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[Rautherdir]

"What was that!"

Investigate the commotion

[Coolrune206]

"Ah."

Gary backpedals quickly, then lights his lantern and flings it at one of the heads. He vaguely remembered a legend of a multi-headed snake, weak to fire, but he was not sure. He was banking a lot on this, however.

((Oopsies. Silly me forgot I was in this. Apologies.))

[randomgenericusername]

"I would take my time to formally introduce myself but we are under attack by a big 3-headed gray snake! Its lack of legs probably makes it slow, but I bet we don't want to get bitten by it! I think we should retreat towards the other group and fight together!"

[ziizo]

"oh great a New monster"

Put my empty vials in a wheelbarrow and search for rocks for my sling.

[Sir Knight]

That's the spirit!  Nothing like some peril to keep things moving!

I'll be back tomorrow to see who else has posted.

[Starver]

(I don't mind not learning more about this waterlogged tunnel. It was just the logical thing to do while taking on water, before heading over to discover that which others have now 'discovered'.)

I know I am the furthest away, combat/reaction order additionally pending, but having had more direct experience with the mining-classes I see no problem in moving towards the sound of mining in expectation of finding new friends. And, from thence, deal with 'whatever'.

[magmaholic]

Bob peeks over the corner and sees the sub-standard hydra imitation.
 "Nope."Goes bob.
"Nope. Noooope. Noop."
Bob then runs in and swings his pick at the rude little fucker. People want to drink that water,man.

[randomgenericusername]

Tohil calls the new group of exiles that was behind the wall and informs them about the monster while he attacks the beast. We need to fight as a group together! We don't know what tricks it could have! We must regroup and fight as a team! Also hit it with my warhammer in the middle head!
(Towards Dustan)
"Hey, you look like a skilled warrior! Could you and your band of exiles help us fight this creature? We don't know how strong it is!"

[dustywayfarer]

Louis flattens self against wall and readies his knife, waiting for someone else to draw out the beast. He then plans to spring in behind with a surprise attack once the monstrosity is distracted.

[Dustan Hache]

get my sling and start pelting the thing. Go for the eyes, if I can. Maybe use some of those sharper chunks of shale.

[Sir Knight]

That's everybody!

And this update, again, is really long given all the players.  Wow.  I have a two-and-a-half page combat roll spoiler.

To do it justice, I need to proofread for math errors and then update every relevant character sheet.  But I've been working on it for a couple hours now.  I'll give it a rest and post the results on the morrow.  Alright?

[dustywayfarer]

If it's worth doing well now, it's worth doing better in the morning. That's how I tend to roll.

[Sir Knight]

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One correction.  In my previous update, I described the monster as having "three snake-like heads" and "a massive body"; I have edited it to say "a sinuous body."  If you developed a mental picture of those wall tigers from awhile back, this is a little more slender than those.  Also it has no limbs.  So, mostly snake.  Lots of it.

Let's have fun.

Spoiler: Combat round order (click to show/hide)

1, 3, 4, 7, 6, 9, 5, 2, 8

. . . Dustan, Alyssa Alpine, Dwain, Louis, Bob, the enemy, Gary, John, Tohil.

(Though some of these people are at larger distances.)

This will not do at all.  Dustan is quick to get his sling into action against the approaching beast, finding plenty of convenient stones among the splitter-wand-induced rubble.  Alyssa, hearing the commotion, runs over to see what is happening.  That creature . . .

Spoiler: Insight! (click to show/hide)

Alyssa's insight roll: 5, Succeed greatly!

And I'll need one for Dwain in a moment: 6, Fail by succeeding!

Alyssa recognizes it.  Back in Rock Bottom, working for the Salt family, they had you butcher slaughtered animals including something gray that had far too many vertebrae.  At minimum, now you know the thing is edible.  Food on the hoof!  (Well . . . )

And Dwain, coming up behind you, recognizes it for its skin.  This can only be the origin of the mystery hides you retrieved from the Hoarding Wastrel Camp.  If the wastrels just wore this stuff around, it must not be too hard to kill, right?  Reassuring!

So what say we get on that?

Spoiler: A very long list of attack rolls and combat maneuvers (click to show/hide)

Dustan's combat table, sling and rocks, target is armored against blunt attacks:

1: Fail terribly
2: Fail terribly
3: Fail
4: Succeed weakly
5: Succeed weakly
6: Succeed
7: Succeed greatly
8: Fail by succeeding

Dustan's attack roll: 7, Succeed greatly!
Damage roll (1d6+6): 4+6 = 10!
Rock hydra, HP: 22/32

Louis goes before the enemy and is trying a stealthy combat maneuver, but the enemy is also flailing about, so I'll see if he earns himself a bonus:

Louis's stealth-stab roll: 6, Fail by succeeding!

Nope, he'll do an ordinary attack (and then be sure of a counterattack).  Louis's combat table, iron knife:

1: Fail terribly
2: Fail
3: Succeed weakly
4: Succeed
5: Succeed greatly
6: Fail by succeeding

Louis's attack roll: 2, Fail!

