DF Session 211, Brotherhood Complex 9 - Chop & Hannari's Excellent Adventure

Game Date: 6/29/25-7/7/25
Date: 6/29/25

Characters:
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
3 guards
2 laborers

Only Hannari and Chop were on hand, so they decided to make a go of a final exploration of the Brotherhood Complex. It was known to be deserted since their last raid trashed the place, but they were sure there was loot left.

Spoiler alert - there was.

I'll dispense with the usual narrative summary. Most of the session was just Chop and Hannari wandering around, forcing doors, occasionally blundering into evil runes, and exploring like crazy.

They:

- checked all of the guard and gnoll living areas and found nothing

- explored the torture chamber and found nothing

- found a weird purple stone behind a secret door - details below - in the area they'd caused to be covered with weird mold. They warded off the effects with Resist Cold but would later need Estoteric Medicine to clear their lungs out of the heat-sapping mold.

- cleared the junk room and sorted through the junk

- found some oversized ever-burning torches that couldn't be kept out, but light immediately underground and extinguish in the outside.

- found a weird room of billowing low sanctity smoke, and tried to explore it but gave up since they couldn't see anything and felt immense menace.

- found assorted weapons and left-behind gear

- scored some loot and a secret.

The huge oblong purple stone was a big find. Hannari came close to it and saw a vision of himself and Chop leaning over a chest. He motioned for help, and a figure came from behind and knifed the two of them in the neck . . . then nothing. Chop came close and a voice in his head told him to ask any question about the complex. He asked where the greatest treaure was. Contrary to popular belief, the greatest treasure wasn't the friends they made along the way. Instead, it was in the junk room. They went down and made a thorough search. In the false bottom of a big open crate they'd dismissed last time they looked was a broadsword - it turned out to be Arbiter, a fine meteoric holy sword (see DFRPG Magic Items.)

They also found the quarters of the two leader-types they'd killed in the past, and in a locked, trapped chest with 8 large rubies in it. And they found the lair of the wizards, who left loot behind when the last of them fled.

They also found a way out, that had been coveed with magically-created stone last time. They eventually decided to leave that way. It was worked stone, and many miles long. It took 3 nights of camping underground to follow it the whole length . . . right into the gate level of Felltower near the Brotherhood area. They found their way out, figured out how to get back out the seemingly one-way passage (Hannari guessed right on how), and then headed to Stericksburg.

They paid off their henchman and brought Arbiter to the church. The church wanted it back very badly, and offered its full value for its return . . . . 60,000. Chop doesn't use blades and Hannari uses money, so they said yes. $30K each.

Notes:

- Someone is going to insist they said they searched that crate. They did not. Too bad, because there was a Holy Warrior in the party then.

- MVP was Hannari for doing all of the exploring in the VTT. Chop's player claims to have no sense of direction.

- XP was 4 for loot, 1 for exploration.

- Yes, the complex was a side area. But it's been there and waiting and coming up in rumors since the earlest days of Felltower. Why? Because they're connected.

Next game . . . not sure. I'm off on a big trip soon, so maybe August?

Rules & Rulings from DF Session 206

Two quick notes from last session.

How does healing, etc. work with the odd downtime?

The PCs didn't go through a gate, but a lot of time elapsed. In game, the PCs finished their delve December 12th/13th, and we finished the session March 9th. Healing - and weapon and armor repair - dates from that time. No one sits around not healing. Fixing gear is the same to me as healing.

Enchantments and special orders, though, happen from 3/9/25. It's a sanity-saving device where I can date from my actual emails and notes when something was ordered. Letting people back-order means I have to be stricter with travel time, rest time, etc. and it rewards people who count the days and buy accordingly. I just don't love that aspect of the game in the first place enough to add more of it on top.

Re-assembling armor

I ruled that re-assembling the suit of mail they'd found was a simple task of lots of time, and the Armoury (Body Armor) skill. Thor will learn it and assemble the suit. Costs are minimal - it probably should be 5%-ish of the cost of a suit - but the container did say it contained everyone for a suit.

The players wanted to know if they could re-assemble the suit into a dwarf-sized suit of mail instead of human, since both are SM 0. No. The armor is fine, and thus exactly tailored to a specific build. You can't just swap pieces. This is mail, so I get the idea that you can just move rings from here to there, and here to there, and so on, but a) I'm not sure that would actually realistically work, b) fine says no, and c) it seems iffy to claim that mail armor is just a square footage that is totally fungible into new shapes. Same with making "adjustments" to a different size - at that point, you're paying a substantial premium to have the armor rebuilt and extra, matching quality/enchantment pieces need to be made. In this case, that's Fine, Elven, and Fortify 3. Not cheap, not by a long shot. Better to just put it on one of the humans that it will already fit.

GURPS DF Session 206, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part VI - Exploring & Looting

Actual Date: 3/9/2025
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, 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)
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 scout (298 points)

We picked up where we left off last time.

