Solo RPG Campaign - 3. Shrine Delve 2: Ferret Boogaloo

This would turn out to be a short delve, to get back into the swing of things, as I fumble my way through ACKS for the first time. The session occurred over a few days, roughly in mid-February, but I can't be more specific. The first new ACKS rule that I engaged with was the optional rule for abstracted monthly living expenses -- each character is required to spend a month's worth of wages (25 gp at level 1) for their downtime. (I'm ignoring the fact that I was away from adventuring for more than 1 month). This left me relatively poor, and meant the PC's would need to adventure again to fill their money purses.

On the way to the shrine, the party overtakes a pilgrimage, consisting of 12 pilgrims, 4 crusaders, and an explorer. At first, they are a bit stand-offish, but Chadonius speaks with them and warns them that the shrine has been corrupted and overrun with chaotic monsters. They want no part of that, so he convinces them to redirect to Sapperton, where the shrine's priestess had relocated.

They enter the shrine through the same broken window as before, and descend the stairs to the basement (room 1). Since, on their previous expedition they had gone to the left, this time, they decide to go right. Jelyssa listens at the door, and hears the squeaking of giant ferrets. She steps back and lets the fighters open the door. Despite having heard the ferrets, the party still ends up surprised because the ferrets are not immediately in sight when they open the door -- they are instead confronted with a hallway that turns north (numbered 7), and the ferrets are a few squares to the north.

Rules Note: In ACKS II, rolling for surprise is rather more involved than in other B/X-based games. You must determine for each side, whether it had foreknowledge of the other party before combat, and whether it has line of sight on its opponent at the moment the encounter begins. These are cross-referenced on a matrix that tells you whether you can be surprised, and if so, what modifiers to apply to the surprise roll throw. This can lead to odd situations like the current one, where even though the party knows there is a monster present, they are still surprised. Alternatively, (as I would find out in future encounters) you could have no foreknowledge or line-of-sight to the enemy, but still, paradoxically, end up unsurprised, and might even win initiative. This is an intentional effect, meant to simulate the intuition that something is about to go wrong. The rule is even given a special name: the "I Have a Bad Feeling About This" Memorial Rule.

I will be struggling with the surprise rules for several more sessions, though I think it's slowly starting to sink in. However, as a solo player without a "prepared" dungeon, I'm currently unconvinced that this additional level of detail is worth the added complexity, relative to a single abstracted surprise roll. Especially as it requires stopping play to determine a number of additional factors (foreknowledge and line-of-sight of both sides) before surprise can even be rolled. I can only assume these more detailed rules are useful in a more typical player vs. DM situation, or perhaps even in a PvP wargame situation, which ACKS is intended to support. Regardless, I want to try following the game as presented (as closely as possible, given my very limited knowledge of it so far), rather than just arbitrarily dismissing things I don't understand.

Anyway... back to the battle. The party is caught unawares by 5 giant ferrets, and is unable to act on the first round, though fortunately the ferrets are somewhat bottled in by the corridor. The ensuing combat lasts for 3 rounds, during which time, Radnor loses 3 hp but he and Chadonius each cleave once. Jelyssa fails to hit anything, and Edelweiss does inflict a hit, but falls below 1 hp and suffers a mortal wound. Rolling on the mortal wounds table reveals that she had a finger on her right hand nibbled off, and will require a week to recover from shock. Radnor joins her in the back of the marching order, while Grimace moves to the front to fill the gap.

The hallway continues north to a 4-way X-junction, but before reaching that, there are two doors, one on each side of the door. Jelyssa listens at both doors and hears nothing. They decide to go through the left (west) door first, and Chadonius is the first to enter the room (number 8). Unfortunately, he steps on a pressure plate, triggering a log to swing down from the ceiling. He is able to dodge it but Grimace fails to do so, and suffers a mortal wound of his own. He is not as lucky as Edelweiss was: he caught the log full brunt of the log straight to his face, and his jaw had been crushed leaving him unable to speak. With no way to be healed, he chokes on his own blood one round later. Note: I had not yet worked out how to use the Healing proficiency that Radnor has, nor had I purchased any healing herbs.

However, the silver lining is that this room contains a chest with some treasure: 2,000 sp, 4 ornamental gems (worth 85 gp total) and 4 trinkets of jewelry (worth 1,198 gp). They discover a hidden one-way door in the south wall which leads them back to the first room and after a quick ten-minute rest, they decide now is a good time to cut their losses and leave, before any other calamities befall them. The entire delve has lasted about an hour. No encounters occur on the way back to town. Between the ferrets and the treasure, they have each earned 311 XP and more than enough gold to pay their monthly upkeep.

Rules Note: Even at 1st level, the cleaves are useful and fun (and I've heard the same from others). Having two fighters able to do them really took care of those ferrets, though I'm not entirely sure I handled movement correctly (I'll need to check that section again). The mortal wounds tables are also a nice touch of detail.

There is an interesting coincidence with the random tables here. When I was playing under the BFRPG rules, my first two encounters were with Cobras, which led me to believe that perhaps this shrine had fallen to some sort of serpent cult (a frequent theme in REH's Conan, for example). However, the primary ACKS wandering monster table does not include cobras, but does include giant ferrets. IRL, ferrets are proficient snake hunters, as youtube will attest. Likely, what has happened, is that the giant ferrets were hunting the cobras, and have now largely cleared them out. Thus we are unlikely to encounter more cobras. But was this a natural occurence, of their own accord, or did someone release them into the dungeon for that purpose?