It's Almost Time for Another Felltower Questionnaire

It's been, oh, 7 years or so since I last did a player questionnaire.

I discussed the concept here:

Player's Campaign Feedback Questionnaires

I was vaguely considering this around session 200. We're now on 201. So my plan is, after the PCs finish either this next session or finishing sacking the Brotherhood Complex, I'll hand out a new set of questionnaires. Much will be the same, but I may add or change some questions to reflect current questions I have brewing around.

It's really a good time to take the temperature of the campaign and survey the players. So be on the lookout for that. And I'll post a questionnaire link at that time for anyone who wants to play along at home, or use the concept with their own games.

Epic Games Free Game: Return to Moria

I haven't played it, but I grabbed it - Epic Games is giving away this game:

Return to Moria

Given that it's free, and I already have an Epic Games account, I went for it. Just passing along the news in case anyone is interested.

Friday Roundup 12/13/2024

End of another busy week.

- Computer RPG as a training device, perhaps? This 1979 CRPG has you play a doctor and prescribe treatment for patients. Pretty neat. Part of me feels like this is what were doing for nuclear reactors playing SCRAM! It didn't come up in my line of work, though. Probably for the better.

- Beowulf, as a DF Wrestler template GURPS character.

- Illustrations from Wizardry: Proving Ground of the Mad Overlord. I'd forgotten about Mordorcharge.

OSR Christmas at Tenkar's Tavern

Tenkar has a list up of what will be in the OSR Christmas. Have something you want to give away? Contact him at the email in the post.

Updated With More Gifts! OSR Christmas 2024!

More rulings & notes from session 201

Yesterday was session 201.

More notes!

Mocking their best option. At one point, Thor moved up into the guards vs. cultists fray, and a cultist stepped up from 2 hexes away to adjacent to Thor. Thor's player said, "Are you seriously stepping close to the human Quisinart?" and I said, "Yes." I mean, what an idiot. This fool was stepping from 2 hexes away from Thor, who has a 2-hex sword, into 1-hex range, where the cultist's club can hit. Thor's player instantly retracted it, but it was a funny moment - the cultist literally did the most combat-effective move he could do in the situation - stepped into a gap in a line, closed in on a fighter with a longer reach weapon than him, and attacked.

The fact that he was totally doomed was a whole different manner, but hey, with cultists resisting intruders, "Surrender because I'm probably overmatched" was about as much of an option for him as "Go home empty handed" was for Thor.

So if throw with both hands . . . Yes, I allow Dual-Weapon Attack with thrown weapons. It's about as silly as can be (just picture it), but I allow it. You must target the same or adjacent hexes unless you have Enhanced Tracking, which allows seperately aimed ranged attacks. There was a suggestion that cone rules could be applied to determine an appropriate spread of potential targets, but that'll be complex and I don't think any better from a play perspective. It'll be even harder to rationalize, and harder to actually implement. Same with "one automatically scatters." That's easier but I'm not sure it's really more believable that one always misses by 1 at a minimum.

More VTT notes. It would be nice if the character in a hex that is "up" on the turn order would be automatically selected. It would be nice if I could put names on tokens Always on Top. It would be nice if I could apprend a random 3-digit number in () after each name of duplicated characters so I can tell them apart. It would be nice if I could drag-and-drop damage onto the characters on the turn tracker. Also, it would be nice if status was a drop-down menu unconnected to a token - drag and drop status effects would vastly speed up dealing with mooks.

Hirelings cost how much? The PCs spent around $4K on 8 guards, 2 laborers, and 4 125-point hirelings. That's 14 people, some with substantial pay asks. Also, they promised higher pay in order to help find them (see, "Where did you find these guys?" in DF15) - and that adds up. It would have be a lot less if they'd offered normal rates.

Do we get a bonus to find known guys? No. If you took a -3 to get an elf with broadsword and Fireball it's -3 to find that same guy again. It's not -0 because it's a known person. It's just pure luck and GM laziness that makes it the same character next time, not because it's easier to find the guy the next time. Maybe realistically it would be, but it's a game and I don't want to reward gaming the system by jacking up the bonuses to find a specific type of character and then not needing those bonuses net time for that same character. No thanks.

Ho, Ho, Ho? Next game is likely 12/22, and/or 12/29. We'll see.

GURPS DF Session 201, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part I

Actual Date: 12/8/2024
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, clear, dry.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (301 points)
     Brother Quinn, human initiate (125 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
     Amlaric, human squire (125 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
     Leon the Eye, human archer (125 points)
     Aaron, Brandon, Cedric, Dortmund, Ernie, Ferd, Grunlark, and Hansel, human guards (62 points)
     Bullworth and Oxford, human laborers (62 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.

Long story short, they tried to head "left" towards "the gnolls." Naturally this entailed going straight and right, and going right back to where they fought the guards last time. There, thanks to confused guidance by Vlad, they headed to the "barracks," only to find a hallway to a storeroom. As they took a look at it, their mass of guards yelled, "We're under attack!" as shouts of "Get them!" and "Attack!" rang out.

The PCs turned to find their rear guards fighting a mass of robed, club-and-shield bearing cultists.

In a short, sharp fight, one of the guards was knocked out (and two had their cheap swords break) and most were wounded . . . and all 12 of the cultist guards were down - dead, crippled, or just out. Hannari and Thor took out a couple, Vlad a bunch more, and their guards and Honest Charles a few as well. Chop used Command to keep the enemy off balance until they were all downed.

The PCs left their NPCs to loot the guards and searched the rooms they came from. They wanted prisoners to question, but didn't bother to bind up with wounded . . . and left them in the care of NPCs that include one with Bloodlust (6) . . .

The PCs found some coinage, a box of spices, and a food and drink. They dumped out the food, spilled a barrel of vinegared water on the mess, and dunked three corpses in the water, wine, and vinegared water. Once everything was ruined, they headed around the complex.

They found a dead end (checked with See Secrets), and a few more doors that all led back to the room with the black hand on the floor. From there, they checked a few more corridors, and found a door. Thor forced it open . . . and suffered a massive wave of cold that chilled him to the bone. In front of him was a sizeable room full of brown mold. They fled as the mold expanded, accidentally running into a dead end and then back out. Only Thor was harmed, and they backed off.

Needing a short break, they retreated to the entrance to fully regroup. We ended there.

Notes:

- the whole fight was under 9 full seconds. Fights in GURPS are ridiculously fast. For a small, cloe melee, it makes sense, but in actual play, 1 second turns means a guy search a room takes 3 seconds to turn, run down a hallway to a fight, find foes, and kill about one per second for 5 seconds. It took longer to write this sentence than for 30 combatants to fight until 12 of them were down or dead. It just feels too short. Part of me sympathizes with people who just say turns are 3-5 seconds but don't allow any additional actions. The whole brawl taking 30-60 seconds would feel brief but not crack versisimilitude like this does. The whole fight took about, oh, 3 hours to play out. Long for a mook fight, but with 30 combatants, it was slow to resolve. That makes it feel doubly weird when it turns out to be only a few seconds long.

- MVP was Chop, who used Command very effectively to break up the cultist's attempts to keep fighting.

- the whole "stop and regroup" thing is a way to allow us to let the PCs continue their delve - they spent a lot on NPCs - like $4000 - and want their money's worth, but also to allow our missing players to join next time. Since it wasn't in a fight or even in a crisis situation, it seemed reasonable to allow them to regroup for 15-20 minutes, heal and recover fatigue, and then head further into the complex.

Fun and productive session, even if it looks short on the summary.

Final game prep

I had only a little to do today for game, and not a lot of energy to do more. So I:

- ensured the VTT is up to date

- updated the rumors for Felltower

- ensured my manuals, maps, and so on are ready to go.

Nice bit about a persistant dungeon game is that I don't have to do too much.

