GCS & Foundry VTT questions

Asking here first, because I like my blog to have a list of what I'm working on so I can refer back more easily.

I've found that thanks to all of the monster modules for GCS, it's the easiest tool out of the three I have (GCA5, GCS, /mook) to put in opponents. It takes a bit of time to put in a new monster but in the end I have a more useful file.

With that in mind, I am trying to figure out:

- How to put in an Affliction as a rollable attack, either in GCS (so it imports easily into Foundry) or directly in Foundry

- How to put notes in GCS that transfer to Foundry . . . right now I just put them into Foundry but have to remember on each monster

- How to put default token features (like sight, lighting, etc.) onto all of my Foundry tokens as they are made

Nothing huge, here, but everything I can do to speed things up will save me in the long run.

GCA 4 to GCA 5 switchover plans

GCA5 officially came out. I've beta-tested it for a while, although I've been pretty unhelpful on the beta list (Sorry Armin.) I was beta-testing GCA well back before version 4, too. I'm not even sure how far back . . . the 90s, maybe? You'd have to ask Armin, I don't have access to my emails pre-2005 anymore.

GCA 4 is great, but old. It is really showing its age. I'm ready to switch over to GCA 5.

The tough bit for me with GCA5 is that we're using a mishmash of rules, so I have:

- a mix of proper GCA files

- a few hand-made modified files

- several files that are technically incompatible

. . . all on the master copies of live characters.

A couple of my players keep their own characters on GCS, instead, which is fine . . . but my GCA copies of the PCs are the official ones.

My current plan is:

1) Read the manual. I'm going through it from the start so I don't miss anything.

2) Make some new characters. Not Felltower PCs, but some plain Basic Set and the DF characters to get used to the system.

3) Test-port a few characters over by hand - re-create them or open the file and see what happens.

We'll see how that goes, but it feels like a solid plan. GCA 5's layout is just different enough that it throws me off, so treating it as new software is probably the way to go. And I'm a few versions out of date on the beta version, so it's best for me to just start fresh.

I'm looking forward to seeing what it does for my campaign management.

Felltower game prep

Felltower tommorow!

- I'm still struggling with mapping in Foundry. Rob Conley helped me a lot, but there is a gap between help and results when it comes to me. Heh.

- I've gotten another PC loaded properly into Foundry. It took some wrestling with GCA to get a talent correct, but I finally did it. I really need to sit down and convert everyone to GCA5 from GCA4. It's much better but still a bit of a foreign language to me.

- I'm still not sure where the PCs are going, but Galen is out sick with Gnollvid-19. His high HT means he'll recover fine but he's still out. Good thing he didn't pick up Trollvid during the Troll Wars!

- Gerry has 47 points saved. If he can swing 3 points this session, he'll get Mana Enhancer - our very first PC with it!

Should be a fun game, unless they scrape up 2 points and then vote Gerry MVP based on "He'll be MVP when he gets Mana Enhancer and we're in a NMZ!" Heh.

GCA Data File Update

I clearly haven't been paying close attention to the GCA forum . . . or any attention, really . . . but there was a big Data File update.

The change log just says updates, not specific changes.

But if you use GCA for characters like I do, this is probably important.

GURPS Character Assistant Update

Random notes from making a character for DF/DFRPG

I'm making up a character for a one-shot DF/DFRPG game run by one of my players.

- I vastly prefer humans. Especially at 250 points, you may net/net get more from being non-human but you don't get to choose where those go. I had a great character idea but we're all non-humans, and I couldn't afford my planned guy because I had to spend some points on stat changes I don't need and advantages not as fun as my plan. Point-buy is equitable but sometimes you just can't do what yours thinking of doing.

- I love GCA, but I usually end up picking advantages from "pools" and then deleting them all and starting over from a total list off the template because "up to" or "at least" always make you choose "exactly." So a template-legal character might not be GCA-legal on a first pass through the system. It's still incredibly useful but it makes for an extra step.

- I still don't have a good .gdf file for DFRPG armor. Does anyone? I should sit down and make one, finally, as it's annoying to do that park of my equipment on paper. This is handy, though - my DR to cost/weight comparison. Starting characters, even those trading points for money, can't afford much armor. No starting with plate like a lucky starting fighter in AD&D!

- I also need to put my DFRPG loadout article stuff into an .gdf file, too.

