I'll give a bit more time for any responses, but I think probably the next thing would be for me to do a post which brings us to the point of you all being in the hut together. I don't think I need posts from you describing the actions up to that point or making any rolls (I don't need a stealth roll for Yasami to bring you to the hut given that the Northern guard will have been sent away), but I'm happy to hear other perspectives on how to proceed.
Imo, that works for me. Getting us all together and ready to spring into action seems like the best path to get the ball rolling.
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Ahem.
If Lisi can prep (or has prepped) shape wood, we could just sneak out of the hut together (via an improvised exit), then get back to the original plan of peppering the mine from range.
And Hezle can just sneak away with us.
Ahem.
If Lisi can prep (or has prepped) shape wood, we could just sneak out of the hut together (via an improvised exit), then get back to the original plan of peppering the mine from range.
And Hezle can just sneak away with us.
goooooooooood point! and might save us from "rescue everyone only to immediately almost tpk again" headache
Shape wood is not one of Lisi's default spells but I'm fine saying you all talked about the plan the night before and he prepared it.
When I get a chance I will do a post that gets you all to the point of being in the hut together and you can execute either plan at that point. Escaping out the back into the woods would require a "quiet allies" stealth check, although the regular charau-ka are not very observant and you have hero points if you fail and even if they saw you it wouldn't stop you from reaching the woods...
How many hit points do Caiten and Oren have after 20 minutes of treat wounds and the natural healing overnight and the healing potions? Any other healing potions? Any possibility of battle medicine?
Obviously I get that you don't want another TPK risk, but this is a different situation without the vrock around (which soaked up all of your attention) and with the opponents spread out and the possible assistance from the spiders. I would rather avoid all the real world delay of you all running off and spending a bunch more time making plans. I kind of changed things up to have Caiten and Oren both brought up just so we could move ahead with things...
So run for the trees, and start shooting from a distance immediately? I would rather not engage them in melee if we can help it. Or at least weather some of them down before the reach us.
So run fornthe trees, and start shooting from a distance immediately? I would rather not engage them in melee if we can help it. Or at least weather some of them down before the reach us.
Yeah. Agree with that. Especially with a couple of us at low HP and no armor.
We aren't likely to blitz down two Charau-ka before reinforcements arrive. The game math just doesn't support that.
I wouldn't be so sure of your assessment of the math. But, in any event, you've got Hezle's snare; I think Yasami also said she had one of Gerhard's bombs left, which also could be deployed with the snare; and there is the big spider element.
What is your hp now? Should be pretty much at half or more with the healing so far, right? And then there's battle medicine and any other potions folks have.
Do you have any spare armor or weapons in your loot? I'm assuming you're carrying some stuff in a bag of holding or something?
Anyhow, the ball is in your court.
Well, about the bag of holding, Dario was carrying that.
I think?
Well, he quit the game -- he might have escaped had he been around to play things out. Let's just say Yasami has it. Plus, she probably needed it to carry the bomb when she placed the first one -- she didn't sneak through the jungle carrying a barrel if she didn't need to -- so it's logical enough that she still has it. Technically, she was the last one to specifically have it.
I probably missed it, but where are they storing the confiscated equipment? Oren at least was carrying a +1 Striking Maul and a +1 Breastplate, and the loss of those items would have a very negative impact on Oren's effectiveness going forward.
Wasn't it in a corner of the charau-ka dwelling?
Yes, you assume those items are back in the bunkhouse.
It seems like we're about ready to go. The snare and one of the bombs are set up at the front door to the hut. We just need to know what spare equipment is available for Caiten and Oren, and we need to figure out Caiten and Oren's current HP at this point after all this healing.
Looks like you're going in naked boys, best I have to offer is a rapier Catalina hasn't needed to use yet
My calculations of healing done in the 20 minutes:
Oren: Max 114
4x6 = 24 rest
+18 treat wounds
+15 treat wounds
+26 Heal
+12 lesser healing potion
=> 95
Caiten: Max 62
2x6 = 12 rest
+18 treat wounds
+15 treat wounds
+16 lesser healing potion
=> 61
Lisitsei never goes into melee, but he can hand Oren his Verdant Staff and embiggen it with Shillelagh.
Technicalities of changes in Shillelagh aside, without armor, Oren should probably stay out of melee.
Three butchers burned through his entire 114 HP in one round while he had a base AC of 22. Lowering that by 5 to only 17 means he would likely get hit on a d20 roll of 3 and crit on a 13.
I'm usually pretty active on the weekends when there's cause to be, but tomorrow, I will be chaperoning prom in the evening and pretty busy during the day. I'll check here and there throughout the day so nothing gets held up, but I might be a little slow. Sunday will be normal, though.
