The story progressed, and we found the only city in the desert, ruled my minotaurs and stone giants and possessing few other inhabitants, those few including the city's leader, an angelic female of great power (still not sure just what she was, but even naked, she had like 40 AC), and an emerald dragon (who controlled the giant crystal which provided light and protection for the entire city.). The desert was home to a large number of demons, we found, and their leader was seeking something called the crown of the verse, which was supposedly able to get us to a portal in the middle of the demon army's encampment.
We attained the crown, snuck into the encampment, the DMPC went berserk (he was some kind of psion varient which goes into a psionic rage, raising his manifester level and causing him to lose control of himself for a while before completely passing out, we later found he was bound to a demon himself.) He rolled a 1 on a will save to resist my pathetic "calm emotions" attempt (yay for fate), and we are able to get him to the portal before we go through it with the crown, deactivating the thing and stopping the super powerful demon from following us. yay end of arc.
We come out in the middle of a jungle in feyrune, which is NOT the same campaign setting as the one we started in. Basically we are on another material plane (and all planes can exist simultaneously, and do, in this setting). While there, people who were hunting the psionic berserking DMPC get him, because he's unconscious for an undetermined amount of time. We eventually find him in the wizard's guild, which is controlled by an evil wizard and a bunch of other elans which have much power in the city. We nearly defeat the wizard, but I die during the battle! The wizard D-Doors, and we are sent on the run.
Through friends we made in the city before we became wanted, we get a tip to go to a tower at the base of a volcano to meet with the wizard Cyric (not to be mistaken with the god, he hates that). Seeing an opportunity, I decide that instead of taking the DM's generous offer to resurrect my cleric at full levels with a +.5 template added to his body, I want to try a GOD wizard. I figure now is a good time to talk party make-up, and just WHY I chose this variant instead of an über cleric.
Party make - Up
Druid/Momf kobold
Druid with animal parts shapeshift varient
a warrior/Su. ability magic user (a class designed by the DM)
psion berserker (DMPC)
A hexblade with awesome stats (my girlfriend, playing a guy lol)
Psion peashooter, someone who snipes guys with energy rays far as i see.
dragon shaman (who just died and may reroll a warrior/su. ability user class like the one above)
copper dragon rogue with a taste for everyone's weapons.
My previous character was a Faithcaster (spont casting cleric varient from path of faith) of Farlinghan 12, and brought many good things to the table, continual flame bullets for desert seeing, a self-crafted helm of comprehend languages, and a magic bag, among other things.
My new GOD character is this:
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Race: Whisper Gnome
Classes: Focused specialist wizard (conjuration) 3, Master Specialist 8
Variants: fighter feats, immediate magic, focused specialist
Abilities:
Str 6
Dex 18
Con 18
Int 18
Wis 16
Cha 11
Feats: Pathetic (-2 to physical checks and skill checks) (flaw), Non-Combatant (-2 to melee attack rolls) (Flaw), spell focus (conjuration), sculpt spell (CArc), metamagic school focus (conjuration), improved initiative, cloudy conjuration, skill focus (spellcraft), dimensional reach (CM), Minor shapeshift (CM)
And I know I missed one, I'll edit it in later (doing this from memory)
Stuff:
Survival Pouch (MIC): for flare, it brings me stuff and is funny.
Artificers Monacle (MIC): for identifying stuff.
Transposer Cloak (MIC): For swapping places without popping benign transposition, and as a swift action to boot
ring of silent spells (MIC)
Lore Gem (MIC) for flare
spell component pouch
and 1300 gold remains
Banned magic schools: Abjuration (it hurt), Enchantment, and Necromancy
Spells:
First: grease, enlarge person, benign transposition (Minis), Summon monster 1, silent image, reduce person, mount, tensor's floating disk (for flying allies
)
Prepared: summon monster 1, grease x2 (one mm school focus sculpted), 2 benign transpositions, one silent image, and one enlarge person
Second: fog cloud, Glitterdust, Incindiary slime (CM), web, invisibility, rope trick, alter self
Prepared: Glitterdust (mm school focused sclupted), invisibility, incindiary slime (mm school focused sculpted), web, grease (sculpted), fog cloud, and rope trick
Third: Fireball, summon monster 3, invisibility sphere, greater mage armor (CArc), legions snakes swiftness (Minis)
Prepared: fireball, 2x summon monster 3, 1 Greater Mage Armor, one invis sphere, 2x legions snakes swiftness
Fourth: solid fog, polymorph, greater mirror image, evards black tentacles, dimension door
Prepared: solid fog, 1 polymorph, 2x greater mirror image, 2x evards
fifth: overland flight, wall of stone, teleport, summon monster 5, fabricate, mass fly (CArc 108)
Prepared: one overland flight, two wall of stones, one summon monster 5
sixth: Freezing fog (CArc), Wall of Iron, contingency (no non-conj slots yet)
Prepared: 2x freezing fog, 1x Wall of iron.
Classes: Focused specialist wizard (conjuration) 3, Master Specialist 8
Variants: fighter feats, immediate magic, focused specialist
Abilities:
Str 6
Dex 18
Con 18
Int 18
Wis 16
Cha 11
Feats: Pathetic (-2 to physical checks and skill checks) (flaw), Non-Combatant (-2 to melee attack rolls) (Flaw), spell focus (conjuration), sculpt spell (CArc), metamagic school focus (conjuration), improved initiative, cloudy conjuration, skill focus (spellcraft), dimensional reach (CM), Minor shapeshift (CM)
And I know I missed one, I'll edit it in later (doing this from memory)
Stuff:
Survival Pouch (MIC): for flare, it brings me stuff and is funny.
Artificers Monacle (MIC): for identifying stuff.
Transposer Cloak (MIC): For swapping places without popping benign transposition, and as a swift action to boot
ring of silent spells (MIC)
Lore Gem (MIC) for flare
spell component pouch
and 1300 gold remains
Banned magic schools: Abjuration (it hurt), Enchantment, and Necromancy
Spells:
First: grease, enlarge person, benign transposition (Minis), Summon monster 1, silent image, reduce person, mount, tensor's floating disk (for flying allies
)Prepared: summon monster 1, grease x2 (one mm school focus sculpted), 2 benign transpositions, one silent image, and one enlarge person
Second: fog cloud, Glitterdust, Incindiary slime (CM), web, invisibility, rope trick, alter self
Prepared: Glitterdust (mm school focused sclupted), invisibility, incindiary slime (mm school focused sculpted), web, grease (sculpted), fog cloud, and rope trick
Third: Fireball, summon monster 3, invisibility sphere, greater mage armor (CArc), legions snakes swiftness (Minis)
Prepared: fireball, 2x summon monster 3, 1 Greater Mage Armor, one invis sphere, 2x legions snakes swiftness
Fourth: solid fog, polymorph, greater mirror image, evards black tentacles, dimension door
Prepared: solid fog, 1 polymorph, 2x greater mirror image, 2x evards
fifth: overland flight, wall of stone, teleport, summon monster 5, fabricate, mass fly (CArc 108)
Prepared: one overland flight, two wall of stones, one summon monster 5
sixth: Freezing fog (CArc), Wall of Iron, contingency (no non-conj slots yet)
Prepared: 2x freezing fog, 1x Wall of iron.
Also, this "easy summon monster sheet" you speak of intrigues me and I want to know more (playing a malconvoker at next opportunity).
This is the original which includes the creatures in the PHB list with their templates already added, I just added in stats for stuff that is WOTC published already (such as elementals and devils which aren't templated). I have a printed copy (45 pages lol) and its on my computer too for easier monster finding. Its just the creatures from the PHB summon monster list with the templates already added, but it saves me time
as for the dispelling bit, master specialist gives my summoned creatures a bonus versus dispel checks of +5, also raises my CL for conjuration spells by 1 (2 at 9th level), and the feat dimensional reach raises my CL for Conjuration (summoning) spells by an additional +1, so summoned monsters have my CL+7 against dispel checks, nothing to scoff at. I wasn't planning on focusing on fogging and mucking up the battlefield right away in this fight, it just happened that way because I didn't feel like looking up templates, and I wanted to see how effective it was. It was
.So basically, the DC to dispell my clouds or glitterdusts was 23 (11+caster level of 12). Assuming that our DM put us against 3 level 11 DFA's with voracious dispelling (which I'm pretty sure is equivilant to greater dispel for the purposes of their bonus to dispel checks) meaning that they roll 1d20 and add 11 to determine if they dispel, one of the 3 would have to roll more than 12 to succeed, even less if they were higher level than 11.
