#Solstice Rain - Party Nearly Wiped on Second Combat

162 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

half seal
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Just ran the second combat for my 3 player party today, and it went horribly for them. The engineer got left alone way too long and set up a horrifying turret array, and the other NPCs rolled really well and I was perhaps a bit too brutal in exploiting some tactical mistakes by the PCs. They didn't even get the bus halfway across.

One mech went into meltdown and is gone, the others are nearly out of repairs and are down to 2 structure and 2 stress, with multiple weapons and systems destroyed.

There is realistically no way they are making it to FOB Saber through the third combat at this point, and I'm looking for advice on what to do. The players are disheartened after getting trounced so badly, especially only on combat 2.

Any thoughts on how to narratively move this forward that doesn't feel like deus ex machina but is also fun for everyone?

woeful summit
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This feels like a place for power at a cost. Getting some additional emergency repairs to get mechs somewhat back in shape is a thing PAAC can do; what cost is appropriate though, I’m unsure.

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Either way, I’d suggest tweaking downpour a bit - triply emphasize that the condition to win the combat is taking out the rainmaker specifically, and maybe even directly tell them they’ll have air support the moment the Tyfonas is down

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Reducing the enemy count or holding some back as reserves might also not be a bad idea if you think they’ll struggle with Downpour - it’s a notably difficult encounter!

half seal
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I'm trying to think of some options for "power at a cost" and I'm struggling to figure out what they could even pay with - narratively at this point they're just fresh academy graduates who have crash landed - they don't have anything tangible or not they could really pay with, it seems.

woeful summit
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The most obvious one is time, I suppose - spending a few critical hours scrapping on a battlefield while people die. Not necessarily a mechanical consequence, but one I think players should feel.

sharp dove
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Cost doesn’t have to be something they have themselves, the cost can be even more abstract in concept than just intangible possessions

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Jane’s got a good example but it’s not the only direction you could take

tribal bridge
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i guess also worth identifying if the players like tactical combat

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hard to identify i suppose after two combats, one of which was a pretty negative one

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you can also just, call in a favor for a future event for a paac

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it doesnt have to be something right then and there

half seal
tribal bridge
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solstice rain can be a bit brutal at times

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well its good theyre having fun

woeful summit
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Yeah some encounters can be really on the rough side, especially with 3 pcs

tribal bridge
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barring purely just "hey that didnt go as planned lets give u guys a few repairs"

half seal
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Ok, I think I'll spin it as they have to divert for a while to scrap together a new mech out of destroyed Vestan Sovereignty and LSA chassis from a nearby battle - but in the meantime the anti-air is causing a ton of damage.

tribal bridge
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i would call in some help from FOB saber that might lead to some downtime spicy drama

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yeah sounds good!

woeful summit
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Clear the Air is the most complained about sitrep at 3 pcs too

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Iirc

tribal bridge
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lancer at 3 players is kinda wonky

woeful summit
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Winning control with only 3 bodies can be really damn hard

tribal bridge
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my playgroup is 3 players and its really hit or miss

half seal
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Do you guys think I should tone down Downpour?

woeful summit
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Losing sitreps is okay at any rate - there’s a reason none of them are “your pcs die lol” showstoppers

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But you definitely want a fighting chance

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I’d consider it if your pcs are in as rough a shape as it sounds like

half seal
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Ditch the hive maybe?

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or drop elite off the sentinel?

woeful summit
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Something like that. Maybe just pick a couple of enemies and treat them as reserves, they can spawn at the edges a round or two in

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Out of position and giving the pcs a little more ability to cover ground to try to blitz the rainmaker, which should be their priority

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Alternatively, have the rainmaker spend its turns shooting at incoming offscreen allied dropships and not the pcs - this makes the encounter tactically easier while still presenting the rainmaker as a priority ranged target

half seal
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Ok, I'll do some thinking on how to narratively spin this, and let them replace the melted down mech and probably each get a few repairs back so they can at least have a fighting chance.

tribal bridge
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going into the final combat of the mission with full structure/stress and 1-2 repair cap is ideal i think

half seal
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I gotta say, getting snakeyes on his second stress check was among the unluckiest rolls I've personally ever witnessed.

woeful summit
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ouch.

