Rollohi-chapter4-episode02

--/-- Welcome to SoloBickering, the podcast where I—an aging Kiwi with too many dice and not enough players—explore solo TTRPGs, variant rules, and the occasional philosophical meltdown. Today, we journey into the world of Rollohi: a PG-rated realm of fantasy, where a party of eight attempts to survive the wilds. I hope it becomes a full drama, with discovery, treasure, and arguments I lose with myself. Whether you’re here for the rules, the roleplay, or just the bickering—there’s always something brewing in SoloBickering.

--/-- The party's bold attempt to bait out buccaneers and deal with them piecemeal unfolds!

Script: https://larrymannplayssolobickering.blogspot.com/2026/05/rollohi-ch402-script.html

--/--Background sounds attribution: Joel Steudler: www.joelsteudlermusic.com

--/-- SFX: "many arrows flying by" thanks to DJARTMUSIC on Pixabay; and "arrow body impact" thanks to DennisH18 on Pixabay

--/--background wind in rigging from BBC Sound Archive

May 2026, includes a specific warning about mature content.

Intro music acknowledgment: Thanks to ADMFreeMusic: https://pixabay.com/users/admfreemusic-34079374/

April2026 plug for SRPN

https://larrymannplayssolobickering.blogspot.com

Transcript

4.02

Speaker 0:02

4.02.01 Last episode, the party conducted a successful initial raid to extract one keelboat from the many that the Buccaneers have gotten to the jetty. We pick up the episode with measuring some distances and conducting a fake escape as the party pretends to try to get away from the Buccaneers, while actually luring them to where they can be taken apart one boat at a time. Let's start with the distance to the Buccaneers. Ninety yards before the Buccaneers have gotten back to the boats to begin some kind of pursuit. Of the 19 keel boats, up to 2d6 might be initially manned to the point of being able to pursue 2d6. I roll on 8, so 8 pursuit boats. There are two percentile rolls, one for the fake escape. That's 85, so unsuccessful, which is exactly what the party want. They remain very close within pursuit range, and so none of the eight boats will give up, and potentially more buccaneer boats will add to the chase. And the second one, which we do want to go low, is how quickly the raft gets to meet up with the boat. 40. Excellent, that is under 50%, which is what I was looking for. And I would translate that to four rounds. During those four rounds, Kylie, who is floating above and can be let out back up again with some advantage, easily outranges the buccaneers and can take four rounds worth of advantage shots. That's four, that's a buccaneer. That's a crit, that's a buccaneer. That's a five, that's a buccaneer. And that's a three. Uh no, that's a five, that's a buccaneer. So all told, Kylie kills four buccaneers, causing four of the eight boats to lose their way. Excursus Just as a parenthetical aside, I'll note that I'm not applying any particular modifications from dexterity bonus to any of these shots. I suppose I should have developed something in the rolls for dexterity or hit dice, but so far I haven't given it much thought. So long range disadvantage, near range normal, and short range would be some kind of bonus, such as plus one. 4.02.02 By the time the raft makes contact with the, shall we say, pursuit boat, there are four fewer Buccaneers, and only four boats of the Buccaneer Pursuit Fleet of eight are ready to make a fight of it. Even so, that's a lot of buccaneers. It will be up to those of the party with missiles to make a good account of themselves as the range closes in. Eryn can't use her short bow because she is on sweep, and so that is two slings and four shortbows. Three more buccaneers are killed. Urmbert actually gets a crit with his slingshot. Time for the Buccaneers in the lead four boat to make a morale check. Three. They are blood mad and ready to close. Number of missile weapons ready to be used. Those two take shots back at the pursuit boat. One is a nick of one point, and the other one bounces off armor. The one point is removed from Eryn. Eryn drops to 22 of 23 hit points. She can afford damage the most of all the party. Now that the pursuit boat has rallied with the raft, let's check range. Yes, it's rather as I suspected. The lead four boats were slowed by losing a crew member each, meaning that it is on round five, immediately after rendezvousing with the raft, that the defenders have to defend against the lead four, the replacement lead four, that is, Buccaneer boats. So we can move straight into initiatives. Characters