GURPS DF Session 41 - Hunt for Sir Sacnoth, part 3

Part three of the adventure picked up where the previous session left off. This is another late summary, and more sessions have occurred since...

Session Date: Thursday 4 July 2019

Party roster:
Miao Miao, cat-folk swashbuckler, 342 points (PC)
- "Jenkins", human servant, 146 points (NPC Ally)
- Brother Warian, human monk (initiate), 171 points (NPC Ally)
Davin Emberwood, human wizard, 304 points (PC)
Llandor the Gray, wood-elf scout, 247 points (PC)

Sir Yvor Gryffyn, human knight, 309 points (PC) 
- Torr, human boy, ?? points (NPC "volunteer") 
Sister Miriam Suntemple, human cleric, 260 points (PC)
Harrison "Happy" Badapple, halfling thief, 249 points (PC)

Location: Caves beneath One Tree Island, Marrowmarsh

The waiting henchmen had clearly heard the party, and were getting ready when Miao and Yvor charged into the cave. Two were standing with their swords drawn, and two were crouched down picking up their shields. Miao and Yvor shouted for surrender as they charged forward, but this got little traction initially. Then Llandor shot one of the henchmen with an arrow, and Yvor took a moment to reiterate the point (Intimidation with a hefty situational bonus). The men dropped their swords.

Llandor tied up the three uninjured henchmen. Sister Miriam spent half an hour treating the arrow wound of the fourth henchman (First Aid, rather than magic), whilst the remaining party members rested. 

The party then started to interrogate the henchmen, when noise was heard outside the cavern and the fighters formed up at the entrance. Davin was curious and stepped into the tunnel to investigate, so the others had to back him up. Happy and the NPCs stayed behind to watch the prisoners.

Waiting in the tunnel were polearm-wielding lizardfolk, accompanied by frogs as big as a dog. One of the frogs was glowing brightly, which made the players nervous. Miao tried to parlay. Llandor didn't wait for the reply and instead shot one of
the approaching lizardfolk with an arrow; this hurt the lizardman, but he kept on coming.

A big fight ensued. Llandor was able to drop other lizardfolk with one of two arrows apiece, and Miao and Yvor able to cut down the giant frogs and other attacking lizardfolk with rapier and longsword. However that one lizardman (whom the players nickname "Arrowmir") took about 4 arrows and a multitude of sword blows (passing all his death checks) before he finally collapsed, dead, after taking over 6x his HP in damage.

During the fight there was an attempted flanking attack by one of the lizardfolk with three big frogs, but Llandor shot the warrior, and Davin trapped the frogs with an area Glue spell three yards across*.

All the players winced as Sir Yvor struck down the shining frog (there was an OOC expectation that it would explode, or something of the sort). Davin cast a Levitation spell to move the frog away from the front line, but the fear was misplaced. Nothing exploded. One of the lizardfolk went mad at Yvor, and the party accurately guessed that the knight had struck down its favourite frog. That warrior turned out to be not as tough as "Arrowmir", and was dispatched routinely.

Whilst the fight was proceeding, the henchmen prisoners were on the floor, and Happy had them pretty much to himself. He advised the NPCs Jenkins and Warian that he had things under control, and they were free to assist the other PCs. Happy stood behind one of the henchmen with his knife to their throat and interrogated them (as well as picking his pockets).

A commotion arose amongst the lizardfolk and they backed off. Llandor had also noticed that the frogs trapped in the Glue spell had been getting increasingly agitated, but he hadn't known why. The reason for all this excitement became all too apparent when something big could be heard approaching from the darkness. Llandor readied an arrow, and waited to fire as soon as a target became visible. At that moment a hydra bigger than a horse emerged out of the gloom and one of its multiple heads snatched the nearest big frog out of the Glue spell...

We ended the night there; the fight with the hydra paused to commence the following session.


---

*The wizard's player thought that the Glue spell is invisible, but I realised after the session that he was confused with the "opposite" spell, Grease, which is cannot be seen to normal vision. 

I have an agreement with Davin's player that he will bring his homemade spell reference cards to the game, to minimise rules arguments and delays looking up the details. He keeps forgetting to bring them. He has too many spells for me to keep track, and is the sort of player who only wants more. Therefore the reference cards were supposed to be a compromise, rather than me as GM implement some other restriction or cap on learning new spells. (Most spells are treated like skills, and cost 1 CP (Character Point) to learn in DF/GURPS.) I do enforce in-game training costs, but as that works out at 40 coppers for a new spell, that is hardly an effective limitation.

I shall have to look at a bigger restriction if the player doesn't keep to his end of the bargain. He often misremembers how his spells work. Trusting his faulty assertions, or slowing play to check the spells in the book, are both something I wish to avoid. 

Comments

Popular Posts