[DF] 125 pt start?

[sir_pudding]

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.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

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.

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.

[Phantasm]

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".

[copeab]

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.

[Dustin]

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.

[Anders]

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.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

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.

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.

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by Dustin

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.

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.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by ULFGARD

In any DF or even "adventure" focused game (i.e., one with a large combat component), I end up putting in a few NPCs.

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.

[Ronin Rabbit]

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.