Remove ads

A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

Reader mode
[X] Goldfish
I'd rather cut our losses while we can.
Melisande's visions being seen as less reliable might do good for her, too.
 
Let's cut our losses. From my point of view there's absolutely no reason this mage should not be able to Celerity into Mage's Decree even if it guarantees death-- in fact it might be preferable to survival but losing your entire command. I would not bet on a safe exile as an Efreeti. Where are you gonna go, Dis? You'll be sold out in no time.
 
Anyway, if we're indeed cutting our losses, that removes much of the reason not to prepare another battle with the remainder of the fleet @Goldfish. We should bring in our Moonchasers + Wyverns and bring the remaining enemy to battle with our Raider allies at the end of the month. That also gives us a combined two dozen or so Wyverns in addition to the two additional Moonchasers. Much better odds, we can also presumably call in our refurbished Sword Ships that the Shaitan were working on and crewing.
 
Crake said:
Let's cut our losses. From my point of view there's absolutely no reason this mage should not be able to Celerity into Mage's Decree even if it guarantees death-- in fact it might be preferable to survival but losing your entire command. I would not bet on a safe exile as an Efreeti. Where are you gonna go, Dis? You'll be sold out in no time.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

A small mechanical note on this, one cannot take most immediate actions, like casting celerity while flat footed. Not arguing for the plan one way or another just needed to make that clear since I too had been under that mistaken assumption in the past and I may have confused people.
 
Why cut our losses? We can get a kill relatively easily considering all our PCs, and then we'll have PCs abord their ships which is a good start to a strike team strategy.

This would be a risky fight, but IMO it is entirely winnable.
 
DragonParadox said:
A small mechanical note on this, one cannot take most immediate actions, like casting celerity while flat footed. Not arguing for the plan one way or another just needed to make that clear since I too had been under that mistaken assumption in the past and I may have confused people.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That only makes our odds slightly better, since it means we might catch them flat-footed, in fact for balance reasons you might write the encounter as that by default provided Mel can bypass his other defenses without getting caught, otherwise this should be an instant loss.
 
Crake said:
That only makes our odds slightly better, since it means we might catch them flat-footed, in fact for balance reasons you might write the encounter as that by default provided Mel can bypass his other defenses without getting caught, otherwise this should be an instant loss.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

If she moves in a surprise round he's flat footed, barring some mid-to-high level class abilities a mage capable of casting up to sixth level is unlikely to have.
 
Crake said:
That only makes our odds slightly better, since it means we might catch them flat-footed, in fact for balance reasons you might write the encounter as that by default provided Mel can bypass his other defenses without getting caught, otherwise this should be an instant loss.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I disagree, and cannot understand how you reach that conclusion.
Perhaps I am being stupid. Could you please elaborate?
 
Crake said:
Anyway, if we're indeed cutting our losses, that removes much of the reason not to prepare another battle with the remainder of the fleet @Goldfish. We should bring in our Moonchasers + Wyverns and bring the remaining enemy to battle with our Raider allies at the end of the month. That also gives us a combined two dozen or so Wyverns in addition to the two additional Moonchasers. Much better odds, we can also presumably call in our refurbished Sword Ships that the Shaitan were working on and crewing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I don't think we should try to delay it for that long, though. If the Efreeti have already caught on to our plan, it's only a matter of time until they try something else. We should just have them all withdraw, then Melisandre can have the subverted captains order the ship crews into a position for easy defeat by our corsairs.
 
DragonParadox said:
If she moves in a surprise round he's flat footed, barring some mid-to-high level class abilities a mage capable of casting up to sixth level is unlikely to have.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Technically he could spend his day in the shape of a Dire Turtle, which automatically act in the surprise round... :p

More seriously, even if it isn't the Surprise round we know that a Ring of Spell-battle can beat Celerity.
 
If y'all think we can string the subverted Efreeti out until the end of the month in order to provide a more thorough trouncing, as @Crake suggested, I can change my plan. I would rather go ahead and wrap this thread up, though, since we already know the cat is out of the bag.