The PCs carefully moved through the Iron Witch's room, finding a series of rough tunnels behind one door. They eventually found they all were dead ends each to a covered spyhole out into the hallway. They tossed the main room, taking a framed picture they believed was of the King of Cornwood (it wasn't), moved furniture, etc. All they found of interest was a book stand with a snapped-off chain on it - whatever book was there had been very recently torn off the podium and removed.

They went where the Iron Witch had to have gone - another side door they'd briefly explored past and then returned from. That turned out to lead to a "treasury" - an alchmical lab, a workbench oilstained and scarred up from metalworking on the top, some food, and coffers and urns. They found a big haul of gems, some gold, silver, and copper coins, some rings, a suit of unassembled magical mail, and sone food. Oh, and some purple lotus flower dust - a hallucinogenic that also makes the taker very susceptible to suggestion.

They organized it up, sealed the clay urn with candle wax to keep the drugs in, and carried it out to their wounded compariots. They also found a second set of stairs down, right near the Iron Witch's room, behind a secret door revealed by See Secrets. They went to their wounded friends and spent a bit of time healing them up. That done, they carried their loot, their fallen friends, and what they could pull off the cultist wizards (paut and a few Hooded Robes of Protection) and headed ot the surface.

There, they set a few of their men guarding the camp, took two guards - Ferd and Aaron - and Brother Quinn, and headed back in.

They spent the rest of the delve exploring the third level underground. Most notably, they found the "junk room" where a previous group had struggled with some demon grunts, the torture chamber where a previous group had fought some torturers, a couple of rooms redolent with the smell of the incense they'd found above, and a demonic temple.

The temple was incomplete. The altar had a blood-caked obsidian knife and silver (or silvered) cup, and showed some heavy use . . . but nothing recent. Some statues nearby showed signs of having held . . . something . . . that was missing. None of it was magical - it was the tools needed to make a summoning easier, but not enough to summon without just flat-out casting Summon Demon. It was Low Sanctity, as well. Chop surmised (correctly, in the end) that there was an older cult of demon-worshippers or demonic servants, and the Brotherhood had moved in long after and used the temple area and the hallucinogenic drugs to condition their recruits until they were solid believers.

Further exploration found many sets of robes for the brotherhood, but also a study area, and a long-disused set of cult paraphenalia - a silver mask, an onyx ring, an ebony staff with an onyx head, and iron knife, and a black robe unlike that of the Brotherhood. The mask, looked at from the front, was an odd mix of demon and babboon. From the left, it appeared more babboon-like. From the right, more wolf-like. "Demogorgon!" they agreed, but luckily only a couple times out loud . . . and nothing came of it.

They took the ring, shredded the robe, broke the knife, and snapped the skull off the staff. Thor rolled up the solid silver mask like a frying pan in a strongman show, and Percy helped pound it into a lump they could sell for its weight in silver. Beyond this area were "natural" caves . . . with many bones of animals and some humans and human-like bones as well. Nothing complete . . . but a lot. Vlad decided things came in here to die. Yeah, no one else saw it that way. They wanted out before whatever was killing things made an appearance. They headed out.

What followed was a lot of exploration. Just going around looking for the wizard's room - they didn't find it - and anything else. They found stairs up that led eventually to an illusionary wall right near the entrance. They also found an armory/storage room. They took some weapons, but left the old construction materials they found that matched those used for the temple area.

In the end, that's about all they found - they never found the gnoll's rest area, where the two plate-armored cultist leaders stayed, or where the wizard's stayed. They jsut got tired of going round and round and headed out.

In the end they did take some serious loot - it worked out to almost $10K each - and put down the Brotherhood in this place. The Iron Witch, though, and that one wizard cultist got away, and they never figured out exactly how. They're currently in Stericksburg, recovering and plotting their next moves.

Notes:

A rare no-combat session. Not a single blow aimed in the session. We spent a good chunk of time in combat time, though - maybe 2 1/2 hours? - as the PCs were stalking what they thought was a carefully hiding Iron Witch. They weren't willing to break off pursuit until it became clear they could not and would not find her.

MVP was Chop for caring for the NPCs and his very helpful See Secrets spell.

The PCs are already talking about going back and mapping the complex to ensure they found everything. We'll see if that's the plan for next session or not. It'll be a few weeks from now, and many weeks from the delve they just completed.

DF Felltower: Looking back on magic item placement

Looking back on my Magic Item Placement post.

How am I doing on these themes?

The best is found, not bought.

This is still true for magic items. The opportunities to buy magic items are even more restricted than when we started the game and no freer than in 2016. PCs generally buy their consumables and armor, but the best armor out there was found in the dungeon - Magescale, Sterick's Plate, and the Targe of the Tiger - the latter two since lost and destroyed, respectively, the shield in the act of finding the first. Hooded Robes of Protection have turned up pretty often, but that's all of DR 2 and mostly useful as a Power Item.

