Group OOC

[Ricochet]

Well - now we know why Gnutmyx isn't there to help Ullo!

[Charon]

Welcome back Ricochet :P.

The duration is specifically one minute on the grenade, from the outside perspective (obviously six seconds from an inside perspective), so yeah, intended to be a brief thing but in the right situation, certainly helpful. Rapid stealth or a surprise ganking were my initial thoughts when putting it in the loot but if you have any out of the box ideas I'm open to them.

[Grodech]

(Oof, your rolls are cursed, my dude.)

No shit.

Turns out Ullo just isn't very convincing. If nothing else though he's eked out some information. Now how to capitalise on that.
As far as your team mates go, if you can think of a way to get one or more of them inside I'm willing to let you dual wield an afk character or at least command them if you want me to handle their rolls. Or if you can manage to get Bashnag in I'm pretty sure I can poke Maxwell repeatedly until he takes over.
Actually, to be fair, the kobold that can fly (think that was Maggot?) can probably make it in relatively easily. Dunno if that helps.

Assuming Maggot had followed by air, he could really already be searching the ship for the arrows.

[Charon]

That would depend on how stealthy he is. Do we wanna see whether he's sneaky enough to get on board while Ullo is squaring up to Penelope?

[Grodech]

Or in combat, the person inside experiences one combat round while you have ten. So you could take ten attacks on someone and from their perspective you attacked ten times in one turn.

He would have to throw it basically 10 feet behind her in order to have her time slow and his not, correct?

[Charon]

Correct. It's a ranged touch vs AC 5.

[Grodech]

Would favored enemy (humans) apply to half-humans?

[Charon]

Hmmm. Can't find much of an answer for this so, I'll allow it.

[Grodech]

Would Maggot be able to take wing from the ship and glide himself outside the gate?

[Charon]

Nope, too much verticality. He needs to go very up. He'll have to be a bit more creative though tbh, with his hide skill, a simple distraction might be all he needs to slip out unnoticed.

[Grodech]

Ugh. Maggot has no backpack or anything to store the arrows in, or even a rope to tie them together.

Would the extra 15 arrows fit inside Ullo's quiver along with his 20, or would he have to remove some?

[Charon]

Official standards give a quiver a capacity of 20. If you want to put the slayer arrows in your quiver you'd need to replace your ordinary ones.
Of course there's no reason why you couldn't carry the remaining normal arrows in your hand.
For reference, here is sixty arrows bundled up.

Spoiler

As you can see, you could easily carry that in a hand if need be. Of course if you don't have twine or anything then you couldn't bundle them up so neatly but you could still carry twenty arrows until you're out of the city, at which point you could transfer the more important arrows to Bashnag's pack that I'm assuming he has. I mean, surely someone brought one. XD

[Grodech]

Would there be general knowledge in town of Lord Karrthragoth's existence? I'm wondering if he told the guard he was supposed to escort Karrthragoth's emissary (aka Maggot) north, would that raise concerns that would cause them to be stopped?

[Charon]

People would be generally aware of his existence and, at least in this town, generally view him unfavourably. He's not exactly as big a menace as Klauth but he has many financial machinations that put him at odds with people in similar situations (ie organized crime gangs, which arguably, this town's leadership is). A bit like the Xanathar but less secretive.

[Charon]

Sorry if the escape from Pale Bridge seemed a little anticlimactic, but as you will see in the denouement soon to come, you actually managed to outsmart me. XD I had not considered that you might leave Pale Bridge by the opposite side to which you entered. Very cunning.

[Grodech]

Anticlimactic was actually what I was going for - lol. Ullo saw no reason to go back that way once nobody else in the party came with him. As soon as that happened, he was pretty much going to leave them all behind, and since the south gate was an hour longer return trip...

[Charon]

Maggot and Ullo have levelled up and acquired 10'000gp in gold/rubies to be spent as you see fit. You can leave Maggot for Crabain to do if he ever returns, I guess. :P

Should more life appear on the forum and another Karrthragoth mission go forward, Ullo is welcome to continue.

[Grodech]

Sounds good. I will get him leveled up and apparently more prepared - for what I have no idea...

