As I mentioned a couple weeks ago with the initial Stargrunt playtest report, I really want to convert the units of Starcraft to the SG2 rules. Caveat the first: I only ever played SC1. Hence, SC1 material.
Terran's pretty simple and probably not terribly controversial.
Marines are standard grunts with gauss assault rifles (FP2, Imp 1d12) in d8 heavy non-powered, but environmentally sealed, armor. Move of 6", leadership and experience as for standard humans.
Firebats are effectively marines with flamethrowers; this gains them two die shifts in Close Combat and the Terror quality. Firebat armor is also fire-resistant (handy!); if using the optional Fire rules from page 58, firebats need not test to survive near fire markers (though they can still be killed in close combat by a unit with a flamer; think TF2 pyros).
Medics in SC can't shoot... this is no good in SG. I suggest giving medics a PDW or similar weapon to defend their wounded charges (FP3, Imp 1d8, can fire in close band only). In addition, medics grant a +1 to die rolls to stabilize casualties, per page 60. Armor is kind of tricky; d8 is the heaviest non-powered armor gets, there are no rules for giant shields, and having mixed armor values within a squad complicates fire resolution. I'm for giving them d8 armor and trading the defense of the shield for the offense of a weapon. Not like the shield ever did them any good anyways... If you're really concerned with being canon, go with d10 non-powered armor and no weapons, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Ghosts probably fall under the (hideously overpowered) Sniper rules on page 28 using conventional sniper rifles (FP 1d10, Imp 1d10). Their cloaking is also, conveniently, modeled by the sniper's hidden unit rules. Special ammunition is not within the scope of this post. As with all instances of the snipers rules, I recommend not using ghosts.
Stimpacks can probably be modeled by increasing FP on Marines from 2 to 3, and increasing Marine, Firebat, and Medic movement from 6" to 8". They require a reaction test to use, and, at the end of their effective duration (possibly 2 turns? One action to stim, three actions of effectiveness), casualtying about 1 in 4 of the subjects, with a possible reduction to 1 in 6 with a medic in attendance.
So that about covers infantry. Bunkers fall under the Buildings rules of page 57; probably Armor 5, with doors of Armor 2. They're pretty small, since they can only hold 4 people... Probably size 3 as far as vehicle / building stats go. Sensor scans are off-table support (page 45) that generate EW counters (page 53); the difficulty of calling in a sensor scan, and the quality of the scan, will vary by scenario. Likewise, siege tanks are off-table artillery (page 47), of large caliber (so 6" burst radius), and firing general-purpose shells (Imp 1d8 against both infantry and point targets). Battlecruisers are just orbital fire support; massive shells for 10" burst, but general purpose (d8/d8) and a longer delay on arrival because they're in orbit, and the difficulty to call them in is higher. Wraiths fall under air support, and are kind of an edge case that I'm not looking to develop presently. Don't even think about calling in nukes; to paraphrase an SPI wargame from the 80s that I once read, "To simulate the use of nuclear weapons, dowse the playing surface liberally with lighter fluid and ignite."
Dropships, however, are actually an interesting topic; SC dropships are what SG would classify as small VTOL transports. Their 8-man capacity could easily fit into a size 2 vehicle chassis, along with armor 2 and basic (1d6) ECM, and you'd still have 2 capacity points left over. Me, I'd use those two points to put a pair of door-mounted Gauss SAWs on it a la various American transport helicopters in Vietnam, but if we're really sticking to canon, we can hold off on those. Lord knows your marines need the fire support, though...
Goliaths are tricky. I've got two possible implementations in mind. The first treats them as Size 1 Vehicles with Armor 1, Speed 6", a pair of SAWs, a dedicated AA (page 49) Guided Missile/L launcher, and 1 leftover capacity point (maybe extra ammo for the missiles?). Note that this makes them kind of scary in terms of raw firepower (see below). Note also that, as in SC, the only thing they have going for them in melee is armor (and unlike in SC, vehicle armor only applies to the front; it's reduced on the sides, top, and rear. Yes, vehicles have facing.)... except that there are also no rules for engaging vehicles in melee in SG. We may have to hack those in, treating Goliaths as powered armor for purposes of odds calculations (they're big and intimidating, and Size 1 vehicles are the same size as PA), but not for melee resolution (they're kinda squishy once you knock 'em over, crack 'em open, and eat the softlings inside). Firing by Goliaths is resolved as follows: in a single action of firing, you can fire one or both SAWs at a single target, or you can fire the GMS at a single target. When firing both SAWs at a single target, you roll your quality die and 2 FP dice, one for each SAW (per errata / clarifications on multiple support weapons in a single squad). If you use both of your actions for firing, you can fire both SAWs at a target and the GMS at something, or one SAW at each of two different targets, or two SAWs separately against the same target (to suppress rather than kill), or one SAW and the GMS (though since there's no penalty for firing both SAWs, there's really no reason to only fire one). It's fairly straightforward, really, but the SAWs give it dakka on par with a squad of marines, and the GMS makes it much better at cracking tanks and other vehicles than marines would be. This makes sense, but is not strictly consistent with the numbers from SC. They'd be great for fire support if you don't want to put SAWs on your dropships, and take up 2 marines' worth of carrying capacity...
