Create Servant abuses

Someone asked about abuses of the Create Servant spell in Here a few things people used Create Servant for that I did allow:

- touching basically anything that a PC might touch that wasn't immediately, obviously dangerous (no touching living things, say)

- as scouts. They're terrible scouts, but you can make them act as lookouts and hope for the best with their low Per and IQ

- carrying things

- taking up back rank space so attacks from behind will have to shoot past them, or just take them out and spare a PC a single attack

- opening doors (stuck doors, no, because of ST 9)

Anything that basically had them be a warm body without the will to resist a potentially (but not obviously) harmful suggestion worked out fine.

Here are some things they wanted to do, but I wouldn't allow:

- havng a servant go into the druagr tombs and pour oil all over the place so someone could lob in an alchemist's fire to light it up

- having a servant hold a grenade potion and then drop it at their own feet

- using servants to throw grenades

- pretty much anything that allowed for a combat use except as a speedbump

- set off traps meant for living things (they aren't living and won't detect as "life.")

My logic for these is not that they can't fight well, but that they can't fight at all. They just crumple under the pressure of doing anything remotely violent. Even in combat, they won't stand around and force someone to kill them - they'll whimper and curl up and move out of the way. Bend a little on this, and I expect the floodgates would open. They'd be running out into mobs of foes with grenades and getting shot down by the scout to act as a kamikaze, holding weapons to fend off attackers with their default skills, etc.

This is almost a teaser of a list - if you read the session summaries that feature Dryst, you'll see these guys getting used and abused to the point that everyone assumes Dryst is basically the Evil One of the servants. But this is a start.

Seek Earth

DF Whiterock has a nice post on Seek Earth.

Find it here.

In DF Felltower, I do the following:

- Even a single coin is a "significant" amount. This means that small hoards, and even single coins layed out, can distract a Seek Earth spell.

- I don't allow specific gemstones. Casting on gold, silver, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, etc. one after the other - trivial with high skill - just doesn't work out. I basically just shut this down to avoid the annoyance of needing to know the direction to everything in my dungeon from every point in my dungeon, in three dimensions.

- I give relative directions but not "lead" people to anything. Directions are rough - I tried being very specific, but people believe their maps and measures, so if I said 40 yards northwest and they go what on their map is 45 yards NW and find loot, they think there is more 5 yards closer as well and keep looking. Insisting on vague has actually made for more clear communication.

- I always choose to lie on critical failures. Lie, lie, lie. Oh, and roll on the table for what else happens. Information spells are great, but when they're wrong, they're really wrong.

Optional rule ideas:

- Give a -1 for each source you ignore in the casting. Make everyone pool their gold together or move away from them so you can treat them as one "hoard" of gold. This fits the DF -1 per adjective approach to obstacles, makes for a challenge to find a "big" hoard in a mess of little ones you're carrying, and rewards the 20+ skill of better casters. It also explains why skill-12 pikers out in the world have troubles and your IQ 16, Magery 6 guy does not.

- Make it akin to an divination spell - give a direction, but not a distance. Let people triangulate . . . it'll be easier for you, the GM, as they do the trig to determine how far to go.

- limit the castings to once per period of time - says, once per hour, or once per substance per day. Don't allow spamming it out.

I haven't tried, these, but I love the second one and like the first one . . . and that first one is an easy implementation.

DF Felltower: Why can't you temporarily suppress magic?

Over the course of Felltower, the question of countering magic has come up. Canonically in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, there is no way for PCs to temporarily suspend an enchantment. If magic is permanent, the effect remains and is not subject to the relatively simple and easy counters of Dispel Magic and Counterspell. Curse-like effects are often removable with Remove Curse, and you can dispel/counter non-permanent magic.

But it's deliberate that the spell list doesn't include Suspend Enchantment. Because of this, these things are generally true:

Dispel Magic doesn't harm created undead, contructs, or permanent enchantments (wether on items or locations.) It does generally have the potential to end the magic behind spells like Animate Shadow or Animate Object or Create Warrior. Some spells have very specific counters, and thus aren't subject to Dispel Magic - examples include Flesh to Stone and Entombment.

Counterspell can only directly counter spells, not magic effects in general, and are subject to the revised rules we use.

Ward is only useful defensively, and again, only against spells, not enchantments and magical effects that just happen to be possible to create with a spell. Just because you may potentially be able to Ward against Burning Touch doesn't mean all touch-based fire attacks from magical creatures are subject to Ward.

