The Glass Cannon Podcast - Giantslayer Episode 265 - The Flying Game

Episode Date: February 16, 2021

At the anchor point connecting the chain to the rocky base of the cloud castle, the heroes are accosted by flying foes! For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com. To become an official member of the Naish, subscribe today at http://www.jointhenaish.com. Want to be a part of Glass Cannon Nation? Follow us at twitter.com/glasscannonpod instagram.com/theglasscannon facebook.com/glasscannonnetwork tiktok.com/@glasscannonnetwork Get the best apparel and gaming accessories in the biz at https://glasscannonnetwork.com/store If you enjoyed this, we have several other series featuring Call of Cthulhu - Time For Chaos Delta Green - Get in the Trunk Pathfinder 2E - Glass Cannon Live! Strange Aeons Pathfinder 1E - Legacy of the Ancients Traveller - Voyagers of the Jump and so much more! Join us every Thursday night for Campaign Two of The Glass Cannon Podcast – a playthrough of the Pathfinder 2E Gatewalkers Adventure Path! Videos premiere on YouTube Thursday nights at 8PM ET with a companion podcast available at midnight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week on the Glass Cannon Podcast. First of all, you need to calm down. I can't calm down. You need to relax. How? This is big. I didn't think it was that big, and now you've got me nervous. Yeah, you freaked us all out. The heroes fended off the scorpion attack.

You hear a sound from above. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da sounds like a huge engine or something mechanical or steam powered or who knows what starting up and all of a sudden the chain goes taut what and took to the sky and you look down at the bottom of the chain and it's starting to rip out of the ground oh Oh my god. The castle is taking off. But as they closed in on the castle. Metra hears. All of a sudden. A ballista boat comes flying at Dalgrith. What?

Roll for initiative. Oh, come on. We can't see them. How do they see us? Its defenses came alive. And flying towards you are two creatures. It has a bear's torso and a head, clawed ape legs, and a furred tentacle arm. The adventure continues.

And they shriek out. Now. No. Isn't it nice to record some Giant Slayer during the day on a weekday? Crazy. This is the dream. Unheard of. This is the life. Grant, you were remarking this about an hour ago when we were setting up. You like it, buddy?

It's all because of you. I do like it, and I appreciate everyone out there in the niche supporting us to get to this point to be able to do that. It's crazy. We used to just shove into tiny apartments each other so we're never meant to have seven people and all the recording equipment and a stinky little corner. I'm plugging air conditioners, getting angry angry getting drunker as the day went on uh but i gotta say um the light of day it cleanses everything um so there's gonna be a lot less cheating from me going forward i'm gonna start telling the truth on all my die rolls you know i forgot that we used to do this in apartments until you just said that yeah yeah for a long time we recorded in a

studio at night only you know that was the whole middle part but yeah the very early part was just apartments coffee tables the very early part was like two years long yeah i have no memory of that oh very little it's like you know we have a new baby and uh my wife will be like do you remember when archer was uh i'm like no, I've blacked that all out. And I've blacked out those early days. Grant said that. I'm like, I remember that we did that. But it's been so long.

Now we've spent more time in a studio than we did in an apartment. Yeah. Aaron just showed me a video of little Joe from, I guess he was like nine months or ten months and he's like on a little play toy thing and he's just squealing and i was like i have no memory of him looking like that or being that size at all and she was like well this was january 2019 i was like oh the first month that i went uh full-time for glass cannon yeah that makes sense that i have no memory of that time of his life i didn't encounter the boy in that whole month. I hadn't seen the boy.

No, I mean, I even got to spend more time with him at that time. But you also realize in retrospect that like your brain is elsewhere all the time when you're doing this stuff and putting up a bunch of shows and everything. Yeah, it's crazy. Well, it's nice to do this during the day. It still takes a long time. Like it would be nice to be back in book one doing this during the day. It'd be so much easier. It's so nice. Five eps a day! almost 11 hours yesterday prepping not only the this episode but like the possible future episodes and i still feel fully unprepared and i just read something right before we started recording i'm

like oh yeah i'm never gonna remember that like it's just there's just so much stuff and i you know to me all i care about is we have a good time and i think we will i think we're about to have a really good time things are gonna get complicated and hopefully we can take our time and do our best with it. But, like, there is just no—you're never like, all right, I'm fully prepped. That just doesn't exist anymore, at least at this stage of the game. There's just so much going on. And the caldera. The caldera, I was hoping we could hang out there a little longer.

As excited as i am that you guys are up near the castle there was just like a lot going on in the caldera that has been totally skipped and is now no longer part of the adventure and it's really made me realize like we are going to finish this book this year i think uh because that might just be what high level play is like i don't want to do that let's just go do this um well i didn't even think you have no one to blame but yourself yeah in our first encounter in the caldera you were like and they're snapping the chains to release the castle it felt unbelievably stressful it never occurred to me for an instant that we were just going to like let the castle fly off and explore the caldera oh i know

it did never occur to you you guys left and like let's go take five days off like the adventure wants you to just go do it right now and i tried to impress that upon you but you guys didn't want to do it and so there are huge huge penalties because of that um which will make an already very difficult book all the more difficult um but then when you finally got in there ramped it up and it's still like it's just if by going to the tower first it changed it kind of changed everything everything the clock had to be turned upside down um so it's just really interesting three or four encounters that you completely skip tons of information treasure it's gone so no longer part of the

adventure and i think that's that's kind of fun because there are other people that would tackle the caldera completely differently and you think that they would tackle the caldera by not taking a rest from the titarian fight they would just walk right into the caldera and start exploring i think every group is different but the it's written in a way that it assumes that you do and if we didn't fly i don't think you could finish the titarian fight and then go straight in there and in a way it's kind of a way that it assumes that you do. And if we didn't fly in to finish the Tartarian fight and then go straight in there, and in a way it's kind of written that way. Yeah, I just don't understand. The prisoner's ring.

It was like that whole... Yeah, so he knew the second the Tartarian went down that that castle had to go. So I just don't really understand the logic behind it. Well, it's not necessarily that the castle had to go. It's just that you're coming. And so now they're prepared. And if we go into the caldera without flying reconnaissance, so invisible flying reconnaissance, is that what ruined it for us?

No, because I think every group at this point is going to have a caster that's able to do either invisible or flying or teleport. If we just walked into the caldera and went exploring, would the ballista from the top of the tower have been able to see us from anywhere in there and be firing at us? Within reason, but it takes range penalties based on how far away you are. It can shoot 1,000 feet? Mm-hmm. Okay. Oh, it can shoot, yeah. So then, yeah, you'd be in initiative as soon as you walk in the caldera.

Yeah, and then never leave it. And it's meant to be that way. It never felt like an option at all. To explore. To explore. Yeah. like an option at all to explore to explore yeah you know because at least if we took some time to get ready but we spent that time healing and preparing rather than being threatened constantly right right right and you well you also walked in and jumped right to the top of the tower in the

middle of the the you know the craziest fight in the caldera and so by neutralizing that uh it changed the the speed in which things are happening. But, you know, there's a lot going on in the tower that you're unable to really look at. And so it's just it's really interesting. I'm glad you guys are up here, but you're about to see our entire game is about to change. Oh, dear. I think I think we might have explored the caldera, but there are two things that took longer. One was Farron identifying the hammer of Thunderbolts and figuring out what that was and how long it took for Nestor to find someone to retrain him. Right.

Also our healing and shopping, but that could have been compressed without those two items. But I don't regret doing those things because those things both seem like they're preparing us for what's up there. So the question is in the trade off is whatever you said, things are going to be more difficult now without whatever treasure and how Intel and Intel and whatever else they prepared inside is that uh bump in difficulty um equal to or less than how much more we are prepared now with all the items we have and

nester having that benefit so it's difficult for us to say without knowing what was the benefit again skit what did you retrain i don't remember i can't remember i got i got clustered shots but i can't remember whether i retrained i think i retrained my dazzling display which is like take a full yes i remember round two but i never had enough time to do that to spend a full round twirling my bow around to intimidate people i just didn't have a chance to do that so yeah just didn't make sense. But Clustered Shots is awesome. It's pretty clear

that this is it. You go up there and it's not like, oh, go visit the forge tomorrow. This is it. To me, having the castle just take off right away without giving you that opportunity is just shitty. I'd rather have it play out in other ways that will slowly unfold over time.

That, to me, is a lot more interesting for story. But I'm excited you guys are up there. I was trying to figure out how you would do it. Would Metro just fly up and then, would you teleport out? How would you do it? It's so difficult. That's why everything had to be round by round,

movement by movement, because every decision you make has a repercussion. There's so many things in this adventure. It's like when they get to here, 50% chance this, this, this, or this will happen. They roll all those checks. It sounds like a total nightmare to prep. I don't envy you at all.

