Eaglesford Campaign: "Strange Lights"

[Videssian]

Yeah, they do have extremely Lawful tendencies for a bunch of Goblins, don't they? Hmmm....


You mean like several hours of nocturnal work while some unsuspecting so-called heroes are left alone all night in a well-defended but broken tower?

Yeah, I figured as much.

Unfortunately we let Mr. Powder Keg lead again.

Well, something tells me that we won't be getting much rest this time.. we ended last session with a combat done and some goblins interrogated.. but the RBDM isn't letting us ending the night with a nice restful sleep.. no, Nail has nefarious plans afoot, I'm thinking it might be a mad dash to the end.. we know from Kytum-up that after going down the long series of stairs that we see ahead of us that there's a large room,followed by another room, then a yet larger room.. methinks that there's just too many goblins that can fit in said rooms! I don't know but next session should be verrrrrry interesting!!

I suppose in a pinch if we needed to escape there's those two secret doors that we could use.. 'course, it might require some serious tunneling as the goblins didn't make use of them.. still, Riva does have a shovel..

 

[Nail]

Yeah, they do have extremely Lawful tendencies for a bunch of Goblins, don't they? Hmmm....

I should probably let this pass, but:

Huh? What part of their actions have seemed Lawful to you? Are all of their actions Lawful?

"Of one mind..."???? Huh?

 

[DrSpunj]

I should probably let this pass, but:

Huh? What part of their actions have seemed Lawful to you? Are all of their actions Lawful?

"Of one mind..."???? Huh?

All, no. Most, yeah, I think so. Especially recently.

Goblins have a poor grasp of strategy and are cowardly by nature, tending to flee the field if a battle turns against them. With proper supervision, though, they can implement reasonably complex plans, and in such circumstances their numbers can be a deadly advantage.

Each battle with them has shown an improvement in their tactics and behavior. The few we encountered on the road south from Eaglesford broke nearly after we killed the first one. Each successive battle has required us to take out more and/or take out the leaders of each band before the remainder scattered and ran.

Last session this pattern culminated with Garret and Kytum-Up killing the ballista crew and subduing the leader (your description, Nail, not ours) of the goblins. The 4 goblins flanking the water/caltrop corridor were in dead end passages with no chance of escape (since the secret doors in those chambers Riva believes are unusable or perhaps not even identified by the goblins), yet despite all odds they fought nearly "until the bitter end". Their leader was down, they had no chance of escape, they had lost their advantages of surprise and numbers when we had first their leader then Kytum-Up demand their surrender. Did they lay down their weapons? No, not until we had taken out 2 more of them (after another 30+" of real-time battle) and they were facing multiple ranged weapons at near point blank range.

These goblins are exceptionally disciplined, exhibiting far more Lawful tendencies than any of us have reason to expect from them. They fight more like very well-trained army units rather than creatures whose advantages are limited to overwhelming numbers and ambushes.

Their tactics in the forest made sense: surprise & ambush us, then cut out when they'd either done enough damage and/or we took too many of them out to be comfortable.

Now they're utilizing near suicidal tactics. They have become far more organized (hence Lawful) and far more effective because of it. If they can keep baiting us into their traps, we might as well kill each other and save them the trouble.

Just my 4 coppers, of course!

 

[Nail]

All, no. Most, yeah, I think so. Especially recently.

There have been 9 encounters so far, so you've seen much of goblin behavior. Let's break it down:

**********************
Encounter #1: "Bump into goblin patrol"
Result: ran away after only a few losses. Kept fleeing, then returning, then fleeing.

Encounter #2: "Run into Goblin camp"
Result: ran away after a few losses, left PCs with most of goblin treasure.

Encounter #3: "PCs surprise Goblin Patrol"
Result: ran away after substantial losses and death of one of the leaders.

Encounter #4: "Goblin rogues ambush PCs"
Result: Ran away after a few rounds, even when the battle could have swung in their favor (mage, cleric, druid all down, fighters scattered)

Encounter #5: "PCs surprise goblin watch post"
Result: goblin watchers don't signal main base, shoot a few arrows, then try to flee.

