[DF] 125 pt start?
 

Can anyone share their success stories of starting a DF game at 125pt and running it up to 250pt or more?

I am converting some D&D stuff. I want to recreate the feeling of starting at level 1 and rolling all the way up to 20th.

Any tips and pointers are welcome!

Thanks

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Can't give you success stories since I've started my campaigns at eitehr 250 or 300 points, but DF15: Henchmen has 125 point templates that are actually quite interesting, and some discussion on how to handle DF at that level...

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

I have DF 15 Henchmen. I am looking for some real world examples of how it worked out for other GMs. What issues they ran into, what went well, complaints etc.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Kromm says he settled on 250 points in order to allow Martial Artists, Holy Warriors and Bards. I think that it would be really difficult to meaningfully play those archetypes (as well as many of the later ones especially the two in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 4: Sages) on only 125 points.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

DF 15 hasn't even been out for a month yet, so you won't get a lot of reports based directly on DF 15! Give them some time, man :)

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

I've played in a couple of games using Eric's "On the Cheap". I've certainly felt constrained with certain concepts. I wouldn't try to play that way with one of the 75 point races and/or one of the more fiddly occupations at 125 points.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Standard 250-point DF templates are highly competent members of their professions, good enough to reliably succeed at adventuring tasks under duress. Warriors are skilled (or strong) enough to use fancy combat moves that blow through the defenses of lesser foes, casters can expect to succeed most spell rolls in combat, etc.

At 125 points, they're going to have a much more "1st Level" feel. As sir_pudding says, certain concepts become much harder to build satisfactorily, and all characters are going to be generally less competent at what they do. Not incompetent, but not as good as their full 250-point counterparts at anything. They're not full-on Fantasy Heroes, but "hero material" -- the apprentice wizard, temple neonate, and burly farmboy with his father's sword, setting out in search of [Insert Campaign Premise]. The challenges you can throw at them (and expect them to survive) have to be scaled... a pitched battle with a half-dozen mooks could be exciting, and a standard DF "Worthy" opponent might serve as an early boss.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Making these a sort of "Prestige class" you grow into may or may not be a desirable result, but it's definitely a notable one. I'd put Mystic Knight on that list as well, by the by.

75 point race at 125 points, your character is going to obviously be dominated by their racial choice rather than any template you're attempting to squeeze them into. To use 3e D&D speak, a 75 point race is at least a +1 Level Adjustment race, if not more :)

That said, careful choice of race and template can result in gaining net points rather than losing, depending on how your GM makes you apply racial template. If he treats the profession template as "Professional minimums" that are held to by some pan-racial guild regardless of species, picking a race which has most or all of its positive points sunk into those attributes (Ogre-> Barbarian or Celestial -> Holy Warrior for 250 point examples) can make for a seamless or net positive fit.

Kind of dilutes the features of your race, as much as taking a 75 point template and just slapping a 50 point lens on it to make a 125 point character dilutes the "profession".

I'd suggest either could be viable, depending on what the player really wants out of the character and what the GMs expectations for the game are.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Part of the problem may be abilities that cost a lot and don't have an obvious way to be broken down into component parts that can be purchased seperately with earned CP.

For instance, Trained by a Master. Or the Wild Talent+50% of the Sage.

All of these can be broken down into cheaper components, so that you can have a basic gimped TbaM or Wild Talent, that has some fuctionality, and then you upgrade it (buy off Limitations) with earned CP, until you have the full ability. It's just not obvious how to do it.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

The templates in Fantasy - not Dungeon Fantasy, but the older hardcover - run 75 to 125 points. Mind, these templates tend to assume "human", and don't work well with high-point racial templates. The one game I ran with it, ages ago, seemed to work pretty well. The only template I didn't use was Fantasy's "True King".

