DF at 150 points?

[RyanW]

Anyone done this? Any pitfalls? Do any of the templates have problems being streamlined and cut back? Who is hurt the most?

[Noven]

I have not done 150, but I am running a DF game with 200 points. All it really does is make things a bit more difficult for the group. They need to take less spells, less equipment, less everything =).

[Lupo]

I've not specifically done this, but I started working on 150 pt templates in this post.

As you can see, I made only 3 templates, and I still have to shave a few points off each :)

BARBARIAN [-85]
Lower ST, DX, IQ, HT by 1 level each [-59]. Note: this will reduce ALL skills by 1 level.
Keep Basic Speed at 6.00 [10].
Replace Outdoorsman 3 with Outdoorsman 2 [-10]. Note: this will reduce all skills marked with "double dagger" by 1 further level.
Choose advantages totaling 20 points instead of 30 [-10].
Under Disadvantages, replace "a further -20 points" with "a further -30 points" [-10].
Spend 1 point instead of 2 in each fixed Background Skill [-4], lowering them by 1 further level. Instead of four more Background skills, choose only two more [-2].

BARD [-93]
Lower ST, DX, IQ, HT by 1 level each [-60]. Note: this will reduce ALL skills by 1 level.
Lower Basic Speed to 5.25 and Basic Move to 5 [-5].
Under advantages, remove either Musical Ability 2 or Voice [-10]. Note: this will reduce by 1 all skills marked with "double dagger" or "dagger", respectively.
Spend 20 points (instead of 25) in Bard-Song abilities; do the same with the other group of advantages you can choose from [-10].
Choose only three further Background skills instead of six [-3].
Spend 15 points (instead of 20) in Special Skills and Spells [-5].

CLERIC [-90]
Lower ST, DX, IQ, HT by 1 level each [-60]. Note: this will reduce ALL skills by 1 level.
Lower Basic Speed to 5.00 and Basic Move to 5 [-10].
Replace Power Investiture 3 with Power Investiture 2 [-10].
Spend 15 points (instead of 25) in Holy abilities [-10].
Under Disadvantages, replace "a further -25 points" with "a further -15 points" [10]
Remove two Secondary Skills and three Background Skills of your choice [-5].
Choose 15 (instead of 20) clerical spells [-5].

That said, I think you can easily play an action-oriented fantasy campaign with dungeons and 150 pts characters. That's probably what many GURPS players already do (being 150 pts the recommended starting level, and fantasy one of the most popular settings for RPGs).

I think that dedicated professions (Knight, Swashbuckler, Wizard) will be hurt less than more eclectic ones (Cleric, Holy Warrior, Scout).
And probably professions that are already tight with 250 points (Martial Artist, Bard) will probably be even more useless than they are now.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Anyone done this? Any pitfalls? Do any of the templates have problems being streamlined and cut back? Who is hurt the most?

My guess, but mind you that it is only a guess, is that survivability would be the big problem, so you should try not to reduce traits such as HT and HP and defense stats. Reducing weapon or shield skill levels also lowes parry/block values, although I'm not enough of an expert on GURPS' combat rules to know if that's a huge problem.


One argument against 60% CP value DF is that when you shave down the non-combatant templates like the Wizard and Cleric (and probably the Druid too, and of course the two in DF4), you'll be mostly shaving away that which makes the distinctive (that which makes the Wizard Wizard-like, that which makes the Cleric Cleric-like, and so forth) because you're so careful to try to not reduce their surviability.

And I'm not sure there is a way to avoid that. If you make the Wizard less Wizard-like by removing his Wizardly traits, he gets boring to play, and if you make the Wizard less hardy by removing survivability traits, he'll have a short average life span.

DF campaigns are, by implicit defintion, high-action. There will be a lot of combat and a lot of non-combat physical hazards (traps, nasty enviroments).

[gmillerd]

Depends sort of on the size of the group, one extra person could really make a lot of difference.

I think the characters are very "first level" if 1/3 of those points are mundane. Though if you have 50% disadvantage cap that is entirely used by every character then likely they have a life that's well on its way in a lot of regards.

You could easily augment those points with signature gear or what have you after creation to some degree.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Lupo

That said, I think you can easily play an action-oriented fantasy campaign with dungeons and 150 pts characters. That's probably what many GURPS players already do (being 150 pts the recommended starting level, and fantasy one of the most popular settings for RPGs).

I think that dedicated professions (Knight, Swashbuckler, Wizard) will be hurt less than more eclectic ones (Cleric, Holy Warrior, Scout).
And probably professions that are already tight with 250 points (Martial Artist, Bard) will probably be even more useless than they are now.

