Tal or Darker should see if there is an add on to this forum that records the die roll results. I would bet that it rolls 10 or below 80 plus percent of the time.
The dieroller is a direct port of the one from OpenRPG. One of our forum members has actually looked at the source code for that because he wrote his own extensions for the program back in the days when it was one of the predominant options for chat-based D&D. Random number generators are a sufficiently difficult field of computer science for him to have used his work to get his first permanent programming job.
Anyway, he's assured me that OpenRPG's methods produce results that are indeed random, with outputs better than most well-made physical dice. The mathematics involved quickly went far beyond my grasp. But I trust his word for it, and my selection of the module that provides our diceroller functionality was because I used it for years with good results.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten, mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
You're at 4 successes, two failures. One more failure ends the skill challenge; one more success wins it.
At this point, you have a lot of kindling, dead brush, and similar plant matter heaped just inside the cave, ready to be set alight. Fanax is some distance away by now, having gone looking around to see whether he can find any sign of a secondary point of egress.
Roll for initiative, please. I'll be using the outcome to decide who gets to act next.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten, mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
I'll go ahead and roll my skill check while we're at it, in case no one beats me in initiative and fails the challenge before I get to act. Oni will use Listen to try and make sure this invisible, undetectable monstrosity doesn't sneak up on us while we're trying to rub two sticks together.
Initiative, Listen
I rolled 1d20+5, the result is 9, 5 = 14.
I rolled 1d20+6, the result is 3, 6 = 9.
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken
Initiative plus a d20 for skill check. Don’t know what skill cause I don’t know what’s left.
There is no limit with regard to how many times the PCs can check on a given skill, and the list I offered at the start of the skill challenge was exemplary rather than restrictive. If you come up with a plausible application of the Perform skill, you can attempt it.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten, mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
Unless someone beats Gorx's initiative of 22, he's going to be the next to act, and the outcome of his check will determine the outcome of the challenge.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten, mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
Let's see what @Dafyd has for us. But unless he has an extremely high initiative result, I think we're settled that Gorx is going to close out the challenge.
On a related note, how are you guys planning to light this fire?
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten, mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
Well, there is definitely a fire burning in the cavern's entry. It's big enough to cover three squares, and there probably isn't any way to get in or out of the cavern without walking through it (unless there's another exit somewhere).
It's a little early yet for your characters to be able to tell whether enough smoke is being trapped inside for it to be effective. You've chosen to proceed in a fashion that may be effective, but telling whether it is working is not an instantaneous thing—it's a pretty big cave.
On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be an angry dragon attacking you right now. So it's also not immediately obvious that your effort has failed, either. It seems likely that the dragon either doesn't know what you've done, or has escaped and has not (yet) mounted some kind of counterattack. Presumably Vumrot would have confronted you before you had a fire lit in front of the front door, if you'd failed to be stealthy enough.
I suppose that Gorx could order his fire elementals to go and seek out Vumrot in order to fight him, but the big V has already killed several of Gorx's spirit allies too quickly for Gorx to know what was happening until it was already over. So he might be throwing their lives away. Spirits that die in his service STAY dead (shamans do not summon their allies; they call them), so that's . . . problematic from several different directions at once.
So I'm basically not going to tell you whether it failed. You will have to send in scouts, or else wait and give your stratagem time to work.
The elementals have a valid point, though, in asserting that you'll need to keep feeding this fire. Even if you dismiss them, it's only going to burn for so long on what's piled up in the cavern entry. After a half-hour or so at the most, it'll burn down to embers unless you replenish it with substantial fuel. Logs would be good.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten, mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
I feel like it would be kind of hard to do if a goblin helped Oni. Don't want to keep volunteering Yonah for stuff but we don't have to do a lot of sneaking around right now, so maybe we should be doing manual labor.
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken
So is Gorx keeping the elementals here, or what? It's becoming obvious that they're not really going to be a lot of help, unless you have some kind of pressing need to talk to beings that are geniuses about fire and otherwise barely sentient.
He is quite capable of keeping them around for another six hours or so, but the fire is started. If you don't think the dragon is fireproof and you believe that your upcoming stratagem with Zathrus's tent is likely to flush it out of hiding, then having them stick around isn't bad from a tactical perspective, I guess.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten, mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
My recollection is that those of you with ranks in Knowledge (arcana) didn't do very well on their checks, and neither did those of the Great Horde's leadership who had ranks. So you know that the dragon is white (because you had witness accounts to draw from), but your characters don't really appear to have made any conclusion that the dragon's color might be significant.
