Our current martial artist PC did a lot of running around last session. Questions came up - not relevant at the time - about Tiger Sprint from DFRPG Adventurers, pg. 31.
Here is how we'll deal with it in DF Felltower.
First, although DFRPG doesn't show you under the hood, this is Enhanced Move with a Chi limitation (-10%). Thus, when we need rulings, especially with how it interacts with the non-DFRPG Power-Ups in other, GURPS DF sources, we'll have to go back to how it was built in GURPS before becoming a rules-lite version of itself.
It doesn't affect Basic Speed, Basic Move, or Dodge. It only works when Sprinting - from the second consecutive Move maneuver where you use all of your movement points to travel "along a relatively straight, smooth course" (p. B52).
How does this interact with . . .
Serenity (Pyramid 3/61, p. 12)? This improves DX, which improves Basic Speed, and thus improves Move before multipliers. For reasons mostly due to hating impenetrable defenses, I don't have any plans to allow the optional version of Serenity that affects Basic Speed. My post on the matter has been amended to make that clear.
Sprint Bonuses are a final add, and Tiger Sprint is used instead of the listed bonuses . . . taking the +20% for sprinting (min +1) to +50% and +100%. But DF Felltower doesn't use Sprinting. To be perfectly fair, this should increase the price of Tiger Sprint to 10 and 19, respectively, with a 1-point perk to cover allowing a non-used rule to apply. I won't do that.
Haste? Haste adds to your final numbers. We've been playing with Haste for a while and I have it add to your final numbers. If it adds to your base, then encumbrance should affect it. Have Move 6 and medium encumbrance? That's 6 x 0.6 = Move 3, and you get Haste +2, you're at Move 5 in DF Felltower. If it adds to the base, then it's 6 +2 = 8 x 0.6 = Move 4. No one liked that, so we don't do that. As a result, this also means that things that multiple move multiply your base, and then Haste is added afterward. This includes all similar effects from magic items. Speed elixirs do add to your base, as it specifies increasing Basic Speed, which then affects calculations down the line. So, Haste +2, for example, will add +2 to the final move after multiplying.
Some notes on all of this:
- This will not apply to Move and Attack. DFRPG Exploits, p. 33 is very specific about calling out Move and Move and Attack for how movement works. It then only references Move, not both Move and Move and Attack, under "Three-Minute Miles" and Sprinting on the same page.
I take that as sufficient evidence that you cannot "sprint" and do Move and Attack together.
- You must use all of your movement points for this; if you miss using your full movement points the sprint bonus ends. This may end up with seeming oddities like being able to run 18+ in one second or only half of that, not in between, but it's not unreasonable to have your weird Chi power only work under specific circumstances. If it bothers anyone sufficiently, it's probably better to save your 9 or 18 points and spend it on straight-up and more versatile Speed and Move.
- Although you can technically run in a circle with "forward movement," Exploits and Basic Set also say that when running away you only get a sprint bonus for "A straight, clear course (not twisting tunnels)" so I'll be harsh on attempts to zig-zag to keep speed up or otherwise min-max a sprint bonus.
- Perception rolls at speed will be penalized by your own speed on the Size and Speed/Range Table. It's hard to scout while running full speed.
I'll modify this post if anything changes or additional qualifications or notes need to be added.
These types of posts are fun, but this took a few hours of on and off writing, reading, and cross referencing. That's all for a movement powerup that someone may or may not take, and may or may not use. That's why I don't write as many as I used to back when I worked many less hours per week!
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Monday, February 17, 2025
GURPS DF Session 205, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part V - Mopping Up & Pursuit
Actual Date: 2/16/2025
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, clear, dry.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (301 points)
Brother Quinn, human initiate (125 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (335 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
Amlaric, human squire (125 points)
Persistance Montgomery (303 point knight)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
Leon the Eye, human archer (125 points)
Aaron, Brandon, Cedric, Dortmund, Ernie, Ferd, Grunlark, and Hansel, human guards (62 points)
Bullworth and Oxford, human laborers (62 points)
Honest Charles LeGrand, human squire (125 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (298 points)
We picked up where we left off.
Thor was facing a pair of cultists in the stairs - one running, and suffering from Magebane and one stunned and down at his feet - and a gnoll behind him. Meanwhile, Hannari was facing off with a cultist with a ready Ice Dagger. There were a couple of standing gnolls (including one lightly-injured one I think Hannari had thrown and everyone just assumed was dead in the confusion of the melee) and a number of badly mauled, weapon-arm-less mechanical knights.