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yeah that's rough

slender stag
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So he ended up with bombardment and a Jamming for 3 turns on the enemies around Tyfonas

molten flame
woeful summit
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presumably the standard failure condition occurred - the bus driver panics and swerves down an alley, cut off from the PCs by an explosion and collapsing building, fate unknown

dense talon
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Something to also keep in mind is that there’s some on-foot opportunities for dismounted pilots in Combat 3. You could potentially even allow for creative environmental approaches, like using the crane to drop containers on enemies

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Just another idea for your toolkit

rain rain
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personally my advice here is to allow a power at a cost but face them with an interesting opportunity

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picking up stuff from the battlefield or needing to capture a building full of hostiles on foot as a narrative moment to be able to place down a beacon for a supply drop are some ideas

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but there is also a simple solution that doesn't involve Power at a cost

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simply have them arrive at the FOB after some tense narrative scenes and have them know that because they couldn't take out the rainmaker in downpour, things may be harder for people going forward

molten flame
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(and I read alot of military fiction where in "Squad messes up, so other squad gets in a fist fight with them at the mess hall")

half seal
hoary viper
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I wonder how hard it would be to convert Combat 3 into a narrative section like Combat 2 could have been

dense talon
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I’m certainly thinking about it

half seal
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After mulling this over last night, I think this is what I'm going to go with, and I'd appreciate any feedback -
One mech down and with the others seriously hurting, the players will have to divert to scavenge parts - the Rio Grande will direct them to a different crashed dropship, around which an intense battle took place - LSA, Sovereignty, and Union casualties are numerous.

A dozen LSA survivors are all that's left, with a few captured Vestan Sovereignty troopers - I'm going to use this to characterize the LSA and Sovereignty a bit more, since there hasn't been a lot of opportunity for RP at this point, and the players are viewing the Sovereignty in the same way as the bad guys from Top Gun at the moment.

The troopers are in dire need of medical supplies, and know of a nearby hospital that's been seized by Sovereignty forces - they will ask the PC's to retrieve some, and in exchange they'll assist in the rebuilding of one of the wrecked Everest chassis from the dropship as well as additional repairs on the surviving mechs.

I'll run the raid on the hospital as an on-foot skill challenge, as they are trying not to attract enemy armored chassis to this location by using mechs, and the hospital interior is too tight for size 1 frames. If they screw up, I'll have them still retrieve the supplies, but they'll be followed back to the others by some Vestan troopers, likely leading to more LSA injured or dead - at this point they'll be developing a reputation for bringing bad luck to those around them, that will likely follow them to FOB Saber.

After the repairs are done, the troopers will part ways with the PCs, either hoping they'll meet them again at FOB Saber or never see them again, depending on how things go.

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In regards to characterizing the factions, my idea is for the Vestan troopers/soldiers to have been radicalized by a false flag operation - they genuinely believe that the LSA is responsible for a vicious chemical attack in one of their territories, and this invasion is a retaliatory strike. In truth, it was organized by a hardline splinter faction founded in Cressidium's earliest days by fleeing SecComm military leadership, who are fighting to prevent reintegration with ThirdComm at any cost. The LSA, for their part, view the Vestan with outright hatred from a long memory of historical oppression as well as this current attack on their city.

I'll also drop a mention from the LSA of the Furies as an absolute terror of the battlefield - I want to get a bit of buildup to some of the later antagonists.

dense talon
hoary viper
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Love it

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Glad you're feeling some ownership of the module

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That's a big move

half seal
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Thanks - I usually try to stick pretty close to a module as written for my first outing with a new system, but I honestly feel like the group needs a bit of breathing room to let the sting of the last battle fade a bit, and I want them to feel like the reprieve of rebuilding a mech/extra repairs is narratively earned vs GM fiat.

I also wasn't liking how the group was joking about the Sovereignty as the "generic space nazis to shoot" - so I also want to take the opportunity to give them more context on the conflict and emphasize how Union is literally dropping into the middle of a long and complicated history here.

molten flame
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The people in the hospital aren't actually sovereignty, but Sergeant Garcia's team who has no info and was just trying to secure the hospital against raiders. So you end up with a tense standoff until "Oh... shit, it's the chassis jocks!"

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you can ignore this of course

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just a mental image for more roleplay i had

half seal
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Cool idea - I don't think I necessarily want to skip the skill challenge, but it could be fun to have the players think that Vestan reinforcements are coming to the battle site after they've retrieved the meds, but its actually the UN marines

molten flame
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yeh

past brook
half seal
past brook
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ill have to check back here haha

past brook
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@half seal yep how did the session go?

half seal
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Delayed until tomorrow 🤣 ahhh life
I'll post an update after the session

past brook
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Shoot 😂🫠

half seal
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Just wrapped up the session! It went really well, and brought one of my players who was very close to opting out of the system back in and ready to give it another shot.

The addition of a narrative "break", plus adding in the Bonds system from the Field Guide to the KTB was 100% the right call - they got to roleplay out their pilots a bit more and establish some personality. It was also a lot more familiar to the Blades in the Dark we came from so that helped a lot as well.

The party recontacted the Rio Grande and were directed to a nearby shuttle crash site that a large group of LSA troopers had turned into a makeshift camp. While there, they struck a deal with the camp's leader to retrieve the medical supplies for their injured troops in exchange for their tech's assistance in getting some of the destroyed Union chassis back online and assisting in some repairs.

