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Arms Law Submissions
Realm Master K:
When Week 4's topic of something completely different was announced, I immediately thought of a wonderful encounter my players had with a Wight. Let me explain...
The party consisted of
1) Wood Elven Ranger
2) Grey Elven Rogue (Horse Master)
3) Half Elven Mentalist
4) Dwarven Fighter
5) Dwarven Cleric
6) Arachnin Shao Lin Monk (Ninja)
7) Idiyva Magent
8) Wood Elven Archer (Weapons Master)
9) High Elven Paladin
While searching for a lost temple in a jungle/swamp, they came upon some obviously cut stones covered in vegetation. The Ranger stalked his way forward and took a closer look at the stones, noting that they looked about the same size and shape as tombstones might. He began to clear away the vines and that was when the Wight came up from the grave and struck him directly in the center of his chest. He missed his resistance roll, and was paralyzed. I told the party that the Ranger gave out a little cry and slumped to the ground unconscious or dead. The party instantly sprang into action, with the Monk acting first.
The Monk's primary weapon is a Kusari-gama, a chain weapon with an attached sickle, so he made the decision to use the chain end to grapple the Ranger's body, and pull him from danger. Unfortunately, he fumbled which resulted in this description
You begin juggling your weapon because of a bad grip. Your lack of control stuns you for 3 rounds.
I decided that this meant he had lost his grip on the chain. I had him make a roll to see if he could recover, and he failed which resulted in the chain wrapping around him, completely binding his arms to his side. According to his fumble result he is now stunned for 3 rounds, which I determined represented the time it would take to free himself. Now the Paladin casts an Aura spell.
At this point the Wight used his natural Fear aura, and all but the Dwarven Fighter, Dwarven Cleric, Grey Elven Rogue (Mounted on his horse), High Elven Paladin, the Magent, and the now thoroughly entangled Monk/Ninja failed their resistance rolls. They all fled to the minimum distance that the fear aura extended, and stood watching in utter horror at the comedy of errors being played out before them. The Magent rushes forward and drags the Monk away from the Wight.
The Mounted Rogue was next to act, and he stabbed at the Wight with his spear, but the spear went right through the Wight. Oops, you need magic weapons to hit a Wight and your Boar Spear isn't magical. The only character that has a magical weapon that hasn't run away is the Paladin who has a magical Falchion. He attacks and does a few hits of damage.
Now the Cleric is prepared and begins to cast Repuslions V. Watch out Wight, your'e going down. He fumbles the spell, creating a power backlash and stunning himself for 8 rounds. So much for Repulsions.
The Dwarven fighter, and the Rogue both try to think of something to help since they have no magic weapons. The Paladin casts Holy Attack and does a few more points of damage. The Magent helps to free the Monk, getting him about 48% detangled.
Now things are looking pretty bad for the party, when the Dwarven fighter calls out to the Rogue. "Have your horse attack the Wight, his horseshoes are magical!"
Now let me explain, his horse is wearing magical horseshoes, but they are a Daily Magical Item, that casts the spell Run. It was such an inspired idea, that I let it ride in the interest of making a wonderful Rolemaster Moment.
The Paladin backs away to make room for the Rogue and his horse. The Monk once again fails to free himself. The Magent gets the Monks legs free of the chain, now only his arms and upper body are entangled. The Rogue charges his horse into the Wight distracting it and preventing it from using its Fear spell. The archer uses Quickdraw and fires a magic arrow, which does a few hits of damage. The Dwarven Fighter misses his agility maneuver and is knocked down by the Rogue's horse. He decides to stay down and crawls to the Ranger to check for a pulse.
The Rogue has his horse kick backwards at the Wight, (he is a horse master after all) but misses. The Wight casts another Fear spell. Now the Magent and the Monk run away in fear. The Archer draws a magic bow that can cast Well Aimed Attack. The Dwarven Fighter drags the still breathing Ranger back to the "safety?" of the group.
The Rogue again has his horse kick backwards, but misses again. the Archer activates the magic of his bow. The Wight casts another Fear spell. The Dwarven fighter tries to rouse the Ranger, but to no avail. The Monk stops fleeing and attempts to free himself, and rolls another failure, causing him to fall to the ground giving himself a few hits, and stunning himself.
