This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Ecipse Faraway chides himself, 'Blast it! I thought they were flying blind! Well, it's happened: you're wrong, Eclipse. Yes, wrong. NO. You were only partially right -- the pilot is invisible, and you're the blind one. Come on up my lass! Don't .... dive ... so ... hard!' He pulls up on the wheel and sets the Word on a steady course away from the opposing ship, keeping an eye on Laitraxa so as not to leave her behind, and also keeping an eye on the enemy crew. If anyone else tries to jump onto the Reaver's Word...well, we already know how Eclipse feels about uninvited guests. He's ready to lash the wheel in place and defend his ship with steel!
"Janear! GOOD SHOT! Laitraxa - are you going to eat them or not?!?"
(OOC: Can we assume if Tyrod isn't posting that he is helping with ship's maneuvering? I'll add an advantage die just in case that makes sense.)
Piloting: 11(if advantage for Tyrod's help, here is the 2nd d20: 19)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver// Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever//Dev Horndin Curious Critters//Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
Ecipse Faraway chides himself, 'Blast it! I thought they were flying blind! Well, it's happened: you're wrong, Eclipse. Yes, wrong. NO. You were only partially right -- the pilot is invisible, and you're the blind one. Come on up my lass! Don't .... dive ... so ... hard!' He pulls up on the wheel and sets the Word on a steady course away from the opposing ship, keeping an eye on Laitraxa so as not to leave her behind, and also keeping an eye on the enemy crew. If anyone else tries to jump onto the Reaver's Word...well, we already know how Eclipse feels about uninvited guests. He's ready to lash the wheel in place and defend his ship with steel!
"Janear! GOOD SHOT! Laitraxa - are you going to eat them or not?!?"
(OOC: Can we assume if Tyrod isn't posting that he is helping with ship's maneuvering? I'll add an advantage die just in case that makes sense.)
Piloting: 3(if advantage for Tyrod's help, here is the 2nd d20: 10)
Lol! Seeing that roll, I think Eclipse says, "Oh...no...no...nononononoNONONO!! TYROD!! THE WHEEL'S STUCK!! HELP ME PULL HER UP!!"
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver// Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever//Dev Horndin Curious Critters//Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
OOC: I'm fine with that. We'll just be continuing the steepest controllable dive in the direction of the Reaver's Word until I can either rejoin the fight (and start lobbing more Chromatic Orbs at ghost ships) or can land on the deck of the Reaver's Word with my new 'cargo'. With her full 15 foot wingspan out (as opposed to folding the wings for a full dive) she should be easy for Eclipse to keep an eye out for.
OOC: And for Eclipse, you would know by now that you picked a dragon more likely to talk someone to death than roast them, though you certainly would have seen her light up the other ship with that first stream of fire. :D
"Dragon-adjacent, huh? Shame I'm no cannibal, could have used the snack otherwise."
She turns her neck and faces the woman briefly, head upside down with a toothy maw exposed, as her wings continue flapping. Fortunately, someone related to dragonborn would be able to pick up the usually subtle expression that Laitraxa is joking.
"Sorry. If you hold on, I'll try and take you to my ship. If you are true about what you say, then perhaps instead of helping your ship attack mine, you help my ship fend off your bedeviled corsair. If not, well. We still have a long way to the surface."
(OOC: I'm fine with helping to maneuver. I don't have a bunch of long range (over 15 feet) actions I can do. If they were right up close I have some stuff. But since we're just out of range I'm mostly waiting for things to happen.)
"Eclipse, can you get us above the ship? I want to try jumping on it." Tyrod says with a smile.
(Ready action. If we get above the other ship within a good distance that he can jump with feather falling he'll cast feather falling on himself, and the two people still on the other ship.")
Tyrod also gets out his rope and tells it to tie itself tightly to the railing, and then he throws it over the side. "Are you two trying to get off the ship?" He yells over to the other crew, "grab a hold of this rope if you can and try to climb up. I think that the other ship is going to go down in flames!"
