Game log for 13 April 2014

Present:

Yémos, human male cleric of Dōsaútōr, goddess of magic (Eric)
Mayhem, human male midget barbarian (Chris)

As NPCs:

Anêr, human male swashbuckler (Rett, Eric handled him)
Caleb, human male wizard (mostly held up a torch of Continual Light)

Log:

They started in the room with the shackles and found out that none of the shackles were worth keeping. Yémos tried looking for a tunnel that a man in bonds would have dug, but they found none.

They walked back to the small room with the five hallways out, and saw that the black pudding was slowly slinking down the hallway that led to the great hall. The pudding felt their air and started to turn towards them, and they chose to walk down the hallway to the right of the one that led to the chief's bedrooms whence they came.

Louis Farrakhan's favorite
D&D monster.

The door lacked a lock, so they pushed it open and walked down the hallway to a room which had some old broken chairs around a big dais. Atop the dais was a big nest, and before they could turn to run, five striges came out of the nest to fight. Luckily, the striges could never get through their armor with their stingers, so the fight was short. In the hive were 40 silver pennies and 3 gold pieces. After looking at the pillars along the side of the room, which were mostly carvings of the gods, they went out the other hallway, which was on the other side of the room from the one through which they came into the room.

This room was a court, and there was a spot where a throne had been. In its stead was a stack of books. Yémos took the first book, which bore the name Walk with Me, My Friends by one Feoílklis of Erstókkīs, an island land well to the west that once ruled the mainland. The book was about the worship of a god of whom Yémos had not heard named Glanéťūr, who seemed to like putting men through his tricks. Yémos put the book in his backpack, and they took a look at the torches in sconces on the wall. Someone had hand-lit the torches, and not all were lit.

Pushover.

To the right of the way through which they came into the room was another door, which they pushed open. They walked through the hallway into a crypt, in the middle of which were two skeletons. In the short fight, Mayhem took a hit, which Yémos healed with Major Healing after the battle. Yémos saw what looked like a door with no knob or hinges, and after some prodding, pushed it to yield a glowing dark teal light. They threw a rock through the light and heard nothing, and when trying to touch the stone door again, Yémos found he could not. Mayhem pushed one of the skeletons through the light as well. After some chatting, the gang chose to turn back, though Anêr thought he could handle going through.

Pushes over PCs.

Back in the old court room, they chose to go through the next hallway to the right of the last one. The walls and roof of hallway and the caves to which it led had a sticky amber resin all over them. In the back of one of the caves, they saw four men in shadows, and Yémos called out to them. They shambled towards the gang, moaning the one word all zombies can moan: "Braaaaaiiiin." The fight with the zombies was nasty, and swords were breaking or flying all over the cave. Mayhem fell unconscious at one point, but Yémos healed him back right away with Minor Healing.

For he served the
Dungeon Master.

After the last zombie fell, the gang could hear and see a red demon with horns and a big scythe, and a man in leather armor walking on the roof of the cave. Caleb said the wall behind where the zombies were standing was odd, and Yémos stuck his head through it, and saw a pile of gold coins. Alas, living was worth more than gold at this time, so the gang ran back the way it had come, and the man on the roof jumped to the floor when they went back to the court room. Once there, they outran the man and the demon, and the man yelled back at them, "Go to your goblin friends!"

Once outside, the gang went over the hill and set up camp. From there, they could see a bunch of withered trees, which they guessed to be around Dībités Rock.

Notes:

A lesson one of the players learnt was that your Dodge is almost always your worst active defense. A worthy lesson.

The long and short of this short session (Eric had to go after about two hours) was that the players got their asses handed to them. The zombies were hardly fodder, and Anêr kept fighting, being Overconfident and all.

We gave the chase rules in GURPS Action 2 a workout at the end. I let them get away when they won one of the Quick Contests; we were short on time and they were trying to keep from a total party kill. Besides, the evil cleric didn't care much about them.

I can't remember if I gave them two or three character points. No big deal.

Converting NPCs from Classic D&D to GURPS

Let’s face it. We like to use D&D material for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy games. That’s some of the point behind Dungeon Fantasy: running a D&D-esque game with our favorite game system.

Now, often, we make NPCs with the idea of having them do something in the background or as part of a story, and those are easy. Other times, our characters are down in the dungeon and we roll on a table from an old D&D book (the old Fiend Folio, in my case) or some retroclone and up comes “NPC party.” We wince at this line, since what does it mean in GURPS that the murder-hoboes now meet a third-level cleric, a fifth-level fighting man, a fourth-level thief and a second-level magic-user?

This guide is for that time.

