Rules & Rulings from 9/20/26

Not a lot of rulings from yesterday's session, but here they are.

- Orders are from the Monday after session, unless the party returns Monday or later. In those cases it's +1 day after. The group always arrives late to town, and you can't run directly into town, sell everything on Sunday night at maximum available price, and then place orders for gear. That's a Monday thing.

- We rolling stunning and knockdown seperately, because I think that's more realistic and way cooler at the same time. We roll them in that order - stunning, knockdown. Does that matter? No. But sometimes people click the rolls twice and aren't sure which was for which roll. Stunning, knockdown.

- You can dodge the blast radius of an explosion when it's behind you, but only if you saw the shot pass . . . and are willing to dodge and retreat regardless of where it actually hits. You might guess wrong and dodge something that isn't a threat.

I ruled something else but I forget now what it was. I was pre-ruling on something before Vic asks when Jon tries it, but I forget what it was. Heh.

Related, what about bringing a not-fully-dead foe into town?

Town is safe, but only if the players also treat it as safe for everyone and everything else. So, bringing a weird creature to town to get help from in-town people to look at it? Borderline. Getting help killing it, or killing it, or potentially questioning it if it's able to be questioned? No. That makes town not safe across the board and thus not safe for the PCs, either. If the PCs rob NPCs in town, NPCs will rob the PCs in town. Kill NPCs? Kill PCs. It's all equal-ish, but determined by the GM not by anyone else. Rules-edging or boundry-edging by the players could result in disaster.

So nothing in town will do for killing this Gith they brought home. They could do it and did it, but there is going to be a bit of unpleasant association for the PCs for a while. I didn't warn them directly, but I don't think I needed to have to - town is safe unless you violate that, and this is pushing a boundary a bit.

They're looking to do some research, but because this is a special circumstance, I need explanation on what they're exactly doing, what they're hiring someone for, and then we'll make the rolls and pay the funds to deal with it. This isn't routine.

Felltower Monsters Bits Law

I blame martinl for this, which just goes to show how I roll my campaign.


Whereas, the dungeons of Felltower and their environs are full of dangerous monsters and fell beasts of untrustwothy and evil origin;
and whereas, the dumping of the corpses of such monsters in Stericksburg's public facilities are potentially dangerous to the morals, bodies, and souls of the inhabitants of the city aforementioned;
and whereas, the discouragement of bringing said fell creatures into the safe environs of the town is to be encouraged and the encouragement of bring them henceforce and into the environs is to be discouraged;
it is hereby decreed that it shall be illegal, against the law, and against the moral standing of the city, county, and kingdom of New Kingdom to bring such fell beings or their remains into town for the venal profit of profiteers. Any and all monters, human-like or human-unlike, shall be prohibited from sales within the confines of town, as shall be their possession. Various and sundry special exemptions are made for those parts previously allowed to be sold under the Wizard's Exemption* unless the sale of such should cause especially problems for the officials especially charged with the discharge of the taxing and allowance of said special parts.


In other words, sale of anything not listed in the Notes sections of monsters is banned in New Kingdom, aka the Kingdom the Game is Set In. In other words, if a skill roll or prior knowledge doesn't say it's valuable, don't take your chances, there will be legal issues. Leave the monsters, take the coinage.

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.

Modifiers to In-Town Item Availability Rolls

We use some special rules for item availability, as detailed here.

Right now, most consumable magic items are 9 or less. How do you increase that roll?

- spend extra on upkeep* (every doubling is +1, so x2 = +1, x4 = +2, up to x32 for +5)

- Reputation bonuses

- Status (which you can't just buy, you need to do in-game stuff to gain access to it.)

- any special in-town bonuses in game (currently none in play).

* Upkeep doubling happens last - so if your upkeep is higher from disads, that cost doubles, too.



Notes:

Why don't normal reaction bonuses apply? Because it's not a reaction roll, it's a flat set of odds applied that there are some of these items in town. The modifiers that do count reflect that if you have status, or are flinging money around, or are famous for specific deeds, it's likely people are coming to you to offer such things. Just because you're likeable - or unlikeable - doesn't change the odds, here.

Shouldn't Wealth matter? Possibly, but DF Wealth is more structured as connections to buyers, not sellers.

Can I angle for Status or Reputation? Yes, but the only way is to accomplish things in Felltower and then spend the points when they come up.

Does this number ever change? Yes. If delvers spend enough money in town, the number can change. Generally, the more directly money goes into the economy (upkeep, services) the more it impacts it.

