Down, Down To Goblin Town (Inactive)

Game Master Connor McGinnis

You find yourselves at the entrance of a dark tunnel, large and wide, but that may not be a good thing. Too may ways for the goblin tribes you are after to set up a flank. What are you using as a light source and what is your marching order. The tunnel is 15 feet wide, allowing for 3 of you to walk abreast with no worries.

Arkas casts Light on his hat, then casts Prestidigitation to raise it 5 feet above his head for a look around.

"Ah, that's much better", he says.

The small, unkempt, skinny halfling glares ahead at the vast darkness, from atop his pony. Rishin gives Twiggy a comforting pat on the back of his neck, and then he looks around at the others. "Well, this is what we signed on for, might as well get at it."

The halfling opens a small jar containing blue paint, and he dips his fingers in. He draws some blue streaks across his forehead and right cheek. He puts the jar away and then begins chanting a quick verse and touches his shield. The round wooden shield he holds begins to glow brightly and greatly accents the large green leaf depicted on it.

Aiming his shield forward, he nudges Twiggy forward into the depths, while ensuring that he keeps pace with others beside him.

Rishin is willing to take up a spot in the front line, but will express no concerns if there are others that would rather be in that position.

Isabel rose up from the ground with a sigh having just finished mending her skirt which tore on the way down to the tunnel systems. "Hmm, do any if you remember how many tribes our benefactor mentioned?" She pinned up her long auburn hair as she spoke, letting her staff lean against the cave wall in the process. She rolled her eyes as the wizard enchanted his hat causing it to float in the air and fidgets with her spell component pouch yet again moving herbs to and fro.

Isabel is quite comfortable in the back line.

Halkale clears his throat before he speaks. If someone could keep a light up, I don't mind going first. I can track some, so that might help.

He then pulls his bow out, strings it and nocks an arrow.

In addition, goblins are my favored enemy so I get bonuses to dealing with them.

Arkas stepped up next to the ranger and said,
"I'll be right behind ye, friend. I've spent a good portion of my life in digs much like this one."

Arkas will stay a step back from the front so his hat can light the way.

Malcolm stands next to Halkale in front. He draws his Bastard Sword.

Well, it appears we have plenty of light...let us advance! For Abadar...may his perfection guide our path.

Link stalks ahead.. "How bout yall keep that light back and let me take a look ahead.." ALmost disappearing into the darkness the half-elf moves away silently..

stealth: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (13) + 11 = 24
perc.: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (5) + 7 = 12

Link follows the trail for about 30 feet until he realizes that there is a new fork in the tunnels. No goblin sentries spitted so far, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious. If anything is there it's a good bet saying they aren't able to see him just yet.

Link makes his way back to the group.. stealth: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (10) + 11 = 21
"There's a fork in the road up there about 30'.. Didn't see no gobos so far... Prob ok to move up as a grp to there.."

Halkale begins to follow Link back up to the fork keeping his eyes and ears open for any sign of goblins.
Perception: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (18) + 9 = 27

rolls for the walk back.. He normally tries to stay hidden as to give him surprise.. He wields an Elven Curveblade btw..

Perc.: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (20) + 7 = 27

Stealth: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (18) + 11 = 29

As the rest of the group comes up to the fork behind Link and Halkale, Arkas asks,

"Do either of ye see anything that might hint as to which way our quarry is?"

Arkas has Knowledge Dungeoneering, and was raised mostly underground as well, if that might help here

Malcolm continues to advance lockstep with Halkale, detecting evil at will down both passages as the approach the fork.

Link whispers "i would suggest looking closer when we reach the split.. If somthing is noticed i will scout ahead again.."

Isabel enters the cave behind them, snatching up her staff as she progresses forward listening closely as she continues on.

Perception 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (12) + 1 = 13

Rishin rides forward, doing his best to remain alert.

Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (18) + 5 = 23

Just to speed things up: You all are able to get up to the fork in the road undetected, but see nothing other than what I already described to Link. Now, left or right?

Rishin looks to Link, waiting for him to choose a passage.

"Well, whichever way we choose, I'd say someone should keep an eye out behind us to make sure we don't get boxed in"

Link creeps down the right side whispering "Right is right.. err. well half of the time anyways.." with a smirk unseen he stalks off into the shadows, curve blade at the ready..

Stealth: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (19) + 11 = 30
Perc.: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (5) + 7 = 12

I can watch the rear as far as the light goes, but I hear pretty well, so keep the sound to a minimum and make sure to whisper if we are getting close to something.

Halkale turns and faces toward the back glancing forward to see where he is going, following the rest of the group.

As the party makes their way to the right (about 15 feet into that tunnel, actually) Link notices he's slipping past a half-asleep goblin sentry wearing minimal studded leather armor (counts as regular leather because of the small amount being worn), a small sized dagger, and a short spear leaning against the wall to his right.

