Game Date: 9/6/2026
Weather: Warm and partly cloudy.
Characters
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (382 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (367 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (391 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (343 points)
We started off in town, with the PCs buying some potions and Strengthen Will spellstones.
The PCs headed into the dungeon via the well entrance, and down to the first GFS (giant fantastic staircase), and into the so-called Gate Level. The air was close and stale. Vlad tried to push for going to burn off the gas they'd discovered in one area of caves on this level a few sessions back, but Hannari wanted to "stay on target."
They made it to the room with the "Will Wall." Hannari touched one of the mummified six-fingered "Gith" hands to the door, as he had with the GFS. It opened the door, but also got a bit ratty - the 1 injury inflicted when anything touches the door still seemed to apply. He wasn't hurt but it's not clear how much these hands can take - maybe a few more touches?
The Will Wall was more trouble, and in the end several of the PCs had to use Strengthen Will spellstones to get in. From there, it was down to the first landing of the second GFS. Hannari touched the door, it opened, and they went in, all using Walk on Air from Duncan. The chime went off as they advanced - a low gong-like ringing. It kept going, every five or six seconds, continuously. A Dispel Magic on the area did nothing.
They moved in "map south" and crossed the room, using Walk on Air. Thor cut down a whispy curtain of shadowy material and burned it away, and they headed down through a rectangular room and into a circular room with a passage out to their upper right. It had a whispy curtain partway down its length. They had Vlad mapping, the chime going low in the background, and then they had Hannari try to cut down the curtain with his best kama. It worked, but it took some cutting - the stuff cut like paper using bad scissors, but when cut away it whisped into nothing, defying Hannari's goal of keeping some for testing or use.
Beyond was a clearly large room. Only Vlad and Duncan could see - a giant vat, a dozen or so yards across, about 4' high, with a semi-circle of two-yard wide vats with equally tall sides. In the biggest of them was an off-white goo that moved and rippled a little without anything clearly stirring it. The room smelled of flesh and sweat, mixed with a bit of a formaldehyde smell as well. The other six couldn't be seen into from anyone's starting vantage point.
Beyond the vat were four Masters - two with greataxes, one taller one armed as a Lichtor, and one very tall one armed similarly.
Hannari opened by his usual routine by now - fast-sheath his weapon, fast-draw a spellstone from a potion slot, throw it to the limit of his sight, fast-draw his weapon back out (at a -0, -4, -0 to the throw, -8). He'd throw another to the limit of that one's light radius, too, a second later.
The other PCs moved in, Vlad launching arrows at the Masters in succession, only to have them all just miss - clearly Missile Shield. The PCs advanced, going towards and around the left side of the big vat. As they closed with the smallest vat, Thor went to engage an axeman . . . and up popped a ratman, hidden until the moment behind the vat and under some whispy shadowy material. It bit Thor, who didn't see it until it hit him, but a terrible damage roll meant even its armor-piercing phase bite didn't do anything. The ratman flicked and snapped and jolted around, and one of Vlad's two arrows just passed through it harmlessly, but it twitched into the path of the other and took an arrow to the face. Thor's counter swing a moment later - as he backed out of close combat - cut the ratman nearly in half and dropped him. Others popped up, one throwing corrosive slime at Percy, who dodged, but it left a nasty goo pile in the hex he'd been in.
The PCs moved up. Percy quickly became a terror to the skull-owning ratmen and axemen. He killed one axeman in a brief exchange, then a ratman, and then the licthor - all three knocked straight to -10xHP from skull smashes, not incidentally destroying the Mage Scale helmets from those two suits. In each of his three strikes he'd get one critical hit, which usually was enough to finish off his foes. Thor backed up slightly and cut off the leg of another axeman. But then, the Master leader they'd been ignoring had circled wide of the melee going on. For whatever reason, they didn't pay attention to him until he was just withing rushing distance of Duncan. He zipped up, running 8 yards on the air (they use magical flight abilities, too) to stab Duncan twice in the eyes. Duncan used Blink (we forgot to make him roll Body Sense, didn't we?) and blocked, barely fending off the two strikes. Hannari rushed the melee, trying to slam the Master but missing. Duncan retreated. The Master rushed Vlad, next, and stabbed him in the eye (after a blisteringly good Feint - IIRC Vlad was at -14 or so from the Feint), knocking him unconscious. He dropped a few yards and lay still. Meanwhile, the axeman crippled by Thor had levitated himself back up and into the fray, so Percy killed him.
