The Journey of a Thousand Miles (Jade Regent AP)

Game Master Sensen

Remind me where the acid damage is coming from, Yuto?

Yuto bought the materials in Karlsgard for Andochtuir to craft a pair of deliquescent gloves for him :)

Good enough for me!

And I haven't heard from Atsuko since I messaged them. Troubling.

Looks like you need to be in dim or dimmer light to use your invisibility from your shozoku, Ritti. I'll allow the mist to count this time, but it's something to keep in mind in the future.

Yep, I'm aware. I was hoping that the mist would provide enough shadow/obscurity to count as 'dim' lighting. If that's too much of a stretch, I do have one invisibility potion I could use instead.

Yeah, you're good this time. Probably wouldn't allow it in the future, but for now it's fine.

I'm not sure if that attack hits Yuto, his AC is listed at 30 in the spoiler. 3 is from his active Barkskin. Andy is at 28 with Barkskin and Mutagen, FWIW.

Yuto's AC should be 28, as barkskin does not stack with his amulet of natural armor +1. Sorry for the wrong notation, he has not been using Combat Expertise this combat!

Small correction on my part, Andy's ac with those buffs is 27, not 28. Not that it really matters since he's kinda getting smacked around here. XD

Fortunately, Ritti to the rescue with the massive damage burst! (hopefully)

You guys are softening the giant up admirably. I haven't been tracking the numbers but I think I've got a decent chance of three hits, maybe four if I'm super lucky. Hopefully, it's enough to put this big boy down.

Yeah, the giant's attacks are pretty insane. But to be fair to him, you did come looking for a fight with him.

I suspect (not having looked at the gameplay thread yet) that Ritti will have taken down the giant in this turn.

Yeah, that's fair. though with the smoke and mirrors i was expecting it to be someone posing as a giant rather than an actual giant. Ironically, had the giant actually come out into the open to talk with us I think Andy/I would have advocaten for some peaceful middle ground solution.

I mean, he did talk with Torra and Shalelu. He told them not to come off the road again. Then a bunch of heavily armed people did just that immediately afterwards. He was, I think, rather peeved.

Hi eveyone. Very sorry for being away for so long. A bad case of covid knocked me flat for a couple of weeks and the timing was very bad. It turned everything into a train wreck that I'm still putting back into order. I'm pretty much back to 100% now though. I can get back into the game within the next day or two.

Sorry to hear about the illness, but glad to hear that you're back. Hopefully things stay steady for you (and all of us) for awhile.

Happy to see you back Atsuko :)

About the wolf, I am fine to let him go under the promise to forget us, but I am guessing Yuto has a more strict view on not risking it.

Yeah, welcome back Atsuko!

On the currently offered 'deal', Andy doesn't hear it but he would reject it since the wolf is outright telling us he will come after us and the rest of the caravan after they are healed. That seems like an extremely bad deal for us; not only do we have to fight it anyway, but rather than face it now when injured and facing all of us as a group, it could come for anyone at any time, at the peak of its strength. It and its pack (?) could pick off the weaker members when we're not around.

In short, we directly endanger the caravan in multiple ways while getting nothing except putting off the fight a few days - which in itself doesn't seem worth anything. FWIW, Ameiko also directly ordered us to kill it.

All good points.

For the record, it'll take it at least a week for that condition to trigger, at which point you'll probably be out of its territory. Maybe.

Up to you guys, of course, though the morally "good" option would probably be to let it live.

As a quick note: I will not be able to post on the 3rd, 4th, 17th, or 24th of October. Sorry for not saying anything sooner, it sort of crept up on me.

I'll respond later today, very busy couple of days for me atm.

I'll give more folks the chance to respond before moving us forwards.

Things have been slowing down a bit - something I'm partially responsible for, thanks to my brief hiatus last week. However, I'm a little concerned and I think now is a good time to check in on how we're doing and what we should change to reignite the passions so to speak.

Does anyone have any issues with how things have been going or suggestions to make it more enjoyable for everyone?

I like that we have the chance to roleplay and talk with the people at the caravan, but I think it would be good for the campaign to transition a bit faster from event to event. We usually take about two weeks from finishing an event to begin another one. Not saying that will make everyone to post faster, but I find easier to remember what is going on when there is less days from one thing to the other and that makes it easier to promote engagement.

Just my 2 cents :)

I don’t have any complaints. I think momentum is important to a game. Related to Yuto’s point – especially if you feel that the pacing is lagging – I’m fine with you pushing things along without giving people days to respond. If any player missed their window to have a conversation, they can throw it in a spoiler and the NPC can do likewise. That way the action isn’t slowed down by a conversation that only involves a single player.

Corollary to that, IMO, pacing is the responsibility of everyone in the game, not just the GM. So, if I’m slowing something down, please drop me an AHEM publicly or privately and I’ll try to jump into the game as quickly as I can.

I've been posting slower in all my games as I'm struggling with RL stuff and sadly even had to shelve one of the games I was running. Apologies for that.

Beyond that, I'm fine with not waiting on Torra to react to something or RP - like Ritti said, I can always post later in a spoiler.