The second, simpler, implementation is as heavy slow powered armored infantry (speed 6", 1d12 armor) armed with a Gauss SAW and Multiple Rocket Launcher packs (page 31). Note that ML packs are also pretty darn scary by RAW, since they have unlimited ammo, and are excellent against infantry. They are, however, not so good against vehicles, and therefore don't fit the canon. Further, this version of the Goliath, while simpler, kicks ass in melee; another breaking away. Therefore, the vehicle conversion is probably empirically a 'better' conversion.
Vultures I don't really care about. If somebody really really wants 'em, maybe I'll stat 'em up. Expect size 1 vehicles with high speed and crap armor. The real problem is weapons; grenade machine guns are really quite scary in SG (they're like SAWs, but with an extra anti-vehicle / anti-building function), and single-shot grenade launchers are not considered. There's no good middle ground. So I'm holding off on vultures for a while yet.
And that's all for Terrans, unless I'm forgetting something important... oh, right. Don't bring SCVs. Problem solved. If you really want them for like a scenario objective, treat them as marines without guns, and probably Green experience. Also Valkyries should not be atmosphere-capable if they're anything resembling a 'space frigate'. Another problem solved. If you really want 'em, make them off-map anti-aircraft artillery and increase the air defense environment score (page 49) of one side to account for their actions.
Expect Zerg in the next couple days. I don't really intend to do Protoss for a number of reasons; they just don't interest me that much, I'd have to bend a ton of core-ish rules (Shields? Psychic powers? Wut?), and their psychology is trickier than Zerg. But the Swarm is coming to eat your marines...
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
On Hiatus...
No tabletops last weekend, between Tim being sick, Ythir's campaign ending, people being out of town, and moving. Not looking like a whole lot this weekend either... so it's back to videogames, theorycraft, and planning for me. Decent progress on all fronts, though.
My graphics card is doing poorly, so no TF2 for me. This is saddening, because I was getting to be pretty decent at it, but also good, because the pyro dreams were getting old. No Tribes or UT either, which is unfortunate... so I'm back to Kingdom of Loathing. Running my 8th hardcore ascension as an Accordion Thief to complete the Nemesis Quest ring for the trophy. I kind of hate Accordion Thief as a class; buffs are a pain to manage and expensive to boot. So far it's going well, though; I've just been playing like a Disco Bandit. There have been a ton of changes since I left in February; the Knob Goblin quest, the Liver of Steel quest (fewer hellions :( ), the Crypt, moon signs, no stat days during ronin / HC... most important to me, though, was the Valhalla update. It's letting me perm skills significantly more quickly and with much greater flexibility, so that's cool. Likewise, the replacements for lead-in gear and consumables are awesome. Compared to previous runs, I'm currently at the end of Day 2 where I was at the end of Day 5 on my previous fastest hardcore run. It's just nuts. My goal for this run was initially 10 days, but since my previous best was 10 days and I'm currently doing much better than that, I think I'm revising it down to 7 (which would also beat my previous best softcore run... I've picked up a bunch of skills, knowledge, and familiars since then, though. I think it's doable). After this run, I'm looking at picking up some +non-combat skills; that seems to be what's holding me back in a bunch of places. I also want to bank some karma in Moxie runs and then do a Turtle Tamer run to pick up Tao of the Terrapin, Hero on the Half Shell, and Shieldbutt to make further muscle runs more bearable. Then maybe a Seal Clubber run as to go basementing for a telescope...
But enough of that gibberish. I've also resumed work on the Starcraft -> Stargrunt conversion. Zerg morale seems to be the really hard part. I'm kind of considering stealing Warbard's rules for Kra'Vak morale; they would very much deliver a "Your zerglings have slipped the Overmind's leash and gone berserk" kind of effect. On the other hand, since the zerg seem likely to have the close-combat advantage (both in numbers and in terms of close-combat weapons per squad)... so giving them the ability to charge the enemy rather than retreating when normal men would fall back kind of plays into their hands. I guess playtests are the only way to determine what really works. I'm also lacking a good model for stimpacks or adrenal zerglings presently. Finally, squad composition in Starcraft is totally backwards compared to the expectations of Stargrunt; 12 marines with no support weapons, and a separate squad of 12 firebats? What is this madness!? So that's an issue to be overcome as well...
I've also been planning Wilderlands. I've found a Dungeon Crawl Classics module that fits well into the Wilderlands, and I think I'm going to run it. It's one I've played through before, so I have an idea of how it actually goes (though hopefully the party won't be so horribly overpowered this time... oh, True Sorcery Dabbler-stacking, you so broken...). It also ties in nicely with another module I want to steal inspiration from... and so a campaign is born. I think I'm moving away from the episodic and open-table focus and more towards the style of the Traveller game I ran last semester, where a fairly-fixed party of PCs travels and gets into trouble wherever they happen to end up. The issue, then, is long dungeoncrawls... I might cut out extraneous encounters to keep things moving. I guess I'm looking for a better balance between dungeon and wilderness than we had in Traveller; Traveller focused really heavily on the travel, and while dungeoncrawls did happen (er, "Ruin and/or derelict ship crawls"), they were played very loosely, had only 3ish fights in a dungeon tops, and did not dominate gameplay as dungeons do in D&D. So I guess I'm looking for a middle ground between the super-abstract dungeon and the super-detailed dungeon.
