[OOC] Banners & Blood

[dangelo]

Link to the IC thread

Banners & Blood
ooc thread

"A tremendous volume of research indicates that the primary factor that motivates a soldier to do the things that no sane man wants to do in combat (that is, killing and dying) is not the force of self-preservation but a powerful sense of accountability to his comrades on the battlefield."
("On Killing", 1995)

"So many vows . . . they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or the other."
("A Clash of Kings", 1998)

"Here do I swear fealty and service to Gondor, and to the Lord and Steward of the realm, to speak and to be silent, to do and to let be, to come and to go, in need or plenty, in peace or war, in living or dying, from this hour henceforth, until my lord release me, or death take me, or the world end. So say I, Peregrin son of Paladin of the Shire of the Halflings."
(The Return of the King, 1955)

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Spoiler: Big16

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System: 5e
Player Count: 4
Style of Play: Player-driven, open-ended with a clear objective
Allowed Content:

* Anything officially published.
* No UA or Homebrew
* If we get more applicants than spots, I'll prioritize PHB content a as personal preference

Character Creation:

* Everyone gets the Skill Expert feat for free
* At least one Ranger is necessary for the game to work
* A Fighter (Cavalier) is desired, though not mandatory
* Only one spellcaster allowed, maybe two (Paladin and Ranger don't count for this purpose)

Backstory: Just make sure you have solid Personality Traits, Flaws, Ideals and Bonds written on your sheet. That's all I need to motivate your characters and play around with their quirks.
Experience: 5th Level
Wealth: 2 Uncommon Magic Items and whatever mundane items you may want and can carry on you. King Harald provided for you.
Ability Scores: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 (+1 from Skill Expert, +ASI)
Hitpoints/Health: Roll, take Average if it rolls below Average. First one is maxed
Alignment: Any
Other Notes: Your character must remain loyal to King Harald all throughout the story, whether you're a lawful good paladin fighting for honor or a chaotic evil rogue serving the king for coin. One of your characters will be the official commander of these knights (normally a highborn cavalier, but not necessarily), though that's just a formality. In practice, the four of you hold council and debate the best course of action together.

The map is 40 hex wide and each hex represents 6 miles, which means your army can move a total of 4 hexes every day (unless you push into a Forced March). Rivers can be forded, but their hex counts as difficult terrain. Mountain hexes are blocked (There are spots where you can cross, but you gotta scout ahead and find them before you take the army). Forests are difficult terrain, but offer guaranteed concealment against enemy units.

Objetive: You must lead your unit of 300 mounted knights accross the map from West to East. You'll begin at the westernmost point of the map - Going back by ship (the way you came) can be especially dangerous, but quick. Marching north around the mountains would be fast enough, but the area around the King's Road is patrolled by enemy cavalry. Going through mountains and woods would be stealthy and safe, but slow, so it will consume your resources. If you run out of food for the troops, you'll have to raid villages for plunder, which is not dangerous but costs time and announces your position.

Scounting: Whether to find a way through the mountains or just look for enemy scouts, you'll often wanna detatch from the troops and travel as a lighter, stealthier unit. Instead of Random Encounters in a dungeon, there will be issues that must be solved so your army can travel safely: get rid of the minotaur guarding the gate, sabotage enemy troops, convince the druids of those woods to let you pass, etc. Skill checks, roleplay and sometimes battles will determine how fast and how well you solve these issues. Keep in mind you must reach King Harald as fast as possible.

Battles: If you're spotted and intercepted by enemy cavalry, the PCs will face proper enemy champions while the soldiers fight in the background. I'm toying with the idea of giving each player each a few knights to control in certain battles, or to allow you to do special attacks once per encounter, like ordering archers to shoot a volley at a 10-foot radius area and things like that. I'm still on the fence about all this, but I'll make sure not to go overboard with it. Not really trying to turn D&D into a different game.

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Updated map with each biome more clearly defined. I realize villages, mountains and rivers weren't hex-exact and that's kinda important in a hexcrawl.

Mountains are blocked, but can be explored for passages. Woods grant concealment against enemy troops. Villages can be raided and plundered for food, in case you linger too much. King Harald commanded you to kick the villagers out of their houses and send them to the town by Riverlord's Keep, which is Wilhem's capital. You're still burning his crops and breaking his economy, but there's no slaughter. This is heavy cavalry composed of dutiful noble knights.

Crossing rivers:
1. You enter the river hex normally.
2. You decide to cross, and spend 1 hex to do it.
3. You enter the next hex normally.

This is so you can march alongside a river without crossing it, as observed in the example below:

Spoiler

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While the real war is being fought by King Harald to the East, his majesty has sent the PCs ahead of a heavy cavalry unit by ship to create pressure on the opposite side of Wilhem's province. Those ships are still available, and can be sailed up and down the rivers. With good wind, ships will move 8 hexes per day rather than 4. Boarding the ships should cost a hex of movement.

Zoomed-out regional map for clarification:

Player	Character	Race	Class
JNAProductions	Luna Starbright	Half-Elf	Druid 5
samduke	Percilla	Bugbear	Fighter 5
Flashkannon	Ginarie	Drow	Ranger 5
Infernally Clay	Cheshire	Human	Rogue 2/Cleric 3

Welcome to the Riverlands, brave champions! I'm glad to have the four of you along for what I plan to be a short-to-mid term campaign divided in two parts: First, the bulk of the game, is a long march from West to East; The second is a fast-paced dungeon-like experience where your 4 PCs will infiltrate the capital to kidnap King Harald (held hostage in his own castle). The longer you take to return from the Riverlands in the first part, the more complications you will encounter in this second/final part, which means higher encounters with a higher CR and higher chances to die. Tpk becomes a real possibility if you linger too much.

Wargame mechanics:

Spoiler

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Movement
Infantry: 2 hexes per 8 hours of travel
Cavalry: 4 hexes per 8 hours of travel
Ships: Up to 8 hexes per 24 hours of travel

Skirmishing
To skirmish with another unit, the attacker must invade and occupy the same hex as the defender. We roll d6 to determine its outcome: Each result of [6] means one success, and whoever gets more successes wins the skirmish. The loser side can choose to take a Wound to maintain their position, or retreat and lose ground while suffering no penalties.

+1d6 for every 50 soldiers
-1d6 for every Wound

Modifiers:
Favorable terrain: A result of [5] or [6] counts as a success for the defender if they're occupying a hex that's difficult terrain. Attackers can't get that bonus. It's slower to move through difficult terrain, but worth it if you can pick a nice hill and defend it.

Fortified position: The defender gets +2d6 if they're occupying a Fortified hex. Your unit can spend 4 hexes of movement to grant your hex the "Fortified" condition. Anti-cavalry wooden spikes, palisades, trenches and such. You may choose to destroy these fortifications when you leave that hex, or abandon them there for anyone to use.

Morale: If you win 3 skirmishes in a row, your unit gets the "Morale" modifier, which ignores all Wound penalties and lasts until you lose a skirmish (even if you don't take a Wound).

Please introduce yourselves and your characters and provide either a physical description or a reference for their appearance. I'm still gonna need another day (or two) to fine-tune the map, but we can get an intro scene going once everyone is here. Let me know if you have any questions about anything.

Also are you all active discord users? I can set up a small server and send you invites via PM. Though I'd still rather keep all dice rolls in this thread or in a dice thread. Just so it's easier for me to check everything in one place.