Out of Character discussion:

Mal has torches :/

Quick, someone grab a bolt of cloth from that treasure chest! We'll trap the rats under it and just club away!

But be careful with the cloth. Eltrezar does have plans for some new wizard robes.

These things are three feet long lol, I imagine it being like throwing a blanket over a pack of dogs

Jeez, yeah... That's a good analogy. They're like the size of maybe a border collie or a blue heeler.

Still no rush, but rough idea on when the party will head back to town and I'll be able to join in? Lol.

Oh man I forgot we were waiting on another player! Maybe he was perched on an old table in the room fending off rats?

We can't let Bors die of borsdom!

...I'll see myself out.

I'd talked to them via PM about if they wanted to join the group at the castle, but they said they would rather meet the group at the town. Then you guys just never went back to town, lol.

I mean, I did try... but it sounds like our plan is to clear out this floor and then head back to town. Looks like we don't have too much to explore, though the rats are going to take some time fo sho.

Not with Angel on the job... Dude's been turrin' it up with that bow of his lately.

Him and Gills O'Hoolihan! But maybe now Loken can just leap into the fray... literally.

So what would you folks like Mal to do here? I don't think she can tank for the whole fight, she's already at half hp after the first half of the rats.

I could delay her action to move last giving others time to get in position and make a kill box...

Like if Elmo traded places with Gilly and then Mal moves to T9, I think that's our best bet.

So Gilly would delay her move until Elmo's turn in order to trade places and I would delay my move until after Elmo gets in position

I will say this, because anyone with access to the B/X books or the OSE Monsters book could look this up anyway:

The Giants Rats have a THAC0 of 19. So they have to roll an 18 or better on an unmodified d20 to hit Mal. Pretty hard to do, but yeah, there's still 12 rats left, and Mal's only good for maybe 1 or 2 more bites considering they do 1d3 damage.

If you guys plan on moving Elmo to Gilly's spot, Gilly shouldn't have to delay. She's up next and can probably make a melee attack and move back. If that's what you all want to do.

Yeah you're right about the move.

I would think that an 18 was hard to hit except that they already hit it once and I'm not exactly on a lucky streak ;)

15% chance to hit each time. I think it would be close call to "Tank" that doorway. Could go either way due to the number of rats trying to get some dinner.

I’m also concerned that the wind will go out of our sails if we lose more characters to rats! :D

Thanks for the tip, I love podcasts and am always looking for good ones.

Ya know, guy, you could have made things a lot easier on yourself if you had allowed the party to enter the room before the rats attacked. It seems these are both very aggressive rats as well as perhaps forewarned. Don't know how a rat could be forewarned but you see what I'm getting at. What were the rats doing in the room before the party arrived and opened the door? They apparently weren't sleeping nor were they feeding or even simply rustling around. The seemed to be laying in wait.

I like the idea of the kill box just outside the door to that room. Box being the active word with all of us forming sides of the box so we can all get an attack each round. Of course, Angel would have to stay back and fire his arrows since his melee ability is so poor.