Friday Roundup 12/6/2024

It was a good week for reading:

- Echoes from the Geekcave has a post about why he uses the 1 gp = 1/10 lb standard. I don't love it, but I understand his arguments for keeping it.

- Tom Van Winkle wrote "The Historical Argument about Racial Diversity in D&D." I present it mostly as a post of interest - I stay out of the whole discussion of gaming as a whole as much as possible. I like our game, and how we do it, and the silliness and whatnot that comes with it. I won't pretend it's a model of any particular ideology or worldview, but it does produce a lot of fun. When I do take a look around at gaming as a whole, it always seems to be like it was in the past - a lot of people fighting about who's way of playing is right and why it's right. I'd rather take a pass on all of that these days . . . but I always like to see TVW's take on subjects.

- I finished Jon Peterson's book, that I started back in August.

I'll stand by my description in that link - it's a more readable story of the development of D&D and roleplaying games. I just liked the detail more in the 1st edition; this read more like his later work, Game Wizards. I enjoyed it well enough, but I don't think I'll return to it again in the way that I did and do with the 1st edition.

- Felltower is Sunday . . . small group - 3-4 players? - and we'll see. It's likely they'll skip the Brotherhood Complex without the firepower of Duncan and Persistance Montgomery. NPCs just can't provide enough to make up for a couple of 300-point PCs.

- Iron Llama on how to play GURPS!

More VTT questions for Felltower

I've had a little more time, so I've been spending it on learning my VTT of choice more in order to enhance Felltower. I found a good source of tokens, so I'm largely good there. And for terrain, too, but that opens up a whole new set of issues.

I do have some things I need to learn:

- How to put down a tile as a texture on the ground, rather than as a moveable object.

- How to use images as terrain features without making them moveable tokens. Maybe that's the same as what I just noted.

- How to attach light sources to objects without having to make them actors/tokens.

- What the heck Region does.

- How to make light sources visibly working even when you can see without them. Right now, guys with Dark Vision can't tell you there is a torch lighting an area, which is odd.

That's about it for now. I'm working on these.

Felltower Update

Next game of Felltower is 12/8, so today I:

- finished some VTT work

- tried out some mapping software for battlemaps

- updated a few monsters

- did a final update pass on the Brotherhood Complex as of 12/7/24, so it'll be ready to go next Sunday.

Should be fun!

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.

Felltower Generic NPC: Guard

This is the standard "guard" NPC that PCs hire or sometimes fight. This is built off of the 62-point Guard template in Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen.

Generic Guard

Available for hire, or to fight the PCs as they delve!

ST 12 HP 12 Speed 5.75
DX 11 Will 10 Move 4
IQ 10 Per 10
HT 12 FP 12
Dodge 7 Parry 9+DB 2 Block 11

Broadsword (13): 1d+3 cutting, 1d+1 impaling, Reach 1.
Large Knife (11): 1d cut, or 1d-1 impaling, Reach C, 1.

Traits: Bully; Code of Honor (Soldier's); High Pain Threshold; Overconfidence (12); Sense of Duty (Companions).

Skills: Armoury (Melee Weapons)-9; Brawling-11; Broadsword-13; Carousing-12; Climbing-10; Knife-11; Shield-12; Stealth-10; Wrestling-10.

Equipment: Heavy Leather Armor Suit (with face protection); Cheap Broadsword; Large Knife; Medium Shield; Personal Basics; Pouch; Wineskin (1 quart capacity).

Notes: For a bandit type, repace Code of Honor (Soldier's) and Sese of Duty (Companions) with Greed. Loadout puts the guard at Light encumbrance with an empty pouch and wineskin, medium with just about any load at all.



Note they lack - deliberately - empty carrying sacks, backpacks, etc. This is a design choice by the GM to make it harder to turn "hired fighters" into "loot carriers." That's a laborer's job. Armor is from DFRPG, not GURPS Basic Set.

Acrobatic Dodge & Criticals?

In our last game, one of the PCs attempted an Acrobatic Dodge (Exploints, p. 48, and Campaigns, p. B375). He rolled an 18 on his Acrobatics roll.

What happens?

The player agued, nothing except a -2. An 18 is a failure, and a failure is a -2 to Dodge. It says that explicitly in both referenced rules.

I allowed that, but I'm still not convinced.

The argument in favor of the player's position is that the rule doesn't specify anything about a critical success or critical failure, so therefore they don't have any special effect.

But does the lack of a specific result for a critical failure overrule this basic, underlying rule for making skill rolls? Success Rolls (Exploits, p. 5-7, Campaigns p. B343-348) calls out what constitutes a critical success or critical failure. Does the lack of a specific result for critcial success or failure mean there are no critical successes or critical failures?

For my game, I am willing but not terribly happy to have Acrobatics rolls for Acrobatic Dodge insert the concept of "only skill rolls with specified critical results have criticals" into the game. I would restrict it only to rolls in this case. Largely, though, I'm not sure I like the implications . . . but for DF Felltower, I'll go with it and say it's only for this case and the related case of Aerobatics.

How to use hirelings to boost a Felltower Party: GM's View

This is a GM's view of a useful way to use hirelings in DF Felltower. I'm focusing especially 62-point hirelings, since they're pretty much available in large amounts in a way that 125 point ones are not. Expected additional reading: What are Hirelings Good For?


Repeat after me: Hirelings are Not PCs

One of the biggest issues I see is expecting too much of hirelings. I've heard of walls of polearm-armed NPCs keeping the enemy back, archers or crossbowmen keeping the enemy pinned down (I think that's much more a modern rapid-fire firearms idea, anyway) or "sniping," backstabbing foes, etc.

The thing is, 62-point hirelings are boderline fodder or actually fodder vs. 250 point delvers, depending on how efficiently built for combat they are. Against 300 point delvers, they're fodder. Why is that important? Because they're at best better than 1:1 equal with fodder, but more likely 1:1 equal with fodder. They aren't 1:1 equal against worthy opponents. If orcs are fodder, ogres are worthy. If large spiders are fodder, giant spiders are worthy. If goblins are fodder, trolls are worthy. Is your 62-point hireling equal to an ogre or a giant spider or a troll? No.

So don't expect them to accomplish anything more in combat than an equal number of fodder opponents.

So what are they good for?

Largely, freeing up PCs to do PC things.

Hirelings can be best used in Felltower, in my opinion, to do the following:

- Covering the flanks. In a place like Felltower, this is largely acting as a rear-guard tripwire, and watching crossing hallways to keep the PCs from being surprised - or at least reduce the odds of that. This also slows down any attackers until the PCs can turn around on them and engage. It's unlikely they'd win a fight, but they can provide valuable assistance just by starting the fight before the threat reaches the PCs.

Guards are your template of choice for this situation.

- Carrying the loot and the bodies. Way too often, the PCs depend on PCs to carry loot, carry out unconcious buddies, and carry out the slain. Worse, it's often getting a badly wounded PC concious despite being at negative HP and just hoping they can limp to safety. Having some NPCs - especially those designed to do so - carry stuff is helpful. Laborers are rarely considered because people assume that arms-carrying mercenaries are happy to stop being warriors and start being laborers. They might tolerate it, even willingly do it thanks to high Loyalty, but a guy with ST 12 and armor and weapons and a shield has less carrying capacity than a lightly-clad lightly-armed laborer with ST 13 and Lifting ST 2.

- Junk Work. Guarding the camp probably takes an actual Guard, while minding the rations and the left-behind loot is a good job for Servants. But when a job needs doing, and the sessions devolves into "I don't want to discuss how we do (X or Y or Z) for 10 minutes" the answer probably is a cheap NPC doing it, instead. Leaving NPCs behind policing up the battlefield, guarded by a few guards, is risky and has drawbacks, but if you need the PCs immediately in another battle, at least it's getting done somehow. Having an NPC to routinely guard camp spares the 10 minutes spent discussing how you'll conceal your stuff left outside the dungeon. And so on.

