Adventures in Sigil - OOC - Part III [4E]

[Hzurr]

Originally Posted by Orsik Vondal

I crit! So Ash uses Rod of the Bloodthorn's property power to steal a healing surge from Incirion and does [roll0] extra damage.

I was hoping that since I crit, you would let Ash rend Incirions tail from his body. Pleeeeeeeeeease!

A few things:

The bonus damage from your crit is also halved from being weakened, so it's (37+29)/2 = 33 damage total.

Here's the problem with tail severing: First, it's a crit which is cool, but this sets up a very dangerous precedent. If crazy things like this start happening every time y'all crit, then this will also start happening when the enemies crit as well. And given the history of this game, you do not want to bet that the forum roller will give y'all more crits than me. So in the interest of saving all the PC limbs and abilities, I'm going to have to shoot this down (also, you're weakened, so the coolness of the crit gets mitigated a bit)

However, I'm also always in favor of awesome, crazy things, and severing a Pit Fiend tail is pretty cool, so I'm going to meet you half-way.

In this instance, you partially severed the tail (so...half-way. Get it?) This will decrease the Pit-Fiend's bonus to hit, but it also means that burning/acidic Pit Fiend Blood is spewing. So, he'll take a penalty to hit, but if he does hit it's gonna hurt more.

As a set of guidelines, here's my thoughts on "breaking the rules of the game for the sake of awesome."

1) Was this a random event? A crit on an otherwise normal attack? That's random, and has nothing to do with your character, so it's doubtful that you'll get anything special from it. In this case I made a change happen on a crit, but it's questionable whether this change will be beneficial to y'all or not.

A good contrast to this is when Shep tried to communicate with the Shambling Mound. It was an out-there, off the wall idea, not just a "Hey I used a power and got this specific roll" which is why I let something like that work.

Now, that's not to say that I'm opposed to cool things happening off of crits (or bad things happening off of nat 1s), but that's more my prerogative on a case-by-case basis. In this instance, Asheroth is the...4th? PC in the last round or so to crit, so it doesn't make significant sense for his crit to be more special than the others.

2) Does it make the story more interesting/make things more dramatic? When Eltain jumped through a window to land on a flying mule, that probably should have required a roll, but a crashing escape from a fiendish barge was a pretty dramatic thing so it worked. Similarly, Zyrr's roll wasn't amazing to bluff the succubus to start the alu-fiend blood-wrestling, but it definitely made things more interesting. In this specific case, Ash severing the tail makes things...a bit more interesting, but not dramatically so.

[Mando Knight]

Going to leave for the weekend in a couple hours (should be back by Sunday afternoon, though), here's Aramil's MBA.
Attack vs AC - (1d20+26)[40]
Damage - (1d8+17)[25]

[Nai_Calus]

Actually, Eltain teleported onto the mule, because Eltain is awesome like that. No noble-born Eladrin would ever stoop to such crass things as *jumping* out a window onto a flying mule. ...OK so Eltain is a half-human bastard who was first abandoned and then disowned by his mother, but.

[Mando Knight]

Hey, if you run out of teleports, you do what you've gotta do.

[Nai_Calus]

Technically, Ethereal Sidestep means you never do. It's only a 1-square right now, but there are ways around that.

[Haberdashery]

...oh right, lightning boxes are bad. Wow I'm not paying attention. Stupid Habby.

[Hzurr]

Originally Posted by Haberdashery

...oh right, lightning boxes are bad. Wow I'm not paying attention. Stupid Habby.

That's ok. You, Asheroth, Karlvan, and the Pit Fiend have all done it. No biggie.

Oh, and just to clarify, right now my understanding is that Eltain is going look like the jammer is going to crash before suddenly pulling up at the last minute so y'all can jump on. If he succeeds on the charisma check, that's what'll happen. If he fails, the jammer will crash (which may take out a large chunk of the arena with it. I'll roll to figure out which portion of the arena that is). If Eltain fails the charisma check badly, the ship will actually miss the arena entirely.

