[Dungeons][DM only]My first experience in DFRPG/"I smell a Rat"

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by finn

I just run my first DFRPG game today. I run "I Smell a Rat" with only a little modification. I will discuss some of the content of the adventure, so people should stop reading this post if they have not played or read "I Smell a Rat".

The PCs were 4 sample characters from "Delvers to Go". A Human Cleric, a Half-Ogre Barbarian, a Halfling Thief, and a Half-Elf Wizard.

Two of the players where well experienced in GURPS 3e but had limited experience in 4e. One was completely new to GURPS. The last one had played 2 GURPS Lite games in the past.

I ignored some rules from the system: Facing, Deceptive Attack, Faint, and Rapid Strike.

Removing facing cuts out a good chunk of the value of Expert Backstabbing, which the thief in Delvers to Go has and makes clever tactical movement of little value (which you may consider desirable). Deceptive Attack, as you noticed is very valuable for allowing high-skill PCs to speed up fights by bypassing defences. Feint, likewise. Rapid Strike allows high-skill, high-damage PCs to mow down mooks. Loss of Rapid Strike won't affect this party too much, but it will affect a swashbuckler or knight quite a bit (because a chunk of their Weapon Master's value is in reduced Rapid Strike penalties).

I kept Shock, but simplified Major Wounds/Stun/falling to "If you take more than 1/2 HP damage in one turn, you have a -4 penalty to your defenses the next turn". I really wanted to lower the number of times you roll against HT.

This lowers the value of High Pain Threshold and high HT, and also makes it harder to put mooks down quickly (and more worthy NPCs, for that matter).

I'm not sure what you intentions were, an overall effect of these changes is to reduce the power and flexibility of dedicated melee combatants.