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[Let's Read] Rambo Cinematic Adventures
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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9201860" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/K9q7sEG.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>Taking up about half of the book’s page count, Rambo: Flesh & Blood is an adventure suited for 4-5 PCs of 2nd level. It can be played as a sequel to the free adventure, <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/439363/Prologue-Rambo" target="_blank">Rambo: Jabbok Creek,</a> which ended with their old commanding officer offering to recruit them as part of an elite and unconventional team.</p><p></p><p>The synopsis of Flesh & Blood involves a high-ranking officer, Colonel Barrigan, giving the PCs a mission to extract a mole from a drug cartel in Panama hours before said country is invaded by the United States. The mole is in fact Colonel Barrigan’s brother, who had no authority to conduct the mission on behalf of the United States. On the contrary, he is seeking to rescue his brother to avoid them both being implicated for their ties to said cartel. But Barrigan’s brother can still be of use, for he can be used to track down a Panamanian politician with Soviet ties hoping to use the US invasion as a means of shifting the country over to Russian influence. The adventure is lengthy enough that PCs who complete it will level up, and the book also suggests doing it earlier at the end of Act II instead should the GM want to have them progress during the adventure itself.</p><p></p><p>Flesh & Blood is split into 4 Acts with 19 Encounters, and time is a key part of this adventure. The PCs are dropped into Panama at 1900 hours, and various events are contingent on the time passed and whose circumstances can be altered if the PCs take too long. Just about every encounter of significance has a suggested amount of in-game time that passes based on PC actions. Not all Encounters have to be completed or done in order, so while it’s not what I’d call a true sandbox or hexcrawl the writers did try to give the PCs some wiggle room and variation to allow for a sense of autonomy and reaction. Additionally, the PCs risk exhaustion levels every hour they operate on foot, where they must succeed on DC 8 Endurance checks that start out low but increase by 1 each time they make the save and reset on a failure. PCs who go for eight hours without food or four hours without water suffer disadvantage on said checks.</p><p></p><p>Finally, Panama City and its surrounding environs have 4 stages of Alert Levels, where parties who are violent and/or unsubtle will put the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF for short) on edge, which can cause additional waves of armed personnel ranging from police officers to soldiers to come onto the scene anywhere from several rounds to several minutes after sounds of gunfire and explosions. Police and even SWAT officers will be on patrol at major intersections as the Alert Level rises, too. The NPCs for the Levels all use stat blocks from the core rules, but needless to say they have better stats and equipment at higher Alert Levels. That being said, even at Alert Level 1 the NPCs who arrive are still pretty deadly for 2nd level PCs: specifically they are 6 SWAT Officers, who are CR 3 characters with 39 hit points each, ballistic vests with Armor Value of 4 vs ballistic weapons only, and can multiattack with either their nightsticks that don’t do much damage or their shotguns which do a lot more. Each one has one flashbang and one smoke grenade, so this adventure highly encourages PCs to vacate the scenes of crimes rather than stick around. They do have 2 minutes before the SWAT team arrives, which is pretty generous in being 20 rounds in combat terms.</p><p></p><p>The PDF is aware that the US is planning to invade, so a lot of personnel are on standby to guard against the larger force and thus PCs who do vacate the premises of an encounter don’t have to worry about being constantly hounded for the rest of the adventure. Once the US invades, the Alert Level shoots up to 4 if it wasn’t already there. The other major recurring threat PCs may have to deal with are the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity_Battalions" target="_blank">Batallon de la Dignidad,</a> Dignity Battalions in English and nicknamed Dingbats by their detractors.* Dingbats are a paramilitary force formed by Noriega to crack down on political dissidents and to supplement conventional military forces. They operate primarily in rural areas and are drawn from civil servants and convicts promised reduced sentencing, so they’re not as well-equipped as the soldiers or police. Albeit at higher Alert Levels, one of them may have a rocket launcher which they’ll try to use against the vehicles PCs are in. PCs mostly encounter them in the areas outside the city, and their stat blocks are easier to deal with on account of their lack of armor, lower hit points, and will flee once any of their allies are killed or knocked out during combat.</p><p></p><p>*The book refers to them as Digbats for short, but I like Dingbat because it’s funnier so that’s the one I’ll use for this review.