If they were trying to dispel summoned creatures, they would have had to beat a dc of 29 (11+Caster level of 13+5) which would have required a roll of 18 for success (much much better odds :D ).
The fact that there were three with the same abilities kind of shut me down though, if there had only been 1 or even 2 I would have had much less trouble controlling the Battlefield. However, it did make for a more challenging fight, though I only took about 11 damage from arrows after all was over (yay for minor shapeshift and its awesomeness). I didn't feel like arguing that I could have used immediate magic to abrupt jaunt 10 feet out of the arrow's way, but I would have if it had been life-threatening.
Also, the stats I rolled were rather lucky, and also rather enhanced by whisper gnome awesomeness. I think my original rolls were 16 16 16 15 13 8.
This would have changed things last session significantly, I'll inform my DM so we don't let that mistake occur again.
Also, the voracious dispelling invocation is a standard dispel magic attempt, so the max bonus they can get is 10. The math, they would need a 17 dispel magic check to dispel my DC 27 clouds, glitterdust, or grease spells. This means that the blind ones would have remained blind, however my initial freezing fog was hindered because he did roll an 18 on his dispel attempt (which resulted in a 29, I will notify him of HIS mistake there because standard dispel magic maxes at +10 from CL of the dispeller).
I'll also edit the original post because I have access to my character sheet and spell book now, I made the first post from the top of my head and an old PHB I had lying around, so some of the stuff was a little inaccurate. I'll also post next time we play so you can see what we do next.
The 2nd thing to remember is to save 6,000 gp and pick up a Ring of Enduring Arcana (CM). With a dispel-happy DM, this will be a great boon to you.
I believe you get a bonus vs. dispel with your summoned critters with Master Specialist as well - so you may want to make sure you have that list handy next time.
If you memorize a SMVI (which I notice isn't currently on your list) - you will want to take a look at Eladrin, Rhino's, and Chain Devils (though you should have some chains ready for them).
Otherwise, with SMV, you will find the Huge Crocs very effective if you have the room - otherwise, Bearded Devils are a great deal of fun.
Your party makeup cries for a battlefield controller - I think you will enjoy success with your choice in the long run.
also note: I updated my spell list AND inventory finally to reflect my character sheet. not a lot changed but hey, its more accurate now
Shaped grease, glitterdust and web have been his most often-used conjuration spells. I've also done a good bit of benign transposition, dimension step and other reorg spells. Haste has been a mainstay from transmutation, while ray of enfeeblement has been my most-used necromancy spell. I banned evocation, enchantment and illusion. If I had a do-over, I'd probably ban necromancy and keep illusion for the shadow-evocation spells and invisibility.
Like you, I was inspired by Treantmonk's guide, and have stuck fairly close to the recommendations. As a seventh-level Master Specialist, I'm torn between taking it to 9th and then entering Arch Mage, or taking 10th at CL 13 and delayed Arch Mage for another level. Three quickened conjuration spells is mighty tempting.
I've also kept a diary, which can be read at http://andior2008.blogspot.com/. It's a whole lot wordier though.
also thinking about the future, my build looks like this:
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Wiz 1: Spell focus (Conj), Metamagic School Focus (conj) (CM), Sculpt Spell (CArc), (wiz ftr feats) Improved Initiative
Wiz 2
Wiz 3: Cloudy Conjuration (CM)
Master spec 1: (Master Spec) Skill Focus (Spellcraft)
Master spec 2
Master spec 3: Dimensional Reach (CM), (Master Spec) Greater Spell Focus (Conj)
Master spec 4
Master spec 5
Master spec 6: Minor Shapeshift (CM)
Master spec 7
Master spec 8
Master spec 9: Dimensional Jaunt (CM)
Master spec 10
Wiz 4
Wiz 5: Augment Summoning, (Wiz Ftr Feat) Improved Toughness (CWar)
The last 5 levels are debatable whether I'll be wizard or a full progression PrC
wiz 6
wiz 7
wiz 8 (Debated) Extend spell (or some other MM feat)
wiz 9
wiz 10 (Debated wiz ftr feat) greater Improved Initiative (is there such a thing?)
Wiz 2
Wiz 3: Cloudy Conjuration (CM)
Master spec 1: (Master Spec) Skill Focus (Spellcraft)
Master spec 2
Master spec 3: Dimensional Reach (CM), (Master Spec) Greater Spell Focus (Conj)
Master spec 4
Master spec 5
Master spec 6: Minor Shapeshift (CM)
Master spec 7
Master spec 8
Master spec 9: Dimensional Jaunt (CM)
Master spec 10
Wiz 4
Wiz 5: Augment Summoning, (Wiz Ftr Feat) Improved Toughness (CWar)
The last 5 levels are debatable whether I'll be wizard or a full progression PrC
wiz 6
wiz 7
wiz 8 (Debated) Extend spell (or some other MM feat)
wiz 9
wiz 10 (Debated wiz ftr feat) greater Improved Initiative (is there such a thing?)
Just to clear up any misconceptions about the Major Esoterica, it says in the description of the ability, just before going into what it is for each school, that it only works 3/day. Still, 3 free quickened conjurations is pretty cool nonetheless.
Yup... that's three sudden quickens for the price of one level. Consider sudden quicken requires a feat for one, plus you have to have every other sudden feat and the quicken feat to boot. I'm not sure if anyone has ever actually had a character with sudden quicken before. Not sure it's possible without optimizing for that purpose alone.
[edit] yes I realize that by RAW, it's probably a prepared quicken, not sudden.
-Metamagic School Focus OR Arcane Thesis
AND 3 of These
-Easy Metamagic
-Practical Metamagic
-Improved Metamagic
-Adroit Casting.
The next part gives away campaign information you won't want to read unless you're not in the group (just in case someone from our group reads the boards).
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Anyway my DM works with me and he let a little more storyline slip. Basically we are going to travel to Eberron after we get out of Fayrune.
The story premise is that there are these elemental entities known as the Vaal which originated in our realm, but were driven out centuries ago for unknown reasons. Our plane, lacking true elements without the Vaal, has become insubstantial as it begins to slide off of the astral plane and into nothingness. The desert is the result of our plane's dying time, and it has been growing, about an inch per year from our recollection.
Our quest is to find the Vaal and return them to our plane, and the only way we know how to return is through the portal system the Vaal left behind. For centuries there has been no records on our plane of the planeshift spell or any other spell which would send us outside of our plane, however summon spells have worked. Evidently these portals are all over the multiverse, but we have the crown of the Verse, the key to the portal system, so we are not unaided in finding the remaining Vaal.
Lastly, the whole reason we ended up in Fayrune is because there is a Vaal here, I suspect that it is in the volcano which Cyric and Dinkle lived under. Its been dormant for a time, but it remains hot, full of lava to the rim which has never overflowed for years.
I am also trying to devise a reason as to why the gnome apprentice to the now-deceased Cyric will be traveling with the group. The untimely death of Cyric and the mages chasing the group may be the primary reasoning for traveling with the group in the first place. Beyond that, I may take a liking for knowledge akin to that of the Eberron gnomes, which is that I value every piece of knowledge, even the tiniest amount, which would lead me to want to find out about this "lost plane" which the desert exists in. Traveling back could be a year or so away, though, so I'm not too worried about devising such a story.
The story premise is that there are these elemental entities known as the Vaal which originated in our realm, but were driven out centuries ago for unknown reasons. Our plane, lacking true elements without the Vaal, has become insubstantial as it begins to slide off of the astral plane and into nothingness. The desert is the result of our plane's dying time, and it has been growing, about an inch per year from our recollection.
