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Old 11-18-2016, 02:55 PM   #11
Rasputin
 
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Default Re: What I'd like to see for DF

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
"It's a Threat!" in Pyramid #3/77: Combat is basically a Challenge Rating system for GURPS (well half of one anyway, it doesn't really provide a baseline for PCs the way that ACL does).
About what he's talking is a little more than that. He wants something that tells you that if you don't have someone with Illusion spells or abilities in your party, throwing a Snorkelwanger at them could wipe them out since they have no way of countering it.
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Old 11-18-2016, 03:40 PM   #12
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Default Re: What I'd like to see for DF

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Well, Cardboard Heroes. I'm a little disappointed that the monsters from DFM3 aren't in the Kickstarter boxed set because I want counters for them.
I would love to a whole bunch of new hex-based multi-hex flat top-down Carboard Heroes at appropriate scale for GURPS for various animals and monsters.
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Old 11-18-2016, 03:41 PM   #13
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Default Re: What I'd like to see for DF

D&D 4e went a ways towards making a varied encounter quickly by identifying some general combat roles, and labeling monsters with them. I think it went a bit far by being very prescriptive, but the role isn't actually a game mechanic.

Basically it loosely groups monsters into Artillery, Brutes, Controllers, Skirmishers, and Soldiers. Artillery monsters excel at raining death from a distance, but avoid melee. Brutes are big meleeing sacks of hitpoints that hit hard but have low skill. Controllers change the state of the battlefield (make hazardous terrain, provide cover, move people around, heal, etc). Skirmishers are fast and lightly armored hit-and-run mobility fighters. Soldiers engage toe-to-toe like Brutes but seek to block movement rather than explosively destroy.

A crucial game-mechanical difference between brutes and soldiers is that brutes take damage smoothly and deal it out spikily, while soldiers take damage spikily and deal it out smoothly. IE brutes get hit almost all the time, but they have so many HP that individual hits don't matter as much - soldiers hit almost all the time, but they don't do tons of damage so individual hits don't matter so much. Meanwhile brutes rarely hit but deal a ton of damage when they do, while soldiers rarely get hit but suffer it rather more due to less HP.

Relative to a brute - a soldier still has more HP than any other role, usually.

Even vaguely classifying monsters into categories like this means you can look at an encounter and say "Oh, this fight is all skirmishers. Let's throw some soldiers in too to try and make the PCs stand still while getting harassed by skirmishers." Or, you can say "This fight is all skirmishers, lets put lots of interesting terrain around for players to chase them around/corner them in/get shoved into by monsters doing a hit-and-run".

That right there will give a lot of variety even if your skirmishers are orcs, and your soldiers are orcs, and your brutes are slightly bigger orcs.
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Old 11-18-2016, 04:26 PM   #14
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Default Re: What I'd like to see for DF

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Originally Posted by Rasputin View Post
About what he's talking is a little more than that. He wants something that tells you that if you don't have someone with Illusion spells or abilities in your party, throwing a Snorkelwanger at them could wipe them out since they have no way of countering it.
Well to some extent the GM has to exercise judgment. It should be pretty obvious that you only use major ghosts if the party has characters that can deal with incorpreal critters and possession (or if you want to communicate that they really ought to have had a way to do this before they went into the Haunted Downs). Is a list with things like "Monsters with Possession are countered by a delver with Exorcism" something people would find useful?
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Old 11-18-2016, 06:18 PM   #15
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Default Re: What I'd like to see for DF

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Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
D&D 4e went a ways towards making a varied encounter quickly by identifying some general combat roles, and labeling monsters with them. I think it went a bit far by being very prescriptive, but the role isn't actually a game mechanic.

Basically it loosely groups monsters into Artillery, Brutes, Controllers, Skirmishers, and Soldiers. Artillery monsters excel at raining death from a distance, but avoid melee. Brutes are big meleeing sacks of hitpoints that hit hard but have low skill. Controllers change the state of the battlefield (make hazardous terrain, provide cover, move people around, heal, etc). Skirmishers are fast and lightly armored hit-and-run mobility fighters. Soldiers engage toe-to-toe like Brutes but seek to block movement rather than explosively destroy.
You could work that into my book of foes idea. I suppose it's how you pitch the templates. I was thinking stuff like "Archdruid" or "Bandit," since I tend to think in those terms first and foremost. Those might give a little more variety for the melee combatants, and make things like "Bandit" or "Soldier" or "Guard" be lenses. Or "Brute" and "Skirmisher" become the lenses. Take your pick.
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Old 11-19-2016, 12:58 AM   #16
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Default Re: What I'd like to see for DF

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Not to sound patronizing, but why not just mix and match yourself? If the PC's are a diverse party...throw a diverse party of monsters at them.

Just off the top of my head: Use a mix of Draug and Corpse Golems to challenge the melee focused PCs (the Corpse Golem being there to stop anti-undead Cleric tricks). They would guarding the Litch (and his minion sorcerer apprentices) who would be blasting magic over them (Make a counterspell dedicated sorcerer to provide a challenge for any wizard in your group). Then slide some Demons from Between the Stars to flank any Acrobatic/Ranged guys.

For added difficulty change the room they are in: Litch and Friends would be on a raised cliffside 1dx10 yards above the cave floor entrance the PCs are entering from. While Draug and Co would rush them from the sides in a fun pincer maneuver. Give it a splash of mechanical traps (Giant Rolling Rock (tm), Sluice Gate of Watery Death (tm), or the good old Boiling Oil Dump (tm)) or magical traps (Force Dome Cage, Teleport to Ceiling Trap, etc.) and you have an encounter that should challenge any group of adventurers.

By creating a diverse challenge it removes the possibility of One Trick Ponies winning the day with the one I Win button they carry around with them.
Or grab a bunch of monster races and Henchmen
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Old 11-19-2016, 11:35 AM   #17
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Default Re: What I'd like to see for DF

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How many hexes is it, what's the shape of those hexes, where are the front/side/rear hexes, which hexes can the attacks strike into or not, which hexes contain certain body part targets, what happens as you remove limbs and wings or other organs from various types of monsters, how do they move on the map (. . .)
It doesn't cover all that, but the Combat Writ Large article (at Pyramid #3/77: Combat) is in part related to this angle. For instance it has the SM-to-Hexes table at page four.
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Old 11-19-2016, 02:18 PM   #18
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Default Re: What I'd like to see for DF

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Or grab a bunch of monster races and Henchmen
Henchmen is nice, but it isn't fast. You still have to worry about gear and making picks. I often use the generic NPCs in the back of Mirror of the Fire Demon since it already has those picks made for me, thus speeding things up.
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