[OOC] Heart of Darkness (Part II)

[Mindsiege]

Perfect! I was worried that I might have missed possible checks that you had hoped for in the past. In that case, I'll just move forward worrying less about any of that.

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

This isn't quite the NPC support I was hoping for. Is Jimmy to be the party tank? Urdo continues to warm the bench in Westhaven...with Prrup-tik...and the 2L warforged Shield...

As the one who designed the adventure, I'm not particularly worried about your current party constellation or combat potential. I'm pretty convinced that you won't need to pull extra weight into the story because of such concerns. I wanted to give you the option to control multiple characters in combat to allow for bigger combat encounters. The intent wasn't necessarily to give Jimmy the best party line-up that he would be the most comfortable with. After we went for the option of leaving any secondary PCs in Westhaven because they'd have to be forced into the story first, I'm feeling positive that Jimmy will be able to make do with the resources available to him.

On a note that Jimmy would be aware of based on his adventuring experience, the likelihood of finding an armoured-up beef-slab like Kosev is rather unlikely among all the fey which he has met so far and who are his most likely allies after Kosev, Glan and Alysha got sidelined. Jimmy is pretty much one of the highest-level characters around as far as he knows, so if he feels concerned about his reliance on a meatshield between himself and the enemies he would be best served to recruit more people and rely on a numbers advantage instead of hoping for singular entities to arrive that have a lot of HP and a lot of AC.

I'm not really playing game pieces into your hands right now. The only GM intervention that happened was giving Loch a single spark of inspiration, the rest followed naturally.
Jimmy may take any action or approach that he deems necessary to get the job done. That's what the quest was from the beginning.
Does that understanding help alleviate your concerns?

Originally Posted by secretID

That proposal is just sarcastic, though I suppose she could volunteer.

I'll reply to this with the next GM update.

[secretID]

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

I'm not really playing game pieces into your hands right now.

Cool. I'll just RP it, then. Jimmy would accept Loch b/c why not? He would discourage Sashaya, at least initially, so we'll see where it goes.

[Mindsiege]

I hope that I found the right words. My point was that I'm trying to make use of any deus ex machina as little as possible and I'm positive that Jimmy is fully capable of beating the adventure.
Please let me know if something isn't fun. I was hoping that we weren't at that stage in regards to this topic.

Originally Posted by secretID

Cool. I'll just RP it, then. Jimmy would accept Loch b/c why not? He would discourage Sashaya, at least initially, so we'll see where it goes.

Sounds great!

[Mindsiege]

Spicy! FWIW, I understand Jimmy's stance completely.

@edit:
For me to resolve this correctly, would you say that it's Jimmy's intent to start a fight or to get Ilala to back down?

[secretID]

He definitely prefers that she back down.

[Mindsiege]

All right, even though Jimmy isn't pushing for it specifically, in that case I will ask for an Intimidation roll in order to resolve Ilala's reaction.
It will be a straight roll for a DC 13 to avoid further escalation and a DC 17 to successfully get her to back down. Above and below those DCs the results will be on a bit of a gradient.
If you want to you can give me the roll yourself or I will do the roll with my next GM update. By your preference.

[secretID]

Dice Roll:

1d20+5

(12)+5

Total = 17

[Mindsiege]

By the skin of your teeth.

All right, I should have everything I need for the next update. Let me work down the list as always.

[Mindsiege]

I just reread my last GM instructions and wanted to clarify that while Boanagh holds influence as an elder, he also is generally on Jimmy's side after he already had his life saved multiple times. So my comment was mostly to clarify his availability for the sake of tilting things in Jimmy's favour, even if he is staying passive right now because Boanagh isn't sure how to navigate this situation.

[secretID]

OK. Jimmy has pretty simple goals, which are going well at the moment. He wants to continue the mission, with Loch. He wants to get rid of Ilala by any means. He hasn't decided how to handle Sashaya.

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

OK. Jimmy has pretty simple goals, which are going well at the moment. He wants to continue the mission, with Loch. He wants to get rid of Ilala by any means. He hasn't decided how to handle Sashaya.

Sounds great!

[Mindsiege]

About "playing well with others", that might already be an idiom, or at least I've heard it before and understood the context. I did not know the origins of the expression though, but it certainly helps me understand it more.

About the dryad's abilities, I recall that Jimmy already knew about them before he would have had to ask Loch or Sashaya. I can't recall if it was part of his fey research in Westhaven or if Alysha landed a good knowledge check, but it already came up in the adventure in the past. While Loch wouldn't have done the best job about conferring all their combat tactics he can certainly confirm to Jimmy what he had already known. So either way, you may assume that Jimmy knows what dryads are capable of mechanically.

@edit:
One last thing, Loch wasn't surprised by Jimmy reacting to Ilala's sister, what he was surprised by was how seriously Jimmy took it. Even for a sister quarrel between non-humans Ilala was definitely out of line, but Loch is lacking all the information that Jimmy built during the days that they were apart. Jimmy's talk about "another case a’ the crazies" and putting Ilala down for slapping her sister were the parts that made him curious and alarmed him that there is something he is missing from the equation. Since Jimmy didn't share about any of that though, for the next GM update I'll assume that he will have to come to his own conclusions.

[secretID]

Assuming Loch is coming along, Jimmy will have plenty of time to catch him up.

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

Assuming Loch is coming along, Jimmy will have plenty of time to catch him up.

Sounds good to me. I was mostly trying to explain Loch's reaction because I think Loch wasn't surprised by Jimmy's assertiveness per se, but rather about Jimmy's tough stance. Meaning his inquiry about what had happened since they had parted ways was purposeful. As long as my narration didn't fail to get that across correctly, I'm good to proceed with my next update as is.