Fan Dungeon for GURPS DF now Up

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

"Only" 14- is still 90% chance to hit.

But not particularly good for getting past defenses. There's no extra skill "buffer" for Deceptive Attack, and at skill 14 they'll only be able to feint their way past the wizard or thief, not any of the actual fighting characters.

90% chance to force the character to make a defense roll, with a ~40% chance of the character failing the defense roll = 36% chance of hitting with the ax. Meanwhile a knight with a 20 starting skill (or thereabouts, possibly much higher!) can knock 2 off that defense of 9 it has, meaning it only defends on a 7 or less.

98% chance to hit, 83% chance of bypassing active defenses = 82% chance to connect and do damage and probably take the poor hairy brute out.

They've gotta have decent damage, or they can't do anything effective at all.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Bruno

But not particularly good for getting past defenses. There's no extra skill "buffer" for Deceptive Attack, and at skill 14 they'll only be able to feint their way past the wizard or thief, not any of the actual fighting characters.

Still, the stereotypical party is one melee fighting character (knight, holy warrior, barbarian), one healing character who is a secondary melee fighter (cleric, druid), one mobile or ranged fighting character (swashbuckler, scout, thief, martial artist) and one spell-slinger or buffer (wizard, bard); if there's a fifth character, he's a buffer. Only one such character will be able to stand up to him, and with six bugbears in 1.3, there's no way only one of the tanks can handle all six.

Let me put it another way. One? He's a pushover. Two? Piece of cake. Four? They'll do some damage. Six? They'll take out some characters. And they'll probably hear the fighting with the orcs in the previous room. (Really, you should be addressing the likelihood of this happening, as well as the lighting. The orcs and bugbears will keep things dark.)

[mlangsdorf]

Maybe it's just the groups I've played in, but a typical Scout or Thief is going to have a Dodge of 10+, so a retreating Dodge is a 13. The Wizard with his Staff-14 has a Parry of 12, retreating again for a 13. The cleric with Shield-14 and a Medium shield has a Block of 12, retreating again for a 13.

These bugbears are worrisome, but if you're a 250 point DF template and these guys get through your defenses, you're doing something wrong.

Admittedly, my experience is with 5-6 person parties, but that's the usual size of my face to face and online groups. I'd expect to see a Knight up front, defending against 2-3 of these guys at a time (Block, and 2 parries with weapon master) probably assisted by the Cleric, with the Thief and Wizard picking up any flankers. Meanwhile, the Scout is dropping or disabling a Bugbear each round.

So it's a bit high risk, but even direct hit shouldn't kill anyone. Everyone in DF should have DR3+ (Leather + Fortify 1 is cheap) and no one should have less than 10 HP, so a 15 point average hit is 18 injury - owch, but a pair of Major Healings from the Cleric fixes that.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Maybe it's just the groups I've played in, but a typical Scout or Thief is going to have a Dodge of 10+, so a retreating Dodge is a 13. The Wizard with his Staff-14 has a Parry of 12, retreating again for a 13. The cleric with Shield-14 and a Medium shield has a Block of 12, retreating again for a 13.

These bugbears are worrisome, but if you're a 250 point DF template and these guys get through your defenses, you're doing something wrong.

...

So it's a bit high risk, but even direct hit shouldn't kill anyone. Everyone in DF should have DR3+ (Leather + Fortify 1 is cheap) and no one should have less than 10 HP, so a 15 point average hit is 18 injury - owch, but a pair of Major Healings from the Cleric fixes that.

I went through and averaged the templates and bought for them theoretical gear, and posted this in another thread. The original eleven templates had an average Dodge of 9.5, average Parry of 10.7, average Block (including default) of 9.6 (Encumbrance and having a shield cancelled out). Their budgets typically limit their initial DR to 2; let's give them Fortify; average HP is 12.6. Now, the knight and barbarian will not have problems with these guys, but there is typically only one of them in a four character party. (Where do you get your players? Most groups I know have trouble scraping up three or four.) An average hit of 18 HP after DR will incapacitate the character; it's a major wound even for the barbarian, and the others will drop below 0. And the cleric is probably going to be fighting them in a few seconds.

[Greg 1]

Thank you very much everyone for your useful observations. I will continue to watch this conversation very carefully.

Originally Posted by Rasputin

but there is typically only one of them in a four character party. (Where do you get your players? Most groups I know have trouble scraping up three or four.)

It may be that I overestimated likely party size. As I say in the Introduction "Beneath Castle Everglory is a dungeon adventure designed for 5 or more 250 point PCs built according to the templates in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy". Hm.

As I also say "The adventure is designed for a party who are proceeding carefully and cleverly, and PC point value may be less important than PC cunning. The dungeon can be dangerous indeed, and while it is not intended to be a “killer” dungeon, death may come easily to those with more bravado than prudence." Dangers like the Blood Axe Bugbears are intended to give the PCs an opportunity to be clever and resourceful. That isn't to say that you are wrong in saying that they are too tough - I'm just explaining the approach I took.

[Greg 1]

Lots of great catches Rasputin!

[Greg 1]

Originally Posted by Edges

It looks great. A dungeon in the classic style.

Thank you for your kind encouragement. :)

I particularly like The Three Golems.

Those were fun to do. I'd be very interested in finding out how players handle them.

Aren't dragons traditionally given Extra Attack?

I don't remember! Does he seem too weak? I'm more concerned over whether he is balanced overall than whether he bites less and cast spells more than most other dragons.

What was the motivation behind giving so many of the foes such high FP?

Good question. IIRC, I was making sure that the spell-casters had lots of juice. I should check the numbers again.

Why are there so many versions of the same map?

Because Kuroshima is that good!

[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.

[Kalzazz]

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

[Rasputin]

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.

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.