"Count on me!" Aria chirped, spinning to face fully the male she'd hurled shuriken at and who had retaliated with the freezing energy. It did seem a logical division of targets, as her faster number of comparatively weaker attacks seemed good for taking out the annoying illusions...<br/><br/>Her eyes widened at the sight of the other female 'centaur' reeling back from Rose's blow with a bright gout of blood arching up from between her breasts. Despite the four (or more probably eight) legs, the hooking weapon sent her sprawling into a flowerbed with a weak, near-dead groan.<br/><br/>Aria hopped towards Arithex, arcing her kukri through the nearest image. The disguised drider laughed, but it was abruptly halted as a zagging strike of the kukri sliced between two of his real ribs. Aria reflected on the mercy that at least each image was in sharp enough relief for such aiming, unlike with the blur-magic that Rose used and that she'd commissioned magic for her longbow alone to deal with. The centaur doubled over. She had a brief sensation of light flickering, or the centaur moving in a way he shouldn't, and realized that she could tell that, to no great surprise, he was a drider too.<br/><br/>She had to resort to drawing her second-favorite kukri as her next several strikes took out several more images, or missed outright from her phasing. Finally her left-hand kurki found the true drider again. The curved blade hooked upward through the creature's high solar plexus and under his sternum, like a political exile hung from a meathook in a tyrannical nation-state. Arithex belched venomous-smelling black blood and slumped back. As with the female, his illusion magic failed at death, and it was a drow-torsoed drider who sprawled across the tennis court.<br/><br/>"Oh-oh!" Daezvar howled, watching this and the reeling female. "I can't bear to watch - and now you won't either!" He cast a fey magic, conjuring a falling rain of glittering golden flecks, like metallic confetti, down around the two lady warriors. Then he tittered, and danced backwards on his many legs.<br/><br/>"Ahh--!?" Aria blinked furiously just as she was turning to face the other male. The golden flecks seemed to shimmer and dazzle and threaten almost to hypnotize her sight into seeming useless kaleidoscopic patterns rather than the real world about her but it passed. The tiefling was getting the uneasy sense that the illusions popular with the scoundrels hereabout were a sort of indirect mind-magic which her holy symbol did not ward her against, and she hoped Astos wasn't fond of the same.<br/><br/>The sprawled female threw a hand up towards Rose, spoke a brief moment in tongues, and then spoke a single Common word, "Flee!"<br/><br/><br/><br/>Looks like Rogues don't get whip proficiency...for some reason I thought they did. Ah well, not much point in the one Aria bought, maybe Rose would like it for the occasional extra reach on trip attacks (-4 for nonproficiency but touch attacks are easy to make).<br/><br/>Readying an action directly would've have worked (since you can't ready a full attack, eve n with the extra move action - although it would've let her make 1 melee attack), but I meant that the article gave me the impression that you can indeed 'split' your turn with delaying as you can with readying.<br/><br/>lol, I like how the CoC damage was exactly enough for Rose to resist completely.<br/><br/>Glad the blink roll came through for you...<br/><br/>One option for pounce is the Lion's Charge spell Aria has in her gloves. It's a L2 spell so 2,160 gp per cast per day. Once a character is rich enough, the barbarian fast movement just might be better than the pounce, since I don't think untyped speed increases can be bought. But you can 'retrain' if you decide you wish to. Her reachrunner-5 ability will also let her pounce sometimes.