GURPS_4e_-_Dungeon_Fantasy_3_-_The_Next_Level.pdf

by SEAN PUNCH

Illustrated by ED NORTHCOTT, SHEA RYAN, and DAN SMITH

An e23 Sourcebook for GURPS ®

STEVE JACKSON GAMES

Stock #37-0305

Version 1.0 – February 21, 2008

C ONTENTS

I NTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1. N ONHUMAN R ACES . . . . . . . . 4

Cat-Folk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Coleopteran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Corpse-Eater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Dark One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Dwarf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Elves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Faerie Folk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Gargoyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Gnome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Goblin-Kin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Half-Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Halfling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Minotaur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Ogre. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Reptilians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Troll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Wildman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Swashbuckler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Thief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Wizard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

3. P OWER -U PS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Mortal Foe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Psionics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

2. M IXING P ROFESSIONS . . . . . . 17

Barbarian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Bard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Cleric. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Druid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Holy Warrior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Knight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Martial Artist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Scout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

4. N EW C APABILITIES . . . . . . . . . 40

Spell-Archery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Two-Weapon Fighting . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Adding New Abilities. . . . . . . . . . . . 42

5. A DVANCEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

I NDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

GURPS System Design

❚

STEVE JACKSON

WILL SCHOONOVER

Production Artists

❚

Marketing Director

❚

PAUL CHAPMAN

GURPS Line Editor

❚

SEAN PUNCH

❚

ALEX FERNANDEZ

and PHILIP REED

Sales Manager

❚

ROSS JEPSON

e23 Manager

❚

PAUL CHAPMAN

FADE MANLEY

GURPS FAQ Maintainer

❚

PHILIP REED and ––––

JUSTIN DE WITT

Chief Operating Officer

❚

THOMAS WEIGEL

Prepress Checkers

❚

–––––––

BRETT SLOCUM

❚

WILL SCHOONOVER

and MONICA STEPHENS

❚

PHILIP REED

Playtesters: Paul Chapman, Philip Reed, and Thomas Weigel.

GURPS , Warehouse 23, and the all-seeing pyramid are registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level, Pyramid, and the

names of all products published by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated are registered trademarks or trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated,

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal,

and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage

the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

C ONTENTS

Art Director

Errata Coordinator

Page Design

Indexer

❚

I NTRODUCTION

In a high-powered game, there should be all manner of expen-

sive options available to soak up points: great wealth, exotic

advantages, magic, psionics, powerful racial templates . . . prefer-

ably several of these.

– GURPS Basic Set

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Adventurers and Dungeons

support fast, simple games with a limited number of roles,

skills, and options for delvers. They ape classic dungeon RPGs,

which emphasized killing monsters and taking treasure, not

designing characters. Still, complex character concepts with

tricky ability mixes have always been an element of hack-and-

slash gaming – if only because of the added opportunities for

munchkinism!

This is one area where GURPS outdoes old-school RPGs.

Ultimately, the GM of a GURPS dungeon crawl could simply

say, “Here are your points. Buy stuff. Get back to me when

you’re done.” However, such an approach might lead to down-

right unplayable PCs – or to such extreme munchkinism that

only one player has fun. Enter Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next

Level.

The goal of The Next Level is to support more-complicated

but balanced PCs – both at the start and after some in-game

evolution. Like other Dungeon Fantasy titles, it’s simply a play

aid, and takes a hack-and-slash approach that won’t suit every

fantasy campaign. It describes races only in terms of traits like-

ly to matter on a dungeon crawl. It treats character templates

as almost mandatory when GURPS normally views them as

optional. Most important, it cultivates munchkinism whenever

that would be fun!