Lost Items of Felltower

There is a hell of a trove of magical items and valuable high-end mundane goods in Felltower . . . on the corpses of the fallen delvers "slain by a beholder."

But the PCs left a lot in town.

What the hell happens to that stuff?

Stuff left in town all goes away when the PC dies. It gets confiscated by some authories, legally claimed as abandoned property by the landlord, taken by the church or wizard's guild in some cases, and so on. It's not accessible to current or future PCs. With some exceptions, but they're generally very narrow and determined by me on a specific basis. I don't see any of them relevant here. The upside of stuff left in town is that it's invulnerable to theft and you don't need to explain where exactly it is. It can't be lost in the dungeon. But, equally, it can't be recovered from the slain in the dungeon.

Here are a few items I'm pretty sure are gone, not to return until some coicidence puts them back into play. If then.

- The Orichalcum Key. The key to the big orichalcum doors was in Ulf's possession, as far as I can tell, but in town. With luck, the key will end up with the church to be handed out to delvers who the church needs to use it. Or in a curio shop waiting to be discovered and purchased. Or with the wizard's guild. Or in the king's massive vaults along with the Ark of the Covenant. But for now, the riches and challenges beyond the doors will remain there undisturbed . . . unless another key is found.

- The iron flask. Wyatt had it, double-tied down with ropes, to keep it away from Ulf and curious Gerry. But he also left a note in Ulf's room leaving everything to the church. If someone opens that, and honors it, before Wyatt's room is cleaned out . . . it might end up with the church. Or an unwary person might open it. Or a wizard might buy it. It's incredibly unlikely someone will just hand it to delvers and ask them to open it. So it's very likely out of play.

- Many magic javelins. Heyden has a few, but Bruce and possibly others had some of the magical javelins recovered from Sakatha's lair. Those left in town are certainly gone. Oh well. Maybe more exist in other dungeons? Yet more victims of "save it until we really, really need it."

- Possibly other items. I'm not even sure. But the usual rules apply - if a current PC doesn't have it down on their sheet, it's gone. Many items have gone away that way. Hey, people lose stuff. It happens. Only evil stuff tends to resurface, and only then if it amuses the Fates (okay, the GM), in the hands of the corruptible or evil.

It's tempting to list what the lost items did . . . very tempting. I did it for the Razor in DFT3. But equally, I've found that secrets held are secrets you can use later. Maybe in 2023, or 2033, I'll need to have that iron flask appear, or some other item left behind to turn up, to make something work. It's times like these I feel much like the Old Meddler in Glen Cook's "Dread Empire" series, pulling at the strings of past victories and defeats to web them together into a new plot. So maybe it'll need to keep as a secret.

It's good to be the king: Felltower & Status & Reputation

In my post Additions to Felltower - DF23 and DFRPG DTG I mentioned that we may use Rank or Status, if my players desire it.

So far, none do. But I gave Status and Reputation some thought about how they work.

Reputation

In Felltower, Reputation is almost always Everyone, All the Time. I have no plans to use smaller subsets of recognition, either of groups or of frequency. I do expect people min-maxing town benefits to ask, but those two things are largely inappropriate for a megadungeon-centric game like Felltower.

Reputation works in and out of the dungeon. Every 5 point level gives a +1 to reaction rolls and +1 to rolls in town of most kinds. This also works in the dungeon, too. Not that people generally talk to the dungeon dwellers, but somehow it does matter that you have a reputation. There may be some mystical or supernatural effect that covers this.

Buying a Reputation means earning a reputation. You can either buy it when you've done some in-game deed that the GM feels deserves recognition, or pass on the option and forever lose the opportunity.

Status

In Felltower, Status provides in-town and in-dungeon benefits.

In town, Status gives a +1 to all rolls in town.

Otherwise, Status works as in DF23. While the weapon carry rules do not matter, the inherent Claim to Hospitality (for example) does matter.

Certain in-game objects will only work - or only work to their utmost potential - when used by someone with the appropriate level of Status. These will largely be obvious. (I say this to avoid my players reading this, deciding Status +4 or something must be the solution to some puzzle that isn't a puzzle that they've found, and push to get Status +4 to try some door/secret door/magic item/etc. It is not.)

Purchasing Status, like purchasing Wealth, has a cost. The minimum point value and cost rules from DF23, p. 5, are in effect.

Economic impact of money on the megadungeon town

I saw this post over on Tenkar's Tavern today:

Do You Hand-Wave Adventuring Economic Effects?

Short answer: no, but without inflation.

