OOC chat

Why did I have to say space monkies?

I've counter 13 doors on the map beside the ones we entered. It is stated that only 12 are there.

Well spotted, the map is better than the original, but I did not notice that they had added a extra door

Cool!

One last question: did we already have the chance to trade with one another? (the magic items)

And looking into our ranks: can we trade some items for strong magical healing potions?

@Everybody
I would be interested in a magic finesse weapon, if anybody can spare one. I could trade my boots of levitation for it, if someone wants them. :)

I can let you have a standard healing potion (2d4+2) each.

And now you can trade :)

is there the possibilty that we can trade some of the rolled things we can`t use, for some better potions? a standard healing potion doesn`t go fare on this level

Sorry no - better potions are on the lower tables A-E

Okay, if you say so. Imho that's nothing a clear thinking adventurer would do. At least we know now why everybody else is dead. ;)

To be clear, have all the PCs met?
Do we trade in the ooc?

thx

The 3 of you have healing abilities, so I am not worried
This is a vignette, we have skipped all the meeting and plot buildup. You are to enter a dungeon/vault from a published adventure, that I have spiced up a bit to challange a group of level 15's

my chara has darkvision.

I understand that this image might have given you the impression of a well light vault. I wanted to give you the impression of scale and the door design, did not think about the ligthing.



Exept for 1 room, there are no light sources.
If nothing else is mentioned then walls are made of mortared stone. Doors are solid stone slabs with stone handles and hinges.
Magic that will contact the outside world, like scrying, teleportation ect are hindred. If you wanna try something, try, but don't expect that it will automaticly work.

Lol, oh yes. The 40' bright and additional 40' dim is insane

Hmm, for some reason it won't let me post to the gameplay thread....



For the time being, Zankas would try to use Countercharm to give Melang a shot at making a better save if he were to get another one.

Unfortunately, I don't have a ton of "after you got magically entranced" help, heh

If you use countercharm I would allow the charmed to have a new normal save

might be more promising to try and call back the knight for some assistance

Without TDK it is a straight D20 roll.

somebody stop me :). TDK is going up. He don't want to seem like unable to... too
Both Zankas and Rervenn suggested going up. No PC suggested (in voice) otherwise. TDK can't show he is afraid of doing that, so he is going up. And I've posted my action of doing that anyway.

Perhaps we may need to work as a team.

Though Countercharm is not a resource, you could do it again and again every turn. He should eventually pass.

There seems to be an issue with the forum

thanks for fixing and sorry will try to be careful with nested tags in future

Weekends are usually quite, do no worries

For the poll, you could always include a "Oops, I clicked incorrectly so I'm putting myself back in undecided" type option that you could change your vote to if you misclick (not a fix, but a workaround for the inability to unvote).

I made the pole a multi poll. Then I could undo my click

I can't. Why? Why would a PC waste 1000 GP to cast this spell when we don't even know it will make any difference. Am I missing something?

Because it's duration is 24h, it helps a lot with saves and some conditions and this is a very dangerous endeavor. :)

Can I hear your reasoning for your analysis, please?
Yes, a group of 5th level died. You are level 15

Okay, that`s a sound argument. You got me on using meta-knowledge. *g*

It`s just that in my p&p group, we are using this spell regularly, because it payed of soooo many times that I lost count. But in this one, we don`t have anybody that can cast it, therefore any further discussion is superfluous anyway.

did we take a short rest between the last encounter and going down the stairs?

Yes

Thanks for the quick response. Then Melang will have his used arcane recovery, but the see invisible spell will be gone by now.

WHAT?
Even if I grapple body that willing to move I could move it 15 feet per round, 150 feet per minute without even dashing.
I was expecting that with my "Boots of Striding and Springing" TDK would just grab a leg or arm and move toward the party at the normal speed.
If the ruling is that it takes 3 minutes to move single human body is 60-80 feet, then I would like to change my last action

Could I also ask if TDK and Dragon both hear and know that Melang hast spells and recognise that spell provide protection against fire?

The dark knight
Carrying Capacity. 13*15 = 195 lbs
Push, Drag capacity = 30*15 = 390 lbsTDK gear 79 lbs
avarage human: 170 lbs
Total burden = 249 lbs

The Dark Knight can drag a corps with normal speed.
With dash he can move a corps to the stairs in one round. 8 Rounds later he has moved all the corpses.
Math done! Problem solve! Move on! What do you do now?!

OK, I would like to meta game a bit, because I feel like my in character behaviour is causing confusions.
My PC is proficient at Deception. He pretend to just remove corpses, but he actually just want to win time and discuss with others the strategy.
I planned to move single corpse toward the party and whisper to then suggestion to move up the stairs and discuss strategy.

