Yours Truly

Richard takes out a javelin to prepare for the inevitable battle, and he quietly said "We need to try and take them out before they can say or do anything, how many of us can attack them from a distance without alerting anyone?".

The both of us (Barbarian, Paladin) can use javelins so that is two more opportunities to deal damage, the Bard probably can run up there to stab the survivors, Althea probably can't since her ranged attack is Sacred Fire which is pretty flashy.

That still gives our enemy a noticeable advantage though, since either way we would be several highly visible targets trying to break inside of their fortress. And yes, only half of the party needs light to see. Edit: A quarter of the party needs torchlight, wood elves get Darkvision, and the monk is a wood elf. I think right now we should still rush ahead anyway to rescue as many of the kidnapped victims as possible, simply because the longer we wait the more civilians get fed towards whatever it is they keep inside of their....keep?

Richard took out the apple he kept from earlier and starts to munch on the thing for several moments before finally answering the goblin's question by saying "Of course you will, as long as you promise to never attack a town again". A few moments afterwards he finished the apple and rummaged around his bag for something to eat, he eventually found a piece of dried fruit and a piece of dried jerky to nibble on somewhere in the recesses of his bag, and he made sure to give the dried fruit to Althea before finally settling on eating the jerky.

Richard ignores the champion speed eating Half Elf as he performs his arguably impressive five minute travel ration consumption trick for a moment as he continues by saying "So wait, can you all see in the dark? And what do you know about the goblin fortress itself actually? Do you know anything we can use to at least try and make the inevitable fight unfair for our enemies?". He briefly wondered why the bard would be laughing for seemingly no reason whatsoever...maybe they just found the idea of talking to be inherently funny? Or perhaps that is the price you pay for being able to cast arcane magic?. He stopped to consider this for a moment as he took out a packet of travel rations and handed it to the goblin named Morrik. ((OOC: lifesapity can you please check the roll20 page? DragonRage has rolled for perception and stealth, but he was busy for the last couple of days and couldn't find the time to post here))

Atton briefly considers the idea of trying to flirt with the assassin again, but he quickly decides to wait for a more opportune moment. He decides to pass the time by shouting encouraging advice to Laver. HP 19/45 Init: 14 Current Action: Battle Plans on Laver, add Int x 1.25 to Laver's main attacking stat for two rounds. Con 2/RES 4/Dex 3/Int 11/Strength 4/Synergy 6/Basic Attack damage 2d3+INT with half as holy damage and a quarter as pure damage/Twice as much RES from armor when attacked by bullets.

Richard decides that this would be a good time to say "It will soon be dusk, we will need to prepare and light torches by the time we arrive anywhere near our destination...unless you are all fine with fighting and exploring in the dark of night. I assume that we are doing this to rescue the kidnapped victims sooner?". After saying that he walked slowly towards the goblin named Morrik to ask "I have always wanted to know this, but why do your people active mainly in the night?".

Radovan shrugged his shoulders before looking directly at Betani "I honestly didn't mean anything by it, it just seems like you think about her and her position in life a lot..." After realizing that he had just tried to solve a social mistake with another mistake he quickly tried to redirect the conversation by reaching out to pet Red before asking "So what are your reasons for choosing your starter anyway?" to no one in particular.

HP: 33/45 Init: 19 Str 4/Dex 1/Int 10/Syn 9/Res 4/Con 2 Solomon was feeling a bit lazy today, and he decided to throw some books at the Choo Choo train while he tried his best to try and remember something about whatever they were supposed to be. Solomon uses Beware my might! on Chu Chulainn which deals 2d6 + SYNx2.5+ INTx2.5 damage.

Richard slowly came to realize the irony of the barbarian's statement, but he decided that the best thing he could do in this situation would be to shut up about it and just be glad that at the very least the bard wouldn't be singing for the foreseeable future. He shrugged his shoulders in response to Rei's first statement before responding with "Maybe he was just trying to impress you by saying the one big word he knew how to spell properly..". He had a playful smile on his face after hearing her comment on night clothes, and he waited for her to finish talking with Althea before saying "Well that is a shame, I know some dresses that would look quite good on the both of you, and off..." he stopped talking for several more moments to let it all sink in before he continued with "And don't you think that I wouldn't get you something nice to wear in the mornings as well? And it's not like I wouldn't get you some evening wear anyway". A few moments afterwards he would hold Althea even closer to himself before saying "What is your favorite color anyway? Mine is blue, just like your eyes~".