The Rogue spins his horse around and has it rear up at the Wight, although it misses the Wight it distracts it enough that it turns its back to the Archer who fires and get a Critical. The roll for the Critical is open ended on the Large Creature Critical Table under the Magic column. The result is
Strike foe in the side of his head. Foe stumbles back a few feet before he falls to the ground. He is out for 3 hours.
As the Wight slumps to the ground the Paladin advances and gives it the Coup de Grace with his magic Falchion, beheading the fiend. The Wight dissolves into nothingness as it sinks back into the ground.
The Monk finally frees himself, and walks away mumbling something about not being very monkly, or Ninja-like. And many rounds later the Cleric begins to come around with a very bad headache.
I chose this encounter for my submission as it was so unusual. It had fumbles, criticals, failed resistance rolls, spell failure, and the most unique improvised weapon I have ever had my players use, a set of magical horsehoes (Not weaponized) to attack a Wight. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed running that session for my players.
Realm Master K
yammahoper:
Going way back, to RM1 when only RMCI and C&T were out with a bunch of MERP modules. We had switched from MERP to RM when the PC's finally got around to hitting level 10 in MERP. There was Alashieve, a Noldo fighter; Fee, a Sindarin mage; Solon, a Rohirrim fighter; Thorid Zad II, NPC fighter; and our first successful RMCI profession, a nightblade whose name I have forgoten (so I shall refer to as NB). The NB was around level 9-12, everyone else was in the mid teens, with only Fee over level 20 (23 or 24th if I recall).
As a final piece of info, the NB was Jesses PC and replaced his beloved hobbit scout that had been killed by a wight when he climbed a tree to hide in a battle after robbing a noble human tomb. Jesse had horrible luck with the dice and went through quite a few characters. He tended to streak on good rolls, then flame out with horrible results. It would prove true that afternoon and begin a long line of nightblade characters for Jesse.
Alashieve was the defacto leader of the group, with Fee proving the limited moral compass such a party possesses. Al despised the waning of the elves to what he saw as truely inferior beings, with far to few Adain left to offer salvation. Fee understood the fate of the eldar was already sung in the song and did his best to keep Al on the straight and narrow, channeling the dispair and frustration of his good friend to more positive results (Al raided human tombs, Fee saw some of the gear went the fight against the Great Enemy). Solon was a minor noble who joined Al to recover a legendary sword of his ancestors. Thorid Zad II was a clone of the first Thorid Zad that died 10 minutes after being created with a Hillmans arrow through the heart, reeling to a suitable spot for dieing. NB was one of a long list of sad case PC's that would die under the torture of Jesses horrible die rolls. As a group that played RQ before switching to MERP/RM, we prefered grit and pain over fluff and romance, and Jesse was use to rolling low.
Back then I rolled encounter checks every 4 hours of travel with a base 15% chance of encounter modified by population density. Much of our gaming stemmed from these encounters, and we enjoyed a very organic adventure style. Traveling over the Misty Mountains, I rolled Mountain Giants. d100 determined the size of the group (moderate result, a small hunting outpost then...), d10 determined the number (6, with four adults and two youths). I decided they had a cave, the giants were two husband/wife teams with their young adult children.
The group saw the giants gathered on a cliff face 90 feet or so above them at about 1/4 mile out (350m or so). Mike, who played Solon, was very happy. He had recovered his family sword and it was giant slaying, delivering additional electric crits versus giants too (so a weapon slaying crit AND a spell slaying crit). Note: back then we rolled each critical seperately, and Alashieves cold sword dominated many a battle. NOW it was Solons turn.
They charged on their horses to the cliff base while the giants had two melees to hurl bolders. Round three had Fee casting fly, Al starting to climb, the NB teleporting halfway up the cliff face and starting to climb and Solon getting hit and critted by a rock. Thorid failed his riding mnv and couldn't get his war pony to move faster than 1/2 normal walking pace and lagged far behind. The rock blow did little damage but fell Solon from his horse at the base of the cliff and the fall broke his leg, badly, leaving him at a serious penalty to activity (-70 I believe, indicating a compound fracture says I the GM).
