DM themed play-by-post D&D game : OOC thread

[beowuuf]

No, but the ones further down were - just wanted to make the character threads have their own 'sectton' in the sticky area really.

[Ameena]

Ahh I didn't notice you'd stickied them. Yeah, I suppose that's a good way of having the two main "types" of post in their own section, then .

[ian_scho]

I quite like having a separate thread for the chars, actually. Not being at the top or the bottom meant that precious seconds of my life was flitted away on a wheely mouse

[beowuuf]

Oh, did you guys remember OB was off camping this week? Cause I sure did...ish. So yeah, I might update any character knowledge checks, etc, but otherwise the main story will delay by a day. This gives a day for you guys to enjoy imagining the cavern before it starts turning evil on you, and of course gives me a little more time to get Falkor's timeline synced with yours. At the moment, he's five minutes behind! Plus, you know, I have a large map to draw (and a scale of size to decide upon. Game sizes /rates of movement and and real life sizes kinda fall down a little at times like this...)

Also, remember that I'll be heading off for headbanging Thursday mid-morning or early afternoon. So expect an early cliffhanger then. I'm very tempted to leave a hanging puzzle in each of your character threads as a fun little thing to do during the break until Monday evening

[beowuuf]

Hey guys, shiny map. Like I might have said, been debating about the sizes onthis, just because D&D distances can sometimes scale so horribly. I went for impressively vast over reassuringly useable:

[Ameena]

Hey, cool map . Where are the flowers/Giant Wasps on it, though? I mean, I know from the narrative that they're off to the right of the party, but in terms of specifics on the map...?

[beowuuf]

The flowers were down below and also to the right - they are scattered everywhere. The wasp had been visible on the wall probably about 80 feet away at the kink there. Ameena would be able to tell there is a significant cavern opening under that area too. The cavern is very much ebb and flow rather than being sheer sides. Assume there is alot of cavern floor below you, just you guys are pitched ahead of it higher up. The height of the levels varies between 30 and 50 feet by the way.

Anyway time to go - byeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[Ameena]

Does that "small cascade" come out of the wall above and tumble down onto (and past) the ledge the party is walking along? That is, will they have to pass through it in order to continue, or is it far enough out that they'll be waking underneath it instead?
Since this whole current scenario is probably likely to involve trying to negotiate slippery wet/crumbling rocks at some point, I have this horrible feeling that I with my uber Acrobatics bonuses will fail horribly at every check while the big clumsy half-orc and the heavy, plate-wearing cleric will both roll natural-20s and go skipping happily past everything .

[ian_scho]

Yep, nice map
Have you done this 'stuff' before? It seems like a good job!

[beowuuf]

Not really, I'm terrible at art. There are just some tricks for passable map making. Using DM style graphics where lo-res looks ok helps

The small cascade is indeed starting at the level above and splashing ont othe path of the ledge on the current level then spilling out to hit down below. So yes, all the wacky armour wearers with their lower check will be in trouble. It's almost like takign the short route means you guys also need to start using some ofthat equipment you have like ropes, spikes, etc. And your brains

And yes, I fully expect the murafu to take a face plant into the waters below and everyone else to somehow survive.

[Ameena]

Basically, all I probably have to do is just not roll a 1.
So...one crit-fail coming up then, eh?
Next IC post I make I'll make the roll for passing through the watery bit of ledge, if we've got that far by then (can't see why we wouldn't - there's nothing actively trying to stop us right now ).

[beowuuf]

Oh yeah, I'm back btw Will do update later on. We seem to have misplaced money though?

[beowuuf]

@OB: I'll repost this (and the rest of the spell stuff) later, but for now here's the BRO based spells you've immediately unlocked:

Heal self (VI BRO NETA):
Caster regains 2 x (spell level-1) + 1 hit points. Multiple spells can be cast together as a fullround action, stacking in spell level to a maximum of the caster's highest spell level.

Heal party (VI BRO RA):
The caster, and everyone he touches (or who touches him) regain the spell level in hit points. The caster can use 0-level spell effects to rule out opponents who touch him. The caster cannot heal more people than half his clerical level rounded down (including himself).

Shield potion (YA BRO):
Create potion if flask in hand. When drunk, energises person and anything worn/held with protective energy. +1 enhancement bonus to AC per spell level for clerics level/2 rounds. AC bonus cannot be greater than duration remaining. Magical enhancement bonuses from armour or other spell do not stack - highest is used. All items also gain this bonus to any toughness checks and also gain temporary hit points equal to the value.

Anti-poison serum (VI BRO):
Kicks off a new (non-damaging) saving throw against one poison affect. The saving throw gains a bonus of the spell level and half the cleric's level. Multiple potions can be consumed together during a round to trigger a single saving throw with a stacked bonus. The spell level bonus cannot raise above +9, and only one clerical level bonus is applied.