There already is some help for this built into GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, albeit in an unlikely book: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon. From pages 42 to 45, there are 11 NPCs that we can turn into others down in the dungeon, and we are going to do that. For spellcasters, we also shall turn to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 8: Treasure Tables, where there are tables on which we can roll for spells for magic-users. Cleric and druids will get their spells from the lists in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1: Adventurers and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level. 

Fighters, Thieves, Dwarves, Halflings

We’ll deal with these classes first. I do my rolling on the D30 DM Companion, which takes most of its cues from the Moldvay Basic D&D and Cook Expert D&D sets, so I’m handling dwarves and halflings as those books have them, which is as classes unto themselves. The original Dungeons & Dragons game, the Holmes Basic D&D set, and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and its offspring to nowadays have races and classes as two unalike things. You can handle this by mixing and matching racial templates.

The basic ideas behind all of this are:

• The templates in Mirror of the Fire Demon are first-level characters.
• For higher level characters, divide level by two, round down, and add that to all skills.
• For every four levels, rounded down, raise each attribute that is higher than 10 on the template by one. Do not raise skills to show this.
• For every eight levels, rounded down, raise each attribute that is not higher than 10 on the template by one. Do not raise skills to show this.
• Tweak his skills to let him use whatever equipment you roll that he has if you do not want to use the equipment in the Mirror of the Fire Demon NPCs.

Now, class-by-class:

• A fighter is a Basic Warrior. You can have him be a Basic Barbarian or a Basic Archer if that fits your needs better.
• A thief is a Basic Thief.
• A dwarf is a Basic Dwarf Warrior.
• A halfling is a Basic Warrior, but add the halfling template and give him Camouflage at IQ, Sling at DX+2 (this has his Halfling Marksmanship talent), and Stealth at DX. And even though they do not have ST better than 10, we still raise their ST by 1 for every four levels they have.

Let’s do some rolling and make the character. Level 3 of the dungeon, rolling twice on the table in the D30 DM Companion gives 21 and 6, which 1d2 champions: 7th level fighters. (Level titles, oh yeah, what a way to make things so clear!) I roll a 1 on 1d2, so we only have one of them, but that doesn’t matter as they would be the same unless we chose two templates to handle them. Since he’s 7th level, we add 3 to all his skills, and 1 to his ST, DX, HT and secondary characteristics that come from them.

For his equipment, I’ll roll on the Quick Character Inventory on p. 9 first, getting a 23 on a d30, which is the die I’m rolling unless I say otherwise. That means he has a broadsword, no shield, and wears plate armor. (I’ll call that “mail and plate” from GURPS Low-Tech: Instant Armor, and make its stats threefold the Torso armor to handle a whole suit.) To see if he has a second weapon, I get nothing (he has a 50/50 chance, and I roll 92 on d%), so I’ll move to the tables on p. 21 to see if he has more. He has a 5% chance for each level he has to own a magic item, which is 15% since I’m rolling on the 3rd level table, and I roll an 11 on d%, so he does. I roll a 26 the magic item and get 1d3+3 lightning javelins (I roll and get 5 of them), which I treat as a crackling javelin (see Adventurers, p. 30), which means they do a follow-up 2 electrical damage as well as their normal damage.

So, a 7th level fighter:

ST: 14 HP: 14 Speed: 6.75

DX: 14 Will: 10 Move: 4

IQ: 10 Per: 10 SM: 0

HT: 13 HP: 13 DR: 5/4

Dodge: 8 Parry: 13 Block: 12

Broadsword (18): 2d+1 cutting or 1d+1 crushing. Reach 1.

Javelin (16): 1d+1 impaling. Range 21/35. Their crackling javelins do a follow-up 2 electrical damage.

Punch (17): 1d crushing. Reach C.

Traits: Combat Reflexes; High Pain Threshold.

Skills: Brawling-17; Broadsword-18; Shield-17; Thrown Weapon (Spear)-16.

Class: Mundane.

Notes: DR against crushing is 4. He has the Shield skill, but can’t Block unless he picks up a shield. Notable gear includes:

• Broadsword, $500, 3 lbs.
• Crackling Javelin (5), $15,330, 2 lbs.
• Mail and Plates Suit (covering all locations except the face), $3,000, 60 lbs.

Yeah, he’s boring, but you can come up with a name and personality yourself. Deem that beyond the scope of all this.

Clerics, Elves, Magic-Users

These guys have the same basic ideas as the others, but have spells. Class-by-class:

• Clerics are Support Clerics with True Faith (Turning) if they’re Lawful or Neutral, or Terror if they’re Chaotic. They also have the skill Diagnosis at IQ. See below for Power Investiture.
• Magic-Users are Artillery Mages. See below for Energy Reserve and Magery.
• Elves are Basic Archers with the Wood Elf racial template. Even though they do not have IQ better than 10, we still raise their IQ by 1 for every four levels they have.

