OOC Thread

[JadedDM]

Well, you're partly right, Breila. The game is dependent on teamwork from all four of the main classes. Had we no fighters or mages instead, for instance, I think we would have run into similar problems.

But don't worry about Horizon. This is hardly the first time she's lost a character in one of my games. Although I suppose this is noteworthy as the first death in my games since I came to Planet.

Anyway, there's an old saying in D&D. "Critical hits are the great equalizer." And that's especially true now. Critical hits can make a difficult battle a cakewalk, or an easy battle a slaughter. Such is the way of the game.

The real tragic thing is, Horizon didn't do anything wrong. It was very wise of her to seek cover behind the pillars. It was only very bad luck that a gnome got a critical hit against her, then went on to roll 15 damage.

Nevertheless, that isn't to say that there's no hope of ending this module with a happy ending. After all, if the party succeeds in capturing Crownguard and retrieving the sword, the Knighthood would surely be grateful. Grateful enough, perhaps, to call in a favor to Lady Crysania, High Prophet of Paladine...who just happens to live in Palanthas, a few miles from the High Clerist's Tower? Galenye does have a decent CON score, after all...

[Jenara]

I can be honest now, I actually cried a little when i read she fell. I think the word is devastated! - Jerrard.

[JadedDM]

Okay then.

TPK.jpg (37.12 KiB) Viewed 8582 times

Well, it's not the ending I was going for there, but it is an ending. Don't feel too bad about it. I was planning on putting this game on indefinite hiatus after we finished Knight's Sword anyway. Since Luna is leaving us anyway, so she can focus on her studies more; Jerrard's time is strained as it is due to his health concerns (which is why he nearly quit already before); Horizon and Breila are stretched pretty thin with all of the games they are involved in; and then there's me, and I'm getting spread pretty thin, too. Especially with Lost Souls coming up.

So...

But that was kind of weird. All of those critical hits. What are the odds of that? I have no idea. I've never seen that kind of devastating luck before. I just couldn't stop rolling them.

Nevertheless, good game, everyone! It may have ended in a spectacular failure, but we had fun up until that point, right? Any final questions, thoughts, feedback, etc.?

[Jenara]

And the lack of a cleric shines through....

I shall put this game in the inactive games this evening or tomorrow.

Jerrard is really sad, and would say if he wasn't so busy.

[JadedDM]

Well, give everyone a chance to say their piece, if they have anything to say, first.

Honestly, I don't think a cleric really would have helped.

Had Galenye been at full health, she still would have been taken down to -5 HP with that shot to the head. And likewise, Erastin would have been dropped to -8 HP instead of -10. Jinali was already at full HP, and still would have gone down (as she was just standing out in the open, an easy target), as would have Selowen. So really, only Karathos and Targin would have benefited from healing. And Targin chose not to spend any money on it while you were in town.

So lack of a healer might have played a part, but so did poor tactical choices...and just really, really insanely bad luck.

[Breila]

As to the odds of so many critical hits...

You had 19 attacks in total, 6 of which were critical hits. The probabilty of a critical hit is 1/20 for each roll, and 19/20 is the probability of any other result.

The probability for no critical hit is easy, it's 19/20 to the 19th power, or roughly 38%.

And now things get dicey... I'll have to ask Luna who is doing probabilities in Maths right now, and my husband who uses more maths than I do. Maybe we'll look into this when we're bored in the evenings.

[JadedDM]

Actually, 24% is much higher than I would have guessed.

So for those of you wondering, had the party succeeded in capturing Charles and Corya (I assume they would have at least tried to take Charles alive; otherwise, there would have been a lot of problems with two Rose Knights dead and no witnesses alive to corroborate the party's story!), they would have taken them back to the tower. There was also a chance during the fight that the Brightblade could have been broken, had Charles actually hit Erastin with it. The module suggests adding a whole new sidequest to get the sword reforged, if that was the case. Otherwise, Charles was to only use Brightblade for four rounds, then discard it.

His poisoned dagger was actually cursed, making him crazy. Had the dagger fallen into the hands of a PC, it would have started to have an effect on them, too.

Anyway, the party would have been welcomed back to the Tower. They would have been allowed to attend Charles' trial, which would have ended with his execution (beheading). Corya would have been handed over to the Palanthas authorities, but then escaped from custody, vowing revenge against the party someday.

Then would have come Kellin's funeral (as well as the funeral of any dead PCs). Erastin would have been knighted posthumously if he didn't survive.

Had he lived, though, then we would have played out the knighting ceremony in which Erastin became a Knight of the Crown.

Knighting Ceremony1.jpg (248.89 KiB) Viewed 8568 times

My original plan was to have Flint's Axe take place about a year later, in-game time, after everything had settled down and Erastin had finished his training. The spotlight in that module is more focused on Targin and Obsidian than anyone else (although not to the near exclusion of everyone else, like in this module).

My thoughts on the module's ending: I was pretty disappointed, actually, that the culprit turned out to be a Crownguard. To players who are new and don't know much about Dragonlance, that name means nothing. But to anyone who is a fan, they would have immediately suspected him. That's why I went out of my way to not mention his surname.

Honestly, if I had written this module, I would have made Crownguard a complete red herring. Corya, too, for that matter. I think I would have made Kellin the real thief, and Crownguard the 'fake' thief. The party would have immediately suspected Crownguard upon hearing his name, and focused their entire investigation on him, only to find out in a big twist that he was completely innocent.

But that's just me.

[Nuke]

It was fun, I too am a bit stretched.

I did like the Targin/Erastin interaction, with me being the blood-thirsty dwarf.

Just one question, had I got my attack off, would it have downed Charles?

[Breila]

I needed to do a lot of twiddling with the maths and edited my post above. I had first hoped to approach it with no crits, than 1 crit, than two, thus narrowing the margin, then I realised I was getting to nowhere without a math book. The 24% chance Jaded mentioned are what remains if you take the series with no or one critical hits and substract them from the total, thus was a maximum number. I had posted it like that. As Jaded has correctly stated, it is way too high. Over a thousand times, in fact.

I couldn't stop thinking this over and so I took down the maths formula book from my hubby's bookshelf. Getting the formula out (and I checked it with 0, 1 and 2 critical hits I had calculated myself), it gives us a probability of 6 critical hits in a series of 19 rolls at roughly two in ten thousand!

Shows that even low probabilites are not nil...

Otherwise, it was fun playing Karathos, someone who does not have to worry overmuch about being hit - and yet it was he who got killed.

[JadedDM]

Just one question, had I got my attack off, would it have downed Charles?

Charles had 25 HP. Even if you rolled maximum damage for your critical hit (19), it would not have been sufficient to take him down, I'm afraid.

[Jerrard]

Frankly, I am disappointed, I kept this game up because I wanted to see where it was going, I liked the whole Galenye / Erastin dynamic, and the discussions with Targin were fun!

Having this game end as a TPK is rather upsetting.

[JadedDM]

Well, TPKing is never anything someone actually hopes for, of course. But sometimes these things happen. Without the threat of defeat, victory holds no meaning.

Still, TPKs are pretty rare. This is my...I want to say my third one ever, in over 15 years of gaming. I can't remember exactly, though.

[Jenara]

Moved to inactive.