Feudal Quest

[X] Bandits are a cowardly lot. Lead a charge into their midst and cut them down - they’ll break and run as soon as they start taking losses.
- Throw some obvious fire magic around to help create a panic

 

This is dangerous:

we can't in any way surrender as we have no way of knowing who they are. While if we are lucky they really are bandits working for themselves, there ARE possible plots to capture Ezti and force-marry her. This is also why, counter-intuitively, i would say that making a diversionary charge might in fact endanger the ladies more. False bandits capturing Ezti is predictably the kind of scheme that one could concoct to be seen as innocent (we saved her from the bandits and she decided to marry me as thanks!).

Talking could actually work- we are three important nobles from the three different lands circling this place on a diplomatic journey after all, and we could imply we are not worth the trouble or that this is the one change they get for a potential pardon. Even if they are working for someone else it might just be enough to have them give up, especially with some money on top. Even If it doesn't it gives us time to potentially see if there is more than just that dozen.

Charging them with all of us might endanger Chesna (she is the only one who cannot fight here, unless she has been holding out on us about sorcery) but it also could work. We know enough about flesh magic to be formidable in our own right, we have fire sorcery to create panic, and Ezti is more than able to fight herself, which, if they are here to capture her and not kill, whill only work against them.

Running is, also, a definite option. The main problem here is that we are trying to be the cool cousin for Chesna and running from bandits may make her see us forever as a weak man. Likewise, while Ezti knows tactics she IS a devout Khersian- and there is no telling of her stance when it comes to tactical retreat.

Not being myself a great tactician, i would say that charging them might be the best choice, if only because the sudden aggressiveness might make them scared more easily. If we do so, leading the charge with Ezti while having at least two guards around Chesna at all times might work. I do not know how good a polearm is when it comes to a sudden charge, though. We do have our horses right? If we do this a big plus for charge.

Also, if we learn those men were actually her for Ezti it would be good to learn how they knew of our location. Maybe it's as simple as Rogatica knowing we were asking Ezti to walk the border, but the precise timing is supicious. Let's not be hasty in our deductions as it might not be Nikolai even if there is a traitor though- we do not know if he is working directly under our grandad's order to limit who could marry Chesna. It's just that if it's not our grandfather's order to keep Chesna away from her debut (nor our uncle's), then he would strongly benefit from Rogatica getting Ezti and thus Kisnuc: Pischia would suddenly be encircled by Rogatica/Timis and it will then be easy to 'find' the roads unsafe and make sure Chesna won't have a debut.

EDIT: We do not have our horses right now it seems as we are cut off from the rest of the party (timing even more suspicious), and it might make it more dangerous to charge with a polearm.

ShaperV: how are you seeing charging with polearms in Feudal? Ezti's only weapon is a polearm, or is she otherwise armed?

 

Ezti's weapon is a versatile design that should serve quite well in a charge, and she certainly had the technical skill to make good use of it. Ordinarily Dominic would be worried about a woman actually having the nerve to fight in a serious battle, but Ezti seems likely to be solid in that respect as well.

 

[x] Bandits are a cowardly lot. Lead a charge into their midst and cut them down - they’ll break and run as soon as they start taking losses.
- Throw some obvious fire magic around to help create a panic

 

[X] Bandits are a cowardly lot. Lead a charge into their midst and cut them down - they’ll break and run as soon as they start taking losses.
- Throw some obvious fire magic around to help create a panic

Seems like the best choice here.

 

[X] Bandits are a cowardly lot. Lead a charge into their midst and cut them down - they’ll break and run as soon as they start taking losses.
- Throw some obvious fire magic around to help create a panic

Burn them all.

 

[X] Bandits are a cowardly lot. Lead a charge into their midst and cut them down - they’ll break and run as soon as they start taking losses.
- Throw some obvious fire magic around to help create a panic
- Use Flesh magic to add in the fight

 

Are Ezti and Chesna already aware that Dominic has some magical ability?

If they don't already know, does Dominic think they might react badly to finding out this way?

In any case, I'd go with an immediate all out attack, using whatever magic isn't likely to cause us a huge amount of trouble later if the girls don't keep quite about this.

Not sure on what level of magic use that puts us at.

 

We have used "tales of sorcery" to look like the cool older cousin to Chesna as well as talked about regency Magic, but i do not know whether we flat out told them about our fire sorcery.

