They are the conclusion of the thought "what can a Valyrian Dragon and a moderatly skilled rider absolutly not deal with", as asked by Lannister-mages and possibly planar mercenaries.
This though, is them facing off against a Dragon their creators never even heard of, so we'll see how that works out.
Glad the spoiler works for you guys. I picked up that something like this may be welcome since those questions often showed up when we had a combat update so I thought why not just put them all in the update and cut the middleman. I was tempted to put the links all in the spoiler too, but in the end I decided against it since they feel more present for the characters IC if I embed them in the narrative.
Funnily enough, the swarm can't actually hurt Osryx all that much. It deals 3d6 ~= 10.5 damage and presumably another 2d6 ~= 7 damage from Dragon Bane. However, Osryx has DR 10\Cold Iron & Magic and Regeneration 9\Good or Silver, neither of which can be bypassed by the swarm, so he can just tank those hits. Likewise, the DC of the poison is 17 and his Fort Save is +16, so he only fails on a Nat 1, while having 24 DEX and thus being quite a few failed saves away from being immobilized.
I mean, these things are pretty gnarly, but Myrkdreki are stupidly tanky and almost perfectly suited to go against these things.
The main issue is that Mallister is here, otherwise a Thantopic Dispelling Breath would make short work of the swarm and the Formians.
They are the conclusion of the thought "what can a Valyrian Dragon and a moderatly skilled rider absolutly not deal with", as asked by Lannister-mages and possibly planar mercenaries.
This though, is them facing off against a Dragon their creators never even heard of, so we'll see how that works out.
I wouldn't even be worried so much about the Valyrian Dragon, since they have tons of HP and a decent enough Fort Save that they should survive the poison for a while. The rider is more vulnerable in my opinion. Odds are the rider is either a STR build or a caster, so the DEX damage will screw them over fairly quickly.
Funnily enough, the swarm can't actually hurt Osryx all that much. It deals 3d6 ~= 10.5 damage and presumably another 2d6 ~= 7 damage from Dragon Bane. However, Osryx has DR 10\Cold Iron & Magic and Regeneration 9\Good or Silver, neither of which can be bypassed by the swarm, so he can just tank those hits. Likewise, the DC of the poison is 17 and his Fort Save is +16, so he only fails on a Nat 1, while having 24 DEX and thus being quite a few failed saves away from being immobilized.
I mean, these things are pretty gnarly, but Myrkdreki are stupidly tanky and almost perfectly suited to go against these things.
The main issue is that Mallister is here, otherwise a Thantopic Dispelling Breath would make short work of the swarm and the Formians.
Also, are we still using 3.5 rules for grappling or the Pathfinder variant? Because under the former, a successful AoO automatically fails the grapple, while under the latter, it just gives you a malus on the check based on damage dealt.
wouldn't even be worried so much about the Valyrian Dragon, since they have tons of HP and a decent enough Fort Save that they should survive the poison for a while. The rider is more vulnerable in my opinion. Odds are the rider is either a STR build or a caster, so the DEX damage will screw them over fairly quickly.
Fuck, so we can't even use Baleful Teleport to translocate his ass (the Lord) somewhere safe before the Swarms are being turned into failed and charred insect satay.
It is still kinda hilarious, no matter how many of the things Lannisters pumped out or how good they are at killing dragons/riders.
Dragons aren't even in the main bulk of our forces.
They'd damn better have many more secret "superweapons" if they want any hope of standing longer than an hour against Elite Legionnaires (ones with IS weapons, just to style on them Lannisters) Praetorians, Airships... just to name a few.
And that's before our overgeared PCs enter the equation.
I think we have been using 3.5 grapple checks from the start so best to keep on with them
He could but the thing is he would be a bit of a bull in a china shop if he turns into a dragon to use the breath weapon, he might break open some other weapon
I think we have been using 3.5 grapple checks from the start so best to keep on with them
He could but the thing is he would be a bit of a bull in a china shop if he turns into a dragon to use the breath weapon, he might break open some other weapon
1. Well, that plan is dead then.
2. I'm pretty sure we had Myrkdreki use their breathweapons while in monkey form before. They don't loose their special abilities after all, just their natural attacks.
