[OOC] Sweet Spoilerousness

[Lugar]

I meant he would focus all his attacks on Cloak, out of hatred/fear for mind-controllers.

I did not know that, "temporary business partner." I was referring to, how much of a killer Torin is/was. Not saying that if he went after SG or Lugar would be wrong, just offering a different perspective. And all we needed was a simple PfE spell, we are such rookies

If he is a vampire, I think Toot needs to summon a Treant to stake him in the heart! Or summon a shambling garlic bush!... Vampires make such good villains. So hard to kill...

I want to whip out the sword of light to see how it works on the undead... But I can't think of a good in game reason why Lugar would. Other than lack of options... What was the command word? Hikaru Sulu? (He was a fencer after all)

[Toot]

Perhaps someone should use a Knowledge Religion skill on this guy.  (Hint! Hint!) It might help determine if we are fighting an Undead.  He's already used a supernatural ability which is a lot different than casting a spell or using a spell-like ability.

Dwarves and Gnomes have shared the underdark and I'm sure they have been allied against the evil races who live in the underdark with them.  I don't think it would be in a CG Dwarf's nature to attack a Gnome he's been allied with even if it were for a short time.  But then again he has been a bit of a meenie to Toot... 

[DM Surranó]

Giant fights undead with an uncanny style that builds on what's common in all undead. (My idea is that they are reckless combatants who are not afraid of blood loss or loosing a limb or three and the ranger's subconscious notices this in their stances and combat styles)
Those with K® can roll (and I already did some such rolls but all failed) whenever a new piece is found in the puzzle.
What do you know for sure?
- He has pale skin and claws (well the claws may remind Lugar of the hag in his background, even though technically this guy uses a slam attack)
- He turned invisible for a shortest period of time (thus he must be a wizard, no? or a pixie, a very big one indeed. or whatever)
- He's damn quick and agile; danced around in the grease like a fairy (again, a pixie?)
- He has acute senses; can jump like a boss; and cling to the ceiling (again, an arcane spell?)
- He has some kind of enchantment power, probably not charm but compulsion though it's hard to tell; it wasn't a spell cast, apparently (no perceived components)
What a clever player might assess
- This is a human with a slam attack
- He has arcane levels (or abilities)
- High on strength and dexterity
- He has spider climb
- He has dominate
- And hates all living things
So yeah the assumption he's a vampire sounds feasible.

Just can't wait to finalise Torin's turn so that I can throw in more pieces into the puzzle

[DM Surranó]

Concerning alliance of dwarves and gnomes. The shade is a bit different if talking about deep dwarves and forest gnomes... Not as bad as svirfneblin to duergar but I'd say indifferent in best case since they don't share a habitat.

[Torin]

1. IMHO: PfE suppress all effect of DP.

2. Torin was memorized to "self-sustaining mode" and lot of his spell was wasted beacuse the IC meetings. If you calculate the CR of a situtation then you must count this weaknesses from the PCs. This makes things harder.
(I played with a high level (14?) BoED monk and with his wife (leadership -> BoED druid) in a two days long (IRL) game. Our DM didn't let the players to speak the roles in the preparation phase: the characters were collected with a big ritual magic. So, only the druid could heal the others and some of them(monk, psion, ???) cloud heal themselfes. That game was much worse then this, but I have got some deja vu feelings at now. Do you know that DM, don't you? )

3. I don't mind if you let your's NPCs to change their action in retrospectively, but after this our PCs will do in the same way.

4. Ally: a person who associates or cooperates with another; supporter.

In game solution:
===========
Portho leaves and Torin tries to smack him with his morningstar but his strike slows down and he frees from the control. (Thanks for his strong will.) Sorry!

