By Grandfather Flame's Dying Light
How to kill Grandfather Flame
--Dieter the Bold 16:21, 15 June 2009 (MST) So, I'm thinking we'll be needing a hard and furious assault that doesn't let up. So I'm thinking a way to get a first strike in to quench the breath-attack, a way to keep myself invisible for healing bursts and ways to keep peoples' END and STUN up. Seeing as the last battle that happened our man didn't get a scratch on him but still go KO'd.
--Matts 16:29, 15 June 2009 (MST)Whatever attack powers the dragon has aside from breath will probably be high-level killing attacks, say on the order of 3d6 to 6d6. At 6d6 KA, we need about 20 resistant defense at minimum, probably closer to 25, to not get mauled by a damage spike.
More concerning, though is the immense STUN output of such an attack. Average killing damage from 6d6 KA is 21, which means mean stun is around 50. Aside from damage reduction, I don't see a great way around that.
Aetan's resistant PD right now is like 12, with non resistant around 19 maybe.
So, barring a huge points expenditure on the defenses front, I'm going to say that a frontal assault may not work. This isn't even taking into account his armor, which we could safely estimate to be at least 20 DEF. Probably a similar amount of power defense.
--Dieter the Bold 11:49, 17 June 2009 (MST) Oh, so, I had a great idea. Remember session 1, where we were sneaking around the Temple of the Forge? Well I remember we found a storeroom full of gifts to Daenerys from people that included some pretty pimp gear. I vote we make a run by Caminus and see what we can borrow (and I do actually mean borrow) from there that could help us out. That would also be an excellent excuse to put together something exotic. Like, a specially forged anti-dragon weapon or armor? I'd be happy to burn an XP to find a scale that Oryxys shed when he appeared and 'rescued' Daenerys if we need some kind of link. We could also use the last of our daggers (Aefra) as some kind of special item/link. One dagger was vaporized by Oryxys (Gabe's) and one was shattered in the cold of Amor's Tears (Dieter's), and one was bent around the Old Ways of the world (Matt's). I bet we could pool those metaphysical instances into one of the remaining Daenerys daggers at the forge to come up with some crazy-cool weapon to use. Like a killing attack that's defended by Power Defense (Extra-Dimensional: Old Ways), does extra damage/slows attackers down (Amor's Tears) and provides resistance/immunity to dragon flame. Just some thoughts.
--Matts 12:11, 17 June 2009 (MST)Attack vs limited defense: Old Ways Extradimensional Power Defense is the best advantage I think I've ever heard of. That's a great idea that just makes for a perfect story. I am so down for a gear-up montage.
--Gdaze 12:34, 17 June 2009 (MST) Here are some potions I am thinking of making, pending GM apporval, and also a question! FIRST OFF! We are going to shut down his breath weapon, the insta-kill one, does he have another one besides this? If not, then no need for protection against that. Here is what I see us needing.
Aefra: Spells that bend light around us (+'s to DCV, useable on others, we pay the END for it)
Fantus: Potion of a Dwarf's Mind - Gives a bunch of extra stun, OR, big PD & ED but only VS stun damage.
Aeten: If you can, buy a one time use self rez power, that'd be tight.
Other things we need: Shut down his flying - we are going to be killed if he gets into the air. Maybe I could make a potion to create powerful winds (dispell flying)?
With standing a hit: I addressed this a little above, and Dieter I think your idea of armoring up is good. But I doubt they will give us too much. And I have zero interest in running more quests for some asses to get them.
I think we need to choose a route, either mass buffs to DCV, or to PD/ED.
--Matts 12:42, 17 June 2009 (MST)We're going to have to make preparations one way or another. If we rush in just assuming we can buy our way out of the fight I'm pretty sure we'll get stomped.
Can we call in the Knight of Thorns? I'll make him Regent Protector of Fremante in return! Are there any other allies we've got we can call in, like Sappho or Sascha Novgorod, or fuckin' Grendel?
Gabe, how much is your armor buff?
In terms of damage output, I know Fantus can do what, 5d6 BODY drain? With sufficient strength buff (like up to 50 or 60) Aetan can do 6d6, with +1 Stun multiple, which might even phase a dragon ( 120 stun on a lucky hit could probably phase anything).
--Brandon 13:06, 17 June 2009 (MST) Sorry that I can't be around this week (and most times), but Tithe still has his Daenerys dagger, and he'd be happy to give it up for the cause of killing Oryxys. For what it's worth.