Anyway.
[X] Plan Straightforward
-[X] Osryx uses Ghoul Touch on Mallister to stop him from breaking any more jars.
-[X] Siduri uses Mass Whelm to knock out the Formians.
-[X] Next turn, they will kite the swarm into a place where Osryx can safely destroy ist with a Tanatopic Dispelling Breath.
I say let Osryx kill evrything with a breath attack and later revive the lord from death. There are clerics in the fleet, right? Revive has a time limit of 1 min, if I am not confusing anything.
The myrkdreki hummed under his breath as he warded himself for real battle. This had turned out to be quite the exciting evening, more so than he had honestly hoped for going into it. The Conquest sounded grand enough, but judging from what he had seen in Old Town and again among the lords of Westeros come to give their due respects to Imperator Viserys, he had the rather unpleasant suspicion that the parade would be more interesting than the battles it prefaced. He was quite glad to have been proven wrong though.
Formians... formians... formians... The shadows of lives past spoke little of them and what they did speak was not entirely useful. Osryx was after all quite certain that, even if they did kill one of their leaders, they were to bring the corpse back intact for interrogation and the forge, not serve up a dish of formian on the half-shell with fire cloves and crushed amber. Not to mention how impolite it would be to serve up something like that without being able to offer some to his companion. That would be another greater formian corpse they needed, and from their admittedly sketchy intelligence there was only one of them about.
Such thoughts carried the myrkdreki through the halls of the keep and to the very base of the west tower of Seaguard, which had been barred from the inside and more to the point had been marked with a trap rune to impede passage. Clever, at least as far a cleverness would take one with such paltry magics.
"I fear we must pass through shadow again, my lady," the dragon said, courteously offering an arm. "I would bend mine breath to dispelling the trap, but that would rather defy the point of secrecy of any sort. Wood and steel is no more enduring to the shadows within than paltry magic."
For some reason, she hesitated again. Really what was so terrible about the shadow realm? There were shadows everywhere in this realm as well, you just got to see them from another angle on the other side.
Lights flickered and the shadow of insubstantial wings fell upon the earth. Stone passed like dream and memory under their tread. They were elsewhere.
The highest room of the keep was a round hall obviously meant for mortal archers to take aim at the foes below, though it was now inhabited by rather more interesting folk. Half a dozen formian warriors, armored in naught but their own red and black chitin, were standing beside an odd device of mithril and adamant, likely a weapon of some sort, though Osyrix was no engineer to judge how lethal it was to anything in front of it. It can't be too well designed if it needed a crew of six to fire at the very least...
Not that it truly mattered, since both he and Siduri were yet veiled and unseen, and very much not in front of the weapon. Towards the center of the room stood the lord in the 'winged' armor they had been told of, his posture stiff, his eyes twitching. Definitely an enchantment, though not one that originated in the room, for all that the only other inhabitant of the chamber could certainly have cast it. The contours of her armor more rounded, the colors more bold, and a gleam of worthy intelligence in her eye, the Formian Myrmarch silently urged her servants about their tasks, seemingly content to ignore the nominal lord of the keep just as she would the crates and jars set about the chamber, perhaps in preparation for a siege.
Definitively more interesting to converse with than to eat. Osryx sometimes wondered what his kin out of deep time did with their days when they were not eating, sleeping, and admiring their own reflection in some pretty bauble.
Acting on a plan settled on before hand, the two enchanters wove their spells from cover. Beguiling miasma arose to the call of infernal words and then the shadows closed in, softly whispering a dreadful jest: "What sort of lion needs ants to protect him? The kind that is dead and drawing grubs to feast."
The buzzing laughter of the Myrmarch filled the air, leaving the warriors confused as Osyrix advanced on them, silvered sword in hand. Alas, they had not paid much attention to the enchanted lord, who much to the surprise of all involved lunged for one of the jars and tossed it on the stone... and then the air was alive with the buzzing of quite another sort of insect... hornets with adamant stingers, their wings clicking like the wheels of some demented clock. Worst of all in their mechanical whirring, it seemed to Osryx he could hear the cries of murdered dragons. These things had been wrought to slay such as him.