But the good stuff is still found. Doing okay here.

Offensive is better than defensive.

The tendency of my players - maybe players in general, I can't say for sure - is defense. Given a choice between offensive firepower and survivability, they'll choose survivability. It makes sense, but it does mean they'd rather have DR than damage, HP than to hit, and immunities over attacks. So as stated in the original post, I lean heavily towards the former. I give out more offensive items not defensive items. That may encourage defensive builds even more, but I'm inclined to think not. Back when I gave our more armor and defensive magic items people just doubled down to maximize their value.

The PCs have found a few items which can be either/or - a Potion Ring, for example, which the players immediately decided was best for defense and allocated as such.

But largely, I've placed a lot of offensive weapons. Aecris came along, but Vic handed that out. I don't love it - I try to avoid post-DR damage adds as they are rarely decisive and always time-consuming - but it's an offensive weapon. Agar's Wand, which does fight for its wielder, is primarily defensive. It's the only one you'll see in my game. Even then, it is its own thing, and isn't just a magic sword someone can sic on foes. The players really want it to be a self-propelled semi-autonomous killing machine and try to use it as such, but it's one of the rare mostly defensive items I put out here.* Magebane (technically not magical), a Universal Sword, and Shieldslayer were all pulled out of Felltower.

I've put in magic arrows (which amusingly got sold, because they just tossed them in a pile of saleable weapons and didn't investigate them at all), a Wand of Fireballs (given to the best possible user in terms of accuracy, but who usually has 3-4 better things to do than fire 4d Fireball spells), and a few unique potions that largely disappeared into the "we'll use it someday" pile and may have been lost.

I feel like I've largely kept on with this one. Yes, I put in Gorilla Gloves and the armors mentioned above, and there are a few more items out there, but it's magical offense that is found most often.

Enhance but don't replace abilities.

I think I've done well on this one. One swords that'll fight for its wielder, a bracelet that dispelled magic, and a few utility items that do things nothing else quite does. But in general, the majority of items just enhance what people do already. They mostly let them do them better.

Not a lot of detail here, but I think I largely kept to this.


So far, I think I'm doing okay on this. I do it all by feel. But we're mostly on track.



* And it's aimed at wizards. It's a wizard's item, but a non-wizard stepped up and took possession of it. There has been discussion about finding a way to pass it on to to the wizard, but they haven't made any determination of how to do that. Or even ideas. The best so far is, "We should look into that" and fishing questions in my direction in the vague hope I'll provide a simple answer. No luck so far.

GURPS DF Session 205, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part V - Mopping Up & Pursuit

Actual Date: 2/16/2025
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, 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)
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 scout (298 points)


We picked up where we left off.

Thor was facing a pair of cultists in the stairs - one running, and suffering from Magebane and one stunned and down at his feet - and a gnoll behind him. Meanwhile, Hannari was facing off with a cultist with a ready Ice Dagger. There were a couple of standing gnolls (including one lightly-injured one I think Hannari had thrown and everyone just assumed was dead in the confusion of the melee) and a number of badly mauled, weapon-arm-less mechanical knights.

Thor dealt with his opponents by slashing and stabbing the downed cultist, then turning and decapitating the gnoll behind him, and then going down the stairs after the rapidly-running cultist who'd failed to hurt him last time with Explosive Lightning.

Percy finished off a gnoll with some help from one-armed Vlad distracting it, and then waded into the remaining gnoll and knights. He'd kill the gnoll quickly and then slowly bash the knights down. Eventually, at the urging of Vlad, he swapped to his greataxe from his flail and finished the last knight off with two blows - one too little to penetrate the armor, the other enough to penetrate the neck and disable it.

Hannari threw a meteoric knife at the cultists he faced and wounded him, but took an Explosive Ice Dagger back. He was against a wall so chanced Parry Missile Weapons but it didn't matter - it blew up on contact and wounded him. He threw another knife but Missile Shield took care of that. So he ran up and slammed the cultist and knocked him down, and then finished him off (I can't remember how.) He spent some time retreiving his weapons from the body and heading downstairs.

Chop ran over to the NPCs and told them to come on up to the front, even as he put Stop Bleeding on everyone not obviously dead. Duncan, who'd tossed in a nearly harmless (3 damage on 4d-4) Lightning spell at a knight, headed over and gathered up Aecris and then headed over to search the bodies.

Once that all was done, Vlad snuck up to watch around the corner where the Iron Witch had run, and saw a closed door. He headed back to the PCs.

Meanwhile, Chop joined Thor and Hannari at the bottom of the stairs. Thor and Hannari ran out, taking turns and trying to find the cultist. He'd headed off into the darkness. Thor went one way, Hannari the other.

Thor ran around for a while, first map east and then map south (actually, north isn't up on the map, so whatever), and then south-east-north through a door and eventually found himself back near the stairs. He gave up, met up with a waiting Chop, and they went upstairs.

