The Order of the Post - IC

[Dresil]

b]Hawke[/b]

Reeling from the hit, anger flares in his eyes.

"In fact we DO need to kill them, for several reasons. One, they are hobgoblins. Evil creatures, as in not good. We leave them alive they can take 20 on their Escape Artist, alert others, flank us, and a whole bunch of other tactical bad things for us.

Two, it takes more than 1 round to loot them, and three, they are the first encounter in this quest! Chances are if we leave them alive they could become recurring villians!"

[Freshmeat]

Amy

"Killing them now that they're helpless sounds a bit on the evil side. Since it's way too early in the campaign to go down the slippery slope already, I vote we just tie them up."

Amy listens to Hawke's explanation, but then shakes her head.
"Ah, but they can't be recurring villains! They didn't tell us their names! And the monster manual entry for hobbos says they are usually evil, not always. As for the escape artist bit... hm, let me think on that for a while."

[cue silence]

((You get the impression 'a while' may last rather long given Amy's low intelligence score))

[Slamexo]

Kizzak

"The monster manual states that they're usually chaotic evil too, whilst these ones here are clearly lawful neutral. We can't go and kill them just because it could come back to bite us later, even if it is the safest thing to do."

Kizzak looked at Hawke with a clear sense of distaste in his eyes.

[Dresil]

Hawke

"Oh I hate that 'if you kill a helpless enemy you are evil' crack. Its removing us from danger. If you don't help you could endanger the whole party! I joined up to help that lawyer, being nice didn't work for him, so its time for what any adventuring party worth its spit is known for."

[4is111]

Seth
"Maybe I'm old fashioned, but maybe we should worry about the hobgoblin who are trying to kill us as we speak?"

[Jade_Tarem]

Thomas

Tom looks at the two sleeping hobgoblins. "Talking is a free action. Besides, what are they going to do? Snore at us?"

He shakes his head. "These two hobgoblins didn't act chaotic evil. I don't know that killing them would automatically make us evil, but I'm pretty sure it would be a step in that direction."

"Besides, you mentioned that the decision to leave them alive might cause us problems in the future. But killing them could also cause problems. These two clearly aren't standard hobgoblins. They could have family, friends, or superiors who might seek vengeance on us for butchering them."

He grins. "And if they turn out to be recurring antagonists after all, then that just means we collect xp from them multiple times while keeping the moral high ground. It's win-win."

[4is111]

Seth
"I guess I'd better do something."
Seth draws a dagger and throws it at the gobliniod with the wistle.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[Just to clarify, as I suspect you might not quite see what's going on: Seth sees just the two of them, and both are asleep, albeit not for too much longer since you've all been arguing instead of just slipping by them and breaking into the house like I expected.

Not that I'm complaining. I've been too busy to post for the last few days anyway, heh.

Anyway, if you confirm that Seth does indeed intend to chuck a knife at a sleeping hobgoblin with a whistle in his mouth, I have a reaction prepared.]

Kizzak dashes in at the speed of plot and stops Captain Chaotic-Neutral from skewering the scurvy dogs.

Come to think of it, you'd think that a pirate would be perfectly happy about tying people up, what with all of the knots they have to learn. Then again, I'm starting to wonder whether Hawke has ever actually been on a ship at all.

Anyway, we also get a cutaway panel to the lawyer, who is still sitting in his cart, eyes closed, ears plugged, going, "La la la la la."

[4is111]

OOC: No, I thought that the whistle was blown by one of the not sleeping hobgoblins, but if I only see the sleeping ones, I chuck the knife.

[Slamexo]

Kizzak

"Hey! If I don't let him coup de grace them, I'm not going to let you throw knives at them either!"

Now even more visibly annoyed than the emotion he's displayed in the last day, Kizzak glares at Seth and Hawke.

"You can't kill them just for doing a job unless you're chaotic evil, and if you are chaotic evil then by your logic it's ok for me to kill you for the exp, and that's starting to sound just peachy."

Kizzak was not a happy half-orc.

[V for Victory]

laughing Barend says Fran' lemna git ya zam advise: ye best defime ye alinmin, danna les et defime ya Barend runs over to coup de grace one of the goblins

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

While Hawke abstains because he's having so much fun with the debate itself, Seth and Barend proceed with Plan Stabby despite Kizzak's objections.

As the dwarf moves up to #1 for the kill shot, Seth goes for #2, since he's the one with the whistle.

The dagger hits its target right in the noggin. The hobgoblin immediately wakes up screaming in pain, which due to the trinket in his mouth comes out as a loud, shrill, "TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!"

"Gah!" Reacting to the whistle, #1 snaps awake and sits up. Barend's axe splits the dirt where the goblinoid's neck had been.

#1 springs to his feet and readies his sword, as mad as ever. "Did you just try to coup-de-grace me?!"

#2 grabs his shield and scrambles to his feet.