Thor and Hannari pressed the Master, who stabbed at both of them. Thor barely blocked his attack (he had a 5!), and Hannari more easily delt with his attack. They Feinted back, but even with a +5 DX from the usual potion quaffed at the beginning of the fight, Hannari couldn't overmatch the Master. They don't know his skill, but for comparison, Thor is at 22 and Hannari 28 (I think.) Duncan helped out by putting Great Haste on Hannari and Percy.
Meanwhile, a half-dozen more ratmen joined the six who'd popped up near the PCs and rushed into the fray, closing in on the Master. Some threw crystals, to no effect as the PCs blocked or Dodged them.
Then Percy stepped up and took two swings at the Master, who dodged one and took the other to the skull thanks to a Critical Hit. He knocked his head back and wounded him, but he was still up.
He ended it there for time.
Notes:
- Duncan is a few points away from getting Flight 25. That's 0 to maintain. Essentially, I expect most fights to involve multiple flying PCs. People treat it as unlimited air move; I wish it specified "cannot hover" so Levitation still made some sense as a seperate spell once you have a high level of Flight. Also, I like how it expands out adventure possibilities, but I'm not looking forward to how it completely eliminates entire swathes of adventure challenges. The PCs will never need to worry more than a modicum about cliffs, floor traps, difficult to reach foes, ledges, etc. Open spaces become PCs killing zones and closed areas funnels for NPCs to be forced to fight one on one vs. PCs. Free to maintain flight is a significant game changer. I'm ready for the challenge but it does mean we're going to need to do 3-D range estimation and reach rulings and "how far can I fly and are level changes free while I move?" every single combat and time-based challenge around. I should start to make rulings about falling while flying, stunning while flying, etc. I expected the arguments will be made that it's like walking, only much, much better. Heh. Only NMZs are going to force some care and caution, here. You'd think, maybe, that Walk on Air already does this - but Flight is substantially better in most respects, and dramatically reduces the concerns that keep people from using it for flight-based adventuring. I do plan to put paid to the whole 1" off the ground b.s. that people do all the time. With flight, it'll be limited to whole yards.
This is why, by the way, one of my proposed rules for a future game using GURPS Magic is a minimum cost to cast and maintain of 1. No free spells on all the time for anyone. Most of my old hands don't like it, which tells me it's a good, workable rule.
- We had a bit of miscommunication. I always give directions relative to facing. They often had a predisposed idea of "map north" based on battle maps or whatever, and so it skewed a little bit of mapping until I put up a battle map. This kind of issue goes way back. I said "upper right" and the heard it as "over our right shoulders."
- I love the ratmen. Matt Riggsby thinks DF like I think DF, sometimes. I don't use the plain ones anymore . . . phase, crystal, slime, and electric ones for me, thank you.
- We would could have finished this fight in one go, but we had the usual VTT issues (especially because some modules I used to use for management were superceded by native changes to either GURPS Game Aid or Foundry), and everyone was slow. It's hard to be on the ball after a three month layoff. We'll pick up the battle next session in a couple of weeks and go from there. I don't blame anyone, we were just slow, and Hannari is complicated and his player had to be in and out due to a real world problem, which also slowed us down. Oh well.
- Quote of the session was Doug, who said, "I don't play games to do bookkeeping." Agreed. My current campaign is probably above the upper limit I'd set if we weren't already there.
- MVP was Percy for piles of foe-ending criticals, and a nasty one on the Master right at the end.
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