"Perfect," Aria whispered and grinned, "You're right - I just might be giving you a 'tabletop' dance for this fight! Just one thing more - bring me a few paces back from Astos but with a line to charge - of the several self-speeding spells I use, the one I find of most use in a surprise blitz, perhaps paradoxically, seems to speed my attacks best with a bit of running start. Something about the transmutation - as if the bodily movement accelerates that of the limbs..like how a lion brings its hindclaws to bear when it leaps but not when paw-to-toe with an adventurer or prey thereafter..."<br/><br/>She scooted one heel back into a race-ready pose, smiled as they dimension doored (it became less disorienting every time) and smiled all the more when she realized just what a good mental map Rose's senses had given her, their positioning seemed quite favorable indeed.<br/><br/>Just ahead, behind the short end of a long feast table, sat a drow male in a nearly thronelike seat of delicate carved wood. He bore a more confident bearing than the two randy archers at the druidic circle, with a high-tiled nose upon an ebony face flanked by an ivory cascade of hair that many females would've envied. This presumably was Astos, although his attire didn't seem particularly wizardly; just fine green silks of a style almost painfully stereotypical for an elven nobleman. Amongst other bits of jewerly he wore one of the same-style rings as the others Rose and Aria had fought, and he no doubt went about in Arvandor as a fair-faced elf when not meeting some other worthies as this room held:<br/><br/>To Astos's left down the feasttable was a second elven male - with the lighter complexion of surface kin, silvery hair, and yet white-feathered wings burst from his armored back and hung around the back of an ornate chair like a cloak draped over it. Further down the table stood a woman the size of an enlarged Rose, with hair even redder than Aria's, taken into long braids. She stood almost as high as the great feasthall, face framed by a hairband with two silvery metallic wings in the portrayed style of the valkyries who were heralds for Tempus. Her armor alone probably weighted more than Aria or Rose; fine full suit of plate, sculpted in a desperate attempt to make the great heavy giantess seem at least a bit more feminine. A sword-handle as long as a human woman's forearm stood out over her right shoulder.<br/><br/>Across from her stood a giant-creature of similar dimensions but uglier and stranger: to the eyes of many, a knobbly green-skinned troll, but Rose would note the frilling of the ears which suggested aquatic trollkin, a scrag' yet this one seemed to breathe air well enough. Its entire gangly body save its carrot-nosed head stood, or rather hunched, in an overly tight suit which seemed painstakingly sealed up; Rose might be reminded of the body-moisture-trapping suits that the best-equipped adventurers of the Anauroch prized.<br/><br/>Between it and Astos sat a man just a bit taller than the two elves; raven-haired, dark-cloaked, pale-skinned, and to Rose's powers of observation, unbreathing. He'd been tapping fingernails boredly upon the table, perhaps the only reason Rose had echolocated the breathless man before, and those fingernails left little gouges i the table.<br/><br/>And above the table, amidst them all, illusions floated through the dim air of the hall- indeed, the illusions provided most of the ambient light. Colorful spheres floated about in a great, turning wheel, looking for all the world (or perhaps, worlds) like the diagram in the open atlas in the third-floor study. The illusions of light seemed at some moments like solid spheres, and at others like flatter circles which were more like open gates or windows into other realms. One showed a place of sand, pyramids and a great river broadening into a delta; another, a great mountain with dragons flying about its peak; two others showed more verdant scenes, and a third, a field with as much spilled blood as grass and men clashing upon it.<br/><br/>Snaking tendrils of light curves between them all, and to other spheres still; the arcs of light seemed to flow in one direction or another, like water through tubes. The entire constellation of illusions slowly rotated on all its axes, a spinning, tilting ring almost as large as the room's narrower dimension would allow.<br/><br/>Aria took this all in peripherally, narrowing her focus on Astos with several bounding steps. She blinked out, flashing in again right alongside the enthroned Astos with one of the small crossbows falling free from a hand, a kukri handle slid into palm in its stead. Her eyed widened as<em>his</em>body phased ethereal, going ghostly in her magical sight; she aimed all the same, stabbing out as it phased in again to full color. The blade's tip flashed into the side of the drow's neck just at the base of the long ear, shearing ivory hair.