The Gauntlet 11/18/2018 @ The Wizard's Chest

[CDragos]

Dan, Jimmy, Marie,

This is the thread for those of us who have signed up for The Gauntlet at the WC on the 18th of November. THIS IS NO JOKE! Everyone signed up needs to be involved! My nagaji doesn't want to leave you for dead and I don't want you to leave me for dead. I survived Bonekeep. Four of six players/PCs did not because they didn't come prepared or didn't know what they were getting into. All I can say is, Bring The Best You've Got. Load up on wands, spells, potions, etc... Choose your best buff & debuff spells. Review your PC's past chronicle sheets and find those boons that will help you.

Also, have a way to remove every negative condition, overcome various types of DR & SR, and other nasty effects.

Will post more soon...

[Pogie]

From the Decimvirate:

“Agent,
Your work for the Society has brought you fame and prominence within our organization. We’ve been watching your career from afar, and are duly impressed. You are now a guiding light to young pathfinders and represent great hope for the future of our society to the Decemvirate. As we expand our research into the mysteries of the past, throughout the inner sea and beyond, there are many leadership positions within the society that are becoming available, and we look for agents like yourself to fill the ranks.
Early in the long history of the Pathfinder Society, a test of sorts was created to allow able agents to prove themselves ready for leadership. Great renown within the society is given for those who complete this “Gauntlet.” You may have noticed, at special occasions, most of our Venture Captains have already earned a platinum pin to commemorate their survival of this challenge. Once you successfully complete the test, you will receive this badge of honor and word of your exploits will spread throughout the Society, inspiring your comrades. Completing this challenge will also giving us confidence in you that you can overcome future challenges and greater responsibility.
The Gauntlet is located in a Siege Castle in the hills north of Absalom. Proceed to that location (indicated in the enclosed map) for your challenge today, after you collect your gear and meet your fellow agents that test with you. Once you open the red metal doors, you have entered the Gauntlet, and that honor demands that you not leave until you have successfully navigated its many dangers.
With utmost certainty in your successfully traversal of The Gauntlet, The 10.”

[Pogie]

You guys will not have the opportunity to make any purchases after you learn anything about the challenges ahead so come prepared. Once inside you will all be able to ask 3 yes or no questions about the challenges you will be facing. I would like you guys to use this thread to compile those questions so I can have the answers ready to go straight away.

[CDragos]

Here is a quote from Chris Mortika in this thread that is very useful:

"1) You want to be able to heal from any injury or debilitating condition, even death, in the middle of a fight. The one everybody forgets is blindness.

2) You want to be able to fight just fine in total darkness. Supernatural darkness: even better.

3) You want to be able to hit anything. Ghosts. Golems. Swarms. Flying swarms of ghostly golems. Assume opponents have spell resistance, various energy immunities, and DR.

4) You want to be able to see through all illusions, detect all traps, disarm all traps. Seeing through walls is a plus.

5) Look through the list of spells one level more powerful than the top spells your character can cast. Buy six or seven of those as scrolls.

And now, the big piece of advice: don't go in with a bunch of unknown colleagues. I would much prefer going in with 4th-level pre-gens, played by a group of friends who know how the characters work and how the whole party works, than cross the threshold with a group of twinked-out uber-builds who don't know one another, don't try to support one another, and all have his or her plan about how to handle one or another particular threat, all getting in one another's way.

Playing with a friend ahead of time is smart. Playing through a couple of Jason Buhlman's dungeons ahead of time (Rebel's Ransom, level 2 of Thornkeep) might be smart, too, particularly if you deliberately play with characters at or below the bottom of the recommended tier."

Please also take some time to check out this list of useful items.

[CDragos]

I'm very much considering on bringing my 9th lvl Aasimar Cleric of Shelyn instead. My ranger has no spells. The cleric has lots of good stuff versus various bad conditions. I'll have to review the sheet.

[grizzlydann]

I'm very much considering on bringing my. 9th lvl Aasimar Cleric of Shelyn instead. My ranger has no spells. The cleric has lots of good stuff versus various bad conditions. I'll have to review the sheet.

