Éothain, not that you are metagaming, but I have completely dispensed with the idea of the Gibbet King for this adventure, in case you are looking for him.
ok. Wasn't meta-gaming. Honestly thought that the big guy wouldn't be in the bowels with the slaves. Like Saruman.
You can go find Sauron if you like. Either way were just about to the end of this.
Ok. Ominous
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My suggestion is that we retreat and try to go out the way we came.
Or, we just back up. There's only hallway leading from where we are to where we came from the stairs. With the bottleneck, their numbers will mean nothing.
Or, I guess the third option is that we barricade ourselves here, and the melee fighters hold off the wave while the ranged people take shots at the Big Bad?
Maybe bottleneck the stairs. Try to get the slaves to revolt while we occupy the overseers.
The Alderman is 180 feet away, so i think we have Disadvantage even with the longbows because of range. If we can get a barricade 30 feet closer, then there's a better chance with the bows. Unless he foolishly moves closer or we can somehow draw him to us without having a hundred orcs in between.
But rather than defensive, we could go all offense. Charge the alderman, hopefully rally the slaves as we go. Perhaps if we reach and kill the betraying alderman we slay whatever is creating the dream, escape the trap and rescue the elf. It feels like no matter what, as long as we are in this dream world, we get overwhelmed eventually by orcs just because of sheer numbers since there are likely thousands in the fortress, so why not go out in a blaze of glory. It is after all a good day to die. :)
But really either way is okay by me.
Just catching up here.
Blaze of glory works for me!
A descriptive plan would help with the narrative. Bottlenecking the stairs with tables and chairs seems like a good way to gain advantage against orcs trying to come up the stairs. SImilarly, you can cut down orcs trying to climb up the balcony. Either way, you're going to have to go through them to get to the Alderman. One way is likely faster than the other. Don't forget that two of you are wearing orc armor, which might confuse the slaves if you get them to turn on the orc guards.
As for inciting the slaves, do you have an idea how that will happen, or is it the expectation of the group that demonstrating you are there to fight should be enough. It might...
To reiterate, the work you put into a plan here will improve your chances of success. At least tell me who is where on the map, e.g. archers shooting orcs in the stairwells while melee attack at the belacony, vice versa, or something completely different. Anything helps.
Oof, sorry that I haven't really been keeping up with discussion side of things (and will likely continue to be spotty with engagement, since school's on again ~ for me).
Do we have a consensus on blaze of glory, or do we want to try and push down the stairs in increments, carrying at least part of the barricade as we go?
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Mmmmrmph. Now that I think about it, I'd rather us stay where we are, and use our advantage in melee to give the archers more time with disadvantage, than go forward.
If we rush, I fear we'd just be surrounded and cut down in quick order.
Also, if we're barricaded, we can keep shouting and carrying on, hoping to inspire the slaves for longer. If we just rush in it'll be a great cluster and they can't see how awesome we are. ^_^
Makes sense to me. Staying and fighting from the barricade it is.
Great. To make clear, the orcs are likely perfectly capable of climbing the wall up to the balcony, so you may want a melee person there as well.
Now each of you tell me where you are on the map - north or south stairwell or at the balcony - and then roll your first attack at the same time. Archers tell me who you are targeting.
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I learned a neat trick in another game. When you roll the same skill twice in a row, like you'll be doing for these 10 attack rolls with Advantage, instead of doing this:
dice=Attack]1d20+3[/dice
dice=Advantage Attack]1d20+3[/dice
you can instead do this:
dice=Attack+Advantage]1d20+3;1d20+3[/dice
Using the semi-colon results in:
Also, I do have a target kill number, so it's very possible to fail this sequence. Happy Hunting!
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500 XP Bonus to Amalina for putting her rolls in Spoiler tags and summarizing.
This sequence with the orcs has gotten a little stale. They can't hit you because of the Daylight spell so it's only a matter of time. I think it would be just about over if Thorgrim was active but Atlas is allocating his time to another game he's kicking off, so we may have lost him. In consideration of that, I have been saving in my back pocket a character from your recent past to return and help speed things along so we can get to the boss battle and close this adventure out.
I wouldn't object to wrapping this fight up sooner.
Sounds good to me.
I appreciate everyone's sticktoitiveness and hope the juice has been worth the squeeze, but there's time for that later. It seems unlikely that Amalina will get to Eothain to heal him, so this may be just an exercise of the archers doing their thing from range and Findegil working inside the ropes in melee. This is the last boss, and he does not have a s~+# ton of HP. We should be able to wrap this adventure up pretty quickly now.
Huzzah!
We are wrapping up. Hold posts until I say go.
Understood. This is an enjoyable read!
Ok players, you are up! Ask the Council anything you wish.
Excellent atmospheric description, DM!
If I roll a two for my new HP, may I reroll or take the default HP progression? No worries if not.
Also, does anyone have recommendations for what I should do with my Character Improvement? I'll choose something, but I'm not the most tactically-minded player, so I'd welcome suggestions from people who do more theorycrafting!
You may always take the default even after you roll.
This seems like as good a time as any to check everyone's pulse. Do you all want to continue to adventure? Are you satisfied with how things are going? We do have another player waiting in the wings to fill Thorgrim's spot.
Assuming we continue with 5 players, I'll be transitioning to written material. This has been a lot of fun but also too much work! I haven't read it completely through yet, and the timelines don't sync up precisely, but I think we can move into the Eriador Adventures, and it will feel like a natural continuation of the adventure we just completed.
Please let me know now if you intend to drop out for any reason, or confirm your desire to continue adventuring in Middle-Earth! I think we could lose one player and still move ahead. In that event I would likely include Hobwise as a NPC. But if two or more of you are out then this is the end of the road.