Remove Curse is effective against a special set of spells and effects - they're called out specifically in the descriptions of the individual spells.



Why?

Because enchantments should be special. They should not be subject to a high-skill caster or a good roll to end. Magic-based obstacles should be solved with cleverness or sucking up the effects, not by just spamming out Dispel Magic.

In additional, magical creatures - undead, constructs, mana-dependent beings, etc. - shouldn't be singled out for a special generic damage / save-or-die spell (such as allowing Dispel Magic to damage or outright kill such creatures). And if even some are, that means step one should always be casting Dispel Magic to see if it'll damage or kill such creatures. The spell would go from a way to counter temporary magic to doing that plus potentially killing otherwise potentially problem-causing foes. Don't know what to do with a critter? Start with Dispel Magic.

Therefore I don't even allow it on a critical - the "I rolled a 3, so a miracle occurs!" that is the equivalent of post-1st edition D&D/AD&D's "I rolled a 20." Allowing such would encourage people to just keep trying to same spells over and over and over, hoping/praying for a 3. Once that's possible, generally, people will just try Dispel Magic on everything unti it works. I've seen this with our special rule on Missile Shield that allows a 3 or 4 to penetrate it (if you had an effective 1+ skill in the first place, of course) - people just keep plugging away, hoping for that low roll that will solve the problem without them needing to find a different solution. I like that rule enough to keep it, but allowing it does push people to a thoughtless repetition of a failed tactic until they've rolled a 3 to see if it "really" doesn't work.

With that in mind, players can be sure that only NMZs really mess with their enchanted items, magical creatures won't just take damage from one spell that automatically acts as a damage spell / off button, and that spells designed to counter spells aren't the answer to fantasy problems that aren't instantly amenable to "I hit it really hard in the hit points."



Related:

Revised Dispel Magic (and for people who groan that a 1-hex spell was 3 seconds, 2 with Skill 20, is now 5 seconds, 3 seconds with skill 20, thus making the spell "useless" for combat . . . feel free to not cast it!)

GURPS Magic clarification: Fire Cloud & Starting Fires

This clarification is for DF Felltower.

Add the following sentence to the end of the spell description:

"Damage from Fire Cloud is treated normally for setting fires."

In other words, a level 3+ Fire Cloud will partially light up clothes, etc. per the usual GURPS rules (p. B434 or DFRPG Exploits, p. 68), assuming a full turn spent in the area of the spell. It takes a level 6 Fire Cloud (and thus Magery 6*) to do that to anything that passes through the area effect. The note about lighting the easily ignited happens if the subject spends any part of a turn in a Fire Cloud area effect, regardless of the intensity of the damage inflicted - even a 1-point Fire Cloud is sufficient.


* We always allow all spells to cap at the level Magery if it exceeds the listed spell maximum.

Felltower GURPS Magic Rulings: Shield

I'll keep all of the oddball FAQs that come up about the Shield spell in DF Felltower.

Shield and Attacks on Weapons - Defenses against an attack on the subject's weapon do not benefit from Shield.

Shield and Arcs - Frontal attacks specially only includes the front arc; it does not help againt flank or rear attacks, even if those attacks are part of a runaround attack.

Shield and Meteoric Weapons - DB from Shield doesn't help against meteoric weapons; this is true for both Wizardly and Clerical Shield spells.

More thoughts on Only Heroes Get to Resist

I've never implemented this rule, but I keep thinking about running a game that would use it:

Only Heroes Get to Resist

I have a few more thoughts on it, nine years on.

- I think it should totally affect allied NPCs, too, with an exception made for any characters 125+ points, who'd get treated as worthy and get a roll.

- In a DF-style split, Fodder don't resist, Worthies may, Bosses do. Worthies with a base resistance below the effective skill of the caster don't get to resist; those with equal or better do get a chance. Don't apply the Rule of 16 until this comparison is made.

- If an effect has a chance for recovery, the same rules apply - Fodder stays down until the effect naturally ends, Worthy and up get to try and evade the effects.

- You still have to make the roll to put the resistable effect on the target.

I don't intend to use this in Felltower, but I do think it would make a good Heroic DF rule.

Assorted GURPS Magic / DFRPG Spells questions and answers

I'll use this post to track all of the weird spell rulings I make that don't otherwise have a home.

Does Wizard Eye have 360 degree vision?

No. It has a facing just like any other character would; if you want 360 degree vision cast the appropriate spells on someone.

How much concealment does See Secrets eliminate?

