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My my, what a sad combat. I think it might take the prize as "combat in an RPG that should not have been as hard as it was."

Our group has apparently caught the ire of a renowned bounty hunter. We docked in a sleepy little town for the evening, Ardel got some drinks with Korbulin and ate at the local pub, just trying to relax after a hard day of working on a boat. She was offered a good many drinks by many of the local dockworkers trying to impress the new large woman in town, but she declined. One fellow though, by the name of Gurt (which, our DM said and we all lost it. Great on-the-spot name. Fabulous.) Stayed and ate with the two of them even after Ardel shot down his advances. He bought Korbulin a drink, chatted, generally was a nice guy.

So imagine our sadness when, in the middle of the night, who slinks up the pier but Gurt and two other thugs. Ardel had offered to stay up all night on watch, as everyone else just wanted to sleep, and it is a good thing she did. 

Confronting the thugs, Gurt said they'd been hired to cause a ruckus and rough up the group, but he did say that Ardel was nice, and if she left now he'd let her walk away.

That did not happen, and a crossbow bolt out of nowhere crippled Ardel's arm before combat even began. So needless to say this bounty hunter is on her shitlist. She knocked the gangplank off the boat, forcing the three thugs to make a jump to even fight her. The worked out well, as one of the guys never even made it on the boat. Failed his Jump every time.

But this is where everything begins to devolve.

The bounty hunter is just hitting every bolt, and Ardel only has so much pincushion in her when they don't hit her armored body. Korbulin is the first awake and out of the cabin on the boat and he proceeds to just run straight at the unnamed thug who did make it onto the boat and knocked the both of them into the water.

Olly and Issac both show up, and proceed to EACH critically fumble and give Ardel a critical injury. So Ardel is being hit by her own team during this night's brawl, all while trying to keep Gurt grappled so he cant beat them. Gurt and Ardel just were trying to punch each other at this point and missing.

Bountyhunter managed one more bolt into Ardel, critical right in the leg. Shes unconcious.

Thankfully, as this is several rounds after Korbulin's diving audition, he comes back up onto the boat and just begins grappling Gurt. Issac manages to crit Ardel AGAIN and her leg breaks. Our local Bard NPC comes out of the cabin and triumphantly slams a chair into Gurts head, dealing the only direct damage to an enemy anyone on our side does that combat.

Ardel is also now bleeding to death, at this point, having wracked up multiple injuries and conditions.

At this point, we have rolled so many fumbles, our DM starts offering dark pacts/corruption points for rerolls. Ardel and Issac refuse, Korbulin and Olly accept.

The other NPCs manage to cut the mooring lines on the barge and we begin a fevered midnight cast off, trying to gain as much distance between the town and us as possible. Issac does his best to not have Ardel become one of the charges, and manages to keep her out of Morrs garden. For now.

We ended up taking Gurt hostage but no hard feelings, he's working for us now and we're friends.

Also, Korbulins backstory is that his prized family heirloom fishing rod was stolen by a halfling named Gil Crumpleton, and in every town we've stopped at, he's so far been unable to find it. He's beginning to lose hope.

Having thought it over for the afternoon, I do think I'll be trying to write out a story for our campaign, and boy oh boy will this session be a highlight to try and write out.