7Swordsmen: Black Demon Hand

Game Master Burnscar

Discussion thread.

Dot. I'll go and set up an proper alias.

Right. I've set us off with an ambush. Scholar Yangsheda managed to beat both the DC to spot your attackers, and their initiative afterwards, so he gets to take the first action.

The combat map is linked, and you should be able to edit it just by following the link.

That was quick!
I have a couple of loose ends, sorry.
level 2 hp: 1d8 ⇒ 5
and I will go change my light horse into a heavy horse and get the light horse cash back. Is he combat trained?
Thanks for running this!

erp!

HP for 2nd lvl: 1d8 ⇒ 6

Totally slammed at work for the next 48 hrs or so, but I'll clean up my character sheet etc by Friday afternoon.

Looking forward to an awesome game!

Dotting

That was quick!

I have a couple of loose ends, sorry.
[dice=level 2 hp]1d8
and I will go change my light horse into a heavy horse and get the light horse cash back. Is he combat trained?
Thanks for running this!

Your free horses are all combat trained, yes.

dot and thanks for the selection!

Dotting and thanks for picking me Burnscar! -is so excited-

@IronDesk - How did you get your information at the top of your name like that? I'm super new still and slowly am getting the hang of things.

@Burnscar - Is the forest considered to be rough terrain for our horses to move through?

edit: Thank you Rungok!

I messaged Warforgedman with the particulars in getting your stats up on the profile. Something I need to set up myself!

@IronDesk - How did you get your information at the top of your name like that? I'm super new still and slowly am getting the hang of things.

@Burnscar - Is the forest considered to be rough terrain for our horses to move through?

edit: Thank you Rungok!

Nah, worse than that; you're squeezing if you ride in the forest.

Except for the hafling, of course.

Um...have we even met each other? From the recruitment page, two are supposed to be new and the rest were given the blades in a time of piece. How many were supposed to guard the Sword at anyone time? I assume 2 and we traded off while the other 5 did their own thing.

You met before, yes.

At the very least, you met seven days ago, when you first set out. Probably you've met before. I'll leave it to you to figure out how the blade was guarded, decide if you have some sort of 'home base', or a far out of the way dungeon or something to keep the sword in, and how some of you might have known each other before.

A rough timeline:

Day 1: The sword was stolen.

Day 3: All of you arrived, and you sought out an oracle to give you a hint where you should be headed.

Day 4: You set out for the Spirit Forest, located near the small village of Son Watari.

Day 10: You are ambushed by raiders lying in wait in a small forest outside Son Watari.

Also, let's get some definitive rules up on that squeesing thing:

If you're on a large mount, so long as you're not literally on top of a tree, and you're standing on at least part of a road square, you're not squeesing.

The squeese happens when more than half of your token is sitting on top of a tree.

If your mount is medium, you don't need to squeese at all.

Yey small-people advantages : P

If people were cool with it, I was thinking of using the Ultimate Campaign's "Relationship With Other Adventurers" roller to see what kind of friendship and oddities we get, at least in regards with Kiyoshi.

Does anyone want to start out not knowing him? Who are the super fresh swordsmen? I looked through the character bios last night but I just woke up a few minutes ago.

First natural twenty ever rolled in a PBP game and it is spent on getting off my horse. I can only hope for more cinematically awesome natural twenties. :D

Super fresh, but was an apprentice for a couple of years.

I sorta left the freshness out of Sakiko's backstory so that I could adjust it on the fly, so she could be either (depending on how others have written their stories : ) )

The Ultimate Campaign table can make things a bit odd in my opinion, but that's still fun. Do roll on it and see what happens!

And congratulations on your first pbp natural 20. May there be many others ^^

I'm not so fresh... Amon could probably use a bath. And soap. ;)

Also, I love how my actions have been so lagged behind due to my initiative on the dice roller I havent even technically reacted to the initial ambush yet.

Be ready for a great introduction to your party alcoholic!

-Posted with Wayfinder

Alrighty, here we go with the rolls. I know the Ultimate Campaign is hinky...but I like its hinkiness. Is hinkiness a word? It is now.

Relationship With Amon: 1d100 ⇒ 97 - From The Same Hometown Or Region

Relationship With Sakiko: 1d100 ⇒ 68 - Servants/Apprentice To The Same Master

Relationship With Nidashi: 1d100 ⇒ 39 - Former Enemies

Relationship With Takeshi: 1d100 ⇒ 65 - Criminal Connections

Relationship With Yangsheda: 1d100 ⇒ 3 - Family Or Close As Family

Relationship With Sadamune: 1d100 ⇒ 28 - Contractor & Employee

So some interesting rolls! It'd be pretty interesting to work out how some of these work, our characters were travelling for quite awhile before the campaign officially started.

Of course, we can just ignore the rolls. I just like doing things to help spend the time as the posts come in. <.<

I'm okay with you being someone from the same village.

