Posts
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Let's Read DFRPG Adventurers: Appendices
Chapter 7 was the last proper chapter in the book but we still have a bit to go through. The first thing here are a pair of sample characters, each taking up a page.
We have Grükuk Kzaash, a Half-Orc Knight. Personality-wise, she’s a honorable mercenary, if more than a bit short-tempered. Mechanically, she goes for breadth over depth, taking Extra Attack 1 instead of Weapon Master and carrying both a shield and a brace of weapons fit for all occasions. She has a Dwarven flail, a kukri for enemies who are resistant to crushing damage, and a pair of silver-coated brass knuckles for enemies who are vulnerable to that. No swords, though, as she thinks they’re overrated.
The other one is Francesco Zombani, who already knows all the zombie jokes related to his name and asks that you don’t make any. He’s a former cloistered monk who decided to travel the world on a quest to atone for a grave sin. What sin is that? He’s not actually sure. He’s the robe-and-staff kind of cleric, a poor combatant but an excellent spellcaster.
After these two we get to the book’s Index, and if you never beheld the index of a GURPS book you don’t know what joy is. This is a match for any textbook index, and leaps and bounds above almost anything else you might find in RPG books. There are also separate indexes for Advantages, Disadvantages, and Skills.
We end the book with a one-page ad for Ogre 6th Edition, and a four-page character sheet that has enough space to hold almost everything you need in play. Including that price list for magical healing in town I mentioned in the gear chapter.
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Let's Read DFRPG Adventuers: Magic Items
This is what everyone’s been waiting for, right? In the implied setting of DFRPG, “low-level” magic items are common enough that they can often be found in “magic shops” in cities or larger towns. The selection presented here represents those. There are many more, and more powerful items, but those are not for sale and are usually found in dungeons.
Potions
Potions follow the same basic rules as the non-magical concoctions from the previous post, but they’re magic items. This means they can be detected as such by someone with Magery, and their ongoing effects can be ended by Dispel Magic against the skill of the maker. That’s 15 for potions bought in town, but it could be higher or lower for found potions.
Multiple doses of the same potion usually aren’t cumulative, but different potions can affect someone at the same time.
This is where you have grenades that are more damaging versions of the alchemical ones, as well as one that puts people to sleep and another one that prevents wizardly casters from using magic for a while. Drinkable potions include a whole range of healing potions, attribute boosters for ST, DX, Basic Speed and Perception, stuff that gives you flight, invisibility or extra DR for a while, and Thieves’ Oil which makes you extra-slippery.
Scrolls
Each scroll contains a single use spell. There’s some rules about how long it takes to draw and unroll them in combat, and after that you take twice as long as normal to cast the spell.
To create a scroll, you decide what spell is inside (pick from any list!) and then whether the scroll is wizardly, clerical, druidic or universal. Universal scrolls can be used by anyone, even a “mundane”. The others can only be used by characters with the appropriate power trait.
Finally, a scroll can be charged or not. A charged scroll contains all the energy necessary to power the spell, and costs nothing from the reader. An uncharged one drains the reader’s FP. In any case the scroll’s monetary cost scales with its energy cost.
Delvers prefer universal charged scrolls, of course, but as you might imagine those are the most expensive of all. Further restrictions decrease the cost. Scrolls bought in town have a skill level of 15 both for casting the spell and for resisting dispelling attempts. Found scrolls will often have higher skill.
Magic Weapons and Armor
The stars of the show! Weapons and armor most often contain permanent, always-on enchantments, and this is the list of enchantments purchasable by PCs. To create a magic item, you first buy the base “mundane” weapon or armor with all its modifiers, and then apply the enchantments you want to it. These add directly to the final price.
When a PC buys a magic item in town, they get to decide whether the enchantment is wizardly, clerical, or druidic (which will matter for rules described in DF: Exploits). These purchases can happen either in play or as part of character creation, though few delvers will have the money to spare at that time.
Visits to Ye Olde Magic Shoppe are abstracted by default, just like all other shopping in the game, and the GM decides what’s available every time the PCs return to Town from adventuring.
The most noticeable class of enchantments here are your standard “plusses”: to-hit, damage and Parry for weapons, Defense Bonus and Block for shields, Defense Bonus and DR for armor. Each of these is a separate enchantment and has one or two levels available in the table.
