A Thorn In The Hand OOC

[Simba]

Also, if this guy's the spokesman then the rest are presumably mute or Tourettes sufferers. He's terrible.

Then he is coming across just right. He is pretty social, but unused to these conditions. Suffering from a bad case of reality check ;-)

I promise he will change once he comes to his senses.

[Malak'ai]

Thanks for the back up Simba . Rochenion is the only one I did a personality for because I wasn't expecting you to take them with you. I'm working on the other two, but because I have exams again, they aren't on the forefront of my mind at the moment.

[Simba]

I thought about sending them back once the first fight or series of fights is over.

[Malak'ai]

They still have their mission to accomplish so once they can, they'll be heading for the Coalition line again.

[Wordplay]

@Marlowe: I agree with your tactical assessment. Even with Raif drained, we have potions, and Drayner has a pretty near fully charged wand. If it looks like we're losing, we can take to the horses again, and leave them behind, heal up, then hit them again.

I suppose the only problem we might have is if they have magical support...then we might be in trouble. It would be a pain if they regrouped, but survivable.

I wonder if Malak'ai is giving us a hint...

@Malak'ai: Hmm...I wonder what you were expecting us to do with them...I for one regarded three NPC soldiers as a kind of loot.

[Marlowe]

Malak'ai does not, in my experience, do easy encounters. He expects us to be heroes or die. A lot of encounters in his campaigns were just barely survivable considering the ineptitude of the PC group. Two words: Praise Beryl.

I'm a lot more vicious. I make the fights easy and then make it impossible for the PCs to figure out what's going on.

So, I'm not too concerned about this situation at all. And Verossa certainly wouldn't. This is the sort of fight she's been doing for three years. And trading force for space is even better when the space you're trading is the enemies.

[Malak'ai]

Malak'ai does not, in my experience, do easy encounters. He expects us to be heroes or die. A lot of encounters in his campaigns were just barely survivable considering the ineptitude of the PC group. Two words: Praise Beryl.

I'm a lot more vicious. I make the fights easy and then make it impossible for the PCs to figure out what's going on.

So, I'm not too concerned about this situation at all. And Verossa certainly wouldn't. This is the sort of fight she's been doing for three years. And trading force for space is even better when the space you're trading is the enemies.

It's not hard for an encounter to be barely survivable when you have someone like G in your group.

"I'm a Fighter wearing a chain shirt even though a set of full plate that would have fit was looted the session before because I don't want to go into a medium load even though we have horses and a donkey."
"I'm a Fighter who has just had his 18 in STR reduced to 2 due to ability damage from incorporeal spirits drifting randomly though the forest because I attacked them (with a mundane weapon) because they appeared "slightly" evil when the Cleric casts Detect Evil, yet still persist to attack them even though they are ignoring the rest of the party."
"I'm a Fighter/Rogue who wants to fight with daggers from horseback."
"I'm a Sorcerer who has a STR of 16 and a CHA of 13 yet still think I should be able to cast spells of level 4 and above."

And those are some of the ones that haven't scared my brain so much I've blocked them from my memory.

EDIT: I should really add, that I don't expect you to "be heroes or die", I love it when players come up with creative/sneaky/"how the hell"? ways of over coming the challenges I send them up against. It's just that I normally run games on the fly (as Marlowe knows, the group I normally play in (with Marlowe when he's in at home)) normally tell me the day before that I'm gunna be running a game. That's not a problem for coming up with a story/normal encounters, but I need more than a night to think up puzzles (which I'll honestly say I'm not that good at) or devious little tricks.

And to the point of Marlowe making it so they players have no idea whats going on, I can vouch for that.
But I have caught you out a few times... Jumping off the cliff for example .

[Marlowe]

When the entire team starts out with rings of featherfall, expect cliffs.

I can't believe you let me get away with "Lolthburgh" for a Drow city. But well, what do you get for 15minutes prep time from somebody who'd never DMed before.

[Malak'ai]

To be honest, I don't think I actually heard the name of the city. All I knew was that we were trying to get away from it.

[Marlowe]

It was a Drow city. Of course we were. Not even Drow want to live there.

For Southern Comfort I'm having it in the backstory that the Drow got kicked out the Underdark-equivalent (Drow aren't native to the world. Nobody is except the Fey and one particular Human civ, but nobody goes around telling you this) by the Tieflings, who were outraged by the suggestion that Darkvision, a constitution penalty, and LA+2 is better than Darkvision, a dex bonus, Longbow proficiency, and LA+1 (or LA+0 if you don't need the longbow). This left the Drow wandering the Overbright as colourful, bitter, wagon-nomads, musicians, entertainers, and mercenaries, all very willing to share their angst with anyone who'll listen.

