AD&D2E/Five Leagues - Chapter 1 – Travelling to Port Vantage

 

Chapter 1 – Travelling to Port Vantage

Before we get into the meat of this chapter, one piece of feedback I received was that a breakdown of which character figures are representing the party would help with following the battle report screenshots.

So, here they are:

From picture left to right: Eleonora, Argwyllem, Roland, Garagrim, Brun.

One party member hasn’t been included so far – Argwyllem’s trusty mule, Borden. Borden is currently carrying most of the group’s rations. When we get further into the campaign, if it’s ever reasonable he’d be at risk in an encounter, he’ll get a model too.

With his equipment upgrade courtesy of the fallen Alucia, Brun now has a new model too. All of these have been picked from an excellent mod available on the workshop which uses assets from Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

With the fight in the swampy forest behind them, it’s time for the party to continue their journey. Now that we’re in the campaign proper, we’ll be making Travel Rolls whenever we want to get somewhere, including our initial journey to Port Vantage.

Normally in a campaign turn, we’d begin either in camp or in town. However for the first turn of a campaign as the party is entering the region, only a travel roll is required with the recommendation that the first port of call be a town.

Five Leagues handles travel in an abstract way – to keep things simple, I’ll be reusing most of Five Leagues system for this campaign but will be tracking things like rations and overall travel time using AD&D’s mechanics.

Time and Movement

Tracking travel time and the rations required to make a journey will give us a good gold-sink for the party, with the need to acquire portable shelter and sufficient food for any adventures. It’ll also allow anybody we acquire with foraging skills (using Five Leagues follower generation tables) to really play a part in feeding the party and earn their weight outside of combat.

Right now, I’m assuming the hexes on my map are something like 6 miles across. Why 6 miles? AD&D movement rates, including for overland travel are given in multiples of 6, so it just makes the most sense from a maths point of view. I’m hoping this will also give the campaign a feeling of the travel system in the game Battle Brothers. It’s one I’d highly recommend to anybody looking for a warband-focused computer wargame – you guide the destiny of a mercenary group in a low-magic fantasy setting that has a gorgeous art style, much like in Five Leagues.

How fast can we go?

Our party is slowed down by Garagrim the dwarf – dwarfs (and other short races in AD&D) have half the movement speed of taller races. This locks us into a travel speed of 2 hexes per day, or 12 hexes per week allowing for 1 day dedicated to rest on the march. This feels pretty reasonable for the gang.

We’ll go for another abstraction right now too – in case we want to add in things like weather effects for marching and fighting, we’ll need a way to track seasons. Five Leagues does have a weather event for travel, but we might want more granularity later. Let’s give whatever planet the Vantage Coast region exists on a 12-month year, with each month dividing perfectly into 4 7-day weeks, and each season made up of 3 months exactly.

So what’s the date?

Let’s go with Spring as our starting season, so we’re in Month 4, and we travelled 5 hexes to reach the point where we did the starter scenario/ambush battle on the map – that’s 2.5 days.

We’ll date this campaign as Year 1, so our date format for our current date will be: Y1, M4, D2.5.

Making the Journey

Conveniently, we have a total of 9 hexes remaining following the road to reach port vantage – a journey of 4.5 days, meaning our journey to the city will have taken 7 days travel time in total. We’ll ignore stopping for a rest day on this trip, as the party are eager to reach the city and begin adventuring in earnest.

Provided our travel roll goes well and we don’t suffer a mishap along the way. Travel rolls in Five Leagues are handled using a D100.

We roll a 75 – not a good result. It means the party are Waylaid by Foes following the travel table. We now need to generate a defensive battle (p.135 in the PDF version) using the roadside enemies table. Once we fight this battle – if we survive or escape that is – then we can either continue on to our destination or we can set up our camp.

Just fighting the engagement isn’t enough fun though – so what’s happened to our plucky band, and where will it take place?

Where are we, and who are we fighting?

The map of the road to Port Vantage gives us a few good potential locations for an ambush – perhaps the river crossing between hexes 2 and 3 on our journey, or in the tall pine forest that runs down to the coast.

We did a forest engagement last time, so let’s go with the river crossing on the hex border.

That gives us the setting for our battle and will inform our terrain. Now, who are we fighting?

We need to roll on the ‘Roadside Encounters’ table in the Five Leagues book. This is another D100 job – we get a natural 1 – ‘Dust Hounds’. These are described as fierce and highly aggressive canines, who rarely prey on humans but have perhaps been forced to out of hunger or desperation.

