06-11-2020, 09:24 AM | #21 |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] What 2 hybrid characters would you run?
I confess to an indifference to playing low-IQ all-fight, no-spell types in duos or trios. Perhaps it's because I've been in too many campaigns where some selfish caster self-buffed to my level of fighting ability and still had tons of spells for every other situation . . . and also had the IQ and social skills to get better combat gear than me . . . and in some cases could create it (though that's a nonissue in DF).
In big parties, with eight or more PCs, I'm fine with it. There's more pressure to stick to a niche. But with two or three PCs, what seems to end up happening is that the caster becomes Selfy McBufferton, who's just as useful in combat as Thuggy Bowman, but who also serves as the face, the trap-disarmer, the survivalist, etc. by tossing a handful of points into each of a few domains on top of huge IQ and Magery or Power Investiture. Thuggy can protest by not playing bodyguard to Selfy, but that backfires when Selfy is the healer . . . and anyway, Selfy's player just comes back with Selfy II.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
06-11-2020, 10:53 AM | #22 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] What 2 hybrid characters would you run?
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06-11-2020, 05:37 PM | #23 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] What 2 hybrid characters would you run?
IME, you're right . . . but in many games, including 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder and not just GURPS, reality is that you get non-team-player gamers who see everything on their character sheet as for them. The non-healing cleric who self-buffs and jumps into melee is endemic there, too.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
06-11-2020, 07:51 PM | #24 | |
Join Date: Sep 2016
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Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] What 2 hybrid characters would you run?
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06-12-2020, 01:17 PM | #25 | |||
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] What 2 hybrid characters would you run?
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06-12-2020, 02:40 PM | #26 | |||
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] What 2 hybrid characters would you run?
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That said, don't discount the power of buffs. Might and Vigor really can do a lot of good, and then there's Blur and Shield. At ranges where Sathyril won't even find his archery abilities challenged, most enemies won't be hitting. Blur can really make things unfair, and Shield can enhance the power of Dodge. But if melee happens, we are talking about a pair of characters with Staff 16 and 17, meaning Parry 13. Even a little Shield goes a long way there. Quote:
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I don't like giving out less than $1,000 in TL Olden Times fantasy, so it doesn't scale back. You have to carefully decide what "starting level" is for adventurers and set the minimum $1,000 there on down. Otherwise you end up with players arguing that if 50-point commoners get $1,000, their 250-point heroes should get $7,000. Also, it helps a lot to specifically say "gear," so that PCs aren't walking around with tons of silver, looking for the perfect investment opportunity.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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06-12-2020, 08:12 PM | #27 |
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Snoopy's basement
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Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] What 2 hybrid characters would you run?
A swamp elf knight-courtesan and a half-ogre clown-monk.
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06-13-2020, 07:01 AM | #28 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] What 2 hybrid characters would you run?
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06-13-2020, 09:14 AM | #29 |
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Luxembourg
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Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] What 2 hybrid characters would you run?
While it is inferior to Kromm duo, I may suggest going with a duo of elementalist-cleric.
Between the allies and summoned/created elementals, the meat shields and damage dealing should be covered. The basic of healing are there. Social and thievery would be very basic, however. Thievery can be brute-forced with spells. The primary problem would be that the best elemental allies are SM+2... so not good for dungeons. |
06-13-2020, 04:10 PM | #30 |
Join Date: Apr 2015
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Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] What 2 hybrid characters would you run?
Hey, a question I have a perfect answer for! Some context: I was part of a large DF group game with a mix-and-match, whoever is available philosophy. Some adventures would have 6 or even 8 adventurers from the 20-some players who were part of the game. On quiet nights there would sometimes only be a couple of people plus the DM.
Me and another player had schedules that meshed well with the DM's, but not well with much of the main group. We did a lot of duo adventures, and over time the characters started to adventure exclusively as a duo and advanced to make that possible. Both characters started as 125 points henchmen (like everyone in this game) and ended up at about 400 points. My character, Gwendolyn, started as a half-elf Archer. She multi-classed into Druid (specializing in snakes), mostly for access to Hawk Vision (archery), Misty Mist (safe camping), Quick March (faster travels), and Windstorm (battlefield control). Over time she focused more heavily on druidic magic, but her archery skills were always useful. Here's the character sheet as she was last we played: https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1341150 The other character was the human Skirmisher Velouria. She never multiclassed, but specialized in being a skirmisher with skills in stealth, archery, and especially in duel wielding longswords. I don't have quick access to her character sheet unfortunately. Over our adventures we learned a bunch of things about playing GURPS as a two person party. Kromm is exactly right that stealth and range are a massive benefit, and we used and abused it whenever we could. Meteoric arrows hurled from hundreds of yards from a pair hidden with Stealth-18 + camouflage paint and outfits can cause a lot of trouble from almost complete safety. When we were forced into closer fights the focus was to cover each others backs and limit how many attackers could reach us conveniently. Windstorm was a staple in our melee fights; a 2 yard center would leave space for the two of us while forcing enemies to stand in the penalized ring unless they had long reach weapons. It would also deny the enemy the use of ranged weapons against us. Sacrificial parry is another boon, as it both allows for double defenses against dangerous attacks as well as defending your partners back and sides. Special Rapport and Teamwork were useful for justifying highly co-ordinated responses, like moving a windstorm as we both moved or pre-planning defenses to avoid wasting sacrificial parries on easy attacks. Velouria took Double Jointed and Peripheral vision so even when surrounded she could defend both of us in all directions (defenses from the back were allowed as a house rule for those with double jointed). Another thing we found to be massively important was Bless. Bless gives a much-needed buffer against a single critical hit or back shot. For a long time we never left town without at least a level 1 bless, and often a level 2. Recently I picked up a new realm for my druid just to give myself the ability to bless my partner after her Bless had been expended. Luck is another must-have for the same reason. With only 2 PC's turns tend to go faster as well, so you'll find you get a lot more use out of a higher level than you do in a large party. I had normal Luck, while Velouria (who took the brunt of attacks) had Extraordinary Luck. As a druid I had access to animal allies, which can massively change the effect of numbers in a fight. Giant anaconda's have high ST, good DR, and are effective in almost every battlefield other than freezing cold ones. I bought a pack of 10, plus 2 more with a higher frequency of appearance and a single even-more-giant one. The snakes would move, slam, and grapple, and mainly prevented an enemy from being able to quickly encircle us. A necromancer would be able to pull something similar off with a horde of undead to tie enemies up. We had a side adventure catching sabertooth tigers and cross-breeding them with war horses (potions of Fertility) to produce fast and dangerous mounts, which also boosted our numbers in a fight. Healing was probably our weakest point, but we made up for it with ample consumables and a talent for not being hurt in the first place. When I became a powerful druid we also discovered that Plant Form or Plant Form Other plus Heal Plant is a cheap-and-dirty Great Heal. Body of Wood would also let you Heal Plant a target, and gives some useful resistances if you're in a fight. These two characters went on a ton of adventures together and managed to survive (there were plenty of close calls!), so I can say that a scout/druid and a swashbuckler would make a very competent duo.
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I run a low fantasy GURPS game: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdo...YLkfnhr3vYXpFg World details on Obsidian Portal: https://the-fall-of-brekhan.obsidian...ikis/main-page |
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