My take on niche protection (I of II)

The other day I (respectfully) challenged B/X Blackrazor's JB's definition of niche protection vs. redundancy.

JB does a great job of explaining his idea of niche protection and redundancy here, so go read that first.

I think he's right on the money with niche protection in play.

However, I think D&D (especially the very oldest versions of it) has very strong inherent niche protection. Who turns undead the best? The cleric. Who can detect traps without burning up spells per day to do it? The thief. Who fights the best bar none? The fighter. And so on - and magic items restricted by class just further drive in that protection. Can anyone use this Staff of the Magi? Er, no, just the wizard.

So you don't need to worry about it too much in play or even in chargen. Even a 7th level magic-user will have stuff to do in a game with an 11th level MU with similar spells to select, because you never seem to have enough spells to go around. And they'll likely end up with different magic items, anyway. Where character classes duplicate each other, they usually have some niche aspect to it that either limits their options or isn't duplicated elsewhere. For example, Paladins have healing like clerics and fight like fighters, but at a cost of alignment, magic item, and equipment restrictions (and IIRC a steeper per-level XP cost). Assassins do the exact same things as thieves, but at a lower level equivalence, and get a special assassination ability that no one else gets. Illusionists in AD&D give up the "artillery" aspect of magic but gain in another focus of magic that magic-users don't do quite as well. All of this depends on well-made classes, of course - but the D&D classes generally balance well enough against each other in terms of choices and not causing total redundancy (see below).

Niche protection is a bit more of an issue in point-buy systems like GURPS because there aren't rigid class boundaries (or effective limiters like the level/xp costs of multi-classing). What's stopping your barbarian from picking pockets better than my thief is how we spend our points, more or less. There are a lot of ways around that issue (such as limiting point totals), some of which have to do with GMing and some with game design. It's a potential downside to the extreme flexibility of character generation. But it's not a non-issue for class-and-level systems. The more classes you have, the more concern you end up with about having too much redundancy. This is where the plethora of sub-classes of AD&D and overlapping kits and feats in 2e and 3e come in.

This is why, for example, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy has such strong niche protection for its templates - tightly constructed templates, lots of suggestions for reducing the options to duplicate another's specialty, restricted options for what you can start with on your character, and a smoothed path to upgrading what fits your niche. It's emulating a genre where strong niches are common and where allowing complete customization can weaken the emulation. In my opinion, anyway.

But in those point-buy systems, do JB's points hold up?

I think they do.

Like JB says, difference of play is key here. If your cleric can cast Find Traps and outdo the thief's trap finding, that's fine - who cares? It comes with a cost of a spell slot (or in GURPS, with learning See Secrets instead of something else) or of magical energy. It's not always on, it's not permanent, and it's not free. It's not always going to work. It's another way around the problem - JB's many ways to skin the cat argument. In a good game, sheer variety of circumstances will result in a need to have those multiple ways to skin the cat. Plus you'll often need multiple people doing something to defeat the problem/advance the plot/accomplish the goal. Not the least of which is if, as JB notes, someone flakes out/misses a session/gets his PC killed/etc.

But what does this show you? It's that redundancy isn't bad, either - it gives you more options.

What sucks is total redundancy. That's when your character (or worse, your character class/template/type) doesn't do anything better than the others. If your system's clerics get automatic, 100% reliable trap detection and removal ability, always on after a certain point, yeah, your thief is useless now except as a backup in his own area of supposed expertise. If the mage is a better swordsman than the swordsmen are, that's probably an issue. If you do A, B, and C and another character does A, B, and C+1, or A, B, C, and D, it better be because you're a less powerful version of the same character - less points or lower level, say. If not . . . you're stuck.

If it's because of lower level or less power or less attention from the GM, that's a play issue. If it's because your character class / template / whatever sucks, that's a game design issue. You can't catch up and you can't ever do as well as the other players who made a better choice than you. You may as well go stand in the back and hold a torch like the hirelings - make yourself useful.

I'll follow up tomorrow with a discussion of niche protection from my perspective as a game designer. Or at least as a writer of GURPS supplements.

My take on niche protection (II of II)

In part I, I babbled on a bit about D&D's niche protection (as I see it) and niche protection in play.

Here, I'm going to babble on a bit about how I see the role of niche protection when designing games. I've written two official templates for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 12: Ninja (the ninja and the assassin), and in both cases I had to give very special attention to niche protection.

All of the below assumes "all things being equal." This includes points, choices, levels in games that have them, etc. In its own niche, a very low point character might outdo a very high point character who fills another niche - but it might not. A very high level magic-user in D&D might well be better in hand-to-hand combat than a low-level fighter. The best fighter in a 100-point GURPS game might be weaker than the worst fighter in a 500-point GURPS game even if the latter isn't a combat specialist. In these cases, all things are not equal.

What I mean by niche protection in design is making sure that the putative "new" template* does a couple of things:

A) It does something better than other templates do. This is the "niche" part.

and

B) It doesn't do things other templates do as their main strength (their niche) better than those other templates. This is the "protection" part.


If a template can't do both A and B, it's not worth making. If it does A but not B - in other words, it out-does an existing template at that template's own main strength, you're basically replacing the old template. If it does B but not A, then it just sucks - it's not stamping on anyone's niche but it's not good enough at its own niche to actually carve it out, it's just being some redundant capability. It needs to both have its own strength and not out-do another character's strength.

In other words, you don't want a template that out-knights the knight or out-barbarians the barbarian. But you don't want one that doesn't out-something everyone at something. Whether that something is worth doing at all depends on the campaign and the players, of course.

Let's take the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 12 assassin.

What's the assassin good at?

Well, he doesn't out-fight the fighter types. And he's not built to steal like the thief.

He's built to be the best sneak-up-and-stab-you guy in Dungeon Fantasy.

If you need someone or something snuck up on and attacked by surprise, the assassin does it very well.

He's also not so bad with poisons.

If you need traps disarmed or set, he's good at that, but not as good as the thief. He's not a bad scout, either, but urban environments not wilderness. He'll do as a fighter, too, but not as well as the dedicated fighter types. There is some of what I think of as JB's good redundancy).

So you've got a character that does something better than others, but doesn't make any other equal-point character totally redundant. You can bring an assassin instead of a thief, but he's no locksmith or fence or superior searcher, and it'll take a fair amount of points to make him one - points a dedicated thief could use to stay ahead. You'd have been better off with a thief if you needed on. A wizard could make himself invisible and use Deathtouch to kill people by sneaking up on them, but he'll need a considerable investment in points to pull it off, and he's not terribly well built to survive his sudden appearance next to his victim, and he's not going to do well against a magically resistance target or one in a NMZ. On a dungeon delve, he's generally going to need his magic for other things, and need it often - garrotes don't need quite as much magical energy to power as attack spells.

Now, a niche doesn't have to be one thing. Just something. That "thing" could be "things." You could cover a couple of areas in combination in a way that other templates do not. The titular ninja of the book above does that - fights well, like the fighter types, but with different weapons; has special powers, like the bard and martial artist - but different ones; and uses gadgets, like (but not as broadly as) the artificer, but limited to "ninja" gadgets. He doesn't do any of these "better" but rather "differently" than the others.

You might say, "so what?" to all of this. "Why do I care?" Because a poorly designed template, one without a niche or that doesn't respect and therefore protect the other niches is a covered pit trap waiting for a player to fall in. Oh, you chose the Knight? How unfortunate for you - you chose poorly. No one wants to drop into a game and find out that they can choose from A, B, and C but actually B is crud and C does everything B does but better and more. A bad game, IMO, gives you unequal choices, and worse, hidden pitfalls for people who don't know it well.

Anyway, that's the kind of approach I've used to design templates for GURPS. I'm not claiming in any way this is the only approach to use, or the official GURPS or official SJG approach, either. It's just the thought process I use - and one that seems to be echoed by the comments and questions of my editors. And it can be painfully obvious when someone didn't do this - as many poorly designed splatbook expansions can demonstrate. The new book comes out, and the no-niche-protection whatever rolls out and makes your original basic rulebook guy useless and retroactively poorly designed.

Why Knights can't take Swashbuckler Power-Ups

One of my players lamented that Knights can't take the Swashbuckler Power-Up Ultimate Slayer Training - basically a beefed-up version of Slayer Training (and not to be confused with Peerless Slayer Training, which is a broadened version of Slayer Training.)

My response, is, no, it's not a bad thing at all. But I wanted to expand a bit on why I think that's not a bad thing.

Basically, it's more niche protection.

Sean Punch just had a book roll out full of Swashbuckler templates and Power-Ups (and more). Several of them address what might be perceived as weaknesses of the Swashbuckler template vis-a-vis the other combat-heavy templates - the Savage Warrior version of the Barbarian, the Martial Artist, the Holy Warrior, and - above all - the Knight. They also play on the strengths of the template.

Ultimate Slayer Training is a good example of this. It addresses a weakness - Swashbucklers generally aren't terribly strong by DF power level standards. They tend to use weapons with low basic damage bonuses, and usually depend heavily on thrust-based impaling damage. When it comes to stabbing anything but nice, healthy, wholesome humans, this is a weak damage type. Undead, constructs, Things Without Form But With Substance, demons, etc. tend to lack the locations most vulnerable to being stabbed and have Injury Tolerance Unliving or Homogenous or Amorphous Stone to make stabbing pretty useless. That leaves aside swarms. So Swashbucklers are weak against those. A trait that lets them really deal with hit location penalties against those beings where it matters is a nice way to sidestep that weakness. Sure, the demons and zombies and tree-monsters are still an issue, but now you're hell on wheels against their goblin fodder, the necromancer that raised them, and those suspiciously unfriendly druids and animals and whatnot hanging out with the killer trees. You need to hit a vulnerable point to pull your weight, and voila, you do so better than all the rest.

It also plays to a strength - skill. Swashbucklers are skilled and elegant and precise. A trait that lets them be even more skilled and more elegant and more precise makes them better. It takes from "10 out of 10" in swashbuckling to "these go to 11."

