RQG 58 - Tanks But No Tanks

## Content Warnings

Minor character death, physical violence/combat, street warfare, trapped/surrounded

## Summary

The party jumps from the frying pan and into the fire. Hamid gets trigger happy, Sasha carries a spare, Zolf stands in line, and Bertie meets his mummy.

## Synopsis

The party's two gnome hostages are dead (thanks to
Zolf) and Hamid has prestidigitated himself clean of any blood. They’re still
looking for a way to get out of the locksmiths’ and get Wilde away safely. Zolf
suggests that they put Wilde in the saferoom/bolt hole and lock him in there to
protect him, pretend as though they don’t know anything about him. They clean
up the blood trails as well. They get their stories straight – they killed the
gnomes because they thought they had telepathy, and don’t know who Wilde is,
and if they say they’re looking for someone annoying they’ll pretend it’s
Bertie.

Hamid opens the door and pretends to be sleepy, as though he’s
just been woken up; the human man outside asks if they were the ones helping Wilde,
and Hamid says that they were, but that Wilde snapped his fingers and vanished,
leaving them to deal with the gnomes. The man hands over a croissant to Hamid,
and it’s clear that he doesn’t really believe Hamid for a moment. Bertie bursts
through the door, shouting about how he won’t be taken, and Hamid hands him the
croissant to get him to shut up.

The man – Dorian – asks all of them for their names and
waits around as they confer. Bertie doesn’t recognize him. Dorian says he knows
that they have two of their men (the two gnomes who Zolf killed) and Zolf
retrieves the bodies. Both Hamid and Sasha look a bit ill – Dorian doesn’t seem
surprised and mentions the money/bribe that the party picked up. They all act
confused and bluff about the money, Dorian says he doesn’t care about the
gnomes, but that he wants the money back. The intent of the money was to
incentivize Wilde to come visit, or to pay the party to let Wilde go. He knows they
have the money, and they offer to give Dorian back the jewels and gold.

Dorian knows that Wilde is there and makes a few offers to
the party – basically, they either give them Wilde and keep the money, or go with
him until they find Wilde, or one of them betrays everyone else and Dorian
kills the rest of the party. Zolf asks why Dorian is so interested in Wilde; Dorian
says that they want to torture him for information, and Zolf says that isn’t going
to happen. They argue for a while about it, and then Hamid stands up and casts *scorching ray* on Dorian. Dorian drops prone and is downed. Bertie takes his sword and decapitates him, just to be safe. The party then drops into initiative order.

During the fight, the party hear loud roars and growls
coming from three sides of the locksmith’s. Wilde eventually wakes up, but is incredibly groggy. They’re surrounded by a number of soldiers and archers; the back door that Sasha tries to get through is barred.

The party continues to fight, and Wilde tells them to leave
out the back once they hear sounds of panic and the sound of approaching engines from outside. A tank appears as Bertie glances outside, and a significant number of the enemy forces scatter. The party all make their way out the back
door; Sasha gets hit by an arrow, but the rest are all fine, and they escape out the back and down an alley.

## Quotes

**Hamid**: "Is there any chance we can get into the sewers? What if we u-use the bombs and, and hack through u-under the toilet or something, there'll be piping?"
**Sasha**: "You're talking about... an explosion big enough to get us through the *ground*, into... no."
―Hamid asks Sasha about options to escape the locksmith's.

**Alex**: "Bryn, I want you to know... let's, let's look at this, what's creepier—a room covered in blood and everyone covered in blood, or a room covered in blood and everyone covered in blood, and Hamid spotlessly clean in the middle of it?"
**Ben**: "You Christian Bale'd it from American Psycho."
―Hamid cleans himself up with *prestidigitation*.

**Bryn**: "I really wish I'd rolled that in the other order cause I wouldn't mind having a bad initiative but that's a natural 20, I could have critted and doubled the damage."
**Ben**: "You, you killed him! Like you did as much kill as you're gonna do!"
―Hamid kills Dorian.

**Alex**: "This is an orc! This, however, is not a polite, archaeological orc. This is ... a not nice orc, who carries a greataxe!"
**Bryn**: "Oh, that's a *great axe*!"
**Lydia**: "What an excellent axe!"
**James**: "A barely adequate axe!"
**Ben**: "Yeah it's, it's, it's not very big, it's just *really good*."
―Orcs begin to storm the locksmith's.

