Forge Packages sale - any recommendations?

There is a sale on The Forge for modules for Foundry.

Any recommendations from there?

Sale Packages

11/29/24 Friday Roundup

In case you missed it, here are some posts and sales worth looking at.

SJG is doing its holiday sale.

Tenkar has some amusing gamer gift links. Suggestion - don't buy me any of them! I'm good. But the gift links are handy.

DriveThruRPG has their sale on, too.

And I spent a good chunk of time updating Felltower and the Brotherhood Complex. We'll see if the PCs can take it out in the next couple of delves.

Ogre storage problem

I have an Ogre storage problem.

I've been storing my giant Ogre box upright, but everything keeps spilling out of the bottom trays into a giant mess.

Laying it flat "works" except it takes up too much space. I don't really have a good place to lay it flat and out of the way.

Anyone have a good solution for storing the massive Ogre box upright without everything just spilling? Do I need to get a bunch of ziplock bags, or jury rig some kind of lid for the trays?

In theory the maps do that . . . but I can vouch for the fact that, in fact, they do. What do you guys with the Kickstarter Deluxe Ogre extravaganza do for storage?

Melee Academy: Three ways to dispose of worthy foes in DF Felltower

I just felt like writing this right now. It overlaps some other posts I've written, which I'll back-link to when I have a bit of time to pull them up.

A few of my players are very fond of "hit them in the hit points;" in other words, torso attacks. -0 to hit, no "wasted" damage, and pushing foes to -5 x HP is a certain way to get rid of them in the end. Nothing fancy, but it works.

It is a bit slow, though, and can turn mook aka fodder fights into slogs as you try to deal 6 x HP in injury x the number of foes. For a mere dozen foes with 12 HP each that's 840 injury . . . even at 3-4d + 10 that'll take a bit of time and usually multiple hits per target.

Add in worthy foes with higher HP and higher DR - say HP 18-20 and DR 4-6, and you're talking about an afternoon's gaming to defeat a bunch of foes.

How to deal with them more quickly? How to put them hors de combat efficiently? Or just how to render them ineffective as opponents?

Here are three ways to put foes in a bad way, quickly.

Sweep the leg! Limb shots are pretty good - legs, especially. They're only -2 to hit, and it takes only injury exceeding HP/2 to cripple the leg.

Where players tend to flub this one is both wanting a "cheap kill" by taking someone down with a leg shot, but also wanting an actual kill kill. In other words, crippling a leg can make a fighter much less effectiveness, but not totally ineffective in a fight. So it might just lower the target's defenses because they're prone or sitting, and limit their tactical movement, but not take them out entirely. It's a mobility kill, but not a kill.

For some foes, it's enough - they'll stay down if they lose a leg. For others, they'll do their best black knight impression and try to do you for that. And if you're going to murder them anyway, and they have reason to believe it (like, you do it to their friends earlier in the fight), what are the odds they'll just give up?

If your head comes away from your neck, it's over. Fatal shots do pretty well, obviously. Neck (-5) and Skull (-7) are excellent ways to drop a foe in a shot or two. Even if they don't take the guy out instantly, they can deal so much damage the foe will be making steady, penalized consciousness checks to keep fighting. Actually, Vitals (-3) attacks with high-damage impaling melee weapons are pretty uncommon in my experience. Guys doing 4d+10 don't like doing 2d+8, even if what gets through armor triples. But it's a good way to inflict a major wound on a foe with a penalty of -5 . . . and missing by 5 knocks you out. Even a moderate-to-high-HT foe is making a tough roll, here. The tougher targets means less Deceptive Attack to inflict on your foes, but if you get through, you have a better chance to end their ability to affect the fight.

If you love someone, better set them on fire. It only takes 2d fire damage to potentially set someone completely on fire - 10+ damage. You have a 50% chance of it with 3d. 4d is much more reliable, and will do it around 90% of the time. The foe will be fully engulfed in flame, which should keep them busy. It does have a tendency to ruin loot - if you're depending on selling their armor, clothes, and wooden weapons this is a bad idea. But it can reduce even an armored foe to uselessness as they try to put out the flames. 3+ damage will set something on fire, but 10+ is what you want - -3 to DX rolls and 1d-1 per second in damage. That'll add up quickly.



