RED OAK: Return to the Pass of the Hounds

Longman's hex-based exploration PBP campaign

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Longman
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Re: RED OAK: Return to the Pass of the Hounds

Post by Longman »

Moving things along -

The turtle has been designed to give +4 cover from missiles while moving. Missile shots taken while under the turtle are at -2, and reduce cover to -2. It could easily go own the tunnel.

Door is relocked.

Save point.

Here's what happens - the two dwarves plus Talin move somewhat awkwardly across the bridge under the turtle while the rest stay back behind the barricade.

They make it sucessfully across to the other side with no one firing at them.

They can now hear the sounds of activity in the room to the north, where the 2 remaining robots are stationed. They are opening the door and will come down the tunnel next round.

Your go. The three main fighters are under the turtle just past the old portcullis on the western side. The others are all back behind the barricade. The robots are coming. Bruce has mace, Talin his bow, Kilian has the turtle.
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Re: RED OAK: Return to the Pass of the Hounds

Post by Woe »

Excellent! I have them right where I want them. Um, kinda.

How far away is the turtle from the golems? What I'm really curious about is, should Talin switch to melee or should Bruce switch to his xbow? I guess Bruce might as well switch to the xbox since he has the free weapon swap. The question then is for Talin. Will he be able to get enough shots off to make the bow useful?

And, how would the turtle work in melee? Does it become a barricade for both sides? I probably should have planned this better. 8-)


Charge!

After getting the signal from Kilian, the group remaining on the other side of the bridge will run across. They'll all have missile weapons out, ready to fire. At the point where the golems are in range, the missilers will fire everything they have, while Kilian does his best to intercept incoming missiles with his gigantic wooden shield. Everyone will focus on a single target for now (the one in front, if it matters).

The turtle will retreat slowly to give the missilers more time to engage with the golems.

If the golems aren't firing but instead marching down the corridor, Tiana will cast her web to hopefully foul them up, unless they're inside melee range before the web can land.
Freya HP 24/24 AC 16 (17 two weapons)
Kilian HP 20/20 AC 19 (18 no shield)
Talin HP 29 AC 16
Tiana HP 11 AC 12 SP 8/8
Fido HP 9/9 AC 16
Anna HP 12/12 AC 15 (19 defensively)
Bruce HP 20/20 AC 16 (15 no shield)

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Re: RED OAK: Return to the Pass of the Hounds

Post by Longman »

The robots start at about 90' away from the front group. They move at 30', or run at 60' - but I can't recall if you have ever seen one running. The point is, it will be a few rounds til they get to you. You (the fighters) are just past the old portculis and they are way up the corridor.

Talin would probably only get one shot off with the bow before they engaged in melee - if they engage in melee. They might simply wait at the corner and fire at you.

The turtle would be a giant pain in melee. It would hamper your attacks, and they could push it over. It will be useful if they fire on you, but otherwise, not.

Round 2 -
You motion to the others and they all come over, missiles and spells out.
The robots move 30' down the corridor and are now just around the corner.

Round 3 -
The robots will come around the corner and either charge, or fire at you.
Do you want to be holding missile or melee weapons? You have had long enough to switch.

Two of you can take up firing positions behind partial cover of the corners of the walls (+2) and 3 people can be beneath the turtle (+4). Everyone else would need to be in sight of the robots if they are to get a shot away.

Tiana could cast a spell from beneath the turtle pretty easily.

(these robots are sooo dead).
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Re: RED OAK: Return to the Pass of the Hounds

Post by Woe »

Catching up to where you are! :)

Round two:
Bruce draws his hammer and shield.
Kilian, um... gets out his axe and shield. The dwarves turtle in the turtle!
Talin will draw his two-handed sword, and also waits in the turtle.
Freya and Anna will take the firing positions. Abigall and Tiana will fully hide for now, and make sure no wormteeth sneak up from behind! :evil:
I wonder what the programming is for the golems, now that the turtle is no longer moving. GOTO ELVES?

