Actual Play: GURPS DF Jade Regent – Ravenscraeg 5

The trolls look confused. The entire notion of “pay” has gone right by them. And yet . . . 

GM:  “Pay…. what?”

Michel eyes Brody suspiciously.

Brody: “We’ve got piles of valuable fur upstaiirs. You can have them! Warm, comfortable, just the thing to attract a fine troll woman, eh?”

The lead troll seems to consider this thoughtfully.

GM: “Warm.” He nods. “WARM!”

Brody:  “Very warm!”

They step back out of the way.

Kevin asked why aren’t we simply killing these guys again? I mean, trolls. We note that Michel won’t let us. (in fact, Michel notes that he just doesn’t want to fight these guys). Cadmus won’t interfere with critters unless they are trying to interfere with Fate. Or him, but that counts, since he’s on a holy quest.

So we give up 300-odd pounds of furs that we really weren’t looking to carry home to avoid murderizing two trolls. It’s a tangled web we weave. I’m certain this will come back to haunt us. Everything else does.

Or maybe not. The troll behind the one who made the deal makes a questioning noise, and the lead troll casually backhands him with his club, sending him flying back into the room beyond. The second troll picks himself up, and Michel sees a forearm that is bent nearly in half from the blow straighten itself with a series of sickening cracks. There’s a fight worth avoiding. Looks like troll fights are destined to be “long, and ultimately indecisive.” ( +Theodore Briggs )

The trolls look at us like we owe them something. Which, of course we do.

Brody: “Well, that was easy then. Your furs are upstairs, but our business is in here – follow us, we’ll bring you to them. You got a name, chum?”

GM: “WARM!”

Brody moves to the nearby iron door and nails it, picking the lock with a critical success. Meanwhile, those of us (Cadmus, Thumvar) not carefully eyeing the trolls in case they suddenly display their true nature are watching Brody work the lock.

Warm stares at us with flat, dull eyes. The door clicks open, and Brody decides that he never goes through a door whose lock he’s just picked first. Solid survival skills, that one.

The ceiling of this grand chamber rises twenty feet overhead, its heavy beams serving as both rafters and supports for the great hall above. Teak paneling covers the walls, and the floor is of polished wood. Along the walls, wooden columns rise to the ceiling above, bearing banners emblazoned with pictograms from far-off Tian Xia. Above these hang small oil lamps that give off a dim glow. A small porcelain bowl rests before the center column to the south, and four reed mats are arranged before it.

Naturally, as we enter, the wood paneling squeaks loudly. Per rolls are called for. Sigh.

GM:  Brody recognizes the Tian pictographs as being representative of various martial philosophies from that land.
Staver: I actually can read Broken Tian

+Douglas Cole : ((We’re in the freakin’ dojo of the Cobra Kai, aren’t we?))
+Nathan Joy : ((Just a lil))

All the PCs but Cadmus notice that the sides of the pillars are very rough, nearly unfinished. We suspect “Eye of the Tiger” or “Fight for your Honor” is about to start playing, and the ever-watchful Brody is looking out for the ninjas that keep trying to disembowel him. We also suspect that these are support beams for the hall upstairs. Wooden support beams. Ick – wish they were stone.

Warm the Pet Troll is following Brody around like a rabid puppy. 

A. Freakin’. Troll. Wants us to be quiet. Crap.

There are a ton of doors in this room; the first unlocked door swings open silently to Brody’s subtle nudge. It is a shrine to the Yama King – the same deity the bird-ninja’s of Alcatraz were worshipping earlier.

Brody:  “Right, Ninja bedroom. Check the others, see if there’s anything interesting.”
Michel: “Shouldn’t you stab the bed and the space and everything? Just in case?”
Brody: “If I was going to get stabbed, it would have happened by now.”
Thumvar: “Riiight, now you’ve done it”
Michel: “I suppose, but they’re sneaky.”

Brody’s probably not wrong. As a hedge, Thumvar and Brody open all doors that are openable, and they all have the same double-mats and shrine to the Yama King, patron deity of assassins. Yay. We find 10 small jade raven statues, one per mat. Only ornamental; they become loot.

Michel:  I may be honest, but I’m greedy, and I think statues belonging to devotees of the god of murder are clearly the former property of outlaws. 

