[OOC] Lost Mine of Phandelver 8 player

[Luccan]

For anyone who hasn't posted or wants to change their initial post, Sigrun's goblin failed the Acrobatics roll so you've got ahold of one of them, at least. Also, want to say I appreciate everyone rolling the saves for me so far. I will be using that in all my Play-by-post games from now on, it saves so much unnecessary posting

[Lentrax]

So we caught one, but I'll leave my actions as stated. Since the call to surrender technically come before Netish in the initiative order, I will leave my post as is.

[Phyzor]

Same for me, i will wait for those higher in initiative order to post first, makes more sense with a grapple and call to surender.

[Infernally Clay]

For anyone who hasn't posted or wants to change their initial post, Sigrun's goblin failed the Acrobatics roll so you've got ahold of one of them, at least. Also, want to say I appreciate everyone rolling the saves for me so far. I will be using that in all my Play-by-post games from now on, it saves so much unnecessary posting

I'll keep this in mind in future.

[Phyzor]

Did i see the one goblin running away? If so ill give chase to fire an arrow at it

[NontheistCleric]

I think we all saw it.

[Luccan]

Everyone saw it, both goblins were standing in the middle of the trail

[Matt4]

Do we need to roll something to drag the horses?

[Infernally Clay]

Rawr. Sigrún is a big meanie. Literally. She's very tall.

[JNAProductions]

Lonnie is not so big, and not so mean. :P

[Vorpal Glaive]

Do we need to roll something to drag the horses?

Both? We have enough people and strength to work from multiple angles.

A horse walks into a bar. The barman confuses idioms with jokes and offers him a glass of water, but can’t make him drink

[Luccan]

I missed the question. You can consider the horses moved, it's not too hard with multiple people

[JNAProductions]

I think we can get the oxen moving without the goad, given a nice ol' 29 on my Animal Handling.

[Infernally Clay]

So are you just taking the caravan to Phandalin? These goblins were told to capture a dwarf with a map and his human companion, which sounds a lot like Gundren Rockseeker and Sildar Hallwinter, who both rode ahead of us on this very road and there are two dead horses here. We should probably find out where this cave is and go investigate, since that's where they might have taken them both.

We could split up into two groups if you'd rather we didn't leave the caravan out here. Perhaps two of us could take the cart onward to Phandalin while six of us follow the goblins to their cave?

[NontheistCleric]

Well, I don't think we should split the party so soon... but it's also worth noting that the goblins didn't successfully capture Gundren and Sildar (at least as far as this goblin knows), so the two of them were probably taken by some other force, if those are in fact their horses.

In light of that, I think the best course of action is to quickly get to Phandalin first, so we can turn this goblin over to the authorities (we can't trust it but I don't think everyone wants to kill it), deliver our cargo and Maria safely (notwithstanding that OOC, we know she'll be coming on the adventure), confirm that Gundren and Sildar did, in fact, not make it there, and update his brothers before pursuing anything else.

[Infernally Clay]

Hmm... Even if they didn't capture Gundren and Sildar, they might know who did. How far is Phandalin anyway? If it takes too long to get there, we could lose our chance to find out who this spider guy is and why he wants Gundren and Sildar. We might not even be able to find the cave these goblins came from or they might be able to better prepare for our arrival.

[NontheistCleric]

True, but at this point, we don't even know that Gundren and Sildar have been captured, unless Maria can recognize his horse or something like that.

Right now all we know is that we've been hired to get the caravan and Maria safely to Phandalin, that we've already been attacked once, and that there is a larger force of goblins in the woods that now knows of our presence. We don't actually have a solid reason to abandon the job we were hired for and go looking for goblins yet.

I mean, imagine if you were Gundren Rockseeker and you found out that the seven mercenaries you hired not only abandoned your supplies but also dragged your beloved ward into a goblin-hunt on the mere suspicion that you had been captured, based on two dead horses. It's almost exactly the opposite of what he asked us to do.

[Infernally Clay]

Don't we know if those horses belonged to them? They rode ahead of us. We would have seen them off. So it's safe to assume it's them (although if anyone wants to double check they're welcome to) and the way I see it that gives us two choices here.

We either leave for Phandalin and hope it doesn't take too long to get there and back here and that we can still find the cave and that we haven't given this Klarg guy a day or two extra to prepare for us and that if Gundren and Sildar are there that they haven't been moved somewhere else.

...or...

We send the caravan ahead with two or three of us and the rest of us go to the cave while we still have this goblin here to show us the way (and the other goblin giving us a good idea of where to go since they're running away), which will potentially allow us to get the drop on Klarg and these other goblins and if Gundren and Sildar are there we can rescue them and if they aren't there we may still be able to get some clues as to where they are.

You ask what would happen if Gundren is in Phandalin and found out we went on a detour because we found some dead horses, but if those horses are his then he might not be alive much longer to care. Is it a risk we can take?

