[OOC] Heart of Darkness (Part II)

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

I fixed his sheet and his post template.

Thanks, I got confused last time.

[Mindsiege]

Oh, could you please post in the OOC after you've edited your post? Because otherwise I'll not get a notification that the post is ready and I might be slow scheduling my next update. Thank you!

[secretID]

Either from where he is, or looking through Tink's eyes, what does Jimmy think the mining would entail? Is the idea to break up big crystals for transport, or to hack away rock in which crystals or embedded, or...?

Jimmy has a crowbar and a hammer. What's his estimate of how long it would take?

(Damn Jimmy's greed - this whole thing seems awfully suspicious, but he'll want the valuables.)

[Mindsiege]

From afar, Jimmy can tell that the cluster looks like more than he could carry. If you want to know how much of it is waste or something about its purity, that would be an Investigation check from at least as close as Tink is, probably closer because there is no light. That check would also include an estimation for the mining duration. Jimmy can make that check by sharing Tink's senses, but then he'll be forcing Boanagh to take a break and standby or to lead a blind Jimmy to stumble through the cavern for the duration of that inspection. Eventually you'll walk by the cluster anyways on your current trajectory. You can propose any course of action to Boanagh that Jimmy would prefer.

[secretID]

I'm trying to understand what the mining entails. Would Jimmy be breaking off pieces of big crystal formations - basically just breaking the crystals? At the moment, I'm considering hitting them at range, and I wonder whether that's just plainly pointless. If he's just breaking up big crystals, Eldritch Blast would conceivably work.

Edit: If he has to carve out crystals from stone, EB would make little sense.

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

I'm trying to understand what the mining entails. Would Jimmy be breaking off pieces of big crystal formations - basically just breaking the crystals? At the moment, I'm considering hitting them at range, and I wonder whether that's just plainly pointless. If he's just breaking up big crystals, Eldritch Blast would conceivably work.

Edit: If he has to carve out crystals from stone, EB would make little sense.

That's certainly a fair concern. I just realized once again that Jimmy's Devil's Sight and Tink's Devil's Sight work fundamentally different. With the Warlock Invocation, Jimmy is actually looking at the cluster as if it was daylight, while for Tink it is dim light.

So this is how I'm changing my answer: Even at a distance of 70' Jimmy is able to make out that he's dealing with pure, crystalline structures. I will also grant Jimmy based on his arcana proficiency that he knows for the sake of selling crystals like this, it's the bigger the better. To mine the crystals he certainly needs to break them off somehow, but without an inspection, he cannot be sure how brittle these crystals are. And even if they are very sturdy crystals, shooting the cluster with an Eldritch Blast at a distance is such a crude method that shattering the crystals into tiny pieces is likely to occur. To determine if Jimmy knows a method to carefully mine the crystals, I'll require a history roll. I'll grant him for free that it probably requires better equipment than he has. If it's just breaking the cluster apart, it will come down to the crystal's properties how long it will take and how well Jimmy can do it with just his crowbar and hammer. Right now Jimmy only knows that the cluster exists and what visual information he has about it after taking a glance from 70' away.

@edit:
Jimmy could also attempt to Eldritch Blast from up close for higher precision, but it will come down to rolls if that will work better and without ruining less gold value than the crowbar/hammer method. To compare the two methods for the sake of calculating his chances, I'll need Jimmy to make an Investigation roll once he has gone up to the crystals.

[secretID]

Posted.

I know I'm in the minority on this, but I really hate reiterating action that as already been covered, e.g. writing that my PC climbed the hill after the DM has already written that. I hope you don't mind.

The crystals are starting to seem like hard, careful work, which Jimmy is not into.

Dice mining knowledge:

1d20+2

(6)+2

Total = 8

Last thing: I really enjoyed the Boanagh/Kosev parting, which was poignant.

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

I know I'm in the minority on this, but I really hate reiterating action that as already been covered, e.g. writing that my PC climbed the hill after the DM has already written that. I hope you don't mind.

That's fine. I was hoping for a bit of narration to convey Jimmy's mood or if he has experienced anything during the time that I've summarized in fast-forward mode, but if nothing has left an impression then there's no need to repeat narration when it has already been stated.

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

Last thing: I really enjoyed the Boanagh/Kosev parting, which was poignant.

I'm glad about that! It would have been part of my headcanon but I'm glad that I was able to narrate it and that you liked it!

[secretID]

If they stay their course, will J & B get closer to the king before getting further away?

I don't think we've discussed this in a while: Tink's default is raven form and invisible. Having said that, I'm remembering that I should prepare a good Tink Darkness system, which may require switching his default to imp - after this encounter, of course.

