BEN: If it’s not a TPK in the first 20 minutes, I’m counting it as a win.

GM: can someone run a timer saturday so I can delay it long enough for Ben not to feel bad about himself?

COREY: Are the practice scenarios listed in that 12th level character page being added to what the main party can/will eventually do?

GM: no, mark yourself safe from vampire control corey

BEN: I’m sorry, from WHAT?!

GM: nothing to see here, just legacy text!

BEN: Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. Someone call the Belmont.

COREY: That could have been some fun roleplay opportunities, lol.

GM: someone else can run them… im not a gatekeeper
just posted the last update for the night

BEN: I know Mendollin is human, do we know what Toad-Faced Dog is? Abomination or Undead?

GM: It’s a living creature (per notes already sent out)

BEN: NOT FOR LONG. But good to know.

9/5) GM: ok. I think i am done. I will be reviewing and hopefully not be fatigued tomorrow. I would really appreciate it if you talked about and were ready to ADDRESS EVERY DOUBLE CHECKED ITEM on the list by END OF FRIDAY NIGHT.
I will prompt for answers tomorrow night for each

GM: If you guys want me to open this thread up to everyone on the server, let me know, Right now, its just the five of you.

GM: What the Players Know (hunt for Mendollin)

BEN: For Roryin, I’m not seeing any armor listed, just weapon and holy symbol. Does he have any currently?

ARABUS: we have to equip him

BEN: Sorry, this is the first day I DON’T have 2+ hours of OT. Trying to flesh him out now. I have shield master (human 1st), and Fighting Initiate: Defense (4th).
I should have 1 more or an ability improvement for 8th. Can I pick that, or did I miss reading it?

GM: I’m totally sorry Ben. Yeah I left one open for you to choose. All I would just wanted to cover his shield use and armor use cuz those were his primary and I didn’t choose his spells either, that’s totally up to you. And yeah he can have any equipment that those 5th level fighters that were stand-ins for anybody that didn’t want to use their character. So any of the armor Shields and weapons that they had available? Plus anything the party has in its inventory. Arabus you might want to send out a link to the document again.

BEN: he’s been helping. Got a breastplate and shield and some backup weapons.

GM: And no, he is retired and was just making a pilgrimage so he only brought what was absolutely necessary for that.

GM: Larry is coming up tomorrow. He’s going to join us for the fight! (added to thread)

COREY: What is the action economy for handing off a shield? Unless the battle goes well, my life cleric is going to be running circles around the fight. So if I can run up heal somebody and hand then a shield if they had broken a shield, that would be my movement to hand it to them, and their reaction to take it, their movement to equip it?

ARABUS: equiping a shield is an action unfortunately.

COREY: Fuck, not worth it.

ARABUS: you can always drop it near them and let them make the decision as to whether or not they want to grab it. droping it it 0 movement if you have it in hand

GM: That’s equipping it. If you just holding it ready to give off. It means that you can’t use it for armor class bonus or resilience. As long as you have one hand free to do spell casting. You’re okay. You just can’t wield The shield.

ARABUS: what kind of movement/action would that require from both parties?

GM: 5 feet move to drop, action to doff. bonus action for a shield master.

BEN: What feat let’s me chuck it into the enemies face and catch it on the rebound like Steve Rogers?

GM: You have to buy the Trump NFT collection first

BEN: Sneak in through tall grass (as best we can) try to seperate them with a pond or stream in between to make it harder to group up.

GM: dont tell me, vote to see if there is a consensus and then talk amongst yourselves to resolve any issues. Or in reverse.
you do NOT get a precise drop, just rough and relative

POLLS OPENED

At the time of the action start on saturday, only the following had consensus: Speak an individual word to return a Gallant member.

• Footing – rolled random; open, unobstructed
• Terrain – rolled random; 3 pond/stream, 1 open
• Where do PCs appear? random section
• PCs relative to foes? Random – in between, off center
• How confront – random: 3 rnd delay for PCs/1 for foes

Images for Foes Appear

GM: Toad Faced Dog… artists’ rendition, creative liberties taken. The options are all the double check items from “What the characters know” page.
Im just trying to make it easier for you;

BEN: There is no Mendollin, only ZHUUL!!!

GM: I promise to eat you last!
Every Pin Feather character gets a Character Weave because this is some epic shit. The Raiding larks already have 1 each.

GM: Mendollin… If you come at the king baby, you better not miss (picture of the the king and I Yule Brenner).

BEN: …really.

COREY: Because I’m playing a one-off character I think the character weave my life cleric has should go in a group pool. It matters much less if my character dies then if a member of the actual party dies.