<br/><br/>Astos let out a vainglorious groan, spinning and snarling at Aria with his left hand clapping to his wounded neck. "You would visit planes too?" he sneered, speaking through ether as he phased out and Aria's next slash passed through. "Watch and learn of higher Art to traverse the ethereal among them. Traversing it, or the plane of shadow to intrude, will avail you little in the end," he laughed lightly as he phased material, and Aria stabbed eagerly - only to phase ethereal herself! "...save perhaps to repopulate my harem when the lotus proves too much for elven fortitude. You too seem you might have a bit more!-" His taunting punctured with the curved kukri hooking deep in his eye socket; he slumped silently back in his throne.<br/><br/>The unbreathing man back across the table had hopped up as Astos fell, fangs flashing in the top of his mouth. "Harem? Nay.." his eyes scanned Rose and Aria coldly, "...I daresay our lunch has arrived!"<br/><br/>Yet rather than leaping in, he spellcast, cannily spinning behind his chair a momnet to try to proect an otherwise vulnerable moment. With a handclap, his spell sped his own movements and those of the giants'. With a dry hiss and snarl, the man flung himself toward the stone wall behind himself, as if to latch on it. He cried out suddenly, feeling Ros'es guisarme bit deep in his back, then kick one leg away from the other. The fanged fellow fell back in a sprawl across his own bloody cape, the wound visibly regenerating partially.<br/><br/>Aria whispered a word under her breath; her body seemed to blur vertically upward for an eyeblink of a moment, vanishing. Then it blurred downward onto the tabletop just between Aerontar and the towering Frida, as if Aria had leaped immaterially into the sky and down again a few feet away. The spell was divine in its origins, and one of the very few from her own faith, colloquially refers to in their circles as like to the hop of a chessknight.<br/><br/>It availed, at least, the fact that Aerontar was beginning to turn in his chair towards Rose and to where Aria had been. Te tiefling had teleported behind the winged elf, and sliced a kukri blade in one of the wing-slits on the back of his armor. He howled, flying forth to the stone floor by his chair, white wings spreading amidst new-pooling blood.<br/><br/>Aria spun on the table, throwing one foot over a goblet and down again as she dropped the other crossbow for a kukri. She closed the two curved blades crossways over the great wrist of the fire-haired giantess, who seemed vaguely to be reading for her sword but had not yet properly marked the tiefling. Aria drew the briefly-parallel kukris away again, rending open the wrist artery of the giantess, and giving her good cause to bellow and scream.<br/><br/>She was delayed a moment, switching hands to reach for her sword, but then did, and drew it with a wince into both that hand and the inured one. She roared in the giant tongue, sweeping up and down with a great blade which at once burst into flames as wild and red as the wielder's (or target's) hair. Aria gasped and turned her body at a right angle, putting her narrower dimension to Frida; the great sword whirled inches from her back, cracking the festhall table asunder. Behind Aria, the gangly scrag had already leaned over the table, to rake with its bare claws while the tiefling and fire giantess fought. Aria phased through a swipe, ducked another claw and nasty bite before jumping a backhand with its first claw.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>The surprise initiative thing is weird, ya....I used to be under the impression that when only one party had any 'surprise' characters, they could order themselves arbitrarily for the surprise round w/o decreasing their initiative counts by delaying or readying (readying backs up initiative too, but good suggestion).<br/><br/>The SRD Initiative section (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/initiative.htm) just says initiative is rolled at the beginning of the surprise round. Since I had a deja vu to the contrary, I cracked open the DMG and p. 22 says that for 'One Side is Aware First' (i.e. all surprise characters are allies) initiative is rolled after the surprise actions. (And when both sides have some aware combatants, they roll initiative, act in surprise round, then everyone else does too and merges into the list.)<br/>I'm inclined in this direction b/c of the metagame dilemma you've addressed (Rose's and Aria's initiative rolls being hard to interpret in-character before any foes are aware of them, even though according to the SRD they are known at that point, and cause a metagame-feeling strategic dilemma).