The Tieflings ran their own kingdom down below for a while until it jointly occurred to them that the Underdark blows. Then they mostly moved to the big cities to form criminal syndicates and smoke cigars.

EDIT: Oh and,

"I'm a Fighter who has just had his 18 in STR reduced to 2 due to ability damage from incorporeal spirits drifting randomly though the forest because I attacked them (with a mundane weapon) because they appeared "slightly" evil when the Cleric casts Detect Evil, yet still persist to attack them even though they are ignoring the rest of the party."

when he yelled "Throw me the magic spear!" (as though the party Cleric in a fight against undead hasn't got better things to do than throw stuff to the guy who got us into the mess in the first place) I was very, very tempted to throw it AT him.

But poor nephrite, cursed to serve hateful good.

[Machuchang]

Holy crap, this dice roller loves me today.

[Malak'ai]

Holy crap, this dice roller loves me today.

Always happens on rolls outside of combat, never when you're wanting that crit to take down the big guy that's hacking you to pieces .

So I take it that only Raif and Drayner are now watching the Orcs and Hobgoblins?

[Wordplay]

Don't forget Rochenion.

[Malak'ai]

I'll have them react, but I try not to use NPC's to lead the action.

[Wordplay]

@Malak'ai: So where are the other party of orcs in relation to us? Right behind us? So is a move to the South perpendicular?

[Malak'ai]

Not directly behind you. They're about 100' south of your position and 600' east, so moving directly South will lead you out of their path.

[Malak'ai]

@Machuchang: How does Valor have a Reflex save of +5? By the SRD and MM1 a light warhorse has a Reflex save bonus of +4.

[Machuchang]

@Machuchang: How does Valor have a Reflex save of +5? By the SRD and MM1 a light warhorse has a Reflex save bonus of +4.

Huh, that's weird. My version of the MM1 says +5. Should've checked the SRD. Should we just subtract 1 from my roll?

Sorry, I missed the Light Warhorse part. Valor's a heavy warhorse.

[Malak'ai]

Yeah, just saw your post in the IC Thread and checked your character sheet.
I don't know why, but I was under the impression that Valor was a Light Warhorse. Since he was a Heavy Warhorse, he would not have been carrying a medium load and wouldn't have tired so easily.

[Machuchang]

Yeah, just saw your post in the IC Thread and checked your character sheet.
I don't know why, but I was under the impression that Valor was a Light Warhorse. Since he was a Heavy Warhorse, he would not have been carrying a medium load and wouldn't have tired so easily.

It's all good. Didn't he even pass his check anyway?

[Malak'ai]

It's all good. Didn't he even pass his check anyway?

He did, but only just. I rolled an 8 for his Endurance check (which came to 14 due to CON and the Endurance feat) so he only just past.

[Machuchang]

He did, but only just. I rolled an 8 for his Endurance check (which came to 14 due to CON and the Endurance feat) so he only just past.

Well hopefully he'll do much better next time.

[Malak'ai]

These are things I should really write down on post-it-notes and plaster to my computer screen, but since I mainly use my laptop now and I take it almost everywhere, I don't really want to explain why I have a library worth of notes with nothing but numbers and weird explanations on them to anyone who notices .

EDIT: Also, I think I'm allowed to blow my own trumpet at this stage. It's been almost 2 weeks since I had a cigarette... Yay me!

[Machuchang]

That's why I just have a D&D folder. Post-its would be perfect if they weren't so obvious and didn't take up so much space, so they just end up in my books instead.

[Marlowe]

So...we're fighting a 5th level Wizard with an INT score of 14-15.

He might have one more of those left, if he's a specialist.

[Malak'ai]

So...we're fighting a 5th level Wizard with an INT score of 14-15.

He might have one more of those left, if he's a specialist.

INT of 13 at least. Remember it's 10 + spell level. So to cast a Fireball you only need 13 in INT... Seems kind of pathetic really .

[Marlowe]

Yeah, but He'd need at least at least a 14 to get that save DC, unless he's got a feat to boost it. Which wouldn't be out of the question at all.

[Arranis Thelmos]

Apparently I should've gotten at ring of counterspells. It's okay to steal from evil shopkeepers, right?

So, would half of 23 damage round down to 11 or up to 12?

[Malak'ai]

It'd be 11. 23 divided by 2 rounded down is 11.

[Wordplay]

@Malak'ai: Can Raif see Drayner and this point, and how badly wounded he is?

Also, is anything on fire?

@Party: From the saving throws so far, I make it that everyone except Elenora and Drayner made their saves. That leaves everyone positive except Drayner. I think that it's just Miaili left to make the saving throw, but even if he failed the save he'd still be in a better position than Drayner (who should probably be the tactical priority, since he's the only one left who can do much healing).