The rest of the potential uses? Makeweight combatants, augmenting the front lines, etc.? Generally a bit of a waste in a high-lethality situation like Felltower itself. They're useful when you need to cover lots of angles of attack and slow down the enemy, but they aren't going to win you a fight. They can reduce the cost of such a fight, and let the PCs focus on what they need to focus on.

In other words, let the PCs do their jobs, but have NPCs be your eyes, ears, and hands for the flanks, rear, and loot. Bringing your own fodder to the main battle is good, but better is preventing the enemy from flanking you because your NPCs block the corridor for a time. Having some crossbowmen shoot at the enemy (and all the time that takes in actual play for the GM resolving it!) is nice, but nicer is having your Scout shoot at the enemy while your fodder prevents the enemy from charging straight in. Having your knights and barbarians fight instead of carrying your unconcious buddies and the loot sure beats anything else.

Pro Tips:

Have the Leader PC do the Hiring. Loyalty is set based on the reaction roll of the hiring PC; this PC should also be the leader. "We tell them to listen to any of us" sounds great, but in a fight, who do they turn to? Everyone? Anyone? "Listen to any of us" quickly becomes "Do whatever seems useful to someone at the moment." Better they have a set leader, who then delegates authority in non-combat situations.

Have a good mix. Don't just hire 10 laborers or 10 guards or 10 torch bearers. Get a mix depending on what you actually need.

Tell the GM ahead of time. If the GM is sitting down to play, the GM won't have so much time to generate NPCs and load in tokens and give them names and so on. VTT is slower on the setup than physical play.


Just my opinion. I could be wrong, but it's what I see from my side of the screen.

Friday Roundup 10/25/2024

Links for Friday.

- There is an article discussing a book that lets you build classes for B/X D&D.

Having fun with BX Options: Class Builder

There was a dragon magazine article that did exactly this, also with B/X, in Dragon #109, by Paul Montgomery Crabaugh. I wonder how much this matches up with that previous work?

- Undead Handmines. Cute.

- A bit of a look at AD&D's STR scores and bonuses.

DFRPG Monsters 2 sale

Warehouse 23 is doing a sale . . . on mostly Halloween-themed things.

One of them is DFRPG Monsters 2. 23% off.

Oddly, though, GURPS Zombies is not on sale. Huh. Too bad, it's a keeper! I'd use the horde rules for zombies for my DF game, but my players refuse to defeat foes, they want to destroy each and every single one of them. So no point in figuring out what a crowd of critters is like and what is enough to defeat it if I then I have to deal with each one individually anyway. But it's a great supplement. It's just oddly not on sale in an October game sale.

VTT Gripes

Foundry & Forge were a problem in our last game session.

We had some of the usual - slowdowns, occasional drops and hangups, etc. The usual network issues. That's typical.

- There has been a change since a few sessions back with dragging and dropping damage onto a token. The bounding boxes seem to be too large - if I drop damage onto a character, the nearby tokens also get put up as options. That's useless but not a problem when it's on, say, Hannari Ironhand, Chop, and Percy. It is when it is on Gnoll, Gnoll, or Gnoll.

In order to do damage to specific tokens with area-effect spells, I had to resort to dragging them one by one out of the fight, applying damage, and then putting them back - and then making sure their facing was correct.

This took a long time. It literally took 10 minutes (12:51 to 1:01 pm) to inflict damage from one explosive spell thrown into a packed field of about 8 foes. With better damage dropping, it could have taken 2 minutes, if not more like 1 (if I typed fast enough.)

- GCS/mook generator issues abound. DR doesn't always import well. Some stats are missing sometimes. I usually ffind out when I need them that, say, DR is 0 on the vitals of a golem. That slows me down because I have to generate a mook, then import it, then check it line by line. It would be vastly easier if I could just do the line by line in the first place because the mook generator imports poorly at best.

- I can't seem to figure out why the icon facing always chooses something inappropriate. You can drag your icon one by one by one along the map, and the facing it chooses will vary according to a pattern we can't discern. It would be much better if you moved hex by hex and had facing change as you faced into it by default, or not move at all by default, and then display the actual move when you click to end the movement.

- We can't have tokens cover more than one hex without just being bigger overall. I've had to essentially make falling prone a one-hex thing, and big monsters into one-hex foes. It's annoying at best - I've had to essentially change the rules so I don't have to deal with it.

Those things really slow us down in play.

Here are a few things I'd really like:

- Ability to put GM-view-only status effects down. I should be able to mark who has a Missile Shield or is poisoned or whatever without my players knowing automatically.

This is especially true with Reeling, which sometimes comes on for monsters that cannot suffer from Reeling. That's annoying. I need to figure out how to turn that off for certain NPCs without turning it off for everyone.

- droppable smoke or other vision-blocking effects.

- Actual item tokens I can put down.

- An actual, official, licenses, SJG-backed VTT package for GURPS. A person can dream, I guess.

Rules & Rulings from DF Session 199

Here are some rules and rulings from last session.

"15: You strain your shoulder!"

Ah, the most hated of all critical miss results.

My players comment? "There should be a clerical way to speed up the healing of the 30 minute cripple from the Critical Miss Table." I agree; it's Instant Restoration. I'm sure they meant cheaper, faster, and easier. But no, it's a cripple, but instead of 1d weeks it's 30 minutes; you can speed it up to instant with magic or you can wait. Just like a 1d week break isn't cheaper to heal if you roll a 1 instead of a 6, it's not cheaper if you only have 30 minutes to wait or 1 week. I don't think anyone will like that ruling but it's consistent.

Is Lightning's Stun too powerful?

Lightning stuns with a -1 per 2 injury. It's been suggested that it should be weaker. I think it's fair on the initial stun, but I do think my players are right - it probably should be an unmodified HT roll to recover from stun. I think that's what DFRPG Spells intends, too - so we can do that.

Does the DX penalty for fire affect you if your DR is too high to get hurt?

I said yes. DFRPG Exploits, p. 68, says that the DX penalty doesn't affect you if the injury can't hurt you. My players read this as "If the damage can penetrate your DR" and I read it as "If the fire could harm you." It says injury, not damage . . . my logic is that yes, your DR protects, but fire that could hurt you is distracting. If you can't be hurt by the flame - immunity or native DR vs. fire, say - it doesn't distract you if you have clothes on fire.

What if you have enough natural DR to not get hurt, asked someone running dwarf who'll probably try to get DR 5 for this purpose . . . still no. I just don't see it, given the DR that PCs can purchase. Last thing I need is someone with a barbarian's DR ignoring being on fire because he's got cinematic DR.

Just be grateful I didn't have the 3+ fire damage detonate alchemists fire like the rules says it does. But I know, you have it ready to Fast-Draw but otherwise completely covered from any possible damage or breakage.

Rapid Strike and Step

Just for the record, we don't allow you to Rapid Strike and split the attacks on either side of your Step. You can Step and then Attack with a Rapid Strike, or Attack with a Rapid Strike and then Step, but not split it up. Or Step, Attack, Step with two steps. You get me. No splitting the attack.

With Extra Attack you can. It's part of why it costs 25 points.

And, for what it's worth, I still hate the +4 for targeting a hex and Retreat.

GURPS DF Session 199, Brotherhood Complex 6 - Gnolls & Doors, Part II

This is a continuation of the previous session.

Real Date: 10/20/2024
Game Date: 9/18/2024

Weather: Sunny, warm.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (301 points)
     Harold, human guard
     Samual, human guard
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (300 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf martial artist (266 points)

We started off in the middle of a fight, with the PCs attempting to get out of a dead-end corridor and move to the exit of the dungeon, without being 100% agreed on where that was.

Thor moved forward down the hallway, engaging gnolls and cultist guards - the gnolls with shields, morningstars, and leather armor, the guards cheap broadswords and shields and leather armor. The guards were quite skilled, but with suspect morale and no leaders on hand; the gnolls tough and hard to kill but not terribly skilled warriors. Behind them were a handful of burgendy-robed wizard cultists hurling missiles spells.

