@GM, is this first round a surprise round for us, or is Nurah alerted to her danger and doing something?
@Merixia, you definitely had anticipate peril up from Verene, which means your initiative roll was 5 higher, which means you act before Nurah in the initiative order. It also looks like Azira as well as Irabeth should be acting after Nurah in initiative order. (10 and 9 vs 11.)
I guess we're not trying to do this in a less crowded setting then. Azira's previously declared intent is to cast glitterdust, which will necessarily include some of the other paladins as well, who will probably have no idea what's going on. I drew the outline of a ten-foot-radius spread on the map in the top corner for reference.
I'll do a catchup post later tonight. Currently very busy with finishing my medical specialization and probably will be for the rest of july, so my postinf rate will be lower.
Good luck, Elliot!
Verene: It's just for you all. She's not alerted.
And yes, I fudged things a little so that I wouldn't have to post twice with only one player between my posts.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My apologies for the delay. I'm going to make more of a concerted effort to make sure I'm posting Mon-Fri again. Been dealing with some stuff.
Getting up a post here shortly and I'll be checking back in later again as well.
Good to hear from you, Thesius. I hope things are calming down for you.
So, does Nurah make ber save?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If she does, it won’t be for lack of trying on my part! I couldn’t think of anything else I could do with our current resources to get the save DC any higher.
Checking back in. Thanks Verene. Just need to get back into the groove of things. Though Gen Con is coming up so that might put a bit of a hold on my posting for a bit once we get there.
Oops, it didn't occur to me that I should roll her save . I'll get on that in my post today. xD
I think the limp lash penalties will increase by 1d6 on Verene's turn, so before Nurah, but after all other PCs go again. She used it because she judges that Nurah is mentally strong but physically weak, and this spell allows no saves, Will or otherwise. It won't hurt her, she will just keep taking the penalties until at least one physical ability score is penalized enough to drop to 1 and she is paralyzed; or until she gets away from Verene, the spell breaks, and the penalties end. Note that once her Strength drops low enough she will probably become encumbered by the weight of any existing gear. FAQ for the spell here.
GM, as far as buffs/status spoiler: no buffs used on Verene this morning, just the detection spells. Invisibility breaks when she starts casting a hostile spell at Nurah. Anticipate peril on Merixia was already triggered and used up. Message is still up with the other PCs. That's it for me.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks, Verene.
Sorry I didn't post yesterday. There was a tornado watch and a variety of flood warnings/watches, so I was very much on edge much of the day.
I'll get a post together soon.
Stay safe, GM! I hope your part of the world dries out soon.
Yeah, same here. Looks like I'm probably safe from rain at least, for the next couple days.
Are we waiting on Elliot and Azira?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry, I was under the weather Monday and Tuesday- should have a post up in a matter of minutes.
Yes, that was what I was waiting on. Sorry, I've been burnt out a bit these past few days. If Elliot doesn't post by later today, I'll bot him.
Sorry guys, still really swamped in work with a very hard deadline to make for the end of next week. As such my posting rate has been low and will probably continue to be for the remainder of the coming week at least. My apologies.
Good luck and take care of yourself, Elliot!
Definitely have to take care of your real life priorities, so no worries Elliot. I hope it all goes well.
Good luck, Elliot! Crossing my fingers for you.
In this specific case it was a great tool, but it won't be this good for almost any other situation. The issue is how long it takes to take effect. In many cases it will either be easy for an enemy to get out of before one of their physical stats is penalized down to 1, or it would just be faster to beat them unconscious. If an enemy has commoner-average physical stats and the spell gets average rolls, it will take 3 rounds to paralyze. A very long time in combat! And all they have to do is walk 25 feet away from the caster (or teleport, or sunder the lash) sometime in there, and the spell breaks and is lost. However: we got the drop on Nurah with both winning initiative and a surprise round; Verene has Prescience to burn for today and I used one to hedge my bets, or would have totally missed with that 1; and Nurah is, as I thought, physically weak (we now know that the maximum at least one of her physical stats could possibly be is 7, and it could be even lower — probably Strength because of the racial penalty.)
I think you're right that it is still a very powerful spell in certain other contexts (single hard enemies with at least one mediocre physical stat and limited tactical mobility), just because the debuffs are quite serious even before complete paralysis. Either an affected enemy does other things and is significantly more fragile for the rest of the party to whale on; or, they must spend a turn getting rid of it. Taking even one turn from one powerful enemy can sometimes be really good.
It seems upon reading it that I missed the line of one of the target's physical scores having to be reduced to 1 first. That makes it a lot more fair, though yeah, in a surprise round in which you also win initiative that's a pretty severe drain of all physical scores leading into the fight. Especially with a limited number of enemies and having to get out of it wasting actions. A really good boss killer for sure.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Notably, I think that Nurah's Strength is 6 (I don't have my book with me, so I don't know). So, uh, she was especially vulnerable to that.
