Past two sets of doors sits another room with a shrine. The Temple of Shadows. The shrine of binding takes up a large portion of this black marble chamber.
A drow priestess is chained, therein. Scales appeared on her wrists, forearms, chest, back, and legs, draped in deep purple and flat black clothing made of underdark lizard skin, accented with satin (matte) silver.
This area has no light sources. Bright light from a source other than a spell of 3rd level or higher becomes dim light if it is produced in or carried into this chamber.
<is anyone carrying light?>
Some of you are bound to notice the faint movements of several amorphous undead creatures in the room.
(ooc: can I use my subclass feature Illusory Self to make the crit miss me?)
Illusory SelfPHB, pg. 118
Once per short rest, you can create an illusory duplicate of yourself. When a creature makes an attack roll against you, you can use your reaction to interpose the duplicate between the attacker and yourself. The attack automatically misses you, then the illusion dissipates.
The cool thing I like about this is it recharges on a short rest so I can potentially use it more than once a day. (This Illusionist feature coupled with the right feat or two and you might have the beginnings of an Illusionist Gish.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow."
— The message of Eilistraee to all decent drow.
"Run thy sword across my chains, Silver Lady, that I may join your dance.”
"Tsk. Why is this even a question?" Randy scoffs at Trisk as his armour's signature orange glow returns, shedding light within 10ft of where he's standing at the back. Looking at the drow, he's tempted to shoot at the chains, but figures that she might commit seppuku just like the original one. Unless...
"You see anything nearby? Give me signal until everything has cleared. I need two of you to grab onto that fine lady when I cut down her chains incase she feels suicidal. Could use her for interrogation. Or something else... maybe." Randy asks the group. He was about to release her from the shackles and order Piccolo and Ethan to restrain her before she can follow the previous drow's fate. But right now, he's gonna concentrate on firing at whatever comes close to the group. If there even is something. Even if it's oozes again.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Wildland Shifters Pt 2 (Pt 1 with PyromaniIsDeadThankGod) Celci (The Lamb) - Non-Binary Changeling Sorcerer (Shadow Magic) Maya Kurosaki- Female Kitsune Cleric (Twilight Domain); Currently in Lancea Randy Wolftree - Male Human Artificer (Armourer); Currently in Crimson Sands of Time Shijiro Otsune- Male Kitsune Blood Hunter (Order Of The Lycan) Trojan Dseyller - Male Tortle Barbarian (Path of the Ancestral Guardian) Xenia Ironhide - Female Kobold Rogue (Soulknife)
Ethan doesn't say anything, since he's still a little dazed, but he heeds his brother's words; When Randy does tear down the chains, he'll move in and prevent the drow woman from doing anything else including casting spells, though she does resemble a bit like Tenebris' deranged sister for a split second. But first off, he can sense danger (obviously). He may as well attack and clear this place before anyone gets injured badly...
Trigger: He walks forward 10ft alongside Piccolo, but doesn't attack yet. If something does try to attack him at close range, it's gonna face his wrath.
The girl walks in, her dark vision enough to see. She plays a quick tune to the priestess
(image of the party helping her escape and Piccolo seeing if she is in need of healing)
Piccolo looks for other unseen issues, monsters, traps
Well, roll perception, I guess. I'm using any dice to create a probability distribution of the stealth results of the things lurking, since their number is what you don't know.
Put your spoiler here.We're attending point that you know you're not alone in the room, but have no idea how many y things are in here with you ir what they might be. We could do group perception or just let the one with the highest oercepti9n roll it. I really don't care. The more dice you roll the less likely you'll see everything, more likely you'll see something. Darkvision doesn't negate this, they're hidden creatures, if yiu could just see them, rogue wouldn't be a class
Randy's orange luminescence is noted.
<Freeing this drow does require the rolls noted but ignored for the other one, as you had all the time in the world and here, you're under attack. If you're not, then we can ignore the roll mechanics.>
Until I know what you see, I don't know ow if attacks have AD or not and regardless of initiative, you can't target a creature you don't see, but yiu might do some aoe thing. It's all very wobbly until I get the vision down.
Honestly, anyone who wants to roll perception. Be my guest
Piccolo looks carefully and like a bat, pings the party using her musical ability images of the room and locations of each thing she sees in the room with dark vision. Perception. 29
(ooc: yes I agree, would you say Trisk knows that and keeps the feature for now.. like an ace up his sleeve?)
