Dungeoncrawl procedures

Not long ago there was a post on the Alexandrian about the lack of dungeon keying guidelines nowadays. Fast forward to this week when I was chatting with someone on Discord about scenario structures, which led me to try looking for procedures for certain scenarios, which led me to an older post on the Alexandrian with a summary the dungeoncrawling procedures from the original Dungeons & Dragons. Somehow, I had missed this post before, or hadn’t paid it much heed, but this time, I was in the mood to fully port these procedures to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. So, this is it, with commentary below:

1. You can move a number of yards equal to twenty times your encumbered Move each turn. A turn is about 10 minutes long. Alternately, a party can move one room each turn.
2. Non-movement activities also take up a turn or some fraction of a turn. Searching a 10-foot section of wall takes 1 turn. Secret passages are found a Search roll at penalty, average -5; roll 2d-2 if you need a random number.
3. The party must rest 1 turn in 6. If a flight/pursuit has taken place, it must rest for 2 turns in 6. If they do not rest, the characters are down 1+Encumbrance level FP until resting.
4. Wandering Monsters: These show up on a 6 or less on a roll of 3d each turn; 7 is a clue if moving.
5. Monsters: When encountered, roll 3d on Reaction Table. Poor or worse is a negative reaction (fight); Neutral is an uncertain reaction (wary); Good or better is a positive reaction (welcoming). Apply appropriate modifiers.
• Monsters sighted at 4d yards, or edge of the room.
• Surprise: Per check. If failed, must make a DX check to keep from dropping a held item. Monsters are sighted at 2d yards instead of 4d.
• One side can try to avoid the encounter unless it is surprised and within 7 yards of a non-surprised side. Flight is a simple comparison of encumbered Move scores. Handle this in blocks of 15 seconds (since that's the threshold for a HT check); if the fleeing side gets a lead of 30 yards, the other side stops chasing it. If the PCs turn a corner or go up stairs or go through a door, there is a 2 in 6 chance the monsters keep pursuing. If the PCs go through secret door, there is a 1 in 6 chance the monsters keep pursuing. (See Running Away! (Exploits, p. 22) to handle obstacles for each side.) Burning oil keeps many monsters from pursuing; handle this as a Reaction roll: Bestial monsters will stop pursuit on a Neutral or better reaction, others stop on a Good or better reaction. Dropping edible items will force monsters who lack Doesn’t Eat or Drink to make a Will check or stop pursuit (Gluttony modifies check per Fright Check modifier); Bestial grants -5 to this check. Dropping treasure also forces a Reaction roll (Greedy modifies check per Fright Check modifier) to stop pursuit; monsters will stop pursuit on a Neutral or better reaction unless the monster is Bestial, in which case it will ignore treasure.
6. Other activities:
• Many doors must be forced open with Forced Entry at a penalty; roll 1d-1 if you don't know it. Failure means that you get the door open, but the GM makes another wandering monster check. Up to three characters can force a door simultaneously (each trained helper grants +1 to Forced Entry), but forcing a door means you can’t immediately react to what’s on the other side.
• Most traps are sprung 2 in 6; roll for each delver.
• Listening at doors (Hearing at -(DR+HP)/5, and at an additional -2 if you do not have a spy's horn) detects monsters behind closed doors. Monsters with Doesn’t Breathe advantage do not make enough sound to detect in this way.

Some comments:

1. The rates I give let PCs move a little farther in a turn than in D&D; the D&D rates translate to sixteen times Move for unencumbered movement. There are a few reasons for this. First is that it’s easier to multiply by twenty in your head. Another is that Dungeon Fantasy characters are much more likely to be slightly encumbered than D&D characters; almost no starting character is unencumbered without dropping all gear or having the Lighten spell always on. Countering this is that base Move for most Dungeon Fantasy characters is slightly higher than normal (Move 6 is average). A third reason is that the D&D rate is really slow, or 4.8 inches a second unencumbered. I get that this is abstracting searching and being on your guard as well, but still, you’re talking about the slowest you go.
• A handy coincidence for the 10-minute turn is that FP recovery rates are keyed to 10 minutes base. You can just say that a resting character gets back 1 FP in a rest, or 2 FP with Fit or Recover Energy-15, or 5 FP with Recover Energy-20.
2. I think we can assume that the movement rates above assume some general searching already. Again, D&D characters move 240 feet every 10 minutes. Unencumbered. If all they’re doing is moving, they're turtles. Characters in plate armor are moving half that.
3. The idea for this being the penalty comes from Travel Fatigue on p. 24 of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures. Having said that, I’m not wholly sure we need this; spellcasters are going to want to rest often in this system anyways. Anyways, OD&D doesn't list a penalty for not resting; Tom Moldvay's Basic D&D set has -1 to hit and damage. If we do want to go this route, docking FP is the way to go since this greatly weakens spellcasters and fits with how things otherwise work in GURPS.
4. Right now, wandering monsters in Dungeon Fantasy are mostly 9 or less on 3d every hour, or a 38% chance. Checking wandering monsters every turn keeps characters on their toes (and keeps the spellcasters from resting) and it’s easier to remember if you’re always doing it. Regardless, a 6 or less every 10 minutes translates to a 44% chance an hour, which is in line with the current rate. The chance of a clue is my addition; I’m keen on clues. Regardless, I pre-roll these, and just go down the list each turn.
5. This is a lot, but I’ll start with reactions. Not all monsters will fight. Granted, the reaction modifiers in Dungeon Fantasy make fight more likely than in D&D, but there always needs to be a chance. My own game's last session had an encounter which went well due to a good reaction roll. It would have been either a TPK or PCs skedaddle out of the dungeon had it not. Like wandering monsters, I preroll these.
• Sighted: This is a literal translation of D&D distances.
• Surprise: A Perception check works well for Dungeon Fantasy, and the rules (Surprise Attacks, Exploits, pp. 26-27) support this. This also lets me just halve the roll for the encounter distance.
• Avoid: I’ve done some fretting about how to handle running and you can convince me that there’s a better way. A more comprehensive system is on pp. 31-35 of GURPS Action 2: Exploits. Archon Shiva has another system and more thoughts on this. Regardless, I fixed the likelihood that going through doors or around corners stops the chase; Justin Alexander just transcribed things from The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures wrong or was writing it fast. (I think he was going from memory, and the exact rates aren’t important in the article or change its point.) I’m not wholly sold that I’m handling dropping treasure perfectly, but I like the basic idea: you can get away if you get rid of a precious resource. I’m sure bigger monsters need more food or smarter monsters need more treasure, but I don’t feel like working about that now. 
• Note on handling Greedy and Gluttony: Phobias in GURPS have modifiers to Fright Checks based on self-control roll. Apply this as-is (negative) to an attribute check or the inverse (positive) to a Reaction roll. Thus, a monster with Gluttony (9) will be at -3 to the Will check to keep from stopping to eat.
6. Other things:
1. Doors: I got rid of the auto-shutting doors of OD&D; that’s just too weird for too little benefit. If you want them, just use the OD&D rules for wedging open the door.
2. Traps: One benefit of being familiar with early OD&D (my knowledge comes from running Caverns of Thracia) is the idea that PCs do not auto-spring traps. The die roll abstracts the room and keeps you from having to suddenly force PCs to start showing you where they are on a map.
3. Listening: I did like being forced to think about how to handle listening at doors, and what that means. That’s part of the reason for this exercise. Thus, listening at the door means trying to see if there's a monster given non-obvious activity (I'm sure that if the monsters are covering Camel songs the PCs don't need a Hearing roll). Since undead don’t make a sound, that leads me to think that there’s something about the characteristics of being undead that avoids sound, and that led me to using Doesn’t Breathe for this. I took the penalty from the spy's horn on Adventurers, p. 26 (or p. 113 for the one in the boxed set), with the additional -2 to incentivize buying a spy's horn and thus treating it as equipment. Anyone can press his ear to the door and try to listen; spy's horns just make it better.

