Getting Started with Dungeon Fantasy

[Evil Homer]

I've run a little bit of GURPS before with, let's call it mixed success. I'm trying again though with some Dungeon Fantasy. I know, late to the party right?

In any case I've come in search of wisdom and experience and perhaps help. I'll be using a combination of Lost City of Barakus and the Tomb of Absythor from Frog Fog Games (specifically the Pathfinder versions if it matters) as the basis of my game. I find FGG's stuff tends to conjure that old skool feel I'm looking for.

We'll be playing over Foundry with GURPS tool but to start will be trying to minimize using the tool. Last time tried GURPS the combination of rules and tool was a little overwhelming so I'm trying to keep it simple.

Characters will be bog standard DF1 characters, with an extra 20 points for a race (or primary attribute only if Human). Races restricted to:
Human
Halfling
Elf
Dwarf
Gnome
Half-Ogre

Characters in the group:

• Dwarf Druid with a Dire Wolverine Ally (more on this in a minute)
• Human Knight sword and shield type build
• Half-Ogre Thief - he'll end maxing out whatever active defense he can, it's his thing as a player.
• Human Wizard - artillery style
• Human Cleric

Anything I should be looking out for?

As I said the Druid is wanting to take a 187 point ally, a Dire Wolverine. He built one based on the conversion found here:
[URL="https://gurps.fandom.com/wiki/Dire_Wolverine"]
I'm going to compare it to the cave bear found in DF 11 Allies. I've seen the Wolverine in DF 11, is there a GURPS Dire template I'm missing somewhere I could use to scale that stat block up?

My plan is to take it slow and easy, we may start with just the basic (not GURPS Light) combat rules for a while before going all out with the actual Tactical Combat system. I'm willing to take it slow here. I really would like this attempt at GURPS to be successful.

So I'll take any advice and input you have.

Thanks
-EH

[mlangsdorf]

The Dire Wolverine is weird - it's bigger than a horse (SM +2) but light weight for its size (only 2,000 lbs). It has DR 2 and otherwise bad defenses because it's a berserker and can't defend. I expect that healing up the animal companion will take up most of the cleric's FP and be the practical limit on how much the group can delve in a day.

You should consider carefully if you're going to let weapon parries damage animal attacks - see p 376. A lot of DF GMs (myself included) have mostly ditched this rule, because it makes it too easy to injure and kill animals.

Artillery wizard is the least effective DF mage subtype, but from a GM's perspective, it has the least number of spells that are going to make you tear out your hair. I'd recommend to the player that he either build up his spells before opening a door (an 8d Lightning Bolt isn't that great a spell, but it's a lot better if the wizard cast it before the fight and consumed Paut to recover while no one was trying to kill him), or rely nearly exclusively on 1d Concussion spells thrown at the ground on the far side of foes. Concussion damage is pretty meh, but making everyone on Team Evil resist stun at HT-3 is enough to justify bringing a wizard along.

A half-ogre thief seems like a contradiction, but I believe Bruno on the forums had good success with one. She said something close to "he's not the best at sneaking around, but he hits pretty hard when he's discovered and he can do something after backstabbing."

My usual advice on converting modern D&D adventures to DF applies: DF fights work best when they're 4-12 foes versus 5-6 delvers. A lot of modern D&D encounters are a single foe, so combine multiple encounters into a single, larger encounter. I really like having the enemies show up in waves, preferably from multiple directions, so the delvers have to move and reorient themselves to avoid getting flanked. If it's a more old-school adventure that has larger encounters, you can probably use them as-is.

And do remember that DF works best if you throw a lot different types of foes at people: not just mundane humanoids, but swarms and other diffuse foes, creatures without eyes or vitals (golems, skeletons, etc), and just plain weird stuff. Even the mini-beastiary in DF2: Dungeons has a bit of variety, so use that or your PCs will optimize to fight mundane humanoids and your game will probably get out of hand (I'm speaking from painful experience here).

[Balor Patch]

Originally Posted by Evil Homer

I'm going to compare it to the cave bear found in DF 11 Allies. I've seen the Wolverine in DF 11, is there a GURPS Dire template I'm missing somewhere I could use to scale that stat block up?

Allies is DF5, DF11 is Power Ups.

Pyramid 3/76 "Dire and Terrible Monsters" has the lens you are looking for.

[Refplace]

I recommend you and your players download the free items here.
https://warehouse23.com/collections/...+Jackson+Games

Tell them its optional but the Combat cards will come in handy as they are a quick reference to the combat maneuvers and what each maneuver offers in the way of bonuses and penalties. Printing out a set will help them get used to combat choices, speeding up play.
Tell them they can read the marital Arts cheat sheet if they want but that you are not using it now, you might add that in later after everyone is familiar with combat and if they want it. The curious will look them over and the fighters will probably eventually want to add the option.
The Ruler helps them recall range penalties and such and let them know that Forge with the GURPS aid includes most or all of that but you are not using it yet, till every one is comfortable with Forge. This will let them get familiar with the rules more quickly and get them a reason to be more interested in learning how to use Forge.


Advice for the Wizard, tell him that missile spells have decent range but require rolls to hit which are based on DX so not to ignore DX. Unless you allow Psychic Guidance. Also DX makes it harder to hit them and lets them move sooner so its pretty useful.
Make sure they know about Aiming, that they can charge up a spell for more damage if they take a bit more time and that they can hold a missile spell ready to be thrown but be careful about dropping it on their foot. Let them know its usually better to cast a spell for free than to go for bigger spells and run out of fatigue but the cool thing is they have the choice. So go small against lightly armored foes and big against the bosses or heavily armored foes. Get a good mix of spells, preferably at least one area or explosion and one good direct damage missile spells.
Concussion is one of my favorites as you get damage plus a chance to stun.
A variety is useful but you really want to try and put extra points in your signature or favorites so you can cast them cheaper and more reliably.

Advise the cleric to take multiple healing spells to minimize the penalty and fatigue use by casting the best spell for the moment.

[Evil Homer]

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

Allies is DF5, DF11 is Power Ups.

Pyramid 3/76 "Dire and Terrible Monsters" has the lens you are looking for.

Perfect! Thanks