Tom is preparing to cast Magic Missile if required.
Please can he use an ability (say Spellcraft?) to see if it matters whether he aims the spell at:
- the plant behind the man
- the creeper linking the plant and the man
- the man
Tom is preparing to cast Magic Missile if required.
Please can he use an ability (say Spellcraft?) to see if it matters whether he aims the spell at:
- the plant behind the man
- the creeper linking the plant and the man
- the man
You have no line of sight (nor line of effect) to the plant itself. It is unclear whether the creeper should be considered part of the plant or part of the man (assuming the creeper is indeed part of the plant) or indeed a separate entity. None of your skills covers this, but I will allow you to target the creeper if you wish.
*You may recall that in AD&D a Giant Frog can grab enemies with its tongue, and the tongue itself can be targeted in such a case.
"Non-lethal violence is my second-favorite kind!"
Archer
Thank you.Quote:
Originally posted by Malacandra
As soon as Gabe gives the go-ahead, I will Magic Missile the creeper (a couple of times if necessary.)
P.S. I remember Giant Frogs in a Moathouse - from the excellent introductory module 'Village of Hommlett'!
How far out from the door is the man? Is there enough room for any of our trusty burrahobbits or other nimble types to cut in behind him and sever the creeper that is running back into the shack? Perhaps that will free him from the influence of the weed.
I'm sure Eli can be described as a nimble Hobbit, but although Tom is also dextrous, he doesn't even have an edged weapon!
I'm confused (what else is new!). The discussions here... couldn't these be discussed in-character by the PCs? Or is this more behind-the-scenes stuff? Still trying to get a feel for what's in-game and what isn't.
I'm confused (what else is new!). The last few comments here among us... could these be discussed in-character by the PCs? Or is this more behind-the-scenes stuff? Still trying to get a feel for what's in-game and what isn't.
Band name!Quote:
Originally posted by glee
Choie,Quote:
Originally posted by choie
it is a close decision which thread to post in.
My belief is that DMs like to see a 'clean' game thread (i.e. just player actions and DM descriptions), which spectators can read through and enjoy the adventure.
So if your character takes an action or says something - that's the game thread.
If you want to ask rule questions, get the layout or see if your character is allowed to do a specific action (e.g. Tom attacking the creeper, not the man), then they definitely go in this accompanying thread.
So when Appleciders wanted to know how much room there was, it goes in here. And Tom's reply wouldn't make sense by itself in the game thread ... so it also went here.
Hope that helps!
^ this
Choie,
I find the battle scenes amongst the best bits ... and your first one is coming up! :D
Malacandra,
I have got rather excited as the first battle looms. :woowoo:
What Tom wants is to use just a few (say 1-3) Magic Missiles to hopefully release the plant's grip on the Swordsman.
As soon as the link is broken (or if 3 spells aren't enough), he stops casting.
He wants to save his last two Magic Missiles for the plant itself.
Thank you again glee. Oy, suddenly I'm reminded of high school, when I took Calculus despite barely passing Trigonometry. It turned out about as well as you'd expect: The only F on my report card, and in my senior year, too!
And the Gabe/Gade wars rage on! :)
If I'm translating Rowena's stats correctly, she doesn't have any offensive spells that are likely to affect this man/plant (or "Mant"), since a plant can't see or hear. Rowena is going to try to inspire courage, which should give the gang +1 in morale and competence. (Did I do that right?)
(OTOH, I --through Rowena--just realized that the man must have some use to the plant, quite possibly as he has the vision/hearing the plant lacks. So if the creature gets too close to one of the fighting companions, she'll attempt to Distract it.)
Okay, just a quick run-down on what "Distract" and some other things do:
"Countersong" -- If you have allies who are being enspelled by some sound-based effect (a magic tune, for instance), you can attempt to counter it with a more interesting song or tune of your own.
"Distract" - Similarly, some fascinating effect caused by lights or a visual effect can be countered by your own performance (any kind of look-at-me performance, including Oratory)
"Fascinate" - Draw the attention of a potential foe, but be aware that if it looks like they're about to be threatened they may throw it off, and if they are being threatened they will.
"Inspire Courage" - You have this down right and it may be very useful!
You judge rightly that some creature whose mind is completely gone will be utterly unaffected by any magic or song that is directed at its mind. But it's worth noting that, while it uses up "your turn" to start a performance such as Inspire Courage, once the song is running you can still use your bow or sword while keeping it up.
