How lethal is a master?

[TGLS]

Alright, using some pregens I have for a fantasy game:
Physician/Archer: Use Zen Archery to land shots from a long distance, then skulk off. Repeat until he starts downing his friends.

Magician/Thief: Distract with illusions, then sneak in for the kill. Swipe sword if possible before hand, possibly using telekinesis.

Diplomat: Use influence skills and connections to gather allies (perhaps the rival mercenaries) and reduce his sources of aid (perhaps have him branded an outlaw.) Consider using diplomacy to bring him to your point of view.

Holy Warrior: Charge in and use your ally to get behind him. Daredevil should help offset bad rolls. Use the regeneration ability after you win. Opening musket fire might knock him over the edge.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

So, I was wondering how lethal a master fighter would be in your games?

My game currently has PCs in the 400-1000 point range (though very inefficiently built, as they started at 250-300 points). This guy would be a challenge for them in a low tech environment because the PCs are TL10-11 and most of their skills reflect that. However, if they had all their toys, even if this swordmaster became a riflemaster the combat wombats would eat him alive unless he was a sniper and got the drop on them. Then he'd hurt one (assuming he had a weapon able to defeat their armour), and then get ripped apart.

The non-frontline types he'd beat if he didn't stick around long enough for weight of fire to do him in - he's enough more skilled than them he could shoot them up from far enough away that they'd have to use area-effect weapons to get a good chance of hitting him. OTOH, the engineer and survivalist could turn the combat zone into a series of awful death traps and wait for this guy to try and find them in it...

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Berserk only applies 25% on a 12- (remember, that is the self-control roll to avoid going berserk, not the roll to become berserk), and it only applies when the character is injured more than 25% of HP. With Parry 16, he or she has a 98% chance of avoiding injury during a melee attack when an opponent does not succeed with a critical success, giving only a 1% chance that any melee attack will trigger Berserk (when you factor in the chance for enemy critical success). When it does occur, well, with a Basic Speed of 7.00, he or she is likely murdering one person a turn before they attack him or her.

He's also going to be down on FP some days, and on a bad run of luck also quite tired and thus operating at -2 to DX and IQ, and also -2 to self control rolls.

With an effective HT of 15 and High Pain Threshold, the character will likely remain conscious and avoid death until he or she drops dead due to automatic death, especially if he or she goes berserk. Unless he or she is going solo against an army, he or she is likely to murder his or her way through any fight. After all, we are talking about someone who rolls at a 16- when stabbing an opponent in the eye.

Pity in my game if he went against the PCs he's facing people with the same or better HT, more HP, more ST, and rather higher move. Who do have defences. Mind you, he is fast enough to catch the slower non-professional fighters, and thus can force the party to fight rather than just pushing him to 0HP and running away until he does fail a HT roll and fall over (which takes less than a minute, on average). However, with no defences once they realise he's gone berserk they'd probably hack off a leg and just stand back and wait...

Certainly the players in my group from the 90s would've. After all, my character's favoured method of fighting was to cripple the opponent's weapon hand, and then if they wouldn't surrender, just cripple extremities and limbs until they saw reason or fell over.

[mr beer]

The 500 point fantasy PCs would eat a dozen of him for breakfast. The two main fighters are as skilled or better and have much better stats. And they have a wizard and a couple of second line fighters.

The 350 point fantasy PCs might find a dozen of him to be a reasonable challenge.

I want to run a Warhammer Fantasy game soon. He would be either be a reasonable challenge or a deadly threat depending on the line up.

[weby]

In the current fantasy game that character would not last more than at best 1-2 seconds against any one of the PCs or major allies. But that is basically mostly because of the 9% of the PC character points he has, that 10 extra deceptive attack is kind of decisive.

[Prince Charon]

Well, in the '25 point characters' fantasy game I played in, um, many years ago, we'd have probably gotten slaughtered. My kobold mage (yes, a GURPS kobold, not an adapted D&D Kobold, though we did fudge the rules a bit) might have time to get off a Whimsy spell (that was one of the bigger rules fudges, I think, as I'm pretty sure it was the only spell he could cast, and this was in 3e, so well before the 'Shortcut to Power' perk showed up, I think), and if so, and if we were lucky, that might delay him enough for us to run away like Brave Sir Robin. Of course, it being the Whimsy spell, it might instead make the situation worse (e.g. make a copy of the Sword Master that's loyal to him and hates us), or just make things stranger (dye the whole area in shades of blue-green).

EDIT: This should be obvious, but in case it isn't: This was a Silly game, IIRC.

[Rupert]

I think the real issue with this guy is that he's pretty fragile unless he's berserk, and once he's berserk he has no defences and is still vulnerable to having his arms and/or legs cut off. With ST12 he can't wear much armour before being slowed down, at which point he also can't force an engagement.

Also, he relies on precision strikes (such as the example eye-shot) because he's not strong enough to carve through heavy armour.

So he's really dangerous to other melee characters built on similar or fewer points (because they won't generally be as much of a one-trick pony), but becomes less threatening quickly as characters move away from having to face him on his terms, and also as their point value in combat stats and skills rises.

When you get to technically-human-but-not-really types like the combat monsters in my game, with ST20, HP 26, HT 18 + Very Fit and Hard to Subdue/Kill 2 (and who will thus be mostly fine after a major wound to the brain on a 12-), he's dangerous, but not for very long. To be expected when they out-point him several times over, but a sneaky type would probably do better.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Berserk only applies 25% on a 12- (r.

