
Trissae Darkwhisper |

+6hp (average)
+1 spell slot (4th)
+1 spell known (Polymorph) maybe.
Grey, before I choose my spell, what's your input on Polymorph? The old one I think required you to have seen the things you were morphing but it doesn't look like that's a stipulation for 5e. Im partially asking because the only cr7 beast is donkey Kong.

Trissae Darkwhisper |

not really a complaint because random be random but jeeze:
of the last 14 d20 rolls, 2 was above average (19,12) 2 were average (11) and every other one was below average, many significantly.... arg.

Trissae Darkwhisper |

There are a few things that are factually bad ass:
1. Walking away from an explosion without looking
2. Hot bullet cases bouncing off the ground in slow motion as you blow away a horde of goons.
3. Rolling up with your crew and tossing the head of your slain advassary to the feet of his comrades and saying "Anyone else?"
4. Respecting women ~Torgue

Adrien Cavell |

Ah I think I figured out what happened:
Dec 28th To everyone who was in this fight: Welcome to level 7. Please do your leveling-up in the discussion thread. New HP, Spell Slots, or other abilities gained from the level-up should be considered refreshed and ready to use.
Trissae: You'll get yours soon, when we're done with your part here. Think about what you'd like to do, and feel free to discuss it as well. Just don't make any actual changes to your character sheet yet.
So I think Ozz was the only one who was off.

Grellik |

yeah, it seems like Ozz just didn't get properly leveled. For Shame! ;P
(Also, I realized I just jumped in there without giving you a chance to do something first if you wanted to, Adrien. sorry about that. I don't want to hog any spotlight :D)

Trissae Darkwhisper |

You know, it's interesting. I had no intention on writing that big response, but there was this genuine frustration that I could sense Trissae would feel at this situation.
Here we have this Shield captain who trissae believes has to know about what happened at the tower, and he's surprised that Moonbrook had the shield. Of course Trissae has no clue what standard operating procedure is for the shield or who normally has it, but her assumption is that 'of course Moonbrook would have it.
Then just the frustration sets in - having gone out of her way, to the point of being somewhat ostrasized by her friends, for the Shields and still finding them incredibly hostile. It all just spills out, and none of it is planned lol.
It's just very interesting when the character takes over, especially looking from the outside.
It makes me really appreciate how good your writing is Grey, like disappearing into a book

GM Grey |

Ahhh, I might have f-ed up a bit of Irontooth there. He isn't surprised that Moonbrook had ownership of the Shield, he was interested if she actively had it ON her at the time. Whoops.
Also, he's the Citadel captain who has been cut off from the rest of the Shields since the bullywugs came in. Communication has been limited.
That said, thank you! I enjoy Trissae's never-ending quest to be accepted as more than just a Drow. I hope you aren't completely tired of it yet, you knew what you were getting into, following in the footsteps of Drizz't, I hope. :)

Grellik |

You know, it occurs to me, have we discounted the fact that Caira may have just been fed information, and is a patsy? I know we discussed divination, but I don't know if we considered that obvious option

Trissae Darkwhisper |

Just a heads up, I do have lesser restoration to clear up the poison if splotz is running low on magical juice.
Also at this point I'm almost completely certain that this is Grimgar's fiasco. He was tired of the drift in the Bogsharks (Caira being selfish and enjoying yartar then the addition of Adrien into the fold). So after he was caught by Frostheight he either made a deal with him, or at the very least made a plot involving him. But, everything got messed up with Brundon and Grim's failure to account for Frostheight's bigotry. At least that's my guess at this juncture.
Also, I love that my phone now tries to auto correct to Frostheight when I type frost now lol

Grellik |

Yeah, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but I enjoy those idiosyncratic autocorrects and word suggestions. :D
As soon as it became clear that Grimgar really took off on you, I figured he was going after her, and I am not convinced, (how is he is staying invisible, for instance--though its not impossible for him to have, say, invis potions)but It seems likely, I agree.
Though actually, I just realized you meant that he is the 'traitor.' Possible, but I think he's just an overzealous Bogshark purist. A kinda Lawful Douche Paladin type, but for Bogsharkness. In fact, I'm not even sure there is a traitor. they may have just figured out who Caira was, and fed Caira BS info, so she'd set up the job

Adrien Cavell |

Haha thank you, I'm loving this scene so far :D
I like the sound of that service. Just pay a monthly fee and your hair always stays the same and styled without you ever seeing the barber. But the barber sees you.

