Forgot where the map was.
Also figured an 18 would do it.
I wasn't as confident about that roll, but no problem. Ian, you're supposed to repost(especially as my target didn't trip).
Still hitting the target, just not prone anymore.
Aska, the feat Step Up will have them follow on your turn, which will provoke if you intend to down the mutagen. Is that something that you still wish to do?
Disregard. Initiative order made that previous post moot.
Yes, Ian; That Zombie did just Flurry... For all the good that it did.
Thank the sweet heavenly Buddha. That would have been a bit tricky otherwise.
A 19 does not hit.
Ummmm, not that I'm complaining, but Aska rolled a natural 1 on that trip attempt. How did it succeed?
GM Error. I got so distracted by checking to verify that flanking does indeed allow for a bonus to Combat Maneuvers, that I did not note the dice roll. Then it got posted on a new page so I definitely did not notice. I'll amend that.
By "town", I meant Corrin's. Not Ardis, apologies for any confusion.
I thought we got further away. No problem.
Unfortunately, Aska probably will need to use a source of light. That said, I'm figuring we'll want to focus on stealth again until we hit Ardis. I didn't really think about it before(I need to look into some kind of darkvision extract for 4th level). Short of Aaks literally keeping her hand on Ian's shoulder, can you think of any way other than carrying a light source? It would rather hamper any attempts at stealth.
If you two are travelling light, but have rope or twine, that could let you get some space, but working out communication would be difficult.
I have rope. Just dropped off the armor so I could move full speed.
Then it could get tricky, but I think using rope to lead Aska would be the most effective way to move rather than using a light. 5ft lead might be too risky if it came to a fight though. 10ft?
Alright, I have to level with you two. I had not anticipated that this encounter was going to be as deadly as the dice are making it. I had anticipated "difficult", and had adjusted the Dullahan downwards by 2 CR, and thought I had made it plausible, but I appear to have erred grievously. It was my intent to make the Red Fog an extremely dangerous event, that could be avoided by remaining in shelter.
I suppose that I succeeded-- to an extent. However, with the numbers going the way they are, I don't want to outright kill your characters, but neither do I want to retcon what has occurred. So, I offer you a choice:
• Play the combat out, and see what occurs.
• Fade to black and close the curtains on this story, leaving a cliffhanger of plausibility for character survival.
The second option is the conclusion of this game, certainly. However, it leaves a window of uncertainty, much like the season finale of a show... What say you?
I say play it out. We're not dead yet so we have a chance at least. That said, Ian apparently had the right idea by hiding. Here I was think we were supposed to go out and try to deal with it. Oops...
I'd say see how it goes too but the dice are not cooperating against a very strong opponent. I vote option 2. We are likely dead. I thought we'd be able to outrun the fog but as soon as we left it was upon us.
Also, how did you reduce it 2 CR? It's still doing the same damage. And considering we are tied together in fog that prevents good vision, the situation would cause the CR to rise back up. CR is based off of a party of four anyway so everything is probably 1 CR higher with only two of us. We just got lucky a few times with my high damage rolls. That covers the 2 CR drop no problem.
The damage is dependent on the (enchanted)weapon, and it's strength, which looks to be its primary stat. Everything else got reduced as if it were a class, including removal of an ability, feat, HD, and decrease on aura strength.
Split decision. We play it out.
I tried to hint at the Red(or Black, working name) Fog a couple of times, but I may not have conveyed the severity. The fog rises every night, but I was rolling a 5% chance that it would occur that night. Aska is not incorrect that Ardis is experiencing something somewhat similar, but they have walls and numbers as well as resources.
Okay then, even if we do die, staying true to the character means doing what we are. Aska couldn't stand by and do nothing with this hitting Ardis.
Ah, correction.
"Every night in Ustalav is foggy"*, but there's only a <5% chance that any given night would be the dreaded "Red Fog", where it seems that some of the Whispering Tyrant's lingering influence takes an active role in the fog. Evil (undead and not) rises and wanders in places where they normally would not, and some rumor that the Fallen King's armies search for more conscripts.
Ian, you can re-roll, but bear in mind that a failed trip attempt will trip you, and with the two of you tied together, that means the both of you.
