1) Do you have any more business in Dagger Rock to see to before seeking the next Key? I know there was talk of crafting some items and selling accumulated loot. If it's fluffy stuff, we can handle it here in the thread, so as not to bog down game time with technicalities.
2) Wish ideas. If you just want to hang onto the scrolls for emergencies, that's fine, but Wishes are tricky, and you can get a far more reliable/valuable result if you think it through rather than using it in a panic and hoping there's no way for the universe to screw you over. Oh, and I'm retconning the number of scrolls found to five; Oipho used his to remove the Geas, and went on his way, happy to finally be able to enjoy life without the Elder Brain observing his every move. Since Deego is helping the party again, you give the fifth scroll to him.
sorry for taking so long to answer questions proper, but here goes:
1) nope, aside from putting the foreman and dryad in charge of continuing to build (or doing it myself if we assume this is gonna be a small time jump). as for buying/selling, I still don't have an answer to my earlier question of how much loot i should claim as mine, given my PC swapping
2) DEFINITELY gonna hold on to the wish scrolls. No need to rush into things.
sorry for taking so long to answer questions proper, but here goes:
1) nope, aside from putting the foreman and dryad in charge of continuing to build (or doing it myself if we assume this is gonna be a small time jump). as for buying/selling, I still don't have an answer to my earlier question of how much loot i should claim as mine, given my PC swapping
2) DEFINITELY gonna hold on to the wish scrolls. No need to rush into things.
For the former, a reasonable suggestion is to take the difference in wealth by level between the level you left, and the level you rejoined at, then gain that amount in gold.
were you good with the phoenix cloak (MIC 210) and Sandals of harmonious balance (CAdv, 135) i asked about earlier? i never saw if you said anything about them
For the former, a reasonable suggestion is to take the difference in wealth by level between the level you left, and the level you rejoined at, then gain that amount in gold.
im just gonna go with what starscream said at the beginning of the game and, for the sake of simplicity, take the even split. anything else would be an immense amount of book keeping and math; and frankly, too much book keeping is exactly why i stopped playing oipho
Looks like I'm going to have to work on saturday and can't show up to D&D. Wooo, 'flexible' work schedules. May change, I'll let you know if I can come.
were you good with the phoenix cloak (MIC 210) and Sandals of harmonious balance (CAdv, 135) i asked about earlier? i never saw if you said anything about them
The sandals are fine. The cloak is part of an item set, and a set is almost like a minor artifact. It has a unique history, all the pieces are typically crafted together, and is not really something you could find in a store.
However, without giving too much away, you are currently searching for the Key of Air. The Key of Earth gave a burrow speed, three guesses what it's opposite number will do.
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Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
Learned from Fargo, the giant owl from way back, that the best bet for finding the Key of Air is the legendary Kingdom of Gust, which is high enough in the clouds that only rocs ever fly high enough to glimpse it. As it was supposedly founded by a halfling folk hero, you go to see Nobby for information. He agrees to tell you in return for taking a pesky ghost named Ariana with you, as his thieves disturbed her tomb, and now she won't let them be.
He tells of Jack the Giant Killer, a great halfling who slew a powerful cloud giant and stole from him the secret to making clouds solid enough to walk on. You hire an experimental airship from a captain whose business Nobby supports, and go off in search of Gust. The captain decides that the best bet is to follow the air currents, as if the kingdom is in the clouds it will also be mobile.
After days of searching, the airship is attacked by air elementals, led by a tempest, who seek captives. You fight them off and allow them to flee, but not before they deliver a warning that war is coming.
Traveling in the direction they fled, you soon come to a massive bank of clouds which are solid enough to slow the ship, and support your weight. A Control Weather spell clears up enough of the fog to see, and you set off on foot. It soon becomes clear that this place was very recently a battlefield. The clouds are stained with blood, and the bodies of air elementals and halflings are strewn about. There are also traps hidden within the clouds themselves.
It seems the elementals and halflings were allied against a common foe; you encounter a spike trap that this enemy set off, causing him to leave bloody footprints along his path. These footprints suggest a humanoid shaped creature of over 80 feet in height. You also find the possibly repairable wreckages of two smaller air vessels, one of which still has the pilot's body. He is clutching a quill and parchment, which turns out to be a two way communication device. A brief conversation follows, in which you describe the situation to the pilot's superiors, and they mention that they are currently dealing with an emergency of their own.