19 April and 2 May 2020: Rats! Fatigue!

Dramatis personae

Horace, wizard
Felcanis, elf cleric
Jiro, swordswoman
Lucdalen, elf-hating elf wizard/thief
Kurt, hobbit fighter

Quid occurrit

The party makes it to the door, and Horace remembers something about a second front door behind the first in his reading about the Cairn. Lucdalen casts Detect Magic and finds no magic on the door, but finds some kind of non-magical trap near the top. As the door is locked, Lucdalen casts Mage Hand and tries to pick the lock with it, but fails. So, he shrugs and casts Lockmaster. Problem solved, but … no second door. Suspicious, Horace casts See Secrets and finds the second door at the ceiling, right behind the first, and going to slam down on anyone who walks through the first door. Lucdalen, however, disables the trap.

The group plans to rest a bit after its wizards have cast spells, but Felcanis casts Lend Energy to help speed the resting.

Speeding this up to skip the rest is good because once they step inside, they see some scurrying on the floor from four giant rats, amazed to see light from the door (though some comes from the east). While Jiro hangs back, Kurt runs up to a rat and grabs it, trying to get a new mount. Horace casts Armor 2 on Lucdalen, while Felcanis tries to run up to a rat and smack it with her mace, and misses. Kurt and the rat keep up their wrestling match, while Horace casts Shield 1 on Jiro. The other three rats back away, while the rat with Kurt tries to bite him, and doesn’t do anything from the hobbit-hold. Jiro at last runs up to Kurt’s rat, and sticks her sword into him (the rat has a big set of rat balls). The rat stays awake, but Lucdalen ends his life with Steal Vitality.

After this, the group rests for a half hour, and nothing shows up in that time. They choose to go through a door to their west, which Lucdalen doesn’t think has any traps. Kurt goes into the room, which is empty with no other ways out, and walks around, looking for stuff. Instead, once he tries to go out, he steps on a floor tile which triggers a trap, which unleashes a rain of darts on his left hand and left leg. However, owing to his armor, these darts only go “ping ping ping” instead of hurting him. Lucdalen goes inside to see what he missed, and finds that the trap is out of darts. He also finds that there are some cheesecloth wrappers and crumbs that someone threw into a corner, and these wrappers do not have the layer of dust that the rest of the room has all over it. Horace again casts See Secrets, and finds none in this room.

Then the group goes down a short flight of stairs to the east into the lighted area. They see that this lighted area is a big garden, with Continual Sunlight or something akin all over the ceiling and raising the mana of the area. There’s a stream to their east, running from the outside (they saw a stream outside, so this is presumably the same one) and a bridge going over it, and on that bridge are two ogres. The ogres, whose call each other Grog and Ugh, are grousing about not killing a rat and going hungry, and do not see the heroes. Jiro moves hand over hand alongside the bridge, trying to sneak up on the ogres, but Kurt throws his axe at them, missing them and letting them know he’s there. The ogres, hungry, move to fight Kurt. Felcanis casts Shield 3 on herself, while Lucdalen also starts casting a spell. Felcanis’s spell leads Ugh to say that he doesn’t like “magic woman” because she is “like big snake woman!” while Grog says he doesn’t like either the magic woman or the big snake woman. Horace casts a small Fireball, which burns bright in his hand, while Felcanis fires up a Sunbolt. Kurt throws another axe, which hits Ugh in the leg, and when Grog and Ugh try to rush Kurt and smack his head with their mauls, Ugh’s maul handle breaks. Horace lobs his little Fireball which whizzes past Kurt and the ogres, while Felcanis’s Sunbolt goes past Grog and hits Ugh. Not a good day for Ugh, since he also didn’t kill a rat earlier, by his own admission. Lucdalen gets off his Sleep spell on Grog, who passes out, then Kurt swings his pick into Ugh’s innards, taking him down.