Fee starts attacking, using his 1xday chains of binding to wrap the biggest giant up (the giant would eventually slay itself trying to escape them), Al finishes his climb, NB teleports again, ending up behind a giant with a puff of smoke and attacks, not doing much more than hits. Solon screams in rage and declares he WILL climb the cliff, going hand over hand if his leg injury should slow him down. Mike rolls almost 300 on his climb check, inspiring all his allies and covering over 70 feet in one round. The giants retaliate; Al is unscathed while Fee gets hit by a rock, knocked out of the sky and stunned several rounds, the NB avoids damage and the rock thrown at Solon contacts for some hits, but Solon easily makes his St mnv to hold on (Solon placed ALL bg options into St, thus he had a 108).
What followed was several melee rounds of pure chaos. Al and the NB were fending off four giants while a mother giant hurled rock after rock. Solon reached the top and with huge penalties to melee, waded in, slaying the first giant on his third round of combat and getting beat half to death in the process. Fee recovered and rushed with healing herb in hand to aid Solon, having seen to his own wounds while stunned and invisible (arcane spell trigger for the invisibility spell). Thorid Zad II showed up but couldn't climb the cliff face in his armor (total climb skill was around 6). That was when NB UM fumbled a spell, allowing a giant to then open end on the NB and crushed his hip into powder, in addition to knocking him out from hit loss. I will always recall how quietly yet emphatically Jesse tossed his dice over his sholder. The look on his face said all. Solon slew ANOTHER giant and Al managed to drop one on hits. The round ended though with Fee being stomped so hard he was stun no parry for 3rnds.
This left two giants, a youth and his angry as hell mother, who I happily anounced had just exploded into frenzy. Solon and Al were alone to face it as Fee was still stunned and NB was in the hands of the youth now fleeing back to the giants cave for protection, were he would arrive and roll the bolder door shut in six rounds, so said the d10+2 roll made in the open for all to see.
Solon and Al were hard pressed against a bezerk Mountain Giant with an OB now over 200 and a throw weight bonus that canceled out most of their parry with NO magical support from Fee, which they were quite accustomed to I might add. Eventually Fee got up and adding Haste with Bladeturn, Solon was able to drop the beast after 12-14 rounds of combat and a string of awful crit rolls against the giant. Several rounds of healing followed, with about 3 minutes passing before all herbs had full effect.
The group raced up the mountain trail to the blocked cave entrance were Fee crumbled a large portion of the bolder away so they could enter. In the fire light of the cave they heard horrible screams turn to worse gargles of pain and blood, then silence as they witnessed the last giant thrusting NB on a spit and placing him on a craddle to slowly roast. Outraged, the three lept forward and slew the young giant, but to late to save their friend, who over the blazing fire was already medium rare on one side.
The loot rolls were average to poor, more copper than they could carry (all dwarven), but I did include a naked prisoner in the very rear of the cave, an apprentice Nightblade captured by the giants and hiding under a daily unseen spell. After a short rest in the cave, the remains of the NB were consumed in the fire, and Alashieve swore revenge for the death of his elven brother. Solon wouldn't shut up how niether Al nor Fee killed more than he did and Jesse...well, he erased his character sheet and reused it because it was still fairly new.
The party went back to the cliff face were they found a weezing (and, err, forgotton) Thorid Zad II cresting the cliff, only to have Fee cast landing spells on everone else and jump off, leaving Thorid to climb back down on his own (with more than a few $&^% that NPC cpmments from the peanut gallery).
JimiSue:
I've just been mentally reminiscing and thought of two Space master stories which I'm not sure are really Arms Law, but at the time entertained me :)
Story one is about the demise of an overly-cocky opponent (not that the PCs are EVER cocky of course). The background is that these were quite high level characters, level 25 or so. They (two of us) were ... well, I want to say infiltrating, but that implies some stealth... invading an enemy military base. My character was an armsman, and had been involved in some weapon research and modification, and had a custom gun - a fully-automatic grenade rifle. We had been at it for quite a while and had made it through to the commander guy. He had obviously seen us coming, and was already dressed up in his AT 20 and a shield up - boasting that the shield was enhanced with all sorts of Sianetic Harbinger technology and was the best in the galaxy.