GM: Thats not how it works
Please respond to the surveys today

AFTER FIGHT

GM: I’ve copied into HTML my notes on the outcomes here. Obviously 3 of the 4 did not happen, but you can see where it would have gone: hunting mendollin outcomes…

GM: IF there is no questions regarding the materials on this page by tomorrow, i will go ahead and post the rest. Been converting it to HTML today.

BEN: Who’s gonna tell Asil that they got his squire killed?

GM: Todd Eshrin – A lightworshiper in Torrelson’s Ford. He will deliver his sword and items back to the family

GM: Through this week anyway, toad faced dogs stats will be here: [ MOVED ]

GM: For your enjoyment: Interlude – The Wonald Delta (after The Convergence)

GM: stats; I did not convert his combat action listing to HTML, too much formatting = Mendollin Duncan Ovilod

(9/10) GM: I will be locking this and probably deleting this thread end of week; i will archive it onto the web site

The Player Only Thread Discord Archive

ARABUS: I wanted to make sure that we had some prep and planning before the day of. Alot of shits gonna fly. One of the big things Is the difference of perspective between the campaign characters and the 12th level Raiding Larkers. Obviously the Raiding Larkers are one shot characters whos sole purpose is to end Mendollin. With them there is no purpose in holding back anything or not fighting to the bitter end. No downside to the “Do or die” perspective. Quite the opposite for our primary characters though. Obviously we WANT to kill Toad-Faced dog, but the primary goal is keeping him away from Mendollin until the Larkers do their part. What I want to stress is that even if Toad Faced dog lives, heck even if BOTH of the targets live, it is not the end of the Campaign. There will be bad shit, but not so bad that we couldn’t recover from it in the long run. I strongly believe that the Pin Feathers surviving should be the highest priority. There is still alot of work to be done in Crestwold and Dunstrand as a whole, which is far more likely to fail if we aren’t around. The gallants are already stretched to the limit, there’s no one else to take up the reins in this area should we fall.

BEN: Agreed that the Pin Feathers surviving is priority. Asil will not be present, but he is sending Sir Roryin Lavinge, an 8th level Umbakian Paladin of Devotion in his stead. He owes Asil a life debt and has agreed to support the Pin Feathers in this venture as payment. In the Mendollin fight, unless someone has a better plan Hulgrin De Huga will likely charge straight in to get his attention, raging as he runs and throwing hand-axes until melee distance. While raging, he is resistant to ALL damage (Bear Totem, and ring gives force resist). His main goal will be keeping Mendollin’s focus.

– ARABUS: wait…. why did we put the ring of force resistance on you if you are bear totem? Are you sure it wasn’t a ring of Psychic resistance?

– BEN: It is psychic. I’m just stupid.

ARABUS: For Mepher (My12th level sorcerer) I believe my best use will be Animating objects and attempting to get a Slow spell to get through. My little ducateon garden gnomes can work on wittling Mendollin down and helping me keep some distance. He’s likely going to have counterspells and defensive actions so in the first round or 2 I will probably try to throw some of my lower level spells at him in the hopes of him not having a counterspell available to use against slow. I’m pretty tough to pin down and have way more HP than a typical caster so I don’t think I’ll be needing anyone nearby to guard me. I also have counterspell myself so of course I’ll attempt to negate the worst he throws. I think it would be best for all of our ranged combatants to be spread out from each other, Ideally in a type of “surrounding” formation, so that we minimize the effectiveness of any AOE Mendollin may throw at us.

As for Jesse in the Toadfaced dog fight, I will be doing my best to give advantage to our heaviest hitters and keeping myself out of harms way. I have no AC or HP to speak of, but I’ve gotten versatile as hell. 3rd level wizard (illusionist) and 3rd level Rogue (Mastermind). I may not be combat oriented, but so long as we have Ulrich or a cannon type character I can be of use.

COREY: My 12 level character is melee. He’s got the Mage Slayer feat, and as an Eldritch Knight has magic capabilities. Magic: For offense it’ll be point-blank magic Missile; for defense it’ll be the shield spell. I also have the shieldmaster feat and my bonus actions will be spent attempting to knock down mendollin.

For TDF, both my active and retired chars are elsewhere, I’m playing a life cleric, I gots da HEALZZ! I’ll be tracking HP, and I’ve got a spell or two that might help keep TDF busy.

ARABUS: I feel like our best option for ‘coming through’ the eye of sisslin is the one that gives us 3 rounds of prep and our enemies only one. I feel that with Mendollins capabilities that attacking right away with no prep time for either side will not work to our favor. Mendollin cannot be surprised. He cannot suffer from being flanked, and he is VERY fast to react. He would probably first or close to it in initiative.

ROCKY: Arabus! How should I set my character up, I don’t have much extra time this week.

ARABUS: I can do a bit friday evening I think. I got called into a new job, and the days are fairly long.