Yeah, it's a nightmare. And then you get to, you do all the other prep. It's like, all right, let's just deal with this one encounter. And then you look at the encounter and you're like, I just want to go home. I don't want to do this. This is so. No, I mean, we have all all been this is starting to get painful this is starting i've been watching you just squirm for 18 months over this it makes me

never want to gm any pathfinder adventure over level nine yeah like i just don't want to we got to commit to tpks by the end of any book three yes yes so none of us have to ever experience this is the added thing it's like and listen anything could happen but there is a very strong possibility that this will end in a tpk this is so fucking hard and so i've already started thinking about contingencies for that, for the story that we're telling, not the game that we're playing. And it's just crazy, because we're going to go through all this and try to play it as close

to the rules as we can, and then you're going to go through all of this, get to the end, and just die. Yeah. I have no interest. I'm so excited to introduce four new level 16 characters, four episodes before the end of the series well there's a lot of other characters

sitting out there there's a lot of other characters sitting out there which is good and important getting them to the castle is my problem they'll all be dead too that's what I'm saying yeah then they die we have to like sit down we have to see the whole fight

and then sit down and build a party exactly opposed to that specific fight to beat it. Like you did with Scarecrow, basically. Right. Exactly. Yeah. It'd be interesting. Is it going to take two times? It is so. I'm telling you, 11 hours. I looked. I sat down. I took a couple breaks here and there. I'm telling you, 11 hours. I looked. I sat down.

I took a couple breaks here and there. And I was like, I got to stop here. And I am not even close to finished prepping. Like, even this first level of the castle is just so much going on. But I think that's why you see a lot more in video games in particular, particularly high fantasy ones, characters being so overpowered by the end of the game and unleashing holy hell those are all variables and math and numbers that are being crunched behind the scenes that a computer can do very easily but it becomes more and more onerous that's why mythic adventures are cool but they're often like overpowered and difficult to manage and high level play is like that too it's at a certain point there's so many variables in each character sheet what they can do and the amount of die

and and modifiers that um i think it's odd honestly sometimes lends itself best to like computer games for those power trip fantasy type level role playing yeah like i'm playing demon souls right now and i just wiped out a level and i got to the boss and i fought the boss like 12 times and i'm not even even close to beating it and i'm like i could beat this if i was so much stronger if i had if i just built my character a little bit differently and so i've been reading online and people are like yeah just go back and do that boss fight later go you've done that level you've got everything on level come back to that boss later um it's the man eater boss fight yeah sucks it's also a nice thing to that you have that option yeah you guys don't have that no

we don't have that was the end of this because we have to because we have to obey the rules of coherent narrative well do you remember when we played in merwin's second campaign this was this goes back to skid joe and i when we played our first first game we finished our first long multi-year campaign then we started a second one that really didn't last that long and very early on we went into the sewers yeah and we fought one encounter and then we got to the next encounter and i think it was round two when our gm was like you get the feeling that this is an undefeatable enemy and it was the first time that we since we had been playing together that we're like so do we leave the combat like we're supposed to come back here later and it

felt like a video game like that option just never really presents itself at least in our podcast version of the show to be like you know what let's just tackle this boss after we're 15th or 16th level like you yeah all right well you're gonna run out of there and then i've done it flying castle i've done it before uh by just flat out giving players the cr but you know based on like a knowledge role i'll be like this is the cr because otherwise anything i described to you about this you're gonna be like oh we're heroes how we can defeat this winged demon you know what i mean it's like well if i just give tell you this does that translate so that what your characters are looking at is like oh that's something we cannot possibly defeat uh i remember one particular scenario pfs scenario there is a demon that you is pure flavor and uh

flavor dean yeah the flavor demon and like the players like try to to fight it it's really the background a giant like colossal demon it's like a background to an encounter that you're actually in i think i played this scenario with you i think you did yeah and it's like one of the players just started like shooting like their bow at that instead of like the little boss that was like in the room with ww and i was just like how do i um the creature is cr25 yeah that you're shooting at so i think i was in that room but just as it translates so that your character understands this is unwinnable yeah that's the game was that the game that kevin played in the longest game ever in the museum

no it wasn't it wasn't uh yeah i don't remember what it was but uh well it's fine this is more of like a glass cannon live strange aeons talk but I'll bring it up again at some point. In book one of Strange Aeons, there's a CR-17 creature that you guys didn't come up against. Oh, really? at a future glass cannon live when those happen again. Uh, but like, even if you have to really go out of your way to provoke it, and then it could just like one shot kill you, uh, with its mind. But like, I never,

I'd never seen that before. I remember the first time I was reading it, usually it shows you the name of the room and then the CR. And I was like, Oh, that must be a typo. And I read him like, that is not a typo.

I hope they do that. And you guys didn't do it. That's, that's actually cool. There's something like that in spoiler alert, but there's something like that in rune lords that's cool i like that the potential yeah yeah and if you get pushed too far you die and then you learn we really shouldn't have done that yeah i'm gonna miss lesson learned yeah well you guys are up you guys are up on the castle this thing is flying away and as i said everything

is about to change uh you mean even as you guys were going up the chains last episode in the middle of the episode i realized like i wasn't really interested in the scorpion fight anymore that was just about like can they chip away at some damage at you can the big black scorpion get to go before you guys to be able to really screw one of you up once that was off the table really became above flavor to me at that point like let's see if i can take a little damage i don't think i'm gonna hit on the claw attack with these babies but have them struggle a little bit now they're up the chain and you're at the top you guys get to the anchor point i think baron got there first, rolled a perception check,

and saw that 30 feet away or so is an opening into the rocky base of this flying cloud castle. The whole time you've been going up, there have been, every other round, these ballista bolts coming down. And with pinpoint accuracy, through an otherwise concealed location, you're in these clouds. You can't see more than five feet in front of you, but someone can see you through the clouds firing these ballista bolts. Hit one of Metro's images, but if I'm remembering correctly, didn't hit any of you. You get to that anchor point, you fly over there, and then suddenly you hear the sound of wings as creatures come flying at you.

That's not all that happens. You left a part out in the cliffy? I left a kind of important part out because as this is happening... Why'd you nerf your cliffy? Something else happened. You nerfed your cliffy? Totally nerfed my cliffy. It's a semi-cliffy.

As... your cliffy something else you nerfed your cliff totally nerfed my cliffy it's a semi cliffy as isn't it terrible when you find out later that the cliffy wasn't as strong as you thought your doctor can help i swear to god this is the first time it's happened raging semi um as you hear the sound of the wings remember i said that the the the the hole going into the uh into the rocky base it's about nine feet uh wide square um plenty of room plenty of room for giants to fit in maybe something bigger than giants would have trouble in there they'd be squeezing um but it's big it's wet in there and it's cold as you hear these flying creatures gale force winds start blowing out of these propulsion ducts creating a windstorm effect no the windstorm effect is going to have some repercussions for you because the castle is now moving away from the volcano. And as it does,

this air comes flying out. What happens in the windstorm is pretty simple. If you're inside that duct, ranged attacks are impossible. You cannot make a ranged attack if you go inside of that duct. Outside, I'll say the wind spreads out. You're okay. Well, maybe I'll say in front of, if you're standing in front of the duct, you can't do it. Yeah. We'll say anything in the direction of that duct. Range attacks are impossible. To try and move against the wind, let's say, you know what? I want to move into that tunnel. DC-10 strength check, if you were just walking. Since you're all flying, it is a DC-20 fly check

to move against that wind. You know what? Throw a minus eight to that fly check as well, and I'll sound-based perception checks, because it's just like blowing wind out at you. So it's effectively a DC-28 fly check. Effectively.

To try and fly in there, it's a windstorm. And, against my better judgment, I'm taking you to this map to show you a little more. Why is it against your better judgment? Because once we're on the map, that's it. This map

is stupid. We're crossing the Rubicon? We're crossing the old Rubicon. Okay, well, let's not be too hasty. We could just end the podcast here and go home. You know what? It's not a terrible idea. I can already tell from after you're open there, Troy, that I would enjoy my day much more if we stopped recording and I just went home. This is going to suck.

It's going to be tough. May I ask a question that seems strange about this hello something about the way it's a tunnel and when i first saw this thing i thought it had to have been propelled by like magic means but with like a tunnel it reminds me of like how ships work and how like the hovercraft that shield works on and avengers works like is this mechanical are we sensing magic from this wind or is it there's a magic engine they told a magic engine okay it's gonna be something that baron is probably his his mechanical engineering mind would be very very

interested in and now another piece has been added to your uh your knowledge base okay so it uses some sort of propulsion duct right I thought it would just be magically floating. The duct. Interesting. It might be magically floating, but it's being propelled in a certain direction by the wind. If you were to look up at these winged creatures, you can see, as I mentioned,

up on the platform, beings. Very large beings. Perhaps the beings that were shooting ballistas at you. You're going to see them as well when I take you to this map. Yeah, because that's where we have to go. Yeah. We have to just fly up there.

