Centaurus Gate, Trauma Squad Session 3

Date: 2023-11-10

Player Characters (~300 points):
M2M2M, mech vehicular and robotics engineer, drone operator, hacker
Dr. Heinrich Schüler, human xenobiologist, physician, search and rescue specialist
Dr. Link Mercury, nanoswarm combat medic, pilot
Nectahii, edari sniper

NPCs of note – Boron Squad:
Alx Thorox, antax cybersecurity & electronics expert
Chloe Blanc, human marksman
John Hippocrates, neo-gray medic
“Rush” de Vries, human close quarters specialist

CP Awarded: 3

After defeating the alien swarm, Trauma Squad proceeded further down the tunnels. Soon they found a large three-way junction, which was full of charred alien corpses and other signs of battle. A tunnel branched off to the west, and another straight across the junction to the north (the operators entered  from the south). At the northern exit they found the remains of Thermobaric Zarl, the brute reptoid Boron Squad heavy weapons and demolitions specialist. M2 recovered his bodycam footage, which revealed that he made a last stand here to buy the rest of his squad time to withdraw from the alien swarm. M2 then attempted to contact any Boron Squad survivors via radio, and succeeded! Three of them were holed up in a freight elevator through the facility north of the junction. That’s where Trauma Squad went next – they left Zarl’s remains here to recover them later.

In the tunnel leading north, the team once again heard the sounds which last time heralded the alien swarm. This time they all prepared properly, taking cover behind a corner and some support beams next to it. Alien hordelings started pouring from around another corner to the south, and the team started mowing them down. There were a couple dozen all in all, with the operators dispatching about half of those appearing each second. After a couple seconds, the hordelings reached the team, but no more of them appeared – just four more “spitters”, which took positions behind cover and started aiming. Luckily, they were far enough to land only a couple of hits at the operators, who dodged them while taking out the remaining hordelings. In the end, the spitters fell as well.

Trauma Squad was unscathed, and simply proceeded further. They found another small bio-lab. Heinrich determined that this one focused on mental conditioning and rapid “sleep-learning” for cloning applications (whereas the first one researched tissue engineering and cloning itself). Past the lab, there was a large blast door which the Boron Squad survivors sabotaged on their way through to prevent the aliens from following them. Trauma Squad blew open a hole in it. On the other side, there was another seemingly “residential” section of the facility, and at its end the freight elevator where Boron Squad was holed up.

There, the operators found Alx, Chloe, and Rush. All were severely injured, and couldn’t climb the depowered elevator’s shaft to seek another exit. It wouldn’t have mattered though, because M2 sent his Gemini drone up and it reported a cave-in. As Heinrich and Link started treating Boron Squad, they briefed Trauma on the situation. Apparently, the third tunnel in the central junction led to a large laboratory. Emilia Rosenbaum, Boron’s science officer, and John Hippocrates, their medic, were investigating it while the rest of the squad went to haul supplies from the makeshift camp on the side of the facility they entered through. When they returned, the aliens started emerging from pods in the lab, killing Emilia on the spot. The rest of the squad retreated, except for John, who got separated from the others. None of the survivors are sure how that happened, though it seemed that the aliens completely ignored him. Boron Squad attempted to retreat the same way they came in, but got cut off by the heavily armored turrets in the first bio-lab. Hearing the alien swarm behind them, they decided to return towards the junction and fight just the aliens, instead of both the aliens and the turrets. The rest of their story matched what Trauma Squad already knew.

Considering their options, the two teams decided that the still heavily injured but patched up Boron Squad is fit enough to recover Zarl’s remains and retreat to the outside on their own. After parting ways, Trauma Squad set out to find John, and Emilia’s remains, in the main lab. As they approached its entrance, M2 noted that the disturbance which made radiocommunications in the facility difficult was in fact coming from the lab. They opened the door (which was unlocked) very carefully, and M2 sent Gemini in to take a look. There was nothing moving inside the 20-yard diameter lab – just a bunch of alien corpses, various scientific equipment, and pods along the walls and floors which presumably contained the aliens. Trauma Squad entered and carefully looked for the main control station. They found it at the opposite end of the lab, on a raised platform.

They activated the console, and started looking for research data, but also for a kill switch which would terminate aliens in all of the pods, if any still remained. As they were doing this, one of the pods near them opened – and Link fired several shotgun slugs into it. Out emerged John, stopping the slugs with a psionic force shield. He seemed physically changed, and greeted Trauma Squad. Answering their questions, he explained how the aliens from the pods ignored him, which allowed him to explore the lab after the rest of his squad ran away. He put Emilia’s corpse into one of the pods, as the technology within could revive her. Then, he himself went to be “uplifted”. He offered to prepare the pods to do the same with Trauma Squad, if they so desired. Heinrich was quite intrigued by the possibilities, and asked John what exactly this “uplifting” entailed, but also tried to discretely prod him into revealing if the pod put him under the Masters’ control. John answered that he wasn’t controlled by them, but the party got the impression he was not telling the whole truth. As Heinrich got John to explain the details of the uplifting process, Link sneaked up to John and injected him with a large dose of knockout drugs. At the same moment, M2 engaged the kill switch which he found in the meantime.

We ended the session with that cliffhanger.

Centaurus Gate, Trauma Squad Session 2

Date: 2023-11-03

Player Characters (~300 points):

M2M2M, mech vehicular and robotics engineer, drone operator, hacker
Dr. Link Mercury, nanoswarm combat medic, pilot
Nectahii, edari sniper
Miko, human melee specialist, silent killer, psi

CP awarded: 2

This session was a relatively short one – it started late and ended early. After Trauma Squad blew up the turrets, M2 repaired Link who then attended to Heinrich’s injuries. T’was but a scratch, in both cases. The group entered the room which was now safe, and proceeded to examine it. It was obviously some kind of a lab, with a lot of scientific equipment and computer consoles. Link determined it was a bio-lab, but wasn’t quite sure of the specific research subjects since he’s merely a doctor, not a scientist. The team determined that Boron Squad was here and used the consoles, but little else about them. M2 discovered that the door to the lab, through which they entered, was remotely locked about a day ago. He found several other nodes on the network, but couldn’t ascertain anything more about them. He attempted to access the node which locked the door, but couldn’t get in. He did get access to most of the research data in the lab, but the group decided to look for Boron Squad first and download the data later. So they continued onwards, through the door on the opposite side of the lab than the one they entered through.

A corridor of hewn rock reinforced with artificial supports, and some ventilation shafts and cabling passed through it, was on the other side of the door. M2 sent his GEMINI drone to scout 10 yards ahead of him, while the rest of the squad tried to sneak a couple yards after M2. They failed to move silently. Some 20 yards from the lab, after turning a corner, the squad heard tapping and clanging noises coming from up ahead, around another corner, and from the walls around them. M2 rushed towards GEMINI, which was almost at that next corner, but Link started retreating towards the lab. Nectahii and Miko took positions in cover behind the ceiling supports. When M2 noticed Link retreating on the tacnet, he started to double back as well, but at that point the sources of the sounds revealed themselves – a dozen insectoid quadruped aliens, the size of large dogs, with bulging eyes, toothy maws, and sharp claws emerged from around the corner in front of the party, and another half a dozen burst forth from the ventilation shafts and wall panels around Nectahii and Miko. Trauma Squad was ready for them, if not optimally positioned, and opened fire.

