GURPS Jade Regent: Cadmus Returns!

Not nearly this cool, alas.

I got to get back into Cadmus’ skin today, in +Nathan Joy‘s GURPS Jade Regent DF game. Cadmus woke up after his last memory was being crushed under an Ice Worm, way back when. He woke up uncertain, neither tired or particularly rested, and with a bunch of money in his pouch that was the reminder of his stake from before he got squished. Or something.

Guess Pharasma wasn’t done with him, but I didn’t get to turn all nifty white like Gandalf. I’m still Cadmus the Bland.

We wander down the hall into a huge room, split by a very deep chasm. There’s an upraised dais with lots of skulls and evil looking stuff. We approach the chasm, and hear barks and snarls. Staver launches an arrow towards the sounds of barks and yelps, and scares up a bunch of Yeti.

Looks like MapTool b90 has punched up the lighting model. Sweet. Lots of lights that attach to tokens.

Anyway, Staver launches a few arrows at the Yetis, starting a couple on fire, and after a moment, the other Yetis spring their trap. That’s right, we got ambushed by a bunch of hairy frozen ape-men.

They pop up next to Shiba and Staver, for the moment leaving Cadmus, Thumvar (currently hovering on our side of the chasm), and Hiro Nakitome alone. Five attacks go Shiba’s way, all connecting, while another five go for Staver. Fortunately for him, only three hit. Lucky lucky!

Shiba gets peppered with five arrows. Left leg, right arm, torso, left arm, right arm. Staver is right leg and torso (nifty player-designed macro!).Damage to Shiba ranges from 3(2) pi to 6(2) pi, and Staver gets nailed for 6(2) and 4(2). Oh, bonus . . . the arrows seem to be poisoned, triggering a HT-3 roll for every hit, and 1d toxic damage if that fails.

Pretty good opening salvo for the bad guys. After all this time, we still don’t form up behind the fighters, but then, it’s served us pretty well for this time. On the flip side, Cadmus just did wake up from being pretty dead, so perhaps not.

The new bad guys are 10 yards up and 30 yards to my southwest, while the other group is about 20 yards to the northeast over a chasm Cadmus cannot cross.

He very, very, very much needs to buy “On the Wings of Angels,” which is going to be unaspected Flight, as a learned Prayer. 8 points gets me Move 12. Plus badass ghostly etherial wings.

OK, now on “must have” list is some sort of ranged ability, plus the flight thing. I’m definitely OK with it being a Learned Prayer, as I only really want to use it to get into the fight.

Because being stuck out of range to do anything? Boring.

Ah! the berserkers and Hunters surge forward, leaping the chasm! The fight comes to me! Excellent. The hunters on the walls release their foot-holds, and slide towards the ground, unnaturally slowly. Cadmus rejoices, and prays to Pharasma: “Holy Pharasma, give me the might to face these creatures, and I thank you for this trial of arms to welcome me back to the world.” 1, 4, and 4 to physical traits. He chooses +4 DX, +4 ST, and +1 HT. He is, for 3d6 seconds, a 470-point character.This just about doubles his net move, and he’s now lightly encumbered. And 3d+4 (2) cut damage, Parry-19, Block-18. Let’s get it on.

Staver looses two arrows at two of the descending Yeti, one fails to defend, and hits the ground with a crunch. We think they’re suspended from the ceiling with magical ropes, physical or mystical.

The bad guys continue to hurl themselves over the chasm. Lining up pretty well along the west edge. Thumvar chucks a vial of alchemist’s fire at the biggest of the yetis, which explodes on his shield, setting it aflame. Shiba launches some sort of exploding arrow at the Wall of Descending Yeti, and kills at least three.

Cadmus fast-draws his own vial of alchemist’s fire, and critically hits the hex in the center of lots of bad guys. They all try to dodge and drop. The ones on the cliffs’ edge can’t, and take minor damage. Still: on fire is good. Will burn for 30 seconds, which is also good.

Staver continues to fire arrows at bad guys’ vitals, killing another. Only two remain to the southwest, and against Shiba and Staver, they will not last long.

Thumvar steps in, Fast-Drawing his sword, and executing a Rapid Strike on the two foes in front of him. One eats 13(2) cut; the other parries. The one that got hit dies.

The yeti all scamper and close on us, a veritable mob of living fur. Lots of targets, very close by. They all seem to rush Thumvar, who is flying:

Thumvar: Note, I’m 9′ up, unless they have reach 2+ they can’t attack.

GM: What’s the penalty for hitting above you with melee.

Thumvar: unless they jump

GM: They have greataxes.

Staver: Hilarity

Two might hit, but Thumvar parries both easily. Seven arrows are drawn or nocked.

Cadmus swings twice, with minor deceptive attacks, but both blows are parried. Next time, one blow, more deceptive attack. Good to know.

Still, the guys who he set on fire a few turns ago continue to burn, and one collapses from the flames. The shaman’s still all stoic.

Hiro, our magic user, casts a nasty pit spell. A five yard chasm opens up, dumps a whole lot of bad guys into a 15′ pit. They’ll hit the bottom next turn, after which the pit will fill in. Not sure if it’ll trap them or not. We shall see.

Thumvar chops at the big guy, who is falling. 13(2) cut is delivered.

***

We call it there. The biggest lessons I learned for this:

1) Either all the players should stay close together, or you’d better ensure you have the mobility to join a fight quickly. That Flight learned prayer is on my “next 8 CP I get” list

2) One BIG hit is best when fighting guys with good defenses. The one attack I got, I wasted by doing a Rapid Strike. I had Axe-24. I should have just thrown down with a -8 to hit, -4 Deceptive attack. But that would still have left him with something like 10 or 11 for his defense. So maybe that wouldn’t have been enough. Had I hit, 3d+4 (2) cut vs hard leather (call it DR 2-4?) would have been something like 7-30 injury. Alas, he defeated both my swipes, and I got nada.

3) Chat-based gaming is still very slow. Very. Slow.