Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game

[mlangsdorf]

I'm starting this thread to give my players and myself a space to comment on sessions, argue about rulings, and generally discuss our online Dungeon Fantasy game.

I keep the logs of the game at http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/ , and outsiders are welcome to comment.

[mlangsdorf]

Session 17: Duel in the Fens (part 1)
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/...ir/Seventeenth

Session 16 ended with the delvers traipsing through the Fens of Despair and getting slightly lost, returning to a lizardman village they had left on slightly bad terms. One thing led to another, and Connell the druid and Lenia the wizard challenged the lizardman shaman Therzerze to a duel... which expanded to a general melee between 17 lizards and the delving band. Session 17 was that combat.

The lizardmen had reasonably good tactics, I think: a double line of 4 sword-and-shieldmen (with the Shield Wall Training perk) in front of 4 halberdiers (with Grip Mastery). Behind them, 2 more sword-and-shieldmen acted as bodyguards for the Shaman, and 3 skirmishers with spear throwers were going to range freely and pick on the delver's scout. The shaman was preparing a Loyalty spell to cast on Mrugnak the minotaur barbarian: the shaman (correctly) assumed that Mrugnak would charge to bring himself into range.

Harald was playing Lenia the nymph wizard, and he pretty much cheesed it out: casting big broken spells (like Grease and Concussion), then spending CP for critical successes. I'm really thinking of adding a cumulative penalty per encounter to buying successes: rerolls are fine and great, and having the infrequent lucky break is an important part of the DF experience, but being able to reliably do improbable things feels broken.

The delvers have picked up numerous enemies on their trip through the swamp, and those enemies joined in the fight. The Dire Badger with the Chaos Domain (modified Divine Servitor/Animal Companion from DF5) gummed up the works for a bit with his Extreme Luck, and then added to the confusion with entropy clouds. Unfortunately, he should have retreated a bit more rapidly when Mordreona the Thief came to kill him... so the badger got killed.

Animal Companions, even buffed up Animal Companions, are weak in DF. They need a lot more Enhanced Dodge, Strikers, and more DR, I think. Dodge-10, DR1 just doesn't cut it at 300+ point DF games.

Mrugnak got a chance to sniff out the goblin ambushers before the fight started, but he blew the roll. He still managed to avoid most of the arrows: unfortunately for him, not all of them. The long reload time for arrows at 50 yards means he has some time to figure out to deal with the second set of attacks.

For once, the dice were in my favor, with the bad guys reliable making rolls of 12-. It kind of makes up for the fight where Mrugnak berserked against worthy foes, got his skull shots in first, and they consistently failed to defend by rolling 12s when they needed 11s.

[DAT]

I haven't seen an update for a while (2-3 weeks it seems like). Are you guys/girl on hiatus? RL intrude?
-Dan

[mlangsdorf]

I didn't know anyone cared.

We've been playing, I just haven't updated the last few sessions because of real-life commitments. They'll be up sometime this week.

Quickest recap:
The delvers went back to the Fens of Despair to deal with the mad druid. After talking to ravens and getting lost, they found the druid's house. Berkun and Ayake (the monk martial artist who replaced Lenia) dealt with his critters, while Connell in his new Lightning Falcon form played "Dodge the Air Jet" with the druid. Eventually they defeated the druid and restored the sacred regalia to the Druid's Grove. Then they went looking for the Shrouded Valley. On the way there, they met a bunch of ogres abusing some leprechauns, and are now in negotiations with the leprechauns over a contract to recover the leprechaun's ancestral gold from the Vale.

[Harald387]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Harald was playing Lenia the nymph wizard, and he pretty much cheesed it out: casting big broken spells (like Grease and Concussion), then spending CP for critical successes. I'm really thinking of adding a cumulative penalty per encounter to buying successes: rerolls are fine and great, and having the infrequent lucky break is an important part of the DF experience, but being able to reliably do improbable things feels broken.

I somehow managed to miss this thread entirely, or you'd likely have seen a lot more commentary from me.