Following the trail, you encounter ever more signs on a slaughter at this creature's hands, culminating in a bloody mess with bare skeletons and empty bunkers. One bunker, however, is not so empty. It contains Charlie, a goblin fisherman who was accidentally picked up by the people of Gust in a giant fishing net lowered from the sky. He decided to join their society as a soldier, but hid from the unexpectedly brutal enemy that slew everyone else.
Charlie confirms that the foe was a giant, but far larger than most, a "giant giant". He also insists that it was accompanied by fiends of some sort, although he doesn't have a good enough description to identify them as demons or devils. Charlie uses the communication parchment to summon a ride to the city, and takes you with him.
XP:
1 Tempest and 6 Greater Air Elementals driven off: 2530 xp each.
Treasure:
* Two +3 short swords (small): 18310 gp each
* A vial of mercury like oil that has yet to be identified (value unknown)
* Two damaged flying machines: the wrecks are worth 5000 gp each, but with suitable repair could be made functional again.
Announcement:
Spoiler
In order to jazz up combat a bit, I'm trying something new next session. I've got a deck of Critical Hit and Critical Fumble cards, which add interesting effects to especially good or bad attack rolls. I've put them on a map of their own, with each card covered. The card itself is on the object layer, and the cover is on the token layer, so you simply pick a card and delete the token on top to uncover it.
If you or an enemy threaten a critical hit or roll a 1, you draw a card from the appropriate deck. Then you get an extra effect based on what sort of attack you made.
For example, here are the effects from one of the critical hit cards, with the one you get depending on what sort of damage you have dealt.
Bludgeoning:Ruptured Spleen - Normal damage, and 1d6 bleeding damage per round. This bleeding damage can only be cured with magic. Piercing:Muscle Severed - Normal damage, and 1d6 STR and 1d6 DEX damage. Slashing:Lean Into the Blow - Triple damage, but you drop your weapon. Magic:Funny Bone - Double Damage and target spends 1 round laughing, as Hideous Laughter spell, will negates.
And here's one of the critical failure card's effects, which depend on the type of attack you failed to land.
Melee:Butterfingers - You drop your weapon. Ranged:Snapped String - If the attack was made with a bow or crossbow, the string snaps and requires 1d3 rounds to fix. Natural:Torn Muscle - You take 1 point of STR drain (fort negates) Magic:Magic Fatigue - You cannot cast any spells for one round.
At the moment, in order to make things more interesting, I'm going to have a card drawn for every natural 20 or 1, without confirmation. If your critical range is greater than 20, you must roll confirmation for lower rolls that still threaten a crit. Both PCs and enemies will be able to draw cards.
If your weapon does more than x2 damage on a crit, you draw extra cards and pick the one you want. So if you have a weapon that does x4 critical damage, you draw three cards and choose one.
This is an experiment, so I want your input on how it turns out. If the cards are changing combat too much, I will reduce their frequency by making them only effect 20s and 1s period, or making them always need to confirm. Or, if you don't like them, we could get rid of them entirely. But I think they sound like much more fun than just multiplying damage x2.
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Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
whats the plan for tommorow? i got an offer to work tommorow, and i'm on the fence about it.. wanna know if game is still on
Well, I was planning to play, but I'd hate to make you miss work if you want/need the money. It's just a game, don't let it interfere with Real Life.
So, entirely your call. We're already missing a player, so it wouldn't be too big a deal to postpone a session so that Ariana doesn't end up too far behind the other characters. Lots of plot stuff coming up, so it might be a good idea for all characters to be present.
Just decide tonight so I know whether or not to set my alarm.
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Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
How to Play Rogues Properly:
Spoiler
Like this:
Last edited by Starscream : 02-17-2012 at 11:18 PM.
Another PC thread, one that I've put off for two weeks. so... Ding level 15!
