Jorgenfist Planning

[Tahlvin]

I love this gaming group! Who else would talk through the moral implications of killing our adversaries, and agonize over the relationship with an NPC boyfriend or girlfriend.

[Bluedevyl]

[Eliahad]

I currently have 2 levels of Rogue. The sneak attack damage has been useful, but not especially so, as my main focus currently has been hoping for as many critical hits as possible (and with my current threat range being 17-20) they have been frequent enough. However, because I'm not as sturdy as my front-line companions, my usefulness is my damage dealing and little else. I am a glass cannon.

I just checked the level nine class benefit for a 2-weapon fighter. It's "Double Strike" which lets me attack with my off-hand as part of a standard action. I think that is too useful for me to pass up. With haste activated, I have 5 attacks per round which statistically suggests I will have at least one critical attack per round. But it always takes me a single round to set up, so with Double Strike, I will get two attacks on my set-up round instead of one. That's worth something.

(And I just reviewed my character sheet. I forgot I took 2 Weapon Defense, and that my Defensive Flurry ability is now a +2 to AC. My AC should actually be 28 after a full round attack. (29 if hasted.)

Also, I'm hoping to convince Dwyn (or Hal) to take the Blades Above and Below Feat next level, which will allow me to have flanking with her no matter where we're both standing. If Kai does the same...

[bralbovsky]

To go from last to first: I concur that it's time we coordinate our feats. We've been consulting great, but some of the teamwork feats are pretty terrific.

Ya, killing footsoldiers is sad; that's war. We live in a world where, unfortunately, real demons enthrall, enslave or hire minions who don't read as evil, but accomplish plenty of it. (We play in such a world as well.)
The everyday people of TBF and Magnimar and Sandpoint are food as far as these guys are concerned. I have no issue with Giants in their own biosphere, but a mass of giants is giantly disruptive, and this ultimately boils down to self defense, even if they didn't have the sihedron tattoo, which, by the way, they do. Hal's lawfulness makes it easier to make this a straight logic path, but I think it's good on the merits too. There's a story about a bugler, unarmed, who is captured, and he pleads for his life. As his opponents get ready to execute his despite those pleas, they remind him that even though he didn't personally kill anyone, he assisted, abetted, advocated. If Dothan never shot a single arrow, her damage totals would still be significant, just in the +2s. Likewise, the cook, the guard, the blacksmith could theoretically have walked away from Mokmurian's offer. They got the tattoo instead.

Yes, disrupting dinner is bad. I think that means we have one more rest available before it gets really hot. We should take it soon.

If we're really going to try to avoid setting off the alarm as long as possible (I don't think we'll get all the way unless we get inside help) we should start looking at the optics of what we've done so far. Try to deduce how the enemy might read the path we have left so far. The entrance we chose was pretty low impact. We left some signs of struggle, but mostly emptiness. Let's look into chasing off or otherwise moving the bears, which would offer a second possible entrance/exit we could have taken. We might have enough magic available to manage that quietly. I don't know whether the wyvern cave is another point of entry, but the more possibilities there are, the less likely they are to rain down directly on us, and the more possible it is that they'll believe we've left, or that some other force is causing disappearances. If Mokmurian has scrying, he'll know, but it will be hard for him to admit that we've done the damage we've done and maintain his image of invincibility. I suspect that when he does get our scent, he'll be more targeted and discreet rather than sound a general assault.

[Eliahad]

One more Blades Above and Below thing, Hal and Dwyn would ALSO be Flanking, and therefore the +2 bonus to attack would apply to them as well. It would also let me stand next to Dwyn or Hal which gives me some further (small) bonuses, because Darcs is the best GM in the whole world!

[Bluedevyl]

[Zen]

Blades Above and Below isn't really on Kay's wish list, since she already has Gang Up. It is on her wish list for YOU GUYS to have it! Having the ability for Illian and Hal or Illian and Dwyn (or all three) to stand adjacent to each other and effectively flank an opponent, thus allowing her to get flanking bonuses and her sneak attack bonus as well, is what she has been hoping for since she took that feat. It also means we can fight as a group and not have to spread out and leave someone vulnerable to being flanked themselves, which is a BIG bonus in her opinion! (Kay is too fragile to plan on standing in there and swapping blows, even though she has been doing it more often lately in order to get the extra attacks with the Keen Rapier... That 15-20 crit range is like a drug I tell you!)

The other thing having all of her allies fighting adjacent to each other, like a TV family eating dinner from a 1970s sitcom (all on one side of the table) does, is allow her to have a better chance of "lining up" opponents for lighting based attacks. She has Storm Step now, but next level she'll have Lightning Bolt. Once Anna is high enough level and has time to enchant Tempest (her pet name for her Rapier) with spell storing, there will be a lightning bolt in residence in the sword most of the time. Not having friendlies in the way when releasing a lightning bolt during an attack is probably a good idea, no?

[bralbovsky]

So, BAaB requires that the opponent be of the same size class as one partner. Giants are too big, I think.
Also, I think we might be getting ahead of ourselves as far as leveling during this raid.
Sure, I'd love to abscond with the treasure, send someone back and make one more big buy before we make our final push, but I think we have to do that now, or maybe when the alarm is sounded and we wait for it to quiet down again.
Additional to trapping wyvern cave, I have this other pie dream of launching rocks or bombs or something on the giants' camps from high up (like the dragon promontory), not necessarily to create casualties, but to sow discord.

