Sunsend 8 (cont):   Description of Searched Area: The walls of the tunnel and large space are hewn stone and the ceiling is about 20 feet above the hewn stone floor. Masonry walls extend into the large room and up to the ceiling (forming the "room" where the treasure was) interrupted by a 20 foot doorway in the south wall. The doors are open. Simple geometric patters in faded paint are still visible on these walls. An underground stream, roughly 20 feet wide runs along the north end of the room and into the wall in the NorthEast corner of the room.

The ironbound double wooden doors stand open and the chamber has flagstone floors. This room is about 60 foot across and 40 deep but there is another door on the north side of the room. It looks like this 10 foot wide doorway has been obscured by rubble. The rubble pile looks relatively recent.

"Loot" from Dragon:
1000 GP
121 PP
Small turquoisish coloured gem
Small red gem
Small yellow gem
Small red gem
Medium sized reddish opalescent gem
Scroll: Arcane: Flaming Sphere (Magic)
8 inch long, 1/4 inch wide cylinder of wood (Magic)
10 inch long, 3/8 inch wide cylinder of light wood
Chain Shirt (Magic)
Light Hammer (Magic)
Potion: Fire Red (Magic)
Longbow (Magic) - Makes people feel uncomfortable to hold it.
Gold Dragon Comb with Red Gem for Eye




Arvee conducts a post-op on the fighrts:

I think we should discuss what went well and what went wrong. I think both battles are very good pictures of what we can expect from future battles, considering that we are starting to get up in levels.

First Battle.
1. I think we did pretty will with the initial execution of our plan, however, we had a few rough spots. Things broke down on the right side of the battle, with several ogres penetrating our lines and breaking down the flow of the battle. When this happens, support characters such as Taizu and Darrod get attacked. Due to the nature of the foes we are fighting, rounds where 20-30 points of damage get doled out will cause these characters not to last more than 1 or 2 rounds.

Here is sort of what it looked like:
Ogre
Ogre

Giantess    Bear                Giant-Dragon
Arvee       Tarva        Ogre      Ahb     Ogre Chief
Rowan             Ogre                                
               Taizu              Darrod


Glendon

Thus, the two ogres could damage support, and when Ahb had to retreat to not get killed, they also had attacks of opportunity.  I think that if we can keep our front:
Arvee Tarva Ahb

or
Arvee Rowan Ahb

or
Arvee Tarva Rowan Ahb
(In cases were the front of the battle is large)

Then we can keep the bulk of the baddies away from our support


2. Try to keep magic tactically smart. Glendon placing the Flaming Sphere between Arvee and the Giant-Dragon kept him from charging.

Second Battle

Honestly, I don't have a lot of complaints about this one. The Stonshape successfully kept the dragon from bringing all of its attacks. As I mentioned to Ahb, the fact that it was a touch versus ranges spell surprised me, and I think I would have changed things, as being Invisible didn't work, at all, and rather wasted a lot of charges. In this case, we probably have started inside the lair. Darrod ending his turn in the middle of the open against a flying creature probably was not great (Always keep a tree between you and the helicopter type thing). The new singing that got picked up was great, maybe we want to think about using it on other characters than Arvee, who already has a butload of hitpoints. Although it takes a round, maybe it would make a great emergency heal.

I think though, that the second battle will be indicative of what we are really going to start facing, with really, really high AC (The dragon had a 27 without its dexterity), magic resistance, and multiple attacks.


Ahb,  Here are Tarva's thoughts and suggestions:
   
1.  Healing -- Tarva's two slots of Cure Light have already been used up for today, but she still has her Faith Healing, now for 18 points.
   
Taizu has a fair amount of healing he can do (I don't have the exact numbers at my fingertips, will be able to tell you after I finish the diary transcription).
   
