Devil-spawn and Demon-taint: A Fiendish Take on Skull & Shackles
Game Master Mark Sweetman

Deader - for the sake of the coming discussion, please assume that 1HP of non-lethal has faded away.

Alright.

I'd just like to ask Cedrick if I can borrow his dice next time I need to roll some social skills. Since the start of the campaign he's rolled the following (most recent first):

19, 16, 19, 15, 20, 17, 12, 18, 8, 19, 15, 19, 15, 14, 16, 17, 20, 8

Eighteen attempts - lowest roll is 8, average roll is 15.9

Sure mate 1d20 ⇒ 20

Still laughing 15 mins later :p

Social check 1d20 ⇒ 14 - ok below average...

*Conspires with the DM to murder Cedrick for his dice* The singing contest will be mine!

Why are people so unkind?

1d20 ⇒ 3

/looks like Pez gonna kill me.

Excellent. You failed your saving throw against my sleep spell! Should anyone question my stand over your comatose body, I will explain that I am looking for 'dice'. Sound perfectly reasonable.

I'm going to regret not having that 20 sitting about for the good Captain Harrigan now... just remember, if I get a 3 with him there's gonna be a few of us making a LOT of saving throws I'm guessing!

Check check 1d20 ⇒ 1

Wow...

Yes! I have succeeded! 1d20 ⇒ 10 Hmm. Guess not.

Yes! I have succeeded! 1d20 Hmm. Guess not.

Much better than Cedrick. You almost proved the law of averages in one roll. Cedrick has failed miserably at this over nearly 20 rolls.

Morning check - 1d20 ⇒ 18

Seems to be working again.

Well, better you than the DM. Imagine Scourge and Plugg with those rolls. *Shudder*

We'd be toast.

May still happen yet!

1d20 ⇒ 8

/boom - like that :p

Cedrick - I also had a wide smile after you jagged the 20 in here ;)

Obisyth - feel free to post rules questions like that in here so I can answer free of the main thread.

No issues with you leaving a spell slot open if you wish to... and I suppose you 'could' use it as a power source for a spontaneous summon spell. I don't see anything too harmful there.

OOC discussion taken to OOC...

I am firmly in the camp of not liking a roll of 1 being an automatic failure for a skill, nor a 20 being an automatic success. It essentially means that no matter how good you are, you have a 5% chance of failure and no matter how bad - you still have a 5% chance of success.

I can accept it in combat for attack rolls - as long as it is merely auto-hit or auto-miss.

But that is me.

That 5%/5% thing gets me too... seems odd that the chance of doing something terrabad would happen so often.

Just in case Fish checks here before the game thread - you've a spoiler to respond to ;)

Shifty - aye, one of the issues with a d20 system is that despite the elegant simplicity you're limited to a 5% granularity (assuming you don't want to go into re-rolls).

On it.

And thus beginneth the long awaited ship on ship battle. Cedrick's little friend will be awaiting him once this fight is concluded.

Obisyth - feel free to have Shadow swoop in and join the fight if you wish.

I think that Shadow will stay out. You have to remember that he is a familiar and not an animal companion. So, not that great at combat.

Thanks for the offer though.

A question on tripping with a whip and weapon finesse. Do you replace the strength bonus to CMB with Dex or do you still use strength?

My understanding is that Weapon Finesse also works with combat maneuvers with said weapon.

I think there might be something someplace that indicates that when they say "attack rolls" it also applies to "CMB checks." I just could not remember where.

Think of it like squares and rectangles. A CMB check is a type of attack roll, but an attack roll is not necessarily a CMB check.

That explains it perfectly, thanks!

Agreed that it's a reasonable extension for Weapon Finesse to apply to CMB rolls that specifically use the whip for their execution.

Will have an update tonight when I'm home and have my map afore me.

That sounds fine. I'll skip this round and show up *after* you guys suck up the crossbow bolts. :)

Heading away in the am for some relaxing chill time - may or may not have internetz... so just posting last posts for the night, back in about 36 or so hours guys!

Watch out for those Aussie girls on the beaches Shifty.

And keep an eye out for dropbears.

Weekend being weekend henceforth the lackage of postage.

DM VoV will be flying out of Malaysia and back into Australia on 28th September and will be visiting family for a couple of weeks through to the 15th of October. While I should still be able to check in periodically it will likely cause a few interruptions and my posts may involve a little more brevity than usual.

I'll definitely try to keep things ticking over in thread, but it's highly unlikely to be daily.

It's all good.

No worries, we'll be ready when you are.

I haven't been getting game updates in a few of my games. I'm trying to make a point to check games even when they aren't showing updates, but if things are moving along and I seem strangely absent, please send me a PM.

That's a pretty good suggestion Deader. I didn't get the dot when you made that update. Seems to be a worse issue these days than it once was.

I think it's a good idea to start checking both threads in every game you're in about once a week whether they seem to be updating or not.

Turns out I'd lost updates in four games.

Yeh - I lost them in two I think.

Poke - we gonna take this ship?

Ouch! - update will be incoming in a bit. (and was incoming despite poky death being administered :P)

Waiting to see if that axe hits the bad guy...

Now whilst it doesn't make sense to throw your best weapon away, I thought it seemed really conematic and totally cool... besides theres plenty of replacement weapons lying about until I can retrieve it.

At Nachni's warding words Cedrick spins quickly to deliver an axe to the creeping sailor's hip.

Your dot may not have shown up - but game thread is updated with a successful strike. The axe won't be gone forever, you can recover it at the end of combat.

Yeh - the gameplay is not dotting for me, but the OOC is.

I missed the update also, just noticed in the the online campaign side bar, might not be a bad idea to send out a message to everybody letting them know we've started again.

I'll toss out an update tonight to anyone who hasn't posted back in the main thread.

The List!

Bloody skeleton is an alternate. It seemed like the most fitting things, so I just went with it. Sorry for not asking. It didn't occur to me at the time.

My fault for not scrolling all the way down. I checked the link, just didn't see the alternates right down at the bottom.

Bloodied bones are fine by me.

Great, thanks. I thought it was appropriate.

I'm back. At a corporate retreat and then a con this weekend, so my posting may be a little slow until next week.

Well done one and all - I apologize for the combat taking a literal age, but you've come through with flying colours. Try as I might I couldn't even drop one of you.

Cedrick will be especially happy... as he shall soon be united with a major part of his class archetype ;)