(also as a reminder I am wearing a Cloak Of Displacement (it's one of my magic items) so all attacks against me have disadvantage until one hits me and then they don't until the start of my next turn.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow."
— The message of Eilistraee to all decent drow.
"Run thy sword across my chains, Silver Lady, that I may join your dance.”
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
I am going to keep forgetting this. I don't want to, but I will. Just hover my attack rolls and if i forgot it, roll a new attack for the DA. Sorry fir the inconvenience. This really is something that would be nice for DDB to add, somehow. If you csnt see with hovering, just assume I didn't use DA. Here's the one I owe you: 6.
Hey gang, so you know I stole the side initiative we've been using from DSRPG, or you don't, doesn't matter. I think it works okay most of the time, but this dungeon has shown me its big old weakness: a bunch of low CR creatures with low to average hp pretty much will never act, and so really may as well not exist. A bunch of empty rooms sounds less than exciting to me, but I'm not the only one here. So, what do we think? If we keep this initiative, rooms like this are non-mechanical combat, they simply exist in the narrative. You enter, you see all the shadows hiding in tbe dark, because you're thst spwced, and then you all kill them. They have theoretical abilities that make them dangerous, but in practice, this can only come up if someone carelessly walks away from one and they aoo outside their own turn. Just like tbe last room at the end.
So, we can do this more like a Cypher game in these rooms, (we resolve how hard it is to hurt these guys based on discussion between player and gm, then yiu roll to succed and it deternines the outcome if the atrack. Success ge erally means yiu eliminate that enemy) or we can adjust initiative to something else.
Ideas for something else include:
Doom points, (if you've seen Daggerheart's rules, it's like that, but I'm familiar from other systems, like Dreams and Machines or Conan) where the more stuff you do, the more points the DM gets to spend when he chooses to have enemies act.
Auto-rolling regular by the book initiative (by which I mean, I just roll it. This is all RNG outputs, anyway) and each noc gets their own initiative and then we go through it. I stopped this in pbp because it takes long time wait for the player who's turn it is.
Greyhawk-like initiative. You say what you want to do, there's math for how long it takes, that's the order in which it resolves, and the whole round resolves at once.
PM me your thoughts. We can flesh out details as needed.
(For the dungeon , quicker seems better to me, since my pc has alert, I like her going quick but find it fun when the order the pcs go can change. It provides variation and different strategies. Any way for dm to roll everyone’s init including npcs in one post, then we go from there.
@shimshon: that is the one i described as auto-rolling, in that it is rolled initiative, it's onky auto in that I'm prompting jt, but really ddb is doing all the rolling. This is an actual feature present in the encounter builder. Owlbear has it, but it's been a challenge to implement in practice.
The issue I noted is that, while the upfront wait for rolling for initiative is eliminated, each combat round actually unfolding in order is the part that tends to move slowly. Example: Monday DM "x, you're up" 14 hours later x: "I do ..." 4 hours later "OK, this happens. Y: you're up" 12 hours later y: "I..."
This, in my experience is painfully slow and the reason I keep looking for alt. Initiative systems. Variations of side initiative are what I've tried.
I personally like the action point allowance concept, but it's a lot - the backbone kf a whole different experience to vanilla 5e, so best to avoid.
Based on feedback I've received, and the prior approval I had to do so, I think I'm going ro stick with the system we've been using, and just chsnge the CR of one kr more monsters so they can possibly act before dying. I already said I mogjt do this when we agreed on long rests, I just usually do ot because I want to never becasue I previously felt I had to.
Thus is a good time to discuss the thing I call autoroll (I think it sounds better than DM roll, and more accurate, top, since it's the game engine doing it).
It's just me using DDB encounter builder to roll initiative, but monsters slot based on the aforementioned DSRPG-based math and act as a side
The only changes following this discussion are:
1. DDB Encounter builder rolls initiative each encounter.
2*. I'm adjusting monster CR as previously discussed (*so, this might not actually count as a change).
Past two sets of doors sits another room with a shrine. The Temple of Shadows. The shrine of binding takes up a large portion of this black marble chamber.
A drow priestess is chained, therein. Scales appeared on her wrists, forearms, chest, back, and legs, draped in deep purple and flat black clothing made of underdark lizard skin, accented with satin (matte) silver.
This area has no light sources. Bright light from a source other than a spell of 3rd level or higher becomes dim light if it is produced in or carried into this chamber.
