Mended Wall's PBP for beginners (Inactive)

Game Master Hoary and Wizened

I hope you guys know what you're doing...?

At this point, I'm thinking ahead to the big encounter he warned us about with 12+ kobolds. I don't want to sneak past the kobolds between here and there only to have the big group raise the alarm before we can take them all out, and have all those guys we snuck past attack us from behind while or casters are unprotected from that direction. I enjoy playing stealthy and avoiding threats more than most, but I think this situation calls for clearing our path the old-fashioned way. That is, assuming they truly can't be reasoned with...

That seems sound reasoning to me Illiam. This whole situation is... hazardous.

Chillel looks warily at the half alive Choker, preparing to Hex it should it attack anyone, even though it looks incapable of aggressive action.

Chillel readies an action to use the Slumber Hex on the Choker should it take any aggressive action.

Heal: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (18) + 0 = 18 Add heal to the list of things Illiam is good at despite having no idea what he's doing, along with survival :)

He's slashed up pretty good, and the wounds look infected, or possibly poisoned. Either way, they seem to be at least a day old. In my unprofessional opinion, I doubt he has long to live without help. Kairon?

Apologies for the delay. Nearly every aspect of my life has exploded into super-bad chaos in the last 4 days. Let me get back on track . . . .

Kairon moves closer to the choker cautiously, taking in details of its physiology as he does so. This thing is weird. But, hurts are hurts . . . and I have a calling to heal. He hunkers down next to the creature, certain of Goruck's watchful eye and Illiam's quick reactions. D'ya think it understands Common? And it's a dangerous critter, too -- else Goruck wouldn't know of it, eh? The healer laughs at his own joke, while acknowledging the guardian's skill. His expression sobers as he automatically readies his healer's kit, and he waits for any further words from his allies.

I'm putting that break there just in case someone wants to respond to Kairon's questions, though they won't really change what he does next. I just like seeing how y'all present your characters. :)

The priest calls upon the Dawnflower for a small boon to guide his efforts, and then moves to aid the injured beast, speaking as he does so.

I hope you'll remember that someone helped you, and do the same for another. Sarenrae teaches us to offer help to all who need it, no matter their kind or creed. She soothes wounds, but burns the unworthy. Honor the aid She gives you now, through me. Her Light grant you health and peace, choker.

She commands it. So let it be done. (Blessed Surgery, guidance, healer's kit): 1d20 + 8 + 1 + 2 ⇒ (7) + 8 + 1 + 2 = 18
And so again, by Her grace. (latherrinserepeat): 1d20 + 8 + 1 + 2 ⇒ (15) + 8 + 1 + 2 = 26

Looking back to the others, Kairon tells them his plan. I'm tryin' to help it heal, 'cause that's what I'm supposed to do, but I want to make sure it sleeps long enough that it won't be a problem for anyone for a long while. Besides -- more rest will do it more good, I'm sure.

Once finished, Kairon uses some of the loose material in the room to conceal the choker from easy notice.

Though, perhaps, the creature does not understand Kairon's language, it does understand the soothing peace that comes from a cleansing of poison, and wrapping of its many wounds. He has a mouth, the choker, and Kairon watches it break into a smile. It places one hideously elongated finger weakly against its chest and says but one soft word. "Skiiirrrsssh." A name, perhaps? They might never know for after speaking thus, the creature's breathing smooths into regular deep breaths, and it falls asleep, still smiling. Kairon feels a warm rush of Sarenrae's blessing flow through him, a signal, from her divine dwelling place, that she is pleased with his efforts, and his actions are much in keeping with her will. You are healing the hurts of the land. He feels he can hear her voice clearly, loudly, in his mind. Do not forget that sometimes the only way to heal, is to destroy the cancer. Her sweet divine utterings send a ripple through his soul. At that very moment Kerrdremak steps into his peripheral vision.