We do know, however, that they didn't mind Dita having magic. In fact Ezti being ok with magic was noted as being an exception when it comes to devout Khersians.

We probably can go all out given we are only Fire 1.

What we must do is stay close to Ezti at all time when fighting. First for penalty negating when outnumbered (we are both probably the best fighters there), and second so that we can make sure Ezti doesn't get blindsided by a strangely strong opponent and wounded or even worse captured.

EDIT: ShaperV, What is Dominic's opinion of Ezti's retinue? Does he know if they are veteran knights/ranger on par with Sir Biallis/Jaroslaw, or are they more likes the average veteran warrior?

 

What equipment do we currently have?

[X] Bandits are a cowardly lot. Lead a charge into their midst and cut them down - they’ll break and run as soon as they start taking losses.
- Throw some obvious fire magic around to help create a panic

 

The knight she brought seems about on a par with Bialis while the men at arms are all veterans. So in combat ability (which is Body+Skill) you've got a 6 (the knight), a 5 (Ezti), five 4s (the men at arms) and a 0 (Chesna).

You'd expect brigands to range from 1 - 5, with most of them being 2s and 3s.

I'm going to assume Dominic was at least somewhat concerned about security on this trip, so you're wearing chain mail and have both your broadsword and a hunting bow handy.

 

[ ] Bandits are a cowardly lot. Lead a charge into their midst and cut them down - they’ll break and run as soon as they start taking losses.

With the boat markings, we have reason to believe that these are our river pirates, so if we can break them that will be handy.

I think charging into the trees will help us against the archers, provided the cover is as thick as Dom seems to be observing. We can then move as one group, Chesna in the center for protection and cut down all who approach us. They may have numbers but we have skill, discipline and equipment on our side to overcome that. With Etzi on one side of us, we can form a proper arrowhead to break through or reorganize into a square to hold.

We need to focus on neutralizing their ranged options as soon as possible, so we should head to the archers we saw as soon as we get in cover.

For sorcery options, make judicious use of the flesh boost to rend men in twain, for the scare factor as much as the quick removal of difficult targets.
If they start to press on us, use some fire sorcery to give them a scare and capitalize on the moment. Otherwise, it's not really worth it to reveal that. Keep it for a trump.
I don't know how quickly force sorcery comes into play, but if possible we should use that to deflect/destroy flying arrows as we head to the trees.

We stay together, splitting up is just making it easy for them to get a hostage and end this scuffle.
We should be able to scare them quite handily with our determination and sorcery cheats, so we might even survive this.
Just tell Chesna to keep her head down and she should be ok behind our fortress of meat and chain.

 

Fire sorcery's going to be pretty useless considering the best Dominic can do is make a torch flame. I'll stick with the charge though, the Flesh sorcery boost should help with that.

 

Vote changed due to Darklight's points. See post further down.

 

Considerations.

Our attackers seem to closely match the description that we have of the pirates on the Sava; "three boats full of ragged-looking men armed with spears and clubs". Given our current location in their area of operation, and the fact that they're hitting us in a location where they could have been feasibly lying in wait for anyone walking along the shore or floating down the stream, I'm inclined to say that this is a pirate operation rather than a directed attack on us. Ezti is the only one here who would likely have a targeted attack focused on her, anyway, and it would take a very good intelligence-gathering effort to determine that she was going to be walking along a border that isn't even hers.

This lets us know something about their motivations- they're in it for money, and likely to be concerned about remaining safe and maximizing profits, rather than anything else. It lets us know that they're more than willing to kill hapless innocents in pursuit of that goal, so their threatening or hurting Chesna in order to force our compliance is a very real risk if they get half a chance. It also lets us guess at something about their numbers; at minimum, their group can fill three boats. How many men are in a boat? I have no idea. I'd guess somewhere between four and twelve, so we could be seeing all of their group or less than a third of it. Dominic might have a better idea in-character based on the size of the markings on the shore where the boats were clearly pulled out of the water.

As for effective responses...

