Anyone should feel free to examine Xanthar to make sure I have not made any mistakes during character creation. I can take it just as well as I can dish it out. ;)
The bonus feats are tweaked somewhat for balance, and some do not get any. I like to give rogues the d8 sneak attack as a bonus. The half orc ranger, a quality build, was given unarmed fighting for flavor (half orcs get into a lot of fist fights) and the feat is somewhat 'less of power build' feat than that I give to fighters. I hope this does not seem too arbitrary.
Warchyld's strategy is to hang back for the first round or two, and try to put a couple of arrows into some available, high value targets while the group's heavies slam into the front line of orcs.
Once they have made the first breach in the orc lines, he plans to drop his bow, draw his blades and wade in for some slashing and slicing.
Crom's stats are corrected. Glad you noticed the Conan reference :)
Crom's stats are corrected. Glad you noticed the Conan reference :)
Love me some Conan! :D
Okay, now that you have your stats squared away, I'll mention that your AC figures for Touch and Flat Footed are too low. Your Touch AC should be 13 (Dex + Dodge) and your FF AC should be 17 (armor + shield...if you are using your shield which I assume you are since you have your regular AC at 20). Your CMD should also be 17 (BAB +1, STR +3, DEX +2 and Dodge +1).
Okay...well on the advice of counsel (Tribute that is), Xanthar will be starting as a Fighter with Cleric to come later. Cleric will still be his favored class as the ratio of levels will be about 2:1 Cleric to Fighter.
I had to make several adjustments, so I would be grateful if someone could do a spot check to make sure that everything on my sheet is "up to code" so to speak.
You see the orcs have deployed fairly smartly. You really can't see them until you are about 10' from them.
As you all won initiative, you can arbitrarily delay to act in any order. So, feel free to strategize here. You do not think they will come out. You also think their yelling will probably draw investigators from other caves. The may come out in fifty minutes after the sun sets.
Pathfinder rules refresher: Partial cover around corners and no provoking through soft cover. So you can run up to the square to the immediate right of the bear orc without provoking but note it leaves you somewhat 'exposed' to an immediate attack on three sides--five if you leave your right flank exposed. No AoOs while flatfooted without the appropriate feat, which an experienced orc may have.
Do we want to all hold our actions for this round, waiting for the sleep spell to go off and go in hard behind it. If we can take the orcs out to the right we can hold the intersection much like we talked about holding the entry tunnel, only fighting a couple at a time.
The trick will be to do this without overly exposing ourselves from the left in the meantime.
Since we all have the initiative, we can order our actions for next round to be:
Ozmund casts sleep
Crom and Xanthar move up and hold line at intersection
Arik and Warchyld take shots at orcs to right
Mot attacks with reach or adds healing where needed.
Just my 2 coppers, would be open to alternatives.
The map makes it a bit of a cheat as we can see the position of the orcs. I simply had Ozmund base the spell so that its limits were right at the edge of our group. I could alter my spell over to the right and catch the two orcs over there in it, then like you said go hard against the left. Or try to lure them into the centre (demand a fight with the 'Bear Orc" and see how many follow
Remember too, Mott is down to one Channel (and can't selectively channel), and one CLW (Unless you all want bless right now. Then no more spells)
Can we center the sleep spell on FB41. Since we know he is there from the taunts, and being the closest to center of spell we should be able to get him down at least.
We could then come forward to edge of intersection, do as much damage as possible and then step back down the entry tunnel and hope they follow.
I suggest using the bless. The dice roller hates us, and we'll need every point we can scrounge.
I altered the spell area on the map to represent the area covered if we did move the centre to FB41. Remember they still get a saving throw, so nothing is certain....(Will DC-14)
I say roll the dice with sleep in center of tunnel intersection, bless on all of us and lets try to keep our lines together and press in. We can always withdraw if it gets to hairy.
Sounds like a good idea...but if we can try to lure them out a bit first, then we can maximise the sleep spell.
