Chapter 12: Q&A / Discussions

[Jeff]

Just a reminder: I'd like to resume our experiment of posting combat actions in the initiative order. So we start with Condign, and go from there.

[Jeff]

Oct 24, 2014 21:44:52 GMT -4 Dave W. said:

Here's the Religion check...
Religion (1d20+2=14)

Do you want me to wait for the NPC's to go before posting Adamant's action?

They went already. But Streko's up next, no?

[Ken]

Jeff, when Belarin commands his wight minions (heh), does that count as an action, or is it a bonus?

[Jeff]

Definitely a bonus action, especially since he can't control them in the fashion of Dominate Person-type spells. It's a mental/verbal command.

[Ken]

Great, thanks. That gives me a few more options for when it's Belarin's turn. For instance, commanding the undead and then either attacking another wight or trying to control the new arrivals.

[Jeff]

Or you could just reply to the talking wight. Just gonna ignore him? How rude!

[Dave W.]

Oct 29, 2014 13:59:36 GMT -4 Ken said:

Great, thanks. That gives me a few more options for when it's Belarin's turn. For instance, commanding the undead and then either attacking another wight or trying to control the new arrivals.

Yeah but Belarin will have to link his mind with theirs... Adamant would find that icky...

Also, too:

Oct 29, 2014 9:57:33 GMT -4 Jeff said:

Adamant's Constitution saving throw (1d20+2=5) (failure) / Adamant's maximum hit points are also reduced by 5 points until he finishes a long rest.

I think the save gets an additional +3 from Aura of Protection (whenever I or a friendly w/i 10' of me makes a save add my CHA bonus to the save. I don't think it makes a difference here (CON save would be 8 then) but I think that's right.

And may I add... "Owww!" It's better than the old level-draining but reducing max hp... that hurts.

Adamant's defensive fighting style totally just saved Kal from being lifedrained (and I figured he'd favor imposing the disadvantage on a claw attack, not a sword attack)! (I think Kal owes Adamant a "drink" now. )

Yes! Good call!

[Ken]

Oct 29, 2014 14:41:22 GMT -4 Jeff said:

Or you could just reply to the talking wight. Just gonna ignore him? How rude!

Oh, believe me, Belarin will have something to say!

[Dave B.]

So, I'm assuming we need magic weapons to hurt the wights? Since Shorak failed his religion check, he wouldn't know this. That means he won't realized it for another round or two, unless someone thinks their character might be aware enough to warn him from wasting his bolts.

[Brian]

Not sure, Dave. It may be you simply missed...by a wight's hair.

[Jeff]

Dave B: In character, right, Shorak wouldn't know this. He's never tangled with 'em before.

Out of game, wights can be hurt by nonmagical weapons, they just do half damage. In the case of his previous attack, note that was an Armor Class thing. It just didn't get through.

Dave W: Yes! Thank you for reminding me about saving throws. As for the Aura of Protection, I have to wonder why that number doesn't just become a static saving throws bonus on all saves for the paladin himself? I guess on the rare occasion when he has to make saving throw while unconscious (i.e. when it doesn't apply)? Anyway, please remind me of that whenever possible.

Everyone: it pays to stand near Adamant! It will save you some grief sometimes.

[Dave W.]

Jeff: Yeah, it does specifically say the paladin has to be conscious... poison's the only save I can think of that you'd make unconscious...

[Jeff]

Dave B: Another thing to keep in mind for Shorak is sneak attack. In most circumstances, if you attack an enemy who's adjacent to one of your allies, chances are you can include sneak attack damage.

[Dave B.]

Yeah, I remembered that and did consider moving in to attack with the short sword, but I felt Shorak was more concerned about losing his father's boomerang and wants to drop that particular wight before entering into melee.

[Darren]

Also, Kal didn't have to make a ranged attack roll to cast wall of fire, so there's no risks in casting it adjacent to an enemy, and therefore no need to move from where he is. Scorching ray (Kal makes the attack roll), yes; wall of fire (targets make a save), no. Oh, and you can make the damage roll next time.

It was more that I wanted him to move so that the wights couldn't take an easy swing at him on their next turn.

Also, Dave, I wasn't even thinking about the fact that the wight on the other side of the wall had your boomerang lodged in him. Sorry! Hopefully it won't run away and we'll be able to get it. Once we clear out this side of the wall, Kal can get rid of it so we can get the guys on the other side.

Everyone try to push the wights into the wall as quickly as possible!

[Jeff]

If Kal had moved even one square (five feet) back, he'd have provoked an opportunity attack (two, in fact, if he wanted to be out of reach from the two next to him). Would you have wanted that? The only way to avoid that would be to have given up his spell action and instead done a disengage.

[Darren]

Nope. That's why I said "if he can", because I have no idea what the rules are, anymore.

