More, as I said, notes from Session 183
Torso - it's the safe but slow way - Kaylee put down a number of gnolls with Torso shots. It took a while, though, as Stunning and Knockdown is almost a marginal effect in GURPS. Even HT 10 foes will only be stunned by a major wound 50% of the time, and HT 10 foes in DF are rare. 11 is low, 12 is more or less standard; a 12 fails only 25.9% of the time and causes a knock out only 1.9% of the time.
The logic here is this - foes defend about half the time, often more - even fodder-types with shields (+1 to +3) or Retreat (+3 Dodge) will stop half your shots. So you want to put on a lot of Deceptive Attack. Rapid Strike is -3/-3 for Weapon Master, which most main fighters have. So you'd rather go two shots with Rapid Strike (-3), at Deceptive Attack -1 (-2), and force two defense rolls on two hits instead of a -5 for neck or -7 for skull.* Folks with Slayer Training always go for the targeted shot, those without only sometimes do.
Attacking limbs works, but doesn't end a foe. That's mostly because it doesn't stun anyone more or less than a major wound of any other kind. Not all foes care about limb loss. Those that do will die if they don't keep fighting, so you need to hit them more to put them down. This is fine with me, but if it takes 3-4 seconds to finish a weaker foe because you have to take out 2 limbs and then put in a finishing move, it's kind of slow.
As a GM, it's actually easier on me if attacks are whiffs or kills, so I cheer the occasional Vitals stabs, Skull strikes, etc. I don't love when they are the only thing that happens, especially if it's an optimized high-damage, high-skill, high-deceptive attack following a high skill Feint, because that makes for balance issues with monster design (and groans and dead PCs if I also play at that game.)
So Kaylee beat a number of gnolls to death, but it's hard to put them down in single turns even with a couple of strikes that do enough damage that, realistically, will cause the eventual death of the foe. It doesn't stop them fighting in the way that a center-line attack (Groin, Vitals, Neck, Face, Skull) can due to the Major Wound knockdown and stunning penalties and higher HP loss that results in more HT checks to avoid death.
GURPS Magic headaches - I have notes on Phase Other and grapples, and on Steal Vitality and the problems with the spell. They'll come later this week.
New Spell: Smell Invisible - Suggested by the ever-inventive Marshall, my co-author on Crypt of Krysuvik. It's the most Professor Farnsworth spell suggestion so far. Maybe his MVP was for that.
* By the way, this is another argument in favor of fixed Deceptive Attack, at -4 to hit (-2 to defend) and -8 to hit (-4 to defend) levels, since the limitation forces more choices. You either take a larger penalty or do not, so you can't hairsplit around combo options to crit-fish.
It's been eye-opening how frequently 20 cutting damage (yes, to the torso) fails to end someone, sometimes several turns in a row. We as PCs benefit from the same math, sometimes more so due to generally HT in the 12-14 range plus other "keep me standing" and flung buffs from the cleric.
ReplyDeleteEven so: we're talking sword swings with enough damage to take Joe Average (which gnolls are not) to two death checks...and it seems to take 2-4 of them to end one. I'm almost thinking that the better tactic for Kaylee and anyone else with WM - which Sigur doesn't have as his schtick is dead things, Mikey - is one shot to a leg or arm to reduce overall capability, and one shot to torso for general ablation.
Yeah, you can inflict an eventually fatal wound, but if it isn't a debilitating wound, it's not as helpful from a second-to-second perspective. It's just too hard to get stunned (and stay stunned), or die, or pass out, in GURPS. I cheer the "this is lethal if it lands" hits as a GM because they're more effective when they land and a whiff means no icon shifts, no notes about which guy fell and did what, no posture charges, no status markers.
DeleteIt can be a little face-palm inducing when people are like, hey, I do 1d+8 impaling, these guys have normal vital organs, and very light armor! I better swing Torso, Vitals is too iffy. :)
Yeah, you can stab a normal human in gothic plate and have a high likelyhood of a major wound with a penalty to avoid knockout, sounds pretty weak.
But if you're assuming most foes will need to be taken to -5xHP and automatic death, you need to make sure all the HP count and Torso is the way to go. If you're aiming to put the most penalized rolls on for knockout and stunning, so they're likely stunned and have a higher probability of knockout, you need to take advantage of any of those you can. Foes without Unliving and Homogenous have plenty of spots that give a -5 to avoid knockdown/stunning, and failure by 5+ is a knockout. Even HT 14 doesn't feel high with a -5!
A pair of questions that might help your combat munchkins out:
ReplyDeleteDo you allow Extra Effort in combat, explicitly Flurry of Blows, and if so does Very Fit reduce the cost from 2 to 1 FP?
Do you allow the Heroic or Endurance Items out of DF 18 Power Items?
And I agree with Deceptive being -4 or -8*, and getting rid of the hair-splitting for crit fishing.
.* I'd even allow it to keep going up at -4 intervals. I've a character in one game with a 26 skill, I'd contemplate dropping to a 14 skill to strip -6 off of a heavily defensive foe.
No, and no.
DeleteAnd I've given Endurance items but I don't allow them to be purchased. There isn't much for them to do, anyway, without E.E.