--Matts 13:18, 17 June 2009 (MST)Oh, also, we could use Iyi's coin for her to reverse-steal the tears into oryxys' mouth, right? Can we just call all the favors we call in the "coalition of the willing"?
--Gdaze 14:10, 17 June 2009 (MST) Fantus can prepare the Tears. Grendel has put off flexing his magic muscles, that is why he is at the school. I COULD make a golem as well. Maybe some kinda tank golem. But that would take a month to make.
Here are things I will do with GM permission:
Up my armor oil: Will give +8PD & ED, RES. This does not count as a potion limit, so you can use the oil AND a potion.
Make another golem: More people to fight with us, yay!
Make a potion to throw into the air to shut down flying: We HAVE to have everyone flying, or shut down his flying, or else we are finished. We lack his speed, so we shut it down, or get our own.
Now, here is my question... Do you want me to make the World Breaker Potion? Whoever drinks it, will die. But I'm willing to pour a ton of points into this.
I'm also thinking of taking some debuffs with my hack magic, most likely to STR, any other ideas on this?
--Dieter the Bold 14:22, 17 June 2009 (MST) I think we are going to have to rally some allies on this one, or come up with some wicked tactics. Simply buying our way to victory isn't good, but gearing up to a certain extent is absolutely required. I think everyone should also have Teamwork, so we can do some excellent timed attacks. One other thought, is not to kill Oryxys at all. He said he'd leave Caminus alone, so we could just turn this into a raid to rescue Daenerys. Turn the tears into a Breath-Attack Suppressor, one dose to neutralize whatever bonds he might be holding her in (lava lake, whatever), and maybe the remaining two as a kind of temporary freeze attack. We get in, grab the girl, and then make a run for it via the Old Ways, or we purchase a one-time teleporter from one of the Hag Queens. Then we can go about our regular business with an eye towards putting together an anti-dragon raid in the future, when we're even higher level.
--Gdaze -- Two problems with that, and I'm only saying that because I know how dragons deal. He could blockade the island, and kill anyone who leaves it, he can not do harm to those ON the island.
Two. We made a deal with Stoneheart to kill him, although we have a way out of that if we give her an item. Number 1 though is a pretty big deal.
BEN: remember that dragons do NOT operate by "normal" logic...attempting to assign human cause/effect, emotions, or motivations to them (are often doomed to failure) sometimes doesn't work out exactly the way you expected.
--Gdaze -- I'm confused Ben, what part of our conversation did we do this?
--Matts 16:06, 17 June 2009 (MST)Wild guess here, it's the part where you say "I know how dragons deal". That said, I'm not super hot on the not-killing-oryxys tip. It's suitably clever, but I sort of think that if he took her once, he can take her again.
--Gdaze -- Really? That one statement lead to "attempting to assign human cause/effect, emotions or motivations to them are foten doomed to failure"??? I'm basically saying that twice the dragon has found loopholes in agreements we make. And since the argument was to kill the dragon anyway, I'm not really sure how that one statement would equal assigning human emotions that will doom everyone...
BEN: jeez, sorry: everyone can relax. I was being a bit florid and poetic and hyperbolous to make it sound fantasy-esque, no need to take it personally...i've edited it above. I was just trying to say, in a roundabout way, that I hadn't anticipated Dieter's solution, that I also thought it was clever, and that Gabe's points, while needing to be addressed, weren't "insta-kills" on the idea. That's all.
--Gdaze -- Well thats why, the whole doomed to failure... so doomed as in he wouldn't blockade the island? Fine by me! But then that statement also means we have no idea what to predict, so best to kill the beast.
Can we get an agreement from the players that we do NOT let the dragon live when it begs for its life, if it does? I'm very confident in our ability to kill the dragon.
Also I should point out, everything I'm posting here is very number crunching.
Nobody else has chimed in, anyone want a World Breaker potion?
Ben is the dispell flight okay???
Edmiao if we can one shot kill the dragon, all the better. i say make your insta-kill potion. but as backup, we should get the insta-kill javelin.
--Dieter the Bold 18:04, 17 June 2009 (MST) Well, let's spend Iyi's coin and ask her to steal the javelin for us. Then all we have to do is razzle-dazzle Oryxys enough that he doesn't know we have it and are about to use it on him, and backstab 'em with it. Oooh, crazy idea!!!
