Main / SearchingForAlexandria-OOC

Searching for Alexandria - Out of Character Discussions

Party Pack

Characters on the Trip

Talwin, Indigo, Howard, Craigh, Bixi, Licornah, Zayden, Thistle, Raelynn, and Youtargim (with Lanek when Spring is in).

Dragonslayer TripTik

Leg Three TripTik

Alternative Sail directly across Lake Peipus from Rivers Bend to Bywater - 56 miles upstream over deep water

Modes of Transportation

Considerations

1 - Leaving in the middle of winter
2 - Who has what skills for guiding the wagon and horses?
3 - Key people to visit along the way

Old Man Miller
Medipop Estates
Mosskin Estates
Loosend

4 - What to do with the wagon when you reach Loosend
5 - Hiring a ship for travel to Rivers Bend

{copied from the Discord}

Lorie: Hey all - I have questions going into the next couple of Fridays, I'm not sure where on the site to post them all, so they are coming here. I want to ensure I'm following things...

(1) Is our ranger scouting ahead to potentially reduce encounters or better prepare us for them? I feel like we've been ambushed and I cannot support healing 100 HP alone with my spell range and have anything else availalbe

Lisa: A. We don’t have a ranger this trip. Best we have is Zayden as a rogue. Our encounters have been around 300-500 yds in front of us so I’m not keen on sending any PC that far ahead alone, but would be interested in group thoughts

Carissa: 1) Our only ranger right now is N'laea and she did not join as I did not want to juggle three characters and no one seemed to mind us being ranger-less and so, we are ranger-less. We have only rogues as comparison, as pointed out, which are Zayden with main character, Thistle who is henchmen level, and Youtargim who is more NPC sailor rogue but still a rogue. We also have invisibility cloak, but it is not on someone who scouts. Not sure we really need to be scouting? This is not a random road, but one that many travelers use. Then we go to water which... you can't really scout. So not sure when we need one.

Lemon: 1) Yeah, this seems not particularly useful to me right now, as we're on this neverending road where things come from so far ahead that it takes like 8 turns to get to them, (or 16 if you're short) but this is something I hadn't thought of and I will try to think of when we get to our next destination. A good idea in general, I personally just don't think it will be helpful for the gauntlet BOB currently has us on.

Lorie: (2) Who is our point person given that Branwyn didn't come with? Is that Talwin or Bixi? I'm not thinking it should be an NPC
Lisa: A. Talwin and Bixi are the main PCs who have goals in this arc so, both? Thistle is a henchman and would be taking point I assume when we hit Rivers Bend

Carissa: 2) No point person. This may be the first in quite awhile, and to be honest, I really prefer it. Having a point person kind of gets annoying and frustrating for me. I like having it be more a group of friends who speak up when it's their wheelhouse, but without a true "leader" or anything of that degree. Like Lisa said, we kind of have someone more specific for different parts of the arc which is great, but for the in-between, it's just whoever for whenever. My vote is to keep it like that.

Lemon: 2) I don't know what point person means. Does it mean person in charge? I've been defaulting that to Indigo IC since he seems to be most familiar with these parts. Dear gods, please don't make it be me, I have no idea what I'm doing in this game. If this also means OOC, then DEFINITELY NOT ME, as I have no idea what I'm doing in this game.

Lorie: (3) Where are we getting a ship once we hit Loosend?
Lisa: A. We will hit the docks. I was thinking it would be something Indigo could arrange. We need a knarr and may have to hire an NPC to help with rowing. That size ship needs a rowing crew (which will mainly be us, this is not a pleasure cruise :D)
Carissa: 3) Nothing to add that wasn't already said.

Lorie: (4) What's our budget (besides BOB's price which doesn't have the GM modifier applied )
Lisa: A. BOB said something like 100 gp/week for rental and I brought 500 gp dedicated for that. If we take longer we can pay late fees when we return it.
Carissa: 4) Nothing to add except that Lisa has always been fantastic at helping keep track of party pack items and how much money the party has (not counting anything individual unless it's handed out like earlier). Maybe we can find a discount, but there is the Party Pack page for more information.