For the first few seconds, M2 continued retreating towards the rest of the group, while Nectahii covered him, Link covered Nectahii and Miko, and Miko worked on the aliens surrounding the pair with her swords. More aliens appeared each second, and those from around the corner ignored GEMINI and rushed at the operators. M2 used this opportunity and shot down a good number of the hordelings via GEMINI’s gauss PDW. Once close to Nectahii and Miko, he turned around and started blasting himself. His sniper rifle wasn’t optimal for taking down many hordlings, and neither was Nactahii’s payload rifle, but Link and GEMINI fared better with their automatic shotgun and PDW, respectively. Still, the alien swarm didn’t abate, and Trauma Squad was risking the danger of being overwhelmed.

Just as the operators got some breathing room, four larger aliens emerged from behind the front corner (along with what proved to be the last wave of hordelings), and started focusing on Trauma Squad from afar. This proved to be taking aim with their corrosive spit attacks. At about the same time, the hordelings realized they couldn’t penetrate the operators’ armor with their claws, and started to attempt bites, with which they could also grapple. They piled onto M2, while Miko and Nectahii managed to keep themselves free. Nectahii ignored M2’s instructions to focus on the spitters, and tried to free M2 of some of the hordelings, but he merely managed to keep the number of hordelings latched onto M2 constant. This left Link the only one dealing with the spitters. The spitters only managed to land one hit on Miko and one on M2. Nectahii dodged several hits by floating close to the ceiling and then dropping lower, and Link made good use of cover. Miko’s psionic force field fully absorbed the hit; M2’s armor did the same, but got corroded. After a few seconds of tense shooting and grappling, the aliens started dropping like flies and Trauma Team fully wiped them out.

Centaurus Gate, Trauma Squad Session 1

So I finally started a new campaign! I started prepping it in <gasp> March, as far as I can see in my Discord chat logs. It took way too long for my liking, though there were significant periods where I couldn’t spare the time for it.

“A TL9/10 planet-hopping space campaign of elite commandos inspired by XCOM and Stargate Atlantis. Shoot aliens, bugs, and robots. Uncover the mysteries of elusive alien masterminds, and recover their tech for Earth.”

That’s the synopsis. A setting similar to that of the XCOM and Chimera Squad games, where aliens invaded Earth, but we drove them away and now live with our erstwhile enemies because their Masters left them here stranded. Long story short, while Earth now has FTL travel, the “near space” around it proved utterly uninteresting, but a wormhole gate was discovered on Mars that led to the Centaurus Arm of the Milky Way… Where the alien masterminds left other minions, apparently a long time ago, and also some of their tech.

The campaign follows the exploits of Trauma Squad, a team of elite operatives of the Offworld Exploration Branch (OFF-EX for short) of AEGIS, Earth’s post-War defense force. OFF-EX established a base on the other side of the gate and is tasked to explore the surrounding space and retrieve any useful tech for Earth. Encounters with local aliens have so far gone poorly (read: they attack all outsiders on sight), and OFF-EX is currently mostly avoiding direct contact and focusing on exploration while it works to decipher the locals’ language.

I’m considering running this campaign with more than one group, but while Trauma Squad are my longtime friends with whom I play via voicechat, eventual other groups will be in PBP format. I still haven’t committed to anything, I wanted to get the primary game running first and see how it goes. So more on that later.

Date: 2023-10-27

Player Characters (~300 points):
M2M2M, mech vehicular and robotics engineer, drone operator, hacker
Dr. Heinrich Schüler, human xenobiologist, physician, search and rescue specialist
Dr. Link Mercury, nanoswarm combat medic, pilot
Nectahii, edari sniper
Miko, human melee specialist, silent killer, psi

NPCs of note:
Captain Zek-12, gray commanding officer to Trauma Squad

CP awarded: 2

The session started with Captain Zek-12 briefing Trauma Squad on their mission. Another team, Boron Squad, missed a scheduled check-in, and a standard rescue mission was being engaged 24 hours later. they were on an exploration mission on the planet Vectrosis, where surveys found traces of previous local alien habitation and potential Masters’ technology. In their last communique, Boron Squad reported that they found an alien facility built into a mountain, which they started to investigate. They reported no contact with sentient life, or any other dangers. After a bit of Q&A, Trauma Squad geared up and departed.

Jumping with their shuttle to Vectrosis, they found the region where Boron Squad landed enveloped in an immense storm. This caused them to land quite a ways off, and the storm apparently also messed with radio and sensors, which couldn’t reach more than 50 yards. Luckily, their piloting skills avoided a crash landing.

On their way through some woods to Boron Squad’s shuttle, the M2M2M was shot with a massive lightning bolt which disabled it, and feline-looking predators ambushed the team. Luckily, the only contact they made was when one of the six-legged creatures pounced on M2M2M who was already prone and knocked out, and didn’t manage to rake through its heavy armor. Trauma Squad’s gauss shotguns, sniper railguns, and magnum pistols loaded with APHEX ammo made short work of the beasts. They made their way back to their shuttle, M2M2M and one fresh corpse in tow. There, they kickstarted the mech back up, who then proceeded to repair itself while Heinrich dissected the big cat. He determined the cats had organs which produced electricity, which suffused their claw and bite attacks, and which they could also shoot in the form of lightning. However, a single specimen could not nearly produce lightning as strong as the one which disabled M2M2M. A theory that multiple individuals can together produce a larger bolt remains unproven so far.

The team eventually made their way to Boron Squad’s shuttle, which they found vacant, if undisturbed. Ship logs revealed nothing extraordinary, but automatically uploaded bodycam footage proved more illuminating. Boron Squad did indeed find an alien facility under the mountain, including a large vault door which they haven’t managed to open on any existing footage. Instead, the latest footage shows the onset of the storm, and how Boron Squad evacuated into the facility to shelter themselves within.

At the hillside entrance, Trauma Squad found the remains of a camp ravaged by storm, and also two corpses of the familiar feline predators, shot by standard-issue OFF-EX weaponry. Heinrich also noticed the corrosive traces of antax blood, concluding that Alx Thorox, the Boron Squad antax cybersecurity and electronics expert, was severely wounded. Proceeding into the hillside entrance, they found a simple elevator platform going downwards, and signs that Alx’ injuries were treated here. Down the elevator, there was a small alien facility, where Boron Squad hauled what equipment they could when the storm started, and a large vault door, opened just wide enough to squeeze through.

