Dungeons & Sorcery Spells 8

by on November 20, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: GURPS

Here’s another set of ten spells for my GURPS Dungeons & Sorcery project. Many of them are from later sources, but we headline with the old classic, Blink, and something of an emphasis on getting away.

Blink (C)
Alteration, Somatic, Verbal
35 points
Casting Time: 3 seconds
Casting Roll:
Range: none
Duration: 10 seconds

Casting this spell causes the magic-user to randomly teleport, or “blink”, once a second for the next ten seconds. Since it is random, it becomes hard for opponents to target the caster, as he may well shift out of range between attacks, and no amount of mind reading or analysis will predict where the caster will go. Of course, the same problem can inconvenience the caster.

Because this is happening without the caster’s control, he may try to perform other actions while blinking, but he must make a DX roll if he wants to perform an action before he blinks out of his current location. He must make this decision before he finds out the destination of his current blink (Wait maneuvers may be handy here, though casting a self-buff spell is still reasonable). Once an action is decided (or performed), roll for scatter (B414) with the distance halved, and the magic-user blinks to the nearest hex to that spot that is not obstructed (i.e., does not contain a wall, or other bulky object, such as a barrel; blinking into close combat with someone is possible) facing the same direction as when he started.

Note that actually performing any actions after the spell effect starts will depend on the caster making Body Sense rolls (B181) to keep from being disoriented/distracted. Finally, while the caster can take up to medium encumbrance worth of equipment with him (anything over that amount being left behind in the first blink), he will never take another creature with him. (e.g., if grasping a fairy in his hand, it would be left behind when he blinked. This is also handy for getting out of a grapple, if the caster can manage three seconds of gestures.)

Warp (Always On, -20%; Cosmic: No Die Roll Required, +50%; Extra Carrying Capacity, Medium, +20%; Range Limit, 3 yards, -50%; Requires Gestures, 10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Reduced Duration, 1/6, -15%; Sorcery, -15%; Takes Extra Time, x2, -10%; Uncontrollable, Random, -15%) [0.35×100] Note: “Uncontrollable” is boosted from its normal 10% for ‘harmless power’ as there is no Will roll to gain control.
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Newbie Wind Coalition Turn 1

by on November 16, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: F&E

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

Back in July, Carl Herzog went on the ADB forums and asked for a teaching game of Federation & Empire. After a little hesitation, I accepted, and also ended up with my Konya wa Hurricane game with Byron Sinor. Since then, the game with Carl has been slowly grinding forward, with lots of rules questions, clarifications, and various delays. The best delay was this:

Carl works with the USS Constitution museum, and was fully occupied for a couple weeks with the ceremonies surrounding the finish of her refit and relaunch.

Carl took the Coalition in the standard The Wind scenario, and hopefully we’ll at least get to the end of that. After a little bit of confusion on what was allowed, he ended up with a build schedule adapted from one I used the last time I started as the Coalition:

Builds
Klingons: D7C, TGA, D6, 8xD5, D5S, F5L, 4xF5, F5V, 3xE4
Lyrans: BC, TGC, 4xCW, 2xDW, DWS, 3xFF, MB, PDU

The Lyrans naturally did the typical thing  of lining up on the border, and moving against the three BATS facing them. I had a small force (CVL group + CL & FF) set up on 0803 and, except for one DF, the rest of the Count’s Fleet in the reserve. The DF reacted to 0803 as well, while the reserve went to 0703 and the Duke’s reserve went to 0701.

The six Lyran Home Fleet ships allowed closer to the border in 0707 did set up there, but ended up not moving, and later used Strategic Movement to stiffen the border. However, much of the Home Fleet was on 0608, and did move in to hit 0803.


Opening moves.

Battles:
0701: Lyran: dest CL, DD, crip CW, FF; Kzinti: crip BC, CL
0703: Lyran: dest CA, FF, crip 2xCL, 2xDD, FF; Kzinti: dest BATS, capture FF
0803: Lyran: dest 2xDD, 2xFF; Kzinti: crip BC

The Lyran force in 0701 was an adequate BATS-busting force (six ships), but when the Duke’s Reserve showed up, it was completely outclassed. Carl nearly attempted to fight it out anyway, but took my advice to run while he could after I accepted the first round approach battle, allowing him to keep something.

