*shrug* This is a battle I've been in. With small areas, it's not too hard to find a way to describe where you're wanting to end up, but I'd hate to have to say, "I move to the square to the left and in the middle of the sixth sleeping bag around the fire counting clockwise from the top" and have someone figure out exactly where I'm meaning to go.
As Mark says, the size of the battlefield is a factor, as is the number of participants. For battles in your typical dungeon (or longhouse), coordinates are probably not necessary; you can always say 'two squares up and four to the right' or the like.
But with people moving their own tokens, I don't see the need to have to explain where you're moving at all.
I've been in games where the GM expected you to tell them where you were moving, then they updated the map, and yes, trying to get across to the GM where you wanted to move in those circumstances is a royal pain and would be nigh-impossible without coordinates... but when you can move your own figure/token, I don't know when a circumstance would arise that you need to tell the GM where you're moving. I suppose if you couldn't access the map due to posting from your phone or something?
If it ever becomes a confusing issue with further maps, I'll slap coordinates down on things right-quick. I think in this particular case it was just an issue of you (Joana) not knowing where the crossbows/etc would be, so I moved Halla a 5-foot step towards them, and didn't clearly state that I had moved her, so there was slight confusion over that matter. Anyway, we'll see how things go moving forward-- I've been running PBP a year and a half now, and usually I use Roll20 for maps; I'm trying GoogleDrawings out for this game for the simple matter of wanting to compare usefulness/applications and not wanting to make players log in to a website they may not have access to. I do appreciate the feedback though!
Or the GM remembered they have ferocity, take your pick.
Wondered when this might happen ;)
Just remember it makes orcs even more brutal than they are usually... gives them an effective HP of 18! CR 1/3 my foot...
:P
Yeah, I only forgot it for the three you fought at the granary. Everyone else has fought proper orcs. And you and Gifr dished out enough damage to them that the fight would probably have gone fairly similarly, regardless.
Also, I am literally a minute past the edit point for that post, but obviously, I meant swinging at Thrymr, not Eysteinn, in that post. Sorry about that.
No worries GM Dien I knew who you meant... in my first PbP I accidentally kept referring to a character by the wrong gender for a good six months (darn asexual half-elf avatars).
GM Dien - appreciate the beneficial ruling on the follow come back.
Just so I get things straight before posting up an action -
1) The red ringed orc on the path in front of Thrymr still lives?
2) Can I charge him now, or would you prefer me to wait on an initiative roll?
3) Gifr is not yet returned from his errand?
Sorry for the slow rep, busy day.
1) Yep, any orc shown on the map is a still-standing one, right now.
2) You can certainly charge-- it'll be treated as a surprise round for you to enter the existing combat, basically, even if I'm not going to be rolling out individual combat rolls for the twelve or so figures that are out there. Basically, if you charge, you'll be starting an initiative round for you/any combats you personally happen to get into.
3) That's right-- he'll reach the edge of the map on the next round.
Ooohh... that REDACTED really makes it interesting. I wonder if the REDACTED is what's making the REDACTED... hmmm...
You tease. :P
I'm up against Thanksgiving holiday preparations myself. I'll get Halla's 5 rounds typed up tomorrow. Almost 1 AM and must go to bed.
No worries, Joana. I figure we will hit the inevitable holiday slump (well, for Americans, at least) over the next few days. Tag if and when you can, folks, but we'll not stress over it.
Unrelatedly, I had a realllly good pre-holiday dinner tonight with my tabletop group. :) Lumpia, corn pudding, green bean casserole, linguica sausage, baked potatoes, cookies, cranberry cobbler...
Yes, I am just trying to make you hungry.
Given that I'm knee deep in weight loss and exercise as well as wallowing in the food paradise that is Malaysia - I hardly need help to feel hungry :P
But in return I'll taunt that perhaps I'll enjoy a few caramelised onion lavosh with bacon jam and Tassie Trio cheddar cheeses tonight...
*belated reply is belated* Ooh, Malaysia. Fancy~
I hope that everyone's Thanksgiving day was good, if you celebrate it! And if you don't, then I get all your candied yams.
I'll post tomorro-- er, later today-- getting us back on the metaphorical wagon and such.
Well, I realize I'm not among your priority audience, but from an outside reader's perspective, the crazy, multi-site battle has been fun to watch unfold. I can't imagine the headache for you, though.
Just some words of encouragement, I guess. :)
Aye - it's been well run and interesting to see unfold... but I know how much work it must've been as well!
*throws a rock at Eben* Get out of here, flattering rascal!
Nah, thanks, I just hope it's been fun to play too.
And as you can see, my updated map that I promised for this morning has not yet materialized. Sorry, some sleep deprivation over the last few days hit hard today, and I decided I might need a bigger map anyway to properly fit everybody. So revised map, with coordinates, and the start of the fireworks, will be "sometime Monday."
Combats with a split party are a great deal of fun, as the tension is much higher than when all the PCs can support one another. Some of my favorite encounters I've run were when the PCs were fighting on various parts of a map and trying to get back together. However, they're also very delicate, as a PC on his own with a run of bad dice can get really dead really quick.