Hanari opened up the fight with a Magebane grenade targeting two cultist wizards a yard apart from one another, but he missed by 1 (probably because he was partly on fire, for -2 DX) and only caught one in the radius, making him unable to cast wizardly spells for an hour. He let out some incoherent yelling and ran off.

Meanwhile, Chop began to move up to the fray, slowly (he's slow), and Duncan charged up an Explosive Lightning upon hearing what was being faced. Vlad continued to shoot arrows into the fray, pretty much trying to kill anything next to Thor. That lead to a scolding from Thor, who felt he could kill everything next to him, but Vlad was choosing his best target and trying to clear Thor's running route to the wizards.

The enemy, meanwhile, had pretty much no plan except to charge. They did that, with even more gnolls and cultist guards rushing up. The gnolls poured around the northern part of the hallway, the guards moved up southern part of the same hall. The wizards in the back readied more spells. The two hirelings with the PCs rolled out their burning clothes and stood up, but one and then the other fell unconscious.

Duncan hurled an large Explosive Lightning spell into the oncoming mass of gnolls and guards, stunning a number of them and wounding a few very badly. Hanari continued hurling consumables; he threw a smoke nageteppo to block off the line of sight of one of the wizards - he can throw pretty far with Throwing Art. He followed it soon after with a second nageteppo, and a Dragonstooth Warrior (from the Olympus adventurers) right next to one of the wizards, just as Thor burst into their main line. Vlad kept shooting.

The opposing wizards fled back through the smoke as Thor and the Dragonstooth Warrior (DW from now on) engaged. A few seconds later, one of them hurled a large Explosive Acid Ball through the smoke and - to his luck but not his allies - smacked a guard in front of Thor in the back. Boom. 19 Corrosion damage later, the field was in much worse shape, as was Thor's poor armor (now -3 DR on the front, -1 DR on the back). The cultists and gnolls were mauled, though, and the DW was disintigrated. Hanari helped with a Demon's Brew grenade. Vlad clipped Chop with a broadhead while shooting past him.

As the PCs moved up a little, and Vlad backed off even further, a wizard and a few cultist guards came around the side from a corridor leading to the north. Hananri threw down a couple of DWs to cover that flank, and then hurled a full-metal meteoric kama into the wizard, wounding him despite his Missile Shield. Then suddenly an unseen door the south opened up and two plate-clad culists stepped out.

Vlad immediately began to pincushion one of them, who carried a maul, wounding him over and over again. The other rushed north to engage the DWs, and to stay out of the line of shot.

Duncan turned invisible again, as Chop moved up and started to use Command to get his foes to do things like Drop Prone and Attack Yourself (it's a very powerful spell, as written in DFRPG Spells). That slowed them down. Hanari threw a few more DWs to the north, but the other plate-armored guy had a dueling halberd and just chopped them down as the other cultists helped. The DWs were just too overwhelmed as they appeared one after another, and where immediately engaged from multiple sides. They did wound two of the cultists and slow them down from reaching the casters.

Meanwhile, Thor chopped up a bunch of the enemy with his long knife - he had that out instead of his magical longsword (I think it's a longsword). Hanari spiked a Liquid Ice grenade into the halberdier, hurting him a bit, and then engaged in melee. Unfortunately he crippled his own arm on a critical miss.

By now, a few of the less enthusiastic cultists began to back off. The gnolls kept fighting, and mostly died, here and there hitting Thor but his armor was too much (IIRC it was base 12 or 14, depending on the spot). The PCs mostly were mopping up the enemy around now - Vlad and Chop, with bow and Command spells, kept the halberdier from getting anything done before he was down. Same with a cultist who tried to back off - Chop and Vlad and Hanari finished him.

As the smoke cleared from the nageteppo, Thor chased down the fleeing enemy (Impulsive and Overconfident) and plowed one cultist down from behind, knocking him down and cold. Sadly, as he moved after a wizard cultist, he was clipped by a nearby Explosive Stone Missile spell, wounded despite diving prone, and fell unconscious.

The enemy still ran, though, as the PCs mopped up the last of the guys who'd come around the sides. Duncan had moved the long way around the flank by another corridor and clipped the kama-wounded cultist with an Explosive Lightning spell and wounded him, before heading back. Hanari would eventually spike that cultist in the back, finding him motionless on the floor, while recovering his thrown kama.

At this point, it seemed clear that the PCs needed to drag Thor out of danger and take advantage of the lull. But it took a while for them to get near Thor, and multiple castings of Awaken to get him awake and Major Healing to keep him up. Vlad provided some covering arrows at the cultist wizards way down the hallway, crouching in the dark - behind a row of five plate-armored figures with hammers and shields. They could see the PCs from their lightstones, and Vlad could see them with Dark Vision. The PCs zig-zagged to avoid a few more missile spells, and Vlad rolled a 4 on one shot and knocked down a wizard cultist despite his Missile Shield . . . and knocked him out. He dropped an acid ball and it exploded all over his buddies and him, and a few of the plate-armored guys. But then Vlad decided that the plate-armored guys were a good target, and put two arrows into one.

It blocked them both, and then all five of them charged. And fast - faster than any PC except Vlad and Hanari. The PCs frantically started to get up to run. Hanari couldn't resist his dwarven greed and went to grab some swords as loot. Meanwhile, the plate guys ran up - they were mechanical knights. The PCs started to leave. Hanari gave Chop a Haste spellstone, and they all headed to the exit. Duncan tossed Explosive Lightning and hit a few of the knights, but it didn't stop them. A few started to make loud grinding noises and periodically halt. Thor got his sword out and put one down to one knee, but then backed off. Eventually the PCs got Flight cast on enough of them to fly faster than the knights could run, and ran and flew for it.

They managed to get to the surface, grab their stashed food and triger pelt, and run out of the dungoen. The knights didn't pursue.

After a brief rest, they immediately headed for Stericskburg, three days away.


Notes:

Well, that ended pretty well given how it looked last session. Just goes to show that high-powered delvers (and don't tell me 300 point guys aren't) vs. mooks and worthy foes back by wizards isn't as lopsided as it can look. That's especially true when both sides had very suspect tactical coordination. The enemy lacked any real plan others than "Charge!" (Aka, "Get her, Ray?") and the PCs can match that level of tactical subtlety.

I'm missing some details, especially at the end - it was a confused escape. But I did my best to remember what happened in what order.

Hannari used Throwing Art like crazy this session - throwing summonables, Demon's Brew, Liquid Ice, Magebane, Nageteppo, and more. Oddly, he wasn't using his Wand of Fireballs because 4d isn't sufficient damage, but used a few 1d and 2d throwables instead. I understand the circumstances that made them a good choice, but I'd have thought the wand - average damage enough to ignite a clothing-wearing foe completely - would have seen more use.

The Dragonstooth Warriors didn't do quite as well, despite this being a potentially good fight for them. Their problems were threefold. One, they take a full second to generate and act, so if they're next to an enemy, they can get hammered before they can put in any offense. Second, Hannari threw them right next to the enemy, so they disrupted the enemy advance but let them vulnerable to the first bit. Third, they were mostly fighting one by one each time against multiple foes. They're very effective fighters, but they're vulnerable to being swamped like any other fighters, and don't have the DR to tough it out. They still had a very positive effect. Note for myself for next time - I may have to make summonable things work like a spellstone, instead - activate it, and then the being appears in an open hex next to you that you designate. Throwable seems fine, but from a tactical perspective, they tend to work like paratroops - disruptive and surprising, but extremely vulnerable to immediate counterattack, and cost more than they get you. This isn't a rule change - I just am thinking of putting in less grenade-like, hurlable ally-summoning items.