Also, Thrull's -7 penalty thing to the dragon's attack is ridiculously amazing.

It's also surprising how significant things like "Resist 5" have been in this fight. Definitely helped out Aramil, Karlvan & Asheroth.

[DSCrankshaw]

And that's a crit. Finally!

Crit damage - (4d8)[13]

Granted, that's not as much damage as I was hoping, but I suppose I should take what I can get.

[Orsik Vondal]

Wait a minute! Last I checked Ash charged the pit fiend from Q8 while he was at U7-V8, as per the MAP. Ash would have ended the charge at T8. Sorry, that I did not make that explicitly clear. Ash would not have stayed by the lightning since he saw what it did to the pit fiend last turn.

[Hzurr]

Originally Posted by DSCrankshaw

And that's a crit. Finally!

[roll0]

Granted, that's not as much damage as I was hoping, but I suppose I should take what I can get.

Hey, a crit's a crit. Also, Lucan should have taken aura damage at the start of that turn (sorry, forgot to note it for him in the IC post)

Wait a minute! Last I checked Ash charged the pit fiend from Q8 while he was at U7-V8, as per the MAP. Ash would have ended the charge at T8. Sorry, that I did not make that explicitly clear. Ash would not have stayed by the lightning since he saw what it did to the pit fiend last turn.

Ah, sorry, I misread. Also, saying that "Ash wouldn't have done that" isn't really a good defense when the same thing just happened to two of your teammates.

I'll update the location in the key, and include the correct location on the next map update.

[Orsik Vondal]

Originally Posted by Hzurr

Ah, sorry, I misread. Also, saying that "Ash wouldn't have done that" isn't really a good defense when the same thing just happened to two of your teammates.

I'll update the location in the key, and include the correct location on the next map update.

Thanks!

[Hzurr]

Originally Posted by Nai_Calus

Prettiness check: [roll0]

Geez. Ok, that kind of check means that Eltain can land that ship wherever he wants. Where do you want to put it?

Originally Posted by DSCrankshaw

Damage - (1d10+8)[13] 31

Anyone else remember that song from the mid-90s "Pretty Fly for a White Guy"?

"He asked for a 13, but they drew a 31..."

...Sorry, that has nothing to do with anything, that's just what I thought of.

[Nai_Calus]

"Hi, I'm Captain Ja-" "Stop it." "I'm just saying hello!"

Originally Posted by Hzurr

Geez. Ok, that kind of check means that Eltain can land that ship wherever he wants. Where do you want to put it?

Up Baalzebul's arse so he'll explode from it and die. Obviously.

I'm not sure how big it is. Well, I vaguely remember how big it was before, though that would probably take up most of the arena. Whatever position is best suited for loading the party on as quickly as possible so we can try to escape.

I don't suppose it's heavy enough to crush a dragon or pit fiend.

Anyone else remember that song from the mid-90s "Pretty Fly for a White Guy"?

Does it count if I only remember the Weird Al parody?

[DSCrankshaw]

Land it on top of the dragon.

How much aura damage did Lucan take? From whom? The pit fiend? I keep forgetting how big his aura is.

[Orsik Vondal]

Keezul is going to take probably his last action this battle. Since the Pit fiend ended his turn adjacent to Ash, Keezul will shoot a spine at the pit fiend as an OA.

Attack vs. pit fiend's Reflex: (1d20+22)[31] ; on a hit the pit fiend takes a whopping 8 damage!

[dariathalon]

Originally Posted by DSCrankshaw

Land it on top of the dragon.

How much aura damage did Lucan take? From whom? The pit fiend? I keep forgetting how big his aura is.

Yep. Same here. I guess we're all having trouble keeping track of all the areas going on here.

