forums.cubicle7.co.uk
archive

I'm about to run Blood in the Waters, and I'm having my doubts about how to run the part where the Goblins are running north and the PCs are chasing them.

I can't do a simple travel check, as the interesting part is that the heroes must track the goblins AND travel faster than them to catch the group.

Some loose ideas are:
1) Establish some kind of abstract "distance rating" between the two groups. Let's say that the Goblins have a "distance rating" advantage of 3. This might correlate to the highest Movement Skill among the Goblins/Wargs (which is 3) or to time. I would say that 4 hours is the equivalent of an advantatge of 1.
2) Ask for two Hunting checks per day (one in the morning, one in the afternoon). TN 14 due to Border Land Region. Not sure if I should let everyone roll or only the Hunter. If no success is acomplished during the whole day, the group can't move on as they don't know the direction they have to follow, thus increasing the "distance rating" of the Goblins by 1.
Additionally, if a failure and an EYE are rolled in a Hunting check, the group faces the Ambush described in the adventure. This Hazard can only happen once during the chase. This can also make players who don't have points in Hunting (or just one) refrain from rolling "just in case I'm lucky and a Gandalf Rune comes up". This way, I can let everyone roll (which seems more logic than allowing only one player roll), but they'll learn that it's at their own risk: Don't mess in the affairs of a Tracker!
If at least one Hunting check is successful, the group can travel in the right direction for one day. Just travelling in the right direction doesn't reduce the "distance rating".
3) The companions can (and must!) Force the March. Everyday of the chase they have to roll Athletics. TN 12 due to Easy Terrain Difficulty. For the PC, a failure means an increase in Fatigue equal to the Traveling Gear. As for the group, if anyone fails the Athletics test, the "distance rating" is reduced only by 1. If everyone is successful in the Athletics test (I expect this to happen rarely), the "distance rating" is reduced by 2.
4) It the "distance rating" reaches 7 (more than 6), the Goblins have escaped and the heroes must return empty handed. 1 automatic Shadow Point and a Corruption test to avoid getting a second one.
4) Keep a record of the number of days passed until the "distance rating" reaches 0.
During the fourth day of the chase, the wounded Lyskar dies from his injuries and his body is left behind by the creatures (Corruption test to avoid gaining a Shadow Point).
Roll Fatigue tests accordingly (1 every 4 days or fraction thereof in Autumn) before engaging in combat with the running Goblins.


It's a little complicated, but I want to play a chase, not just a normal travel.
How have you conducted chases in your games?

Perhaps this is simplifying things too much--but isn't this the perfect application for a prolonged action? You can establish the level of difficulty and number of required successes, then success/failure can result in ground gained/lost--or the trail drying up completely if they roll and eye, etc.

I had trouble in the example campaign (The Marsh Bell) understanding how prolonged actions correlate to time passing: it would seem that normally only 2 rolls per day are allowed, but the suggested timeframes (company arriving at the Reeking River by the fourth day) didn't really seem to fit for me once the prolonged search rolls came in. I'm not exactly sure how this is meant to work out: but maybe others can advise?

The athletics test seems like a good idea. Or maybe just raise the difficulty level of the standard fatigue test to represent the increased pace of the chase. Read somewhere about a LM allowing company to drop their extra (traveling) gear for a bonus while sprinting in retreat: this might be fun if one of your players comes up with the idea.

I've run this several times as i like it a bit better than the LMbook scenario.
What I've done is refined it over those multiple games to run it as sort of a Prolonged Action. I gave the goblins a certain head start (18 hours) and had the company test against Search and Awareness to find tracks, Hunting and Explore to maintain tracking and against Athletics to maintain the speed (forcing the March). I set a number of successes in each to decide what sort of action happened and where.

Two successes to find the tracks once they left the area of the inn (everyone can test). I didn't expect this to be failed.
Four tests per day for maintaining tracking (maximum one test per hero for each six hours of marching if they did without sleep thereby doubling the distance travelled). (Anyone can test TN 14, but TN 16 during night-time). Three hours was added to the goblins lead on a failure. Daily Fatigue test for everyone, Travel fatigue on a failure.
Two tests each day after first against Athletics to maintain the speed. (everyone must test). Each failure accrued 1 point of Travel fatigue (the sort that isn't lost by a night's rest in the wild).

The goblins have to shelter from the sun during the day so can only travel for 8 to 12 hours (depending upon the time of year) so for each successful tracking test I shrank their lead by 6 hours, adding 3 on a failure and added 8-12 hours to the lead for each day passing.

