Where To Next?

[Tahlvin]

[Elle]

As a character, Dwyn is not going to be able to see much past "save relatives from Dragon and other unknowns". She likely will see that as an even bigger and more urgent deal than any of the unfinished business around here. From my own player perspective it would be great to tie up loose ends, but Dwyn will not be wanting that.

One method of addressing the urgency would be sending messages somehow. For all she cares, Yap can return Lamatar's body by whatever means necessary.

[Zen]

As a character, Kay is all for getting to Sandpoint as quickly as possible. It seems that the quickest way might be by river, which would mean going to Magnamar first... Best of both worlds, don't you think?

[Mike]

We'll need to Knowledge (Geography) this one, but if the fastest route to Sandpoint really is boat downstream to the sea and then ply the coast back to Sandpoint, then Dothan is all for it.

But if we can save a couple days by hopping ship somewhere and hoofing it across the plains, then that's better.

[Tahlvin]

If we go by boat, is there a boat big enough to transport our horses? Or are we going to be selling our horses in Turtleback Ferry and buying new ones once we get back to Magnimar/Sandpoint? Also, between our previous help in the fey forest, and helping Lamatar's nymph lover, might the trip through the fey forest on the way back be much easier than the outbound trip was?

[Mike]

With our current mix of mounts, we're looking at 32 miles per day overland, with some slowdown if we travel through forest or Shimmerglens. If we optimize our mounts, everyone going with light horses, and making sure no mount has to carry more than 175 pounds (or upgrading to heavy horse for those who weigh too much), we can make 40 miles per day (again with variation if we choose rough terrain).

If we go by boat, I'm sure we can take some or all of the mounts. And our base speed will be 48 miles per day. Judgment call from Pat on whether or not that increases due to all of it being downstream travel.

Now compare those rates on the map. Boating will be faster, but has a longer route. So again, we gotta make some knowledge checks to see if we can figure out what gets us to Sandpoint the sooner.

[Mike]

Also the overland travel assumes some sort of road or trail. Lacking that, movement reduces to 75% or 50%. I don't know that roads are an issue in Varisia, but I don't know that they aren't either.

[Mike]

Okay, I've looked at the map, and again, Pat has to let me know if I'm missing something, but it looks like we take a boat from Turtleback Ferry to Wartle. I'm selling my mount, because she was never relevant to my character the way I thought she'd be, but I'm sure we can arrange for transport of some mounts.

We disembark at Wartle, get decent mounts for all and travel overland by the shortest road to Sandpoint. Otherwise, even if a boat is covering 60 miles a day, the river is too windy (long i) to save time, especially since we'd either have to hop out and go overland at some point anyway, or else ride all the way out to Magnimar and then double back by sea.

[Bluedevyl]

I can provide a mount for myself and one other person, at the moment. I have 16 ranks in Knowledge (local) if that helps, but given that we have a bard, we probably dont need me.

[Mike]

On Know (Local) we prolly get a better result if you roll, I assist, and I give you a song bonus... turn your +16 into a +21 or 22.

Although, I can always take 20 plus YOUR assist. Either way we're good at this.

[Elle]

When we were in Magnimar, we did a Sending to contact Dothan's parents in Nybor. I think we should do the same to contact people in Sandpoint, especially, and perhaps other locations. Is Sam capable of doing this, or perhaps the cleric of Erastil in TBF? Being able to send them a quick warning to prepare shelter would take some of the time pressure off, even if they eventually need us there to help defend the town.

If a river boat or barge is not going to be much quicker and it can't accommodate our horses, then I would prefer simply riding back down on horseback. When we get closer down towards Magnimar, we probably want to disembark anyway to take a direct shortcut to Sandpoint, and then we'll be slowed down if we're on foot. The alternative is sailing around to Sandpoint from Magnimar and it's not clear that will be any faster than going on horses the whole way. The other thing is, once we get there, it might be really helpful to have horses to get around quickly. However, if taking a boat really does cut our total time by a few days, then, okay, let's take the boat and I'll get over the loss of horse. Presumably people in TBF can tell us how long a boat trip down to Magnimar usually takes, vs. travel by horse.

[Tahlvin]

Keep in mind that at this point, unless we are in a major city, our party will have higher level spellcasters (arcane or divine) than what we'll be able to find in any villages along our way. So if you want to cast Sending on a regular basis, we'll want to either make sure one of our casters has it on their spell list, or we'll want to stock up on scrolls or a wand. Heck, before we left Sandpoint to head to Fort Rannick, we had already outstripped the powers of the cleric in Sandpoint.