Thor dealt with his opponents by slashing and stabbing the downed cultist, then turning and decapitating the gnoll behind him, and then going down the stairs after the rapidly-running cultist who'd failed to hurt him last time with Explosive Lightning.
Percy finished off a gnoll with some help from one-armed Vlad distracting it, and then waded into the remaining gnoll and knights. He'd kill the gnoll quickly and then slowly bash the knights down. Eventually, at the urging of Vlad, he swapped to his greataxe from his flail and finished the last knight off with two blows - one too little to penetrate the armor, the other enough to penetrate the neck and disable it.
Hannari threw a meteoric knife at the cultists he faced and wounded him, but took an Explosive Ice Dagger back. He was against a wall so chanced Parry Missile Weapons but it didn't matter - it blew up on contact and wounded him. He threw another knife but Missile Shield took care of that. So he ran up and slammed the cultist and knocked him down, and then finished him off (I can't remember how.) He spent some time retreiving his weapons from the body and heading downstairs.
Chop ran over to the NPCs and told them to come on up to the front, even as he put Stop Bleeding on everyone not obviously dead. Duncan, who'd tossed in a nearly harmless (3 damage on 4d-4) Lightning spell at a knight, headed over and gathered up Aecris and then headed over to search the bodies.
Once that all was done, Vlad snuck up to watch around the corner where the Iron Witch had run, and saw a closed door. He headed back to the PCs.
Meanwhile, Chop joined Thor and Hannari at the bottom of the stairs. Thor and Hannari ran out, taking turns and trying to find the cultist. He'd headed off into the darkness. Thor went one way, Hannari the other.
Thor ran around for a while, first map east and then map south (actually, north isn't up on the map, so whatever), and then south-east-north through a door and eventually found himself back near the stairs. He gave up, met up with a waiting Chop, and they went upstairs.
Hannari just kept going. He ran, forced doors, and then ran again. His ST is really up from (IIRC) a potion, so that let him force some doors he might not have otherwise. He ran and ran and ran. He found nothing.
Eventually, with the fight done above, Duncan cast Telepathy to talk to Hannari. Hannari said he was hunting wizards. They left him to do so for a while longer - maybe another 10-12 seconds? - and then asked him to return. He wasn't done hunting wizards. They moved to the room where the Iron Witch is - Seeker had failed, but Seek Earth said there was gold in there. Hannari said he couldn't hurt her, so why bother. But he crushed a Haste stone so he could run faster. With the distance he'd run, even a +2 is a big, big jump in overall movement.
He did eventually find a hallway with enough branches off of it to not be sure where to go. So he backed off entirely and headed back the way he had come.
Meanwhile, the PCs, along with their only three remaining mobile NPCs - the two laborers and Leon - moved up to a heavy door. They forced it opened and rushed in. Inside was a circular room with some spare but nice stone furniture, black carpeting, and hundreds of glinting stones set in the ceiling. They forced one door out of it, and started to peer down a rough-hewn tunnel off to another side.
That's where we called it, for time.
Notes:
- We stayed in combat time the entire session. I would have dropped out of it once pursuit was broken off, but circumstances prevented it. Hannari kept up his pursuit quite a while after being contacted with Telepathy, and it took a couple of requests to get him to try to rejoin the group to attack the Iron Witch. Then the PCs started to get in some healing, bring up guys from the back, and set up to go after the Iron Witch . . . so I couldn't just close up the fight, let them regather, and go. That made for a steep real time to game time ratio.
- Parry Missile Weapons vs. Missile Spells - I was asked if an incoming spell was Explosive, since apparantly PMW doesn't work against them. I can't find anything that says that. It's a bad choice against an Explosive spell, but it still "works." Also, explosive variants of spells don't look different. Dodge is always the better choice against a Missile spell unless you have to ensure it, at best, hits you and not others behind you or catches less people behind you in the blast.
- I'm continually offput a little by the exclamations of disappointed surprise people get when a) opponents aren't stunned or knocked down from a non-Vitals, non-Skull hit, or b) Wizards make a successful Will roll to not have their Missile spell affect them when injured. Uhm, without a penalty - and there are only a tiny handful of them - stunning happens at best half of the time. HT 11-12 is more typical, which means it's more like 25-37.5% of the time. Oh, and wizards throwing 9d spells aren't going to have Will under 13, and 14-15 is more likely. It's a nice thing if it happens . . . but it's not likely to happen. It's just a weird expression of surprise. Maybe it's in the same category as people who are surprised patrolling monsters don't have bags of treasure with them. Desire trumps actual knowledge of likelihood.