There's no other option. Let's just go to the map and then we'll talk once we see that. I really don't want to do this. Here we go. It's not that I don't want to do this because I don't want to play this. I'm excited to play this. It's just we're here now want to do this because I don't want to play this. I'm excited to play this. It's just, we're here now. We're in book six.

We're in the endgame. I've taken you to the map, but you may need 15 minutes to find the small space on the map where the encounter is going to take place. Oh, wow. Whoa. What are the things on the chain? Are those the winged creatures you spoke of? Yeah, you want a little zoom in on these, Johns? Ooh.

Please don't. Okay. We'll pass. That's what they look like. Oh, my God. They look more like cats than they do winged beasts. Yeah, what did I say? Bear with the wings of a something?

It's a very cool creature. Yeah. Very cool art. Yeah. It's hard to explain it. It's man-bear-pig. it's man bear pig it's man bear pig bears torso clawed ape legs and a furred tentacle arm kind of has that mongrel men feel from the uh wrath of the righteous um but obviously very different there's a lot going on there those are those creatures and then the ones up on the base, on the platform up there.

I'll give you a zoom in on them as well. Oh, they are handsome. They look like Centradi from Macross. Oh. I don't know. I feel like they look like an Iron Maiden animated character, kind of. They look like British heavy metal rockers from the 80s to me. They also kind of look like the Metatron from Magic the Gathering.

All right, nerds, get a room. We're trying to place a Pathfinder over here. I take one bit of issue with this map, however, Troy. Okay. I, last episode, tried to be clear in communicating that I got to the edge of the tunnel and put my hand over it. And now the way we're placed on the map, it looks like I i'm right in front of the if that is the propulsion tunnel that you described that is fair i will move all of you to there no let's go back we were farther away yeah i think it was on the other side of the tunnel to be fair on that wall but no you wouldn't have flown past

it and stuck your hand in yeah sure you only had 30 feet of movement so you would have because i listened back to this before we started you flew up to the edge and like stuck your hand in. Yeah, sure. You only had 30 feet of movement, so you would have, because I listened back to this before we started, you flew up to the edge and, like, stuck your hand in. Yeah, exactly. And it felt moist. Moist. And then your buddies joined you. Okay, so this is what we're looking at here.

It's a bit of a scene, man. How far up is the platform with these giants? 10 feet above you. Oh, okay. So can they shoot these giants? Ten feet above you. Oh, okay. So can they shoot at us? I don't know. It might be a little close range for the ballista. They might have other things going on.

Oh, I think I have an idea. Maybe they didn't think about shooting the ballista back at the castle. So if we get behind it, maybe it's not like a 360-degree thing. Why don't we roll for initiative and let this play out? Sure. The old fashioned way. Why not? Okay.

This is just insane. Roll, Ricka, roll, Ricka, roll, Ricka, roll for initiative. There he is. Roll, Ricka, roll. Roll, Ricka, roll for initiativo. What'd you get there, Baron? 33. Ooh, lucky Larry!

That's a good one. Metra? 20, even. Even 20 for Metra. Nestor Coin? Nestor Coin got a 24. 24 for Nestor Coin. Dalgrith Deathbringer.

19. 19 for Dalgrith Deathbringer. Okay. 19. 19 for Dahlgrith. Deathbringer. Okay. Okay. Round one. Wind is coming out of that vent, so we'll say everything in direct line of that is causing the windstorm effect.

No ranged attacks. Minus eight to fly. X, Y, and Z. We'll do our best to police ourselves. Baron, you are up. Okay, so Baron sees these awful beasts besetting upon us, which complicates the scenario a great deal. the scenario a great deal. There is clearly space above 10 feet and to the east of Baron

where the three giants, as we see them, are arranged along the ballista. If Baron were to fly 10 feet directly up, would he find additional land to find purchase upon that is currently under the fog of war? Right now, you only see the edge of the rocky outcropping, and it looks like this is the only platform that you'd be able to land on. You know, when you guys got to the anchor chain,

I didn't really give you a good enough flavor. I don't think I did. Did I say that it looked like one of the chains, the chain that you're on, it penetrated the base of the castle and around the chain, the bluish crystalline rock seems to have melted and then solidified again, encasing the metal and creating an unbreakable weld. I don't think I gave you that little flay. No, I don't think so.

So, yeah, looks like it's just like melted and then was solidified again and encased the metal. Something to think about. But, yeah, it looks like the only platform is the one they are standing on. And where Baron is currently, he will be unaffected by the torrent of wind going out behind him. But if he were to move five foot back, he would be? Correct. Okay, so then Baron will stay where he is and will unleash a full

rapid shot attack action against the closest creature threatening his party. Kill this thing! And you are shooting through your allies, so they will get what is that, soft cover? I always forget my covers. No, it's full-on cover.

Full-on cover. Unless he can see more than half of the region. Can I five-foot step upwards? Did we discuss this with flying? I was confused by that. I think if you go straight up, that would kind of be like difficult terrain because your speed is halved going up, so I don't know if you can go down. Yeah, but you can go down.

Also, don't forget, a lot of things with flying, and I'm sure we're going to forget half of them. You're going to do a full attack there, which means you're going to have to hover at the end of your turn. Otherwise, you'll sink 10 feet. Unless I move down 5 feet first? No, even then. You have to move more than half your speed. Understood.

And the hover check is what again? DC 15. Okay. DC 15 to hover. Move less than half speed and remain flying as DC 10 and we have a bonus based off of half so a plus 7 because you're level 14 Metro

understood Baron will kind of descend 5 feet and it feels eerie like his duster floats up to his shoulders as he moves down and he sees at the beginning of his movement he's looking right into dalgris back and as he floats down he sees his feet and then just clear blue sky towards the creature in front

of him and as he does he pulls down yet another his second of three judgments of the day to pull down a judgment of sacred protection upon himself um he did the the first one with the scorpions as we went up, but since we've left initiative since then, he'll have to pull another. And he will unleash a full round attack action. Okay, and I guess we'll just do the fly check at the end of your attack to see if... Yeah, that makes sense to me.

Alright, fire away. Okay. And I am even moving a little bit within 30 feet, so point blank shot is also on. Here we go. Do we have a subtype on these things yet? We don't.

So I'll do the first attack is a 30 to hit against Touch AC. That is a hit. Boom. Boom. Boom. Assuming they're not giant subtypes, that will be a total of 25 points of damage. Okay. It looks like they have some sort of damage reduction.

Okay. Da-da-da. Got it. And second attack will be for 27 to hit. 27 is a hit as well. That will be for 22 points of damage. Third attack will be for 18 on the

die. That is 30 to hit. Will be for 23 points of damage. The final attack is a critical threat. Oh my god! Oh my god. Oh my my God. Ah! Oh, my God.

Wow. Oh, my God. Okay, roll to confirm. Critical threat. Total of a 23 to confirm. Okay, that would be a confirmed crit, but it does have a fortification ability. Oh, nice. Which is 50% chance to negate the crit.

Jesus. Wow. And that is a negated crit. Okay, so regular damage. Sorry, Nash. That will be a total of 24 points of damage. 24 points of damage. Let him up.

Hovercheck coming up. Yeah, a little hub. We'll hub action. 19 on the die. That is a straight up pass. Yep, you are good. You are a ridiculous human being. It just doesn't make any sense.

I've got to thank the die rollers we called out on the last episode. They're really doing the job right now. Yeah, they're doing wonders for my rolling as well. Chris from Critter Mist Tabletop Gaming Accessories, Tacoma, Washington. All right, you passed the fly check. That would have only been DC 10 because you did move less than half your speed. All right, you passed the fly check. That would have only been DC 10 because you did move less than half your speed.

You could hover and stay where you're at at DC 15, but you chose to move five feet. And do any of my knowledges work for these creatures? Dungeoneering, engineering, local, nature, religion, fisherman? No. Okay. If he had fish hands, I might allow it. He does not. Let's keep moving on to Nestor Coyne. All right, Nestor is going to shoot back with his back facing.

It's going to fly backwards up at a 45-degree angle, 60 feet. It's like flying away from these creatures. And he's going to take one shot at the one that baron lit up question backing up would push you past the propulsion vent yes that is my intent all right so roll the fly check to make sure you can do that uh well i wanted to go over it can i can i how tall is oh i see so you want to kind of go up and back yeah just nine Yeah, no, that should be fine. It doesn't blow it everywhere. Okay, so you're back and up behind it. Okay, but I blow my feet out as I pass by it.

So he flies back and takes one shot. And it's a steady target, and that is going to be a 29 to hit. 29, and that is a hit. Can you just move yourself on the map so i can find you i will um 29 is a hit and this is the same one that uh baron attacked yes okay and that is 33 points of damage that guy's in bad squad oh and i'm gonna do blood reader on it to see how many hit points it has left. It has seven hit points left.