At least a couple of you seem to have been acting from the assumption that dragons breathe fire.
On the other hand, those of Gorx's air elementals that survived first contact with the dragon were gabbling about icy wind and frost. And before that, Fanax discovered a cache of animal carcasses that looked like they had been frozen.
I don't know what your characters think is going on.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten, mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
It is totally reasonable to say that it doesn't help, but I don't think the question is overly far-fetched. By way of example, the region where Philadelphia is today is Coaquannock, which means Grove of Tall Pines. That tells you a little bit about the area, esp. in comparison to Pittsburgh's Allegheny - a direct reference to the rivers in the region. I'll accept that Draconic doesn't make meaningful differences between Frost Dragons and Fire Dragons and those ridiculous gem dragons.
Gorx will keep the fire elementals around for now and dismiss them later if they're ineffectual.
Anybody have suggestions? Gorx doesn't seem well suited to this challenge. For reference:
Skills
+9 Spot (7 ranks + 2 mod)
+9 Listen (7 ranks +2 mod)
+8 Knowledge (Nature) (7 ranks + 1 mod)
+8 Knowledge (The Planes) (7 ranks + 1 mod)
+11 Bluff (7 ranks + 4 mod)
+11 Diplomacy (7 ranks + 4 mod)
+3 Knowledge (Religion) (2 ranks + 1 mod)
+4 Sense Motive (2 ranks + 2 mod)
I suppose Gorx will act as a sentry - listening for something coming.
oh dear.
Maybe you should have summoned a spirit so you could ask it if it heard anything.
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken
"Did you hear anything?"
"Yeah, I heard the sound of wind go by as you whiffed on that die roll."
Tal or Darker should see if there is an add on to this forum that records the die roll results. I would bet that it rolls 10 or below 80 plus percent of the time.
The dieroller is a direct port of the one from OpenRPG. One of our forum members has actually looked at the source code for that because he wrote his own extensions for the program back in the days when it was one of the predominant options for chat-based D&D. Random number generators are a sufficiently difficult field of computer science for him to have used his work to get his first permanent programming job.
Anyway, he's assured me that OpenRPG's methods produce results that are indeed random, with outputs better than most well-made physical dice. The mathematics involved quickly went far beyond my grasp. But I trust his word for it, and my selection of the module that provides our diceroller functionality was because I used it for years with good results.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
If you take a large sample, this roller produces outcomes of 10 or below on a d20 ~50% of the time.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
No one remembers the 20s. Only the botches.
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken
You're at 4 successes, two failures. One more failure ends the skill challenge; one more success wins it.
At this point, you have a lot of kindling, dead brush, and similar plant matter heaped just inside the cave, ready to be set alight. Fanax is some distance away by now, having gone looking around to see whether he can find any sign of a secondary point of egress.
Roll for initiative, please. I'll be using the outcome to decide who gets to act next.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
I'll go ahead and roll my skill check while we're at it, in case no one beats me in initiative and fails the challenge before I get to act. Oni will use Listen to try and make sure this invisible, undetectable monstrosity doesn't sneak up on us while we're trying to rub two sticks together.
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken
Initiative plus a d20 for skill check. Don’t know what skill cause I don’t know what’s left.
Init and Spot. What I can't hear, maybe I can see.
Nice.
*insert damn die roller complaint here*
There is no limit with regard to how many times the PCs can check on a given skill, and the list I offered at the start of the skill challenge was exemplary rather than restrictive. If you come up with a plausible application of the Perform skill, you can attempt it.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
Ah, then Grimvaalk repeats the check with move silently for a +14, check of 29. Feel free for someone else stealthy to aid him.
Unless someone beats Gorx's initiative of 22, he's going to be the next to act, and the outcome of his check will determine the outcome of the challenge.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
Watch the Spot DC be 29.
Don’t Gorx this up.
Initiative.
Initiative
Let's see what @Dafyd has for us. But unless he has an extremely high initiative result, I think we're settled that Gorx is going to close out the challenge.
On a related note, how are you guys planning to light this fire?
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
Init for Yonah.
Gorx will summon fire elementals. Check is below.
Is he doing this instead of the Spot check, or in addition to it?
