Discussion Thread (Against the Giants)

Val,

According to my notes, GHORENFORE's current hit points should be at 20/59 not 45/59. The last time I saw his combat profile was on Page 40, Post 14 where it was 31/59. He took 11 points of damage this round, dropping his hit points to 20. There were no posts between that profile and now that gives me any hint that he did any healing. The hit point boost he received from leveling up is to his max hit points, it does not help him now. The number would have been off even if it did count.

Yea I saw what I did wrong after I looked again, I took my HP off my character sheet and not my combat profile, (although I have no idea why I did this at the time), and the character sheet had not been updated.

Issue fixed



Sorry about the confusion
-Val

No worries. I just need to confirm discrepancies when they crop up.

Woohoo! Go, MARTIN! Keep making those saves! The rest of us are coming to aid you!

CONDIE:
I'm open to any thoughts you may have on how to handle this on the next night?

Do you think we should use the same tactic or change things around?

---Val

We'll have to re-scout the surface. I'm sure there will be new spells out there; especially right at the cave entrance. There may or may not be any troops on the surface. They may all be guarding the caves or some may be waiting in the ponds.

We fight our way back to the entrance. We use the lupinals as dungeon scouts. One doors in to check the entry room. Door in MARILYN, H'LIN, GHORENFORE, & FENNIGAN. The paladins & fighter guard the north, east, & south openings while the caster provides backup & a light source. LOWLYN & MARTIN are brought in last. The lupinals then door in & out of the surrounding rooms so we can learn the layout & what's hiding where.

For taking new rooms, send the lupinals first. If the next room has more than two openings, they can take H'LIN too. The rest of us follow in with a paladin guarding our back. MARILYN & GHORENFORE take the lupinals' positions & we repeat.

Player to DM: I’m assuming their ability works like dimension door? As such if MARILYN slides forward 5 feet to 27, 24, and G moves to 25, 22, PACHEEN should be able to touch MARTIN, while FENNIGAN touches MARTIN as well and then doors out.

LUSULA should only need to touch HLIN if LOWLYN grabs HLIN at the same time, and she door out then too.

Leaving G and MARILYN to wait a few rounds for the return trip!

Second question: does the baddy blocking the doors affect their ability to Door out? My understanding of Dimension door says no, but that assuming their ability works like the spell.

That is if I’m reading the “spell / ability” correctly

I wanted to check on this before I posted it, instead of screwing it up!

Yes, their ability to door works exactly like dimension door. Hence the reason I always referred to it as dooring. Your theory is correct, an enemy blocking a passageway will not block someone who doors.

Neither MARILYN nor GHORENFORE need to move. After all, moving would leave GHORENFORE in the open and out of the range of MARILYN's circle. MARTIN and FENNIGAN can move through the two of you to open spots near PA'CHEEN. Which is what PA'CHEEN asked of MARTIN in the first place.

To avoid any more mishaps with communication, it can be assumed that LUSULA and PA'CHEEN send out telepathic messages to everyone with 100 FEET of them. I've been debating with myself as to whether they can keep doing this and decided that they can. However, other characters can only reply to LUSULA and PA'CHEEN, not to other characters. Characters also cannot initiate the telepathic conversation, it must be started by PA'CHEEN or LUSULA.

Also, if there is no post from anyone by 9pm tonight, I am moving on.

I'll be posting shortly, I just wanted a clarification on that.

Thank you!

Hey Condie,

I noticed you were on the site today. Will you be able to post an initiative roll for the surface group soon? I'm not certain how your power situation is after Irene came barreling through.

Let me know if you need anything.

Sorry. I'd read the post too fast. I thought only one initiative roll was needed & Val had done it.

No problem, thanks, comrade. Glad to see that you are up and about. Hopefully, you were relatively unscathed by Irene.

Evil has had to use the library computers to make his updates on the forum. As far as I know this should not disrupt his ability to view the tactical maps before having his characters make his move. If it is, and I will talk to him about it this weekend, he could perhaps use a little assistance on where to place his character on the map.

Condie, Val, you are more than able to see where you think HLIN would be most helpful on the battlefield and you could direct Evil on where to put the character. This could be more beneficial to all of you, rather than having each of you working in a vacuum. I would appreciate it and I'm sure Evil would appreciate it as well. It would be one more step closer to teamwork. I don't want to suggest positions and targets for HLIN, because I believe that would be a conflict of interest, being the DM.

The other thing I ask is that any directional aid be placed on this discussion thread rather than on the story thread (unless of course you add it as part of the dialogue of your character)
i.e.
"HLIN hit the undead elf (UE3) closing on PA'CHEEN's flank (59, 44)."

That way Evil can just pick a coordinate near (59, 44) to place HLIN.

All in all this thread is a great place to plan round-by-round strategies amongst all of you out of character. This would be the same thing you've done at a table game.

Aloddaharm:

I noticed that in the Ravenloft thread you had done a breakdown of the NPC's, and a small breif on each character.