ARABUS: Against toad faced dog I think a mix of 3 in melee and three at range would be prudent. We need to have people ready to slow/falter him if he trys to move towards mendollin. He is a displacer beast AND has access to paladin and Warlock abilities, on top of being far smarter and devious than Mendollin.

ARABUS: Toad Faced Dog has some domination method that bella mentioned. Sir Roryn gives bonuses to saving throws to allies within 10 feet of him, as well as making allies within 10 feet immune to charm. Who would be best to partner with him, likely in melee given his capabilities.

COREY: Which characters would be the worst to get charmed?

ARABUS: Our heaviest hitters. Even if they don’t swing at us, it’s damage not going to our enemy. I Think Huff and Athena are our other 2 Melees at this point. Volstagg and Jesse are both ranged, and I am unsure about Coreys Cleric.

BEN: Anyone within 10ft of Roryin is immune to charms while I’m conscious.

COREY: I’m not an attacker.

BEN: I figured I’d stick next to Ulrich (basically playing Asil)

ARABUS: but the doesn’t mean your ranged……

COREY: I planned on being far enough away that I’m not in melee but close enough to move and touch a character if I have to.

ARABUS: there is no Ulrich.

BEN: What? I thought he was here.
Shit

ARABUS: No alanna, no ulrich.

BEN: I also have 40pts of healing I can dish out as Lay On Hands. Do we have any heavier armor in the Gallants inventory than Chain Shirt?

ARABUS: Gear I think Sir Roryn could use from Our inventory: 1 Breastplate, 1 Heavy Medium Shield, 1 light Crossbow, 1 Battle ax (As backup for his Umbakian Broadsword), 1 death willow grub (Although that may not work with the Paladin mindset).

BEN: I have no dex mod. hah, answered my question

ARABUS: Unfortunatly we have no Heavy Armor.

BEN: Breastplate helps a lot though. And a heavy shield.

ARABUS: We also have an Item I got Athena to trade with the Lizardfolk for. I’ts an ‘Eelskin Sheath’. It’s basically a one use body sheath that gives 1 resilience. You have to boil it until it malleable then stretch it over your self and it hardens. Kind gross and wierd, but life saving. I believe it only last a month.
Does Athena need armor?

BEN: Kinky. I like it. My save DC is only 13, so I probably wont land any offensive spells. Any preferences on selection? My default is Bless and Shining Smite

ARABUS: I’d recommend those and DEFINITLY spiritual weapon. Do you have access to any slowing or movement halting efects?

BEN: I can only hold concentration on 1 spell as i’m encumbered, but Shining Smite is like Guiding Bolt for up to a MINUTE, giving all attacks advantage, bright glow, and cant go invisible. Worth it.
Spiritual Weapon is unfortunately not a paladin spell.
Do we know if they use poisons?
Does anyone want to get married for buffs?
Jesus, everything good for a paladin is concentration.

ARABUS: I’d almost say just take spells that negate penalties and focus the rest on smite….what about Aid? thats not concentration, and it could be prepped in advance.

BEN: 1st: Bless, Protection from Evil (class), Sanctuary (class), Thunderous Smite. 2nd: Aid, Lesser Restoration (class), Protection from Poison, Shining Smite, Zone of Truth (class) Arabus, I also have this: Hearthlight = super holy symbol, potential Holy Hand-Grenade of Antioch. But as they’re not undead, slightly less effective as a grenade.

ARABUS: Protection from evil will not work in the encounter.

BEN: I know, but i can’t unpick it, it’s from my class archetype.

ARABUS: I’d reccomend using this for the Potion of Invulnerability option. oh crap… thats on TOP of the heroism and advantage of saves vs undead.

BEN: That’s what I figured. Make me a walking Spirit Guardian

ARABUS: just protect the shit out of people and hit the bad things. I’ll slow it down and give advantage where necessarry.

BEN: Breastplate has 2 resil, right?
So my plan on the start, if we go the surprise route:
Round 1: Aid on the frontliners (+5 max HP, 8 hours)
Round 2: Bless on the long-range (d4 to attacks and saving throws, 1 min Concentration)
Round 3: Imbibe the Hearthlight, then Sidle up to the lightest-armored front-liner to give them shield cover and donkey-punch anything that gets too close.
If they summon undead, I’ll Turn the Unholy. If they don’t by the 2nd round of combat (if i’m still alive) I will use Sacred Weapon to give me +3 to hit and shed bright light.
Burn any remaining spell slots on Smites.
He’s old and retired and wants to live, but he understands how dangerous these foes are to the world and he made a vow to give everything he could to stop them. He repays his debts, or will die trying.
Sorry for spamming with notices this evening. I’ve honestly haven’t had time to do this before now.