[Lugar]

Torin makes very strong points. Even though we have potential deaths on our hands, this has been and is a very enjoyable game. Definitely a strong challenge. With that, whatever classes this villain has, he is holding back and probably could destroy us, or maybe that's the fear of dying talking... Anywho, vampires have numerous tricks up their sleeves. Wizard most likely, but we have yet to be hit with a fireball , as Toot pointed out, enervate, or the dreaded evards black tentacle spells. Not to mention he hasn't grappled anyone yet and started draining blood... Very bad stuff.

I think, even without being 100% prepared, we have the tools to defeat this guy. We just don't know it yet. Next round, Lugar is going to pull out the magic weapons and toss that granite club to Giant so he can go all Wreck-it-Ralph on those skellies. Sadly, only Torin has focused his attacks on the most dangerous enemy, something we all should do. Since Maul hasn't been able to turn these skeletons he needs to heal!

Can Portho roll a bardic knowledge check to figure out what we are facing, and how to kill it? Or tell what happened to Torin, even though it's a bit obvious. "Kill the gnome."

[DM Surranó]

Let me reorganise Torin's post a bit and reply accordingly. I would like to note in advance that our IRL acquaintance with Torin's player has a long history (as many may have guessed) and I treat playing together as a kind of friendly contest. I know him as a power gamer (and a very good one at that) and he inspires my DM self to plan my adventures smartly and thinking in advance about what a power gamer may achieve. Like, posting a challenge to defeat an iron golem with a level 7 party (same house rules). Guess what. He won the challenge with a single character of level 7. I used that experience in this adventure to design the encounter with, including the "programming" of, the guardian (which I still won't tell whether it's an iron golem, an adamantine golem, or whatnot. Just in case someone still hasn't figured out )

(I played with a high level (14?) BoED monk and with his wife (leadership -> BoED druid) in a two days long (IRL) game.

(an IRL game sounds a bit occult let's agree it was a traditional pen-and-paper game )

Our DM didn't let the players to speak the roles in the preparation phase: the characters were collected with a big ritual magic. So, only the druid could heal the others and some of them(monk, psion, ???) cloud heal themselfes. That game was much worse then this, but I have got some deja vu feelings at now. Do you know that DM, don't you? )

Sure thing and I do not feel ashamed for being able to learn from my own mistakes. For one, none of the original PCs were divine casters (let alone healers) so I dropped in an NPC priest of Pelor and even polled the (at the time) players about his chosen domains. None selected Healing so here he goes with Strength and Good. (something the newcomers still have to learn IC, especially since none of them know anything about an Oeridian deity)
Second, I littered the whole place with adamantine stuff; even this fact could give a hint about what to expect... and when you get home with all the treasure you'll see that it's ridiculously overpowered compared to the party level (some of them have story hooks)

1. IMHO: PfE suppress all effect of DP.

IMHO this is ambiguous therefore I put it up for democracy and I tend to believe that those involved in THIS game agree with you even if the internet doesn't (I don't incline towards either so I will accept the party's view on this)

2. Torin was memorized to "self-sustaining mode" and lot of his spell was wasted beacuse the IC meetings. If you calculate the CR of a situtation then you must count this weaknesses from the PCs. This makes things harder.

So I can be blamed for not being able to bring up an encounter where all automatically become "allies" (and will get there soon...). Honestly though this adventure is designed (if not carefully) so that an average party of the intended level can defeat it with one, maybe two full rests; and I'd like to keep this from fragmenting the game into lots of hit-and-rest encounters which don't make sense in such a dense dungeon. You may try to rest more than appropriate for the difficulty, of course, but I hope you won't Also, this is a boss fight and --correct me if I'm wrong-- a boss fight is destined to be "owerwhelming" or whatever it's called. (I already cut back on the warriors as they proved to be more formidable in the first version than I thought). And finally, Lugar is right: I made up an IC reason (will disclose later) for Cloak to hold his horses (him having missed the first two attacks was a rare luck for the party anyway)

3. I don't mind if you let your's NPCs to change their action in retrospectively, but after this our PCs will do in the same way.