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Tyrod- Sky-Pirates of Q’rath Set: Crew of the Reaver's Word
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
(OOC: Is Cinnabar from the Hungry Sky still here or has he gone missing as well? Also how high)
(Assuming I can see Xial somewhere) Keeping her position, Theena turned to the red elf and called out, "This is bad!! Kembe is gone and Druaz probably is too. We need to get off the ship before it gets us killed too!! Quick grab this!!" Pulling out her Pole of Collapsing, she'll activate it and continue, "I have a crazy idea but you're not going to like it. The ship is going to dive at the other one so when it gets close enough to the ground we jump. I can't hold you up but I might be able to slow your descent a bit. I think it's either that or get shot at by the pirates again."
I think I might just ditch the initiative values for now.
Doctor Cinnabar was below decks when all this started, and I can't imagine he's going to get his wheelchair up those stairs right at the moment.
The Reaver's Word stopped dropping when Eclipse successfully made a check for using the drophopper. That momentum is now carrying the ship forward, and there's nothing at it's current elevation to run into, so that's not an issue. The Hungry Sky is in a spiral dive, and fires it's ballista while doing so. Normally that's an impossible shot to manage for someone manning the ballista, but seeing as no one is, it's a moot point. Attack: 26 Damage: 12
The Hungry Sky is behind the Reaver's Word, still pointed down, and travelling way too fast to pull up safely. Theena, 50 feet below you, from your vantage point, you can see into the face of one groggy goat in the process of waking up extremely quickly.
Xial takes Theena's pole, but in doing so lets go of the rigging and is flung by the spiral motion, creating a doppler-effect of elven expletives, on a trajectory to pass between the deck of the Reaver's Word and it's airbag. There's an instant to react before the pole goes 'taunt', and it's not clear what happens then. Dropping the pole or hanging on?
The ballista bolt disappears inside the bag of the Reaver's Word. An instant later, as air rushes out, the net-mesh surrounding the bag fulfills its purpose, contorts and tightens, puckering the hole, and turning a large leak into one the size of a copper piece. You've got a leak, but it won't do much immediately, at least as long as the mesh holds...
Ahead of the Reaver's Word, the caravan is sounding warning horns.
Can Eclipse tell that crew are trying to abandon ship?
He continues as before, his anger shifting to puzzlement, speaking under his breath to the other ship’s pilot, “Pull up, you fool. PULL! UP!”
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver// Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever//Dev Horndin Curious Critters//Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
A bolt lodges itself in both Xial's thighs. I'll tread it like a concentration check with regards to letting go of the pole; 5.
And that's a letting-go...
Eclipse> Well, they are visible, and one of them is exiting the ship, air born. The other is standing on the deck holding a pole, so it's up to you what Eclipse thinks they are trying to do.
Tyrod watches as the bolt flies through the bag holding them up. "I got this." he yells and climbs up to the hold and pulls out a tube of something. He smears it on his hands and touches the hole. (Casting mending) The hole disappears and is as good as new. Next turn he'll climb over to the other side and fix that hole too.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Tyrod- Sky-Pirates of Q’rath Set: Crew of the Reaver's Word
A bolt lodges itself in both Xial's thighs. I'll tread it like a concentration check with regards to letting go of the pole; 5.
And that's a letting-go...
Eclipse> Well, they are visible, and one of them is exiting the ship, air born. The other is standing on the deck holding a pole, so it's up to you what Eclipse thinks they are trying to do.
Which is closing on the Word faster: Laitraxa, or the Sky? If Laitraxa, Exlipse will slow enough to allow her to land but keep distance with the Sky.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver// Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever//Dev Horndin Curious Critters//Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
Laitraxa will continue flying towards the Reaver's Word. If she can angle her flight path to get eyes on the second surviving ballista, she will spit a high velocity burst of fire at it.
Maybe? I felt like it was about time I posted, even if Laitraxa and Druaz are out of the fight still (and still wondering about Druaz's response to Laitraxa's suggestion). Dropping initiative completely removes the structure when things like movement/position/order of actions still matter.