These are not the only ways to deal with foes, but all three have something in common - they make the foe much less able to affect the fight around them if not take them out entirely. They're worth considering when you want to win quickly.

Felltower 11/24/2024

Had to do my weekly Felltower maintenance today.

It didn't go terribly smoothly - I'm not just feeling the grunt work today. But here is the to-do list for today and the week:

- Restock look at Felltower. I need to check in and see where and what everything is, even given the likelihood that the PCs will try to wreck the Brotherhood Complex next time.

- Update rumors. Nothing really available to come out of the Brotherhood Complex, so there likely won't be too much in the way of rumors to deal with. That said, I do need to have some rumors ready for the next Felltower delve.

- Updated NPCs. I have a few more monsters to put into the system.

Mostly I spent today on "real world" game maintenance. In other words, reorganizing some game books on my shelves that got into disarray. Not really Felltower related, but here we are.

Friday Roundup 11/22/2024

A few bits for the week:

- My sources say that Mission X is coming in 2025.

- Grognardia looks at Marc Miller's comments on order vs. chaos. My experience is that players want autonomy and the ability to fix things the way they want. I don't think that's contrary to the need for disorder and chaos in the setting. Players like rank, as long as they have it and can make decisions for themselves. They like order as long as they've got some control over the order. It's not a bad thing - we're playing games to amuse ourselves and to enjoy some freedoms and abilities we might lack in our lives. It's fun to tear things down and to build things up. It's less fun to just keep them as-is. Especially in a game!

- If you want to contribute to OSR Christmas, Tenkar is asking for gifts to give.

GURPS House Rule: You're A Natural

I've been using this rule, or close to it, since my 3rd edition GURPS games. I remember my friend Fred's brother Dave benefiting from this in his very first session, which would have been 1992-3, maybe?

It came up in our most recent DF session, Session 200. It also came up in Total Party Teleport II, as well. Here is the proper writeup for 4th edition GURPS.

You're A Natural! The first time you default a skill, if you roll a 3 or a 4, you may instantly buy the skill. You may invest any number of saved points in it at that time, or, if you lack any saved points, spend 1 point from future XP earnings. If margin of success matters, calculate it from final skill after points are spent. This represents a natural talent, previously undisclosed learning, or just an aptitude for a particular skill. If the 3 or 4 was achieved as the result of a Wish or Lesser Wish spell, or any form of the Luck advantage, this does not apply - you're just lucky, not gifted.


Optionally, this can apply on any default roll, even if it's not the first time. In this case, you must have a point in hand to spend, and the maximum point investment is one point. You've just learned as you go, but you don't know much more than a beginner at the skill would have.



I can attest to this rule being popular, a source of a lot of fun, and a really satisfying way to get rewarded for a lucky 3 or 4.

More DF Felltower Rules Questions - 11+ Move

One of the PCs is on the verge of Move 9, which is a Haste spellstone away from Move 11. Per DFRPG Exploits, p. 33, this means he can get a two-hex step.

A few questions arose related to it and indirectly connected to it.

Does this net a two-hex Retreat?

No. My ruling is no. Although Retreat says "one step (p. 33)" and "normally one hex," I don't agree that it therefore gives you two hexes when you have Move 11+, nor that it gives you two, one-hex Retreat options. I understand the logic and the reading there, but I think allowing a 2-hex retreat (or worse, two one-hex retreats) doesn't play nice with Felltower's approach or the pricing of Great Void (DF Denizens: Swashbucklers, p. 27), which costs 10 points to get +1 hex on a single retreat. Also, there is precedent - the PCs have fought a number of monsters with Move 11-20 which did only a one-hex Retreat but had a two-hex Step, and for a brief while Galen was running around with Move 11 (thanks to Haste spells) and didn't get a two-hex retreat. It's just how we've played it and will continue to play it.

Can I buy Great Void?

No, not unless you're a swashbuckler. I agree it might make a really nice advantage for some Martial Artist types, but I'm not willing to just put it out there at this point.

So can I (list a million things here not described in the box)?

