Solo Adventures

Yes. I haven't posted in over a month. It's been crazy on the home front. Also, my stepson has gone back to school, so I only see him on the weekends now, meaning Solo time will be a little bit less frequent. A few weeks back I managed to get in the encounter I spoke of in my last post. I thought it would be a quick bang bang fight with some hoodlums, but it turned out to be a 2 hour long fight-fest! And here's what happened.

Donn has agreed to help Kelson (the leader of the River Rats gang in Fallcrest) fight the rival gang of the Porter's Guild this coming evening in the dark alleys of the thieves' quarter. He meets up with Kelson's second in command, Jim, who tells Donn to keep out of the way until he makes the call for him to join the fight. There are about 12 or so other members of the River Rats hidden about the area awaiting the signal from Jim to attack.

For this encounter I used a set of tiles I printed out called (ironically enough) dark alleys. You can find most of the tiles I've used thus far at this link;

http://myminiaturesite.altervista.or...20&%20Maps.htm

Donn chooses to get a bird's eye view of the scene by climbing onto a balcony of the building in the center of the map, while Klin (the drake companion) hides in the fog under his perch.

Soon after he is settled, the representatives for the Porter's Guild appear out of the gloom and meet with Jim near Donn's position. After a tense conversation which turns into a heated argument, Jim gives the signal and his boys pop out of their hiding spaces. Donn immediately puts an arrow into the head baddie (a gnome skulker) and the battle is joined!

Of course the Porter's guild came ready. Here is the list of minis I used for this fight.

Thieves' Guild:
3 halfling rogues
3 human rogues
2 tiefling rogues
4 half-elf assassins
1 elf raider (Jim)

Porter's Guild:
7 dwarf brawlers
5 halfling slingers
2 dwarf rogues
1 gnome skulk
1 half-orc rogue

The porter's guild is run by a burly dwarf brawler, so his henchmen tend to be as such as well. For the most part Donn stayed to the rooftop and rained arrows down on the gnome while the 2 gangs fought in small groups all over the map. I didn't want this to just be minions vs. minions, so I assigned each mini (except for Jim, the gnome and the half orc) 10 hit points each. And their attacks all did 5 points of damage on a hit. This worked out great, as the fight felt rather large to my son, and he could shoot at the enemies without getting shot back at (much) while Klin could run around and do battle as well.

Eventually the fight coalesced into the River Rats having a numbers advantage, but I had held the Half-Orc and a couple of the hafling slingers back. When I brought them in they immediately took out the remaining minions and the half-orc was just pounding people as I used the following stats for him;

Orc Raider - Level 3 Skirmisher - 150 XP

Initiative +5 Senses Perception +1; low-light vision
HP 46; Bloodied 23; see also warrior’s surge
AC 17; Fortitude 15, Refl ex 14, Will 12
Speed 6 (8 while charging)
Greataxe (standard; at-will) ✦ Weapon
+8 vs. AC; 1d12 + 3 damage (crit 1d12 + 15).
Handaxe (standard; at-will) ✦ Weapon
Ranged 5/10; +7 vs. AC; 1d6 + 3 damage; see also killer’s eye.
Warrior’s Surge (standard, usable only while bloodied; encounter)
✦ Healing, Weapon
The orc raider makes a melee basic attack and regains 11 hit points.
Killer’s Eye
When making a ranged attack, the orc raider ignores cover and concealment (but not total concealment) if the target is within 5 squares of it.
Alignment Chaotic evil Languages Common, Giant
Skills Endurance +8, Intimidate +5
Str 17 (+4) Dex 15 (+3) Wis 10 (+1)
Con 14 (+3) Int 8 (+0) Cha 9 (+0)
Equipment leather armor, greataxe, 4 handaxes

Donn was feeling fine about things until the half-orc started hurling hand axes at him. I also let him know that Jim needed to survive the fight in order for Donn to get any XP and not fall into a bad standing with the River Rats.

Jim went to 0 HP and I advised Donn that he needed to heal him or all would be lost. As he was occupied with the slingers climbing the building and the half-orc still chucking hand axes, I allowed him to have Klin run over and administer a healing potion on Jim. I had him roll to see if Klin could get the potion in his mouth and he rolled an 18. Jim was stabilized. (I can only imagine what the rules lawyers will say about that ).

Donn managed to defeat the slingers in a few rounds, and although he had taken some hits from the half-orc, he was able to use his daily on him and felled the large rogue. Jim awoke and thanked him for his help, adding that since all the other members of the fighting party had died, that Donn and Jim would only have to split the payment 2 ways rather than 14! Win!!

Next up, Donn either gets in some hot water with the River Rats, or he helps his local priest deal with the undead! We'll see what happens.