Digizel

Planescape: Search for Tir na Og

Tanrith seems to perk up at Azorigal's words. He smiled at the dragon, grateful that they seemed so up front and reasonable. He opened his mouth to respond, only to suddenly hear Raella--and very quickly afterward, Azorigal--inquired about his mechanical companion. And suddenly, his mood brightened considerably. Now the little lizard was practically beaming!

"OH!" he exclaimed brightly with a wide grin on his face. "Right! Agh, I'm sorry Zyrech, I totally forgot!" Tanrith spun around and immediately rushed over to the side of his mechanical companion. "Azzy, Raerae, this is Zyrech! My masterpiece!~ I made him myself from the ground up. I even made all the metal plating too! Zyrech, this is Azzy and Raerae, my new friends!"

At his introduction, the mechanical dragon bowed his head, but said nothing.

"I haven't figured out how to make him smart enough to think for himself yet," Tanrith continued. "So for now, all he can do is respond to specific stimuli with prerecorded actions. He can't take any complex action without my vocal instruction. But he can understand and process every word we say! He knows Common, Draconic of course, and even Giant!" As he spoke, he dug into his pocket, pulling out a small stone, holding it up to his maw. "Cool, right!?"

As he said that, he lowered the stone and fidgeted with Zyrech for a moment, sliding the stone into his mouth. "And if I inscribe a recorded message onto an object and put it in the latch at the back of his mouth like this, he can tap it on my command with his jaw and it lets HIM say it!"

"COOL, RIGHT!?~" suddenly came the voice from Zyrech's maw, sounding exactly the same as when he himself had said spoken those same words only a few seconds earlier. Tanrith flashed the pair a wide grin at that.

"Oh yeah, Azzy, you were wondering about the design, right? Well you're right, I designed him after a Blue dragon. See the horn here, and the frills on the side and how the spines look...? I immediately knew that a Blue dragon's what I had to base my design on 'cause it's the same color as Captain Stormclaw!" He chuckled again. "I mean, it also pairs well with me 'cause I'm the Lightning Fang, but that's just kinda icing on the cake, y'know? ...Aw man, now I'm kinda hungry...." He reached down and then patted his stomach a bit. "Forgot I basically haven't eaten all day today with all the stuff going on...."

And at long last, his nonstop tirade seemed to have finally come to an end. His passionate, almost babbling presentation stopping seemingly because of a mention of food, even if it was just a figure of speech. Whether anybody actually understood what he had said, or whether they were able to process it properly or not, one thing was easily understood.

He certainly didn't seem sad or depressed about the situation anymore.

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

@Digizel Saur notices everything that Fleur has just mentioned to the group, with one caveat: rather than seeing the mask, Saur is drawn to a pile of papers littered on the floor behind Teacher Ot's desk. There's something odd about them, but he's nots sure what.

Please roll an Investigation roll for Saur!

@wanderingwolf

Sure thing, but the Investigation activity says I need to roll a Recall Knowledge check that I can make apply, but I'm not sure which ones might apply to a pile of papers since I don't know what could possibly be on them.

Looking a bit closer, I'm realizing that the issue may be that these Recall Knowledge checks are tagged Secret. And this time I understand why, if I'm not supposed to know if I have one that applies or not without a success. So, here's what I think might be a good compromise, or you can roll for me, I'll leave it up to you~

Here's my roll on the die: 15
Arcana, Occult, Society, Lore (Dragon): +1 = 16
Religion: +3 = 18
Crafting, Lore (Kobold, Military, Cavern): +4 = 19
Nature: +6 = 21

Those are all of my Recall Knowledge results, so instead of asking what to roll, I just did all of them and will let you decide the highest one that applies here, if that works for you? If not, feel free to roll this one for me xD

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

@wanderingwolf Ah, just a 16, so probably not much to be found but what Fleur's already found, I presume?