Don't Poke the Bear - I honestly expected, having chased off the wizards and some of the cultists, the PCs would have time to do some quick looting (or at least to drag some bodies away for later looting, going the longer way around) But I didn't factor in on Vlad. The cultist wizards were depleted but not empty, and wanted to try to snipe at the PCs as they advanced (or fled, in this case) . . . but the mechanical knights weren't going to advance. You know, until Vlad started to shoot at them because - and I can't stress this enough - he wanted to make sure they weren't going to do anything. They weren't doing anything, and then he shot one, and then they did. Oops. I think he shot his way out of MVP right there.

The players did float the idea of staying nearby - fight the enemy, give them 2 weeks to recover, and then come back? Bad idea. But I put it very simply - if you camp nearby, we resume play next time as soon as they're ready to go back in or when the cultists rally up and find their camp and attack. If you go back to town, you're safe. They chose safe; probably a wise move. They'll likely go back again soon, since they have a better idea of what to do here than in Felltower at the moment.

The PCs did leave behind two fallen NPCs - Harold and Samual. They both fell after rolling out the flames on them and then standing up . . . but neither was able to stay concious after that. They fell. Since the VTT marks the fallen with blood splatters or skulls, everyone assumed they were dead. I'm not sure why - it's very hard in GURPS to go from concious to dead without using the bleeding rules, so if they just dropped on their own they're probably alive at the moment. I guess the players used the same logic that they use for a fraction-of-a-second battlefield analysis of "Is that guy over there dead or unconscious?", which I never answer straight. "He's decapitated." or "He's not moving." Because how do you tell at a glance that fast? In any case, they left two fallen behind.

XP was 2 xp each for everyone but Vlad for 20% of their loot threshold, and Vlad 4 xp for full loot, and MVP was Hannari IIRC for throwing stuff around like a maniac.

I have a whole complaint post about the VTT for tomorro or the day after. I won't muddy this one with it, but I was genuinely angry a few times at effect of some changes and some ongoing issues.

Brotherhood Complex pre-summary

We finished the split-session delve into the Brotherhood Complex today.

Short version?

The PCs fought their way out of a large mob of foes, cutting most of them down and driving some off, before provoking even more enemies and needing to flee. They escaped mostly with their lives . . . but in an entertaining session.

Full summary tomorrow.

Random Thoughts & Links for 10/18/2024

- D4 Caltrops gives magic axes some love.

- Not so much gaming time this week of any kind. I'm finishing a very long, very dense military history book on top of a lot of non-gaming reading and video review, so no video games or Revolt on Antares or anything to report there.

- I did get a little cleanup done on the Brotherhood Complex. It's done and just sitting around ready to play, so all that's left is the PCs fighting it out and possible surviving a close-in fight.

- This shouldn't be a side note, but another of my friend Ryan V's gamers passed away . . . age 48. Young to go, but I gather he'd suffered some issues from his younger days that just never really let go. I only played with Lou a few times, but they were fun times. I remember scaring the living hell out of him with something I did in game that was pretty intimidating. Which is funny, because Lou was a big, strong dude but had this deer-in-the-headlights look at whatever the hell I did. I remember his reaction far more than I remember anything about the game itself. Probably Armageddon, I played that the most with that group. Sorry for that Lou, but it's a pretty funny memory. Maybe my buddies Jon or Don remember what the hell I did that provoked that look.

Really sad to hear of a friend passing even if I didn't know him as well as I could have.

GURPS Magic clarification: Fire Cloud & Starting Fires

This clarification is for DF Felltower.

Add the following sentence to the end of the spell description:

"Damage from Fire Cloud is treated normally for setting fires."

In other words, a level 3+ Fire Cloud will partially light up clothes, etc. per the usual GURPS rules (p. B434 or DFRPG Exploits, p. 68), assuming a full turn spent in the area of the spell. It takes a level 6 Fire Cloud (and thus Magery 6*) to do that to anything that passes through the area effect. The note about lighting the easily ignited happens if the subject spends any part of a turn in a Fire Cloud area effect, regardless of the intensity of the damage inflicted - even a 1-point Fire Cloud is sufficient.


* We always allow all spells to cap at the level Magery if it exceeds the listed spell maximum.

Who Gets the Magic Item You Found? - Addenda

This is related to Who Gets the Magic Item You Found?

Who is actually going to use it?

Another option for handing out magic items is simply, who will actually use it? This approach hands off items - especially charged or consumable items, although not always - to the person most likely to actually use it. Yes, the high-DX Thief might actually be the best person to give a grenade-type potion to, but if the Thief isn't ever going to be ready to throw it, it's not a great choice. The wizard might be the most likely to use a wand, even if giving it to another PC means you have multiple sources of magical attack. The cleric might benefit the most from an undead-turning item, but if the cleric will generally end up healing and not turning, giving it to someone else might be a better solution. Somethings this isn't template or character based, but player based - some players are more likely to hold on to items until they really need it, others to use it whever it seems like a good choice. Conversely, you might keep certain items away from certain PCs or players because they're unlikely to use it well - the guy who insists on using his new-fangled Wand of Fireballs every fight, or who tosses back rare potions just to get to use them up. This approach chooses actually basic utility over maximal utility, either chosen to avoid waste or avoid lack of use.

Finders, Keepers

Even in a cooperative game, sometimes the person who gets it is the person who finds it. Or the group that finds in. In a rotating cast of PCs game, a delve might leave out the dwarf fighter because that player is busy on game day, only to find dwarf-sized magic armor . . . and sell it, trade it, or give it to some dwarf NPC because the PC wasn't around to earn it. You may have to have some part in the finding to have any part of the keeping.



Any I missed, in this post or the previous one?

My Modified Mook Rule & Hard to Subdue

I use a modified mook rule, as discussed in these two posts:

My Modified DF Mook Rule
Reflections on my Modified Mook rule in play

I still use these in play, although they don't come up as often as you'd probably expect; unsure of what foe is a mook or not, PCs generally fight as if everyone is a potential boss monster and go for random hit locations hoping for a cripple or lucky vitals/neck/skull shot, or "aim for the hit points" and try to just force the foe down to -5xHP as fast as possible. In effect, going for the surety of eventual death but skipping the possible quick knockout by forcing lots of rolls, penalized or otherwise. But still, they are there.

I am considering modifying the effect of Hard to Subdue, however.

Instead of an off/on switch for the auto-fail of HT rolls, each level of Hard to Subdue pushes the auto-fail threshold down 1xHP.

So a mook auto-fails at 0 HP or below.

One with Hard to Subdue 1 auto-fails at -1xHP or below.

Hard to Subdue 2 fails at -2xHP or below.

Etc. Only 4 levels matter as -5xHP is automatic death without certain advantages - none of which you'd find on something that counts as a mook!


This can allow Hard to Subdue to have its normal effect, but not act as such a big swing between automatic failure and a tough fight - especially since HT 12 is pretty common on the kind of foes that have Hard to Subdue 1+, and HT 13 is likely to keep a foe up for a long, long time.


I'm not sure if I'll do this, but I'm leaning toward it pretty heavily.

A "Dungeons & Dragons" Adventure - Comic Book Back Cover Ad

On the back of one of my comics - ROM: Spaceknight issue #28, March 1982, I found this advertisement for Dungeons & Dragons drawn by Bill Willingham.

As always, these are pretty goofy. Mysterious powers, an easily-scared (and easily-comforted) elf, a dragon-scaring sword, not a lot accomplished. At least there is a dungeon and a dragon.

The great sword Naril indeed. Just bite him, dragon, he's got like AC 4. And nothing more comforting after a red dragon nearly roasts you than relaxing by a warm fire, eh?

Felltower & Hiring Henchmen - Making Skill beat IQ

This post, and rules change, is heavily inspired by comments by Douglas Cole. His comment was that knights - with Born War Leader - should be better at recruiting hirelings - than the cleric, whose IQ beats the knight's Born War Leader-improved Leadership skill. I was immediately swayed by this, but I didn't love the rough proposed suggestion of making BWL or Leadership work better. I think the issue is that IQ is too broadly effective.

