How horrible are YOUR picts...

PlayWithBob

Mongoose
I know I'm guilty of underplaying my Picts and that’s going to change in my next session.

I’ve been playing them as a group of 1 HD mobs just there to be slaughtered.

I'm going to start playing them as if each of them were my own characters, taking full advantage of skills and feats. I'm also going to make them a lot sneakier and have them creeping around in the woods using shoot and run tactics.

Until at least the war party arrives that should out number the PCs at least 2 to one.

So I ask, how do YOU play your Picts and what if anything are you going to change to make them more horrible?

Thrack
 
I don't play my picts, the PCs do. Which means the Picts can be very horrible! Most I read here has the Picts as the npc bad guys but I am doing the opposite. (Although with sacrifice, heads for trophies, and worship of Jhebbal Sags children one can still argue who the actual bad guys are....)

Currently its just Pict on Pict tribal action, but that will change once they get sucked into the fighting on the Bosssonian Marches or I send them into Aquillonia/Stygia in a slave caravan. I'll gladly start taking notes once that happens and report their strategies.
 
This is the picts:

You're walking along a forest trail at dawn, the damp morning air still heavy with dew. The talking drums of the picts had been active throughout the night but have now grown quiet except for the sound of the occational tom tom echoing from oak to oak to oak. The rising sun gives a warm glow to the heavy undergrowth about you while the now wakening birds begin their morning chatter.

The soft loam of the trail springs beneath your feet as you pad quietly along. Stepping over a fallen log, a disturbance in the red sumac bush to your left gives you pause. Your hand goes to the haft of your axe. A bow string twangs. Dark naked shapes move through the forest, running from oak to oak to oak -- pausing to draw their hunting bows and let fly a volley of arrows. With a sudden rush, a deer bursts from the sumac, three arrows stuck firmly in its haunches. It bounds over you as you fall to the ground and crashes off into the morning mists. The picts rush past, giving you no second looks -- their hunting faces painted brightly with the mark of the hawk tribe. And they are gone as quietly as they came, leaving you wide eyed in the trail, your heart near exploding, unsure if you will ever catch your breath again.
 
Hi all

I just read the beginning of the Treasure of Tranicos. My version is illustrated. It has a great first scene with some picts chasing Conan and several accompanying illustrations. Read it for some great flavor.

Ark
 
I decided to unite the pictish tribes under a charismatic Conan-esque leader and throw them and the Aquilonians into a full scale war, but I let my players decide which side they were on. Turned out that they went from side to side, crossing and then double crossing each side. I don't even know what side they're on, but it's making for an interesting game!
 
Howard is very much on the Picts' side -- he wrote about them throughout his career, and the essays in the Wandering Star Bran Mak Morn are fascinating. They make better PCs than antagonists: there are only so many barbarian cultures established.
 
Thrack said:
I'm going to start playing them as if each of them were my own characters, taking full advantage of skills and feats. I'm also going to make them a lot sneakier and have them creeping around in the woods using shoot and run tactics.

That is the way to go with them!
 
How horrible do they have to be? I used them a bit as mooks in my first adventure -- they were nonetheless memorable!

First encounter -- 20+ Picts charge out the town the PCs are approaching. They kill 2 of 3 NPCs with party, scare the crap out of the party, and fight to the death.

Between Encounters -- PCs discover signs that the Picts they are tracking are really vicious, sacrificing people and torturing them

2nd encounter -- PCs stumble on some Picts recovering from a fight and hack them down (chase through woods as one tries to escape was fun, too). Feeling pretty mighty, those PCs are...

3rd encounter -- walk into an ambush (even with +6 spot checks, the PCs had trouble spotting those Picts and their +13 hide checks), which scares the crap out of the party... post-healing, the party loses another NPC, and has 1, 2, 4, and 13 hps.

4th encounter -- Shaman, and six picts turns into a Last Man Standing battle. At end of battle, PCs have 7, -7, -6, -4 hps.

Admittedly, my PCs may have the wrong impression of these Picts because they think of them as a) attacking in large numbers, b) having no armor, c) "Sure, it was tough, but we got 'em in the end." The truth is, that the next time they face Picts in the forest, I will open a whole new bag of tricks, including stalking, ambushes, fake ambushes, hit-and-run attacks, fake retreats, etc.

If I had done more of that than I did in their first CONAN adventure, they would be dead.
 
Be sure to use the Terrain modifiers provided by the SRD:

FOREST TERRAIN

It adds a whole world of strategy and complexity to encounters.