Lemon: 4) Honestly wouldn't mind a little more clarification on the money situation as well. Not specifically for this adventure, but I do wonder what my spending should be in town. Like does Bixi want to compulsively buy every random plant derivative she sees and try to take it all back to wherever she and Rae build their houses and experiment on it and research them? Yes, she does. Does she have the money for that? I have no idea. It's not super important, definitely not a priority for me at all right now, but maybe one day in the future if we have a slow night.

Lorie: (5) Do we have anyone with being on the water skills? (Navigation, Swimming, Fishing, etc.)?
Lisa: A. Indigo has swimming, ship repair and boating; Youtargim has swimming and navigation (I believe), Zayden seems to have fishing. The ones with no swimming will need to be careful!
Carissa: 5) Not from my characters unless you want star charts to maybe improve navigation. Thistle can swim. Raelynn cannot. (edited)

Lemon: 5) Not me. Smiling emoji with one drop of sweat.
Lorie: (6) Do we have a plan B / C for when BOB sinks our ship (or it gets a hole, or the pirates take it, etc.)
Lisa: A. I have no intention of anyone taking our ship. Many have tried in the past and none succeeded thus far. Indigo can fix ships if they get damaged
Carissa: 6) We stop it from happening. If for some reason we fail, the swimmers help the non-swimmers get to shore. And then we accept the probability that we'll be adding another month or two IRL of gameplay for this specific storyline.

Lemon: 6) I don't have enough experience to know when we do or don't need to make plans, so I try to wait until someone else brings it up before tossing in my ideas. My ideas usually turn out to be garbage because again... I have no idea what I'm doing in this game. Yes, I've been in this particular game for almost a year now (yikes), but that's the entire extent of my experience, and as a good chunk of that has included learning Klooge and then Fantasy Grounds, my game knowledge is not extensive. Also it seems hard to make plans for things because what BOB ends up doing is never anything I saw coming. Because, again, limited experience.

Lorie: (7) I can do bless / chant to increase our luck on the waters, but wondered what else we have in the wheelhouse
Lisa: A. no clue Carissa: 7) We used wind spells in the past, but none of my current characters can use them. Not sure we did bless/chant before, but doesn't hurt. Hopefully we have strong rowers.

Lemon: 7) Literally no idea. If anyone thinks I might have something useful, please please speak up. I have like 8,000 spells, it's impossible for me to remember what they all do, or to know what might be useful, aside from the, like, three that I have used successfully.

Lorie: (8) Do we have an alternate plan for our fighters, since one is an NPC, and Michael isn't always able to stay for the whole session. Walking wounded isn't a great option for us
Lisa: A. I dunno. Walking wounded sometimes happens. I am of the thought if more players get involved in combat to help it will take some pressure off our limited fighters. If they are the only ones fighting, yes their hps will be drained over and over

Carissa: 8) Youtargim is not a fighter. He's a rogue so his fighting ability is limited. Our fighters are Talwin and Indigo. This was something that was brought up at the start, but we decided to go ahead with just two PC fighters. So we'll just be smart. Maybe we'll find another fighter along the way if we need it. Maybe not. But BOB did mention he wanted there to be more options than fighting and solving things in this storyline so I'm not sure how much it yet matters. But as Lisa said, having everyone jump in to help really does help. Even if it's just poorly aimed slingshot bullets. A single bullet can still kill something sometimes. Or someone to just draw away a monster so it doesn't mob the fighter.

Lemon: 8) Someone PLEASE tell me if there is ever something I can do that is more helpful. Usually by the time I get close enough to do anything useful in the gauntlet (that's what I'm calling this road from now on) everything is almost dead already. I'm always willing to heal, just never sure when it's necessary, please please please always feel free to tell me OOC (or heck even IC, Bixi isn't the most clear-headed in a stressful situation) if someone wants/needs one of my spells. I have watched everyone else be worried about wasting spells and have picked that up through osmosis, but always always willing to help out, I just need direction. Please speak up!
Lorie: (9) I'm not sure my animal speaking skills will work with oceanic creatures, but willing to try; however, hoping for an alternate plan from the group to make it work best
Lisa: A. Kill fish instead of talking to them?
Carissa: 9) I mean... yeah, killing them? We don't have to talk to everything. It can be fun, sometimes moreso for the person doing the speaking than other characters, but it doesn't have to be our whole MO. Sometimes there's a good time and place for it, but not always. And that's okay. (edited)

