About the Third Session

So after reading the Maid Chat on Discord, there's a few things that I feel like I should talk to you guys about. This isn't me being mad or anything, so if it comes off like I am, I apologize; I'm just trying to clear some things up.

First, Vanir. Ali brought up that Vanir made things too easy, thinking that he was a level 9+ character while Dan hoped that he isn't a mainstay character. I felt like I should clarify a few things about the Vanir character. Vanir is a playtest character; I need a model to test this homebrew and the real only way to judge whether it works is to use that character model in game. Dragon Riders will be a thing in the custom game that I'm making, so I'm trying to deduce if the class should just be an enemy/ally class, or if it should be available to players to pick as well. It is meant to be a bit of an OP class (I mean, really. You have a fucking dragon on your team) and I'm working on functionality. Vanir is also a level 3 character. I realized a plothole in the story and had to switch Sense Dragon with something, and I chose Draconic Prowess (2 attacks) to switch it with.

As for the mainstay, yes; he will be a character that will be apart of the party until he dies or story happens. In combat that I feel the characters can handle on his own, Vanir will be elsewhere or he'll just watch, thinking that you have it. Vanir, in many ways, is a big red button, especially this early on.When I rolled for 15 bandits as a random roll, I felt that was extremely high for the four of you could not handle on your own, especially without Poofy there to heal you. I could have re-rolled, but, eh. That's the luck of the roll.

When Nour mentioned me being merciful so far in the game, she wasn't wrong (I even reminded you guys about Sleep). Some DMs actively like to kill off player characters for shits and giggles (mostly because it makes them feel like Gods). I don't. I want this gaming experience for all of you to be enjoyable. If you guys drop like flies every other session, I know many of you won't find it fun and not participate. Who wants to start over from scratch once a month? It's also the reason why I'll be giving you guys rewards for an event that Ali triggered so you guys are properly rewarded and can stay alive. Though if you die from your own stupidity, I can't help you there (Nour).

When we started that combat (which was an added encounter that I had no plans for), the bandits had multiattack, which allowed them to attack twice. I knew with 15 of them basically having 30 attacks per round with just the four of you, I knew that would have been a TPK or most of you dying in the combat (Nour). It's why I had 1/5th of the bandits on Vanir when Ali disengaged to fire arrows. I could have easily made those three chase after Ali and attack him at close range. I chose not to because then he'd be screwed, especially if I did multiattack like I should have. Poofy being gone sort of messed up the story progression and Vanir was crucial for that combat.

As for the pace of the third session, I have to remind you that I have to convert everything to text. Doing D&D irl or over voice makes things run SO much faster. For something I can say in 5 seconds in voice, will take me 20-40 seconds to type out, depending on the dialogue. If we all did voice and we did that same session, it'd take about 2 hours instead of 4 to do all that we did because doing voice is simply much, much faster. To add about the time, spending a lot of time dawdling in the same area will also eat up time. Ali spent a bit too long pressing Haili for answers when she already told him what she knew. If you spend too long in one place, it slows the story down to a crawl. As my DM puts it, when you have a clear objective for talking to someone, "get your shit and get out." Asking everyone about Healing Potions also eats up a lot of time when I have to answer to five people at once. From now on, I think we'll do a text order to prevent everyone swamping me at once for questions or buying supplies in the future. There were also events that you failed to trigger. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't (I was a bit miffed that the first thing you did when you got to the weapon shop was ask to buy shit instead of letting her know that you found her supplies. Come on guys, stay on target).

As Dan just realized, preparing for D&D is an extreme amount of work. You cannot just be random and go in with no plan. That's how a game becomes a mess. That's why I'm using books, which have a pretty linear story with cases of story branching and choices here and there. It's why I spend hours looking for maps and references for you guys to use and spend a lot of time converting the text from the book to on word so I can try to give to you right away instead of typing everything from scratch. You guys caught me a bit off guard by doing the bigger of the early missions right away opposed to the smaller side quests first. I wasn't quite ready for that (Also the conversation with Dan & Ali also stressed me out with the whole "burn the village" or "go do something else" discussion we had. It's like, come on man. Make things a little easy for me, dammit).

As for the session being slow, I said multiple times that this next session would have very little combat and be more character growth and quest fetching. I hadn't planned for combat at all unless you guys went straight at the Sleeping Giant (which no one did after being told that they are there three times). When Poofy left, I made up an encounter on the fly because that's where the story was going. I didn't want to start the next area without him.

I am currently writing an entirely custom campaign for everyone; this will take a lot of time to do. I don't think we'll start this until at least 2018, as I have a lot to write. Dan got a taste of what DMing is like. It is hard with everything already planned out for you. It is a herculean effort to write an entire campaign, especially when I'm writing my PBZ project in addition. My days off have turned into 5-10 hour writing and research sessions, then what I can at work. Please remember that I am doing a custom campaign for you guys because I want you guys to have fun. I could have just done the books, but those cost money and/or time to convert everything, so I might as well write a dope ass story for you guys (This is where I'll start being mean).

