Feel my NerdRage!

Save it for the pirates, boys. I hope that you're ready for this. Let me know if you have any questions.

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Combat's going to be a little different than T2K. I'm not exactly sure how it'll pan out, but we'll make it work. I rolled initiative and the results were all low- if we'd been playing T2K, they'd be really good but in this system, they suck. That means the pirates will probably get in the first shots.

When the fight starts (I'll post the set-up turn after Keys gets his first turn in), the combat turn order will be:

Nic
Gronk
Jenna
Corros
Ulfgar

Some other passengers and crew will probably join in on any attempts to fight off the boarders but you needn't worry about them.

If you're so inclined, feel free to talk strategy in the OOC- that's what would likely happen at the table if this was a FtF game. If you'd rather just let it all play out IC, that's fine too, or mix it up however you see fit.

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In reply to Raellus (msg # 14):

So just so I make sure I'm understanding this correctly, I presume that means

a) We have to post in that order

and

b) those lower down the order can react to actions of those higher up the order? E.g. Jenna can react to something Nic does, Ulfgar can react to something Jenna does, etc?

Yeah, let's try that out and see how it works. If it turns out to be too clunky, we'll try something else next fight.

EDIT: I just rolled initiative for the pirate boarding party. It turns out that y'all will be going before the pirates. Makes sense- you're waiting and they have to come to you while boarding.

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This message was last edited by the GM at 22:56, Mon 05 Oct 2015.

Sorry for not posting yet.  I'm having access issues to a computer.  If all else fails, I'll try to get an iPhone post up tonight

No worries. There's no need to rush.

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So the pirates' action this turn will be to board and attack, yes?  If so, then we have the option of taking some ranged attacks (for those of us with ranged weapons or spells) or setting up to smack them in melee as they come over the rail?

Correct. I'll have the galley close to bowshot range this turn and you can all take preliminary combat turns (ranged attacks or readying for melee), if you like. How does that sound?

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For combat, would y'all rather roll your own dice for attacks or would you prefer me to do it? Either way, I'd like you to describe your actions each turn. I guess you don't necessarily have to post in initiative order, just keep in mind that posted actions will be occurring in that order. Since I'll be keeping track of enemy HP and such, I'll most likely have to describe the effects of your attacks. I'm open to alternatives, though. If any of you have played this sort of game via PbP and have seen other systems for resolving combat that worked well, please do share.

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I'm quite happy with you rolling the dice. With regards posting actions and what not I'd envisaged it beforehand as going much the same way as previous games, so for example in this turn I'd post Jenna firing her crossbow at a pirate (clearly with slightly more description and what not) so my post would effectively end with the act the bolt leaving her crossbow. Next turn post would then describe whether she scored a hit or not.  In other words I call the attempted shot, you call the damage (if any).

I would probably prefer to post in initiative order though. I think otherwise it might get confusing if people are posting in a different order to the actions taking place. And given that there's only five of us and we all know that we know what we're doing it's not like we need to worry about a flaky poster holding up the whole process.

As the one who's most likely to have the highest initiative, I'd rather not hold up everyone else's turn posts if I have late duty or date night or a headache or whatever.

I've gone ahead and posted as well rather than wait for Gronk. Trust that's OK.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:55, Wed 07 Oct 2015.

Yes, I'm glad you did. I'd forgotten that Gronk was next in the queue and was waiting for someone else to post.

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Round 1 is up. Please specify your targets in the combat tag of your next turn post.

There's no need to keep to initiative order this round, since every PC has an immediate target (i.e. his or her current assailant), so post when ready. Let me know if you have any questions.

Oh, and feel free to tell Gronk what to do. He's currently enraged- with 22 HP remaining and resistance to damage, he'll make a good meat shield. He's currently heading towards the unengaged pirate boarders.



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This message was last edited by the GM at 15:34, Sat 10 Oct 2015.

We need a Gronk Control Officer.  Won't be Ulfgar since he can't talk when shifted.

I hereby award Spartan/Ulfgar an Inspiration Point for his cracking IC post which includes both amusing video clip and helpful link. My Inspiration Points never expire, so keep it as long as you like or spend it right away. Keep in mind that players may only have one IP at a time, though. Enjoy!

@All: I rolled a d6 for everyone and adding the result in GP to your respective purses. It just didn't seem realistic to start with such identical, round numbers and it felt wrong deducting GP.

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This message was last edited by the GM at 16:35, Sat 10 Oct 2015.

Turn is up. Thanks for getting your IC posts up so quickly. I don't expect that we'll always keep this blistering pace, but it's fun when we can.

