Scenario 1 Retrospective

[Bobcloclimar]

Overall, Scenario 1 was fun for a relatively new GURPS player like me - a large number of mooks with just enough combat capability to be a credible threat, but low enough HP and DR that they could be put down somewhat regularly.

 

Rules Mistakes and Questions

• I misread the surprise rules and didn't make each PC roll IQ each turn to recover after the initial d6 seconds. If either of Folcard or Edon had taken an extra second to recover, Droart likely would have been defeated (although neither of them are particularly likely to have failed).
• I misread the Major Wounds threshold - it must exceed HP/2 (or /3), not greater than or equal to. By extension, limb/extremity hits were capped 1 HP lower than they should have been. I don't think this would have materially changed the scenario outcome, but it did affect a couple hits.
• I may have misapplied the -2 penalty I used on the ladder orcs. The scenario states only that orcs "in the window" have the -2, not the ladder. This may have affected some defense rolls.
• I thought I had made a mistake applying Mighty Blow to non-AOA (Strong) attacks, but I think I was mistaken about my mistake - Mighty Blow can be used to apply a +2 bonus as if AOA (Strong) were used, but can still use active defenses afterwards, rather than simply negating the active-defense constraint when using AOA (Strong). My new interpretation will be that it can be used for any attack other than AOA (Strong) and can add the +2 bonus, but can't be combined with AOA (Strong) or other Extra Effort spends (e.g. Flurry of Blows). Specifically, AOA (Determined) + Mighty Blow is OK to use.
• The penalties for climbing out of the stairwell may have been too severe - Orcs 3 and 4 spent several seconds trying to climb up something that should have been fairly straight forward, and jumping up into a Kneeling posture isn't quite supported by RAW.
• Not sure if my Reaction Roll modifiers were appropriate - the book recommends +1 to +5 for e.g. outnumbering the enemy on morale checks, but I don't have a good sense of what force ratios should use which modifier. RAW there should have been negative modifiers for the language barrier as well.
• Betan really wanted to disarm Orc1 from behind, but RAW there didn't seem to be any point - assuming he hit, Orc1 wouldn't be able to defend, but had a better-than-even chance of winning the contest. RAW seems to assume a face to face disarm attempt, where the target can see the attempt coming and compensate. Can't find any discussion about this after a brief search. If it comes up again, tempted to make it the worst of ST/DX or skill.
• Forgot the existence of AOA Double for a while. Combining it with a Reach 2 weapon (Conradin and Edon) was quite useful. Wouldn't have helped Droart, though.
• I need to get used to making consciousness rolls at the beginning of a turn, rather than when the injury is inflicted. most of the time this doesn't make a difference, but it's a bad habit.
• My turn tracking protocol probably needs some adjustment. It was hard to remember to look at it for e.g. remembering to apply Shock, and keeping track of damage sources for bleeding rolls (which admittedly were just for fun) was difficult.
• Forgot that a roll of skill+10 is a critical fail, although I don't know if this actually applied anywhere.
• The tower map is a little confusing to use: the walls don't exactly correspond to hexes, the stairwell consists of two half-hexes per step, and the windows in the large rooms aren't well-described compared to the arrow slits. The last item was particularly relevant when it came to identifying where Orc9 and Orc10 entered Bronwyn's room, since she, Folcard and Adie were stacked up in an area that only could hit one hex.

 

Tactical Errors

• Swinging for the torso with higher-damage cut weapons seems tactically less useful than going for random hit locations - same to-hit, but with a chance of hitting a limb and the opportunity for crippling and a Major Wound, even if it caps the injury.
• For the spear-users, stop-thrusts do allow for movement, and may have been more useful (e.g. Droart could have used one on Orc1 in the first turn, and with his roll would have hit and dealt some damage).
• Orc6 technically should have known Folcard was in the room behind him, and wouldn't have turned its back on that doorway.
• Folcard's AOA that took out Orc3 directly led to his hand being disabled. Fortunately, there is no lasting injury, but it was still unwise. This was an intentional choice, since he is overconfident.
• There were a couple opportunities for me to target vitals instead of torso and still land a hit, which might have disabled some orcs sooner.
• In a to-the-death scenario, Betan would have just killed Orc1 and moved to help Bronwyn. However, capturing a live orc was an intentional RP choice, even though it functionally removed him from the scenario.

 

Other Observations

• PC skilling was extra wonky due to the random chargen: no Combat Reflexes or High Pain Threshold, two PCs with insufficient ST or skill for their weapons, etc. However, their high DX mostly made up for it (except for poor Adie...)
• Skipping the helmets was worth it, since there's only a 5% chance of taking a head blow using random hits, even fewer with targeted ones.
• Slams seemed extra effective, especially combined with AOA (Strong) or Mighty Blow - given the constrained environment of the tower and the low relative speeds, the +2 to damage made the attacker far more likely to achieve an automatic knockdown (~2/3rds chance). This helped both the orcs and the PCs, so was a bit of a wash.
• Didn't use extra effort on orcs, which would have changed things up significantly (more successful defenses using Feverish Defense, Droart probably would have been knocked out a turn earlier). However, they still would have used AOAs, since they didn't know the PCs were coming and were trying to knock him out quickly.
• The hearing checks for the escalade ended up being mostly pointless, since the RAW modifiers were so high. Still, Adie was eventually able to hear, which set up Conradin for one the most cinematic attacks of the scenario a couple turns later.
• It might have been slightly more interesting to have furniture (e.g. a four-poster bed) in the larger rooms, but realistically that probably wouldn't have changed the scenario that much.
• Including the civilian NPCs was kind of pointless, but if the PCs were less capable, the orcs might have been able to actually attack/capture some of them.

 

Finally, a list of useful pages that I kept referencing throughout the scenario:

References

Basic combat procedure 324
Parry/Dodge/Block details 376
Posture 367
Climbing 349
Evading 368
Hex combat 384
Close Combat 391
Extra effort 356
Dice+adds 269
HP thresholds and checks 419
Slam 371
Different Levels 402
Falling 430
Hearing 358
Jump attack 402
Jumping 352
Reaction table 560
Disarm 400
Weapon table 271
Crit fails 556
SSRT 550

 

 

As always, constructive commentary (via DMs) on rules mistakes or tactical missteps is welcome.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Bobcloclimar (see edit history)