**Lydia**: "Three orcs..."
**Ben**: "Walk into a shop."
**James**: "It's an *orc*hestra."
―Orcs are attacking the party.

**Alex**: "Wilde begins to cast some kind of spell, he is muttering to himself in some kind of lilt that breaks into almost like a song. He's got a very good singing voice."
**Ben**: "*Of* *course* *he does*."
**Alex**: "He begins to do some vague hand gestures—"
**Bryn**: "My God he's a Bard! *(Bryn pretends to spit)*"
―It's revealed that Wilde is a bard.

**Alex**: "The Berserkers—the one in the middle, is down. The ones on either side, make heffing great attacks at the actual physical wall..."
**James**: "Ignoring the door..."
**Alex**: "Oh yeah, they're, they're going for the wall."
**James**: "They're pretty cross."
**Lydia**: "They're Beserkers."
**Bryn**: "That's great, the next time I fire at him he will only have plus two to his AC."
**Ben**: "You fool you're making it easier for me!"
―The orcs continue to try and break into the locksmith's.

**James**: "Bertie closes the door."
**Alex**: "Y'know what? *(Alex slow claps)* I wasn't gonna say it—"
**James**: "Bertie is calm under pressure, he's just been shot in the chest by five arrows, he is gonna quietly close the door—"
**Alex**: "That is a bad door!"
**James**: "As the walls are being caved in with hammers, to either side of him, he is gonna take one five foot step so he's in between Zolf and the wall, and he's gonna ready an action with his sword, to attack the next person that comes into the building."
―Bertie closes the door to the archers.

**Alex**: "I think you have enough to deal with other than spell failure, so we'll just say that that didn't work, and we'll go on from there, okay?"
**Lydia**: "Wait, he doesn't, like, lose a leg or anything?"
**Alex**: "No. Although, let me tell you, some of the spell failure charts are fantastic, I'm a particular fan of d100—corgis appear."
―Wilde fails his concentration check.

"I'm so upset I'm out of spells, like, I just want to sling spells. I'm playing a Sorcerer for a reason, and you've taken it away. I asked for enough sleep, that's all I asked for, Alex! I thought you'd know the pain of not enough sleep!"
―**Bryn**

**Alex**: "Wilde, who has so far failed *all* concentration checks—"
**Ben**: "He's rubbish..."
**Bryn**: "He is rubbish."
**James**: "I can resist anything apart from somebody jingling their keys about a mile away."
**Alex**: "Makes his concentration check."
**Lydia**: "And heal the orcs and undermine us all."
**James**: "He's just gonna write a children's book."
―Wilde successfully creates a distraction far away.

**Lydia**: "He made a honking sound?!"
**James**: "He summoned a *goose*!"
**Bryn**: "Has he summoned the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to rescue us?"
**James**: "He summoned the League of Extraordinary *Geese*! That's even better!"
**Ben**: "I think we're getting the Meritocrat Mobile."
―Wilde summons an engine horn in the distance.

"Gosh, thank goodness I didn't have any compunctions about picking that up! Things that might be useful, golly!"
―**Lydia**

**Alex**: "So, I mean, you'll run out of resources but you could all just stand in single file with all of the archers and just keep healing Bertie."
**Ben**: "That's my plan."
―Zolf and Bertie hold their ground as Sasha tries to find a way out

**Alex**: "Extremely dead. As in, that would have been enough to K.O. him from a standing start, he was already weakened, he's, he's... completely massacred."
**Bryn**: "This is a bisection if you will."
**Ben**: "Yeah, so he's dead-dead."
**Alex**: "He's, he's, he's in pieces."
**Lydia**: "There are now two small—two *half-orcs!*"
―Bertie successfully kills one of the orcs.

## Dice rolls and Mechanics

Sasha rolls stealth, Hamid rolls to aid: Sasha gets a 25, Hamid
gets a 6.

Bertie rolls a knowledge nobility to see if he knows
anything about Dorian: 10.

Everyone makes a bluff check to lie about the money: Hamid
gets 22, Zolf gets an 11, Sasha gets a 15, Bertie got a natural 1.

Hamid casts *scorching ray* on Dorian: 10, deals 20 fire damage.