Weapons can also benefit from one of a set of elemental damage adders (flaming, lightning, freezing), from a Penetrating enchantment that helps get past DR, and from being made magically unbreakable. Armor and shields can have their weight reduced, and anything can be made glowy so that it illuminates like a torch on command.
That’s it for purchasable magic gear. Want something more powerful or with a different effect? Go delve a dungeon and find something from the expanded GM-only list from Exploits.
Magic As a Service
The typical delver party arrives in town after a delve carrying a cartload of precious loot, and also a bevy of wounds, curses, severed limbs or even the dead bodies of their companions who didn’t make it. Fortunately, they can “generously donate” some of that treasure to the local temple in order to solve their other problems.
HP is super cheap to recover at $2/point. Mundane and supernatural afflictions cost $50 and $100 respectively, which is also pretty cheap assuming you managed to find any loot at all. Things get more expensive when it comes to repairing permanent crippled body parts ($750) or outright dismemberment ($1600). And bringing someone back from the dead costs $15000.
PC clerics who know the right spells can do almost all of these in the field, but the possibility of paying to have it done automatically in town is still nice. Presumably restoring or regrowing limbs and eyes can still be done this way even if the PC cleric tried and failed, which is nice.
The one exception here is resurrecting the dead, which only the town priest can do. I bet that’s why it costs so much more. No competition from PCs!
This is actually present as a very small text box in the character sheet at the very end of the book, and I couldn’t find it anywhere else. It’s quite possible I’ll run into the official explanation in some other book as I go through them.
Coming up Next
Sample characters!
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Let's Play Hell's Rebels: Jade Irinka update 1
An update to one of the player characters for my solo Hell’s Rebels campaign. This is Jade after the end of Adventure 01, with all advancements in stats and gear factored in.
Her description and backstory remain the same and can be see in the post for her starting version.
Jade is more or less the backbone of the party’s combat capability, and her fencing prowes so far could only be matched by Adventure 01’s final boss, which went down to a lucky critical anyway. She’s also one of the PCs most motivated by an ideological opposition to fascism, tied perhaps with Rosalia. That’s not to say she doesn’t have personal reasons to oppose Thrune. They did a number on her found family back in the days of the original Ravens.
Her knowledge as the Sixth Raven has come in handy in a couple of spots in Adventure 1, but her Monster of the Week disadvantage hasn’t really come up yet. I’ll roll for it and prepare a suitable opponent during the early preparation stages for Adventure 02.
She started with the standard 250 points, and here at the end of Adventure 01, stands at 289. Yes, my point distribution policy is somewhat generous. I removed the “pick your own” quirk entries as I’ve never ended up using them. We’re also using some new house rules for skills, which are listed here.
Over the course of the adventure she found a slightly upgraded suit of armor and a couple of expensive utility items, but her weapon and general approach to adventuring stay mostly the same.
Character Sheet
ST 13 {30}; DX 15 {100}; IQ 12 {40}; HT 12 {20};
Damage 1d/2d-1; Basic Lift 16.9kg; HP 13; Will 12; Per 12; FP 12; Basic Speed 7 {5}; Basic Move 7;
Advantages
- Ambidexterity {5}
- Appearance (Impressive) {12}
- Born War Leader 3 {15}
- Charisma 3 {15}
- Combat Reflexes {15}
- Luck {15}
- Reputation (All the time, everyone but Thrune supporters): +1 {3}
- Weapon Adaptation (Broadsword to Fencing) {1}
- Weapon Master (Backsword) {20}
Disadvantages
- Code of Honor (Soldier’s) {-10}
- Compulsive Generosity (12) {-5}
- Enemy (Monster of the Week, 9 or less) {-15}
- Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents) {-10}
- Selfless {-5}
- Sense of Duty (Adventuring Companions) {-5}
Skills
- Acrobatics (H) DX-1 {2} - 14
- Administration (A) IQ {2} - 12
- Diplomacy (H) IQ-2 {1} - 10
- Fast-Draw (Sword) (E) DX+1 {1}1 - 16
- Fencing (A) DX+5 {20} - 20
- Gesture (E) IQ {1} - 12
- Grappling (A) DX-1 {1} - 14
- Guns (Pistol) (E) DX+1 {2} - 16
- Intelligence Analysis (H) IQ+3 {4}2 - 15
- Jumping (E) DX {1} - 15
- Leadership (A) IQ+5 {2}32 - 17
- Public Speaking (A) IQ+1 {1}3 - 13
- Savoir-Faire (High Society) (E) IQ {1} - 12
- Stealth (A) DX-1 {1} - 14
- Strategy (H) IQ+2 {2}3 - 14
- Tactics (H) IQ+2 {2}3 - 14
Loadout
$47482.00, 12.4412kg. No Encumbrance.