Ok..reset the spell area...
Is the map accurate right now. It does not show any of the orcs to the right as being out, or did another orc step into longtooth's square.
Longtooth is dead-dead a splatter on the ground.
I can cast another Sleep spell if needed...I was looking to the left and I could catch all of the orcs, including the bear orc; but I would also hit Xanther. I would have to change places with Mott to be in the right space to cast. Alternately I can continue to snipe at the ocrs with magic and force missiles.
I can cast another Sleep spell if needed...I was looking to the left and I could catch all of the orcs, including the bear orc; but I would also hit Xanther. I would have to change places with Mott to be in the right space to cast. Alternately I can continue to snipe at the ocrs with magic and force missiles.
I say just cast the spell even if it catches Xanthar. This is metagaming, but I have a pretty good save vs. Will spells because of my 15 WIS and being a dwarf grants a +2 to all spell saves. Although with the way I am currently rolling, I will almost certainly fail the check. :(
I have a tactical thought, we should all be foot stepping back down the hall so we can limit the number of attacks we will be exposed to. We need them to come into the bottleneck.
Gruumsh the evil orc god must be messing with the die roller.
Well...Xanthar is at 0 hp and is "staggered". I can only take a move action or a standard action and if I take a standard action, I will lose 1 hp and drop unconscious.
My options are to either: move back (drawing several AoO's) or Mott can attempt to heal me. I will wait to see what Mott does, to determine my next action.
I can amend my action to switch with Xanthar, then. Crom at least still has two HP left.
Mott has no more 1st level spells and one channel left …
Everyone could hold until Mott has channeled … then we withdraw?
@Warchyld: It won't really matter in this instance because you can actually use a 5-foot step to "swap" places with Xanthar but attacking with two weapons requires you to use a full round action not a standard action.
I'm probably signing my death warrant by pointing this out but I think Xanthar should have provoked several Attacks of Opportunity when he moved back from the front line in Round 4. He was not able to use the Withdrawal option (which does not provoke AoO's) as that is a full-round action.
Xanthar stepped 5'
FYI … I am going skiing tomorrow (Sunday, so will be gone until evening (Pacific Tim) … go ahead and bot me if necessary. Mott is recommending a full withdraw. When he can, he'll channel. Again, maybe channel to get us all standing and then withdraw.
I agree that we should get out of here. Withdraw and return after we have gained some experience and we don't have the whole clan standing there waiting for their turn to whack us.
Every good adventuring group needs to have that nemesis that they need to come back and deal with later, when their power has increased so they can tangibly mark their progression.
I agree that we should get out of here. Withdraw and return after we have gained some experience and we don't have the whole clan standing there waiting for their turn to whack us.
Every good adventuring group needs to have that nemesis that they need to come back and deal with later, when their power has increased so they can tangibly mark their progression.
It's crazy to be writing that these Orcs(!) are too tough for us, but...yeah, these Orcs are too tough for us. This is a Basic D&D module, there HAVE to be some Goblins or Kobolds in these caves we can manage to defeat, right? Right?!?
I know everything in Pathfinder is overpowered but these Orcs are ridiculously tough. :P
Xanthar stepped 5'
Well...I guess we can retcon my action to say that Xan only 5 foot stepped but I moved him back the full 20 feet for a move action on the map to get him as close to the cave opening (and sweet, blessed safety from these insanely powerful Orcs) as possible.
The dice roller hasn't been kind, either. If even half the rolls had gone our way, we probably could have pulled out off.
Well lets see if the sleep spell helps us any...if it does we might be able to overcome the last few orc females....
It is the cursed Caves of Chaos. -1 will saves except the chief with a +1 will, and they refuse to take a nap like my six year old.
Unless you guys want me to retcon and pop my last channel … some of us might escape, but with AOO's and such, I think we'd still lose half the party. Hopefully we can take some down right now.
