[4e] covaithe's E1: Death's Reach

[covaithe]

I can't remember which of you guys, if any, have expressed opinions on the fluid initiative thing that's all the rage these days in L4W. You may notice that I only rolled once for the monsters' initiative. I'm not sure I'm ready to go completely Malenkirk, but... Even after spending the last couple of days ruthlessly cutting and combining encounters (Fun fact: did you know that if you take 2 encounters at EL 21 for 5 PCs, and just combine them, you come out around EL 23 for 6 PCs? It's true! Uh, not that I've done that, exactly...), we've got a lot of encounters to get through in this adventure. So I'm keen to make them snappy. Feel free to go in whatever order you guys see fit within your initiative block. I'll interpret as best I can, using posting order as the order you act in unless otherwise specified.

 

[stonegod]

Mal's works well for 4E so far as I can tell (I've been in one of his games and seen other variations). We'll see how it goes for Epic Play (there, I cap'd it again for you LS).

 

[CaBaNa]

Still having fun?

YES!

Whatever makes the game enjoyable is good for me.

 

[renau1g]

I agree with you Cov, one of my players in LEB expressed a desire to use Mal's method showing the stats as well so the PC's know if you hit, but for me, that won't be happening, I just can't give that much info to players...that being said, I see both sides of the coin. With having init all at once it allows yoou to only make 1 update post per round, but at the same time, the DM can really use it to his advantage to gang up on a PC. In my L4W game, this allowed me to drop 2 PC's in one round (although they both got up next round and made their saves against onoging dmg).

 

[covaithe]

I'll be out of town and off the internet from tomorrow (Thursday) until late Sunday, more likely Monday. I might be able to squeeze in another update tomorrow morning, or maybe not.

 

[renau1g]

enjoy your weeked Cov.

 

[stonegod]

I'll be out of town and likely w/o Internets until Thursday the 3rd. NPC Batin as needed if I don't update (he'll Tport back and forth against marked targets, especially while keeping Hetrud from being bad).

 

[CaBaNa]

The reason the knights couldn't be pushed the direction specified, was that Massacre was not placed where specified...

Y-Z 11-12, is the placement asked for, and they could be pushed left and down.

Y-Z 10-11, is the placement given, and they could not be pushed left...

 

[covaithe]

The reason the knights couldn't be pushed the direction specified, was that Massacre was not placed where specified...

Y-Z 11-12, is the placement asked for, and they could be pushed left and down.

Y-Z 10-11, is the placement given, and they could not be pushed left...

Sorry I got Massacre's location wrong, and I'll fix it in the next update, but he still couldn't have pushed them towards the hill in Y-Z 11-12, either.

Consider knight 2. It was in U10 at the time of Massacre's attack, 4 squares away from Massacre. In order to push him, each square he is pushed into must 1) have LoE from Massacre, and 2) be farther from Massacre than his previous square. (See PHB p.285.) If you had tried to push him SE, say, V9, W8, X7, Y6, etc., consider the distances: V9 is only 3 squares away from Massacre, so the knight can't be pushed from U10 into V9. In fact, the only legal square for Massacre to push him into from U10 is T11. (And that's allowing for movement around corners, which is generous but probably wrong, technically; see PHB p.283.)

Knight 1 is slightly less constrained, but the same sort of reasoning still applies. He starts in W10, 2 squares away from Massacre. He can't be pushed to X9, because there's a pillar there. He can't be pushed to W9, because that's still only 2 squares away from Massacre, and he needs to be 3 squares away. He can go N or NW (or NE, but that square's occupied), but can't go W or SW.

If Massacre had moved to Y12 instead of Y11, then he could have pushed knight 1 down the slope, but still couldn't have pushed knight 2 south. He'd have had to go all the way over to Y14 to do that.

 

[Oni]

Will I need to redo my turn, or is the map staying basically as it is?