Adventures in Sigil - OOC - Part III [4E]

[Nai_Calus]

Originally Posted by Haberdashery

Forgot about that. Save: [roll0]

Also, for the record, I mean it. Shep's arch-rival is Fate. So he has a bone to pick with either the Raven Queen, Ioun, or the figurative concept of Fate.

So we have the guy who tries to manipulate fate, the guy whose rival is fate, and the guy who doesn't believe fate even exists. Hah. (Eltain is Chaotic Good. The idea of fate to him conflicts massively with the idea of free will. No mystical energy field controls his destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense. )

And dang it people, quit giving the DM ideas!

I'm only for the Raven Queen showing up if we get to kill the hell out of her. Least favorite thing in 4E. I even hate her more than I hate the Spellplague and pantheon culling in FR, and I despise those quite a lot.

Reminds me, Fallcrest still needs a Corellite temple. There's the Moonsong Temple devoted to Sehanine that has a shrine for Corellon, but.

[Orsik Vondal]

Religion check to know the pit fiend's name. I know it will be hard, but what the Hells, right? Names have power and a disgraced General of Dis could be a good slave to have...

Religion- (1d20+18)[32]

edit:Sweet, baby Baalzebul! And he shall be called...Incirion Malfias Vrago! Or Incirion for short.

[Nai_Calus]

Because slavery totally isn't going to go over horribly with a CG Paladin and a gnome freedom fighter in the group, nope.

[Orsik Vondal]

I already have one. And he wants a friend! Would Eltain and Pav really deny this poor, helpless servant of Ash's Keezul the enjoyment and freedom that comes with friendship?

[Nai_Calus]

Yes, and Eltain hasn't seen him yet. And yes, given that slavery is an abhorrent practice done only by the truly evil, Eltain at least would. It doesn't matter if the one enslaved is evil themselves, it's still an evil act and wrong. Not at all something to be glorified.

[Orsik Vondal]

But Keezul needs a frieeeeeend! *pout face* (Y'know. The one where my bottom lip pooches out and my brow is slightly furrowed...)

Also, FYI: "Incirion Malfias Vrago zaude! Eta hemen nago zure arima!", means, "You are Incirion Malfias Vrago! And I am here for your soul!"

[Nai_Calus]

I am, in fact, actually being serious here. It's not something to be joked about, please.

[Orsik Vondal]

What are the two sexiest animals on a farm?

Spoiler

Brown chicken. Brown coooow!

[Orsik Vondal]

I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. It's impossible to put down.

[Orsik Vondal]

Did you hear about the butcher who backed into his meat grinder?

Spoiler

He got a little behind in his work.

[Mando Knight]

Originally Posted by Orsik Vondal

And he shall be called...Incirion Malfias Vrago! Or Incirion for short.

Likelihood of that being his Truename: 0.05%

No, seriously. Truenames aren't simply things that get talked about or used lightly. It's like speaking wantonly in True Supernal or making the administrator's password to your computer your catchphrase... too many consequences.

People likely to know a Pit Fiend's Truename: the Pit Fiend (they're powerful enough that they essentially need to know it), the Prince of its domain, Asmodeus, and possibly Vecna. Vecna mostly because he's the Craver of Secrets, and a Truename is one of the most secret things that a being has.

[Orsik Vondal]

Maybe not. Hzurr? What do you think?

If not, what if it's part of his true name? I point to The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher wherein Harry Dresden gets information from a demon and in exchange tells him one of his names. He has five that make up his true given name, so the demon having one or two is not that big a deal. Perhaps Mephistopheles knows his full name or most of it, but only told me three of his names. I could go for that. If we live through this, I can search for his other names (don't know how I would do that, save going to Vecna or Dispater). It would fit well with Ash's 25th level hexblade power: the ability to summon the shadow of a pit fiend.

[Hzurr]

A few things

1) Definitely not his true name. Finding the true name of a pit fiend is an epic level quest in its own. None of y'all even know your True Name. But still, it is it's name, and that might be enough to get his attention (but while Aramil has him marked, odds are he won't be paying much attention to Ash)

2) The "enslaving creatures" bit. I don't think y'all understand how this works. All Devils are more or less enslaved by the Archdukes of hell. Hell is a pretty strict hierarchy, and there isn't a ton of wiggle room. For a hexblade, their infernal patron (in this case Mephistopheles for Ash) sends one of their devils who is already enslaved to go be an errand boy for short amounts of time. Keezul is already a slave, and Meph has some sort of leverage on him. Keezul doesn't have to obey you, but if he doesn't Meph will destroy him, so he does (he just hates having to do it.) For the Pit Fiend that Hexblades get at 25th level, it'd work much the same way. If Meph has leverage over Incirion, he may decide it's amusing to flex this leverage by having Incirion pay off his debt by working part-time for Ash.

So, Ash will not be enslaving anyone. Mephistopheles may use Ash as an avenue where enslaved devils can work off debts.

