Actual Play: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy – Jade Regent

Skipping over all varieties of introductions and back story.

Brody, our resident sneak-a-holic, returns from a foray into infiltrating the local nest of scum and villainy, to report that the girlfriend of the leader of the local Rimerunner’s guild has become recently reclusive and purchased an old hall a few days outside Karlsgard, the town we’re in. Naturally, Brody came by this information through legal but duplicitous means – Social engineering for the win.

Lot of money being poured into the place, and the girlfriend spends a lot of time there. We’re hoping to find the long-lost sword from far-off Tian. Of course. In the words of our GM, +Nathan Joy  relaying this to us:

“…a sword from far-off Tian, and we were attacked by shadowy warriors who fit the description of elite assassins from far-off Tian, and the Rimerunners Guild is apparently a front for an assassin’s guild called the Frozen Shadows, whose modus operandi matches that of the shadowy warriors who attacked us….”

A few of our party are afflicted with the Honesty disadvantage, which means that we can’t just haul off and break into stuff. I will admit Cadmus, my Warrior Saint, is one of those, and so is Brother Michel, +Mark Langsdorf‘s Mage/Cleric Uber-IQ guy.

But we’re told there might be demons there, and since Pharasma and demons do not get on well, Cadmus states that where there are rumors of demons, there must I go.

Oh, and we also find out that the undead Viking we just killed used to own the house. And his notional second-in-command now owns it. So the Ravenscraeg hall is now owned by our prime candidate for current bad guy’s (Longthews) girlfriend Silverskorr, being fixed up. That was enough for us to decide to pay a visit. Despite the rumors of horrible things, people never return, Mad Reaver, etc.

We’d placed an order for better gear, spending money from the loot we got from Brinestump Castle. Our group is using a mish-mash of Dungeon Fantasy and more advanced rules (lots of stuff from Martial Arts, the armor weights from Low Tech), so my old panoply was pretty darn complicated. A mix of mail and plates (one of the best armors by weight and cost per unit of DR, in Low Tech), cheap mail (which ain’t bad either), different quality and thickness front and back to save cost and weight, etc. There’s only so far $3500 in signature gear and starting cash can take you, and I optimized horribly (meaning as munchkinly as I could manage. This is Dungeon Fantasy, after all).

The new kit cost me just shy of $12,000 but is both simpler and better. We have a couple house rules in play that boost the cost even more. You can only enchant gear that has at least a x2 cost multiplier. TL 4 armors also have that same x2, and that counts. So I wind up with a Lightened full suit of padded cloth (DR 1*), Heavy Mail legs and arms, both with lighten x3/4 and fortify +1, and a full helm and torso armor with DR 7 plate as the base, with fortify and lighten again. So DR 9 on the torso and head, DR 6/4* arms and legs. Plus some pretty lame boots, honestly. Better not step on any caltrops.

So we find out through research and carousing where this house is located, and set off. After some riding (we all bought horses, using this excellent writeup of various horse types by Icelander; Cadmus has a Rouncey), we were making our way through a swamp when my horse stepped into a puddle of water, only to come up with skin blistering, covered in some sort of goo.

I forced the horse to jump over the water, clearing the obstacle. The goo continued to smoke and hiss, and the water began to writhe and ripple, and something emerged from that. My comrades and I immediately “took a tiny step and there conclusions were” and decided that hitting this stuff with regular weapons would be Grade A stupid. So Staver, our resident infernal scout, started shooting 2d fireball arrows at the ooze. It hit, boom, splat, and a whole bunch of these things make their appearance.

They start flinging acidic slime balls at us. Our Knight, Thumvar (winged gargoyle knight) blocks twice, and I dodge twice, succeeding both times thanks to my +3 Defense bonus from my light large shield. The shield is not happy. At all.

We continue with fireball arrows, throwing liquid fire, casting Create Fire, etc. Cadmus moves his horse 7-8 yards away, and critically succeeds in my rapid dismount roll. 9.8, 9.9, 9.7, 9.8, and 4.5 from my mother, disguised as the East German judge.

Then the ooze starts moving towards us. Yeeps.

So my Warrior Saint does what Warrior Saint’s do in these cases.

He prayed. He prayed for the confounding of his enemy and the health of his mount. These rolls are made in secret, and are against my Divine Favor of 8 (with modifiers, etc) and then a reaction roll. Also, I have to pray for 1d6 seconds to make this happen.

Nate must have rolled really well. The very next turn, all the oozes freeze in place, and my horse’s leg stops smoking, as I receive a tailor-made miracle, with thanks to Pharasma. I choose to maintain my prayer, noting that faith is not a fire-and-forget missile. Nate says “good call” in retrospect; my awesome effect would have been lost had I tried anything else.

The oozes flung more acid at us; three more balls at me, one of which crit-hits, one misses, the other I dodge. The crit spatters on my nice, new, magical breastplate. But our resident mage can burn them all to death and Mend my armor before the acid ball eats all the way through my DR 9.

We called the session there.

**********

That could have gone a few ways, and that any of these methods would have been viable is why I love GURPS.

1) We could have tried to jump the puddle and just left. But seeing the fire arrow hit for effect, we decided to stay.

2) My prayer was technically a long shot. Maybe 9 or less on 3d6 (37% chance). It only took me 1 second to pray, and it could have been six. And my petition roll, which was good enough to heal the horse and freeze them in place, turned this into “have the fire-wielding guys burn them all to death.”

3) Had this not worked out, it was pretty clear that had we stood and fought, we were risking massive damage to our gear. Cadmus has a dueling poleaxe that he rarely uses that he could have tried, but it just seemed intuitive (especially after Thumvar deliberately sacrificed a thrown hatchet to prove the point) that mundane weapons would just be ruined. Fire seemed the only way, though I’m sure that there’d be others. Not all of us have fire. Might have to fix that.

I had options the entire time. Ride, pray, swing weapons, etc. Cadmus is 313 points, so his combat options are pretty good. But melee wasn’t in it this time, and that was pretty fun. We’ll have to work a bit on the teamwork thing, and I’m still getting used to the DF threats. As an example, I did not silver-coat my axe, which is an “of course!” move for the more experienced crowd. We are not purposefully equipped (yet) against creatures who do not respond well to being chopped or bashed, though our mage/cleric (Brother Michel) is darn versatile and eats paut (a magical version of a Cliff Bar) like there’s no tomorrow (in fairness, he eats it because if he doesn’t, for some of us there will be no tomorrow, so it’s all good).

Lessons learned? We’ll see.