Lorie: (10) I won't be online more than likely next Friday due to family holiday, so want to ensure we have a backup healing option for the group
Lisa: A. You should not be the only healer here. Raelynn and Bixi should be contributing. Orisons sometimes give more hps back than chancing it on a dice roll but I am not seeing the priests use that as much as priests have in past arcs.
Carissa: 10) As I pointed out last week, we have three healers. Raelynn was made as a support character and has been for 1.5 years now. Bixi has been combo mage/healer as well for a year now. But how you want to play your healer is up to you. I've been a cleric since joining however long ago. I'm not going to waste healing spells to bring someone up 100% when they're only down 90% unless we're about to camp. I'm not always going to jump straight to healing, either. After the hell of the Court of Thanes, I really try hard to calculate my spells and what may or may not happen the rest of the day in game. Sometimes that means reserving some spell slots for things not healing. But we've always had healers (since I joined), and this is the first time in way too long we've had three. We'll be fine. We don't need to always get everyone to 100% all the time every single time. If you want to, that's fine, but that's not how I've played my healers. But yes, orisons are good. I forgot about them after the move to FG when my spells got messed up.

To add to that, the dead carcass scavengers was not a normal encounter. It was a very specific encounter made due to a very specific event with a very specific action in mind - to attack and kill them. Would we have been that reckless if politics hadn't happened? Maybe not. So for me, I'm not concerned how we go forward based on that event because it was a weird, not normal encounter (future court cases pending...).

Lemon: 10) See previous answer. Please for the love of all that is holy and unholy and neutral, just tell me if I could be being more useful. I know y'all don't like to tell people how to play their characters, but I welcome any suggestions. I might potentially be like "nope, Bixi is just going to be crazy right now and do a panic spell!" but OOC I will definitely take note and hopefully apply my knowledge in the future.

Lorie: (11) Do we need to hire anyone for our journey on the waters who can help? Yout isn't from these parts so don't want to get lost
Lisa: See above. Indigo has sailed these waters before
Carissa: 11) Already addressed.

Lorie:

(12) I have purposely been deferring to the group when deciding on next steps, but have not seen a plan -- but it's possible I missed it.

Thanks for listening... and if you want this on the site, point me where and I'll get it added.

Have a great day ahead

Lisa: A. The plan is to get to Rivers Bend and then have Thistle take over for her part, next stop Talwin, etc. Right now, it’s just get there, but then again, I am not the planner of the group. I’m the blindly forge aheader and let’s see what happens person. (edited)

You should all know by now that I have an answer for everything. (Might not be the right answer, but an answer nonetheless) Hope everyone will also respond
Carissa: 12) Plans are great for hard or unusual adventures: Hell, Elflands, Exploring the planes when we never have before, but for just normal travel like this? Please no. I don't want to make plans besides the basics of destination. Maybe once we get to those destinations we might want a week of planning (how we gonna jailbreak Thistle's clanmate out?) or something, but otherwise... what more planning do we need?

Lemon: 12) Yeah, Bixi definitely not a planner. She doesn't know her way around any of this stuff and she doesn't have a huge personal stake in solving these quests, she's just kind of up for whatever. I kind of feel that way OOC too... I have no idea what BOB has planned, everyone else knows his GM quirks better than me, so I just kind of watch to see what everyone else is doing and if someone who is more experienced than me says we need to come up with a plan, then I put my useless 2 cents in. My plan right now is to stick with the group and do whatever the majority wants until BOB tells me I have to go find my plants or whatever. I guess I could ask about that now, but there might be spoilers so he might not even tell me, and even if he did, I would probably forget half of it by then. Maybe we need BOB to start doing a quarterly road map, like they do with video games...

