The 5th Mendevian Crusade (Inactive)

Game Master Brian Minhinnick

Nate: 4 times/day (and I forgot I got Mercy this level-up, so I can heal fatigue now.) If I get a +Cha item it'll bump a lot of my abilities, I think that's my next purchase.

Well I will probably be upgrading my circle so could have Viorel's old one, yay saving money.

And Nathaniel I got rod of extend minor, haven't been as useful as I anticipated so could easily borrow it for one spell so with that two castings and 26 hours

On forced march subject, would not be that bad of an idea to try to push in few extra hours. And now that I went to check the rules not so hot idea guys, it's not a Fort save, it's constitution check.

A character can walk for more than 8 hours in a day by making a forced march. For each hour of marching beyond 8 hours, a Constitution check (DC 10, +2 per extra hour) is required. If the check fails, the character takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage. A character who takes any nonlethal damage from a forced march becomes fatigued. Eliminating the nonlethal damage also eliminates the fatigue. It's possible for a character to march into unconsciousness by pushing himself too hard.

Counting the two horses and Sacha we are making total of 9 rolls.

So at first hour we got these chances of failure: 20%/25%/30%x5/35% add that all together and on average we have 2.2 people failing okay Liette can deal with that.

2nd hour: all chances increase by 20% and 20%x9=180% that added with the 220% from earlier and now on average we have 4 people down. So unless all succeeded on the first hour Liette can't deal with the issue on average. Total from 2 hours is 6.2 people down.

Conclusion: 1 extra hour is doable.

Now it did come to me as I wrote this that perhaps people on the mounts would not have to make the checks. This would increase our cababilities by a huge margin.

Now only horses, sacha, Barek and Nathaniel are making saves.

1st hour: 20%/25%/3x30%= 1.35 failures on average.
2nd hour: 1.35+0.2x5= 2.35 For a total of 3.7, this is within Liette's cababilities to deal with.

Conclusion: 2 extra hours possible.

There might very well that there is a mistake in there somewhere it was done rather hastily.

Once we get our glider things will be much simpler; I'll be the only one making Constitution checks and Liette can wipe away my tiredness.

Con checks? That's an interesting change from 3.5 that I hadn't been aware of. Did you napkin math in the horses' bonus Endurance feat? I think it gives them a bonus on Con checks like this.

In these uncertain times fly Air Bartimaeus, today. You can trust in the big blue deathmachine.

Horses get endurance? Nice- that is +4 to these checks, I believe.

Air Bartimaeus; we don't prohibit weapons and sharp instruments, we require them.

Just for reference the airship was commissioned on 08/26. So it'll be ready on 09/09, or six days from game time now.

Warning lot of math in the post, in summary some mistakes in previous calculations. Also once we get the glider we are gona be moving fast.

Oh yeah endurance forgot about that. Not going to post the math again just the results. Also I notice that I calculated the +2DC as +20% instead of +10%. To save some typing I am just going to post the correct results.

People on mounts making checks:
1st hour: 1.8 creatures failing
2nd hour: 2.7 creatures failing, for a total of 4.5.
Conclusion: 1 hour possible

People on mounts not making checks:
1st hour: 0.95 failures
2nd hour: 1.45, total of 2.4
3rd hour: 1.95, total of 4.35
Conclusion: 2 hours possible.

In both cases the 1/2 hour also leaves room for the checks going south. In the latter case if things go south on the first hour you can just decide not to push for a second hour.

For completness sakes let's check Nathaniel on the glider.

1st hour: 0.25
2nd: 0.35, total 0.6
3rd: 0.45, 1.05
4th: 0.55, 1.6
5th: 0.75, 2.35
6th: 0.85, 3.2
7th: 0.95, 4.15
8th: 1.05, 5.20
Conclusion: On average we can get 6 extra hours. That combined with the huge boost to speed, gives us a huge advantage.

