Post by reefwood on Jan 21, 2011 22:25:49 GMT -5
Pushing into the City, Part II
Day 47
9:15am – After regrouping and shuffling soldiers around as needed, Nemedoran forces push deeper into the city. Only scattered and minimal resistance is met at first.
9:20 – The sights and sounds of heavy combat begin to fill the streets, and members of the squad led by First Sergeant Brion Shaw hear footfalls, growls, and bloodcurling screams up ahead. They come across injured survivors of another Nemedoran squad retreating from an onslaught of orcs, leopards, and hawks. Bodies from both sides already litter the streets, and the body count continues to rise as more humanoids and beasts are slain.
9:22 – By the end of it, officers Shaw and Sweetwater are still standing, but their squad has suffered devastating losses. The order to retreat is given: orcs are stripped of valuables and fallen soldiers are collected.
9:25 – As the squad pulls back, more footfalls are heard approaching. It turns out to be a soldier from the other Nemedoran squad. Their corporal was killed by the orcs, but he and one other carried their unconscious sergeant to safety in a nearby house. Brion heals the sergeant, and the remnants of the two Nemedoran squads retreat together...
[OOC: I do want to go a little behind-the-scenes on the numbers and difficulty of this mission, but I have been working a lot lately, and I want to at least post the mission score, spoils, time off, and income...especially since I was a bit off on my estimate of the initial numbers. What I will say now is that...
This chapter had two combats that were expected to last 1-2 hrs, two combats that were expected to last up to 1hr, and two fast encounters, so a grand total of 4 - 6 hrs for the combats and a few minutes for each fast encounter. It was unlikely that everything would be completed (unless strategy, speed, spell selection, and rolls all lined up wonderfully), but I did expect the players to get through half of it (2 combats and 1 fast encounter), and what I presented would be based on how much time remained and the status of the squad.
We started a bit late, and pre-combat stuff took up some time, but I think the actual combat was about 2.5 hrs. This did go over my estimation, but not nearly as much as last time, and I think it had somewhat to do with the squad simply not taking out the orcs fast enough...which in turn, gave the orcs more time to take out soldiers...which make it more difficult and time-consuming to defeat the orcs while healing just to stay alive, and so on.
Anyway, this was meant to be a challenging encounter, which I thought might flop and be too easy since the orcs started out so far apart and with their leader the furthest away. The vicious amount of damage they could do was meant to help balance this out, but once they managed to catch up and team up on the grunts, or even just go one-on-one, as opposed to the squad being able out-number the spread out orcs, the damage really started adding up fast. Plus, I didn't expect them to hit so often. Who knew they would roll so many 20's?! Though, I think only one or two critcals actually confirmed and one of them rolled all 1's and 2's for damage.
After the last chapter I altered the points for one encounter because of my error in time estimation. This time I am going to alter the points because it may have been a tad harder than I anticipated, especially since Sahme had already used about half his spells (though, I think he was still casting plenty but opted for non-fireball 3rd-level spells...which reminds me...you know you can cast lower level spells with your higher level slots, right?) and was missing 1 grunt. However, I only say “a tad” because it was meant to be challenging, and if the scales tipped against you, it was meant to be bad... and that seems to mostly be what happened.
I actually thought that altering the points wouldn't affect the final rating, but it turns out that I don't know my own scoring system quite that well yet, so you will need to ignore or alter some of the info I posted in the OOC thread, but not too much changes. You did wind up with 1 AP, and all the end-of-mission info is below.]
Mission Score
150 pts = Superb
125 pts = Great
100 pts = Good
75 pts = Fair
50 pts = Poor
25 pts = Terrible
Encounter #1 (Orcs): 32 pts x1.5 = 48 pts
Losses (Orin Brd5 + Boho Ftr5 + Vargas Ftr5): -15 pts
Total = 33 pts for a Poor rating (1 AP)
Brion Shaw = 3 AP + 1 AP = 4 AP
Sahme Sweetwater = 2 AP + 1 AP = 3 AP
Nimarius Steerhelm = 0 AP + n/a = 0 AP
Brion can advance to 11th-level with 75% of standard wealth increase (+15,000 gp). Sahme does not have enough APs to level up (min. 4) but can still do so because he played through 2 chapters since his last level up, and it would be with 50% of standard wealth increase (+10,000 gp). However, no one has to level up and can hold off to earn more APs for a higher wealth increase later.
Spoils
First are the lists of magic items found and taken off each kind of orc, and then, at the end is a summary of all the items. This includes a potion found on one of the axe orcs. The other axe orc drank a potion during combat, and the potion on the leader orc was drank during the session.
Brion and Sahme have first dibs on these spoils, but please post what you want by the end of the month (Jan 31st). After that, Nimarius is welcome to select from the leftover spoils.
Spoils can be selected for PCs to use, or to give to their grunts / undead / summoned creatures / cohorts / etc, or to store in their equipment locker for potential future use.
Archer Orc
+1 Breastplate (30 lb)
+1 Composite Longbow [Str+4] (3 lb)
Cloak of Resistance +1 (1 lb)
Axe Orc
+1 Breastplate (30 lb)
Cloak of Resistance +1 (1 lb)
Leader Orc
+2 Breastplate (30 lb)
Belt of Giant Strength+1 (1 lb)
Headband of Inspired Wisdom +1 (1 lb)
Cloak of Resistance +1 (1 lb)
Summary
1x +2 Breastplate (30 lb)
1x Belt of Giant Strength +1 (1 lb)
1x Headband of Inspired Wisdom +1 (1 lb)
4x +1 Breastplate (30 lb)
2x +1 Composite Longbow [Str+4] (3 lb)
5x Cloak of Resistance +1 (1 lb)
1x Potion of cure serious wounds [CL5: 3d8+5] (0.1 lb)
Time Off
This will be a standard break, so 1 AP provides 1 day of Time Off. This will be Day 48, and the next mission will begin at the start of Day 49.
Income
One day of 10th-level income (Day 47). This is the income earned by Brion, Nimarius, and Sahme for Chapters 12 and 13:
{[Character level x5] + Profession (military) modifier = daily wage in gp} x1 day
There is also 1 day of Time Off that will be 10th-level income for those who do not level up and use the equation above.
If you do level up, use the equation below for the 1 day of Time Off at 11th-level:
{[Character level x10] + Profession (military) modifier = daily wage in gp} x1 day
Rewards
If you level up, a reward package will be sent after everything in corrected and finalized. One thing to note about 11th-level is that you gain access to casters who can craft or upgrade magic items at a rate of 2,000 gp per day (but still no more than 1 item per day per caster).
I will go into more details later on, and feel free to post feedback or ask questions anytime, but what I want to focus on first is:
- leveling up
- dividing spoils
- collecting income (you can do that on your own)
- time off activities, if any
Also, I will post the stats of other Nemedoran squad in a thread for Chapter 14 [Pushing into the City, Part III]. Their character sheets are already complete, in case they were needed for this chapter. I just need to select spells for the sergeant.
