Grimstone Hollow

... had to look like a penis, didn't it?

This is the 1st dungeon in the Self-play Tutorial series.

Arliss and Bertrand have just descended through an entrance from the outside, and have encountered the hobgoblins in their guardroom. The video for this combat can be viewed on Youtube, at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbTPP7MoVyM.

Front Guardroom

(transcript from video) To start, are Grimgor and Vargul surprised? [roll d6] ... and they're not. The next step is for the two parties, before anything can happen, to determine which one of them has initiative [d6 for each party] ... and as it happens, the party does.

Bertrand has an arrow, and his bow is out; the arrow isn't loaded, so at this time, Bertrand will begin loading his arrow. Bertrand doesn't have line-of-sight as can be seen, if I draw an arrow from here to here, he cannot see Grimgor because of the passage, and he cannot see Vargul for the same reason. Arliss will take two steps forward [into 0403], which costs two action points (AP), and while he does that he will draw out a dagger, which, because he's doing it with his hands and not his feet [which is to say, the draw is a free movement]], these do not cost any extra amount of action points to perform. Once he pulls out the dagger, he will stop at this point, and he will throw the dagger at Grimgor. [roll d20] And he misses with a 6.

While Bertrand is loading his bow, he will do the same [using his hands and feet for different tasks), and he will step forward the one hex he's allowed to move, into 0202. It is now the hobgoblin's turn.

One of the hobgoblins, Grimgor, is immediately going to turn around and run for help. So he's going to turn to this door, and he's going to open the door — which we will move there — and he will get to the point where he is standing there, because rounds are very short, he doesn't have time to completely leave [when taking into account that he must survey the situation and make a decision before running]; but his back will be to the party now.

Meanwhile, Vargul will pick up his flail from the table — or rather his morning star — and we'll just link that to the rest of Vargul — and he will turn. It takes him one [AP] to pick up his morning star and one to move into 0604; he has a total movement of 4 [AP] (they all have a total movement of 4) — so if he moves into 0503, he can't attack because he needs two full action points to attack. But he can engage Arliss in melee, which means Arliss can't easily back up into the hallway.

Not that Arliss intends to anyway, but Vargul's main point is to stop anybody from getting in the way of Grimgor going to get help. So he's basically going to sacrifice himself here, for the good of the entire lair, as it were, because they're protecting other hobgoblins that cannot be seen. So Vargul moves into 0503. That is the end of their turn.

He doesn't know that Arliss has pretty high strength. Arliss' strength is 18/53. It's +2 to hit; he's going to roll to attack Vargul [roll d20]... and he misses, he rolls a 9 [adjusted] which is not good enough.

Meanwhile, Bertrand's bow is loaded, so Bertrand's going to attack Vargul, with the bow [roll d20], and he's going to roll a natural 20. Now, that's pretty damn good at this moment. The natural 20 ... he rolls again — you can see that Vargul is not using a helmet — at the moment it's double damage; if he rolls another natural 20 it will be triple damage. And if he rolls a 19, it'll be triple damage because Vargul doesn't have a helmet. [roll d20] And he rolls a 12, so it's double damage. My long bow does d8 for damage. So, Bertrand rolls a d8, he rolls a 7, that's 14. Vargul has 9 hit points total, and as a soldier, he can go down to -5 without dying, but 9 minus 14 is -5, so Vargul will fall back to 0604, whereupon, he will die.

[While Vargul should be stated as still alive at "-5" hit points, the arrow causes a wound, which I overlooked mentioning in the video; Vargul would be stunned after Bertrand's hit, and would bleed out the round after]

Before that, we're just going to colour him dead.

All right. Now it is Grimgor's turn. He's going to run out of the room; he could fight Arliss, but he's got his commands, and he's going to slam the door closed, and before Arliss and Bertrand can actually get to the door and stop him, he's going to put a hook on the door, to hold it closed.

And that ... that's the battle. (transcript ends)

Post-combat

Arliss says to Bertrand, "Well done," and the latter, stoic like most paladins, merely shrugs. Though Arliss took part in the combat, no damage against the party was rewarded, so Bertrand receives the 140 experience points (9 h.p. plus negative damage) for the abrupt kill (and his being the only one to actually cause damage). Arliss stoops to loot Vargul's body, finding a smoking pipe and two gewgaws, which he hands to Bertrand, who obtains 6 x.p. for this now, and an additional 20 total x.p. should he sell them all later. Though we're not keeping track of encumbrance, the pipe weighs 1¾ oz.

