The plan was to continue my Simple Superheroes game . . . but with only 3 of the 5 players able to make it out, we decided to run
Hackmaster. It felt right to run a Fantasy game.
A good chunk of the session was taken up with character generation. We ended up with a hafling cleric with awesome Dex stat, a halfling thief, and a human mage.
We then got to run through an epic fight with 3 goblins, and 2 dogs. One of goblins was riding a dog. The count up makes combat feel really dynamic, there was some threshold of pain's triggered, and we also got to experience near perfect defense, perfect defense, criticals and fumbles.
The mage used up all his spell points boosting the two spells he cast. The first "Yudders's Whistle of Hells Gate" which confused and eventually caused one of the dogs to run away. The second "Scorch" ended the fight, crisping the goblin rider, and causing his mount to flee while burning.
The thief got to kill one goblin with bow fire, and coup de grace another goblin that she dropped when she got a great damage roll on a near perfect defense roll -- an the goblin failed it's threshold of pain check.
The cleric mostly baited the goblin rider and dog, his amazing dex allowing him to avoid almost every swing. His puny strength meant that while he still was hitting a lot thanks to his good dex and decent int, many of the strikes dealt almost no damage. He also healed the mage right before the mage cast the battle ending fight. A good move as things could easily have gone another way!
Hackmaster is pretty crunchy and I tend to prefer lighter games these days, but the dynamism of combat really impressed me, and the rest of the players. I imagine we will be continuing the game at some point.
