Travels amongst the Border Princes (WFRP 2e) OOC

[dojango]

I'm a little confused. Everyone's acting as if we've just taken a pay cut as far as the loot from the temple is concerned, but the Duke said he'd honour Sir Laurens' bargain. It's only future loot that needs to be shared equally. Or have I misunderstood your post, dojango?

It's future loot that won't be shared out as generously but the 200 gc that Alyssa got is supposed to be divided per the original agreement; i.e., you guys get 20 apiece from it.

Are we waiting for anything particular IC, or is the interview with the Duke over? If so, Severin will head back to the inn and until we depart he'll see if Destiny has any information about the area we're headed to and the halfling communities there.

Do you have any more questions for the Duke or any of the family there? If not, than yeah, we can move on. I can give you 'the local' scoop as far as info is concerned.

[Ionbound]

Posted. Sorry it took me so long, been moving back to university and I haven't had much free time.

[rax]

Do you have any more questions for the Duke or any of the family there? If not, than yeah, we can move on. I can give you 'the local' scoop as far as info is concerned.

Nah, Severin's good for now. He figures he'll learn what he needs to now from Sir Laurens or maybe Madame Le Houet.

Do you want me to do an IC post with Severin's questions to Destiny once we've definitely left the building?

[Haval]

Do you have any more questions for the Duke or any of the family there? If not, than yeah, we can move on. I can give you 'the local' scoop as far as info is concerned.

I want to see if anyone knows anything specific about the bandits, but I don't feel like the Bremcotes would be the ones to tell us even if they know something. We can find out as we go.

[rax]

Just a head's up. Today is day two at work after my holidays, so I'm a) swamped, b) had a five hour commute today, and c) appear to be coming down with a cold. In other words, I'm in no state to put up an IC post for Severin. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with something useful to say tomorrow.

[Haval]

Anyone have anything else they want to do in town? Otherwise, we can skip to the boat ride to Stralwald.

I'm ok to move on.

[rax]

I'm ok to move on as well.

The site outages are getting really annoying though. I've tried posting three times this evening, and this is the first time it looks like it's going to work... Hope the staff can solve this soon.

[rax]

Hooray! Forums are back!

[dojango]

So we are! Last time we checked, our seven brave heroes were heading downriver to protect a halfling village from bandits. Shall we head on over to the village next?

[rax]

Sure thing. And seven heroes to defend a village from bandits? Why do I have the sneaking suspicion I've seen this movie...?

[rax]

I need to pack for a business trip then head off to bed, so no IC post from me tonight I'm afraid. I'll get to it tomorrow evening.

BTW, have we made it to Stralwald or is this some other village en route?

[dojango]

Stralwald the village is about a mile inland. It's built a ways from the river to avoid seasonal flooding.

[Haval]

In that case I'm a little less suspicious that there's no one here.

[Haval]

If anyone's interested

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...Storm-of-Chaos

OOC: Checking back, the gaffer at the Singing Pike said the Stralwald bakers "cheated" when making pie. Throwaway remark or ominous foreshadowing?

[Haval]

OOC: Happy to discuss longer term plans and organizing the labour in the OOC thread.

I think go and see the Troublemakers and see we can make some allies. Maybe if we speak to someone that knows the area we might have some idea of where the raiders are camped. I'm mostly interested in how many they have and whether they're mostly cavalry. I know what they sounded like.

For Stralwald try and get the palisade up and see how many people can actually fight before we make any other plans.

Housemate was watching the Magnificent Seven remake earlier

[rax]

@dojango

we've got three weeks until the village is attacked. Since you are the PCs, you make the decisions about how to allocate labor... 4 labor-units have to harvest, or there will be starvation. That leaves 6 labor-units to do any number of tasks, such as: Training to fight, repairing defenses, making war-supplies, patrolling, or more harvesting. Or any other tasks you can think of! And of course, you can do any number of tasks yourself to help out, including, as you say, searching for the bandit-camp or trying to level the playing field.

You had Belisarius say that at least 80 men need to be harvesting. Does that mean that each labour unit is 20 halflings strong and that there are about 200 able-bodied villagers? Does that number include women and children? And about how any old and infirm villagers are there? Or we not dealing with exact numbers?

What sort of skill sets do Sir Laurens and the other "heroes" have? E.g. is anyone an ace archer, skilled in sieges, and so on? And even if we get to call the shots as PCs, how much do you want us to roleplay this vis-a-vis Sir Laurens? He's the duke's son so technically he's in charge of everything here. Do we need to discuss our decisions with him IC?

