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Old 01-27-2013, 01:48 PM   #11
Rasputin
 
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Default Quick and Dirty Economics for Dungeon Fantasy

Yes, I unabashedly stole this idea from D&D 3.x, continued on in Pathfinder. This answers the questions:

* How much money is available until we saturate the market when we sell our loot?
* What sort of items can we buy here?
* How likely are we to find these items?

It will help here to have GURPS City Stats, but I'll keep things simple enough for those who have been too cheap to buy a copy.

For a community, you need to know:

* How many folks live there? This will be both a population number and a Search modifier. For those on the cheap, this table is on p. B517.
* What is their average wealth? Most often, this will be Struggling, Average or Comfortable for those posh little suburbs. You'll want to know both the multiplier and the Status level this wealth supports.
* What is the Status of the highest Status fellow in town? If you're just rolling up a community on the fly, add 4 to the Search modifier, and then add the average Status level the town's wealth supports. This will be near enough.

One last thing before we go. I'm assuming TL 3. If you're rolling up a barbarian community, you'll need to use a lower TL's wealth numbers.

How much money is there? GURPS already hints at an answer to that question. Remember the 80/20 split for non-portable/portable wealth? We'll use that here, but halve it since much of the portable wealth will be in non-monetary things. So, find Average Wealth for TL, which is $1,000 for TL 3, tithe it, then multiply that by the population.

Example:

Rēláistis is a market village, though big by those standards. It has 1,200 folks, giving us Search -1; it's mean wealth is Struggling, and its highest Status person is 4, a noble Lady/sage/cleric of the love goddess Lutōdīvê. It has $60,000 available in cash.

What sort of items can we buy there? Well, the richest resident will determine that. Per p. B517, find the Wealth multiplier that Status will support, multiply it by the Average Wealth for the TL, then divide by 5.

Example:

There would be nothing in Rēláistis that would be worth selling to someone richer than the Lady Lummenólē, since there is no one richer than she, so her Status 4 (Very Wealthy) means that nothing higher than $20,000 will be available.

How likely are we to find these items? Well, for items that someone of the community's typical Wealth can buy, never bother to roll. You can find them. For items up to the maximum, find the Status needed to buy it, as above, subtract that Status from the top Status of the community, add the Search modifier, then add to 10. Roll 3d and compare to it. If it is under, it's available.

Example:

A group of heroes in Rēláistis want to buy a Great Healing Potion, which costs $1,000. Typically, that would be something someone Status 2 (20% of Wealth for Status 2/Wealthy, $5,000, is $1,000) would buy, so we take that Status away from 4, and add the Search modifier and then 10: 4-2-1+10 = 11. Roll 3d, and what do we get? 12. Guess they had move south to the bigger, wealthier Mīstássun if they want to buy this potion. Of course, they might be able to find someone who can brew one in Rēláistis, though they'll have to wait and look.

Now, if they wanted to buy an axe, which costs $50, it is under the Status -1 level of $100, so they would not need a roll.

Needless to say, I haven't play tested this, so I throw it out here for public fiddling. Below is a quick table of the thresholds of the Status of goods.

Status level of goods at TL 3

8 $200,000,000
7 $20,000,000
6 $2,000,000
5 $200,000
4 $20,000
3 $4,000
2 $1,000
1 $400
0 $200
-1 $100
-2 $40
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Last edited by Rasputin; 01-28-2013 at 06:30 PM. Reason: Added the Status level of goods and an example of finding something without a roll.
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Old 01-27-2013, 08:32 PM   #12
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Default Hex crawl rules, part 1: movement

Draft of these for anyone who cares, which doesn't look like too many folks:

Going on a hex crawl throws the assumptions for travel in Dungeons out the window. Not to worry! The default rules in the Basic Set give a more-than-adequate base for hex crawling.

The order of rolls and decisions:
1) The GM determines the weather.
2) The group makes its free Foraging rolls.
3) The group must decide whether or not to make more Foraging rolls, and whether or not it wants to hunt more than once. If it wants to make two more Foraging rolls or two Hunting attempts, it makes those, but doesn't move at all this day. If it Forages one more time, it had half move.
4) If the group plans to move, it does so. If it wants to try to move faster, it now makes its Hiking (or Riding, or Skiing) rolls and its Weather Sense rolls, the latter if there is inclement weather. If it isn't planning to move, it may now hunt and forage, but the GM should still roll for random encounters.
5) The GM rolls for the encounter in the group's starting hex, and resolves it.
6) The group moves into the next hex, but its navigator must make a Navigation roll to be sure everyone goes into the right hex if there are no clear landmarks or a road.
7) The GM rolls for the encounter in the new hex, and resolves it. Alternately, the GM can combine this with any keyed encounter.
8) If there is a keyed encounter in this hex, the GM rolls Observation rolls in secret for everyone to see if the group sees it. If it is obvious, don't bother to roll, and let the group go to the keyed encounter.
9) If the group has more movement, go back to step 5 and resolve it.
10) When the group has no more movement, resolve its Hunting attempt and second Foraging attempts.
11) Camp as normal per Dungeons.

