Chapter 20 [Parts 1-3]

[reefwood]

Day 87 - Part 2 @ 1:57pm +1 Round

A couple things I forgot to mention:

1) The butterfly room is made up of the porous stone

2) In the center of the ceiling of the butterfly room is a 10 ft x 10 ft tunnel that goes straight up. Further than anyone with 60 ft darkvision can see.


As for spells...

I think Nim cast fly on Gorgon #3, but was that his own spell or a wand? And were you keeping track of when the Succubus was summoned? Was it the same round that Zahn started demisting?

Sahme cast form of the dragon I right after entering the butterfly room, right?

Here is an updated list of the spell that have expired and are still active. I think most of the new spells cast this session have already expired, but I might have missed something:


Brion
haste til start of Nim's turn on Round 15
power word stun on Misty #3 til ??
good hope til 1:57pm
airwalk til 4:10pm
darkvision til 5:30pm
windwalk til Day 88 @1am

resist energy: fire 30 til ~4:35pm

Garm
greater invisibility til start of turn on Round 6
haste til start of Nim's turn on Round 16
good hope til 1:57pm
see invisibility til 2:20pm
airwalk til 4:10pm
greater magic weapon til Day 88 @1am
windwalk til Day 88 @1am

resist energy: fire 30 til ~4:35pm


Sahme
globe of invulnerability til start of turn on Round 10
greater invisibility til start of turn on Round 11
haste til start of Nim's turn on Round 15
good hope til 1:57pm
bull's strength til 1:59pm
spectral hand til 1:59pm
spell resistance til 1:59pm
fly til 2:02pm
windwalk til Day 88 @2:30am

form of the dragon I @1:56pm til 2:08pm
resist energy: fire 30 til ~3:55pm


Nim
haste til start of Nim's turn on Round 15
invisibility til 2:03pm - ended by attack
spectral hand til 2:03pm
windwalk til Day 88 @2:30am
darkvision til Day 88 @5:30pm

resist energy: fire 30 til ~4:35pm


Zahn
haste til start of Nim's turn on Round 15
invisibility sphere til 1:53pm
invisibility til 2:03pm
windwalk til Day 88 @2:30am
zone of silence til 11:30pm


Nightmares #1-4 (outside of mouth opening - Nim)
windwalk til Day 88 @2:30am - dismissed


Gorgon #1 (Bloody Skeleton Erinyes - Nim)
haste til start of Nim's turn on Round 15
good hope til 1:57pm
airwalk til 4:10pm
windwalk til Day 88 @1am
polymorph any object - til Day 94 @ 7am


Gorgon #2 (Bloody Skeleton Erinyes - Nim)
haste til start of Nim's turn on Round 15
good hope til 1:57pm
airwalk til 4:10pm
windwalk til Day 88 @1am
polymorph any object - til Day 94 @ 7am


Gorgon #3 (Bloody Skeleton Half-celestial Ogre #3: outside of mouth opening - Zahn)
polymorph any object - permanent
fly? (CL?) on Round 17 til ??pm


Bloody Skeleton Half-celestial Ogre #1 (outside of mouth opening - Nim)
n/a?

Bloody Burning Skeleton Half-celestial Ogre #2 (outside of mouth opening - Nim)
n/a?

Bloody Skeleton Half-celestial Ogre #4 (mountaintop - Zahn)
n/a?

Bloody Skeleton Half-celestial Ogre #5 (mountaintop - Zahn)
n/a?


EDIT: It looks like Zahn is the only squad member who still invisibility running, in addition to being in a zone of silence.

---

Online Rounds

We might be able to do some online action between now and the next session - depending on what people want to do. It is the start of Round 71. We can break initiative as long as squad members aren't competing to do the same thing first, and we'll re-roll initiative when the next encounter happens. I will continue to track actions by round, but you can also state what you want to do over the next few rounds, and I'll sum it up as far as I can.

It looks like these are the squad members in the Butterfly Cavern:
Brion (airwalking)
-Garm (airwalking)
Sahme (dragon form and flying)
Nim (riding Gorgon #1)
--Gorgon #1 (airwalking - Nim)
--Gorgon #2 (airwalking - Nim)
---Succubus (9 out of 16 rounds - Nim)
-Zahn (invisible & silent, on foot)

These are the undead outside the mouth:
--Nightmares #1-4 (Nim)
--Bloody Skeleton Half-Celestial Ogre #1 (Nim)
--Bloody Burning Skeleton Half-Celestial Ogre #2 (Nim)
--Gorgon #3 (Zahn - obey Nim)

And these are the ones on the mountaintop:
--Bloody Skeleton Half-Celestial Ogre #4 (Zahn)
--Bloody Skeleton Half-Celestial Ogre #5 (Zahn)

---

ROUND 71

Brion
Channel Energy (standard action) for 29 hp to Brion, Garm, Sahme, Nim, Zahn

Garm
Sheathe longsword (move action)
Take longsword (move action)


ROUND 72

Garm
Teleport to mountaintop (standard action)
Looking for Ogres (active Perception check - move action) - 29
Estimate distance/time (Survival check - free action) - 21

Garm spots both groups of flying ogres. The closer group will reach the mountain in a few minutes, and the other group is another minute or two behind them.


