Felltower: The Gnoll Nine Yards

I just woke up. Rolled out of bed, threw water on my face, and then joined the group. This live-blog will be a bit disjointed.

We discuss that we’ve been pounding our heads on the wall. We resolve to look for somewhere to cast Seek Loot (there are several such spells). The bad guys are probably expecting us, and both times we delved before we got our butts handed to us. We journey in, cast Seek Earth (gold), and find nothing. Seek Earth (silver). Again nothing. Either there’s nothing there, or it’s being screened.

Prudent delvers would find a new dungeon.

We decide to journey in, and keep our lightstones muted, moving “as quietly as possible.” We’re wary of giving away our presence this time. Nonetheless, we make enough noise to raise the dead trying to pry open the door to the lower level.

We try Seek Earth (gold) this time…and find some! 80 yards “straight to the left.” We can’t do that, but we can go south; we’ve never gone south. It doesn’t, however, feel like walking downhill. We wander around for a while, seeking a way “left,” and mostly don’t find it. At some point, we smell cooking meat and wet dog. Kobolds or gnolls? The combat tracker goes absolutely nuts with the number of gnolls on it…but we don’t know that yet.

The gnolls come screaming out at us, wielding morningstars. Guess we’ll not be negotiating or anything. Fight’s on! These guys are big, though. SM +1, so they’re ogre-sized. I step back and Wait, ready to strike the first gnoll in range in the neck with my axe. We mostly reshuffle to form a line in the doorway; charging into the fight at these odds seems unwise. We’ll see how robust they are, etc. Our spellcaster crit succeeds on a Create Earth spell (no cost) and makes a 5′ tall barrier to further restrict motion.

 

The first gnoll – ahead of his fellows – steps in range of two Waits, mine and another’s, and I swing at the neck, perhaps hitting. We pause for technical difficulties as the block/parry scores didn’t transfer. There we go…he blocks my blow. Now Kaylee’s turn, and she swings with a greatsword to the neck, and gnoll must dodge, and he fails. Greatsword to the neck for 3d+8 ×2.  Gnoll is not killed by said attack, but fails to slam Sigur.

The number of gnolls in front of us grows truly alarming. The guy who slammed me is in my hex; I suffer penalties for the DB of my shield. I try and push-kick him out, but miss with Brawling.  Durin hits the guy in my hex in the arm for 6 damage. More stuff by us, and two gnolls are down, one KO’d, one down but with a crippled leg. Desmond casts shield on Kaylee, for +4; this will cancel out the -4 for flail vs sword.

Gnoll in my hex tries to bite me but misses. One KO’d gnoll passes out. Another gnoll morningstars me, telegraphic attack, +2 to defend but -2 to block due to flail. I block.

I grapple the guy in my hex with my shield, but only score 1 control point. Keeping a foe out of your hex is kinda important. This is what the shield presentation rules in shields up are designed to do, but I didn’t take  that option and it might not even be available for us. Lenjamin Gundry hits twice with his warhammer; foe fails to block (yay) but critically dodges. So 16 to the torso, which is nice, but the crit dodge roll of 14 is “weapon flies away,” and it goes 1 yard forward. He f-d’s his hatchet instead (crit success, but who cares) as a backup weapon. Kaylee rapid strikes, and strikes home once. 20 points to the random location – left leg. Crippled and he falls, but he’s not stunned.

A gnoll bites at me, and I parry; he takes 4hp to the face as a result. I block, despite losing DB due to being in CC, and -2 to flails. “You know, if there’s anything anyone can do to get this gnoll out of my f__king hex, that would be great.” Lenjamin gets swung at by a gnoll, and blocks. Another steps and attacks Sigur, crit success, so I’m gonna take a hit. 5 hp to the groin because mail armor is only DR 2 vs crushing.

I finally KO the guy in my hex. So he’s bad footing but not actively interfering with my blocks and dodges. That won’t last, likely. We continue to whittle down the opposition.

We break for lunch.

So, before we get into it, we note that a reshuffle into the doorway will help us. We discussed tactical turn-by-turn ways of getting there, and decided we can do it not just sensibly from a “does this make sense in reality” perspective, but also “we can get there by the rules.”

I attack, scratch a gnoll on the neck (1,1 on 2d damage), and step back. Durin also steps back to clear the door. Lenjamin rapid strikes and hits twice with his hatchet to the torso for 24 cut damage (less whatever unknown armor). Kaylee rapid strikes again, blocked once, hits once for 20 cut to the torso. So we completed our fade-back having done some damage in the process. Mission accomplished. Desmond makes the wall 10′ tall instead of 5′ tall to prevent easy clambering over.

