OOC Discussion II: The Return

[Inferno]

Good point.
Lar could heal Bragar, while Bragar heals Lar, and Agax heals Petyr?

Or Lar heals Bragar, Agax heals Lar, Bragar heals Petyr.

Either way.

[Storm11]

Either way we have totally wasted a ton of healing before even entering the castle and being attacked, with a VERY small change of resting and regaining said healing spells. That is just ..... Well I don't have the words

[Inferno]

Agax was out of healing spells last night. I assume the other healers were as well.

The only way around it is healing ourselves today, and going to the castle tomorrow. But we agreed that we'll keep getting nighttime visitors who disrupt our spell recovery. So we said we'd break the vicious circle and head to the castle today.

What should we have done differently?

[Storm11]

We should have regained our spells and cast the healing ones to get us back to full shape and re rested before heading here abit later. We would still have had the day to recover magic and we wouldn't have had to replace any other magic other than the healing ones.

If we are going to play this stupidly then I am routing for the vampire myself.

[Inferno]

We should have regained our spells and cast the healing ones to get us back to full shape and re rested before heading here abit later.

We were all stocked up with spells at 1:50pm. If we wanted to cast healings, and then rest again for hours, and then pray for spells, we would have crossed the mountain range in darkness of night? That's not ideal either.
If we had to wait for the following morning, more monsters would have been sent to harass us in the night, injuring some of us, who would require more healing, and then we're back in the vicious circle.

It's not perfect, to be sure. But I don't know what would have been.

[Storm11]

There is no way we can survive without full Hps and healing spells before even going in. Castle ravenloft is one of the hardest places to navigate. We were attacked by about 7-10 wraiths. As a wandering monster encounter! Not even a room to navigate. They just mooch about.

Better to be attacked by wolves or zombies in a defensible warded lair than wander voluntarily into the lions den at half strength and rushing to our deaths. Every level drain leaves the group more vulnerable, permenantly. We have a couple of potions from the gypsys that might work or might not to protect against that attack, and not a single negative plane protection spell amongst us. Every dominated ally becomes a deadly Enemy and weakens us further. Why even run back to town if we deem town to be so unsafe and a waste of time to prepare in? Does it matter how we get out if that's the case?

And we just wander in injured and waste half our healing before we have even been attacked? That's amateur hour and it's not going to cut it frankly. We have to step up our game ALOT or there won't be a party.

If we don't work together and get it together we are toast. That's just how it is. Ravenloft isn't your ordinary dungeon. It's a killer dungeon.

"Oh let's just rush in and hope for the best," is a strategy that is not going to work.

[Zhym]

If we had to wait for the following morning, more monsters would have been sent to harass us in the night, injuring some of us, who would require more healing, and then we're back in the vicious circle.

I said something to that effect a couple of pages back:

[E]very night an adventuring party of size N > 2 has been in town, they have been attacked late at night, which, amazingly, has always prevented them from getting a morning start to the castle. Coincidence? Or does Strahd try to make sure that adventurers can only show up at his castle in the evening? If you stay in town another night, you can probably bet on another attack timed as inconveniently as possible. Personally, I'd rather avoid spending the next two weeks running another mostly-pointless battle. The castle is much more interesting.

You're down a few HP, but only Bragar is noticeably hurt, and a good roll just brought him within 1 HP of full. You're probably about as strong as you could hope to be right now.

[Dram]

I am back from my hunting trip. Ready to play.

[Storm11]

Welcome back

[GreyWolfVT]

Welcome back Mark.

[Dram]

Thank you

[Zhym]

What does the party have for light sources?

[Dram]

Zhym- Please let Storm and myself know if we are in area that we would recognize.

[Zhym]

The group is entering the way the previous group left the castle.

[Inferno]

Invisibly Castran chokes on the Wizards words, given the rash nature of our rush to the castle. The gnome wasn't sure whether he could hear the call of the pot, saying something about something being black

Hey! Agax didn't lead that hasty rush through the front gate.
Although, he already regrets it.

[Zhym]

I'm assuming if this spell can pierce the astral plane, and allow the caster to see the ethereal and the invisible, it can pierce garden variety shadows and fog to reveal what they hide.

Shadows, yes. Fog, no. Detect Invisible reveals anything that's hidden within line of sight, such as a thief hiding in shadows. But it won't let you see through obstacles like walls, doors, or thick fog.

Also, the spell doesn't reveal any more detail than you'd normally see. In this case, Agax can see that there is a figure approaching, but can't see what it is yet.

[Inferno]

Shadows, yes. Fog, no. Detect Invisible reveals anything that's hidden within line of sight, such as a thief hiding in shadows. But it won't let you see through obstacles like walls, doors, or thick fog.

Also, the spell doesn't reveal any more detail than you'd normally see. In this case, Agax can see that there is a figure approaching, but can't see what it is yet.

Thanks. Is the figure obscured by shadows? Or it's just so far away Agax can't see more than its figure-like shape?
If the latter, can he see what color the shape is? Thanks.

[Zhym]

It's far enough away that Agax can only see that it's a dark humanoid shape. It's out of the reach of your lights and lit from behind, so it's hard to see what it is just yet.

[GreyWolfVT]

Let's not bring the OOC obviousness of the photo capture IC. Thanks.

You don't let me have any fun do you?

[Inferno]

Bragar- Moves looking over the area cautiously. Maybe someone with the skills to find traps should take lead with Paladin behind them to detect evil.

I agree we should look under the fog for traps. Is there a Cleric with "Find Traps?" Agax doesn't have that spell.

I fear the fog will inhibit our gypsy's attempt to detect traps.