Be the Wardstone, Queen Galfrey, Medals? I don't need no stinking medals.

Campaign Log of Autec the Landbound, Day 9-18

A week has passed since we cleared the Garrison out. A demon hasn't been spotted in three days, it certainly seems like they've vacated the city entirely. Thus, it is rather surprising that Queen Galfrey declared martial law upon arriving in the city earlier today, I guess these human leaders need to feel important? Though I'm not actually sure she is human despite appearances, Aravashniel assures me she has been ruler of Mendev for well over 100 years. Our presence has been requested at the freshly cleaned Garrison for a meeting with her in a few hours. I suspect we are in for more excitement.

During our downtime, we were able to completely recover from our wounds and sold off the copious amount of magical goodies we liberated from evil. Quendnys has also been of great assistance in turning that cash into more useable gear and Pax's new Amulet of Mighty Fists-cum-Tentacles should be a big boost for +1 to hit/dmg on her four attacks.

Irabeth refused our attempt to return her sword we had located in the Garrison. Apparently, it had been her father's and she had sold it some time previously for Annevia's sex-change magic. She claims the sword is "bad-luck", (maybe just memories of Annevia?) but my detect magic disagrees and I'm fine taking it. (+1 Evil Outsider Bane Longsword)

http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Galfrey

Galfrey is...interesting. Forceful and intelligent, I can see how these humans have managed to survive so close to the Worldwound with her in charge. Turns out breaking the wardstone had very far reaching effects indeed. They're all broken now, and our group is now the new "wardstone". I don't see any choice but to continue until the Worldwound is closed or we die. I am sure that the demonic commanders are planning to exploit the exposed borders of the lands of men. Should they fall, my own home will face even greater danger. Best to cut the head of the beast off now, but they are so very powerful and we are so few...

At Galfrey's request, we have all officially joined the freshly instituted 5th Mendevian Crusade as Knights of Mendev. As Knights, we were rewarded for our efforts at the Garrison with medals of recognition and a pile of coin.

• Medal of Righteous Agility- Kesh - for slaying a demon before it had a chance to act.
• Medal of Righteous Clarity- Kesh + Ralan - for recovering information of value to the crusade.
• Medal of Righteous Command- Ralan - for convincing the First Descendants to join the cause.
• Medal of Righteous Valor- Sitzva - for applying the finishing blow to a powerful demon.

(OOC) Lol achievements! Medals give minor bonuses to a save/maneuver and can be activated for +2 to a stat for 1 minute. Kinda meh, but fun.

The medals were just buttering us up for our next mission though. The demons are already on the move and are launching an assault on the Southern outposts. Specifically, the maralith Aponavicius, recently led a march out of the occupied citadel Drezen to the north, leaving unguarded a powerful artifact that could turn the tides. The artifact, a crimson banner known as the Sword of Valor, is capable of denying the teleportation abilities of our demonic foes and would be of great aid in securing Kenabres against future incursion. Galfrey has ordered us to lead a small force of hand-picked, loyal paladins of Iomedae into the Worldwound to liberate Drezen and secure the Sword.

Accompanying us will be:

©Paizo

• Aravashniel, the blinded conjurer we saved during the initial attack and a Riftwarden. Now not blind thanks to Galfrey.

http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Irabeth_Tirabade

• Irabeth, as de-facto commander of our army

  

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• Aron, our highly-skilled guide and a siege engineer

  

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• Sociel, a cleric specializing in healing and divination

  

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• Nurah, a bard with knowledge of Drezen and the citadel

We spend the rest of the day planning our route with Aron and figure the march at approximately 160 miles to Drezen. Our force of 100-odd paladins can travel 36-miles a day and we'll be moving through demon territory, so some delays are anticipated.

Our first waypoint is Valis' Gift, a village recently engulfed by the Wound approximately one day away. The sky takes on an ominous red glow that grows more menacing with every step we take on the cracked clay that was once fertile farmlands. The few streams we find steam with demonic acid and we dare not let the horses drink.

We arrive at the Gift tired, thirsty, and not at all surprised that is has been razed to the ground. Clearly, the demons destroyed all they could in the area around Kenabres during the attack. We take an hour to search the ruins and locate a few underground food caches, but no survivors. Irabeth arranges the army into squads to keep watch as we rest that evening and we make it through the night without interruption.

