Fun Fantasy Battle

[CorpCommander]

Ok, I've been GMing (DMing? Reffing? Hero Mastering?) an Iron Kingdoms world. Lots of fun. We are in the middle of a battle that's been quite fun to run.

 

It involves a swamp outpost with 15 'swampies' (7 adults, 8 children) and 5 Heroes. The outpost consists of a small quay with the party's boat and a competant crew of 3. There are a about 3 buildings locally and a bonfire (not like a Texas A&M sized bonfire but a reasonably sized one). The outpost is thus surrounded on 3 sides by swamp/jungle and on the last by a river.

 

The party's main foe wants to off them and sends 20 Swamp Shamblers after them. A swamp shambler is basically undead (no stunning), with 3d6 of regeneration and a nasty habit of turning those that kill it into a fresh swamp shambler 3 minutes later. The shamblers have raking claws that do 8d6 normal damage. They have a CV of 4 so aren't too tough but there are lots of them.

 

Its been fun because the players can't take a lot of risks like they are used to . If one of the shamblers get through to the children it will kill the child and also create a new shambler. It has 8 potential victims to do this to.

 

The fact that they regenerate 2-4 points per phase also makes it interesting as they most likely event is they will out last the adult swampies. Needless to say the party has pulled all the stops on trying to kill off these things. The Priestess has been trying to turn them, the martial artist is trying to tie up 3 of them in hand to hand combat and the others are looking for every method available to them to make sure they stop twitching.

 

Its definitely been a tremendously fun game.

[Ndreare]

How could you leave the players hanging in the midle of a batle like that (let alone us) you have to let them know what is happening (then give us an update).

 

 

I currently have a game on hold where the players are in cammand of an army of 5000 men and have alies on the way. I even planned on the actions of the locals in attempts to help the players liberate their cities and have stats written up for the armys that are going to turn on their lords to work for the players. (Which have proven to be much better rulers than their currant dark lord.)

[CorpCommander]

Fear Not!

 

Next Wednesday or there after I will give details on what happens next!

 

Your game sounds like fun. Is your world your own setting or based upon a published book or game system?

[Ndreare]

It is my own setting but I took ideas from both the books of "Sword of Truth" and "Cold Fire" series

[CorpCommander]

The Battle Continues

 

Ok we finally finished it.

 

The boat had 3 crew and 1 player vs. 4 Swamp Thralls. The entire crew went down but not killed leaving 2 thralls on the player. The scout player seeing the rogue in trouble on the boat turned his rifle on one of the thralls, and while not killing it, weakened it. Pushing every advantage he could, disregarding safety in exchange for offense the rogue managed to kill off the weakened thrall in time for the crew to start to wake up and help deal with the last one.

 

The party was starting to go low on endurance but they were getting the upper hand. Even though thralls were regenerating they managed to rebuke enough of them for a turn (turning spell from the priestess) that they could concentrate on the others.

 

It ended up being a very close thing. The outpost "mayor", if you can call him that, had been working to set up his Still Cannon (basically a large moonshine flame thrower). He and another Swampie pushed it out of the shed and yelled clear. It was obvious that something exciting was going to happen and two characters near where this thing was pointing aborted their next action to jump out of the way. Woosh! 2 more dead thralls. Mayor and flunkie began working the belows again. This was not a rapid fire weapon!

 

Long story short the final thralls were offed and the party priestess went around healing the wounded. Only she found one of the adult swampies wasn't wounded she was dead...

 

DEX Check.

 

Priestess fails a dex check and is surprised when the dead woman arises as a swamp thrall! It lashed on to her. The Ogran Martial Artist leapt in, and while normally being into subtly and mastering his craft, saw no other choice but to grap the newly risen's arms and, using his 30 strength, pull-them-off-crunch! The Priestess had a mini-heart attack she thinks!

 

The battle was over, one of the outpost members was lost and there was a sense, not of accomplishment, but of shared survivial among all there. The Swampies were upset at their loss but they'd seen it before. The party members were angry though. This attack was launched by their arch enemy, and while it was aimed at them, it put all the swampies and their children in harms way. They had an idea where their enemy was going and, after some rest they'd be heading upriver to deliver an ass kicking.

[Ndreare]

WOW!

 

Thanks for the update. Looks like you had fun, Did the players enjoy it?

 

You could add a litle flavor and get into the psychy of the other swampies that saw their own friend/family member rended in front of the. Players whould be very understanding and empathetic to the view of the swampies.

[CorpCommander]

Psychological Impact

 

That was actually briefly discussed and I found I didn't have to say much about it but acknowlege what the party already assumed would be the case.

 

In either case they are on their own seeking treasure and their enemy now. Their steam powered boat will face uncertain perils next Wednesday. I'll come back to this thread with an update.