Monday, September 2, 2019

GURPS DF Session 120, Felltower 92 - Entering the Forest Gate


Date: Sunday, September 1st, 2019

Weather: Moderately hot, clear, sunny.

Characters:
Dryst, halfling wizard (463 points)
Crogar, human barbarian (268 points)
Galen Longtread, human scout (409 points)
Gerald Tarrant, human necromancer (355 points)
     5 Skeletons (~35 points)
     Skull Spirit (?? points)
Quenton Mudborne, goblin druid (265 points)
Wyatt Sorrell, human swashbuckler (265 points)
Ulf Sigurdson, human cleric (265 points)

The PCs gathered in town, having spent a good bit of money on potions, spell stones, and some assorted mundane items they felt they needed to deal wtih the Forest Gate, their stated destination. They also had concern about how to deal with the "mold" - the yellow-brown gunk on the floor near the gate, and equipped themselves with push-brooms and some crystal vials for mold samples. Wyatt wanted a crystal spoon, since crystal vials seem immune to so much hostile matrial, but nothing of that delicacy was available. They passed on getting any NPCs because Raggi was not around (after last session's debacle from his point of view) and Orcish Bob was already grumpy from the lack of loot last session.

They made their way to the top of the mountain and then down the trap door entrance into Felltower. From there, they made their way to the next level, hurried away from some skittering and chittering noises too big to be rats, down the giant staircase, and then to the "apartment level." They came out into a scene of semi-recent carnage - blood splatters, bits of broken weapons, and even a half of a helmet. They bothered Dryst until he agreed to cast History on the helmet, for a one year lookback (as they didn't want to risk missing anything.) He saw a lot of an orc wearing the helmet, cooking in it, hitting other orcs with it, sitting on it, etc. and then getting his head split open by a norker-held axe.

They headed toward the gate from there, with Galen in the lead. The close air of the level didn't debilitate anyone - thanks to Luck in some cases - but it wasn't pleasant. Even so, they made it unmolested to "yellow mold" room. The room was actually coated with some sticky yellow-brown gunk, not mold - none of those who'd encountered it last time still lived to pass along that correction. Either way, Quenton was able to identify it as an herbicide - a virulent plant-killing contact poison. Not especially harmful to non-vegetable life, but nothing you wanted to get onto your skin or into your ears, nose, or eyes. They scooped some of the sticky stuff up into the empty crystal vials to hopefully use as a weapon.

They crossed the gunk and reached the portcullis and pits. Crogar wasn't able to lift the 1500 pound portcullis by himself - it took him, Galen, and Wyatt all using extra effort (plus an assist from Quenton Mudbourne) to lift it; Silence kept that quiet. Ulf hammered in all four of his iron spikes to keep it open and they then face the twin 20' wide pits. Ultimately they used Walk on Air on the non-casters (who carried skeletons) and Levitate by the two wizards. Once across, they touched down and moved into the wooded cave. They rested for a good ten minutes or so, while Wyatt and Galen checked for tracks and found clear evidence of what must have been vegepygmies and thornies, but old prints of both. While Galen joined the others to rest, Wyatt decided to circle the gate area on his own.

He didn't get far before he got disoriented, and wasn't able to find his way forward or back. After he didn't return Galen led the group after him and found him in short order. Everyone, save Galen, felt a little disoriented. Galen was able to lead them back. Going to the gate was no problem, however, and they found it, faintly shimmered between two poles of living wood.

Dryst cast Scry Gate but saw only a forested area of strange plants with a path leading away. So Crogar rushed in and the rest quickly followed. They felt a twisting feeling - Dryst failed HT and took 1 HP of injury. All of their spells stayed up, however.

Beyond the gate was a large clearing, some 40-50 yards wide and maybe a bit less deep, not quite square and not quite sharp-edged, with two paths leading out. The clearing had earth and sparse grass. The plants grew in a tight tangle but ended abruptly along the edge of the clearing. The air was warm-to-hot and humid, but the air felt odd. It smelled heavily of overly-sweet flowers, too-ripe fruit, rotting plants, humidity, damp earth, and unpleasant odors of all kinds. The plants were quite alien, superficially resembling plants "back home" but nothing they could identify. They were all bigger than seemed appropriate - bushes were unusually tall and reached up to man-sized, trees substantially taller than most trees back home, etc.

