DM Carbide's The Dragon's Demand (Inactive)

Game Master John Woodford

Alas, it is not. The only opening in the eastern wall is the bell tower.

What do you want to do?

To the bell tower!

Cora shakes her head. "I don't see a way in. Let me check the bell tower, see if there's a door up there." Looking both ways to watch for observers, Cora stretches out her wings and flies up to the bell tower.

Cora quickly notices a few things: there is someone in the bell tower, that someone has seen her, and that someone immediately started to ring the bells. The sound echoes across the monastery grounds.

"Right, then. They'll be fortifying," says Machi-e with a grimace.

He sprints over to the bell tower door. "They'll drop something on us if we don't try to get inside," he quips.

If there is not a bell tower *door* he won't go that way.

The bell tower is like a steeple over the main building, so there isn't a door to it from outside.

"To the west side, then. Stay right next to the building and perhaps we have a better chance of not being seen."

Machi-e heads west, towards what might be some doors.

I see on the map that there are probably some doors on the west side. I'd rather do those than go in what is presumably the front, fortified door, if there is one, on the north side.

Cora was going to drop a rope down. DM, what does the bell pulling person look like?

The woman in the bell tower wears a chain shirt, bandoliers with a multitude of small vials, and has a flail at her belt.

Cora flies closer to the bell tower, pulling out an arrow as she closes the gap.

OK, I'll go ahead and attack her. Cora will move to 60' away from the woman and attack with her bow. Initiative?

My post got eaten, but I was going to say we shouldn't climb up until the woman is dispatched. Go, Cora, go!

The green asterisk shows the position of the bell tower, roughly 100' high, but the map of the bell tower with the enemy is on the lower half of the page.

Round 1:

Initiative order
Rowane
Cora
Machi-e
Nezos
Enemy

Everyone can act!

Enemy: AC ? T ? FF ? HP taken: 0

Machi-e pulls out a scroll and begins to read it.

getting a Scroll of Summon Monster 1 out.

Knowing this will mostly fall to the others, Nezos exchanges his sword for a sling, which looks laughable compared to his shield.

Whoa that's far. OK, so it's 125' south and 100' up, that's ~160 feet at a 45 degree angle. She'll fly 45 degrees up/S and I think she can use the Run action to move 4x her normal speed since she has natural, non-magical flight. That will move her 60' south and 50' up, using the formula for calculating hypotenuse that I haven't thought of in many decades, and she loses her Dex bonus to AC for this round.

Cora unfurls her iridescent black and purple wings and kicks off the ground with an owl's eerie silence, headed straight for the top of the bell tower.

Cora, I thought you'd already taken off--you were flying up towards the tower when you were spotted.

Yeah, but we didn't have a distance traveled or anything so I was just starting at 0. A full round's movement without the Run action would have been 40 feet, so do we just want to put her that much closer to the tower top?

Sure.

Just going to be dropping a dot to make sure I stay up to date.

Can't wait for your big debut!

Gallius aims his crossbow, wincing at the distance.

"Right, yeah, I'm not going to be hitting much more than stone at this distance."

He sticks close to Nezos.

Quick retcon: on the party's triumphant return from the Crypt of Tula, dragonslaying weapons in hand, the high priestess of Abadar in the town had to recall Rowane to active duty (as it were). Fortunately, a human priest of Nethys had only recently reached Belhaim after most of the caravan he was traveling with had been wiped out by grioths and a drake. The priest, one Gallius Disquero, was readily persuaded to join the party on the next phase of their effort to kill the dragon threatening the village.

"You all can walk up there--I'll join you in a moment," says Machi-e distractedly.

The woman ducks for cover behind one of the bells.

Round 2:

Everyone can act!

Cora soars every closer to the bell tower, winging to the east to get a bead on the bell ringer.

I moved Cora 1 Move action closer to the green asterisk. She's now 70' up and 80' from her starting position, or 30' away vertically and 45' away horizontally (~55' on the hypoteneuse) from the target. She also moved to the east to try to get line of sight to the target around the bell again.

She uses her 2nd Move action to activate Studied Target on the woman.

I didn't update her location on the map. Cora is unable to see the woman from her current position.