Now, take that trait and say, sure, the Knight can have it, too.

How does that make the Swashbuckler special?

You took the bonus they have, the special ability they have, and said, it's for lots of people. Including that guy who spent roughly 95% of his points on just straight-up combat. You've taken something special and unique to a template and moved it into a general power-up. It's no longer what Swashbucklers do better than others, it's just a thing everyone can do well given sufficient points.

Now this isn't to say some book won't come along and give this to Knights. It might (although I think it shouldn't.) But that's essentially a decision to say, this isn't special to Swashbucklers. Even if that happened, would it be appropriate to give Coup de Jarnac or Botte Segrete or Great Void to Knights because, hey, that would be cool if my Knight could ignore armor or launch a tremendously fast attack or flit about defensively like a Swashbuckler?

I'd say no. It encroaches on the niche of Swashbucklers.

You can still make a Knight, give him almost no armor, put on a floppy hat and a cape, take a fencing weapon, and prance around yelling "Ha-ah!" as you stab. You can take a Swashbuckler and give him the heaviest sword you can find, armor the living hell out of him, and make him a straight-up heavy fighter (ahem, Angus McSwashy). But neither encroaches on a niche. Both still leverage what's good about their templates without stomping on the other's niche, simply because they can't access the special benefits accessible through Power-Ups.

GURPS by default says everyone can, given points and proper choices, do anything. Dungeon Fantasy dials that back and says, well, not everyone and not anything. That's fine and that's intentional. It's part of what gives Dungeon Fantasy such a different flavor than a straight-up free-ranging fantasy game run with the same rules base. Tampering with that flavor will change it. It's fine and appropriate to do so . . . but it's one thing to basically abandon niche protection, and another to claim it and use it but appropriate the useful bits from one niche and stick them into another. One is leveling the playing field for all - the other, cementing in the downsides of certain choices but not others.

That's why, in my games, Knights can't take Swashbuckler power-ups.

Thoughts on Dungeon Fantasy & non-front line fighter types

My players and I started a brief discussion on Sunday about the utility of non-fighter types in my game, which I think reflects on deliberate choices in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. Here are some of my thoughts about combat and non-combat specialists in DF.

The thing about DF is, everyone is an expert-level specialist.

Non-front line fighters will never be able to keep up with front-line fighters in combat. Combat that is significantly dangerous to Barbarians, Knights, Martial Artists, and Swashbucklers will overwhelm non-front line fighters. Even some of them - the Barbarian and the Martial Artist - give up some direct combat ability for flexibility in other areas, and are more at risk than the other two. Holy Warriors fill a specific niche - they'll pass as front-line fighters, but aren’t up to the Knight or Swashbuckler level; they excel against "evil" creatures.

Conversely, front line fighters will never be able to keep up in non-fighting tasks covered by other experts. Traps and locks will utterly frustrate any front-line fighter. They are useless for much besides setting off delicate traps. They can't cast spells or disarm traps or open doors without force. Only Clerics can heal. Only Wizards are any good at spells. Only Bards can use songs to sway or calm or incite. Only Artificers can build gadgets on the fly.

The split in DF is that if you take a non-front line fighter, you're as much as admitting you can't hack it against the toughest foes. But if you take a front-line fighter, you can't hack it on technical tasks. Knights, specifically, are so myopically focused on combat they can't do much else besides force doors and kill monsters. If they dump most of their points in more combat abilities and not much in strength, they can't even open doors well.

In this way, it's a lot like a higher-level D&D or Rolemaster game would be. Any trap dangerous enough to require disarming instead of absorbing or bypassing needs a Thief, because no one else can hack it. Any evil shrine bad enough to do evil things needs a Cleric to cleanse it. Any wound bad enough to slow you down requires a Cleric to heal it. Any magical defenses or barriers worth noting requires a Wizard to bypass. Anything on guard enough to require sneaking to surprise needs a Thief or Scout. Wizards will be useful in and out of combat, with the right spells, but they can't out-kill the fighters in combat. You can try some overlap (either with a 50-point lens, or just pouring points into a non-template skill) but you'll forever lag the experts. That's part of the game design. It's niche protection in the best way (for more on niche protection, see here and here)

My game is combat-heavy. But it's also obstacle heavy (fortified entrances, heavy doors, magical barriers, etc. and that's just so far on level 1). Part of the "non-combatants are useless" meme I can see starting to grow in my own game is because, as luck would have it, the group really hasn't hit many of the evil traps, horrid puzzles, killed-by-special-methods monsters, magical barriers, unholy sites, skill/knowledge challenges, and tricky negotiating opportunities that await them elsewhere. There have been some already, but they've either been bypassed, bludgeoned down and walled off (such as the gargoyles), or assaulted with Shape Earth (such as the black door and the trapped hallway from last session). Some of this is play style - if you think it's always fine to bash the chest to pieces or kick the door down or cure damage after setting off the trap, maybe a Thief isn't going to have much to do. If you never scout, yeah, Scouts are useless. If you smash a hole in the floor instead of doing research to find the password for the magic staircase, the Sage or Wizard will be less useful. If you deal with evil shrines by taking the valuables and leaving them dangerously evil, the Cleric is less useful.

I personally think that in RPGs, you get the game you play. If you make non-stealthy fighters and frontal assault everything in a loose combat order, you’re going to get a campaign heavy in chaotic, turns-on-a-die-roll fights with lots of ambushes by stealthy opponents. If you make a wizard-heavy party, you're going to have a "15 minute adventuring day" type of game where the whole group adventures based on available energy, and where magic resistant foes are a special challenge and No Mana Zones seem unfair barriers. If you favor diplomatic types and talking, you'll negotiate more overall in the campaign.

The GM influences just as much as the players - it's probably 50/50 GM/combination of the players. If both react to the perception of "campaign needs" you can get a feedback circle - we fight a lot, so we need more fighters in the group, so we can't navigate traps or negotiate, so we take more damage and have more fights and need more fighters. The GM then tosses more and tougher fights at you because you're too hard to challenge in a fight and too hapless against other threats.

The way out of the loop is to just get out of the loop - both the GM and the players need to do it.

How? The GM needs to set challenges and let them sort it out themselves, and not modify them to match a lopsided approach. Example: "Okay, you wiped out Orcus and his buddies in three rounds with no sweat, but now what? The temple exit is trapped, the treasure is behind a forcefield, and Orcus will re-form in 1 minute if you don't destroy his unholy altar with clerical rituals."

The players need to leverage the skills of their non-front line fighter buddies, and the non-combat skills of the fighters so they aren't "sit around until we fight" types. They need to avoid trying to outrace the GM like he was a video game AI ("I've maxed out my combat skills and win all fights in the game easily, finally. Okay, next quest . . . ") You can't win an arms race with someone with unlimited resources, so concentrate on achieving your goals in a fun manner without trying to maximize your ability to beat one challenge. Pick a guy that's fun and useful, and find ways to get more out of your abilities.

I think there is always room for the expert, the non-combatant, and the utility character. You can't pull your weight when the combat specialists are needed, but the game isn't only combat, unless you make it out to be. If all you bring are hammers . . .

Jim Ward on Converting D&D and Met Alpha (The Dragon #18)

So you want to bring your D&D guys to Metamorphosis Alpha, or vice-versa? Jim Ward had some suggestions in The Dragon #18.

Guidelines for Mixing Campaigns:
Androids, Wizards, Several
Mutants, and Liberal Doses of
Imagination, Well Blended
by James M. Ward

I have great respect for James Ward and his works. But man . . . reading this article made me away of a lot of lessons about what not to do when making rulings and conversions. I think looking back, it's easy to see where a different approach to rules application would be a better long-term solution to the problem at hand.

Let's start with something good.

Magic and its effects are immense on the starship. Those MA crea-
tures have no resistance to magic so they take full effect without a sav-
ing throw.

I like this approach, to a degree. It's a good basic idea - those unused to magic can't resist it well. And (you'll see later), D&D characters won't have much resistance to radiation. I think a blanket "no saving throw" leaves out things that should warrant a save - versus a fireball or lightning bolt spell, say, which aren't much different than any other attack form in a mutants-shooting-lasers-from-eyes kind of world.

But it's a good start.

Takeaway: You can make for a clear distinction with a flat ruling, but you can also make it a little more nuanced so the underlying logic adds verisimilitude even if it costs a little simplicity.

I don't feel the same about this next bit.

There are many ways to handle the different D&D character
classes. For every two levels over the tenth a fighter has, allow a plus
one to hit with any weapon. Magic users over the tenth level should
have a plus per level to figure out any type of technical item. Since
clerics get their spells renewed everyday (and I never liked them any-
way) they don’t need any special powers or plusses. Bards over the
tenth level act like Singing Vines. Monks on the other hand are at one-
half their normal level because of the extreme quickness of the MA species.
Thieves don’t have their special attack bonus when attacking
the backs of mutants (everyone is always trying to zap them from be-
hind).

Ouch.

Fighters? Fine, get bonuses at high levels.
Magic-users? Fine, get bonuses at high levels.
Bards? Fine, get bonuses at high levels.
Clerics? Get nothing, out of personal spite.
Monks? Get their level halved for . . . combat, presumably. MA species are so damn quick that Monks have trouble defending against them or attacking them. No one else does.
Thieves? Lose their best offensive ability, because appparantly unlike any species in D&D worlds, MA mutants are wary of back shots. All of them are.

The issue here? It lacks an even-handed approach. Not that all classes need to be treated equally, but rather that the underlying logic must be applied equally. Here, it is not. Clerics get nothing, just because. Thieves lose out on a major ability because of a shaky rationale. You simply cannot gain a bonus to backstab anything in Metamorphosis Alpha, even though creatures that live in a world with characters with the ability to attack from behind do not. In other worlds, thieves are only able to backstab because their targets are suckers. And unlike the logic of specific familiarity breeding resistance, here specific familiarity breeds weakness.