And while Eltain/Pavick are definitely anti-slavery, I'm not sure this would really set off their alarms as much as you think. Mainly, because they're devils and (Eltain at least) has a "kill-on-sight" policy.

Also, Ash, expect a few PMs about evil vs. unaligned

3. Holding off the mid-round IC post until I find out what Zyrr is going to do.

4. I need Nai to re-roll the damage on Thrull, since the tag didn't get closed in the IC post

5. Holy crap, Mass Charm has no attack roll? That's awesome!

[dariathalon]

Originally Posted by Hzurr

A few things

1) Definitely not his true name. Finding the true name of a pit fiend is an epic level quest in its own. None of y'all even know your True Name. But still, it is it's name, and that might be enough to get his attention (but while Aramil has him marked, odds are he won't be paying much attention to Ash)

2) The "enslaving creatures" bit. I don't think y'all understand how this works. All Devils are more or less enslaved by the Archdukes of hell. Hell is a pretty strict hierarchy, and there isn't a ton of wiggle room. For a hexblade, their infernal patron (in this case Mephistopheles for Ash) sends one of their devils who is already enslaved to go be an errand boy for short amounts of time. Keezul is already a slave, and Meph has some sort of leverage on him. Keezul doesn't have to obey you, but if he doesn't Meph will destroy him, so he does (he just hates having to do it.) For the Pit Fiend that Hexblades get at 25th level, it'd work much the same way. If Meph has leverage over Incirion, he may decide it's amusing to flex this leverage by having Incirion pay off his debt by working part-time for Ash.

So, Ash will not be enslaving anyone. Mephistopheles may use Ash as an avenue where enslaved devils can work off debts.

And while Eltain/Pavick are definitely anti-slavery, I'm not sure this would really set off their alarms as much as you think. Mainly, because they're devils and (Eltain at least) has a "kill-on-sight" policy.

That's pretty much the way I had figured it worked as well. Pavick certainly doesn't like this practice, but looks at it more as a matter of devil politics. Eventually he may work on trying to end it (by killing all the devils naturally), but for now his "freedom fighting" is pretty focused on ending gnomish slavery. If he can free other slaves in the process, that's great, he's happy to do it, but in his priority list gnomish slaves are much higher than most others. (Remember I have said before that I consider Pavick good, but in some ways he dances along the border with unaligned.)

Originally Posted by Hzurr

5. Holy crap, Mass Charm has no attack roll? That's awesome!

Yeah. I think it's my current favorite spell (so hard to pick though! ) I guess they figured it was enough of an "attack roll" when the enemies attack each other. If they miss all it's really done is some forced movement. (Although Pavick likes to use the free forced movement to set up dailies.)

[Nai_Calus]

Eltain actually would be offended by it. It's Eltain, do you expect anything else? Though yes, his solution would be 'Put the poor disgusting thing out of its and everyone else's misery'. It can't suffer anymore and nobody else has to put up with it, everyone wins!

(Eltain actually hates devils slightly more than he hates demons for the same reason he likes Chaotic Neutral more than he likes Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Good more than Lawful Good. Granted he is far, far less concerned with the Law-Chaos axis than he is with the Good-Evil axis and he still despises demons. Hence he'll happily work with a Lawful Good character like Aramil, but Chaotic Evil despite also matching him on one axis is unacceptable. Lawful Evil, being completely opposed, is of course the ultimate anathema alignment-wise.)

Frank, for the record, isn't anyone's slave, he just happens to work for Eltain via Corellon's influence. Frank is apparently perfectly fine with this and likes Eltain anyway because Eltain is nice to him. (I still maintain Frank is the 4th smartest party member. Pavick, Aramil and Eltain all have him beat, sure, but he's a smartass.)

Oh herp. Damage: (3d8+10)[22]

Toric isn't around much on the weekends so it may be better to just do the mid-round and catch up when he gets around to posting for Zyrr. I know last night he seemed to have not really decided on anything yet.

[Haberdashery]

He might be around today, but don't count on it. He's not normally online on Saturday or Sunday.

[Toric]

Well I'm around for a bit, with just enough time to roll a natural 1.

.....I'm gonna add onto that.

[Hzurr]

Originally Posted by Toric

Well I'm around for a bit, with just enough time to roll a natural 1.

.....I'm gonna add onto that.

Don't you have the dagger that lets you force others to see you as an ally? (Or take their form?)

[Toric]

Yes, but that requires stabbing them I believe.

[Hzurr]

Ok, IC post is updated for Zyrr/Eltain. Writing the mid-round combat post now, should be up within an hour or so.

[Hzurr]

Saving Throw for the Bone Devil to avoid going into the Blades:

(1d20)[16]
Damage if it fails: (2d20)[26]

-edit- crap. That means the bone devil won't be moving (there's no other way to get him to those squares without going straight through the blades, so he'll immediately stop, which'll put him well out of range of the Dragon.)