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

In GURPS (and many other point-based systems), a character started at x points and advanced through play will not look the same as if the character had been started on y points. There are two reasons for this:

(1): As Peter noted, some advantages that are easily affordable at y points are not at x points. Further, some GMs may not feel comfortable allowing some advantages to be bought in plsy, restricting thrm to starting characters.

(2): A character on y points may start play with a week of development, while a character grown to y points may be developed over a year or more. This will have a noticable effect on what abilities the character had.

My personal preference as a GM is to go x to y, rather than starting at y, using generous CP awards (3-7) per session.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

I've had good results recently with a DF-esque game that started at 150+25+5. The PCs are now ~250 pts, and everyone seems to have had a pretty good time getting there.

I think a larger party has an easier time with lower starting points, we had 3 players each running 2 PCs. I would advocate at least 4-5 PCs. This allows for more specialization, and helps prevent TPK if someone falls down. If you're not running multiple PCs per player, then it's probably smart to have an NPC (with character sheet) you can hand off to any player whose PC dies, as a temporary replacement so they have something to do.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Kromm has said somewhere, sometime, that the reason he chose 250 points because he wanted martial artists and they weren't really competitive before that. So beware, they may have trouble keeping up at 125 points.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Notable is that DF 15 doesn't have a 125 point Martial Artist template. It has a +125 point lens you can put on a 125 template that would make a 250 point martial-artsy character, but that's clearly different.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

THis is good advice. I generally have group sizes around 2 - 4 players (when it gets to 2 I start recruiting, when it gets to 4 I stop). In any DF or even "adventure" focused game (i.e., one with a large combat component), I end up putting in a few NPCs. In combat, I often hand out the NPCs to be controlled by the players. If a PC dies, they get to play one of the NPCs until they can create a new character and that character can be integrated into the party. However, I've had players decide to just keep on playing the NPCs, which has been quite successful in the past.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

It's a good idea for smaller groups (or even solo players). It's a very old-school approach - filling in the ranks with hirelings and henchmen goes back to the early 70s at least. And it's exactly what the 125-point templates and 62-point templates in DF15 are for. The 125s are the reliable henchmen - good but not as good, useful but a bit more narrowly useful. The 62s are the makeweights and extras - carrying capacity, light sourcing, and back-rank fighting.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

I appreciate that some character "classes" may not be as competative at lower point values.

However, it is still more fun to have the option of playing those "classes" at lower levels than not to have that option.

Back in the old AD&D games, a starting martial artist (monk) was useless, but it didn't stop us wanting to play one because of the cool thinks the monk could do later on.

Personally, I would love to play a 125 point martial artist in a party of 125 DF characters, especially with the prospect of working my way up to 250 points.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

And that's perfectly fine as long as you know that. But a new player might be disappointed because he's lagging behind in power.

The link I gave has templates for 100-, 150-, and 200- point DF characters. Pick the 100-point one and give then 25 points to spend on anything on the template.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

From my (admittedly limited) experience with D&D, it always looked to me like monks did improve with experience, but remained largely inferior to more traditional fighters. Yes, they could get bonuses on unarmed attacks that makes them more than a match for an ordinary armed mook, but by that time the fighters are traditionally getting better bonuses from magic weapons.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Yeah, 3rd edition monks were terrible. They worked with one or two very crazy builds, but if optimising you just dipped and moved on. Of cause 3rd edition melee fighters of any sorts pretty much all dipped into core classes and then moved on when optimising because it didn't hinder them at all (unlike with spellcasters) - but in the end they still generally came behind casters in the upper levels regardless of how they were built, monks more so.

That said, not everyone optimises and nor everyone feels the need to be equivalent in power as everyone else in the group. Of cause in GURPS you generally should be equal with the same cp investment, but some styles of fighting are just more cp intensive than others.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Unless everyone builds identical characters, they will not be equal in capability.

