Just played through a session with two of my sons, making it sort of a "prequel" to our first actual session.

One played his Beorning Warden, Boarthak, and the other his Elven Scholar, Falandor. They were attacked by three Attercops inside Mirkwood.

A couple of questions came up for me as I ran this, regarding the webbing.

Can the webs themselves be attacked by a PC who is webbed up? I decided that they could, and when a character rolled a Sauron icon I made it that they couldn't reach their short sword or dagger. If they succeeded then they were able to slice themselves free (especially when they hit the Gandalf icon).

Though it didn't happen during this encounter, I also wondered if one PC could make an "attack" on the webs of their companion (who was completely ensnared), to free them. Seems to me that one should be able to, with the Loremaster picking the most appropriate skill (likely using their weapon and making an attack against it).

I realize this game is free-form enough to make just about anything work. I am just curious if any of you have played around with anything similar?

I think you handled that very well, I can not myself imagine a better way to resolve this than weapon skills. Perhaps a player might make an interesting argument to use a common skill, but I don't see any clear choices among the common skills. Dagger to me makes the most sense.

I really like how you made the "eye" icon on a failed roll cost a trapped character his weapon. It adds to the tension a lot. only problem would be if every hero was trapped and they all rolled "eye" :-(

I might rule that a free character can cut another character free automatically. Maybe, at least it should be easier.

I noticed you mentioned short swords and daggers, (I also think that knives covered under the dagger skill would work well) it seems right that smaller weapons, and those with a cutting edge should be more effective if you are trapped in sticky webs. axes and especially spears would likely be of limited use, since their long hafts would likely get stuck, even in freeing others.

Thanks, Cynan.

I didn't actually make them lose their weapon, per se, but rather just made that they couldn't seem to access it for a time. Now that you mention it, though, I probably should have had the character drop or lose their grip on it, and at least give them the impression that they no longer had access to it!

The Beorning had an axe, and though he didn't do any damage to the webbing, the Attercop that had seized him was still close by. Since he was still conscious and mobile and had other penalties (couldn't change his stance and suffered half value for Parry), I allowed him to still make attacks on the spider attacking him. But when he knocked that one out I told him he couldn't make any other attacks while bound.

Trying to skirt around any spoilers, a Tales From Wilderland adventure involving spiders says:

So this indicates that a webbed-up PC is able to attack the webs that are holding them.

And I'd certainly concur with allowing PCs to make attacks to free their comrades, or perhaps with sufficient time just doing it (e.g. a PC in a rearward stance might need two turns to cut a webbed-up companion free while other characters were holding the spiders at bay. Or something like that).

By the way, as Cynan said, I like your idea of:

I may have to use thatmyself.