So, my Mom was taken in for a catheterization and they found apparently one blockage, but it was of 99%, so they put in a stent. There are other issues going on as well apparently, but that was the worst and I was able to talk to her tonight after the surgery and she seemed to be doing well. There is a possibility that I may travel to SC for a short trip. I would appreciate the continued prayers and any other type of positive support.
Thanks!
Quint doesn't know that they have +6 stealth modifiers, but he can see that they're an organized, stealthy group. He can also tell from Jun and Hack's presence that the Shepherds, whose compound they're outside of, seem to have some connection with the people they're investigating. The attackers blew up something that was apparently being transported FROM diamond imports TO the Shepherds, which makes these new guys an enemy of both.
They could be good guys, perhaps dispatched from the Order of Shadows... They could also be from a rival criminal gang. In either case, they could be potential allies...
Anything else Quint can glean about who they might be from what he can see, and what he knows about the various shady factions in Rydwyrna?
From what he can see now, there are no prominently displayed markings that give away any faction affiliation, nor does Quint recognize any of the people, but the archers are masked. Obviously your logic is sound, these people attacking the Diamond Imports shipment to the Shepherds could very well be potential allies.
And Quint doesn't know of any other criminal factions that rival the Shepherds and might act against them, or that claim any of the areas Quint has recently discovered the Shepherds and their allies to be operating in as their own territory?
At work, so can't see the map. I'll look once I get home tonight and make a post asap.
Mended, I just wanted to say the week 2 posts made for great reading IMHO. Great storytelling! Thank you! - I'll admit, that helped bring this game back to life for me.
Seeing as my "job" was to protect the wagon, I am assuming that I still cannot discern who may be attacking the same from the ground?
@Quint, while Quint is aware of some loose affiliations of thugs and thieves that band together on occasion for larger jobs, none of those that he's aware of would dare to attack such a well fortified location, nor have they, in the past, been organized enough to coordinate such an attack.
@Luna, thanks, it took me the better part of the entire day on Wednesday to put all that together, and looking back over it I noticed several typos and grammatical mistakes. Oh well.
@Hack, that is how I wanted things set up yes. Meaning Hack is aware that an arrow flew in from "somewhere up above" but the exact location is unknown. My imagination of the beginning of this battle is exactly what those characters acting so far have been doing. Saving citizens, trying to calm the chaos, and one thing I hadn't even planned on, but is nonetheless genius - Jun attempting to get into the Shepherd's main office.
@All, I've got a number of things to take care of this morning before I can address moving initiative forward, but I should have no trouble getting up a post by the end of work today. Hopefully, and most likely from all current information I have, it will be up early this afternoon. :)
Mended, assuming the spell the sorcerer/warlock-looking dude cast was Mirror Image, he and his duplicates should all be in the same square. This matters for purposes of range penalties, line of sight, AoOs, AoEs, etc.
Now, I'm not an expert in 5E rules, but I don't think there is a way to fire two arrows in one turn without being level 5+. This would mean that we're both outnumbered and outgunned...
Edit: Well, I guess if they're fighters, they could be using Action Surge. We'll have to see if they can do it again. The difference between their attack and damage modifiers indicates that their proficiency bonus is only +2, so that's probably what it is. I'm still trying to figure out how fighters could have a higher bonus to stealth than to bow attacks, since I don't think they get access to Expertise. Maybe they're level 4 (or just variant humans) and have the Stealthy feat?
@Quint, about the caster with mirror image, you're correct, but I thought it would be cool to put four different icons on the board just for the sake of adding to the difficulty and chaos. Obviously I couldn't squeeze three other icons into his square in any way that was reasonable. For the purposes of line of sight and such, I (after reading your post and realizing you're most definitely right) made the actual bad guy's indicator color line dotted. We all just need to remember that the spell allows the caster to roll a d20 and determine if any attack aimed at him hits him or one of his duplicates.
Next about the bad guys. I'm guessing you haven't spent too much time looking through the Monster Manual. There are a fair number of bad guys who have the ability "Multiattack." Which simply states that they make two or more attacks with various weapons. Even some very low CR bad guys, like, say, I don't know, maybe the Scout have that ability. Just for your own future reference, 90% of the bad guys I throw at you are going to be "stock" from the Monster Manual, with the possible exception of rearranging spells for spellcasters. If I create an NPC with PC class levels to fight you, he/she will be either a recurring nemesis, or a "boss" type encounter. :)
Hmmmm... That "monster" it's roughly equal to 3rd level PC, but only has a CR (or whatever the 5e equivalent is) of 1/2. I just don't understand how they do challenge calculations in 5e...
