After a long delay, we managed to get enough people to play DF today.
Real Date: 4/30/2023
Game Date: 5/4/2023
Characters:
Ambassador Durinn, dwarf cleric (~265 points)
Desmond MacDougall, human wizard (~290 points)
Kaylee Blackwall, half-elf knight (~270 points)
Lenjamin Gundry, human knight (~250 points)
Sigur Hondguthann, human holy warrior (250 points)
The PCs slogged in the rain to the Brotherhood Complex, and after sending their cleric to check for traps, headed in.
They reached the doors and Desmond tried Seek Earth for gold and for silver. Neither worked. So he said the passphrase and in they went.
They worked their way ahead carefully, without lights for a distance, to see if they could see anyone. They could not.
They moved down to the stairs to the next level, and forced them open after a few tries and made their way down. Desmond cast Seek Earth again for gold and detected some 80-ish yards away to the "north." They'd gone "north" before so they decided to go south, then west, then north, to get there.
In a short time, they move into some new territory and saw a glinting light ahead, as they smelled wet dog and burned meat. They moved forward . . . and found themselves rushed by sixteen gnolls!
They backed off into a 10' wide corridor as Desmond blocked off one section with a 5' wall of earth using Create Earth. The gnolls fought them with shields and morningstars, but their strength and ferocity didn't avail them much against Kaylee's greatsword and Sigur's axe. They crammed into close combat to foul them up, which rendered Sigur less effective.
One climbed the wall, and Durinn kept him busy for a second until Desmond could cast Mental Stun on it. He followed it with Panic to scare the gnoll off, then filled the wall up another 5' in height.
The PCs held the line next to the wall - Sigur right, Kaylee left, Lenny behind them both, striking at gnolls who pushed into close combat with either of those. This went well until Lenny rolled a 17 and then a 15, and crippled his right arm for 30 minutes. But not before he knocked one cold.
Despite this, they managed to keep whittling away at the gnolls, crippled the legs of a few and killing or knocking out a few others. Sigur took a groin shot - a lot of that this session. Once the gnolls lost about 7-8 of their number they began to run. One stood challenging them but was quickly knocked out by Sleep from Desmond. They finished the wounded, moved into the room the gnolls came from, and Kaylee killed the panicking gnoll. They searched the room, rested up, and Kaylee used Steal Vitality on the knocked-out gnolls. They found nothing but some refuse, a dying fire, and some burned meat on a spit - a small humanoid torso, in fact. No money, no loot except some morningstars and wooden shields.
This all took about 15 minutes. After about 10 minutes, Durinn saw four gnolls run across his line of sight - over the corpses, and down the hallway. They decided it must be a dead end.
They wanted to delve more, and didn't want to move around with Lenny lacking a good fighting arm. So they set up and decided to wait 15 minutes for his arm to recover.
They made it 10 without trouble. About then, they saw gnolls on the fringes of their lights - "south" and "east" - a couple south, and more east. Desmond created and threw a 3d Explosive Acid Ball and heard a bunch of yaps and cries of pain, but the gnolls merely spread out a bit but didn't back off. A second, non-explosive Acid Ball was blocked by a gnoll.
They considered their options - maybe harassing fire from Acid Ball agains the gnolls until they either rushed the PCs or ran off or Lenny's arm healed. In the end, though, they just waited. The risk of critical failure on a spell vs. the mathematical unlikelihood of causing casualties or significant damage with harassing fire meant they left off that plan.
They moved out after Lenny's arm felt better. Desmond walled off a corridor to their right ("map west") and then to the left, and rushed the gnolls "south" of their position. They found out the gnolls had gotten reinforcements, and perhaps those they walled off came around. They're not sure.
The party advanced slowly. Step and Wait. Step and Wait. Step and Wait. Eventually Kaylee engaged gnolls, who just used Wait and then stepped forward into her arc of attack to hit first despite her longer weapon. Still, she put a couple of them down. Lenny and Sigur finished another - Lenny hitting a gnoll in the groin for the second time in the delve with the hammer head on his pick, knocking it cold, earning the nickname "Ballpeen." Desmond put Loyalty on one and commanded him in Common (gnolls don't speak Common) to defend them. Lucky for him, Loyalty comes with a default effect. The gnoll turned to argue with his friends, then eventually took a swing at one. It was knocked out a second later by a comrade who hit him in the groin (a lot of that going around, as I said.)
We had to leave it there for next time.
Notes:
Doug's Summary is here.
I'm endlessly amused when players use "left" or "right" not by facing of the characters but by the orientation of the map, and then say, "Map North" and "Map East" like N and E are relative directions. GMs get their amusement in odd places.
30 minute cripples are funny. You can't fix them, but you also know exactly how long you'll be hurt. I should add a random element to it. We already allow Instant Restoration to fix it. Expensive, sure, but these are 250+ point characters who could put more points in ER if they really want to.
Resting for an extra 15 minutes - and it turned out to be 10 - in a dead-end area when gnolls had run off wasn't a good idea. But they wanted to delve ahead with Lenny fully able to fight, and that would take 30 total minutes. He didn't need rest for that; he could have walked it off. But for some reason they felt safer in where they were. It's why they are in a fight where they are now. It might work out but it's a bad situation if anything goes wrong - it's likely win or die in place.
So, so, so many Wait actions. I had Waiting Room by Fugazi in my head the whole time I'd hear "I Wait." "I Wait." "I'll step . . . and Wait." I am a patient boy, I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait. My time, water down a drain.
Doug's summary is up.
MVP was Kaylee for generally being the most effective fighter.
I think one of the big issues is we as a group need to be faster. Move 2-3 means that the Sun Tzu advice of harrying a fleeing enemy is "they get away," and as the party is extremely risk averse we get into stasis areas a lot. I was glad we came up with a plan that at least allowed the beginning of decisive action.
ReplyDeleteI need to think about the slam-into-CC action, as that seems like something that will ruin our day if we don't take active steps to prevent it.
Risk aversion here may have caused more risk, as resting in an area seized after a fight means enemies who want a fight know where to come look for you. Putting your backs to a wall to prevent flanking also means you don't have a way out except through. And so on.
DeleteI'm curious what tactics you guys can come up with to stop foes outside of close combat - either as a slam or a step into CC.
Having them run into Reach weapons is a start. A slam right now is a no-lose tactic for foes. It automatically gets into C, with the off chance of knocking us down. Most of us seem reasonably hapless in CC, too, so this is, as I pointed out just a moment ago on my discord, in a very real way worse than a shock penalty for a hit.
DeleteI actually laughed at shock penalties on a hit - it's rare to have a front line fighter without High Pain Threshold so it's been a while since shock penalties has been a thing of concern. It was like, "Oh yeah, shock penalties!"
DeleteSlam has downsides, though. The slammer takes damage on a hit (even one Blocked, but not one Dodged), and must inflict more damage than is received or fall down. The gnolls haven't generally slammed, they did Attack and then used a Step to move into close combat to let them bite.
Egads, now I’m concerned that when we did Seek Earth I got the wrong direction…I thought it was “Map West,” or “go to the Left side of the map,” but your summary says “Map North” which suggests “go to the Top of the map.” Sigh.
ReplyDeleteI said to your left. I think you guys translated that to Map West. I use relative directions based on facing always. You were facing the door.
DeleteYeah, I see that now. We definitely misunderstood it.
Delete