The most important (and perhaps only) considerstions are that each PC fills a useful role in the party and the player is happy with this role.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Unarmed fighters do best in games with lots of combat in situations where characters are required to be unarmed.[1]

This is most drastically the case in GURPS, where it's as easy or easier to learn how to fight with a weapon as to fight unarmed, weapons don't cost points and do give a major damage multiplier (which unarmed fighters have to spend points to match), and weapons provide a significant defensive advantage (that unarmed fighters can't get without spending more points).

GURPS intentionally handicaps characters that rely on unarmed combat vs armed opponents. It's a clear design decision built into the game at many points in the combat system. Fundementally, an unarmed-only combatant is starting the game with a hidden disadvantage worth a really significant amount of points even if he hasn't taken a Vow to only fight unarmed... and if he has taken said Vow, said Vow probably isn't worth nearly enough points to make up for the handicaps he's suffering under. It's [-15] points in DF 1, and I'm not sure that's enough. . .

It costs 11 points to upgrade both your arms to Striker Limbs and add Blunt Claws, and I'm not sure the left-over -4 points covers "Never have any ranged attacks, never have damage types other than crushing, never have reach better than 1 without risky combat techniques (and reach 1 involves kicking, which is risky in and of itself), never risk damaging your own striking surfaces, and so forth"

[1] This is also the situation where characters with small, low damage weapons can shine, because they can sneak them in where the other guys can't sneak in a maul or zweihander. THIS is where your Thief or Rogue should should be the combat star with a knife - bringing a knife to a fistfight beats bringing a knife to a swordfight or worse, archery fight.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Intentionally and realistically, yes. My solution was to turn a genre switch on - a rule that folks with TBAM, and many (but not all) monsters, get to count their unarmed attacks as armed for purposes of being injured on a parry. So a 250-point DF martial artist with TBAM can punch away, risking only injury from hitting hard surfaces, but a sword parry won't injure him. Many monsters are the same way.

It's not at all realistic, but it fits the genre, and my players seem to think it's pretty cool. It makes "and your parry gets to cut the monster" a nice bonus, and makes Chaos Monk types a bit more dangerous to high-Parry knights.

All that said, if you want to make a 125 point martial artist using DF15, you can. A "monk" type is a nonstarter due to lack of points, but an unarmed fighter who can eventually learn cool esoteric skills and buy sweet powers is there - check the Skirmisher, especially with options 4, 5, and 6. You just won't be a full-out high-jumping Power Blow using martial artist. Yet.
It's not the only way to do it, but it's probably the most like a D&D "monk" starting out. Right down to AC 10. ;)

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

We used the same house rule in mlangsdorfs DF game as a low grade patch. It's basically a free set of striker limbs without the damage bonuses, which would be pretty cheap even if you made PCs pay for it. I don't know if I'd call it more than 5 points to count all your unarmed attacks as weapons for that purpose if I were inclined to charge for it (no other benefits at that price though).

The "problem" for a DF martial artist or monk type character who's supposed to be an unarmed fighter, is that he's still stuck with the other problems:

• No trading money for swing damage or even simple damage bonuses
• No trading money for other damage types
• No access to quality and magical weapon upgrades
• Must make physical contact with the enemy (risking spikes, acid oozes, and what have you)
• Only risky uses of reach 1 attacks, no access to reach 2+ attacks at all (outside of I suppose some risky combinations with a kick, which is getting into "shooting yourself in the face" territory)

And absolutely, those are deliberate and realistic. No arguments there: if they weren't realistic, armies would be full of open-handed fighters, not armed fighters - so much cheaper. I'm just not sure -15 points for the vow to only fight unarmed is nearly good enough, as it seems to take more than 15 points to sort of even that up.

There's the rather munchkiny Crushing Attack (+1 damage; ST Based, +100%; Chi, -10%; Melee Attack: Reach C, 1, -20%) [4] which upgrades you to swing+1 damage. As a GM I'd handwave that it's Swing +0 for punches at reach C, Swing+1 for kicks at reach C,1 (usual Kicking rules) in exchange for getting full Karate bonuses and using all your Karate maneuvers with it.