I'm still in. I'll try to get leveled up over the weekend if we're going to continue.
I'm enjoying the game, and fully intend to continue as long as we have enough other people to carry the game! However, I'm not going to get any less busy in the near future, so I probably won't be posting more /thoroughly/ than I have been.
GM: Quick question, I'm assuming we will get one Fellowship Phase at this point, but just want to confirm.
I want to continue adventuring in Middle-Earth, but we continue to bump into posting expectations.
The most recent is my abbreviation of Eothain's story, which I did for three reasons:
1. The story is not short
2. This character has a particular game mechanic making him much better than the player to tell stories
3. And the audience (us) already knows the story. It's like books, tv, or movies, when characters retell stories that the audience already knows, they abbreviate it. What's new in the scene is how the legendary characters react to parts of the story. So like Amalina does, Gandalf could interrupt at the river scene and ask for more information about the Ring or the hobbit who found it.
It looks like we don't have a healer. Based on the recent events, there's a reasonable RP reason for Amalina to grab a Scholar level to at least provide a basic amount of healing. And still move to 5th in Wanderer to get Extra Attack. :)
Do we know what the new person is interested in playing? If they are going Scholar then there is less of a need.
I want to continue adventuring in Middle-Earth, but we continue to bump into posting expectations.
The most recent is my abbreviation of Eothain's story, which I did for three reasons:
1. The story is not short
2. This character has a particular game mechanic making him much better than the player to tell stories
3. And the audience (us) already knows the story. It's like books, tv, or movies, when characters retell stories that the audience already knows, they abbreviate it. What's new in the scene is how the legendary characters react to parts of the story. So like Amalina does, Gandalf could interrupt at the river scene and ask for more information about the Ring or the hobbit who found it.
You are a group. DIalog gives you a chance to interact with each other. It's not as easy when we're not sitting around a table together, which makes it all the more important.
Also, Middle Earth is perhaps the most robust example of a storytelling tradition available for roleplaying. The heart of that tradition is in the retelling. How you interpreted the story, and most importantly, how it made you feel. To me, that's where this medium excels, because it allows us to first think about how we as players perceived the story, and then translate that into our characters. More than that, it tells the GM you appreciate the work.
It's also no fun at all for me if I'm putting in all the work to keep this interesting. I believe that skills supplement roleplaying, not the other way around.
The story may be long, but you don't have to tell it all. You know what the key moments were. At this point Eothain and Findegil must conjure a very compelling personal story about interacting with the One Ring, knowing it to be Isildur's Ring. I'm excited to read that part.
GM: Quick question, I'm assuming we will get one Fellowship Phase at this point, but just want to confirm.
If you have something specific you want to accomplish in a Fellowship phase, then yes, we can run with that. You have all been in Rivendell recuperating for longer than you realize. There was a clue to that effect. It is late fall TA 2947.
There's also a lot you could do in Rivendell, for players who would choose to spend a Fellowship phase exploring this area.
@GM
I've thought a lot about this game over the past day. On the one hand, I started this game, because I wanted to play in Middle-Earth, so very badly.
On the other hand, I don't feel my posting will be accepted by you. And your comments about my posting and passive-aggressive rewarding of XP for posting differently than I did drain my fun from the game.
Of course, we would get to describing the scene of the One Ring. It was a amazing! But, I felt that we needed a post to start with describing the whole story. So like Amalina did, we could explore the specific encounters that were particularly important from the point of views of the player-characters and the legendary characters. Frankly, I did not know if the legendary characters wanted to comment on anything that we experienced in Holcombe BEFORE Eothain and Findegil encountered the Ring. And, the way I had started the dialog would have allowed us to have that conversation chronologically.
So, I think it's a good time for me to depart. Please enjoy my game.
Fairwell.
@Éothain: I'm sorry to see you go. Good luck.
@GM Therenger: I'll be posting shortly.
Good roleplaying! Please continue with your conversations if you feel like you have more to ask or say.
I have heard from Thorgrim; he may return but not likely before early next year. He could surprise us... In the meantime, Hobwise will rejoin the party as a NPC in a limited role.
Also, the new player character will introduce herself imminently. (Drum roll...)
Welcome aboard!
@Gylwinth: Hello!
Amalina, is there something specific you want to accomplish during a Fellowship phase? Does anyone else have something in mind?
Originally I was going to use it as an excuse to take a level of scholar. (Study at Rivendell with the elves, etc.) But since I decided not to multi class, I don't have anything much more specific. Probably use it to train Winter with another command or gain Arwen as a patron (or gain the title elf-friend) as part of the healing and recovery phase. Having Arwen as patron might make the most sense if we're going to remain on this side of the mountains for a time.
I would also like to improve a cultural virtue. Namely Guard of the Tower to allow the Many Foes ability. It would be useful if (when) we are facing hordes of goblin-kind once again.
For expediency. You have all just completed a fellowship phase in Rivendell. You have been there a season already so that makes more sense than taking another break in the action. Elrond and Gandalf have plans for you...
Sounds fair to me!
Findegil
Warrior Level 5 and 6 (knight archetype)
L5: Extra Attack, Proficiency Bonus +3
L6: Character Improvement: +2 Str -> 20
It appears that I overlooked the rolling for hit points. So here are my rolls.
HP: 13 +9 +9 +11 +9 +9 = 60
Sworn Defender bonus temporary HP: Wis Bonus + Warrior Level = 7
From Fellowship phase:
Guard of the Tower: Many Foes (p113)
You are able to stand against more foes than lesser warriors. During melee combat, you may spend Inspiration as a reaction to being attacked by foes that outnumber you more than two to one. If you do so you may add your proficiency bonus to your Armour Class whenever you are outnumbered, till the end of the combat.