The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

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spiderwrangler
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by spiderwrangler » Thu Jan 18, 2018 9:02 pm

Shields are handy, but best case scenario you have it on before the start of battle. Needing to burn an action to get it strapped on kind of sets you back

Range isn't as good on them, but having a few javelins on hand would give you a ranged option that you could use while still having the shield on and ready to go, you'd just be swapping between axe and javelin.
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thinkslogically
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by thinkslogically » Thu Jan 18, 2018 9:15 pm

One-handed ranged (probably thrown) weapons would work, but I'm also happy for you to switch out your fighting style for another if this one isn't going to work out for what you wanted.

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Dlover
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by Dlover » Thu Jan 18, 2018 9:15 pm

Throwing axes, then! Then you don't have to swap between axe and anything! :p
My game:
Hunters of Letrua; Character list
Also Player / Monster stats, skill lists.

My characters:
Tugs Tails, the goblin that was sort of a trapper and wears a bear's tail at his neck, for some reason - Lair of the Mountain King (Run by Thinks)
Alex Sparo, A city boy, poor of sight, who has learned to manipulate people and make the most of what he, and others, have - Trinity Isles (Run by Mort)
Mehriv Turajin, a Noble Dragonborn Sorcerer sent from his clan because he wasn't dragony enough. - The Wandering Archipelago (Run by Thinks)

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Rodgeir
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by Rodgeir » Fri Jan 19, 2018 2:51 pm

So it's Korrik's turn again? At this point maybe Kal and Korrik should try to kill the south archer since their combined HP is not... encouraging.

Is anyone stabilizing Merric? Or is that next up for Syli?

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thinkslogically
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by thinkslogically » Fri Jan 19, 2018 3:46 pm

It's Syli's turn first and I need another death save from Merric if he's not stabilised by his turn.

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spiderwrangler
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by spiderwrangler » Fri Jan 19, 2018 4:30 pm

Rodgeir wrote:So it's Korrik's turn again? At this point maybe Kal and Korrik should try to kill the south archer since their combined HP is not... encouraging.
I'm trying! If I could hit anything with my blasted staff! :fume:
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thinkslogically
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by thinkslogically » Sun Jan 21, 2018 7:26 pm

All right, congratulations on not being dead :) I'll give Kal a little longer to post, otherwise I'll assume he's helping Varsk for now and move us along.

In the meantime, if you've got any questions or comments about how the battle was "planned" (spoilers: it wasn't, really), we can chat about it here. I would particularly like to know which aspects you did / didn't like so much, and whether you thought the difficulty was hard but fun or just hard and miserable.

I was honestly kind of surprised you engaged in the fight in the first place since you'd spent so much of the afternoon hiding and being really sneaky, but being surprised by player actions is so common in DND games that it's no longer particularly surprising :D I was also surprised how much I liked having a more complex battle map vs the theatre of the mind approach, and I think I'll probably do that more moving forward (at least for larger, set-piece battles).

Otherwise, I also mixed up the lizardfolk's gear for variety (though I don't think that disadvantaged you guys because the archers lost their +4 bonus and multiattack) and rolled for their HP to keep you guessing, but which also turned out to be an excellent way to inject some personality into what would otherwise have been 10 largely-identical monsters (which you guys probably wouldn't notice, but it helped me keep track of them all and their actions).

Setting up the battle was based on what's been happening since you reached the swamp, with lizardfolk added until it seemed about right. Fwiw, you were 100% not supposed to have an easy time with this one, but that's literally as far as I planned things out :)

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Dlover
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by Dlover » Sun Jan 21, 2018 8:40 pm

We've wanted to be stealthy, but not participating wasn't much of an option since if the lizards killed the woman and she turned out to be the woman we're meant to be saving we'd be in a lot of trouble. Plus I didn't give the others an option. :p

Now if we can track down the woman (I don't blame her for running since I was thinking we'd lose too), we can get information about the lizard camp and numbers. Alternately, if we can keep up the pace of killing a few lizards at a time they'll eventually run out of numbers. It's a war of attrition!
My game:
Hunters of Letrua; Character list
Also Player / Monster stats, skill lists.

My characters:
Tugs Tails, the goblin that was sort of a trapper and wears a bear's tail at his neck, for some reason - Lair of the Mountain King (Run by Thinks)
Alex Sparo, A city boy, poor of sight, who has learned to manipulate people and make the most of what he, and others, have - Trinity Isles (Run by Mort)
Mehriv Turajin, a Noble Dragonborn Sorcerer sent from his clan because he wasn't dragony enough. - The Wandering Archipelago (Run by Thinks)

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spiderwrangler
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by spiderwrangler » Sun Jan 21, 2018 8:54 pm

Dlover wrote:Alternately, if we can keep up the pace of killing a few lizards at a time they'll ventually run out of numbers. It's a war of attrition!
That's assuming that there is already a determined, finite amount of them...
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WearsHats
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by WearsHats » Mon Jan 22, 2018 2:29 am

Sorry, I hit the wall and just crashed. Kal will help tend to and move the wounded, and try to set up a defensible camp. Not sure where. We don't want them to find us, and they'll probably come looking here, but we can't carry the others too far so we may just have to make do. But scouting around a bit (while also looking for the woman) would not be a bad idea. You can roll for me. I need to get back to sleep.
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Rodgeir
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by Rodgeir » Mon Jan 22, 2018 2:48 am

thinkslogically wrote:All right, congratulations on not being dead :) I'll give Kal a little longer to post, otherwise I'll assume he's helping Varsk for now and move us along.