Our quest is to find the Vaal and return them to our plane, and the only way we know how to return is through the portal system the Vaal left behind. For centuries there has been no records on our plane of the planeshift spell or any other spell which would send us outside of our plane, however summon spells have worked. Evidently these portals are all over the multiverse, but we have the crown of the Verse, the key to the portal system, so we are not unaided in finding the remaining Vaal.
Lastly, the whole reason we ended up in Fayrune is because there is a Vaal here, I suspect that it is in the volcano which Cyric and Dinkle lived under. Its been dormant for a time, but it remains hot, full of lava to the rim which has never overflowed for years.
I am also trying to devise a reason as to why the gnome apprentice to the now-deceased Cyric will be traveling with the group. The untimely death of Cyric and the mages chasing the group may be the primary reasoning for traveling with the group in the first place. Beyond that, I may take a liking for knowledge akin to that of the Eberron gnomes, which is that I value every piece of knowledge, even the tiniest amount, which would lead me to want to find out about this "lost plane" which the desert exists in. Traveling back could be a year or so away, though, so I'm not too worried about devising such a story.
(Also, where are these ability score tests?)
Does GOD stand for something? If not, how is he a god?
(Also, where are these ability score tests?)
God does not stand for anything. God means that you alter reality through the use of spells, turning the odds in your favor.
@Keyes2k4: Evocation is a bad school, there is little of anything that a combination of schools cannot do to replace it, that and Shadow Evocation for spells you really need. Also, fireball is a really, really dangerous spell, for your party members.
The other day, I had the joy of becoming exhibit A of "why evocation is such a bad school": we were surrounded by a bunch of chain devils, and me being party tank (buffificer), I of course jumped into the fray and started whacking away. The party wizard then decided, that since the chain devils were nicely centered around me, a fireball would sort them out: Half of them passed their Spell Resistance check, another half passed their reflex saves. Leaving me: with no SR, rolling a 1 on my reflex save and a whole bunch of chains stuck so far up my ass that I could have been used as a skipping rope.
Reply to DarkmageRector D&D Character Test
Because of the holidays there has been yet another no-D&D week for this group, although I can't wait to continue this diary, I find myself adding another non-post post to this thread. It keeps it fresh.
reply to Neraagile I don't disagree with you there, however I chose not to drop evocation because there are occasional useful spells within. Given a chance to reroll this character again I may choose to drop evocation and take the more powerful school abjuration, but I don't have that option now.
Reply to DarkmageRector D&D Character Test
I'm in the same boat with you, Keyes. I banned illusion and kept necromancy because I understood necromancy, but my knowledge of the illusion school was stuck somewhere back in AD&D. If I had it to do over again, I'd reverse that decision, but alas, that's not the case.
In addition to all of the illusion-specific spells like mirror images and invisibility, greater/shadow evocation and conjuration give you access to the bulk of spells in both schools, at a cost but spontaneously. Even for a focused specialist conjurer, being able to cast all of the conjuration spells that you don't have in the spellbook and to do it spontaneously is huge. There are so many one-off spells in conjuration that are situationally useful. Stack all of those evocations on top of that and illusion just isn't a school you can easily ban.
I've also started out on a level 5 Human Focused/Master Conjurer... first session was yesterday and I have a great time Summoning Monsters as standard action (Grapple check of +17 for a Augmented Huge Monstrous Fiendish Centipede was really dominating):
The members who didn't make it to my debut battle find themselves locked in the basement of the tower, trapped behind a lead door and in complete darkness. This group includes Krezic the MoMF druid kobold, Ziege our hexblade, Emmy our emerald dragon rogue, and Leah our straight druid with a variant class feature. They escape by our MoMF using his disintegration eye beam from the beholder, which he gained from Assume supernatural ability: beholder eye beams (our DM allowed him all eye beams, but not the cone w/o another assume supernatural ability feat). Once they exit, they find the battlefield which we just finished cleaning up, and I mean just finished with.
Sharo, the supernatural ability guy who is using a custom class made by the DM, calls for roll call to see who is still alive. Everyone but the two who died in the battle calls back. I dissipate the fog and webs. Horror, there lay my master and the charred remains of the group's comrade. I roll a perfect 20 reflex to NOT fall into the now-empty tower building (the magical explosion destroyed the stairs and the floors of the building, leaving only an empty shell. Luckily the DMPC has psionic levitate so we are able to get to the ground level. There, I grieve for my master while the other PC's greedily start looting corpses. I have no will to be looting with this character, it is just how he is (15 lb. maximum light load plays a part in this). I ask for the others to help me move the body into the tower. After this I seal it up with a stone wall and the help of Sharo's stoneshape ability.
The others spend an hour arranging the loot, and I sat there, mourning and contemplating what happened. After the loot is all arranged, I finally stand up and cast detect magic. I detect 2 flame cinchers which improve breath weapons and about 15 +1 swords (using the Artificer's Monacle). We bag them, and Ziege goes after as much as he can carry, despite having no bags of holding. The group demands that we start for the crater of the volcano right away, with no rest. Spitefully, I end up going with them even though I'm pretty spent for the day.
My DM isn't always a cruel guy, we find this out by NOT having another attack before the end of the day, when we set camp. I pull out a bunch of tents from a survival pouch and then crawl up into my rope trick for some peaceful shut-eye. No problem, full nights sleep, another person who was late shows up.
Next day, the druid tree-travels us a good portion of the way up the mountain. I could have teleported, but the group metagames that they don't think it is safe enough. Whatever, saved a spell slot anyways. I also changed a couple different spells this morning, just because I saw some dead weight in my lists.
L1 spells:
Replace grease MM sch focus sculpted with plain old grease
replace silent image with tensor's floating disk (which I will change, because it won't go off the ground in this version of D&D)
L3 spells:
Replaced summon monster 2 (conj focus) with Sculpted glitterdust
Replaced snakes swiftness (legions) with sculpted web
L5 spells:
Replaced stone wall with sculpted solid fog
L6 spells:
Added MM school focused sculpt to a freezing fog.
We continue along the trail to the crater top, and find it surrounded by a mist which is not poisonous or natural. We decide through experience within this campaign that the fire Vaal is probably imprisoned by this mist, so the druid summons an air elemental to do some vacuuming. It does, to a greater effect than we imagined, and the elemental seems unstable. Krezic passes out mysteriously, and another player looks at him, only to pass out once seeing literal flames in his eyes. We're pulling the two of them away from the lava in the crater's edge when the elemental falls into the lava, resulting in an explosion which knocks us all unconscious.
When we awake, we find ourselves drenched in water. Instinctively, I cast prestidigitation to try and dry myself off, only to find that the water saturates me right away as soon as I dry it. We did something. The question now is what did we do?
A no-battler session. Kind of lame but we got 700 RP Exp from it each so I won't complain. 800 more and I'll be level 12, awesome.
Also, I was talking to the DM at work (he is aspiring to become an author) and I must just ask that if you DO use anything in this post explicitly then do not use it for commercial reasons. The portions which are solely his right to write are the desert, the city title, the Vaal (although he may spell it differently), and the name of the world. I made the first post insubstantial enough so that it doesn't give enough information to 'steal' his ideas, but .. well you get the idea, its not my intellectual property, it is his.
Also, he told me a few new things:
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The two Elans in our party are linked by fate, meaning that there is something which forces them to be together in the same party. The DM wasn't very clear on this. . .
The book he is writing is about activities in Val Roarn, specifically those in Shar Yadin. The desert exists in his story, however our escapades in the desert are not a portion of the story. I hope he finishes this book because I've read the intro sequence he wrote and its really good (R.A. Salvatore inspired combat sequences with the intrigue of a Dragonlance novel). I sound like an ad today, sorry.
I didn't post this until about a week after the DM talked to me about his campaign, so I apologize for the awesome 'details' I had but didn't really deliver on. Whatever, hope you liked the read! ;)
The book he is writing is about activities in Val Roarn, specifically those in Shar Yadin. The desert exists in his story, however our escapades in the desert are not a portion of the story. I hope he finishes this book because I've read the intro sequence he wrote and its really good (R.A. Salvatore inspired combat sequences with the intrigue of a Dragonlance novel). I sound like an ad today, sorry.
