Open
closed!
roars in excitement
Vhinservun is about!
Actually, it just now occurs to me that I don't really want to deal with oaths and spherecasting. It's just rubbing me the wrong way a little bit, I can't really explain why.
I think I'll sit this one out, since by my count you have enough players anyway! Have fun!
that's 2, I feel like we're missing a few....
Oh, I'm here. Isn't there a paladin hanging around though?
ok that's three -- I guess I'll wait until tomorrow to see if anyone else chimes in before beginning. I assume everyone still wants to play even if we only have 3 players?
I am for it!
Sure, let's do it.
ok I'll try to get a first post up tomorrow
I'm fine with three and ready to go, but I suspect we'll have a couple more trickle in over the next day or two.
Guy! Wait for me guys!
Great, we have four, that's enough, I'm posting.
We could use an extra player -- Zorblag, do you want to play the monk too. This is going to be a grindfest, so any given character may not last that long. (I'm really serious that the end of the adventure is probably going to result in a situation pretty much like the previous ill fated expeditions of the party with almost everyone changed out for a new character. Every area is going to be like Rappan Athuk w/ potentially ridiculous/impossible challenges you have to work around rather than confront head on). The other possibility is to keep getting reincarnated at a local temple (which might also be fun to change race regularly!).
I think that Smiles-a-lot (Rhunn) and Sotor Elendor are really like to hop on and start playing shortly. If they're not here by the time we get to an encounter I can play the monk as well, sure.
Go ahead and join if you're still interested, it shouldn't take long to catch up.
Basically, everyone just needs to decide if we're leaving by boat or by road -- you'll be headed in the same direction but have only a slightly different set of encounters based on what you pick on your way to the mines.
Voting Queen's Highway
I do also want to be up front I'm trying to move stuff along a bit faster than I usually do, as I enjoy the world building, scene setting element of PbP more than almost anyone. OSR games were mostly about actually fighting in dungeons, and I'm trying to replicate that, so I'm trying to sort of streamline the in town stuff while still dropping some colorful setting detail as I go.
I just received my Covid shot so I am preparing for it to kick my butt. I'll be here as best as I can.
Two Questions! What side of the road did the woman's voice come from? Second question is if I can smell any of them? If they're upwind from me, I can smell them up to 60ft away. Normally it is 30ft or 15ft if they're downwind. Strong smells double that, overpowering scents are triple that.
I lied, there are three questions. How tall are these ridges along the side here?
I put Soto on the map and fixed it so that we're all at a reasonable place on the trail (and the map itself is re-centered.) I don't think that this particular group has anyone who needs to be protected by being in the middle or rear of the group, so I didn't work too hard to make sure we were tactically situated, but if anyone wants to change up our positions that's fine with me.
Two Questions! What side of the road did the woman's voice come from? Second question is if I can smell any of them? If they're upwind from me, I can smell them up to 60ft away. Normally it is 30ft or 15ft if they're downwind. Strong smells double that, overpowering scents are triple that.
I lied, there are three questions. How tall are these ridges along the side here?
The ridges are about 30' up. You can definitely smell them all, I'll put them on the map now. (Everyone else just separate character and player knowledge -- I don't fiddle around with fog of war for maps and hiding monster stats b/c that doesn't work well for the PbP environment (I assume most agree with this)).
How much of the map is difficult terrain for movement purposes?
I have absolutely no idea how this combat is going to go (maybe they'll be all wiped out in 2 rounds, I'm genuinely interested to see), but I did want to make some points --
I put a high number of enemies b/c the bandits are lower CR, but I upped their hp and that of the leader.
However, I am trying to make it challenging b/c 1, you were warned that there were bandits but didn't really take any preemptive precautions, like sending ahead a scout or having cantrip/orison buffs in place, and 2, the bandits have successfully taken down patrols, so they have good tactics and sufficient numbers to overwhelm something significant.
This is the kind of OSR set up I was talking about -- you might need to think a bit more tactically -- like you might come across a CR 20 challenge in the upcoming dungeons, and you can't assume that you can fight your way out of everything. You may have to run here, regroup, and then come back and fight another day. We'll see how it goes.
A warm up with some bandits in the wood to see what we do sounds just fine to me! Although we only had a total of one post by the party between learning of the route through the wailing woods with its potential bandits and our arrival there (so not a lot of chance to say we might be taking precautions,) I'm pretty sure that Vhinservun and Kazu are both untroubled at the thought of bandits, so they probably wouldn't have bothered with buffs anyhow (other than the all day ones which we'll start using the after this encounter.)
For initiative, do you want us all to go in strict order, or shall the party act as we log in regardless of initiative until we get to the enemies turn in initiative (so Krauz, Kolvar and I just take our turns as we're able to at this point?)
Yeah, just post actions and I'll adjudicate it in that order, I'm trying to sort of move this along quicker than I would usually as I indicated above
So I'm trying to figure out what makes sense for line of sight at this point. I'm planning on using Pouncing Teleport to get to and attack some enemies. With the ridges and the lip I assume that sight would be blocked to the bandit leader, so I won't be able to attack her easily this turn but please correct me if that's wrong.