[Zen]

Ah... That would be a problem... Well, i guess we'd have to use a spell to use it against Giants... (Or Dwyn's ability...)

In any event, I'm not sure we were actually talking about leveling DURING the raid... Not that it would be something that would upset us, mind you...

I know the concept of sending Anna on a quick teleport run back to Magnamar to buy a few more quarrels of giant bane arrows, a couple dozen potions of cure serious wounds, or something like that has been tickling in the back of my mind too... However, especially now that we may have disrupted the food chain so close to were "M" is actually residing, that seems like a bad idea now. Probably better to push on toward the big guy and try to get rid of him, then book out of here before the rank and file knows what hit them.

[Tahlvin]

I don't know. Once Mokmurian has been addressed, it might be interesting to clear out the rest of the tower and pick up some more loot. I mean, there might be valuable intelligence in some of the higher levels of the tower.

[Zen]

Or there might be hoards of angry giants trying to crush our bones to make their bread...

[bralbovsky]

War, as they say, is in the Will. These rival gangs of giants are only gathered here because of M. Once his spell is broken, there's little to bind them. There might be some few who have come to regard this as a permanent relocation, but we'll likely face many of those on our way in. Hal isn't fond of giants, but there's no justification for genocide.
This is entirely speculative, but it's what my gut says this will be like:
We'll finish the cook, with perhaps a surprise or two in store, that will make us wish we hadn't attacked this room yet. Nevertheless, we'll clean up here and try to remove all trace of our entrance.
The bears present an interesting opportunity: if we can enthrall them, tame them, or chase them off, we gain a second egress. We also gain the opportunity to release or divert a sort of innocent faction. (They're intrinsically dangerous, so killing them isn't off the table, and we have to be careful where we release them) There might also be treasure among the remains.
I'm trying not to obsess about the wyverns, but ...poison, flying, ya. Not a fan. Possible third egress.
Let's assume we achieve a safe resting point.

We could establish an ambush/vanishing point, where anything that comes to investigate gets erased. Reactive, but likely good for giant attrition. It does leave us open to major assault eventually. It might be a temporary phase, but long term, this is out. If we're really successful, M could slip out the back and we'd be set back until we found him again.
or...
After rest, we press on. I keep hoping for some inside help, some map or schematic carved into the wall, some ruckus or ritual that leads us to him, some disaffected confederate that has ambitions to destroy us right after we destroy M (in our weakened state), someone who feels as we do about all these giant souls likely going into one of those runelord wells. That's a faint hope at this point. (My money was on the lizard originally)
I suspect we've run through the mundane gauntlet, and that everything from here on is really dangerous, and magical. This is an old site, so there's likely leftovers from that, and M will have his best guys near him.
The balancing act will be whether we have enough gas in the tank after lieutenants to actually take down the big guy. I'd love to get closer and get one more rest, but I doubt that's how it'll play out. One advantage we have is that while our two week delay makes us forget little things and separates us from the environment, it gives us some time to think about puzzles and strategy.

[Phoebe]

All these cooks are sihedronned, yes? Maybe we need to find a giant or other who isn't. Wait, I didn't miss our game last night, did I? Hope not.

[Zen]

[Bluedevyl]

So, my fear about resting is that we've been in the compound for something approaching 1 day, standard time, having rested for 8 hours already. By my rough count, we've eliminated 11 or 12 of the basement sentries, including the bear tamer and the kobold, both of whom will be missed. Our last encounter alerted guards. We have no way of knowing whether or not a signal was made or a message was sent before they came after Illian. If we rest now, I think its unlikely that we ever reach Mokmurian.

There's more than a hundred giants outside. If we rest before we're able to take him out, I don't think we'll ever get there. If we give them 8 hours to reinforce and investigate, these tunnels will be impassible, likely permanently.

I don't like going into this without a full clip, but I think at this point, if we want to finish this mission, we have to just plow ahead and let whatever is going to happen, happen.

[Mike]

Dothan approves of this message.

[bralbovsky]

I think we'd actually be able to take down a hundred giants in these tunnels. (Ethically more and more unappealing, but doable)
That's not my worry.
I actually have three:
M hears an alarm, can't find us or can't get his minions to beat us, so he moves up the date of his invasion. That makes him an unreachable general with room to flee and puts lots of innocents at risk.
Alarm or no, we enter the room containing, surprise!, M and we got not enough left to take him down. TPK and giants invade. (How many times, even with some scouting, have we come up against more than we expected here?)
We don't even get to M because we stumble on some sidhedron era trap or pet (demon in cage..., black magga) that we just can't manage, and then he's in the next room. (In my view the likeliest event statistically)

Alarms aren't good, sure, but they also mean that he's more likely to surround himself in a logical progression rather than have us encounter him, THEN have the alarm and he gets reinforcements. I'd rather have to grind through his guards than have them surprise us mid encounter.
A rest period with minimal that we're around, ok so maybe there's an alarm, gives anyone not really down for this fight a chance to either get away or maybe leave us clues, or find and assist us.

We don't have to rest right this second, or the second we finish with the cook, or even after befriending the bears, but I'd like to do a more thorough assessment of how much we have in the tank before we make what we might be thinking is a final push. I don't really have the layout or the scale of this place in my head yet, but my gut tells me it's a huge complex, both above and below.

[Phoebe]

[Eliahad]

Since Mike is going to be getting birthday bonuses tonight, does that effect the plans any?

[Mrs.Darcs]