Solo RPG Campaign 7. Rules of Engagement

 Preparation

A number of weeks had passed since the previous delve. This adventure begins on 4/13 and lasts 3 days in-game (more than that out of game, as usual). Incidentally, this timekeeping method has been working well-enough for me so far. I synch the game-world time and real-world time on the first day of a new adventure, then take however long the adventure takes (usually more real world days than game world days). But I try to keep the adventure to a fairly discrete unit -- short and limited in scope -- and I return to town when its completed. Then, before the next adventure (or perhaps on the first day of it if I'm lazy) I determine and adjudicate the character's downtime actions, to bring them up to the new present. I realize this isn't quite the approved brosr way to do things, since I'm still playing in the past, rather than into the future, but it's still a departure from conventional pause-time. My eventual goal is to get through an entire adventure in one sitting, but just I'm not there yet. I've joked on twitter that, instead of my characters being in time jail, I'm the one in time jail, and my characters in downtime are waiting for me to become available to play them again.

As mentioned in the previous report, my goal for this adventure (and the next one too, as it would turn out; spoilers) is to interact with the combat rules in more detail than simple to-hit and damage rolls, and in doing so, hopefully clear out the goblin lair and take whatever treasure they might have. In particular, I was learning what constitutes being "engaged".

Last session's reminder of my characters' mortality prompted me to purchase some reserve XP, at least for the three remaining OG characters (Chadonius, Marzipan, and Edelweiss). Reserve XP is an ACKS mechanic that provides new characters a starting-point if the old one dies (e.g. if I lose Edelweiss, her replacement will now begin with 450 XP). Chadonius purchases a heavy helm, which will make him more likely to survive mortal wounds. But because it has to be imported, it will not be available for this session (and he is still waiting for the Chainmail that he ordered back at the end of Februaruy!). Edelweiss purchases a Hunting Dog, and Radnor imports a War Dog with leather barding. This will arrive sooner than Chadonius' helmet, and will be available on this delve. They also purchase some more Horsetail -- an herb that makes mortal wounds more survivable -- but it will not arrive before the end of May. Healing herb availability seems to be one of the more stringent limiting factors for my party at the moment, at least while operating out of this class VI market village. The party also picks up a set of manacles, in case they take another goblin as prisoner.

At this point, I also considered purchasing some 0th-level henchmen, but I was already learning the more detailed combat rules, and decided not to try figuring out the rules for creating, using, and leveling 0th level characters at the same time, as they seemed to be spread between the players' rulebook and the judge's rulebook in a non-intuitive way. Fortunately, the dice would provide me an easier alternative opportunity for henchmen once I got started.

In the last post, I asked how the goblins would react to my incursion into their lair. To answer this question, I made up a reaction roll chart. There might be a "more correct" way to do this in ACKS, involving calculating the population and economics of some nearby goblin domain, but if so I'm not doing that (yet). I just need a result:

12: They leave the dungeon, taking their treasure with them (this is the least hostile reaction, but it also means I don't get paid).

9-11: Increased patrols (greater chance of wandering monsters).

6-8: The above (patrols), plus traps throughout the dungeon.

3-5: The above, plus 1d3 additional gangs of reinforcements.

2: The above, plus raids on local farms.

I was going to add a negative modifier since a few weeks had passed since the previous delve, but I didn't need to bother, since I rolled a 2.  I wasn't sure exactly what the ramifications of local raids would mean, but as I read through the goblin entry in the MM, I noticed that a goblin village has a chance for enslaved captives. Although this is a lair, not a village, given the reaction roll, I checked the dice, and determined that, indeed, the goblins had taken 5 captives. Since 5 people constitute a standard ACKS family, I interpreted this to mean that they have enslaved a farmer and his family. No doubt, this is payback for my having used Beguile Humanoid on one of their own, and the party will have possibly even heard rumors of a missing family. The goblin war is on, and now there are stakes!

The party begins their journey to the shrine on 4/13, a balmy and mostly cloudy day. En route, they encounter a warband of 32 Raiders, which sounds bad (I'm not sure where they're from, or who they're raiding), but a reaction roll says they aren't particularly interested in the party, so Chadonius parleys with them and improves their mood to friendly. According to the rules, this allows the option to potentially hire them as henchman, so Chadonius and Marzipan each make offers to one of the 1-1HD raiders (named Beornwulf and Wuldric, respectively) and they accept. This brings the total party strength to 10, consisting of 6 PC's, 2 henchmen, and 2 dogs. They reach the safety of their hidden ledge, and the night passes without incident.