After spending a few moments in silence Richard attempted to enter into Rei and Althea's conversation by saying "I think they meant that you use your magic to destroy things in a way that no one can really predict, and probably something about not wanting to be anywhere near you or the thing being affected by your magic...although I think they were trying to flatter you with that comment; explosions can be beautiful after all, but then you realize that no one wants to be near one...". He took his time to clear his throat before continuing with "You know what, once we are done with all of this, and the kidnapped victims are all rescued, and Sirruph has hopefully paid for his many crimes...the three of us should definitely go clothes shopping, I feel like I will need a new gambeson after all of this is said and done.".

Out and Atton Atton would have tried to help Laver with making his point, but to be brutally honest he had never felt that much sympathy for the people who were too busy with trying to kill him to have a decent conversation...I mean we all know that the Nazi in front of you could have been nothing but a simple family man who just wanted to survive long enough to get back to his newly born child and have a party back in Berlin or something, and sure we would all love to believe that the two of you could have been best friends if you had the chance, but then again there was that all to likely chance that he might have been some extremely nationalist fascist with an obsession for Charlie Chaplin mustaches.... In short Atton ignored the point Laver was trying to make, and settled for giving everyone a clearly visible thumbs up, before dusting off a bit of his unshakable WW2 era culture by giving everyone a thumbs up while muttering an old tongue twister he learned back when he was still studying the bible (Greek: Roughly translates to White rock, very white, even whiter than the sun) to try and gather up enough courage to look at the Assassin as directly as possible before saying "Hello my name is Atton....uh, Let me sell you an indulgence because it's a sin to look as good as you do." he almost facepalmed as he realized that she might not understand what he is saying at all, but he sure hoped that this would seem somewhat inspirational to someone. HP 12/45 Init: 14 Current Action: Never Give Up Int (11)*1.25 health restored to everyone in the group, three round cooldown + 1 from flaw Con 2/RES 4/Dex 3/Int 11/Strength 4/Synergy 6/Basic Attack damage 2d3+INT with half as holy damage and a quarter as pure damage/Twice as much RES from armor when attacked by bullets.

Richard continues to follow Morrik's lead while looking at Rei, and after a while his usual flirty smile appeared on his face as he said "While I agree that it was and still is a much more appealing thing to look at, it also seemed like a very uncomfortable way to walk...and besides, you don't have to shake your hips like that to get people to look at it...." He then continued walking in silence for a while, until he realized something and held Althea's hand even tigher before saying "You should honestly consider getting a shield and some armor Althea, they are not very expensive, and a chainmail shirt would still do you a lot of good you know".

Solomon looked at the humanoid spear carrying monster in front of him for a while, before finally deciding that he would be better off not trying to take the fight against this one head on. Which is why he aimed his eldritch magics at the man driving a bus in front of the Berserker, mostly because he feels like the old man wouldn't last very long without being able to manipulate the future a bit. Solomon uses Ahead by a Single Page on Boomtown, adding Int/2 to his Primary Attacking Stat (Which I think is Int) and RES (Which means +5 since Solomon has 10 Intelligence).

Radovan made sure to sit close enough to Betani to be heard clearly before continuing with "She sounds sort of like me, if I was a woman, old, much more rebellious, and hotheaded...so in short she is nothing like me..." he just sat there in awkward silence for a while, before mentally cursing the fact that he is far enough from Red to not be able to tease him properly before saying "What old prophecy anyway? And you seem to really seem to dislike how much attention and forgiveness Gina has gotten...are you jealous of her or something?".

Atton remembers who annoying the Dragon's tooth beasts were, and he starts to try and find cover before unloading his clip at their general direction. Atton uses Miraculous shot on Dragon's tooth beasts A.

I would argue that none of this was really your fault and that the start of the game was a pretty standard way to get the player character's attention and make them feel invested in the entire scenario of "Find and rescue kidnapped victims", and that interplayer conflict naturally arises whenever you have any amount of players doing pretty much anything....But you specifically wanted us to stop arguing so I won't.