Longer answer:

I'm sympathetic to the idea that a lot of money hitting the market at once causes inflation. So does limited supply of goods. If both happen, zowie, your per-unit spending value drops. You may have 1000 gold instead of 10 gold, but 100 gold buys less than 100x what you used to be able to get for 10.

But it's a pain to put into play, without a computer, and no one likes it, even with a computer.

So I largely do the following:

- a big dump of like goods means each is worth less. PCs have tried to trickle-sell items to make up for this. They are able to do so, although my XP awards system discourages this, and I won't allow for Excel spreadsheeted sales trickles to allow for extra income over time. They can hold back and sell later and hope for a higher price, but again, my XP award system discourages this.

- I do random, big fluctations in prices and availability. Boom, magic items cost more. Bang, potions cost more (my players from my old GURPS game remember the magical disaster to caused a potion price rise.) Snap, the prices for certain services go up.

- I also kept track for a while of loot that hit town, and let spent money in town - not just held on to, but spent - increase the local economy. Over time, more good became available for purchase. The PCs basically "unlocked" access to better goods and services - the more expensive ones - by spending money in town.

I can report these all worked fine.

Repairing Armor & Weapons in Felltower: Part II

My players are finally getting around to repairing their damaged equipment.

Here are the rules we use for armor and weapons:

Armor & Weapon Repairs in Felltower

How long does it take? Mundane repairs take 1d+1 weeks; payment (and replacement parts, if they need supplying) is on putting the gear in for repair.

Magical repairs - with the Repair spell - are immediate. For simplicity, in Stericksburg you do not need to roll to find a wizard with the Repair spell. Payment (and replacement parts) must be supplied immediately; Repair spells are skill 15 and are rolled at the table. Luck cannot be used.

Magic items require the Repair spell to fix.

What about equipment? Most gear uses the rules for weapons. Sufficiently damaged gear may not necessarily be repairable - anything damaged past 50% is generally a total loss, and replacement is almost always going to be cheaper.

Subtractions from Felltower: Orichalcum

Here is a change I've been giving some thought for a while:

- Orichalcum items are no longer available to be purchased or "special ordered" in town.

It's a simple flavor thing. I'd prefer items of a special, indestructable bronze to be available but from special sources. Obvious sources of orichalcum items? Olympus, for one, and the "Ape Gate" is a likely source, too. Neither is an easy place to show up, flash some coin, and special order some sword or knife or shield. But they're at least possible places to get items made of the material.

Existing items made of orichalcum still exist - and those purchased are still in play. You just can't order new ones.

This should affect almost no one - few items have been made of orichalcum and no one has any on order than I know of. Price (for sale purposes) is unchanged.

Quick Review: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Encounters 4: Ring Fort

Today, let's look at:

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Encounters 4: Ring Fort by Douglas Cole, Jarl of the Dungeon Vikings.

Ring Fort provides a Viking ring fort in full detail for use in DF. It has a map of the fort and town, details about the physical structure and layout of the fort, and detail on the inhabitants. Sections discuss using the ring fort as a "town" for DF, and have enough details if the PCs assault the place (well, not specific loot details, but still) or had to fight out of it against some monstrous threat.

Details are excellent, down the number of men and their equipment, locations of importing businesses in town, and names and personalities of peoples. The place is ready to go with little in the way of needed detail to make it game-ready.

Amusingly, there is a quote from a Japanese used here on a Viking fort. That just struck me as funny. Maybe we need DF Encounters 5: Himeji-jo? Hmm . . . I've been there at least once . . .

Overall, it's a useful supplement. The map is attractive, but I do wish there were battle maps of the gates - the most likely places for combat if the GM uses it as a battle location and not just as "town" outside of the "dungeon." Still, it's a good resource to have if you need a wilderness town for PCs to interact with, provided you're okay with it being Viking-themed or are willing to reskin everyone as orcs or generic Olden Tymesfolk or whatever. A nice addition to the Encounters line.

Ever Use Dungeon Shops?

One little feature of a megadungeon - and some video games - that I've never used in play is the "dungeon shop."

I mean a store, inside of a dungeon, usually selling things immediately useful in a dungeon (rations, 10' poles, torches) or special equipment you can't get elsewhere (magic armor and weapons, special magic items, useful monster bits), or buy the same. In video games they tend to have hideous guardians that prevent you from reasonably robbing the place.

This is one of those things I've heard of in tabletop games but never encountered.

Have you ever used one in a tabletop game?

