DF Whiterock Session 85: The Gate of Narborg

Date:

2020-02-28

Weather:

Cold, light snow, session entirely underground

Player Characters:

Garreth, Half-Orc Fighter, 468 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 468 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 462 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 473 points

Significant NPCs:

Elias, Wood Elf Cleric (player not present)

Lance Corporal Wolfrik, Possessed duergar guard

21 Duergar guards

Hutgreth, Duergar watch captain

Zombie Ettin

Destrachan

Giant Bugs

We resumed in mid-battle, with our heroes attacking the duergar fortress of Narborg.  Seépravir was still Possessing Lance Corporal Wolfrik, and the duergar hadn't figured out that she was one of the invaders.  She was intermingled with the duergar guards and their destrachan on the western end of the causeway, closer to the gate of Narborg.  The rest of the PCs were still further east on the causeway, having survived one volley of crossbow bolts from Narborg, but Zaber was pretty badly wounded and without a Bless spell.

Progress of the assault on the gate of Narborg, at the end of this session.

Zaber drank a healing potion.  Polly shot the wounded destrachan twice, stunning it then killing it, then shot one of the duergar guards on the causeway.  Seépravir (still in Wolfrik's body) stopped maintaining a couple of spells she no longer needed, then cast Levitation on one of the nearby duergar, and critically succeeded.  Garreth, wary of more crossbow bolts, all-out defended.  Elias recovered his flail which was hanging by its lanyard.  The rear duergar on the causeway started readying their large shields, while the front ones moved up.  The ones on the firing deck Enlarged themselves, though the PCs couldn't see that.  Zaber put on his Ring of Invisibility.

Polly shot the wounded (and thus slow to dodge) duergar on the causeway in the vitals, killing him.  She then ran forward and shot the one next to Seépravir, killing him too, making the Levitation spell pretty useless.  Seépravir dropped the Levitation, and ran north toward the gate, pretending to flee from Polly.  Garreth kept All-Out Defending and ran forward.  Elias stepped toward the front two duergar and Waited.  The front duergar also stepped and Waited, which put one of them in Elias's reach, so he tried a flail shot to the skull, which the duergar blocked.  That triggered the duergar's Wait, so he tried a mace shot at Elias's torso, which Elias also blocked.  The duergar on the firing deck started cocking their crossbows.  Zaber drank another dose of healing potion.  Polly ran past the closest two duergar.  As she did, the one who hadn't used his Wait yet tried smashing her, but Garreth sacrificially parried the blow.  Polly continued until she was in position behind both duergar, outside their shield arcs.  She then shot one three times in the vitals from behind.  Because it was a runaround attack rather than an unseen rear attack, he was allowed to defend, but his only option was a dodge at -2 (for side/rear) and with no shield DB.  He failed to dodge the first one, took enough damage for a major wound, and failed his stun roll.  At that point his dodge was reduced to 4 or less, so Polly predictably put two more arrows into his vitals.  He made his first three death checks, but failed the fourth.

As she ran down the causeway toward the gate, Seépravir / Wolfrik caught a glimpse of an Enlarged duergar through an arrow slit.  She yelled for the duergar to open the gate and come help, which got no response.  Garreth used Rapier Wit on the surviving nearby duergar, insulting the length of his beard and suggesting surrender.  This resulted in mental stun.  Elias used Rapid Strike to doubly attack the stunned duergar with his flail.  The first one was parried, but the second one landed, with enough damage to slow the duergar.  The duergar spent his own turn recovering from stun, as his allies continued reloading.  Zaber invisibly ran up the causeway's support beam toward the arrow slits.  He needed to make a DX roll to stay on it, but that was easy for him.  (Of course he had a Flight spell on, so if he missed it would have just been an embarrassment not a fatal fall.)  Polly shot the wounded duergar in the back of the skull, knocking him unconscious.  Having no other good targets, she shot him again to finish him off, annoying Seépravir who always wants more duergar to possess.  Never wanting to not take a shot, she fired another arrow at an arrow slit hoping for a lucky hit, but failed to get one.  With no opponents remaining on the causeway, Garreth and Polly and Elias continued running toward the gate.

