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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mtdesing" data-source="post: 5542112" data-attributes="member: 80043">Back from the DeadWell, my hero is ‘dead’, so that definitely puts a cramp in my style. However, as I said when I started, I need to find creative ways to keep him alive. Here’s the creative (read: bogus) reason that Judah lives: the spiders were not sent to kill him; they were sent to capture him. Their venom is a special long-term paralytic. He awakens some time later to find himself chained somewhere dark, cold and particularly unpleasant. Something is with him in the dark. It speaks.“Judah Marakev… my, how interesting this is. And here we all thought you were dead. Well, I can correct that quickly enough. Just tell me where the girl is, and I’ll end your suffering at once. I promise.”Judah has to sustain torture. We’ll do this as escalating might rolls. I didn’t write torture rules (they seem a little grim for a game of high adventure), but I could see situations like this arising, and I think that the core rules provide enough guidance to work this out. We’ll run this as one scene wherein Judah has to make consecutive might resist rolls, starting at DR 10 and increasing +1 each turn to DR 14. If Judah fails one of these rolls, he is in too much pain, and has to say something; he can lie, but will have to make an unmodified 2D roll vs. the target’s intuition; and her intuition is +5, so this will be difficult. If he fails 2 might rolls, he tells the truth of where the girl is. Yeah, I know I’m being vague. It’s all in the novel, and it’s not likely to be that important for what we’ll do here. We’ll see…Oh, and by the way, Judah doesn’t know this, but help is on the way. The DR of the cavalry coming is 13. He rolls unmodified 2D every round, taking a cumulative +1 to the roll. Basically, we’re going to see if he can hold out until help comes. Anyway, she begins turning the thumb screws (in this case, quite literally). • First roll (DR 10) 8+4=12. He makes it, and spits in her face, telling her she’ll have to do better than that! (oh, he’s such a tough guy right now. Wait a few rounds and we’ll see). I roll for help, and get 5+0=5. Crickets.• Second roll (DR 11) 3+4=7. Ouch. Now that one hurt. He will spend a resolve point, focusing on swordplay and running a mock combat in his head (adding his melee +5 to the roll, bumping it up to 12). He grimaces under the pain, but will not give up the location of the girl. Rolling for help to arrive, I get 7+1=8. Not yet.• Third roll (DR 12) 8+4=12. Oooooh the pain! He makes it though, coughing up some blood. Help, I need somebody- and I get 7+2=9. This is not the DR 13, so we continue.• Fourth roll (DR 13) 3+4=7. Even a resolve point will not help him here, so he goes with the lying route. “Okay, I’ll tell you… the girl is being held in the Monastery of the Silver Dragon – in the Vale of Eternal Winters” He rolls 10+0=10, and this is actually a pretty convincing lie. The torturer rolls 9+5=14, and suspects the lie. Judah spends a resolve point, adding his intuition to the roll, faking a reaction of self-loathing after this revelation that seems more genuine than the first lie – this is probably helped by the fact that Judah just realized dozens of peaceful monks are going to be slaughtered as his foes follow up this lead. She laughs, and sets down the branding iron she was about to use… “okay, friends… you can have him.” From the shadows, several humanoid creatures step forward. Blue light flickers around the female who’s been torturing him, and she disappears (teleporting out of the chamber). If Judah didn’t need help before, he sure does now… 4+3=7. Not yet… and even his final resolve point won’t help him.• Round Five. The humanoids move in: 10 N’Orks (a level 8 group- so waaay beyond his abilities- especially chained to a wall!). We’ll say that they get to take turns, 5 at a time, coming up and laying the smack down on him. Basically, they are now going to beat him to death. Yeah, this scene is not going well at all. They won’t start hitting until next round, so we’ll see if friends arrive. They’ll alternate rounds, giving him even more time to live through a bruising… 6+4=10. Still no help. Judah could use the resolve point here, but he’ll bank it in case he needs it to stay alive later. I’m a little gun shy from spending the final resolve point before and not getting much for it.• Round Six. The first five lay the beat down. They roll 12+4+5 (for 5 en masse) = 21 to hit; Judah is DR 7 since he’s a helpless target; they hit by +14; for damage, they roll 7+4+14=25 wounds, less his armor soak of 8+4=12; Judah suffers 13 wounds, leaving him at 17 wounds. He’s really crossing his fingers that help comes (and so am I! I don’t think I can find a way to resurrect him this time). Lucky for all of us, the roll is 11+5=16! The air behind the N’Orks shimmers with a teleport spell, and three figures step through- Judah’s help has finally arrived, and none too soon. Here are the stats for the N’Orks…N’Ork (15 CPs); physical soak +3; spiked club +3 (attack +4/damage +4)Arms +3; Evade +2; Intuition +2; Might +4; Weapon Specialist +1 (clubs)</blockquote>

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