I'm now somewhat picturing the stinger for this campaign being Eve's long forgotten backpack hanging from a tree branch, gently swinging in the summer breeze – with a manic sprite suddenly bursting out of it, gleefully shooting arrows at passing crows.
Sorry for the delay. I've had a busy day.
Escape Artist is an opposed check, so the DC for him to escape is equal to the result of the check to tie him up. If someone wants to make a check, they can do so, then I'll post the next morning since everyone seems ready to move on.
I was going by
Ropes: The DC of your Escape Artist check is equal to the binder's Combat Maneuver Bonus +20.
The problem is that even with that ruling (which actually makes plenty of sense, it would be like merging the old 3.5E Use Rope skill into it), by taking 20 he's probably going to be able to escape sooner or later.
Try Again: Varies. You can make another check after a failed check if you're squeezing your way through a tight space, making multiple checks. If the situation permits, you can make additional checks, or even take 20, as long as you're not being actively opposed. If the DC to escape from rope or bindings is higher than 20 + your Escape Artist skill bonus, you cannot escape from the bonds using Escape Artist.
And sooner rather than later (20 minutes after we're gone).
Action: Making an Escape Artist check to escape from rope bindings, manacles, or other restraints (except a grappler) requires 1 minute of work.
That's why I was looking for alternative methods. A cage or a box or even a chest would be ideal, but the closest thing we have is our backpacks.
I'm fine with moving on even now, though. We'll just keep him in the backpack for the time being, if everyone agrees. Once we go back to Heldren we'll have a wider range of options (I'm personally partial to handing him to a circle of local fey, as Nathara suggested).
Then feel free to take your time and talk out what you want to do with Vosi. You can also leave him in the bag overnight and decide what to do with him in the morning.
Ok. I suggest we keep him in the backpack, which we can then carry with us or just leave here for the time being (wouldn't want him to start making noise at the most inopportune moment). On our way back, we take him to Heldren where they'll hopefully have a cage where to hold him.
This would at least circumvent the problem in the short term. Though handing him to local fey would be ideal... What kind of knowledge check would it be to assess if the Border Wood is home to some fey (before the Irriseni invasion, that is)?
Again, sorry for stalling the game. I know arguing about what to do with a captured fey isn't the most thrilling PbP experience :(
(The more I play it, the more I realize the DnD ruleset was built with no other approach in mind than enter room - kill everything in the room - exit room).
How I use Knowledge Checks for monsters and the like:
Fey, Animals = Nature
Dragons, Spells, Magic Items, etc. = Arcana
Undead, Religious Items, etc. = Religion
Monstrous Humanoids, Aberations, Magical Beasts = Dungeoneering
Outsiders, Elementals, etc. = Planes
Constructs = Engineering (occasionally Dungeoneering or Arcana)
No worries. I'd rather have players that take the time to decide what to do with a prisoner, even a simple sprite, than a group that just walks through everything killing everything I put in their path.
Nice... I was in doubt between nature and local. I'll give it a try then.
That is unfortunate. Tiferet knows nothing about local fey.
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My thoughts are that setting him free is probably best. "Your Mistress said to let any Fey who were clever enough to survive the battle, while upholding her orders, continue to guard this area." sort of thing. :P
Also a very nice idea! "And don't forget to use your shiny Colour thing on every treacherous filthy bandit trying to flee!"
Adopting him as our mascot is still an option
Edited to add:
So, there aren't really any fey in the area it turns out. I say we leave him in the bag and buy Evelyn a new one when we get back to Heldren. Alternatively, feed him to Ashen.
I'm ready to move on if everyone else is. Eirikr wouldn't care what we do with the fey, and I don't really either.
Eve could try a bluff to just send him off in the other direction by the time he figures out nothing is there we should be long gone
We would, but we don't want him to rejoin his friends and alert them of incoming trespassers either. It took us a couple of hours to reach this point from the edge of the snow, it'd probably take him even less since he's capable of flying. And then he'd figure out something's not quite right, presumably.
Personally, I'm partial to either the mascot or the bluff him into staying here things.
I like both... but remember, a winter fey mascot is not exactly going to be the best mascot ever. Especially if he figures us out.
Unlike outsiders, fey aren't inherently evil... he might become a nice pet project of Nathara's, since she worships the Goddess of Redemption. If she's willing, of course.
