(03) Scouting the Ruins

[zygarti]

Flin will join Stern is his plan to topple the scaffolding. He'll use his Axe to weaken the supporting beams.

[mushgnome]

Stern whispers, "Tass did it! The path is clear to the cathedral entrance. Let's go!" He turns left and is about to take the first step, then catches himself, "Wait, where are Flin, Wraistlin, Goldwen and Witherun? Did we just split the party again?!?"

He holds position, listening for shouts that Tass's plan has failed (but it seems to be going well for the moment) and waiting for the other half of the party to catch up.

[Tonneau]

Wraislin sighs as General Mayhem makes another appearance, then cautiously follows after his brawny colleagues.

[sully]

Thanis says, The scaffolding is too sturdy for us to take out. Let's trust Tass to make his escape and use this chance to move to the cathedral entrance.

[ehiker133]

Goldwen nods as Wraistlin begins heading towards the entrance. She hefts her shield and readies her mace as she follows him.

[waysoftheearth]

Thanis convinces Flin that chopping at one or even several of the dozens of scaffolding pilons would have achieve nothing more than a direct confrontation, and would throw away the planned (and won!) element of surprise.

The ranger waits for an opportune moment, then leads the rest of the party across the open ground from the perimeter outbuildings to the cathedral entrance. With most of the site's workers distracted by Tass' fire and the Hobbet hunt, Thanis is fairly sure they make the crossing unchecked.

Inside...

Will Thanis and party cross into the cathedral entrance unseen? 1d6=5! In a moment of glory, the party manages to get across the open ground unseen.

Everyone (except Tass) over to (04) The Cathedral ...

[mgtremaine]

Woo hoo look at me go!

[waysoftheearth]

Meanwhile.

Tass hurries to the second pile of lumber he selected earlier, aware that men are yelling and pointing at him from their roof-top vantage, and that guards are a closing in from all around.

There's no time to completely empty the oil flasks, so he simply unstops them and tosses them onto the lumber to spill themselves.

"There!" yells one of several armed guards now closing in within the store yard. Not only that, Tass' sharp ears pick out the flapping of awful wings above him!

Realising he is out of time, Tass smashes his lantern over the top of the wood pile and doesn't even wait for the fire to take as he dashes off toward the nearest outbuilding.

"That way! Surround him!" voices are yelling through the smoke, but Tass pays no heed.

As soon as he reaches the first outbuilding, he unexpectedly doubles-back around the far side of the building, and then---eyes on the sky-- he pauses a few seconds until a smoke pall covers him as he dives across the gap into the next outbuilding, and then wriggles into a long dis-used drain that only a child (or a Hobbet) could fit into, and begins to crawl his way back toward the Cathedral, through the ancient, muddy, overgrown drain system. He grins eagerly as the sounds of the commotion outside seem to be moving off in the wrong direction...

That was fun he tells himself (not dwelling overly on what a pack of harpies might have done with him...).

This is a classic time to use the OD&D/DD evasion rule.
OD&D uses a percentile-based system, albeit in 10 and 15% increments. DD4 translates the same into d6 increments. DD5 will have a further refinement of the same.

The rule was (broadly) intended for the one-day-turn wilderness exploration game, but should be equally applicable here at our more resolved scale. The basic idea is that a smaller party has better odds of evading a larger party, with adjustments for visibility/cover, surprise, and movement rates.

Tass has the advantage of being the smaller party, and his Hobbet thief sneakiness (assuming he will presumably seek the cover of the surrounding outbuildings and foliage), but he has the disadvantage of potentially being pursued from the air. All in I'm allowing a 4 in 6 chance of evading them outright, otherwise it will become a pursuit.

Does Tass evade? 1d6=4, so yes he does. Sneaky little Hobbetses.

[waysoftheearth]

Woo hoo look at me go!

A benefit (IMHO) of running thief skills at a higher level of abstraction is that thieves can be more effective at their primary mission.
If the thief class is included in play, it might as well actually work too

What now, Hobbetses?

[mgtremaine]

Tass continues down the drainpipe looking to exits and trying to keep track of where he is in relation to what's above.