Castle Caldwell and Beyond: (A 5e Campaign) - The Wrecking Crew (Inactive)

Game Master Terquem

Yep. I'm heading over to post now.

I am leaving for a 10 day trip tomorrow. My posting will be limited to shorter posts from an iPad and likely only in the evenings. Please bot me if I get behind. I travel home on the 17th and should be back to normal on the 18th.

I don't know if we've talked about it yet but what are your thoughts on Xanathar's Guide to Everything ?

I'm thinking about taking a look at it, I haven't yet. I might be shopping at Barnes and Noble today, and I have a...

COUPON!

Nice. I've got a friend who manages a bookstore, that's kind of like a coupon.

Another trip...

I leave for New York City around noon tomorrow and from there will leave for 11 days in China on Wednesday. I will be back late on Saturday April 7 and begin to catch up on April 8th. And yes I know I just got back from a trip.

I will have an iPad with me (better than posting from a phone) and should have internet most of the time but there are three days that are remote so I am almost sure I will not have internet all the time. I will do my best to post some but please both me instead of waiting for me. This is my last trip longer than a long weekend I have planned for the entire year.

Be careful, and have a great time.

Also, Isaiah - I picked up Xanathar's Guide to Everything
So what in that were you interested in looking zt?

Spells and Racial Feats mostly. I considered the collages but I think Lore still works best for the character.

This is one of those times where I'm not sure how many 'rounds' or actions we've got until the thing shows up.

I have been unable to make contact with Merrum or Preacher. We are going to proceed without them.

Bummer.

I am back and ready to play again. Lets roll. :)

Welcome back!

I'll cast Heroism on someone once things get going.

Are we gonna roll with a party of three as is?

Perhaps drag in some NPC hirelings or see about putting animal friendship to work for us?

I am struggling to get a map built, but I intend to finish this battle with three PCs (and I think I will run Merrum and Vash as npcs for this encounter) sorry it is taking so long

So a new map is posted. Called Camp Encounter, it is a campsite map I finally sized correctly for this encounter. There is a grid and a grid reference, so please let me know where you want to be when the next step takes place, which will be the beginning of round 1

Lilly is in brown bear form. I was gonna add an icon for that but cannot edit the map.

Let me get that fixed up right now

I assume the brown bear is a Large token, yes?

Fixed - if I had more time, and was a bit smarter, I would finally learn how to build maps in GoogleDocs so that players could move their own tokens, but every time I've tried that before I struggle with the size and alignment of the tokens relative to the image of the map

Sorry

Yes, large. Perfect. Thx

Any particular reason for the hold up?

I delayed until either Lilly engaged the Owlbear or it engaged Lilly.

I came down with a little flu at the beginning of the week. I was able to post a few simple updates, but the more complex ones I put off. I feel a bit better today and I hope to update this and the other battle I have going in another game tonight

Lilly's formatting is different from ours so it's hard to see but her claws got an AC of 23 for 12 DMG. Was that still a miss?

I am happy to format my attacks and damage any way you prefer. This is how I always have done it though. I rolled a 23 to hit and would like to know for sure if that hits or misses before I take my next attack. Both attacks hit Lilly so she is hurt and if I 23 misses she will likely disengage.

No, the formatting was fine

I had the two entries of 12 damage on my word document, but somehow did not copy and paste them both to the post. It will be fixed in an update today

I didn't look at the damage tracker is was the way things were worded.

... Lilly’s bear claws do not scratch the beast, and her bite is timed too soon

all over bad editing on my part

In bear form Lilly has an AC of 11 so is gonna get hit a lot. The 4 temps per round is nice but perhaps not enough to keep her up another round without her shifting again. As a moon druid she can shift as a bonus action. Just reviewed the rules. She started with 34HP as a brown bear, plus the 4 temps from Heroism. She took 24 points of damage so is down to 14. If she takes a like amount next turn she would not drop but be forced to shift and any HP over the 14+4 temps would carry over to her human form. Her human form has 18 HP so if she took the same damage 8 would go through, leaving her at 10 HP. On her turn she could shift again as a bonus action becoming a different animal or even a different brown bear.

I am pretty sure all this is right. What I am not sure about is if she can shift between animal forms without shifting back to human first I think she can as she can use a bonus round to use another shift for the day to maintain an animal for after the duration runs out.

