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OK, understood. So I guess also minor illusions are only within 10' radius.

I'd like to cast the Charm Person spell, but I have some issue understanding it. The player book says that if the 'would-be-charmed' character receives damage from the group in the same round of the charm he also receives bonus for his saving throws. This implies that the spell can be cast during battle, but the spell requires some conversation, convincing the charmed person to help the caster and I don't understand how that is manageable. Shouting from the roof??

You're right that conversation of some kind is required and that the spell can be used in battle. I suppose if successful, Tulbas would have to 'shout from the rooftops' or risk coming down into the melee.

Out of curiosity, Gregeddin has Elven as a language, is he able to communicate / onderstand what the Ergothians are saying? or are there different dialects or like a common pool that all elves can get the gist of?

Ergothian and Elven aren't related at all, actually; two very separate languages.

Although there is some overlap with Elven; for instance, you can use it to speak to Qualinesti, Silvanesti and Kagonesti (but not the two sea-dwelling races, Dimernesti and Dargonesti).

But Ergothian is a human language from a human empire, while Elven is an elven language from the elven kingdoms. They have no shared roots or anything.

You know, I just remembered that you said when you first joined you didn't know much of anything about Dragonlance at all. And since Ergoth has been fairly relevant to this chapter, I thought I'd post some background information. Nothing too deep, since it's far away from Haven, but I assume the more worldly of the party (like Gregeddin), has probably heard some of this from stories and such.

The Ergoth Empire was the most powerful human nation back in 2500 PC (Pre-Cataclysm, so nearly 3000 years ago). However, in 1801 PC there was a rebellion in the Vingaard province and a man named Vinas Solamnus was sent to take care of it. Upon arriving, though, Vinas realized that the people had a pretty good argument. He came to realize that the empire was petty and cruel, especially toward commoners.

So Vinas turned on his empire and became the leader of the rebellion, which later became known as the Rose Rebellion. He allied with the elves, dwarves and kender and fought against the empire. In the end, he won, and the rebelling territories became what is now the nation of Solamnia, home to the Knights of Solamnia (which Vinas founded).

This was a huge blow to the empire's power, and it never fully recovered. Then came the Cataclysm, which literally split the remaining empire into two by covering a third of their territory in water--hence why there is now a North Ergoth and a South Ergoth.

Their power has waned since then even further, but they have never forgotten their old glory and continually spend their days in nostalgia about it. For the most part, they are fairly neutral. They don't like the Solamnics, obviously. They tend to stay out of wars, even the big ones where the fate of the world is at stake, as they are too concerned with trying to rebuild their glorious empire (which isn't going so well; the Kagonesti have claimed large parts of the forests of South Ergoth, the kender and the goblins have carved out their own nations in North Ergoth).

As none of the party are currently experts in Ergothian history or culture, that's all I'll say for now.

Cool thanks for the info. I think I was confused with tubas and raetmal, but this helps me get my bearings

No problem; I'll try and be more mindful that not everyone in the group is well-versed in Dragonlance lore. Sorry about that. But if you ever have any questions, feel free to ask, too.

So the fight seems to be going rather well so far.
Anyone got any insight on how tough a level 6 fighter would be for a band of level 1s and 2s?

P.s. Gregeddin really want's that cloak since the shops in the market didn't produce any I may have become fixated in all the excitement of battle.

So here's some math.

Well a level 6 fighter has 6d10+Con mod x6 HP and AC 0. Let's guess a con mod of +1, and rolling a 6 on each d10, so that makes 7x6= 42 HP. AC 0 means that Haahqae with a +3 to hit (+2 dex, +1 shooting downwards) has a 5% chance to crit and a 10% chance of hitting him, for 1d8 damage, 2ce a round. presuming I hit for 4 damage on the 1d8, that gives 0.8 damage a round total. So it would take Haahqae around 50 rounds of attacking the fighter with a bow to kill it. We have 5 people, so if they were all at Haahqae's attack strength it would take arond 10 rounds to bring the fighter down by conventional means. Fortunately a good portion of the party is slightly more dangerous then Haahqae.

On the flip side, the cavalier has a short sword+shield, so we can expect him to have 1 attack a round, increased to 3/2 from weapon specialization. (he's just 1 level too low to get 3/2 as his base). Let's presume he has +1 to hit and damage from strength, and an additional +1 hit/damage from a magic sword. A short sword deals 1d6 damage, so he's doing 1d6+2. So that's an average of 5.5 damage/attack. His Thaco is 15, and let's presume his target has AC 6 (better then most of us). This means he's got a 5% chance to crit and a 70% chance to hit. Thus he has 1.5 x ((5.5 x 0.05 x 2) + (5.5 x 0.7)) damage a round, which equals 6.6 damage a round. This would knock out a party member in aproximatly 2 rounds per party member. We have 5 party members, so 10 rounds.

Next, there's the diminishing damage on our team as party members get knocked out. If every 2 rounds we lose a party member, they aren't damageing the boss for the rest of the fight, so therefore the boss lives longer. This means that on average, we could not take down the cavalier, if everyone in our party was as strong as Haahqae.

Fortunately, we have Kendra as a level 4 fighter with a +2 weapon. She hits him on a 15+ (5% chance to crit and a 25% chance to hit normally), and if we can get her flanking somehow we can increase it to hitting on a 13+. This should help some. We also have the charm trick going, maybe he could get scared by the illusion, is there a flanking bonus we can get? Maybe Darga could get lucky and get a back stab in for double damage and a better chance to hit. Maybe the illusion hobgoblin caster of doomish doom will startle or scare the knight. We have a few options to increase our chances.

