Preparations II

The party's week in town is over all too quickly. The innkeep starts making oblique references to their advance payment being over, so they need to start looking for more work. Elias, as a travelling monk, spends his off days giving street sermons; Lottie is often found in the crowd of said sermons, lifting the purses of the faithful, while telling Elias that she absolutely was paying attention, and she's sure she'll come to the next one. Miguel and Garret, ever the hard workers, hit the bar. 

Lottie: Pickpocket, vs 13: 11, success by 2. 

Garret: Carousing, vs 12: 12, success by 0.

Miguel: Carousing, vs 12: 8, success by 4. 

Elias: Public Speaking, vs 12: 9, success by 3. 

The monk's offertory box contains 6 coppers by the end of the week. It might have been bigger, but Lottie's purse contains 10 that might have gone into it instead. In the bar, Miguel finds a card game with some old friends. Under Garret's watchful eye, he doesn't put too much into it, but he gives into his compulsion to gamble - he can't resist a flutter. 

Miguel: Gambling, vs 9: 11, failure by 2. 

Gamblers: Gambling, vs 12: 3, success by 9. 

He loses a silver in the process, but the experience is worth the money, as he overhears some rumours from a nearby table. The village is buzzing with reports of strange lights and singing coming from the fields a couple of miles west of town late at night. No-one's seen old Farmer Rutger in days, and while this isn't unusual in itself, the old coot being a solitary sort, his sheep are ranging further than they should be and are causing a nuisance to traffic. None of the locals will go near the farmhouse, the rumour being that it's situated near one of the old barrow-halls, from whence the wights will emerge, drag you into the depths and drain the life from your body. 

Meanwhile, Garret stands against the wall, looking tough. Nearby, a stranger stands by the doorway, looking nervous. He taps his foot, takes short drags on his pipe, and watches the door obsessively. Every man that walks past gets a frantic look-over, which they mostly ignore, but it's clear that he's outstaying his welcome. One or two of them has spoken to the barkeep, and he seems to be gathering his courage to ask him to leave. Honestly, Garret's had enough of the guy already, so he decides to take matters into his own hands. "Look, buddy," he starts, before the shifty-eyed man grabs him by his jacket and starts pulling him towards the door. 

Garret: Bad Temper, vs 12: 9, success by 3. 

Garret manages to keep a hold on his temper long enough for the stranger to start talking to him outside. "What the hell are you-"

"Shh, shh - here," says the man, taking Garret's hand in his and pressing a wooden tag into his palm. It's about the size of a firestriker, but flat and rectangular. It feels like a hardwood. Before Garret can say anything, the man is gone. Tracks lead off into the twilight, but Garret doesn't feel like chasing after him. When he re-enters the inn, the barkeep waves him over, thanks him quietly, and offers him a drink for the trouble, which he gratefully accepts. He finds a seat and looks over the wooden tag. One side bears pyrographed marks, resembling words but in a tongue he can't read (which is all of them, but he knows what words look like around here, and this ain't them). The other side is similarly pyrographed but the design doesn't look like text. It runs lengthways, with right-angled lines crossing each other, splitting, and coming together again into larger shapes. He fiddles with it until Miguel comes over to ask for that five coppers back, because he's on a winning streak now, before he grabs Miguel by the scruff of the neck and drags him home.

The two return to the inn, where the crew gathers for a strategy meeting. Garret passes the wooden tag around first, to see if anyone recognises the script, or what it says. None of the party members can read it, so he heads upstairs to find Werner, still bedbound, his nose in a book. "Of course I've seen its kind before," he says, with a sniff. "It's dwarvish. See how angular these lines are? No curves in dwarven script, which is how you can tell -"

"Can you tell what it says?"

"I'm afraid not. My school only offered electives in the elvish and draconic languages, as those are the most likely to be in magical texts."

"And you can read those?"

"No, I took classical literature to hit on a goth girl in the class. Turns out she had a boyfriend."

