Vaguely Important Stuff –
The adventurers (and Jake) partook of a test of gunnery, powder monkeying ball fetching and coconut throwing.
The powder monkeys need to race to the other end of the island and grab powder kegs from the raft. The cabin boys need to race up the cliff and grab some cannon balls. The gunners need to hit the targets when they have the powder and shot. Everyone else gets to throw coconuts at the runners to try and slow them down.
The DM thought the players would win this easily. Obviously that was his first mistake (of many). However, they did manage to win the contest (just) and were told to find Captain Squint’s ship and then repeat the phrase “Dead men tell no tales” three times.
Really Important Stuff –
A reminder of who was who for this session:
- Kraj – Celdar/Squinty
- Christina – Clay/Plank
- Mike – Regulus/Old Iron Leg
- Christina – Elvira/Le Flèche (that be French, that be!)
- DM – Joffrey/Swoopy McBooty (Team MVP!)
- Jake – Abelas/Abelarrse
While we all waited patiently for Adam and Matt to not bother to turn up, there was some discussion on what constitutes ‘north’. It was generally agreed that Kraj is from the north and Mike is from the north of the north and that London was obviously in the north-midlands.
The pirate team runners were Wavey Davey (Goblin, powder monkey) and Big Billy Fish (Orc, cabin boy) and they were up against Abelarrrse (Jake, powder monkey) and Squinty (Kraj, cabin boy). The DM noted that Yarla (Half-Orc, Aggression Diminisher) was trying to not be noticed by Big Billy Fish. More on that next episode.
The dastardly DM Master Gunner told the players that no magic was allowed. Jake repeatedly lamented the loss of his Misty Step for the entire session. No one else cared.
Abelarrrse took off along the beach and Chariots of Fire became a thing on Discord. Going forwards, the DM will now be spending significant amounts of time swearing at Hydra Bot because Google killed Rythm Bot. The DM is still conflicted about this. Further music this session; Eye of the Tiger, Run for the Hills, Danger Zone and Theme from Jaws.
It rapidly transpired that:
Bonus-action dashing + coconuts knocking off movement speed + falling off planks into shark infested waters = waaaaay too much maths.
The DM ruled out and then ruled back in Squinty’s ability to Uncanny Dodge coconuts as, while it was funny to rule it out, it was also rather unfair. This has never stopped the DM before so maybe he is softening in his dotage?
Jake earned an inspiration for throwing a die that completely buggered up Kraj’s ability to move his mini.
Base jumping with cannonballs became a thing and while Squinty took a few hits, he proved significantly better at it than Big Billy Fish who survived the quick way down the cliffs with one single hit point.
Wavey Davey has a 5ft per turn speed advantage over the blade-dancing wizard but he also has a lower AC so he should get hit by more coconuts. However, Ablearrrse’s utter inability to make a relatively low Dex save on the plank section turned it into a pretty close run race and the DM had to take drastic action and involve Joffrey/Snooty McBooty.
The DM started out playing the druid like a normal person would play a druid and have him shape-change into a flying ‘something’ to spy on the cannon settings of the pirate team, thus he chose a Giant Owl and had it hover some distance above the head of The Duke who was the pirate team’s gunner. However, the rest of the players thought the DM was playing the druid like Adam would play him and immediately jumped to all kinds of conclusions and started laughing.
Mike tried to calculate rather than guesstimate the ballistic arc of the second shot based on the first shot. Bonus points for effort but this is the trajectory formula for a ballistic arc without even accounting for windage:
y = h + x * tan(α) - g * x² / (2 * V₀² * cos²(α))
- Old world gunnery methodology:
- 1. Guess the angles, fire a shot
- 2. Watch where shot falls
- 3. Adjust angles and fire for effect
- Modern world gunnery methodology:
- 1. Have a computer guess the angles, fire a shot
- 2. Watch where shot falls
- 3. Adjust angles and fire for effect
After a pretty tense final run from the powder supply through the ‘valley of coconut doom’, Wavey Davey managed to deliver his powder charge to The Duke just ahead of Abelarrrse and The Duke carefully lined up a shot to win the match!
And then Swoopy McBooty dropped a giant-owl turd on him and he missed. Le Flèche (that be French, that be!) did not.
Important Verbalisations –
- Mike> Does the minus ten feet from the coconut stack?
- DM> Oh yes, each hit is 10ft off the next turn.
- [15 seconds later]
- Kraj> Does the coconut effect stack?
- DM> [sigh]
- Mike> I feel your pain Gary!
- Abelarrrse> Eye of the Tiger starts playing!
- Old Iron Leg> It should be Flashdance as you are ‘dancing’.
- Abelarrrse> Yes! It’s a proper poncey skip as well.
- [The image of the gimpy wizard poncey-skipping down the beach in front of a crew of undead pirates is now indelibly burned into the DM’s brain]
- Christina/Plank> Abelarrrse, move your arrrse!
- Mike> Nice!
- DM> …and Abelarrrse gets a ten-foot speed boost!
- DM> There’s a Squinty-shaped impression in the sand at the bottom of the cliff now.
- Mike> To be honest, I’m surprised he didn’t miss the beach, it is Kraj.
- DM> Joffrey kind of saunters under this dock area out of sight and changes into an owl.
- Kraj> Swoopy McBooty?
- DM> [deep sigh]
- Mike> A Moon Dove of the Night?!
- DM> He then he takes a fairly strategic position above The Duke…
- [laughter erupts]
- DM> [having a rethink and then getting it] No!
- Jake> He’s not going to have a shit on The Duke?
- DM> [sigh] He’s not, no.
- [disappointed aaaw’s]
- DM> Although… now you’ve planted that idea…
- Mike> You know if Adam was here he would ask if his owl form could fly down and catch the enemy cannonball in mid flight, right?
- [laughter]
- DM> It’s like he was in the room!
- [Wavey Davey is about to deliver his load (fnarr) and the player’s only hope is… Kraj! The rogue can bonus-action dash to just within coconut range of the drunken goblin]
- Mike> You really need to get a 20 here Kraj as that will knock him prone!
- [Kraj rolls a 2]
- [party-wide face-palm]