Steve Winter over at The Howling Tower posted an article on Kobold Quarterly about random encounters.
He had what might have just been a throwaway line, but which I found completely awesome:
"The tumbling dice might steer characters toward a few drunken bandits loaded with loot, or put them in the path of a rampaging hill giant driven mad by a permanent haste spell."
So, here is that Hill Giant encounter, first in AD&D terms (to honor the D&D terms used in the article) and in GURPS terms, using my own stats.
The Hasted Hill Giant.
Teves the giant has been cursed by a wizard with a permanent (AD&D: Haste; GURPS: Great Haste) spell. Living life in double time has snapped the giant's mind, and he has been rampaging around the countryside ever since. He's ravenously hungry, and quite dangerous. He'll take full advantage of his haste despite his madness, and will use ranged attacks (throwing rocks) and hit-and-run tactics whenever possible.
The giant appears a bit blurred at all times, but once slain he'll clearly be prematurely aged.
His lair is many miles away, and he's been tracking all over in his attempts to find food during the past few weeks. Tracking will be extremely difficult (AD&D: only a 10% chance, GURPS: Tracking -10) because of intervening precipitation and the length of time. Using magic to communicate with him after death may work, and he can relate his story of annoying a wizard and reveal his lair - although he only speaks Giantish and Ogre.
He carries a giant-sized club, a bag with a few rocks to throw, and some treasure (AD&D: 5,000 gp. GURPS: $5,000 in assorted gold, silver, and copper coins).
AD&D Stats: Teves the Hill Giant (AC 4, Move 24"*, HD 8+1-2, HP 37, AT 2*, Dmg 2-16/2-16, S: Rock 20" for 2-16, Catch 30%, AL: CE, Size: L)
* due to Haste
GURPS Stats: Teves the Hill Giant
ST 28 HP 28 Speed 6.00
DX 11 Per 11 Move 6/12
IQ 9 Will 9
HT 13 FP 13 SM +2
Dodge 9 Parry 9 DR 3 (see notes)
Giant-Sized Club (13): 5d+4 crushing, Reach 1-3.
Punch (13): 3d+2 crushing, Reach 1-3.
Thrown Rock (13): 3d+2 crushing, Range 16 (for a roughly 100 pound rock) or 3d-4 crushing, Range 33 (for a roughly 40 pound stone).
Traits: Acute Taste/Smell 3 (Per 14 for taste/smell); Altered Time Rate 1 (Magic); Bad Temper (12); Enhanced Move (Ground) 1; High Pain Threshold; Intolerance (everyone); Stubbornness.
Skills: Axe/Mace-13; Brawling-13; Stealth-10; Throwing-13.
Class: Mundane
Notes: Altered Time Rate is from a permanent Great Haste spell - if it's somehow removed (Dispel Magic or Counterspell won't cut it, Remove Curse or Remove Enchantment might), he immediately suffers from 5 FP loss. DR is from Tough Skin (DR 2) and hides (DR 1). Insane; will not negotiate.
The GURPS stats are roughly based on the giants from GURPS Fantasy Folk, 3e, and ones I've used for my own games, modified for him being a warrior-type. I don't normally convert treasure on a 1 AD&D gp to 1 GURPS $ basis, but for simplicity I did so here - it does make him a fairly rich haul in GURPS.
And yeah, I rolled my one d8 eight times for his HP.
His lair? Well, if you find it, he's potentially got class D treasure there . . .
Yeah, that example stood out for me too. Nice work fleshing it out. This could be an interesting general method for creating some memorable encounters: pair a monster with a randomly determined spell (not for every encounter of course, but every once in a while). From juxtaposition comes creativity!
ReplyDeleteThanks. He just screamed to be statted. I really should sit down and detail his treasure more in GURPS terms, since I think 5,000 gp in D&D doesn't really equal out to $5K in GURPS, and it's also not as interesting to me.
DeleteBut otherwise, yeah, he was pretty inspirational as a "what the hell-?" kind of surprise encounter.
I like this kind of post because it helps me bridge old school D&D with the GURPS system. I hope you do more posts where you stat out D&D monsters into GURPS terms. Maybe you could stat out some stuff from old Gygax modules like the Wall of Tentacles or King Snurre in the in the Hall of the Fire Giant King?
ReplyDeleteSpecific monsters are tough to do.
