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so it is down to dog and bear with a chance of fox?

Yeah... if Glenrir makes this roll, then it looks like he'll come in first, but for the second place, I'll leave that as a mystery

Shouldn't Adam be at/near the front? He was in third, and he's been doing the third leg of the course at the speed of gravity. UNIMPEDED. What gives?

He didn't start at the front of the pack. The rolls are for posistions as they were when the final leg started. Though you're right that he may well end up winning simply due to not having to slow down. Assuming Adam doesn't end up rocketing into the ground.

That's the beauty of it being snow/ice. I figure the ground's composition is porous/liquid/sparse enough to be easy to single out as the one material to -not- phase through.

Sorry, thought you weren't targetting me for some reason. (That reason being you didn't say so, but, you know.)

So, perception against the chains appearing:
Roll(1d20)+11:
18,+11
Total:29

I think that's enough? Either way, I did NOT add a +2 to this next roll as I don't know what I'm rolling against for that perception. Factor that in post-roll, please and thanks!

Either way, Athletics... And I need at LEAST the 18 I got above...
Roll(1d20)+20:
10,+20
Total:30

Aww..... No.

...So I have chains around Glenrir. Here's what I'd like to try to do:

Counter the chains (Blue, Blue, Counterspell?). You cannot teleport out of the them, nor dimensional phase through them. They are constrictive to movement. It states nothing to their destructibility from outside forces, only inside ones. Additionally, the chains are constricting a very big Glenrir. So Glenrir will let go of his Form of the Bull (the roll was already made, so no losses here) and shrink a bit for breathing room while trapped (no time taken for this action, it is instant).

I'll then use my last of of my dailies, and Fabricate them into something else. Anything else. A large blood-iron boulder on the ground, perhaps. The medium is a physical object, and therefore can be crafted. I'll assume there's less than 30 cubic feet of chains around Glenrir. Make it into something not requiring a roll, not "requiring a significant degree of craftsmanship" (It'll be a crude boulder, not a perfect sphere).

This would put Glenrir back 5 seconds on the race, but a Critical Success 50 athletics should help even out 5 seconds on a half-mile-long very dangerous course.

If giving up Form of the Bull would penalize Glenrir in the race, it implies the chains are before my roll, in which case I'll use my Magic Point on breaking the chains instead of the racing roll I could not perform since I'd've been chained and take a 40 break chains/ 40 crit roll on the final stretch instead... I'm not giving up a natural 20 without a fight. Rar!

Okay, I'll call for your choice of either mechanics check or an arcana check against an opposed arcana check by Blood Mage if he decideds to try and resist the effects of the fabricate, I figure he will. (this is mainly to determine if it's going to last for a few seconds longer or break right away from your fabricate spell, a crit fail versus a crit success might just cause unwanted results though...)

Z2, I should point out that Adam is unlikely to be moving at the speed of gravity as if he were he would be plunging into the ground and not towards the town at all.

... Nat 19 Arcana, so 32 Total minus any penalties.

Z2 did you not crit fail on something? I can not recall at the moment.

@Tyger - Yes, I crit failed endurance, to which I responded by lying down and letting gravity do all the work.

@Ramsus - I know it isn't just gravity, but that sounded a lot better than "Adam is moving at the speed of, [μwcos(a) + N + g]/3." Especially when it's impossible to know what μ, a, N, and even g are with the information I currently have.

Nat 19 Mechanics, total 32.

...
...

I'll let Silent sort that one out.

Well, I'll be if that wasn't a close race Now, that's the way to tackle a skill challenge.

Perhaps a bit off topic, but I just watched the latest episode. Are we going to incorporate the fact that Glenrir is apparently VERY easy to shatter into gameplay? (out of combat, preferably.)

Also, I don't want to complain, per se; but how the heck am I fourth? I'm trying to wrap my head around it and short of just saying, "It's all the roll of the dice, it's not supposed to make physical sense," I just can't come up with anything! I used phase step, with a poem, to go down a leg of the race that was 100% incline, unimpeded, with additional wing acceleration, and somehow I not only failed to pull ahead, but got passed? Unless we're doing the "you rolled a 1, the misfortune that befalls you doesn't have to make sense" rule, I would really like an explanation.

Rolling a 1 in endurance caused you to recieve a -5 penalty to all future rolls. Using phase step in a clever manner added a total +15 to your total. (Ie more useful than a magic point). It was very clever, but Camellia was also clever with her use of spider climb. She gained a +10 from it's use and had a really great acrobatics roll to boot. And Glenrir, had an amazingly high athletic roll. All in all, your character did a fantastic job, some people just got a little more lucky with their rolls.

So that is how we're doing this campaign? The most you can get out of your choices is just a few more plusses on the rolls? The speed of sliding cannot be affected by personal exhaustion, and unless some of the characters did something really difficult to calculate, like jumping off of trees, which they didn't, it shouldn't be physically possible for them to move faster than Adam.

ROLLS. BE. DAMNED.

I would think that the advantage of Play-by-Post is that you have the option to fully explore the consequences of what the characters actually DO, rather than leaning further into letting numbers decide everything.