</p><p></p><p>Last but not least, there’s also the native wildlife. PCs who take a rest in a wilderness area trigger an encounter on a 1-3 on a d20. Animal-based encounters are drawn from a random table, and while a few animals are dangerous enough to require rolling initiative in straightforward combat such as boars and jaguars, they can also be more akin to hazards such as leeches that can impose exhaustion levels, packs of howler monkeys who will attempt to swarm the PCs and make off with equipment, and venomous snakes and insects that can damage and poison characters.</p><p></p><p><strong>Act I: Insertion</strong> begins with the PCs meeting a special operations lieutenant by the name of Sandy in a Costa Rican airfield. He explains in the briefing that the US government is planning to initiate Operation Just Cause, aka the invasion of Panama to overthrow the dictator Manuel Noriega. However, not all of their agents involved in the drug war have been extracted, and an agent codenamed Botella (in reality Larry Barrigan) is a mole planted in a large cartel known as the Escorpiones Negros (Black Scorpions). The PCs’ mission is to board a Chinook helicopter headed for Panama City, find Botella using local sources while posing as civilians, and get him out of the city before the invasion. Once that’s done, Botella will provide them with their second objective: to take out a drug cartel known as the Familia Duerendez. The PCs are given two leads for their mission, one at the Geco Lounge and the other via Scappa Cigarruista, an importer/exporter at the warehouse. But the latter contact is mentioned as being untrustworthy and can’t be relied upon for backup or more significant help.</p><p></p><p>The PCs are given gear for their mission, with a variety of weapons from suppressed pistols and submachine guns to a shotgun and sniper rifle, fake passports, walkie-talkies, and backpacks full of hiking and outdoor survival gear among other things. The non-weapons gear is completely plausible for hiker tourists in the country, but the heavier weapons such as the shotgun and sniper rifle need to be concealed. There are times during the module where the PCs will need to roll a Sleight of Hand vs the Perception checks of other characters to avoid such weapons being spotted and blowing their cover.</p><p></p><p>Lieutenant Sandy will board the Chinook with the PCs, and the flight to Panama turns south when a bird collides with the aircraft, causing it to go into freefall over the jungle. The PCs must perform a skill challenge as they evacuate the crashing helicopter, where failed checks can cause them to lose randomly-determined pieces of gear along with possible injuries, and the PCs can use skill checks to rescue the flight engineer and co-pilot (pilot is dead) before the helicopter explodes. As though things weren’t bad enough, a pair of husband and wife farmers known as the de Jorges come out to investigate. The PCs can use checks to avoid them or talk their way out of trouble, but if that doesn’t work then the man will attack with a rusty shotgun. As he’s not trained with it and requires an action to reload, it shouldn’t be hard for even low-level PCs to overcome him. If the party sweet-talks the farmers, they will be taken to their farm, or they can find it on their way to Panama City. A truck is conveniently located on the property, and Lt. Sandy will tell unobservant PCs that the vehicle is their best chance at making it to the city in time. He and the surviving flight crew will remain on the farm to stand by for an eventual rescue. PCs will encounter a trio of Panamanian soldiers maintaining a checkpoint along the road and can use various means of bypassing them. Should combat occur, PCs can salvage their equipment and their van along with its contents, as well as find a wanted poster for a murder suspect known as Larry Barrigan.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/htWXjtT.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>Once the PCs get into Panama City, their vehicle inconveniently breaks down in the middle of traffic, drawing attention as angry motorists honk and shout. Police officers will arrive on the scene, and the skill checks to avoid suspicion are very easy on account that the authorities don’t expect American commandos or invading soldiers to be so obvious. While in the city the PCs can run across a group of fellow special forces soldiers in an alleyway, initially tasked with retrieving documents from the US Embassy but get injured in the process. The PCs who help them get to a covert hospital treating American operatives will earn their gratitude, where they tell the PCs that they can find them and the rest of their unit at the Grand Majestic Casino. The first contact area to visit in Panama City is the Geco Lounge, a multipurpose bar and restaurant. Local police are there, including the ones who were encountered during the traffic jam. Unless the PCs sneak in back there will be trouble, for the locals don’t like “Yanquis” and will harass the party. In the case of the police, if they recognize the PCs they don’t believe in coincidences and will attempt to arrest them. A pair of people in the kitchen in back are the PC’s main means of locating Botella/Larry: a Black Scorpions member named Ronaldo and Lia who is Larry’s lover, both of who are displeased with Larry for different reasons. Ronaldo is unhappy because Larry shot a Familia Duerendez cartel member, which will bring a bunch of heat down on him, and Lia feels betrayed that Larry left her in town to fend for herself. The PCs can learn that Botella’s real name is Larry Barrigan and find the names and locations of two of his safehouses outside town.