I have serious concerns that using fire sorcery will take concentration that we can't afford. If we were more skilled in that field things would be different, but we're no human flamethrower- a torch flame is the best we've got. While that's more than enough to bluff with, it's nowhere near enough to add an effective fire component to a shock and awe type assault. Worse, it'll take concentration to do two things at once; we haven't done any kind of training with working fire sorcery into our combat style, so far as I know. The same applies to force sorcery, not that people are recommending using it; in the future we might want to train it up a bit and learn some kind of deflect arrows application so that we can ward ourselves and others from ranged attacks in situations like this, but we certainly couldn't manage that right now.

Flesh sorcery, however, is a different story. Not only are we more skilled with it in general, we've actively practiced using flesh sorcery to boost our strength and speed for situations exactly like this one. It's likely that it will require less focus on our part to use, and frankly boosting our speed so that we can close to melee with the archers supernaturally fast is likely to be at least as intimidating as the tiny bit of fire that we can manage. If we use magic, it should be flesh sorcery boosting our prowess.

Speed of response. The pirates/bandits have already snuck into ambush positions and seem to be holding in place. Our group, on the other hand, is surprised. This means that it's to our benefit to buy at least a little bit of time, so that our forces can get their bearings. Going charging into the enemy right away would leave our men at arms rushing to catch up; hardly ideal. Our discipline and skill will tell if we give them a chance to, so let's buy a few seconds.

Consider talking. We aren't going to surrender, of course, but we can at the very least attempt some intimidation while our forces ready themselves to charge and get Chesna into a spot where she's shielded from arrows. Project confidence, speak forcefully, and tell the bandits they've made a mistake; we aren't the usual peasants they make a practice of robbing, and because of that there's simply no way they're getting out of this one intact. Either they rob us and we send troops after them later, they kill us and our families send even more troops to hunt them down to the last and see them dead, or they fail to rob us because we fought back and showed them exactly what the difference between a true knight and a man with a spear is. If they've got a decent mind between the lot of them they'll realize their mistake, stop this ill-considered assault on their betters, gather whatever belongings they have between them, and be long gone before we return with a few dozen troops to sweep the woods and clear them of criminals.

Talking serves multiple purposes, of course. It'll hopefully intimidate them into withdrawal, failing that might impact their morale a bit, failing even that it will provide a distraction while our troops get their shit together and we slowly close toward melee range, and make them focus on us instead of the ladies. If we talk loudly and forcefully enough to dominate their attention it might also stop them from effectively giving orders amongst themselves.

It'll likely come to fighting in the end. When it does, it will be vital that we prevent any damage being dealt to Chesna- everyone else here can likely take care of themselves, or mostly so. Drawing attention to ourselves with a charge toward their bowmen will hopefully prevent them from shooting at anyone else but simultaneously make us a hard target, and carving through their archers before the melee troops can respond would be an ideal opener. They outnumber us significantly, but we can probably take on several scruffy bandits, and their morale is likely to break if they lose even a handful of people- based on their surmised identity above they're successful enough pirates that they aren't utterly desperate, and they haven't been so thoroughly bribed that they'd risk many casualties for victory. Try to encourage them to flee via intimidation at any chance we get, and let them go if they do- the important thing is to protect our own here, not go clearing out lowlifes. We'll return to do that later with more troops.

Note that if for some reason they are willing to risk significant casualties and have many more troops here than we can see, we might be simply unable to win- being overwhelmed by numbers is a very real thing. If things seem to be going in that direction, protecting Chesna and Ezti takes priority and we need to be willing to shift our objective to "fight our way out" instead of "force the enemy to flee".

Hopefully we'll get through this okay. Would that we had more healing abilities; I strongly suspect someone on our side will be hurt before it ends.

 

Welp. Gotta agree that DarkLight140 seems to have the best idea on how to get everyone's attention on us rather than squishier member of our party, and i think we can trust Ezti and her knight to quickly come up next to us before we are overwhelmed by superior numbers.

So, good plan.

 

If DarkLight140 is right about fire magic being such a huge distraction then I would also support not using it. Running ahead to the archers might be a great help but it is also risky to fight multiple people by ourselves (even if we would only have to do so for a short while).

 

I have no clue how much it would be splitting our concentration, but i do think that our fire ability is not yet up to the task of doing much beyond hoping it intimidate them because "Fire Magic! Run". Depends if the GM has the habit of getting the characters get sudden ability boosts in combat.