My graphics card is doing poorly, so no TF2 for me. This is saddening, because I was getting to be pretty decent at it, but also good, because the pyro dreams were getting old. No Tribes or UT either, which is unfortunate... so I'm back to Kingdom of Loathing. Running my 8th hardcore ascension as an Accordion Thief to complete the Nemesis Quest ring for the trophy. I kind of hate Accordion Thief as a class; buffs are a pain to manage and expensive to boot. So far it's going well, though; I've just been playing like a Disco Bandit. There have been a ton of changes since I left in February; the Knob Goblin quest, the Liver of Steel quest (fewer hellions :( ), the Crypt, moon signs, no stat days during ronin / HC... most important to me, though, was the Valhalla update. It's letting me perm skills significantly more quickly and with much greater flexibility, so that's cool. Likewise, the replacements for lead-in gear and consumables are awesome. Compared to previous runs, I'm currently at the end of Day 2 where I was at the end of Day 5 on my previous fastest hardcore run. It's just nuts. My goal for this run was initially 10 days, but since my previous best was 10 days and I'm currently doing much better than that, I think I'm revising it down to 7 (which would also beat my previous best softcore run... I've picked up a bunch of skills, knowledge, and familiars since then, though. I think it's doable). After this run, I'm looking at picking up some +non-combat skills; that seems to be what's holding me back in a bunch of places. I also want to bank some karma in Moxie runs and then do a Turtle Tamer run to pick up Tao of the Terrapin, Hero on the Half Shell, and Shieldbutt to make further muscle runs more bearable. Then maybe a Seal Clubber run as to go basementing for a telescope...
But enough of that gibberish. I've also resumed work on the Starcraft -> Stargrunt conversion. Zerg morale seems to be the really hard part. I'm kind of considering stealing Warbard's rules for Kra'Vak morale; they would very much deliver a "Your zerglings have slipped the Overmind's leash and gone berserk" kind of effect. On the other hand, since the zerg seem likely to have the close-combat advantage (both in numbers and in terms of close-combat weapons per squad)... so giving them the ability to charge the enemy rather than retreating when normal men would fall back kind of plays into their hands. I guess playtests are the only way to determine what really works. I'm also lacking a good model for stimpacks or adrenal zerglings presently. Finally, squad composition in Starcraft is totally backwards compared to the expectations of Stargrunt; 12 marines with no support weapons, and a separate squad of 12 firebats? What is this madness!? So that's an issue to be overcome as well...
I've also been planning Wilderlands. I've found a Dungeon Crawl Classics module that fits well into the Wilderlands, and I think I'm going to run it. It's one I've played through before, so I have an idea of how it actually goes (though hopefully the party won't be so horribly overpowered this time... oh, True Sorcery Dabbler-stacking, you so broken...). It also ties in nicely with another module I want to steal inspiration from... and so a campaign is born. I think I'm moving away from the episodic and open-table focus and more towards the style of the Traveller game I ran last semester, where a fairly-fixed party of PCs travels and gets into trouble wherever they happen to end up. The issue, then, is long dungeoncrawls... I might cut out extraneous encounters to keep things moving. I guess I'm looking for a better balance between dungeon and wilderness than we had in Traveller; Traveller focused really heavily on the travel, and while dungeoncrawls did happen (er, "Ruin and/or derelict ship crawls"), they were played very loosely, had only 3ish fights in a dungeon tops, and did not dominate gameplay as dungeons do in D&D. So I guess I'm looking for a middle ground between the super-abstract dungeon and the super-detailed dungeon.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Character Dossier: Asmir the Faceless
Name: 'Asmir'
Age: 22 years
Species: Half-Elf
Class: Rogue 5 / Assassin 4
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 122 pounds (6 stone)
Alignment: LE. "The mission comes first; I have no compuctions about what can be done in the name of the mission."
Theme song: Perfect Mask - Paradise Lost.
Training:
In Dehlia and its environs, there exists a sect of assassins known as the Brothers of the Dead. They pay handsomely for pairs of twins, which they train in the ways of death. When the twins come of age, their final test is to slay their sibling (in what is basically a game of Assassin, but for srs). Asmir and Asmul were one such pair; bastards of an elven raider on a frontier woman. Asmir was the more cunning of the pair, but Asmul was stronger. When the time of the Test came, Asmir was ready - he anticipated what was to come, and disguised himself as the Herald of the Test. So disguised, he delivered a ceremonial dagger to Asmul... by the pointy end, with a side of poison. He wears several of Asmul's fingerbones on a necklace to this day. Since his induction, Asmir has been a successful member of the Brothers, further mastering disguise and deception. He is attributed with a number of slayings, including one particularly daring operation where he slew and assumed the identities of no fewer than three men and two women over the course of a week to work his way to his true target, the late Thearch Inach of the Sun Fists company of the Knights of Pelor, then stationed in Malas Farngrey.