Okay. Wow. I love this ability. And if I were a GM, I would despise it. It's really not fun. I would hate it. That's why it's buried in an old book that no one bought. Baron looks back at Nestor,

loosing this arrow, and takes the moment of weakness the creature takes when the arrow hits its flesh to unleash a target of opportunity. Teamwork. Oh, my God! Oh, teamwork. Making the dream work.

Misfire. It's not a good roll, so it will be a total. Rapid shot still on. Let me make sure that adjustment's correct. It will be a total of 23 still. And you kill it. Knock it out of the sky.

Yeah! Yeah! Oh, strike team bravo. Huge. Huge. Sit one of these guys out. In the sky, too. Now it works even better.

I know. I know. The cloud company. That's a confirmed kill, Zero Two. All right, Maverick. Nailed it. All right, it is... Nestor moved enough that he doesn't need to roll a fly check, so it is Metra's turn.

Okay. I have a feeling everyone gets to go, and then all of the enemies, and then Dalgrith will have his turn while he's falling unconscious to the ground. Could the... What kind of knowledge check would I need to do on this winged creature? Arcane. Arcana.

Arcane. You know that, right, Metro? That is actually my best knowledge. Oh. 25. Okay. I can give you one bit of useful information. This is a creature. Wait.

Can I request for what I want to know? I just want to give you its name. It's known as a Yaoguai. Yaoguai. Yeah. Mythological creature that Pathfinder is. It means demon in Mandarin, rightarin right it sounds cantonese actually but yeah it sounds chinese yeah yaoguai i would like to know if it has any kind of relationship to mind affecting effects uh okay i can tell you

that it gets a bonus against uh mind effect spells a bonus to its saves against mind effects good questions enchantments good question i guess it's just against mind effect spells, a bonus to its saves against mind effects. Good question. Against enchantments? Good question. Just against mind affecting effects. Wow. Alright. Well then I probably won't do what I want. What I want to do is so much fun. If it works, it will be so awesome.

That's the game we play. Let's play for fun. Pretend you're Grant. You feel like you're playing with the house money now That Grant and Esther blew one out of the sky It's Troy that has to roll Yeah, but if Troy has to roll against Grant, he fails too So just pretend you're Grant

Roll a will save, please Go on, get him! And this is mind-affecting, right? So I get my bone Alright, that's going to be a 26 You got it Would a 22 have passed? Yes. You just didn't believe enough, Matthew.

Clearly, yeah, I didn't believe enough. Alright, so Metro burns another spell slot. Do you want to move or roll a hover check? What do I want to do? While we're on this, can you remind me, we get a... I know you just said this, but I'm clarifying. We get a

plus 7 bonus to our fly check as is. Yes, half my level. Yeah, and one thing I've got to remember is, and this really affects me, I don't think it affects you guys, is if you're flying with wings, like these creatures are, I have to roll a check every time I take damage or I start losing altitude. Can I tell you what I wanted to do? Yeah, please. I was casting Hold Monster on you because if you are paralyzed, you cannot fly with wings. Right, it just falls out of the sky.

It just falls out of the sky. No, that's definitely worth taking a chance. We could just take him out of the encounter. Metro will rise 30 feet. Rise up. Is everybody going? Rise up. Yeah, you are not considered flat-footed while flying.

not considered flat footed while flying if you're flying using wings and you take damage you must make a DC 10 fly check to avoid losing 10 feet of altitude the descent does not provoke an attack of opportunity it does not count against did I say altitude? I sounded like Robert Altman Altman-itude

that's how people would describe his style gotta come with altitude if you want to succeed K92X That's how people would describe his style For his directing style Gotta come with altitude if you want to succeed In a Robert Altman movie I'm trying to think if I've seen a Robert Altman movie I haven't seen MASH You haven't seen MASH?

The Player? Have you seen The Player? That's one of my favorite movies of all time No I haven't seen Nashville I've seen Popeye Gosford Park That'sye? Gosford Park. That's one a lot of people have seen. Yeah, I'm just looking through all... Popeye is a weird movie. Popeye is a weird

fucking movie. It is. Never saw The Gingerbread Man, nor Dr. T and the Women. Dr. T and the Women filmed in my hometown. Am I the only person in the world whose own Altman joint is Popeye? McCabe and Mrs. Miller? Never seen it! Oh my god, Troy! Wow, dude! I've also never seen any of theseye, McCabe and Mrs. Miller? Never seen it? Oh, my God, Troy. Wow, dude.

I've also never seen any of these movies, except Gossard Park. I've never even heard of most of them, frankly. You haven't seen Robert Altman's Jazz 34? Shortcuts? I've never heard of it. Oh, Shortcuts is really good. What is The Player? The Player is one of your all-time favorite movies?

Yeah, I love that movie. It is packed. There's tons of fun cameos. It's taught in every screenwriting class out there. It's very frequently taught in screenwriting classes. And it's about Hollywood, and that's why it's huge. Ready to wear? Remember Pret-a-Porter?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, never saw that either. Wait, I bet you I can picture the poster for Player. I think I know. Yeah, it was 1992. It's a guy sitting like a reclining film strip yes it's it's a noose i think it's a noose made out of a film strip that's what it is yep yeah yeah yep that's it i just watched it again recently yeah and it's tim robbins yeah yeah it

was tim robbins yeah early robbins 92 robbins yeah uh oh robert altman yes well that's where i was at with altitude. I'm glad. I love these little segues. You also have me thinking how funny it would be to mispronounce alternate as if it was altitudes. You'd be like, alternate. One of my friends says alternate. What? He says, what?

That sounds like a Philly thing. Yeah, alternate. I need more alternate options. Are there any alternatives to this? That's like Irish. Come back to Philly. I'm the first alternate on my hurling squad. The first alternate.

Or drama, like the Canadians. Oh, drama, yeah. Are you doing any type of movement? Yeah, I ascend 30 feet. You ascend 30 feet. All right, so you're on level. You're actually... Higher than me.

You were 10 feet above. Now you're 20 feet above looking down at an angle at these giants. I almost revealed what they were. Believe it or not, it is Dalgorth's turn. You rolled all higher than the monster. Okay. Throw that ham. Quick knowledge check. Same thing. On. Okay. Throw that ham. Quick knowledge check.

Same thing. On the creature. I'm going to do knowledge arcana. On the creature. Knowledge arcana. Need a good roll. 25. Also 25.

I would like to know. They are known as yoguas. Thank you. Plus four against mind affecting effects. I'd like to know their subtypes, their type and subtypes. Okay. Uh,

huge magical beast. That's it. Okay. Um, no, I'm just looking at something very interesting here. Okay. Huge magical beast.

Yeah, that does not do much for me. This is a, this is a tough situation. Dalgrith is going to... Oh, man. Wait, I didn't give you any information. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.

What do you want to know? Well, I really wanted to know subtype, but that's a simple thing. Do they have DR? Oh, yeah. What cuts through the DR? Five everything. Five everything. Okay.

DR five everything. Baron, actually roll that damage for me while Joe is chewing on his move. There we go. That will be 26 points of damage. Okay. Yeah, he's dead. All right, Dalgrith, what are you thinking, bro? I'm thinking I'm not equipped to fight this creature with the crossbow that I have in my hand.

So I'm just going to stow it. It's not going to do anything against these giants either. Pick it up after the fight. I'm sorry, guys. I'm going to fly down and grab that crossbow. Yeah, unfortunately, I really don't want to drop that for the rest of the book because we can never leave again. He's going to sheathe the loaded crossbow. I don't know if I could just shoot it like off as not a standard action at nothing,

but he's going to sheathe the crossbow and then move to exactly where Nestor moved. Okay, so up and back. Up and back. Past this, over the propulsion, over the windstorm. Okay, and that's your turn. That is my turn, yeah. Alright, it is the Yao Guai's turn. Oh no.

Yao Guai! Alright. Let's see. Why ask Yao Guai? Man, this is fun, huh? I told you it'd be fun. It's just stressful, you know? I know. You want to try and do a good job for the kids at home. All right.

How many metros are there still? Six. There are currently... Six images? There are five images, so six metros. Okay. This dude gets right up in both of your business. Both of you.

I'm 30 feet up in the air. Shut up. Then he gets in Baron's business. How many metros? I'm sorry? Six. Six. Okay.

He's going to fly up to Baron, and he is going to attempt to claw you. Right? Or no. He's going to attempt to bite you. He's going to attempt to bite. I want a power attack so bad, but it is such a waste against you. Although you're not getting that bonus. He doesn't have the giant bonuses. He doesn't have the giant subtype giant subtype shut up skid what do you guys think i should do should

i put power tech on call in let me see i'll take the first couple calls hi you're on the air with glass cannon podcast no sorry wrong number all right shirley from pomona uh ah damn it i hate this i'm gonna i'm gonna you? No. I'm not gonna do pyrotech. And I have my reasons. I have my reasons! Hold on! Here we go. Gonna bite you. 25. Yes!

