Dungeon Master Forum

Suddenly the odds seem much sweeter. And non-lethal attacks maybe on their way!

You are completely free to do whatever you like, really, completely, just to point out these guys have plate armour and you guys don't. Unless you plan to roll back-to-back 20s, you miiiiight find the -4 attack roll penalty is a little unbalancing

Ok, that's a little extreme, you aren't that bad, but yeah, just saying.... bonuses good, penalties bad.

Ooh..so the new phpBB allows you to merge posts exactly where you want!? Cool!

so can i start with a fireball st. at Arbrut??? please

@gambit: It lets you merge them into another topic, and they will slot in as they were previously posted. But otherwise, yes, we can merge OT into the right T

@money: sounds like you should go right ahead. I assume you are doing this before the good Captain and the other two soldiers come through?

If so, this is how it will work:
Surprise round
1. Money initiates combat and gets a surprise round (1 action, in this case a fireball). So post your fireballing! remmeber you can use up a 0-level effect to add +3 damage if you like
2. Since he has warned Haynuus and I assume Ameena and Helm, they can get an action aswell. So Haynuus and Ameena, post one standard action or move action. Sadly, Westian stormed off, so he will be out of the loop. Then again, also out of harm's way.
Round 1
3. Everyone then rolls initiatve. If you get higher than 19 you get to post another full set of actions. If not, wait for my update. LB, you said aurek would delay, so you will just take last initiative place unless you change your mind.
4. Helm will act (his surprise action plus another if he wins initiative), as will soldier 1 (initiative 19) and the two sergeants (initiative 18). That will be my update for today.
5. After that, Aurek gets to post for the first time (unless OB decides to ade directly into battle earlier and rolls initiative), and everyone else can post either their first action of round 1, or their first action of round 2 (remember those people posting for round 2 that your friends will be acting slightly ahead of you.

This is going to be a chaotic battle, so don't be alarmed if people attack the same people, or get in your way. It makes it more fun!

Note that in the second round Captain Drommal and the two other soldiers will appear. However, Drommal only scored a 12 for initiative, and the soldiers a 5 (quite funny, it's what you'd expect) so it sounds like you guys will be able to get quite a few actions in only caring about the three soldiers in the room.


Anyway, so is that clear? Money fireballs, everyone but LB and OB get one action, everyone should roll initiative, and anyone who scores 19 or higher should also post a full round's worth of actions. Helm isn't exactly brave, so I'm afraid his first action won't be to dart into battle and provide a flanking bonus to anyone right away!

Apologies to anyone who won't get actions, then again if people are around early enough we can maybe get a lunchtime-ish update then another one last thing tonight.

Good luck! Potentially a tough fight depending on rolls and tactis, then again you guys have quite a few things going for you, a fully functional mage with fireball a fairly important one

Can I make a quick IC post now, since we're not yet in combat, to react to Falkor's suggestion? Well, since I won't be online till around 11pm after this, I suppose I will anyway, and can always take it out or merge it with my first in-combat post. I didn't specify which way Ameena stepped, so I suppose she could be either side. So that'll do and I can always have her scoot over a bit anyway. She might even do that now, I'll have to see...

Yes you can - infact you can also react to the fact Falkor will fireball Arbrut too and run. Like I said, the map isn't 'set' if you would have positioned yourself to the right, and will just dive into the corner (Helm probably joining you!) as your first action, and delay initiative for the end of round one? Or set a conditional 'if someone charges at you, run away)?

Oh, since Ameena has directly said about attacking them to you Falkor, I think in all the wacky confusion I forgot a small follow on PM to you about staring at the faces on the armour. Since you aren't a cleric or paladin, you won't exactly feel these soldiers are 'evil' , but the more you looked at Drommal's armour before the more uneasy it made you about the man, and you couldn't quite work out why.

If you want to semi-bluff this as the reason for the attack, go ahead, sub-consciously you will jsut feel that these are bad men even if consciously you don't know you know

Still, neutral good means never having to say you are sorry for situational ethics as long as you were working for the good of the group

beowuuf wrote:You can tell as the story is called 'DM D&D offhoot'. So it's something to do with owls.

Lol! Hoots mon, that's an interesting off-shoot. So neither Helm nor the knight were the new PC....it was actually one of the soldiers. Nice.
Actually when I saw Helm I thought that maybe the new player was Jan as I imagined him to be a Guybrush Threepwood type character.