I'll let you guys see my character once we've played. I'll be coming into the game late, in all probability, as the reason I can't GM that day is also the reason why I might be late . . . but I should get some playtime in and I'll blog about that next Sunday and Monday.

Mountain of Meat for GCA

I had a PC recently take Mountain of Meat, the perk from DFD: Barbarians.

I had to write it up myself for GCA. Here it is. Put this in a file ending .gdf or stick it in another GDF file.

***

Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1
* The version information above MUST be the first line of the data file,
* or the first line AFTER the 'Encoding=UTF-8' line, when that is included.

Description=User created data file containing custom traits saved from within GCA.
Program=4.0.423

[AUTHOR]
************************************************************************************************************************
*
* Peter V. Dell'Orto
* GURPS(R) Character Assistant Data File
* Created: March 30, 2020
* Requires GCA v4 or later!
*
************************************************************************************************************************
[PERKS]
************************************************************************************************************************
<Barbarian Perks>
Mountain of Meat, 1, page(DFDB18), noresync(yes),replacetags(in "ST:Hit Points" with "maxscore(ST:ST * 2)")


If you take off the perk, the limit is still ST * 2, but there you go. Don't give it unless you intend to keep it.

Player die rolls/details I watch - and the ones I don't

I take a pretty hands-off approach as a GM for a lot of PC details in my game.

For other details, I take an extremely hands-on approach.

I think this says a lot about how I run game.

Hand-On

These things, I pay close attention to.

Die Rolls - There is a short list of die rolls I watch. As in, I stand up and watch the players make the roll. They are:

- Resistance Rolls

- "To Hit" rolls

- Death checks

- Knockdown/Stunning and Consciousness rolls

- success rolls with real, critical and immediate effects

Sometimes I'll watch other ones - almost any other ones - especially if it's dramatically important or really fun (like damage rolls when someone is doing extra damage, or rolling lots of dice such as an 18d missile spell.) A lot of these I watch because of modifiers, margin of success concerns, or to make sure players are rolling against the right number in a critical situation.

Point Totals. I track point totals, XP earned, and advantages, disadvantages, skills, etc. in GCA. If my notes disagree with the players, it's on the players to show I'm wrong. Generally, I'm not, as I'm meticulous about tracking them and doing the point totals in a specific, repeatable way.

Session participation. I write the summaries, so I've got close notes on who was at what game, with what PC, with roughly the right character point total when they participated.

Otherwise:

Hands-Off

Die Rolls - basically every die roll not listed above, I don't bother to look at. It's not that I don't care, it's just that only the results really matter to me. Defense rolls, damage rolls in most situations, spell casting rolls, healing rolls for potion effects, etc. - the players do that. I don't even look. I often find out after it's all over. "Okay, my guy is up and around." Me: "Wasn't he just like 2 HP from -5xHP?" "Yeah, but I roll X, Y, and Z on my healing potions." Me: "Oh, nice! Okay, you're up and around." I don't even look over the screen unless I feel like the roll might be entertaining.

Equipment - I track some gear for the PCs - mostly armor and weapons, just so I have a handy way of telling them damage and and DR and making sure it's added up correctly or modified correctly (or quickly!) when modified by magic. Other gear? Up to the players. I trust them with our very simple, elegant encumbrance system.*

Sometimes gear gets lost - "What ever happened to that ____________?" If you don't know, don't ask me. I don't know. Maybe it's on some PC that doesn't play anymore. Maybe you sold it. Maybe it's lost in the dungeon. In any case, it's gone.

Money falls in the same category.

Energy - players are in charge of dealing with energy costs, spells on, recovery, using Pool A to recharge buddies's Pool B to min-max the recovery rules to finish up 1 minute faster and avoid a Wandering Monster roll, whatever. They do that. I couldn't even tell you how they do it except that when I ask, it's accurate and detailed.

Everything else, really - Besides those specific examples, I don't really track much for the PCs. The players do that. They do it well enough. The game setting is fairly adversarial, but we aren't. I trust them with their roll.





* Also known as "add up the weight in pounds." Heh. Sorry, I know a lot of people love alternate encumbrance systems, but real-world measures is just so easy for me and works well in play.

Notes and Pictures from yesterday's DF game

I snapped two pictures of the big brawl yesterday.