Yeah, it's basically trying as hard as possible to switch the danger from Chesna to Dominic, which is a fine plan if these are brigands. After all, they would be between Att+skill:1-5, which is really dangerous for Chesna's 0 but much less so for Dominic's 7, especially as Dominic is armored and the whole sprint and speech can have its own intimidation factors.

It's also banking on the belief our men will understand our message, but i believe that Ezti and the Knight's tactical acumen are good enough there that we'll soon have everyone backing us up.

 

[X] Plan Darklight

 

*sigh* shouldn't have voted this damn early. Change to [X] Darklight.

@ShaperV: That flesh magic thing has me thinking... could we use it to reduce Chesna's back pain and maybe use it for further "plastic" surgery things? Obviously that's not really high priority, healing and such are far more important, but would it be possible?

 

I too will support everything DarkLight says.

 

[X]Darklight
Because it's much more sensible than immediately going "Bandits?I can take them" while in the company of an unarmored heiress and surprised to boot.
If nothing else, it gives the guards time to shield the Chesna.

Besides, Charm 4 should be good for something.

 

April Events Pt 5

[X] Bandits are a cowardly lot. Lead a charge into their midst and cut them down - they’ll break and run as soon as they start taking losses.
- Use magic for extra intimidation
- Keep Chesna behind your fighters for protection
- Be ready to break off and get the girls to safety if there are too many enemies


“Chesna!” You hiss urgently. “Don’t panic! Get behind me and stay close. Ezti, prepare to attack on my signal.”

Then you turn and take a step towards the brigands. “You varlets have a lot of nerve, accosting a nobleman. Run now, and maybe I won’t hang you all.”

Your group is getting over their surprise now. Sir Huril, Ezti’s knight, steps up to your left and readies his shield.

“At these odds, milord? I don’t think so,” the bandit leader calls back mockingly. “Throw down your weapons and empty your pockets, and maybe we’ll let you walk back to your nice featherbed. Otherwise we turn you into a pincushion, and the boys get to fuck noble pussy tonight.”

That gets a round of laughter and crude comments from the mob. Insolent rabble. You hide your left hand behind your body and wave it. Clench it into a fist. One finger out.

“Insolent dogs!” You ham it up a little, trying to look indignant but indecisive. They're clearly not going to listen to reason.

Two fingers. Ezti steps into place at your right. Chesna is behind you now, and the men at arms are easing into an arrow formation.

“Hey, uh, boss,” you hear from the woods. “I think they’re-”

Three fingers, and you draw your sword with your right hand. “Attack!”

Your charge takes the brigands mostly by surprise, but several of them loose arrows before you can close the distance. You see a man at arms fall, and an arrow grazes your arm. No damage, your hauberk turns it. Then you reach them.

You beat his spear aside with a burst of strength, and run him through. Around a tree , sounds of battle beginning to rise all around you. There’s the leader, backing away with two of his men level spears. You lead your little force in that direction, as more arrows hiss out of the trees.

A burst of flame startles the spearmen, making them cringe back for a moment before they realize it isn't big enough to reach them. You slip through the opening and cut one man’s head clean off with a burst of strength. Ezti’s blade cuts the other one’s throat out. Blood sprays everywhere, but you ignore it.

Then a gaggle of brigands burst out of the trees on your left flank, and the battle dissolves into a confused melee. One of your men goes down in the rush, and then you’re fending off three men armed with staves. You disembowel one, and he staggers back with his intestines spilling out onto his legs. A man with a spear lunges at Ezti’s side, and you parry the blow. A moment later she repays the favor, batting aside a throwing axe that was bound for your face.

You boost strength and speed at the same time, darting into the mass of enemies to hamstring one man and hack another’s arm half off before spinning back into your place. Someone lands a blow on your shoulder, hard enough to bruise but not to break bones. You exchange a flurry of blows with a tall, lean man who knows how to use his staff. He’s good, but you’re better. A burst of speed lets you slide your blade along his staff on the next parry, and sever three fingers. Blood sprays over your chest, and he stumbles in shock. Your next thrust pierces his heart, and he collapses.

The brigands fall back. You glance around, panting, and see that you've lost another man at arms. Just you, Ezti, Sir Huril and Chesna’s guard, standing in a circle around Chesna. Blood on Ezti’s face gives you a moment of concern, before you realize it isn't hers. Just arterial spray from one of the men she killed.

