Clebsch's Reign of Winter

Game Master Clebsch RoW

Well good that it's nothing serious, and you seem to be otherwise healthy! That's always a positive.

Glad to hear the good news!

Health is essential, glad you're well.

My wife has decided to have family over in spite of the pandemic, so I'll be away through the weekend.

Stay safe and hope everything goes well, Rurik!

Happy Thanksgiving to those in the US.

Will post in a bit

I hope everyone in the US had a happy and safe Thanksgiving. I posted some information on the gameplay thread regarding the first round of actions. There are a few retcons or possible retcons so check the information and repost if you wish to change your posted action. I also drew some lines on the map to indicate the edge of the raised platform.

It is 10 feet high and so must be climbed (DC 15) or jumped up to or use some magical means to get up to that level.

I won't 'bot anyone until next Monday evening, to give those away for the holiday weekend a chance to post.

I wanted to check something before going on. I had assumed the owl figurine transformed into a normal sized ow, but re-reading the description is states it transforms into a giant owl. Looking up the stats of the Giant owl, it lists it as size of Huge, which is 15 foot square. Is that your understanding?

When I have moderated it earlier, I assumed it was unobtrusive and something the inhabitants of the wood would not think out of the ordinary, but one of huge size would obviously not go unnoticed. I just wanted to verify that this is correct.

I guess I needed a nap when I was reading the information about the serpentine owl. I just took a nap and looked at the stats again and I noticed that the description has it change into either a normal size owl or a giant owl. So scratch my previous question.

However, I did notice that the rules say to use the stats of a giant eagle, which is a large creature. There are stats for a giant owl and that is the huge creature.

We have two votes for going back to the first Dawn Piper encountered. If a third PC weighs in for that, I'll put up a map and then you can describe your approach. I have maps prepared for the other areas as well, so if you choose, you can go other directions.

Going to vote for the same.

Let's do it.

I'm at the start of a new term, so I'm a bit busy at present. I'll try to get something up this afternoon.

Well, i'm only getting to the post at the end of the week. Sorry. Should be better from now until at least the end of January, as far as work load goes. I'm not going anywhere at Christmas (as usual).

Since it's the holidays, I wait until Monday to 'bot anyone. Hope everyone is getting some time off and having a pleasant time.

Is Dom able to attack from his current position in waist deep water, even though lower? Would rather get in a full attack if possible instead of doing a move and attack.

I find no penalties on attacks made from waist deep water against opponents not under water. Dom gets cover versus attacks made by those not in the water, although the piper will get the bonus for being on higher ground.

Dom criticaled the Dawn Piper, so the melee is over except for residual effects of the after effects. I'll get something up in the morning.

Hope everyone has a great new year.

Woot! What a way to ring in the new year!

Hey Anadrien, I think you wanted the Amulet of Natural Armor +1 we got as a reward a little while back, but never officially claimed it. Want to add it?

Great, thanks!

This is both refreshing and feels very much like a trap. lol

It's been fun writing the dialogue. A nice break from describing how weapons are wounding combatants.

I've been extra busy this week with work and when not working, I've been focused on the news out of DC. I'll try to get caught up soon.

You’re not missing much, the site broke again.

I was told that after this latest site crash, it may be necessary to clear cookies to be able to sign in and post--I know I had to do that.

Still not working from my phone.

Thursday my home computer crashed and is now in the shop. When I tried to post with my cell phone or one of my tablets, I found I could not log in. Apparently, I was not alone. I've heard rumors there was a fix to clear the cache and cookies, but I couldn't get that to work on my tablets.

I'm now at a school computer and obviously I've been able to get to my profile and can post. But I'll not have much time until I've caught up on my grading and other work duties. I hope I'll have my home computer back by tomorrow and will work on getting caught up then.

Sorry for the delay. I hope everyone is hanging in there. This past week in America has been wild and it doesn't look like the rollercoaster is anywhere near the end of the run, at least for the next week. Stay safe and keep the faith (in democracy).

P.S. I'm still finding it necessary to reload the page after I submit a post, sometimes more than once, to be sure the post clears whatever software glitch is preventing it from actually showing up.

ditto.

had to reset PW and do the "clear cookies/ internet data" trick on both pc & phone

Sorry to hear about your computer--sounds annoying. Hope it gets fixed by tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the MLK weekend!

I thought I'd get caught up on MLK day, but had some meetings to attend instead. I'll be slammed for the rest of the week, but I'll try to get something up. The carousing with the merchants and their lady friends can continue for a while.

The party has been making such quick work of the Dawn Pipers that I am making this last battle before getting to the hut more challenging by throwing several foes at you at the same time. It will be a more complicated melee to moderate but I'll try to keep posting as quickly as PCs post their actions. Good luck.

These bird things are definitely amping up the pressure, and that's before the Dawn Piper does its thing. Definitely feeling more challenging.

So in a 5e game I used perytons in a mid-level encounter, and the players didn't know what they were and were NOT ready for them. One of the players summarized that encounter with "CR 2 my ass."

Perytons are the lowest level isntadeath monster.

Elk, River CR2 + Harpy (-song ability) CR2 +Fear effect = way above CR 2

I looked at the stats in D&D 5E. It gave it a challenge of 3 and seemed to be about the same as the PF1 version, except for the chance to grab small targets with a successful claw attack. What makes it earn the reputation of being underrated as a challenge? What am I missing.

The PF1 Peryton is CR 4, which seems about right. Other than the shadow mark, which only works on one enemy at a time, it seems to be a fairly basic hack and slash threat. The gore has an increased threat range but the damage done on a critical is 2d6 + 6. Against 8th level PCs this is not a big threat and the horrific critical only applies if the attack kills the target, at which point, the only other effect is the chance of giving witnesses the shaken condition.

Nasty yes; instant death? I don't see it unless it attacks low level characters for whom 2d6 + 6 would take a character negative.

I also don't get the reference to Harpy(Song ability) mentioned by Ingrit.

My point is that if you consider it CR 4 it's a challenge vs a 4th level party, where the 2d6+6 has way more impact.

My reference was saying that it's like combining a harpy (flight/fly by attack/claws) and an elk (gore) into one creature, just taking the harpy's song out of the equation.

And yes CR 4 makes way more sense than CR 2

In 5e the peryton is listed as CR 2 (unless that was changed in a more recent printing of the books). It can fly, and it can attack while flying by without provoking an opportunity attack. If your party isn't pepped to do a lot of ranged damage, this is straight-up squad murder.

Had to remind some of my PCs about how the rules for Readied actions worked!

I looked it up in the 5E SRD and it listed it as Challenge 3.

The PF1 version has flyby attack, but AOOs are allowed.

Must've been changed post-printing.

Hey everyone, apologies for the absence, back now and ready to recover as soon as possible from running away in terror.

Welcome back! On the bright side, you can continue to fire arrows from wherever you're standing.

Truth.

@Clebsch--just making sure you don't miss it. Erland posted moments before you did, may have finished off Mari.

So he did. In fact, I think I missed the previous post, which also came in just before I posted so I missed that one too. Gotta remember to check for that. I'll get something up soon.

Post is up. Sorry for the delay.

Ooh, Anadrien is charmed? This could get interesting.

Shhhh!

I came across a kickstarter campaign for a map making application that, if it can work as advertised would be allow one to make impressive maps.

Dungeon Alchemist. If you are interested in running a homebrew campaign or just like making maps, I'd check it out. Beta versions coming out in the fall with the rollout planned for end of year or start of 2022. For a fairly modest investment, you can get a lifetime license with other perks.