I was just waiting for Jayse to get possessed, kill me and Ushari, and then for Jofram to return in time to see Jayse standing over our lifeless bodies. :-)
*Looks at PM from Justin...
Are you CERTAIN no one was possessed?
Maniacal laughter...:P
: Tries to look clueless :
Bluff circumstance
I was just waiting for Jayse to get possessed, kill me and Ushari, and then for Jofram to return in time to see Jayse standing over our lifeless bodies. :-)
Jofram returns, shame of his retreat apparent on his visage. He suddenly stops, taking in the grisly scene: three fallen comrades, bloody and eviscerated, bones broken and necks twisted at impossible angles. Above their corpses stands the lone monk, unscathed.
Witnessing such a thing, the ranger says the only thing he could, at a time like this. "So they finally pushed you too far, eh? Yeah, I was almost to that point, myself."
Buh.. buh.. but that certainly wouldn't include your favorite gnome would it?!?!?!
The Travelocity guy?
D:
You're gonna make Strae cry.
:-)
FYI - I'll be on a small vacation from Wednesday through next Monday. I probably won't be able to post. So whatever cliff-hanger you are stuck in... you'll be able to fret about it. :p
Well, I've personally hit 10k posts and since I do award such milestones (but not for Ushari :p ) it behooves me to reward my greatness... hm... something fun and enjoyable by all. OH, I know!
All monsters in Isles shall now gain the benefit of the Advanced Template and gain Toughness as a free feat. :D
Enjoy it guys, I've earned it!
(just kidding)
WOO HOO!! MOAR XP!!
Yes... that's the way to see it!
does this mean you're double-dipping the advanced template on everythign now?
Puh-LEEZE! I'm triple-dipping the Advanced template and throwing in a side of the Half-Fiend one.
You guys do fantasy football? I'm losing by .05 points. Seriously, ONE fewer yard by McCoy and I win.
I'm hoping I'll win anyway since I believe I'm owed a stat correction, but that's brutal. And the worst part is that I tried to put in a different tight end (who ended up with 11 more points than the guy I started), but I couldn't make the switch in time for kickoff.
Ahhh!
You guys do fantasy football? I'm losing by .05 points. Seriously, ONE fewer yard by McCoy and I win.
I'm hoping I'll win anyway since I believe I'm owed a stat correction, but that's brutal. And the worst part is that I tried to put in a different tight end (who ended up with 11 more points than the guy I started), but I couldn't make the switch in time for kickoff.
Ahhh!
*Resists the urge to flag this post...barely.
I think Fantasy Football would be cooler if they allowed spell-casting classes.
Foozeball is the devil. Go Rangers.
Yah! Hockey rocks!
Now if only the NHL would get the picture...oh well, there is always college puck.
Wow, hockey fans but not football fans, weird. Are you all Canadian or something? ;-)
Lol. Jofram was talking about the Texas Rangers. I was being obnoxious. I think hockey's pretty cool, but follow more football.
Ah, gotcha. I'm a Cubs fan, so as per usual I've stopped watching baseball for several months.
Well... then you know how I feel as a life-long Cowboys fan.
Whoah! Another Cubs fan? Hey, let's celebrate yet another 100 loss season!
Also, it was nice (bit a bit unexpected) to beat the Cowboys last night, he he.
Unexpected for whom? They are the most reliably unreliable team in the sport.
I certainly wasn't surprised to wake up this morning to a loss.
Whoah! Another Cubs fan? Hey, let's celebrate yet another 100 loss season!
Also, it was nice (bit a bit unexpected) to beat the Cowboys last night, he he.
I thought we had a chance to win, but not like that. Man, 6 picks? Two for touchdowns? Crazy.
I thought we had a chance to win, but not like that. Man, 6 picks? Two for touchdowns? Crazy.
Yeah, I was surprised to say the least. The Bears will go as far as their D will take them. I was watching the Cubs game tho, die hard that I am, he he.
Hmmm...speaking of dying I suspect we will be doing that shortly, unless you and Jayse roll REALLY well. TWO dread wraiths?? OUCH. We have to drop one of them in this round if we have ANY chance of surviving. That will require some HOT die rolling I think.
Ushari is thinking of getting her Spiritual Ally out this round, but heck I think it may already be too late. Any other suggestions for her here?
Well, I'm not a 'fan' of many things. But I do like football and basketball. Although, for basketball, I really only like college play. March Madness cannot be beat for raw excitement. Other than that, I'll go with soccer or rugby.
And, naturally, Olympic Badminton. No, I'm not kidding. :) I used to play.
Any other suggestions for her here?
Not dying would be good. I'm a fan of you guys doing that. :)
Not dying would be good. I'm a fan of you guys doing that. :)
Working on it...:P
I hope he chokes on my soul...
This makes me smile every time I read it. In my mind, it's thought with a train-load of pouting.
Catching up in the game thread, will try to have a post up shortly.
Orin, I hope I didn't just kill us both. :D
It certainly sounded like a fun plan in my head...
Iv'e never ridden a dragon, either.