Reading back I realise I wasn't clear - but I meant to imply that Gifr was following Thrymr - so effectively we should both be out of the fight.
Thrymr wouldn't separate himself from his hund, and he's confident enough that a few minutes delay won't make the orcs any harder / easier to track if they make it past the gate.
Ahhhh okay then. Sorry, my bad. Yes, in that case, Gifr is with you. *goes to edit post*
However, they're also very delicate, as a PC on his own with a run of bad dice can get really dead really quick.
So true.
Hey, I just wanted to say I, personally, have had a lot of fun so far, both with the role-playing and the battle parts. Handling multiple locations in both the battles and the role-playing has been a lot to keep track of (and write) for you, but I think you handled it superbly! Thumbs up, Dien. :)
Also, I'll pre-emptively apologize for any slowdown that occurs over the next few weeks; we're approaching finals period, so my schedule is going to be intermittently very empty and very full, as each final approaches. I'll do my best to keep pace, though. Thanks all!
Thank you, Knute, and good luck with finals!
*
Derailing quickly, and sorry for any crosspost that occurs if you're in multiple games with me:
I'm playing in a PFS PBP gameday game where we lost our GM, and one of our players stepped up to GM, but now we're short a player. If you play PFS and have a character in tier that you think would fit (level 6-7, or a 5 could squeak in), feel free to check us out. Scenario is #3-25, Storming the Diamond Gate.
I'm playing the cleric.
Rikka, you can Ready to cast the spell as soon as the globe of darkness moves forward into your range; that will allow you to interrupt their action of moving forward. I'm not sure what their speed is, but if they get a full round of actions while you Delay, you may be in the darkness and unable to cast at all.
That's a fair point.
I think these guys are moving pretty slowly because they are herding/carrying the kids so I'm not expecting to be caught in darkness especially in the second rank. Given my limits in casting into the dark, I'm thinking it may be worth it to wait for a better spell opportunity instead of possibly dropping one of my few remaining spell slots on a ready grease.
She picks a wounded ork bearing a child near one of the ...
Rikka's attacking a wounded, pregnant orc?! Have a heart! :D
An Ulfen warrior is a cold warrior, and Rikka is relentless as the North Wind!
Grrrrrrrrr
So if the orks are holding the children, they're grappling, right? Slows them down, gives them penalties to attack and AC? Or are the children tied up and helpless, making them simple cargo that doesn't penalize whoever's carrying them?
If Halla could get to you, she'd heal you, Eysteinn, but the snow's making it difficult; by the time she got to you, the orks would probably be back in the darkness. Shades of Reign of Winter and spending three rounds of double moves to go thirty feet, and by then the battle's over. :\
Yeah, I kind of figured that - don't worry, I'll settle for getting stabilized if I get another ork in my face.
Also, if he doesn't die, you'll have plenty of chances to heal Eysteinn!
The children are either tied, in the case of the older ones, or are simply too young to put up effective resistance. No grappling, sorry. :P
Even if trying to get a three-year old to do anything they don't want to do is definitely a CR +3 task in our world...
Meh, I was hoping that simply harassing the orks might be enough distraction for some of the kids to work free and run away on their own (not to mention not suffering AoOs from orks grappling their own prisoners as they escape).
Happily watching along - just let me know when you need anything more from me on Thrymr's actions :)
Cheers-- I'll try and keep us moving through this fight quickly, this week, so that the PCs can be all together again soon.
In case anyone doesn't know, RPG Superstar has just started for 2015. It's a yearly competition Paizo holds in order to help discover new game designer talent.
Submit an item if you have one that tickles your fancy. :D I'm going to try my luck and see what happens!
I feel I ought to stabilize Sausage, but as far as Halla knows, it's just a tattooed pig while people's lives are at stake ... and even if Rikka were to explain his importance, Halla can't understand her as long as we're in combat. Don't suppose she speaks Varisian? :P
Btw, are you familiar with Big River? :)
*bats eyes at Joana*
I appreciate the thought! Sadly, I don't speak Varisian. But Sausage has got a few more rounds yet before things get very dire. If his saves keep tanking I may stop to try to heal check him but I definitely want to wrest as many kids as possible from these filthy, fighting Uruk-Hai.
Good song, BTW! That is clearly Sausage's theme song.
Posting this while the site lets me to say that Paizo.com is being only intermittently accessible for me (like probably for others) right now/over the last two days, so, the delay in posting is due to that. I'm trying!
Sorry for the delay, guys. The same storm that hit Paizo offices and knocked their site out for a day there, also hit me, and high winds have been making my 'net connection spotty. I keep getting on, having a chance to throw up a quick post in another game, and then buckling down to this one only to lose connection halfway through.
It's made this long fight/situation even longer, which was not my plan-- I want to get past these sprawling things, with 15 NPCs and very little for the PCs to do, just as much as you guys do.
GMing is always a learning experience for me despite the fact that I've been GMing Pathfinder for four years now; I hope to never get so superior about my own abilities that I can't learn things. For instance, Joana's suggestion of the grid coordinates, though I initially thought it wouldn't be useful to me, has been quite useful given that we've done a lot of circumstantial stuff in this big fight (If--then), in which people couldn't really move their tokens without knowing certain information. So the grid's been very handy for that. I don't know if I'll use it every fight, but I'm glad to have my repertoire expanded all the same.