We have one (1) potion of Cure Light Wounds left.  We also have several kelly green potions from the giant's lair.  But, rather than use those before getting them lored, Tarva suggests asking Rowan to help out with her wand. That's assuming that Ahb can't fix everyone up (with a little bit of help from Taizu and Tarva).
   
The main point here is that Tarva is expecting Ahb to direct all their various healing abilities so as to best get everyone back to full strength again.
   
2. Searching -- do you have any interest in looking past the rubble-obscured doorway in the 'treasure room'?
  
3. Body Parts -- Can you, Ahb, cast the spell Gentle Repose?  Because Tarva thinks this would help us get dragon _parts_ [*] back to where we could sell them off, without those parts deteriorating (rotting) away to uselessness in the meantime.
   
Tarva's a little cautious about suggesting this, because it isn't anything she knows about personally.  Only, back in Albion, it was a standard technique for adventurers to use: to keep parts of monsters -- hearts, brains, stamen, roots, hides -- preserved until they could be sold to an alchemist.
   
[*] _parts_ because Tarva is sure that an entire dragon, even one which isn't an adult yet, is too heavy for us to drag, let alone carry, off to an appropriate town. And of course Tarva has no idea how the spell would interact with any such field-dressing: if the spell were cast first, would each cut-apart section retain the preserved quality? Or should be spell be cast on each part, separately, after the field-dressing has been done?  Tarva is confident that Ahb, perhaps with a bit of help from Rowan, will know all this.
  
4. Identify -- Tarva has no idea how long it will take to properly field dress this dragon.  She will remind Ahb that if it is going to be any significant amount of time, then Tarva can, if Ahb wants her to, cast Identify to find out a little more about some of our acquired, known to be magic, but otherwise unknown items.  Currently, Tarva could cast this spell twice in one day -- but she would be doing nothing else for that entire day, and possibly would not have one of her spell slots for the next day (but that's hardly a big concern for someone who is still having to remind herself that she does now have spells).  For each eight hour casting of Identify, Tarva can currently find out about three objects.
   
Tarva knows that Arvee is very anxious to find out what the giant king's boots do [although she herself suspects they're not Leaping and Jumping (or whatever the proper name is) but instead are something appropriate to snow and ice].   The giant king's circlet, bracers, and brouch; the trophy room blue steel ring and the blue dragon pair of wands also seem like interesting items.
   
[I'm sure that if Ahb doesn't know that Tarva has many times more curiosity than is safe for her, it can only be because Ahb has been way too busy trying to lead this group to notice.  If that is the case, I'm also sure that Taizu will be delighted to fill Ahb in with all sorts of examples (non-X-rated, sorry John, sorry Patrick) of Tarva's curiosity getting her/them into scrapes.  Preferably in Tarva's hearing, of course.  However, since we are now fairly sure that Heart's Reach is the only self-aware magical item on this world {outside perhaps of some rare artifact nobody has heard of}, even he is fairly sure that it's safe for Tarva to use the Identify spell.
   
And what this really means is that Tarva really wants to find out why a Dragon Skull and a Tusk are magic; and doesn't care much about weapon or armor details -- but she'll be good and find out about items in whatever priority order Ahb wants.]  [Except the longbow.]
   
But at any rate Tarva cannot cast any Identify spells today, as she has already used those slots for healing.

5. "going to the horses" etc. -- At the death of the dragon, it is 9:18:24am on Sunsebb 8.  For Taizu's Leomun's Tiny Hut spell to last until 8am tomorrow, he cannot cast it until 2 this afternoon - almost five hours from now.  Tarva suggests that she and someone go get the horses and bring them here; and we camp just outside the lair: so as to discourage anything else from tearing into the body before we've harvested and preserved the parts we want to take with us (not that she expects to find too many other predators living within the same range as a blue dragon...)