I just hope the dragon doesn't have an attack that hits us both, otherwise shield other is going to backfire mightily, hehe. Hey, rock, paper, scissors for who Ushari casts Breath of Life on? ;-)
Lol. I think that just means mathmatically we both get hit for full... which isnt' too bad.
Actually, it still means a normalization of damage if one of us were to save out of an attack and the other weren't.
Hmmm... food for thought.
Well, if it hits both of us with a fireball, for example, id take my damage plus half our your damage. If you hit evasion, though, I'd just take mine. I think our best case scenario is if she attacks you and hopefully doesn't do enough damage to kill us both outright. Not sure how that would work with your pp avoidance...
So, I don't know if this would work, but what do u guys think about me hitting he dragon with a (possibly maximized) touch of idiocy? Then Ushari (after delaying) moves over and hits the dragon with the aura? With an effective -5 to will saves, I might be able to hit her with bestow curse 50% chance to act. Thoughts?
Logiclly, the PP avoidance negates damage as an immediate action, so whatever damage wasn't negated would then be split between the two of us.
And i guess my point was this: if she full attacks one of us, then we split the damage... win.
If she does some kind of area attack, and both of us fail our save, we basically just give each other half our damage... which is no worse off than if we didn't have Shield Other up on us.
But if she does some kind of area attack, and one of us saves and the other doesn't (and keep in mind Jayse doesn't actually have Evasion), then the total amount of damage taken would be lowered, so each of us would take .75 of the damage... which is better than the other option.
Like I said, we're still benefitting from damage normalization... which should be a good thing.
Her SR is pretty stout... what's the likelihood of you bypassing it?
Wait... I'm caught back up... the damage transfer is one way. Oof... yah, we need to be careful of Orin's positioning.
Just a comment here... I wouldn't adjudicate your PP points blunting the damage transferred. The spell immediately shunts have the damage to Orin. Your immediate PP expenditure only affects Damage that reaches you. As far as I am concerned the spell triggers first and Jayse never sees that damage and therefore can't short it.
Welp... Jayse can't hit on a 17... you guys have fun trying to kill the big girl. :)
You think that's bad...I need an 18 to beat her SR...I suspect Straehan may need to save the day here.
psh... Strae beat her SR because I cast Fireball as a 10th level caster due to Pyromaniac, Evocation Specialist, and Spell Specialized. That gives me a 15 or better chance. Woot! Every other spell? Yeaaaahhh... not so much.
You guys have enough XP to level up but I'm not a fan of mid-adventure leveling so that isn't going to happen. HOWEVER, with each level you also get a Hero Point - which is a reasonable immediate benefit. So you each gain 1 point. Use them well. :)
Guys, I owe you an explanation and an apology.
First, I'm very sorry for having Straehan step in and make a tactical decision. I try to keep him as a long-term NPC not some all-knowing DMPC. Ben, rightfully, was a little miffed that Strae had knowledge of the Dragon having no Combat Reflexes and failing to disclose that information earlier as it would/could have changed some of your tactical choices. The fault was mine as the DM and not Straehan being an 'all knowing' prick. This is actually the second error I made with the Dragon's abilities. Thankfully, the first one has had NO combat effect on you guys. Anyhow, until late last night, I though the Dragon had Combat Reflexes among the slew of Combat Feats it has. Had I realised earlier that that was a glaring hole in its defenses, then Strae would have conveyed that information earlier. So, I apologize for that. This is not a case of me trying to make the DMPC the 'big hero'.
Second - if intentions matter at all - I had Strae intercede in your tactical choices to try to forestall the team getting rolled. With Dragons in particular, every point of attack or defense counts. Stoneskin will keep your melee masters and thin-skinned characters in the battle.
I suspect most of you guys have limited experience tangling with dragons. That's not a criticism or a surprise - they happen rarely given the effective character level you have to be to fight a 'big one'. Let's step behind the DM screen for a moment to talk about them and an odious meta-game consideration, you should keep in mind...
Dragons are wrecking balls of the worst sort. In a level appropriate encounter (if you buy that system) NO single character can take one without a ridiculous amount of luck. Dragons have too many attacks, too many defenses, and too many innate magic-defying and magic-casting abilities. A well played Dragon is probably one of the most dangerous creatures in the game. This Umbral Dragon is slightly above your characters' pay-grade (in my estimation). Any one of you guys tangling with it alone is going to buy the farm and it will likely be very, very quick. Generally, you want to swarm a Dragon with multiple attackers - for tactical and metagamey reasons. Admittedly, some characters are better at and should stay at a distance. I'm not saying everyone should rush a dragon. But, tactically, you want every advantage you can get - flanking, sneak attacks, lots and lots of hits. Metagamically... you want to give your DM (assuming he isn't trying to kill you) multiple targets for the Dragon's reprisal so he can divvy out the attacks so your characters' live longer. Basically, when you give a DM with a Dragon only one character to reasonably focus the Dragon's attacks on - that character is going to die hard and fast... like dead-in-one-round fast. Now if 'Death by Dragon' is your intention, hey, knock yourself out.