There must be a dozen dead brigands on the ground around you, but you can hear more of them in the trees around you.

“You bastard!” You hear their leader shout. “We’ll carve you up! Feather ‘em, boys!”

There, he’s behind that tree.

“Once more, follow me, charge!” You call, and boost your speed again.

This time you keep boosting, darting around trees and underbrush with inhuman speed, ignoring the arrows that seem to fill the air until you find the bandit leader. He’s a huge bear of a man, armed with a spear in one hand and a blacksmith’s hammer in the other. You’re shocked to see that he’s accompanied by a beastman, a grey-furred humanoid who must weigh two hundred pounds.

The beastman snarls and leaps at you. You set it on fire as it lands on you, and push the suddenly-panicked monster off with a burst of strength. The impact barely slows you down as you advance on the enemy leader.

“Well, well, the little lordling’s got some magic,” he says confidently. “Don’t think that’s going to save you, boy.”

“You talk too much,” you growl as you advance on him. No uppity brigand is going to best you in a one-on-one fight.

He parries your first blow, and you dodge away from his hammer. Yeah, he’s not as good as he thinks he his.

An arrow strikes you in the shoulder, your chain mail not quite enough to stop it. He takes advantage of the momentary distraction to launch a flurry of attacks, pushing you back and scoring your leg with his spear. More bandits emerge from the woods behind him…

Then Ezti catches up with you, and for a moment the bandit chief is the one who’s outnumbered. Her blade flickers out, forcing him to parry with his spear, and you see an opening. A feint, a slash and you open a deep gash on his spear hand. Ezti catches the shaft of his spear with the hook on the back of her polearm and expertly twists it out of his grasp. You lung, and the point of your blade takes him in the throat.

The bandit chief falls just as the rest of your party troops up behind you. You flick the blood off your sword, and glare at the remaining bandits.

“Who’s next?”

They break and run.

Apparently you've won. The enemy is in full retreat now, the archers pausing for a final potshot or two as the rest bug out. You've taken one wound level, giving you a -1 to all actions until it’s healed. Ezti, Sir Huril and one armsman are all able to fight, although it looks like they’re all at least slightly wounded. Chesna is kneeling on the ground shaking, but you don’t think she’s injured. You have no idea if the men you lost are dead, or just too injured to keep up.

Now what?

[ ] Keep after them! Do as much damage as you can, and send them running with their tails between their legs. They must have a camp somewhere nearby - time to loot it and see if they have prisoners in need of freeing.
[ ] Regroup. Fall back and see to your wounded. Make sure the girls are alright, and see if you can find an injured brigand to question. Then you can decide whether to advance or retreat.
[ ] Retreat. Recover any men at arms who survived, and get out of here before the enemy works their courage up for another attack.
[ ] Write In

 

[ ] Regroup. Fall back and see to your wounded. Make sure the girls are alright, and see if you can find an injured brigand to question. Then you can decide whether to advance or retreat.

We have wounded in need of attention, and Chesna could use some time to calm down and talk to a friends.
Plus, they were far more powerful than we expected with that Beastman. If we rush in it could be deadly.

We can always come back here later when we have our men anyway, with rangers hopefully.

 

[X] Regroup
[X] See if you or Ezti can heal the men at arms

 

[X] Regroup
[X] See if you or Ezti can heal the men at arms

 

[X] Regroup
[X] See if you or Ezti can heal the men at arms

 

Regroup. Fall back and see to your wounded. Make sure the girls are alright, and see if you can find an injured brigand to question. Then you can decide whether to advance or retreat. We don't even know how badly wounded our wounded men are after all all. From then on i don't know what is the view around these parts for looting brigand's bodies, but our goal should probably to regroup with our own party so that we can have more healthy guards around us for the rest of the trek (make sure not to skip anything when walking the border though).

When with the rest of our party will be the time to decide whether to hunt down the pirates or not, probably.

ShaperV: what are the funeral rites around these parts? Is immolation considered acceptable, burying or something else? We have to respect our men if they have died.

 

[X] Regroup
[X] See if you or Ezti can heal the men at arms

 

[X] Regroup. Fall back and see to your wounded. Make sure the girls are alright, and see if you can find an injured brigand to question. Then you can decide whether to advance or retreat.