Tycandus removes the alchemist's fire from the box he was given and throws it at the rats.
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Tycandus follows not bothering with darkvision with the torch in front of him.
"By the way you introduced him, I figured he had a long list of transgressions. What are they? He chuckles, "Feel free to just give the highlights." Tycandus accepts the vials with thanks, and stows them for later use.
Tycandus arches a brow at Escobert, "What crimes did he commit? Or rather what crimes was he being investigated for? Tycandus smiles a sardonic sort of smile, "I understand that we'd be a convenient way to get him out of your hands, and I'm not opposed to it, but I'd like to have an idea of what he might have done."
"Bloody useless in that fight. Weapons were right there, and I couldn't get over my fear to even pick them up. All those soldiers...I should have helped more. Never again.... "Thank you Eiryn. It's good to remember that. I'm Tycandus."
Sorry about the delays guys, my wife and I are on vacation visiting my parents and I couldn't get to the computer for most of Monday and Tuesday. Things should be less crazy tomorrow. I also didn't pack all my gaming books, so won't have access to the PHB to level the rest of the way until Friday night
Tycandus shakes off the fear, and watches as the dragon wheels in the air, and stays behind the crenelations since there's little he can do. He keeps his eyes open for a bow of some sort.
Tycandus moves to the crenelations to wait for the dragon to get closer, so he can do anything besides run.
He looks back at the Governor, "Your idea was to bring everyone to the roof, with that thing flying around?" and shakes his head, even while getting his weapons ready. "Is there an extra longbow around?!
Seeing nothing in the storefront, Tycandus hustles after the rest, slowing only when he sees Zennor dropped, "Gods no...." He regains speed at the guards instructions, and grabs Zennor, helping Vano pull the Dwarf into the Keep.
D'oh! *ducks the fusillade of incoming arrows from Vano* Sorry bout that!
You know the adventure better than we do. Do you think we can do it with four or do we need another? Vano was our rogue, and likely we'll need that skillset at some point, but if you think we can succeed with four, I'm all for it.
Tycandus hangs back and takes a look into the storefront quickly, keeping Bor in sight, ready to call out to Bor if there is or joining him if not.
Tycandus looks back for any straglers, and then makes his way towards the keep, following the rest.
Tycandus sucks in a hiss of pain as the kobold slices through his armor, but recovers and brings his longsword arcing down.
Tycandus waits for Dorn's thunderwave, giving him an appreciative nod as he charges forward towards the two kobolds, in an attempt to stop them from flanking.
Tycandus takes the rear guard position.
Yep, I use the same in my meatspace games, but that makes the job of the GM harder, since the GM now has to give as much info as they can to the players. I routinely put down vague visual help and then describe the details of what they see. I was part of a pirate themed game, as an example. The GM gave a map of a dock area and a ship, so players could have the general layout, but covered any details of the ship, or things on the dock until they got closer, and never put anything more down on the map itself. As we described where we were going or how we were approaching, the GM gave us details explaining things we wouldn't notice till we got closer. It never became about strategy, or being perfect, if anything it made us less perfect, because we had an idea of what we wanted to do with the imperfect information we had at first, and then got info as the group got closer which blew up any plans we had, or gave us options we hadn't thought about. So don't get me wrong SB, you're doing a good job, but with the lack of visuals, descriptions need to be even more spot on. Especially tough since we have no face to face or even voice to voice contact. So nothing here is a knock on you at all, and I hope that it's taken in the manner of constructive criticism, since that's what it is meant as.