- I really like the confirmation roll in the GURPS module. We did have some teething issues with it as people add in a bucket of modifiers, then hit the roll, then confirm . . . and find that sometimes the auto-added penalties are already in. Sometimes the confirmation roll has a modifier from an unknown source . . . or so I hear. I didn't have any of that. I wonder if people aren't as keenly looking at, say, their chosen maneuver, or posture, or if they're in close combat or suffering from some other effect.
- We don't use Sprinting, but we did get derailed in a discussion of Tiger Sprint plus Serenity. I'll do a post on how they interact, but. It's possible Hannari was running with a sprint bonus, but we'll see - his player will read this and check. I don't use it at all, under any circumstances, but if someone wants to buy Tiger Sprint as a power-up, it'll be allowed and used per the rules in ways I'll outline in a post later this week.
- Forced Entry is, I think, the only ST roll we use. I do think it might be better to be an effect roll . . . I have to play around with that and see how I like it. Rolling damage would be a better way to handle it (and let people Slam through doors, sometimes), but it has some issues. Not the least of which is, what do I do with Forced Entry as a skill. And there are other issues, but it's worth some investigation. I'll come up with some ideas and then put them past my group. Done right, this can help simplify down to one system.
- MVP was Thor. It was a tossup between him (killing and pursuing and good-naturedly running around trying to find people) and Hannari (killing a cultist wizard and chasing another.) Thor won the die roll.
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, clear, dry.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (301 points)
Brother Quinn, human initiate (125 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (335 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
Amlaric, human squire (125 points)
Persistance Montgomery (303 point knight)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
Leon the Eye, human archer (125 points)
Aaron, Brandon, Cedric, Dortmund, Ernie, Ferd, Grunlark, and Hansel, human guards (62 points)
Bullworth and Oxford, human laborers (62 points)
Honest Charles LeGrand, human squire (125 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (298 points)
We picked up where we left off.
Thor was facing a pair of cultists in the stairs - one running, and suffering from Magebane and one stunned and down at his feet - and a gnoll behind him. Meanwhile, Hannari was facing off with a cultist with a ready Ice Dagger. There were a couple of standing gnolls (including one lightly-injured one I think Hannari had thrown and everyone just assumed was dead in the confusion of the melee) and a number of badly mauled, weapon-arm-less mechanical knights.
Thor dealt with his opponents by slashing and stabbing the downed cultist, then turning and decapitating the gnoll behind him, and then going down the stairs after the rapidly-running cultist who'd failed to hurt him last time with Explosive Lightning.
Percy finished off a gnoll with some help from one-armed Vlad distracting it, and then waded into the remaining gnoll and knights. He'd kill the gnoll quickly and then slowly bash the knights down. Eventually, at the urging of Vlad, he swapped to his greataxe from his flail and finished the last knight off with two blows - one too little to penetrate the armor, the other enough to penetrate the neck and disable it.
Hannari threw a meteoric knife at the cultists he faced and wounded him, but took an Explosive Ice Dagger back. He was against a wall so chanced Parry Missile Weapons but it didn't matter - it blew up on contact and wounded him. He threw another knife but Missile Shield took care of that. So he ran up and slammed the cultist and knocked him down, and then finished him off (I can't remember how.) He spent some time retreiving his weapons from the body and heading downstairs.
Chop ran over to the NPCs and told them to come on up to the front, even as he put Stop Bleeding on everyone not obviously dead. Duncan, who'd tossed in a nearly harmless (3 damage on 4d-4) Lightning spell at a knight, headed over and gathered up Aecris and then headed over to search the bodies.
Once that all was done, Vlad snuck up to watch around the corner where the Iron Witch had run, and saw a closed door. He headed back to the PCs.
Meanwhile, Chop joined Thor and Hannari at the bottom of the stairs. Thor and Hannari ran out, taking turns and trying to find the cultist. He'd headed off into the darkness. Thor went one way, Hannari the other.
Thor ran around for a while, first map east and then map south (actually, north isn't up on the map, so whatever), and then south-east-north through a door and eventually found himself back near the stairs. He gave up, met up with a waiting Chop, and they went upstairs.