[Nai_Calus]

And me as well. I *think* it's an aura 5? Maybe? I think it's 15 damage? I can't remember. And I think there's something that happens within a certain number of squares of the dragon if something happens, but I don't know what and don't feel like digging through three pages of posts to find it. I don't suppose you could post things like that each round in the future, Jon, just for clarity and the fact that it can be nearly a week between turns for people by which point they don't remember?

[Hzurr]

Sorry. Yep it's aura 5, 15 fire damage & marked. I'll start posting that in detail in the posts.

[Nai_Calus]

Thanks, it's appreciated by those of us like me who have minds like sieves.

[DSCrankshaw]

So if Eltain swoops in and rescues us, does that ruin our chances of completing our mission here? Didn't we come here to try to find someone?

[Hzurr]

Originally Posted by DSCrankshaw

So if Eltain swoops in and rescues us, does that ruin our chances of completing our mission here? Didn't we come here to try to find someone?

Yep, you did. If I remember correctly, Zorella implied that the woman you came to find (affectionately called 'Lu by Asheroth) was here of her own free will, but there was something a bit fishy about how she said it.

But yeah, at the moment you haven't seen any of her. However, I wouldn't say this trip has been a total loss. Y'all knew that the devils were up to something, though no one was really certain what. But now, you know where the devils are, that they have an invasion fleet, that they're apparently working with Graz'zt, and that all the Lords of Hell except for Mephistopheles have been united for some reason (most likely some sort of an attack).

Not exactly a wasted trip. Unless you all die.

[Nai_Calus]

Originally Posted by DSCrankshaw

So if Eltain swoops in and rescues us, does that ruin our chances of completing our mission here? Didn't we come here to try to find someone?

Yes, we did. However:

1. We have no idea where in this giant mess of fiendish ships the people we're after are being kept.

2. We haven't, at any point, actually had a chance to look for them; y'all have been in the arena, Eltain and Zyrr have been having company, so there wasn't much chance of actually succeeding at it to begin with, which then promptly got even worse.

3. Y'all are likely rapidly heading for a TPK. Only one of those two is actually bloodied and we're rapidly running out of the healing we keep needing every round. Thrull I know is out of everything but emergency healing. (And I mean emergency; he's got a PP utility that lets him interrupt to slap a big penalty on an incoming attack and allows a surge to be spent if it hits anyway, and a daily utility that lets him allow someone who drops to 0 from an attack to spend a surge.) We will accomplish absolutely nothing at all if the party dies.

4. Eltain and Zyrr are loose, but have naturally managed to get themselves into trouble. We're not going to be able to look for anyone, and we still have no idea where the prisoners are being kept so the search can only be narrowed to 'somewhere in this fleet'.

5. As Jon mentioned, we have at least learned things that are rather important, so it's not a total loss. Unless, of course, TPK.

6. As much as it galls Eltain, who has not forgotten why we came, to leave people who may well be innocents in the hands of devils, he at least realizes that if they're important enough to kidnap and then lie about, they're probably, if not comfortable and not doing something that accomplishes anything but evil, at least alive and probably likely to stay such. However, his friends may not stay such, so his natural inclination is to try to do accomplish what good he can, and try to rescue his friends. He doesn't know where the captives are, or if he can even help them if he could find them; however he does know where his friends are, and has no expectation that even if they win that they'll get released/not killed; further with Pavick's skillset it's likely that if they found out about it, he'd also be enslaved, and he's not willing to allow that to happen and is already angry at himself for letting the arena fight happen.

-----

I'm still not sure how I'm going to retrieve Zyrr. :P Eltain kind of totally abandoned him. And totally feels bad about it. Mostly.

[Hzurr]

Originally Posted by Nai_Calus

Yes, we did. However:

1. We have no idea where in this giant mess of fiendish ships the people we're after are being kept.

2. We haven't, at any point, actually had a chance to look for them; y'all have been in the arena, Eltain and Zyrr have been having company, so there wasn't much chance of actually succeeding at it to begin with, which then promptly got even worse.

