Siege in the Stonespike Mountains (Boddynock Judging)
"You can call me Lady Diana, though I'd like to maintain as much anonymity as possible. Please demonstrate your abilities for my advisors, so that they might finalize the offers to be made to each of you."
She gets out an old book and places it on the table in front of her.
Quick Housekeeping Bits
Please use invisible castle to make all the dice rolls you would make in a normal game. It completely bogs me down if I have to do the rolling for the PCs as well as the NPCs, and if I get bogged down I don't update as often and things spiral out of control and... well, you get the point. Please?
(I'll do the dice rolling if you simply cannot, for whatever reason. If such is the case, make sure to post the modifiers.)
I will mostly use Invisible Castle as well, and generally I post the links for each roll. If I miss one or two, you are welcome to do a search there under "DM Patlin" to see what I've been up to. Being more-or-less human, I will occasionally screw something up. If I do and you tell me about it quickly, I'll fix it. If we figure out a mistake several rounds later, though, I may simply decide you're stuck with it. Example: If I'm applying sneak attack damage to your character and I forgot you've got a blur spell up, tell me right away!
Also, please be cautious when using sblocks and the title box. Depending on how I'm acessing the board, I sometimes can't see stuff in those two places. For example, I use "topic review" a lot when resolving combats, and that mode doesn't show any titles.
Finally, I don't generally used colored text, as it often seems it causes someone to have trouble reading it. If you want to use colored text, I use the default black background, and bright colors are apreciated!
"Perhaps a single spell will demonstrate the level of power I am able to use. Most of my spells are difficult to show quickly in this room, but perhaps this one will do. Everyone gather in this corner. Yes, over here. Now don't go past this chair here until the spell if over."
Iggy then reaches into his spell component pouch, and quickly mouths off some arcane syllables. Immediately on the other side of the room a field of black tentacles, ten feet long, spring from the floor. They writhe, and whip about, looking for anything to grab. After 48 seconds, they disapear.
"Those can be quite dangerous." Iggy remarks once they're gone.
"And we will show you our power as well. We are sure you are quite familiar with the metamagic to remove verbal and somatic components from spells"
*Before the tentacle's duration expires, Zaeryl simply flicks a finger and dispels it effortlessly.*
(OOC: Dispel Psionics with full augmentation can go up to 1d20+20 and the DC to Dispel Iggy's spell is 18, so Zaeryl cannot fail. Also, no displays/components offers no chance to make a Spellcraft check on him. Yay!)
"As the woman called Opale said before, stripping the magics from dragons successfulyl can be crucial to any engagement with them. If your magic is more powerful than that tentacle and you desire a further display of power, we will Dispel one of yours as well."
Having finished her computations, the old wizard confers with "Lady Diana" and the latter speaks.
"I would be willing to pay you 9,000 gp for your part in this adventure. I'm willing to pay cash, all up front, on condition of your accepting a gease to pursue the quest diligently and immediately."
OOC: So dispel psionics can be used to dispel magic. Can dispel magic be used to dispel psionics? Is that offer for both of them? That's quite a haul for Iggy!
OOC: So dispel psionics can be used to dispel magic. Can dispel magic be used to dispel psionics? Is that offer for both of them? That's quite a haul for Iggy!
(OOC: Yes, we use transparency, so each dispels the other. Otherwise Dispel Psionics would be useless in most adventures.
(OOC: Dispel Psionics with full augmentation can go up to 1d20+20 and the DC to Dispel Iggy's spell is 18, so Zaeryl cannot fail. Also, no displays/components offers no chance to make a Spellcraft check on him. Yay!)
Ah, yes, we're stuck with the broken "as-written" version of Dispel Psionics. It's sort of ironic that while I tend toward the "everything-and-the-kitchen-sink" philosophy and you are much more guarded, you are nevertheless the first player to use in one of my games something I consider broken.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SRD
Identify a power being manifested. (You must sense the power’s display, or see some visible effect, to identify a power.) No action required. No retry.