</p><p></p><p>Before leaving town, the PCs will need to get another vehicle, and they have multiple avenues: the first is stealing a car, albeit that can trigger an encounter from its owner, Chaime Bigotes, who is a local civilian fed up with the corruption in his country and a carjacking will be his last straw. He has his own unique stats and primarily fights with a shotgun and baseball bat, the latter of which he can use with a unique ability where anyone who moves into reach of him provokes an opportunity attack. As usual, gunshots can attract the attention of PDF soldiers and cops. Otherwise, the PCs can get a vehicle from their contact at the docks, who is actually being held hostage by six Dingbats. If rescued he will give the PCs a van that contains a PKM machine gun along with some food and water for rations. The other location is the Grand Majestic Casino where they can rendezvous with the other American special forces. There’s quite a few NPCs the party can interact with here, such as the casino boss who can tell the PCs that the PDF are also hunting for Larry and where to find one of his safehouses should they make a good enough impression via skill checks, locals who can tell the PCs more about the cartels, Larry Barrigan,* and the PDF. Then there are the American special forces who can give the PCs a Ford Bronco.</p><p></p><p>*The highest skill check result can eliminate one of Larry’s hideouts as a false lead.</p><p></p><p>But of greatest interest to the PCs is the person among the special forces soldiers: the one and only John Rambo! Initially lost in his own thoughts, he will be quiet but respectful should the PCs approach, eventually giving them some advice after listening to them talk:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A PC who makes a particularly good impression on Rambo will have him give his signature bowie knife to them, saying they will need it more than he does.</p><p></p><p>So what happens if the PCs are still in Panama City when the invasion begins? Well they will hear the telltale signs of aircraft to the east followed by a plume of flame lighting the sky followed by an explosion. An encounter will occur as the PCs are on a street, caught in the crossfire between American and Panamanian soldiers. Both sides will presume the PCs to be enemy soldiers should they be obviously packing heat and use Suppressive Fire,* although a Deception or Persuasion check can convince one of the sides that the PCs are allies. This will earn them a reprieve from that side but cause the other to become permanently hostile. PCs who don’t look like combatants will have the soldiers presume them to be civilians and will try to avoid attacking them. Stray explosions will kill and seriously wound several US soldiers three rounds into combat, and PCs can be caught in a moral dilemma on whether to safeguard them until backup arrives (takes 2 hours) or leave them. PCs can help the soldiers’ odds of survival via Medicine checks and moving them into a nearby house for cover.</p><p></p><p>*An action type in Everyday Heroes where you expend multiple rounds of ammo to cover an AoE space for a round. Burst fire and fully automatic weapons have a larger AoE but consume more ammo.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/pSVt8IA.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><strong>Act II: Jungle Work</strong> takes place when the PCs leave Panama City to hunt down Larry Barrigan. Along the way they can trigger a few encounters, such as meeting a foreign botanist whose car broke down and is secretly working for the Familia Duerendez cartel to grow a particularly resilient strains of cocoa plant, or a sunken party boat which contains crocodiles in hiding plus a pack of Emergency Supplies whose only useful contents is a first-aid kit. The village of Nueva Bennto is one of Larry’s two safehouses and a dead lead as he is not there. Instead, several thugs for the Familia Duerendez cartel are also looking for Larry. It is possible that the PCs can initially trick or otherwise convince them to otherwise help each other out. However, the local accountant who is handling the cartel’s money happens to recognize the PC from past encounters* and angrily points them out, causing a fight to break out. The accountant uses Civilian stats and is practically a noncombatant, but the PCs can be fighting 8 or 9 NPCs, with the ninth potentially being the botanist they encountered earlier. The leader of the gang, Emilio Duerendez, has unique stats and can use a bonus action to nominate an enemy where all attacks have advantage against them until the beginning of Emilio’s next turn. The rest of the NPCs are a mixture of Heavies (high HP guys with light machine guns and matapuerco [serpentine wood] that is a melee attack that can Stun), Sicarios (higher Defense nimble guys who attack with pistols and can Disengage as a bonus action), and Halcones (youths and initiates who are weak and only equipped with knives who will attack downed opponents). This can be a pretty tough battle due to numbers and action economy, but there are oil drums which have a chance to explode (5-6 on a d6) dealing AoE fire damage if shot, and if Emilio is killed the rest of the cartel members will be more likely to flee or surrender if the encounter starts going against them.