The area on the right is where the wolves are, and that narrow area all the way to the right is the fissure. North is to continue. Continuing down the path, if you don't have darkvision, it will be very hard to see without a torch. It just so happens that your ranger has darkvision, so you may want her to take point if you don't want to risk making things bright.

I believe Pavel had torches, but I wanted to check with the DM on how you would handle such things. If the elf leads the way with good vision, would a torch at the back of the party mess that up? Also, how would you handle a torch and a bow? If Dane were carrying a torch, would he have to drop it to shoot his bow? What would dropping it do to light and chances of putting it out? It makes a difference for which weapon he carries.

I think in these cases I'm trying to strive for realism while also not hampering the game.

In real life, holding a torch while pulling and releasing a bow would be difficult, and at the very least affect your aim, from what I understand.

The the torches...well, it's a trade off. You'll get better visibility, but you'll also be more visible. Doesn't mean you'll definitely blow your cover, or even that you cover wouldn't be blown either way, but there it is.

Aspara replies to Dane in kind to what I just said above. She feels it's better for you two to go blind rather than risk the light, but she won't stop you from using light if you want.

She points out that, for all you know, up ahead could be dangerous as well, and if the goblins had planted traps or guards, it would be along this path, since it's the most likely point of attack.

So, are you guys proceeding? with light, or without?

Pavel votes for light. It would be easier to fight with the light, even if we do lose the ranged ability.

Lets use some light and go down the path by the stream.

Dane needs to be able to see I think and I don't want to move into the wolves unless we get rid of them. They might like her, but not us. I'd climb whatever was there without the wolves, but with 'em... no.

killing them is an option, even if Aspara doesn't like it (though you don't know that she doesn't). There are also less drastic solutions

If Pavel agrees, I'll just say you all shoot arrows at the wolves and kill'em to death, and roll a d4 a piece to determine how many arrows it cost you.

That works for me. I wasn't sure the ranger would want to do that. I rolled a 2.

Sometimes I'm also figuring out a character as I go along.

Pavel needs to roll for the arrows and assuming you're gonna try to go up the crevice, you'll all have to make a strength check :o

Do we all climb together or have the rogue scout?

Sorry for my absence. Work has been crazy lately.

I thought we decided to leave the wolves, and continue down the path?

We had sort of decided to go down the path - but my comments on that were based on the assumption that the ranger wouldn't want to eliminate the wolves. She is actually ok doing that. Given that, Dane would be much happier not leaving a trio of wolves behind him at the cave entrance. Thus the idea to get rid of the wolves.

If the wolves are gone, checking out the . . . .whatever it is that goes up . . . seems to make some sense. I doubt we can see much without climbing. I was going to suggest having Dane climb a little first, but since he is completely blind in the dark that seems to be a problem. Climbing he could probably do, but scouting would be harder.

What say you?

If we kill the wolves, then any patrols or returning baddies are going to see that they are dead, and know that something is up....

Where if we leave them, then things look normal... or at least normalish.