"He must have escaped here after some of our warriors cleansed their nest from one of the newly discovered mine shafts." There is no emotion on the magic-wielding kobold's face as he speaks his truth. No remorse. Only facts.

Bracing Kerrdremak squarely, Kairon intones: And he'll stay there until he's fit to move on his own, unless I say different. Make that clear to your guards.

Illiam is a little uncertain about healing the strange creature, but supposes that the enemy of my enemy...

Kairon moves closer to the choker cautiously, taking in details of its physiology as he does so. This thing is weird. But, hurts are hurts . . . and I have a calling to heal. He hunkers down next to the creature, certain of Goruck's watchful eye and Illiam's quick reactions. D'ya think it understands Common? And it's a dangerous critter, too -- else Goruck wouldn't know of it, eh? The healer laughs at his own joke, while acknowledging the guardian's skill. His expression sobers as he automatically readies his healer's kit, and he waits for any further words from his allies.

I have my eye on the creature Kairon. If it does anything violent I will Hex it to sleep. Sometimes creatures can resist, sadly.

"And if it goes hostile I'll be ready to burn it." We are getting an awful lot of these 'enemy of my enemies'. They may realize they outnumber us and then I'll be cursin their sudden but inevitable betrayal! :D ;)

Kerrdremak looks at Kairon quizzically as he gives his instructions for the choker to be left to rest. He quirks a brow, and his lop-eared head tilts just a bit, reminiscent, to the healer, of a dog trying to puzzle out its master's instructions. Then the red-robed kobold turns to both the warriors that followed him and the slurk riders clinging stickily to the walls and says: "Gadewch y choker yn unig. Os caiff ei niweidio pan fyddaf yn dychwelyd, bydd eich bywyd yn talu'r fforffed ar gyfer ei."

After giving his instructions he returns to the adjacent chamber and looks down the hallway to the north, peering intently into the darkness... "If you're sure this is the way you want to go, we'd best be about it." He says. Then points down the corridor and hollers at his guards. "Yma, ewch! Pan welwch chi unrhyw un, gwynwch, felly gallaf siarad â nhw cyn iddynt weld y croen pinc."

As the priest begins moving toward the northern passage, he suddenly comes up on his toes with a shout, and spins swiftly, moving into a crouch before the tiny firefoot. I've just figured it out! Your name is Gloria, little one. He gives the fox a fond scratching under her chin, and glances up to the assembled crowd with a grin. Knew I'd come up with better'n "Lucky"! That's a good name, and all, . . . but I think Gloria's more . . . right. Yeah. Gloria.

And the moment passes as swiftly as it arrived, and Kairon is 'back to business'.

Pinkskins, hmmmm.mutters Chillel to herself, seemingly absentmindedly, but her eyes are as cold and unforgiving as a glacier.

Have them take some light with them, so we can see where they go. ...and see any threats they walk past that we might not be able to... Illiam adds.

"You want me to send one of my Dancing Torches with them?"

I was thinking Kairon's light would be a little less conspicuous.

Kairon murmurs φως to illuminate one of the kobold guards' spears. There. That should do it!

There are moments in an adventurer's life that they'll never forget, moments that put life and death balancing on the proverbial knife edge. What happened after Kairon lit one of Kerrdremak's warrior's spear tips is one such moment. A moment the envoy from Almas and their new Valer friends will never forget. It started simply enough, the light from the spear disappearing around a corner to the west. Then barely audible mumbles in draconic, after that chaos and nightmare. Kairon, being closest to the portal of the cavern corridor saw a bright flash, as of a fire quickly blazing, and then gone out, and heard screams, guttural, visceral screams, screams he knows all to well from his time working the hospital in Almas, the sreams of the dying. The notion that something went terribly wrong became obvious, and Kairon had time enough to yell at his allies to prepare, but that moment was all they were given, for in his same moment of warning four slurk riding kobold warriors, heavily armed with boiled-leather armor, poisoned spear and javelin, shields, and bows nocked and ready, came barreling around the corner, their hideous mounts clinging to the ceiling and walls. The two ambushers, still in the room with the party of heroes, seeing the odds turn in their favor gave up their silent guard and joined the fray. Gurtlekrep, the once helpful scout, backpedaled quickly into the adjacent storage room and ducked behind a morass of collected barrel and create fragments, unable, or unwilling, so disarmed, to do anything but watch in horror. And all the plans of a peaceful coup were instantaneously destroyed. Open war, conflict, fire, and death, these are all that can be left; death, to the last kobold if necessary, for there is still a child of the Vale enslaved in the bowels of these caves, and if the entire tribe must be obliterated to save him, so be it.