So every 20-25 days or so, murder in the streets. Neat. I know where I am vacationing next.
We could skip the trip and go straight for the horse then run for it.
Doing that.
Considering you two are still tied together, are you running in any particular direction?
Away? So no. If progress can be made towards town, awesome. priority is just not dying. That thing has a very good chance of straight ending one of us with one swing.
I was hoping that you two would go for a trip/disarm. He can summon a mount as a standard action. :/
That thing has a very good chance of straight ending one of us with one swing.
Only Aska can trip. Better to just both attack and make a break for it.
Except we can't make a break for it. We kill it or it keeps running us down because we aren't outrunning a horse. I thought this might be the case when the horse poofed instead of collapsing. Our options are hide(which we may not be able to do), or fight. That's it. IF we can trash his horse again AND get him to fall again, we could do some serious damage before he gets up. With him prone and if we flank we could probably hit him even with my poor rolls.
We might not get to repeat that. Seems intelligent. My stealth roll was pretty stellar though.
Clad in a suit of armor, and moving at the speeds a Ride-by-Attack would necessitate, it hitting the ground is guaranteed if you can deal enough damage to dispel the horse.
I thought it smart enough to avoid that outcome and approach normally. That way if the horse is popped, it won't go tumbling. Plus mounted combat can negate one of our attacks.
But this is all beside the point. It is too powerful to take head on. So flee until that is no longer an option.
THAT IS NO LONGER AN OPTION! We can try hiding(and we are), but failing that we fight or get killed trying to run away. We aren't outpacing a horse.
Okay, so I'm going to claim full credit on this TPK. There was a lot of stuff I didn't realize before Aska's little speech. Mainly, I didn't realize the fog was a regular thing. Kind of makes this decision a WHOLE lot dumber in retrospect. My bad.
The fault is not entirely yours. I did try to leave hints for the fog, and a check(Religion/Arcana), would have gotten you some details, but I may have caused you two to underestimate it. I was working from the blurb for Ustalav, which was "...a fog-shrouded nation of countless horrors, and a once-proud realm that suffered under the clawed hands of the Whispering Tyrant for centuries."
I also forgot to account for the additional challenge in your dwindling resources. So while this encounter should, in theory, be CR5, with the lack of resources that you have, it is likely higher. Adding in that Ian left his armor behind, the disadvantages stack.
Damn. Good perception. Okay. Fight it is.Init: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (3) + 5 = 8
Cure Light Wounds: 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (7) + 3 = 10
Something about the thing's tone told him, that no matter how good they were are stealth, it'd find them. So he healed up as best he good and planted his feet for a fight.
I am a divine caster. That was my own spell. I never drew the wand.
Ah, missed that. All cleared up then, carry on. Bad guy's turn.
Ian, Initiative, and you're awake(and prone) at 1 hp, is it?
Map updated. It's really easy to keep that going, I should not have been slacking like that.
4 actually. I think I stay transformed even if knocked unconscious.
Up to this point, the map hasn't really been much of an issue as we've been dealing with him as he ran past us. It's really just around now when it becomes rather more useful. So no worries.
Thus concludes this story. Out of a sheer coincidence of timing, this ends on Halloween, with your characters done in by a Headless Horseman. I was really hoping for that crit fumble, though.
Aska, I agree with you. Even just two good rolls would have definitely turned that fight around utterly.
So, what did the two of you think? I welcome any feedback you may have.
From my end, I believe I need to do more about descriptions, and was really hoping one of you would attempt a knowledge check on the fog, or the Dullahan. I also need to be more careful about CR, and remember to take into account expended resources when calculating that.
I'll be honest, I hadn't even thought about doing a knowledge check on either which is pretty bad. That's supposed to be one of an alchemist's strong points. So, I'll claim a bit more credit for the TPK than I already had.
Up till the fog, I thought things were going quite well. I'm actually disappointed it ended so soon. From the fog onwards is where things went sideways. And it was every bit as much our fault as yours that things ended up like they did. That said, I still enjoyed what we did. I'm a player who enjoys going of the rails a bit, regardless of the outcome. I also enjoy fighting to the bitter end.
