stivie: переводы

→Once the fight starts, the party is over. Go to “A Fight Breaks Out,” below. Until then, the PCs can interact with the party as they please. They may engage in some or all of the following activities.

→If the PCs start chatting up party guests with gusto, take to the dance floor, or otherwise amuse themselves with the balls diversions, let this continue as long as they’re having a good time. Adjust the times in the above sequence of events to give them as much time as they need.

→A closet in the kitchen area contains waiter outfits, and the PCs find this easily if they look around.

→The PCs can also get into the ballroom through
the unguarded servants’ entrance around the corner. If the PCs dress like kitchen servants, they won’t be challenged, although they soon get pressed into service washing dishes if they linger in the kitchen area.

→If the PCs would rather not deal with the guards, there are many other ways to get inside the embassy. Two charm person spells or a sleep spell do the trick, as will invisibility if the PCs wait for the gnomes to open the doors for another guest.

→Possessions; Bracers of armor +1, cloak of resistance +1, masquerade costume.
Development: Unless the PCs do something to intervene, the events in this encounter occur in a cer¬tain order, each one happening a number of minutes after the PCs enter the ballroom.
15 Minutes: Lucan locates Neya. He greets her and leads her to the dance floor.

→Experience: Award the PCs full experience for each foe they defeat in combat, but don’t award experience for Lucan’s retreat or any halflings who simply fly away.

→Lucan emerges from hiding at this point. He jumps from the coach, takes the form of a dire wolf, and disap¬pears into the night. Where is Lucan going? Toward the ruined ziggurat he sees in the distance.

→Failure indicates that the sudden stop sends the character crashing into a wall or the floor. Those inside a cart who fail take ld6 points of damage. Those on the roof of a cart can make a second check to avoid falling off (see above).

→ENDING THE ENCOUNTER
Four rounds into the battle, the driver increases the speed of the coach. In the fifth round, the warforged in the crew cart kill him, causing the coach to slide to a stop. (The coach won’t run without the driver.) When the coach sud¬denly stops, each individual on board needs to make a DC 15 Balance check to remain standing.

→Glidewings (6): hp 22 each; EBERROSCampaign Setting, page 280.
Halfling Tactics: The halflings and glidewings are con¬tent to circle the lightning rail coach, but they fling javelins at any creature on the roof or side running boards of the carts, circling so they remain about 30 feet away from their targets.

→Creatures: Two groups of warforged, four in the forward crew cart and five searching the other carts from rear to front. Their leader, Scimitar, commands the latter group. Six halfling mercenaries on glidewings patrol outside the coach.

→Grab at a Railing: If a character is falling off the coach for whatever reason, a DC 20 Climb check lets him grab onto a guardrail or similar protuberance. A character can pull himself back up to safety by taking a move action and making a DC 10 Climb check, but he’s hang¬ing by his fingertips until he does so.

→Push Someone Off: A bull rush attack suffices to push someone off the roof of the coach. Attempting to do so from the outer balconies is harder; the presence of the rail gives the defender a +2 bonus on the opposed check to avoid being bull rushed.

→Fall or Jump off the Coach: Treat this as a normal fall, except that it deals 2d6 points of damage due to the coach’s forward speed. A character can reduce the damage to ld6 points if he or she jumps down inten¬tionally and succeeds on a DC 15 Jump check, or if he or she succeeds on a DC 15 Tumble check.

→Climb onto the Roof: Hatches and ladders are located at the rear of each cart. It takes a move action to open the hatch. It’s a DC 0 Climb check to get up the ladder, but it takes 40 feet of movement to do so. A DC 5 Climb check gets a character up the ladder with only 20 feet of movement. Unless PCs are unusually burdened, failure simply means no progress on the climb, not an actual fall.

→PCs are generally adept at using their surroundings to advantage. Here are some clever tricks they might employ.

→At your gaming table, the easiest way to handle this combat is to treat the coach carts as stationary and move the terrain around it. With a fly speed of 80 feet, the halflings’ glidewings are easily fast enough to keep up.
It’s often difficult to keep track of events when a party splits up, but in this battle you can switch back and forth between PCs in different coach carts by simply cycling through the initiative order; imagine a movie that cuts between two tense situations.

→Then Lucan takes
to the roof and at least some PCs follow, bringing the halflings into the fray. The rest of the PCs encounter the other team of warforged just as the coach grinds to a halt. After the coach stops, the PCs finish off any surviving warforged and wonder where Lucan fled to.

→Eor example, perhaps the PCs fight Scimitar and her warforged party for a few rounds before Lucan appears. Then the PCs chase Lucan forward from cart to cart for a few rounds as the coach speeds up.