Hmmmm... That "monster" is roughly equal to a 3rd level PC, but only has a CR (or whatever the 5e equivalent is) of 1/2. I just don't understand how they do challenge calculations in 5e...
Don't feel isolated in that. Each of the players in my current tabletop game are also DMs of their own campaigns, and they've said the exact same thing. One of them said it really well when he said, "those numbers are a ROUGH guideline at best. Sometimes they don't mean anything at all, other than, 'yeah, your PCs can probably do this with strategy and some good dice rolls.'"
The good thing about the current battle is that I have a lot of ways to "save" you all, should that be necessary. Bystanders could step in and run interference, the Shepherds could suddenly join the fray to deadly effect, even the Order Guard could show up. That last is actually more an eventuality than a possibility. There's no way the Order Guard doesn't get to this scene of chaos and battle in force in more than a few minutes. Of course a round is six seconds, so, depending on how things go, the battle might be over, one way or another, by the time that happens. In which case, the "saving" could very well be the Order Guard taking your unconscious bodies to a nearby temple for healing services, and then to the dungeons of Castle Redwood to ask you what you know about what happened. :)
Edit: Not sure if you'd be interested or not, but I do use this website to do my number crunching for me. However, having done that for various 5e games that I'm running I've learned that even an "average" (whatever that means) group of PCs can handle an encounter budgeted three times what the system calls deadly. I've actually thrown 3x deadly encounters at a Discord group I run, and at my tabletop group, and they wiped the proverbial grid map with them. So, again, yeah, the numbers are kind of wonky, or, worse, down right useless. :P
Kobold Fight Club is as good app to generate encounters for 5E, but if these are part of the written materials, so be it. I, for one, am not the type of person to metagame things.just fight the challenge, or avoid it, and move on.
For future reference.
If Psalm casts spider climb and then becomes a giant goat. Would the spider climb still be active.
Psalm, by my reading of the rules, yes, you can still concentrate on the Spider Climb after assuming a Wild Shape. However, one important note: a Giant Goat is CR 1/2, and you cannot turn into beasts with a CR of 1/2 until level 4. Until then you can only assume the shape of a beast with a CR of 1/4, in addition the beast's form that you assume cannot have a flying or swimming speed listed in its stat block. Let me know if you have any questions about that.
Edit: I find this monster list extremely useful, because you can turn on or off various sources (since we only use the MM, you can turn that on as the only source), filter by monster type (in this case beast), and filter by multiple CRs. By doing that I saw that you could actually wild shape into a Giant Lizard, which is size large and already has a climb speed listed. :) In which case you could save the spell slot. :)
Thank you. That helps. I found a list that had the Cr wrong. Darn. Regular goats suck.
Also knocked prone is not as much fun as tossing off roofs.
Another Question for next round. The building to the south has hay on the ground around it. Does that mean its a stable. AS in it has a roof but not full walls?
Another Question for next round. The building to the south has hay on the ground around it. Does that mean its a stable. AS in it has a roof but not full walls?
If that helps you out, then yes, let's say that. In reality I just wanted a mixture of buildings on the map... :P
If that helps you out, then yes, let's say that. In reality I just wanted a mixture of buildings on the map... :PAnother Question for next round. The building to the south has hay on the ground around it. Does that mean its a stable. AS in it has a roof but not full walls?
If things are still similar at the start of my next turn. Yes.
*Wicked Grin*
Just a heads up, mostly for Jun. If there's no post from you by the time I finish the tasks I have at work this morning, I'm going to bot you to keep things moving. I have a pretty good idea what you're looking for in there anyway. :)
Okay, another heads up. I apologize in advance; I'm about to leave for work, and I have a very busy day today. There is a strong likelihood that I will not be able to advance the combat until tomorrow morning.
Thanks for the heads up.
Thumbs up for the heads up! ;-)
I may be slow to post, or post a mess, as I'm afraid my mother has passed away. Apologies if it causes any hiccups.
You have my deepest condolences...
Posting this to all my games, so sorry if you see it multiple times:
This week both my office and I personally are going to be moving. It's been crazy busy and I am not going to be able to post until Monday at the earliest. Please bot me if I am in your game, and if you are in a game I am running, I will get a post up as soon as possible.
Thank you for your patience.
Sounds like a couple of turns might need to be botted. Looks like we're committed to combat, so that should make that a little easier...
I may be slow to post, or post a mess, as I'm afraid my mother has passed away. Apologies if it causes any hiccups.
So sorry to hear of your loss. You and your family are in my prayers.