The same logic that cuts monks in half for combat purposes is not applied to other classes. Fighters are unaffected, even though the "extreme quickness of the MA species" should apply right back to them. Monks haven't, for some reason, learned to hit quick targets, but fighters have. So has everyone else - no one else suffers a combat penalty from the "extreme quickness" of the MA creatures.

A consistent ruling would leave Monks alone. Some creatures might ignore backstabs . . . but they should be few and far between and have an in-game logic beyond their familarity with being attacked from behind as if it's less novel on a radiation-warped spaceship than in a world full of magic and invisible foes.

And if some classes get a bonus at high levels, it seems reasonable that others should, too, if only to help preserve their niche protection in a game built on niche protection.

Takeaway for me? Be fair, overall, and enforce logical evenly.

If any of you are wondering what possible harm De-evolu-
tion could do to a non-mutant let me list a few things. In magic users it
could take away all the ability to use spells of any type. Fighters could
lose a level or two of experience for every attack. Clerics could lose one
level of spells forever starting from their lowest level. Normal humans
could be transformed into cro-magnon man or even apes (but a few
have argued that this skips several generations of evolution).

Ooh, that seems fair. Magic-users become unable to use spells, period. Presumably forever - how do you recover from de-evolution? It doesn't say. And even scrolls are "spells of [a] type" so you're basically just a weak fighter, now. Fighters lose a level or two, which sucks, but spectres and vampires do that, too. Clerics lose spells permanently - so even the gods cannot overcome De-evolution. DEVO would be proud.

A better approach would be to allow for a way to fix such things, without just leaving it to "Wish" spells. Also, it's probably better, as above, to make the effect logically flat. If "de-evolution" reduces you to a previous version of yourself, then everyone should lose levels. Or turn into apes. It shouldn't affect classes in such widely different (and differently harsh) ways.

Takeway: Again, applying logic and game effects consistently seems to be the best approach.

Overall, I liked the article - and Jim Ward is just as harsh back (poor Iron Golems get it badly here). Logically, though, different effects for the same situation and explanation on different classes that otherwise should be in similar states seems like a bad idea. It's not a best practice you'd expect to see carried forward.

Still fun reading fodder, though, and a situation I plan to game out with different rules.

Finally, I just need to get this in here:

That covers all the character abilities for both sides except for
Radiation Resistance. The D&D player has had no former generations
to give them immunity so they have a resistance of 3.

Emphasis mine - see, people tell me there was "always" a clear distinction between "player" and "character." Here we see them used one sentence after another to mean "character." Just saying.

DF Magic Item abuse & possible solutions II

So running with some more ideas for what to do about the old "Maintain for free" item becoming a group-effect-eternal-buff, which I'd started thinking over yesterday.



Idea 4) Create a cheaper, "always on" version of buff-type magic items. That way it's much cheaper to buy an Always On Missile Shield item than an item that allows you to put on lots of Missile Shields on people.

After all, it's not a big problem if 5 people each buy an Always On Missile Shield item, but it's potentially annoying if 1 person buys a Power 2 Missile Shield item and puts M.S. on 5 people, and that it's cheaper than Always On to do so.

One idea I had is to make it 50% of the cost of an item that is 0 to Maintain for such items.

Power 2 (1000) and Missile Shield (400) = 1400, but an Always On Missile Shield item would cost 700. It wouldn't cast the spell, just work. It would still be 400 for an item that lets you cast it. A Dark Vision item would be Power 2 (1000) and Dark Vision (400) = 1400, or also 700. A Walk on Air item would be 750 - it's 3 to cast, but 2 to maintain, and the base item is 500. None of those seem unfair, really.

Idea 5) Items can't even try to cast a spell if their base skill is under 15, and spells on are -1 to base skill. So a Missile Shield-15 item is effectively one target. A Missile Shield-20 item is 6 targets, but costs 3x as much, and the availability is much smaller (Power 20 items taking essentially a circle of master enchanters with Enchant-25, not just a circle of professional-level enchanters with Enchant-20).

Idea 6) Only mages can use items that cost FP, except for Blocking spells. If it costs FP to use it, and it's not a Blocking spell, you need Magery.

In other words, magic items for non-mages are restricted to:
- Always On items.
- Self-powered items (ones with charges, FP reserves, etc. - some of which Joseph Mason suggested yesterday, and which exist in DF canon and in my game - Dryst's Wand of Electricity works this way.)
- Items with spells fully free to cast and maintain (for example, an item that lets you cast a spell at 0 to cast, 0 to maintain.)

Of course, some items that fall into one or more of those categories are still Mages Only, by dint of including Mages Only spells.

Idea 7) Add "Only affects the wearer" to just about any buff spell item. So you can put it on yourself at cost, but not on your friends. A lot of spells have this already - this would just expand it to more.


I have to admit, I really like the idea of a combination of 4 and 6.

4 would mean there is much cheaper access to Always On items, so it solves the whole "It costs a zillion bucks for a Dark Vision ring" problem by coming up with a systematic cost.

6 would mean that non-mages can use a lot of items, but can't buy spellcasting off the shelf. And we have a lot of items like this.

But it would mean a last-minute change - I'll have to see if anything in the game currently violates this. I don't think so, but it any do it's a problem. I'd have to do both in order to do 6, because Vryce already bought and paid for his item. It's fine to say, you get 50% of your money back and it's Always On.

Of course, 6 means it's fine to buy an item and hand it off to the mage to put the spells on people. But that's kind of a niche protection thing - the mage is still the only way to provide magical protection for multiple people. Of course this means the mage can give everyone Missile Shield, or Flight, or whatever for free and maintain it the whole time, but that happens now. That's not a change. It's just charging money to offload some of the cumulative spells on penalty to an item for specific spell.

Idea 7 would be pretty trivial - if it's a buff, it's by default "wearer only." That would invalidate zero items in my game. It would be last minute, but it would do the job pretty neatly.

GURPS 101: Low-Tech Weapons - Legality Class, Status, & Control Rating

To determine what weapons to carry, consider your situation first, and then your skills, strength, and budget. If you can't use it or don't need it . . . don't buy it.
- GURPS Basic Set, p. 267

When choosing weapons in GURPS, generally people care about a few combat stats - damage, parry, weight. A few people might even consider cost*, or a coolness factor, or characterization. But usually falling by the wayside are two other stats that can be critical - LC and CR.

Legality Class (LC)

Legality Class (LC) is how the weapon is viewed by the legal authorities.

"Consider what the law allows, too. Most settings have laws or customs that govern the weapons and armor you may wear on the street or on the job without attracting attention (see Legality Class,box). This applies in historical settings as well. A stranger visiting the average medieval village wearing a suit of plate armor would be every bit as conspicuous – and threatening – as a person carrying an assault rifle into a corner grocery store today!"
- GURPS Basic Set, p. 267

Okay, sounds good, but Basic Set also makes the blanked statement that "All melee weapons and muscle-powered ranged weapons intended for combat are LC4." In anything short of a very controlled society, this means anything from a dagger up to a halberd and anything in between is fine.

After all, LC4 means the "item is openly available in most societies, but tightly controlled societies might restrict access or use."

So let's talk restrictions.

Setting a Control Rating (CR)


Control Rating is how restrictive - or not - your society is. It ranges from 0 (anarchy) to 6 (total control). It often varies by category - some societies are more permissive of weaponry, others of speech, etc.

So a strictly by-the-Basic-Set way to do this is to set a CR, and then either change the LCs of the weapons, or change the CR by class of weapons.

Aw, do I have to? No. CR just lets you systematize it. But with the default for all low-tech weapons being LC 4, you need a per-weapon stat or a per-weapon decision. You can skip right to writing text that says "Who can use this legally?"

This is what GURPS Basestorm does.

Megalos in Banestorm is a great example of this. Arms and armor are regulated by Status, not strictly by LC and CR. The concepts of LC and CR are there, but they are set out by weapon/class of weapons.

For example, bladed weapons are prohibited entirely to beggars or serf. You need Status 0 for a sword, you need to be in the military or the guard to have a military polearm. Missile weapons are prohibited to anyone but the military.

It's just weaponry, but also magic and armor.

You need to be a knight to own plate armor or magical weapons, and even mail and scale are limited to the armed forces. You want metal armor and a +1 Sword? You need to be nobility.

As written, status can act effectively to mitigate legal controls around weaponry.

Megalos being a corrupt state, you can pay bribes for special exemptions to these rules (and naturally, high-status folks can provide writs to their personal troops). Minor exceptions are made as well, and you can imagine these being enforced about like speed limit laws on US highways - when the police feel like it, they'll swoop down, but generally will ignore minor offenses.

So to be a typical adventurer wearing mail, scale, or plate, with magical weaponry and so on, you need to either pay some hefty bribes to get legal exemptions, or you need to be Status 2. Only the nobility can truck around with weapons.

Using this in your game.

It's easy to dismiss these restrictions - "If the players want to run catgirl ninjas with two-handed swords they should just be able to." Well, yes, and the happy feudal anarchy of a default D&D world, where anyone can own any weapon and walk around fully armed without any social cost is fine, too. But there are advantages to putting in social/legal weapon controls.

- niche protection. It's hard to upstage the knight at, say, heavy infantry tactics when only the knight has the status to use certain weapons.

- class protection. This can help explain class restrictions. Why can't mages carry swords? Not legal. They're effectively part of some restricted social class.

- weapon value elevation. What if composite bows are restricted to the nobility (think early period samurai, say) or only the rich can legally carry crossbows? Suddenly you've restricted "common" foes to more common weapons, making these weapons immediately more valuable within the environment.

- makes a variety of weapons valuable - weapon choices become more than just "best combat stats" but also "best legal weapon for my social class."

- acts as a resource drain - you can sell off, or trade away, that sword you found, or pay for a permit to use it! This can effectively drive further adventures.

- makes status a tangible, valuable goal. You don't want to be a noble just to be a noble - a vanity purchase in many games - but also because it allows you to arm yourself as you choose (and perhaps, issue permits to your friends). It has direct adventuring value - even combat value - by allowing you access to the best weaponry.