Garret closes the door without a word and returns to the common room. There are no dwarves conveniently in the inn, so he hands the tag to the innkeeper and asks him to keep an eye out for any dwarves passing through, with a silver to sweeten the deal. He takes it, but makes clear that he can't promise anything. That'll have to do, thinks Garret, as he seats himself at the party's table with a flagon of cheap ale. Miguel is holding court, recounting the tale he overheard, and suggesting that it could be a lucrative venture. Sure, the barrows are creepy, but no-one's been in there for years - and if someone's in danger, that's just the excuse they need to go in there! Elias looks uncomfortable, but Garret and Lottie, being the amoral sort, aren't worried by desecrating a few graves. In fact, Lottie notes, she has fond memories of Old Man Rutger, and she'd hate to see him go before his time. Garret agrees. 

"Going there's all well and good," says Elias, "But if this is a common problem maybe someone would be willing to pay us to investigate. They might even give us an advance, if we ask nicely." There's a murmur of agreement around the table, before the obvious question arises. "Who?" Elias doesn't know the local temple - they probably wouldn't like him anyway. Miguel's persona non grata amongst the nobles in the area, as pretty much all of them have some grudge against him for being on an opposing side. Or maybe the same side, who knows - he's fought a lot of guys for some reason or another. And Garret's fresh off the farm. It falls to Lottie to speak up. "I know a guy, he's fenced some stuff for me in the past. If we bring back something worth selling he might spot us some gear." In the absence of better options, she's sent round to see him. 

Lottie: Streetwise, vs 12: 4, success by 8.

She's back in about the time it takes the lads to finish a flagon of mead - a spicy one, with plenty of juniper berries - with good news! "He's in," she says, brandishing a letter of credit. "He'll give us two gold pieces' worth of gear each." Their eyes boggle - clearly this man knows something they don't. Miguel is the first to speak, haltingly at first. "Okay… how much is he expecting?" 

"He wants 24 back. Or that much in merchandise, at least." The table once again falls silent, each adventurer calculating how long they could live in luxury for 24 gold pieces. "Too risky," says Garret, after a long period of contemplation. "There's no way there's that much stuff down there, and even if there was, we'd be better served taking it for ourselves. No deal." 

"But think what we could get with the money!" argues Lottie, but she's shouted down by both Garret and Miguel in unison. Garret has seen men older than him be ruined by smaller debts than that. Miguel has personally been ruined by smaller debts than that. The downcast thief looks to Elias for support, but he offers a sympathetic smile instead. "It is indeed a lot of money, for which we'd not find much use, my dear. We've already looked for things we can purchase and they're simply not for sale - I've got armour I'm waiting for, in fact." Lottie purses her lips and heads back out to tell her sponsor the bad news. 

While she's gone, the remaining party members consider their options. The barrows are no further than the monastery was - commuting would probably be quicker, in fact. But staying in the inn would cost them at least $20/day, probably more - and without knowing how long they'd be exploring the barrow, that could rack up quickly. They decide to forgo the creature comforts this time, and the following day Garret takes the wheelbarrow to the market and buys a four-man tent ($150, 30 lb), with two poles to go with it ($5, 3 lb each); a cookpot and various camping basics for the group ($50, 20 lb); four bedrolls ($20, 4 lb each); a wineskin for them each ($10, 0.25 lb each); and 100 meals' worth of rations - enough to last them the week and more ($2, 0.5 lb each). While he's there, he also picks up a pouch ($10, 0.2 lb) of iron pegs ($1, 0.5 lb each) and a mallet ($15, 3 lb) for spiking doors, recalling their concern in the monastery It totals $541 and 128.5 lb, the lion's share in the tent and the food. The cost comes out of the group kitty, leaving $199 for emergencies. Elias, as the self-appointed treasurer, grumbles a little, but not too much - it was a deferred purchase anyway, and cheaper than the $600 they would have paid to the innkeeper (who's within his rights to grumble). 

Today's lesson: Choose your course modules carefully. 