Before they headed out, they chatted with some of the LSA, which was a great time to flesh out the world/factions - they were fielding questions from the troopers, "Is it true you guys can print mechs from nearly nothing?" "Have you guys found any intelligent aliens yet?", etc, and heard one of them, the local conspiracy nut, ramble on about a black ops Vestan squad that's been taking out their best LSA pilots left and right. They also talked with some captive Vestan troopers who were accusing the LSA and Union of orchestrating chemical attacks on one of their cities, which threw the party for a bit of a loop and definitely piqued their interest for investigating later.

The raid on the hospital went pretty much just like a movie, calm and controlled at the start before erupting into chaos at the end - the super solider character wound up ripping a reinforced door off its hinges while the hacker was trying to open it - hilarious moment. Overall, they got out clean but took some stress which gave the scene some lasting impact which I liked.

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The mech combat phase was interesting- the players were more invested in their characters following the narrative and it felt more "real" because of it. I even experimented with the enemies taunting them over open comms, but I think I could do some more work making that engaging.

However, even with their retooling and repairs this combat tore them to absolute pieces. OPFOR was 1 elite sentinel, 1 hive, 1 specter, 1 veteran rainmaker. 3 PCs as before.

It started out well, the elite sentinel got chunked down to nothing and died really pathetically with a 1 on his first structure and a good hit with a cyclone pulse rifle nearly destroyed the hive. But then the hive had some lucky rolls that allowed it to live longer than it should have, the rainmaker started comboing its knockback into its javeling missiles dealing 9 damage to multiple PCs a turn, and worst of all, the specter just started EATING them alive - they ignored it far too long and they wound up losing TWO mechs to it as it hit multiple times for 12+ damage.

However, they did manage to kill the rainmaker, and beat a retreat succeeding at their objective, making it to FOB saber with just one mech left.

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So, lessons learned:

  1. Tone down the combats - until this party gets their feet under them a bit more, I need to relax things. Especially with the hardest combats yet to come.
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  1. Add a solid narrative section to every session - I think for my party this is necessary to keep engagement high. They all enjoy tactical combat but need the narrative to give it "meaning
woeful summit
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Yeah, that sounds like an average run of downpour - the rainmaker is a right terror left unchecked, and specters do horrific damage that's worse if pcs spread out - which is a whole lot easier to do when there's fewer of them. I'm glad your group was able to salvage a real belly of the beast moment in act 2 of the first mission though!

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The repair and hospital raid beats sound great

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at T1 specters are outright some of the enemies with the highest damage potential due to the wording on hunt

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it's also really nasty in downpour because you don't get great tools to deal with a Specter at LL0 - siege spec 1 and grenades are decent, but you just don't have any proper invisibility counter yet beyond just chipping at it and hoping for the best

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I'd consider going out of your way to point out that the Nexus exotic ignores invisible, because it's a godsend against the invisible enemies in the next mission

dense talon
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I will say that if the enemies are too strong as-is, it may be worthwhile to remove their optional features. Little tricky on the Elites/Ultra, but their template-granted optionals would be up to your best judgment

past brook
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Hey If no one died they can print another mech at the base haha

half seal
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Yeah, that was an awkward moment, after one of the mechs was destroyed the pilot got out and started shooting at the rainmaker... who had a spare attack left over that they could tag them with. I decided not to, but was clear to the player that they were placing themselves in severe mortal peril

past brook
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OOOOF

rare ferry
half seal
half seal
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Another question - Is the idea that everyone starts mission 2 with one of the reserves outlined on page 31?

dense talon
half seal
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They managed to beat "Clear The Air", though it was a near thing and required most of them to burn their core power. They have requested a NPC to serve as a 4th that they can control as they don't like how Lancer plays with just 3 people on objective style sitreps like Control. I think I'll just give them a basic midrange assault/hmg guy to help fill in for the rest of the scenario.

hoary viper
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Yeah I'm not wild about Control either with 3 players

woeful summit
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Yeah control in particular is rough at lower player count

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it's still winnable with 3 but becomes very, very difficult

half seal
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They were not happy at essentially having to burn all their matches, and it literally came down to a coin flip on killing an invisible Witch on the last round

hoary viper
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Did they know this was the last combat of the mission

half seal
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This is the FIRST combat of the mission lol

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First combat of mission 2

hoary viper
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Oh right for some reason I was thinking this was Downpour

half seal
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downpour kicked their ass but they beat it, I posted about it above

hoary viper
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Yep

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i read Clear the Air but my brain told me it was Downpour

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I have no excuses

woeful summit
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Downpour is just an asskicker of an encounter

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I had a PC go down in it with 6 players

rare thunder
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I mean, if players are complaining about needing to burn their matches, can that be solved by providing oppertunities to Power at a Cost to get some more matches (core batteries), or are they the type of players who it's not about the resources themselves, it is about the principle of needing to use them that sours them on the system?

past brook
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I mean I feel more like they are upset about having to sacrifice their Mecha every fight just to have a remote chance of victory…

dense talon
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If there’s 3 players, I will reiterate what I’ve said before about stripping NPCs of their optional systems, at minimum

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Having a sidekick NPC should also help tbh

past brook
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As someone who will be running OSR myself I think I’ll withhold reinforcements in fights that are already starting to break them.

