[OOC] D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

[Norschtalen]

Oh shoot, that's right. Sorry, bad habit of mines. Guidance was a fire-and-forget buff that I always stacked with bless in my old campaign. I'll just have Kyra take a shot instead.

[Lucius Cypher]

@Hekazu

Alright, 20d6 is the max damage die eh? That's only about 28 hp to instant death then, since I'm at 12/14. 5d6 (Fifty feet) is an average of about 15 or so if the rolls are okay, so it's survivable. If Orchid could stab his harpoon into it's hide, which he'll do as soon as he gets on it, he can try to hang onto the rope while he climbs so he has something to hang onto in case he falls off.

Orchid is at least not going to give up until he can get a stab on this beastie! Though I do highly suspect that he's gunna die if he does pull this off.

[Norschtalen]

I honestly don't think you should do it Lucius. It's cool and everything, but even if this wasn't an adult dragon what you're doing is very risky for a level 1 character. I don't want you to think that just because he's level one that it's okay for him to die of early.

[Ryonara]

Yeah I'm with Norschtalen and Parum, what Orchid is about to do is stupid. You're not Los Tiburon, you won't be able to pin the dragon's wings, and I'm almost certain you'll still die even if you pass the save when it crashes. But I can't really force Orchid to stop IC, and I only regret not taking Feather Fall in preparation of this.

If Orchid somehow survives things, we're going to have to have a very serious conversation about his strategies.

[Lucius Cypher]

Ah you worrywarts, don't sweat it. Orchid ain't gunna die, at worse he falls off the dragon before he gets a couple of stabs at it. And if he does I intend to have him quickly reincarnate into a badger!

But just in case I'm also looking into another character. I'm thinking a fighter or possibly rogue class, still thinking about it.

[Norschtalen]

Please consider leaving the dragon if it tries to fly away. Even if you fall from 50 feet in the air, as long as you're within 60 feet of Kyra she can try to cast Healing Word on you. I'm sure Kyra would hate to see Orchid die in vain.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

On another note, I thought about Bless and the Advantage mechanics, and given how advantage and Bless are written (Advantage is rolling the d20 twice and taking the higher while Bless is adding to a single check), I believe one does first roll the two d20's, pick the bigger number and then add a single roll of Bless. Technically it changes very little, but that's how I interpret it. Do you people have other theories on the matter?

@Hekazu

Contains Excessive Optimization Theory

I would go with this reading as well, @Hekazu. For a number of reasons, but my logic is based on a process of procedures in particular. I would and do understand it that you roll to take an action, such as the Attack action, check for advantage (or disadvantage) and take that better (or worse) result, apply other automatic relevant dice such as Bless, have the option to employ any special modifiers such as Bardic Inspiration or Battle Master dice, then check for other miscellaneous dice, then add static bonuses such as one's ability modifier and their proficiency bonus.

Now, a number of these might be in slightly different orders, but I am fairly certain the first two - checking for advantage or disadvantage and then using that singular higher or lower result with whatever rolled automatic bonus after (only once) - are spot on.

You would be right that it changes little, but not being a mathematician I am not entirely sure if one way is better than the other. I am going to err on the side that applying Bless or a similar bonus to the end makes it stronger rather than weaker when advantage is taken into account, but as we've seen that seems to be the developer's intent. For some added intent, we will extrapolate that Bless is an effective +2.5 to attack rolls and saving throws. Given this is Dungeons and Dragons and we round down rather than up, this falls a lot more reasonably in line with a couple of other spells and effects.

Speaking from a paladin's hand at this, which a cleric could see as well, Shield of Faith is a +2 bonus to Armor Class; something that on average, assuming all is equal, not totally mitigate Bless' bonus to attacks. Why might I say that? Well, as the free SRD states:

If the total of the roll plus modifiers equals or exceeds the target’s Armor Class (AC), the attack hits.

5e SRD

So it is obvious they intend for attacks to land more rather than less, otherwise combats become more fruitless flailing about with less hitting for the heroes and the villains alike; this was true in previous editions, but many players houseruled it to "Defenders win on Ties" because it favored the players more. More conjecture on this comes from the fact that Armor Class more or less does not scale but proficiency bonus does. A solid Armor Class of 18 at 1st level means a lot less at say... 20th, where from proficiency alone the enemy only normally needs a 12 now to hit you - assuming they have no other bonuses like from Strength - rather than the previous 16 they needed.

