DC 15... and no one in the party has above a +2... the best of us have a 45% chance of failure. Well, if it turns out to be a suicide mission at least it won't be a TPK.
Right, so speaking of that, it's frightful presence, which means you can make the save again each 'round'. I haven't rolled initiative here, but we're sort of in pseudo rounds based on the dragon's position so I will let those who fail the save know when they should roll it again. If you make the save once, you are immune to it.
Uhoh, guess I should have dialed back Arianna's reaction a bit then. :P
There seems to be some confusion - it is a blue dragon, with lightning breath. I've seen it referred to as red, a flamewyrm, and now white and ice breath....
ok, i see now that Brax's post is mixing current events with a PTSD style flashback, that's cool. Pun not intended.
Just as a reminder there was a red one we first saw when the group approached Greenrest. Taken from DM Red's first post in gameplay (the opening scene of us meeting up) see at end of pasted post (I've bolded).
From a lightly wooded area only a few miles from town, you realize you are not alone here. The leaves crunch beneath the weight of several other figures shuffling nearby. You stop and survey the area: You notice a tall, armored Calishite man with gold-specked eyes watch the destruction in awe. A masked man who carries a freshly killed rabbit runs up beside him while a half-elven woman whose hair is the color of both day and night stops suddenly in shock. A stoutly dwarf who carries all the tools needed for days of travel across the wilderness approaches, as does a moon elf packing several musical instruments. Finally, another man with obvious elven features and hazel eyes fumbles, and drops his crowbar as the dragon roars, breathing a jet of pure fire onto the keep ahead.
Oof. That's my fault. Sorry guys. In my efforts to paint that scene more traditionally, I chose fire instead of lightning. Final word: it is only 1 dragon, a blue one :)
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--he hits the ground and hopes he won't be set on fire.
Orion sure does love his speeches. Eska is glad to avoid another lecture ;P
Eska's bold. Bold enough that I ask: Are you sure about your actions?
~DM uses frightful suggestion~ courage save or retcon your action.
Yea Eska doesn't over think she just feels. I made the save, I'll make the attack and whatever happens, happens. The context does seem to suggest there a lot of lives at stake and as a characer i'm not supposed to know how much damage or how many of us are supposed to make the save for this to be successful. I suppose this is how heroes are born...or die.
If it means anything I can queue of my shield spell as a reaction to any attack for a +5 AC. The battlements offer any sort of cover I'd be less inclined to charge a dragon in an open field.
edit: If i die i blame literally everyone but especially Dragonslayer for not making his save and for having me steal his destiny.
Always fun when the writers pit an adult dragon against a group of Level 1 PCs. :)
Hey don't blame me. Blame the dice! :P
~Triggers optional boss fight while WAY under-leveled.~ I think I made him angry...
From hero to classic damsel-in-distress caught in the clutches of a dragon. Which one of you will be my Prince- or Princess- Charming.
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Is it okay if we're screaming in terror while we save you?
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Beggars can't be choosers love.
1, 2, and 3 on the d20 rolls, and then a 10 on damage just to taunt me.
My dice are trying to kill, well, all of us.
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Clearly can't count on any of you. Eska saves herself =P
If i die this is how i want to do it. Like. A. Badass!
1 V 1 Me dragon!
That honestly could have been way worse - well done with those dual timely 20s!
lol show off...watch a kobold kill you from behind now. Good job saving us!
Eska's not a planner and is kinda distracted right now. But now that the bulk of the forces are cleared we might be able to tail a smaller group and find out where they are fleeing to? There was also mention of kidnapping an officer or some-such. Just ideas i'm throwing out there.
Hey Orion, I thought Natural Explorer's advantage on attack rolls only counted on an attack made before a foe acts, and only on your first turn?
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That....is a very astute point.
I had forgotten about that and had only remembered that "you have
advantage on attack rolls against creatures that have not yet acted."
I guess creatures showing up after combat has already begun is such a wacky, crazy thing that it caught me off guard.
Mind you, I also forgot to add my Favored Enemy bonus for the last few fights, so it seems like this kinda evens out. ^_^
Also, here's a lollipop
@---
Ah well, I only noticed it because I thought to myself "A UA Ranger gets to reroll every attack roll at Level 1? I should build one!" :) Not sure if you really meant you haven't normally seen enemies show up mid-combat or if that was more tongue-in-cheek? I'd think it's not too crazy to imagine that more foes would be approaching the keep's walls as times goes on.