<is anyone carrying light?>
Some of you are bound to notice the faint movements of several amorphous undead creatures in the room.
What do you wish to do?
It's a 50ft square room, the shrine is 30ft in diameter.
The girl walks in, her dark vision enough to see. She plays a quick tune to the priestess
(image of the party helping her escape and Piccolo seeing if she is in need of healing)
Piccolo looks for other unseen issues, monsters, traps
(ooc: can I use my subclass feature Illusory Self to make the crit miss me?)
Once per short rest, you can create an illusory duplicate of yourself. When a creature makes an attack roll against you, you can use your reaction to interpose the duplicate between the attacker and yourself. The attack automatically misses you, then the illusion dissipates.
The cool thing I like about this is it recharges on a short rest so I can potentially use it more than once a day. (This Illusionist feature coupled with the right feat or two and you might have the beginnings of an Illusionist Gish.)
"Tsk. Why is this even a question?" Randy scoffs at Trisk as his armour's signature orange glow returns, shedding light within 10ft of where he's standing at the back. Looking at the drow, he's tempted to shoot at the chains, but figures that she might commit seppuku just like the original one. Unless...
"You see anything nearby? Give me signal until everything has cleared. I need two of you to grab onto that fine lady when I cut down her chains incase she feels suicidal. Could use her for interrogation. Or something else... maybe." Randy asks the group. He was about to release her from the shackles and order Piccolo and Ethan to restrain her before she can follow the previous drow's fate. But right now, he's gonna concentrate on firing at whatever comes close to the group. If there even is something. Even if it's oozes again.
Wildland Shifters Pt 2 (Pt 1 with PyromaniIsDeadThankGod)
Celci (The Lamb) - Non-Binary Changeling Sorcerer (Shadow Magic)
Maya Kurosaki - Female Kitsune Cleric (Twilight Domain); Currently in Lancea
Randy Wolftree - Male Human Artificer (Armourer); Currently in Crimson Sands of Time
Shijiro Otsune - Male Kitsune Blood Hunter (Order Of The Lycan)
Trojan Dseyller - Male Tortle Barbarian (Path of the Ancestral Guardian)
Xenia Ironhide - Female Kobold Rogue (Soulknife)
Ethan doesn't say anything, since he's still a little dazed, but he heeds his brother's words; When Randy does tear down the chains, he'll move in and prevent the drow woman from doing anything else including casting spells, though she does resemble a bit like Tenebris' deranged sister for a split second. But first off, he can sense danger (obviously). He may as well attack and clear this place before anyone gets injured badly...
Trigger: He walks forward 10ft alongside Piccolo, but doesn't attack yet. If something does try to attack him at close range, it's gonna face his wrath.
The Wildland Shifters
Daisy Ethalena - Female Wood Elf Ranger (Monster Slayer)
Ethan Wolftree - Male Simic Hybrid Warlock (The Hexblade)
Mira Laurits - Female Harengon Sorcerer (Clockwork Soul)
Raiden Kurosaki - Male Kitsune Wizard (Bladesinger)
Rixian Nishinoya - Male Fire Genasi Paladin (Oath of Vengeance)
Tenebris Amaro - Male Dark Elf Druid (Circle of Stars)
Yurime Hanasaki - Female Kumiho Bard (College Of Creation)
Well, roll perception, I guess. I'm using any dice to create a probability distribution of the stealth results of the things lurking, since their number is what you don't know.
@Brian_Avery. I think the illusory self would work if the creature making the attack didn't have blinsight and no eyes. Do you agree?
Put your spoiler here.We're attending point that you know you're not alone in the room, but have no idea how many y things are in here with you ir what they might be. We could do group perception or just let the one with the highest oercepti9n roll it. I really don't care. The more dice you roll the less likely you'll see everything, more likely you'll see something. Darkvision doesn't negate this, they're hidden creatures, if yiu could just see them, rogue wouldn't be a class
Randy's orange luminescence is noted.
<Freeing this drow does require the rolls noted but ignored for the other one, as you had all the time in the world and here, you're under attack. If you're not, then we can ignore the roll mechanics.>
Until I know what you see, I don't know ow if attacks have AD or not and regardless of initiative, you can't target a creature you don't see, but yiu might do some aoe thing. It's all very wobbly until I get the vision down.