Regarding CP spent for critical success: I absolutely agree that I cheesed it out entirely and shouldn't be allowed to do that. My solution for my GURPS Supers game (in which people aren't supposed to die) does this:

Buying Success (Basic Set, p. 347) is PARTIALLY in effect. Players may spend 2 CP to turn a critical failure into a failure, or to turn an enemy's critical success on an attack into a normal success. Other applications of Buying Success are not in use.

That and my other house rules options are here. You might recognize some of them, since I cribbed them from our experiences with the Westmarch game - it's been a lot of fun and a great learning experience.

[DAT]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

I didn't know anyone cared.

Yes, reading your logs and transcripts is part of my weekly ritual. It gives me my weekly GURPS fix. If RL would allow, I would ask to join your group.

Out of curiosity, what point totals are you bringing in new characters at? 275/-65 (including quirks) if I read correctly

Cheers,
-Dan

[DAT]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Harald was playing Lenia the nymph wizard, and he pretty much cheesed it out: casting big broken spells (like Grease and Concussion), then spending CP for critical successes. I'm really thinking of adding a cumulative penalty per encounter to buying successes: rerolls are fine and great, and having the infrequent lucky break is an important part of the DF experience, but being able to reliably do improbable things feels broken.

Originally Posted by Harald387

...
Regarding CP spent for critical success: I absolutely agree that I cheesed it out entirely and shouldn't be allowed to do that. My solution for my GURPS Supers game (in which people aren't supposed to die) does this:

Buying Success (Basic Set, p. 347) is PARTIALLY in effect. Players may spend 2 CP to turn a critical failure into a failure, or to turn an enemy's critical success on an attack into a normal success. Other applications of Buying Success are not in use.

...

If you limit the character point pool size available for buying success (say 5 points), and use 2-1/1-2 progression (2 point to change a critical failure to a normal failure, 1 point to change a normal failure to a normal success, 2 point to change a normal success into a critical success) you control things pretty tight. A player can turn one critical failure into a critical success; can turn 2 critical failures into normal failures, plus change one normal failure into a normal success; change one critical failure into a normal success, etc.

To tighten it further, have a limited recharge. Players can only recharge one point in the pool (used in play to buy success/non-failure) per session (at the end/begining of the session); or players can only recharge the pool at the end of a delv.

Some ideas.
-Dan

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by DAT

Yes, reading your logs and transcripts is part of my weekly ritual. It gives me my weekly GURPS fix. If RL would allow, I would ask to join your group.

Out of curiosity, what point totals are you bringing in new characters at? 275/-65 (including quirks) if I read correctly

Well, not quite. A 275/-65 character doesn't match the inhuman wrecking ball that Mrugnak has become.

We start new characters at 275/-65 +20 pts/delve. So a new player would create a character at 335 points.

This is a bit less than the top tier characters (Mrugnak is 353 and so is Mordreona, I think), but close enough to be competitive.

We're planning to reboot the game after the end of the delve to the Shrouded Vale, as the current play is getting a little crazy.

[mlangsdorf]

I've updated the logs through last week's session, though I still need to finish doing the quotes.


Last week's session, for what it's worth, was the journey to the Shrouded Valley:
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/...ouded_Valley/1

This was a pretty straightforward session. The PCs traveled around a bit, beat up some ogres, and started negotiating with some leprechauns. I had semi-hopes for the ogres - they're really big collections of HP with DR and High Pain Threshold - but now that Berkun has high enough skill to shoot things in the eye, it's going to be up the crushrooms to be a real threat.

The leprechaun leader's speaking style is stereotypical, but its not stereotypical Irish or Scottish. I don't know if anyone caught it or not.

I've been using the random outdoor encounter tables from the AD&D 1st edition DMG for about 5 sessions now, and I've been really happy with the results. The PCs are running into more weird things and strange situations and I don't have the same strain when thinking things up. I highly recommend using it to DF DMs that happen to have it.

[Harald387]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

I've been using the random outdoor encounter tables from the AD&D 1st edition DMG for about 5 sessions now, and I've been really happy with the results. The PCs are running into more weird things and strange situations and I don't have the same strain when thinking things up. I highly recommend using it to DF DMs that happen to have it.

I thought I recognized some of these encounters. If you start using the random dungeon generator, though, we'll have Words.

Like 'geometry'.