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I have no idea where I'm going with this: Part 2
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Arrow of Resized Arrowhead.

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Unshrink.

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It's an urban environment, there's a lot of avenues of attack available here.
A few faster guys will come up around the side to flank them.

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He's spread a few large sheets over the floor, and then prestidigitated the whole alleyway to be soiled by a thin layer of horseshit.

Is that going to slow you down?

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No?

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Great. Underneath the horseshit bedsheets is a puddle of acid.
You probably would have noticed the smell otherwise.

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That's not going to do enough damage to matter?
It's only like half an inch deep? Also we're all wearing steel boots?

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That's fine.

He'll use his active Prestidigitation casting to clean a square foot of the bedsheet just ahead of them. People tend to notice and look at that kind of thing because it's almost certainly part of a trap.

It is part of a trap.
It's one letter, a 'W'.

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How are we supposed to not read that?
It's basically an automatic subconscious response.

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Great. Explosive Runes (cast months ago).
Can you take 6d6 force damage without being knocked over?

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Yes we can, we're fighters.

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Apport Object: Sheet of Paper, directly in front of you.

Can you succeed on a Will save to not immediately read it?
It's the letter 'F'.

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Teaching fighters the alphabet was a mistake.

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The dumb wizards dumb plan isn't working.
This archer knows a certain extremely broken technique that lets you trip people using arrows.
He'll trip over the least injured-looking soldier for him, from range.

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Thanks for the assist.

Every morning he practices by making his bed with Mage Hand.
Todays casting of Mage Hand is to throw the corners of the bedsheet so that they wrap over the victim, because it's still soaked in acid.

And now he'll start retreating. Would you like to chase him while being unable to look anywhere for fear of reading explosive runes?

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Yes, they would like to chase.
Good soldiers do their job, not whatever keeps them alive.
Asmodean ones especially.

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Around the corner is his mud buddy.
Can you beat a mud buddy in a fight?

He's already turned his fez inside out and put it back on.
On the inside is the letter 'A'.
Ha, made you look.

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A problem with having Tettian clerics is that they'll try to ruleslawyer their guessed rules, even when it's not necessary. To be specific, it's only avoidable and unnecessary violence that is anathema, the point is to not be the kind of person who chooses violence as the solution when they have a choice. 

Tet has a much higher standard for "avoidable violence" for himself, if Tet tries to win without fighting He can usually find a way to do it, unless the opponent is half the other gods of Pharasma's Creation. He isn't going to be that upset by Robaldo hurting sentient lifeforms today, even though he's managed to avoid it until a literal invasion started.

Robaldo justifiably doesn't think he has a choice here.

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Unfortunately, Robaldo seems to have gotten into the idea that the relevant definition is something like "making a damaging direct attack", and is therefore ensuring that technically he never hurts anyone. Technically the archer did it, technically they walked into that acid themselves, technically they read the explosive runes on their own. Robaldo hasn't hurt anyone yet, right?

He should probably adjust the exposed surface of Disboard so that it doesn't lead people as easily into this particular error. It would not actually hold up in court, Pharasma isn't that dumb.

It's still good experience though, and Tet is trying to increase his investment here to see how Asmodeus will respond to repetitive stake-raising. This cleric is a good enough cleric.

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By the time the rest of the magic casters are running out of spells and the sun is rising back up, tens of thousands of people are dead, and most of the rest are fleeing.

Chellish troops control the city center, and are too exhausted to be pushed further ahead. The Good side has better healing options, but still wants a good nights sleep, which they're not going to get except for those of them who have rings of sustenance or nap stacks.

Cheliax was hoping for mass surrenders with enough show of force and hasn't gotten them. Andoran has resisted attack better than Cheliax expected.

All of the people Cheliax can go to for clerical support belong to the same handful of Hellish religions, and think in the same handful of ways. They tend to make plans that make sense to Asmodeans, because nobody else is allowed to plan things.

Andoran has far greater diversity of thought and therefore far greater diversity of strategy. It's a free society, and that freedom includes buying funny gimmick items designed by a local follower of a whimsy-religion.

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Almas University looms over the battlefield untouched and untouchable. A substantial number of civilians are sheltering in it and the invaders are under orders not to attack it because firstly they'd lose and secondly they want the wizards to imagine that they have the option of just hiding in their university and not fighting, since then maybe less of them will fight.

The fighting isn't going to stop at dawn.

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Spell slots are for people who haven't figured out yet how to punch above their weight with only cantrips and items prepared in advance. Robaldo has lots of items he's prepared in advance. Still, his magic is worth more than his mere constant presence. He'll sleep.

Robaldo has a Ring of Sustenance now, he was able to save up for it at his new job selling gimmick items. He also now has a reputation for having way more objects with Explosive Runes on them than a normal law-abiding wizard justifiably should.

Robaldo will get fourth circle cleric spells when he prays in the morning, and that will give him the self-confidence to try preparing a Teleport.

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Fifty thousand men-at-arms, led by the other half of Cheliax's best officers, were able to overwhelm the border fortresses immediately. They are walking the roughly 100 miles to Augustana from where they'd camped the night before just inside of Cheliax's border.

Most of Cheliax's previous plans for this invasion started with a naval blockade, and then troops being moved by dozens of galleys in two batches to either side of Augustana for a seige, and then a magical crossing of the cities walls to create a beachhead that could let the infantry and cavalry in.

The nearly complete destruction of their navy has interrupted that. They're not confident in putting their whole army on a fleet that pirates have near total control over, to attack those same pirates home port.

On paper it should take them 4 days to walk there, at a forced march, plus another day so they can start the fighting in the morning. If a faster group runs ahead to clear the road and prepare campsites, they can push it to 3 days.

If a ninth-circle shows up with some of her friends and starts raining boulders on them from the sky, they'll have to stop and send their wizards and griffon-riders and aerial devils, and it will take longer again.

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Abrogail can't defend the whole army and its baggage train by herself, it's too long a road and too large a space.

Fortunately she has a pit fiend with her, and it's got wings and at-will fireballs. How many teleports would Morgethai like to spend here?

 


 

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Authors Note:

On paper and according to the rules, the correct strategy for Stristyko to use consists of creating a few Shadows, Wights, and Wraiths, each of whom have the ability to raise spawn in only a few rounds, and then dump them on Egorian first and every other city in cheliax soon after.

However, this is already the thread Esurient Shadow, which does an excellent job of that premise, and additionally poses the problematic question of why every other necromancer hasn't done this before, and why Tar-Baphon in particular didn't use shadow/wight/wraith-bombing tactics to defeat the shining crusade and conquer the whole planet.

To avoid these issues, it is hereby declared that in Eva!Golarion shadows have the same disadvantage as wights and wraiths applied to their spawn (weaker ability drain, reduced hitpoints, -2 on all rolls), and additionally all 3 species and any similar ones have Create Spawn abilities that take at least 1d4 hours instead of 1d4 rounds, comparable to the 2d6 hours of an Apocalypse Zombie while still being far above the several days of sickness of a Ghoul or several days of being dead of a Vampire

This is, in my estimation, sufficient to preserve most of their unique character and mechanical purpose and still have it be possible for a city to fall to the undead, without it being so trivially easy for a necromancer to destroy the world that it must necessarily have already happened.

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