[003] Into the War Camp

[Marullus]

Still need an equipment post and confirmation of encumbrance for Ha.

13th Day of Yayoi, the month of renewed growth of plants
Resolving to complete the duties as swiftly as possible, the party leaves immediately, following Kobi through the night with intention to attack the bandit camp by dawn. Travelling the rough mountain slopes by foot, the sun already setting upon them, the group relies on what moonlight dapples through the tree canopy. The cool evening dips to below freezing, their breath showing in puffs of white, crystals of ice forming on mustaches and visible on Kobi's slender beard. At least the moon is full and high over the mountain peaks, keeping them from pitch darkness. A little after a storm rumbles and a brief spat of snow flurries blows around them. The group pauses and shelters for about a half hour until it passes. Afterwards they continue on, a warming wind taking some of the chill, and grateful to have had no encounters on their way through the high mountain wilderness. Travelling thus, you realize you have little idea where you've gone, exept that you've followed Kobi and he calls a silent halt, pointing ahead at your destination.

It is about an hour before dawn (4:30am; sunrise 5:21am) when the group, now about 20 hours into their travels since they last slept, gathers at a vantage point for the grim task ahead. You are high on the shoulder of the mountain, able to look down on the pass and the valley below. It is indeed a small dead-end valley, a single sloping trail passing up and over a lower shoulder to the east of it. The valley itself is small and roughly circular - it contains a clear blue pond on its west end, with a house roughly in the center of the bowl-shaped valley. The house within is built in traditional Nipponese style with fortified outer walls, no sign of a courtyard, but space enough for several sizeable rooms within, appearing suitable as a retreat for someone reasonable means. A section of the house juts eastward, a door there facing the trail, wide windows on the east and south sides shuttered against the cold of near-winter nights. The walls of the valley are steep on all sides except for the trail but could be scaled with some effort. At the crest of the trail, thus able to overlook both the valley behind and the approaching dirt path leading down the other other side of the incline, is a wooden watchtower. A wooden platform stands about 12 feet off the ground on thick wooden stilts, a waist-high solid railing surrounding the platform's edge and a thatched roof overhead. You make out the outline of two guards within the tower in the faint moonlight.

From your current position, you could approach the walls of the valley and attempt to scale them, which might be a noisy proposition. You're about 120 yards away from the watchtower, but have a clear view and modest cover for yourself. Otherwise, you could circle around and approach the watchtower by the dirt trail, the only safe method of approach. The ridge where the watchtower stands has been cleared of trees, giving them an unrestricted view for at least 60 yards in all directions. It is just above freezing now (41 f), the thin dusting of snow covering the ground ahead of you across the breadth of the mountain's shoulder.

Plan of action?

[jmacatty]

Ha will bring all of his belongings which leaves him unencumbered.

[Marullus]

*bump* Happy Monday!

[jemmus]

Toshizo ponders the view of the valley below. Two sentries, no campfires or tents. So the rest of the criminals must be in the house. Says in a low voice, I think it would be best if we remember there are around 20 of them and only four of us. My kenjutsu sensei had a maxim, "If you are fighting multiple opponents, you must not let all of them attack you at once. You have to separate them and fight them individually. You may have to chase them from side to side, moving like a crab." So I think we must find a way not to fight all of them at once.

At first I thought approaching by the road would be better than loudly descending the mountain. But we have only two bows, so there is probably no way to silence the sentries before they can raise an alarm. If we fight on the flat ground, the 18 or so bandits come from the house and easily surround us. If they attack us from the sides and back, it will be very difficult to win. So perhaps we can descend the mountainside to within bow range and shoot the sentries. They will raise an alarm, but the others will have to climb the mountain to us, while we shoot at them from above. Perhaps we can kill some of them with arrows before they reach our position. Their archers will have to shoot upward at us, to their disadvantage. And perhaps if we kill the leader, the others will flee. They are bandits with no honor and no shame.

If there was a way to quietly trap them in the house and burn it, we could easily win. But that would destroy the merchant's treasure, if it's in there.

He is tired from lack of sleep, and knows that everyone else is too. Some food for energy will be good. He takes out his two days of rations and shares them with everyone.

[ffilz]

Taka could create an area of mud to make it harder for them to approach. She also has some dart spells.

[Enoch]

Eiji states that he is no warrior, but offers to pray to the kami for them.

Mechanically, the best ways I could contribute would be either to Prophecy, which lets us "roll back" events if they go badly for us, or to ask the GM for a hint on any question.

[Marullus]

You guys were quick on it yesterday! Need input from Ha, then final decisions on a plan. I'll move forward once you're ready.

[jemmus]

I think mud right in front of us would be good, whatever happens, Toshizo says. Instead of waiting for them to attack here, we could also try a surprise attack from the road. Perhaps we could catch the criminals in the house still asleep. Or without their armor and weapons. But what about the watchtower sentries? O-joh-sama, are your magic darts powerful? Do you think with our two bows and your darts we could defeat them in the space of 10 breaths? We can shoot around 12 arrows in that time. In that time the criminals in the house probably couldn't put on all of their armor.

Ten breaths is around 30 seconds in RL. (I have no idea how people in Heian Japan really expressed the idea of seconds of time). That would be 5 Detailed Turns. So 5 dai-kyu shots x 2 bushi = 10 shots against the sentries. Seems like more than enough time to take out the sentries, unless we roll really badly.