My DF games feature a lot of in-town sales of equipment one might consider "special." An in-dungeon store wouldn't serve any purpose except to replenish stocks of forgotten items. The PCs would eventually assault the place anyway, and kill everyone and take everything, unless I made that literally impossible.

But I'm curious about actual real-world non-video-game occurances of mid-dungeon shops.

DF Felltower - Church as a Congregation

Clerics want extra benefits for being in the church. If they want it, they should have to pay for it.

I'm not really planning on it, but if I did allow the Church as a "patron," I'd actually use Matt Riggsby's excellent rules in Dungeon Fantasy 17: Guilds.

The Church would fall under the rules for Congregation (p. 10-11), with exceptions.

GURPS DF Felltower doesn't use the Bless spell, so "Blessings" aren't a thing that the Church could provide.

They are a bit more free with spellcasting, though, so those ARs would be at +2.

I might tweak the AR roll so it is below 3 for Rank 0, just to avoid everyone asking to make a roll for many different things each session. Or set a cap on requests.

Otherwise, the Church would likely function indentically to Matt's outline.

Any details I'm missing? I don't think so, based on my (admittedly not recent) reading of DF17.

I reiterate that I'm not planning on switching to the DF17 system, not as yet. Mostly becuase I suspect 3 of my players would read DF17 and spend a lot of time and effort on maximizing their benefits from the organization(s) involved, and the rest of the players would read none of it and use none of it except to be told what to roll. That doesn't sound like a good use of my between-game time (when I'd be reading emails about "Can I ask for [this]?" or "I want to make a roll for [that]") Or my early-session time doing the same.

But this is likely how I'd do it.

Stericksburg's environs

Let's look at the wilderness environs of Stericksburg.



Stericksburg sits up against the Silver River, which is polluted by a mix of spillover from its tanning, alchemical, and non-magical concoction industries. Possibly from other sources - it's a bit too nasty even for a combination of those.

The Silver River largely divides "civilization" from "wilderness" and "uncivilized."

Only the slums and Sterick's Landing sit north of the river but are considered part of the city. Sterick's Landing is the original site of later-Baron Sterick's arrival near Felltower. The slums are where the day laborers who work in a variety of industries in Stericksburg live, as well as assorted other people living on the fringes of society or forced out of the city due to Social Stigma (Savage) or worse or sheer poverty (Dead Broke, generally.)

To the immediate south of the city are farms and orchards, fanning out from the city to provide its base of support. They heavily cling to the roads along the river, and to the south bank of the river. Despite the pollution, the river is useable enough to be valuable to sit next to. Smaller villages exist with a half-day's ride of the city, and a full day's ride out are somewhat larger towns.

Immediately north of the river are some farms and cultivated lots - orchards and grain crops. Some farms south of the river own and work land north of the river, traveling by small boat to their fruit orchards, but this isn't common. Mostly the north bank is used for wood, gathering mushrooms, trapping, and hunting. Even then, due to the number of owlbears, maned rats, occasional griffin fly-bys, threat of orc raiders, and so on, it's a risky business.

Further north are rougher and rougher hills (forested to the west, just hills to the east), mountains, and eventually the Bay of Ice. Due to unfavorable air currents and possibly magic, it's cold year-round and it's not uncommon to see chunk ice late in Spring and early in the Fall. Many cold-acclimated barbarians come from those regions.

In gameable terms, then, adventure happens north of the Silver River. It's also where those "camping" outside of town largely are doing their camping. The "local" druid cirlce is some miles off to the west in the woods. It's a trip to get there. The Silver River divides the game in half - it's largely safe south of the river. It's largely dangerous north of the river.

Next wilderness update - a little more on the rulership of the surrounding areas. I'd say states, but "nation" and "state" don't really fit in this pre-Renaissance structure. Short version - it's still largely feudal rulership and a manorial economy but slowly transitioning away from such.

More notes on DF Session 149, Felltower 115 - Sages, Draugr, Gyms, and Scrolls

Here are a couple more notes on yesterday's game. Well, actual notes - I had basically none last night, as I had very little time to write a summary - even as brief as that one was.

- I highly encourage my players to take advantage of sages. They're a useful way to get background information you can use to inform your decision, or fill in enough background information blanks that you can figure something out. They're not the answer, they're the staff work that helps you decide on the answer.

Not to pick on any particular player of mine, because a lot of them do it, but this was a perfect example. Yesterday, when discussing next options, someone offhand suggested doing or getting "research on how to avoid the damage-causing floor down the second giant fantastic staircase," I shot it down. I don't want to waste time and money. A sage roll wasn't going to reveal the existance of heretofore unknown equipment that ignores contact-based damage from a floor.