</p><p></p><p>*The specifics of which depend on prior adventures and/or backstories as per GM discretion.</p><p></p><p>Larry Barrigan’s real location is a shack at the top of a mountain summit. Their vehicle risks getting stuck in mud while going up via a unique encounter, and there are hairpin zig-zag roads which a group of Dingbats are located on in hopes of ambushing the PCs. If the PCs arrive in time they will find Larry in his Cabin, albeit under guard of the PDF. If the PCs are too late, the soldiers and Larry will be gone. The soldiers are Dingbats led by Zifar Balbosa, an NPC with unique stats who has a bandolier of WW2-era grenades. He proudly inherited them from his father’s, who due to their age aren’t entirely reliable and have a d6 table of random effects ranging from duds to delayed explosions to variable damage.</p><p></p><p>Regardless of where or not the PCs manage to find and extract Barrigan, a group of US soldiers appear on the scene, beginning Act III.</p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts So Far:</strong> I like the premise of this adventure and its mixture of investigation, wilderness survival, and combat in tracking down the supposed mole. The variety in possible encounters based on PC actions and the variable time limit does much to prevent the adventure from feeling like a railroad and encourages players not to dilly-dally or camp in place. I will say that the adventure is closer in line to Rambo: First Blood than the later movies, in that PCs who go in loud risk biting off more than they can chew, particularly in Panama City. Being 2nd level they aren’t exactly bursting with hit points, and it is possible for a character to get downed easily in combat if the enemies get in lucky hits or focus fire. On the other hand, several encounters don’t necessarily cause potential enemies to attack on sight, and there are various means of non-violently bypassing them which mitigates this concern. But given that the mental image a lot of people have when it comes to Rambo is a super-soldier effortlessly mowing down hordes of bad guys unscathed, it is something that the GM needs to take into account and perhaps communicate to the players to avoid a TPK from reckless behavior.</p><p></p><p><strong>Join us next time as we finish up the adventure and this book!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 9201860, member: 6750502"] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/K9q7sEG.png[/img][/center] Taking up about half of the book’s page count, Rambo: Flesh & Blood is an adventure suited for 4-5 PCs of 2nd level. It can be played as a sequel to the free adventure, [url=https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/439363/Prologue-Rambo]Rambo: Jabbok Creek,[/url] which ended with their old commanding officer offering to recruit them as part of an elite and unconventional team. The synopsis of Flesh & Blood involves a high-ranking officer, Colonel Barrigan, giving the PCs a mission to extract a mole from a drug cartel in Panama hours before said country is invaded by the United States. The mole is in fact Colonel Barrigan’s brother, who had no authority to conduct the mission on behalf of the United States. On the contrary, he is seeking to rescue his brother to avoid them both being implicated for their ties to said cartel. But Barrigan’s brother can still be of use, for he can be used to track down a Panamanian politician with Soviet ties hoping to use the US invasion as a means of shifting the country over to Russian influence. The adventure is lengthy enough that PCs who complete it will level up, and the book also suggests doing it earlier at the end of Act II instead should the GM want to have them progress during the adventure itself. Flesh & Blood is split into 4 Acts with 19 Encounters, and time is a key part of this adventure. The PCs are dropped into Panama at 1900 hours, and various events are contingent on the time passed and whose circumstances can be altered if the PCs take too long. Just about every encounter of significance has a suggested amount of in-game time that passes based on PC actions. Not all Encounters have to be completed or done in order, so while it’s not what I’d call a true sandbox or hexcrawl the writers did try to give the PCs some wiggle room and variation to allow for a sense of autonomy and reaction. Additionally, the PCs risk exhaustion levels every hour they operate on foot, where they must succeed on DC 8 Endurance checks that start out low but increase by 1 each time they make the save and reset on a failure. PCs who go for eight hours without food or four hours without water suffer disadvantage on said