Kiss of Darkness: OOC: Part 1--A Hint of Shadow

[Nonlethal Force]

Yeah, I wrote that bit before I read RA's update in the game thread. Like I said, no serious complaints!

 

[unleashed]

Oh, and if there's a TPK, I did ask if you guys were sure you wanted to split up the party

(OOC: He gets to pulling on the door, which won't budge, this round. Don't blame the Arcane Lock--blame splitting up in what you correctly expected to be hostile territory He was going to lock it anyway so you couldn't escape)

Well having the summoner completely out of reach, high in the crates, tends to lead to a TPK anyway with the door locked. As if we can't stop them casting, we'll eventually be overwhelmed by summoned creatures...so don't play the innocent, when you've stacked the odds severely against us.

As for splitting up the party...it's only Rhaka that's not there and by my count she has nothing but orisons left (of course Baeleth doesn't know this) and is pretty poor in melee...then aren't we all. So the best she could honestly do would be to provide an extra target for summoned monsters.

Expected it to be hostile territory? Perhaps initially, but after the initial sweep I certainly wasn't expecting anything until we managed to open the trapdoor (which can be seen quite clearly, by Baeleth sheathing his blade). There was certainly no reason to believe the summoner would be waiting inside for us, considering there would be little reason for them to lie in wait for us in this specific building. Then of course there's the question of how they got inside...though I suppose they could have entered though the trapdoor, but I'd think moving the crates back over it by themself would leave obvious marks we'd have found in the primary search.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

As for splitting up the party...it's only Rhaka that's not there and by my count she has nothing but orisons left (of course Baeleth doesn't know this) and is pretty poor in melee...then aren't we all. So the best she could honestly do would be to provide an extra target for summoned monsters.

Yeah. As Rhaka's player I totally concede to this opinion, in fact I confessed it earlier to RA! Rhaka would do nothing for this combat. She's out of spells except 0-Level as noted on her character sheet. And even if she does hit ... Kinjon does more damage! [No, not really] She could help Baeleth get a flanking bonus, but that's about all she'd do! Honestly, she was designed to be good outside comabt, and that design was intentional. So far, she has lived up to my expectations in being very useful outside fighting.

Either way, no hard feelings. Sometimes things happen.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Well having the summoner completely out of reach, high in the crates, tends to lead to a TPK anyway with the door locked. As if we can't stop them casting, we'll eventually be overwhelmed by summoned creatures...so don't play the innocent, when you've stacked the odds severely against us.

As for splitting up the party...it's only Rhaka that's not there and by my count she has nothing but orisons left (of course Baeleth doesn't know this) and is pretty poor in melee...then aren't we all. So the best she could honestly do would be to provide an extra target for summoned monsters.

Expected it to be hostile territory? Perhaps initially, but after the initial sweep I certainly wasn't expecting anything until we managed to open the trapdoor (which can be seen quite clearly, by Baeleth sheathing his blade). There was certainly no reason to believe the summoner would be waiting inside for us, considering there would be little reason for them to lie in wait for us in this specific building. Then of course there's the question of how they got inside...though I suppose they could have entered though the trapdoor, but I'd think moving the crates back over it by themself would leave obvious marks we'd have found in the primary search.

Yeah--forgot that she was down to orison

Anyways, the answer to how he knew you were there is that you Alarmed him when you fiddled with the door. As for getting out of reach--he's only out of reach if you aren't creative, and not getting out of reach would just be playing him dumb

 

[Rystil Arden]

Yeah. As Rhaka's player I totally concede to this opinion, in fact I confessed it earlier to RA! Rhaka would do nothing for this combat. She's out of spells except 0-Level as noted on her character sheet. And even if she does hit ... Kinjon does more damage! [No, not really] She could help Baeleth get a flanking bonus, but that's about all she'd do! Honestly, she was designed to be good outside comabt, and that design was intentional. So far, she has lived up to my expectations in being very useful outside fighting.

Either way, no hard feelings. Sometimes things happen.

Yeah, no biggie--Rhaka has helped out tremendously in the investigations. My other group at home beat this with 3, but they admittedly had two people with +1 BAB instead of one, and an Abjurer for buffs.

 

[Bront]

The suprise is realy going to hurt us though. Val's almost down now, so we're in a bit of trouble.

 

[Rystil Arden]

The suprise is realy going to hurt us though. Val's almost down now, so we're in a bit of trouble.

They got badly badly surprised in my FtF game. They detected the Alarm, so they did crazy things like throw rocks through the windows and run away to try to false alarm, and then they sent in the Wizard's Familiar, so they had a good sense of the lair underneath the warehouse, but while they were all waiting for the familiar to go, the bad guy summoned three things and waited to ambush them with all of them at once while summoning more! That said, the face-to-face group had a barbarian.

 

[Keia]

Reading through, I have a question:

As the locksmith managed to get the door open no problem . . . the group didn't hear the Arcane Lock spell being cast while they were searching? I understand that the full round cast of the summon monster might not have been heard because of the 'crates' but two spells?

Also, can Verra 'withdraw' by moving and climbing up a crate? And how difficult do they look to climb?

 

[Rystil Arden]

Reading through, I have a question:

As the locksmith managed to get the door open no problem . . . the group didn't hear the Arcane Lock spell being cast while they were searching? I understand that the full round cast of the summon monster might not have been heard because of the 'crates' but two spells?

Also, can Verra 'withdraw' by moving and climbing up a crate? And how difficult do they look to climb?

Yup--he cast the Arcane Lock earlier while they were sniffing around with Kinjon at the opposite side of the room, and we had some pretty bad rolls.

You can definitely climb up the crates. DC 15 Climb Check, but also a Balance check to keep yourself and the crates from toppling--too much force applied to the stacks could send them tumbling down.

 

[Keia]

Wow . . . some tough crates there. Verra's likely to fail 65% of the time. Granted she's not too athletic but still . . . can't risk falling, esp. with the implied slam into the crates. Climbing DC's are always a pain in the butt anyway

So, just how difficult would it be to push a crate down on the animal?