The Harbinger of Ferocity

The Manacles of Destruction - Loosely Based Dungeons and Dragons 3.5

You can expect a post from me either this Sunday or Monday when I return.

The Manacles of Destruction - Loosely Based Dungeons and Dragons 3.5

The way I have seen it best done is "preemptively", @ELGainsborough. Initiative rolled at the start, prior to an encounter or event, then right after for the next so that there is no delay or waiting. It also works in some part to determine which character is doing what and or slightly distracted.

Not as intended for Third Edition, but it works well enough and is standardized that it doesn't betray if something is or isn't combat.

The Manacles of Destruction - Loosely Based Dungeons and Dragons 3.5

Provided they're appropriate to Jaegar's character, I do not have any issue with him making checks or decisions that would influence us as the rest of the party, @ELGainsborough. I think so long as its what he would do as his character we cannot complain - same reason that while I know better on some matters, my own character might not.

To answer your question from what I have seen so far @Aristo, you would be correct. You've also shorted yourself a domain, unless there's something I neglected to see.

The Manacles of Destruction - Loosely Based Dungeons and Dragons 3.5

As much as I the player would like to roll said dice, my character is a bit naive to the entire dungeoneering philosophy at the moment; lack of experience. That and the tiger has no effective means of using its scent ability to any useful effect between the refuse and smoke.

Oh well, but I am quite thankful the "check for traps" feeling as already forward. Those are always the worst encounters.

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Not to be too rude, or perhaps too far out of line, but there are a surprising number of people that have still yet to post.

There Are No Heroes

@Kidd, @RedXCross if possible I would like a post from you both. I would rather this not die out from lack of motivation coming from infrequent posting. If you are unable to post, please send us all a mention with your projected time frame when possible.

There Are No Heroes

"What I intend? What I expect? What I plan?" Carver's grim sternness carried itself from the woman to the man and back as he spoke, "Nothing, if I had the chance not to."

"But if I do need to do something, it won't be pleasant. It won't be brief... and it won't be nice. I would rather it just not be alone."

His fingers removed themselves from the twisted photograph, leaving it alone again at last. Methodically, Carver took those same digits and removed his sunglasses, setting their black frame upside down upon the steel table of the evidence room. There was a glint to his eyes where hollowness should've been, as though the only driving spark in him was the underlying motivation behind this all. They otherwise were amber and tired, leaning somewhere between the darkness of honey and wooden bark, but that did nothing to hide the fact he had a more serious stare than even his earlier demeanor suggested he might.

"Let's assume for a moment, pretend, that these deaths end up as we're all fairly confident they will - attributed to 'wildlife'. Let's also make the assumption that is, for all intents and purposes, entirely wrong. Let's also go out on the limb that the person or persons responsible are still out there."

The intensity in him, as he played out the story before them as hypotheticals, only became increasingly more unsettling. He did not need to say it, but he went about it all the same in building ambiguous yet orchestrated detail. Either way, it did not bode well with the already eerie ambiance of the quieted sheriff's office and its small, mostly devoid secure area.

"And let's make the final assumption that they can be found, perhaps even lured out." Carver continued, turning the glasses over as he leaned into the table, looking into the reflection that was within the depths of their lenses, "Now from here I find myself, in our example, faced with my two choices... one where I am alone, one where I am not. In either case, let's just take the easier of the two routes and go with the idea that both are equally successful, just to varying degrees in execution."

He paused, to nod slightly maybe only to himself, going on nothing more about the implications of what he suggested. Playing with the frames, he turned them over and placed them upon his face once more and rose up from his elbows to standing by the table. As strangely as he fixated upon unseen details none of them could see but surely felt, they were gone again; the sensation of being drawn into an exceedingly deeper plot that ran through his mind. Carver was the sort of man who was to have played this entire instance out, at least some number of times before - it was only scraping by as "subtle enough" for all its vagueness.