I had to alter the healing spells, due to the previous versions I had done being pitched for much higher character levels, and also being created before a paladin and his lay on hands ability was going to be with a PC. Hopefully they are still useful, yet balanced with other healing options. Will need to observe how it goes as we play!

[oh_brother]

Oh dear. Roll was 11. I don't know what modifiers I get, but I am guessing they are all negative.

I should have removed my boots, but I thought that was over kill and would delay things.

[beowuuf]

Yeah, sorry I was off so there wasn't more of a tipping off/ build up there before it got sprung on you. Still, now you know why I did say it was trecherous, and more importantly you now realise I'm going to do evil things to you guys for using the shorter route onwards. Especially the one that lets me do evil things to the bullet proof tanks so they earn their higher AC! Note to players: yes, I would also do evil thigns to do doing the longer route. Just different evil things

Your athletics bonus is +2 for your strength score, but you have an ACP of -6, so right now you have a 7

I think the way I combined the AC bonus and ACP penalty for armour, removing the boots alone would have not actually helped that much anyway - you would have still been overbalanced, and still had your legs restricted by the greaves. I think the ACP is still -2 for either greaves/poleyn parts on their own, but combined they only stack up to -3ACP (so you would have had a combined ACP of -5ACP without boots, and AC bonus of +6).


Note to Ameena - player actions do matter. So if Ameena assumes there's nothing she can do and waits to see what will happen, it really is a fair bet Westian will end up in the water! Well, we'll see, there's two action's worth of stuff, and Haynuus hasn't acted yet. It's just not looking good for Westian staying on his feet right now - I thnk he'll be dangling off a ledge soon

[Ameena]

Wasn't aware there was a shorter/longer route - I didn't think any of us knew where we were supposed to be going, so given the choice between the possible directions, the one we took seemed safest. Well, you know, at least it didn't have aggressive-seeming creatures down it .
As for what Ameena can do in the current situation, I'm not really sure what she can realistically do except try to give advice - physically she'll be moe or less useless I'm sure - not only is she too small and light to really be able to try and pull Westy back up onto the ledge, Haynuus is in the way anyway so she wouldn't be able to get to him.
What happened to the staff, btw? Wasn't Westy holding it? Or did he manage to stick it through the straps of his backpack or something?

[beowuuf]

Well, I assumed in the absense of anything else showing up, you guys would aim for the main waterfall as the opposing side of the cavern, so must admit internally I've been thinking of the left and right hand path as short/long route. I think I termed it like that to Westian. By no means is the waterfall the destination...or at least, the only destination. And, of course, nothing says that you aren't currently surrounded by creatures top and bottom all the way around

OB didn't really mention the staff, did he? Hmm, that's a good question for OB to answer, but all things being equal, I think it's either dropped on the ledge near him, or poking out from his pack. So if anyone wants to use it in any way, that might be an idea.

See, it's these sort of questions that stop people dropping into the water!

[Ameena]

Well, I was gonna have Ameena suggest taht Westy pull out the staff and stick it into a hole in the rocks or something, to give himself a bit of leverage. But as both his hands are currently occupied (and the more I'm typing this the more I think it sounds increasingly dodgy but I can't be arsed to try and rephrase it ), so I didn't bother with that.
As for working our way around the cavern, I hadn't thought of heading specifically for the waterfall - Ameena was just keeping her eyes (and ears and nose and whiskers and all that) open/alert for anything interesting - you mentioned there were various entrances/exits around the walls (like the one the party came through), but haven't specified where they are. I just figured in the end the group will get to one (or at least near enough that they can try and climb up/down to it) and go through it or something - I can't see what the weird glowy waterfall can be useful for unless there's anything to be seen behind it, or something.
But for now, I think we better concentrate on helping Westian to not become Water Elemental food, or whatever .

[beowuuf]

I was away to post in the story thread, but I'll post here I guess! And yeah, there are various exits, just some you might not want to take

About Natural 1s and 20s, I'm not being nice on this occasion, outside of combat 1 and 20 mean nothing special in D&D. Usually 20 meets a DC20 naturally unless you have penalties applied, so it tends to get you a good result even with no bonuses, but that's about it.

The climbing skills page is here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/climb.htm

I'm setting the DC of the wall as 25 to climb (sort of a compromise between a natural wall at DC25, or a wall with narrow hand holds at DC20 that's also wet for +5). So Ameena should have been able to hit that with a bit of luck... sadly, a 1 and a 5 aren't good!

Join me on the IC thread to find out how bad!

[Ameena]

Ahh, must be a sort of house-rule thingy at the club I go to, then (the natural-numbers thing). Well, that's good to know, lol.

[beowuuf]

Yeah, some people liek to have crit and fumbles for everything on a 1 and 20. Some game systems also do have that. But the plain D&D game, nope, only attack rolls have crits and fumbles.