Map:

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{table]Count|Participant|symbol
17|Kizzak|K
15|Hawke|C
15|Thomas|T
12|Hobbos|1/2
6|Amy|A
4|Barend|B
4|Seth|S
3|Felbrook|F[/table]

It should be Amy's action next, since she's the only one who hasn't done anything yet. Then we go back to Kizzak and proceed normally.

[4is111]

Seth
"I'm not happy about it, but we've come to blows. Now I'm doing what ever I can to minimize our casualties. Really, if I though combat could be avoided at this point, I wouldn't have started."
Seth casts Aspect of the Wolf.
"Woof woof, bark bark."

[Freshmeat]

Amy

Amy shrugs and moves up to the nearest hobgoblin while drawing her greataxe. Rationalizing violence had the strange tendency of being that much easier if people were trying to kill you in the meantime.

With a cliché "Grr!" she swings the greataxe in the hobgoblin's direction.

Attack (1d20+4)[23]
Damage (1d12+4)[14]

[Slamexo]

Kizzak

"You guys suck. Big time."

Thoroughly disgusted by the actions of his travelling companions, Kizzak proceeds to move towards the cart with the intention of joining Felbrook inside.

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30ft in that direction and such.

[V for Victory]

OOC: I'm confused, whos turn is it?

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

Amy quickly moves in and smashes the angry hobgoblin back to the ground with her own axe. It'll take a heal check to see for sure, but if he's not dead, he's pretty damn close.

Hobbo #2 watches this in horror and turns to make a break for the house.

Now it's technically Hawke's turn. (I'm recycling the initiative order from before.)

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{table]Count|Participant|symbol
17|Kizzak|K
15|Hawke|C
15|Thomas|T
12|Hobbos|1/2
6|Amy|A
4|Barend|B
4|Seth|S
3|Felbrook|F[/table]

[Dresil]

Hawke holds his action.

[Jade_Tarem]

Thomas

"ENOUGH!" Tom bellows. "What the hell is the matter with you people? I'm putting a magic missile in the next person to swing, throw, or fire a weapon!" Tom points to the critically injured hobgoblin. "Would someone please try to check his bleeding? He may not be dead yet."

[Freshmeat]

Amy lowers her axe, a confused look on her face.
"Wait, our rogue just tried to coup-de-grace them in their sleep and we're actually still going to assume diplomacy will work?"

"Uhh... okay, I guess."

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[Oh, party dysfunction. This does provide a nice look at your characters' personalities, though. It's actually kind of fun this way.]

"TWEEEET!"

Following a path between several small, friendly flower gardens, #2 runs for the front door some 80 feet back from the gate and slams into it. He knocks excitedly a few times, then uses the whistle again. "Tweet tweet-tweet tweet tweet, Tweet Tweet!"

[This makes the map a bit obsolete. I'll re-post it when it seems necessary.]

[4is111]

Seth
Seth is tempted to bite hobbo number 2, especially since that wouldn't be swinging, throwing or firing a weapon, but it isn't his turn yet.

[V for Victory]

Barend chases after the hobo, using his standard action as a move and running towards him (180 feet of movement)

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

Thanks to his short little dwarf legs, Barend can't quite catch up before the door opens and lets the hobgoblin in. The door then slams in Barend's face.

(combat mode: off)

So now what?

[V for Victory]

Barend uses his axe to chop down the door.

Attack: (1d20+4)[7]

Damage:(1d12+12)[14]

[Dresil]

Hawke

"Instead of breaking a valueable door, you could try my approach. Something more subtle, and quiet. Almost like coup de gras-ing a sleeping Hobgoblin." He turns back to the lawyer, "You, attorney, is there a back door to this place? Or shall I get my key out?"

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[I need to know what Kizzak's up to - until I do, assume the lawyer's still hiding his cart.]

[After this mission's over, I can split you guys up to fix the party cohesion issue. Do you think that you can stick it out until then?]

[4is111]

OOC: I think value dissonance in the party is enjoyable, but if people want to split...

Seth scratches at the door in agitation.

[Slamexo]

Kizzak

Kizzak continues sitting in the cart with the lawyer, keeping his arms folded in disgust at his bloodthirsty companions.

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Apologies, didn't know it was me we were waiting on.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[Ah, okay, cool. Let's see if I can do this in one scene comic post without backpedaling...]

"Is it over?"

Hawke arrives at the cart to see that Kizzak has already opened it up to talk to their employer.

"Oh, no, not really," he says, reaching into his pocket. "However, as I've said, I do have a key with me. We can simply go in through the front door."

Meanwhile, with a few rounds of axe-whacking, Barend does just that with a resounding crash that the group back with the cart can hear easily.

The group at the door sees two big clouds of mist, one on either side of the foyer, stretching back and upwards. You can make out the part of the room directly in front of you: two armchairs, a small table with a rather anachronistic-looking lamp, and a big bookcase. Anyone who looks into the mist trying to make out more details should make a spot check.

(Amy or Seth could also try stop him mid-smashing, but I'm assuming they don't, so I just rolled with Rule of Funny here.)