Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

It's worth noting that you don't need to get up to 500 points to tear through those 62 point guards. A swashbuckler who, say, spends their 60 points in optional advantages on Striking ST 2 and Extra Attack 2 will already do that pretty well, easily attacking 4 times per second (with rapid strike) and penetrating armor that would be perfectly adequate protection against the blows of a normal fighter (2d+3 cut or more). But DF seems to assume 250 point characters aren't that exceptional, so the solution to out-of-control 250 pointers is to send an equal or greater number of 250 pointers against them (or maybe a 350 point assassin or well, you get the idea).

There's arguably a diminishing returns on having more points if you go by DFRPG RAW, since it doesn't allow more than one rapid strike per turn, caps Extra Attack at 2, etc. But traditionally it's not just the points that make high-end delvers powerful, it's also the absurd arsenals of magic items they accumulate.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

I understand, but you insinuated that we were talking about a 'fighter" in plain clothes when you said "20Skill in a swing weapon and weapon master" (that's not in the Farmer template). I'm not trying to be argumentative but depending on how this delver gets to Skill 20 in swing cutting weapon this may not represent a great deal of point investment, regardless its just a piece of 500.

The scenario doesn't exist in a vacuum. Brawling is DX easy and a 500pt fighter will have higher DX naturally, dmg is based on ST which is also something fighters have. I would wonder why anyone would put 1pt into Brawling and not add the 3 more to get a +1 per dmg die. Minus the 60pts to get weapon master and 20 skill where did the other 440pts go (436 if you include 4 for Brawling)?

Finally to be really difficult un-weaponed doesn't mean no rings, potions, magic cloth armor, just that you aren't walking around with a pointy device that says "this end in enemy". How bout a walking stick, that should get a -2 for Broadsword, a baton would get a solid default to dagger/short sword, a leather purse filled with coins.

Or the fighter just planned poorly and put all their money into a sword they aren't allowed to carry in this town and skills in a weapon they don't have on them. This is not a system issue, its a risk reward issue. Choose to take 4 points to get skill 22, or live with skill 21 and put 4 points in some unarmed fighting skill that you may never need. The same argument applies for swimming you fall in water, you swim or die, or you gamble it won't happen and you add those points to bump up Direction Sense. This is the point of a "point buy" system. You make your choices and see where they take you.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

I think his point was that said swashbuckler is in a town where he has to check his weapons upon entering town, assume having a melee weapon is a capital crime and the town is able to enforce it. Now how does he deal with 6 guards.

As you said Magic items, or other skills and abilites.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

Ah. Though assuming the town can enforce checking weapons to some extent assumes what is to be proved.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

In the very early days of Chainmail, a "man" typically represented a unit made up of 10 men, comparable to a unit in GURPS Mass Combat. But a "hero" represented a single man who was comparable to four of those units—that is, to 40 men. Or so I understood the text.

I could do that just fine in Amber Diceless. But I'm not sure what you would do in GURPS to come up with a hero who was the equal of forty normal men.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

Huh. So even the very earliest days of D&D was nerfing the power of heroes. (IIRC I once read a play log of an early Castle Blackmoor adventure where a PC was elevated directly from "normal man" to "hero", which I assume only involved a 4x increase in power at that point.)

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

High DR and high Move plus weapon skills ought to do it. I think a 250 point Bugstiary Coleopteran [40] swashbuckler with Armored Carapace 10 [15], Striking ST 1 [5], and 5 Quirk points toward Move 7 [5] wielding a rapier and a heavy cloak probably has a better than 50% chance of victory against 40 hoplites with ST 12 and Broadsword-11, medium shields, and heavy leather armor. Move and Attack to keep the number of guys you're engaging at any given moment low, Attack opportunistically whenever it wouldn't lead to getting surrounded. If they have to Move and Attack as well, they can only hit even random hit locations on a 7 or better, so eye hits will be very rare, and your Luck will hopefully protect you.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

This is not a "problem," this is the players deciding they want a different kind of adventure than the GM thought. If the GM does not want to run that kind of an adventure they should talk with the players.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

See 'unintentionally'. There's nothing wrong with world breaking stuff, it's just bad to be surprised by it.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

Interesting tidbit: Gygax said in 2005 that Chainmail heroes were only designed to exist in 1:1 scale combats ("Man-to-Man"), never 20:1 scale mass combats. So heroes were only worth 4 normal men, not 40.

RFisher: Under Heroes, does "They have the fighting ability of four figures" mean that they are equivalent to 4 men or 80 men?

Gygax: Heroes are used only in Man-to-Man play, so one is equal to four normal men.

RFisher: I understand that hero v. hero would be resolved on the Fantasy Combat Table. Hero v. normal forces would be resolved on the regular Combat Table. (The hero being classed as heavy foot, armored foot, light horse, &c. as fit the particular hero.) But were heroes & other things from the Fantasy Supplement ever used with the man-to-man rules? If so, how?

Gygax: I am quite at a loss to answer that, as the Hero and all the other Fantasy supplement figures were employed only in the play of Man-to-Man games, never in the mass system where one figure equalled 20.

Source: https://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2009/...asy-scale.html