Besides, the players already know the answer. They just don't like it - take the damage, figure out a way to dispel the magic of the floor, find a way to avoid touching the floor (Walk on Air, Levitate, Flight), etc.), or find some other way to avoid the damage.

It's worth asking yourself, what do we expect to learn from the sage? Given that the GM isn't going to give some answer . . . and even apparantly accurate divination and oracles will sometimes give you exactly the answer you already know. How to kill a beholder? Lots of damage will do it. I'm not sure what answer was expected, otherwise. I guess it's a good way to check if a monster isn't a "trick" monster that can only be killed by a specific method.

- We spent a good 30 minutes post-session discussing how to fight the draugr. Basically, it came down to, "We can't defeat them in a slog, so we need another way to defeat them." No progress was made on this. A good chunk of the group agrees that they can't just engage them in a straight fight, and another way has to be found, but can't decide on what that other way is. Brought up and discarded (or at least set aside for now) included:

- lots of archers to "harry" them from the back ranks (usual issues - need for skilled troops to shoot through the front-rank PCs, relatively low damage of bows vs. high DR of targets, and the unwillingness of the PCs to advance against the draugr.)

- lots of hirelings to "lob" alchemist's fire at them (issues here - cost, skill of hirelings, vastly reduced effectiveness of fire against armored targets with "splash" damage versus direct hits, difficulty of follow up if the draugr don't just stand there.)

- rushing in and killing them quickly before they get up (issues here - high DR and HP of the draugr, time consuming to open a sarcophagus and kill one.)

- draw out the draugr, kill a few, and drag off the dead (issues here - no idea how to do this) or get them to abandon their fallen due to area denial magic (issues here - no plan on how to do that.)

- cut off draugr with a Force Wall and kill a few of them; repeat 5-6 times (issues - spell would be from a powered scroll - which will be an extra expensive for a rare spell*, unclear if draugr count as "magical creatures" and can just walk though)

- cast Flaming Missiles on Galen, who apparantly will kill them all thanks to the fire bonus injury (issues - it's not that much damage, Shield Wall Training means it's unlikely even three arrows/second on one target will consistently result in a hit) and/or blind them so they can be dealt with by the melee fighters.

A lot of these have been discussed before.

The same issues apply as always - the draugr are tough, well-armored, skilled, tactically flexible and smart, and their undead vulnerability doesn't force them all to rest at the same time. The PCs don't want to risk a straight-up fight with them, and it's extremely hard to force foes you are not superior to, to fight on your terms. The draugr seem unwilling to throw away a tactical advantage to fight the PCs when the PCs have stacked up a tactical advantage in their favor. The PCs, who really want to fight the draugr, are unwilling to do so except on terms of advantage for them and won't willingly take situational penalties to do so. So it's a standoff, still.

I've said this before, here and to the group: I personally don't think the draugr are a puzzle. I think they're going to be hard battle. They might be too hard of a battle. They're purely physical but what they're most vulnerable (fire) also risks their treasure, and what the PCs are generally best at (physically overmatching foes) the draugr are also very good at. I could be wrong, but no one has found a way to prove me wrong yet by figuring out a vulnerability that reduces the draugr from a hard fight to a puzzle.

- We had less info-fishing than last time, but people did ask over and over and over again about the white triangle - dimensions, type of triangle, what symbols it covers, are those symbols in a special order, how wide are the lines . . . ultimately, meaning behind it or not, the triangle was just painted on with some white, non-water-soluable paint, and not particularly well. It wasn't mathematically precise. I really should have made an image right from the start, but as I said in the comments on my summary, from this side of the screen it didn't seem like that complex of a puzzle.

- On a lighter note, we found out the name of Mild Bruce's Gym - the Iron Church.

* Also, because if you can "special order" any scroll, of any type, at any time, the game devolves down to searching through GURPS Magic to find "the spell" that will solve a problem, and then calculating the cost to solve it. Oh, and sending 3-5 emails to me to ask if it's possible to do so. And by emails, I means questions at the beginning of the game session. I don't really want my game reduced to "flip through GURPS Magic." It was bad enough when it was ordering magic items. And the more "we'll order 2-3 scrolls of (X)" that happen, the more likely I am to eventually change it so I don't have to deal with the old "I flip through my list of 30-odd scrolls I'm carrying at all times to find a spell that might work."