HP gained: (1d6)[4] + 1 from CON. for a total of 77 HP now. I'm also taking Arcane Strike as my 15th level feat. I'm pondering saving my money up for a Tome of Clear Thought, but if anyone has any recommendations on Druid/Wiz gear, I'm open to suggestions. I still have 64,617.52 GP from our last split (I'm not yet counting the split loot from post #731)
Hey, I know it's a little late for this, but any chance I could get a tally of who's planning on being here tomorrow? Trying to design an encounter, and it'd be handy to know just how many PCs I'm planning it for.
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Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
Hey, I know it's a little late for this, but any chance I could get a tally of who's planning on being here tomorrow? Trying to design an encounter, and it'd be handy to know just how many PCs I'm planning it for.
ill be here. and i even made macros! which should make me WAY faster in combat.
Session closed. Three players in attendance for first part, all four for second.
Massive Recap:
Spoiler
Made it to the capital city of Gust, which you found to be enclosed in a rainbow colored dome. It seems that most of its troops were sent to deal with the giant attack, so the city was shielded in their absence as a precaution. However, while it was shielded, an emergency took place inside, and Charlie the goblin you met before has difficulty getting the guards to let you in.
Seems that luring the troops away may have been a distraction; someone within the shield let others in and out, and while they were there they broke into the castle vault, stole several magical items, and killed a few halflings. The bodies were used to spell out a message: Adamus is now Karthyx. To make matters worse, as soon as the Queen was told of this, she began acting as though possessed.
Drummond, an adviser of the Queen, tells you that Adamus is a cloud giant rabble rouser who believes in the superiority of giants over smaller beings. Whereas most of his species has long since dismissed the legend of Gust as mere fiction, Adamus believes it to be true and feels his race's rightful place was stolen from them. However, he simply has no way of proving this, nor could he reach Gust even if he did.
You meet with the Queen, who it turns out is the harp from the Jack the Giant Killer story; she married Jack and they ruled Gust together for many years, but as a construct she has lived centuries and now rules alone. However, she is now being spoken through by a being from Mechanus, who took over as soon as she overheard the word "Karthyx". Seems the Queen is from Mechanus too, and the other being is investigating a crime, and can use other beings from that plane as a conduit. "She" demands evidence of Karthyx being nearby, as the name alone is not enough.
The party finds evidence of fiendish involvement, and Deego tracks the scent of demons. It turns out that the demons who let the thieves in and out are still within the city, in disguise. They are unmasked and slain. Presenting the body of one to the Queen allows her possessor to separate from her and reveal itself.
This Marut reveals that Karthyx is a powerful demon, who instigated a jailbreak on Carceri; specifically it broke out Kharis, the former holder of the Key of Life and perhaps more importantly the Black Scroll of Ahm that gave clues as to the locations of the other Keys. Now it has seemingly possessed Adamus, causing him to grow in size and strength, and used him to go on a rampage as a distraction, allowing his subordinates to steal the Key of Air (which was classified as a "Nimbus Substantiator" due to its ability to solidify clouds).
The Marut is initially less than forthcoming with you, but the Queen pulls rank: seems she was a big deal on Mechanus back in the day. She has also been guarding the Key of Air long enough to realize its function, and hoped to keep it a secret by passing it off as a mere curiosity. The Marut reveals the source of his information: a witness from the next cell over. Turns out this is Tharantas, and he's less than pleased to see Ornald and Madila again (not to mention finding Deego rather obnoxious).
Tharantas recites the conversation he overheard between Kharis and Karthyx. Karthyx slew the Warden of the prison, and awoke Kharis, trying to get more information about the other Keys and their locations. Kharis is at first uncooperative, but the demon uses his pathological hatred of all gods (he feels his own betrayed him when it tried to convince him to re-die instead of embrace the power of the Key of Life, abandoning him to crawl his way out from hundreds of feet beneath the earth when he was revived by it) to convince him that the End of All Things is a fitting revenge, and will allow him to escape his eternal imprisonment on Carceri.
Kharis reveals that he researched the locations of the other Keys using the hints from the Scroll, and planned to seize them when his own forces were strong enough. After the events of Chapter 1 resulted in so many undead across the world, which can be used to empower the Key of Life, he came close to achieving this goal, but was stopped by the party beforehand. His research is still hidden in his home on the Astral Plane, and Karthyx takes him to find it, admitting that he will just destroy him when he gets what he wants. Kharis hardly cares.
