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Sunday, March 9, 2014

Wherein the Party Nearly Suffers a Self Inflicted TPK

Last night was the 3rd and final session of the playtest of +David Przybyla upcoming Swords & Wizardry adventure, and the group had a blast with the playtest. An action and thinking styled adventure for the win.

The funny thing is, we almost killed ourselves right at the end.

We were engaged with adversaries to out north. The ranger and monk were doing a decent job taking them down, and my cleric was doing the "accent" work. The magic-user had previously quaffed a flying potion and was hovering near the ceiling.

Suddenly, we had adversaries coming from the south. Creatures that had previously set our monk's clothing on fire (he was thankful that he was under the protection of fire resistance midway through.

Not wanting the party to be trapped between two forces, the magic-user cast a Web spell. Regretfully, it was slightly misplaced - it caught the incoming from the south, but it also caught the party on the ground. Only the cleric saved. Our bruisers were webbed and the two (soon to be one) adversary to the north were not.

I spent much of the remaining combat bleeding out my Cure Light Wounds wand to keep from dropping as the ranger fought to free himself from the webs. I think if I had dropped, the magic-user would have been forced to flee, and the remainder of the party would have been lost.

Actually, in truth, my first instinct was to run when the web was down and I was the last man standing on the ground. Thankfully, we pulled our collective asses out of the fire and achieved our mission's goal.

Fun times. I really enjoyed getting some time in as a player in some S&W session :)

5 comments:

  1. Sounded like an awesome session. I love the FLOW of S&W and any other old school game. I bet the GM did not even slowdown the entire session!


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  2. Sounds like a great adventure.

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  3. Cure Light Wounds wand?

    That's actually one of the things that "broke" 3e. Everyone would have cure light wounds wands.

    And the super reliance on proper positioning is also very 3e-ish. In most old school games I've played, we didn't have a battle mat or anything and just realized that the MU had enough common sense not to web the party.

    Sounds more like Pathfinder or 3e than old school

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    1. 10 charges - only useable by a Cleric - could just as easily been a bunch of scrolls

      as for the positioning, as the MU was hovering above us in a hectic combat situation and wanted to place the web spell precisely, the DM had him roll a INT check (int or under on a 20) - he rolled a nat 20

      No minis or tokens were used or harmed in our game session ;)

      Old School gaming means thinking outside the written rules, improving and relying on the judgment of the DM - DM Fiat in IOW.

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    2. Jeremy,

      I ran the game session in question. The foes in question had been incoming for a couple of rounds. The first round the characters spotted them, the magic-user tried a sleep spell, which did not work. When he tried web the next round, the party was engaged, which is why he could not be perfectly selective with the web. I can only say that during the session it felt like the right decision for the circumstances. I don't see how that would necessarily make it Pathfinder or 3e.

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