D&D 5E (OOC) Rise of the Dracolich (Full)

[gargoyleking]

That was the idea. That, and hopefully mess with their morale. Though, there is no actual mechanic for that.

 

[Ancalagon]

That was the idea. That, and hopefully mess with their morale. Though, there is no actual mechanic for that.

There used to be morale... ah well.

Initially I wasn't sold because so many of us can attack at range, but now that I think about it, overall your spell was the right move. A spell or combo or whatever that makes all your foes essentially lose the round while the party maneuvers and gets ready is a win (plus damage!). The lizard men can't do squat.

Still super curious to see what the crocodile will do!

 

[tglassy]

Well, considering they are in both a web and the black pit of death, we could probably just leave and let Hunger of Hadar kill them all...

 

[Ancalagon]

If we are lucky - some of them will get stuck in there and die. Some will escape - but in random directions, so (again if we are lucky) roughly half of the escapee will be on the wrong side of the spell. This will allow us to focus fire the few ones on our side.

The "wall-like spell dividing the foes in half" is a winning move. Heck it works great in FPS videogames too (see Mei's icewall in Overwatch).

Lastly, these are all new PCs to us, and we'll make mistakes. I'm not sure bladeward was the most effective thing I should have done. Should I have dashed forward? Used silent image for temporary cover instead? Kalorn knows how to fight better than I do!

 

[gargoyleking]

Unfortunately, my darkness won't be able to move with the croc and I'm not seeing the Croc as being more than mildly annoyed by the web, if at all. So they're likely to be out of the darkness rather quickly. But it might mess with at least a few of them and should at least damage the whole lot, a little bit of softening.

 

[Ancalagon]

I agree with you that a croc this size will essentially ignore the web... But what will the croc do? This is a *freaky experience* (and a painful one to boot). It might attempt to dive to escape (which would wreck the howda I imagine). Or it might stay put, go forward, trash around... up to the GM

 

[gargoyleking]

I agree with you that a croc this size will essentially ignore the web... But what will the croc do? This is a *freaky experience* (and a painful one to boot). It might attempt to dive to escape (which would wreck the howda I imagine). Or it might stay put, go forward, trash around... up to the GM

Yep, that's why I love Fitz's DMing style. It won't break the encounter, but it might be dramatic.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm not a DM that likes to "gotcha" ruin my player's intentions, so I'm honestly sorry when I tell you - the Croczilla has a legendary action to rush forward and attack. Now, this happens on Lorenn's turn - so NONE of the Lizardfolk have acted yet, nor has the Croczilla (for his actual turn)... so I think that none of the bad guys will take damage from Hunger of Hadar. They neither start their turn in, NOR end their turn in the spell, after the Croc rushes out of it. To be fair, I homebrewed the creature, so I agree with any criticisms you might have with that (I myself and suspect of anyone's homebrew stuff, so I can imagine if you feel that way about mine.)

On the other hand, with the way I do initiative, everything is somewhat simultaneous, so I'm happy to go with Lorenn's description regarding the arrows raining around him, and assume that a few Lizardfolk were ready to fire at him as the darkness dropped and therefore started (or ended, or both) their turn in the spell before the Croc rushed forward. Also, I'm sticking to the letter of Lorenn's web spell - he stuck it to the battle-patform - therefore it sticks the Lizardfolk to the platform but won't stop the Croc from rushing forward (it's not really big enough anyway.)

I dunno. I always try to make everything everyone does do something but I don't like it when it does EVERYTHING. I'll do my best to run it fairly.

 

[gargoyleking]

To be fair, I posted first. So you could say that the darkness came, the croc activated and then Lorenn activates. But even then, I posted the center of the effect with the assumption that I WAS acting first. If the crocs position had changed the spell location should as well.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

To be fair, I posted first. So you could say that the darkness came, the croc activated and then Lorenn activates. But even then, I posted the center of the effect with the assumption that I WAS acting first. If the crocs position had changed the spell location should as well.

You *did* act first. That's the problem:

The croc could use his Legendary Action after you (or Lorenn) act and rush out of the darkness. Either way, it's before any of the bad guys act. This is how it would work with regular initiative. (The croc doesn't need to activate to use its Legendary Actions and Lorenn's post about arrows was mostly fluff). The way Hunger of Hadar works, that would mean that it would fail to accomplish *anything* under the normal initiative rules. I was trying to avoid that, as it seems unfair to me.

I'm just saying, with the way I do initiative, I could rule that a few of the lizardfolk 'activate' to fire arrows at Lorenn and therefore take some damage from Hunger of Hadar before they leave the area.

But... I've probably confused the issue by discussing it. It seems I've made things *more* confusing rather than making it make sense to you, which was my intention. At any rate, usually you all trust me to figure it out, and you can do that here too. It'll be fair, but maybe not quite as good as you had hoped.