Why is Bless so good?

The real answer for this is because it is a force multiplier. Three players will get more mileage out of it than its counterpart of Bane, because the spell will last longer, up to its concentration duration at most. Targets struck by Bane are most likely going to die sooner, because of being focus fired, and thus the spell's effect "ends" little by little sooner; monsters also tend to be more easily overcome by players in terms of volume, such as flanking against larger units or smaller units unable to survive a sustained assault. A competing spell of interest to a cleric is Hold Person, because if it lands the enemy is almost assured death by the party because all attacks in 5ft are critical hits and made with advantage.

But why isn't Hold Person as good, except against say, a singular enemy and even then? Because that is only one enemy that cleric removes from the fight, assuming they even fail the saving throw. "Solo" encounters, to borrow a Fourth Edition term are unlikely to fail their save and might break free before the party is in position to land their critical strikes. Next is going back to our force multiplier; Bless only gets better the longer combat goes on and the more attacks and saves it affects. Hold Person is also a 2nd level spell, meaning it isn't cheap; they realized how dangerous "Save or Lose" spells were one-and-one-half editions ago.

Bless also likes to favor combinations that are ideal with optimization, such as Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter, because it offsets their penalty and even more so with advantage, which is more or less the merit we measure them against. Compare this to say, Divine Favor, which adds a +1d4 to all damage rolls. In the end because of how Armor Class functions, hitting more consistently - up to, I think if I recollect correctly ~75% the time or so - is usually better than doing more damage albeit inconsistently. You can check this by looking at the hefty penalties of the two aforementioned feats; its obvious they wanted a risk versus reward element, but went a bit too far with the reward.

But when does Bless taper off?

For your cleric, it loses its luster as the "go-to" concentration spell for combat at 3rd spell level because of Dispel Magic, something most every enemy spellcaster would have, enters the picture. Beacon of Hope also appears here albeit as a more situational spell. But... you can go back an entire spell level and even look at Silence which can eliminate the majority of spells that can even be cast which are the real threat. For paladins? Heroism is a spell you want to cast if you can, because absorbing and mitigating damage is part of your objective as a class. If damage is your objective over a long period, Divine Favor might see you better, but in the end a spell based smite and the smite ability are still stronger because of their capacity to rapidly eliminate single targets. More or less, this means it is essential for paladins to use the Bless spell until you need Magic Weapon and its greater relative, Elemental Weapon.

There's one last major area to cover for Bless and that has to deal with concentration. The majority of clerics have been and are melee centric clerics or at least places where they can be struck. Intelligent enemies who are aware of the cleric or another spellcaster, tend to know those who cast spells are more dangerous than those that do not. But at its core, like anyone concentrating on a spell, the attacked must make a Constitution saving throw at DC 10 or half that of the damage, whichever is higher. Barring the paladin and a Unearthed Arcana sorcerer, no one capable of casting Bless is out of the box going to have Constitution saving throw proficiency; it is going to cost you a feat. Feats are expensive, taking away static bonuses, and not even always an option at some tables.

On a note that's mostly irrelevant for us given the build of our party, Bless favors combat classes. The more offensive oriented players in game that use weapons for attacks, the better the result it has in its returns. A single fighter, a wizard, a cleric and a sorcerer are not going to get much benefit from bless most of the time in comparison.

My point being, I totally agree with you and Bless is an awesome spell for the average adventuring day.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

Returning back to our current topic regarding Orchid, I am unsure just how well this plan will work out to begin with - if the dragon will even come in reasonable range or how it will react to being boarded by a harpooner. Reasonably, I imagine it is going to stay out of our effective reach, but at the same time I have no real idea what this encounter is intended to entail. Part of why I am having Brannor seek out if there's anything we are supposed to be using.

That said, @Lucius Cypher knew well the dangers of failure in this circumstance; death is all that likely awaits. Then again, being reborn as a badger does not sound like that bad an outcome. If we ever travel to the Beastlands, just as an example, most of us would end up as beasts in place of our race anyway.

[Hekazu]

The post may be somewhat rushed, sorry about that. At least I got it up in time.

Anyway, @Gordian Nought, you know the drill.

[Gordian Nought]

My banter will be live soon.

I'm sorry for the mechanics confusion. Actually, my intention was to have the raven cut its bond temporarily, due to failing under Frightful presence, before the start of Torus' turn; since it went first, the druid was utilizing his own senses, not the bird's, to mitigate the mess when he followed afterwards in the Initiative order. I'll edit my last post to clarify this.