Honestly, anyone who wants to roll perception. Be my guest
Piccolo looks carefully and like a bat, pings the party using her musical ability images of the room and locations of each thing she sees in the room with dark vision.
Perception. 29
then if required, she will attack
She sees six shadowy entities standing about the room, trying their best to blend into the darkness.
(ooc: yes I agree, would you say Trisk knows that and keeps the feature for now.. like an ace up his sleeve?)
(also as a reminder I am wearing a Cloak Of Displacement (it's one of my magic items) so all attacks against me have disadvantage until one hits me and then they don't until the start of my next turn.)
I am going to keep forgetting this. I don't want to, but I will. Just hover my attack rolls and if i forgot it, roll a new attack for the DA. Sorry fir the inconvenience. This really is something that would be nice for DDB to add, somehow. If you csnt see with hovering, just assume I didn't use DA. Here's the one I owe you: 6.
More Ooc (initiative issue - discussion)
Hey gang, so you know I stole the side initiative we've been using from DSRPG, or you don't, doesn't matter. I think it works okay most of the time, but this dungeon has shown me its big old weakness: a bunch of low CR creatures with low to average hp pretty much will never act, and so really may as well not exist. A bunch of empty rooms sounds less than exciting to me, but I'm not the only one here. So, what do we think? If we keep this initiative, rooms like this are non-mechanical combat, they simply exist in the narrative. You enter, you see all the shadows hiding in tbe dark, because you're thst spwced, and then you all kill them. They have theoretical abilities that make them dangerous, but in practice, this can only come up if someone carelessly walks away from one and they aoo outside their own turn. Just like tbe last room at the end.
So, we can do this more like a Cypher game in these rooms, (we resolve how hard it is to hurt these guys based on discussion between player and gm, then yiu roll to succed and it deternines the outcome if the atrack. Success ge erally means yiu eliminate that enemy) or we can adjust initiative to something else.
Ideas for something else include:
Doom points, (if you've seen Daggerheart's rules, it's like that, but I'm familiar from other systems, like Dreams and Machines or Conan) where the more stuff you do, the more points the DM gets to spend when he chooses to have enemies act.
Auto-rolling regular by the book initiative (by which I mean, I just roll it. This is all RNG outputs, anyway) and each noc gets their own initiative and then we go through it. I stopped this in pbp because it takes long time wait for the player who's turn it is.
Greyhawk-like initiative. You say what you want to do, there's math for how long it takes, that's the order in which it resolves, and the whole round resolves at once.
PM me your thoughts. We can flesh out details as needed.
(For the dungeon , quicker seems better to me, since my pc has alert, I like her going quick but find it fun when the order the pcs go can change. It provides variation and different strategies. Any way for dm to roll everyone’s init including npcs in one post, then we go from there.
@shimshon: that is the one i described as auto-rolling, in that it is rolled initiative, it's onky auto in that I'm prompting jt, but really ddb is doing all the rolling. This is an actual feature present in the encounter builder. Owlbear has it, but it's been a challenge to implement in practice.
The issue I noted is that, while the upfront wait for rolling for initiative is eliminated, each combat round actually unfolding in order is the part that tends to move slowly. Example: Monday DM "x, you're up" 14 hours later x: "I do ..." 4 hours later "OK, this happens. Y: you're up" 12 hours later y: "I..."
This, in my experience is painfully slow and the reason I keep looking for alt. Initiative systems. Variations of side initiative are what I've tried.
(That would suck to wait so long)
Put your spoiler here
I personally like the action point allowance concept, but it's a lot - the backbone kf a whole different experience to vanilla 5e, so best to avoid.
Based on feedback I've received, and the prior approval I had to do so, I think I'm going ro stick with the system we've been using, and just chsnge the CR of one kr more monsters so they can possibly act before dying. I already said I mogjt do this when we agreed on long rests, I just usually do ot because I want to never becasue I previously felt I had to.
Thus is a good time to discuss the thing I call autoroll (I think it sounds better than DM roll, and more accurate, top, since it's the game engine doing it).
It's just me using DDB encounter builder to roll initiative, but monsters slot based on the aforementioned DSRPG-based math and act as a side
The only changes following this discussion are:
1. DDB Encounter builder rolls initiative each encounter.
2*. I'm adjusting monster CR as previously discussed (*so, this might not actually count as a change).
Thank you for your patience and input!
<If EB fails to include some bonus to your initiative, let me know. (I think it's still technically beta after 3 years or so 🤔). >