BSSS - Session 11

 Summary

This session was mostly confused on the final preparations for storming the inner gatehouse of the Eternal Bridge, and the actual fight itself and its consequences.

Characters

• Maru the Witch - 4rd Level Diabolist Sorcerer
• Rajini - 2nd Level Sorceress [Now Dead]
• Athra - 4th Level Fighter
• Gal-Naha the Giant Gecko - 3rd Level Giant Lizard
• Arrim - 1st level Fighter
• Alorus - 1st level Vivimancer Sorcerer

Session Recap

We pick up where we left off last time, with the party returning to the Undying City and using their last week of Downtime to prepare for the upcoming fight. The gatehouse was scouted, people went to buy extra equipment (and also animals for the new sorcerer's trick) and a chance encounter with one of the sorcerer-priests of the Pale Stillness of Justice ended up with him bound and gagged and his and his men's clothes appropriated for ease of entering into the locked down gatehouse.  They also got in touch with a contact for the cult of The Decomposition and agreed that the attack on the gatehouses and the bridge will happen early on the day of the grand procession itself.

There was also so much planning, preplanning and further planning with just trying to figure out how this small group of people are supposed to enter a fortified location and further more - take it over! 

This is where the action takes place.

Finally, as the session was moving ever closer towards its end time, we decided to finally begin with the meat of the scenario. The party managed to bullshit their way through the guards posted right outside the closed doors of the gatehouse, and got access to the inside and talked to the captain in charge of the garrison. However there was also another sorcerer-priest of the Pale Stillness also garrisoned in there (you never know what kind of nonsense can try coming in across the bridge from the old ruins) and he was suspicious of this religious brother of his claiming that there was an imminent Chaos attack that they had only been warned about just now. 

With him claiming to be sent here for back up, he decided now was the time to deploy his secret plan - two poisonous centipedes and 8 rats (the centipedes bought at absurdly inflated prices from a Golden Fraternity merchant specializing in rare and exotic animals) were deployed in the middle of the gatehouse passage, and then he began to cast a spell to transform them into gargantuan and monstrous versions of themselves. As the captain and the sorcerer-priest looked on, the party decided now was the time to strike and blasted the captain with magical lightning, the priest was quickly rushed to knock him out of the fight before he can wipe out half the party with his own magic, and then a bloody brawl began. 

All the while, out in the passageway of the gatehouse, the centipedes and rats kept growing and growing, eventually turning into monstrous and ravenous beasts. The archers deployed on the second floor then used the murder holes in the floor/ceiling and dropped alchemical fire on top of them, turning the small hallway into a living hell of sticky flame, smoke and marauding animals. 

In the ensuing fight several things happened - Maru the sorcerer managed to wipe out a large group of reinforcements coming from upstairs with the use of his Maleficence, Rajini was viciously struck down by several guards and killed on the spot for her attack on the captain, and some of the giant animals that managed to survive being bathed in fire and then shot at by arrows broke down both the city-side and bridge-side doors of the guardhouse and spilled out of there, tearing people, buildings and the bridge apart in their frenzy. The gatehouse was now wide open, with the remaining garrison panicking and retreating. 

The party mopped up the few remaining fighters and then using a Miasma spell they blinded the rest of the garrison that had moved on top of the building (a good defensive position against fighters. Not so great when it comes to magical clouds of demonic energies). 

 Battered, bruised and generally slightly worse for ware, but mostly alive (except the one who died that is) the party looked onto the bridge, seeing the outer and much bigger gatehouse fall before the army of Chaos, as they stormed down the now unprotected bridge (killing off the centipede and remaining giant rat on the way) and then rush into the streets of the Undying City.

The dawn had just broke, and with it the gates of the Temple District were opened and the procession started its ritual, yet unaware of what had transpired on the other side of the city.

Observations

This was quite a different thing for me to both organize and run as a referee. First off this was basically a set piece battle, really more similar in preparation to a wargame scenario than a typical dungeon crawl or exploration adventure. I mapped out the gatehouse, wrote up the garrison involved and even made sure to note on my map where every single person in that garrison was as the encounter began. 

Behold my very messy notes and map!

I really had no idea how the party was going to even do this either. The gatehouse was on lockdown, what with this being the big day and all that. 

Further more the session was run in the evening, rather than the usual Sunday noon time. There was discussion with some of my players and we are going to try doing evening games, which I do enjoy, but have the significant downside of rather strict time limitations - it can only get so late before everyone just starts getting tired and being done. A player, after the session, did raise the point that the tighter timeframe does mean that decisions are more rushed and sloppy. 

I actually agree with him, however for me that is not necessarily a bug in this case. Yes, time crunch means that players need to be way more precise with their plans and how much time they spend actually discussing things during the session, but to me that is, in some ways, just another aspect of the game. How you spend the time we have for the session is part of playing the game. 

Another big topic which was brought out from the session was that of experience points. Now for me it made no sense that any exp be granted for defeating enemies, as this would set a precedent where the party can decide to simply murder people and claim to get experience out of it, and I don't quite like that. So while I had thought about what and how much exp this should give, if any, on the night of the game itself I had kind of settled on it not giving any at all.

However, this I feel was a fault in my role as a referee. What I think is the correct way of handling his would have been to bring up the topic to my other players before the actual scenario was played. And here's why -  Because the point of experience for treasure retrieved and enemies slain, as far as I am concerned, is to provide specific clear goals at any given session as to what moves the characters forward. However this was not a typical session. There was no exploration, no dungeons, no wilderness. It was an assault on a fortified location in, what at least until now, was a friendly city to the party. Therefore the typical metrics of experience (money and monsters) were not valid. 

Conversely though, the party had a very clear and precise goal as to this specific scenario we played out - They needed to neutralize the garrison and also provide access to the Chaos army into the city. They achieved the goal of the scenario quite well I think, so in the end I made the decision as a referee to award each PC with 500 experience for it. I probably would have come to this decision even if it wasn't brought up by the players after the game, but it really should have been discussed beforehand.

With a larger gap between this and the next session, this will hopefully give me the time to discuss the scenario for that one and also what, if any, experience is to be earned from it. I have been re-reading Muster and its point on goal-oriented experience gain is what made me realize that I do think the players should earn experience for achieving the "win condition" of the scenario. 

Also, one of the players decided to not use his current character  for this, but instead made a new one (Alorus the Vivimancer) which I think was also good. I feel it's important that players be able to have multiple characters available that they can use depending on the situation. As long as this is not abused by trying to game the system (which can't happen, because that is what my role as a referee is for) and also those PCs are then treated as "active" in the campaign and therefore provided with accommodations and upkeep, of course. 

Lastly, another thing this session has now done is kind of break the basic structure of my campaign a bit. With this being ostensibly an open table (though with rather a stable core of players for a while now, and not many new faces joining in) each session needs to begin and end at a safe location where new players and party members can be slotted in and out depending on attendance. However right now the next session appears like it would need to take place immediately after this one, thus breaking that chain.

This, I feel, is mostly okay as an exception (and these are exceptional circumstances), though definitely not something I feel should become a regular part of the game.