This post is a connected followup to Boss/Worthy/Fodder ranking the GFS II guys.
Meta-gamey concerns I have as a GM
The Master/Gith almost solo'd the whole group, even with them using potions and Great Haste. This was for a few reasons.
One, he was using buffs, too. Missile Shield for one, some spellstones and potions graciously donated by previous delvers for another.
Second, the players didn't have their cleric with them, which meant the Master/Gith wasn't trying to undo Curse over and over, and the PCs - used to constant and immediate healing - had the same problem the Master/Gith did, which was, no one to heal injuries.
Third, he was legitimately boss-level - some very potent advantages, some magical gear, excellent armor, and spells. His skills were also high - experienced PC level skills.
He lost anyway, for a few reasons.
His disadvantages dictated a way to fight and a way to handle the threats of the PC. He couldn't just do the most efficient thing in the moment, although he generally had a lot of good options.
The PCs outnumbered him in the end, and it didn't all that much to take out what forces he could muster to help him. With no one to watch his back, the PCs kept after him tightly, forcing him to hit and move and hit and move until he made a mistake (disads are disadvantageous, it happens) and was taken down.
But still, he managed to kill one PC, and knock out two others, before going down.
My game concern is that the players will react by thinking, well, if DX 25 (!) and Skill 25-28 wasn't enough to overwhelm this guy without taking losses, we need to be at least skill 25-28 before DX potions. Slams didn't work well on this guy because he was very strong for his slight build, so people might start thinking, we also need more strength on everyone. You know, what if - just what if - everyone else got killed and one of the PCs had to solo one of these guys. Better for all concerned that the PC has more skill, more ST, and more DX than this guy, right?
That will work.
But then it means instead of a foe like this being interesting, a foe like this has to become the new baseline. Otherwise, any foe with attacks that work on mundane lines - roll to hit, apply defenses, apply DR on a hit, inflict injury - will likely be total wastes of time. Crit-fishing will still work just fine, but their defenses won't when a skill-30 guy succeeds by 20 on average and their defenses don't even reach 20. In fact, defenses in the mid-teens are rare on foes. 12-13 are more common, and 10-12 more common, still. In an attempt to make a boss (one on many a match for PCs) like this more like a worthy-level foe (one on one a match for a PC), it came mean just about total overkill against everything else. When that happens, as a GM, I really have no choice but to make high skill and high defenses and Feints less or not at all relevant. More trick monsters, less like-on-like challenges for the PCs. This is the Invulnerability Trap I have discussed before.
So I am considering skill-capping. Sure, that means more people pushing to DX 20, but they're going to do that anyway. But DX+10 as a skill cap is on my mind.
Might be seen as unfair, because I won't promise you'll never find a skill-25 guy with DX 14 on the other side, but it might stop people from pouring more and more and more points into a single axis of power and groaning when the adventures present broader axes of demand.
Another possible issue is, we can't do it without (blank.) That might be (our cleric), or (another wizard), or (buff spells on everyone), or (a fountain of DX and ST and Speed potions). It's a dangerous road ahead, for sure, but it's going to be tough if no one is willing to go without a massive amount of buffs. It will become a logistical hurdle to delving in new areas. This I am less concerned by. If PCs achieve overkill by spending thousands of dollars per delver per fight, it'll naturally become a bleed for excess cash. It's annoying as a GM when it means you can't really gauge the strength of the PCs - are they ST 15-20 or more like 21-25 due to potions, or DX 20+ due to potions, or immune to missile fire due to Missile Shield, or are they not? But it's not a problem.
My final concern is the caution trap, which is the two above plus more. If this was so hard here, what about a couple levels down . . . is it worse? Yes. Will that mean people insist on doing to this level what they did to every level above? That is to say, loot it down to the door hinges and not move on until they've "cleared" the level to maximize their point value before taking a further risk? They may. I sincerely hope this teaches them that a forward risk is the way to go - the big loot, the big fun fights, the cool exploration and insight into Felltower's internal logic as rewards for pushing the envelope a bit.
We will see.
"This is the Invulnerability Trap I have discussed before."
ReplyDeleteOkay... but... and I say this with all due respect, //that's the game you're running//.
You aren't running a campaign built around "saving the kingdom" where rp and politics and town/guild/noble hobnobbing is the most important thing. Your game is about "looting and leveling up to fight harder foes and get better loot to level up to fight harder foes to get even betterer loot to..."
You are basically running D&D without an end cap in sight. No "and we're stopping at level 20 guys". So maybe you need to put in a "level 20"?
Let me put it another way - the Invulnerability Trap is a trap because points are finite. You could spend them on additional capabilities or improving your secondary and tertiary abilities. You can put all of your points - even a majority of your points - into weapon skills, DX, ST, and Enhanced Defenses and Extra Attack. Go for it.
DeleteBut it costs you when you need to roll against Wrestling. Or Survival. Or Per. Or make a Will roll. Or roll Hidden Lore. Or run into something you'd like to exorcise in a handwave instead of an hour. Or when you can't turn undead. Or try some Diplomacy. Or sneak using your Stealth. There is a cost to doing this - a definite, absolute cost. You'll run through mundane monsters like a hot knife through butter but then fail when you're called on to display additional capabilities or deal with something that doesn't get solved with Broadsword-28 or a Dodge of 20.