Oh, yes! Yes! Would a 23 have hit? That's good. Bottle cap. Oh, poop salad. Okay, so he doesn't hit you. I'm like playing around like,

what if I do this? No, all right. But the good thing is he's right in your business and actually puts you in a really difficult position with your ranged weapon because anywhere you move, it's going to provoke. If you try to shoot, it's going to provoke.

You don't know what his combat reflex situation is. It's bad business. You should design it. We should design a D20 game where, like, successes like ACs and stuff like that are all ranges. Small ranges over a wide range. So it's not just, like, above a certain number. It's all within ranges so that any time you roll, you don't know if you hit or miss. Like, you see your W, like, it's a five.

I don't know. 17. You're like, oh, goddammit, that does hit. Son of a bitch. It hits on 17, 18, 26 through 25. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Suddenly from the platform, these giants start hurling rocks at y'all.

One will throw at the many metras that we have here Let me just make sure I have everything I want to do here Man Can't someone just have no special abilities One of us or one of you One of my monsters It's always like a mile long list of their special abilities

It's like a CVS receipt worth of abilities That's what it is That's good Grant Foddle cat You already got your cat instead of a bitch It's like a CVS receipt worth of abilities. That's really what it is. That's good, Grant. That's very good. Bottle cap. You already got your cap, you son of a bitch. Skid, I see that as a very apparent attempt at trying to get back into my good graces after telling on me earlier. Am I that transparent?

You are. Okay. And also, we determined off-air between episodes, between days, you guys had a little more time to think about it and listen back you do have stone skin have we talked about this no we haven't talked about it on air let's talk about let's just get it out there now that I'm might be doing some damage to you yeah we just

had been six weeks since we had recorded yeah and we forgot so grand had it on his sheet I didn't want to force the issue and be like because I didn't remember clearly I had it on his sheet. I didn't want to force the issue and be like, because I didn't remember clearly. I had it on my sheet, but I could. I typically don't turn things on, but I didn't want to force an advantage for us in a combat moving forward.

I would rather have taken the penalty. It's just so crazy. Like if two of you had had it, that would have convinced me. But I was still pretty convinced. I'm like, I remember them taking it. We had the whole roll off where Metric gave it to Nestor. What else could they have done not to get it? It just seems so strange that

Skid, you and Joe, didn't put it on your sheets. Yeah, it's very unusual for me not to put it on. Did I get it? Yeah. Oh, I did get it. Yeah, and you didn't have it on your sheet. I didn't have it on mine, and I love Stone Skid. You love it. If I get it, I'm like, bam, putting it on. So, I don't know. We missed it somehow. We miss things so

rarely. So, it's really surprising, honestly. But, you know, every once a year or so, we'll miss a detail of our character sheet. Yeah, well, in this case, we've just kind of retconned it, and you've taken some points away, because you would have... Nestor

didn't take any damage in the caldera, but both Baron and Joe did. And it's 120 points worth, is that right? 130? 150. 150 150 do i hear 160 uh 150 and so baron and joe have chipped away at that we've just we've worked out something between myself and them don't write us angry letters uh so you you guys think it's a little down i have 130 okay but you took some damage off it, right? Yeah, I took Joe and I both took damage off of it and talked to Troy about which one it was.

I think it's 10 hit points per caster level and it maxes at 150. I'm not looking it up, I just remember It maxes at 150 and it is 10 per caster. Bam! Nice. Yeah, because the forge is like casual to 20 or something. You're so funny, Joe. You're just like, I think it's like 10 and I'm like

Googling it. I'm like, why don't you just Google it? It's amazing. It's amazing to me sometimes the way Matthew is like, and I'm looking at it. So Skid will be like, yeah, the player.

And I'm like, huh, so what's that? What is that about, Skid? And Matthew's like, oh my God, it had so-and-so in it. Like three seconds later, his Google speed is shocking.

It never occurs to me to Google anything. I think it's the 10 years the difference in our age. Yeah. They grew up in a Google culture. Yeah. I grew up with fast fingers.

I heard someone I heard someone on another podcast refer to like millennials and youngers as digital natives. You are not a digital native. Yeah. I'm a digital outsider.

Yeah. We were born in the darkness. You were simply shaped by it. We were born in the darkness. You were simply shaped by it. You were shaped by the darkness. They're looking up, and they're going to start chucking rocks at Metra and her many images. Or at least they're going to start and see how that goes. First attack is a 20. Miss.

Miss. Second one, we'll throw a rock at you as well. And that's going to be a 24. That hits exactly right. How many are you? There's six of me. How many are in your party? Six of you.

Metro party of six. I'll say a six. Metro party of six. Darn party of six. Bottle cap. Bottle cap. No. No.

I started that joke i'll get a cap i'm gonna have that cap you uh a six will hit you a five anything else will destroy one of your images uh that's a five so one of your images gets destroyed and then uh for good measure i I will chuck one at Baron. And miss. Jeez. These rocks are coming down.

And when I say rocks, these are boulders. We've been playing through six books. Plenty of giants from lowly hill giants all the way up have thrown rocks at you. Nothing like the size of these rocks. Nothing like them. I like to think currently we... Ten feet in diameter. Huge! We've floated as we've slowly gone up the chain

and we didn't notice and we're currently right above Shinerman's Fortune and all these boulders are just landing. Falling down on Aubrey's house. Yeah, right as they're rebuilding the town. These poor people. Is that thing destroyed? I mean, I can tell you, you wouldn't really know this, but just to give you a sense, 50 times the weight of a normal boulder.

Oh, man. It is huge. Wow. So that would crush several houses. Yeah. Really? It really hurt. Yeah.

Wow. Can you hit multiple creatures with it no is it like all creatures in a 10 foot square i think it should but that's not as written uh that's not the case it's pinpoint accuracy uh all right round two it is baron's turn oh you know what i my guy there he didn't no he did fly uh more than half the, so I don't have to roll a check. He hasn't been hit. Okay, yes. Baron's turn. Baron, he is right up in your business. He is a huge creature, so you know there's

going to be a reach situation all around. I am in a tough situation, and I don't know if he's going to have combat reflexes. I know that if I move out of his range in order to get a shot off, I'm only going to get one shot off. I'm going going to get one shot off. I'm going to go ahead and take a non-rapid shot full attack against him.

All right. Let me resolve my attack of opportunity. And damn it, if I don't hope I hit you. Okay. All right. This is going to be fun. I'm going to go to bite you again. I never hit you. No, I never hit you.

I never hit you. You never hit you. I never hit you. You go to pull out that gun and shoot. Ooh. Ooh. Grant. 32 to hit. Miss. Oh.

Wait, even if it's not a giant? Wow. That is insanity. What is your AC? I'll walk you through it. Please. It is 10 plus 9 for my armor, plus 3 of deflection. That's from the plus 3 ring of protection.

Okay. Plus 4. Don't you be giving yourself that buckler! What's the 9 armor? It's medium armor? It's mithril. Plus 3 mithril chainmail that I'm wearing. Oh.

Is that normally 6 for chainmail and then plus three makes it nine i believe so and uh plus four for dex uh plus two for dodge which is just built in uh plus three for natural and plus two for sacred from the uh that's uh the judgment from the judgment um right now oh if my buckler is not acted it is a 33 so what did you roll i think i rolled 32 32 okay yeah so if and so whenever i make a full round attack action we're assuming my buckler's down right yeah your buckler like when does it i don't think so only if you use that hand to cast the spell yeah i have it so it's 35 it's 33 if i if i cast a spell we'll say and it's 39 against giants So it's 35. It's 33 if I cast a spell,

we'll say. And it's 39 against giants or it's 30? 39 against giants. Because dodge bonuses stack. This is insane. This is insane! This is insane!

One thing we know for sure, though, is that you've been doing your AC right for a long time and have never made any mistakes. Never made a mistake. Someone's head just exploded listening to this. Stop! Dig a butt! Yeah, you only lose the buckler Never made any sense of that. Someone's head just exploded listening to this.

Yeah, you only lose the buckler AC bonus if you're wielding a weapon in your offhand, which you're not, or if you were wielding two-handed, or if you were casting a spell using somatic components, using your shield arm. And I think it would make sense that if I use any round to cast a spell, I'd be distracted with that hand. It's something I don't use. It works for me. Listen, just don't try to shield bash with the buckler, because you can't do it by the rules! Alright, take your text. Remember when you built that shield bash build

brawler? Oh, Siggy Sevenails? Was that Siggy? Yeah. He just walked around with a tower shield hitting people with it. Back when it was GCP live. You know what I hate? That was the first GCP live. More than anything is when people tag things GCP live.

It's your fault. It's no longer GCP live. It's because you don't think ahead. You just think of right now and do it. Do it right now. We'll never have more than one podcast. It's just a GCP. It's Class 10 and live.

