Strategy thread

[Argennian]

Agreed on waiting the day to recover, too. The extra day could get everyone that's injured more hit points back and could let Yosef rest and memorize another magic missile spell, as well as Bruard resting and praying for more CLWs to ensure we're topped off & ready to rock.

Plus, we can then take time for our conversation with good'ol Wergrim. Can't wait to see if he's a chum of those lovely elf brigands we had to incinerate during our first days in this blasted mountain pass!

I guess, IC, we'll still need to find the crypt entrance and secure the outer area of nasties and such. I'm really glad we have our 4 trusty hirelings to keep an eye out on the DAMs and our escape route while we get our dungeon-thang on!

[Alethan]

Yeah, I know. Razz away. Just don't raze me! But please do raise me if necessary!

[Alethan]

Ok, I've updated the Treasure thread (first entry) to indicate what items people currently have in their possession.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=396

I see we still have four gems and some jewelry (necklace and ring) that haven't been divided. Personally, I'd like to see them split out from the main "horde" of loot, just in case.

This is about as even a split as I can come up with (slightly based also on who currently has what magical items we've found...) :
Yosef - (1) gem @ 100 gp and the gold ring @ 75 gp (total value of 175 gp)
Jeloon - (1) gem @ 75 gp and the silver necklace @ 100 gp (total value of 175 gp) (figured Jeloon might want the necklace, anyway, since she is the only female in the party) (and I'm apparently a total chauvinist pig )
Bruard - (1) gem @ 200 gp
Till - (1) gem @ 250 gp

Does this sound OK to everyone? If you want, we can do a quick addition of 75 gp to Yosef and Jeloon and 50 gp to Bruard to make the values come out evenly (we definitely have it), but then you'd all be carrying around a bit of gold.

I guess I just have this fear that the DAM is going to fall off a cliff, taking all of our loot with us... want to prevent that as best we can.

Certainly open to everyone's thoughts.

[Argennian]

It all looks good to me and I'm in complete agreement, Alethan. Thanks for putting the additional time in for that, good sir!

Yosef has no worries or trust issues among the party and splitting stuff up to minimize losses in the event of a problem is just good and logical planning! The 6 Ps!

[Alethan]

Thanks for putting the additional time in for that, good sir!

Errr... it's my way of avoiding withdrawls.

[ToniXX]

Looks good to me too. And thanks from me as well for putting in the time to organize it all.

[Alethan]

Ok! Then everyone please update your inventory/treasure list on your character sheet!

Don't forget the magical items, too!

Now... what else can I organize? Hmmm....

[Argennian]

Ok! Then everyone please update your inventory/treasure list on your character sheet!

Don't forget the magical items, too!

Done!

(Btw, notated Jeloon's magical longsword on PC sheet as temporary!)

[Alethan]

When Till stops up ahead and signals that he's spotted what appears to be the cave entrance, Yosef feels revitalized and a pang of excitement shoots through his veins. He looks to the others with a smile he's unable to hide nor wants to. It is good to smile again, Yosef thinks to himself, especially after everything that they've been through and most recently the near-deadly episode with the traitorous dwarves not even two days past. He knows that the events of their journey will change and affect him in ways he cannot even fully comprehend at the moment. But there will be plenty of time to think about that. Now, to the task at hand...

Yosef will help to get the DAMs and the teamsters set up in as discreet an area as possible (OOC: the little coved-in area at the base of the trail looks pretty good, actually!), then will make his way over to assess the steep trail with Till and the others. "I was almost afraid to believe that the tomb really existed. At least until now. I find that I am strangely excited and anticipative. I cannot but venture to hope that this tomb is either Zelligar's final resting place or will at least provide something substantial to our expedition and quest to discover their fate..."

OOC: ...Unfortunately, we don't have enough rope for Till to drop one down from the cliff. Nor does anyone have the fortitude to climb it, I would imagine.

Maybe we should leave Eyman and Rosin to watch the DAMs and the dwarf and have Ancor come up bearing a lantern and some torches along with Van and the four of us. That would leave at least one fighter with the animals and put Ancor to work at his intended purpose so the rest of us could plund, er, explore the tomb.

Thoughts?

OOC: That sounds doable. I had originally thought that we should leave all 4 hirelings at camp, in order for them to be able to hopefully handle anything that comes along. Yosef has concerns about leaving too light a guard at the base camp, especially if there are more evil elves, dwarves or something we haven't seen yet. But I'm open to this plan, if that's the consensus!

Mayhap we need to take a drive over to the strategy thread?

Done. (Taken over to the strategy thread, that is...)

I'm not opposed to leaving both Van and Eyman with Rosin to guard the mules, but I still think it isn't a bad idea to bring Ancor along to hold the light. That leaves the rest of us free to wield weapons and move about freely.

Unfortunately, Migellito isn't here to interject his thoughts; I'll try to get in touch with him. I suspect he would prefer to bring both Van and Eyman along to hold the front line, as that is what THEY were hired for. But there is a chance we're going to need magic and/or fire (so we should bring along a few vials of oil and some torches) to combat anything we find inside the tomb, so they might not be of much use in there, anyway...

