a halfstarved lvl 1 goblin about wiped out my party

[redneckdevil]

Ok had to share this story which happened yesterday during one of our sessions. Warning! Spoilers and maybe mispronounced words ahead!

Campaign-rise of the runelords, pathfinder

Party-everyones lvl 2. Cleric, fighter, magus, and sorcerer.

Heres the story on how a lvl 1 halfstarved goblin almost wiped out my party.

Again warning spoilers ahead!

 

 

Ok the atory takes place near the end of one of our sessions. The magus called out BC of family stuff due to Easter so his charecter was passed out at the inn from drinking to much. We had to just arrived back into town after a trip feom the graveyard. Full health but are out of our lvl 1 spells.

We arrived into town to be approached by a bewildered woman who tells a sad tale of her son and dog and how her husband maybe in trouble. Our party of 3 agree to go see if the husband is alrite and the fighter runs to go tell the sheriff.

The cleric and sorcerer arrive at the house and begin to search. The fighter arrives at the sheriffs place and tells the tale but in his haste forgot to get the womans name. He only remembers the dogs name which he at first believes is the womans name...

We continue to search the house while the fighter

[redneckdevil]

forgeting and rolling very low rolls lol.

Eventuly we find the husband and we fail our perception check so the goblin surprise atks the sorcerer. Now I gave the goblin a shortsword bc my party has been face rolling thru everything ive placed before them so I figure this be a very quick encounter....no it wasnt.

 

Also I forgot, im using the crit deck and the tumble deck. Players get to use 1 of each during each encounter, npcs get to use them everytime. Anyways back to the story.

 

Goblin atks and hits for a 5 dmg. We roll intuitive, goblin goes first. Atks and hita for another 5. Sorcerer decides to cast a spell to stun, but goblins in his face. AOP. Goblin succeeds and hits for 3. Sorcerer rolls and cannot cast the spell. Cleric does aoe heal, 6 healed. By this time fighter finally is able to figure out the place and fighters walking in. he rolls for perception and rolls a 1. So naturally he bangs his heads and cant hear the fightimg due to ringing in his ears.

Goblin atks, hits, and does 6 dmg. Sorcerer low on health. Cleric decides to atk amd end it quickly. Strolls across the room and accidently does an AOP. Goblin crits and draws card. Does double dmg and sickness. Cleric fails the saves and starts puking.

By this time the fighter finally comes up the stairs and pushes the cleric outta the way. He stops 10 ft away from goblin and says "eh, I got high enuf AC" and then proceeda to do yet another AOP. I forgot the goblun and sorcerer already took turns agian and missed each other. Fighter steps up and creates an AOP. Goblin crits and low n behold draws the decapiation card. Fighter rolls for fort save and....

 

I the dm speak up and ask the player that he has a choice. He has a choice of getting beheaded by a halfstaved lvl 1 goblin and reroll a new charecter or that he survives the atk but vocal cords are dmg beypund repair.

He opts to keep hos charecter.

 

So we got a halfstaved lvl 1 goblin who has a sorcerer very low in health, one that unless the die rolls are better than whats been thrown a cleric in a corner moderatly dmged and puking, and a fighter who almost got decapitated before he even landed a blow.

 

Very next atk from sorcerer was a crit and draws card. Pretty much swipes the legs from out beneath the goblin and basically has like 1 health point left. The fighter gladly delievers the coup de gra and repeatable stabs the goblin. Cleric finally gets over and heals party up besides the dmg vocal cords.

Sorcerer goes downstairs to relay what happened and trys to console the wife. The fighter grabs the body and throws whats left of the body at the womans feet and continues to walk towards the inn with the wife screams and sobs overwhelming any background noise.

 

 

Thought I would share a story of our game on how a halfstaved goblin almost wiping out a full party who has face rolled thru a dangerous dungeuon, a dangerous and overwhwlming goblin raid, and a spruced up undead adventure thru a graveyard to have a halfataved lvl 1 goblin put them in their place.

 

Man I love this game thanks for reading.

[redneckdevil]

Also sry for mispellings, on phone and faulty memory.

AOO, not AOP sigh

[melkathi]

Goblins can be awesome like that. Never underestimate the cannonfodder

Had a goblin pull off something similar in WHFRP.