Adrien Cavell |

Trying to figure out what this looked like (translating the mechanics into fiction).
Dead would have been 104 damage, so it wasn't even close to bloodspray>dead.
If it had been just a bit more damage, it would be bleeding that could stop on its own. But it was less severe than that.
But it still puts him one hit away from unconscious, so he has to be severely weakened/fragile because of it...
Okay, I think I have a basic idea for how it plays out. Moving to gameplay.

GM Grey |

Yeah, it's a rough thing to try and keep mechanical HP in mind in these moments of dramatic tension. There's a lot of room for different interpretations based on all of our notions on how HP works, and how the scene feels.
To me, this scene felt like a moments of tension, of something long in the making finally coming together, so my natural inclination is to go big, try to make it feel like a moment that matters, something with stakes.
But, as you say, being dropped to 1 HP can be slept off in a single night. Not exactly life threatening, is it? Yet, I don't feel good about Making Grimgar night unstoppable by overleveling him above you. I might be able to justify a few levels, I suppose, but even if he was set to level 9 or 10 (I don't think I'd want to go that much higher. The Bogshark elites ARE powerful, but I level 8 is still a god compared to someone at the level you all started as, and I think right around 8 or 9 is a good place for them to be at) that would have only rolled 2d6 more damage.
And 51 is a HIGH roll for 10d6+6 (4 dex, +2 magic weapon). 12d6+6 might have even done LESS damage.
Yet, then we circle back to this problem where the climax of Grimgar's entire arc culminating in a this moment of choice between he and Grellik (With the power to kill but a word), so I don't want the choice to end up with "Well, clearly Grimgar was never really a threat, so Grellik is a fool to have killed him. He couldn't stop us, mechanically" as that is murder to the story telling when the mechanics drive like that.
So, I can see where the desire for there to be these stakes of 'Adrien could have died! if Grimgar didn't act decisively' comes from. I really feel that too.
I actually considered letting Grellik just get to act first, without the rolling initiative, so the actual damage of what Grimgar COULD do might not ever be revealed, letting the tension of "How in danger is Adrien and Caria?" work by story telling alone.
But I let the mechanics speak for me there, possibly causing this awkward feeling between this story-telling-versus-mechanics issue.
Sorry for the akwardness here, and please don't mind it if we walk away from this scene with the mental image that there was some blood spray, The HP system just isn't properly realistic for story-telling purposes, without taking some liberal interpretations on how HP could be described from this scene.
Hell, I guess since HP IS supposed to be a combination of meat damage, fatigue and moral, this is a position where we might be able to crank it in the other direction, such as the wound is wicked enough to cause a good amount of blood loss (Which isn't hugely unrealistic. Head wounds bleed like a b%%~$, and I bet neck/jaw cuts might, to some extent as well.
Having a wound bad enough to leave a nasty scar could still be a blood mess even though it isn't immediately life threatening. Pro-wrestling demonstrates pretty regularly how well people can still operate physically while looking absolutely f##*ed. It doesn't matter if blood is streaming down your face and coating the mat, the show must go on and there is a bit of a script you need to stick to. So, keep swinging your fists even though you might not know exactly how you look like or how bad it is. A dude once finished a match after breaking his neck.
So, I'm pretty open to how to resolve the fluff of this scene, but I would like to lean in favor of supporting dramatic-tension over sheer D&D mechanics here, even if just for that sweet, sweet, storytelling fluff.

Trissae Darkwhisper |

As an aside, there is an optional rule for massive damage in the DMG, which triggers on taking half your maximum hp in damage from a single source (note that if you had weapon with a damage enchantment like fire, you don't count the fire damage as it's technically a separate source)
Not that I'm advocating it, since we haven't been using it up to this point.

Trissae Darkwhisper |

I feel like I should clarify:
After reading my post I realized it could be read as Triss telling Adrien to kill himself... NOT the intention!
She is trying to motivate him by saying "do what Grimgar can't, protect your family" with handing him the sword being symbolic of that.... I hope that makes sense x_X

Trissae Darkwhisper |

I just want to take a moment to appreciate something. Sapphire's murder saber was making Triss act weird so she shouldn't have it, it could be cursed. Oh but Adrien, here, have two... XD