Psychology:
Asmir is zealously loyal to the Skullfathers, the council of the leaders of the Brothers of the Dead. He only kills who he has to, and only on orders / in the name of the mission. Outside of his work, Asmir lives like a monk; a hard cot, cold water, and bread are his daily fare. He keeps his knives sharp, but keeps his armor in neither very good nor very bad repair; either would be too noticeable. He does not let it be known that he is an assassin; if working with a party, he acts the part of a common 'adventuring locksmith / silver-tongued rogue' until stuff comes up.
Quotes (Sadly, never used in-game because they would've given him away):
"Take life seriously, when taking life is your profession."
"I knew a man once who $FOO. He's dead now."
"I knew a man once who $FOO. He was me."
"By my brother's bones!"
Ability Score Rolls (4d6 drop 1):
11
14
17
10
11
9
Assignments:
Str 10
Dex 17 +1 4th = 18
Con 11 +1 8th = 12
Int 14
Wis 9 +1 8th = 10
Cha 11 +1 4th = 12
Racial Traits:
Low-Light Vision
Keen Sense - +1 Perception and Search
Trustworthy - +2 Persuade
Skill Focus (Disguise)
Enchantment Resistance +2, immune magic sleep
Elven Blood
Languages: Common, Elven, Mortic (secret handsigns and codes of the Brothers of the Dead), Draconic
Skills:
Tier 1s:
Disguise 8 ranks +3 class +1 cha +3 skill focus +10 Disguise Self = +25
Stealth 9 ranks +3 class +4 dex - 0 armor = +16
Persuade 8 ranks +3 class +1 cha +2 race = +14
Acrobatics 8 ranks +3 class +4 dex - 0 armor = +15
Perception 9 ranks +3 class +0 wis +1 race = +13
UMD 8 ranks +3 class +1 cha = +12
Tier 2s:
Search 7 ranks +3 class +2 int +1 race = +13
DDevice 7 ranks +3 class +2 int +2 masterwork = +14
Pick Pocket 5 ranks +3 class +4 dex = +12
Tier 3s:
Climb 1 rank +3 class +0 str - 0 armor = +4
Jump 1 rank +3 class +0 str - 0 armor +5 springing +4 speed = +13
Craft Poison 1 ranks+3 class +2 int = +6
Sense Motive 1 rank +3 class +0 wis = +4
Kno (Local) 1 rank +3 class +2 int = +6
Feats:
1: Two-Weapon Fighting
3: Weapon Finesse
6: Quick Draw
9: Improved TWF
Class Features:
Rogue:
Sneak Attack +3d6
Combat Tactics +2
Trapfinding
Evasion
Uncanny Dodge (retains Dex bonus to AC even when flat-footed)
Trapsense +1 (+1 on Ref, AC vs. traps, can use Passive Perception +1 to sense traps within 10 feet (so 24))
Assassin:
Combat Tactics +1
Sneak Attack +2d6
Death Attack (study target for three rounds, then melee sneak attack. Fort save DC 10+AssnLvl+IntMod or die or be paralized for 1d6+AssnLvl rounds. Must strike within three rounds of finishing studying, or have to start over)
Poison Use (does not have chance of poison self)
+2 bonus to saves against poison
Spells
Improved Uncanny Dodge (can't be flanked except by 10th+ level rogue)
Corestats:
AC 22 (10 + 4 dex + 6 armor +2 deflection), BFRW 6/3/6, totals 7/7/6. BaB +6, BmB +5
HP 8 + 7 + 8 + 6 + 3 + 2 + 4 +4 + 9*1 = 49 HP. Down 0.
Paired +1 daggers +11 or +9/+9 or 7/7/7/7 (+6 BaB +4 dex +1 enh), 1d4+1 damage, 19-20/x2 crit, thrown range increment 10 feet.
TWF with Darts +10 or +8/+8 or 6/6/6/6, 1d4 damage, x2 crit, range increment 20 feet
Spells: Base 4/3/2/1, bonus from int 0/1/1. Now 4/4/3/1
1s: Feather Fall, Ghost Sound, Obscuring Mist, Jump
2s: Invis, Cat's Grace, Spider Climb
3s: Gaseous Form
Gear:
Boots of Springing and Striding (+10 speed, +5 jump checks)
Hat of Disguise (Disguise Self at will)
Dagger of Venom (+1 dagger, 1/day Poison (DC14) after have struck)
+2 Mithral Chain Shirt
+1 Dagger
Ptn Cure Mod Wounds x5
Ptn Haste x4
Ptn Cat's x4
Mwk Thieves' Tools
Some darts
Sap
Shroud of Undetectable Alignment
Everburning Torch
Wand CLW 50 charges
Alchemist's Fire x4
Ring of Protection +2 (taken from Five)
Other misc / useless stuff found and sold.
Age: 22 years
Species: Half-Elf
Class: Rogue 5 / Assassin 4
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 122 pounds (6 stone)
Alignment: LE. "The mission comes first; I have no compuctions about what can be done in the name of the mission."
Theme song: Perfect Mask - Paradise Lost.
