Felltower: Increase Upkeep for high-point characters

Felltower allows for extra spending on upkeep in town for a bonus to all rolls in town. You pay your listed upkeep. X2 is a +1, x4 is a +2, etc.

People just won't spend extra in town willingly. So pretty much we have almost 400 point characters with nearly six figures in cash plus outstanding mundane and magical gear spending $150 a week on upkeep in town.

A solution? Increased expected cost of living based on your point value. The better you are, the better people expect you to live. For every tier or partial tier below this you spend, you get a -1 to all rolls in town. You live shabby when you're supposedly rich, and people will look down on you.

Points                            Cost of Upkeep (Option 1)     Cost of Upkeep (Option 2)
1) 299 or fewer points        $150                                             $100
2) 300-349 points               $300                                             $200
3) 350-399 points               $600                                             $400
4) 400-449 points            $1,200                                           $1,000
5) 450-549 points            $2,250                                           $4,000
6) 550 or more points      $6,000                                          $20,000

Optionally: Every additional 50 points = x2 and x10, respectively

The first is based on upkeep costs as they exist now. The second is basically saying your minimum loot for full xp is also the minimum upkeep people expect you to spend. I doubt I'd get any takes on the 2nd level but it has the beauty of being the same scale - and a reason why "we just made our look threshold" should be a relief not a reason to celebrate. You've broken even, and too many delves without loot will quickly reduce a big pile of saved cash to nothing.

The objections you'll get to this is:

- my character has Miserliness
- my character's take a vow of poverty for everything except usual adventuring gear
- my character doesn't care if anyone likes him or not
- my character is secretly wealthy and doesn't want anyone to know about it

- my character is a martial artist and cares not to spend money on worldly things (besides that x2 built into the template)

- my character is a cleric and lives a simple life at the church
etc.

Most of this is effectively BS, because there are real life people who have millions and drive a battered old car and live in a small house . . . but those aren't really an example of what adventurers do. In a dungeon delving game, you're coming back to town and cashing in $60K gear as loot, hauling up boxes of silver coins, selling off fistfuls of gems, and buying magical custom-made weapons and armor. Nevermind the dropping silver by the pound at the potion shop. This is, like it or not, very visible spending and very visible consumption. Miserly folks can save the cash but get a bad reaction roll modifier for being cheap (and merchants won't be breaking the bank stocking up gear you might need - you're probably going to say no and not buy it, tying up their capital.) Clerics can live in a monastic cell, sure, but if they tithe a huge pile of loot to the church people will treat them nicely, and if they live in a monastic cell but don't donate to the church people will know they're not a good priest. Martial artists need to support their temple or dojo or school.

I'm strongly debating going with Option 1 for Felltower. It would fit the game. I honestly expected people would spend more in town but I was wrong - no one spends a dime more than they have to, and hoard everything for dungeon gear. Sensible for a paper man, but doesn't pass the believability test.

I kept Tenkar's cursed sword

Just saying. I'm one of the people who kept the cursed sword Tenkar is talking about in this video.

Mirado the Black couldn't get enough of Woundlicker.

Skill Cap & Fixed Effect Potions

I have to get final buy-in from my players, but I think we're doing the following:

Hard Base Skill Cap of 30. No matter how you get there, the hard limit on your base skill will be 30, before any negative modifiers are factored in.

For example: DX 20, +3 DX from a potion, DX+8 in Axe/Mace, four levels of Pickaxe Penchant for a base DX 24 for this skill, and a Balanced weapon with Accuracy 3 on it. 20 + 3 + 8 + 4 + 1 + 3 = 39 skill, reduced to 30. Only now do you add in the penalties for hit location, range, bad footing, shock, etc. -4 DX from being grappled? That comes after.

This is pretty harsh, but skill 30 is already enough to inflict Deceptive Attack -7 to all defenses and still have a skill 16 - where 3-6 crits, 17 misses, and 18 critically misses.

This does mean you're not really better off getting higher than a 25-26 skill, if only to leave room for the effect of maneuvers and magical weaponry and DX potions. This isn't a mistake. Diversify. Being Broadsword-30 when you have Wrestling-14 is a design flaw. Maybe it's in-character for your guy, but still.


