Inspiration was to do a battlefield crawl as outlined in Burgs & Baliffs Warfare Too article Battlefield Events - Reviewed here. I wanted to try a combat grind, something where there was long, low intensity combat and no chance to rest. The hordes of goblins, orcs and hobgoblins loose on the battlefield were not going to be an individually mortal threat but in their mass maybe?
The core piece of the Battlefield Events piece is that you get into an encounter then you have d6+2 rounds before the next bunch rolls over you. Given that the received wisdom is that on average a party of PC's is going to crush peer foes in ~ 3 rounds I wanted to see how this played out in practice.
I worked up a map by getting some high-rest photos of corroded metal, patching in some fortifications and then fuzzing the whole thing up with powerpoint tools. I used to be able to do all this in photoshop but my skills there have long since rusted away and I am dubious whether the time spent to re-sharpen them would be worth it. The outcome below is good enough I think.
The set up was - a goblin warlord from the dead elven homeworld marched off to meet his god on Acheron long, long ago and took his standard with him. This standard is said to still hang in his old abandoned fort. The elven temple oracles got a read on this pace when they divined that it would be destroyed shortly when another of the cubes of Avalas, Acherons first layer, would collide with the site where the standard was and destroy it, cutting off that timeline. The adventurers were rounded up in a hurry and packed off to fetch this standard.
The time pressure - and the looming, visible cube - kept things moving - no time for short rests, never mind long rests.
** What worked well:
- Got a bunch of new people together, tested the upper ceiling of how many I can run for in a remote environment
- Stopped sweating the perfection of maps and made some good enough ones that were good enough
- Roll20/D&DBeyond w/ Beyond20 proved robust to people new to it being guided by others 'look mid left, beside the little symbol' without it slowing things down much
- I rolled up some proper opposition for an interesting fight on the third playtest, it turned into a nice tactical fight and this time I remembered to apply Bloodlust.
- Bloodlust rule; add temporary hitpoitns = 1/2 total to anyone who kills someone; remembered to apply it only in the first and third tests, was critical in the third test.
- Coming back after a mid-session bio-break with a full 'heres what you see, hear, smell, feel' re-intro to set the scene again.
- Getting the evocative corroded metal, cold, grey lit, echoing with the sounds of battle environs across consistently
- Deploying Acherai as a signature monster for that plane - slight glass cannon but scary when they got their hits in.
** What needed improvement
- Do not run for more than five again. A sixth person tips things over into just a bit too long, just a bit too noisy. Maybe it could be doable with a group with a lot of experience playing together, one with a settled dynamic.
- I respected the dice too much for number of foes - with six in the party I should have just accepted maximum number of minor foes encountered. It all worked somewhat better with the table of three.
- Compatibility with Apple technology - one player could not get Beyond20 to play nice with their hardware which inconvenienced them
- I did not write down my monster stats and ended up doing an on-the-fly conversion from AD&D which was a nuisance
- Failing to purge the chat channel left some spoilers lying around but they were minor
- Forgot to apply Bloodlust rules in the second session, pity - it is very appropriately flavoursome
- Applied the spell-reflection rule in the second playtest, could be really interesting in another game set in Acheron, for this time-constrained piece it was a bit of a red herring.
- This was a combat-heavy grind; I think it was more fun for those that had done other Splinters episodes and got that there was more than just this - those coming fresh to it were flung in the deep end somewhat. Acheron is not a joyous place.
** Most favoured moments
- Quogon dealing some serious damage to an Acherai with heat-metal on their metal legs - and understanding enough infernal to get the curses it was shrieking at him
- "The Ravenqueen forbids hustling"
- Dawnlight once again grabbing the item being sought and this time also hoisting a team-mate before running away from monsters at top speed
- Theo Doe using his knowledge of spoke goblin to foul up ambush plans by joining their shouted planning conversations and confusing everything
- People getting bummed when Umboll the bugbear petitioner is unable to depart the plane with them
Group 1 - In-house testing team
Cleric, Wizard, Bard, Fighter, Ranger
Group 2 - The Seekers
Quogon - tortle cleric of twilight (returning)
Tudur Arlanik - dwarf cleric (returning)
Pruhaly - tabaxi warlock (returning)
Dmitri Schiller - human fighter/wizard
Theo Doe - human ranger
Guruk Stonewalker - minotaur barbarian
Group 3 - The Dancers for the Ravenqueen
Hale Umbrato - Shadar Kai ranger (returning)
Senna Brownlock - halfling fighter (returning)
Dawn Light - tabaxi rogue (returning)
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