Moving around: First, assume base speed is Move hexes/day. A party moves at the speed of its slowest member. We're going to ignore the overly-generous pace given for Hiking on p. B351, of course, but those rules give us a good start. Roll against Hiking/Riding/Skiing to let the group move more hexes. A success adds 20% to Move, not 10%. Likewise, the costs of failure and critical failure are doubled to 20% and 40%. If many failures or critical failures bring effective Move to 0, the group goes nowhere. A critical success gives the same boost as a normal success, but if the group has any encounters during the day, it's fatigue penalty is lessened by 1. The group may coordinate its Hiking, Riding or Skiing rolls as described in Hiking on p. B351. Do NOT round this value! If this is a fraction, give the group that much of a head start on its movement the next day.

Each hex has a cost, determined by its terrain. This is its effective number of hexes for moving through it. Use the following ratings:

Average (1 hex): Desert, Light Forest, Mountain Pass, Plains.
Bad (2 hexes): Forest, High Dunes, Hills, Marshy Plains.
Very Bad (5 hexes): Forested Hills, Heavy Forest, Jungle, Mountains, Rocky Desert, Swamp.

If a group has less move than a hex's value, then it stays in that hex. The group can stay in a hex for many days, slowly moving through it. In addition to any movement issues, if mountains are high enough, the air density in that hex will be Thin (6,000+ feet) and this will affect everyone in the group.

Now, find weather and apply to total moved. If no encounters happen, all weather does is reduce move. If. See p. B351 for effects. Find a good weather generator. Here are a few off the top of my head: Empire Weather is free; Hârn is not free but well-tested; the d30 Sandbox Companion may be promising but it isn't out yet. The Wilderness Survival Guide is the Mack Daddy of all these, but it isn't free and is complex. You can also look outside and use that weather, or go on Wolfram Mathematica online and find the weather for a given day in a given city. The best choice might be the D&D 3e SRD/DMG, which has a weather generation system that appears close enough for our purposes. After all, it's the same genre and power level. Pathfinder doesn't seem to be any different, so you can apply either idea. The point is to have varied enough weather so that the changes seem interesting, and the weather doesn't seem jarring or odd, like snowstorms in July or monsoons in Minnesota or the high temperatures going 30°/85°/40°/95° in successive days. It adds detail and challenge, but doesn't take center stage. I'll assume D&D/Pathfinder weather results for the moment until someone comes up with a decent GURPS-friendly weather generator.

For effects, the Basic Set addresses Heat (p. B434) and Cold (p. B430) (the short form of both: if the character is not protected, his player needs to make loads of HT rolls), but doesn't address wind at all, or precipitation beyond its effects on movement. GURPS has an obvious way to handle wind: add it to range (as speed) on the Speed/Range Table when dealing with shooting arrows in it. Each mile per hour of wind is a half a yard of range. I'm sure shooting arrows in the rain isn't any better; come up with a value to add. The D&D charts call it as much as "Severe Wind," which is 31-50 m.p.h., so we'll call it a 20 yard penalty (40 m.p.h.). Snow will be about the same. Lessen this for a sprinkle, greaten this for a downpour. Apply the same penalty to actually see something. I don't know what storms would do, beyond even more sadistic penalties to missile fire and vision; feel free to come up with sadistic penalties for a group that tried to hike through a hurricane. Hail might give 1 point crushing damage on a failed DX roll (apply encumbrance) each second in combat if it's heavy enough, but won't hurt enough in long-term movement. For lightning, there's a slim chance of being struck by it while in metal armor (something like 2d+DR burning), something like DR or less on 3d while fighting (roll for the whole fight); again, assume the character isn't a total moron during movement and that he is not doing things like walking on an open road during a thunderstorm or sitting under a tree.

Weather Sense lets the group move through inclement weather. If there's rain, snow, or ice, a successful roll gives a 20% boost to speed that day, or a 40% boost on a critical success. Failure lowers the rate by 20%, critical failure 40%. A success on a hot day takes away the extra fatigue penalty during an encounter, a failure adds 1 to it. Weather will affect the situation during any encounters. A critical success will give a +1 bonus to any Survival or HT rolls to deal with bad weather, like heat or cold, while a failure gives a -1 penalty, critical failure -2.