Call of Cthulhu has critical failures and impales in combat, and the rules even suggest allowing those on skills checks. I think Dark Heresy is a similar system, so you can have really good and bad things happening at a certain perceptntage of your skill - or on a less than 5% more than 95% roll

[Ameena]

Yeah, in DH a crit-fail is 96-100 (we did have it on 95 but then one player pointed out it should be 96+ because otherwise what's six numbers of fail, if you get what I mean), and a crit-pass is 1-5. We have the crit-pass/fail thing in DnD too, though - for example if you roll a 1 on Perception you'll probably just fall flat on your face or walk into a wall or something.

[beowuuf]

Yeah, I had a GM so something similar in one of my first 3.5 games (a natural 1 ot a -10 penalty, a natural 20 got a +10 bonus). So my policeman like knight, with good perception, sitting at a bar with his money pouch firmly held against pick pockets got pick pocketed by a thief, even though the thief on his own could not have beaten the perception I rolled.

In D&D the gamespace is balanced pretty wide in terms of doing actions. In combat, you want to be able to fail or succeed, but out of combat there is enough width for some cool results, without pulling off impossible successes or indeed being unduly punished for low rolls if you are proficient.

[oh_brother]

Sadly, no luck with the dice! I rolled a 10, what's with all the crappy rolls?

What happened to the staff, btw? Wasn't Westy holding it? Or did he manage to stick it through the straps of his backpack or something?

I first thought you were just worried about losing the magic staff! The staff is in Westian's backpack (see char sheet). The sword and shield are currently equipped. But while I did not mention it specifically, or change my char sheet, I assume from the description of trying to hold onto the wall that it can be assumed they were not in his hands as he crossed.

Anyway Westian is falling, I hope Ameena is one of those super-strong murafu that I just created in my head.

[beowuuf]

Hey, don't doubt the cunning of your companions! Ian might have a clever idea for Haynuus to attempt... who knows.

Oh well, I'll double check my maths, but I think the distressed murafu can actually hold onto you as long as you don't struggle :p Lifting you up or anything like that...not so much. Basically, you'll probably be able to grab hold of the wall once Ameena catches you. It will then be an undisturbed climb back up to the top for both of you, with no interruptions or attacks.

Did I say attacks? I meant... interruptions. Yes, I'm sure Hyanuus will figure stuff out before you fall.... O.O

[Ameena]

So if the ledge gave way beneath Westian's feet, does this mean that Aurek now has a gap to try and get across once Westian is rescued (or falls in the water...ooh I just reminded myself of the Goon Show)? Oh well, he is a paladin with big, plated, paladin feet - I'm sure he can manage it .
Somehow I think Ameena's cloak's probably not gonna end up proving that useful on this occasion - she'll be getting water up her arse right now, won't she? Oh well, she can have a good shake-off once they reach a drier section.
And now I think of it, I hope we don't get attacked by Water Elementals - to my knowledge, neither the Des nor Ew runes have come up yet, nor does anyone possess anything even vaguely resembling a vorpal blade .
Then again, we still have no clue where Falkor's gone, so I suppose anything could be happening to him right now .

[beowuuf]

Actually, Falkor's decision to embrace the alternate memories allowed DES EW to sneak into his reach. Thoug hthe fact he doens't quite have the spell yet, and is also no where near you, is perhaps no use right now

[Ameena]

Ooh, Falkor's taken the FR set of memories too now? Cool .
I know there's that thread which presumably is what's happening to him right now, but I've not been reading it so as not to risk tainting my character knowledge by finding out what the hell he's actually up to at the moment .
Meanwhile...eek, cleric gonna go splat . Or splash. But I think I've decided. Off I go to the other thread...

[beowuuf]

It's not as clear cut as that, but a little bit And I look forward to seeing whether you splat or splash the cleric

I'm glad that at least some of the stuff works out. And at least Haynuus being stable means that even though he didn't catch Westian, Aurek managed to grab Haynuus and so stabalise them both. Anyway, let's see what happens to your poor cleric (off to IC thread)

[beowuuf]

Ok, I think the map shoudl belive now, sorry, forgot to post thelink:



The faded grey/light blue area is me superimposing the upper level whene Haynuus and Aurek are onto the map of the lower level. As you might spot, only a small amout of the walls top and bottom are common to each other (so the cavern floor visible under the ledge is just a floor). Much more of the underneath are actually miniature caverns buried into the wall. Basically, the wall under the ledges above then sharping curve about fifteen to twenty feet (or in some cases thirty feet) off the cavern floor to form a wall. The trolins and grak-graks probably properly disappeard into the common wall at the indicated area. They might come back

Anyway, just waiting for Westian's actions, but given I've already updated today, that's not an issue. We'll see how you are all set up for the weekend cliffhanger (haha, see what I did there?) Hopefully, the coming battle will be interesting enough for you...after all, you've got so many levels to play in! And you are doing so noisily and obviously where anything can come at you from up to two level above, and also from the walls around or from the water itself. Shame Falkor has to miss the fun, you could do with some long range firepower perhaps...

See you tomorrow!