Training:
In Dehlia and its environs, there exists a sect of assassins known as the Brothers of the Dead. They pay handsomely for pairs of twins, which they train in the ways of death. When the twins come of age, their final test is to slay their sibling (in what is basically a game of Assassin, but for srs). Asmir and Asmul were one such pair; bastards of an elven raider on a frontier woman. Asmir was the more cunning of the pair, but Asmul was stronger. When the time of the Test came, Asmir was ready - he anticipated what was to come, and disguised himself as the Herald of the Test. So disguised, he delivered a ceremonial dagger to Asmul... by the pointy end, with a side of poison. He wears several of Asmul's fingerbones on a necklace to this day. Since his induction, Asmir has been a successful member of the Brothers, further mastering disguise and deception. He is attributed with a number of slayings, including one particularly daring operation where he slew and assumed the identities of no fewer than three men and two women over the course of a week to work his way to his true target, the late Thearch Inach of the Sun Fists company of the Knights of Pelor, then stationed in Malas Farngrey.
Psychology:
Asmir is zealously loyal to the Skullfathers, the council of the leaders of the Brothers of the Dead. He only kills who he has to, and only on orders / in the name of the mission. Outside of his work, Asmir lives like a monk; a hard cot, cold water, and bread are his daily fare. He keeps his knives sharp, but keeps his armor in neither very good nor very bad repair; either would be too noticeable. He does not let it be known that he is an assassin; if working with a party, he acts the part of a common 'adventuring locksmith / silver-tongued rogue' until stuff comes up.
Quotes (Sadly, never used in-game because they would've given him away):
"Take life seriously, when taking life is your profession."
"I knew a man once who $FOO. He's dead now."
"I knew a man once who $FOO. He was me."
"By my brother's bones!"
Ability Score Rolls (4d6 drop 1):
11
14
17
10
11
9
Assignments:
Str 10
Dex 17 +1 4th = 18
Con 11 +1 8th = 12
Int 14
Wis 9 +1 8th = 10
Cha 11 +1 4th = 12
Racial Traits:
Low-Light Vision
Keen Sense - +1 Perception and Search
Trustworthy - +2 Persuade
Skill Focus (Disguise)
Enchantment Resistance +2, immune magic sleep
Elven Blood
Languages: Common, Elven, Mortic (secret handsigns and codes of the Brothers of the Dead), Draconic
Skills:
Tier 1s:
Disguise 8 ranks +3 class +1 cha +3 skill focus +10 Disguise Self = +25
Stealth 9 ranks +3 class +4 dex - 0 armor = +16
Persuade 8 ranks +3 class +1 cha +2 race = +14
Acrobatics 8 ranks +3 class +4 dex - 0 armor = +15
Perception 9 ranks +3 class +0 wis +1 race = +13
UMD 8 ranks +3 class +1 cha = +12
Tier 2s:
Search 7 ranks +3 class +2 int +1 race = +13
DDevice 7 ranks +3 class +2 int +2 masterwork = +14
Pick Pocket 5 ranks +3 class +4 dex = +12
Tier 3s:
Climb 1 rank +3 class +0 str - 0 armor = +4
Jump 1 rank +3 class +0 str - 0 armor +5 springing +4 speed = +13
Craft Poison 1 ranks+3 class +2 int = +6
Sense Motive 1 rank +3 class +0 wis = +4
Kno (Local) 1 rank +3 class +2 int = +6
Feats:
1: Two-Weapon Fighting
3: Weapon Finesse
6: Quick Draw
9: Improved TWF
Class Features:
Rogue:
Sneak Attack +3d6
Combat Tactics +2
Trapfinding
Evasion
Uncanny Dodge (retains Dex bonus to AC even when flat-footed)
Trapsense +1 (+1 on Ref, AC vs. traps, can use Passive Perception +1 to sense traps within 10 feet (so 24))
Assassin:
Combat Tactics +1
Sneak Attack +2d6
Death Attack (study target for three rounds, then melee sneak attack. Fort save DC 10+AssnLvl+IntMod or die or be paralized for 1d6+AssnLvl rounds. Must strike within three rounds of finishing studying, or have to start over)
Poison Use (does not have chance of poison self)
+2 bonus to saves against poison
Spells
Improved Uncanny Dodge (can't be flanked except by 10th+ level rogue)
Corestats:
AC 22 (10 + 4 dex + 6 armor +2 deflection), BFRW 6/3/6, totals 7/7/6. BaB +6, BmB +5
HP 8 + 7 + 8 + 6 + 3 + 2 + 4 +4 + 9*1 = 49 HP. Down 0.
Paired +1 daggers +11 or +9/+9 or 7/7/7/7 (+6 BaB +4 dex +1 enh), 1d4+1 damage, 19-20/x2 crit, thrown range increment 10 feet.