I actually think pure initiative doesn't work well at all in play by post, either. Having everyone roll for initiative ends up taking about a day for the entire group to put up a post that is just a roll, when you can look up the player's scores relatively quickly and get it all done in one go. Same goes for other 'unavoidable' rolls like saving throws or group perception checks. Way easier for the DM to handle those sorts of rolls in a single post, and players can override if they have some special ability that would affect that roll. Fortunately your initiative score system removes that factor in regards to initiative, but still leaves the problem that there's a lot of waiting on X person's turn to finish because you don't know what to do until they post.
Calling your actions, well, can be a bit confusing when someone who posted after you but has a higher initative score does something that nullifies that action. I prefered waiting on my turn before making a post, to avoid that confusion.
I've used group initiative in a few play by posts, and it seems the smoothest to play out. For example, put every PC in one group, and NPCs in groups based on affiliation, and take the average of their initative scores for each group. Important/"boss" creatures can have their own initative as well. So we would have PCs, Hungry Sky NPCs, and probably the Hungry Sky itself cause it's a spooky ghost ship (while the Reaver's Word is responding to Eclipse's movements and acts as part of his turn).
Any PC in the PC group can post in any order. The actions occur in the order they are posted, so there is some continuity. If two people post at the same time, say within 30 minutes, then they can edit since they probably wrote their posts at the same time. After a set time (say 24 hrs) the DM can elect to have a PC who hasn't posted hold an action/dodge/miss thier turn/whatever.
The way this ends up working is that all the PCs can post relatively freely, based on their personal availability. Once all PCs are complete, you can do a single post for all the NPCs and monsters, then the next PC post round comes up. It's a lot less workload for the DM too.
Eclipse watches Laitraxa, equally astonished by her power and her grace. He keeps the keel steady until something changes: she lands, or the enemy ship changes course. (OOC: I think the problem is expectations re: posts per day. It’s been irregular.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver// Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever//Dev Horndin Curious Critters//Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Ecipse Faraway chides himself, 'Blast it! I thought they were flying blind! Well, it's happened: you're wrong, Eclipse. Yes, wrong. NO. You were only partially right -- the pilot is invisible, and you're the blind one. Come on up my lass! Don't .... dive ... so ... hard!' He pulls up on the wheel and sets the Word on a steady course away from the opposing ship, keeping an eye on Laitraxa so as not to leave her behind, and also keeping an eye on the enemy crew. If anyone else tries to jump onto the Reaver's Word...well, we already know how Eclipse feels about uninvited guests. He's ready to lash the wheel in place and defend his ship with steel!
"Janear! GOOD SHOT! Laitraxa - are you going to eat them or not?!?"
(OOC: Can we assume if Tyrod isn't posting that he is helping with ship's maneuvering? I'll add an advantage die just in case that makes sense.)
Piloting: 11(if advantage for Tyrod's help, here is the 2nd d20: 19)
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver // Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
Lol! Seeing that roll, I think Eclipse says, "Oh...no...no...nononononoNONONO!! TYROD!! THE WHEEL'S STUCK!! HELP ME PULL HER UP!!"
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver // Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
OOC: I'm fine with that. We'll just be continuing the steepest controllable dive in the direction of the Reaver's Word until I can either rejoin the fight (and start lobbing more Chromatic Orbs at ghost ships) or can land on the deck of the Reaver's Word with my new 'cargo'. With her full 15 foot wingspan out (as opposed to folding the wings for a full dive) she should be easy for Eclipse to keep an eye out for.
OOC: And for Eclipse, you would know by now that you picked a dragon more likely to talk someone to death than roast them, though you certainly would have seen her light up the other ship with that first stream of fire. :D
"Dragon-adjacent, huh? Shame I'm no cannibal, could have used the snack otherwise."
She turns her neck and faces the woman briefly, head upside down with a toothy maw exposed, as her wings continue flapping. Fortunately, someone related to dragonborn would be able to pick up the usually subtle expression that Laitraxa is joking.