I made the executive decision here to hand wave what I felt was both inevitable, and necessary to speed things up. Kerrdremak's vision, while sound and reasonable, was inevitably going to fall in the face of loyalty to Merlokrep, first of his name, king of the Truescale. I just made it happen swiftly so we can get things moving along. Initiative: Illiam, Goruck, Chillel, Kobold Group 1 (the ones coming down the hallway, all four on the same init), Dolok, Kairon, Kobold Group 2 (the two left in the elevator room with you, both on the same init). Rinse repeat. Good dice luck to all. This will either be a fabulous tale to relate in Jak's common room after all is said and done, or the beginning of a TPK. That Illiam goes first bodes very well. ;)

Quickly assessing that his allies are hopelessly out of position, Illiam looks for the course of action that can take the most combatants out of the fight the fastest (while keeping himself out of immediate danger). He moves past Dolok and Chillel, trying to spot a flicker of movement down the tunnel. As soon as he does, he unleashes a burst from the wand of Sleep, hoping to put the kobolds (or failing that, their slurk mounts) to sleep.

Minor point of order -- to remain consistent with Kairon's storyline, he couldn't have worked at the hospital in Almas. Near Triela, yes; Almas, no. :D

Minor point of order -- to remain consistent with Kairon's storyline, he couldn't have worked at the hospital in Almas. Near Triela, yes; Almas, no. :D

Not even in briefly as part of service to Sarenrae's temple? Huh, I could have sworn he was healing people in Almas... Oh well. Point taken. :)

Illiam's quick thinking and fast acting, unfortunately, does very little conceivable good. The foremost kobold falls asleep, but is harnessed so stickily in his slurk saddle that he just hangs limply at an odd angle, he does drop his bow, and a few arrows fall out of his quiver, but nothing else happens. The slurk right behind the first also falls asleep, but its sticky appendages keep it firmly planted on the wall, even unconscious, plus it will only take a good kick from his rider to bring him back to consciousness. To make matters worse, Illiam has now marked himself as an obvious magic user, and therefore a bigger threat to their advantage of numbers.

Kobold 1 unconscious and therefore helpless, slurk 3 likewise (and that's 4HD of creatures which is the most the spell can affect). Which made me realize I forgot to clearly say that the ceilings in this part of the caves are 30' high at the lowest position, and the slurks are all 20' above ground level or higher... Goruck, Chillel, batters up.

Goruck! Clear the doorway! Kairon shouts, pointing to the west ('cause it is west, and not east, to the room where the choker is dozing blissfully, right?). Everybody get through the door, and we'll take away their advantage of numbers!

EDIT: And didn't kobold 4 fail that Will save, too? Yes, I looked.

Eyeing Dolok critically, he adds: Sure woulda been nice if we'd brought along another longspear, dontchathink??! Huzzah! In-game Jayne Cobb reference! King to me!

Yes west to Choker/storage room, did I write it wrong in a post? Sorry if so. As to the other failed will save, yes, he did, but the spell can only affect 4HD total of creatures, once 4HD of creatures are affected, it fails to affect any others. Which I think is the developers' way of making sure you can't just drop an entire army of kobolds with one low-level spell... :)

Daggum HD caps . . . .