There wasn’t anything of immediate interest in this part of the facility, so Trauma Squad proceeded beyond the door. There, after a winding natural cavern tunnel, they found another part of the alien facility, including secure doors which led to a small laboratory. This seemed much more interesting at first glance, but three armored gun turrets popped out of the ceiling as the team entered. Their reflexes allowed them to bail out of the room for cover before the turrets could shoot. They formed up around the door, and made synchronized pop-up attacks… which were interrupted by the waiting turrets. Everyone dodged and dropped, but Heinrich and Link failed. Luckily, Heinrich’s turret rolled low and merely scratched him through the armor, and Link is Homogenous as a nanoswarm, so the 6-round burst he took didn’t amount to more than a scratch either.  While Link’s shotgun and Heinrich’s magnum pistol only managed to temporarily stun one turret, M2M2M’s and Nectahii’s high-caliber railguns blew them all up. We concluded the session there.

Concealed and Integrated Electromag Guns

After publishing my gauss gun rework, I got a request for wrist-mounted weaponry. That got me thinking, so I included some concealable pistols and other weapons fitting the theme.

To understand the weapon statistics, see Weapon Stats in Ultra-Tech: Electromagnetic Guns Revised.

New Weapons

Concealed Rail Pistol, 7mm (TL10): This single shot “pistol” with a 1.5″ barrel is little more than a set of tiny rails and a trigger mechanism. It can be built into an everyday item as small as a pen, and many models are factory-produced in such form factors. It is marketed for self-defense but is mostly used by criminals, who often build it into gloves or knives to discharge upon striking.

Concealed Rail Pistol, 10mm (TL10): This variant of the concealed pistol is too big to fit inside a pen, but can still be built into most small items. Since penetration is already not a concern for such weapons, the larger wound channel is a strict improvement in stopping power. Assassins like to load it with APEX ammo if they can get their hands on it.

Underbarrel Gauss Shotgun, 18.5mm (TL10): This is effectively a gauss shotgun pistol which can be mounted on any Bulk -3 or larger weapon. Some models are just the barrel integrating with the main weapon’s controls, with a selector switch or HUD link changing firing modes between the main weapon and the shotgun. Others come with a separate trigger, and some even come with a small pistol grip.

Gauss Urban Assault Weapon (TL10): Intended for close quarters police work, this is a combination of the gauss PDW and shotgun. The gauss carbine is no less compact and deals better with armor, but the PDW is cheaper.

Wrist-Mounted Guns

A staple of space opera bounty hunters and gadgeteer heroes, any electromagnetic pistol can be made into a wrist-mounted version. Depending on the conversion, this can be a standalone weapon mounted on a bracelet, or something that must be integrated into a suit of armor. It can have either external fire controls like a button, or be controlled entirely through a HUD link. Converting a pistol like this requires a successful Armoury (Small Arms) roll and 4 hours of work, and costs 25% of the gun’s cost.

Damage, Range, RoF, Shots, ST, and LC are unchanged. Reduce Weight by 25%, and the Cost for off-the shelf models by the same amount. Lower Acc by 2, remove -2 from Bulk, and increase Recoil by 1 (for machine pistols, use their one-handed Recoil of 2 as base).

Ultra-Tech: Electromagnetic Guns Revised

While preparing my upcoming XCOM/Stargate-inspired campaign, I decided to make TL10 gauss guns the primary weapons in the setting. Those published in UT have a bad reputation however, mainly because they’re a marginal improvement over TL8 small-arms, and because TL9 ETC weapons significantly outperform them. What started as a simple rework targeted specifically at my campaign, ended up as a general update to Ultra-Tech electromagnetic guns, inspired by Douglas Cole’s work on UT guns and Cdru’s Ultra-Tech: Small Arms Revised. Thanks to Phantasm for invaluable feedback!

Methodology

This is intended as an update to Ultra-Tech’s electromagnetic guns, not a fundamental rework. I have applied PK’s EM gun tweak, and followed the GURPS simplification of damage and range being proportional to muzzle velocity. The UT EM gun list is a bit sparse when compared to TL9 weapons, and has some notable holes. I have introduced some new EM weapons to fill the missing roles and add a bit of variety, but stopped short of adding completely novel weapons.

I left the UT calibers untouched, even though I am sure the weight and cost of 10mm ammo is a leftover of some past revision and should be changed to fit with the other calibers. I only used the published calibers for the new weapons – the sole exception is a new 100mm mortar.

I intended to change the published weapon stats as little as possible aside from PK’s tweak, but I had to adjust some other stats on certain weapons because they were a downgrade from TL8 guns as published.

Weapon Stats

The notation and abbreviations in the tables follow Weapon Statistics (B268-270), except for the following:

Weight: Weapon weights have three figures separated by slashes. The first figure is the weight of a fully loaded weapon. The second is the weight of a single full reload, including the magazine and the power cell. It is assumed that the power cell is inserted into the magazine along with the ammunition, and provides enough energy for firing the weapon’s specified number of shots. The third figure is the kind of power cell the weapon uses.

Bulk: Weapons with folding or retractable stocks have an asterisk (*) in their Bulk score. When folding a stock, remove -1 from Bulk, reduce Accuracy by 1, increase Recoil by 1 (unless the weapon had Recoil 1 to start with), and multiply ST with 1.2 (round up).

Cost: Weapon costs have two figures separated by a slash. The first figure is the price of an unloaded weapon. The second is the price of ammunition for a full reload, for players who prefer purchasing ammo for their characters by reload rather than in bulk. The power cell must be paid for separately. Magazine costs are ignored for simplicity.

Unless otherwise noted, all weapons can be fired in subsonic mode which gives -3 to hear the gunfire, halves damage and range, and reduces recoil by 1 (down to a minimum of 2). All 4mm weapons do pi- damage in subsonic mode. Switching modes is done via a selector switch or a HUD link and requires a Ready maneuver. The Lightning Fingers perk (or an equivalent perk for operating computer-connected gear) reduces this to a free action on your turn. Unlike in UT, there is no high-velocity mode – all guns are already calibrated for the highest velocity safe for weapon operation.

The Weapons

To avoid reprinting text from Ultra-Tech, this section only contains information on new weapons, and weapons with significant changes from UT.

As per PK’s tweak, electromagnetic weapons don’t have an armor divisor by default, but all ammunition options from Ultra-Tech, pp. 152-159 may be applied. Use the base ammo stats as published in Ultra-Tech, p. 143.

Pistols

Gauss Holdout Pistol, 4mm (TL10): This is a compact version of the gauss pistol. The subcompact role is filled by the minineedler.

Gauss Heavy Pistol, 4mm (TL10): A heavier version of the gauss pistol with a longer barrel and stronger coils. This allows it to fire at higher velocities, at the expense of worse recoil. It can be downshifted to shoot at lower velocities instead – use the stats for the gauss pistol. The subsonic mode uses gauss pistol stats as well.

Gauss Magnum Pistol, 7mm (TL10): An oversized pistol firing the same round as the magnum rifle, this pistol is mostly used by target shooters and enthusiasts. Some highly skilled gunfighters do prefer it as a backup weapon, because it comes close to rifle penetration levels.

Gauss Magnum Pistol, 10mm (TL10): Somewhat of a novelty weapon, this variant of the magnum pistol fires the same round as the portable railgun. Delivering the same energy as the 7mm variant, it has worse penetration, and is primarily intended for use with APEX warheads.