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

Is it fine if Saur makes the same check? Perception is his best skill, so he should probably also attempt to have a look around. He'll gratefully tuck away the new potion from Starfinger and start his investigation as well~

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

Saur

"Hm?" Saur murmured. As he was rising to his feet again and beginning to look around and investigate, one of his companions approached him directly, carrying some kind of small container. The Tripkee held it out toward him and asked him to drink it. He looked down at it in the frogman's paws and considered him for a moment. This was the one who had taken a shot at the Flashbugs despite his orders to the contrary. In the moment, he had felt a surge of frustration well up within him, but...it worked out in the end, and it wasn't like he had any actual authority in the group either. Plus, he seemed to be apologizing about what happened now....

Saur reached his claw out and took hold of the potion, lifting it up. He unstopped the gourd and sniffed at it. Judging from the medicinal scent, it seemed like it was at least similar to what he was already carrying.... He contemplated simply returning it for a moment. As he'd already decided not to drink his own, he didn't want to take someone else's valuable restorative either....

"...Are you sure?" Saur asked. "We're not in any immediate danger and my wounds aren't so bad that I need to use up a valuable resource just yet. But I am grateful for the apology, so I will use it if you truly desire me to do so."

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

It's a little bit slower, but I think it works best to ask if a roll is applicable here in OOC (or even just asking what roll you WOULD make to get a certain wanted result, or if there even IS a role you can possibly make)...and then roll when you get the confirmation. It keeps things relatively easy to keep track of.

Plus, nothing is more disappointing than rolling a nat20 on a check you weren't supposed to make anyway, and it also eliminates that possibility xP

In fact, now that I think about it, maybe even attack and damage rolls should be done in OOC before a character's post is actually made, since combat can sometimes be very context sensitive. If your first strike downs a target, you're not gonna make a second strike on that target. And there might be nobody else in your range, so you need to do something else with your two remaining actions. Getting the flow of your turn ironed out before your post means you can now carry it out and flavor all of that however you want when you go to actually write your post, putting whatever little flourishes you want on the scene.

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

but I do want to offer a little leighway in the cases where a player may not fully grasp the implications of the action they're taking. If we were sitting across from each other at the table, I would do the same thing: "Are you sure you want to subject your teammates to splash damage?" I feel like the alternative feels like a "Gotcha" from the DM where I just announce the friendly fire.

@wanderingwolf

Yeah, I would agree with that. I suppose I was more referring to major retcons from a number of turns ago. If a minor retcon like that has to happen, I believe it should be resolved before the next DM post goes up. But yeah, stuff like that I'm totally fine with~

Hmm, on this point I'm less convinced. Saur's plan of attack may not be shared between the rest of the group. Reading the replies in this game is the responsibility of every player--it's why we're here! I think maybe we should leave it up to the player to ask in OOC if tactics have been discussed, if they are really pressed for time. Maybe a summary location where strategies have been posited and by whom is a fair compromise.

@wanderingwolf

Yeah, I certainly get that. I was definitely thinking about how in a live game, people would be talking above board about what the plan of attack is and whether or not each individual character would be privy to the plan. That situation is a little more messy in a PBP format like this where everybody's circumstances are different. But I think overall, I'm fine with the answer being no. Asking above board on the OOC thread is a good enough idea for me~ It certainly doesn't take even a minute to ask the question, so I've got no problem leaving it at that.

This is a good opportunity for us to discuss this here as a group. Do players care to have Blind GM rolls for Perception-based rolls? If everyone would like to roll their own Perception, we can totally do that, and I'll keep an eye on metagaming.

@wanderingwolf

Honestly, I really do like rolling the dice myself. It's what most tables I've ever played at do, and just expect players to not play with the meta knowledge and only have characters act on what they reasonably know. I definitely get the point of blind DM rolling though, because not everybody is good at keeping the bias out of their characters' thoughts. It has their ups and their downs.

If you do blind DM rolling, then it means you as the DM have to roll a lot more and are constantly going to have to go back and forth referencing everybody's character sheets, checking for feats that cover things, circumstance bonuses, etc. It also removes the excitement of hitting a high roll if we don't know what we rolled, and only get the result. But it removes those biases from the equation.

If you don't do blind DM rolling and let everybody else do the rolling for them and somebody knows they critically failed, then it does lead to those biases. But at the same time, everybody only has to keep track of their own stat sheet and only have to confirm which check to make.

