What was your largest/longest single combat?

While playing Mayfair's DC Heroes (a game I loved EXCEPT for the combat mechanics), we once had the FIRST ROUND of combat take over an hour and a half.. There were 13 players plus the GM, and each hero had his or her own villain to deal with (it was the big climax to a story arc that'd been building for over a year). When the last villain had his turn and it came back around to the top of the initiative chain, I stood up, said I'd be back, and went several blocks, grabbed a burger, then came back. It was still not my turn after I finished my meal.

We never played with a group that large again.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

The biggest battle I've run happened a few weeks ago. The party was level 5 and gestalted. They had a paladin|rogue/fighter, a cleric|rogue, and a druid|fighter. The druid also had a leopard animal companion.

The party stumbled onto a goblin village which was building a fake lighthouse to wreck ships along a major shipping lane. The came upon the goblin village via the jungle and through a lucky roll by the goblin in the watch tower were seen. I had drawn up a big map and created terrain and the players eyes got big when they saw what was coming. The tally was 23 goblins, 4 goblin fighters, 1 goblin sorc, 1 green hag|bard, 1 barghest (oh man did that thing get liberal use of devour) 4 Mutant Sahuagin and one fire elemental. About half the goblins ended up fighting each other because the hag and barghest were partners till the hag deceided to betray the barghest and try to take over the operation. The hag had tagged along with the party under illusion and made it seem like she was with the PCs. They were rather shocked when the goblin dispelled the "bard" and it turned into the hag, and then kept inspiring them.

Total rounds= 20.
Total Time= 3ish hours
Monsters killed= all
Players killed= 1.

The druid didnt make it out alive. During the course of the battle the cleric got holed up in a watch tower by sahuagins and arrived one round too late to save the druid.

It was a truely epic battle at level 5.
 

I have two that were both very long but very different. The first involved an attack on the city of Eugene, Oregon by a bunch of demons that had been sent there by and ex-member of our party. (Our game was played in an alternate earth setting.) That one took approximately 70 rounds to complete and took about three game sessions in real time simply because the various demons immediately split into groups and started attacking different parts of the city. So, the party (which was quite large) had to split into smaller groups and handle things sequentially. The other combat took only a single nine hour game session to resolve, and covered maybe ten rounds in game time. Basically, a cabal of druids were attempting to destroy the city of San Francisco using a maximized and empowered (thanks to a druidic artifact) Apocolypse from the Sky. Although the total number of rounds were smaller, the combat took so long to resolve because you had something like 15 druids and rangers plus all their animal companions against the party and a number of very powerful NPC's representing the city of San Francisco.
 

Ours was the epic conclusion of the mid-level story arc. (2E) Everyone was around 8th level. Three seperate battles all in and around the town of Loudwater in the Realms. The Battle Priest of Tempus lead a force of conscripts/militia and a mercenary force against a demon rasied army of goblinoids before the city gates.

The party (wannabe) Paladin, Wizard & Barbarian fought the Demon and his immediate Lts. My MU/Theif/Assasin fought mano-emano with the former (evil) head of the mercenary company a top the towns battelments. I was exteremely outgunned.

The whole battle lasted about 5 hours. I have no idea how many rounds because it was all out of sequence like a well run movie. The DM cut back and forth from scene to scene to further enhance an already very tense session.

We won. I was the only PC death (redeaming self sacrifice).

Truly epic session.
 



Remove ads

Top