OK, so the big fight is about to kick off, getting excited. Time to dust off the trusty club. Westian will be a bit shocked. As I said he was not willing to jump the guys without provocation, but no other option if it starts. It is pretty clear the soldiers are evil, and Westian knows Gholst is evil...still, summary executions of the soldiers will rankle with his conscience. Assuming,that is, they manage to kill someone, if they get their asses kicked he won't have the luxury of feeling guilt!

Yeah, I'm pretty sad that it became a PC discussion and fair play over-rode the humour of leaving Aurek hidden. The fact that both helm and Farel weren't bound was also a wacky bit of fun. I'd love to have seen a fight kick off, and suddenly the hopeless odds wen't instantly in the party's favour! Ah well. I'm not here to manufacture cool moments at the expense of me players, they'll happen naturally enough over the time and have already!

Yeah, some of you have knowledge others don't, and some of you have character biases to not be happy with the combat. If any of you want to roll non-lethal damage (flat of the sword or even...horrors...unarmed strikes) be aware of the penalties, but go right ahead. Doing the right thing is never easy. I've tried to make sure of that on many occasions!

Sorry, I should tell you them. Non-lethal weapon damage penalties (with lethal weapons): -4 to your attack rolls
Unarmed strike penalties (automatically non-lethal): - you provoke an Attack of Opportunity and with no drawn weapon you cannot enact AoOs.

Note that you have other options such as grapples, disarms and I'm sure you can also figure out some other things. They will all carry penalties, but can be non-lethal means of dealing with your foes.

Good luck!

oh_brother wrote:Actually when I saw Helm I thought that maybe the new player was Jan...

I thought that too! Room for Gambit in here too

Will post soon...

I owonders if you'd assume it was Gambit actually, since he pops his head in

Ian, if you decided for no good reason to charge, there is a short version of it you can do in a single action btw. I don't think I ever mentioned that

I got over-excited when I saw the fireball fly, so I rolled for initiative even though I am not moving until the next round. I got a 19, not bad! Though the post said you have to get better than 19, so I must have tied with someone. Go money, burn them! And remember: don't walk forward when you cast the spell!!

Well given the non-lethal option, I'll waste both rounds (the surprise round AND round 1) on trying to bop them on the head with my sword hilt.

OB, you don't get the free single action, but you can have a combat round's worth of actions at the same time as the noirmal soldier, and before AB and thin

You won't get the surprise round LB, because you had no idea anything was doing to happen (same as OB)

However, roll initiative then you may get to act before the soldiers - if you roll lower than an 18/19, wait for the update then figure out the best person to bop

Hey OB, you get a full set of actions (only one in your group, funnily enough) at the same time as the soldier across the way. Basically, he'll be yelling at the rest of the group then doing something towards Haynuus and Falkor.

I'm heading home now then will update when I get back, so if you are around sneak in a standard & move or fullround action for round 1

Oh, and nice damage roll money! Just remember how good that can be once the swords start flying Hopefully Arbrut can't dodge out of the way of that!

Wow, could my update me much later? And it's not even fully done, will wait for a a while to se if OB can post, or else he might telporarily find himselfnudged down an initiative position :p


LB, pretty sneaky trying to be aware of the combat. I will allow it this time, but the cost will be a much more aware Thinpas (after all, you ignored him and Westian's questions to look directly passed both of them and also talk to your prisoner in a whisper!) And you still don't get a bop in the surprise round!

If you are around, you can try to roll a bluff to see if you could disguise whispering to Farel, but you'll need a DC20 success for Farel to understand you, and it's possible for Thinpas to overhear and work out what you are doing (even if not what is said if you don't make the DC20!)

Well, I'll roll Initiative here and then make an IC post...erm...is it a straight D20 roll in this or do we add our Dex mod or something? I forget, with all the different versions and stuff...anyway...oh gawd...rolled a 3 lol. Or increase it to 6 if Initiative includes Dex mod in this.
But I still get the free sneaky-surprise action, don't I, because I was close enough to Falkor to hear him telling us what was going on. Well done, chuck a fireball straight past the critter who doesn't like fire .

Yup, it's a dexterity check unless you are lucky with a certain feat, so 3+3. That puts you equal with Aurek's knight friend Farel, and just after Helm. Talk about making things difficult for me to update!

And yep, you have it completely right about what is on the other side. LOL, trust you to make the job difficult. Then again...also interesting.

You appearing on the other side will kick off Drommal and co into the battle a round early (so their initiative stands). However, they will be unaware it's anything but a weird situation. Drommal will 'react' first in the case of initiative, ahead of the two soldiers on the other side and Ameena. As you are separate from the group, I think I can update for Drommal's reaction and let you have your round 1 actions separate... if you plan on diving right back through again, obviously we'll need to sync you up with the rest again...

