Lume Session 5 - The “Giant Skirmish” Battle Braunstein

Preparing for a Battle Braunstein

I knew already that faction activities in the campaign were coming to a head in the giant ruins where most of this campaign has taken place so far. Players want to know what’s going on with the hobgoblins and the mysterious man that was seen with them. The human military of Lume established a forward base to root out the hobgoblins, as the hobgoblins continue to be spotted in the area.

A Humans versus Hobgoblins Battle Braunstein seemed like the most obvious way to handle this: there are two players, so give one player the human side, give one player the hobgoblin side, give each side some number of goals they’re trying to achieve, and see how it plays out. My players however were not as keen on the outright PvP aspect of that. Slightly disappointing, but it was alright, because I had a third faction as a backup plan: the Druids.

The Druids are aligned with the humans on the surface level, but the goal they serve here is to create balance in the Alignments. The Lawful Good humans, versus the Lawful Evil hobgoblins… Law is going to gain power either way. So the Druids had a hidden agenda of their own, to empower Chaos through the deaths on the battlefield. More on this later.

The players were happy with this arrangement. One player would play the human faction, and the other player would play the druid faction. In addition, they would each be playing their own PCs (two each), which largely followed the human forces around on the battlefield. I would be playing the opposing force, the hobgoblin faction.

Battle Braunsteins so far, that is to say Braunsteins (where players represent various factions) which are focused on aggression, seemed to be more PvP focused. Here, there is clearly still a focus on aggression, but the players would be able to function cooperatively against the DM-played faction for most of the session. Also, it’s a Braunstein with only two players (plus the referee). Pushing the boundaries of what counts as both the “Battle” and “Braunstein” aspects of the idea, perhaps, but that’s what we’re here for. And I’ll be running it all in 5e!

The human and hobgoblin factions will receive 100 hit dice worth of troops. The humans had the option of how to equip these, with infantry being 1HD and cavalry being 2HD. Hobgoblins had more options, with goblins and hobgoblins at 1HD, wolf riders at 2HD, worg riders at 4HD, and rat keepers at 5HD.

I talked with a third party to decide on the Hobgoblin’s strategy. “So you're a wizard, you've got a bunch of these goblins, and you need to find this hidden thing in these giant ruins. There's humans stationed there trying to stop you. How would you do it?” Half rat keepers doing the searching, escorted by worg riders. The other half hobgoblin infantry. “You probably need to travel to it once it's found, to dispel it. How?” Disguise magic, and invisibility. Done!

Resolving Downtime

This session was played April 6th and 7th, 2024. The previous session was March 9th, so 4 weeks of downtime need to be resolved.

Mol (Half-Orc Cleric of Nature) will relay information about the shrine, researching the shrine and lizard motif.

I decided this research would reveal that there’s a wraith in the lair, and that the shrine was a primary point of contact to it. Having gone insane over its years of being trapped in the lair (where it is still trapped, to be clear), its personality is a bit haywire, though it still has the desires of a wraith, including the desire to create specters. I also imagine that the wraith was worshiped to some degree, and was thus stronger than the basic wraith stat block in the Monster Manual. With the Grove of Rhythm’s cooperation, several basic human mooks from the Grove were sent into the jail cells in the lair, where the wraith was able to partly possess them and affect their blades: so that their blades would raise specters for the wraith in the upcoming battle.

Mol, being an acolyte of the Grove, was in on this plan, and would be able to signal for support from the druids or cultists, who would be staying off the battlefield until opportunities presented themselves.

This downtime resolution, I probably did the least amount of justice. What did the lizard motif research reveal? Nada. I forgot, and the player didn’t follow up regarding it.

Serinde (Half-Elf Druid, Sage) downtime task: To search for the Spring Court and socialize.

The Spring Court is a court of elves on the West end of Lume. Giving two weeks of travel and searching for the Grove (the location of its forest being known, but its exact position needing to be discovered), that left just over one week for vacationing, before returning to the Grove and giant ruins for the next session.

