Expedition: Halfpint: Mapping the Forest - 12 Oct 2021

[onlyme]

ok. never mind, then... thanks

[rossik]

"Why is Laila taking so long...? Maybe we should check, Halfpint"

[onlyme]

Halfpint intermittently. keeps the creature's exit in view in case of a re-entry, but she agrees and heads back to the cabin to check on Laila.

[Bluetongue]

Fairfax Socrates

The Halfling stops stirring his campfire pot. He resists clanging on the saucepan sides to announce a dinner of broth soup is ready. "Guess if folk are hungry they can help themselves," he says to Griff who nibbles away at some of the grassy turfs in the stump area. "I do have some dried fruits and nuts. Perhaps we can coax 'squirowleer' with a better offer than bread." He finishes his bowl of soup and decides to sneak around the back of the hollowed stump and approach the creature out of sight. Then leaning over the stump to drop a few hazelnuts in a line. "Call it to come out Thedla, it might trust you being a man of nature."

I remember stories of folk elk hunting. They would get a trained elk and entwined its antlers in a net and thus when it went rutting and sparring with others they would get entangled together and thus the wild one would be easier to catch. I will try to create a makeshift 'cats cradle' from some string and if it hops out the hollow I could try capture it and then we could fix it's broken wings (or add it to the dinner pot?).

The Halfling is oblivious to the goings on in the cabin since Laila hasn't screamed for help or anything.

[Zhym]

Thedla drops to one knee and chitters at the squirrel-owl-deer hybrid. He wonders how such a thing could even be created. Not by any natural process, certainly—and if someone were mad enough to try, where would they start? All the combinations of mating between rodent, raptor, and ruminant seem equally implausible. This thing has to be the result of magical tinkering.

The druid chitters a few short words of greeting and inquiry to the...whatever it is.

"Hello, there. Where did you come from, little creature?"

[Spearmint]

Logging site.

The orc, woken from his stupor grabs Laila with his left hand. It is a strong grip despite the obvious blood loss from the amputee. He mouths orcish words, questions or curses, a cry for help or a plea for aid? Shocked into a reaction, Laila's first instinct is to fight him off and she repeatedly stabs him in the chest. Halfpint and Berta appear in the doorway to find Laila kneeling in a fresh pool of blood over the stricken body of the orc.

Outside the cabin, Amishona ascends the log pyramid to survey the logging site. She notches an arrow in case of dangers.

Dangers there are, but not of the obvious sort. Fairfax sneaks around the back of the large tree stump to try to entice the injured creature out of the hollow with some tasty nibbles. Thedla puts on his best rodentary greetings, mimicking the chittering and squeak vocals of squirrels. His gestures articulate an invitation, a passive show of interest and welcome.

There is something about the eyes of the creature that doesn't quite feel right. It seems to look at you with glassy beady eyes but almost as though it is not seeing you for there appears no specific focus in the staring visage. It seems to feign interest in your direction with a small nervous step or two out of the hollow. That seems to coax you both into reciprocating patient footsteps. Then it flops flat on the floor, like a large glove puppet left without a manipulating hand. The strange tri-brid nature of the creature causes you to halt, to contemplate how unnatural it is. The hesitation saves you from danger.

The strange masquerade is revealed as the 'Sheep-in-Wolf's-clothing' entangles the inquisitive halfling in grasping root stems around both of your legs, squeezing you tight enough to cut like cheese wire and it pulls your flailing bodies towards the hollow, now dribbling with mucus sap and lined with arrowhead incisors inside a grinning maw.


Sheep in wolf clothing: grapple Fairfax [1d20] = 10 [1d4] = 3
Sheep in wolf clothing: grapple Thedla [1d20] = 1 [1d4] = 3

-3hp to Fairfax. Initiative and actions please.


[img]

images.jpeg.jpg (2.71 KiB) Viewed 1107 times

[/img]

[Zhym]

'Sheep-in-Wolf's-clothing'

I think you mean Wolf-in-Sheep's-Clothing. A sheep in wolf's clothing would be something that looks dangerous but isn't. Unless this isn't as dangerous as it looks, in which case it would be a sheep-in-wolf-in-sheep's-clothing.

Also, would Thedla, as a druid, have had a chance to recognize a plant-pretending-to-be-an-animal for what it is before approaching within attacking range? In a recent conversation, Marullus told me that he didn't think recognizing plants and animals was a useful druid skill. And now here's an instance where being able to recognize a weird plant would be really useful.

Speaking of approaching - as a DM, I try never to assume that PCs take actions that put them at risk if their players don't explicitly say so. If a monster can only attack if someone approaches it, for example, I try not to have PCs approach unless their players say they do. In this case, I never said that Thedla would approach, and Bluetongue said that Fairfax would go around the back. I know it can be a bit of a tip-off to ask "how close to the stump do you get?", but it would have been a good way to keep everything fair.

Finally, the narrative says "bodies," but I assume only Fairfax is grappled? (By a roll of 10! Either Fairfax has crummy armor or this WISC has lots of hit dice!)

[Spearmint]

Fairfax has crummy armour, only leather and posted in his narration to get as close as the stump even leaning over it. It could in effect spring any trap on the unwary halfling as he approached ever closer. Would that have been a fair surprise attack from the rear? Yes it does have a number of HD to reflect it's level. But that should take into account lots of variable factors, hardness, skills, movement, size, etc. The root system grappling vines extend circa 15'ft.

I figured to look into the puppet's eyes and hesitate would bring you almost within range. It has grappled Fairfax only. I hope you picked up that it does not see you via the deadness of the puppet squirrel eyes. Does it have some 'tremorsense' as well as eye stalks?