<br/><br/>Hoping you don't mind, I'll place Aria a square further back from Astos (b/c Pounce, curiously, is a way to get a full attack on a surprise round, but I don't know a way too without moving. 3 charges from a belt of battle, I guess.).<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Aria surprise round</span><br/>Arrive 1 square north of sw corner (where Rose is)?<br/>activate haste (7/10) and lion's charge (2/3), charge 10'/5' east/south to Astos, drop one hand crossbow for kurki, attack.<br/>Table corner would normally block this charge, but Acrobatic Charge (class feature) or Nimble Charge (skill trick) let her. Characters can potentially charge at any angle, as I mentioned to you once, but typical layouts are indeed often 'biased' against nonorthogonal angles...)<br/><br/>First attack triggers Astos's Contingency: Improved Blink (as Blink except character can choose attacks to be material/ethereal without 20% miss chance.)<br/>Since Aria can See Invis, this will be a 20% miss chance compounding with her own (for 36%) (hmmm, should there be a 20%*20%=4% chance that an attack hits because both character phased in the unintended direction?)<br/><br/>Aria attack mods 32/32/27/22/17 (16 bab 10 dex 1+4 weapon 2 charge 0 blink* -2 twf 1 haste)<br/>(*Astos has permanent See Invis!)<br/>Miss chance rolls: Result: 85, 1, 1, 87, 29, (I believe Contingency trigges prior to the landing of the first attack and the Improved Blink applies vs it, when set to trigger 'when attacked' rather than 'when damage'. With these rollls same result either way: 2nd, 3rd, 5th attacks miss!)<br/>main hand 1, mod 32:<br/>Result: 15, 1, (threat which natural 1s)<br/>dmg 12 + 52<br/>main hand 4, mod 22<br/>Result: 4, 16,<br/>dmg 12 + 53, slain (wizard d4s and drow Con penalty...)<br/><br/>no off hand attacks (can't redirect charge attaks to other targets)<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Enemy Initiative: 24</span><br/>(their avg. mod was 4 rounded down, and they rolled a 20 =P)<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Aria first round</span><br/>Activate haste (8/10) and Knight's Move (1/3day from gloves: swift, teleport up to 15' into a flanking position only) to teleport onto table ne of Aerontar<br/>(she could also reach him with a 5' step north, but this gives her and Rose flanking against Aerontar, gets her out of the way if Rose charges Frida, and puts her adjacent to both Aerontar and Frida)<br/>(As a L2 spell, Knight's Move is much less cost-effective than the Anklet of Translocation or Chronocharms...)<br/><br/>Full attack Aerontar, attack mods 36/36/31/26/21 (16 bab 10 dex 1+4 weapon 2 blink -2 twf 1 haste 1 higher ground 4 flanking)<br/>Blink rolls (20%)<br/>Result: 5, 18, 100, 83, 19,<br/>(bad blink rolls again!)<br/>mh3, mod 31<br/>Result: 3, 11,<br/>hit, dmg 13 + 44, KOed<br/><br/>Next attacks at Frida:<br/>mh4, mod 21 (instead of 25 b/c no more flanking, and conservatively guessing a 3' high table doesn't grant higher ground vs a Large (tall) creature?)<br/>Result: 16, 10,<br/>crit 12 + 15 + 70, staggered<br/><br/>drop 2nd hand crossbow and draw 2nd kukri, off hand mods 27/22<br/>Blink rolls (20%)<br/>Result: 15, 59,<br/>oh2, mod 22<br/>Result: 7, 2,<br/>dmg 8 + 46, tot 151<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Vampire</span>(the prose might've seemed as if he moved before Aria's first regular round; it was just a way to convey the implied simultaneity)<br/>casts Haste on self, Frida, scrag (casting defensively check 36)<br/>attempts to move back, provokes AoO from Rose, hit for 27 damage (damage reduction 10 observed) and knocked prone<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Frida</span><br/>5' south, draw and single attack with greatsword (staggered but has free draw)<br/>blink Result: 99,<br/>atk 30, miss (but not the table!)<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Scrag</span><br/>5' south (now flanking Aria with Frida), full attack with claws<br/>blink Result: 33, 88, 57,<br/>atk 24 miss<br/>atk 25 miss<br/>(EDIT: forgot its bite!)<br/>blink roll result 100<br/>bite atk 24 miss<br/><br/><br/>Table is 3' high, so a DC 24 high jump w/o a 20' start<br/><div class="codeheader">Code: <a class="codeoperation" href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="return smfSelectText(this);">[Select]</a></div><pre style="margin: 0; padding: 0;"><code class="bbc_code">              ~ ~ ~ ~<br/>            ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~<br/>          ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~<br/>          ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  <br/>          X X X - - X X X             1  <br/>          X ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ X             2<br/>          X ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ X             3<br/>          X . ~ ~ ~ ~ . 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