checks. Finally, Panama City and its surrounding environs have 4 stages of Alert Levels, where parties who are violent and/or unsubtle will put the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF for short) on edge, which can cause additional waves of armed personnel ranging from police officers to soldiers to come onto the scene anywhere from several rounds to several minutes after sounds of gunfire and explosions. Police and even SWAT officers will be on patrol at major intersections as the Alert Level rises, too. The NPCs for the Levels all use stat blocks from the core rules, but needless to say they have better stats and equipment at higher Alert Levels. That being said, even at Alert Level 1 the NPCs who arrive are still pretty deadly for 2nd level PCs: specifically they are 6 SWAT Officers, who are CR 3 characters with 39 hit points each, ballistic vests with Armor Value of 4 vs ballistic weapons only, and can multiattack with either their nightsticks that don’t do much damage or their shotguns which do a lot more. Each one has one flashbang and one smoke grenade, so this adventure highly encourages PCs to vacate the scenes of crimes rather than stick around. They do have 2 minutes before the SWAT team arrives, which is pretty generous in being 20 rounds in combat terms. The PDF is aware that the US is planning to invade, so a lot of personnel are on standby to guard against the larger force and thus PCs who do vacate the premises of an encounter don’t have to worry about being constantly hounded for the rest of the adventure. Once the US invades, the Alert Level shoots up to 4 if it wasn’t already there. The other major recurring threat PCs may have to deal with are the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity_Battalions]Batallon de la Dignidad,[/url] Dignity Battalions in English and nicknamed Dingbats by their detractors.* Dingbats are a paramilitary force formed by Noriega to crack down on political dissidents and to supplement conventional military forces. They operate primarily in rural areas and are drawn from civil servants and convicts promised reduced sentencing, so they’re not as well-equipped as the soldiers or police. Albeit at higher Alert Levels, one of them may have a rocket launcher which they’ll try to use against the vehicles PCs are in. PCs mostly encounter them in the areas outside the city, and their stat blocks are easier to deal with on account of their lack of armor, lower hit points, and will flee once any of their allies are killed or knocked out during combat. *The book refers to them as Digbats for short, but I like Dingbat because it’s funnier so that’s the one I’ll use for this review. Last but not least, there’s also the native wildlife. PCs who take a rest in a wilderness area trigger an encounter on a 1-3 on a d20. Animal-based encounters are drawn from a random table, and while a few animals are dangerous enough to require rolling initiative in straightforward combat such as boars and jaguars, they can also be more akin to hazards such as leeches that can impose exhaustion levels, packs of howler monkeys who will attempt to swarm the PCs and make off with equipment, and venomous snakes and insects that can damage and poison characters. [b]Act I: Insertion[/b] begins with the PCs meeting a special operations lieutenant by the name of Sandy in a Costa Rican airfield. He explains in the briefing that the US government is planning to initiate Operation Just Cause, aka the invasion of Panama to overthrow the dictator Manuel Noriega. However, not all of their agents involved in the drug war have been extracted, and an agent codenamed Botella (in reality Larry Barrigan) is a mole planted in a large cartel known as the Escorpiones Negros (Black Scorpions). The PCs’ mission is to board a Chinook helicopter headed for Panama City, find Botella using local sources while posing as civilians, and get him out of the city before the invasion. Once that’s done, Botella will provide them with their second objective: to take out a drug cartel known as the Familia Duerendez. The PCs are given two leads for their mission, one at the Geco Lounge and the other via Scappa Cigarruista, an importer/exporter at the warehouse. But the latter contact is mentioned as being untrustworthy and can’t be relied upon for backup or more significant help. The PCs are given gear for their mission, with a variety of weapons from suppressed pistols and submachine guns to a shotgun and sniper rifle, fake passports, walkie-talkies, and backpacks full of hiking and outdoor survival gear among other things. The non-weapons gear is completely plausible for hiker tourists in the country, but the heavier weapons such as the shotgun and sniper rifle need to be concealed. There are times during the module where the PCs will need to roll a Sleight of Hand vs the Perception checks of other characters to avoid such weapons being spotted and blowing their cover. Lieutenant Sandy will board the Chinook with the PCs, and the flight to Panama turns south when a bird collides with the aircraft, causing it to go into freefall over the jungle. The PCs must perform a skill challenge as they evacuate the crashing helicopter, where failed checks can cause them to lose