Black Spine, Red Blood: A Dark Sun 3.5 Campaign

[Cerebus13]

Edit: made this into a seperate post to make it easier to read.

Paxus, I've gotten the general idea of what is happened in the combat currently from reading the IC thread...but would it be possible for you to post a rough grid map of the area with coordinates on it? It doesn't have to be anything spectacular, just an even grid with maybe some contours for sand dunes and such, and letters/numbers on the axises so we can easily announce that we are moving to A3 from B7. Just make the squares 5' a piece and we would be set.

A good, and free, program for doing this can be found at:
h**p://www.gryc.ws/autorealm.htm

Just make the map once and save it as a small .jpg and attach it to the IC thread, then whenever we or our opponents move announce our current position on the grid. MS paint would work just as well for a map if need be, but Autorealm is a lot quicker .

If you don't have the time, or can't install stuff on your computer, I would gladly make up one for you when I get home from work. I don't mean to sound pushy but having this sort of detail makes a lot of the combat manuevers for 3.5 easier to use, and allows for better coordinating of stuff within the party (such as flanking).

 

[Paxus Asclepius]

I agree in principle, but seem to have difficulty getting map programs to install or run. If I can get AutoREALM working, I can get a map up this afternoon.

 

[Cerebus13]

Apparently the main AutoRealm site hasn't been updated in a while, as I found the newest version on their section of SourceForge.

link to a list of mirrors to download is:
h**p://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/autorealm/AR200Setup.exe?download

I'm glad you agree, I was afraid you would be opposed to the idea because it might reveal too much metagame information. But as long as you keep it simple it should not.

 

[Paxus Asclepius]

I'm having a bit of difficulty getting it figured out. In this fight, I'm afraid, you'll have to do without; I should understand it by the next fight.

 

[humble minion]

Welcome aboard, Cerebus13!

Paxus, I'm feeling a bit lost regarding the current combat at the moment. I'm assuming the reason you haven't mentioned the result of Garak's last action is that he hasn't come up in the initiative order yet?

 

[Paxus Asclepius]

Welcome aboard, Cerebus13!

Paxus, I'm feeling a bit lost regarding the current combat at the moment. I'm assuming the reason you haven't mentioned the result of Garak's last action is that he hasn't come up in the initiative order yet?

Yes; I'm waiting until Ristu has a posted action, so that things can proceed in the proper initiative order. Assuming that things are adequately implied is a bad habit of mine; if I forgot to say something obvious like that, feel free to berate me.

 

[Cerebus13]

Glad it installed okay this time Paxus . I'm going home to visit my parents this weekend and their computer is too slow to do much more than post on messageboards and play solitaire, so I'll play around with it a bit and see how much more insight I get into the program. It seems very powerful considering its free and open source, its just that the documentation is a little lacking and requires some trial and error to get it right.

Thanks humble minion, I'm glad I can help get the game back on track and get everyone posting again .

 

[evileeyore]

Just a quick statement becuase i've had this problem in the past;

If I start stepping on toes, let me know. I have no problem backing down OOC if I'm getting heavy handed in posting like a Nazi.

Any mispelled names are me the PC being a forgetful idiot, not the Character.

A question to our Druid and Cleric:

What recon type spells do you guys have access to?

Like anything that could give warning of impending Gith attacks, knowledge of the surrounding terrain/creatures/upcoming weather conditions? Anything that can seriously affect the weather?

I know 'regular' Druids have pretty good access to that style of info and powers, clerics to a lesser extent, but I am not too familiar with the Dark Sun versions.

Anything that can seriously help the villagers to fortify their town? Improve their combat abilities long term (not rounds/turns but like hours/days)?


I am trying to get a 'plan' in mind for dealing with the Gith, so any suggestions would be welcome.

Call me Face--EvilE

 

[humble minion]

Recon spells: I have Scrying on the list, and since I have one memorised I was going to use it to take a look at the main gith camp after we've got the rundown from Tenpug later on. Other than that, I have the various divinations - Augury, Divination and Commune - but they're a bit more focused on the questions you ask, and take a pretty nasty hit of material components or XP, so I'm saving them till later.

Fortification I'm a bit limited on. All the best ones (Symbol of Sleep, Symbol of Fear, Hallow) require ridiculously expensive (1000cp+) material components that I don't have. Weather Control and Earthquake are too high level for me at this stage, and Wall of Stone isn't on the cleric list in DS. Best I can do is Spike Stones - though that is pretty damn good. A lot depends on how big the perimeter of the village is. But Garak and Ristu can probably scrounge up three or four of these between us, and that should be enough to create a damn good barrier.

Helping villagers - most of the mass buffing spells only affect 1 creature/level - not too useful really. Prayer is the exception, but duration is short.

Other tactics I've been toying with:
- Sneaking invisibly and Silenced in to the gith camp ASAP, using Contagion and Infestation as widely as possible, then escape using Word of Recall. Allow the infections to spread through the army.
- calling in a carefully chosen Planar Ally with a good mass attack. I was leaning towards an Earthen Medusa of Legend (and seeing how many gith I could get her to turn to stone with a DC 20+ save vs petrification, while protecting her with braxatskin/barkskin/shield of faith/entropic shield) but there are no medusa on Athas according to ToA, and basilisks aren't nearly as good. I'll have to keep this idea in reserve.
- Summoning an Earthern Feylaar into the ground beneath the main concentration of gith - hopefully when they're clustered around a fortification or something. Inaccessible and invulnerable - Death Field for 20hp, Body Adjustment, repeat to fade.
- And the obvious one - set the tribes against each other, either by using Grykee's puppets as provocateurs, or by roasting the tribal leaders with Elemental Strikes and letting chaos take its course.

Any other nasty ideas?

 

[Keia]

Arriha is not much of a cleric, most of her psionic abilities are personal and defensive in nature.

Keia