5e Middle Earth Adventures (Inactive)

Game Master Therenger

In case it isn't obvious, the prisoner is Wulfgith. I leave it to her to explain how she came to be captured and imprisoned in the Keep by the Captain's men. Please introduce yourselves in Gameplay as appropriate for the setting and your individual motivations.

Wulfgith - you do not know any more about the Captain then the rest of the party - you have never seen him. You do know there are at least two trolls somewhere around the Keep.

Good to know

Also, I'm down with strep so sadly my posts will be light for a while...

Oop, sorry I've ghosted! Work and school and illness have conspired to leave me more scattered than usual.

I was tight for time yesterday. Catching up.

An interactive map of Middle-Earth.

I agree with Amalina. If he has the key, then we take them.

If he has the key or if he does not back down, I'm fine with us facing them all in combat.

There's a fine line here. Waiting to see how Gylwinth responds, and then we'll see where this goes.

I have struggled these past few days to decide if the party should receive a Shadow Point for this attack. I've been reading other campaigns and in general, Shadow Points and Exhaustion tend to be handed out much more liberally than we have done so far here, including when the original DM was running it.

I want to be consistent but I also want to respect the integrity of the heroic player character, and frankly, attacking a foe who had not drawn on you does not meet that standard. On the one hand, the Captain of the Watch may indeed have been corrupted by Shadow, and worth killing eventually. On the other hand, you had a good ruse going that could have been sustained; that's one of the directions the source material allows us to go.

Please don't take this as a scolding - that's not what it is, and that perception is the reason I am writing this. I want you to act freely, but I also expect you will accept any potential negative consequences to those actions.

I think 1 Shadow point for Findegil, Amalina, and Gylwinth is not an unreasonable penalty. I expect it's an opportunity for more great roleplaying.

I'm open to dialog and it can help with future interactions like this. I'd like to know your feedback.

It makes sense to me. I agree with the rationale.

I like what it may do to the story as well.

"Penalty" is the wrong word. "Fee" is better. You can do bad things but you have to pay the fee.

Findegil is not delighted with the situation. That said, I am fine with the shadow point.

Totally okay with the Shadow Point. Honestly, I figured we wouldn't be getting out of this without getting one since it seemed like we'd have to strike first at some point. Unless we wanted to fight the whole crew at once. But I could have been wrong. ;)

Either way it's been a good tale so far, and has led to revealing a bit more of the darker side of Amalina's past. And gives Cereidh and Wulfgith the chance to get us back on the Light side perhaps with a little help from Gylwinth's scholarly healing or a Sanctuary we find along the way.

Eh, I get that - and my character isn't directly impacted by the Shadow point.

That said, I'm not 100% comfortable with framing Amalina and Wulfgith's fear and anger at past sexual assault or potential future sexual assault as a corrupting, base influence. It's an existent trope in high fantasy and genre fiction in general, but it's pretty misogynistic in and of itself and usually accompanies other misogynistic tropes.

Not uncomfortable enough with it to spoil my fun with such a story-heavy campaign, but - food for thought.

Sorry if I offended anyone, I'll drop that aspect and avenue of Amalina's past.

Oh um, I should probably tell you that Wulfgith's story is actually up... Forgot to do that...

I don't expect you to drop it, as it's pretty well fleshed-out! However, I do think it's a tricky thing to handle well, and while I won't be really offended if I think it's handled poorly, I do think it'll be one of this story's greater storytelling challenges.

I also don't have a problem with the text itself. I could see how it could bother people if unexpected.

Wulfgith asked what the plan is. I'd like to know too.

The situation is this. Three trolls and seven humans are waiting at the bottom of the stair to confront the party. Cereidh is behind the enemy, waiting for something to happen.

Question: Is the party content to wait for the action to come to them? If so, I have the device to make that happen.

Last opportunity to finalize planning.

I'd say we let them come to us.

Cereidh can open a second front when she deems it appropriate.

My 2 coppers.

If we actually know the trolls are there, then I'd agree with Gylwinth, and say we wait. We want them bottlenecked on the stairs, not us.

Alternatively, how much rope do we have? If enough, we could climb down the back of the keep and perhaps slip away if they give us time. I have 50'.

I can't see how your characters would know there are trolls waiting for you downstairs. You have no reason to expect that. If it weren't for Cereidh rolling lights-out on Stealth checks, you as players would not even know they were in the Keep.