Commentary: I See a Red Door and I Want to...

While preparing the next dungeon, I was reviewing the previous one, and the decisions I made in it regarding doors. Doors are a big thing in dungeons. They provide thematic and tactical decisions, and chokepoints; they act as obstacles, both for the players and their adversaries; and they have an almost-legendary, Chandler's Law-esque function of beginning combats, as immortalised in the Munchkin board game. But for all that, there's a few holes in the rules around them, in Dungeon Fantasy at least. 

There are rules given in DF2 and DFRPG for smashing through doors, whether that be brute-forcing it with a Forced Entry roll, or really brute-forcing it by whacking it with a maul. There's a nice selection of different door strengths for varying materials, as well as stats for their hinges and fittings. It does make Forced Entry somewhat useless at DX level, as there's no mechanical benefit to having it over just whacking the thing, but that's much like Brawling, really. I've been chewing on two problems - one easy, and one hard. 

The Spiegel Special

The first problem - the easy one - is spiking doors. Spiking doors has a long history, and one that often confuses beginners to the hobby. Why does D&D, to this day, include iron spikes on the equipment list at 10 to a gp? Well, keeping doors closed, for starters. Jam one under the door, or hammer one into the ground in front of it, and it's stuck. If you don't want a lock undone by tricksy hobbit hands (or someone holding a key), whack a spike in the lock and that'll screw it up good. Other fun uses include staking leg-hold traps (although those often conveniently come with spikes installed) and setting up elaborate Rube Goldberg machines to trap enemies. But how to game it out? 

Spiking a door takes at least two Ready manoeuvres, although that's in the ideal situation where you're already in position and have a mallet (or sledgehammer) and a spike to hand. 2d seconds is probably fair as an off-the-cuff abstraction, if it matters. Splitting the job between two people - one to hold the spike, one to whack - halves the time. In a hurry, roll vs Forced Entry to spike the door properly - failure means it looks solid but won't stand up to a good kicking. Critical failure inflicts damage to the hand of whoever's holding the spike - sw+2 cr for a mallet, sw+5 cr for a sledgehammer - which is why experienced delvers pull the blow (min ST 10). Clearly, they won't be as good at holding doors closed as real fittings. The Basic Set suggests a half-pound homogeneous item should have 6 HP, which puts it in line with a "light" lock from DFRPG Exploits, p82 - so we can say DR 3 as well. That means anyone trying to force their way through it is going to have to roll ST-3 against a 9. That's enough to stop the average ST 10 peasant, but a motivated troll won't be impressed - what to do? Add more spikes! 3 spikes, properly placed, act as an Average lock; 5 act as a Heavy one. Further spikes don't help.

The effect of a monster finding a blocked door is, of course, up to the GM, but an IQ roll might be in order. Success means the monster correctly identifies the door as being sabotaged, and either attempts to force their way through or calls reinforcements. Failure means the confused monster turns around and walks away, probably to call the locksmith. Failure by 5 or more, or critical failure, means the frustrated monster tries to bash their way through anyway! How doors survive so long in dungeons full of IQ 1 jellies and giant ants is a mystery. 

Spiking a lock requires the same time, but only requires one spike, and can only prevent the opening (or closing!) of a pre-existing lock, whether that be through the use of a key, lockpicking tools or magic. It doesn't make the fittings any sturdier, either - it's just a convenient way of ruining a locksmith's work. 

