Session Postmortem: The Battle of the Blockade

On Sunday, 19 February, I ran the 122nd session of the Aurikesh campaign, in which the PCs gathered a rag-tag fleet of ships and led it against the blockade at the mouth of the river that leads to their city. I used the same essential approach here as in the Battle of Leonor's Hill, attempting to learn from errors in the previous session.

What follows are my session prep notes. My commentary on how it went is at the end.

As before, I want to put the PCs through several encounters while giving them interaction and other stuff to do. I want to make the challenge more dangerous than in the previous battle.

PC Fleet

Kemeshi Colony Ship, the Sorrow of Ychirra: Ultraheavy galleon, 100 sailors, 10 ballistas. Slow but incredibly tough. 4-strike clock. The ship is unable to move on the 3rd strike and sinks on the 4th. Many of the sailors can then be saved with a Command roll. The PCs also spent a phenomenal amount of money replacing several of the ballistas on this ship with cannons, which gave them +1d8 to their progress die pool.)

Sholara’s flagship, the Sunborn: Sestomeran frigate, 40 sailors, 6 ballistas, 6 cannons. 3 strikes. Nimble and deadly, neither Sholara nor her crew have lost their edge. Sholara is gravely wounded on the 2ndstrike and the magazine blows on the 3rd strike.

The Chardecum volunteers: collection of smaller craft, including some cogs and 3 brigs. Ballistas, muskets, rifles; no cannons unless the PCs arrange them. 5 strikes. The Chardecum volunteers can’t recover strikes during the battle – the smaller individual ships are simply destroyed.

Trastamara barque, the Brine Witch: Courier vessel, 30 sailors, 4 ballistas. 2 strikes. (This ship would have appeared if one of the players had played his bard rather than his ranger. He didn't.)

Ghost Ship, the Jester of Lirane: Caravel, 30 skeletal sailors, 6 ballistas, 2 strikes. (This ship could have appeared as part of an interaction event that never came up.)

Ileskku, Adult Moonstone Dragon: Add +2d6 to progress while Ileskku, Adult Moonstone Dragon is on the attack. If either of these dice roll a 6, Ka’altika the Silver-White is informed of them; on a second 6 that is at least 2 hours later, Ai-tor the Ringbound arrives with her flight of wyverns. (This also didn't happen - Ileskku could have cast shapechange using the Ever-Living Remnant, but didn't, for what are basically good reasons.)

Experimental cannon: Grisigon can sell the PCs an experimental cannon that grants +1d8 to a progress roll. A result of 1 on that d8 deals 1 strike of damage to the group where that cannon is mounted. (They mounted this rifled cannon on the Sorrow of Ychirra.)

Command saves: The Commanding PC averages the best and worst of their Con, Int, Wis, and Cha scores, and adds their PB if it’s remotely plausible that they know anything about command.

Var’kath
Honnen - yes
Ileskku - yes
Ekkan
Vasco – yes
Gamble – yes
Dailon
Akkmos

Enemy Force Description – 5 frigates, 10 brigs, 10 pinnaces. This fleet is spread fairly wide, so the initial encounter is only 2 frigates, 4 brigs, and 4 pinnaces. (You'll be surprised to know 

Progress roll: 1d10 + active character’s attack/spellcasting stat + 1d8 (extra cannons) + 1d8* (experimental cannon)

After a Combat Advancement event, roll 1d8 on the Interaction table.

Each PC is in on one of the Sorrow, the Sunborn, or the unspecified volunteer ships. This matters for several of the table results.

Editor's note: We apologize for the state of these tables. That's just Patreon for you.

Combat Advancement Table

Total -- Encounter

01-06 -- Opening salvo   of ballista shot. Command save DC 11. On a failure, choose one group to take   a strike, and PCs in that group roll a DC 11 Dex save, taking 2d10 piercing   damage on a failure, or half on a success.

