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

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Mhm, can't help but think the Others will take the opportunity to strike at whichever group that seems weakest at the moment - be it Craster's keep, or the giants.
The latter seems to be more of a priority to me.

[X] Do not send anyone, you cannot afford to weaken the caravan's guard
 
[X] Use divination to determine what threats a group you send is likely to face and also what threats the caravan might face if you do deviate from your current plan.
-[X] Is this in actual fact a trap specifically set for us? Are the Others scrambling assets in the area to try to respond? Is that response actually fast enough to catch the giants moving as fast as they are? Etc.
-[X] If necessary, you have enough Dawnfruit to get rid of exhaustion to make a Forced March across the Haunted Forest, so if they are using the tireless nature of their servants to catch up during the night, you will march through it instead of waiting for them to regain ground. You should have a head-start, losing it and guaranteeing battle seems pointless when you can use magic to deal with any logistical constraints or attrition.
 
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@egoo is assuming that an encounter is guaranteed, and granted in the latter case of sending people to the Keep battle is likely but not in the case of the caravan.

So long as the Others don't already have them waiting in ambush RIGHT NOW and are just waiting for us to weaken ourselves, in which case we could just burn the surrounding area to the ground to flush them out.

If we actually do in fact have a head start, we can break camp right now also and magic away exhaustion with Dawnfruit.

Logistics and attrition are meaningless to us. We can take away their greatest advantages.
 
Tomcost said:
You know, we could actually send a Moonchaser to pick up these girls. For once, they would actually fit into one.
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It would still take several hours for it to arrive from the Stepstones going at top speed.

The problem is the present assumption that an ambush is prepared somewhere. If we could ferret out where we could just alpha strike it and move on.
 
Raises the question if there's anyone alive there still.

Winter is a sore loser, and with Craster gone there's no one there to make more sacrifices, the women are literally dead weight. If I was a moral-less bastard I'd simply kill them and raise them as Wrights, they'd be more useful that way.
 
@Crake, I blinged your plan a bit.

[X] Dany and Vee will activate their Beads of Karma to boost their caster levels to 20 and 21, respectively. Dany will use Divination in conjunction with her Dragonbone Divination Sticks (for a combined 95% accuracy) to determine what threats a group you send is likely to face and also what threats the caravan might face if you do deviate from your current plan. Vee will use Hallucinogenic Smoke and Augury along with her Dragonbone Divination Sticks (for a combined 95% accuracy, plus knowledge of whether a "Nothing" result is actually a failed or successful Augury) to determine the likely outcome if she travels with a group to Craster's Keep.
-[X] If necessary, use additional spells to determine if this is a trap specifically set for us? Are the Others scrambling assets in the area to try to respond? Is that response actually fast enough to catch the giants moving as fast as they are? Etc.
-[X] Send a message for some of our allies and vassals to gather and prepare to provide further support should we, the Giant migration, or the investigation into Craster's Keep become more involved than anticipated. Melisandre, Sandor, the Seeker, the Twin Feylords, and a pair of Mind Dragons will travel to Castle Black by magic, then move to rendezvous with us unless they receive further instructions.
--[X] If necessary, you have enough Dawnfruit to get rid of exhaustion to make a Forced March across the Haunted Forest, so if they are using the tireless nature of their servants to catch up during the night, you will march through it instead of waiting for them to regain ground. You should have a head-start, losing it and guaranteeing battle seems pointless when you can use magic to deal with any logistical constraints or attrition.
 
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Crake said:
It would still take several hours for it to arrive from the Stepstones going at top speed.

The problem is the present assumption that an ambush is prepared somewhere. If we could ferret out where we could just alpha strike it and move on.
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Can't they sort of teleport via indirect planeshift to near the wall? Then they would be incredibly near. The idea would be to split our forces for the least amount of time needed.
 
Tomcost said:
Can't they sort of teleport via indirect planeshift to near the wall? Then they would be incredibly near. The idea would be to split our forces for the least amount of time needed.
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I mean I guess. It does seem unlikely they'll have any ghosts in the area, and unless whatever they have near the keep can survive saturation bombardment from over half a kilometer away they could probably arrive there faster than a group we send could.

@Goldfish? You could actually call for backup from a handful of side characters at this point, mostly the ones already assigned to the Reach action this month.

Keep the divination stuff in the plan though, it's good to know.
 
Since some of y'all have made a few reading suggestions that I've ended up enjoying quite a bit, I figured I should reciprocate.

I've been reading A Journey of Black and Red over on Royal Road for a while now.

