Drispeera D'Lith
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Have we explored the two hexes west of the "Dead Trapper" yet?
I would like to make sure to explore them, as well as the 2 hexes west of the "Frog Pond" before heading south to "The statue of Erastil" and the Boggard again.
Essentially, I would like to finish up Northwest before heading Southeast again.
| Mornaura |
Have we explored the two hexes west of the "Dead Trapper" yet?
I would like to make sure to explore them, as well as the 2 hexes west of the "Frog Pond" before heading south to "The statue of Erastil" and the Boggard again.
Essentially, I would like to finish up Northwest before heading Southeast again.
Yes, we got the hexes west of the trapper already (on the trip during which we found the hidden cairn - actually right before we found the dead trapper).
While of course I'd like to continue with our exploration plan and will join the majority, I want to ask you to bear in mind that a) there seems to be a group killing giant frogs around here somewhere, and b) there's a gaint frog(-man) just a few hours south of here.
And since Ionnia has noticed she can cast share language, we can try to befriend him.
Drispeera D'Lith
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Hey Gang, tomorrow's our 1-year anniversary for the beginning of this game. And still going strong. 3 cheers for GM Nel for picking up the banner and creating a fun adventure for all of us!
Hip Hip Hooray!
This is the only play by post thats still going out of 12 I joined last year. I'm glad cuz its my fave!
Drispeera D'Lith
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Here are some semi-ooc questions:
If its possible to do a slight retcon, Dris would like to ask Norn to leave the unicorn in the corrupted area. Because, when they have a chance to come back, possibly with Ionnia's cart, she'd like to take the unicorn's body to the pool at Erastil's temple. It's probably a long shot, but maybe your grumpy-pants god will actual show some love for such a magnificent wild creature. I don't put much faith in old StagHead, but I'm willing to let him surprise me.
Regarding Purrcy's tricks, how much time to train has she had? So far she's trained Attack and Track. Is there time to train Attack Anything? (1 trick a week, right?)Do I need to roll for it? I think with my handle animal, and Kaeso's Aid, and taking 10 it should come out to 20 pretty consistently.
And... does Attack include Flanking? Or can I direct him where to attack? I'd like to train him to Flank with Bingo as often as possible. (I know Rogues love them some flanking.) If its not already included in things Purrcy can do, then I'd like to make Flank (Bingo) his third trick.
| GM Nel |
Here are some semi-ooc questions:
If its possible to do a slight retcon, Dris would like to ask Norn to leave the unicorn in the corrupted area. Because, when they have a chance to come back, possibly with Ionnia's cart, she'd like to take the unicorn's body to the pool at Erastil's temple. It's probably a long shot, but maybe your grumpy-pants god will actual show some love for such a magnificent wild creature. I don't put much faith in old StagHead, but I'm willing to let him surprise me.
I guess this is actually up to the party. It will take longer than the time traveled down here to go back up and snag the unicorn with a cart. Ever tried to pull a wagon through a forest? It would basically make you use the 20ft travel speed in the table. The statue of Erastil would be considerably closer.
Regarding Purrcy's tricks, how much time to train has she had? So far she's trained Attack and Track. Is there time to train Attack Anything? (1 trick a week, right?)Do I need to roll for it? I think with my handle animal, and Kaeso's Aid, and taking 10 it should come out to 20 pretty consistently.
So, I have done a bit more research on the AC rules recently, since they released the Animal Archive book.
Bonus for you, druid animal companions (which yours is for these purposes) come fully trained (bonus tricks + 6 more from having 2 int). I will leave it up to you if you'd like to keep him as he is, as it makes more sense RP wise, since you found him. What we can do is you can have his 8 total tricks be whatever you want, and although we won't handwave the time to train it, we can handwave the handle animal DC. In-game, since the animal is slowly bonding to you it learns more tricks.
And... does Attack include Flanking? Or can I direct him where to attack? I'd like to train him to Flank with Bingo as often as possible. (I know Rogues love them some flanking.) If its not already included in things Purrcy can do, then I'd like to make Flank (Bingo) his third trick.
Flank is now it's own trick. Since you have +9 in handle animal, you can command your AC to do any trick it already knows in combat as a free action with no rolling required. When you use the flank trick, you designate at that time who its going to go flank with.
