The previous
playtest was to make sure that our space knights have a certain sort
of minimum competence. Now I want to see how far I can push them.
If a space knight has little trouble taking on 7 criminals by
himself, how about a single space knight vs ~30 imperial troopers?
To balance the
scales a little, I'd like to see how our Alien Warriors do as well,
as Rafari offers a great opportunity to look at Alien Warriors. The
story practically writes itself. Rafari, having completed his
training and parting ways from his dear friend, Vesper Tane, returns
to his homeworld, only to find it invaded by the Empire! He finds
his tribe readying for war, and his welcome is a bit rough. “Rafari
has gone soft,” they say, but Rafari proves them wrong and
convinces them to let him assist them in protecting their homeworld.
The Nahudi people
are heavily outnumbered, so we'll give Rafari 5 warriors and 5
scouts. His opponents will be 6 heavy imperials (thus three guns)
supported by 5 imperial carbine troopers, with an advancing force of
15 imperial carbine troopers and 5 elite troopers in a kill squad
leading the assault.
The Nehudi warriors
arrived at their chosen battleground early. Two rough patches of
rocky ground, rich with cover, face off over a relative no-man's land
of loose sand. The ground is such that characters must either
stand on Uneven ground (in the stony area) or on sandy ground (in between),
for a -2 to attack and -1 to defense. Two large cliff faces line
either side of the battleground, and the scouts have prepped
deadfalls in these. The best way to get from one side to the other
is in the cover of the cliff-face, which offers plenty of
outcroppings to take cover behind. Going over the open field will
force you into a field of fire without cover. The total distance
between both rocky areas is submachine gun range, about -5. It'll
take 3 rounds of movement to get from one to the other.
That night, Rafari
medidates and uses Wisdom of Communion. He is given a vision of the
battle the following day “Only with great sacrifice can a world be
saved.” It's a grim destiny, and the GM decides that both sides can
access one point of destiny. Rafari opens his eyes, ready to do what
must be done.
The battle will take place in a sort of canyon. The battleground is flanked on either side by canyon walls full of fissures that allow one to hide. The mouth of the canyon is rocky and uneven, followed by a broad, sandy depression, and then lifts into another uneven rocky area.
The
Imperial troops march by daylight. The scouts hide in the rocky ground that overlooks the sand, and the warriors hide in the rocky outrcroppings at the entrance to the canyon, ready to ambush the imperials. To properly ambush, both the Scouts and the Warriors
must succeed at their Stealth rolls, but because they need to be well-hidden enough to attack from behind, the Warriors need to vanish, so they'll apply a -5. The Warriors have Stealth 15 and succeed
with exactly 10. The Scouts have a 18 and succeed with a 12.
The Kill Squad has the best Perception at 11, and have visors worth
+2 to perception checks if heat signatures matter. The roll a 13,
which means an exact success, the same as the Warriors. The GM rules
that the kill squad is in the warriors when they notice the Warriors and
begin to shout out a warning. The empire is not suprised
but neither do they see the deadfalls.
As the troops made
their way to them, Rafari meditated. He had been meditating all
morning, so the GM grants him a +2 to his Communion roll, in addition
to his +1 for meditation. He gets a miracle on a 10 or less. He
gets a 14. He argues that he seeks a miracle to save his world and
is willing to make whatever sacrifice is necessary, and suggests the
Immunity to Pain miracle. The GM agrees to let him spend his point
of Destiny. Clearly, without some miracle, his whole tribe could
easily die, so he gains a +4 to his reaction. He has also stuck to
his beliefs, recently forsaking Vesper Tane for his heresy, so the GM
grans an additional +2. He rolls an 18 (!), +6 is 24. Well! We
could go for a Primordial Avatar, but Rafari follows no path. Of
course, that doesn't have to matter for Communion, so let's imbue him
with the Primordial Avatar of the Righteous Crusader.
I had
actually hoped to have a more modest battle, but I suppose being
imbued with godlike power shortly before going to war with the enemy
has a certain sort of meaning to it. It certainly utterly
changes the dynamics of this
fight.
Rafari is immune to
pain, has effectively HT 16 to resist subdual and death, has a will
of 19, is Transcendantly impressive, recovers 1 fatigue per second,
gets a free Concentrate action per turn, and is fixated with
destroying the Imperial Troopers before him. He loses 2 HP and loses
an additional HP per minute.
This
is perhaps inappropriate. He's not really prepared
to channel the powers of this particular avatar, but I hadn't
expected to roll that well, and I'm curious to see how this will play
out. It's an opportunity to see an avatar in action!
Other
pertinent modifiers: the Nehudi are defending their homeland, so have
+1. All terrain is either sandy or uneven, providing a -2 to attack
and a -1 to defense. It's brightly lit, so nobody benefits from dark
combat.