No problem, Catalina.
Caiten, thanks so much for calculating the healing.
I gather that there is no looted armor in the bag of holding, Caiten has Catalina's rapier, and Oren has Lisi's Verdant Staff (but the Shillelagh does not work because that requires that the staff stay in the caster's hands).
Unless anyone has anything to add, I think we're ready to go with Lisi doing an "opening the wall" post. Note that Hezle wants to go out first, but she promises she is very sneaky. I assume everyone will try to go out stealthily. My plan will be to roll initiative at the point that the first person fails a stealth check.
no wai about Shillelagh! I need to tell Groundskeeper Willy!
Lisi: Hah!
Caiten: I believe the rule you told me you were using is that hero points reset each game day (i.e. overnight)? Right? In that case, Caiten does have some. He can tell that he's making more noise than he wants on the way out...
Lisi: Hah!
Caiten: I believe the rule you told me you were using is that hero points reset each game day (i.e. overnight)? Right? In that case, Caiten does have some. He can tell that he's making more noise than he wants on the way out...
Well, that is a houserule that we were using as a play-by-post adaptation. The rule is more of a guideline anyway, but the official rule references 'session' - which doesn't actually make any sense in a play-by-post campaign.
But yes, if I do have a hero point from the night's rest, using now may be a good idea.
-_-
I think the houserule makes sense and is a good adaption to this context, so I'm happy to continue it.
Lisi will tap each person for Guidance.
His actions once the charau-ka open the door are to cast Fireball with the blast centered outside the hut, to catch all of them waiting, and then Stride to exit.
I'm stealthy enough for all of us! *dissolves into mist*
I'm stealthy enough for all of us! *dissolves into mist*
Nice.
It is also interesting to me that we have the same bonus to our stealth skill. That d20 roll result is always impactful. Especially on the extreme ends.
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Lisi, I would advocate to save whatever spells for when they are chasing us in the open. We can use the powder keg here.
oh, good point. Was gonna be dramatic. ;)
I will just ignore it for this round, but in future rounds, everyone should keep in mind that moving through the jungle is difficult terrain -- although some of the squares Caiten and Catalina just moved through aren't actually difficult terrain. I think what makes sense is to say that only those squares that are 100% covered in foliage on the map are difficult terrain, but they also provide automatic cover (and the foes won't necessarily know where you are). The squares only partially covered with foliage are not difficult terrain but they only provide cover if you use the take cover action.
Catalina: Your current square and the one to your left are not in full foliage. You would not be able to fire through the square to your left anyways, if it were a fully covered jungle square.
Caiten: You do have cover at the moment.
Any questions or concerns about any of that?
p.s. Does Sulee automatically move with Caiten or only if directed to do so?
p.s. Does Sulee automatically move with Caiten or only if directed to do so?
Usually only if directed to move, or if being carried.
Interesting, do you think it would be overly generous of me to have as a house rule that a familiar automatically tags along 10 feet behind unless directed otherwise? I mean, Sulee is an intelligent creature who would want to be near Caiten. Seems weird she would be left half way across the battlefield because Caiten is busy. Plus, shouldn't saying "come" or "follow" just be a free action, just like talking in combat? Thoughts?
Interesting, do you think it would be overly generous of me to have as a house rule that a familiar automatically tags along 10 feet behind unless directed otherwise? I mean, Sulee is an intelligent creature who would want to be near Caiten. Seems weird she would be left half way across the battlefield because Caiten is busy. Plus, shouldn't saying "come" or "follow" just be a free action, just like talking in combat? Thoughts?
I don't have a problem with that.
Familiars are a bit rough to have in combat. Very fragile and they don't contribute much directly.
I think the best mechanics use we have had for Sulee in combat was having her carry the light for us. Permanent, mobile, hands-free light source.
And being left behind during a moving battle isn't fun.
No it isn't fun to be left behind! Poor Sulee.
Agreed on the risks to familiars in combat. Maybe let's say they follow 15 feet back by default, and in cover if convenient, just to keep them more out of range. And, like I said at the outset, I don't target familiars or kill them with area effect damage if they are being carried or otherwise on your bodies.
According the inventory, you have two suits of +1 leather armor that you looted in the jungle, which presumably were in the bag of holding and are items Oren and Caiten could be wearing right now, right? If that's the case, then we should retcon that you put them on. Also, I see that there's a +1 striking longbow in there, plus vine arrows. You all could be using that stuff and maybe other stuff in the inventory, right?