Felltower, PCs, and in-town storage

During the course of Felltower, three things have been true:

- Town is a "safe space," where nothing bad happens to PCs unless they blow in-town rolls, and nothing bad happens to their stuff except for the same cause.

- PCs come and go.

- Some objects have special utility in the dungeon, and players love to pass items off between everyone.

So how do we deal with those items, #3, in the safe space that is town, #1, when #2 means the entire party can be completely different from Felltower 1 as it is in Felltower 101?

What do we do when someone finds an odd key and then much later other characters want to use it?

This campaign is relatively pro-transfer between characters.*

Here are the guidelines we used.

It's safe in town.

First and foremost, it's safe. If it's in town, no one is going to mess with it. I don't need some complicated explanation of how you've guarded it. For all we know Gerry's rented room has a pile of skulls in it, skeleton parts all over, and his pile of spare silver and gold near the door. No one messes with it.

Someone has to own it.

It's okay for keys, Bells of D'Abo (no longer an issue, but still), weird items the PCs salvage, etc. to be "in town."

What is not okay is for them to be vaguely "in town" in some kind of nebulous space that all PCs, new or otherwise, have access to.

And since someone owns it, you have to ask that player if you can use it. If it's your other character, yeah, no big deal. They'll say yes. Everyone says yes . . . but if Dryst has it, you can't just "borrow it from Dryst." You have to ask. And if said PC is AWOL, it's tougher - if Borriz or Honus Honusson is off being the Honus of his tribe, or Chuck Morris has it . . . good luck. Those guys aren't hanging around Stericksburg handing out their odd loot because you think you figured out what it's for.

But if you do get it . . . then your guy has it until it goes back to the owner. If that's what you've agreed to do with it.

If no one seems to own it . . . that's where the next bit comes in.

You have to know who has it.

Not only does someone need to own it, but they need to have it written down somewhere. "We found this is session 68, someone must own it, although no one mentioned it since . . ." = it's gone unless someone finds it listed on their sheet.

A few magic items have gone out of the game this way . . . and I could care less. If you lose the only key to the magic door to the fabled Whatsit of Whichplace, then it's gone forever and I don't care.

It has to make sense.

A PC handing over a key to some magic door is one thing . . . a couple of PCs who pass around a powerful magical ring or belt or helmet or whatever between delves is another. This isn't a free-for-all where all of your sword-using guys use the same magic sword or your wizards pass each other the $45,000 necklace that you found to use as a power item. "Quest item" like items only, please, or group items (like the long-lost bridge, say, or some particularly odd piece of gear the group purchased.)

Disadvantages matter, too. Explain to me how your cleric with Intolerance (other religions) is sharing with your pagan barbarian, again?

***

All in all, this works pretty well. And it saves me from having to track what the players found, in case someone reads an old session report and gets an idea. Check with the other players - the tool you need may not even be around anymore.


* I've long said I'm a big fan of Borderlands 2. I got it back in 2013 and I still play it, long after Borderlands 3 came out. Heck I played it yesterday. There is a way to store items in town, and transfer - in their words, "twink" - items between characters. Hurrah for that! But I'd love full-on one-player-all-characters storage. When I wanted to transfer items from character A to C, but also needed to swap something on B and D, I spent a good chunk of time loading up characters, running them to the storage spot, swapping in items, bringing in someone to take them out, then back to the first guy because I have 6 items to transfer, etc. etc. By the end I'd lost track of one item and had to do it again to get one of them over. Gee, that was a fun way to spend most of an hour on a shoot-and-loot game . . . shuffling gear around. So I understand completely the idea of "community items." But I prefer it as "community access," instead. Because unlike Borderlands 2, these aren't all one player's items. I might seem like I'm wanting one thing for myself and another for my players . . . but this method does seem to work well in Actual Play.

Hiring Sages when Everyone has negatives . . .

The PCs have decided, wisely, to take advantage of a DF Felltower institution: sages.

Like in old-school AD&D gaming, you can find out things by experiencing them or asking NPCs.

The PCs want to hire a sage.

There are a few issues, though.

One is the group makeup, again, has become very much crusading religious fanatics and would-be fanatics (Ulf, Heyden, Aldwyn, Sir Bunny, etc.) buttressed by a small squad of misanthropes (Galen, Bruce, Gerry, etc.)