No, not unless it explictly says so in the box on p. 33 of Exploits. No, you don't double the size of all of your steps and get 4 with Committed Attack. No, you don't get to save steps between turns. No, you can't turn some of your steps into Retreat. No, no, no. Only what it says there in that box.


DF Felltower is a weird blend of DFRPG and DF, with its own flavor, so the above might be "wrong" by official standards, but I'm happier with that result.

A quick look back - 200 sessions of the DF Felltower campaign

We played in our 200th game of our campaign yesterday.

Game 1 was September 29th, 2011.

Game 200 was November 17th, 2024. 13 years and two months later, with a largely new group of players. One player - who ran Vryce - is still currently active in the campaign.

It's been a long campaign. We've averaged only 15 sessions a year, below my goal of 20, but we keep on going.

I'm curious how many people have been reading along for the whole time . . . probably not even all of my current players!

GURPS DF Session 200, Brotherhood Complex 7

Game Date: 11/17/2024
Weather: Cool, clear, dry.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (301 points)
     Brother Quinn, human initiate (125 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (335 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
     Amlaric, human squire (125 points)
Persistance Montgomery (303 point knight)
     Leon the Eye, human archer (125 points)
     Aaron, Brandon, Cedric, and Dortmund, human guards (62 points)
     Bullworth and Oxford, human laborers (62 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
     Honest Charles LeGrand, human squire (125 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf martial artist (298 points)

The PCs hired up a bunch of able-bodied men, purchased sacks and backpacks and rations, and headed off to the Brotherhood Complex. They reached it in due course, and headed in.

Inside, they found no guards. It was curiously quiet. They found a secret door they couldn't open, right where foes had emerged to attack their flank last time. They marked it with chalk and headed on.

From there, they headed south, and Vlad blundered into an evil runes trap. They healed him with a potion and Minor Healing and headed on, around it. They were seeking the stairs, or foes to destroy to ensure they could loot afterwards. So naturally they stopped, cast Seek Earth, found some gold back the way they came, and changed course.

They forced their way into an odd-shaped room with a six-fingered hand print on the floor, some 6' x 3'. Naturally, Thor touched it. A voice spoke into his head and told him he dared much coming here, but if he concentrated, he could find the voice's origin, and it would help him. He was all for it, so everyone overuled him and say they could do that on the way home.

They kept after the gold, forcing a few more doors - and as they forced one, they were rushed from the other direction by some guards headed by two guy they thought they'd killed last time - Brother Gobin and Brother Dortmund.

In a short, sharp fight - all of 10 seconds - they mauled the lot of them. Their NPCs held down the flanks and rear while Thor, Percy (and Agar's Wand), and Hannari tore them apart, with Vlad killing foe after foe, one after Chop used Command to get him to turn around. Duncan contributed to the chaos with an Explosive Lightning spell. It was pretty lopsided, although one managed to hit Thor in the face and wound him slightly. They killed them all except one (Vlad, as always, called for taking prisoners while he shot to kill.)

They captured one, and healed him enough to stabilize his wounds, then had Duncan question him. He defaulted Interrogation for the first time, and rolled a 3. My house rule since the early 90s has been, roll a 3, get the skill - these days I let you buy it on the spot. He did. He asked a few questions about the complex, and found they are allowed downstairs only blindfolded, and taken to an altar to pray. What happens there, he asked? And rolled a 17. The guard got hysterical, and started screaming, "You want to know what happens when we pray? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" and he died on the spot, clearly of fright.

They gathered up the useful loot, including two pairs of magical gloves, a bit of cash (~500 sp or so and ~200 gp or so) and some gems, a treasure map (the X said "Treasure" on it), and some plate armor. They headed to where they thought the stairs were.

They found them, but nearby were ~11 mechanical knights - those robot knights they fought before. They decided not to provoke a fight, and backed off.

Exploring nearby rooms, they found a silver chest - Vlad rushed in, greedily, and set off a greenish gas trap. So they used Purify Air to clear it out, and Vlad ran in and dragged the very heavy chest out. They slammed the door shut on the gas.

The chest, sadly, turned out to be a silver-painted stone chest.

They spent their last bit of time ensuring they'd located the stairs doww, and then headed back to try to find where the two plate-armored brothers lived. Despite See Secrets, they could not, and left the complex.

