We played our second session of GURPS Midgaard today.
We didn't get a huge amount done, mostly due to lots of trouble with Roll20 bogging us down. We did get a lot set up for next time - tokens to use, some kinks ironed out. However, it was still fun.
Last time we killed a bunch of goblins in the antechambers of a nord crypt. We continued on in this one.
We found a narrow passage out of the small complex of room we'd cleared, and decided to send out an invisible scout. So off went Daath, our mage/thief.
Daath went ahead and scouted out a couple of rooms, invisibly, without (further) alerting the remaining goblins . . . but our scout blundered (bad Stealth check) and the goblins spotted him. There were five, engaged in some kind of necromantic ritual. They looked at him, and he started shooting. Heroic archer + double shooting put all five in the grave before the rest of us could run up to aid him.
After that, we found a tomb, and out popped a skeleton. We backed it into a corner with True Faith and then smashed it to pieces.
Heading north, after a bit of looking, we opened up a door into a wide corridor. Down the left end was a bunch of doors and a big double door that was clearly the crypt of a king. To our right were 10 doors, which screamed "killer skeletons will pop out behind us." So we headed that way. Naturally, skeletons started to smash out of the crypts to attack us. We steadily knocked off the 10 of them, with Swidbert the Warrior-Saint and my knight Tarjan Telnar just smashing them up. One managed to get in a swing, but Swidbert's mace smashed its limb off before then dispatching it.
No sooner were they down when three zombie huscarls in rusty plate busted out on the far end. We turned and moved towards them, desperately trying to keep them from cutting off our retreat path. My knight ran out ahead and then waited for them to approach, as Swidbert ran up throwing his axe and Conor (the scout) started shooting them.
Amusingly one zombie pulled the axe out of his chest and beat it against his chest, as if to dare us to come at him. So Tarjan did, and cracked him in the skull and put him down. (Tarjan has a vow to never turn down a challenge to combat.) Our poor scout suffered from a broken bowstring in the fight.
It didn't take long to mess the rest of them up, although they were tough enough to shrug off a hit or two. There was an awesome critical hit shield smash by Swidbert, and Tarjan stepped back to let him follow it up by bashing the zombie to death.
There wasn't a lot of loot this session, but we did get some armor and weapons off the huscarls.
And next game, we'll go for the "king door" as we've been calling it.
At this point we wrapped up the session.
Another fun game.
A few comments, some of which are "yeah, that happens to me too!" type stuff.
ReplyDelete1) I too find that debugging software communication issues can take up an unwholesome amount of time. Sometimes this is time well spent, while sometimes I feel like shouting "Just put your IT brains away, grab some damn dice, and roll and shout. Let's move it along people."
2) It's challenging to make Undead scary with a Warrior Saint or Saint about. This is by design, but damn - Protection from Evil (Enhanced) gives you like a Will+10 roll to back guys into corners and such. If you also have Smite - especially with Antoni's new builds allowing combined prayers and compartmentalized mind to do two at once, well, you just burn 'em down like they're not there. It's an important future-tip for GMs with that kind of might in the party.
I like how you stepped back (or Tarjan did) to give Swidbert the glory after his critical.
1) It's true. I hope we get it de-bugged. It went a lot more smoothly later, but it was never perfect.
Delete2) Undead vs. guys with True Faith or Protection from Evil are just weak. Very weak. Those are anti-undead win buttons. They just aren't a big threat.
Yeah, I didn't want to kill-steal from Antoni. Well, kill-steal any more.
I might actually consider toning down the Will roll to back them up, at least without Extra Effort or something. Right now, it's like these terrible fiends from beyond the grave are attacking with rocks and sticks against the Enterprise, who just replies "shields up" and that be that. One might also have the "run away" effect be only if the undead are not being attacked. If they are, they too get Will+10 to fight back, or even try and dogpile the Holy Guy.
DeleteI like Protection from Evil to be "run away from me, vile creatures" rather than "I shall immobilize you so we can perform euthanasia."
I'm nerfing Cadmus here as I speak, but drama is drama, and the powers as written are so one-sided as to not be terribly dramatic.
In the meantime: PfE(Enhanced)+Smite for the win.
What I have done is to divorce Power Investiture from IQ and start with a base of 10 and increase skill level at turning with each level of Power Investiture so a cleric with Power Investiture 3 has skill 13 for turning undead. He ca turn some undead some of the time but not always. With GURPS DF using IQ + Power Investiture then the cleric will have 17 for turning undead and so almost all undead have no chance so undead are not very interesting or fun.
DeleteWhat I have done is to divorce Power Investiture from IQ and start with a base of 10 and increase skill level at turning with each level of Power Investiture so a cleric with Power Investiture 3 has skill 13 for turning undead. He ca turn some undead some of the time but not always. With GURPS DF using IQ + Power Investiture then the cleric will have 17 for turning undead and so almost all undead have no chance so undead are not very interesting or fun.
DeleteTrue Faith with Turning doesn't use Power Investiture, or IQ, except in that IQ gives you better Will. It's purely Will vs. Will. Base 10 + PI isn't much different in total numbers.
DeleteAnd I personally like the fact that undead suck against clerics. I think that's completely fair. You don't need to nerf True Faith, you need to up Will on those undead that are tougher to affect. You paid 24 points for the privilege, it doesn't always work, and it takes constant concentration. It better work well when it works. If it's tough to make skeletons back off with my 250 point guy, I'm simply not going to take it, and spend 24 points on being better at killing them - Higher Purpose maxed out, say.
You are right I have modified the rules so much I forgot how turning undead works as written. Anyway, the original intent of separating IQ from Power Investiture was to stop clerics and wizards from knowing all the answers and learning super high IQ skills by default. In any case, a cleric in my rules with Power Investiture 3 can turn undead at 13 which is pretty good but still some more powerful undead can overcome this. But the fact that IQ abd Power Investiture are separate means that a cleric will have to split his points between the two and so spells will fail more often and the cleric might not know all the answers which will allow sages a chance to shine. Power Investiture can also help with resistance to evil supernatural powers. The cleric can choose to resist with his HT, Will, IQ etc or he can use his Power Investiture level , which ever is better. (A cleric with Power Investiture 4 has a 14 against evil powers from demons, evil clerics and undead). A cleric would use his normal Will against psionic mind blasting Elder Things or the terror they cause by viewing them. I just feel that if spell casters have all of their powers front end loaded with IQ then they know everything and can resist all mind attacks.
Delete