Despite the creature's ability to mimic being very high and a creature masquerading as a tree stump situated in a logging site is not 'out of place', as well as it being unique, still did give me pause to think how a Druid might still perceive it. However the WiSC (sorry described it inaccurately), has learned to mimic the hybrids. An injured rabbit just doesn't cut it for provoking interest..Sorry I am not privy to conversations but I do note skills on sheets so you have a knowledge of rodent and squirrels are from that family. You responded using a skill after Fairfax request for help. In the end I figured it's uniqueness kept it's true nature hidden, thinking to discern a motionless creature with a 'barkskin' appearance is not a real tree would require you to investigate it within it's reach range.

The orc, with one arm amputated (bitten off) might have been more of a clue but sadly no translator was listening.

Hope that explains my narration. Thank you Zhym, I will take on board to make potentially dangerous situations more able to be investigated prior to initiating combats. I want to make the adventure fun and challenging not frustrating.

[Faanku]

Laila stops slicing the orc only after it's grip on her has completely gone dead, her ragged breathing soon the only audible indication that a struggle had occurred. Sensing a presence behind her, she snaps her head around and readies the razor-sharp bastard sward to attack, an animalistic glint in her eye and her teeth bared, before she realises who is there and regains her composure. Deftly sheathing her blade and heading out of the shack, she only offers two words of explanation for the bloody scene she nods towards, her tone matter-of-fact and containing little emotion. "Still alive."

[rossik]

(Berta is going with halfpint to see her colleague)

[onlyme]

I suck at reading comprehension... Are there two battles going on? the tree or rabbit thing attacking Fairfax and something within the orc attacking Laila?
and at this juncture, what would halfpint visibly see of those two?

[Zhym]

If I understand correctly (and I might not):

Thedla and Fairfax are outside, battling a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. The WISC has grabbed Fairfax and is dragging him toward the monster's mouth.

Laila is in the cabin with a dead orc. Halfpint and Bera are in the doorway to the cabin.

Amishona is on a log pyramid, surveying the site.

AFAIK, the only active battle is with the WISC. So I'd suggest everyone come help. (Based on experience with his pirates game, Spearmint is more than happy to let us all wander off doing our own things if that's what we say we're doing, so I'd suggest being clear that we're all joining the battle instead of doing something else. And in the future, we might want to make sure we all go into locations like the cabin together, to avoid splitting the party even for a moment.)

[Zhym]

Thedla raises the alarm. "Fake plant! I mean, fake animal, real plant! Although...a weird plant. I don't think I've seen anything like it before, which itself is odd. But I digress. Anyway—help?"

He steps back about 20' to what he hopes is a spot out of range of the monster and fires a sling stone at it.

Sling (THAC0 20): [1d20+1] = 2+1 = 3 [1d4] = 4

[Bluetongue]

Fairfax

Dragged off the stump and towards the gaping maw of the tree stump, the little Halfling does not go without a whimper. He goes with a scream, "Help, help!". He reaches to his waist band and pulls out a trusty hammer and decides to a least put up a fight. I hope they sing a special song about me or make a nice epitaph."Fairfax, he critted' the critters."

If I had an axe I would try to chop the roots grabbing me but I don't think a hammer will do much so I am aiming for a gob stopper!

Fairfax throws hammer [1d20+4] = 20+4 = 24 [1d4] = 1

[Zhym]

Woot! FYI, here is this game's rule on critical hits:

-A natural 20 on an attack roll will allow the active player the option of dealing minimum possible damage with that attack (as though all relevant dice rolled 1s) and inflicting a context appropriate impediment on the target. This could be a disarm, a hamstring attack that slows movement, knocking the target over, etc. I will be the final arbiter of whether the desired effect works within the context, but in general the goal is to provide some extra oomph to the attack.

-Alternately, the attacker can choose to maximize the possible damage from the attack. Dice are rolled normally – the result is either the dice rolled x2 (then plus strength modifier) or maximum damage, as though all dice rolled their maximum values, whichever is higher.

viewtopic.php?f=353&t=5467#p245402

The way we've done this in the past is for the player to declare whether they want max damage or a special effect—and, if the latter, what kind of effect. Marullus has also chosen special effects in situations where max damage is meaningless (e.g., a crit when fighting goblins allows the PC to kill two goblins where a non-crit would have killed one).

In this case, you could probably do minimum damage and have the crit stun the WISC enough to release Fairfax.

[onlyme]

can we chance range attacks with Fairfax caught in melee?
So far the only miss was an even number so no friendly fire. But...

[Zhym]

Good question. With Fairfax's crit, we may not need it to get him free. OTOH, that's a bit metagamey, so I'd say leave it to each person's conscience. Besides, if the WISC has a 15' reach, it ought to be possible to target the trunk without risking someone caught in a vine/limb/root/whatever. I hope, anyway.

Also, here's an initiative roll:

Initiative: [1d6] = 3

[Marullus]

You can always shoot into melee. If you hit, you are good. If you miss, on a odd roll you hit someone else in the fight, on an even roll you miss successfully.

[rossik]

Berta hears Fairfax call for help, and charge in help!

(ooc: can i attack?)

[Bluetongue]

Fairfax

I have thought of a good description for the critical effect. The hammer bounces on the floor and comes to a standstill, upright in the maw of the creature. As it tries to bite the half long it clamps down upon the short but strong hammer shaft which sticks between upper and lower teeth, cracking them and putting them out. The tree bites the hammer not my leg.

"Save me!" he continues to shout.