• Reed, being the least wounded person in the group who was capable of riding a horse without a booster seat, scouted out the situation at Cyril’s Rest.  He discovered that there were a couple of hundred Cromen (at least) besieging the keep, or at least caging it in from about 100 yards back or so.  They had erected crude shields against potential long-range musket fire and had apparently lashed some peasants to the front as an additional deterrent.
• On his way back to the party, Reed encountered tow things that were curious.  The first was a set of six Cromen heads a little bit west of the village on spikes.
• The second was a bedraggled human, obviously hungry, carrying a captured Cromen bow and wearing a makeshift bandit mask, observing him from hiding.  After meeting, it turned out that this mysterious person was none other than one of the legendary Black Jagers, or so he said as he hurriedly munched on an offered apple.  Reed offered to escort the hero, who had oddly become separated from his unit and was also missing his horse, back to the village.
• Back in town, it turned out that the mysterious Black Jager was carrying a note he had found somewhere, presumably on the body of a dead messenger, asking for help from Cago, saying that the Rest could hold out for no more than two weeks given available water and food supplies.  Sending the “Black Jager” to “guard” some of the villagers, who were all fleeing east, the party decided to head off for Cago to deliver the message themselves.
• Reed changed horses in Appleville, allowing him to reach Cago a day ahead of the others, where he delivered his message to Sterling.  After the rest of the party had arrived, Jonn Sterling and Andreas Jameson joined them and headed east with 50 soldiers, fast marching to rendezvous with Gilikan Plough, who was travelling with 50 more soldiers.
• When the force reached the outskirts of the Rest’s territory, they discovered that most of the villages have been abandoned, by both Cromen and peasants.  The fleeing peasants reported that most of them had been released, although some were marched as prisoners to Cyril’s Rest.  A couple of them also seemed to think that what the Cromen wanted was the ruling family of the Rest to come out in exchange for the human/morag prisoners.
• Observation of the Rest revealed that what looked like about 500-600 total Cromen now besieging, and they had executed a couple of the prisoners/body-shields.
• Andreas Jameson conferred with Sterling and revealed that there was an escape tunnel leading out of the Rest, but he doesn’t know why Cyril and the others had taken it yet.  Taking the party and about 10 musketeers north to the tunnel’s exit point, they separated from the main body of soldiers, who were fortifying their own position and sending out scouts.
• Arriving at the exit point in a group of abandoned farm buildings, the party saw that a central building had been boarded up, and there were about a dozen or so Cromen in the area.  Tookie wound up distracting a number of them off south where they were gunned down by the musketeers, while Nan, Spaulding, Reed and Plough killed the remaining Cromen.  Nan was apparently somewhat changed by her earlier wounding experience, and spent a fair bit of the end of the combat carving up a near-death Cromen, and face painting with his blood, which nicely set off her pale skin.
• The exit of the tunnel was inside the boarded building, but it had been securely barred from the inside.  Most of the group went around searching for hatchets and picks to break through the trapdoor, but by the time they got back Nan had somehow carved her way mostly through the bar.
• The group made their way through the tunnel and managed to come out in a basement of Cyril’s Rest through a secret door, where a surprised looking guard led them to Lord Cyril.  Cyril and his family assembled and were escorted through the door, which was securely closed behind them.  It was only after they had made it through the tunnel that they realized that Plough had stayed behind, to act as the steward of the Rest.

And it still feels slow.

I may have to get to a tabletop game of GURPS to see how slow combat actually is, but now when I look back at it, actually this combat wasn’t really slow or long.  I think the reasons it might have felt slow at the time may have had something to do with the fact that the combat was very very long for GURPS (41 turns!) and that 4 hours was longer than I had planned on.  My perspective may also be skewed by the simple fact that I’ve played a lot more PC games than pen games in many years, and even though we’re basically still playing a pen game, something in my brain still says, “You’re at a PC!”  Plus, Wen has never really played a pen game before, besides that one horrible time she told me about playing with a killer DM and a bunch of loonies who typically dies before they left the tavern, so she’s even less used to the speed than I am.

Still, I think things are moving in the right direction.  Most posts I’ve seen about MapTool point to a typical time investment of 2x to 3x the time one would spend at a live table; I don’t think this is the case here.  Things seem to be moving at about normal pace for a tabletop game.