The gloves turned out to be a pair of Graceful Gloves and a pair of Gorilla Gloves.

Notes:

- Robots? Yes, the proper term in Cornwood for "golem" is "robot." Some of the non-Cornwoodian types picked up use of that word.

- There was a big debate at the end what to do - stay in the dungeon, stay in the dungeon and start a fight with the mechanical knights, or leave with their XP and substantial loot?

In the end they left, but there were really good weighing of the pros and cons.

- Not a lot of rules issues today. It was all pretty straightforward.

- I did realize a weight error made it into DFT3. I'll submit it for errata - not sure how I didn't notice it before. The Graceful Gloves are 0.5 lbs, the Gorilla Gloves 3 lbs, which is opposite of how they're in the book. Sorry, that's the opposite of my actual writeup notes. If you're using DFRPG, make that 0.6 and 1.2, respectively.

- MVP was Duncan for his Interrogation criticals and amusing results. Otherwise, 5 xp and lots of cash each. Oh, and a suit of plate armor for Thor to keep as a backup for the next time his armor is corroded into disrepair. No word on who will keeps the gloves.

Friday Roundup

Just a few notes.

- I've finished up the NPCs for Felltower, mostly due to a lot of help from Vic. Making the guys was easy; putting them on paper was fast. Getting them into GCS is harder for me, and Vic stepped up to deal with that. I'll just lightly modify them according to the Hidden Traits table rolls.

- I made it halfway through the 2nd edition of Jon Peterson's Playing at the World before I stopped a few months ago. I picked it back up and I'll finish it soon. It's a good book. I was genuinely more interested in my reading of the 1st edition, but this volume is probably more readable. Sometimes I just like a big, hefty, extremely detailed book.

- I still need to finishing prepping the dungeon for Sunday. I put the final work off, and now it's time to get to that.

Felltower: Making Hirelings

My players decided to hire a lot of hirelings for their next delve - a handful of 125-pointers, and a few guards and laborers.

So my free time for the next few days will go to wrestling with the absolute madness that is GCS, since I don't have GCA5 mastered or tuned to Felltower, then importing the characters into the VTT, then making icons for them.

I miss playing on paper, because I could have done all of the NPCs by hand by the time I finished the first one, mostly, as he still lacks equipment. And then had the fun of finding a mini for it, rather than the chore of making an icon. This could just be old gamer griping, except that additional layers of work isn't really much fun for anyone that I know of.

I could allow the players to make their own guys, but I generally do not, because then they end up as min-maxed guys exactly as their employer would like (especially when it comes to disadvantages), and because they also end up less interesting to me as NPCs.

DF Felltower Update

It's been a week since I updated - just a very busy week of non-gaming things.

I had a little time to do some Felltower things today:

- updated the VTT.

- updated some monsters that GCS's import to the VTT messed up.

- started work on some Felltower NPCs.

Not much beyond that . . . but I should get more Felltower work done this week, as the next expected game is 11/17.

How many hirelings are available in Felltower?

Here are the limits, currently, on hirelings and henchmen in DF Felltower.


62-point Bargain Henchmen: Unlimited. PCs can get as many as they like, subject to rolls (the usual 1+margin of success)

125-point Henchmen: Limited. One per PC per search. Known and existing hirelings may be found on a seperate roll.

187-point Henchmen: Rare. A critical success on a search for a 125-point henchmen is needed.

250-point Henchmen. Just kidding. They don't exist.

Friday Roundup 11/1/2024

Not much gaming-wise this week. However:

- Next game of Felltower is 11/17. We have to skip 11/3 because not enough players are available and 11/10 I'm not available.

- It's a bit of a pain to generate the formatted NPCs I put up on the blog, but if they're popular, I'll keep doing them.

- Next game session will be session 200 for us. Should I do something special for it? Inflict 200 damage on a random target? Charge 200 sp to enter the dungeon? Give out 200 xp? Nah, probably not. But it will be a lot of game sessions, especially given the slow rate of gaming in the past few years.

- I went through my comic collection and have a few issues of Forgotten Realms from DC comics. Issues 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and Annual #1 and something called the Grand Tour. I'm thinking of putting them up on eBay. I never got too into it and it's time to pass them on. I thought I had more but here we are.