We get the Insta-kill Javelin and sneak into Oryxys' lair and give it to Daenerys. Make sure she hasn't cut any "I won't harm you" deals w/ Oryxys, then waltz up to the front of his cave all n00b like and then let Daenerys backstab him when he least expects it. How wicked is that?
Matts - Another awesome idea. I think we should go with that. Also, I think whatever our plan is, it needs a surfeit of razzle-dazzle!
--Gdaze 09:27, 18 June 2009 (MST) Huh... that is a very simple plan. Why do we have her back stab him? Why don't we just throw the thing at him? Not sure why we add unnessary steps if we plan on using the one hit kill move. I guess that might actually work too, although I'd perfer a fight, that is an OOC desire of course.
Edmiao Now that is a GREAT idea, Deiter. we backstab because you don't want him seeing the javelin and then leaving, grabbing it, missile deflecting it, mind controlling the wielder, etc.....
--Matts 10:16, 18 June 2009 (MST)This of course assuming it's significantly easier to sneak into a dragon's lair than it is to kill it in the first place.
--Gdaze-- By the way, if we do that, we have broken our deal quite directly with the elf. We said "If possible during the fight we let her get the killing blow." This will clearly NOT let her get the killing blow. Fantus wouldn't mind, just has to give her some crap.
Not sure how sneaking in with a weapon with that much magic on it will work. AND if we can sneak in and give it to her, why not just off him right there? The dragon will have mage sight and detect magic. So we need an invisability to magic (much like potion of human form does).
BEN: you wouldn't break the deal if you let Lyra throw the javelin...I'm just throwing that in to avoid confusion, I think all the ideas have been good/noteworthy so far, and I don't favor one over the other.
--Gdaze-- Yeah I was thinking that as well, which furthers the whole, why bother giving it to Danni if we can just sneak in anyway? Ed, can you pick up some invisable to mage sight?
--Matts 11:13, 18 June 2009 (MST)Ok, so I want to crunch some numbers here. Let's assume worst-case stats: BODY 35, DEF 25, CON 35, STR 60, 3d6 HKA claws, various ugly AoE stomps and such, Power Defense 15-20, Mental Defense 15-20. A 5d6 Drain could do, let's say, 2.5 BODY per hit. Per Turn, that's 7.5 BODY. A 6d6 HKA does 21 BODY on average, which doesn't really get us anywhere unless we have some drains to apply to his defenses. Though, a lucky roll on stun could probably knock out a significant portion of stun and maybe even stun him for a round, assuming he can even be stunned. If we can knock him out, we can make quick work of him, I think.
But the upshot of this is that really Gabe has the only chance of dealing any damage to him, unless we bring in some alternate plans like the fantastic AVLD Extradimensional Oldways sword idea, which I think has a real shot and we should pursue.
--Matts 11:19, 18 June 2009 (MST)What I really meant to say was that at 7.5 BODY a turn, we need to sustain an attack for probably 5 full turns to stand a chance. And the dragon has higher speed than us, so that means sustaining 20 - 25 dragon attacks. Without Damage Reduction, there's no way any of us could take that many high-level HKA hits and not be knocked out at the lease.
So high DCV is going to be a must, just to make sure that not all of those attacks are hits.
Edmiao ben, can i buy the following spell: Invisibility to: (sight, magesight, sound, smell, and detect magic)? How about y'all fight the dragon while invisible aefra flies up and stabby stabs it with the javelin?
--Dieter the Bold 13:21, 18 June 2009 (MST) I get your point, Gabe, that with a one-shot kill weapon, why bother for anything tricky. My point is that a super-badass creature like a Dragon is probably ready for all kinds of trickery. Plus, knowing Ben, I doubt he'd let a huge plot-device like Oryxys be one-shotted as a gimmick. He wouldn't prevent us from succeeding with the Javelin, but just walking up and going "pokey-pokey" would not likely work. All we know of the Javelin is that it kills what it stabs. Not that it automatically hits. So we'd want someone all skillful with javelins and guaranteed to hit. Which either means a surprise throw, backstab, or hand-to-hand long enough to get a hit. Don't forget we actually have to hit Oryxys, who probably has a wicked DCV. And if he's smart, he'd keep an impossible DCV until he's seen all our tricks and has us where he wants us. I say we either deny him any DCV levels due to surprise or we have a huge amount of razzle-dazzle to keep us all alive enough for that one hit to land.
Another trick idea: Use our Auspice Bond + Aetan's Old Ways traveling to create a kind of Blink spell (ala D&D), where we teleport-swap with each other's positions, so Oryxys can't keep track of who's where. Combine this with some fake javelins (get the actual javelin and have some Dwarves forge a few fakes) and we could really give Oryxys some pause.