So who can go and find and hire a sage? Not the misanthropes. Some of them live in the wilderness, and others are just completely awful at finding someone and getting them to react well to them. The fanatics, well, no so much either. Ulf is likeable, but has Paranoia. Wyatt isn't around to do it (I don't allow PCs who missed sessions to jump in between sessions to execute prep. It keeps you from having a stable of utility guys who help out even if you don't run them often.) The others generally aren't that smart and they need Research or IQ rolls to find a sage with Hidden Lore (Lost Civilizations) to answer their questions.

So it's a bit of tricky situation. The ones with good base rolls have penalties to bring it down. Those with poor base rolls have poor rolls and many of them also have penalties to bring it down.

How do you bring it up?

You spend extra money, of course, per "Where Did You Find This Guy? on DF15, p. 29. I'm not even at any of my PCs as I type this, but I know the page offhand, which is a measure of how often I have to tell people to go read it.

Once that's done, of course, it's just a matter of money and questions. I did caution them that they can get specific, and get specific answers, but the sage won't through in general-but-important information.

Hopefully they'll figure it out . . . but the tendency to go for debilitating social disadvantages to bulk out your disad pool, and that of several players to get more of such by cheaping out on Resurrection costs, means it's getting harder to find reasonable beings to help them out.

Felltower Healing Costs

I'm posting this because I keep needing to refer to a .doc or a printout for this information. This is much easier all involved.

These are taken from, and modified from, this post by Dr. Kromm.

These supersede the rules in DFRPG Exploits.

Temple of the Good God Y'all!
—Required Donations—
—Results not guaranteed. No refunds.—
—Excommunicated Are Not Eligible—

Minor Prayers
Awaken . . . $1
Minor Healing . . . $3
Major Healing . . . $4
Neutralize Poison . . . $5
Cleansing . . . $6
Instant Neutralize Poison . . . $8

Major Prayers
Cure Disease . . . $100
Dispel Possession . . . $100
Stone to Flesh . . . $100
Restoration* . . . $750
Great Healing . . . $1,000
Regeneration* . . . $1,000
Remove Curse . . . $1,000
Instant Restoration* . . . $2,500
Instant Regeneration* . . . $4,000
Resurrection* . . . $15,000


***

Note all spells are rolled against skill 15. Spells marked with * are one try.

Nearly Complete Thoughts on 10x cost magic and 10x the loot

I've been given serious thought to how I'd implement the "10x as much treasure but magic is 10x as expensive" approach to loot.

Fundamentally solved

- All loot amounts are 10x as high as written in pre-written adventures.

- All loot on treasure generation tables is 10x as high. Values of items are not 10x as high - if you want 10x the value, put 10x the stuff!

- Permanent magic items, items that convey spells (scrolls), and potions cost, and are worth, 10x listed or $200/point of energy.

- Starting Wealth is unchanged.

Sticking Points

The real questions on "x10 cost for magic" are:

- Magic-like concoctions. Is Alchemist's Fire $100 or $1,000? How about clearly magical poisons, etc.?

- Paut. Does Paut remain $135, as a "mundane" item, or $1,350, as a "magical" item? My lean is toward "magical." It's a bottle of magical energy replacement. Healing potions - also clearly magical - would cost $1,200 for a Minor Healing Potion.

- Power Items. Recharging would need to cost $50/point, not $5/point. But would Power Items use the scale listed when access to high-value mundane items is 10x higher? A $1,000 item is 8 FP, but a $10,000 item is 25 FP (7 and 20 if you also use the numbers as minimums.) PCs would have access to power items frequently 3-5x as large. That might be an acceptable increase in power since warrior-types will have much more ready access to mundane arms of quality.

- Spells in town. Does it cost $150,000 for Resurrection and $10,000 for Remove Curse? If not, healing in town is trivial. If it does, it's no easier than before.

My lean on these are:

-No, 10x cost is for magical items.

- Paut is 10x cost. Players of wizards will squawk at this, hard. Maybe enough to scuttle the entire idea. Logically, saying you get $10,000 in loot instead of $1,000 on a given delve and spent $2,700 replacing 2 Paut instead of $270 is still a net benefit - you end up with $7,300 to spend on mundane costs. But sticker shock at higher Paut prices will probably upset players badly. It's one thing if Paut costs less than upkeep; it's another if it costs more than suits of armor.

- Power items use the stricter table reading - $50 and up is 1 FP, not $50 and below. Cost to charge is 10x. The benefit to mages of larger power items means casters will generally be able to get off larger spells, or more lesser ones, even if they're not willing to pay for "more expensive" Paut.

- Spells cast in town are also 10x cost. That's why Resurrection isn't common, it's $500 per energy point and thus $150,000 . . . 150 times average wealth.

