Monday 16 January 2017

GURPS Free Cities Session 34a: The Great Skeleton Battle Part II

Mor'ath Enanqua - Elven Swashbuckler/Thief (329 points)
Zaxod - Half-Orc Knight (368 points)

Mor'ath fell back to guard Aurum, but Zaxod failed to break free from the skeletons holding him.  Meanwhile, the kung-fu skeletons sliced Arc's neck open, mortally wounding, then killing him, and continuing on until they tore him completely to shreds.  The stone dwarf statues took advantage of the gap left by Mor'ath's movement, and began to encircle them while more kung-fu skeletons charged into close combat.

One of the skeletons grappling Zaxod was killed by Mor'ath, and Zaxod finished off the other himsel before taking a Giant Step and falling back beside Mor'ath.  The statues finished encircling the duo, and there was nowhere left to retreat.  Their backs to the wall, Mor'ath and Zaxod fought on.

There were simply too many enemies.  While they were both capable warriors, Mor'ath and Zaxod were each engaged by six foes, and attacked twelve times per second.  Zaxod struggled to damage the kung-fu skeletons, which seemed to take less damage from him than from Mor'ath, while Mor'ath stopped attacking and focused on defence, just so he could stay alive.  Zaxod continued fighting until he died on his feet two seconds later.

Seeing how hopeless the situation was (and successfully rolling under Code of Honour (Pirate's) and Sense of Duty (Adventuring Companions)), Mor'ath began trying to Evade past his attackers.  However, being in close combat and reduced to half move made this an ultimately fruitless effort, and, now even further outnumbered, Mor'ath was killed as well.

The graverobbers dealt with, the statues and skeletons returned to their tomb, continuing to stand guard until their resting place was disturbed again.

Notes:
It went about as well as I figured it would.  This fight shows just how bad it is to be outnumbered by tough enemies, especially when said enemies don't care if they die.  This wasn't helped by the PCs always being in close combat (-2 Parry), on bad footing from corpses (-1 all defences), and being below half health (half Dodge+move).

Zaxod spent some points buying up Axe/Mace, but it wasn't enough.  As an aside, he would have performed a fair bit better if either his off-hand axe was dwarven, he made Defensive Attacks, or he just used Rapid Strikes with his main hand.

In the last round, Mor'ath had a Fencing Parry of 18, but was under attack from three kung-fu skeletons and five statues, for a total of 16 attacks per round.

New characters are being discussed.  Zaxod will likely play a wizard, while Arc might be a martial artist and Aurum apparently wants to play a Knight.

No comments:

Post a Comment