TWF with Darts +10 or +8/+8 or 6/6/6/6, 1d4 damage, x2 crit, range increment 20 feet
Spells: Base 4/3/2/1, bonus from int 0/1/1. Now 4/4/3/1
1s: Feather Fall, Ghost Sound, Obscuring Mist, Jump
2s: Invis, Cat's Grace, Spider Climb
3s: Gaseous Form
Gear:
Boots of Springing and Striding (+10 speed, +5 jump checks)
Hat of Disguise (Disguise Self at will)
Dagger of Venom (+1 dagger, 1/day Poison (DC14) after have struck)
+2 Mithral Chain Shirt
+1 Dagger
Ptn Cure Mod Wounds x5
Ptn Haste x4
Ptn Cat's x4
Mwk Thieves' Tools
Some darts
Sap
Shroud of Undetectable Alignment
Everburning Torch
Wand CLW 50 charges
Alchemist's Fire x4
Ring of Protection +2 (taken from Five)
Other misc / useless stuff found and sold.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Tale of Ythir Minicampaign Finished
The prequel campaign / Tale of Ythir came to an early finish this Wednesday due to scheduling conflicts; one or more of our players are going to be out of town at all times for the rest of the summer, so Tim decided to wrap things up quickly. Here's a short summary of the whole run, along with some of the people we met and things we learned.
Session 1:
Party formed. Ythir is directed by a mysterious benefactor to acquire an elven artifact from a ruin in the south. He meets with Seche Peret, the Man Who Knows Everyone, to see if they know this benefactor, but Seche does not. Seche does, however, send Aluna the sorceress with Ythir to retrieve the artifact. Asmir the assassin has had a mysterious dream of Ythir; typically this means that Ythir is his target, so he follows Ythir from Seche's place, then convinces the party to let him join up with them under the guise of a thief / wizard who is in it for the loot. Miranda the paladin receives a letter from the city council directing her to retrieve the artifact as well; she meets the party at the city gates. There is much tension within the party.
The party proceeds south through the fringe of the Impasse, a place where strange magics happen. Random monsters fall from the sky but are slain. A village trapped in a time bubble is passed through quickly / nervously. The elven lands are reached, the ruin found, puzzles solved, and the artifact, the Rod of Duplication, is gained.
Session 2:
The ruin collapses as the party leaves, and mummy guardians awaken and attack. Qual, the elven ranger of feather-token fame, and the Avenger, a monk / paladin wandering vigilante, appear and come to the party's aid. The mummies are put to rest, and it is revealed that it was Qual's task to guard the rod, which Ythir was disguised. More elven ruins are explored, but little is gained except the knowledge that the high elves and the gnomes of old fought a great war of trickery and magic, and Qual was left behind when the elven host sallied forth into the area that is now the Impasse. The party returns to Dehlia circumspectly, by back wilderness roads, because Ythir is loathe to give the artifact to his benefactors, who he believes to be gnomes. A teleporting mage ambushes the party, but is promptly grappled by the Avenger and then beaten to death by everyone else. The party re-enters Dehlia; Ythir and Aluna make separate reports to Seche Peret, Miranda seeks his protection, the Avenger is tricked into his employ, Asmir evades his notice by disguising himself as a peasant porter for the party, and Qual tries to sell him a walking stick.
Session 3:
I wasn't here for this one, but the way I hear it, the ambushing mage was revealed to be Ace of the Black 13, a cabal who name their members after cards. The party (sans Asmir and the Avenger) also slay Three and Four of the 13. They find the Black Lotus Dagger and a mighty hammer of throwing in the crypts beneath the temple of Miranda's order, and use the Black Lotus to escape Dehlia through various creepy hell dimensions (something about flowers?... I have no idea). They end up stranded in the frozen tundra to the far north when they return to the material plane, and give battle to a tribe of orcish barbarians led by Somar. The session ends with them out of slots, hidden in a Leomund's Tiny Hut to avoid hypothermia.
Session 4:
Asmir realizes that the rest of the party has disappeared, and dreams of a man in black robes numbered Five. He slays Five of the Thirteen at his desk in his home, then disguises himself as Five when a vague man comes knocking at his door. He teleports with the remainder of the Thirteen to the party's location in the tundra, where the orcs are revealed to be in league with the cabal, and Ythir is forced to give up the Rod of Duplication to the Thirteen. King tries to use it, but is transformed into the king of the high elves; the rod was actually a trap. He slays Queen and Jack of the Thirteen trivially, gives an ominous monologue, breaks Asmir's disguise, and teleports out. The remaining members of the Thirteen flee, and the party escapes the orcs using the Black Lotus again. They return to the material in Malas Farngrey and pass off their abrupt appearance in the Temple of Ffarlaghn as a magic trick gone bad. They decide to head south to the dwarven lands, both to see Miranda's heritage and as a route to the empire of Sol Magnar beyond the mountains.