I appreciate the feedback, everyone! I'll definitely try to speed up the event moving, with the corollary of putting further RP in spoilers.

I'll also try to reach out to folks more frequently than I am - I should send a PM to Atsuko again, though I'm afraid that they might be busy enough that they can't post any more.

I'll get us moving on the morrow, but in the meantime, I have to apologize, since I forgot that the holiday on the 17th lasts two days, so I won't be able to post on Friday, either. My apologies for forgetting this and springing it on you all. I may also be mistaken about next Thursday (which would mean I couldn't post on Wednesday), but I'll have to check.

Didn't respond yet but personally I am still very busy in real life with the partnership situation of the company I started working for some time ago. It's eating into my writing time quite a bit as I posted previously. I'd like to think my posting rate has been okay the last few weeks but if I am holding things up I'm fine with being botted.

Gotcha. Hope everything goes well for you and that they calm down soon.

I'm afraid I've caught an unfortunate cold, so I am in no state to figure out how to post and such at the moment. I apologize, and will get back to you as soon as possible.

Hope you feel better soon!

Feeling better now. Hopefully I'll get a post up today.

Ritti, Andochtuir, Atsuko, you there?

I'm here. I have nothing to contribute to the discussion. I can't hit that K:Religion DC and I'm not in charge of picking our course.

It looks like Andochtuir's RL has gotten busy, based on what I've heard from his player. I'll reach out to Atsuko to see whether things are going poorly.

Apologies, I've been absent for the boards for a few weeks now. In short, I was promoted a third time to lead a specific team. Except, leading this team is a lot worse in retrospect than I was let onto. There is a lot of internal struggle, people not liking eachother, people with a lot of unknown healthproblems and people who seem to be severely underqualified for the position they are on the team for. And I am somehow expected to make this mess work. To say it's exhausting having to do my own work, mediating arguments like a nanny while also trying to train the staff up to where they have to be would be a gross understatement.

I've discussed the problems with the company manager. The reaction was among the lines of that they will contact the sick folk to see if they can somehow expedite their return to work, but do not want to let go of the unqualified people to 'give them a chance'. My reaction to that was that if I have to spend a significant amount of time training them, I won't be able to work as much. While this was seemingly accepted, I am still required to meet the normal minimum quota's of cases to judge which is just really hard when training others and essentially an impossible demand.

As such, while this has been going on, whenever I get home I more or less just fall into my chair, watch a bit of youtube and fall asleep. I've had no time or energy to really get back into writing since this happened. My next move is more or less going to be to demand the production quota be lowered or walk away from it. Either way I hope to have some more time and energy again in the new future. I apologize for the wait.

Although I am glad to hear you've been promoted, I hope work relaxes soon for you, Andochtuir.

Post will be forthcoming later today.

I am sorry for the hard time you are going through Andochtuir. I hope things get better for you soon.

I'm struggling at the moment because I've run out of one of my medications, so I may not be able to post today. Apologies, and hopefully posting should resume as normal on Sunday or Monday.

Folks, the bison have trample - if they attempt it, do you want to take the full damage and AoO (at -4), or do a Reflex save for half?

Rats... so they didn't start funneling in towards me as the only target? That sucks. Of the two choices, I guess I'd take the Reflex save because it's a strength of mine. Also, I would think Evasion applies based on the 'save for half' part.

At 2nd level and higher, a rogue can avoid even magical and unusual attacks with great agility. If she makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, she instead takes no damage.

Of course, if multiple bison trample me, it would require multiple save attempts.

They might yet funnel towards you. I'm asking for future reference, since, well, they haven't moved yet (as Torra's still got a chance to act).

But yeah, Evasion would apply, although multiple bison attempting a trample on you would end up with, well, a bit more of a problem. xD

The reflex save option works better for Atsuko as well, good reflex save and less likely to have a melee weapon in hand for an AoO.

Yuto's reflex suck. He will go for an AoO trying to drop the bisons before they can reach anyone.

He will try to keep walking in the air over their heads though, to try avoid their dangerous charge.

I'll give Torra some time tomorrow before botting her, but I do want to keep this train moving.

Sorry, folks, things are on fire at work - again. Torra will take reflex save, since she doesn't have a melee weapon for AoO.

I'll give Atsuko some time to post before botting her.

I totally forgot to do what I said I would. I'll attempt to get a post in today, but if not, I'll definitely move us forwards tomorrow.

No problem, chief.

Giving Torra and Atsuko the chance for input here.

I was typing up a post last night, but then I got Distracted™. :D

This is also a good time to let you know I will be travelling from December 20th to December 31st and I may not be able to post (last time I tried to log in on my laptop I got hit with the infinite relog bug).

I'm not going to post until you've had more chances - though I imagine it's going to be busy these next few weeks, so I'm willing to relax things a bit there.

I'm also rather busy today, so that's a factor as well.

I'll get a post in today when I get a chance, but this week isn't going to be good for posting. Last week and this one might be the busiest 2 weeks of the year for me between work and holidays. Families on my caseload have lots of extra needs due to the holidays. Next week will actually be much better for me even though it's the actual week of Christmas.