Hannari just kept going. He ran, forced doors, and then ran again. His ST is really up from (IIRC) a potion, so that let him force some doors he might not have otherwise. He ran and ran and ran. He found nothing.

Eventually, with the fight done above, Duncan cast Telepathy to talk to Hannari. Hannari said he was hunting wizards. They left him to do so for a while longer - maybe another 10-12 seconds? - and then asked him to return. He wasn't done hunting wizards. They moved to the room where the Iron Witch is - Seeker had failed, but Seek Earth said there was gold in there. Hannari said he couldn't hurt her, so why bother. But he crushed a Haste stone so he could run faster. With the distance he'd run, even a +2 is a big, big jump in overall movement.

He did eventually find a hallway with enough branches off of it to not be sure where to go. So he backed off entirely and headed back the way he had come.

Meanwhile, the PCs, along with their only three remaining mobile NPCs - the two laborers and Leon - moved up to a heavy door. They forced it opened and rushed in. Inside was a circular room with some spare but nice stone furniture, black carpeting, and hundreds of glinting stones set in the ceiling. They forced one door out of it, and started to peer down a rough-hewn tunnel off to another side.

That's where we called it, for time.

Notes:

- We stayed in combat time the entire session. I would have dropped out of it once pursuit was broken off, but circumstances prevented it. Hannari kept up his pursuit quite a while after being contacted with Telepathy, and it took a couple of requests to get him to try to rejoin the group to attack the Iron Witch. Then the PCs started to get in some healing, bring up guys from the back, and set up to go after the Iron Witch . . . so I couldn't just close up the fight, let them regather, and go. That made for a steep real time to game time ratio.

- Parry Missile Weapons vs. Missile Spells - I was asked if an incoming spell was Explosive, since apparantly PMW doesn't work against them. I can't find anything that says that. It's a bad choice against an Explosive spell, but it still "works." Also, explosive variants of spells don't look different. Dodge is always the better choice against a Missile spell unless you have to ensure it, at best, hits you and not others behind you or catches less people behind you in the blast.

- I'm continually offput a little by the exclamations of disappointed surprise people get when a) opponents aren't stunned or knocked down from a non-Vitals, non-Skull hit, or b) Wizards make a successful Will roll to not have their Missile spell affect them when injured. Uhm, without a penalty - and there are only a tiny handful of them - stunning happens at best half of the time. HT 11-12 is more typical, which means it's more like 25-37.5% of the time. Oh, and wizards throwing 9d spells aren't going to have Will under 13, and 14-15 is more likely. It's a nice thing if it happens . . . but it's not likely to happen. It's just a weird expression of surprise. Maybe it's in the same category as people who are surprised patrolling monsters don't have bags of treasure with them. Desire trumps actual knowledge of likelihood.

- I really like the confirmation roll in the GURPS module. We did have some teething issues with it as people add in a bucket of modifiers, then hit the roll, then confirm . . . and find that sometimes the auto-added penalties are already in. Sometimes the confirmation roll has a modifier from an unknown source . . . or so I hear. I didn't have any of that. I wonder if people aren't as keenly looking at, say, their chosen maneuver, or posture, or if they're in close combat or suffering from some other effect.

- We don't use Sprinting, but we did get derailed in a discussion of Tiger Sprint plus Serenity. I'll do a post on how they interact, but. It's possible Hannari was running with a sprint bonus, but we'll see - his player will read this and check. I don't use it at all, under any circumstances, but if someone wants to buy Tiger Sprint as a power-up, it'll be allowed and used per the rules in ways I'll outline in a post later this week.

- Forced Entry is, I think, the only ST roll we use. I do think it might be better to be an effect roll . . . I have to play around with that and see how I like it. Rolling damage would be a better way to handle it (and let people Slam through doors, sometimes), but it has some issues. Not the least of which is, what do I do with Forced Entry as a skill. And there are other issues, but it's worth some investigation. I'll come up with some ideas and then put them past my group. Done right, this can help simplify down to one system.

- MVP was Thor. It was a tossup between him (killing and pursuing and good-naturedly running around trying to find people) and Hannari (killing a cultist wizard and chasing another.) Thor won the die roll.

Felltower pre-summary

Fun session today, but it didn't get resolved just yet.

- the PCs finished off the big brawl with the cultist wizards, Iron Witch of Cornwood, mechanical knights, and gnolls

- the iron witch and one cultist wizard managed to get away from the PCs

- Hannari and Thor chased the cultist wizard, split up, and spent a long time unsuccessfully persuing him

- the PCs got back together, mostly, and moved into the Iron Witch's room

Full summary tomorrow.

Rules and Rulings from Session 204

Rules and rulings from DF Session 204.

