Wednesday Night D&D
Apr. 28th, 2011 03:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicollSo a barbarian and a battlemind rode into the desert...
Delves seem to be pretty much straight-up combats.
I was playing Helico, the battle mind. The other player was running Brannon, a barbarian. Helico isn't particularly dextrous or strong but his Wisdom and Charisma are good and his Con is very high. Brannon, on the other hand, is very strong, fairly coordinated and his Con, while lower than Helico's, is still near the top of human potential. Helico is good at insight, diplomacy and perception while Brannon is good at acrobatics, athletics, and nature. Both are tough guys, with high endurances.
Note the lack of skills like arcana or religion, or for that matter stealth, thievery or streetwise; as the GM put it, we were two Fafhrds without a Gray Mouser.
The pair were hired to find out who or what was behind the disappearance of caravans coming through the desert. Backtracking on the caravan's intended track, they came across the remains of the unfortunate traders, although their goods were nowhere in sight. The victims had been stabbed but also chewed on; the barbarian could tell that not much time passed between those two events.
The bandits had tried to cover their tracks but Brannon is a good tracker and managed to follow the trail back to what looked like a cave or a pit; the remains of one of the many old tombs that litter the area. It smelled like an animal den but as Helico pointed out, this could be a ruse on the part of the bandits. This turned out to be plausible but wrong.
Unfortunately, neither character is very sneaky and Helico blew his role by a lot so the other side knew there was company. Helico did have the foresight to telepathically scan the room for minds but his range is just slightly less than the distance between the two humans and the three gnolls who were waiting for them. Happily for Helico and Brannon, the gnolls weren't ranged types but they did have a sand trap prepared (which can with bad luck push the adventurers into a pit where they could easily be killed) and they proved adept at hit and run tactics.
What we discovered in the first room is that Helico is a tank. He's hard to hit but he almost never misses. Sad for him, his design is probably suboptimal and he's not a swift character. Also, the constant damage he doles out comes in small doses (made worse by a poor choice of weapon on my part because it turns out Helico cannot take advantage of the extra damage it does on a critical).
In contrast the barbarian is a carnage machine; in one blow he managed to inflict 68 points of damage. He plays for this by being comparatively easy to hit; where Helico got hit once for a tiny fraction of his hit points, I think Brannon was blooded by the end of the fight.
The next room was on the other side of a heavy door. Being heavily armoured, Helico went first, which sadly was a bit of a problem because he's comparatively weak compared to the barbarian. Once the door was opened - which took enough time for everyone on the other side to get ready - the pair entered to find two more gnolls, three hyenas and humtmaster (?) gnoll waiting for the two visitors.
I regret to report no attempt at negotiation followed.
The Huntmaster had a bow and was well back. Unfortunately for him, he was having a crappy day and kept missing. While Helico tried to engage groups of the enemy (he can attack up to three people at once and with luck can mark four people), Brannon carved his way across the room to the Huntmaster, who really should have back-peddled farther than he did.
Once again, Helico was *tink* *tink* *tinking* away at the other side while Brannon was more *crunch* *swoosh* *crunch* *swoosh* *the sound of a human-sized body exploding as though filled with moist red explosives*; at one point, the Huntmaster found itself on the receiving end of a 58-plus HP critical. Also once again, Helico came out of the fight with his hair mussed while the barbarian was at 11 HP, about 1/8th what he began at....
At this point it was getting late so we decided to call it a night; the 3rd encounter would have run an hour or more.
On the whole, it wasn't bad but the party was too focused on melee and we had huge holes in our expertise (No clerics, for example, and not much in the way of ranged attacks). I'd be interested in trying Helico again in a larger group; a lot of his abilities would be quite useful for a larger party.
Delves seem to be pretty much straight-up combats.
I was playing Helico, the battle mind. The other player was running Brannon, a barbarian. Helico isn't particularly dextrous or strong but his Wisdom and Charisma are good and his Con is very high. Brannon, on the other hand, is very strong, fairly coordinated and his Con, while lower than Helico's, is still near the top of human potential. Helico is good at insight, diplomacy and perception while Brannon is good at acrobatics, athletics, and nature. Both are tough guys, with high endurances.
Note the lack of skills like arcana or religion, or for that matter stealth, thievery or streetwise; as the GM put it, we were two Fafhrds without a Gray Mouser.
