Re: [DF] Question about "You All Meet at an Inn" [Pyramid 98]
 

Sorry if I came off as overly confrontational.

However, the pyramid issue is welcome to DF. The article is specifically about how to get a team together & trusting each other. While it is tre that it does not have to be a 250 pt team, it seems counterproductive to write the intro adventure of the intro pyramid magazine issue for a line that has the default setting of character pts at 250, & set the encounters at a level where 250 pt starting characters characters won't survive.

The response of well, they don't have to be starting (they could have magic weapons) or they don't have to only be 250 pts, seems to defeat the purpose of intro adventure to the band new DF RPG line.

I'm about to start a new DF campaign in the next few weeks. I was planning on using this for my 1st adventure, but I need a way for my players to survive. I think there's no problem with the party gathering down at the bottom b4 going in to the room with the toxifiers, but I don't really see a way for them to survive the encounter.

Re: [DF] Question about "You All Meet at an Inn" [Pyramid 98]
 

True Faith? Air Jet? Flaming Weapon?

Re: [DF] Question about "You All Meet at an Inn" [Pyramid 98]
 

Which no one might have.

Seriously. I've yet to see a Cleric in any game I've been in or run take True Faith. Air Jet I've seen on a few Wizards... but only once have seen Flaming Weapon, on a pregen Cleric for DFRPG (to be fair, she might also have true Faith, I have no idea what the sheet looks like).

Re: [DF] Question about "You All Meet at an Inn" [Pyramid 98]
 

If you make a party with no defense against incoporeal or diffuse foes, you probably shouldn't be surprised if you do poorly against them. This is a thing I try to point out when I see it. At least hire a guy with True Faith and Affect Spirits.

There probably are at least a dozen spells and abilities that work well against Toxicifers, all you need is one of them.

Re: [DF] Question about "You All Meet at an Inn" [Pyramid 98]
 

A rather important thing to remember about Unkillable: it does not include immunity to consciousness checks, and a Toxifer has HT 10 (and probably is classed as a Worthy, not a Boss). Do 10 damage to it and it's going down. It has a Dodge of 10, so half of attacks miss, but there's no reason not to all-out attack against them (their attack doesn't allow an active defense anyway) so any starting character should be hitting an average of at least once per round for 2 damage. Or you can use an area spell that will ignore diffuse.

However, 'get rid of the monster generator' and 'figure out how to not send characters one at a time into a woodchipper' are pretty basic DF skills.

Re: [DF] Question about "You All Meet at an Inn" [Pyramid 98]
 

That sounds like a whole new thread on if enchanted items used as a weapon would be considered magic weapons.

Hopefully if the GM was running this adventure for a group new to DF entirely, there would be some check to make sure at least one player had a way to deal with these enemies. Still, these are hardly rare enemy abilities to encounter and should be planned for.

That is interesting to note about worthy monsters. Assuming the GM is using those rules, how would Unkillable and Worthy interact?

Those basic skills you mention tend to be more "break anything that looks suspicious" and "never split up the party" in the games I play in, but the point remains the same. :D

Re: [DF] Question about "You All Meet at an Inn" [Pyramid 98]
 

Hmm, is that an actual rule; does a weapon have to have a weapon enchantment to be considered a magic weapon?

As I see it, if it's a weapon (a staff is) and it has an enchantment (Staff is one) then it's an enchanted (magic) weapon. In almost 30 years of gurpsing, it never ocurred to me that a Staff was not a magic weapon.

Re: [DF] Question about "You All Meet at an Inn" [Pyramid 98]
 

They don't. Worthy monsters aren't dead at 0 HP, they're out of the fight. It doesn't terribly matter, though, if you don't use those rules it means on average they get one additional attack after being reduced to 0 HP.

Re: [DF] Question about "You All Meet at an Inn" [Pyramid 98]
 

Huh. In 30 years of GURPS I've never know a GM who considered a Wizard Staff a "magic weapon" for 'magic weapon' purposes.

I've never thought about it because I've never had creatures that required or were susceptible to 'magic weapons'. I always thought it was a terrible concept in D&D and refused to 'port it over'.

Re: [DF] Question about "You All Meet at an Inn" [Pyramid 98]
 

A little more about our group and how they handled it.

I am a long-experienced player, both of GURPS and dungeon crawling in general in various systems; being a general "ringer", my job was to mostly provide a warm body, while helping the GM gently introduce new mechanics or ideas.

The rest of the group were people who had played MMOs, and one referred to attacks of opportunity so they'd obviously played some recent D&D.

The GM clearly decided that the toxifiers come out if you poke the door, not just 'whenever', I'm not sure what the intent was with the flame lord because the barbarian was amusing. The barb was first at the bottom of the well due to gravity, and went straight in to kick the brazier. The rest of us were most of the way down the well by the time the barb fell down, so this didn't actually separate the party much.

I'll note that the rest of the party, including the definitely-never-played-tabletop players, had already caught on to Never Split The Party and were yelling at the barbarian to STAY. STAY. GOOD BOY. Didn't work.

The flame lord came out, and I don't know if it was just "walked in the room" or "kicked the brazier" that did it, but the Barbarian's first reaction was to say "Hello!" to it. The druid, making their Hidden Lore check, immediately backed the Barb up with a "Hello oh great one" kind of intervention, and the rest of the party caught on that Flame Lords have an ego problem and also groveled and simpered.

The GM rolled a random reaction, and got good enough that the Flame Lord was willing to suspend the BURN EVERYTHING to get more bowing and scraping. We then negotiated with it, eventually bargaining to release it in exchange for some information about the dungeon and a promise to go straight back where it came from without setting anything or anyone on fire until it got there (that was the best deal we could manage).

It didn't warn us about the toxifiers specifically, but it did warn us that the door was "trapped" and that there were demons and definitely other monsters. We couldn't find "the trap on the door" and in the grand tradition of delvers everywhere, got the barbarian to open it because he had the most HP (even after falling down the well, he didn't fall all the way from the top).

Then the toxifiers came out, and nobody needed it suggested that we need to break the torches. MMOs are excellent training for the idea of monster spawners. We had a druid and a wizard and between the two of them the toxifiers were dispatched rapidly while the rest of us smashed torches before too many appeared. Even if we hadn't had the magic, we only ended up with two, and that's managable.

I honestly think players who have played video games in the general fantasy-combaty-dungeony genre won't need that part explained.