Daggum HD caps . . . .

It does tell us some stuff about them. From that, we should be able to tell in-character that these kobolds are significantly tougher than most of the ones (the ones without names, anyway) that we encountered on the upper level. Out of character, it tells us that they have 2 HD instead of just one. Either way, it's fair to assume that these guys won't go down in one hit, except maybe from Goruck (and he'd probably have to roll high on damage). We've also established that the slurks don't have to remain conscious to keep from falling (which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but there you have it), which rules out some strategies like killing the slurk while it's upside-down so that it falls and lands on the rider.

Good thinking about the room to the west. If we can get them into a chokepoint, I can hit them all with color spray, which doesn't have an HD limit on how many creatures it can affect (and also doesn't allow things to wake up early).

Letting his skin harden like his heart, Goruck dashes westward, his axe swinging around whistling the song of blades. Roaring, the swordsman cries out, "Come, come and break upon my plate, crash against my stony heart, and test the edge of my weapon! I slayed the Forge Spurned, and I WILL SLAY YOU!"

Attack-Honor's Wraith: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (10) + 8 = 18

Attack-: 1d8 + 6 ⇒ (3) + 6 = 9

Well, I now share the dislike of kobolds.

Goruck, what are you attacking? Slurk or rider? Also, is this a leaping strike? The enemy is 20' off the ground... ? I need a bit more information before I can adjudicate what you're trying to accomplish. If you are trying to leap and strike, I'm going to need you to make a DC 20 Acrobatics check to get the 5' vertical necessary to get your axe in touch with the enemy's flesh... Chillel, you can certainly take your action while we're waiting to hear from Goruck.

Sound thinking Kairon, I will take out the Kobold in the way says Chillel in a conversational tone. She then attempts to Slumber Hex the Kobold on the Slurk near the door, then moves into the room, ducking a bit as she passes the Kobold and Slurk to avoid coming within range of attacks.

Hex as a standard action, then a move. DC 15 Will save to avoid 3 rounds of magical slumber.

Ah, my bad, I was confused as to where the slurks were. Well, time to face the music.

Acro-Nope: 1d20 ⇒ 3

At least as long as he stays too high up for Goruck to attack him, that also means that he's too high to AoO people trying to go through the door...

Kobold dashed blue Will Save: 1d20 - 1 ⇒ (13) - 1 = 12
Okay, I matched slurk to rider with the same color, and added a dashed line to one of the blues just to make the separation clear. Please, when attacking, call out kobold or slurk, and the color. Thanks!

As Chillel moves to the relative safety of the storage room, where Gurtlekrep already cowers in the corner, she flashes her supernatural mental magic into the mind of the kobold who is slurk-stuck near the top of the door frame. He immediately succumbs to her power, and falls asleep. Once again, through the utilization of the slurk's own sticky mucus, the kobold stasy asaddle, but does tip wickedly downward in his magic slumber, dropping his shortbow, the arrow he had previously nocked, and several arrows slide out of his quiver to fall at Goruck's feet. Goruck notices, because of his close proximity that the kobolds have an ingenious metal hoop system to hold their javelins. The metal rings would allow the owner to slide the javelin out with a deft stroke, but preven the javelins from falling up, or down. Clearly there are some intelligent minds in the hierarchy of the Truescale tribe. Making that realization provides very little comfort though as two of the three kobolds approaching from the hallway fire at Kairon and move, out of his reach, over his head, into the room. The third kobold has to give his slurk a solid kick just to wake him up, so is unable to fire his bow, but once his mount is awake rides into the room as well. Once in the room, all three slurks, clearly trained in combat tactics, fire a disgusting jet of slime from nodules below their jaw.

Pink fires at Kairon, purple at Illiam, and red at Dolok.