The gate was nowhere to be seen - clearly, a one-way gate. They've dealt with those before, so this didn't really bother them.

Quenton cast Know Location but couldn't identify his proximity to anything he knew. Galen couldn't find north. He was sure he could navigate as usual, but didn't have any sense of which cardinal direction was what. There was no sun in the blue sky, just a diffuse sunlight-like light everywhere. They arbitrarily designated a direction "North" (based roughly on the facing of the gate they entered and how they faced when they arrived) and used that to navigate from there. (All directions hereafter follow that arbitrary decision.)

Dryst immediately cast Seek Earth, seeking after gold, and located some a few hundred yards northwest of their current position - he received a vision of a gold-wrapped sword stabbed into earth. They immediately headed "west" along a pathway between the strange plants. They spotted a narrow path to the south but ignored it and headed north, and kept winding their way through the paths - sometimes as narrow as 3-4 yards, but mostly a good 8-10 yards wide, sometimes wider.

They wound their way around the pathways, and found a clearing with water seeping up from below. A servant was sent to explore and test the water but nothing molested him. They saw movement on the far side of the clearing - seven man-shaped figures with two dog-shaped figured. Vegepygmies and thornies, they decided (correctly.) They watched them. Wyatt wanted Galen to shoot them, but most of the group didn't want to start a fight when they didn't have to. The vegepygmies made their way west and moved out of sight.

Around this time they decided to scout "up" and sent up Galen with Walk on Air and Invisibility. He walked up and looked around, and determined that the trees went up from 40', 70, even 80' and higher in many places. He could see trees in all directions but clearly the "swamp forest" (as Crogar was calling it) was bounded in all directions, making it a box or dome of some kind. He could see birds, mostly in flocks, but a few overly-large birds flying alone. No sun, just blue sky in all directions.

Some birds, like hook-beaked "crows," seemed to laugh at the PCs. They eventually flew off when they tried to mimic sounds back at the birds.

They found their way to a clearly with spiderwebs along one pathway out, and a mold-rotted range of trees and bushes to the NW. Hoping to get closer to the treasure, they tried out their herbicide. It worked, but it was hard to get out and use. So Quenton tried his new Wither Plant spell on the mold and it worked. It was clear the mold wasn't healthy but probably only mildly harmful, and then only if you let it get into your eyes, mouth, nose, or ears.

Naturally, this meant sitting down and calculating how many castings of wither Plant, at what size, would be reasonable to carve a path through the mold. This turned out to be around 35 castings. They did so, slowly, resting as needed and using Lend Energy to fuel more castings. As they carved a path through, killing the mold down to the rotten dead plants below, they realized they were being watched. Some more vegepygmies - the same ones? Came and stared at them in an obvious fashion. They didn't cause any trouble but kept looking until the PCs were mostly across, and then left.

Once past, they made their way toward the sword again. They passed a mixed of different kinds of trees, include a big stand of "willow" trees that moved steadily and slowly as if in a breeze despite the still air. They pass them, and threaded a narrow path between them and a pond from which they heard weirdly distorted croaking and the occassional loud "GRONK!" noise.

They located the sword in a big field of Venus flytrap-like plants surrounded by buzzing giant flies of mottled hues and weird markings that were all of 2' or so with a 3'+ wingspan (and around 20-30 pounds). They decided to avoid the flytraps, hopefully by sending someone underground with Walk through Earth and then have that person come up, grab the sword, throw it, and then come back underground.

They put Earth Vision on Galen. The "earth" was only 6-10' feet deep in this area, and it was riddled with roots like a pot-bound plant. There were so many roots under the field (although not for a few feet under the "path") that it would be impassible without also having Walk through Plants. They gave up on that.

Galen shot one of the flytraps, and it waved over in their direction but didn't seem especially bothered by the arrow. He shot another into its "mouth" and that didn't bother it any more.

