rollohi-ch511-script

When we last left the Grand Company, it had descended into level two of the chasm and had encountered Green Slime. Dorgun makes a save on the paralysis and dodges. The odd spots of green slime that did splash on him are swiftly dealt with, leaving him with one hit point damage. However, the commotion caused by this little incident has alerted a guard station of orcs below. They signal a fellow or twin guard station of orcs nearby, and the two posts wait to ambush. 

I think before we go on, I need to quickly run over who has hit level two and what kind of armor everyone's wearing now. Ever since the successful defense against brigands in the woods above, all of the man-sized retainers wear chainmail. The spearmen, otherwise occupied as pavise-men, down below, also have access to a one-segment shield. Now shields and their sectors are a part of the Larryman hack of OSE. Briefly, a one-segment shield is a normal shield, quite light in construction. In a group-driven game, a one-segment shield can be sacrificed once to prevent death. As this is a solo game, its only effect is to move armor class down by one. So for example, mail, normally AC5 with a shield would drop to AC4, and leather AC7 would drop to AC6. The heavy foot retainer, Dorgun, has banded mail and a one-segment shield, dropping to AC3 as a result. I know I'm very poor at explaining these hack rules, but this particular section of level 2 onwards, I'll be trying to explain my hack, hopefully attracting some interest from listeners. One other feature of the feedback I got from my face-to-face play group while playtesting is that since low is good, it makes sense to roll low on initiative. So on a D6, if you roll a 1, you are first. That will be replacing the previous OSE initiative of high is good from now on. A pavise stiffened by a spear with a cresset on top of it is effectively a three-segment shield, and so those mail-armoured spearmen have effectively got AC2 and also impose disadvantage on enemies that they are confronting in an ordered formation. On many occasions, ambushes and open running combat disorder formations and advantage can no longer be claimed. Three more retainers have just joined the first three on level two, and their hit points rolls have been much better than the first unlucky three. And Rann has hit twelve hurt points. The company has not been surprised that the orcs still had the initiative and has simply assigned it. The orcs strike in a pincer attack. Kylie takes a crit. Six damage. She's on sixteen of twenty two. Worse still, Cied takes two damage, and Hilu takes two of his precious five hit points damage. The attack on the halfling contingent, all five traveling together, effectively severs the party. The front third is isolated, and now, behind those first eight orcs, a wave of slave halflings supervised by an orc captain come at the run, but in the meantime, it's the character's turn. 

It seems to me that it's a good time for Xantu at least to go Nova on these orcs. By going Nova, I don't mean damage keeps multiplying up. What I mean by it is that a higher level character has a reserve of hit dice equal to the difference between their level and their opponent's top level. The highest level Orc Guard is just level one. Xantu is level five. He has four spear hit dice. He can roll these hit dice to parry, although it's very difficult to parry a crit and not normally available, or to deal extra attacks in a burst of action. These particular guards are not elite. They're a step down. They wield d6 scimitars and have seven hit points each, which is still very tough for an Orc. Xantu wields a plus three mace. If he does as much as four damage, he is two below their armor of AC6, and also scores nine damage. That's enough to kill any orc. If he scores a one, that's a crit. The orcs cannot attack in an ordered formation, since they're moving into an ordered formation. Xantu does roll four hit dice reserve. He misses with one, rolling an eight. But two more score three or more, killing an orc each, and one is a crit. The crit, given that these are mook orcs and that Xantu does 13 with one blow, I will count as killing two orcs at once. Therefore, Xantu wipes out an entire wing of orcs. It's very critical whether they came from the slave halfling wing or the other wing. On a 1, 2 or 3, it's a slave halfling wing. No, unfortunately, it's the other wing. Thus protected by Xantu, Kylie is free to cast that spell that she's got in mind. 

However, let's dash back a few yards to look at how Eryn is faring. She, with Rima shielding her, has to make her way through the halflings, stepping carefully in order to tackle the four orcs attacking from that wing, the west wing. Not that these adventurers are keeping track of which direction. Eryn chooses to use a reserve hit dice as an action dice. She rolls a crit. She succeeds in everything she wanted to do with that maneuver rather than rolling a d20 under strength, then asking Rima to do the same. Making sure that Rima is covEryng her rear and the halflings as much as possible, Eryn can now make her attack and still has three reserve hit dice. She does spend all her remaining hit dice. Her own initial attack with her plus one longsword is not particularly successful. It doesn't get past the orc's defense. But her first reserve dice used in combat kills an orc outright, and her second reserve dice heavily wounds an orc. Let me just tally up the damage. The orc took five out of seven hit points. That's an unwounded orc and a heavily wounded orc. For Eryn's last hit dice again bounces off a shield. Let's move on to Dorgun. I see no reason why he shouldn't be able to move back and attack. Here we go. It's a good hit. He kills that wounded orc. One orc remains. Dorgun does have a spare hit dice, but I think he'll keep it in reserve in case he needs to parry. He does not have that many hit points, being down to five out of six. Finally, at disadvantage, the halflings, who have been thrown into disarray by the orcs landing amidst them, are able to chop with their hatchets or stab with grabbed up daggers. They'll be at disadvantage. The orcs have superior reach and shields. Even at disadvantage, there are five halflings. Three of them land telling blows on the remaining orc, killing it. No orcs remain of the initial attack. Kylie has got her hands clear and shield behind her back now, and next round can cast a spell. Initiative in round two will be fairly critical, because there's a squishy cleric and an even squishier mage who want to move back out of the way. Here we go. Remember, low is good. Characters five, halfling slaves three, unfortunately. The halflings come in first. They are attacking at the halfling or western side of the intersection. They're not trusted with anything so useful as missile weapons, they just come in at a run. A whip cracking behind them, stabbing and chopping. Behind them, their orc captain drops his whip once he sees them committed and draws a reserve dagger. It's a very shiny dagger, very nice loot looking. Far away in the other direction, behind a noise-baffling curve, two orcs, who are supposed to be reserve guards, lie snoring. If the battle continues, they will wake up. But here, Baron's successful maneuver has placed Rima and her large pavise between the halfling archers and the incoming slave halflings. Only one of them manages to get past Rima's pavise and stab her. Two damage. Rima fell to five hit points, having hit level two, and she is down to three of five. 

(In case you're scratching your heads at my hit point system, I'm using the Cursed by the Gods hit point system. Each level, all hit dice are rolled again, and there is no minimum. )

Kylie casts Web. The luckless lone halfling that did manage to find its way past the pavise is cut down ruthlessly by Pod and Cied. Aside from the minor inconvenience of the pavise held by Rima also being somewhat tangled in the edge of the web, the party is now safe, and all of the remaining halflings and the orc slave driver are stuck fast. With that, as a plug if you like, the party has to make a quick decision. Light the web and listen to agonized screams and smell disgusting burning. Or attempt to parley with the halflings and investigate the other way. Since we're at the pointy end of things, only Xantu, Kylie and Eryn are really getting invoked here. They - and not unanimously - elect to parley with the halflings. Cied and Pod can step forward and do some negotiating while the rest of the party investigates, finds two sleeping orcs, kills them, and takes their loot. In that same chamber of the sleeping orcs, they may also find something that points to the Chaos Dwarf Lords, if there are any doubts, being behind the attacks. 

As the negotiation with the halflings is effectively their surrender, this involves an awkward moral issue for the party. These halflings are enemies, but in effect they have surrendered. The only real enemy that can't be compromised with is the orc captain beyond them. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to wade through Web. And we will leave that sticky situation there and wait and see what our brave heroes do next time.