OOC A Tide of Discussion: the d20 ToF OOC thread

We're closing up all of 10 feet of Column 2 on the map. I don't know how much of it is damaged compared to how much of it is stone wall that's still standing, but the spell can blend into the pre-existing stone without problem.

 

All right, so just to clarify this, I sat down and thrashed out a new map of the area you're defending...



This is not final, this is just so we all know what the hell we're talking about. These are my best guesses as to where people intended on being.

Okay: see where Zanaek and Evelios are? That's the inner gate. Broken doors, refuge against the smoke, etc. Open to the sky. All the black area to the east is basically scorch marks from where the dragon blew up.

Where most of the party is clustering is the outer gate, which I'd assumed you guys are planning to hold. The red lines show the path of a tunnel beneath an arch. The roofline and the stone walkway are above that arch. There were great big doors in that arch, but the dragon blasted them down. As you can see, it's twenty feet wide. The arch, and thus the tunnel, is twenty feet high. The roof drops from twenty-five to twenty feet, west to east; the walkway is at twenty-five feet; the crenellations of the wall top out at thirty feet high.

EDIT: Also, the "white" looking wood are not sets of stairs. They're just wooden awnings, similar to the roofing above the arch that's brown-looking wood. Applicable stairways are off the map, if we need to extend the view out to show them I can do so.

I'm hoping this is enough material to work with to fine tune where Zanaek's stone wall's going and your positions. Absent any other thoughts, this'd be the map I'd work with for this encounter, so hopefully this gives you enough info to plan your defence...?

Let me know.

 

Okay, the ideas I think we agreed on are that Zanaek fills either E and F -4 to 1 or G and H -4 to 1 with the Wall of Stone, leaving a 10-foot wide tunnel instead of 20 for Skadi to fill. And William can head to G -9 to fire off the Cone of Cold straight down, which should cover a 40-foot spread, or 4 squares in each direction if I understand the spell's area description correctly.

 

40 ft spread is 8 squares, which should be enough to pretty much wipe out one wave of them. Would probably work from G-12 or -13 as well, since it would stop right at the front ranks.

Since we can use one of the tunnel walls to block movement, then we don't need Ragnar hanging around down here. We can run the wall of stone vertically up to the ceiling, filling in E/F -4. Then Skadi can sit at G-3 to H-2, leaving a two-space gap in front of her. Corrath can sit in F-3 and full-attack any enemy that sits in G-4. William, Ragnar and Ariel can hang out on the battlements and hit targets as needed, since all of them can move and still be pretty effective.

William might want to hand his wand of web to Evelios, since Evelios has UMD and William can just cast his own spell if he needs to.

 

Also, I'd have Maz sit some 15 feet off the ground in F-3 above Corrath's head, so he can either head up to join the others or stay down here as needed, while still having cover from any projectiles.

 

Okay. So a wall of stone for the outer gate, closing the gap to 10 ft in order to funnel the enemy into a bottleneck trap using the coordinates suggested by the others? Should I cast it again or save it to seal the breach if we get overwhelmed and buy us more time?

 

I'd save it to seal up something later. Right now, you only need one casting to bottleneck the place because we only need one line of squares thanks to the preexisting tunnel. You can always come up with a use for it later.

So, the tunnel would look something like this.
_____
|
| c/m
.S____

With Skadi taking up two squares, but isn't located directly in the gap (because that would prevent anyone else from stabbing. With her standing one square back, she can still cover the gap, and Corrath can invisibly block the side. Enemies can't pass through the spaces occupied by the PCs).

 

*chucks Wand of Web to Evelios*

Just keep that away from Mazarun, the last thing we want is to give him flashbacks or something.

 

Spider-Bard, Spider-Bard, friendly neighborhood Spider-Bard...

Saintheart any chance of the smoke encroaching on Z and E's position? We should probably get out of the way if that's the case.

 

The dragon's explosion also blew out all the smoke in that area, so you don't need to worry about encroaching smoke.

 

Huzzah!

 

So I think I'm just waiting on Rilwen to put up a post -- I'm going with the suggestions as made. Just so this is clear, when combat opens it will mean the following--
- Ragnar standing at G -4
- Ariel standing at K -4
- William floating at 45 feet up at G -9,
- Mazarun floating at 15 feet up at F -3, i.e., inside the tunnel
- Skadi standing at G -3 to H -2
- Corrath standing at F -3
- Zanaek standing at F9
- Evelios standing at G9
-- With a Stone wall 20 feet high, two inches thick, floor to ceiling, in E -4 and F -4.

