Tabletop Escapades - Episode 75 "A Sneaky Climb"

Also this rule: "Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death." ...means that if an enemy does 4 strikes, and all hit, and the first reduces the PC to 0hp, and the three after count as a death saving throw fails, then the character dies.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SILENT IMAGE: Silent image doesn't work the way Ian thinks because it is a SOLID cube, not an empty box. The party being inside the cube breaks the illusion. "Physical interaction with the image reveals it to be an illusion, because things can pass through it." You being inside the cube makes it jiggle like jello as beings move around inside, if that helps visualize why. Best you can use it for is a visual doppleganger and hope the enemy attacks the wrong one. Also visual phenomenon doesn't include a cube replicating a scene, it would mean one thing, i.e. a creature, object, flash of light, reflection. A scene requires multiple individual elements. Phenomenon is singular, phenomena is plural.

I agree that your last note is the correct interpretation of that rule. It means that the worst you can do is a 50% chance of passing the check, because it is a skill the class should be intrinsically good at. For the other issues, I think a refresher after the arc is needed to work on mechanics, and understand probabilities, especially if they are going to continue with on-the-fly house rules.

Therese's spell save is 14, so that's the minimum she needed. She also has a Charisma bonus of +3, so rolling 11+3 would have been enough. It sounded like 13 was the total, which means he rolled a 10.

Dustin McNab

Man, this was a tough one. I don't mean that in a negative way, I just don't know what to make of it. I agree that having Ian make an additional acrobatics check (in the same vein as Brad's) was perhaps one check too many, but equally when Ian failed that check (and the following strength check), I think he was given too many chances to save himself. A check to see if he could cast Banish in time, then a check to see if he could climb into the bag of holding in time, THEN Bile mysteriously knew Ian was falling (even though Ian didn't contact him with his familiar to tell him that he was falling) and was going to attempt to save him. Then none of those mattered as he survived the fall damage. Although I think that too many attempts to save his character were made, in the end it doens't matter as you're backtracking on the initial acrobatics check that he failed. On the one hand that's good as it obviously led to a punishing series of events, but on the other hand it feels weird to act all that out and then 15 minutes after recording pull it back. I think it was just a huge misplay by the adventurers. Trying to climb down a 200+ foot tower without any gear, some wearing heavy armour etc is just madness. I think that's a sign that they feel too safe. One other note, I don't think Brad's feat means he can never roll below a 19. I'm paraphrasing because I can't rememember exactly what was read out, but it was something like "if you roll below a 10 on a skill you'd add your proficiency bonus to, it becomes a 10". To me that doesn't sound like you add anything to the roll (+9 in Brad's case). It sounds to me like it specifically becomes a 10.

Fun episode, I like where the story is going. My thoughts on the checks thing is that I don't mind how many or how few checks you guys do as long as you state the needed checks before the rolls and stick with the results. I think excessive use of "safety nets" for failed rolls encourages a sloppy and reckless play style. One thing I would like to be bring up is when talking about insta-death you guys keep saying "double your HP maximum". I might be misunderstanding what you mean, and it didn't end up being relevant in this episode, but you die if you reach your max HP in the negative. If you have max 10HP and reach -10HP you die. So if you're at 10HP and take 20 damage you die, but if you're at 1HP and take 11 you also die. From the way you were talking it seemed to me like you were thinking Therese would've had to go to -140HP or something but sorry if you knew and I was just misunderstanding.

Olf Himself

even with all the checks, she should not be walking. like I mean you can survive falls but that doesn't mean your bones are not broken. This is actually I do think is lacking in D&D that with a substantial among of dmg at once should cause some sort of consequence like bone breaking or other type of stuff that fits the situation.

Christophe Fettouhi

The additional check for Therese as a consequence of failing the first check was probably fair, but either outcome is good enough.

Ben, One thing my brother and I found confusing: What happened with the Banish spell Therese tried to cast? You challenged Ian with rolling 11 or better to succeed at Banishing. He rolled 13 indicating Therese should have successfully banished herself for at least 1 minute. At that point, for some confusing reason, the whole group spontaneously forgot about it. Everyone acted as though the banish spell had failed, at which point Therese proceeded to try to climb into the bag of holding. What happened with that successful Banish spell? My brother and I discussed whether or not being banished would arrest Therese's forward momentum. If it did, she should have taken little or no damage from the fall. If the banish spell doesn't stop Therese's fall, she's still safe for at least a minute during which Bile can make his way to her landing point. Also, if it's decided that Ian never attempted to cast the banish spell, then the group may still be invisible since it was the attempt to banish that interrupted the invisibility in the first place. Regardless, still an entertaining episode!

Thorfkin

Ben, they wanted to climb a vertical wall without gear, preparation, magic and some of them not even skill. You secure yourself at least with a rope to the others in case you fall. 2 checks were valid. I wish Tabletop Escapades had a sense of danger, these days I pay little attention when the party is not conversing or planning since the rest does not seem to matter. Just my 5 cents Ben, I think you're doing a great job otherwise!

The only thing I (slightly) disagreed with was the second Acrobatics check just for dropping onto the balcony for Therese. Maybe I had a misinterpretation of the visuals and how they were dropping though. Otherwise, I thought everything was pretty fair. Good episode everyone!

GW Fawkes

Ben, don't worry about asking for too many checks. You do it both ways: when players are failing you're giving them another chance.

Alexander Zyryanov