I am reminded of the elves in Three Hearts and Three Lions when I think of a vacation with the Elves, so I look into the DMG regarding the Fairy lands… and it delivers! Breaking the barrier between the Material Plane and the Feywild would be a good way to introduce it to the campaign, and I come up with ways to rationalize it (the Winter Court causing mischief in the Spring Court’s forest). This invokes the effects of “Feywild Magic” described in the DMG. In addition to time warp fun, this introduces another adventure hook the players may want to pursue.

Being a half-elf, Serinde is unaffected by the potential for memory loss, but she is still subject to the Feywild Time Warp. A d20 roll reveals “days become weeks”. Without interference, Serinde would lose ~8 weeks in the Spring Court. I worked with the player on this: After 2 weeks, Mol would notice that she hadn’t returned, and would notify the Grove. Word would reach Serinde on her third day in the Feywild, after which she would leave, that being April 13th on the calendar, and one whole week past the upcoming game session on the 6th.

Ottmar (Human Barbarian, Hermit), go to Suul to learn more about the time traveling wizard from the wizards who “discovered a world.”

This was a fun one to resolve, and I was able to play through parts of this one-on-one with the player. Here I leaned into Rhialto the Marvellous for inspiration, to come up with the ring of higher level wizards active in Lume, in its central city of Suul. Thus was born the Chartreuse Concordat, and its five presently active members, who would spend their days in petty squabbles and contests with each other, all the while playing with the greatest magics known to mankind.

Ildefonse the Pedant, leader of the Chartreuse Concordat

Gilgad the Illusionist

Sophocles the Third, who is currently missing (the others coordinate from other planes and places, it is unknown even to Sophocles how many others of him there are)

Orbed-Hast

Acolyten of Am’Duat, who lives in the Telaclast Cathedral by the river West, attended by acolytes

I also recalled a fantastic creature from Arcana of the Ancients, who’s portal-head contains another dimension. Taking more inspiration from Vance's Eyes of the Overworld, I put this gargantuan creature below the surface of a swamp, near the wizard Acolyten. This other dimension would be the “discovered world”. As per the Latos’s description, the dimension would be long deserted, but not necessarily uninteresting. Within the muted colors of the Latos’s dimension, a color-shifting tear in the sky would stand out, that being the trail of the Planebreaker, an opportunity for the players to go plane hopping if they so desire, and an obvious goal to pursue in the dimension.

Tying the wizards together a little, I decided that Sophocles the Third will have gone into the dimension, reported back, and then disappeared inside, not seen since. Acolyten reveals as much to Ottmar, and offers to aid him in learning about the time traveling wizard, if Ottmar can find Sophocles the Third, or otherwise help to explore the dimension. Ottmar further learned that the time traveling wizard (Bartholomew) was also a member of the Chartreuse Concordat, before they went missing.

The player was really excited about this lead and opportunity, and enjoyed establishing some contact with the wizard ring in general. Ottmar’s player was excited to reveal all of this to the other player as well. I have a hunch that Session 6 will be heading in this direction.

Aridhel (Half-Elf Ranger, Soldier), staying at and aiding the forward base, mentions the shrine for possible investigation.

The shrine investigations got handed off to the Grove, so that the Lume military could stay on guard at the forward base in the ruins. As hobgoblin sightings and activities increased around the periphery, Aridhel is able to aid the military in finding several entrances into the tunnels below the ruins, as well as determine where the highest amounts of hobgoblin activity were occurring. This also affords the human faction sufficient time to get their troops into the desired position before the Braunstein begins.

Before the Session

Before the session (and all of the Braunstein planning), I first confirmed what the players actually wanted to be doing (as they now have interests in several places at this point), rather than just forcing them to be present for this showdown in the giant ruins. But they were most interested in the big battle, being invested in its outcome, and wanting to see and affect how it pans out, so the Battle Braunstein was confirmed.

