Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

That's really weird. I thought that Sanctity would be covered by the Power Modifier discount on the Ally, but it's just a Pact limitation as you pointed out.

Dispel Magic works on all sorts of magic. Divine Servitors are probably magic... but it may be one of those "direct (though minor) manifestations of godhood" things that Kromm likes. Hmmm.

Beltarne has Turning, so he could have just shoved the thing away at any time. Maybe we should just treat it as a really powerful turning effect, that dispersed the creature for a limited period of time but did not actually Dispel it?

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

Well, I definitely don't think I should get abilities I haven't paid for. If you want to maintain that the creature is gone bye-bye, perhaps a critical success on the Will roll for turning disperses the target creature until the next sunset/sunrise? Or perhaps a critical failure on the part of the target, so that I'm less likely to catch a lucky break and tell Cthulhu to take a hike.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

Critical failure on the target's Will roll disperses it/sends it fleeing until dawn seems like a reasonable concept to me.

Of course, since Beltarne failed his Theology roll to identify the critter, he doesn't quite know that it's something other than just an Earth elemental and he probably does think he dispersed it.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

Alternately it may have been an enslaved earth elemental and the dispel clobbered the control spell. Then it just decided to leave and go do earth elemental things in an odd way :)

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

I figure I can put together the sigils on the eagles, goblin, and walking pile of rock without a skill roll.

I think we're trying to establish what happens with divine servitors, not keep continuity.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

I'm pretty sure that when Beltarne has a minute to think about it, he'll put it all together and say "hey, that was a Divine Servitor! Spooky!" At the moment he was in - worried about Firefly, unsuccessfully dodging the binding attack, and trying to keep his spell going - he may have just thought "it's an earth elemental, I'll dispel it" and only later realized that he really needed to Banish it.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

It all depends on whether the divine servitor was summoned using the clerical version of Planar Summons (making it a spell that uses ambient holy energies rather than a direct act of the gods, and therefore subject to counterspells and sanctity levels) or was the Ally of someone with divine power (making it a "borrowed cosmic ability" that isn't subject to counterspells or sanctity levels, provided that you remain on good terms with the deity doing the lending). The former would be subject to Dispel Magic . . . well, to Banish, but Dispel Magic seems fine for a minor critter, and both are PI 4 spells. The latter would not be. Note that Spell vs. Spell and Spell vs. Power (DF 1, p. 20) are pretty clear on this difference.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

This particular element was meant to be an Allied Divine Servitor. Allied Divine Servitors are generally either "Servitors of Good" and therefore explicitly subject to Banish (DF5 p12) or else take the Unholy Lens and become Demons and therefore explicitly subject to Banish (DF2 p21). On the off chance it were just an Elemental, it'd still be subject to Banish (DF2 p21 again).

So no matter what it is, it'd be subject to Banish as an extraplanar critter that isn't an Elder Thing.

However, since it's a "borrowed cosmic ability" it isn't subject to counterspells (other than Banish), so the Dispel shouldn't have worked on it. Bad call on my part.

On the other hand, Beltarne certainly could have just Turned the silly thing, especially the way it blew the Will roll to resist, and he had plenty of time to try. So we can treat it as Turned for the next 1d seconds, unless Beltarne Concentrates longer to keep holding it off. Since he totally blew his Theology roll to understand the implications of what the heck was going on - and since Firefly can't make a Thaumatology roll to advise him - I'm ruling that Beltarne thinks he dispersed it. The neat description of it blowing apart was just a special effect of the Turning.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

New Campaign Session 6
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/WM/Treks/Log_1-6

Bruno and I have been revising the bard spell list to give them their own colleges (Comedy, Drama, History, and Tragedy) with their own prerequisites. Since her character was mortally wounded in the last session, she worked up a gnome bard who'd been caught the goblins and was trying to escape while they were distracted.

This session was a large, dynamic fight. It was divided into three parts: the gnome bard against a pair of goblins, the primary fighters against a goblin Knight, and Marik and Beltarne against the returned earth elemental. The goblin knight used careful Retreats, blocks, and parries to hold against 3 foes for quite some time while slowly getting his HP whittled down. The PCs were quite frustrated.

The bard finally stunned both her foes and stabbed them in the back at about the same time that the fighters overran the goblin knight. Thasos and Beltarne then briefly pinned the elemental with a Turning effect and the kusari, but Thasos fell unconscious from previous wounds. The elemental then permeated the floor and fled.

The PCs were never in a whole lot of danger, but it seemed like a tense session from the GM perspective. No weird rules queries this time.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

New Campaign Session 7
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/WM/Treks/Log_1-7

This session was spent dealing with the aftermath of the combat in the last two sessions. The delvers did some desultory searching, successfully interrogated a surviving goblin, and were stymied by a mysterious door. They have some theories about that.

At the end of the session, the delvers decided to explore the rest of the cave complex. At the very end of the session, they were attacked by whatever was lurking in the caves.

I had to work late tonight, so this was a fairly short session without a lot of combat. Everyone seemed a bit distracted, so that was probably for the best.