Pink Shortbow attack: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (19) + 3 = 22
Pin Cushion!: 1d4 ⇒ 2
Red Shortbow attack: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (14) + 3 = 17
Dejavu all over again: 1d4 ⇒ 4

Both kobolds' arrows find bits of Kairon's exposed flesh and draw small wounds, inciting the priest to further violence. But also, inflicting him with their noxious poison. First dose = (injury, DC 11 Fort Save or suffer 1d2 Dex/1d2 Dex damage; second dose = DC 13, due to the increase of compounding poisons... Please roll those Fortitude Saves Kairon, and if failure occurs, please roll the 1d2(s) for the Dex damage. Thanks!

Pink Slime Jet, Ranged Touch: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (4) + 4 = 8

Purple Slime Jet, Ranged Touch: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (4) + 4 = 8

Red Slime Jet, Ranged Touch: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (2) + 4 = 6

Thankfully none of the slurk's disgusting goo lands anywhere near their intended targets.

Dolok, Kairon, batters up!

Edit: Kairon, the 1d2/1d2 Dex, means that even on a failed save the poison will only do damage for two rounds, then no further damage will occur. If you have questions about the saves, or what failure means, let me know. Poison is complicated enough, without the crud of multiple doses being applied separately.

Displaying irregular stoicism, Kairon barely grunts as the arrows find their mark. He can feel the burning lassitude of the poison trying to take hold in his blood, and he steels himself as best he can against it.

Fort Save One: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (17) + 5 = 22
Fort Save Two: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (15) + 5 = 20

Considering the reach of my longspear and your earlier discussion of vertical reach, Mended, we do have some legal slurk targets for me to melee, correct?

If they remained 20ft off the ground, that should be in kairon's reach with his longspear. Also, combat reflexes allows him to make AoOs while flat-footed, so I believe they did provoke...

YES!!!!

Edit, yes Kairon, and yes Illiam. So AoO away Kairon. Sorry I did not take that into consideration initially. Please declare slurk or kobold and color.

Not high enough on that wall, are ya? AoO, Slurk, Pink: 1d20 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 ⇒ (15) + 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 22
Gonna getcha, you sabertoothed snot-frog!: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (7) + 4 = 11

Noticing an easy opportunity to start turning the tables, Kairon thrusts at a slurk with his spear . . .

. . . and makes another attempt before moving swiftly to the western doorway.

It's critical we do that again.: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (7) + 7 = 14
You need more pain in your brief life, ugly.: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (4) + 4 = 8

Token Assist, 6 squares, trying to get inside the doorway, please.

Don't you get 2 AoOs? More than one of them provoked...

An excellent point!

No. Really. It's critical. (AoO, Slurk, Red): 1d20 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 15
Stab a snotrocket!: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (4) + 4 = 8

I'm gonna keep pestering the algorithm till I get a non-freebie crit. It's my turn, dangit!!

Kill their . . . frog-things!!

HELP! My icon got lost under the maps! Can't find it! My computer was acting all weird and would not let me undo or change the 'order' to bring it to the front. My icon should be somewhere right in the area where the "D" is now. Drew a line to show my movement just in case.

Dolok waves his hands around and loudly pronounces, "Tiesa skristi ir streikuoti!" as two balls of energy (Magic Missile) fly from his hands both striking at the frog-like thing directly in front of him. (Blue Slurk) Then he turns and quickly moves into the 'safety' of the western room that the mighty Kairon has wisely suggested. "Good plan Kairon! If we can bunch some of them together I can burn em all with a single spell!"

Magic missile 1: 1d4 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 1 = 3
Magic missile 2: 1d4 + 1 ⇒ (4) + 1 = 5

YAY! Maxed one of em out! :D 8 points of damage to that Slurky!

HELP! My icon got lost under the maps! Can't find it! My computer was acting all weird and would not let me undo or change the 'order' to bring it to the front. My icon should be somewhere right in the area where the "D" is now. Drew a line to show my movement just in case.

I tried removing the map, but it wasn't there. Looks like you deleted it by accident. I added a new one.