<br/><br/>You can charge on a diagonal. You can charge at any angle; IIRC the rule is that all the squares along the route must be unobstructed (no line drawn from the beginning to end square  can pass through an obstructed square). The 'garden' squares would count as obstructions since they reduce movement speed, but Rose's new Nature's Stride class feature lets her ignore that, so she can charge through them (and IIRC her vanguard treads might do that too). In this case the chronocharm was necessary anyway (you have to charge to the nearest square from which you can attack the foe, which was only 5' from her original position), so the charge wasn't wasted.<br/><br/>female drider hit, tripped (her trip check was 17)<br/>Rose makes will save to 'disbelieve' when interacting with the illusion; can tell she's a drider too (SHOCK!)<br/><br/><br/>Aria (now that she's delayed 'til after Rose):<br/>5' towards and full attack Arithex<br/>Rose's threatening the driders was very handy - prevented them from taking move actions away to cast,so they just took 5' steps, so Aria can 5' to full attack without using another item charge. Arithex could've 5' stepped ne instead of n to get 10' from Aria, but then the female would've been in his Cone of Cold arc.<br/><br/><br/>main hand mods +31/+26/+21/+16  (16 bab 10 dex 1 haste 2 blink -2 twf 4 subtlety)<br/>mh1<br/>Result: 9, 2, 6,<br/>MI Result: 4, (3 to 2 images)<br/><br/>mh2<br/>Result: 9, 18, 9,<br/>MI Result: 1,<br/>actual hit, dmg 13 + 49, staggered<br/><br/>Aria Will 4r + 7, disbelieves Disguise Self<br/><br/>mh3<br/>Result: 13, 11, 11,<br/>MI Result: 3, (2 to 1 image)<br/><br/>mh4<br/>Result: 2, 3, 4,<br/>blink miss<br/><br/>haste attack<br/>Result: 16, 18, 5,<br/>MI Result: 2 (1 to 0 images)<br/>(maybe shoulda bought that Blindsight item after all...)<br/><br/><br/>draw 2nd kukri (mods 27/23)<br/>oh1<br/>Result: 4, 5, 18,<br/>dmg 8 + 62, slain<br/><br/>pass on 2nd attack (could drop the kukri to throe one shuriken, but nah)<br/><br/><br/>Daezvar:<br/>casts Glitterdust (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/glitterdust.htm) on Aria and Rose, Will DC 17 (or blinded for 10 rounds)<br/>moves 30' nw<br/>(AFAICT blink doesn't help vs Glitterdust, as a nondamage area effect)<br/><br/><br/>Aria (drumroll please) Will mod +4 (no Mind Blank here)<br/>Comment: aria gd save<br/>Result: 16,<br/>Total: 16<br/>(made by three...time to invest in saving throws when we get back to town)<br/>(am leaning toward Dextrous Will at L21 - there are quite a few nonblankable will saves)<br/>If Rose gets blinded (unlikely) Aria can try to use the Remove Blindness wand on her<br/><br/><br/>Female drider (casting defensively):<br/>cast Command (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/command.htm) on Rose, Will DC 16 (or flee for 1 round)<br/>roll vs Rose's blink miss chance (IIRC you preferred me to roll these, let me know if not)<br/>Result: 53 (not missed)<br/><br/>(Rose's trip and reach have a nice interaction; most of the female's attack spells are touch - typical for clerics - which she couldn't deliver without standing up and 5' stepping. since Rose has greater reach)<br/><br/>EDIT: male drider's move silently check is 28, in case Rose is blinded and trying to echolocate him<br/>Oh, and very nice damage indeed!  ;D<br/><br/><div class="codeheader">Code: <a class="codeoperation" href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="return smfSelectText(this);">[Select]</a></div><pre style="margin: 0; padding: 0;"><code class="bbc_code">M M - - - - - | - - - - - - -  <br/>M M - - - - - | - - - - - - -  <br/>- - - - - - - | - - - - - - -  <br/>- - - - - - - | - - - - - - -  <br/>- - - - - - - | - x x - - - -  <br/>- - - - - - - | - x x - - - - <br/>- - - - - - - | A - - - - - - <br/>            - - -<br/>            - - -<br/>            - R -<br/>            - - -<br/>            - - - F F<br/>            - - - F F<br/>            - - -<br/>            - - -<br/>            - - -<br/>            - - -<br/></code></pre>