A continuation of the delve started two weeks ago in Session 165.
Game Date: 2/20/2022
Characters:
Aldwyn, human knight (360 points)
Varmus the Hanged, human apprentice (180 points)
Gerrald Tarrant, human wizard (420 points)
3 skeletons (~35 points)
1 tough skeleton (105 points)
"Mild" Bruce McTavish, human barbarian (340 points)
Sir Bunny Wigglesworth, human holy warrior (281 points)
Wyatt Sorrel, human swashbuckler (378 points)
Ulf Sigurdson, human cleric (366 points)
We picked up where we left off last session, with the characters in mid-fight, the draugr about to go to complete their 7th second of combat.
The draugr were pushing into the PCs, with one having broken through to the back. Aldwyn moved to engage that one after the draug attacked Varmus, who Dodged thanks to his Shield spell. They managed to cut down a couple more, with Wyatt - Great Hasted - stabbing eyes with heavily deceptive attacks four-five at a time on one draug at a time until he fell.
Several of the draug were blind at this point from Wyatt's eye stabs. They began to fall back. The PCs kept fighting the ones close to them, refusing to budge from their formation even to follow the injured. Aldwyn chased down his foe all the way back to the stairs - the draug clearly falling back to draw Aldwyn out of the fight and use up more of his magical buff time. Once he killed that one, he headed back to the fight at full run.
The brawl continued, during which Sir Bunny had his shield arm crippled for a split second - by the time it was his turn again, Ulf had healed it fully and he passed his HT check for cripplingFor a brief time the PCs had driven back the draugr. Several of them threw spears at PCs, but they were dodged or blocked. Sir Bunny put his shield away and got out his crossbow, with Crogar waiting by his side. Bruce followed the draugr out. He didn't rush them or charge, just moved out.
As this was going on, the bank rankers called to their friends and said they were slower (and fought worse) dead than alive.
Varmus threw in a 9d Explosive Fireball and burned a couple of draug badly. Wyatt rushed out, again under Great Haste. With Run and Hit, he dashed out, stitched four attacks into a target, then moved to another, launched another four, and then ran back to his buddies. He did that for a couple of seconds as the draugr broke lines to allow their blinded bretheren into the back ranks. Once they managed to get mostly formed up again, they charged with shield rushes, swamping Bruce, Aldwyn (who'd run up), and Wyatt. Wyatt managed to cut his way free. Aldwyn managed to back off. Bruce had a leg crippled and dropped. Wyatt tried to help Bruce but the charging draugr drove him back. The draugr kept pounding on Bruce while he was down. He fended off a few attacks before passing out from a skull hit from behind. After that, they just kept chopping him - it turned out, for several seconds after he'd died [I didn't notice them saying he'd died, just asking what a critical success on a death check did.]
The PCs fell back as the draugr kept up a wave of shield rushes. They managed to knock over Sir Bunny and Aldwyn, and kept hacking and slashing at them and forcing their way to surround PCs. The PCs kept fighting back the oncoming draugr, and managed to keep them off Sir Bunny and Aldwyn long enough for them to stand. Wyatt kept blinding draugr and killing them as well with 4-5 eye shots per foe per single turn, and he gets two with Great Haste. The draugr just couldn't leverage their ST for beats as Wyatt rarely stayed in one place, and the others rarely parried with the same weapon they strike with.
As this went on, Varmus tossed a 6d Explosive Fireball and scorched a few more foes. Wyatt began to victimize foes that were already attacked by others, which sped up his ability to defeat them. At this point, Wyatt blinded one of the draugr, who called him a "Right bastard!" and then exclaimed, "Well, at least I don't have to look at you anymore."
We ended there, with the last of the healthy draugr piling into the PCs and the blinded ones and broken-armed ones in the back. 11 or so are still active, so we didn't have time to play that out
Notes:
I'm tired all the way to my bones with Great Haste granting Altered Time Rate. It greatly increases the amount of time combats take, focusing it on one person. Wyatt gets 9 attacks and moves twice, and Sir Bunny gets one attack and a step. For example. It's just tiring. I don't think my players love it, either. They'd probably be on board with changing it, except that unless you get ATR out of it, spellcasters lose out and will veto changes that do so.
It just makes the turn-taker's turn too long and too complex, and doesn't do much for the fun of those not accelerated.
The usual "complete understanding of the battlefield" stuff happened. When Sir Bunny's arm got crippled, Ulf moved up invisibly and cast Major Healing for exactly the HP needed to fix it, despite being visually screened from the action by intervening 7' tall armed guys fighting in a confused and close melee. So the cripple lasted for a tiny fraction of a second. By the time the next turn came up, he was already healed completely. I keep these written down for when my players say, "I don't think that guy should be able to know that" when an NPC acts on complete battlefield understanding, too.
Someone - I think Sir Bunny - tried the old "cowards!" insult in here. It failed, because the draugr are fighting extensively magically buffed superbly equipped delvers in a battle to the death, delvers who insist on making the enemy come to them and won't respond to insults, and they understand this. It's a battle in a war, not a duel, and cowardice is why you do as you do and not as your foe describes. Plus, the delvers have been going for decapitations and blinding, and so the draug don't feel compelled to not kill a fallen foe . . . who the delvers will demonstably heal back to full, awaken, and send back into the fray. Of course, it's 33 on 10, but those 10 are lavishly supported by magic, and the draugr don't have Code of Honor (Chivalry). All of that screams ruthless battle to the death on both sides, and not so much concern about the other side's perception of your bravery.
Bruce got out a little too far in front of the "formation" and got himself killed. Actually, from my side of the screen, there were a few seconds there when the draugr were trying to let their blinded buddies pass through when they were scattered and very vulnerable individually. Bruce moved up . . . but cautiously. Crogar waited in the back. Bunny decided to switch to his crossbow. Wyatt swooped in and took a few stragglers out. Varmus chucked a fireball and did some damage. There wasn't any followthrough. Had the PCs attacked at that moment, they'd easily been able to double-team a few of the draugr and get them down, and the back-rankers would have been fouled by the blinded feeling their way back and unable to jump in. It would have come with some risk, but considering that the plan as executed ended up with Bruce dead and the PCs getting swamped by draugr, I'm not sure the plan as executed was safer. It's only been near the end of the fight that they started to double-team draugr, with Wyatt piling onto draug who already retreated, or had done multiple defenses.
The draugr have tried to gang up on the PCs, but mostly it hasn't made a difference - with all of the front-line fighters having Shield and Blur 5, they're at -5 to hit and the PCs +5 to defend, which means defense-swamping just isn't relevant. Only Bruce was swamped, once, and it took a lucky shot to put him down. Otherwise, the draugr largely haven't been able to penetrate defenses without a critical hit or a critical miss.
We had one VTT incident and one maybe. The incident was me accidentally deleting a draugr during his turn. So I had to finish the turn and then come back and add in the draug. That wasn't good. The "maybe" is one of my players swears a draugr slammed Crogar, and then got to go again later. I think he just conflated two turns, but he's generally reliable about these things. But I was literally clicking "Next turn" on the combat tracker and resolving the guy that came up next. That guy doesn't come up twice. So I don't think that could have happened. He goes near the end, not the beginning, of the order, so he couldn't have slammed on the same turn.
MVP was Wyatt for killing most of the draugr they've killed so far, and for trying to rescue Bruce.
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