I wasn't expecting that Ameena Now all you have to do is try to persuade them to hang around a turn or two then that would be great!

Money, if you want to take a step back THEN fireball (you have one more, right?) maybe Haynuus would be able to concentrate on Arbrut if he moves again.

A flanking position on Thinpas should be doable from the Knight & Aurek, which would leave Westian to maybe whack Arbrut from behind?

Hehe yeah, I bet that was somewhat confusing for that stupid...err, I mean, for Drommal, standing there watching us all go through, then a few moments later the murafu suddenly comes running back again. Now, I've had a thought - it would probably be easy enough for Ameena to speak to him and imply that it was actually Arbrut who started the fight, but it's mainly because it was one of her own group who started it that she ran away in the first place. Doing so was more of a panicked, instinctive reaction, but even when she recovers from that (which probably won't take long), she won't be sure what she wants to do. Although we've all rolled Initiative, are Drommal and the other two officially in combat? That is, if Ameena's still a bit "Oh holy crap, bugger this" and tries to just plain leg it, would she provoke an AoO? The way things are, she's probably unlikely to dive into combat. She'll be wondering whether she's picked the right group to be travelling around with. Well, not that it was much of a choise, but you know what I mean. Then again, it was only Falkor who initiated the fight, so I imagine she'll still be alright with the others. Unfortunately, she's henceforth going to find it somewhat difficult to trust someone who starts hurling fire at people he doesn't like.
So I gather that I have to wait for Drommal's next move before I can post again. I'm still not entirely sure what Ameena will decide to do, but it might well depend on what Drommal does next. Running away will stil be pretty near the top of the list, though. Not going back through the teleporter and seeing the result of the battle will also be up there.

Drommal is ahead of your initiative and alert, he's just delaying, the two soldiers aren't alert yet. So thye action is yours. He's essentially seeing wehat you say, then he'll make a full move. He can't interrupt your actions.

And awww, good thing there wasn't already mechanics in place narrativly to drive that wedge further.... I love serendipity

Westian will see Falkor very exposed, and will want to give him some cover. I was going to make a 5-foot step to C5 and attack Arbut to cover his flank and distract the soldier. I can do this without provoking an AoO, right?

Yes, I was not around yesterday evening/night so I just read the story today. You were right to move me down the initiative scale, no point holding up the group! Also...I get two updates now, so I can whack Arbut twice?

Indeed, five fott stepping into danger is fine

Anything more and Thinpas would have an AoO.

Also note that unless a person has a certain feat, they get one AoO per round - so you can try to force one to protect a fellow on occasion, if you play it right

And yes, because of the nature of the combat round and the initiative, you will get to attack Arbrut before Falkor even attempots it, then attack again after everyone has finished. So go ahead and roll two attacks if you wish. And you might wanna use a move action to get your shield readied, especially since it's win-win (either Arbrut doens't care about you, or Arbrut AoO's you and so Falkor gets a free shot)

Could Ameena bluff that Arbrut attacked Haynuus or something? Make her sound angry about events Even if she didn't delay them, they may lose a turn by shouting at the sergeant and performing a non-aggressive action.

Yeah, Ameena said she could do that, and it would be believeable, except her character is in flight mode more than bluff mode, and of course it would send Drommal through faster.

Still, his first actions would probably be to yell at Arbrut ...you know, assuming he's still alive by then.

Sorry, my last post was supposed to be in the OOC thread, got mixed up (the problem with having multiple tabs open). I won't move it as then beo's reply would be on its own.

To answer, if Arbrut goes down before my next go I will swing at the nearest person, moving if necessary. So that will probably be Thinpas. Though with a roll of 4 it is bound to be a miss.

There we go, we now have a seperate forum. Now I don't have to worry that you have to go eight posts down just to see anything creative in the creative forum now!

LB, am I waiting for set of rolls from you? I seem to recall you nominating a non-lethal attack...

beowuuf wrote:And you might wanna use a move action to get your shield readied, especially since it's win-win (either Arbrut doens't care about you, or Arbrut AoO's you and so Falkor gets a free shot)

Would my shield not be readied as is? And is it not a free action when you have +1 melee bonus? Didn't fully understand the tactic you were suggesting...if Arbrut AoOs me would he still not have a chance to attack Falkor?

Actually I moved there hoping that he would not approach Falkor since he would have to move through my threatened zone (or whatever it is called), but just realised that it is a 5 foot step. This is the kind of mechanics I am not sure about, they did not exist in 2nd edition!

Anyway it is fun, looking forward to see how the round develops!

Edit: Yes, pleased to see the game has taken off enough to merit its own forum!