I Listen at the Door

Now, here's the tricky one. Being loud in a dungeon is self-evidently silly, and adds to the chances of wandering monsters appearing (DFRPG Exploits, p85). Bashing a door down forces a wandering monster check. The walls have ears, and there's a great many walls in the dungeon! But doors seem not to have ears; the only mention of listening at the door is the spy's horn (DFRPG Adventurers, p113), which allows a roll to hear through a barrier at a penalty of (DR+HP)/5. The lightest door on the tables is DR 1, HP 23, so the penalty is -5, and it only goes up from there. The penalty for the heaviest door is -47, although you'd be silly to try doing that at a massive iron vault door regardless. Each step corresponds to about 10 dB attenuation, so you're looking at a 50dB drop through the lightest wooden door to hand. This is impressive work, given that most modern doors are only rated for 20 to 40 dB. Those fantasy medieval woodworkers know their soundproofing! Since the cost of the spy's horn is by no means trivial ($100, or 1/10 of a starting adventurer's cash), we can assume that simply putting your ear to the door is unhelpful to the point of not even being mentioned - and don't even think about hearing stuff away from the door. But then how do the monsters keep hearing us through two doors?

This would be bad enough, but the Basic Set Hearing table (B358) is kind of... wonky. It's been added to, but not revised, since the release in 2004 - examples are High-Tech, p158 (2007) and Powers: Enhanced Senses, p21 (2015). This suggests that SJ Games are fairly happy with it, or at least it's not bad enough to change, like Off-Hand Weapon Training or the Low-Tech armour and shields. 

So, clearly, someone thinks it's playable. But as is, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The most basic roll - hearing a normal conversation from a yard away - is unmodified. That is to say, the average person (with Per, and therefore Hearing, at 10), will notice speech from 3 feet away 50% of the time. This is, of course, before we include interfering noise (-1 to -10) and any distractions (-2 to -4), ear coverings (-4) or intervening barriers (-5 to -47, apparently). It's a wonder we hear anything at all, really. Fine, says the veteran GURPS GM, just slap a +10 on there as an equivalent to "in plain sight" (also B358). This would mean the average person will certainly hear a conversation from a yard away, barring critical failures - but would also mean the average person has 50/50 odds of hearing, if not interpreting, a conversation from half a mile away, which is clearly not correct. A more moderate bonus of +4 gives you 50/50 odds of hearing a conversation at 16 yards, which sounds fair, but probably has implications at the higher end of the list. (Maybe the original writers of GURPS 4e had Hard of Hearing?)

This makes it much easier to hear things! Good thing dungeons are full of doors. A door penalises hearing by an amount equal to its DR - so a flimsy wooden one adds -1 to Hearing, while an extra-heavy one adds -6. The spy's horn halves the penalty to hear through a barrier, rounding in your favour (so +0 and -3, in the examples given). 

Any noise you need to hear over - a loud conversation, or the sounds of combat - penalises Hearing by the same bonus it would give to hear after any range penalty, so, for example, -4 in melee combat (which conveniently reduces Hearing back to the standard level). If you were standing 2 yards away from the melee, you would be at only -3 to hear anything over the din of combat (although this would of course be very fuzzy at the margins), while an archer 16 yards away would roll to hear any nearby interruptions at no penalty. If there are multiple competing noise sources, use the loudest; with a melee on one side (-4) and a dragon roaring on the other (-8), our archer would roll at -8 to hear the knight beside him, telling him to run away (although he would get +3 for the shouting, and +4 as a default Hearing bonus).

Let's game it out, quickly. 

Inconsiderate Ignatius and his entourage are arguing in a dungeon room about how to split the loot from the draug boss they just killed. They're at the end of a 20-yard room. There are two doors leading in - one open (the one they kicked down), and one closed, both of average wood construction. The GM tires of their banter and rolls a wandering monster check, finding that a gang of draugr are on patrol nearby, behind the door. Neither side is being sneaky, or are inherently aware of the other, so the GM rolls against both parties' Hearing to see if they can attempt a surprise attack (DFRPG Exploits, p27).

Ignatius: Hearing, vs 13, +4 (base Hearing bonus), -5 (range), -3 (shouting), -2 (door) = 7: 9, failure by 2. 

Draug: Hearing, vs 10, +4 (BHB), +3 (shouting), -5 (range), -2 (door) = 10: 10, success by 0. 

Unbeknownst to the party, the draugr hear shouting through the door, and approach - they get a chance to surprise. 

We'll see how these rules play out in a slightly longer example next time.