The pair were hired to find out who or what was behind the disappearance of caravans coming through the desert. Backtracking on the caravan's intended track, they came across the remains of the unfortunate traders, although their goods were nowhere in sight. The victims had been stabbed but also chewed on; the barbarian could tell that not much time passed between those two events.
The bandits had tried to cover their tracks but Brannon is a good tracker and managed to follow the trail back to what looked like a cave or a pit; the remains of one of the many old tombs that litter the area. It smelled like an animal den but as Helico pointed out, this could be a ruse on the part of the bandits. This turned out to be plausible but wrong.
Unfortunately, neither character is very sneaky and Helico blew his role by a lot so the other side knew there was company. Helico did have the foresight to telepathically scan the room for minds but his range is just slightly less than the distance between the two humans and the three gnolls who were waiting for them. Happily for Helico and Brannon, the gnolls weren't ranged types but they did have a sand trap prepared (which can with bad luck push the adventurers into a pit where they could easily be killed) and they proved adept at hit and run tactics.
What we discovered in the first room is that Helico is a tank. He's hard to hit but he almost never misses. Sad for him, his design is probably suboptimal and he's not a swift character. Also, the constant damage he doles out comes in small doses (made worse by a poor choice of weapon on my part because it turns out Helico cannot take advantage of the extra damage it does on a critical).
In contrast the barbarian is a carnage machine; in one blow he managed to inflict 68 points of damage. He plays for this by being comparatively easy to hit; where Helico got hit once for a tiny fraction of his hit points, I think Brannon was blooded by the end of the fight.
The next room was on the other side of a heavy door. Being heavily armoured, Helico went first, which sadly was a bit of a problem because he's comparatively weak compared to the barbarian. Once the door was opened - which took enough time for everyone on the other side to get ready - the pair entered to find two more gnolls, three hyenas and humtmaster (?) gnoll waiting for the two visitors.
I regret to report no attempt at negotiation followed.
The Huntmaster had a bow and was well back. Unfortunately for him, he was having a crappy day and kept missing. While Helico tried to engage groups of the enemy (he can attack up to three people at once and with luck can mark four people), Brannon carved his way across the room to the Huntmaster, who really should have back-peddled farther than he did.
Once again, Helico was *tink* *tink* *tinking* away at the other side while Brannon was more *crunch* *swoosh* *crunch* *swoosh* *the sound of a human-sized body exploding as though filled with moist red explosives*; at one point, the Huntmaster found itself on the receiving end of a 58-plus HP critical. Also once again, Helico came out of the fight with his hair mussed while the barbarian was at 11 HP, about 1/8th what he began at....
At this point it was getting late so we decided to call it a night; the 3rd encounter would have run an hour or more.
On the whole, it wasn't bad but the party was too focused on melee and we had huge holes in our expertise (No clerics, for example, and not much in the way of ranged attacks). I'd be interested in trying Helico again in a larger group; a lot of his abilities would be quite useful for a larger party.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 12:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 02:13 pm (UTC)Read that at first as "So a librarian and a battlemind rode into the desert..."
There ought to be a way to make that happen. I wonder if I could get a Champions game going again...
no subject
Date: 2011-05-01 08:09 pm (UTC)--Dave
no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 03:29 pm (UTC)(made worse by a poor choice of weapon on my part because it turns out Helico cannot take advantage of the extra damage it does on a critical).
Uh.... what weapon did you choose, and why can't you use the bonus damage? (If it's a magical weapon that doesn't DO bonus damage on a crit, okay - but that's not "you can't use it", that's "it isn't there")
no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 03:46 pm (UTC)Yeah. You're probably best off going straight for a Waraxe, Craghammer, or a Bastard Sword. All three require a Feat - if you don't have a Feat, then it's Battleaxe, Warhammer, or Longsword.
Waraxe and Craghammer do more damage (and Craghammer is Brutal - rerolling 1s and 2s until they come up higher is FUN), the Bastard Sword is more accurate. Battleaxe, Warhammer, and Longsword are the same way, but less so.
Also: You note that your stats are low. If you had the computer auto-build you, it probably picked a natural 18 before racials, which is CRAZY expensive, especially on a Defender-type who wants more than one good stat. You can probably get a whole pile more points by dropping the nat 18 to nat 16, upping your other stats, and you even keep the same accuracy if you swap flail for Long/Bastard Sword.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 04:03 pm (UTC)