DeleteWhat's tough and takes 5-10 brutal rounds to kill in AD&D might be a one-shot kill in GURPS, and vice-versa. The hill giant above is fairly tough in AD&D, a worthy encounter for a small party, but he'd be toast (albeit interesting toast) for my current DF group in GURPS. "I parry and parry, now I Deceptive Attack him in both eyes, Rapid Strike, hit and hit. And now the other three fighters will hit him, too."
So something like Snurre or that wall is tough - I can replicate the look-and-feel or flavor of the monster but not it's specific power level. Change systems and you change what's challenging, IME.
But I will see what I can do!
The eyes are always what GURPS PCs try to hit and the combat quickly ends when they do. Anyway, King Snurre has plate armor and I would think it might provide better protection than human sized plate armor. I would think that if the giants lived in a world that has GURPS rules they would have helmets with eye protection much more often than in a world with AD&D rules where they have large numbers of hit points and you don't really target vital areas.
DeleteThe eyes are always what GURPS PCs try to hit and the combat quickly ends when they do.
DeleteTrue. Critters with normal vulnerabilities die pretty quickly in GURPS when faced by high-skill, reasonable-damage opponents. Players know this so they prize skill. It also means that normal opponents aren't much of a challenge after a while. Snurre's plate probably does have more DR, but he's just going to get stabbed in the eyes and die quickly, at least in my games. Even with eye protection, the eyes will usually have less DR, avoid Skull DR, and provide an extra benefit (loss of vision) even if the x4 for the brain doesn't finish the critter. And crits use the Critical Head Blow Table, to boot. So while eye protection would be more common it's not enough. Snurre needs a bunch of bodyguards and a healthy aversion to melee with skilled opponents!
The way I find to challenge PCs is with extraordinary creatures with extraordinary durability - things like Supernatural Durability or Unkillable with an achilles' heel, diffuse opponents or insubstantial ones, Injury Tolerance (Homogenous), extra lives, difficult defenses, etc. - make the fight a challenge to find and deal with the weak point, not just roll well against an obvious weakness.
I guess you are right about the helmet not being very effective. I ran the Giant series modules using GURPS and because of the eye attacks it became a total slaughter of the giants. When I played using AD&D when I was young I remember it was much more of a challenge and it was a great time. But with using GURPS to run DF I tend to use a lot of demons, undead and elementals to challenge my players. But I still liked monsters like ogres, trolls, giants so I didn't know what to do to make them challenging and fun. I was lucky to get an idea from Ars Magica that ogres, trolls and giantscould be fairy races and have extrordinary abilities like you mentioned above and then ogres, trolls and giants became a challenge for the PCs.
DeleteYeah, the truth is that in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, G1-3 are "mid level" adventures at best. The giants can kill a PC in a single swipe, but aren't likely to actually hit if the PCs are any good. The giants will likely die in droves as they try to mass up against the PCs. I find that humanoids are only a threat backed with magic (or anti-magical powers). I think the giants would need the drow to show up early and often to be a real threat.
DeleteAnd yeah, the idea of ogres, etc. with extraordinary powers is a good one. No one said they can't regenerate from blows from non-magical weapons, say, or all have strange powers of some sort, or have dying curses, or whatever. Sheer physical strength threats aren't so scary in GURPS unless they land a hit, but supernatural threats can always be interesting!
I've never played GURPS before, so my opinion here should not be given all that much weight, but it seems to me like eye shots are way too easy. In real fights, they are pretty much impossible even for experts unless you're a sniper with modern equipment and a good setup.
DeleteHope you don't get annoyed with this discussion but one thing about AD&D that is difficult to bring to GURPS is that bigger monsters also become better fighters with a better chance to hit. King Snurre fights as a storm giant which is a 15 hit dice monster which has equivalent hit probabilities to a 13-14th level fighter. In GURPS this would mean a very high weapon skill and would mean this guy could hit the PCs often and also be able to have a good chance of parrying attacks. The trouble with this is that an attack by King Snurre would likely seriously hurt of kill many PCs especially if his other giant friends have high weapon skills as well. As for what I have tried to use for giants being fairies was that they had no vitals and they could regenerate and if they were in fire then it was much more rapid.
DeleteI've never played GURPS before, so my opinion here should not be given all that much weight, but it seems to me like eye shots are way too easy.
