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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Patryn of Elvenshae" data-source="post: 5519955" data-attributes="member: 23094">Fourth Session!Last session saw us playing our fourth session of the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path.Having rested overnight, we decided to finish exploring the tunnels underneath the old Lighthouse.  Making our way past the old jail and the room with the three star-emblazoned doors, we came into a chamber with, apparently, a dozen zombies each in their own oubliette.  After dispatching a horribly twisted goblinoid guardian (a fight wherein I used very few of my abilities since I didn't deem it worth it - a single point from my arcane pool), we discussed various ways of dispatching the zombies.  Even though they were of no immediate threat (being locked in tiny vertical stone cells with no apparent means of escape), they were horrible abominations against nature and all that is good - but the group elected to handle them at a later date (over the objections of myself and the Elven Paladin).In this case, my ability to repeatedly cast Acid Splash would have been invaluable.Instead, we located a strange, spherical room where a dead raven hung, suspended in midair along with a wand and a book, and the walls repeated nonsense runes in Old Thassalonian.  The half-orc Sorcerer used his minor magical abilities to float the wand and book over to us*, leaving the raven-and-maggots alone, and we identified them as a book of prayers to Lamashtu and a wand of Shocking Grasp (CL 3; 28 charges remaining).**  After a short discussion, I took the wand and the investigator took the book (he was the only one who could read Abyssal).Backtracking, we came across what appeared to be a lost temple, where a black altar devoted to Lamashtu brooded, containing a foul, disgusting water.  Here, I enjoined the party barbarian (Lailore) to drink one of the healing potions we'd been saving - but to keep the glass and stopper, rather than crushing them as she might otherwise do.  Then, I asked the half-orc to very, very carefully use his magic to collect a sample of what the investigator (Mycroft) had identified as potentially being "Waters of Lamshtu."  I figure some careful magical experimentation could indicate more about our foes, or a weakness in this magical mutagen.The next room was a huge, underground cathedral, and here we fought the hardest enemy so far - some form of demon or otherwordly imp, who allowed her blood to mingle with the waters of a particular fountain (maybe this is actually the water of Lamashtu?) and called forth a few more of the split-jawed humanoid we had fought earlier, in addition to a digustingly large spider.In this fight, my shield spell served me well, preventing three or four hits, and my magically enhanced blade accounted for the death of the spider and one of the humanoids.  The rest of the party handled the others, which left us with the demon-thing.Upon which, I kinda ran out of effective things to do. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> She was plainly not a humanoid, so any attempt to daze her was doomed to failure, and, apparently, she was acid-resistant, so my other magical attack failed to accomplish anything the few times I hit her.  My remaining 1st-level spells - another shield and a chill touch - were either inapplicable or limited to melee range, and so did not offer any particular help against an invisible creature hovering 15' - 20' in the air.***  I considered dropping my rapier and pulling my bow, but at that point I was still engaged with the remaining humanoid (tossing acid splases via Spell Combat, the AoOs for the ranged attack missing thanks to my shielded AC), and elected to focus on downing it, instead.  In the end, the foul creature turned back invisible and fled the room, leaving us in possession of the field, if somewhat the worse for wear.  I had been holding on to my chill touch in the event the demon-thing came back within melee reach, but since she didn't, it went unused (along with my chance to temporarily turn my rapier into a kick-ass two-handed sword <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ).We expect the captain of the town guard to return shortly with additional soldiers, at which time he'll find out about the lurking problem under the town and, hopefully, help us finish exploring and setting up defenses in the remaining tunnels.I did not use Spell Combat that often this session, preferring, instead, to make my melee attacks at my full bonus; I really only used it in the closing rounds of the last fight, where I was more-or-less futilely using it to toss ranged attacks at the flying thing while not maintaing my flanking bonus on the humanoid.  The additional +2 for not using Spell Combat changed a number of misses into hits, and while things weren't quite as manic as the previous session (no critical hits, for one), I felt fairly effective overall.  21 AC is pretty good for my level, so I'm happy with that.Next level - 3rd - comes with a Magus Arcana and a feat.  I'm leaning towards Close Range, to let me add a damage cantrip to all single attacks, or possibly Concentrate (which is possibly necessary in the long run, but so boring and limited to 1/day).As for feats, I'd like to go towards some more effective combat manuevers (Disarm seems nice), but that'll require at least three feats: Agile Maneuvers, Combat Expertise / Power Attack, and then the specific maneuver-enhancing feat (and I might want to take the maneuver-appropriate Arcana, as well, for an additional boost).  That's a pretty heavy feat investment for a class that doesn't get a lot of them, though, so I'm probably not headed that way - especially when at 4th-level, I'll get Pool Spell which'll let me just cast True Strike for 1 pool point when I really, really need to disarm something.  Combat Casting beckons, of course, but it's such a ... boring ... feat, that I'd rather not take it.I'm also considering going for a magic item creation feat - either Scribe Scroll or Wondrous Item.  My wife's dwarf fighter is a consummate craftsman, and so can work towards Master Craftsman and Craft Magic Arms and Armor to cover those bases.* Okay, upon rereading the spell description, mage hand doesn't work on unattended magical items, so this probably shouldn't work in the future.  I'll bring it up to the player in question, and let him deal with chatting with the DM about it.** Clarification question:  I know that, without the Wand Wielder Magus Arcana, I cannot use a wand as part of Spell Combat.  However, I believe that using it as part of Spellstrike is perfectly okay - use the wand, channel it through my rapier, attack with the rapier in place of the melee touch attack.  That works, right?  I didn't use the wand in the last fight because I wasn't 100% certain it was legal, and wanted to check in to make sure before I inadvertantly cheesed something.*** In reviewing my character sheet's equipment page, I noticed that I had forgotten to purchase a set of Phule-Proof Munitions Standard Invsibility-Denial Area-of-Effect Interdictors.****  I'll probably rectify this now that we're back in town.**** Bags of flour.</blockquote>

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