After determining which factions were involved, and who would be playing what, I had each side determine their army compositions and determine starting positions. Because of the advantage the humans had, they had a general idea of which sides of the battlefield the hobgoblins had been amassing, and were able to deploy accordingly.

I reviewed the rules of this battle and battlefield with the players:

• Hexes are 100 ft across

• Time, size, and turns are scaled 10:1, so that a creature which moves 30 feet, moves 300 feet (or 3 hexes) in one combat turn, and one combat turn represents 1 minute of combat

• Troops will prioritize fighting other troops, and heroes will prioritize fighting other heroes

• There will be fog of war

  • Units can normally see 1 hex away (giant ruins obscure seeing much further)

  • Units in a tower can see 3 hexes away

  • Archers with longbows can shoot 4 hexes away (per distance rules) but will require a spotter

  • Forests obscure visibility of whatever is in them, except from other units in the same hex

• Stars on the map are entrances to the tunnels which run below the ruins

• Unless there is an active engagement, players should just give overarching orders, and not worry about counting hexes; as referee I’ll interrupt them with engagements as necessary

The following rules of combat were revealed during play (as they seemed most reasonable to quickly resolve combat in interesting way):

• Units of troops (usually in multiples of 10) make one attack and one damage roll, which is multiplied by the number of attackers in the unit

• Units of troops use average HP, so a unit of 10 with 4.5 HP, would lose one troop for every 4.5 damage sustained

  • Remainders were not tracked

• Heroes attacking units of troops, will target troops randomly, and will use the “Cleaving through Creatures” rule from the DMG

One of the usual PCs would not be available for this session, so that player rolled up the wizard which Captain Galloway had been trying for weeks to requisition from the Lume military. I allowed the player to roll them up at level 2 for this session. And so the Human Wizard Athure, a Chaotic Neutral Outlander and Spy, joins the ranks of PCs. Of note, Athure does not carry his spellbook with him on this occasion, he has kept it somewhere safe and off the battlefield.

Army Composition

The Lume Military, “The Humans”

• 20 cavalry, with spears and longbows

• 60 infantry, with spears and longbows

  • 20 “archer” units stationed on towers with longbows ready

  • 40 “guard” units stationed at ground level, with spears ready

The Grove of Rhythm, “The Druids”

• 5 Druids stationed equidistantly in the woods surrounding the ruins

• 20 Cultists, with wraith-blades

  • 10 started hidden in the tunnels

  • 10 started hidden in the South East forest

The Grey Wizard and Hobgoblins, “The Hobgoblins”

• 5 rat keeper + worg rider units

• 50 hobgoblins

In addition, the PCs and Captain Galloway would be heroic units on the side of the humans. The druids and rat swarms were functionally heroic units, without being labeled as such. The Hobgoblins also have a Hobgoblin Captain.

The Battle Braunstein

As the battle began, players were provided the following map, which I had drafted up in about 5 minutes. Blank tiles here are still full of “giant ruins”, but the icons that look like broken towers are the “tower” tiles, where units could be stationed for increased visibility of the battlefield. Southeast of the center is the Forward Base, and South of that is the (vacated) Hobgoblins Lair.

The human player needed to position their units to start things off. The PCs were provided horses from the military, and so could flexibly be a part of infantry or cavalry units, as they mainly wanted to fight on the side of the Humans. Mol would be secretly in contact with the druids and cultists, able to signal when and where they should make an appearance.

As referee, I played the side of the Hobgoblins flexibly. I could use most of my knowledge as the referee, as the Grey Wizard had a Crystal Ball, and would be scrying all around the battlefield during this time. The Grey Wizard would be hidden and operating from the centermost tower. There are 9 towers on the map, so I used a d10 to pick from these areas on the map: where rat keepers would be searching, and where the goal actually was (near the Northmost tower). The 20 hobgoblins and the captain were stationed in the Southeast forest, 20 were in the Southwest tower (0621), and 10 were hiding in the tower Northwest of Center (1311).