I didn't post this until about a week after the DM talked to me about his campaign, so I apologize for the awesome 'details' I had but didn't really deliver on. Whatever, hope you liked the read! ;)
We went rather close, about two hours of walking away from them, before we decided to send people in to scout. They found out that the cultists were sacrificing dozens of people on a daily basis by putting them on a giant cross with a hinge in the base and lowering it over the lava, which melted their skin. Our little copper dragon makes herself look like a tiny red dragon and swoops in and attacks one of the Talos priests with a flyby sneak attack hit and run, then flies away. In the meantime, the MoMF, who has transformed into a quickling so he can run at about a million miles per second, is observing. A unicorn bursts out of nowhere and impales another priest, then runs away. Our copper dragon player flies a long circle around the area to avoid detection by the priests and heads back to our little camp. (where I am sleeping in a rope trick, the DM ruled that I can't hear anything going on outside, but I can see it if I look out of the portal.)
The quickling comes back pretty quickly (its what they do), and between himself and the copper dragon, the rest of the group is filled in on the cult activity. Sometime in the middle of the night, the copper dragon's bell traps are set off by a strange, mexican looking, homosexual healer (I'm not joking, my friend wanted to pretend to be homosexual and have a character of the healer class). He greets us, its hilarious, and eventually we allow him sleep over where he was, but not with our main camp (we still don't really trust this guy).
When we awake in the morning we are all a little suprised to find this mexican guy sleeping at the edge of our encampment. He explains his situation to us. He was once to be one of the people being sacrificed, but he was able to escape. His abilities weren't suited to combat the clerics, but he has tried, using his unicorn as a combatant who he heals every time. Some of us still mistrust him, but I can tell that its the player who is nervous, joining like this, so I give his character a break. We decide to go and try to do something about this cross.
We head over there, and I silent image a stone golem into existence down the trail to draw enemy fire. Our hexblade Zeige and the stone Su. ability user Sharo pull out large weapons and attempt to smash the base of the cross. They realize quickly that it's a solid chunk of adamantine. The dragon breathes some acid on it, and it does nothing to it (another debatable fact, I think the DM just doesn't want us to destroy it). I don't know why we didn't notice it before, but next time I'll take a look at the hinge part of the cross. Damn thing can't be solid adamantine if it has a hinge.
In the meantime, a bolt of lighting strikes my silent image, which I stop concentrating on in order to cast an invisibility sphere on several group members and myself for the surprise round. commence combat with one enemy.
Initiative order
Copper Dragon
MoMF
Me
Su. ability user 1
Hexblade
Pea-Shooter (who has become some sort of Su. ability user due to the presence of the Vaal in this area)
Healer
Druid
Priest of Talos
The copper dragon gets a bite in, MoMF moves forward (invisible, he shapeshifts), I fly upward so as to not get run over by the unicorn I invisibilitied. Su. ability user moves forward to charge, but is stopped when he bumps into the invisible MoMF.
Before I continue, let me tell you that this is at like 1:30 in the morning, and we have people who have to be up at like 6, so they're not all too willing to stay at this point. We lose the hexblade, the healer, and the copper dragon to "I'm going home, anyone need a ride?" quite lame imo.
The new and improved pea shooter manyshots some arrows into the priest, who simply breaks them off. The druid walks up and hits him with her lightening reserve feat. The priest responds to this by moving away a little and casting divine power on himself.
Round 2:
MoMF attacks the priest, removing his own invisibility. I summon some fiendish dire wolves with my SM 5 and roll a one for the number of them. Then I roll its HP, LOL its 80 (average is 45). Wolf charges the priest, easily hitting but failing his trip attempt. Su ability user who failed the charge the first time goes up, and is easily tracked by the enemies eyes, and hits the priest for a little damage. pea-shooter sticks a few more arrows into the priest, and the druid's reserve feat lightning hits my wolf for 20 and the priest saves for 10. The priest responds by moving around the wolf, provoking an AoO and evading the trip again, but positioning himself to cast a spell, he forces some enemies (dire wolf included) to make a reflex save or take lots of sonic damage.
Round 3: MoMF goes beholder to attack the priest, hits for some damage but the priest saves against his disintegrate ray, his finger of death ray, and another ray. The result, some damage. I fly closer so I can hit him with some spells. The wolf hits and fails trip attempt again, Su. User hits the guy, Pea shooter shoots him, Druid lightnings him, and the priest says here's something to remember me by, casts firestorm (8th level cleric, 7th drd, 7 fire), dealing 49 damage to everyone in the group, then contingency teleports out.
I protest the contingency, asking what conditions were to be met before the teleport resounded. The DM says that if his life was threatened, the priest would have teleported. I say if that was the case, then he would have been unwilling to teleport when the condition to teleport was met, because his life has been in danger this whole fight. DM argues that the condition was a hit point total. I argue that it would have happened when his hit points went down, as an immediate action out of control of the caster. DM says that he just delayed it because he wanted to do that cinematic. Because I want to drop this argument, I ask how the guy saw me, I was invisible and 35 feet up (60 feet away from him and in the sky), and hadn't made any aggressive actions toward this guy yet, and see invisibility and trueseeing are both not on the permanency lists. Also I could have abrupt jaunted out of the fire as soon as it was upon me, instead being behind the fire he had intended for me, but the DM said the guy would have just covered the area entirely (yeah right 35 feet up and 60 feet away, invisible, and in the sky; and the guy sees me without rolling a spot. The DM won't allow me to get out of it. He should follow the game rules in these situations more. /rant
Anyway, session ends. I level to 12, I'm now wizard 3, Master specialist 9. I took Augment Summoning so my summons are just that much more powerful, gained 8 HP, 1 Intelligence, summon monster VI, but I still have to find one more spell to put in my book gem. I had originally intended to take disintegrate but it seems lackluster especially after this last fight. I've considered planar binding, but I banned abjuration so its useless to me (the thing I bind would eat me without a magic circle spell.). I'm thinking maybe chain lightening.
So basically I'm looking for a good sixth level spell which is not Abjuration, Enchantment, or Necromancy, and is preferably conjuration. Also it can't be on this list:
Planar binding
Iron wall
Freezing fog
Contingency
Re: summoning creatures in mid-air. First hit/link.
LEVEL 11 (6)
Disintegrate - High touch AC foes plus low effect on a save equals blue.
Freezing Fog*
Ruby Ray of Reversal - Stone to Flesh and more!
Superior Resistance
LEVEL 12 (6)
Antimagic Field
Brilliant Blade OR True Seeing - BSF Buff
Greater Dispel
Planar Binding* OR Summon VI*
After some play, however, I decided that having SM VI was better for my character. Since I chose to drop Abjuration instead of Evocation for banned schools, I cannot cast magic circles to contain my bindings, so I opted instead for SM VI.
Disintegrate is good IF the save is unmet, however because of our group makeup and the MoMF's ability to take the form of a beholder (and the assume supernatural ability feat which allowed him eye beams) we have a dedicated disintegrator whenever we need one. Firebrand, on the other hand, fits the campaign setting which my character is from, as well as being a combat-convenient fireball spell which won't hit my allies in most situations.
I was forced to change my firebrand choice again because we have a house rule that we have to own a copy of the book before we can use any materials found therein and my friend was wrong when he tole me he had a copy of players guide to feyrune. I changed my spell to er.. the 6th level universal spell from CM that allows you to switch a prepared spell for another prepared spell.
Anyway down to business. Last night we had a nice session. last session ended with us finishing off a cleric of talos (well, defeating him and causing him to contingency teleport away). This session began right after the fight.
The beholder (that is the MOMF with the eye beams) came up with the bright idea to disintegrate eye beam the adamantine cross which the talos people were sacrificing people. In the meantime, we notice that Mocha the healer is missing, but nobody does anything about it because we don't fully know who he is yet. We spend a good 20 minutes quibbling about what we're going to do next, and finally decide to go down the mountain and try to find a couple of the other Talos encampements (and get some slaves freed).
After traveling the rest of the day we are close enough to the talos slave encampment to send the quickling (damn MOMF) to scout. He goes, decides that he's fast enough to try and sabatoge the encampment (which has 30 guards, all clerics of Talos) and ends up doing very little to the actual encampment (besides rousing the guards and causing us to have to hide).