Though in the short term, I agree he'll probably prove problematic. If we were to vote on the matter, I'd probably go with Inire's suggestion; mostly because I feel we've dwelt on this matter far too long already (my bad!).
Switching topics, looks like the next obstacle on our path is going to be this Fawfein guy and his 'frozen spirits' buddies. Are we going to try the Bluff tactic again, i.e. we've been sent by the 'mistress' to deal with the traitorous bandits and recapture Lady Argentea, join us? Already knowing his name and task would lend plenty of credibility to this gambit.
Just... no prisoners this time.
I still don't understand why you feel like it's bad for us to determine what to do with a prisoner that we have. It's an incharacter issue that needs to be handled, and while it may detract from 'punching things moar', it's actually a source of roleplay if we used it for that. Prisoners aren't bad. They're an option to make things more interesting and add depth and reality to the game. Good people should seek to not kill, and there should be consequences for that. If good doesn't come with consequences over the evil route, then it's not good, it's neutral. Good needs to be tested. :)
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Note: That's not meant to be condescending, you just keep treating it like you made a mistake in asking how we would deal with it. And I don't feel it is. :)
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im fine with whatever we do with him i just need to know which so I know what to post.
So final vote:
Mouse: Bluff to stay where he is / mascot
Tif: Bluff to stay where he is?
Nath:
Eirikr:
Morg:
Eve: Bluff to stay where he is
If we get 3-4 people to agree on Bluff I'll post eve doing it.
Mouse also accepts super happy funtime mascot. :)
I am OK with either option. Bluff away. :)
Unlike outsiders, fey aren't inherently evil... he might become a nice pet project of Nathara's, since she worships the Goddess of Redemption. If she's willing, of course.
She is, but I am not sure whether I - or Nathara - know enough about fey to do that. She does not understand their culture, their drives, their motivation, but knows that even the slightest misstep in their complex code of conduct, which only fey truly understand, can cause a century lasting grudge. Even in the face of good fey.
But I am not a friend of plans that will include just leaving him somewhere before we have dealt with the situation at hand. Thus I prefer to keep him around, at least for now.
And Nathara is definitely gonna share some breakfast with him - unlikely that he can keep up with her demonic hunger, anyway. However, we may very well make more prisoners along the way...
From an out of character standpoint, it's very important that if we -do- keep him around, we do not -treat- him as a prisoner. That is almost -guaranteed- to cause that century-long grudge. Tricking him into thinking it's his idea to stay gets tons of bonus points in my book. :)
'Hm. If only we had a guide to help show us the way to retrieving the Mistress's strange human girl... it's a shame we don't have anyone here who specifically could lead us through all this snow in these twisty woods...' :)
Since four people seem to agree, I'm going ahead with Eve's Bluff. You actually rolled low enough that he could pass his Sense Motive :)
Jesus he needs an 11 to beat my 2 starting to feel bad about min maxing Bluff so hard
Inire needs a 16. Hopefully you can see why she went 'what have I gotten myself into' when you rolled that well. :p
I still don't understand why you feel like it's bad for us to determine what to do with a prisoner that we have. It's an incharacter issue that needs to be handled, and while it may detract from 'punching things moar', it's actually a source of roleplay if we used it for that. Prisoners aren't bad. They're an option to make things more interesting and add depth and reality to the game. Good people should seek to not kill, and there should be consequences for that. If good doesn't come with consequences over the evil route, then it's not good, it's neutral. Good needs to be tested. :)
Bad experiences, mostly. I've witnessed campaigns die out because of the inter-party strife stemming from similar dilemmas. It doesn't help that the DnD ruleset is terribly equipped to deal with it, having been built around the dungeon crawling / adventuring paradigm. Carrying prisoners around while you're doing either of these things messes up all the CRs considerably, and if just one of them has an Escape Artist modifier which is higher that your CMD, there's no feasible way to bind them without magical means.
So the choice often was between executing them on the spot (much to every Good aligned character's chagrin, especially if they were promised clemency in exchange for their cooperation), or bringing them back to the nearest town (which meant stopping what we were doing and backtracking). Add to the mix that most tables have at least of couple of people who spend plenty of time 'handling interpersonal issues' in real life and aren't too fond of doing it in a fantasy world too, and after a couple of times you see eyes rolling every time a foe is incapacitated rather than outright killed. Lastly, as much as I enjoy debating ethical issues, doing so in a setting where the Goblin Baby Problem can be solved by putting a Holy Weapon in his hands and watch him die of 2d6 Good damage quickly gets you to some weird places, as Eirikr put it.