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
Gorx will make the spot check. When everything is ready to go, he'll summon the elementals and make them light the fire.
Did we succeed on the challenge?
Well, there is definitely a fire burning in the cavern's entry. It's big enough to cover three squares, and there probably isn't any way to get in or out of the cavern without walking through it (unless there's another exit somewhere).
It's a little early yet for your characters to be able to tell whether enough smoke is being trapped inside for it to be effective. You've chosen to proceed in a fashion that may be effective, but telling whether it is working is not an instantaneous thing—it's a pretty big cave.
On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be an angry dragon attacking you right now. So it's also not immediately obvious that your effort has failed, either. It seems likely that the dragon either doesn't know what you've done, or has escaped and has not (yet) mounted some kind of counterattack. Presumably Vumrot would have confronted you before you had a fire lit in front of the front door, if you'd failed to be stealthy enough.
I suppose that Gorx could order his fire elementals to go and seek out Vumrot in order to fight him, but the big V has already killed several of Gorx's spirit allies too quickly for Gorx to know what was happening until it was already over. So he might be throwing their lives away. Spirits that die in his service STAY dead (shamans do not summon their allies; they call them), so that's . . . problematic from several different directions at once.
So I'm basically not going to tell you whether it failed. You will have to send in scouts, or else wait and give your stratagem time to work.
The elementals have a valid point, though, in asserting that you'll need to keep feeding this fire. Even if you dismiss them, it's only going to burn for so long on what's piled up in the cavern entry. After a half-hour or so at the most, it'll burn down to embers unless you replenish it with substantial fuel. Logs would be good.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
Send those bitches down!
Also, Grimvaalk will mount up and get ready for a dragon... because if its going to be smoked out, he figures it's not going to come out to chat.
Everyone except Fanax should go ahead and make a Spot check, as well as an Int check.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
More spotting, Some Inting.
Rolls
Rolls
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken
Rolls
If we're all so observant and clever, what are we doing trying to provoke a dragon into combat?
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken
Earn xp.
Spot, Int
So, uh, who's working this tent/fan thing you're about to try to rig up?
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
I feel like it would be kind of hard to do if a goblin helped Oni. Don't want to keep volunteering Yonah for stuff but we don't have to do a lot of sneaking around right now, so maybe we should be doing manual labor.
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken
Zathrus had an expectation that the two burly bugbears would flap the tent. But he's kind of an asshole like that.
Visually, I expect that this sort of "fan" is going to look a lot like Parachute Day in elementary school, just in miniature.
So is Gorx keeping the elementals here, or what? It's becoming obvious that they're not really going to be a lot of help, unless you have some kind of pressing need to talk to beings that are geniuses about fire and otherwise barely sentient.
He is quite capable of keeping them around for another six hours or so, but the fire is started. If you don't think the dragon is fireproof and you believe that your upcoming stratagem with Zathrus's tent is likely to flush it out of hiding, then having them stick around isn't bad from a tactical perspective, I guess.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
I forget - do we think the dragon is fire proof?
My recollection is that those of you with ranks in Knowledge (arcana) didn't do very well on their checks, and neither did those of the Great Horde's leadership who had ranks. So you know that the dragon is white (because you had witness accounts to draw from), but your characters don't really appear to have made any conclusion that the dragon's color might be significant.
At least a couple of you seem to have been acting from the assumption that dragons breathe fire.
On the other hand, those of Gorx's air elementals that survived first contact with the dragon were gabbling about icy wind and frost. And before that, Fanax discovered a cache of animal carcasses that looked like they had been frozen.
I don't know what your characters think is going on.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
Does speaking Draconic give any insight? If not, I'm just going to flip a coin.
About as much as speaking German helps you change the spark plugs on a Volkswagen.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
It is totally reasonable to say that it doesn't help, but I don't think the question is overly far-fetched. By way of example, the region where Philadelphia is today is Coaquannock, which means Grove of Tall Pines. That tells you a little bit about the area, esp. in comparison to Pittsburgh's Allegheny - a direct reference to the rivers in the region. I'll accept that Draconic doesn't make meaningful differences between Frost Dragons and Fire Dragons and those ridiculous gem dragons.
Gorx will keep the fire elementals around for now and dismiss them later if they're ineffectual.
Okay, then. I'd like Spot checks from everyone except Fanax.
Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold
So much spot
Oni on the Spot
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken
Spot
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