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Friday, May 29, 2020

Thoughts on Holy Warriors

I'm supposed to be prepping for game at the moment. But a couple people mentioned Holy Warriors on our game email chain, and I had some thoughts having seen a few made - and made a few myself.

Here are the notes I wrote, plus some general tips.

- you can "specialize" in both Undead and Demons, but I'd pick one or the other and emphasize that. It's hard to be good at fighting both demons and undead. And if you're going to specialize, really go for it - you can get a +3 instead of a +1 to your "to hit," damage, parry, and resistance rolls against one of those classes of foe right away for a mere 15 total points - 5 of which are mandatory for your template anyway. My opinion is that it's no good to be slightly better vs. a foe instead of maximally better. A Holy Warrior with Broadsword-16, Shield-16, a Medium Shield, and Higher Purpose 3 has a Parry of 16 and Block 16 against your specific foe, and with base ST do 2d+3 cutting or 1d+5 impaling and swing at a 19, and with your skills aim for weak points other delvers just can't target. Be really good at fighting the one foe, so you can more than hold your own when they show up. You can't turn down a fight with that type, but were you? Seriously, delver up here. As my friend Ken would say, you'll need to put your big boy pants on and do what needs to be done.

All of that said, one good way to "do both" is to spend some of your Quirk points on Hidden Lore, Physiology, and Psychology for the other type. Then it's merely a matter of buying up Higher Purpose for the other type later on as you earn points. It takes 3 points to get a start on each of them, and then 5 points later to get your +1.

- Combat Reflexes isn't a required Holy Warrior trait but probably should be. Don't be a fighter type without it. You'll regret it.

- Will is a strong point for Holy Warriors. Don't sleep on that; you can resist a lot of evil effects and non-evil ones as well. Consider beefing it up.

- Consider Fearlessless or go all-out with Unfazeable (which provides out-and-out immunity in most cases.) My PCs have dealt with a lot of Fright Check-inducing foes recently. Fright Checks are capped at 13 (14+ fails) without the Brave perk, which raises the cap to 14 (15+ fails). Unfazeable just works. Given my choice, I'd plunk down the 15 points and give a two-fingered salute to demons, undead, and Elder Things with Terror auras. This is a power that can set you apart.

- When it comes to powers, it's worth considering what you'll be doing. Divine Favor is worth it - get a +1d to ST or DX, say, for 9 points, or 18 for +1d to both. Turning is 24 points, but it does involve you presenting a holy symbol, winning a Quick Contest, and then just standing there. Odds are, when you really want it to work, it's going to fail in the face of Low or No Sanctity* or special exemptions due to place or powers. If you take it, expect when it's time to fight undead you're going to be warding them off, not finishing them off. That's how one Holy Warrior went down in my game, too - trying to turn undead and failing, when the party really needed another sword. Sense powers are very good overall, though, and can help keep you on track.

- Avoid the temptation to out-Knight the Knight. In other words, load up on Combat Reflexes, High Pain Threshold, ST, DX, more HP, Enhanced Parry, etc. The idea is sound - most of your opponents are likely to be other than demons or undead, so be good at fighting them. But I think this is a trap. You won't be half as good at fighting normal human types as a Knight with Weapon Master or a Swashbuckler, for that matter. Your ST, DX, and weapon skills will lag. You will have less attacks doing less damage. Be better at doing what you do, don't try to do better at what they do. You'll never keep up against "normal" foes, so you need to make up for it in your specialty.

Anyone else experienced making 250-point DF / DFRPG Holy Warriors with an opinion here?


* In my games, anyway, Low Sanctity affects some Holy powers, and No Sanctity negates many of them entirely. That's not per the books, but it makes perfect sense for many of them - if your god has no power somewhere, and your power comes from your god, you have no power. If you take the approach that it's your faith in your god that brings the power, and faith alone, not your god's abilities to affect an area, that allows for those effects, then Sanctity in any direction shouldn't matter. Both are valid, but only the first one is correct in my current game.

12 comments:

  1. A note on Turning and other Holy abilities - Low or No Sanctity don't matter for them! The -10% Holy power modifier is *just* a code of behavior: as long as you've observed that, your power works, without penalties, no matter how tainted the surroundings. This is one of the Holy Warrior (and Cleric's) big strengths!