Michel scored +1 Rationalization point.

Epic Ninja Battle
We continue to search the area, and Michel opens up the door that Cadmus refrained from opening, due to its being different.

GM: Hokay, Cadmus is gazing curiously into the empty cell.
Michel: Taps the walls of the empty, smaller cell with the blunt end of his glaive.
GM: Michel starts to walk towards him, when a bunch of small gray objects come flying down from the rafters.

And here we go . . . Staver has received initiative.

Cadmus: I hate to say it, but “Shields UP”
Michel: “Gozreh’s wings!”
Staver: Oh boy.
GM: They impact the ground near you all. Two near Brody, four near Staver, Cadmus, and Michel, and two near Warm and Thumvar. As the small objects impact the floor, they detonate.
Cadmus: And everyone heard me say “this door’s different,” right?

Yeesh. Four HT-3 rolls called for. Cadmus fails three of the four. Warm makes his. Michel fails two of four, Thumvar fails one, Staver fails a few, and we’re all Stunned. Yeesh. Thumvar burns a destiny point to not be stunned, because he only failed the one roll. The rest of us have to make a single HT-3 roll to recover. With a 37% chance to succeed with effective HT 9, I should wake up in 2-3 rounds on the average.

Plenty of time for us to get murderized. Well, perhaps it was Cadmus’ fate.

Eight figures roll out of the rafters up above, and all of them throw spears at Thumvar. Now, granted, Thumvar has DR 14 or so between his tough gargoyle hide and a bunch of plate armor. But that’s a lot of spears, and all potentially hit (thrown with Skill-16!). The four un-defendable hits for 8, 11, 6, and 7 impaling – but all “ping” off his torso armor. Thumvar reflexively blocks the flanking spears (one successfully) and dodges one of the others. The final two hit for 10 and 11, but again go “ping.”

That’s a lot of bouncing spears. Thumvar’s hard to hurt.

+Mark Langsdorf : Good job drawing aggro, Ted. I approve!
+Theodore Briggs : Woot! ninjas need to work out more. New armor? Totally worth every penny.

Thumvar makes up for the spear barrage by flying up and doing a Heroic Flying Axe Cut to one of these guys’ left legs, and he fails to parry. 17 cutting damage and he plummets to the floor, leaving a trail of arterial red. Booyah.

Cadmus rolls to recover from stun, and critically succeeds. Nate +Nathan Joy

lets me act this turn as a result; Cadmus’ nearest foe is one yard over . . . and seven up. He prays to Pharasma to drive evil from him. This is Enhanced Protection from Evil, which will force malign evil stuff away from me based on my margin of success. I hope to make some of these guys fall down off their perches. We’ll see.

Michel unstuns himself; Brody does not.

Cadmus’ nearest oppressor flings three objects at him, which burst into flame when they hit him. No cut damage, but 9 burn, 8 of which fails to get through his torso armor, but 1 burn does, so I’m on fire. Yay. -2 DX and 1d-4 damage per turn, with a ready maneuver and a DX roll required to put it out.

Staver is, alas, still stunned.

Two monks scurry along handholds and grab at Thumvar with two hands each. He blocks and dodges the first monk successfully, succeeds and then Critically Succeeds an Axe Parry with the second, who is not wounded thanks to some sort of arm protection. Guess this monster saw the recommendations in Technical Grappling. Meanwhile, Cadmus completes his prayer, and will push away evil within a 9-yard radius. We’ll see if they’re evil. He also burns for 1 HP. Being on fire isn’t much fun.

Michel steps and concentrates, casting a Concussion spell, trusting Thumvar to withstand the blast.

Thumvar drops down and chops at his stunned foe (results of the critical parry) with a massive deceptive attack, which his foe fails to dodge. This results in an atypically low 9 cut damage, just shy of his minimum. Alas. Thumvar sad; he makes himself happy by spending a Knight! point for a re-roll, and it mysteriously becomes 18 cut (which is his MAX roll, so booyah). Major wound, yep: prone, stunned, bleeding heavily. But not dead, so yow, because unarmored that’s 27 injury – so he’s got some protection under them robes.