We rest for the night, and when we wake we find ourselves in the midst of a magical storm. We are forced to bunk here for 2 days. I use this time to contingency an overland flight spell to the conditions of "If I fall more than four feet outside of my own control".
After the storm ended, we decided that instead of attacking the encampment and dealing with the 30 guards at once, we are going to rescue a group of slaves who are being brought up to the mountain for sacrifice. We set up an ambush in the forest on the side of the mountain. Basically, we decide that our suprise round will be when my summons are cast. So, we wait in the woods outside of the mountain trail where the sacrifices are being brought toward their doom.
We are set so that the trail is the only terrain which is not rough. Surrounding areas are rough, trees are obstacles. There are 6 guards with 2 sets of 9 sacrifices between them. The trail is about 15 feet wide, limiting our enemies to basically a bottleneck.
I fly up into a tree before they get there, waiting for the opportune moment to cast my summons. When they're within sight of my perch, I cast invisibility sphere on myself so they will not see me. I then use my ring of silent spells to make myself silent for the summoning spell, an integral part of my strategy. Once they're within summoning range, I drop a summon monster V to bring (rolls) 2 dire wolves into play. The wolves attack, one does 16 damage and trips an opponent.
Combatants:
Me- Wizard BFC
Zeig - Hexblade
Emmy - Bronze dragon rogue
Nowhite - druid
Sharo- SU ability guy
Psion zerker - can't remember the name
Suprise round: copper dragon goes after me, sneak attacking one guy for about 16 damage. zeig gets in a hit on one of the guys in the back of the line, sharo hits another, our psion berserker hits one of the guys in the middle with a club, and the plain druid hits another guy for 11 with the lightening reserve feat from Complete Mage. end suprise round.
first round round: I lay 4 sculpted grease gobs strategically outside of the battlefield, locking our enemies in, wolves do some damage, one keeps the prone guy prone, while the other hits for some damage but doesn't beat the guy's trip modifier (lucky him). Zeig gets a miraculous criticle, followed by a cleave attack and ANOTHER miraculous critical (each critical was just under 100 damage. Two guys just went down. Emmy does some sneaky damage by working with the psion for a flanking bonus flyby sneak attack with like 4 attacks (awesome) taking out another guy. the SU ability guy misses, and the druid does some more damage to one guy with her lightening reserve. The clerics cast some spells, damaging my wolvies and hurting zeig a little bit, the prone guy gets up and is knocked down again by my wolf, awesome.
so now we have 3 badguys left and we're only on the end of the first round, nice job guys!
second round: one wolf critically misses and falls on his backside, the other does some damage but doesn't succeed on his trip. I legions snake swiftness the wolves and the druid so another shot of lightening hits our enemies and the wolves get a second hit in (well one did, the critical miss prevented the other from getting up) zeig gets a hit on the last priest, the psion critically misses with his club (he's still using a club) and it botches terribly.. a pile of rocks ends up exploding and burying most of the sacrifices, also damages a bunch of players (self not included). Could have gone better, oh well.. The clerics do some more damage and kill the prone wolf. end second round.
casualties this round: about 12 sacrifices (noooo)
Third round, wolf finishes off the last priest on that side, and I summon a constrictor snake to ensure the last last enemy doesn't run away. The snake manages to not only hit our badguy, but grapples and constricts him too (yay sm 3 in a cr 13 encounter lol!) sharo gets the killing blow on the last priest.
casualties this round: 2 priests (1 lightening reserve feat'ed, 1 constricted/sharo'ed)
It was late so we had to go after that. I liked how this battle went, and I felt that I had much control over the outcome, while never having to cast an offensive spell the entire time.
Well the boss is coming, so I leave it to you guys to read this as you will. Thanks!
We just finished cleaning up the priests of Talos who were taking sacrificial people up to their doom. After the battle, we notice that the 5 surviving sacrifices are mourning the loss of their fellow sacrifices, and they seem to be very sad in general. After about an hour of mourning and us leading them away from the Talos encampment to a fork in the road which led back toward Cyric's tower, we were able to actually talk to one slave who seemed to have developed some speaking ability (the rest were all too cowed to be social, many of these sacrifices had been slaves their whole lives).
He explained that he had been sold to the Talos cultists after his master had struck his own horse while disciplining the slave, which was obviously a fault that the slave had done. We decided that since these people couldn't be liberated via the city, we would have to come back to them later after we had handled the Val quest up the mountain. I survival pouched them 3 mules and Zeig gave them a few +1 broadswords. We also gave them a couple endless rations (which our DM insisted we had plenty of, we've never had a food problem). They were satisfied, and headed down the trail leading to the late Cyric's tower.
We headed up to the crater of the volcano, under the insistence by Kresic (momf) that there was something changed up there. When we reached it, Sharo's magical, intelligent, hell hound cloak started screaming "He's coming! He's coming!" in its usual ecstasy (Its a chaotic cloak which never seems to shut up especially when we are near water or in mist.).
Kresic lowers his spiked chain into the lava to our confusion, then shapeshifts into something large to pull it out. It comes out longer than it went in, and with a female elf on the end of it. She is the replacement character for our former dragon shaman, and is a volri (su ability user) like Sharo. She was evidently conceived on the spot by the vol within the volcano for the specific purpose of guiding us to free him so he could return to val roarn and save the plane from its destruction. We have to rest after this, as it is getting late in the evening and we're all a little weary from the battle with the priests.
When we awake, the new elf chick wakes with us. She introduces herself (and I forgot her name, but it means fire-hope in elven) and the DM goes into some story (see the previous paragraph) about what the new elf chick is about and what she knows. Basically she tells us to go to a cave in x location which is controlled by A: hobgoblins; B: worshipers of Tiamat; and C: A big red dragon. We start devising a plan.
When we get in range, I cast a regular invisible on Kresic, he transforms into a quickling and quick scouts what he can scout of the place. Basically there's a big clearing, with a cave entrance with 2 arrow sniper towers on either side of the entrance. Within the cave there is about 30 feet to move around, but then there's a big steel door which will require 2 big strong guys cranking a lever to open it (the little quickling couldn't do it). I'm brewing stuff in my head at this point.
So here's our game plan (which goes just as planned, awesome). I cast invisibility sphere on me, then I cast mass fly on the group, we cluster together and I summon a gargantuan centipede in the woods just outside the encampment. Centipede runs in and starts a killin, while we fly into the entrance over the heads of our foes, invisible. After getting into the tunnel, I cast stone wall behind us, sealing the tunnel from outside interruption. We then proceed to dispatch the guys in the tunnel.
The fight in the tunnel was a bit weak. The fire Su user opens the fight with a fireball (which catches our group members because the DM rules that the enclosed space of the tunnel distorts the effects of fireball, fair enough). Woo I take 10 damage from my temporary HP (minor shapeshift). End suprise round.
First round: Fire Su. User charges one of the hobgoblins, dealing some damage.
My turn: First, I gain my temporary HP back, then I cast Snakes swiftness, legions, on the whole group. The Su. ability user uses a Su. ability which turns the floor to lava. The hobgoblins die, and so fast, too, lol.
We have to stop at this point because it's 1:30 in the morning and a bunch of us have to get up early. I had fun this session, but I felt like a show hog because I pretty much casted all the spells, but what can you do, we only have one caster who is utility, and this was a heavy utility day.
So, fun, spells are awesome!
Ok last time we got into a tunnel and I walled off our enemies from entering. This session we cranked open the door, killed a group of hobgoblins, explored the cave complex, finding 2 Glabrezu demons bound and discovering a couple strange, trapped chambers. Within each chamber there were 8 globes and 3 chests. The chests contained a pile of gold each and an ancient armor item (helmet, bracers, boots, some other trinkets, none of which were the same). Using my artificer's monacle (and 2 detect magic spells) I was able to identify the trinkets to be enchanted with a preservation spell (they were rather ancient) and nothing more (as far as I could tell with an "identify" effect). We had to end right after the third battle.