Submachine Guns

With electromagnetic guns, there is no difference between pistol- and rifle-caliber rounds. This reduces the number of weapon roles in the SMG category to that of machine pistols and PDWs. With full-body armor easily available at TL10, SMGs lose most of their appeal, but they’re still used in situations where their compactness is more important than firepower. Improvements in recoil mitigation also give them an effective Recoil of 1.

Gauss Machine Pistol, 4mm (TL10): As per Ultra-Tech, p. 141. When fired one handed with the stock retracted, change ST to 9 and increase Recoil to 2.

Gauss Heavy Machine Pistol, 4mm (TL10): A heavier version of the gauss machine pistol with a longer barrel and stronger coils. This allows it to fire at higher velocities, but requires reduced RoF to keep Recoil at 1. When fired one handed with the stock retracted, change ST to 11 and increase Recoil to 2. It can also be downshifted to shoot at lower velocities – use the stats for the gauss machine pistol. The subsonic mode uses gauss machine pistol stats as well.

Gauss Heavy PDW, 4mm (TL10): A heavier version of the gauss PDW with a longer barrel and stronger coils. This allows it to fire at higher velocities, but requires reduced RoF to keep Recoil at 1. It can be downshifted to shoot at lower velocities instead – use the stats for the gauss PDW. The subsonic mode uses gauss PSW stats as well.

Rifles

Gauss Carbine, 4mm (TL10): A gauss rifle with a shorter barrel, which slightly reduces penetration but also makes it easier to handle. Most models include a retractable stock.

Gauss Magnum Rifle, 7mm (TL10): This gauss rifle fires a heavier, 7mm round. It is preferred as a DMR, and by hunters who can afford it. Some models have a rapid fire selector, which increases its RoF to 12, ST to 12†, and Recoil to 3, but reduces LC to 2. Cost is unchanged.

Payload Railgun, 25mm (TL10): A bulkier variant of the portable railgun which fires 25mm rounds. Some models have adjustable rails and can shoot 10mm rounds as well – switching between modes takes 5 seconds. When shooting 10mm rounds, use portable railgun stats. Increase weight to 30 lbs, and cost to $23,000.

Shotguns

Applying PK’s tweak to gauss shotgun damage stat published in Ultra-Tech would give them  better penetration than that of the gauss rifle, which is nonsensical. So I’ve instead left them at 150% the velocity of conventional shotguns, as described in UT, but calculated with more precision to better represent the lower penetration they should have. I’ve also increased the ST score of the gauss shotgun pistol to a value more appropriate for one-handed firing of a sawed-off shotgun, using the guidelines published in High-Tech. This was a rare case where I’ve nerfed the published stats instead of improving them.

Gauss Shotgun, 18.5mm (TL10): A civilian shotgun, omitting the need for rapid fire reduces its weight in relation to the CAW. The lower rate of fire also means worse recoil control, however. Most models include a retractable stock.

Gauss Shotgun Pistol, 18.5mm (TL10): This is a gauss shotgun in “whippet” configuration, with a very short barrel and no stock. When used two-handed, ST is 12† and Recoil is 4.

Gauss CAW, 18.5mm (TL10): As per Ultra-Tech, p. 141. Most models include a retractable stock.

Machine Guns

Gauss GPMG, 7mm (TL10): Half way between the gauss magnum rifle and the gauss HMG, the gauss GPMG offers more firepower than the gauss LSW but better portability than the gauss HMG.

Assault Railgun, 25mmG (TL10): A machinegun variant of the payload railgun. Its main use is delivering explosive payload at ranges greater than that of the auto EMGL and with higher accuracy.

Electromag Auto Grenade Launcher (Auto EMGL), 40mmG (TL10): As per Ultra-Tech, p. 141. As published, this weapon was worse than its TL8 equivalents, and wasn’t “auto” at all. This update remedies that.

Grenade Launchers

Electromag Grenade Launcher (EMGL), 40mmG (TL10): As per Ultra-Tech, p. 141. As published, this weapon was worse than its TL8 equivalents in several regards, and this update remedies that.

High-Capacity EMGL, 40mmG (TL10): This EMGL holds the grenades in a large drum. For some models, the whole drum can be replaced, prefilled, instead of reloading each grenade individually. This increases the weight of a reload to 7 lbs, and such swappable drums cost $100. Change Shots to 12(5) – weapon price is unaffected.

Light Underbarrel EMGL, 25mmG (TL10): This is just the Underbarrel EMGL, 25mmG from Ultra-Tech, renamed for easier differentiation from the new 40mm underbarrel EMGL.

Gauss Payload Pistol, 25mmG (TL10): A standalone version of the light underbarrel EMGL in the form factor of a large pistol.

Mortars

Light Electromag Mortar, 64mm (TL10): A stripped-down version of the 64mm electromag mortar. It sacrifices accuracy and range for much better portability.

Heavy Electromag Mortar, 100mm (TL10): A larger mortar firing 100mm bombs. It is more accurate and longer-ranged than the 64mm version, but also much heavier. The 100mm bombs have WPS 8, CPS $80.

Light Electromag Mortar Box, 40mm (TL10): If TL9 firearms included mortar boxes, why are they suddenly no longer in use at TL10? Similar to its TL9 counterpart, this is just four 25mm underbarrel EMGL tubes on a tripod with a backplate and linked fire control.

Electromag Mortar Box, 64mm (TL10): Similar to its TL9 counterpart, this is a pod with six mortar barrels, each containing five stacked 64mm bombs.

Action Sorcerer

A fellow member of the GURPS Discord asked about a Sorcerer template for GURPS Action, and I thought “why not?”

I haven’t assumed anything about how magic works in the setting. As such, the template is implicitly optimized for settings where Sorcery is the only kind of magic, because if other kinds of magic are available, each kind of mage will specialize differently. But even if multiple kinds of magic exist, it should be enough to just tweak the template slightly.

I have included a new specialty for Current Affairs and Savoir-Fare: “Magic and occult societies”, and the new “Locations of magic or occult importance” specialty for Area Knowledge. Just ignore them if they’re not applicable to your game.

Sorcerer

Master of the arcane arts, you’re the wildcard on the team. While only you can deal with magical obstacles and perform otherwise impossible feats, that needn’t be your specialization. You can focus in solving a certain kind of problems, or you can be a jack of many trades. It all depends on your spell selection.