DeleteThey're not easy - they are -9 skill. A person with 15 skill hits the anywhere on 98.1% of the time, but they only hit the eyes on a 6 or less (9.3%) in otherwise perfect conditions. Bad lighting, bad footing, injury, etc. can reduce this further. And the opponent gets to defend.
The thing is, smart fighters will stack those odds. You can increase your skill, you can negate those other penalties, you precede the attack with defense-reducing methods (stunning, surprise, feints/beats/ruses/deceptive attacks) or otherwise get bonuses to hit and make it more likely. If that attack will win the fight if it lands and other attacks won't, it's worth going for in many cases.
In a realistic level game, going for the eyes is hard at best and risky at worst. In a heroic game, where people are running true weapon masters who fight and kill horrid monsters for a living, it should be easier - and it effectively is by dint of the attackers being better fighters.
Hope you don't get annoyed with this discussion but one thing about AD&D that is difficult to bring to GURPS is that bigger monsters also become better fighters with a better chance to hit.
I don't mind at all. And this is spot-on accurate! In D&D, increased hit dice means you're harder to kill and a better fighter. GURPS splits those up, so you really do need to make "high level" opponents both better fighters (higher skill, better defenses) and tougher to kill (more HP, more DR, more injury tolerance in general). The problem is when you don't do both, opponents can be easy meat for skilled attackers. But if you do do both, they can be extremely lethal. As you probably know already GURPS leaves that "you can die in any given fight" thing at all levels of play, which isn't quite the case in AD&D.
I like the fire giants regenerating in fire. That's very cool. They'd probably train their hellhound pets to breathe on them when they're hurt. :)
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ReplyDeleteMy thoughts on this "attack the eyes" nonsense is that it wouldn't be an effective strategy against giants. Keep in mind that your fighters are probably 6' tall (less for non-humans) swinging swords and maces at the eyes of giants that stand 12'+ tall:
Cloud 20' in B/X D&D, 24' in AD&D 2E, 18' in D&D 3E/d20
Fire 16', 18', 12'
Frost 18', 21', 15'
Hill 12', 16', 10.5'
Stone 14', 18', 12'
Storm 22', 26', 21'
Titan 21'-30', 25'+, 25'
Missile weapons and long weapons like polearms could be used, but typical warriors' favorite melee weapons would not grant enough reach to hit a giant's eyes. The only one might be the 3E hill giant which is about as tall as an AD&D ogre.
I also think that in addition to being harder to do (GURPS: -9 skill; AD&D 2E: -4 to hit), focusing so tightly on a small target should penalize the attacker's defense (GURPS: dodge, parry, block; AD&D: armor class) significantly.
I hope thread necromancy doesn't offend you. I just discovered your blog and am loving it!
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts on this "attack the eyes" nonsense is that it wouldn't be an effective strategy against giants. Keep in mind that your fighters are probably 6' tall (less for non-humans) swinging swords and maces at the eyes of giants that stand 12'+ tall:
Cloud 20' in B/X D&D, 24' in AD&D 2E, 18' in D&D 3E/d20
Fire 16', 18', 12'
Frost 18', 21', 15'
Hill 12', 16', 10.5'
Stone 14', 18', 12'
Storm 22', 26', 21'
Titan 21'-30', 25'+, 25'
Missile weapons and long weapons like polearms could be used, but typical warriors' favorite melee weapons would not grant enough reach to hit a giant's eyes. The only one might be the 3E hill giant which is about as tall as an AD&D ogre.
I also think that in addition to being harder to do (GURPS: -9 skill; AD&D 2E: -4 to hit), focusing so tightly on a small target should penalize the attacker's defense (GURPS: dodge, parry, block; AD&D: armor class) significantly.
It would and wouldn't work.
DeleteA Reach 1,2 weapon in GURPS will extend the reach of that 6' guy up to 12', and it can be extended to 15' with a long lunge using All-Out Attack (Long) or Great Lunge (Extra Effort in combat).
Size will make the eyes bigger, so the larger the giant, the easier to hit. So an SM+2 giant would have the eyes targeted at -9, +2 for his size, so -7. That's not that hard to absorb as a penalty.
The height difference would apply, too, for combat at different levels.
Also, Fly spells. Just sayin'.