Richard silently followed Rei, and he made sure to keep his shield out while they walked after the goblin Morrik...after a while he finally had to say "Why are you swinging your hips so much anyway? Are your legs hurt" with a slightly flirty smile on his face.

Because I was faced with the ever important question of "Why not both?" And I couldn't think of a good enough answer for not. As the character would say quite often..."Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!".

Did you know that for sure? The only time you actually talked to the hobgoblin in an attempt to convince them to tell you something all you managed to do was fail to get any answers to your questions and in fact none of the first two goblins we tried to interact with seemed receptive to your tactics at all, up until we found that one little goblin that was completely and utterly fine with the idea of spilling his guts because unlike the other goblins, he actually has no love for the Red hand. And wait a minute...you wanted the civilian NPCs to attack the OGRE and abandon the unarmed civilians? Seriously? Why would you want to use mob tactics against a thing that can set a large section of the ground on fire? And why would you want to put two more guards, a bar man, and an archer in the line of danger in order to save their lives from the ogre and the goblins riding him? That...makes no real sense whatsoever, I feel like you should have used better grammar for that sentence, it's interfering with the clarity a bit. But in all seriousness we are not supposed to metagame, yes I as a player knows that an Ogre "only" has 52 HP and an easily hit AC of 10, but I also know that it has a high strength bonus, and that it could potentially kill me in a single hit like it almost killed the halfling barbarian, and I also know that I don't know anything about the NPC's stats, but I do know that they are at best wearing medium armor ICly and OOCly, and that the barman has a daughter to protect and no real reason to join in the melee against the ogre, and that the two guards were assigned to help the NPCs get from the bar and to the market square. For all we know the barman, the Elf, and the two guards would see that protecting a bunch of civilians heading to the market square would have been more important than attacking the ogre like almost an entire dozen people were doing. And the thing is I was led to the market square by two town guards who had just patrolled the area, and a barman who has presumably lived here for all of his life...at the very least the two guards would have known about any rubble, and we did meet up against a blockade of goblins technically, and we proceeded to kill them. I would also like to point out that abandoning the civilians would have cost even more lives, possibly including the small child we were obviously supposed to protect.

Right I am going to address the both of you at the same time because let's face it, your points are close enough that I might as well be talking to a single strawman by this point. Are we nitpicking grammar now? Because if we are then I find the fact that you very rarely capitalize the first letter in your sentences/paragraphs to be quite disturbing, but in all seriousness I feel that this discussion is completely and utterly ridiculous by this point, as we all know using valuable resources to attack other party members is also pointless, because unlike me your actions failed to prove or cause anything to happen, me punching the hobgoblin revealed the motive for his crime and cost nothing, you casting a spell on me failed to do much of anything and cost you a valuable first level spell slot, it seems like one action was worth a lot more than the other one right? Because it does. But anyway to continue with the argument about whether or not attacking the ogre head on would have been worth it to "save lives" or "to do it faster" my answer is still no, if a barbarian, a sorcerer who has spent their entire starting character resources to be better at dealing damage, and a bard who can at the very least serve as a useful distraction can't do it with an almost full squad of guards, then we weren't going to do it with a monk that has a very good chance of dying in one hit, a Paladin that doesn't have access to his nova skill, and a cleric wearing no form of armor and wielding no form of shield who is focused entirely on healing and dealing 1d6 damage per round isn't going to help much. There was one door, but rather unfortunately one group was composed mostly out of vulnerable civilians who a certain someone decided was worth protecting more than the squad of guards who specifically charged the ogre to distract it from said group of vulnerable civilians, now let us not forget that we had a grand total of three NPCs in that group, NPCs that were mostly lightly armored at best and not very well armed or trained, and we should not forget that the ambush that said group of civilians found difficult with an addition of Three PCs could certainly have been too much for them to handle without heavy losses, sure we lost less than a finger's worth of people even with the help of said PCs, but who knows if any of them would make it alive if we hadn't helped? Would there even be a surprisingly cheerful small child in the market square after you killed the Ogre? I mean sure you can always say "No The GM wouldn't be that depressing" in response, but the mere possibility that a child is in danger should, and was enough to convince three different PCs that this group of civilians was in fact worth protecting. Right okay then so saying the word "Anarchy" was wrong, people associate that word with idiots running around attacking their former friends to get their valuables these days, a better word would be an Inoffensive Decentralized Direct Democracy, which means that we still have no leaders, and we still have the freedom to do what we want, but that we can always talk about said actions with the other party members. So for once Megagun is saying something OOCly that I agree with, all of this would have been a non problem if other people actually bothered to respond to what I was saying as opposed to ignoring everything and grumbling about it afterwards.