Optional:

- Coins are heavier - 50/pound like in DF/DFRPG not 250/pound like in DF Felltower - and are still on the silver standard ($0.10 copper, $1 silver, $20 gold). Jewelry prices adjust accordingly with silver being $50/pound and gold $1,000/pound instead of DF8's $1,000/pound and $20,000/pound or the middle ground of my current game's $250 and $5,000 to the pound.

This has the upside of making carrying coinage a logistical issue. It has the downside of making weaponry very valuable loot - two pounds of silver coins is $100 but a two pound shortsword costs $400 and sells for $160 with average wealth, making it worth $80/pound. "Leave the cash, take the mundane weaponry" has its charms but it's also kind of out-of-genre.


A bit of an alternate approach is the "A lot of money back then" approach. Cut all mundane prices by 10. You start with $100, Broadswords cost $50, a staff is $1, Upkeep is $15 . . . both otherwise everything is the same. It's not nearly as fun as giant piles of loot, though.


Any other edge cases (or critical cases) that I haven't noticed?


[Addition 5/16/2020]

- One of my players asked about Bottomless items - purses, backpacks, etc. given that coinage drops in effective value. Price is 10x, as any other magic item. Capacity is unchanged. They're "purses" but they'd get used for equipment far more often than for cash. If we changed coins from 250/pound to 50/pound that would make them less useful per-pound of capacity for carrying coinage, but a) more useful because of more weight of coin and b) more valuable for carrying non-coin items that have a better cost-per-pound.

- I'd also drop to the DFRPG standard of $100 per potion in town - but it would be $1,000 per. Specific potion type doesn't matter - the alchemists don't trust you and they're guild workers and have set prices.

- Another sticking point - if you wanted to do this after play began, how would you do so? What happens to the value of items held, cash on hand, etc.? Simple answer is 10x as much, so as not to hurt those that saved vs. those that spent on now-10x as expensive items. But someone will inevitably lose out based on purchases and savings approaches.

Buying Wealth in Play

In my Felltower game, we use the fees for purchasing new advantages and skills. Training costs, because, hey, AD&D 1st edition.

What about Wealth, though?

We use slightly special rules for wealth.

A new advantage is usually $40/point, but for Wealth you need sufficient money for that Wealth level's starting wealth. So to get from Average ($1000 starting wealth) to Comfortable ($2000 starting wealth) will take ($2000 - $1000 =) $1000. Getting to Wealthy ($5000 starting wealth) would cost $4K if Average, $3K if already Comfortable. It costs money to establish those connections in town.

Otherwise you end up with a seeming oddity of "Wealth" requiring less actual small-w wealth than you have when you start. In fact, if you start with Comfortable you get 2x as much money as another starting character, and have contacts in town(s) to sell goods at 60% of list price. But if you bought it later, you only need $400 worth of capital to establish those contacts? That just feels odd. It doesn't have a natural symmetry.

But charging the wealth cost does. So we do.

Takes money to make money.

Rumor Gathering Revised?

Over the 9 years of my Felltower game, I've generated hundreds of rumors. All of them available to the PCs in a big document I update periodically for them.

I use some house rules to allow multiple rumors for characters with Carousing. That's found so many rumors that I've needed to cap the totals.

The problem I've found is that I routinely need between 12-15 rumors per session, given a large group, multiple characters with solid Carousing scores, and a fair number of in-town bonuses on those same characters.

I've been timing myself, and found I need about 2-5 minutes, averaging about 3 per, to make up rumors. Plus dead time in between lost for other productivity . . . 15 rumors might take as much as an hour. That's a solid hour of game prep time, usually fairly last-minute, as I try to get ready for the upcoming game. We've cut from 1d30 rumors to 1d20 to often as not 1d12 as I run out of time and ideas pre-game.

I've tried to just write them as I think of them. That's failed. Unless I'm staring at a half-blank list and perusing the previous rumors so as not to duplicate my own prior ideas, I don't write.

I think I'll do this to slow down the tide. Changes in italics.

Rumors

Characters in town get one rumor, not guaranteed to be unique.

Characters with Carousing may roll to hear more rumors. On a success, the character hears one additional rumor. On a critical success, the character hears two additional rumors. A maximum of three rumors can be heard by one character through Carousing and staying in town.

***

I think that can save me a lot of time. My players love the rumors, but they take more time than I have currently to devote to writing them. So let's see if cutting down the automatic uniqueness per person and the 4-5 rumors most guys Carousing would get will get me some of that time between sessions back.