Yes, they are still surprised by him. Sorry for the inefficient communication. Faaid would also get the positional bonus (i.e. his weapon counts as one step higher in length) and the on rear attack bonus of +30.

I'm going to go back and edit, but the enemies are wearing Light Armor in case that affects anyone. The Man in blue has a leather jerkin and the half-orcs have leather armor.

 F
HO-MB-HO
HO-To-HO
Ah

Al

This is roughly how I imagine the fight positioning right now. F is Faaid, MB for Man in the blue cloak, HO is the half-orcs, To for Torstein, Ah for Ahvylyn, and Al for Aleesia. The actual distance for Aleesia and the melee is vague, but sufficient that a move half-action would be sufficient to get her into the melee or for someone disengaging from the melee to get to her. Not long enough to incur a ranged penalty for her bow.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:27, Sat 09 Oct 2021.

Oh, hmm, I've just noticed that my first attack was a light critical, so:

22:12, Today: Nozomu Inkaku rolled 7 using 1d20+6.  Survival.

Which means +4 damage and 2 bleed.

Maybe we should have bribed Aleesia to go Animist after all so there could be some Healing magic available.

Healing outside of magic is pretty difficult in this system.  As it should be.  But dang, a good crit will haunt you for weeks.

I actually really considered it. Particularly since at level 1, none of the Wizard's spell lore do much of anything (and nothing at all in combat). But on the other hand, it's not much better for an Animist (I mean, heal 10% HP? You won't go far with that... You'd need to wait for level 5 to actually be able to really heal...) and most of the Animist's Spell Lores are actually kind of meh.

I mean, I don't mind not being particularly useful in combat as long as I can still do some stuff here or there, but the Animist can do next to nothing. Sure, it's great after (assuming she spends all her points on the right Spell Lores for that), but in combat? Nothing at all.

You made a small mistake here, it's a lethal critical so rolled at +50.

Doesn't change all that much but still: Deeper cut to thigh. If the target's wearing leg armor: +3 Damage. If not, +6 Damage, 3 Bleed, Stunned, and -20 to all actions.

Thanks. I'll go fix that!

If it's any consolation, the Song of Tranquility almost worked. It was really close.

Well, I think we are in a bad spot then. Torstein looks to be pretty badly beaten. Facing any kind of parry, Ahvylyn basically can't attack in melee; conversely, she can negate any attack a single half-orc throws at her with parry as well. But that gets us nowhere fast. My deceive isn't high enough to feint. To be fair, I am a lot better at ranged. But I assumed we needed to take some pressure off Torstein here. Just, my Brawn is a dump stat for me!

I'm glad I went with the 3 point version of Battle-Hardened and put my highest roll into Fortitude.

But hey, I'm excited. This is fun!

Edit: I forgot to subtract the half-orc's defense from my roll but I don't think it'd ultimately make a difference. I can re-roll if you want, GM.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:16, Sun 10 Oct 2021.

Hmm, going to have to consider Lyn's combat style a bit more in the long run. Dabblers tend to be useless at a lot of things at low levels, though, so to be expected.

Is that due to their jack-of-all-trades nature spreading them really thin at low levels?

Alright, (if you don't mind GM?) I'm going to change one of my backgrounds to take the Healing Spell Lord thanks to Rogue Mage.

It won't do much of anything (and certainly won't help in the combat itself) but it'll be better than nothing.

I don't mind. Go right ahead. :)

In reply to Aleesia Valhorn (msg # 77):

Hooray! What can we do to thank you?

Well, if that is on the table, then I might want to switch about my backgrounds points just a tiny bit. Make Lyn more effective at combat.

If anyone feels like they want to make some changes, feel free and let me know.

Psst. Aleesia, it's your turn again, just in case. (if you're just busy don't worry)

Oh sh... I thought I was waiting in someone else...

I'll have a post up soon.

Oh gosh, such bad luck Aleesia. I feel for you.

Meh. Thankfully I'm not expecting to shine in combat, so it doesn't matter all that much.

Remember that you get to reroll any 96+ roll and add that to your total.

Just a heads up, I'm looking at taking a trip into the Grand Tetons, and will likely be out of service from the 20th to the 24th.  I'm still hashing out details, and will make sure to set any character expectations before I do leave.

In reply to Faaid (msg # 87):

Thanks for letting us know!