07-12 -- Opening salvo   of cannon fire, long range. Command save DC 12. On a failure, choose one   group to take a strike, and PCs in that group roll a DC 12 Con save. On a   failure they are deafened for 1 hour.

13-18 -- Snipers in   the rigging: 2 attacks against each character, +5 vs AC, 1d12 + 3 damage on   hit. Engagement with 4 archers and 4 scouts, separated by 60   feet of open water.

19-24 -- Three water   walking druids, led by Tahlal Waysilver,   have summoned 3 water weirds and 3 water elementals. They cross   the distance to engage the PCs directly. A storm begins.

25-30 -- Salvo of   cannon fire, medium range. Command save DC 14. On a failure, distribute two   strikes. On a success, one strike. PCs in a group that takes a strike roll a   DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 4d6 piercing damage on a failure. A   storm begins.

31-36 -- A storm whips   up, threatening to drive the ships onto the rocks of the cliffs west of the   Ollent delta. Command save DC 15. On a failure, three groups take one strike   each. Negate this failure by summoning a strong wind from the north.

37-42 -- Boarding   action against the group with the largest number of PCs. Ranulf of Galkath (gladiator)   leads 4 archers, 1 mage, and 2 veterans. PCs in other   groups can join in 1d3 rounds.

43-48 -- Musket salvo against   PCs in up to two different groups. Two attacks, +7 vs AC, 1d12 + 3 damage.

49-54 -- An enemy   pinnace, the Jade’s Trick, is badly damaged and burning. They load on   more starlock powder and send it into the Chardecum fleet’s battle line. Command   save DC 15. Two strikes to one group on a failure. +1d10 to the next progress   roll.

55-60 -- Two warlocks   of the Archfey (Mother Merciless), Kyvad and Prova, lead a dimension   door attack on the group with the most PCs, along with 3 redcaps  and 1 spring eladrin (summoned and compelled) named Isreval.

61-66 -- If there’s no   storm, a storm begins. Otherwise, Command save DC 16. On a failure,   distribute two strikes. On a success, +1d8 to the progress roll, as you do a   better job of handling the storm than the opposing captains.

67-72 -- Ballista   salvo, medium range. Command save DC 16. On a failure, distribute three   strikes; on a success, one strike. Each PC in a group that takes strikes is   targeted with an attack: +7 vs AC, 2d10 + 3 piercing damage on a hit.

73-78 -- A detachment   of the enemy fleet links up with the ships that are already here. The new   ships drop several figures overboard. Several minutes later, the group with   the largest number of PCs is attacked by 2 ghasts per PC in the group.

79-84 -- If there’s no   storm, a storm begins. If the storm was previously active, Command save DC   17. On a failure, distribute two strikes, and three random PCs roll DC 17   Dexterity saving throws, taking 3d10 lightning damage on a failure, or half   that on a success.

85-90 -- A detachment   of the enemy fleet links up with the ships that are already here. They   release an overwhelming cannon barrage. Command save DC 17. On a failure,   distribute 3 strikes; on a success, 1 strike. Each PC in a group that takes   strikes is targeted with an attack: +8 vs AC, 3d8 + 3 piercing damage on a   hit.

91-95 -- Strange sea   monsters attack both sides. The water roils, and crab claws the size of a ship’s   aft castle burst out of the water to snap at sailors, rigging, and masts. Two   huge giant crabs attack, and they also have Recharge 6 –   as a bonus action, each creature within 30 feet makes a DC 15 Wisdom saving   throw, taking 2d6 psychic damage and becoming incapacitated until the end of   their next turn on a failure. Instead of looking like standard crab chitin,   they look like they are skin stretched very tight over a shell of   bone.

96-100 -- Ram – Command   save DC 15. On a failure, 1 strike. Boarding action by enemy command against   the apparent flagship. Morrow (warlord), Gisele (assassin), and   4 archers; on a failed Command save, all PCs start the battle prone.