And finally, we don't even have to kill the cavalier to win. he's in heavy armour. If we distract him long enough to get Daxia untied and wake her up, we should be able to outrun someone in heavy armour, especially at night when it's dark and there's plenty of places to hide.

It is a really nice cloak.

The cavalier is a tank; his damage output isn't great (although high enough to take out most of the non-warriors in the party with one hit) but his defense is monumental. With an AC of 0, most of the party can't hit him on a roll of anything less than a 20. Just be glad he isn't on a horse, because then he'd be significantly more dangerous with all of his various cavalier abilities.

There are some ways to bypass his overwhelming defense. First, attacks from behind not only grant a +2 to hit, but they ignore his shield bonus. Second, he's wearing plate mail which is highly resistant to slashing attacks. Unfortunately, our two warriors both specialize in slashing weapons (battle axe and long sword), but if you have a bludgeoning or piercing weapon on hand, they have a better chance of getting through.

The best strategy is probably to go with Kynaston's plan; let him keep the cavalier's focus, as he has the best AC of the party, and then everyone else can try to flank him. However, tank that he is, Kynaston still only has 10 HP which means he can probably only survive 2-4 hits or so. If Kynston goes down, it really throws the plan into disarray.

There are a few other techniques the party might try if they are feeling lucky, like the use of called shots. Called shots, however, come with a -4 to hit. So it depends. You might argue the best thing to do is minimize penalties and maximize bonuses as much as possible, so you are more likely to hit and deal damage and try to wear him down. On the other hand, you could also say that since the odds of hitting him are so low, another -4 isn't going to make a difference.

Some examples:

Disarm his weapon - If you make a called shot against the cavalier's weapon (-4 to hit), and succeed, you can knock it out of his hand. This will force him to draw his backup weapon, and reduce his damage output. If you can somehow, by a miracle, then do it a second time, he'll have no weapon at all and be in a really bad spot.

Disarm his shield - You can't make someone drop their shield, but you can 'disable' it for a round by knocking it out of alignment. If successful, he loses his shield bonus until the following round.

Pin his weapon - Another called shot, this is where you use your own weapon or shield to stop your opponent from attacking by pressing against it. Often called a 'sword clash.' This stops your opponent from attacking, although you also cannot attack while doing it. How long it lasts depends on various strength rolls performed by both the attacker and defender.



Tripping - If the cavalier is knocked to the ground, the party would gain attack bonuses (+4) against him until he got back up. However, this is not easy. Even if you succeed in making the called shot, he still gets to make a DEX check to stay on his feet and if he's standing still at the time, he gets a +6 to the roll.

Morale - Not every battle need to be to the death. If you can whittle down his morale enough, the cavalier may surrender or retreat. As an elite knight of 6th level, though, his morale score is pretty high. But if the party can eliminate his allies, outnumber and surround him, and otherwise convince him he isn't going to win this one, the party can attempt to force a morale check by demanding he surrender/escape. If the cavalier makes his check, he'll continue fighting and the party cannot attempt again unless they once again tip the favors in their odds again (i.e., wounding him further, etc.).

Of course, if he escapes, he may return again to seek revenge. And if he surrenders, it brings up the question--what will the party do with him then?

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Haahque made his post while I was making mine, so allow me to address some of his points here.

(he's just 1 level too low to get 3/2 as his base).

Haha, yep. He was going to be level 7 originally, but I realized those extra attacks would make him too powerful, so I knocked him down one level.

Maybe Darga could get lucky and get a back stab in for double damage and a better chance to hit.

Too late now, the cavalier is aware of Darga's presence.

Maybe the illusion hobgoblin caster of doomish doom will startle or scare the knight.

This could certainly work toward damaging his morale, as I said above.

If we distract him long enough to get Daxia untied and wake her up, we should be able to outrun someone in heavy armour, especially at night when it's dark and there's plenty of places to hide.

Agreed, although there will be future consequences if he's left alive, naturally. (Namely that he gets to keep his magnificent cloak. )

Wow, that maths is actually rather scary.
I don't like the idea of leaving the cavalier alive but we will have to see how the combat fares.

That was also my main dilemma with the 'Charm Person'. What are we going to do with the person afterwards. But I figured out that me being his 'friend' doesn't mean the others would agree, and while conversing with him he won't attack them, giving them some edge to overcome the immediate danger. Keep the moral issue for later.

Anyway, these few rounds went pretty well for us. The enemy fall like flies. Just hope the Cavalier order them to lower their weapons, create some confusion, and we win.

Ah, destiny...

This actually happened to me once in another game, long ago. It was a boss fight, and I raised my weapon and said something heroic and cool, then promptly rolled a 1. Welp...

My heart dropped reading the post. All you can do is laugh it off. Though it looks like Gregeddin is going to have to intervene before Trench gets chopped up. What exactly do I have to do to attempt pinning the cavaliers weapon?

Well, it's possible Kynaston might get to his feet first. Depends on who wins initiative.

But anyway, to attempt to pin a weapon, you make a normal attack roll but with a -4 to hit. If successful, you both make STR checks. Whoever passes their check with the fewest points between their STR and their roll wins. (So if you roll an 8, and your STR if 14, that is 6 points of difference, for example.) If he wins, he breaks free. If you win, he cannot attack for that round. You roll the STR checks each round until he breaks free.