About the Author

Sean “Dr. Kromm” Punch set out to become a particle

physicist and ended up as the GURPS Line Editor. Since 1995,

he has compiled the two GURPS Compendium volumes, writ-

ten GURPS Wizards and GURPS Undead, edited or revised

over 20 other GURPS books, and masterminded rules for

dozens more. Most recently, he created the GURPS Basic Set,

Fourth Edition with coauthor David Pulver, wrote GURPS

Powers with co-author Phil Masters, and wrote GURPS

Martial Arts with co-author Peter V. Dell’Orto. Sean has been

a fanatical gamer since 1979. His non-gaming interests include

cinema, computers, and wine. He lives in Montréal, Québec

with his wife, Bonnie. They have two cats, Banshee and

Zephyra, and a noisy parrot, Circe.

About GURPS

Steve Jackson Games is committed to full support of

GURPS players. Our address is SJ Games, P.O. Box 18957,

Austin, TX 78760. Please include a self-addressed, stamped

envelope (SASE) any time you write us! We can also be

reached by e-mail: info@sjgames.com . Resources include:

Pyramid ( www.sjgames.com/pyramid ). Our online

magazine includes new GURPS rules and articles. It also

covers the d20 system , Ars Magica, BESM, Call of

Cthulhu, and many more top games – and other Steve

Jackson Games releases like Illuminati, Car Wars,

Transhuman Space, and more. Pyramid subscribers also

get opportunities to playtest new GURPS books!

New supplements and adventures. GURPS continues to

grow, and we’ll be happy to let you know what’s new. For a

current catalog, send us a legal-sized SASE, or just visit

www.warehouse23.com .

e23. Our e-publishing division offers GURPS adven-

tures, play aids, and support not available anywhere else!

Just head over to e23.sjgames.com .

Errata. Everyone makes mistakes, including us – but we

do our best to fix our errors. Up-to-date errata sheets for all

GURPS releases, including this book, are available on our

website – see below.

Internet. Visit us on the World Wide Web at

www.sjgames.com for errata, updates, Q&A, and much

more. To discuss GURPS with SJ Games staff and fellow

gamers, come to our forums at forums.sjgames.com . The

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level web page is

www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/dungeonfantasy3 .

Bibliographies. Many of our books have extensive bibli-

ographies, and we’re putting them online – with links to let

you buy the books that interest you! Go to the book’s web

page and look for the “Bibliography” link.

Rules and statistics in this book are specifically for the

GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition. Page references that

begin with B refer to that book, not this one.

I NTRODUCTION

N ONHUMAN

R ACES

Hack-and-slash fantasy draws a distinction between

humankind and “monster races.” The latter are suitable only as

enemies – or at best, as pets or things summoned by spells.

Traditionally, though, there’s a middle ground of intelligent

nonhuman races (dwarves, elves, etc.) that can join humans on

adventures. With occasional exceptions, members of these

races can use standard gear, and are enough like humanity that

townsfolk and dungeon denizens treat them as delvers rather

than as monsters . . . although the least-civilized examples

(such as orcs) are sometimes monsters, too!

Players can create adventurers who belong to the races

described here, if the GM agrees. And the GM might not agree

– he may reserve certain races for use as monsters! The gamer

who wants to play a nonhuman should remember that he must

pay the racial cost for the desired racial package, just as if he

were buying an advantage, and that all components of a racial

template are mandatory, unlike traits on a character template.

See How to Use Racial Templates (p. B261) for details.

Templates designed by the GM should include comparable

allowances. Assume that a racial template counts as an appro-

priate “advantage” for any character template that can afford

it; e.g., a thief could choose from standard thief advantages or

any race that costs up to 30 points. Of course, some races have

traits that make them bad choices for certain roles!

Disadvantage and Quirk Points

Every PC can get an additional 5 points from quirks, and

possibly further points from personal disadvantages. A

munchkin will certainly claim those! The standard 250-point

templates often suggest trading these points for money, but

that’s just a recommendation – the player makes the final call.

Buying a racial template is an entirely valid option.

