Welcome to the Halmae (updated 2/27/07)

[Baron Opal]

Snif. Poor Lira.

At least it was quick.

 

[Eridanis]

Oof. Nothing worse than someone ripping your friend in half, then teleporting away. Justice is pretty P.O.'ed, I imagine...

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Oof. Always hurts when a PC dies, but especially when it's so sudden (and with so little chance to have done something differently--this really felt like bad luck hitting hard).

Fajitas, I have a question about the surprise round. Usually, I wouldn't give a surprise round when someone a PC knows is present and knows to be suspicious draws and attacks-- I figure that's a normal initiative sort of situation. Was there something special going on here that I missed? Did Lira get a Sense Motive to figure out that an attack was about to come? (This shouldn't be taken as criticism, btw-- Fajitas runs a great game, although I'm not certain I've ever tabletopped with him as GM as opposed to as a fellow player or with me as GM. I'm just curious about his decisions on the rules here.)

 

[doghead]

Brutal. Heartbreaking.

I wouldn't give much for the Lady Tempest's future right now.

Is there any wonder I keep reading this SH? It is fantastic.

thotd

 

[Richard Rawen]

Always check the first post of a story hour -- that's where all the good links are!

Many thanks.



. . . wow . . . I've had pc death's like that before, where it is totally out of the blue, yet reading about Lira still made me catch my breath. I guess that's another sign of a good story: we're invested enough in the characters to care.

Still sucks though

 

[Jackylhunter]

Wow...I mean...WOW, What a way to go.

Euro - "Comeon Boss, you've still got work to do, ask Eckt real nice to let you come back to me, please!!?!"

 

[Fajitas]

Oof. Always hurts when a PC dies, but especially when it's so sudden (and with so little chance to have done something differently--this really felt like bad luck hitting hard).

Fajitas, I have a question about the surprise round. Usually, I wouldn't give a surprise round when someone a PC knows is present and knows to be suspicious draws and attacks-- I figure that's a normal initiative sort of situation. Was there something special going on here that I missed?

Let me state first off that I really hate stupid character death. I don't mind killing PCs, but I feel like there should be appropriate drama or intentionality involved. Character deaths that come as a result of sheer dumb bad luck, bad die rolls, or a grotesque and unavoidable lack of the information needed to make the right decisions... those kind of deaths suck to me.

I have, in the past, employed GM fiat to avert stupid deaths like that. In fact, I'd already done it for Lira, during the Mages' Academy fire. She, the 2nd level sorcerer, had been left at the back of the party lines to face the Shadowbeasts. The party, at that point, had no way of knowing that that was the worst tactical move they could possibly make. So I let the crit I rolled against Lira during that fight apply to a random student who ran in between her and the Shadowbeast, giving the party an extra round to get their act together and save her.*

But you can't do that all the time. So...

That said, the decision to give Lady Tempeste the surprise round was based on two things:

1) The fact that Lady Tempeste, being trigger-happy by nature and knowing the PCs were suspicious, was going to shoot first and ask questions later (if at all). Lira, on the other hand, was still trying to talk. She had no intention of starting a fight with her question. She wasn't even sure that Lady Tempeste even knew that the healing potions were fakes. Honestly, Spyscribe's face when I told her Lady Tempeste attacked was the very definition of flat-footed.

2) Lady Tempeste had the Quick Draw feat. She was pretty well optimized to kill you before you even knew the fight was on.

Yes, Lira's death here did involve a lot of bad luck. The crit when she was down to 1 HP was pretty much the clincher. If it hadn't been a crit, she would have been in a lot of trouble, but likely still alive (I let PCs go down to negative Con before death).

From the armchair quarterback's perspective, there were, to my mind, two things Lira could have done differently: first, back off farther, getting out of range of the reach of the spiked chain (tho' this would likely have meant jumping off the barge, and Lira doesn't have any points in swim). And second, not magic missile Lady Tempeste. She wasn't trying to kill Lira in particular, she was trying to kill the entire party. Absent the magic missile, Reyu probably would have been the more dangerous looking target (assuming, of course, that Lira hadn't taken up the cleave position next to Reyu like she did).

That said, Spyscribe made those decisions for character reasons, rather than tactical ones, and I gotta respect that. She was P.O.'d at having been jerked around with the healing potions and she was P.O.'d at having been attacked like that. She didn't want to hide and heal herself, she wanted to rise to the occassion like an Ehktian. She died on her feet, and really, really messily. What Questor could ask more?

Besides, I don't think I've ever seen the party quite as ready for bloodshed as they were after this. Any lingering fears I had about them hemming and hawing about going up against the proper legal authority on the islands pretty much evaporated in that mist of red and the cries of one angry weasel...


* (Note that I wouldn't do this the next time the party encounters Shadowbeasts; they know too much about them for that kind of tactical blunder to be a forgiveable sin.)

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Makes perfect sense. I totally agree with the tactical assessment; Spyscribe deserves mad props for doing the character appropriate thing instead of the tactically optimal thing, but it still makes sense that that would get her killed.

I had misread how suspicious the PCs were. If I had been there, I think I would have been expecting that a rumble could break out at any second, but it sounds like Lira wasn't thinking that. Also, there's an inherent tension on when to give surprise rounds: if you don't count situations like this as surprise, you get the stupidity of combats starting with "okay, I attack him" "nope, he beats your initiative, so he attacks you first, and guess what, it's a sneak attack because you're not ready for it even though you started the fight." On the other hand, it reduces the likelihood of big swings in combat outcomes based on who draws first. (And of course, Quick Draw is key. Otherwise, her surprise round would have been "she draws her weapon.")

 

[StevenAC]

So well written as always, spyscribe, but... Oh, such an ignominious fate for my favourite character!

<Arthur Dent>I'm a bit upset about that.</Arthur Dent>

For those reading the PDF version, chapter 8 of the Collected Halmae is now in its final form, extending right up to this cliffhanger...

Any lingering fears I had about them hemming and hawing about going up against the proper legal authority on the islands pretty much evaporated in that mist of red and the cries of one angry weasel...

Red mist descending here, too... I hope there's some painful and lingering Justice approaching for that Lady Tempeste...

 

[spyscribe]

She didn't want to hide and heal herself, she wanted to rise to the occassion like an Ehktian. She died on her feet, and really, really messily. What Questor could ask more?

That was the clincher right there. It's hard to follow sometimes in the story hour just because of the length of time over which events play out, but the idea that she wasn't really a good Questor had been bugging Lira more and more. A lot of that goes back to her conversation with Devon, which she was thinking of just a few posts back, and especially the face-off with Jor which combined to make her ready to step up and do damage.

And once Lady Tempeste had her down to one hit point before the end of the first round... well, I was pretty sure I was about to get quite dead, because with the damage Lady Tempeste had been doing, I didn't think I could heal myself enough to really make a difference if she hit me again. The only way out of range was off the side of the boat, and even though Lira probably wouldn't have drowned (she has excellent con), I just don't buy that a non-swimmer jumps into the middle of the ocean, especially if she's injured.

So it was really a choice of how I wanted to go down, and sugar, I was going down swinging. At a certain level it was profoundly satisfying to be considered dangerous enough to be worth killing quite that completely. The only annoying thing was the magic missile was my best offensive option, and I think I only did like four points of damage. Laughable.