Attributes: ST 10 [0]; DX 12 [40]; IQ 12 [40]; HT 11 [10].
Secondary Characteristics: Damage 1d-2/1d; BL 20 lbs.; HP 10 [0]; Will 12 [0]; Per 12 [0]; FP 11 [0]; Basic Speed 6 [5]; Basic Move 6 [0].
Advantages: Luck [15]; Sorcerous Empowerment 6 [70]; and Sorcery Talent 3 [30]. 25 points in sorcery spells; put leftovers into other advantages. A further 25 points chosen from among lens advantages (GURPS Action pp. 4-5, and Learned Sorcerer below), DX +1 [20], IQ +1 [20], HT +1 or +2 [10/level], Per +1 to +5 [5/level], Will +1 to +5 [5/level], Accelerated Casting [10] (Pyramid #3/82: Magical Creations, p. 10), Contact Group (Magic or occult experts or beings; Skill-12, 15, or 18; 9 or less; Somewhat Reliable) [5, 10, or 15], Daredevil [15], Energy Reserve 1-8 [3/level], Gizmos 1-3 [5/gizmo], Language Talent [10], Languages (any) [2-6/language], Mind Shield [4/level], Sensitive [5] or Empathy [15], Serendipity 1 [15], Signature Gear [varies], Sorcerous Empowerment 7 or 8 [10/level], Sorcery Talent 4 or 5 [10/level], Spirit Empathy [10], Unfazeable [15], Voice [10], or replace Luck [15] with Extraordinary Luck [30] for 15 points.
Disadvantages: -30 points chosen from among Bad Temper [-10*], Disturbing Voice [-10], Dyslexia [-10], Frightens Animals [-10], Mistaken Identity [-5], Obsession (Any related to magic) [-5* or -10*], Overconfidence [-5*], Overweight [-1] or Fat [-3] or Skinny [-5], Paranoia [-10], Pyromania [-5*], Secret (Sorcerer) [-5 to -30], Social Stigma (Criminal Record) [-5], Unfit [-5] or Very Unfit [-15], Unluckiness [-10], Unnatural Features 1-5 [-1/level], or Weirdness Magnet [-15]. Another -20 points chosen from among the previous traits or Absent-Mindedness [-15], Alcoholism [-15], Clueless [-10], Cowardice [-10*], Curious [-5*], Insomniac [-10 or -15], Loner [-5*], Low Pain Threshold [-10], Nightmares [-5*], Oblivious [-5], Phantom Voices [-5 to -15], Post-Combat Shakes [-5*], Sense of Duty (Team) [-5], Stubbornness [-5] or Trickster [-15*].
Primary Skills: Hidden Lore (Any) (A) IQ+0 [2]-12; and Thaumatology (VH) IQ-1 [4]-11.
Secondary Skills: Guns (Pistol) (E) DX+0 [1]-12. Spend 11 points among Innate Attack (Any) (DX/E); Stealth (DX/A); Area Knowledge (Locations of magic or occult importance), Current Affairs (Magic and occult societies), or Savoir Faire (Magic and occult societies), all (IQ/E); Hazardous Materials (Magic), or Research, both (IQ/A); Intimidation (Will/A); Autohypnosis (Will/H); or raise one of the primary skills or Guns.
Background Skills: Choose a 20-point lens (GURPS Action, pp. 4-5, and Learned Sorcerer below). Computer Operation (E) IQ [1]-12 and Driving (Automobile or Motorcycle) (A) DX-1 [1]-12.

* Multiplied for self-control number; see p. B120.

Customization Notes

There are two main kinds of sorcerers: those who focus on learned spells (Sorcery, p. 6), and those who focus on hardcore improvisation (Sorcery, p. 7). The former are less flexible but can cast more spells before running out of energy, while the latter have a much wider repertoire at their disposal at the cost of getting winded after just a couple improvised spells. Improvisation specialists also often favor Malediction spells because they require high Will, which is also beneficial for hardcore improvisation.  They also tend to have higher levels of Sorcerous Empowerment for the same reason.

While investing in damage-dealing spells may seem attractive, this is usually a poor choice in games featuring guns. Even at 1/5 of its full spell cost, an Innate Attack that is better than a firearm can be quite expensive. Guns also don’t require you to expend 1 FP with each attack. Anyone can shoot a gun, but nobody else can buff allies, control the battlefield, and disable the opposition as you can. If you must do damage, focus on effects firearms can’t produce, like for example area effect. This is good advice for selecting spells in general. While you can use magic to do anything your mundane counterparts can, often better at the cost of versatility, only you can control minds, teleport, or counter hostile magic.

Your choice of background is more important than to other action heroes, because it is your only choice of mundane skills. In most cases, it is best to select skills which allow you to do things you can’t do with your chosen spells. Thus, the following section highlights skills for which magic is a poor substitute:

Criminal: You’re a “street mage”. You use your connections in the underworld to help the underprivileged, or as a source of work. Streetwise, Savoir-Faire (Mafia), and Contact or Contact Group are crucial. The more physical skills are likely remnants from before you developed your magic abilities.

Intelligence: In settings where magic is public knowledge, sorcerous spies are highly sought after specialists. If magic is secret, you are one of those tasked with keeping it out of the hands of various organizations – likely including your own employer!  Information gathering and analysis skills such as Area Knowledge, Cryptography, Current Affairs, Intelligence Analysis, and Research are usually the most appropriate, because everything else you can do with magic.

Law Enforcement: In secret magic games, you’re either a private eye, or a cop who must balance keeping their abilities secret with policing the magical world. If you’re on a SWAT team, you’ll want to invest in Guns. Otherwise, skills not usually replaceable by magic include Administration, Criminology, Streetwise, Accounting, Forensics, and Tactics.

Military: Unless magic is public knowledge, you’re either a guerrilla, or the member of an elite, ultra-black team tasked with eliminating supernatural threats. Skills earned with this background are a good backup for when you run out of juice in a fight. Leadership, Strategy, or Tactics are also not easily replaced with magic.

Security: This background shares the characteristics of both intelligence and law enforcement; countering other magic users is likely your primary job. Brush up on your gun skills if you expect frequent engagements. Otherwise, focus on Administration, Criminology, Cryptography, Intelligence Analysis, Psychology, Tactics, and Body Language.

There is a new lens available for sorcerers:

Learned Sorcerer [20]

Magic is not just how you solve problems – you were raised, educated and employed as mage first and foremost. Spend 20 points on any combination of Will +1 to +2 [5/level], Contact Group (Magic or occult experts or beings; Skill-12, 15, or 18; 9 or less; Somewhat Reliable) [5, 10, or 15], Sorcerous Empowerment +1 [10], Sorcery Talent +1 [10], or the Sorcerer template’s IQ- or Will-based skills (only). Current Affairs and Savoir Faire of the Magic and occult societies specialty are key if you lack a Contact Group because they’re your only source of work.

Serpents of Legend – now crowdfunding!

I wrote a book!

Serpents of Legend is a 40-page DFRPG bestiary chock full of deadly snake monsters. From the little fórnsnakes which jump and wrap around your neck and limbs, constricting tightly, to the gigantic jarðormur which destroys everything in its path. This is also a setting expansion for Norðlond: a lot of the monsters are tied into its cosmology. Finally, there are serpent cults (and info on running cults in general), and a playable serpentman race.

The book is currently being crowdfunded by Gaming Ballistic on Backerkit Crowdfunding with 6 days to go. It’s part of the Nightmare Fuel campaign – you don’t just get Serpents of Legend, but two more great bestiary volumes by other authors: The Bugstiary and Garden of Evil, focusing on bug and plant monsters, respectively. All books will be available in full-color print and PDF.

We’ve already reached the funding goal, but if we reach double that, a hardback omnibus volume will be released as well! Everyone who pledged for the physical books will get the omnibus in addition, for free.