The best Lyran force was in 0703, and it rolled well enough on the first round to direct-cripple the BATS, and then killed it on the second round. I retreated onto adjacent BATS 0803; most of the Lyran force was crippled, so I could have done a lot of damage if I stuck around, though he’d kept a crippled CA on the line, which I killed with DirDam.

After I retreated onto it, Carl was facing three Kzinti carrier groups and retreated out after the approach battle. He decided not to put non-cripples in his pursued force to prevent further ships from being crippled, but lost all his cripples that way. (I advised for putting more ships in, but he’s trying to work out for himself advantages of repairs vs replacements…. It might take another turn or two to sink in, but it is going to be expensive.)

A decent line of ships were held back, and formed the Lyran reserve on 0404, while new construction used free Strategic Movement to go directly to the line of BATS.

Overall, killing a single BATS is not bad for the initial Lyran turn; they just don’t have enough, close enough, to get through Kzinti defenses on the first turn. Carl is being nicely aggressive, and if he can keep that, he probably has a good shot at doing a lot of damage next turn when the Klingons come in. (I’ll admit I have trouble swallowing the damage necessary for a strongly-defended SB.) Watching everything he’s going through is a reminder of just how much is going on in F&E. I at least had the advantage of some solo work (ages ago) to figure out a lot of basics before I started on my Vassal gaming career.

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Ancillary Justice

by on November 12, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice was something of a slow burn for me. It was obviously solidly written from the start, but the plot is slow-moving, and unfocused. Early chapters alternate between two very different stories (with—more-or-less—the same viewpoint character) fifteen years apart. We’re dropped into an unfamiliar environment without many signposts.

This is deliberate, with the first and most obvious removal of signposts being gender. The main character’s language and culture downplays gender as much as possible, and she admits to having trouble telling genders apart in a multicultural galaxy, and speaking correctly in a gendered language. So everything in the novel is ‘translated’ to she, and since there’s not a lot of detailed physical descriptions, everything else is left to the reader to puzzle out (there is one major character unambiguously identified as male).

But this is really just the first hint that the novel features an unreliable narrator. It takes a fair amount of the book to even begin realizing just how unreliable she is. Breq, or Justice of Toren One Esk Eighteen, is an ancillary, a person who was taken, put in cold storage, and then revived and fitted with implants and hooked up to the AI of a large military vessel. The large ‘carriers’ have potentially thousands of these people on board, who serve as the troops for planetary annexations to the Radch. (Aaand… this goes into the big pile of ‘futures I don’t want to live in’.) The ship is gone, but she still considers herself the same person, and has no memory of existence before being part of Justice of Toren.

As such, there is a distance in the narrative that is part of what makes the book have a slow start. She presents herself much as you might expect such an AI to be; loyal, obedient, generally logical and orderly in action. But… still waters run deep. While she doesn’t present herself as having emotions, she does have them, and the lack is purely her own blindness to how powerful they can be.

Given that the main character is a single part of what was once a much larger corporate identity, you do start wondering just how identity and personality interact here. And that’s just training wheels for a much bigger question of identity that comes as part of the central part of the novel. This gets revealed slowly, and late, but the conflict is at the center of the entire structure of the novel.

I’d seen a review (which I can’t find right now) that told me this would be an interesting book. I’m glad I saw it, or else I might have missed this, and it’s an excellent read, that benefits from spending some time and thought as to what exactly is going on behind the mere words on the page. It will repay you in giving you much to think about.

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Konya wa Hurricane Coalition Turn 12

by on November 8, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Konya wa Hurricane

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

It took a couple days to entirely regain my equilibrium after the Alliance counterstrike on turn 11. But overall, the damage was limited, if still a problem. The Klingon economy suffered, thanks to the loss of a major planet, but the Romulan economy is still expanding, largely thanks to exploring their back area, though income has started coming in from captured Federation territory; overall the Coalition economy was 431.2, slightly higher than the turn 10 total, and 8.1 EP better than turn 11. We’ll see if I get to hang on to much (such as Hydran planets) to do even better next time.

Lyran survey rolls were horrible (3 on 3d6), while Klingon rolls were slightly below average. This was made up for by good B10 rolls, and it is probable (2/3rds chance) that B10-1 will finish next turn.