Furthermore, she thinks we ought to build a fire...;-)

               





Glendon has a two person tent that he can use to build a makeshift drag litter to help carry the gear.   All I need is two long and somewhat straight tree branches and I foldwrap the canvas of the tent around them. I then tie two smaller branchs at the top and bottom of the litter for extra support.  One end is secured to the respective stirrups of a saddleled horse  and the other end drags on the ground.   Depending on the size of the horse, this will carry a full szied man plus 100 gold pieces in wieght.   Depending on how many horses we have, we should be able to carry a great deal because we can also fashion them so two people can drag a litter.  All we need is some long strong sticks, some strong cloth, (or the giant male shirts maybe?) and we can move a great deal of material.  That's my two bits on moving the gear, loot, and the dragon bits.

On the dragon skin:  It will demand a higher price if we can keep it in one piece.




Arvee comments:
I think that the boots should be at the top for several reasons: 1. Arvee, as a pack mule, can haul as much as the pack mules, and with his strength (20), not really be too burdened with it.

2. As I asked in the past, is a pony comfortable carrying an unladen Arvee? According to what Frank sent out, unless that is in addition to rider, Arvee's pony Barto (It's a lose translation, although Tarva will be wondering why I have named him after the really strange fork you find at fancy dinners) at this point will need to spend several years at the chiropractor.

3. As for the whole carrying off of the dragon, I'm pretty sure we just took out the top of the food chain of predators in the area, and therefore we wouldn't have too much trouble defending the cave if we want to carry it back to town. However, would there be that many people in town willing to buy dead animal parts (We probably should have visited the sorcerer that was mentioned to identify and possibly lighten the load anyway).




Ahb responds to earlier suggestions:
1. Healing - Ahb still has most of her spells left and can probably bring everybody up to full fairly easily.  Would anybody mind if I peek at their character sheet to see how many they need?  Then I can do the rolling and the healing and stuff before Saturday.  Or if you don't want me to look and know what you are down just send me a note back.  Once I know what the damage is I can figure out best how to split up the speels to get the most out of them.
 
2) Searching - Ahb thinks it might be a good idea to cast Divination and make sure whether we are meant to venture further into this structure or continue on.
 
3) Ahb can not cast "Gentle Repose".  It is a Necromantic Spell and we don't do those.  Ahb has no knowledge of how to field dress anything, but does have a decent amount of Alchemical knowledge and might be able to give some idea as to what parts are the most valuable.
 
4) Identify - Ahb doesn't know how long it will take to field dress a dragon either, but would be happy for Tarva to cast Identify tomorrow (if we are still here for the day) and find out some more about the things we have found.  Ahb would want Tarva to concentrate on the wands and potions and such before moving on to other items.  If it turns out all those Kelly Green potions are Healing (Ahb thinks they probably are) that could be very good to know.
 
5) "Going to the horses" etc - Ahb thinks we could easily just camp inside the cave for the rest of the day.  If we close the big doors to the inner room, we should be relatively safe and we could probably just bring the horses in here.  It seems unlikely to Ahb that anything is going to attack us from outside today/tonight considering that a dragon has recently been living in here.





Tarva replies:

And (I'm extrapolating) we can wait on the other two colors until we're in a town.

Tarva thinks that it is a shame that you are now our chief alchemist, as otherwise it would make a lot more sense for someone else to taste the potion, with you standing by to help if anything goes wrong. By comparison, Tarva is a very poor second-place (she is planning to obtain Delay Poison at her next level, but that won't help now).

But finding thirteen Cure <some> Wounds that we could distribute around the characters would help immensly in any upcoming fights, when Ahb can't get to everyone at once.  So Tarva agrees that testing/tasteing them is worth the risk. (She's just kinda wishing it made sense for her to take the risk instead of Ahb.)

Tarva isn't used to these 'schools' of magic.  There were some on Albion, but they were structured differently, and besides back then Tarva didn't have any interest.  She would never have intentionally asked Ahb to do something foreign to Ahb's nature, pleads ignorance, and hopes Ahb isn't upset.