- it can narrow the weapon choices in certain adventures - in cities, in restrictive countries, etc. Or more accurately, force PCs to engage in smuggling, disguising, and otherwise concealing weaponry. This can add a big twist to an otherwise straightforward adventure, if folks have to rely on backup weaponry or "status appropriate" weaponry instead of whatever they specialized in because it's the most combat effective.

This can easily be pushed too far, though. Laws and restrictions have to drive two important things: fun and adventuree. If having the restrictions makes for a more fun adventuring environment, whether from "everyone has something to do" because not everyone is socially ranked for all weapons or because the need to get loot for paying for permits and bribes or to try to status-climb. It's not going to work in a place like, say, Krail's Folly (although it might, with a tweak), or in a purely beer-and-dungeons game like my own.

But for a game where social climbing is encouraged but might seem a bit too "endgame"-ish, the idea of legal restrictions on weapons and armor, and a need to socially climb to make yourself fight better, might be just the thing.

So GMs and PCs alike can really get some mileage out of the legality of weapons instead of just their combat stats.



* Although this is often overlooked for modern weapons. "Why would anyone use a weapon other than (X)?" is a pretty common question, but if weapon X is extremely expensive with expensive ammo, well, that's why right there.

Revised GURPS Magic for DF: Lockmaster & Locksmith

I'm not a big fan of niche-stomping, and I'm very pro-niche protection. My dungeons are full of locks, traps, and barriers that simply cannot be dealt with more conveniently than with a thief. Or without a thief require great expenditures of time and resources. Or at least require deep investigation and finding the right key or passcode or the other way around the barrier.

In other words, I give thieves things to do that can't easily be replaced with "Cast Lockmaster, and if it fails, bash the door down or shape a new tunnel in the wall."

Still, the Lockmaster and Locksmith spells in GURPS Magic are a little overpowering. Here is how I changed them without taking away their core usages, something that would be pretty unfair after allowing the spells in the first place. Most of the below aren't really rules changes - they're rulings on what specific countermeasures do to the spells. On the cumulative penalty was really a true addition.


Locksmith (Magic, p. 143)

As written, except this has no effect on default uses of the Lockpicking skill! Only affects DX-based Lockpicking attempts. Against a lock with meteoric pins or elements, only gives a +2 to skill. Against a fully meteoric lock, it has no effect.

Lockmaster (Magic, p. 144)

As written, except this has no effect on locks with any meteoric pins or elements. Repeated attempts are at a cumulative -1 to skill.


Moving bars, etc. is possible but requires the Manipulate spell. Done blindly, this can require a lot of fumbling . . . or just fail because the bar is latched or locked down. Magically or mechanically spying on the other side of the door is highly recommended. Unseen locks, of course, are a -5 plus range penalties - and touching the door isn't the same as touching the lock. Expect at least a -6 to try to spring concealed locks you know must be around somewhere . . .

How well does the DFRPG do dungeon fantasy gaming?

I recently read some newer and older posts talking GURPS & dungeon fantasy gaming.

I've played a DF and DFRPG campaign for 97 game sessions (mostly in the 8-10 hour length range) and going on our 8th year (we started in 2011.) So I think I have sufficient experience to back these opinions.

I'm going to structure this as a series of counter-arguments to things I read.

Is DFRPG suited to long-term gaming?

Yes.

I've seen comments that it - DF, DFRPG, and GURPS in general - is not.

Based on . . . ?

I'll repeat - I've GMed 97 sessions. It will be 98 as of this Sunday. No one has mentioned 98 or even 100 being the last session. We just keep playing, and it doesn't get less entertaining than it was to start with. I simply can't take the argument that seriously. I'm sure people have run short, good campaigns, and short campaigns that petered out or died off for all of those reasons game die. But not suited for long-term campaings?

No.

You can absolutely do long campaigns with DFRPG.

You can do short ones, too, just like with any other system. It really comes into its own in longer games, in my experience. And I've heard a lot of people like D&D in the "sweet spot" of mid-level play, with low-level being risky and high-level losing some of the savor of mid level play. While I actually found I liked higher-level AD&D play (we had plenty of games that went into the low double digits in PC level), I get why people might like the mid-level play the best. But the DFRPG ticks along well at the starting power level and hundreds of points higher than that. It's actually well-suited to long campaigns and steady character growth. There really isn't a "high level" end-game, just harder challenges for more powerful PCs. The linear nature of character growth has something to do with that.

How is the power level?

Some people say PCs start out too powerful in DF and the DFRPG. 250 points is significantly more than typical "heroic" characters according to 4th edition GURPS rules (150.)

From a taste perspective, this can't be argued. If you just don't like powerful PCs, and want PCs to start at lower points and lower power levels, then you're right - the PCs start out too powerful.

But that's taste.

If you look at it from a play perspective, starting DFRPG characters are powerful and effective within their niche. But they aren't too powerful. They're challenged, often challenged quite severely, but the monsters the game features. It's trivially easy to make the game powerful enough that even 4-8 250-point characters are wholly inadequate to defeat the enemy. They stay fairly vulnerable, and in constant need of upgrading, re-equipping, and of consumable help for a couple of hundred points afterward. You may not want to play this way, but it's a valid choice and the system does well with it.

For new players, the idea is that low-point guys are "easier." I don't actually find that to be true. It's easier to play a character who is good than one who needs to eke out every benefit to survive. I've done both, and while powerful characters do have more abilities, the very addition of those abilities make their options greater and their margin for error wider. That's a lot friendlier to new players, even those new to role-playing gaming, because their characters are much more capable.

Does GURPS do high-powered gaming well?

Yes.

GURPS certainly does handle the 250-500+ point level we've been playing at. It does those levels well. At these levels:

- the PCs are quite powerful and can accomplish really spectacular and interesting successes

- but the PCs are never so powerful they can fully relax, even against threats that just don't quite reach the level of a serious threat.

While DFRPG characters are largely past the end of the bell curve, circumstances push their skill rolls down. You have great skill and ability, but face challenges that need those skills and abilities.

Why GURPS? Why not D&D?

I'd ask right back - why D&D? D&D is the original dungeon fantasy game. But it's not the only one game that does dungeon delving - it was the first, but it wasn't alone for very long. Other old-school games like Tunnels & Trolls and Rolemaster do dungeon fantasy - would you ask "Why plan T&T (or Rolemaster) when you could play D&D?" There is also a bewildering variety of D&D out there - original D&D, original plus Greyhawk, Holmes Basic D&D, B/X D&D, BECMI D&D, AD&D, AD&D 2nd edition, 3.0, 3.5, 4, 5th . . . plus retro-clones! DF and DFRPG are designed for dungeon fantasy. The DFRPG strips out everything that isn't dungeon delving fantasy from GURPS.

Still, there is a good point embedded there - there is a lot of support material for D&D. There is less for GURPS. But if you're generally rolling your own dungeons and monsters and whatnot, you don't really need a lot anyway. There is significantly more available than the original D&Ders had to play with. It's more convenient to play D&D-based games from a GM perspective, but once you start in on making your own stuff you're faced with the same work load.

So the DFRPG is designed to do dungeon fantasy. It's what it's for. So why not DFRPG? This is the genre it's meant for, why not consider it for play?


Ultimately, I find that enjoying GURPS for dungeon fantasy gaming is like enjoying any other game for dungeon fantasy gaming. If you like the way the game models the genre, and enjoy what it does well (GURPS and combat, for example, and AD&D strong niche protection and resource management, and Rolemaster with spectacular criticals and terrific spell failures), then that's the game for you. If you like a different power level, yeah, this might not be for you.

But it's an effective tool for the job of running fun, long-term, interesting fantasy gaming. It does what it is designed to do well. It may or may not be for you, but it is what it is - a good ruleset for dungeon fantasy gaming.

Player Tips: Running a Utility Character in GURPS DF

This post starts with some conversational war stories, and then segues into GURPS advice. It might be useful for non-GURPS games, because it's pretty general, but your mileage will vary if you're running a different game system.

At our last game, there was a bit of player discussion about the utility of, well, utility PCs. That is, non-front line fighter types.

The occasion was Hjalmarr dying, at least temporarily, and his player considering some other types. These included a cleric and an assassin (a combatant, but a backstabby-specialized one). We briefly had some mention of past thieves and clerics.

Really, though, that session was a pretty good example session of the usefulness of the non-fighters. For example:

- I rolled an 18 on the weather table, and further rolled that it was all-day weather. If it wasn't for the druid and Weather Dome, this could have severely impacted the group. Instead it was just a ration drain and a delay.

- Survival and Naturalist and Navigation were critical expedition skills this session, like all of the other Lost City sessions.

- the PCs utterly failed to detect a trap (default Traps is no substitute for a trained thief).

- the PCs had to resort to magic to open a locked door and utterly failed to open a locked chest, resulting in setting off a trap, because they lack Lockpicking.

- Lack of a healer was a serious issue.

Had the party also had a thief and a cleric, none of those would have been an issue. Conversely, had the druid not showed up, they'd have been compromised by the "the gods hate you" level of rain and storm.

A few years back I blogged about this from one angle:


Thoughts on Dungeon Fantasy & non-front line fighter types

Today I want to give some advice to people running such characters.

In my experience, utility characters benefit from doing the following things.

Defend Yourself

A non-front-line fighter really needs to be able to stop at least one or two attacks, even if only for a few seconds. Being vulnerable to a one-shot kill because you lack defenses puts a strain on your allies. It also means their effectiveness in combat is restricted by your weakness. If you can reasonably expect to survive a shot or two, you let them do their job.

A few good ways to do this:

- get good Active Defenses. Dodge as high as you can, as it's the most versatile. But also Parry and Block. Make sure you can at least stop a single attack.

- have some DR. You don't need a lot, although it helps to have as much as you can. It's best to keep your encumbrance level reasonable so you aren't even very slow or very exhausted or both after a fight.

- have some supernatural help. Invisibility, Missile Shield, Luck, Bless (not that I use Bless in my game), points saved for Impulse Buys, etc. are all good ways to minimize risk.

- have some mundane help. Smoke Nageteppo, a good Stealth score (and a covered light source), hirelings or allies, and just plain good Move are all useful.