Picking from our AD&D monster manual, maybe the best fit for this encounter will be wolves. These are very dangerous monsters, especially for a party as new as Roland’s. A wolf has 3 hit dice (using the 4.5 average of a D8, we’ll give them each 14HP), a THAC0 of 18, and they’re bloody quick too – 18” of movement in our hybrid homebrew system.

One thing that might help Roland’s party here is the ‘Not Worth the Risk’ rule for roadside encounters; if the enemy force is down to 1 or 2 models after making any morale checks they will flee the field automatically. This fits well for wolves perhaps looking for an easy meal.

Now we need to work out how many wolves attack the group. We’ll use Five Leagues system here as the number its 2d6 drop lowest + number appearing systems ties well with AD&D’s number appearing for wolves (2-12).

We roll a 3 and a 4. Five Leagues gives ‘Dust Hounds’ a number score of +3, so we’ll be facing a pack of 7 wolves in total. This is going to be a scary encounter all round for the party. The mule will be on the board too – that seems like an appealing snack for a wolf.

What’s driving the wolves to aggression?

I have to give credit here to a good friend of mine I discussed the encounter with as I rolled things. He pointed out that they’re naturally shy creatures and afraid of humans; perhaps the predations of the local goblins have reduced their food source, or maybe something more sinister is lurking in the nearby forest and has forced the wolves to roam further afield and become more daring in their search for food. Perhaps a pack of dire wolves have moved in and brought rabies, or simply outcompeted the wolves.

If Roland’s band survives, it might be worth them revisiting this area in future to see if they can find the source of the wolves’ aggression. If a druid ever joins the party this might make for an interesting quest.

Preparing the Party

This is going to be a very risky battle for such a junior party – a pack of wolves could absolutely chew through them if they try to fight separately or don’t use all the tools at their disposal. Thankfully as a few days have passed, a few things will have happened:

Eleonora has her spell slot back, and she’ll swap from Armour to Sleep as her memorised spell. Argwyllem, who didn’t do any spell casting in the last fight, will have Bless, and two casts of Cure Light Wounds memorised. For reference, Argwyllem’s high wisdom score gives him extra spell slots each day – two extra first level and second level, and one third level.

With all that preparation out of the way, it’s time to get down to the battle itself.

The Defensive Battle – Y1, M4, D4

Setting the Scene

It was midday when they reached the second of the winding rivers on the road to Port Vantage. Willows dipped their fronds in the slow waters whilst alders swayed gently in the breeze about them. The landscape here was rolling, coming to a small valley where the stone trade bridge made its crossing.

A few hundred yards from the bridge Roland held up a mailed fist to halt them.

“Look there – wolves – a small pack of them. I’m surprised to see those creatures in lowlands like these.”

The wolves noticed them too, sniffing on the breeze. Rather than turn to run, or to slink towards the distant treelines for shelter they stood, bodies locked, and heads pointed – drawn to the scent of Borden the mule.

Eleonora scowled, drawing her sling from her belt. “We may have to face them – only extreme hunger or something wicked in their range – would cause them to behave so.”

“Form together.” Roland’s command was clipped. “If they get us alone, they’ll tear us to pieces. Quickly, about the mule and move as one.”

As the party advanced on the bridge, so did the wolves.

The Board

Following our terrain hex (and frankly, to give a level 1 party even a fighting chance against 7 HD3 creatures) the board is arranged as a river crossing. A few scattered trees and tall grasses and rocks will give some cover but it is mostly open.

The river will be crossable, but it will quarter the movement of the wolves, and reduce the party to 1” of movement each if they try to cross.

Deployment

The party deploys up to 6” away from their board edge. Following our narrative I put the group in a small circle around the mule moving up the road.

Now we need to see if any of the wolves are outflanking – this is done with a D6+2 to see how many figures the opponent deploys, with any not included out in reserve. We roll a total of 6, so one wolf may come around and surprise us later.

At the start of each round, we’ll need to roll a D6 – if the number is equal to or lower than the current round, the wolf will appear, with an additional wolf! We could end up facing 8 creatures total then if we can’t drive them off quickly enough.

We roll 2d6+12 to find out how many inches onto the board the wolves can deploy and get 17” – pretty much right up to the bridge. They split up into two groups and deploy along the riverbank in a rough line.

At this point, Five Leagues wants the enemy to try to infiltrate by making a free movement and remaining unhidden. With our narrative, the power imbalance between the party, and the river – I’m going to skip this step, just to give the party a fighting chance. If we fight something similar in future with more terrain against more intelligent (and perhaps less hungry) opponents we’ll definitely be using this.