Darred, Glendon, can either of you cast this?

Rowan, I hope you know something about field dressing. Tarva is so completely ignorant that she doesn't even know if it's part of the Wilderness Lore skill, or and entirely separate Craft or Profession.





Ahb understands Tarva's reservations about the whole potion tasting thing, but won't let Tarva take her place no matter what she says.




Rowan says, "Arvee let's talk further about melee ve. ranged weapons. I'd like to come to an agreement as to when each is most called for."
 
Arvee responds:  I'd think about it in two different situations.
 
The first is the slugfest where we try and keep a front line of fighters and keep the support behind us where they are safer. If Tarva goes melee and we can keep a hedge between the support and the baddies, I don't think its a huge problem for you to start in Missile. But as the battles get longer, I think that's when you should get in. Nobody is going to have a lot of hitpoints during a five hour slugfest, and at the point where you think you have more hitpoints then step in to take the heat off. If the line breaks and bad guys are attacking the support archers and casters, then I think you should step in at that point, trying to get the bad guys to switch their attention to you in order to get the support characters out of the melee.
 
The second is what we tend to do more, which is more a fluid battle, which sounds much better than chaos. At this point, it is very discretional on your part, and I actually recommend that there is no set in this point, other than if you see a support character getting into melee that you should move to protect.

I would argue that you have the most versitile (yes, my spelling sucks) character in battle because you are equally effective with the bow and the sword, giving you both range and close in fighting, plus with the boots you have high maneuvaribility. While you do a little more damage with the bow (I think), with the sword you get a chance to critical when you roll a 17, 18, 19, or 20 for either double or triple damage. That's very effective to be this good with either weapon. For this reason, I would think it would be better to start you in the middle of the front line and the rear support so that if you can utilize bow and spells, you do that, but have the speed with the boots to quickly react on melee and join the front line if necessary (And you learned battle one that getting well ahead of the rest of the front line will get you in trouble).

I think that tactically, you make fairly sound decisions, and I don't think you need to change your style. However, I think that as the battles go long in length, that you should not stay in missile combat. You did great in the first battle, and you did plenty of damage. But I think if you would have stepped in on the ogres in melee that perhaps Taizu wouldn't have gotten to -9.

So how about these three simple ideas for when to enter melee: 1. To preserve the line. If we start to get flanked on a side, step in to hold the line 2. To protect support characters from melee. 3. After one of the other melee characters is the primary target of the creature you are attacking and you feel that this will be more effective than the bow (You do this damn well now)

So here we have 2 different situations for you, the first two which are you are going to get hit a lot (numbers 1 and 2), and the second, number 2, where someone else will get hit but the two person combo will take down the enemy quicker




Arvee tells Tarva (about the above miscount), "It's been happening a lot lately, I'm thinking of switching to a 1,2,
many, lots sort of counting system. "

"That sounds complicated," Tarva replies.  "How about a: lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, ... sort of counting system?  That way: you can never lose your place; even the most complex, multi-dimensional, differential matrix" (not that Tarva knows what one of those is) "resolves to the simple answer of 'lots'; in fact, you can give the answer to any problem as 'lots', and be absolutely correct."

Wow.  Hey, Tarva wants one of these, too.   Oops, correct that: Tarva wants lots of these, lots.

"Hey, Taizu, come over here.  Ok, now give me one of those distribution and net worth problems.   Um, hum, ... oh, there are a lot of fractions in that ... give me a second ... ok, the answer is, 'lots'.  Ta, da!

"Arvee, this is wonderful, you'ra a genius, I'm going to write a song for you.
   
"What, Taizu?  What do you mean 'lots' isn't an acceptable answer.  Not only is it an acceptable answer, it's the correct answer.  We've just proven that.  What proof?  Why, Arvee here with his plus lots scythe.
   
"No.  Leggo.  Ow, my hair!  Nooo!  If I go in the stream you're g..."  splash!