Hi all--I'm busy with some elder care stuff and I assume Voomer retconned Lisi's actions to make a little more sense. Will be more available tomorrow. :)
I’m realizing that Cev had the bow. But seems like the armor was available.
When you think about leaving rather than fighting, one concern that comes to mind is whether your equipment would still be here when you came back.
The arrows and bow were on Cev, yeah.
Our characters aren't trying to leave. We are doing what Yasami said - making our way to set ourselves up to take potshots from the treeline to try to save ourselves from watching even more friends die.
If we're in a bad way after trying this method, I imagine to our characters, especially after watching two friends be killed, are a little more concerned about staying alive than preserving equipment.
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When you think about leaving rather than fighting, one concern that comes to mind is whether your equipment would still be here when you came back.
Yes, you mentioned earlier that leaving and coming back another day would mean that our captured equipment would be permanently gone. So it feels like that is not the 'right' plan.
You have also mentioned not wanting to railroad the plot - so you don't want to tell us what the 'right' plan is. But having a 'right' plan that works and letting every other plan fail spectacularly is what railroading is. Telling us about what the 'right' plan is just lets us know how to be successful at it.
I am suspecting that you just have a terrible poker face. You are accustomed to having your players sit around the table and throw out ideas and somehow magically (i.e. reading your tells) recognize what the 'right' plan is and go with that. So that it doesn't feel like railroading.
That doesn't work in play-by-post. For starters, kicking around ideas until we all come to an agreement on what our plan should be takes an amount of time best measured in weeks because we are scattered across multiple timezones and work schedules. Having a back and forth conversation can have up to 12 hour delays each time something is said. But then also, that little blank space between the last post and the text entry box that I am currently typing in - doesn't give me any tells. So we have no way of knowing which the 'right' plan is and which ones will fail horribly.
Leaving and losing our equipment apparently isn't the right plan.
Charging out and fighting a group of 9 equal level enemies (4 butchers, 4 swampseers, and 1 sabosan) and 7 lower level enemies as backup sounds like suicide. Assuming that the 9 equal level enemies are level 5 (which may be an under-estimate) and the 7 lower level enemies are level 2, that puts the encounter budget at 340 - which is almost double what the maximum Extreme threat level is. (Extreme threat encounters are the ones that have a high chance of TPK. Doubling that is... literally off the chart levels of excessive.) And we can see that in action from how just one round of attacks from one charau-ka butcher and the four swampseers did 59 points of damage to that spider - which is about half of its health, so I am guessing that it is also around our level too. The last time we fought the butchers they had a +17 attack bonus as base with those tridents. Which means they would hit on a 6 and crit on a 16. That is a 25% chance to crit. Though that is against me and Catalina with AC 23. Yasami would only have a 20% chance of being crit, and Oren - even with the +1 leather armor - would have a base AC of 21 (which also happens to be where Lisi is listed at, lol) which means a hit on a 4 and crit on a 14. So 35% chance to crit and pretty much guaranteed hits on both first and second attacks each round. Worse than that if Oren decides to Rage.
Taking shots at them from the treeline while they are distracted by the spider is only going to work for about 1 more round before the spider dies. And we won't be able to kill any of the higher level enemies. So after that, we are in a similar place as charging out there and fighting - except that we will be fighting in the bushes where we have to deal with difficult terrain and cover.
So none of these options sound good. If there is a 'right' plan, I don't know what it is.
We stare at Voomer and say "just let us FIGHT them" and then roll Intimidation. ;)
I hear you, Caiten. Really where I'm coming from is that I would just like to get past this particular encounter, which has turned into a bit of a slog. If the party leaves immediately (which is what I understood Caiten's in game comment to Yasami to be suggesting), that means much more back and forth with new strategizing and then re-setting the whole encounter, etc. Maybe you're right that things will go unsustainably badly again, but to retreat at the outset isn't even giving a chance to see how things go. Personally, I don't think it's railroading to encourage players not to give up yet and remind them of things they might not be considering (I forgot that I had mentioned the issue with the equipment before), but there's no clear line. Frankly, I kind of wish my predecessor had "railroaded" you more by warning about the risk of fighting the vrock in the mine camp rather than trying to draw it away, which is what the module contemplates. Players can't always perceive what their characters might, so it can be the responsibility of the GM to mention things, but that risks being characterized as railroading. It's not an easy balance.
I do agree that whoever wrote this module kind of overdid it with this encounter. But I'm definitely not out to kill the party. Also, just so you know, your math is off because your CRs are inaccurate. Yasami from experience knows the charau-ka warriors aren't much of a threat, for example, and you haven't yet gotten any clear read on the swampseers. But you're right the butchers are super dangerous. You know they have attacks of opportunity and you know they are accurate and do a lot of damage, so your tactics should focus on avoiding AoOs and trying to limit their attacks per round, when/if they do get up close.