He fired on my character, but she had a pretty decent DB and he missed. She used the maneuver phase to do an Adrenal Leap (I think the only time I ever used that skill) to get right next to him - there had been a lot of soldiers and she was low on ammunition so had been using martial arts which he must have seen. Clearly the GM had 'seen' me doing this and shock horror, the guy was a skilled martial artist as well, and did not move away. However... that was not my tactic this time. And it proved to be the moment of glory for a cheap piece of utility equipment, often forgotten about - a disipator.
These little devices are fitted to your gun muzzles and prevent your energy shield from closing over the end, so you don't have to shoot through your own shield. I rammed the muzzle of my gun through his super shield, and in fire phase B, let rip with a fully automatic clip of grenades. I had the clips already designated for the load and it was a mixture of plasma, shrapnel, phosphorus... all the nice ones.
Cue a pretty lights show and a swearing GM - since the blasts had to get through this super shield and my own enhanced barrier shield, and my own enhanced AT20 powered armour, I took no damage even at ground zero range, but the commander was ... inconvenienced.
I'm sure the GM was being vindictive when he said that the shield generator was delicate technology and had been destroyed by the grenades.
The second story involves the same characters, not that long after that incident. Essentially, they were in it for revenge, and in the words of Inigo Mantoya (The Princess Bride), revenge doesn't pay the bills. So we figured what we could do would be set up a production company, and put together an action movie. We acquired (bought or had designed, I forget which) some micro-cameras that flew around us on gravitics while we were in combat, capturing the action. Then we used some image capturing and substitution software (like in the film of The Running Man where they pretend some poor schmuck is Arnie to get beaten for the cameras) to amend the images so we were doing it in the proper action movie clothing (bandana, dirty and torn white T-shirt, etc) and definitely *not* the powered armour previously mentioned. We hired a writer to string together the footage into some kind of story, shot some filler scenes (having spent two or three levels skilling up Acting specially for that) and put it out on release.
The GM had rolled in secret to see how good a job the writer had done (open ended high, he told us later) and also in the open for how well-received it was (not OE but it did hit 93)... instant fame and fortune. And chat show appearances and a whole bunch of unwelcome attention from the groups we had portrayed as the enemy (House Colos, we were Devonian citizens). So it moved the plot along and also helped us immerse ourselves more in the characters. (edit - I just remembered that we also got an Oscar-type award for "the most awesomely realistic special effects" - <snicker > 8))
The best part was that in all my SM character histories after that there were oblique references to the movie (and it's increasingly inferior yet still popular sequels of course) - JimiSue (after whom this account is named) had a brother with a fixation on my previous character, at one point he performs some "self harm" to a production poster of the third film in which the bikini-wearing warrior is emerging from the sea, guns blazing; I had another character who went to a posh public school, and it was the same school that my previous character had sent her daughter to in secret; and so on. Even the GM got in on it by throwing in the occasional billboard advertising the latest release, or having a TV on in the background of the scene where one or other of the PCs were being interviewed. All in all, it made a nice addition to the gaming universe and personalised it for all of us in that group.
yammahoper:
The specifics of this tale escape me. The morale of the tale will ring true none the less.
The mission was right out of a SM module, I recall that much. The party had to intercept a message at a tachon relay station and insert a fake message. Simple enough.
Scott, Pat and Brett were the players, the characters are forgotton. When they arrived on the station, they tried the direct assualt approach, but the inhabitants fell back to the communications room and had plasmatic repeaters to defend with. The plasma crits were so nasty, they group fled after one round of melee. Unwilling to try and rush the room, they placed explosives around it and came up with another plan.
Much less dangerous, they decided to hack the life support and evac all the air in the station. I recall I made the mnv absurd, but they got it done and, to my horror, killed everyone on the station by sucking all the air out. They then entered the room, waited for the message and replaced it with their own.
Of course, they had no way of knowing a distress signal had been sent, and after intercepting their ship, the local govt forces blew them and their ship straight to hell. When the party send an offer to surrender, I said all they heard was a play back of the 23 souls on the outpost station screaming and begging to be spared.
We started another SM game a while later, and everyone wanted a plasmatic repeater.
Thom @ ICE:
Here's your chance.... the last week of Arms Law Submissions and we're adding one more post to the list of winners!
But in addition to calling for more posts from you all, I'd like to hear if there are posts that haven't won yet but have struck you as special and worthy of recognition. Feel free to highlight your favorites for me so they don't get left behind.
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