Corrections, News, and Scenes of Pastoral Charm

by mshrm

As PeterD pointed out, when I was troubled by Gabby’s apparent ability to skewer anybody grabbing her rapiers, I overlooked B391, which says it’s impossible to use such a long weapon in Close Combat, and the expanded rules in GURPS Martial Arts, which would allow it, but at a daunting -12. I tend towards using the latter rules, just because I’d rather see ’em roll than not. That means Gabby would be rolling at (if I remember correctly) an effective 7. That’s the land of wild swings and the gun going off accidentally during the struggle, so all’s well.

Remember, though, Gabby has a decent pile of accumulated XP and no particular project to spend ’em on. If she decides to chase pure, raw skill with her weapon of choice, she’ll rapidly achieve the high 20’s. At that point, she can eat a -12 and keep on coming. That, too, is entirely cool.  You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, and you don’t try to grab the swords off Miyamoto Musashi.

Word is that the players that animate Alric and Gabby won’t be able to make the next session, though. Luckily, the party managed to extract themselves from the dungeon last session, so it’s easy to sideline them for a bit. In-game, the two of them decided to take a week off to rest and recuperate from their respective injuries. Gabby is waiting for the power of prayer to mend all the bones in her arm, of course, while Alric took a hit to the groin that wasn’t mortal, wasn’t crippling, but was deeply demoralizing. They’re going to spend some time at the inn, drinking heavily in between lessons in fighting more like the jumping flea than the raging bull.

Thus, the next session is going to be the classic Fighter-Thief-Magic-user team of The Knight of the Blood Oath, Needles, and Mississippi Jed. Last I heard, they were plotting to perform an exorcism and shut down the evil temple they found last session. That’s after checking in with Strang, to give him the bad news. I’ve been discussing the situation with the remote player behind Strang, and he’s come up with an interesting response, something a lot more fun that I would have come up with, alone.

In the meantime, I’m splitting my gaming attention between setting up for the debut of (a stripped-down version of) the GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling rules, and working through the long-delayed restocking. I expect that the next session will start with a flurry of paperwork as we look up everyone’s Grip ST and training bonuses (boni? bonusim? bonoxen?) and favorite techniques and such-like. I’m a little surprised to report, looking over the character sheets, that 3/5th of the PCs already have points devoted to some form of grappling skill. The highest skill level is DX+0, though, which makes sense: none of these guys are meant to be dedicated wrasslers. The one who put any points towards it at all are the more front-line folks, who surely did it for defensive purposes. I guess that’ll save looking up those training bonuses, after all…

 

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