The battle continues as Alizar attempts to move past his foe. He's blocked as the skeletons warrior instincts prove to be his match and finds himself stopped as he is narrowly missed by it's blade. Senmont nimbly moves away from his opponents, missing a strike against one of the skeletons, they move in and press their advantage of numbers but only one hits, the jagged blade cutting through a bit of the warriors armor. Anwyllia soon finds her arrows don't hurt the skeletons as much as she'd like though she does take a good chunk out of one regardless. Lianth misses as two skeletions enter into melee with her and rourke, the wolf defends her taking a hit from a claw meant for her and countering by biting the creature.
Round 2 Summary
Alizar is interrupted in his tumble but manages to avoid getting hit.
Senmont attacks skeleton 2 and misses.
Lianth attempts to shoot an arrow at another skeleton but musses.
Anwyllia hits the skeleton 6 and hits for 5 damage.
Skeleton 1 and 2 reposition to better hit Senmonth but miss.
Skeleton 3 moves forward and hits Senmont for 4 damage with it's blade.
Skeleton 4 and 5 advance on Rourke and Lianth. One missing Lianth the other hitting the wolf for 2 damage.
Skeleton 6 misses Alizar
Rourke bites skeleton 4 for 4 damage.
Round 3 Initiative:
Alizar (4/9): 21
Senmont (13/13): 14
Lianth (10/10): 11
Anwyllia (12/12): 10
Skeletions x6: 9
Alizar moves one square up and fires on the skeleton in front. Attack
Damage
Annwyllia tries again to down the skeleton attacking Alizar :
The battle continues as Alizar moves back against the nearby wall and fires once more at the undead thing. Anwyllia fires at it twice, one arrow missing it while the other hits and lodges inside the things ribcage but apparently does no damage to it. Lianth and Rourke manage to take down the skeleton before them with a combination of slashing claws, gnashing teeth, and a well aimed arrow though a moment later another steps in to take it's place striking the wolf, it's claw like bones raking through fur and flesh. Senmont finds himself ducking through the crowd of skeletons and climbing up the nearby stairs to gain the advantage of higher ground and keep all three of them from following him directly. Still, one manages to cut through an opening in his armor and into his flesh, apparently it was only a matter of time. Meanwhile from outside a gruff dwarven voice calls out "Blast it, will someone tell me what's... never mind, get outta the way whelp!" followed by a yelp from the spindly cowardly wizards apprentice.
Round 3 Summary
Alizar moves 5ft back and fires at skeleton 4, missing.
Senmont tumbles through the enemy and moves up on the landing getting a +1 elevation bonus to attack.
Lianth and Rourke attack skeleton 5 hitting for a total of 6 damage (after DR)
Anwyllia fires twice at skeleton 4 missing the first time and hitting the second though it doesn't seem to register the damage.
Skeleton 6 takes a 5ft step and attacks Rourke, and hits for three.
Skeleton 4 advances on Alizar and attacks, missing (this one is damaged from earlier)
Skeleton 3 advances on Senmont and attacks, missing.
Skeleton 2 advances on Senmont and attacks, hitting for 3 damage.
Skeleton 1 waits for an opening.
Round 4 Initiative:
Alizar (4/9): 21
Senmont (10/13): 14
Lianth (10/10): 11
Rourke (10/13): 11
Anwyllia (12/12): 10
Skeletions x5: 9
|
Unfamiliar with the nature of the undead, and rattled by their macabre appearance and unnatural presence, Lianth fails to realize how ineffective her arrows are going to be, even if they find a mark, and continues firing, while attempting again to 'push' Roarke into more aggressively fighting these abominations, and not merely reacting to their attacks upon her person.
For his part, Roarke is having none of it.
Annwyllia tries again and again to down the skeleton attacking Alizar :
Knowing he can do little to undead, and can't affect the environment to their advantage, Alizar will take a 5 ft step back and fire the longbow again.
Celestial
Attack
Damage
"Perhaps we should retreat, see if they can leave the crypt. If they follow, we can pick them off at our leisure and use the terrain."
Alizar tries to move back but finds himself up against a wall, with a ledge to his right and a more exposed area to his left he has little choice but to fire straight at the thing. He pulled his bowstring back just as the creature lunges at him, he manages to avoid a vicious cut by using his bow to block the downward swing of the skeletons forearm but in the process his string comes loose. A quick glance reveals it wasn't broken and could be restrung if he takes a moment to do so. Senmont gets used to the motions of battle, this isn't some training dummy or sparring partner, but dead warriors who fought and killed in life, getting this set in his mind he manages to push a skeletons blade wide enough to bring his hammer down on its skull with a crunch. Anwyllia seems to fair poorly as well, one arrow missing completely and shattering against a wall and another getting lodged in one skeletons partially exposed ribs.
