Chat Summary for 23 September 00

I’m going to put everything at face value into one chat summary this time. Everybody please keep IC and OOC knowledge separate. If you are unsure if your character knows about something please ask.

The IC Situation: The Truth Seekers are battling another party in the depths of the Underdark. Several party members from each side are down.

The OOC Situation: We did end up splitting the chat session windows last night. It was… hectic. Several of you voiced your displeasure about each round taking around an hour and a half to complete. I did what I could, but I spent a lot of time reading spell descriptions, trying to make intelligent decisions for the NPCs, and coaxing information out of the Others, who aren’t accustomed to our chat methods. I was purposefully taking it slow so as not to make any critical mistakes. If you can’t deal with that then give me your intentions in an e-mail and I’ll do my best to have your character accomplish those tasks during the chat session.

I got real tired last night of people questioning whether or not I was doing things correctly. If you think something is wrong, mention it. I’ll check it, and if it is wrong I’ll correct it. DO NOT keep going on and on and on about why you think I’ve calculated something wrong. You do NOT know all of the parameters people are operating under, I do. Some of the things the Seekers did caught the other party by surprise as well (like Nikki’s extended range Color Sprays). These are not cookie-cutter monsters that you know what their abilities are. There are spells in operation, specializations in place, magical weapons, etc. Basta!

What happened:

We ran through two rounds of combat last night after getting started late. I’ve considered writing this up prose style, but it would take a long time to recreate what happened phase by phase. Instead I’ll take it round by round and within the round character by character.

Matar was still held for most of the first round of combat. He was then freed by Katrina and got to his feet. He also got a little boost from one of Nikki’s surges (an Aid spell is operating on Matar right now).

Katrina got her bow restrung, but then decided to use her “Thieves’ Friend” ring to dispel the effect holding Matar captive. As she was doing this she was backstabbed by Prentyss.

Sane decided to pull out the big guns. He drew his Wand of Fire and toasted Crystenna, destroying her scroll in the process.

Shadow fired twice this round with arrows of blinking at the trollkin. Neither shot hit.

Ari ran forward to get within the range of a Dictate spell.

Diana wanted to crawl over behind Thengal, hoping that the dwarf could cover her. But before she could get to safety Groznyj hit her with the flat of his blade, knocking her out. (OOC: yes, I handled this wrong. The attack should have been in Diana’s initiative phases, not Groznyj’s, and should have been an attack of opportunity (moving away from a threatening opponent) rather than a normal attack. But the result would have been the same.) Diana is unconscious and bleeding.

Castinar wanted to cast Charm Person on Quad, not realizing that the skeletons would be ready to attack him so soon. Only one skeleton got past his guard, but that was enough to disrupt his spell.

Amber listened closely to Dac’s plan, fully agreeing with it, but as the pair turned to go take care of Diana Nikki hit them both with one of her super-charged color sprays. They both went down.

Nikki, in her guise of a halfling thief, moved into position and then blasted several of the bad guys with an Azure-enhanced Color Spray. She got Dac, Amber, and Umlith (the drow male), but just missed Venom, the drow female. She then moved over to where Dac and Amber lay.

Thengal didn’t have much luck. He missed on his first strike, getting his ax stuck in the rock floor. He spent the rest of the round pulling it free.

K’harn laid into Thump. She hit with three of her four claws, doing a fair amount of damage.

One the other side of the battle Thump managed to free himself from the Stony Grip and take a couple of swipes at K’harn, all of which missed. He also managed to injure his left hand, slowing down his attacks with that claw.

When Prentyss saw that Katrina wasn’t going to fire again she decided to backstab the archer instead, which she proceeded to do.

Dac convinced Amber that they should go over and help Diana. Amber was going to heal Diana while Dac bound her so that she would no longer be a threat. However, Nikki’s color spray put a quick end to the gunslinger’s plans.

Farayenel got into place and used her scroll to cast a spell.

Groznyj knocked Diana out before she could crawl away and then turned his full attention on Thengal. He wasn’t able to hit the dwarf this round.

Crystenna pulled out a Scroll of Polymorph Other, planning on turning Thengal into a rat. But Sane’s fireball both disrupted her spell and destroyed the valuable scroll.

Quad cast Heat Metal on Thengal, but the fighter’s magical dwarven armor proved impervious to the spell.

Harag got his second pre-planned spell off, turning a pile of sticks into snakes, creating a pit of a dozen different snakes.

Umlith was knocked down by Nikki’s spell. Venom turned away from her fallen comrade when she finally sighted her prey. She used a magic item and vanished.

And finally the skeletons moved around Castinar. Only one was able to hit him, but that proved to be enough to disrupt his spell.

ROUND TWO (round 4 of combat)

While weak from loss of blood, Matar bravely faced Thump. Between he and K’harn they were able to hit the trollkin three times and do respectable damage. For the first time Thump started to look a little concerned.

