Convert This Villain from D&D 3.5 to GURPS

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Chethrok_Bloodfist

I'm just wondering if it's balanced against four 150-point characters.

It's important to keep in mind that CPs aren't a useful measure of combat effectiveness. The classical example, cited above, is the 75-point warrior vs. the 300-point accountant. The low-point character built for fighting mops the floor with the high-point character built for a career in finance. A batch of 150-point characters optimized for combat could probably take this guy in a stand-up fight (and get badly hurt doing it), but a group of 150-point characters where one is a warrior, one is a master outdoorsman, one is a brilliant con-man, and one is a sage and healer would be best served by running away. Then again, the challenge for them would be finding a way of getting rid of him without having to engage in a stand-up fight: levitate him off a cliff, lure him into a pool of holy water, trap him in a burning, collapsing building, etc.

[Collective_Restraint]

Originally Posted by Chethrok_Bloodfist

4) Overall, Ireally like your take on him. It's quick and easy, and works well. I'm just wondering if it's balanced against four 150-point characters.

Turhan's Bey Company is right on. It really depends how your group is geared up against him. I stated him at doing 2d imp as you made him at a Str of 18 and I usually convert D&D Str to GURPS ST straight. It would normally be the damage an Impaling Striker would do (at least I think so, as I don't have my books in front of me) with a Brawling at more than DX+2. Worst case, tone his ST down and it really depends to what size his claws are. Long as a Broadsword or a Knife ? Adjust the damage accordingly. And yes, impaling damage is dangerous as it can target eyes and vitals, but at his low skill level, he would then miss often. Don't forget that a medium shielded warrior with Broadsword-18 and Combat Reflexes will be able to parry his blows at 15 ! You are probably the best judge on the situation on if he's too strong or not enough. Don't forget that if 6 PCs pummel him simultaneously, he'll get hit very often as his defensive choices won't be numerous and his dodge score is pretty low !

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Chethrok_Bloodfist

My only question is, is your version killable by a party of four 150-point PCs? The HP and High Pain Tolerance seems like appropriate and cool, but I'm worried about the damage resistance. DR 10 seems like it would stop basically everything the PCs could throw at him (even someone with ST 14 and a greatsword would only do 9 damage on average to him). I was thinking about toning it down to DR 2 or 3, especially if he can stick around up to -90HP. Especially because I don't think he should be that hard to kill given that he'll be dishing out powerful impaling attacks every turn as well.

My usual solution is that "monsters" have Fragile: Unnatural and die at -1xHP, and non-monster fighter-types fall down or surrender when they hit somewhere between 0 HP and -1xHP.

Non-fighters (enemy thieves, spellcasters, etc) may flee, faint, or surrender if they take a Major Wound of any kind, but obviously this guy is supposed to be a serious fighter type.

Regarding his DR: If he's taking 9 damage on average from your player with the biggest attacks, and you have two or three other players (who can try Chinks in Armor or use poison or acid or other things, don't forget, not to mention magic spells that bypass DR completely like Frostbite), then he's going to be taking probably 9 damage every other turn or so (assuming his defenses are OK).

That means he could potentially live for six or seven turns of damaging your players.

What you do is make sure that either
1) he doesn't focus all his damage on one PC, and that he doesn't do enough damage on average in six turns to kill your MID-RANGE player character (fragile characters should either dodge, or not be in melee)

2) if he does focus damage, that he doesn't do much damage with each attack, or that he's likely to leave the character alone after they hit negative HPs, IF they have the common sense to fall over and "play" dead.

Chewing through one PC, then a second PC, and mauling the third before being taken down isn't bad for a boss fight - IF he's not taking the time to finish off fallen characters.

EDIT: A trick with Impaling damage - IMP vs limbs isn't doubled, and injury from limb hits is capped at the crippling threshold. Players take being crippled in a limb pretty seriously, even if it doesn't directly threaten their HP scores. So his doing IMP damage may actually be a hidden-feature towards survivability of your PCs. Take advantage of lower-armored limbs and reduce or eliminate their damage output, terrorize your PCs, remind them to wear armor everywhere... but cut down on accidental Total Party Kills.

It's pretty handy.

[Qoltar]

Chethrock,

There was a bad guy iin omne of the old GURPS 3/e template books that you could maybe convert or modify for your uses. I'll look at my old files and books.

I have something for you that could help you run your campaign. Gotta make sure to get it before you leave town.


- Ed