And the extra hours will just increase as Liette gain more levels and as such more LoH. Up to 14 hours of forced March since even with the ring 2 hours is the minium resting time for Nathaniel. And if the harcap is not in effect Nathaniels possible increase in speed will also pull that time down considerably.

If Liette gets that +2Cha item then 7 hours is possible on average. Another note is that the chart only goes up to 50ft speed, I am not sure if this is a hard cap or just because when the campaign started at least I would not have expected the characters to exceed that.

So with that let's count both. So at first it takes 48 hours to explore a hex with assumed traveling time of 16 hours. With 7 extra hours that means total traveling time of 15 hours. So we could almost clear a hex per day.(15/16=0.9375) Now if the hard cap is not in place speed is 1.8 of that. So 16/1.8=~8.9 hours to clear a hex. 15/(16/1.8)=1.6875 hexes per day cleared. Just for gigels lets see without the hardcap or increase in Nathaniels speed what we could do with 22 hours of traveling. 22/(16/1.8)=2.475. So just about 2 and a half hexes each day.

Two notes on that fact is that we would be facing more enemies between rests so repleneshing our spells and other daily stuff might come in to the way of speed depending on difficulty of the fights. Also this tactic would require everyone to get the ring pretty much when we exceed 16 hours of travel time, but not that huge of a problem because the price is just 2,500gp, though the loss of a ring slot might hurt some people. And the 16 hours is at the latest without huge problems.

My suggestion, when we get back to the keep. Everyone pick up the ring of sustance. No I am pretty sceptical of having the 16k needed for +4 headband(or if can find one for that matter) so probably will just have to ignore the save money by giving my old one to Liette. Well the save would have been just 2k so not that huge in the grand scheme of things.

Viorel, I believe we are waiting on you to mark out the Alarm spells for our camping sight, not intending to overshadow your much welcome math.

I would suggest we hold off on any concrete plans before we get back to the citadal.

Not least because I just read of the Unspoken Plan Guarantee

I would point out that though you will be able to explore hexes very quickly, and get around very quickly, that won't make you clear hexes quickly. You'll still need to defeat all the encounters in a hex before it's clear. So though you may not end up resting often it's still going to be a lot of fighting.

Yeah, I would wager that our staying power will be the limiting factor on that. The numbers shown are just the theoretical limits. Mostly did the math for completness sake, since I know it would have bugged me later if I didn't and if I am gona do it anyways, might as well share the results.

I am imagining these Hatethrall Demons to look something like this......

Am I up?

Yes, sorry I missed your name on the list. You're next actually.

Decided not to haste you all as I don't think we'll be getting many full attacks and I can't take a third hit like that.

Okay, I've got to ask, what is Sacha's gender? I've been referring to it as her, I've seen Abigail say it and now he. Which is it?

Würde ich korrekt sein wenn ich errate das du Deutsch bist Abigail?

I wish! I know a little Deutsch though, but it's quite rusty.

Sacha is a he. I thought animals should be referred as "it" in English, though in French, my native language, there is no such thing as "it". That's probably why I slip from time to time.

Ah, same in German. That's why I guessed that. We would say he normally. I will do so in the future.

Prima! ;p

I'm away for a few days.

I need everyone to answer me a question. What would your character (not you) do if they saw one of their friends get into a physical, violent fight with another of their friends? Both friends are good friends, please be specific.

Have they been mind-controlled, are they drunk, or is it an honest violent disagreement?

If the first, and there is an enemy, attack the bigger threat- the friend of the enemy; if the friend, try to deal nonlethal damage.

If the second or third, go for a grapple check on one of them.

Depends, as Nathaniel said, on circumstance...

If they're drunk or working out a disagreement or something, and not using lethal damage (i.e. just a fist-fight), probably nothing, and would only approach them individually afterwards if they looked like they didn't sort out their issues and are nursing a grudge.

If it's a PvP kind of situation with lethal damage (weapons) and intent to kill, try to physically put himself between them (even if that means taking damage) and do a lot of angry shouting to get them to put their weapons down. If that doesn't work, try to subdue them both via grappling and non-lethal damage. If that doesn't work, he'll resort to lethal damage but stabilize and heal them afterwards.