So naturally they shot the same plant with a Fireball and then a Sunbolt, scorching it badly. That caused black clouds to form overhead. They went back to charging up spells and a bolt of lightning came out of the sky and zapped Crogar for 6d (doing only a little injury). "Why me?" moaned Crogar. They avoided fire spells after that, and Dryst put Resist Lightning on almost everyone.

Some of the flies attacked at this time. Galen shot most of them down pretty quickly, and Wyatt stabbed one to death, but Crogar wasn't so lucky. Once flew up to him and bit him in the face, critically. He tried to cut it off with his axe and critically missed and hit himself in the leg and crippled it. He dropped down with a fly on him. It didn't last with Wyatt and Galen nearby.

Back to the drawing board, they healed Crogar and then they tried killing the wounded plant with Stone Missile and then with Crogar rushing it and cutting it up. That worked, and he managed to finish it off. This triggered more flies, which were killed. Galen proactively shot down all of the flies he could see. They were big and slow, relatively, and although they had a reasonable Dodge he was able to finish them quickly.

They figured out which plants were within reach of the sword or the path to the sword. So they planned on basically using Haste, Great Haste, and some other defensive buffs to make Wyatt or Galen able to run over, grab the sword, and then run back. Ulf argued that it was simpler to just toss the dead flies at the flytraps to get them to snap closed on them. They tried with one off to the side, and it caught the fly and stayed closed. A number of plants they could see had closed maws, so it was reasonable to think they'd stay closed for a while.

So they basically tossed flies to the flytraps, and then sent Wyatt in with all of those spells on. He threw flies while Great Hasted and then grabbed the sword. One plant he missed widely so it tried to grab him, instead. It snapped on empty air as he Dodged. He ran back with the sword.

It turned out to be a magical, ornate broadsword. Another Seek Gold showed gold still where the sword was.

So they ended up retrieving another fly, tossing it to the one flytrap in reach that wasn't fed, and then having Crogar dig and chop roots with Wyatt guarding him until they found 21 sp and 2 gp and some rusted bits of gear and clothing. They took that, too.

They cast Seek Earth first on gold (none) and silver (some to the north, hundreds of yards away.)

From there, they started to head north when night fell. Like a dimmer switch, it went from "noon daylight" to "full moon night" in five minutes. It was night. They covered their lightstones, accepting a flat -2 to vision instead of a -0 and then a -3 out to 40' and then relative night-blindness. Deciding to press on and not rest, despite the fact that it was at least 14 hours since they'd walked out of the gates of Stericksburg (and longer since they'd risen). They steadily got more tired but kept on. The noises and smells changed radically at night - weird hoots, more GRONKs from the pond, warbling insects, etc. It was loud.

They kept going until they reached a river almost 100' wide, lined with mangrove-like trees on the far side and with a few on this side, crossed by a bridge.

They checked the area and found it was very, very quiet. Also, they found vegepygmy tracks going E-W and W-E and S but nothing to the bridge. So they headed north, carefully. About 1/3 of the way across the bridge they found out why it was quiet. Each and every one of them felt a pull, a desire to jump into the water. Nixies (aquatic pixies in AD&D name) or a magical river, either way. They all resisted and ran full tilt for the shore. They managed to make the shore. They kept going. Tired from the run, and it being even later now, they decided to camp in the middle of the large field-like clearing they'd reached.

They set up watches, and Forest Warning, and camped. Nothing molested them, although it was very noisy. They planned to sleep in late to make up for sleep missed to shifts, but the rapid change to full noon daylight didn't allow for that. They all woke short on FP and sleep. They also all suffered terrible nightmares - of being eating alive by swarming bugs, their friends eating fruits from the strange plants and then murdering them, dying of thirst, dying strangled by plants, etc. Crogar was badly affected (-2 FP, -1 Will) but the others managed to make it though. It didn't bode well for long-term stays. They ate only the food they brought and drank on water created by Create Water but even so, rest and supplies may be an issue.