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In future home brew campaigns I’ll break them if it fits the narrative or if it’s a fight that should theoretically be really hard and “heroic” but yeah that’s my thought

woeful summit
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I really think it's just the game struggling at 3 players. I ran at a larger count and needed to considerably beef up most encounters to threaten them, and they were all new players too

past brook
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I want the threat of player death to be felt but I don’t want them to always be escaping it in basic encounters lol

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I may be running with 6 so I don’t foresee needing to pull punches that much 😂

hoary viper
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I've never had an issue balancing combats for 3 players but it's possible I'm running things differently than others

dense talon
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It is my personal philosophy that early levels should have the GM running player-favorable fights, middle levels with “balanced” fights, and high levels with fights stacked against the players. This is a general rule not a straitjacket though

dense talon
hoary viper
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I mean, I don't do hard-scheduled reinforcements

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I reinforce to maintain structure/activation count

dense talon
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But yeah I see 3PC tables struggle a lot from anecdotes

woeful summit
hoary viper
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I've had 2 combats where I was worried I was going too hard: the Control combat, and the combat with the T2 Ultra Ronin

dense talon
woeful summit
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they still clowned on most fights

past brook
woeful summit
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Only Downpour and Wake the Furies were really harsh, and those were ones I buffed a lot

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I tended to add 1-2 more npcs mostly yeah

past brook
woeful summit
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my specific change to wake the furies was upgrading one of the grunt hornets to a full hornet and putting it in the initial deployment, then adding 2 grunt Aegis to the reinforcements.

hoary viper
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If there are less than 1.5x PC count of NPC structure and NPC activations on the board at the end of the round, add more reinforcements until that's no longer the case

woeful summit
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Aegis felt like it fit the Furies feel, dealing energy and burn damage, as well as filling a support hole in the existing opfor

rare thunder
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Yeah, in contrast, my 5 player groups have broken every combat except for one player rolling snake eyes structure on Rainmaker fight, (And still took out the specter via climbing it, since it is a check and not an invisibility issue)

Then again, what really helped them is that I am really, REALLY bad at tatics games, so milage may vary considerably.

past brook
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Do you add structure and activations together for that reference or do you do it separately?

If structure is good but activation is low then you just throw in a grunt?

woeful summit
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yeah that's what grunts are good for

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one thing they're good for

rare thunder
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Also, giving them jump jets/ a core battery as reserves also was very helpful.

past brook
hoary viper
woeful summit
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they are, but the ingress zones on Wake the Furies make that not such a terrible issue

past brook
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Ah good point

woeful summit
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especially if the PCs spread out to chase the operator

past brook
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I’ll consider rebalancing the fights

woeful summit
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turtling at the start is a real bad idea for wake the furies

past brook
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I have al the stuff set up on foundry, I could run the mission now but I need to get the module that lets me measure without snapping tot he centre of squares rofl

hoary viper
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hold shift

past brook
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I thought on the pathfinder version of foundry there is a separate measuring tool for the side of squares

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Oh. Is it a square map vs hex map thing?

woeful summit
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I will say that my simple patch for Clear the Air on six players made it feel like an extremely fair challenge

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I just threw in the Micro-Missile Assault that the book suggests as an alternative to the Ace, but in addition to the Ace.

past brook
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Oh I’m writing this down lol

past brook
woeful summit
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it tilts things a little strikery but on control, fewer controller/support makes actually winning the sitrep feel less oppressive for the pcs lol

rare thunder
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During post-mission 1 downtime, I gave the players the list of reserves and let them choose. I also warned them that flying will be helpful mission 2. So, when my players rolled well on downtime, I gave them the jump jets they wanted.

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A chomolungma already had flight, and wanted a core-battery. Which was very helpful in both combat 4 and trivilaizing my sniper in combat 5.

past brook
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Is it worth using bonds and stress in OSR or should I not over complicat things

hoary viper
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The main thing that Bonds add, on a game-feel level, is an amount of distinctiveness to each pilot in non-combat play

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It does add a level of complexity, but on the other hand, there isn't an abundance of non-combat scenes in OSR unless you take measures to add in more on your own, so they may not come up a lot

dense talon
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Let em get accustomed to the default narrative rules

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Bonds primarily build off of those with a few modifications