First Contact

The first engagement was between 20 hobgoblins and 20 cavalry in the southwest, the hobgoblins getting surprise and initiative and swiftly killing 8 cavalry. On the backswing, the cavalry, and Athure’s cast of Burning Hands, wiped out the 20 hobgoblins.

At this point, the druids began detecting the rat keepers and worg riders in the Northwest of the map, which was relayed by a Grove representative in the Forward Base. Shortly after, archers stationed in the Center-Northeast tower reported sightings of the swarming rats as well.

Now the race was on: the rat keepers were searching for the site of the ancient ritual, by which the druids had turned the ancient undying hobgoblin army to stone, and the humans trying to stop them and drive off the hobgoblins for good. The humans were not yet sure of what exactly the hobgoblins were looking for.

The First Rat Keeper

Many more sightings of swarming rats, and two of the PCs (Mol the Cleric and Athure the Wizard) rode with the remaining 12 cavalry for a while, heading next to a central tower where rats had been spotted. Upon spotting the rat keeper goblin, Mol immediately charges and sounds a signal, calling 10 cultists up from the tunnels to surround the rat keeper and his swarm. Infantry from this tower join in as well. The infantry and cavalry fare amazingly against this rat swarm. The rat keeper goblin doesn’t stand a chance: after being tackled by Mol, the cultists perform a wicked ritual of cuts before executing the goblin and creating a specter. This was the Humans first clue about the Druids goals.

The Southeast Battle

The cavalry head Southeast, dropping off Mol and Athure at the Forward base, and picking up Aridhel, Ottmar, and Captain Galloway, in pursuit of a worg rider heading east to the forest. The players suspect a trap (correct!), and so manage to engage at the edge of the forest without being ambushed. A druid (hidden in a tree) entangles the 20 hobgobins here, though the hobgoblins pass their save, they still are in difficult terrain. The hobgoblins switch to their bows, but do no damage to the cavalry who have found cover; counterfire from the cavalry drops 9 hobgoblins.

The Hobgoblin Captain emerges from the ranks and challenges Captain Galloway (“Veteran” stats), who very willingly accepts the duel.

Ottmar rages and runs right into the ranks of hobgoblins, critting and killing 5 of them in one go.

The cavalry proceed to be utterly untouchable while dropping 6 more hobgoblins, as the Captains duke it out, both rapidly losing HP. The hobgoblin captain knows this is a battle he won’t win, and so runs for the trees, eating an opportunity attack from Galloway (hit) and Ottmar (whiff), and a readied shot from Aridhel, but successfully taking cover at the tree line. Ottmar has a feeling that he should have hit, but somehow missed. On the next turn, Aridhel catches up (on horseback) and executes the hobgoblin captain with a critical hit.

Cultists emerge from these trees now, claiming the bodies of the hobgoblins, while the cavalry receive reports that the Forward Base has lost contact with the guards stationed in the Northeast.

Lost Contact and a Rogue Rider

The cavalry head back to the Forward Base to regroup, as the PCs plan to investigate the tower which they lost contact with. The rat keepers had finally found the temple they were looking for near the Northmost tower, and so the Grey Wizard had rode North, disguised as a human soldier. The four surviving worg riders, and all remaining rat swarms were summoned North as well. The players decided to investigate the Northeast tower first, as it was still along the way.

Athure investigates the tower with his raven familiar, spying the ten dead guards, and glimpsing hobgoblins hidden in the tower before the raven was shot dead. Rat swarms surround the human cavalry and infantry, and the ten hobgoblins emerge from the tower to try and finish things here. A spell is used to quiet about 1/3rd of the rats, but as they are impossible to distinguish from the rest of the rats swarming over them, the advantage is not as much as the player hoped it would be.

Cavalry trample and slay one swarm before the hobgoblins show up. After that, the cavalry and infantry stay occupied with the rat swarms, while the barbarian, ranger, cleric, wizard, and veteran heroes face down the ten hobgoblins. Bolstered up to 18 AC each, Aridhel the Ranger and the wounded Captain Galloway intercept the goblins. Initiative is tied! Aridhel slays two hobgoblins, Athure kills a third with darts, and Galloway strikes down five more. But one attack drops Aridhel to 0 HP, and two more attacks drop Captain Galloway to zero as well.