There is an updated list of tricks here.
I would say it has indeed been a week since last time, so you may teach it another trick (It's 1 trick/week for each RANK in handle animal you have)
Drispeera D'Lith
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Here's the important point:
Because, when they have a chance to come back, possibly with Ionnia's cart, she'd like to take the unicorn's body to the pool at Erastil's temple.
So leave the unicorn body in the corrupted area so it doesn't decompose... FOR NOW... rescue Svetlana... come back with cart later. i know its a long shot, but hey, maybe Erastil's feeling beneficent.
~~~
Looks like I'll need to get the Animal Archive book. Whoo!
Dris has only 1 rank in handle animal, so 1 Trick a week. Sounds fair that since I just discovered the cub, he doesn't come "fully loaded"
So in our off moments I've been having Purrcy practice flanking with the boys. Trying to teach him that Flanking with Bingo is the priority when possible.
Again, if Bingo's going to survey the area I'll offer to have Purrcy go with. He's quite stealthy and has scent and low-light vision.
~~~
Slight mistake... Vanish is 1 round... per level. So 3 rounds actually. Not forever, but possibly helpful for Bingo to get good positioning at the beginning of a fight.
| GM Nel |
Here's the important point:
Drispeera D'Lith wrote:Because, when they have a chance to come back, possibly with Ionnia's cart, she'd like to take the unicorn's body to the pool at Erastil's temple.So leave the unicorn body in the corrupted area so it doesn't decompose... FOR NOW... rescue Svetlana... come back with cart later. i know its a long shot, but hey, maybe Erastil's feeling beneficent.
From a fairly easy knowledge arcana check you can surmise the "not decomposing" bit is not related to the blighted area, but an innate power of the unicorn itself. You are fairly certain it would not decompose any faster or slower based on location.
But Norn would have no problem leaving it where it was if thats what yall want.
Drispeera D'Lith
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Sorry about the anti-prison rant.
In RL I volunteer at prisons- teaching meditation, empathy, anger management and the like. I have met hundreds and hundreds of the "worst" offenders, and I have never met a bad person. Truly. I have met amazing beings that have risen from the ashes of the most hideous backgrounds.
But prisons? Augh! EEEEVVVVIIIILLLL! If you ever have the chance to visit one... they are about torture, terror, humiliation, and the crushing of the human spirit. 14 year old boys are given 10 year manditory minimums for drug possession. The guards make sure the youngsters are put in with the toughest cons on the very first night. By the time they emerge as 24 year olds they are so broken there is next to no chance they will ever function in society again. Suicide attempts run at 70% per year.
I'm working with a project called Restorative Justice where the offender actually makes amends to society, and possibly their victim or victim's family, depending on the circumstance. In the end, not only is the offender redeemed and functional, but the victim is given restitution and possibly healing.
Anyhoo... In fantasy life I take solace in simplicity. Evil is evil and can be smited. And we can take its stuff! I want to leave behind the elusive evils of poverty, ignorance, apathy, etc.
Ok. That's the end of my soliloquoy. Other people may be looking for social complexity. I just wanna kick evil's ass. And I know it's evil cuz the paladin told me so.
| Bingo Underbough |
Sorry about the anti-prison rant.
In RL I volunteer at prisons- teaching meditation, empathy, anger management and the like. I have met hundreds and hundreds of the "worst" offenders, and I have never met a bad person. Truly. I have met amazing beings that have risen from the ashes of the most hideous backgrounds.
But prisons? Augh! EEEEVVVVIIIILLLL! If you ever have the chance to visit one... they are about torture, terror, humiliation, and the crushing of the human spirit. 14 year old boys are given 10 year manditory minimums for drug possession. The guards make sure the youngsters are put in with the toughest cons on the very first night. By the time they emerge as 24 year olds they are so broken there is next to no chance they will ever function in society again. Suicide attempts run at 70% per year.
I'm working with a project called Restorative Justice where the offender actually makes amends to society, and possibly their victim or victim's family, depending on the circumstance. In the end, not only is the offender redeemed and functional, but the victim is given restitution and possibly healing.
Anyhoo... In fantasy life I take solace in simplicity. Evil is evil and can be smited. And we can take its stuff! I want to leave behind the elusive evils of poverty, ignorance, apathy, etc.
