Sebastian's keen sight scans the area for any macabre traps, then squats down near the pool in an attempt to ascertain how the men died. As Xichikitte begins to fish the corpses out, he takes a closer look.
Perception:1d20 + 9 ⇒ (6) + 9 = 15 (+1 for traps)
Heal to identify cause of death:1d20 + 1 ⇒ (19) + 1 = 20
"Indeed, a horrible way to die." Arbiscar kneels next to Sebastian and helps him identify the corpses and wounds.
Perception:1d20 + 3 ⇒ (3) + 3 = 6 Heal:1d20 + 3 ⇒ (9) + 3 = 12
They have nothing on them of any value and their corpses are badly decomposed. Their clothes reveal that they were once members of Taldor’s high society, but nothing else. After a short examination, Sebastian and Arbiscar are able to determine that they were all killed by having their throats cut.
The small drops resound in the sewer as Arbiscar rises his eyes from the terrible wounds in the necks "That is... nasty." cleaning his face for a while with his hand, he closes the eyes of a couple of corpses with the other "No one deserves such a fate. I ask myself sometimes where are the gods to see such terrible acts to happen."
Placing one hand over his Abadar symbol the dwarf makes a silent prayer for the bodies be taken into his gods hands and protects them from becoming rotting undead. He then places his waraxe over his shoulder and quietly moves after Xichitte. Only the sparse sound of a rat breaks the otherwise silent movement of the group towards the derro's city. Arbiscar casts a new light spell over Sebastian's weapon 'shirak' and then points towards the city below "There we go. Shall gods prepare us to vanquish those evil neck-cutters rats."
"Definitely a nasty business, indeed." Sebastian agrees with the group sentiment, then tries to move on, "No need to dwell on it, we have a mission to accomplish. Down the trap door!"
Dire Rat Red will move up to Jiankuo and bite:1d20 + 4 ⇒ (11) + 4 = 15 for 1d6 + 4 ⇒ (5) + 4 = 9 damage, plus disease
Disease:
filth fever; save Fort DC 13; onset 1d3 days; frequency 1/day; effect 1d3 Dex damage and 1d3 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves.
Party is up, I set rat blue for last after Arbiscar so that I can do them both at the same time after you guys go. Its initiative was pretty close to the bottom.
Arbiscar shouts "Oh, more rats!" he then moves to the lateral of the party and runs around the dire rat profiting his great travelling speed to avoid the attacks of opportunity and set himself close to a flanking position.
He then makes an attack with his waraxe.
Dwarven mwk cold iron waraxe:1d20 + 4 ⇒ (6) + 4 = 10 Slashing/Cold iron damage:1d10 + 2 ⇒ (3) + 2 = 5
I do hope to hit something at least once during this adventure.
Arbiscar - I believe that after moving, if you're intending to flank you can set a readied action to attack the target once an ally is in flanking position, that way both PCs gain a flanking bonus.
Good to heard that Jiankuo! I was trying those kind of things with my rogue when I started playing in the messageboards, but I stop doing it because often I ended up losing my turns as people just ignored the tactic. I will try to do more of those things now ;)
Sebastian tries to tumble past the nearby red rat to avoid leaving himself open to an attack. Now in a flank with Jiankuo, he strikes out at the red vermin.
Acrobatics:1d20 + 6 ⇒ (13) + 6 = 19 The result needs to be higher than the rats CMD or the rat gets an AoO.
"Argh! Where those rats are coming from? There is really a problem in these sewers." Arbiscar checks the piles of supplies and boxes nearby, then moves to the first building door he sees.
Perception:1d20 + 3 ⇒ (12) + 3 = 15
"There does seem to be a preoccupation with those vermin, yes. I surmise it may have something to do with the magical object we're tasked to retrieve." Sebastian theorizes as he follows Arbiscar to the first door, allowing him to do the honors as the investigator keeps his eyes open for trouble.
Sorry, I meant to post the current map up there as we went.
You have reached an abandoned building that has boarded-up windows, with sign hung in front announcing is a “Butcher Shop”. It is full of spiderwebs, dust, broken furniture, broken glassware, and the like.
Knowledge Local 15:
Cassomir Below was once a small neighborhood near the shore of Cassomir’s harbor. Built entirely of wooden buildings, the district burned to the ground twice before the authorities decided to make two changes to the sea level district: they ordered that all new buildings be made of stone, brick, or rock, and decided to raise the “street level” two stories higher than it was before, building giant rock walls topped by scaffolding and sheets of granite in order to do so. This sea level district used to flood twice a year, and by pushing the street level up, the flooding problem was averted as well. Businesses that rebuilt after the last fire soon found their main floors two stories below ground and so built their buildings skyward to be once again above ground. Soon streets were laid down that covered the old streets below. This process repeated two more times during Cassomir’s history until, eventually, the original levels were completely forgotten, new sewers
for the current level were constructed atop Cassomir Below, and the memory of this original neighborhood fell out of Cassomir’s collective conscience.