The players suddenly regain their fear of hobgoblins and how nasty their martial training actually is. Two hobgoblins still stand, the fallen ranger and veteran at their feet. From this point on, I make death saves in secret, while the players scramble to salvage the situation. They can probably kill the hobgoblins in time, but these rat swarms are proving much more resilient than the one they dealt with before, and have eaten four infantry already.

Next turn, the hobgoblins have the initiative. Resigned to their fates, these hobgoblins chant curses and strike the fallen, an automatic failed death save for each of them. Aridhel makes their death save, and Galloway fails, one save away from death.

Mol and Athure drop one of the remaining hobgoblins. Ottmar rages, but fails to slay the last hobgoblin.

Heroes win initiative. Aridhel fails this one, and Galloway succeeds, leaving them each at 2 fails and 1 success. Athure drops the final hobgoblin with darts. Mol casts Cure Wounds, and Ottmar uses his herbalism kit as a medicine kit (established in a prior session) to stabilize the other.

Two more guards are lost, leaving 4 guards and 12 cavalry. Mol casts Cure Wounds again, bringing both of the fallen heroes back to consciousness. The Ranger heals himself (to 12 HP), and Galloway drinks two healing potions (to 19 HP). The rat swarms are finally beaten back as well, and the group heads North.

The Giants Temple

Entering the area, the players recognize these as the streets they explored in the first session of the campaign, which lead to the Giants Temple they had aided the sprites in finding. Now they could see that temple in the distance, swarmed over with rats, and patrolled by four worg riders.

With tied initiative, Aridhel shoots a magic arrow at the rider who noticed their approach, and the rider blows their horn. The rider was slain, but the alert was already sounded.

Heroes win initiative. Athure and Mol fire at the next visible rider as they approach the temple, while Aridhel and Ottmar ready to shoot into the temple from afar. As they approach the steps, they spot a horse tied nearby. Athure, who had the last 2 minutes remaining of a Detect Magic spell, noticed magic emanating from a saddle bag.

The Grey Wizard makes his first mistake and peeks out the entrance of the temple in surprise. Two shots, and he’s down to 16 HP, from 30. Mol casts Burning Hands and the Grey Wizard would have failed his save, but a swarm of rats leaps directly in the path and he makes the save after all, expending his second use of “Portent” for the day. The Grey Wizard turns invisible, and Athure detects it to be illusion magic.

Athure jumps on the tied horse and rides off; the Grey Wizard’s second mistake. Ottmar rides in, raging, but unable to attack until the next turn because he had been so far away. Mol moves in to try and touch the wizard’s cloak by tackling the wizard’s last known position, and succeeds in casting the Light cantrip. The wizard is now invisible, but their position is roughly revealed. Outside, the worg riders are being easily picked off.

The Grey Wizard throws off his light-cloak, so that he can move away and escape untraced; however this is also his third mistake. As the invisible Grey Wizard retreats on foot in disgrace, the rats scatter, Captain Galloway and his men secure the giant’s temple, and Mol collects the cast-away cloak.

Braunstein End

The Braunstein ends here, having easily played for 8~10 hours over two days. The druids and military confirm the number of kills to match the estimated numbers of enemy forces, and the human forces being reduced to 24 infantry and 12 cavalry.

Any side which achieved their goals gets to level up:

The Humans drove back and destroyed the hobgoblin forces, securing the area, and preventing the resurrection of the Merkadian Soldiers. Success! Aridhel, Ottmar, and Athure level up.

The Druids achieved their goal of maintaining the balance of alignment, by empowering the Wraith for Chaos. Dozens of specters will now haunt these ruins. Success! Mol levels up.

The Hobgoblins took massive losses and did not succeed in resurrecting the Merkadian Soldiers, or in driving away the humans. Failure!

