Disclaimer: This series is made possible by the generosity of the fine people of Free League Publishing, who provided me with a review copy of the game. No further compensation was provided to me, and all opinions in this series are mine.
Now that we’ve got our Mallard character ready, it’s time to get dangerous!
(I’ll stop eventually, I swear!)
Initiative in Dragonbane is resolved by pulling from a 10-card Initiative deck numbered 1 to 10. 1 moves first, 2 next and so on. It’s simple, straightforward and serves as a visual cue of who acts next. In addition, Monsters might draw more than one, or a group of opponents might all act on the same card depending on how the GM handles it.
Holding an action is done by swapping initiative cards with the character you wish to act before, so clearly this can only be done by someone who has earlier priority.
After the round, the Initiative Cards are reshuffled and the players draw new ones.
Reginald Drake, Mallard adventurer ran as quickly as he could, turning a corner in the dark hallway of the ruined castle. It was supposed to be a simple job, a rescue of some hapless maiden from her bandit kidnappers.
What Reginald didn’t expect, was that the bandits would be allied with a Necromancer! He swore as he realized that he’d run into a dead end, whirling around to see the two skeletons that were summoned to hunt him down blocking his escape!
Skeletons count as NPCs, and don’t rely on the Monster Rules, instead they’re treated as NPCs. I draw a card for Reginald, and get a 7, I draw a card for the two skeletons and pull a 3. The skeletons act first!
The skeletons close in on the Mallard adventurer, brandishing their rusty short swords before attacking in tandem!
For the sake of simplifying this sample combat, let’s assume that the skeletons are within 8 meters of our hero. Both skeletons now make their attacks, rolling a d20 against their weapon skill of 12. One rolls an 18 and misses, but the other rolls a 2 and scores a hit!
At this point we have a decision point. We can now opt to Parry the successful hit to mitigate damage, but at the cost of Reginald’s action for the round. Or, we can take the damage, and hope that Reginald’s studded leather armor and open helmet can absorb it.
Given that we’re outnumbered, it might be better to take one hit and then try to take down one of the skeletons on Reginald’s turn, so we’ll take the damage.
The skeleton has no Damage Bonus for Melee, and rolls a 1d10 for damage for a result of 3! Miraculously, Reginald’s armor is just enough to absorb the hit.
The first skeleton slashes horizontally, hoping to spill the Mallard’s guts so that they could feast on Reginald’s innards. Reginald dodges the blow but fails to get away from the second skeleton whose attack glances off his open helmet and cuts his studded leather armor!
On his turn, Reginald attacks the skeleton with his long spear, rolling a d20 against a difficulty of his own Spears Weapon Skill of 14 and get a 7, a hit! He then rolls his weapon damage of 2d8 plus his Damage Bonus of 1d6 for a total of 12 damage.
The skeleton only has studded leather armor, which reduces the damage taken by 2. Unfortunately for the skeleton, it only has 8 Hit Points. The skeleton goes down!
Reginald swears under his breath as he levels his spear, and stabs straight through the second skeleton, before kicking the undead creature off of his spear. One down, only one to go!
Impressions
Combat in Dragonbane is quick and deadly. Given that our Mallard friend only has 13 hit points means that even with armor he could probably take only two or three hits before he goes down. That said, the speed of combat is refreshing, and while it might be very geared towards tactical play, I can see this as something very easy to teach even my 9 year old son!
In fact, I’m now thinking of how I’ll run a simple campaign for him and some of his friends…
I hope this series is helpful for you. If you’re interested in getting your own copy of Dragonbane, you can buy it from the Free League Publishing Online Store or on PDF from DriveThruRPG.
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