Thaeryn the cleric, played by Aldarian [2471 points]
Brock the fighter, played by Siobhan
[246 points]
Tobias the swashbuckler, played by
Jeremiah [250 points]
Jefe "The Honest," the
wizard, played by Ian [248 points]
Jefe is a fairly powerful wizard,
starting off with Magery 4, IQ 16, and a respectable spell list2.
On offense, he has Stone Missile, Concussion, and Flame Jet. In
addition, he has a suite of illusion spells, and a few utilities,
including Create Whatever and Great Haste. He's addicted to using
magic whenever possible, even if mundane means will suffice, and is a
Wierdness Magnet. Jefe the Honest is decidedly dishonest (he named
himself). The player is a very creative one, and I forsee truly
imaginative things from Ian in the illusions department.
Thaeryn is a fairly standard
frontline cleric. He has the healing spells, as well as some
protection spells. Offensively, he has Sunbolt, and his mace is a
Staff, Power Item, and Holy Item. Given his armor, Thaeryn is also
the off-tank, usualy standing in the way of attacks meant for
Jefe or blocking for the all-out-attacking fighter. He has a
pile of self-imposed mental disadvantages, such as Honesty,
Truthfulness, Selfless, and Compulsive Generosity.
Brock is the frontline mix-it-up-er,
with Weapon Master (Greatsword), Greatsword at skill 21, and armor
everywhere. Due to weight and starting funds, she only had chain on
the limbs, but managed to get plate on the torso, and chain and plate
on the head. In addition to stacks of DR, she outdamages anyone else
in the group3. As a side note, she also has a heavy crossbow and
Crossbow skill 16.
Tobias is a lightly armored
precision striker. He's sworn a vow to never wear armor (badass
leather jackets are a grey area), and has Luck to compensate. He has
excellent defenses, with Dodge 11 and Parry 15F, allowing him to
avoid damage he can't absorb. With Saber skill 20, can afford to
call shots to weak points, such as eyes, and Extra Attack allows him
to get past defenses with multiple attacks.
The party started off in the town
outside the Mines, and spent some time gathering rumors. They picked
up little of real value from the bartender and his patrons, other
than that goblins have moved in to the upper levels of the mine, and
bandits have moved into some of the secondary mines near the primary
one.
Jefe decided to go to the library
instead, and do some research. He got a brief history of
the mines, and found something mentioning possibly intact Dwarven
vaults, such that goblins would be unable to break into.
Tobias' compulsive partying caused
him to rack up a slightly higher bar tab, which almost bit him in the
ass when it came time to divvy up loot later on.4
With little further loitering, the
party left town and ascended the mountain.
On the way, a great perception roll
from Thaeryn spotted a goblin scout running down the mountain into
the mines, and pointed it out to the party. The goblin botched his Not Sucking roll, and fell off
the mountain, landing with a thud in front of the mines. Not wanting
a scout to report back, Brock fired off a truly impressive 200 yard
shot with her crossbow, ruining the goblin's leg.5
They snuck up on
the Mines from there (and put the goblin out of it's misery on the
way), and another impressive perception check from Thaeryn heard
"the pitter-patter of tiny booted feet," informing them of
impending goblins. Jefe got the bright idea to create an
illusion of an unattended mule, overburdened with delicious smelling
goodies. The goblins took the bait, running headlong into an ambush,
killing all three in one round. The fourth goblin was "smart"
and hung back by the barricade, firing off mounted heavy crossbows.
The first one nailed the unaware Brock, but she was too tanky to
really care much. Brock advanced behind Thaeryn's shield, and
nailed the goblin with another good crossbow shot.6
The party
proceeded to Steal the Furniture by freeing the mounted crossbows of
their mounts. They didn't want to carry them around, so they stashed
them with Shape Stone and moved on.
By the time the
party got back in, the goblins had formed a defense. They had a
proper shield wall, with a spear wall behind them, and
crossbowgoblins behind them. The party was getting ready to
obliterate the goblin line, when the goblin chief demanded to know
why they were there. Jefe was the only one who spoke goblin, so
parlay began7.
After some
"diplomacy," (Jefe making shit up) the goblins and the
party came to an agreement: the party kills the "Big Bad Thing,"
which had been causing trouble for the goblins, and pays a 10% tax on
all coins leaving the mines, and the party was free to move in and
out of the goblin town. The party quickly realized the many loopholes in
this agreement, and gleefully accepted. The only concern was the Big
Bad Thing.