@Haval
Yep, it certainly has the feel of the Magnificent Seven, doesn't it?

Agreed on finding a local that knows the area to bring with us on a scouting mission. Perhaps bring one of the fighter NPCs as well, if anyone's stealthy? It feels like a good idea to scout first and then decide whether to seek help across the river. I'm hoping that if we do decide to do that, Waleran Riverhopper can provide some tips. Since the Riverhoppers were on the losing side of the feud, though, it may be best not to bring any of them with us if we do go looking for the troublemakers there.

Work on repairing the palisade doesn't have to wait for our scouting mission though. Having the palisade up might also help hide any weapons training we do with the locals.

As for an actual plan to drive off the bandits? I'm thinking sorties to burn supplies if they seem lax about their security (weapons and armour, not food - we don't want the bandits to get desperate and attack early), ambushes to pick some of them off or capture individuals for intelligence. When it comes to the main event, we want to prevent them from getting into hand-to-hand combat for as long as possible. So, build a trapped perimeter - punji sticks, deadfall traps, and so on. If we can narrow down the approaches to the village, forcing the bandits to come at us at a point of our choosing, we may also be able to set up good kill zones for our slingers. Flooding the approaches could work, as would digging trenches and filling them with flammables.

Inside the village, we should do the same - set up ambushes to allow the halflings local numerical superiority if the bandits get in. Barricades, hidden pits, and the like can help. If our halflings are decent tunnelers, we could even set up a tunnel system between houses so that they can move quickly and unseen to surround bandits or reinforce friendlies in trouble. A tunnel or two to evacuate the village unnoticed could be a decent idea as well.

[dojango]

200 able-bodied laborers. Very young children and the truly infirm are not counted. They will remain hiding in the buildings, only used for narrative purposes.

The NPCs have the following strengths

Sir Laurens: Leadership, melee combat
Sir Florian: Charm, melee combat
Morillo: Trainer, melee combat
"Sir" Nafisse: Survival, charm
Alyssa: Stealth, traps

As far as roleplay, as much or as little as you want. Waleran is MIA at the moment... Here's a map of the area. The terrain is forest, save for the cleared areas of fields.

[Haval]

I wonder who built the castle. I think that's new information.

For scouting I was thinking of looking for campfires especially if there's higher ground anywhere we can go to look for smoke. I suppose I can climb a tree. It's possible they'd be close to the lake as a source of water. If not I assume there are game trails that would be the obvious place for groups of people to move through the woods. Even with the rain there might be tracks somewhere.

For prisoners I presume they'll have to hunt for food themselves, so it might be possible to find some of them alone.

I wonder how easy it is to cover up a pit for say horses to fall into and not make it look like an obvious trap.

[dojango]

There was a knight who ruled Stralwald from the castle. When he died his lieutenants fought amongst themselves and the castle was burned in the fighting. The old gaffer said that his sister (Waleran's wife) was killed during the chaos.

Afterwards, the Duke moved in and took control of the region, although his control of the region seems mostly noninal.

[dojango]

OK, so here's three options:

"The Military Campaigns of Piotr Hagenov", the memoirs of a mercenary captain. The last few chapters deal with his role during the Siege of Bremcote, while the last entry is a long complaint about one of his subordinates, a 'Lieutenant Calvenzano', and that he intends on dismissing him from the mercenary company. The last third of the book is blank.

"A Noble-Lady's Guide to Etiquette, Siege-Craft, Household Management and the Art of Seduction". A controversial book, to say the least, it attempts to provide young noblewomen all they need to know about being a successful noblewoman. It has easy-to follow instructions and very... detailed illustrations. It has been banned in three Imperial provinces and is required reading in two more. The first Bretonnian printing sold out in a day, with copies going for hundreds of gold. The second printing was destroyed by an angry mob in its entirety.

"Urist's Travels" purports to be the tale of a dwarven merchant's journeys through human realms and elven lands. Although you've never heard of a nation full of giants, or a land ruled by horses, or one where the people turn into birds during the full moon, but it is a great big wide world out there, so who is to day? Certainly the tale of the island where the streets are cobbled with diamonds and the people use rubies for their slings might be a tempting place to search for...

Oh yeah, Alyssa has a book on siegecraft.

[rax]

I wonder who built the castle. I think that's new information.

For scouting I was thinking of looking for campfires especially if there's higher ground anywhere we can go to look for smoke. I suppose I can climb a tree. It's possible they'd be close to the lake as a source of water. If not I assume there are game trails that would be the obvious place for groups of people to move through the woods. Even with the rain there might be tracks somewhere.