I had Cora go east because of the woman's location on the map. If she ducked around the bell the other way, Cora would have gone that way.

Her intent was to move around the bell to 180° from the direction Cora was coming from, and I'm not sure how Cora can get to where she can see the woman with only a 20' move, especially since Cora is looking up at her.

Machi-e summons an eagle, which flies towards the woman.

Machi-e spends his round running toward the bell tower.

Whoa, I can place the eagle 35' away and it has a fly speed of 80'. It might just reach the woman to attack her. DM, can you check to see if the eagle gets there?

It's 125' horizontally from Machi-e, so the eagle couldn't even reach the point under the belfry (assuming that the rest of the building wasn't there). Including the vertical distance, it's 160 feet from Machi-e, and climbing speed is half base.

Ooops, forgot the hypotenuse. Have fun storming the castle, Cora!

Nezos starts stumping his way across the courtyard, not expecting to be of much use.

Double move.

Yeah, makes sense, DM. Cora will double move closer to the bell tower, then, continuing the 45 degree angle to not have to make a Fly check. She will not get within 30' of the belfry, though.

If it looks like the woman has gone down from the tower, Cora is going to drop a rope down for the team to climb up.

Round 2 (ongoing):

Initiative order
Gallius-
Cora-acted
Machi-e-acted
Nezos-acted
Enemy

Cora, Nezos, and Machi-e move up towards the tower, Machi-e's eagle going before the party.

Gallius?

Nuts, my post didn't go through.

Gallius groans and legs it alongside Nezos as best as he can, also taking a double move.

From the movement of shadows in the belfry, the woman is still present and doing something.

Round 3:

Initiative order
Gallius-
Cora-
Machi-e-
Nezos-
Enemy

Everyone can act!

Gallius moves another twenty feet, ending right behind Nezos. He reaches out with his bucklered hand, incants a short prayer to Nethys, and whips the now glowing hand around in a tight spiral.

Casting bless with a duration of 5 minutes. Unfortunately Machi-e is outside the burst radius but at least it catches the rest of us.

Cora glides up higher and drifts a little away from the belfry's walls to keep a safe distance.

Double move to ascend another 20' and south 20'. If the woman hasn't moved from her position on the map it looks like Cora should be able to see her, but she might have moved.

She's now 90' up and 100' from her starting position, or 10' away vertically and 30' away horizontally (~32' on the hypoteneuse) from the target's map position.

I think Cora is too high off the ground to be caught in the bless effect.

Round 3 (ongoing):

Initiative order
Gallius-acted
Cora-acted
Machi-e-
Nezos-
Enemy

Cora can see the woman near the bell.

Machi-e and Nezos can act!

Ah snap, correct. No worries!

The eagle continues to head towards its target.

Machi-e keeps loping toward the bell tower.

Nezos fully expects the woman to have moved out of position by the time he gets anywhere close to sling range.

Double move.

The woman pops out from behind the bell and hurls a vial at Cora. It hits the inquisitor and bursts into flames for 23 points of fire damage.

Round 4:

Initiative order
Gallius-
Cora-
Machi-e-
Nezos-
Enemy

Everyone can act!

Gallius takes two move actions to close in, ready to dish out some healing next round if needed.

Gritting her teeth against the pain and slapping at the fire licking at her clothes, Cora grunts out the words to a spell and backs off from the bomb-throwing woman's perch.

Cast Invisibility on self, move 20' south.

Nezos stays close to Gallius, but not too much so in case of more explosions, and raises his shield further. "How do we get up there without opening ourselves up to more of that?"

Total defense.

The eagle swoops at the woman.

Claw: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (17) + 3 = 20
for: 1d4 ⇒ 2

Claw: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (12) + 3 = 15
for: 1d4 ⇒ 3

Machi-e mutters under his breath, and loads his crossbow.

Casting True Strike and getting out a Tangle Bolt.

Machi-e, with the woman in the position she's in you can't see her at all.

The eagle misses with its attacks. Cora can see the woman attack the eagle with a flail before she takes a step back.

Round 5:

Initiative order
Gallius-
Cora-
Machi-e-
Nezos-
Enemy

Everyone can act!

Woman: AC 24 T 13 FF 21 HP taken: 0