Dungeon 8 Turn 13
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Ricki picks up the discarded lens and uses it to identify the giant wolf on top of the wagon. Looks like it’s a dire wolf, and it sounds like they’re not only powerful creatures, but they make any group of wolves far more dangerous as well. Ricki’s glad that none of THEM will be showing up seven turns from now. They won’t, right? Right. Probably.
Cordy pops open the chest the owlbear was guarding and finds two explosive crossbow bolts inside. These could come in handy! Unfortunately they need to be carried more carefully than regular bolts, which means they don’t stack. Also nobody has a crossbow.
Everyone heads to the left.
Lara opens the other owlbear-guarded chest and finds more boxed goods. She’s carrying five of them now, which is half as many as the party needs. Progress!
Ricki continues to the left…
And arrives too late to warn Kamau and Molly about the trap at the bottom of the ladder, since she spent the whole turn doing stuff in other rooms. Molly takes 3 damage, but Kamau tanks the explosion easily. Ricki drops her bandit token for someone else to use later.
Kamau opens one of the chests and finds three mugs of cheap ale. He’s not sure if they were transporting it for sale or if this was meant for the guards to drink. Actually, considering how many of the guards were gathered here, it was probably the latter.
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BOLT, EXPLOSIVE
Ammunition
Can be used with a crossbow. Deals area fire damage. Expended after use.
Weight 1, Cost 5
WOLF, DIRE
HP: 12
Atk: 6
Def: 3
Ability: +1 Atk if part of a larger group than target, grants +1 Atk to all nearby Wolves, gains +1 Def per nearby Wolf
Drops: 50% Wolf Hide Armour
Once thought to be very ancient wolves from deep in the forest, it is now known that dire wolves are a separate species. Dire wolves rarely form packs of their own, instead preferring to commandeer a pack of smaller wolves to do their bidding. Like most canines, they excel at fighting as a group, and will direct their pack to focus on the largest, most intimidating targets in most cases. They can be distracted with meat, but since they eat so much of it, any other wolves nearby won’t be getting a share and will remain alert and hostile.
Bad news on the ‘they focus one target’ front. Means the bandits will probably go down quicker.
Good news, is this means they target the most heavily armed/armored first. This means getting one bandit to be quite tanky is actually really powerful (especially if bandits get to loot their own fallen)
Bandits probably don’t get to loot their fallen unless the combat ends.
Dire Wolf’s blurb reads as if the Dire Wolf themselves directs wolves, not that wolves naturally focus fire one target. Until we read the Wolf’s statblock, would assume they act like other canines and “instinctively try to split” their targets.
Kamau: Head two screens right and interpose for the big fight.
Cordy: Drop the greater healing potion, as well as the honeycomb by the chest downstairs where Lara found her cargo. Kamau can come back next turn to drink the potion and eat the honeycomb. Go right with Kamau and attack the dire wolf.
Lara: Go right with Kamau and attack the dire wolf.
Ricki: Go right with Kamau and attack the wolf on the left.
Daisy: Attack the wolf on the right.
Mushrooms: Attack the wolf on the right.
Explanation: Cordy and Lara do a minimum of 17 damage, which will 1 shot the dire wolf (as we saw with the owlbear). Ricki will do 7 damage, and all of our pets together will do another 7 damage. Either both wolves will die this turn, or neither will, but in any case the dire wolf will fall.
There’s some danger that Kamau could proc dauntless in this fight, but I think it’s unlikely. The dire wolf essentially does 8 damage (6 damage plus the two bonus damage on each of the wolves). Since Kamau has 13 armor and 5 hp, he can take up to 17 damage without proccing dauntless. Since the dire wolf is responsible for 8 damage, that means the two wolves together would need to do 9 or more damage to proc dauntless. That means that even if the wolves have 4 base attack (which seems unlikely), Kamau would still have 1 hp left as well as dauntless. That seems quite safe to me, as the fact that we now know dire wolves do 6 damage means it’s unlikely for wolves to do anything close to that.
If it doesn’t cost an action, should we tell Kamau to unequip his booties? It’ll give us 1DEF back, and he doesn’t need the speed this turn.
He’s two screens away I believe, so he does need the movement unfortunately.