Here's a blow-by-blow of the battles as I can remember them from last night.
first battle
Combatants: Dinkle (me, master spec. conjurer), Kresic (Momf druid), Leah (animal parts druid), Jorrak (Su. user (was psion rager)), Sharo (Su. User (earth))
Setup: we're in a 20 ft wide 10 ft highhallway behind 2 partially open doors, the open doors have an opening of 10 feet, the enemy has archers firing into our hallway and the room outside the door has a ceiling of 20 feet high. Everyone is still under the effect of mass fly at this point.
As the conjurer I can just tell what I did in the battle. First round I dropped enlarge person on sharo. Second round I dropped freezing fog on all of the archers and most of the melee combatants on the enemy side (the DM rolled a miraculous 20 on the dispell check to stop the fog, which was the ONLY number he could have rolled which would have dispelled it, ah well). I sculpted greased the archers and the melee-ers in the third round. by the fourth round the enemies were pretty much dead.
Second battle:
Combatants: Same as before + Su. ability water guy, Emmy the dragon, and zeige the warrior. Minus dinkle.
Setup: a 20x30 room with a 20 ft high ceiling, hanging from the ceiling is a chandelier with 8 orbs. along the wall opposite the door are 3 chests. When a chest is opened the door slams shut, I was in the hallway. the walls and door negate magical effects. The only way out is to smash the orbs of the chandelier, which releases a number of wraiths when they are struck, but one of the orbs has the key to the door within it.
I couldn't get in, but the group handled the wraiths, we got our first 3 "artifact" items from here, but we still don't know what to do with them.
Third battle:
Combatants: same as second battle, except +dinkle and -sharo (late night) and -Water Su. user guy from last battle (he had to take his baby home to be fed)
Setup: almost identical to last battle except we nearly wised up. We didn't open the chests first, instead opting to leave most of our people in the hallway and try to mass damage the wraiths dead (which meant breaking all the orbs at once.) It sort of worked, except I only had one fireball prepared (which I used arcane conversion to gain another one, although sculpted). It wasn't the smoothest battle, and we wasted more resources, but killing all those wraiths and a larger creature which i believe was a larger type of wraith netted us a crapload of experience.
We haven't been given experience yet, but I suspect I may level up next session.
Specifically, the "Call of Worlds" option from Knowledge is Power would suit you quite well as a summoner. Basically, every creature you call up with a conjuration (summoning) spell gains the fast healing ability. It starts at a base of 2 hp/round, but increases by 1 per three caster levels. Thus, a level 9 caster summons things that have fast healing 5, level 12 brings in minions with fast healing 6, and so forth to a max of fast healing 7 at level 15. (That option requires knowledge (the planes) 6.)
You should definitely consider a level or more in the Paragnostic Apostle PrC from Complete Champion, if you have the requisite skills. It takes knowledge (arcana) 5, knowledge (religion) 5, and knowledge (any other) 5, plus the ability to cast 3rd level spells.
Specifically, the "Call of Worlds" option from Knowledge is Power would suit you quite well as a summoner. Basically, every creature you call up with a conjuration (summoning) spell gains the fast healing ability. It starts at a base of 2 hp/round, but increases by 1 per three caster levels. Thus, a level 9 caster summons things that have fast healing 5, level 12 brings in minions with fast healing 6, and so forth to a max of fast healing 7 at level 15. (That option requires knowledge (the planes) 6.)
I like this idea! After I finish Master Specialist next level I was planning on taking a couple more levels of wizard for the "bonus feat" then topping it off with more levels of wizard, but this Paragnostic Apostle sounds like it would be a good finisher prc (maybe even more useful than the 2 levels of wizard).
Thanks for the tip!
We're in the base, we just cleared the rooms with the wraiths. Next stop, the last hallway we haven't explored yet. The DM set up a little trap, where any metal we're wearing burns us and takes half that in energy damage. The party rogue is of course not here, so we have no disable device or trapfinding ability to disable it. Worse yet, hobgoblins at the end of the hallway are shooting arrows at us from about 50 feet away.
Who's here:
Me - Dinkle the gnome
Krezic - MoMF (who has reached overpowered status, and is currently a will-o-the-wisp)
Sharo - Su ability user, stone
Nowhite - druid
OK, Krezic goes first, attacks one of the guys in his improved invisible will-o form and does some draining or something. I'm second and I drop a sculpted incindiary slime on them, moving into the hallway 5 feet and taking 6 fire damage (lol). We are somewhat aware of the metal heating because the DM describes both where I took damage, and left a hobgoblin in a fullplate very dead half way down the hallway, glowing redhot where his fullplate is. The druid drops a flaming sphere on our enemies, igniting the slime and causing them to burn. One shoots an arrow at me, and I abrupt jaunt out of the way. The stone guy charges down the hallway to meet our foes, taking like 30 fire damage from the metal heating trap and damaging his equipment.
Skip ahead a couple rounds, we defeat this group, I manage to get my metal items across the hall by using dimensional reach twice per item (I knew it would come in handy.) The su-user and kresic got greedy and went down the stairs at the side of either end of the hallway, aggro-ing the groups of enemies at the bottom. In a rush, I grab nowhite's sword which she dropped, but leave her two rings behind (hurried). we are battling the 16 or so enemies in the next room, and so I am forced to join.
I drop a glitterdust dc 18 will save on 6 of the guys, ignoring one which krezic had used sleep on a round before (he told me to). They ALL make the damn save, and the sleeping guy gets roused the next round. As a group, we manage to take down all the lackeys (mostly because the su. user crits like mad this fight and Krezic has been using his disintegrating eye-rays repeatedly). I summoned a SMV brown bear, so I was totally out of dimensional reach. Nowhite has 2 rings stuck at the end of the hallway with the heat metal which she cannot get without taking the damage.
We clean up the badguys and it is looking bleak. we all need rest, and our healing is almost expended in part due to the heat metal trap. To make matters worse, we can hear enemies coming. In a rush, krezic makes a stone wall by levitating the bodies of our fallen enemies to the head of the hallway, flesh-to-stoning them and then sharo stoneworks them into a wall. To top it off Krezic uses his eye-beams to create a 30 foot deep hole in front of the wall which opens up into a cavern below. now our enemies will not be able to get to us unless they can fly.
The room where we fought all of the enemies has 2 forges (one which is broken down) and a door which leads to a lift. We determined that the lift was missing 2 parts, and that the chain which normally would lower the lift has been severed. I figure we can make the lift go down, but we do not know how far down it will go before hitting bottom (I.E. we will be taking some damage if we ride it down.). The DM informed us we can't teleport out.
We want to rest in a rope trick, but the DM won't let us put bags of holding in them, and house-ruled it that the portable hole bag of holding clause applies to all extra-dimensional spaces (or may, he won't let us weaponize extra-dimensional spaces.). I tried to convince him that its been officially ruled that bags of holding simply count against the maximum space limit based on what is in them, but he house ruled it despite my arguments. We're trying to figure something out so that we can rest or something, but we had to end the session at this point, due to lateness.
After experience, I level!
Conj 3, Master Spec. 10 (up from MS 9)
Hit points +8 (rolled 4)
Major school esoterica (3/day swift action conjuration spells (normally standard))
+1 will
+1 BAB
+6 skill points
Spell slots gained +1 fourth (basic) +3 7th (conjuration only)
Spells gained: Summon monster VII, Mordekainens Magnificent Mansion (I'm totally going to argue the DM into allowing this one to work with bags, because its a freaking 7th level spell and says NOTHING in description about extra-dimensional dangers)
Note: this has been a very long run for our characters. We've been through the following encounters JUST this day:
1: Entering the caves (not really an encounter, but it costed me a few spells)
2: The welcoming party at the caves (4 hobgoblins)
3: After the big doors (8 hobgoblins, 2 were DFA's)
4: Wraith room 1 (4 wraiths)
5: Wraith room 2 (12 wraiths, 1 bigger wraith) We NUKED these guys with area effects lol
6: battle at the heat-metal hallway (4 hobgoblins)
7: The big battle for the forge room (16 hobgoblins, 2 of which were DFA's, one fire giant, and one large demon, who summoned a dretch once before dying.)
Now can you see why we need to rest? we still have to figure out how we got zeige through the heat metal hallway.. hopefully the DM will just allow us passage as it would be ridiculous for zeige, who carries 500 lbs of weaponry on him at all times.