I block a hit from a morningstar, unpenalized for the first time in forever. I get blocked and miss once on a rapid strike. Lenny finds himself without a target thanks to our move. Kaylee throws two big blows with the greatsword, hits twice, but is blocked and dodged. Desmond drinks paut. We’re still facing a dozen gnolls though. I block a blow with a morningstar, but then he steps into CC with me. That does put him into CC with me; another gnoll does the same to Kaylee. This puts both into the range of the second rank of our fighters. I overcome some penalties and do 7cut to the torso of the guy in my hex. Durin strikes at my foe, hits at the torso, and inflicts 9hp with the knobbed club. Lenjamin strikes Kaylee’s CC buddy for 8 cut. Kaylee absorbs -8 to hit for “big weapon in CC” and still hits. 17cut to the torso later, it’s wounded but still fighting. Desmond casts Mental Stun on the guy on me; he fails to resist so he’s stunned.

Gnoll’s turns! My guy un-stuns, but at least he loses an attack. Another gnoll on Kaylee passes out from his injuries. Kaylee takes a crit from another gnoll to the neck for 7 injury; she’s missed by another swing. Our turns again, I hit and do 9 cut. A solid hit but still up. Durinn attacks the guy attacking me as well, and does 4 crush. Lenny hits my guy as well, for 9hp less leather armor. Kaylee RS’s, he crit-fails a defense and also fails a dodge. 26hp for the first, 17hp second, and the foe’s shield is unready. Two death checks later, he’s deader than hell. Desi drinks more paut.

I block a bite with my shield; a gnoll steps-and-attacks Kaylee; she parries. I parry a telegraphic attack from a morningstar. My turn and I hit for 11 cut; he’s still up. Durinn whacks me by accident from behind for max damage. I take 6 hp of injury because mail. I’m now reeling and at 2hp, which is not excellent. Lenjamin cripples his own arm with a bad roll. Kaylee gets blocked and dodged. Desmond starts to cast sleep.

The gnolls start to withdraw, barking and yelling in some degree of fear, so it would seem. I hit into close combat for 7hp, which finally KO’s the guy on me. Durinn major heals me back 8hp. More smackdowns are laid, and we have some weird tech issues but we’ve laid down the hurt on more than half the pack, and have cleared the immediate area. We move through a pile of gnoll bodies in a deliberate advance to give slow chase. Desmond puts a gnoll to sleep, so there’s one more. Despite all of that, we still have seven active adversaries, though if they’re scared of us we’ll have a much easier time taking them on piecemeal. We note there’s a light emplacement to the north, also that we won’t catch the fleeing gnolls.

We regroup, reheal, and form up for 30min or so of in-game time to allow the critical injury to the shoulder time to come back so we have five fully operational combatants. Peter does things with NPCs while we wait; we do have five to seven hale gnolls wandering around, and they might come back…and they do. A formation of at least six returns from past the pile of corpses.

We have some step-and-waits, a charging acid ball, and that’s that. None of the gnolls seem to move into the room. The gnolls are doing some repositioning, breaking formation, coming around without actually attacking yet. Desmond drops an acid ball into a hex nearby several gnolls. We hear whimpers of pain and distress; as expected. Another gnoll steps forward and bangs on his shield with the haft of his morningstar, either an intimidation or signal. We hold our ground. So do they. We cannot communicate with them other than by violence. Time goes by in a very slow crawl as we position and reposition. Our spellcaster(s) do some harassment spells. We get bored, and remember Shape Earth. We decide we’re going to magically seal off avenues where we can get ganked, then chase the gnolls to the south. If we need to go through the doors, we can un-shape. Finally, a plan.

We lay down the first wall, move to the corpse zone, and as we get into formation, one gnoll steps into Kaylee’s movement, attacks and is parried. She crits him for 18 points, but no fatality. We successfully get the second wall up. Now it’s fight-time.

We make inroads into mucking up the two on guard near us, one KO’d with a brutal hammer hit to the groin, the other with multiple ridiculous gashes to the torso. Two more hits by Lenjamin to the Random, 20 and 13 to groin and left arm. More than enough net damage to kill him as well as break his arm. So that’s the advance two. We see four more

We move into a hallway-spanning formation and Kelsey of the Two-handed sword brings down another as they step into range. A 2Hander to the face does a number on folks. The newly renamed “ballpeen” (Lenny) moves forward and we make a nice line. Our wizard hits one gnoll with a Loyalty spell, and I interrupt a move with a rapid stike, but it’s blocked and dodged. I block the strike in turn. The Loyal Gnoll starts talking and barking. Sigur hits a gnoll in the hand for 9 cut, crippling his shield hand and stunning him. I rapid strike telegraphic to the neck next turn, killing him.

We more or less finish there.

Notes

In my opinion, we ran into a few “giant slog” moments that really messed up the fun-factor of the game. Peter and I are thinking about that. Once we decided on a plan, we executed well and I see the combat ahead of us next session as an exercise in controlled beat-down. I could be wrong, and crits can take it in any direction, but if they continue to approach our line piecemeal they’re going to get murderized. The solution is going to wind up being them rushing us, through waits and rapid strikes, and trying to push into CC. That may work on their part.

We shall see!