Strategy thread

[Alethan]

Ahhh... you are right, sir. Sorry; I forgot about this thread. (Too much going on in the different threads!)

(Or maybe I was testing you to make sure you gave the same answer both times... )

[rredmond]

Glad I did, still didn't get my real copy of this module. Intrigued to see how some of what I did, and the official copy jives.

[Alethan]

!!! After all the work you've put into this, you needs to get your LOOT, Ron!

[Alethan]

An old abandoned outpost like this isn't going to have anything valuable in plain sight. It would have been picked up long ago. But... it might be worth our time to do a quick search of each building. Never know if we might find a secret hiding hole in an old fireplace where someone stashed something or other.

I imagine we're going to find the main tower has a lower level or two... we should make sure the whole of the above ground areas are clear (searching rubble for "back doors", to make sure nothing comes out around us) before we do any below-ground exploration. Any undead in the area are going to be underground during the day... we should be relatively safe from them for the time being. That isn't to say there might be something else in the ruins that cohabits with undead... ummm... giant rats? giant bats? giant spiders? other insects, like centipedes or carrion crawlers? We'll want to check ceilings and walls at all times.

[migellito]

An old abandoned outpost like this isn't going to have anything valuable in plain sight. It would have been picked up long ago. But... it might be worth our time to do a quick search of each building. Never know if we might find a secret hiding hole in an old fireplace where someone stashed something or other.

I imagine we're going to find the main tower has a lower level or two... we should make sure the whole of the above ground areas are clear (searching rubble for "back doors", to make sure nothing comes out around us) before we do any below-ground exploration. Any undead in the area are going to be underground during the day... we should be relatively safe from them for the time being. That isn't to say there might be something else in the ruins that cohabits with undead... ummm... giant rats? giant bats? giant spiders? other insects, like centipedes or carrion crawlers? We'll want to check ceilings and walls at all times.

Yep

[Vokarius]

Tear up the floor boards!!!

[Argennian]

Agreed with Alethan that our first priority should be securing the entire perimeter of the ruins and looking for a defensible structure that we can use as a base camp. Preferably one big enough that we can also picket the DAMs in a closeby/separate area?

[Vokarius]

Floor boards!

And possibly the walls.

[migellito]

The only thing that concerns me about staking the dams and campers too close is the idea of things that go bump in the night coming out to feed on them. Of course, we met the ghouls back up the canyon a ways, so keeping them close would at least allow us to keep an eye on them.

For a possible semi-safe spot for them to hole up, I'd like to check out those gate towers.

[Alethan]

Ok, let's put this "strategy" to the vote.

Who thinks Till should go ahead and put the ring on? Everyone cast their vote please. Yes or No, with an explanation of your decision if you so desire.

As far as I know, the only thing we're going to be able to do is cast Detect Magic on it to determine if the ring is magical or not. Kind of a waste of a spell. If it isn't magical, then nothing untoward will result but a halfling looking a bit daft with a garish ring on his finger. If it is magical, then that tells us nothing other than the fact that it is indeed magical.

Per the OSRIC manual, nothing short of a Wish spell is going to tell us what the ring does. I don't know about anyone else, but Till is fresh out of Wish spells at the moment.

In any case, Till's background (family of jewelers), current career choice (procurer of precious objects), alignment (Chaotic Neutral), and propensity for rash behaviour are all straining his will power like nothing else.

The ring moves closer towards his extended finger...

[migellito]

I say try it on.

[Argennian]

Well, being the certified killjoy and party pooper that I... er, I mean Yosef is ( ), I would always recommend caution, Frodo Till!


As a default, I've always gone with a "do everything you can first" method involving the use of unidentified magical items. Typically, it goes something like the following:

1. Detect Magic ~ if it's pretty much assumed, you could bypass this step. Of course, casting a Detect Evil or Augury spell on a non-magical ring would be foolish and embarrassing in the extreme, would it not?
2. Detect Evil ~ understood that this wont necessarily identify a cursed item, but it goes a long way to knowing if something is evil right out of the gate (Granted it's usually best suited for stuff like swords, shields, helms and misc. magic items).
3. Augury or Divination Magic ~ this is one of the best (and most under-used) methods out there for knowing if something bad will happen with a high degree of certainty: "Will woe befall Till if he puts on the ring he just found?" . Now granted, an Augury is not 100% fullproof but anytime you can use it before taking a... blind leap shall we say?
4. Disarm and contain the person who will be using it, regardless! ~ this is another easy and uber-important thing that can be done to ensure that even if it all goes bad, the individual in question would not be able to say, draw a high powered weapon/item and bleep the entire party! And yes, that means taking away weapons, invisibilty potions, spell components for a fireball spell, i.e. basically any means they might have to escape or kill the party.