Lianth and Rourke continue to have poor luck with their foes. The Witch of Mist Lake continues to fire her arrows hitting the skeleton fighting her companion but doing virtually no damage whatsoever. Rourke has little more luck trying to bite the thing but his jaws snap down only on air. This exposes him to it's retaliation and dirty claws once again cut into the wolfs fur and flesh.
Just then a gruff voice cries out "Dammitall! Let me through!" and Drosk shoves his way past Lianth and Anwyllia letting out a cry as radiant light bursts forth from the dwarf visibly searing the bones of the skeletons weakening them considerably and dropping the one that was harrying Alizar. "They can't take much more! Stand fast!" the dwarf calls out.
Round 4 Summary
Alizar: rolls a nat one and loses his bow string. (It's not broken, it'll just take a standard action to re-string it)
Senmont: attacks a skeleton with his hammer felling it.
Lianth: fires an arrow and hits one of the skeletons, it doesn't react.
Rourke: attacks skeleton 6 and misses.
Anwyllia: fires off two shots and misses both times.
Skeleton 1: steps forward and attacks Senmont, missing.
Skeleton 2: Is smashed.
Skeleton 3: Steps forward and attacks Senmont, missing.
Skeleton 4: Advances on Alizar but misses.
Skeleton 6: Strikes Rourke for another 3 damage.
Drosk: Channels energy for 4 damage dropping skeleton 4 though the rest are still standing!
Map
Round 5 Initiative:
Alizar (4/9): 21
Senmont (7/13): 14
Lianth (10/10): 11
Rourke (10/13): 11
Anwyllia (12/12): 10
Skeletions x3: 9
Drosk: Last
Alizar takes a 5 ft step up, and re-strings the bow while grinding the remnants of the skeleton beneath his boot heel. He is in line with skeleton 6 now.
Annwyllia fires at skeleton n°1 :
Alizar calmly restrings his bow and steps forward taking aim at the skeleton that had been threatening Rourke and soon Lianth. Thankfully he has little to worry about as Senmont leaps to Lianths rescue smashing his hammer into the skeleton turning those old bones into so much kindling. Lianth, protective of her companion, pushes him to the side and gets ready for one of the other skeletons to advance while Anwyllia's arrows crack against one of the pillars, missing once more.
The two skeletons that had been ganging up on Senmont split off now, one advancing on the cleric with a vengeance though it's broken blade and bony claws are unable to get through the dwarfs armor and the dwarf repays the bones by giving them the same treatment Senmont had given his a moment prior. Meanwhile the other skeleton advances along the ledge and uses the advantage of height to strike at the warrior cutting into him with that broken weapon.
Round 5 Summary
Alizar: restrings his bow and takes a 5ft step forward.
Senmont: leaps to Lianths rescue and smashes skeleton 6 to kindling
Lianth: Switches places with Rourke and goes on the defensive.
Rourke: Switches places with Lianth
Anwyllia: Fires her bow and misses twice.
Skeleton 1: Advances on Drosk and attacks, missing.
Skeleton 3: Moves behind Senmont and hits for 3 damage.
Skeleton 6: Goes down!
Drosk: Lays into skeleton 1 and smashes it to bits!
Round 6 Initiative:
Alizar (4/9): 21
Senmont (4/13): 14
Lianth (10/10): 11
Rourke (10/13): 11
Anwyllia (12/12): 10
Skeletions: 9
Drosk: Last
Attack
Damage
Seeing there is only one skeleton left and the fact her arrows are nearly useless , Anwyllia stops firing
Alizar takes aim and upon finding an opening he lets loose his arrow shooting over Senmont and with enough force to sever the spinal column, weakened from the earlier burst of positive energy, right below the sternum causing the final skeleton to fall into a pile of bones and dust. After the echoes of it's fall clears the chamber is eerily silent.
Anwyllia begins to retrieve arrows that were not broken (not that if some are not her own's, she will still gather them.
"That was quite the debacle. Perhaps we should re-evaluate our tactics, we now know what can be expected. The walking dead live up to their reputation, irony."
Alizar looks around the area for arrows, and other items of interest, actively searching for secret doors.
Alizar is unable to find any secret doors but he does recover four arrows and Anwyllia seven. There are doors in the Northwest and Southeast walls of the chamber and it's during this moment of calm that a mournful wailing is heard echoing throughout the chambers, Anwyllia and Alizars keen ears pick up that it seems to be more audible through the eastern door. While everyone is deciding what to do next Drosk mutters a prayer to his god and another pulse of energy flows through the room mending hurts.
"Moans from the east passage, anyone decipher them?"
[celestial
Alizar moves to the doorway where the moans are located, search check on door for traps, etc. If all clear, stealth check to open door silently
Before the above occurs, "I'm checking the door and corridor, please be silent."
