Pendragon Play Report - Year 4
A few sessions ago, during King Arthur's wedding, he made a series of demands of the Britons, and said he'd back it up with military might. This year, the kings of Northumbria and Garloth weren't very happy with it, so they came down to fight.
The actual purpose of this session was a test-drive of both the Hârn combat system and my new procedure of battling: play out a fight in full, one-on-one, and let the players choose if they keep going or hang back.
We did 3 rounds per player rather than all combats simultaneously, and this is what happens.
Valerius
Valerius fell in with a famous household knight from Ripon, a very powerful guy.
Round 1
The Ripon Knight begins with a lunging stab with his broadsword on Valerius, who answers with a counter-attack of his own broadsword.
Valerius is hit on the thigh and the Ripon Knight on the chest, but their armour protects them.
Round 2
Valerius goes for a cut, but the Ripon Knight blocks it with his shield and gets advantage. He follows it up with another lunge, and Valerius keeps being aggressive.
Both hit once more, Valerius gets a minor cut on the right shoulder, and the Ripon Knight gets a serious cut on his foot as Valerius' sword fails to slash him vertically and almost hits his horse.
Round 3
Both try slashing one another this time around, and surprisingly both land TELLING blows on one another's chest, blood gushing out of the gash on the Ripon Knight's thorax but he keeps on fighting
Round 4
Valerius goes for a cut, the Ripon Knight raises his shield and Valerius cleaves it beyond repair. But the knight managed to dislodge his arm and follows it up with a stab right on his neck. Valerius feels cold and goes to ground in shock, captured by Northumbria.
Eogrim
Eogrim's opponent seems to be a scrawny knight, a mercenary of the Blue Whale Company which is providing the vanguard for Northumbria's army.
Round 1
Eogrim starts with a slash but the knight blocks it and follows it up with a high stab, which Eogrim counters easily with a slash on the knight's thigh. The man yelps in pain and goes into shock, Eogrim orders his squire to grab him and goes to help his cousin, Elias.
Elias
Elias fell in with one of the captains of the Blue Whale Knights, Gwin, a mercenary from Brittany with steely eyes.
Round 1
The knight gives Elias a serious stab on the neck as deep as a finger, which Elias failed to counter. The captain yells abuse to try and break Elias' composure.
Round 2
Elias fails to connect his own attack, and the captain once again hits him on the neck, almost lopping his entire head off from his neck, but sheer luck saved him (Elias spends an Accolade to stay alive).
Elias obviously goes into severe shock and is captured by the Blue Whale Knights, but Eogrim arrives on the scene to try and prevent that.
Round 3
Eogrim is incensed with love for his dear cousin, letting a horrible cry as he descends on the captain of the Blue Whales.
It's for naught. The captain very preparedly leaves a gash on his upper arm, sending Eogrim into shock from the pain and mental stress.
Later on, all of the knights are ransomed, and take about 4 weeks to get into tip top shape, by which time Arthur is busy securing Northumbria and Garloth. As adventuring season comes to a close, we end the year.
DM Shop Talk
I discussed with my players about the experience with the system. Valerius' Player really enjoyed it, thought it was more fun than the Pendragon system, which has quite a few of "checks" on the rolls that don't add much, in his opinion.
Eogrim's Player, likewise, thought it was alright, but had no strong feelings besides hating nested rolls.
Elias' Player did not like it at all and thought it was way too busy - too many rolls for too many different things, also they don't like the Hit Locations as it adds too many layers to the game, in their opinion.
They uniformly didn't like the Healing system, which I elided here but involved way too much rolling. I myself didn't enjoy it very much, and would automate it if running HârnMaster.
I asked if they preferred Pendragon over this. Valerius says that he did, Eogrim said that he would be fine with either, and Elias says that he preferred Pendragon.
I don't like doing things by vote, so I tried to reach a consensus. They all said they'd be fine either an even simpler version of Pendragon, without all the endlessly fiddly bullshit of checking for Knockdown, checking for Unhorsing, checking for Major Wound, etc, so my mission this week will be to find out how I can adapt OpenQuest, or maybe even SimpleQuest's combat to Pendragon.
On one level, it is a bit disappointing. I really hoped HârnMaster would strike a chord with them, because I myself quite enjoyed running it - but then, I enjoy the details. I prefer "a Serious Cut on the Neck" than "Minus 4 out of your HP of 10, but it it's definitely not for everyone. C'est la vie.
NEXT TIME: The Saxons rear their head at Badon Hill, a fateful feast finds Sir Gawain, and Havoc attempts to figure out the perfect game instead of prepping setting shit!
Will our heroes perish in the biggest battle that Britain has ever seen, under the presence of the Red and White Dragons in the sky? Will Arthur push the Saxons away from Britain and form a Celtic Britannia?? Will Havoc ever get this game straight and stop fiddling with stuff that only seems to bother him???
FIND ALL OF THIS AND MORE, NEXT TIME... ON...
SUNRISE QUEST!