Battlefield Conditions: Round Chamber 65 ft across, ceiling too low for Osyrix to take dragon form without squeezing; filled with boxes and jars.
Enemies
Formian Myrmarch Under Mind Fog (-10 to will saves) and unable to act due to Hideous Laughter
6 Formian warriors currently confused and surprised (will not act on the first round)
1 Enchanted Patrek Mallister who seemingly just took a readied action to smash the jar
1 Swarm of Dragon Bane Adamntine Hornets just let loose
What do Osryx and Siduri do?
[] Write in
OOC: I'm experimenting with that spoiler at the end to keep track of the mechanics of fights. Tell me if it is too distracting guys. Not yet edited.
Made some additional edits to the chapter, @DragonParadox.
I'm pretty sure we had Myrkdreki use their breathweapons while in monkey form before. They don't loose their special abilities after all, just their natural attacks.
Could you find a link to that? I ask because from what I recall from the dracomonicon a dragon's breath comes from a special elemental organ which the human form cannot have.
Do we... care enough about the Lord, actually? Keeping him alive/rezzing him?
We can just shell the place, no matter the mind-control involved.
Being efficient in dealing with Formian threat feels more important, they will have plenty more places to shell into rubble in very short order, after all.
Could you find a link to that? I ask because from what I recall from the dracomonicon a dragon's breath comes from a special elemental organ which the human form cannot have.
The only time I know for certain that it happened was in a subsequently deleted omake when the twins used their breathweapons while in human form, but you didn't object to it back then.
Other than that, all I can say is that the ability is always treated as Polymorph-like effect and that states nothing about losing Su abilities. Otherwise, he shouldn't have been able to walk through the Shadow Plane with Siduri either.
Do we... care enough about the Lord, actually? Keeping him alive/rezzing him?
We can just shell the place, no matter the mind-control involved.
Being efficient in dealing with Formian threat feels more important, they will have plenty more places to shell into rubble in very short order, after all.
I don't really care about the Mallister dude, but I would like to recover as many jars of the hornets as possible for examination. If they're all broken open here, that will be much more difficult.
The only time I know for certain that it happened was in a subsequently deleted omake when the twins used their breathweapons while in human form, but you didn't object to it back then.
Other than that, all I can say is that the ability is always treated as Polymorph-like effect and that states nothing about losing Su abilities. Otherwise, he shouldn't have been able to walk through the Shadow Plane with Siduri either.
It would simply things here, but I wouldn't make an exception in this case, and the breath weapon has always been an ability that requires the Dragon actually be in their Dragon form to use. Other supernatural abilities generally work in both forms, but there is leeway based on circumstances and the particulars of the ability itself.
Meanwhile, I'm rather interested in whether Qyburn and Elaheh can repeat our LannisGreyport experience and whip up an anti-Formian bioweapon essentially on the spot, given we provide enough samples of living/dead formians.
Gotta show everyone we're not fucking around when it comes to anyone allying to our sworn enemies
The only time I know for certain that it happened was in a subsequently deleted omake when the twins used their breathweapons while in human form, but you didn't object to it back then.
Other than that, all I can say is that the ability is always treated as Polymorph-like effect and that states nothing about losing Su abilities. Otherwise, he shouldn't have been able to walk through the Shadow Plane with Siduri either.
Hmm... it does say polymorph and not alter self so yeah I could let it work for shadow dragons because their breath is so esoteric anyway. That said I do not want to make this a general ruling because I feel like it would raise some odd questions to have Viserys suddenly breathing fire in human form.
It would simply things here, but I wouldn't make an exception in this case, and the breath weapon has always been an ability that requires the Dragon actually be in their Dragon form to use. Other supernatural abilities generally work in both forms, but there is leeway based on circumstances and the particulars of the ability itself.
The reason why I'm not using the Breathweapon is not that ruling, but that I would prefer Mallister and some of the Constructs taken alive. Otherwise, he can still drop the Alter Self and just waste everyone in the room except for Siduri.