Loot

The saddlebags contained the Crystal Ball, a Very Rare magic item which the Grey Wizard was using to coordinate the hobgoblins. I decided it to be an Intelligent Magic item, and had the players roll for it for me. It is Chaotic Evil, seeks to destroy its creator, and seeks to destroy everything Lawful Good.

The wizard would likely have more mundane treasure as well (potions, I figured), so I grant them one roll on the Individual Treasure (level 5-9) for coin, which they rolled highly on, and one roll for magic items on the Treasure Hoard (level 0-4) table, on which they rolled a 100. Roll on the magic item table… a Canaith Mandolin (Instrument of the Bards, Rare). It was fun last time, so this one will be intelligent too. The players roll. It’s a strongly aligned Lawful Neutral Mandolin.

The review of this loot didn’t occur until the return to the forward base. Athure felt spitefulness pressing on him as he handled the crystal ball. But when the Chaotic Neutral wizard handled the Mandolin, he lost the contested Charisma check, and the instrument took control of him. He was later found in the store room, having stripped himself of his wizardly paraphernalia, searching for and being made to drink holy water, before being relieved of the instrument and its hold over him.

On that note, we called the session end. As we picked up, Ottmar’s player told the other all about his downtime with the mages of Lume, drafting aid for their planned venture into the new dimension.

Downtime Assignments

Arthure:

• Scout the upper level of the tunnels in the ruins, using his familiar to gather intel without putting himself in great danger

  • He knows Disguise Self, so he can avoid drawing unnecessary attention

• Secure the crystal ball his lair (location / alliances undetermined) and then use it to divine the location and habits of the evil wizard from the giant's temple

• As a side hustle, scour the local taverns for active bounties, scry for location and clues, and sell this information to bounty hunters and the local militia

Serinde:

• Return from her trip, relay her timey-wimey findings to the druid circle and Mol, and catch up with the latest warfare and gossip over tea, purchased as a souvenier

• I'm forgetting details, but there were rumors of another time mage and she'll connect the dots and relay her findings, in an attempt to work out if her recent misadventure is related. Restoring normal time flow to the area would become a high priority for her

Mol:

• Touch base with the cultists and learn the full extent of the ritual they performed, and as many additional details on their plans with this chaotic spirit as they are willing to share. In particular:

  • Does the local populace need to be informed of any new dangers? The abby is happy to continue to offer healing services, but prevention is the best cure, after all

  • If the spirit's designs are fully realized, will the balance be tipped too far in the other direction? If so, are there plans to limit its success? Should those fail, is there an available counter?

• Take up Mandolin lessons, learn to play the magical artifact at a basic level of competency, and keep an ear out for any local bards that swing through the area. In addition to likely being good teachers, they might be able to offer some insight into the item's other properties

• (Mol is happy to assist Arthure with the scrying, as he has the cloak stolen from the wizard, but he'd like to keep the cloak once that's done. It looks neat.)

(Aridhel and Ottmar’s downtime haven’t been submitted yet)

Feedback and Retrospective

Got a bunch of written feedback from Mol and Athure’s player (the less conventionally experienced one), on the session:

This session was way too long, but on the flip side, the accelerated combat allowed us to much more rapidly discover world-building strings to tug

I was thrilled to finally put eyes on the wizard we have literally been tracking from session #1

His interaction with the world felt completely natural, just like an actually prepared campaign

Knowing it was not prepared made that even more fun

It wasn't, "oh this is a setup for a puzzle we have to solve"

It was "oh shit, this very real person is panicked and in escape mode, what would he be capable of trying? We have to strategize accordingly!"

And we did, and we threw the book at him, and he slipped away mostly due to the dice

It felt like that could have gone either way

And it also felt like we could try interesting things, because we weren't denying you a prepped setup in the process

This feedback is generally mirrored by the other player as well. The long session length (8 to 10 hours) was a shared issue across the board, as well as sentiment that while it was fun, this isn’t the sort of session that anyone in our group is interested in playing more of anytime soon, due to it mostly being one big long wargame. Adventures are much more of what we want to play. So while it is likely we will revisit “Braunsteins” in the future, “Battle Braunsteins” are going to be a pass for a while, at least.