Rules I Don’t Use, Replace, or Revise

I used to play a heavily house ruled GURPS variant for a long time (alternate attributes, different skill progression scheme, 3-second combat turns with completely different combat mechanics, etc), but a bunch of years ago I decided to return to the roots and get some experience in running vanilla GURPS. After some games, something clicked for me, and I didn’t see a point in all of those house rules anymore – I’ve been running GURPS with very few house rules since then. I don’t think any I use are made out of whole cloth, it’s just simplifications or slight tweaks to published rules. I don’t feel “full” house rules are needed at all, since GURPS offers so many dials you can turn to get the experience you like.

There’s a whole bunch of published rules I don’t use though – but most of them are optional anyway. It would take forever to enumerate all of them because most are just small things, so I’ll just talk about a few notable ones.

The Hit Point System

I only use hit points in pickup games and other games which are intended for a “public” audience. For what I call my “private” games, I use the Conditional Injury rules from Pyramid #3/120. Actually, I’ve used a similar system in the aforementioned heavily modified GURPS variant I used to run. But Conditional Injury is much more elegant. I use such systems because I was never a fan of a death by a thousand rat bites, and sometimes they’re more survivable and feel more “heroic” than the default HP rules, both of which are a plus in my book.

I’ve developed a way to make using Conditional Injury quicker with rapid fire attacks, and I apply one other slight tweak to it: instead of using the Robustness Threshold and Wound Potential tables as published, I just use a straight SSRT progression. Most of my house rules are like that – if possible, try to find an already existing element of GURPS and apply it.

Grappling

I’ve been using Fantastic Dungeon Grappling ever since it came out, and never looked back. I even use it in my pickup games because it’s extremely simple and easy to understand. There are some situations where it takes a bit adjusting to (a couple of which I’ve outlined here), but I don’t see a reason not to use it in every game ever. Much simpler, and even cooler than the default GURPS grappling rules.

The only house rule I use was borne out of a discussion with the author – stronger characters have a bonus equal to the the ST difference on their attack rolls to break free.

GURPS Magic

Much like hit points, I only use this in my “public” games and only DF(RPG) ones at that. I vastly prefer magic as powers otherwise, taking elements from both Sorcery and Psionic Powers, though lately I’ve started experimenting with RPM a bit which I’ve otherwise avoided due to it being a completely new system and its tendency to upstage all non-practitioners.

GURPS Spaceships

While I like these rules in theory, in practice they suffer from two big problems. The first one is mostly due to my style of play – I need to flip so many switches to make the ships survivable enough and for the combat to work the way I want that I don’t feel the effort is worth it. The second problem is that the combat system is a completely new set of rules which I’ve found many players have no interest in learning.

I don’t run many games involving spaceships or other vehicles, but for when I do I’ve decided to use a modular ship construction system which is a mix of the Modular Mecha article from Pyramid #3/51 and vehicles as characters. As for the combat system – when I ran a mecha game I just treated the mecha as humans and used the default combat rules. Didn’t even bother mapping some of their stats to real world values because it wasn’t relevant. How fast can the mech run? I dunno, it has Move 6, the other mech has 5, you’re not interacting with other combatants anyway. I’ll use something similar for other vehicles if the need arises.

Oh – Conditional Injury is perfect for vehicular damage, and Mailanka has some great crippling rules on his Wiki which make it irrelevant to know which exact systems a vehicle has. He also has a great Action Vehicular Combat set of rules based on chases from Action and the Spaceships combat rules, but I don’t use those because of the same reason I don’t use the Spaceships combat system. Otherwise I would since they fit my requirements perfectly.

Cover

As written, the cover rules are very plausible and realistic. Can’t shoot a guy in a body part that isn’t exposed, and an exposed body part suffers a no greater to hit penalty than if it were targeted when its owner isn’t in cover.

Except this creates some perverse gameplay incentives that are noticeable in all but the most grounded, realistic of games. Why take cover so you can’t be hit in your torso armor, which is thicker than your face or hand armor? Why incentivize losing your arm, or skull shots by making the default, easiest target (torso) unavailable? Yes, other hit locations are harder to hit, but they offer commensurate rewards so taking anything but full cover isn’t really a win-win situation as one might expect. Especially against skilled opponents.

I haven’t done anything about this yet because the tug of plausible rules based in reality and my desire for few house rules is strong… but I might just say that any kind of partial covers gives the same penalty to hit all hit locations as it does to hit torso. Like, you don’t need to fully expose your hands and face to shoot, just partially. If your attacker suffers a -2 penalty to hit your torso, but a -4 penalty to hit your arm or a -9 penalty to hit your skull, taking cover is always a net benefit for you which is what I desire from such a defensive option. This is basically a simplification and abstraction of the existing cover rules from Basic and Tactical Shooting.

Active Defense vs Area Attacks

If you’re caught in the middle of an area attack and there is no cover nearby and your step isn’t enough to get you out of it… you’re outta luck. I mostly run cinematic games where this is completely inappropriate. So I mostly just say you can always dive for cover even when there is none… you find some microcover or whatever.

There’s another problem to this – due to the +3 to dodge while diving for cover, characters will generally always succeed at this. Yes, this makes them prone which is its own can of worms. It often turns area effect attacks into non-damaging setups for subsequent attacks. This isn’t a kind of incentive I like, but similar to cover I haven’t done anything about it yet due to my desire to keep changes to a minimum.

Honorable Mention: Unavoidable Damage on Getting Your Natural Attacks Parried

I just ignore this, it doesn’t fit the kinds of games I run. Monsters cheat. Players of characters with claws and sharp teeth like it too.

Thoughts on Game Planning

There’s a new initiative over on Mook’s GURPS Discord for blogging about a common topic – we settled on game prep as the first theme. Every GM prepares their games differently though, so what works for me may not work for you. With that out of the way, here are some thoughts about my own process.

Session Prep

I would describe my game prep as “just in time” and “lean”. I don’t have much time to prepare for games, so I must make the most of it. I can’t afford for anything I’ve prepared to go to waste, and since there’s no way to anticipate player actions, I only prepare the material that is likely to be needed during the very next session. It helps that I improvise easily, so even if I didn’t prepare something I have little trouble running it.

I do prefer to prepare the adversaries if possible, because even if I can improvise their stats easily, I’m not good at coming up with special and cool abilities on the fly. This is not a problem in campaigns where there are no such abilities – modern games without supernatural elements, for example, but can really rear its ugly head in fantasy games (magic, monsters etc.) and is a major problem in supers games.