@soises
TDK will be surprised Melang is prepared and willing to fight the dragon who is not immediately aggressive, but I would certainly join the fight should the other players want to solve this issue bu force.
But I would prefer as a player to try to
1) figure out alternatives to killing creature
2) spend hour and change attuned items before we attack dragon
3) Come up with coordinated strategy for attacking dragon

@ TDK
Okay, this I get. Thanks a lot for the clarification. *thumbs up*
Very good point. To be honest, I wasn`t thinking along those lines.

@ all>
I' ld love to hear more about your characters, because I don`t have a clue who they are and what they are capable of. Maybe we can talk strategy or to be exact: powers - in this ooc channel in the following days.

Especially Zankas, of whom I know nothing about except that he has a fine sense for art. ;P

But out of consideration for our game master (and my own battlelust!), who seems to be in a hurry, I'm in favor of starting the battle right away. :)



Melang has counterspell and nothing much else to support the group. As you`ve seen he has some extremely bad saves (heroes feast would help A LOT against a f*cking dragon! ;) I KNEW that IT would come in handy .... ) and would love to stay close TDK because of that. He is a very mobile melee fighter, with some tricks in his sleeve (teleportation spells, absorb elements, ...) , who wants to stay at the same time as close to the dragon as possible.

I'm not in a hurry, but I felt you had slipped into analysis paralysis.
I was also unsure of what TDK was doing, but now it makes sense. You have successfully scouted the dragon's lair and can prepare accordingly. But I must say that the dragon knows that there are people in the vault again.

Okay, it seems to me that you wanna speed things up, while not everybody has given their opinion. :)

You forget to answer questions and are opening questinnaires on the other hand. But that is just my personal impression, maybe the others see it differently.


EDIT: Find your cool runekyndig. :) Everything looks good. All players are on deck. I had fun so fare and that's the most important part (for me :).

Zankas as a combatant tends to favor being up near his enemies. He blends swordwork and evocation magics to cause pain and do battlefield control type actions, kind of a war-skald kind of feel. That said, he's survived this long by being wary and not being the sole person up in that fight.

That said, he is still a bard and likes to avoid combat if he can. Never tried sweet-talking a dragon before, but he isn't against it necessarily.

For their mission, he is aware they've been asked to recover gold and figure out what's up with the party the Waterdeep officials lost contact with (that we know now got dead down here). Beyond that, he doesn't have a strong opinion of the rightness of it.

Question to @runekyndig Would Zankas know the supposed "legality" of ownership of the gold? By that, the dragon says we aren't allowed to claim it. But we're here on the authority of city leadership. Would Zankas know either way if the gold is rightfully the city's gold or are they trying to illegally gain it? It would change a bit of how he'd approach the dragon.

Please roll hit dies, as it was a short rest

The dragon suspects that TDK is not alone, but is not omnipressent ;) He has only seen TDK

So the gold belongs to Dagult Neverember or the City of Waterdeep, depending on perspective.

Any unanswered questions?

I have question.
Guessing by the battle map and "thirty-foot-high" VS dragon size it should obvious it will not be able to use flying speed. Is that fair assessment? TDK seen the dragon and the room should understand that, or should he rill some dice to figure it out?

Its a good question and if it wasn't in its lair I would agree with you. Some of the smaller pillars are broken, and it knows this area very well. It has its flight speed

---

Another thing I must say upfront, before blades are drawn: It has legendary actions, but due to the asynchronous game of play by post, I will take those 3 actions during your turn, as it fit. I should take an action after your characters, but if you all have taken your turn by the time I log in, I will just take the actions one after another.

Well team - good luck. The Dragon will be able to hang there in the air 10 feet above the floor and my PC can't reach it. It is up for you to fight the dragon. I will try to heal you and be around you, but that is basically all I could do.

No, dragons can't hover.

I mean it could fly all around keeping close to ceiling. Well, doesn't matter, will see in action.
In any case TDK is not the one to attack creature for the gold it protects (or probably it doesn't even protect it - we don't know that yet). TDK wanted to look for alternatives to brute force solution, but as he see party bloodthirsty (did I read it right?) he prepares for fight.
Now who will initiate the battle and how?

okey - it will not hover under the ceiling, but It will use its fly speed to get around if needed.

But due to TDK actions in retrieving the bodies, a non-violent solution is a possibility.

If battle begins it is because you guys initiate it. And you can do that in several ways, top of the list is "attack" and "getting caught in stealing gold"

No more questions on my side, thanks for asking.


