This week marked the first day everyone in my gaming group and in my household were fully vaccinated, and we could at last begin to play in person again! I went with Basic Fantasy, an inexpensive and fairly comprehensive old school D&D clone, which feels somewhere in between B/X and AD&D: races AND classes, but simpler mechanics.
I probably should have spent more time reading the rules to familiarize myself with how the rules approach various situations, but it mostly went OK because one player, KO’ed early in the session, helped find the rules as we went.
The party was an interesting mix of rogues: a dwarf paladin, a half-human/half-elf assassin, a human bard/fighter, a human cleric, and a halfling scout. (Of the MANY optional rules available for BF, I decided to just use the Glain Companion, which are optional rules used by the rule’s original author. Hence the nonstandard classes.) They met in a tavern (of course) and were recruited to deal with a giant rat infestation (of course) which lead to a dungeon (of course). No points for originality there, but the players kept me on my toes with unexpected decisions and tactics.
They followed a trail to the apparent rat nest — a cave on the outskirts of the village. There were some larger tracks which alerted them to possible danger, and once inside the cave they were faced with three giant ferrets! The dwarf took the brunt of their assault, as the rest of the party used bows and slings. Two heavy hits from the ferrets (RZZZZZ!) brought the dwarf to negative HP, but the party managed to finish off the ferrets and drag him to safety outside the cave.
The party decided that rather than take the dwarf all the way back to the nearest farm, they’d try to collect some giant rat trophies to turn a quick profit. They tried to smoke the rats out by lighting a brush fire at the cave mouth, which was effective — a half dozen rats escaped the cave, in a panic, to be shot at by the party. Some of the rats escaped but the scout noticed a plume of smoke a hundred or so feet away coming from uphill, and investigated to find some ruins, where a stairway was acting as a chimney for the cave smoke. He went back to alert the party, but was followed by several javelin-hurling goblins. The party returned fire, killing a few goblins and sending the rest into retreat. At this point the party decided to press their luck and descend the stairs.
After dispatching one sentry, the party followed a twisting hallway to find a chamber with several goblins and hobgoblins waiting for them in ambush, firing crossbows. The party fired a volley in answer, and the next round the cleric and scout fled immediately, but the fighter/bard and assassin attempted to stand and fire while the hobgoblins reloaded…except the hobgoblins did not reload and instead charged, swords drawn. Both PCs were injured but not killed, and they decided to flee. Here the simple pursuit rules in BF proved to be the assassin’s undoing, and when the fighter/bard tried to help his companion escape, both were cut down by hobgoblins.
The pursuit rules were fairly simple: when being pursued, roll a save vs Death to avoid any obstacles on your way out (in this case doorways and tight corners). Failing means you are halted/delayed/tripped and the pursuers catch up! The assassin had to make two saves and failed one. Because the bard decided to stay and try to help his companion, both were engaged in the next round of melee and fell.
In fact I was unaware of the pursuit rules, but the dwarf player was helping look up rules as we went since his PC was out of the fray. I have to think the players might not have stood their ground had they know how difficult it is to flee. Lessons learned all around.
The remaining characters took the dwarf back to civilization. Replacement PCs were made, and we’ll give it another go next week!