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[Sagiro]

Originally posted by Fade
Couldn't Velendo cast Summoning spells to summon things that can fly, and participte in the battle that way? A Greater Air Elemental could certainly lift Velendo out of the hold, and thats a Summon Monster VIII. If he only has a VII prepared (what he used to summon the Celestial Elephant) a Huge Air Elemental has a strength of 18, which should be enough to lift the frail Velendo. (original question deleted by PCat)

Well, you're mostly right. Finding himself alone in a Cloudkill-filled hold, with nothing better to do than complain over a mind link, Velendo summoned Air Elementals. Unfortunately he hadn't memorized tongues, and he doesn't speak air-elemental, meaning he couldn't instruct the elementals to lift him out of the hold; they simply attacked his nearest opponent.

To address other points raised recently:

1. Velendo has a +31 to his Concentration checks; 19 points in the skill, +2 for Con, and a psionic item crafted by Tom Tom that gives him +10. So casting in the Cloudkill wasn't a problem.

2. In Velendo's opinion, yeah, our tactics have suffered recently, particularly since the battle against the Voice of the Tree. There are a couple of explanations for that. Once is simple over-confidence generated by recent victories. Another is (and I mean no offense to any of my party-mates) a subtle shift in party composition from people-who-plan to... er... people-who-plan-less. In particular I note the absence of Palladio, our most steady thinker.

Here's Velendo's take on party personalities/tactics:

Tom-Tom (psion/rogue): tactically and strategically sound; a real asset.
Tao (ranger): also a shrewd character, tactically speaking, occasionally (as we've seen recently) prone to over-kill.
Malachite (paladin/hunter-o'th'dead): doesn't do dumb things, but generally just kicks the nearest evil butt. Hey, that's what he's good at.
Mara (paladin): Tactics? Bah! There's Evil to be Vanquished! CHARGE!!!!!!!
Nolin (bard/wacky-custom-fiery-phoenix-prestige-class): Sometimes brilliant, other times completely baffling. Usually more inclined to do the fun thing than the right thing... fortunately, sometimes, they're the same thing! Plusl, he casts mass haste, which makes up for any number of sins.
Raeveynn (druid): Utterly baffling. Has amazing abilities and firepower, uses them in a seeming random fashion, seldom optimized.
Agar (wizard): Velendo has no sense of his tactical abilities yet.

And in the battle you're about to read about, Tom-Tom's player was absent, and anyway he (Tom Tom, not his player) was trapped in the Astral Plane the whole time due to a misfired dimensional slide.

You can bet Velendo was not happy being left in the hold of the ship!

Anyway, it's Velendo's opinion that if the Defenders head into the Underdark without some serious re-consideration of tactics, group strengths and weaknesses, etc., they'll last about 30 seconds before something eats them. Hopefully the sequence of battles you're about to read will have taught the group some valuable lessons!

-Sagiro