GURPS Fantasy Warriors Session 9: Personal Combat

Characters:

Granmarg The Striking Vanguard, The Boulderstruck, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate
Pomegranite The Treefallen, The Spymaster

Mielikki The Field Marshal, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

Thicket The Grandmaster Terramorpher, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

 

The Mysterious Elf Unveiled

In the western pass, the College Magisters under Thicket's command unleashed a storm of fire and lightning that tore through one of the Imperial formations, rending it asunder.  As the smoke cleared, Ulrich's troops moved into the gap, and the Magisters let loose another wave of spells, killing hundreds.  In the eastern pass, Dietrich ordered a retreat to protect their camp, while the mysterious blindfolded elf advanced a small force to take his place, then charged full-out uphill and into Pomegranite's far more numerous troops.

 

Just shy of engaging, the elf's troops halted, then he stepped forward and shouted out a greeting.  He said he was named Tharivol, and asked who he faced in battle.  Pomegranite gave his name, and asked why he'd not heard his name.  Tharivol replied that his kin were ashamed of him, and that he would earn renown in the wider world here, with Pomegranite's blood.  With that, he drew his blade, and strode forward, followed by his retinue.  Pomegranite, meanwhile, hung back while sending in his own advisors, and attempted to entrap one of Tharivol's men in an illusion of an endless maze, which sent him stumbling.

 

At first they clashed, until Tharivol sheathed his sword and then redrew it, the motion too fast to see.  Though it took them a moment to realize what had happened, the elf had somehow managed to strike Drirtollor, Sigillaria, and Berry.  Pomegranite attempted to use his magic to befuddle one of Tharivol's henchmen, a human carrying a giant shuriken, but he was hardly a Battle Magister, and the other man's will proved too strong.  Though they took up a defensive posture and attempted to stall, Drirtollor and Sigillaria were cut down by Tharivol, who then advanced on Pomegranite himself.

 

Pomegranite's paired knives could only do so much, and a number of blows made it past his guard.  The Treefallen was grievously wounded and carried away from the battlefield by his soldiers, which left him perilously close to the rear.  Mielikki, whose troops stood nearby, had thought they'd have attacked him, and had arranged a defensive position that now wasn't relevant.

Ulrich's Turn

In the other pass, Granmarg launched another charge, rushing past Thicket's formation as his soldiers crashed into Ulrich's lines.  Ulrich's advisors rushed out to meet them, while the former spymaster threw a scroll which unfurled as it flew into Granmarg's forehead before bouncing off with a loud *thunk* and coiling itself back up.  Disoriented, Granmarg then took three more wounds from the rest of Ulrich's goons, and collapsed, which sent his forces into a chaotic retreat.

 

Ulrich pressed the advantage, chasing down the fleeing troops directly into Thicket's lines, where they met with him and his advisors in personal combat.  Ulrich and one of his advisors moved out towards the foe, while Thicket and his retinue hung back.  The rest of the imperials did the same, daring the Earthlings to make a move.  Eventually, Papaver the flowerman charged in, sending bramble whips up from the ground, which prompted the rest to follow into a wild melee.

When the dust cleared, Thicket, despite all his caution, had taken an arrow to the chest and a trident to the thigh, as well as being entangled in a net.  Meanwhile, though the halberdier had breathed in a cloud of Shudderblight the dirt golem's poison powder, Ulrich had suffered only scrapes and glancing blows.  It was looking grim.

 

 

Notes:

The new, faster combat system is much faster, which is good, but it also invalidated several characters' special moves, which is bad.  I think the powers system needs a full rewrite, since nobody seems happy with it.  At the moment, I'm thinking of having the special effects be chosen on the fly (so that nobody can just screw up and make bad powers), and having FP cost increase the more powerful an attack is.

 

There will also likely be other major changes to go along with this to reduce lethality.  First off, I somehow forgot Luck exists specifically to give PCs an edge, and so everyone's going to get that.  It's also likely that each of the PCs will get Combat Reflexes to have slightly higher defenses, since everything being sub-10 makes being hit very dire.  May also do something like giving the PCs some levels of Ablative DR so they can take a bit of damage before shock and then unconsciousness sets in, but we'll see.

 

The challenge system also needs to be changed since at the moment, while the -4 to Strategy is a pretty big penalty, it's possible to just ignore it and therefore totally invalidate a combat monster.  Won't make that change until the end of this battle.  Though the PCs didn't realize it, this happened in the first battle with Lumene, as one of their Commanders, Felix, had Combat-16 but only Strategy-9.

The battle with Tharivol was extremely one-sided.  He's is the best combatant in the game thus far, while Pomegranite and his advisors are the worst on the Earthling side.  This was obviously not fun for the players.  I wonder if it's even possible to have that kind of fight be satisfying.

Conversely, the battle with Ulrich favored Granmarg's side, but the luck was truly atrocious.  I just never missed or failed a defence, while they failed something like six rolls in a row, including things like Groutite missing on a 15 to hit.

 

The Ulrich/Thicket battle got to 5 nested waits before someone finally moved.  Thicket was waiting for one of his allies to move in before moving in himself, Solidoak and Shudderblight were both waiting for one of Ulrich's men to move before attacking the man with the poleaxe, and the last of the Imperials were waiting for any earthling to come into range to AoA them.