Ærde: Lost and Found in the City of Wonders

Game Master Jibril Johan Sameh

Considering that Zahra is relatively calm and the rounds of usage of her claws, am I correct in thinking that the claws would retract? And if so, do I assume she's used up all her rounds available to her? Just wondering for whatever may come next :)

Considering that Zahra is relatively calm and the rounds of usage of her claws, am I correct in thinking that the claws would retract? And if so, do I assume she's used up all her rounds available to her? Just wondering for whatever may come next :)

We'll say that you have used your claws for three rounds - one when you tried to release yourself, one when Dounia used them to release you, and one as you calmed.

Passage of time:

Does Zahra just get the one check to open her feet manacles or does she get multiple tries like Dounia?

Sorry, if the DC is 20+ you skill bonus you cannot retry.

I don't think Cairee needs to doconcentration checks anymore? Can we say as long as she's not doing anything else she's casting Guidance as Dounia needs it?

Yes, no concentration needed for either Zahra or Cairee. Dounia, for this part of the game please assume you are being guided unless Cairee takes an action that round. But I'll need to hear 'casting guidance' for future encounters.

Dounia and Zahra guess that you are all not far from the Day Gate #3 on the map (now updated). Zahra's parents are #6 a little more than an hour away on foot.

Just to make sure... what chains and manacles are basically all in one piece, so Tymythy can't pick up a length of chain to act as an improvesed weapon or anything? Not that I love the idea of fighting here, as city guards might come join the slavers. But if someone needs to delay the guards so the ladies can get a bit of a head start, that'd be Tymythy.

Yes, the chains are all connected together and woven through the bars. You could make an improvised flail out of them but it would force you to be stationary.

Wow, what an amazingly bad batch of initiative rolls!!

I can't move Zahra's token in Roll20. But I also don't know how we show that we're under the wagon :)

I can't move Zahra's token in Roll20. But I also don't know how we show that we're under the wagon :)

I've had that before. I will remove your tokens. Drag your name onto the screen and it will create a token for you - you should be able too move it.

How hard would it be to sneak in underneath to grap that "bundle with the funny spear stuck in" without being noticed, in both the chaos and the mists?

The obvious difficulties are: 1) if you come within 5' of one of the drivers they may see you; and, 2) It is a low space under the wagon, you don't need to crawl but I am considering it difficult terrain - so half speed. Any other dangers/difficulties must be discovered.

Sorry, I will post soon the rest of the round soon.

So the bundles are separate from the chest, right? And they are easily grabbable?

So the bundles are separate from the chest, right? And they are easily grabbable?

Yes, a quick hard pull to free them of the straps - no roll necessary but costs a move action.

For clarity and with your excellent perception checks of the round you can tell:
1) Cascha isn't in the cloud. She is somewhere off to the right.
2) Horith is directly behind the wagon and isn't sneaking.
3) A few guards are coming and will arrive in the next round. More are following a round or two after.

Right, so it's time to grap what we can and run like heck.

The edge of Cairee's spell is indicated by the grey line on roll20. Dounia, you are close enough to see where the spell ends.

You all have your bundles. There were three other bundles left ... and, of course, the chest.

ehrmagerd, I totally forgot the mark on Dounia's face!

ehrmagerd, I totally forgot the mark on Dounia's face!

Ha!

Note - if you pass within 5' of an enemy character you still have partial concealment and can still use stealth but no more +20 for invisibility.

Sorry for the invisible towel imagery Zahra - the spell doesn't always have to be that overt but I couldn't resist.

The spell description is very clear that it cleans 1 cubic foot of material. I'm interpreting that to mean Dounia's head. It would take a few rounds to do an entire person.

If someone took off their clothes and put them in a bundle the spell could clean that in one round.

Spooking the horses
Tymythy:
You are more than 5' away from the horses. You will have to move to reach one with the flat of your spear.

You could possibly use Handle Animal or Intimidate to get them riled or running.

As you have seen with Dounia, the horses are already nervous and kick happy.

The area of the new 'Obscuring Mist' casting is defined by the blue line but I'm keeping visibility up for a bit so that Cairee can see what is just outside of her first casting.

Oh god, I'm dying of laughter....

Sorry for the invisible towel imagery Zahra - the spell doesn't always have to be that overt but I couldn't resist.

The spell description is very clear that it cleans 1 cubic foot of material. I'm interpreting that to mean Dounia's head. It would take a few rounds to do an entire person.

If someone took off their clothes and put them in a bundle the spell could clean that in one round.

That's awesome! And since we don't have time to do entire people, it will wait. The main thing is that the mark is gone.

Did the others see where the guards and Cascha are as well? Or was it just Cairee? Just wondering if they all know which way they should go.

Maybe we backtrack to the other side of the wagon and run that way? Or wouldn't we be able to get by the horses?

