Play by Forum: Hexplore It - The Sands of Shurax

“During a Caravan Journey from a City-State to the Wastes we draw the Caravan-master who lets you place a tile and explore it mid-journey; we take a Great Eagle from there to a Forests tile with a Fairy Circle on it and enter the Fairy circle and go to the fae realm to harvest shimmery sprockets with our Tools; at the end of the Event Phase, do we. . . end up back on the Caravan?”

– Rules questions I would be mildly excited to inflict on @malkav11 after this game is over ;-)

So I can do a Telekinetic Barrage and Mind Trap (Chitinous Shell) for free because they are both rank 3? I think that makes sense then.

Correct.

Okay, swapping out the Sandstorm for a fight with the mighty insect warrior Kriq’itt:

Round 1
Declaration:
Cheya has Monstrous Humanoid as a Favored Opponent. Rolling d6: 3. That’s 3 health damage. Kriq’itt to 31.
Cheya activates the Troll racial ability for 3 energy, gaining 2 health regen for the next 3 rounds and 1 TP to Empowered. Empowered rank up!

Cheya declares Leather Grip, spending 1 energy. This will deal 13 health damage.
Akbar declares All Tied Up, spending 2 energy. This will let Akbar roll the boss die a second time and pick one of the two (with rerolls for additional energy), as well as use Triggered Assault to deal 5 health damage.
Orion uses the Psion special to declare both Telekinetic Barrage (3 health damage) and Mind Trap for 1 energy (to use Mind Trap). If Kriq’itt uses Chitinous Shell, it will suffer 6 energy damage and have damage, defend/block, and healing of that action reduced by 1.
Chimminy declares Whirling Blades, spending 1 energy. This will deal 9 and 9 health damage. Because Chimminy spent energy, he gains 3 Defend.
Melhin attacks for 6 health damage.

Opponent Phase.
Kriq’itt rolls d6: 3. Hunter’s Aptitude. Defend 3, plus from that point onwards, any hero that repeats the same action twice in a row will be Counterattacked for 6 health damage.
Due to All Tied Up, rolls a second time: 2. Chitinous Shell. Defends for 6, plus Counterattacks anyone that Attacks him for 3 (but not Mastery use). (5 and 2, with Mind Trap)
Selecting Hunter’s Aptitude. This will blunt your attacks enough that it will take a second round, but Favored Opponent should finish him off.

Resolution:
Kriq’itt Defends for 3 and uses 7 energy, going down to 15.
Cheya deals 10 (13-3) health damage. Kriq’itt goes down to 21.
Akbar deals 2 (5-3) health damage. Kriq’itt goes down to 19.
Orion deals 0 (3-3) health damage.
Chimminy deals 6 (9-3) and 6 (9-3) health damage. Kriq’itt goes down to 7.
Melhin deals 3 (6-3) health damage. Kriq’itt goes down to 4.

Round 2
Declaration:
Favored Opponent d6: 1. Using a Weighted Die to reroll. 1. Using the other. 2. Okay, fine.
Kriq’itt down to 2.

Cheya Sustains Leather Grip, spending 1 energy. Planned action was Electrify, but I don’t think there’s any reason to do so. Just declare it can’t Chitinous Shell and you’ll be fine. So, Whiplash. Defending for 4.
Akbar declares Flee. Defending for 7.
Orion declares Mental Manifestation. Defending for 6.
Chimminy declares Battle Dance, spending 1 energy, and chains in Rhythmic Movements, gaining a -1 bonus to target and skill dice and gaining a total of 9 Defend.
Melhin attacks, for 6 health damage + Cheya’s Gripped boost of 5. (This is why I’m having you all defend. You don’t need to do anything offensive at all and I think your best chance of coming out without getting messed up is to defend this round.)

Opponent Phase:
Kriq’itt D6: 5. Barbed Lance. Or he could do that. Sigh.
Dual target 6 piercing energy damage and a survival check to avoid becoming poisoned.

Resolution:
Kriq’itt targeting roll: Cheya gets 2, Akbar gets 8, Orion gets 9, Chimminy gets 1 (and would get lower if he could), Melhin gets 5.
Akbar takes 6 piercing energy drain (which ignores Defend) and tests Survival: 8. Fail. Poisoned!
Orion takes 6 piercing energy drain and tests Survival: 4. Fail. Poisoned!