I rejiggered the turn order a bit, using posting order instead of initiative order to resolve the action because the former worked more to your advantage. I hope that's OK with y'all. One thing you might want to consider for future fights is coordinating your actions a bit more, either IC or via the Tavern. It's no biggie but two of you attacked a target with 1 HP remaining. If I hadn't done a little GM'ing improv, someone would have lost a turn and a second pirate would have had the chance to take an action. I hope I didn't cross any boundaries there.

The fight's not necessarily over if you'd like to take to the offensive. The odds are definitely in your favor now. If you don't pursue this turn, the galley's remaining crew will very likely cut the grapnel lines and attempt to get away. It's your call though. There's always some risk that goes along with any potential rewards.

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My fangs are scraping the keyboard and I'm mostly in favor of counter-boarding and pirating the pirate ship, but I'll go with the majority opinion.

IC Jenna would favour boarding the pirate ship. It's in line with her character - here's a chance to kill (or capture so they can be lawfuly executed later) more bad guys. The chance to rescue some slaves is the icing on the cake. So she'll be all for taking the fight to them.

OOC I'm happy to go with the majority view (but Jenna will sulk like a teenager if she doesn't get to bless some more pirate skulls. And maybe stamp her foot.)

If we are boarding do you want me to have Jenna do some battlefield first aid this turn or do you want to wait?

Yeah, let's free the slaves.  Slavery is the suck.  Fuck that shit.  Let's kill that fork-bearded trafficking-in-persons bastid.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:49, Wed 14 Oct 2015.

Take the ship.  Free the slaves.  Be heroes.  Get rich.

Okay, maybe not the last.

Fight's not quite over.

I'll be out of coms all day tomorrow and most of Saturday. The wife's graduating from her masters program and we're all driving up to Phoenix for the ceremony. I should be back in the loop by Sunday afternoon.

I hope that this battle hasn't become too tedious. It kind of got out of hand; I chalk this up to my inexperience GM'ing this system/type of game. You're all doing great, though, so keep up the good work.

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This message was last edited by the GM at 02:06, Fri 16 Oct 2015.

Turn's up. The battle is over. Decisions need to be made.

I'd like your feedback. What did you think of the fight? As I mentioned before, I thought it got a little tedious but that was all my fault. Would you rather I moved all of the rules-speak stuff out of the narrative?

I noticed that you guys didn't talk about the battle OOC. Is that a trust thing? I know that we all pretty comfortable writing with one another by now. I know that table talk is a pretty prominent feature of gameplay in the FtF game I participate in. AFAIC, it's not metagaming as long as it's short and sweet and could be shouted during the RT a combat turn is supposed to last. Then again, in that case, it can be done IG as well. Don't take this as admonition because it's not. I just don't want y'all to be holding back because you think that I think that something is verboten.

Let me know if you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, or effusive praise for me.

Oh, and I thought that this might be appropriate to share here:

http://io9.com/the-weirdest-an...e-of-armor-510686611

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This message was last edited by the GM at 03:09, Sun 18 Oct 2015.

I thought the fight was good.  I think always fighting in Bear from will get pretty old for me personally, but there are other forms to assume, so that will add enough variety.  I thought of staying in caster form and using some spells, but being at sea, For the first round, I was prepared to use Entangle to just keep them on the boat and let us have a few rounds of missile fire.  I was worried that Entangle would be wasted though (could the deck to substitute for 'the ground' as per the spell writeup?), so I just avoided that issue all together by going straight to Fozzie form.

Now that Ulfgar (IC) has seen Corros, Gronk, Jenna, and Nicolai fight, he'll be much more likely to utilize his spells in combat to buff/debuff, rather than always jumping into bear form.  Plus hopefully we'll be on land at some point, which will be better for a lower level druid since he can't assume aquatic shapes just yet.

One of the restrictions for animal forms is that you can't talk, so I think when shifted, I'll probably not initiate too much planning via that mechanism, since there's no IC explanation for it.  That said, understanding and following others spoke commands shouldn't be a problem, so I'm happy to go along with whatever is decided there.

I wanted to get more RP stuff in about how much is sucks to lose 13 hps all at once (just because you have 34 HP doesn't mean its not painful to get a beatdown), but since I'm pressed for time these days, I didn't get in as much as I wanted to.  Lots of hitpoints and low AC seems to be the downside of most forms and with the character I'm trying to explore the implications of suddenly being a bear, or spider, or whatever.

Alright those are my random Sunday morning ramblings.

TL;DR version great fight, looking forward to where we go from here.

PS: is that 1000 xp each and also, do we have a count of the Slaves (I'm either going to give them all my rations and water, or Goodberry them, because either way, I know they must be hungry/thirsty).