Defense of Brookside

Game Master caster4life

Have fun in Cambodia/China!

My wife is Chinese, so I’ve been there a few times. Where in China will you be going?

@Brolin: Just to be clear, I'm totally fine with what you are doing :)

In-character, though, it's probably a bit of a WTF-moment, like, what in the 9 hells could you be trying to negotiate at a time like now. Just wanted to make clear there's a IC/OOC discrepancy there.

IC conflict is the best conflict. :)

And, to be clear, if Muse's arguments seem somewhat scattershot, that's because he'd try to find a peaceful solution to any problem, and he's rationalizing as to why a peaceful solution would best solve this problem after already deciding on the course of action.

Heading to Chengdu and a small college town near there to visit a friend who teaches there.

Turion and Muse: Great stuff. I'm totally fine with IC conflict as long as it's managed in way that allows the game to proceed and everyone's fine OOC. You guys are totally handling that so good work. Never hurts to reassure too much OOC.

Chengdu! That’s my wife’s hometown. Might well be making a trip there myself later this year. Have fun there. One of my favorite places to be. Some of the best food in the world :D

Awesome! Looking forward to the food!

@Brolin: Aye, I figured that. Peaceful is good. What Túrion can't quite grasp is the timing. As in, if you ambushed him, some friends and his pack of wolves, slaughtering the majority, the last thing on his mind would be being diplomatically inclined towards you.
Plus, of course, the intent to let the enemy leaders go - considering we are out of resources, will need to withdraw, and come back here again trying to push on further...
Túrion shares the view that the fundamental value of orcish society is strength. Having a dangerous enemies life in your hands and letting them go could be seen as benevolent in your homeland, but here, it's probably weakness.
If you hope the dangerous enemy talks with you, you take him with you and force him to do so - prove you have the strength to make things turn out the way you wish them to be and force him to respect you - not let him go and hope he will take pity on you.
As in, when in rome, do as the Romans.

It's also a character trait of him mirror-opposing -REDACTED-. Who has totally different reasons for it but regardless shares Brolins and Mel's views. In a way. Well, you'll see next level.

Ah good ol' REDACTED. ;)

Which reminds me, players who have fun ideas should always feel free to PM me.

Okay, I have to ask: if you take a crossbow, load it, and then throw it, what are the chances of the following happening?

A) The bolt falls off.

B) The trigger mechanism gets jarred when it lands/is caught, causing it to go off.

C) Both of the above.

Considering that the bolt is not held in place by anything but gravity, A seems almost certain. B seems highly likely.

This three-minute video demonstrating firing a medieval light crossbow may be relevant.

Oh, and I think the idea is that Túrion has a plan to stop the orc archers from moving but needs light in order to accomplish it before they walk out of sight again. But so far he hasn't communicated that in character.

Sorry to double-post.

Hey, GM: I just discovered a rules wrinkle affecting Mel's Healer's Hand feat. Namely, it won't work in areas are planar travel won't work, so it can be shut down using Dimensional Anchor, Dimensional Lock, Forbiddance, or any other effect that prevents inter-planar travel. Oh, and also Anti-Magic Field. And it won't work if we wind up on a plane with the Dead Magic property.

None of those have come up yet, so consider this an advisory note.

Aye, I failed to communicate it in-character as I was uncertain if I wanted to go through with it. That Hero Point could be spent in more efficient ways with a full loadout of spells. But it also seemed a decent way to end the current encounter.

@Crossbow: Technically, I completely agree with you.
On the other hand, there are game mechanics in place that force me to take an aimed shot at a area on the ground, spending my standard action on that.
Instead of pointing in a rough direction and firing not really caring where the bolt lands as a move action(nope, no can do).
Mechanically, I cannot even spend this round aiming, then simply 'pull the trigger' next round - doing that would still consume my standard action, making it impossible to follow up with a spell.
Considering that, and the fact that it's a MW crossbow, not a regular old one, featuring a extra mechanism that keeps the bolt in place and uses a more sophisticated trigger mechanism, I feel it's fair to throw, catch and use.

So, as I understand it, the difficulty you're having is that you want to spend a hero point to cast a spell that locks them down -- probably Black Tentacles. But you cannot see them to target the area, and if you spend your standard action lighting it up, then they have every incentive to move away on their next turn, meaning you still can't target them because they moved out of sight again. Right?

