Here is a small report of a dungeon bash using Warrior Heroes - Armies and Adventures from THW. My comments etc of the game will follow the report. Apologies for the quality of the photos as they were taken on my iPhone.
The games I play of this will be centred around the character Reggie. He is a halfing thief that I played during my 3.0 D&D days. He started off a very average stat-wise thief, who ended up convincing an entire town (Brendon) that he was a paladin. He eventually became the mayor of Brendon and owned a large amount of land in the area.
He carried around his companion Pecky, a vulture that he thought was a parrot. He is my most favourite character in D&D and in the top 2 of all time characters (the other was a gruff professor in Call of Cthulhu). It must be said that the DM of the D&D games really contributed to the enjoyment of the character. Well done Scott J.
The following is the list of heroes that took part with the numbers in brackets are the increases in the stats that occurred at the end of the game.
Reggie the paladin: Rep 5(6), hardiness 1, hand weapon, sling, AC 3, with shield, social standing 4(5) thief cv 3
Vimak the warrior: Rep 4 (hardiness 1), hand Weapon, half plate ac 5, shield social standing 1 (2)cv 2
Thandon the cleric: Rep 4 (Hardiness 1), hand weapon, Ac3 with shield, caster SS: 4 cv 2
Aelthan the mage: Rep 5(6) (Hardiness 1), hand weapon, AC2, caster Ss 5 cv
Total cv = 9
Each corridor length will be 2 squares wide and each square will represent 5’. The bad guys for the dungeon bash were Gnolls and they used the beastmen list with the only modification was the removal of the terror note.
“Please sir, can you tell us of story of Sir Reginald the Brave!”. The old man looked around the tavern, straight in to the expectant eyes of everyone inside. He leant forward; stoked the fire with one hand then sat back and his rheumy eyes glazed over as he drifted off into deep thought.
Brother Thandon, gnolls have ambushed a wagon of the church’s, on its way to our fair city of Brendon and have stolen the holy symbol it was carrying. Can you and your group go find the lair of the gnolls and return our most sacred symbol. “It will be my honour and my duty,” replied Thandon.
As the party track the gnolls, Thandon fills them in on the details. Finding the lair was fairly easy as the trail of discarded equipment and bodies led straight to it. Reggie, one hand one his sword and with a glint in his eyes, took a deep breath and entered the darkness. After a short passage they came to a door and Sir Reggie called upon his God for aid. Deciding that Reggie needed to perform without aid, the request was denied and his companion was called upon to bash the door open.
Turn 1: As the heros go down steps they enter a passage 10’ by 10’ (double 1s rolled for length of passage) that had 1 door at the end of it. Reggie attempts to open the door (attempts to pick the lock) but fails completely (double 6s rolled). Therefore Vimak steps up to break down the door.
They entered the chamber wary of possible sentries, but the Sun God showed Reggie favour and the room was empty. Just as Vimak was about to enter, a stray beam of light glinted off the metallic head of a dart, that was hidden within the wall. With a raised hand from Reggie, Vimak, pauses long enough for Reggie to disarm the trap.
Turn 2&3: A 15’ x 15’ chamber is generated with no sentries (pass 0d6 for dungeon alertness table). There is however a level 4 trap in the doorway. Luckily it missed Vimak and before he moves through the door, Reggie stops him. He then attempts to disarm trap and after 2 turns manages to disarm the trap allowing everyone to enter the room.
Entering the room, they see that there are 3 possible exits and they hastily search the room. Finding nothing they turn to Reggie as to which door they should exit. Reggie clutches at the symbol on a chain around his neck at motions to the north door. He approaches it and with a hasty gesture to his god, he reaches for the door knob. With eyesight that rivalled his companion Pecky, who had been left back in Brendon, Reggie spotted another trap and with a quick pray, disarms it.
Turn 4: Reggie picks the lock of the north door after almost getting it (passed 1d6 then 2d6) and opens the door. In his eagerness with open the door, he just manages to spot a dart trap on the door and disarms it (Roll on the Beyond the door resulted in a special and this then resulted in a trap.)
With catlike grace and silence, Reggie moves down the corridor and bravely peeks around the corner.
Turn 5: As the door opens a 25’ corridor with a left hand turn is discovered and Reggie and group move up to the edge and peer around the corner and discover....
Using the cover of the shadows, Reggie makes his way down the corridor and with a quick side step; he manages to evade a spear trap. The rest of his companions move up behind him and they approach the door at the end of the corridor.
Turn 6: A corridor 50’ long ending, there may not be any guards in the dungeon yet but there is enough traps to guard. A level 5 spear trap narrowly misses Reggie as he leans up against the wall while looking around the corner. The group move up to the door and after looking for traps and discovering none, Reggie then sets about opening the door and with a click it opens.