- Backsword: sw+1 cut or thr+1 imp. Basket hilt gives DR4 to the hand and allows a Hilt Punch. $550, 1.5kg
- Pouch: Carries 1.5kg of small items. $10, 0.1kg.
- Coins:
- 1 x Piece of Eight $50, 0.0012kg.
- 2 x Silver Coin $20, 0.01kg.
- 7 x Copper Coin $1, 0.01kg.
- 1 x Blessed Paper $400, 0kg.
- 2 x Healing Potion, Minor: Heals 1d HP. $120, 0.25kg
- Coins:
- Clothing: $0, 1kg.
- Armor: Suit of armor enchanted with Fortify 1.
- Head : Light Leather, DR 2. $113, 0.75kg.
- Body: Light Leather, DR 2. $403, 3.15kg.
- Arms: Light Leather, DR 2. $175, 1.5kg.
- Hands: Light Leather, DR 2. $55, 0.3kg.
- Legs: Light Cloth, DR 2. $287, 2.25kg.
- Feet: Light Leather, DR 2. $117, 1.05kg.
- Headband of Strengthening Will +1 : Bronze circlet that grants +1 Will when worn $20035, 0.25kg.
- Ring of Swimming: Grants Amphibious but not Gills while worn. $25000, 0kg.
Combat
Assumes no encumbrance.
- Defenses
- Dodge: 11
- Parry (Backsword): 14F
- Parry (Grappling): 11F
- DR: 4 on skull, 0 on eyes, 6 in sword hand, 2 everywhere else.
- Control Maximum: 13
- 1 to 6: -2
- 7 to 12: -4
- 13 to 18: -6
- 19 to 25: -8
- 26 or more: -12
- Attacks
- Backsword (20): 2d+5 cut or 1d+3 imp, Reach 1.
- Hilt Punch (15): 1d cr, Reach C.
- Grappling (14): 1d ctrl, Reach C.
- One-handed grab (14): 1d-2 ctrl, Reach C.
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Let's Read DFRPG Adventurers: Misc. Gear
If you’re like me, your eyes tend to sorta skip over the equipment section that comes after armor and weapons. Today, I’m going to have to stop and read it with more attention, as it’s still fairly important here. As I’ve said before, every last pound of gear matters in the DFRPG.
The section of Chapter 7 that covers Miscellaneous Gear is split into three subsections, and we’ll cover all three here.
Some pieces of gear in this chapter are described as “basic equipment” for a certain skill. This means you need them to use that skill normally, and if you’re forced to improvise or go without you’ll face a daunting -5 or -10 penalty. Items that are high-quality might give a +1 or +2 instead.
Unlike weapons and armor, each item here gets at most one or two lines about its function and rules, followed by a cost and weight. They each have their uses, though.
Basics
This is the kind of stuff that’s relatively inexpensive and available at any town worthy of the name. There are many small sections here that I will discuss in summary instead of reprinting the contents of the book.
Camping and Survival Gear contains tents, canteens, blankets, backpacks, and all that good stuff that often gets overlooked. Of note here are the Personal and Group Basics items, which are an abstract ball of knicknacks that are basic equipment for Survival. The first one is for a single person, containing stuff like utensils and some basic fire-making items. The group version has cookpots, a rope, a utility hatchet, and other things you need to help set up camp for 3-8 people. It weights 20 lbs but you can distribute its weight among several PCs. These don’t include shelter, so you might also want tents and bedrolls or sleeping furs. This is also where you find trail rations.
Combat Accessories has a selection of different quivers, but also a sturdy belt that can support 2 or 3 melee weapons hanging from it, lanyards to mitigate those pesky “weapon dropped” rolls, and hobnailed boots that let you ignore poor footing but make a lot of noise. If you need more than 2-3 weapons ready to draw at all times, wear more belts! I think that’s how D&D 3e’s fashion came about.
