WotL OOC Thread

[BishGada]

If he is dumb maybe it will be better to lure him into traps. Make him stumble on ropes or nets and tie him. Some people distract him while others put more ropes in his way. Unless he can tear the rope easily. But still, traps would be better than annoy him where there are hundred boulders available for him.

[Haahque]

Chances are he'll be dumb enough to fall for traps, but we have to be careful because it's unlikely that we'll be able to overpower him even with trap advantage. For example, if we try to tie him up with ropes, chances are we'll be doing some opposed strength checks, and even with a bonus on the check from leverage/surprise or whatnot, we'd probably lose.

If we try to crush him in an avalanche of falling rocks, we could just be giving him ammo.

He's likely to be dumb enough to fall for a pit trap, but to dig a hole large enough to stop him would take weeks. (unless maybe there's a way to speed it up with magic?)

I wonder how effective caltrops would be? Perhaps there's caltrops in this world made to be effective against giants (probably by just being a bunch larger)?

I also expect grease would be a fairly effective spell against a giant. Not sure about the text for sleep.

[JadedDM]

Darga has the set snares proficiency. According to the description text, it takes one hour to set a trap for a small creature and 2d4 hours (and 2-3 people) to set a trap for a man-sized creature. Presumably, we could then calculate how long and how much manpower it would take to set a trap for a large-sized creature and then, a huge-sized creature (hill giants are H-sized).

Caltrops would need to be much larger. You'd probably need a smith to forge them for you, as I doubt they make giant sized caltrops anywhere. You'd also need a way to transport them, as I imagine they'd be rather heavy.

Grease would work. It only covers a 10' x 10' area, which is fairly small as far as a hill giant is concerned. But nevertheless, if he steps in it and fails his save, he'd still slip. However, having 12 HD means his saving throw is pretty high.

Sleep would be ineffective. Any creature with 4+3 HD or more is immune to it.

[BishGada]

If the refugees or the cultists help, digging would go fast. We just need to figure where he must walk (or put some bait there) and we could spike the bottom of it. Maybe we can also use burning oil to create a wall behind him after he steps forward and then make him continue towards the trap.

[BishGada]

Hi all,
For some reason the gameplay is somewhat not advancing.
The following threads are open to us, I think we should prioritize them and start gather information or make preparations to act on them:
1. Gregeddin plan to rip off the refugees - Probably not going to happen
2. Investigate the cult. Fistandantilus. Darewind - I think we should make the next step as to talk with Nora right now, keep the thread alive, not losing the momentum we have there. but then we can forsake it for a day or two (game time). BTW, Gregeddin can surrender the two merchants to Nora together with their plan and turn the bad act to a good one.
3. Help Raetmal recovery and see where it leads - again, next steps are immediate, wit for the recovery, the following steps can be later discussed.
4. Black robed mage - I don't think we want to actively search for him. If he pop up in our way we shall deal with it. We could try to prepare to such a meeting with excuses regarding Raetmal, or some sort of diversion to try and make the mage leave the subject somehow.
5. Giant hunting - we got the info. We need a plan. We need to recruit help. (Talking to Nora/ Hunter gets the refugees to help digging. Us finding the best spot to fight and so on.

My suggestion is this:
Today's morning: Talk to Nora - ask about Darewind + Ransom. Ask about Fistandantilus. Ask if they heard about the giant and offer to opportunity to recruit a lot of refugees by helping with the giant.
Today noon: Group meeting with the hunter. Start making concrete plans. Estimate man power required.
Tomorrow: Recruit manpower both for digging traps and for fighting. Scout the area to plan best ambush. Consider using illusions to lure or scare (by trails of fire for example) the giant to the trap. Buy equipment and food. If eventually we need to track him down (suppose he is wounded and somehow decides and succeed running away), it might take few days.
The next day: Hopefully Raetmal will gain consciousness by then and we can decide the next actions.

What do you say?

[JadedDM]

I'll add to that, that if for whatever reason, none of those options look attractive, there are other jobs out in the city that haven't been discovered yet.

[Haahque]

Sorry guys, not going to be able to post till Sunday.

[JadedDM]

So, feels like this current thread is wrapping up.

What I'd like from everyone is a rough idea of what you want to do over the next three days in-game. 'Today' is the 18th, so I'm talking about the 19th, 20th and 21st (the 21st is the day 'everything will change' according to the old man).

If you don't have any particular plans for your character, that's okay. Some people just like to sort of coast along and react to whatever happens then take initiative on their own. If you do have plans but don't want to share them publicly, you can PM them to me. If you want to coordinate events with the other players, you can do that here, too.

But this will help me plan out the next few days of the game so I can make sure everyone has something to do at all times.