Opening the door Reggie spies a group of gnolls and hyenas standing around their leader, Hunsma. He was a cleric of their foul God and in his hand Reggie could see the holy symbol of the Sun God. With a motion of his sword, both Vimak and Reggie charge in to the room with such ferocity that Hunsma left the room rather than face the holy wrath of the brave paladin and his companions. With the loss of their leader, the gnolls are easily overcome.
Turn 7: Opening the door reveals a 20’ by 20’ chamber occupied by the following – 2 hyenas, 1 missile armed gnoll, 1 sword/shield armed warrior, 1 witch and the big-bad.
Rolling on the test of wills table with the heroes winning the test by 1 success thus resulting in the heroes testing the charge. Reggie charges a hyena, Vimak charges the shaman and hyena, Thandon attack the hyena and Aelthan prepares to cast a magic missile at the bigbad.
Activation roll H5: B2
Reggie acts first and attacks the hyena - pushes it back 1 square, kills the hyena and advances on to the missile armed gnoll.
Vimak attacks the witch also pushing it back 1 square and then driving his sword through the throat of the witch and killing her. Thandon attacks the hyena but after a brief to and fro is unable to best it and will continue. Aelthan casts his missile at the BB but fails to damage him.
Badguys - I need to roll on the NPC action tables and for the bigbad I rolled 6,6 even though he is rep 6, I took this as pass 0d6 and so he retired out the door he was standing next to. The others are all in melee so the results were the missile armed gnoll goes down allowing Reggie to move next to the melee gnoll now outnumbering the gnoll. Luckily for the gnoll, he manages to get his shield in the road and thus causes a standstill. While Thandon kills the hyena.
(After the battle I worked out that I roll for activation after the first round of combat).
Turn 8: h3: B6
Unfortunately for the gnoll he doesn’t activate this turn and then Reggie runs it though with his sword. With the last gnoll killed, a quick search of the chamber produces no items of interest (even with a plus 2 on the booty and loot table).
Finding nothing of interest, they leave the fallen corpses behind them and move deeper in to the lair. Communing with his God provides Reggie with the information needed to make new combat plans. Behind the door is a natural cavern that some inhabitant from the distant past had further excavated but now ended in a dead-end due to the collapse of the tunnel. Unfortunately for Hunsma, this meant that he had now where else to run. Aelthan starts to speak words of magic and with exquisite timing, Reggie throws open the door, just as a fiery blast emanates from Aelthan and lands at the feet of Hunsma. When the smoke cleared, Hunsma and his followers were dead except for a hyena who slipped in to a crack in the wall and was not seen again. Reggie moved towards the corpses and gingerly picked up the symbol from the ground and gave it to Thandon. With a quick pray to the Sun God, they relieve the dead of their possessions and return to Brendon heroes.
Turn 9 A 35’ corridor lead to a door, there were no traps and when the door was opened, it which had 1 exit which then ended in a dead-end (I set the last section up as I had generated the bigbad again as part of the occupants of the room, based on his actions from the 1st encounter). As it turned out to be a short corridor and dead-end, I decided that this would be the last encounter.
As both groups had the same number of successes on the test of wills table, neither side did anything and we go straight to combat.
H2:B4
The magister gnoll casts a missile spell at Aelthan but is unable to hit.
The greater gnoll and 1 hyena attempt to charge but roll fewer successes so stand still. The other hyenas stand and snarl.
Thandon (rep 5) goes first and successfully casts a blast spell and all baddies are in blast radius. The effects of the spell are devastating as the bigbad goes down OD while all but 1 hyena go OOF. The remaining hyena pass its leader lost test 0d6 and routs from the battle. Looting the room finds the holy symbol for Thandon while a considerable amount of treasure has been found allowing 1 additional social advancement roll as they return to Brendon successfully.
My thoughts on the game. I believe that this was one of the earliest games and it shows. I found that it seemed ‘chunkier’ than the other THW games I have played. Rolling on the Test of Wills table was confusing (not sure if I had missed something during my reading of the rules) and then rolling on the wanting to charge table added to my confusion. It didn’t seem to flow for me.
Magic can seem over powered as in the case of the blast spell, if looked at the one successful use of it. You need to remember that the couple of other spells that were tried to cast never worked as it uses the same type of table as the melee table. You need to roll a number of dice equal to the rep of the caster counting 1-3 as successes and compare them to either the level of the spell or rep of the target. You need more successes than spell/target to cast successfully and if you fail to get any successes you loss a point of rep when casting spells which then in turn makes casting spells harder for the remainder of the game.
I still enjoyed the game but may tweak the combat side of things to be more in line with other, newer THW systems.
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