Age of Worms

Game Master Lazyclownfish

Assuming you guys survive this, is the plan to go to the abandoned mining office where you stashed your gear to recover?

Decide if you want to go back to town at some point also.

Pythia would prefer the mining office over the town.

Due to an incredibly busy weekend filled with a Christmas celebration, two birthday parties, and many hospital visits, I will be unable to post from December the 16th through till December the 18th. My posting should resume as normal on Tuesday the 19th. Apologies if this slows down the game. Feel free to bot me as needed.

Thanks for understanding, and have a great weekend, guys.

Movie tonight then I'll post late.

Seconding the mining office over the town.

Time to level up. Let's see, I'll make the following important decisions: uh...yeah.

More importantly, I've noticed that I neglected human's racial bonus of +1 skill point per level.

I like how it's only level 2 and the toolbox wizard is already central to your plans. Usually it takes a lot longer.

The situation is pretty ideal for Cerise's abilities.

Cerise isn't even a very good toolbox. Necromancers offer a lot less utility than normal until 5th level.

I don't mind taking things slow before jumping back into the action, especially with Pythia out for the weekend.

I'll write up the post assuming you're going to go back into the tomb and, barring any interference from swarms, investigate the new hole in the floor.

You could also turn the sarcophagus some more, but it only goes clockwise, so you'd have to go all the way around to get the elevator back to the brown mold. Also, this probably won't do anything about the hole.

I'll wait to actually post it until Tuesday unless you guys want me to push. We can interact back and forth at the mining office if you want.

I'd definitely appreciate any open planning to help me decide which path to write about.

That's fine, no big rush as long as we all know there's no big rush.

To help LCF prepare, what are our specific plans?
First, I'm assuming we try to track down the swarm and destroy it.
Second: Since it's open, we should probably drop a Light coin down the exposed entrance, but I don't think we're planning on climbing down there yet.
Third: Do we attempt to twist the sarcophagus back to the initial setting? I would normally do that, though I'm worried the mechanism won't survive another round trip for the dials.

Hey, guys. Happy to be back.

I agree we should track down the swarm and take care of it. Also agree with tossing a light stone down the pit (don't wast good coin, Kael! We're poor! (or we were...)).

I don't want to twist the sarcophagus back to its original setting. I'd like to investigate the open hole (or leave it if the others want to skip it) then continue moving the sarcophagus one space over at a time, and investigating whatever each turn reveals. Eventually we'll get back to the original one and we can go talk care of the mold and finish down there.

Further thoughts?

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Also, advanced warning:

I'll be unavailable to post from December 22nd through to December 26th due to the holidays. I might be able to fit in a post here or there during that time, but I'm not sure. Holidays are busy around here. Posting should resume as normal by the 27th (or the 28th at the latest).

Proceeding with a hunt for the swarm followed by a light stone dropped in the pit. ETA 30 minutes :)

And no worries about the holidays. I figure a lot of games probably slow down during that time.

I agree with Pythia about the sarcophagus. We should fully explore the one we cannot close before moving on. And we can't skip the others to get back to the brown mold. It'll be there once we've gone round.

Agreed.

Cured meat or trail rations are unlikely to appeal to these beetles, fyi.

I have the next few days off so I should be pretty quick to respond once we get a plan of action.

So you guys are climbing down? As a group? (assuming it's safe to do so)

Or is someone scouting ahead?

We'll start by dropping meat, and then if that doesn't work I'll suggest that we take a look at the wolf den before climbing down.

Agreed, Percival.

Okay, definitely let me know a more specific plan for the wolf den. Are you checking it for swarms with your face?

Cerise, can I make the assumption that you cast a 4d4(or 5d4?) burning hands on any swarm you come across? It seems tedious to start a combat up with something you very likely kill with a spell.

That's the plan, yeah.

I've never seen a game that had a good reason to send the wizard in first. This is interesting.

I found a way to set the Roll20 link at the top of the page to go directly to the tabletop, assuming you're logged into roll20.

