Bard, shush. This isn't nearly as bad. In fact, I'm dropping it. If Krylo sees it my way, yay!
If not, and he thinks needing 18 STR to resist a first-level spell is balanced, I'll just get the spell myself. Win-win.

Then Krylo will just throw enemies that can break out of or are immune to Lock at group 2, but not group 1.

I was referring to the who "Bello frightened the Witch" thing.

I'll try and get a post up soonish.

I'm kinda confused myself... Half of us are not taking combat actions despite Bello seeming to intentionally fail his speech/diplomacy roll. What exactly ARE we doing?

I know Ark actually did the result of the scan, but aside from that, are we actually attacking?

Teal, you think it would be viable to try to put buff Ark or Elsa's weapons to make them holy type? Combined with Bello's Holy boosting song, that might be a neat kicker to boost damage output without melting the ring.

(Although we might have to do that next round)

Elsa has three points of Shadow affiliation. Would that affect her ability to use a Holy weapon?

Anyway, yeah, I'm planning on having Elsa move into medium or short range, and possibly start casting Lock.

Why in the world are you asking me?

I'm not the GM.

Coincidentally, I do know the answer though!

Casting Restore on a weapon while you're attacking might give it Holy Strike for a turn, but on its own, I suspect it would only bestow Recovery Strike or (more likely) clean the weapon. To get a Holy Strike, you'd need to combine Restore with Jhennek's Thunder Spell - would strengthen the Holy energy and work strengthen the bond to the weapon (Good Enchantments need to last longer than a turn). Arden would only know what Restore would do, not how to correctly combine two spells to get a lasting Elemental Strike.

Her training would be limited to combining basic spells with other casters. In-Character, she knew Restore and Thunder mix well because of experiences on her Uncle's Ship - basic offensive spells and Restore usually create a Dual Element Attack, if combined correctly. Essentially, she knows the basics of Combo Magic.

Thunder+Restore+Weapon would be a Teamwork attack - she'd need to experiment with the team before trying it.

It might!

Nothing in the rules says it would, of course, but I suspect there'd be some penalty.

Your weapon hates you.

Holy weapons smell like rainbows and shimmer like children's laughter when they strike.

We wrongly assumed that he wouldn't try to make things, y'know, objectively worse.

Meh, if the the zombie attacks first, we technically become the victims, making it perfectly acceptable for us to beat the ever-loving daylights out of him and call it self-defense, then rob his corpse and leave without actually doing anything to solve the town's zombie problem or figure out who is behind it.

Works for me.

If they don't attack first, we attack anyway, because they are zombies.

Aw, screw it. I'll go be the meatshield for a round so we can see what kind of attacks he has. (HEY GUYS GUESS WHO'S ABOUT TO GET POISONED)

Depending on what the zombie does, I can then either use attack/knockback or start casting.

Bello's words came from the heart. You tell me a better explanation for our actions.

See this? This is why our team is awesome.

Whee, time to get back to postin' stuff.

Oh you people and your trying to distract/run away from/get hurt by the skinless petrification apes. It can't hurt you if it's dead!

You bastard! My planssssssssss!

Technically, I believe Ark's attack will land next round. He needs to move a Medium Range to reach the Zombie - though it may just count as a Slow Action, since he's committed to it this turn. Either way!

Arden's trying to break whatever guard the Zombie Overlord may attempt. So, her attack probably won't land until the next turn either! Hopefully, a well-timed shot will make it die vulnerable defenseless.

Now, everyone, let us crush them with words* from the heart!

*Posts are made of words.

Scan is an instant action, so Ark still has enough action to move a short range distance, thus making him short range from target. So I just edited my post for Ark to make the short range movement to be able to attack.

That's not how it works. You can't move a short range to enter melee range with someone at medium range.

I liked it more when it was two-turn thing.

But if Menarker wants to edit his action to a short-range+defend thing, I'll just shoot the boss.

Uh. Forgive me. I was under the impression that melee fighters could attack when short range from the target in question. Since he was medium range from the target, I figured that moving short range would change his distance from medium to short.

Guess I'll edit again.

Oh, hey, guess what slipped my mind until this morning? I'm going to be gone all week on a severe bender spring break. I won't be bringing my computer because severe bender I mean... something else about not losing it. Anyway, I'll be gone from Monday until Friday evening, so yeah.

Assume Bello's singing the Strength-down shuffle and is ready to run.

Considering how consistently exhausted I've felt (combined with having just gotten DA2 and Rift) I think it's pretty safe to say you probably won't miss much, but I will keep this in mind.

Gonna try to shit out a few posts now, though.

Edit: Seems to be some confusion on how movement works.

Longer bullshittier answer.There's basically four ranges. Melee, Short, Medium, and Long. Melee range is where you can hit someone with a good whap. Short is the distance you can cover and still whap someone. Medium is generally considered a 'medium + a short'. Moving a medium range rarely, if ever, actually puts you in melee range with an enemy. It is, however, abstracted as a distance from someone in which you could hit them if you spent a full round moving before hand. Long range is abstracted as anything greater than medium. In GENERAL each distance is two of the one before.