They continued to explore north, and used the Walk on Air bit to send Galen up to scope out the location of the silver. He spotted a U-shaped area of smaller trees surrounded E-S-W with larger trees and tangled brush. The silver was there. They just had to find a way to it. They headed West and eventually found a cul-de-sac with a beautiful field surrounded by nasty, warped alien trees (perhaps) covered with shelf-like rippling fungi. The field had lush green grass, and a kaleidoscope of wildflowers in brilliant hues. All of it was from home. The gate back, perhaps? Quenton ran in . . . and disappeared. So they sent Ulf in next, and he disappeared as well.

Dryst put See Invisible on himself and then Galen. They could see the fields but saw a sleeping Ulf being dragged by his heels by two antler-headed 3" people with butterfly wings. Four more flew around Quenton, who was awake but clearly fascinated by these little people.

Galen shot down the two pulling Ulf. They died screaming and broke up into dust. The others shrieked, alarming Quenton. Galen shot at two more and killed one and missed the other. The other three dove for cover and the field showed itself as blackish grass without flowers. Quenton was not happy. He used up almost all of his FP casting Wither Plants to wipe out a good chunk of the field. He then walked out, not looking back at the destruction he'd caused. So much for vegetable rights and peace. They looked for the other three that fled but couldn't see them, and moved on.

They made it around the trees finally, and found a "wall." it was a flat wall of stone or metal of some unknown type. It couldn't be cut with Wyatt's knife, and it made a weird clunk when hit with it. It couldn't be scored or marked, and it didn't spark. It was just an odd grey color.

They made it to the U-shaped area they sought, and it was covered on top with a canopy of trees and around front with a woven wall of vines clearly grown into a living barrier. 20' up was a pair of well-concealed "doors" in the vines.

They sent Wyatt up with Walk on Air and a portable ladder. A thorn-tipped javelin poked out of a opened hole in the "door" of vines and stabbed at him. He dodged back and dropped the ladder. He tried talking but only heard thumping noises.

Dryst cast Gift of Tongues on him for vegepygmy.

This worked, sort-of, getting the "spoken" portion of their communication. They were alerting each other to danger from without.

Wyatt thumped back "friends" and "travelers."

The vegepgymies inside thumped back something like "Who?" and then "Friends of Tree?"

Wyatt said "Don't understand."

"Friend of Tree?"

They repeated it. The partly encouraged Wyatt to say yes, so he thumped back "Friend of Tree."

The vegepygmies thumped away "Friends of Tree! Danger!" and thorns started growing in patches on the doors. The party heard thorny growls, too.

So they backed off, because a) it was late in the real world and b) they were sure if they wanted to force the issue or not.

They headed west and found a big pile of dirt. Suddenly, two big bugs bored out of the earth and attacked - ankhegs. They were lightning-quick on the defense and fast and strong on offense. Crogar was immediately bitten and tried to parry - bad move, it was too heavy and knocked his axe aside and bit his arm and crippled it. He dropped the axe. Wyatt dodged a blast of acid from one. Galen started to shoot.

Basically, Ulf tried to heal Crogar, Galen kept shooting one in the eyes with limited effect, Wyatt kept stabbing with the same. Quenton created a mound of earth to hide behind and then stepped out to blast one with Lightning and stunned it. They eventually cut them down with the help of Great Haste on Wyatt, despite him straining his shoulder on one blow early on, more arrows from Galen, and a Stone Missile from Dryst.

The ankhegs slain, we ended the session.

Notes:

History is a useful spell, but it's possible to overdo it. If you zoom in too closely (a day, a month) you might miss something. Zoom back to far (a year, or use Ancient History) and you might get only a glimpse of the actual past you're interested in. It's not necessarily a case of "more is better." Its existence means I have to know what every single thing I put in the dungeon has been up to for years, even, or at least an idea of it.

As soon as the PCs got through the gate and determined it a confined environment, they started to guess where they were. "We're on a spaceship. Didn't you ever play Metamorphosis Alpha?" said Galen's player. Wyatt's opined it was a Dyson Sphere. Clearly, their PCs hang out in a weird bar in Stericksburg.

