Charn -- 617/3/23 to 26 aka June, 16th 2009

[David]

Narrissa: "I am not a wizardess; I'm a spell-singer. I have never heard of stoneskin, sorry"

François: "The runestone is within the safe under the bank. We knocked the vault open, but it's a pretty straight and open shot from the runestone to the entry. There is a wall of stone in the way, but I think that was just put in so that we couldn't shoot at the runestone. We could attack from the hallway, but we won't have a bead on anything inside the vault from there and if they choose not to charge us, there's nothing we could shoot at."

See ya WEDNESDAY...!

[Van]

Okay, so I've just thought of something else . . . If we have ward spirits up before the fight, 'Beaver won't be able to cast prayer. That's okay, except that the only other one who can cast prayer is Idky, and he was going to cast faerie fire on the spooks just as the battle was being joined. So unless 'Beaver can cast faerie fire instead, that may not work out too well. Yavin will have his hands full engaging a spook, so he can't cast it.

So how necessary is it to have ward spirits up? I know we don't want spooks slipping through to get to our spellcasters, but we've got enough fighters flying in to engage them, so I don't know how necessary it will be. (Just had a thought: Torr won't need a fly. He can just airwalk over the jujus and run right up to the spooks.) And it sounds like some of them will have invisibility to spirits cast on them anyway. And we can make sure they're under fly spells to keep them out of reach too. Francois: "How high is the ceiling down there?"

So here's my idea to make sure that all the baddies are engaged. It's not perfect, but it'll keep our spellcasters safe while they magic missile the spooks, which is part of our strategy. Torr and Lowdog each take two spooks. Yavin takes one, and Dani also takes one--no Christien. For the jujus, Ichi takes three, and each of the following takes one: Idky, his dust devil, Christien, Squatting Beaver, Turquoise Rain, and Francois. I know we wanted Francois to keep giving out doomblades, but it may not be feasible. If one of the jujus is free, it would probably go after him anyway or get the BFA of one of our spook fighters, and we don't want that.

Alternately, Yavin could go into battle with his own dust devil, so he'll effectively be able to take on two spooks for a couple rounds. That would free up Dani to help with jujus. Then Francois could doomblade for three rounds before jumping in himself.

Either way, we'll need to buff the juju fighters as much as we can manage to. Aside from Ichi (and I'm guessing Francois), none of them are great combatants. If only there was a way to "corral" the jujus so Ichi and one other person could just handle them a few at a time. I'm toying with the idea of having Maedhros fly in to get their attention and gather them in one corner, then casting wall of ice diagonally across the corner, trapping them (or most of them) in till we can deal with the spooks. Of course, this would preclude our use of the fireball, but Yavin could still lightning breath, I think, as long as he avoided that corner. I don't think spooks can fly, but just in case, it might be a good idea to make him invisible to spirits if we do this.

As for magic weapons, Idky can cast shillelagh on his staff, Maedhros has that extra +3 golden mace, and he is willing to lend someone (definitely not Dani) his +1 githyanki long sword. He shouldn't be engaging in melee anyway.

I know I'm kind of all over the place with this, but what do you all think? I really like the idea of being able to split the combat into two phases. It'll make it a LOT easier on us.

[Van]

Oooo! OR, Idky could send a lone dust devil in to get the jujus' attention while Maedhros hovers (invisible to spirits) outside the area. The dust devil gets them to attack it in a corner and Maedhros casts wall of ice, trapping them in. Wall of ice's range is 700 yards, giving him plenty of safety cushion. The dust devil's range is 30 yards, so that could be limiting. A lot depends on how large the space is and if there is a suitable place within range where Maedhros and Idky could safely hide while coordinating the operation.

Heck, Maedhros could just drop the wall on their heads while they attack the dust devil too. That would be funny.

[David]

Torr really likes the idea of doomblading he and Lowdog's enlarged weapons. Remember, we're not there to fight the juju zombies -- if we can destroy the spooks, we can handle the zombies later!

François says the room is about 12' high with lots of vaulting and arches.

Right now what I'm hearing is something like...

'Beaver casts some defensive spells like warpaint and protection from spirits and evil
Someone casts multiple negative plane protection
Heroes get to lower (bank) vault.
Group sets up outside of open vault doors.
'Beaver casts ward spirit but is limited in further spells (faerie fire is okay cuz it's 1st)
The party casts a bunch of spells (except 'Beaver) like dust devil
Torr and Lowdog are enlarged and doombladed with strength -- one also drinks potion of speed
Maedhros leads the charge out of the warded area to fireball the room
Yavin follows this with a lightning breath
Idky does a faerie fire on the spooks
Torr, Lowdog, and (probably) Dani charge the spooks -- Yavin will join the next round (his dust devil will this round)
Ichi engages three zombies, Christien takes one, Idky and his dust devil each take another, 'Beaver takes one, Turquoise Rain takes one (ugh!), which leaves Maedhros(?) to be a meat-shield for the last one. During the fight, Maedhros and Narrissa use their magic missiles on the spooks to clear them (and free up the REAL fighters) as quickly as possible.

How does that sound...yes, there are rough edges that I'm trying to point out...plus some I missed previously...

[Van]

I was just reading through the shaman spell descriptions and noticed a couple of things about hunting paint and war paint. I'm not obsessing over this, am I?

The hunting paint description offers the following as examples of how to direct the effects of the spell: “our upcoming war with the Sioux” or “today’s hunt.” Couldn't we be similarly "vague" in our application of the spell? Rather than specifically identifying the monster being fought, couldn't we just say it applies to "today's battle in the bank vault"? Am I reading this wrong?

Also, the war paint description says "These effects cannot be combined with other magical auras or the spell fails." This is concerning, because we intend to combine war paint with protection from evil, protection from spirits, aid, prayer, etc. Do I understand this correctly? I just want to make sure before we start throwing all these spells on people just to find out they don't mix.

I think we still have an issue with the ward spirit. I don't see faerie fire on the shaman spell list, so if 'Beaver can't cast prayer (because of ward spirit), then Idky will have to, which means that we either don't have faerie fire or Yavin has to do it after he lightning breaths. Is the idea for his dust devil to keep the spook busy so he can take care of that first?

[David]

Howdy Van,

No, I TOTALLY appreciate you being thorough!

With hunting paint you need to identify the monster you're fighting (such as the Sioux or the [implied] deer of today's hunt). War paint is the same. As for "combining" the spells we mentioned are fine -- you cannot mix hunting paint and war paint or either with the shukenja spell weapon bless since they all do similar things.

I do think the ward spirit will have some drawbacks you may need to plan for. Yavin wanted to conjure a dust devil to keep a spook busy -- his 2nd lvl spells usually go to waste anyway...!

[Van]

So does that mean that Yavin will take a round to cast faerie fire after he lightning breaths whilst his dust devil engages a spook for him? If so, I think that should take care of our ward spirit problem.

[Artec]

Faerie fire would be good. and how big does enlarge make the object? if it is twice it size and the room is 12' high low dog is in trouble.

[Artec]

hey is there a game tonight?

[David]

Yes there is! Wanna join us?

[Van]

And I'm working for stupid quarter-end.

Can't wait till tomorrow's game.