So if you're medium distance from someone, that really means, in 99.999% of cases (I will tell you if it is not the case but expect this to never happen), that you are a medium distance from a short distance from someone. What this means, FURTHER and as it pertains to the CURRENT SITUATION, is that you can't move a short distance when you're a medium distance from someone and attack, because you are nowhere near melee range. You, further, can't move a short distance this round, then a short distance the next, and then attack. You would require three short distances, and you would have to hope that your opponent doesn't move at ALL in that time.

TL;DR: You can't move two shorts over two rounds and attack someone at medium range, either.

Mern: In light of this I'll let you decide whether to drop the defend or not. It won't change my post either way. It wasn't going to make a ranged attack at you.

Are you saying that if I spend a full round to move medium distance, it won't be able to attack me either? You said that I can't move two short distances and attack someone at medium range over the period of two turns, but I definately don't want to spend an entire round running to get the full distance of medium range and leave myself open to being attacked, either through spellcasting or melee.

It could. It won't though. It's doing what it just did regardless. Well that's kind of why ranged weapons are nice.

So, hey, does Jhennek still have that nice Elemental Spikes Spell goin'?

Because that would be helpful.

Also: Arden bravely runs away!

It was the only sensible thing to do, I'm afraid.

I did say I'd let her keep it until you were out of town.

I have run out of words so I had to put together a post with what little I had left.

It is my finest work.

Oh well, that's too bad how we lost one of our valued teammates in taking down the beastie.

I wonder how much compensation the employers would provide for the loss of dear Caspin. At the very least, we should get his share.

Hey Krylo, can I get a description of the area around us? I'd like to see if there's any terrain Arden can use to assist better in the fight. Cover, a part of the area she can use to attack the boss from unexpectedly, etc.

Also, is the City of Undead approaching? About how long do we have 'til they get to us?

/Awareness Checks, probably.

We are very clearly outmatched right now, you see.

Edit: Oh, while I'm asking things. Why is no one posting? Hmmmm?

Out of character, I didn't post because Bello's knife isn't going to kill anything and I thought that mimic-ing Jhen's lightening would be a waste. Now I know that it wouldn't have been, but it will be now unless she targets another zombie. So, yeah, unless we run or I feel like trying to snatch the necklace, I'm stumped. In character, Bello isn't one to charge a wall of zombies.

Though, Bello may try to snatch the necklace so that they can get the heck out of there. This fight isn't something we need.

Well, now that Ark and Elsa are in close range of the zombie Lord, we should be aiming for constant Combination attacks in order to overcome his regeneration. (Regeneration being one of the things that get negated by that apparently)

I didn't want to post without hashing out some sort of plan, was waiting to see if anyone else came up with something.

I'd -like- to obtain sidequest bounties, but if it's not feasible, it isn't. Jhen will be sad, for all of the five minutes before some other puzzle appears.

But mostly, we need to find the win condition for this fight - since I somehow think the reinforcement potential on this boss is somewhere around infinite*.

We don't have the juice to wage a protracted battle! As fun as it would be.

*since cities are rather large, and Krylo was rightfully nonspecific on how many of whats are scrabbling about where we can't see.

The time until they get to you ranges from never to a few rounds. Chances are I won't actually make any reinforcements get there to speed this along. Assuming anyone still has any care to post I'd rather end the first missions as soon as possible. If I do it'll only be a few and in a couple of rounds from now.

As for places to hide, there's a few houses on the sides of the road. You can't be sure they're actually safe, though.

Also, note: I never actually said lightning would damage the McGuffin. I simply didn't deny it when asked. I don't see it as my job as GM to clarify (without rolls and pertinent skills etc.) whether or not a risk will for certain play out for or against the PCs. In this case, the risk is launching huge lightning bolts at someone wearing something you don't want broke. I only mention this because it seems you guys are working on the assumption I said it would for certain ruin the ring.

Also, part two: Group 2, the Fresk is down. Do something to subdue it and let's move on.

Unless this is dead, in which case I will take the blame for being a pretty lackluster GM for a couple weeks here where I felt shitty/got distracted by other things.

Honestly I just want to make sure Gem is still alive before we move on. I'm actually beginning to seriously worry about him.

I am concerned about Gem's health too.

I'm still active in the RP if there are still people playing. It's not just this RP that is going slow. All the RPs I'm in have slowed down to a crawl in this span of time.

I've been distracted by a certain game for a while. Like, I haven't even been watching my cartoons. I've just been getting drunk while doing block-pushing puzzles 'til I can't push blocks no more, then chilling on other threads and posting stupid crap. I suppose I could have posted here during the day between classes and stuff (instead of posting more stupid crap in other threads), but, you know, I made a talky-talk-type character, so I feel like I have to post more than "Bello moves into short-range so that next turn he can ineffectually whack a zombie with his knife." I guess I should just not think about it so much.

I'll try to post something before work tomorrow. It'll probably boil down to "Move to short-range of Talking Zombie," but it'll at least be moving along.

EDIT: Har har April Foolz I slept too much and couldn't go home because of the race and now I'm tired and it's two days later.

Look for something about 9:00 Sunday evening.

Ill try to post tomorrow. Been busy recently.

Lame post is lame, but there wasn't much else to do.

Don't let it be said that I ever let a game die!

Posted as well.

Me too, me too!

Group 2 hates life.

Posted a few days later then advertised, but whatevs.

Ha take that, life!

I swear to god, if that thing gets up again I'm chopping its head off.

Krylo, I don't suppose you are still GMing this game? Team 1 pretty much posted.