Fixed Effect Potions

Ability boosting consumables give +3 for 1d of listed effect.*

Healing potions are unaffected, as are any durations, damage rolls, etc.


I'll leave everything else as is.


* I know 4 is actually the average (3.5, rounded normally.) But while +4 ST is nice to have (usually +4 swing, +2 thrust), +4 DX is really amazing. +3 is good enough.

GURPS DF Session 227, Felltower 143 - Exploring the vat room & environs

Date: 11/1/2026
Weather: Cool and sunny.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (367 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (382 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (367 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (391 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (343 points)

The PCs gathered in town and went right to the dungeon.

The PCs brought the Gith Master to the dungeon with them. They'd purchases a few sets of manacles, chains, and cloth. The corpse was manacled hands and feet, then those chained together, then gagged. They added trying dumping alkahest on the corpse but that didn't kill it, so they had Duncan cast Entombment just a few yards away from the edge of the stairs down to the first level, putting it - they think - into a bubble surrounded by stone and in Suspended Animation. Vlad confidently pronounced it taken care of forever. Thor practically jumping down his throat for hubris. "The (powers that be) are listening!" (His actual words were, The GM is listening.)

After that, they headed through the well entrance and down.

Long story short, they went right to the second GFS and in. Using Flight they ferried everyone across the deathtouch floor. They began to explore, first heading back to the secret door they're spotted last time. They spent a good 20-25 minutes searching around, pushing, pressing, feeling, scanning - nothing. Only the outline of a door and no way to open it. See Secrets made them sure they hadn't missed anything but they couldn't find anything. They'd even come back later and check the floor and ceiling, too.

They used Glasswall to see a hallway beyond the wall. They tried (but failed) to see what locking or movement mechanism the door uses.

Next was the vat room. They kept a healthy distance from the vats, and Vlad and Hannari kept a close eye on it.

Meanwhile Duncan searched the walls. From 3' off the floor to 9' off the floor, all around this roughly 50 yard diameter circle, were blocks of mixed pictograms and elder tongue. Some investigation showed a few types - some starting with animals and ending with animal-men, some with humanoids ending in other humanoids. One showed just goo shapes and more goo shapes. They picked a few and had Chop give Duncan fluency with written Elder Tongue. What he read - with Speed Reading - were "recipes" for creating monsters - turning large men (not normal-height ones) into ogres, turning goblins into hobgoblins, and creating slimes, oozes and puddings (and, oddly, "mimicking" mimics.) They only did those three, but he was able to puzzle out a few more - they think. Dogs or dog-like beings into maybe gnolls, hobgoblins into something else shorter and stockier, smaller humans to knob-covered short guys (they think norkers), pointy-eared humanoids into thicker pointy-eared humanoids or - with some crystals - into humanoids with a hood over their faces (no, not a pointy hat). None of them showed six fingers.

Naturally they began to scheme to come back here with a lot of time, a lot of saved points for Duncan, and make some allies.

They left the room and moved around the level, finding a room with a balcony and a few with windows. The balcony room overlooked a salt-covered cave; the window rooms showed out onto colored crystals, a large cave, and the same large cave. All had a slight warp in the air that could barely be seen at the windows or the edge of the balcony extending to the ceiling. Yet another room with windows looked out onto a cave with three hovering Eyes of Death. They opened up Vlad and wounded him mildly, and then much more as he backed off. Vlad shot arrows back and Hannari threw some meteoric stones threw the windows at them but the dodged with ease. Chop covered everyone with Protection from Evil - one of the best spells available to a cleric in DF - and the eyes backed off. They tried to go through the windows to attack but Agar's Wand couldn't, and Hannari's attempt to reach through caused him some toxic damage that ignored his DR and his Protection from Evil. Oops. They backed out of the room.

They explored a bit more before realizing they'd linked to a known area. They indentified what they call the "teleport naked" room that tripped up a previous group.

