u/skalchemisto

I had a session of MB on Saturday, it was fantastic as usual, so much fun. However, right in the middle of it I admit I was suddenly quite confused about the warband rules. In that my instincts about what should happen and what I think the rules say should happen were in conflict.

First, the specific situation; there is a single warband led by an enemy knight. There are five player character Knights fighting these enemy forces. Everyone is in melee contact. For reference, the Warband rules are on page 11. Crucially and most importantly to this discussion, the fight is taking place on a cliff, where Repel is suddenly a very valuable Gambit, especially as a Strong Gambit.

Now, here are my questions:

* The warband automatically gets Blast. The enemy Knight gets to add their weapon to the Warband they are leading. That means the warband can attack all five knights (per Blast rules on page 8, rolling 5 times), and the enemy Knight's weapon is used all five times. Is that correct?

* How are gambits applied with Blast in this situation (maybe any situation?) Particularly non-Bolster gambits (e.g. impair). That is...

>> Can the player Knights use a single die in their roll to Repel both the Warband and the enemy knight off the cliff? Or would that take two dice?

>> Can the warband + knight use a single die to Repel ALL of the player knights off the cliff? Or would it take five gambit dice?

* The warband rules say that the leader "takes the same damage" as the warband. I think that means that you essentially treat the warband + leader as a unit, roll once against them, and then use the damage die twice against the GD + VIG of each. Is that right? This is as opposed to if the Knight were fighting but NOT leading the warband, where you you would roll twice, once again the enemy Knight and once against the warband.

Edit: bonus points questions :-)

* Let's say another warband moves into position next to the first on the narrow cliff path. Can the players attack both at once with a blast, or just one at a time?

* Do ALL the player knights have to Blast when attacking a warband, or is it enough that one of them does so?

EDIT: after re-reading my first bullet above, I think I see the answer to my second >> question. You are rolling five times (not once, as I was doing mistakenly during the session). You would need a gambit die on each roll to Repel that specific Knight off the cliff. But you could definitely end up Repelling all the Knights. Does that seem right?

EDIT: another bonus question...

* Are the separate rolls from a Blast separate Attacks? This matters with respect to Deny; if separate you could keep Denying until the saves are failed. If one attack, each Knight could only Deny once.

https://skalchemist.cloud/mediawiki/index.php/Stonehell_Faction_Threat_System

It is ALL SPOILERS - don't even click the link if you want to be unspoiled about Stonehell.

I put that together to run my own campaign, its a few mechanics on how I figure out the threat the various factions of Stonehell pose to communities on the surface. It is working well for me so far.

It's biggest value to other GMs might be that it is a comprehensive list of all the factions in Stonehell from lvl 0 to lvl 10, including the total # of listed monsters in the book for each faction. But hopefully the other information there might be useful as well.

Happy to answer questions and hear feedback.

EDIT: as an aside, I found the most interesting thing about making this was just how damn many monsters there are in some of these factions. Geez,>! the Vrilya!<, holy cow.