ehhhhh, you can shift away.

You... You people murdered Murray.

You fuckers.

He died valiantly and with great honor.

I can't wait until we get to say that about you in a smug fashion.

Oh, it will eventually come. Eventually Pang will roll up some monsters that are too strong.

However, I am curious. Why are you that hostile towards me?

I hope nobody ever says that about your parents.

http://idiocrasy.org/images/randal.jpg

[Unsleeping Watcher] implies I will take all the watches. Zerg is free to stay in the kitchen for whatever fucking reason he sees fit, the fact that he's giving the enemies time to set up giant bomb launchers just means I'm forcing him to go first into all the rooms we explore until he handily gets his head cut off by someone with an axe to grind. Both literally and figuratively.

For the period of this time, consider my character near enough to Acer, Garr, and Skex's to wake them by shouting, should I notice anything fishy as I sit in a chair and smoke a pipe. Alert them and wake them should anything come close. Ignore any trouble Cal might be causing by exploring elsewhere, and don't wake shit, even if he can be heard distantly screaming.

blargablgas

My apologies, Colonel.

It is not my intention to derail any of the group's plans in any way. I'm playing a shapeshifter, so I plan to be adaptable to any situation.

To avoid this kind of dispute in the future, I will state in advance my intentions in this thread, and you folks can say so if you think it is too disruptive.

Man, my robot is taking it out on you in character, he wanted to go bash some heads.

Take charge if you want to. It's just kinda FLOW BREAKIN and such.

:'(

We can always just abandon this quest and wreak Mr. Pangalin's carefully-orchestrated encounter! The one with cannons firing from every direction. I mean, the reward is what, 500 GP? :tpg:

____________

Pang, I'd like to confirm something about range.

What is the maximum range the longbow can reach? Is it 20 squares or 40 squares?
Second, how many squares ahead can my character see? And how does it compare with duergar vision?
Third, if my character can't see an enemy, but thinks that an enemy is lurking in the shadows 20 squares away, can he shoot at the suspected square without a penalty to hit?

20 squares is about as far as you can shoot and still be decently accurate. You can shoot up to 40 if you want, but your accuracy will take a major hit because of it. Generally a last ditch sort of thing, although it might come into play if Pang starts shooting at you guys from far enough away.

Well it seems obvious if you put it that way yeah :(

Bow range: what he said ^

Vision distance: this isn't really covered by the rules much. For distances more than 50 squares or so to even be plausible we'd have to be operating on a much larger scale than your typical dungeon. For the most part you can assume that if you have line-of-sight to something you can see it. Duergar have the same visual range as any other humanoid, but they see better in the dark.

If you know where an enemy is but can't see him, he has total concealment, which imposes a -5 to hit.

Cannons, psh. We already established there's no sulfur in the area to make powder with.

PS here's your up-to-date map http://www.saxypunch.com/missile/beansfromlima.png

No technological artillery? Great. Now if only you can promise you won't pit us against biological artillery similar to Starship Trooper plasma bugs... or dragons of sorts :)

Additional Edit:

I'm trying to get a sense on the general layout of the dungeon. Reconnaissance, if you will.

This is a splicing of the maps you've provided. Are the placements correct, and is the arrow correct? I would also like to know whether the party came from the location I labeled as A, or from B, as these seem to be the only exits.

Hay Pang, I am fishing for information!

My character did not notice which direction the crossbow bolts came from. But, did he:
a. Hear how many hit the door?
b. Notice whether they came from one direction, or from multiple vantage points?

I know he was all surprised and stressed but he's a ranged specialist and might pay a greater degree of attention to little details like that. [Insert further rationalization here to pursuade Pang.]

About half a dozen, all incoming on roughly the same trajectory.

Okiedoke. Thanks!

---------

Alright then, Pang's got anywhere from three to six crossbows keeping watch on the northeast bridge. He was rather coy on keeping the direction secret, I'm willing to bet that these same crossbows are also watching the northern bridge. Most likely one of the doors have the arrow slits Pang described earlier.

I seriously doubt there is any way for the party to negotiate their way out of this one. We'll probably have to take some hits before the battle even begins. And we're not sure how many enemies there are this time. The last encounter had five, but three escaped, so we could be facing eight enemies at minimum.

If we decide to proceed with this quest, I think we basically have two alternative courses of action:

Storm the Castle
This proposal is to use Tables as mobile shields, and just do a double-move towards any of the doors. At least we'll have +2 to hit due to cover. If I'm reading the rules correctly, running triggers opportunity attacks only from melee, and not ranged attackers.

We can also crawl at half speed, since targeting a prone opponent gives a -2 penalty to attack rolls. I'm not sure if these penalties stack. I also doubt Pang will let us crawl while slowly pushing tables without some kind of skill check, because the thought of five sweaty adventurers squirming like worms, while pushing a table above them, is rather ridiculous.

We will have to decide which bridge to storm. To do that I think we need to find out where the bolts are coming from (maybe Acer can have better luck with perception, and he can maybe use Skittering Sneak to scout), and then assault the other bridge. Alternatively, Glock can also repeat the stunt he pulled earlier to guage for quantity and direction.

Trickery
Instead of having to go to them, have them come to us. This would entail Cal shapeshifting into one of the kitchen thralls, don the disguise, and try to persuade the duergar that the party is sleeping in the kitchen after eating Rundarr for lunch. And so now would be a good time to attack them, since they'll be caught unawares.

Given the state of high alert, I am not very sure of success. For one, Pang might not even allow the Bluff check. For another, he may not agree to send over the duergar to our fort where we can ambush them, since he's supposedly punishing us for taking an extended rest.

Thoughts?

A testudo formation would probably serve us better than pushing cover, I think we all have shields, and any gaps can be filled by using the tables, like you said.

Surely the fort you're in has some windows facing the bridges? Why not just have someone peek through the windows to look where the arrows come from while someone else opens the door with a long stick or something? Either that or make models of yourselves and put them in the windows and let the bad guys shoot arrows at them until they run out of ammo.

Hmmm... good question.

Pang, are there any windows facing the bridges from any of the two forts? :D

No Many, many windows. It's all underground, what's to look at other than more rocks?

That is an excellent point which I, um

The thing about that is

:(

I love how this gets more and more like Darths & Droids or DM of the Rings every day.

It's not my fault WoTC's art department never actually read the module :mad:

Also not your fault Skills is all Rainman about these things.