I cap concealment penalties at -10, so it cancels -10. As always, you must be able to see to take advantage of this spell; a secret door will stand out clearly, but if it's behind a curtain it will not, because the curtain breaks your line of sight.

What temperature do Fireball spells burn at?

It doesn't matter - we resolve it all by HP of damage vs. DR/HP of the targets, and the usual rules for setting things on fire (Exploits, p. 68)

Potential changes to Fear, Panic, and Terror

Back in my post on Panic, one of my players / GURPS book author Kevin Smyth had this to say about a possible way to handle these spells:

"Fear: Regular; R-Will; Base Cost 2 to cast, 1 to maintain; Duration: 1 minute.
If the subject fails to resist, they become afraid of the caster. In combat, they suffer a penalty equal to their margin of failure to take any action against the caster other than 'run away'. Outside of combat, the caster gets a bonus to Intimidation rolls (but a penalty to all other social rolls) equal to their margin of success.

Panic: Area; R-Will; Base Cost 3 to cast, 2 to maintain; Duration: 1 minute.
As Fear, but over an area. The area is not persistent; the duration applies to subjects in the area when the spell is cast, but new subjects can enter the area afterward.

Terror: Area; R-Special; Base Cost 4; Duration: Instantaneous.
Subjects in the area must immediately make a Fright Check.

This makes Fear useful, brings Panic in line with your goals, and sets up Terror so it's not resisted twice (my beef with Terror is that you R-Will... then Fright Check, which is R-Will *again*) - it's not quite a buff, since it takes away the -3 penalty on the Fright Check."


These spells are still wierd. One is a one-person spell for scaring someone kinda, the other an attack spell to chase foes away, and the last inflicts a fright check.

Fear isn't bad. I don't have a problem with Fear or see a need to upgun it even for additional cost. I do think it should be an Intimidation roll itself.

Panic needs some tweaking.

Terror doesn't seem very useful. I don't love the idea of automatically inflicting Fright Checks; what about Magic Resistance? Does that add double the level to the check? Does it exceed the cap for Fright Checks? Or does it reduce the roll on the table? And do we even need a spell that inflicts a Fright Check? Just because a check exists doesn't mean a spell needs to be able to inflict one, especially in DF. Monsters can just get the Terror advantage, and PCs don't cast this spell.

Here is a possible way to handle them:

Fear
As written, but also acts as a successful Intimidation roll as under Taunt and Bluster, Exploits p. 58. Fearlessness adds to to Will to resist it.

Panic

As written, but note that it affects subjects within the target area immediately, and then persists on those who fail to resist, per Spells p. 53. This is also subject to the usual rules on turning and fear for Felltower; treat failing to resist Panic as inflicting a -4 on all skill rolls if the subject chooses to stand and fight (or is forced to.)

(In general, Fodder will flee. Don't use this on orcs and rats and wolves and goblins in the hopes they'll fight back at a -4.)

Delete Terror.

That might be workable. I need to give it some more thought.

Even More Felltower Rulings to Remember

Lend Energy scrolls are available, and can be charged and/or universal.

Lend Energy can only be cast on another person, never on the caster. This is true even in the case of scrolls of Lend Energy. This prevents "lending" yourself FP from your Energy Reserve to allow for never being down FP, only ER, amongst other abuses.

Cancelling Spells is now a free action; this is a change to the RAW from our house rules. Each and every spell cancelled costs 1 FP. You may cancel one at a time; cancelling multiple spells takes a Concentrate action.

Potions sell in town for $100/per, per DFRPG Exploits, p. 76. This is not a change, it's a standard rule, but is often forgotten during discussions of the "value" of found potions, especially if unique. It's also specificially potions, not all "concotions" or alchemical mixtures.

DF Session 189 - More Notes

So the PCs had a goal today - kill a stone bull and a chimera. They managed to blunder into some crushrooms and maul one, wound a few more, and then retreat and head home.

The PCs had a good point - fighting an open-field monster (stone bull) and a flying monster with ranged attacks (chimera) outdoors is probably not ideal. Sneaking up on them out of the dark is probably better. The cost, though, for doing so, was well demonstrated in the session.

The problem with going through the dungeon include:

- it takes time. Game time and in-game time. There is no "fast forward" through the dungeon like we do for overland.

- there is no guarantee that you won't get into additional fights.

- there are distractions.

- there are hazards.

All came up today.

It took 2 hours to get to the crushrooms in the real world (10 am to 12 noon), that long or a bit more in actual in-game time delving.