Oopsie. I see Berserk so seldom I inverted the odds. So he's only dead 25% of the time. That's why i always tell players to take Terminally Ill (-75) instead of Berserk. They'll live longer.

However, I told you that Nyx the Barbarian uses a Flail weapon. That turns his 16- Parry into a 12-. Then her own efective Flail-24 uses Deceptive Attack to lower that another couple of points while her fully bought up TA(Skull) negates his HPT.. She'd still get the Crit from an effective Skill of 16-too. Her own Active Defense rolls of 20+ probably soak up the deceptive Attacks from hs Skill-24 and if they don't she still has DR10, 20+ HP and HPT too.

You might think he'd have a 40% chance of surviving untl the 2nd combat round except that Nyx is almost always under the effect of Great Haste so this is probably resolved in one round.

You asked how deadly this character would be in other campaigns and you ought to accept the at the answer is "not very" some of the time.

[Railstar]

Originally Posted by Rupert

So he's really dangerous to other melee characters built on similar or fewer points (because they won't generally be as much of a one-trick pony), but becomes less threatening quickly as characters move away from having to face him on his terms, and also as their point value in combat stats and skills rises.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You asked how deadly this character would be in other campaigns and you ought to accept the at the answer is "not very" some of the time.

I'd go beyond some of the time, into "unless the character is in a world where nobody else has access to similar kinds of abilities." Put him in a world of 150 point characters where everyone else is limited to regular or reasonable skill levels, and he's an unstoppable engine of death. Put him in a world where other people have powers or super-skills, and he becomes mincemeat very fast.

Usually it boils down to "is there any reason for his opponent to know or at least expect that this guy has Broadsword 24?" And in a lot of campaigns, the answer is "No, because nobody has Broadsword 24." Those are the circumstances in which he's deadly, because he gets to stab someone in the eye before they realise how dangerous he is.

Under those conditions, some level of Unusual Background is in order.

Otherwise, people know that skill 24 fighters are a thing, and probably have some clue that he is one - either they stand out enough for potential enemies to know about the SwordMaster, or even worse they don't stand out and therefore opponents know to prepare for a guy with Broadsword 24 because Broadsword 20+ is commonplace.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

That's why i always tell players to take Terminally Ill (-75) instead of Berserk. They'll live longer.

Word.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You asked how deadly this character would be in other campaigns and you ought to accept the at the answer is "not very" some of the time.

Word.

Originally Posted by Railstar

I'd go beyond some of the time, into "unless the character is in a world where nobody else has access to similar kinds of abilities."

Word.

Originally Posted by Railstar

Put him in a world of 150 point characters where everyone else is limited to regular or reasonable skill levels, and he's an unstoppable engine of death. Put him in a world where other people have powers or super-skills, and he becomes mincemeat very fast.

Our Teen Supers game is also 250 points. Their DR cap is 15, and their damage cap is 5d, but they've also got other types of powers. The couple who use melee can easily tank anything this guy can possibly throw at them. And those who don't use melee can fly. Sparrow's LogST 20 (normal ST 31) TK would be making his move irrelevant, and she could dictate his facing. And whether or not he has a sword.

Against Raven, his IQ/Will 12, would be a 9 vs. her Terror, and he'd be suffering from fright checks. And that's the nicest thing she could do to him. Most of her abilities are 3d (5) non-wounding side-effects, so, he's regularly rolling against a HT10 to resist them.

Darkwing is a battlesuit super, so, yeah. Flight, energy blasts, etc.

Lucky . . . well, let's just say he can dictate those critical successes/failures you're so keen on avoiding.

Shaman's medicine bag is sorta like Raven: the nicest thing he can do is stun him (against IQ-5) and let the rest of the party deal with him. The 2d (ignores armor) thrown, homing ghost blade would do horrible things to him.

Originally Posted by Railstar

Usually it boils down to "is there any reason for his opponent to know or at least expect that this guy has Broadsword 24?" And in a lot of campaigns, the answer is "No, because nobody has Broadsword 24." Those are the circumstances in which he's deadly, because he gets to stab someone in the eye before they realise how dangerous he is.

He stabs one guy in the eyes, and dies to a volley of fire from the police who have been called in to deal with a psychopath waving around a sword.

Most of those of us responding don't play in games where a one-trick sword pony would be terribly useful.

And ChaosCoyote points out that it's impossible to parry a charging Triceratops.

Originally Posted by Railstar

Under those conditions, some level of Unusual Background is in order.

[rant]
I'm not a fan of Unusual Background. It's a tax on an ability because the GM want's to charge more for something, not an ability in and of itself. Making him spend, say 10 points, on unusual background for his broadsword skill means you're really charging him 50 points for it, instead of 40. Unusual background is one of those "advantages" that I strongly dislike because it costs you points and you don't actually get anything for it.

I despise the idea that, in a world where supers exist, they are charged an unusual background, but a super-normal, who operates at their levels, isn't. That seems backward.

To me, an unusual background is just a way to justify a lower starting point total for some characters, reducing their potential for other abilities.
[/rant]

Originally Posted by Railstar

Otherwise, people know that skill 24 fighters are a thing, and probably have some clue that he is one - either they stand out enough for potential enemies to know about the SwordMaster, or even worse they don't stand out and therefore opponents know to prepare for a guy with Broadsword 24 because Broadsword 20+ is commonplace.

Or, you're in a setting/game where melee just isn't relevant.

"There can be only one!"
*Fires RPG to the face.*
"Word."