Yes, Yes, YES!!!! (and: NPC Heroic Abilities)

[Darren Hill]

We played again last night, and during an epic battle one of the players reached Fate 12 and a Name of d10.
On the way home afterwards, I realised I could now put 24 Strife beasties up against them! YES!

It's very cleverly set up. that Fate track. If your hero has a divine parent, that name increase - being only two Fate away from increasing your name die (and your performance in everything) - is a very big temptation. Cool. And now the player of d10 Name Hero knows he's Antagonist Enemy Number One: if I can get him to Defeated, I get 10 Strife tokens. ..

It's neck and neck for glory, too - the top three heroes have gained 54, 55, and 56 glory, respectively. (The other two are both in the forties, so there's very little in it, really.)

During last nights session, we had an epic battle against two 18-point NPCs and 10 minions (as reported over here). That battle was much harder for the PCs due to one of the NPCs having Strong-Limbed and D10 Might and Wrestling. This gave that NPC eight uses of an automatic +2 on traits, and the number of times that a reroll wasn't enough to make it, but that +2 guaranteed success was pretty impressive. It certainly made the fight last a LOT longer than it would have had the NPC simply had d12 traits, and forced the players to expend a lot of resources.
(In the later part of the battle, I could often roll a d6 or a d4 and guarentee success on the reroll, even when the players had rolled 7+).

So I would recommend using those heroic abilities that give +2 to skills very sparingly when designing NPCs. They do make fights last much longer (if you use them defensively, anyway), and cost the heroes a lot more resources. Then again, a creature with Gaze - another 3-point ability - is also going to cost a lot of PC resources, but it least it doesn't cause a fight to last longer... This fight was fun, but quite tiring - it took around two hours. In future, I'll keep those +2 abilities for NPCs I really want the players to remember (or for when I'm running low in Strife! The players will almost certainly want a few interludes afterwards).

Another reason this battle lasted quite a while was because the minions kept getting better positioning rolls than the heroes, and their leader (the other NPC) had Fleetfooted. Since the NPCs started the fight with an ambush at range 1, and three of the five players heroes are designed as Archers (d6 melee skills!), this made it a very tough battle for them for the first few rounds. After their attempts to widen the distance: oh look, the minions just move them back! I eventually started to roll less well for the minions positioning but if they had had Swift, which I almost gave them (ninja-like bandits of the desert), I think the PCs would have lost that battle - or used a LOT of Fate. Three of them were on four wounds - and two used Fate to avoid going to five.

It was during this battle the players also realised how useful those +2 Abilities were, since two of the players have them. They each went from dhaving a d8 and a d10 with +2 abilities, to those abilities being zeroed out, during this battle. I think they'll be able to charge higher oaths for them in the future.

[John Harper]

Cool! That sounds like a good session, Darren. Thanks for posting about it.