I just had a thought. We've seen two different symbols that are supposedly cult-related, but are they symbols of the same cult? Could they be two different cults/organizations that are at war with one another? If so, maybe what we've caught in the middle of is a battle between those two factions...
Hack saw the four-pointed star with the long tail tattoed on the guy's hand (This one, as I understand it, is the one called the "star of Aranon Ethalion", who we DEFINITELY need to research more in week 3). Jun also found it on shipment manifests. That would connect Hack's employer, Diamond Imports, Luna's rice, and the Shepherds all to that organization. Has anyone spotted any sign of the other symbol in their investigations yet?
Quint heard something about drow, but he heard if FROM one of the Shepherds. It was from one of their low-level people though, who probably doesn't really know what's going on, so she may have been giving information that her superiors wouldn't want her talking about (or even want her to know). There's also reason to suspect that Diamond Imports is run by drow, so there seems to be a connection between them and that symbol.
I suspect (though I don't recall any specific evidence to that effect) that the second symbol refers to Kraiula herself. Edit: I assume this is (mostly) information that we've come across in-character somewhere along the way. Edit 2: Looks like most of that information is here. Edit 3: Psalm's week 2 investigation sounds like there could be an opposition between Aranon Ethalion and Kraiula, though that would seem to indicate that the guys we've been investigating, including the drow, might be the good guys (or at least the "less bad" guys), and the attackers might be the followers of Kraiula?
Question: Oil is good for burning, but it's also good for making things slippery. If Quint fired that oil arrow he stole (or just threw a vial of his own lamp oil) at the apex of the roof between the three archers, would it make that area of the roof (which is sloped, and thus takes some effort not to fall off of already) slick enough that there would be a good chance that it would make the archers lose their footing and slide off, falling to the ground?
I figure his background as a tinker would be more than enough for him to know about using oil to make things slick.
Oh, also, if he did light the oil on fire (perhaps using prestidigitation), how likely would the fire be to spread? Looks like a tile roof, so it shouldn't burn, and if it provides protection against rain, it should also prevent the oil from seeping through to something more flammable. Prestidigitation should also be able to put that fire out, of course, as long as it doesn't get much larger than a campfire.
Btw, somebody moved the indoor map layer way out of place. I think I got it back where it was, but somebody who was actually using it should check.
Nikeisha, I cannot believe you would apologize to us about anything when you just lost the companionship and wisdom of your mother. No apology necessary. Go, be with family and her friends, and celebrate a life well lived. You have my prayers for peace during this troubling time. We will be here waiting for whatever (and whenever) you feel this distraction is a worthy pursuit.
About the game... Two things. One, I'm just going to bot Luna and Jun, because, as Quint said, combat is a pretty easy time to do that. Jun's perhaps less so, because I'm certain he went in there to gather information, and I know he's not dumb enough to just go toe-toe with a burly half-orc, but I'll figure something out. Luna, I'm fairly certain would go punch the everloving stuffing out of one of the two casters. Keeeyaaaa!!! Two, @Quint, I absolutely love that you are sleuthing out all the details so far and crafting theories with them. I think when what's actually happening here is finally revealed, though, you're going to completely change your mind about the deadly and deceptive nature of your foe. That is all I'll say about that. Now to go punch some bad guys...
OH! Realized I forgot to address your oil=slippery? question, Quint.
While, I agree with you that oil is in fact slippery, I know because I've accidentally spilled some on my vinyl tiled kitchen floor, and had to clean it up. I do not want to attribute anything mechanically to an oil flask that the game doesn't already allow for. By which I mean, the developers of the game have already addressed a potential combat use for a flask of oil, and it has to do with starting fires. In addition, oil spreading out from a crashed and broken flask of oil wouldn't necessarily distributed in the same manner as, say, a grease spell. Ergo, somebody who already had good footing somewhere, would most likely not be affected at all by some oil that splashed near them. So, I like your out of the box thinking, but at this time, I am going to not reward it because of all the forestated reasons. Please don't let that stop you from thinking outside of the box!!!
Nikeisha, I am so very sorry to hear of your loss. You have my deepest sympathies. I lost my Father just a year ago, and then my Mother recently had a heart attack and I thought I might lose her. Thanks be to God she is basically okay and recuperating, but I say all this to say that I do understand to some extent what you are going through. If there is any way I can help, or if you just want someone to talk to, I will be glad to give you mu proverbial shoulder to cry on or lean on, and my ears to listen, and my heart and mind to attempt to counsel if you so wish. My prayers shall certainly be with you and yours at this time.