Her best AC is in human form with AC 16. Her best animal form AC is a 14. This will get better in later levels with Barkskin.

You can also burn a spell slot to heal 1d8 as a bonus action if need be.

Barring one or two full rounds of missed attacks, or a critical from the Owlbear you should be fine. :)

Right. I best do that healing too.

I can only shift one more time before I take a short rest though so I cannot do this for too long.

Don't overlook the Cure Wounds spell from Vash, and he can still use a channel to heal for 10

I'm going to do more homework when I get home, but I think you don't actually get advantage from flanking (though I believe it is an optional rule in the DMG) - but instead 5e relies on a different type of player interaction in combat with the "Help" action

When your character is within 5 feet of an enemy, you can take the "Help" action to give another player character (who does not have to be within 5 feet of the same enemy) advantage on one attack role.

I'll try to get to my books tonight as soon as I can and update accordingly

You are correct, it is an optional rule. There are plenty of ways to gain advantage help being the easiest, though for only one attack. Pushing him prone and a host of spells and class abilities can do it too.

I think you're right. Sorry, I'm still getting a handle on the rules. I didn't correctly remember the Rogue's Sneak Attack description, which says I don't need Advantage to deal Sneak Attack if another enemy of the creature is within 5 feet of them. I thought it gave me Advantage if I was flanking, which allowed me to use Sneak Attack.

I looked as well and must admit its not as clear as I think it should be. I found conflicting examples that seem to be at least semi-official. My best read is that the benefit of flanking is not fully defined but that many GMs give advantage for it.

Hmm. I do find a number of things in the PHB as too vague or poorly worded for my tastes, but it is listed as an optional rule in the DMG. One my home game has yet to utilize and TBH I haven't missed it. I find it to be unnecessary as 5e combat is fairly non-lethal even when things get hairy.

Just be weary of 20's on attacks and 1's on death saves. (So far the only two things that have killed any of my characters thus far.)

We seem to be stuck just as I though we were building some momentum. Who is up?

The GM.

We (the wife and I) spent a lot of the weekend at a neighbors house. They are an elderly couple (in their 80s) who have always been kind to us. We learned that he, the husband, is dying of cancer, and though I probably don't need to make excuses, we were over there to make sure she knew we were available if she needed us, and then we got involved (me particularly rewiring their garage because the man had been messing around in some outlet boxes and managed to disable their sprinkles and couldn't get them working again). I think he is also suffering from a mild dementia, he seems to repeat himself a lot and doesn't remember what he did when he started opening electrical boxes in the garage.

My wife and I are also empty nesters, but we are in our fifties, however, it gave us a lot to think about, particularly because three of our four adult children live far away from us.

I'm updating the game now,
Sorry

I didn't mean anything by my response to Lilly, GM. I was just answering her question so she didn't think no one had seen it.

Sorry to hear about your neighbors.

Hey, My wife and I too are empty nesters in our 50s. :) My son lives 5 hours away and my daughter 10 hours away. The only saving grace in that is that when driving to my daughter's house the path takes me within 10 minutes of my son's house. So I can manage to visit both on most trips.

Quite nice of you to help out your neighbors. Your help could be the difference between them living independenty a few more years of needing more formal assistance. Glad that they have managed to live on their own for so long. Many elderly people do not make it into their 80s independent.

No worries Kerak, I felt I should clear the air. I am trying to be a better poster, but sometimes I let little things (and not so little things) get in the way. I felt bad leaving you all hanging there like I did

But at the same time, we are once again down to 3 active Player Characters...sigh

Down with bronchitis, and I hope to be back up an running in a couple of days - I'm going to check in and see if Lilly is still having trouble with the game posts showing up

Hey, I am here but am traveling this week. Sorta unexpected and I forgot my charging cable for my laptop. So am gonna be stuck using my phone to post. It might be next week before I can get up a good post. But I will post.

I have made six posts trying to move this game along since June 12. I know I am slow, and I know it is a dull game - but no one has posted in two weeks -

How should I proceed?

It does seem like its just you and I Terquem. I have been traveling with family, planning to post again, but also hoping someone else would post.

I am back at home and will be so for about 5 weeks. I can post, but if its just the two of us I fear its time to call it.

I will give the other two until Friday to make their intentions known and then make a decision.

Thank you Lilly

Thank you for playing

this game has ended

if you are interested in playing your character in another game I might run please contact me

otherwise enjoy the other games on this site