For Energy Reserve, Magery, and Power Investiture, we’re going to handle this a little different than on the templates. A first-level cleric has Power Investiture 1; a first-level magic-user has Magery 1; a first-level elf has Magery 0. These go up like attributes, so at 4th level, they get another level of Power Investiture or Magery. Magic-users get Energy Reserve (Magical) 1 at 1st level, which goes up like a skill.

Now, we have spells. Clerics get two spells for each level they have. Roll them at random, which might be odd since you have something like 32 spells of Power Investiture 1 or other such spell tallies. Roll at the highest level of Power Investiture he would have at the level of experience, so a 9th level cleric has six rolls on Power Investiture 1, eight rolls on Power Investiture 2, and four rolls on Power Investiture 3. Always give him Minor Healing for free. He will have the the spell at a skill of IQ+Power Investiture-2 (or -3 if it is Very Hard), but if you roll the same spell more than once, add one to his skill each time.

Magic-users and elves get one roll on the Enchantment Type Table in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 8: Treasure Tables for each level he has. From there, roll on the table it gives, and reroll results that give a spell not on the Wizard spell list from Pyramid #3/60: Dungeon Fantasy III and for which he lacks the Magery. Give him all the prerequisites spells for each spell he has. If you’re in a hurry, don’t worry about the prerequisites unless he needs one to blast his foes. He will have the spell at a skill of IQ+Magery-2 (or -3 if it is Very Hard), but if you roll the same spell more than once, add one to his skill each time. Magic-users should also get Lend Energy and Recover Energy.

Alternately, you can pick from the spell lists in Mirror of the Fire Demon, but you need to keep the Magery prerequisites in mind, since these templates have Magery 3 or so by default.

So, also on the 3rd level of the dungeon, I roll a 16 and an 11, which is 2d6 elves. Elves, like dwarves and halflings, don’t go up in level as you go down further in the dungeon, but we’ll call this 1d4+1 5th level elves to make them like the evil curates (5th level clerics) to make this more interesting. I’ll write for a lone elf to be clear.

Since they’re 5th level, we raise all his attributes and their secondary characteristics by 1, his Magery by 1, and his skills by 2. We have five rolls for spells. I get Clouds, which isn’t on the list, so it doesn’t count, Shape Water, Wall of Light, Charm, Shade, Rotting Death, which doesn’t count since he doesn’t have Magery 2, Power, which doesn’t count, and Destroy Water. I’ll put the prerequisites in the list too.

Rolling for equipment is a 14, which is a shortsword, mail armor, no shield. Since they’re elves, they have a 50/50 chance at a missile weapon, which we’ll give them anyways since GURPS elves are archery munchkins, calling a crossbow a regular bow since I rolled a 24. They have no magic items and no leader.

Our 5th level elf:

ST: 12 HP: 12 Speed: 6.00

DX: 15 Will: 11 Move: 4

IQ: 11 Per: 11 SM: 0

HT: 12 HP: 12 DR: 4/2*

Dodge: 8 Parry: 11 Block: 11

Punch (16): 1d-1 crushing. Reach C.

Regular Bow (20): 1d+1 impaling. Range 195/260. Bodkin arrows do 1d+1(2) piercing instead.

Shortsword (17): 2d-1 cutting. Reach 1.

Traits: Acute Vision 2; Appearance (Attractive); Forest Guardian 2; Magery 0; Night Vision 2; Sense of Duty (Nature); Striking ST 1 (ST 13).

Skills: Bow-20; Brawling-16; Fast-Draw (Arrow)-19; Shield-17; Shortsword-17.

Spells: Alertness-9; Bravery-10; Charm-10; Continual Light-10; Create Water-10; Destroy Water-10; Dull Hearing-10; Dull Vision-10; Fear-10; Light-10; Loyalty-10; Keen Hearing-10; Keen Vision-10; Purify Water-10; Seek Water-10; Sense Emotion-10; Sense Foes-10; Shape Water-10; Wall of Light-10.

Class: Mundane.

Notes: DR against crushing is 2. He has the Shield skill, but can't Block unless he picks up a shield. Notable gear includes:

• Fine Mail Armor (covering all locations except the face), $2,700, 45 lbs.
• Regular Bow, $100, 2 lbs.
• Shortsword, $400, 2 lbs.

Blankets and Tents

Going through the equipment lists, I see no special reason why anyone would bother to buy a bedroll or a tent, since they do nothing. However, a blanket is part of the basic loadout, and tents are offered as an upgrade, so they should do something. So, this is me thinking out loud about how to handle them.