ROUND 73

Garm
Teleport to base (standard action)
Start putting in extract order (move action)


ROUND 74

Garm
Finish putting in extract order (move action)
Teleport to butterfly cavern (standard action)
Reports findings to squad (free action)

The extract order will be completed in Round 84.

[reefwood]

Dead & Undead Things

1) Nim does not know the HD of the Large butterflies. There is 1 petrified Large butterfly and 1 dead Large butterfly in the cavern. The Huge butterfly exploded into sparkle dust. Also, 2 Large butterflies (1 still active, 1 down) disappeared when the Huge butterfly disappeared halfway thru the combat.

2) I forgot to list the Nightmares in the list of creatures under the effects of spells. I believe the only longterm spell cast on them was windwalk cast by Zahn. However, I ruled a longtime ago that while mindless undead can be affected by the spell, they cannot make too much use of it. The spell turns them into mist - just like any other creature - but they don't have the intelligence to know how to demist, so the only way to demist them is to the dismiss the spell on them. Which seems to be what happened since no one tried to remist them after the first ambush. But just want to make sure everyone is on the same page.

3) Zahn still has zone of silence going, so no one further than 10 ft can hear him. He controls Bloody-Skeleton-Half-Celestial Ogre Gorgon #3 but has ordered it to obey Nim. What about the other two Bloody-Skeleton-Half-Celestial Ogre that Zahn controls? Did he order them to follow him down the mountain? Cos after jumping off the tower, it will still be a very difficult Climb check (probably a few) to get to the top of the outer time of the mountain before they can even start to Climb down (which will also be difficult). Do you still want these two to follow Zahn? There's a decent change they will fall and be destroyed before they even get to the top of the rim.

[michael]

Brion's going to use a healing burst. Everyone's clustered together, so he should be able to hit everyone.

3 - 1 - 1 - 4 - 6 - 6 - 5 - 3 = 29 HP

Brion and Garm are at full from that one, but what are other people's HP at? Should he use another one?

Garm is going to put away his Mithral Longsword, take his Adamantine Greatsword from Brion, then teleport to the top of the mountain again to check on the approaching enemies. It's still 2 groups of 5 approaching from different directions, right? And they're over 5 minutes away? (Perception +18, Survival +15)

After Garm checks out the top of the mountain, he's going to teleport back to base and place an order with the Alchemists.

Brion's follower leadership score right now is 24, and I'd like all of the new 3rd through 5th level followers to be alchemists. Here are my revised followers.

Followers (133)
1st-level (110): 30 Barbarians, 20 Fighters, 5 Sorcerers, 5 Rangers + 50 other
2nd-level (11): 2 Cleric, 1 Druid, 1 Barbarian, 2 Sorcerers + 5 other
3rd-level (6): 3 Alchemists + 3 Alchemists
4th-level (3): 2 Alchemists + 1 Alchemist
5th-level (2): 1 Alchemist + 1 Alchemist
6th-level (1): Bard 5/Pathfinder Chronicler 1

These are the spells Garm will ask them to prepare. It's one spell per alchemist, and all of my alchemists have the infusion discovery.

3rd level - 3 Shield, 1 Expeditious Retreat, 1 Detect Secret Doors, 1 Comprehend Languages
4th level - See Invisibility, Blur, Cat's Grace
5th Level - Bear's Endurance, Bull's Strength

It should take one minute for them to get them all ready, but Garm won't wait around for it. He'll place the order and teleport back to the group in the cave.

[icnivad]

There should not be windwalk cast on any of the mindless undead. I think they just flew under their own powers. We just windwalked the mindful ones (including the recently PAO ones)

Also, I didn't realize that the rest of the mountain would be hard to climb down. If that is the case, Zahn would fly down, and order a couple of Nightmares to come back and pick up the Ogres. The Nightmares had a speed of 90, so I think they should be able to do the trip pretty quickly. If Zahn thought that this might put the incoming groups of ogres close to the tower, he would rethink the plan.