Start of day 1 Goblins 18 hours Company 0
day 1 noon Goblins 18 hours Company 4 hours (2 hours spent finding tracks)
day 1 dusk Goblins 18 hours Company 10 hours
day 1 midnight Goblins 22 hours Company 16 hours
day 2 dawn Goblins 26 hours Company 22 hours and they catch up with the stay-behind group about late-morning at the earliest.

Alternatively you can wing it and make the company take tests and have them catch up at a story-appropriate moment.

cuthalion wrote:Perhaps this is simplifying things too much--but isn't this the perfect application for a prolonged action? You can establish the level of difficulty and number of required successes, then success/failure can result in ground gained/lost--or the trail drying up completely if they roll and eye, etc.

I thought so in the beginning, and the method I'm proposing is -more or less- a kind of "complicated prolongued action"
The fact that I wanted to condition the chance of rolling Athletics to a success in Hunting (tracking) is what complicates it a little bit.

@Hermes: I see that your way is more detailed than mine, but shares the same ideas. Thanks, I might use some or your ideas and conditions.

Hermes Serpent wrote:I've run this several times as i like it a bit better than the LMbook scenario.

I agree here completely. I think it's a perfect starting scenario, as it portrays a setting to form a new company. The LMbook adventure needs a group who is already formed and that has some renown to be hired by Glóin.
I'm running Blood in the Waters as the first adventure, set in Lake-Town just before Dragon Tide. That will give the heroes a certain fame there, and that's why Glóin will contact them for The Marsh Bell for their second adventure.

I've tended to run it as a postscript to Dragontide in that the various heroes were in Lake-town for the celebrations and are travelling up to Dale to see how the rebuilding is getting along. They meet on the raft/boat/barge being poled up the lake to Dale and I have had the female merchant as foreshadowing the first adventure in Tales in place of Baldor so they get a better connection than saving Baldor from thugs as a start to that. Their interaction with the crew and the merchant and her son set the tone for Encounters down the road as a gentle, relatively unimportant, introduction to that subsystem.

One session of the scenario did involve my first awarding of shadow for a player trying to loot the remains of the inn. He soon got the message.

Hermes Serpent wrote:the female merchant as foreshadowing the first adventure in Tales in place of Baldor

Great idea! She even has a son, like Baldor... And in her description, it is said that she's "well travelled". Perfect NPC for Don't Leave The Path.

I'd probably adapt the "Hunted!" pursuit rules from Tales from Wilderland p. 105.

Falenthal wrote:

cuthalion wrote:Perhaps this is simplifying things too much--but isn't this the perfect application for a prolonged action? You can establish the level of difficulty and number of required successes, then success/failure can result in ground gained/lost--or the trail drying up completely if they roll and eye, etc.

I thought so in the beginning, and the method I'm proposing is -more or less- a kind of "complicated prolongued action"
The fact that I wanted to condition the chance of rolling Athletics to a success in Hunting (tracking) is what complicates it a little bit.

Fair point. I had been thinking that considering the rolls more obliquely--i.e. it's the number of successes made that will speed/slow the company up/down--rather than trying to calculate via the distance rating might be a little easier to reckon with. Totally get where you're coming from though.

trystero wrote:I'd probably adapt the "Hunted!" pursuit rules from Tales from Wilderland p. 105.

Yet another supplement I need to buy!

trystero wrote:I'd probably adapt the "Hunted!" pursuit rules from Tales from Wilderland p. 105.

Had forgotten about it!

HUNTED!
The company is pursued by Orcs out of Dwimmerhorn.
To handle the hunt, the Loremaster must keep track of the company’s Lead, which measures how close the Orcs
are on their trail. At the start of the hunt, the Lead begins at a value equal to the Company’s highest Travel skill.

• This rating diminishes whenever the companions fail at a roll made to resolve the journey: either a Travel
roll, an Athletics test to do a forced march, or another roll as required by a Hazard episode, for example.

If the Lead rating is reduced to zero, then the company has been overtaken by its pursuers (see Overtaken! Below). If the company reach their destination before this happens, then they are safe from the Orcs.

I think the idea is to use a mechanic similar to that of the Encounters.
In our situation, the Lead (what I called "distance rating") can be set by the highest Movement skill among the Goblins/Wargs. The heroes use Travel (and Athletics if they force the march) in the pursuit and every success reduces the Lead by one. On the other hand, every failure adds 1 to the Lead. The rolls done by Hazards count in the same way towards the Lead total. When it reaches zero, the company overtakes the Goblins. I think there should be also a total when the Goblins have escaped and are beyond reach, probably when the Lead reaches 7 (6 would be the top of a Travel skill).

There have been previous discussions on this here (the search function is your friend!):

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=966&p=8780&hilit=chases#p8780

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1247&p=11721&hilit=chases#p11721