Goodman Games

My actions are as follows.

Qort: I knew this room was bad! Now we've got to go down that drain!

He turns and rushes out the door and down the stairs.

Jingles attempts to exactly reverse the last operation she undertook with the console, in hopes that it will close the panels again. She also tries to gauge whether the platform is descending quickly enough that it might provide an escape route before the horde can get all the way up the ramp.

Nurzual the Faceter: Friends! Fall back to one side of the platform, to narrow the approach of these fiends toward us! As they rush in from without, the sunlight will show them to us like flaws in a diamond, while they will see us shrouded in darkness!

He then falls back to the east side of the platform. Brandybland goes with him. Both ready their wooden spears.

Kettering "Gnargle-Shamen!" He stands just inside the panel doors ready to stab the middle Grizzlynargle as soon as it come within range, hoping that the panel slides back down in front of him before they get to the top of the ramp.

Thelonious, Leibgott, and Blackthorn move to the east side of the platform and form a defensive line

Duke Attempts to use Leibgott as a human shield and cowers behind him.

I believe we're waiting on GnomeBoy? I didn't update last night, so let's wait til tonight and then roll with it.

Works for me!

Update 11

The platform continues to sink into the darkness. Jingles judges that it might be possible to ride the platform down--to wherever it is going-- and avoid much of the horde pouring up the ramp. However, the Kith in the ritual masks have made their way to the top and are almost upon you. (Consider them 10 feet away) The levers that opened the panels seem to be stuck in their current position.

The Kith roll an initiative of 18.

Kettering stands ready to attack and seems to be in the front. Thelonious, Leibgott, and Blackthorn make their move to the east side of the platform. Duke cowers behind Leibgott and is untargetable for this combat round. Nurzal and Brandybland are with them.

As Qort rushes down the stairs, he discovers his movements are quicker and more graceful than usual! (One of the effects of the drink was +1d3 Agility, and you got a 3). He finds himself at the bottom of the stairs before the action unfolds.

Kelven is in the southeast corner of the room, in position to either run away or help as his inclination serves him.

Stinky Pete is with Kettering, since he was poking around and didn't move last time.

I don't have placement for every character; if I missed one of yours, please place them on the scene as you see fit during your round!


Please roll for initiative.

Soulcatcher hasn't been replying to updates in a while. Do we want to open the game up for recruitment of another player? I certainly don't want to weaken the party by having 5 characters just disappear from the game, but I don't know if they intend to jump back into the game.

Opinions?

Regarding Soulcatcher, you are the judge I'm comfortable with whatever you feel is appropriate. Is the funnel survivable with 15 PCs? If so we can soldier on.

Initiative for my group is 4+1=5 (poor Kettering)

Okay, so my group rolled a nice juicy 1 for Initiative.

Ignoring that:

Stinky Pete is waving his staff madly, as if it could somehow hold back the horde. He hopes to knock one on the head and then follow the group if they're moving away.

Toby, Lucius, and Havarth were just sort of "in the room". They move for the platform more or less as a group, with Lucius Kith-ward and brandishing both the flint dagger in one hand and his "strange rock" in the other, trying to look as fierce as he can... Toby draws his longsword and Havarth has his club ready.

And lastly, seeing the platform as an escape, even though he is farthest from it, Kelven rushes for it, not caring who he shoulders out of the way.

Don't worry. I can always tune the scenario to fit the party. If I have to sit around for a bit one night and rethink the numbers such that the has a reasonable chance of surviving if they play well, given less players, I can do that.

That said, I think the game is more fun with a fuller party. So I think I'll open the doors to a new player and see what we get .

I'm fine opening the game up for another player.

My group rolls a 15. Qort has a +1 now that the drink has made him more agile. I don't know if his bonus applies to the group's initiative though, since he's now completely out of sight of the others.

If the way is not blocked by Kith, Jingles will dash forward and jump into the descending platform before it gets too low. Nurzual and Brandybland, seeing the possibility of an escape route, will jump down as well if not engaged with the kith. Once down, they will set their spears to receive the charge/leap of any kith that try to jump down with them. If the charging kith get past Kettering and Stinky Pete and engage Nurzual and Brandybland before they can jump down, they will attack with their spears as their action.

Qort concludes that his newfound agility has allowed him to speed ahead of the others, who must surely be following. Since the drain is the only conceivable way out, he will lower himself into the hole and hang with his arms outstretched as far as possible to reduce the distance he's going to fall. He will remain hanging until the others show up with a light and rope, or until he hears the savages approaching, or until his grip slips and he falls.

Since we're entering combat, you can either take those actions during your turn, or you can adjust to the situation!


Round One
Order: Kith, Bilgewiggler, Judge Blackthorn, Gnomeboy

Two of the Kith charge at Kettering with their spears:
Attack Rolls: 8+2 = 10 (Hit)
5+2 = 7 (Miss)

Damage: 1+2 = 3

Kettering takes a spear in the lung, and goes down. The Kith rips the spear out of him with a sickening twist.

The third tries to tackle Stinky Pete down onto the descending platform--perhaps a suicidal urge, perhaps thinking that is the way out:


Attack Roll: 17 + 2 = 19 (Hit)

Stinky Pete breaks the Kith's fall for him, but suffers a severed spine for his trouble.

Two Kith are now standing on the north boundary of the platform's edge. One is on the platform, lying prone.

Bilgewiggler goes now!