To get around that you were hoping to get the light bolt prepped and loaded in one round, then have another party member take it and fire off the bolt before your action in the next round, thus affording you an opportunity to ensnare them before they can run away. Right?

That would have worked fine, except Algric hasn't cooperated -- probably because he didn't understand what you were asking for.

I'd personally have gone with a readied action:

Round 1, prep and load the glowing crossbow bolt

Round 2, ready action: "The next time they finish shooting a volley at us, I return fire at where I believe the arrows to be coming from."

Round 3, cast your spell.

The readied action fires off on the enemy's turn, not yours. And because you specified that the trigger was at the end of their volley, any archer who took a full-round action no longer has a move action to spend.

It's definitely less efficient, taking a full 3 rounds to accomplish by yourself what could be done in two with a little help. And it doesn't guarantee that they can't move. Any archer who took a full-attack action would have a five-foot step available to them. And if they only took a single attack, they would have a move action available either for moving out of range (if they're close enough to the edge of the lit area), or doing clever things like falling prone on top of the bolt to cut off the light.

You could also -- in a more meta-gamey way -- specify a readied action triggered by one of your allies taking their turn. For example, "I ready an action to shoot this glowing bolt where I believe the archers are the next time Mel makes an attack." As long as Mel goes before you and makes an attack, then your readied action takes place on her turn, after the orcs' round is definitely complete, thus allowing you to cast your spell after the bolt is in place but before their next opportunity to move.

Ah the fun of game mechanics. Where a character can do the impossible, but also can't do what a competent 10 year old can. Peasant rail gun anyone?

It might have been simpler to grab one of Algric's arrows and hand it to him the way Fyrtor did with Mel. No changing weapons that way.

True, but in RL the sequence of actions makes way more sense to just use what he already has in hand. The same sort of thing happened to me with the getting over the wall. It makes way more sens that a quick climb with one had occupied is easier than vaulting the thing, but in the game it worked the other way around. It's a tough thing that can cause problems when mechanics don't match perception, but you just have to roll with it.

So offtopic, but...

Guys I did a thing! Check this out if you get the chance and post me some feedback/advice. Thanks! :D

Baggageboy's Mini Guide to Making the Most of UMD at Low Levels

@Grabbing Arrow and handing it: I did that earlier with Brolin. Alas, when the plan was started, it was unclear how far the wall of Bones extended to both directions.
As it turns out, I would have entered the spells effective area to do so. Meaning we would both have been subject to being grappled, and if either of us is, that's more delay.

@Readying an action: I considered it, but:

The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character’s activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.

Technically, I would interrupt one of them...if I interrupt the beginning of their volley, the rest can flee. If I interrupt the end of their volley, all but one can act before me next turn.

An argument could be made for their volley to take place simultaneously, and them to be counted as a single initative entity, but that is homebrew/handwaving, just as aimlessly pulling the trigger as move action would have been.
It seemed cleaner and less rules-bendy to have another character fire the arrow with no what-ifs or interpretations involved.

@Spell: Aye, either Black Tentacles or even a good old Web.(Tentacles depends on one roll of me vs. all of them...roll bad and they can run. With Web chances are most of them are caught as each needs to save individually.)

@Cooperation: Aye, Túrion was busy not being grappled or shot at, while Algric was busy shooting Orcs. Considering a combat round is around 6 seconds, I figured there's not much time for a lenghty tactical explanation - plus he's not my proxy character so not my decision what he does. We don't know each other that well in-character, so it seemed fine in-game that we're not operating like a well-geared machine. Just when Algric dove behind cover I felt I should re-iterate that there was something for him to do even if no targets are visible to shoot at :)

@Efficiency: Now would probably be a great time for Kazador to charge the archers and scatter them, using his darkvision, AC and fly speed to force them to flee or be cut down.
But I could understand him being reluctant to repeat the very action that very nearly cost him his life a minute ago, so I'm still willing to spend the hero point - it's not "needed" mechanically, but it seems flavorful since it was gained from interaction with Kazador and give Kaz more options on how to proceed from here.

