Aria mentioned to Anya, "I'll be able to see you while invisible, and we'll both probably hear you - so don't worry too much about getting separated. Just stay at a distance where you're unlikely to be caught by attacks meant for us, but not likely to get separated by, say, closing doors or falling stone. And watch above your head - in case the stone appears unstable after its crash."<br/><br/>The chamber the three appeared in boasted the same dimensions as that with the sarcophagi-became-vats. Likewise its great walls showed runes and lines of glowing light, which edged and delineated yet more relief depictions of mysterious and cosmic events. Upon the unsloping vertical surface of the inner long wall, two adjacent circular depictions of the planet of Aber-Toril were recognizable.<br/><br/>One showed the hemisphere which contained the megacontinent known to the girls in its west as Faerun, its southwest as Zakhara, and its east as Kara-Tur - and further to the southeast, the isolated and little-explored island continent of Osse. The other hemisphere showed the vertically conjoined continents of Achorome, Maztica and Katashaka.<br/><br/>(http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs27/i/2008/110/9/7/Abeir_Toril_by_Ikaazu.jpg)<br/><br/><br/>Figures appeared to fly or float in an infinite figure-eight around these two hemispheres - a train of mindflayers and, across from them, a chain of handsome giant-like figures.<br/><br/>The murals were shot through with cracks, presumably from the recent crash-landing, and several shards had fallen to the floor. This chamber contained more three-dimensional features than the last - a series of cracked slablike tables and benches amidst the columns (the corner-most of which had collapsed). The place had the sense that it had once been a great feasting hall, and was now a high-ceilinged workshop. Scattered across the tables were scraps and pieces of what appeared to be statues or mechanical things, like the flying-centaur constructs underneath the pyramid. Much was strewn across the floor, either from previous disorganization, or the chaos of the fall - including two smashed goblets which, it seemed, had contained gray-white-pink brain matter now splattered nearby.<br/><br/>The chamber also held two fully-assembled constructs - or at least,<em>mostly</em>intact constructs, with visible denting and warping from the fall. In the outwards corner of the chamber was a metallic likeness of a gold dragon. It would've stood higher than a horse on its four clawed leg, and with a snout-to-tail-tip length well in excess of a long-trunked elephant's. I was almost as large as the blue dragon Ozonyminidonaxandius which Aria and Kass had fought in the desert, except at the moment it appeared to be inert, squatting compactly against the floor with its wings and limbs all tucked. Its limbs even seemed fastened to the floor by metal bands, a canvas sheet was thrown over its head, and a small chest lay between its foreclaws.<br/><br/>The other assembled construct was much more animate: it took the form of a great metallic green-armored statue as large as the giantess just slain outside, fashioned like some ancient hero with sandals, breastplate, and crested helm, like its body all probably forged from mithral. If it was capable of speech, it didn't advertise it: the thing simply made to lumber toward the girls (with surprising speed for a construct), fists-first.<br/><br/>Aria took flight, throwing out a foot to torque herself around the nearest column and slingshot up the open way between the two lines of columns. She met the construct between the next pair, drawing blades and activated the same magic used against the centaur-constructs to sense the weaknesses of the arcane energy or clockwork which gave false life to such things.<br/><br/>The tiefling flew between the outstretched fists of the mithral giant, and her blade edges rang against several seemingly random points upon its two shoulders. For a moment the creature seemed to ring like a great silvery bell, then the arms and head abruptly popped from the torso. The pieces fell and struck the stone floor with a surprisingly none-too-dissonant, and almost musical echo (probably thanks to the mithral).<br/><br/>Glancing about, she saw the room had the same sets of door-blocked as the facing ones with the earth-lion: a set leading west (almost certainly 'back' to the chamber with the scorpion), another north, and a third right in the ceiling above those. Aria dovetailed to Kass and informed, "Magical auras from runes near each set of doors, again, and from within the chest near the dragon-thing." She looked a tit suspiciously but it still seemed inert, and thought she considered attacking it, it seemed at this point unlikely to spontaneously attack them - less likely than it was to 'awaken' or attack if attacked, she supposed. Indicating the aura'ed door runes, she asked, "So which way next?"<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>Blink is self-only (which is what Aria was trying to say.) Might be worth glancing trough Kass's spell list descriptions once so that you're more likely to think of tactics where casting a spell on an ally is useful (such as Feather Fall a little earlier, and Invis now); bards are really really good in that area. You've been doing great with Kass but thinking of when and how to use spells on allies is one thing that can add a lot.<br/><br/>To save a post cycle I'll assume she cast DDoor on the three of them...hope you don't mind. One 4th slot instead of two 3rds, less change of damage, and she hasn't used many 1st-4th slots today anyway.