Out of Character discussion:

That's a pretty good point, actually. Considering a zombie wiped out the party's dwarf with a Nat-20 you'd think they would reconsider.

Thank Cuthbert we agreed on no double damage! Coulson seems to have magnets in his armor lol!

It occured to me tonight that not only does party Initiative rolls hose the halfling, but really any PC with a Init bonus.

But those of us with initiative penalties don't mind it too much.

Lol, I knew Eltrezar would chime in.

Yeah around a table I'd never use it. In pbp it just serves to speed up combat which can otherwise take an exceedingly long time. Same with group action posting. I played with one dm on Mythweavers that would apply the highest player's bonus to the groups roll (and same with the highest dex monster) to account for the "scout" element.

Everyone has their own style, their own way of running things. It's all good ;)

Coulson just rolled a nat20 haha. We are just going to see a ton of 1s and 20s now.
I like how your running initiative and combat

Not just a nat 20 but max damage too! Bravo sir!

Hope my mighty swing doesn’t cleave him in two and damage the horse. We can sell that unless someone wants it

No doubt! Equine gold!

Just a heads up to everyone, I removed Shadowace from the game today. Nothing personal against them, it's just that it became more and more clear that they weren't really contributing too much to the game.

From their PC's introduction at the start f Part 2 they didn't really engage too much, and I sort of wrote it off that a lot of Part 2 was a shopping montague and a "meet-and-greet" with some of Hommlet's mote important NPCs, and since Kelric arrived fully equipped he didn't need to go shopping, and maybe heavy roleplaying isn't their cup of tea.

I hoped that Part 3 might generate some more activity from them, knowing that it was basically a dungeon crawl/combat-heavy thread. But we haven't really seen that from them. I've constantly had to PM them that their turn was up. We've had multiple discussions about pacing which were thinly-veiled directs regarding how Kelric's inactivity was slowing things down. Shadowace has stated multiple times it's because weekends are tough for them, but most of the time they've been inactive on weekdays too. I'm now at the point where I'm RPing Kelric as an NPC more than Shadowace has been as a PC.

So I removed them from the game. I sent them a PM explaining why, stating everything said above, and explaining that I take as much responsibility as anyone should. I think it came down to an issue that I probably failed to make the game interesting enough for Shadowace to want to stay engaged, and maybe Shadowace wasn't clear how the group prefers te pacing to go.

In any case, I told Shadowace that if they genuinely want to continue playing, to shoot me a PM and we'll have to have a chat about what the group expects from one another and see of we can figure out how to get them on the same page.

Otherwise, I'll be playing Kelric as an NPC for the rest of the encounter and like Jonas and Selvam before, after Part 3 ends, Kelric will probably decide to skedaddle into the sunset somehow.

That seems fair. Every time is was Kelric’s turn I would mentally check out for a few days because I knew things were going to slow right down. Maybe that’s harsh of me, but I’ve just had a game die due to player disengagement (my first game on the site) so it’s something that gnaws at me.

Happy new year all!

Incidentally, I was telling Nezzeraj about this game, and I’m sure he’d be interesting in joining, should his plate not very too full!

Yeah, we can discuss a replacement if the group wants.

Also, HAPPY NEW YEAR, all!!! It's not for me yat, but about 6 1/2 more hours...

Happy new year indeed! It's always a bummer when a player doesn't work out but keeping the pace of the game up is vital to longevity. For the record I feel the game has been very interesting!

I've definitely been enjoying the group, and am honestly looking forward to the combat speeding up a bit. That said, I'll be out in the mountains until Sunday, ringing in the New Year my own way. Given that Eltrezar is (unsurprisingly) at the bottom of the initiative order, this shouldn't be an issue.

Yeah, Eltrezar is getting super hosed sitting on the back of Elmo's horse. Which is pretty nuts because Elmo has a +1 to his Init rolls, and just consistently keeps rolling garbage.

Awesome man, have fun in the mountains! Personally that's my favorite place to be :)

New year mountains sounds ideal. I’m waiting on my Covid test results to come in :(
It’s a bummer when someone ghosts, I just had a game die too. But like everyone else, I’m really enjoying this game

Man, Gilly is carrying the group this time lol