They got into an additional fight which almost certainly alerted their target monsters.

They got distracted by the scrying room, briefly, and by the dead ogres, briefly.

They got stuck in a half-bent portcullis, fell in pits, fell down stairs, and used up FP on repeated attempts to force doors.

It also took some time as they fought the crushrooms in an area I didn't have set up for a battle map, so I had to pause the game for a few minutes and hurriedly draw walls on a scan of the map zoomed in and uploaded. I did it fast - I've gotten good at it over time - but geez, I had the other one ready to go. Foolish me, when they said they'd just go right there from the outside and attack the monsters, I believed them. I didn't prepare for the alternative.

Ironically, the problem with fighting flying monsters outdoors is that you can't melee them effectively . . . yet they have a scout, and the spell Flight. They also have Walk on Air and missile spells, so the ground-bound monster is likely out of luck against anyone who doesn't choose to fight it directly. I feel like they outsmarted themselves - convinced themselves that sneaking up was so valuable that they spent the whole session on it. The crushrooms are still intact, too, which is likely an obstacle to future delves in either direction.

Perfect Illusion says it fools all senses except Touch. Just FYI, I rule that to mean hearing, vision, and even smell - but not touch and therefore not taste (since you can't taste without touch.) I don't take it to mean "all possible senses." In DF, there are many ways to sense and target - the normal senses, plus various forms of Detect, Vibration Sense, and magic come to mind.

Someone wondered why no one filled the pit at the entrance full of cement. Probably because it's 60 x 20 x 30 feet. 36,000 cubic feet. You'd need 1333.33 cubic yards of fill. Create Earth isn't permanent.

Someone also wanted to use Shape Earth to shape metal. No, sorry, it doesn't do that - earth and stone, but not metal. There is a GURPS Magic college with metal spells which I very specifically do not use in Felltower.

GURPS Magic - Panic is weird

Panic is a truly weird spell. It's an area, but the effects last on the people who leave the area. Yet it also continues to affect the area, so anyone coming into the area is also forced to resist.

I struggle to find parallels. You can get lit on fire with the flames in a Create Fire-affected area, leave, and still be on fire. It doesn't go out. And you could be put to sleep with Mass Sleep and be carried out of the area and still be sleeping. But I still find the Panic effect really odd. It both causes an effect on the targets they carry with them - and which is clearly magical, and which would go away if they went into a NMZ - and keeps a lasting effect elsewhere.

One of our current PCs uses it a lot, and did so in Vic's side game, and I've kept the ruling from there. But my original ruling was it stayed on the targets, not the area. Essentially, like Mass Daze or Mass Sleep, it did its thing and then ended on the area . . . but not on those who failed to resist. I felt like that was a more consistent effect with the other spells in the game. Yeah, fire and being set on fire, yes, but the effect wouldn't keep trying to set you on fire . . . you wouldn't need magic or 1 minute to pass without maintainence to have it end. I don't know . . . sometimes I think I should have kept my ruling just to keep the spell more consistent with the rest of GURPS Magic.



Not for nothing, but I want to highlight this rule, which is still in play, even if fodder types generally don't avail themselves of it in my games. As noted, that applies to fear effects, too. So you can Panic some monster and it can just decide to suck up the penalties and fight, if that's better for it.

Uniform Range and Acc for Missile spells?

Would it harm anything to make all of the missile spells range 40/80, Acc 2? Even Curse-Missile?

I'm thinking no. It slightly nerfs a few (Lightning, with its 50/100 Acc 3, for one) but smoothes it all out in terms of rules since we'll never need to look anything up. Acc 2, 40/80, effects as listed.

You could potentially sweeten up one of the weaker missile spells - like ice dagger - with more Acc. I'm inclined to sweeten that one up with a (2) armor divisor, but whatever, you can note that in the spell description instead of needing a table.

Unless my players have a reasonable objection, I will make this change to the basic Acc and Range of Missile spells for DF Felltower.

Missile spells in DF Felltower - Are they effective?

Combats in Felltower very, very often feature Missiles spells. Probably 50/50 regular and explosive. Combats in Felltower often feature table discussion about how Missile spells are underpowered, hard to hit with, too easy to defend against, not cost-effective, and really unfair to wizards because they should be able to do some damage-doing effect every turn.

Heh.

I'm totally serious about both. We see a lot of Missile spell use. It's almost every combat.

We do have some or all of that discussion of Missile spells, even as people are using them.

It's odd but true.

