OOC

I think Grace will love being in battle because her musical talent will actually work!

…and before I post, I realize I could just play Grace as knowing how to play without a Troubador roll. But I like coin-toss odds shutting her down, at least for her first day.

One more attempt since Raquel is encouraging her.

Grace is like, "it’s on like Donkey Kong!" And in her head, exactly like Donkey Kong because that’s also a game.

She would be a coward in real life, and she knows it.

That's always the weird surreality of situations like this. One minute you're doing totally normal things and then something completely fantastical comes up and it's a struggle about how to deal with it. At face value? As a game function? As something totally different?

I drafted a couple of versions of the last game post & forgot to include the one with a description after Maxime's dialog. I edited that back in there for clarity.

Grace's double 9's on the [Study] roll are a Critical! That'll give her a pretty good idea what the thing is. I'll give everyone some time for a reaction to the post before elaborating.

So, clarifying (mostly for myself lol) on who's in the Triffid hunt right now: So all 6 of us, then Arga, Bradl33, Maxime, and Guy?

Piphany and Tina as well

Party is absolutely massive lol! Pretty fitting for a JRPG though (although fortunately we're not restricted to 4 main party members XD)

EDIT: Although now that I think about it, this is definitely more of an MMO raid

You're so right, I didn't think about it before but this seems more like MMO raid kind of scale than a normal fight. Would be so hard to manage if this were live and not pbp.

If not for PbP, one of us would have Leroy Jenkinsed by now.

By "one of us," I mean "me."

It's looking like you may be correct!
At a table, there'd probably be a lot of waiting around while a GM rolled for all the other NPCs & the opponents. Fortunately in PbP, that's a lot more manageable since it happens behind the scenes and no one is left waiting.

I'm glad I stumbled on using a spreadsheet format to track combat stuff. I feel like that helps everyone keep track of the essentials (character HP/MP, opponent HP/MP, Status effects, etc. ). It sure helps me keep track of things and maybe helps give a feel of the MMO dynamics of things.
I half expected that from someone, honestly. 😁

There's always the option of chugging an MP Potion...if you have any. It does take an Inventory Action but it restores 30 MP.
Chugging an HP Potion restores 30 HP.

Welllll… I didn’t really post myself shopping. But if that’s something I can do/retcon off camera, I’ll blow my gold on one of each, at least, depending what I can afford.

I think I have 103 gold. (100 starting, +7 from the music, -4 for tipping the maids.)

Sure. Everyone had enough time to shop and bathe before dinner. I don't mind the retcon since this might be a tough fight.

Ok, thanks @witchdoctor! I purchased one of each.

@witchdoctor What does aggro 1 mean?

What I really want to know is if I can play the tune as my first action. (I beat the monster’s init. roll, if that makes a difference.)

Aggro is a function of attracting monster attention & sort of guiding it's behavior. Accumulating a high Aggro score draws attacks or attention from monsters. They generally target the Party members with the highest Aggro first. Aggro of 1 is a basic level of interest. A regular attack accrues 1 Aggro, a big attack (or one with an AoE effect) accrues 3-4 Aggro.
Aggro accumulates each turn (barring some skill or effect that removes or reduces it) so Grace starting her Anthem generates 1 (and only 1 Aggro, not 1 each turn) and then attacks the following turn now has 2 Aggro, where Arga throws a fire spell that generates 3 Aggro each turn he decides to use it will build up Aggro very fast.

Some monsters might flee if a Party generates a lot of Aggro on them quickly, other monsters might change tactics or even abilities when Adventurers they fight reach certain Aggro levels.
Warrior Classes tend to have skills & abilities to quickly reach high Aggro levels to keep the monster attention on them (because they have a ton of HP and defensive skills) so the monsters don't go after the glass cannons (Magic Users & Support Classes) so they can do their job and kill stuff or keep the party healed. Weapon Master Classes are kind of in the middle of that dichotomy.

TL;DR: Grace starting her Harmony would be fine. Guy and the others should be able to keep King Triffid off her butt.

Okay, that helps a lot. I never played an MMO, so "aggro" is a term I knew of.

Anyway, the post is up. I honestly didn’t know Collective Soul released stuff since the 90’s, but when I searched songs about Mother’s Affection, I found one from this year. The video seems to be about the band’s frontrunner’s mother being a fan, so Grace probably liked it because she can relate. Her mother is one of the four people on her Discord channel for fans.

Sorry guys, my little man was ill the last 2 days and Saturday, well it was Saturday...

Sorry to hear that. Hope he's feeling better!

No pressure on posting. Take care of lil guy!