"Sorry. If you hold on, I'll try and take you to my ship. If you are true about what you say, then perhaps instead of helping your ship attack mine, you help my ship fend off your bedeviled corsair. If not, well. We still have a long way to the surface."
Aldrik Reinholdt in Dragon Heist
Daventry in The Candlekeep Mysteries, and her bag
(OOC: I'm fine with helping to maneuver. I don't have a bunch of long range (over 15 feet) actions I can do. If they were right up close I have some stuff. But since we're just out of range I'm mostly waiting for things to happen.)
"Eclipse, can you get us above the ship? I want to try jumping on it." Tyrod says with a smile.
(Ready action. If we get above the other ship within a good distance that he can jump with feather falling he'll cast feather falling on himself, and the two people still on the other ship.")
Tyrod also gets out his rope and tells it to tie itself tightly to the railing, and then he throws it over the side. "Are you two trying to get off the ship?" He yells over to the other crew, "grab a hold of this rope if you can and try to climb up. I think that the other ship is going to go down in flames!"
Tyrod - Sky-Pirates of Q’rath Set: Crew of the Reaver's Word
(OOC: Is Cinnabar from the Hungry Sky still here or has he gone missing as well? Also how high)
(Assuming I can see Xial somewhere) Keeping her position, Theena turned to the red elf and called out, "This is bad!! Kembe is gone and Druaz probably is too. We need to get off the ship before it gets us killed too!! Quick grab this!!" Pulling out her Pole of Collapsing, she'll activate it and continue, "I have a crazy idea but you're not going to like it. The ship is going to dive at the other one so when it gets close enough to the ground we jump. I can't hold you up but I might be able to slow your descent a bit. I think it's either that or get shot at by the pirates again."
Zoldier’s Curse of the Crimson Throne: DM/ Redii || Zoldier's Strange Aeon's: DM
I think I might just ditch the initiative values for now.
Doctor Cinnabar was below decks when all this started, and I can't imagine he's going to get his wheelchair up those stairs right at the moment.
The Reaver's Word stopped dropping when Eclipse successfully made a check for using the drophopper. That momentum is now carrying the ship forward, and there's nothing at it's current elevation to run into, so that's not an issue. The Hungry Sky is in a spiral dive, and fires it's ballista while doing so. Normally that's an impossible shot to manage for someone manning the ballista, but seeing as no one is, it's a moot point. Attack: 26 Damage: 12
The Hungry Sky is behind the Reaver's Word, still pointed down, and travelling way too fast to pull up safely. Theena, 50 feet below you, from your vantage point, you can see into the face of one groggy goat in the process of waking up extremely quickly.
Xial takes Theena's pole, but in doing so lets go of the rigging and is flung by the spiral motion, creating a doppler-effect of elven expletives, on a trajectory to pass between the deck of the Reaver's Word and it's airbag. There's an instant to react before the pole goes 'taunt', and it's not clear what happens then. Dropping the pole or hanging on?
The ballista bolt disappears inside the bag of the Reaver's Word. An instant later, as air rushes out, the net-mesh surrounding the bag fulfills its purpose, contorts and tightens, puckering the hole, and turning a large leak into one the size of a copper piece. You've got a leak, but it won't do much immediately, at least as long as the mesh holds...
Ahead of the Reaver's Word, the caravan is sounding warning horns.
Jenaer drinbles slightly, before holding up a wok to deflect the crossbow bolt. wiping his mouth as he retargets to Xial.
“Yes Eclipse, it is quite riveting. I see the appeal of a pirates life now. Laitraxa, save some for me!”
Attack: 25 Damage: 13
(Re dropping initiative, I was waiting for Theena to take a turn, I was expecting my action to come before Xial.)
Gilgin Hardhammer - Mountain Dwarf Cleric (Forge Domain) - Icewind Dale
Petal - Forest Gnome Druid (Circle of the Land - Forest) - Unsung Heroes of Embera
Can Eclipse tell that crew are trying to abandon ship?
He continues as before, his anger shifting to puzzlement, speaking under his breath to the other ship’s pilot, “Pull up, you fool. PULL! UP!”