In the meantime, if there's anything else your characters want to take care of on the 18th, let me know that, too, as the current thread still has room left.

Also, we might as well bring up Christmas. I know some people will be too busy with the holidays for the game, so let me know if and when you plan to take off and for how long.

[mgbevan]

Gregeddin want's to catch up on a couple of things:

Swing by Norris' gems to clue up Kendra on the latest developments.
Hire those two bouncers from the masked dragon to protect him on the giant hunt (and from the cultists he may have upset).
Try and use mending on the singed coat to repair it.
Make some more friends or enemies at the celebrations of the cult.
Say hello to his folks, find out how they've been, tell them he may be gone for a little bit.

Where exactly this happens in game time I have yet to figure out.
Other than that, I imagine Gregeddin will do some reacting to the takeover, and do some giant hunting.

I'll be around over Xmas, but have taken holiday off in January instead to go skiing when the flights are cheaper. Like 2 weeks from the 7th I will be up the mountain.

[BishGada]

Hi,
Tulbas will mainly stay watching and attending to his uncle.
He will try to get out for short tasks (1-2 hours each) such as scouting the area where it's best to fight the giant, and selecting the warriors from the cult. Also assembling working man-force to dig traps if needed.
He will try to set the giant hunt head-quarter in his uncle shop, so doing all the plannings can be done while checking on his uncle.
Most of the ideas regarding the giant-hunt already posted in previous posts but the main issues if I remember correctly are:
1. Best place to confront the giant. (Open plains, no boulders around ; bushes ; forest ; mountains ) - I think open plain + using illusions + traps + enough distance to shoot it continuously.
2. Best strategy to fight it. (Surround it ; hit & run so to wear him down (could be one force hitting from one direction, then hiding and another force hitting from the other direction, then hiding and so forth) ; brute force as a mass of people rush it down.
Consider also use of Cavalry. Or other heavy weaponary. (Catapults might provide boulder missiles to the giant to attack back).
Prefer capturing it to killing it.
3. Best way to set traps and how to lure it to the traps - I think holes wide and deep enough so it won't be able to stop it's fall or climb out + poles/lances + oil & fire. Use illusions to cover the traps and force it to walk to the traps (chasing some illusion or creating illusionary obstacles so he will choose a pre-calculated path we designed.
What traps to use? Nets? Ropes? pull it up? Holes? Spikes? Walls of fire? Drop something at it?
4. Plan how to use his disadvantages - being stupid illusions should work. Also maybe distracting it with long complex conversations.
5. Consider best spells to use against it. Does charm person work? Charm person works great on low intelligent humanoids. It could solve all the fighting (or a lot of it).

If today Darewind will not come to the shop, tomorrow Tulbas will ask Nora politely if they matter could be hastened.
Also in these 3 days Tulbas will try to have a chance seeing Darewind perform his miracles. I'm curious if his immunity to 1st level illusions will work here.
If he will identify that it is illusion he will not confront Darewind directly in front of the crowd but will prefer to get Nora to believe him.

[JadedDM]

I'm afraid Charm Person only works on humanoids of man-size or smaller, so it wouldn't work on big ones, like ogres, giants, titans and so forth.

[djhyland]

Darga's got no plans for the rest of the night. Come morning, he'll likely go along with what the others plan, as he doesn't see it as his place to be calling shots.

I'll be around for the holidays. At the very least, I'll have internet access and a phone!

[JadedDM]

That's everyone but Haahque and Horizon, I believe.

[JadedDM]

Alright, so here's what we got.

It kind of looks like the way things are going now is that the planning and recruiting for the giant quest will take place on the 19th, and the actual hunting of the giant on the 20th.

So let's start with the actual recruitment. It would take me forever to write up every potential NPC that the party might hire, even from the (relatively) small pool of 2,500 cultists. So here's what I'm going to do. First, I'll start by assuming that 5% of the cultists have class levels. That's 125 people. As I said, it would take me forever to stat up all of them, and possibly take even longer for you guys to go through the list and pick out the ones you want.

Instead, I'll put up a few formulas to determine the levels, classes and races of the potentials and we'll go from there.

We already know the race makeup in the city (humans 82%, kender 8%, draconians 3%, elves 2%, dwarves 2%, goblins 2%, hobgoblins 1%), but the racial makeup of the cultists will be slightly different, as draconians, goblins and hobgoblins will be following a different faith. So let's say: human 85%, kender 9%, elves 3%, dwarves 3%. This means 103 humans, 11 kender, 4 elves, 4 dwarves and the last three will be miscellaneous. One half-elf, one gnome and one half-ogre. Let's assume gender is 50/50 across the board.

