Incase you hadn't guessed i do have a random encounter to run but my daughter had her christening today so i've not had much time to make a map. I'll try and get one done tomorrow evening, sorry about the delay.
Incase you hadn't guessed i do have a random encounter to run but my daughter had her christening today so i've not had much time to make a map. I'll try and get one done tomorrow evening, sorry about the delay.
Congratulations!
I think this encounter and the boar will have you on the cusp of third level, probably a single encounter off. Since i'm late making a map i thought we might as well share some old war stories and see if any of your characters objectives or dreams have changed over the two months you've spent wandering the wilderness.
I'm having some issues with the boards this evening but hopefully in the morning the gameplay page will load properly and let me post. Sorry about the wait.
Just to clarify the ac, ending a grapple is a free action for the grappler. When Maksim goes limp the owlbear drops him since its still being attacked by other things, it can't feed until it scares you off.
I'm not sure if holding someones unconcious form is even grappling but the owlbear will need its claws free to deal with the rest of you anyway.
Agreed. I'm just glad Maksim is ok for now!
We need to hit this thing with a color spray.
I can that for you sir. :)
I'm thinking at best that will stun it for a round Silva. And that is if it fails its save. Still, one round of no attacks could be huge. And it could be hit more than once with the spell I guess.
A couple of things that i wouldn't normally tell you, but i want to stop you burning the extra treasure you just found and raise your awareness of the danger this owlbear poses.
Owlbear young can sell for up to 3000gp in major cities to be semi-trained as area guards, if you throw fire into the cave its unlikely that the young will survive.
Andrej is right about the lack of a back up plan to slapping shield of faith on Silva and praying he doesn't die in one full attack, the owlbear hits him about 50% of the time with shield of faith. If it rolls slightly above average damage after it hits with everything Silva could be dead outright, this is basicly a CR 5 encounter which you can overcome with a good plan but is going to be risky.
Sometimes in kingmaker the random encounters are very random, its possible to roll d4 trolls at level 1, in that case discretion is the better part of valour. It may be the case here as well, now you know where it is you can come back and deal with it when you are more prepared, with reach weapons and nets.
If you are going to deal with it now you need to give it at least 2 targets and use Maksims channels to their fullest to stay alive.
I don't think from a metagame perspective we can pull back unless Egan says "we're going to need a bigger boat". That said,Egan and Arielle can tag team momma.
Egan rides in, draws momma out and rides (double move) past Arielle - Arielle hits it with a spell, arrow etc and *then* moves, leaving Egan to attack and move next turn. Rinse and repeat until we get it to the kill zone.
That plan could work, as long as they keep their movement right.
If it fails color spray, the encounter is over with 1 spell. If not, we are screwed.
Again, Color Spray stuns it for one round, that's it. How does this end the encounter?
Egan got very lucky riding the first time. It was more likely that he would have been thrown from Sparky than he would get away by 3 to 1. Had he been thrown, with you guys so far away, he likely would have died. DM Ego has decided that the dogs, even though trained for war, are likely to panic at the sight, or maybe even strong scent from the creature. And my ride skill with armor is so poor that there is little chance of a riding plan to ever work. I think you guys missed that on anything less than a 15 dice roll on my handle animal and I was very likely dead.
Maybe I need a map to understand why this will not work. Here is my plan. We approach the cave, buffed missile weapons ready. We all can shoot once as it emerges, maybe twice. Then we melee it down. Color spray if we can for sure, and more than once, but don't count on that.
If we are not ready to take this on now, we could put our warning signs in the area and come back in a level. I would be fine with that.
So going with the 'We're going to need a bigger boat'?
Cool. Discretion being the better part and all that...
Thought it was 4 HD. I didn't look it up. It must be 5+?
Just on the note of the dogs being war trained. Sparky is trained to handle himself in combat but he is not stupid, even a war trained horse would run from an owlbear. It could probably kill Sparky by hitting Egan too hard, its basicly a classic example of the mounts being smarter than the PC's!
