Tests and Trials OOC

[Rodgeir]

The lack consistency is what kills me here. Distance yourselves, but go to work in your small offices if you're 'essential'. The keep sending your kids to school is the one that made me just give up on even trying.

[Dlover]

Yeah, that's dumb. At least here school's on hold.

Also, apparently Magic Initiate gives you a level 1 spell as well as the two cantrips, and that spell you can only cast once per long rest? When did that happen? Not like Druid has any level 1 spells I particularly want anyway. I guess I'll go with Animal Friendship since it has the least chance of never being used? Unless someone else can think of a more thematic level one druid spell for Lurn to be able to cast once per day.

[spiderwrangler]

Beast Bond has a similar theme to Animal Friendship/being a firbolg, basically gives you 10 minutes of wizard familiaring a friendly beast.

Earth Tremor connects to your 'dirt moving' but not likely to be used frequently.

Entangle and Faerie Fire are solid 1st level druid spells, but not really on theme. Could find a reason to cast them in a fair number of combats.

Goodberry is rather nice, and fits in with the firbolg side of things and the healing side of things. Being able to make 10 berries that each restore 1 HP and provide a day's nourishment is nothing to sneeze at (a healing potion costs 50gp, and can restore 4-10 HP, though all at once). Use in combat may depend on Rodgeir's ruling on administering a berry to someone who is downed, but a strong RP tool that would likely get cast daily. Lurn could wander the sick tents feeding berries to people once he's tapped out on spells.

Speak with Animals is maybe too close to theme, as Lurn already has a version of this.

[Rodgeir]

In combat the berries would take a turn to force feed to someone. They also provide a day's worth of nourishment, which really doesn't matter in the environments you're in but in a desert/artic tundra setting it would be useful!

[Arch Lich Burns]

There are people at entrances with tablets to monitor how many people come in and out. They can enforce how many customers are in the store.

[Dlover]

Yeah, Speak with Animals is basically a temporary firbolg ability, but gives the ability to understand them to a degree as well. And Beast Bond is... Essentially a non-ritual version of that but with a single target? I can already get some degree of both just with Firbolg Powers and Lurn apparently being beloved by all animals we've encountered, so I figured Animal Friendship could maybe be useful on the off chance he fails to make friends the normal way, as a sort of divine nudge.

Goodberry may not be a bad idea, either. Get a bit of backup healing, distribute the ten of them between party members so they have an emergency option if Lurn or Kroshav can't heal them... But instead of berries grown from a sprig of mistletoe, just little beads of holy light. They don't really have a taste, but spread warmth through the body when eaten.
... Fork, I'm really liking the goodberry idea... And hey, we all know there's no way I'd ever fail to befriend an animal and thus need to use Animal Friendship, right?

[spiderwrangler]

Burn's druid character used goodberries to good effect in my game, it's a solid little spell, and you can potentially feed a goodberry to an animal to help get them to like you too!

[Dlover]

Sounds like a perfect spell to have on hand, and you only need to use it once a day anyway, so the limitation from Magic Initiate isn't a problem.

[Quarg]

You put people on the one door being used and start a line...problem is that the line is likely as dangerous as having people in range of each other in the store.

[Dlover]

I'm legitimately now considering whether it would be possible to make an animated cutlery spell. Like a cross between Spiritual Weapon and Prestidigitation's last effect. No way in hell Lurn would be smart enough to work that out, though, unless he can just work it out with intuition alone.

[Rodgeir]

That is going to take a series of tough arcana checks to create a new spell, even if it is a variant of existing spells. I am not sure he'd ever get it down to a cantrip.

Maybe unseen servant would be more helpful? Joe's ability to magic up stuff combined with unseen servant gives some fun possibilities. Not so much for Lurn, but still.

[Arch Lich Burns]

Mage hand. That will allow you to manipulate objects like cutting and holding stuff.

[Dlover]

Yeah, there's no way Lurn would ever be able to make a new spell. Zero chance. There are also no options for a cleric to manipulate objects, all such spells are the domain of arcane classes, not holy ones. It's interesting to consider ways to get around having only one hand, though. For now I'll just resign myself to knowing Spiritual Weapon can substitute for a knife if I have a level 2 spell slot handy.

[Rodgeir]

"As for the how, I did something very stupid and tried to cast a spell that required direct contact with the target, hoping to finish off an entity which was acting as a portal to the Abyss. Or, I had been considering it a portal 'from' the Abyss. More something that would draw beings of that dimension to ours. Hadn't considered it would go both ways. As it turns out, I failed to kill it, and it dragged my arm through to the other side. It seems I have a tendency to touch things I really shouldn't touch even while attempting to destroy them. But hey, I can only touch half as many unholy things now."

I will also drop, since it seems unlikely you'll encounter another portal to the Abyss for a while, that you not only didn't manage to kill the arm by touching it also healed it! Good times.

[Dlover]

:o Man, that arm's a jerk, grappling AND using life drain in one turn.

[Dlover]

A thought: would a caster be able to Assist with someone's attack by pretending they're going to cast something?

[Rodgeir]

Well, I would say yes but that it would still take an action to pretend to cast something. I would also say that the person would also have to know the person waving their arms around could actually cast something, or at least suspect they could. For instance, an owlbear probably won't care all that much, or even connect the magic to the caster (spell depending), but a hobgoblin would start flinching if they saw a wizard looking person start dancing and then point at them after that same person had just (clearly) blasted them.

[Dlover]

Lovely. I doubt there'd be many times where I'd want to do that - my cantrips aren't awful for damage, and nobody has such a massive output that it's better to give advantage - but it's something that's useful to know.

[NotStickFigures]

Reference the items being identified...
I am intrigued to know what the eye patch will end up doing, or if any of the earrings or jewelry is magic...and I have the feeling the helmet will be somehow not a good item if I'm guessing (I'm not sure why I feel that way), and the belt buckle just HAS to be feather fall. I"m hoping a wand will be something cool for Lurn.

[spiderwrangler]

Not a good item like, makes the wearer's pee smell funny, and that's the only effect?

If you mean cursed, identify doesn't pick that up by default...

[NotStickFigures]

I guess I dont' know if Jaq would know that...and I think he's hoping the church might catch a curse. He's kinda anti-curse at the moment.

[spiderwrangler]

Yeah, probably not, I'm taking more player to player than at a character level.

[Rodgeir]

Not a good item like, makes the wearer's pee smell funny, and that's the only effect?

Taking this.

[NotStickFigures]

See, stop giving ideas!!!

[Rodgeir]

Everything was decided when you grabbed it, don't worry! But moving forward... Who knows?