[gurps] Fright Checks for Mortal Wounds

[rekres]

On 10/7/06, Erik Holmes <shoby187 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Does anyone else out there use fright checks for serious or mortal wounds?
>
> One thing I've found in GURPS is that while the combat system is deadly it
> can also be hard to kill or take someone down 'instantly'.

Uhm....  Almost had a TPK  last game session.  The party was invading
the dragon tower (aided by some illusionary disguises) and discovered
that one of the crew was being held on the detention level.  They took
the elevator to the detention level using the one PC who resisted the
illusionary disguise as a 'prisoner transfer'.

They got out of the elevator and ran into one dragonkin guard and two
technicians.  One PC  said something stupid so another one smacked him
on the back of the head.... causing both their disguises to fail.  The
technicians immediately hit the alarm and all hell broke loose.

I've been having the group roll a d12 for initiative and they got
lucky, the techs got a 5 and the guard got a 1.... so all the PCs got
to go before the techs and the guard.  Instead of spreading out and
attacking in two's and three's as usual, they all bunched up in front
of the elevator and either fired off guns or cast lightning bolts.
Everyone ignored the techs and shot up the dragonkin guard, who
managed to shrug off most of the damage.

When the guard's turn finally came up, he took off his helmet, reared
back and used his firebreath....  I told all the PCs to roll Dodge to
duck out the area... 6 out of the 7 characters failed the dodge roll.
I rolled the damage for the firebreath (4d) and got a 19.  Two of the
PC's went negative and BOTH failed the HT to stay alive.

Then the fun thing happened.... all the PCs had been carrying
explosives on them... out of the 6 who didn't dodge, 3 of them had
their explosives go off!  The three explosions managed to take out
another 3 characters (who ALL failed their HT rolls! One with a
crit-fail on HT!)

Out of 7 characters, I took out 5 with one fire-breath and 3
explosives... and some really BAD rolls on the player's part.


-- 
Chris J. Whitcomb
"I try to keep an open mind, but my brain keep falling out!"