Seépravir used Blink to teleport through the closed gate.  This worked, and she ended up in a gatehouse, with a duergar guard and an ettin zombie.  She made her Body Sense roll and was free to act.  She pretended that she had been invisible (which duergar have as a racial ability) and it had just worn off.  The duergar guard was suspicious and readied his mace while yelling questions; the ettin zombie didn't do anything.  The duergar on the firing deck moved back up to their arrow slits.  Zaber flew up to the other side of the wall with the arrow slits, but well above them, and looked down at the slits wondering if he could squeeze through one.

Polly started shooting back through the arrow slits.  She hit the westernmost duergar in the face, stunning him.  Then she shot at the next one to the east.  He dodged, but this spoiled his aim.  She then shot the third one in line, hitting his face and stunning him.  Meanwhile, Seépravir tried Fast-Talking the duergar guard in the gatehouse.  She said the Impresario gave her a spell stone and she was bringing a message for the commander.  The duergar did not attack, but did not appear convinced either.  He asked to see The Impresario's seal.  Seépravir didn't have it, so she gave up on bluffing and just used Rapier Wit to stun him, followed by a Charm spell to enslave him.  She didn't like her roll so used Luck to retry it, and managed to defeat the duergar's spell resistance.  At that point Watch Captain Hutgreth became Lance Corporal Wolfrik's best friend.

Meanwhile, on the firing deck, the duergar who Polly hadn't stunned fired their crossbows.  Four aimed at Polly, and Garreth parried all four bolts with his katana and Parry Missile Weapons.  The other two aimed at Elias; he blocked one and dodged the other.  The duergar who shot stepped back away from the arrow slits, but the two stunned ones spent their who turns recovering from stun, so were still there for Polly to shoot again.  She put arrows on target for both, but both managed to drop and dodge out of line of sight.  One passed out from his wounds shortly afterward.

Zaber, still invisible, squeezed through an arrow slit and into the firing deck, where several duergar were busy cocking their crossbows.  It was a large room with arrow slits all around, and no furniture except a few practice targets and a few containers of crossbow bolts.  He looked around a bit, then headed for a door in the back of the room.  Polly ran down one of the causeway's supports and looked down into the deep smelly pit below.  She didn't immediately see much, so she fired a Continual Light arrow, which hit a ledge far below, and revealed some giant bugs crawling around.

Seépravir ordered the charmed watch captain to open the outside gate and then follow him in.  The watch captain in turn ordered the zombie ettin to spin the wheel on the wall to open the gate, then yelled for someone to raise the inner portcullis.  When it didn't go up right away, he yelled that he would throw someone in the trash pit in five seconds if the portcullis didn't start moving.  Garreth and Elias started sprinting toward the gate.  The zombie ettin reached the wheel but took a couple of seconds to make it start moving, then the heavy front gate slowly started opening.  

Polly reached the corner of the causeway, and saved a bit of time by jumping over the chasm.  (She had both a Flight spell and a Ring of Slow Fall so this wasn't as brave as it appeared.)  While flying throw the air she fired a few arrows at the arrow slits on general principle, but didn't hit anything.  Seépravir wasn't happy with the speed of the gate so tried pushing on it to make it open faster.  When she touched it, the gate screamed -- apparently there was a magic alarm.  Fortunately, her new friend Hutgreth knew the password to shut it up: "Hrolad."

Zaber turned down a passage behind the firing deck, toward the gate.  He spotted some stairs leading down to a blank wall, but didn't take the time to investigate.  He also drank some more healing potion.  Polly scanned the arrow slits looking for any duergar dumb enough to be in her line of sight, found one, and took a shot, but he dropped and dodged out of sight.

Seépravir asked Hutgreth how he controlled the zombie.  The watch captain replied that he had a key of corpse command.  Seépravir said to give it to her, and he pulled out a big evil-looking double-skull-ended magic key and handed it to her.  Garreth and Elias ran into the gatehouse.  Seépravir said "he's with us, one of the orcs."  Hutgreth asked if Garreth was a Bleak Arena fighter, and Seépravir said he was a winner.