Vampire fiction isn't normally an area which interests me, but this one is very good. It is set in the United States during the early 1800s and follows Ariane, from the moment she regains consciousness after being turned into a vampire against her will, through a lot of growing pains and self-discovery, then finally coming into her own as a powerful creature of the night. I don't know the genre well enough to say for sure, but a lot of the story seems quite fresh and original to me, with little in the way of excessive angst or hyper sexuality. There is also a ton of world building that does a nice job of incorporating the supernatural into an otherwise mundane world.
 
Crake said:
I mean I guess. It does seem unlikely they'll have any ghosts in the area, and unless whatever they have near the keep can survive saturation bombardment from over half a kilometer away they could probably arrive there faster than a group we send could.

@Goldfish? You could actually call for backup from a handful of side characters at this point, mostly the ones already assigned to the Reach action this month.

Keep the divination stuff in the plan though, it's good to know.
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Who would you recommend? I'm thinking we can maybe grab Malarys, Melisandre, the Seeker, and a couple Mind Dragons?
 
Duesal said:
That reminds me, did the Mind Dragons make progress for their first Sorcerer level? That was their second big combat encounter, the first being Tiamat herself.
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I hope so, but as CR 15 beings, they're essentially starting from scratch working toward earning as much XP as it would take to go from 15th to 16th level. If DP didn't track side characters in a more abstract manner, they would need 15,000 XP, so we should expect them to need several more serious engagements or many smaller ones before they level up. That doesn't mean I'm not eagerly waiting for it, though. 🧐
 
Goldfish said:
Who would you recommend? I'm thinking we can maybe grab Malarys, Melisandre, the Seeker, and a couple Mind Dragons?
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Mel is fine, but Malarys is elsewhere with Garin.

Send her, Sandor, the Seeker, the Twin Feylords and two Mind Dragons assigned to assist us in the Reach.

Hopefully that's a strong enough group. Sandor is in the Persistomancy routine so he's pretty strongly warded, the Seeker is a mage killer and has some really punishing abilities for defending a squishier target, and the two Fey and the dragons are all CR 15 which isn't anything to scoff at.
 
Goldfish said:
I hope so, but as CR 15 beings, they're essentially starting from scratch working toward earning as much XP as it would take to go from 15th to 16th level. If DP didn't track side characters in a more abstract manner, they would need 15,000 XP, so we should expect them to need several more serious engagements or many smaller ones before they level up. That doesn't mean I'm not eagerly waiting for it, though. 🧐
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In that case they need a few more CR 20 encounters. They might be high CR Dragons but we don't lack for dangerous encounters either. Even our strongest minions gain levels.
 
Crake said:
Mel is fine, but Malarys is elsewhere with Garin.

Send her, Sandor, the Seeker, the Twin Feylords and two Mind Dragons assigned to assist us in the Reach.

Hopefully that's a strong enough group. Sandor is in the Persistomancy routine so he's pretty strongly warded, the Seeker is a mage killer and has some really punishing abilities for defending a squishier target, and the two Fey and the dragons are all CR 15 which isn't anything to scoff at.
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Plan updated. How's this? New addition highlighted.

[X] Dany and Vee will activate their Beads of Karma to boost their caster levels to 20 and 21, respectively. Dany will use Divination in conjunction with her Dragonbone Divination Sticks (for a combined 95% accuracy) to determine what threats a group you send is likely to face and also what threats the caravan might face if you do deviate from your current plan. Vee will use Hallucinogenic Smoke and Augury along with her Dragonbone Divination Sticks (for a combined 95% accuracy, plus knowledge of whether a "Nothing" result is actually a failed or successful Augury) to determine the likely outcome if she travels with a group to Craster's Keep.
-[X] If necessary, use additional spells to determine if this is a trap specifically set for us? Are the Others scrambling assets in the area to try to respond? Is that response actually fast enough to catch the giants moving as fast as they are? Etc.
-[X] If necessary, you have enough Dawnfruit to get rid of exhaustion to make a Forced March across the Haunted Forest, so if they are using the tireless nature of their servants to catch up during the night, you will march through it instead of waiting for them to regain ground. You should have a head-start, losing it and guaranteeing battle seems pointless when you can use magic to deal with any logistical constraints or attrition.
-[X] Send a message for some of our allies and vassals (Melisandre, Sandor, the Seeker, the Twin Feylords, and a pair of Mind Dragons) to quickly gather and board the Moonchaser. Once underway, the Moonchaser will Plane Shift first to the Plane of Air, then back to the Prime Material, with a destination of Castle Black in Westeros (accurate to between 2 and 500 miles). From there, they will travel at full speed for Craster's Keep, If all goes to plan, they should be able to reach the Keep in less than two hours.
 
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I have a question: at which level will Lya gain access to level 9 spells? (and I'm asking for both the arcane and divine variants).
 
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