I'm dubious over whether you need to stack striker limbs with that Crushing attack, or whether it would benefit from the damage bonus at all. Ditto Claws. But that's a good upgrade on damage for 4 points that will scale up better than an unarmed fighter usually can hope for (Power Blow can be used with a Sword as much as it can be used with a fist, so Power Blow isn't the equalizer at all here).

That still leaves you with restricted damage types, range, the contact requirement, and being locked out of points-free improvements from loot for the rest of the campaign. DF being such a loot-centered genere, that last one seems particularly egregious.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

If we had a martial artist type in our game I would definitely be including fist-wrappings, bracers, etc that let you magic up your unarmed attacks.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Indeed, the reason why DF 1 doesn't say that you can't have Mighty Flaming Silver-Coated Brass Knuckles of Penetration is because I didn't mean to exclude fist weapons. Being inexpensive, brass knuckles ($10) can be had in, say, meteoric or silver variations for cheap: $200. The myrmex ($20) and cestus ($50) are even better, as they can carry weapon and armor enchantments. And of course the bladed hand has rather cinematic stats, but that suits DF . . . and it works fine with Karate, and gives swing damage.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

I'm pretty sure all of those violate the Vow: Only Fight Unarmed though :/

Although if that's more the scope of the vow (in a DF context anyways), then Vow: really really fight unarmed clearly has room to be worth more points as a disad and solves that concern I had.

I wouldn't really think about this outside of DF, and possibly some kinds of martial arts centered games, where highly trained open handed fighters might be mixing it up with highly trained weapon-using fighters. Most other situations it really makes sense.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

As I said in my previous post, these aren't really the case . . . The GM could be mean and not allow bladed hands, enchanted fist weapons, armor and weapon echantments on full-glove fist weapons, etc. – or allow them, but not let Chi abilities and skills work with them – but that isn't what DF actually says. The character was designed with the basic idea in mind that martial artists would eventually procure gear like Penetrating Bladed Hands or a Mighty Unyielding Cestus of Warding, and ultimately use these to rain down Power Blows.

That's why you wear an Impenetrable Dragonhide Cestus with DR 10!

That's the tricky one. I'd suggest allowing some of the ranged chi-blast silliness from anime and video games to get around it (Martial Arts, pp. 45-47), though Throwing Art with weapons that do swing damage (especially light, cheap ones, like boomerangs and smaller hungamungas) is terribly nasty.

I'm starting to feel like martial artists need a splat that spells all this out . . .

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Hm, I guess one could read it that way by the strictest interpretation, but I certainly never have. Not donning fist protection is "fight unarmored." It's just a happy coincidence that some fist protection improves damage. Anyway, that Vow isn't mandatory or even especially likely as an option . . . Mostly, I see Code of Honor [-15] and Obsession ("Perfect my art at any cost!") (12) [-10], like classic bad-movie martial artists.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

I refuse to believe a bladed hand is armour :) Even a Cestus is really dubious on that point.

It's a happy co-incidence that this cutlass with a full hilt basket happens to have this big blade sticking out of it. I know that's not what you mean, and it's totally in tune with the munchkinny attitude of the situation, but oy vey with the eyerolling. My players aren't actually evil munchkins, but they do like to play devils advocate. It's sometimes a bit like being stuck in a debating society.

I think you're missing the point :D (Or adding some sharp ones on the knuckles there)

Player sits down with me to make a character, and says "I want to make a kick ass unarmed karate master who beats up monsters with his bare hands!"

This guy does not want to use a cestus, or a bladed hand. That's not a kick ass unarmed karate master who beats up monsters with his bare hands. It's a little weird but I really do run into people in totally pure Dungeon Bashing games who don't want to compromise the "vision" of their character, even if the "vision" mostly consists of the specifics on how they want to kill monsters.