four, buccaneers three. All of the defenders can now use their missile weapons. [Umbert is now in full cover - as Ingle warned, he cannot afford to be hit.] [Dice are rolled.] As one Buccaneer was previously wounded, that's a total of five Buccaneers killed. Kylie is now wound down, as it were, to deck level, the spell naturally running out at this point. So during the remainder of the round, she simply looses the rope from her waist and moves into the safety of the raft where all defenders can take hard cover. During this round, the Buccaneers will move across the boats to short range while shooting. The cover, I think it's fair to say that cover provided by the gunnels of the raft are two in terms of added armor class. At this point there's only one missile weapon per Buccaneer boat, and during this round the reserve four Buccaneer boats, which were initially slowed, will now catch up to the first four. So here are the reply shots on that rendezvous round. [Dice are rolled.] And three potentially decent hits. Very much depends on who has been shot at, and unfortunately, the raft crew are potential targets as well. Bringing down raft crew, I'd give that a two in ten chance, will prevent the raft from further maneuvering away from the Buccaneers' side of the lake. [a d10 is rolled for each potential success.] So the targets are two at Eryn, one at Kylie, and one at Xantu. Well those are the most aggressive and well-armored targets. They all have very heavy armor, so of those, only the unconfirmed crit on Xantu for a one-point scratch will be effective. Xantu drops to 17 of 18 hit points. The next exchange will be at close, giving defenders a very distinct advantage. [Init d6s are rolled.] Once again, the characters win the initiative. 18 Buccaneers with close range melee weapons, supported by two archers, hurl themselves towards the sides of the raft. This is the time that Kylie uses her web spell. She catches seven Buccaneers in it. The remainder loose five more Buccaneers. The Buccaneer archers are under no threat, so I will have them shoot anyway. It's a hit and a potential crit, just a one-point nick. The one point nick is on Eryn, and the other arrow strikes Pod who takes three damage. In theory, Pod could roll a hit dice or two to try to avoid that three damage. But my feeling, just as a player, is that it will get to melee at some stage, and that's when you really want those hit dice spare to avoid damage. But now having lost half their contingent to Web and arrows, the remaining few buccaneers need to make a morale check. That's an eight, two above their normal morale of six, so they fall back in panic, wondering what can be done about spellcasters. Meanwhile, the reserve four boats have made contact, and the crew of those boats are making their way across the first four boats toward the raft. Oh, it's a ten. That is very bad news. They'd already lost a man apiece, and I'm not so sure that these were absolutely full boats because these were the first boats to hit the water, so to speak, with men piling in in angry pursuit and perhaps not waiting for their full complement. I'll just ask a quick question. Were the two guards on the jetty part of these initial four? Yes, but not the only part. And I would say that's a good chance that the boats were on average six men per boat rather than seven. They've lost four, so they're only twenty in reserve to join the remaining survivors of the four that have made contact. Amongst those twenty, there could be a number with missile weapons. Yes. Several per boat now. Now that the situation has changed and they don't necessarily expect to make direct contact. There could be twelve archers. However, they will be shooting at disadvantage through and over their own men. Let's see how it goes. [Dice are rolled] Well that was interesting. We have two crits and three potential hits. The potential hits are under the lightest armor, including the heavy cover, and need a D10 roll to see which people got hit, whether it be player character or a raft crew member. Here's the first potential hit. That was Xantu, so that bounces off. Here's the second potential hit. That was Ingle, so that is a wound. And here's the last potential hit. That was Ingle, so that's another wound on Ingle. Ouch, poor Ingle. He will need to drop away into full cover and use his staff of healing. He could also choose to use his hit dice, which are almost certain to be successful against those. Yes, I think considering he doesn't intend to get into hand-to-hand combat, those hit dice are well worth spending. Here we go. He reduces that six damage to one, so he will not need to drop into hardcover after all. He has one remaining hit die in reserve. The crits Ingle, and Jack. Ingle can't avoid the crit, he drops to seven of fourteen. And Jack drops to seven of thirteen. 