Ok. That's the end of my soliloquoy. Other people may be looking for social complexity. I just wanna kick evil's ass. And I know it's evil cuz the paladin told me so.
+1
| Mornaura |
Dris, I respect that you do voluntary work. No question there.
I respect your opinion, although I dont' share it.
Anyway, I really don't think we should start a discussion about that here.
What I don't respect is the last part of your post, because it sounds like you want to tell me I'm not allowed to see things more complicated just because you want to play it simple.
If you want black-&-white-turn-off-your-brain-morality, maybe you should've chosen an undead-dungeon-crasher-adventure instead of this sandbox AP with humanoid NPCs (of probably various factions).
Drispeera D'Lith
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Your use of the phrase "you got to settle that with your gods," really did leave me with a bitter taste. It had the same flavor of "If you don't agree with me you are morally bankrupt and god(s) will send you to hell!" I get that frequently in real life, for taking stands on things I care passionately about. Perhaps that is not what you intended, but that is how it sounded to me.
As far as moral nuance goes, I actually do enjoy moral complexity. Here are a few spots where I tried to add it in.
* Negotiating with the (intractable) mites.
* Giving numerous and ever-larger hints about Dris' (3 page, morally complex) background, which either I'm not hinting clearly enough, or no one is particularly interested.
* Playing a character that is actually quite shrewd, that has only survived this long by pretending to be an air-headed bimbo.
* The Gods. The gods of Golarion are more varied and complex than Judeo-Christianity. Even the good ones are really big into smiting and retribution. Dris attempted to point out the irony that yes, the gods she was raised with would hate her for merciful or combat killing...because they ARE EVIL. They much prefer slow torture.
* Trying to get Mornie to ask herself what happens to the captives who didn't reform and were sent to Restov. Letting go any further debate about modern prisons, have you ever heard of a middle ages prison that wasn't a hell hole? Has Mornie ever contemplated that sending them to prison might be more cruel and sadistic then simply killing them in combat?
So I do enjoy moral complexity. And I hope I've added something to the game with it.
For combat, yes, I do keep bringing that other battle up. And I know it makes you defensive. But IC, Dris really feels like you decided the bandit's life was more important than hers. Whatever decisions other people made leading up to that point, "Bandit is more important than Dris" was Mornie's final choice. That leaves her feeling betrayed. Respecting Mornie's knowledge and unique talents, but with zero trust. And if we can't find some common ground then we won't be effective as a team.
I think we've sort of reached consensus.
Dris has reluctantly conceded that we don't put em all to sleep and cdg as many as possible before active combat starts. She's nervous about this because surrendering the advantage of surprise (she thinks) is a bad idea against a more numerous foe. But since most of the group agrees, she's conceded.
Dris has also always said its fine to try redeeming them once combat is over.
The sticking point is, will Mornie meet the rest of the group in the middle, and incapacitate foes as quickly as possible while combat is happening? I think she finally indicated that she would by recommending that the foe she "slumbers" should be taken out quickly.
If that's true, we have a strategy that we can agree on. And even if we aren't perfectly happy, we each got some of what we wanted, yes?
Now... I know everybody's really just itching for some action. So let's go do some Heroing!
| Mornaura |
Since it's such a huge post, I'll have to cut it into little pieces in order to answer it.
Mornie, I was simply trying to lighten the mood at the end of an admittedly heavy post. I was aiming for "now that that's done with, how about some action?" Sorry if it didn't sound that way to you.
Alright.
"Other people may be looking for social complexity. I just wanna kick evil's ass. And I know it's evil cuz the paladin told me so." definitely did sound like you didn't want to be bothered with anything more complex than "everything but us = evil / free to kill" anymore. Glad it isn't like that.Your use of the phrase "you got to settle that with your gods," really did leave me with a bitter taste. It had the same flavor of "If you don't agree with me you are morally bankrupt and god(s) will send you to hell!" I get that frequently in real life, for taking stands on things I care passionately about. Perhaps that is not what you intended, but that is how it sounded to me.
Seems we both lack in decoding the sound of each other's posts. ^^
So, if Mornaura says something that upsets Dris (the character), it leaves a bitter taste with you (the player)...? Do you secretly hate Nel for having Kressle call Dris a b****? ;) (What I mean is: let's try to not take IC-things OOC-personally.)