Sharif Sounds good to me! Zayden can do Rogue stuff, I think there may be some use to that when we get to the city plus negotiations. Zayden can fish too, not a fighter but Zay can backstab so that's cool, and anytime we need a charm offensive he could come in handy. Otherwise cool with whatever, part of the let's see how it goes crowd. Looking forward to tmrw

7/14 Lisa

Response to Lemon’s comments:

About the cash, if you want to buy stuff, go for it. Indigo has the larger amounts of cash and gems in the party pack. Most of the time when we’re out and about, we don’t spend a lot and so something like 10 gp is fine. When we were in the city over an extended period, everyone had 100 gp, but not sure everyone wants to run around with 2 lbs of coins in their packs. But we can do that and then the players will have to keep track of what the spend, etc. The only thing I’m thinking about the plants is we’re just starting this trip really and will the plants make it all the way out there for a month of travel and back? Maybe Bixi could collect as we come back home? I’m definitely not a plant expert.

Please don’t sell yourself short on your ideas! I think you have very good ideas and sometimes you have to try things to see how they work. Like the manticore illusion was a really good idea. I would just next time change the placement to over the enemy instead of over us looking like it was protecting the wagon. I didn’t know what the effect would be until you tried it. If you think of something to do in a situation, go for it. It's not just you. Bob will surprise everyone with twists and turns they don’t expect.

About the healing, my comments were not meant to be critical (I’m sorry if they came out that way). It was more a response to Lorie that I would like to see Lorie more involved in all aspects and not feel the need to save spells or feel she is responsible for lifting all the wounded fully back to health. Carissa made a good point that we don’t always need to go to full all the time, especially if more encounters are coming. Tiberius and Indigo spent a large portion of the giant fort adventure heavily wounded. When they hit critical, give them a boost and send them out again. The thing with the circus day was that it was a rest day and a perfect opportunity to get Indigo and Yout back to full as no one was likely using many/if any spells, but after few spells to get them up from 1 hp we could have waited until the end of the day to top them off. It’s just not good to have characters wandering around with 1 hp. They needed something to start them off.

Your last comment was about not having a personal stake in the quests. I think that will come in time and why the role play between our PCs is important. Indigo has no vested interest in any of these quests, but he knows and cares about everyone in the group. So if Thistle needs to save someone, he is going to help her, and Talwin and Bixi, etc.

Response to Lisa's response to my responses: Yeah, I kind of thought the bad guys were going to get closer to us, which is why I put the manticore where it was. I hopefully have learned from that experience, but the scale on this road is just bonkers.

And yeah, I'm not complaining that Bixi doesn't have a personal stake in this, I'm just saying that's why she's not worried about having a plan. She's just along for the ride because her friends are doing a thing and she wants to do a thing with her friends, but she doesn't really have a need to like... direct the mission, since it's not her mission. If that makes sense.

But I have kind of rolled my newness into Bixi's newness, and a quirk of hers is that the first thing she does in a fight is usually a poorly thought out panic move. But Bixi and I will learn together lol.

From Lemon:

Hey, I'm just wondering if people want to decide here whether we click back after the journey is over or not, so we don't take time debating it during game time? I'm fine either way, personally. If people have characters back at home they are wanting to get back to ASAP, or are really anxious to start the next adventure, then I think clicking back is a great idea. If not, I'm fine with manually going back, checking up on the things we left behind... like that dead priest and the owlbear babies. Just wondering what everyone else's thoughts are.

9/25 Lisa

My preference is we click back to Loosend and then walk/encounter our way back home from there. I have a feeling we may be all done with our seagoing adventure and wouldn't mind clicking that time off. But I'm okay with however the majority of the group wants to do it.

9/25 Carissa

Mostly in the same thinking as Lisa. I do still want at least some of the return travel, that's how you get new story elements and tie up some others, but I'd rather skip the seagoing part. We may or may not want to stop at Rivers Bend on our return, or else Howard can meet with Olin IC or something. Not sure we have other reason to stop there yet. Maybe stop and say hi to the mermaids, too. :)

9/27 Lorie I am fine to click off time back to Loosend and walk through the encounters we avoided, but given the amount of time that might have lapsed, it might be different than when we left things.