My vote is for the four of us, plus Ancor, going up to the tomb. We could bring a day's worth of rations with us and a small supply of lamp oil and some extra torches, just in case anything we find in there might not do so well with open flames, and check out the tomb. I wouldn't imagine it is much more than a few rooms, but I guess you never know.

I'm itching to get up there, though, whoever comes with us or stays behind...

[Argennian]

That sounds good to me as well, Alethan.

With everything that has happened within the pass, can't blame Yosef for having nightmares, being over-cautious and paranoid!

[Alethan]

With everything that has happened within the pass, can't blame Yosef for having nightmares, being over-cautious and paranoid!

Nope, I can't. Instructions to Van would be to shoot first and ask questions later, I think.

Let's see what ToniXX has to say and then see if we can make a consensus based on that; we don't want too much more stalling in the game, I think.

Well... I don't, anyway.

[ToniXX]

My vote is for the four of us, plus Ancor, going up to the tomb. We could bring a day's worth of rations with us and a small supply of lamp oil and some extra torches, just in case anything we find in there might not do so well with open flames, and check out the tomb. I wouldn't imagine it is much more than a few rooms, but I guess you never know.

This works for me. I think someone needs to stay behind and guard the DAMs, and i think we can handle ourselves in the tomb. Sorry for the delayed reply.

[rredmond]

With Ancor safely ensonced in the middle I'm thinking!

[Alethan]

Yep - somewhere right in the nice, safe, middle.

[rredmond]

Question to the group: with his computer issues uncertain, and unlikely to be resolved quickly, we might want to NPC Jeloon. Of course my preference for 4 players hurts us there, because then technically you'll be down a man. So I'll throw it out to you all, should we bring in a fifth player to keep the 4 man group going? I think Alethan might have someone interested, if not I've seen a couple of requests on DF that I could see if they'd be interested. I've been comfortable tweaking the bad guys because y'all have been a touch too powerful for the module as is. I wouldn't mind tweaking them a bit more for five PCs.

Sound good? Any other ideas? Just throwing it out there. If we bring on one more PC, it'll still allow for migellito to come back and take over Jeloon.

[ToniXX]

Question: Could we help Till and Jeloon out of the rubble? Since Yosef and Bruard are free, maybe one of us can continue fighting the bear while the other help dig our friends out. I don't know how much that would help, though. Thoughts?

Also, where are our hired men? I'm confused if they came with us or stayed back at the clearing in front of the cave. Sorry, it was probably spelled out, but I must have missed it.

[Alethan]

Thoughts:
If it's just a medium-sized black bear... I'd say our best bet is for the two of you to just try and take it down.

We left Jeloon's mercs down at the camp at the bottom of the cliff to guard all of the DAMs (who couldn't make the climb). Also left the porter down there. Brought up Ancor (the link boy) to do his job of holding lanterns/torches when we go in the tomb.

If I can get him to do it, I was thinking Ancor could come in with a torch and keep the bear from eating our heads while you two take him down.

Or, maybe he could come in with the torch, plant it in the rubble upright, and then help pull one of us out. But it would still probably take two rounds, and I'm hoping you two have the bear taken care of by then.

[ToniXX]

Good point... Yes, if all goes well we should have dispatched with the bear pretty quickly. And thanks for clarifying the situation with the NPCs.

[Argennian]

Yeah, I'm definitely of the mind that we need to press our attacks on the bear and either kill it or force it to flee. If we don't, Till and Jeloon would be at it's mercy with no real way to defend themselves.

It's certainly a possibility for Ancor to move up and try to help Till and Jeloon out of the rubble pile. I'm just worried he could place himself in harm's way trying to do so while melee is happening there. Perhaps Bruard and Yosef can press their joint attack and force the bear away from the rubble pile?

[Alethan]

So waiting in the main thread until Vok does his introductions, we should maybe discuss plans for what's next here in the Strategy thread...

My thoughts:
Leave the stones and log in place in front of the tomb door for the time being.

Signal down to base camp that we're going to spend the night up top so they don't think anything bad has happened to us. If we can't come up with any good way to signal them, then Till can make the climb down to do so and come back up.

In the mean time, we prep the bear, rekindle the fire, and smoke some bear meat over the fire - that should add a nice bit to our rations. In fact, we could start doing that right away and then bring a portion of it down to the others for packing (and to eat) when Till gives them an update.

For Day 11, I say we go on the assumption that the very nice looking spear is magical and have Yosef prepare several magic missile spells instead of Detect Magic. Or, if we would rather find out, we could have Bruard prepare Detect Magic as one of his spells, instead, because he has more available to him. Then he could easily sweep the entire camp and cave (it lasts one full turn) to make sure there isn't anything hidden from us and to see if there is any kind of enchantment on the door to the tomb, as well as check the spear for magic enchantments.

Then in the morning, Till wouldn't mind another CLW spell cast onto him to get him closer to max and we can tackle the tomb.

Don't know what to expect, but I say we definitely want to have a few vials of oil handy, as well as some lit torches to toss onto the previously-mentioned vials of oil after they have been thrown at anything which might come at us.

If we didn't bring enough of that up with us, that could be something Till brings back up when he goes down to the base camp.