Ultimately, the party should do whatever it wants, but your characters do think they will have an opportunity to retreat if things go badly if they stick to the treeline.
And I should say, if folks aren't happy with my GM style, then I'm happy to bow out after this encounter. Honestly, it was pretty rough to come in at the start of a battle royale encounter (the first in this AP) set up by another GM and then have players drop out, but maybe it's not a good GM-PCs fit. That would be ok too. It's a lot of time invested on my part and I want the players to be satisfied with my GMing. But I'm also perfectly happy to continue and perfectly happy for feedback/pushback along the lines of the above -- I just want to be clear that I'm also fine bowing out if that's what the group wants.
I hope that all makes sense. I really don't mean to sound defensive, so I hope that's not how it's coming across. I'm just trying to explain where I'm coming from.
Yasami did not suggest leaving altogether. But instead doing a thousand cuts strategy from the treeline. Shoot an arrow, hide, move about. Rinse and repeat. At least that is what Yasami would do in this particular instance.
To clarify, that would start happening immediately here, where we are.
Now, I know this would take a LONG time if she were the only person doing it. I would assume someone would join with their respective strategy. Hell, even quickly digging out a trench/spike trap and luring whoever we can into those, setting up another bomb trap, or what have you.
That was the intention on my part, at least. Not starting another rest and encounter. I know some people are not equipped for a fight right now. Hence why Yasami is standing between the mine and the rest of the party.
In either case, I will try to play mediator here, since I feel both sides of this discussion have good points and less fortunate ones. But I think I see where it's all coming from. Allow me to spill my mind here.
First point - On one hand, Caiten is probably correct with the encounter difficulty calculation. The butchers seem like much, and while last time we had a vrock to deal with, they still seem quite formidable. And this is very concerning to us as players, since the last time we had more numbers, and still got shredded. Yes, I am considering the fact that the vrock is no longer present. They are strong, especially in the open, and there are five of them. There is no terrain we can use against them, and the only tactic we can currently use is 'stand in a phalanx and hope they don't circle us with their 30 friends (bonus - one of which is flying and we don't know what the sabosan is capable of). Which is like a dream to any melee character ever. So we can't counteract them, except by being a bit slower on the move. That's it.
HOWEVER, the players understand this is an important plot or pivot point in the game. And we kind of have to do it now. We were told there might be reinforcements coming (possibly on the next morning), but we are not strong enough to deal with it in the current state. And I believe this is where the frustration comes from. Yes - we, the players, may be responsible for the situation. Maybe we rushed past a few encounters that would help us gain gear, allies, levels, etc. I don't know whether this is the case, but here we are. So we are stuck between an enemy we can't beat and the possibility of reinforcements on the way. But we can't turn away, or some lieutenant will be notified and who knows what can happen? At least that's the vibe I am picking up. And I would like to state I don't think this is railroading on Voomer's part. It might as well be players rushing into this seemingly dead-end street, and failing to jump over the fence.
Second - Voomer is correct in being given a game in the state it is in. We, players, may have overestimated our strengths (see paragraph above) and rushed in. But we have to look at it from Voomer's point of view. Someone dropped 2000 lego pieces in their lap and said 'Here! Rebuild the Death Star.' and we all tried to help, but we don't have the actual step-by-step manual. It's nowhere to be found. So yes, this is an unfortunate situation, and shades are being thrown.
HOWEVER, Voomer, you have a unique ability in this particular situation. You can build a super complicated Death Star model 20 inches in diameter, or you can do this. And for the next chapter of the story, we will have step-by-step instructions for the Enterprise model we will be building next. So my point is - you are omnipotent in this situation. You can adjust things on the fly. You tweak the numbers if needed. And I think nobody will hold it against you, especially since you stepped into the game that was already heading in this direction.
Now, we know Age of Ashes is overturned. We know we lost members. We know we lost gear. I'm not saying 'put the weak template on everything in the mine and delete 3 butchers from the map (they went to get reinforcements after last night's attack, etc)', but you could do that. You have that power.
Before I get to my next point, I think the above COULD explain the frustration at the table.
AND THUS I PROPOSE we do this encounter, we finish it (with possible tweaks; hint-hint, nudge-nudge), and then Voomer can get a fresh start. A clean canvas for the next scene and finally start to run the game in their own style. And see where that gets us?