Note: I'm going to retcon the possession of wood axes for both characters, in light of things that are likely to be encountered. I believe than a simple axe is going to end up being a critical requirement for dungeon delvers in this system. The generation for the space behind the door has been added, so as Arliss and Bertrand attack the door on this side, to break loose the hinges and knock the door down, I've produced this table for the space beyond the door.

Arliss examines the door as Bertrand removes the hobgoblin's leather armour; the creature's tough hide provides a natural armour class of 7. It's too heavy to carry with him, so he tosses it towards the entranceway, where it may be picked up later. Bertrand likewise recovers Arliss's dagger, which is thankfully unbroken, despite having hit the stone wall when Arliss missed. He rests the morning star atop the armour as Arliss begins to break free the hinges from the door, not concerned with the noise, as anyone behind the door already knows they're here. Soon the door is free of it's hinges, so that together the characters twist the door so that it hangs out of the way, ridding it's obstruction of the portal ...

The Sunken Room

The video for this combat can be viewed on Youtube, at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-R0vGqYt3M.

(transcript from video) Having broken through a doorway and cleared their way past the guardroom, they find themselves atop a long, low stair above a sunken room, some seven feet below them. Arliss, again leading, pauses at the top of the stairs. Bertrand, certain that there are enemies here, nocks an arrow in his bow, ready to fire the instant they encounter their next hobgoblin. He can hold this for only 5 rounds; then he must relax the string or risk overstretching the gut. They start down, and as they light at the bottom of the stairs, they can hear the sound of running feet coming from the south passage.

They take a position in the room, and as they do, they are confronted by four hobgoblins. Both sides are expecting combat, so there's no need to make a surprise check. But they do make an initiative check [roll d6 for each side] and the party loses initiative.

To begin with, Thornak steps into 1406; he's only two hexes away, that takes 2 AP, and immediately attacks Arliss with his godentag ... and he rolls a 5, and misses. Kragthar, seeing that Bertrand is ready to use his bow, moves the three hexes to 1206 and aggressively attacks him with the spear. Since combat is happening simultaneously, even though the rules are based on a turn system, Bertrand must defend himself; he cannot use in this close a proximity. So he has to drop the bow and pull out his sword. In the meantime, Grimgor, whom we've met before, will also take three steps and confront Arliss at this point. Elkar, who is a non-soldier; he's actually an old man who's come along to help because they're defending the lair — and there's really very little he can do, but you never know. He's going to step into 1408 and hold a reserve position, in case he needs to help somebody. That would be their turn. Kragthar and Grimgor do not have enough movement to actually attack Bertrand and Arliss.

Throwing his bow over his shoulder (2 AP) and drawing his sword (2 AP), Bertrand doesn't have enough movement to attack back, but now he is defending himself. Arliss, faced with Grimgor and Thornak, makes up his mind: he's going to attack Grimgor. So he turns and swings; he's had no luck hitting anyone in this whole campaign [roll] and he misses now. That's the party's turn.

Thornak still has 4 movement. It takes him 1 point to move out of 1406 and 1 point to move into 1405. That's two movement, but he's got four altogether and he needs to attack, so now he attacks Arliss. But he's attacking Arliss from his flank, because he is to the left of Arliss and slightly behind. So he gets +1 to hit Arliss; he rolls, gets 12, and misses. Grimgor's going to attack Arliss from the front using his morning star. [roll] Grimgor's going to roll an 8. Nobody can hit anything. Kragthar is going to attack with his spear against Bertrand; [roll] and he rolls a 19. And Kragthar has a 17 strength, and that gives him +1 to hit and +1 damage. So he's going to roll a d6 [roll] and he's going to cause 4 points of damage to Bertrand. Bertrand had 19 hit points, now he has 15.

Arliss has to make up his mind whether or not to leave Thornak on his flank and take care of Grimgor, or to turn on Thornak and give Grimgor his flank. So, there's really nothing he can do; he might as well just keep attacking Grimgor. [roll] So he rolls an 18! Arliss, using his battle axe, is +2 to hit and he's +3 damage [as his strength is 18/53], so he's going to roll a d8 and add 3 damage. He rolls an 8, he adds 3, that's 11, that's how many hit points Grimgor has. So Grimgor is going to be stunned. This means that Arliss has done more than 25% of Grimgor's total hit points, and as Grimgor is stunned, he staggers one round back; I mean, one hex back; he's not unconscious and he's not physically unaware, but he's off balance and he winds up falling back and out of the fight. This allows Arliss, who has two movement left after attacking Grimgor, to turn — and even though he is putting his back to Kragthar — he's able to put his front towards Thornak, thus remove the danger of having Thornak on his flank. However, it does mean that soon enough, Grimgor's going to come back into the fight.