After resting a bit, Horace checks out the nearest tree. It’s an alder tree whose catkins have black-and-blue stripes, which are not normal. Kurt sees some more giant rats beyond the tree, and throws his axe at them, missing them. Kurt then goes to get back his axe, and two of the rats bite into his armor when he does so. The rats swarm around Kurt, and three try to bite but somehow do not hit him (two miss critically, as it happens; I figure the chance of all three rats missing is 1-in-1,260). Kurt whips out another axe and tries to hit a rat but slips and falls, then misses with his mace and axe again while on the ground. Lucdalen steps behind a rat and stabs it from behind with his spear. That rat starts to back off a bit and the others try to bit Kurt in the chinks in his armor, but get nowhere. Horace, bored, casts a small Fireball, while Kurt at last hits a rat with his axe and mace. Lucdalen misses with his spear and Horace hits a wounded rat with his Fireball, which passes out while the others panic and flee from the fire.

After some rest, Horace looks at another tree, which has oddly long-and-pointed cones. This puzzles him, though he does recall that the goddess Rōripermónē sent a servitor to watch over the garden.

Lucdalen spots a door and unlocks it. Horace thinks the room might be part of a temple of tome farming-oriented sect, and recalls that the room has a 1-yard wide hole in the ground with a metal spinner at the top and a big fan blade at the bottom. Maybe they churned butter in it. Anyways, they try to go into the room, and Kurt feels a magical hand keeping him from going inside, though Lucdalen has no problems. Lucdalen and Horace feel some kind of weird magic with the door. Lucdalen casts Suspend Magic on the doorway, which lets Kurt and the others go through the door.

All this spell casting makes the gang rest. As it does so, a man-sized viper slithers through the door. Kurt tries to grab it, but misses, and the snake backs off. The gang keeps resting.

Lucdalen sends a Wizard Eye through an ajar door to the north and sees a big slab floating three feet above the ground. After telling this to Horace, Horace peeks and sees the slab, and thinks the slab is made of pure magic, and it’s at the height of a big banquet table. Lucdalen sends the Wizard Eye into another room, and sees many puddles of a clear liquid as well as a wooden sign in a strange tongue by the door.

Res aliae

This was two sessions worth, which is a grind since the group is spellcaster-heavy. Using the fatigue rules as-written and making sure random encounters happen while characters are resting is a way to make sure those spellcasters don't overcome everything, and Lucdalen and Horace are both built to bypass challenges. Fatigue is also a hassle to track for those who aren't used to handling a spellcaster.

Game log 5 April 2020: Thrown to the wolves

Dramatis personae

Horace, wizard
Felcanis, elf cleric
Jiro, swordswoman
Lucdalen, elf-hating elf wizard
Kurt, hobbit fighter

Quid occurrit

Felcanis has trouble getting back to sleep after the fight. Still, the next morning, the gang sets out, looking for the dungeon. Not long after setting out, they see some shapes moving in the trees—five wolves. The wolves look hungry, and the mule looks well-fed.

It pretty much goes like you’d expect. The wolves run for the mule, but the thick woods slow them down, letting the characters make mincemeat of them. The highlight is Kurt instead of killing a wolf, instead he announces, “I’m going to mount this beast.” Mercifully, that just means trying to subdue the wolf, and making friends with it. Kurt does subdue the wolf, though after the wolf doesn’t like Kurt, they kill it, too.

After that, they gut the wolves and take their meat, then start looking for the dungeon. The next day, they let Felcanis sleep, and while she sleeps, Horace and Lucdalen keep bickering, then move on a little bit until they set up camp again. The night goes well, and not long after dawn, they find a stream leading to a big set of doors.

Res aliae

While I prefer text, we do use voice as well because John (Felcanis) doesn’t type well. Unfortunately, Roll20 voice crapped out on me, which led to me making a Discord call in the middle of the game. Having voice open might have made clear that some of the bickering was purely in-character, so we’re going to try Discord for that tomorrow.

The travel, however, went well, and even though it looks like a minor fight (and it was), the wolf fight went well, too. Kurt trying to take down and get on a wolf gave Fantastic Dungeon Grappling a workout, which it handled well.

Game log for 22 March 2020: Virtual travel

Dramatis personae

Horace, wizard
Felcanis, elf cleric
Jiro, swordswoman
Lucdalen, elf-hating elf wizard
Kurt, hobbit fighter

Quid occurrit

They make it to the Magog tavern in Ōndrûnkš. There, Jiro buys a book from a peddler with one ear called Traces of the East, which is about the elves of the east of the Eldalîvā Woods. (Odd place, but the peddler is there having a drink.) She finds nothing special in the book, then she lets Horace read it.

Horace finds out that the book does have a few remarks about the Curious Cairn of the Collector:

“The evil sect near the western edge of the woods has a big library. Alas, it has only one spell book, and even that book, The Revealed Great Exploits of the Engineer: For Which He Was Burnt, has only two spells in its selection, as an add-on: Mind over Matter and Vision of Doom.” As Horace knows nothing about these spells, this makes him interested.

Nothing happens at night, and the next night they spend in a peasant hovel in Bóllā, the last village before the woods. The next morning, they set forth into the woods.

The first day of the trip is unremarkable, though they don’t get far as nobody knows much about trips through the woods. Indeed, they were lucky that Kurt chose to buy a compass from a peasant in Bóllā.

That night, a thin snake comes to the camp when Lucdalen is on watch, though when they at last spot it, it flees, with Jiro and Kurt uselessly trying to hit it in the dark.

