GACKS AAR: Session 2

GACKS AAR: Session 2

Between the sessions, I recruited a faction player to run the goblins. Certain events transpired that I will not elaborate much here to avoid revealing non-public information to the players. However, we had another session with the players, and it was a hilarious trainwreck.

Two of the player character haven't recovered well after the injuries - those are Bebarax (the priest) and Borrin (the saber dual-wielder). The players decided to make new characters. One was, once again, randomly generated - a surprisingly decent (in the right circumstances) dwarven rogue fencer with DX 14. The other one made a dual-wielding pistolero knife-fighter (I can see he has a thing for dual-wielding).

Between the sessions, the players told me that they'd like to send their injured characters to dig ore in that surface iron ore deposit. I found the excavation rules in LTC3, but... nothing on the value of ore. After investigating the mining systems from ACKS By This Axe, The Quintessential Dwarf, and The Complete Book of Dwarves, I found out that the value of iron ore usually is between 5% and 25% of the value of metal. LTC3 says that iron is $6.9/lb. (nice), so I ended up with ore being $0.4/lb. in value. Even a single dwarf could mine about 1.6k pounds of ore per day, which sounds like a lot of free money if you ignore the logistics.

So, the new party sets out alongside the two injured dwarves, one of whom is reeling and hence moves at half the usual rate. I warned the players that they will have to roll random encounter checks separately, and that this is not a good idea, but they decided to trust the heart of the cards. The fast-moving large group encountered strange burrows and furrows that slowed their progress, and then a safe haven - a small hidden cave. They arrived to the dungeon in the evening of the same day without any monster encounters.

The reeling group, however, first encountered a pseudodragon in a very bad mood. The mood was improved by offering him 6 rations and a gold coin. Then, they had to camp for the night, and rolled an encounter of 7 worgs who managed to sneak up to the two dwarves without being noticed. We didn't even play out the fight, because there was no chance. RIP.

The other group went to the same dungeon as before, but through the other entrance. (GM Note: The dungeon had two sections - the one with the 15 troglodytes who had blocked off passages to the other half with <spoilers> and a troglodyte mohrg with his retinue of troglodyte zombies). Of course, they decided to kick in the unlocked door and alert the undead that was a couple of rooms away. The mohrg prepared an ambush.

The PCs went into a room with a fountain of boiling water in the center, and the berserker with Daredevil and Curious decided that it'd be a good idea to take a sip. Both the players and their characters tried to tell him that it's not a good idea, but dwarves have a racial Stubbornness. So, in he goes, and as soon as he leans towards the fountain, the mohrg jumps out from the corridor nearby and licks him in the face. The HT resistance roll was successful, so no paralysis occured. The mohrg then switches to the new fencer dwarf and tries to lick him, but the fencer managed to cut off the tongue with a good parry. No paralysis anymore.

The five troglodyte zombies rush in, and one lands a lucky wild swing on the berserker's hand and cripples it. Well, there goes the great axe use. And then the berserker fails his self-control roll and actually goes berserk. The gun-hatchet-wielding dwarf priest steps forward and shoots the zombie. Malfunction - misfire. The new pistol dual-wielder does an All-Out Attack (Double) with his pistols against the mohrg (or zombie, I forgot), despite the aforementioned dwarf priest being in the way. "Are you sure? You might hit your ally" said I. "Of course, I'm sure," said the player.

One bullet hit the priest in the back, but fails to penetrate armor. The other hits the priest in the leg and rolls high enough to cripple it. The heavily armored musketeer bursts in and shoots the mohrg at point-blank range. On 2d-1 pi+ damage roll, he gets 1. He shoots again and rolls 2 damage. (The mohrg has DR 3 and Unliving - they did know that they are going to face undead through the rumors beforehand).

Two zombies grapple the berserker and start tearing at his neck with their sharp teeth. He's berserk, so he has no options but to AOA or break free. He broke free multiple times, but got grappled again and again - he has no active defenses, and the troglodyte zombies mindlessly used All-Out Attack (Determined) with Telegraphic Attack. Eventually, he managed to punch one zombie to death, and then collapsed dead at -65 HP (!!!), merely five points of injury away from automatic death.

A zombie tries to grapple the musketeer, and the latter rolls an 18 on his dodge, falling to the ground. Then, the zombie bites into the only body part that is unarmored - the neck. In the meantime, the mohrg ignores the fencer whose smallsword is practically useless against the bony menace, and grapples and punches the musketeer in the face repeatedly. Eventually, the musketeer dies at around -3xHP.

In the meantime, the dual-wielder pistol dwarf switched to the knife and managed to put two (or three) zombies to rest, because cutting damage works well. Then the mohrg rolled a critical hit and caused a knockdown check despite rolling only 2 for damage. The knife dwarf got stunned, then grappled by the remaining zombie, while the mohrg took care of the only dwarf remaining standing - the fencer. The priest all this time was crawling away at Move 1, but he was finished off as well.

Thus, we had a 140% TPK, as 7 player characters died between 5 players. I did not pull any punches, but this definitely wasn't an intentionally difficult fight. After all, the same 5 players managed to kill 10 living troglodytes at once a week before with relative ease. Decision-making on the player's part and dice luck did the job here. Despite this, the session was a blast.

Next, they are going to roll a party of tribal humans from the other side of the lake, and I'm recruiting players to run the different faction now. So far, I have goblins, dark dwarves, and barbarians under player control, but there are many more options to go. If I fail to find enough players, I'll probably issue an open call for players soon.