randomly-determined pieces of gear along with possible injuries, and the PCs can use skill checks to rescue the flight engineer and co-pilot (pilot is dead) before the helicopter explodes. As though things weren’t bad enough, a pair of husband and wife farmers known as the de Jorges come out to investigate. The PCs can use checks to avoid them or talk their way out of trouble, but if that doesn’t work then the man will attack with a rusty shotgun. As he’s not trained with it and requires an action to reload, it shouldn’t be hard for even low-level PCs to overcome him. If the party sweet-talks the farmers, they will be taken to their farm, or they can find it on their way to Panama City. A truck is conveniently located on the property, and Lt. Sandy will tell unobservant PCs that the vehicle is their best chance at making it to the city in time. He and the surviving flight crew will remain on the farm to stand by for an eventual rescue. PCs will encounter a trio of Panamanian soldiers maintaining a checkpoint along the road and can use various means of bypassing them. Should combat occur, PCs can salvage their equipment and their van along with its contents, as well as find a wanted poster for a murder suspect known as Larry Barrigan. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/htWXjtT.png[/img][/center] Once the PCs get into Panama City, their vehicle inconveniently breaks down in the middle of traffic, drawing attention as angry motorists honk and shout. Police officers will arrive on the scene, and the skill checks to avoid suspicion are very easy on account that the authorities don’t expect American commandos or invading soldiers to be so obvious. While in the city the PCs can run across a group of fellow special forces soldiers in an alleyway, initially tasked with retrieving documents from the US Embassy but get injured in the process. The PCs who help them get to a covert hospital treating American operatives will earn their gratitude, where they tell the PCs that they can find them and the rest of their unit at the Grand Majestic Casino. The first contact area to visit in Panama City is the Geco Lounge, a multipurpose bar and restaurant. Local police are there, including the ones who were encountered during the traffic jam. Unless the PCs sneak in back there will be trouble, for the locals don’t like “Yanquis” and will harass the party. In the case of the police, if they recognize the PCs they don’t believe in coincidences and will attempt to arrest them. A pair of people in the kitchen in back are the PC’s main means of locating Botella/Larry: a Black Scorpions member named Ronaldo and Lia who is Larry’s lover, both of who are displeased with Larry for different reasons. Ronaldo is unhappy because Larry shot a Familia Duerendez cartel member, which will bring a bunch of heat down on him, and Lia feels betrayed that Larry left her in town to fend for herself. The PCs can learn that Botella’s real name is Larry Barrigan and find the names and locations of two of his safehouses outside town. Before leaving town, the PCs will need to get another vehicle, and they have multiple avenues: the first is stealing a car, albeit that can trigger an encounter from its owner, Chaime Bigotes, who is a local civilian fed up with the corruption in his country and a carjacking will be his last straw. He has his own unique stats and primarily fights with a shotgun and baseball bat, the latter of which he can use with a unique ability where anyone who moves into reach of him provokes an opportunity attack. As usual, gunshots can attract the attention of PDF soldiers and cops. Otherwise, the PCs can get a vehicle from their contact at the docks, who is actually being held hostage by six Dingbats. If rescued he will give the PCs a van that contains a PKM machine gun along with some food and water for rations. The other location is the Grand Majestic Casino where they can rendezvous with the other American special forces. There’s quite a few NPCs the party can interact with here, such as the casino boss who can tell the PCs that the PDF are also hunting for Larry and where to find one of his safehouses should they make a good enough impression via skill checks, locals who can tell the PCs more about the cartels, Larry Barrigan,* and the PDF. Then there are the American special forces who can give the PCs a Ford Bronco. *The highest skill check result can eliminate one of Larry’s hideouts as a false lead. But of greatest interest to the PCs is the person among the special forces soldiers: the one and only John Rambo! Initially lost in his own thoughts, he will be quiet but respectful should the PCs approach, eventually giving them some advice after listening to them talk: A PC who makes a particularly good impression on Rambo will have him give his signature bowie knife to them, saying they will need it more than he does. So what happens if the PCs are still in Panama City when the invasion begins? Well they will hear the telltale signs of aircraft to the east followed by a plume of flame lighting the sky followed by an explosion. An encounter will occur as the PCs are on a street, caught in the crossfire between American and Panamanian soldiers. Both sides will presume the PCs