Cowboys and Dinos II: Session 2

Going with this is session 2 as the 1st session did see some action and was not just session 0. 

Staying at the Pony Express Station, they met up with Sally and Daisy. She had just come back from a long run from Bliss Springs, having passed off the mail to the next carrier. Our group gets their dinos settled in, and they get some beans and ham from Cookie at the station. There are about a half dozen riders there, as the pony express is on the way out with the introduction of the telegraph and the expansion of the railways. 

Looking for any rumors, they hear that Copper Peak is a rowdy town, and not a fitting place for women. The copper smelter up there is starting to pollute the river it is on, and there are some folk not happy about that. Further up the pass, Harmony is a bit of a cipher. Most of the riders think it is just a religious community, and they do not get a lot of mail. And the copper caravan is running a bit late: every week or so the brontos haul down a huge load of processed copper to get loaded on the train at Aurora. Hambone manages to pull a rotting tooth from one of the riders, utilizing his barbering skills.

Next morning, Molly heads out to deliver the 2 packages to Copper Peak, and the rest of the group head out at Puddin's pace. It only take her maybe 2 hours to get there and drop off the package (we got a bit squirrely in getting the times all correct, but as a pterodactyl can fly at a pretty good clip, Volgol can cover the ground a lot faster). The walkers encounter a Utah raptor chowing down and give it a wide berth safely. There was some discussion on game mechanics: the martial artist wanted to send his pachycephalosaurus back to the group while he kept a rifle on the feasting dino. As his class was not a dino rider, he does not get the tricks that the dino riders have, so gave it a good chance Pachy may not actually head back but instead decide freedom was his calling. He decided losing his ride was not a good choice, so headed back to let them know about the raptor ahead.

Returning, Molly sees a dead brontosaurus and a cart on the road back to the express station, and fortunately sees her companions coming up the road. She whips out a handkerchief to alert the group, and then we have a very brief battle. I had asked that the group establish their communications ahead of time just so we had it in place. This is a long time before cellphones or even radios were a thing!

1.RED Bandana - Danger, get armed 
2.BLUE Bandana - Water ahead or camp area 

3.BLACK Bandana- Stop, do not move on 

4.WHITE Bandana - All Clear, keep moving 

5.YELLOW Bandana - Move stealthy, possible trouble

We used Owlbear.Rodeo for the battle and it went...okay. I still do not have good timing in running battles other than the Fantasy Trip (and that game is easy as the battle is a board game with specific rules and all that. Apex also has nonsensical movement rules, so we had to ad lib what to do. I will have to think that through a bit and figure out a better way of handling that). I did a vague mass combat for the raiders against the caravan, and the caravan kept rolling better so most of the raiders ended up getting killed. 

Lee, our martial artist, used Pachy to ram other horses (well, a Pachycephalosaurus does have a really, really thick skull! And while he is not a dino rider, I did allow him ramming speed as that is a natural thing for them). He managed to knock over two horses and missed his attack rolls horribly so flew over the rider. Fortunately, he remembered he has the luck skill, so can re-roll 1 d20 a day. He managed to hit the rider but only managed 1 entire point of damage. Though being a level 4 martial artists he has quick blows so could attack again, this time bloodying the raider's nose. Meanwhile Archibald was moving up and shooting. Having a rate of fir eof 3, he gets off a fair number of shots, sorely wounding several of the raiders. Hambone is moving up slowly but does finally get a shot off late in the combat, but misses. Molly was swinging wide and put in the killing shot for one or two of the raiders. 

In the end all the raiders were killed except for one. They tie him up, and the caravan will take the prisoner to Aurora with a note from Deputy Soung. They eat a bit after burying the bodies to the side of the road, and, as it was getting late, that is where we left things. 

I gave the players 150 (or was it 250?) experience points. Really should review the XP as I used the default Nazi soldier for the mooks, even though they have some pretty good bonuses which bummed out one player as they were about on par with him in terms of some things. But hey - you knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred!

I did get most of the Owlbear set up with tokens for all the people. I just forgot to make tokens for the players! I sued a handy token maker which works well. I am so appreciative of all the free tools that people put out there for various games.