- At one point Hannari did a Move and Attack - ran up, threw at a cultist from a yard away, and then the cultist's explosive spell went off. He had 1 more movement point, but you can't use ordinary movement points as a Retreat reaction by my ruling. I don't think anything in GURPS supports using "Move" to escape the blast radius of an explosion or effect unless it's specifically a non-instant effect (Shape Earth comes to mind, nothing else does offhand.) Since he'd used Move and Attack he couldn't use Retreat. When a blast went off behind him a split-second later (from a cultist throwing on his turn, a bit further down the move order) he similiarly couldn't use that one last move point to move forward and further away from the blast radius. Someone argued for forward momentum, which might make some logical sense, but again, nothing in the rules allows for it. I don't want to get into the precendent of allowing people to have momentum and prior movement give combat bonuses since GURPS similarly doesn't penalize you for lacking such things. Had he been able to use Retreat, the fact that he'd moved 8 yards in one second in a straight line wouldn't have impeded him, so moving 8 yards in a straight line doesn't aid him, either.

- How do slams and knockdown and knockback interact? My players argued that knockback should occur before knockdown, basically because of the wording for Knockback, where you may fall and that's discussed after. Under Slam, it doesn't say either way, it only says knockdown. I disagree - I think if you do so much damage that you automatically knock someone down, you should get to overrun and trample them. But I did agree to run it the way they want to. I may need to enforce Knockback rules for crushing damage from now on. I generally ignore it because it's more calculations, more rolls, and rarely significant. I think everyone has images of knocking down NPC after NPC after NPC as they pinball off of each other. I doubt it'll ever come to that. I may have to make a ruling to cover situations were this doesn't make sense, and where trampling is the most logical effect. I'll probably have to argue rules again when that comes up, but I think if you can trample, that should be the default effect of a slam, and foes shouldn't be knocked back and away from the trample. Once again, a ruling makes another special case . . . which is why I largely ignored knockback until people wanted it back.

- I basically don't track shield damage unless someone has an attack that can reliably one-shot a shield. It's just too much headache in a VTT. People do ask pretty often, but the answer is pretty much, no, don't bother.

- Someone suggested that it would be cool if your missile spells got larger as you put more dice into it. No, no, no, no, no. No, as the GM, this would not be cool. People would want Per rolls to see how big it was. They'd argue that it should be Per-based or IQ-based Thaumatology and then later argue it should be Observation or Tactics or whatever the heck they're good at because "my guy should be experienced at this." Then they'd want to be able to guess within a die. Then people would want a perk to allow them to have missile spells that don't give away their power by size. Nevermind it makes no sense with Lightning even if makes sort-of sense with Stone Missile. Then people will ask about scaling to SM. This is pure give-a-mouse-a-cookie territory and doesn't add anything to the game except, "Wow, that Stone Missile was 18d, it must have been so big!"

GURPS DF Session 204, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part IV - Mechanical Knights, Gnolls, and Cultists

Actual Date: 2/2/2025
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, 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)
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 scout (298 points)


We started where we left off three weeks ago. The PCs were in a big fight with a bunch of mechanical knights and the Iron Witch of Cornwood (an iron-bodied wizard).

Thor was fighting with a single knight, Percy four or five of them, and Vlad (armed with Chop's club, eventually), Chop, and Duncan another. As the session began, Thor broke away from the knight he was fighting and ran around the melee to reach the Iron Witch. Percy kept fighting the knights surrounding him, backed by Agar's Wand playing defense. Percy systematically crippled the hammer arms of the knights (he kept saying, "sword arm") and taking out their legs. They kept after him, shield bashing from seated or prone position. They hit him a fair number of times, but never managed to inflict any damage through his DR. He was briefly spiked in the back by one before he was able to cripple its arm. This kept him busy for most of the action.

Thor got around to the Iron Witch and slashed her in the chest with his meteoric iron long knife, cutting her but not deeply. She ran after tossing a Stone Missile at Thor that he blocked. He followed. In a few seconds, it was clear he was falling behind - his Move 6 vs. her Move 7.

Vlad and Duncan pounded away at the knight in front of them, and Duncan eventually nailed it with a hard shot with a Stone Missile in the right arm and finished it off; it dropped, motionless.

Chop moved up and got off a long-ranged Stone to Flesh and restored Hannari. Hannari took off after the Iron Witch, throwing a meteoric iron kama at her foot to cripple or trip her up. It hit, but did so little it didn't do more than dent her and didn't stick in or hinder her. She kept running, now pursued by both Thor and Hannari. Hannari quickly broke off the chase, because he figured he couldn't really harm her. Thor did a few turns later, after she ran around a corner, because he was just falling further behind.

As they headed back toward Percy, the door to the stairs down - which was right in the fight area - opened up, and a mass of gnolls burst out and attacked Hannari and Thor. They ran back to the other PCs, pursued by gnolls. Backing the gnolls were cultist wizards - those same five guys they'd tangled with repeatedly before (putting the firm lie to the tentative belief that they'd "killed" one in a prior delve).

