Lasting Tales: Light the Beacons -or- Don't Offend the Local Druid Battlemap from Loke Battle Mats' "RPG Toolkit: The Long Road".
Miniatures by Reaper, WotC prepaints, CMON wolves, Blacklist Games wolves.
Terrain (beacon) by Mantic.
So, for Lasting Tales, a solo skirmish game, you create an enemy force by spending points equal to the total levels of your party. Half can be spent on elite units, so I spend half on elite units. I randomly pick out the Treant, a creature with a Resistance 3, which means most attacks, which are 1d6, won't damage it. I use a Bones I Forest Golem that I painted years ago but never played. Only two guys in our party have crossbows (1d6+2 damage), the wizard has pew-pew-pew at 3d3+1 until he runs out of Power, and the thing has 18 Health.
We sure have our work cut out for us. On top of the Treant, I generate a nature-oriented enemy force. Minions are typically one-shot kills, but they can outnumber you quickly. A pack of wolves *and* a pack of dire wolves means the monk gets the job of holding off *ten* wolves, at five wolves per two levels spent. Oh, and we also have a Centaur Brave, and a Bear. Because why not make the game harder?
I figure the plotline is that the village encroaching on the forest isn't appreciated by the local druids. The druids have already reduced one set of buildings to ruins, and the villagers haven't taken the hint. So they send a treant to do some redecorating and wolves to, uh, eat the locals. The heroes have somehow agreed to fend off Mother Nature by fighting through the enemies and, to get help, securing and lighting the beacon. Way in the background. Way, waaaay in the background.
A thematic setup has the heroes starting at the settlement side, and the enemies on the wilderness side. Of course, the forest is in the middle of board, so the Treant's Woodland trait means it'll start closer to us. And the wolves *and* centaur have the Quick trait, which means they'll clear 2/3 of the board in two turns.
So, yeah. Despite all the detailed terrain on the battlemap, the heroes did nothing but hide behind the tavern, taking shots at the Treant. The wizard could only pew-pew-pew for so-many turns before his Power went out, while the cleric Blessed the Rogue's crossbow so he and the Fighter could hit the Treant. Including the bear and centaur, that thing took about seven turns of shooting to take down, even when the wizard was slowing it down by distracting it with the Ventriloquism cantrip.
"Lucky" for us, the scenario ended on turn 8. We're nowhere near the beacon (way in the background), much less any further than where we started. You can see how close the wolves were getting by then. Sorry, anonymous town. The druid got his forest back and the wolves had commoner for lunch.
11 July 2011, 03:56:22 AM