Ugh, sorry, I misunderstood the Distract/Fascinate thing. Quel surprise. Thanks for the handholding, Mal.
If Rowena can play to inspire courage, can she have her own inspiration to try to play the Roll the Old Chariot song that seemed to encourage Bruno when digging earlier? He seems most likely to attack first.
Of course. But it will be equally effective on all allies within earshot, including herself.
...That was surprisingly short and sweet! Several random factors operated in your favour:
- You had a good idea of the danger, thanks to a very successful Stealth check from Eli while he was scouting, and an equally successful Knowledge(Nature) check from Gabe
- I assumed that Eli would use Stealth to try to set up a Sneak Attack against the man-creature, and my RNG gave him an exceptionally good result; in a straight-up fight he is far less dangerous.
- Eli and Arewe both threw up a couple of very good damage rolls -- even then, the bonus from the Inspire Courage made the difference between the man-creature going down then, or living to melee another round
- Charging straight into combat with the plant-creature was exactly the right approach -- had you looked it over cautiously, you might have found out more than you wanted to know about its hypnotic scent. Of course, another time that might be the wrong approach...
As the dust settles, Gabe is nursing a wound which is troubling for a low-level character, Arewe is out three arrows, Rowena has used up two rounds of Performance, and Tom has burned one spell slot. Otherwise all seems to have gone very well for a first combat.
Tom enjoyed that!
Can Arewe try to recover arrows?
When I was a teacher, I ran a school roleplaying group. They were tremendously enthusiastic.
After their first combat (against a few goblins), one pupil asked "Sir, have we gone up a level?!" :)
Not to accuse you of making a meta-enquiry there glee, but no you haven't. :D
Ordinary ammunition tends to be of the "one shot and it's gone" variety, especially since Arewe has no particular skill in fletching or otherwise repairing used ammunition. Unusual ammunition might be reusable, or at any rate recoverable for a discount on replacements. The single arrow that missed its target would in theory be recoverable, but a cursory search of the area doesn't turn it up amid the tall weeds and occasional stagnant pool. Let's hope the party is able to resupply long before it's an issue :)
Victory is ours! Thanks, DM. That was fun.
Yes, thanks so much for that first glimpse of battle (for me and Rowena, anyway)! Really well described and exciting to watch unfold!
Re: the arrow thing... I suppose Rowena wouldn't be able to lend Arewe a few of her remarkably bountiful supply?
It's embarrassing to admit I thought the plant was living inside the house, since the Mant was walking out the door. But no, the plant was just extending an "arm" through the house and into the Mant?
What Rowena can do is use the abundant ammunition spell on Arewe's quiver; as long as there's even one arrow in it, it will never run out while the spell lasts. But the spell does not last long ("one fight", roughly, if you cast the spell at the start of the fight -- it lasts a minute, at your level; too short to cast it in advance). While you could stand there passing ammunition from your own supply, this would use up your turn all the time and slow Arewe down to single shots.
Yes, there was a creeper running all the way through the house; Eli saw the plant behind the house but couldn't get a clear view inside.
Sorry to be a pest*, but I am still concerned about party healing.
Can Gabe cure himself fully now (he's still down 3 hp) or does he have to wait until tomorrow?
If Gabe (one of our brave front rankers) is knocked down in future, can any of us help him recover (e.g. Heal Skill)?
*Tom is concerned, since the weedwhip blow of 8hp would have KO'd him! :(
Tom is hopefully smart enough to use a meat shield and not take melee damage (not from the weedwhip, that was the foul-smelling but unaggressive plant you found earlier, though Tom may get them confused). Gabe will get a hit point back overnight, if you have someone who has both the Heal skill and a healer's kit then you can double this (and that scales with level). Gabe has no further spells remaining but could load two tomorrow if he so chose.
Going forward, the party can probably find a potion merchant in Dale and they might find one in a smaller settlement. Rowena is able to learn cure light wounds at a future level-up, as early as 2nd if she wishes. Or you may find some other healing item somewhere. At the moment your problem is the well-known one known as "being first level" and the occasional inconvenience is part of the package.
Don't worry - danger will scale along with your ability to deal with it :)
Thanks - that's just the way I likes it!
Fair enough - Tom was just getting both excited and nervous!