~keyes~
Last time we were "stuck" in a room, we had devised a way to keep the enemies from getting to us, and we felt a strong urge/need to rest. We managed to rest a full 8, maybe 10 (we weren't really sure how long we putzed around) hours using the rope trick and cleverly hiding our other extradimensional spaces in the wall (thanks to stone shaping). So everybody's essentially back at full health and items are recharged (although why the "renewed at dawn" items would be back, I didn't argue the point).
After abandoning our cozy rope trick, I devised yet another plan. We would cause the elevator (which was disabled, and would have simply dropped us a hundred feet down) to fall, without taking us with it. I popped mass fly on the group, Sharo smashed some stuff, and the elevator fell like a rock. We followed it, at a cool fly speed rather than a doomed plummet.
We found a large, deep room with a lava dome at the top. The room had 4 staircases going down, multiple levels, and a balcony overlooking a courtyard type place. We acertained that the rooms were either living quarters or blacksmiths, and that all valuable items were taken by the occupants before they left. When we got near the bottom, we encountered 2 fire giants, who I talked with for a couple rounds before Krezic decided to cast Shalaelae, which made the fire giant start combat.
I was starting light, since this was the first encounter of the day. I dropped a SM V for SM IV's 1d3 dire wolves, which resulted in 2, making 2 flanking dire wolves on the guy. We then found he had somewhere near 30 AC when one dire wolf hit and the other missed with only about a 4 difference in the attack rolls. He cast a "wall of fire" on everyone in the party except myself and Krezic, because everyone was still on one of the lower balconies. This is when we realized these guys were powerful clerics.
I tried to block his escape by casting a silenced (using ring of silent spells) silent image (bear in mind I was 35 feet up and the giant was in combat). By RAW, however, the DM decided that he could still spellcraft my casting, but imposed a -10 penalty to the guy's casting. He knew that the wall I 'conjured' behind him was really a false image. He still had to make a puny will save to overcome it, which he did when it was his turn.
We managed to kill him, but his buddy got away by running down a corrodor on the first floor. We chased him, and found him tapping his pickhammer on the ground in front of a giant wall of liquid hot magma. We proceeded to try and kill him, I popped a mass snake's swiftness, and he died, but he was able to turn around and get a couple hits in after he finished his "ritual" which summoned his master here. On his last turn, I cast invisibility on myself and fly some 25 feet high on the wall opposite the group, assuming the typical cone of dragonfire.
We were expecting a fight with a red dragon, because we had heard that a dragon lived in these caves and I knew that somewhere a 'red' dragon lived on the mountain. It turns out it was something called an ember dragon or something like that, it was a planar dragon of some type, very similar to a Red except not as formidable (in my opinion). It came out of the lava, and breathed on the group, dealing like 50 fire damage.
I casted SM VII to summon 1d3 Bralani Eladrins to Aid us, getting 1 (argh). The Eladrin failed to overcome the thing's SR (big suprise ah well). I did this one more time with SM VII for another 1 eladrin (come on lol) and then I used SM VI for a last eladrin. These guys aren't overpowered, but they are very handy for this fight at least, having fire resist 10 and some really handy SLA's (not to mention their alternate form's whirlwind blast ability, which does untyped damage, save for half).
We would have been killed in this fight, except our copper dragon got REALLY lucky on an attempt to "slow" the dragon (rolled 20 on a CL check and then dragon rolled 1 on the save). So the thing was limited to one standard or one move action a round (which helped immensely). After beating it about 4 rounds, it died to another miracle. The SLA user Sharo used flesh to stone, rolled a 20 on the CL check, and the dragon rolled a 1 on the save AGAIN! the dragon turns to stone, and we're done with this place (so it seems). After this room there was a hallway to the dragon's horde, as well as an altar with the device which was keeping the Vol trapped in the volcano. The "new" fire su. User tosses the device into the lava, and tells us we don't have a "lot" of time to putz around.
We search the treasure room, finding an enveloping pit amongst the booty (I used my monacle and my two prepared detect magic spells to identify all of the magic items we found, and my monacle finally paid for itself
).Some of the really good stuff we found was:
A greater stone golem manual (valued at 196,000 gp by the DM :D )
A stone of alarm (to rig an item to go off if moved without saying the command word)
A greater crystal of returning
Gauntlets of Lightening
Mace of the darkchildren
+4 scythe of dragondoom
+3 breastplate
~130,000 in Gold, gems, and artwork
There were a couple more things, but nothing which I can remember at this time.
We got out of the cave, using the way we came in in the first place, and found that the volcano was erupting somewhat. The DM allowed us to run and eventually find a cave which we could rest in (sort of). At this point it was once again 2 in the morning, so we had to call it a night.
I wonder what I will be able to do with a greater stone golem. :D
My spell selection for next level is going to be Elemental Body (SpC) and (probably) Body of War (Also SpC).
Next session is this thursday! Stay tuned!
So we were in a cave, on the side of a mountain with lava flowing around outside. The DM lets us know we're getting warmer, despite my orb of elemental exposure, and informs us that volcanic gasses are coming in through our airhole in the cave. I pop a 'Mordenkainan's magnificent mansion' which consists of a 30 foot high, 15 foot wide room with a ladder up to a platform and a slide down into a ball-pit (damn gnomes ;) ). The DM decides that since its a 7th level spell, he'll let us bring extradimensional spaces into it (also because he's a big fan of Mordenkainan, and believes he would have made such a contingency). So we've bought ourselves 32 hours to formulate a plan.
We rest for the night. The next day, the water su. user gives me a scroll tube and a spellbook, which he had taken from the wizard back in the city (I had completely forgotten about this event, it was right after my previous PC had died). I pop detect magic and identify the aura around the book as a protection spell. I also open the scroll tube, finding a scroll with an illusion effect of 3rd level, necromancy effects of 3rd through 8th level, and an enchantment (I believe, fuzzy memory) spell underlying all of it, but no level was given for that one. I didn't press the issue. I tried to read the scroll, but shrugged off a will save from it, identifying it as an illusiarry script affect, which I would need dispel to get rid of, drat, abjuration is a banned school.
So I turned my focus to the spellbook, deciding to look at highest level first. The DM didn't have a list of all the goodies in there, but I'm pretty sure he had the wizard as an abjuration specialist (irony). He did give me a list of the spells that the wizard had prepared during their encounter, which gave me a slight view of what was on there.
We spent a couple hours in real time deliberating what to do. I come up with the idea to have the druids prepare a bunch of resist elements spells, and I prepare a bunch of 'gasious form' spells. I would need more time to learn it, and I didn't have the spell prepared, so we decided to just teleport out as originally planned. After a second rest period, we did so, luckily we had no failures on teleporting.
So now we're outside, near the portal that the party used to get out of the city in the first place, which handily enough is the same portal through which dinkle would travel to get supplies. We find that the portal has been deactivated, likely by the person who owned the magic shop, because he was trying to help the party escape. Worse yet, about 2 hours travel away, Cyrics tower still stands, protected by the walls that he and Dinkle had erected to protect against an imminant lava flow. Circling above the tower are two monsterous black forms, likely of huge size or greater. We debated going to the tower to help the former slave people we had liberated, however we decided against going to help because we knew that if they had fought the creatures they would likely have been killed long before we arrived. Also noteworthy the only reason we can see the tower is because the magma had descended down the side of the volcano, clearing all of the trees, and for several hours of travel, the magma extends, cooled by the time we got out of the cave.
We decided to travel back to the city to sell stuff and prepare to leave the plane (using the crown and the portal). We began traveling, and our dragon friend noticed that the shapes in the sky were getting closer to us, but appeared to be searching in a pattern. I suspect the evil mage is at work here.
Last we left our heroes we were outside the mountain, being followed by some huge creatures in the sky which didn't seem to have seen us yet. We traveled by foot some time until the creatures were nearly upon us and we could get a better look. With a decent Knowledge (Arcana) check, I identified them as some sort of magical beasts, and was granted one question by the DM.