The trap is spending beyond utility, and that's what I'm talking about. That's my concern - the reaction to pour even more into already high-end abilities when the party is often hamstrung by a lack of broader abilities.
I would not be opposed to skill caps, although I do think it makes sense for those to grow as the individual gets higher in level, to some degree. Like, starting delvers often have DX 14 and Skill 20 in their main weapon, so that's DX+6. I can see the cap being DX+10 until you get to 400 points, and then it's DX+15, or something like that? NOTE that I'm just using an example, *not* necessarily what I would propose.
ReplyDeleteThat Master was really tough. I know we beat him, but it's interesting, because in a one-on-one fight, he could probably just wax everyone without blinking. Magic + Super Skill was a deadly combo. Percy's crits to the skull and then him turning his back on Thor was what allowed us to win. It was a fun and super tough fight.
I do think that at one point we were talking about capping feints—that may be one good way to go. Otherwise the go-to is Feint v. Skill 26, and then hit with deceptive attack on top of a -10 already or whatever the margin was.
GURPS, like all RPGs, frankly, can be tricky at higher power levels, especially with cinematic options. It's SUPER FUN, but I can very much see as a GM how it is hard to threaten the players sometimes. I've often been there with 400 point characters. Hordes to tie up people so they can't just focus fire on the BBEG, and that helps, but sometimes it's tough.
I do think that there are several areas where there is clearly loot and objectives that we probably feel more comfortable about now, or at least we are getting close. Vlad keeps pushing Mungo, and I think Duncan wants to go there as well, perhaps even Thor. We just have to get everyone on board there. Vlad also would love to take out the beholder (SO MUCH LOOT) also because it is an area of exploration that is effectively walled off to us and because it's an EVIL BASTARD. He did have ***a chance*** last time, from very far away, but he really needs someone to keep the gargoyles off him for a few so he can snap off a dozen shots at the beholder before it gets too close.
The last two concerns are still valid, though. Having said that, we have pushed to go gown GFS2 without a Cleric and without a Wizard on separate occasions. Risky, but we made it. Vlad kind of feels like so long as we have one heavy hitter Knight and one caster, plus Hannari, he's feeling ***confident enough*** to go down there.
A sliding cap would defeat the purpose of a cap, actually - you'd still be able to push skill to very high levels, you'd just have to wait a bit to do it. It still leaves the problem of pouring points into skills to make sure there are no skill-based bosses of consequence. It would take some jiggering around for a scale people liked, and then I expect players would then feel these new caps implied you needed the skill.
DeletePut another way, the number of monsters you'll encounter with north of a 20 skill in an attack are very, very small. The number with skill 18-20 is pretty small. 14-16 skill on monsters is very common. I just want to make sure people effectively can't react to the occasional foe with an effective skills in the upper 20s by boosting every fighter to effective skills in the upper 20s. You can still get skill-30 with a DX+10 cap. I can't think of a single case where that level skill is needed. You guys won this fight without it.
Yet right after the fight there were spells and skills and abilities people wanted for and didn't have.
BUT also: What have we learned? There's massive loot in the lower levels. There's plenty to explore. We do need to go after it. And if we are smart (we could be a hell of a lot smarter), we can take on these challenges.
ReplyDeleteAh. Then maybe instead of a hard cap... take a page from FATE, require a Skill Pyramid (though it's a bit of work on your part checking over character sheets to make sure people are on the program).
ReplyDeleteBasically before a skill can exceed say, 20, you have to have two other skills at 20. and then so on, so to get a skill to 22, you need two skills at 21, and four at 20.
Now, while FATE doesn't care what the Skill/Attributes/Abilities are, you could require they be "supportive". Also, FATE pillars out like six to eight abilities "supporting" the 'pinnacle' ability, you could similar ... or just require one-hundred twenty-eight skills at 20 to support a single skill at 28. I mean that would be dedication. ;P
Granted... this will be far, far, far simpler for casters to do than non casters, as they tend to lock-step all their spells anyway. Hmm. Wait, no, it would be harder, they'd need sooo many support skills. I might do this in my next campaign. Hmmm.
I like the idea but I don't like the complication that'll probably result. The idea of having minimum breadth to have maximum skill is interesting but I'm not sure how to implement it.
DeleteThat's why I'm looking at a cap - it tells people how close they are to the top, so they can start to look around at other skills. No one feels like Axe/Mace-20 is enough but Wrestling-15 and Stealth-13? Those are plenty! Until they need it. Heh.
I'm brainstorming solutions, here. I've been preaching this for a long time but just a few more points of skill or points of damage always wins out.
Maybe just require a 2-point unusual background per level for skill levels higher than 25 and then a 4 point unusual background per level for skills of 30+? If you have to pay 6 points per skill level from 26 up to 29 and then 8 points per level when you want to get to 30 and beyond, your players might decide their points are better spent elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThat's suggested in the post Vic linked below. I generally note that DFRPG and GURPS DF tend to either precursor buys or hard caps. But this is an idea worth considering.
DeletePerhaps revisit this post? https://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2020/12/gurps-caps-limits-roundup-post-and.html
ReplyDeleteI will, thanks.
Delete