Here is my proposed solution. This is a change to Where Did You Find This Guy?, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen, p. 29.

The base roll for finding a henchmen is IQ-3, instead of IQ. Skill rolls are unmodified.

As a secondary note, Loyalty rolls are made based on the hiring character. To quote DF15, p. 30:

"Make a reaction roll when a hireling first signs up. Apply the usual reaction modifiers of the hirer, who may be a PC or an NPC companion, and record the result. This number is effectively a new stat for hirelings: Loyalty."

So if the cleric (IQ 14) or wizard (IQ 15) goes out and hires a squire or killer, the roll for Loyalty is 3d6 plus or minus the net reaction modifier of the cleric or wizard. If the Knight (IQ 10) with Born War Leader 2 hires the same squire or killer, the roll gains a +2 for Born War Leader. Who they nominally are commanded by or working for doesn't matter, the actual hiring character matters.

Notes:

Why didn't I just do this when I wrote it? Well, I actually didn't write that section, that I recall. I believe it was purely Sean Punch, and it draws on GURPS Basic Set.

With this change and clarification, it should be clear that the best person for the job will almost always be the template closest to the specialty.

You can always keep the base IQ roll, give a bonus to Loyalty for higher skill - each level above IQ is worth +1. So a knight with Born War Leader 2, IQ 10, and Leadership-13 has a net +3 (+1 for Leadership at IQ+1, +2 for BWL 2, not double-counting BWL) on Loyalty. Compare that with a cleric with IQ 14 gaining a Loyalty bonus of +0. Or do both.

For Felltower, I chose to go with the IQ penalty, but I'm open to persuasion - and yes, I do roll Loyalty whenever danger arises or there is a need for some roll for bravery or loyalty. I just like the idea that specialists - and yes, Merchant works across the board - do better finding people than someone who is just intelligent.

Random Links for 10/4/2024

It's Friday, time for stuff that doesn't warrant a whole post.

- Next game is 10/20. Ugh. We're monthly. I'll have to see if there is a way to play more often.

- Sorting through my comic collection, I realized I like sci fi/supers crossovers a lot - lots of Dreadstar, Silver Surfer, Guardians of the Galaxy, some later Thor when he's dealing with the Sentinels, etc. in my collection. Well, that and liking certain writers a lot (Starlin and Hama especially).

- Also sorting through it, I'm reminded how much I think the FASERIP system of Marvel Super Heroes did an excellent job of representing four color superheroes. We never got a campaign going because Joe M. would only play Silver Surfer and Jack, Jason, Fred, Rob, and everyone else wouldn't play anyone except Wolverine. Well, maybe Jack would have settled for Spider-Man, but that's about it. Hard for young me to come up with a game to challenge a superteam of Silver Surfer and Wolverine and Spider-Man. Too bad chargen was garbage.

- I've been re-reading some GURPS rules and noted a few I think my players largely honor in the breach - like the penalties to HT rolls to avoid knockout* - and ones I ignore without intending to, like the delayed effects of poisons on SM-positive targets. I have an idea for the latter I kind of like, though, that will see a post next week.



* Which I think I originated in my article for GURPS 3e in Pyramid called ". . . And Stay Down!"

Return of my long-lost Car Wars countermix

Literally decades ago - probably almost 30 years ago now - I introduced a few of my gamers to Car Wars, Deluxe Edition. We played a game. Afterward, I left my whole countermix out on a table on top of the folded-up board from the Dungeon boardgame in the basement. Sometime later - the next day, maybe? - I went down to sort out my counters instead of having them all in one big pile.

They were gone. Nowhere to be found. I searched high and low, and found the Dungeon board on the table, but no counters. All gone.

I searched for quite a while, but assumed they'd been accidentally thrown out during some other cleanup in the basement.

So I literally replaced my entire collection to get a countermix. I found a Car Wars lot on Noble Knight and bought it. Deluxe Car Wars, Dueltrack, etc. I replaced a few map-and-counter supplements, too.

Flash forward to yesterday. I was cleaning out my comics collection, and one by one pulling bags from the comic long boxes and seeing what collection was in each. In one bag, along with a mix of comics, was a weird lumpy mass at the bottom of the oversized bag.

In it was my old countermix.

How it got there, I have no idea. Did someone in my family pour it into the bag and I didn't notice as I put comics in it?

We had cats. Was it possible one sat on the board, dumped the contents into the comics box and therefore the open bag? I used to keep my bagged comics right near my gaming table.

Did I put them away in that bag and complete forgot about it right away?

I have no idea.

But now, decades after my last game of DCW, I have two full countermixes. It's definitely my old countermix - I'd glued wrecks to the back of their unwrecked cars, colored a few favorite black and white counters with colored pencils, and otherwise customized things. And here it is.

Weird.

My replacement mix, sorted, and my old, unsorted mix:

Er, anyone for DCW-era Car Wars?

Felltower is All About Consensus

"Felltower is all about Safety" - Ulf, who died in Felltower

Riffing off of that, I'll say that Felltower is all about consensus.

One benefit of a pick-up, large-player-pool bounded sandbox game can be individually set goals. You see this in the West Marches:

Players send emails to the list saying when they want to play and what they want to do. A normal scheduling email would be something like “I’d like to play Tuesday. I want to go back and look for that ruined monastery we heard out about past the Golden Hills. I know Mike wants to play, but we could use one or two more. Who’s interested?” Interested players chime in and negotiation ensues. Players may suggest alternate dates, different places to explore (“I’ve been to the monastery and it’s too dangerous. Let’s track down the witch in Pike Hollow instead!”), whatever — it’s a chaotic process, and the details sort themselves out accordingly. In theory this mirrors what’s going on in the tavern in the game world: adventurers are talking about their plans, finding comrades to join them, sharing info, etc.

This is not how Felltower works.

For Felltower, it works this way:

1) GM and players decide on the next game date. This used to mean the next time at least a few people and I could play, but now means the next time almost everyone can make the game.

2) Sometimes by email, but usually on the game day itself, the players discuss what to do.

3) Verify with the GM that this is ready to go.

4) If 3 is satisfied, play. If not, go back to step 2.

We almost never have individual-led expeditions as described in the West Marches game. We don't get a lot of, "I want to sack the Black Library on 8/4. Who's coming?" and lot more "We're playing 8/4 and everyone except (these two PCs) can play. Where should we go?"

That was not how it was designed, though.

Originally, it went like this:

1) GM decides on the next day game can be run, with input from the players (since one of them hosted game.)

2) Anyone who can come, does come.

3) Players decide what to do.

4) Play.

It's a difference that has led to a much more traditionally style of game. We play when everyone's around, game frequency has dropped off as real-life concerns are compounded by the perceived need / desire to have almost everyone there, play is purely cooperative (no one is trying to raid location X without cutting everyone else in), and the game has grown more tolerant of multi-session delves.

Some of that is Felltower itself at this point - there are less hanging tag ends to pull on. Or at least, less that the players see and perceive as a potential way to get loot without dying. But it's been a consistent theme since early on. It's decision by consensus, not individually led sessions. PCs don't start as somewhat trepidatious weaker delvers and, as they grow stronger, branch out into individual goals and individual delves. Instead, they start out as somewhat trepidatious weaker delvers and grow into stronger, more and more group-oriented delvers. Regardless of how powerful they become, they continue to work together as a group and make decisions about delving as a group.

There are pros and cons, of course.

The pros are largely convivial play amongst the players. We don't have a lot of in-party conflict because we have players who either started as friends, or became so because of the game. It's almost always fun, no matter the result of the game, because everyone gets along. This pro doesn't take long to write out, but make no mistake - this is huge. Anyone who has played with That Guy knows that not having That Guy makes for a better experience. It's why I recruit friends, not gamers, into the game. At least gaming group has spun off from my group, with players who met playing Felltower (or the previous game I ran.)