I'll argue that GURPS doesn't really need a lot of heavy math, but it does require a lot of adding and subtracting and counting. Unless you've got a bunch of spellcasters, Lend Energy, and a problem they perceive solvable with multiple spell castings. Then you've got a lot of math - energy/time/cost calculations and how to divvy it all up efficiently. My players do this very well, so I just tune out and let them figure it out. But still, it's not the best part of gaming.

The logic of wyatt's "tree" answer was, "If someone asks if you're a god, you say yes." Clearly, this wasn't what the vegepygmies hoped to hear. At least they didn't go with the truth, which was "you have treasure, can we come in and loot it?" Maybe they'd changed their minds but they headed there with lootish intent in the first place.

MVP for the session was Ulf for the "feed them dead flies" idea, which was naturally coupled with the "cast every spell we can think of on one guy and have him run in" plan. No other XP because the delve isn't over yet.

Overall, this was fun. It's a mix of a few sources I quite liked but none of which I thought executed their ideas quite the way I would. The PCs are after treasure, though, and it seems sparse here. We'll see if they can find the way home next time.

16 comments:

  1. "(plus an assist from Quenton Mudbourne)"

    Quenton isn't on the cast list? Was this a case repeated mistaken identity (remembered which Player but not which Character)?


    "Crogar was immediately bitten and tried to parry - bad move, it was too heavy and knocked his axe aside and bit his arm and crippled it. He dropped the axe."

    Seriously Crogar, when are you going to invest in some decent arm armor?


    "Wyatt's opined it was a Dyson Sphere."

    Wyatt, my man, it's too small for a Dyson Sphere, clearly it's a vegepygmy Dark City, being run by the evil Faes (pronounced like Greys).


    "At least they didn't go with the truth, which was "you have treasure, can we come in and loot it?""

    That might have worked, I mean what do vegieguys need with inedible metal disks anyway?


    "We'll see if they can find the way home next time."

    So they've established that portals in are //never// portals out? Because there is no mention of them checking on this one.

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    1. I forgot to add Quenton to the list, that's all.

      Crogar is a shirtless savage, so he's got 7 DR without anything on at all. It's just he does a LOT of damage. And so do the monsters.

      The gate disappeared behind them. I forgot to mention that. That's fairly common, it didn't phase them.

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    2. "Crogar is a shirtless savage"

      Ah. Yeah... that's an expensive 'mistake'. At least that's how I term it as the Player tends to start following the sunk cost fallacy, "Well, I spent 10 exp on my 5 DR, so I'm not getting armor until I can afford Plate..." in the meantime there are a lot of crippled limbs and deaths. Of the three PCs I've seen with it, only one is still alive... and think that's down to (a) being in only one adventure so far and (b) having DR 10/12 (Tough Skin; Everything/Crushing Only).

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    3. Armoring him up will cost a lot of money, and a lot of weight - he's SM+1. Getting DR 8 armor - effectively, getting +1 DR - will dramatically impact his resources and his mobility. Anything less would be a net negative. He doesn't have a lot of resources and wants to maintain his mobility. It comes with costs, but doesn't everything?

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    4. He only needs DR 6 armor though, right? He has to "replace" the DR 5 from Shirtless Savage, not the two he gets from Barbarian.

      But yeah, even then, heavy and expensive. There's a reason my Ogress Shirtless Savage Barbarian/Wrestler doesn't wear any armor... but she also has DR 10/12 (Tough Skin; Everything/Crushing) and 32 HP, so she doesn't quite have Crogar's disadvantage.

      I wasn't sure if you were keeping the SM 1 once you switched over to DFRPG or not. I couldn't remember what you'd decided oh so long ago.

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    5. You're right, DR 6 would do.

      I give people the option of the DFRPG or DF1 templates, but the larger barbarians are popular if you're going Shirtless Savage anyway.

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    6. @evileeyore: Peter addressed some of these already, but I had already typed this out and it didn't post!

      1. Quenton is so small and gobliny, sometimes we forget to mention him in the tales.

      2. Crogar has something like DR 7 all over (shirtless savage almost maxed out), but he hits for 3d+7, and he did something like 23 or 24 cutting damage. That was harsh. Lucky he didn't cut it off.