- At worst, up Acting and play dead! It's fishy if you just "die" instantly upon seeing the bad guys, though. (DF2, p. 11)

- Know your options - what the defenses do, and how All-Out Defense and Defensive Attack work. Feverish Defenses, too, if you're using extra effort in combat (my group does not.)

These can keep you safe for the seconds it takes a front-line ally to intervene. You'll still be fragile - DF is high powered, and offensive powers tend to nasty. But these will help.

Contribute to Combat

Even if you're mainly a utility character, you still want to have some contribution to combat.

This can be:

- a ranged or missile attack. Get a sling, bow, thrown grenade-type item, darts, whatever. If it's lethal and quick, that's perfect. If not, it'll still help. If it's weak, it's mostly useful to see who has Missile Shield and Reverse Missiles up! But it'll still be useful. Add Poisons if you're my kind of scum. And overpowered crossbows you can't reload yourself are just a fun kind of thing to tote around, if you can make the shot count!

- a combat-useful spell. For casters, find a cheap and quick offense spell and make use of it. Regular spells such as Frostbite or Dehydrate (or Daze and Sleep on the higher end) can be resisted but (depending on the spell) you can sometimes rip off a 1 or 2 pt version quickly. Or going for a buffing spell to help your friends. Even a minor buff (Shield at +1 DB, or Haste at +1, or Armor at +1) is helpful. Some Area spells can help shape the battlefield and keep the back safe - Wall and Dome spells can block up corridors, Illusions can misdirect, etc.

- combat-useful skills. Tactics can help you shout suggestions. Leadership helps against scary monsters by aiding ally's Fright Checks. First Aid or Esoteric Medicine can work in one second with a roll at -10 - but don't critically fail!
Knowledge skills are good here - spent a turn looking and see if your Hidden Lore, Naturalist, Occultism, Thaumatology, etc. can tell you what you are facing. Knowing it's a golem, not undead, or that it's a terrible & dire wombat and not your standard dire wombat, is helpful. Use Animal Handling, Psychology, Religious Ritual, or Singing (as appropriate) to taunt monsters, or Intimidation to scare them. (DF 2, p. 9-12)

- direct combat actions. Thieves and assassins do well with backstab (DF 2, p. 11), especially if they buff it up with Backstabber. (DF 11, p. 35) Casters do well with Missile and Area spells. Clerics can have True Faith (with Turning).

If you pretty much stand around a fight waiting for it to be won or lost, you're probably not pulling your weight as effectively as you can. It's tempting to get caught up in a circle of, "I'm almost useless in combat, so I won't do anything in combat." You know, "Don't just do something, stand there!" Finding low-risk ways to contribute to combat is a good idea. A healing-focused cleric or a thief or a utility wizard isn't going to be able to deal with a worthy or boss-level foe directly, but you can help contribute to the cause.

Exploit Your Niche

If you're a utility character, you have a non-combat niche. Make as much use of it as you can. Whatever it is you do well (spot traps, open locks, talk to animals, exorcise curses, map, sell stuff in town, negotiate with monsters, etc.), make sure you do it. Get skilled at it (no one likes hiring a burglar who can't sneak, or a guide without Area Knowledge, etc.) Don't be obnoxious about it, any more than combat folks should try to fight everything. But make sure you know what you're capable of and try to exploit your skills to aid your group. If you don't do this, you're in danger of just being dead weight (if you don't aid in combat, or are weak enough to need constant protection) or just a weak combatant (if you do.)

Outside of your niche, just see where you can help. There is one especially helpful Power-Up to help you help others: the Team Player advantage (DF 11, p. 16). It's ideal for guys who also seem to help friends or make Complementary Skill Rolls.

It all comes down to, just try to find a way to contribute outside your niche without being a drain.

Hopes/Worries of Removing Spell Learning Limits in Felltower

Here is what I'm hoping will and won't happen with the removal of existing spell learning limits in my DF game.

I hope that . . .

- Wizards are able to diversify more effectively, so each wizard isn't just a single-college (or worse, single attack form) specialist.

- Wizards are able to address more utility situations without undermining their main specialty (in other words, you won't need to focus on "utility" in order to have basic Meta-spells, Protection and Warning, and Knowledge spells).

- Wizards remain focused on being a better wizard, not just a more diverse wizard* (in other words, the goal doesn't become "buy every spell that could be useful" but remains "buy what you need to be effective.")

In short, I hope that Wizards leverage this to diversify without diffusing their power, and focus on overall improvement over getting a wide variety of spells "just in case."

I worry that . . .

- play will grind to a halt as Wizards want to double-check all of their spells to make sure one of them isn't the solution to this problem. Or some combination of spells across all casters ("If you cast A, and I cast B, and then before A runs out you cast C, and the cleric casts D, and then the subject goes and does X, and Y, and Z before spell A needs to be maintained . . . ") is busted out in the face of all obstacles.

- that easy access to spells means players will want to try spell-based solutions to, well, everything, because it's only a session or two or three to get the spells needed (". . . and if that doesn't work, I can learn spells E, F, G, H, and I during downtime and try spell I as well!")

- Wizards will feel pressured into maximizing their spell diversity instead of maximizing their effectiveness, or pressured into learning spells in order to test a spell-based puzzle solution theory.

- cutting the amount of time needed to learn high-prereq spells will mean those spells will be short-term acquisitions instead of long-term goals.

- Wizards become near-clones of each other in terms of their spell lists.**

- Wizards will be less prone to improve a handful of spells to very useful levels because those points are being used to learn new spells. Ditto on improving IQ and Magery, both of which should really go up ASAP and As High As Possible on DF Wizards in my games.



In short, I hope this makes wizards less laser-focused on a sub-niche ("I do fireballs. If it's immune to fire, the rest of you guys need to handle it, I'm useless.") but neither undercuts overall wizard effectiveness (IQ 15, Magery 6, ER 10 guys with 100 points in ~80 spells instead of IQ 16, Magery 6, ER 20 guys with 50 points in ~40 spells) doesn't lead to Win Button Hunting ("If I just learn enough spells, I'll find the one I need to solve problems in a single roll) either in session or between them.

We'll see if that happens. I figure making it clear what I hope for and worry about might help players of Wizards make more informed decisions.


* One of my players, before this rule change# used to spend 5 points earned in a good session as follows: one new spell [1], one point of Energy Reserve [1], and either save the last; buy a perk; or improve an existing spell that was on the margin for a cost discount. Usually the first. This was a good example of expanding spell ability but also maximizing caster ability - most casters give out in a fight or lack utility in a fight because of lack of energy, not lack of spell selection.

# Which he specifically asked for, FWIW.

** Which happened in all of my previous games, slight diversity in types of Missile or Area spells not withstanding.

S&W in the Southern Reaches: Session 6 - Castle of the Mad Archmage 3 - Norkers & Teleporters

We played in Erik Tenkar's S&W game at long last on Friday night. For a better, more detailed summary, check out Doug "Rul" Cole's summary here.

PCs
Minister, Half-Elf Cleric/Magic-User (lvl 3/3) (Tim Shorts)
Mirado the Slow, Human Fighter (lvl 4) (me)
Rul Scararm, Human Fighter (lvl 4) (Douglas Cole)
Bello the Dwarf, Dwarf Fighter (lvl 2) (Chris Maler)

We returned to the Castle of the Mad Archmage, this time with Bello the Dwarf, who was going to join us before but who was lost due to connection issues. We joked he'd stopped to tie his shoelaces and only now had finished and caught up.

We entered, passing two teens with sticks who were counting adventurers going in for taxing by the mayor. Mirado asked, "Are you coming?" They refused. More fools they than us.

We went right down to level 3, because a) we scored well there last time and b) the dungeon kept putting us back down to level 3.

The first thing we did was blunder into a pit, which Mirado fell into. He suffered little damage but only because he avoided the poisoned spikes at the bottom. He climbed out and we moved on, tapping with a spear in front of us.

We explored and found a "maze of twisty passages, all alike" and fought some skeletal dogs. We found little of interest except
a room with flaming freaking rolling barrels in it. No clue how it reloads, which led us to decide it was the honor system - you're supposed to reset the trap for the next folks. We didn't, though. and moved on to some doors we'd bypassed. From then on, it was doors over escape or passages, every time. We kicked down a few, crowbared open a locked one (and got surrounded with some weird mist that didn't seem to harm us), and in one, the group moved in as Mirado watched from the hallway. The group suddenly disappeared. They didn't answer Mirado's hail. So, he decided it was a teleporter and - since the group did the same for him - went in.

We found ourselves turned around, but the dwarf knew map north so we were good. We explored around the teleporter area, and found signs of a wizard - an inlaid silver conjuring circle, a not-well-hidden-enough spellbook (score!), and then a wizard and his mail-armored cronies.

We were surprised, and the swordsmen laid into Mirado and the wizard disappeared. His spellbooks had included invisibility, so it must have been that. We finally countered and Mirado cut one of the swordsmen, before Minister put them to sleep. The wizard had escaped out a side passage, and Mirado couldn't find him. We headed back to the room and searched until we heard a shouted curse.

Aha! Mirado and Rul charged back to the room with the hidden spellbook niche. We slammed into an invisible mage, and after some desperate (and mostly hapless) grappling, we got him down under Mirado. We set to with daggers until the mage died an ignominious death.

We went back and Mirado, run by a player in a bad mood, killed the swordsmen just to get 2 HP back.

Somewhere around this time, we found a room full of rats who had 2000 cp. Of course. We took it.

We explored more, and kicked down one door that was especially fun:

Inside were some norkers.


Mirado shouted with joy and we attacked. They died rapidly. The next room had more norkers, and they died too - so far, 10 down. 10 more charged us from another room, right into Minister. His sleep spell put 3 down, and they broke and ran. We briefly considered pursuit but then decided a) we can't map and b) they don't have pockets and therefore no real loot. We took their silver (poorly hidden) and left.