Yeah....ooc I can see only mooks. IC it is the exact same situation at the start of the fight. Kazador would be a fool to fly in. Most likely he is going to ensure the orc leaders are dead for the next few rounds. Or get Fyrtor up on the wall if things look dangerous.

Well, I think you're making your life harder than it needs to be, Túrion. I mean, we're already not running initiative per RAW. The monsters go, and then each of us goes in whatever order we happen to get to it, because that works better for PbP purposes than RAW initiative. Thus worrying about changing your position in the initiative gets you nothing but heartache.

Eh. I don't suppose it matters much at this point. What's done is done, and you're probably going to be getting the opportunity to cast your spell pretty soon here.

Maybe I am. What I meant was that previously I was arguing against "simultaneous turns" when 2 arrows from different orcs were aimed at Mel.
As in, I made an argument that if one arrow makes you go down, the second arrow from the other orc should be aimed at me, since technically they go one after another, like us.

Then I can't in good conscience argue for compound initative here because it would be more convenient if they act simultaneous.
My point mostly was that I could not 'interrupt' all of them shooting at us, so technically, all but one would get a chance to revise their planned full attack after I shoot my light arrow.
Because specifying I basically wait until they are done with their attacks, but still expecting to go before them next round would feel gamey. You should understand - I saw you insist on using failed rolls from discussion over in gameplay because you accidently rolled them here first.
It would feel 'wrong' to me, so I wanted to do it in a way that was mechanically viable without shifting my position based on what seems more convenient at the time.
Apologies if that made the whole mess more convoluted than it needed to be.

Hey Brolin, did you know that Dancing Lights can move 100 feet per round on their own without consuming an action? Within range of the spell, naturally, which would be 180 feet at this level.

I think it makes sense in character for Brolin to fly out the way he has, but it would've been handy to send those lights out over our opponents earlier instead of having them hover over us.

Oh, and as a side note, no one is in range of Brolin's shared seance thingy any more, so we lose the +2 damage bonus from his seance boon.

Oh - I forgot to add my -2 (subtract my +2?) from the intimidate roll for having recently left Spirit Dance. Though I doubt it'd make a difference, with that roll.

Yeah, we are running really low on resources.

Since RAW a loaded crossbow can be tilted without losing the bolt, I'll allow tossing this time. But Mel makes an interesting point and I doubt there are many scenarios in which that would work.

Yeah makes sense for Kazador, though that's entirely up to him. Last time he explicitly knew there was a large body of orcs on their way.

Um, Turion, are you planning on spending your hero point? I think you're the only one who needs to go before GM can update the set.

I thought I posted earlier. Basically I want to give them a chance to surrender, if only to not invalidate Brolins attempt at getting them to do that.
But yeah, otherwise I'll spend the Hero Point on "cleanup". Not efficient, but fitting.
Decided on Tentacles because it is technically a kill spell. If they got webbed, Brolin may have decided to not harm them, with Mel and Kelian agreeing not to shoot helpless enemies.
Maybe some RP/dramatic potential if the Dwarfs continue taking revenge, but a moot point if the spell used is lethal.

Back from Asia and back on track to get the game moving again.

Glad to hear it :) In hope you enjoyed yourself immensely.

Indeed I did!

Welcome back! How was Chengdu?

Chengdu was awesome! I loved the People's Park and the street food. Walking around the urban areas around 9 pm was really cool too. Near Chengdu we had hot pot and gongwo (phonetic, idk spelling). Those were fantastic, especially the gongwo.

Fills me with joy to hear that. :)

Will post tomorrow, have been up to my ears in another project.

It's awesome to have you back! Glad you had fun.

Man, Kazador had to execute a prisoner as a coming of age ceremony?

Dwarf culture done got dark.

My thought process for it: Everyone has a craft. It is what your clan does, so it is what you do. Full stop, end of story. Don't like it? Keep it to yourself and don't insult your ancestors by complaining.

So when you are ready to take up the pick to be a miner or the hammer to be a smith? You have a ceremony where you start the process of learning the trade. The problem, being, that for Kazador, fighting is his craft. And not showy fighting, but killing. So the way he'd be initiated into the craft is by doing it. And just like any other young dwarf, it'd be done in a controlled situation where the beardling can't be hurt. Then, to become a master of one's craft and be considered able to go out on your own, the dwarf would have to perform their craft alone. Which for Kazador, would mean actually fighting. It would also serve the purpose, for the warrior clans, to make their dwarves into killers. Their feelings wouldn't be taken into consideration for this, of course.