The group went back to the balcony room and explored the other way. They found a hallway with a gentle breeze towards them. Beyond it was a room with a black hemisphere, so Vlad shot it to pieces. Past it was a blocked-up hallway with unstable walls and ceiling - not so unstable that they'd fall easily, but unstable enough that using magic to dig out the rubble seemed risky. A final room was empty, but had a "deathtouch floor" which zapped Hannari.

Incidentally, so did the balcony and the windows - the same zapping barrier they'd found near the room letting onto the eyes of death cave.

So they went back to the secret door and used Shape Earth to open up one side of it. Beyond they used Glasswall on the inner secret door and saw a room with a set of 6 levers and a set of 3 levers.

That done, they headed back home. It was late and they didn't think it was worth taking a risk - the check of the barriers told them they couldn't harvest some crystals to make their loot totals.

Notes:

Vlad originally bought a coffin for the Gith Master. Well, priced it at $500, but couldn't bring himself to spend money on it - Miserliness. He tried the "I'm not miserly when it comes to saving my life" but if it doesn't apply then, when does it? The whole game is that. Miserly only when it's optional and useless expenditures is a quirk at best. Probably not even that - it's literally a quirk with no downside. In any case, Percy bought it but the left the coffin "on the surface." Not sure if that means in the ruins or not.

For those playing along at home, Elder Tongue.

XP was 1 each for exploration - a handful of new areas, and some in-depth looks at places PCs have been before. MVP was Chop for healing and Protection from Evil.

Armed with what they learned about the vats, I think the old rumors and some previously garned information going back to 2011-2012 might make a lot more sense.

Fun session.

Felltower & Atheism disadvantage levels

Atheism in Felltower is always a disadvantage.

For an earlier discussion that underpins this, see my post on Felltower Religion & Intolerance.

Quirk-level: Thinking all magic is just magic, regardless of wether it comes from the Good God, or Nature, or wizardly Mana, is a quirk. It's seen as a misunderstanding. At worst, some (especially those with Intolerance) as a mild heresy. But it's unlikely to cause you any real trouble. It's just an oddity. Clerics react to you at a -1.

Delusion [-5] level: Characters who think there might be a big powerful being called the Good God, but that the Good God isn't the paramount diety or that the Good God doesn't have incredible power and reach, have this level of delusion. The "the Good God used to just be a powerful wizard" line of thought is this level of delusion. That the Good God exists and has powers and can provide a specific class of spells to its worshippers is provable fact. The Good God doesn't need your belief to exist. All that's required is your worship. Everyone reacts to you at a -1, clerics at a -3.

Delusion [-15] level: Not believing in the Good God as a God is a serious flaw. You'll be regarded as insane, dangerous, a heretic, and an idiot. Disbelieving in the existance of the Good God as a God is like disbelieving in rain or fire. Everyone reacts to you at a -3, and Clerics won't have better than a neutral reaction.


Believing in gods other than the Good God is fine, and isn't even a quirk. Disbelieving in them is best handed as Intolerance. Worshipping other gods is considered heretical, and is at least quirk-level and usually more like -5 level Delusion. Intolerance will handle the reactions back to that, too, and can and will stack.

Worshipping demons can get you excommunicated, but also cool powers - see Evil Clerics - but doesn't bode well for your reaction rolls in town.

DF Felltower - Caps & Limits Draft II - Further Reflections

I'm still noodling around with my ideas in this last post.

Absolute Base Skill Cap

Skills are capped at 30. Skills above 30 can be purchased, or you can end up with them thanks due to stat boosts and buffs, but any skill about 30 will be discarded before applying any modifiers.

This is not an effective skill cap, it's a base skill cap.

This seems a little fairer than Stat+10 as a limit. It doesn't matter how you get it. DX 13 and Broadsword @ DX+17 is a fair build. But when you get DX 14, you have a 30. Stipulating it's not an effective skill cap means you can't, say, get 33, absorb -2 for Bad Footing and a -1 for a foe's SM and still have a 30. You can't get 34 and just always do at least -2 in Deceptive Attack. We lock it down to 30, and then apply any situational modifiers.

Safest way to deal with this is to stop getting skill somewhere in the mid-20s, and just know that sometimes you down a DX potion and wield a Balanced sword with Accuracy 3 and end up with a 30.