• As the group moved the bodies of their victims nefarious enemies aside, Reed and Nan spotted more activity from the village, and as they moved forward, saw a small figure with a lantern approaching.
• The boy in question was a human child, and Nan’s scan showed that he was being compelled forward to find the players while, presumably, Cromen were approaching at the edges of visibility.
• There were actually two groups; one, a small group of archers with one gunner, came upon the party first from the south, while a second group of spearmen apparently ran into Tookie a bit northwards, where the grunty was intentionally making noises to lead them away from the rest of the group.  A couple of torches flew out, illuminating the party in the south, and in the north, the spearmen became visible, chasing a fleeing Tookie who was heard to utter his battle-cry “SHIIIIIIIIT!”
• While Tookie distracted the confused spearmen in the north outside of the torchlight radius, in the south Nan was terrorizing the archers, who were then engaged by Reed, Lord Spaulding, and Sam.  During the struggle, Sam was seriously wounded, Spaulding took a couple of superficial cuts, and most of the archers were dispatched.  Reed had slung his bow and was approaching the dazed musketeer just in time for him to snap out of his terror-fugue, and so Reed grabbed his musket barrel, which resulted in a somewhat comical struggle between a hulking Cromen trying to wrestle his gun away from a teenage boy who was all but dangling from the weapon, giving Spaulding and Sam enough time to close the distance and valorously stab him to death from behind.  Reed grabbed the gun.
• In the north, with Tookie outside of the torchlight, the not-all-that-bright spearmen were pacing around looking for him, giving Nan time to come up and shout some curses at them, buying the rest of the group some time, but making herself a target.  Fortunately, Tookie was quick enough to trip them up as they charged after her, keeping them busy while the rest of the party charged (or limped, in Sam’s case) to their rescue.  Nan did eat a nasty spear wound in the melee from one Cromen who immediately went after her, causing her to retreat, heading south where an unconscious Cromen archer needed “attention” while Spaulding, Sam, Reed and Tookie finished the remaining spearmen, forcing one surrender.
• As Nan approached the southern lit area, she stopped as she saw a hulking, lumbering Cromen with a nasty polearm surveying the carnage, eventually trundling up in the direction of the party.  Stunning him briefly, Nan stepped back as Reed and Spaulding charged.  This enemy’s layered scale armor proved effective against most of ther attacks, although Spaulding managed a couple of good hits, but then got nailed with a huge cut to the chest.  Fortunately, Reed had used the opportunity to flank the Cromen and shot him in the throat at point-blank range with a broadhead arrow.
• As this was all going on, the remaining Cromen in the village apparently moved out to the west, pursuing some other coincidental threat, and when Reed got to the village, the peasants were cautiously coming out of their huts, plus one raggedy looking fellow in torn finery who came tumbling out of a door, cringing as the peasants surrounded him menacingly.
• This fellow was Torias March, the con man they had met in their first outing, now missing a left hand.  Under some creative interrogation by Nan, he revealed that he had been on a labor gang when the Cromen attacked a different village.  He was able to roughly communicate with one of them, and for his trouble was rewarded with freedom, by way of a severed manacled hand, and forced to act as a translator in this village, telling the peasants where to go and what to do on behalf of the Cromen occupiers.
• His ragged finery was apparently taken from a Nat, or Nat representative, possibly from House Forska, who had been caught and gutted by the Cromen.  The deceased man had been carrying a note that Torias could not read; it turned out to be a sort of monograph on the nature of humanoid religious practices, written in a somewhat patronizing tone, with some footnotes from other noblemen (click for full image):

• Reed, only lightly wounded, opted to try and scout in the dark toward Cyril’s Rest, but turned back after about half a mile after narrowly avoiding a company of Cromen heading westwards.
• The party was welcomed by the villagers, who told them the story of their occupation, and that the remaining Cromen had been drawn out west by some harassing arrow fire, which had apparently happened the previous day as well, which had no doubt cut down the odds to manageable levels for the incredibly outnumbered party, who as of now were trying their best to recover from their wounds in the middle of contested territory.

