Game strategy

I'm trying to describe the battlefield because drawing maps is impractical for me. The status is the human cleric is right there with you all but protected by sanctuary. The elf has high tailed it and is about 180' away heading back to the stairs with Seneia in hot pursuit. The halfling and half orc are dead.

I'm sure hoping that Elden succeeded with his wisdom save. Even though both of his attacks missed, it'll be good for somebody to stay back and engaged with the cleric while the rest of us run on or inspect the bodies.

I think it was DC 15, so maybe he'll drop the sanctuary since its not working? lol, wishful thinking

OK I'm going to make a ruling right now on spiritual weapon. The weapon has no wisdom, it is under clerics command. An attack by weapon is a cleric attack. Hence the cleric must save to bypass sanctuary, not the weapon. It's all or nothing. As both of your rolls are 15 or over it looks like you got away with it, otherwise I'll be rolling for you.

Merlin, is it okay if you just move my post up there to the game thread? Or do you want me to repost/reroll? If I do I might fail the save hehe!

Yes it is ok but you failed... DC is 15!

Oh ok haha!

Where are the baddies in relation to Szent? I have the feeling that they're quite a distance away at this point.

Just realised that I missed the round 4 post. Will post asap, but the game thread is currently locked for me.

Is it locked now?

Yes, still locked.

The padlock at top is open. I'll close it to see if that changes anything. Is it locked now?

Now it's open. How far away from Seneia is the elf at the moment?

That's weird. Padlock closed = thread open, padlock open = thread closed.
Reading round 3 and 4 you are now 90' away. Am I the only one who reads the posts?

I could tell how far the elf moved during round 4, but I couldn't figure out how far he had moved during round 3. There have been enough misunderstandings as it is, so I was just trying to make sure I'm not making any false assumptions.

Guys, I'll be away till January 7th ... Happy new year to everyone ^_^

I think we established as early as the encounter in the alley that Elden doesn't like killing. And then in the aftermath of the encounter versus the slaver guards, when Alanya lost her shit and slapped Weylan, it was established that most of the orphans are of the same mind: sick to the stomach because of the killing. Yes, even when their own lives are threatened. Some are a little more ambivalent. For example, Rufio, while not bloodthirsty, isn't as bothered by it as the others. He had a rough childhood, had to kill or be killed on several occasions long before he hit his teens. But like I said, he doesn't seek out killing, doesn't enjoy it (but he does love fighting). Weylan killed a wolf when he was 8! He’s sympathetic towards Elden but mostly the young halfling just wants everyone's acceptance and approval.

Next, the orphans kill the ninja rogue, and during the brief rest afterwards there are no more guilt pangs or remorse, no more arguments. Nothing. Have the orphans, having lost their innocence, been desensitized to the horror of killing?

Then this new group shows up and battle ensues again. For the record, the orphans struck first. Seneia beats the halfling dead. The orphans then rush to Feylinde's aid and gang up on the half-orc. Elden takes care to make his hammer blows non-lethal but the others don’t care and soon the half-orc is dead. Elden hammers the fleeing cleric with non-lethal blows and Alanya blasts him with Vicious Mockery. In the end Alanya knocks the cleric out with the flat of her blade, and Seneia captures the elf.

Now it looks like the kills have upset some of the orphans again, particularly Elden and Alanya. For the rest of us, did we all intend to pull our punches and deal non-lethal blows but simply forgot to specify? Or is the intent to just carry on as before (at least for now)? I confess that I haven’t had Rufio give it much thought. In any case, it’s interesting. Each player is telling their PC’s own emotional journey and personal story arc, and I think that’s the way RPG should be. :-)

I really like your synopsis of the emotional journey so far. I'd say that killing the hidden rogue was more of a sudden and brutal encounter that was such a shock we didn't really register the emotional impact as much. There was no choice but to kill him since he was very clearly trying to kill us and obviously good at his job. This, in combination with the fact that the feelings were already so raw left us to weary to feel much of anything.

I've intentionally made the distinction that Seneia, due to her background, isn't nearly as shocked by death and killing as some of the other orphans. However, as her focus was on getting to the elf all the time, she may not even realise yet that she actually killed the rogue, instead of just knocking her way through him.