D&D 5E [OOC] A Light Hearted Princes of Elemental Evil Hack and Slash

[Forged Fury]

The other thing I am hearing is that you want to cast darkness and armor of agathys at the top of the Initiative order. You'll let me know if I've misunderstood you?

Yeah, I never said that, so I guess that counts as misunderstanding. For one, it would be a poor choice to use both at the same time, which I've never done. If armor of agathys is up, you want enemies to hit you, it's the whole point. With darkness up, they have less of a chance to do that, so the two don't go together well. For another, since low-level warlocks only get two spell slots, it's going to be a rare case where I would ever burn both slots in a single combat. I did so during the Grimjaw fight because my first darkness spell went down while I was busy tying up three enemies so the rest of the party could focus fire on their targets.

Now, strictly taking tactics, if I have precast armor of agathys and we get ambushed like above, it really would behoove the party to allow Damien to cast Blade Ward and then try to provoke all the enemies. It would do little damage to him, allow the rest of the party to move without disengaging, and do damage to all of the enemies that do hit.

 

[Forged Fury]

A round to let you and Thaliss do your thing, and a round to help. Two rounds. Three, if there's disengage. Not sure why you're labeling that hyperbole.

What's stopping you from acting later in the first round? A round to help? What's that about? I'm apparently missing your point. Maybe if you list what you think is going on in these combat rounds it would help us all understand.

As far as what we do to help out... well, there's the obvious Hex and the disadvantage it provides to certain ability checks that Steve brings up frequently. There's using darkness to tie up portions of the opposing force so they are effectively taken out of the fight for a few rounds, which serves as damage mitigation. There's the illusions that Steve has used for battlefield control. There's the reaction elimination that Damien can pull off by drawing OAs from enemies to allow the rest of the party free reign with respect to movement. With that said, warlocks aren't built to make the party shine, they're built to make the opposing force dull. Buff vs. Debuff, although it often ends up doing relatively the same thing.

 

[Forged Fury]

As an aside, I think bane tends to work better than bless for this party. We all have such high to hit modifiers, that I think we lose out on some of the utility of that part of the spell. We also haven't had to make a whole bunch of saves yet (although that could certainly change) so we also haven't really seen that benefit yet either. Since bane is hitting presumably standard creatures, it is probably going to be affecting them more, plus we also tend to force more saves on opponents than they have on us to date.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Glad to hear agreement about bane. I'll switch back to bane, if I have Dent cast anything at all. It's looking, however, like a more efficient use of Dent's spellcasting slots will be to use them on divine smite rather than actual spells; we've needed a magic weapon the last two combats.

Since Tolan gets advantage to shove, it sounds like it's smarter to have him do the shoving. Reviewing what's been said in the OOC, it sounds like the most productive use of combat rounds (which, I agree, is a fact-sensitive inquiry and depends on environment) is for Dent to disengage and maneuver out of the way (or wait for armor of agathys or blade ward to do its work, then move), then to use the help action (per Kobold Stew's post a bit above here in the OOC) to help a party member land a hit. After that, hopefully we have a prone foe we can attack. If not, the most productive use I can think of for Dent's actions are to either use Abjure Enemy to isolate and "hold" a boss, or to start smiting things adjacent to him. Dent has three uses of divine smite after each long rest.

Rolling for hit dice recovery: [roll0]

 

[CanadienneBacon]

One more time, since Dent's still down 9 hp: [roll0]

 

[Forged Fury]

My suggestion to everyone: just do what you want to do. We're not a well-oiled combat machine. Just deal with people not doing what you want them to do and figure out an alternate course of action if necessary. With that said, knowing your allies capabilities can certainly help make a better informed decision of what to do in a given situation.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I agree, but it is good to know that there are options if we encounter resistances again, and it's good to articulate them. (And also Dent is going to prove invaluable once the aura of protection kicks in at level 6! Everyone is going to be wanting to stand under that umbrella.)

 

[Creamsteak]

Black Earth Guard

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/40/d1/39/40d139a9107922664cf7e068180ff856.jpg

Black Earth Priest

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/zizegbzki504a2c8qimr.jpg

 

[CanadienneBacon]

[MENTION=552]Creamsteak[/MENTION], does the stone plate armor the group found in the shallow grave resemble the armor worn by the black earth guard?

 

[Creamsteak]

It's basically identical.