But it does have downsides.

The main downside to consensus is that everyone in my group generally has to agree on a task. Or at least, not be opposed to it. So preferred play style / play tolerance dictates actions. We have at least one player who vociferously objects to purely exploratory or preperatory sessions. No filling in the map or just checking out some side areas or making sure of some half-checked areas. Bold delve or no delve. So when that player is around, those things can't happen . . . so they generally don't. We have some risk-averse players, who'd rather a sure thing than a long shot, and so that cuts out some high-risk high-reward options. There are others, too - some players are just either not interesed in mid-week email-based planning (or Discord based, assuming they're still using their Discord channel), or don't have time for it. So delves that require some planning don't get planned, and the "no pure planning sessions" guy won't spend Sunday on that, and the "no risk" guys won't go without planning because it's too risky, and no one seems to plan by email because they need full consensus to go.

One reason the last session's delve into the Brotherhood Complex had all of two hirelings - I don't think they even tried to hire Darkspire - was because I didn't have any more set up in the VTT. I didn't make any because no one affirmatively declared they'd go and hire them, and I don't do prep work for PC-centric actions like that on a maybe. Why didn't anyone declare affirmatively they'd hire them, even with a caveat of "when we go, which isn't decided yet*"? I do not know, but I think it's connected to this idea of consensus. Everyone didn't agree this was a thing to be done, so no one did it.

It even has some direct "off limits" results for Felltower. Black library? Not with a cleric, because they'll burn the books, but not without a cleric, because you need healing and curse mitigation. No dragons, because not everyone is on board for risking a grounded fight against a flying monster. I'm partly sure we lost one player because the whole "yes you have to roll for every door" style of play of Felltower annoyed him, and no one wanted to spend the time - least of all him - to knock down doors or fix broken entrances and such to make that a non-issue.

The game has changed as a result. It's still supportable, but it has had consequences. Less gaming sessions overall - a month with two game sessions is a good month. It used to be standard. It's not uncommon to miss a whole month. Players used to complain about how long it took to special order items and get enchantments done, but now they complain about lack of funds more - time between sessions is longer so the first is less of an issue but it takes big hauls each of the delves to net the same cash over time. More concern about TPKs and dead PCs, because losses are a more significant given less actual time to play and way a fallen PC falls out of a niche. Groups come together more as "What do we need?" and less as "I have a character idea." It resembles a lot more Session 0 in a traditional game than a pure pickup game would.

So concensus isn't all a bad thing - it does mean more player enjoyment and better cohesion as a group. But it does affect how Felltower is played.


* I'm still not doing the prep just in case, so it better be damn firm before I spend my non-session time loading up a bunch of NPCs and tokens and so on on a maybe. It's annoying work at best and wasted time consumption at worst. I'll do it when I have to.

Thoughts & Links for 9/27/2024

Thoughts and links for Friday.

- Revolt on Antares arrived. It's nice to have the whole countermix together again.

- Bleh, Felltower has gone monthly-ish. Next game is a few weeks from now.

- I'm starting to go through my old comics collection, to see what I want to keep and what I want to sell off. I have some issues of the Forgotten Realms comics. No idea how many yet, but I'll post here once I know what I have in case someone has interest in them. If I get rid of them, probably a bunch of Conan Saga magazine-sized might go on the goodbye pile.

- Not sure how I missed this - piling on monsters. I play this way.

- I think my player andi would have a shot at this Art Contest.

Revolt on Antares - repurchased

I had to do it. I finally got a new copy of Revolt on Antares, one of my favorite TSR minigames.

I have the rulebook, probably have the map . . . somewhere . . . and have some of the counters. I potentially could have kit-bashed a playable version. But I figured, what the heck, Noble Knight had a complete copy.

I can't wait to play it again, and this time, keep all of the pieces together. I'm not as prone to sloppy counter keeping as I was as a pre-teen.

Felltower & Brotherhood Complex Notes 9/22/24

Back in August, I wrote the following to my players:

"Going to the Brotherhood Complex is fine, but:

1) If it's not in current use, it'll be a lot of exploration to see what you can find.

2) If it is in current use, it'll be a straight-up fight against organized, intelligent foes . . . so you can't get away with what got you mauled the first time (blundering into a large fight without being ready for it) or killed the second time (boxing yourself in.) It's an assault on an enemy complex, not a room-by-room exploration of a megadungeon with small areas controlled by small groups you can pick off as you please.

As long as you're okay with the possibility of #1, and ready for #2, I'm game for it."

A little discussion after that resulted in the following:

- My suggestion that the PCs get hirelings in actual numbers. Vic put it as a "10 good men" kind of thing. Probably a few more, but yes.

- There was a suggestion of finding folks who hate the Black Brotherhood to come along.

- I pointed out that there would be loot, for sure, with intelligent foes, but getting reinforcements would be costly.

At the moment, the PCs are in a large fight I'm not 100% sure they're ready for, and not quite boxed in but cut off from the exit. The enemy is between them and the exit, and the probable path of additional enemy reinforcements is also into that same area.

We'll see how it goes . . . but I just wanted it on the record that I made it clear what the Brotherhood Complex would entail and we discussed what it would benefit from.


This, though, is also the current problem in Felltower. 12 years now of exploration of - largely - 4-5 levels, often over and over again - has cleared out most of the things that can be picked off without any complications. Most of that picking off was done in the first 3 years. So much so that I needed to launch a new side dungeon in March 2015 and another in September 2015 to allow for weaker delvers to have places to go. So much so that I had to do a pause and restock twice, including recently while the PCs dealt first with one side area and then another.

Much of the problem with Felltower, now, is that you can't just go and wipe out some hapless foes with no friends and lots of treasure.

The dragon in the caves below the gate level is next to a beholder, so it's not clear how to deal with one without having to deal with the other in some way. The six-fingered vampires - the Gith, as the players have named them - guard their areas with magical defenses the PCs can't just avoid and will respond to incursions in force. The gates lead to places with similar issues - raiding the apes might work but they're not going to go down house by house without responding in numbers. No one wants to go to the "Hell Gate" and the Air Gate is still being pushed back because, athough people can now fly, they don't have tactical flight so they can't fight airborne* and don't seem willing to risk what happens against flyers.

Even the unguarded areas - like the ruined city on the bottom of the second GFS - are just going to be exceedingly dangerous. It's a fine place to explore but they're scaled for PCs who can handle the stuff above.

All of the remaining areas present more of a thought challenge than a power challenge - they'll take some clever and thoughful play, I think, to defeat them. You'll need power, too, but the usual delving rhythm of "door, lure the foe into a bad spot, kill it, loot it, rest and recover, repeat" isn't going to be valid anymore. It hasn't been in a while, but against orcs and puddings and gargoyles and the like, the lopsided power of the delvers vs. the foes made up for it.

I suspect this is why a lot of megadungeon plan can peter out. Not from boredom, but from challenges that are different from what people are ready to solve and a limit on what you can do to advance your cause. The way of playing might need to change, or I need to basically toss the levels below the ones explored already, and just keep filling in monsters unable to coordiante in order to keep it going. I'm a little too stubborn and lazy for that, though. I constructed some challenges to require more than just brute force and killing foes in isolation. I'm wondering if those being the blockers to other areas have effectively put Felltower and its related areas into an adapt-or-end-the-campaign situation.

Hopefully this will be useful for my players as a glimpse at the forest and not just the trees. If it's of general interest, too, and help to GMs with their own long-running megadungeon games, that's good, too.

* If people are waiting to accumulate enough magic to have cheap, effective, reliable, tactical combat flight . . . better take Breath Control. Letting a party become a group of routine free flyers changes the game substantially, and turns all fights with non-flyers into a bit of a joke. So don't expect to see that handed out.

Random Bits for 9/20/2024

- you know if it's Star Frontiers I'm interested. Volturnus race stats.