For some games, “set piece” scenes can provide a lot of fun and be very memorable. The most recognizable of these are boss fights in combat heavy games, but they can also be chases, infiltration sequences and so on. The more sandboxy and player-driven your campaign is the less such scenes you will likely have, but they can still provide a lot of value. You should devote comparatively lots of time to prep them, but don’t try to thing of every single way your players will be able to interact with it – they’ll do something else entirely. So focus on the most important elements and mechanics. Speaking of the latter, it’s good to have the most important game rules used in the scene reproduced in your notes, if they are a key element of generating fun in the scene, and you’re liable to overlook them because you don’t use them often etc. You can also use “special” mechanics to abstract scenes that would otherwise be too tedious to play out on a round by round basis, or to provide additional fun. For example, in a siege I ran I had the players run over a field while under archery fire – everyone got attacked by three arrow attacks, and if they used dodge and drop for any of those defenses, they needed more time to reach the “finishing line” and got attacked once more. They could also pay more attention to the incoming arrows, which would give them a bonus to defend, but then they would need to make a DX roll not to trip up while running over the uneven terrain and “earn” another attack.

Campaign Prep

Minimal prep doesn’t mean I don’t have a plan for the campaign. I do tend to run more sandboxy campaigns, which on one hand works well with just in time preparation because you can’t possibly prepare everything and there is no intricate plot or sequence of events the players are expected to follow, but on the other hand you need to be good at predicting what your players are going to do next. Or just talking with them between sessions and committing on what to do next together.

The very minimum I prepare for any campaign is a short paragraph about each of the most important plot points, be they locations, events or people/factions. I try hard not to have more than 5 for each of those. Then I jot down the connections between them: how they relate to each other, their conflicts or alliances, why are they interested in one another, etc. This helps make the world alive and helps you provide clues and events during the game when you don’t have something prepared specifically. You can also do this visually using drawing, diagramming or mind map software. Then as the campaign unfolds, I introduce additional such elements, or elaborate the already established ones.

A Word on Maps

These days I run games exclusively online using VTTs, specifically Foundry, both voiced and text-only. With VTTs becoming widespread the pressure has grown in gaming circles to use maps, especially for combat heavy games. This is likely less of a factor if you only play in few groups or with close friends, but for someone like me who often starts new games recruiting through public channels the pressure can be felt as players’ expectations have grown. While maps can help with visualizing both the action and the environment, making them can be quite time consuming if done as more than sketches.

There is a variety of software for mapping, but each has its flaws. For example, I can make maps very quickly in Dungeondraft, but it’s missing a feature to copy/paste and move “rooms” or sections of terrain, which limits its usefulness for me to only small wilderness maps as I tend to copy/paste and rework my maps a lot. Dungeon Painter Studio has exactly what Dungeondraft is missing, but is notably clunkier to use which is why it takes me longer to make maps with it.

Different genres of games have different mapping needs. Running a dungeon crawl? You’ll need to map out the entire dungeon, or at the very least the locations where any action may happen. On the plus side, you can ensure that the entirety of the dungeon you prepared gets used by limiting “optional” areas and requiring investigative skill rolls only for “bonus” loot (this is good advice for all games in general – only require skill rolls for things that will not block the progress of the game if failed). For modern games, you will often need much less mapping since there are rarely dungeons, and when you do need it it is often easier to come up with map features because you can just pull from everyday life.

Conclusion

Ultimately, you can’t prep every single detail of a campaign, even if you have copious free time, invest a lot of it into prep, and enjoy it. You need to know your weaknesses and your players’ preferences and invest more prep time into things you can’t improvise easily and which will be of greatest interest to your players.

Nordlond Bestiary – Baenadyrid in Action

Nordlond Bestiary from Gaming Ballistic is an upcoming Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game supplement chock full  of gorgeously illustrated Dungeon Fantasy monsters (perfectly usable within the broader GURPS scope as well). Its Kickstarter campaign runs for another week at the time of this writing, so if you want more monsters for your DF(RPG) games, don’t forget to back it!

Chatting on the Gamig Ballistic Discord server the other day I decided to test one of the monsters being published in the book – the Baenadyrid, a small bug-like demon designed to swarm and soften up the opposition in great numbers. I pitted it against a 62-point knight built with Delvers to Grow. Now this is probably the most solidly built defensive character for that point level (with a couple points spent for extra gear beyond the default starting $1000), rocking 4 DR over most hit locations, a block score of 15, a parry of 13 with a balanced dwarven axe, and a dodge score of 11 – all including the DB from a large shield, which also doesn’t penalize him due to the Shield Wall perk from the Juggernaut upgrade module. Oh, he also does a very respectable (for the point level) 2d+1 cutting damage with the axe.

Here’s a transcript of the first 1v1 fight:

Round 1
Knight acts first due to higher Basic Speed, hits baenadyrid with axe (13)
Baenadyrid fails to dodge with retreat (11)
Knight deals 11 cutting damage (2d+1) for a total of 12 injury, baenadyrid is out (-1 HP)

That went quick. A single solid blow from a beefy character, even at 62 points, will knock this sucker out. Let’s give it another go:

Round 1
Knight acts first due to higher Basic Speed, hits baenadyrid with axe (13)
Baenadyrid fails to dodge with retreat (11)
Knight deals 5 cutting damage (2d+1) for a total of 3 injury
Baenadyrid does not go berserk (12)
Baenadyrid spits at knight (12) and hits
Knight blocks with shield (15)
Round 2
Knight steps forward
Knight hits baenadyrid with axe (13)
Baenadyrid dodges with retreat (11)
Baenadyrid rolls 6 on 1d and spits at knight again (12) and hits
Knight blocks with shield (15)
Round 3
Knight misses baenadyrid with axe (13)
Baenadyrid rolls 5 on 1d and spits at knight again (12) and misses
Round 4
Knight hits baenadyrid with axe (13)
Baenadyrid dodges with retreat (11)
Baenadyrid rolls 3 on 1d, can’t spit
Baenadyrid steps forward and tries to slash knight (12) and hits
Knight blocks with shield (15)
Round 5
Knight hits baenadyrid with axe (13)
Baenadyrid dodges with retreat (11)
Baenadyrid rolls 1 on 1d, can’t spit
Baenadyrid steps forward and tries to slash knight (12) and hits
Knight blocks with shield (15)
Round 6
Knight hits baenadyrid with axe (13)
Baenadyrid dodges with retreat (11)
Baenadyrid rolls 4 on 1d, can’t spit
Baenadyrid steps forward and tries to slash knight (12) and hits
Knight blocks with shield (15)
Round 7
Knight hits baenadyrid with axe (13)
Baenadyrid fails to dodge with retreat (11)
Knight deals 10 cutting damage (2d+1) for a total of 10 injury; baenadyrid was already at 8 HP and is now out (-2 HP)

As we see here, in the best case the baenadyrid can just delay its inevitable demise. Its best course of action would be try and grapple the knight using an All-Out Attack (Double) and hope that the knight fails his parry roll of 13 (14 with retreat) because he sure won’t fail at blocking. If it succeeds, the knight will have -3 to DX due to having a large shield in close combat on top of -2 from being grappled, and the demon is likely to win. If it fails… well, no sense protracting the fight anyway.

But how does the knight fare when outnumbered? Let’s see.