The Objective

We have one goal in this scenario – survive. Once we’ve defeated half of the opponents (either through combat or morale failure) we can retreat from any table edge without penalty, or drive off the rest of the group.

We’ll need to make morale checks individually for each wolf this time, as doing a group roll might trivialise the encounter too much.

Battle Round 1

The round starts off with a roll for the outflanking wolf – we roll a 2 on the D6, so it and its additional friend very nearly appear.

Now to initiative – both sides roll a 2, so everything is simultaneous. We’ll handle the wolves first, since they’re just going to be moving for now.

Moving across the river cuts them to a 5” move. One group makes it across the river whilst the other will take another round to do so.

Now for the party’s actions:

Argwyllem spends the round casting Bless – this will give the whole group a +1 to save against fear effects, but much more importantly a +1 to all attack rolls. Every chance to do damage will count in this fight so this is much needed. The spell lasts for 6 rounds, so that should be plenty of time. Its casting time is 1 round, so it won’t take effect until round 2 sadly.

Eleonora spends the round casting sleep on the forward group of wolves. This spell affects 2d4 HD of creatures, knocking them out with no save for 5 rounds per caster level. She rolls a 7 total – a very good result, putting two wolves out of the fight until Round 6. Hits against sleeping creatures are automatic too, but more importantly it thins the wolves’ numbers out.

Now Garagrim and Roland have a tough choice to make – do they rush to the river bank to try and stop the wolves there, or do they hold formation? They choose to hold, waiting for a time when they can make concerted charge attacks together against a target wolf.

Brun is last – with his recently acquired shortbow he takes a shot at the non-sleeping wolf in the right hand group. He’s not proficient with bows, so suffers a -2 penalty to his roll. That will effectively give the wolf an AC of 5 – with a THAC0 of 20, Brun needs a 15 or better to hit – an 8 won’t do it and the arrow whistles over the wolf to land on the far bank.

Battle Round 2

We begin by rolling again for the outflanking wolf – a 6. No extra combatants just yet. Perhaps the shock of the sleep spell, or the difficulty of splashing about in the river slows the wolves too – they roll a 10 for their initiative, to the party’s 2.

In a way, this isn’t great for the group. If the wolves had moved first, they’d be able to make charges against them as they left the river. As it is, another round of missile fire before they leave the water will have to do.

Eleonora and Brun both make their ranged attacks against the wolf in the right-hand group – Brun gets his 15 (he needed a 14 this round due to Bless), but Eleonora misses with a 5. Brun’s arrow is well-aimed, and delivers 6 damage to the wolf – removing almost half its HP.

Argwyllem makes a sling attack against the same wolf and hits with a 19, but deals a mere 2 damage (1d4+1 – rolling a 1). All of this is adding up however and that wolf is now down to 6HP. Easy pickings for Garagrim or Roland in melee combat.

Garagrim and Roland hold their position by the mule, waiting for the next round to see what the wolves do, and hoping that they win initiative again.

The wolves not under the effects of the Sleep spell all across the river. With their 18” move, they’re now all well within reach of the party.

Battle Round 3

Same drill again – that outflanking wolf still hasn’t shown up, this time rolling a 4. Torm’s favour is clearly with the party in this battle too as they win initiative again by a narrow margin – rolling a 1 to the wolves’ 2.

This turn might be make or break for the group – if they can bring down two wolves they will force a morale check.

Brun opens the show with two bow shots (I’d forgotten up to this point his bow has a rate of fire of 2 – lots to keep track of with a solo game) and scores two hits, one of them a critical hit! Critical hits in AD&D are a strange beast as an optional rule, with how to handle them left to GM’s discretion. For ranged attacks like this, I go with double damage, whilst in melee I take the approach that the character can immediately make an additional attack. If this also criticals, it chains and can make another.

Brun clearly really hates wolves – he delivers a mighty 15 damage to the already injured wolf. This drops it instantly and would’ve been enough to kill even an unharmed one.

Eleonora was going to use her sling against the same wolf, so her attack is wasted.

Now for the melee fighters: Roland makes a normal move to the closest wolf, Argwyllem follows, whilst Garagrim charges one of the wolves at the back of the group on the left-hand side of the bridge.

Roland misses both attacks, although just barely. Argwyllem does terribly with a 1 – as a fumble, I’ll rule he can’t make an attack next turn as he stumbles into the combat. Garagrim is the only combatant to land a single hit from his 2 attacks, dealing a total of 5 damage to the wolf at the back.