And the spell Nim cast was Resist Energy, which gives fire resistance 30 for 160 minutes. No pool to wear down.

[reefwood]

Re: Online Rounds

Rather than make a new post everytime an action is added, I will simply update the Online Rounds post above for the time being. Also, none of this is going to happen yet. It is just going to be a list of what people *want* to do and how long it will take. That'll give everyone a change to adjust actions if things don't mesh with what others are doing or if it will take longer than you originally thought. Not sure if I'll have much internet time while I'm away, but when I do finalize actions and give results, I'll give you a 24-48 hrs heads up for any last minute changes (i.e. "results for Rounds 71-73 will be posted tomorrow").

---

Re: Brion

Sept 9, 2011 17:02:51 GMT -5 michael said:

These are the spells Garm will ask them to prepare. It's one spell per alchemist, and all of my alchemists have the infusion discovery.

3rd level - 3 Shield, 1 Expeditious Retreat, 1 Detect Secret Doors, 1 Comprehend Languages
4th level - See Invisibility, Blur, Cat's Grace
5th Level - Bear's Endurance, Bull's Strength

It should take one minute for them to get them all ready, but Garm won't wait around for it. He'll place the order and teleport back to the group in the cave.

Oh yeah, I forgot about updated Leadership stuff... and nice idea. Putting in an order of that size is more than 1 round of free action, but Garm does have a couple move actions to burn while teleporting back and forth, so he can use those. Otherwise, it would have taken a whole round to place the order.

---

Re: Nim

Sept 9, 2011 20:39:46 GMT -5 icnivad said:

There should not be windwalk cast on any of the mindless undead. I think they just flew under their own powers. We just windwalked the mindful ones (including the recently PAO ones)

I had Zahn listed as casting wind walk twice with one of the castings used on the Nightmares. This was listed in the Part 1 summary, and they would have had to been in mist form to keep up with the squad moving at 600 ft per round. Cos the Nightmares max out at 450 ft. So just make sure he has at least two 6th-level spell slots marked off for these.

Also, I didn't realize that the rest of the mountain would be hard to climb down. If that is the case, Zahn would fly down, and order a couple of Nightmares to come back and pick up the Ogres. The Nightmares had a speed of 90, so I think they should be able to do the trip pretty quickly. If Zahn thought that this might put the incoming groups of ogres close to the tower, he would rethink the plan.

Zahn does not control the Nightmares, and they are not smart enough to do that kind of thing on their own. Nim and Zahn could do it together, but it would require them to mist up to get outside, demist in order to give orders to undead, Nim orders the Nightmares, fly up the mountain, Zahn orders the Ogres onto the Nightmares, fly back down the mountain, remist to get back inside but still leaving the Nightmares and Ogres outside (unless you teleport them inside)?

~5 rd to the closed mouth
5 rd remist
2 rd fly as mist out of closed mouth
5 rd demist
6 rd fly up at half-speed (90 x5 Run = 450 ft/half-speed = 225 ft/rd)
1 rd fly to tower and pick up Ogres
3 rd fly down at full speed (90 x5 Run = 450 ft/rd)
5 rd remist
2 rd fly as mist into closed mouth
5 rd demist
~5 rd to the butterfly cavern

I don't have time right now to measure exact distances, but it will take 4-5 minutes and require Nim and Zahn to pass through the fire tunnel a couple times.

And the spell Nim cast was Resist Energy, which gives fire resistance 30 for 160 minutes. No pool to wear down.

Okay, correction made. For some reason I thought you had cast the more powerful one.

[reefwood]

Re: Online Rounds

I will forward the online rounds with results on Friday. Do Nim & Zahn want to start the 4-5 minute process of getting the Ogre Skeletons on top of the mountain? Does Sahme want to do anything?

[michael]

Do Nim & Zahn want to start the 4-5 minute process of getting the Ogre Skeletons on top of the mountain?

If either of them started misting up, Brion would order them to stop. There are still people in the mountain, and we should take care of them before dealing with things outside.

[reefwood]

Re: Online Rounds - 71-74

I posted the results for these rounds, and we are now at the start of Round 75. Everyone who was in the butterfly cavern is still here.

And what is the caster level for the wand used to cast fly on Gorgon #3?