So, I'd say this guy - the guy who won't compromise on the vision - clearly wants the points back from Vow: Only Fight Unarmed, because he's doing that anyways. He's voluntarily tying that millstone around his neck, I think he should get every point back for it. Especially if he's that dedicated to the concept. And hey, it's even on the template, but it's listed at [-15] and I was questioning this as "enough". But if that wasn't really supposed to be including things up-to and including bladed hands, then that explains it. He needs something else on there too to cover the extra "millstone" he's voluntarily taking on - he's playing a character with TWO vows, and that's where the extra disadvantage value for taking this particularly difficult character concept on is coming from.

If that's Vow: Always Fight Unarmored (or never wear metal armor, or Only wear ninja armor, or Never wear armor over my BL in weight, or whatever) and it also happens to cover "And never use fist-enhancers", the guy going for the "purity of vison" is probably going to want that one too.


I would, for reference, allow any bare-hands fighter in a DF game to violate the disad limit with whatever extra disads are required to represent "I want to be a bare-hands fighter for reals", because those are REAL disadvantages that character will face, and I think they should get the points back for them.

Or they can choose to stay in the limit and have nearly no other disads, and go waltzing through the game Unfettered ;)

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Things are working really, really well in my DF/D&D hybrid game right now.

Players were started at 150 pts (100 base + 50 pt class package). They've moved up now to around 220ish points due to the level system & normal gaming awards I give out. The first couple of sessions when they were weaker went quite well.


One of the nice things for me was, because of the limited number of points, players focused on a smaller number of skills at first (except for the rogue, which was as intended).

The balance we've been able to achieve has been pretty nice. I used a lot of mooks and fodder in the first game (because I wasn't sure how the point level would play out, I basically used that whole first session as a "test"). At the beginning of the game, I let them do the really old school "you walk into a 10x10 room and see six kobolds fighting over the remains of a poorly cooked pigeon", by the end of the game I had the kobolds using traps and controlling the terrain to keep them on their toes.

I had one point where I had to fudge some dice results because it would have wiped the party (this was my fault- I made the trap too deadly).

We're now incorporating D&D's excessive number of hit points into GURPS and enjoying that quite a bit.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Well, I'll just say re: martial artist characters that my inspiration was more Diablo II assassin – complete with katar- and knife-wheel-like things – than anything else. :)

The Vow point values in DF 1 definitely assume that if an item is used for punching or kicking, and gives DR, then it's armor, not a weapon. But yeah, the bladed hand (which matches the above inspiration) is probably a no-no. That still leaves the cestus with big DR and attack-enhancing enchantments. I've never considered that different from "unarmed." You do, after all, use all the rules for unarmed combat to resolve the attacks.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Thats' actually rather easy to do in GURPS. House Rule - Don't make rolls (and potentially don't suffer penalties) for hitting the various HP thresholds. Automatically fall unconscious at -(HP * 5); healing or medical care is required after falling unconscious or the character dies. Automatically die at -(HP * 10).

Suddenly, even a ST 10 character has 60 HP and doesn't actually die until it has lost a total of 110 HP .. assuming it gets medical care or healing magic applied once its' fallen unconscious. Selectively apply this to the PCs and whatever NPCs you want it to apply to; keep the mook / worthy / boss rules as per normal if you use those in your game.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

That's effectively giving all PCs Unkillable I, with the added benefit of covering KO rolls up to -5xHP. I'd say that's going too far. I'd much rather do what (IIRC) Icelander does, and allow PCs to purchase Injury Tolerance, Extra HP and/or Vitality Reserve. This gives a more gradual effect as the PCs "level up", and draws a clearer distinction between front-line fighters and support characters.

Also, Remember that a level 1 D&D character likely has fewer HP than a GURPS character (depending on edition) and is automatically KO'd / killed at 0 / -10 HP. It's entirely possible for a weak level 1 D&D character to be incapacitated from falling into a 10' pit, or die to a few blows from their housecat. If trying to replicate the feel of low-level D&D (for whatever reason) giving them 60+ HP is not the way to go. In fact, you could make an argument that they should have Easy to Kill, or even Fragile: Unnatural (die automatically at -1xHP)!