An ambush with a slow retreat which draws the PC's into an area set with traps is also very effective.
 
BhilJhoanz said:
Be sure to use the Terrain modifiers provided by the SRD:
FOREST TERRAIN
It adds a whole world of strategy and complexity to encounters.
An ambush with a slow retreat which draws the PC's into an area set with traps is also very effective.

Thanks! I used some of these kinds of things, but I ran out of time to do proper research in the DMG or SRD.

The ambush included traps -- in fact, started by archers, it encouraged the PCs to charge the archers, thereby falling into pit traps, snare traps, as well as discovering the hidden Picts with War Spears. They were helped by excellent reflex saves, some metagaming (... "well, if there are traps there, then there may be traps in front of these other guys and since I am going 2nd in the round, I will go this way instead..."), and my willingness to encourage swashbuckling fighting (for example, the barbarian charged the Picts, made his reflex save vs. the pit trap, and I allowed him to instead jump over the trap -- not kosher, I suppose, ruleswise, but it made things a tad more "heroic").
 
(for example, the barbarian charged the Picts, made his reflex save vs. the pit trap, and I allowed him to instead jump over the trap -- not kosher, I suppose, ruleswise, but it made things a tad more "heroic").

I always let heroics and cool cinematics trump rules. DM s perogative!
 
Guilty of underplaying Picts as well. Tomorrow my PC's will meet them again in Western Pictland and they will take full advantage of the forest and their Pictish ways.
 
My Picts weren't very horrible the first go-round. This next adventure...the PCs are in for it. It starts off in media res and the PCs party has been ambushed by 50 or so Picts on the warpath. The ambush will have already killed about half of the NPCs with the PCs when we start. If the PCs stay, they will be slaughtered. After they escape, the Picts will start to track them. If they head towards the Bossonian Marches, they run into a large party of Picts. The Picts keep driving them further into the Pictish Wilderness. It will be up to the PCs to find out why.
 
Just be really careful about what armor you give the PC's. If the PC's have heavy armor, all the tricks and terrain advantages in the world won't help the Picts. Hatchets, spears and hunting bows just can't hurt someone in plate or its near equivalent (hell, battleaxes, crossbows and broadswords can't either). Unless your Picts have Bills and Bardiches, don't give your players DR 10+ armor.
 
DrSkull said:
Just be really careful about what armor you give the PC's. If the PC's have heavy armor, all the tricks and terrain advantages in the world won't help the Picts. Hatchets, spears and hunting bows just can't hurt someone in plate or its near equivalent (hell, battleaxes, crossbows and broadswords can't either). Unless your Picts have Bills and Bardiches, don't give your players DR 10+ armor.

The PCs have quilted and leather jerkins. Luckily, it's not metal armor; otherwise, the Pictish Wilderness would be littered with broken hatchets, knives and clubs.
 
I am probably making a mistake in my rule interpretation, but could'nt the Picts use traps, snares, mud/quicksand, and caltrops to slow/immobilize an armored opponent, then try to get em with finesse weapons? Sure they just have daggers and such.... How do the picts give the heavily armored Bossonians so much trouble? I was thinking they might make ice pick style poinards out of Bossonian pike points.
 
Jerrythehun said:
I am probably making a mistake in my rule interpretation, but could'nt the Picts use traps, snares, mud/quicksand, and caltrops to slow/immobilize an armored opponent, then try to get em with finesse weapons? Sure they just have daggers and such.... How do the picts give the heavily armored Bossonians so much trouble? I was thinking they might make ice pick style poinards out of Bossonian pike points.

Nope, it sounds like you have the rule correct. The problem with being immobilized is that, although the person cannot move, the Pict still has to get through the DR. If you finesse your weapon, your to hit roll has to beat the DV by the DR of the armor to bypass it. Some of the armor combinations with a DR of 8+ make it virtually impossible without a critical hit which leads us back to where we were before. In general, hitting the armored PC isn't the problem-it's damaging him that's a pain.
 
I was going to post something similar this morning, but RL got in the way.

Let's say the PC's have brutalized your Picts. The PC's return to their base-of-operations, be it village, fort, whatever. They're happy and feeling studly, carrying Pict heads and weapons and whatnot.

Of course, Pict scouts are following them. Several stay and keep watch, several return to the camp.

Maybe a night or two later, a party of Pict infiltrators slips over the wall. They quietly murder a few guards, maybe kill the PC's horses, and then slip away with several captives, preferrably people the PC's have interacted with.