I have to feel for my players a little on this one. It was a fight against a mixed set of foes backed by special powers, with melee opponents who made melee chancy thanks to a potentially incapacitating aura, on bad footing (so all attack rolls were at -2, defenses at -1, and movement cost doubled) vs. sure-footed foes, with a low ceiling (so Dryst couldn't float out of harm's way). And they did a lot right:

- They had a rear guard, and refused suggestions to call him forward. Good thing.

- They kept their scout off on the rear-flank with a clear line of fire and channels to support their front-line fighters.

- They instantly deployed alchemist's fire, Great Haste, Armor, Shield - they went right for full firepower.

- The usual good tactics by Vryce to ensure he was the one determining fight distance.

- When attacked from behind, they moved to keep the onslaught from cutting them in half.

But some wrong, too.

- The rear guard was only Gort - not even a tripwire Created Servant to alert them through its death. Gort is a wise old NPC, but his skills are badly off their peak.

- A ragged line thanks to hurrying forward to try to snag treasure instead of securing the room and then snagging treasure. Although Overconfidence and then Greed may have played into that - it's why you get points for disads.

- Not quite enough coordination early on meant Bern was in the front line when their fast foes charged them, and he's poorly equipped for that even against less-worthy foes.

- It's deeper in the dungeon than they've been before - at least 50', probably more like 60-65', below the 3rd level. It's a place that demands more caution than they showed. They were more worried by traps or the treasure being a fake than by being hit from three directions by a prepared foe.

I don't mean this as second-guessing them. Just noting what I think helped, and what I think you won't see quite so much of in the future.

Overall, even if they'd been setup perfectly it would have been a tough fight. If it wasn't for the fortuitous possession of a specific magic item, it may have been a TPK. It was a set-piece meant to be a bit of a challenge. Sometimes those don't work out, sometimes they do - I generally just set it up and see how it goes. This one was a little tougher than I'd expected, and I'm glad, because that cloak fiend mini came out so well:




Lucky for them, the enemy was content with beating them - had their foes been aiming to kill before winning, they might have lost a few PCs and NPCs there. Raggi was wide open for death when paralyzed; so were Galen and later an unconscious Gort and Mark. But the "trogs" were trying to concentrate on fighters and trying to win the fight. So the victory came with relative lack of lasting damage. But it was within a whisker of total defeat, and that wouldn't have ended well. The calcified "sculptures" spoke to that pretty clearly.

And yes, Mark Strawngmussel's name was inspired by The Many Names of David Ryder from MST3K Ep. 820, Space Mutiny.


The smooth talking to get by the wyrm without a fight was good, too. It initiated talking, but the on the way back, it may very well have tried to eat them . . . and they weren't exactly loaded for it. It would have been a harder fight than on the way in.

Rules:

Some more notes:

Shield: Boy, the Shield spell plus a magical large shield is a ridiculously effective combo. Dryst was retching and nauseous and dulled by the cloaker's hum and still had a defense well above 50%. I'm not sure how I'd address that, though, but I can easily see someone with a Deflect 2 or 3 large shield (DB 6) and a Magery 6 Shield spell (DB 6) having a Heavy Encumbrance no-Retreat Dodge of 14 or 15. It's a lot of power and money to do that, but would it be fun? Would anyone want to fight that guy as an enemy? "He defends with ease, every. Single. Time." A cap on bonus DB might make sense.

Resist Poison: I figured, immunity means the ongoing effects stop, and ruled it that way.

Iron Arm: Bad wording implies a failed Iron Arm has the caster "parrying with his arm." Sounds like "I get an unarmed parry," doesn't it? I don't think so, I think it's just poor word choice, since other Blocking spells don't give you a backup roll. "I Iron Arm, and if it fails, I defend normally, and if I chose AOD Double I get yet another defense!" - That's lame. So no, it's Iron Arm, and if it fails, your opponent either hits your arm or the original target, his choice.

Universal Scrolls: I'm not sure I'm using these. I'm absolutely not using Universal cleric scrolls. I'm not using tattooed/etched scrolls on gear at the moment, either. Sorry.

GMing

One note for myself: I need to write down the visible armor of the PCs, because sometimes I've had enemies attack a PC and then the PC says "Oh, that's where I have my heaviest armor, unlike my leather-clad legs" or whatever. Appearance of weak armor should be a trigger for aiming there.