Bedding

This is easier to rule. If you have no blanket or sleeping fur, your sleep is not as good and therefore some of your sleep time is lost. I can't find anything online about how much this is worth, so I crack open the Wilderness Survival Guide (which was among the first AD&D books I owned, by the way, though I lost my copy over the years and bought it on PDF again last year) and look on page 65. And the first thing that strikes me is how kind AD&D was to missing sleep: you only had to have five hours of sleep each night. Anyways, getting beyond that, it lists "Lying on bare ground (no bedding or padding)" as docking an hour off one's sleep, so we'll go with that. That will be two hours in weather below 35°F, but the blanket knocks that down to one hour, and the sleeping fur means no loss.

The other lines on this table bring up good issues. Plate armor knocks off four hours, which sounds about right; call all rigid armor knocking off half its DR in hours, rounded down. No loss for flexible armor; I think it's now a moot point that you can sleep in mail without much problem. Being below 0°F (or 35°F lower than your character's own low temperature threshold, for anyone with Temperature Tolerance) takes off another hour, while being above 90°F (or whatever your Temperature Tolerance gives you) takes off two hours.

Now, if you're hex crawling, missing sleep would have its normal effects, which means you're down FP. If you want to sleep a little longer, that will cut your travel time, so each extra hour cuts off 10% of travel, since I assume 10-12 hours of actual travel to make Move = 5-to-6-mile hexes. If you're using the slewing way of travel (hey, remember slewing in Microsoft Flight Simulator?) in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 2: Dungeons, rule that not having a blanket means you get to wherever 10% slower, while not having a sleeping fur in winter or arctic weather means you get there 20% slower, or 10% slower with a normal blanket.

Tents

Some other lines in this table from the Wilderness Survival Guide lead us to tents. If the wind speed is 20 m.p.h. or greater and you have no tent, it says to dock two hours. If there is light or moderate precipitation and you have no tent, it says to dock three hours. (Those in plate armor don't take this loss, so if the weather is bad and you know it will be, it might be better to sleep in your plate.) And, in the graf below the table, it says that you can't sleep outside a tent in "extreme weather conditions," listing a lightning storm, a hailstorm and a sandstorm as examples. All of this I am going to use as-is for my hex crawl. For travel without detail, give a bonus of +1 to the Weather Sense roll to lower travel time if there are enough tents for everyone.

Group Basics

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1: Adventurers and the Basic Set both call this "[b]asic equipment for Cooking and Survival for a group," which sounds well and good until you realize that there's no special group Cooking or Survival rules anywhere. So, we'll handle this like the tent: having Group Basics means that you get a +1 to foraging rolls since the gear lets you better skin and prep the food to make it last longer and get more off the bone.

(Note to my players: wow, I hadn't looked at the Survival skill in ages. You all will hate those daily rolls.)

Throwing This Open

Anyone have any ideas?

Game log for 2 March 2014

Present:

Mayhem, 125-point dwa-er, human male barbarian (Chris)
Yémos, 125-point human male cleric of Dōsaútōr, goddess of magic and wisdom (Eric)

Absent:

Anêr, 125-point human male swashbuckler (Rett)

Retired:

Caleb, 125-point human male wizard (Nate, run for this session as an NPC)

Notes about the above: Nate quit the game, so I ran Caleb as an NPC until we get a chance to drop him off somewhere. Or he dies, I suppose.

The game starts on 12 Žnēâns 2852, right after the death of the manticore. In a flashback to the 9th, Mayhem woke up in the tavern. Praidīvós realized he forgot to give Yémos the letter of introduction to get the blood from Dībités Rock, so he hired Mayhem to do bring that letter, with a payment of 10 gold pieces, payable when Praidīvós gets his demon blood. Mayhem makes it to hex 2216, and hears the gang fight the manticore. He comes up to the others and and they talk about slicing apart the manticore. Anêr tried cutting off the stinger, but stings himself, which crippled his left hand. Yémos casts Minor Healing gives Anêr back most of what he lost. They choose to move on.

No Emerson, Lake and Palmer springs to mind.

A mile or so eastward, they hear some whimpering coming from a cave, and see some tracks nearby. They try to sneak up to the cave, and they hear a howl. Mayhem fails his Fright Check, taking going ashen and and stunned for 3 seconds. An elf-like feline (a caterwaul) comes out of its cave and charges Caleb, but doesn't hit him. Anêr gets near the caterwaul but doesn't swing; Yémos casts Shield 2 on Anêr. Caleb takes a step back to ready Fireball. Anêr makes a mighty swing, but the caterwaul dodges. The caterwaul tries to claw the wizard again, but the wizard dodges, but loses his spell. Yémos then whacks the caterwaul with its staff, but the great cat stays and fights. Anêr swings again at the caterwaul, but the it swats away his claws. The caterwaul steps back tries to put those claws in Anêr, but the Shield spell helps Anêr shun the blow. Yémos takes a swing, and the caterwaul doesn't dodge. The caterwaul parries Anêr again, then starts to withdraw, running towards its cave. Yémos steps in front of the wizard, who tries to cast Fireball, but he misses. Anêr moves back to defend as well. The caterwaul gets into its cave when Mayhem awakes from his stun.

