Fire! (Dunamin judging)

[JoeNotCharles]

[sblock=Judging]

The Ebon Mirror concluded recently, so I wouldn't mind serving as your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Judge for the show.

Thanks! How do I edit the thread title again?
[/sblock]

Kama'zer

Inspired by your selfless display, a dozen people from the crowd follow you into the building and start helping those inside to safety. This building looks like a warehouse, but there are a surprising number of people living inside - from snatches of conversation, you gather that these are poor immigrants, who made their way here in ones and twos through the portal from Bacarte and are now living in this tenement, several families to a floor. Fortunately you have plenty of people to help them all to safety! Kevin is one of the last to be found, a small child who makes a tearful reunion with his mother.

When everyone in this building is evacuated, you head for the doorway leading to another adjoining warehouse from which you can hear faint cries. Most of your followers have left, carrying people out into the open air, but two stout young men are still with you.

As you open the adjoining door, thick black smoke billows out and you are nearly trampled by a huge, rough-looking bald man with a scar cutting from his cheek to his ear. He pushes past you toward the outside, coughing and hacking, and snarls, "Don't waste your time. I'm the last."

Despite this, you're sure you still hear faint cries from within - and is that the rattle of chains?

[sblock=OOC]
Because of your two helpers, you get +2 to your next action.
[/sblock]

Soldier

You burst through the window of what turns out to be a toy store. Wooden animals, ships and gewgaws are flaming on the shelves, surrounded by whirling magical globes and spinners. A small child is standing in the middle of the floor, ignoring the flames around him, staring sadly at a jewelled toy Warforged whose casing is cracked and blackened. Tears stream down his face as he cradles his broken toy. You pick him up and hurtle back out through the window - just in time, as the fire catches a display of fireworks and the entire shop goes up!

"Ooooh!" says the crowd.

The child stares back and forth between you and the toy, and then shyly holds out his hand and presses the toy Warforged toward you.

[sblock=OOC]
Although it's badly damaged, the jewelled warforged doll is still worth 25 gp.
[/sblock]

Challenge 1: 1 success / 0 failures
Challenge 2: 1 success / 0 failures

 

[DoublePayBack]

Seeing that there are already a good number of hands on the brigade Galinndan steps out of line briefly to look for a water tower or anything else that will help.

[sblock=Actions]
Galinndan rolls a 9 + 1 for perception gives a whopping 10 which doesn't cut it.
[/sblock]

Unfortunately, with the commotion and smoke surrounding him it is difficult for Galinndan to see anything useful which could put out the flames.

[sblock=OOC]
Will you let us know when our characters are able to make their next move? Sorry, 1st time play by post player.
[/sblock]

 

[Erekose13]

Callen uses his staff to support his weight as he moves quickly over to the Silver Scales. He ponders the fountain for a moment, knowing that a handier source of water would help the bucket brigade immensely. He moves over it quickly with a learned hand trying to find out why the water no longer flows. He remembers as a little boy how the water used to come splashing out.

[sblock=ooc]not sure what kind of check an engineering check would be in 4e. I'll go with history for now. And fails ~ history (1d20+10=12). I don't suppose you have in mind a way for people to buy off failures (something Mike Mearls suggested in a recent Dungeon column)? Hitting 12 successes before 3 failures is a long shot.[/sblock]

 

[Xer0]

"Quickly! More water! As much as humanly possible! We all need to work together if we're going to stop this fire!" Solon grabs bucket after bucket, tirelessly tossing water onto the burning buildings.
[sblock=OOC]Endurance Check: 1d20 + 0 (Not wearing his armor) = 20. Also, I'd like to find someway to inspire the other townspeople who are just standing around gawking at the fire into helping with the bucket brigade. Is that doable?[/sblock]

 

[JoeNotCharles]

Edit: passing this by Dunamin first, will repost in a bit

 

[Voda Vosa]

Mri'Thas tries to focus on the flames movement, and tries to predict where is the fire going to spread. Knowing that he hopes the others can cut the spread by removing the flamable objects from that location, of watering the area to stop the fire spread.
"Quickly, move that away, and bring some water over there!
Skill: Insight: 13

 

[Korthala]

[sblock=OOC]My freeform RP instincts seem to have gotten me ahead of where I should be given that there are actual dice rolls to adjudicate these things, so I'm taking a slight step back.[/sblock]

As Solitaire runs toward the arguing bucket brigaders, she tries to get a feel for the group. She hopes she can help get them working together by making an example of one of the instigators, but if not, hopes understanding their mood and motivations will suggest an alternate approach.

[sblock=OOC]She has good Charisma, but no training in Diplomacy or Intimidation, so I'm looking to see how hard it will be to convince them, and looking for an avenue that might grant a circumstance bonus to Diplomacy or Intimidate sufficient to make the attempt worth risking.

Insight check (1d20+6=11)
Will this yield any useful information? I don't know what the damage class for this sort of thing will be.
[/sblock]

 

[elecgraystone]

Ts'iri hears cries coming from a building not far away that's fully aflame. With a thought she covers herself in ice and dives into the fire. Making her way to the second floor she sees two children next to one on the windows. They are on top of their bed, trying to get away from the flames and stinging smoke. The smoke is thick, breathing is hard and the heat was nearly unbearable even with her armor. Even seeing is a challenge with all the smoke.

By the time she grabs them and turns back the stairs are engulfed in flames. Ti's cover them and runs down. When she finally makes it outside, she finds that are OK. Her armor seemed to protect all of them and they would just need some fresh air.
[sblock=Details]Woot! critical success with Endurance!!!
1d20+5=25
[/sblock]

 

[FishXXIII]

As the raw heat of the fires bares down on them, Goeth quickly tosses aside his thick wool cloak exposes himself, focusing on moving the buckets of water with his little brother. He doesn't otherwise seem too affected by the heat, until he hears Solon say 'as fast as humanly possible.' At that, his mood visible sours. He still assists in the fire brigade, but there is now almost a vaneer of malice with how roughly he treats the buckets.

