[DF] Suitable Dangerous Encounters

[Azinctus]

Nymdok I don't mean to criticise at all, I have great respect for your efforts. I was just adding my limited contribution to your analysis. The knight actually has Skill 25, Strength 24 and a bastard sword with armour divisor (2). He is built on 350 or more points so he's left that "level one" DF slot long ago. Maybe I should just answer the OPs question.

Originally Posted by Greg 1

What might you throw at an average party of 250 point DF adventurers in a single encounter?

In a recent fight the (six) PCs were tracking a doppleganger to his chums the Abaddonians. Ten Abaddonian commandos were hiding in trees armed with their usual kit (see below) and throwing axes. Two more stood in the open guarding a 30 foot rope bridge across a 30 foot deep canyon. On the far side of the bridge another six commandos and an Abaddonian wizard (Healing! and Lightning and Explosive Fireball were the main spells, infinite FP thanks to a demonic contract). Finally on the far side of the bridge there was an Eye Cone a squat useless kind of demon-spawn-psychic-radio for coordinating with the demons back home and a hostage from the PCs' village. The wizard could also summon five Flaming Skulls. Unfortunately in the heat of the battle I missed the Move 12 on their template and they plodded at Move 6 for the whole battle.

Here's the stats of the Abaddonian Commando:

Abaddonian Commando

Fast moving albino barbarian, a scout for an invasion force from the depths of hell. He has extra long arms giving him +1 reach to all weapons.

ST: 15 HP: 15 Speed: 7
DX: 15 Will: 13 Move: 7
IQ: 12 Per: 14
HT: 13 FP: SM:
Dodge: 11 Parry: 11 DR: 5/2 (leather armour 2/1 (all except, neck, face, hands, tough skin 3/1
Attack (Skill or Resistance): Very fine Magic Dagger (large knife) (16) (+3 to damage) 1d6+4 imp, blade venom, Very Fine War Pick (16) 2d+4 cr or 2d+4 imp

Monster Drool (Utility).
This guy applies multiple doses (if he passes a poison roll the roll is HT-4 for 8 points of damage)

Traits: Combat Reflexes, Extra Attack, High Pain Threshold, Hidebound, Extended Reach
Skills: Stealth 19, Poisons 15, Tactics 15
Class: Demon Spawn, living part demon monster dude
Notes: 4d6 does of monster-drool


Result

(apologies for a chaotic and inconsistent battle report but it should give you an idea)

The PCs mauled the ten guys in the trees, the scout-archer took them out one by one, those that leaped down got in a couple of hits on one of the wizards and the cleric then the swashbuckler finished them off with Rapid Strikes.

Up front the other wizard and the knight were trying to pull the old Chewbacca in cuffs trick, using illusions and the wizard's knowledge of the Abbadonian language. It didn't work (Acting off default sucks). The wizard delayed the Flaming Skulls by using an Extinguish Fire on them (clever wizard) but then he was battered unconscious by an explosive fireball which set the bridge on fire. The knight saw the hostage and tried the bridge alone. The Flaming Skulls attacked him. The unconscious wizard passed the time calculating if the Knight could kill the skulls before the skulls killed him.

Four Abbadonians engaged the Knight on the bridge and he responded by stamping on the old planks to break them and send the commandos plummeting. It kind of worked but the Knight was left hanging from the bridge by one hand while one Abbadonian still had his footing and his Dagger.

The archer gave some assistance. The cleric tried to bypass an Abaddonian to heal the unconscious wizard, in his turn the Abbadonian turned round and hit the cleric in the head with his pick. Instant Death Check! (and the GM gives a silent cheer).

The cleric passed the roll and lives to this day. The knight got back on the bridge crossed over, still fighting the skulls, (did he make a death check, I forget, he has HT 14 and Hard to Kill 3). The archer killed the Abaddonian Wizard. Everyone ran over the burning bridge (with an ad hoc rolling of dice to see if it broke, it didn't).

To cut a long story short they killed all the baddies and rescued the hostage. But the Swashbuckler did have to make a Death Check (another silent cheer), but he passed. He didn't expect the Eye Cone to hypnotise him leaving him open to a warpick to the forehead: signature move of the commandos!

Conclusion

This battle was a great success everyone was challenged. There was much shouting (indicating real nervousness) and two or three death checks meant that the result was really in the balance.

It is a big party of old school munchkins but you need challenging terrain, lots of enemies, some enemies that are immune to most of the PCs powers (the flaming skulls) and baddies with an outrageously unfair plan (it's almost as if they knew six PCs were coming from that direction;-).