Skimping

The GM might allow players to buy racial templates with

some of the points that their character template allocates to

powers, spells, and special skills. This gets tricky – it can yield

delvers who let down the party because they lack expected abil-

ities. Thus, it’s wise to restrict such siphoning. A suggested

limit: 1/3 of those points, rounded down. For the standard tem-

plates:

Bard: 15 points (from 25 points in Bard-Song abilities + 20

points in special skills and spells)

Cleric: 15 points (from 25 points in Holy abilities + 20 points

in clerical spells)

Druid: 13 points (from 20 points in Druidic abilities + 20

points in druidic spells)

Holy Warrior: 8 points (from 25 points in Holy abilities)

Martial Artist: 11 points (from 20 points in Chi abilities + 14

points in special skills)

Wizard: 10 points (from 30 points in wizardly spells)

Since it’s possible to buy “sacrificed” abilities in play, this

isn’t crippling in the long term. If the GM uses Training

Expenses (p. 43), though, it can be expensive!

Overlap

When something appears on a racial template and a char-

acter template, the simplest approach is to assume that the two

traits “stack” at full cost. For instance, the barbarian template

includes “ST 17 (Size, -10%) [63],” while ogres have “ST+10

(Size, -10%) [90].” Thus, ogre barbarians have ST 27, costing

153 points total, spent one way or another.

Dungeon fantasy is humanocentric, though. What really

matters is that members of a profession can meet human stan-

dards for that role. If even an average or slightly above-average

nonhuman qualifies in this regard, he’s a “natural” and can do

the job – human guilds will admit him, gods will bestow their

gifts, whatever.

Affording Racial Templates

Few racial templates cost 0 points. In a campaign that

doesn’t use character templates, this isn’t an issue – players

can create whatever heroes they like, and racial templates are

merely another option that costs points. Just skip ahead to

the templates! Hack-and-slash gaming is quicker and often

more fun with character templates, however.

In a game that uses character templates priced close to the

campaign power level – like those in Dungeon Fantasy 1:

Adventurers when starting a 250-point game – it can be hard

to find enough points to pay for a racial template. One option

is for the GM to hand out more points, which will let players

who want racial packages afford them. Gamers who prefer to

play humans certainly won’t have any problem spending the

extra points, and might want to look at Mixing Professions

(p. 17).

If the GM prefers to see the adventurers earn their points

the hard way – e.g., he takes the recommended approach of

250-point character templates in a 250-point game – there are

still many options available to players who desire nonhuman

PCs.

Advantage Allowances

Every character template in Dungeon Fantasy 1:

Adventurers reserves some points for suitable advantages:

Cleric, Druid, Martial Artist, Scout: 20 points

Bard, Holy Warrior: 25 points

Barbarian, Thief, Wizard: 30 points

Knight, Swashbuckler: 60 points

N ONHUMAN R ACES

C HAPTER O NE

So if the players are willing to do the math, the GM should

permit them to “save points” by omitting anything on their

chosen character template that’s innate to their selected racial

template, and to put those points toward the racial cost. Let’s

look at that ogre barbarian again. Barbarians are supposed to

be strong – which all ogres are – so the average ogre could fill

the role of a human barbarian just fine. The ogre barbarian’s

player could thus save 63 points on ST and use these points to

pay for the ogre template.

The GM is welcome to rule that this isn’t acceptable in

specific cases in his world! If humans and shadow elves have

separate Thieves’ Guilds that hold members to high stan-

dards of DX relative to their species, then shadow elf thieves

must have DX 16 – the DX 15 on the thief template, +1 for

being a shadow elf.

C AT -F OLK

40 points

Choice Professions: Martial Artist, Scout, Swashbuckler,

Thief.

Marginal Professions: None.

Cat-folk are the most common of the so-called “beast-men.”

Their physical gifts make them exceptional adventurers. A cat-

boy or -girl (as they prefer to be known) resembles a lithe

human with classic feline ears, whiskers, teeth, claws, and tail.