No, wait...I never had any idea what the rules were.

[Dave W.]

Nov 1, 2014 16:00:16 GMT -4 Darren said:

Everyone try to push the wights into the wall as quickly as possible!

I really love this plan but, sadly don't have any way of pushing the wights. If they weren't undead I could try Command though I wonder if I told someone to flee if they would try running through a wall of fire. But Command doesn't work on undead so it's moot in this case...

[Jeff]

Darren, can you persuaded to buy the new Player's Handbook? Also, there's this, which I've linked to before. You can look stuff up pretty easily with the Find function.

There are very few altogether new concepts in the new rules. Just a smoothing out and simplifying of plenty of familiar concepts.

One difference is that there's no free "five-foot step" anymore. If you want to move safely away from an enemy, you have to use the Disengage action (as your main action) which lets all movement on your turn be opp-attack-free. The flip side is that you can now do part of your move, then your main action, then the rest of your move. You can split it up, which is cool.

Also, pertinent to the Kal's request is this:

Shoving a Creature
Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them.

The target of your shove must be no more than one size larger than you, and it must be within your reach. You make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you.

[Darren]

Back in 4E (?), one of the big focuses of a lot of powers was on moving enemies around the battlefield. Is that no longer the case? I know that Kal still has powers that push enemies. Does no one else have that? I thought that was a big thing for Syrdan back in the day...

Buying a copy of the PHB isn't really an issue. The issue is finding time to actually read it.

[Jeff]

Not so much read it as reference it.

Syrdan's avenger powers were more about keeping up with a retreating enemy, or punishing them for retreating. As a type of paladin, the avenger thing now as retained some of that.

But right, universally not everyone can push and pull enemies around quite as freely. It was a good idea in 4E, but it was also out of hand.

[Darren]

Then in that case, give Kal a clear path between him, the wights, and the wall, and he'll push them there.

[Jeff]

Nov 3, 2014 11:40:05 GMT -4 Mike said:

Well, so much for Misty Step teleporting.

Ahh! Because Kal's wall of fire blocks line of sight, and you can't teleport where you can't see.

This is interesting to me! Given that Kal wouldn't have known his spell would interfere with someone else's plan (makes sense, how could he he know?), I'd still love to see stuff like this played out in-game. If you're up for it. It may not be realistic for a person to list off all their powers even to their comrades, but I imagine a certain amount of tactical sharing would make sense...in character. Consider addressing that sometime.

[Darren]

I think this fight, if anything, would instigate that conversation.

[Brian]

Sorry, Ken. Condign has no way of knowing that you control Crav, and with the initiative order, he'll attack Crav before he realizes that the wight will flee. I can't justify turning away from him to attack the one next to Kal, since he would be thinking that Kal can take care of that one. Bummer, but that's the scenario that makes best sense to me.

[Jeff]

It's all part of character knowledge vs. player knowledge, Brian. Embrace it! Like Kal's wall of fire, I'd love to see discussions of this sort happen in the aftermath of a battle.

Kal's used Wall of Fire twice now, and to good effect, but at some point it might make sense for someone to broach the subject with him. And Belarin, I'm not sure he'd on his own be quick to discuss the fine points of the candle he's holding. But any discussion around these things makes for more interesting stories!

[Ken]

The second paragraph of Jeff's comment is very insightful.

[Dave W.]

Not to contradict, but the two wights were described as:

Torgen and Crav, cast their eyes down for a moment, then lift them, raising their weapons only defensively for a moment.

Adamant chose to switch to attacking wight 4 because the others went defensive and Rarun was still fighting. Addy had initially swung at w3 (Crav).

OTOH, Adamant's probably more likely to give quarter to someone on the defensive than Condign so that works too.

[Jeff]

Nov 4, 2014 16:43:45 GMT -4 Dave W. said:

Not to contradict, but the two wights were described as:

Torgen and Crav, cast their eyes down for a moment, then lift them, raising their weapons only defensively for a moment.

Adamant chose to switch to attacking wight 4 because the others went defensive and Rarun was still fighting. Addy had initially swung at w3 (Crav).

Right, but in this last round round he attacked #4.

[Darren]

Hey, Jeff, I know it's a bit before Kal and Tangat are up to act, but I have a logistics/mechanics question for you:

Tangat is able to deliver touch attacks for Kal as long as Kal is within 100' of Tangat when he casts the spell and uses his action to do so. As near as I can tell, Tangat is currently less than 100' from Kal.

Could Kal have Tangat deliver a Burning Grasp attack on the zombies above? If so, could he reach and attack the nearest one caught in the webbing? If he did, would that conceivably light the webbing, and therefore the other zombies, on fire? (Is having burning zombies around a terrible idea?) Are zombies particularly susceptible to fire damage, and is that something that Kal would know?