The gang chose to go eastward and leave the poor cat alone. After some more travel, they hear growls, which Yémos identifies as wolves. Since the wolves are not bothering them, and looking for prey, the gang instead goes onward.

Add a little more snivel, and some self-soiling.

About an hour later, they see a cave, to which they go and see four goblins cooking a rat. Our gang sneak up on the goblins, and Mayhem shoots the nearest one with an arrow. The goblin pulls out his bow and ducks behind another goblin, who gather their wits to fight the gang. Caleb tries to cast Fireball, but fails. Anêr waits, Mayhem moves nearer, and one goblin steps towards Mayhem and draws his axe. The one with his bow takes a shot at Mayhem, who does not dodge, but his armor stops it. The other goblins draw their bows. Yémos and Anêr near, and Caleb gets Fireball ready. Mayhem, sword out, takes a swing, and the goblin falls to the ground, groaning in pain  The other goblins run off. 

The gang ties the goblin, named Kuflaug, who had six copper farthings on him. They ask him what's in the cave, and after a bit, he asks if they will kill the wizard and his "red man." He doesn't want to go into the cave, so Yémos wants to take him inside, and Anêr leads him in at sword point.

A little bigger and much more badass than a goblin.

They go into a big round room, about 50 foot diameter, and see the rotten tapestries on the walls, and listen at the door at the far end. They hear nothing. They push it open and go down the hall into a smaller round room, with four doors as well as the short hallway going into the room. They ask Kuflaug about traps in the rooms beyond the door to their right, and he says he doesn't know. They listen at the door and hear nothing. They walk inside, and see five orcs in a big barracks, which scares hell out of Kuflaug. The orcs ask what the goblin is doing inside the caves with the men, since the goblins are paying them to kill the wizard. As they parley about how much money the orcs should get (all of it, as they say), a black pudding seeps into the room from under the door through which they had just come. Man, orc and goblin all run to the one other door on the other side of the room, and find the door is locked. The orcs start to hack at the door, while the gang talks about what to do about the black pudding. After some mishaps, Caleb gets the Fireball spell going, and singes it. The orcs spot an opening, and run around the pudding instead of going through the door, which they have now hacked open.

Not for eating.

The gang goes into the room beyond the broken door. The room has fewer beds, and bigger, with a big statue of a humanoid with an oversized head. Mayhem goes first, behind the trap finder, and spots the loose tile, but the goblin wasn't so quick and stepped on the tile anyways and died from the bolt that shot out of the statue's mouth. Caleb and Anêr both took a shot, while Mayhem and Yémos get out of the way of two more shots. Everyone looks back, and see the pudding trying feebly to chase after the orcs. All choose to look through the room and go into the next one. After pushing in the stuck door, they go into the room, which is even smaller than the last one, and has oily rags and empty tin vials are in a corner. A lone big workbench, missing a leg, is against the far wall, which has some phosphorescent fungus on it. Random broken tools lie scattered on the bench. Caleb advises against shutting both doors after smelling the trap that comes out of a bottle in the middle of the room. They go to the other door and find the old prison, with rusted manacles and chains and some bits of little bones.

And we break here. The two characters whose players were there, Mayhem and Yémos, each got two points.

Notes: We gamed in Chris's apartment. Chris, can you clean up the place a bit if you're going to offer? And maybe show off some of the four decades of gaming material that you've accumulated? I know your foot is bum. Hopefully, the weather will let us do better in two weeks, either make your trek to Universe Games easier, or make it easier to get your excess stuff out.

I think I have the random encounters down, at least when they should happen. Now to worry about lead in for those.

Our barbarian is lacking in wilderness skills. Those will help the gang to get through the woods. Namely, a guide should have Hiking, Navigation (Land) and Weather Sense and some Survival (in these lands, mostly Plains, Swampland and Woodlands). The other characters can soak up whatever Survival skills the guide does not have.

Speaking of Mayhem, he lived up to his name by shooting a goblin before I could even get in a Reaction roll. Who knows how they would have handled someone talking to them? The orcs didn't take it too badly.

My players, read this one

What the title said:

GURPS 101: Avoiding Combat Analysis

tl;dr: Keep it simple, stupid, and limit yourself to a but a few combat options at first.