Wizard Eye: The addition of Wizard Eye will really affect exploration, I think. Invisible Wizard Eye isn't available in my game, so it's not a secret scout. But it's still going to change things.

Another note: We're using TG, so I need to get everyone's 1 handed and 2 handed grapple and Trained ST on their sheets, so I don't need to figure it out for them when I misplace my "handy" TG reference card with those details on it. I may need to make a "one handed grapple" and "two handed grapple" weapon listing and tell GCA how to implement it. Since I'm using a modified form of TG, I can't just go get other people's work.

Describing caves is tough, too. Maybe I need to just make a player-facing copy and figure out a way to deploy it in chunks, or deploy it covered, or something. Worth thinking about, as there are more cave-like areas in the dungeon.

GCA file list for Felltower

As requested earlier this week, here is the file list for my Dungeon Fantasy game, Felltower.

I use the following, in this order. Anything in italics is a custom file.

GURPS Basic Set 4th Ed.--Characters.gdf
GURPS Magic 4e.gdf
GURPS LT Weapons for DF.gdf
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1 - Adventurers.gdf
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3 - Next Level.gdf
Peter's DF Magic Armor Mods.gdf
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 4 - Sages.gdf
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 5 - Allies.gdf
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 12 - Ninja.GDF
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Remove Unnecessary Traits.GDF
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 11 - Power-Ups.gdf

I use a custom file with my own house rules on magic armor costs, which you can generate based on this post:

GCA Coding my enchantment house rule

And I also use a custom file containing just the weaponry that I allow from GURPS Low-Tech, too. I should probably find a place to post those.

Some of what is there is for templates, some for races, and some for gear - the Scholar one, especially, has a lot of gear my players like to buy and use.

The Power-Ups one is last because it was beta when I added it, and I didn't want the "Remove Unnecessary Traits" file to screw anything up.



Here it is, unformated - you should be able to cut and paste this into a GDF file, if you like. Just take everything between the " marks but don't take them.

"
files("GURPS Basic Set 4th Ed.--Characters.gdf", "GURPS Magic 4e.gdf", "%user%\GURPS LT Weapons for DF.gdf", "%sys%\Worldbooks\GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1 - Adventurers.gdf", "%sys%\Worldbooks\GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3 - Next Level.gdf", "%user%\Peter's DF Magic Armor Mods.gdf", "%sys%\Worldbooks\GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 4 - Sages.gdf", "%sys%\Worldbooks\GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 5 - Allies.gdf", "%sys%\worldbooks\GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 12 - Ninja.GDF", "%sys%\worldbooks\GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Remove Unnecessary Traits.GDF", "%user%\GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 11 - Power-Ups.gdf")
"

GCA Coding my enchantment house rule

By the GURPS RAW, you multiply the energy cost of an enchantment by a percentage based on the coverage of the armor. A full suit (or a shield) is 100% cost, while the torso and groin is 60%, gloves are 5%, and so on.

Since prices are on a sliding scale (from $1/point up to $20-25/point), this really makes breaking up armor as small as you can a big deal. Enchanting individual pieces is generally better than enchanting a full suit. What's more, while getting a larger piece with a strong enchantment can be really expensive, it's not difficult to enchant smaller pieces such as gloves and helmets with a very powerful Deflect or Fortify or Lighten enchantment. A +3 Fortify on a corselet can break the bank in DF (it's 800 energy x 60% = 480 energy, x $20 = $9600) it's cheap on a helm (800 x 10% = 80 x $1 = $80).

Personally, I dislike this in a Guild-centric world. Why pass on your savings? Price-fix it so that you multiply the final cost of the enchantment by the percentage of the body covered by the armor.

At the same time I like the massive price break on very low-powered enchantments. So I house ruled it "final cost" - and now that Fortify costs $9600 on the corselet and $1600 on the helm.

I like the idea that it doesn't reward extra work on your PC - it's a price lookup, not a "how do I just miss the breakpoint?" game.

The tough bit was getting GCA to do this. I could easily do it by hand, but we keep a lot of PCs in GCA partly to do stuff like run the math on encumbrance totals and equipment replacement costs.

Thanks largely to Eric B. Smith, I was able to get this done. The code is embedded here:

Armor Enchantment Cost House Rule Code

Just put that in a text file, save it as "Peters House Rule.gdf" or something and it should work. If it doesn't, or gives odd results, let me know so I can fix my copy!