Last night I played D&D with my two boys. It was my latest Frankenstein mish-mash of rules not the Rust and Runes project I'm working on (but I am "secretly"playtesting some of the mechanics for that in this campaign).
Characters were rolled up 3d6 per stat in order with some minor score swapping based on choice of character kin. Humans may swap any two scores while Petty Dwarves are required to move their lowest score into Charisma as examples of that.
The Characters Played Last Night
Thorn a Petty Dwarf Mage. CHA 7.
Cobalt a Human Burglar. STR 5.
Gromlin Longstache a Stone Dwarf Fighter. CON 16.
St Piere a Human Healer. STR 5.
I found it amusing both human characters had a strength of 5. Swapping that out to another score just didn't pay-off for either player so it stayed. We are using a fairly simple slot based initiative system so both fellows were encumbered by their starting equipment. the first step of encumbrance is just no sprinting and a minor penalty to some agile tasks.
It's a rustic pastoral medievalesque dung age setting so we ware using somepicky but still fairly simple equipment wear and tear rules. Most of the characters starting equipment was less than ideal. The best armor is the party was a padded cap, padded cotte, and leather greaves with a wooden buckler. Giving a decent armor class nonetheless and 2 points of damage resistance.
We are using 1d12 round robin initiative with Weapon Speed Factors roughly in line with my previous campaign play. Highest initiative roll on a side goes first on a round. If your weapon speed factor is over your sides initiative score for the round you attack at -4.
The adventure (jokingly called Tutorial Adventure) started straight and simple with the 4 adventurers meeting a locla miller's sun who was looking for help because beastmen had attacked his family mill. The players agreed to help his family while he ran to fetch the local lord and his men.
The party quickly made it to the mill to see a dead chicken outside and the large side panel doors flung open. The dead chicken found it's way into Gromlin's haversack. Cobalt took a quick peek and they could see there was nobody on the ground floor of the mill but there was noise coming from upstairs.
The party krept up into the living quarters above the work area of the mill and discovered two goat bodied beastmen rooting through the families goods. Gromlin rushed to the attack and sliced one with his Basilard, Cobalt began to sneak to their flank when Thorn popped up and took down the to goatie beastmen with a successful sleep spell. After slaying the wounded beast man the second was trussed up and interrogated allowing the party to discover the rest of the bad of beastmen had hauled of a bunch of good and the miller and his wife. The party left the trussed up beastman in a shed for the lord's men to deal with and headed off to the old barrows west of the mill.
Entering the meadows with the old barrows the party had trouble following the tracks of their quarry and stumbled across an open barrow. thorn spied something within but couldn't make it out too well so the party rushed in tot barrow to remember they hadn't brought torches luckily for them while it was shadowy there was still enough light to fight the creature within that they disturbed gnawing on the old dry corpse within a ghoul.
This encounter did not go as well and quickly as the first. The ghoul put up quite a fight locked in hand to hand combat with the dwarven fighter Gromlin for 6 rounds. Early in the fight Gromlin broke his staff striking the ghoul on the head and retreated to ready his magic missile spell. Everyone opted for daggers and basilard inside the shadowy barrow to take advantage of weapon sped and becasue of the close quarters. The ghoul raked at Gromlins armor several times but failed ot actually harm him and while he stabbed or sliced the ghoul a number of time they were having only meager impact as it grasped the burglar Cobalt and tried to haul him deeper into a dark corner of the barrow before it was finished off by a lucky blow by the doughty dwarven fighter. The mage didn't get the magic missle spell ready quickly enough for it to have a telling result.
A broken staff was the worst the party suffered in that desperate fight. Had they remembered torches they may have been able to see better and organize a group offense good enough to gain a quicker telling advantage against the ghoul. All that was found worth carrying away was a thin silver ring.
The party exited the barrow and found the goat men on the other side of the meadow where they discovered two deep into a barrel of ale and the three more teasing and harassing the miller and his wife behind a pile of flour sacks. Thorn with Gromlin at his side able to sneak u close enough to the three to lay them low with another sleep spell. The two large goat headed beastmen took notice of course and one rushed the adventurers but his charge was checked by the spear of the healer St Pierre and it was quickly dispatched. The largest beastman had held back and suffered an arrow shot and a magic missile before fleeing for parts unkown while a failed magic missile was cast and two more arrow wasted.
The sleeping beastmen were dispatched and the miller and his wife untied and healed with a pair of Cure Light wound spells. The miller and his wife rewarded the party with the remainder of the ale an a bif sack of flour before they all began hauling the goods and beastmen's weapons back to the mill to meet the Lord and his men mounting a rescue.
In the next morning the beastman who had been left in the shed was hung by the lord and the party was also granted a reward of 50 bronze groats for their prompt and timely efforts. Not a huge reward but a successful adventure.
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I was happy the players quickly figure out how to deal with the initiative system (my older son had played with one very similar in the past) and the equipment wear and tear was considered worth it for the tiny bit of book keeping because of the drama it set in for the players in deciding what equipment to risk when, it also gives them a very obvious short term goal of better weapons and gear. the players did discover the beast men were more properly known as Hammer Goats and fear they may have made a enemy. The frequency of spell use for 1st level characters was possible becasue I'm using a variant spell point system that requires a casting roll and management of readied and cast spells that favors lower level spell use without an otherwise endless stream of zap cantrips.
I knew the damage resistance on the padded armor would prove useful but not as useful as it was as the ghoul wasn't able to rip through it and into the dwarf that suffered the bulk of it's assaults. Throughout the session I believe there were 14 rounds of combat split among the 3 encounters but not an HP of damage was suffered by any of the PCs. they consider themselves lucky not invulnerable.
Thanks to the 50 bronze groats reward, the sack of flour, and 5 hammers liberated from the Hammer Goats the party will be able to scrape by for another couple weeks with little effort (6 groats will house and feed a man out in the villages in meager fashion for a week) but are definitely in need of more lucrative pursuits.
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