Isn't the affected skills meant to be reduced by -2, if either Voice or 2 levels of Musical Talent is removed?

In general, I think you can "shave off" a few more points in your templates, by reducing Talents and Talent-like traits further.

Take away 2 levels of Outdoorsman from the Barbarian, not just one. Take away Voice from the Bard and one of the two levels of Musical Talent. And with the Cleric, take away two levels of Power Investitute, not just one.

Clearly players should be free to buy these lowered Talents up to normal levels, as soon as they can afford it, and they will (if they're not stupid).

That will also get closer to emulating the "rapid power-up" feel in AD&D and D&D3 (and presumably D&D4 too), if characters buy up the core Talents of their respective templates because, well, obviously if you can boost most of your core skills by +1 by spending 5 or 10 CPs, then that's what you're gonna do.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by gmillerd

Depends sort of on the size of the group, one extra person could really make a lot of difference.

Not really, if I'm correct in assuming that survivability will be the key problem.

[Kromm]

This gets complicated . . .

When I created the DF series and wrote the first few items in it, I didn't think, "I like 250 points, so that's that! Gamers who prefer lower-powered games can suffer! Mwahahahaha!" Rather, I looked at the canonical GURPS stats for pits, poisons, dangerous animals, and other threats and disasters, and made the DF templates sufficiently robust that using them would yield the carefree, cinematic fun of old-school dungeon crawling instead of some sort of grim survival horror. Then I looked at the GURPS rules for doing things – casting, fighting, opening locks, etc. – and added sufficient aptitude to the templates that the PCs would resemble classic dungeon-delver archetypes and thus be able to do better than barely survive. When I was done, I had 250-point templates. Throughout this process, I was aware of the following:

Originally Posted by gmillerd

Depends sort of on the size of the group

I'd say not just "sort of," but "almost entirely." While there are 11 templates, I didn't assume that there would be 11 players in most groups. That number simply reflected the fact that I'd run entire campaigns with 8-9 players – and had brief stints with as many as 13 players – and wanted to give large groups enough archetypes that they could easily sidestep the niche-finding turf wars that I had witnessed over the years. At the same time, I left some redundancy in the templates to accommodate the considerably smaller size of more representative gaming groups. In my calculations, I acknowledged that most groups have 2-4 players. This meant that each PC had to be something of a paragon, as his demise would leave the party without 25-50% of its abilities, and vulnerable from one entire side in combat.

Thus, as your gaming group gets larger, you can safely lower point totals somewhat. To do this in a way that's consistent with my design approach, remove redundancy: take thieving skills away from non-thieves, lower IQ for non-casters, and so on. Once you get past six adventurers, you can even start to push down combat skills and "survival" traits such as HT, because that's the magic head count where you can afford to form two lines or a box to keep the lighter combatants and noncombatants relatively safe from harm. For every player past the fourth, I figure that you could knock off 20 points this way, reaching as little as 150 points for a nine-PC horde. I'd stop there; weaker PCs are fine for more thoughtful "peasant hero" stories, but the 150-point power level is probably rock-bottom for a violent dungeon crawl with strong, Technicolor archetypes.

The executive summary is that the 250-point power level is needed to make a larger-than-life, carefree genre work in a grim, gritty system like GURPS, where enough kobolds will eventually get behind you, roll a critical hit, etc. That power level makes it possible to survive a certain amount of bad luck against superior numbers. However, this same grit means that when you have more people on your side, rolling more dice and covering more angles, you don't need to be as powerful. In effect, you can trade points for people . . . because in a way, each PC is like a hidden instance of Ally (100% of PC's point total; Constantly) [20] on the character sheet of each of his associates.

[Bruno]

I think the big thing is the GM setting his expectations for encounters at an appropriate level.

150 point characters, unlike 250 point characters, might actually worry when they encounter a pack of 10 regular wolves, or 5 Orcs with 20-30 points in combat skills and leather armor (give them base attributes).

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I think the big thing is the GM setting his expectations for encounters at an appropriate level.

That's the "monster" side of the math in my previous post. Once you've knocked the PCs down to 150 points by removing redundancy, you have to toss suitable threats at them. "Larger doses of stuff aimed at a 150-point level" is fine for a large group of 150-pointers. However, since no one of them is a super-tough 250-pointer, you can't expect challenges built for 250-point heroes to be fun or fair.

I do think that as points go down, head count grows in importance on the PC side of the ledger, though. Even a pack of wolves is a problem if there are 10 wolves and just four PCs. At the low-powered end of things, I'd be a lot more generous with spear-carriers and other low-level support NPCs.