Afterwards he'll willingly (or even forcefully) act as mediator and make sure they get their issues sorted out. If there's no chance of reconciliation he'll strongly recommend (read: force) both go their separate ways. If that means losing two people from the party out of fairness, he's okay with that. He'll look into getting them into other units or en route to wherever they'd like to go outside of the 'Wound.

If one of the two friends has turned to evil or is otherwise looking to harm them all (e.g., worshipping demons, stealing from the party, etc.) he's likely to be less lenient on them overall (more likely to use lethal force, more likely to press for their expulsion from the group, and also highly likely to make sure they get punished by the authorities.)

Assume you're unaware of exactly why they are fighting, you've just come across them apparently trying to kill each other.

What you said is enough of an answer for Nathaniel/Bartimeaus. Thanks.

First try to verbally have them stop. Then use nonlethal spells to force them to stop, or lethal ones to prevent them from getting to each other.(meaning something like pyrotechnics on the nonlethal and on the lethal firewall if this happened at point where he knew such spells) After they have been subdued(assuming this since if not, there is not much to do.) First try to figure out if charm or compulsion magic is involved, then talk. Depending on what he finds dictates what happens.

Of course depends on situation and all that, but that is the basic gist of it.

Liette would probably try to assess the brawl to see if she could judge motivations (sense motive) then chastise them until they stopped (alternate intimidate/diplomacy depending on which was more appropriate), and failing that go in for non-lethal pistol whipping.

Abigail would first talk them out of it, but would at the same time be mindful of external influences and probably cast Protection from Evil on the most aggressive one, especially if she had not witness any build up in the previous days.

If nothing changes, she would simply try to control their anger, using Aid Another to boost the AC of the one on the loosing end, and channel energy to keep their from getting injured, all the while talking.

If it's all non lethal, she would probably just talk them out.

Talk them out of it via means of intimidation (since that's his big social skill). If he's the only one able to intervene, and intimidation and other meaningless chatter doesn't break them up or at least get a response from them, and it appears they are using lethal force, alternate non-lethal damage on them both until they are both unconscious. One out they can both be tied up securely and interrogated appropriately.

Sorry for the delay there guys, I've been getting my PBP life under control. I've had some RL changes that demand I spend less time on the boards, so I've been going through the process of reducing my games and figuring out where I want to concentrate my limited energies. Luckily for you all this game made the cut.

Group 1 has some people with a much slower posting rate, and I basically gave them "post every 24 hours or it's not worth my prep time" ultimatum. It's looking like there are three of them (possibly four, but I doubt it) who can keep that commitment. I'm going to roll them into this group. So yeah, it's gonna be a crazy 9 PC party. There will be an in-game explanation for this. Just expect some new blood soon.

Another thing is that switching computers has taught me that the map looks different for everyone. I'll try to be more lenient map-wise now that I know how variable the map can display on different PCs.

Once we've got 9 people here I'm going to institute some rules changes to speed things up. The first will be that I reserve the right to boot people who are consistently holding up the game. This group typically has good rates, so I hope it won't be an issue, but I hate DMPCing people, and I don't really have time for it. So even if you just post in OOC saying "Hey, checking in. Waiting on X" that will work. Of course if there's something that comes up let me know and I'll try to be flexible. But basically if you disappear for a few days, expect your PC to be standing there having a mental breakdown or whatever (auto-delay action in combat). If you disappear for 8,9,10 days, expect to be booted/killed off.