So, since I cocked up some stuff that could have effected your actions, I'm going to rescind a few things. Orin, you have your D-Door back. You can also reconsider your decision to grapple the Dragon - essentially changing your actions. I'm also going to remove the shield spell as a penalty.
Well, the way I see it, if I'm going to get DD back I'm wondering if we should rewind back to that round? I'd prefer not to do that, but it doesn't make sense for me to be on the dragon's back if I didn't use DD, you know?
And maybe I'm reading it wrong, but if the dragon is pinned, doesn't it pretty much have to try to escape on its turn? It can't attack me, right? And if that's the case, I think Straehan should use Haste instead of Stoneskin, and I think Jofram should straight-up full attack that chump.
Of course, if that were the case, then hopefully Jayse would have stayed on the dragon and full attacked too.
I'm not retconning the entire round. I've told you the limits to which I will undo things.
You have some pretty big IFs there. If you are reading through the Umbral Dragon stats and thinking you have the situation in hand, etc... bear in mind Rule #2 HERE
Also, you can only take the +8 to one roll Luck Bonus Hero Point for a declared action before the roll. That works fine in real life but is impractical in a PBP - so the max bonus you get is +4.
Finally, Dragons have no fingers so the convention is that Draconic Magic requires no gestures - it is all verbal... and grapple does not let you stop speech.
I really appreciate the thoughts and post, Stormraven. As for Strae dictating... I know you're very intentional about how you use him, and I'm appreciative of your efforts to make sure he's just a part of the story instead of a glory-hog or something.
To your second point, I appreciate you trying to help us out. We made our pre-buff decisions, and we couldnt' help the fact that we all bombed our fort saves. So really the problem is that we were just stuck ni a situation where we were temporarily at the mercy of the dragon, and Strae's effort to draw off the girl to give us a round -- whlie much appreciated -- meant that Jayse had to decide to finish buffing with the group and leave Strae to die or scatter the group to give Strae a shot. Obviously, it's a no-brainer for Jayse. He's willign to walk away from most fights if he doens't think they can win; he's not willing to walk away from his friends in dire straits. And yes, my decision to ask Orin's help was definitely predicated on my thinking it was highly likely that the dragon had Combat Reflexes (all the big baddies in yoru games seem to :D ). Had I known she only had 1 per round, I'd have busted her hard with a single, charging, invisible attack... which would have hit, I'm guessing.
As for us not knowing about Combat Reflexes until Strae told us... eh... it happens. The DM has to juggle a lot of thigns at any given time. Details are bound to slip by. I was frustrated, but honestly, my general frustration is just really high right now -- and it has nothing to do with the game. I'm just in a frustrating place in life right now. Not anyone's fault in here, certainly.
All that being said...
Well, the way I see it, if I'm going to get DD back I'm wondering if we should rewind back to that round? I'd prefer not to do that, but it doesn't make sense for me to be on the dragon's back if I didn't use DD, you know?
And maybe I'm reading it wrong, but if the dragon is pinned, doesn't it pretty much have to try to escape on its turn? It can't attack me, right? And if that's the case, I think Straehan should use Haste instead of Stoneskin, and I think Jofram should straight-up full attack that chump.
Of course, if that were the case, then hopefully Jayse would have stayed on the dragon and full attacked too.
Or we could just 'keep on keepin on', as it were. We're in a tough spot, but I don't think we're rolled yet. I like to avoid retcons when possible. And with better tactics, we may be able to swin this thing.
If we can get Stoneskin + Haste up and running, that'll make surviving the rounds necessary to set up flanks and get some full attacks in possible.
It'll take everyone working together, but I still think we're in a decent place. Not ideal, but not a forgone loss.
My suggestion is we roll on 'as is'. Orin can stick with his current action or choose another. The real problemis that we don't know if your grapple (while the rolls are good) will actually stick. If they don't, you're about to eat a full attack by yourself... which I can't see you surviving.
If you do win the grapple > pin, then at the very least, you've bought Straehan an extra round to et us Stoneskin and Haste. Though you won't get Stoneskin and you'll need to find a way to safely bug out ASAP while we figure out how to gang-bang this big girl.
My thoughts on the fight moving forward:
First, accuracy over power on all attacks. Stop using power attack or deadly aim unless you know you have a good chance at a hit somehow.
Second, Jofram is best used at range, but let's see fi we can clear his firing lane… so let's be careful with our positioning when we can.
Third, we need to get Orin and Jayse as defensively buffed as we quickly can, and then these two need to get into flanking positions. Skitter would be a great addition here, though he(she?) has to be able to hit the dragon to set up a flank, doesn't he?
Fourth, if Jayse and Orin stay (mostly) land bound when fighting her (or at least attempt to flank her from a single horizontal plane), can Strae position his fireballs to only roast the dragon? I would think so, but i'm a little unclear.
Fifth, Ushari needs to be able to position herself to catch all melee'ers in her Channels. Is the dragon hurt by the Channels?
Thoughts, concerns, questions, additional ideas?