I watched it and was like, "What the fox going on here?"
Though the lyrics definitely nailed your arrival, FireFox.
a colorful blur, heading high speed towards you.
"Stop! Whoa! Halt! Please stop! AAAAHHHHH - STOP!!!"
and the fox screeches to a halt as the figure flies off its back from momentum
I got curious and did some surfing. Apparently foxes are multi-lingual, as this one seems to speak some dialect of "cat."
And maybe he's trying to learn "bird" as well? (Notice the almost cat-like purr in the middle, too.)
And as a serious answer to a frivolous question, here's a good part of the fox's vocabulary.
Us "friends-of-animals" types gotta stick together.
I dunno if Ralf qualifies for that group or not. He's more about respecting animals because they don't lie or back-stab or have "agendas" like people. You can trust animals; with people, you never know for sure. So it's like he sees them as noble more than anything.
But it sure would've been nice had Foxter shown up before I song-and-danced my way through that arrow-pulling incident.
Be safe and well, Jacob. We'll hold the fort 'til your return.
Wow, that was quick. I kinda expected you to be on honeymoon for a couple of weeks or so. Welcome back, and congratulations!
I can't (and won't) speak for everyone but I suspect they, like me, felt it best to pace things. After all, we can discuss and whatnot, but even peeking through a knothole requires our honorable GM.
I think we're all leaning in roughly the same direction. Malakai wants to march into town and kick butt. Ralf approves of the kicking butt part but believes knowing the situation first will avoid a suicide mission. Polo apparently thinks this is a suicide mission and wants to go out in a blaze of glory rescuing whoever we can. FireFox, too, has talked mostly about Rush.
So, no formal "decision" but it seems the initial focus is on Rush rather than general recon or heading north.
As for the (excellent) committee observation, Ralf's style of "leadership" is, "I'm going to do 'X'. If you come along, stay out of my way." Not someone we want as a leader, trust me. The only reason he offered to partner with Qorinae is that, based on past experiences, he knows they work well together. (Lacking the sneaky skills of Mr. Stealth Elf, his intent was to hang back and cover Qorinae who would do the actual close-in reconnoitering.) But he's already approaching the point of no returnreason at which he'll just go do it his own danged self.
Heh. So much for my supposed concensus! :o)
Jacob -
Paizo : "The master has an empathic link with his familiar to a 1 mile distance. The master can communicate empathically with the familiar, but cannot see through its eyes. Because of the link's limited nature, only general emotions can be shared."
I figure I can sense his emotions to tell what's going on : fear if there's any invaders left and/or killing going on.
Please let us know the results, or if that won't work.
I know you're kind of waiting on us to decide the direction. Polo is great with scouting the town as that seems to be the first step of several directions currently up for debate. Whether we try to help the town, or destroy a cannon, or run off to warn the other towns of what might be coming, this would be a good first step.
So I'm all for that.
Beyond that, Polo is probably closer to the mentality of Malakai. While he has nothing proprietary to protect in the field of firearms, he prefers a straightforward attack. I'm not saying that's most wise, just indicating his preference :)
I'll make sure that I stay true to his personality, but I will easily follow pretty much any direction the group decides. We work as a group! But I want to voice his character in the process.
Apologies, all. I jumped the gun and thought I was ready to start back up. Clearly that's not yet the case. I'm back home now, but moving my wife in (and, exciting surprise, getting a better job) is occupying a good chunk of my time. I'm actually ready to get back into the swing of things now, but I'm only committing to one post per day for the next week or so. Thanks for your patience and for all the congratulations and well-wishes.
That totally makes sense. Everything changes once you're married. It's great, but different for sure. Congratulations again!
Huh - I just discovered that my next-to-last game post (the fox arrives, I ask a bunch of questions) appears significantly different in terms of formatting when viewed in Internet Explorer compared to Mozilla Firefox. It looks like I intended in Firefox, but not in IE.
In particular, a "paragraph" of spoken text is correctly bolded in Firefox, but not in IE. How odd.