Regarding splitting the party, there's been a lot of different talk thrown around about where and for how long. Here's my opinion on how we should split the party: We split after Fort Rannick and meet back up at Turtleback Ferry. One group goes to Shimmerglens to deliver Lamatar's remains. The other group goes to Turtleback Ferry to make sure the town is okay, and to prepare for our journey back to Sandpoint/Magnimar. It will take some time to get supplies and determine whether we are going overland or by boat (and find the boat, if that ends up being our chosen route). By the time the Shimmerglens group gets back to TBF, all of the preparations should be made (or well underway), and the safety of TBF looked after. From there, we can journey together back to Sandpoint.

I'm not a fan of one group heading to the Shimmerglens and then trying to meet the other group enroute to Sandpoint, rather than meeting back at TBF. It just seems like there's too much that can go wrong that will prevent or delay the two groups from meeting and delaying our overall arrival to Sandpoint.

[Zen]

I agree that the group that takes Lamatar's remains back should meet back at TBF instead of trying to meet up en-route. Basically, that leaves one part of the group figuring what our fastest route to Sandpoint is and one fulfilling our obligation to deliver Lamatar's remains.

At this point, that sounds like a plan. (Do we need to roleplay this on Roll20? or can we have it done in a thread and start up from leaving TBF Thursday night?)

[DMDarcs]

[Eliahad]

Are we going to search the caverns at all?

I'm worried about splitting the party, personally, because I think we'll have two groups that end up at Sandpoint at separate times. It is my impression that Dwyn is not going to want to wait around TBF while the other group finishes up at the Shimmerglens, and I'm not sure how long Illian is going to be able to convince her to stay. Also, I'm not so sure, knowing that a Dragon is bearing down on the temple of the priest that gave him advice all those many session ago, that Illian wouldn't want to take off right away, either.

[Tahlvin]

Yes, I think we still need to search the caverns. And question Kaven.

As for splitting up and Shimmerglens, we're not asking the group that goes to TBF to wait all that long. In addition to checking on the health and safety of TBF, they still need to get provisions for the trip, figure out whether we're going by land or sea, make arrangements for folks from TBF to help reinforce Fort Rannick, check on the dam, etc. It's not like they're going to be able to waltz into town, turn in their ticket to claim their horses from the livery stable, and be on the road to Sandpoint within the hour. As worked up as Dwyn is, I hope she realizes she needs to take care of some basics and other business before hitting the road. By the time all that is finished, the group that heads to the Shimmerglens should have completed their mission and will rejoin the others at TBF for the trip home.

[Elle]

Ya, Dwyn is not a scholar but she's fairly wise, so she's not going to run off screaming into the night towards Sandpoint without preparations. I do think we should try to sell off some of the lesser gear we found, while purchasing a week's provisions and getting the horses ready (or boat). It wasn't exactly a problem free journey up here, so we have to be ready for gnolls, harpies, undead critters, and who knows what. Black Magga?

On the other hand, she would like to save time by skipping any needless stops. E.G. if the Fort is straight in our path, then yes, let's run through to check on Vane (Vale?) and hopefully by that time Dothan will have questioned Kavan enough for us to judge whether he can stay at the Fort or needs better jailing. Vane isn't a match for him, IMO, because he's tricky. If the Fort is out of our way, then, let's skip it and stick Kavan in jail elsewhere.

I do think with our particular characters and RP situation, we want to have a sending or other long distance messaging spell handy. I'm not sure what all the options for that are. Eventually perhaps someone can teleport for personal delivery of messages!

[Elle]

Wait now, shouldn't Sam always be able to do a Sending at her Cleric level, provided she prepares the spell overnight? So next time, can we request that and deliver some messages? If it takes up slots where other, better spells are wanted, we could begin with Sandpoint #1 and wait for subsequent days to send other messages. Dwyn would love to warn her mother, too, but would be persuaded that #2 should be a message to Magnimar warning of need to send a reinforcement unit to Sandpoint.

[Eliahad]

Perhaps one of the Sendings could be to the Mistress Beveluu who cleansed the Misgivings? She's a powerful cleric, and she would want to know if a Dragon was going to be seen a day's flight from Magnimar...of course, she's not at home right now, so never mind.

[Bluedevyl]

I'm not sure about Sam, but sending is beyond my capabilities at the moment. If my memory serves, the path back to TBF runs straight by Fort Rannick, so stopping to check on Vale and leave Kaven behind shouldnt delay us much at all.