Logistics Wins Wars

Lady Echellet (Fighter ???) of Guarda has been a prominent and uncommonly Good aligned NPC in the Bandit Mountains of Trollopulous since we began play there. We rescued her from the necromancer at Castle Von Necro very early on and she's been an ally ever since. A combined force of gnolls and bandits attacked Guarda and captured her when she rode out to defend her home. She was replaced unbeknownst to anyone by a body double in a stupor who was then later kidnapped by a different bandit. Our primarily Good party wasn't going to stand for that.

I'm going to shine a light on a fundamental truth of warfare: logistics wins wars. Tactics are important but nothing matters as much as being where you need to be with the materiel and personnel you need to have to achieve your objective. In real D&D, the most important resource is time. There is no pausing the session to return to a scenario because everyone got sleepy. Failure to respect this truth by our Caller (that's me) cost us initiative and advantage repeatedly, leading to a less than total victory and causing more casualties than necessary including our ranger's Pegasus mount (again, me, making this failure particularly painful and personal).

Session 1: We learned Echellet had disappeared shortly after the gnoll attack on Guarda. We investigated and suspected she'd been kidnapped by a thief and/or spellcaster, likely on a large flying creature. We mobilized immediately and tracked them, the ranger taking point due to speed on his Pegasus. He was able to locate and destroy the culprits (a Patron player, we learned later) and rescue the Lady, but it was a plant or body double. This session actually went mostly as planned and we kept the time-wasting to a dull roar.

Session 2: We extrapolated on what we thought we knew, leading us to mobilize on a location where we thought the real Echellet was stashed. Hired troops, organized, equipped, took a lot of session time. Random hobgoblin ambush on the road distracted us from our objective. We diverted to track them to their lair and get their loot which ate up the rest of the session. While it was a good score, it was not the objective. We achieved nothing in the pursuit of our goal. 

Session 3: Some additional investigation changed our target to a nearby mountain range where we discovered the Talibandit group entrenched in Afghanistan-style caves and tunnels. We broke in, killed a bunch, and took a few captives. They had weird weapons like rifles that were inert once we got away from the mountains. This was recon so can't really consider it time wasted. Could be a mixed blessing changing targets, too, since this would end up being closer to the target.

Session 4: Captive revealed a map and confirmed the presence of prisoners, including one that fit Echellet's description. We returned, killed a bunch of entrenched riflemen with RPGs, found a boulder trap and some imprisoned animals mimicking the call of a mythical monster. Couldn't find Echellet, ran out of time, exfil. 

Somewhere around here we had a spooky Halloween session. It was fun, but again, a distraction away from our stated objective. Real time is a real resource.

Session 5: Dropped a message prior to session to the bandit leader, Usama Loot-Laden (another Patron), to turn the prisoners over to us or else. Also the captive we had was liberated by magic. We returned with the map, troops, and a plan. The thief would infiltrate and locate Echellet, then we'd attack and cause a distraction. He'd try to free or at least keep her from being executed or moved. We got into position but the sneaking portion took most of the session. A recovered note indicated Echellet had been turned over to another villain Patron. Our objective now became one of justice and/or retribution. 

We could leave, again, or occupy a nearby ruined village and stage for an assault next session. Having been thwarted time and again by failing to execute our plans efficiently, we stayed there, killed the gnolls in the ruins, and dug in. With only a day of downtime and no contact with the enemy we hoped to avoid notice until we could launch our attack. We failed. This was the most painful and costly of the sessions where the caller had mismanaged session time. We should have engaged the enemy instead of trying to get cute.

Session 6: We woke to find a magical forest boxing us into the ruins and the valley beyond. Usama offered a parley flag but betrayed it, cementing his death sentence. A hard fought battle resulted in many casualties that could have been avoided by engaging the enemy the session prior in their caves where they could not utilize their numbers or druidic magic and we could apply the advantage of our leveled PCs. We killed most of the enemy troops, but many of the druids escaped. The loot and casualties are still being counted but it was unnecessarily costly and bloody all because we failed to manage our time properly and execute on stated objectives.

Some of our decisions as a group in the sessions leading up to this scenario could be reviewed, like choosing not to negotiate with the kidnappers or pay any ransom. Communication from both sides was simply demands of one variety or another so maybe there wasn't an opportunity to resolve it that way. Ultimately, we were victorious in battle but failed to achieve the primary objective of rescuing Lady Echellet. The lesson here is choose an objective and make your every action serve that objective. Otherwise you'll bleed to death from paper cuts that drain resources, most importantly time, until your final confrontation is more difficult than necessary. Delays allowed the enemy to move Echellet and prepare for that final battle and the most galling part of the whole thing is that I fucking knew better.

RIP Convess.