Surprise Me

I just now realized that I should have better surprise rules. Something a little more mechanistic than what's in Campaigns. This will overrule some of what I posted a few days ago.

First, roll distance and direction of the encounter if this not already clear. For something keyed to a dungeon room, this is obvious. For wilderness and wandering monsters, roll a 1d and count hexes clockwise for direction. Sometimes you can skip this, and just say whatever it is is up ahead. This is especially so in the wilderness. For distance, roll 4d for yards away and add the biggest SM on each side to the roll (ogres vs. ogres is +2 since the biggest SM on each side, +1, is added twice). This distance is tenfold outside.

Now, everyone rolls Perception. Modify by relative SM (if you're bigger, it's a penalty, if you're smaller, it's a bonus, so Bilbo got a bonus against those trolls), distance on Speed/Range, number in the other party turned into yards on Speed/Range (so 1 foe is a -2, 2 is no penalty or bonus, 3-4 is a +1, 5-6 is a +2, and so on). If the other guy is trying to be sneaky, this becomes a Quick Contest of Stealth vs. Observation instead, same modifiers. If you make the check, you're not surprised. If both sides make it, the encounter happens at the initial distance. If either side is surprised, the distance is 1d yards plus the biggest SM on each side, tenfold outside.

Now we figure who acts from the rules on p. B393. I think its safe to say that adventurers out on a trek are not totally surprised unless they are sleeping, which means that only the guy on watch duty gets a Perception roll, at least at first. This Perception roll for someone asleep would be at -10 or something else ghastly if you want to risk it. In the wild, most foes will be asleep when it isn't their time to be roaming, though smart foes will have watches, just like PCs do.

Reactions and Morale

Two things that come up in older games that I am bringing into this one are Reactions and Morale.

Reactions

The first, Reaction, already happens in GURPS, but we so often forget about it. Even as a kid, we (or really I, since I was the oldest and always was the DM) would just have the monsters go for the kill right away, and I did that with the manticore a couple of Sundays ago, though it seemed like something it would do and I wanted to get a little fighting into the game before we left. So, since I have my rules on this site, this post is to remind me as much as talk about this in general. Roll Reaction, dammit!

Some modifiers to this roll. From GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 11: Power-Ups, p. 21, apply a -5 to reaction for each of these:

• Going into the monster's land uninvited. Yes, that means going into a dungeon and it lives there. It also means finding its lair out in the wild.
• Monster is from another dimension (Demons and Elder Things, foremost).
• Monster is truly evil and the delver is truly good (or the other way around).
• Monster is compelled (magical, divine; good old geas and quest spells) to guard an area. Or anything else that would interfere with such a compulsion, frankly.
• Monster is, well, a monster. It eats flesh or life or whatever of the delver's race.

This is a General Reaction Roll. As such, GURPS Social Engineering, p. 21, has these modifiers:

• Roleplaying. Give a small boost for good roleplaying, a penalty for bad.
• Biases. Monsters with Intolerance is the biggest one, likely followed by those with Loner. Some delvers have Social Stigma; most monsters don't care much about that, but the more civilized ones (like elves and orcs) might. Social Regard, which it also mentions, isn't as big a deal. It also mentions Xenophilia, Chummy and Gregarious as ones the monsters/NPCs have that could make a difference.
• Appearance and Behavior. Most of the time, things like Appearance (other than from a racial template) and Voice do not matter to monsters. Charisma works only with other sapients. GURPS Social Engineering gives a few others; GM's call which ones work with non-humans and especially non-sapients.
• Reputation. Again, something that matters to sapients, but not to true savages.
• Skills. Diplomacy and Fast-Talk give their normal +2 bonuses if someone has them at skill 20 and can talk. Otherwise, this is all at GM's call, and again, we're largely talking monsters.
• Social Position. Status doesn't mean too much to black puddings.

Does the monster want blood? If the roll after adjustments is Bad (6) or worse and it really is a savage monster (as opposed to an orc or a dwarf), then yes, it does. For the intelligent ones, it takes a Very Bad (3) roll, though a Bad (4-6) roll triggers a Potential Combat Situation reaction roll.

While we're on the topic, roll a Potential Combat Situation reaction if the party makes a clear move to fight. Modifiers for this from GURPS Social Engineering, p. 68, include Language, Leadership, Outnumbered, Ranged Weapons, Size, Supernatural or Exotic Abilities, and Territoriality. Look 'em up if you want to know the exact modifiers, but they're not big.