I'm not so cruel that i would kill you on a failed ride check though Egan, if you had failed by 10 or more you would have fallen off. I was going to have you dragged back to the party with your foot stuck in the styrup so we could all have a good chuckle.
Also its 5hd base. The only problem with the slowly advance and kill it plan is that unless you kill it before it gets a full attack buffing Silva probably won't save him, metagaming aside i don't want Silva to feel like we marched him into a death trap and shield of faith will not keep him alive if he is its only target.
I have no problem with your call on the dogs not wanting to encounter the owlbear. Totally reasonable in my opinion. So I only had a 1 in 4 chance of dying back there. That makes me feel much better. :P And OOC I could have laughed about being dragged for a hundred yards or so, but Egan might have been traumatized for life!
The goal is not to stand toe to toe with the creature. Whoever has its full attention could withdraw from it. But IF it grabs someone on a charge or regular move then that could be very bad. We need to be close enough to support each other but not so close that the beast can 5' step between us.
I would like to take this thing out, but it might not be worth fighting now. Did you note how Ego wrote its 5th base. Base. This one is a third bigger than base...
Notes on Color Spray:
5 or more HD: The creature is stunned for 1 round.
and
Range 15 ft.
I think Color Spray is out since Arielle would likely be unable to get that close without being mauled.
Also, I forgot that Magic Missile is an Evocation spell.
and
Bloodline Arcana: Whenever you cast an evocation spell, targets that fail their saves are dazzled by tiny sparkling starlights for 1 round per level of the spell.
So after I hit the other owlbear it should have been dazzled for a round.
Dazzled: The creature is unable to see well because of overstimulation of the eyes. A dazzled creature takes a –1 penalty on attack rolls and sight-based Perception checks.
Our main problem now is nova damage IMO. I know that will change eventually, but we do not do much damage as a group yet.
I know that you can kill it now with good tactics, however i feel that there is a high likely hood of a player death. I'm not shy of killing people but i just wanted you to be aware, this is about the most dangerous thing you have seen since the storm since the mythic bear had a lower to hit than it should have for behind the scene reasons.
An extra level could make the difference between life and death in this encounter though, i'm going to make a map when i get in tonight anyway since i'm sure you'll be coming back just for the 1000gp pay cheque thats sat in the cave. Lets have a decision by tomorrow morning what you plan to do after you have seen the map.
Also Egan a 1 in 4 chance of death could have been a totally zero chance of death with higher skills, i know you are getting hosed by your acp but perhaps it should serve as a lesson to a group that could be encountering trolls while mounted that they should invest in skills to manage their beasts? :p That IF should also really be a WHEN.
I agree. I say we come back. If not for poor damage rolls last encounter, Maksim would be graveyard dead.
So we mark all trails in the area warning of the creature?
Sounds like a good idea to me.
The clearing you were planning to ambush the owlbear in is probably 100ft off map to the east, i don't think the mother would stray far from her egg or young unless it was a true persistant threat.
The owlbear discussion closed during my AWOL but I'll point out that a large creature like an owlbear requires a greal deal of food. There may be water in the cave but sooner or later it must leave the nest to hunt. It would be vulnerable then and so would the eggs or young be. The life of wild critters is not an easy one, Purina does not make house calls. :)
Normally its mate would hunt and bring food back to their nest, i think it will probably stay with its young until they are old enough to hunt or it starves. However you can't be sure that it will die of starvation before it kills some travellers.
I propose we give this MW hand axe to Anza for her excellent help. I know its worth 300+ but it seems in character to make it a gift to her. She could certainly use it, and Egan wants to be her friend, not just her employer.
