Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Magic Realm: Day 5

Onto day 5 of our Magic Realm adventures.  During the first four days, the Black Knight first travelled through the Deep Woods, making note of the site of the Dragon's Lair.  He then made his way through several valleys to the Guardhouse, where he sold his shield to, and dispatched, the leader of the Guards, his hated foes, before running away.  Currently hanging around the Guardhouse is the Patrol, who the Black Knight is indifferent to.

During the first four days, we have collected 6 notoriety points (all for killing the Guard leader) and 11 gold (7 for selling the shield, and another 4 looted from the dead Guard's body).  We selected one fame, three notoriety and 1 gold as our victory conditions.  That actually translates into 10 fame (each fame victory point equals 10 fame), 60 notoriety (each notoriety victory point equals 20 notoriety) and 30 gold (each gold victory point equals 30 gold).  We have a long way to go to fulfil our victory conditions.


We are once again on the outskirts of the Guardhouse, having run away at the end of day 4.  Across the top of the screen is displayed everything that remains at the Guardhouse: two surviving Guards; three Patrol members; a helmet; a breastplate; a broadsword, two axes and a mace; two blue treasure cards; and, my shield.  All of that equipment and treasure was dropped by the now-deceased Guard leader.

Our first order of business is to head back to the Guardhouse, finish off the remaining Guards, and loot that pile of treasure.  For day 5, we will record the same actions as day 4: move to the Guardhouse, hide twice, and rest once, to recover from that fatiguing departure at the end of day 4.

At the start of day 5, we make a prowling monster roll of 4.  Once again, giants and trolls, and the Lancers. 


This monster roll will not affect us, as we remain within the safe confines of the valleys.  We will not encounter the Lancers either, as they appear only at the Chapel and the Campfires.

During the day, the Black Knight uses his first action to move to the Guardhouse.  His first hide attempt is successful, with rolls of 2 and 4.  Therefore the second hide attempt is redundant, and that action is lost.  His last action is a rest, and the Black Knight recovers the fatigue that was suffered at the end of day 4.

At this point, the Black Knight is hidden and fully rested.  There are two Guards and three Patrolmen at the Guardhouse. 


The Black Knight can probably kill three, and perhaps all, of the five remaining denizens.  He would, admittedly, have to be darned lucky to finish off all five, but it is possible.  But, we need the Patrol leader alive for a couple of days, because our plan is to sell him the Guard leader's dropped treasure, and collect the related gold, before we finish him off.  Don't forget ... this is the Black Knight we're talking about.  Treachery is his hallmark.

During the first round of combat, we take the same approach we did when finishing off the Guard leader.  First, from hiding, the Black Knight alerts his mace, using his FIGHT M5 chit.  Then, he surprise attacks Guard 1, using his alerted speed 3 mace and his FIGHT H6 chit.


Even though Guard 1 tries, at the last moment, to duck the Black Knight's attack, the alerted mace's speed of 3 undercuts the Guard's move of 5.  And since the Black Knight overswung his mace for a heavy blow, the Black Knight finishes off Guard 1.

Guard 2 wheels to confront our unexpected attack, while the bemused Patrol watches on the sidelines from the backs of their horses.


As we are within melee range of Guard 2, he is now at a disadvantage.  Normally, the Guard's greatsword, with its' extra reach compared to the Black Knight's stubby mace, would see us impaled before we could close the intervening distance, but that reach advantage is only available during initial contact in combat round 1.  In subsequent rounds,  weapon speed rules the battlefield.

Once again, we want to alert our mace, so we can take advantage of its alerted speed of 3.  While we were hidden, we had the luxury of leisurely alerting our mace.  Now that the Black Knight is no longer hidden, and in the thick of combat, we can only alert our mace if we can alert it faster than our opponent's move speed.  As the Guard's move speed is 5, we need a fight speed of 4 or less.  Fortunately, we have four fight chits that fit the bill.


We have two FIGHT M4* (somewhat fatiguing), and FIGHT H4** and FIGHT M3** (very fatiguing) chits.  We will use the FIGHT M4* chit to alert the mace, and set that chit aside, as it is temporarily unavailable since we used it to alert our weapon.  Alerting the mace will mean another dead Guard, and nary a scratch to the Black Knight, as our attack speed of 3 will land before the Guard has a chance to land a blow of his own.