101+ -- The enemy   fleet is scattered or sunk and the blockade ends. Command save DC 18 – on a   failure seize 20,000 silver in treasure and several magic items. On a   success, 40,000 silver plus magic items.

 Characters without command experience who attempted at least two Command   saves gain half-proficiency to Command saves.

Interaction Table

Each interaction can happen only once unless otherwise noted. If a number is rolled a second time, each PC can spend HD to regain hit points.

1d8 -- Result

1 -- Wind grows   stronger. Roll a d6: 1-3, it favors the enemy (+2 to Command save DCs), 4-6,   it favors the Chardecum fleet (-2 to Command save DCs). This event can happen   repeatedly, and stacks.

2 -- The   retreating tide exposes the spar of a mast. Var’kath can cast animate dead  and expend 500 silver in components to gain the Ghost Ship, the Jester of   Lirane. Rolling this event multiple times restores one strike to the Jester,   even if it is destroyed.

3 -- A tender ship   reaches the fleet late, and their supplies make desperate repairs possible. DC   15 Int or Wis (water vehicles); restore 2 strikes on a success, or 1 strike   on a failure. The Chardecum volunteers can’t receive these repairs.

4 -- Captain   Anvalo Siyye of the Sorrow of Ychirra complains about the lack of   discipline in the fleet and the unwillingness of other ships to come to his   aid. Intimidation (to one side or the other) DC 15 might be a way to solve   this.

Resolving   this grants +1d8 to next progress roll, then +1d6 to the next roll, and   finally +1d4 to the roll after that.

5 -- An oceanid   nymph named Zuviva becomes curious about this battle and asks questions at a   distracting moment. Persuasion (?), DC 17, to gain her aid. DC 10 if she’s   allowed to kiss the Ever-Living Remnant. She can:

• Restore one strike to any one group. You can   choose the Chardecum volunteers, but it’ll make things weirder.
• Shift the winds or eliminate storm conditions
• Make the next progress roll twice and choose   the preferred result

6 -- A driving   rain and thick fog interrupt the battle enough to make it easy for the PCs to   redeploy to different groups, heal one another, or withdraw into the River   Ollent.

7 -- If there’s no   storm, a storm begins. If there have been at least two storm events so far,   this is the climax of the storm. A bleeding figure is visible among the   mighty thunderheads – not directing the lightning strikes, just present and   reveling in the storm. Anyone who previously met King Oromec could attempt to   draw his attention.

8 -- One of the   enemy ships has sunk, and the wind has shifted the battle away from them. You   can take its crew prisoner; with a DC 20 Persuasion or Intimidation check, or   some kind of mind control, they would switch sides and replace lost crew,   restoring 1d3 lost strikes.

You can also raid their hold before it slips deeper beneath the waves.   Capture 8,000 silver maravedis, 10 potions of healing, and a javelin   of lightning. You can permanently destroy one javelin to use it as   a ballista bolt, gaining +10 to the next progress roll.

How It Went

There were eight players in the roster:

• Akkmos, 5th-level Eldritch Knight fighter
• Dailon, 5th-level Lore bard
• Ekkan, 6th-level Knowledge cleric
• Gamble, 11th-level Fey Wanderer ranger
• Honnen, 8th-level Abyssal Delver (Under the Seas of Vodari) barbarian
• Ileskku, 9th-level Archfey warlock; has an artifact that also grants her the spellcasting of a 20th-level druid.
• Var'kath, 6th-level Necromancer wizard
• Vasco, 3rd-level Forge cleric/6th-level Diviner wizard

Just two of the same characters from the Battle of Leonor's Hill (four of the same players), and overall a lower-level party than last time. The PCs spent the first hour and a half to two hours gathering the fleet, making plans, negotiating with NPCs over ships (especially the Sorrow of Ychirra), and getting artillery pieces from Grisigon, the inventor of starlock weapons and cannons (who they rescued from the fey 78 sessions earlier).