Anyway, sorry if it sounded like that. Mornaura meant that much more neutral, something along the lines of "IMO, my gods wouldn't like me doing it, but I don't know about your gods, so if you think that you got to do that - go along, it's your free choice. Your gods will judge you, not me. Maybe they'll condemn you, maybe they'll appreciate it, but since it's your soul, not mine, I don't care." She's chaotic good, not lawful something.
As far as moral nuance goes, I actually do enjoy moral complexity. Here are a few spots where I tried to add it in.
See above.
Also, please note that I said "It sounds like you want to tell me" and "if", not "you tell me" and "since". In my understanding of the English language, that makes a difference. So I don't really know why you think you need to try to prove your point with the following list, but I'll, um, take the bait anyway. :P* Negotiating with the (intractable) mites.
True. Although that could've been because we all thought the kobolds might be evil, too.
* Giving numerous and ever-larger hints about Dris' (3 page, morally complex) background, which either I'm not hinting clearly enough, or no one is particularly interested.
Well... This is really a huge point, and there are numerous aspects to it.
I don't know if anyone else but you reads this - if so: this part contains spoilers. Skip to the next quote if you don't want to be spoilered.
First of all, let me say that OOC, I think I've known the score all the time. I don't know wether the others are in about it as well, or why they didn't jump on it IC (maybe they really don't care about the story, or they didn't catch any of the "hints"). Here's why I didn't act on it so far:
One aspect is that, although you have told Dris' story more than once, neither you nor Nel have given us a single indication that our characters could notice something being amiss, in terms of telling us to roll a sense motive check against your bluff (your story comprises lies), a perception check against your disguise (feigning a different accent etc), heck, a knowledge geography check (it's a DC 10 to determine someone's ethnicity or accent, and I don't even need to roll for that) or whatever.
So, how exactly are we we supposed to determine when our characters get to notice anything, like when Dris is telling the truth an when she isn't?
Another aspect is that IMO, you seriously downplayed some other things. Judging from what I think to know, Dris should probably be casting Penumbra every single sunny day, right?
And whatever she uses to hide her eyes, she probably need to cast that A LOT. If you're using Prestidigitation like I think you are, (and I certainly wouldn't allow that if I were your GM), you have to cast that every three hours (you had to cast it once every hour in the beginning). And both of them got verbal and somatic components, which should be enough to entail mentioning Dris casting those spells in a post from time to time, don't you think?
I'm really sorry if this comes off as rant, but I can assure you that it's certainly nothing personal.
It's just that I think you can't play all Keyser Soze without giving the other players a hint that their characters could notice something (so they roll and find out wether they do, that's what those skills are for, after all), AND THEN complain about noone acting on it.
Maybe, MAYBE I could be convinced to buy it in a live table group, if you'd use visible and audible cues, which could be enough to warrant a "Um, should I roll for anything?", but in a PBP like this - no way.
I admit that I've felt a bit... cheated for a while.
I've wondered wether you (and/or Nel) had secretly decided that Dris automatically succeeds in all those checks (and everyone else fails), and got a free Silent Spell feat without spell level increase.
And, although that's "you got to settle that with your gods, er, conscience" territory, I've wondered why I bothered to shuffle around traits and feats to make sure Mornaura's skills reflect her background, when you jump around as a noble-born cleric-in-training torturer-in-training without ranks in knowledge(nobility), kn(religion) or heal.
Anyway, because Mornaura is kinda curious, I decided that, under the premise that she got a gut feeling about something being amiss with Drispeera, she'd try to disclose the secret on her terms.
Since I don't want to metagame (you've already noticed how much I dislike it, haven't you? ^^), I've tried to ignore OOC things like what I know from looking at your character sheet, and only let Mornaura put together those few IC puzzle pieces I thought she would've gotten so far.
But, and that's another aspect, given how most of the conversations between our characters proceeded, did you really expect Mornaura to come and question Drispeera?
From Mornaura's perspective, that wouldn't be a good idea.
All she could expect was being either 'talked down', lied to, and/or (being a bit paranoid) even being silenced some way or another if her guess was correct and Dris decided to make sure she doesn't nose around anymore.
So she'd rather not say anything until she's sure.
The smaller, blue paragraph is a spoiler even for you, so skip to the next quote if you want.
