And cue @Cardamonelaw for comic relief.

@The Mighty Hero

No worries. The fault is also mine. My writing style is somewhat convoluted at times.
And can come across as condescendingly dickish, a flaw of being long-winded as I am in writing :I
Terse statements are easier.

consider trying these for mapping: http://pyromancers.com/dungeon-painter-online/

Dungeon Painter is decent (assume you'll use the online free version that sets up walls and stuff on grids and exports nicely to Image formats) A bit tricky to construct good places, but they look really nice.

There's also I think some premade maps in the archives.

@The Mighty Hero

Excellent sounds like a good idea to hop up there. Crow Eater is an athlete, so getting up there should be no problems for him, I will now roll stealth combined with perception to see what he sees beynd the open door of the balcony.

Stealth: 23
Perception: 13

@VKAllen Assuming he didn't crit fail an athletics check to climb up high enough to see, you would see a dark bedroom, the bed is made, no one is inside. Candlelight flickers under the door, presumably from the hall.

Inside the room is typical furniture, a dresser and wardrobe with silver candlesticks and unlit candles.

@The Mighty Hero Can I use acrobatics proficiency instead?

@The Mighty HeroRoll20 is what I use for my maps. It's free to use, but paying also gives additional features (most of which are more useful in live games). I also have a few dungeon modules that I could zip up and send to you, if that would be helpful. They are sized to Roll20's grid sizes.

I hope this isn't taken poorly. I see where Dust is coming from with the railroad comments. I was hoping we would have a chance to talk (both among ourselves and to our NPC ally) before arriving at the mansion. I think in most live games, the conversation would have normally been easier to achieve, bit a lot of us are waiting for responses (either from other PCs or the DM), and things can get overlooked. I certainly do not envy your personal situation, and my heart goes out to you. I hope once things settle back into a rhythm, you will have the time and energy to give us a bit more info in the posts.

One typical suggestion I would give: unless something is directly stated to us, we don't know it exists. The DM posts are typically used in PbP to set the scene. I suggest writing said post without considering any DMPC's perspective, and then tack on his reactions and actions on top of the DM post. It's certainly difficult to describe every aspect of what the PCs see, but on the other hand, we do have Perception rolls we could make and questions we could ask. I think most of us would request that we would not need to ask for important setting information that everyone would automatically see, such as what Dust mentioned about how tall the building is, how many obvious entrances, what info is on the map of the manor, etc.

On the other hand, asides from a goliath and his basketball team of pooches (Air Bud: D&D edition?), no one has even really stepped foot passed the gate (at least until Crow Eater's rolls). So we would have limited knowledge from this distance anyways... but I'm not really sure what the distance from the gate to the door is, or even if it's bright enough outside to see clearly.

The feeling of railroading doesn't fully come from a lack of description. Our characters were discussing a plan in the tavern: to get more info on our journey to the manor and get to know each other ever so slightly more. In the next post, we were at the manor with the chosen plan not enacted upon. Again, I'm not trying to be rude or point fingers, just hoping to give constructive criticism. Perhaps one way in the future that this could be avoided would be to have the NPC monologue at us along the journey, explaining more info as seems fit, and then giving us a chance to respond one way or another before we are at our destination. The reason that conversation along the road is helpful is because while our group is in public and considering illegal action, they are less likely to talk about themselves; and while we are at the front door of the supposed enemy, everyone is more guarded or looking for danger. But as I don't generally believe in retcons unless necessary, I feel like we can all move forward and hopefully not have similar issues in the future.

@VKAllen Yes

@JBRam2002 Your criticism was not taken the wrong way. The only reason I had an issue with the earlier criticism was not the criticism itself so much as the way it came across. And there is a bit of a learning curve moving from live RPs to online forum. I did rush to get things out because I didn't want interest to die down in my absence as I don't have a co-gm to carry things on if I'm not available to post. I will in the future be attempting to get other visual aids or slightly pre-made posts that describe pertinent information as we move forward. If anyone needs something from me today post wise it won't be up today because of the holiday. If it's something I can answer OOC then by all means, let me know and I'll set you up best I can but IC I will not be posting today.

@The Mighty Hero The result for Acrobatics was 16.

@VKAllen You succeeded. You would have had to crit failed to not be able to do it.

@VKAllen you discover in one of the dresser drawers a small leather coin purse (high quality) that contains 25 gold coins and a clear crystal of some kind, roughly the size of a quarter, its warm to the touch.

@The Mighty Hero

May I call for an Arcana check to investigate the ward on the door?
Ought to be better than a detect magic to understand the nature of the spell.
The party sort of already knows there is a ward there, and wards usually go under Abjuration.

Arcana check roll: 1d20 + 8 = 22

@VKAllen

Oooh mysterious shiny object.
If we have 15 minutes, to spare, Kethan can use an identify ritual to find out what loot you nabbed.

@The Mighty Hero

May I call for an Arcana check to investigate the ward on the door?
Ought to be better than a detect magic to understand the nature of the spell.
The party sort of already knows there is a ward there, and wards usually go under Abjuration.

Arcana check roll: 1d20 + 8 = 22

@VKAllen

Oooh mysterious shiny object.
If we have 15 minutes, to spare, Kethan can use an identify ritual to find out what loot you nabbed.

The ward on the door is an arcane lock spell. It is impassable until it is broken or the spell is dispelled or suppressed. You would need to address the identify ritual offer IC as I'm not sure strangers would just say "I found this possibly valuable item...can you tell me what it is?"

Are my posts too long?

Or do we enjoy them?

@The Grey Dust

My eyes personally adore the inky commitment your digital words marry to virtual paper.

Are my posts too long?

Or do we enjoy them?

I certainly won't complain about long and well-written posts.

@The Grey Dust There should certainly be no issues with long posts, especially when they add to the story.

@The Mighty Hero

Alas, the first Crit Fail of the game.

Attempt to perceive between open door crack - 5.

My posts will be short and sweet, I hope all of you guys are okay with it.

@VKAllen You trip over nothing (as people sometimes do) and stumble out into the corridor. The corridor is well lit by sconces every few feet down the corridor. To your left is a deadend a single door on the back side of the manor, it has a highly polished silver handle. To your right the corridor stretches the length of the manor. Halfway down the corridor is a double stair case that is unfortunately blocked by two guards who are currently staring at you. (Roll for initiative) further past the guards there are 2 doors on the left and 2 doors on the right of the corridor, they all have brass handles.

The area by the stairs where the guards were has a card table and chairs (they were already standing as they waited to see if anyone made it past the front door after the goliaths knock).

You do have other options in almost every encounter aside from fighting. You can attempt to flee or you can attempt to talk them out of fighting you (to varying degrees of success)

@The Mighty Hero Can we see him from outside the building at all?

@The Mighty Hero Initiative Roll: 10.

Could you describe to me what are the guards wearing?