Experiences with running "level 1 to level 20" campaigns, using DFRPG

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by namada

Again...I'm really interested in this sort of thing.

In what way are you interested?

Do you want someone else to do all the work of "converting" them to GURPS? Cause that's not likely to happen.

Do you want to hear about someone's experiences running those campaigns for GURPS? That's likelier, but not from me as I've never even heard of some of them or read the others.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

I agree, going from 1st to 4th level is a bigger jump than going from 62 to 72 points. But that kind of hyperfast advancement is not really a thing in AD&D or OSE anyway, only in 5E and even then only sometimes.

I feel like this was my experience with 3e modules, too. It certainly is my experience with PF 1e APs.

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by namada

I would assume that you'd use either Doug's Delvers to Grow or Gurpsland's Dungeon Fantasy on the Cheap to start such, otherwise, use Henchmen maybe...?

If you have, what's your experience?

I'm particularly interested in the following campaigns (but I'm open to others): Warlord of the Accordlands, The Drow War, War of the Burning Sky, and The Enemy Within. If that helps you focus on one thing in such an open-ended question.

The key points are that:
I've not played D&D-ish fantasy since the mid-90s

I've essentially run campaigns that mirrored whatever literature I happened to be reading at that time

I've never run pre-written campaigns before, but I figure I can combine the lack of experience with D&D-ish fantasy & my lack of understanding what people enjoy in it, with pre-written campaigns & hopefully have a successful experience with DFRPG...idk...maybe...

I've run WotBS in dnd4e and Zeitgeist using DF/Steampunk starting at 150 ish points. Starting W at 62 points should work. They're pretty optimized and are something of glass cannons. I would focus on the feel of the campaign rather than exact conversions. Given the harsh penalties for teleporting, the lack of same in DF should not be a problem. You'll probably still want a more generous advancement. I would suggest roughly 25 per module, that will get to full DF characters at the end. Possibly 50 per at the end if you want to allow really high end stuff from dnd if you feel up to it. 400 might do the last module reasonably well but it will require a lot of work to challenge them.

Feel free to ask if you have specific questions.

[namada]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

You got 7 responses from 4 different people. I don't think it's reasonable to expect you'll get detailed responses on converting 4 different adventure paths that are literally hundreds of different encounters over a range of levels.

I agree that would be totally unreasonable. Apparently I simply wasn't expressing what I was looking for clearly enough, so I'll try again below...

Originally Posted by mburr0003

In what way are you interested?

First of all, let me say that instead of writing 1st-20th level, I should have written 1st-Nth level. That opens up the door to even more possibilities because there are several campaigns, or adventure paths if you prefer, that run, for example 1st-6th, 1st-10th, 1st-15, etc.

So what I'd like is for GMs of DFRPG that have run such 1st-Nth level campaigns to give me feedback on specific campaigns (or adventure paths) on how well did it convert over to DFRPG. Any specific advice you can give on that specific campaign I'd be happy to hear.

I'm not looking for general advice of any kind, just on specific campaigns. The 4 I listed that I'm particularly interested in (Warlord of the Accordlands, The Drow War, War of the Burning Sky, and The Enemy Within) are simply because I already own these. If you've run some other 1st-Nth campaign though, I'm open to hearing feedback on whatever specific campaign that is, I might go buy those.

[johndallman]

I'm a player, rather than the GM, in the Pathfinder 1e adventure path Kingmaker, being run under GURPS DF rather than DFRPG. It is a level 1-to-N campaign, but we started it as 250-point characters. We're now well into part four of six, at about 335 points.

At the start, we didn't have much trouble with the fights, but we weren't in practice at low-tech combat. They're now getting more challenging. We are a rather small party: a knight, a wizard specialising in air magic and a necromancer with a cleric as a 75% Ally.

[namada]

Originally Posted by corwyn

I've run...Zeitgeist using DF/Steampunk starting at 150 ish points.

I know of this, but know nothing of this, so I've downloaded the free files and am looking into it, so...

Originally Posted by corwyn

Feel free to ask if you have specific questions.

I'll probably get back to you on Zeitgeist, after I've read the free stuff.

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'm a player, rather than the GM, in the Pathfinder 1e adventure path Kingmaker, being run under GURPS DF rather than DFRPG. It is a level 1-to-N campaign, but we started it as 250-point characters. We're now well into part four of six, at about 335 points.

At the start, we didn't have much trouble with the fights, but we weren't in practice at low-tech combat. They're now getting more challenging. We are a rather small party: a knight, a wizard specialising in air magic and a necromancer with a cleric as a 75% Ally.

