Re: Horses?
 

I totally didn't think to check the skills section for the riding skills benefits, thanks for pointing that out!

Re: Horses?
 

I ignore those rules as DF 1 specifically calls out what books are needed to play it and Bio-Tech isn't on the list.

[EDIT]
Also this is DFRPG, so we're really not reaching for those rules.
[/EDIT]



Excellent idea! You or Matt Rigbsy* should definitely write it up!



* Or if someone can find S. E. Mortimer and poke him, get him to do it. He wrote the June 4, 2004 Pyramid article "Horse Sense" after all...

Re: Horses?
 

You seem to be missing this or are being deliberately obtuse, but those rules do NOT require you to use Bio-Tech at all. They don't even ask you to use Bio-Tech. They are only derived from a table in Bio-Tech, the whole of which just surface area when determining food requirements.

Re: Horses?
 

F'real? This isn't a DFRPG release anymore. Heck, it isn't a GURPS Dungeon Fantasy release at this point. It's an outright part of the putative GURPS Bestiary line.

Re: Horses?
 

So uh... what page are they on in the DFRPG books then?

Right, like I said, ignorable.

Re: Horses?
 

Are you asking about DF, or DFRPG? Because your original relevant comment ("I ignore those rules as DF 1 specifically calls out what books are needed to play it") is about DF. In which case, the (SM 1) information is contained in DF10:Taverns, as PK points out in that post. It's the difference between total cost and cost of lodging.

If you're playing DF then you're playing with Basic Set, and you should have a general idea that bigger SM means "more" - so you could even eyeball the food requirement from there. PK is right to say his calculations are "off the cuff and unofficial." They don't take into account the different biologies, and that more than anything is the deciding factor.

Two caveats to this:

1) If you're actually talking about DFRPG, then your point about DF1 is irrelevant and you're correct, there's nothing in DFRPG that gives anything close to the info.

2) Horses aren't people and their food requirements (and costs) are radically different. The conversion above, at least as it applies here, is between an omnivore and an herbivore - and that won't work regardless of where it comes from.

In other words, you can't use DF10/Bio-Tech anyway.

Re: Horses?
 

The Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game covers dungeon adventures. Wilderness, town, and extradimensional adventures will be covered later if the core game sells well. Beyond the Dungeon (Exploits, p. 84) is all the game has to say about such adventures for the moment. Mounts rarely fit into dungeons, so discussion is limited to: (1) using Riding to get to/from the dungeon, should mounts be available in the abstract, perhaps thanks to a quest-giver (Exploits, pp. 17, 64, 65), and (2) buying horses to drag wagons full of loot (Exploits, p. 16). Mounted combat is explicitly outside the scope of the game, as Riding (Adventurers, p. 87) states.

If an adventurer wants to have a mount to carry stuff – say, to keep a Vow – charge half the price of the generic pair of horses ($4,000/2 = $2,000). That covers a large horse untrained for battle, a big mule, or an exceptional riding horse. Assume that half a team can carry half the generic "half a ton" of stuff that a pair of horses could pull in a wagon (a wagon is horribly inefficient off road, and just a way to avoid needing the Riding skill to haul loot). To set a figure, that's 500 lbs., which for such a mount would be Heavy encumbrance where GURPS talks about Medium . . . but this isn't GURPS, so exact speed and encumbrance level are abstracted. The delver can add her or his own weight, or not, as preferred; Riding is required to avoid needing Hiking and to lose fewer FP to travel, in the absence of which it's best to use the beast as a load-bearer and devote all 500 lbs. to gear.

Re: Horses?
 

That should be obvious as i specifically call out "DF" and "DFRPG".

DF 10 Taverns doesn't mention SM at all in relation to anything other than the NPCs and their stats. What PK was calling out was that the Cost of Living was roughly half Food and half Lodging... as per DF 10 Taverns.

From Basic Set I have the general idea that Increased and Decreased Consumption control whether one eats more or less than normal. Nothing in Basic Set would lead me to believe I need to use rules from Biotech.

Yup. And if I were away from my computer I'd just handwave it as "costs the same as feeding an Adventurer". Which the old Pyramid article Horse Sense (a great article for using Horses) pretty much says exactly that*...




* Horse Sense estimates it at about $5 per day for a 900 pound horse under moderate work conditions... and an Adventurer costs $6 per day to feed... so, hey look at that!

Re: Horses?
 

It does seem like a bit of an oversight to have the Vow available, but not any explanation of how it works.

Re: Horses?
 

Yup. And only the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game is on-topic in this forum. For GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, there's the GURPS forum. GURPS isn't on-topic here. In the DFRPG, horses graze or something when left at the dungeon entrance, and are basically ways to: (1) carry 500 lbs. of extra stuff to and from the dungeon entrance, and (2) use Riding if you lack Hiking when rolling to reach the dungeon. That's it and that's all.