So when all this is discovered, the PC's are expected to go out, recover the captives and kick some Pictish hiney. After all, they did it before, right? The Picts are easy, right?

When the PC's hit the trees, the trail is difficult, but not impossible to follow, as expected. The Picts seem to be concentrating on speed more than stealth, again, as expected.

Then the trail leads down into a swampy hollow, maybe near a river. The drums begin sound, from all directions, but a distance off. The ground is muddy and difficult to walk in. The trail is easily followed, but the vegetation is thick and tangled.

Then arrows, begin flying, first singly, but then in larger groups. The characters will easily hear movement in the brush, but in different sized groups and from different directions.

Then there is a scream from up ahead.

If the PC's move forward, the foilage will thin out and the arrows will settle into a steady sniping pattern. Small bands of two or three Picts will leap from cover, attack a PC for a round, then run off, covered by a hail of arrow fire.

The PC's are herded forward to a small clearing where they see a group of several Picts and their hostages. As the PC's move forward, they will stumble into cleverly concealed pits of mud, vine snares, net traps and punji sticks. More arrows will fly.

As the PC's become immobilized in snares or mud, concealed Picts will throw weighted and barbed nets onto them. Eventually, the PC's will be helpless.

If any PC's attempt to flee, they will soon find that a band of Pict scouts has been following them, lining the trail with all sorts of nasty surprises.

Helpless PC's can be lashed to poles and taken back to the Pict village. Once there, all sorts of horrible things can happen to them...

Below is a quote from a previous thread:

VincentDarlage said:
Picts are masters of guerrilla warfare. They strike and run. If a war chief loses too many warriors he may lose his rank as a chief, so they tend to strike unexpectedly, get in the surprise round with ranged attacks, rush in if they get the initiative, strike and leave. Look into the tactics of the American Iroquois Indians and you will have appropriate tactics for the Picts. The Picts are more apt to use arrows to quietly slay a few guards, slip over the wall in the night and murder people in their sleep than they are to assault an actively defended wall (although if you get enough of them together under a shaman like Zogar Sag they will assault castles - which thankfully is a rare occurance). They will act like hunters - they will lure people outside the walls, then attack. They will lead prey into traps, and that includes human prey.

The Iroquois used to hunt deer by building a long wall with an angle in it. A group of Indians then made noise and herded the animals toward the wall. Once the animals were corralled by the wall, other Indians would pop out and shoot them down. Picts could use the same tactic. Build a palisade in the woods, then chase after a column of troops (or players), making such noise that there seemed to be more than there really are, herding them into the wall. Once stopped by the wall, other Picts, hiding in the trees, would then pelt them with arrows until the soldiers (or players) are all dead.

If you have ever read "First Blood" by David Morrell (or seen the Stallone movie), then recall how Rambo decimated a troop of deputies out in the woods. Imagine four or five of those type of guys in the woods. Playing Picts this way, I decimated a column of 32 soldiers with six Picts. Three characters managed to get out of the wilderness alive. Use their skills!

The problem with Picts is that they don't just stand there and fight. They hunt. They wait. Picts will steal over a wall, steal a woman or child, and wait until the search party comes. One by one, using guerrilla tactics, they slay the search party. Another, larger party comes. Same result. The players become afraid of the Picts not because they are such superb fighters, but because they never know when the attack will come - and it almost always comes when they are not prepared. It will come when a character has to use the bathroom. It will come while they are eating. It will come as they sleep. It will come as they are distracted by a noise elsewhere (such as the attack in The Black Stranger). It may just be a single arrow shot from the trees, or it may be a bull rush, where the character is pushed through a gantlet of waiting Picts, who then vanish when the other characters get into it.
 
And the fact that your PCs aren't covered in armour all the time. PC's need to rest and relax at times, penalise them if they don't. You don't sleep well armoured, so penalise them if they do. Once they are sleeping, well it would be horrible if one was taken at night, or there was an ambush.

Make them cross a raging river either by swimming or crawling over slippery rocks and branches, need to remove that armour to do it (or be swept down the river and all alone :twisted: )

Use terrain against them.

Besides, if four or five picts grapple an armoured character they don't need to damage him then, have one of them tie him up. Or strap him to a pole and carry him like a shot animal.

Or just have them drag him into the water.

Or have four of them aid one to stab him with a finesse weapon (you're the DM, it goes, just don't be surprised if the PC's do the same to armored NPCs).
 
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