I'm always in favor of having players roll the dice themselves and just kinda reminding them to not act on the idea that they probably failed (especially when it comes to stealth vs perception; even if you think you rolled poorly, you never know when the other guy could just also roll really badly). I just really like knowing my personal results so I can feel that excitement or disappointment. xD

So my vote goes for that, but I'm not against the alternative either.

---

On an unrelated note, I noticed an issue with Pathbuilder. When I modify my sheet, like when Saur took damage before or when I gave him those elixirs, it didn't save the changes on the sheet posted in the characters tab. Rather, it saved a completely new version of the same character. So if you click Saur's sheet, you can see that he still has 20 HP and no elixirs in his gear list.

But I updated it before and I got this new CS instead. On this, you can see he has taken 8 damage and has the 2 elixirs on hand.

Anybody know if there's a way to change this? Is this just a setting I can change somewhere that I'm just not seeing...? Or should we just put our CS's in the Characters tab in our own posts and update them as we go?

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

Saur

Saur watched as the flash beetle approached him again, seeing the thorax beginning to glow, the wings and mandibles fluttering and clacking...but still he held firm, and luckily, it ultimately seemed to pay off. The beetle began to show signs of calming itself, looking confused in the moment...before taking what he offered and scurrying away as quickly as its legs could carry them.

He smiled as he watched the beetle scuttle away and rose back to his own two feet again. His heart was still racing; judging by the strength of those mandibles digging into his body not that long ago, if that beetle had decided to go on the attack, there was a chance that it would completely tear him apart. But, luckily, it seemed content. He wasn't sure what it was that eased it, but he supposed it didn't matter at this point. And now, with the beetles pacified, Saur felt his racing heart beginning to slow down, the adrenaline of getting attacked by these beetles began to wear off...

It was at that moment that he winced in pain and sank to one knee in the water. He reached his arm back and gripped at one of the two bite wounds that had dug into weak spots in his armor. Now that the action was wearing off, the pain only just now began to register.

"...It seems we've set them at ease. They shouldn't bother us again as long as we don't give them a reason. I appreciate you all listening to me," Saur finally murmured lowly in common, his gaze drifting over to the water and away from the others. "I understand you had no obligation to do so. You have my sincerest gratitude.... Apologies if I put any of you on the spot, I suppose I fell back into habit."

As he spoke, he rose back to his feet again. He'd had his few seconds of rest. He was tempted to pull his healing kit out and start treating his wounds, but there was no time for that. He considered the elixirs he had been handed by that stranger for winning their "race" but he didn't feel the need to use those quite yet. He wasn't in any immediate danger.

And he had a job that needed doing.

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

Yeah I think I agree with Bean on this. Once we had things worked out, it seemed to run pretty well~ The only takeaway I think I care about besides those two would be future combat retcons and trying to avoid them if possible. Trying to understand how to make them is definitely going to significantly slow things down. xD

Because of aphantasia, I do appreciate the battle maps being brought up after every turn and a brief summary of the changes in the battle. It's hard to say how well it'll be run when we get into more complex combats where we are actually FIGHTING our enemies, but I think what we did here works~

OH, actually, a thought I had. I know we as players aren't supposed to know how much HP an enemy has or anything like that, but it might be a good idea to track some things that we know in the summary part of the DM posts. Like for instance, how much damage has been clocked on each target that we're aware of, if there are any active conditions in play, whatever damage resistances and immunities we have in play.... Maybe even a very brief summary of the party's current plan of attack if one has been stated, just in case a situation like Clan's comes up again where they feel pressured to post mid-combat, but are just really struggling to find the time. Reading through a lot of text all at once can seem kind of daunting, but if they just had to read the summary section of the DM post to understand what the party is trying to do without the RP and descriptive fluff, then it might help.

I know that's a bit of extra work on the DM's part, but...

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

Alrighty, if the change is just bomb isn't getting thrown, but the pellet was still shot, I probably won't have to change too much. Actions will still be the same on my end though, I'll just have to change up how Saur acts and what he said~

Or I'm fine with just not doing that and then just pretending like it never happened IC and not bother actually writing a different scene. However we want to handle the retcon is fine by me, but I'll await Wolf's answer before I bother xD