To quote the hound

Sandor Clegane : "Look at me! Stannis is a killer. The Lannisters are killers. Your father was a killer. Your brother is a killer. Your sons will be killers someday. The world is built by killers... so you better get used to looking at them."

Mixed with this Comic

"I stay 'ere because it's me duty. And bein' a dwarf is about doin' yer duty even if it makes ye miserable. ESPECIALLY if it makes ye miserable."

And "My mum taught me tha' I should always take feelings like that, and bury them inna dark part o' my soul and nev'r ev'r talk about 'em again. That's tha dwarven way."

It's extremely unhealthy. And for someone brought up without any opposing viewpoint, it's all too easy to think that it is the only way to do things. Part of the character arc that I have roughly sketched in my head, is for Kazador to figure out how to live his life for himself, doing what he thinks is right without feeling crushing guilt about it. Not turning his back on his culture and traditions, but at the same time not letting the burden break him. And for this to be accomplished by traveling and living with two humans and two elves. :)

Solid story telling, and it adds great depth to the dwarf culture. In a dwarf mentality it's simple justice as they see it. Brtutal and effective.

I think your comic link got borked, Kazador, it just goes to this page you're reading right now. But I'm guessing it's Order of the Stick, and that's Durkon you're quoting?

Same thought. Very familiar with that Durkon quote.

So, the plan. Let the orcs caught die, let Kazasor and Algric finish off the orcs that are knocked out then loot the bodies? After that heal up and move on to find the blues?

I would prefer resting beforehand.

We assume the blues will be thankful for our help. But if negotiations go downhill I would prefer if we're not running on fumes.

It was previously established that Orc Society values strenght. As such, having a big stick to back our soft speaking would seem desirable.

I'm all in favor of resting if it can be sensibly done. I have soften earth still so we can even carve out a chunk of wall if doing so will help is remain inconspicuous.

Yeah, we need to rest. Our spellcasters are running on fumes, some of which may be Obscuring Mist. :-Þ

For our prepped casters, may I suggest that Stone Shape and other spells that manipulate stone may be useful in this environment? There certainly seem to be lots of raw materials for them, and they're very flexible in that you can make pretty much any shape you can imagine as long as it's not too intricate.

Declare some IC actions then, me hearties. Let's see where you try to rest.

GM, how do you want to handle scavenging arrows?

Per RAW, any arrow that hit is considered destroyed, or at least useless. Mel's not to keen on excising arrowheads from her victims anyway. The ones that miss have a 50% chance of being recoverable, assuming I can find them in the dark.

Fyrtor's arrows are durable, that's why he's be able to recover them. I don't think any of his were misses. The orc archers should have some arrows we can scavenge. A number on how many would be important though.

Let's say 100 arrows recovered as that is a low estimate and a nice number. There were 13 archers as I recall.

Okay, health check!

After Kelian's channel and Mel's last Healer's Hands of the day, I'm showing:

Kazador 84/84
Algric 64/64
Brolin 52/52
Túrion 27/42 (15 down)
Mel 67/67
Kelian 44/55 (11 down)
Fyrtor 56/61 (5 down)
Nelly 40/65 (25 down)

Mel can do a Treat Deadly Wounds check for Nelly, but it'll take an hour because she's burned through her daily uses from the feat, including the one gained at 8th level. So she'd prefer to wait till we're someplace more secure before doing that.

How do we want to divide those hundred arrows? Mel wants at least 30, since she's a dedicated archer.

Actually Fyrtor should only be down 1 because 4 of the damage was nonlethal from jumping off the wall. I'm fine with just my 10 durable arrows so I don't need any of the 100.

Mechanically, Nelly at half speed is still moving faster than Dwarves at normal speed.
It is mostly a flavor-thing to take a break as soon as possible and do the 15-minute treatment to remove the damage to her paws - the proper healing would be welcome later.

Just want to say, Brolin, you work the memory reading angle really well.