• The party returned with Lord Sterling and his cargo to Frogg, with the party asking annoying questions for part of the trip.  Lord Sterling seems to not be a treehugging hippie creating an egalitarian holding in a swamp, but rather more like a secure retirement home for himself far away from the politics and stupidity of Cago.
• In Frogg,the party continued their usual pattern, resulting in equal knowledge gain for the party:
  • Lord Spaulding looked for a hat and sang heroic songs about things that probably never happened for the local kids in lieu of another circus performance.
  • Reed looked for any excuse to get out of Frogg.
  • Nan discovered that Gretchen was a little bit dismayed that her arranged marriage into the Forska house had somehow gone sour.  In further conversations with Nancy Weaver, she learned about the history of the Sterling’s involvement in Frogg, and how his tenuous protection pact with a group of Kharaz to the south would be good for the town, especially if he established permanent residence therein.  The Sterling was apparently something of a misfit at court, but was strongly feared for some act in the past that resulted in the near-annihilation of the powerful Renssalear house.  When informed about Gretchen’s soured marriage plans, she mused that if Andreas were to marry Gretchen, it would provide him with greater protection as an “outer lord” than the aging Cyril could give him against the machinations of houses that might wish to assimilate the Jamesons, and by allowing the Jamesons to be absorbed it would strengthen both of their positions, as well as fortify the town of Frogg.
• In addition, Sam bought himself a gun and started looking into the possibility of having a house built for Spaulding in the Frogg area.
• While prowling around the outside of town, meditating thoughtfully on how much he hated being in Frogg, Reed encountered a winded messenger riding in, who bore news that part of the Cromen northern force had separated from the main body and had skirted southward, undetected, toward Cyril’s Rest.  They were being harassed by a small group of something called the “Black Jagers,” but as the force was several hundred strong, it did not slow them much.  They were expected to get to the Rest within a week, and the Rest’s forces were depleted due to the northern incursions.
• With men at arms strangely unavailable in the depressing marsh town of Frogg and no Erok Leafson or Yosef Blades at hand to assist, the party rode out as soon as possible to catch up with Lord Sterling, who had left a couple of hours beforehand to secure Andreas Jameson from possible house arrest in Cago, though not before Lord Spaulding purchased two muskets from local smith Aron Grunden, no doubt in order to dual-wield.
• Catching up with the Sterling’s party on the road north of Frogg and somehow not immediately opening fire on them as moving objects, the party told Sterling what was happening.  Sterling was determined to head for Cago faster, but could not muster forces quickly enough to counter an impending mass of several hundred Cromen.  He suggested that Spaulding move to Cyril’s Rest anyway in order to try and get Cyril out before the main body of Cromen arrived, reasoning that the hold could last for a while against Cromen, giving Sterling enough time to mobilize a larger force.  The party proceeded as suggested, slightly disappointed in the lack of meatshields assistance from the Sterling.
• On the road to the Rest, the party encountered a group of a dozen or so human and morag peasants.  They were fleeing from a village near the hold, which had already been taken by a small Cromen force, surprisingly ahead of schedule.  The refugees told them that the Cromen came with a human with one hand who was giving orders in Amurkan on behalf of the Cromen, and that some of the Cromen had been drawn away the previous night by an ambushing group of archers, which was when they made their escape.
• Arriving after nightfall, the party saw a posted torch on the bridge into town over a stream that marked the village boundary.  Nan saw several bored Cromen standing guard, and starting yelling curses at them, which were surprisingly effective as usual.  The party moved to engage in combat, taking down the non-fear-stricken invaders with musket and arrow fire.  Nan however was shot by a patrolling gunner with a blunderbuss, taking surprisingly superficial wounds at near point-blank range.  The party dispatched the remaining guards (one of whom came out of a fit of vomiting just in time to the barrel of Spaulding’s musket pressed to his chest, right before Spaulding pulled the trigger).  The strangely practical Tookie executed the surviving guards with a spike as the party regrouped, wondering if anyone had possibly heard the sound of four black powder guns going off from the village a mere three hundred yards off.