<br/><br/><br/>Yep, she could quality for Epic Spellcasting by getting 9th level spells (probably by taking Improved Spell Capacity two more times), in which case I agree a +30 Spellcraft item might be a good idea. (You can also get 10th+ level spells by taking Improved Spell Capacity even more times. These slots are different than epic spell slots, although epic spells act like 10th level spells for spell-level purposes such as DCs and Concentration checks.)<br/><br/><br/>Note that it requires 24 ranks in K(arcana), and the number of spell slots you get = the rank / 10, so you'd want to start putting ranks into K(arcana). (Note that Bardic Knack does not count as having ranks for purposes other than the skill checks themselves, and if it did it still wouldn't be as many as you'd want.)<br/><br/>As a human bard with Int 14 and Nymph's Kiss, Kass as you know gets 10 skill points a level (very nice) and could catch up to max ranks in only 3 levels, which is before you can quality for ES anyway (27th I think, if she takes ISC again at 24th and 26th, or 30th if she prefers to take Battle Dance at 27th). And-or I suppose I'd be fine with you retro-switching some of her ranks, although I don't have a good specific suggestion; she's gotten a lot of use from all her skill choices, actually. Maybe Hide, since Invisibility often supersedes it anyway (they can be used together, but the +40 or +20 bonus to Hide from Invis is more than most other characters/creatures have a hope of seeing through) and you haven't ever come close to using up your 1st-3rd level slots. Or Sense Motive since Aria's is also high, and often having 1 party member with it often suffices.<br/><br/>She might actually want to just put ranks in K(a) going forward anyway - there are some skills like Tumble where many of the use cases have fixed DCs (like 15, 25, 35 for Tumble, and 20, 25, and 30 for Use Magic Device) and so once you can take 1 and make those, you don't gain a lot by increasing them further (i.e. no need to keep at max ranks). On the other hand, b/c of the way Bardic Knack works, it's generally good to do what you did (max ranks in some skills and 0 in others, since up to 1/2 you're just covered by BK anyway, except for things like synergy bonuses at 5 ranks and miscellaneous prereqs for stuff).  If it's an agonizing decision, it's pretty cheap to increase skills with items.<br/><br/><br/>Aria is now taking Rogue levels again. Swashbuckler-20 would be a dead level, Swash has no official epic progression, and with the epic BAB rules, Swash's main advantage over Rogue (full vs 3/4ths BAB) is moot. Also, the rogue special abilities are prereqs for almost all the epic feats which look useful or which she has an path to quality for.<br/><br/>She's probably putting all her ranks into Spot, for a mod is jumping from -1 to 23. Maybe it's all that recent archery and spam of the Sniper's Shot spell...<br/><br/>She's taking Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting at 24th. Which despite the name, actually seems kinda lame - it gives you one more attack over GTWF, and that's at a -15 iterative penalty, so it's actually weaker than the ITWF and GTWF feats, whose 'new' attacks are at -5 and -10. However there aren't many other epic feats the qualifies for yet (they mostly have rogue special abilities as prereqs - in other words in this level range she might be better off having been a single class rogue.)<br/><br/><br/>Initiative Aria 29<br/>Kass 17<br/>Construct 12<br/>Anya 11<br/><br/><br/>Aria: twisted charge east then north<br/>draw kukri and sunblade; cast golem strike (4/5) and full attack statue<br/>mods 39/34/29/24 and 40/35/30 (23 bab 13 dex 1 or 2 weapon -2 twf 2 charge 2 sacred) (sacred is from bracers of murder vs flat footed foes)<br/>mh http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2983409/ (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2983409/)<br/>hit hit hit hit dmg 387 - 4x15 (DR), destroyed<br/><br/>(I believe main- and off-hand attacks jointly go before lower iteratives, i.e. attacks have to go in order of iterative penalties, so with TWF you can do the 1st main- and off- hand attacks in either order but they must go before the 2nd of either. But, since it's easier to roll all of one hand together, and more attacks can only add damage, there's no need to roll more.)<br/><br/>A Aria<br/>K Kass<br/>Y Anya<br/>M mithral statue construct<br/>D gold dragon construct<br/><br/>Oh also - please let me know if you find it un-fun when Aria ends encounters in the same post cycle they begin. Kass usually beats enemy initiative too (and when she doesn't, I can still break the post into 2 anyway so you can react) and I'm always happy for Aria to delay 'til after Kass. When I have Aria go first it's usually just b/c if she does end the encounter it might save a spell slot for Kass (and if an enemy is out of flanking range, it's usually still sneak-attack-able on the first round, b/c a creature is flat-footed before its first turn).<br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: courier;"><br/><br/><br/>                                       X X X X X X X X X X X X<br/>                                       d . . . . . . . . . . d<br/>                                       d . . . . . . . . . . d<br/>                                       d . . . . . . . . . . d<br/>                                       d . . . . . . . . . . d<br/>   1         6          12          18 X . . . . . . . . . . X<br/>24 X X X X X X X X X d d d d X X X X X X . . . . . . . . . . X X X X X X d d d d X X X X X X X X X<br/>   X X X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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