GURPS Banestorm redux

I was picturing:


or

which didn’t seem right.

Yup.

In GURPSage, those are Duelling bucklers.

Ye olde Viking shields are pretty much a duelling buckler with a light wooden rim; if the wooden part gets hacked to bits, you still have the little buckler.

Viking swordplay is axe-derived; they tended to “fence” with their shield far out in front, with the sword held back until it swings in for a big chop/slice. English style swordplay is spear derived; sword out in front, with the shield just behind it, fencing with the swordpoint.

The English style works well with a strap-on shield, the Viking style wants a buckler.

To demonstrate:

Ranar’s current shield is a Heavy Medium shield with a spike.

The big Roman shields were technically bucklers as well; they were too awkward to strap on.

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How badly hurt is that horse? Recoverable, or is the kindest thing going to be to put it down?

It was seriously shot by Thwip, and then tumbled into Sasha’s pit.

Hayu isn’t a vet, but it’s the sort of thing where you’d expect the horse to be put down unless it was valuable enough to justify magical healing.

Well, unless our resident mage has the spells and beats her to the punch, she’s going to put it out of its misery. She doesn’t like to see an animal suffer.

It was a judgement call as to whether Ranar should go with Wrench Limb there or just a Pin.

I went with the Wrench because (a) he’d already shot someone just a few seconds earlier, and (b) there was another opponent still active, and going for the Pin would’ve stopped Ranar from dealing with him (if he hadn’t run away).

Mangled limbs can be magically repaired, but it’s more than just a basic Healing spell.

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Unless the horse’s leg is broken, which I think may be beyond my skills, I’m going to start handing out the heals

Fits the situation - Ranar has had some stress recently and suddenly found himself in a dangerous situation with 5 unknowns and only 1 known reliable ally (no offense to the new characters). He’s impulsive so he shot first, but when he realized that might’ve been wrong and tried to scare off the horsemen, when that didn’t work, instinctively acting to incapacitate to even the odds makes sense.

No offense taken . I mean it’s not like we stabbed you in the back we weren’t even there to do so. :grin:

Meta-point: the tensions within the party regarding the appropriate use of violence are a good thing, handled right. This is the bread and potatoes of high-grade roleplaying.

It’s also kinda realistic; the party recently had a major disruption to its tactical command structure with the deaths of Aronn and de Courcy. A loosening of use-of-force standards is exactly what you’d expect if that happened in a military unit.

Yrth is a “plausible” epic fantasy world; there are plenty of shiny sparkles on the surface, but there’s also blood and cruelty underneath. I’ll follow the vibe of you guys as to how gritty you want it to get, but there are genuine human issues to play with if folks want to do so.

So long as everyone is careful to distinguish between player and character, it’s all good. :slight_smile:

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Healing the horse is double fatigue cost due to its size.

The horse’s legs are unbroken, but it took a lot of damage from Thwip’s bullet.: 16HP. It’s bleeding badly; without veterinary treatment, it will die. Sasha can restore HP, but he lacks the expertise to halt bleeding on a horse. He has First Aid skill for bleeding on people.

Ranar’s horseman is unconscious but stable. You can wake him up, but he won’t walk again without a specialist healer.

The first horseman is dead. Apart from the crossbow bolt and bullet wound, he appears to have broken his neck as he fell from the horse.

I will edit to reflect this.

BTW: Sasha has healing spells, but he isn’t a specialist healer. Unlike Hawk, he lacks the ability to stop bleeding, reverse poison or fix a crippled limb.

Other meta-point: Ranar, given sufficient time, can pacify a foe without causing any injury. But, in a hurry, he is also thoroughly capable of removing extremities from anything short of an Ogre.

The ball’s with you lot. Perhaps some posts on the narrative thread getting introduced to each other and working out what you’ll do next?

Ranar and Sasha could collectively patch up the horse to the point where it won’t die, but it won’t be carrying a rider for a while.

I will let them decide if they want to spend their energies on the horse, but Hayu will have no qualms about putting it down if it can’t be saved.

Role-playing it may be good.

I’M BACKSEAT GM’ING!

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Sasha’s going to cast a minor heal on the horse, which should help calm it down.

@wanderfound, do I just roll the dice now?

Sure, although it’s a near certainty; 15 or less on 3d6 assuming you double casting time.

2FP from you for each HP healed on the horse, up to a maximum of 6FP/3HP.

A Vet roll from Ranar will sort out the bleeding.

On second thought, if Sasha throws a full power Major Heal at the horse (8FP/8HP), it’ll be fit enough to carry a rider.

A roll of 14 or less for that, due to the lower skill on Major Heal.