Hey gunna be off the grid for a couple of days be back monday. Bot me as needed.
If i get attack for damage i shield to block it if i can.
If we come across another dragon just assume i roll a 20.
Like Arianna I just want to reiterate that the annoyance and conflict are purely IC.
OOC, I appreciate the disagreements. IC conflict is much more interesting than "We all agree all the time and no one ever does anything wrong lalala unicorns farting rainbows and sparkles". Even children's shows have character conflicts to create dramatic tension.
Not the first time I've played a good character that ran smack into the pragmatic character's plans and messed them up. :D
I'm enjoying it to. It's helping me nail a little more about Arianna down, like her razor-sharp tongue and short way with those that lack compassion. Her anger at Raakuze was more annoyance and frustration than anything. Her anger at Eska, though, is from a deeper, more emotional place. I'm looking forward to seeing how things develop between them. I'm also looking forward to when we meet up with the ones that Eska wants to kill. That's going to be a fun meeting. >:D
Chooses to not be a murder-hobo and lo- and behold everyone hates you. Only in D&D lol. Strong character interaction is great helps fleshes out the characters, gives them actual relationships. I do feel like Eska's being a bit mis-interrupted by the over eagerness to be at each others throats though. Which i fine i can roll with this and maybe characters really just did need an excuse to get things off their chest or chalk it up to the fact that the characters really have just met only a few hours ago ;p
We do need to keep the story moving as well think everyone said their piece so what are we actually doing? Back to base? Hunting around the city till sun up? or do we A New Hope this?
Thanks for the inspiration Arianna
I don't think whether or not someone tries to kill the mother and child murdering member of the thieves guild is a good litmus test for murder-hobo-ness. As far as being at each other's throats, as I said, Arianna's more frustrated that they didn't do part of what they set out to do when they came to the sally port. That is why she started in at Raakuze in the first place. Eska just happened to hit the right buttons to really make her upset.
As for what to do next, I think we need to find a target then lay an ambush for them. Arianna's trying to do the first part by looking from any vantage she can find in the keep.
I think it might be mistaken that is cultist was relevant. Raakzue found nothing on him to identify him as a leader or significant. The only personalities of note so far have been the woman in the robe that the mayor pointed out and the figure in armor conducting the church assault.
The mayor wanted to defend the sally port and i guess interrogate somebody not necessarily this body. If we want real information we might need someone higher up on the food chain.
Point, but underlings might know names and locations of bigger fish. Like I said, I'm not really all that fussed about. It was just in character for Arianna.
I do want to say I was wondering what you meant by New Hoping this until I read your game post. I'm happy that I inspired you to have that gem of a plan. I like and really want to do it. Arianna isn't really going to be happy about it because if Eska's too small to play cultist, Arianna is definitely too small because I picture her as being on the petite side.
Also, funny thing. One of the things I had in her D&D Beyond sheet was that she was always calm and never raised her voice... oops. :P
I'm not throwing the planning away with this encounter - it's still night, but as I'd mentioned before, the raiders are dispersing, so we should be able to take advantage of that plan in due time. Just a little more tower defense first ;)
I figured. Looking forward to the continuing conversation after this fight, though.
Okay, here's the tactical situation. We have one brute of a monster that is probably immune to charm person (Which I'd forgotten I had for a bit... oops.) We have 16 kobolds that will likely skewer the people we are trying to save if they even think we're up to something funny. The issue isn't the big guy, it's the kobolds. We simply can't kill them fast enough and trying to sneak enough archers around to where the hostages aren't providing cover is... iffy. If we had someone that could cast obscuring mist or similar, then we might have a shot of taking them by enough surprise to get the family out of there, but just about every scenario I can think of ends with them dying if even one thing doesn't go our way.
I'm starting to wonder if we're supposed to lose this part of the adventure. We can't seem to catch our breath and even if we were second or third level our resources would be taxed by the pace this seems to be going at. At first level, well, I know Arianna's almost out of stuff on top of being squishy.
Add into that the fact we're looking down the barrel of some levels of exhaustion at some point soon, I gotta wonder if they have a TPK quota or something because I know that I'm not the only player who's going to be furiously thinking of a way to save those people and likely get the group killed when something goes wrong.
Sorry, guess that's a bit off topic. Anyway, the only plans I can think of involve tricking the big guy. Charm Person's likely out. Disguise Self is iffy since I think this guy is the type that answers to someone specific, and we don't know who. Silent image is only going to work if we can scare him off or obscure the kobolds view of the family long enough and well enough that they lose them and go after the images instead. I'm not sure what everyone else has as far as magic, so this is just what Arianna can do.