Session 5:
The party begins at the mouth of the dwarven caverns, and encounters the Singed, exile dwarfs who have devoted their lives to containing the dragon (mainly by getting in the way...). They try to bar the path, but are convinced otherwise. The party sneaks through the ruined city of Kathras Deep, and slays many salamanders, but avoids attracting the red dragon's notice. They arrive in Sol Magnar, the empire of the lizardmen, and make a beeline for the library, which contains much knowledge lost in the lands of men. Adam the Bard appears, revealing himself to be Two of the Thirteen ("Twos are wild"), makes Ythir an offer of membership, and reveals the nature of the Impasse, as well as that the Elves were fond of enchantment magic. He also states that he is hunting the Chromata to fight the elf king, and that we might do the same. Ythir finds a working description of the Chromata, and a hunt for those artifacts as a means to defeat the Elf King begins. The Black Chromata is the spelldrinker; see Fjolkir's journal. White gives the gift of eternal life and death, Red is a tether to reality against illusions and in dreams, green allows mind control but the target's mind bleeds into the user's, and blue allows the user to create a perfect disguise which can only be broken by speaking his (the user's) name. The party decides to split up; Miranda returns to the dwarven lands to join the Singed, Qual heads south across the sea to find the elven libraries (I think... I may not be recalling that bit properly), Aluna reports back to Seche and then seeks the white chromata, Ythir starts a general hunt for them, and Asmir decides to continue accompanying him in case he gets the 'terminate' order. Also disturbing is the revelation that the gnomes knew about the Rod for the last 5000 years, but only now got around to retrieving it; the possibility is raised that there is a time-delayed 'egg' of some sort, possibly the dragons guarding the chromata. Uncertainty abounds. Shortly after the session ends, Asmir receives the kill order, and it is presumed that he is still hunting Ythir in the sequel campaign.
For my part, I greatly enjoyed playing the stereotypical greedy rogue as a cover for a whole different beast. None of the rest of the party had any clue until the last session where I let a few hints slip... I'll probably post Asmir's stats as of endgame in the next day or two. It was a good run.
Session 1:
Party formed. Ythir is directed by a mysterious benefactor to acquire an elven artifact from a ruin in the south. He meets with Seche Peret, the Man Who Knows Everyone, to see if they know this benefactor, but Seche does not. Seche does, however, send Aluna the sorceress with Ythir to retrieve the artifact. Asmir the assassin has had a mysterious dream of Ythir; typically this means that Ythir is his target, so he follows Ythir from Seche's place, then convinces the party to let him join up with them under the guise of a thief / wizard who is in it for the loot. Miranda the paladin receives a letter from the city council directing her to retrieve the artifact as well; she meets the party at the city gates. There is much tension within the party.
The party proceeds south through the fringe of the Impasse, a place where strange magics happen. Random monsters fall from the sky but are slain. A village trapped in a time bubble is passed through quickly / nervously. The elven lands are reached, the ruin found, puzzles solved, and the artifact, the Rod of Duplication, is gained.
Session 2:
The ruin collapses as the party leaves, and mummy guardians awaken and attack. Qual, the elven ranger of feather-token fame, and the Avenger, a monk / paladin wandering vigilante, appear and come to the party's aid. The mummies are put to rest, and it is revealed that it was Qual's task to guard the rod, which Ythir was disguised. More elven ruins are explored, but little is gained except the knowledge that the high elves and the gnomes of old fought a great war of trickery and magic, and Qual was left behind when the elven host sallied forth into the area that is now the Impasse. The party returns to Dehlia circumspectly, by back wilderness roads, because Ythir is loathe to give the artifact to his benefactors, who he believes to be gnomes. A teleporting mage ambushes the party, but is promptly grappled by the Avenger and then beaten to death by everyone else. The party re-enters Dehlia; Ythir and Aluna make separate reports to Seche Peret, Miranda seeks his protection, the Avenger is tricked into his employ, Asmir evades his notice by disguising himself as a peasant porter for the party, and Qual tries to sell him a walking stick.
Session 3:
I wasn't here for this one, but the way I hear it, the ambushing mage was revealed to be Ace of the Black 13, a cabal who name their members after cards. The party (sans Asmir and the Avenger) also slay Three and Four of the 13. They find the Black Lotus Dagger and a mighty hammer of throwing in the crypts beneath the temple of Miranda's order, and use the Black Lotus to escape Dehlia through various creepy hell dimensions (something about flowers?... I have no idea). They end up stranded in the frozen tundra to the far north when they return to the material plane, and give battle to a tribe of orcish barbarians led by Somar. The session ends with them out of slots, hidden in a Leomund's Tiny Hut to avoid hypothermia.
Session 4:
Asmir realizes that the rest of the party has disappeared, and dreams of a man in black robes numbered Five. He slays Five of the Thirteen at his desk in his home, then disguises himself as Five when a vague man comes knocking at his door. He teleports with the remainder of the Thirteen to the party's location in the tundra, where the orcs are revealed to be in league with the cabal, and Ythir is forced to give up the Rod of Duplication to the Thirteen. King tries to use it, but is transformed into the king of the high elves; the rod was actually a trap. He slays Queen and Jack of the Thirteen trivially, gives an ominous monologue, breaks Asmir's disguise, and teleports out. The remaining members of the Thirteen flee, and the party escapes the orcs using the Black Lotus again. They return to the material in Malas Farngrey and pass off their abrupt appearance in the Temple of Ffarlaghn as a magic trick gone bad. They decide to head south to the dwarven lands, both to see Miranda's heritage and as a route to the empire of Sol Magnar beyond the mountains.