[Charon]

I haven't decided yet myself. Got a couple of ideas rattling around but kinda depends on if we see any post Covid activity.
That one shot took a year to play out so got a pretty good feel for length off of it. Definitely worth keeping it fairly simple and straightforward cos I think 12-18 months is doable for a sequel.

[Charon]

Well, I dunno about you, but I'm up for doing something. I kinda wanna put the Karrthragoth thing aside til more people turn up, but I'm not adverse to doing something solo if you fancy it.
What floats your boat? What sorta thing could you really get your teeth into? Just fantasy? Sci fi? Horror? Some bizarre combo? What's peak fun for ya?

[Grodech]

Sorry - things have been crazy this week. Been on vacation/stay-cation this week trying to get some projects done around the the house and getting some things lined up for dealing with the dog when I return to working in the office next week. I don't know if I told you guys, but I lost my wife to brain cancer (and mostly the ensuing treatments) in May. I've been dealing with the fallout from that. Work has been very supportive and let me continue to work from home when most of the rest of the staff has returned to the office, but that is coming to an end. Dealing with the dog has proven to be just as hard as everything else. He's a rescue we got a few months before she was diagnosed and he's been used to her being around all the time for the last two years, and now his only other source of stability is going to be gone all day every day.

In any event, I'm not much a fan of horror or sci-fi gaming systems. I've made some attempts in the past, just in the interest of having a game, but I prefer fantasy settings.

[Charon]

I think you mentioned she was ill back in the old G2 ooc pre-move thread but didn't realise it was quite so advanced. That's a spectacularly shitty thing to have to go through. I'd offer my sympathy but I'm not married so really can't even begin to imagine quite how that feels nor offer any real advice. :S

As for fantasy, I'm fine with that, but it casts a wide net. Tones can range from military to political to whimsical to gritty to anime and so on. And the themes. Undead invasions, demons vs angels, planar exploration, gods, chosen ones, elves, dwarves and more besides. Just the other day I was tossing round the idea of a group playing as members of the city watch, specialist investigators, essentially CSI: Waterdeep. XD
Another friend of mine was expressing interest in a roman centurion kinda vibe, playing as a cohort cut off from the main body of forces and making their way home through hostile territory.
So yeah, kinda just interested in picking your brain for what sorta specifics tickle your pickle. What are things to avoid, what kinda things are mandatory?

[Cmdr Maxwell]

Apologies for being silent on the forum for so long, my interest in DnD has seriously waned over the past year, initially due to the virtual Tabletop Group going on a long term hiatus and then 'rona. I've been getting into Baldurs Gate 3 which has sparked my interest again (not to the same pre-pandemic, pre-hiatus level but enough).

My sincerest condolences on the passing of your wife Grodech

Gamewise, I was the friend that pitched the idea of a roman centurium cohort cut off from the main army, in the enemy territory. But in fact, I'm up for anything really

[Grodech]

I'll give just about anything a run, really, but I'd be less interested if learning a new system is involved.

[Charon]

Yeah. The annoying thing about dnd is it doesn't scale down well for smaller groups, not just the combat but the specialised class system massively limits your options such as not having access to magic or rogue style skills unless you explicitly choose those archetypes. Many other systems offer more rounded characters which allows you to do those sorta non combat things without nerfing your combat abilities. ¬¬ You only have to look for advice on dming for two to see the two most common answers are, add a DMNPC to round them out or have each player play two characters.
Even with the group of 3 we had in the live group I was having to introduce NPCs on the reg to fill out the gaps, mainly because they lacked a magic specialist.

It's not that it can't be done, but it's very hard to make interesting combat when it's pretty much always 2v2 or 2v1. XD
The beauty of a system like Fate is that you can throw a party of two up against one big guy or 50 little guys and still balance it out so whether you're a mage or a fighter, you still have an equivalent level of effectiveness. That's kinda what they tried to achieve with 4th edition dnd only they did it super badly. :P

So anyway, small game, fantasy, 3.5e. I'm gonna throw some ideas together over the next week and a bit and then I'll offer up a list of the ones that seem the most workable so you can see which you fancy.