I think the "Missile spells are weak and not cost-effective" opinion has a lot of validity to it. I don't think it's true in Felltower.

Underpowered: Missile spells do 1d base damage per 1 point of energy, or per 2 points if explosive. A 3d spell does about as much damage as a front-line fighter's hit, but often less. It's a little weak compared to fighters. In DF Felltower, this is the same . . . but I feel like it's mitigated by two factors - the ability to hit multiple targets or single targets with the same spell (since Explosive spells aren't a different spell), and that they are often coupled with an effect melee weapons don't get - electrical stunning, armor divisors, burning, or even high-damage impaling. It's not a 1:1 matchup but I don't think they should be, nevermind need to be for fairness.

Speaking of underpowered, the rules for blast effects for explosives in plain GURPS (and even DFRPG) are a bit underwhelming. DF Felltower makes all explosive spells area 3 (so diameter 5). Damage in the center hex is full, in the next ring out it's 2/3rds, the third ring 1/3rd. That makes big explosive spells less fratricidal and smaller ones have more utility in hitting an area. It's also faster to play.

Hard to Hit With: Hitting with a Missile spell takes an attack roll, which is a DX-based skill, and wizards aren't always good with those. But DF takes care of that in two ways. One, even wizards routinely have a 14 or 15 skill in it. And by the book, you can buy the Psychic Guidance perk to let you use your spell skill instead as your attack skill. DF Felltower uses Mystic Guidance, instead, which rather gives you +1 per level of your spellcasting talent as a plus to your attack roll. I just find that a better solution, but either way, in DF Felltower it's only hard to hit with missiles you don't put some of your available spellcasting perks into improving with.

Too Easy to Defend Against: This one I just disagree with. They're not harder or easier to deal with than any other missile, and the explosive ones are usually thrown to hit with the blast effect so it's hard to avoid damage altogether. Just no to this one.

Not Cost Effective: In standard GURPS Magic, it's 1 for 1d and 2 for 1d explosive. You can save 1+ energy per spell for a high effective skill. A Magery 6 wizard can throw an 18d spell for 18 or 36 points . . . with skill 15 that's 17 and 35, with skill 20 that's 16 and 34. In DF Felltower, it's 1 for 1d or 2 for 1d explosive as standard, but you can subtract for your effective skill each turn. That 18d spell costs 15 or 33 at skill 15, 12 and 30 at skill 20. Still expensive, but much more doable. A 9d - the cap for Magery 3, and still a very nasty attack - would cost 6 and 15 or 3 and 12 for skill 15 or 20, respectively.

The damage you can cause to a packed formation of foes with effectively 9d/6d/3d attacks, especially with a Fireball (3+ ignites fires, 10+ ignites everything on a target, and average damage will do 10+ at all three bands), is terrific. It's not going to cause all of your foes to char and die . . . but it can make all of them combat-ineffective. Not bad for 12 or 15 points, given that most save-or-die type spells cost around 10 per target and are resisted.

Can't Do Something Every Turn: Well, fair enough. It takes 3 seconds to pump up a spell to the most powerful level, and 1 second to throw. So they're 4 second spells. Seems a bit much . . . or does it? Personally I disagree with this one. I don't think you need to be able to do damage every secod in order to be combat-effective. Wizards are critical for combat - ask any foe who confronts Missile Shield or Levitation or Panic spells with no way to counter them. They just aren't pure damage engines. The Heroic Spellcaster advantage from Delvers to Grow can help make them so . . . but I feel like the changes I've made make that less necessary. The author may disagree, I'd have to ask, but I think the many changes we made for DF Felltower make for better Missile spells without needing to add this advantage.

I don't think you need to deal damage every second to matter; I actually think you gain a lot of non-combat ability and combat flexibility by choosing to use magic but can't also effectively deal damage every second.

And I think the constant use of Missile spells in my game says something about the value of them, modified as they are.

Addendum to the DF Felltower Explosive Missile Spells FAQ

I've added this to my explosive spells FAQ:

- While full cover does block an explosive spell, it has to be strong enough to resist the spell (sliding paper doors, for example, wouldn't help much), otherwise it merely acts as DR. A target's body doesn't provide cover unless it completely covers the potentially shielded victim. For example, a child or pet covered by a prone adult, or anything beyond a dragon larger than the radius of the fireball so nothing can "leak" past. Generally, assume everything in the covered hexes gets hit.

What ends a Curse?

The spell Curse has an endng clause:

"lasting until some notable success is rolled . . . but any critical success suffices."

