Dungeon construction: balancing difficulty and treasure?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

Druids seem really neat. I'd rate them in the top six professions I'd want in my adventuring party, along with cleric, wizard, swashbuckler, scout, and bard.

Yeah, I never saw any problems with it in play (although in GURPS DF they have Plant Form Other and Heal Plant), but I also do a fair amount of wilderness encounters.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

Just a warning, DFRPG doesn't handle the "what good are social skills" question well, you will want to expand on their usage (and expand on "in town actions" even if you keep it a little 'handwavy') and your Players may want you to expand on "what good are crafting skills" but I recommend keeping them exactly as they are in DFRPG, that will keep the PCs focused on adventuring, not setting up a business in the big city and never leaving again.

I keep seeing Players trying to pull "but what if we rented access to our fabulous magical tomes and spellbooks we've recovered instead if selling them" and I keep having to shut them down with the Sage's Guild... no, there is no "making money outside of adventuring".

This actually seems pretty straightforward to me. If something would prevent PCs from adventuring while they do money-making, just like any downtime activity I can just tell the player that the PC is unavailable for a period of time (e.g. "for the next two adventures") and they must play a different PC. Otherwise, roll some dice and award some money.

I'm not really worried about this one though, because skills like Scrounging and Armorer already have enough uses by the book to justify the handful of points certain professions are forced to spend on them.

Be wary allowing FP recovery methods to stack. There are reasons that GURPS Basic doesn't allow it. I know DFRPG opened the door to it, but that's always the first house rule I have to crack down on.

Good advice but not what I was talking about. Anyone with an ER effectively regains 12 FP per hour already (1 FP to each every ten minutes). Healing Slumber doubles that to 24, no stacking needed. Upshot: Sanctuary provides _safety_ while recovering, and Fit just makes it so the Cleric can actually afford to cast both Sanctuary and Healing Slumber on a couple of other PCs without ending the hour low on FP himself.

Allies can be pretty inexpensive, but for a more "pure pointless slaying and looting" DFPRG campaign, I'd still implement Allies, I'd just use Peter Dell'Orto's Felltower Ally house rules, they don't scale with the PCs and have a flat cost. You'll still get PCs buying Acolyte sidekicks to through down emergency healing* or aid the PC Cleric rituals, and Apprentices to have utility spells and toss around cheap 1-2d fireballs. It's kinda rare anyone buys any other Allies, but a Player of mine likes to buy Ally fighters to 'meatshield' for his squishy Wizards (mostly to 'ensure' there is a speedbump near their Wizard in case of ambushes).

This is the opposite of what I want. I'm happy to have no Ally rules in DFRPG. If you want help from an NPC you talk to them like a person and give them a reason to help you (which might involve cash), instead of paying metagame "points".

But for the most part, if you want to revive the cleric before they'd naturally recover, you'd better (1) have a second cleric, (2) feed them healing potions, (3) visit a temple in town. If other people were eager to get their heads whacked off by monsters, all the monsters would be dead, the gold would already be taken, and PCs would be unemployed! Willingness to delve is their competitive advantage!

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

Anyone with an ER effectively regains 12 FP per hour already (1 FP to each every ten minutes).

Only while resting (except for ER and Recover Energy... which I keep thinking about house ruling just to make it simpler).

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

I keep seeing Players trying to pull "but what if we rented access to our fabulous magical tomes and spellbooks we've recovered instead if selling them" and I keep having to shut them down with the Sage's Guild... no, there is no "making money outside of adventuring".

I certainly wouldn't want a DFRPG game to evolve into Adventures in Bookkeeping, but I'm also fine weaving a bit of that into the plot.

For example, in a recent adventure set in Douglas Cole's Nordlond setting, our characters ended up with a surprise haul of fae nature juice that can basically create old-growth forest overnight. We haven't figured out next steps yet, but there are lots of potential adventures even if we ultimately aim at becoming lumber barons. We need to acquire land, which might require some quests for fancy folk in the Citadel. Or just claiming and defending a territory. (I'm sure there will be dungeons there... because DF!) Eventually, maybe we have a keep and a business that occupies us during downtime but we still have to go on adventures because we're living in the Hunted Lands where everything is out to kill us or play with us to death (winterfae jerks). I could easily see this being compatible with a full campaign's worth of DF action.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

Good advice but not what I was talking about. Anyone with an ER effectively regains 12 FP per hour already (1 FP to each every ten minutes). Healing Slumber doubles that to 24, no stacking needed. Upshot: Sanctuary provides _safety_ while recovering, and Fit just makes it so the Cleric can actually afford to cast both Sanctuary and Healing Slumber on a couple of other PCs without ending the hour low on FP himself.

Originally Posted by mburr0003

Only while resting (except for ER and Recover Energy... which I keep thinking about house ruling just to make it simpler).

Yes, but I was talking about Healing Slumber so they are resting.