Adventure:-- LPNN (Manzanita Judging)

[Xael]

OOC: I'd love to have Razh give Z his last potion (CLW), but it seems that Stinker is directly in his path. No matter the course of action he takes, he will not get that potion down Z's throat in time... I'm sorry...

OOC: Razh could get to Zaeryl by taking an AoO by moving next to the rat, and then try to use Heal skill untrained. The DC is 15 though. :\ Or DC 10 to stop the bleeding from bats, after which Zeryl gets his 10% chance of stabilizing.

 

[rln]

OOC, For the DM:[SBLOCK]Representing the PC's Union once again...

If you'd like to give Zaeryl a break, the rules only say "A dying character loses 1 hit point every round" - it does not say when in the round this happens. You could argue for it being in the characters initiative, on the initiative when he actually got the damage, the beginning of the round or (you guessed it) at the end of the round. This would actually give Raz two rounds to act before Zaeryl dies.
[/SBLOCK]

 

[Rystil Arden]

(OOC: Actually, Raz does have two rounds to heal me because I die on Round 11 on my inititive which is directly after Raz's initiative. Hurray! (See post 389 about my miscount) )

 

[two]

End of Round 9

Juliana 6
Almayce 6
Vargo & Wolf 1

I6: “Juliana stands back up (Which, unfortunately provokes an AoO), steps forward (Another AoO, if he has one left), and just attacks Longtooth with the silver arrow (net -2 (+2, -4 for imp weap) , 1d4+2, 20x2).” I am not using the DC20 crawl tumble check thing which is not core and a bad option anyway given Juliana’s tumble check.

So, Juliana bravely stands up, provoking an AOO…. Which makes LongTooth giggle… he rolls a “1” and Juliana lives another day.

She steps up 5’ and attacks with the arrow, rolling a “17” and missing due to the “-2”. [OOC, using silver arrows as melee weapons reduces everyone’s likelihood of hitting to 1 or 2 or 3 in 20. It’s likely better to simply hit, and blast through DR with damage]

I6: There is a chance that the lightweight wand didn’t roll out of Almayce’s hand when he went down…it’s 8/20 likely (roll a 12 or higher). Almayce rolls a “9” and the wand did indeed pop out of his hand when he fell. Almayce reaches out to retrieve it, and provokes a stab from Slinker. Slinker rolls a [this is likely the most important roll of the combat, BTW], to repeat, Slinker rolls a “13” and easily hits, doing “2” points of damage to Almayce. Amazing. You got hit and still are alive. Invisible Castle don’t lie.

Hallidor is healed for 6 points and his eyes pop open. He’s angry, yeah, golly gee, he’s angry. He sees Slinker’s foot next to his head, and is ready to do a little old-fashioned wrassling next round.

I1: Vargo bleeds. Huln attacks, “11” nah. Moves down 5’.

 

[two]

Round 10 -- getting jiggy folks

ROUND 10

LongTooth 20
Hallidor 20
Slinker 17
Ogrin 16
Stinker 14
Raz 13
Zaeryl 13
Juliana 6
Almayce 6
Vargo & Wolf 1

I20: LongTooth moves back 5’ and attacks Juliana; the wolf is entirely ignorable. He rolls a “10” and misses; J is one tough chick to hit!

I20: Hallidor, disgusted by what’s been going on, decides to grapple Slinker. He reaches out for a touch attack and rolls a “9” just barely hitting touch AC 13. (Slinker used up his AOO already). He then attempts to squeeze the dickens out of Slinker; Hallidor’s grapple check is “9” and Slinker’s is “5’. Hallidor is now grappling Slinker. Although, now that he’s done it, he’s wondering what to do next!

I17: Slinker, rather annoyed, bites Hallidor’s head off. He rolls a “19” and misses, due to the –4 when attacking with a light weapon when grappled plus lame bite attack bonus (Hallidor still is wearing his armor and has a shield).

I16: Ogrin does NOT bleed.

I14: Stinker opens another can; poke/bite. The poke hits, doing 6 points of damage to Raz…and Stinker yawns. It all seems so easy to him.

I13: Raz moves over to Z, past Stinker, and draws an AOO. Stinker rolls a “20”. Uh oh. Confirm? “8”. No. But does another “6” points! Damn that stinker can hit! Raz kneels next to Z and opens his last CLW potion; he can pour it down Z’s throat next round. If Raz lives.

I6: J goes…

 

[Xael]

Almayce is somewhat surprised by the turn of events next to him. Not wanting to waste any time, he drags himself up (Move action, no AoO since the rat is grappling with Hallidor), and heals Hallidor again for 2 points (Standard action, 1d8+1 healing, no AoO). "Hold him down!", he tells to Hallidor. He then takes a step towards Rasereit (5ft step).