The question I chose was, "Can they see through invisibility." to which I was given the reply, "They have blindsight." Using my character's knowledge of blindsight, we were able to determine that they see using sound. Luckily for us, the druid had prepared a silence spell (or rather, he had a ring of silent spells with its glorious 5 minute silence ability). We were able to hide, and almost fell one, because our archer couldn't help himself. We did see, however, that the 'things' had some sort of sonic attack, which they used to decimate the ground outside of our silence sphere.
After they had passed, we decided that it was a good time to teleport to the city. I would have argued with the DM on this one, as I had wanted to teleport to the city in the first place, but he declined it before. I didn't want to deal with that, so we just teleported in (which btw takes me 3 5th level spell slots because we have a 13 person group). We enter the city and are able to find a merchant to sell horde stuff and buy new things with. I nab myself a vest of resistance +5 (which isn't the best purpose for my gold, but I was a bit rushed in selecting my new gear.)
As we are heading to where we can leave the city, we are surprise attacked by the guild wizard and his companions (all of whom are invisible for the first round or so of the fight). He manages to actually deal some damage to me on a fireball (and a 1 on my part, which the DM ruled as extra d6's), and I respond with a SM VI and grapple his ass. This triggers his contingency spell, and he vanishes from the battlefield. His companions, however, wail on the DMPC and one of the Su. user's for a while.
It is at this point in the night, however, that one of the DM's lifelong buddies shows up and we are forced to end our battle short on account of the new X-men Origins movie. We are to continue next time.. maybe 2 weeks from today.
I'm sure I'll kick myself for not picking up some wands later.
This is as much a reminder to me as it is information for anyone who actually reads this thread.
My spell selection for next level is going to be Elemental Body (SpC) and (probably) Body of War (Also SpC).
Next session is this thursday! Stay tuned!
Ever since I have picked up Elemental Body - my DM is constantly thwarted.
Immune to Paralysis
Immune to Stunning
Fly at perfect
No sneak attack
etc.
Fantastic spell.
Since the session when we were ambushed by the Wizard in the city, we've been a long way. Well the fight versus the wizard and his companion (who evidently was the father of the guys we killed way back before we first left the city, which was the same battle in which my previous character, a faithcaster of farlinghan, died.). The companion started the battle in invisibility mode, but the wizard got grappled by my summon and used his ONLY teleport spell he had prepared to teleport somewhere safe, after which we never saw him again. In the meantime his psion companion got a good suprise cone of acid out on us, doing 56 damage or so to everyone in the group before we crowd controlled and eventually forced him to retreat just as his wizard friend did.
Unfortunately for us and for the city, one of our druids used a powerful (7th or 8th level) spell that covered 60' radius (which the DM decided covered an entire city block) which caused 4 rounds of different elements to rain down upon the area, causing the block to freeze, be beaten to rubble by rocks, buffeted by torrential winds, and then engulfed in fire. This hilarious event caused us to be wanted by a few more people than just the mages guild, so we decided this would be a good time to travel back toward the portal which would bring us to the next valri, and continuation of our main quest to save the party's original plane.
Because we hadn't played for a while, the DM leveled us up at the end of the battle. The results, I gained Summon monster 7 and elemental body. Next level I'll be going after Summon monster 8 and Maze. Good fun..
Well we finally reached the portal activated it and ended up in an area with -40 degree Fahrenheit temperatures and blizzards everywhere. Being a gnome, and thus cold, I popped Mordenkainan's mansion so we could get out of it. I have an orb of elemental control, a gift from a drunken planeshopping Santa Clause, but it's got 3 days left on its cooldown. While the party is resting, The two Su. ability user guys (stone and frost/water) go scouting. The discover 2 things, centaurs and constructs. The constructs look just like animals, though, except when defeated in battle, its clear that they don't bleed, and are in fact made of gears and stuff.
The Su. guys are forced to retreat to the mansion, where they find a large gathering of centaurs, who refer to us as 'god creatures' because we came from the ruins, where the 'gods' came from originally. These centaurs are completely unaware of magic. While the Su. guys and I are trying to explain that we aren't gods to these centaurs, they suddenly get attacked by a huge were-panther type creature and a bunch of the construct animals. The were-creature proves a difficult fight, but we eventually hurt him enough to make him run away. During the fight, I had summoned 4 Bralani Eladrins (via SM VII) which resulted in a net 0 damage to the creature, but gave us healing enough to save the centaurs leader, who rewarded us by inviting us to their village.
The centaur village is a heavily fortified area, protected by thick stone walls on all sides and guarded day and night. we stay for the night, most of the party chilling in a mordenkainens mansion for its comforts. The stone Su. guy stays outside, preferring to be near the ground (and he had protection from elements, that lucky guy.). He discovers that at night time, ridiculous amounts of those construct creatures flood the surrounding land, and try attacking the centaur village and anyone who is outside. by ridiculous amounts of these creatures, I mean no spot of land can be seen beneath them. Planar travel, jeeze.
We decide to use our valri compass to try and track down the missing frost val, which results in us going to the part where we ended, a humongous temple carved into the side of a huge cliff. Think Indiana Jones and the Temple of doom, only about 8x as large. We ended the last session at this spot.
I will hopefully be giving more detailed updates, its been a rather un-D&D-ful summer for our gaming group thus far, but I'm sure we'll rev it up when school starts up for most of our guys. Keyes out.
No one deserves to be in the same campaign as body of war.... :|
I actually love body of war. But not for myself, it's a buff for my familiar. (Of course, the OP doesn't have a familiar...)
I actually love body of war. But not for myself, it's a buff for my familiar. (Of course, the OP doesn't have a familiar...)
I wasn't implying it was a bad spell, quite the opposite for just the reasons you cited.
I wasn't implying it was a bad spell, quite the opposite for just the reasons you cited.
Sorry for the misinterpretation, then.
We enter the huge temple through a gaping, mouth-shaped opening. We find ourselves at the entrance to a very large pit, which seems to be as wide as a lake because our dark vision (even the dragon's) can't see across it from the ledge we are on. We travel down some 300 feet into its depths on an old stonework staircase system. when we get about 120 feet from the bottom (the dragon's darkvision range, we see that the floor is littered with bones, and cinder, the intelligent hell-hound cape that we have been carrying the entire time, informs us that he smells bad magic, and that we should leave, now.
We are too cocky to follow the cape's advice, and proceed toward the center of what turns out to be a huge mound of bones. Once we get to a point, something (which we later discover to be an angel of decay), calls out, and I quote, "rise, my minions, and destroy them." we then are forced to fight 5 dragon skeletons and this angel of decay.
After only 3 rounds of fight, we lose our first party member to one of the skeletal dragons. In character, I invisibility sphere myself and him and teleport us back to the safety of the staircase. I manage to stabilize him the next round by summoning a Bralani and having it cast cure serious on him, but in the meantime, two more of our party members are 1-rounded by the ridiculous 6 attack-skeletons. After being healed, the party member (who was the fire Valri su. user who had played his character a total of 1 round since its conception) tries to rush back toward his falling comrades.
I am working my way back flying, and the DM's PC drops. This causes the chaos demon (for which the DM hadn't made stats for) to be released from his PC. The demon kills 3 of our assailents in one round (including the angel of decay) then turns on the fire Valri who is running his direction and kills him. He finishes off the last surviving party member outside of myself (who is invisible at this point) and the DM's girlfriend's character, a medium bronze dragon who was away (about 200 feet) when the transformation took place.
So the story ended abruptly, the party who was to save the plane of Val-Roarn died on the cave of some ice valley in a random plane. I managed to escape back to Faerune using the Crown of the Verse that was in one of ar party member's packs, and the Copper dragon survived by being the most powerful (and only) dragon on the plane.
One thing is for sure, nobody expected the party to die like that. Nobody wanted it to, either, as we were all just beginning to feel like we had earned our characters through creative gameplay. I'll be starting another diary soon about my new character, a Human Warblade living in (what I believe to be) a Shannara campaign setting (from a series of novels by Terry Brooks). I still believe that this character was one of the most powerful and versatile characters I've ever played (yay for wizards and being awesome) and I wish I could play one again soon.
Anyways, this thread is probably gonna gather dust in the pages of the archive now. Thanks for anyone who read it and special thanks to anyone who gave me advice on the spell/feat choices I made throughout the levels, input is always appreciated.