"Aw," Aria groaned quietly under her breath, in an unsettled manner. "If that's what I think it is...I hate things like these...not much anatomy to take advantage of, yaknow?"<br/><br/>Noticing it sported several sorts of weapons of its own, she mentally debated whether to try shooting at it from here, or charging. She decided on the latter, having noticed it was Rose's way and not wishing to leave her out front alone, and also since the freakish knight could just move sideways out of sight in that chamber behind it if it didn't deign to archery in turn.<br/><br/>She broke into a dash, leaving berth for the enlarged Rose. Since she didn't expect she'd be able to reach the taunting creature before it did something of its own, she activated her blinking ring midway down the hall.<br/><br/>"Hasty, hasty!" the death knight waggled a gauntleted finger. "I see I must amend my uncourteously cold reception." Its eye sockets flared up, the baleful red light brightening; for a moment its skullish face seemed like that of a carved pumpkin with a candle inside. Fire leaped from its eye sockets and toothy mouth. A red orb shot forth, not unlike that from the pirate's wand, and exploded into a great blossoming flower of fire all around Aria.<br/><br/>The licking flames plastered against the stained glass walls momentarily, melting it in place; comparatively cool air rushed in from the world outside, and the gardens below were suddenly plainly visible along the now wall-less stretch of catwalk.<br/><br/>Amidst all this, Aria momentarily threw herself into a roll between two of the snaking gouts of fire which splashed along the unmelted marbled floor. Fireball magic was among that most famous, or perhaps infamous, in Faerun; many when first hearing of such things, or a red dragon's breath, from minstrel's tales, were wont to imagine perfect spheres of fire. Through painful trial, though, Aria over her adventuring career had noticed and begun to exploit the imperfections i most mages' spells; tendrils of flame radiating like flower petals, with merest gaps between; sometimes, a clean avoidance was just possible, even when one lacked for barrels to dive behind and the like.<br/><br/>She popped up again after the almost-instantaneous flares subsided, dashing on. The death knight whipped the sharp-tipped lance from over his shoulder, amidst a taunting come-hither gesture with his other gauntlet before gripping the weapon in both. Aria scowled; he was clearly intending to opportunistically lance at her before she could get within her own rather short kukri range, as Rose was apt at doing with her own polearm and enlarging magic.<br/><br/>Behind him, in the Tymoran chapel beyond, came the sounds of shuffling armor. Two more figures in similar armoring and royal purple Purple Dragon Knight tabards popped into the catwalk's narrow view of the chapel, just now shuffling into their own view of their 'guests'. Fortunately, either a delay in their heeding the first knight's taunting, or their time spent shuffling in their heavy armor, had precluded them from mounting any unholy attacks of their own just yet.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>Aria first round:<br/>move 40', activate blink ring<br/><br/>Death knight first round:<br/>abyssal blast ( a (Su) fireball basically, where half the damage is unholy rather than fire, like with flame strike):<br/>37 damage (half fire half unholy), Reflex DC 18 half<br/>Aria reflex 12r + 20, evasion for none (with some roleplaying that nods to my usual inference for why Evasion isn't impossible in terrain without cover :) )<br/>death knight draws lance<br/><br/>The 40' movement had an interesting advantage  here: the fireball is a 40' radius, so by going between the two girls, he wasn't able to get both in the radius. (Of course, between the blink, fire resistance, and good reflex, Rose would only have taken only 1/8th that damage.)<br/><br/>Two other death knights appear - one 15' behind the first, the next another 45' behind the second, with the alter just behind it, and the chapel's back wall another 10' behind that. (The chapel is 70' long, and the first death knight is in a 5' deep archway between it and the 100' long catwalk, which began at the T of the 15' wide hallway Aria and Rose were coming up before.)<br/><br/>A = Aria, K = (death) knights, R =  Rose, X = obstructed squares (walls, etc.) - not necessarily all of them, just key/corner ones, like the corners of the T junction Rose is at<br/><br/>(ongoing<br/>hall)      X                                          X<br/>- - A - - - - - - - A - - - - - - - - - - - -<br/>- R R - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - K - - K - - - - - - - - K X - X<br/>- R R - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -<br/>(hall      X                                           X<br/>from stairway)<br/><br/>Also I found a fun graphic of reach/size examples: http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/6338/gargreachwq6.gif (http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/6338/gargreachwq6.gif)<br/>You may already know this (and I double checked with the DMG), but a Large (tall) reach character like Rose threatens at both 15' and 20'. She threatens all the squares 3 out one way and 3 or fewer the other (i.e. the square at 15'), and those 4 out one way and 0 or 1 the other (i.e. the 4 closest in each of the 4 directions; two straight out and the two alongside).<br/><br/>If you don't like having to specify 'which way' she usually does it when approaching an enemy, you can let me know a default (attacking at 15' makes it harder for them to get further away, attacking at 20' makes it harder for them to get closer. I'm guessing against enemy melee-ers with lesser reach, who aren't fleeing, she'll default to 20'. Unless maybe there are guys behind them she wants to threaten, like she did when she charged the first pirate).<br/><br/>~<br/><br/>Thanks for the reminder on Disguise.<br/><br/>Rose's spotting does not suggest that the current knight is actually Garland (nor the two new ones), nor that Garland, when she saw him at the arena, was in a disguise. The armor is clearly of the same make (even within both being mw full plate), same 'specs' and perhaps same craftsman, but seems almost certainly not the same particular suit. Garland's cape was of the same purple, but he had no tabard or other Purple Dragon Knight or Cormyr insignias.<br/><br/>Also, I hope you didn't mind the "game time" of the knight's antics at the end of the post; it'd have been a straight initiative in any case (mutually unsurprised.) In cases like that you can always play your character as starting their first turn during the enemy's opening antics (i.e. it shouldn't be taken as the PCs being 'frozen' by DM fiat); there's always an 'implied simultaneity' of all the characters' actions anyway.<br/><br/>I mention b/c i wasn't sure whether the last line of your post was a reaction to that, or (more likely, my guess) a way of roleplaying the low initiative roll. Nice thinking; I once had a char natural 1 on a reflex save she'd have made otherise, and RPed it as her toe catching on an exposed root.<br/><br/>I only mention b/c I've seen players get annoyed by things lke that in a past, and want a turn while the enemy was blabbing - my explanation is usually either the above (implied simultaneity with whatever the PC immediately does do in their ensuing turn) or that when the two parties are aware of each other, they can react as soon as the other guy party something 'offensive' (insofar as their initiative roll reflects it), and they don't lose anything by attempting to speak, parlay, etc. Sort of like the quick draw duels in wild west movies. (DnD handles this pretty well by use of initiative, and talking being a free action, so people don't feel like they have to either attack without parlay or give the enemies an advantage) In PBP there's always that balance between getting substance into a post without plowing over characters' natural opportunities to react and interject. (In your case I'm not so much explaining things you don't already know, as taking the chance to reflect and philosophize with someone else who is a good player.)