Hannari just kept going. He ran, forced doors, and then ran again. His ST is really up from (IIRC) a potion, so that let him force some doors he might not have otherwise. He ran and ran and ran. He found nothing.
Eventually, with the fight done above, Duncan cast Telepathy to talk to Hannari. Hannari said he was hunting wizards. They left him to do so for a while longer - maybe another 10-12 seconds? - and then asked him to return. He wasn't done hunting wizards. They moved to the room where the Iron Witch is - Seeker had failed, but Seek Earth said there was gold in there. Hannari said he couldn't hurt her, so why bother. But he crushed a Haste stone so he could run faster. With the distance he'd run, even a +2 is a big, big jump in overall movement.
He did eventually find a hallway with enough branches off of it to not be sure where to go. So he backed off entirely and headed back the way he had come.
Meanwhile, the PCs, along with their only three remaining mobile NPCs - the two laborers and Leon - moved up to a heavy door. They forced it opened and rushed in. Inside was a circular room with some spare but nice stone furniture, black carpeting, and hundreds of glinting stones set in the ceiling. They forced one door out of it, and started to peer down a rough-hewn tunnel off to another side.
That's where we called it, for time.
Notes:
- We stayed in combat time the entire session. I would have dropped out of it once pursuit was broken off, but circumstances prevented it. Hannari kept up his pursuit quite a while after being contacted with Telepathy, and it took a couple of requests to get him to try to rejoin the group to attack the Iron Witch. Then the PCs started to get in some healing, bring up guys from the back, and set up to go after the Iron Witch . . . so I couldn't just close up the fight, let them regather, and go. That made for a steep real time to game time ratio.
- Parry Missile Weapons vs. Missile Spells - I was asked if an incoming spell was Explosive, since apparantly PMW doesn't work against them. I can't find anything that says that. It's a bad choice against an Explosive spell, but it still "works." Also, explosive variants of spells don't look different. Dodge is always the better choice against a Missile spell unless you have to ensure it, at best, hits you and not others behind you or catches less people behind you in the blast.
- I'm continually offput a little by the exclamations of disappointed surprise people get when a) opponents aren't stunned or knocked down from a non-Vitals, non-Skull hit, or b) Wizards make a successful Will roll to not have their Missile spell affect them when injured. Uhm, without a penalty - and there are only a tiny handful of them - stunning happens at best half of the time. HT 11-12 is more typical, which means it's more like 25-37.5% of the time. Oh, and wizards throwing 9d spells aren't going to have Will under 13, and 14-15 is more likely. It's a nice thing if it happens . . . but it's not likely to happen. It's just a weird expression of surprise. Maybe it's in the same category as people who are surprised patrolling monsters don't have bags of treasure with them. Desire trumps actual knowledge of likelihood.
- I really like the confirmation roll in the GURPS module. We did have some teething issues with it as people add in a bucket of modifiers, then hit the roll, then confirm . . . and find that sometimes the auto-added penalties are already in. Sometimes the confirmation roll has a modifier from an unknown source . . . or so I hear. I didn't have any of that. I wonder if people aren't as keenly looking at, say, their chosen maneuver, or posture, or if they're in close combat or suffering from some other effect.
- We don't use Sprinting, but we did get derailed in a discussion of Tiger Sprint plus Serenity. I'll do a post on how they interact, but. It's possible Hannari was running with a sprint bonus, but we'll see - his player will read this and check. I don't use it at all, under any circumstances, but if someone wants to buy Tiger Sprint as a power-up, it'll be allowed and used per the rules in ways I'll outline in a post later this week.
- Forced Entry is, I think, the only ST roll we use. I do think it might be better to be an effect roll . . . I have to play around with that and see how I like it. Rolling damage would be a better way to handle it (and let people Slam through doors, sometimes), but it has some issues. Not the least of which is, what do I do with Forced Entry as a skill. And there are other issues, but it's worth some investigation. I'll come up with some ideas and then put them past my group. Done right, this can help simplify down to one system.
- MVP was Thor. It was a tossup between him (killing and pursuing and good-naturedly running around trying to find people) and Hannari (killing a cultist wizard and chasing another.) Thor won the die roll.
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Felltower pre-summary
Fun session today, but it didn't get resolved just yet.