I do realize that sometimes you have to "live in the moment" as they say, and I could not formulate an intelligent agrument against Till doing just such a thing...

... The ring moves closer towards his extended finger...

Bloody priceless, my good man!

[Alethan]

1. Detect Magic ~ if it's pretty much assumed, you could bypass this step. Of course, casting a Detect Evil or Augury spell on a non-magical ring would be foolish and embarrassing in the extreme, would it not?

I can see where casting this might be useful if you're simply not sure if the item is magical.

2. Detect Evil ~ understood that this wont necessarily identify a cursed item, but it goes a long way to knowing if something is evil right out of the gate (Granted it's usually best suited for stuff like swords, shields, helms and misc. magic items).

I don't know how other GMs play it, but in my case, as a GM, I would let party members cast Detect Evil on an object all day long and it would never tell them anything about an inanimate object which, by definition, cannot be "evil". The one exception would be if it was a magical sword with an evil alignment. As far as I'm concerned, cursed items are not in and of themselves evil.

3. Augury or Divination Magic ~ this is one of the best (and most under-used) methods out there for knowing if something bad will happen with a high degree of certainty: "Will woe befall Till if he puts on the ring he just found?" . Now granted, an Augury is not 100% fullproof but anytime you can use it before taking a... blind leap shall we say?

It's a subjective spell... I can see where it would be useful, but it will also depend on the GM. Till would be willing to wait for Bruard to cast this spell, asking the question above, to see what might result.

4. Disarm and contain the person who will be using it, regardless! ~ this is another easy and uber-important thing that can be done to ensure that even if it all goes bad, the individual in question would not be able to say, draw a high powered weapon/item and bleep the entire party! And yes, that means taking away weapons, invisibilty potions, spell components for a fireball spell, i.e. basically any means they might have to escape or kill the party.

You will have to pry Till's new shiny short sword +1 from his cold dead hands.

Bloody priceless, my good man!

I try.

[Argennian]

4. Disarm and contain the person who will be using it, regardless! ~ this is another easy and uber-important thing that can be done to ensure that even if it all goes bad, the individual in question would not be able to say, draw a high powered weapon/item and bleep the entire party! And yes, that means taking away weapons, invisibilty potions, spell components for a fireball spell, i.e. basically any means they might have to escape or kill the party.

You will have to pry Till's new shiny short sword +1 from his cold dead hands.

Ha! And so it should be!

Yeah, that last one was kinda ambiguous as I was rushing to get it out before the cafe closed! That can certainly be considered an over the top and uber-paraniod method of gameplay for sure. I certainly did not in any way mean to infer that was a requirement of me or my toon or anyone else's in this case, or any other game here at all for that matter, and was more just attempting to speak in humorous overtones & generalizations fueled by past debaucles of the epic sort!


Heh, unfortunately (but not always!), too many folks I FtF game with have (in now celebrated fashion) gotten stung for just being the slightest bit inadvertant, and in certain past campaigns this made for perfect storms/recipes for some nasty DMs to be nasty!

Do you think the fact that I get put into those scenarios on a regular basis makes me a paranoid grognard? The answer is YES! Interestingly enough, I actual do view elves to be semi-paranoid when it comes to any type of magic they might not know or fully understand. Being so stuffy and long-lived and all, I think they would always choose (or vote!) to wait and take it cautious! , i.e. the slow and boring, boring way...

... now on the other hand, how could a chaotic neutral halfling thief that just found it ever really be held to blame for putting it on? Imc and imho, he couldn't!

[Alethan]

Hehe... I think Till would be able to wait until the next morning, when Bruard could cast Augury.

Unfortunately, I do not think Bruard has the necessary spell components - sticks made of dragon bone or gold (I doubt spider legs would work) or a pearl valued at 100gp we could crush into our morning tea - to properly cast the spell. We could try to fudge it by using something else, but it's only a 74% chance WITH the right components, so I'm not sure how well the spell would work without them. 50/50 chance? Hell, Till might as well just put the ring on, in that case...



Even closer does the ring move towards Tills outstretched finger.

He. cannot. resist. much. longer.

(But... as an aside, I think it isn't a bad idea to try and get our hands on some components or fashion them ourselves when we have a chance.)

[ToniXX]

Unfortunately, I do not think Bruard has the necessary spell components - sticks made of dragon bone or gold (I doubt spider legs would work) or a pearl valued at 100gp we could crush into our morning tea - to properly cast the spell. We could try to fudge it by using something else, but it's only a 74% chance WITH the right components, so I'm not sure how well the spell would work without them. 50/50 chance? Hell, Till might as well just put the ring on, in that case...