There are some downsides to this, but they should only fall on folks with a massive skill who then try to pile on a lot of bonuses.

Flat Effect Potions

I'm officially promoting this one to be up for a vote. I like the +3. It's still a very nice boost. Potions are still a fantastic way to gain a large bonus for a small cost with a long duration. But they're not going to be swingy if I get a solid yes vote on these.

Fixed-Effect Feint

Resolve a Feint, Beat, or Ruse normally.

If the attacker wins by the contest, the target defends at -4.

Extreme Feints

For high-skill fighters in cinematic games, this optional rule allows them to leverage their skill further. Resolve the Feint, Beat, or Ruse normally. If the attacker wins the contest, the target defends at -4. If the attacker wins the contest by 10+, the target defends at -8.


The other option is that Feints apply normally, but you can't inflict any more than -10 on your target. That's the cap.



Finally, it might be worth a defense cap, like the one discussed here. A maximum 20 defense before modifiers would get rid of a lot of need to defense-maximize, which means I don't need to find as many high-skill foes as possible just to give them a shot at hitting high-DX foes.

We'll see what everyone thinks of these.

This last big fight wasn't ruined by high skill, but I do want to make sure limits mean people know the upper bounded limits of the system. Put the limits in that allow for such a fight as a special occasion skill blowout, but not a defacto basis for character expectations. Skill bosses will still be dangerous, and PCs won't essentially out-DX and out-skill the entire monster catalog . . . with a high cost in character points and fun and a low return on investment in effectiveness within the game.

DF Felltower - Caps & Limits Draft

This is really an attempt to head off long-term issues before they become a real problem. We're already at a point where PC skills are quite high. Do they need to be higher? I think no - I've talked about why offensively (crazy feints) and defensively (defenses so high foes can only crit fish.)

Here is where I am leaning:

Hard Skill Cap - Stat+10 limit on any/all skills.

If I do this, I may consider a Power-Up that allows you to except the limits. It wouldn't be a perk, sorry, but it would be a limited Power-Up, perhaps capped at 3 levels like a lot of the maxima-exceeding power-ups.

This way a fighter-type has a clear idea of what the most possible skill you'll ever be able to get. That's skill-35 for a thief with maxed out DX, not that anyone runs thieves in my game.

Can foes exceed this? Yeah, of course. Foes can have all sorts of stuff you can't as a PC. Deal with it. Dealing with it is part of the game.

Mundane DB sources don't stack.
Magic DB sources don't stack

This is more of a clarification - I ruled this before again and again but I am concerned people forget it when it matters, especially given the math done by the VTT "helping" us.

You can benefit at most from one source of mundane DB - a shield.

You can benefit at from one source of magical DB - Deflect or Shield spells, in general.

I expect this will generate questions about edge cases, but I honestly can't think of any. Have a shield? Get the shield DB. Have a magic shield? Get the shield DB including Deflect. Have a Shield spell? Get that, instead, if it's higher than your Fortify level on the shield you're wielding.

This was how I'd been runing it for a long time, but I am not sure if the VTT sheets can handle this. And the way my players sometimes count up bonuses by trying to get the net ("I'm +2 for Shield, but -4 for stunning, so I'm at -2") can potentially lead to a double count error (". . . and my magic shield is DB 5 so I'm at a net +3.")


I'm still undecided on fixed-effect Feints and Deceptive Attacks, if only because it gives PCs a fixed target of defenses to aim for, even higher than they generally have now. No one wants to roll less than a 16 for defenses if possible even with situational penalties. It's the downside of a "build" system instead of a class-and-level system without feats. And a Rule of 16 for defenses would be awesome but no one will accept that later in an ongoing campaign when they've worked up to higher defenses.

If my players like this, we'll consider adding another:

Fixed Potion Effects - All +1d6 buff potions are actually +3. Notably this includes Strength and Agility potions.

They'll just work with a flat effect, which will save on potion costs (people down them until they get a good roll) but also mean I don't have to deal with +5 to +6 DX in fights.

Any other limits I should give some thought to?