Now, just so that we can keep track of what's going on, we're going to use this symbol (a red circle with a slash) to indicate that Grimgor is stunned, and cannot take any kind of attack with the hobgoblins next round.

Bertrand, now, turns to Kragthar and attacks him. [roll] And Bertrand rolls an 18. Bertrand's strength is 16; he has no bonuses, but he does get a +1 damage and he is using a long sword. So he rolls a d8, and he causes 6 damage. Kragthar has 12 hit points; he is also stunned. So he falls back, and we apply this same symbol to him, because he is also stunned. And that's the party's move.

Now Thornak can still attack, and Elkar here sees his opportunity; he sees Arliss' flank, he rushes forward, and even though he isn't trained, he is defending his lair. He needs a 21 to hit AC zero, so he needs a 16 to hit Arliss, because Arliss is within 2 hexes of Bertrand, and Bertrand has a continuous protection from malevolence [as the spell] that surrounds him, that gives him a -2 to all his opponent's attacks. That is due to his being a paladin. So Elkar has to roll 16 to hit; [roll] he rolls a 1! Which means he drops his club. We'll take the club out of his hand. Now, when dropping something, we roll a d8; the first two will be in Elkar's own hex, which is 1306; and then the others will be in a circle of six, starting in 1305 and moving clockwise. So, let's roll a d8 [rolls a '4'] and we find that Elkar's club is going to wind up in 1406 — and we'll put it a little closer to him. Now, he can go chase it there, but for the time being, he does not have a weapon in his hand.

Thornak is going to attack Arliss from the front. [roll] He is going to roll a 15, which is what he needs to hit Arliss; he also gets a +1 so it's a 16; which means he can use his godentag to good effect. He also does +1 damage, because he also has a 17 strength, being a hobgoblin (roll), and he rolls 6 damage. Now, Arliss has 21 hit points, but six damage is more than one-quarter of his total hit points, so now Arliss is stunned. Arliss falls back into 1206, because like the others, the effect is the same, and we put that [the symbol] on top of him. the rest of the turn for the hobgoblins is to remove this symbol from the two hobgoblins, but they do not attack.

It is now the party's attack, but only Bertrand can attack someone. He's got a lot of choices: he could attack Elkar in 1306. He could move to 1106, around Arliss, and engage Kragthar, hoping to knock him back, so that, effectively, Arliss wouldn't have his back to Kragthar. He could also attack Thornak as well. Really, it's up to him. I'm going to say that he moves to 1106 and attacks Kragthar, because, after all, that's who he's been fighting all this time. So we will have him do that, we'll roll a die, we'll see if he misses [roll] and he rolls a 10 and does, in fact, miss.

Kragthar is either going to choose to attack Arliss or he's going to attack Bertrand. I'm going to have him attack Bertrand. Arliss removes this [stun symbol] because after all the party's turn is now over, the way that the hobgoblin's turn was before. Elkar is going to move over here and retain his club — and we'll put that back in Elkar's hand. We should have rolled to see if that club broke [roll] and it did not. Thornak is going to move into 1305 and attack Arliss from the front [roll] and he's going to miss with an 8. And Grimgor ... well, Grimgor could come around and attack Bertrand, or he could move in and attack Arliss as he did before. We'll have him move back to 1306 and attack Arliss.

Now, Grimgor at the moment has zero hit points, but he's not dead; and there are negative hit points in my game world. He doesn't actually die until he's reduced to less than -5. And at the moment, being at zero, doesn't have any effect on his fighting capability. So even though Arliss could easily kill him in a single shot, he's going to jump in because, again, we are defending the lair [roll]. Grimgor jumps in and misses with a 10. So Kragthar has missed, Grimgor has missed, Thornak has missed, it is the party's turn again.

Note: This is most frustrating, but it should show I'm not scripting these fights. Kragthar has not attacked; that attack was forgotten. This actually happens in combats all the time; players are always announcing a round or more late that they forgot to attack in such and such a back round. The standing rule is, if the attack wasn't made, it missed. So it goes here.

All right, Arliss is going to turn on Grimgor. He knows Grimgor is the easiest kill, he's already hit Grimgor before, so he's going to naturally turn and swing at Grimgor. He's got that +2 to hit [roll] and he's going to roll a 14; a 14+2 is 16, the 16 hits. Arliss hits Grimgor for the d8+3. Now his minimum damage is 4; Grimgor could survive that. He [Arliss] is going to do 6 damage — that kills Grimgor once and for all. Grimgor's going to fall back into 1407, and we're going to colour him 'dead.' Arliss turns and faces Thornak. Bertrand has also already hit Kragthar, so Bertrand's going to try and hit Kragthar [roll] and he rolls a 7, which is not good enough to hit him.