Jesus he needs an 11 to beat my 2 starting to feel bad about min maxing Bluff so hard
Don't. Diplomacy sooner or later reaches a cap where its marginal gains quickly become negligible, but there's no such thing as too high a Bluff modifier. Far-fetched and impossible lies bring a -10 and -20 malus respectively, and they're the ones that are most fun to tell ;)
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I can fairly safely say that I'm not going to judge you on how you deal with prisoners unless it's something particularly egregious like torture (which I seriously doubt anyone in this party has an interest in to begin with). He's Neutral Evil and was more than happy to help commit a massacre. He's being useful, but he's definitely not repentant (yet, almost no one is irredeemable). No one was going to magically lose their good alignment if you guys decided to execute him.
That being said, I am really liking this solution though. It should be a fun time having a little sprite following you around and complaining.
Sorry if it seems like I'm overplaying the demure. She has a reason to not draw attention to herself right now, and a lot of conversations are going off outside of her 'timeline' so to speak. :(
I recognize that I'm not providing nearly as many hooks as I should be responsible for, though I'm trying to catch hooks where I can, and expand upon them. :)
It's alright. Things are progressing rather nicely, so just play your character how you'd like.
I've also been procrastinating heavily on Mouse's notes. Like the terrible human being I am. :P
At this point, I'm probably going to need to reread and make notes as I go. :)
I am exhausted and honestly kind of depressed from work today. I will try to post later this evening but I may not be up to it. Sorry everybody.
Not a problem. Feel better, and take care of you. :)
Well, take a break then. Don't push yourself and feel worse.
Look on the bright side. Mouse's stealth roll is still better than Tiferet's take ten... If not for distance bonuses.
On the downside, she might as well be walking down the street for all the cover she's affording herself. :p
WHAAAAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER MY CLANKING!
Inire can't even blame her armor. Worst Mouse NA.
Did eirikr's snowball cause any effect or go through the snowman ect?
It didn't do anything.
Well, the snowman is probably dead now at least
Since unless something particularly strange happens, you're likely going to resolve this without combat, I have no qualms mentioning this. The snowman was just a snowman that had a few spells attached to it. It was a trap, not a monster.
Oh, I had figured that out. I just figured Eirikr probably didn't. Seventeen years old, raised by wolves, and with the lowest intelligence score in the group makes him not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Honestly, there wasn't much point to keeping it in, given how you've been planning to bluff through, at least to the bandits, but I loved the idea of a snowman shouting at the party to get lost.
:) And Inire didn't quite roll high enough to spot the magical trap portion, maybe? :p
That being said, I didn't add in my trap-finding (and will likely forget to state it until I get used to conditionals). :)
You were close, it just had a very high DC (for level 1 at least) since there's not really much to see.
I didn't mean to mess up any DM plans, if you want I can take it easy on the bluffing I didn't mean to steal the stage
The bluffs work just fine with my plans and I'm not going to ask you to stop playing to your strengths. The trap is just entertaining to me, so I wanted to leave it in, even if there was a very low chance that it would actually do anything.
We also need a backup plan for after we've freed Lady Argentea. The fey will expect us to bring her to the portal where the majority of their number has set up camp, if we carry her back to Heldren the lie will start creaking.
Unless Evelyn is really a Winter Witch in disguise. With that bluff modifier, who can tell?
Well, Nathara is currently carrying a weight of 64.5 pound and can carry up to 76 as light load.
Remember that we did use up one trail ration already, so one pound comes to add to it.
I've updated my inventory spreadsheet under: https://goo.gl/uAcgc5
Regarding the items I passed on, we acquired Yuln's sword in this post:
http://paizo.com/campaigns/TheFacelessGMsIrrisenTheRealmOfWinterCampaign/ga meplay&page=3#147
And I passed it on Eirikr in this post:
http://paizo.com/campaigns/TheFacelessGMsIrrisenTheRealmOfWinterCampaign/ga meplay&page=5#227