MIDDLE EARTH SYSTEMS - PART 2: THE ONE RING

 

Like the scenario for Against the Darkmaster, this will be using two pregens included with the Core Book: Lifstan, Son of Leiknir who is a Barding, and Carinthir, Elf of Mirkwood. One notable difference is that these are both distinctly melee oriented characters, albeit Carinthir could open the fight by throwing her spear.

Lifstan and Carinthir have been tracking three Snaga Trackers, arguably the weakest and laziest of orc-kind, that have been scouting some farmsteads in the area.

Lifstan assumes that Carinthir is an expert tracker, being an elf. Unfortunately this is not the case…

Carinthir’s player spends a point of hope to add her attribute to the result of her skill check which is the feat dice (12 sided dice with 11 and 12 meaning ‘Eye of Sauron’ or ‘Gandalf’s  Rune’ that have special meaning.) plus skill dice where a 6 has special meaning (measures degrees of success).

Carinthir rolls a 13, plus her wits attribute of 6 for a 20. The difficulty was the default 14, and since she has  the Trait (think FATE aspects) of ‘quick hearing’, the Loremaster decides that not only does she spot the lurking scouts, but she does so with enough time to avoid their ambush.

Initiative is generally side based, and play is asymmetric in that player rules are different than NPC rules. Defenders go first (unless it is an ambush) and there is an opportunity for a volley or two of missile fire before ranks close (horse charge attacks are added in later volumes).

Carinthir makes a risky choice to cast her spear at one of the orcs. The players are considered to be in ‘Rearward’ stance which impacts both how easy it is to hit and enemy, how hard you are to be hit, as well as other combat options such as defending comrades,rallying, intimidating and so on.

The PCs also make Battle rolls for combat advantage dice, where a regular success grants one, and each additional level of success grants another.

Lifstan gets one die, while Carinthir gets three due to her extraordinary skill and luck.

Opening Volley

Carinthir throws ALL of her combat dice into this throw. She gets a 23 to hit, a 10 on the Feat Dice, which is above her weapon’s Edge rating indicating an injury, and one 6 which adds her Damage rating to the throw. This inflicts 15 damage (which would exhaust the orc, and it fails its armor save taking an injury, dropping it.)

The two Snaga fire volleys with their Bows of horn. Lifstan has a shield, and its rating is doubled against opening volleys if he is aware of them.

It does not matter as their arrows go wide.

First round

Players declare their ‘stances’, the Rearward stance is the only one where missile fire can occur, there are requirements with regards to having enough allies to keep you safe versus the number of enemies in play, but none of this matters as neither Carinthir nor Lifstan have ranged weapons remaining.

The ratios also do not allow the orcs to safely engage with missile weapons either.

Forward, Open, Defensive and Rearward are the available stances.

Given the ratios, each player is facing one orc.

Both players choose Forward stance to fight as aggressively as possible.

Lifstan chooses to ‘Challenge Adversary’ which means that for the length of the fight, both the PC and the Adversary will roll the feat dice twice and keep the best.

Lifstan is using his combat dice for this as he wishes to end this quickly in case there are other Orcs about.

His second Feat roll is Gandalf’s rune which is an automatic success, high enough to force an injury check and he gets a superior success so adds his damage rating to his Sword (10 damage, which would exhaust the Orc, and the orc fails his armor check, taking an injury and thus being killed)

Carinthir is fighting with her less favored weapons, so chooses to Intimidate Foe instead. She may use either Battle or Awe, and chooses the former. Mechanically the check is versus 10 plus the highest attribute level in the group she is facing, which is 2… Snaga are not terribly threatening.

An ordinary success saps 2 Hate points from the enemy side. There is only one enemy left, and it has only 2 Hate points, so its morale is broken and it flees.

It should also be noted that 'Hate' is a resource the GM can use to activate certain special abilities. The Snaga Trackers can spend one hate point to increase their Parry when struck, but that did not come into play in the above slaughter...