[Hzurr]

Ouch, The PF finally got through Aramil's defenses. So after resistances, this means Aramil will be taking... 53 damage at the start of his turn? (18 (damage) + 10 (aura) + 5 (ongoing fire) + 20 (ongoing poison) [all after resist 5])? Ouch. Good thing Aramil has been mostly untouched this map.


Also, Toric, could you re-post Karlvan's sheet? I misplaced the link.

[Nai_Calus]

I assume that unlisted DC 34 is for Arcana, since that's the only skill that makes sense?

Arcana: (1d20+25)[26]

[Nai_Calus]

Yike. I greatly dislike that. Let's try that again, shall we?

Philosopher's Crown daily power, re-roll that:

(1d20+25)[40]

Yes, I like that much better.

[dariathalon]

I have to say, I'm greatly disliking having multiple foes on the field who can just choose to end save ends effects without even a roll. It kind of makes the amount of investment Pavick has into save penalties worthless. Part of the reason he put so many feats and items into save penalties was to make his dailies still worthwhile against elites and solos.

[Nai_Calus]

Yeah, that is not my favorite piece of 4E mechanics. I remember a particularly dragging, extremely unfun fight I had in LFR once where the boss did that, generally to my Shielding Swordmage's Aegis. It made me feel absolutely worthless in the fight. :/

We didn't even win that encounter by killing the guy, we won by the alternate 'win' condition of opening a portal and running away. (The only reason my PC had any accomplishment during that module was the previous fight that had an internal skill challenge where if the NPC got with us got hit he couldn't progress in the ritual we were there for that round, but a PC could try instead. Guess who had a pimped-out Arcana score and did the entire ritual except for one check the Warlock made before leaving it over to my better modifier.) It's a very 'screw you, PCs, your tricks are useless' mechanic that I'm not at all fond of. I know it's to prevent stunlocks, but I've never actually seen those used. Mostly it just contributes to the 'Controller is a useless role' thing that floats around.

It reminds me of all those useless spells in Final Fantasy that would have been really useful against a boss, except they didn't do anything against a boss, so they never got used because you didn't need them for regular monsters.

You have my sympathies. :<

[Hzurr]

Originally Posted by dariathalon

I have to say, I'm greatly disliking having multiple foes on the field who can just choose to end save ends effects without even a roll. It kind of makes the amount of investment Pavick has into save penalties worthless. Part of the reason he put so many feats and items into save penalties was to make his dailies still worthwhile against elites and solos.

Yeah, it's just this particular flavor of solos. That being said, I wouldn't consider what Pavick is doing worthless. If the Dragon has to spend his entire off-round action getting rid of another daze that Pavick threw on it, that's a round it can't try and eat Shep. So basically, you're damaging it and preventing it from doing 40 some odd damage. That's nothing to sneeze at. And I don't think the Pit Fiend has been able to move this entire combat.

However, point taken. In the future, I'll avoid solos who can auto-save against effects.

[Nai_Calus]

Eltain is a crazy mofo, and the Star Wars references and ass jokes continue. Eltain is so getting a hoof to the knee when this is over.

Questions:

What is the thing at Q7 that isn't listed?
Thrull's listed location and where he is on the map don't match, same goes for Karlvan, which is correct?

[Hzurr]

Originally Posted by Nai_Calus

Eltain is a crazy mofo, and the Star Wars references and ass jokes continue. Eltain is so getting a hoof to the knee when this is over.

Questions:

What is the thing at Q7 that isn't listed?
Thrull's listed location and where he is on the map don't match, same goes for Karlvan, which is correct?

Oh, that's the last remaining Legion Devil.

For positions, the map should be correct. I'll update the key in a bit.

-edit- actually, Thrull should be in row 16, not 17 as appears on the map. I'll fix that in the next update

[dariathalon]

Originally Posted by Hzurr

Yeah, it's just this particular flavor of solos. That being said, I wouldn't consider what Pavick is doing worthless. If the Dragon has to spend his entire off-round action getting rid of another daze that Pavick threw on it, that's a round it can't try and eat Shep. So basically, you're damaging it and preventing it from doing 40 some odd damage. That's nothing to sneeze at. And I don't think the Pit Fiend has been able to move this entire combat.

However, point taken. In the future, I'll avoid solos who can auto-save against effects.

Thanks. I didn't mean to whine, it was mostly just a moment of frustration. I would appreciate less of these in the future. Solos already get a big enough boost to saves that even with Pavick's save penalties they still have near even odds to save, so I don't see why they felt like they needed to give them this sort of boost on top of it.

And yeah, I realize Pavick is having some effect. It's just sometimes that effect is hard for anybody but a frustrated DM to see.

Originally Posted by Hzurr

Oh, that's the last remaining Legion Devil.

For positions, the map should be correct. I'll update the key in a bit.

-edit- actually, Thrull should be in row 16, not 17 as appears on the map. I'll fix that in the next update

Speaking of which, if we could kill off that last Legion Devil, Pavick should be able to use his VoA to pull the Pit Fiend into the blades. It shouldn't be too hard for the rest of you to surround him and keep him there.