Actually, when Drispeera mentioned what her gods wanted her to do, and showed her the white eyes, I decided that Mornaura got enough pieces to assemble a picture. In the very second, I decided that she wouldn't say anything until after the battle.
* Playing a character that is actually quite shrewd, that has only survived this long by pretending to be an air-headed bimbo.
Well, however shrewd and wise someone can be with 13 Int and 10 Wis.
* The Gods. The gods of Golarion are more varied and complex than Judeo-Christianity. Even the good ones are really big into smiting and retribution. Dris attempted to point out the irony that yes, the gods she was raised with would hate her for merciful or combat killing...because they ARE EVIL. They much prefer slow torture.
See above.
Not all the good gods are into that.No one knew about those evil gods from Dris's past before.
And it doesn't really invalidate what 'naura said because that's aimed at current gods.
(And btw, in Golarion, you better believe in some god or another if you don't want your soul to end up as a bodiless spirit in the astral plane, or trapped in a crypt in the Graveyard of Souls until Crotus consumes it.)
* Trying to get Mornie to ask herself what happens to the captives who didn't reform and were sent to Restov. Letting go any further debate about modern prisons, have you ever heard of a middle ages prison that wasn't a hell hole?
Well, we're not talking about middle ages prisons here, we're talking about Golarion high-fantasy prisons.
Some will certainly qualify as hell holes in all regards, but not necessarily all of them. I don't really want to start yet another discussion, but with the huge amount of magic (in spells and items) in Golarion, middle ages prisons just make much less sense than they did in the history of our world, and I think we both agree that they didn't make much sense to begin with.As one example of many, Abadar's Truthtelling alone, a mere level 1 spell, makes medieval approaches obsolete for every non-evil society. It's like zone of truth, so the target can't lie, plus there's a glowing sigil over your head so people can see you're affected by the spell. Yes, there's a will save against it, but if you make the save (thus aren't affected), the symbol doesn't show up, which means everyone can see you're not affected.
Place prisoner in court, repeat casting until you succeed (or ask the prisoner to let you cast it on him (read: deliberately fail his save), which he has no reason to decline if he's innocent, or lower his will save by whatever means you want, or put him in jail for another day if your cleric ran out of spell slots), ask him wether he did whatever he's been accused of, et voilà.
Has Mornie ever contemplated that sending them to prison might be more cruel and sadistic then simply killing them in combat?
I won't tell you. And see above.
So I do enjoy moral complexity. And I hope I've added something to the game with it.
Of course.
For combat, yes, I do keep bringing that other battle up. And I know it makes you defensive.
Well, IC, you can bring that up as often as you want, and Mornaura will be annoyed every time. ;)
But IC, Dris really feels like you decided the bandit's life was more important than hers. Whatever decisions other people made leading up to that point, "Bandit is more important than Dris" was Mornie's final choice. That leaves her feeling betrayed. Respecting Mornie's knowledge and unique talents, but with zero trust. And if we can't find some common ground then we won't be effective as a team.
Actually, that wasn't her choice.
I really hate having to explain IC-motivations OOC, but if you really want to know, read the smaller blue part - if not, skip to the next quote:
Apart from the fact that she couldn't even possibly know what exactly happened to Dris over there, only that someone attacked, the decision was "Alright, there are already three people, one of them capable of healing and they all got potions, plus Bingo is running over there. They should be able to handle whatever happened. Nevertheless, I should try to get to them as fast as possible, so I'll hurry to tie up this boy who surrendered. Even Bingo only said 'Kill him if he moves', so as long as no one screams 'Mornaura, help' or something, or the boy tries something stupid, there's no reason to betray my beliefs by killing him." And no one called. Also, she tried to take him out with a nonlethal-damage spell.
I think we've sort of reached consensus.
Dris has reluctantly conceded that we don't put em all to sleep and cdg as many as possible before active combat starts. She's nervous about this because surrendering the advantage of surprise (she thinks) is a bad idea against a more numerous foe. But since most of the group agrees, she's conceded.
Yep, alright.
