Aria noticed the spider swivel its bulbous body and head, taking note of her despite being opposite Rose. The tiefling realized that the not-totally-stupid creature had deliberately been inching closer to Rose during its attack, trying to get too close for the shifter to bring the polearm down against it.<br/><br/>She wasn't sure she had the drop on it, between this and the creatures' ethereal nature spoiling her own blink-magic's usual nicety for helping her catch foes by surprise. She had an alternate thought - her vision onto the material plane during her own etheral-blinking moments was only about a dozen paces. If the ethereal spiders were limited in the same way, and she raced outside of that range, then perhaps she'd be 'invisible' to them during her<em>material</em>moments, and able to shoot arrows unanticipated. She felt bad leaving Rose with the huge spiders around her, and was already wincing in empathy at the last bite, but she'd grown to judge the shifter tough, fast, and teleportive, and she just might be more help now from afar.<br/><br/>The tiefling rolled back and away from the spider, hoping that'd fake it out of snapping at her as she went. She came up with a twist, facing the other direction along the trilithons, clicked her heels, and broke into a hasty jog. Fortunately the gaps between the trilithons were almost trivial to jump between, and she silently thanked the elven druidics or whomever had built them with such celestial-compass regularity, presumably long long ago.<br/><br/>Once she judged herself far enough away, she spun about again. She dropped the sap, and her bow drifted into her hand as much as the hand reached for it, a trick of the tiny crystal embedded in the word. The tiefling's third bit of faux-magery was a swift whisper and twist of finger, a magic from her gloves. She stared hard at the further spider, and her visual arc of focus seemed to pull in, like she were looking through a crossbow-mounted spyglass of the sort she'd once seen an unsavory professional Luskan assassin use (while firing at one of her allies, no less).  In battles past, she'd been decent at tagging targets with arrows, but not in a way that really counted, a source of irritation against the lewd crow's nest satyr and many times before.<br/><br/>She drew and sent an array along her sightline. The missile skewered through the narrow biological bridge where the further, higher spider's head and abdomen. The thing quivered, and continued to sap sluggishly but viciously at Rose.<br/><br/>The lower spider, despite turning its attention back to Rose, seemed tactically cognizant of what the fleeing Aria was up to. It began to float towards the outside of the trilithons and dip down a bit behind them, to hide itself from the angle of the arrow that'd struck its brood-kin, as well as it could given it was as long as the trilithons themselves, and far fatter than the individual columns. It kept close around Rose as it did so, trying to crowd her out of room to swing the shaft of the enlarged polearm. Its own mandibles chomped greedily at one of arms holding it.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>'tis fine, I figured as much. Hope you get any needed rest!<br/><br/>Glad Rose had the fresh +2 Fort from multiclassing! Not that it made the difference here. It's nice to have a high enough save that only a 1 is a failure, and then only b/c of the natural 1 rule... (I wonder if there are any items that change naturals 1s to successes if they meet the DC).<br/><br/>I'd been combining before; 20%,20%,50% becomes 68% exactly; three 20%s becomes 51.2%. I'll just round to 51% and use one d100. Actually, since E allows arbitrary dice I'll use a d1000! (1-512 = miss in that case).<br/><br/>Aria: haste boots (free), move 45' along the arc of the trilithon circle. Drop sap (free), draw bow (free), cast sniper's shot (swift), standard attack.<br/>bow attack, mod +27<br/>(3d20 - first is attack, second is threat if applicable, third is blink miss on 1-4)<br/>Result: 10, 18, 13,<br/>dmg 9 + 53, staggered<br/>total 114, still alive<br/><br/>What's going on: spider was 5' from Rose after its last two turn, 10' after each of hers, inside her Large reach. Aria could attack and hope for Telling Blow, instead decides to go ranged (figuring she might have to for the higher spider later anyway - the whip gives her 15' reach but with very small damage).<br/><br/>Since the spiders are ethereal, blinking doesn't give her invisible-attacker status, but blinking chars can only see material creatures up to 60' (which Aria and Rose know from their own use) during their blinking moments. Aria guesses the spiders are the same way while ethereal (correctly; phase spiders' ability mimics Ethereal Jaunt, which has the same 60' limit). Outside of 60' she has invisible-attacker status (unseen during the material half of her blinking, a flip of the usual), and can use<em>sniper's shot</em>to sneak attack from that range. It would've been nice to use the quicksilver boots or belt of battle to get an extra move and be able to full attack (especially since that's the best part of 'haste'), but that'd be a two swift actions (a recurring issue I expect she'll hit).<br/><br/>The upper spider was 20' west and 15' up before, moving east 45' puts her further than 60' (despite the fact that the stones curve in a large circle, so she increases the starting distance a little less than 45'). She has a skill trick to increase her speed 10' for a move, but that'd also have been a swift action.<br/><br/><br/>(You probably figured that out anyway, but I thought I'll lay it out to double check the tactic actually worked.)<br/><br/>West spider:<br/>5' down, directly over Rose (inside her reach)<br/>attacks Rose<br/>atk 30<br/>pmiss (d1000) Result: 634 (not miss)<br/>dmg 17 + poison<br/>initial 5 Dex, secondary 2 Dex, Fort DCs 24 as before<br/><br/>East spider:<br/>moves adjacent to and north of Rose and down at the level of the trilithons (trying to get cover from Aria), staying (diagonally) adjacent to Rose<br/>attacks Rose<br/>atk 27<br/>pmiss Result: 374,<br/>miss<br/><br/>Both spiders (deliberately) got 5' from Rose - inside her reach, even if she 5' steps.<br/><br/>If inclined, a chronocharm would let her swift move back to her own reach and avoid AoOs from doing so (interestingly, the belt of battle and a guaranteed DC 15 Tumble check would do exactly the same thing). You probably thought of that too (and I'llwill refrain from mentions like this if they take the fun out of it), but since the spacing is 3D and odd and you might not've been sure you could do this (or that I would recognize you could), I thought I'd confirm.<br/><br/>r = Rose<br/>s = east spider<br/>x = trilithon surface<br/>. = ground<br/>* = center of east spider's prior position<br/><br/>. . . . s s s . . .<br/>. . . . s s s . . .<br/>. . . . s s s . . .<br/>x x x x r r x x * x<br/>x x x x r r x x x x<br/><br/>(the 'west spider' is directly above Rose)