9/72 Lemon This all sounds good to me. The sea journey has been fun, but I like the bigger variety of things we can encounter on the road. And to Lorie, I definitely think it will be different, that's part of the reason I would like to go through that part instead of clicking... it will be interesting to see what has changed.

9/25 Lisa

Thoughts to consider before we get to Dryads Lair. Talwin’s master is supposed to be at Drakeshead lighthouse. Please look at the map of Dryads Lair and the surrounding area: http://www.dragonslayers-society.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.DryadsLairPrincipality

Drakeshead is at the very bottom of the map and the lighthouse sits on a cliff where a ship could not dock.

Dryads Lair’s city proper is at the east side of the map, not close to Drakeshead.

However, it looks like you could dock a ship at Bort’s Beach at the bottom of the map a ways east of Drakeshead.

Choices:

1. We go to Dryads Lair City, dock the ship and send Talwin and whoever on foot to go to Drakeshead

2. We go directly to Bort’s Beach, dock there, and stay at the “large, ramshackle inn” which “boasts an incredible collection of curious items from unknown lands.” It would be a much shorter journey to Drakeshead. We get Talwin settled with his sword master and then we can leave and head into Dryads Lair for city adventures and Bixi’s discovery for her section of the story arc.

I recommend choice 2 as it seems easiest and most direct to get Talwin where he needs to go, but wanted to throw that out there to the group in advance so people can think about it.

9/25 Carissa

I wonder what the "in-game" distance is for those? A day's walk and encounters? Or is it a pretty safe path from the city to the lighthouse? Are there risks to docking at the beach rather than the city? Choice 2 makes sense, but would like some of those answers before deciding. I hadn't realized it was so far...

9/27 Lorie I'm okay on either of the two choices, but ensuring Talwin isn't wandering off alone if not appropriate. Two does seem more involved for the other characters

9/27 Lemon I am EXTREMELY INTERESTED in the "incredible collection of curious items from unknown lands. Even if it's all hoax stuff, that sounds awesome. In real life as well as in game, I am always up for that kind of adventure.

9-27 BOB

More detailed Trip Tik coming with the notable landmarks around the lake.

However for your conversation here: Borts Beach to Drakeshead = 14 miles Dryads Lair City to Borts Beach = 52 miles

10/16 Carissa

This encounter really bothers me so going to toss out my thoughts:

  1. We have two walking wounded. Besides being able to yell out potentially helpful ideas, that's two less who can help us fight a giant freakin' slug.
  2. Of our four spell casters, at least two of them are nearly out of spells for the day, one at guess is halfways, and one is full. But given the damage, and how much we still have left to do in a day, that does not put us in a good place.
  3. We have two fighters with weapons that aren't able to do much damage to this thing.

All in all, we're really not in a good place. Honestly, I'm thinking if we can somehow get away, and get away fast, that's exactly what we need to do. If this slug snaps the knarr in half, we need to make sure the swimmers are ready to save the non-swimmers and maybe drag them to the fisherman's boat. And those non-swimmers include our two walking wounded who possibly have a bigger penalty right now if they end up in the water.

A slug is a decomposer. He's not going to want fresh meat. I'm hoping he's just angry we ran into him less than he's interested in eating us and/or the ship. We have two weeks worth of supplies. There's got to be a shit ton of salt in our stocks we can toss that it. Maybe if we can get it to pull away, maybe have the watery fist push us away, we might have a chance. This is supposed to be a hard fight. That's what we get for rolling yet another 1 only two encounters after our last one. It is NOT a time to skip your turn and do nothing, especially in this first round where what we do can really be what makes or breaks us surviving. Whether it's a dagger, a spell, or tossing a barrel of salt at the thing, for once, I feel like it'd be good to really consider how we want to approach this fight BEFORE we get to it on Friday.

I can only speak for my character. If the weather is right, she could try lightning, but you know I really, really need to think that through and make sure this is a situation where it'd only hit the slug. Given that we're on water, I'm not sure. She could also shine a bright, annoying light in its eyes and hope it rears back and away from us. Slug had things in their faces for those of you who messed with garden slug growing up (poor things). Or, again, salt.

