Big fighter party, buncha mercs. Gnomes under the thumb of a Cthayloric priest. Paladin drove the party to mobilize and have them shake it off.
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| Ferocious cult leader |
We basically had two side sessions, a scout/recon/thief role and big clog-the-gap army battle. I'm gonna bullet point the big picture and then talk about the nuts and bolts of the session.
- Scout the gnome encampment, catch them mid heinous evil ritual, most gnomes hidden indoors
- Get discovered, try to lead gnomes into the hills and lose them, try to capture one
- Corrupted gnomes gather their numbers and rush after the party
- Big battle in the pass, PCs hold the front line, thieves sneak around
- Clean-up, treasure, cult journal
I pulled the scouts into a separate room in the hopes it would accelerate the recon part and preserve a little tension. It failed at the first, succeeded at the second. I used surprise to determine the initial situation. Hymir the elf was discovered! The few gnomes (30-40) that were outside scrambled to get ahold of him but he ran. Samson the dwarf waited to ambush a straggler but was discovered and ran the other way. Floyd the half elf tried to lead a bunch of them down the pass towards the waiting party.
Hymir doubled back to witness more than a hundred gnomes gathering at the camp from the nearby caves. Samson eventually did find a straggler and tried to grapple him before being forced to kill him. Floyd outpaced the gnomes who gave up on him, eventually returning to warn the party. The group formed up and began marching to meet the gnomes. They didn't yet know there were over 100 to their ~30. Samson and Hymir returned with more info.
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| Now with badger heads! |
The party wanted a flat part of the pass and to hold the front line with their PCs. In a more open battle to maneuver in, I would have scaled up the fight to accelerate resolution, but this would have unfairly penalized the PCs' individual power in this narrow gap. I chose to just run it as it was.
I had ruled during the recon that the gnomes were not as hampered by the rough hill terrain as Hymir. This opened the door to a possible flank during the battle which could have turned the tide. I used 2d6 to determine if the gnomes would/could execute on that and failed, ruling that their limited leveled presence kept them from having enough control to execute complex maneuvers.
Hymir was able to pelt the enemy cleric at perfect times to interrupt several spells and Floyd blind him with his own, effectively removing him from the combat. The rest was just a slog of numbers and morale. Ormr and Gunnbjorn went down, among a handful of mercs, but eventually the gnomes withdrew. Broderick the Paladin declared a counter-charge which resulted in more combat but ultimately broke morale for the gnomes.
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| Pretend there are a bunch of gnomes |
I missed a morale check for Gunnbjorn's men when he went down. I missed treating the gnomes as individual units or clusters based on their leveled LTs and subsequent morale checks when they went down. Had I scaled up I would have tracked that a little easier, but as it was I defaulted to two sides. Morale is the deciding factor in most pitched battles and it was in this one too, just took a while to get there and made this a bit more of a slog than it had to be.
We had our first engagement with the unarmed combat rules in Bloodfall. I am on record as despising AD&D unarmed combat. I find it an unwelcome change of pace during an encounter because of the jarring shift in system and the friction it causes. I refuse to grapple when I'm a PC and have missed many opportunities to train myself on it. I'm gonna have to get over that as a DM and start pummeling. My personal preferences have no bearing on PC choice of action. I suggest that if you think you're going to grapple, review the rules in the DMG and have your modifiers ready as much as you can.
Grading:
The Good aligned PCs nearly caught a hit across the board for making the gnome open the first treasure box, but review of notes and discussion showed they believed the captive to be an evil cultist priest and not the native gnome captured priest. The Paladin opened the second box once that seemed more clear.
- Hymir the Assassin: Excellent. Scouted, tried to murder the cleric, kept him pinned during the battle, tried to set traps.
- Samson the Fighter/Thief: Excellent. Thief role declared, much scouting and recon. Good RP with Paladin. Discovered loot, picked lock. Some argument over not opening the chest. Not aberrant enough for a grade hit in that scenario where it was unlikely he could get away with skimming anything.
- Vigi the Fighter: Excellent. Bold, front line fighter, rejoined the fight in Ormr's place despite low HPs.
- Lloyd the Cleric/Magic-User: Excellent. Supported recon group, used every spell to great effect, combat medic
- Gunnbjorn the Fighter: Excellent. Bold, front liner, led his men
- Broderick the Paladin: Excellent. Bold front liner. Pushed for killing blow on cult after withdrawal. Good RP.
- Rollo the Fighter: Excellent. Bold, front liner, led his men, enforcer
- Ormr the Fighter: Excellent. Bold, front liner
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