4.02.03 In round seven, initiative doesn't matter too much because this is the point where the raft achieves some distance from that clump of eight keelboats, and more missiles are poured in at the luckless buccaneers. Altogether, thirty yards are pushed away with the keelboat crew left floundering as the raft moves away thanks to the wind and to the barge crew. The general trend of the fight is southerly, but the lake is large. Hitting the far southern shore is not at all a danger at this stage. During that round, Ingle will heal himself for four, and using cover as best they can, the remaining defenders, excluding Jack, will continue loosing at their Buccaneers. They knock four more down. The next stage of the battle, while the Buccaneers loose at disadvantage, is a again hopefully unsuccessful evasion. Yes, I roll the ninety-eight, and the raft appears to get into difficulties once it's thirty yards clear, and the Buccaneers encourage once more, gather up the four remaining first wave, and in their four keelboats, leaving the webbed seven to slowly sink into the lake and drown, give chase. There's a lot of dice rolling, so I will roll those off-screen. The fourteen archers sending arrows arcing across the distance, but striking the heavily armored Eryn and Kylie. The arrows either drill into the gunnel or bounce off. The keelboats cannot catch up if all fourteen archers, which is more than half of the available buccaneers, continue plying their bows. So I will roll a D6. Three archers take up sweeps. So in the near range exchange, whichever it is, characters or buccaneers that fire first, only ten Buccaneer Archers will be plying their bows. Here's initiatives. [Init d6s are rolled] Again, a very good round, a crit and four regular hits, each of which would kill a Buccaneer. And of course they are aiming at the archers. So there are only five Buccaneer archers to respond. [Buccaneer dice are rolled] There's one potential crit... confirmed. There's one likely hit and two unlikely hits. Let's have a look. Nope, we can rule the two unlikely hits out. The lightest armor character behind a gunnel is lower than that. The next question is who is the possible hit on? It's on a crew member, so a crew has taken two damage and that puts the crew out of action. In effect, they are too injured to keep going that round. And who was the crit on? The crit was also on a crew member, [killing them] so the crew may not be able to respond quite so quickly the next time a retreat is called for. And at this point the Buccaneers may just give up for now, waiting for more reinforcements. [Morale 2d6 are rolled] They do give up with a 10. Therefore, they're not pressing any further forward, and wisely the characters do not continue firing. They must conserve their ammunition. 4.02.04 "Let's make best speed back to the first four boats. Take any weapons we can find," Eryn advises, seeing the buccaneers hurry away to the western shore in disorder. "If we can get some more arrows, we're back in the missile business." Let's make a navigation check. [d20 on WIS] Given the crews a little short on experience, uh, an eleven is going to delay getting back to those drifting four vessels. But in a way, that works out to the character's favor. There were 11 Buccaneer boats left around the jetty, and by now they are ready to attack again. Let's see whether or not they take the bait. No, but they do want to get a little closer to investigate how dangerous this raft is. And they may be trying to take hostages from the seigneur's manor house. Does the Buccaneer Chief leave a rearguard at the jetty? No, but spies. Number of spies one. Now, as to maneuvering the now very undermanned raft: usage check, twice with a d6. The number of available staff [is sufficient]. The characters work across to the abandoned keelboat. And then towards the jetty. During that time, the various hurts that the characters have taken are able to be assisted, arrows replenished, and some thought can be given to using the ring of waterwalking again to change the battle situation in the party's favor. So I think next episode, the site of the adventure will shift to an impromptu defense of the manor house with the adventurers attempting to intercede.

Speaker 4:13 unknown 11:19 Speaker 11:25