Dounia is also at the edge of the mist so she would have seen Cascha for a second or two but probably not the guards.

Zahra, you and Tymythy have at least 5' of mist to look through and can see nothing but mist.

I'd very much like to move out from under the wagon, but I seem to be unable to move my character on the Roll20 map for some reason.

I will delete the token. Drag your name onto the playing spcae where you'd like to be. If I create the token for some reason players can't seem to move them.

@Cairee - you are grappled:
Grappled creatures cannot move and take a –4 penalty to Dexterity. (Your Dexterity is now considered to be a 6)

A grappled creature takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and combat maneuver checks, except those made to grapple or escape a grapple.

Grappled creatures can take no action that requires two hands to perform.

A grappled character who attempts to cast a spell or use a spell-like ability must make a concentration check (DC 10 + grappler’s CMB + spell level), or lose the spell.

Grappled creatures cannot make attacks of opportunity.

A grappled creature cannot use Stealth to hide from the creature grappling it, even if a special ability, such as hide in plain sight, would normally allow it to do so. If a grappled creature becomes invisible, through a spell or other ability, it gains a +2 circumstance bonus on its CMD to avoid being grappled, but receives no other benefit.

Casting Spells while Grappled/Grappling: The only spells which can be cast while grappling or pinned are those without somatic components and whose material components (if any) you have in hand. Even so, you must make a concentration check (DC 10 + the grappler’s CMB + the level of the spell you’re casting) or lose the spell.

The Guard with the red dot is prone.

Dragging the character on the map seems to do nothing for me... I get an indication that the picture should be following cursor but when I try to drop it, nothing. Tried multiple browsers just in case, but no joy.

Edit: seems I can draw on the map (yay... can't delete what I drew, though, only move it away to a side), but the character image still refuses to move.

I have placed you in what I thought was the most likely last place for you to be to get out of the way of the wagon. Please give me coordinates from where you are currently as you want to move. Don't know why the glitch.

Seems we need to run now if we are ever going to. Let's all gang up on the guards!

To be clear, the red dotted guard cannot see Tymythy nor Tymythy the guard. They can hear each other though and we shall assume Yilgalahd called out when he fell.

@ Zahra - While the guard is standing from prone I am still considering him prone so the AoO is vs his AC15 -4. The first attack hits and does good dagger damage. You certainly aren't gonna kill. miss chance 1-20: 1d100 ⇒ 61 Also, you make it past your miss chance due to 'Obscuring Mist'.

It looks like everyone is going to run for it. We will be entering a chase scene. I run these in a particular way, a kind of game-within-a-game.

Here are the basics:
Stage 1
You have ground points. They are a basic descriptor of how close the enemies chasing you are. In 'this' encounter you will be starting off with 2 ground points (1 because you are the ones being chased +1 because it will take your followers a little while to organize themselves - damn that obscuring mist). You can gain or lose ground.

Stage 2
I determine how long the chase will be. 'This' chase will last 4 rounds with each round lasting 1 minute. (if you had taken the chest with you I would have made the chase 8 rounds long.)

Stage 3
I will give you a city description and you can make choices about which direction to head in. This will largely create the challenge of the round as reflected in Stage 5.

Stage 4
Each round one member of the party must come up with a way to help advance the group and make a roll to determine how successful they were. (eg. Zahra decides she wants to help direct the team through the streets to an area know to have a lot of people so that they can get lost in the crowd. I determine the difficulty level, in this case 10. If she rolls a 10 or higher on a knowledge local roll then everyone gets a +2 on Stage 5 of the chase. If she rolls a 9 or less then everyone gets a -2.)
- please note! If the same character goes twice or the same kind of roll is used twice then the difficulty level will increase. (i.e. The following round Zahra tries to remember where a narrow passage is that they can all duck into. She makes another knowledge local roll. This time it is at -4. She get -2 for going twice and another -2 for using knowledge local again.)
- also! You can use any kind of roll. Constitution, knowledge history, reflex save. Be creative. Elegance will be rewarded with conditional bonuses.

Stage 5
Each round we will be making rolls dependant on the conditions you find yourselves in. Any bonus or penalty from Stage 4 will be added or subtracted from your rolls. These rolls will have a difficulty level that will be measured against the average of your rolls. (i.e. You rush into a crowded bazar and need to cut through the difficult terrain fast DC12. Everyone makes an acrobatics roll. Tymythy rolls a 13. Zahra rolls a 12. Dounia rolls an 18. Cairee rolls a 10. Result is 13 (13 + 12 + 18 + 10 = 53 /4 = 13.25). You succeed.
- special rule! I give you a number of tokens. You must declare you are using one before you make your group roll. Using them will give you a conditional bonus on your Stage 5 rolls. ('This' chase will have two tokens. One looks like a golden arrow. The other looks like a decorative handkerchief.)

