09-05-2022, 04:28 PM | #11 | |||||||||||
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
|
Re: Dungeon construction: balancing difficulty and treasure?
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Because of this it is actually pretty difficult to err on the side of "too easy", because any fight is potentially dangerous. So if you start out with what you are sure isn't that difficult (and it makes sense given the circumstances) you'll probably be fine. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
However it can't be as cleanly defined as in D&D, because there isn't a quantized step-function of power level, but a relatively flat gradient. A dozen basic goblins might destroy a 500 point party in the right ambush, and a party of 125 point PCs might kill a dragon if they're smart about it. Presumably this is a feature for doing it in GURPS. I'm going to be attempting something similar soon (but more DF-adjacent megadungeon campaign than DF proper) and while my design is putting relatively tougher threats both deeper and farther away than where the PCs are likely to start, it's not so quantitatively delineated. Really it is just narrative logic, because the really bad things have more important things to do than harass some random explorers in the mostly empty ruin they never cared about on the surface. There's a logical inverse relationship between the relative danger of a threat and proximity to civilization. Either the threat prevents settlement or settlement eliminates the threat. So the things that actually threaten civilization must be found, under nominal conditions, far away from it. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Mainly though I was pointing out that if you are only interested in Dungeon Fantasy content the Collected is a much better deal than buying all those non-DF Pyramids. Last edited by sir_pudding; 09-05-2022 at 05:35 PM. |
|||||||||||
09-05-2022, 05:32 PM | #12 |
Join Date: Jun 2022
|
Re: Dungeon construction: balancing difficulty and treasure?
|
09-05-2022, 05:57 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Apr 2019
|
Re: Dungeon construction: balancing difficulty and treasure?
Sure, but this is the DFRPG board and not the GURPS board. Also, that Christopher Rice article - though it's probably an extremely accurate way to size up the competition - doesn't it depend a lot on "Under the Hood" -type stuff?
I was trying to come up with a way to eyeball it, which is what the OP asked for. Seriously: the calculations in that article seem like they might take a little while.... Though they do have precalculated numbers for a lot of the monsters, right? But you'd have to make a calculation for every member of the party... It all seems to me to be pretty far afield from the design philosophy of DFRPG, if not necessarily DF. I'm a big Christopher Rice fan and all, but IIRC, that article is one of the ones that I think a lot of folks would look at and be like: GURPS math! Anyway, my two cents. I still think (Damage x Speed x Attacks) + (DR x 5) will probably give you pretty good results for most encounters, if exceptions are made for monsters with really unusual traits. |
09-05-2022, 06:23 PM | #14 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
|
Re: Dungeon construction: balancing difficulty and treasure?
Yeah for some monster traits you may need point costs to get CER.
|
09-05-2022, 07:06 PM | #15 |
Join Date: Feb 2009
|
Re: Dungeon construction: balancing difficulty and treasure?
I just wing and prayer it. Give monsters enough damage they can hurt if they hit, enough attacks or deceptive they might actually hit, rock and roll
Most monsters you can just assume everything will be okay, toss them at the party have fun. Some of them (say an orc or a giant rat) are obvious chumps, use lots. Some like draugr are not chumps. Don't use lots. How did you balance fights running non DFRPG GURPS? The same methods apply. Start with the PCs 'okay Bob has N DR, we need some way around, and has M active defense' and go |
09-05-2022, 11:24 PM | #16 | |||||
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Re: Dungeon construction: balancing difficulty and treasure?
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Last edited by sjmdw45; 09-05-2022 at 11:56 PM. |
|||||
09-05-2022, 11:38 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Re: Dungeon construction: balancing difficulty and treasure?
Quote:
That isn't an appropriate approach for the type of Roguelike hack-and-slash adventure(s?) I'm intending to run for my friends in the near future though, and AFAICT Dungeon Fantasy doesn't have enough info to make that approach viable anyway. (How big is an ice weasel pack?) I like the results Julian got with his method, might use it (with Lanchester's Laws for quantity scaling). I'm planning to run myself through a practice dungeon this weekend just to test things out in advance. |
|
09-06-2022, 12:54 AM | #18 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
|
Re: Dungeon construction: balancing difficulty and treasure?
Quote:
|
|
09-06-2022, 06:45 AM | #19 | |
Join Date: Apr 2019
|
Re: Dungeon construction: balancing difficulty and treasure?
Quote:
|
|
09-06-2022, 08:15 AM | #20 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
|
Re: Dungeon construction: balancing difficulty and treasure?
Sooner or later How to Be a GURPS GM: Combat Encounters will be generally released, and then there will be an official supplement, written by Kromm, about how to set up and balance combat encounters. It's not as simple as a single index number, but it's not full of math like the Pyramid article. It's one of my favorite GURPS supplements, and I don't even tend to run games with a lot of combat in them.
|
|
|