When I think about the way that I used to run games as a GM, a simple thought-picture might look like this:

1. Develop A Campaign Idea
2. Flesh It Out
3. GM <—Communicate Through the Campaign World using Hex Paper If Required But Usually Not—> Players
4. Develop the Campaign Out In Accordance With the Players’ Contributions to the Narrative
5. Repeat Steps 3-4 Until Finished Or Bored

In the current campaign, it looks more like this:

1. Develop A Campaign World
2. Flesh It Out
3. Develop Systems in MapTool, Test Them, Refine Them, Test Them Again
4. GM <—Communicate the Campaign World via MapTool If Required But Run Into Bugs And Incomplete Bits—> Players
5. Fix MapTool And Retest, Etc., Taking Time Away From Campaign Development
6. Work On Campaign Development Anyway But Start to Tailor It Around the Problems You Run Into Using a Virtual Table
7. Start To Burn Out
8. Repeat Either Steps 4-7 or 5-7 Until Frustrated

Now, having been through this before, I know the symptoms of GM burnout pretty well especially as they relate to tool fixing, as by the time I got thoroughly fed up with Neverwinter Nights that was just about all I was doing (plus playing babysitter to sociopaths).  The problem is there’s not a whole lot I can do about it; my options are to just man up and fix it anyway, forge ahead and fix things as best time and sanity reserves allow, or quit.

The seed of this insanity was the first big fight session involving about 20 combatants, which (1) was played way too late anyway, and (2) ran really really long.  I know that moderate-sized skirmishes must happen given the narrative (actual large scale combats are really better handled by fiat/narrative dictate), and I have an inborn distaste for suddenly changing the rules to be simpler for the sake of speed, unless it’s a part of a metagame joke.  Plus, simplifying the combat system in MapTool for some of the combatants doesn’t really reduce the scope of the system work that must be done, since ideally you tailor the tool to handle the maximum complexity level that will logically be in play (by the players); faceless killing targets just bypass that particular if(),code:{} statement.

In the interest of the campaign and everyone’s insanity, I am going for option 2 for now.  I’ve tooled up a fairly mad set of combat macros (which are considerably more complex than when they were posted here) and am just going to roll with it.  If I need more, I’ll figure it out.  Game on.

• There was no instruction from Andreas Jameson to move on toward Cago, so the party hung around in the super exciting town of Frogg.
• Having some time to burn, they went south to take a quick gander at the “excavation” Nan has heard about from Falen.  Passing a manure cart on the dirt trail out of Frogg proper, the party eventually came to a marshy area where a few humans and Moragi seemed to be working.
  • The supervisor, “Pappy” Ridge Farmer, was a self-described “agricultural engineer” who was working on a way to safely drain out the marsh in order to clear it for farming purposes, apparently under the auspices of Lord Sterling.
  • There were a few morag and human laborers who were working at the east end of the marsh, apparently building a sort of sluice-wall that would presumable drain the water into a shallow pond that was being dug out, exposing the soil.
  • When asked about any sort of archaeological work, Pappy mentioned that there did seem to be some old construction markers right beneath where the party was standing, but the ground was too wet to properly dig until the land had been cleared.
  • Nothing really was going to be interesting, agriculturally or archaeologically, for at least a couple weeks while the earthworks were being done.
• While on-site, Nan started mumbling to herself again, and was adamant that this was important work and she should be a part of it, to the mild bewilderment (if not surprise, as they had become used to these weird outbursts) of the rest of the party.
• Back in town, it was elicited from a somewhat loose-lipped Gretchen Sterling that her uncle was “building a fort,” in which she might someday live with an assortment of dolls and high-caliber firearms to play with.
• The following morning, Nancy Weaver came to the party and informed them that Lord Jameson was in the process of being “escorted” out of town by an armed detachment from Cago, and they should see him off from a distance and, in Lord Spaulding’s case, in DISGUISE!  (Emphasis added to signify Spaulding’s delight at being given a cloak and hat.)
  • Nan, under some gestured instruction, read from Andreas’ mind that they were not to follow him, but instead assist Bird, his grunty manservant, who was not with him.
  • Spaulding found a couple of notes stuffed into the torn lining of the hat, one sealed, the other hastily scrawled and open:

• Conferring with the shaken Bird, it was discovered that Bird had two missions, one to bring word to the grunties of Cago about the events that had transpired, and another to recover the shipment at Cyril’s Rest.  Deciding somehow that the scrawny, not-too-bright Bird was better suited for subtle diplomacy, the party decided to travel to Cyril’s Rest.
• In the interests of maintaining anonymity, Lord Spaulding came up with the brilliant idea to procure costumes for everyone (which he did) so that they could travel not as an obvious nobleman with an entourage, but instead as an extremely subtle and unmemorable traveling circus.  It was while everyone was getting into their respective costumes (Lord Spaulding and Sam Waits as a minstrel and his accompanist, Reed Groom as a sort of stunt rider, Nan as an extremely unhappy and glowering fortune teller, and Tookie as a performing miniature bear) that they were seen by the morag adventurer and cartographer Erok Leafson, who after gazing at them blankly for a bit, simply inquired, “So, uh, how’s that life of adventure treating you?”
• It seemed fortunate that Erok was there, as the party was without a tracker (Josef Blades having moved on recently), and so they asked him for a map to Cyril’s Rest.  As it turned out, it seemed that the price for Erok to draw them a map was exactly the sum that a traveling circus might earn for a performance in town!  Lord Spaulding readily agreed to this, as the others quietly and futilely pleaded with him to just pay him.
• The evening’s performance went perhaps not as ideally as Spaulding had hoped, but it was sufficient to get them their map:
  • Spaulding himself performed some sort of romantic, adventuring ballad accompanied by Sam on lute, which only became really exciting when he tripped during his final bow and fell flat on his face in front of most of the population of Frogg who had come out for the show.
  • Reed rode around on a horse and jumped a few times over a flaming log, at which point it seemed extremely fortunate that the residents of Frogg were somewhat starved for entertainment.
  • Nan made a couple of dire predictions about someone going to die.  She could have been referring either to Erok or Lord Spaulding, but considering their lifestyles this was hardly seen as a stretch.
  • Tookie came out in his little bear costume, much to everyone’s laughter, did some dance steps, and proceeded to start kicking Erok in the shins.  When Erok had had enough and went to grab Tookie, the grunty remained completely in character as, very bearlike, he dodged the morag’s hands, grabbed up his staff from the ground, tripped Erok, and trapped him in a painful joint lock while screaming, “YOU MAKE US MAP NOW YAH?  YOU MAKE!”
• Erok did as promised and drew them a map, which basically told them to go north, then turn left and go straight until they hit Cyril’s Rest.  Reed rolled his eyes and Nan plotted dire vengeance.
• The trip to Cyril’s Rest was uneventful, and the party (having thankfully changed out of their minstrel clothes) met with Lord Cyril, exchanged some pleasantries (“So, what about your son getting arrested eh?  Hyuk hyuk.”), and recovered the cargo:  four large chests which seemed to be filled with a reddish ore.  The party borrowed a wagon and hitched it to their mules for the trip back.
• On the way back, they ancountered about a dozen or so heavily armed and well-equipped men, which turned out to be the mysterious Lord Jonn Sterling and company, who had come out to take their delivery and escort the party back into Frogg, where they had become something akin to legend, though perhaps not in the way that any of them had excepted.

Update:  Notable Persons page also added for non-nobility/house associates.

<!–Melee_Attack–>
<!–Attack the current target with a valid weapon and attack–>
<!–Determine if a melee weapon is readied–>
[h: wWeapon=WeaponObject]
[h: wGrip=Grip]
[h: wAttacks=json.get(wWeapon,"Attacks")]
[h: wAttackArray="[]“]
[h: wRange=getDistance(CurrentTarget,0)]
[h: wValidAttacks="{}"]
[h: wMelee=0]
<!–Get valid attacks by grip–>
[h: wAttackArray = json.append(wAttackArray, json.toList(json.fields(wAttacks, "json")))]
[h: wAttackList = json.toList(wAttackArray)]
[h, forEach(wAttackName,wAttackList), code:
{
[h: wAttack=json.get(wAttacks, wAttackName)]
[h, if(wGrip==json.get(wAttack,"Grip")), code:
{
[h: wValidAttacks=json.set(wValidAttacks,wAttackName,wAttack)]
[h: wMelee=wMelee+if(json.get(wAttack,"Type")=="melee", 1, 0)]
};{}]
}]

<!–Make sure that at least one of the available attacks is melee –>
[h: assert(wMelee>0, "No melee attacks available with your weapon!",0)]