For prisoners I presume they'll have to hunt for food themselves, so it might be possible to find some of them alone.

We might also try tracking them from where the gaffer noticed the riders scouting the village.

It seems unlikely to me that the bandits would be all that spread out unless they're really big group - in which case we're probably better off getting everyone to flee rather than fight. I.e. if we can find some tracks we can hopefully find their main camp quickly, and then devise a plan to capture one or more of them...preferably without tipping our hand so that it's obvious who took them.

If we have time and can do so unobserved, we might also want to scout the castle. Could be something useful there or it might be a good spot to retreat to if it looks like all is lost.

Since Alyssa is decently stealth, we could consider bringing her along for the scouting mission.

[Haval]

Oh yeah, Alyssa has a book on siegecraft.

You mean it's really about siegecraft?

Alyssa is the best at lying as well if we somehow get caught again.

Adding something else to the last IC post to see if we can find a guide.

If it helps Gossip test to check if anyone has been to the ruins lately
vs. Fel 32
(1d100)[88]

Charm on Nafisse
vs. Fel 32 / 2
(1d100)[26]

[rax]

You mean it's really about siegecraft?

"Methinks the lad doth protest too much! Lay siege to his fortress until..." and so on and so forth?

Okay, so current plan for the next few days:
1) Severin, Gabriele and Alyssa go scouting for bandits, with or without a local guide. Suggested starting point - either where the gaffer saw them last time around or some decent vantage point based on a local guide's knowledge of the land.

2) Sir Laurens gets to direct repairs to the palisade. That can probably start immediately. I'm thinking a tower or two from which the halflings could chuck heavy rocks and slingstones could be a useful addition as well. Sir Florian's charm might be needed to assist to keep relations form breaking down. Nafisse might be able to do the same and sees like he probably has a good handle on what it's like to be a peasant...whether he wants to admit it or not.

3) When the collected weaponry of the halflings is on display tomorrow, we can get a sense of what sort combat tactics would be most plausible.

4) Corollary to #3 - Murillo gets the job of inspecting the available manpower and setting up a training regimen based on available weapons, manpower and whatever battle plan we can come up with.

5) We keep at least the minimum labour units needed for the harvest in the field at all times. We should try to keep more than that out there but that depends on how many are needed for defensive projects and weapons training.

6) Once our scouting is done, we have to decide whether to approach the halflings across the river for help. Severin has a good reason to approach the Riverhoppers, so maybe start there for (biased) information about what things are like over there.

...or a sneakier version of #2) The palisade doesn't get visibly repaired so as to keep the bandits in the dark a bit longer. Bits that are still standing get reinforced but holes are kept and instead we install temporary walls by sticking wagons nearby than can be rolled into place once fighting becomes necessary. These could be war wagons - stone ballast to keep them from being tipped over easily, plank walls with arrows slits for halflings to shoot from, and so on. Google Hussite war wagons for ideas. Concealed pit traps on the approaches are also an option.

[dojango]

You mean it's really about siegecraft?

Alyssa is the best at lying as well if we somehow get caught again.

Adding something else to the last IC post to see if we can find a guide.

If it helps Gossip test to check if anyone has been to the ruins lately
vs. Fel 32
[roll0]

Charm on Nafisse
vs. Fel 32 / 2
[roll1]

It does have several chapters on siegecraft. A proper noble lady is expected to know how to defend her husband's castle while he is away at war, of course. Better a noble lady in command than some... some peasant! Elizabeth Bathory, for example, defended her castle from the Turks a few times, IIRC.

[Haval]

I think I read something like that during the degree.

Ok with the plan. I'd like to think they can't easily keep an eye on the state of the palisade, but I don't think we can check if they are. Maybe post sentries?

[Haval]

FP to reroll that Concealment because this is important
vs. 58
(1d100)[13]

[Haval]

Initiative
(1d10+4)[13]

[Haval]

I think that's a second arrow after the surprise round then.

Rapid Reload to reload for free
Half Action - Aim
Half Action - Shoot the same guy

vs. BS 57 (+10 Aim) (Long Range over 30yrds -20?)
(1d100)[82]

Damage
(1d10+3)[6]

[rax]

@dojango
Just checking on Initiative. Are we house ruling this? In WFRP it's normally 1d10 plus the full Agility characteristic. Only Strength and Toughness actually calculate a bonus.

And do you want us to commit to actions in round 1 as well as the surprise round?

[dojango]

Whoops, so used to doing it the other way in the other similar systems. Well, their agi is 35 so easy enough to fix. That means you guys handily beat them in initiative. I'll put up the results of the surprise round in a little bit.