From the player of Aridhel and Ottmar (the more experienced-with-5e player):

I feel like side initiative is okay, but it makes planning a little harder, especially if we were to do planning on a grid instead of theatre of the mind like we did

I mean the close quarters combat we did was theatre of the mind so it was okay, but if we were managing those in a grid it would be harder to plan as everyone moves at the same time

Using RAW means the battle is always in a well defined state, Even when there's uncertainty (fog of war, enemies around corners, etc.)

And apparently, cleaving (overkill damage to an enemy can spill to another enemy in range) is already an optional rule in 5e

Galloway being reckless certainly forced me to commit more than I naturally would have

That I really liked

Here the other player chimed in:

Which was great; Galloway's recklessness was rather well telegraphed by hints in previous sessions

The rules of the wargame not being fully clear from the onset was also cited as an issue. This is a failing on my part.

The players later realized they had achieved something else in this campaign via their downtime pursuits:

... wait a sec; didn't Serinde just go and visit the elves? Does that mean elves are now available to PCs?

The players have now unlocked the “Elf” race for PCs, which will come from the Spring Court in West Lume.

I guess I'm surprised to learn that elves are chaotic

After some talk regarding my initial rationalization of Elves as Chaotic, I referred to the rulebooks. Many fey sorts are Chaotic, but others are simply Neutral, Including Drow, which are Neutral Evil. I’ve amended my Class-Race-Alignment chart, to categorize Elves simply as “non-Lawful”, and changed Drow to “must be Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil”, to better adhere to their natural alignments in 5e RAW.

Pondering this Braunstein

I learned after this session that the DMG contains Morale rules. I really wish I had known that prior to this session. I remembered only that there were Loyalty rules, which aren’t the same thing. I’m not sure it would have changed much in this session… it would have been more likely that the cavalry broke morale at some point, I think.

The division of the factions worked out really well. Despite the focus of the Battle Braunstein not being on PvP, the fog of war and differing, hidden agendas made it an interesting thing to play out. The players were both quick to adopt their roles as faction directors at the table.

Outsourcing the plans for the hobgoblin faction was a great choice. Better than I would have come up with, and much quicker.

Thoughts on Alignment

Alignment has been awesome to lean into. These are natural, overarching factions to play with, that shape the world, creating all sorts of emergent narratives and adventure opportunities.

I can already tell that Sentient Magic Items are going to be a fun addition to the game. I’m not sure if all magic items are going to be Sentient, or only magic items which are Rare or rarer (so that there are some magic items that are simpler to work with). Sentient magic items have alignment, which means they will only want to cooperate with a subset of characters. They also have varying purposes, which are constant pressures on characters which want to use them.

For instance, despite a Crystal Ball being introduced to the campaign at a very low level, it is aligned with Chaos and Evil, and it's in the hands of a Chaotic Neutral wizard, who is using it to sell intel for profit. The crystal ball will be able to enact its influence on the world through the information it shares with the wizard. This is the stuff adventures are made from.

I was so dedicated to zero prep, that I forgot to buy dry erase markers for the hex battle map. As a result, we had to manage troop movements on a computer screen kept near the table.

Morale would have improved the wargame, but I can't help but think Chainmail would have been even better. When you're just using scaling in 5e, the mass combat still plays by skirmish rules: weapon vs armor matchups. But mass combat is better served with mass combat rules, considering unit type vs unit type matchups. I don't want to overhaul 5e rules in this campaign, so I'm going to make do with Morale skirmish rules going forward.

Now is a good opportunity to review the campaign rules and determine if there's any that would be better to revert, so that we're playing even closer to RAW. I'll probably collect those thoughts into another post, along with a full list of the campaign rules as they'll stand going forward, for those following along who may want to use them as well.