Dragon Heresy: Fatality
We played Dragon Heresy again, at long last.
The kids cautiously went forward and entered the next room. Inside were four skuggis – wraiths. They wisped away into the shadows . . . but of course the kids could see my screen so any sort of GM layer action was ineffective. We all agreed to get Roll20 accounts so I could play proper mind games, hide stuff, etc.
They decided to withdraw against 4:3 odds, which turned out to be a smart call except for the fact that a skuggi is utterly malevolent and wants to kill and make more of itself. So while the kids backed off from a narrow hallway into a wide room with lots of access (but not a lot of light), the wraiths slowly followed.
The skuggis attacked, initially targeting L, the 2nd level dragonborn wizard. He fired off a Ray of Frost and missed; the first skuggi didn’t, and hit him for a bunch of vigor, and a 1 STR loss.
T, the 2nd level dragonborn fighter whipped out one of his three vials of holy water and chucked it at a skuggi. Rolled REALLY well, and exceeded the monster’s Hit DC. Straight-up drenched the thing, and its vulnerability to radiant damage meant it took 4d6 straight to wounds. The thing screamed in unholy pain and dissolved, utterly destroyed. ONE SHOT. T was thrilled.
After that, it devolved into a tough slog. My daughter S was unattacked the first round, and made good use of thunderwave to mildly deplete two bad guys, and shield to protect herself from what otherwise would have been bad news. That was all her spells though. She rapidly got taken to 0 vigor and then thoroughly whacked and into death save territory. She made all three saves in a row, though. KO’d but alive.
L more or less got dogpiled by two skuggis, and rapidly lost a lot of ST, all his vigor, and then his wounds, sending him into death save territory…and for all of my daughter’s good luck, it clearly was a zero-sum game. He failed three in a row, and expired.
T tried his entire arsenal. He threw his two vials of holy water (one vigor loss as the thing dodged out of the way, one clean miss), and then fell back on dual hand-axe attacks. He burned his action surge to good effect.
In the end, T was responsible for three skuggis, and wounded the fourth enough to have it withdraw, fearing its own final death. His dragonborn power is necrotic, which gave him resistance to necrotic damage. That was what kept him alive and in the fight, enough that he lived to tell the tale.
This was a very tough fight, and T said “it wasn’t fair.”
I put on my Mean GM hat and said “some fights aren’t fair.” But also, there are tactical options he’s aware of that would have helped. You can Aim/Evaluate in Dragon Heresy, which increase the chance of rolling a hit rather than a threat. One hit by holy water and it’s game over for these guys. Aim/Evaluate replaces an attack, so instead of flailing away against a foe resistant to slashing damage, he could chill out and holy water them every other turn instead. He acknowledged that was true. Tactics matter, and he chose the wrong ones.
It was, however, a tough fight. Having two low-level wizards and only a single fighter, and no clerical support is brutal in a dungeon chock full of undead. My daughter suggested they level up for a bit and then return once they had more strength. They’re also considering L making a Cleric this time around . . .
So tactics tactics tactics. Dragon Heresy is based on 5e, but it’s got enough differences that “whack a mole with HP” doesn’t always work. The skuggi (wraith) is a tough foe. FOUR of them, or even three, is rated a “Deadly” encounter against three 2nd level characters. I think this is accurate, and next time I’ll drag out the combat calculator first. Two wraiths would have made it a tough fight with the thumb on the scales for victory, but could go either way.
So the kids learned life is short and brutal and tactics matter. I learned that three low-level characters, two of whom are wizards, makes for an odd set of fights. Going up against a giant pile of undead with no cleric is also a tough slog. I may set them up against some more low-level lizardfolk to cut their teeth on something cooler. Or some minor bandits or something.
But they took their near-death-experience with good spirit, and vowed to return to the dungeon when they could.
“This was a very tough fight, and T said “it wasn’t fair.””
. . . says the winner of the fight. 3 fought 4 and killed 3 and caused one to flee at a cost of 1. Net 3:4 becomes 2:1 and the 1 fleeing. Damn right it wasn’t fair . . . just probably not the way T meant.
I often answer this kind of charge by saying, “Would you have traded your results for theirs?” It’s not often that people will say yes. With my players, anyway, that usually causes them to say, “No, because you’d run us better in the fight.” As you said, tactics, tactics, tactics.
I think the kids will come to appreciate the difference between tough, but fair, and a GM out to hose them. Once they get that first taste of satisfaction from using tactics to turn what could be a nightmare slog of a fight into not even a contest- you’ll have them well and truly hooked.
Yah. My nephew T is a pretty experienced roleplayer. He also has the (typical) tendency of youngsters to have read all the monster stats and bring in meta-information every time.
I think in nearly any game, the desire to Do Something Every Round is almost irresistible. Taking a turn to carefully aim with holy water (because it’s a chucked attack with an improvised weapon) is a Big Deal. The skuggis (wraiths) are vulnerable to radiant damage, so that 4d6 attack, straight to wounds, is a one-shot/one-kill; even if it hits vigor, it depletes nearly all of it in one blow. Getting the baddies down to zero vigor means every follow-up hit goes to wounds, which means combat effectiveness drops fast, even with resistant to (darn near everything but radiant).
Heh. The sooner a player learns that “do something now!” instead of “take the time to do the best thing right” is not always the best choice, the better. 🙂
That’s true for Real Life too, so a lesson well learned in all cases.
I enjoyed the write-up. The issue of two wizards and a fighter having some balance challenges against typical opponents is an interesting one. I’d recently been reading some histories of the original Greyhawk campaign, where some of the main players (including Gary’s kids) often did small party adventures in which the main characters were 1-2 wizards on their own, making them vulnerable. Their solution to this was… hirelings and henchmen!
Of course, in a more tactical focused game like Dragon Heresy (or GURPS), this may not be as fun, as it increases workload and reduced PC identification. And starting PCs may not have the cash anyway.
Still, successful adventurers will eventualy reach a point where they COULD hire tactical support. If this is a Bad Idea (as in “less fun”) it does raise the question of what in-game measures (e.g., a rule like “divide XP equally among all participants, including hirelings”) exist to discourage it. Are there any in Dragon Heresy, or is this is actually a desired high-level goal (“lead a retinue”)?
(I suspect a game like The Fantasy Trip (where numbers really matter and several average humans can be more powerful compared to a high point PC) has even more reason for players to hire hirelings as tactical support.)
I’d have to run the hirelings or henchmen, which isn’t a problem really at this level. Though honestly, having each player have two characters might solve a LOT of problems. Of course, one of the players has YET to show up with either dice or their character sheet . . . so there’s that.
There are actually very few (but very important) added tactical options to dragon heresy relative to “vanilla” Fifth Edition D&D. Being able to aim/evaluate to get advantage on the next attack, halve a foe’s DR, or increase a critical threat range is important, though, and something that I need to highlight as possible.
You could always have them run their henchmen or hirelings, but with your veto.
In GURPS, you have a Loyalty stat – import the concept to D&D. Make a roll whenever they have to change what they’re doing to do something else, or have to take a PC-like risk, or get ordered to do something foolish or suicidal (“Charge those wraiths while I back up and decide if we’re fighting or running!”)
Or maybe make it a WIS or INT check. If they succeed, they do the thing the players wants to them to do. If not, they do something else. That will encourage them to want bright or wise NPCs. And it means they have to make some tactical decisions (running the NPCs) but don’t get free rein like they do with their own character.