First thing, the
party asked for a guide. The "Smart goblin" (aka the One
Who Can Read) gave them his assistant, Cork. After having the guide
show them around goblintown, they asked around for details on the Big
Bad Thing. What they got was that it was big, had four legs,
breathed fire, and ate goblins. Last time it escaped many goblins
died, and they subdued it with "lots of nets."
With little
further loitering, the party continued.
The guide led them
deeper into the goblin town, and straight to the section where the Big Bad
Thing was imprisoned. The party unboarded the doors. Jefe put an
illusion of a closed door on the doors, and the party prepped spells
and opened the door.8 Inside was a slorn.9
Jefe immediately Great Hasted Brock, who stormed in and started laying
down the hurt, slicing off a claw.10 Thaeryn fired off a Sunbolt, Tobias started moving in, and Jefe charged up a Stone Missile.
Due to Great Haste and ambush, the party beat up the slorn pretty
badly before it got to act, but when it did, Brock got an object
lesson in the definition of tanky. It attacked
Brock twice, biting once and firebreathing the second time. Brock got
hurt, but the player calmed down when reminded just how much damage
she could take.11 Brock was just too tough for the slorn, and the
party beat it down with no casualties.
After killing the slorn, the party went about looting what was left of the goblin
corpses laying around. They found a decent amount of silver, and Jefe's knowledge of alchemy allowed him to remember that slorn
Breath Glands are valuable; he and Thaeryn started surgery.
During looting,
they almost got ambushed by orcs, but yet another amazing perception
roll by Thaeryn alerted them early.12 Jefe illusioned up a
still-living slorn, with the party hiding under it, and
counter-ambushed the orcs. The orcs were no contest, and died
horribly or fled. The party lootedthe corpses, taking two chain
shirts and a silver ring.
The party then
left the dungeon under the Slorn illusion, send panicky goblins
everywhere.Jefe made sure to add bits of the party and bits of
orc to the illusion's mouth. The goblins are now free from the
Slorn, and are convinced the party is dead. There is no way this can
come back to haunt the party in any way.
Returning to town,
the party divided up loot and counted coin. It was barely profitable,
with the silver ring and the Slorn bits making up a decent chunk.
Brock added the orc's chain shirt to her armor, making her even
tankier, but incurring armor stacking penalties.
Thus ends session
one.
Everyone got 5 xp,
since it was a (technically) profitable venture, but nothing particularly
impressive occurred.
Footnotes:
1: Some characters are slightly less than
250 because they burned points for starting cash.
2: Jefe gets skill 18 with 1 point
into most spells
3: Brock has DR 6 on the torso/groin, DR
10/8 on the head, and DR 4/2 everywhere else. The end of session
chain brought the torso DR up to 10/8. Her greatsword hits for 4d+1
cutting each strike.
4: With Compulsive Carousing, Tobias'
tab was 190sp this session, instead of 150.
5: At the range the goblin was at, it was
a -12 to hit. Brock aimed for three rounds, granting +6 to hit. With
a -1 for SM, this brought effective skill with Crossbow to 9. She
rolled a 6.
6: At this point, Brock spent a quirk on
"Prefers to use the crossbow"
7: It should be noted that Jefe's
player, Ian, is fiendishly clever and kind of a troll. Him being the
negotiator was a recipe for shenanigans, one that I may come to
regret.
8: The idea was that when the door
opened, there would be an illusion of the door still being closed,
blocking vision into the hallway (and the party).
9: Unlike the Slorn from Dungeon Fantasy
Monsters, mine have 4 legs. I just like it better.
10: Brock was All Out (double) attacking on
her first action, and Rapid Attacking on her second. That adds up to
16 dice of damage each round, and
still allowing defense. Laying down the hurt, indeed.
11: 16 HP, Hard to Subdue 3, Hard to Kill
2. Brock can tank almost 100 damage. Over the course of the fight,
the Slorn did around 20 or 30 damage after armor.
12:His perception isn't even that amazing,
merely a good 14. He consistently rolled under 9 on perception
checks, making the party very hard to sneak up on.
Lessons Learned:
Several of the players are new to
GURPS, and did not fully understand how their characters worked. I
should make sure all players understand the rules their characters
were built on.
Orcs are not nearly tough enough. They
are supposed to be second-floor threats, and the starting party
steamrolled them.