I like it, although I stand by my criticism of Volturnus. I feel like it would be such a good later adventure, for a group already used to civilization and now plunged into wilderness survival. Oh well.

- I'm intrigued by the rules for Victory in Europe. It's a three-sided game, with the Soviets, Western Allies, and Germany as the three sides. But to prevent the Germans from just hunkering down arounnd Berlin and riding the game out, there are permanent penalties to your combat and reinforcement abilities if you let go of different areas. Abandoning Norway or southern Germany or what have you may seem good on paper, but they come with costs that make holding the rest harder. It's a pretty cool mechanical idea - military tactics may call for tightening up your lines but political necessity may require you to hold on to everything you can . . . and this helps reinforce that.

- Octopus Carnival talks playing around with GURPS combat flow.

- And I'm busy playing around with the VTT a bit to see how I can upload my Felltower maps . . . but still no luck. My levels are too big for 1-yard hexes and the limits of Foundry.

Fun Bits from Last Session

A few fun bits from last session:

- I have the Brotherhood Complex fully mapped out in the VTT. So people can just click and drag themselves around willy-nilly. And they did. PCs got seperated, NPCs lagged here and there, and so on. It was fun.

Especially fun is that, just like Belmak Battlebeard in their last group to hit this area, Thor became Thor Doorsbane, and ran around opening every door he could. Even when other PCs weren't quite down with opening a door, too late, he was there and rolling Forced Entry. There is a lot more impulsive stuff going on when everyone can just move and do on their own.

- We have dragons at home. The players talked about going after a dragon last session, including the one they spotted at the lake in the Lost City of D'Abo. Chop shot that down, saying, basically, we have a dragon in Felltower, we don't have to go all the way to the Lost City to fight a dragon.

- In a less fun bit, flaming swords suck to GM. I have to and manually add 2 injury, burning, as a followup, to every foe hit. There must be a better way . . . and that +2 injury is nice but, geez, it's often on top of 30-40 injury and barely relevant.

GURPS DF Session 198, Brotherhood Complex 6 - Gnolls & Doors

Real Date: 9/15/2024
Game Date: 9/18/2024

Weather: Sunny, warm.

Characters Chop, human cleric (301 points)
     Harold, human guard
     Samual, human guard
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (300 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf martial artist (266 points)

The PCs gathered in Stericksburg, lacking, sadly, even concepts of a plan. After gathering rumors they decided their best bet was to take on the dragon near the beholder's lair in Felltower. That quickly became "let's send Invisible Flying Vlad down to steal a scoop of treasure and get out" and then back to "but fight the dragon." Thor pointed out that dragons fly, they don't have tactical combat flight, and then they'll all die fighting the dragon. So they decided to head to the Brotherhood Complex and raid it, sure they could at least score some loot from the guards.

There had been some recent discussion about going to the complex, and it was agreed that fighting intelligent, active foes in what would be an assault, not a normal dungeon crawl, would take some specialized gear (like Magebane grenades) and fighting support (as in, a large number of combat-capable hirelings.) All of that went out the window for an imediately delve.* Instead they just bought 10 days of rations and set out.

Around midday on day 3 they reached the valley where the cave to the Brotherhood Complex is. They watched it while chowing down on rations, saw nothing going on, and headed in. The cave concealed a long, meandering and narrow hall that eventually ended up in a large room with a pair of giant metal doors. They spoke the passphrase and went through. Relying on the notes of previous delvers, they avoided the obvious exit and found an illusionary wall with stairs beyond. They dumped all of their spare rations in a corner in the room and sent Vlad ahead, with Dark Vision and Invisibility. He headed down the stairs, quietly, and heard some suppressed breathing and a low rumbling growl. He moved around the corner and saw a half-dozen gnolls, with a mix of longbows and morningstars, all clearly waiting for action. A triger padded out of a crack in the wall and started howling. Vlad backed off and shot the triger, and whistled for help.

The PCs rushed down and formed a rough line. The triger had run off, but the gnolls advanced. Vlad kept shooting the gnolls, trying to wound as many as he could to limit their ability to run for help. The gnolls yelled and barked and the triger roared a triple-throated roar from the crack in the wall.

The PCs moved up and attacked. Chop used Command on one of the gnolls, Thor started cutting them up, and Vlad kept shooting them. The triger rushed out and clawed up Samual and hurt Harold before going down until a lot of sword swings, arrows, stabs, and axes from Hannari. Duncan hit the triger and one of the gnolls with Stone Missile, but otherwise it was mostly Thor and Vlad killing them with Hannari crippling a couple on top of that. In about 15 seconds or so of fighting, they'd managed to kill them all. This was before any could run for help, but the gnolls and triger had put up a loud racket before going down.

They made sure the gnolls were dead, healed up their hirelings, and started to search around. They wanted to move quickly. They did, going from door to door to door in the area east of the entrance stairs (which are in the NW.) Amongst the oddities they found was an acidic water pit. They stayed clear - good choice, as it burbled and bubbled and exploded like a geyser after a few minutes. They put Resist Fire for the heat and Resist Acid for the acid and sent Vlad in to investigate. He fished around in the acid a bit but there wasn't anything in it they could see. They took a path around it and went on, exploring further and opening more doors.

In one, they saw a flickering light at the end of a hallway - from a crack in the floor. It was hot, too, so they all backed off and sent in Vlad with Resist Fire. As he headed down the hallway, the entire floor crumbled, revealing a bed of superheated coals. He fell, getting badly injured but not crippled. With help from Duncan - who also put Resist Fire on himself - he was brought out with Walk on Air. First, he spent some time searching the coals for loot before giving up. They headed out.

From there, they circled around and eventually found a hallway that led to a locked door. They tried to force it, but it was barred. Apportation couldn't shift the bar - it was locked down - and forcing the door failed. Hannari unlocked it, but that didn't help with the bar. So they decided to hack the door down, with Thor using Hannari's axe.

After bashing it a bit, Vlad - on lookout - saw a gnoll and shot it. He called to them.

The PCs stopped what they were doing and ran to Vlad. He saw more gnolls, and some humans in armor and a number of robe-wearing figures.

Vlad kept sending arrows down the hallway, wounding gnolls and trying - and missing - against the robed guys. Thor and Samuel and Harold rushed forward, and Hannari moved forward with him. Two of the robed guys throw spells - an Explosive Fireball and an Explosive Acid Ball, both 6d. They did a solid amount of damage - 24 for the fireball, 27 for the acid. In the narrow hallway there wasn't really anywhere to jump aside. Thor was fine, although his armor was corroded a bit on the back and he's got some burning gear. Samual is engulfed in flames, Harold burning and badly hurt. Hannari was hurt as well, and is also burned.

The PCs have the gnolls, robed cultists, and guards moving to engage them and also north . . . and are effectively between the PCs and the exit, now with two hirelings badly hurt and unable to outrun anyone (if they can stay up.)

And that's where we called it, for time.


* Because hiring NPCs means I need to generate them, make tokens for them, and put the in the VTT, which is time consuming . . . and that time would come out of our playing time.

Notes:

- I like having the whole map open so people can manually move around. Much easier on me.

- The plan was a hit-and-run raid - I think - but in the end a lot of time was spent clearing empty rooms and doubling over areas. They didn't map, because that would take far too long (and would have meant a response much earlier). But they also spent a good amount of time trying to hack down a door in a dead end. We'll see how it goes from here.

- So far, the loot is a triger pelt and some weapons from the gnolls they'll loot on the way out. Unless they can defeat the enemies they face now and hold the field, of course. The pelt is damaged - I'll roll to see how much, but since they took the Triger to -91 HP from 19, aka between -4x and -5xHP, it's going to be less valuable. Sorry . . . best way to get a triger pelt isn't to hack the triger to death.

MVP was Vlad for valuable and effective missile fire. My vote, which doesn't count, was for Hannari's player, who suggested a monster that I'll write up the next time I need a post with a silly monster.