Awesome feedback dude. That's great to know that your power level seemed too high at first. Can you tell me whether your GM bothered trying to modify the number of opponents called for? I know, in general, GURPS is far more deadly when it comes to odds-against-opponents than D&D is, I assume it's the same for Pathfinder...?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by namada

Can you tell me whether your GM bothered trying to modify the number of opponents called for?

I don't think he did. The players are all experienced with GURPS (but not with Pathfinder, or recent versions of D&D) and are well aware of the dangers of being outnumbered. Our usual tactics for dealing with it are "shock and awe" - being quite aggressive in the first second or two in the hope of undermining enemy morale. A head or two bouncing around is good for shock value.

I think if you started this Adventure Path with much lower-point characters, you'd need to award experience quite generously to keep up with the scenario.

[RogerBW]

As the GM in question (I don't read this forum section often), I'd say that the levers I have to scale with are very different. Numbers of individuals count much more in GURPS than in That Other Game. Most of the time a reasonably competent monster, and pretty much any PC, can be counted on to hit, so what matters is reducing defences, whether by piling many on one or by going multiply-Deceptive on the attack.

Of course Other Game is basically a Lanchester-style formula: I will do X damage per turn against your hit points HY, you will do Y damage per turn against my HX, if HY/X is less than HX/Y then I will win. (It's simpler than Lanchester because losing hit points doesn't impair ability to fight.) In GURPS, usually the first side to take HP damage is the side that's going to lose - so the party can have an exciting combat encounter and still be at full HP, and that doesn't mean it was a walkover.

Another thing that running this game is bringing home to me is that GURPS doesn't have a lot of one-off powers. In Other Game a combatant might only be able to their big attack sometimes, either explicitly N per encounter or because it costs some resource, but in GURPS the fighter can keep on doing double-deceptive cut to the neck all fight long – and the wizard can keep spamming the same spell as long as their FP hold out (or stick to 0-FP-from-high-skill spells), rather than having to switch to whatever they've got left in their memories. So the progress of a combat encounter tends to be "home in on the most effective attack, then keep doing that". And for me the second part of that, the dice exercise, is boring to both GM and players if it takes too long.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

Another thing that running this game is bringing home to me is that GURPS doesn't have a lot of one-off powers. In Other Game a combatant might only be able to their big attack sometimes, either explicitly N per encounter . . .

Per-encounter abilities, especially for characters without explicit magical abilities, snap my disbelief-suspenders. They make the game structure excessively visible to the characters. Pretty well all the Other Game I've played has been in editions too old to have such things, and they were one of the things that caused me to give away D&D4e after I'd only read part of one book.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Per-encounter abilities, especially for characters without explicit magical abilities, snap my disbelief-suspenders. They make the game structure excessively visible to the characters. Pretty well all the Other Game I've played has been in editions too old to have such things, and they were one of the things that caused me to give away D&D4e after I'd only read part of one book.

To the extent that DFRPG has attrition built in, it seems to be in the form of:

1.) Crippling and HP. A fighter who loses an arm or a leg reduces the offensive and defensive strength of the party. This isn't necessarily fun for the player, although at least you're still allowed to talk to NPCs because you're not dead, and you can still use ranged weapons and magic items and spells.

2.) Logistics. Power items, strength potions, caltrops, fine arrows and crossbow bolts, fine throwing weapons. Most of these are not reusable in the same adventure, although a net or a fine throwing axe or a weapon sharpened with a dwarven whetstone is approximately per-encounter. (Although the GM doesn't have to care what "counts as an encounter", he just has to care whether the PCs have enough time to resharpen their weapons before the next thing happens.)

3.) Explicitly time-bound or metatime-bound abilities, like Uninterrupted Flurry (once every 5 minutes) or Luck or even spells and Kiai. These are basically per-encounter abilities too, unless the encounter pace is faster than the resource regeneration rate. Maybe you Glued the first wave of bad guys to the floor, but the wave that comes along two minutes later has to be dealt with differently.

4.) Time and action economy. A pre-loaded crossbow on a crossbow sling can be readied and fired in two to three seconds, but a second shot would take six more seconds. It's approximately per-encounter. Depending on the terrain and order of battle, the distance between you and the enemy can also be thought of as an approximately per-encounter resource too, especially if there are archers and either the PCs or an evil GM has filled the space between with traps. (Yay for Horde Pygmies!)

My players fight hard to avoid getting even within shouting difference of running out of FP, but they're pretty willing to burn items (or at least, the Wealthy ones who are built on the concept of buying and using consumables are), especially for stuff like recon (Wizard Eye) and force multiplication.

I like the DFRPG paradigm here better than the D&D 4E paradigm you mention. "I'm too tired to keep fighting/running/casting" is more comprehensible than "sorry, I can't do that move again until I get an hour's rest."