In the meantime, if you've got any questions or comments about how the battle was "planned" (spoilers: it wasn't, really), we can chat about it here. I would particularly like to know which aspects you did / didn't like so much, and whether you thought the difficulty was hard but fun or just hard and miserable.
I don't think Varsk would have gotten into the fight but once we made our presence known it was hard not to engage. As I noted before the difficult terrain made the fight more complex and I spent a lot of time counting squares. I liked the HP differences and how you alluded to them by noting how large the lizards were. It also made it hard to plan actions if you weren't sure a lizard was going to die or not. Overall I thought the fight was okay but we were a bit too disorganized and didn't land hits that we needed to land. I was a little frustrated at the pace, as maybe was apparent by my early posting, but only because I wanted to see how the fight would go. Much better than us just bulldozing them.

I realized that fighting the archers up close was not the best thing as they hit much harder up close. Which was a nice element.

Also the need to protect the woman distracted a lot of the team's effort and resources initially.

How did you handle targeting in the fight? I was surprised that the two melee from the West just left their archers to Varsk's gentle care.

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spiderwrangler
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by spiderwrangler » Mon Jan 22, 2018 5:26 am

The difficulties of the fight had me excited got things that come with higher levels. At 3rd, Korrik will be able to catch arrows from the air, and abilities at 4th/6th would negate the difficult terrain issues!
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Dlover
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by Dlover » Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:00 am

Mn, I feel like the terrain was a big part of the fight, though not necessarily a good or bad one. We started fairly spread out, which caused problems when we couldn't properly cooperate, and there was a bit of difficulty with repositioning. But the difficult terrain gave an interesting twist to the fight by limiting the potential to just charge at ranged characters without forcing said ranged characters to stand twice the distance away and lose accuracy. The trees were another interesting element. They didn't directly disrupt our movement, but we did have to be aware of their effects on our line of sight, which effectively partitioned the battlefield while allowing participants to move or get some sight into another segment. That said, I wasn't entirely happy with the branches because they worked against me quite a bit. :p
My game:
Hunters of Letrua; Character list
Also Player / Monster stats, skill lists.

My characters:
Tugs Tails, the goblin that was sort of a trapper and wears a bear's tail at his neck, for some reason - Lair of the Mountain King (Run by Thinks)
Alex Sparo, A city boy, poor of sight, who has learned to manipulate people and make the most of what he, and others, have - Trinity Isles (Run by Mort)
Mehriv Turajin, a Noble Dragonborn Sorcerer sent from his clan because he wasn't dragony enough. - The Wandering Archipelago (Run by Thinks)

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thinkslogically
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by thinkslogically » Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:15 am

Targeting was fairly ad hoc, but generally based on whoever they could get a clear shot at / reach and who was most threatening. The difficult terrain was as big a problem for them as for you :)

I think Varsk staying hidden for the early couple of rounds really helped you guys split them up - the western fighters didn't know Varsk was there until quite late on, and by that point the magic users had already showed up and started casting at them. It helps that Varsk was strong enough to engage them on his own for the most part without going down, because he was pretty far from help if things had gone bad for him.

As for pacing... It just goes that way I'm afraid. I cant update the maps in work, so we're limited on that front, and going too far without a map update is just confusing as hell. That's one thing I don't think I'm going to be able to do faster.

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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by spiderwrangler » Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:18 am

I know I can't complain too much on rolls compared to some, but missing nearly every time with my staff got annoying!

The lizards had shortbows? I think I should take one if there are plenty, the range on my darts was too low for a fair bit of this fight.
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by Theis2 » Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:30 am

Pretty sure out biggest enemy/hindrance in this fight was the dice! The amount of times we missed and they critted was vicious!

I've not considered difficult terrain as a strategic thing as much before this, but it was a great boon for us casters with long range spells, which I don't think we took enough advantage of, considering that the archers would get disadvantage if we moved too far away. Unless they used longbows in which cast they didn't fully utilise the range :P
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by Rodgeir » Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:34 am

I am not complaining about the updates...well maybe a little. ;) You did a great job and I realize it takes much more time to fix things like that.

Maybe we could use something like roll20 to coordinate these battles? That way we can take our turns (movement wise) and the map is automatically updated? Though that would require we have computers, but it could possibly save time if a couple people with computers could move people for them and post a screenshot? I wouldn't mind helping out by doing that, though you'd still need to make the map (or send me a picture of the map and I could make it).

