Our group, after brutally breaking young Roy's ankles with the Indian war club, headed back out to the lands surrounding Aurora to camp for the night. Being late, and Miss Molly's boarding house would have already locked the doors, Molly stays with the group, comfortable around the older men.
Setting up camp, they rest and tell tales over coffee and beans as they settle down. Jack Looking Horse takes the first watch, and all is quiet. Hambone takes the next shift, gazing out into the dark night, a silver crescent of the moon overhead. He hears a twig snap in the distance but does not see anything. A few moments later, he hears a gunshot, and feels a bullet hit is shoulder. Between the cussing and the gunshot, the rest of the group wakes up.
The darkness hinders everyone, so we're all rolling with disadvantage. Realizing they can't see who they are shooting at, Jack takes a blanket, gets it on fire, and throws it out towards where he things the shot came from. Using a 2d6 range where 12 becomes an untamed fire and 2 the blanket goes out, he rolled an 8, giving the group a bit of light. Seeing two rifles glinting in the darkness, Hambone starts heading towards one. A sawed-off shotgun has a very limited range, so he needs to get closer, dodging, weaving and taking advantage of rocks and trees. Lee has his rifle out and despite a lack of light, manages to wing one of the bandits shooting at them, then decides to follow Hambone. Molly is shooting as is Jack, with returning bullets bouncing off the rocks and hitting the trees. The fire is brighter and one of the bandits curses as he drops his rifle. The fire gets a bit brighter, but nonetheless everyone is still missing each other. Hambone is still moving forward. followed by Lee.
Next round, a couple of the bandits get hit, and Hambone is finally close enough to shoot. And misses. And cusses his shotgun out as more shots are fired around, hitting the bandits but missing our heroes. The fire blazes up this round (he rolled a 12!) and giving a clear shot, Jack and Molly both hit their targets, while Hambone decides to flip his gun around and just whack the bandit in the head with the butt of the gun. Which he does. Lee somehow misses, but in turn is missed as well.
Along about this time a much stealthier bandit comes along. Much harder to hit as well, especially with the fire dying down. Seeing this newcomer and seeing as he is in melee range, starts to hit the man. Having some skills, he manages to actually cave the man's head in (he has iron fists and can do a lot of damage in a fist fight!)
When all is done, we have one lone survivor, Jake. With a few threats of torture and well-done charisma rolls. they found that Jack really had no idea Molly (aka Virginia) was here in Aurora: he was working on taking over the local pony express as he did back in Colorado. Then they hang the man, frontier justice. Hambone does his own barbering skills and manages to bind his own wounds readily.
Rounding up the 5 horses, they sleep the rest of the night after putting out the remnants of that fire. In Aurora the next day, Finding Zachariah Schmidt, the German stable owner, they sell the horses and tack for $1500. Turns out the horses are from the Double Ankle Ranch, which often sells its horses to people coming into town. Zachariah heads with them to the bank to withdraw the money, and the group to also cash in on the reward from the sheriff.
At the bank, a fancily dressed woman is finishing up her business and leaves. As Jack is holding the door, men in masks rush in, guns out. And that is where we left that session.
A few things of note. I entirely missed Tourmaline Tabitha's primary purpose being there: she was supposed to comment that perhaps the gentleman and young woman could use, ahem, a bath. The town madame as well as owning the bath house, she is always on the lookout to gain new customers. I may just retcon that next session. And try to write down some of these things ahead of time!
Then we had a discussion on blind fighting: the player thought it would also apply to ranged attacks. I did not, and ruled it as such during the game, so that he was still shooting at disadvantage. He did melee combat with no disadvantage, but so did the NPC he was fighting as the fire was burning pretty brightly at that point. The player thought, as I ruled it, that that trait was therefore worthless. For me, fighting means melee fights, not ranged attacks. One of those ambiguously worded traits open for interpretation. I finally decided to stand firm on the game ruling, but will offer the following trait for level 4+ characters:
Zen Shooting: When shooting in darkness or impaired vision, you can ignore disadvantage if you've detected your targets. A wisdom check if the targets are trying to be stealthy, but automatically available if the target is shooting.
Yes, stolen from another game that has Zen Archery as a skill or something. But I like to appease my players when I can.
And I think everyone enjoyed the Double Ankle Ranch, an homage to Jack's consistent use of his war club to break ankles (and in this time period, probably cripple the person for the rest of their life).
This has been a pretty combat heavy game so far, though there are some threads going on. Jack Slade, John Chisum are the immediate goals of this group at the moment, and I've a few more to toss that way.
Hmm, and seems to me this may be good time to also introduce another NPC who is at the bank, our raider with the smoldering gaze. Another side-quest for that character and possibly the players. A side quest that could lead to the same map I used in Apex!
Because yes, most of my game worlds are connected. I just need to decide about the Spires, and if they go there, if there is indeed an entrance to the Center of the Earth. With bigger dinosaurs of course!
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