In the beginning of this thread, grey word told us that he wants to fight. Same for me, I want to try my character concept.

Maybe we close in to the bodies of the fallen and spring our attack than? :)

Yes I still want to fight as a player. As for strategy - let's do in in character. Your PC could just state aloud - so that dragon hears it "I will help you with bodies" or something, but I would like to do that in character.

I like that. :)

Hope what I' ve posted ingame is what you wanted. *s*

Is it only me feeling that lvl 15 against legendary is just too much mess for PBP... ton of reactions, ongoing effects, auras, passive abilities, etc.

Yes, its a mess :D

I like it messy. ;)


There is a lot of editing and remembering each other of powers, spell effects and other things, but hey that's high level DND for you. *g*


Until now I was not so sure, that I like it that runekyndig rolls all our saves and defences himself in his DM posts. It sure helps to keep the pace and move the turns along, with a minimum of waiting for the other players. On the downside, we (as the players) have to be very vigilant, that no bonus/advantage/reaction is forgotten.

By now, I am thinking this is the best way to handle the mechanics of the game and I am good. :)

By the way, Melang has around 4 reaction spells, so be prepared for some editing. *g*

LOL
If you have a feature or ability that changes the "standart" then we'll make some edits. I try to keep this engaging, and fluent, but if you have a suggestion to make it better I'm all ears.

The only way to make it reasonable is to take do one character at a time and wait for reactions. That will slow down dramatically

P.S. If I were DM on gamersplane I would ban all feats that has to do with reaction. If a PC has Sentinel + Polearm Master DM should basically stop game any time any a monster comes close to do melee attack, because PC he could stop that monster within 10 feets and prevent monster from attacking or even killing.

Soooo? Have my 50 dmg been enough? =)

And why is it GreyWords turn?

So many questions....

Hmm did I post out of initiative by mistake? Seems like that. Please let me know if I should delete my post or DM will resolve it when it will be TDK turn.

Hit points are in single digits, your opportunity attacks could end it, if you can land the hit

I deleted the out of order post and reposted it now, sorry for mistake. And well my OA missed.

The dragon gets 11 thunder dmg from the Booming blade, because he moves.

If the target willingly moves 5 feet or more before then, the target takes 1d8 thunder damage, and the spell ends.

On my level it is 3d8.

@DM / runekyndig>
don't keep us in suspense any longer - what is happening?! is it over?! :D

is there a second dragon?! a second stage of the fight? o.O

should I start to (ritual-)cast tensers floating disk, so that we can get all the gold out of here without breaking our backs?

Sorry @soises it have been a long day. I'll get to it right now

Thanks for the lovely vignette @runekyndig! It definitely was something that highlighted some of the pitfalls of high level play and where seemingly innocuous things can absolutely run something off the rails (lookin' at you creepy painting threat)! Given another throw at it, I think I may have been less caution to the dice and more planned item acquisition for a similar adventure in the future.

Thanks for letting us know! I was so curious! :D

Tomorrow I'll write more.

Have a good night and thanks again.

Even if it was sometimes a bit messy, I thoroughly enjoyed our game very much. This kind of "oh! no. you forgot that I have still ..."-mess is in DnD always present for me. Like everything it is faster/easier to handle in person than on a message board. But here it never bothered me.

The fight itself was very engaging for me and I loved our there tempo and the possibilities a high level character overs.

Hopefully, you are not disappointed, that we were victorious so quickly. But with some bad rolls it could've come to be rapidly the other way around.

If you would run this again (a third time?), as a suggestion of improvement:
I would suggest giving the characters an opening scene, where they have the chance to describe themselves outside a dungeon and how they are connected between one another. Maybe banter for two posts or how they get the job. This is something I missed quite a bit. In my opinion it would've caused a considerable difference, of how we feel as a group. Instead - for me at least - it felt more like some mighty individuals that are together in a dungeon by coincidence. I missed The Group Experience(tm).

Just my two cents.


If you would offer a new Vignette, I would sign up in a heartbeat. *s*

Thanks for hosting such an extraordinary adventure, Runekyndig. It was a genuine pleasure. :D

And thank you GreyWord, for TDK. :)

He was essential for Melangs saves and conditions. Always good to bring a paladin. *G*

Actually I think his aura preventing being afraid was a bit OP if not game breaking. Fight would more challenging if we at leat one of our 2 PC get afraid

I'm really greatful for this experience and for opportunity to try out my character concept in a quick game.
@Dramasailor - thanks for your effort managing this mess of the final battle!