Battle of Felsentheim?

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Joe
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Battle of Felsentheim?

Post by Joe »

My group had a bad time of it.

I am wondering if ANYBODY ever beat that module and how?
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Post by CKDad »

I know there was a group playing this with what I believe were Bowbe's mass combat rules at TrollCon last July. I went to bed before they finished but thought they carried the day in the end. Don't have any details, though.
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Post by Fiffergrund »

We ran like little beeotches. Seemed prudent.

We put up a hell of a defense for a while, but in the end it was a numbers game.
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Post by Troll Lord »

We were defeated. I had one of my best character and most controversial character deaths at the battle of felsentheim. I was playing a ranger from the village and my wife lived there.

We fought the first battle at the river and were driven off but not before we slew some of the spider goblins. It was cool. But we held them off on the walls for awhile until they came over the back wall and down the house. I led two villagers over to fight off the goblin horde. They were hitting the dirt and slaughtering the villagers. I scooped up my wife and we fought them around that back building. I was rocking.

Then they pulled down a section of od wall and about the same time burst through the front gate. It was chaos. Mac and Charlie fled in the chaos and escaped into the forest. Chris tried to surrender and was cut down in the gate. Mark tried to follow Mac and Charlie but died in the ruins of the wall. Todd tried to get to me and was shot down in the courtyard.

I was fighting pretty good when my two dudes were cut down. About the time Chris fell (before Todd did) I saw it was all over, refusing to flee I took up my wife, kissed her even as I stabbed her in the back, killing her. Laid her body down and died fighting over her.

It was awesomely sweet death.

Typical davis game though. Everyone dies.
I'll try to get him to chime in.

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Post by Julian Grimm »

Isn't that the game where Clakkity was born? (Bonus points to those that remember the Clakkity fad here)
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Post by Tadhg »

Julian Grimm wrote:
Isn't that the game where Clakkity was born? (Bonus points to those that remember the Clakkity fad here)

Hell no. This is the Troll's world. Old mod, I just can't remember if it was Erde or Inzae and can't find any links at the moment.

Clakkity was that crap from Brian Miller (no offense Brian, but I couldn't stand the endless posting about that silly stuff!).

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Post by Tadhg »

Here we go:
http://www.trolllord.com/cnc/8092.html

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Fields of Battle

Post by Bowbe »

Not every encounter is meant to be won, which (without edition wars) is a lesson that 3ed and 4ed never learned, and sometimes the greatest heroics are achieved by running away with the innocents in tow so that they may live to fight another day... or to die valiantly protecting the innocent. Not being a huge fan of Dragonlance, I still say the best part of any of the books was Sturm standing against Kitiara and the dragons atop the bastion wall. There certainly isn't anything wrong with going out like Sturm.

This battle is quite definitely a Kobyashi Maru scenario, the difference being that in this battle there is a possibility of escape for the villagers and the heroes so long as the heroes manage to perpetrate a delaying action long enough to allow the villagers to get free.

We played this battle at Troll Con with Zane, #1 Son and the gang. Though Zane hated it retreat was ultimately the decision due to the enemy forces use of fire and their massive assault at the end. The PCs were rocking and only a few passed on.

C.

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Post by Julian Grimm »

Rhu, I can't count on you for my clakkity team, then?
Seriously, where has "Killer" Miller been lately?
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Post by Julian Grimm »

Rhuvein wrote:
Hell no. This is the Troll's world. Old mod, I just can't remember if it was Erde or Inzae and can't find any links at the moment.

Clakkity was that crap from Brian Miller (no offense Brian, but I couldn't stand the endless posting about that silly stuff!).

BTW, this was where Clakkity was born. I think this is the same event Steve mentioned earlier.

Thanks to inkpot and miller I can't look at those mods without thinking of the big C.
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Post by Fiffergrund »

When we played through this during C&C playtesting, we kicked the goblins' behinds at the river. We totally routed them, and it wasn't easy, but they were stupid and we took advantage of it.