And we know we probably have yet another encounter after this one so, again, we really need to think this one through. Again, I am concerned about what'll happen on Friday so please really consider what your character can do, and maybe give us all ideas so we can plan around that.

Edit: Party Pack for maybe some potion ideas, but none stuck out to me. Maybe one will to you?

10/16 Lisa

Thanks for posting Carissa. Good to talk about this before Friday.

If we did have salt stores, it would take 2 rounds to be able to use it as someone would need to run down to the hold and get it and then run back up and toss it. Correct me if that would be incorrect.

Howard is up first. I’ve been playing around between 2 spells. Thoughts?

  • He has one Magic Missile left, which is always nice since it always hits and there’s no save. Problem is we’ll only get about 10-15 dmg and the 10 dmg it’s already suffered still has it in lightly wounded.
  • Glitterdust. If he fails his save he is blinded and would be at a -4 to any attacks against us, its AC, and any later saving throws. It creates a 20ft cube but the slug is 50 ft so I think I can cast on its head and leave body parts available to hit without our guys getting blinded themselves. Con: If it makes its save, it’s a blown round for Howard

Fighter and weapons. I noticed that Indigo only caused damage for the pts over 10 on his damage role. So in this case, his 3 hits caused 1 pt damage. His swords aren’t magic. Talwin has a magic sword and his 2-handed does a lot more damage so he can do better.

The Watery Fist is magic and gave full damage so not sure if that means magical weapons will do full damage. Indigo could switch to his pick, but I think he only gets 2 swings per round.

We talked about fire last week but my characters don’t have any ready at hand. That could be nice.

If Bixi’s Watery Fist could force the knarr out of the marsh area it’s stuck in, that would be great. We don’t find out though until Mr. Slug has a turn at us first.

And yes, careful with the electricity and water thing …

Another crazy idea. Does Talwin have the STR to push the knarr and get it unstuck? If so, Howard can Dimension Door himself and Talwin to the back of the ship and Talwin can push. Hopefully the knarr would not have moved so far that Howard can’t cast again to get them back on the ship. His range to travel is 240 yds/720 ft. Well, and Slug Man would then have the choice of either following the knarr or attacking the crazy people standing in the marsh right in front of him. It’s a plan with pluses and minuses. :)

BOB To be clear on the physical set up.

  1. - The knarr is in the water, stuck in a saragasso of floating weeds and muck. There is not a set of solid land to go easily stand on. Yes to careful maybe balancing walking on this mat of mush if you are light.
  2. - Yes slugs can swim
  3. - I will say you have 10 pounds of salt in the hold as part of your rations
  4. - It is 20 feet of movement to safely go up or down the ladders/stairs into the hold. That can be shortened to 10 feet each way with a dex check

10/17 Carissa

Crazy might just be what we need.

From looking at chat, Bixi only did 2 hp of damage with her fist. She at least has it easy at the moment in that she needs to either concentrate and keep the fist going, or do something else. Unless she has wind spells, I'm still voting fist helping us escape. And while Bob claims slugs can swim (sea slugs, sure, but garden slugs? pfft) I doubt it can swim well so I'm still thinking something to make us not worth chasing and/or some good rowing.

I will have to check today or tomorrow when I have a chance, but I think Rae has one or two plant spells. Entangle won't help much with something this large, but she might have something to solidify the ground more if we want to try to push the ship away. Otherwise, I'm leaning towards her doing Light to at least distract the slug if it doesn't blind if which would potentially open Howard up for something else.

It sounds like we could at least grab the salt in one round and toss in a second round OR have someone else grab salt and those who haven't gone yet toss it same round.

I'm looking at potions again, too. We have the Potion of Explosions and the Stone Giant Strength. I don't know what Heroic Action does? Depending, maybe an option for our non-fighters to do something? Too much to hope Worm Calling might include slugs? :)

And if Bob can remind me because I can't find the chat, Dragon Breath potions can cause poison to the person drinking it, right? Can they be thrown?

