Gror Vs. Durin's Bane - Battle Report - The One Ring RPG

A fun "What If?" battle scenario for the Moria - Through the Doors of Durin Supplement

Can a lone Dwarf Champion, with the right Famous Weapons and Armour made available to them, stand toe-to-toe with Durin’s Bane, a Demon of the Ancient World?

Watch the battle here:

The odds were completely stacked against Gror, Son of Fror of Durin’s Folk, but stand toe-to-toe he did, against an agent of Morgoth, for eleven rounds of combat! I say that’s a success in its own right, and he won the day.

The combination of carefully selected blessing enchantments, and the Last Ring of the Dwarves from the Moria expansion, the odds, although still in favour of the Balrog, weren’t as bad as thought.

But nothing can be done with a well placed and solid heavy blow from the Balrog’s hit, owing to an extra 12 damage from a heavy blow on use of any success icon on a combat roll. Considering Player-Heroes only have between 20 to at most 35 or so Endurance, one or two hits and it’s lights out for the hero.

It was only a matter of time before the rolls favoured the Balrog, especially with it having three attacks to use. I could have used the Flaming Blade each time, but left it to one each for it’s allowable attacks.

For the Balrog, I held nothing back, spending Hate liberally, in hopes that it would end the fight before it even started. Due to Gror’s Shield already causing all attacks against him to be Weary, spending hate wasn’t an issue. This saved Gror on more than one occasion, with essentially the Balrog needing a Feat Success to score a hit!

Gror I think did extremely well, and hit more often than he did not. Scoring multiple chances for Piercing Blows, the Balrog’s high dice count for Protection Rolls were what saved it. I could have spent Success Icons for added Heavy Blow damage, but opted for trying to get the wounds. Maybe Heavy Blows would’ve done the trick however, but in adding up the damage dealt, still fell short of the 150 total required.

In the end however, Gror did bring him down to one-half its Endurance, wounded it once out of four possible Piercing Blow attempts, and essentially nullified its Fell abilities by reducing the Hate with each blow of the Spear (Biting Dart) and the Gleam of Terror for the Flame of Khazard.

Here we see a break down of each round, weapons and abilities used by each combatant:

Gror vs Durin’s Bane Combat Roll Table

Here is Gror’s character sheet, with some minor alterations (since the Moria Alpha PDF) from what was seen in the previous video about how I went about building this Dwarven Champion and Challenger to Durin’s Bane.

Gror, Fight Ready, Player-Hero Sheet

Here is Durin’s Bane Advesary Block (as of the Moria Alpha PDF release)

Durin’s Bane Adversary Stat Block

Is it possible for a lone Hero to take out Durin’s Bane? Maybe. You’d have to be real lucky with not only your character’s rolls, but also the Loremaster with Durin’s Bane rolls, as they would need to fail almost all the time.

Most expectations, and mine as well, was that Gror wouldn’t defeat the Balrog, but he did honourably and valiantly stand toe-to-toe with it! It was looking real good right up until that last hit with the Flaming Blade, and rolling a Success Icon for the Balrog to spend for Heavy Blow damage bonus.

Let me know what you think, comment on the YouTube channel or let me know over on the Discord channel or on X!

Thank you for reading, watching and following!

Cheers,

Ryan of the North