We lured about 1/3 of them into a woods skirmish, tore them apart incrementally, and then yelled in Goblin to the groups on the other side of the river, saying "we have them on the run, send more help!" They bought the ruse, and we lured them across the river. When they were halfway across, my druid transmuted the riverbed at the ford (rock) to mud, miring about 1/3 of them in it, and then cast Raise Water (reverse Lower Water - one of the greatest spells to have in the wilds). 30 dead (total) gobbos later, the rest fled from our arrows. Thank you to Glorfindel for the inspiration.
Then we hauled it to Felsentheim, and we managed to use that extra time bought by that victory to improve defenses marginally. A very daring excursion by the druid (me) and the ranger managed to take out some of the leadership and make it back to the walls before the frontal assault began. Things were seemingly going our way.

Twenty minutes later, Felsentheim was on fire and we were running. We lived, but damn.

Bowbe has it right. This scenario is all about knowing when to fish or cut bait.
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Post by Troll Lord »

I always have this crazy aversion to fleeing. But if I could have gotten out of there with my wife and Todd in tow . . .

(hmm Todd and I traditionally fight back to back, we've lost many a character trying to get the other one out, or if one falls, refusing to flee...we've also had many fights in which we kill each other...we're like an old married couple now that I think of it).

But F-theim is one of the toughest modules. As Fiff/bowbe relate, its when to fish or cut bait!

Davis runs a fair, but hard game. His modules are the same for the most part. Chris' last character fell off a bridge and drowned in mud.

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Post by Joe »

Oh I love the gritty style it played out. It was just brutal.

I would have allowed for impromptu heroism except by the time the players decided to attempt such acts, the horde was overunning the place.

Good module overall but Mortality is still my fav so far.
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Post by Treebore »

Just to let you know this scenario is beatable.

Part of what may have been different, but played into our ultimate victory, was that our CK described this as a "hot and dry summer".

Now its been about 2 years since we played this, so my memories are very hazy, but I will do my best.

I believe we were all 5th level, we had a druid, Knight, Cleric, Bard, Mage, and Ranger in our group. All standard C&C classes.

We crushed them at the river, largely because the Knight was devastatingly awesome from his horses (He had 3, and that was good because the first, his favorite, was killed). Plus the Ranger was pretty kick butt as well. The Mage had been played very conservative, because we had a clue this was just a skirmish.

However, after the river, we saw how many more were coming, and determined we likely would not win, and pulled back to the village.

We were trying to decide what to do, the Mages Raven familiar was up flying to let us know where the enemy was.

The direction of the wind was brought up, and the CK told us it was blowing towards the advancing horde.

Being the player of the Druid, I asked how badly the weather had been treating the trees, etc...

He described the leaves of the trees as being very wilted looking, due to little rain yet this year, and that all the grasses and other ground cover was very dry looking, etc...

My druid had a sacrilegious idea.

I remembered that the trade caravan we had escorted in had a wagon full of big barrels, full of lamp oil.

I asked how far away the river was, and confirmed which direction it ran in relation to us.

I told the Knight to go and sortie against the on coming creatures and buy us some time. So he, the Ranger, Bard, and a few NPC's mounted up and went and sortied, while the rest of us grabbed cups, pots, pans, whatever would work, and filled them with lamp oil and went out into the woods and spread the oil around as much as we could.

I was using the mage and his familiar to keep me apprised of how the Knight was doing.

I told the Mage when to call back the Knight and told the village folk to ready burning arrows. The CK started to look at me squinty eyed. Then I started casting spells. I believe the first was "Control Weather", whatever spell it was it was on a scroll and would allow me to cast "Call Lightning" which I had prayed for. Most importantly to me as a Druid, it would also bring rain, lots of it. So I made my check to cast the scroll successfully and I remember making it with room to spare on my roll, which was good because the TN was around a 20. So the weather was coming.