Brody is still stunned. Warm actually tees off on a ninja with a deceptive attack from the flank. The nimble little minx dives forward and dodges. The figure that has been flinging firebombs at Cadmus rolls around the side of a beam and disappears. No telling if this is because of Cadmus’ prayer. None of the monks flee, but many reposition themselves around our party, “breathtakingly fast,” so says the GM.

Thumvar is up, and goes and lands to conserve fatigue. Cadmus chops at the neck of a nearby foe, who parries. Michel steps up next to Cadmus and lobs his stunball and rereadies his glaive. Five monks and Warm all have to make HT-3 rolls. Two monks fail, as does Warm. Alas. Still, two stunned, three still in the fight. And our troll is going to be pissed at us.

Staver, having recovered from stun, and launches two arrows, one each at the vitals of two foes. The first ducks under the arrow, the second is stunned and flanked and takes 8 imp to the vitals; the Major Wound check at -5 goes in our favor, and he’s down and out of the fight.

That was Team Ameiko; Team Shadow Monk is now up. Both of those stunned but not out recover from their stun and will act again next turn. Sadness. They fail to gang up on us, and one goes after Cadmus, one on Michel, and the last (likely soon to be departed) vs. Thumvar. They all swing their kamas at us (which I mistake for kusari, and block rather than parry), and all are successfully defended against. Go Team Ameiko. . . but Cadmus needs a breather to get his Righteous Fury on.

Thumvar swoops over his foe for a flying flank attack, doing his trademark Dual-Weapon Attack with his shield and axe. That’s total of -7 on the defense rolls (-2 flank, -2 above, -1 DWA, -2 DA). Flippy ninja monk dodges the shield, eats the axe for 14 cut. He does not suffer stun/knockdown from his major wound. He’s hurting but not out.

Cadmus steps back and gets his Righteous Fury on. Next turn he’ll roll 1d6 three times, and (GM house rule) assign the rolls as he likes. I almost always go DX, ST, HT.

Michel steps back, shifts his glaive to Reach 2, and stabs from a distance, keeping to Cadmus’ far flank (always hide behind the meat shield). Monk does a dodging retreat, and makes it easily.

Brody still fails to recover from stun. I offer to burn an unspent character point for him, just so Kevin can do something – handwave it as praying, but anything to get him back in the game.

A dart flies out of the darkness at Thumvar’s back . . . but misses. Stupid monk leader person.

Staver fires two arrows at two targets, and the one with the shock penalty gets hit – it barely penetrates his side. They must have DR 4-6. Cadmus should do pretty well with Shrivener’s (2) armor divisor, if he can ever lay a blade on these guys. If he can rock out with a good boost to DX, he can start Rapid Striking at full skill and/or major Deceptive bonus.

One of the monks starts waving his hands in a Hypnotic pattern at Thumvar, who loses the contest by 11 thanks to a really good roll by the Monk. Stunned for 11 turns. Yow. There goes our most effective combatant.

Cadmus’ foe tries to knock Shrivener away and also chops at his torso; Cadmus parries and dodges. He takes a whack at his nearest foe, then a long step (Committed Atack) at hypnotic hands guy. The first attack strikes home, though it’s a graze. But a graze with a named penetrating axe is still ugly. The second is dodged with a critical success. Cadmus can block or dodge at -2, but not parry.

Cadmus’ Righteous Fury takes effect, but only rolls 3,3,2. I use my Holy Warrior! point to reroll, for 4, 2, 2. Meh to both. But Cadmus is now DX 17, ST 16 (Striking ST 17), and HT 14. Not the best roll ever, but +4 to DX doesn’t ever hurt.

Brother Michel tries to chop at his nearest foe, that Cadmus hit and bypassed; despite his wounds, he dodges.

Brody still doesn’t recover from stun. Warm, on the other hand, must have recovered when we didn’t look, because he runs up and tackles one of the monks, slamming him into a wooden column. 

We call it a night.

Some out of character talk after the fight:

I note that I would really like to see what this sort of combat would have been lke with Action Points. Some of those “stunned for 10 rounds” might be better to take with people actually pausing for a few seconds to recover

Nate suggests that his next DF game would be “All clerical magic uses divine power, all arcane magic uses threshold based realm magic, and action points for everyone.”

We poll the audience for three house rules:  1) all afflictions get +1 per round to resist, 2) shock penalties effect defenses, and 3) shock penalties are halved (round down) each turn.