[Mindsiege]

During the last post Jimmy moved 15' towards it. So now it's like this:

Name	Distance
Tink	-5
Exit	0
King	10
Jimmy/Boanagh	65

I don't mind what form Tink is right now, Jimmy should have figured all that stuff out during the downtime. What do you want to do with the Darkness and Tink? The rules are like they were in the past.

[secretID]

Re distances, I should have been more specific. I assumed that they were angled to pass it at a fair distance. Is it actually blocking the only exit? I guess the comprehensive question is: What's the minimum distance they can keep from it while passing it, and are they currently on course to give it that distance?

Re Darkness prep, I think I'll stick with raven form. Priority will be Tink carrying some small object - stick, stone, etc.. If he can also carry a sack or a blanket in raven form that would be great, but if not then just the small object.

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

Re distances, I should have been more specific. I assumed that they were angled to pass it at a fair distance. Is it actually blocking the only exit? I guess the comprehensive question is: What's the minimum distance they can keep from it while passing it, and are they currently on course to give it that distance?

Re Darkness prep, I think I'll stick with raven form. Priority will be Tink carrying some small object - stick, stone, etc.. If he can also carry a sack or a blanket in raven form that would be great, but if not then just the small object.

1) The elemental isn't blocking the exit. If you want to walk past it, the closest you will need to get to it would be about 15' - 20' give or take. That would be if you keep close to the right-side wall. That's certainly a course Jimmy and Boanagh can take, possibly what Boanagh means to do, though he hasn't said it in so many words.

2) Ravens can be pretty nimble, so you certainly can give him a pebble and a pouch to hide the pebble in. I imagine that a normal pouch wouldn't cut it but you could have let a darkling craftsman fashion a hermetic pouch from the same cloth that Boanagh uses for the sunscreen. Let's say you strike 2gp from your sheet (custom/express item price) and then you can add it to your character sheet. Then Tink can take the pebble in and out as a free item interaction in either imp or raven form (and you will have a custom item made by a fey - yay). Just remember that the item you want to enchant can't be carried during the spellcast.

[secretID]

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

Let's say you strike 2gp from your sheet (custom/express item price) and then you can add it to your character sheet. Then Tink can take the pebble in and out as a free item interaction in either imp or raven form (and you will have a custom item made by a fey - yay).

Done! That reminds me...are we holding off on part I loot until the end of part II? I've probably asked this before...

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

Just remember that the item you want to enchant can't be carried during the spellcast.

Oh, right - thanks for the reminder. That's RAW for sure, and I have no problem with it, but here's my little case for doing it otherwise:
1) I just don't think that requirement was meant for willing targets; they just didn't want the spell to be offensive in that way.
2) It's very easy - but silly - to work around it by just dropping the object, then picking it up. (I guess that might bump into technical issues of timing with mage and familiar.)
3) There's an especially interesting issue with familiars as compared to other friendly targets: a mage can cast a touch spell through a familiar. Since a mage can Darkness an object they're holding, it makes sense that they could Darkness an object held by their familiar.

Thanks for reading! (:

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

Done! That reminds me...are we holding off on part I loot until the end of part II? I've probably asked this before...

Correct, we're holding off on it because the magic items have been placed later in the story and gold is not going to do anything for Jimmy at this stage. So we might as well keep the narrative straight and give it to him later.

Originally Posted by secretID

1) I just don't think that requirement was meant for willing targets; they just didn't want the spell to be offensive in that way.
2) It's very easy - but silly - to work around it by just dropping the object, then picking it up. (I guess that might bump into technical issues of timing with mage and familiar.)
3) There's an especially interesting issue with familiars as compared to other friendly targets: a mage can cast a touch spell through a familiar. Since a mage can Darkness an object they're holding, it makes sense that they could Darkness an object held by their familiar.

Actually, I was considering all three of those things just before I wrote my post in regards to it. RAI, I very much lean towards your interpretation that the restriction on what can be targeted with Darkness has been placed on it in order to prevent it from being used as a blindness spell without a save. But then again, the RAW present an actual logistical issue that has to be overcome, where you have to inadvertently give away Tink's existence and location before you can cast the spell as well that it will cost Tink movement in order to retrieve the enchanted item before it can be transported anywhere. So throwing these limitations out of the window when they can be strategically relevant seemed a bit too beneficial. Lastly, I was also musing if the touch spell transference for familiars was good enough to allow overcoming these logistical issues, but then I decided that the wording of Darkness was still too far removed from an actual touch spell (where it is also intentionally sight-based) and I didn't want to set the precedence for familiars to become hubs to cast other magic than touch spells either.

I might sleep on this ruling and change my mind afterward but right this moment I feel like buffing Jimmy's strategy would probably not be the healthier ruling. I think overcoming that limitation in each individual situation will make encounters more unique and reward adaptivity rather than just the clever combination of features. Again, it could be that I change my mind on this later but before I move away from the RAW here I'd rather look at it a bit more in action.