I'm thinking of possibly lowering the bar a bit, potentially making it less lasting but more combat-effective.

What if the Curse ends on:

- any critical success

- any successful hit by the cursed fighter that could cause damage if the defense fails

It's a bit of an expansion, but it would mean the spell at the -1 level is very combat effective - you've essentially neutralized the next attack by the victim. I'm not sure about this - it might a little weak, especially for a more powerful Curse. But it also might make the spell more useful . . . something I'm thinking about as we see a lot of these in play these days.

Next Game set & Ruling from Last Session

Looks like our next game of Felltower will be Friday, November 24th.

The plan is a short session to finish the fight and then - hopefully - they'll finally go back to town.


One ruling of note from last game:

- Does a foe with Loyalty on them still count as a foe for cost multiplication purposes? No, in that we don't cost Loyalty based on hostility in my revised system. You can cast it temporarily, and then order them not to resist a lasting version, though.





That's it for today. Not a lot of rulings to make based on the previous session.

DF Felltower Explosive spells

In DF Felltower, we use modified GURPS Magic.

First, all missile spells except Winged Dagger/Poltergeist/Sunbolt have explosive versions.

Second, all missile spells are either case normally or as explosive; you don't learn a second spell.

Explosive spells have the following features:

- a 5-yard diameter area of effect
- inflicts around 1d damage per level of casting
- has some kind of special enhancement
- gets a per-turn discount to casting cost

You can see this all discussed in detail here:

Revised GURPS Magic: Explosive Spells

I want to discuss damage a bit more today.

Damage is 1d plus a special enhancement. If the enhancement is very good, damage is -1 per die. If there is no other special benefit, damage is +1 per die.

Explosive Fireball - 1d per level; potentially starts fires.
Explosive Stone Missile - 1d+1 per level; the special enhancement is +1 damage per die.
Explosive Lightning - 1d-1 per level; the special enhancements are stunning and surge effect, with an armor divisor of (5), hence -1 per die to damage.
Concussion - 1d per level; deafness and possible stunning effect.
Explosive Ice Dagger - 1d-1 per level; special effect is impaling damage.
Explosive Ice Sphere - 1d per level; the special enhancement is a secondary Create Water effect.


I'm not sure why they all have different ranges - it's probably better to just make the whole lot of them range 40/80, Acc 2. I'm inclined to do so but players of casters might complain.

I also think Ice Dagger is a bit weak, because the damage isn't much for penetrating DR. Perhaps higher accuracy (4? 5?) might help, or just giving it a (2) armor divisor.

Felltower DB cap

Going down my list of things to do before we play Felltower again, DB.

Looking at my options from here:

Possible Solutions to the Extreme DB Problem

I'm going with:

- DB cap of 8 from all sources.

- Margin-of-DB defenses means some kind of contact for follow-on effects - knockback, detonation of missiles, etc. This specifically includes the spell Shield.

I think those satisfy my main concerns at this point without doing any real violence to the system or existing canon.

Felltower: Power Casting

After a quick discussion Sunday, here is a ruling for Power Casting:

Power Casting

As written; one level maximum. A caster with this and 6 levels of casting talent can cast this particular spell as if they had 7 levels of casting talent. This can allow for 21d missile spells, Shield +7, and so on.

I figure, Felltower can always use more magical firepower, so why not?

More notes from last game session

- Our wizard rolled an 18 on Invisibility. The critical failure table - which I generally don't like much myself - just had it stun him. He didn't fall down stairs. Huzzah. Not really that thrilling. If it's worth rolling to see if you could succeed, fail, critically succeed, or critically fail . . . then those should all matter. If they won't matter, it's probably just worth saying spellcasting not under stress is just a normal success without bothering to roll.

But if you do roll, a 17 should suck and an 18 should critically suck. Harmless results shouldn't be allowed otherwise it's really just a check between success and critical success.

- It's bleeding odd that you can torso shoot a skeleton with a cutting arrow for full damage. Shoot a rib off? Crack the sternum? I aimed for the skull just because I didn't want that to be a thing.

- Handsome has like a hundred arrows or something laying around for him. I'm probably just going to grab a few extras and toss the rest. I don't even have quivers for them all, or the need for them all.

- Handsome, by the way, still has no armor. I'd expected to loot some by now but then again, having DR 0 hasn't been such a big deal. It might be later, but it's been fun living dangerously.

- I'm enjoying playing but I'm curious how I'll make the transition back to GMing when that comes around soonish.