The gnolls rushed the PCs. Percy broke off from the crippled knights and moved into the fray, launching three strikes at the lead gnoll . . . and hit him three times in the skull, taking him to below -10xHP. Thor and Hannari got into a rough line with Percy and Agar's Wand. The crippled knights started to crawl up behind the PC line. Percy and Agar's Wand went to town. Thor managed to slash one gnoll and wound him badly. Hannari put one down (I think not fatally). Percy killed or knocked out nine of them, and Agar's Wand three more.

As he was doing so, the five cultists emerged from the stairs. Two were briefly within two yards of one another so Hannari threw a Magebane grenade. One dodged out of the gas cloud, the second was caught in it and lost access to his Magery. Hannari ran up to the cultist wizards, and spiked one point-blank in the face with his meteoric iron kama. It knocked the cultist out, and so his Explosive Stone Missile went off. Hannari wasn't able to dive away and took serious damage, as did a gnoll that was too close to the both of them. Another cultist threw an Explosive Fireball that hit the floor right behind Hannari, lighting him on fire (and the gnoll, as well) with 10 base damage. A third threw an Explosive Ice Dagger and further injured Hannari.

Thor ran up and ran over one of the cultists with a slam, only to get caught in a 6d Explosive Acid Ball ("I should start regarding my outer layer of heavy plate as disposable.") He turned after the fireball cultist, and knocked him down and into the stairwell. He was zapped with Explosive Lightning but his Resist Lightning kept him from harm. Chop healed up Hannari with a long-ranged Major Healing.

Even as all of this happened, the disabled knights kept crawling up. Duncan retrieved Thor's flaming sword, and Chop backed off from the knights.

That's where we left it - the Iron Witch of Cornwood had fled, the mechanical knights are down to five or six badly mauled constructs with non-functioning weapon arms and and at least one non-functioning leg, and a few gnolls are still up. The cultist casters only have two still standing - one affected by Magebane and fleeing down the stairs, another backed off to a T-intersection and readying a (presumably explosive) Ice Dagger.

Notes:

- This writeup was a wee bit more detailed, but somehow, when I closed it out to do other work I managed to lose a chunk of what I wrote. So you get the summary of the summary.

- Several players wanted to do another turn or so, just to finish the fight. Maybe, but who is to say what's finished? Will they grab bodies and leave? Stop and try to rest? Try another "rest at the entrance" and regroup to come back after the remaining dwellers in the dungeons? Way too much to resolve . . . and from my perspective, even if finising is a quick 1-3 more turns of fighting, that leaves the players 2-3 weeks of planning their healing spells, discussing ways to maximize their looting, etc. complete with all of the questions they'll ask in between. I'd rather they have to make quick decisions quickly, not with weeks of planning based on certain knowledge. Not since it'll take the whole day anyway even if we don't start in combat. So ending "early" (a little later than our usual time) was better from my perspective. If everyone was gung ho on finishing it I might have, but it wasn't unanimous for continuing, either.

- MVP was Percy for killing/knocking out 9 gnolls in a handful of seconds; Agar's Wand took down 3 in that same time. 12 out of 16 went down just from Percy and his gear. Agar's Wand got right into slaying the evil gnolls, even as it wouldn't pound away at the mindless automatons they wanted it to fight.

Rules & Rulings

VTT Gripes

Fellower pre-summary

We played Felltower today.

- the PCs mostly demolished the last of the mechanical knights . . . mostly.

- the Iron Witch was forced to flee, but the only one who could harm her that was nearby wasn't fast enough to catch her.

- a bunch of reinforcements showed up - gnolls and cultist spellcasters!

- Percy showed everyone what he was born to do - crush skulls and take names.

We had to leave off mid-fight, again, despite some excellent progress.

Full summary tomorrow. It was a good one.

GURPS DF Session 203, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part III - War of the Robots

Actual Date: 1/12/2025
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, 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)
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 scout (298 points)


We picked up where we left off.

Hannari opened up with first one, and then another, smoke nageteppo to mask the melee from the Iron Witch and the Stone Missile she was holding. The PCs kept banging away on the mechanical knights. The Iron Witch called, "To me!" and those knights that could disengage (most of them) just turned and ran back through the smoke to her.

The PCs formed a rough line . . . very rough. Hannari pushed around the flank along with Thor and they ate the blast effect of a 12d Explosive Stone Missile that dealt 60 damage on the impact hex. Then the knights were ordered to "Charge!"

After that, the PCs just kept fighting away, taking down a few of the knights. Thor and Hanari were pushed to one side, the others to the other side. Vlad decided to give up just causing minor damage (if that) to the knights and engage in melee, hoping to use up blocks and parries and force the knights to their (hopefully) lower Dodge. However, he immediately was hit in the hand and it was crippled. Brother Quinn healed it right up but the HT roll for recovery was a miss . . . it's a lasting (1d months) cripple. Unable to use his bow or his hatchet, he tried to just attract hits. He called for a couple of hirelings to come forward, and Chop called for everyone to come.

