Pepper found a shaker of salt behind the counter and is pouring that on her wound.  She's fine.  Fine, I said!

Dio, I'm going to pass on that healing word; possibly Teshi will let you retarget it? Mari's insubstantial to all types of damage except force and psychic, so even after the hits she took from B, she's only down 10 HP. With only two surges, I need to make the most of them. Sorry, I really should have explained this properly earlier.

That's ok. I didn't know you could self-heal.

Okay so.  C1 has 25-29 AC, C2 has 15-30 (well, 15-23 based on teshi's statements), B has 23+.  A's max fort is 26, refl 20-27, will 25+.  B's max refl is 24.  C wills are between 20 and 30.

The Cs' base stats are the same.

What kind of check do you suppose one would do to deduce that someone is a vampire that just turned into a zillion vampire bats?  lol

There goes my cunning disguise.

C1 should be 5-35hp off death/being knocked out.  I'm guessing Pepper will be going for kill shots on our enemies, huh?

Replacement laptop arrived today.  It's so nice to have a working x key.

In D&D5E, I usually play a spell caster of some kind, so I don't have to roll to hit to be effective--I just have no luck with dice. Plus I usually DM, so for dramatic effect, I can fudge dice rolls as needed behind the screen.

One of my players has the worst luck with dice I have ever seen. The first character he played in our group was a paladin. I swear, he never hit once. He still had lots of fun, because he enjoyed roleplaying his character. During his horrible rolling streaks, other players would lend them their dice, which for them rolled average, but in his hands, they would only roll 1, 2, or 3s.

On the other hand, my son--who has played with my tabletop group since he was a teenager--has the most luck with dice I have ever seen. He rolls more natural 20s in one evening than I roll in an entire year. No trick dice or rolling techniques, just luck. I watched him roll three natural 20s in a row in one fight.

When I'm DMing, on the nights he goes out, when he returns home, the players beg him to jump into the game and save them. And he usually does.

Invariably he plays a character that can benefit greatly from critical hits, usually a rogue or a barbarian.

The last adventure we played through was a high level adventure, 5th edition, levels 15-20, and somebody else was DMing. Player characters were allowed one legendary item. So he took in a bear totem barbarian with a vorpal weapon. And 5th edition vorpal weapons are like earlier editions... you roll a natural 20, and the enemy's head is cut off. He was a unstoppable whirlwind of destruction.

That's what hydras are for.

I am at church conference (Thursday through Saturday) which runs 8 AM to 10 PM.  And the building we are in gets zilch for connectivity.  I will be posting late, my time.

Good news: I finally connected with the Reconciling Ministry Network people in my conference.  For the United Methodist Church, that means the people who are fighting for full inclusion of LGBTQ people in our church, including the ordination of LGBTQ and marriage equality and an end to church trials.  I've been wearing my rainbow sticker on my nametag and I've been making new friends and contacts.

My mental image of a beardy dwarf rolling around on the floor shouting about capitalism in the background of an earnest pitched battle is AMAZING, btw.

Guys.  I think we may have lost this fight and should start considering negotiating the terms of our surrender lol

This fight was theoretically winnable, but I did set it up so that either winning and losing would result in plot advancement.  For any who survived, at least 

I am counting this combat double toward level advancement in celebration of how very promptly we were able to resolve each round.  All active PCs are now at 3/5 toward leveling up.

The best laid plans of DMs ruined by recalcitrant players. Tut tut.

It'll be at least a few hours until teshi's up, anyway.

eta: yay I was wrong!

I am reading a really useful guide to Stealth right now that I thought I'd share!

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?447238-The-Rules-of-Hidden-Club-I-Think-I-Failed-A-Spot-Check

It taught me a new thing I had not known before:

How do you become Hidden?

...

3) You cannot have HAD Hidden at the start of the action and lost it during the action. Which is to say, you can't BECOME Hidden as part of the same action that loses your Hidden state.

So if you're Hidden and move through a square that has no cover or concealment as part of your move action, you can't Stealth check at the end of that action.  Unless you're invisible intrinsically rather than environmentally, of course, because then you never became unhidden in the first place.

Also, we really need to remember in future that while Val has his lingering invisibility from Swarm of Shadows the turn after, he should be Stealth checking after he moves; don't think it'd have mattered in his last turn since he attacked directly afterwards and he was getting his combat advantage off the total concealment of invisibility, anyway, but if he moves last, could buy him another round of relative safety.

I have an idea on how to resolve peppers action with one die roll. Something I learned from nerdarchy. Am phone posting on a bad connection. Be back later.

Scott Garabi, who for all you know is just some guy from New Jersey, advanced what I thought was an elegant solution to deal with party splits.


First, the player(s) who splits spells out exactly what he wants to do away from the main group.

Second, the DM then provides fail/success ranges and outcomes for a roll on a D20.

In our case this is what I want to succeed at:

1.  Pepper exits through the window undetected.
2.  Pepper makes her way to the horses and disburses them to further inconvenience her enemies by eliminating their ability to escape or pursue.
3.  Pepper makes her way to the other side of the bridge undetected and sets up in a sniping position over watching the door.
4.  Pepper creates a distraction that makes at least one enemy exit the building.
5.  Pepper successfully head shots the enemy.

Then Teshi determines fail/success ranges and the outcomes.

For example: a roll of 1-4 might be: Pepper gets caught and subdued immediately.  Total failure; 5-8: Pepper gets out the window but the enemies are alerted, they confront her at the horses; 9-12: she gets out undetected, gets to the horses, but they don't budge;  ... 17-19: success but the enemy is only wounded; 20: total success.

Whatever Teshi deems fair and useful.

Then I roll a D20 (or get someone else to roll to make sure its fair) and whatever the results is what happens.

That way I can get my character to do what she would do, but it doesn't take a lot of time or distraction from the rest of you.

What do you say?

I'm not automatically opposed to the idea, except that Pepper cannot roll high enough to one-hit kill any of the enemies, so if by "head-shots" you mean finishes them off all at once...the odds of that are zero, aren't they?

Whatever you determine. I can accept that outcom. So just wound the target. Maybe shatter a kneecap.

I see how it's faster at resolving the string of actions you posted already, but it seems like most of the outcomes other than "caught and subued off the bat" just open another degree of separation?  So let's say Pepper successfully gets out, spooks the killer horses, and snipes an enemy, wounding them (or even killing him/her, if that was an option on the table).  The situation hasn't actually changed much, right?  Pepper is still out on her own away from the rest of the party, and the rest of the party is still under guard and disarmed. 

I'm not trying to be difficult or made of NO, I'm just unclear on why I'm throwing out the exiting ruleset if the purpose of the alterantive ruleset is to efficiently reuinte separated parties, but the player's desired outcomes don't result in a reuinted party?  I might just be missing something.

FYI I'm out for the next four hours... Warcraft movie.

FYI I'm out for the next four hours... Warcraft movie.

Oh, right, people leave their houses on Saturdays.  lol