Saving the world on a Sunday afternoon
Big things and how the kill them
By Nab McFeegle
Patrolling will no doubt lead you into situations where you’ll have to kill something big and mean. Early on this may be an ogre or troll, later on an avatar or construct of foul magic. From demon lord to death knights, you need to be prepared.
Rule 0: If it bleeds, you can kill it
Rule 1: Use your head
Some things you’ll have heard of, or you’ll have an idea of what they can do. Don’t charge in, straight away. Check the situation, make a quick judgement and prepare. You won’t always have time for holding back but we’ll come to that later but you’ll still need to feel out the opponent.
Rule 2: Be ready
There’s only so much support priests, druids and witch doctors can provide so you need to be trained physically and mentally. Do not let worthless fear turn you back and don’t let your body be found wanting.
Rule 3: If you can, keep on it
Once you are engaged in combat, keep in its face if you can. Sometimes it’ll be too dangerous up close but often time spent parrying and blocking in the training yard will keep you alive here. It you’ve got it busy then it’s not killing other people. It can also give your team-mates a chance to evaluate it and send in someone doing the right kind of pain.
Rule 4: Clever girl…
The clever ones are the most dangerous so you need to keep on your toes and be aware of your surroundings. If it’s clever then it might have an ego, if it’s got an ego then you might be able to get it stupid by annoying it. Annoying is risky but you’ve committed yourself now and at least it’s not killing people that your protecting.
Rule 5: Keep your head and it’ll stay on your shoulders
It may try and get you angry. A little bit of angry is good. Focused angry is good. Pointless rage is bad. If you are in a fury then you aren’t thinking and that can get you dead.
Rule 6: It’ll hurt
You’ll get broken limbs, burnt and bled. Deal with it. You’ll get tired. You can sleep later. Remember that the main thing keeping you alive will be your ability to get out the way and to block those attacks. You let yourself get tired and you’ll take a dirt nap.
Rule 7: It’s usually a team game
You’ll probably be with friends and, often, so will it. You might be fighting this thing for a while and its friends may try to distract you. You’ve got a mouth, then use it. If you’re getting hassled by an enemy mage, then get someone on it (or to look after beastie while you deal with flame-boy). The most important thing is that you don’t let fluffy get loose on the party.
Rule 8: It doesn’t matter what your name is
It won’t care who you are, it won’t be afraid of the trophy heads on your wall (unless one was its Mum).
Rule 9: Dig deep, keep moving forward and power on through.
There’s two outcomes. Number one is you win. A dirty and scrappy win is still a win. Be grateful you are alive and learn from the mistakes you made…or, it’ll kill you…so you might as well go down like a hero…dig deep and give it all you have because it may be the last thing you do so do it well.
Rule 10: Fear not death
And finally, don’t be afraid of dying. Dying may not be failure and you may have saved the day. When you step in there accept you might die and make it all count.
We all fight for our own reasons. To protect or for our glory. That’s fine…but when you’re up against some big bad, your reasons will be tested. If you haven’t got a good reason to fight then you may find your resolve is nothing.
Good hunting.