Of those 125 people, let's say 50% (63) are 1st level. Half of the remaining are 2nd level (31). Half of those remaining are 3rd level (16). Half of those remaining are 4th level (8). That means 4 are 5th level, 2 are 6th level and 1 is 7th level.

For classes, we'll say 70% are fighters or thieves (88), 20% are clerics (25), 5% are mages (6), and the remaining 5% are anything else (6).

So out of 125 people:

Race
103 humans
11 kender
4 elves
4 dwarves
1 half-elf
1 gnome
1 half-ogre

Class
88 fighters or thieves
25 clerics
6 mages
6 paladins, rangers, specialists, druids, bards

Level
63 first level
31 second level
16 third level
8 fourth level
4 fifth level
2 sixth level
1 seventh level

(I'm not counting Kelryn Darewind in here. He's an 8th level bard, though, if you are wondering. The huntsman who started this all also not included here, and he is a 5th level ranger. However, you are not required to recruit either one of them.)

So how this will work is I'll let you guys pick and choose what you want to bring along. But you are limited by these numbers. So if you want a 7th level half-ogre fighter, then that's the only 7th level character or half-ogre character you can recruit. Basically mix and match what you think would be most useful, as long as you remain in these perimeters.

Things to think about, though. First, the higher a character's level, the more money they'll expect and the bigger share of the XP they'll receive. So if you create a group of people who are stronger and better than the party themselves, you guys aren't going to get very much coin, glory or XP, as they'll completely overshadow you. On the other hand, if you take the weakest group you can get (all level 1s) there's a good chance the giant will wipe them all out. Well, I suppose it all depends on what kind of strategy you want to use.

Anyone who dies will still get a share of any loot, it will just go to their families instead, so don't think you can get away with hiring all 63 first level characters and just sending wave after wave of them to their deaths to kill the giant. I mean, you can do that, but the XP and loot still gets split between all 68 of you. :p

Specifically, characters of 1st-3rd level get an equal share of loot and XP to the party. Characters of 4th-5th level get x1.5 shares, characters of 6th level get x2 shares, and characters of 7th level or higher get x2.5 shares.

Clerics and druids here are followers of Fistandantilus, and so as a result do not receive any spells or divine powers. They do have the healing proficiency, though so they can heal, just not magically. Likewise, paladins don't have any divine powers either, and are treated as fighters who just have slightly better equipment and are cavalry instead of infantry.

How the recruits are chosen, I'll leave up to you. But once everyone is agreed, then we can then roleplay out the party meeting, interviewing and recruiting them. Who knows, maybe some of them will survive and possibly become henchmen to the party.

Oh, and as for the current thread (CH. 4 - False Gods), is there anything anyone wants to roleplay out for the night of the 18th? If so, let me know. Otherwise, I'm going to close the thread, calculate XP, level up the party and begin the new thread for the 19th.

[BishGada]

Hi,
Sounds like we are going to get some action on.
About the mass fight. I think there are rules for it that will make your life easier, I just don't remember them. I believe it is similar to what you have done here, throw statistics and multiply by the mass.

Regarding whom we choose: I think good characters will less consider their glory and more care to save the people so they will pick up a strongest possible group. The same works for not good characters that doesn't want to die.
I think our main contribution to the fight, and hence our share of glory should be in the planning and strategy. We should define the main tactics even if we are the low levels here, but still the group should be the strongest.

I think most of the high levels should be wizards/specialists one high level ranger, one high level warrior that can help with the strategy.
So:
1 7th lvl mage half-elf
1 6th lvl mage human
1 6th lvl fighter human
3 5th lvl mages (gnome+2 humans)
1 5th lvl fighter (half-ogre??)
1 4th lvl mage (elf)
1 4th lvl thief(elf)
1 4th lvl paladin (human)
5 4th lvl specialists (humans)
6 3rd lvl clerics
5 3rd lvl fighters
5 3rd lvl thieves (kenders)
19 2nd lvl clerics (2 elves 17 humans)
8 2nd lvl fighters (4 dwarves 4 humans)
4 2nd lvl thieves (3 kenders + human)
10 1st lvl thieves (3 kenders + 7 human)
53 1st level fighters (humans)

Thats my suggestion.

As you can see, no bards. Leaving all the glory o our own bard to tell the tales
Also no rangers. I'm sure we should recruit the huntsman in addition to the cultists.

regarding the strategy, we already discussed it but I just wanted to add:
1. we should surprise the giant.
Either bait him to believe he is getting easy prey and then turn on him / trap him. Or suddenly make it believe other great monster is fighting it over the prey.
2. I recommend long distance fighting.
3. high lvl mages can use powerful illusions and mind spells such as fear. With Fear combined with illusions of chasing monsters or alternatively open road that give it hope, we can lead the giant where ever we want.