[Azinctus]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I advocate against taking into account EVERY single part of the party composition, player psychology, possible tactics, etc.

I'm now treating DF the way I dealt with High Level Dungeons and Dragons; design an encounter that seems sure to kill at least half the party, set it somewhere that gives the villains the advantage and watch the PCs tear it to shreds and walk out without serious wounds but happy.

[Greg 1]

This thread has been very useful. I started it because I was toying around with putting a dungeon together as a free resource for DF.

I have opted for the method of making most of the encounters too damn dangerous to be resolved just by leaping in and hacking. It isn't supposed to be a killer dungeon, but it is supposed to be a dungeon where death is easy to come by for the brave and careless. PCs are expected to be thoughtful and cunning, making use of every edge they can (as PCs love to do in my experience!)

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by Azinctus

Nymdok I don't mean to criticise at all, I have great respect for your efforts. ....

Thanks (from myself and all who contribute)!

No offense is taken ! Vetting ideas is one of the great uses for these boards and I value the input! :)

Im hoping that if we can come up with a ballpark figure, we can actually use it to develop (reasonably) quickly some encouters, not based on charachter point value, but based on Skill/Ability/Atribute.

Nymdok

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

This thread has been very useful. I started it because I was toying around with putting a dungeon together as a free resource for DF...

Send a query to E23/pyramid!

If its published, your fellow gamers will Appreciate having 'all but the tweak' worked out in advance. Also, it will help quell the 'there are no 4e adventrues for <genre>' complaints that seem to be rather common threads here of late. As an added bonus, you may even earn enough to get some PDFs to round out your GURPS collection :)

Nymdok

[Greg 1]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

Send a query to E23/pyramid!

If its published, your fellow gamers will Appreciate having 'all but the tweak' worked out in advance. Also, it will help quell the 'there are no 4e adventrues for <genre>' complaints that seem to be rather common threads here of late.

While this is the same advice that I might give to somebody else, I would rather give my work away for free. I already have enough stress in my life and writing game stuff helps me relax. The last thing I need are emails from SJG games about deadlines.

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

While this is the same advice that I might give to somebody else, I would rather give my work away for free. I already have enough stress in my life and writing game stuff helps me relax. The last thing I need are emails from SJG games about deadlines.

Either Way, I'm eager to see your results! :)

Nymdok

[Ts_]

So ... some statistics are in. I only consider the Barb and his Guards, no one else (though adding more fighters on either side shouldn't be hard).

Things considered:
* damage types, DR, etc but no hit locations
* Barb uses deceptive attack down to 15
* HT checks at <= 0 HP, and death checks at -1xHP,..-5xHP with appropriate modifiers.
* dodge is halved at <= 1/3xHP
* parry is reduced by -4 each parry

Things not considered:
* hit locations
* major wounds, knockdown and stun (<-- I should add stun a.s.a.p.)
* shock (I assume everyone has HPT)
* maneuvers ... everyone just "attacks" (the Barb kills the guards one at a time, of course)
* options like extra effort and retreat are also ignored
* common sense ... everyone fights until death/unconsciousness

So ... with 10,000 runs each:
Barb vs 1: 98% win chance
Barb vs 2: 75% win chance
Barb vs 3: 32% win chance
Barb vs 4: 6% win chance

Fun fact: Barb with HT 23 can win vs 4 guards 50% of the time.

What does this tell us? I don't know.

Regards,
Ts

[Nymdok]

Thanks for running the simulation and writing the code!

Although, as discussed, this doesnt 'prove' anything per se, I think it gives us a handle on a very complicated situation.

30% success I think could translate to as high as 50% with tactics, teamwork, maneuvers etc, so Id say that, as written, this provides even experienced players with something of a challenge.

Novice players would probably feel the full 70% against difficulty and be taken by the guards in this case.

We could, at this point, begin adding in more guards to offset spells/abilites/attrition from ranged weapons (thrown weapon axe to the Neck!) asuming we knew the casting times, resistances, basic speeds and distance to the door.

If I could tax your patience once more TS, do you know what round the wins came in on average?

Nymdok

[Ts_]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

do you know what round the wins came in on average?

I still need some better way to parse the details of the fights. But the fights vs 3 guys lasted about 10 rounds max whenever I watched closely for debugging. It kind of makes sense, too. At HT 13, the barb can survive a little bit less than 6 HT checks on average (with 0 penalty) and the Barb drops to negative HP after 2.5 hits from the guards, which occurs after about 2 rounds vs 2-3 guards. So we know when the Barb will fall unconscious, even though he might not get hurt any more until then!

Good night!
Ts