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver // Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
A bolt lodges itself in both Xial's thighs. I'll tread it like a concentration check with regards to letting go of the pole; 5.
And that's a letting-go...
Eclipse> Well, they are visible, and one of them is exiting the ship, air born. The other is standing on the deck holding a pole, so it's up to you what Eclipse thinks they are trying to do.
Tyrod watches as the bolt flies through the bag holding them up. "I got this." he yells and climbs up to the hold and pulls out a tube of something. He smears it on his hands and touches the hole. (Casting mending) The hole disappears and is as good as new. Next turn he'll climb over to the other side and fix that hole too.
Tyrod - Sky-Pirates of Q’rath Set: Crew of the Reaver's Word
The bolt actually didn't exit the bag, so there's only one hole.
Which is closing on the Word faster: Laitraxa, or the Sky? If Laitraxa, Exlipse will slow enough to allow her to land but keep distance with the Sky.
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver // Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story
Laitraxa is closing faster, but not by a lot.
Laitraxa will continue flying towards the Reaver's Word. If she can angle her flight path to get eyes on the second surviving ballista, she will spit a high velocity burst of fire at it.
Firebolt: 18, damage 6
Aldrik Reinholdt in Dragon Heist
Daventry in The Candlekeep Mysteries, and her bag
Ok, that will take another couple of actions to get to at least, so the next few actions will happen before then.
OOC No worries! Laitraxa keeps flying on until she's in range.
Aldrik Reinholdt in Dragon Heist
Daventry in The Candlekeep Mysteries, and her bag
Was it a mistake to drop initiative order? I feel like people are waiting on posting now.
Maybe? I felt like it was about time I posted, even if Laitraxa and Druaz are out of the fight still (and still wondering about Druaz's response to Laitraxa's suggestion). Dropping initiative completely removes the structure when things like movement/position/order of actions still matter.
I actually think pure initiative doesn't work well at all in play by post, either. Having everyone roll for initiative ends up taking about a day for the entire group to put up a post that is just a roll, when you can look up the player's scores relatively quickly and get it all done in one go. Same goes for other 'unavoidable' rolls like saving throws or group perception checks. Way easier for the DM to handle those sorts of rolls in a single post, and players can override if they have some special ability that would affect that roll. Fortunately your initiative score system removes that factor in regards to initiative, but still leaves the problem that there's a lot of waiting on X person's turn to finish because you don't know what to do until they post.
Calling your actions, well, can be a bit confusing when someone who posted after you but has a higher initative score does something that nullifies that action. I prefered waiting on my turn before making a post, to avoid that confusion.
I've used group initiative in a few play by posts, and it seems the smoothest to play out. For example, put every PC in one group, and NPCs in groups based on affiliation, and take the average of their initative scores for each group. Important/"boss" creatures can have their own initative as well. So we would have PCs, Hungry Sky NPCs, and probably the Hungry Sky itself cause it's a spooky ghost ship (while the Reaver's Word is responding to Eclipse's movements and acts as part of his turn).
Any PC in the PC group can post in any order. The actions occur in the order they are posted, so there is some continuity. If two people post at the same time, say within 30 minutes, then they can edit since they probably wrote their posts at the same time. After a set time (say 24 hrs) the DM can elect to have a PC who hasn't posted hold an action/dodge/miss thier turn/whatever.
The way this ends up working is that all the PCs can post relatively freely, based on their personal availability. Once all PCs are complete, you can do a single post for all the NPCs and monsters, then the next PC post round comes up. It's a lot less workload for the DM too.
Aldrik Reinholdt in Dragon Heist
Daventry in The Candlekeep Mysteries, and her bag
Eclipse watches Laitraxa, equally astonished by her power and her grace. He keeps the keel steady until something changes: she lands, or the enemy ship changes course.
(OOC: I think the problem is expectations re: posts per day. It’s been irregular.)
DM for Deathworld: Lost Mine of Phandelver // Story Guide for COYOTE and CROW: Cahokia Forever // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Co-creator: Princes of the Apocalypse - A DnD Story