The Schism: A 13th Age RP Campaign

Summary!

We go inside the secret entrance to the Grand Masters' chamber at the Seven Star Temple. There the founder of the temple gives us a bried introduction and promises to tell all once the temple is secured. He can't reveal much before Orc Lord barges in, however, in a display of power that's worse than the Lich King. We make formation in the castle helm, wall off the OL for the first three turns, although he does do severe damage when we let him, and then eventually crank out enough damage to bring him down to just 10 HP before his story departure. A thirsty little flower mage pops in and time freezes the Orc Lord before he can go out with a bang and take us with him, explaining that he's Skadi's husband and the first Calenhad. The OL flees and Calenhad tells us about how he crowned the Blessed Emperor, Talon, who was born Arthur. God I wish it were me married to King Arthur. Then he shows us Solara BTFOing the Orc Lord a second time after he ran from us. She takes the Sword of Ruin and turns it back into Ea, then attacks the orcs with her sun goddess powers and Efreeti army which causes the vision to fade to white. Calenhad says that Solara is gonna use Ea to kill the Dragon Emperor, Arlan and Azathoth and take over the world. First, however, she's gonna kill someone else important who he won't name and we gotta return to Axis to learn who. We also learn that Sephira knows Arlan is her father and end the session just before getting to our long talk with the Grand Masters.

Cheese status: Jealous

I should have seen that copypasta coming.

So I have to decide... Giant Aeva, Stone Aeva (resist ALL damage 18+, and later immunity to bleed and DoT), or... regain a Smite Evil almost every turn. Infinite Smite...

I already told Neo, but I'm saving Nyl's level up until she has at least some justification for it.

8.

Still completely on the fence for Aeva. 1 question for GM, 1 question for party about Nyl.


For GM - If a thing is 'you can use this a number of times a day equal to some modifier,' is there a minimum of 1, or is it just unusable if your mod is 0?


For Party - She'll have to drop a Witch Talent for a FW talent. That'll be Evil Eye, for reasons. But which FW talent to take? There's 4 that look good, but I think the best two for her are:

Ethereal Harmony
Gain a spell or song from the bard’s list as a bonus power.

Harlequin
Once per day per Charisma modifier, you can add an extra effect to a spell you cast because it’s funnier that way.
Adventurer feat: When you use this talent, one nearby ally can heal using a recovery as you brighten their day.

Opinions?

It's always a minimum of 1.

Have you looked at them, or just got the gist from GX?

Cutting out an hour... is pretty potentially stupid good and can really change things, but it also gives an automatic, unavoidable campaign loss.  Still kind of... not what I'm interested in.

Eliminate from Existence, I dunno about it. Honestly I wouldn't take it anyway. 1st turn, target gets -4 hit chance but also all attacks against it are -4. 2nd turn, it gives and takes half damage. Then it's untargetable but stunned. Then it dies. Which sounds good, but it also gets 4 saves against it, with any nullifying the spell, and it can't be used until the thing's weakened below 250HP anyway, so at that point... what's the benefit of that over, say, disintegrate?

Gate to parallel reality. Yeah, definitely agree no on that.

Travel to the Loom of Fate was the one I figured would be the least problem since... I mean, we can already just use a different means to teleport to one of several portal locations and meow at the door until Aria lets us in.

Serendipitous Delay is kind of... I dunno, I thought it seemed OP at first, but with Iddy's new stuff I'm not so sure. It works like Banish, but worse. If the target's the only thing left, they come back. If the target saves (d6 vs. e-die), they come back. Unlike Iddy's, there's no guarantee how long they'll be gone so you might end up with Arlan reappearing on your head. Also the target's fully healed when they reappear, and get back anything they've used that fight. Being able to use it on a dead ally to bring them back's definitely the strongest use, but also apparently it won't work on anyone but Raven or some NPC buddies so it's kind of a moot point. I guess if it were used on, say, Ukanlos... I think this one can be fixed by removing the ability to target allies.

That's all the level 9's. There were a few others I thought I should bring up, may as well do that now. Hang on a bit.

Heart of the Cards: Choose the result of a small random event, like drawing a card. Up to CHA times a day. Probably need to clarify it won't work with the fortune telling.