Good point. I like the Augury route the best, but the spell description is pretty solid regarding the material component. I like Argennian's strategies, but I cast my vote for putting the ring on and taking a chance!

[Alethan]

Unfortunately, I do not think Bruard has the necessary spell components - sticks made of dragon bone or gold (I doubt spider legs would work) or a pearl valued at 100gp we could crush into our morning tea - to properly cast the spell. We could try to fudge it by using something else, but it's only a 74% chance WITH the right components, so I'm not sure how well the spell would work without them. 50/50 chance? Hell, Till might as well just put the ring on, in that case...

Good point. I like the Augury route the best, but the spell description is pretty solid regarding the material component. I like Argennian's strategies, but I cast my vote for putting the ring on and taking a chance!

Done.

[Argennian]

Day 15 – 1:26p
Round Surprise

.

Till carefully makes his way up the stairway, checking for any abnormalities. But Jeloon doesn’t get but a few steps onto the stairs, when no one is surprised that a spider comes out of the opening. What is surprising though is that this is much bigger than the other spiders you’ve seen, about the size of Jeloon, and has two aggressive looking forelegs that are lighter in color than the other legs and end in a rather sharp looking point.

The spider comes barreling down the steps toward Till. Due to the narrowness of the stairs the spider is half on the wall as it heads straight for Till.

I’m only calling this a surprise round because Yosef can definitely loose his arrow before the spider attacks. I’ll allow Jeloon to attack around Till in Round 1 (due to the size of the spider and the way it has to come down the stairs) but she’ll only get one attack. I’ll take called actions from everyone and Yosef can get that shot off right away.

While I continue to go over and over this in my OCD state, I guess we could've also had Derek ready with bow and arrow as well. One more arrow might not have made that much difference here but every little bit of damage helps. I was thinking that we need to continue to stay crisp and cognizant with our tactics, lest we invite more fate upon us than necessary. Something tells me this spider is gonna be a tough one...


(just praying that we get this big 'ol mother before too many saves vs ??? have to be made... )

[Alethan]

Day 15 – 1:26p
Round Surprise

.

Till carefully makes his way up the stairway, checking for any abnormalities. But Jeloon doesn’t get but a few steps onto the stairs, when no one is surprised that a spider comes out of the opening. What is surprising though is that this is much bigger than the other spiders you’ve seen, about the size of Jeloon, and has two aggressive looking forelegs that are lighter in color than the other legs and end in a rather sharp looking point.

The spider comes barreling down the steps toward Till. Due to the narrowness of the stairs the spider is half on the wall as it heads straight for Till.

I’m only calling this a surprise round because Yosef can definitely loose his arrow before the spider attacks. I’ll allow Jeloon to attack around Till in Round 1 (due to the size of the spider and the way it has to come down the stairs) but she’ll only get one attack. I’ll take called actions from everyone and Yosef can get that shot off right away.

While I continue to go over and over this in my OCD state, I guess we could've also had Derek ready with bow and arrow as well. One more arrow might not have made that much difference here but every little bit of damage helps. I was thinking that we need to continue to stay crisp and cognizant with our tactics, lest we invite more fate upon us than necessary. Something tells me this spider is gonna be a tough one...


(just praying that we get this big 'ol mother before too many saves vs ??? have to be made... )

In hindsight, I should have been more prepared for a final "bigger" spider. I think the slight lull we had has taken the edge off of my "frosty".

[Alethan]

So here's my idea with the dagger...

Since Till can't use a shield, and since he has a high enough DEX to make something like this work, I was thinking he might dual-wield the short sword and dagger. (Honestly, now that I think of it, he should be doing this, anyway, with a non-magical dagger; it would just be nicer with a magical dagger.)

Rules on Dual Wielding:
two-Weapon fighting: If a character desires to fight with one
weapon in each hand, the off-hand weapon must be either a
dagger or a hand axe. The weapon in the primary hand attacks
with a –2 modifier, and the off-hand weapon attacks at –4. The
character’s dexterity bonus (or penalty) for missile weapons is
added to both attacks. Thus, a character with a dexterity of 3
would be attacking at -5/-7. However, although penalties can
be offset, this rule can never result in a bonus to attacks! The
off-hand weapon cannot be used to affect parrying.

With a DEX of 18, Till's penalty for the main hand disappears and the penalty for the off-hand ends up being just -1. With a magical dagger, that is negated.

So he ends up with two attacks/round (every round), with a +1 To Hit on the short sword and no negative To Hit with the dagger.

Thoughts?