[4E] Snowbody's Keep on the Shadowfell OOC

[Snowbody]

I know -- I was being sarcastic.

Sorry that this encounter isn't set up to either challenge you or play to your strengths. The forest cover is messing with everybody, but I think the dice roller hates drama at this point.

It should improve; the kobold minions are all out of javelins and are going to have to fight up close now, which will result in them bunching up out of necessity. You ought to be able to clear out a bunch of them in a round or two. (They still won't be able to do any damage to you.)

I may have to introduce the dreaded "escalation die" -- it starts out at 1, goes up once a round or whenever someone does something awesome, and it's added as a bonus to all PCs' attacks.

[Snowbody]

Everybody's missing too much. The problem is the cover, nobody having any way to negate it. Now I see why most DMs ignore it in this encounter.

Here's my proposal for a retcon:

- Zimelda hit the Dragonshield, and
- the Quickblade hit Zimelda

As a result, Zimelda loses a few HP, but gives the bonus to Arjhan, who then kills the dragonshield.

All in favor?

[Lycan 01]

I'm willing to make that sacrifice for the good of the team.

[Shadow_Elf]

Sure, if Lycan's cool with it, that's fine.

[tedthehunter]

Aye, I'm cool with it if Lycan can suffer the HP loss.

[Lycan 01]

So, who's turn is it? My turn?

[Snowbody]

I owe a turn. Sorry, kids keeping me up all night, leading me to choose to when I have spare time.

I'm going to strikethrough the portions of my old posts that was retconned, and just make a new post with that, and also the results of the attacks by the minions and slinger.

Then it will be Mertes & Arjhan's turn.

[Lycan 01]

Lolth damn it.


I was going after Minion 4. I don't think me and Alessa are angled in the right way for me to get a +2 flanking bonus. Darn! Me and Arjhan could have used those buffs!

[Snowbody]

Truly sorry you missed -- that was some awesome fluff. (No flanking bonus; you've got to be on opposite sides or corners unless one of the combatants is larger-sized)

Alessa to save the day?

[Lycan 01]

Guess I should strike it out, then, unless somebody can come up with a way for me to get a +2 bonus.

[Dekkah]

Since I am in a tree 10 square away.. I doubt I can help you Lycan ...

[Snowbody]

How about this. We'll hold your turn off until after Alessa. If Alessa ends up in flanking position, then you'll have the CA and hit.

[Shadow_Elf]

Damnit, sorry Lycan. I went IC to do my turn before I saw the discussion OOC. It wouldn't have mattered if I'd missed one of the minions, actually, since the zone from Splash makes them grant CA, but those were apparently all hits.

EDIT: Aaaaand just saw the PM notification from Snowbody. Damn.

What I could of done instead is slide to the right and only splash the two rightmost minions. It's the same end result as my current turn, but Zimelda gets her buffs and her fluff.

[Snowbody]

...if Alessa uses her move action to maneuver to (l,4) then lycan's plan still works, as zimelda can attack minion 4 with CA.

[Shadow_Elf]

Does it have to be minion 4? I moved all the way around instead, figuring that one minion's as good as any. If not, I'll use that move as you described above and shift/move accordingly to give her flanking against the correct one.

[Snowbody]

or (n,2). That works too. Let's see if the Quickblade's OA does anything:

Quickblade OA - (1d20+4)[7](11) vs AC 16 for (1d6+11)[13] damage

[Shadow_Elf]

Aww, that's cute, he almost did 2 damage to her! Too bad he missed .

[I have a swarm druid in the game that I run as well, and he's found a way to get 10 THP every other turn. I've just given up on doing damage to him, and instead drain his surges by killing his summoned pets ]

[Snowbody]

On second thought, since minion 4 is still a valid target, the target can't be changed, n2 doesn't work, l4 it is. The quickblade misses Alessa and the maneuver succeeds.

[Dekkah]

Noting Shadow_elf comment, the spy Dekkah thinks : maybe I should warn Amirah!

[Snowbody]

Originally Posted by Shadow_Elf

Aww, that's cute, he almost did 2 damage to her! Too bad he missed .

[I have a swarm druid in the game that I run as well, and he's found a way to get 10 THP every other turn. I've just given up on doing damage to him, and instead drain his surges by killing his summoned pets ]

That's the hourglass/sea of swords game, right? Wow, that's an impressive game.

"Why isn't she squishy? Controllers are supposed to be squishy! Boo hoo!"

Once word gets out about swarm druids, though, there are plenty of things that the enemies can do. Attacks that directly drain healing surges, or impose Slowed/Weakened/diseases/etc. Also I note your area at-will powers aren't exactly ally friendly.

[Snowbody]

Double Kill!

(P.S. Kobold, not goblin.)

[Dekkah]

Yeah, I added a bit of fluf in the text now that I know I kill them .

[Snowbody]

Really, I had only one minion go after Zimelda, and that one happened to roll a 19.

[Lycan 01]

Are the kobolds turning their attention towards the boys, or are they still focused on the adventurers?

I believe Zimelda still has her move and minor actions for this turn...

[Snowbody]

Nope, Crabb passed his stealth check (with a 16) to puke quietly. All of the kobolds have a passive perception of 11. They think it was Alessa doing something.

[Snowbody]

Everyone done with their turns? That hit kills the Quickblade.

As there are no strong enemies nearby, Rat will direct Goyle to fire at a minion, unless someone tells him otherwise (free action). This will only break Goyle's stealth. Crabb can't fire because he's puking.

[Lycan 01]

Zimelda will wave him off. If the boys can't even keep their lunches down from seeing a few teeth get knocked out, then getting dragged into a straight-up fight is a very unwise choice.


...


We should catch one or two of them alive so we can teach the boys how to kill.


And yeah, my turn's over. Go team!

[Shadow_Elf]

Well, I had hoped to prone it to keep it off of the boys, but apparently it is now prone because it is dead. That's a nice bonus.

I could wipe the remaining minions out in a couple of turns, if it weren't for their damnable shift out of AoEs schtick. As it is, it would be preferable for Zimelda and Arjhan to spread out, because the battlefield's about to be carpet bombed with waves, vortexes and all other manner of watery doom.

[Snowbody]

They can only do the Narrow Escape once per encounter, and half of them have already used it.

[Snowbody]

Dekkah, tedthehunter, you're up -- the quickblade would have gone first in initiative but he's dead.