Gambits

Play

The Knights are fighting a huge crocodile.

Ref: So far you haven’t got a good hit in on this beast, but it’s looking worn down. What do you want to do?

Tal: It seems nasty, but we could leave it be.

Moss: It’s pretty close to the bridge though. It attacked us, so how do we know it won’t just attack the next travellers that pass by?

Ref: Remember “Protect the Realm” is part of your Oath.

Tal: You’re right, let’s take it on. I’ll go in with my hookhammer.

Moss: I’ll swing my cudgel. I’ll Smite too.

Moss rolls d8 from their cudgel and d12 for Smiting, scoring 9 and 3. He passes his VIG Save to avoid Fatigue from Smiting. Tal rolls her own d6, getting a 6.

Tal: So I can use the 6 for a Gambit, right?

Ref: Yeah so you can Bolster the total Damage by 1 or do something else. This croc is strong, so it’ll be tricky to do fancy stuff unless Moss uses the 9 for a Strong Gambit.

Tal: What about Impairing a weapon? Would that work on an animal?

Ref: Yeah, you could smash its jaw to prevent it biting next turn. It gets a Save though.

Moss: I could use the 9 to drive it under the bridge to set it up for one of your diving attacks next turn.

Tal: Could we just drive it away from the fight altogether? We don’t need to kill it.

Ref: No Gambits can’t do something that would outright end the combat, just grant a temporary advantage.

Tal: Okay, how about I hit it, then Moss jumps on its back to hold its jaws shut? That’s Impairing a weapon, right? And using the 9 it doesn’t get to make a Save.

Moss: Sounds like a plan.

Thoughts

Gambits can be tricky. You want them to feel impactful and exciting, but they shouldn’t be enough to completely resolve the combat.

On a tangent, I like that the Referee gently reminds players of their Oath here. Especially early in a campaign it’s useful to keep the Oath at the forefront of their minds.

Here the Referee offers some examples to Tal on what the Gambit could do. I’d perhaps remind them that these examples aren’t a restrictive list, and they could carry out another effect if they had something in mind.

It’s good to see they don’t take the “ Impair a weapon” example too literally, understanding the intent of the example, that it’s an opportunity to temporarily weaken the attack power of the opponent. You could read the “trapping their shield” example in the same way, perhaps exposing the crocodile’s belly to allow them to ignore its Armour score on their next Attack. It’s impossible to cover all possible uses of a Gambit, so it’s more important to understand the principles.

Here, Ref demonstrates these principles, telling the players that they can’t just drive the crocodile away, as that would outright end the encounter, something too powerful for the intent of a Gambit.

Although the Gambit rule also applies to enemy attacks, I’d be careful straying too far from the suggested effects against player characters. Springing nasty surprises on players as the result of a Gambit can create fun moments, but they should abide by the same restrictions as the players.