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View Full Version : Let's talk 7th Sea encounters



deathbyhokie
2008-01-27, 11:14 PM
Matt, you can stop reading here. Go away.

So I'm currently GMing a 7th Sea game for a group on RL friends on Monday nights. After quite a bit of players joining, leaving, and joining again, we finally got a solid group together. Now we're finally closing in on the end of the first Act, so I’m starting to think ahead to the fight to close out the act, and trying to figure out a way to level the playing field a bit, and to give the Villain a fighting chance.

You see, the problem is that I have 7 PC’s, with a grand total of 15-18 actions per round between them. Our Villain is fast (with 4 actions), but he can’t keep up with that volume of attacks. In past encounters, he’s been lucky enough to be able to hang around for a few rounds, but once all of the heroes start laying into him, and then the trouble starts. His Brawn isn’t bad (3), nor is his Resolve (3), but 18 attacks have a way of hurting, especially when 4 of them come from a Tainted Metal Puzzle Sword, and 2 come from pistol shots.

Now or Villain will have a few advantages in the encounter, as I’m currently envisioning it. Barring unusual foresight by the PC’s, he will have a handful of hostages, ranging from Montaigne nobles fleeing the revolution, to childhood friends of the PC’s, to one of the PC’s girlfriends. He also will have a couple prominent Knights of the Rose and Cross who hold the keys to another of the character’s background. In addition, he’s choosing the location for the showdown. For thematic reasons, he’s going to have it in a courthouse in a small Eisner town. He’s got a couple days to set up his ambush. In addition, the party members are most likely already injured, having sustained some pretty bad wounds in the escape from Charouse. I don’t know how injured they’ll be when they arrive (One PC has ranks in Surgery, and they still have a fight to go before reaching the courthouse).

Let’s try to set this out in a nice list, for those who skipped the wall of text:

Villain's Assets
- Hostages (8, 3 nobles, 2 girlfriends, 1 childhood friend, 2 badly wounded Knights of the Rose and Cross)
- Time to prepare (he’s stealing the Hero’s cart, meaning he’ll get there at horse speed, and they’ll get there at footspeed. Figure 1.5 days of set-up)
- Combat capability. He’s better at combat than any individual PC, and could give as well as he takes against any 3 PC’s. In game terms, he’s a Master of the Boucher school (two long knives, rapid strikes)
- Mirage sorcery. Added in a web supplement, it allows him to travel through mirrors, as well as altering the reflection in a mirror. He’s also a Master of this Sorcery
- He can (and has) whip a crowd into a murderous fury.

Villain's Liabilities
- 7 PC’s, 5 of which are very combat capable, one of which has more pistols than limbs, and one that tends to shy away from the stabbing.
- He’s not in Montaigne anymore. His normal rhetoric won’t work as well on the Eisen people, so he’s less likely to be able to draw a crowd.
- The big one: The Plot calls for him to die, giving the Heroes a minor victory to close Act I.

Despite the fact that he is going to die, I don’t want him to go down like a chump. The fact that the Heroes will heal all wounds at the end of the battle (due to it being the end of an Act).

After looking it over, it seems that his best bet may be to set up as many mirrors as he can get his hands on in the Courthouse, setting them up in a maze-like fashion. And then, pop out at heroes who separate from the pack, stabbing until help arrives, and then darting away. The only problem is what to do when the heroes stop spreading out? And what to do with the hostages?