Fan Dungeon for GURPS DF now Up

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Ignoring the benefits of the Shield and Armor spells when computing average DR and defenses seems a bit off. Both the cleric and the wizard can learn them and cast them on any or all members of the party - just a +1 to DR and defenses is pretty cheap, and they're pretty popular in my experience.

Originally Posted by Rasputin

We have different experiences, then. Admittedly, my players are not the best number crunchers for GURPS, but these aren't fire and leave up all day (like, say, mage armor in D&D) -- at least a few blows will be exchanged before anyone benefits from these spells.

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

I find people like Haste a lot, improves dodge and init both

The Problem
You simply cannot account for that ahead of time in any module. You never know whos going to be holding the adventure. It might be 3 barbies 1 thief and a Ninja at this point :)

Saying that the 'average party has x many of y charachters' is nonsensical in GURPS as even for given templates, the builds are so varied as to be impredictible and even for a given build, spell selection is insanely complicated.

This was one of the reasons I suggested using the notation a few months ago, to get away from this exact problem. We can know what our players are likely to do based on our experience with them. We cannot know what other groups are likely to do while holding the same module.

All that said, when figuring up the Average DR and AD for your party, use your experience of what they are likely to do. If your Cleric (Padre Lika DuBuffe) habitually casts Shiled on someone for 3 DB as his opening move, then definately try to account for that.


Phantom Analysis

Versus the phantoms (Low end averages of the templates in DF1)

Attack : 16
Defense : 14
DR : 3
DMG : 1d+3

Versus Greg's Bugbears

Great Axe (15)
AD:9
DMG: 4d+1
DR: 4

We get lines that look like this.

Attack:
15% to hit and 12 damage expected for 1.8 per turn per bugbear per attack versus 13 hp per party memeber.

Defense:
60% of 2.5 damage expected for 1.5 per turn per party member versus 24 hp per bugbear.

it will take the average party member roughly 32 to turns to kill a bugbear.

It will take the average bugbear abut 15 turns to kill a party member.

To get this where the party and Bugbears tie, we need about twice as many PCs as we do bugbears.

But what about the mages?
If your party has mind controlling type magic at thier disposal, add bugbears based on the parties likely attack modes. For example if your party has a wizard who is likely to cast Sleep at 18 versus the Bugbears HT of 13. (Using the rule of 16) we can see that in the quick contest, 16 v 13 meanst that everytime the wizard casts sleep, .72 Bugbears pass out. If our Mage has 18 mana, lets assume that he'll cast 12 of it or 3 times.

So 3 x .72 = 2.16 or more simply, 2 more bugbears.

So in a party where there are 4 chars, one of which can cast sleep, there should be about 4 bugbears.

One more thing......

If the wizard gets 1st round KOed, this is going to be one heckuva fight for the PCS! As wizards dont normally lead the charge I dont expect this to be a problem, but in the event it does happen, LET IT!

Nymdok

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

We have different experiences, then. Admittedly, my players are not the best number crunchers for GURPS, but these aren't fire and leave up all day (like, say, mage armor in D&D) -- at least a few blows will be exchanged before anyone benefits from these spells.

Even +1 DR and +1 DB can be maintained for free at skill 15 all day, and the Wizard template definitely starts you with that (I think the cleric can start at skill 14ish). Usually it'll be the mage walking around with these up all day and everyone else gets buffed afterwards, but the mage is the guy without heavy armor and sometimes without a shield - he should be self-buffing first.

A few blows being exchanged before anyone benefits? They're 1 second casting time. If you start every fight already in melee range, with no warning, and no preparation before opening the door? You deserve to be in trouble.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Bruno

A few blows being exchanged before anyone benefits? They're 1 second casting time. If you start every fight already in melee range, with no warning, and no preparation before opening the door? You deserve to be in trouble.

There are a dozen orcs in the last room, and one issue is that they might cause enough noise to attract the bugbears. Furthermore, you have to cast these spells many times. At best, if you're smart, this will help the mobile characters, who again will run into the bugbears early. (The front line fighters can handle these guys for a few seconds.) And finally, these bugbears do so much damage that this won't matter much. If you have DR 3 and then Armor 1 on, that's still 16.5 HP on a successful hit; Armor 2, 15 HP; Armor 3, 13.5 HP. That's still a major wound to the barbarian, and puts the rest to at least 0 HP.

[Bruno]

You're still ignoring active defenses. GURPS doesn't do attrition by HP reduction, GURPS does attrition by eventually failing an active defense. The Shield spell buffs all of those for the wizard, who is either using a shield (for the block defense and general defense bonus) or a staff for the +2 to all parries.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Bruno

You're still ignoring active defenses. GURPS doesn't do attrition by HP reduction, GURPS does attrition by eventually failing an active defense. The Shield spell buffs all of those for the wizard, who is either using a shield (for the block defense and general defense bonus) or a staff for the +2 to all parries.

Damage Calculator will calculate the expected damage and injury. And it does take into account defenses, both active and passive (DR) as well as critical.

[martinl]

Old school and freaky. Nice.

Nit: The Orc Chief's stats give him plate armor, while the treasure listing is for chain.