Bob's combat table, iron pick:

1: Fail terribly
2: Fail
3: Succeed weakly
4: Succeed
5: Succeed greatly
6: Fail by succeeding

Bob's attack roll: 6, Fail by succeeding!
Damage to rock hydra (1d6+1): 6+1 = 7!
Rock hydra, HP: 15/32
Damage to self (1d6+1): 4+1 = 5!
Bob, HP: 5/10

Gary goes after the enemy does, so it will be particularly hard to avoid being attacked:

Gary's aaaaaaahh roll: 1, Fail terribly!
Rock hydra's chompy roll: 6, Fail by succeeding!

. . . I'll just call those results a generic "it attacks you."

Rock hydra combat table, paralytic, you have no immunity:

1: Fail terribly
2: Fail
3: Succeed weakly
4: Succeed
5: Succeed (with paralysis)
6: Succeed greatly
7: Succeed greatly (with paralysis)
8: Fail by succeeding

Rock hydra attack roll: 3, Succeed weakly!
Damage to Louis (1d4-1): 4-1 = 3!
Louis, HP: 7/10
(That's Louis, not Gary, because Louis got its attention.  Gary comes later.  Which is possible, because . . . )

The enemy can attack up to three targets, weakening its combat table after every success just as a flock of creatures does.  New combat table:

1: Fail terribly
2: Fail
3: Succeed weakly
4: Succeed
5: Succeed (with paralysis)
6: Succeed
7: Succeed (with paralysis)
8: Fail by succeeding

Rock hydra attack roll: 7, Succeed (with paralysis)!
Damage to Gary (1d6+1): 3+1 = 4!
Gary, HP: 6/10
Paralysis roll (1d6+3)/2: (3+3)/2 = 3!

Continuing to attack Bob:

1: Fail terribly
2: Fail
3: Succeed weakly
4: Succeed weakly
5: Succeed weakly (with paralysis)
6: Succeed weakly
7: Succeed weakly (with paralysis)
8: Fail by succeeding

Rock hydra attack roll: 3, Succeed weakly!
Damage to Bob (1d4-1): 1-1 = 0!

Gary's take-that-you-fiend roll: 1, Fail terribly!

Tohil's combat table, iron war hammer, target is armored against blunt attacks:

1: Fail terribly
2: Fail terribly
3: Fail
4: Succeed weakly
5: Succeed weakly
6: Succeed
7: Succeed
8: Succeed greatly
9: Fail by succeeding

Tohil's attack roll: 2, Fail terribly!
Damage to self (1d4-1): 3-1 = 2!
Tohil, HP: 8/10

Dustan's pegged shale scores a quick opening victory: a blow straight against an eye!  One head hiss-roars in pain, while the beast as a whole--this rock hydra--slithers forward intent on violence.

Louis takes that as his cue to dash up behind the moving creature, but can't quite get a good blow with his knife, and succeeds only in earning the enemy's attention.  And a quick bite--thankfully a weak one.

Bob tries a more straightforward pick to the guts, and joins in a time-honored exile tradition: jabbing yourself on one end of the pick with the backswing, but at least jabbing the enemy on the other end like you intended.  It tries to bite you, but here it manages even more poorly and just scrapes teeth across the fabric of your tunic.

And Gary has every intention of backpedaling, but the waving heads of the rock hydra strike first.  It digs into your shoulder with tiny teeth!  Argh, the pain!

But what is this?  As you pull away, the searing pain is only worsened by the saliva in the wounds--a pain that rapidly turns to numbness.  You were right, it has no venom in its fangs; it has a paralytic in its saliva!

Gary now has -3 to his next damage roll in combat!

You finally back against the far wall and try to pitch your lantern at it, but in your panic you drop and extinguish the thing.  Probably just as well not to try fire: the rock hydra was lying in the waterlogged end of the cavern when you came along . . .

John, in the distance, is readying his own sling, and Tohil is the last to respond.  (Had to carefully enunciate certain things first, you understand.)  It turns out that the scaly skin of this freakish beast is really strong when you try to bang a blunt instrument against it, so much so that you injure your arm in the attempt!  Gah!



. . . Some GM notes: Ordinarily, I have no problem naming strange creatures and substances before you encounter them.  I left this particular leather unidentified in the Hoarding Wastrel Camp only for dramatic effect.  I have now changed that in your character sheets.

Now, the question of pegging rocks has always presented a conundrum.  Anything that could comfortably fit in a sling and be aerodynamic would be round-ish, not sharp, and therefore count as a blunt strike.  Right?  Well, Dustan (Dustan Hache) is not the first person to state interest in using "some of those sharper chunks of shale."  But is that really something I can simulate (in this system or otherwise)?

I mean, if you threw a sharpened shale discus at the target . . . by hand . . . that would work for keeping a "sharp" attack aerodynamic, although it would ruin your hand.  And anything javelin-shaped would be thrown like a javelin.  But when I think about using sling stones, I keep coming back to idea that it's gotta be blunt.  At least within the granularity of my dice rolls.

In part, that's why I make sure to offer special "throwing skulls" in town, because they grant more universal damage properties.

[Dustan Hache]

Well, if you carefully loaded a spiked ball into your sling and launched it at something, would you expect most of the damage to come from the ball or the spikes on it?

[Coolrune206]

Gary decided to stay down. Not much to do- and if anyone criticized him for it later, he could just tell them he had been paralyzed. It wasn't a total lie.