Builds:
Klingon: C8V, D6M, TGA, 3xD5, 4xAD5, MD5, D5S, F5L, 5xF5, 2xF5E, F5J, E4R, PDU, D6->D6S, D6->D6D, BS(f)->BTS(F), 2xVP2->2xVP3
Romulan: SUB, FHF, 2xSP, SPC, SPF, SK, 2xSKE, SEH, WE, SNB, PDU (4112), 3xWE->KE, BH->BHF
Lyran: DN, TGC, CVP, CWE, CWS, STJ, DW, 2xDWE, 2xFF, FCR, MB, 2xFF->DW, DDE->CWE

I had planned on not converting up the last pair of VP2 pods, but my forces on 2106 had been left out of supply, and with no fighters on several carriers. Part of the solution was to reestablish supply there and then swap out carrier pods on a couple of available tugs (thanks to the flexible tugs rules; under older versions of the game I couldn’t do this slight of hand). Since TAVs were going to be my main carriers, I wanted it to be a full squadron. The new TGA got the ’empty’ set as they went into a reserve (at which point fighters had been supplied to it). The Romulans built a PDU to stiffen the defense of the planet near the corner of Gorn and Federation space, while the Klingons built one to start rebuilding their major planet in 1611.

Raids went poorly. The Lyrans raided the Kzinti home province… only for the DNL to be driven off by the called up POL. The other Lyran raid, on a Federation FF blocking supply to 2106, drew a Kzinti DN reaction, which slaughtered the CF. The Klingons did successfully take out the FFE holding 1611 with a raiding D5, liberating it before movement. The C6 successfully disrupted a province, but another raiding D5 was driven off. The Romulans made one cloaked evasion roll to disrupt the province, while the other two raiders were driven off, though at least one of them crippled an NCL in the process.

I was planning on a more or less ‘general’ offensive, as a last hurrah before the Gorns join in, but decided to keep things calm in Hydran space from a distinct lack of maulers to take out decent-sized ships. A spare LTT picked up the new PDU in the Klingon capital. If he goes after that… well, he’s not going somewhere else.

The main goals were to try for the 6th Fleet (Romulan border) SB, and to cut off the 4th Fleet SB. Lyran forces mostly blocked Kzinti reserves from going to help the last Federation BATS on the Kzinti border (which is barely in supply/Strat Move range of the Barony), and helped show the flag against the Kzinti force left near the Federation border. Several moves and counter moves got me decent fights at much of NW Fed space, but I was worried about the Romulan side. Three out of four Federation reserves were in range of the SB, and the Romulans could only get at one. Of course, anything that went there would give the Klingons an easier time, and I was definitely giving Byron some decisions to make.

At the last minute, I saw a possibility. I was planning on taking on a pile of cripples + LAV at planet 2509, but he had ships that could react to that, so it was unlikely to draw a reserve (or to be taken without one). I realized the Klingon South Fleet could reach the BATS in 3209… which was undefended, and was directly between two reserves and the SB. He could still get a good number of ships to the SB and make sure it was save to continue being a big problem to me… but it would leave the Klingons nearly free to loot northern Fed space.


Traffic in Kzinti space.


Offensives deeper into the Federation.


Going for the 6th Fleet SB.

And, he ended up not reinforcing the SB at all. The reserve near the Romulans wasn’t quite pinned, and a CVA group headed out to planet 3210, while the other three all headed to face the Klingons. In a surprise, one of the Kzinti reserves went to ‘open up supply’ to the fight against the wandering Kzinti fleet (supply to the hex he went to would be lost once the Lyrans took planet 1802 from a single defending POL), giving me more ships in the area to worry about.

Battles:
1802: Kzinti: dest POL; Lyran capture planet
1801: Kzinti: dest POL
1701: Kzinti: crip CLE, FFK, FKE; Lyran: crip CW, DW, HDD, SC
2201: Federation: dest BATS; Klingon: crip F5
1906: Kzinti: crip 3xDD; Klingon: dest D6D
1705: Klingon: dest F5
2606: Federation: crip NCL; Klingon: crip D6, D5G, F5L
2505: Federation: dest FF, 2xPDU, crip 3xNCL; Klingon: dest F5L, crip D7, D6, 2xD5, F5L, F5, capture planet
2705: Federation: dest 2xPDU; Klingon: capture planet and retreat off of it
2603: Federation: dest BATS, cripCFF; Klingon: crip F5
3013: SSC: Federation retreats
2609: Federation: dest FF; Klingon: dest F5S
3508: Federation: dest BATS
3209: Federation: dest BATS
3611: Federation: dest DN, CA, SC, crip CA, CMC, 4xDE, 12xFF, FFE; Romulan: dest SP, K7R, 2xK5L, 2xK5, 2xK4, KE, 3xWE, SN, crip NH, 7xSP, SPF, SK, SKB, 2xSKE, SKF, KRC, 2xKR, KRM, 2xK5, K5S, 3xKE, 3xWE, CE, SE, 2xBHE
3509: Retreat after declined approach
3210: Federation: dest 2xPDU, 2xSWAC, crip ECL; Romulan: crip 2xWE, 2xWH, 2xBHE, SN, capture planet and retreat off of it
2107: SSC: Federation: dest POL