Roll Navigation only when crossing hexes, and don't roll when on a road or in a mountain pass or when following clear landmarks like a river or a distant mountain. Having a map gives a bonus of +1 to +4 to this roll depending on quality; terrain might also affect this. On a failure, the group winds up in one of the hexes next to the intended one, roll randomly left or right. On a critical failure, it winds up in one of the other three hexes, roll randomly. Give another Navigation roll each day to see if the group figures it out. Make this roll in secret. Sometimes this is obvious, like when the terrain or sights are not what are in the intended hex. In the rain, give a -2 for visibility, -4 in snow.

Use the following modifiers to Navigation:

+3 Hills
+2 Plains, Rocky Desert
+1 Light Forest, Marshy Plains
+0 Forested Hills, High Dunes
-2 Desert, Swamp
-4 Forest
-6 Heavy Forest, Jungle
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Last edited by Rasputin; 02-14-2013 at 06:43 AM. Reason: I increased speed to Move hexes/day. I figure slower rates in real world hikers are due to terrain.
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Old 01-27-2013, 08:33 PM   #13
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Default Hex crawl rules, part 2: eating and fighting

Forage using the rules in p. B427, not the ones in Dungeons. Everyone gets one free chance to forage for a meal. Give a +2 in Forest of any kind, Swamp and Jungles, a -2 in Mountains, a -4 in Mountains, and -6 in Arctic, and +2 in summer but a -2 in winter. A critical success gives two meals. The group may try to forage a second time, but its movement for the day will be halved, and wiped out for a third time.

The group gets one free hunting attempt, assumed as part of setting up camp or traveling. To hunt, first, someone must make a trained Survival, Naturalist or Area Knowledge roll to sight game. If he succeeds, then the hunter, who needs a missile weapon, must make a Stealth roll. If he succeeds, he must make a roll against his missile weapon skill, and margin of success gives meals caught. If he has helpers, the Stealth roll is at -1 for each helper, but they each may add +1 to the final roll on a successful roll against missile weapon skill. If the group wants to hunt a second time, it may do so, but may not move for the day. Yes, this costs arrows. Also, a random encounter with a possible game animal may also be a bonus free hunting attempt.

When reaching a keyed destination, roll Observation to see if the group finds it if it is not obvious, like a castle on a plain, or a settlement. Make the Observation roll in secret. Use Robert Conley's spotting rules, but add SM/3 to the number of hexes away you can see things in Clear terrain, SM/2 in Hills and SM in Mountains, though the distance should not be less than one hex if it can be seen. Modify this roll if it is hidden, out of the way or in a place that doesn't lend itself well for finding things (like Heavy Forest). Use the Navigation modifiers above. If the group knows it is there, roll Search instead. Give a bonus to Search if the group has a map or good directions. Use the modifiers for Navigation to represent terrain visibility. On a failed roll, the group finds it, but it is better guarded since the extra time made their approach obvious. On a critical failure, the group doesn't find it. It can try again and again, but each critical failure makes the destination nastier and deadlier for when the group does find it! Try increasing N to do this.

Roll for encounters for each hex in a day. If an encounter is supposed to happen for a day on a 6 or less, it happens on a 4 or less for each hex; for a 9 or less for the day, 6 or less for each hex. Use the full chance for night encounters. When encountering a random creature, figure out its range in hexes, which is SM+1. If SM is bigger than Basic Move, use Basic Move instead. Add 2 if the creature can fly. Add 1 if the creature does NOT have Bestial and has IQ 6 or better (read: creatures lacking the Wild Animal or Domesticated Animal metatraits, that is, sapients). Subtract 1 for solitary (racial Loner) beasts. If the Range is 0 or less, the creature lives in this hex. Otherwise, roll 1d. If the roll is more than the Range or is a 6, the creature lives in this hex. Otherwise, it lives as many hexes away as you rolled. Be sensible about this. Those pilgrims are nowhere near their home hex. Farmers are probably in it or right next to it. Roll 1d to determine direction of the lair relative to the hex, starting with 1 as north and moving clockwise from there. Feel free to move the lair a hex or two if there's something in the rolled hex that would make a lair there impossible.

If you really want more work, you can track the beast. When the group goes back into its Range again, check. If its Range is 0, it stays in its hex. Otherwise, roll 1d. If the roll is more than the Range or a 6, then the beast is that many hexes away from its lair hex (roll direction randomly on 1d as above). To mimic its movement, assume that it is moving back to its lair hex at the rate of Move hexes a day, then will stay there for the rest of the day. Then, the next day, roll 1d. If it is the same as or more than its Range or a 6, it leaves its hex, traveling in a random direction up to its Range at the rate of Move hexes a day, then will come back to its lair hex via a route in the hexes right next to its path away. Cycle repeats.