[I don't know why, but as soon as the Zeroes start to drop, I feel like the adventure has really begun!]

[Don't forget to make a mad grab for the gear of the fallen if you have a chance (or are willing to take a chance)!]

Jingles leaps down on the prone Kith with her wooden longsword, attempting to put her weight and the momentum of the drop behind the weapon. She rolls a 3.

Nurzual and Brandybland like Jingles' idea, and also find a prone, face-down Kith preferable to standing, combat-ready ones. They will both attempt to leap down and impale the prone Kith on their wooden spears.

Nurzual: 5

Brandybland: 4

The three adventurers miss their mark, and now find themselves descending into the darkness with the Kith.

Judge Blackthorn goes now.

Thelonious charges the Kith that killed Kettering with a spear "for Ketterbug!"

Attack 3 (d8 fake spear damage=4)

Liebgott charges the same Kith, "Remeber Kettledrum!"

Attack 13+2str=15 (d8 flint spear damage 6+2str=8)

Blackthorn charges the same Kith (or the remaining standing Kith if the other fell) "we'll never forget you, Korkberg!"

Attack 14 (d8 fake spear longsword damage = 3)

Duke moves forward with Liebgott but attempts to continue her "lead from behind strategy" by staying safely behind the burly turnip farmer, "Grizzlynargles be damned, Kevin will be avenged!" She does nothing to contribute.

<even after setting kettering up for a horrible death and leaving him out to dry I felt a twinge when reading his death, your right, gnomeboy, khit just got real.>

<anyone else okay with the Judge rolling initiative for us? Would save us an entire turn of waiting each combat>

I'm actually, literally "laughing out loud" at those Zeroes not getting their compatriot's name right!

Judge Blackthorn wrote:<anyone else okay with the Judge rolling initiative for us? Would save us an entire turn of waiting each combat>

I'm fine with that, especially given the huge number of characters wandering around at this point.

One idea would be to have us each give an outline of what our characters are doing in reaction to charging Kith or whatever is up (including making attack rolls and such), then roll the initiative behind the scenes and just post what happened each round. Might take a few follow-up or "pre-up" posts to clarify ('Dinglebury needs to make a Agility check" etc.), but it would speed things up in combats/action sequences with 15+ characters acting... Also, it'll allow for some surely glorious fog-of-war type action, I'm sure.

Sorry, I'm at work, so it's hard to find time to reply .

Liebgott drives home with his spear and strikes the Kith in the shoulder. He's bleeding hard and definitely shaken.

Gnomeboy goes now.

If you all want to try a faster / streamlined combat system, I'm okay with that. We'll pick that up at the top of the next round. How it'll work is like this:

-You write out each character's actions for the combat round.
-You roll any applicable dice (to hit or magic checks etc); if it's not obvious, ask!
-I'll come up with the Monster's actions and then roll initiative.
-Actions happen in initiative order, and actions can fail if the target is dead / out of view, etc by the time your turn comes.

Is everyone okay with that?

Toby, Havarth, and Lucius continue to the lowering platform. If it's not too far down, they will jump down to it. If it's too far to jump safely, Havarth will lower Toby down, Toby will help Havarth down, and Lucius will cover that action and then they will help him down.

Kelven is rushing to the platform, but detours to make a mad grab for Stinky Pete's staff, then angling back to the platform with the others. "You there, whose name I don't know! He's got more STUFF! Get it!" he says, to another Zero near him.


[I realize that may be more than they can do in a round, but maybe not... just trying to cover as much as possible to save on back-and-forth. If none or only some of them get that far, so be it.]

[And yeah, that sounds good. You set the scene, we give you our reactions and die rolls, and then you tell us what happens that round.]

Do we even need initiative every round? I have no problem just cycling through the same order that we've already rolled, if that streamlines things further.

(I second Gnomeboy's laughter, btw!)

Sorry, I didn't mean every round. Just the first go round each combat.

So do we want to just do combat the way we've been doing it so far, except I roll everyone's initiative at the start of round one?

I'm sorry if I rushed to a solution; I have an anxiety disorder so I tend to view tiny issues as huge problems.

No need for anxiety, Judge! You're doing a great job.

I've never played by post before, so the logistics are all new to me. I like the idea of trying to keep things moving as efficiently as possible, but since I don't really know the best means of that, I should probably just focus on what my characters are doing. I'll trust you to run the game as you see fit!

In case we do go with the state-your-actions-before-the-round method:

My characters are just going to pound on the Kith who's on the platform with us. (Or, given my previous rolls, they're going to flail around uselessly until he kills them all.)

Let's see if this round's rolls are any better. Assuming none of us is dead and the Kith is still around as a target ...
Nurzual: 17 to hit! Wooden spear 1d8 = 6 points of damage
Brandybland: 8 to hit
Jingles: 5 to hit

Qort continues to hang patiently by his fingertips in the drain hole. Surely, the rest of the group will be along soon ...

No need to worry, just offering a suggestion. Game is going great so far judge I'm looking forward to my imminent TPK

Since Stinky Pete was tackled onto the platform, consider his stuff to be on the platform also. And your actions all go through!

Let's try the streamlined combat style this round, and see if you all like it. Then we'll make a decision if you want to use it or not.

Okay. So everyone just write out your actions for this combat round, and I'll do them all in the initiative order. Looks like Bilge's actions are already out, so let's get Gnomeboy's and Blackthorn's.