Last night's session was almost entirely a fight scene, but it was probably one of our best--while the bad guys only landed a couple solid hits, the players had to adapt and get creative to win, they got a real kick out of the enemies, and I think I've finally gotten them out of the "roll an attack every round until the thing dies" approach.
To make a long story short, the party is a Warden, a wizardess/seer in training, a half-demon, a corruption spirit, and an amnesiac who they rescued from the Red Court and who can throw fire from her hands. While seeking out information about the latter, they're approached by four Kappa demons--one wearing blue-lined samurai armor and wielding a Sephiroth-scale katana (Mozart), one wearing violet robes and wielding a Naginata (Beethoven), one wearing little but blood red strips of cloth with Wolverine-style claws bound to his hands (Salieri), and a fourth wearing light wooden armor highlighted in orange and wielding a Kusari (Bach).
Yes. Ambushed by the Ninja Turtles. When my brother (playing the Warden) recognized the theme naming, he facepalmed, which I consider a victory in and of itself.
It quickly turned into a vicious melee--Mozart dueling the Warden (with a compel to keep it sword to sword, they were evenly matched), while Beethoven did his best to shut down the apprentice, Salieri took on the half-demon, and Bach tried to trip up and re-kidnap the amnesiac. I'd deliberately put most of their combat stats at 4 or 5, with a stunt or power thrown in here and there to boost them to 6 (like Mozart, who rolled his defense from there).
After the first couple rounds, the party had survived a couple of near misses (some courtesy of hasty invokes), but hadn't done much in the way of damage, when they finally started getting creative--the apprentice was able to blind Beethoven, opening him up to an attack from the half-demon, while the corruption spirit played havoc with the arena. The amnesiac ended up Blocked by Bach, her hands bound by the chain of the Kusari--until the player declared that since metal conducts heat, she could just send fire through -that- and the player invoked some earlier fallout to draw in heat from an accidental fire to boot, both things that I simply hadn't considered. The Warden was able to make a handful of declarations and--with a defensive stunt of his own--was able to beat Mozart's defenses. Then the corruption spirit hit him with just barely enough mind-whammy to knock him into a Severe consequence, after which his team conceded (the terms being that Mozart would not bother them again this scenario if the rest of his brothers showed up, and they had time to question him).
All in all, a satisfying fight on both sides, interesting enemies that my players want to come back and fight again, some good exposition, and now they're asking me to stat up Splinter for next time.
Funniest part of the session: The spirit's attack on Mozart came right after the Warden wounds him with a cut above the eye and along his arm. Mozart responds to the mental attack by falling to his knees and crying out in anguish. The Warden blinks and goes, "Oh come on, the cut wasn't that deep."