Cat-folk fur is short, often with rosettes, spots, tabby markings,

or tiger stripes.

Attribute Modifiers: ST-1 [-10]; DX+1 [20].

Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: Per+1 [5].

Advantages: Catfall [10]; Claws (Sharp) [5]; Combat Reflexes

[15]; Fur [1]; Night Vision 5 [5]; Striking ST 2 [10]; Teeth

(Sharp) [1].

Disadvantages: Impulsiveness (12) [-10]; Laziness [-10];

Phobia (Entering Water) (15) [-2].

Features: Tail (neither a manipulator nor enough of a problem

to interfere with armor).

Choice and Marginal Professions

Each racial template below has two extra components of

importance to gamers using character templates from

Dungeon Fantasy 1: Adventurers –

Choice Professions: Character templates that especially suit

the race. This might be because the racial and character tem-

plates overlap a lot, because the race’s advantages give bonus-

es to key skills, and/or because the race has traits that would

otherwise help the delver fill his niche (perhaps despite other

drawbacks from that profession’s point of view – a member of

a low-ST flying race makes a superior scout, even with a weak

bow arm).

Marginal Professions: Character templates that aren’t a

harmonious fit – most often because the race suffers penal-

ties to essential scores, or possesses traits that conflict with

the job (e.g., social disadvantages are crippling for a bard).

However, only roles marked with an asterisk (*) are actually

forbidden (e.g., spellcasting professions for races with Magic

Resistance).

Other roles fall somewhere in the middle. Members of the

race can expect to be about as successful as humans at those

professions – whether because they lack traits likely to affect

those careers either way or because the good balances the bad.

You never have to pick a choice profession or avoid a mar-

ginal one (provided that it isn’t forbidden). A bad match might

be a good roleplaying challenge, but be sure that’s what you

want! In a pure hack-and-slash game, effectiveness usually mat-

ters more.

C OLEOPTERAN

75 points

Choice Professions: Barbarian, Knight, Swashbuckler.

Marginal Professions: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Wizard.

Coleopterans are intelligent, upright beetles with hard cara-

paces, bulging eyes, and functional antennae. Natural delvers,

they spend most of their time digging tunnels and warring

against other underground species. Their appearance and

high-pitched monotone make them disturbing adventuring

companions, however.

A coleopteran has the height and weight of a human of his

ST. No humanoid armor will fit a coleopteran, and the race –

being hard-shelled – never wanted for protection and so lacks

armorers. Thus, coleopteran PCs must make do with their nat-

ural DR 5.

Attribute Modifiers: ST+1 [10]; IQ-1 [-20]; HT+1 [10].

Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: Per+1 [5].

Advantages: 360° Vision [25]; Damage Resistance 5 (Can’t Wear

Armor, -40%) [15]; Extra Arms 2 [20]; Extra Attack 1 [25];

Teeth (Sharp) [1]; Vibration Sense (Air) [10].

Disadvantages: Appearance (Hideous) [-16]; Disturbing Voice

[-10].

Features: Cannot learn non-insect languages above Accented

level.

Races from Other GURPS Books

Readers who own other GURPS works – notably

Banestorm and Fantasy – will notice many races here

that share a name but little else with races described in

those books. There are two reasons for this:

• Where possible, Dungeon Fantasy races are priced

so that template-built clerics, druids, martial artists,

and scouts with only 20 advantage points can afford

racial costs.

• Dungeon Fantasy races include only abilities rele-

vant to hack-and-slash!

C ORPSE -E ATER

20 points

Choice Professions: Barbarian, Knight, Thief.

Marginal Professions: Bard.

Corpse-eaters are certainly in the running for the foulest

“civilized” race. Individuals are often polite, respectful, and

sophisticated . . . but, well, they look like bald vampires and eat

corpses. At best, they’re confused with undead; at worst,

they’re lynched.

N ONHUMAN R ACES

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: