Introduction Greetings and welcome to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Gorefest Dungeon! Gorefest Dungeon is an old-school hack-and-slash dungeon crawl designed for three to five players and filled with lots of monsters, traps, puzzles and loot. It's our goal to provide a fun, interesting and challenging experience while sticking as close to the written word of the GURPS rules as possible. This, our third "season," will focus on making our video recorded sessions available to the public. We'll meet every Sunday at noon Central time and sessions will last until 5 p.m. We generally play from autumn to spring, then take a break during spring and summer. Mission Statement Gorefest Dungeon's three-prong mission statement: 1. That everyone has fun while playing. 2. That we learn to better create fun and interesting challenges for a standard Dungeon Fantasy party of three to five delvers. 3. That we provide an entertaining and informative experience for a wide audience via a webpage, blog or vlog. All petitioners seeking a position as a player must agree to strive for the furtherance of Gorefest Dungeon's mission statement to the very best of their ability, and also to abide by all rulings and decisions made by a GM in regard to the game. Additionally, all petitioners pledge a strong dedication to be present for the entirety of each weekly session on time, giving advance warning when that is not possible, and to remain abreast of the game's state and news by checking the Roll20.net forums on regular occasion. Character Creation Last season, one of the many things we learned is a party that coordinates and cooperates is vastly more powerful than when players fail to work together as a cohesive unit. Teamwork is vital to the success of the group. While I have a number of improvements to make as a GM, unity and teamwork is the one area where I would like to see players further develop. Along those same lines, we have another chance to build a team from the ground up to work toward that Spartan goal. A balanced party is one that can overcome the widest variety of challenges. A party can be dominant in some areas and inefficient in others, but remember that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and if that chain is missing a link entirely, it's broken no matter what. We all know if the party is lacking melee or magic either one, it will fail, but there are a number of critical roles, or "niches" as Dungeon Fantasy likes to call them. Primarily among them are: Melee Combat Ranged Combat Trap Detection and Circumvention Wizardry Divine Miracles and Healing There are a lot of other canonical aspects to playing a standardized game of Dungeon Fantasy , but those are the live-or-die essentials as I see them. Note that divine magic doesn't necessarily mean healing and vice versa, but it often ends up being the same. Also note that the two "Magic" categories are extremely broad in scope. Rule #1 for creating characters for Season 3: players must work together to create a well-balanced team , not a cluster of individual characters. Returning players aren't required to submit character sheets when re-applying for Season 3 because primary characters will be made together as a group, publicly, so that Rule #1 is followed. There is no other way to efficiently follow Rule #1. I don't want to allow seats at our virtual tabletop to players who don't want to put the team first. As the primary designer of the dungeons, players would be well advised to follow my suggestions when creating a team with the greatest chance to overcome the widest variety of adversity. Here are my suggestions: Melee: A Knight with heavy armor and a shield is probably the simplest and most effective front-line warrior concept for a number of reasons, but there are countless other ways to get the job done. There are other good templates, such as the Holy Warrior, that also perform well in this position. The Savage Warrior template from Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians is another favorite. While Swashbucklers are popular damage-dealers, they aren't doing more than Knights and at the same time, a Knight can take what they dish out. Ranged Combat: If it's not a Scout filling the role of ranged combat—and I promise flying monsters will be brutal this coming season—it's likely the team's ranged combat ability will suffer greatly; thrown weapons rarely match the consistency or damage potential of a Heroic Archer's longbow. Wizards are poorly armed for the duty especially considering they are far better equipped to handle other tasks. Trap Detection & Circumvention: The Thief is touted as the ultimate at trap detection and disarming, but the Rogue from DF Denizens: Swashbucklers, p. 11, is a far more optimized character template. The Scout can do a serviceable job at everything thief-related despite lacking Lockpicking and Poison skills, neither of which saw any use by players in previous seasons. Locked doors have always been bashed open or bypassed with magic, chests that haven't been smashed have been literally hauled out of the