Irabeth calls a halt fifteen minutes before reaching Vilareth Ford the next day to tell us that scouts have sighted a force of Tieflings ahead. We decide to take the the opportunity to ambush them by luring them away with a small portion of our forces. It, uh, works, and the armies clash with us having a major advantage.

(OOC) Okay, things are going to get a little awkward here. While the AP provided rules for managing these army fights as a separate mini-game, we all agreed it wasn't very well done and we'd just skip them entirely. Basically, it led to one person making all the decisions and making a few simple choices each fight to add/subtract modifiers for regular combat rolls. Our DM handwaved these and just had us engage the command center during each battle guerrilla style. While I would've liked the opportunity to actually use our army in an intelligent manner (and particularly augment them with our buffs and area effect abilities) this was not allowed to keep things simple. Shrug. Major problem here is that the fights don't make a whole lot of sense, so, take continuity with a grain of salt when anything dealing with the army is considered.

Kesh manages to locate what appears to be their command center after we send him up as an invisible, tethered, levitating cat balloon. We skirt the armies clashing and Haste our way in.

Our speed gets us across the field undetected and Katsa levitates Pax and I up the walls of the small camp while Ralan approaches a gap nearby on foot. Upon surmounting the wall, I quickly spot and identify a brimorak demon standing motionless. I realize he is likely telepathically commanding the army of Tieflings.

http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Brimorak

These nasty little jerks are surprisingly strong and capable of various sorts of fiery, area effect badness. Fortunately, he is in charge range and we do the obvious. Pax connects, but I miss. Fiery blood showers out of the claw wounds and burns Pax. Must've missed that bit in my studies. Sorry Pax!

Three ghasts emerge from nearby tents as the rest of the party joins the battle. Ralan quickly slays one with a charge and Katsa burns both a ghast and the brimorak I am engaged with. Kesh lands a few shots, Sitzva's holy ray goes awry and the brimorak teleports away. An uninjured one appears on the ledge of a small building and launches a fireball, hitting all of us for significant damage. We finish off the ghasts and Ralan gets a levitate boosty from Katsa to ascend the building and rip the little blue bugger apart. The one we damaged earlier reappears, fireballs 3/5 of us, then meets the same end as Katsa helps Pax and I climb up for a lethal charge across the rooftops.

Our army finishes the now leader-less mob up quickly, suffering only 1 casualty. We search the camp thoroughly and find ten survivors from the Ford garrison that had been being used a playthings for the occupying demons. They agree to join us and seek retribution. We take a well deserved rest for the remainder of the day and will set out for Keeper's Canyon on the morrow.

Mythic, Charging, Flying, Mounted Combat and You

Before getting into our adventures during book 2 of "Wrath of the Righteous" I'm going to delve a bit into some mechanical issues that have been cropping up. Why? Because I like game mechanics, that's why. I like poking them, and prodding them, and shaping them to my needs. This is one of the first "D&D" groups I've been in that has had sufficient leveling-up+mythic options to provide the granularity I really enjoy in builds. I'm starting to have concerns about power level/over-optimization, but for right now I'm going to ride this for all it's worth.

(Spoiler) I'll be discussing elements of Autec's build that come into play later in the campaign. Here is the character sheet.

My DM has two relevant "houserules" because mounted combat, as written, is a half non-working, half confusing mess. While searching will get you *many* discussions of the issues, here is a good one: Mounted Charging in Pathfinder

1. When mounted, Pax acts on my initiative and I choose which order things happen during the turn. This is a tricky one, but saves time/confusion and 90% of the time I'd be delaying whichever character rolled better initiative to sync them up anyway.

2. Feats and mythic abilities relating to charging are considered to affect both myself and Pax if mounted. This is primarily relevant for Improved Overrun and the Burst Through path ability addressed below. This is a very gray area of the rules.

Here is the relevant rules text for what I'm looking at - all from the handy, dandy d20pfsrd.

Beast's Fury - Guardian's Call Ability - As a swift action, you can expend one use of mythic power to imbue your animal companion, cohort, eidolon, familiar, or bonded mount with some of your mythic power. As an immediate action, that creature can move up to its speed and make an attack with one of its natural weapons. When making this attack, the creature rolls twice and takes the higher result. Any damage dealt by this attack bypasses all damage reduction. A creature affected by this ability can take these actions in addition to any others that it takes during its turn.