Zaber continued down the passage, looked through an arrow slit, and saw the gatehouse with his friends inside.  He threw the wineskin of healing potions through the slit to Garreth, and hit him in the feet.  Polly, seeing no more targets, reluctantly joined her friends in the gatehouse.  They were all stuck behind a portcullis that still wasn't going up, despite Hutgreth's commands.  Seépravir looked through an arrow slit and saw a room with three levers.  Garreth started charging up Power Blow.

Seépravir orded the zombie to go north and pull out any crossbowmen.  She then Blinked to the room with the levers, and pulled the first lever, which opened the portcullis.  Meanwhile, Zaber saw some of the duergar with crossbows running down the hall to attempt to shoot the invaders through the arrow slits.  Polly picked up the wineskin of healing potions and drank some.

Hutgreth, seeing his best friend Wolfrik was gone, asked what that elf was doing there and where Wolfrik went.  Wolfrik yelled back through an arrow slit that she was on that side, and the elf look was just a really good disguise.  Seépravir pulled the second lever, opening the second portcullis blocking the passage north.  She then yelled that there were traitor dwarves, and that Hutgreth should kill any dwarf except her and the ones dressed as elves.  Surprisingly, Hutgreth fell for this, said said he knew those mercenaries weren't loyal, and asked if they were working for the Mountain King.

Zaber saw a duergar open a door to the north, into a large barracks full of duergar.  He yelled that all the lazy off-duty dwarves need to get ready to fight, as they're being invaded by elves and orcs, clearly led by drow.  Polly looked through an arrow slit and saw two duergar with crossbows on the other side.  She shot at one.  He heard the shot coming and tried dodging, but failed and was slowed and then shot twice more and then he died.  The other one yelled a warning, that the elf archer was inside and just got Rolf.  Seépravir pulled the third lever and raised the third portcullis.

Two surviving crossbow duergar ran right up to the arrow slit and fired point-blank shots at Polly.  She dodged both, as they swore at each other for getting in each other's way.  Then she shot one of them in the eye, for a critical hit, a knockout, and the right to wear a cool eye patch.  For good measure, she shot the other one in the torso, also knocking him out.

It was getting late, so we stopped at that point.  A whole lot of duergar were dead or knocked out, though Zaber found a whole more more still coming.  The passage north into the fortress was open.  And Seépravir, still inside a Possessed duergar, had both a Charmed duergar watch captain and an ettin zombie following her orders.

GM's Comments:

We sometimes forget this rule, so: critical success on a spell means no resistance roll.  DFRPG Spells page 14.

Arrow slits only expose a crossbow user's head, neck, arms, and hands, so only a shot to those hit locations will affect them.  Also, the user has the option of using their Step to move away from the arrow slit to reload after they shoot, becoming an invalid target except during the turns they actually spend aiming.  Finally, they can do a pop-up attack (step up to arrow slit, immediately fire, step away), making them immune to attacks except from someone Waiting for them to appear there, but that means no time to Aim and an extra -2 to hit.  The arrow slits don't go all the way to the floor, so someone who goes prone behind one leaves line of sight.

I ruled that Blink can be used without being attacked as a short-range teleport.  (Otherwise players will resort to asking their friends to attack them so they can use Blocking spells, which is silly.  Or punch themselves so they can try to evade their own attack, which is sillier.)  However it's still a Blocking spell, so all the drawbacks of Blocking spells still apply: you only get one per turn (so if you Blink into danger on your own turn, you can't use any Blocking spells to protect yourself until your turn comes around again), and you don't get an energy cost reduction for high skill.  (Spells that are listed as "Regular or Blocking" only have the drawbacks of a Blocking spell in Blocking mode, but spells that are only listed as Blocking have them all the time.)

I thought letting Zaber make an Escape roll to squeeze through an arrow slit was a bit generous, as those things are typically pretty narrow.  But it was also amusing, so I let him try at -6, and he succeeded.  I guess duergar are thick enough that they also make their arrow slits a wee bit wider than humans do.