I tried removing the map, but it wasn't there. Looks like you deleted it by accident. I added a new one.

Thanks Illiam! - Shoulda thought o that meself! Duh!

Forgot to put the unconscious marker on dashed blue, the one Chillel knocked out. Have since remedied that.

Once again the tide of battle seems to turn rather quickly for the brave heroes. Kairon's longspear strikes all find their targets of flesh, drawing grievous wounds on the one (pink), and at least drawing blood on the other (red). Then he beats a hasty retreat to draw the sticky bastards into a chokepoint. Dolok does the same but not before slamming two magic missiles of force into the mucussy tusked frog right in front of him (blue).

Seeing that Illiam, an obvious magic user, is all alone in the middle of the room, the kobold whose slurk Dolok just damaged, spurs his slurk to fire a jet of sticky goo at the halfling's feet, attempting to stick him to the ground where he stands.

Blue Slime Jet: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (20) + 4 = 24 Damn... Sorry Illiam

And the conjurer of tricks is suddenly stuck fast to the floor. Illiam has gained the entangled condition, the kind that prevents movement because it is anchored to the floor. To get out of the goo requires a full-round action, AND a DC 15 STR check. Seeing his foe immobilized the kobold releases his arrow and instead draws and fires a javelin, trying to impale the small pink-skin where he stands.

Javelin Strike: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (4) + 3 = 7

His poisoned javelin sails wide and lands harmlessly next to Illiam. The slurk beneath the now unconscious kobold, who was standing guard at the storage room door, lashes out his tongue, and wipes it across his disgustingly bulbous eyeball, cleaning it of some mucus that had dripped in. Apparently the slurks don't always know to attack if their riders aren't directing them to do so, and they don't feel any imminent danger. Clearly, Goruck's failed attempt to strike him at his current position, has left the slurk feeling safe and secure.

And we're back to the top of the init: Illiam, Goruck, Chillel, Kobold Group 1.

Yipes. Had missed the fact Illiam was out there solo. Thought he had a move before Kobold Team 2. We got this, though!

Almost as a reflex, Illiam uses his Shift ability, teleporting out of the anchoring snot which has no dimensional anchoring properties, so it shouldn't be able to prevent teleportation. No longer stuck to the floor, Illiam moves as fast as he can into the safety of the room to the west. Using a double move if still entangled.

Now, if Illiam had just been hit directly by the snot, he would gain the entangled condition, but be able to move at half speed, and the snot would move with him. Since, however, the snot has mostly hit the floor, anchoring him to that spot, using his Shift ability to teleport should leave it behind entirely (or at least enough of it that prestidigitation can clean the remainder off), allowing him to move at full speed, right? The stuff doesn't have any dimensional anchoring properties, so there's no way it should be able to prevent him from using Shift, and even if enough snot comes with him to leave him entangled, it would be the unanchored variety of entanglement, right?

If no longer entangled, that leaves him a standard action, which he will use to ready color spray to blast through the doorway as soon as kairon moves out of the way if there are at least 3 kobold/slurk pairs that he can hit with it.

Never doubted you for a second. The snot definitely stays where it was, you are correct. Good show!!! Yes, take that standard and ready your color spray!!! :) All is well... Illiam is fine. :)

Goruck, Chillel... whenever you're ready... O.o <.<

Chillel is looking worried before she sees Illiam teleport to beside her, when she says in relief Good trick! I was worried you were about to get killed. Speaking of getting killed...

Chillel gestures and speaks, unleashing an Aggressive Thundercloud spell on the blue slurk and rider.

Damage, Aggressive Thundercloud: 3d6 ⇒ (2, 2, 3) = 7

DC 15 Reflex save for half damage. Goruck seems MIA at the moment.

Since the slurk and rider share a square, does aggressive thundercloud affect both?

I believe so. It says it is a 5 foot diameter sphere. It is a [small] area of effect spell.