Now that we’ve had our first proper fight, it’s time for your first proper XP.
XP in GURPS is delivered as extra character points; you can save them up for later, or spend them now to improve or gain any skill that you could plausibly have practised over the recent past (e.g. Hawk could spend a point on Riding, or Diplomacy, or spells, or Spear, etc). Point costs for skills follow a semi-doubling progression; 1-2-4-8-12.
You can also change stats and gain/lose advantages/disadvantages this way, but that generally requires saving up for a while.
So: 1 character point for everyone that made it through the West Tredroy incident (sorry Thwip) plus 2 character points for everyone for this fight.
The points needed to increase from where we are are indicated by the pts column on our character sheets, I guess? Or is it 1, 2, 4 etc from where we are right now? Should we write something in the narrative thread to explain our improvements?
Points on the character sheet are where you are right now.
I.e. If the character sheet has a 2-pt skill, it’ll cost 2 more points to raise it a level (making it a 4-pt skill). Gaining a new skill or raising a 1-pt skill by a level only costs one.
…could raise Riding (equine) to 13 (DX+0) for one point, changing it from a one point skill to a two point skill. But you don’t have enough to raise Broadsword to 15, as that would cost four points.
The fallen centaurs are both unconscious and bleeding heavily from deep wounds to the vitals; they’ll die within minutes (at most) without serious magical intervention. Hawk could stabilise one, but he’d have to drain his powerstone dry to do it (and it would take a week or two to recharge).
Alternatively, you could leave them lying, or deliver the coup de grace.
Point in horse riding (obvs).
Point in Physician (to at least assess injuries without using magic).
And a point towards something magic: either getting Hawk a larger fatigue reservoir, or the first prerequisite to the Armour spell, whichever he can do on the road without study (I’m okay if this needs long term investment and doesn’t see immediate benefits).
Physician doesn’t exist as a skill until late TL4; it’s mostly to do with internal medicine and pharmacology.
What you’ve got at TL3 are First Aid, Diagnosis and Surgery (plus not-very-effective non-magical herbalism).
Pretty much any wound will cause bleeding; minor for a scratch, major for a more serious stab. First Aid skill is used to halt this.
If you fail a roll vs death narrowly, you get a “mortal wound” instead of instant death. Surgery can prevent this, but at TL3 you’ll probably kill the patient with the surgery itself.
Diagnosis is the skill for getting a prognosis. Perhaps one point in Diagnosis and one point in First Aid?
(BTW, the reason why Hawk didn’t have First Aid and Riding skill etc. is that he did have those skills in an earlier draft. But after a request to add some extra things, I had find points from somewhere…so I removed all of the skills that he could substitute with magic, reasoning that he’d been using magic so long that he’d never learnt how to do those things mundanely)
Let’s keep just Diagnosis for the moment. I think actual injuries, he’d treat using magic, or leave for someone else who has First Aid to treat, but he needs to know at least how much energy to spend when using the spell, and whether it’s necessary to be healed immediately.
As for riding: given how much energy it takes to control an animal, I’m not sure if I buy your explanation, but we can just say “He’s used to walking everywhere; he finds it useful for meditation, and he’s rarely been in a situation where he’s needed the speed horses provide.”
Shield Regular Spell
Conjures an invisible shield of magical force that moves to protect the subject from frontal attacks. The Defense Bonus granted by this spell is cumulative with that from an actual shield, but this spell does not allow a subject without a shield to block.
Duration: 1 minute.
Cost: Twice the Defense Bonus given to the subject, to a maximum DB of 4 (cost 8). Half that to maintain.
(Shield is a prerequisite for the more advanced spells from the Protection & Warning College; by “Defence Bonus”, they mean a bonus to all parries/blocks/dodges)
Attacking with a weapon in the off hand is at -4; attacking with two weapons simultaneously is also at -4. So, a dual-weapon knife/sword attack is at -8/-4.
You can negate the off-hand penalty by buying the 1-pt perk “off-hand weapon training”. This will also let you throw left handed at no penalty.
The Dual-Attack penalty can also be bought off, but that costs five points.