2201 was the last of the Federation border BATS near Kzinti space. I had hoped to kill it previous to this point, but got diverted by the attempt on the 4th Fleet SB last turn. Now there are no bases within six hexes of the Barony, and financial aid has to go off map (or 1802 will have to be held for a turn).

I had a fairly minimal base-busting force to take 2606 (all I could afford), so I was at a severe disadvantage when a full reserve showed up there, but we both retreated off after the first round as part of trying to maneuver to keep/deny supply.

The SB fight in 3611 went rounds, and started well enough with a 6-1 die roll split on the first round, which I used to kill the only Federation scout present. Most of the rest of the battle, Byron had to dial the SB’s EW up to 2 just to avoid an EW shift. We both had admirals, but he used a command point, which I forgot about, so I fought one ship down, which certainly did not help. I eventually killed the DN (the only CR10 ship present), which evened that out, but ended up waiting a while to do it (should have put a mauler on the line early, instead of trying to wait out his good chances of killing it). Mauling the CA before I’d gotten rid of the DN was certainly a mistake (made worse when the SPF shocked), but I didn’t expect the fight to drag on so long at that point. The second and fourth rounds had good Federation rolls against poor Romulan ones, round four being at BIR 10, and the Federation missed getting 50% only because of the EW shift. Both fleets are thoroughly wrecked, with the Federation 6th Fleet, naturally, in better shape, but not an offensive force by itself anymore. Most likely, the Romulans will have no real ability to mess around in Federation space on Turn 13….

And the fight for planet 3210 wrecked another fleet. It was a small Romulan force vs a partial CVA group that reserved over, plus a BATS squadron that reacted into the hex, for nearly equal compot. I killed the first SWAC on the first round to get rid of his EW advantage (missed killing a PDU by one), and the second at the end when the PDUs were gone. Since the BATS was dead, he lost that squadron after the first round as well. In fact, most of his ComPot was fighters, which allowed me to slowly sandpaper the Federation down while taking cripples over four rounds. He’d probably have done better to push the BIR high while he still had good ComPot, but I suppose he was worried about what might happen to the CVA.

Both the Klingon and Romulan navies have been roughly handled at the moment, the Romulans worse than the Klingons (though they have a local problem of a lot of cripples in and near north Federation space). This could be the high-water mark for the Coalition, or close to it, if the Federation and Kzinti can get a real counter-offensive going, and the Gorns can keep the Romulans busy. More likely, I will be able to push further into Federation space next turn, but I’m not going to take out four BATS and three planets again (they’re getting rarer for one thing).

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Castle in the Air

by on November 4, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Set in the same world as Howl’s Moving Castle, the sequel, or ‘companion’, book does and doesn’t rely on it. The cast of Howl’s doesn’t show up until late, but I wonder if a new reader might not feel a bit snowed under towards the end of the novel, when the previous characters start exploding out of the woodwork.

For most of the time, Castle in the Air is Howl (and Sophie)-free, but the main character, Abdullah makes up for any lack returning readers might feel quite easily. He’s an unlikely hero, hen-pecked by inlaws, and prone to extravagant daydreams. But once the action starts, he steps up with a ready wit, and enough determination to get around, if not always through, his problems. For some reason that I can’t quite pin down, Abdullah’s adventures put me in mind of the Harold Shea stories; I think it must be because of the wit and a certain amount of zaniness in everyone around him.

I had some problems with the wrap-up, as there were a few too many ‘oh but really—!’ moments for my comfort. But overall it’s a hugely entertaining tale that keeps going at a fast clip that carries right into the denouement.

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