Would someone care to draw up a watch rota, or is everyone just going to crash and hope for the best? ;)
Choie,
you and the others may be amused that Tom considered - and rejected - one further argument in favour of staying on guard in the hut tonight:
"If anyone does get killed, I shall go on and on about how we could have saved them. And if I get killed, I will haunt your dreams!" :woowoo:
Hee, he should've said it aloud! Love that. Rowena would've been thrilled by it.
Speaking of whom, I edited her last few lines since I felt her voice sounded more like one of my ST:RPG characters (EH--Nia, of course; no one sounds like Kylah!) rather than Rowena, whom I still haven't got the hang of yet. I improved on the names of potential hunters, so if anyone can suggest a better, more Middle-earth term for "brigands" et al. let me know!
Brigands ...
Bandits / Rogues / (Tomb) Robbers / Outlaws / Raiders?
(Some of these come from Lord of the Rings Online.)
We seem to be 2 - 1 in favour of finding a camp spot in the swamp, with no commitment either way from Rowena and nothing from Gabe or Arewe. If I don't hear anything else in about twelve hours from now, I'll move you on. (And to answer Rowena's question, yes, someone has the dead guy's sword.)
Highwaymen, marauders, ruffians, footpads, thugs, desperadoes, dacoits...?
And thanks, Malacandra.
Heh, thanks all for the vocabulary! I'll have Rowena keep them in mind, since she's the sort of person who'd probably love to imagine such roving bands of mischief-makers but wouldn't actually enjoy the non-swashbuckling reality.
(And thanks for the confirmation on the sword, Malacandra!)
To say nothing of monsters, creatures, predators, fiends, horrors, terrors, spooks, bugaboos and boogeymen.
Oh, and be warned choie, once you start versifying in character it's a habit that's hard to break. :)
I like the challenge, though hopefully there's no "Versify!" spell for some enemy to drop on her.
In the ST:RPG's second mission, there was a formal dinner where my character (a semi-royal young woman from a non-Federation planet) happened to mention that she liked some of her home planet's epic poetry. I, um, hadn't considered the vulnerable position I'd placed myself in, and sure enough our dastardly GM had an NPC ask her to recite some of her favorite poem. So in my next post I had to write a poem that would justify my highborn, well-educated/cultured character's admiration. (Thanks, Elendil's Heir!)
I'm just glad that Rowena is a beginning bard whose neophyte taste and talent are somewhat offset by her moderately high CHA score.
Choie,
Thanks for the verse - not an easy thing to achieve!
Elendil's Heir, I think there was a misunderstanding about the dangerous yellow powder in the hut - it was safely confined in small packets |(not spread around.)
DM, I did ask Gabe to look at the yellow powder - is it too late to assume we brought it with us?
I am happy for the party to have brought anything from the hut or the dead body, just try to mention it reasonably soon :)
Understood, all, and thanks.
choie, you more than rose to the occasion of composing Elasian poetry upon demand back in the day!
Tom wonders if the woman will suddenly exclaim "Thank goodness you've arrived! Another huge dragon has returned to the Mountain to wreak havoc. Go forth and fight it to the death!"
Whereupon he will reply "Ah sorry, madam - an innocent mistake. We are in fact the party that deals with vicious plant life or a very small band of goblins. I expect a suitable band of dragon-slaying heroes will be along shortly..."
But sensibly he keeps those thoughts to himself.
It's funny you should s..
Ah no, don't want to give too much of the campaign away. ;)
Whew!
Thanks very much for your kind words, EH. That was a baptism of fire but well deserved. Kylah kinda walked right into that one. :D
And Mal (do you mind that nickname?), thanks for the repost of Westerly's tale! Hmm, he does say he prefers free-range mountain sheep, but maybe if peckish enough he'll settle for the fast-food version? :)
Let's assume Rowena has a relatively sharp mind/eye (and btw she'd be quite chuffed if she knew Tom's assessment!) but poor memory/big-picture strategy capabilities, a combo that kinda suits her respectable INT but anemic WIS.
Speaking of stats... is there any tradition in play-by-post games of our sharing our character sheets, omitting anything that is best kept hidden due to secrecy/backstory purposes? EH did so in the ST:RPG in a dedicated thread for character bios/stats, and I found (and still find) it very useful, even though stats and other game mechanics are far less emphasized there.