Predetermination
Close-quarters spell; Daily; Quick action
Target: A nearby ally
Effect: The next time the target rolls a d20, set the natural roll of the die as 10 + your level instead of rolling it. You can specify the type of roll, such as an attack, a skill check, a save, or a death save, or leave it to any roll.
Adventurer Feat: You can target an enemy with this spell, and set the die roll as 10 - your level instead.
Champion feat: You can cast the spell once per day per Charisma modifier, but the target must be different each time.

Bargain with Death: Free reaction when someone fails a death save. They automatically pass, but the GM can swap in whatever their actual result was for any roll later. So you could pass on a 1, but then at some point later maybe you roll a 20 and nope that's a 1 now.

Dangling Puppet: Dominate a target, save ends. They can choose to take damage to ignore the domination for a turn. Also the HP threshold is pretty low (85HP max at 7), but doubles with Focus.

Inevitable Pain: The base ability's not bad. Ally gains bonus damage equal to CHA/x2/x3. But the Focus effect makes all even rolls into hits. Not hugely broken but kinda iffy.

Reweave the Fabric: Change something into a different material. Save ends if someone doubts what it is - say, if someone saw a rope made of cotton candy. Potentially really gamebreaking... I think? Maybe? I can definitely think of a few simple uses to avoid skill checks, but I can't think of anything super-gamebreaking... but this feels like something I'd find a way to use to just ruin something at some point.

Shield of Cards: There's nothing wrong with this one, it's just really cool and definitely one I'm taking. Give allies (spell level) floating card shields that each have a 50-50 chance block 1 attack against AC. Actually, no, I misread it. They can only go to a number of allies equal to WIS.  Which is 0 (so, 1). Well. Still not better than Shadow Martyr, so I guess it's fine.

Cruel Coincidence (the spell itself's fine, but that feat tho)
Ranged spell; Daily; Interrupt action
Trigger: A nearby enemy rolls a natural 1 to 5 on a d20.
Target: The triggering enemy
Effect: The target is hit by an unfortunate accident, such as a stray arrow, a careless step into a lava pool, or a falling stalactite. Use the environment to narrate the effect. It takes twice your Charisma modifier + 5 damage, plus an additional 5 for each point of the escalation die.
7th level spell: 2x Cha+10 damage, +10x escalation die
9th level spell: 3x Cha+15 damage, +15x escalation die
Focus: Cast the spell as a standard action on any nearby enemy, without a trigger, and deal double damage.
Champion feat: You can use the spell once per day per Charisma modifier, but for each casting after the first, you give the DM a use of the spell against you or one of your allies.

Fate Armor
Ranged spell; Daily; Quick action
Target: You or a nearby ally
Effect: Specify a number. The next time the target takes a single chunk of damage that’s equal to the chosen number or more, he or she avoids the damage completely. The spell also triggers on any damage that would take the target below zero hit points.

Truth in their Eyes: Nyl and the target each get to ask each other one question that 'must' be answered truthfully. They can lie if Nyl fails a WIS vs. MD check, she can lie if she passes CHA vs. MD. I guess that part of it makes it safe...ish.

Training Montage: Ally gets an incremental advance immediately. No. Just no. Right out.

Alternate Reality Self: Basically create a Jekyll version of Nyl that can tag in and out. Cool concept, big pain to do. Also no.

Life Switch: Switch the current HP of 2 combatants. Non-staggered enemies get a save against it. Um. Maybe it'd be fine with some nerfing/limitations, but I'll save you the time and say it's another 'just no.'

One in a Million Chance: Something extremely unlikely happens. Probably fine, but maybe another of those 'this will break something someday' spells.

Time Shifted Restoration: This one... look at yourself. 7th level spell. I'm not super interested in it, but... eh.

And, the big really cool but really iffy one:

Surprisingly Accurate Prediction
Close-quarters spell; Daily
Effect: To cast this spell, make a prediction about the world around you. For example, you could tell your friend that the barmaid’s name is Sandy and she’s dreaming about attending wizard college. Or you could tell everyone to just hang in for another sand dune because surely there is an oasis behind this one. As long as you make up something that hasn’t been established otherwise in the narrative, this is now a fact. Be careful with making predictions that sound too good to be true, though, because they tend to backfire spectacularly. That vorpal sword you predicted to find behind the door? Turns out its owner, a terrible Death Knight, is quite attached to it and won’t give it up without a fight.
Champion feat: If the GM and every player agree with your prediction, gain a second use of the spell for this day.