28 to hit touch AC for 20 points of damage why do you assume it hit based off of previous shut up that is going to be get through it it's going to be a 15

oh no I'm sorry 16 against touch AC that's a hit hitting a huge creature 15. Oh, no, I'm sorry. 16 against Touch AC. That's a hit. Okay. Hitting a huge creature. That will be for 19 points of damage. 14 points of damage. And then finally, 20.

Hit. Yep. For 22 points of damage. Nice. Alright. Must be pretty proud of yourself there. Son of a biscuit. Okay. It is Nestor's turn.

I will say where you are standing. Well, no. Yeah, where you are standing, it is blocked by the propulsion vent. So any ranged attack to try at the trajectory of where you're at, that arrow would just fly off into the sky. So you would need to fly back over the propulsion vent to shoot down at it. Okay. So I'm going to do that.

I'm going to move up at an angle to get over the vent and take another single shot, swift-access-studied target. And that is 28 to hit? 28 is a hit. Okay. Big old target. Nice. All right. That's good.

That's good. That is... Oh, but it's still not a multi-shot. It's the opening combat of the encounter. It's a softball to get you warmed up. I sure hope so. 32 points of damage on that. And then I'm going to do a knowledge local on these giants.

Oh! Yeah, that's what I was going to do next turn. That's very helpful. 30. 30 knowledge local. Maybe you've only read about them never seen them next to noses giants for searching for search they are cloud giants oh man whoa our first cloud giants so they're not evil right they're they're neutral? I believe they are evil. Or am I thinking of...

Yeah, isn't the Storm King a cloud giant? It might be a storm giant. I think that they're evil and I didn't expect it. They can be neutral good or neutral evil, according to D20PFSRD. Okay. They are cloud giants. I'm going to give you two bits of useful information. Is there anything you're desperately wondering about? I would going to give you two bits of useful information is there anything you're desperately wondering about?

I would like to know their alignments their particular alignments these ones are evil they are neutral evil brief misses? I can give you one more thing you didn't roll the check! it's true

they useful they have the check. Sure. Uh, they, Hmm. Useful, useful. They have the scent ability. Interesting. Okay. So that's where you guys turn invisible a lot.

That's something to think about. They do have the scent ability. Now scent just lets you know that something's up there. You've got to, I think you've got to use a move action to, uh, like determine which direction still. And then you still have to use a move action to determine which direction still. And then you still have to be on top of it if you were invisible to pinpoint all this other stuff.

But just something to think about. You're dealing with a giant that has the scent ability and you guys do like to go invisible a lot. May not work as well for you moving forward. Good round for Nestor. He gets a good shot off. Hold it right there, buddy. Oh-ho! Not done yet, Troy. Oh-ho-ho-ho! First I need to do a hover check.. Hold it right there, buddy. Nope. Oh, not done yet, Troy. Oh, ho, ho, ho.

First, I need to do a hover check. I don't believe I did that. Oh, yes. You didn't move at all, so you need to DC 15. 17 on the die, so I'm good. Poop. And I'm sorry.

Did he attack you? Like an AOO? Yeah, he got an AOO. Okay. And did he hit you? Missed. 32? Missed.

Oh, that's what that hit was. I get it. Okay. And then Baron will take a target of opportunity attack got an ao okay did he hit you missed 32 oh that's what that hit was i get it okay uh and then baron will take a target of opportunity attack because he had an ally within 30 feet of him hit a creature okay uh that will be a 32 to hit you know what before was he still within 30 feet of you yes yeah because he went up and back he went up and back do you know up and back. Do you know what I mean? No, no. Wait, Nestor has to be within 30 feet? I believe so.

Because he wouldn't have been on the first one. I think he was. But he is now. He's only like 20. I think he was only like 20 feet away. But don't forget he had to go up and over the propulsion vent. I just want to make sure. If it's within 30 feet, if he's 20 feet now, he wouldn't have been.

No, he's 5 feet now. Right. Now he's within. But when he flew back and up. How tall is the propulsion vent? It's five feet now right now he's within but when he flew back and up how tall is the professional it's 10 feet so it took him 20 feet of movement to get over it and he would have 40 left so if he went 40 feet back then it would be he would have been out of range right if i'm i'd have to play the tape back but i think he did say i go 60 feet back well no i spent i spent 60 feet of movement to go up and back, but I think...

Because you moved at half speed to go up, and then... Oh, no, no, no. I'm sorry. Hits an opponent within 30 feet of you. It's not the allies within 30 feet of you. When an ally who also has his feet, which he does through teamwork sharing, it's an opponent within 30 feet of you. Not the ally needs 30 feet of you. So as long as they hit you, you're good. Okay. Roll damage.

Sorry, I misread that. That will be a total of 22 points of damage. Oh, yeah. Okay, and I did take a few attacks here, so I need to roll a bunch of checks to see if I start sinking out of the sky. Because that would affect a few things. Interesting. You hit me three times, right? Farron?

Four if you include this attack on my round three. Pass, natural 20. Glad I wasted that. Fail and fail. So he would have fallen 20 feet down. And then... Oh, huge. Nestor, so this may actually affect it.

And then when Nester hit it, let's see. I passed on that one. So he's 20 feet, but sunk 20 feet down below you. Yeah, and he was right on my ass. Still, yeah. So. Yeah, so you're good. So he came up, attacked you.

You did your attack of opportunity. You went to attack, and he did his attack of opportunity. As you were pegging, and you hit him four times, he sunk 20 feet. When Nestor hit him, he was able to withhold himself so he's still within 20 feet, still within range for you to do your allied attack of opportunity. Well, and that

fourth check didn't happen until I did the target of opportunity, so he was good. Okay. Crunchy, but we're doing our best here. I like it. It's like eating a crack on oprah it's a little chewy uh it is metra's turn metra you've got a good view on these cloud giants they took away one of your uh one of your images but there are three of them and one of you it's true um just checking one last thing okay great uh all right i'm gonna do something i've never done

before because i've always thought it was a little complicated, but it feels like it'll be useful. You know what? Now's the time. Now's the time to make it exceptionally more complicated. New year, new you. So, basically what's going to happen is that above the cloud giants, chunks of

hot volcanic rock and clumps of ash pound down in the area in a volcanic storm. Nice. Except there's a little bit of a wrinkle. I'm sure there is. I need each of the giants to roll a will save. What? To believe

that it's even real? Alright, will save. In fact. Is it? Okay. The spell is shadow evocation. Oh! That is a complicated spell if I'm remembering correctly. That spell is brutal Evocation. Oh, yeah! That is a complicated spell, if I'm remembering correctly. That spell is brutal. I think a shadow enemy can do Shadow Evocation. I might be thinking of something else.

Anyways, first one, 23. Pass. Second one, fail. Third one, 22. Pass. Okay. So let me roll the damage and then we'll talk about what happens. So basically... This guy up north here, he's the one that failed. Everyone takes

some damage, but the ones who disbelieved it take 20% of the damage instead of the full damage. Okay, very cool. Of course, there are two types of damage here. Okay, so this is for the bludgeoning damage. Ooh, great roll uh 16 points of damage so that would be what's 20% of 16 three three three points of damage to the two that disbelieved and 16 to the one that failed yep and then uh eight points of fire damage to the one that believed, and one point of damage to

the ones that disbelieved. That would be two points. 20%, right? That's 25%. That's 25%. That's 25%. I rounded it down for you there. Oh, I appreciate that.

One point. Okay, great. Okay, so the one that disbelieved... Uh-huh. The ones that disbelieved are fine. The one that believes... The one that believes has to throw himself off the platform.

Oh no! Volcano! And he jumps off. For him, the ground is all difficult terrain. And he has a minus four penalty on perception checks. Wow. So it's all difficult terrain.

For him. This is horrible! What are you talking about? Wow. Wow. Okay, so it's all difficult terrain. For him. Just for him. It's amazing. He's turning to his buddies. This is horrible! What are you talking about? What are you talking about, man? Throw a rock! So that's interesting. The guys that didn't believe that anything was happening, they still take damage.

20% of it. It is there. It is there. It's shadowy. Okay, that's really interesting. Okay. Cool. I might be misremembering, but I feel like there's an enemy that's a shadow enemy, either

an advanced shadow or something, that has shadow evocation as an ability. Okay. Do you want to move at all? Oh, actually, I take it back. I guess we have to roll on it, because if the disbelieved attack has a special effect other than damage, like the perception roll and the difficult terrain, that effect is one-fif fifth as strong or only 20 is likely to occur so you want to roll a d100 for the other guy lord it says if yeah and

it does it does has the difficult terrain and the perception check well no it sounds like it's one fifth as every time i'll roll to see if it's actually every step is difficult all right yeah i was just to say one fifth to see if it's in effect or not. Right. But 20% to see if it's in effect. Let's see how it all plays out. That's really complex, and I hate it. It's called Volcanic Storm, or Shadow Evocation, that uses an evocation spell like Volcanic Storm as a shadowy thing. Shadow Evocation allows me to cast any spell on the spell list of the evocation school with this.