Morale

There isn't a listed Morale roll in GURPS. There is, however, a mechanic that is pretty darn near: Fright Check. Thus, we can have monsters make Fright Checks when the first one goes down, and when half their group go down. For lone monsters, it's first strike on which it takes damage (at least HP/10 damage, round down, to keep a dragon rolling a Fright Check when it takes a scratch), and when it has lost half its HP. Unlike normal Fright Checks, however, this is a binary result, and doesn't have a roll on the Fright Check table for a failure. The important modifiers are the ones on the character sheet: Combat Paralysis, Combat Reflexes, Cowardice, Daredevil, Fearfulness, and Fearlessness. Don't roll for monsters with IQ 0, or Unfazeable ones, though intelligent Unfazeable monsters (liches, wraiths, vampires) won't fight to the death.

Making this Fright Check means it fights on, though the GM can overrule this for an intelligent monster taking a clear beating. Failing it means it tries to run or, if a critical failure, tries to surrender. Modifiers include those for a Potential Combat Situation reaction roll; the Fright Check takes its spot.

The World

I made a world and am going to rely on it because I suck at writing adventures. I have that "failed novelist" problem that so many published scenarios have, and am sick of trying to write like that. Hence the idea of a sandbox has a lot of appeal to me. And being a Latin buff, I got the Tolkien bug and needed an outlet for that, though I wouldn't make my players pick those names if they didn't want.

So, for my players, you can look at the following things:

Players Guide
Map of Mīsarkênē, the County
Map of Mīstássun, the Town
Maps of the market villages in the County
Calendar of the world

Character Creation

Biff Bam: "Ok I'll be helping with character crEEPation, did you all bring an algebraHAic calculators?" 

"Monty Python Mishaps In The Deepest Pit Of Homebrew Hell" by Al Bruno III

Build all characters on 125 points. Ideally, these characters should be built with a template, either from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen, or from Eric B. Smith's "Dungeon Fantasy on the Cheap." Three of my starting players built characters from DF 15 templates, the fourth took an older character and we spiffed him up.

There are five things I would like in each character:

• Two associated NPCs. Think of them as unreliable Contacts, or not-too-clingy Dependents. They're for light roleplaying near home, and for feeding adventures to the group.
• Two threads. These are small personal plots for the character.
• What that character would do if his player doesn't show up that week.

The threads and NPCs also let me roll up scenes with the Mythic GM Emulator. Anyways, for each of these, this gives the character a bonus character point. If you advance one of your threads in a session, you get another character point.

Having a description and backstory is worth 5 character points. Be detailed, but not too detailed, and don't have a backstory dependent on being in an utterly far away land. If any of you have read "The 7-Sentence NPC" from Dragon #193 (summary; it's also the basis for the NPC details in the D&D Dungeon Masters Guide 4th Edition), that's the level of detail I want, and the level I have for NPCs.

Finding a picture for the character is worth a free character point, two if you drew it yourself. If another player in the game drew it for you, you get one point, he gets the other. Bringing a mini for your character is worth a point, two if you painted it yourself. No points if Chris brings you one of his; that's what Chris always does.

Most of the standard Dungeon Fantasy character creation rules apply, though I do allow the Scroll spell for wizards, and Area Knowledge has its usual use from other GURPS games.

Giving me a log of the session is worth a character point, as is drawing a map of wherever you looted.

Hexcrawling Rules

I'll be sure to update this post periodically, but these are my rules for hexcrawling.

Basics

The character's effective Move after encumbrance is how many 5-mile hexes he can move in a day. A group moves at the speed of its slowest member. Once a day, everyone in the group makes a Hiking, Running or Skiing roll, depending on which way of moving that he is using. A success lets the character move another 20%; a critical success lets the character move another 40%. A critical failure drops the character's move by 20%.


The premise for the 5-mile hex is, other than that the Judges' Guild used them, that a normal man, without burden, can walk 25 miles in a day. That means about 10 hours of travel, per GURPS High Tech p. 55, 8 hours of sleep, and 6 hours of setting up camp and other things. A 6-mile hex will work if you accept that a normal man can walk 30 miles in a 12-hour day. Four-mile hexes are just too small.

Weather

The rules for weather in GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns aren't workable for this. On a hot day, you fail a HT roll and you lose FP, so you have to stop and get your FP back. That's lots of rolling for no gain.

Cold

Per p. B430, when the effective temperature drops below the bottom of a character's comfort zone (for humans, this is 35° F), his movement for the day drops by 10%. For every 10° below 35° F effective temperature, that is another 10% drop in movement.

If a character has an encounter at any point, he then makes the HT roll as described on p. B430 to see if he is down any FP at that point. The usual modifiers apply.

Heat

Per p. B434, when a character gets to the top 10° of his comfort zone (which, for humans and the like is 80° F), instead of losing FP, the character moves 10% slower for the day. For each extra 10° of temperature, the character moves an extra 10% slower. This is to assume that when a character starts to overheat, he ducks into the shade, and that's where the time is lost.
If a character has an encounter at any point, he then makes the HT roll as described on p. B434 to see if he is down any FP at that point. The usual modifiers apply.