Melhin stabs the big bug to death.

Rewards:
Everyone gets 5 gold and 4 food. (Of which food you can carry a whole 2, total.)
Two powerups to each. And only one person doesn’t already have a Survival Kit, so Cheya gets that. Rolling for the 3 Health: Cheya gets 4, Akbar gets 6, Orion gets 9, Chimminy gets 8. Orion gets +3 health ranks! (Also a Trait point.)

Powerups:
Cheya:


Akbar:

Orion:

Chimminy:

Everyone got a Stash card or two this time around. So, stash or take? As a reminder, Cheya and Orion already have one stashed card each.

…and all of that was just one event in a Caravan Journey. So here’s the next and probably last one:


Guess you should have waited on the boss fight.

I’ll stash my card. I’m also glad to help with the Caravan mission since I came out mostly unscathed, though I might like to go after someone who’s got decent attack and health given that I’ve got the lowest combined total of the two :). Looks like Cheya has the best shot, followed by Akbar and then Orion, unless a Stash bonus does something funky.

I believe I chose Specialty Trap for Round 2 with a 5/6 prediction. As it rolled a 5 I should get +3 strengthen to ST. I am perfectly ok with you changing my orders for circumstance, but in this case I did want to go for the strengthen as I knew I could survive his attacks.

I’ll roll my stashes. I think with 3 cards, I have about a 57% chance.

Yeah I’ll assist first, but we’re probably going to need at least 3 of us to assist with this one. Possible Chiminy should go last to preserve his resonance ability in case of critical fails. I’d say give an ironscale to at least Akbar beforehand to bring energy back up and remove poisoned.

And I thought about taking a poultice before rolling the caravan event, but I think I’ll save it for after when it’s more effective. Weighted dice can also be used to avoid critical failures. Should we shuffle those around to whoever is going first?

Fair enough, I had missed that that increases the trap damage permanently. And in this case it makes no difference to how much damage you’d taken etc so we’ll go ahead and retcon that.

Not this turn. I used them to try and get Favored Opponent damage to roll something that would actually kill Kriq’itt before you guys had to do another turn. Which did not work. You do still have several charges of the Floating City. (There’s no need to move them between people, they work on any roll once a turn.)

OK, gotcha.

I actually first burned a bunch of effort trying to get him to roll a non-Defend action and he finally did Barbed Lance instead and that sucked and I was like “wait, what exactly is worse about just letting him defend and then finishing him off on turn 2?” And retconned that. But I mathed slightly wrong and thought any amount of Favored Opponent would kill him, which was not the case and of course I couldn’t roll above a 2 to save my life. Whoops. So then I figured, okay, if you keep him from doing his big defend, Melhin will for sure kill him, so just get him Gripped and everyone else Defend and you have a good shot at coming out no worse off than if you’d one-rounded him…except he rolled Barbed Lance again and ignored Defend. Sigh.

Such is life, I guess.

@Thraeg , @ormus, stash or roll on your stash powerups? It’s probably not super critical for purposes of progressing the event but I’d ideally like to do all that stuff in one go.

I’ll stash mine.

Cash in now please.

Cheya turns in stashes. Rolls 3d4: 3, 3, 4. Gets +2 Energy, First Mastery and Navigate.
Akbar turns in stashes. Rolls 1d4. 2. Gets +1 Attack.
Orion and Chimminy stash.

Event: Broken Down
Energy Drain 9. Testing Health and Attack. No Caravan Master Bonuses.
First up, Cheya: 8, 10. Fail and Critical Fail. Soaring City reroll, or Fairy adjustment?

You are a bad dice roller :P I say use Chiminy, but only if @ArmandoPenblade agrees.

It is known. And why I’m so salty about Descent 2E/Imperial Assault using dice for defense. :P

I’m down :)

To clarify, are you doing just the Crit Fail, or both? In both cases it turns into a success, but the difference is obviously much starker for the Crit Fail.

Just the crit fail for now. If this gets to me, I hope to have some energy left to drain >.>