GURPS Conan: Beyond Thunder River playthrough session 3

I will play through GURPS Conan: Beyond Thunder River in short sessions until I've completed it. I did this one last night, but set it to post in the morning. I may do a double if I have time to play later.

I will run Conan of Cimmeria as written up in that supplement, as a 40-year old, 521-point character. I am using the 1st edition GURPS rules from my original boxed set, as written.

Session 1
Session 2

Plot Words:
Triumphant
Intrepid
Valorous

I lead my 6 scouts out of the fort to find and kill Zogar Sog. My current time is set to 10 pm Thursday - it was 9 pm last time I was asked to advance time.

There is an outdoor map, and I will follow along with it to get to the village.

We row south, with the current. We advance one hex, time is now 10:30 pm, and I have to roll 1d: 6, which sends me to a different entry.

Picts! Quick Contest of Skills, my Stealth-16 vs. a hostile Stealth-14. For every person with Boating (Canoe)-12 or better, I add 1 (max +4). Everyone in my group has a 13, so that's 20 vs. 14. I roll a 10, so made it by 10. The Picts(?) made it exactly. A canoe crammed full of Pict braves in war paint slides by as we hide in the shadows in the shallows.

We continue south, making the time 11 pm. I roll a 1, no encounter.

Again south, making it 11:30 pm. I roll a 5, no encounter.

We disembark on the Pict side and tie off the boat and head in . . . and unluckily encounter three Picts. e can try to escape, flee along the river bank, out-stalk them, or boldly attack them. We try the stalk. They know someone is around, but not where we are exactly. I roll their tribe and it is 2, Turtle. It's my Stealth-16 vs. Stealth-11, hoping to win by 4+. I roll a 13, making it by 3. The Turtles make it by 2. Uh-oh. They spot us!

It's a tabletop battle, Conan and six scouts vs. three Turtle braves. We're quite spread out, actually, and have some bushes and trees on the map.

Turn order will be: Conan, scouts, Picts, based on Speed.

Turn 1
I throw my axe at the Pict to my left, over the bushes. He's 4 hexes away, my axe has PB 2, Inc 2 and is -1 for one range increment. I have a 14 and aim for the body. 10, a hit. The Pict will Dodge and Retreat with an 8. He rolls a 13 and is hit. Damage is 3d+3 for 12 +3 = 15 cutting, so 22 cutting, and he drops, automatically unconscious. I Fast-Draw my sword with a 12 and succeed.
The scouts go. I'm assuming half of them have bows drawn and half have melee weapons, and put them behind Conan in a loose line. Scout A, C, and E have bows, B, D, F have Axes.
Scout A steps and looses his bow at the Pict ahead. The short bow has PB 5, Inc ST/2 (so, 6). He's 5 away, so it's Point Blank for a +4 to hit and +1 damage. He has Bow-15, +4 = 19, -3 to aim for the vitals for a net 16. I roll a 9 and hit! The Pict has Dodge 8 with Retreat, and rolls an 11. He's hit for 1d-1, +1 = 1d impaling. 6, tripled to 18! He's down.
Scout B moves up to the Pict on the right and slightly past, to keep an open lane for archery.
Scout C steps and looses his bow at the Pict on the right. Range is 8, so that's one Inc for a -1, giving him a 14. I roll a 4. The dice dislike the Picts tonight. He hits the body for 6, -1, = 5 impaling, doubles to 10. The Pict goes from HT 11 to 1, and has to roll for knockdown and stunning. He has an 11, and rolls a 10. He's still standing, but automatically Stunned.
Scout D moves offline. Scout E looses an arrow at the stunned Pict. Range is 10, still one Inc past PB, for a 14. He rolls a 10 and hits. The Pict had Dodge 5, -4 for stunning. He rolls a 9 and fails. The arrow hits body and does 1, -1 = 0, min 1, impaling. The Pict takes 1 x 2 = 2 damage, goes to -1 HT, and drops unconscious automatically.

Fight is over. The Picts didn't even make it a whole second!

I end it here as it's getting late.

Notes:

Oddly, the scouts have Shortsword skill, and in the short story I believe they carried, basically, falchions, but they don't have them here. Oh well.

I did Conan's ranged attack wrong before - I forget to count Increments after Point Blank. I counted them including Point Blank, which is wrong.

I'm unsure if you can attempt to Fast-Draw at the end of your turn. I have to look that up and check.

What's an edition, anyway?

D&D is going to have a new edition. Or maybe a revision of an existing division extensive enough to be a new edition. It's not necessarily clear at this point what will happen or what the company intends to happen.

But what counts as an edition?

Looking at GURPS, it's had a few iterations:

Man-to-Man

1st edition

2nd edition

3rd edition

3rd edition, revised

3rd edition, revised, plus Compendium I and II

4th edition

Officially four editions. But two were so close to each other as to be difficult to easily distinguish (1st and 2nd), or so close that it was just relatively minor changes (3rd, 3rd revised). Or a new but compatible edition in reality but not in same - 3rd revised plus compendia. Others might disagree with how I count - and I wouldn't have counted the compendia as a new edition at the time, but they seem so in retrospect. And I clean missed out on 2nd, so GURPS Update rolled around and I found weirdness that didn't quite line my games up with 3rd edition, since I was still on 1st.