Rule 00 - The GM is Always Right: No matter how eloquently the Rules Lawyer states his case for the loophole he's trying to abuse, the GM always has the last word.

Silent even allowed you to do all that stuff after that nat 1 (personally in one of my games it would have knocked you out cold.)

wait a second
Rule 5 - Rules of Gracious Gratuity: Never trust a GM who lets you hand-pick your starting equipment. It means one of three things:
1. You're going to lose it all very soon.
2. You're playing a One-Shot campaign, which means you'll never use this character again.
3. You're going against enemies who are going to be just as well equipped as you are, at least.
why do I feel this is going to happen...

You want to bring up what is officially referred to as a list of non-rules? Fine.

Rule 0 - Don't give the GM ideas, if there wasn't before, there probably is now an enemy wands of explosive fireballs or whatever.

Also, I am doing the opposite of rules lawyering. I am requesting that the GM look beyond just what the numbers say might happen, and actually look at how things would logically progress were the events happening.

Z2 wrote:So that is how we're doing this campaign? The most you can get out of your choices is just a few more plusses on the rolls? The speed of sliding cannot be affected by personal exhaustion, and unless some of the characters did something really difficult to calculate, like jumping off of trees, which they didn't, it shouldn't be physically possible for them to move faster than Adam.

ROLLS. BE. DAMNED.

I would think that the advantage of Play-by-Post is that you have the option to fully explore the consequences of what the characters actually DO, rather than leaning further into letting numbers decide everything.

Well, if there were only say, 4 players or fewer, then I probably would try to explore it a bit further, but with 7 players I just don't have the time to do that. The best way I could handle it was by factoring in bonuses based on insightful thinking and corresponding rolls and keep track of them numerically. I want this game to stand firmly in a middle ground: having solid game mechanics, and the player choices causing significant changes to the outcome of those rolls and mechanics. And I believe that this was a sound enough in execution.

I am willing to argue my decisions, especially if someone feels I'm picking on them or favouring other characters, since that is never my intention. And heck I can be wrong and make mistakes quite often. But in my mind, these placements were fair, based on rolls and decisions. I had no intention of turning the race entirely into: 'whoever has the more clever plan wins' nor into 'whoever has the better stats and rolls wins' I was aiming for a middle ground and I think I reached it.

tygerburningbright wrote:wait a second
Rule 5 - Rules of Gracious Gratuity: Never trust a GM who lets you hand-pick your starting equipment. It means one of three things:
1. You're going to lose it all very soon.
2. You're playing a One-Shot campaign, which means you'll never use this character again.
3. You're going against enemies who are going to be just as well equipped as you are, at least.
why do I feel this is going to happen...

I'd say number three I like tossing challenges at players. Besides 3000 bits is the recommended starting point. And if I picked out the equipment for you it would probably end up becoming a big argument, much easier to let the players handle it

Well, I respect the intent if not the execution. I can see I'll just have to be even more 'creative' in the future.

I do have a final question, is my phase step still active?

It's still up for about a minute.

@Z2, Adam was moving at whatever speed he was moving and everyone else was moving at whatever speed they were. Lying down is going to stop producing momentum and friction would normally grind him to a halt. Phase Step doesn't specify any ability aside from the ability to pass through objects, so I think you should consider yourself lucky Belle didn't rule that your plan didn't work at all, I've certainly known GMs who would rule that way. Also, I have no idea what your statement about the poem meant. Unless you have some ability that confers bonuses for poems... it's just a poem and wouldn't have any mechanical effect.

Edit: You may want to avoid spoilers so soon after an episode goes up in the future. It's entirely possible someone here hasn't seen it for some reason. I myself only remembered to watch it right before I went to sleep and if I hadn't, you would have just spoiled stuff for me.

As for Glenrir, I would imagine he isn't quite the same as those. Though, I always assume player characters are the coolest version of something that's reasonable.

@Belle: So how many teleports did I use up?

Edit 2: I agree with you about letting players pick their stuff. If you're going to include equipment in any game, there's no point it not letting the players have what they want as they're just going to be frustrated and try to get what they want anyway. And then you have your players ignoring the plot while they go on the quest of getting the items they actually wanted.

I think what he meant about the poem was, not being a unicorn, his magic effects work more via invocation than making a horn glow. Think how in Baldur's Gate, casters always had those odd phrases they intoned before casting. (I know that's D&D in general, but BG is one of the few games that provides examples.)

Ice has a very low coefficient of friction, and we were flat out told that it was very steep; lying down the proper way even minimizes air drag. Given that I am not playing a small character, unless the gravity is absurdly low, there is no way I would slow during the slide. And I mentioned the poem just in case that extra bit of roleplaying and lyric spinning was worth some additional plusses along the way.

Yes, but the ice was not slick on the way Adam was going since he was going straight. Through solid rock. There is no ice inside of solid rock. The ice was on the zig-zagging path, not inside the mountain somehow.

Edit: The poem was certainly nice and you should keep it up, because roleplaying is good (being the point of roleplaying games). I just wouldn't expect any bonuses from it.