Out of Character discussion:

"Are you playing an Elf again?!"

"No, mom, it's just a Phase! Gosh!"

Lmfao!!!!

Oh jeez... It took me way too long to get that.

Apologies for no post yesterday. My daughter was in Salt Lake City slaying it at Western Regional Championships, so the rest of us were pretty much glued to our streaming devices watching her and the rest of Team Montana wrestle all day, and then we went out for dinner for my wife's b-day.

I'll have an update posted in a few hours.

Party on Wayne!

Yesterday evening my 14yo son died. I’m going to be taking some time away from a lot of distractions to focus on my family. This is the only game I haven’t deleted, but it may be some time before I’m able to return to it or any other semblance of normality.

I don’t know if this will take a couple of weeks. I don’t know if it will take months. I just have any idea how long this takes when people go through this.

Thank you so much for everything, I’ve truly enjoyed the days we’ve spent together, telling my kids about this campaign I run, and being able to share some of my life with you.

If you’re not here when I return I understand. The world moves on.

Thanks for letting me play. Take care.

Oh, goodness! Take all the time you need. I'm not going anywhere. The saga of Eltrezar hasn't come to a close yet.

I can't imagine what you're going through, as I've never had anything close happen. Heck, I don't have kids. But a quote that I've always found helpful is "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

Absolutely devastating to hear. Every parent’s nightmare. Take care of yourself and yours.

Oh my God that's horrific!! I'm so so sorry, I'm literally crying at work for you right now. Please reach out if you need to talk and I will definitely be here when/if ever you are ready for a distraction. My heart breaks for you.

Since I don't know if/when we will resume I'll also say it's been fantastic playing this game with you all my teammates. You guys are among the best pbp'ers I've ever encountered. Salude!

Ditto! Not only has this game been amazing through both the GM and our roleplaying, but I've had other friends ask about what's happening in the game because it's so much fun. And, selfishly, Eltrezar has been my favorite character to play, and you've all indulged me in that.

So, I use the OSE SRD for most of my referencing. For Underwater Combat, it suggests that ranged weapons don't work and that melee attacks come with a penalty. Also, the rules for Suffocating are that folks in light armor have a 10% chance, and in heavy armor have a 99% chance. However, this is only if you're doing something crazy. Fighting? Probably. Swimming up while dragging a dwarf in heavy armor? Absolutely. Being a dwarf in heavy armor? Not necessarily.

My sources

Spear guns work very well under water but they fire from underwater, not from the surface INTO the water.

A dwarf trying to swim in plate seems like it would drown for sure, but I also assume a dwarf could hold his breath for much longer than a human due to it's inherent stamina.

Mal is gonna rely on the party above to drag her up with the rope...

I use the OSE books too, just cause I think they're easier to reference than the Moldvay books, and this is what my PDF says on combat in water:


So where my logic was was that, I gave a -2 penalty for Luban's attack (I thought about doing -4, but I fugured Luban already has a hand on the monster's antennae and is sawing, so it shouldn't be that hard to reach down and start sawing), and I would've probably done a -2 for the the damage penalty, but it didn't matter because the Giant Crayfish had an armor class of 4 (needed a 15+ to-hit) and it was down to its last Hit Point when it submerged so any hit (even Gilly's arrow) would have been a kill.
As far as firing ranged attacks underwater, since my rules say most ranged attacks don't work in water, I decided that probably a shortbow or long bow probably wouldn't work if shot under water because of the drag on the string? Probably any throwing weapon wouldn't work because you have to swing your arm for those. Down the road, maybe a crossbow would fire underwater (we can discuss it), and a speargun would probably work (if a speargun ever comes up)...
As far as firing ranged attacks into water, I don't think a dagger would work, or a throwing axe, because it would lose its balance and spin once it hit the water's surface. Anything like a long, somewhat aerodynamic shaft that just runs a straight trajectory would probably work, though with a penalty. I don't hunt myself, but I have a lot of friends that do and a couple use these crazy bowfishing rigs that let you shoot an arrow attached to a fishing line:

From what I understand, if you're shooting too deeply your arrow can go off the mark, but the hardest part is that if you shoot directly at your target under water you'll be off the mark because of something to do with how light refracts in water or some science, so that's a penalty to her to-hit that Gilly would have had to contended with...


As far as drowning, the OSE pdf says you'd likely have "above" 90% chance of drowning in heavy armor, but kind of leaves it up "referee's discretion". I could go 99%, but figured, "eh... I'll throw them a tiny bone because I'd like to see them pull off a big win here". And honestly, 90% drowning/10% successfully swimming odds are hardly better than 99%/1% odds. I certainly wouldn't want to gamble on those odds if I could come up with a more clever way to circumvent having to make that percentile roll. It was a very meager, very slim bone I threw you guys for sure.
Tying off another "sinker" like Mal and then fishing her back out was definitely a smarter move than letting Luban risk the swimming roll. As far as Thurig drowning down there, he's sorta already unconscious, and unconscious people can hang around the bottom of a pool and get revived without too much brain damage all the time if they're not under for more than a minute or two, which is why I want to just play this out using 10-second "encounter time" intervals, so I have an idea how long the dwarf is actually laying around unconscious without air before getting rescued.

I learned something about spear fishing in that last post!

The thingy under Mage's Staff for the Mage class says:

"Light: Once per day, the mage may cause their staff to radiate light in a 30’ radius for 1 turn per level."

I think that's supposed to be a ten-minute "dungeon exploring" turn; not a ten-second "encounter time" turn. So Ora's staff should've lasted a bit longer than I had posted, actually.

We’ll have these gnolls chopped down and the traitor caught before he reaches the ladder! Are things actually going our way?

At least he doesn’t know where Gilly stashed coin! I think…

Where did we land on crits?

@dominion451: We (meaning the players, really) decided that we didn’t want to do double damage on Natty-20s because the party didn’t want monsters to do double damage likewise. I’m pretty sure that discussion is in the OOC thread somewhere.

I have a five mile run home in ten minutes, but I can dig through the conversations with a CTRL+F comb after I get home this evening to be sure.