Well. First of all, this is not for the players to decide. All decisions on allowing a retroactive event is judged by the DM, on a case-by-case basis.
Second, if a rules clarification works against players anytime then we may discuss retroactively change something to mitigate the effects. Basically, this is the purpose of this thread.
Third, I'm willing to keep everything as originally intended, meaning NOT changing rule interpretation retroactively for the BENEFIT of the party. You only have to ask.

4. Ally: a person who associates or cooperates with another; supporter.

I don't think anyone questioned the definition of the term "ally". What's questionable are "nature", and (from your quote) "almost always", the latter of which, you apparently interpreted as "granted". With all due respect to the author Skip Williams (also author of Deep Horizon) Torin and I know I have disagreed with one of his statements in another game earlier but his wording in this particular case is soooo convenient for me to interpret "against nature" as I originally intended.

To sum things up; we can go one of two ways and it is yours to decide.

A) I as a DM dictate how Dominate Person works, including PfE and make all the decisions alone what counts as "against one's nature"; in that case, a CG dwarf attacking a gnome having met a few days ago doesn't qualify.
In this case, there will be no retroactive gaming.

B) We make a common understanding of how the ability works, including PfE and what exactly counts as "against one's nature".
Once this baseline is established I will retroactively change just the tiniest bit (apparent to all players) and will send an additional private message to Torin on what is the exact command he's compelled to do.

Your votes and comments are welcome in the next 24 hours.

[DM Surranó]

Can Portho roll a bardic knowledge check to figure out what we are facing, and how to kill it? Or tell what happened to Torin, even though it's a bit obvious. "Kill the gnome."

yes...

[Toot]

IMHO this is ambiguous therefore I put it up for democracy and I tend to believe that those involved in THIS game agree with you even if the internet doesn't (I don't incline towards either so I will accept the party's view on this)

I'm not sure why it is ambiguous.  The spell specifically states it suppresses Dominate Person.

Second, the barrier blocks any attempt to possess the warded creature (by a magic jar attack, for example) or to exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment (charm) effects and enchantment (compulsion) effects that grant the caster *** ongoing control *** over the subject, such as dominate person). The protection does not prevent such effects from targeting the protected creature, but it suppresses the effect for the duration of the protection from evil effect.

Not only does the spell specifically state that Dominate Person is suppressed but it also states that Dominate Person is a spell that grants the caster ongoing control over the subject.  So Dominate Person isn't just exercising control when he orders the victim to do something (like someone had suggested).  It is constant and we don't need to wait for him to make another command while Torin is in the circle for the suppression to work.

This seems pretty black and white to me and does not seem ambiguous at all.  

Like, posting a challenge to defeat an iron golem with a level 7 party (same house rules). Guess what. He won the challenge with a single character of level 7. I used that experience in this adventure to design the encounter with, including the "programming" of, the guardian (which I still won't tell whether it's an iron golem, an adamantine golem, or whatnot. Just in case someone still hasn't figured out Smile )

How did he defeat the Golem?

[Lugar]

At first I thought there were arguments for both sides, but Toot is correct.  I think the confusion arises from the last statement in the spell's, dominate person, description. "Protection from evil or a similar spell can prevent you from exercising control or using the telepathic link while the subject is so warded, but such an effect neither prevents the establishment of domination nor dispels it."  One has to stress one half of this sentence over the other to make an argument, however, the logical/comical explanation of this sentence is that a warded creature behaves entirely normally within a PfE spell because the Dominate Person spell is suppressed.  Once outside of the PfE spell/warded area, in this case, the Dominate Person spell is no longer suppressed and will continue as if nothing had happened, hence the comical nature of this scenario...

Outside the PfE:  "I KILL YOU!"
Inside the PfE: "Hey buddy why are you pointing that sword at me?"
Back outside the PfE: "I KILL YOU!"

Dominate Person

At the end of the day, I would choose the solution that offers the most fun for all players.