Y-Corner

You're a little better at listening because you're an elf, but it's not enough to figure out what they're saying.

well...same drill at this door as before? open, shoot, charge?

thats what i suggest, though we may want to take a peek first.

dont think we need to worry bout hatch in fireplace. i will keep potion on me since im the heal *****.

i pick up any loot we missed. (im not getting robbed of 20 silver cuz i forgot to say i pick it up, lol)

xDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxD

dew-de-do... ok, I'll let you continue (instead of busing out my crazy plan XD).

You open the door and see an empty hallway. It's about 50 feet long and ends in a T junction. There's a door 5' forward on your left, and another near the end of the hallway on the left. On the right, there's a door 10' ahead and another door 10' beyond the first. The voices are coming from the first door on your left. You can almost make out what they're saying, but not quite. The voices are definitely speaking orc though.

is anyone else listening?

i guess i will try to listen at the door with the orcs at it. (they must be pretty loud for us to hear them in the other room)
can i tell the tone? (angry, friendly, drunk, etc.?)
understand any words?

oh, and i suggest we set up with what seems to have become our standard room breaking strategy.

hey guys. POST.

EDIT: soemthing i just thought of. what with all these doors, it would be a good idea for everyone to try to keep a map, or for us to post one in the party thread. this way we dont have to say 'back to the that door' and jaegar grins with diabolic delight as he abuses our vague confusion. (as all DMs should and do)

=P

abusing confusion sucks XP If the DM understands, they should do what the players are trying to. I hate it when I'm playing and the DM lets me do something stupid because he didn't properly explain something (what?!?! the secret door that opened is in the floor?!!!! My character would know that and not go in >.>) Yeah, I hate sucky DMs who do that.

Other things I hate DMs doing include... (not necessarily in this order)

- playing stupid enemies smart

- never giving you an easy battle

- playing only enemies that exploit their player's weaknesses (but I dun wanna fight more crit immune enemies T.T)

- cutting corners on their evil villain's activities (How'd they heal up so easily? they have no cleric. How are the evil villains constantly communicating? They don't have the spells/magic items for it)

- forgetting that money is part of the game balancing equation (let's see... We'll start at level 5 so we have plenty of time for character building, but starting with only 9k GP is boriiing you can have 40k)

Fighting against enemies who are always a step ahead of you and a level stronger gets tedious. Being overpowered gets irritating (HR type irritating if it gets bad enough). I try to run a game that's mostly balanced as it was intended and has enjoyable opponents (not the HOLY-CRAP-FIGHT-FOR-YOUR-LIFE-EVERY-BATTLE type opponents some people in my group like to use.)

EDIT: oh yeah, gotta continue
Ben doesn't seem to be here often enough to play (gave him the opportunity to join nearly a week ago and he hasn't responded). I'll cancel the plot device I was gonna use to throw him in. (and mix things up a bit =D

here's a map of what you've seen so far. (all the black is unknown naturally)



answer questions...

The orcs in the room are speaking very loudly. It sounds a bit like a tavern (not quite that many voices, your best guess is 4)

now for the interesting part...

As you're all near the door quietly talking about what to do you hear a door open in the previous room (the one you hadn't examined yet XD). I pick a person to randomly be standing nearest the door to the great hall aaaand it's... Merrak. *rolls hide and spot checks* you're fine, they don't see you yet (naturally).

Three orcs walk out. One has a slab of meat on a plate and a mug, another other just has two mugs (third has nothing). They walk about 10' out the door before the first one pauses and makes a loud noise (orcs scream ugly XP). He drops what he's carrying on the table in front of him and yells "We gotta get Urglom!*" (naturally, he's screaming about the two orc corpses at the other table)

*in orc, but several of you speak orc and I'm assuming you translate for those who don't. Merrak is also the only one who sees this, I'm guessing he's describing it though.

We get to roll initiative again now =D no surprise round, you're all acting at the same time (you're surprised by the orcs, the orcs don't know about you yet... I'm just gonna call them walking in the surprise round.)

(full modified initiative this time XP)

20 Dracoth
18 Rhonal
17 orcs
11 Ulfgar
8 Merrak
8 Hadvi

I'll go make a map for this now... sorry about the "wall of text" sized post XD

The orcs are near enough?..Shall i shoot 1 with magic missile?

@jae - i agree with everything you said. i think your a great dm - btw i love the maps - thanks for saving us the trouble. what i meant about abusing confusion wasn't quite assuming there was no common sense. i meant things like if i were to say 'i move the bodies oout of plain sight,' then you wouldnt hide them so no one will find them, just put them behind the door - out of sight. Dm's souldnt think for the players. of course, this has its limits too, no fun having to spell out that you want to breath while walking if you know what i mean.

speaking of hiding bodies...

we need to take these out fast and quiet if we can. then hide the bodies. thats my favorite part. i believe its my turn.
i love high initiative rolls.

well, i think im a little too far away to attack with my bo, so i will pull my ranged weapon, and shoot at the orc that screamed. i think i can do all that, right?

btw - if someone is in my way and i can, i want to move so i dont shoot my buddy in the back. sorry bout the unsureness, but i dont know the movement rules so well. cant play too often irl.

yeah, you can move that way easily enough (you can move through allies spaces unless they feel like stopping you for some random reason). attack roll... *18* definite hit (btw, these are all grunt type enemies) damage *4*

aaand, no. you don't sucessfully hide after firing. they all see you now. I swear I'm gonna make that map now...

tadaaaaa


note: This new version doesn't have a proper save function (it only exports images) I have to remake the map every time. Since I was working from the last map I made, I forgot to include the corridor you're in now (sorry) none of you were in melee range anyway. It's kinda confusing how I had to do the doors also. You should be able to tell which doors are open anyway.

Since you can't see yourselves atm (^^') I'll describe it. Merrak is behind the closed door, all the rest of you are at least 10' away from either door (doesn't matter a lot, I'll give you specifics if you really need to know). Note that it's a move action to open the second door if you feel like it.

I can't wait till a proper version of this program comes out so I can erase stuff I added but don't want XP (ignore the imperfections in the north wall for now please.)

OMFG OMFG OMFG OMFG

did i mis my Q D:

*sneaks around, being Sneaky*

Yeah, you missed your cue XD they were originally going to be chasing you. I can still add you, but it won't be nearly so funny.

EDIT: doh >.< I wish my rl wisdom score was above 8 XP
I accidentally let Dracoth get skipped and then didn't take the orc's turns. ummmmm... it's been a while, orcs go now!



The orcs draw their weapons and advance angrily >:D rawr
also, [jedimindtrick]you will ignore the cut/paste patch job[/jedimindtrick] lol XD

now gooooo! Ulfgar!

note: I wish it was easier to see the grid pattern. Your speed is 20 feet so... you can reach any of the three near spaces of the closest orc. (you can reach the second orc back by attacking diagonally)

ulfgar's turn. post dammit. wake up guys. i dont want to spend 3 weeks getting through a room.

ok, well i already had my dwarven war axe out, so ill move infront of Rhonal and charge the closest orc =3

you can't charge (charging requires that you only move in a straight line) but you can move then attack. roll *7* miss =o

Merrak's turn

so does this mean i can finnallly do something other then standing around or moving? yay!
ok, so then i can attack the closest one si? if so, then lemme do it!
about time we put the monk to some good use

closest one. no problem roll *4* ohhhkay, that's a problem XD

that makes it Hadvi's turn