Encounter #6: "Goblin out gathering firewood"
Results: goblins slaughtered

Encounter #7: "PC break through the gate house of Alderslook"
Results: most goblins caught napping or playing dice, even with generally un-quiet PCs sneaking up on them. Only those goblins out of reach of PCs (in tower) didn't flee.

Encounter #8:"PCs commando raid on the tower"
Result: Although in a very strong position, goblins fail to capitalize on it. Flee at first sign of real danger.

Encounter #9: "Adventure threashing maching"
Result: Goblins surrender, but only when pressed. Goblins in side passages not really "pressed", until that &^^%#&^ Web spell plus fire.
*********************

Dunno. Doesn't seem very Lawful to me. YMMV.

 

[DrSpunj]

There have been 9 encounters so far, so you've seen much of goblin behavior. Let's break it down:

**********************
<snip>
*********************

Dunno. Doesn't seem very Lawful to me. YMMV.

It does. We have different viewpoints on the situation which makes it difficult for you to be objective, I think. The trend, even in your descriptions, gets more organized and more strategically disciplined.

You have the benefit of knowing why they stayed each round or turned and ran. I, OTOH, see their resolve strengthening over all 9 encounters until, this last time, we had them outnumbered, cornered, and overwhelmed...and they STILL didn't give up when pressed, OR try to flee. I'm more concerned about why they agreed to be placed in those dead-end passages to begin with, without at least some reassurance of a back door or plan for retreat (after all, even the goblins in the tower had those elven ropes to use, even if they were to stupid to use them earlier in the battle, but then, their leader was the last one standing, not one of the first to fall as was the case this last time).

Something has their backs up, and I would understand if that something is present and therefore more threatening than we are. That's how leadership through fear works. But if that's what's going on, we're not seeing it. We're there, in front of them. We're killing their comrades and taking down their leader. They're trapped. Continuing to fight under those circumstances seems outright heroic to me, and not something Garret expects from what he understands about goblins.

YMMV.

 

[Gina]

Something has their backs up, and I would understand if that something is present and therefore more threatening than we are. That's how leadership through fear works. But if that's what's going on, we're not seeing it. We're there, in front of them. We're killing their comrades and taking down their leader. They're trapped. Continuing to fight under those circumstances seems outright heroic to me, and not something Garret expects from what he understands about goblins.

I think that what we are all starting to believe is that something or someone has these Goblins working for them and has been coaching them in battle tactics and has put the fear of the Unnamed One into them ensuring that they don't back down! They do seem to be acting as cohesive units, employing tactics that seem far beyond what one would normally expect from goblins.

Of course, we also believed that all Kobolds must be evil and that evil clerics could not turn undead but rather, would control them, so we could be wrong and the goblins were following orders and figured that if they surrendered, we would cut them down where they stood, and thought that it would be better to go down fighting, since they did have a superior position and knew that they had done some significant damage to us.

The point here is that our beliefs have been turned upside down over and over recently.....I think that part of the interesting element of this campaign (or sort of not really a campaign) is that what we believe IS so often not correct....makes us think that we don't have all the answers to everything!

I do think that the goblins are acting more disciplined as we move toward their lair, however, it could simply be that in comparison to us, they are pretty disciplined, because we certainly are not!

It also appears that the goblins are under attack from various fronts....the undead have been attacking them, the captives said that the creature will kill them all....frankly, we may be the least threatening thing they have been up against recently!

Rowan, who only has a very vague grasp of tactics herself!

 

[Nail]

.... The trend, even in your descriptions, gets more organized and more strategically disciplined.....

......You have the benefit of knowing why they stayed each round or turned and ran. I, OTOH, see their resolve strengthening over all 9 encounters...

Excellent analysis (from both DrSpunj and Gina)! No complaints from the man behind the curtain.

As an aside: How does resolve relate to alignment? I do not always connect the two. I know several Libertarians (for example) whose resolve to carry through a course of action is quite strong.

 

[Gina]

As an aside: How does resolve relate to alignment? I do not always connect the two. I know several Libertarians (for example) whose resolve to carry through a course of action is quite strong.

In this case, resolve and discipline are kind of interchangeable I think. They are showing the discipline of seasoned soldiers, not cutting and running as we would expect goblins to do. To someone with miltiary training (Garret), I would think that this looks very much like lawful behavior.