With 19 Salamander ships, our own forces, and the havoc Melisandre can wreak on the subverted crews, this should be a clean victory. Lucrative, too.

[X] Although the Efreeti fleet is a tempting target, Melisandre's plan has been discovered and complete failure all too likely. We will instead order our subverted ships and Corsair allies to withdraw.
-[X] Once the fleet has reached a suitable location, Melisandre will then begin issuing orders to her Commanded Efreeti that will make it as easy as possible for our people and Salamander corsairs to capture the crews of those ships.
--[X] The Corsairs might be disappointed to miss out on a greater share of treasure, but an easy fight for generous pay and little danger should be acceptable, and the Efreeti will still be losing access to nine powerful and expensive vessels.
 
Crake said:
Anyway, if we're indeed cutting our losses, that removes much of the reason not to prepare another battle with the remainder of the fleet @Goldfish. We should bring in our Moonchasers + Wyverns and bring the remaining enemy to battle with our Raider allies at the end of the month. That also gives us a combined two dozen or so Wyverns in addition to the two additional Moonchasers. Much better odds, we can also presumably call in our refurbished Sword Ships that the Shaitan were working on and crewing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Then it basically becomes a full action next month.

I think we chose to delegate this because we don't want to spend personal and fleet-time in the backwater of the PoF and have higher priorities.
Going all in defeats that purpose.
 
ughhhh but the loot....
we need to see how the plan got out might have been some salamander captain ratting us out
 
Artemis1992 said:
Then it basically becomes a full action next month.

I think we chose to delegate this because we don't want to spend personal and fleet-time in the backwater of the PoF and have higher priorities.
Going all in defeats that purpose.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This effectively became a simple gamble the moment they caught onto the plan. Not a delegated action.

Take the pot and go home or go all in and either take it all or get mauled.
 
Crake said:
This effectively became a simple gamble the moment they caught onto the plan. Not a delegated action.

Take the pot and go home or go all in and either take it all or get mauled.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Exactly.
Just not a fan of trying to take a third option here by escalating towards calling our whole fleet.
Particularly not against someone who has more ressources to throw into the escalation game.

Edit: Take the pot and go now, or go for it all now. Just not later.
 
People, is Melisandre available for that fight or not? The text seems to say yes, but the "Order of battle" spoiler in the penultimate update says no.

Yes, I'm writing up a plan. IIRC Melisandre is stealthy, right? So her and the Mighty Mind Dragon will be our first bet to incapacitate, capture or kill that Efreet mage. Once it's done, they use a Sending stone to tell the others to attack (Vee and Rina do AoE, otherwise it'll start as just a normal ship battle). Meanwhile the Herald, the Erinye, Yrten and Siduri stay ready to act against whatever bullshit or Hero units the enemy will inevitably whip out.

Sending Melisandre and a Dragon in to do an assassination is less crazy than it sounds. Melisandre is a stupidly powerful spellcaster with amazing action economy, and IIRC her shadow abilities are good for infiltration AND her PrC and shadowcaster class are both very good at using raw skill points to sneak around (the whole "turn into a shadow, then roll Hide at +bullshit and simply never enter the line of sight of anyone with True Seeing active" approach to infiltration).

Thoughts?
 
[X] Goldfish

Too many unknowns, too many assumptions. Who's to say the mage does not have a contingent action? (can even build magical 'traps' that do it in PF RAW). Or perhaps they are not as shortsighted as most our foes and such called up someone Mindblanked, to lie in wait and 'port in once the fleet engages. Shared glory and some embarassment, certainly, but success in dealing the Dragon a mighty blow washes all those things away. Finally, they could in fact be able to cast in a suprise round - there are multiple ways for pulling such off, most relevant here to have been a Diviner Wizard.

Let's not be greedy here, peeps. Grab the lesser but yet rather excellent prize and run. No mercenary will complain about an easy fight either.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top