    This can make Holy Might a strong investment even at the 250-point level: at 12 points, a divine servant is a powerful ally, and DF7 offers some other interesting options.

    Shameless plug: Holy Warriors looking for even more holy might can grab Hand of Asgard for the DFRPG; the powers there are compatible with GURPS Dungeon Fantasy just fine.

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    1. Campaign switches matter - in my game No Sanctity means no turning, and some undead resist better in Low Sanctity. I should note that above.

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    2. I'm with Peter on this one (and thought that that's how it worked RAW), but I just double checked DFRPG, and by RAW, yeah, Holy Abilities aren't tied to Sanctity to work at all.

      I've been running with Sanctity giving bonuses and imparting penalties to most Holy Abilities, but now I'm giving this a bit of a rethink.

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  2. One thing I've done to expand Holy Warriors is allow "Holy Slayers", basically importing over the Slayer abilities. This requires they have that Higher Purpose speciality at level 2 to start picking up Slayer abilities. I've also dropped Born Leader and Higher Purpose as "required" and put them in the "can buy" list (to make starting as a Holy Slayer easier).


    This of course means I don't need a DF Denizens Holy Warriors book anymore... still awaiting the long overdue Thief and ... emmm... maybe Bard (?) books.

    Clerics basically have a book; Knights and Scouts don't seem to need one; Druids have options with Allies, Summoners, and Clerics in the mix; and Martial Artists have an entire book you can draw from if you need. Oh yeah, and Wizards aren't likely to ever run out of options just in their own template, though if necessary I allow them to branch over to Scholar if they want to more 'Sagey' than 'kabomby' (and Allies and Summoners exist for those who want as well as Magical Styles Dungeon Magic).

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    1. Slayer abilities from "Psychic Swords Against Elder Evil" in Pyramid 3/76? Or something else?

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    2. DF 20 Slayers. Undead, Demon, and Mage Slayers.

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    3. We're not using DF20, which is probably part of the confusion. I skipped it for the time being because I knew I don't want to add more templates to Felltower.

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  3. 3+ years into a DF campaign, and the Holy Warrior there saw so much more use out of Healing than Turning it wasn't even funny. The ability to get yourself back in the fight for a concentrate action really shouldn't be underestimated. As you said, burning multiple turns doing little but fend things off is often a bad call. Most of the time, you gotta kill them eventually, might as well get busy doing that.

    Resistant to Evil Supernatural Powers is worth every point. I had it applying to Terror from demons and such as well, that might not be RAW (and it pushed resistance roll above the 13 cap, again, might not be RAW, but then I let Higher Purpose push above the 13 cap too).

    Detect Evil got used so much I actually had to design myself a cone template with range bars to get a sense of where the Holy Warrior could detect stuff through walls and such. The player loved it though.

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    1. Limit-breaking resistances shine if you expect Rule of 16-based challenges or penalized rolls. Then it's worth a lot more than the points you put in it in those cases.

      I do believe it does affect Terror, if it's an innate power of a Truly Evil foe. The description in DFRPG is pretty clear on what it covers and I can't see how that wouldn't fall under its protections. We did have "it will help against hostile spells!" confusion, but only from people being helpful by not reading the ability and then extrapolating from the name what it might do.

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  4. DF 20: Slayers has a 250pt template for anti demon/undead/mage types that grant doodles of optional resistances and detection options. It is a good book for running Monater Hunters in DF.

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    1. I'll get it at some point, but generally, I'm not that interested in playing "Monster Hunters" in DF. That's probably why I didn't snap it up like I have everything else DF!

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    2. Like I mentioned above, I use it for the "Power-Ups" for Holy Warriors. It's really good for those HWs who really want to focus in on killing one foe extra dead.

      From what I've seen of your games... it might not be the best expansion. Though if you allow your HWs to go Higher Purpose (Kill Mages) and then get the Mage Slayer abilities, they might love it (since enemy spellcasters tend to show up more frequently than demons and undead for you).

      In Gwythaint's game, their all about equal... which is why my HW is going equally into all three... (pray for my sins)

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