Thoughts or ideas? I'm kinda scraping the bottom of the barrel here.
You are right this night has been incredibly taxing on our minimalistic lvl 1 resources.
Can't save everyone Hero.
Though I could try something...
Yeah, I know, but I can't help but think if I was more clever I might be able to see some way to save at least the kids.
So, mind sharing what you have in mind?
Eska's not a planner. Let me talk to him. Maybe i can leverage the prestige of fighting his dragon master (and have proof of the victory) to buy us sometime for you guys to come up with an actual plan. He's looking for a champion. he might be willing to be made wait(like till dawn) for a worthy champion that might in turn get him prestige. Can't write up atm since I'm at work.
I think Brax or Raakauze would be the only ones who might have a chance of beating this guy if we accept the challenge to single combat. If we can get him to at least let the kids go, I'd be willing to have Brax to answer his challenge.
You two certainly have the best shot. I think Eska's going to try to buy us some time, but I don't trust this thing's patience. My money's on him killing someone else if we try to stall, dragon tooth or no.
Do you think the cleric might have something prepared that could help?
If he wanted to just kill people he'd kill people i assume the character created this spectacle for a reason. So I think it's best to play to that. It's worth a shot at least rather than accept the terms of the duel as is since there is literally nothing stopping him from going out finding 5 more people and demanding challenge after challenge until he gets bored.
Also lvl 5 cleric is apparently less useful than any lvl 1 hero.
That's assuming he's not doing it for some sick entertainment. I'm not saying what your saying is not valid. He could just have a severely twisted sense of honor, but I think we don't do ourselves any favors by assuming that is the case.
That said, I'm all for killing this thing here and now. I just want to make sure the townspeople are safe first. I'm sure we could take him with the help of the guards dealing with the kobolds. I'm just not sure how to get the hostages out of harm's way.
Well Brax and i said our piece we'll see what he does. If we get a good opportunity we'll obviously take it.
@GM Also i get bonuses to skill checks when interacting with dragons would that count towards this guy?
Well, here goes nothing.
IC post coming in a minute.
As I see it, we have two choices: (A) We play along or (B) we break his rules.
A1. If we play along AND he is honorable, the family gets released. Yay.
A2. If we play along and he is NOT honorable, the family dies. Boo.
B1. If we don't play along but have a good plan, MAYBE the family lives.
B2. If we don't play along and DON'T have a good plan, they die.
No good choices, but looking only at what we have control over, A or B, A is at best 50/50, B is.... well, dependent on us coming up with a plan.
In absence of a plan, playing along is more likely to get the family out alive.
I wish I had a great creative wonderful plan, but I don't...
Dragonslayer is on Vaca might need to bot him.
Speaking of that, what do you all think? I was about to update, but I could see Raakuze wanting to participate here. Unfortunately, he won't be back until next Thursday (and probably won't post till next weekend).
Two options... We could bot him. I think we all know a thing or two about what his character would likely do at this point (probably challenge the man-dragon), but he would miss out on what's likely the most exciting part of this chapter. That said, I know him in real life, and I know he wouldn't be upset at all if he did miss this part as long as we handled his PC in the appropriate way :)
Or we could wait, but that means pausing the game for a week.
Well we got two challengers so far, I'd rather not "'I am Spartacus" this.
He's in no actual condition to participate as a challenger due to his wounds (6/12?) in any event. unless someone heals him. As a honorable character he'd grumble but likely be willing to concede to let either Brax or Eska continue as contenders. Conversation and deception aren't his forte.
But hey who can fathom the mind of a dragon amirite
How do the rest of you feel wait for him or play this out?
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If I've learned anything about PbP since I started its that you do NOT pause a game to wait. (Um, like, ever.)
I keep saying this and its always plays out: Thousands of games have died from going to slow. Few (if any) have died from going to fast. (Someone always says they dropped a game because it people were posting 5x a day and that was too fast. I'm not talking about that. I mean a standard 1x a day. Everyday. Everyone.)
Anyway, now that I'm off my soapbox, everyone understands that if they're on vacay, it means botting, and everyone is okay with it.
(Also, yes, we already have more than one person stepping up to the plate, so there's no shortage. I say lay on!)
You're lucky you already gave yourself a Name Orion. Else Eska would have to just call you Speaker rather than Hunter.
;)