Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Here's my attempt at an equally abusive fighter to the super staff wizards.

One day Snow White asked her parents why they and her five brothers didn't have pointed ears, dark skin and hair as white as the fallen snow, save of course for the touch of white at the edges of her mother's hair and her father's beard.

They replied that this was because she was adopted.

Satisfied with this simple explanation she herded their alpaca flock out towards their mountain pastures. Along the way she passed her brothers tending to their potato and tobacco fields. They congratulated her when she used some thrown rocks to drive away wild kangaroos from their fields.

Up in the mountain pasture she takes out a wolf with a head shot from her ordinary dagger.

Later she finds her family slain by finely made black arrows with a strange Nordic script scrawled on the house walls. She grabs the set of fine daggers (with similar markings) that her father had kept hidden and made her way to the big city. She will meet up with the dwarves there and Dopey's assertion that they are not traveling with a disguised prince will remind Snow of one time she had overheard her parents talking about the true princess of a vast underground queendom in hiding. Which they then explained was an old fairy tale. Doc will find this story to be very interesting.

Snow White
ST 6, DX 16, IQ 10, MA 12
Dagger(1d-1, 1d-1 in HTH) (Carries five finely made daggers (+1 dam) on belt.)
Skills: Knife(1), Quick-Draw Dagger(1), Thrown Weapons(2), Alertness(2), Animal Handler(2), Climbing(1), Tracking(1)
Language and social knowledge: Common tongue and human farmland culture only.

Grumpy
St 10, DX 6(0), IQ 16, MA 10(6)
Staff of Power (1d, range two, auto-hit and ignores non-magical defenses)
Plate Armor(Stops 5 hits, -5 DX), Large Shield(Stops 2 hits, -1 DX)
Spells: Staff IV, Light, Aid, Meal, Reveal/Conceal, Pathfinder
Talents: Shield(1*2), Human tongue(1), Literacy(1), Alertness(2*2), Tactics(1*2)

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Grumpy's cave is the Wizard mapsheet. The obstacle megahexes are bottomless pits.

Sadly, Snow White is not abusive enough. Grumpy keeps moving 3 hexes and dodging. When Snow throws a dagger at him, and it misses, he picks it up and throws it in the pit.

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

The way to take Grumpy out is with entangling weapons or spells. Lasso, bolas, net & trident, whip; Rope, Stop, Avert spells. The ever popular combo of Stop and Open Tunnel means Grumpy gets vaporized. AdjDX 0 means he auto-fails the save, and if he's Stopped he can't leave the hex anyway.

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

I would suggest one of the Murderous Ninja Sniper Halflings (MNSH). TBH members of this clan are less abusive now that the racial bonus to thrown weapons has been dropped. Also listed here as a 32-pt character.

Snow White the MNSH
ST 4
DX 20
IQ 8
Talents: thrown weapons, sha-ken, quick draw, running

Her adjDX with sha-ken is 22.

If you are unarmored or lightly armored, she throws 12 sha-ken at you each turn (adjDX=14 exclusive of range penalties). You are looking at an average of about 7D-14 damage when three hexes away.

If you are heavily armored, you have a prayer and she considers two options.
(A) Use dagger/sha-ken marksmanship and aim at your weapon hand with a 3 sha-ken attack (adjDX = 14 exclusive of range). From three hexes away, this gives her about a 95% chance of disarming you, regardless of armor protection.
(B) Aim at your face with a 6 sha-ken attack (adjDX = 12 exclusive of range). This is a double-damage armor-penetrating attack. From 3 hexes away, you are looking at an average of about 7.5 damage. So she will need a little luck to knock you down or potentially even kill you in one turn. Two will do.

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

ITL Page 120, Aimed Shots, Dagger, Sha-Ken or Whip specifies "a single throwing star"

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Thank you; that's how I thought it worked. I feel like most of the really crazy white-room arguments involve healthy doses of mistaken rulings and/or statistically unsound conclusions.

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Yes thank you, I had read that rule to mean each attack is resolved individually (similar to the normal sha-ken rules), but I agree only one attack is a much more sensible interpretation for sha-ken marksmanship.

So yes, that means MNSHs can only destroy lightly/unarmored opponents, and lose to Grumpys.

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Draziw, a wizard

ST 9 DX 10 (10) IQ 13 MA 10 (10)

Spells: Magic Fist, Slow Movement, Aid, Avert, Fire, Lock/Knock, Reveal/Conceal, Reverse Missiles, Rope, Drain Strength, Repair, Open Tunnel

Talents: Literacy (1)

Armor: None. Weapons: None.

Draziw waits for Grumpy to enter mega-megahex range. Draziw casts Rope at Grumpy (Draziw now at 7 ST). Draziw rolls a 7; Grumpy is now tied up. As Grumpy's adjDX is below 2, he falls.