"There are a lot of bad people in this world. A lot more than we really need and not many people know that, let alone have the drive to do something about it if they did, so you could say my plan is to curb that a bit. If the most help you can provide is information, a skill, a location, I will take it... but what I really would like is someone watching my back."

"Because we are about to make a lot of enemies, even if you were to walk out now and tell the whole world."

A long sigh drew in from Carver as he searched the other two, adding one last remark; "But my 'plan' and what I 'expect' all might change when Cutter gets here. After all, I could just be as crazy as the two of you sound."

@Kidd@RedXCross

The Manacles of Destruction - Loosely Based Dungeons and Dragons 3.5

"Long since 'abandoned' I see then." The man said, idly observing Jaegar's puffing then motioning with the aged pipe.

One subtle gesture later, he guided his companion forward to act as a fearsome living wall, being keen to follow just behind in footsteps at first. Once the motion was underway, he proved to slow and see to who would be next in the order underway. If anyone he would prefer Jaegar, given the man might know a thing or too beyond what he had been willing to share, but the "thief" of Kerris would do just as well. His almost ferine eyes under his hood looked to them both questioningly.

"I appreciate your insight, Jaegar." He added, giving only the faintest of smiles with his words, "Before it eludes me, I am the man known as Geraint."

It was not what he had hoped for, but there was nothing that could be done about that. If even the local men and women were unsure of what dangers lay here, it was time to err further on caution. The wisest of actions would not be to blindly storm what appeared to be a labyrinthine structure of decaying rubble; no, the likelihood whoever called this "home" was prepared for that. Perhaps more than ready for mundane soldiers and at best an accompanying cleric, not a small group.

"I am no able fighter with my dagger, unlike as you two appear to be, but I will be guiding our friend. I would prefer not to be so close if possible... that and I have not the faintest what trickery men might be partial to - that's assuming we are even hunting men."

"There are a few other talents I possess, but let us hope we needn't make use of those." The outsider's lips further admitted, but he shared little else beyond that, instead staring into the ruined archway as attentively as he could manage. With a few steps beyond that, he drew closer to it yet off to the side but a few feet from his wild cohort.

Rolls

Geraint attempts to see into the ruin, beyond both the other members and the animal companion. With only a 10, it is unlikely he is to notice anything unusual if there was to be.

@ELGainsborough@Yamazaki

The Manacles of Destruction - Loosely Based Dungeons and Dragons 3.5

The man sauntered himself into the discussion, being so kind as to reveal his own stakes in the quest at hand and what interest he seemed to have in its varied rewards. There was no reason in large to believe him otherwise, as fortune seemed to have it; he appeared enough of a local, both in dress and demeanor. If anyone concerned him some, it was the woman who called herself "thief" - not that the man had anything of interest that he felt was under threat, just that the notion was concerning. In particular for whatever a "spellthief" was, which brought about more question that he could only hope would in time be answered.

"If this island is your home, Jaegar, then what was this place to you and your people? Do you know anything of it?"

The robed man began as the woman finished eyeing carefully the tiger, only to then step past her and toward the new addition to their seemingly growing collective. He briefly paused, shifting his eyes back to the accompanying beast and with a wordless exchange, roused it from the grass with a swiftness to its step, drawing it in much nearer. Guiding it, almost with thought as it so seemed, the animal kept its distance from the three at the moment.

"I would rather not be wholly unsure what we are likely to meet in this tower's rubble."

He gestured in slight with his fingers, signaling the beast once more and at last encouraging it to close to his side. Once there, its attention was called forward and watchful of the door before them; the two, man and animal, shared only a moment of contact as the same hand of earlier pat the thickness of the feline's pelt. Of many beasts this one was well attended to and very much a living weapon, perhaps the foreign man's only one, but without a doubt a deadly tool at that...

@Yamazaki@ELGainsborough

There Are No Heroes

No need to worry, @Kidd. We had assumed that you were still away, but now that you are back I needn't force things to continue.