Fantastic Scuffles playtest - continuing with the Itinerant adventurers vs the restless dead
Andrew and I continued to test the Fantastic Scuffles campaign system last week (following on from this earlier game), playing two more encounters between my Itinerant Adventurers, and Andrew's Restless Dead.
For the second encounter of the campaign, the parties were the same as the first. There were just three adventurers: Crom the ogre warrior, Balthazar the seer, and Lyra the halfling rogue. Facing them were two undead characters: the bloodless king (a warrior) and the mummified priestess (a seer), along with three minions with swords and large shields. Balthazar carried a hand wound over from the previous encounter, while the bloodless king had a lasting leg wound.
Rolling for objectives, the adventurers had a contract to hunt down any opposing seers and take them out of action, while the undead were searching for a hidden treasure located near one of the gate pillars of the little walled shrine (centre bottom in the photo above).
Advancing boldly, the undead priestess moved into the laneway, calling forward her minions to form a wall in front of her. Crom and Balthazar advanced towards her in a protective partnership - Crom acting as a tank, while his wizard chum cast a ward of protection over them both. Lyra scaled a wall and made herself invisible to try to lie in wait for any creature heading for the treasure.
In the end, it was a very one sided affair. The skeletal minions did not last long between Crom's great axe and Balthazar's chain lightning. The bloodless king caused Crom a little trouble, but Lyra managed to get in behind and finish him off with a backstab. The undead seeress chose to flee at that point, depriving the adventurers of their objective, but still leaving them ahead in overall victory points.
The adventurers looted the dead and accumulated enough loot to hire a new party member - Seabhac the elvish rogue. Crom recovered from his wounds with no bother at all.
The undead lost all of their minions - apparently skeletons don't recover well from big axes and lightning strikes... Who knew? The bloodless king recovered, but he and the priestess were in a bad way with only enough loot to raise a single new minion (a skeleton archer).
For the third encounter, the difference in party size/power/points was enough for the undead to receive two balancing boons. Andrew chose some hired help, gaining three more skeleton archer minions, and multiple contracts, allowing the party to roll twice for objectives. The undead were tasked with carrying a message off the table and being set up to ambush the adventurers.
The adventurers rolled up an objective requiring them to obtain an item by any means (bribery, theft or violence). The item was carried by one of the skeleton minions, so on paper, that didn't look too difficult.
At one point, Balthazar was in the perfect position to cast the push spell, to knock the message-carrying priestess off the table and deprive the undead of at least one objective. After casting the spell successfully, he needed to roll anything but a 1 on a d10 to get rid of the seeress. Of course he rolled a 1, and for his error the priestess promptly drained the last of the life from his body.
The bloodless king then finished off both Crom and Lyra, both of whom were to die of their wounds after the encounter.
While the undead won by a victory point-fuelled landslide, their scavenging and looting was mediocre and much of the look had to be paid to the hired help. After paying them off, and paying for upkeep, they were left with their two characters, a minion, and an empty purse. The adventurers were now reduced down to an equally pitiful two characters and not enough loot to hire any help.
So after just three encounters, both parties ended up at a little over half their starting points costs, with few prospects of immediate recovery. Very much the result of some statistically poor dice rolls, but still a plausible outcome.
We have decided to start again with new parties next time and see if we can get better outcomes. If not, then a few tweaks to the loot gathering system in the campaign might be in order.