Halkale (at the back of the party): Reflex save followed by a perception check, please.

reflex: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (12) + 5 = 17
perception: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (6) + 9 = 15
I assumed goblin on my perception check if no, it's +7

Link will CDG the gobo as a full round action

Raising his blade he silently cuts the sleeping gobos head off..
sneak: 1d6 ⇒ 1

Full crit damage is 22+1 sneak makes it a dc 33 fort or die

Halkale dodges the whistling javelin as it flies just past his shoulder. Looking back he sees a goblin spearman with another javelin at the ready.
Link slits the other sentry's throat and it fall dead on the spot.

Do we need to roll initiative?

We have company behind us, folks

Will we be using a map? Kinda hard to move without one..

Initiative? Map?

Go ahead and roll for initiative. I have my online groups use grid paper, and i'd like to keep it that way. The way is clear of obstructions in movement in front and behind right now. The tunnel is straight. Draw out abut 90 feet of it with a three square (15 foot) width. The goblin starts out 20 feet behind Halkale. Typically i'd be more descriptive with maps, but this one is very simple.

I am sorry all, but I am dropping out. I do not like the pace or the level of detail.

Google Spreadsheet is best suited for this. I'll slap one together for this, in the hopes of inspiring the GM to do this for other maps :)

Battle Map

EDIT: Note, I am not certain where everyone was in the marching order, but I think I am close?

And there goes our paladin...

Rishin: I'll try that out and see how it works. Thanks for the help.

Malcolm, I think we just have an inexperienced PBP GM. We just need to help him a bit.

GM - Here's what I recommend to keep player's interested (either now for for future campaigns):

1. Give the players some time to interact with each other before starting the campaign so they have a chance to get to know each other. Starting with a basic roleplay scenario is helpful for this. (If you are just going with a high combat and low rp campaign, then you should be providing battle maps -- and at time of recruiting you should probably state that the campaign will mainly be a skirmish / combat campaign).

2. Battlemaps. Quickest way is to use the spreadsheet in Google docs. You can also give other player's access to the sheet so that they can move their player name around on their own. Others use a program like Maptools and take a screenshot to post in an image gallery (too time consuming for my tastes, but the maps look great!) Players just state what map coordinate they are moving to and what enemies in what coordinates they are targeting.

3. Post the initiatives. All you have to do is save a text file with all the code for the player's initiatives. Then just add a couple more in for your bad guys and then post them all at once. Saves waiting 1-2 days for player's to post their individual initiatives.

4. Run the initiatives in Groups. Group the initiatives in groups of 2 or 3. (i.e. Hero 1 rolls 23, Hero 2 rolls 20, Bad guys roll 18, Hero 3 rolls 15, Hero 4 rolls 12. Group 1 is Hero 1 & 2. They can post their actions in any order. Group 2 is bad guys. Group 3 remaining heroes.) This really helps to keep things moving along. A lot of pbp campaigns die in the middle of combat.

5. Declare the rounds. Each time a new combat round starts, post the round #. Also a summary of what happened the last round is very helpful.

6. To help save you time and your player's time in referencing stats. Have your players record their stats in the race field in their profile so that they appear like they do under Rishin's name (or like Hawkale or linkified like Link's). This is very helpful.

If you want to continue running this campaign I will be happy to help you along with it, to develop your pbp GM skills. If you don't want my help (or don't think you need it) then just let me know (I won't be insulted :)

Just to help you, here is the code you can use if you wish to post everyone's initiatives. (Just remove all the ".")

[.ooc][.b]Initiatives:[/b][/ooc]

[.ooc]Rishin[/ooc] [.dice]1d20 +2[/dice]
[.ooc]Hawkale[/ooc] [.dice]1d20 +4[/dice]
[.ooc]Link[/ooc] [.dice]1d20 +4[/dice]
[.ooc]Malcolm[/ooc] [.dice]1d20 +1[/dice]
[.ooc]Arkas[/ooc] [.dice]1d20 +7[/dice]
[.ooc]Isabel[/ooc] [.dice]1d20 +4[/dice]
[.ooc]Goblin(s)[/ooc] [.dice]1d20 +6[/dice]

Oh, and I forgot an optional recommendation which is very help in keeping players interested in the campaign, especially if there is a lot of combat:

7. Rule that all out of combat healing is maximized. The in-game justification for this, is that when you are not under pressure you can heal a person better (cast a healing spell or touch a healing wand at just the right area or drink a potion slowly ensuring you don't miss a drop).

I apologize to everyone about spamming the gameplay thread with this -- I forgot I was in the gameplay thread.

initiative:1d20 + 7 ⇒ (16) + 7 = 23

Not a problem, Rishin. We all gotta start somewhere!

Intiative: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (17) + 4 = 21

Intiative:: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (6) + 4 = 10

Initiative - 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2

I'm fine with the map placement. I don't seem to have much to say because I'm new to pbps, I've only ever just roleplayed on forums before not actually playing a game.

Initiative: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (13) + 2 = 15

This has been a really eye-opening experience for me. My personal life is getting in the way of being able to hold to anything, and I find myself making rookie DM mistakes when i've run many adventures successfully. Henceforth, to spare you all boredom and anger, I am closing down this campaign. Sorry for basically wasting your time. Thank you for your understanding, and good luck in future campaigns.

Sorry to hear that, but life comes first, good luck.