A two-parter! We escape with the idol. We escape with the ark. We deliver the Allies a super-weapon. Basically, we perform way better than the original team. Also features the rapidly-becoming-usual incidental body count.
indianajones — sallah — marionravenwood
Indy’s skill levels. Whoah. Archeology 19 – not bad. Of course he’s only got Teaching 11, so not great as a professor. But in general he’s very capable – Traps, History, Whip, Fast Draw, Theology, Riding, Research all at 14 or better makes him one of the more capable adventurers we’ve had. Interestingly enough, he’s not great on social skills (for someone with Handsome and Charisma…) – which is part of why my version if Indy pretty much solves most of his problems with Thrilling Heroics. Daredevil is a nice little addition to any roll – it gives Indy +1 whenever he does something… needlessly reckless.
Marion tries to sever the spine. This is totally possible in GURPS – Martial Arts introduces this as a hit location, targetable at -8 by a variety of damage types. It’s got natural DR, like the skull, but has enhanced knockdown chance gets easily crippled, and if does get crippled it causes automatic knockdown + stunning and gives “severed spinal column” disadvantages. So basically, Marion, lying on her back (and thus taking position penalties of -4), with a Nazi goon grappling her torso (another -4), is gonna use an improvised weapon (another -1 to -3, probably the worse in this instance), to attack the spine (-8). Roll to hit, Marion: Knife – 19. Then, if she hits, she has to “sever the spinal column” – which I’d interpret as a crippling spinal injury at the very least – so she needs to beat DR 3 and then the HP of the goon (9? 10?). At least she’s got a weapon that she could plausibly call “cutting,” so she can multiply penetrating damage by 1.5… OK, so she needs to roll like 11 raw damage? With ST 9 and a broken bottle she’s probably rolling 1d – 3 damage, so also unlikely. Just roll an attack Joz – don’t tempt the GM with unnecessary description, he never rewards that sort of behavior!
Sala is remarkably effective at punching Nazis, which I suppose is in character, and with ST 12 and boxing at DX + 4 it’s no surprise. In the first part of this episode he fights a couple of guys in an alley and has no trouble whatsoever – and the rules are a pretty reasonable approximation of RAW too. We cut out a bunch of the mechanical talk, and Paulo was ostensibly keeping track of penalties. For instance, at one point Pitr confidently declares he’s gonna “sword [someone] to the face,” rolls, and declares he has succeeded by 2 – not nearly enough to hit if he was actually taking the penalty to aim to the face (which is -5). The thing is, Pitr doesn’t actually know how aiming works in GURPS, so Paulo just gives him the benefit of not taking what he says terribly seriously – my interpretation was that it was assumed that Pitr was actually making an un-aimed attack, which he succeeded at.
Oh – I thought of something else: Sallah gets totally wrecked by the snake venom. There’s a bit of this in the episode, but we roll right past it: this is the deadliest snake venom in the world. It’s magic old-testament snake venom. A GURPS RAW cobra does 2d damage every hour for 6 hours, with an HT-3 roll at every cycle to shake off further damage. The venom in the game only does 1 damage, which is resistible by HT (so, much easier), but it does it every minute. In the time a real snake has done 2d damage (avg 7), this poison has done 60! And unlike non-magic venom, which a resistance roll shakes, this venom sticks with Sallah well after an HT success. Of course, the fact it’s cinematic is good for the game in the case – kept us moving right along – so in that sense it was appropriate. But it was super lethal compared to real venom!
Talking about Pitr and the aimed roll, I think this goes to what the podcast needs to be. You want to target non-rpg focused rules nazis but don’t to exclude them either.
So I think being forgiving will only help the podcast, there is no winning or losing in the game, other than if no one listens to the podcast 🙂
Oh, I absolutely agree. Pitr doesn’t need to know the rules, really, as much as it pains me in actual play. I wasn’t advocating shutting that sort of play down – just trying to explain the process of the podcast to people who know/are interested in/care about the rules. Basically, I want the option to get special bonuses by aiming at body parts for my characters, without interfering with everyone else’s ability to talk about their characters in descriptive terms (that may also be GURPS terms of art). But you’re completely right about the podcast – it’s made for the listeners!
Yeah, absolutely. I don’t hold it against Pitr that he doesn’t know the rules, unless it’s funny, or I think it would annoy him, or it screws up the whole party. For this sort of game the GM should definitely be pretty forgiving about verbiage, while still being unforgiving about things like the paradox rules in BTTF2 – definitely a tightrope! Paulo does a really good job with it, most of the time (except where my characters get into trouble, of course).
So to even have a shot at that Marion would have to have knife at like 25-30. So, that’s completely impractical even in a cinematic campaign. Which makes sense, it’s a ridiculous move. But there’s something that sits wrong with me about the -8 total for prone and torso grappled. I feel like if someone is lying on top of me grabbing my torso and I have a free hand holding a knife, I could do some damage, -8 seems overly punitive. Am I thinking about that wrong?
Hi Ben – there are some things that could have made this easier for Marion, without assuming ridiculous skill levels. There are rules, for instance, for buying off the Improvised Weapons penalty in a cinematic game where it makes sense (think Jackie Chan movie). She could have used All-Out Attack (Determined) for an extra +4, or even Telegraphic for a further +4 – though that would also give the thug +2 to his defense, the fact that he’s prone and grappling her means his moves are limited too. In GURPS the more awesome actions often can be simulated by adding up a lot of bonuses against a lot of penalties that accrue – though of course this requires extensive rules knowledge an the patience of your friends…
You’ve got a good point about -8 for prone and grappled – it does seems steep. I think of it like this: the RAW “Grappled” condition isn’t for “a dude is laying on top of me.” If your torso is grappled it’s mean to represent something like the other guy has you by the shoulders and is holding you down actively, which would definitely prevent effective attacks with a knife even though your hand would still be free. Technical Grappling expands on these rules a lot, so that grappling is not a binary condition in quite the same way (grappled/not-grappled) – you can be more or less grappled, depending on how good your opponent is, how many turns he’s spent getting a good grip, how much you’ve managed to wriggle out, etc. Adding that granularity makes things like this attack more achievable (or possibly less achievable – depending on the circumstances), but it also adds a lot of complexity in play… it’s unlikely we’ll ever use those rules on the podcast.
Got ya. Yah, that makes sense that you guys wouldn’t want to get that nitty-gritty on the show. It would really kill the pacing.
Thanks for doing this. I love you on the show. Don’t ever stop putting axes in witches chests.
No pressure, but any kind of timeline for more posts? I was hoping to run frozen with my friends but I was waiting on the frozen post from you for tips and character sheets.
Oh jeez Kevin, you got me. I have been blowing it on putting stuff up. I tell you what – I hereby, in public, for all the world to see, promise to have Dice Talk up through Frozen before Christmas weekend. It’s too late to back out now!