Dark Tower Days, Part 2

(Long after action post...)

I had a pre-Halloween session with some of the fine players of the Garden State Gaming Society. The Arks were:

Humnz Mage
Gnobbit Trickster (Lucky)
Humnz Trickster (Lucky)
Humnz Ranger

Dark Tower has game tables set up with some great terrain. We played on a table equipped with a crumbling Stonehenge-y temple amidst a murky swamp. I started the party in the temple. To get the game going, I told them that something they did in the temple had triggered an ancient spell and the temple guardians were being summoned. Within the temple, I pitted them against a bubbling cauldron of death that was draining their spoints every other inning (EOI). Outside, I had an incredibly slow moving zombie hoard in search of fresh meat. And just to make things fun, I brought in a Goblin Shepherd and his two ccoos who sat on a nearby hillside to watch the slaughter.

Inspired by one of my recent movies, I had the zombies "blind dead" - they found their victims through sound alone. The zombies (who were all Level 4/44) would move a single square each inning, however, if they got within 4 squares of their prey, they would shamble forward quickly and attack. I gave them Aggressive Attacks - meaning, if they hit once, they hit again. So, if the zombies rolled well, they could get in 4 successive attacks on their victim.

While the Ranger and the Tricksters ran outside to assess the oncoming deathbringers, the Mage tried to battle the cauldron o' death. The Ranger became immediately suspicious of the Goblin shepherd, marking him as the mastermind of the situation. He figured if he took him out, the zombies would perish and the cauldron would stop bubbling. He fired upon him, thus opening a three front battle. The zombies pressed forward toward the noisemakers...

Inside, it wasn't going well for the Mage. The cauldron had drained him of 36 spoints. He had only put a dent in the cauldron's enchanted wounds. He was going to stick it out a little more, though. Brave, brave Mage! Soon, he took another 30 spoint drain and decided it was time to retreat outside the range of the cauldron's spell. Once he was outside, he cast Jumpin' Jazzophat on himself. He was now the most mobile person on the field of battle!

After being fired upon, the Goblin shepherd, who was just there to watch the show and collect the shinies off the bodies post battle, aimed his bow and began returning fire on the Ranger. Meanwhile, the Tricksters were sneaking toward the zombies. The Gnobbit Trickster entered Catlike Tread - and that completely thwarted my plan! This skill makes the Trickster impossible to detect audibly... and so, was instantly off the zombie radar! Shortly after discovering this, the second Trickster entered this mode. This left the Ranger as the only noisemaker in the group (firing arrows). The zombies pressed ever so slowly forward toward him.

Within the temple, the cauldron could no longer leech spoints from the Arks. It had a store of 66 spoints and began to use those spoints to summon the true temple guard - the Winged Daemon of Ishkababble! This is the reason it was draining spoints - it needed them to summon the fiend. Each spoint was 1%, so it had a 66% chance initially to summon. The summoning itself cost 10 spoints, so if it was not successful the first time, it would only have a 56% chance the second, and so on... Unfortunately for the players, it succeeded immediately. I randomly determined that the Daemon would appear in 4 innings. The players knew it was time to flee asap!

To bring more havoc to the situation, the Goblin shepherd commanded his two ccoos (carnivorous cows of unusually small size) onto the field of battle, specifically charging the ever-so-quiet Trickster. With their rabid moo-ing they closed in on her! This was inevitably my undoing, though. The Trickster had two options here - run for cover into the swamp and desert her allies or try to remain true to the party. A bit of brilliant play here:

She did an all-out run into the center of the zombie hoard - thus dropping her Catlike Tread and becoming the primary target for the zombies. Her intention though, was to draw the ccoos into this mess. With their rabid moo-ing, they would muddy the zombie focus on the Ranger. The next inning, the ccoos were charging into the zombies and she immediately went back into Catlike Tread. There, in the middle of zombie central, she was once again "invisible" to them!!! She then snuck off and into the swamp.

Meanwhile on the other side of the battle, the Mage and Trickster had made it over to the Goblin shepherd and engaged him with dagger and Flaming Fryball. He summoned his ccoos back to assist him - but he was in really bad shape. The fact that the Daemon was now exiting the temple, soon had the shepherd and his coos running for the hills.

At this point, the party was pretty hurtin'. The Ranger was stuck in the middle of the battlefield surrounded by zombies and the rest of the party was far off in the swamp ready to exit the gameboard. With a Daemon flying about waiting to descend, the options were few. Each member of the party stayed on the field as long as they could, hoping their Ranger would make it to the cover of the swamp - but he just didn't stand a chance. I gave him the last action of the game...

As the Daemon was quick, it was on him in a jiff. With no range between him and his target, the Ranger only had one skill to use: Partin' Shot (which allows him to fire an arrow at a target as per its location the prior inning!). I advised him that even if this worked, he was still up against the Daemon's 88% Invulnerability. The chances of doing anything substantial were grim...

The Ranger took his dice and rolled...

01% - Wicked Success!!!

The Daemon had no invulnerability and took some wounds! This did not kill the Daemon, but there's no better way to make a last stand.

Gotta love it when the dice finish the game on a high note.