Today, Cassomir Below is an abandoned neighborhood that looks more like a cavern than a city block. Buildings here are separated by high tunnels, 20 to 30 feet tall in places, whose roofs are the foundations of the sewers and buildings above. Each abandoned building here was once
the ground floor of the buildings above, but today they’re totally cut off from the upper floors on the surface. The streets are dirty and dusty, and most of the buildings are abandoned. All of the buildings here extend right up to the top of the cavern. Cassomir Below is completely unlit.
"Well that seems a butcher's shop. I don't think we will find the artifact here." Arbiscar moves towards the next building and performs the same checks, casting detect magic in order to see if there is any magical aura.
Mari, in order to speed up things, you can assume we are exploring the buildings as we advance taken 10 in our rolls.
If there is something suspicious or interesting we can stop there the action.
I have proposed a checking route in the map. If you give us descriptions about all of them, we can decide if we want to further explore some. And if fight triggers we can directly stop there.
I say this because exploring can be cumbersome in PbP.
What others thoughts are about exploring mechanics? My directions where chosen quite randomly so if someone has different order idea or exploring idea, please said so!
As Green didn't see you, he doesn't get to act in the first round, Sebastian is up, then Red, Xichikitte, Blue, Jiankuo, Arbiscar for Round 1. This isn't technically a surprise round, just Green was oblivious. He will first move after Sebastian in Round 2.
As the group searches the area building by building, Sebastian relates what happened here from what he can reconstruct.
Everyone, feel free to read that Knowledge (local) spoiler at your leisure
As for the combat, I'm not sure exactly where Sebastian is supposed to be in relation to the mites since our tokens didn't get moved. If close enough he'll shoot the nearest mite with a cold iron arrow.
I guess it is your turn then Mari! After Sebastian delays it comes the Mite. Perhaps you need to reach home to do the movements, so I hope this post is a good reminder. Ah! This kind of things happen in PbP often, it becomes easy to lose the posting pace into questions ;)
Just in case others are thinking to delay, Arbiscar will engage the enemy in his turn.
As he has 40 feet movement, he can perform a charge over one of the mites even if they don't approach.
I guess it is turn for the Mite, then Xichi. If Xichi is going to delay until the mites are at his range attacks reach, or a party member is in front of them, I advise him to communicate so, so the GM can go ahead and post all the 3 mites actions.
The dwarf carefully listens to Sebastian as he talks "Ah! That was an awesome tale! So Cassomirs Below... well, I guess why a rats cult decides to hide here. Let's see if we find where that artifact lies."
When the mites appear, the dwarf stops on a sudden "Mites ahead! They have seen us." but he loses time on doing the alarm and has no time to move before the mites answer to the party threat.
I have too many games, I totally forgot that Sebastian's delay would make it the mite's turn. Also, I'm a blonde. If you're all available to post lots tonight and tomorrow, I'm home and not doing anything but going for a quick dinner tonight, I'll check a lot. Also, feel free to ping me if you think I'm taking too long.
Jiankuo will charge the nearest mite on his turn after the blue mite has acted. As I believe I'm in a different time zone from everyone else, so anyone feel free to move my character into the appropriate position once the blue mite has moved.
Arbiscar moves to the front surrounding the mites the best he can and unleashing the power of his dwarven waraxe.
Dwarven mwk cold iron waraxe:1d20 + 4 ⇒ (9) + 4 = 13 Slashing/Cold iron damage:1d10 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 2 = 8
Sorted Initiatives
Sebastian
Green Mite
Red Mite
Xichikitte
Blue Mite
Jiankuo
Arbiscar
Blue Mite will hurl a dart:1d20 + 2 + 1 ⇒ (13) + 2 + 1 = 16 for 1d3 - 1 ⇒ (2) - 1 = 1 at Arbiscar.
Jiankuo will charge and destroy the red mite, and Arbiscar is going to have to move a bit more to get the blue mite, since the red one is dead dead. You can ready your action to go when the Green mite moves up to you, because he's going to on his turn, then you'll kill him.
Sebastian's turn, then green I have moved Green and Arbiscar will kill him on his turn.
It appears my icon is no longer on the map. I'm afraid I don't remember exactly where he was. Also, did Sebastian's delay attack go off when the mites came into visual range? If so, Sebastian would be further down in the initiative chart whenever he made that attack (probably after the first mite who moved into range).
You're there, you're on top of the rat floor decoration. I put red borders around all of your icons, because I kept losing them, too. And darn it I always forget about delays in play by post. Sorry, yes, you shot and killed. You want the green or blue? Just remove whichever one you choose to kill.