Describing things as we go is fine, but we still have no idea if the town that we approached is large small, in between. Other than it having a creek/river that wends around the town to the left, we know that there are buildings. The Keep is seen above them, which should give some idea of where in the town it is, and how far. Are the buildings tightly packed or is there space? Are there a lot of buildings, is there a wall? So far the town of Greenest consists of a river, a bridge, a few buildings and a Keep. If it was open rolling plains, we should have been able to see the town from a distance and get the general layout at least. All of this does lead to strategic decisions. We have a group of non-combatants with us, so avoiding combat is our best bet. Which means trying to cross a big empty area isn't wise. If the buildings are tightly packed then the best bet may be going through the buildings, rather than down the street. If the river runs close to the Keep, it's best to run along the river as close as possible to the Keep. If the buildings aren't tightly packed, staying close to the buildings, especially any that provide cover with awnings and such from the aerial creatures is smart. Then watch and wait till the air is clear before making a dash to the Keep. Also, there's bound to culverts that empty into the creek which we maybe use to move into the city. If the town or keep is walled, there absolutely has to be in order for rainwater, sewage etc to get out. Maps don't make things a strategy game, they give your players visual reference so they can make informed choices, in lieu of that, you need to describe everything in enough detail so we can put that map in our heads. And I'm not offended by the post at all, just pointing out that if you are going to do things sans map, you need to provide enough accurate description so the visual is there. Right now, it looks like our choices are fight the group under the bridge, or try to sneak around our current encounter so we can get to the next encounter which is the clear area before the Keep.
I don't think it's necessarily we're waiting for that d20 roll to tell us the answer as much as for me the descriptions keep changing the layout of what I'm seeing, constantly. I figured the bridge was on the outskirts of town, since we've never really gone into the town proper, but now the description is that it's right up against the buildings. The way your descriptions have made it sound, is that we can't get around the bridge, so need to go under it. By going under, we need to deal with the group under the bridge. Your description initially said it was a small wooded stream, so I would think that if we got up one bank there would be woods to travel through and stay hidden, but later the description is that it's an open area. The bridge was also in a copse of trees originally. It's also hard to grasp where the keep is. It was pointed at by a villager, and seen rising up over the rest of the buildings, which makes it seem some distance away. We went back away from the village to the creek, and followed it 100 yards to a bend, where there was a bridge crossing it. From the description, it made it sound like the creek went around the town, but we're now only 100 yards away from the keep. I think having any sort of map, or some sort of reference to where anything is, would help us in trying to figure out where things are in reference to each other. Because we may have an issue here where, for example, I may think the creek is in one place, further away, where Bor thinks it's close to everything, and Vano thinks it runs through the town. Right now we've been given no references.
"The bank is 6 feet up on the other side of the bridge. If we go up that side, and a bit further, go past the bridge, and then back down into the riverbed, we'll get past that group and be able to continue on our way. With the bank it'll make it easier to get past them."
"At this point, I don't think we have the experience or raw power to take on a dragon. We need to do what we can to make sure any townspeople that can make it to that keep. The next order would be to grab one of the human conspirators alive, so we can get some idea of what's going on. Until then, we're blind, deaf and dumb as far as being able to plan out any kind of attack."
Settles down on a knee, to lower his profile, and waits to sprint forward.
Tycandus charges one of the cultists up the bank, swinging a longsword. "Your cult will trouble this town no longer!"
Tycandus follows along.
Tycandus makes his way over, catching his breath after his sprint, "Good to meet you, and glad you're all safe." Tycandus snaps his head up "Where...Holy...That is a flying kobold. We should keep under shelter if we can.
Tycandus moves up next to Bor, trying to attract some of the attention away from the big man.
Tycandus rushes up next to Bor, pulling one of his longswords, and attacking one of the goblins.
The only way I see the before/badguys/after being a bad thing is if there are a large number of bad guys. Then it has the potential to have a lot of attacks on a very few targets. Example: Bor scores high on his init
Bor charges in, takes out one badguy, Dorn uses bardic ability to inspire. 7 bad guys now pound the piss out of Bor, since he's the only one in combat range Rest of the PCs.
"Son of a.... Ty breaks out of cover and runs towards the family being threatened by the kobolds.
GM init will speed things up a lot. Ty will be mostly an offensive combatant, using the longsword at first and then both that and magic later.
"We're not going to fight the dragon, but those people need help, and I'll not turn my back on them." He watches Vano slip to the side of the road, "Let's let Vano scout out a way that may give us some cover, we'll approach that way and see what we can do to help.
Tycandus hustles to catch up to Brennor "Wait! It's probably not a good idea to head straight up the road. Lets stay to the side and see if we can get closer before being seen."
