless spell recollection allowed her to cast a spell of a higher level than she would normally be able to cast.
Table: Spell Recollection
d% Result 1–10 The amnesiac is unable to cast spells this round.
11–35 The amnesiac can’t remember the new spell (but can still cast spells this round).
36–95 The amnesiac remembers and can cast the new spell.
96+ The amnesiac can choose to treat this result as 36–95. Alternatively, once per day, she can instead temporarily recall any spell from the psychic spell list that’s 1 level higher than the spell she’s attempting to remember. When she does, her caster level counts as the minimum caster level required to cast the higherlevel spell, and she forgets the spell after it’s cast.
Will of the Dead: The psychic can spend 2 points from her phrenic pool to overcome an undead creature’s immunity to mind-affecting effects for the purposes of the linked spell. This ability functions even on mindless undead, but has no effect on creatures that aren’t undead. This amplification can be linked only to spells that have the mind-affecting descriptor.
Appearance:
Adrion is a gaunt elf of medium height, with almost gray skin and jet-black eyes and hair. Even when well illuminated, he seems perpetually in shadow, as if light is reluctant to touch him in any significant amount. He moves furtively, constantly scanning his surroundings for danger.
Personality:
Adrion has been left completely adrift by the loss of his memories. He is haunted by nagging spirits and flashes of random knowledge he does not understand, and he seems to have some kind of supernatural power he can barely control. Adrion's only consolation is that evidently he had a past, so his driving force at the moment is to find answers, a goal to which he will go to virtually any lengths to achieve. He is suspicious of everything he encounters once he wakes up, including his companions, and will probably remain emotionally unstable for a while as he grapples with his lack of identity. What sort of person emerges in the end is anyone's guess.