[ffilz]

I'm not quite sure how the Darts of Wood poison works, but it's only strength 1, though it looks like as a Lightning Fast Narcotic it builds up if the target continues to fail a Strength save.

[jemmus]

Lack of sleep and the situation at hand have made the normally humble and quiet neophyte bushi Toshizo more forthright. He again says in a low voice, Eiji-san, would your sight let you see what would happen if let the criminals don armor and shoot at them while they come to us up this steep slope, or if we try to catch them by surprise by attacking from the road?

O-joh-sama, would the magic poison choke the sentries or something and stop them from crying out and alerting the others? Can you do something like that, something to stun them for just a little while?

[Enoch]

Eiji kneels down on the road, heedless of the mud staining his knees, and closes his eyes. He folds his fingers into a mudra and seems to fall into a trance-like state.

I would like to use the Karma-yoga trance to Prophesy. This takes 1d10 Detailed Turns:
Karma-yoga trance time: [1d10]=6
The average of his Karma-yoga and Meditation is 21. The way it is written (1074.2) this is the BCS, but I think this is still meant to be the starting point (leading to a BCS of 4+level).
Karma-yoga trance: [1d20]=12
Assuming a BCS of 5, he fails. It still costs me 9 Power.

Eiji stands, shaking his head and brushing off his knees. "The Buddhas are silent. We will have to decide this on our own."

[Marullus]

The Plan:

So, you're going to act at range against the two sentries in the tower. (Currently at 120 yards.)
- Are you doing it from here (upon the mountain shoulder, light cover among the undergrowth), or
- Are you circling around to attack from the level trail (you choose distance, you have foot options)
[Noting that from your present position you can climb down the cliffs or circle around to the paths, but it is hazardous terrain to go straight at the watchtower or downward trail.]

Is Eiji casting any Blessings before you act?

Is Taka casting Mud, and if so, where?

If you finalize, I can do an update this weekend to start the fight. Otherwise it may have some delay as I travel.

[ffilz]

Let's strategize and start the fight when you get back from travel.

[jemmus]

Alright, so what do people think of the options? I wish we had a ninja for this surprise advantage situation. Either of options Toshizo proposed have risks.

-If we stay on the mountain and let them come to us, it seems like a matter of dice rolls and HPs attrition. Some PCs have better AC than the bandits, some worse. The merchant didn't that the bandits have bows. We have two armored PCs with bows. But they get one shot per turn, and can't do anything else that turn. And 24 arrows, so 24 turns. So maybe station at Short or Medium range for the shots at the tower sentries. Then as the bandits come out of the house, they'd progressively have shots at Long?, Medium?, Short and Point Blank range. Before running out of arrows or going into melee, whichever comes first.

-If we approach from the road, it seems we'd be relying on speed rather than dice rolling attrition. The merchant mentioned catching the bandits unprepared and unarmored. So one group engages the armored tower sentries while the rest rush the house? Maybe one armored PC against the sentries and the other vs. the house? If so, the bushi with the higher MNA should rush the house, for more attacks per turn.

[ffilz]

I dunno, Taka's usefulness here is pretty limited unless I'm really missing something about her spells. The mud seems like the most effective magic she has in this case.

[Enoch]

I dunno, Taka's usefulness here is pretty limited unless I'm really missing something about her spells. The mud seems like the most effective magic she has in this case.

That would certainly point toward the "stay on the rim and pepper them with arrows" strategy. I'm afraid Eiji is going to be even more useless. He doesn't really have much combat ability, and I have a hard time picturing a Buddhist monk participating in a battle.

[jmacatty]

So, what we have is two bushi taking on twenty bushi of unknown quality. Without knowing how the watchtowers are armed, it strikes me that our best bet is to approach the towers as stealhily as possible, then bumrush the camp, killing as many as possible before they armor up. Unless we can take out the guards first without rousing the camp, I see no other choice.

[jemmus]

Samurai Taka might have pretty good bugei skills. So maybe after she's used her spells, she can help out with the combat. Especially of we can catch the bandits in the house unarmored/unarmed.

Frank mentioned that Taka has Darts of Wood.
Lightning poisoning takes effect as soon as the victim is exposed to it, in the very same action phase. If he fails to resist the exposure, the victim immediately rolls his Health ST. If this fails, the poison will reduce the Attribute by its Type by its Level. After that the char loses of the Attribute score per turn, until he makes an ST.

Narcotic poisons attack the victim's current Strength Attribute. If this is reduced to 0, the victim will pass out....
Seems like Darts of Wood would take a lot of turns to take a character out. (This is very OOC for us players, Toshizo doesn't know anything at all about this).

@GM Marullus - From their outlines, can we see how the guards are armed and armored? Specifically, do they have dai-kyu or han-kyu?

[ffilz]

Taka isn't going to be of much use in combat, she is only strong enough to use her knife. Does the 2nd strike happen on the same action? That beefs it up a little bit.

Yea, the Wood Darts are going to be too slow to be of much use, especially against targets that likely have a decent Strength.

[jemmus]

I checked and the Second Strike is on the same BAP as the first one. 50% BCS, and an additional -1 to BCS.