Delve

It's a warm, mostly cloudy day on 4/14, when the party descends into the dungeon to face the remaining 7 goblin warbands. Suspecting that the goblins may have set up traps, Jelyssa takes her time to methodically search for them, probing ahead with her 10' pole.

GM note: I don't think I stuck to this the whole way through, but at least as a starting point, I decided each 10' square would have a 1-in-20 chance of a trap, and a wandering goblin patrol would appear on a 5 or 6 every two turns.

After 20 minutes of searching, they are still slowly making their way through room #1, when a goblin gang enters the room from the west door. Neither side is surprised. The first wave of goblin attacks miss. Marzipan attempts to choke their champion but fails, allowing the champion to sound the alarm. Because of this, I decided that another gang of goblins might appear during the battle. Edelweiss cleaves, and takes out two of the goblins. Marzipan's henchman, Wuldric, is armed with a spear, which allows him to successfully kill a goblin from the second rank, behind Radnor's War Dog. This battle is somewhat cramped around the doorway, and not all combatants are able to participate on either side, especially since ranged weapons cannot fire into a melee (unless you have the Precise Shot feat proficiency, which Edelweiss does). 

During the second round, almost all the combatants miss one another, although Chadonius cleaves, taking out two more goblins. There's now enough room that some of the back rank of goblins who had not participated yet, and were still in room #2, will be able to advance. Meanwhile, alerted by the champion's alarm, a second band consisting of three goblins enters from the one-way door in the north wall, flanking the party! 

Chadonius' henchman Beornwulf, who only has 1hp, and had  been in the back of the party firing arrows now finds himself dodging blows from the new goblin champion. Radnor uses his Berserkergang rage to take out two of these goblins (including the champion), while Beornwulf switches to his handaxe and takes out a third. The ambush has failed. A few more hits, and the goblins require a morale check, which fails, and they begin to disengage. My notes on exactly what happened next are a bit muddled, as I was constantly forgetting to apply various modifiers for when goblins were retreating or cowering, and the rules weren't clear to me whether they were even capable of opening a door in this state. 

At any rate, the final remaining goblin champion tried escaping through the south door, and pretty much the entire party attacked and missed him for a round or more before he was finally put out of his misery. While that was occurring, Radnor's war dog was chasing down another goblin who was fleeing to the north corner of the room. He killed the goblin, but in the process, activated a pit trap and lost 3hp in the fall. Yes, during this battle, I had to remember that if I entered an unsearched square, to roll for the presence of traps. Jelyssa uses her rope to climb down into the pit trap and secure the dog so it could be lifted out, and Zephira uses some of the comfrey on it to heal it 1hp.

GM Note: I know ACKS II has added an entire subsystem of rules for climbing and traversing, and rappelling, and hoisting characters up on ropes, but frankly, I couldn't be bothered to stop the game and look them up to reread them at this point, just to climb out of a 10' pit, as I was rather fatigued from running a lengthy combat. So, for better or worse, I just handwaved that this was able to happen. At least in this case, it seems that success is eventually guaranteed anyway, likely with very little cost and there's not much to be gained from rolling. 

What I'm finding in general, though, is that the more complex and detailed the rules get, the stronger the temptation is to just handwave them away, which I generally don't want to do. On the other hand, there's also a tendency to want to be as thorough as possible, and look up every single possible rule (and it's not always clear ahead of time which rules exist and which don't, much less where they would be found if they do exist). But looking up each and every thing within 1,500 pages of rules is onerous, and my time and attention are limited. Sometimes things have to slide. I will have to learn the climbing rules another time (just like I will have to learn the rules for generating 0th level characters another time).

The party continues methodically searching for traps, and decides to take the south corridor (#3-4), the long way around, hoping they can get back to the medicine room without encountering another party (the door here is supposed to be one-way, but perhaps they can bash or batter it). Alas, another wandering monster roll comes up positive, indicating that there is a goblin patrol in this hallway. As the goblin patrol are all bunched up in the corner, Jelyssa is able to lob a flask of military oil into their midst with great effect. The dogs rush in to attack as well, and Radnor's war dog, who had just gotten healed from the pitfall, gets dropped to 1hp. The rest of the party is having trouble maneuvering in the narrow corridor, or reaching the melee, since the dogs are blocking the way. Chadonius physically grabs the war dog and pulls it out of the way so that Radnor can advance to the front line (apparently, one goblin with 6hp gets absolutely beaten to a pulp with an attack that dealt 19 damage; even with a d10 great axe, +2 strength, and +1 bonus damage, I can't account for how that number is so high, and I didn't write it down in my notes). Zephira spends a Lay On Hands, and a casting of Cure Light Wounds Injuries to bring the War Dog up 5hp, and by this point, the two remaining goblins decide that they have had enough and begin to retreat. Chadonius cautions the team not to chase after them, as they have not thoroughly searched the hall for traps yet. Edelweiss manages to kill one with a parting shot, but the final goblin escapes with only 1hp.

