Wednesday 26 July 2017

GURPS Free Cities Session 56: The Long Way Around

Damien - Human (?) Sorcerer (250 points)
Morgan Merkle - Human Mentalist (311 points)
          Brother Maurice- Human Initiate of Avandra, the goddess of freedom and luck (159 points)
Sindri Blackshield - Tiefling Knight (302 points)
Virgil the Grim - Human Barbarian (298 points)

Day 171 (Cont.):
Amothius 11th, 2526
Weather: Clear
Virgil used some of their dragon-bribing money to buy fire resistance potions, while Sindri repurchased a bunch of his gear that had burned away in the Tower of the Iron Mage.  Morgan tried finding somebody else to Research brass dragons using the book Hestius had given him, but failed, and spent the rest of his day figuring out that they wouldn't be instantly attacked, so long as they weren't overly aggressive.

Day 172:
Weather: Clear
The party set out in the morning, and planned to circle around the orc camps surrounding Carda by sticking to the Iron Forest, which was substantially slower but relatively orc-free.  Just outside the secret tunnel, though, they overheard an orc patrol that was apparently following tracks.  One of them complained that they should attack the city now, but another said they were waiting for the Khaghan Thrag, and now that the dragon had shown up, the battle would only be a couple weeks away.

The party went prone and started crawling away while an orc claimed that he had heard some shamans saying that Thrag was not a demigod, which another orc disagreed with, saying that only a divine being could unite the tribes.  The first orc then said that "of course you'd say that, the Broken Swords are a weak tribe, and Agdug is a creator!", which resulted in a fistfight.  Thanks to the distractions, the party made it away unnoticed.

Later in the day, the party was ambushed by a pair of displacer beasts, and Sindri and Damien, who were bringing up the rear, both had an arm crippled.  Morgan used Mind Blast to stun one, while Damien cast Flesh to Stone on the other, and the fight was over; however, before they could be healed properly, Morgan used PK Bolt in a fit of Pyromania to light the forest on fire, so Maurice did what he could with his remaining FP before putting some distance between themselves and the forest fire to rest.

Day 173:
Weather: Clear
The party continued through the forest, encountering nothing of interest.

Day 174:
Weather: Clear
Virgil carefully led the party around the edge of a forest fire, but they were surprised by a stampede.  Morgan cast Levitate, Maurice was lifted to safety by Virgil, and Sindri climbed a tree, but Virgil and Damien had to deal with a swarm of deer and aurochs charging into them.  Damien was fairly hurt, but Virgil took only light wounds, and Maurice was able to get them both back on their feet quickly.

Day 175:
Weather: Clear
The day's travel was uneventful, if slow due to failed Navigation, but just shy of dawn that night, the party were attacked on Morgan's watch by a group of two rage drakes and two acid-spitting drakes.  Morgan took down one rage drake while the other Luckily went off-balance after a bite and fell over.  The acid drakes bombarded Morgan, but he parried one with a PK Lash and dodged the other.

Damien got out of his tent and cast Light to make their job easier, while Morgan took out a rage drake with a PK Lash to the skull.  The other one went Berserk and tried to bite Sindri, but was repeatedly blocked, and quickly killed by a sword blow to the head from Virgil.  The acid drakes retreated off into the trees, and when they didn't come back, the party went back to sleep.

Day 176:
Amothius 16th, 2526
Weather: Clear
The party finally made it to the south and started following the smoke caused by the other forest fires (the ones started by the dragon), but were ambushed by a group of dire wolves in the afternoon.

Notes:
I can't roll anything but clear weather, apparently.  On the other hand, I finally got a lot of random monsters.

The party is slower, because Psis now need 4 extra hours of meditation instead of rolling to see if they get attacked by Elder Things.  This brings them more in line with existing templates (the Martial Artist was an obvious source of inspiration).

I've ruled that people can sleep/travel with shields ready, but not weapons, because otherwise shields won't be getting used in attacks on the road.  Seems to be okay.

For some reason, the Sorcery version of Armour gives +2DR per level.  Not sure why it doesn't just give +1.

I'm ruling that a Sorcerer has to already have a decent idea of what an improvised spell will cost, to keep the game from slowing down.

Should Sorcerers be able to benefit from the Staff enchantment?  I say no, because there's no equivalent in the Sorcery system, and they're already insanely powerful.  For now I'm allowing it because it's probably not a huge factor, but if there's abuse of stuff with Malediction, that might change.

I keep forgetting that Virgil doesn't have a tent, which should be costing him FP on the road unless he finds shelter, at a further penalty to the Survival roll for finding a campsite.

Virgil finally has enough points to get Weapon Master (Greatswords) and finish the Swashbuckler lens, which means his lethality is going up substantially.

I'm going to halve the cost of healing potions going forward, because they're pretty underwhelming.  $100 for 3.5HP healed, as opposed to $400 for a healing cleric that can do probably 12+HP per day for a week, and it's an easy decision.  Really, this is another problem with the vanilla Magic system which seems very arbitrary.

XP:
1 for progress (they're on the way to the brass dragon, but haven't really made any progress)
1 for combat (the displacer beasts)
1 for roleplaying to Damien (Paranoia putting him at the back of the party) and Morgan (Pyromania)
MVP went to Morgan for fending off the drakes

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