But with such mechanics being vastly more involved in this game, I'm just wondering if knowing the other PCs' general makeup, including spells and such, would help us know what's what without kinda spoiling the narrative by having characters actually refer to numbers and spell slots and such. Unless it's assumed that this is just how the world works and everyone knows meta stuff like that. Just throwing it out there. Maybe it's up to us as players to figure out how to share the info in-game without letting the "gameiness" of the universe interject and harm immersion.
Finally, OMG Stebb is it "Gade" or "Gabe"??? :iiam: :D
Rowena,
Tom has already mentioned some of his abilities and I'm happy to give more detail here. (It's up to each player what they feel comfortable with - personally I think it does help party co-ordination...)
Tom is a Sorcerer, which means he relies on entirely spells. (He wears no Armour and his only weapon is a Quarterstaff - which only does a measly 'd4-1' damage as Tom has low Strength.)
He has high Dexterity and Charisma (typical of Hobbits) and a decent Constitution.
Unlike some other spellcasters, he doesn't have to prepare specific spells - thought he has the usual limit on how many he can cast at each level.
As a 1st level Sorcerer he gets to cast four 1st level spells per day, plus the usual unlimited amount of Cantrips (= 0 level spells.)
He currently has a choice of two 1st level spells: Magic Missile (does d4+1 damage; only blocked by his other spell Shield, which also improves Tom's defence.)
His best Skills are: Knowledge (of the Arcane); Spellcraft; Stealth and using Magical Devices.
If Tom goes up a level (fingers crossed), he hopes to get an extra 1st level spell to choose from. If he makes higher levels :woowoo: , he will get higher level spells.
"Gade," per post 1 in the game thread. But the two names do seem be used more or less interchangeably.Quote:
Originally posted by choie
Oh I know, that's what's confusing me. I'm hoping to get the info straight from the horse's mouth, if Stebb will forgive me calling him equine after already confusing him for a woman and/or a dude earlier. :)Quote:
Originally posted by Elendil's Heir
I've been assuming this is some kind of sound created between the two, that might be transliterated into English as either "D" or "B", but isn't really either. After all, if I remember the appendices from ROTK correctly, masculine Hobbit names typically end in "a" ("Frodo" would properly be "Froda"), and Tolkein anglicized them to make them more accessible to an English audience.Quote:
Originally posted by Elendil's Heir"Gade," per post 1 in the game thread. But the two names do seem be used more or less interchangeably.Quote:
Originally posted by choie
And if it isn't clear, Arewe is not offering to hunt the Eagles with Briagha; she's being deliberately vague about "help" as a way to suss out what Briagha thinks happened.
Poor Tom doesn't get a first-level spell at his next level-up, but the one after that. He gets a cantrip at 2nd; but at 3rd, not only does he get a 1st-level spell of his choice, but the (Arcane) bloodline manifests itself by granting the identify spell.Quote:
Originally posted by glee
Knowing few spells is the cross all sorcerers bear, and means that when the player picks a new spell, it had better be one they're really likely to use. On the other hand, not only is Tom able to Use Magical Device to get, say, a wand or staff to play nice, but a device that contains any spell that a sorcerer could use will almost certainly work just fine for him.
There are also a few items you may come across that allow you to "know" an extra spell. My sorcerer in a campaign I played up to the start of this year had a set of mnemonic vestments, which allow you to treat a spell on any written source in your possession (scroll or book) as if you knew it, once per day. That plus a spellbook plundered from a powerful wizard made for immense flexibility... but don't expect anything like that to come along for a while. ;)
Tom is quite content to get less spells - it's the balance for being able to cast any of his spells without having to choose them at the start of the day.
He looks forward to another cantrip to cast 'at will' (Detect Magic is already proving both useful and fun.)
Also I am a fan not just of Tolkien and roleplaying, but also Sherlock Holmes and CSI Vegas. So investigating a murder (even of a sheep) is doubly enjoyable! :iiam:
Indeed.
As to "Gabe" or "Gade," I just remember that of the two, "Gade" is the more unusual, and we are in Middle-earth, after all....
Definitely, that certainly makes sense! Maybe Stebb will let us know his preference so we're all on the same page. Until them I'm stuck writing "the Druid" and that feels out of character for Rowena's more casual conversation style.
Speaking of which.. um... has my gal been hit with a Mute or Silence spell that I didn't notice? I wouldn't blame the rest of the gang if they jointly agreed to cast it on her, she is pretty chatty.