Hmm, I gotta do some more thinking...

BOB

These potions are highly toxic to non-dragons. Roll a successful saving throw vs. poison with a -4 penalty, or die horribly in 1d4 rounds.

Lisa 10/17

I'm seeing 9 dmg from Fist.

Bixi Fizzlebang: [d10 = 9] // Slug, Giant's health adjusted by -9 //

Potion of Heroic Action make non-fighters act like fighters. They should have a heavy weapon. Making a mage fighter who uses a dagger isn't that great a bonus.

Yes dragon potions are dangerous. Whoever has easiest poison throw could try ...

I like the explosion potion. Not sure its radius of damage if slug is right next to ship

10/21 Carissa

Yeah, distance to ship could be a problem. I meant to look earlier, but some other spell potentials from Rae (mostly for my reference this evening, but happy to hear input):

Anyways, still thinking we should try to blind it whether that means via Howard or by someone casting a light spell in its face. From there somehow get away from it. Also think first round is the main one we need to try to discourage it from attacking by making us an painful, unappetizing prey. No one wants to eat something that hurts you, right?

1/15/2023 Lisa

Some thoughts on last week and planning for January 20.

I agreed with the discussion after last week’s session that we didn’t really expect to run into what we did when we did so that more prep was not immediately obvious. We saw the 3 fire structures but no creatures. That told me that they were unguarded and a detect magic spell was actually a cautious move. No one went closer than Talwin’s icon on the map before combat and no one saw 3 priests hanging around. But anyway … moving on.

Licornah cast Resist Fire on Talwin right before combat and we are starting Round 3. The spell lasts how many rds/lvl she is so I am guessing Talwin has 3-4 rounds to stick his hands in fire places.

All we need is a container. Who has the Stone Shape spell?? All we need is a big enough rock and can cast that. (BTW – we have no clue how big these fire gems are until we see them so it would have been hard to guess in advance how big a rock we needed to create a stone bowl or coffer until we saw the gems. Are we talking chicken egg size or ostrich egg size?) Even if it is only Bixi, she can cast blind if someone puts the rock in her hands. She knows what a bowl/coffer looks like. I saw this on the spell page: While stone coffers can be thus formed, the fineness of detail is not great. If the shaping has moving parts, there is a 30% chance they do not work. The material component of this spell is soft clay that must be worked into roughly the desired shape of the stone object, and then touched to the stone when the spell is uttered.

Speaking of blindness, Bob did not roll the duration in chat. I’m assuming he knows how long it will last. The spell says it lasts 1d4+1 rounds and was cast on Round 1. So blindness could be lifted as soon as the beginning of Round 4 and as late as Round 6.

Indigo’s swords have been dropped so he doesn’t keep taking heat damage. The heat is only going to get worse and lasts 7 rounds. Cast on Round 1, it means he can’t safely pick up his swords until Round 8. Indigo would need a Resist Fire spell cast on him to let him pick up his swords earlier if extra castings of that spell are available. It would take 2 rounds for a priest to get to Indigo and then to touch him and cast. Otherwise he loses his swords if we have to leave earlier.

I think this is doable if we are efficient in our actions and everyone helps to get us moving as quickly as possible.

Side Note on Combats with Casters: Sorry to bring this up because I try not to spread my paranoia or tell people what to do in combat, but in this case, I felt like the urgency of the situation wasn’t fully realized, so I will say the following for what it’s worth.

Casters are complete wildcards in a fight. You see a troll or a goblin and you basically know what you’re going to get. You see a caster and you don’t know if you’ll be fighting a high level caster or a low level caster with limited spells. You should know that they will cast and some spells are area of effect spells and so can possibly hit multiple characters at once – like last Friday.

I know it can be a pain with all the popup windows to open, but looking at the Combat Tracker before deciding what to do really can help to make a decision on what to do in a round. There were only 3 characters that could go before the 3 priestesses started casting. We only had 3 tries to try to stop them. Indigo took one out and the other two characters did not try to hit the other priestesses and so both of them had a free shot at us. Those shots took out 4 of our characters.