Res aliae

Not much of a session in the logs, but the players did have a lot of roleplaying banter in the tavern. The big after-action discussion was about travel, which folks had a hard time following in Roll20.  Part of the issue was that this was the first wilderness trip with the new characters, and the new characters do not include wilderness stud Mayhem. Mayhem has points in three Survival skills, and knows them at a level of about 18, and generally gets more wilderness awesome from there. Anyways, I did make sure to spell things out for them, which somehow are more understandable in person.

Roll20 worked alright. Right now I'm fiddling with maps; if/when they make it to the dungeon (it's never assured to get there), I'll have to have maps, and I'll have to split things so that they're loadable.  They're not quite at the level I'd like, but I have to have something. It's different to prep these things than to worry about Weirdness Magnet.

Game log 8 February 2020: Rob the rich because they have money

Dramatis personae

Jiro, swordswoman
Felcanis, cleric
Horace, magic-abusing nerd
Lucdalen, magic-abusing self-hating elf
Kurt, hobbit henchman of Lucdalen

Quid occurrit

Yengrátōr, the barkeep at the Scarlet Harlot, offers Jiro 2,000 copper farthings to help pay for their adventure. In return, he asks for a one-fifth share of the loot. He says he isn’t interested in the sword, but wants a cut of everything else. Jiro thinks this sounds like a good deal. Yengrátōr also asks Lucdalen to not have his “friends” show up again.

Felcanis is about to come back to the Scarlet Harlot, but Bašêr, the high priest of Saundīvós, says, “I’m having an issue casting spells, so you might want to back off for a day.” Felcanis asks him with what he needs help, and Bašêr says, “There’s an old man with a mustache who needs some healing, so if you can help him out.” This man has a gash from a farming instrument, which Felcanis heals by casting Major Healing on him. Afterwards, she goes back to the Scarlet Harlot.

From there, they start stocking up gear. Horace buys Blasphemies & Excommunications by The Grand Heresiarch of Ažbrátōr for 4 copper. The bookseller tries to sell him a map of the Eldalîva Woods, but he balks at the 50 copper price. However, when Lucdalen comes in, the bookseller makes her sale to him. Ca-ching! Sadly, the Curious Cairn of the Collector isn’t on the map.

Horace, however, is able to remember a small passage from his many studies about the Curious Cairn of the Collector being the home to a religious cult pre-Undead Plague that had a big indoor garden. Lucdalen hires a hobbit henchman whose name is Kurt.

The next day, they set forth. On the road to the southeastern villages, they run into ten armed folks in tattered armor. The heroes cast spells to get ready: Great Haste on Jiro, Flaming Weapon and Shield on Horace, starting Invisibility.

The shifty-looking folks greet them with “Oh, hello there!” After Kurt greets them back, one in a nasty wig asks, “Do you have any good loot on you? We’ll help you out for some good loot.”

Horace, unhappy about the 2,000 copper loan, says, “Well, considering that they’re in debt for two grand, they’re not likely to help you out much.” The bandits ask what they got for the money, and Kurt blabs about the quest into the woods. The bandits ask to join, and after some stalling, Kurt gives up and charges them.

It was a short battle before the bandits give up. Kurt has tackled one and head-butted him into unconsciousness before they tell their awful secret: “We just got robbed ourselves!”

Res aliae

The bandits gave in partly owing to good Reaction rolls, and partly owing to time.

Our next game will be tomorrow, online. I expect half the game to be fiddling with Roll20, which I mostly know as a player. Since it sounds like COVID19 restrictions are going to be with us for a few months, I suppose I get baptism by fire as a Roll20 GM.

Game log for 26 January 2020: Elves without Weird Jimmy

Dramatis personae

Lucdalen, self-hating high elf wizard (Brandon)
Horace, wizard seeking to know everything (Roman)
Felcanis, elf cleric of Saundīvós, god of light (John)
Jiro, slightly wolfen swordswoman (Sophia)
Kokichi, elf thief (Imogen)

Quid occurrit

The game opens in the Scarlet Harlot tavern in Mīštássun, the one town in the dale. Lucdalen, a wayward high elf, hears a young woman talking loudly about how much she hates elves. He goes up to talk to her and buy her a drink, though keeping his hood up.

Meanwhile, Jiro, a young swordswoman with wolf ears, sits with her friend, the elf thief Kokichi, and hears another barfellow say that the sword of the elf hero Otórno is in the Curious Cairn of the Collector in the Eldalîvā Woods to the southeast.

Horace, a wizard and overall seeker of knowledge, also overhears this, but thought little of it, and instead leaves of the bar lest he hear any more of Êvā babbling. He sits under a tree and read one of his books, and in it, finds that there is a mural in the Curious Cairn of the Collector that will kill whoever touches it.

Likewise Felcanis, an elven cleric of Saundīvós, the god of light, leaves after hearing this, and goes to church a few buildings away. There, he listens to the sermon of another cleric, hoping for tales that might be handy, but hears nothing. However, a voice in his head says so that he may learn the ultimate light spell, he needs to open up the woods to light.

Lucdalen buys Êvā another drink, and she starts to think he’s getting fresh with her. She gets mad and calls Lucdalen an elf. Such a barb so bothers Lucdalen that he slaps Êvā, who then runs screaming out of the Scarlet Harlot.

Horace sees Êvā run past, and a few minutes later sees three high elves hastening towards the Scarlet Harlot. They go inside, and they step before Lucdalen and tell him to pull down his hood. He does so, showing his clipped ears, and also casts the Terror spell on them. One elf starts retching while another stands in fear.

The third, however, comes towards Lucdalen with his spear. Jiro sees this and starts to move behind the elves. Kokichi also sees this, and walks up behind the stunned elf and swipes his bow, with everyone else looking at the elves about to fight.