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Mended, thanks for the bot. It went quite well and that is what I was planning on doing. If neither of these casters is getting back up currently, then yes, go assist Jun & Hack would be next, after yelling towards Psalm & Nikeisha that prisoners to interrogate would be good.
Extremely interesting, to me anyway, thing I just realized. In 5e spells with a fixed duration that are not concentration spells, and do not specifically call out in the rules that they end if the caster becomes unconscious, don't disappear when the caster becomes unconscious. This means that the priest's Spiritual Weapon, the spectral glaive, is still just floating there in midair, awaiting the caster's return to consciousness. AND, even more interesting to me, the sorcerer's mirror images and mage armor (yes he had mage armor on) don't fizzle out just because he's unconscious either... Strange, but very cool, I think anyway. Essentially, once a caster completes a spell that has a fixed duration, it sticks around, apparently even if the caster dies...? O.o Magic... It's cool.
Understood, will do. Take care of yourself.
Edit: Okay, this is the second time this has happened. I wrote this response to Nikeisha's post, but now it is showing up as though I wrote it before? The same thing happened with my retcon name switcheroo in the gameplay thread. I was responding to Quint's post, but it put it before and made it look like I'd posted first. Weird glitch.
Nikeisha, I cannot believe you would apologize to us about anything when you just lost the companionship and wisdom of your mother. No apology necessary. Go, be with family and her friends, and celebrate a life well lived. You have my prayers for peace during this troubling time. We will be here waiting for whatever (and whenever) you feel this distraction is a worthy pursuit.
I'm English. The Canadians had to get the habit from somewhere.
...sorry about that.
But yeah, my mood is fluctuating pretty wildly between doing all the things I can think of and just chilling out with TV or soothing video games (my farm in Stardew Valley is going to get another expansion...) so I have no idea what'll happen. Just bot me if I'm the last to post, please.
Edit: Okay, this is the second time this has happened. I wrote this response to Nikeisha's post, but now it is showing up as though I wrote it before? The same thing happened with my retcon name switcheroo in the gameplay thread. I was responding to Quint's post, but it put it before and made it look like I'd posted first. Weird glitch.
Yeah, that's been happening a lot recently. I've also been noticing that when I submit a post, it usually doesn't show up when the page loads, and I have to reload to see it. Weirder, I've been getting notifications of new posts (I use an app that tracks them by RSS feed), but when I click on them, the new post doesn't show up, and I have to reload the page a couple of times before it does, so whatever is causing the delays doesn't seem to affect the RSS feeds (or at least affects them differently).
Assuming the moonbeam doesn't kill them (which is possible if they fail their saves, given that Quint's 17 damage was enough to do it), Nikeisha can probably end the combat by casting Sleep at second level (7d8), especially if Luna can do some more damage first. Of course, putting them to sleep while they're balancing on the roof will likely result in them falling off and breaking their necks...
As soon as they're down, Quint intends to take off after Cyan (or any other surviving archers who get the same idea), even though his familiar could technically handle that job alone. Might even get a chance to use Disguise Self to pose as one of them.
Sorry about the delay on my part. The moves are over (finally) and I hope I never have to do that again.
Nikesha, you have my best wishes as well.
I'll get reading through the posts I missed, but it's gonna take me a bit between this one and another one (that was really busy while I was gone!), so I'll likely post something tomorrow. Just wanted to check in and let everyone know I'm back. If you need to continue to bot me, feel free Mended. I'll totally understand.
Welcome back!
Somebody keeps moving the map layers, probably because it's hard to navigate when the map opens with such an extreme zoom-in and you have to find the part where your character is. I made some tweaks that will hopefully make things easier, and I grouped the map layers so that they will stay aligned to each other, and should at least be easier to put back in place if they get moved again.
Mended, when it comes time to start moving them around, you'll just need to right-click on one of the exposed map areas and select "ungroup" from the menu to allow them to be moved separately. If you want to use the street map again, you'll probably want to keep the grid overlay grouped with it (select both layers and choose "group" from the same menu). If you don't, and you're going to delete that layer, you'll probably want to save the transparent grid layer so that you can use it again later.
Thanks Quint!
Would Nikeisha have any idea where Hack and Luna have gone, so she can go blow someone up? I ask because I've rather lost track of where the hell they've gone.
They're in the burning building. If Nikeisha didn't see Hack go in, she certainly should have seen Luna go in.
Its clear they are inside the building its the distress they are in that we are I believe unaware.
You don't know that they're in a fight, but given that they're in a burning building, it wouldn't be metagaming to go and check on them, if that's what you're worried about.
I don't know they are hindered from fleeing if the fire got too hot. Thus so far my attention is that potential spell casters might get up and cause more mischief or get away.