Gylwinth doesn’t know about the trolls. This is not why she prefers the higher ground and a bottleneck.

She is worried, however, on getting flanked through climbing.

Amalina, how would you expect Winter to act as it enters the keep and encounters the room of trolls and men?

Winter would be fairly cautious easily smelling the troll threat. He'd first seek anyone he knows and avoid any direct attack, especially with a troll. My guess is he could sniff out Cereidh pretty easily (Advantage on all scent based perception checks at +6). If he finds creatures attacking any of the companions, he would attack the enemy immediaately, from behind or darkness if lucky. Only reason he wouldn't attack in that situation would be if he's given another command.

Someone want to take the lead action? It's possible the trolls just want to talk. :P

Heh. ;)

Yes, the trolls might be going through mid-life crisis, ready to turn their lives around. That or they'll buy muscle chariots and a fancy head gear...

Wulfgith and Findegil, please update your bylines. You can use this as a template in the "Classes/Levels" field of your profiles, or similar, but at least include all of this information:

Treasure Hunter (4) | HP: 2/28 AC: 15 Spd: 25ft | Init: +4 Perc: +5 PP:15 | Short Bow: +6 (1d6+4), Broadsword +4 (1d8+4) | Shadow: 2

I shall do that once I get home and on my laptop!

Also if we're in melee then I couldn't have shot the bow either could I? As using a bow point blank also does an aoo no?

I shall do that once I get home and on my laptop!

Also if we're in melee then I couldn't have shot the bow either could I? As using a bow point blank also does an aoo no?

Thanks. Your post did not specify a weapon so I assume you are using the longsword.

Also, beginning with this encounter, I will be rolling damage for successful enemy attacks against the players. It's too boring the other way. ;)

I can't use what is on my sheet, as we haven't found my stuff yet.

Oh! The group gave me a sword! Yeah I'll use that!

Edit, I changed it to sword. And no moving to make it easier on you!

@GM: Just update my tagline. How does it look now?

Also, with us in close confines, is Findegil close enough to allies for Shield-fence?

@GM: Just update my tagline. How does it look now?

Also, with us in close confines, is Findegil close enough to allies for Shield-fence?

I can see your Initiative and AC now at a glance, which is great - thank you. All of your Virtues are viable, including shield-fence.

Today did not go as planned, but I will post tomorrow.

No worries! Hope things are going well on your end.

Thanks for the heads up.

Not a problem!

Apologies for delay. This week has been tricky for me getting to update pbp.

Cereidh and Wulfgith, please take a moment and update your bylines with the template I posted above or something similar.

@GM: I edited my post. Findegil is now striking at Penn.

Er, can I edit my byline by editing my profile or ... ?

Paste into the Classes/Levels line in your profile.

I had already done Wulfgith's thing, I just had it in the wrong box... look at me being all smert! XD

Again I'm sorry. After I posted it was cool when the GM said he couldn't get to it that day I never got another update on my side. I'll keep a closer eye on it from now on.

Paizo ate my post, apparently.

So. This is my first time making a death saving through, actually! Do I need to roll even having been given healing, and if I do, do I do so by making a Con save?

Roll d20, straight up. It won't matter, but you should roll it.

Death Saving Throws
Whenever you start your turn with 0 hit points, you must make a special saving throw, called a death saving throw, to determine whether you creep closer to death or hang onto life. Unlike other saving throws, this one isn’t tied to any ability score. You are in the hands of fate now, aided only by spells and features that improve your chances of succeeding on a saving throw.

Roll a d20. If the roll is 10 or higher, you succeed. Otherwise, you fail. A success or failure has no effect by itself. On your third success, you become stable (see below). On your third failure, you die. The successes and failures don't need to be consecutive; keep track of both until you collect three of a kind. The number of both is reset to zero when you regain any hit points or become stable.

Rolling 1 or 20. When you make a death saving throw and roll a 1 on the d20, it counts as two failures. If you roll a 20 on the d20, you regain 1 hit point.

Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death.

These two trolls have resistance to both slashing and piercing damage, hence these two comments the first times the party hit them:

Cereidh's attack scores the next troll, but what felt like a solid strike is resisted by the stony hide of the monster.
Bron takes 4 damage!

Findegil finds his blows similarly thwarted, cutting only half as deep as a normal slash might go.
Penn takes 8 damage!

This is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking about, but managed to forget. Thank you GM for the reminder.