Conversely, my initial gut feeling was to run this raid as a largely narrative/cutscene sort of thing, and to have the PCs stumble out only to learn the children had already been taken-- I wasn't sure I wanted the complications of the PCs getting to directly try and interfere with that.
However, in the end I came down on the side of wanting PCs to have agency-- as a player, I'm never really keen on the whole "well, X happens, and the PCs are powerless to prevent it, now let's deal with the fallout of that", even though I can acknowledge it sometimes has its place as a narrative tool. But I decided to let the PCs have the chance to directly impact this one-- thinking to myself that really, they wouldn't be able to slow things down much, what with the darkness and the fact that the central opponent is considerably stronger than they are... I imagined you guys would take out an orc-with-hostage or two, but that the bulk of them would be able to complete their primary objective of escaping, without any real delay.
Just goes to reinforce that lesson to never underestimate the PCs: good ol' grease is still very effective when your foes have a nasty ACP and only moderate dex.
So, consider this to be rueful props from the GM, to all of you, for reminding me that giving PCs the chance to mess things up.... gives PCs the chance to mess things up. :P This is just rambling observation from me on things I learn while GMing, not a complaint or anything. Thanks for bearing with me, anyway.
That's pretty much rule 0.5 of DM'ing isn't it? - overwhelming odds are easily destroyed while a 'simple' encounter ends with PC deaths.
You did and continue to do well good GM Dien, so feel proud for that.
Shucks! *digs toe in dirt, etc*
And yeah, lol, it is rule 0.5. "IT NEVER GOES THE WAY YOU THINK IT WILL"
I could have played the orks smarter, I suppose-- had their leader delay to keep their actions intentionally bunched together, etc, and therefore had less of them visible out of the darkness-- but I do try and run my baddies according to the tactics I think they would logically have used, which is not always "the best" tactics.
Sometimes it is, though. :P With clever foes.
Hey guys, sorry to do this but had an amazingly crap day and am crashing super-early for me. Will post when I wake up next.
Stabilizing dying leaders... it's a living. Too bad you didn't get the dwarf chief for three strikes
And they're both unconscious and unaware of her efforts so she won't even get the flowery speeches of gratitude. ;)
I'm pretty sure that Sausage counts as a leader.
Does Rikka realize that Thrymr has just approached nearby her and said that he is going to be tracking the orks?
Just wondering if that's an oversight or an intentional ignore as she goes to beg the elves for help?...
Neither, really. I didn't see you on the map and your post stated you were approaching the gates and looking at the ork tracks. I took that to mean you are at the gate and looking out on the fresh snow outside the gate to spot their trail. That puts us roughly 50' apart with a whole bunch of dead, dying, crying, grieving, and wailing folks between us. I didn't think it likely I could hear exactly what you were saying in that situation.
Also - and this is a bit 'meta' - your post indicated a desire to 'lone-wolf' it immediately after the orks regardless of anyone else's plans. So it didn't seem to require a response even if I could hear what was said.
Finally, I see chasing after the orks immediately - which they are quite likely to notice - as providing no strategic benefit. They might keep their guard up, try to actively lose pursuers, set traps, plan harassing raids under the cover of dark, etc. I think we'd be better off if they thought the Hofn folks weren't able or willing to pursue them. So if we can convince an elf or two to watch these guys surreptitiously without risk of alerting them, that works to our benefit as the pursuing folks lag behind. And given how tough these guys may be to beat, it makes sense to me to stock up on supplies, heal as best we can, consult with the town leadership, and beg/borrow skis or snowshoes before heading out.
YMMV
I didn't even look at the map as we're out of combat, so I was assuming we were in wibbly wobbly timey wimey time where we can interact without too much concern over who was exactly where.
I had hoped Thrymr's questions and invitation to people to join him in following would be a catalyst for PC interaction... he does intend to set out near immediately (and the falling snow is the reason for that), but that doesn't mean there isn't any chance for talking, discussion of forward plan, etc...
Rikka can choose to engage the situation however she wishes... but I had hoped the royal we (meaning PCs) could engage with each other rather than turn immediately to the NPCs. If you think Thrymr's intent is stupid... tell him :) (his Intelligence of 8 won't take too much offence)
Lastly, I had a clear forward plan for Thrymr predominately because this is PbP and I find putting that down helpful for DMs and other PCs. That doesn't mean he's immediately closed the book or isn't open to discussion, just that there's a clear statement of where his direction is presently headed.
Minor GM complaining: apparently I can't change the title of the thread from my Chapter 1 thing. :-\
Well. Officially: STARTING CHAPTER TWO, or something like that.
You can make a separate gameplay thread with a new title for chapter two and attach it to the same discussion thread, if you want to. I've seen some people do that who are running APs, to mark the transitions between the modules. Unless it's really bugging you, though, it's probably not worth the hassle.
Yeah, it's not a huge deal, and I'd rather keep everything in one place for searchability reasons. Just one of those "hummmm, why can't I do that" moments. Ah well.