We explored more - despite not being 100% sure where we were, we prioritized doors over escape. We dealt with a few of them - including a number of those little dwarf doors. One had a trap of some kind going, but we never did figure it out. We fought more things, including camel spiders (big ones) and some really tough skeletons Minister couldn't turn but Rul could chop apart with his undead-slaying sword.

We took their golden gorgets and pried open the sarcophagus they guarded. Inside was a mummy with nice boots and a gold necklace.

Mirado grabbed the mummified corpse's boots and blew a Saving Throw (despite Luck, good Con, and a Ring of Protection). That got him turbo-rot (aka hyper-leprosy, aka mummy rot) and a pair of Boots of Elvenkind. In normal circumstances, I'd have given them up to, say, the guy who needs to sneak the most. But no way, it cost Mirado 1100 gp for Cure Disease so I figured he'd more than paid for the boots.

We simply headed back to town after that, easily connecting back up with our escape route and getting to the surface. The two teens were dead, throats slit, so Mirado marked two notches in the ground for them and we went to town. They should have come with us.


Notes:

"Honor the arrow." One door had an arrow symbol on it with no explanation. One-way door, maybe? Erik ruled it was a normal door that opened out. So we went on through. By Gygax, we honor the arrow!

I was in a grumpy mood, which might explain the relentless murder. Guys Mirado would have spared died because I just wasn't having a good week. As the man said, so it goes.

I love norkers. Mirado even shouted, "I love norkers!" just before we killed the first bunch. Lucky for us, their morale cracked when faced with a plate-armored cleric/magic-user putting them to sleep. That combined with my terrible initiative rolls lead to 3 PC re-names right there.

We found a spellbook, some cash, and the Boots, a set of Bracers of AC6 (or +4, maybe) (sold!) and like 800 gp or so each counting the sales. But that's it. We've done very poorly for loot and especially for magic items so far. I came into the castle with a magic sword, a magic ring, and some money. I've got less money than when I started and a pair of elven boots. Oh well, it just feels a little poorer than smaller adventures tend to be. Interesting.

I was rolling very poorly, very often. It was rare for me to hit, infrequent to cleave, and frequently I did miniscule damage. I'm not sure why. I'd roll 6s on doors and 1s on initiative. Annoying. I even rolled only a 4 (on two tries!) for my HP, making my new HP 38, the only time I've gotten less than 8 hp per level. I was at 34 at 4th level with a +1 CON bonus, which is 36 HP max. I'm still doing okay, though.


Some gripes.

Teleporter - this was fine, but like a lot of the traps. etc. and other encounters, it feels very . . . random. I don't feel like, "I should have seen it coming" so much as "Oh, yeah, some rooms teleport you and some hallways have deathtraps." I really understand what Courtney means about telegraphing traps so I can make some kind of informed decision. I'd rather say, "Ok, I brought that on myself" than "sometimes you search a room and there is treasure, sometimes you search a room and you teleport away."

D&D based games have too many subsystems. Roll high for this, low for that, but high for this, and percentage for that. It's annoying. I have some suggestions I'll codify into a post this coming week.

DF Felltower, Session 99, Felltower 71 - Mercury, Hands, and Otyugh

February 25th, 2018

Weather: Cold, rain.

Characters:
Ahenobarbus the Lacerator, human swashbuckler (265 points)
Dryst, halfling wizard (435 points)
Hayden the Unnamed, human knight (265 points)
Hjalmarr Holgerson, human knight (337 points)
Brother Ike, human initiate (160 points)
Mo (his momma call him Kle), human barbarian (350 points)

The group gathered some rumors. Among them were two about dragons - that they're magical beings, and eat because they like to, not because they have to, and one that said they can only be slain by swords ("That's not true" - Hjalmarr) or by an arrow - but there is only one arrow in the world that can do it." ("But it's also human slaying," said Dryst, after Ahenobarbus mentioned Reverse Missiles.) Raggi wasn't around, though.

They purchased potions, picked up some special orders from weeks back, and headed out. Among the things they purchased were three iron strongboxes and three beeswax candles for sealing.

The headed up to the walls and climbed up, and dragged up those who needed climbing help. Dryst scouted ahead into the dungeon, which was sodden and damp from days and days of rain. The 20' pit was mostly full of water and the stench of waste and rot was strong. Nothing waited for them, so they laid the bridge down and worked their way into the dungeon. They headed right to the pool room. It was locked, so Dryst used Lockmaster to open it.

They explored the pools a bit, as Dryst created himself some Alchemical Garb and gathered up the mercury from the mercury pool. There was roughly a gallon - 115 pounds of it, to be exact. He split it up in the three strongboxes. Meanwhile, Hjalmarr and Mo couldn't resist having some of the booze from the spirits pool. It was delicious, but they were able to keep themselves to merely tipsy and not all the way to drunk.

Once the boxes were filled, Hjalmarr melted the candles with Dryst and used the beeswax to seal the strongboxes completely.

Hjalmarr and Ahenobarbus and Hayden tried the purple pool of dreams. Ahenobarbus and Hayden drank and it was delicious, but didn't make them sleepy. Ahenobarbus tried again, but still no. "Let me show you how it's done!" slurred tipsy Hjalmarr, who then took a sip and feel asleep immediately, face down up against the side of the pool.

They rested for 20 minutes to regain expended FP and then Brother Iklwa used Awaken. Hjlamarr was just dreaming of a ruins in a swamp when he woke up. He assumes this is the Cold Fens, and it's where the dragon lives, but has no idea where the ruins are. His memory of the details - which were already fuzzy - faded a bit as he awoke.

They headed out after this, luggin the mercury.

They made their way to the "ogre room," down the stairs (to the "apetrium" as Ahenobarbus calls it), and to the secret room with a red handprint in it. They opened that up, put in the chests, and closed it. ("To protect the chests from stirges, who'll drink the sweet, sweet mercury - they need it to reproduce.")

From there, they headed toward the illusionary wall that shields the burial chambers were the draugr and the "Greater Brothers" were buried. They walked past the wall and then back to it, and then Hjalmarr went in - nothing but opaque, choking smoke. Dryst used Purify Air on the area to clear it, mostly, and then went in and searched. Within a minute, however, the smoke was coming back in significant enough amounts to be an issue. So they headed down the left of the three staircases.

They found and searched the various niches, took an urn (which had a name, hand symbols, and "By the Brotherhood, let me pass" written on them), and skulls. They tried touching the big painted hands on the walls, touching them with skulls, skulls and urns, etc. to no avail. They used a Wizard Eye to explore the burned-out niche they'd walled off before, and found a cave with an even smaller tunnel out that had signs that something dug out bits of the rock walls.

From there, they moved back out and into the hallway, simply running through the smoke this time with their eyes closed and breath held.

They turned right and headed up the corridor and found the room they needed to pass choked with mold. After some long discussion about the issues with clearing it with Flame Jet and lots of Purify Air spells, they gave up and decided to go the long way.

On the way back, they ran into two carrion caterpillars (like carrion crawler, but looking like this). They rushed the party from along the ceiling. Mo stepped up and attacked, and was struck repeatedly by the tentacles. He resisted their paralytic poison. Hjlamarr's armor stopped the attacks as well, but his arm was bitten by the caterpillar and he was injured and held - he was able to break free partially, but then Ahenobarus ran up and sliced it repeatedly. Mo smashed his a few times and eventually it just hung limp from the ceiling. The other was sliced into several parts by Ahenobarbus and a now-free Hjlamarr.

The group moved on, and wound their way over to the web-choked hallways. Mo took the lead, with Flaming Weapon on his silvered machete. He sliced up the webs until a humongous spider rushed him. It bit him but didn't harm him seriously, and he shrugged off the venom (he's resistant). He sliced it badly and it retreated. He kept burning webs. Two big spiders rushed and bit him. He managed to kill one, too, and shrug off their venom. The other was slain by Hjalmarr. They burned the webs all the way to the lair of the big spider, and killed it.

Once they burned though the area, they headed toward their goal - the "mummy room." But the hallway was blocked off. They spent a good chunk of time with Dryst using Earth to Air to create a crawlway. They made it through and rested in a nearby room, then needed to do it again at another block closer in.

On the other side of that block was . . . that same rough, brown mold. Sigh.

They ended up having Dryst cast Flame Jet to burn mold and Purify Air to survive the process. It took a long time, but nothing molested them. They eventually burned their way to the statue room (which was clear, as was some of the hallway) and then went down to the "mummy area." They searched for more clues and details, seeking names. They didn't find anything new, but they did locate the red hand. Mo touched that, too, as did Dryst. They've chosen Hayden to stay "pure" and not touch any of the hands. Dryst wanted to do that, but also wants to be able to escape solo if he needs to.

From there they eventually went to the giant staircase and down. Their plan was to try to figure out the "key pressing" puzzle mosaic. So naturally, they immediately went after the norkers instead. They sent a servant ahead one step at a time until they hear that "click" and door close. They searched the area for a tripwire, pressure plate, etc. - nope.

Meanwhile, the air on this level had become very stale, and Mo felt a little woozy (-1 DX and HT.)

So they moved towards the norkers. The hallway was trapped, of course. Mo had learned Traps and they confidently relied on his 9. That worked, sort of. They saw the bell tripwire had been reset. They discussed how it was probably rigged for someone trying to disarm it to set off a secondary trap, so Hjalmarr just stepped over. The secondary trap was actually for that - he hit a very thin tripline, and five crossbow bolts hummed out of the darkness into his chest. He blocked one, and the other four hit (he didn't try to Dodge, only Block, for fear of his companions getting hit.) Those four were bodkin quarrels from a high-powered crossbow smeared with four doses each of Monster Drool. He took a lot of damage and then failed all four HT rolls (for 32 toxic damage). He stood for a moment and tried to drink his healing potion . . . but that was enough effort to knock him out. He felt on the bell tripline.

Immediately they heard the sound of reaction - doors, horny feet on the floor, rattles of weapons, voices. They grabbed Hjalmarr and fled. Luckily for them Mo had downed a ST potion and rolled a 6, so he had ST 28. He could easily pick up all 300+ pounds of armored Hjalmarr and still be among the fastest of the party.