No one has to kill a caster in one round. They just have to hit them so they are forced to use traditional weapons. The dice don’t always work in our favor, but it would be helpful if we could be aware of the situation and at least try to stop them before they stop us.

1/16/2023 Carissa

Just hopping on to chime in agreement. The only thing we didn't do was have some container ready, but Talwin got his protection spell, we did a cautious approach via Detect Magic, and really the only thing I might have changed was for us to not all be grouped together because of potential enemy spells and fireballs. The main thing, again, is our very limited amount of fire protection spells available. We weren't going to cast it on everyone because we don't have that ability, but Talwin needed it, and we got him, so that's a start.

So for Indigo: is it both swords or one? Are these magical or replaceable? I mean, I'd rather he get them back to use so we aren't down a fighter with his preferred weapon, but I do want to know the urgency in how easy they'd be to replace if it came to that. I can't think of a way to make it less than two rounds unless Indigo wants to risk picking them up and running to a priest (can that be done in a single round?) for the spell since he goes first. Bonus would be a second person for fire gem searching/holding.

Other thought: what to do about the blind ones? Maybe they'll be not blind soon, but if not, we need to get them out safely. Bixi may hate it, but we can pick her up. Someone can lead Howard by the hand if he's comfortable with it. Zayden needs to stop hiding so we can find him to drag him along as well, but we'd probably be slowed with two blind stumbling individuals.

If we do get chased, depending where they come from, we may be able to slow them down by destroying the bridges.

And that's it. All the thoughts I remembered although there might have been some others...

Oh, right. Raelynn does not have elemental spells so no for her for shaping stone or anything.

Also for consideration: and so Howard sees the three pools with fire, no magic in them, but there are three Priests with magic items that glow brightly

Are fire gems magic? If so, wouldn't the results of the spell mean nothing is in the pools of fire? And could what magic items are on the priest maybe be the gems...?

1/17/2023 Lisa

Re: Indigo. His swords are just normal swords. I got a little confused on what was hit. I thought it was the swords and then the chainmail, but he wasn't wearing any, so back to sword or swords? It's not the worst thing in the world if he loses them. He would still have his magic pick. It's just his accuracy, number of attacks/rd. will go down and I'm not sure he can replace them until we get through Talwin and Bixi's legs of the trip and we get to Dryads Lair. Sentimental reasons, one of his swords is a goblin sword he's had since he was 1st level, but it's okay and Indigo's swords should be a lower priority than the main goals most definitely.

Drat. I thought someone had Stone Shape. I must have been thinking about different characters. We'll have to figure something out.

I assumed when Bob said they had magic items, he was talking about their holy symbols, but maybe having some characters searching the priests while Talwin is rooting around in the fire box would be good.

1/17/2023 TMO

Craigh was stealthing forward under the aegis of a Disawareness spell, so even if reinforcements come rushing up they should focus on the rest of the party and ignore him as beneath notice (trivial compared to the armed and dangerous outsiders over *there*). He can search the downed priests - he was originally going to check the nearest firepit on the assumption that everyone else was going to be busy for a while, but then the combat ended.

1/18/2023 Carissa

So a quick summation of some of what'll happen in the next 1-2 rounds as far as I can tell. This is mostly to organize my own thoughts, but might be helpful to someone?

Indigo

Raelynn

Craigh

Talwin

Other characters (not blind)

Other characters (blind)

2/10/2023 Carissa

Raelynn needs to:

  1. Go to the temple to study/train for her next priest level. Weeks ??? Done. She's prettier now!

N'laea needs to:

  1. Train up her WP to give her another point in bows. Weeks?? Doing? Done?
  2. Train her NWP which leaning towards Veterinary Healing. Weeks ?? Doing? Done?
  3. Learn Hell Language which is 50% after one week, 10% for each week after with a tutor. Weeks ???

Not related to training plans:

Added as of 2/26/2023

Updated final (HAH) list of must see encounters before you get to Dragon Fen! You will be amazed or double your money back!!

Order of Encounters

Then arrive back in Redfern Lake