The brawl continued, and the Iron Witch moved closer. Duncan hit near her with a 4d Explosive Lightning that failed to stun her, just as Percy was rushing toward her. She kept her knights pulling back to fend him off, tossed a massive 18d Explosive Stone Missile into the back ranks of the PCs, and killed three of the guards and wounded Chop badly and finished off Honest Charles. Amlaric was badly wounded and kept fighting, but he can't hit hard enough to really bother the knights. He'd fall unconscious a few seconds later. But eventually the Iron Witch got off a successful Flesh to Stone on Percy and he failed to resist, and the knights pushed through.

Chop healed himself with a Gem of Healing, turned Percy back to flesh, then healed a bunch of the PCs at range, and then healed himself up to full.

Percy kept bashing the knights. Thor lost his sword to a critical block and swapped to his long knife to try to hack necks that way. Hannari used throws to put a few knights down, and then Hannari rushed the Iron Witch, only to fail to grab her as she put up Shield 6. Next, she cast Flesh to Stone and beat Hanari's resistance. Percy cracked her three times, missed once, was dodged once, and hit her on the right arm . . . for very little effect.

Shortly after she pushed out of the corner she was in and three of her least damaged knights formed an arc in front of her. Others are scattered around, in varying states of disrepair. One at least just froze up after briefly being stunned by Lightning. Still more have inoperable arms, legs, or feet. Thor is fighting one of the still-intact knights. Percy is moving towards the Iron Witch. Vlad is unable to fight at the moment, a couple of the NPCs ran off, Chop is low on power, Duncan temporarily out of ideas, and no one else up to fight.

That's were we left off, with both sides badly mauled, at the beginning of the 35th second of combat.

Notes:

- Loyalty rolls matter. A couple of the hirelings blew their rolls and fled . . . we'll see if they regroup and come back.

- The players are frustrated - that's a direct quote. The mechanical knights are fast, skilled, reasonably strong (2d-ish damage), lacking in vulnerable areas . . . they're tough to put down. The Iron Witch is fast, has solid DR, lots of power for spells, spells . . . not a "rush and kill" wizard. So the usual tactics aren't working, and bum rush the wizard isn't an option. They did a bunch of "mobility kills" on feet and legs, but the kneeling and sitting knights kept fighting.

- The PCs aren't in a terrible spot, but they sure aren't in a good one. A post-session debrief revealed an issue - they'd wanted to pile on one knight at a time, and literally only one knight in all of the turns of combat we played had to defend against two PCs at once. They'd wanted to form a line and force the enemy to come to them, and did not do that, either. It's too late for the latter but not for the former.

- MVP was Chop for Stone to Flesh and Major Healing a lot of fighters back into the fray.

Images from Session 202

Here are the two enemies the PCs are facing in the Brotherhood Complex.

Mechanical Knight of Cornwood - a somewhat unreliable but formidable construct. Cheaper to make than most golems for this level of ability, but their speedy contruction has a cost in reliability.

These are straight-up statting up of a favorite mini of mine - a Tom Meier-scultped Ral Partha Mechanical Knight. I have a mounted one, as well, so beware, PCs!

Iron Witch of Cornwood - the inventor of the Mechanical Knight, one of the fractious Cornwoodian nobles who chafe at the iron-handed rule of King Titanius Anglesmith.

The Iron Witch is actually a mini painted by my sister. I had an enamel paint set from some model set, and she proceeded to use those to paint one of my TSR minis from set 5303 Magic Users and Illusionists. But we didn't have anything resembling flesh color - it was a set of vehicle colors. So she just didn't paint that. I kept the mini as-is, spray-sealed it, and put an "Iron Witch" in my GURPS campaign when I started to use minis again. She was a distant figure in that game - and was possibly responsible for giving the rapier Malice (see DFT3) to a swashbuckler type PC. I made her a bad guy in the Felltower world because she was an ideal match for the Ral Partha mini.

I loved the idea of an iron golem wizard, especially one that either a) was human, and made herself into an iron golem, or b) was always a golem. In the previous game, it was option a. In this one, it's likely that she's just a willful golem who has improved herself into a master wizard. A true self-made woman!

And why do we call them robots, and pronounce it robut? Here is Chop demonstrating his expertise in First Aid (Human) vs. Hidden Lore (Construct) . . .

GURPS DF Session 202, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part II - War of the Robots

Actual Date: 12/29/2024
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, 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)
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)


We picked up where we left off - the PCs had retreated from the second level of the dungeon to the first level to regroup, and meet up with latecomers Percy and Duncan. The full crew assembled, they headed back in, looking for the robots they'd glimpsed the last time, hoping to stomp on the group of them and take whatever treasure they had, while using their hired goons to watch the door to the stairs in case the wizards came up from below to bother them.

Perhaps surprisingly, one of those things happened. The PCs went back to near where they'd unleashed the mold, moved forward, and spotted a mechanical knight - one of the robots.