Stage 6
With each Stage 5 group failure you will lose 1pnt of ground and the enemy gets closer. With each success you gain 1pnt of ground and the enemy gets further away.

We repeat Stage 3 through Stage 6

Stage 7
If you can make it the length of the chase with at least 1pnt of ground remaining then you escape. If at anytime your ground points reach 0 then the enemy has caught up to you.

There are a lot of rules there but we will move through them slowly. Two of you have gone through a very similar game-within-a-game sequence before.

My, you have really given this a lot of thought! Wonderful work. Also, plenty of brownie points for that 3D chest image earlier! You do set the bar for GMing quite high ;^)

My, you have really given this a lot of thought! Wonderful work. Also, plenty of brownie points for that 3D chest image earlier! You do set the bar for GMing quite high ;^)

I love learning the programs - sketchup for 3D is one of them. Gaming gives me an excuse to practice. For example: I just learned how to do camera views and animation.

Any chance to pick up a smaller piece of piping as it tumbles past us? Say, something in the realm of a yard long and wrist thick? Reading that description brings to mind a clockwork of gears and wheels, and that makes me want to see what would happen if we jam in a lenth of iron at some opportune moment... :-)

Every chance. The rounds are a minute long so you have a little time to attempt something quick. I will penalize your dex check by -4 but that won't have an effect on the round.

As you don't have Disable Device and it is a 'Skilled Only' use skill we will call this a straight up attack. Make an attack roll using an improvised weapon against an inanimate object. As it's a finesse sort of act you can have your dex bonus to the attack roll.

You can attack:
small gears - lower hardness, fewer HPs, but slightly harder to hit (because they're smaller), and less likely to have catastrophic effects on the entire works.

medium gears

or large gears - obviously higher hardness, more HPs, easier to hit, and more likely to have and effect on the entire works.

Improvised weapon... could I tempt you into lowering the -4 penalty a bit because Tymythy is extremely good with improvised tools due to his trait? ;^) And rather than bashing at the gears he's looking for somewhere to slide the pipe in where it might get ground between two gears or some such.

Improvised weapon... could I tempt you into lowering the -4 penalty a bit because Tymythy is extremely good with improvised tools due to his trait? ;^) And rather than bashing at the gears he's looking for somewhere to slide the pipe in where it might get ground between two gears or some such.

With it being an inanimate object (Dex0 with a -5AC adjustment) I don't think there will be a need.

If Zahra had had the time to think about her surroundings, she may have noticed that there was something off about her home city. But as it was, thinking wasn't her strong suit and she was a little preoccupied by being chased by some very angry people. Surely they either needed a snack or a nap. In her experience, those two things cured most ills.

You and Dounia know that the southern part of the city, called Daw'alnahar on the map, is alway bathed in daylight and it is always high-noon. People retreat to their houses and shutter their windows. A second shift of people come out in the night time hours and go about their business - this tends to be the purview of more A-type people, very serious business people, and of course adventurers.

Alshafaq, the northern half of Zhayalahmar, is always midnight. Neither you nor Dounia have been there. You have heard some people commute. Also the colleges and hospitals are in Alshafaq.

As far as you know, the city has always been like this.

@Dounia - I've pm'd you.

Apparently the dice roller is telling us all not to climb. I guess we will have to fight. Unless we can get thru the doorway?

hahaha that's what happens when Cairee tries to make a plan. Let's never listen to her again!

Somehow I totally missed the description of the city divided into day and night. Very cool! Does this effect extend outside the city walls, or does the sun move normally there?

The sun moves with the rest of the world outside of the walls and in the front city (the square section of city in the east most part of Zhayalahmar.) The front city has two gates - the sun gate that leads to the daylight city, and the twilight gate that leads to the midnight city. If you are on a tall building and look over the walls everything appears to be at the time of day you are looking from.

Dounia Mehar Mehek Ghali wrote:

Somehow I totally missed the description of the city divided into day and night. Very cool! Does this effect extend outside the city walls, or does the sun move normally there?

The sun moves with the rest of the world outside of the walls and in the front city (the square section of city in the east most part of Zhayalahmar.) The front city has two gates - the sun gate that leads to the daylight city, and the twilight gate that leads to the midnight city. If you are on a tall building and look over the walls everything appears to be at the time of day you are looking from.

Very cool! I promise that I'll remember moving forward :)

I can't believe Dounia and Zahra talked/cried their way out of that! Amazing!

The power of a skilled Diplomancer can be truly terrifying... glad she's on our side.

Normally it would be talk the attackers down and then make a request - at least 2 rolls, but for the sake of this chase one will do - and what a roll it was! Also, good writing around why it might effect the workers. These are people with kids not heartless guards.