      3. Whatever it is, it ain't natural.

      4. True--perhaps the Vegepygmys would like something eliminated in exchange for that useless metal. Maybe Ulf needs to speak to them. He's an honest cleric, after all.

      5. The portals to Olympia and here were one-way. The portals to the Lost City and the Plane of Air (or whatever, from the "Air Gate") were two-way. I can't recall if the group went through any other portals.

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    7. And 7 DR isn't nothing. It's not high, but it's not low. I don't want to encourage the idea that DR 7/9 on a maxed-out barbarian (Shirtless Savage DR 5, 2 tough skin, 2 vs. crushing only) is somehow insufficient for a front-line fighter. You'll have to expect to take some damage but you need to then leverage your higher Move and better Dodge to make sure DR is a backup, not a basis of your survival.

      If we start thinking DR 7/9 is low, then Swashbucklers and Martial Artists start being second-line combatants or need to armor up to plate or better just to keep up. And I think that's a mistake.

      Not to pick on evileeyore, just to get this down - DR 7 is substantial.

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    8. "Not to pick on evileeyore, just to get this down - DR 7 is substantial."

      It is, however it's just poor Crogar keeps getting walloped for waaaaaaay more than his DR can handle. He needs to find some way to armor up... maybe magic bracers that work with his Shirtlessness like an Iron Arms Amulet, or Ferocious Arm Hair, or Naked Rage... I bet he's saving for Naked Rage isn't he?


      Also, in my experience, once your heavy armor types (Knight, HW, Barb) get truly armored up (DR 6+), the skilled fighters hit their stride (combat skills in the low 20's), and start hitting for 20+ injury, Martial Artists fall from the front line. They just can't 'competently' keep up and hold the line.

      However, they are always /excellent/ skirmish fighters, honestly I think they fit that role better than any other template as they can adapt to their foes better than the other speedy templates, have good 'controller' options, and work well in one on one and in mob fights.

      And let them learn the ancient art of Giant Throwing (a technique for using Power Blow with Thrown Weapons) and they can /rock/ out with the Scouts on demoralizing foes at a distance!

      (As you might notice, I dislike that Power Blow was nerfed to be melee only in DFRPG...)

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    9. I have no idea what he's planning to save for. He operates on a big shorter of a horizon than the older players generally do.

      Really, Luck will make a big difference for him. He's generally gotten walloped in two cases:

      - I roll a critical hit against him

      OR

      - he chooses poorly on a tactical decision (Parry when you're not sure it will work, instead of Block or Dodge, or Block when Dodge is much surer, for example.)

      Otherwise he's run pretty well and does well. Except for all of the 3s and 4s I roll against him on turn 1 of fights, which is hard to control without 15 points to spend . . .

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    10. 7 DR pretty much puts noodly foes on ice. ST 10 Muggle with a broadsword simply cannot touch you

      Less noodly foes can hurt you, and some stuff simply does so much damage or ignores DR

      How much DR one should have given limited resources is quite the mystery. Plate or bust seems a common idea, the not plate armors are so heavy for their DR it doesn't quite seem worth it, go naked and try to dodge.

      Plate is really expensive, so you do end up with non plate use, but regarded as like a plague when it happens

      Cool loot changes that, if you find a sweet chain shirt it is good to wear!

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  2. Just an aside;Evileyore's igress just beat a flame lord to death bare handed, with the aid of resist fire. The party mages need some cold spells, and while one is a generalist (a half ogre now npc'd since his player left while the team was away from the base) the other is a fire mage with minors in earth and enchantment, and has a lot of spells to learn before she gets hold of cold magic.

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    1. Ulf kicked a flame lord to death with the help of Resist Fire . . .

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    2. Unarmed Flame Lord Killing Pals for life!

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  3. I wonder: how did you resolve the 35 castings of Wither Plant and the accompanied Lend Energys?

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    1. Lend Energy doesn't take any rolls, so that was easy. But the player sat and rolled all 35 of those Wither Plant castings and I rolled for encounters as time ticked by in the game.

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