Yeah, it's complicated. Oh, God. I wouldn't have taken it. It comes with School with this. Yeah, it's complicated. Oh, god. I wouldn't have taken it. It comes with my bloodlock. No, it's cool. It's very metra. It's very meta. Okay. I'm exhausted. Guys, just remember, that's one thing we didn't think about. Baron and Nestor and Dalgrith, when you're moving,

if you're going up and then back, when you go up, you have to go up at half speed, so then you only have X amount left. Well, we were saying that when you go straight up, that's half up, you have to go up at half speed. So then you only have X amount left. Well, we were saying that when you go straight up, that's half speed. But if you go back at an angle, then you're moving at full speed. 45 degree angle. Right, right, right. I guess where you were initially started at the propulsion vent.

I don't understand the problem. We're fine. Right. We went straight up. At half speed. At half speed. So spent 20 feet to go up 10. You said the vent was 10 feet and then

back forward it's more and i'm merely just reminding you about you know i remember sometimes when we do flight we're forgetting these little things what you're describing actually would require a fly check because you're changing direction and more than a certain amount but he could also so yeah so we should be rolling fly checks yeah when you move when you change direction i think it's uh yeah this is a unique situation because you're getting around this like wind tunnel but yeah i mean you could also argue maybe he went at a 45 degree angle forward and then looped back all you know at an easy angle if you turn greater than 45 degrees you spend five feet of movement and it's a dc 15 turn 180 by spending 10 feet of movement. It's DC-20. Fly up at greater than a

45 degree angle. It's DC-20. So, again, you know, I don't want to get too bogged down by this stuff, but it's just the overall thing. Flying is difficult. Let's not just assume we can do zip, zap, and zoo. But what we did, there are absolutely no problems with. Because the distance that

Nestor went, he could have gone forward a second and then came around and not ever turned more than 45 degrees because Dougrath was right next to Nestor and he's only 15 feet from the wind tunnel. Yeah, I feel like where we're in open space here, there's always a way you can explain it to make it work. It's just something to be aware of

if you want to try and do a more complicated maneuver. Speaking of which, Metro will rise another 30 feet. Okay, all right. Now you're 50 feet above the platform. And there's nothing we're seeing. Like the walls outside of the propulsion vent and this platform. It's just sheer rock.

As far as we can see in the clouds. There are other outcroppings coming from the castle here and there. It's not like a sheer all the way to the top floor but it's huge i mean actually now that you're up here you you get a much better view of the size of this thing it's hundreds of feet tall hundreds of feet tall um what is hundreds of feet tall the castle like you look so you can see the castle yeah you can see the castle from where you are it's like this blue white castle goes all the way up um yeah i'm

having a hard time understanding look at the size of that thing what are you having a hard time understanding i'm trying to think i just feel like we are in like a base that you know what i mean so like if the statue of liberty is here there's that whole base section i feel like we're in a base section and that we haven't come up over the lip of where yeah the flat where the castle is so i can't picture it so it's it's let's go back to the um image of the is this the castle is. So I can't picture it. So let's go back to the image of the... Is this the castle? Are these walls dirt? Rocks?

That's the castle. Or the walls that we're looking at right now, are they stone? Look at the map here and just imagine that the clouds weren't there. Again, this isn't really a great representation of what it really looks like. In fact, I took it from the front of the book.

This might not even be the castle. But imagine that you were like right... There's the rocky... That upside-down ice cream cone. Castle's right there. You guys are at the base. But the castle begins right where the platform

where the giants are. So look at this map. The platform where the giants are is like here. Let's say it's right there. Okay, so it's where the giants are is where it levels out, and the castle sits on that ground. Yeah, and it just keeps going up. But there's no place to stand on the ground.

The castle takes up the entire space of the rocky outcropping, so it just goes rocky, rocky, rocky, unlike this image. So this is the image I had in my head. I thought we were down lower in the ice cream cone, and I thought that we couldn't see past the cone. You know what I mean? Yeah. But now I get what you're saying. It just goes straight from rock to castle.

Okay. So Metra is now seeing, like, the castle walls and windows. She's seeing someone having tea inside. Like, whoop! A giant taking a bath. Oh, no! Sorry! seeing someone having tea inside like a giant taking a bath oh no sorry it's like a rubber ducky but it's the size of a full-size duck it'll it'll all start to make more sense as we go along but the point for you guys to remember is it just goes rocky rocky rocky rocky castle and now you

look up and it's just castle um you don't really see any windows from where you're standing, Metro. But what does she see? Like polished stone wall? Polished stone wall, yeah. I take a free action to spit on it. I take it to castle. There's like branding for like NASCAR. There's Wonder Bread.

I take a free action to shake my head with the consumerism. Marlboro. Marlboro. Shameless consumerism. God, even the cloud giants. Honestly, we really couldn't have gotten up here without our sponsors. It is Dahlgrift's turn. Dahlgrift!

What a useless character in this combat. He's going to just double fly 120 feet-ish up and around and out and over. There you go. Up and around and out and over? So basically what he wants to do is fly out in front of the giants, right out in front of that platform. See what's beyond them them if it's just a doorway or a wall or something show me on the map i can't because you changed the map to the other map oh don't you ever talk to me like that i thought we were theater the minding the rest of

the uh no uh okay i just have to show you that in incorrect castle real quickly yeah uh so dalgrith is going to fly like oh out and over to here in front of the giants and just you know shout against the wind like try to hit me you dumb bastards as he flies and tries to divert the attention away from his allies for a round okay and hope he doesn't die die. But I wanted to see if I can see what's behind them, or if it's just a wall. Oh, okay, so you're on level with them. No, he's above them. Above them, looking in. Okay. He's probably...

Whereas Metra couldn't see. He's about 40 feet above them. You can see. You see a set of enormous stairs. Whoa! Oh, cool. Leading up to a double door oh man we'll be up there momentarily don't worry yeah you see the platform extends from the base of the castle overlooks everything below which you can just see is clouds and from time to time the

clouds will part if you look down and you can see that you are way up and out and over you can see land and little dots. And then, yeah, big archway carved into the rock opens into that tunnel with an ascending staircase and the stairs, each individual stair looks like they might require a climb check. They're so high. And just leads deeper into this absurd structure.

These stairs look like they might require a climb chip. What? Alright. Alright. The creature is going to fly up towards Nestor. No. Flies up towards

Nestor. Obviously we're in three dimensions here. And Baron does not have a melee weapon out. So cannot take an AOL unless I'm incorrect with some crazy in three dimensions here. And Baron does not have a melee weapon out, so cannot take an AOL unless I'm incorrect with some crazy dwarf ability.

I do not have snapshot, which is the end of a long feet chain for ranged characters to be able to take AOLs, so you are in the clear. And I can't shield bash you as you brought up earlier, Troy.

It flies up and attempts to bite nester coin 30 yeah that's a hit no nesta a couple things are going to happen it bites nester and does 15 points of damage oh that's so terribly low this is going to be bad and then be so much better if you just said 35 points it's going to try and snatch it in its mouth snatch nester in its mouth no and lock him in a grapple it will for sure 30 no 30 so it does not i don't think i get where it's not the grab ability i don't think i get the free the plus four that you get when you have the grabability.

Let me just make sure it doesn't act like the grabability. Oh, this creature can start a grapple when it hits with spite attack as though it had the grabability. So 34. But it doesn't have the grabability. I think where it says as though it had the grabability, you still get the... But why doesn't it just have the grabability then? Because this thing can do something even worse than grab. Oh, jeez. Oh, God. Okay. Well, as long as we're making stuff up, sure.

It's an ability known as Snatch. The creature can start a grapple when it hits with its bite attack as though it had the grab ability. If it grapples, the opponent is not allowed a reflex save. The creature can drop... Here's the thing I don't understand. What is this nonsense

about grab abilities being a plus four? It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Just put it in the character. Just give them plus four. So what is it? Like why do you use the grab ability but sometimes don't? Oh I guess it's because if you're doing other CMBs. If he's gonna

do a disarm attempt with his CMB number it doesn't fit yeah i just don't know why it's not like cb plus 20 plus 24 grab well this is 24 grapple this is huge because the plus four would make all the difference um and it you know usually it says what it works like the such and such ability you get the you then look at that ability and get those bonuses but it's a huge difference because if it would actually uh grab him so let's see what the internet says it's just the so it's so crazy that with i mean all the people who created this game are still alive so there shouldn't be all these questions like we can just ask them and it's just there's still

all this gray area it's just crazy i understand like like the tolkien people like well did balrogs really have wings like well that we only have his existing writings to to go with we can't ask the man but all these people you can just walk up to him on the street no everything i'm looking at shockingly it's unclear i'm sure there's people like it's very clear you get it and other people like it's very clear you don't get it. What I'm going to go by is it says creatures with the, this is under the grab attack on Universal Monster Rules. Creatures with the grab special attack receive a plus four bonus on combat maneuver checks made to start and maintain a grapple. Although this works like grab, this creature does not have the grab ability. So I'm not going to give it the plus four.