ARABUS: Better now than day of. I started a new job yesterday and it seriously cut into my prep time. If I’m lucky I’m off work around 6 tomorrow, but this company is known for it’s incompetence and lack of concern for the public, we’re concerned we’ll have the road by the MV hospital closed until 9 pm.
Crap. wasn’t trying to vent there, just saying I understand.

BEN: Is that where you are?! You’ve been fuckin’ up my whole week!

ARABUS: just stay off 15th and your fine.

BEN: I know, I just keep forgetting until i’m about to turn on 15th and then have to circle a couple of blocks to get around it. I’m right on Skagit so it’s my direct route to the stores.

ARABUS: ok. Jesse setup for the varying ‘starts’ Mendollin Setup –
Immediately attack: Mirror Image, Help Action.
1 round Prep: Mage Armor?, Hide
3 round prep: Mage armor?, Mirror Image, Silent Image (Either terrain or a rolling ‘root’ ball grabbing out at everything)
and Mephers setups
Immediately attack: Scorching Ray (Thunder), Bonus Action 10 ft fly, move towards enemy (Do this first if it will put you within 10 feet of enemy.
1 round Prep: Animate Objects
3 round prep: Mage Armor, see invisibility scroll, Animate Objects,

ARABUS: does anybody have any damaginbg potions or one shot items in the crestwold group? I could have Jesse catapult something as a means of delivery as well as adding damage.
Oh FUCK!!!!!! one of the crates of faerie dust from the druids!!!!!!
ok. Jesse may be using the catapult spell to launch the faerie dust at our targets. No concentration faerie fire if the target fails their saving throw. Which means advantage on all our attacks and toad faced dog cant turn invisible.
but please submit other ideas.

COREY: What would the AoE of the explosion of the fairy fire crate be tho?

BEN: I didnt ask how big the room was, I said, “I cast FIREBALL.”

ARABUS: made less relevant by the ability to do it at range rather than in melee only. BUT! it turns out it’s a bag, not a crate. the normal area is a 5×10, so 2, 3 targets max. Given the effect of impact from the catapult spell I wouldn’t bat an eye if our gm said it only affected the one target. This could be useful and limiting at the same time.

ARABUS: YOu know how I said we should go for the 3 round option for the ‘prep/start’? What if you go for the attack right away option and have everyone (12th level characters included) appear in front of toad faced dog by spending the singular character weave, and then instead of dividing our efforts right off the bat, we just have EVERY character nuke the living shit out of Toadfaced dog for the first round, then have the Raiding Larkers go after Mendollin?

BEN: I… are we allowed to do that?

ARABUS: why not? the parameters have been set. Lets kill the familiar/brains and eliminate the need for the background force (our main characters) to pretend that they are pivotal to the situation. Also it might throw berger for a loop. to be clear. ONE round. if Toad faced dog isn’t dead at the end of it, it’s the Pin feathers job to finish him off, and the raiding larkers focus everything on Mendollin. We caanot let them get within 60 ft of eachother.

BEN: I’m good with that!

ARABUS: Anyone else?

ROCKY: Okay I just got caught up with all this.
As for Athena she can be ranged or close combat. It doesn’t matter. My bow is bad ass.
As for armor, I have studded leather. I can only use light armor as well.
Does toad faced dog have anything that can stop my sneak attack?
Cause if he doesn’t I’d love to try and get to invisible and close in on him and try and get a critical with my bow

ROCKY: I also have close quarters shooter.
The biggest thing I could ask for would be maybe the demon leather armor?
As for the 12th level fight. I have no idea how my tempest cleric is ganna do

ARABUS: Has athea bathed in cold eye lake?

ROCKY: I don’t think so.. I’ll have to double check with Berger. However I am a follower of sssilynn; I’m double checking with Berger about it. Given I was raised by the druids and the lizard folk
… I have not done that ritual so the demon hide won’t be useful

LARRY: I’ll be in the mix… & making character Friday onsite. Been meaning to bring “little billy snitch” back as a revenge antagonist for the torture & foot maiming… Sir William has some serious payback to deliver…

ARABUS: Thats fucking awesome. Way to make it personal Larry.
The demon hide will not work for anyone who hasnt bathed in cold eye lake. But I can have Jesse pass the Tauras armor your way.

ARABUS: Gear for the raiding Larkers: we have a potion of growth, an oil of sharpness +2, and an oil of sharpness +1. I think i the +1 oil of sharpness should go to ben or larry, the +2 to corey and the potion of growth on corey. Let me know what you think. and please get your final votes in on the surveys. we will NOT have time at the table to deliberate this stuff tomorrow. No immediate decision means Berger throws us to random chance. ANy plan or idea is useless if you don’t even get to choose where or when you START trying to implement your plan.