Hey everyone, just a quick heads up- I'll be camping Aug 6th through 12th. I'm going to be in a cabin with a bed, but no electricity. I'll do my best to make short posts whenever I go in to town for supplies, but I won't have any reliable means of charging my phone so it may be kind of hit or miss. Please, feel free to bot me if necessary.
Alright, thanks for letting us know, Azira.
Of all the times to roll a 1! T_T
Ugh, that is so narratively unsatisfying. :(
Have a good trip, Azira.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Right?! My love of dramatic moments must go unfulfilled for now.
I'll have a post up later. Long day yesterday. They have me on-call this week.
I'll also be at Gen Con from Aug. 2nd to the 6th. So my posting rate may suffer during that time.
Thanks for letting us know, Thesius. Have a good time at Gen Con!
Yes, thanks for letting us know!
So here's a question I couldn't find the answer to in a search of any sourcebooks or the forums. What is the legal status of slavery in Mendev?
My instinct is that it has to be illegal, right? LG paladin nation, and all. But probably no one wants to annoy Cheliax by handing out official flyers at the border or asking random halfling "servants" tagging along in the entourages of Chelish knights and noblemen if they know their legal rights.
I have no idea, to be honest. Given how abolitionism is treated (in 1e) as a weird obsession of Andoran, it could be "you can keep your slaves, but can't sell, buy, or take slaves" or it could be "no slavery at all," or "so long as you fight the demons, we don't care."
Whatever the case there's no mention of any authorities objecting to her status as a slave in Nurah's backstory. Mind, that could also imply that her master didn't tell anyone/told her to keep it a secret, but, well, I have no idea.
What would suit this situation the best? Probably the first of the options, to be honest, but I'm not sure.
I would hazard a guess that the first option is the case, yes. In the end, Mendev relies heavily on both volounteers and (iirc) monetary/supply support from other nations. They probably wouldn't want to risk a diplomatic incident with any 'allied' nation over their slavery laws and allow the ones you have to come with you, though inside Mendev itself I can only assume any sort of slave trade is forbidden.
A lot of the initial crusaders were Chelish, too, and I don't think slavery is a recent (infernalist) import there.
Yes, browbeating someone into redemption is not, in fact, something I'd say is permissible. Seems against the spirit of things.
While I mostly agree that's fair, I also wanted to ask more in depth how the redemption system works for future character building. If diplomacy is the only thing that can get someone to atone, that makes it very difficult for Elliot to really contribute. The only social skill he has on magus is intimidate, along with charisma not being a stat he otherwise uses. The best he could manage next level is a +8 to diplomacy, if all his skill ranks go into that. Is that in the realm of possibility for success on these checks?
If not, is him weighing in of any sort of value in these discussions? I do think his last post logically made sense in that Nurah seems to be propagating what happened to her happening to a lot of other innocent people, and I'm not sure she's aware of that. If diplomacy is the only way then logical arguments is really all he has for now.
Any of those options could definitely be justified. I think it's pretty easy to imagine an uneasy don't-ask-don't-tell kind of compromise, where the de facto status quo is "you can keep your slaves and officials will not interfere with that, but you can't sell, buy, or take slaves, and you have no recourse in the law / we won't help you catch them, if any slaves you bring into the country run away."
Elliot, I just looked at the redemption rules in the Player's Guide again and to my surprise, they make no mention of Diplomacy checks at all. That was not what I remembered. The only mechanical way PCs can help a creature seeking redemption is by being one of one or more 'sponsors' providing a bonus on the Will saves such a creature can make to officially move up an alignment step after it completes a certain number of penances. I don't know if Worldwound GM is using or planning to use these rules or not though, or if the Diplomacy checks might be used more to shift creatures' flavorful attitudes, such that they even want to seek redemption in the first place. Maybe no checks will be required for that at all, and it could be a purely RP thing?
It's mostly RP, but Diplomacy checks won't hurt. So yes, Elliot's input will be of value in this discussion, definitely. I don't want anyone locked out of this purely because their skill bonuses are meager.
Sorry for the delay in posting, it's been a rough few days IRL.
Good to know re: redemption RP, thanks GM! Merixia doesn't do social skills. :P That's one aspect of infernal blood she didn't inherit. (Anyone else think it's weird that devil-blooded tieflings have a Cha penalty, when devils' whole thing is tempting people into sin? They're supposed to be supernaturally convincing. I would have gone with +Wis +Cha -Con or -Dex.)
Hey, just dropping a post here to say I am still following along. I haven't posted anything in gameplay for a little bit because there's only so many ways to write that I'm standing there quietly ready to kill the halfling if she tries to escape while my more merciful friends chat.
Also, Elliot, if you want to be good at diplomacy the key is probably the additional traits feat. I'm not sure which categories you've already taken traits from (so that could complicate things) but there's a handful of different traits that'll make diplomacy a class skill (usually with an extra +1 bonus iirc), and I think 2-3 different ones that will let you use Int instead of Cha for it (I know clever wordplay and student of philosophy off the top of my head- I think there might be another but I'm not sure).
Bruising Intellect for Intimidate, I think. Or something like that, anyways.
Hope everything improves for you, Merixia.
I'll get a post up today.