I think the tentacles vanishing constitutes a "visible effect" so I'll allow the NPC to evaluate it somewhat... otherwise, she would just ask for another demonstration anyway.
A debate ensues at this display, but it is eventually settled when Lady Diana makes the same offer to Zaeryl.
ooc: Yes, that's each. Fair warning, though: this is a military style adventure, and you may not get many more opportunities to loot your enemies than regular soldiers do.
Planus watches the interesting magics of Iggy and this strange Zaeryl. His eyes bulge a bit at the sum of money. "Well, the most interesting thing I can do at the moment is this," says Planus as he suddenly disappears from his current location and immediately reappears laughing in the back corner. "I could have gone much further, but then how would you know I hadn't just turned invisible, which I can also do, though I've been able to do that for awhile."
Ah, yes, we're stuck with the broken "as-written" version of Dispel Psionics. It's sort of ironic that while I tend toward the "everything-and-the-kitchen-sink" philosophy and you are much more guarded, you are nevertheless the first player to use in one of my games something I consider broken.
(OOC: Do you consider Ashin's Commission one of your games because of a PC? If so, I must direct you to Metamorphic Tranfer + Metamorphosis, though Erekose was nice and didn't abuse it.
As for my philosophy, I think you'll find that in my home games, I'm pretty much "Kitchen Sink - terribly broken stuff and things that break campaign feel in a particular campaign". The real 'core-only + little extra' crowd would laugh if you placed me with them--I'm just exponentially more guarded with a Living World because my home game rules are based on what I know I can handle and still make the game work out to be fun for all, and my Living World rules are based "Can a novice GM jump into our Living World and still do fine". When I come across something that I know I could deal with but that would take a decent amount of my expertise (so a novice GM couldn't), then I try to ban it from LEW or LEB)
(OOC: Ah I see. Anyway, yeah, Dispel Psionics has a few edge levels when it is pretty bad--level 8 is the peak of its power, since you can Overchannel up to level 10 Caster Level and pay 10 for +20 (compare to level 7 where you only got a total of +14), but the good news is that it levels off after that)
"I have no problem with a gease. And an upfront payment serves us both, as I will spend the money to become a more effective wizard." says Iggy. "I accept."
"We do not enoy such restrictions as this Geas by nature, but we are willing to accept the Geas to protect the fortress to the best of our abilities, diligently and with all deliberate speed."
OOC: I wonder if you'd allow Iggy to find a short bridge loan to buy a blessed book for 12,500 gps, and pay it back when he then sells his primary spellbook for 5000 gps.
OOC: *hint* Some of the other PC's may be coming into that kind of money very soon.
Just be glad Planus is around instead of Nars or Beamer as they both would be much more willing to profit from a bit of usury.
OOC: I wonder if you'd allow Iggy to find a short bridge loan to buy a blessed book for 12,500 gps, and pay it back when he then sells his primary spellbook for 5000 gps.
Do you use craft points to transfer the spells?
One of my face to face characters has had the Ebberon equivalent of the blessed book for half a dozen levels now, and he still hasn't managed to transfer even all of his cantrips into the thing!
OOC: I hadn't given thought to the time it would take. It only takes 24 hours to copy a spell, regardless of level. Iggy actually has 44 spells now, of levels 1 to 4. So it would take him nearly 2 months to copy them all over. Maybe I'll spend my money on something else...
Charlarn enters the room in his rustling robes. He recoils a bit when the black tentacles erupt from the floor. Goruksblain is in his hand before Zaeryl dispels the magic. "What was that?"
Lady Diana requests Charlarn show his power. He thinks for a moment. "This is a small thing. Most of the prayers granted to me by the Searcher aren't easily seen. But let me try this." He reaches for his silver falcon and chants, "Lady Phyrah, send down one of your servants." In an instant a large dark blue beetle with an orange head appears. It looks around as though searching for an enemy. Not seeing one, it turns to Charlarn and squeaks. He looks up in embarrassment and says, "I need to learn the language of the upper planes so I can talk to the Searcher's servants."
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