[DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

For an upcoming Dungeon Fantasy session, I'm considering introducing ray guns in the style of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe or Taarna or Thundarr the Barbarian or Filmation's The New Adventures of Flash Gordon -- basically Conan the Barbarian plus ray guns. Normally, though I love the original Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy IV with all my heart, I don't like mixing sci-fi with my fantasy in table-top gaming, but this is just a short campaign of connected dungeons.

What I don't want to do is make the ray guns magic boom sticks like musket-shaped wands enchanted with Lightning Bolt. I want them to be fashioned with some form of weird fantasy technology, probably using crystals, mirrors (making them fragile), platinum and gold with wooden stocks. I want them to be TL3^ on the very cutting edge, almost TL4^.

I want to make sure they are balanced in a fantasy setting beside archers using bows and arrows.

As a starting reference point for balance, Heroic Archers with striking ST 13 and a composite bow does 1d+3 imp damage per turn, more for Weapon Masters. However, they can use different arrows including bodkin points doing piercing damage with an armor divisor (B277), or willow leaf arrows doing cutting damage (Treasure-Tables, p. 8; Low-Tech, p. 73). They add accuracy bonus without taking an Aim maneuver and have further options in Power-Ups that can make them even more fearsome. Plus, bows will be much cheaper. So, adding balanced ray guns won't make archers obsolete. At least, that's the goal.

While I was going to design my own, the more I thought about it, the more I like the idea of just using unmodified electro lasers. Then, I adjusted the damage up to 1d(2) burn (still with the surge and aff) and worsened the Shots considerably from practically unlimited to 12(3) and 24(3). Getting "ammo" will be as difficult as magic items.

I threw a couple old guns in there for reference.

using the stats from the Basic Set, electro lasers don't have good range or damage, certainly not against armored opponents. In fact, they seem to be a pretty poorly suited for the battle field. They seem to perhaps have been designed for riot control or as less-lethal police sidearms.

As personal weapons in a fantasy campaign, though, they don't seem too terribly bad, especially for a dual-weapon fighter who has a sword or axe in one hand, raygonne in the other. With a rapier, it would be a cool Swashbuckler concept.

What do you all think? Would they be too powerful or too weak? Should I lower the damage back down to 1d-3 burn with no armor divisor?

What about unmodified TL9^ flamers from Ultra-Tech?

Of course, when they first encounter them, they won't have any idea how to use them, but they will know they are weapons from seeing them used previously. I'll have an NPC there to tell them, "This is the business end. Don't point it at anything you don't want to kill. Hold it like this. Look through the sites like this. Pull this trigger to make it shoot. Be careful with that. You'll shoot your eye out."

I'm considering introducing the concept in a dungeon-ized wreckage of an ancient alien spaceship. Most, if not all, of the psionic elder-thing space alien squizards are dead, but the psychopathic AI still functions as do a small squad of robot soldiers. Real robots, not robot-like golems, mind you. Of course, the robots will probably be colored evil-skull white and there will be a bad-ass black version and scary red version. The Mother Brain-like boss will be a giant psi-borg.

I think it would be a significant and refreshing departure from what I've done in the past.

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

Nifty. Let me also suggest checking out David Pulver's Blaster and Laser Design in #3/37 Pyramid: Tech and Toys (p. 11) and my own Metatronic Generators #3/46 Pyramid: Weird Science (p. 16) for designing further blaster-y weaponry.

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

I'm kind of in a similar situation with the Thundercats campaign I just started. My wife's character got a hold of an enemy's rife. I decided to give it the Electro-carbine stats, as it was incapacitating but mostly non-lethal and I thought better fit the genre than something doing massive armor-piercing burn damage

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

Maybe the laser guns from Tales of the Solar Patrol, since they come with that space opera-y over-the-top feel built in?

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

Thudercats! Another great example of the sci-fi fantasy genre, as is John Carter of Mars, of which I've read the first Barsoom book but not seen the movie.

So, there's one vote for going back to just using the unmodified EL stats.

I don't have Tales so I don't know about them.

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

Okay, the more I think about it, unmodified electro lasers from Ultra-Tech look like the way to go. I like the idea of the kill/stun setting, too.

Apparently -- and correct me if I'm wrong with a page reference -- damage doesn't need to penetrate DR to cause the affliction and need to roll against stunning, though victims get half DR as a bonus to the HT roll. If so, that will make them good weapons against the Electrical robots, and actually any high-DR, high-HP creature capable of being stunned, such as dragons or giants or power-armor troops.

Yeah, they really seem to work well with the genre. They are altogether different than bows and thus don't really threaten that niche.

