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<blockquote data-quote="Tolamaker" data-source="post: 8767668" data-attributes="member: 7031495"><p>Session 44: The First Clash</p><p></p><p>The morning of the battle, Gallo's forces take up a line along the north west of the Otharil Vale. Alongside Michael's forces, their portion of the line is manned by four squads of soldiers, two troops of archers, a troop of Dashgoban knights, two chaplains from Gallo, and two war mages from Timor. The line arranges itself with the infantry at the front, with cavalry behind as support, followed by two cheval de frise(s?) where the archers and mages prepare to unleash missiles. The mages also bring with them a strange barrel carved with runes. "In case we need any help," they say. "Lady Timor has an agreement with an elemental."</p><p></p><p>The white valley of the Otharil Vale looks like a flooding river receding as Steppengards forces push forward to close the gap. Occasionally, a griffon will peel forward from the sea of banners, teasing out a few half-hearted arrows. One teases too far, and a shaft of ash through the neck sends it crashing down into the snow. Steppengards forces push on, steadily marching towards Gallo’s line.</p><p></p><p>Michael paces his horses back. “Gods I didn’t know it would be like this.” He grips his sword in its scabbard, his knuckles white. “Just come here already and be done with it!” Eventually, Steppengard’s forces seem to obey, as half of the oncoming line begins to double march. An older Dashgoban knight lifts her helmet to spit on the ground. “They’re going to crash into us twice. That’s how he broke Iztorun back in the day.”</p><p></p><p>Catapults stop about 1000 feet out, and begin loading their stones in place, sending testing flings towards Gallo's line. One boulder crashes into the knights, crushing dwarves and horses. The archers take up their arrows, and manage to drop two squads of infantry before they crash into the line. Griffons rise above the soldiers, flying straight towards the mages behind the line, and Gruz flies up on his broom to meet them. Eluriah and Aripose's arrows pepper an enormous minotaur among the forces.</p><p></p><p>As battle commences, Eluriah throws out a Wall of Fire, incinerating the minotaur, splitting the infantry, and slowing several troops' advance. A Steppengard commander maneuvers his troops effectively, wiping out a squad of Gallo soldiers before Michael's cavalry crashes into the line, disrupting them. The right flank is at a standstill until Dashgoban's knight's catch one of the squads off-guard, allowing Mishka to jump forward and finish off the survivors.</p><p></p><p>Once the soldiers are past her wall, Eluriah drops it, and raises a storm cloud above the battlefield, crashing lightning bolts on the right flank, targeting a prelate who attempted to Calm Emotions on the Gallo forces. In the air, Gruz fights sword and claw with a griffon, while Corban shoots fireballs at another until they fly away. On the left flank, Michael's cavalry are almost overwhelmed until the war mages slam Flame Spheres into the Steppengard infantry. With no one to support them, the Steppengard commander and prelate surrender. In four rounds of combat, the line begins to reorganize to face the second wave.</p><p></p><p><strong>Post-Session Thoughts</strong></p><p>Whoo boy, this was a fun one. I took a good 20-30 minutes explaining how the battle would work, doing math on how quickly people would arrive dashing 60 ft. a turn and how many arrow volleys would be allowed, and figuring out the ranges that PCs could start firing. After that long setup, the battle itself was actually very straightforward. The infantry squads really shredded each other, and the cavalry made a real difference. The mages were poorly placed, as it took several turns for their real spells to reach the fight. I think the archers did the most real damage.</p><p></p><p>The players really liked it. There were some real backs and forths as the armies ground against each other, with several crits on both sides, and its only by the sheer luck of the dice that only one squad of Gallo soldiers were lost, though several more were bloodied. The cavalry also took a beating. Similar to last session, the next will begin with a fireball from Thravanvost, because I forgot to do it during those four rounds.</p><p></p><p>The catapult was a bit of mess, for two reasons. One, I'm pretty sure I got the rules wrong. The book says you can skip the aiming step if they are aiming where it last landed, thus cutting down the number of rounds it took to launch, but I still made an aiming roll. That made it miss its next attack very badly, pushing back the firing time again. I plan on having it move forward to 400 feet the next wave, so that it doesn't have disadvantage, (and so that players can potentially counter attack)</p><p></p><p><strong>Changes to the Module</strong></p><p>So, I made a few changes, both to the stat blocks of the army, as well as the makeup of the battle itself. For stat blocks, I changed squads' resistances from slashing/bludgeoning/piercing to "all single points of damage". This was to make it so that squad on squad violence would go as normal, but the effects of a fire bolt or a swinging axe would be lessened. This is largely what contributed to the swingy nature of the fight, as it was not uncommon for 30-ish damage to happen, and the rolls from the infantry were quite good, considering they each had to hit either 18 or 19 AC. I also gave the Dashgoban Knights an ability that if they charged their whole movement, they dealt half damage even on a miss.</p><p></p><p>Half because I forgot, and half because I wanted the clerics to be useful, I also allowed healing, even single point healing like cure wounds. I don't think this made a huge difference, but I did like how it made the players change their target strategy.</p><p></p><p>For the makeup of the forces, instead of swapping all of the infantry for knights, I let the players decide what composition they wanted, with 2 squads of soldiers equalling one squad of knights. I also didn't bring in Granule the Rust Monster, because I made Michael and his cavalry a squad.</p><p></p><p>On Steppengard's side, I don't believe I changed anything, other than how far back the catapult is. In the book, the catapult has a range of up to 2,000 feet, <s>which made it weird in my head to think that it would place itself at 600 feet, right at longbow range, but still outside of normal intelligence checks</s>. (I got this wrong. Somehow I conflated the first wave beginning to charge with the catapult's location. It's supposed to hold back at 1900 feet.) So I pushed it <s>back a bit</s>, forward to 1000 feet, and it was largely useless due to disadvantaged rolls making me only roll over 10 once.