They fled to the stairs, and decided to defend the second landing. Until, that is, dozens of norkers came in. They backed up more, dropped two light stones to light the bottom and putting down alchemist's fire on the stairs. The norkers covered or took the lightstones, and just walked through the fire heedless of it. The party set up on the top landing.

As they waited to slaughter norkers, and debated sending Hjalmarr down to cut them off from behind, Hjalmarr took a shot in the head from a bullet - maybe a prodd bullet. It pierced his armor and was only stopped by his skull, barely. But the poison on it paralyzed him! Ike quickly cast Relieve Paralysis and Dryst put up a Force Wall on that flank. But a second bullet followed and injured Hjalmarr, again piercing his helmet and ignoring the Force Wall - either it was meteoric or enchanted (it turned out to be the former.) It was poisoned, too. They dragged themselves out of the door and Dryst put down another Force Wall across the doorway.

The norkers came up and tested the wall, but backed right off - Mo was hoping they'd stand close to it so he could swing through it.

The two sides eyed each other until the door closed.

The PCs headed back to the first level, gathering their mercury on the way.

Not yet done, they then headed to the "apartment complex" they'd last sent Vryce into. This time, they buffed up Mo with Resist spells and sent him through - only to have him zapped with black fire that drained much of his FP. Once inside, a voice asked "Who are you?" Mo answered, "Brother Mo!" and got zapped with Frostbite, but Resist Cold prevented any damage. Amusingly, they'd rehearsed an answer, and it sure wasn't "Brother Mo."

Mo explored the complex a little bit, and found the red hand. He touched that one, too. Then he eyed the dinette set but realized it was too hard to take. So he gathered up all of the bedding he could and brought that - 33 pounds worth of it. They tried to toss him a rope, but it was burned by the faces along the hallway. So he just jumped to safety. It worked, but he was at -FP when he landed after yet another black fire blast (and a harmless fire blast.)

From there, they headed to the otyugh. They decided it must be tempting them with true visions of actual treasure. Long story short, that was not the case. It tempted Mo with the certain knowledge that a poor elf maid had fallen into the pit and needed rescue! Mo was suspicious, but also curious. Mo moved to the edge of the pit with Water Vision on, and got slapped and grabbed by the otyugh (it rolled a 3.) He managed to strike it back and get it to let go. After a brief fight, the otyugh was slashed by Hjlamarr, speared by Hayden, and badly wounded. It retreated back.

So they used Destroy Water to strand it in dry filth. Mo saw visions of an elf woman off somewhere chained to a wall. (Hjlamarr: "Scantily clad?" Me: "Clad?" Ahenobarbus: "Technically, she's clad in the chains, so she's wearing the whole planet!") Mo tried thinking back about "give us loot and we'll let you live" kind of things but did poorly. So he gave up and shot it with his bow. It charged and was quickly chopped to death.

They proceeded to cut it up, looking for it's "gem-holding gizzard" or anything in its stomach. No such luck. It had nothing.

They cast some Seek Earth spells on gold and silver and got lines on each, so they may look for it next time.

From there, they just headed home.

The pillows, etc. turned out to be worth more than 3000. The mercury, 15,000. They have Dryst 4000 or so and split the rest evenly.


Notes:

- The carrion caterpillars were fun, but essentially harmless to the armored folks. They should have hit more as we had a lot of "barely made" defenses that forgot the -2 for a foe overhead. Oh well. Their poison-based paralytic tentacles didn't harm strongly poison-resistant Mo or come in skin contact with

- Another rules snafu we noticed early - players assumed "greathelms" come with No Peripheral Vision and Hearing roll penalties. It's not - it's "full face protection." It doesn't matter if your narrow-eyeslitted ear-covering face mask/helmet/etc. is made of cloth, leather, or metal, it's still reducing vision and hearing. Dryst decided to get his armor modified post-game to fix that. This didn't affect anything.

- So the mercury was found before, does that still count as "loot?" Yes. It wasn't exploited in any way as treasure, nor brought into the dungeon by the PCs, so sure.

- What did the mercury do - a lot, actually. Taken out, it's useful for making scrying devices and for certain magical items. In place, however, it did more. From my notes:

A silvery pool of mercury, useful for scrying. Allows any vision spell to be cast remotely, with long distance penalties, or halves the penalties for Seek spells of any kind, and acts as a +3 Crystal Ball for crystal-gazing. Can be used to cast any spell on a location currently being scryed, with appropriate long-distance modifiers. If removed, the mercury can be sold normally - there is about 15,000 sp worth here, which weighs 115 lbs (a bit more than 1 gallon.)

The PCs used it that way in the past - for Seek, not for remote casting (that was undiscovered). But because "it's worth $15K!" they took it and sold it. In place, it was potentially worth more. The PCs know of another crystal ball, though, and intend to use that instead. That one only works for crystal-gazing however. Can they just buy $15K worth of mercury and put it back and get it working again? No, the enchantment is broken. It would need to be re-made, however it was made in the first place.

- If you're adventuring without Resist Fire, Resist Cold, Resist Lightning, and spells like Resist Acid and Resist Poison, you're basically adventuring naked. Too many unavoidable damage sources are based on them, and you can make serious threats into harmless victims with the right Resist spells.

- so the otyugh is finally dead.

- XP was 4 each (loot, no exploration) and Mo was MVP for touching hand after hand and looting the pillows.

GURPS DF Session 123, Felltower 95 - Forest Gate IV

Date: Sunday, October 6th, 2019

Weather: Hot, humid, diffusely sunny.

Characters:
Dryst, halfling wizard (463 points)
Crogar, human barbarian (268 points)
Galen Longtread, human scout (409 points)
Gerald Tarrant, human necromancer (355 points)
     1 Skeleton (~35 points)
Quenton Mudborne, goblin druid (265 points)
Wyatt Sorrell, human swashbuckler (265 points)
Ulf Sigurdson, human cleric (265 points)

We picked up outside the second vegepygmy living area, with the PCs debating contacting the first group of vegepygmies and/or killing the bees they spotted last time.

After a short discussion, they decided to try and go back to the fallen druid - Trent Oakheart - and summon his spirit and search for his fabled staff. But first, they wanted to kill the bees they spotted last time. Dryst offered his usual inaccurate monster help - bees hunt by smell, six is a sacred number for them, and at least one other I don't recall.

So they sent a couple of spellcasters with Galen to the stream, and Galen shot down the bees as they buzzed around some blue-green flowers. They offered no resistance and didn't seem to notice he was shooting them down. Probably tough for insects to identify an attacking archer 20-30 yards away sniping them off two per second.

The bees dead, they headed back north of the river to get to the plant they held the remnants of Trent Oakheart (who Gerry started calling "Oak Trentheart".) They reached it and started to shoot it up with arrows and Sunbolt and Fireball. The plant responded by waving its fronds and sending pollen towards the PCs. It wafted over them and poor Crogar started to run toward its alure. Dryst hit him with Mental Stun and then they tied him up. The skies darkened and zapped the group with lightning - Wyatt was zapped nearly to death, barely avoiding death thanks to his Protective Ring (the PCs call it a "Ring of Protection +2," proving the strength of D&D's hold on the language of gaming.) Dryst cast Resist Lightning all around after they paused to let Ulf use Faith Healing to heal Wyatt. Meanwhile Quenton cast Wind and forced the pollen back.

They went back to the barrage and steadily demolished the plant until it was in tatters. They sent a few of their number ahead to the remains. Gerry cast Summon Spirit after they put together a good 7-8 questions in order of importance.

The spell failed. Either he failed due to penalties or this wasn't Trent Oakheart. They searched and found nothing else of value. They untied Crogar eventually. He occasionally let out low chuckles, but otherwise seemed fine.

So they decided to cast Seek Earth on soapstone, and found some to the Southeast. They worked their way that direction. They stopped for some squash and gave it to Crogar to carry. Then they made it back to the dead bees, crossing the river (and had to stop Crogar from trying to drink some of the water.) They crossed the stream, and rushed past the flowers and dead bees - at this point badly eaten by strange orange flies that scattered as the PCs approached. Wyatt tried to goad Galen into shooting the flies one by one, but failed.

They used Seek Earth again and continued to head in the direction of their goal.

They traveled into some new pathways, passing south of the field of giant venus flytraps encountered in session 120, then to a "tunnel" formed by a canopy of vine-draped trees. They sent in a servant and it was slowly grabbed by some of the vines and pulled up. They realized they weren't a problem for quick-moving party members so they moved in. Some weird scent drew them in and dulled the senses of one or two of them. Galen and Quenton recognized them as vampire blossoms, and backed off. Once again, they used Wind to clear the pollen and then hacked their way through.

From there they made their way through some familiar ground and eventually found the entrance area, and once again cast Seek Earth. The object was a short distance away.

So they searched. In the opposite direction of the way the gate faced them upon arrival, Quenton spotted a couple of trees untouched by the taint. He headed there. Leaning against one in the middle was a staff of wood, and a stone seal sat on the ground next to it. It was the Staff of Nature (see DFRPG Magic Items 1), the staff of Trent Oakheart. He grabbed it and began to see a vision.

As he did, Crogar rushed him and attacked, narrowly missing with his axe. Galen shot him twice in the hand, but couldn't cripple it. Crogar hacked Quenton twice, luckily rolling low damage, and "only" put him to -19 HP (from 10 HP.) Quenton passed the death check. Galen shot Crogar twice more, still unable to cripple him. Wyatt threw his longsword and impaled his hand, but for even less damage and just grazed it. All seemed lost.

Then Dryst got kind-of close and used Mental Stun and crushed Crogar's weakened Will. They piled on him again, and tied him up again.

