GURPS Free Cities Session 13: Hobgoblin Ambush

Party:
Arc Sol - Human Cleric of Pelor, the god of the sun (303 points)
Aurum Red-Brand - Human Wizard (291 points)
Mor'ath Enanqua - Elven Swashbuckler/Thief (298 points)
Zaxod - Half-Orc Knight (298 points)

Day 23 (Cont.)
Weather: Stormy

While the rest of the party was scrambling out of their tents, Zaxod noticed that the hobgoblins had flanked them, and moved to attack the western group.  Mor'ath instantly readied his sword and acrobatically sprang to his feet to face the eastern group of hobgoblins while Aurum struggled to get out of his tent, due to the levitating disc being immediately above him.

Before Arc could exit his tent, one of the hobgoblin spearmen got in a quick jab for light damage, so he quickly readied his quarterstaff to defend.  Mor'ath noticed that there were also large numbers of archers on either side due to his Night Vision, and informed the rest of the party of this while eye-stabbing a spearman.  Zaxod rushed the hobgoblin who had attacked Arc but missed a punch, then dodged and readied The Axe while Aurum and Arc exited their tents and stood up.

The hobgoblin leader moved in slowly from the east and was blessed by an unholy cleric while the spearmen continued to encircle the group and the archers finished drawing their bows.  Mor'ath and Zaxod killed several more spearmen, but Aurum was stabbed, then shot with two arrows.  Arc cast Major Healing twice and got him out of the negatives, and Aurum finally readied his staff.

Several arrows bounced off of Zaxod, who continued carving a bloody path through the hobgoblins and switched to his greataxe, while Mor'ath moved to engage the hobgoblin leader but was unable to get a blow past his tower shield.  Arc and Aurum went back to back with Mor'ath and began casting Fireball and Dispel Magic.

Mor'ath managed a feint and landed an eye-stab on the leader, but the attack bounced off of the unholy force-field cast by the cleric.  Zaxod finished off the western spearmen and switched to the east, leaving the archers alive.  Aurum's fireball was blocked, but Arc successfully dispelled the force field from the leader, which was quickly followed with an eye-stab from Mor'ath.

Aurum was hit with several more arrows, and fell prone, hoping to dodge any more shots, while the hobgoblin leader stood back up and began attacking Mor'ath with renewed fury.  The cleric attacked with his longer spear but was repeatedly parried, and Arc cast Shield on himself.  Zaxod took out the rest of the spearmen, then Mor'ath finished off the leader, and the cleric yelled something in goblin while the archers began retreating to the west.  The cleric was killed by Mor'ath after a couple seconds of duelling, Arc and Zaxod took some arrows, though most were caught by their armour, and the battle was won.

3 hobgoblin archers managed to escape, while 1 was captured.  Zaxod wanted to torture it thanks to Bad Temper, while Arc demanded it be treated fairly due to Charitable.  After some arguing, Mor'ath stepped in due to Impatient and choked the hobgoblin out and tied it up.  Arc then cast Vigil on Zaxod so he could take the watch overnight, and another Major Healing on Aurum.

Day 24
Weather: Good
Arc cast Gift of Tongues and Compel Truth, but flubbed his attempt at Diplomacy, so the hobgoblin stayed silent.  After a quick huddle, and much complaining from Arc, Zaxod smashed one of the hobgoblin's hands and set him free.  The group planned to follow him to the hobgoblin base, and the missing hunter.

Notes:
Combat took 3.5 hours.  Likely due to both the number of characters involved, and the fact that all the spearmen were using tower shields.

Archers don't do any damage against even mail shirts 2/3 of the time with vanilla arrows.  Going to switch to bodkins in the future.  The better multiplier for impaling doesn't matter if the base is 0.

Aurum didn't really do anything this entire fight out of fear of running out of FP too early, and ended up only spending 2.  I think he's learned to never burn out so that he's able to contribute without rest.

Nobody actively tried to use cover, with "go back-to-back to prevent them from shooting us from behind" being the only defensive strategy.

Used campfire light as 0 lighting instead of -3.

Forgot to assign penalties for darkness almost entirely.  Need to check what the penalties are if something is attacking from a hex that's at a -3 penalty into a hex that's fully-lit.

Their idea to track the hobgoblin is good, though it would be better if one of them had actually taken Tracking, and they weren't relying on Arc's Naturalist-5.

XP:
2 for general success
1 for roleplaying
2 for the hardest fight
0 for loot
0 for quests
MVP went to Arc for the big heals.

Might reduce general success XP down to 1, because they basically get a guaranteed 3 unless they waste a ton of time.