Thinking more about the game, I'm planing on having the PC's accidentally awaken the ship, which is a long-lost scout of a horrible alien civilization of cruel psionic Mindwarpers who feed upon the brains of the sentient. If the ship gets away, the whole world could be doomed!

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

You have read S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, yes?

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

I've certainly heard of it and Metamorphosis Alpha, which was was updated and expanded into Gamma World, but I've never read it. It sounds a lot like what I'm proposing.


This is going to be straight Dungeon Fantasy at the beginning of the first session and the players will have no knowledge I'm going to introduce ray guns, robots and psionics all in short order. The PC's will have never heard of any type of firearm before and will consider it pure magic at first.

After an opening scene, the PC's will be traveling from point A to point B on a completely unrelated mission. The players won't know that I don't even have that mission planned because the PC's won't reach that destination within the scope of this series of adventures. It'll just be some minor standard DF mission, like slay a troll under a bridge or whatever.

They get lost for whatever reason and wander into some hidden valley, perhaps around some mystic rune-covered wayfarer standing stones. You know the drill. They get actually get transported to another world near a TL4^ civilization.

Though they do have TL 4 firearms, black powder and such haven't yet really caught on because of the existence of magi-tech like the raygonne. There are even golem cyborgs and a large number of levitating conveyances (enchanted with Flying Carpet).

The folk in this new realm are peaceful and compassionate and will generally want to help the PC's return to their world as long as the PC's are civil.

However, the PC's first meeting with the people of this land will be after a warning shot ("magic bolt") strikes a nearby rock and the PC's are given a command for them to halt from a soldier aboard a large metallic flying disk similar to a flying horseless chariot. Four others, some carrying halberds, are aboard. They wear grandiloquent bascinets and steel corselets.

We'll have to see how the players, with 250-point DF characters react. The Wizard might just cast Force Dome and support the Heroic Archer Scout's arrows with fireballs. If so, things could get pretty bloody and the people of the sprawling walled city may put them on trial for murder or manslaughter rather than accept them graciously (the trial would most likely result in exile and serve the same purpose, though).

These humans' racial template will have IQ+1 and Magery 0 to total 25-points. Hundreds of not thousands of well-paid enchanters work nine-to-five in large circles and there is an unrivaled Academy of Wizardry at the city's heart. Agriculture and foodstuffs In this utopian society of magic, science, and art, violence is abhorred while logic, reason and creativity are upheld.

Of course, the land isn't without danger. They are currently outnumbered and at war with a vast army of darkness and hellspawn.

The real immediate threat, however, will come from the discovery of the Mindwarper's scout spaceship, which may have crash landed only a relatively short time ago, perhaps days or weeks or months or a few years.

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

How can I get in this game? (Kidding, but it would be cool.)

Were I you, I'd also look into secret spells and strange ways to interact with or use current spells for a SF feel. Things that come to mind immediately are Force Dome as force fields (complete with magical/material ways to bypass or "overload" them) and manaburner engines powering rickety TL 4^ vehicles and establishments held together with Essential Wood or Earth. I'd imagine you don't want to go overboard with this, though.

Places to look for direct inspiration might include GURPS Technomancer, though that's a higher TL than you intend, and GURPS Fantasy Tech 1 - The Edge of Reality (I don't think there are any more in that series, unfortunately.)

Also, it needs be said that much of the magic in Jack Vance's Dying Earth books has the feel of actually being science. D&D magic wands have always (to me) had the feel of being ray-guns and the like, complete with limited charges and strange methods of activation.

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

No Skeleton Warriors or Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors?

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

You're always welcome at my table, virtual or otherwise, Big J! :)

Really, I don't. What I don't want this to turn into is a magical metropolis of arcanepunk. I still want to keep it subtle, but in some ways Magic makes magic too good to refuse. We all know the spells that can be abused like crazy. Why grow food when you can create it instantly and easily? Why worry about gold when you can wave your hand and conjure a pile of it? Flying Carpet makes a flying car that puts a horse to shame -- guided by thought at Move 15 perpetually; who wouldn't want that? Things like that. It'll be carefully balanced so that magic is still wondrous, not entirely commonplace. Close to an elfish city in Lord of the Rings, probably.

Hey, I actually have that last one! XD

You know, I've always wanted to read some Vance but I never got around to it. Maybe I'll start there. Thanks for the recommendation. :)

Ah, JatWW was right at the beginning of my cartoon watching days and Skeleton Warriors was right at the very end of my childhood. Loved 'em both.

Also, Jayce had some totally rad hair, didn't he? :D

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

Oh yeah. Me too. That and Centurions (and all of the others you mentioned up thread) were some of my favorite cartoons. Are you going to post campaign notes somewhere? I'd be interested in following along.