I was wondering if you had anything like that for Against the Giants? Its been quite a while since we switched scenes and as I go back over the thread to collect notes, I notice I'm having to review each character over again to become re-familiar with them. I was wondering if you had a breakdown like you did for the Ravenloft thread so I can keep them all straight in my head..... there is alot after all.

---Val

To Condie and Evil

ok so heres my thought process:

Quote :

Ghorenfore looks at Lady Glassblower a serious hardened expresion on his face
"I say we go after Nerruane, we could head back to the fort resupply, get another man to replace Fawn and then set out. The other option would be to head up to the where the Wild elves MIGHT be, see if they know anything or can offer assistance, and then head after him. We’d be back tracking either way, but it may give us the day we need to recuperate before hitting a major target like Nerruane.”

with-

Quote :

GLASSBLOWER follows up on LOWLYN's thoughts. Her eyes are sparkling.
"If we can recruit another druid to maintain the grove, we may have quite a bit of power to wield against the giants. Lieutenant GHORENFORE, this plan hardly seem likes backtracking."

and-

Quote :

GHORENFORE is aware of the woodsmen and others who escaped from the Oytwood before it completely fell into giants' hands. A collection of woodsmen, if they can be called that, helped to liberate Hochoch, MARTIN is one of them, but there was a cadre of druids, rangers, and barbarians. They once roamed the Oytwood and other regions in Geoff in freedom. Enlisting their aid after the liberation of the druid grove may not be too difficult.

I say with a massive target like were trying to hit we go get thoose reinforcements like we disscussed earlier, power in numbers and all! what do you guys think?

I think the woodsmen is the best idea, but I'm open to your opinions!

---Val

I made a brief for all of the characters in Ravenloft (well, my characters) mostly for everyone who was coming in new. Most of the characters used to be PCs, and I wanted to thrown in the villains to fill it out (their information is based on what the Order knows).

The NPCs in Against the Giants are strictly NPCs and I will not put together briefs. The most I will do is list them again or reintroduce them in a narrative (I had planned the narrative route).

narritive works for me!!!!

Val,

We stayed alive with fewer numbers, we just need to think of a battle plan because if you remember the tunnels are small and the smaller numbers means less personal that will die and be turned into the undead just look with what happen with our party we are stay alive we just forgot some basic rules of combat and need to come with a better battle plan. One is having HLIN lead the party into the caves because of her DARKVISION, then the rest of the party going with her

We did stay alive with our smaller numbers, but we didn't get very far. We did ok if we just want to make daily hit & run strikes - let's raid equipment & go for the night. If we intend to actually clear out everything underground, then we just made a pretty poor showing.

I prefer coming back with more troops. Overwhelm enemies on the surface & secure the area. Split into a group to hold the surface & a group to hunt underground. The lupinals can switch people between groups if or when needed.

I see the group going underground as a combination of 4 smaller teams. First are the lupinals - alone or with 1 or 2 people each - as troop transport & rapid recon teams. Then there are 2 combat teams who will basically leapfrog each other to take & hold rooms. I recommend each combat team have at least one person with high AC & darkvision.

- Recon teams scout ahead. Use lupinals' telepathy to relay discoveries & decide next room to hit.
- A combat team enters new room & attacks. Recon teams can provide cover fire or lead with surprise attacks.
- Other combat team takes up the rear, backing out of previous room & into new one.
- Take the room. Leading combat team secures all entries to it.
- Heal units &/or swap between surface & underground forces as needed.
- Repeat until we can't take anymore or we clear the place.

Evil,

You did not give me any clues that Himo originally picked up his gift. It is wandering off with Crane to the supply tent. All Himo can really do is look at it as it is taken away until he goes up to Crane and takes it from him.

I need detail with posts, I will assume very little. I attempt to assume nothing. I need to know what characters are doing. I prefer not to make it up myself. Accidents will happen that way.

Aloddaharm,

Yes, he did sorry about not put it in the post

After this time, anything that is not written in a post did not happen. There will be no more backtracking. I'll give you this one, Evil, but I will not do it anymore for anyone.

Hey Condie,

I added some shovels and picks into the supplies of the fort. It's a pretty mundane supply need that I never though to add. When I originally put together the list, I added what was most necessary for possible combat supplies and things that were the most obvious.

I can add mundane supplies as needed, as long as they don't ask for much. No need to dig with a plank of wood.

If anyone can think of any more simple supplies, I'll see what I can do to add them more in game, like possible allies that show at the fort.

Quote :

Arlie, rise and shine. Clara's troops spotted two large humanoids on patrol along the western shore

Did Kirak fall asleep on the job again? cause i totally missed that part. I feel like I should had the opportunity to play that out.

Unless of course she saw it, was the only one, and didn't say anything...

but um, yea, ok!

Val,

Kirak does not get to play it out because Kirak is not there.

You are still on the scout team and not at the base. Clara's troops saw the humanoid creatures not Clara.