Rowan

 

[DrSpunj]

Thank you, Gina. I can go through the Goblin description again, and pull out SRD quotes from the Alignment section, but that's a fair summation.

Rereading things over again, I think this point is where much of our difference of opinion lies, Nail:

Encounter #9: "Adventure threashing maching"
Result: Goblins surrender, but only when pressed. Goblins in side passages not really "pressed", until that &^^%#&^ Web spell plus fire.

And yet, even after that &^^%#&^ Web spell plus fire they STILL didn't back down, even after another of their number died of Asmathias' poison!

Anyway, I believe they were "pressed" from the moment we appeared and cut-off their escape.

Given the goblin description up above noting "strength in numbers" and "cowardly by nature", I am of the opinion that no sane goblin acting true to his nature would agree to any plan where he starts off being backed into a dead end corridor facing enemies that have penetrated this far into the goblin stronghold. I can see a goblin agreeing while his very strong, very angry, very deadly leader-type is standing there bullying him into it, but after that leader disappears, I would expect most to bolt and run to save their own cowardly hide.

The number of goblins involved in that combat was...8, right? 4 providing the flanking ambush, 3 at the end of the corridor, plus their leader manning the ballista. Our party contains...7. Hardly an advantage in numbers to bolster their resolve.

On top of that, the starting positions of the 4 flanking goblins was a suicide mission. If they don't have the individual strength, or strength in numbers to effectively beat us, and they don't have a way to escape, they're knowingly agreeing to fight until the bitter end. Since I can't believe they are doing so for the "greater good" of the goblin tribe, Garret is left thinking that they are following orders as extremely well-disciplined, well-seasoned troops do.

DrSpunj

 

[Nail]

Since I can't believe they are doing so for the "greater good" of the goblin tribe, Garret is left thinking that they are following orders as extremely well-disciplined, well-seasoned troops do.

Hmmm.

Well, I'd like you to continue to be able to use the rules, logic etc. I'd like players to be able to "think ahead" of the situation, and as a player I've only found that possible if the DM has a reasonably structured setting. I'm sure all of you agree.

So I really feel I have to address this "goblins = lawful" issue. (Goblins are Neutral Evil, BTW. Neither Chaotic nor Lawful.)

I disagree that the goblins are acting "Lawfully".

Of course, this whole discussion is tinged with an incomplete picture of the facts. That's a given.

Setting that aside, I disagree that anything the goblins have done is a "suicide mission". That phrase rather over-states the situation. Without revealing too much, it seemed pretty clear that the ambush into which you stumbled had an excellent chance of killing you, and, for most invaders, would be an excellent way of defending their lair. That the plan is not perfect, and has holes in its planning, discipline, and execution, should be typical of the goblin approach.

For example, the hiding goblins did not have to reveal themselves. Them revealing themselves may have been caused by their belief they could win, and win easily. In fact, there may have been other goblins, in other positions, that chose not to reveal themselves, again with that sort of "cowardly calculus" in mind. You may remember that although your position at the "Intersection of Death"(tm) was bad, your position at other parts of the battlefield was not so bad.

The "backed into a corner" statement is accurate, though I think you should conceed it is your PCs that are doing the "backing". You should also consider the intelligence (both accuracy and timeliness) the goblins have with respect to you. A timeline might be helpful when thinking about this.

I agree that the "seasoned" adjective is appropriate when applied to the goblins who ambushed you. I do not agree that seasoned = lawful.

The goblins you just encountered were better than those you've run into previously. Why or how that is is up to interpretation and further fact-finding. How many more of these "superior goblins" there are.....is also left for further fact-finding. It is safe to assume there is not an indefinite supply. I do, in fact, keep track of how many are killed, in what circumstance (surpirsed, slaughtered, etc), and where other groups might be. I also do not treat goblin tribes as "one mind" or "one unit". My hope is that your experience with the gatehouse up above might give hints in that direction. You have noted various leaders and leadership styles, I'm sure. Perhaps a question of why those goblins were up there, given the efficiency of this ambush, might have also crossed your mind.

Regardless, I always take these sorts of criticisms seriously, and I will carefully think over what the goblins are doing, planning, have available, know about their situation, etc. I have some former gaming friends that I'll run this by as well. We'll see!

.....I'm getting way too serious here. Game on, man!