<!–Determine valid attacks by range to target–>
[h: wValidAttackArray="[]“]
[h: wValidAttackArray = json.append(wValidAttackArray, json.toList(json.fields(wValidAttacks, "json")))]
[h: wValidAttackList = json.toList(wValidAttackArray)]
[h: wReachAttacks="{}"]
[h: wValidAttacksByReach=0]
[h, forEach(wValidAttackName,wValidAttackList), code:
{
[h: wValidAttack=json.get(wValidAttacks, wValidAttackName)]
[h: wValidReachList=json.get(wValidAttack,"Reach")]
[h, if(listContains(wValidReachList,wRange)), code:
{
[h:wReachAttacks=json.set(wReachAttacks,wValidAttackName,wValidAttack)]
[h:wValidAttacksByReach=wValidAttacksByReach+1]
};{}]
}]

<!–Abort if no valid attacks by reach–>
[h: assert(wValidAttacksByReach>0, "You cannot hit "+CurrentTarget+" with your current weapon and grip!",0)]

<!–Input box to select the attack–>
[h: wReachAttackArray="[]“]
[h: wReachAttackArray=json.append(wReachAttackArray, "No Attack", json.toList(json.fields(wReachAttacks, "json")))]
[h: wReachAttackList=json.toList(wReachAttackArray)]

[h: wHitLocationObject=getLibProperty("HitLocations","Lib:Weapons")]
[h: wHitLocationArray=json.fields(wHitLocationObject, "json")]
[h: wHitLocationList=json.toList(wHitLocationArray)]

[h: input(
"wAttackUsed|"+wReachAttackList+"|Attack to Use|RADIO|SELECT=0 VALUE=STRING",
"wHitLocation|"+wHitLocationList+"|Hit Location (Eyes/Vitals are for imp/pi only)|LIST|SELECT=0 VALUE=STRING",
"wChinks|0|Target Chinks in Armor for 1/2 DR? (-8 torso, -10 elsewhere)|CHECK",
"wDeceptive|No,Deceptive Attack,Telegraphic Attack|Deceptive or Telegraphic Attack?|RADIO|SELECT=0 VALUE=STRING",
"wModifiers||Enter any other numeric modifiers as a single integer|TEXT"
)]

<!–Abort if no attack is used–>
[h: assert(wAttackUsed!="No Attack", "Attack cancelled.",0)]

<!–Get the penalty for the hit location–>
[h: wHitLocationPenalty=json.get(wHitLocationObject,wHitLocation)]
[h: wHitLocationPenalty=if(wChinks, -10, wHitLocationPenalty)]
[h: wHitLocationPenalty=if(wChinks && wHitLocation=="Torso", -8, wHitLocationPenalty)]

<!–Determine base effective skill–>
[h: wAttackObject=json.get(wReachAttacks,wAttackUsed)]
[h: wSkillName=json.get(wAttackObject,"Skill")]
[h: wSkillLevel=json.get(CombatSkills,wSkillName)]
[h: wEffSkillLevel=wSkillLevel+wModifiers+wHitLocationPenalty]

<!–Add a bonus if Telegraphic Attack was chosen–>
[h: wEffSkillLevel=if(wDeceptive=="Telegraphic Attack",wEffSkillLevel+4,wEffSkillLevel)]

<!–Subroutine for Deceptive Attack to be added later–>
[h: wEffSkillLevel=if(wDeceptive=="Deceptive Attack",wEffSkillLevel-4,wEffSkillLevel)]

<!–Roll to hit–>
[h: wRoll=3d6]
[h: wHitOrMiss=if(wRoll<=wEffSkillLevel, "<b>hits</b>","<b>misses</b>")]
[h: wMargin=absolutevalue(wEffSkillLevel-wRoll)]

<!–Determine damage base figures==>
[h: wDamBase=json.get(wAttackObject,"DamBase")]
[h: wDamBaseDice=if(wDamBase=="swing",json.get(getLibProperty("swing","Lib:Weapons"),Strength),"0")]
[h: wDamBaseDice=if(wDamBase=="thrust",json.get(getLibProperty("thrust","Lib:Weapons"),Strength),wDamBaseDice)]
[h: wDamMod=json.get(wAttackObject,"DamMod")]