Horace goes up to the window and looks through, and sees that everyone inside is still an idiot. He casts the Aura spell on Lucdalen, sees that he is indeed a talented wizard, then hastens away. “Note to self: I don’t think I’ll be frequenting THIS establishment again.”

Lucdalen runs from the elf with the spear while the stunned elf snaps aware and also starts chasing Lucdalen. Lucdalen ducks through a back curtain into the kitchen, and runs through it. The two elves run after him, though the bartender tries to tackle one, and yells at the elves not to come back after they get away. Jiro, seeing an opening, grabs the beer Lucdalen had bought for Êvā, and starts drinking.

The elves chase Lucdalen through the town streets. He tries to kip up onto a roof when they  reach him, and they try to tackle each other. Lucdalen does grab one elf as he tried to grab him and tossed him into his friend, though his friend gets out of the way. As the elves come back from that toss, Lucdalen grabs the spear of the one still standing then smacks the elf getting off the ground with the side of it. After the first elf does not get his spear back, he tries grabbing Lucdalen, but does not do so, after which Lucdalen pokes him in the trunk. The elf still holding his spear tries stabbing Lucdalen, who Blinks away.

Lucdalen starts to run again, and this time, he loses the elves. He makes it back to the Scarlet Harlot, as does Felcanis, who heard the ado from the tavern while he was in church.

Res aliae

We rebooted with lower-point characters. This suits the style of Brandon and Roman, who drive most of the action. Mayhem might be back from time-to-time, if Steph ever pulls himself back to the table. Kokichi's player is a friend of my daughter's who may or may not be around again. If so, she may have another character; Brandon had made the character to have handy.

Also fitting with their style is something I had used a bit over the last few games, whose logs are not online—Mythic Game Master Emulator. I had originally planned on using it for non-dungeon things way back in 2014, but I never got around to asking for the things needed from the players—threads and NPCs relating to the characters—since I quickly gathered the group wasn't going to be into heavily random-yet-role-playing-driven adventures. This well fits Brandon and Roman as well as John, though their style leave the focus on single characters at times. They're still going into dungeons, but they'll also revel a bit in their above-ground lives.

For those who know how Mythic works, I split the scene when Êvā fled the tavern, with the Chaos Factor going up to 6 with it, but Lucdalen handling the elves lowered it back to 5. I had a few yes/no questions, namely whether the back door to the tavern was locked.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here is the monsters and treasure list

I've been a lazy rotter on keeping up my game logs. I've been playing and I have four sessions worth of notes to type up, but my excuse is … grad school. Now, one of those sessions was in July and I haven't had a busy semester, but that's the excuse I'm using, as lame as it is. I'll have to come up with a new excuse once I've graduated.

The sessions have been a little different, a lot of weird town and road adventures (using the Mythic Game Master Emulator as something of a Ouija board) with Roman retiring Xóran and playing his information broker Aramis for a session, until he got caught breaking into a house and doomed to death. Oops.

But that's not about all this. This is about usable content for the rest of you. I present the latest version of my big monsters and treasure list. It's so big I'm doing it as a PDF; yes, Emily, if you want it, I can send you the latest revision for the sortable list.

EDIT: Oh, bloody hell, here's the damn Excel file.

Anyways, the details:

Monster. While this should be obvious, I tried to add every version I could of the mix-and-match monsters (dragons, slimes). This means there are many entries.

Page. A legend. I hope I got all the sources I've used.

• ARM4 means Against the Rat-Men, page 4.
• B456 means GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns, page 456.
• C@N107 means Citadel at Norðvorn, page 107. I don't have a better link than the Kickstarter at the moment.
• DF10-17 means GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 10: Taverns, page 17. This is the format for all items in the main GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line.
• DF16 means Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, page 16 of Monsters.
• DFA1-45 means GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon, page 45. This is the format for all items in the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventures line.
• DFE1-14 means GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Encounters 1: The Pagoda of Worlds, page 14. All later releases in this now-short line will have the same format.
• DFM3-5 means GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 3: Born of Myth & Magic, page 5. This is the format for all items in the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters line.
• DFMI2-13 means Dungeon Fantasy Magic Items 2, page 13. Yes, there's a monster in there.
• DFRM2-4 means Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2, page 4.
• HOJ67 means Hall of Judgment, page 67.
• ISR9 means I Smell a Rat, page 9.
• P50-38 means Pyramid #3/50: Dungeon Fantasy II, page 38. This is the format for all Pyramid magazine issues.
• PDC101 means Pyramid Dungeon Collection, page 101.

Class. This is the monster class, like Animal or Mundane. I have the Terrible classes from the "Dire and Terrible Monsters" article in Pyramid #3/50: Dungeon Fantasy IV. I think I should have those as Dire instead, though I transcribed as the article has it, as it convention for librarians. I added (Swarm) to those monsters that are swarms after the conventional class, usually Animal.

IQ: Duh. I use this as a guideline for assigning treasure.

# App. That's "Number Appearing." You roll this number of dice to see how many the players encounter. I changed a few monsters to have more appearing to make sure that the encounter is at least a small challenge for 125-point characters and at least a footnote for 250-point characters. For those monsters that have lairs (see next entry), one-fifth of them are the average squad outside the lair, so divide the number in-lair by 16.5 to get the number of dice you need to roll for those encounters. Twofold a squad (so, two-fifths) will be out of their lair if your players run into them while they are active.

Lair. If this is N/A, then the monster doesn't make a lair and all are appearing. If this is always, then you've hit the lair and all are appearing. If this is a die with a minus, like 1d-3, then you roll one six-sided die and subtract 3. If the number is negative, you've stumbled upon their lair. If this number is zero, you've hit a squad of them, and the lair is in the same 5-or-6-mile hex. If this number is positive, you've hit a squad of them, and the lair is that many 5-or-6-mile hexes away. If you're not using outdoor hexes (boo) or a different size hex, fivefold that positive number is how many miles away their lair is.