Of course I, as the player, know that it's not the optimal tactical approach, but them's the burden of being good-aligned.If it weren't for Svetlana and if I played another character, I would probably suggest stocking up on alchemist's fire and burning the whole place down, killing anyone who tries to escape, preferably with ranged weapons. ^^
Btw, actually, no one said that Dris couldn't still try to CdG the enemies. And Mornaura doesn't care if Dris decides to start a bandit-killing-spree, as long as we can still save Svetlana.
Dris has also always said its fine to try redeeming them once combat is over.
The sticking point is, will Mornie meet the rest of the group in the middle, and incapacitate foes as quickly as possible while combat is happening? I think she finally indicated that she would by recommending that the foe she "slumbers" should be taken out quickly.
If that's true, we have a strategy that we can agree on. And even if we aren't perfectly happy, we each got some of what we wanted, yes?
Um, yes.
Although honestly, I think that she has never been that far away from the middle.Ah well, it's not like she had that many means of killing people anyway, you know, so she'll still rather debuff and slumber as tactially reasonable and as much as she can, to make the actual killing easier for the rest of the group. But if she has to (and is able to) kill an enemy to save someone else, of course she'll do it.
| GM Nel |
Well, yesterday was the 1st anniversary if you start counting from the beginning of the recruitment. I'll celebrate the 9th of May instead, when the actual gameplay thread was opened. ;)
Now may 9th so congratulations all! Thanks all for putting up with me and keeping this going. My in-person Kingmaker group sorta fell apart (we meet MAYBE once every 3 months) so great to be able to GM in some capacity.
Drispeera D'Lith
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If she can speak when its not her turn, Dris will say to Ionnia, Does your god give you the ability to call energy to affect whole bunches of undead? If you could do that right now it would totally rock the awesomeness!
Drispeera D'Lith
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I believe you have to choose to either heal the living or harm the undead.
"A good cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships a good deity) channels positive energy and can choose to deal damage to undead creatures or to heal living creatures."
I hope you don't mind a suggestion-- if you move to J5 (which you can without provoking any attacks of opportunity) then ALL the zombies will be in your 30' range. You'll be able to get em all.
Drispeera D'Lith
|
Some quick comments and questions:
1. Wanted to move Purrcy diagonally down, not straight down... cuz wanted to draw fire from Ionnia if necessary. (from the zombie near her)
2. Levitation question:
Can I run horizontally on the ground, at normal speed, after casting levitation? (My home GM rules "yes", but double-checking if its RAW.
3. Defensive casting question:
And if I cast a SLA on my upcoming turn, do I need to cast defensively vs zombie? (or do they not AoO?)
Thanks. Thought I'd get my questions out of the way, whilst wait for Ionnia.
| GM Nel |
Some quick comments and questions:
1. Wanted to move Purrcy diagonally down, not straight down... cuz wanted to draw fire from Ionnia if necessary. (from the zombie near her)
2. Levitation question:
Can I run horizontally on the ground, at normal speed, after casting levitation? (My home GM rules "yes", but double-checking if its RAW.3. Defensive casting question:
And if I cast a SLA on my upcoming turn, do I need to cast defensively vs zombie? (or do they not AoO?)Thanks. Thought I'd get my questions out of the way, whilst wait for Ionnia.
1. purrcy moved.
2. "yes"3. SLAs do provoke. You may also cast them defensively.
Drispeera D'Lith
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Thanks GM Nel,
Not gonna cast defensively this time. (At low levels, more chance of losing spells than by being hit.) I'll just risk it and hope that he's too slow to AoO or can't see me in the dark.
So plan is still: cast Levitation, run 15' to fence, levitate 5' up. If I have any move left I'll push from the fence to the nearest roof.
@Ionnia: If you don't mind another suggestion: Your channel positive energy is the best weapon any of us has against the zombies. You could channel positive (channeling does *not* provoke), and then simply move your normal movement toward the fence. You might get an attack of opportunity by moving-- but not if you've finished them off first. >:)
Drispeera D'Lith
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GM Nel, how do you want to handle Bingo's absence?
Could you NPC him until the end of this battle?
I'm not sure if he's checking in again, but it might be nice continuity for his character, cuz avenging his family and getting rid of bandits was his thing. So it makes sense that he'd leave after the bandits are handled. Or after this battle we could have him in the background in an "administrative position."
If he checks in, maybe he'd let us know if that's okay.
Ok, ok, and selfishly I don't want Dris to be alone at this end of the fort.