The Marut and Queen question whether or not it's worth it to go there and investigate further, since it's clear they succeeded (otherwise how did Karthyx find Gust and the Key of Air), but Tharantas insists he can aid further in the investigation if taken there. He refuses to reveal how, demanding a reduced sentence if he can prove himself useful.
Traveling to the Astral Plane, you find the remains of Kharis' home just drifting around. A pair of Astral Dreadnoughts attack, and are eventually killed. You find where the research was hidden, but it is already taken.
But you also find Kharis, who was slain by the demon when he had no further use for him. Tharantas reveals that he suspected this would happen, as the conversation between them showed the demon's intent, and they aren't forward thinking enough to consider that just killing someone and leaving them to rot is a bad idea.
He offers to cast Speak With Dead on your behalf, and allow you to interrogate Kharis for yourselves. Since having Ornald cast this spell would grant Kharis a save (and the same corpse can't be the subject of this spell more than once a week, and time is of the essence), raising him is impossible unless he allows it, and reviving him as an intelligent undead would allow him to lie, this seems the best alternative. Tharantas and Kharis are the same alignment, so the spell will automatically succeed.
Tharantas has a CL of 10, so that's 5 questions, which will be answered briefly but truthfully. Please post what you want to ask.
Treasure:
* A chest full of sapphires: 42,000 gp
* A Pearl of Power (6th level spell): 36,000 gp
* A Rope of Entanglement: 21,000 gp
XP:
* Two Sibriexes, fought by three players: 3000 xp each
* Two Astral Dreadnoughts fought by four players: 3375 xp each
Additional Notes:
* The cards thing is a bit of a dud, since we've had two players get stuck loading the page. Maybe I'll retool it to have you pick one with a dice roll later on, but for now let's forget about it.
* Ornald used some of the blood shed by Adamus/Karthyx to scry on him, and has been doing so aver since. Since he doesn't speak Abyssal, there is only so much info that can be gleaned, but here's what he has seen so far.
1) Adamus now has a demonic appearance, confirming that he and Karthyx have somehow merged. He is over 80 feet tall (gigantic even for a giant), possesses horns and wings, and looks extremely dangerous.
2) His location is hard to determine, but he appears to be indoors somewhere, either in a stone building or a cave.
3) Adamus/Karthyx is not alone; many demons are with him, of many varieties. Although he is clearly in charge, some of his subordinates do not seem pleased with him at the moment.
4) Adamus/Karthyx is planning further attacks on Gust, and has drawn up a map detailing a battle plan. They plan to cut through the countryside surrounding the city, and attack from all sides. A crude plan, but still more strategic than most demons are capable of.
5) Ornald was able to phonetically recite a bit of conversation between Karthyx and one of his lieutenants. His forces are confused as to why he wants to continue to attack Gust even though they now possess the Key.
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Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
Hey guys, just a heads up. I have to go out of town this weekend and while, in theory, I will be at a place where I can get internet and play, I anticipate that I will end up having to go AFK a couple of times during the session. As such, while I don't plan to skip, I won't be taking part as readily and as much as I often do.
Gah, I'm having a computer disaster at the moment (have to post this from work) and while there's a chance I'll have it fixed by Saturday (not a great one), even if that happens I don't know what state my hard drive is going to be in with all my D&D stuff on it.
So unless I post otherwise in the next day or so, assume I can't play this week. Maybe next week as well, but I'm going to optimistically assume that I'll have everything more or less functional by then, and will keep you posted if that's not the case.
As for losing my data, the good news is I do regular backups, so if my hard drive is kaput I should still have current versions of everyone's tokens. But I don't think I've backed up the campaign file itself in a while. So Magotter, if you could post that code you wanted inserted for your macros, I can add it even if I need to recreate the campaign.
__________________
Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
How to Play Rogues Properly:
Spoiler
Like this:
Last edited by Starscream : 03-08-2012 at 08:38 AM.
As for losing my data, the good news is I do regular backups, so if my hard drive is kaput I should still have current versions of everyone's tokens. But I don't think I've backed up the campaign file itself in a while. So Magotter, if you could post that code you wanted inserted for your macros, I can add it even if I need to recreate the campaign.
Luckily I also keep regular backups. Here's a link to the campaign properties:
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Re: Key of Creation OOC Thread