As my understanding dictates, that feature can only last for one 6 second turn during combat, if not renewed. Does it not?

[Lucius Cypher]

And there it is folks. The moment of truth. Orchid vs The Dragon.

Now I'm going to be a bit meta here, but I know this isn't a battle we're suppose to win. Let's be honest; this is an adult dragon with no way any of us could take it down, even if we had a fortress of level 1 warriors giving us some covering fire. I have no idea how Orchid could survive if the dragon actually bothers to attack him, and the fall from here alone could very well do him in (Though fortunately rage does half the fall damage, so it might save his bacon). But for the grace of god I go.

In case you didn't already pick it up, but I have my good buddy Mumen Rider to thank for Orchid's courage. For those who can't watch the video, I'll sum it up as best I can: I think we always had the option to not fight the dragon. Realistically, even a young dragon would be too much for level 1's like us. Mechanically speaking it's pointlessly suicidal. Pragmatically speaking, we aren't even being paid to save this village. Kyra may have some investment since it's her home but even so, there's no sense in throwing away our lives for a fruitless endeavor. Honestly this entire mess in Greenest may be too much for just a small band of adventurers to handle. A gang of bandits is one thing, but I'm almost certain we face an army. But you know, if we didn't want to deal with it, our adventure would have ended back at the caravan, where we could have simply said no. Someone has to go and fight, and there just isn't any more time to wait. It sucks, because unlike Mumen Rider I don't think there's going to be a hero who'll come in and save us.

So we'll have to be the heroes instead, and do our part.

Sorry for the speech there, I just feel like this is probs something Orchid would have wanted to say in the very likely chance he dies. Perhaps if Hekazu is merciful, he could give something to this effect as Orchid's last words. Either way, my turn is over. Yo go, @The Harbinger of Ferocity.

[Hekazu]

@Lucius Cypher
I, uhh, hate to interject, but the dragon has continued it's flight since it's last turn. It is currently not in feasible grappling range.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

I will edit my post accordingly then.

[Lucius Cypher]

@Hekazu

That's actually why I had Orchid make a jump (probs should roll for that too, since I know the dragon is still airborne and not literally sticking to the wall or something. But I can change it to something else if that's not doable.

[Hekazu]

@Lucius Cypher
Yeah, jumping will not be enough for this distance. It's approximately 100ft. away now, counting the height difference and general distance. Even with the height difference being less of an obstacle for our Half-Orc, the rest of the gap is still too much to jump.

[Lucius Cypher]

Roger dodger, I'll throw a harpoon instead! Can I use my old rolls?

[Hekazu]

@Lucius Cypher
To be honest, I would rather have you roll again due to it being a different action. What was the range of a harpoon again? As was said, I have no books here.

[Lucius Cypher]

Because it's attached to a rope, it has a max range of 50 feet, but an optimal range of 30. Assuming that Orchid's movement wasn't slowed down while he was climbing, his last turn had him run back 30 too the tower, and use the rest of his move action to climb 30 feet. This round he did another climb up to 30 feet, so he's about 60 feet up the tower wall and closer to the dragon.

If he isn't, then I'll just have Orchid keep climbing. How tall is this tower?

[Hekazu]

@Lucius Cypher
Orchid will have made it to the top, it was about 40 feet of climbing. Let me make some basic trigonometry to find the distance. For simplicity, let us assume the dragon's current flying height is approximately equal to the height of the tower (while it really flies a bit higher, but I am no mathematician).

As per the Pythagorean theorem, in a right triangle we can find the length of any side through a² + b² = c². In our case, c would be the distance from the rest of the party (100 feet) and a would be distance to the top of the tower (40 feet). Thus we will have to find b.

40² + b² = 100²
1600 + b² = 10000 || - 1600
b² = 8400 || take square root
b = ~92ft.

That would mean that b (the distance between Orchid and the dragon) is roughly 92 feet, a wee bit far to fling harpoons. Also, if I use any terms that are off, please excuse me. I don't speak science that well in English, given all of my education has been in Finnish.

[Lucius Cypher]

Alright, I edited to remove any mention of grappeling the dragon, Orchid is now readying another action to chuck his Harpoon at the dragon once it is within range. Ideally 30 feet, but if it skirts at 50 he will still throw it.