Ysgard RP Discussion Thread

[Legendary Sidekick]

Addison was ready for a trap too, and I figured her plan was to fire the readied arrow and roll the shocker into the fray. She didn't expect the burlap sack. This might mean the shocker wasn't close enough to hit the lady. (GM call if more than one enemy is shocked. 5-10 foot radius from device, meaning anything within 5 is hit and some things within 10)

Timing: she would have fired at the men as soon as it was obvious the lady was no enemy. Burlap guy would get to her before she could draw her shocker, so she dropped to her knees to buy that split second she needed. The dragon distraction and the Lightning would happen nearly in conjunction, so that the enemy might think a dragon sent the Lightning.

 

[Nimue]

I'll wait for Ireth & Tom to post before moving things along, though if the shocker hit the man putting the sack on Addison, and it hits anything in 5-10 feet, wouldn't it have hit Rikhard and Troia as well? At least as I imagined them, piling into the clearing together.

 

[Nimue]

Oh, and I didn't put this in my last post because I didn't want to assume that everyone got sacked, so to speak, but once the sacks were on the immediate thing that the bandits would do, or try to do, is wrest the weapons out of their hands. Hope that helps as you're posting.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

It's possible that Addy rolled her shocker enough that she only zapped her own foe, and also possible she hit all of the bagmen and her friends. Well, the effect will wear off. Maybe Chrissy would need to save a zapped Troia while Addy's kept busy by the axe men.

GM call on who's zapped, or let Tom and Ireth decide?

I think it's highly unlikely Addy zapped her friends' captors without zapping her friends. Not impossible, depending on positioning, but unlikely especially if the bagmen are in the process of bagging.

 

[Nimue]

Tom & Ireth can decide whether their characters were in range--If they get shocked, I'd allow one other bagman (lol) getting hit, but not all three, probably. After all, they would have been on the other side of Addy, past Rikhard and Troia. The other seven bandits were in the middle of the clearing, so I think they'd be unaffected.

I'm starting to see why traditional RPGs have maps and layouts for this sort of thing...

 

[Ireth]

I envisioned Rikhard as being a bit behind the others, so he'd likely be out of range of the sacks and possibly the shocker too. I'll see about getting a post in to verify that. ^^

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

The roar of Thoros emboldened Rik! Nice!

 

[AkamaruGames]

I'm starting to see why traditional RPGs have maps and layouts for this sort of thing...

Yeah, combat can sometimes get crazy without them, particularly with AoE effects. Gotta know who is in and who is out of the effect.

 

[Nimue]

I didn't want to get too far ahead of things until Troia's caught into the action, so I hope this will do. The bandit lady's pretty canny, so you know!

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Addison isn't Loke, but with her Lightning charged axe, she only needs to hit the weapon... Which is much easier than hitting the person. I was going to have her take a wound, but I figured the fourth guy must see that if weapons touch, you go down, and if you don't have your guard up, you go down.

So instead I had Addison come to terms with having killed a person. I don't know how this will affect her after the battle. A few ideas, yeah, but I always deviate from my plans. Even today's work on the comic ended up different than planned.

 

[AkamaruGames]

Is she against killing people?

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

She never killed a person before. She had always killed beasts, and never had a reason to kill a person (until now).

 

[Nimue]

Er, okay, I guess I'm not really clear on Addison's combat skill--she just took down four men, without any of them even getting a strike in? To be frank, this isn't a scenario that the characters need to immediately win, and it seems like that's how you're approaching it. To wit, an attempted kidnapping rather than an attempted murdering. While I appreciate the feistiness, the odds of ten weathered bandits against two fairly untrained young people and a huntress who's never killed a man before leaves me thinking that at least one of the three should be injured or restrained by now. Instead, all of the three are unharmed, and five of the bandits are down and/or dead.

I'd be good with hearing some discussion on this, and it's possible that I've just massively underpitched the encounter, but at this point I do feel like there should be a little more stumbling than complete success. After all, in this style of play it's up to you to give your characters both successes and failures, rather than just fighting for success against an outside dictation of the odds.

 

[Ireth]

In Rikhard's defense, he's good at the dodging, not so good at the hitting... so it's entirely possible that if any of the bandits are still able to fight, one of them could get in a few blows on him. I left it open for that reason.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

No, I didn't forget that we're trying to write that battles so they end up being dramatic. Drama doesn't always have to be losing, turn tables, yay. It could be winning, turn tables, oh sh*t...

As for combat skill, it takes little skill to hit a guy's weapon by getting him to block a predictable attack. Without the lightning in her axe, she couldn't have taken on four men. And the fourth man knows better than to rush her as long as there's lightning in her axe. I expect red-skirt figured her out too.

I was thinking a throwing weapon or crossbow bolt would take down Addison, but I wanted to see if another player was about to be wounded.

 

[Nimue]

Heh, fair enough. Well, it looks like things are going to escalate a little more quickly than anticipated, for sure. I'd really like to get a post from Tom so we know where Troia is before I respond, but if we haven't got one by tonight around 10pm (and Tom hasn't popped in to tell us when it'll be up) then I'm going to assume that she was bagged and disarmed from the beginning, and go ahead with moving the fight along. Hope that sounds okay?

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Escalation was Addison's intent, though she may regret it. She fears capture more than death. I always thought Addison would freak out a bit once she crossed that line and killed. (She has experience fighting men. In one particularly bloody battle, her ally did all the killing while Addy used shock traps. It's not that she's opposed to it so much as she never had to kill because she had an effective nonlethal method. I don't have the experience to know whether killing would come more easily if you've been in a death battle before, but just happened not to do any of the killing yourself. But what Addison's doing isn't really easy on her.)

With men trying to catch her and a woman talking about selling her and her friends, Addison has no idea what cruel torture awaits her. Slitting the throats of men who were helpless (temporarily—the shock would wear off and they'd get up again) was her way of changing the stakes. She prefers a fight to the death over the cruelty she imagines the enemy is capable of.

 

[Ireth]

I've been having fun with dollmakers, and I doll'd a few of the group. ^^ See if they're recognizable by looks alone!

 

[AkamaruGames]

can't see the images it seems.

 

[Nimue]

Aww, they're adorable! And it's pretty clear who's who. Strikes me as a rather impractical fighting stance, though!