So my player’s Legion has come out of the forest and found Fort Calisco under siege. Thus will the next session (in two weeks) be about breaching the siege and getting in. During this mission, according to the book, there should be a clock ticking up as Shreya (TL 4) keeps Breaker (TL 5) busy while the legionnaries are doing their thing.
Now I imagine that the intended way to do that is to have a normal clock (at the top of my head, I’d make it an 8 or a 10) that fills with every 1-3 and 4-5 result, and if the mission isn’t a success by the time the clock is full, Shreya has to retreat and shit hits the fan.
That being said, I’d like to spice it up and go a bit more into the details of the fight. There are different reasons to that, but basically I feel that I have an occasion for a dramatic campaign shake-up, and that knowing how the duel is going would open opportunities for coll stuff (Chosen or Broken death or heavy wound, legionnaries having to intervene, probably some of them dying, etc).
What I’m wondering is how I should roll for this. Since Shreya is weaker than Breaker by 1 Threat Level, I’ve probably got an 8-clock for the Chosen and a 10-clock for the Broken. Now the question is, what do I roll? And how often?
I’m afraid that systematically rolling 4 dice for Shreya and 5 for Breaker would actually make the battle way to short.
Any help, experience or advice welcome, also if you’ve done a similar thing in a completely different way, I’m interested.
My group had the duel go on in the distance so my experience might not be as directly relevant, but our GM basically rolled every time there was a bit of a mini scene change or Time Passed.
I think that ended up being once while the Squad crept through the trenches, once when we got to the siege weapons and once after we’d had a couple of actions at the siege dugout. The dice didn’t like us and The Horned One had to leg it as a slightly-on-fire eagle at that point.
So yeah I think by default it’s always going to be a short fight (barring Upgraded Badass Shreya)
Even with the power difference I feel like Breaker’s style and Shreya’s might not lead to just a slugging match and rapid dice-off? Shreya’s a knight, Breaker is more about the mystic power so maybe she’s keeping it a skirmish, moving around, throwing lightning, etc, and so you might end up with them only clashing (and thus rolling dice) every few minutes?
I would also say that if the Legionnaires are present at the actual duel then it might last longer or be more balanced out though - if the fight takes place at e.g. Breaker’s big evil ritual then she might have to split her attention because soldiers are tipping over altars, setting fire to stuff or shooting her Witch attendants, so she might lose an action here or there? Or if they really want to go for it then maybe trying to dent Breaker’s clock themselves if they’ve got enough oomph.
I mean that also puts the Squad at massive risk but sometimes that’s how it goes.
… That’s a big post and maybe a bit of a ramble, but I hope some of it’s helpful?