Quenton was revived and saw his visions. It was of the garden as an oval-shaped garden of strange but healthy plants. He saw it tended by druids, and then Trent Oakheart spoke to him. The garden was a special place for all plants and plant life. But as they tried to consecrate an eternal guadian/custodian of it, a magical sapient tree, one of their number betrayed them. Instead of summoning a nature spirit, the traitor caused them to summon a force of great evil - a bayanganaga (DFRPG Monsters 2). The great, demonic dragon descended upon them and scattered them. Most of the druids were slain, before Trent Oakheart was able to use his powers and life-force to destroy the dragon. It fell, and its evil essence blanketed the sapling and corrupted it. As the tree had told them, it was the stain. The sapling grew immediately into a great, evil tree and began to slay the remaining druids and the garden began to corrupt. Trent sent the last few druids away with the seals and his staff, sending them to the pool and the gate. Clearly, the one with the staff did not make it through the gate.

Trent told (and showed) Quenton that the depression in the stain was the original spot for the sapling's seed. He needed to put the staff in there, and Trent showed him that the tree couldn't harm the staff or staff-holder. He also said they'd need the spirit of a special pool to cleanse the garden.

They decided to heal up Crogar and then cast Flesh to Stone on him after taking the squash off of him. They found they were all corrupted. They decided that the squash pool must be the magical pool. Luckily, someone argued that Trent said it was "very close" and they should check close by.

They found the pool very close to the entrance, down a narrow path they'd studiously ignored since the gold wasn't that way. They found the pool and the spirit of the pool told them to take some of the water. The water spirit would go in that water, and needed to be poured into the depression to cleanse the garden. Wyatt wanted everyone to take some water, but Quenton argued (correctly) that the spirit wouldn't be in every flask.

They tried to head right back but night fell. So they camped out. Dryst cast Analyze Magic on the sword they'd found and determined with was a (the?) Universal Sword (DFT3). Then they slept and suffered again through nightmares. Most of the suffered terrible nightmares but managed to keep their Will up. Quenton, though, found he was able to repel the evil tree in his dream. He realized (thanks to a Dream Interpretation default with a near-critical) that he commanded the dream, and that the he could repel the evil tree with the Staff of Nature. He saw himself putting the staff in, pouring the water, and defeating the tree.

He woke, refreshed and fine. Everyone else was still tired. They headed to the "tree." The garden seemed more hostile. Quenton sensed that the entire garden - everything warped in it - was connected to the evil tree. It knew everything and sensed everything. Anytime they slowed, storm clouds gathered. They had to keep moving. It took some time, and included Gerry getting -1 IQ from coming too close to the plants the bees had been circling. Ooops.

Along the way, they ran into a number of "crow"-like birds with black feathers and saw-edged toucan beaks. Galen decided to try and wave them off, using his Ring of Animal Friendship. Quenton was amazed he had this. Galen used his stock answer, "Doesn't everybody?" Just dragon-slaying vets.

Once again, as they moved along, they got "lost" and determined that they had to re-trace their steps. This was in the same area they got "lost" before. (I think they were thrown off by a path they hadn't detected before, and the lack of the calls of the "Help me!" bird. Don't navigate by creatures in case they move. This one did.) They found their way, oddly, to a stone henge - fully intact, large size. They backed off. They went back and forth a few times before someone decided they needed to make their way to the vegepygmy fort to ensure they knew were they were. They made to the henge again, and then things really got confused.

(In the interests of time, I jumped in and asked how, if they could navigate from one spot on the map the vegepygmy fort, how they could not there know where they were on the map. Why not just navigate to where they wanted to go? I think I convinced the holdouts who wanted to ensure the were 100% certain that this was already true.)

They moved toward the tree's grove. The plan was, get "around the corner" and buff up while Galen kept an eye on it, and then rush the tree to distract it while Quenton, with every spell in existence on him, would fly to the stain and destroy the tree.

Instead it was clear the tree was waiting, lightning was going to pound them, the winds were kicking up, and birds were crying from all around. They had to move. The tree wasn't messing around.

They moved in, the wizards rapidly casting Great Haste on themselves and then on the fighter-types (all except Galen, it seemed.) Wyatt and Galen rushed past the trees. Quenton, partly buffed but Invisible (uselessly, in the end) and overcoming his crippling Cowardice, tried to wave the tree aside with the staff. The tree boomed, "I defeated the staff before, and I will again!" but Quenton was having none of that.

He flew past the tree and to the stain. The tree turned. One of the others rushed the casters, another slugged Galen and wounded him badly. The tree gestured and a dozen tree-men and tree-mites peeled out of the woods on either side of the clearing and attacked. Wyatt headed to fight them.

Quenton landed in the stain, but suffered nothing for it, shielded (at least for the moment) by the staff. He thumped the staff into the dirt. The tree rushed him, as did all of the minions (except for one big one attacking the wizards.) He then poured in the water.

Galen shot the tree, and the arrows stuck in. Dryst used a 6d Flame Jet to set one of the big trees on fire (and eventually torch it down.) Clearly, it was weakened.

The trees rushed Quenton, and Galen was trampled by the big tree and wounded very badly. The tree couldn't harm Quenton, who huddled in the center of a swarm of punching and swinging tree-men and tree-mites as they tried to kill him. He chose to stay with the staff to "protect" it, having misunderstood that it was, in fact, invulnerable to anything the evil plants could do. (Oddly, I thought - I told him outright that it could not be harmed by plants.) He suffered badly. Wyatt ran around the stain, hacking at the tree-men. All of them, though, started to show cracks and started to fall apart. Clearly, they were suffering dice, not points, of injury each turn. Galen climbed to his knees, drinking three Major Healing potions in turn from his magical potion-siphon. Quenton desperately tried to Dodge and after throwing a 3d Explosive Fireball from his magical necklace into the tree, setting it aflame.

Then Quenton flew away, leaving the staff (having been convinced out-of-game not to pull it out and take it with him . . . good thing. That wasn't the thing to do, per the visions and dreams.)

The trees rampaged around after that, trying to kill things. Dryst worried the big tree was going to flee and they'd need to cast Trace on it. Aldwyn's player, running the sole skeleton, suggested he'd just hang on to it and they could Trace him. But it wasn't fleeing. It was trying to kill them and find a way to survive against an unraveling force it could not harm. This did not work. Dryst used another Flame Jet to torch the big tree.

In the end, though, they just fell apart into kindling and then ashes. As the tree died, it let loose a soul-scraping wail that harmed almost everyone, reducing their HP directly. Only one PC (I think Galen) critically succeeded and was unharmed. The others suffered to varying degrees but no one was really threatened with death - and Galen took 4d but ended up taking 8 injury!

The tree slain, the skies began to rain. Lightning no longer brewed up (and luckily for the PCs, the fight was too short for it to began to slam down on them.) Some grass began to grow along the fringes of the stain.

Quenton fled a pull to the henge. So they used Walk on Air to all go and fetch Crogar, and turn him back from stone and scold him for trying to kill Quenton. Having done so, they decided to go to the henge and then to the vegepygmies.

The henge was slightly glowing when they arrived. They followed Quenton into it. And there was a silver-edged blue light and suddenly the henge, and the garden, were gone.

They found themselves in a northern pine forest, atop a grassy round hill. Know Location put them many hundreds of miles East-Northeast of Stericksburg; north of Molotov, in fact.

They were forced to camp out for the day and night there, aided by Galen's superior Survival (Woodlands). They trekked south for a week, unmolested by any hostile forest creatures. They could feel them shying away from them. After a week they came to a village that sustained itself by trapping. Once they explained where they came from, they were introduced to a local druid. That druid sent them on to the south, and told them that druids would meet them.

They made their way south and eventually near a river that fed into the Cold Fens. They followed the river, then then took boats to and down the Silver River to Stericksburg.

Outside of Stericksburg, Warlock, the local emissary of the secret cabal of the druids, met them. He brought rewards for them:

- 6 Great Healing potions.
- 20,000 sp
- a necklace of gold with leaves picked out in green enamel (10,500 sp)
- word that Quenton could keep the Staff of Nature or they'd give them 50,000 sp for it.

and told them that all druids and plants would know of their deeds (a +1 reputation from both.)

The PCs chose to keep the staff for Quenton, gave the Protective Ring to Ulf so he wouldn't die, sold Gerry's old necklace and gave him the new one for a 25-point Power Item, distributed the money around, and presumably handed out the potions (I didn't pay attention.)

The finally arrived back in Stericksburg on 10/20/2019, two months after their foray into the gardens. Most of it was spent walking and barging and boating home.

Notes:

Fun session. Lots of groaning came from the location of the staff and other soapstone seal - they were so laser-focused on loot they didn't bother to really look around. Had they done so, I suspect this would have been a two-session delve with basically identical loot . . . and the tree fight would have been much simpler without trying to beat it when it was, in fact, totally unbeatable except in the presence of the staff, and would start dying once the ritual was completed.

One thing I noticed about puzzle answers and clues is that even plain, obvious clues can be misinterpreted. Quenton had a vision from Trent Oakheart that showed exactly what happened, and then exactly what to do to defeat the tree. It left nothing to interpretation. The spirit was very clear - take me, pour me into the niche, and wait it out. Despite that, it somehow became warped into a complex plan to have someone else (not a druid) dive-bomb water into the hole, ram the staff in, etc. Then it became Quenton doing it, and even then he misunderstood the need to stay with the staff. He didn't, clearly. They couldn't touch the staff and the demon-warped tree couldn't touch him. So he was vulnerable for no reason. Good thing he didn't pull the staff out, and even that almost happened. I'm not sure why, but in GURPS games, especially my games, 1 second is clearly a total eternity. You can do a lot ("I fly over at Move 24 and ram the staff in and draw my wineskin and empty it, then on the next turn I pull it out and fly away at Move 24") and amazing things will happen. No one has the patience to wait . . . maybe it's the North Jersey / New York area crowd. We're an impatient bunch. But regardless, I made it as explicit as I could without making it like the old technical directions I used to write. Even so . . . there wasn't clarity on what to do.

And so it wasn't the Warden after all. Not an alien garden maintained by the druids for their grey masters. I think the players were disappointed, but here we are.

Tomorrow, details on the adventure sources. XP was 16 apiece plus MVP - the details of why will come later this week, too. Basically, four sessions worth.