Reclaiming Khazad-Dum: First Session
Joined +Christian Blouin, +Jason Woollard , +Arne Jamtgaard , +Paul Stefko , and Gordon for my first session of his Dwarf-based campaign.
It started in media res, with Drolf, my borrowed PC-turned-NPC-turned-PC literally teetering on the edge of a 30m drop, having been pushed there by an enormous angry tree creature: a Huorn. Something that’s not an Ent. But big, mad, and leafy.
Drolf has a penchant, apparently, for complex plans and actions, but in this case, my first action was simply to get the heck out of Dodge. All-Out Dodge, actually, to get away from the ledge.
After that, the Wizard being wrestled (using Technical Grappling, no less!) by both arms and legs of a particularly angry dwarf met a sudden and violent end, as said dwarf let go with one hand, fast-drew a knife, and did a vitals strike for max damage (21 HP), ending the wizard’s career. Christian mourned for his Big Bad Evil Guy, who apparently left us too soon.
After that, we spent a lot of time dodging tree limbs performing sweep maneuvers, and generally hacked the thing to death.
We then rested for a short bit – one of our number had been pretty nastily impaled (and flung around by said impaling branch), and we were all a bit winded. Lots of Feverish Defenses, spending FP to avoid a pretty massive whomping willow.
After that, we made our way down the one exit, and got the drop on what we later found was an orc nest. We loosed a few arrows at the one-eyed guard with a crappy shortbow, and Drolf, who has Move 8 and is lightly encumbered (!), sprinted past him, doing a Sweep as he went by, hopefully leaving him easy meat for my companions.
Cowardly scum chose not to stand and fight, and rolled off the raised platform we were on.
We ended there. I think we’ll play one more session with these NPCs, giving the newbies time to come up with replacement characters. Gives me about a month.
Observations
I got to see my rules used by someone else in play, and they seemed to be pretty easy to use, and provide good color and fun. Releasing a hand was easy, the CP lost required a simple table look-up, and play moved on.
Otherwise, this was a great intro session. A foe that you just couldn’t use a lot of defensive options on, and who was more or less a giant pile of HP. The wizard would have been tougher, I suspect, save for that ‘getting impaled by a knife’ thing.
Looking forward to next game!
And here’s +Christian Blouin‘s game summary: K13 – I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK…
Rolling that 4 on the knife to the vitals followed by the max damage roll was pretty sweet!
“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.”
-Steven Brust, Jhereg
“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.”
-Steven Brust, Jhereg
Christian notes:
The demise of the wizard was the indirect consequence of solid social engagements in the previous chapter. +Arne Jamtgaard +Justin Aquino and +Jason Woollard coerced the Elf king Thranduil to assign hunters to shadow the dwarves spearhead. These hunters, as a reward, revealed to the PCs a way into an otherwise next to impossible to enter tower. This wizard would have been a real nightmare to the campaign. But the tower was a deathtrap for him at this point. Hats off to the players to prepare well ahead. You guys are well on your way to hell!
Any BBEG who can be done in with a mere 7 points impaling to the vitals is extremely likely to wind up surviving the wrong amount of time (if he makes up for low durability with either extreme firepower or extremely high defenses, the result tends to be an extremely random fight). In this case it sounds like his defense was supposed to be that he was hard to reach, but that also produces very binary outcomes.
Am I reading it right that CP could be used to offset targeting? Thannolf in my other campaign was holding someone by the torso from behind and rightfully argued that slitting a throat should be easier when grappled. Only then I re-read that part in TG: that is pretty awesome!
Yep! Once you grapple someone, you can guide the blow by spending CP. You can ALSO add damage by spending more. You can't give a bonus, just cancel out a penalty, according to RAW. We didn't want to officially make a rule that might result in "oh, I have him grappled, I'm +8 to slit the throat!"