Yeah, I'll probably get at least one of those eventually. His next feat is set in stone as studied spell is allegedly what will allow him to keep affecting demons with most magus spells. But from there the build is more or less open on the feat front. Maybe getting diplomacy as a skill and then getting a headband of persuasion eventually would get him there. He can probably miss one feat to shore that up and get perception or sense motive on the other half of that trait as well. Going from what I've seen since we actually became mythic we don't seem to be hard pressed by the enemy's strength (yet?) so flavor picks are probably fine. Also there's mythic heroism soon(?).
For this scene I'm going to have Elliot hang back a bit as well. He said his piece, and he doesn't want to get in the way of Thesius or Verene whom Nurah seems more inclined to. OOC I'm also unsure what else to say that hasn't already been said.
@Merixia Sorry to hear that! Hope things improve again for you soon. Great to read your posts as usual.
Same, Merixia and Azira. Good to hear from you again. Sorry to monopolize the conversation a bit, but now I hope everyone can voice their perspective on what to do.
Out of character, i don't mind what we do with Nurah. I know that Elliot as a Sarenrite might be expected to be inclined towards mercy to her but I feel Nurah hasn't really done a good job convincing us to be merciful, and he still has a lot of loss in his recent memory.
As the good guys, I know we're probably going to grant mercy, perhaps influenced by that there is an ingame reward for converting others back to the side of light in the form of the medals. But really... for what in-character reason would we grant itnto Nurah? Her motivation for doing all of this feels really petty, especially since Axilar is already dead and her slavery itself is a byproduct of where she is from, but she seems to place the blame for it all not on just Axilar but Mendev as a nation. She also isn't exactly showing any regret for her actions, which as a spy in the royal court i can only expect would have been extremely damaging to the country. So I had Elliot draw a line for where he is inclined to give someone a second chance. It leaves room for if others want to change his vote if desired.
That said though, it's been a really lengthy conversation, and I apologize if i missed something already said or discusssd. Any decision is fine by me; Personally I'd mostly like to get back to the crusade and regaining story momentum.
To clarify, I've been writing Nurah as someone who's very damaged and bitter. She's not immediately able to jump ship because she doesn't really have the capacity to trust - at least, not very easily. She's broken in a lot of ways, so she's not been exactly cooperative.
That being said, you are reaching her, and she's just... very quiet about it. In other words, she needs time.
Sorry if that didn't come across in my posts, but that's where I've been writing her from.
I see. Fair enough in that case. Also Verene's argument for sparing her, to later gain information on the Ivory templars, is pretty solid.
The redemption rules also seem to only cover creatures who already want to atone and be redeemed, and I feel like getting them to that point is going to be the tougher battle with all of the enemies we've spared so far. From what I understand from what Worldwound GM has written, none of the spared enemies have actually had the change of heart that would make them want to atone yet. Not Akravash, not the unnamed two from Keeper's Canyon, and not Nurah (if we spare her.)
Changing even one person's whole basic moral outlook is a really big task. I definitely think that to whatever extent we are choosing to try to do so through RP, we should attempt to keep that in spoilers to avoid slowing down the whole campaign. If you're up to it, GM, it would also be nice to have some structure and guidelines around what, if any, actions we can take besides having conversations, or maybe to set regular intervals at which we can make attempts at meaningful heart-to-hearts, rather than something more freeform.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you want, I can actually use the redemption mechanics as put forth in... I think it's Champions of Purity, but it might be something else?
I will try to think up some other guidelines and such in the meantime, but I'll also say you have a good start, and so long as you prompt them to start doing good things, you will lead them further along the way - doing good feels good, etc.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I just took a look at them, and the redemption text and rules laid out in Champions of Purity are identical to those in the Wrath of the Righteous Player's Guide.
The relevant section about wanting to atone is this: "Intention: Determining a creature's intention is largely a roleplaying task. Creatures that truly seek redemption should display genuine remorse over evil acts they've committed and must be willing to embark on the difficult road to becoming good. If you are actively seeking to redeem a creature, there is no guarantee of success, but by offering it examples of mercy and decency you might spark a desire to do good in its heart. Many times, confessing one's past sins and evil deeds is the first step toward redemption. Purposefully completing at least one penance (see below) and succeeding at a Will save as outlined in the following rules should prove a creature is ready to begin its journey."
It's good to hear you think we're on the right track. I'm not intending to complain at all about the difficulty of actively trying to change these NPCs' minds, by the way - I think you've done a great job conveying that these are people whose inclination toward evil was shaped by their experiences. They don't seem like blank slates or inexplicably dedicated to evil for its own sake. They have reasons, even if we don't agree with them. Showing or convincing them that things can be different and that good/prosocial behavior is better will take time, and that's realistic.
RL has been hard lately, I apologize for the lack of posts. Hopefully I can get something up tomorrow.
Sorry to hear that, Merixia. Hope things improve for you soon.
I'm traveling from tomorrow through 8/16. I hope I'll be able to post pretty normally with the spotty/phone internet I should have, but please don't wait on me or hesitate to bot Verene.