So, that leaves the three of them. Now Elkar, who lost his weapon, he's going to have his hesitation; he has a 9 morale; that means he's not trained, he's not that hardened for combat. He's willing to fight, but he's not trained as a soldier. So this means that on 2d6, in order to get into this fight again, having dropped his weapon and feeling a little ashamed, he's going to need to roll a morale check and succeed at it before he can jump back into the fight. That's going to be a 9 on 2d6. [roll] He rolls a 5, so he stays back; in fact, he's going to move to 1505. Thornak, who is well and still hasn't been hit yet, is going to attack Arliss. [roll] He rolls a 4, and misses. Kragthar, who's a little frustrated at not being able to hit Bertrand again, [roll] is going to roll an 11, which also is not good enough to hit Bertrand.

Now the party is in a good position. Arliss has to hit Thornak, in order to begin to knock him out of the fight [roll] so Arliss rolls and 8 and misses. Bertrand has to hit Kragthar, and do better. Now, Arliss doesn't want to move to 1205 and he doesn't want to move to 1306, and Bertrand doesn't want to move to 1107 because the two of them, together, form a tighter bond against the enemy, than separately. So Bertrand's going to hold his position and attack Kragthar. [roll] And he's going to roll a 7. He misses as well.

Kragthar and Thornak would like to knock these two apart, but they have to make a morale [check against panic] because Grimgor died, and both of them are within that range. Elkar, Thornak and Kragthar are all going to make a morale check. Elkar's is a 9, so [roll] he fails his morale check, and he's going to run off; and we'll just throw him down this hallway here. Now Thornak, his morale is 7 [roll] so he's going to fail his morale, he's going to spend 2 [AP], back off, then he's going to take off down the hallway after Elkar. Kragthar has a morale of 6. Now, is he going to hold the line? [roll] No, he is not, he rolls a 4. He's going to spend 2 [AP], back off, and he's going to run down 1508.

Now, should the party separate and go after one or the other? Should the party stay together and go after one or the other? Neither is probably a good idea. At this point, they've seen that there are more hobgoblins, and that maybe there are too many for them to fight. So at the present, they're going to hold their ground, and we're going to end the combat here, and see what happens.

Epilogue: Now, I made the same mistake here that I made in the previous combat, and it happens once in a while. There's a lot of rules here, and if I don't have a player to remind me, often I have a tendency to forget certain rules, especially when they benefit the player. See, when Arliss did 11 damage to Grimgor, he wounded him. And each round thereafter, Grimgor would have been suffering a -1 penalty [to his hit points] until he stepped back and bound his wounds, or somehow achieved some other way of healing. It means that after that 11 point hit, Grimgor, who was wounded, would not have continued to fight, he would not have made that attack on Arliss. He would have moved away to a place where he could have staunched the bleeding and possibly survived, or maybe there's aid just around the corner, where he could have bound his wound. Since the fight happened, it doesn't matter. Grimgor is dead. Usually, when these sort of mistakes happen, I'd simply retcon the problem. In any case, that's it; that's the combat. (transcript ends)

Post-combat

Arliss, with his 8 intelligence, observes, "There are probably too many hobgoblins for us here," whereupon Bertrand, with his 9 intelligence responds, "How do you know? Maybe those were all there are."

Experience Awarded: During the combat, Arliss dealt 16 total damage to Grimgor, including the front 11 and the extra six needed to bring the hobgoblin to -6; he would have received x.p. for the wound damage, at any rate. He gets 160 x.p. for this. Bertrand dealt 6 damage to Kragthar, for 60 x.p. Arliss took 6, which equals 120 x.p.; Bertrand took 4, for 80 x.p. The total damage they took together, 10, is multiplied by 20 and then split evenly between them, so they both get an additional 100 x.p. Arliss has a strength above 15, so he gets a 10% bonus to his x.p.; this equals 380 x 1.1 = 418 x.p. Bertrand, a paladin, needs a 16 strength and 16 wisdom to get this bonus; his wisdom is 16, so he ends with 240 x.p. Arliss had no experience entering this combat, but the paladin did, so this brings Bertrand's total up to 427.

Arliss loots Grimgor's body, finding 1 trinket and 4 gewgaws. He splits the latter with the paladin and keeps the trinket for himself. This marginally adjusts their experience.

Reconsidering the struggle ahead of them, the players decide to retreat from the dungeon and seek aid from the outside, though they know not where they are in the game world. Leave Grimstone Hollow