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

You'd be amazed how many NPCs sprout Easy to Kill and Fragile: Unnatural after you have a party of 150 point PCs vs a pack of 20 mind-controlled wolves. HT 14 and Fanaticism. AGH.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Erm.

The poster I responded to said they were incorporating D&D's excessive amount of HP; that means they weren't talking about Level 1 characters as those don't have an excessive amount of HP (as you also noted).

I responded with how I have implemented precisely that effect (excessive HP, no death spiral) in GURPS before. I've also used Icelander's ideas on top of my implementation before. (I run high point value games. DF is low level stuff to me. Hell, MH is a tad lower than my preferred level given that I prefer 600/~/~ characters and it uses 400 point templates. Assuming we're not talking supers, where I go into the sub-10k values instead.)

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

I guess I'm just advocating using IT:DR instead of the house rule you suggested. Then again, I haven't played at the point levels you're talking about, so maybe it's necessary to withstand the obscene damage output of Innate Attacks. If it works for you, go with it. (I still think it should be represented by Unkillable I though.) I just wouldn't use it at the point levels of a DF game.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Yeah, I'd draw the line at the Bladed Hand too, and include the cestus under "unarmed".

If someone really had it be central to their concept to fight with NOTHING on their hands though, I'd just be like "magic tattoos! Rings of the hurty fist!" Meh.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

If "Monks" exist as a normal (albeit rare) -- and most importantly -- viable profession, there should be magic tattoos and "rings of the hurty fist" around, unless the disciplines that generate barefisted badasses eschew the aid of magic. In which case I'd allow some nifty Chi Talent power-ups.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

While not fully DF, I am running a fantasy campaign that started at 100+50 points that is definitely "DF style" campaign with mostly dungeon crawls and similar

They were pretty powerless and narrow at the start, but they were fully playable, as the few points really had to go to "core things" of the character.

Thus definitely no things like deceptive attacks or trying to do something too fast and having to retreat to get a decent defense and similar limitations.

The campaign has been going for 60 long(7-9 hours is normal) sessions now and they get a lot of points (1 point/hour of play basically) and are now 500-650 points

They are pretty limited in the points they can put in advantages and attributes (Thus most still have attributes in the 11-13 range and such), causing lots of skills with 1-2 points to get a basic probability to succeed and 20+ points in their mains skills.

This gives them a very different feel than a character with 15-20 in an attribute and only few points even in their main skills.

As for recreating the higher level feeling: I use a variant of the Vitality reserve that Kromm suggested and it seems to work fairly well for the "I can take a hit and barely feel it" thing of middle level D&D characters that the 500-600 points suggests. The amount of vitality reserve they can buy depends on their physical stats so fighter types can buy more than spellcasters. They have currently 2-8 Vitality reserve and most have also bought up their hitpoints to allow for more punishment.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

I agree with this completely.

And if a player comes along and says he/she wants to run a martial artist who only uses bare hands, eschew weapons, and takes a -15 point Vow to do so, the GM needs to explain about stuff like:

- auras, spikes, and other hurty stuff.
- rules and rulings about getting parried by weapons.
- the problems of reach.
- issues with other PCs being able to buy massive damage adds with cash that you won't.

The player has a cool concept, yes, but they're self-limiting in much the same way as someone who takes a similarly limited character - say a knife fighter, or a melee wizard. You've chosen something niche and hard, and IMO it's not up to the GM to make sure that niche character is equally useful all the time or gets extra value out of their disadvantages. That's up to the player. IMO.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Honestly, a typical martial artist shouldn't have Vow: Fight Unarmed. The most they should get is Vow: Fight With Improvised Weapons, and I'd allow a martial artist to purchase magical improvised weapons, too, so long as the item the weapon is patterned after isn't primarily intended as a weapon.

