DF Novices, Session 14 - Not Quite a Half-TPK

    This whole session was a fight. There had been barely any dice rolled during the previous session of roleplay; this was kind of the opposite. We started off where we had paused the previous week, when the NPCs drew their weapons.

    The PCs had split the party because there was disagreement over whether or not to hide or to identify themselves to the other group. Eleanor, Erizax, and Fenn had concealed themselves while Agis, Borgergorg, and Doran went to meet the unknown group of soldiers or bandits. That meant that this entire fight was unfortunately 3 of the PCs against 6 combatants of unknown capability, at 2:1 odds*.

Session Date:    Tuesday 24 January 2023

Party roster (in the fight):

Agis Keylar, wood elf cleric, 94 points (PC)
Borgergorg, half-ogre barbarian, 91 points (PC)

Doran Longbeard, dwarf warrior (knight), 86 points (PC)

Party roster (200 yards away):
Eleanor Bayley, human thief, 92 points (PC)

Erizax Ofaris, human wizard, 90 points (PC)

Fenn Shepard, human scout, 88 points (NPC)

    The fight lasted 26 turns. As one turn = 1 second in GURPS combat time, the entire battle took less than half a minute. That is still a long time compared to the typical GURPS combat, in my experience. What follows will be some of the high- and lowlights, as I can remember them.

    The party drew their weapons and formed up. The enemies approached slowly, with swords in one hand and short sticks in the other. Borgergorg told them that this didn't have to come to blows. They in turn told the PCs to give up the cleric. It looked at this point like combat was unavoidable. Agis (already at half HP from a previous fight) cast Armour upon himself. The PCs waited in defensive posture while the enemies approached.

    Below is a screenshot from this opening stage:

    The enemies spread out a bit as they closed. There was critically bad luck for Borgergorg from the first swing; his greatsword was parried by the enemy and the cheap blade broke! The break happened at the hilt, leaving him with nothing but a useless handle. The fight had only just started and things were already looking a lot worse. Borgergorg now had to fight unarmed and unskilled, relying only on his raw strength and dexterity, against trained opponents wielding swords and clubs**. As the battle commenced, the PCs being outnumbered and disadvantaged, got pulled out of their defensive formation and fought largely as individuals rather than cohesively.

    One of the second rank of enemies was revealed to be holding a scroll rather than wielding a sword. As the magic-user got in range to start reading the scroll, Agis saw an opening and charged the short distance with a Move and Attack manoeuvre, and (with a timely critical hit) struck the enemy with his falchion, dropping the man in one blow, and interrupting the spell. That was the first enemy down, but there were still 5 to go.

    Below is a screenshot showing the enemy magic-user supine, and Borgergorg trying to grapple one of his opponents: 

    Both Doran and Borgergorg are fairly robust, so they were able to take a few hits from the enemy swords. However only Doran and Agis were able to injure their opponents, and the battle was a slow attrition.

The next screenshot shows three enemies down. The odds are more even, but the PCs are still separated:

    By the time the fight was over, the attrition had taken its toll. Five enemies were down, but at the cost of Agis and Borgergorg. The barbarian and cleric were both at negative HP and unconscious. Doran was severely injured at below a third of his HP, and facing the last enemy, who was uninjured. It might have ended differently, had there not been Eleanor arriving on the scene, and with Erizax and Fenn not far behind. The thief had sprinted 200 yards in 23 seconds. Seeing the odds changing, the last opponent turned and fled. Doran lobbed a throwing axe at the rapidly retreating man, but missed. Eleanor elected not to give chase, and the last enemy got away.

    With the cleric unconscious, and the party without any other healing magic, Fenn did the best he could with basic First-Aid. The treatment helped, but both Agis and Borgergorg remained below 0 HP. While they were being treated, the others searched the fallen enemies, and Eleanor made sure that they were dead. Loot from the enemies amounted to the following: silver ring; bronze bracelet; silver chain; 3 silver and 24 coppers in coins; a potion vial; scroll case; some dried meat rations; 5 cheap shortswords***.

    After an hour, both Agis and Borgergorg regained consciousness, but remain in critical condition. The group now has to decide what to do next, considering their current situation****.

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* I was cognisant of the fact that the players of Eleanor and Erizax could do little to affect the fight from that distance. So while their PCs were frantically running to catch up, the players themselves were largely audience-members this session. That was unfortunate. However, this was a situation of the group's making, not mine. I could have fudged the distance in order to bring the distant party members in sooner, but to me that would have felt like the GM mitigating the impact of player decision making, to an egregious extent. And the players knew the numbers would mean 2:1 odds when they walked into the situation. Ultimately to my mind the player choices have to have consequences (both the good and the bad), otherwise there's no point.

** We are using the Fantastic Dungeon Grappling rules. So despite Borgergorg's lack of skill, his superior strength did show when he was able to grab one of his opponents;, they couldn't break free easily. However that same lack of skill meant he wasn't reliably able to grapple the enemies, and their skill and arms also meant that each failure risked further injury. Had he been skilled at grappling, Borg might have been able to leverage some serious hurt with his hands.

*** The party hasn't had any really great loot yet. I would argue that is because they have avoided everything that wasn't directly in front of them on their journey so far. We all know that loot found in lairs is better than what is found on wandering monsters, right?

**** The party still does not know who their opponents were, or why they were after the cleric.