Would teleporting to directly above the bandits by the ridge and then using Float (description below) to stay above them and attack from higher ground be an option? Would that get around their cover?
So I'm trying to figure out what makes sense for line of sight at this point. I'm planning on using Pouncing Teleport to get to and attack some enemies. With the ridges and the lip I assume that sight would be blocked to the bandit leader, so I won't be able to attack her easily this turn but please correct me if that's wrong.
Would teleporting to directly above the bandits by the ridge and then using Float (description below) to stay above them and attack from higher ground be an option? Would that get around their cover?
** spoiler omitted **
I thought maybe I had overdone things, but actually it seems like they're going to have a hard time hitting almost anyone's ACs except on natural 20s, even if it's going to take you quite a few rounds to kill them.
Bandits: Our Arrows will blot out the sun.
CotBB: K
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Joke's on them. Krauz works better when he's not out in direct sunlight!
Not as many rounds as you might think, Sebecloki. Kazu is...an education. 600-odd damage a round. The plants beneath him will be well-watered with blood.
This is about the best sort of situation for Kazu to do lots of damage (low AC enemies clumped closely together,) but I'm thinking that this will probably be his last fight and that he'll stay behind after this encounter. We're up to five characters which should be a good core, and Kazu is I think optimized differently from the rest of the group, whereas Vhinservun should fit the flow a bit better.
This is about the best sort of situation for Kazu to do lots of damage (low AC enemies clumped closely together,) but I'm thinking that this will probably be his last fight and that he'll stay behind after this encounter. We're up to five characters which should be a good core, and Kazu is I think optimized differently from the rest of the group, whereas Vhinservun should fit the flow a bit better.
Someone just PM'd me to make an alchemist, so that works out well.
Cool, thanks for the invite in, and good to meet yall!
I'll be bringing in Clarabibulus Flingflopsparkfizz, a gnomish alchemist on a great quest to rediscover the lost formula for the Ultimate Fizzy Drink (lost millenia ago in a battle against the Gnomelord of Blemu).
She'll have some reasonable debuffing/battlefield control/AoE damage, as well as support and healing abilities, and knowledge skills.
If there's anything particular yall think we need, let me know. Do you have a trapbreaker?
666 = 18 INT
666 = 18 DEX
556 = 16 +2 = 18 CON
556 = 16 WIS
555 = 15 -2 = 13 STR
444 = 12 +2 = 14 CHA
* unless there's a valid 3p gnome variant out there that has a bonus to INT...since I think that was the case back in the Greyhawk days...but with rolls like this I hardly need to have optimal modifiers.
I'm working on stats now, but a build like this will take me a bit.
Cheers,
Welcome to the Companions of the Broken Band! Vhinservun can do traps thanks to the Archaeologist archetype, but having someone else able to work them as well wouldn't offend her at all! An AoE damage dealer will be welcome as I think that's something that we're largely lacking at the moment (and which would have been nice this battle.) Glad to see it on your planned list of things to do!
I also have trapfinding
I....I hit things and hopefully don't fall down often?
I also have trapfinding
Ok cool, I'll skip it then.
I....I hit things and hopefully don't fall down often?
An esteemed and time honored tradition! ;-)
Seb, VMC druid grants an animal companion (which is a Nature Bond). Any objection to swopping that for the Druidic Herbalism Nature Bond Variant?
(It makes Druids the best potion makers, and we Alchemists can't allow that, can we?) ;-)
For the enemies we're fighting, what's the light level where they are? If they're hiding under the trees and behind cover is it dim light?
An alchemist! As a demonstrated consumer of alchemy I welcome you. I neglected to bring more than one tanglefoot bag with me, can you believe it?
For the enemies we're fighting, what's the light level where they are? If they're hiding under the trees and behind cover is it dim light?
Yeah, let's say it's dim light.
So... this encounter clearly wasn't strong enough -- I tried 1-2 CR over your levels, but I'm going to have to try like 16 next time and look at the to hit values more closely.
For the enemies we're fighting, what's the light level where they are? If they're hiding under the trees and behind cover is it dim light?Yeah, let's say it's dim light.
In that case Vhinservun is going to try to get fancy and first daze and then teleport the leader so that it's adjacent to Kolvar and Krauz on her next turn. The leader will get a couple of saves that would interrupt the turn while waiting to see if she makes them. Do you want me to roll for her when I get to that spot in the turn or do you want to roll them (and then I'll make contingent rolls for if she fails them along the way)?
So... this encounter clearly wasn't strong enough -- I tried 1-2 CR over your levels, but I'm going to have to try like 16 next time and look at the to hit values more closely.
Yeah, level 4 unoptimised mooks are doing to die easily and die badly. Even with good teamwork feats (e.g. volley fire) they'd struggle to hurt us. It'd take us a long time to cut through 37 enemies without Kazu but I think we could do so without risk.
If I kill the guy I'm fighting, I might be able to shaken her too which could help some. I already did the calculations and with my obscene intimidation, I'll likely be able to demoralize the normal guys for quite awhile. It is just a -2 to everything but hey, numbers are numbers.