The end of the Skullcrushers, part 2

The situation is dire. The characters have just climbed down from the roof of the treasury, after having held it for about ten minutes against an onslaught of goblins. They now have their sights set on the chief of the Skullcrushers, a broad shouldered hulking gobling looming at the entrance to their territory.

Around the characters, fighting between the two goblin tribes continue as the advance...

This is part 2 of The end of the Skullcrushers playtest report, in which the combat comes to an end, and I discuss the good, bad and ugly of it all. 

Round 10

They rushed the goblin chief (a level 5 monster!), the fighter taking the lead while the rogue threw lamp oil at him and the cleric dug in with his warhammer (for once).

The figher scored a hit, doing substantial damage. The rouge landed a lot of lamp oil on the goblin, but the cleric missed.

I rolled to see if any of the other goblins noticed the fight, but they didn't, yet.

Round 11

The fight continued, but the goblin switched focus to the rogue with the torch. They fought, and the goblin managed to take the torch and throw it away, and also to do some damage to the rogue. 

The fighter, meanwhile, had a free attack. She used it well, landing a good hit. 

The cleric hit the goblin too, but did very little damage.

Round 12

The goblin returned focus to the fighter, and during their combat the goblin took a hit, sending him to the floor. 

The characters, still unnoticed, decided to proceed back into the halls of the Skullcrushers, as they now had a means to escape.

Round 13

Said and done, they snuck in through the door they had come out of not long ago, closing it behind them. They spent the round trying (and failing) to lock or barricade it, wanting the Skullcrusher goblins to have no escape route.

Round 14

They heard many noises, faint and far away, coming from further in the Skullcrusher section. Presumably more goblins?

But more pressing, goblins on the other side of the door wanted to come in. The players decided to basically try and hold the door, hoping this would buy the Nightcrawlers enough time to cut down the remaining Skullcrushers. 

Unfortunately the goblins proved stronger, and I let them know the door would bash open the next round.

Round 15

The door bashed open and four goblins charged in! Each character got one, and the fighter got two.

The biggest of the goblins attacked the fighter, but she retaliated, doing some (reduced due to armour) damage. The other goblin who was engaging the fighter attacked and did one point damage (as they are weak).

The rouge quickly disposed of his goblin.

The cleric struggled a bit with his goblin, taking his first damage of the adventure (only one point)!

Round 16

The rogue teamed up with the fighter against the big goblin. The goblin, however, was the stronger this time, scoring a hit on the fighter. 

The second goblin that was on the fighter scored another hit, doing one more damage.

The cleric managed to get rid of his goblin.

Round 17

The fighter finally got her act together and scored a hit against the big goblin, killing it.

Round 18

Everyone piled in on the poor defenselss surviving goblin, killing it.

Aftermath

As the characters caught their breath after fighting for almost 20 minutes straight they noticed that the halls of the Skullcrushers were now eerily empty and silent. It would appear the remaining Skullcrushers have taken their females and cubs and retreated, hopeful that they can live to fight another day.

But who knows what traps and instruments of revenge they have left behind?

Comments

This was a very long battle by Solum standards, and by far the longest we have had so far (I believe the previous record was seven rounds).

It was a lot of fun, and I think the players felt the same way. I loved the buildup, and how the skill challenge (to use a 4e term) really helped with it. I want to put my own mark on this area though, so I shall have to give it some thought.

I did feel that the warrior now is slightly overpowered compared to the goblins. It's a combination of the armour which lowers damage by 1 die type, and me lowering the monster damage, and her amazing strength of D10. What happens is this:

Because she rolls 2D10 to hit, she has a very good chance to avoid taking damage (normal goblins roll 1D6, and veterans and chiefs roll 2D6). If she does take damage, the normal goblins do one (1) point damage, while veterans and chiefs do D4, but the D4 is lowered by the armour to one (1). Basically, the goblins has no way to do more than one damage, and while this is good enough if there are enough of them, the game is supposed to be more balanced than that, so that I don't have to outnumber the players all the time.

Possible solutions

• Add a new tier of damage, D2. This would let the normal goblins do D2 damage (would be reduced to 1 by the fighters armour), and the veterans and chiefs do D4 (reduced to D2 by armour). It may not sound like a lot, but it would make a lot of difference at lower levels.
• Make armour less good. It may well be that armour is too powerful. Instead of reducing die type of the damage, it could deduce one or more point(s) from the final damage. 
• Improve attack of monsters so they hit more often (or another way of saying it is that they take damage less often, or yet another way of saying it is that they do damage more often). 
• Limit the ability scores for level 1 characters to a maximum of D8. This will do two things: Reduce the advantage of player characters that are heavily optimised at lower levels, and increase the sense of getting stronger as you level up. It will however also reduce the player's choice at creation somewhat.

I will make some simulations, especially regarding the last point. I want characters to hit more often than monsters, in general. And I want characters to be able to face many enemies and win, and be heroic. But I don't want combat to feel easy, I want it to feel very dangerous in fact!

On healing

We are getting now to a point where healing is becoming relevant. Our resident cleric has a spell at the moment that heals 1D4 hit points. It takes a round to cast, and during short breaks he casts it three or four times, usually healing the party to full health.

He can do this an unlimited amount of times.

Now, I seriously dislike the old dungeons and dragons wizards and clerics who can do two or three sensible things per day, and then basically have to walk around behind the warriors and run away at the slightest sign of trouble. I want wizards and clerics to be able to do things as often as, or nearly as often as, warriors and rogues.

But having no restriction on how much you can use magic may be going a little too far in the other direction... I have for a long time, ever since I deleted my original section on spellpoints in the rules, thought that I may have to come back to this at some point. I don't exactly know what I will do, it's something I shall have to ponder quite a lot.

To review the healing situation, what is lacking at the moment is the long term erosion of character resources during the course of what is effectively the adventuring day. Basically, after each battle there is a reset, and at the beginning of each battle the party starts with full resources.

When we started this series of play tests, this seemed like a good thing, becuase I wanted to see how balanced the combat system was. But now, when I think it is more balanced, it just seems overpowered and a bit boring.

For instance, if the damage from last week's playtest had stuck with the rogue, would be so boldly have thrown himself into battle this week?

I will have to come up with a system. Poke me if you have an idea...