Rain and Snow

When on the ground, rain and snow modify the terrain as p. B351: rain and light snow halve speed, snow deeper than ankle-deep quarters it. Roads don't matter; none of them are any good. Rain goes away after the day; snow stays until the temperature has been over 35° for 10 days with no snow. When falling, rain and snow halve movement for a time equal to the number of half-hour cells (I'm using the d30 Sandbox Companion) for non-severe storms, and stop it for severe storms. Or, in short, it's -2.5% per half-hour cell of non-severe storms and -5% per half-hour of severe storms. You can round to the nearest 10%, so a half-hour of light rain is no big deal.

Pressure

Low atmospheric pressure happens at 6,000 ft. (And please, Steve Jackson Games, stop using the prime and double prime symbols, and write out "ft." and "in." It is much easier to read. Ask Nigel Tufnel.) Unlike cold and heat, the rules on p. B429 work well, since they handle effects for a whole day.

Weather Sense

Once a day, one character makes a Weather Sense roll. A success means he knows what the weather will be for the day, and can negate 10% of penalties for each of heat/cold and rain/snow. A critical success means he can negate 20% of those penalties, while a critical failure slows down all travel by 20% (if there's a rain storm, the group walks right into it, or if it's a sunny day, it keeps trying to prepare for rain).

Camping

If camping in the cold, make an HT or HT-based Survival (Arctic) roll if camping in less than 35° weather. The daily Weather Sense roll gives a +2 to the group's rolls if made. On a failure, a character wakes up with FP loss equal to points by which he missed the roll. Use usual modifiers in Basic under Cold. He must rest longer to get back this loss, resulting in -10% to Move for each FP lost unless he is willing to always be down the FP at any encounter. Winter bedding like a sleeping fur is considered the +5 clothing; a tent gives another +5.

Same story for camping in heat, except the Survival specialty is Desert. Yes, a tent gives a bonus.

If there is rain or snow during the night, a tent protects against light rain or snow. If not in a tent, the storm length counts as missed sleep. Tents might blow over in a storm: they stay up on 15 or less on 3d in a light storm (10-20 mph), 12 or less in a non-severe multicell storm (20-40 mph), 9 or less in a severe storm (40-60 mph), 6 or less in a supercell storm. They always blow over in a tornado. If in cold weather, the character now makes his HT rolls as wet.

Encounters

When traveling through civilized areas, an encounter happens on 6 or less on 3d. Two rolls happen: one for the day, one for the night. For savage areas, I use a variant of Roger SG Sorolla's One-Page Wilderness System, with a roll of 12 on the d20 becoming a totally random encounter.

Encounter distance is 4d×10 yards (stolen from the Cook Expert Set). Add the biggest SM on each side to the roll before multiplying.

Surprise is a Perception check, modified by relative SM. If one side succeeds and the other fails, the winning side can move to 1d×10 yards before the other notices. See more details.

Evasion uses the rules for chases on p. 31 of GURPS Action 2: Exploits. Use party size as a modifier from Speed/Range as a bonus for the pursuer and a penalty for the quarry (e.g., a group of four men get a +1 against a lone elf, who gets a +2; when a lone dragon comes and chases all five of them, it gets a -2 penalty, as does the group of 5). Make only one roll a side, likely the best one.

Ugh, I lost some stuff, so here's the order, again adapted from the Expert set:

1. The GM rolls weather.
2. The GM or a player (depending on taste) rolls Weather Sense. Since we're talking about travel speed, I can't see too big a deal in a player rolling this, but it seems weird to me.
3. The group makes Hiking (or Riding or Skiing) rolls.
4. The GM calculates travel speed. This takes into account the weather, the Weather Sense roll, the Hiking/Riding/Skiing roll, and how well rested the group is.
5. The GM makes two encounter checks: one for the first half of the day, one for the second.
6. When going into a hex, there are two rolls the GM makes. The first is a Navigation (Land) roll. If this is failed, then the characters go into one of the nearby hexes, and the GM makes a Per-based Navigation (Land) roll to see if the navigator notices he screwed up. The other is an encounter check.
7. If there's an encounter, resolve it. If really crappy weather happens, resolve it.
8. Once the travel day is done, the party makes camp, and makes its Survival rolls to see if they lose HP (2d-4 HP loss on a failure)
9. After this, it makes its Foraging rolls.
10. There are two encounter checks, one for each half of the night.
11. If there's an encounter, resolve it. If really crappy weather happens, resolve it.
12. Wash, rinse, repeat.