$. How much the monsters' treasure is worth in GURPS $, minimum zero. This is treasure in the lair and does not count pocket change.

Items. How many magic items the monsters have in their lair. Minimum zero, of course. Does not include gear of leaders.

Strategy. Raider, Hoarder, or Incidental. See earlier versions of this for details. Gleefully swiped from Adventurer Conqueror King.

Change. Pocket change an individual monster has in GURPS $, minimum zero.

SM. Size Modifier.

HSM. Horizontal Size Modifier. That's the size of the monster when you take morphology traits like Horizontal and No Legs (Sessile) into account. See "Combat Writ Large" in Pyramid #3/77: Combat for more detail. Also handy if you have a specific room size in mind to know how much clearance Clarence the Dragon needs.

Hexes. Number of hexes the monster takes up. See "Combat Writ Large" in Pyramid #3/77: Combat for more detail.

Skill. Effective skill while grappling. See Fantastic Dungeon Grappling for more detail.

Damage. Damage in control points for grappling. See Fantastic Dungeon Grappling for more detail.

CM. Control Maximum, which is like hit points for grappling. Again, see Fantastic Dungeon Grappling for more detail.

OR. Offensive Rating. See "It's a Threat!" in Pyramid #3/77: Combat for more detail.

PR. Protective Rating. See "It's a Threat!" in Pyramid #3/77: Combat for more detail.

CER. Combat Effectiveness Rating. See "It's a Threat!" in Pyramid #3/77: Combat for more detail. Yes, I really figured all these. I'm sure I made loads of mistakes, though I did go through many of them twice.

Game log 23 June 2019: If the Tiger Mom irks you, wait until you meet these cats

Dramatis personae

Xoran, fox-man ("rúskwē") swordsman
Mayhem, pint-sized barbarian
Josiah, a wandering minstrel he
Ash, knight
Nikotsu, mercenary
Caleb, wizard
Maquia, huntress cleric
Kôštē, NPC cleric

Quid occurrit

After the ordeal, the heroes start to heal up. Ash pours his healing potion down the throat of Kôštē, while Nikotsu goes into Kôštē’s pouches and grabs one of Kôštē’s potions and also pours this down Kôštē’s throat. Maquia casts Major Healing on Kôštē, which at last wakes her up, giving them two healers to try to heal Caleb.

Alas, once healer cancels out the other when Maquia fumbles on her Major Healing spell after Kôštē cast hers. This sends Caleb to the brink of death for a minute or so while Kôštē and Maquia each cast Minor Healing on him, then pour a potion down his throat. Mayhem tries looking for healing herbs but can find none, but at least the other spells had stopped Caleb from drooling blood.

After about an hour, everyone but Caleb is awake and mulling around, Josiah and Ash go into the lean-to hut next to the Abbey, and find twelve bedrolls in use and three smoking jackets. There are other bedrolls not in use, which they gather were once those of the dead bandits who are stacked on the other side of the Abbey. The humans’ bodies have big purple buboes all over them. They shows the bodies to Maquia, who recalls that the death god Ažbrátōr had cursed the Abbey to give a sickness to anyone who dared to go inside.

That is enough for Xóran, who hates Ažbrátōr. “I’m going in; it’s my duty.” He starts to walk inside the Abbey, and says, “If I go in there and I get cursed and the curse doesn’t get lifted I’m going to kill each and every one of you.” Josiah goes with him, and when they walk inside, purple buboes start to show up on Xóran’s body. Josiah itches a little, but no buboes show up on him.

The two keep walking to the middle of the Abbey, and see a big bronze font in the middle, with a pillar on each of four corners, making a square with the round font in the middle. Above the font, they see a big canvas which old nails hold to the rafters as it sags downwards. Both start to go near the font, and as they do, hot oil shoots out at them. Both get out of the way, and see there is no oil in the font.

Josiah climbs up a pillar. He takes out a nail and the corner falls, and he can see the glow of the painting on the canvas. Xóran calls out, “Hurry up, I’m turning into a frickin' blueberry here!” Josiah goes up the next pillar, and pulls out another nail, making the painting fall down. A bunch of gold coins falls into the font, as does a silver bracelet and a burlap sack. Josiah goes up the third pillar and again takes out a nail, but when he does this to a fourth, he leans too far forward and hot oil shoots on him. He grimaces, but doesn’t fall, and undoes the last nail.

When Josiah gets down, Xóran says that while he may not live much longer, he will now call Josiah by name as he has earned his respect. They bring the loot to the door, and, after trying to push over the font and finding himself unable to do so, Xóran asks Ash to bring him a dead rabbit. Ash quickly finds and kills a rabbit, and tosses it inside. Xóran cuts open the rabbit’s body and cuts it up, and throws the bits and blood all over the font. He then walks back to the doorway and lets Maquia try to cast Cure Disease on him.

Somehow, the buboes go away. Xóran walks outside and breathes the fresh air, glad to be still alive. Xóran opens the sack, but when the others try, they cannot open it. Again, Xóran opens it, thinking it only opens for him.

Ash, Josiah, Mayhem, and Xóran light fire to the Abbey, and as they start to walk away, they see two rakshasas and six bandits watching them. Xóran says, “Sorry, was this yours? I guess we lit it on fire.”

One rakshasa laughs. “Thank you stupid fools for getting our treasure for us!”

Xóran scowls. “Great. Well, if you want your treasure then I guess you had better come and take it.”

Taking on two rakshasas and six bandits.
That's Xoran out in front:
"Bring it on."