If someone could get some use out of it, like Silva for example as a throwing weapon for a two handed user can be handy in some situations, then why don't you let them use it until you get your kingdom started then present it to her for her services. One of the things that happens in the kingdom building/managing minigame is holding festivals and holidays so planning ahead for an annual awards ceremony to recognise other peoples contribution to the realm wouldn't hurt.
I like that. :)
Awesome. Thanks.
I want this fight to feel chaotic and confusing, so i'm not going to roll initiative, everyone can just act once for everything the "thing" acts in whatever order you feel like. I'm doing it without a map as well since my map making skills failed me and i think the entire fight will be more effective if you are all guessing where eachother are, bearing in mind you can't even see Andrej at the moment.
Andrej, don't worry this isn't as dangerous as it looks.
Edit: Sorry on my phone
Silva drops the wood he is carrying and double moves toward the bubbles that were once Andrej drawing his new masterwork throwing axe.
[dice=Perception]1d20-1
Hey, repost this in the game thread Sylva...
Don't worry about letting Andrej act first, just go for it.
So far, all we have seen is Andrej go under with a bloody knife, correct?
No sign of anything that he might be struggling with?
What was the visibility of the water?
The water is yellow and cloudy, there are vaguely indistict shapes and bubbles. He's around 40ft into the pool in deep water.
That fair enough Andrej, RL sometimes has to come first. We normally have a relatively lax weekend anyway so we'll do that and then take a look again on monday, if i need to make your attack rolls for this combat thats not a problem.
I'll try not to get you killed in your absence...
For when evryone across the atlantic wakes up theres a very real danger of Amdrej being pinned and drowning if he doesn't get some help.
For when evryone across the atlantic wakes up theres a very real danger of Amdrej being pinned and drowning if he doesn't get some help.
I will probably drown if I go after him. What are you new character rules. Me and Andrej may be doing that.
New character rules are standard, normal wbl and same point buy as a 1st level character. I might limit some cash on the incoming later in the game if we end up with new characters coming in richer than existing ones.
I don't think you will die though Silva, its only a dc5 swim check and you can hold your breath for the best part of 5 mins on average saves, its only really dangerous while your fighting/grappled/pinned.
DC 5 helpS
check out my ooc post in the gameplay thread, its not as bad as you originally thought.
check out my ooc post in the gameplay thread, its not as bad as you originally thought.
Yep. That is much better. This is where it is nice to be neutral :) (let him die), but Silva would not allow a companion to fight alone for any reason.
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I do harbour a kind of sick hope that someone will drown here, in the three times i've run this encounter other than this one the closest its been was a lame oracle in a breastplate who found himself holding his breath for 22 turns, passed 2 fort saves as well before someone pulled him out.
I looking at what I might do here I was reviewing my character's gear. Damn but we are are poor! I understand the comment about limiting starting gear. I have a small number of potions but no wands, no scrolls, no magic weapons, no magic armor. nothing. My prized position is the barding for my dog. LOL.
Maybe my oracle power will let me have a better chance to hit the critter.
If you check the wbl table your about right for second level, realistically the table doesn't expect people to see magic weapons until getting on for 4th level. But kingmaker is cash light, you make up for it when you can start paying yourself a salary from your kingdom funds.
You are going to be poor at 3rd level though, when you deal with the owlbear you will get a little jump, theres also some mini dungeons you haven't explored yet which have some loot.
Not complaining at all. Just noting the case. In a city environment where we could just buy what we wanted I might have scrolls like Air Bubble and Touch of the Sea handy even with our low cash situation.
I am playing in another AP where rewards have been limited. My wizard in that group does not have the coin to scribe a scroll. But when 2 replacement characters showed up at 2nd level they had like 1500 gp in gear.
If we do have some replacement characters coming in, hopefully not just yet, i'll try and make sure they don't have loads more stuff than everyone else. Its something we'll need to deal with when it happens but i think that the situation is easy though time consuming to handle.
I wouldn't expect a 3rd level character coming in with magic everything while your all still dressed in rags using normal weapons to go down well :p