The party continues down the hall (#4), methodically searching for traps, and finds one. Jelyssa attempts to disarm it and critically fails, falling in (this result is specified by the rules). She suffers 5 damage from the fall, bringing her to -1hp, and knocking her unconscious. And now we have a true dilemma, because Jelyssa was carrying the rope, so it is at the bottom of the pit with her, leaving no easy way to get to her for healing, nor to get her out. Fortunately, Radnor has a solution. He has some healing herbs, a rank of healing, and enough hit points to survive a drop into the pit, so he jumps in after her (dropping him from 8hp to 5hp) and patches her up. It turns out she was fortunate, and has only suffered minor scarring in the form of a messed-up ear. Radnor also uses some comfrey, to restore her another 1hp, and they exit the pit trap. 

The party rests, and takes stock of its supplies. A significant portion of their healing capability has been expended (largely due to the pit traps) and four of the characters are down from full health, including all three of the "tankiest" characters (Chadonius, Radnor, and the War Dog). Additionally, I was disappointed and ready for this session to end, and I had probably spent several days on it (though I don't have the real-life duration recorded).

Aftermath

The party is not molested on their way out of the dungeon. Disappointed by another treasure-less delve that expended party resources, and that only earned them 90 XP divided 7 ways, I let each character take one short sword and one short bow off the goblins. These would sell at a reduced price, earning the party an additional 53gp (and therefore 53 more XP, bringing the total to 143, or 20 per share). In retrospect, even that was somewhat cheating, because in the class VI market, I would only be able to sell one of each per month (not all eight that I recovered). Well, that's just great (sarcasm!) -- not only are the goblins sapping my healing resources and failing to provide any meaningful treasure or XP in return, but the one thing I could conceivably take, their rusty poor-quality weapons, are still too rich for this small town to even consider buying.

The party crosses paths with some shepherds on the way home, but nothing comes of it. It will take a few days of rest for them to recover to full health. The goblin lair, in the mean time, will keep high patrols, but will not gain additional reinforcements. Also, the farmer family is still being held as slaves.

Rules Reflections

The rules for engagement are rather different in ACKS II, specifically because they use facing to determine engagement. Other rulesets I've played or read (BFRPG, OSE, 3.5e, and even a quick skim of ACKS I) generally do not take facing into account -- merely being within 5' counts as being engaged. But in ACKS II, the opponent must be within one of your three frontal squares to be engaged. I know ACKS in general is unashamed of its wargaming roots, and is meant to seamlessly handle mass combats as any other wargame would do, so it makes sense that facing would be included at some level.

It's not clear how engagement would work in TotM (presumably it would have to either be imagined and tracked by the GM and clearly communicated to the players, or it would just be declared by GM fiat -- neither is particularly satisfactory for a solo player), and if using hexes for combat you would have to house rule which hexes are considered front, flank, and rear, as this isn't provided. Facing cannot just be ignored because attacking in the rear is a major way to catch a creature in a vulnerable condition, which is required in order to make backstabs and ambushes work, so if you drop it, you would be nerfing thieves, and similar classes.

Come to think of it, I think I keep forgetting that surprised opponents also count as vulnerable, and thus are both easier to hit, and eligible for ambushing. That's even more punishing than just losing the first round.

The additional wrinkle is that opponents can sometimes make a free facing change when it is not their turn, which means your attempt to backstab an opponent fails because they just turn to face you. The way to get around this is to be Hiding or Sneaking, or for the opponent to be engaged by one of your allies, based on their proximity and facing. Solving this three-body-problem successfully has been a little beyond my current skills, since my recent battles (and in the next session as well) have involved containing a mob of goblins around a narrow door or hallway, and if I have a party member to the rear of that, then I've done something very, very wrong.

At any rate, it will take additional playing to ingrain this new system, and pick up all the intricacies of it.