I was given the status of the Knight and his men and heard they were doing surprisingly good holding them at the river. In fact they had killed enough that the horde had retreated to regroup. I think this is when I was told that the Knight had lost his favorite horse, though.

I was tied to my location because the casting times of the spells were pretty long, 10 minutes each, I think. I know Call Lightning takes that long, and I am pretty sure the spell I cast off the scroll was as long.

The Mage knew what I was doing, so asked the CK how long it would take for the horde to now reach us. The CK responded it would take 10 to 15 minutes, if they moved normally.

So the Mage then had his familiar fly down and land on the neck of the Knights horse, our signal for him to withdraw.

(BTW, the battle at the river was awesome, we were even thinking if we kept rolling so well we could actually win).

So then we waited, while I kept casting with my Druid. The weather worsened, and rain started to fall. The CK said I had control over how much in rained, etc.. so I kept it at a lite drizzle, to keep the lamp oil usable. Meanwhile I was also casting my Call Lightning, and minutes before I was done the horde arrived, which was fine, I hoped. I wasn't planning on using the Lightning during the attack.

The knight, freshly healed up by the Cleric, said he was going to fight outside the walls, in the cleared "kill zone" as we call it. This is the area you clear outside of walls to have clear fields of fire for your missile weapons, etc...

Anyways I thought the Knight was even crazier than he had already been, because if I remember correctly the horde had Ogres and a few Hill Giants in it as well, and the boulders they threw is what had killed his favorite horse at the river.

When I pointed this out the Knights player said that is why he was doing it, the longer he drew the fire of the giant types, the longer the walls would hold. Plus he would attempt to disrupt anything else they do to get over the walls.

So out he went.

We fought, until we were sure most of the horde were within the areas soaked with lamp oil. Then we lit it.

the CK made some rolls, and then all hades broke out! Apparently the dried grasses and ground debris still went up like perfect tinder. The horde started screaming as many of them burned, many of the lesser types dying pretty much immediately.

The CK made more rolls, and determined that this broke the resolve of the horde and they were scattering to the flanks of the field to get away from the fire.

They were routed!

I kept casting, I was pretty sure I still wanted my Call Lightning.

So the CK determined what was happening with his horde, who was hurt, who was killed, and where they went.

Then I was done also casting the Call Lightning, and the CK told me the forest was engulfed in flames between here and the river, but the wind direction had it going to the river.

So at this time I drank a potion of Flying I had and took to the air. See, the CK and our group had determined that the Call Lighting spell was centered on me, so moved with me, and I could strike anything I saw out to 450 feet.

I went to the river. Sure enough the horde was regrouping. I wanted to put the forest fire out, ASAP. This is why I had the Call Lightning. I took cover in some nearby tree tops, and asked the CK if I could determine who was the leader, or leaders. Who was keeping the horde from staying routed. He told me who it was. I centered the first bolt on the leader. I rolled, I got NOTHING below a 5 on my damage dice and 2 of them were 10's.

The CK then rolled the saves for the creatures in my area of effect. The CK was not happy. Apparently between the damage they took from getting away from the fire, combined with my good rolls, combined with apparently some very crappy rolls on his part, I killed every creature in the area of effect!

So the CK made another roll, essentially a morale check, and he rolled a "1"! A total route!

We won the day and the war!

So it is possible to win. You just have to have an awesome Knight, Ranger, and druid willing to risk being a Druid, to win the day.

BTW, when asked how I as a druid justified burning the forest, I said, "It was time for a controlled burn."

Which it was, after the Horde was routed, I fully unleashed the rain of the spell, and the CK determined I put out the fires with it. I then went around and inspected the trees, and the CK determined some of them likely would die. So we stayed a few extra days and I cast Growth on them to give them what essentially amounted to magical healing for plants.

My Druid still had to stay away, because even though my God apparently agreed with my actions, the local Druids did not. Other than that, we were heroes.
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Post by Lurker »

Tree great fight!
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Post by Aneoth of Ironwood »

Awesome stuff Treebore.

Thanks for writing that up for us to read.

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