Also, add in Throwing Mastery or whatever it's called.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

We're really derailing this thread, but as its already got two tracks I'll chime in here too...

To be honest a martial artist should be able to source from many different eastern weapons, D&D even recognises this by just having "monk weapons" - so yeah we shouldn't really have "Has to fight unarmed" as an option at all. Of cause it is there because some people do just want to punch and kick things to death, and if you take what Kromm said as meaning "Don't fight with weapons that don't use the karate skill" then that opens up a little more... but not much.

To fix this a little I'd just go with chi-focusing tattoos, rings, hand-straps, hell even girdles or anything else which can charge a chakra and thus aids in your chi mastery. Or you could just allow martial artists to have some innate attack upgrades for different types of attacks which are still "punches" but with chi-empowerment.

I mean, DF has roots in Diablo, and Diablo III has monks who can punch at greater reach and do a whole host of other cool attacks (teleport over and punch as an alternative to a ranged attack for instance) - so I'd consider it 'canon' despite never having been published.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

You have 8-hour sessions? I can't even manage to get players together for a solid 4 hours without receiving complaints!

The last time I was in an 8 hour session was 15 years ago; we blew the entire session in a single combat round, and had to continue the next week. (razzum frazzum rifts juicers with their thrice as many attacks as everyone else....)

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

Yeah, been running a "every Friday" game from 5pm to midnight or one or two am since 1989. (Well, it used to go on to to 3 am and some times morning during college years but..). Still have two players(+me as gm) from the original group and couple later joiners. In practice we get about 35 sessions/year.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

I played a similar points dungeon-based campaign before DF came out, but our approach seems to have been a bit different. The characters were specialised: they could only do one set of things each, but they did them pretty well. There were no templates, but Martial Arts was new at the time, and was used a fair bit.

We had two fighters, one who had Heroic Archer, and tried hard to do everything through that lens, and the other who had TBAM and Masters of Defence training. We had a magician who'd managed to squeeze IQ14 and Magery 3 for that all-important -1 to the cost of most spells, and a thief-type who picked his advantages really carefully.

They worked their way through a dungeon and some wilderness adventures on Yrth by being really careful and pre-planning a lot. They couldn't do the power-fantasy stuff of DF: if they waded into 20 orcs, they'd die. It was a lot of fun nonetheless.

Re: [DF] 125 pt start?
 

But don't you think that fighting barehanded is a classical Monk archetype, while Knife Fighter and Melee Wizard aren't?

I see no problem at all with Kromm building the Martial Artist inspired on Diablo II's assassin. It's cool as hell (maybe a order of monks devoted to hunt down evil wizards). But, I think its also a valid concept if someone wants to build a Akuma-like character.

EDIT: The combination of Chi skills and chi-based Imbuements (as new power-ups released in a previous Pyrmid Magazine) surely can make the Martial Artist (with enough points, of course) a decent, combative character. With the unarmed limitation (-50%) and chi (-10%), you can buy some few, useful imbuement skills.

Also, I think it would be interesting to build new Power-ups that requires the Vow (Always fight unarmed) as pre-requisites.

For instance:

Dragon Fist 4 points/level
Pre-requisites: Trained by a Master, Chi Talent 3 and Vow (Always Fight Unarmed)

Your unarmed attacks are stronger than your physical appearance could suggest. Each level (up to Chi Talent level) gives +2 to ST to purpose of unarmed strikes.

Advantages: Striking ST 2 (Only unarmed, -50%; Chi, -10%) [4]

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I always considered to build a power-up like that (and even PMed Kromm for that). I was talking with Kuroshima about this and them this idea was raised.

In any case, I'm not so sure if the Chi Talent cap is a really good idea. Anyway, this is just an idea of how cool can be new power-ups designed for unarmed martial artists.