D&D has some of the same issues with counting editions. So does Traveller, to the point that I don't even quite know where I'd begin.

I'm mostly curious if the new D&D is compatiblew with the exiting 5e stuff - there is so much out there. We'll see I guess . . . but to me it doesn't seem clear what's what.

"The Use of Medieval Weaponry," D&D, and GURPS

I was given this book for Christmas. To be fair, I asked for it as I'd heard the author interviewed on a podcast and it sounded interesting.



The Use of Medieval Weaponry by Eric Lowe.

It's basically a primer on the weapons commonly discussed in the existing, written records of martial arts instructors of the time. It's by a HEMA instructor - that's Historical European Martial Arts, called WMA or Western Martial Arts previously. Overall, a good book, and if you're interested in non-gaming weapon use written by a former (?) gamer, it's a good read.

It's the gamer part I want to talk about here.

"The real genesis of this project is in games. When I was a teenager, my friends and I played a lot of tabletop roleplaying games such as Dungeons and Dragons. We were storytellers, and we crafted long-form collaborative storytelling experiences that spanned years of real-time, full of intrigue, emotions, and derring-do."
- p. 2

Eric Lowe doesn't mention again the games he played . . . but I'd be surprised if they were not all D&D-based games.

So much of the back-references to games sound very, very D&D.

"When I was young, I was under the impression that shields were rather useless [. . . ] as I could plainly see from my roleplaying games, they offered very little in the way of actual protection (about as good as light armor, so I thought). Why anybody would give up a two-handed weapon just to wield a shield was quite beyond me."
- p. 71

No armor + shield is AC 9 in AD&D, AC 8 in D&D . . . the same as the lightest of armors.

Meanwhile, he quotes Domingo Luis Godinho, the fencing master, as saying, "It is queen."

GURPS pretty much feels that way, too. Shields are so effective defensively that Man-to-Man originally made Block Shield/3 instead of Shield/2, because they were too effective (see the Q&A in Roleplayer #1). But that effectiveness is accurate. They don't necessary work the way in game they might in reality (restricting a lot more targets than just the shield arm and shield hand), but they're a game-changer for defense. You don't give up a two-handed weapon to take a shield, you give up a shield to take a two-handed weapon. GURPS Martial Arts and GURPS Low-Tech had to sweeten the deal for two-handed weapons to make them even a reasonable choice in the face of shields behind available.

So I'd wager real money Eric Lowe isn't also talking about his GURPS days.

Given a choice between light armor and a shield in GURPS, I know my players - and I - would choose the shield.

"[ . . . ] spears hit very hard and very fast [. . . ] this surprises non-fencers [. . .] Perhaps, like me, they grew up with games telling them that swords and axes do more damage than spears."
- p. 182-3

Again, D&D or D&D-like likely here. Spears do 1d6/1d8 in AD&D, 1d6 in D&D. Longswords do 1d8/1d12, hand axes 1d6/1d4 and battle axes 1d8/1d8.

In GURPS, though, a spear in two hands does thr+3/impaling. It takes a bastard sword in two hands, a greatsword, or a longsword in two hands to do thr+3/impaling. It's on par when used one-handed, but that's also the case if you take a second hand off of a spear in reality. It loses a lot - probably more than the +1, honestly.

It doesn't do as much raw damage as a full swing by any of those weapons, for sure, but its wounding potential is much higher given an unarmored opponent or lightly armored target location.

This isn't to say GURPS is perfect - it's not - but it is clear that it's not the game he's comparing things to. GURPS Martial Arts allows you to do more of the actual historical stuff than Basic Set allows, but still doesn't quite get the rhythms and nuances of swordfighting as discussed in this book or the original sources. Still, it's interesting how your expectations of real martial arts can be shaped by the rules of the fantasy one you played. I don't think a GURPS native would think spears stab less well than a sword or a shield isn't worth its weight.

GURPS I Did Wrong: Man-to-Man Edition

Just as a fun followup to yesterday's post, what did I do wrong in Man-to-Man, the original combat system-only release of GURPS?

Heh. I didn't do this wrong long. But I remember it distinctly.

Shock Penalties Are Forever - back before 4th edition GURPS, stretching back to Man-to-Man, shock was unlimited. You could suffer any amount of it, not just the -4 cap you can suffer now.

And in my first Man-to-Man game, I didn't think it wore off in 1 second. Oh no. You just kept it.

In very short order, Rogan the Reaver and Fiendish Frederick were limping around at 3-4 HP but with -8+ on all of their attacks. They couldn't hit each other until one or the other of us eventually got a good shot in and finished the job.

But woo, that was tough. Injuries were debilitating, and ever since the "Death Spiral" of GURPS hasn't seemed that bad. I had made it much, much worse. Getting hit wasn't just a sign you were losing, it was pretty certain you weren't an effective combatant anymore, either.