PS - Last thing I want to say. There's the case of the prisoners. This is something that bothers me. The problem was fixed at this point (they can post), but Oren and Caiten did spend several weeks (months, even? feels like it) having nothing to do. And I am trying to find a reason for this, but I am failing. But I don't see into your head, so I hope there is one. Other than a few IRL timeouts that were announced beforehand, they could have at least been interacting with each other, but were given no 'scene' to work with. Yasami wasn't even in that part of the group, and it bothered me as a player. I honestly feel like that could have been handled better just by dropping a description of the prisoner hut. PbP allows parallel scenes to run at the same time.
Disclaimer: I don't promote voluntary party splits, but they should have been given something to work with, at least. They dropped and were separated.
Thanks for the measured take, Yasami.
In terms of re-balancing, I did get rid of the second vrock (which was not in the module) and quietly did other force reductions and I did send off some boggards (of both kinds) after the first attack, but I could have done even more to fix the poor encounter design in the module (I will say it's complicated trying to second guess the authors on this stuff). In terms of further adjustments, my preference is to do that in game as enemy responses to circumstances, but it's always useful to be reminded of my omnipotence over such stuff. I do like for things to play out logically, but I do need to remember to massage things more and I hear you on that.
I'm sorry about failing to engage Oren and Caiten more while they were captured. It took longer than I expected for plans to be made and executed, and I had a long vacation and a post-trip period of distraction. I did describe the scene in the bunkhouse and it's not clear to me what could have happened between the prisoners due to their bound and gagged status, but I should have directly engaged with them more.
Frankly, upon reflection, I’m realizing I intended to run it in parallel, but several of you told me you would not respect my spoiler tags. I do think I should have the right to expect players not to look under spoiler tags that I mark with "I really I mean it, no peeking" or something like that. I think its my prerogative as GM to let the suspense of the narrative unfold how I want it to, even if I think the players can avoid meta-gaming. So, I think that's actually a place where if I had been more assertive with my authority (in requiring certain spoiler tabs to be respected) it would have been a better experience for Caiten and Oren.
Anyhow, yeah, I do think jumping into an encounter like this is tough for a new GM-PCs relationship.
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re: spoiler tags -- I think if something is a sticking point with you, please make sure we know ASAP and just put your foot down. You're new, and I know that comes with some hesitation sometimes, but the clearer we are on communication via a message board (with no tells, no body language, etc. that we can read), the easier things are imo.
I, personally, am prone to overthinking text. It's a combination of being an English teacher and being autistic - I've been trained to read text a certain way and consider every word that I choose so that it conveys a certain tone/etc. I often forget that not everyone puts that level of nitpicky detail into things (no shade to people who don't), especially on a message board.
If you label it in a way that puts your foot down, I can avoid checking it even though my impulse is always to spoil myself on things (spoilers have not now, nor have they ever, ruined anything for me, tbh - i am in it for the puzzle, the journey, etc., so I've never understood the song and dance about them) so you can maintain GM mystique.
I can respect coming into this where we are at is a tough time for sure. especially when I'm privy to a lot of the circumstances surrounding our GM's departure (I know her IRL and we work in the same building; we are not, however, on speaking terms, related to the reasons for her departure) and that does occasionally color my viewpoints here.
I know that the second vrock existed because Fern wanted to add more challenge to the encounters when we were a party of a lot and functioning at full capacity. With Joran dropping out due to life things, Cev leaving since they aren't able to keep up, and Dario leaving because of his own life stuff, a lot of her edits to jump up the challenge rating no longer make sense. She had mentioned a lot of these changes when we were still on speaking terms.
unrelated to this discussion: I am going to post this evening once I'm home and settled! I am just now leaving work because I had to attend two meetings - one with a very angry parent who accused me of hating his child and another where we waited around and the parents didn't show up. Luckily, my boss had my back for the first one, but now I'm leaving at 4:30 instead of 3:15 and still have to pick up dinner. womp womp.
Sounds like a tough day, Catalina! Thanks so much for your comments. I’m going to try to tweak things more going forward. Post whenever it works for you.
I missed the part about people peeking under spoiler tags. I think that's definitely a put-one's-foot down point; I don't look at GM rolls, ever. I don't care what they roll (as long as they aren't fudging to favor/disfavor a particular player punitively over and over again or something).
that being said, I think we're all mature enough (?) to have non-spoilered posts and not metagame "I have a psychic vibration that Caiten is planning to do something with alchemist's fire!" or the like.
I'm very happy to keep smashing through these charau-ka. The vrock sucked, and the mokele-mbembe was a bit disappointing to poor saddlesore Lisi....but let's keep going. I have no frickin' clue why a spider was in the mud or these weird worms and, well, anyhow, I just want to kill things, as Nature intended. ;)