I was thinking maybe the same region? I had put some background stuff about the village that Kiyoshi came from. So he would know about the raid that happened there, the appearance of one of the Swordsmen, all that jazz.

Sounds fair to me.

I'm fine with former ennemies

So what do you want to do with former enemies? Were we misled by someone until we eventually figured out the truth? Was there epic swordsman dueling goodness? What do you think?

Hmm. Not sure how Sakiko's relation will work out : P

Maybe Kiyoshi wandered past her shrine and stayed for a while? They could have trained together there maybe : )

@Sakiko - That sounds good to me. He probably stayed there for a bit, helped out even, asked about what she did. He is friendly like that, even speaks Halfling!

Criminal dealings, huh.
I was thinking Abe is a bit more stand-up, but he has some experience sneaking out and whatnot, perhaps we ran into some kind of situation while he was on one of his walkabouts? (maybe an illicit art deal. ha!)
Alternatively, I suppose he may have (as a minor nobleman) had call to execute a murderer or something like that, perhaps someone we know in common.
Any ideas?

Guys, I am so sorry to do this (especially as my sort of first impression), but I have a friday-saturday-sunday camping trip that I am going to be away for. I'm not sure if I will have reception to post on my phone or not. (posting on my phone is likely to be a disaster in any case). You can play for me if you like. I'll be responsive starting on monday. Again, sorry about that.

Perhaps Takeshi was looking for a rare piece of art that was stolen and the Kiyoshi was on the trail of the men who murdered the man who originally owned it? It was more of a "Oh, you're here?" kind of situation since then.

Okay, character sheet complete. Equipment and extracts sections completed, formatting tidied.

Fantastic. It's your turn, incidentally.

@Burnscar - Do we know which way the village we are heading to is located? I'm thinking of trying to ambush those who are running up from the south but if it is likely more townsfolk, I will just move to engage the enemies to the north.

Lastly, while I don't think I'm able to, would it be possible to charge the commander from where I am at currently?

They put the roadblock spikes to block your route onwards. So the north-eastern route is the one that leads to the village.

And no, you can't charge. Allies all over. You can see it on the map.

By the way; the red 'X's means the characters are dead or dying.

Erp. Pony misses on 22? That's harsh! Better get into flanking position asap : )

Except I forgot it was a 20, so it actually hit anyway. But yes! ;)

All-right!

Good for the pony this time, at least : P

Ok, I'm back. (though not rolling so hot!)
Sorry about that.

Kiyoshi, that sounds reasonable. Fated string of coincidences, very nineteen. I sort of like that.

If you have your own ideas or things you want to spruce it up, feel free to :D

I will be on the road Tuesday – Thursday please feel free to bot me as necessary. I do not foresee having any problems posting. However, tomorrow is going to be an 18 hour day and I might just hit the sack when I get to my hotel.

Got it. Have a nice trip :). I'm going to bed now, but I think I'll bot Kyūzo tomorrow morning if he doesn't post.

If Sakiko hits all her frostbite charges are expended by now!

Amon's style seems to be greatly different from everyone else... :P

I love having Temp hit points and DR.

Sakiko's style is a 2nd level spell she doesn't have yet. Eventually though!

(And we all do have both DR and Temp hp, they are just in the shape of a drunken warrior blocking off the reinforcements :P)

(And we all do have both DR and Temp hp, they are just in the shape of a drunken warrior blocking off the reinforcements :P)

<grin>

Three questions:

- I don't suppose its possible to assume a stance while mounted is it? If so Yangsheda will enter scarlet einhander for an additional +2 AC

-The wounded bandit that attacked Yangsheda on rnd three doesn't seem to have moved from rnd 2. Would he have provoked an AoO from Nidashi or Takeshi?

-Why don't Sakiko and Kiyoshi get proper avatars on the battle map?

-Mounts screw up stances unless you have one of the mounted archetype. You also can't have your mount use the movement granted to you by maneuvers.

-Yangsheda was attacked by the red one. That one is in place to attack you.

Edit: Grargle, I'm wrong, sorry. I keep confusing Yangsheda and Takeshi, I guess that one got away from me.

The wounded one attacked Takeshi, but I messed up, writing Yangsheda instead.

-They didn't have avatars when I made the map, and no-one has replaced their placeholders yet.

@Placeholder - Hmm I should update mine. Then again, this works and I'm a bit lazy. After this battle then ^^

Indeed. Alas, I am usually tired from starting my new job and worry that I'd break or mess something up. -sad face-

fixed for you :>

Kyūzo, you're right that it doesn't say. I'll rule that you need to exceed the result of the attack; I base this not on anything it says in the ability, but instead on the fact that the Swashbuckler's Parry ability needs a result greater than the attack, and Iron Shell is a similar ability available at the same level, which happens to be more vaguely worded.

There's nothing about opposed rolls in the Systems and Use chapter of PoW either, so no help there.