And FWIW, I (not FF) considered the nocturnal thing, but I would imagine that creatures with LLV and DV are just that way because of their environment, and not necessarily because they're nocturnal. Just look at Dwarves, like Malakai...um, Malakai? You awake? But seriously, if the hobgoblins were *that* nocturnal, wouldn't they have attacked at night?
And for that matter, why isn't this entire message in "OOC blue" - that formatting command doesn't seem to be working for multiple paragraphs (at least on my browser...)
But I think the discussion thread is generally ooc. Except when I mispost.
No, you were thinking correctly: Previews are for your eyes only. I've gotten so used to being ninja'd I assumed that's what happened, but apparently I rolled a natural 1 for Perception this morning.
Sorry, I thought I'd warned you about the ooc stuff; my bad. For whatever reason, that tag set doesn't span paragraphs. You need to wrap each paragraph in its own pair.
Bold seems to work okay across two paragraphs, but I've seen only the first and last bolded if you try to do more than two. Maybe that's what you were seeing in your IE-versus-Firefox comparison (I use Comodo Dragon/Iron/Chrome so I may be seeing something different still). Anyway, it's probably safest to wrap bolded paragraphs independently, too.
Spoilers seem to span paragraphs (and other tags) just fine (they'd have to or you'd be stuck with a separate spoiler button for every paragraph!) As do italic and strike-through, though they rarely run for paragraphs so maybe I just haven't noticed problems with them yet.
Plus I'm still new and learning...
Spoilers can span multiple paragraphs, but you can't nest them. I'm on chrome, and experience the same results as Ralf.
Anyway, hobgoblins are diurnal, but they have darkvision. I figure your combined knowledge can come up that, so I'll spare you the knowledge checks.
Historically, in Rush, hobgoblin attacks on caravans have happened during the day.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Hah, never considered spoilerizing a spoiler!
Historically, in Rush, hobgoblin attacks on caravans have happened during the day.
Ralf's only been around a few months, so the pattern wouldn't be obvious to him yet. His question and your explanation fit nicely.
As for when to make a move, I apologize in advance for his lack of people skills. (Hey, he's good looking, talented, and a snappy dresser. There's only one remaining explanation for that 8 CHA...)
For weather:
Right now, it is 1830, meaning that the nearly full moon will not be rising for another 3 hours, at which point the light will be considered "low light."
The day of the attack on Rush was the first day of summer, for the sake of easy calculations, and each month, of which there are 12, is exactly 30 days long, with 3 months per season.
Jacob said : "each month, of which there are 12, is exactly 30 days long, with 3 months per season." And I'll bet the days are *exactly* 24.00 hours long too, yes?
My first impulse was to say "how conveeeenient" :) but in a truly infinite universe, there WILL be a solar system with a planet in orbit around it just like that...
Also, not to nit-pick (really! - if you want to ignore this or house-rule it I have no problem with it), BUT...
Vision and Light (RAW) : "Areas of dim light include outside at night with a moon in the sky, bright starlight..."
So if there's stars out, LLV characters should be able to see ok without the moon.
(The only reason I bring it up is that as a DM new to 3.5/d20/PF, I'm struggling to understand the Light and Stealth rules right now myself...)
"Or is isolated by cave-in or barricade."
Psst! Hey Ralf - don't go giving the DM ideas! :)
Since FoxFire mentioned it: About the language thing...
Ralf's strong grammar impairment and use of Omani words is to strengthen the "Wow, he's really not from around here" vibe. Common is all well and good, but whether from accent or sentence structure or pidgin usage, shouldn't there be an occasional "uh... what did he say again?" character.
And I think it's good when the player can feel a little of what the character's experiencing. It helps them feel more "connected" to what's going on in the game, makes it seem a bit more real.
I've tried to only use foreign terms when either understanding isn't vital or the meaning is available from context. (If Ralf refers to Bourbon as a "meska" for example, it's probably a safe bet meska means "bear" or "killing machine" or "big scary furry thing" or some equivalent).
But I definitely don't want it to get A) irritating or B) in the way of game play. If I take it too far in the wrong direction (or if I already have), please say something. I'll back it down or, if necessary, scrub it altogether. This game needs to be enjoyable for everyone.