I got a another good slice in on the bear orc, but I'm guessing it probably wasn't enough to bring him down. Still, by my count, he's down 19 hit points (9 and 6 from two attacks from me, and 4 from one attack by Crom), so he's gotta be hurtin'.
There is still HOPE!
A "2" and a "1" in the same post.
Well...
That sucks.
Well, the orcs have to run away in the night. That cave will be deserted. We up for more?
With probably the hardest cave now empty, things should go much better.
Loved the Bladerunner quote. Probably one of the best Sci Fi movies of all time.
So, umm...is Ozmund still alive??
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Well … Arik just went down to -2. The only one standing as of the last post is Xanthar and he's at 0. If even two females go after him he is guaranteed to go down too. Most likely everyone is getting packed up as travel snacks before the orcs leave this evening!
I am awaiting clarification on where we are at, if I read it right we just had a TPK but technically won because we managed to kill all the males and the females are not strong enough to hold the caverns against other forces in the canyon.
If I read this right, we are on to version 3.0 of the heroes and I would like us to come on the scene just following the fight, so we could take the stuff of our past incarnations.
We could be the hapless adventurers who got a little lost on the way and are looking for some shelter for the evening. Or stumble on the scene the following morning once the females have fled.
If we do need to start with our next set of adventurers, we might want to add a second cleric. I would be willing to move to that role if someone else wanted to play a rogue, or I can stick in the rogue role too.
Well, I used to remember the unique thrill of being a first level character. Most of our deaths occurred at level 1. My first pathfinder group wondered why I was such a fan of toughness feat.
Let us have whichever character you prefer join the next adventuring group.
I am thinking of going with a cleric of Pelor, with healing domain and selective channeling, and of course toughness.
Sooo …
[Dice=str]3d6
[Dice=dex]3d6
[Dice=con]3d6
[Dice=int]3d6
[Dice=wis]3d6
[Dice=cha]3d6
LOL!
Seriously, though, I think it would be totally cool to actually play a game where you roll 3d6 in order just once for old time's sake.
Personally, I'm a little torn as to whether I want to continue or not. One one hand, I don't really like the PbP format. On the other hand, I really want to play these old school modules (particularly the U series). On the other hand (wait, how many hands do I have?), I'm getting a little frustrated with all of the dying that has taken place. Perhaps, in the interest of party survivability, we might consider rolling up 2nd level characters to (somewhat) increase the odds of our actually making it past the first group of goblins we fight. ;)
Well, I used to remember the unique thrill of being a first level character. Most of our deaths occurred at level 1. My first pathfinder group wondered why I was such a fan of toughness feat.
Let us have whichever character you prefer join the next adventuring group.
I am absolutely convinced that our DM when I was young was a "soft touch". I have now had more characters die in my short time playing in Tribute's games (death toll: 3 so far) than I did in 3 years of gaming with my old group when I was a kid.
RE: new characters...our group loved making new PC's. We rarely played any of the high level modules (I've never played Tomb of Horrors, for example) because we usually got bored with our PC's by the time they reached 8th or 9th level and rolled up new ones.
Sorry for all of these posts but I am kind of in "stream of consciousness" mode right now...
Does anyone know if an attempt has been made to run a PbP game in a semi synchronous mode? Meaning, everyone agrees on a fixed time period in which they will be logged on and watching the thread for a few hours so that the game can sort of run like a F2F or VTT game? I find the disjointed and slow nature of PbP rather frustrating, plus I'd rather not have to log in everyday and check the thread to make just 1 or 2 posts.
I've looked at VTT gaming but am not sure I am ready to make the "leap" just yet (buying a webcam, buying a headset/microphone, setting up a Skype or Google hangout account, etc.) and think a quasi-synchronous PbP might be a good compromise.
I am considering DM'ing an old school sandbox campaign myself and trying this model. Any thoughts from the peanut gallery about the viability of such an endeavor?