Tests and Trials OOC

[Rodgeir]

There are a number of villages they could be left at along the way that Ves would have used in the past, or in Grenmyr a proper stables. You can more or less take them as far east as you want but not much further north.

[spiderwrangler]

Would Grenmyr, then follow the river north make the most sense? I'm assuming there aren't any direct paths to where we're going.

Though stabling may be cheaper in a small village (?)...

[Rodgeir]

Definitely cheaper in a village, and Ves knows of no direct routes.

Best sense is up to Ves!

Edit: direct existing path, there is clearly a direct route

[Rodgeir]

Also I think I am still waiting for a HP roll for Jaq, NSF?

Everyone else's health has been updated.

[thinkslogically]

All right, then we'll press on to a village stable, near as we can get to due south of the ruins before e head across country if you guys have no objections? We can hopefully re-provision in the village a little bit too, and then set out.

[spiderwrangler]

Works for me.

[Rodgeir]

That'd be about two and a half days of riding and 7-10 walking in the forest (by Ves' best guess).

[NotStickFigures]

Yep. Busy weekend. I’ll be home tonight and will do my needed leveling up when at a computer rather than phone.
Jaq is staying rogue. Now I have to just figure out and remember best ways to use cunning action and hide and attack.

[spiderwrangler]

Probably best is to use CA to hide at the end of your turn, then next round, you've a chance that they don't know where you are, so you can get advantage, and thus sneak attack. But, it's also defensive, since you're spending most of each round hidden, only breaking it on your turn when you pop out, attack, and hide again.

You can get the same advantage and sneak attack effect when attacking by CA Hide before your attack, but doing so reveals your position until your next turn.

Also keep in mind that in order to hide from a creature, they must not be able to see you, so finding good places to hide in our behind becomes a concern. Of course, hiding isn't the only way to get sneak attack, since allies close to your target can to, but the advantage can be big, especially since it increases chances of a critical hit.

[thinkslogically]

It partly depends on your fighting style too. Bonus dash and disengage are situationally great for Hit-and-runs when you don't want to get hurt by a AOO or immediately caught up to.

The bonus dash will help you keep up with Ves too (after about a minute)

[Dlover]

((Man, leveling up a cleric is real easy, no decisions to make at all. XD
Turn Undead may be quite useful too, if the map's mention of corpses is about undead.))

[spiderwrangler]

Yes, definitely. Hide and attack as a repeatable tactic only really works if you're doing ranged stuff, if you're darting in and doing melee, you might get one here or there, but it's not going to be an every turn, rinse and repeat.

Yeah, clerics make the important decisions at 1st level. Kroshav's Divine Sense will be useful for pinging on undead, and I can burn one of his spell slots to slap another 3d8 radiant damage on top of the 1d8+7 piercing he does with his warpick. Average of 25 points of damage? Yeah, I'll take that.

[Dlover]

You're well suited to killing the undead. Lurn just pinpoints their location and makes them run away. I guess Clerics are technically casters/healers, not fighters, after all.

... Actually, undead resist necrotic damage, right? Lurn really isn't built for killing them. >.>

[thinkslogically]

Clerics are a solid mix of both caster and tank and make REALLY good all-rounders in combat. It's path-dependent to an extent but I've been wanting to play one for a while now

I had an interesting storm cleric/sorc build on a water genasi that I wanted to try in another game on here but it faded out. I might revive that guy some time!

[Dlover]

Mn, definitely make a good tank. Clerics technically tie for the second lowest health of all the classes, but that hardly even matters. Medium armour with a shield bumps the AC up high enough that they can tank regardless, when necessary. (Plus with Lurn's CON, he's got insane HP regardless. If he wore chainmail instead of just a chain shirt he'd be the tankiest in the party. )

Wait, chain mail is heavy armour, never mind that. Still, there are better medium armours that I can save for than a chain shirt.

[spiderwrangler]

... Actually, undead resist necrotic damage, right? Lurn really isn't built for killing them. >.>

Not across the board, but it would probably be fair to say that most of the creatures who DO resist necrotic or are immune to it are undead.

Should we face undead though, Lurn and Kroshav will make a good team... Just the thought of you doing Path to the Grave before I land a Smite is making me giddy...

[NotStickFigures]

2nd level hit points!: 1D8 = [3] = 3

So the average it will be for me, 5HP.

And he gets his Cunning Action ability.

[thinkslogically]

I'm interested to see what happens with Ves at level 3 when she grows into her Aasimar powers too not that she can turn undead or anything, but that'll be an interesting chat with the cleric and paladin and the weird blue ghost-woman I imagine...

[Dlover]

Should we face undead though, Lurn and Kroshav will make a good team... Just the thought of you doing Path to the Grave before I land a Smite is making me giddy...

Only if they're not already vulnerable to radiant damage. I don't think vulnerability can be doubled up, can it? Still, doubling the a big hit sounds very nice.A total of 4d8+7, and then vulnerability on top of that? It's very effective indeed. It'd be, what, 22 - 78 damage? So long as we aren't fighting a boss that can nuke us all, I feel like we've got our plan for any big undead.

[Rodgeir]

I am also looking forward to Ves at level 3!

To clarify, as Jaq would know this, the Prefect and the Council are separate ruling entities. The Prefect controls an area of the Duchy like a governor and the Council is in control of the city they are in. A Prefect can overrule a city Council within the city with sufficient cause but it would certainly be brought to the Duchess's attention.

The guards in the city work for the Council except for those belonging to the Prefect's entourage. Military forces would normally fall under the Prefect's control but inside the city they would first follow the local council's orders and then the Prefect's.

@Dlover Not many things are vulnerable to radiant damage, it is more that few things are resistant to it. Lurn and Kroshav are undead killers!

[spiderwrangler]

@Dlover Not many things are vulnerable to radiant damage, it is more that few things are resistant to it. Lurn and Kroshav are undead killers!

Yup, that gets discussed online a lot, I'm not sure if in previous editions undead were vulnerable in some way to radiant, but in 5e its mostly that they aren't resistant, and for zombies, it's the guaranteed way to keep them down.

Wow, couple of big dumb religious guys who know very little about religion.

[thinkslogically]

I think undead have classically been harmed by healing magic and had vulnerabilities to holy damage (probs radiant). 5e I think is the first time undead haven't had vulnerabilities and are instead largely resistance-fuelled tanks, so anything that bypasses resistance and (even better) forces vulnerability is great. Fighting undead without a cleric / paladin etc. can be REALLY hard.

((This is from memory, I haven't looked it up ))

[spiderwrangler]

Ah... that could be part of the reason for this line from Cure Wounds, then.

"This spell has no effect on undead or constructs."

5e is the only one I've really played a lot of, outside of Shipwrecked and the handful of failed Wilpell games on the forum here.

[Rodgeir]

I tried to start a 4e game back in 2012 but I couldn't convince anyone to try and understand the rules. Closest I've gotten to anything earlier is webcomics so I don't really know either.

[thinkslogically]

I know more about the old mechanics from knock-on adoptions into various videogames I guess. It's just one of those "rules" that has kind of permeated the genre in various ways I guess, but it was apparently replaced by radiant/necrotic damage types in 4e.

Tv tropes warning:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... illsZombie