</p><p></p><p>Next session, a fireball, the thunder of hooves, and the howls of trolls!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tolamaker, post: 8767668, member: 7031495"] Session 44: The First Clash The morning of the battle, Gallo's forces take up a line along the north west of the Otharil Vale. Alongside Michael's forces, their portion of the line is manned by four squads of soldiers, two troops of archers, a troop of Dashgoban knights, two chaplains from Gallo, and two war mages from Timor. The line arranges itself with the infantry at the front, with cavalry behind as support, followed by two cheval de frise(s?) where the archers and mages prepare to unleash missiles. The mages also bring with them a strange barrel carved with runes. "In case we need any help," they say. "Lady Timor has an agreement with an elemental." The white valley of the Otharil Vale looks like a flooding river receding as Steppengards forces push forward to close the gap. Occasionally, a griffon will peel forward from the sea of banners, teasing out a few half-hearted arrows. One teases too far, and a shaft of ash through the neck sends it crashing down into the snow. Steppengards forces push on, steadily marching towards Gallo’s line. Michael paces his horses back. “Gods I didn’t know it would be like this.” He grips his sword in its scabbard, his knuckles white. “Just come here already and be done with it!” Eventually, Steppengard’s forces seem to obey, as half of the oncoming line begins to double march. An older Dashgoban knight lifts her helmet to spit on the ground. “They’re going to crash into us twice. That’s how he broke Iztorun back in the day.” Catapults stop about 1000 feet out, and begin loading their stones in place, sending testing flings towards Gallo's line. One boulder crashes into the knights, crushing dwarves and horses. The archers take up their arrows, and manage to drop two squads of infantry before they crash into the line. Griffons rise above the soldiers, flying straight towards the mages behind the line, and Gruz flies up on his broom to meet them. Eluriah and Aripose's arrows pepper an enormous minotaur among the forces. As battle commences, Eluriah throws out a Wall of Fire, incinerating the minotaur, splitting the infantry, and slowing several troops' advance. A Steppengard commander maneuvers his troops effectively, wiping out a squad of Gallo soldiers before Michael's cavalry crashes into the line, disrupting them. The right flank is at a standstill until Dashgoban's knight's catch one of the squads off-guard, allowing Mishka to jump forward and finish off the survivors. Once the soldiers are past her wall, Eluriah drops it, and raises a storm cloud above the battlefield, crashing lightning bolts on the right flank, targeting a prelate who attempted to Calm Emotions on the Gallo forces. In the air, Gruz fights sword and claw with a griffon, while Corban shoots fireballs at another until they fly away. On the left flank, Michael's cavalry are almost overwhelmed until the war mages slam Flame Spheres into the Steppengard infantry. With no one to support them, the Steppengard commander and prelate surrender. In four rounds of combat, the line begins to reorganize to face the second wave. [B]Post-Session Thoughts[/B] Whoo boy, this was a fun one. I took a good 20-30 minutes explaining how the battle would work, doing math on how quickly people would arrive dashing 60 ft. a turn and how many arrow volleys would be allowed, and figuring out the ranges that PCs could start firing. After that long setup, the battle itself was actually very straightforward. The infantry squads really shredded each other, and the cavalry made a real difference. The mages were poorly placed, as it took several turns for their real spells to reach the fight. I think the archers did the most real damage. The players really liked it. There were some real backs and forths as the armies ground against each other, with several crits on both sides, and its only by the sheer luck of the dice that only one squad of Gallo soldiers were lost, though several more were bloodied. The cavalry also took a beating. Similar to last session, the next will begin with a fireball from Thravanvost, because I forgot to do it during those four rounds. The catapult was a bit of mess, for two reasons. One, I'm pretty sure I got the rules wrong. The book says you can skip the aiming step if they are aiming where it last landed, thus cutting down the number of rounds it took to launch, but I still made an aiming roll. That made it miss its next attack very badly, pushing back the firing time again. I plan on having it move forward to 400 feet the next wave, so that it doesn't have disadvantage, (and so that players can potentially counter attack) [B]Changes to the Module[/B] So, I made a few changes, both to the stat blocks of the army, as well as the makeup of the battle itself. For stat blocks, I changed squads' resistances from slashing/bludgeoning/piercing to "all single points of damage". This was to make it so that squad on squad violence would go as normal, but the effects of a fire bolt or a swinging axe would be lessened. This is largely what contributed to the swingy nature of the fight, as it was not uncommon for 30-ish damage to happen, and the rolls from the infantry were quite good, considering they each had to hit either 18 or 19 AC. I also gave the Dashgoban Knights an ability that if they charged their whole movement, they dealt half damage even on a miss. Half because I forgot, and half because I wanted the clerics to be useful, I also allowed healing, even single point healing like cure wounds. I don't think this made a huge difference, but I did like how it made the players change their target strategy. For the makeup of the forces, instead of swapping all of the infantry for knights, I let the players decide what composition they wanted, with 2 squads of soldiers equalling one squad of knights. I also didn't bring in Granule the Rust Monster, because I made Michael and his cavalry a squad. On Steppengard's side, I don't believe I changed anything, other than how far back the catapult is. In the book, the catapult has a range of up to 2,000 feet, [S]which made it weird in my head to think that it would place itself at 600 feet, right at longbow range, but still outside of normal intelligence checks[/S]. (I got this wrong. Somehow I conflated the first wave beginning to charge with the catapult's location. It's supposed to hold back at 1900 feet.) So I pushed it [S]back a bit[/S], forward to 1000 feet, and it was largely useless due to disadvantaged rolls making me only roll over 10 once. Next session, a fireball, the thunder of hooves, and the howls of trolls! [/QUOTE]
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