Anyhoo, we have 3 fighters, 1 illusionist, 1 caster and a healer. I say we focus on making them tougher and harder to hit. Forget actually doing damage. Just survive long enough to land a hit with the Javelin. So buff's to armor, PD, DCV, etc. for us and de-buffs on Oryxys for DCV and SPD. We'll need to have resistance to Mind Control and Presence, too. Maybe some War Shout abilities to increase each others' resistances and OCV. Start stacking some of that shit with our Teamwork skills and we might have a fighting chance. So I'd say less super-difficult potions for Gabe and more buffs/debuffs that can stack. Like armor oil, body ointment and ingestible potion. Add some verbal morale boosters and some de-buffs for Oryxys and we can dance until we get him with the Javelin.
Also, for the Javelin, as Iyi probably won't work for free, so maybe she'd accept anything from Oryxys' hord, except anything related to Daenerys (fool us once) and the egg (as Gabe seems to have his eye on it).
--Brandon 13:45, 18 June 2009 (MST) Hey all. I just wanted to say that, while I would absolutely LOVE to be there for the attempted slaying of Oryxys, I doubt that I can make it anytime soon unless it takes place on some not normal gaming day. Except for 6/26, I don't have a confirmed open Friday until 7/24 (which is why I want to play so bad on 6/26). There's a possibility (maybe 50/50) that I could do it on 7/10, but that's the best it gets. Just wanted to be up front. The scheming looks awesome so far, btw.
--Gdaze 14:00, 18 June 2009 (MST) I think I can actually hear Brandon squirming to play out this fight. I'm TOTALLY DOWN for making this a special event, Saturday if need be.
Dieter - I like some of your new ideas, the teleportation fake javelin thing? Awesome. But there is one thing I'm wondering... I'm pretty sure dragons have a fairly lower DCV due to their size. I'm not sure of this, but their size I know would reduce their DCV by a good amount, even more so for how big this guy is.
Here is a question, does the javelin have to do damage to kill, or just hit?
Dieter this is just an idea, not sure you'll like it, but would it be possible for you to buy an ability where you basically turn into light? That way you can heal but not be hit? If NOT, I'm going to make a shield goelm, whose soul purpose is to get in the way of attacks at you. Here are some thoughts of what I can contribute and what it would be nice from others, this list will bring in as many of Dieter's ideas from above as well.
Dragon: Strengths - Has a lot of str, high damage output, high speed, can take loads of punishment, mental attacks, flight, AOE attacks.
Weaknesses - Does not know magic (means no dispells on us).
Unknowns: Has he tricked or controlled our woman to MAKE him anything?
Alright, my thoughts are really scattered right now, trying both plan to kill a dragon and make the new game.
My points are fairly limited, even more so if I’m gonna have to make that potion that can detect this beast.
Here is what I’m thinking though.
Fantus: Up armor oil to whatever I can max it at, I’ve had this power since the begaining of the game.
Debuffs: Use my hag magic to debuff him. I was thinking of CSLs and PD. However, his power defense is going to block out a lot of this. I don’t have this skill very high so I won’t be able to have huge drains. Hmmm this is a problem I just now realized… Plus I’d have to survive long enough to cast them all.
Golems: I’m bringing my flying one, do we want another tank, or a shield golem to help protect Dieter’s dude?
--Matts 15:42, 18 June 2009 (MST)I'd say not to split your points up too much. We definitely need drains against his defenses if we're going to have a shot through regular damage. We can take care of dieter, maybe with illusions or maybe just by diving for cover? The blink power sounds really awesome, especially if we could make it so that one person's action rearranged everyone. I'll look into it.
--Gdaze -- Ben! I'll be posting some powers later to get your approvel on, I promise to have them up by 7 pm!
--Dieter the Bold 16:36, 18 June 2009 (MST) I could certainly look into making a power like that, Gabe. And good question on the Hit vs Damage for activating the Javelin. And don't forget that we gave Oryxys one of the Novice Tomes, so he will now know some form of magic. I wouldn't put him out of that game quite yet. As for Power Defenses, just get a couple levels of Armor Piercing. It'll be more expensive, but less so than buying tons of dice and hoping for good rolls. Do we want to make this a two-part attack, with part 1 being a scouting expedition to see what new gear/set-up Oryxys has?