[reefwood]

Half-Celestials (and Half-Fiends)

These creatures gain bonuses based on their HD. I wasn't sure if the bonuses were just based on racial HD or should increase as it gains total HD. For example, a Half-Celestial Ogre has 4 HD:

1) An Ogre is CR 3 with 4 racial HD, and a creature with "5 HD or less" gains +1 CR as a Half-Celestial, so the Half-Celestial Ogre is CR 3 +1 = CR 4

2) "11 HD or less" gains DR 5/magic

3) SR equals CR +11, so CR 4 +11 = SR 15

4) 4 HD give it protection from evil 3/day, bless, aid, and detect evil

I wasn't sure if the bonuses based on HD only applied to racial HD because the creature entry doesn't specify that. I posted on the Paizo board and could not find an official answer, but I think most people said to increase the bonuses with HD. And now that I look at the entry again, it does mention racial HD but only in the Skills section, so I guess the other stuff might increase with HD, but it does get a bit fuzzy. If this Half-Celestial Ogre gains 2 Fighter levels, it could look like this:

1a) The Half-Celestial Ogre is CR 4, and each level of Fighter will increase CR by +1, so +2 Ftr = CR 6

1b) But if you start with a Ftr2 Ogre, it is Ogre CR 3 +2 Ftr = CR 5. The Ogre has 4 racial HD, so +2 Ftr gives the Ftr2 Ogre a total of 6 HD. When you convert this one into a Half-Celestial (+2 CR for a Half-Celestial with 6-11 HD), it winds up being CR 5 +2 Half-Celestial = CR 7

2) "11 HD or less" gains DR 5/magic, so this is the same.

3) SR equals CR +11, so CR 6 +11 = SR 17... or CR 7 +11 = SR 18.

4) 5-6 HD add cure serious wounds and neutralize poison.

It just seems kind of funny that CR (and therefore, SR and equipment) will jump two levels on one HD, especially if this was an advancing PC:

1) Ogre (4 HD, CR 3) -> Half-Celestial Ogre (4 HD, CR 4)
2) Ftr1 Ogre (5 HD, CR 4) -> Ftr1 Half-Celestial Ogre (5 HD, CR 5)
3) Ftr2 Ogre (6 HD, CR 5) -> Ftr2 Half-Celestial Ogre (6 HD, CR 7)

Which is why I kind of wonder if the Half-Celestial bonuses should just be based off racial HD because racial HD will never change as the creature advances.

---

Hallow

I had the Half-Celestial bonuses increase with total HD, and therefore, some of them had hallow as a spell-like ability 1/day. Since these Ogres were around for a while - years - it made sense that they covered their entire domain with this spell. One effect is that a single spell can be tied into the hallowed area. Hallow is a constant effect, so I was wondering if the fixed spell automatically recasts every round? Or just every time the previous casting runs out? It might be easier to only have it cast when a creature enters the area, so he has to leave and return to have it recast, but the spell says nothing about doing it like this.

I used aid for the fixed spell and it was attuned to those of the same faith. I meant to have it automatically recast every time the spell ran out, but I was actually having it recast almost every round. What happened is that aid lasts 1 minute per level, but I was having it recast every time the temporary hit points ran out... not realizing that the loss of temp hp didn't mean that the spell ended... because the other +1 morale bonuses were still active even after the temp hp were lost. But what do you think? Every round? Every time it runs out? Only when you enter?

Also, "any dead body interred in a hallowed site cannot be turned into an undead creature." I wasn't sure if this meant the body had to actually be buried in the ground, or just laying in the hallowed area? It sounds like in the ground, which is why I had animate dead work near the fire tower... but I'm not sure why being covered in dirt should matter.

One effect that I forgot this last session is that the hallowed area has a constant magic circle vs evil. It turns out that this does not expel a life force already in a target via magic jar, but it does prevent the life force from controlling the target... and the target is immune from any new attempts to possess it in the first place.

What happened in the game is that the Ogres had magic circle vs evil too, so when the possessed Elf approached the Ogres, I had Nim get forced out. What should have happened is that Nim would still be inside but not in control. But what really should have happened even earlier is that Nim should not have been able to take control of any targets since the entire area was warded by magic circle vs evil. He would have had to possess a target outside the mountain but lost control once he got close and went inside (but could still stay in the target without control).

---

Magic Circle vs Summoned Creatures

The magic circle spells can prevent summoned creatures of the specific alignment from entering the warded area. Unless the summoned creature has SR that the caster fails to overcome. If the creature cannot enter the area, does this mean is cannot be summoned into the area too? I wasn't sure, so I allowed the Succubus to be summoned without a caster level check vs SR, but I'm not sure about that. And even if it could be summoned without a caster level check, would the summoned creature be stuck in one place if its SR fails, and therefore, cannot move against the barrier. The barrier is broken is the warded creature pushes it against a summoned creature, but what if the summoned creature is thrust into the barrier?