Secondly, I'll be putting all the stats you need to resolve your own actions in a spoiler under my name. So you'll have the monster's AC, touch and FF as well as it's saves, resistances etc. If the monster needs to make a save, make a roll for it. If you provoke an AOO, roll it on yourself. I will roll AOOs for you. To make this easier I willl be asking each of you to make the following macro and put it in a spoiler in your gender line:

[dice=AOO (whatever weapon you use]1d20+X[/dice
[dice=Damage]1dx+Y[/dice
# of AOOs you can make in a round

I will include the same for monsters with their stats. This is simply to reduce the need for summary posts and to allow you to describe the results of your own actions. You don't have this knowledge in character unless you make the appropriate check. Meta-gaming will be seriously frowned on.

Thirdly, we're going to change up how initiative works. I will still roll for everyone, but the highest PC roller will determine whether the party or the monsters go first. When the party's initiative block is up, everyone can post and actions will occur in posting order. Companions will still act with their masters and like monsters will still act in blocks.

I know this is alot of change, if you have any questions let me know. If anyone wants to drop out due to the changes I also understand.

No worries Jelani. Hope everything gets sorted on your end.

If handling 9 PCs is a bit hard on your end, I would be willing to drop out of the game--I've picked up probably one more game than I probably should have considering my uni schedule, and it would be a good excuse to drop down a game. (That said, one of my games looks like it's been abandoned by its GM, so it might not be a necessity...)

Also, though the concept/characters of this game are very enjoyable to me, I've been anything but impressed with my alchemist so far! The move economy absolutely cripples alchemists, it seems. First time I've played one, so it was a good learning experience in that regard. Never touching the class again, that's for sure. :)

That said, if you're okay with such a big group and the CR mathematics that involves, I'm also more than happy to stay on board!

That all sounds good to me, man. No worries on the delay, I'm pretty darn patient and understand how life can be. Excited to see the new blood too.

I'd prefer no one leave unless they actually want to. Making challenging encounters won't be an issue. As long as everyone sticks with roughly 1/day posting and we institute the PBP tricks mentioned above, things should run smoothly.

...nice. This should be much fun. Happy with all changes, and our new best buddies. It'll be interesting to learn what they've been up to.

One thought- our glider. I can take the weight, but will there now be too many people to fit on?

Nah, we'll just fudge it and say it was always going to be big enough.

Glider? This thing is going to be the Spruce Goose. (But will actually fly)

I wish I had a scanner, I would totally draw a picture of it. It's basically going to be a giant wooden manta-ray bird, with rope webbing for flesh, and a giant blue dinosaur Synthesist for legs.

giant blue dinosaur Synthesist avec giant black top hat.

Those changes sound good to me.

Yeah changes will not be a problem, will need to access other comp before the AoO change though since I haven't formatted this one yet. Then again I don't think Viorel has yet drawn his weapon in any of the fights so unlikely it will come up before that.

Also will be really interesting to see how the big group changes combat.

I'm fine with the change. Sorry I hadn't been on the past couple of days. I've been fighting a very bad cold.

EDIT: Not sure about the spoiler thing since it would depend on what Barek is doing at the time (Power Attack, Rage, nothing) and whether the opponent is a demon (since the sword is demonbane).

I have Devotion; +4 bonus on will saves versus Enchantment spells and effects. That let me make the save?

You already made the save. Thus the "Bartimaeus begins to feel very friendly towards one of the Hatethralls, and then he shakes the feeling off."

Heh, apologies.

The whole killing off half their party encounter is going smoothly over there. It's actually eerily enough the exact same situation you guys found yourselves in. If you want to read it while you wait for this to pick up again, here's the thread.

Good Place to Start From

A Saurian Shaman and a Zen Archer... ooh, nasty.

I was just reading that the other day. I think it'll be awesome when we team up to get some old-fashioned revenge on that demon.

Please note I won't be able to post much, if at all, during the weekend.

Hey guys,

I'm sorry to say this, but I think I'm going to have to drop out of this PbP.

I got a job today! Which is awesome! But another 20 hours a week on top of my university work means that something's gotta give elsewhere. :)

Apologies for the sudden drop-out, but thanks for the game thus far. Hope you guys manage to kill that big glabrezu sometime!

Aww. Well, good luck!

Aww, Faraldur. You will be missed :(