<!–Determine Critical thresholds–>
[h: wCritSkillLevel=if(wDeceptive=="Telegraphic Attack",wEffSkillLevel-4,wEffSkillLevel)]
[h: wCritHitNumber=if(wCritSkillLevel==15,5,4)]
[h: wCritHitNumber=if(wCritSkillLevel>15,6,wCritHitNumber)]

[h: wCritMissNumber=if(wEffSkillLevel>15,18,17)]
[h: wCritMissNumber=min(wEffSkillLevel+10,wCritMissNumber)]

[h: wHitOrMiss=if(wRoll<=wCritHitNumber, "<b>critically hits</b>", wHitOrMiss)]
[h: wHitOrMiss=if(wRoll>=wCritMissNumber, "<b>critically misses</b>", wHitOrMiss)]

<!–Roll damage if a hit–>
[h: wDamageFeedback=""]
[h: wDamType=json.get(wAttackObject,"DamType")]
[h, if(wHitOrMiss=="<b>hits</b>"||wHitOrMiss=="<b>critically hits</b>"), code:
{
[h, if(wDamBase!="none"&&wDamBase!="static"), code:
{
[h: wDamageBase=eval(wDamBaseDice)]
[h: wDamageMod=wDamMod]
};
{
[h: wDamageBase=wDamBaseDice]
[h: wDamageMod=eval(wDamMod)]
}]
[h: wDamageTotal=wDamageBase+wDamageMod]
[h: wDamageFeedback="<br>The attack will do <b>"+wDamageTotal+" "+wDamType+"</b> damage."]
};{}]

[r: wFeedback=token.name+" attacks "+CurrentTarget+" using "+wAttackUsed+" to the "+wHitLocation+", rolls "+wRoll+" and "+wHitOrMiss+" by "+wMargin+"."+wDamageFeedback]

• The party attempted to question the Cromen prisoners.  Spaulding and Jameson could understand enough of their language to get a little pidgin dialogue going, during which they implied that the Cromen were coming, specifically for the Nats.
• The Cromen were summarily beheaded by Bailiff Plough, somewhat to the disappointment of Yosef Blades and company, who were apparently making bets on which ones would last the longest under recreational torture.
• The badly wounded man-at-arms died in the night from his wounds, and the other wounded one was strapped to a mule; everyone continued on to Frogg.
• Frogg was a very depressing town, pretty much situated directly in a disgusting marshland.  However it was populated by a surprisingly diverse mix of humanoids, including some exceptional craftsmen for some reason.
• The mayor, Caleb Carpenter, was there to greet them briefly, along with a girl he was watching, who turned out to be Gertrude Sterling, precocious niece of Lord Jonn Sterling.
• Andreas’ primary contact was one Nancy Weaver, who lived in a sizable rough house with her son Andrew.  She graciously gave the use of her house to the party and the wounded man at arms while they were in Frogg and found lodgings elsewhere.  She also provided some reasonable medical care to the wounded man at arms and Spaulding, who had taken some axe hits.
• Falen, an Ess traveling scholar and something of an archaeologist, was also in Frogg, apparently working on some sort of troublesome dig to excavate some ruins that were covered by silt.  He took a liking to Nan and provided her with some more palatable foods native to Thelabar, including Quinoa, which delighted her so much that she started singing a little song about it.
• Reed, in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the locals, made two significant errors:  (1) he purchased a disgusting smoked mudskipper from a local fisher boy, and (2) pretended to like it, resulting in several parcels of the dirt-flavored delicacy to the door of the Weaver house with his name on them.
• Spaulding visited the local smith, a very skilled Morag named Aron Grunden, who had his mail repaired and also looked over the captured caplock arms found at the destroyed hamlet.  Andreas gave them over to him for safekeeping.
• Reed managed to find a Kharaz bowyer who had a very expensive composite bow that was worth more than all of his possessions and cash put together, but as it did a miniscule amount more damage than his own bow, he hocked his old one and himself to Nan in exchange for a loan for it.
• Falen asked Spaulding for an item found at the site of the attack; Spaulding got the muddied cloak back from Grunden.  Falen examined it and told Spaulding that Olan Renssalear was the one who had lost a hand, and that the Sterling should be notified.