Some players just don't learn. I'm one of them. At times. Recently we had our first character death after charging into battle against two black dragons. In one way we were lucky they were not too old. We were able to buy some time by Rob, the GM. allowed us to use our web spells to engulf the dragon's head. This bought us one round both time we did it. Rusty's guy failed his saving throw and was reduced to a pile of ash. At the end we did get a nice sum of loot, but wondered how we could have handled it differently.
First off, Rob's Wilderlands is a brutal place. Battle is often the solution especially dealing with critters. The original intent of our journey was to trade a rock for books so we could trade the books for a few magic items. As we approached the gnome home we were goblin charged. Sleep spells made short work of them and another group of goblins were scorched by an awesome fireball from yours truely. When we got inside the gnomes were a bit miffed that we killed our their goblins. Who knew. Once we flashed them our rock they didn't think much of it.
After the trade we went outside and that's when we encountered the dragons. They wanted to know who killed the dragons and Dwayne admitted we had. Well that made them mad. That's when the fight started and this is where I was thinking if there could have been any other choice. The gnomes had locked the door behind us. The dragons were infront of us and didn't see anyway we could have avoided the fight.
I took the approach of hit it first and hard. We were able to defeat the dragons, but that could have been three pile of ashes instead of one. I don't think the dragons were in much of a mood for talking. It was just one of those situations where I would have liked to have avoided, but I don't believe there was any other way. In the end we were able to bring Rusty back to the land of the living, a bit more wiser.
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Basically both the Gnomes and Dwarves you encountered were running outposts inside Viridian territories. Originally they were normal holds but when the Viridians gained back their power during the Third Empire these outposts got cut off. Despite their longevity enough generations have passed that things got more than a little weird in both settlements.
ReplyDeleteIn the Gnome's case they allied with a group of goblins to act as a speed bump outside of their hold. When a pair of Black Dragon settled nearby the two levied a tribute on the Goblins to keep them in sheep and cows. Nominally it was the Gnome under the tribute but the Gnomes delegated it to their goblin allies. Not they had much choice in the matter.
Now you would think that the Gnome would take a greater interest. But their isolation left them focused on their own immediate goals They felt they had the dragon covered and if they tried to do anything more well... they had lots and lots of golems to deal with the serpents. Plus they had some other resources you didn't find out about.
The dragons were so unreasonable because by killing the goblins you killed the gravy train.
When the Gnomes collapsed the tunnel that got the Dragons attention.
Syrivald's thinking in all this was that the party had used most of its spells and brute force probably wouldn't carry the day with the dragons. That is why he initially ran back into the safety--to gain a few moments of safety the cave and come up with a strategy, perhaps using the recently acquired golem. I think a coherent strategy would have worked better--whether it was all charge or all hide. Our offensive or defensive abilities were not concentrated enough because we all went in different directions.
ReplyDeleteI actually liked the chaotic aspect of that encounter, despite my character's death. It felt real and there was no meta-conversations between players to plan and discuss, while the combat was supposed to be taking place (of which I am not a fan).