Hindsight is always 20-20, everyone knows that attacking the ogre is a very viable and in fact perfectly safe option now, but when we first set off for the market square all we know is that none of the buildings in the area would be safe enough, and that our only hope of getting to a safe zone is to head to the market square and be surrounded by fortifications and members of the town guard who will do their best to protect the group. And the thing is, we now know that the invading force had several ogres carrying caskets of alchemist's fire that they are using to set buildings and people on fire, and even if we stick inside of a building we would still have a very good chance of needing to get out of a potentially burning building. So why is that the "safest" option when all of our powers combined still failed to keep all of the civilians alive anyway?. I mean if we are talking about "Wise leaders" I still think that Maris would be the best option, they demonstrated their Wisdom by not choosing to fight against an enemy they can't do anything about, and instead going out to find something they can actually do, which is help by fighting other party members. That and they are the only completely and utterly neutral party that will help prevent this from turning into what you wrongly define as "Anarchy". Option three is still the best option because the extreme you mentioned wouldn't happen in the first place, the only people in this group that has actively attacked another party member would be the two of you actually, both Yisan and Yautja, literally everyone else has yet to even consider attacking anyone in the party.

I am sorry, but I am entirely sure that no kind of Paladin would be rethinking his life choices for choosing to serve and protect instead of charging blindly towards an Ogre , and when have I in the entirety of the IC insulted my party members more than in one bit where I said that the Barbarian is "a bastard" as part of my ploy to convince the hobgoblin that you are badass enough to be an actual threat?. Also are you forgetting the bit where I decided that since I was nowhere near the fight in the first place, and that since I was helping to escort literally everyone inside of the bar who wasn't a PC that the whole idea of attacking an Ogre who is being handled by a sorcerer, a Barbarian, and almost a full squad of guards instead of sticking with the mostly unarmed and definitely unarmored civilians I actually promised to protect is more important? Because while that is less glamorous than attacking an Ogre and barely winning with the help of an entire squad of unfortunately expendable guards, it is well..just about as heroic. "Leading a bunch of civilians into an ambush" Now let me make this absolutely clear, unless the GM specifically added in an ambush there just because I decided to protect the civilians, that ambush would have been there in the first place and killed a larger amount of civilians, and you know what the worst part would be? We would know that we could have prevented it if we didn't chase after some silly heroics! And no Barbarians have never been a particularly great speaker or even a particularly good speaker in any edition of D&D, and they are always considered to be worse at speaking than an equivalent level Paladin or in fact, any Cha dependant characters because realistically unless you roll for stats (In which case I'll roll my eyes since the following is very unlikely) you just won't have the charisma for any speaking, this has been true since 1e when the class was first introduced and everything was still a bit wonky, and it is still true in 5e which to me seems like it is trying to harken back to the "Good old days" of 2e. In fact I'll continue by stating that this party cannot support a leader, and it cannot generate one without some contrived IC circumstances, as we are stuck with a choice between an incompetent leader, or a leader that a third of the party hates. I suggest that we go with an unstructured anarchy as it is the option that makes the most sense when we bundle up a bunch of highly opinionated free spirits together and call them a party. But failing that, I will now commence my pros and cons for @DragonRage's character Maris. Pros: Wise and knowledgeable about the criminal underground. Tough and self sufficient, won't ask the party for too much. Humble and willingness to serve for a greater purpose, probably won't cause any interparty conflict and won't use the leadership opportunity as an excuse to fulfill his ego. Neutrality, which in here is defined as an IC unwillingness to join any side in the interparty conflict and lacking in enough extreme opinions to trigger any party members I will think of more Pros and actual Cons later.

@DragonRage Chaos, lawful stupidity and Stupid Goodness, and we are apparently thinking of splitting the party, would you rather go with the barbarian, the bard and the sorcerer or the Cleric, and the Paladin? :p. Edit: In all seriousness something that makes no sense whatsoever happened, so you are right to be confused...do you still have the time to play btw?