The Black Knight once again plays his FIGHT H6 chit with the speed 3 alerted mace.  The Guard, meanwhile, tries to strike a quick blow by changing tactics and simultaneously dodging our attack, but to no avail.  His move speed of 6 is less than our attack speed of 3, and his attack speed of 4 is too slow to land a blow before my speed 3 mace crushes in the side of his head.


Our first two rounds of combat have resulted in a pair of dead Guards, no fatigue or wounds suffered by the Black Knight, 8 additional gold, and 18 additional points of notoriety (six notoriety for Guard 1, and twelve notoriety for Guard 2, since each foe after the first, defeated during the same day, is worth their notoriety times the order number in which they were defeated).

The Black Knight has collected a total of 24 notoriety, over one-third of the 60 notoriety required to fulfil his victory conditions.  He has also collected 19 gold.  That is nearly two-thirds of the 30 he needs to meet his gold victory conditions.

I mentioned that at least three of the five denizens can be defeated.  We can dispatch at least one Patrol member, since they are not expecting us to attack them.  The advantage of attacking the Patrol now is that the next opponent defeated with be worth three times his notoriety value, since he will be the third opponent dispatched during the same day.  The patrol are normally worth 3 notoriety.  Thus, one dispatched now will be worth 3 x 3 = 9 notoriety.  We will take the chance that we suffer one or more wounds while tangling with the Patrol, since the 9 notoriety is hard to pass up.

The Patrol is not expecting an attack, so we can alert our mace with our FIGHT M5 chit.  We select Patrol 1 as our target, since he is the easiest of the three to defeat, and we want to keep Patrol HQ (the leader) around for a couple of days so he can buy our loot.

 
 
The Patrol is a different foe from the Guards.  Each of the Patrolmen ride a workhorse, and inflict, at most, medium damage (by comparison, the Guards inflicted heavy and tremendous damage). 
 
Workhorses for Magic Realm denizens work the same as those ridden by the characters: you must eliminate the horse before you can attack the rider. 
 
 
Once again, we use our FIGHT H6 chit along with our speed 3 alerted mace.  The alerted mace is faster than the workhorse's move speed of 6, so undercuts the workhorse's attempt to dodge my attack.  The heavy damage of the fight chit is sufficient to eliminate the workhorse.
 

Having killed one of their workhorses, the three Patrolmen turn to confront the Black Knight.  They block our escape attempt, as the unhorsed Patrolman is too fast for us to outrun. 


That's okay, as we had intended to finish Patrol 1 off anyways.  The Patrolmen are also too fast for the Black Knight to alert his mace.  We'll have to do this the hard way, then.  We play the FIGHT H6 chit with our unalerted mace, and our MOVE H4** chit to try an avoid the Patrol attacks.


Well, we got the worst of that exchange.  By playing our MOVE H4**, we suffer fatigue during this combat round, Patrol 1 avoids our attack by switching tactics, and Patrol 2's attack connects, resulting in a wound to the Black Knight.  Our MOVE M4* chit becomes fatigued, and our FIGHT M5 chit becomes wounded.  We have lost two of our twelve action chits during this combat round.

The only upside in that combat round is that, since our attack missed, our mace is automatically alerted next round, giving us a faster attack. 

During the next round, we once again use our FIGHT H6 chit, now with our alerted, speed 3 mace, and play our MOVE H4** chit to maximize our chances of avoiding the Patrol's attacks.


Combat round 5 went much better for us!  Although Patrol 1 dodges our attack, again, he switches to his own, heavier attack, which also slows his move speed to 4.  Since our attack speed is 3, we undercut his dodge, killing him in the process.

Patrol 1's death adds another 9 notoriety to our score, for a total of 33/60 notoriety.  We also gain another 2 gold, bringing us to 21/30 gold.

We have incurred another point of fatigue, bringing us to 9/12 chits still available to us.  At this point, the Black Knight runs away, incurring another point of fatigue.  The Black Knight escapes as the two horse-mounted Patrol can't catch him.

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