to be enemy soldiers should they be obviously packing heat and use Suppressive Fire,* although a Deception or Persuasion check can convince one of the sides that the PCs are allies. This will earn them a reprieve from that side but cause the other to become permanently hostile. PCs who don’t look like combatants will have the soldiers presume them to be civilians and will try to avoid attacking them. Stray explosions will kill and seriously wound several US soldiers three rounds into combat, and PCs can be caught in a moral dilemma on whether to safeguard them until backup arrives (takes 2 hours) or leave them. PCs can help the soldiers’ odds of survival via Medicine checks and moving them into a nearby house for cover. *An action type in Everyday Heroes where you expend multiple rounds of ammo to cover an AoE space for a round. Burst fire and fully automatic weapons have a larger AoE but consume more ammo. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/pSVt8IA.png[/img][/center] [b]Act II: Jungle Work[/b] takes place when the PCs leave Panama City to hunt down Larry Barrigan. Along the way they can trigger a few encounters, such as meeting a foreign botanist whose car broke down and is secretly working for the Familia Duerendez cartel to grow a particularly resilient strains of cocoa plant, or a sunken party boat which contains crocodiles in hiding plus a pack of Emergency Supplies whose only useful contents is a first-aid kit. The village of Nueva Bennto is one of Larry’s two safehouses and a dead lead as he is not there. Instead, several thugs for the Familia Duerendez cartel are also looking for Larry. It is possible that the PCs can initially trick or otherwise convince them to otherwise help each other out. However, the local accountant who is handling the cartel’s money happens to recognize the PC from past encounters* and angrily points them out, causing a fight to break out. The accountant uses Civilian stats and is practically a noncombatant, but the PCs can be fighting 8 or 9 NPCs, with the ninth potentially being the botanist they encountered earlier. The leader of the gang, Emilio Duerendez, has unique stats and can use a bonus action to nominate an enemy where all attacks have advantage against them until the beginning of Emilio’s next turn. The rest of the NPCs are a mixture of Heavies (high HP guys with light machine guns and matapuerco [serpentine wood] that is a melee attack that can Stun), Sicarios (higher Defense nimble guys who attack with pistols and can Disengage as a bonus action), and Halcones (youths and initiates who are weak and only equipped with knives who will attack downed opponents). This can be a pretty tough battle due to numbers and action economy, but there are oil drums which have a chance to explode (5-6 on a d6) dealing AoE fire damage if shot, and if Emilio is killed the rest of the cartel members will be more likely to flee or surrender if the encounter starts going against them. *The specifics of which depend on prior adventures and/or backstories as per GM discretion. Larry Barrigan’s real location is a shack at the top of a mountain summit. Their vehicle risks getting stuck in mud while going up via a unique encounter, and there are hairpin zig-zag roads which a group of Dingbats are located on in hopes of ambushing the PCs. If the PCs arrive in time they will find Larry in his Cabin, albeit under guard of the PDF. If the PCs are too late, the soldiers and Larry will be gone. The soldiers are Dingbats led by Zifar Balbosa, an NPC with unique stats who has a bandolier of WW2-era grenades. He proudly inherited them from his father’s, who due to their age aren’t entirely reliable and have a d6 table of random effects ranging from duds to delayed explosions to variable damage. Regardless of where or not the PCs manage to find and extract Barrigan, a group of US soldiers appear on the scene, beginning Act III. [b]Thoughts So Far:[/b] I like the premise of this adventure and its mixture of investigation, wilderness survival, and combat in tracking down the supposed mole. The variety in possible encounters based on PC actions and the variable time limit does much to prevent the adventure from feeling like a railroad and encourages players not to dilly-dally or camp in place. I will say that the adventure is closer in line to Rambo: First Blood than the later movies, in that PCs who go in loud risk biting off more than they can chew, particularly in Panama City. Being 2nd level they aren’t exactly bursting with hit points, and it is possible for a character to get downed easily in combat if the enemies get in lucky hits or focus fire. On the other hand, several encounters don’t necessarily cause potential enemies to attack on sight, and there are various means of non-violently bypassing them which mitigates this concern. But given that the mental image a lot of people have when it comes to Rambo is a super-soldier effortlessly mowing down hordes of bad guys unscathed, it is something that the GM needs to take into account and perhaps communicate to the players to avoid a TPK from reckless behavior. [b]Join us next time as we finish up the adventure and this book![/b] [/QUOTE]
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