OOC Chat

No problem.

Quick question: Do we have languages other than Common? If so, and our characters are allowed a second language, what choices do we have?

Good question, CancerMan. Here are some good choices:

Low Atlantean are the defacto human language of the setting, the equivalent of Common. Mostly civilized races and some monstrous races speak it, such was the influence of this fallen civilization.

High Atlantean is kind of like Latin in our world. It is mostly known by scholars but also by those a few who toil in ancient ruins for lost treasure. Magic and technological secrets are often enshrouded in cryptic High Atlantean.

Dwarven is rarely known outside of the halls of the Dwarf Lords, but with a good tie-in with your backstory it could make sense. Dwarves do trade with the other peoples of the world, and are the keepers of the secret of steel and other lost smithing techniques.

Elven is difficult to master for humans, requiring years of study. Few ever master it.

Urgan is the beastial language of Beastmen and their kin (Gnolls, Apemen). It is verbal only and has no written script. Those who war against or trade with these creatures sometimes learn this primitive language.

Draconic is the ancient language of dragons and is still used by the races that once served them: Serpentmen, Troglodytes, Kobolds, and some practitioners of fell magic. Although humans struggle to make the low, gutteral noises and reptilian hisses and clicks, it is conceivable to learn from extended interaction with such creatures.

More rarely, there is also


Benthic, the tongue of Aboleths and other Deep Ones
Giant, the tongue of Giants, Cyclopses, and Minotaurs
Rakshasan, the tongue of the Rakshasas
Abyssal, the tongue of the Hells
Celestial, the tongue of Gods, Angels, and sometimes priests

For Elspa, I can only think of Urgan as a second language, reasoning that in the wilds as an outcast she'd be exposed to such during wars or trade.

She is allowed another language from her Outlander background, but none of the others would fit. May I substitute it for a Tool proficiency instead? Perhaps Healer's Kit, and I can retroactively purchase the same with my starting gold?

CancerMan, HypCo was pointing out that there apparently is no tool proficiency for the healer's kit - there is no roll associated with their usage. You are certainly welcome to retroactively purchase the kit, but maybe chose a different tool proficiency. The healer's kit doesn't really become awesome until you combine it with the healer feat.

Whoops, I mis-typed. I meant to ask for proficiency in the Herbalism Kit. Sorry about that.

No problem. Sounds good.

So I posted Jarveena's first combat action (boy, I hope we keep rolling this well all throughout!) and it involved quite a few things. Am I correct in assuming Advantage on the attacks thanks to surprise &/or hiding?

My rolls also included two uses of the Precision Attack maneuver.
I'm gonna say IF the first arrow hits then I will choose NOT to spend a Superiority die on the second arrow.

Per PHB. pg. 194-195, we would get advantage but only on our first attack I believe.
When a creature can't see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it. If you are hidden --both unseen and unheard-- when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.

It also takes an action to hide, unless you're a 2nd level rogue, though I'd imagine you can still drop behind cover gaining the benefits of full cover.

I suspected as much. Well the rolls are there, I'll leave it up to Len to deal with them as appropriate. Advantage or no, IF the first arrow hits then I won't spend a maneuver on the second one.

Yep, that's the way to do it.

I'll post more on the specifics of how to ambush in this game. I know every DM does it differently because there is a lot of room for interpretation in the rules. For example, lots is left up to DM choice, such as whether or not the enemy can see you.

To avoid playing "Mother, may I?" for the whole game I'll post a bit of clearer set of expectations soon.

FYI - MoMo talked with me about Ygne having an injury before I gave it to her. I wanted to mention this to the group because I don't want to discourage good storytelling, and that involves telling stories of failure. Generally, players fail enough with their dice without me having to add arbitrary disadvantages :) But in this case I went for it. It was initiated by a player and I thought it was a cool RP thing, setting up a chance for Ygne to bond with other characters as they help her.

MoMo, one short rest should be enough to get Ygne's vision cleared up. And for taking a cool narative risk, you are awarded INSPIRATION! (I always forget about that mechanic haha)

Yeah, sorry, got mixed up. No advantage there.

Jabes: Yes, sharpshooter allows you to ignore cover, so you can hit copper pot with +10 damage without using the precision attack. I treated your advantage as disadvantage to account for prone, but you still hit and killed Copper Pot because Jarveena is a badass.

HypCo: Riposte acknowledged.

FYI everyone, I deleted a few posts to clean up the game thread. Sorry it got confusing there!

I meant to ask this earlier when it was brought up but forgot.
For languages I have Common, Dwarvish, Elvish, Orc
my reasoning is those languages I felt would be most common in a brothel setting and he would've picked up or been taught from the workers in the down time.

Do all those languages work, if not, which languages would fill their place?

Thank you! Yeah, even though it was vague as to what hit her on the head, if it was enough to knock her out, it probably would've done some damage. Plus Ygne is waaay more fun when she's being put in her place by the powers that be. :)

Thanks for the Inspiration! I always forget about it too, when I'm GMing.

CancerMan and I chatted about this above in this post. Basically change Orc to Urgan and you're good but feel free to make other switches as well.

It sure was :)

I was going to make a post here letting you know that at least Jabes and I are on that group, so if you have spoiler-stuff to post on there, make a not for us not to read it and take it down a few lines so it doesn't show in our feeds.

Hey everyone, I cleaned up the rules chatter a bit in the game thread, especially my own. Keep asking those questions and putting forward ideas though. It takes awhile to get used to a new character and new DM. If the questions were answered, I deleted the OOC posts just to make it easier for us to read through later.

Sounds good! I was doing a ton of data entry stuff all day yesterday, so by 10 o'clock last night my brain was shot and I couldn't make sense of the words in the monster manual. Luckily the kind people on that group set me right :)