I put is into a formation as pictured here. I like this formation for 2*2 areas. Anything attacking has to approach through my reach weapon and provoke an AoO. Multiple creatures can't attack in groups of more than two at once, because me and Kael are on even ground. On round 1, Percival can step back into the empty square and Chaetris can take his place. This way we get maximum reach weapon goodness. An enemy with 5' reach has to provoke to close to distance, and once they have they are within the reach of three characters at once instead of two.

I think Chaetris is better suited to this role than Pythia, is that correct?

I can't see any picture. lol. Do I have to make an account just to view it?

The link is just messed up. He'll have to update it.

I think Pythia is actually your better bet for what you're describing. She's tougher.

Pythia likes to be in the middle of things, but she's quite wounded right now, and Chaetris can damage the swarm (which I can't), so I'm fine with it as set up on roll20 for now. Maybe once the swarm's dealt with Pythia can swap places with Chaetris.

Does Chaetris even want to close to melee? Or does she prefer ranged?

Oh, actually, I just realized HOW wounded I am. Haha. Pythia would have healed herself earlier, before returning to the cairn, FYI. Rolling it now in the gameplay thread.

Looks like I copied the wrong link, this is what I wanted.

Anyway, my guess is the two of you can switch off between that role. I'll let you decide who is the default.

Life is crazy right now. I'll tag along with the plan you have.

I'll post tonight with you going toward the skittering. I'm out most of the day though.

I know that the abstraction of combat rounds is supposed to represent a 6 second chunk of time where everything is happening more or less at once. In this case the mechanisms are a bit at odds with what I'm hoping for.

What I want to happen is for everyone to move back, then on the enemies turn, Cerise will wait until the first swarm is right in front of her before casting. Normally, the next swarm would not have moved yet so the only way I can think to make it work is to wait for the first swarm to move and hope that I'm right about their movement speed (I think that's what the blue auras are).

Crossing my fingers.

That is what the auras are for.

Edit: I moved Cerise forward one square. Because of the wall, the swarm can't move as far as it looks like.

Thank you.

I placed the blast cone. It looks like it will catch all of them, but I want to be sure.

Hmm... that blast cone isn't as effective as I thought. I substituted the hand-drawn one. You can see that angle will miss one swarm.

I was afraid of that. That's why I wanted to check.

Move the entire cone north one space. I'll ignore the beetle to catch the two swarms.

Wait! I got it!

I'm using the wrong cone shape. I need to be using The other one.

Can you give me that template? I think you can probably guess how I'm going to put it.

I adjusted both cones to where I think Chaetris and Cerise cast their spells. Yellow for Cerise, Orange for Chaetris. It looks like both of you are able to hit all enemies, though Cerise risks provoking an attack of opportunity for casting in range of the giant beetle.

Hmmm. I'm going to wait on the results of Chaetris and Cerise's spells before posting my actions.

I'm hoping I got the beetle before Cerise had to cast, I'm guessing I did, in which case no AoO for it.

Also, which way is Cerise running?

East.

East is into the room. I know it's confusing. I'll try to orient maps with north as up next time. North is down. I moved the compass into the room you're in. It's bright green.

And sorry for the delay. Been busy today.

If it's Hanukah or Kwanzaa
Solstice, Harvest or December Twenty-Fifth:
Peace on Earth to everyone
And abundance to everyone you're with!

No post until late today, but I'd like to hear from everyone in case others want to go with Pythia. Lol

I've got a +5 swim bonus! In armor!

Definitely going to be following Pythia.

Kael, you could definitely walk on the bottom in your armor, though it's probably slow. I'll look up the specific rules tonight for it.

Is it like a tunnel full of water? If so, you'd be able to crawl using the walls as handholds.

It's a staircase into a room, both full to the top with water.

Does that give some sort of bonus to the swim check, or make the DC pretty easy? Crawling around on all fours isn't hard when underwater, after all.