It's kind of a fuzzy area mostly because Acer's turns keep falling on Thursday or Friday and I'm not about to boot people for not posting on the weekends, so his 48-hour limit ends up taking up a good 4 days :(

But yeah, Skills I'm going to have to ask you to stop bailing him out even if it does keep the game moving in the short term.

Even if he did somehow hit his tardy limit mid-fight I'd let the battle finish, even when Brady up and abandoned the game without notice somebody volunteered to puppeteer Argumentus for the duration.

Auto-teleporting monsters and a combat advantage bonus of 2d8?? Buffed by an ally leader who can dish out the dazed status?

Heh. Pang's optimizing his monster mix now :(

Any chance Cal learned something useful in his knowledge check, Pang? Looks like you ain't done killin' us yet srry.

Is Row O still considered "difficult terrain" (since it's differently-colored from the upper two "steps")?

Additional Spam:
... Did you just kill my horse? :mad:

One good thing in all of this is that mine and Skills' healing powers have increased since we hit lvl 6. My healing word, for example, has effectively doubled to surge + 2d6, and I'm sure Pang is simply taking that into account too.

Your horse is unconscious, whether it dies or not depends on whether the healers want to help it instead of Gheth.

I wouldn't get your hopes up.

And yeah, everything on the floor level is difficult. If the coloration looks different chalk it up to Maptools' shitty handling of around 50 overlaid puddle graphics. Acer had a good idea trying to climb up to the balconies but alas the roll that I had to make for him was shit.

PS I added your knowledge check, quit getting antsy when I haven't removed the stand by yet.

I'm not getting my hopes up. Since the monsters are focus-firing on the horse, he's as good as dead. Even if he's healed and stands up, he's only got one action, being dazed. I don't quite think horses can crawl, and even if that's allowed, he has to contend with an AoO and a crawl distance of like 2 :(

If the horse is on it's back, it should drown shortly even if it doesn't get up, right?

Yeah, PCs who go underwater can opt to hold their breath but I don't think the horse is that bright.

Well, to be honest, any animal Cal owned would be instilled with at least part of his bizarre sense of extreme self preservation and probably figure out how not to breathe water for several seconds.

Either that or it saw a treasure chest in the water filled with rocks and just took off after that. Either or.

In the unlikely scenario that the Hulk doesn't outright rip Denny into two parts, and under the even more unlikely scenario that he makes all his death saving throws, it takes three minutes (approximately 30 rounds of combat) for a human to drown. So yeah, I suppose Denny gets three minutes of unconsciousness before lack of oxygen kills him.

Are you telling me you're an expert on horse lung capacity and how long they can hold their breath for, Zerg?

That being said, a horse is not an adventurer and stop reading the DMG Zerg

No more than you, Skills.

And Pang, the three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food is not exactly a rule unique only to the DMG :/

Zerg bringing up real-world biology is not going to reflect well on the state of your magical shapeshifter

nor the food that he keeps in storage right next to decaying corpse meats

How fortunate that the DMG adheres to real-world biology for this point then! :)

Anyhoo, Cal isn't magical. It's just a strange kind of biology that we haven't discovered yet!

Look, you can render this point moot rather easily. You can kill Denny in your next turn. You know it. I know it. I'm just hoping you wouldn't actually do it. At least the only upside to this is Mangler B is weaponless...

That's ok, decaying corpse meats are totally vacuum-sealed. 'Sides, the germ theory hasn't even been discovered yet!

Yes.

How.... fortunate. http://www.saxypunch.com/forums/imag.../emot-doom.gif

Three minutes without air? What the hell kind of real world biology is that? Brain damage starts kicking in before that in real people, unless all adventurers train as free divers in their spare time. I'm impressed with myself when I can hold my breath for more than a minute or so.

Well, the level 1 Adventurer is already well and beyond what a regular human being is capable of. I'd say depending on the skill set, they're at par with Olympic-level athletes. (Like say, someone trained in athletics, endurance, what have you...)

Horses in real life can drown in as quickly as thirty seconds, but that's cuz they're skittish and get all panicky and stuff. So.... I'm sure an unconscious l'il pony will last much longer than that~~~

It's become apparent to me that I've completely misread the battle map (Skills was right all along, damn).

I thought the amphitheater had a layout similar to this, in the sense that the dark brown railings are "stairs" and the light brown floors are "seats":
http://www.fwagroup.com/highered/rcc...09_543x355.jpg

In which case going up a level is but a hop away.

So it seems the level one layout looks something like this:
http://upload.jetsam.org/images//Lamid03.jpg

First question. Is my understanding of the ground level layout correct?

Second question. Are the distances between levels short enough for an acrobatics check, or will it need a (presumably DC 20) athletics check to shinny up the pillar?

You said that the railings give partial cover both ways, so this means they're definitely taller than waist height. If I'm not mistaken, large creatures like the Hulk have a threatening reach of 2, giving them the ability to opportunistically attack from a distance (signified by the orange box).

Third question. If Cal were to move three squares in the manner indicated by the lime line, will the railing block the AoO? Or will it just take the -2 penalty to hit (giving Cal a total of +4 against the roll)?

Fourth question which may invalidate the third question. How many endurance failures, independently of death saves, before death by drowning occurs?

Final question. Administering First Aid to Use Second Wind (DC 10 - no need to even roll for Cal) allows the target to use Second Wind without taking an action - will unconscious characters benefit? If not, will a successful First Aid heal check to stabilize the dying (DC 15) negate the need for endurance rolls?

More or less?

How would... even if you wanted to jump up and catch the railing, that would be Athletics. Each tier is 10 feet above the one below it, so you could conceivably make that jump with a (very) good roll. You don't necessarily need to go up the pillar; one of you must have a grappling hook...?

A few of them do, sure.

Are you asking me if a giant can or cannot reach over a gate? This strikes me as less of a rules question and more of a common-sense thing.

Well, if Denny fails one check he'll lose his healing surge. For each failure after that he'll have no surges left and will take damage equal to his level each time, meaning he'll take adequate damage to die after four more rounds.

(They really do make it difficult to drown, don't they.)

A: Denny has a healing surge, but has no second wind. Second Wind isn't a universal feature. (It would apply to unconscious characters otherwise)

B: Stabilizing Denny would only negate his need to make death saves, it would do nothing for the fact that his head is underwater. He would stop "dying" but he would still be drowning (and consequently dying of direct damage).

C: I'm just going to stab it to death god damn dude

So... does cover rules apply for the melee attack then?

Hay, I want to keep him alive. Just exploring all available options before making a decision. Don't be haterin' :(

Yeah, cover's still cover, it's not usually relevant in melee but reach attacks are the exception.

I have drunk deeply of the haterade

Well, it looks like Operation: First Aid followed by dragging him away won't work. :(

The stairs... do they connect directly to street level, or is it possible to get to the second levels through them? I mean, there's gotta be a less athletic way for Lamid's people to reach them?

THE STAIRS TO THE UPPER FLOORS WERE MOST INCONVENIENTLY DESTROYED IN THE FLOODING!

That is indeed unfortunate. What shoddy construction work, for knee-deep water (else Gordy'd be making endurance saves too) to collapse them so. So much for my hopes of sniping the enemy from a very safe distance :(

Alas, the capricious whims of faith has conspired against Cal once again

P.S. Pang, I am moderately interested in playing on the opposite side of the DM screen and would like to ask if you have heard of any isometric mapping tools that show things in three dimensions...? So far I've tried two tools which both have a bird's eye view: Maptools and Masterplan. I prefer Masterplan's ability to manage a lot of bookkeeping, though Maptools has better tilesets and can show gridlines.