I agree. Cleric spells seem important for what were doing.

[Will.i.am]

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So reading over the warning of stuff that will kill us in the gauntlet, they list a small list of thing to think and I have answers for them, but more, here is a list of my condition cards and what cures them, if you think of anything else post it along.

First the short list,
~Injury, can be healed by Cure Light. A wand is 2pp.
~ Conditions that we encounter may have counter for them, i've listed them at the end.
~Death, is the biggest problem I see. You can wait for other condition to wear off but death maybe permitate, not if you have a Breath of Life Scroll, or Talisman (you can wear three talismans as one necklace) Best thing is to Not dye with a necklace of Ages of Recovery.
~Darkness, can be solved mostly with a Light cantrip or Ion torch stone, But Deeper Darkness is magical, so you will need Daylight, or oil of Daylight. Bewared this is one for one, one use of darkness is countered by one use of Daylight, and vice-verser. If you get two darkness's it will cancel the daylight, you need two Daylight's to over come. One thing I thought of was Blindfight or tremor sense.
~swarm, they all hate area of effect spells. And that all I could think of
~Ghost, these can be hit with Force magic, or Ghost Touch, is a enhancement to weapons to overcome Dr. There is a blench that can be fired on to a melee or range weapon over a 10min period, but it is a one shot item one hit of a sword or 10 arrows.
~Golems, adamantine overcome most of golem Dr, and prevent your weapon from taking damage. You could buy a golems bane scarab that will overcome Dr as well.
~Traps, Rogues are great at trap finding with there automatic precessions check to traps, and there is the spell Find Trap, I think the best thing is the Curious Approach, meaning “you tell the GM that you want to walk at half speed and check each next floor tile for traps, on your base check, this is one where you Will have to get creative.
~Magic Traps, everything from above, but only rogues with Trapfinding, can disable Magic trap, you can Dispel the magic on the trap, but that might set it off. If you don’t have a rogue you can get a Ring of Maniacal Devices.
~Spells, Buff, Debuffs, This is not my field of expertise so look up your spell and what effects and conditions it imparts, then look at those conditions and you’ll find how to prevent, negate, or overcome those said conditions.


The conditions I’m thinking of all come from the Condition Cards I always play with, they are as follow; Deaf, blind, dying, bleed, flatfoot, helpless, sickened, nauseated, grappled, pinned, invisible, incorporeal, dazed, stunned, fatigued, exhausted, fascinated, dazzled, staggered, paralyzed, shaken, frightened, confused, entangled.
~Deaf/Blind, remove spell. ~Bleed, Heal skill check or healing. ~Flatfoot, make your check, I don’t know other wise. ~Helpless, can be too many things to list here. ~Sickened, Remove spell, doesn’t remove but helps. ~Nauseated, Remove spell. ~Grappled, Liberating Command, free reroll.
~Invisible, Glitterdust is my favorite spell period, but you can See Invisible, use chalk powder, or be creative. ~Incorporeal, like above, Ghost Touch weapon/blanch, magic weapon or Force damage. ~Dazed, is this difficult. The only thing I could find that removed Daze was the Heal 5th lvl spell. ~Staggered, Again, difficult Heal will but expensive. ~Paralyzed, Remove spell, doesn’t remove but helps. ~Shaken, Difficult again, but I did find this Hobgoblin War Draft potion, it’s a gamble but it’s cheap and may work. ~Frightened, Remove spell, suppresses, doesn’t remove but helps.
~Confused, Use Calm Emotions, This wipes all emotional effects Good and Bad. ~Entangled, another one I have trouble with, Freedom of Movement will work but is costly. I would argue that if it’s a mess like a tangle foot bag, you can use Prestidigitation.

That is all I have for this post, if you can think of anything else ill add it to the list.

[CDragos]

One thing many people forget or don't even know is that remove fear will remove the shaken (even from Intimidate!), frightened, and panicked conditions.

Freedom of Movement for those pesky webs, entangled, and grappled.

