Dark Souls: Fourth Session Report

 

Real Life Sucks

It's been a few weeks, because real life caught up hard, and we just couldn't play. Today we got:

Hazbil, level four knight

Fizbun, level three pyromancer

I pull up a new "location" from the Core Book: Archdragon Peak, page 269. I wanted to make the place feel different as they got close to the dragon. No, I haven't talked about the dragon yet, but I will in a minute.

Play!

Hazbil and Fizbun return to the door from last session, with the purple sign right in the doorway. Hazbil, as  has to burn Position to pass  the Wisdom Save that's permanently on him, to touch all bad summoning signs. With Fizbun granting advantage, Hazbil passes. They jump the sign and enter the room.

Standing across from them is a figure. "You are now in the Dragon's Keep, why should you stay?" Hazbil and Fizbun feel a compulsion to walk over the Purple Sign as they leave through the door they just entered. Both of them, knowing the summoned knight would get a free attack, burned a ton of Position to pass the save.

The figure seemed impressed at their resilience. "Very good, why should you stay?"

"And walk over the purple sign again?" both Hazbil and Fizbun asked, scoffing at him. He smiles at them, and vanishes. It's a Large Soul, 20,000 souls apiece! Hazbil and Fizbun went back to the previous bonfire, and are both now level 5! Hazbil has 3,400 Souls, only 10,600 to go! I cackle. The resetting of the souls counter is honestly amazing, especially since you lose the souls upon death.

There's a door, which they check: wooden, unlocked, not trapped. They open up the door, and burn the Position to make the Perception check: two wyverns, sitting on the roof! They manage to sneak into the large room, and take up positions. Fizbun realizes the wyeverns are immune to fire, so he decides they'll try and make a distraction, and then bottlneck the wyverns. He shoots off a fireball at a nearby pillar.

The wyverns look down, and don't see what made the fire. They jump into the air... and then land on the roof. Both Hazbil and Fizbun barely evade, getting back into the previous room. Fizbun runs up  the purple sign and touches  it, planning to lure the summoned knight into combat with the wyverns, who charge. Hazbil preps his greatsword, and  gets three swings. And he puts his back into it. He puts almost every bit of Position he can into taking out one of the wyverns. 

Hazbil barely bruises the wyvern, with three hard hits: 20+ damage a shot. And it just isn't enough.

The first wyvern sticks its mouth through the doorway and spits fire. Even making the save, Fizbun and Hazbil die immediately. They both wake up at the bonfire. Fizbun fails the Wisdom save, -1 to his Strength. Hazbil also fails the Wisdom save, gets a -2 to his Charisma

As far as Hazbil and  Fizbun can remember, there's two options: attack the lizards who stomped on them a few times, or go back after the wyverns. They have no idea that it's actually the same difficulty level... but I know! And I try not to laugh.

They sneak back down to the wreckage where the giant lizards were... and Fizbun fails the stealth check. The lizard charges, hits Hazbil, 1 shots him! Fizbun rushes up the stairs, getting away from the lizard and resetting time. Hazbil comes back to at the bonfire, and  gets a -1 to Initiative. Honestly, people are just laughing, almost helplessly, at the death spiral that's in this game. It's so blatantly unfair that my players are almost pissing themselves laughing at times.

They go back, get a sneak attack in on the lizard, getting two full rounds of wailing on the one lizard. They know if they let live, they die. They get it to 75 damage. Which is... not enough. It just isn't.

The lizard takes a quick breath in. Breath weapon. Dead.

Hazbil -1 Passive Perception

Fizbun -1 Wisdom

They realize they just don't have the firepower to go after the lizards... or the wyverns. Just as they're about to take a passage to the right, I reminded them they have another way they can go too: back where the scythe had come down and they'd gotten jumped by their first summon. They'd just run out of their without really checking the room.. They decided to retrace their steps, running past the lizards successfully. 

They meet another person named Ghorm, who has a spear he says can pin the target in time, and he has a target in mind: there's a dragon in this castle, who holds The Last Flame.  If they kill it, the frozen world outside will thaw, and they'll be able to leave.

After convincing Fizbun that being able to leave the castle is good idea, they decide to go for it! Unthawing the world sounds like a great idea, even to Fizbun.

Reflections

It's here where "encounter balance" starts to rear its ugly head: Dark Souls is about combat, and you have to be willing to let differing areas have different difficult levels. I didn't do this, so I thought I'd throw that time-sticking spear in to even the odds in finishing the adventure. When I next play, I'll put multiple tables into the levels, allowing for farming in certain areas, and risks to be taken in others. It's a learning process, but a very enjoyable one.