DeepThought Forum

I wander back to the corporal.

"Look mate," I say, in the tones of one going along with orders, a tone familiar to corporals everywhere, "we're going out there to find the Captain. Anything you can tell us would help us bring him, and us, back."

[Diplomacy: 16+12=28]

The older corporal taps his fingers on his leg, considering.

[Okay, that was a good enough check to provide you an opportunity.  I give the lot of you a choice.  You all can keep pestering the guy with speech checks to get table scraps, you can do a moderate skill challenge to get a modest truth, or you can do a hard skill challenge to get a large truth.]

[Looks at speech skills.  Pepper returns to checking on the clawfoots.]

[I *could* use Timely Trick with Creon if the Corporal is an animal/dog lover.  It's a Move/Standard Action combo.  IDK.  Maybe have Creon dance to amuse and distract the guy?]

[I'll tell you what:  you can start off by going for the modest challenge, and when you get to 8 successes at DC15, you can decide whether to continue on to 12 successes at DC20 or just quit while you're ahead, eh?]

[Bear in mind we can assist each other's checks to some extent. At our level, DC for assist is 13, so several of us will auto-succeed assists on multiple skills for a +2 bonus. Each check can be assisted by up to four players, subject to DM's discretion.]

[Assists are fine, but they must happen before the player makes his or her check, can't chime in afterward to shore up a bad roll - that's standard, but just a reminder!  And if the prospective assister rolls a natural 1, it becomes an anti-assist

On a personal note, I would appreciate it if you guys didn't sit around super long waiting for various players to be online to roll for assists, lol.  This could drag out interminably if we're doing up to five different people's rolls for every one check.]

[Perception Check: 1d20+13: 17+13 = 30]

[As Palitinate a way out of all this mindless, endless gobbing and to get on with it already.]

[I don't know, folks, what am I trying to perceive?  Whatever ever it is, I just did it really well.]

[Acrobatics: 1d20+13: 16+13 = 29; Perception: 1d20+13+ [whatever assist I get from the binocs]: 12+13+?=25+? specifically for this perception check I want to check out the surrounding terrain conditions, trying to spot areas of interest, areas of peril and areas where we could be ambushed or lay an ambush.  Do I spot any immediate threats?  Do I spot any likely hunting game?]

(plus a dusting of snow)

The terrain north of Fort Deepdark is marginal land, rugged and austere, if not actually barren, with some scrubby pines and prickly bushes as the tallest plant life.  A small group could conceal itself fairly easily in the space between hills, but only if they were committed to staying low and in position, and no one had spotted them moving into place.  There are no obvious threats, not this close to the fort, the fort having been strategically placed and the land well-patrolled.  With the spyglass, you spot some small movement here and there - probably hares or grouse or the like - and in the far distance, a few quadrupeds that look to be deer.  You know there is road and rail to the north, but those are too far to be seen from this post.

[Astra's definitely in favour of trying to get useful info out of him, as evidenced by her attempts; Val seems to agree and Pepper has no patience for things like getting information on the person you're off to find, apparently   Other three characters?]

[Yeah, Val stepped in and took over Astra's attempted interrogation, so she'll be deferring to him unless she sees a way to help she thinks either he'll appreciate or that is needed for them to have the necessary info.]

[She can certainly try that approach!]

[lol I think the others might have something to say about the latter portion]