Containers are your chests, barrels and buckets. In my experience you tend to find those in dungeons more often than you need to buy them. There are also stats for an empty crystal vial of the sort that usually contains potions, and which you could use to collect samples of corrosive goo and the like.
Light Sources covers expensive beeswax and stinky tallow candles, as well as lanterns and torches. Detailed rules for lighting are in Exploits.
Medical Gear has bandages which are basic equipment for First Aid, a proper first-aid kit which gives +1, a liter for carrying the wounded, and surgical equipment that can be used for field Surgery or to remove valuable dead monster bits without ruining them.
Miscellaneous Hardware is, yes, the miscellanea among the miscellanea. Various ropes, chains, a ladder, and poles in both six- and ten-foot varieties.
Musical Instruments are for bards and for anyone else who wants to make noise, which requires no skill. There’s a “baseline” two-handed stringed instrument which can be anything from an ancient lyre to a modern acoustic guitar. Woodwinds are lighter but you can’t speak while using them. A harp or zither is more expensive but can be played quietly enough to not be heard through a door. And if you’re more of a bard-barian type horns, drums, and bagpipes can be heard for miles!
Tools is a large category that has your crowbars, hammers, saws, pickaxes and shovels. It also has a utility machete that’s crappy as a weapon but useful for cutting foliage, and more specialized things like tongs, scales, and even a backpack toolkit for field armorers.
Writing Equipment has somewhat anachronistic sheets of paper in bundles of 20, a scribe’s kit with quill, inkwell and penknife, and a humble piece of chalk for writing on dungeon walls.
Special Orders
You can start with these when creating a character, but acquiring them in play requires finding a specialist vendor that deals with them (alchemist, eccentric artificer, smuggler, etc.).
Adventure-Wear covers a large set of specialized and somewhat anachronistic fashion, like the Delver’s Webbing that works like a modern tactical harness full of pouches and pockets, or helmet lamps.
Camping Gear has alchemical matches, a compass, a timed candle that burns at a precise fixed rate, and special rations. Elven rations are very expensive but three times lighter. Dwarven ones weight twice as much as the standard human stuff but give you poison resistance after eating them for a month or more.
Combat Accessories here cover bandoleers for those people who absolutely must carry 24 throwing daggers on them, a variety of crossbow accessories, and even lamps and lecterns that you can bolt onto your shield.
Covert Ops and Security is known as “thief gear” in other games. A very large section that includes everything from your classic set of lockpicks and trap-disarming tools to dungeon camouflage and both smoke and flash bombs for those who love a good ninja vanish move. It’s also where you find stats for padlocks, which again are something you will run into in the dungeon more than you’ll need to buy.
Esoteric Supplies includes the healing kits for the cleric’s and druid’s special skills, and your usual selection of holy symbols and holy water.
Optics has a bull’s eye lantern that projects a long beam instead of a small circular light, periscopes, telescopes, and mirrors.
Scholarly Gear includes professional cartography kits, waterproof scroll cases, self-righting hourglasses, as well as manuals and tomes that can let you roll at default for knowledge skills you don’t have, or give a bonus to those you do.
Concoctions
These aren’t magical, but they follow the same rules as Special Order gear, and so might not be easily available after character creation.
Chemicals are mostly throwable grenades that burst on impact. They can be filled with acid, alchemist’s fire, glue, or visibility dust. There are also glow vials which illuminate as much as a torch when activated but don’t use fire.
Natural Preparations include a selection of drinkable druidic anti-toxins, and bundles of garlic and wolfsbane for use against vampires and werewolves.
Poisons are fantasy poisons that act fast enough to affect combat, dealing some amount of damage at once when the victim fails a resistance roll. They’re too fast for anti-toxins, which only help against stuff with ongoing effects. Some are utility compounds that you spread on your bladed weapons, others are grenades. They range from the very weak to the terrifyingly deadly.
Impressions
I ended up reading this section more closely than I had in years, which is a good thing! A lot of the basic items here are stuff that remains useful throughout a whole campaign, as they can’t easily be replaced with spells or magic items.
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Let's Play Hell's Rebels: Arcturus Pankrator after Adventure 1
An update to one of the player characters for my solo Hell’s Rebels campaign. This is Art after the end of Adventure 01, with all advancements in stats and gear included.
His description and backstory remain the same and can be seen in the post for his starting version.