[NontheistCleric]

It really depends on two factors: How far away Phandalin is and whether we recognize these horses, neither of which we have established as of yet.

I didn't get the impression that we necessarily saw Gundren off personally, since he hired us a week before the job started. So we don't necessarily know what his horse looks like. It's possible we just met Maria and the supplies at a prearranged location.

We don't have a good reason to believe Klarg has Gundren and Sildar even if they were captured, given that the goblin we captured stated we are the first group they came across, and since they were supposed to be the ones catching Gundren, it's a fair enough bet that he is not, in fact, in the goblins' hands.

For OOC reasons of not wanting to strain the DM but also IC reasons of not wanting to split our strength when we know the opposing force has at least 15 members (16 counting the runner), I don't think we should split up. Especially when this is a bandit-infested area. The goblins may not be the only danger.

I'm not suggesting that Gundren is actually in Phandalin (but he might be), I'm just using him as a rhetorical device to demonstrate that unless we have a good reason to believe both that he is in active peril and that going after the goblins will lead us to him, it's better to continue on to Phandalin for now (unless it really is an ungodly distance off).

Also, we shouldn't make the mistake of assuming we're the only ones who could possibly find out anything important. Given that the goblins probably aren't in possession of Gundren, his brothers may be able to give us more context to help determine who actually took him if he is, indeed, missing.

[Luccan]

Hey, sorry if this wasn't clear, they absolutely succeeded in capturing who they were after. It's about half a day to get to Phandalin

[NontheistCleric]

Oh, okay, that changes things. Is Phandalin far, though?

[Luccan]

Oh, okay, that changes things. Is Phandalin far, though?

Just thought to add it to the post. It's about half a days travel at this point

[Infernally Clay]

If it'll take twelve hours to reach Phandalin, we definitely don't have time to go to there first. We need to chase after the goblin that got away. We don't all have to go, if Yorrel would rather stay with the caravan and keep an eye on Maria until we get back, but someone has to go and soon.

[Lentrax]

A half days travel is about four or five hours, not twelve, since travel time is usually around 8 hours a day because of needing to pack camp, make camp, and stopping for meals.

So it isn’t 12 hours away.

[NontheistCleric]

No, splitting up is a bad idea. If we're going, we might as well all go. Two groups will just be twice as vulnerable in a dangerous area.

We should probably have this discussion in-character, though. I think Yorrel's view will be that it's really up to what Maria wants to do, since she is more valuable than the supplies and also the person we're protecting.

[Infernally Clay]

Splitting up shouldn’t really be that bad of an idea given there’s eight of us. That’s a big group. In fact it might not be a bad idea to get used to splitting up since we’ll probably need to do it occasionally. Eight is too large a group to sneak around, for example, and if we have multiple objectives to complete it wouldn’t hurt to split up and do them simultaneously.

Besides, we can’t really just leave the caravan here unguarded because we don’t know how far the cave is or how long we’ll be, but from what the goblin said there shouldn’t be any more goblin attacks so the road should be relatively safe. So if Yorrel would prefer to prioritise the safety and delivery of the cargo to Phandalin, there’s really no problem with Yorrel taking the caravan and Maria the rest of the way or the two of them just waiting by the roadside for the rest of us to return after we’ve dealt with Klarg and his goblins and rescued who we can. Sigrún just isn’t going to let this opportunity pass her by. She wants to prove she can keep roads like this safe so she’d probably take on Klarg and his goblins by herself if she had to because they threaten this road and any travelers upon it, although saving Gundren and Sildar is still her primary concern.

[NontheistCleric]

I'm not against splitting up in all circumstances, I just think it's a bad idea in this case because either there really is no further danger in the forest, in which case we can just disguise the wagon and have the advantage of greater numbers storming the goblins, or there are further dangers and so we ought to stick together for safety anyway.

OOC, I also think that we can't necessarily count on encounters being easier just because we have more people, and also that it's not good to split up at the very beginning of the adventure. Also, if the first group really is gone a long time, that's essentially just cutting half the characters off from being in the adventure, so...

[Luccan]

I'd request we not split the party this early, nor separate them by several hours or more of travel. If you want to split up in a town or adventure location, be my guest, I just don't want to have to open a separate thread to keep everything happening straight

[Infernally Clay]

So then we're going back to Phandalin, as Yorrel wants to do? Okay. We'll just have to hope we can find our way back here later then. It's no biggie.

[NontheistCleric]

Actually, I thought we were going to follow Sigrún. Yorrel is mostly going for Phandalin because A: They were already going that way, and B: She's not inclined to charge right into a situation, more report back to a group (in this case, Gundren's brothers), strategize, and possibly get paid first before doing anything else.

It's mostly the product of growing up in a wererat gang.

However, if a strong personality like Sigrún insists on hunting the goblins down, she'll go if that keeps the pack together.