Well, this turned out longer than I anticipated. I hope you guys read it (Nour) and understand where I am coming from. I enjoy DMing for you guys and writing a custom D&D game for you guys has helped me take my mind off of a lot of things going on in my life. In a way, it is both therapeutic and maddening at the same time. Anyway, I cannot wait for the next session and I hope you guys continue to have fun (At least, until I start actively trying to kill you guys in game. That'll be fun~).

I'd just like to point out that technically they couldn't have chased me down because I move 35 while they move 30 and i was already 5ft away which is the standard distance in combat.
So After moving back I was technically 40ft away meaning none of them could actually come within close range fighting distance and attack without some kind of ability or a lance.
I put a lot of thought into it!!



Also It's not that Vanir made it easy it's more he made me feel like we didn't really earn it as much y'know?  
And I was a bit jealous, he can basically triple attack gdi!! DPS is the only thing I offer in combat!
And he can tank as well!!!!

More importantly I'd personally rather Vanir not really force us into anything, last session aside, I think Vanir should just not initiate things for us or decide for us except maybe in situations related to his own story. Him telling us what he wants to do or what he thinks we should do is fine, but the real decisions should be left to us even if we're being dumb about it.

Like if we're at a split path in a cave where we can go left or right, and we see something that makes it seem like left is the way we should go,
but some of us think we should at least take a look at what's on the right or maybe go there first then come back for left and we argue about it.
I don't want Vanir in this situation to just start going left while we're arguing, forcing us to just go left.


And finally, could you post his character sheet or something?

Technically, they could disengage and follow to re-engage with you. Nothing really prevented that.

Yeah, I made a split decision on that. If you weren't going to succeed in the next attempt at what you were going to do, they were going to attack. I made the decision that it'd be better if Vanir made a surprise attack in attempt to mow one down and fight 14 rather than 15. I'll be keeping that in mind in the future.

Don't worry, I'll make sure you earn it from now on.

For decisions like those, I'll be letting you guys decide what to do. Vanir may do a check to help out if everyone fails, though.

Sure thing. https://imgur.com/ymCBd8V

I think you're missing my point on combat
You see, when fighting in close range, unless using a lance or something with a similar property, you need to be within 5ft of your enemy, right?
So naturally when I was attacked by the 3 bandits I was 5ft away from them all, and then I disengaged and moved back, but as a wood elf my movement is 35ft, so now after moving I was 40ft away from each of the 3 bandits.

So If in this case the bandits tried to move in and attack me, since their movement is 30ft if they try to move closer to me they'd only get to the point where they're 10ft away from me and since they only had shortswords that means they wouldn't be within range to attack.

Unless they had some kind of ability, chasing me would've only wasted their turns.

Alibaba wrote:

I think you're missing my point on combat
You see, when fighting in close range, unless using a lance or something with a similar property, you need to be within 5ft of your enemy, right?
So naturally when I was attacked by the 3 bandits I was 5ft away from them all, and then I disengaged and moved back, but as a wood elf my movement is 35ft, so now after moving I was 40ft away from each of the 3 bandits.

So If in this case the bandits tried to move in and attack me, since their movement is 30ft if they try to move closer to me they'd only get to the point where they're 10ft away from me and since they only had shortswords that means they wouldn't be within range to attack.

Unless they had some kind of ability, chasing me would've only wasted their turns.

No, I got you. It'd just be them chasing you unless you turned them back towards the main party. You'd still be too close to have a normal roll when attacking them, since I believe that the weapon you used was disadvantage on attacks close range (I may be misremembering). But yeah, that was another reason why I didn't bother chasing after you, as funny as that would have been.

Yeah I posted that before we talked in the chat.

Btw JJ, It's not really about the 3rd session but I wanted to confirm our loot before the next session to try and save some time.
So I went back and counted and we apparently killed 10 goblins and though I couldn't find text confirming exactly what we got for each of them, we did at each point ask for what loot we got.

So what I have confirmed atm is 4 Shortbows and 4 Scimitars, there was 1 more of each but me and dan are using those.
However there were 5 more normal goblins killed and looted, with no confirmed text about what we got for loot, so If we assume that we got the same loot that'd go to a total of 9 Shortbows and 9 Scimitars.

So along with the last session's bandits, in terms of weapon loot we should have:
9 Shortbows: 25gp each = 225gp
9 Scimitars: 25gp each = 225gp
15 Shortswords: 10gp each = 150gp

To a total of 600gp if sold at full price.

If you see anything you don't agree with just point it out.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

I will allow you guys to sell it back for 50% worth, so you guys can get 300 gp out of it. Split it 5 ways (because Vanir wasn't there and RD isn't in yet), you can each get 60 gp after selling.

Would you let me try and bargain for it or should I not bother?
Also does the store have Studded-leather armor?

Poofums can't play on 15th. MAY OR MAY NOT(most likely not) be able to play on 16th. RIP Poof ;_;