Art is our second-best combatant in terms of sheer effectiveness, a small distance behind Jade. She can just stab fools, while he usually has to get in close and wrestle with them for a bit before doing damage. While doing this he’s vulnerable to stuff like damaging auras, poisonous or caustic skin, spiked armor and other similar effects. And, of course, to other foes deciding to strike at him mid-grapple.
But he’s also tough enough to take the hits, at least for a while, and he’s been extremely fun to play. When I’m stuck thinking about optimal tactics or in-character motivations for choosing this plan over the other, I can always count on the little Arcturus in my head to go “forget all this! CHAAAARGE!”. And even if he takes a couple more turns to dispatch an opponent, that opponent is doing nothing else but grappling with him during all that time.
His backstory as the Knight of the Deep hasn’t mattered much yet, but him being an Atlantean and thus unhindered by water has come in handy in a couple of spots already.
Arcturus started out with the default 250 points for DFRPG PCs, and at the end of Adventure 01 he’s currently at 271 points plus 18 unspent ones for a total of 289. He’s saving up for one of Extra Attack or Unarmed Master and should get it early in adventure 02.
Points-wise, he’s the character who benefitted the most from our combat skill house rules, and he also boasts increased Lifting ST to make him an even more terrifying wrestler.
Gear-wise, he now has a very nice suit of magic armor that was looted from a boss and properly purified, and an amulet that makes him very resistant to magic, so some of his biggest weaknesses are now nicely shored up.
Character Sheet
ST 14 {40}; DX 15 {100}; IQ 10 {0}; HT 12 {20};
Damage 1d/2d; Basic Lift 28.9kg; HP 14; Will 10; Per 10; FP 12; Basic Speed 7 {5}; Basic Move 8 {5};
Advantages
- Amphibious {10}
- Combat Reflexes {15}
- Enhanced Parry (Unarmed) 3 {15}
- Gills {10}
- Lifting ST 3 {9}
- Trained by a Master {30}
- Wrestling Master {10}
- Reputation (All the time, everyone but Thrune supporters): +1 {3}
Disadvantages
- Code of Honor (Chivalry) {-15}
- Impulsiveness (12) {-10}
- Obsession (Find Shensen) (12) {-5}
- Overconfidence (12) {-5}
- Sense of Duty (Companions) {-5}
- Wealth (Struggling) {-10}
Skills
- Carousing (E) HT {1} - 12
- Grappling (A) DX+5 {20} - 20
- Hiking (A) HT-1 {1} - 11
- Knife (A) DX+1 {4} - 16
- Knot-Tying (E) DX {1} - 15
- Stealth (A) DX-1 {1} - 14
- Swimming (E) HT {1} - 12
- Unarmed Striking (A) DX+2 {8} - 17
Chi Skills
- Immovable Stance (H) DX {4} - 15
- Push (H) DX {4} - 15
- Throwing Art (H) DX {4} - 15
Loadout
- Large Knife: $40, 0.5kg.
- Clothing: $0, 1kg.
- Moly Amulet: $23600, 0.25kg.
- Pouch: Carries 1.5kg of small items. $10, 0.1kg.
- Visibility Dust: $50, 0.5kg.
- 2 x Silver Coin $20, 0.01kg.
- 12 x copper coin: $1, 0.01kg
- 1 x Healing Potion, Minor: Heals 1d HP. $120, 0.25kg.
- Nox’s Armor: DR 7 to the front of the body, 4/2 everywhere else except the head. $5425, 13.5kg.
Combat
- Defenses
- Dodge: 11
- Parry (Knife): 12F
- Parry (Grappling): 17F
- DR:
- Body: 7 (front) or 4/2 (back)
- Face: 0
- Skull: 2
- Elsewhere: 4/2
- HP: 14
- FP 12
- Control Maximum: 19
- 1 to 8: -2
- 9 to 18: -4
- 19 to 27: -6
- 28 to 37: -8
- 38 or more: -12
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Attacks
- Large Knife (16): 2d-2 cut, Reach C-1; or 1d imp, Reach C.
- Karate Punch (17): 1d+2 cr, Reach C.
- Karate Kick (15): 1d+4 cr, Reach C-1.
- Wrestling Grab (20): 2d+3 control, Reach C.
- One-handed grab (20): 2d+1 control, Reach C.
Unspent Points: 18
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