Monday, June 27, 2016

Encounter: Goblin Musketeer

I just like the picture.
So, I'm thinking of all the things I don't have in decent quantity for my players to fight, and I think ranged encounters are a bit low. I also don't have many specifically gun themed opponents as I mostly am borrowing the TL3...ish bestiaries of Dungeon Fantasy. So, I says to meself, let's make a musketeer type opponent for my TL4 campaign. My goal is 60 CER, or a slightly challenging enemy for a starting Dungeon Fantasy character. let's see how that goes.

Mechanics

First off, we need to give it the stats befitting a gun guy with a musket, and that means having a decent skill level, and musket stats.

Attack Skill7Active Defense0
Affliction0Damage Resistance0
Damage32Health0
Fatigue Points0Hit Points0
Move0Will0
Total Offensive Rating (OR)39Total Protective Rating (PR)0
Cool, that alone takes up a huge amount of our budget, but still leaves us with some options. Let's add Gunslinger as an advantage, a bit of move to make him a persnickety (but dangerous) nuisance, and a touch of DR as well.
Attack Skill7Active Defense0
Affliction0Damage Resistance3
Damage32Health0
Fatigue Points0Hit Points0
Move2Will0
Total Offensive Rating (OR)41Total Protective Rating (PR)3
Let's give him some active defense because that is the one that seems to ratchet up quickly on accident anyway, and a hit point to just round it out.
Attack Skill7Active Defense4
Affliction0Damage Resistance3
Damage32Health0
Fatigue Points0Hit Points2
Move2Will0
Total Offensive Rating (OR)41Total Protective Rating (PR)9
I'll give him a bit of will because at long range, magic is a viable strategy, so let's make him a little harder to knock out that way, and give him some HT and FP while we are at it, making him into a bit more of a survivalist or guerilla.

Attack Skill7Active Defense4
Affliction0Damage Resistance3
Damage32Health3
Fatigue Points3Hit Points3
Move2Will3
Total Offensive Rating (OR)44Total Protective Rating (PR)16
Ah, nice round 60 point character. Putting it together we get this:
ST: 13HP: 13Speed: 7
DX: 12Will: 13Move: 8
IQ: 10Per: 12
HT: 13FP: 13SM: +0
Dodge: 10Parry: 10FDR: 3, everywhere but the head/face
Musket (15): Range 120/1,200, 4d+2 pi++, 60 second reload
Edged Rapier (14): Range 1-2, 1d+1 imp or 2d-1 cut
Traits: Ambidextrous, Cowardice (12), Gunslinger, Infravision, Lifting ST 3 or more to not be encumbered.
Skills: Camouflage -12, Fast-Talk - 12, Guns (Musket) - 15, Rapier - 14, Stealth - 15 Survival (Current Environment) - 12,
Class: Mundane
Notes: Loves fighting in the dark because it comes with a huge advantage for him, having Infravision [Note, this setup might give him bonus situational CER.] Roll against cowardice if it might be found before reloading after firing, if forced into melee combat, and if and when it becomes obviously overpowered. On a failure, his first instinct is to negotiate as painless a surrender as possible [via fast-talk], but decide somehow if it is being genuine or deceptive (maybe secretly roll quick contest of fast-talk versus relevant skill like detect lies, or try a reaction roll with a very good or better meaning he genuinely respects the party.) For bargaining purposes, he will likely offer up his sword before his gun. If the party insists on taking his gun, he will insist on travelling with the party for his own safety. Again, this may or may not be treacherous at your leisure or by some game mechanic. Stats for his rapier and musket are on p.61 and p.92 of Low-Tech, respectively. He wears boots, a buff coat, a leather jacket, and leather pants as per Basic Set - Characters, p.283. He also probably has survival basics as per maybe one of the loadouts in Dungeon Fantasy 13: Loadouts.

Other Thoughts and Closing

Easy ways to make this fight more difficult is to make him reload very quickly. Easy ways to tone it down are to reduce gun damage or make him even more cowardly. To flesh him out more, give him more traits from the goblin template in Dungeon Fantasy 3, or take away the most gobliny ones, and give him a different racial template to create a subtly unique marksmen. To make him totally Dungeon Fantasy compatible, pretend it's a cross-bow with some imbuement powers to make it hecka strong, huge piercing and impaling are similar enough. That might not even be necessary though if you have the Dungeon Fantasy 1 issue of Pyramid which includes gun using delver templates, and then this type of threat might be a-ok.

4 comments:

  1. That's an awfully strong gobo, I'd think. Most "fighting strength" humans are about ST12, aren't they?

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    Replies
    1. I know I could just handwave it, but I wanted to give the gobber enough strength for carrying its combat gear unimpeded. My options then were
      1) handwave it
      2) Give him a lot of lifting st (or just regular st)
      3) Give him a lot of move/basic speed to counteract the burden, going from "unusually strong gobo" to "ridiculously fast gobber."

      In hindsight, 3 would probably be the best, but I think it'd look confusing on the stat-block.
      Also note, this is for a campaign that is similar to [but not exactly] Dungeon Fantasy at TL4, so strong enemies are the norm. I guess I could call it an orc or Hobogobo, but I also thought it would be charming to have a coward encounter that would definitely be willing to negotiate to start giving the players with other options than "stick it until it stops trying to stick us."

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    2. Are your gobs ordinarily SM0? I'd have thought -1 would be the norm, since they're typically about 4' tall, from my recollection. Scaling the equipment down in size would reduce weight, though that would make the musket less powerful.

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    3. Interestingly, using the templates in Dungeon Fantasy 3, I found they are sm 0! It was a surprise to me as well. That said, there is and was nothing stopping me from saying, "you know what, I like them small, so I'll make them small!" Good fourth alternative though.

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