They enagaged it as it moved up to attack them. Vlad pinged a few arrows off of it and into it, inflicting some damage but not disabling it. It was joined by three more identical robots. The mechanical knights are fast and well armored, but very noisy. Giving off hisses, clanks, and grinding metal noises, they charged the PCs.

In a close-in slugfest the PCs beat the robots down, but it took time - they bounced many attacks, blocked more, dodged many, and just refused to go down. The PCs tried mobility kills, but even taking out a leg left them pulling themselves along the floor in a seated position to attack. They couldn't be disarmed as their weapon and shield are built-in. The PCs tried chopping legs, arms, feet, smashing the head, piling up damage on the torso, and the occasional Lighting and Stone Missile spells, but it took time to put them down. Chop helped with Curse -1 on robot after robot. Honest Charlies held off Percy and Thor's flanks until he was badly wounded, healed, and then wounded again and knocked out. The PCs realized that maybe while they were "holding the line," so were the robots.

Just as the PCs were putting down the 3rd of the 4, more showed up . . . followed shortly by another 10-12 more. Leading the larger pack was a metallic woman with blonde hair, a red robe with a blue sash, and an orb and a wand. They recognized her from rumors heard before about an iron woman who was in charge, and most recognized her description as the infamous Iron Witch of Cornwood.

The PCs kept fighting as the enemy piled up close. Even after they'd put a couple down, they sat back up. Hannari spiked on with a Liquid Ice grenade and froze it pretty badly, after which it didn't seem inclined to get back up. Same with one that Thor decapitated. Otherwise, they generally kept fighting despite disabling-seeming strikes.

The Iron Witch attracted their attacks as soon as she showed up. Hannari tossed a Magebane grenade at her, and she just laughed after it detonated around her. Clearly, she didn't need to breathe and was thus immune. She put up a shimmering shield around herself. Vlad tested for Missile Shield with two arrows - which missed, of course. Duncan tossed a 14d Explosive Lighting into her hex at the floor, and she dove to the floor to get further from the impact point. She was stunned, but only briefly, and cast spells as soon as she was able to get back to position to do so - only a couple of seconds. She cast a couple of spells on Percy and Almaric but they resisted.

As the session drew to a close, Percy drew Agar's Wand and let it dance, the Iron Witch readied a Stone Missile, and the PCs braced for more battle.

Notes:

For those not keeping track, "Robot," often pronounced "Robut" in Cornwood, is Cornwoodian dialect for golem or construct. So naturally, a Cornwoodian Mechanical Knight is a robot. Amusingly, the players pretty much started to see them as tech-based, and tried lightning (to short out the wires), stabbing the heart (perhaps where the power comes from), looking on their backs for a switch, box, or other vulnerable point. I won't spoil it, but it's worth noting that while mechanical in nature, they're not high tech, they're magic and magic-based engineering. No one is going to pull wires and battery packs out of them. Also, shout out to Gort of the Shining Force, who also used to call golems robots.

MVP was Percy for at least 10 critical hits. He got at least 7 in the first 4-5 seconds of the fight, and only missed outright once. He was crit-fishing with a 16 net skill, but that doesn't explain why he was critting at well over the predicted 10%.

There was some discussion about sending Agar's Wand to attack the Iron Witch, but the sword is more defensive than offensive. It can't be sent like an attack dog, and besides, it will protect its owner and fight evil in that order, so "rush through a bunch of unaligned golems to try and kill a wizard while your wielder is getting mobbed" isn't likely. My ambivalence on giving out magic items with any kind of self-will is that this happens - people seem to assume or at least hope they're like super-PCs that do whatever a player would want. They never are.

Felltower Work Today & Looking ahead to next session

Felltower

I spent today doing maps - not in the VTT, but on paper, for a few areas of Felltower and it's connected regions that I hadn't mapped out yet.

I also have a nice binder of graph paper that I am using to do small-scale maps I could potentially put in a VTT for when certain areas get explored. It's quite enjoyable, although I did realize I need a good L-ruler and small metal ruler, so I ordered those. Otherwise the artitecture templates I have from one of my players will do nicely for just about all mapping.

Brotherhood Complex

Next week the PCs will continue their delve into the Brotherhood complex, with the likely additions of Percy and Duncan. I figured I'd get a few potential questions out of the way with that.

More hirelings? Yes, Percy and Duncan can come with additional hirelings. They'll need to make the rolls themselves, bankroll it themselves, and otherwise equip them, if necessary. They can't have any retroactive help from the other PCs because they technically left after the others did, even if only shortly. I don't allow retroactive action in my games, with very few exceptions.

Extra consumables? Sure. They can bring whatever they want. If players want to order stuff on the sly through them and have them just happen to bring someone someone else suddenly realized they need . . . that's very meta, very lame, and very disappointing, but how would I know? I trust people to play the game they want.

XP for the full delve? Yes, everyone gets XP as if they participated from the beginning.

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.

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!

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 down, 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.

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.

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.

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.