And so it does not snatch the grab ability, so I'm not going to give it the plus four. And so it does not snatch you out of the air. It just bites and does a little bit of damage. Nice. And now it's the cloud giant's turn. They are going

to attack. Jalabrath, Deathbringer! Bring it! To start. Never seen a cloud giant before. Here we go. Here comes... Let's see what you got! Here comes the rock. Dodging in the sky.

Dodging in the sky! 22. Miss. Oh, yes. Second rock at Dahlgrith as well. 20. Miss. Third rock at Dalgrith as well 20 Miss Third rock at Metra 14

Swung, swung, swung Miss, miss, miss And none of them are going to move They feel pretty comfortable up there One of them believes it was difficult to ring. And one of them's like, I'm petrified here! I'm burning!

I'm burning alive! It's a new round. It is Baron's turn. So I got a little confused and all that. That thing is now so far away from me because it's attacking Nestor,

correct? So he's about 40 feet away from me? Yes. 40 feet, you say? Yeah, 40 feet, we'll'll say that's how far the creature is that's within dawn strikes range increment oh yes baby baron's going to take well do you do blood reader on it do we know how much it has left i i i can do it on my turn okay baron's but it's only taken a couple hits so i don't yeah yeah i mean it I can do it on my turn. Okay. But it's only taken a couple hits, so I don't... Yeah, yeah, I mean, it...

I would treat it as if it's full. Okay, then Baron will take a full non-rapid attack action at it. Non-rapid? Yeah, just to get a little bit more AC. But I guess I'm hitting all the time. I'm also trying to, like, reduce my chance of misfiring, but I guess they'll happen anyway. Misfire!

He's due. That's the thing. He's definitely due. I'm due. All right. Rapid shot. Here it comes. Joe, if anything goes wrong, it's your fault.

First attack is a natural 20. Oh! Nothing went wrong! It only went right. All right. Roll to confirm, and I'll roll the 50% fortification. 23 against Touch AC. Okay, that is going to confirm.

Come on, 74. Come on, man. Do I still get exploding dice at this point? Is the question. When do we normally do exploding dice? Unconfirmed natural 20s. No, you do not. I feel like it's? Unconfirmed natural 20s No you do not

I feel like it's an unconfirmed natural 20 At this point by you No it's confirmed natural 20 That the creature has cheat ability This feels like a tax loophole It was confirmed So it does not apply for exploding dice However there's no crit

24 points of damage 19 points of damage. Second attack is a fumble. Oh, no! We never said you get exploding dice on confirmed attacks. Fumble? Fumble. All right.

Got to roll to confirm, I guess, right? Yeah, because you have multiple attacks. It's definitely a misfire. Let's see if it's a fumble. Does a 18 hit? That is not a fumble okay that is a misfire do you want to shoot again and take a chance i don't i know you don't i don't just want to peer pressure you into doing it i know i know i know but baron uh listened in his dare classes and uh you know isn't is above the peer pressure so that's his turn

that is his turn Nestor this thing's now right up against you what do you want to do here you know you're gonna probably take a chunk unless you do a full withdraw but will the full withdraw even be enough to get away or does it have enough reach to get you yeah I think

Nestor So this thing This thing probably does have reach Yeah It's got big long ape arms But we learned that it only has one attack of opportunity Basically Maybe this guy's got more Charlie

He studied harder in school Jimmy's dead but Charlie's got more Nestor is gonna Fly 30 feet back Not full withdrawal He studied harder in school. Jimmy's dead, but Charlie's got more. Nestor is going to fly 30 feet back, not full withdrawal. All right. Let the dice see if you get hit. Oh, you got a pretty good IC. Let's see if he's going to bite you as you run away.

He is with a 35. So let's see if you actually get away. Okay. So 15 points of damage. And then let me just make sure I'm allowed to snatch more than once. Yes. So he will try to snatch you and stop your movement, impede your movement. He does with a 37.

Okay. So Nestor tries to pull back and he just bites and grabs you and now you're both grappled okay I'm going to do blood reader on it okay to annoy you just to get back at me 13 hit points ugh

this thing's on its last pause please can it please honestly this is very unpleasant and that's it things on its last paws. Please, Kenneth, please. Honestly, this is very unpleasant. And that's it. That's it for Old Nest. No. Metra, what are you going to do?

Is it where it is on the map? Because where I'm looking at on the map, it's mostly in the Fog of War. Yeah, because it's like up. So it's like, imagine the Fog of War didn't exist there. It's up in the air. yeah because it's like up so it's like imagine the fire didn't exist there it's up in the air so we can go over there too before i am i'm really just doing this to show three dimensions but nester you have something i'm gonna do one more thing i have uh i have my dagger in my wrist sheath okay so ching and i'm gonna take a melee attack. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I love it.

Ooh, 34 to hit. That is a hit. Okay. Nestor. That is seven points of damage. Seven points of damage. Okay. Nice.

Okay. What do you think in Metro? Okay. Oh, wait. No, no, no. Sorry. 13 points of damage. 13 points of damage?

Yeah. I didn't take all my... He is staggered at zero hit points. Wow. Oh, my God. That's right. He only had a few left. He only had 13 left.

Yeah. Wait, but did you DR reduce that, Troy? Doesn't he have DR of five or anything? Thank you, Grant. Sorry. He has five hit points. Okay. Thank you, Grant.

Sorry. He has five hit points. Okay. Metra then is first going to throw a fireball at the giants on the platform. Rude. So I need a reflex save from those gentlemen. Okay. Number one rolled a 13.

Fail. Number two rolled a 16. Fail. He's having a tough day. And the last one rolled a 19. That gets it 16. Fail. He's having a tough day. And the last one rolled a 19. That gets it exactly. Okay. So it's going to be, let me just roll my 10d6 here. Gross.

Very gross. Oh, wait, you know what? I rolled the, I was using the Yagwai's numbers. I think it's the same, though. Yep, you're good. And sorry, it was actually seven points of damage. It was? Okay. All right, so I'm going to give him six back.

The reflex save is not the same, but you said 19 passes? 19 passes. Okay, good. Okay, so it's 36 points of damage to the ones who failed and 18 points of damage to the ones who passed. Oh, 36 to the... Okay, great. And then I will use the Quicken Metamagic Rod to cast Magic Missile at the...

Yagwai. Nice. At the old Yagwai. Penetrate right through that DR. So that's five missiles. Ooh, baby. So that's at least ten points of damage. Does that kill it, or do you need me to roll?

Question, does Magic Miss missile allow spell resistance? Yes. Please roll spell resistance. Okay. Has a 33, you see. Yeah, better! Fine. What is the total damage?

Do you need me to roll it? Yeah. Minimum 10. Oh, then yeah. Where are my D4s? They're so hard to pick up. You know he said minimum 10, right? Minimum 10.

Cuts through to your... It cuts through to your... Oh. It's going to block it entirely. Immune to missiles. Fortification. Missile fortification. 16 points of damage.

Okay. He is dying in the sky. So he falls. Falls slowly. No, he doesn't. He has wings. He just falls. He doesn't fall slowly at all. He just falls. 9.8 meters

a second squared, Troy. Unconscious. So he just starts falling at the same speed of something with a different weight Exactly Different mass Alright so he just starts falling Do you know figure out

I'm going to let Doggworth take his turn But figure out how far he falls on this round Or he would probably fall on his turn Oh that is a thing you can look that up Yeah I have a wrinkle that's going to affect it So Doggworth it's your turn Alright While you're doing the math I have a wrinkle that's going to affect it, so Dogwrith, it's your turn.

All right. While you're doing the math, I'll keep the giants trained on old Dogwrith Tethringa. He's going to... Let's see. He's going to... He's going to go hog wild and just try to really mess with these guys and be like, Sergeant, I've got an appointment with your boss. And he's going to fly over their head right at the door and just make them furiously angry. 40 feet up in the air.

40 feet up in the air. I'm going to double check the distance, but you can move 120 feet and around. That's a tunnel that you went into. There's a big archway in the tunnel, so you flew that way. So it's not 40 feet high. No, I'll say it's... Is there a spot I could be at the tunnel where they can't hit me with a melee attack? At the height of the tunnel.

Yeah, I'll say there is. You're just out of their range. That's kind of where he goes. Because he just wants to get them all flummoxed and forgetting about the party okay here's what happens to the out glide you knock it unconscious knock it below zero hit points and it starts falling on its turn fast healing an axe and it wakes up 30 feet below looks up at you and we'll see you next week oh man that's oh my god that went that's an hour it's longer than an hour yeah that flew by yeah why you do that yeah why you do that no the glass cannon podcast is a glass cannon network production and is an officially licensed partner of paizo incorporated giant slayer is copyright 2015. Giant Slayer and the Pathfinder Adventure

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