A question about Perilous Wilds Follower rules — I see that followers operate like monsters with their own damage…

A question about Perilous Wilds Follower rules — I see that followers operate like monsters with their own damage…

A question about Perilous Wilds Follower rules — I see that followers operate like monsters with their own damage and hit points. I can figure out how that works in combat.

But what about a follower with the “Group” tag? Do they function as a single monster in combat? Is the whole group eliminated when their hit points are gone? What about damage? Do they roll only their die — or is there an addition of +1 for each member of the group after the first?

4 thoughts on “A question about Perilous Wilds Follower rules — I see that followers operate like monsters with their own damage…”

  1. I generally think of it as: each follower in a group has (e.g.) 6 hp and does d6 damage.

    But how you use that depends on how you frame the fiction and the action.

    If you frame the action along the lines of “okay, you worthless schleps, hold this doorway!” against a gang of orcs, then I’d resolve it as a single Order Followers/Do Their Thing roll. And I’d use the damage roll (d6 for the followers, d6+2 for the orcs) and see how much harm one group inflicted on the others. Maybe that damage is inflicted on an individual or two, maybe it applies to the whole group, depends on the circumstances.

    So, like, they’re holding that doorway and you roll 10+ to have them Do Their Thing. “As well as one could reasonably hope” in those circumstances is that they keep the orcs at bay and take minimal casualties. So I’d apply the orc’s d6+2 damage roll to just one of the followers, maybe spilling damage over to a second if they did 7 or 8 damage. And I’d roll the follower’s d6 damage against the whole group of orcs. On a 4+ damage, I think I’d say the orcs are wiped out. On 1-3 damage, I’d say that the orcs took some casualties (serious casualties on a 2, horrible casualties on a 3) and then backed off.

    But on a 7-9, with an unforeseen cost or consequence or limitation, I think I’d say that the orcs have pushed inward and it’s more of a group-to-group exchange of damage.

    Let’s say the orcs roll d6+2 and get a 6+ (enough to “drop” the followers) and the followers roll a 2 (less than the orc’s 3 HP). I’d probably frame that as “you look over and see the orcs pushing through; two of your guys are down and there the others are trying to force like four orcs back through the doorway, oh crap, Sully just went down and another orc pushed in to take his place, it could tip either way, what do you do?

    Or, if that same set of rolls happened for an off-camera exchange, I’d probably say that the PCs come back to the doorway later and find an abattoir, four or five of the followers like dead and mangled, one guy is missing an arm (orcs do messy damage, right) but it’s tied off with a bloody tourniquet and the other survivor has a shattered jaw, but orc bodies litter the doorway and the survivors tell you that the orcs breached the door but they managed to fight them off but they’re still camped in back there.

    …

    By contrast, imagine you have your group of followers charge into battle with you against an ogre in the woods. Plenty of space for all 7 of them to help. You’d probably Order Followers to get them to help you fight, but then you’d roll your Hack and Slash with a +1 bonus. On a 7+, you’d roll your damage die, plus 7 x d6, and take the highest roll. If these are warriors, you’d also add +1 damage.

    The rules in The Perilous Wilds aren’t clear about this, but I’d add +1 damage per warrior. So if you’re a cleric leading a group of warrior followers, I’d say your damage against that ogre is [b]8d6+7 damage.

    Of course, on a 7-9 to Hack and Slash (or a 10+ if you choose to deal +1d6 damage), your followers are exposed to that ogre’s attack. I’d probably have you take d8+5 damage yourself and I’d inflict a d8+5 damage on one member of the group, with any “rollover” damage hurting another follower. So, like, a roll of 13 damage could totally mean two dead followers.

    …

    Takeaway… each of the followers in a group tag are individuals, right? So they each have X HP and do dY damage. But how you apply those numbers depends entirely on how the fiction is framed and what makes sense.

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