A Swarmbane Clasp will let you do full damage with a weapon to swarms.

There are a some great Occult spells available to Bards, Clerics, & Wizards, and their respective subclasses.

After reviewing my lvl 9 Cleric last night, I have decided to bring him into The Gauntlet. He has many spells, items, and awesome chronicle boons to combat various different things.

[jhatgames]

Excellent research guys, it would be great to have a cleric of Shelyn!

I'm going to ass-u-me some things here:

1) CLW wands will be very useful because we will have 'between' combat time: If we don't have 'between' combat time, or are on the clock (most likely), then we'll have to use the CLW wands very efficiently between encounters.

Another ass-u-me is that not everyone in the party will be effected by something (aka some of us will save or will be outside of the effect) this is a BIG ass-u-me!!:

2) Massive damage that clerics can't heal right away: do you have a cure <high level> potion? This is for you or someone in the party that got hammered/went down. Aka something a non-cleric can take care of - the cleric isn't always right there...

3) Someone (probably not me) will save vs. what is thrown at us (poison, save or suck, hold, grapple, etc.), which is great. But that means if we work together then not everyone needs to carry every antidote. For example: I'll carry 2 neutralize poison potions:1 for me and 1 for my animal companion, but I'm happy to use them on someone else if either me or my animal companion makes their save or is not in the area of effect.

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So ass-u-ming that the above is true here is what my character will buy:

750 x2 Potion of remove Blindness/Deafness: for me/animal companion, or someone in the party.

750 x2 Potion of neutralize poison: for me/animal companion, or someone in the party.

300 x2 Potion of darkvision: for me/animal companion.

750 Potion of Cure Serious Wounds: for when a cleric can't get to us or someone in the party.

450 Feather token of a Swan boat: to get us all across a river, lake, etc.

500 Feather token of a Whip: a 1 hour grapple companion (everyone really should have this).

The total cost of all these things is: 5300gp
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1700 In addition to what I bring above for me/the party I will also bring a Breath of Life scroll for our cleric.

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7000 My total pre-cost for this adventure - there is plenty of other stuff to be covered by the rest of the party.


JHat

[CDragos]

Arcturus, my Aasimar cleric of Shelyn, has pretty much everything to combat & ward against many of the conditions & creatures noted above. On top of that, my list of beneficial boons is quite extensive.

One special item of note: I have a special boon (Ascendance Day Cloak) from October 2013 to grant a +2 untyped bonus to resist compulsion spells, spell-like abilities, and effects & acts as a phylactery of faithfulness for an entire scenario!

I have a Permanent +2 sacred bonus vs. spells & effects with the evil descriptor. Awwwesome.

I'll need to print out spell cards for a 9th level cleric so I have them handy.

Jimmy, a wand of infernal/celestial healing would be great.

[CDragos]

Here is a quote from Chris Mortika in this thread that is very useful:

4) You want to be able to see through all illusions, detect all traps, disarm all traps. Seeing through walls is a plus.

Gloves of reconnaissance, anyone?

[Pogie]

Upon entering the antechamber of The Gauntlet, you will have the opportunity to ask the attending Venture Captains 3 yes or no questions regarding the challenges facing you. You will not receive any info beforehand to inform your questions, nor will you gave the opportunity the leave after you ask. In the interests of time, I would like all players to ask their 3 questions here, to be answered at the table.

Each player gets 3 questions. Make sure you read the other players posts to reduce redundancy.

Tim

[CDragos]

Everyone,

Start thinking about those questions. I have no idea what to ask so we need to discuss possible questions to ask.

Also, please state which PC you'll be bringing. I need to know if we have an arcane caster.

Thanks,
Christian D.

[CDragos]

Hey, all,
One question I have been thinking of asking is if we can rest overnight or 8 hours to help heal negative conditions, regain hit points, and spells. I am willing to pick up a scroll of Nap Stack for us.

[CDragos]

William, Marie, and Jimmy,

Will you guys please post what PC you'll be bringing? Also post your questions asap.

Tim, I will post my questions later today.