(For what it's worth, I'm not making it up as I go. I'm actually pulling from a real language and legitimate grammar structure. That, as well as much of what you'll hear from him about his homeland, comes from the culture on which Ralf's character is based.)
I'm enjoying the accents Ralf and Malakai are using, I think it adds flavor...
Having just learned Common in the last year, FireFox still isn't sure of his understanding of the language. I'm just playing off of that.
Yep, and I'm playing off your playing off. Congratulations, we made it to the playoffs...
As to game strategy, I'm liking the idea of setting up camp inside the tunnel a ways down from the entrance. Seems more secure, out of sight, only two directions to monitor, and gets us closer to the action.
I wonder if we could (mostly?) replace the boards from the inside so things will be less obvious if someone wanders along outside (which seems unlikely since the back entrance apparently hasn't been discovered yet).
Guilford, I think your light being on is okay. What I meant by the "as if to stop [you]" was for us to not proceed down the tunnel just yet. Those with darkvision should take the lead and go way ahead of the rest of us (but not so far we can't get there in short order if they need us).
If you think about it, barring a focused beam (like a flashlight), a person in darkness will see an approaching light long before the person with the light spots the person in the dark. By letting the darksighted take the lead, they can stop the rest of us from e.g. rounding a corner into the enemy's line of sight.
Those of us who can't see in the dark need some way to navigate; stumbling along in pitch blackness probably isn't the wisest thing. If you're concerned, maybe toss some cloth or something over your dagger so the light's reduced to a dim glow? We won't need much once our eyes adjust. But I don't think you need to extinguish it completely, and apologies for any confusion.
Yeah, unfortunately the allowed lighting levels go straight from Normal (everyone can see) to Dim (normal vision can't see). No such by-the-book thing as a less-than-Normal light that normal vision can see in.
(Altho if Jacob wants to jump in here with another "screw the rules!", I wouldn't object :)
However, if Guilford were to put his hand in front of the dagger, that would block a lot of the light from being seen way far away, while still lighting up our immediate surroundings...
If we let the scouts go about 60' ahead, most of us (ok, most of you) could get to them in 1 round. And our light should be far enough back to not draw TOO much attention (I hope).
Just part of the dangers of living in the world, I guess. Even a fantasy one.
Ralf : I'm confused by your last comment to FireFox "Is having to do". To what were you referring?
No such by-the-book thing as a less-than-Normal light that normal vision can see in.
True. However, I submit a hob would be much less likely to spot the equivalent of a candle's light down a tunnel compared to a torch's.
Anyway, I was thinking of flavor more than any specific game mechanics advantage.
... if Guilford were to put his hand in front of the dagger, that would block a lot of the light from being seen way far away, while still lighting up our immediate surroundings...
Again true, but while that blocks the light from view down the tunnel, it still lights up the party at full brightness, versus the cloth thing toning down the light in its entirety. Though Ralf's the only one dressed in a DayGlo outfit, so if he stayed to the back of the lit pack, the hand thing would probably be equivalent.
Ralf : I'm confused by your last comment to FireFox "Is having to do". To what were you referring?
English-translation summary:
FF: I'll have Fox freeze if he smells a hob.
RT: If he freezes we risk running into them, have him run back to us instead.
FF: He's not trained for that, but Malakai would see it and warn us. Sound good?
RT: It'll have to do.
Folks, I'm sorry, but I owe you closure. I recently got a new job that is taking up a lot of my time, as I'm sure you've all seen by my lack of posting. Two days ago, however, my family was hit by a very serious crisis. As such, I have to bow out of this group. Thank you for the good times.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Be well, Jacob. All my best to you and yours.
Hope you do okay Jacob. It was fun to play with you, and I hope the crisis gets better soon.
I'm so sorry to hear that Jacob. Please take care. I hope everyone is alright, or will be soon. It was fun to be part of this game.
Best wishes Jacob. I hope everything turns out for the best.
I'm so sorry to hear about a family crisis, Jacob. This game was fun, but you're making the right choice. Prayers go with you and your family, and I really hope things look up. (Though congratulations on the new job... rather bittersweet it seems.)