Yep, that does pose a problem. That meeting with Zorella didn't quite go as y'all hoped.

3. Y'all are likely rapidly heading for a TPK. Only one of those two is actually bloodied and we're rapidly running out of the healing we keep needing every round. Thrull I know is out of everything but emergency healing. (And I mean emergency; he's got a PP utility that lets him interrupt to slap a big penalty on an incoming attack and allows a surge to be spent if it hits anyway, and a daily utility that lets him allow someone who drops to 0 from an attack to spend a surge.) We will accomplish absolutely nothing at all if the party dies.

Well, the Pit Fiend is hurting bad, and the dragon is almost bloodied. And weren't you going to crash a spelljammer on the dragon?

But yeah, this is a tough fight. Not aided by that ridiculous run of bad rolling y'all had mid-fight. Absolute worse case scenario, Pavick always has his "crap, make a portal, let's run" ability.

I'm still not sure how I'm going to retrieve Zyrr. :P Eltain kind of totally abandoned him. And totally feels bad about it. Mostly.

Yep. Interested to see what Toric comes up with...

[DSCrankshaw]

Honestly, I think we can win this fight. Even without crashing the ship on the dragon, Pavick could send him away for a bit, and give us a chance to pound on the pit fiend until he stops moving. Then it's us against the dragon--a tough fight considering how low on resources we are, but I give us decent odds, especially if he stays away long enough for us to prepare.

And I still have some healing left. One skald's aura use, and a healing zone I haven't conjured yet.

[dariathalon]

Yeah, Pavick does still have a few portals up his sleeve. One will send an enemy away for at least a round. It is usually longer, but I'm not sure how the enemies' abilities will interact with the power. The power says they don't get any actions until they make their save. It seems like it takes them an action to end an effect, so it might stick, but I wouldn't count on it.

He can also create his get out of trouble free portal, but that would have the disadvantages of leaving some of the party behind (and probably the jammer and it's crew). Pavick isn't ruling it out, but he hasn't reached the point of desperation required to do it, yet.

[Hzurr]

Originally Posted by DSCrankshaw

Honestly, I think we can win this fight. Even without crashing the ship on the dragon, Pavick could send him away for a bit, and give us a chance to pound on the pit fiend until he stops moving. Then it's us against the dragon--a tough fight considering how low on resources we are, but I give us decent odds, especially if he stays away long enough for us to prepare.

And I still have some healing left. One skald's aura use, and a healing zone I haven't conjured yet.

Oh, I agree that y'all can win this fight. A bit of focus fire, and things are looking good. I don't think you can win it without at least 1 death, possibly more. Now, that could be someone like Karlvan who is just a temporary PC, but it could also be one of the core members of the party.

[Orsik Vondal]

Ash can try to find out where Lu is. Given she is within 5 miles of where we are now. I have a utility that lets me send a planar ally out to find people and things. I say we banish/jammer-smash the dragon and wail on the pit fiend. Then take down the dragon if we didn't kill it with the jammer. Also has anyone thought of pointing his attention to the bridge where his comrades are arguing with Baalzebul? We might be able to point him that way and get him killed by Baalzebul's guards. Just a thought.

[DSCrankshaw]

Who are we waiting on? And is everyone out of the way of the crashing airship?

[Hzurr]

Originally Posted by DSCrankshaw

Who are we waiting on? And is everyone out of the way of the crashing airship?

We're waiting on Toric to post for Zyrr/Karlvan, and Mando Knight to post for Aramil.

As far as the crashing airship, that'll happen during the next mid-round. I believe Eltain is steering it towards a dragon (Nai, let me know if that's incorrect), and with his nat 20 on the charisma check, he can put it just about anywhere he wants it. Now, if the Dragon has grabbed someone (either in a claw or in a mouth, that could make things interesting...

[Mando Knight]

Well, there's a whiff.