On the road (D&d 5E Recruiting 1)

[EpicEclipse]

Everyone is good to have their weapons out, since you knew you were likely headed towards trouble chasing after this guy, and only Salazar mentioned a wardrobe change, which we established is fine he has is mail on under it.

[Flynnarrel]

Most definitely NOT fine as a set of nice clothes are in serious jeopardy of wrinklage, laceration, or unseemly stains. :-/


So, we are fighting Pirate Ninjas?

[EpicEclipse]

Not exactly. They are pirates who put on dark clothes to sneak through town non-descriptly so the town can't identify them as the thieves.

Otherwise they are rogue/fighters.

[Doctor Malsyn]

Ninjas? More like nonejas.

[Flynnarrel]

Salazar was the only one who's action was a Perception check. Kaine did a Tracking check and didn't quite find the trail, which Epic seemed to rule that Kaine didn't try parkouring up the building since he didn't have a tail to follow. (so Kaine should still have Inspiration as he didn't have to reroll acrobatics, in addition to the Bardic Inspiration from Salazar - an extra d6 that can be applied after a save, skill, or attack roll.)

[EpicEclipse]

And to be fair, climbing would be athletics, not acrobatics, parkour or not. (for future reference if you want to try and climb to get to the archers above. It's 15feet up, so you can do it in one move at half speed if you start at the base of the wall. If you use one of the pirates ropes they are descending with, you can climb it at an easier dc)

And I did not ask for perception checks implicitly. I asked for what your characters were doing to ascertain where their attention was.

So for Kaine looking for tracks, he indeed wouldn't have actually had the opportunity to scale the alleyway walls before the ambush sprung.

I don't tend to like to call for perception rolls as such since it tends to draw tooich attention "if no one spotted it, what was it we missed? Can we try again?" sort of situations. The only time I will specifically ask for a perception roll is if you are searching and what you might see isn't immediately obvious.

Ie: you don't need to roll perception to see a horde of mounted orcs across a field or columns of smoke in the distance. You might need one to see them hiding amongst the trees on a forest.

And FYI, even if you always always make a perception check as part of what you're doing, I'll modify the dc based on how involved what you are otherwise doing is, though dedicating yourself to keeping watch will have a lower then what you might consider the "base dc".

Ie: Salazar check was enough to spot the pirates, but if he'd only been keeping watch and not splitting his attention with inspiration, the DC would have been lower and he'd have passed by enough to let him warn the group as a whole.

So might not be a bad idea to have someone always keeping watch in situations like this for the lower perception dc.

[EpicEclipse]

In other news, Exile and Salazar act, then Pirates, then back to the top of initiative order;

Exile
Salazar and Kaine
Pirates (x6)
Kriv
Heart

[Doctor Malsyn]

Does the alley have anything usable for cover, while still letting me spot the arbalists?

[Flynnarrel]

Strict initiative order or whoever is before badguys can go in any order?

[EpicEclipse]

There are some barrels and crates, but they won't provide cover from above. On the other hand, the height and edge of the roofs give the pirate archers half cover.

Go ahead and post in chunks. If there are conflicting actions, it'll go in order of initiative.

[Doctor Malsyn]

Well... Considering . had previously rolled 3 20s in a row... Suppose some karmic balance was expected.

[McGuffin]

For future reference, if not stated otherwise Kriv will always use his reaction to use Fighting style: Protection ro intervene on behalf of an ally if he can.

Protection

When a creature you can see attacks a target other than you that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. You must be wielding a shield.

[Flynnarrel]

Since there's no battle map, you might want to specify who Kriv's within 5 feet of. (Salazar is kinda squishy.)

I just noticed, Kaine has a racial climbing ability, he can go vertically 30'ft, no acrobatics/athletics needed. He could make those crossbowman's lives difficult, no sweat. Especially with the ability to knock people off rooftops.

[EpicEclipse]

Just to interject, unseen servant only moves 15 feet per bonus action and if it gets more than 60 feet away the spell ends.

You guys had to chase that original guy, so the servant couldn't possibly keep up and would have been outside 60ft in moments. (if tracking by combat rounds assuming each did move and dash, the unseen servant would be outside 60 feet away by the second round).

So unfortunately that spell is ended due to not being able to keep up with the chase, so can't drop caltrops for you. Good tactic, just unseen servant isn't good for a chase.

[Flynnarrel]

Ah, we never specified how long we were running for. Understood. I'll edit out Caltrops.

In the future, could I have commanded the Unseen servant to Get in my backpack so that I might've run with it?


Does surprise keep others like Kaine from acting this round?