Without even looking Katrina lashed out with her hands at the rogue behind her. She hit once, but did no damage, suspecting a stoneskin spell. When Prentyss leaps away Katrina follows her, striking once again but missing.

Sane decided to keep a good thing going. He threw another fireball into the mix. This one killed all of the snakes, but didn’t even scorch the skeletons. Quad and Umlith were also unaffected.

Shadow was getting ready to fire into the melee again when Hunter spotted Fara up on the ledge. Shadow adjusted her fire. She hit Fara once, but the arrow just bounced off of the slyph.

Ari was getting ready to cast her spell when Shadow called out a warning behind her. Turning, Ari sees a curtain of shadows behind her, and a pair of eyes within the shadows. Her eyes widen as the shadows suddenly rush forward and envelope her. She doesn’t even have time to scream. The shadows then fade from view. Ariessus is gone. From the front of the party K’harn screams when she senses that Ari is gone.

Realizing that he was feeling weak and was surrounded by skeletons, Castinar decided it was time to leave. He started to shape change. He originally planned on morphing into a snake and blending in with the snakes created last round, but when Sane’s fireball takes care of the snakes he changes instead into one of his preferred forms, a sword spider.

Nikki lets loose with another color spray. This one takes out Quad. The mage staggers backwards and then falls to the ground. He then proceeds to turn to stone along with everything he carries.

Thengal and Groznyj go at it. Thengal gets a solid blow in, but is injured in return.

This round Thump turns his attention to Matar. He manages to hit the warrior twice but takes three good shots in return.

Prentyss decides to get away from this archer. She springs backwards, but Kat unexpectedly follows her. Prentyss has no intention of standing toe to toe with her opponent, so she goes invisible.

Farayenal has a rather productive round. She realizes that the “halfling” down below is the primary threat, having taken down three of her group already. She starts shooting her arrows at the halfling. The first misses, since Nikki is wearing a Cloak of Displacement, but the other three hit. The arrows do considerable damage, and Nikki finds herself badly injured. What’s worse, she can feel some kind of poison slowly spreading through her body. The arrows also start talking to her, telling her how bad the injury must hurt until a silence spell envelops the mage. Nikki staggers over to the wall of the tunnel and there collapses in a pool of blood. After collapsing the halfling morphs back into the form of an elven female.

Groznyj exchanges several blows with Thengal, the human hitting with both a sword and his shield punch.

Crystenna ignores Farayenal’s request to use her Wand on Sane. Instead she goes for the safe action, casting invisibility on herself.

Harag also realizes Nikki is the primary threat. He casts Silence on her, but the mage makes her saving throw and the spell proves to be static.

Finally we have the skeletons, one of which once again manages to injure Castinar. The ranger doesn’t have a whole lot of hit points left… but at least he wasn’t the first party member to go down this time. <g>

So, that’s where we stand right now. Situations:

Matar: free to fight but hurting. One more good strike and he goes down.

Katrina: knows the thief must be somewhere near her, but not exactly where.

Sane: no longer smoking, visible, has his Wand of Fire in hand. Because of Sane’s location and the fact that he had most the round to look around he is pretty much aware of the situation and what is going on. He doesn’t know what is happening with Kat, but he did see Ari vanish.

Shadow: set up for sniping, also aware of most everything except what is happening behind her.

Ariessus: ???

Diana: unconscious and bleeding

Castinar: in spider form and badly injured. Unaware of most everything except for the skeletons around him and that Nikki has been casting color sprays all over.

Amber: unconscious

Nikki: laying in a pool of blood in the corner, back in normal form

Thengal: hack and slash, has a good idea what is happening in the north end of the map, but nothing behind him.

K’harn: looking around frantically

Thump: down under 1/2 and concerned, but smells victory in Matar’s blood

Prentyss: invisible, short sword still in hand

Dac: nappy time

Farayenal: has good idea what is happening all over, bow in hand

Groznyj: hack and slash, aware that Matar is up behind him

Crystenna: invisible, wandering around somewhere

Quad: nappy time and turned to stone

Harag: without a ride, trying to decide what to do next.

Umlith: nappy time

Venom: ???

Skeletons: attacking Castinar

That’s pretty much it. Again, I’m only putting up one map. If a character is in parentheses they are invisible you do NOT know where they are (unless you have some way of detecting invisibility). The outline of a circle is the Silence spell, which only Nikki is aware of. As far as the colors of the names go it is pretty much standard - gray is dead or negative/unconscious/bleeding, red is injured, blue is under the effects of a spell, purple is both injured and under the effects of a spell. Everybody use the map at http://www.xmission.com/~saif/night/combat.gif If you have any questions about the map or grid or the summary be sure to ask.

Let’s get two rounds of combat in during the week. I will post the next turn on Wednesday. If your character has not posted intentions by Wednesday morning they will be NPCed.

So, intentions?

Saif