Bertie rolls a perception check to see how many enemies
there and gets a 10.

## Combat Breakdown

Initiative rolls: Hamid gets a nat 20 (23), Zolf gets a 3, Sasha
gets a 6, Bertie gets a 14.

Hamid hands an *invisibility* potion to Sasha and casts *mage armor* on Zolf.

Everyone makes a perception roll: Sasha gets a 13, Hamid
gets a 27, Bertie gets a 5, Zolf gets a 17. They each hear loud roars, apart
from Bertie.

Bertie readies an action to strike the first person through the door.

Sasha pulls Wilde out of the safe. Wilde is awake, but out
of it.

Zolf casts *bull’s strength* on Bertie.

Hamid walks into the back room and takes a defensive
position; gets out his crossbow and loads it.

They all hear another roar, and a full orc bursts through
the door as Bertie’s readied action goes off. He rolls a 29 and deals 15
damage. Attack of opportunity triggered for Zolf, he rolls a 9 and misses.

Zolf makes a reflex save, gets an 8. A chunk of the wall
next to him caves in from a punch and knocks Zolf prone. No damage.

The other side of the door has the same thing happen from another orc.

Bertie attacks the orc in front of him, rolls a 26 and deals
13 damage. The orc drops.

A readied action goes off: all the archer’s loose arrows at
Bertie. Bertie is hit 5 times, for 28 damage.

Wilde tries to cast a spell, drops to a knee, and the spell fails.

Sasha drags Wilde into the back room to look for an escape
route.

Zolf casts *cure light wounds* on Bertie and heals him for 7 damage.

Hamid shoots his crossbow at one of the orcs. He misses the
attack and reloads.

Each orc makes an attack at the wall, trying to break
through the walls.

Bertie closes the door, will take a five-foot step to be between
Zolf and the wall, and ready an action to attack.

Wilde attempts to cast a spell again, moves in front of Hamid. He gets a natural 1 on his concentration check and the spell fails.

Sasha rolls to disable device on the door, gets a critical
fail.

Zolf casts *cure light wounds* on Bertie again, heals him for 8 damage.

Hamid shoots his crossbow at an orc, rolls a 24 on the
attack, does 3 damage. Reloads the crossbow.

The orc facing Bertie hits through the wall again.

The orc on the other side of the room has destroyed the wall
and is in the room. Bertie’s readied action triggers. He attacks the orc, rolling a 20, and deals 11 damage.

Wilde attempts to cast another spell, succeeds on the concentration check. Casts a spell. In the distance, they hear an engine horn going off.

Sasha tries to open the door in the backroom with disable
device – rolls a 26, successfully unlocks and unbars the door.

Zolf casts *cure light wounds* on Bertie and heals him for 12 damage. He then steps right behind Bertie, threatening the orc.

Hamid readies an action to fire his crossbow at the first
enemy to move away from the party.

The first orc fails to break through the wall.

The second orc attacks Bertie and misses.

Bertie attacks the second orc, rolls a Nat 20, gets a 26 to
confirm the crit, and deals 26 damage. The orc dies. Hamid’s readied action
goes off and he attempts to hit the orc’s head and misses.

Another horn sounds in the distance, and the orc that had
been breaking through the wall leaves. The party is not sure why but they can hear
sounds of panic outside.

Sasha peeks out the back to check for archers (the enemy
crits and confirms the crit), and her hand is shot and pinned to the wall for
only 8 damage.

Zolf heads to the back room.

Hamid runs to the end of the back room to stand next to Sasha.
He rolls a natural 1 on his perception check. He gets a 14 on his reflex save
and the arrow misses him; it cuts his cheek but doesn’t deal damage.

Bertie peers out of the hole that the orc had made. He rolls
a 2 on his perception and sees a giant tank driving down the street.

Sasha pulls the arrow out of her hand. Rolls a 13 on the
perception check, gets a natural 20 on her reflex save. She dashes to a
carriage and hides behind it. Cannot see where the enemies are.

Zolf is out of the door and also behind the carriage.

Hamid does the same, draws his crossbow.

Bertie also runs out the door.

Wilde also ends up behind the carriage and fails his concentration check to cast a spell.

Sasha gets a 23 on her perception check, sees all the forces
fleeing. Readies an action to flee with everyone.

The remainder of the party does the same, and they all
successfully flee.