Round three:
As the golems round the corner and pass|smash the turtle, the turtles in the turtle will sally forth and attack the golems. Archers fire, ???, win. Just to make sure, the turtle won't affect the archers? I know they'll have the "attacking into melee with friends involved" penalty to deal with. Ideally, the turtle is not between the brawl and the archers.
Freya HP 24/24 AC 16 (17 two weapons)
Kilian HP 20/20 AC 19 (18 no shield)
Talin HP 29 AC 16
Tiana HP 11 AC 12 SP 8/8
Fido HP 9/9 AC 16
Anna HP 12/12 AC 15 (19 defensively)
Bruce HP 20/20 AC 16 (15 no shield)

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Re: RED OAK: Return to the Pass of the Hounds

Post by Longman »

The turtle is absolutely between the brawl and the archers, especially at the start of the round...

So, in the madness of actual combat, here's what happens...
Round 3

The two golems walk around the corner in a clumsy fashion. They are now about 30' from the turtle and 40' from the rear group.

Freya shoots with a -2 safety penalty and critically fails. She shoots the turtle and the arrow sticks into it and thrills about wildly. If it hadn't been for the turtle she would have shot Talin in the back.

Anna shoots and does exactly the same thing. The turtle is obviously a bit of an obstacle in front of the archers. (Plus, you rolled really bad.)

The mouse and the mage are fully hidden on your request.

The robots walk 30' down the corridor and are now in full melee range of two fighters. They both fire at the turtle while walking. One of them hits the wood and does no damage. The other critically fails. His arm gun explodes, and he takes quite a lot of damage.

End of round 3 - TWO fighters (Kilian and Talin) can go from under the turtle and attack the robots. There's only two squares to fight in.

Kilian hits the one with the exploded arm and does 9 hit points. It is DEAD.
Talin misses the other with the two handed sword.

Round 4 -

The remaining robot attacks Talin and misses, very narrowly.

Talin attacks it and does it 8 hit points.
Kilian attacks it and rolls a natural 20. He does it 11 hit points.

It is extremely dead.

Sorry if that was a bit anti-climactic. If you'd rather take things round a time, I can do that. But I figured your choices were pretty obvious.


Bruce still has the turtle on..."Boss...can I take this off now?...it's kind of heavy..."

The archers step forward looking a bit sheepish with their arrows still quivering in the wood above Bruce's head.

The mouse and mage step forward from safety to review the carnage. The whole thing took about 40 seconds. There is no noise at all coming from around the corner to the north. The western side of the dungeon is yours to explore...hopefully.
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Re: RED OAK: Return to the Pass of the Hounds

Post by Woe »

"That went surprisingly well." Talin muses aloud while prodding the broken golem with his foot.

"Aye." replies Kilian. "Bruce, yer clear to come out. Let's see wot we ken make of dese golems." He and Bruce will quickly look through the golems for useful spare parts. Kilian will spend a few minutes tinkering to understand better how they work (and if he has no hope, he'll still spend a few minutes trying to understand the hydraulics/mechanics of the thing).

I know he looked before and you posted the outcome before, but I couldn't find it when searching. Do you remember what happened last time he tried?

Once the golems have been analyzed, the party will move them into one of the alcoves and the turtle into the other, and then set down the northern passage, in the usual marching order (Freya... dwarves|Talin+Fido|etc).
Freya HP 24/24 AC 16 (17 two weapons)
Kilian HP 20/20 AC 19 (18 no shield)
Talin HP 29 AC 16
Tiana HP 11 AC 12 SP 8/8
Fido HP 9/9 AC 16
Anna HP 12/12 AC 15 (19 defensively)
Bruce HP 20/20 AC 16 (15 no shield)

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Re: RED OAK: Return to the Pass of the Hounds

Post by Longman »

Kilian has no idea of how the machines work.

Tiana makes some observations - the same as before - that the arm guns have a reservoir of some kind of red / purple liquid inside. One of the remaining robots still has a small amount of this liquid. The other one blew up when it tried to fire its last shot. The same liquid is also to be found in small reservoirs inside the robot's heads. The mouse-girl identifies that it is magical - the extraplanar kind she thinks is evil. All up, you could probably collect several pints of the liquid from the bodies of all 6 robots. No idea what to do with it, though.
There are also Salenish runes on various parts of the robot's bodies.