I was tweaking my writeup on the fly to manage pacing and feel. There would have been at least one more combat encounter if I had just gone with the dice results, immediately following another combat encounter, and that felt like the wrong beat at that moment. There wound up being two combat encounters: the druid/water weird/water elemental fight and the warlock/redcap/spring eladrin fight. The PCs were spread out over multiple ships but had wind walk active, which I fudged to allow useful but not instantaneous fast travel, so that they could join in the other fights at all.

The central item of feedback that I feel like I got from this was that PCs want to engage more with the 10,000-ft view strategy, and they're not satisfied with how much description they're getting (more to the point, not getting) of how the fight is going. For my part, I am resisting a move toward more command-tent, pieces-on-a-table style strategy - as much as anything, because no matter how much I prep, there are players than there are of me, and they will absolutely run circles around any plan I make if they have that level of control.

They can't really track how much damage the enemy ships are taking, because mechanically that's an uncollapsed waveform. I'd need to give serious thought to how to incorporate changes within the enemy force in the course of battle, in a way the PCs could respond to. Delivering on this probably requires scrapping the whole system, or going so radically complicated that it resembles scrapping the system.

As with session 117, I wound up dealing very few strikes in the whole battle, even though the rules for this battle were much harsher. There are a series of reasons for this - one, that they have resources (like Inspiration) to spend to make sure they pass key rolls, and two, that they spent years of in-play social capital and accumulated treasure to gain bonuses to the progress clock, meaning that they had to face fewer events. Oh, and they were also just very lucky. The blockade has been in place for a long time and has cost them a phenomenal amount of money (I doubled their weekly upkeep costs), so they were highly invested in these stakes.

It didn't occur to me during session planning that they would bring in the domain sentinel (approximately, the Colossus of Rhodes) that they recovered 41 sessions earlier, but it proved to be one "free" space to assign a strike late in the battle. There was exactly zero chance that they would assign a second strike to it and destroy it.

Ultimately they faced five combat events and four interaction events, and we finished the session in five hours, followed by half an hour of wrap-up interactions. Ileskku cast wind walk and control weather from her artifact, and spent the whole battle concentrating on control weather to make the enemy's life more difficult. The RAW mechanical functions of control weather are not super easy to resolve against the structure of these rules, so I emphasized letting her negate or manipulate some events.

My plan for how to incorporate the PC feedback is to write in "breaks" at 25, 50, and 75, where I take it from the top in a full description of what they can see from the decks of their ships, including flag signaling from other parts of the fleet. I might try widening the point range for each event - probably doubling them - but including branches in the table based on some criteria. For instance, if they're doing at least this well at this point, switch to Table 2.

The good:

• The players enjoyed the session overall.
• The session included payoffs for a ton of previous actions and moved the story forward decisively.
• The difficulty tuning on the two fights was pretty good - just the right level of "oh shit, this is dangerous" without actually rolling over them. They had to use some of their cool tricks to get by, and I felt good about the overall attrition level by the end of the second fight (including damage from other combat advancement events). A third fight and things would have gotten a bit hairy I think.
• The Interaction scenes were pretty good; would have been 20% better if I could have slowed down a little more to let them breathe, but I was particularly concerned about time in this session.

The bad:

• X strikes on failure/1 on success has moved the needle a bit on the threat level, but the PCs didn't fail any Command saves. Which is kind of amazing over the course of about four rolls.
• With eight players at the table and the progress/Command save player constantly changing, we still didn't get to each player rolling at least once. That feels bad since one of them had done the work in-play to get his proficiency bonus added to his Command save.
• PCs are experiencing the battle a lot more than they're leading or commanding it, so that's falling short of how I want it to feel, and I'm not sure I can fix that within this model.
• I needed to deliver a lot more detailed description of the enemy fleet and the damage each ship was taking.

So, not a failure, but still missing some things, and less of a step forward for the rules than I had hoped.

Attached below is my session notes, which are written for me to understand, not for anyone else to use - I'm including them here in case the tables are illegible.