Not a Nit: The ecology and logic of the lower levels is demented, insane, and more than a little OMGWTFBBQ. Good job.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Bruno

You're still ignoring active defenses. GURPS doesn't do attrition by HP reduction, GURPS does attrition by eventually failing an active defense. The Shield spell buffs all of those for the wizard, who is either using a shield (for the block defense and general defense bonus) or a staff for the +2 to all parries.

I haven't ignored them; where do you get that idea? And the chance of failing active defenses for the mid-line fighters, who will have to get near early on -- there's six of these guys -- is not negligible.

I don't think this matters to the wizard; if they've closed with the wizard, he's dead meat regardless. The knight won't have much problem, though their 12-pound great axes (remember, they're SM +1) give a definite chance of breakage to weapons weighing 4 pounds or less (including the popular axe, broadsword, spear and quarterstaff, to say nothing of lighter swords); he'll want to Block, and he has a 15 with his shield, so he's fine against two. The cleric will be fine against one, but have problems against two since he'll need to make lots of defense rolls, and his Parry and Block are about 13 (and again, he might not want to Parry, depending on the weapon; a mace-wielder is fine, but not a broadsword-wielder), so his chance of making both in a round is 70%; if he fights two for two rounds, that's a 53% chance of being unhit before DR.

I should note that as a boss encounter, this isn't bad, or say the second encounter on the third level. But so early!

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

I haven't ignored them; where do you get that idea?

Because you keep going on about DR and HP taken if hit, and ignoring the chance that their chance to actually hit and do damage to the worst fighters in the group (assuming those worst fighters aren't doing anything special to help in their own defense) is less than 30%, and they can only swing once every two turns?

If they're using SM +1 Axes, they don't have enough ST to get rid of the Unready problem for Greataxes. They're very slow to attack, they're terribly unreliable, and yes, they hit like a mac truck. If they didn't hit like a mac truck, they'd be totally pathetic and a party of five would steamroller over them.

Originally Posted by Rasputin

And the chance of failing active defenses for the mid-line fighters, who will have to get near early on -- there's six of these guys -- is not negligible.

And there's 5-6 PCs, and a Knight is throwing out two attacks a turn or is skewering them in their Vitals, or a Barbarian is meeting them toe to toe on the "hits hard" area and beating them in the "hits reliably" area.

Without spells up, without retreating, taking a defensive attack or all out defense, or spending FP on defense bonuses, even the wizard will probably evade four or five hits. If he bought Luck it gets better.

A wizard starts with a Parry of 12 with a staff without Shield spell, retreats, spending FP, taking All out Defense, or any other options. A wizard with only a DB 1 shield starts with a block of 11 and a parry of 11 without any adjustments there either, and a shield block stops even the heaviest attacks. If he takes a medium shield, it's DB 2 and he's up to 12s but has a lower Dodge due to weight.

This is the low end and with the wizard taking no efforts to protect himself beyond not sacrificing his defenses! Yes, getting hit puts him down. He'll probably retreat from the first guy to break through to back ranks, and if he gets cornered he'll be well advised to All out Defense - but hobs getting behind the front lines will be exposing their backs (no defenses at all!) to high damage fighters if they do that. Which means they'll probably turn around in a hurry after wasting their swing while they're re-readying to avoid being shishkababed.

And that's all assuming the wizard doesn't do anything to improve the fight conditions while the hobs try to break through - so why are the hobs trying to break through and kill him when there's these other guys easier to get to who are clearly murdering the hobs to death?

If you've only got three PCs, yes it's a hard fight - but it wasn't written for 3 PCs. Five really changes the fight dynamics.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Damage Calculator will calculate the expected damage and injury. And it does take into account defenses, both active and passive (DR) as well as critical.

Taking into account criticals is good, though in this case, the criticals DO heavily favor the players, which is one reason I have no problem with this on level three. The players will likely go back to town for better equipment after each level; all the mid-line fighters who normally hang back when there are only three bugbears can risk a second or two since they'll all be in mail with Fortify 1 and a few other buffs. Mathematically, there is a huge difference between effective weapon skill 14 and 16 in GURPS, and it is critical hits and failures. At skill 14, you have a 4 in 216 of each a critical hit or failure. At skill 16, you have a 20 in 216 of a critical hit but a 1 in 216 of a critical failure. That's a big swing in the fight, and the players are on the right side of the line.

I eyeball many things, and I'm always trying to gauge how likely one combatant is going to even momentarily incapacitate another. Criticals are one such way; a critical failure is probably going to cost you a few seconds trying to grab your weapon or getting up off the ground or both. Major wounds are another, though there's a HT roll involved and player characters should always have good rolls there. Dropping someone to zero HP is an even more effective way, since you need to make HT rolls to pretty much do anything other than slink away.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Because you keep going on about DR and HP taken if hit, and ignoring the chance that their chance to actually hit and do damage to the worst fighters in the group (assuming those worst fighters aren't doing anything special to help in their own defense) is less than 30%, and they can only swing once every two turns?

Only the last one is actually true. I might note that a 25% chance (roughly taking into account low damage rolls benefitting the players) per second (against two of them, like I said, which is highly likely for at least one midline fighter) knocking you down is high.