dungeon, and poisons aren't usually very efficient when used beside Knights, Scouts, and other damage dealers throwing handfuls of dice. However players decide the party should tackle trap detection and circumvention is up to the group, but it's a very important consideration. Mechanical traps will be ruthless this season! Wizardry: Wizardry practically must be handled by a dedicated Wizard, and I would strongly suggest fielding one with a diverse grimoire consisting of several colleges . This is also perhaps the best position for the most experienced player in the group; Wizards are a tricky template to optimize and field effectively. Protecting the party from other wizardry is one of the Wizard's primary functions as is recognizing and analyzing other magical items and threats. Don't forget the Wizard is one of the only templates with the Research skill, crucial for discovering secrets and pertinent intelligence about the dungeon. Imagine a level boss with Supernatural Durability. Without knowing his weakness, he'll be nigh impossible to slay. Of note, for Season 3, we're including the Wizardry Refined rules from Pyramid #3/60 . Furthermore, we're also including Druidic lenses and rules for their use from Pyramid #3/68 , pp. 29-32. Lastly, we're including Thaumatology, Thaumatology: Magical Styles, and Magical Styles: Dungeon Magic to the available source material for character creation. Divine Miracles and Healing: Everyone likes a little assistance from the gods. Divine miracles include clerical spells, healing, and protection against undead and demons. True Faith (Turning) is practically a win button against such foul monsters. Imagine fighting against a horde of 10,000 zombies shambling into a village without a Cleric in the party. Imagine facing a 5,000-point lich or demon lord without one. Not good situations! Usually, the Cleric pulls double duty as the healer and for good reason: the Minor, Major and Great Healing spells are the absolute best way to treat and mend injuries. Guess what; there will be a lot of injuries, so healing is kinda important. Divine servitors from Dungeon Fantasy 5 Allies are popular , but note there is a limit of two allies in a session. Source Material and Character Sheets Please use only the Basic Set, Magic, and the core Dungeon Fantasy line of supplements—with the exception of Incantation Magic , but including Denizens —when creating characters, except where noted above. Low-Tech and companions may be used for equipment. Please do not use other sources, including Pyramid. For exceptions, consult Co-GM Chris D., to whom players will submit character sheets for consideration. Characters can be created with the standard 250 point budget with a -50/-5-point disadvantage limit. Please follow the templates to the letter. If choosing a racial template from DF3 , please make certain there's enough points in the character template. See the Affording Racial Templates section of DF3 . You may follow the Skimping rules if needed. Notes: This season, we are limiting allies. There may be no more than two fielded in any given session. Additionally, we will use the Appearance Rolls as Loyalty Rolls rules from DF 15: Henchmen , p. 28. In past sessions, the Luck advantage's use was almost always anti-climactic to the ruination of dramatic tension, flying in the face of all three points of the mission statement, and while I would enjoy abolishing it altogether or adjusting how often it can be used—once per level per session sounds about right—it's both a common and canonical trait, so I don't want to do so. The aptly-named Ridiculous Luck rarely saw more than four or five uses in a single session, so the Game Time modifier from Powers , p. 108 won't help. However, there can be only one character in the party at a time with Luck, and that limit includes allies and henchmen. Rule #2 for creating characters for Season 3: Do not attempt to create super munchkins to astound the most experienced GURPS scholar as we are trying to balance combat encounters , so incredibly clever (or terrible) builds won't help us fulfill the mission statement, which all petitioners pledged to support to the best of their ability . We don't need any "trip/dodge/parry/throw/stun monkey" builds. Save it for the gladiator arenas. Rule #3 for creating characters for Season 3: It is a player's responsibility to maintain a current, accurate, and public record of their character sheets and to fully cooperate with the dean of characters while doing so. Keep a thread containing links to each iteration of your character. Each time you update your character, list what changes were made and post a link to your updated character sheet while leaving the link to your previous build before spending the points. Primary characters will be submitted to Chris in advance of the first session. You may submit up to three characters total for him to certify, and you should have at least one backup! Thanks for your interest and for reading and following the character creation rules! We're all looking forward to a fun and exciting Season 3 of Gorefest Dungeon!