Draziw casts Drain Strength on Grumpy; Grumpy loses 5 ST, Draziw recovers 1. (Draziw at 8 ST, Grumpy at 5 ST)

Draziw casts Aid on Grumpy, aids him for 6 ST. (Draziw at 2 ST, Grumpy at 11 ST for 2 turns.)

Next turn, Draziw casts Drain Strength on Grumpy; drains 10 ST and recovers 2. (Draziw at 4 ST, Grumpy at 1 ST for 1 turn)

Next turn, Grumpy's Aided ST wears off. Grumpy now at -5 ST. Grumpy dies.

Huzzah! Grumpy's reign of terror has come to an end!

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Can Grumpy still free-auto-strike with his staff even when held helpless by a Rope?

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

ITL p.26 "This staff is immune to Drop Weapon and Break Weapon spells and critical failures."

You can't get the staff out of Grumpy's greedy hands with magic?

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Agree.

It would be quite scary if Grumpy could manage to roll/shimmy or somehow come up with a way to move 1 hex a turn even while ROPE'd. The staff of power would slowly but surely approach, waving around furiously as Grumpy flops and thrashes, fish-like, towards you.

RUN!

RUN!!!

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Grumpy's adjDX without the rope is 0. The turn the Rope hits him, it drops to -2. He's not going anywhere. GM ruled that with adjDX that low he's not even allowed to roll...

(When I ran the combat with Grumpy vs. "#1 the fighter with bow and spear" I miscalculated the moves once, and Grumpy made it to 2 hexes from #1. I ruled that #1 took the 1d damage from the occult blast. So I was trying to be as fair as possible. When Grumpy the 'wizard' piled down with metal gets tied up and falls over, he's not going anywhere. Draziw could have used multiple castings of Magic Fist to knock Grumpy into the bottomless pit; and I think I erred in giving Draziw the Open Tunnel spell, as he doesn't -- quite -- have enough ST to cast it. But it stands...)

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

I know this isn't in the description for the Rope spell, but what if the players wanted to use the rope to cross a chasm? I assume most would allow that. This of course involves commanding one end of the rope to bind to something on the other side of the chasm...

...so what if the players wanted to use rope to wrestle the staff from Grumpy's hands?

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Ooo. +1d of difficulty to hit the staff (unless Grumpy is doing something silly like Defending with his staff...), and if it hits, make a 3/ST vs. 3/ST contest. If the player wins, Grumpy loses hold of the staff. If the player crit wins, the staff flies out of Grumpy's hands... and someone has to dodge it, or take the damage for being the fool who touches a wizard's Staff!

Rope is a Creation spell, though, and can only be created within the caster's "megahex of megahexes", meaning the caster's megahex or any megahex touching it. If the other end of the chasm is within that range, then sure! If not... I don't know? +1d of difficulty per additional megahex?

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Thanks for entertaining the notion. While I waited, I read the following about Bolas and Lassos...

If the bola hits...Arms: The victim will drop his/her weapon(s), and will not
be able to pick them up for the next two turns, while his/her
arms are entangled. The entangled figure may move normally

If a human or humanoid target is lassoed, the lasso may
go for the neck (doing 1d+2 damage), either arm (causing
whatever is being held to be dropped, but doing no damage),

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Hmm. Maybe if the caster has the Bola and/or Lasso talents, they can use the Rope spell as a bola (without the damage) and/or lasso. In this case, treat the Rope spell as a Thrown spell rather than a Creation spell. Maybe also when using it to cross the chasm.

Edit: Ooo. Rope-like objects, including bolas, can be enchanted with the Rope spell!

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Actually, I was thinking to skip the Rope spell and just use the bola. Lasso would be second option.

NOTE: The bola doesn't suffer from any -DX modifier for aiming at the arm according to the RAW.

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Oh, heh. Wires crossed and all. Still, new house rules!

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

See SJ's new staff rules over on the other forum. It changes the premises of much of this discussion...

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

That it does. Might almost make it worth gaming it out again.

Did you ever play Gauntlet Legends (video game)? In that game, every so often you encounter Death, who makes a beeline for you and has this automatic persistent life drain attack. That's what it felt like fighting Grumpy with the auto-hit free-action occult blast attack.

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

I played it. I think he is in all the Gauntlet games, even the original. Yep. Grumpy = Death before (unless you used a bola on his staff arm).

Re: Snow White and the ever diminishing dwarves.
 

Under the new rules my guess is that best option is the bastard club (one and a half handed, like Gandalf used it).

I'd rather have four additional spells than a silver broadsword.

Runner up is the hidden silver dagger (depending on how much of its magical abilities you can use without holding it in your hand).

Now to get Anna of Arendelle to sing: "Do you want to search a wizard? You might find his hidden staff."