So begins the fight. First one rakshasa breathes fire, but everyone gets out of the way. Everyone else moves to engage until the other rakshasa breathes water, freezing Ash and knocking down Maquia. Xóran and Josiah start to fight the fire-breathing rakshasa, and Xóran tells Nikotsu and Mayhem to “Brace the left flank!” Josiah’s blow hits the rakshasa while Nikotsu starts to fight a bandit.

The rakshasa scoffs at his wounds and smacks Josiah, but doesn’t live long enough to enjoy his cut, as Xóran kills that rakshasa with his magic sword to the skull before stunning a nearby bandit with his roar. Josiah wounds two bandits with fast blows before Kôštē casts Minor Healing on Josiah. Two other bandits and Nikotsu trade misses, while the last bandit smacks Ash in the face, dropping him to the ground.

The still-living rakshasa misses Nikotsu. Mayhem plants axe into bandit’s skull: “My great axe is ready to talk to you!” The bandits miss Josiah and Nikotsu and a third bandit’s blow doesn’t get through Mayhem’s armor. Nikotsu takes out bandit with a sword blow. Kôštē casts an especially blessed Major Healing on Josiah, bringing him back to full health.

Xoran and Josiah flank the rakshasa.

The rakshasa and Nikotsu trade misses, but Josiah takes out one bandit, making the other bandits flee. However, Kôštē thumps a bandit in the back with her staff as he runs past. Yet again do the rakshasa and Nikotsu trade misses while everyone else starts moving into position to help take out the rakshasa.

Xoran killed the first rakshasa with his magic sword.

Josiah cleans up the right flank; Xoran charges the left flank.

Only Xoran's sword can kill the last rakshasa.

Xóran gets near the rakshasa who tries to hit him, but Xóran whacks him instead. Mayhem tries to get in on the fun, but hits his own leg with his axe, making him go nuts. Nikotsu, however, does get a hit on the rakshasa, which smacks down Mayhem trying to hit him from the ground.

The rakshasa's three remaining bandits bolt and run.
This creature is as good as dead

That’s the last deed of the rakshasa, as Xoran’s magic sword finds its mark in its fur. Mayhem snaps out of his berserk rage, while Kôštē gets off another especially blessed Major Healing, this time on Mayhem.

Res aliae

We were a little short today, as Steph (Mayhem) is working in the summer and Hannah (Nikotsu) had the flu (which we later found out was an ear infection). So Sophia (Maquia) handled Nikotsu in combat while Roman (Xóran) and John (Ash/Caleb) handled Mayhem. Sophie will likely handle Mayhem until Steph comes back, as Maquia in a fight mostly heals and shoots.

Oh goodness, were the critical hits and misses fun. Maquia’s botched Major Healing spell let to a miss by 1 on an HT roll, making us break out the moral wound rules until Brandon (Josiah) just had Kôštē try to heal Caleb again, which fixed the damage. Mayhem of course smacked his own leg, but Kôštē (Brandon was running her) had two straight critical successes on Major Healing spells.

Xóran defiling the font didn’t do anything that anyone could see, but was entertaining enough to earn him a couple extra CP. He took a few pictures. I'm including them, with his captions lightly edited for grammar and stuff.

Hue and Cry

Because I realized I had need for something like this, both through play and through chatting with someone outside my group, here are rules for handling reinforcements when you fight part of a group of monsters inside their lair.

Hue and Cry: Not all monsters will be in their lair at all times. While this makes it easier to fight a small group, the others may show up and fight later! When fighting some monsters in their indoor lair, make a Per or Per-based Observation roll for the monsters; add any bonuses for Acute Hearing or similar Hearing-based traits. On a success, a number of monsters equal to one plus the margin of success will show up in a minute, and they will be aware there is fighting. Any not showing up in this group will show up in 1d hours, and will be unaware there is a fight. On a critical success, that number of monsters will show up in 3d seconds, with any not coming in this group will show up in a minute; all will be aware there is fighting. On a failure, all of the monsters will show up in 1d hours, unaware of anything amiss.

Outdoors, folks are usually farther away, leading to a lower chance of someone being around to hear the fight. Faster monsters wander farther than slower ones. Thus, take the lowest encumbered Move of the monsters, not including any bonuses for Enhanced Move, and look it up in yards on the Speed/Range Table (p. B550). Apply twofold this as a penalty to any Hearing-based rolls as above; don't apply a bonus for Move less than 2.

Roll Per or Per-based Observation as for indoors, with the penalty above for distance. On a success, half of any monsters out wandering will show up in 1d/2 hours (keep fractions), and will be aware there is trouble. The other half will show up in 1d hours, unaware of anything amiss. On a critical success, half the monsters will show up in 3d minutes, and the other half will show up in 1d/2 hours (keep fractions), all aware of the fight. On a failure, nobody will be aware of the fight; half will show up in 1d hours, as will the other half (roll separately for each half). Divide any times for monsters who are aware of trouble and using Enhanced Move to fight by one plus the level of Enhanced Move.

Signaling: Any monsters outdoors may try to signal their fellows out wandering. Use the rules for Signaling on p. 28 of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures. Assume that each half of those monsters are 1d times Move/2 miles away; roll separately for each half.

Either indoors or outdoors, if the delvers start fighting any reinforcements, make another Per or Per-based Observation roll for anyone else still not in the room or lair. Handle as above, except this goes for all monsters that would show up as reinforcements, not half or margin of success plus one. This keeps the GM from having to roll for smaller and smaller groups!

The upshot of all this is that players never should be sure they have cleared the room or lair, which is as it should be.

Game log 9 June 2019: We want violence, we want guts, we want your team by the nuts!