PCs started looting corpses without checking if there are no more enemies. Goblin steps out behind the door and stabs the fighter: As it's a backstab it ignores armor. Roll for damage: 6 (ona  roll of 6 in WHFRP you roll another attack and if that hits roll for damage again. Every 6 after that you roll for aditional damage). Rolled another five 6s and finally a 5. checked the crit table, the goblin had driven his short sword up between the fighter's legs and into his groin: nearly instant death as the blood comes gushing out.

[Walsingham]

Thing to remember in PnP is it's 'real'. Any lowlife furry dust-soaked halfwit can put a length of cast iron through the hero.

[Walsingham]

Last night had almost aexactly the same thing happen. Some sword brandishing bravos accosted our mixed race party and accused them of being murderous freaks.

 

One damage dice rolls 6, 6, 2. And the party's lead swordsman suddenly has grown an iron tongue and ear.

 

Of course in Warhammer the players have 'Fate Points' which get them off the hook if they die. But our man is still going to be deaf on one side.

[melkathi]

 

Of course in Warhammer the players have 'Fate Points' which get them off the hook if they die. But our man is still going to be deaf on one side.

 

Yup. It's fun in a sadistic way when the player realizes that yes, they will live because of the FP, but nowhere does it say that they will do so in one piece

[Walsingham]

 

 

Of course in Warhammer the players have 'Fate Points' which get them off the hook if they die. But our man is still going to be deaf on one side.

 

Yup. It's fun in a sadistic way when the player realizes that yes, they will live because of the FP, but nowhere does it say that they will do so in one piece

 

 

I think in many ways it randers the combat more interesting and fearsome. We're all used to the thought of characters dying. What's weirder is coping with the character being blind or one legged or what have you.

 

*thinks*

 

Probaby something to that in real life, now I think about it.

[Raithe]

That's the thing, a well-run goblin or kobold encounter can be just incredibly vicious if they get the whole ambush, mob, snare/trap aspect rolling along.

They are not stand and fight creatures, it's all about the hit and run and sneaky, devious, underhanded whittle away.

 

They will attempt to cripple, blind, bleed, poison, infect.....

[melkathi]

 

 

I think in many ways it randers the combat more interesting and fearsome. We're all used to the thought of characters dying. What's weirder is coping with the character being blind or one legged or what have you.

 

*thinks*

 

Probaby something to that in real life, now I think about it.

 

 

Worst threat I have issued to a player: "Do whatever you like, but know this: I do not kill players. But I do not allow them to make a new character until the old one is dead either."

[redneckdevil]

I let players no right at the beginning that I will not purposely murder a charecter....but that dosent mean that ur charecter wont ever die. I let them no that I dont even pick who the enemy is atking, I roll to see who the enemy goes after and atks.

Its nice that way because the players noes that if one of them is unconscious and they have enemys atking them, me the dm didnt direct them....the dice did.

Plus makes for interesting encounters

[Walsingham]

My players are pretty paranoid about me having it in for them. But I think they know it's not on 'purpose'. I just play the bad guys with some sense, in the context of some bigger plan, usually. I make hostile 'swarms' pass leadership or cool rolls frequently, and that helps me keep them in character.

 

Actually, the other trick I've used before is to have the equivalent of officer and NCO goblins or beastmen etc. I track what they are thinking and feeling and have their units follow suit. If the players drop the leader then the unit goes passive unless incited by bait or blood and so on.

 

This may not be very realistic, but it means I can field big fights without automatically smearing the players into the floor by press of numbers.

 

If anyone else want sto try something similar and let me know how it goes I'd be very interested.

[melkathi]

I've been trying to adapt the system from The Lichmaster for managing large fights. It's too unique a situation though...

[Walsingham]

I've been trying to adapt the system from The Lichmaster for managing large fights. It's too unique a situation though...

 

How does that work?

[melkathi]

It's a bit of a unique situation based on that specific adventure (which I'd strongly suggest looking into finding an online copy of. Great adventure well worth playing once). It's, I guess, a zombie apocalypse scenario, so the players are not trying to kill every enemy. They try to survive and in the end kill the necromancer controlling the undead.

The GM keeps track of everything that has happened throughout the adventure, assigns Heroism Scores for the various parts, keeps track how much time the PCs wasted and for every confrontation rolls dice based on the PC performance to see how the npcs are faring. And of course everything is done with comprehensive, easy to use check boxes.

So when it comes down to it, every confrontation, while playing you only concentrate on the "heroic", imediate action of the PCs and then you give them a minute to rest, refill their drinks, while you quickly roll the results of the aftermath.