Burst Through - Guardian Path Ability - Whenever you charge, you can move through squares containing allies and opponents almost as if they were not obstructing your charge. You can move through squares containing allies freely, but you must succeed at an overrun combat maneuver check for each opponent that obstructs your path to the target of your charge. If the result of the check exceeds the opponent's CMD, you may move through the opponent's square and continue toward the target without provoking an attack of opportunity from that opponent. If you fail any of these combat maneuver checks, your movement ends in the square before that opponent, but you may resolve the charge attack against the foe that stopped you.

Ride-by Attack - Feat - When you are mounted and use the charge action, you may move and attack as if with a standard charge and then move again (continuing the straight line of the charge). Your total movement for the round can't exceed double your mounted speed. You and your mount do not provoke an attack of opportunity from the opponent that you attack.

Wheeling Charge - Feat - When you are mounted and use the charge action, your mount can make one turn of up to 90 degrees as part of the move, as long as each part of the move is at least 10 feet. You may make an attack during any part of this move. Your total movement for the round can’t exceed double your mounted speed. Allied creatures do not impede your charge, though you cannot attack from or end your move in an ally’s space. 

Amazing Initiative - Tier 2 Mythic Ability - At 2nd tier, you gain a bonus on initiative checks equal to your mythic tier. In addition, as a free action on your turn, you can expend one use of mythic power to take an additional standard action during that turn. This additional standard action can't be used to cast a spell. You can't gain an extra action in this way more than once per round.

Call to Action - Level 2 Golden Lion Maneuver (STD action) - With a mighty blow, the disciple aids an ally by providing an opening in combat to move by an opponent. The initiator makes a melee attack, inflicting an additional 2d6 points of damage and granting an adjacent ally an immediate move action.

Improved Overrun - Pax Feat -  You do not provoke an attack of opportunity when performing an overrun combat maneuver. In addition, you receive a +2 bonus on checks made to overrun a foe. You also receive a +2 bonus to your Combat Maneuver Defense whenever an opponent tries to overrun you. Targets of your overrun attempt may not chose to avoid you.

Okay, so, that's a lot to digest. Take a second. Then give your buddy a second, then take another second, then maybe give another buddy another second. Zip around the battlefield like a Jack Russell Terrier on speed. Repeat next round. Gross. While MP intensive, these abilities all combine to create an action filled "nova" that is brutally effective, relatively safe, and incredibly confusing.

So what does it actually do?

• Barring very tight quarters or movement reductions, no one is safe from a charge. I can generally maneuver Pax into a position where a charge is viable through Beast's Fury and Wheeling Charge.

• Piggy-backing on the above, I can prone a lot of smaller adversaries by finding a good line to my actual charge targets. Action economy through the roof here - knocking down a mook or three takes up effectively half their turn at no action cost to me. Charging combatants are typically very strong vs. one BBEG (big bad evil guy), but weak if the charge misses/they get attacked by all the dorks standing around afterward. Now this is no longer a problem.

• The "nova" itself. Ideal circumstances I get to start by Beast's Furying Pax into a good position and dropping a quick (double rolled, DR piercing) bite on whatever is closest. Then we get to charge thru that guy and anyone else in the way to our target. Thanks to reach, I get to stab it before Pax finishes her charge/pounce. If the 3x damage lance mounted charge doesn't finish the target Pax gets to launch her four attacks (bite, claw, claw, gore) as well. Then, I burn an MP for Amazing Initiative to take another standard - Call to Action. If that hits, Pax gets another move action to get us the heck out of full-attack range.

Problems and common sense issues? Ugh, yea, a lot of 'em.

What happens if my charge kills the target before Pax connects with her charge? Does she still get an attack? On what? Where? Adjacent? Or potentially on other stuff I Beast's Fury/Call to Action her close enough to during the turn?

What happens if my Burst Through charge fails to overrun a target? Do I get an attack with my lance even though it is a reach weapon? Can I make an attack against an alternative, actually in range target? What if I fail the first overrun on an adjacent target? Do I get no charge/no attack? Does the attack include +2 atk -2 ac for charging even though I never moved?

How in the heck does all this work while flying? For that matter, how does ANYTHING mounted work while flying?

Honestly, I don't have good answers for these things, and my DM just looks at me cross-eyed when considering all these ridiculous corner cases.

Next week I'll take a look at possible answers to some of these questions from a design standpoint and pick up with our meeting Queen Galifray in the ruins of Kenabres.