 

[JoeNotCharles]

[sblock=Administration]
Can you please clearly mark whether you intend a skill check to be a Primary roll (contributes a success or failure to the challenge), a Secondary roll (gives a +2 to upcoming skill checks on success, no penalty on failure) or an Aid Another check? I'm having to guess sometimes.

Remember you can post roleplaying (conversation, planning, reacting to other characters, etc.) between actions, you just can't actually make rolls.

I'm considering a few rule changes to make things flow better - just waiting for a second opinion from Dunamin. If I decide to make a change, I'll post it after everyone's made their first actions so that everyone's on the same page.

In the meantime, remember that with only 3 failures allowed, failing at a Primary roll can be disastrous! But I'm allowing you to use Aid Another retroactively, so if somebody fails in a primary check I won't post a result until other people have had a chance to use Aid Another to affect it. Don't forget about that, it could be important!
[/sblock]

Galinndan

Unfortunately, with the commotion and smoke surrounding him it is difficult for Galinndan to see anything useful which could put out the flames.

[sblock=OOC]
I am going to call that a secondary skill check, so it's not going to rack up a failure for the challenge, you just don't get the +2.
[/sblock]

Callen

Unfortunately, Callen can remember clearly how the fountain used to work, but he can't quite figure out what's changed. As far as he can tell, it should be working still.

[sblock=OOC]
I am going to call that a Secondary skill use too, so no failure.

Good question on "what skill to use for Engineering". In my home campaign I added a "Natural Philosophy" skill to cover non-magical science of all kinds, but that's not available here. I'd say History works in this case, since you said you'd seen it in action so you're trying to remember what was different. (I'd also use that for something like figuring out the engineering of Roman aqueducts or something you could have read about in the history books.) Normally I guess I'd use Dungeoneering for things involving large structures, and Nature otherwise, but it's a bit of a stretch.
[/sblock]

Mri'Thas

Members of the crowd jump to follow your instructions, and soon one side of the square is cleared of flammable debris. As you watch, a gust of wind blows a shingle off of one of the blazing buildings - trailing sparks, it sails through the air towards your hard work, landing on the roof of an untouched building!

...and bounces harmlessly off, the soaked wood failing to catch. The shingle lies burning on the cobbles until someone stamps it out. Your gambit seems to have been a success.

You look down at the debris you're shifting and realize that you're holding a small chest painted with the symbol of a staring eye inside a 7-pointed star. Arcane writing runs in a band around the bottom of the chest and a circle around the lock. You picked it up from a pile of posessions that had been left lying too close to the fire; your helpers must have already shifted the rest to safer places, because when you look back, the rest of the stack is gone and you can see no sign of the box's owner.

[sblock=OOC]
I'm calling that a Primary use since you posted actual instructions to act on what the knowledge you gained. Success!

Can I get an Arcana check, that won't count towards the challenge in any way?
[/sblock]

Solon and Goeth

Solon's indefatiguable efforts have a good effect at battling the blaze, and after a few exhausting minutes the fire has died down somewhat on this side of the square. After a while, though, he realizes the flow of water has slowed, and he turns to see that only one person is still carrying a bucket from the tavern - his brother. The rest of the crowd is knotted in a circle, staring and whispering.

"Demon!" he hears, and, "...responsible... look at its skin!" The words, "Hellish," and "Hellfire," drift out of the crowd.

Finally a man steps forward, holding a broken cobblestone, and hurls it to shatter on the cobbles at Goeth's feet. "Be off with you!" he yells. "Take yer hellfire away from here, and be damned! Haven't ye done enough damage?"

[sblock=OOC]
Success for Solon. Goeth still has a roll for this round.

Also, I'd like to find someway to inspire the other townspeople who are just standing around gawking at the fire into helping with the bucket brigade. Is that doable?

Absolutely. That would be some sort of Charisma-based check - Diplomacy usually, but it could be Bluff if you pose it as something like "despite the fear he feels inside, Solon puts on a brave face to inspire others" or Intimidate if you're trying to shame them into helping.
[/sblock]

Solitaire

Unfortunately, with all the chaos, you aren't able to get a good feel for the mood of the bucket brigaders.

Then Goeth appears, and the mood changes anyway. To something ugly.

Ts'iri

You hand the children over to an ecstatic circle of relatives, who are barely restrained from hugging you and slapping your back by the remains of your ice armour.

"Thank 'e kindly, Gith," bows the mother. "Did ya know, one of yar kind lives here? Don't speak much, so I donno he name, but he lives beneath there, and I've not seen him come out." She points to a cellar entrance ringed by flames.

[sblock=OOC]
Success! I guess that used your Armour of Agathys. The remains of your armour will give you a +2 to your next check.
[/sblock]

[sblock=Status]
Challenge 1: 2 of 12 successes / 0 of 3 failures
Challenge 2: 3 of 10 successes / 0 of 3 failures

Solon, Solitaire and Goeth are together on the bucket line in the main square.
Soldier, Galinndan, Callen, Mri'Thas and Ts'iri are in other parts of the main square.
Kama'zer is alone in a building.

Everybody in the main square and bucket line can see and hear each other (I'll let you decide if your characters notice specific actions and conversations), but Kama'zer is on his own.

Acted:
Kama'zer
Soldier
Galinndan
Callen
Mri'Thas
Solon
Solitaire
Ts'iri

Yet to act:
Goeth
[/sblock]