Dramatis personae

Xoran, fox-man ("rúskwē") swordsman
Mayhem, pint-sized barbarian
Josiah, a wandering minstrel he
Ash, knight
Nikotsu, mercenary
Caleb, wizard
Maquia, huntress cleric
Kôštē, NPC cleric

Quid occurrit

It is easy going from camp near the river. On the second day, they see the man who told them about the slave rebellion a few months earlier, but they doesn’t go near him nor he near them. On the fourth day, they make it a mile or so from the ogres’ old cave, and Mayhem finds a trail going to the west, which they follow the next morning.

About the middle of that morning, they see a cross of sticks near the trail, and Maquia looks and spots an old building with overgrown vines all over it. This, they guess, is the Abbey of the Respectful Warrior. They walk the last half-mile, then make a scouting group of Xóran, Josiah, Mayhem, and Nikotsu.

From a ways away, they see three goons wearing tattered crimson sashes—one woman and two men. Josiah roughs up his looks and walks up to the woman, telling her that he is trying to get to town from his farm, and that he is lost and has coins. The woman says that Josiah has indeed had a bad time, but, “You know town is a long ways away, right?” She then asks him for the rest of his money and waves the other two goons to come up to them. “Let’s relieve him of the rest of his stuff.” 

Xóran hears this, and shoots the woman in the chest. She falls, and yells, “Help!” Josiah pulls out his sword and tries hitting the two other goons, but doesn’t hit. Nikotsu, however, does with the arrow she lets loose into a goon, dropping him. The goon rushes forward (Josiah’s bastard sword makes it easier for him to hit them than for them to hit him), and Mayhem and Nikotsu also rush forward. Josiah easily takes out the other goon, with him passing out in Josiah’s arms after he cuts off the goon’s leg.

The other heroes dash to link up to their fellows. Mayhem makes the sound of a dragon, thinking that there are more foes in the lean-to and hoping to buy some time. However, little Mayhem cannot make the big blot-out-the-sky shadow of a dragon, and three more goons in tattered crimson sashes burst out, along with a tiger walking on two legs: a rakshasa. Maquia tells Xóran that only magic weapons or spells could kill the rakshasa, so Xóran turns his eyes and magic sword towards it.

The rakshasa, however, leans forward and out of its mouth comes a mighty wind. Kôštē, Caleb, and Ash all are unable to get out of the way, with Caleb falling over. Josiah blocks the wind from hitting him with the passed out, one-legged bandit who is bleeding to death. The wind blows off the poor bandit’s skin and flesh, leaving him a bunch of bloody bones.

Everyone standing then moves to fight other than Maquia. Caleb casts an Exploding Fireball through his pain, Kôštē heals Caleb through her pain, and Maquia heals Kôštē.

Josiah gets the first blow, hitting the rakshasa while everyone else is still getting ready. Kôštē heals Caleb, who starts to stand while holding a big ball of fire in his hand. Even Maquia moves forward, hoping to get near enough to cast Might on Xóran without failing. The tiger-man, however, gets a hit on Xóran that the fox-man never sees coming and into a chink in his armor, and he falls, seeing his own blood on the ground.

Xóran, however, is able to see through his daze, and his non-magical sword hits the cat on its rump. Josiah also smacks the rakshasa on the leg, which doesn’t bother it as much as it would have a man. The bandits and Ash make it to the fray, trading misses, but Nikotsu reaches over with her big sword and cuts a bandit. Kôštē again heals Caleb, who now is standing.

Xóran misses the rakshasa from the ground and the rakshasa misses Ash with its sword. Mayhem, however, cuts the head off of one bandit, while the other two bandits miss Josiah and Nikotsu. Josiah drops his shield and tries to hit one of the two living bandits but fails, as does Nikotsu. Ash hits the rakshasa, though its wounds still don’t bother it much.

And now Caleb leans back to throw his Explosive Fireball. Which he drops at his feet.

Kaboom.

Both Caleb and Kôštē take the full blast and Kôštē passes out. The ground under Caleb opens up into a 10-foot pit, into which Caleb falls.

Maquia, however, doesn’t stop, but steps nearer the fray and casts Major Healing on Xóran, healing him from a few yards away. The rakshasa tries to hit Ash, who parries, while Xóran stabs it twice with his magic sword through the lung, making it fall dead onto Ash's shield. Mayhem and Josiah try to take out the bandits but miss. One bandit misses Mayhem, but the second cuts Xóran on his neck. Both Ash's and Nikotsu's swords don’t land on bandits, Caleb passes out while trying to sit up, and Maquia's spell fizzles while trying to heal Xóran. A bandit's shield again blocks Mayhem's axe, but that is his last deed, as both Josiah and Ash fell them both.

Res aliae

Going through the log, I see that we didn't have folks stunned after failing major wound checks. This helped the players a bit, mostly Xóran, though he passed the HT roll on the blow to his neck right before killing the rakshasa.

Caleb's critical failure on trying to lob his spell was the highlight of the afternoon. At first, I was being kind and didn't think dropping his spell would do anything, but one or both of Roman (Xóran) or Brandon (Josiah) said that should totally be nasty, and you know what? They were right. Then one of the same two guys said that was Caleb's Weirdness Magnet going off and I pointed out that it wasn't, so had the ground open up under Caleb to have his Weirdness Magnet go off. The moral of this tale is that other players are nastier than the GM, who mostly cares about keeping the fight moving.

I think it was Roman or Steph (Mayhem) who said that this session was gorier than usual. My 11-year-old wasn’t bothered, and was proud of the crit she scored playing her sister’s fighter shooting the goon. As for me, I deemed the extra gore “perfect.”

Getting to the Abbey went quickly, as I had prerolled a whole bunch of random encounter checks. As I excel at this kind of prep instead of running at the table, this was a good idea.

My youngest daughter ran both Maquia and Nikotsu, the latter for her sister. She was bored as is her wont.