And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.

first-through-the-door

This is nice.

first-through-the-door

first-through-the-door

Free action to enter Bloodrage.

I can't get to the glitterduster this turn, should I take position to defend the bloatmage?

Altronus

my-numbers-are-bigger

Ready an action and an AoO for anyone who comes that way... yeah, I can see it.

first-through-the-door

Most High Arch Megapope of Korvosa, Primate of Varisia

And that's my turn!

Back I go to the minesweeper mines.

beer & pretzels

We'll fight a big stompy solo monster next and make it up to you.

little-Cheliax

second circle cleric of Gorum

Lord Valdur Bromathan's bodyguard: 1d20+0 = 8

As fighting breaks out and spells are slung, Carlos Bevery can't spare even a wince for the Queen and her bodyguard backed into the far corner of the room.

Carlos isn't half the fighter that Sabina Merrin is - very few people are - but his personal history looks less like "become smitten at first sight with going-on-seventeen Ileosa when she arrived in Korvosa, hatch the "tightly calculated plot" to enroll at Orisini Academy on the theory that if he became one of the best fighters in the city, and then joined the Korvosan Guard, and then rose meteorically through the ranks of the Guard, that he could catch the eye of the Queen, and the Queen would request his discharge from the Guard and assign him as a royal bodyguard, and accomplish all of this basically overnight from a starting position of absolutely nothing, which really goes to show the power of yandere obsession[1]" and more like "has spent nearly twenty years working as security for House Bromathan."

Which mostly plays to his and Valdur's advantage, he'd think, compared to Sabina's situation with her own charge.

And which is why instead of sitting near the head of the table, Valdur Bromathan is sitting near the door (if disconcertingly close to far too many spiders).

Carlos has three escape routes planned for once they leave the conference room - one is the most direct route to Lord Valdur Bromathan's quarters in the magnificent mansion, the second somewhat more circuitous, and if neither of those look safe to traverse they'll break for the exit and Vault beyond it.

Or five escape routes, if you account for (as Carlos has) the unlikely possibilities that Valdur wants to visit the kitchens or use a lavatory en route.

"Up you get, sir."

1. This is 100% Paizocanon.↩

what-if-we-weaponize-it

second circle cleric of Gorum

Turtle: 1d20-3 = 8

Technically, since baleful polymorph functions as beast shape III, being turned into a Tiny turtle should increase his Dexterity score by 4, instead of reducing it to turtle-tier.

Which also means he gets a +2 bonus on Escape Artist checks, one of which he'll attempt right now, to wiggle free of Toff's entangling pocket.

1d20-3 = 15

Hey, why am I taking a -3 penalty? I should have a +2 bonus.

I should have made that check.

The rules say I made that check.

what-if-we-weaponize-it

This isn't fair.

Orianna Delmore

wronging-wights-and-wighting-wrongs

Delmore: 1d20-1 = 6

Content Warning: Spiders

Master Orianna Delmore is dazed in her chair, the spell she was planning interrupted with sheer sensory overload, carpeted - literally carpeted - in thousands of spiders biting and biting every inch of her. They are in her clothing. They are in her mouth. They are injecting poison into her eyes.

Her Constitution score isn't shabby - she rolled twelve, and has age resistance - and she wears a Cloak. But as a class, wizards aren't great at Fortitude saves, and there are thousands of spiders pouring their hateful venom into her blood. Delmore needs to make a Fortitude save.

Fortitude: 1d20+6 = 7

She takes 1d2 = 1 Strength damage out of 3d6 = 7 total. She'll lose another 1d2 Strength every round until she makes that save.

Orianna Delmore

wronging-wights-and-wighting-wrongs

This would be such a stupid way to die.

A hazard, she supposes, of phylactrocrastination.

Archbishop Ornher Reebs

he-will-orn-your-reebs

Archbishop Ornher Reebs: 1d20+0 = 5

Reebs turns himself invisible.

(Most clerics don't get that spell, but our Archbishop has the Trickery domain.)

little-Cheliax

Tauk Par: 1d20+0 = 4

The truth is that "Lieutenant Vault Captain" Tauk Par has little affection for much of anyone in this room.

The Queen is literally a diabolist. Par doesn't think that everyone is keeping their eye on the ball, there.

Glorio Arkona is an Arkona. It's easy to be "philanthropic" when you're just returning what you stole from or extorted out of people.

Cressida Kroft is Queen of the Cops. When someone pushes someone else around, the Korvosan Guard promptly jumps in to "keep the peace" before anyone gets pushed back.

And he hates her brain-dead fandom even more than he hates her. So what if she killed a dragon? Was the dragon bothering anyone? By your own admission it wasn't? You think it's impressive that she killed a dragon specifically because it wasn't bothering anyone?

It's said the gods made the First World as a trial run, to test all their ideas and get the bad ones over with and out of the way.

Par assumes that you escaped from there.

And on a personal level he'll never forgive the Korvosan Guard for that night he spent in the drunk tank when he wasn't hurting anybody.

little-Cheliax

But he likes Rem Ornelos even less than he likes most of the people here.

And Toff Ornelos, gods. Came in here without a clue what'd already been covered, drug in a whole angry crowd to disrupt the meeting's agenda, looking to start a fight as if just in starting one they'd solve all their problems.

Here's the reality of being half-Shoanti in the city of Korvosa:

Glorio Arkona kicked someone who hadn't hit or threatened him, which is assault or battery or something. A Hellknight immediately pulled a sword and tried to behead him. Hellknights are paramilitary. If it's legal for a Hellknight, it's legal for Tauk Par.

In theory.

little-Cheliax

Rem Ornelos cast a spell on someone who hadn't hit or threatened him, which, again, is assault or battery or something.

But if Par pulled a sword and chopped off Rem's head... he suspects he'd face stiffer punishment than a Lord or Hellknight.

little-Cheliax

So he'll use just his fists, to start.

1d20+10 = 15 1d4+9 = 11

little-Cheliax

Arbiter Zenobia Zenderholm: 1d20+0 = 4

It wouldn't be accurate to say that Zenobia Zenderholm considers her options; she's operating on reflex.

(On rusty reflex; Zena quit active combat when she made fifth-circle decades ago. She's a staid Arbiter of Korvosa, now.)

Her spells were mostly prepared with the shadows in mind. (Her three prepared death wards are three of six death wards in the Vault.)

She does, however, have calm emotions, prepared for exactly this scenario. It seemed worth preparing one spell that could immediately end most fights.

little-Cheliax

However.

While she could cast calm emotions, and would have if she'd acted sooner in the round, if she cast it now, when battles have already been joined, someone who made the saving throw will just stab someone who didn't and end the effect for everyone.

Or she could Channel Positive Energy to heal everyone within 30 feet of her 5d6 health. If she were standing on the table in the center of the room, a thirty foot radius burst centered on her wouldn't reach the conference room's far walls. But it doesn't need to, since the walls haven't taken damage and if they had positive energy wouldn't do a thing for them anyway. Thirty feet from the center of the room would reach all of the seriously injured people.

Or would, if they were standing upright - people who are lying down within ~fifteen feet of the table would have full cover against a burst centered above it - but she can solve that problem by standing nearer to the side where the prone people are bleeding out.

No one has died yet. (Probably. She hasn't actually taken anyone's pulse, here.) It may not be too late.

little-Cheliax