2 baenadyrids vs 1 knight

Round 1
Knight acts first due to higher Basic Speed, hits baenadyrid 1 with axe (13)
Baenadyrid 1 dodges with retreat (11)
Baenadyrid 1 spits at knight (12) and hits
Knight blocks with shield (15)
Baenadyrid 1 steps forward (wants to grapple next turn)
Baenadyrid 2 spits at knight (12) and hits
Knight fails to dodge (11)
Spittle deals 2 corrosive damage
Round 2
Knight misses baenadyrid 1 with axe (13)
Baenadyrid rolls 1 on 1d, can’t spit
Baenadyrid 1 steps in close combat and tries to cutting grapple knight (12) and hits
Knight dodges (14) while retreating
Spittle from baenadyrid 2 deals another 2 damage, for 4 total
Baenadyrid 2 steps forward to close gap made by knight’s retreat and slashes (12) and hits
Knight blocks with shield (15)
Round 3
Knight hits baenadyrid 1 with axe (13)
Baenadyrid 1 fails to dodge with retreat (11)
Knight deals 7 cutting damage (2d+1) for a total of 6 injury; 1 suffers -4 shock and is at 5 HP
Baenadyrid 1 steps forward and tries to slash knight (8) and misses
Spittle from baenadyrid 2 deals another 2 damage, for 6 total – reducing knight’s DR on torso by 1
Baenadyrid 2 steps into close combat and tries to cutting grapple knight (12) and hits
Knight blocks while retreating (15)
Round 4
Knight steps forward to hit baenadyrid 1 with axe (13) and hits
Baenadyrid 1 fails to dodge with retreat (11)
Knight deals 11 cutting damage (2d+1) for a total of 12 injury; baenadyrid 1 is out
… rest of the fight skipped due to Knight being superior in 1v1

With the demons not using All-Out Attack (Double) in hopes of grappling the knight, they have a really hard time doing anything other than corroding his armor. Even with that… the knight can retreat and dodge vs one baenadyrid at a score of 14, and block and parry the second one at 15 and 13, respectively. But let’s juice this up a bit more…

3 baenadyrids vs 1 knight

Round 1
Knight acts first due to higher Basic Speed, hits baenadyrid 1 with axe (13)
Baenadyrid 1 fails to dodge with retreat (11)
Knight deals 7 cutting damage (2d+1) for a total of 6 injury; baenadyrid 1 suffers -4 shock and is at 5 HP
Baenadyrid 1 steps forward and tries to slash knight (8) and misses
Baenadyrid 2 steps to knight’s side and spits at him (12) and hits
Knight blocks (13)
Baenadyrid 3 steps to knight’s side and spits at him (12) and hits
Knight dodges (9)
Round 2
Knight hits baenadyrid 1 with axe (13)
Baenadyrid 1 dodges with retreat (11)
Knight steps back to have 2 baenadyrids in front-side hexes and baenadyrid 1 at reach 3 in front hex
Baenadyrid 1 steps forward and spits at knight (12) and hits
Knight blocks (15)
Baenadyrid 2 steps to knight’s side and slashes him (12)
Knights dodges with retreat (10)
Baenadyrid 3, now in knight’s front hex, steps into his front-right hex but fails to slash him (12)
Round 3
Knight sidesteps so that baenadyrid 3 is in his front hex – baenadyrid 2 is now at reach 3 and baenadyrid 1 quite farther away
Knight hits baenadyrid 3 with axe (13)
Baenadyrid 3 fails to dodge with retreat (11)
Knight deals 5 cutting damage (2d+1) for a total of 3 injury; baenadyrid 3 suffers -3 shock and is at 8 HP
Baenadyrid 1 runs around into knight’s back hex, enters close combat and hits him with cutting grapple (9)
Knight dodges by retreating directly in front of baenadyrid 3, and turns one facing left so that baenadyrid 3 is in his front-right hex and baenadyrid 1 in his left side hex
Baenadyrid 2 runs around baenadyrid 1 and the knight, entering close combat with the knight from his rear hex, but misses with the cutting grapple (9)
baenadyrid 3 steps into close combat with knight as well but misses due to shock (9)
Round 4
Knight steps into the lower-left hex; baenadyrid 1 is in his lower-right hex, baenadyrid 2 is in his upper-right hex and baenadyrid 3 is one hex up from that
He changes facing so that baenadyrid 1 is in his front-right hex and baenadyrid 2 in his front central hex
He whacks baenadyrid 1 with his axe (14)
Baenadyrid 1 fails to dodge with retreat (11)
Knight deals 5 cutting damage (2d+1) for a total of 3 injury; baenadyrid 1 is down to 5 HP and suffering -3 shock
Baenadyrid 1 runs around the knight and enters close combat from his back hex, but misses (9)
Baenadyrid 2 enters close combat with the knight from his front hex and hits him with cutting grapple (12)

The knight is now in a pickle, because he is in close combat with 2 foes from diametrically opposite sides; this means that no matter into which hex he wishes to retreat, he has to evade one of the baenadyrids!

The knight makes a contest of DX at -5 (because the foe is standing) vs the baenadyrid 1 at his back and fails, so he cannot retreat from baenadyrid 2
The knight fails to dodge (11)
Baenadyrid 2 deals 2 points of cutting damage (1d+1) which doesn’t penetrate armor but also inflicts the same amount of control! The Knight is now grappled with a -2 DX penalty
Baenadyrid 3 performs a Move and Attack and enters the knight’s hex from one of his sides but misses the grapple (9)
Round 5
The knight attempts to break free of the grapple but he suffers a total of -5 to his DX (-2 from being grappled and -3 from his shield)! He fails to so (6), and we may conclude this fight now as with those penalties and 3 little demons grappling him, the knight is generally going down.

 

Ironically, it seems that the demons defeated the knight primarily through a quirk of the rules when a demon entering close combat misses the knight. Since the demon missed, the knight couldn’t retreat, and so remains in close combat. If another demon then enters close combat with the knight from the opposite hex than the first demon, the knight can no longer retreat anywhere without evading, which he is going to fail because evading has a base -5 penalty if your foe is standing. So it seems that even 2 demons could be able to beat the knight, but only through the exploitation of this rules quirk; the first demon runs around the knight and enters close combat from the back, and misses so the knight remains in close combat. The second demon then enters close combat from the front, and if the knight fails his dodge (without retreat), he is grappled, and will generally go down because his DB 4 shield is now -4 to his DX.

Conclusion

The knight used in these fights was likely the optimal fighter-type at 62 points. Other fighty characters would have likely fared poorer, but even non-fighter ones would likely come out on top against a single baenadyrid. That is fine. This is a monster you throw at the party in a 2:1 or bigger ratio to soften them up In such a case even a 62-point party probably wouldn’t suffer significant injuries, but their armor would be corroded and maybe some healing expended to set them up against the baenadyrids’ master.

Oh, this was also the first time I’ve built a 62-point DF character – I was extremely surprised at how solid the knight was even with so few points.

 

Disclaimer: I’m a subscriber of Gaming Ballistic’s Patreon and a fan of Doug’s work in general. So I guess you could call me biased. It’s good stuff though!

 

Update

By popular request, here is the knight used in the test. It is a 62-point Delvers to Grow knight with the juggernaut upgrade module who spent 3 quirk points for extra money used to buy a balanced dwarven axe, a large shield and huskarl’s armor.