The door is quite heavy, so much so that it requires Alizar to give it a couple of shoves before he finally manages to open it. Careful to be quiet he catches the door before it swings open and slams against the wall but the initial noise was still made though was quiet enough that unless someone was directly on the other side no one should have heard it if they weren't listening for it.
There are no lights within but when a torch is brought a little closer Alizar is able to see into the room a little bit better. This large chamber contains a maze of pillars that obscure the far side of the room. Next to the door is a pile of empty saddlebags and three brooms.
Annwylia looks a little surprised then amused by Alizar's demand
Alizar will check the next room
Stealth
Search
Yes, I check all squares as I go, taking 20 if able, rolling when needed.
The reasoning is time is saved, if people are away then you know what they're going to do. If I need to roll a search check for a certain area, that's fine, just tell me the squares covered by each check and it will be done.
Perception
As for exploration, give me a rough idea where you want to go and a perception roll. With this Maptool stuff updating should prove a lot easier.
Also, if everyone can tell me what sort of light sources they have active or will make active now that you're heading into the darker depths of the crypt. It could prove important.
Alizar moves forward cautiously keeping an eye out for any dangers that may be hidden and thus far finding nothing. Looking south he notices a switch in an alcove of the wall.
On a more serious note. I know this game is sluggish and I know people have left leaving us with just three players. I also haven't been the best GM to say the very least. That said, I want to know how everyone feels about the game. Shall we continue and try and salvage, or shall we scrap it?
If you want to scrap it I understand.
If you want to keep it going then I have a few options that might improve things a little.
Normally I run games on a website called RPOL.net, it's designed specifically for play-by-post games as opposed to being a forum that has play-by-post support like Paizo here. I'm not sure what it is about the medium but my posts tend to be longer and more involved when running games on RPOL, possibly due to having more control over the sight itself.
Now, we could transfer the game over where getting a couple new players to join would be fairly easy even though it might require a little ret-con. Nothing else would really change and we'd start where we've left off.
Another option is to abandon this game and bring you guys into one of the games I have over there. I've got four pathfinder games going on over there. One being the Darkmoon Vale series of modules, one being the Crypt of the Everflame series of modules, and two AP's (King Maker and Serpents Skull). I don't think any of them are in such a state that that I can add all three of you but including any one or maybe two of you in on one of those would be easily done (The Crypt of the Everflame is a little behind this one but moving faster).
And still another option is to keep things going here. I'm open to whatever you guys feel is necessary. So let me know what you think, either e-mail me, post here, or mention it on the google-groups discussion or dig up the discussion thread and post there.
|
While I'd love to get into a Kingmaker or Serpent's Skull game, I'm really not up to play games on this site and RPOL. I prefer being able to keep all my gaming on one site (or else I'd probably be over there, playing vampire, and at the Atomic Think Tank, playing Mutants & Masterminds, and at ENWorld, etc...).
Thanks for the offer, 'though! (Your Kingmaker, from the OC chat, also seems to have gotten quite a bit further than the one I'm currently in, and I wouldn't want to spoil myself!)
As for Crypt, we did pretty much lose steam, and I blame myself as much as anything else for not keeping it stoked. I'm playing a fairly subdued character, and that isn't really keeping it lively...
I agree with Robin, continuing with three seems impractical at best so either I attempt to bring in more players and we retcon them in or we kill the game.
My preference would be for a change in venue. Maybe it's just because I'm more comfortable with RPOL. The site is designed for PbP games so there is code that allows you to see which of your games have updates, they have private messaging, more BBCode support, private lines (i.e. allowing a post to include lines visible to all players as well as lines visible only to select players) and all in all I think it's one of the best places for a play by post game.
While I'm not keen on the paizo boards and their comparatively limited support for PBP games (though they give more support than some sites allowing aliases and the like) I will continue here if that's what people prefer, the question would be *how* to continue.
Set, the Kingmaker game suffered the same setback this game did when I took up a full time job and began acting in a play. That and there are two adventure path games in one there. Kingmaker is finishing up the battle at Oleg's.
My Crypt of the Everflame game is only a little behind ours. The battle with the illusory orcs has occurred,I skipped the wolves (or I might be saving them for later) though they were spotted, the group found the body by the lake, the PC's have come to the ravine and are making their way down at present. I imagine they'll enter the crypt and have their encounter with the skeletons before the week is out.
So we can call this game done and I can work to transfer those interested over to the RPOL game (I'll be giving the players there a heads up and there may need to be a slight tweaking of backgrounds for those PC's connected to the same mentor) or one of my other campaigns.
Or
We can continue here as is.
Or
We can attempt to do a soft re-set, try and bring a new player or two into the game and either Ret-Con them into the adventure or have you guys stumble upon them while exploring the crypt.