Now the wolves fight back. Each wolf can make 1 attack – these will be split evenly, as each wolf has a target.

Both Garagrim and Roland are struck; the wolves roll high and with a THAC0 of 17, even their low ACs of 3 and 5 respectively are beaten. Roland takes 4 damage whilst Garagrim receives the maximum possible from a wolf’s bite of 5. Neither are looking particularly healthy after the exchange, and a good hit from a wolf could strike Roland down.

Argwyllem escapes unscathed and may be called upon to try and heal Roland in the next turn with one of his memorised Cure Light Wounds spells.

Round 3 has been the most action packed so far:

• One wolf has been slain by Brun (bonus XP for him at the end)
• An inconclusive melee on the muddy riverbank
• And with 25% of the wolves on the board out of action, its time for the (awake) wolves to make morale checks.

A wolf has a base morale number of 10. The pack is going to have some serious penalties I think though – they’re naturally wary creatures, and things aren’t looking good for them. Garagrim’s target has lost 25% of its HP (-2) and no enemy has been slain by the wolves (-2). As a reminder of how these checks work, each wolf will roll 2d10, and needs to equal or roll lower than its modified morale score.

This meal is clearly more than they bargained for, with each wolf failing its morale check. They’ll be running away at maximum speed, but not before each party member makes an attack of opportunity.

None of the party score a hit, so the wolves turn tail and flee back across the river.

Battle Round 4

Right as things look to be going the party’s way, with only the sleeping wolves to finish off, things take a turn. The outflanking wolves finally make their appearance – they arrive within 2” of the centre of a neutral board edge.

They arrive on the party’s right, and with the melee combatants out of position they are perfectly within range to pounce on Brun, Eleonora, and Borden the mule.

Torm continues to grant his favour to the party however and they win initiative again.

Roland, Argwyllem, and Garagrim all rush to reform a battle line to cover the more vulnerable members of the group whilst Brun and Eleonora unleash arrows and sling bullets towards the new arrivals.

Both hit with their ranged attacks dealing an impressive total of 11 damage, almost slaying one of the arrivals before they can even act.

Now it’s the wolves turn to act and, faced by a barrage of missile fire and the only two active (non-fleeing/non-disabled) creatures on the board I think it’s time for the ‘Not Worth the Risk’ rule to come into effect.

With their tails between their legs, these last two wolves are driven off with the rest of their pack. The wolves put under magical sleep can be finished off easily by the party without challenge so won’t be worth any experience points to the fighters – Eleonora might be able to claim some however for using her spell in a way that saved the party.

Tallying Up the Results

With the combat over, let’s see what the party gains.

1 wolf has been slain in a straight fight, 5 driven off, and 2 slain whilst under magical sleep. We’ll call that 6 wolves defeated with a challenge, for a total of 720XP to split between the party (144XP per character).

Brun will also get a bonus of 30XP for slaying a wolf personally as he’s a Fighter (10XP per HD per character level).

Eleonora will also receive a bonus 50XP for casting a spell to overcome a foe (50XP per spell level).

Garagrim, Eleonora, and Argwyllem - thanks to high primary stats for their class - also gain 10% bonuses to their own XP gains. This takes all three of them up to around 10% of the XP needed to reach level 2 – this will be a big jump in survivability when it happens.

As animals, wolves have no treasure to take, so no material gain for the party here.

Completing the Journey – Y1, M4, D7

With that encounter out of the way, and no need to make another travel roll the party completes its journey to Port Vantage.

Next campaign turn we’ll be able to take some in town actions, before deciding on where we’ll go for our first real adventure. The unexplored location in the small patch of woods just north of Port Vantage seems appealing as a target.

The party will also need to spend a few gold replenishing their rations, as they only started with enough for 1 week of travel.

Final Thoughts

First, a thank you if you’ve made it this far through quite a long post – I hope you’ve enjoyed the adventures of Roland and his band so far. If you have any suggestions on format I’d love to hear them.

Second: a part of me thinks the wolf encounter went a little too easily. Next time, I’ll make sure I read ahead to the way the encounter is supposed to work in Five Leagues before I write the narrative. Letting the wolves make the infiltration move would perhaps have let them get in close with the weaker members of the group and drive the tension.

However, I don’t think I’m unhappy with the results – they feel plausible for a combat against hungry wolves trying to get to the mule and drag it away before retreating when they hit too much resistance from the group.

Next time we’ll really be getting into the meat of the Five Leagues campaign system so I hope you’ll keep following along.