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

Centurions and Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light were on some network we didn't pick up on the antenna way out in the sticks, along with some others of the time. I liked the toys, though. XD

But, dude, Silverhawks never gets enough love because it's the stepchild brother of Thundercats. Always in big bro's shadow. Amirite?

As for campaign notes, I've been keeping this very hush, but I have a very large DF blog project I've been hacking away at, but I want to get a lot of content before it goes live. No prediction on time. Believe me, everyone will know about it and no one will miss its opening, I promise.

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

Fantastic. :0

Yeah, Silverhawks was a awesome show. I've never actually met anyone who did like it, much less heard of it.

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

Ohmigods. I loved that show when I was a kid. I had a bunch of the action figures.

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

Aside from the Silverhawks love it sounds like a good idea and game.
The players may even want to stick around. Especially if they have skills that make them better then the natives in some ways.
It is kind of like many of Burroughs books.

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

Well then - that's two. :-D

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

They had action figures?!

I feel so deprived. <sob>

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

Lasers in '80 cartoon were used because violence regulations of the time forbade any character fight: they had swords and massive fists but they cannot hit each other with that (grapples and trows were ok) so, lasers!

You can use lasers in your campaign for a similiar purpose: they have high precision, low lethality, are used for crowd control and are the only legal way to stop/restrain an enemy. Anything more lethal face more severe conseguences.

If you treat the battery as a magical item you can also create rarer, more powerful versions: like fixed weapon defences or mounted lasers platforms (possibly on a panther or on a dinosaur ;).

Now is all very Eternia.

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

*Sigh* Well, the Electrolaser was a good idea for the Thundercats game. It nicely fit the genre. Problem is, my wife's character, a human from present-day Earth, is also an engineer with Quick Gadgeteer. Now she wants to upgrade the Electrolaser to something that does fistfulls of d6 burn damage.

Did I mention she's just the teensiest bit bloodthirsty?

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

This picture should make its way into your campaign.

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

^That will be the opening scene! XD

But really, this isn't going to be an '80's Saturday morning cartoon show despite all the references, some of which are pretty far from the concept. While I'm certainly not shooting for hard sci-fi, it'll be about as serious as Dungeon Fantasy hack-and-slash sessions get. There just happen to be some robots as monsters and ray guns as rare weapons. Otherwise, standard DF here. Yeah, a dungeon is going to be the inside of a crashed spaceship, but that's just window dressing, no different than a sorcerer's underground lair or whatever.


Been working on the robot soldiers. After looking through Ultra-Tech, I decided that while electrolasers are still used by the humans, the robots will actually carry flamers -- loud, flashy RoF 1 guns that don't do a whole lot of damage. They are based on the TL9 nuclear-powered Combat Android, Ultra-Tech, p. 167. They don't suffer from trait bloat; with three meta-traits (AI, Automation, Machine), there were just so many unlisted that I had to record them in order to keep track of them.

The ray-gun wielding, DR 30, Homogenous Constructs are no push overs. There aren't many of them still functioning, but there are enough that they are going to be tough nuts to crack when encountered in multiples.

Basically, there are going to be a few scattered throughout the small dungeon -- sometimes solo, sometimes in pairs or up to three at once -- then there will be 3-5 protecting the Mindwarper boss.

About the robot soldier's blades, they are Superfine (Ultra-Tech, p. 169). After giving it a great deal of thought and deliberation, I have ruled to stick with the strict interpretation of RAW.

RAW dictates Superfine is not listed as an option of quality and it does not explicitly state that it gives a bonus to breakage.

In light of both those two facts, RAW, it is not mutually exclusive with Very Fine. The trouble with that is, the blade gets a +1/+2 to damage from Fine/VF and a +2 to damage from SF, which I don't think authors intended. But, it's Ultra-Tech, so who knows what was intended. It's entirely possible Superfine just means the blade's edge is super keen. In fact, RAW, that's exactly what it does mean.

Here are some pics of the robots:

http://www.propbay.com/attachments/o...snap-38161.jpg (Daring to sword fight with a man whose actual, real name is He-Man)
http://www.he-man.org/assets/images/...ooper_full.jpg
http://thecarouselpodcast.files.word...u-troops28.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...u-troops24.jpg


Here is a rough draft with no play-testing:

Re: [DF] Imma Chargin' Mah (Fantasy) Lazors!!!
 

Don't forget, DR from metal armor counts as 1 against Lightning Bolt and lightning spells have the Surge modifier. An air wizard might figure the robot looks a fair bit like an armored warrior and try to see how well a lightning bolt hurts him.

Oh wait, that thing has awesome dodging and blocking. Might be a bit hard to hit then.

(Heman, with no hyphen, is an honest-to-goodness real name, just not in the modern world.)