In short - they are magical rather than properly mechanical. Tiana supervises that the red liquid is some kind of life force.

The continue exploration gets you to the room with the firing holes. Freya is the first to enter, and finds a stone bench against the eastern wall where people could sit an watch the bride. The room also contains two large stone wardrobes set into the walls. These are not trapped, as far as she can Anna can tell. They contain the ancient remain of very old clothing, except for one very ornate suit of black and red wizard's robes that is in perfect condition and radiates magic, according to the mouse-girl.

The large room to the north is yet to be explored but Freya can already see it appears to contain stone bench pews and looks much like a shrine.

You can move up there, or check out the robes some more...no sign of anything further living or moving up this way.
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Re: RED OAK: Return to the Pass of the Hounds

Post by Woe »

"Hmpf. Golems should be mechanical. I dunna trust the magical kind." Kilian grumbles. I saw your spell list for stone magic. Ironic foreshadowing! :lol:

Tiana nods as Abigall explains more about the workings. She'll collect the pints of liquid for further analysis and transcribe the runes into her journal.

Moving along, Tiana will check out the robes further and ask Abigall for more details. If she can't get further knowledge, she'll pack them up for later as well.

And then, everyone moves up into the shrine.
Freya HP 24/24 AC 16 (17 two weapons)
Kilian HP 20/20 AC 19 (18 no shield)
Talin HP 29 AC 16
Tiana HP 11 AC 12 SP 8/8
Fido HP 9/9 AC 16
Anna HP 12/12 AC 15 (19 defensively)
Bruce HP 20/20 AC 16 (15 no shield)

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Re: RED OAK: Return to the Pass of the Hounds

Post by Longman »

They are magical looking wizardy robes, black with red trim. Small runes in trim. That's all you know. You wanna try them on.....? :twisted:

Anyway....you move up into the shine area and discover a large stone altar at the north end that looks extremely ancient. It has a variety of strange lumps and bumps on the surface and it takes a while to realise that writing of some kind has been erased from the surface by chiseling and polishing. The runes are now illegible.

Apart from that the room is basically empty except for stone pews for 12 people.

Freya takes a peek into the small room off to one side you notice a large wooden box designed for collecting coins, on the floor of the room.

On the eastern wall of the room is something strange - a large mirror, about 6' in height and oval shaped, with fine gold trim and designs she recognizes - possibly Elvish. There are also runes around the outside in what appears to be Elvish as well. The glass of the mirror and the gold edging are still perfectly intact.

The strange thing is that she cannot see a reflection in the surface. In fact she can dimly make out an object in the mirror - a darkened humanoid shape - that isn't actually in the room in front of her. She thinks the mirror might be reflecting things she cannot actually see, but not reflecting her own image.

She hasn't gone over to it yet, or looked too closely. Everyone else is still stumping about in the empty shrine. Again, Kilian thinks this whole place was Dwarvish made and admires the way the altar forms out of the ground, a single perfect block of stone.
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Re: RED OAK: Return to the Pass of the Hounds

Post by Woe »

You wanna try them on.....? :twisted:
and suddenly, Tiana becomes a human warlock able to use that necromantic staff!

Freya is interested in the box. After all these years, the box has remained untouched? Is it attached to the floor or loose? Either way, she will wander that direction, checking for traps as she goes.

Tiana will nudge Talin and silently point at the mirror. He'll draw his bow and knock an arrow, but not draw any closer. Kilian and the others eventually notice (including Frey). All of them get more guarded. Has the figure showed signs of noticing?

Does Tiana know what the ancient elvish teleporters looked like? Could this be one of those?
Freya HP 24/24 AC 16 (17 two weapons)
Kilian HP 20/20 AC 19 (18 no shield)
Talin HP 29 AC 16
Tiana HP 11 AC 12 SP 8/8
Fido HP 9/9 AC 16
Anna HP 12/12 AC 15 (19 defensively)
Bruce HP 20/20 AC 16 (15 no shield)

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