Zennor, I'm in the same boat as you. The visions have been, seeing the young man grown and being proud of him, seeing a beautiful 1/2 elf that Tycandus is about to ask to marry, a board with a chest carved into it which could be anywhere in the Inn, the cottage, barn, and then the last one which is Tycandus with the same half elf woman, drinking and getting poisoned, with Gregor standing over them with a beaker. I get that they're trying to implicate Gregor, but nothing about the drinks was suspicious, and it's pretty hard to try to confront someone with "It was in my dream!" Short of searching every floorboard or wall for a carving of a chest, I can't really see where to go. Also, so there's no misunderstanding, Tycandus did relay the dreams, which means that the spoilers for the dream/visions are open for everyone to look at. Hopefully that will help.
Tycandus steps back inside shaking his head a bit and waits for the others to make their way back. "My suggestion for now would be we take ourselves to the common room above the fire, and keep watch, and leave first thing in the morning. The quicker we're on our way, the quicker we leave this place in our traildust."
Then Tycandus will head towards the cabin.
Tycandus will leave out another door but try to keep an eye on Gregor
Tycandus steps down from the table, "I feel fine." He looks over to Gregor, "Your finest vintage, except what you gave us already, right? You did say it was the finest you'd made." Tycandus moves towards Gregor, "You don't mind if I look at my goblet, do you? I'd really like to figure out what it was I was allergic to."
Tycandus groans as the convulsions fade, letting the wine fall from his mouth during the last of them, and takes the offer from Vano, and leans on him as they take him up to the loft. He allows himself to be half carried up to the loft, and tries to steer the group to an area where they can at least section themselves off. A corner or something. He sits with his head between his legs a minute, before looking up, and checking to see that they have a bit of privacy, at least. "Something's not adding up. All the visions here are centering on the barkeep, in some fashion, and acting almost like warnings for half-elves and maybe elves in particular." He shakes his head, and relays the visions that he had.
Tycandus smiles and nods his thanks to Zennor for the drink and food, and just shakes his head at Dorn, "The visions are of places, all of them being destroyed. This was the first time I've seen people. Well, living people anyway." He gives Dorn a hard, wry smile, "If you'd like, I can try to remember some of the other dreams to see if I ever spotted you in them."
Tycandus wipes his brow of the cold sweat, and looks at Vano and the others. "The dreams have been happening for a while now. Only at night, till this. I usually see everything in flames, and choked with smoke, and in all different locations, cities, forests...and everytime there's some sort of sign that says Greenest. I don't know what kind of game is being played, or by whom, but it seems like we're all being drawn towards that place for a reason." He takes a glass of water in a slightly shaking hand and drinks, "This was the first time anything like that has happened though. And the dreams, visions, whatever you want to call them were...I guess you could call them good visions? Peden grown up strong, a vow of betrothal, and the last was of someone reaching for a hidden treasure, as best as I can tell." He relates the visions, but changing his being in the dream of the engagement for someone generic. "Maybe that's a sign that we're moving on the right track?"
Tycandus sucks in a great gasp of air, and struggles to regain his seat. He groans a bit and looks at the others with a short sigh, "Well, that's new. The dreams usually only come when I'm asleep."
Tycandus will pay for the warm room and stew, and then sit down to eat and drink.
During the trek, Tycandus will tell stories about home, and growing up with the militia. Eventually he'll relay the tale about his killing the troll that launched him on his path to being an adventurer. Arriving at the Inn, Tycandus gets a room and a bath to wash off the road dust.
Tycandus will take a middle watch, and help how he can with the camp. I believe the penalty for sleeping in med or heavy armor is that you're fatigued the next day. I guess that leaves Tycandus as the front line fighter.
I'm all for getting going.
Tycandus walks back to Zennor and Bor, a thoroughly frustrated look on his face. "The place has no town guard or militia to speak of, and no place that wagons can put in, so my efforts were largely fruitless. If we want to head to Greenest, it appears we have a very long walk in front of us, unless you've come up with more promising news?" He looks at the other two hopefully. He looks around the place, "I hope they never have to deal with a raid of any sort.
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