OOC: Aargh! 2 points again!

 

[Rystil Arden]

(OOC: Actually, the DR lowers the expected value of melee weapon to lower than you might expect. This is because unless the character has either 16 Str or higher or a two-handed weapon like Raz, there's at least a 50% chance not to deal damage on a successful hit with a d6 weapon (like a flail), and even a successfully damaging attack deals 1, 2, or 3 damage (for 14 strength). This is an expected value on a hit of 1 damage. The arrows reduce the initial hit chance, but they have no chance to deal 0 damage, and have an expected value (for 14 strength) of 4.5 damage. Thus, even if the -4 penalty causes the worst possible ratio (hit on a 16 becomes hit only on a 20, thus dividing chance to hit by 4), expected damage increases with the arrow (the formula is chance to hit * average damage if hit). Thus, arrows are a better option for everyone except Raz (or Ogrin if he gets a sneak attack). If this seems surprising, its just what happens to a low-level party against DR: Admittedly, using the arrows in an actual bow of some sort would have a much much better value than either of those options. Zaeryl plans on it if he doesn't die.)

 

[two]

(OOC: Actually, the DR lowers the expected value of melee weapon to lower than you might expect. This is because unless the character has either 16 Str or higher or a two-handed weapon like Raz, there's at least a 50% chance not to deal damage on a successful hit with a d6 weapon (like a flail), and even a successfully damaging attack deals 1, 2, or 3 damage (for 14 strength). This is an expected value on a hit of 1 damage. The arrows reduce the initial hit chance, but they have no chance to deal 0 damage, and have an expected value (for 14 strength) of 4.5 damage. Thus, even if the -4 penalty causes the worst possible ratio (hit on a 16 becomes hit only on a 20, thus dividing chance to hit by 4), expected damage increases with the arrow (the formula is chance to hit * average damage if hit). Thus, arrows are a better option for everyone except Raz (or Ogrin if he gets a sneak attack). If this seems surprising, its just what happens to a low-level party against DR: Admittedly, using the arrows in an actual bow of some sort would have a much much better value than either of those options. Zaeryl plans on it if he doesn't die.)

[SBLOCK] Any 1-handed weapon can be used with 2 hands. A PC with str=14 using a simple heavy mace does 1d8+3, i.e. 4-11 points of damage. On average, it does 2.5 points of damage after DR5. A silver arrow does 4.5 on average when it hits, but it hits at -4, reducing the average damage by bunches. Most PC's would hit on a "15" with their normal weapons, while they need a "19" or "20" with a silver arrow. It means they hit at best 1/3 as often (require a 19/20 instead of 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and their expected damage is 4.5/3 = 1.5. It's not particularly close, plus one critical from a mace might kill a WereRat right off the bat; the arrow won't ever critical and even if it does critical due to a 19/19 can't kill the thing.

[/SBLOCK]

 

[Rystil Arden]

(OOC: That assumes they have a mace, and also that they can't also two-hand the arrow. I'm pretty sure some of them do not have a melee weapon capable of more than 1d6 because they decided not to play a heavy strength fighter--and two-handing a d6 weapon is actually still lower than just one-handing the arrow. while the d8 weapon is higher--the extra damage dice increase makes a huge difference with DR 5. Again, shooting the arrow is better than both (same damage as the melee arrow assuming 14 strength and good attack bonus), and Raz should definitely two-hand the axe though.)

 

[two]

(OOC: That assumes they have a mace, and also that they can't also two-hand the arrow. I'm pretty sure some of them do not have a melee weapon capable of more than 1d6 because they decided not to play a heavy strength fighter--and two-handing a d6 weapon is actually still lower than just one-handing the arrow. while the d8 weapon is higher--the extra damage dice increase makes a huge difference with DR 5. Again, shooting the arrow is better than both (same damage as the melee arrow assuming 14 strength and good attack bonus), and Raz should definitely two-hand the axe though.)

[SBLOCK] Criticals play an important role when you are talking about only being able to hit on a 19 or 20 due to big penalties. Because would you rather roll a "19" and hit with a silver arrow, or roll a "19" and possibly critical with a small longsword used in 2 hands (1d6 +3)? The additional damage you do from criticals even from a small longsword (1d6+3) makes it more attractive than a silver arrow (let's say you confirm the crit 1/4 of the time, that's roughly 1.5 additional damage per round compared to the arrow). Pretty interesting to try to figure out, actually.[/SBLOCK]