As far as constructive criticism goes, you mentioned you wanted us to try a knowledge check. I have had a few DM pull a *wink wink nudge nudge*, "roll a knowledge check" to kick us into gear. It can be hard to remember sometimes that we have to actually ROLL to know things. I liked that you let us make our own mistakes, but hinting to us to make a knowledge check is a good way to tell us we're about to do something that our character may know better than to do.
I'm not entirely sure how to comment on your descriptions. When I go back and reread a lot of your posts I see them totally differently than I did at first. In my mind the town we were in was more of a small hamlet not a big city. But your post clearly describes it. So, I think the major descriptions are fine(I just need to read better). That said, the only major description of Ardis was back in January when we started(honestly didn't know we had been playing that long).
That fact that this came to an end, length not withstanding, puts you well ahead of a lot of DM's. And a consistent 2 paragraphs per post is a lot of description. It's especially nice to see a DM describe the combat. I've been trying to add flair to combat posts for a while and I think they add more depth and realism to it.
As for the rolls. Yep, completely slipped my mind. I figured the "feeling" we got before the mist settled was all we'd get on that. Didn't realize that was a natural phenomenon of Ustalav. I even had history and religion. I also figured we might get ahead of it. Oops.
But on more than one occasion you've prompted rolls in ooc comments beneath descriptions. If we really needed to make a roll that's what I was expecting. I have seen others also just through in a spoiler with the DC on it. Nothing more eye catching than a button.
But yeah, the main problem was CR. Pathfinder is built around a four man team so every fight is probably +1 CR higher with only two of us. Situation plays a factor as well and the mist put us at a disadvantage. A Dullahan is a CR 7 +1 for two PC's and another +1 for the mist makes it CR 9. That's way past an epic challenge. Though if we had won...holy shit.
All in all, pretty good job. If you do this again I'd be happy to join.
As far as constructive criticism goes, you mentioned you wanted us to try a knowledge check. I have had a few DM pull a *wink wink nudge nudge*, "roll a knowledge check" to kick us into gear. It can be hard to remember sometimes that we have to actually ROLL to know things. I liked that you let us make our own mistakes, but hinting to us to make a knowledge check is a good way to tell us we're about to do something that our character may know better than to do.
I was unsure about how to manage that, so what I did was give you all the "passive" info as relevant to your skills. If you'll notice, any of the posts in which Ian is present, there's often a description or mention towards intent, which was his Sense Motive allowing for that. I did also give passive knowledge check info on the fog, but your skills weren't high enough to get much more than a blurb of info beyond common knowledge.
But yeah, the main problem was CR. Pathfinder is built around a four man team so every fight is probably +1 CR higher with only two of us. Situation plays a factor as well and the mist put us at a disadvantage. A Dullahan is a CR 7 +1 for two PC's and another +1 for the mist makes it CR 9. That's way past an epic challenge. Though if we had won...holy s*%$.
Agreed, the fog was just going to increase the likelihood of things under the Lich King's influence to find you as they were out and ranging further than their normal habitat. The main danger of the Dullahan was its weapon, and it went down twice near the two of you, thanks to the two of you removing its horse not once, but _twice_. A successful disarm check would have almost neutered the threat it posed, and I was really hoping that one of you would have tried that, or to sunder the arm holding the weapon.
I'm glad you two had fun, and I'll consider putting some excess knowledge into spoilers, though that is much akin to prompting the roll, and strays close to railroading, which I'm not a fan of. I like to tell my players, "I'm not going to kill you, you're going to kill yourselves." *sheepish grin* I accidentally did a bit more of the former than I intended.
The next game I run will be using the "Path of War" books, just for a change of pace. I'll probably be putting the post up soon.
Oh my god please let me in. Always loved Tome of Battle and Path of War is Pathfinder's version. And they added a lot of new content. Fair warning, some if it is broken as balls. I still want to play a halfling capable of throwing foes many times larger than himself. Path of War is not necessary for this but it helps a lot.
I've never read path of war, but I may submit a character as well. Like I said, I really like going off the rails so I've gotta admit I rather like your policy of "I'm not going to kill you, you're going to kill yourselves." This time was a mix of bad luck(a running theme with me), and 20/20 hindsight.
The recruitment has been opened, but I probably won't be picking until the end of November, unless there's a low turnout. Just search my posts, you'll see it.