- the PCs finished off the big brawl with the cultist wizards, Iron Witch of Cornwood, mechanical knights, and gnolls
- the iron witch and one cultist wizard managed to get away from the PCs
- Hannari and Thor chased the cultist wizard, split up, and spent a long time unsuccessfully persuing him
- the PCs got back together, mostly, and moved into the Iron Witch's room
Full summary tomorrow.
- the PCs finished off the big brawl with the cultist wizards, Iron Witch of Cornwood, mechanical knights, and gnolls
- the iron witch and one cultist wizard managed to get away from the PCs
- Hannari and Thor chased the cultist wizard, split up, and spent a long time unsuccessfully persuing him
- the PCs got back together, mostly, and moved into the Iron Witch's room
Full summary tomorrow.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Noble Knight Clearance Sale
Just an FYI post - Noble Knight has a clearance sale going right now.
Clearance Items
Just a trio of GURPS-related items - an issue of Pyramid, an issue of Roleplayer, and another zine of some kind. But still, worth a quick look if you have some item you're in the hunt for, especially more recent D&D and Pathfinder items.
Clearance Items
Just a trio of GURPS-related items - an issue of Pyramid, an issue of Roleplayer, and another zine of some kind. But still, worth a quick look if you have some item you're in the hunt for, especially more recent D&D and Pathfinder items.
Friday, February 14, 2025
Friday Roundup 2/14/2025
Fun stuff for a Friday. Warning: may not include actual fun.
- Ian McCullom / Forgotten Weapons takes apart a functioning replica of Deckard's pistol from Blade Runner.
- I love fishmen, so I like this paint job on a Reaper fishman.
- Some detailed analysis of the Monster Manual here. Not the old one, the newer ones.
- Next Felltower is Sunday. The conclusion of the Brotherhood Complex brawl, and we'll see what the PCs do with it. And what they talk themselves into, and out of!
- Ian McCullom / Forgotten Weapons takes apart a functioning replica of Deckard's pistol from Blade Runner.
- I love fishmen, so I like this paint job on a Reaper fishman.
- Some detailed analysis of the Monster Manual here. Not the old one, the newer ones.
- Next Felltower is Sunday. The conclusion of the Brotherhood Complex brawl, and we'll see what the PCs do with it. And what they talk themselves into, and out of!
Thursday, February 13, 2025
GURPS VTT module updated
The GURPS module for Foundry was updated.
It seems to have solved the drag-and-drop damage problem . . . I can't be totally sure because we're mid-combat. But that was a big issue in our last session.
Some other bugfixes are in there, as well . . . but I don't know how many will actually affect us.
It seems to have solved the drag-and-drop damage problem . . . I can't be totally sure because we're mid-combat. But that was a big issue in our last session.
Some other bugfixes are in there, as well . . . but I don't know how many will actually affect us.
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Diablo - Won
I finished Diablo tonight, in Normal mode, with now-25th level warrior Mirado.
- I'd forgotten that when you kill Diablo you just go to a cutscene, and then are returned to town. I'm glad I didn't need to mop up all of those teleporting wizards . . . but still, it feels very abrupt.
- The final levels were tough - it took a lot of trips, lots of potions, and almost bankrupted my guy in the process. So many witches. Sooooooo many witches. Tough when you're a melee guy without Teleport and without either mana or life steal.
- I restarted in Nightmare. Should be fun, but Hell mode is where it's really fun. I miss the days of using a trainer program to make a 50th level dude, use it to make a Hell-mode game, and dumping a too-low-level guy into it to try and survive. Ah, the good old days of hacking stuff to make it as hard as possible. I expected the early levels of Nightmare to be a bit of a slog, but at least the loot is worth more sold.
Fun game. I'm glad I messed around and got it working.
- I'd forgotten that when you kill Diablo you just go to a cutscene, and then are returned to town. I'm glad I didn't need to mop up all of those teleporting wizards . . . but still, it feels very abrupt.
- The final levels were tough - it took a lot of trips, lots of potions, and almost bankrupted my guy in the process. So many witches. Sooooooo many witches. Tough when you're a melee guy without Teleport and without either mana or life steal.
- I restarted in Nightmare. Should be fun, but Hell mode is where it's really fun. I miss the days of using a trainer program to make a 50th level dude, use it to make a Hell-mode game, and dumping a too-low-level guy into it to try and survive. Ah, the good old days of hacking stuff to make it as hard as possible. I expected the early levels of Nightmare to be a bit of a slog, but at least the loot is worth more sold.
Fun game. I'm glad I messed around and got it working.
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