Man-to-Man -> 4th Edition: Fiendish Frederick & Rogan the Reaver

Continuing on with the Man-to-Man sample fighters, revised to 4th edition GURPS.

Fiendish Frederick
Original: 100 points
4e: 114 points

[ 20] ST 12
[ 40] DX 12
[  0] IQ 10
[ 40] HT 14

Axe/Mace-14 [8]; Knife-14 [4]; Shield-12 [1]; Running-13 [1]

He carries 81 lbs of gear, putting him at Medium Encumbrance.

Speed 6.5
Move 3
Dodge 6 + Large Shield DB 3
Parry (Axe/Mace)-10 + Large Shield DB 3
Parry (Knife)-9 + Large Shield DB 3
Block-9 + Large Shield DB 3


Notes: Frederick saves points on HT, being one of the rare guys with HT 14 - which provided both HT rolls and HP back in the day. Note that HT was at least as popular as ST, often moreso, back in Man-to-Man. Running doesn't do what it used to - back in Man-to-Man it increased Basic Speed! I kept the effective skill level (13) not the points, which saved him one. He'd honestly be better off saving that one, too.


Rogan the Reaver
Original: 100 points
4e: 99 points

[ 20] ST 12
[ 40] DX 12
[  0] IQ 10
[ 20] HT 12

DR 2 (Tough Skin, -40%) [6]

Broadsword-14 [8]; Knife-13 [2]; Shield-12 [1]; Bow-12 [2]

He carries 58 lbs of gear, putting him at the exact upper limit of Light Encumbrance.

Speed 6
Move 4
Dodge 7 + Small Shield DB 1
Parry (Broadsword)-10 + Small Shield DB 1
Parry (Knife)-8 + Small Shield DB 1
Block-9 + Small Shield DB 1

Notes: Rogan is the only fighter to come out less than originally costed. He saves points on Bow going from P/H to DX/A, his Toughness DR 2 goes from 25 to 6, and his stats don't bring him up significantly despite the doubling of DX costs.


I think I'll continue this with the example characters from Basic Set 3e - 1/2 point skills, Mental skills moving up to 4/level cap from 2/level and Physical skills coming down from 8/level to match, attribute cost changes, advantage price changes - it could be interesting to see how they'd cost as modern PCs. I'm sure someone's done that, but I'll do it again myself.

Man-to-Man -> 4th edition: John Falcon & Villem the Vile

I pulled out my copy of Man-to-Man the other day, and looked at the four example fighters that came with the set. I naturally started to convert them to 4th edition GURPS in my head. How much would they cost?
I'm ignoring equipment costs, here, since that's setting-dependent (and in Man-to-Man, scenario dependent!)



Here is John Falcon, the first of them:


John Falcon
Original: 100 points
4e: 133 points

[-10] ST 9
[100] DX 15
[  0] IQ 10
[ 30] HT 13

DR 1 (Tough Skin, -40%) [3]

Shortsword-16 [4]; Knife-15 [1]; Shield-15 [1]; Crossbow-17 [4]

He carries 38 lbs of gear, putting him at Medium Encumbrance.

Speed 7
Move 4
Dodge 8 + Small Shield DB 1
Parry (Shortsword)-11 + Small Shield DB 1
Parry (Knife)-9 + Small Shield DB 1
Block-10 + Small Shield DB 1


Notes: Like most Man-to-Man characters, his Shield score is optimized around 12 or 15 since Block was Shield/3, not Shield/2 (1e GURPS forward) or Shield/2 + 3 (GURPS 4th edition). He's actually just as defensive-oriented since he loses 2 PD from his armor and his shield drops from PD 2 to DB 1, but gains 3 base onto his defenses. He also saves a lot of points, albeit by doing something you can't do in 4e - buy DR 1 (Tough Skin) on a normal human. Man-to-Man costed "Toughness DR1" out at 10.

Net/net, his DX-heavy build pushed his cost up significantly! The lack of disadvantages, quirks, and non-combat skills limits the amount of cost changes, too. Man-to-Man was just a build-your-own-fighter game.


Villem the Vile
Original: 100 points
4e: 123 points

[ 30] ST 13
[ 60] DX 13
[  0] IQ 10
[ 10] HT 11

DR 1 (Tough Skin, -40%) [3]

Polearm-15 [8]; Knife-14 [2]; Thrown Weapon (Knife)-14 [2]; Crossbow-16 [8]

He carries 69.5 lbs of gear, putting him at Medium Encumbrance.

Speed 6
Move 3
Dodge 7
Parry (Polearm)-10
Parry (Knife)-9

Notes: Like John, Villem has "Toughness DR1" and saves 7 points on the conversion, if you allow it. Also like John, he's very slightly above his weight threshold - if he'd drop one and a half pounds he'd gain movement and a point of Dodge. Since he's both less DX-heavy and stayed in the 11-13 range for ST and HT (now 10 points apiece, not tiered costed as in Man-to-Man) his overall cost only went up 23 points.


Tomorrow, Fiendish Frederick and Rogan the Reaver.