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thinkslogically
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by thinkslogically » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:01 am

Yeah, that's possible. I know that at least one upcoming area will have fog of war included though, so roll20 wouldn't work out too well for that unless I host it myself and I'm not entirely sure I have time to learn it. Also, would we all have to be online at the same time? Because I think that could be tricky (see the random thread :lol: ). Happy to consider anything that might work out, but I'm not looking to learn anything new - right now work is ramping up and I just don't have time :)

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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by Rodgeir » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:12 am

You could host it and we could move within the visible area but you would need to remove the fog as we moved. I've only used roll20 and it didn't take too long to learn, I mostly spend too much time trying to make it look pretty. Way too much time.

We don't need to all be online as the same time, as I frequently find that my players have logged in and dinked around. If there is something without a fog of war I will gladly create it for you (with some lead time). Or alternately you can have me add NPCs as they come in.

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Dlover
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by Dlover » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:16 am

Theis2 wrote:considering that the archers would get disadvantage if we moved too far away.
Shortbows actually outrange Ray of Frost by 20 feet, so that's actually not always an option. You warlocks are lucky, EB trumps RoF in every way except the -10' movement on the target. >.>
To be fair, it's my own fault for blindly trusting the book's Quick Build to know the usefulness of spells better than me, even after reading each spell I could choose, since Chill Touch and Fire Bolt are both essentially better than RoF. Fire Bolt matches EB's damage, and both match its range while having secondary effects, so it's not like there aren't good options. The people who wrote the PHB just don't want sorcerer to be a thoughtless person's class. :p

Well, I can adjust that at level 3, since the swap out doesn't specify spell levels. Unless I were to switch Chromatic Orb for Chaos Bolt, I can just swap RoF for... Chill Touch, I think. Fire breath is already enough concern for setting things on fire.
My game:
Hunters of Letrua; Character list
Also Player / Monster stats, skill lists.

My characters:
Tugs Tails, the goblin that was sort of a trapper and wears a bear's tail at his neck, for some reason - Lair of the Mountain King (Run by Thinks)
Alex Sparo, A city boy, poor of sight, who has learned to manipulate people and make the most of what he, and others, have - Trinity Isles (Run by Mort)
Mehriv Turajin, a Noble Dragonborn Sorcerer sent from his clan because he wasn't dragony enough. - The Wandering Archipelago (Run by Thinks)

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spiderwrangler
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by spiderwrangler » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:35 am

Technically, you can only swap spells that have a level, cantrips are so ingrained to be able to cast them at will that they can't just be exchanged. So it'd be up to Thinks if you're wanting to switch it.
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Dlover
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by Dlover » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:39 am

Oh, that's true, isn't it. The phb just said 'one of the sorcerer spells you know', which I think cantrips technically are, so I forgot about that part.
My game:
Hunters of Letrua; Character list
Also Player / Monster stats, skill lists.

My characters:
Tugs Tails, the goblin that was sort of a trapper and wears a bear's tail at his neck, for some reason - Lair of the Mountain King (Run by Thinks)
Alex Sparo, A city boy, poor of sight, who has learned to manipulate people and make the most of what he, and others, have - Trinity Isles (Run by Mort)
Mehriv Turajin, a Noble Dragonborn Sorcerer sent from his clan because he wasn't dragony enough. - The Wandering Archipelago (Run by Thinks)

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spiderwrangler
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by spiderwrangler » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:46 am

Yeah, it's this part tacked on the end that kinda specifies that replacing is only intended to be Level 1 and up spells...

"which also must be of a level for which you have Spell Slots."

Crawford has also clarified in Sage Advice that cantrips are intended to be permanent, but DMs can feel free to work in a reason for a player to change one out.
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by Dlover » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:57 am

If we need an IC reason, taking a javelin to the chest like Mehr did is probably enough to disturb a person and bring them closer to the grasp of death. Even though that javelin didn't take down Mehr directly. :p
Speaking of which, does he have a big stick stuck in his chest or just a hole? It's remarkable that he was still standing after that. :lol:
My game:
Hunters of Letrua; Character list
Also Player / Monster stats, skill lists.

My characters:
Tugs Tails, the goblin that was sort of a trapper and wears a bear's tail at his neck, for some reason - Lair of the Mountain King (Run by Thinks)
Alex Sparo, A city boy, poor of sight, who has learned to manipulate people and make the most of what he, and others, have - Trinity Isles (Run by Mort)
Mehriv Turajin, a Noble Dragonborn Sorcerer sent from his clan because he wasn't dragony enough. - The Wandering Archipelago (Run by Thinks)

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thinkslogically
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Re: The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

Post by thinkslogically » Mon Jan 22, 2018 8:30 am

I'm fine with switching as a one-off now you guys are getting the hang of the game a bit more and settling into how the mechanics work. If you've taken something that doesn't work how you expected or something, then you're welcome to swap for something else as long as it's a similar spell type (e.g. if you took an offensive spell originally, I'd prefer you swapped it for another offensive spell rather than one with a completely different purpose)).

Mehriv is fine now tho. It was an injury that was enough to take him down but it's not like you'll have a hole in your side forever and it will heal up fine. Kal's getting a scar because he was knocked out by a crit but otherwise you guys are shiny (or will be after a nap) :)

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