 

Just making it clear that Ragnar and Ariel are up on the ramparts, not in the tunnel, since neither have problems finishing a foe while on a charge, unlike Skadi and Corrath. So they can hit anyone piling up in the front, or anyone trying to clear the walls, before pulling back out as necessary.

 

Yep, got that.

 

Okay, Mazarun will have done his flourishy thingummies to regain his warblade stuff. Beyond that, he will indeed hover above Corrath and wait for there to be something to shoot at.
(Also I really hope my IC post makes sense; I think it does, but any judgement I make after two-thirty in the morning may be a bit suspect. XD)

 

Any of my group buffs i casted about to expire before the five round break is up or shortly after?


Tapatalk Signature
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Use the light switch, Luke. Trust your feelings!

 

None of your group buffs are expiring anytime soon -- the DR 3/evil is still in effect, and your other buffs largely have minute/level or 10 minutes/level durations. Your Sanctuary spell expired in the interim, but that's not a group buff anyway.

 

Okay, update is up, finally. Sorry it took me a while, I had to build some inspiration there.

First note is that William, being invisible, I'm ruling has the benefit of a surprise round since while everyone else is more or less aware of each other, William wasn't seen as he cruised out to his position -- i.e. he gets to put a single standard action out there in the surprise round. I'm assuming he pulled out the Cone of Cold scroll while travelling to where he is, so he's free to use it right now. Second note is that those manticores are at an altitude of 40 feet -- I'm going to have to figure out a way to incorporate height into these things somehow...Third note is that Corrath and Mazarun are occupying the same square, but since I know where Corrath is as she's more or less a NPC, I've chosen to leave her off the map. I think that covers it. So, it's sort-of just a tag to William right now in the surprise round, which will really just amount to rolling for the spell I'd assume...?

Also, Ramza: your speech did, indeed, have an effect. You'll note it turned a good portion of the troops heading for the gate away. And it won't be visible to you right now, but there's a small but not insubstantial stream of deserters bleeding out of the Red Hand's rear ranks.

 

Sometimes I really love playing a bard.

Anyway, since I'm taking nonlethal for the next round thanks to WoC, I imagine I'll be holding position while keeping my singing going. Since all the buffs are up I can't really think of anything else to do that wouldn't be uncharacteristically reckless - even for Evelios.

 

Indeed William will bust out the Cone of Cold. Er, remind me what I roll again? I'm so used to regular 3.5 rules in all my other games that I keep losing track of how things work here.

 

William should still have Haste, Fire Shield and Enlarge Person prepared. He still had a free AP per round, so if he wasn't using it for metamagic, I'd assume he'd hang onto the spell. I also think he's hovering in G-12, since that was the closest he could get with a 40 ft burst straight down without hitting Skadi, as discussed earlier. No real need to update the map until after we see how many of them he hit.

 

Roll 1d20+7 some 20-odd times. 9d6 damage on a success, half that on a miss. Scrolls use the minimum caster level required to craft them unless you pay extra (which I don't think we did- we paid half of 1125, which is the cost for a CL 9 scroll. 1250 would be the cost for a CL 10 scroll). Scrolls also use the minimum ability score required, so it'd be cast as though it were crafted with a 15 Int, for a total of 1d20+ 5 (spell level) + 2 (Int modifier).

 

Okay, here's the link to the attack roll - I rolled for every enemy I counted on the ground, so 23 excluding the manticores and their riders.

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4137524/ Roll to attack!

And the rolls in order were: 27, 24, 22, 21, 20, 20, 19, 18, 16, 16, 16, 15, 15, 15, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9. Now I don't know what is and isn't a success, but I'm guessing anything under about 16 is probably a fail. So I'll roll 10 9d6 and 12 4d6, and if that's wrong tell me and I'll roll again.

Here goes for the successes...

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4137530/ 28, 32, 30, 34, 36, 30, 44, 24, 35, 33, 33

and for the fails...

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4137531/ 15, 15, 16, 9, 14, 11, 20, 18, 16, 15, 16, 4

I'll try and get an IC post up too.

 

All right, we'll assume a position of G -12 and Temp APs spent to retain those spells as suggested.

I can tell you nine of the opposition are down and dead from the calculations so far. From here Evelios hangs back as Ramza said, so that amounts to his actions this round. Corrath delays to see what happens with the enemy since she can't ready a full attack. From here I have to process what the opposition does, which may take a little bit. Sorry it's all a bit stop-start, guys, but the numbers are big and the battle is epic

 

This is why people often break up enemies into initiative blocks, so you don't get 20+ guys mobbing one player while no one else can do anything. And it's a bit easier to run from the other side of the screen.