To find the distance for an encounter and surprise, make opposed Observation checks. Having 360 Vision adds +5 to this check; Peripheral Vision adds +3; No Peripheral Vision gives -3, and Tunnel Vision gives -5. Everyone is assumed to be checking all around, and noise helps alert others. If both succeed, nobody is surprised; if both fail, nobody sees each other, though you can check again unless one side critically failed. Otherwise, if one group succeeds and the other fails, the group that failed is surprised. A group that succeeded can prep itself, and if the other group failed, anyone in it can use Stealth to stay hidden.

For distance, roll 3d. Apply the darkness penalty (remember Dark Vision and the like may lessen this) and add the biggest Size Modifiers on each side. Treat a modified roll of less than 1 as 1. Multiply by the modifier for the terrain in the table below. Then, if either party is flying, add half the elevation of the highest party to the distance. The result is the distance in yards.

Code:
Terrain			multiple
Plains			25
Desert			12
Mountains		6
High Desert Dunes	6
Marsh			6
Gentle Hills		4
Light Forest		4
Swamp			3
Medium Forest		3
Rugged Hills		2
Dense Forest		2
When getting into an encounter, remember vegetation density in Plant Spells; Woodlands, Swamp and Jungle are Normal while Plains are Sparse. There will be patches of denser vegetation; place them on the map to keep things interesting. As for trees, do what a friend of mine did: throw a bunch of pennies at a battle map. Where the pennies land, that's where the trees are.
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Last edited by Rasputin; 02-14-2013 at 06:44 AM. Reason: Better distance rules; monster roaming.
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Old 01-28-2013, 07:46 AM   #14
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Default Re: [DF] Hex crawling

A very helpful thread Rasputin. I like your ideas.

I would go with miles rather than hexes personally and just key encounters from a map, but horses for courses.

Why do you prefer the Basic Set forage rules to the Dungeons ones?

A master list of GURPS monsters by terrain type would be handy for "hex crawlers".
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Old 01-28-2013, 09:51 AM   #15
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Default Re: [DF] Hex crawling

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg 1 View Post
A very helpful thread Rasputin. I like your ideas.

I would go with miles rather than hexes personally and just key encounters from a map, but horses for courses.

Why do you prefer the Basic Set forage rules to the Dungeons ones?

A master list of GURPS monsters by terrain type would be handy for "hex crawlers".
Well, I'm making a hex crawl, and things in hex crawls are keyed to hexes on a map. It's a way of tracking where the group goes, just like using hexes in battle. The link to Blackmarsh that Robert put in his post is a good example; I'm playing in an Adventurer Conquerer King game set it in now, in fact. There's some tradition in hexes, and they do make it easier to track where you are. Straight miles don't work as well for wilderness adventuring. They work great for travel, but that's not quite what I'm doing.

The reason for the foraging change is that this is no longer abstracted travel. The foraging rules in Dungeons really aren't; they're just a shortcut for an abstract trek. They make no sense in a hex crawl, since they're just telling you how well you did for the whole trek as a whole.
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Old 01-28-2013, 10:02 AM   #16
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Default Re: [DF] Hex crawling

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg 1 View Post
I would go with miles rather than hexes personally and just key encounters from a map, but horses for courses.
A more fine-grained unit of account than hexes is needed, but I think the best solution might be to use hours as the unit of account, so that what you talk about, and design rules for, is how many hours each hex costs. Because I do agree that hexes are a good idea, including hex-based strategic-level travel.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg 1 View Post
A master list of GURPS monsters by terrain type would be handy for "hex crawlers".
Presumably most random encounters will be peaceful.
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Old 01-28-2013, 10:05 AM   #17
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Default Re: [DF] Hex crawling

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
Presumably most random encounters will be peaceful.
In Dungeon Fantasy? I'd guess the opposite.

By the way, excellent work. No feedback, just a thumbs up.
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Old 01-28-2013, 11:40 AM   #18
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Default Re: [DF] Hex crawling

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Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
Presumably most random encounters will be peaceful.
Yes, and most of those won't be worth gaming out. "You all see a rabbit." Meaningless and bland. Now, if that rabbit had sharp, pointy teeth and had a nasty disposition ...
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Old 01-28-2013, 06:51 PM   #19
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Default Re: [DF] Hex crawling

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Yes, and most of those won't be worth gaming out. "You all see a rabbit." Meaningless and bland. Now, if that rabbit had sharp, pointy teeth and had a nasty disposition ...
Exactly. They're flavour, to help convey the sense of being in an actual world to the players.
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Old 01-28-2013, 09:17 PM   #20
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Default Re: [DF] Hex crawling

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Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
Exactly. They're flavour, to help convey the sense of being in an actual world to the players.
Well, I just had to edit the hunting rules to give an actual boon to meeting a bunch of bunnies, though the party druid might have a snit.
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