AtG Howling Crag (5e PBP) OOC

[FitzTheRuke]

Sorry I've had a slow posting week. I've been really busy - Learn to Play D&D at my store has proven very popular and I'm now running FOUR groups in new adventures. As I've been making the characters, too - I've had a LOT of Prep to do!

So... before I post, there's still a couple of things I'm not 100% clear on about Donnell's Plan: You're marching back up to the road (while avoiding the Roc-Rider). After dark, Doc & Gimlak are hopping off the cliff and night-flying the gorge (with darkvision, thankfully, though I'm not sure Doc 2.0 has it). Kahru, Donnell, & Colonel are marching up the road invisible, and then Donnell is flying around the north peak while Kahru carries the Colonel as a giant bird?

Is that it, and is everyone on board?

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Sorry I've had a slow posting week. I've been really busy - Learn to Play D&D at my store has proven very popular and I'm now running FOUR groups in new adventures. As I've been making the characters, too - I've had a LOT of Prep to do!

So... before I post, there's still a couple of things I'm not 100% clear on about Donnell's Plan: You're marching back up to the road (while avoiding the Roc-Rider). After dark, Doc & Gimlak are hopping off the cliff and night-flying the gorge (with darkvision, thankfully, though I'm not sure Doc 2.0 has it). Kahru, Donnell, & Colonel are marching up the road invisible, and then Donnell is flying around the north peak while Kahru carries the Colonel as a giant bird?

Is that it, and is everyone on board?

Almost!

Yes to the flying of Doc and Gimlak...They will just fly around to avoid the radius of the torches before they dip into the gorge.

Colonel is casting levitate and can be tethered to someone to pull him to the window. (I think we are avoiding tethering him to the flyers because that's too windy.)

Instead, The Colonel and the Donnell will sneak invisibly and Donnell will climb around the North Spire to the window. Donnell has a climbing speed. Colonel will be closely tethered to Donnell in case falls off the cliff or Colonel gets blown away. It should be nothing for the Colonel to pull himself along the cliff face while having Levitate. Khurok will not be invisible. He will cast Pass Without Trace and then wildshape into a mouse (he'll be stationed inside Donnell's pocket or backpack so he's effectively invisible). Between invisibility and the effects of PwT while we're climbing so we should be fairly safe from being discovered.

Invisibly, we can scout the room and make sure the coast is clear or find a hiding spot. The flyers will cast fly and we will lose invisibility.

What could go wrong, right?????

Spells cast:
Levitate
Pass without Trace
Invisibility upcast to affect two people (donnell and Colonel)
Fly upcast to affect Gimlak and Doc.

NOTE: I realized that, with the Magic Whistle, we could all have just flown from the bottom of the gorge and it only would have cost us one upcast fly. But, since I didn't realize that until we'd all posted, it would require us to edit a bunch of posts so we are doing it this much more complicated way. I'm glad the experienced people are humouring the kid's intricate plan.

NOTE 2: I realize that, with this convoluted plan, we may end up Spotted by the Frost Giant and embroiled in some kind of fight. But, we will try diplomacy first, if all goes bad.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Woah! The post I just posted, I just found sitting in the site buffer ("post" section).

What I'm trying to say is, I thought that I'd posted it days ago! I must have hit "post" and then shut my laptop before it finished uploading the map, or something, and it just sat there unposted.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Still recovering, but now posting sporadically. Unless someone has a good idea otherwise, Doc is going to open fire on the bird, which will likely wake the giant.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Sure. We kind of showed up in reverse order. The climbers were supposed to
Show up invisibly and scout before the flyers arrived.

. Between invisibility and the effects of PwT while we're climbing so we should be fairly safe from being discovered.

Invisibly, we can scout the room and make sure the coast is clear or find a hiding spot. The flyers will cast fly and we will lose invisibility.

So I imagine Donnell and the Colonel are surprised they became visible early.

No plans survive contact with the enemy!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Sure. We kind of showed up in reverse order. The climbers were supposed to
Show up invisibly and scout before the flyers arrived.

Really? Huh. I thought I was being generous having you arrive remotely close together, what with flying being much faster than climbing.

So I imagine Donnell and the Colonel are surprised they became visible early. No plans survive contact with the enemy!

Oh, I'm not sure that you're visible. How long does your invisibility last? If it's just the 1-minute kind, you'd be hard pressed to even get off the road before it expired. If it's the 1-hour kind, you're probably still invisible.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Really? Huh. I thought I was being generous having you arrive remotely close together, what with flying being much faster than climbing.


Oh, I'm not sure that you're visible. How long does your invisibility last? If it's just the 1-minute kind, you'd be hard pressed to even get off the road before it expired. If it's the 1-hour kind, you're probably still invisible.

It's 1 hour invisibility but Gimlack is both casting invisibility and fly. So he has to wait until we're clear of the gates before he casts fly since they're both concentration. That's why we were going to go in first, invisibly. Scope the place out, then use our telepathy to tell the flyers that the coast was clear. Then Gimlack would cast fly and we'd lose invisibility. The flyers going second makes the most sense anyways, since they're faster.

I think it's fine. If we're on the cliff face when we lose invisibility, then the guards won't see us. Miscommunications happen!

I was going to use the whip to see if I could control the bird, but that's not at all stealthy(I imagine you have to make it do that "whip-crack" sound for it to work), so the Frost Giant would have known we were there no matter what.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Sure. I decided to just move forward without asking for any skill checks for either group (both have potential hazards to deal with). We can just assume that Donnell and Doc got caught up with something that slowed their progress.

Maybe rock-climbing sideways while holding a person who is floating like s balloon is as difficult as it sounds! (Particularly while carrying as much other gear as Donnell is!)

 

[Kobold Stew]

Still recovering, but now posting sporadically. Unless someone has a good idea otherwise, Doc is going to open fire on the bird, which will likely wake the giant.

Possibly if you ducked away, the bird would follow you and he could be shot out of sight of the giant. (?)

 

[Steve Gorak]

Hey guys,

So yeah, Donnel and Kahru-spider had to arrive first, Invisible, pass without trace and stealth, so hard to spot. Then they would have signaled telepathically (telepathic bond ritually cast) for Gimlak to cast fly on himself and Doc, cancelling invisibility, and the two flying in with balloon-Colonel having levitate active. Donnel and Kahru-spider would need to stay hidden until the rest of the group arrives.

I think the current map just needs to be tweaked a bit, having the colonel next to Doc, and we'd be fine.

FYI, Gimlak is still flying, so can't really cast anything that changes the Hawk's mind. I guess combat it is.

I'm glad
Cheers,

SG