Session 5:
The party begins at the mouth of the dwarven caverns, and encounters the Singed, exile dwarfs who have devoted their lives to containing the dragon (mainly by getting in the way...). They try to bar the path, but are convinced otherwise. The party sneaks through the ruined city of Kathras Deep, and slays many salamanders, but avoids attracting the red dragon's notice. They arrive in Sol Magnar, the empire of the lizardmen, and make a beeline for the library, which contains much knowledge lost in the lands of men. Adam the Bard appears, revealing himself to be Two of the Thirteen ("Twos are wild"), makes Ythir an offer of membership, and reveals the nature of the Impasse, as well as that the Elves were fond of enchantment magic. He also states that he is hunting the Chromata to fight the elf king, and that we might do the same. Ythir finds a working description of the Chromata, and a hunt for those artifacts as a means to defeat the Elf King begins. The Black Chromata is the spelldrinker; see Fjolkir's journal. White gives the gift of eternal life and death, Red is a tether to reality against illusions and in dreams, green allows mind control but the target's mind bleeds into the user's, and blue allows the user to create a perfect disguise which can only be broken by speaking his (the user's) name. The party decides to split up; Miranda returns to the dwarven lands to join the Singed, Qual heads south across the sea to find the elven libraries (I think... I may not be recalling that bit properly), Aluna reports back to Seche and then seeks the white chromata, Ythir starts a general hunt for them, and Asmir decides to continue accompanying him in case he gets the 'terminate' order. Also disturbing is the revelation that the gnomes knew about the Rod for the last 5000 years, but only now got around to retrieving it; the possibility is raised that there is a time-delayed 'egg' of some sort, possibly the dragons guarding the chromata. Uncertainty abounds. Shortly after the session ends, Asmir receives the kill order, and it is presumed that he is still hunting Ythir in the sequel campaign.
For my part, I greatly enjoyed playing the stereotypical greedy rogue as a cover for a whole different beast. None of the rest of the party had any clue until the last session where I let a few hints slip... I'll probably post Asmir's stats as of endgame in the next day or two. It was a good run.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Interesting Magic Items
"It is not the sword, but the hand that wields it."
A significant portion of Trailblazer's analysis of 'the spine' is motivated by the desire to prove that "The Big Six" items are not necessary for game balance. For those unfamiliar, the Big Six are magic weapons, magic armor and shields, rings of protection, cloaks of resistance, amulets of natural armor, and ability score boosters like the belt of giant strength and the headband of intellect. These items are all distinguished by 1) requiring no actions to activate and 2) applying bonuses to the core combat stats of a character (mental ability score boosters are an odd case, in that they increase the save DCs for spellcasters, but are significantly less useful for noncasters). As TB's analysis shows, these items contribute significantly to a character's power, especially in regards to defense; of the big six, three exist for the sole purpose of boosting AC, while only one exists solely for boosting attack and damage. Further, the cloak of resistance is critical in boosting poor saves to a reasonable rate of success, especially as character level increases. Poor saves grow at 1/3 of character level, while monster special ability save DCs grow at 1/2 of monster hit dice. As monsters of CR n often have greater than n hit dice, and sometimes as many as 2n hit dice or more, player character poor saves are rapidly outstripped without some kind of extra bonus (namely the cloak).
Trailblazer uses its analysis to suggest that there may be alternatives to using the Big Six, namely Combat Reactions, Action Points, and similar. Though I don't remember seeing an explicit motivation for this move, I have inferred several. First, getting rid of the Big Six combats the "Christmas Tree Effect", namely that player characters are so decked out in shiny magical items that they look like Christmas trees done up in tinsel and glowing ornaments. This is a problem both because it generates downright silly character portraits (see some of the art from the Epic Level Handbook, for example), and the concentration of wealth involved stresses the economics of the campaign world. Removing the Big Six also eliminates magic item turnover. We've all seen it; you find a +3 sword and all of a sudden your +2 sword, companion for many long adventures, a named and storied weapon, falls by the wayside. The final complaint that I see about the Big Six is that they're boring. They're uninteresting and don't feel magical.
So I thought to myself, "Hey, let's follow Trailblazer's lead, get rid of the Big Six, and make some magic items that are interesting." I've got a couple ideas along these lines. TB suggests items with spells per day; I'd actually done this before reading Trailblazer's suggestions in this regard, by giving a party a Cloak of the Cat, which allowed the wearer to use of Cat's Grace and Catfall each once per day. That was kind of interesting, though to be fair it was a bit underpowered at the level I gave it out. I'd probably make some such 'buff items' usable as swift actions, so that as with the Big Six, they don't have a huge impact on the action economy of a combat. I also considered various conditional save boosters, like an amulet that grants a bonus to saves against poison, or a bonus to will saves, or a bonus to just your poor saving throw(s). Again, less bland than normal, and not complex enough to bog down play. Magic weapons with spells per day that gain charges under certain conditions, like a bloodthirsty weapon that gains a charge when you slay a living foe with it, or one that gains a charge on a critical threat, might also work. A little more complex, but they're primarily a tool for melee classes, whose gameplay and choice sets tend to be simpler than those of casters. If we can trust a caster with a pile of wands, each of which has charges, it seems reasonable to trust the fighters similarly.
But this post isn't really about those interesting magic items.
Because I realized, as I went to write that post, that nearly every fantasy RPG blogger and their brother has a post like that, either lamenting the lack of interesting magic items, suggesting how to make magic items more interesting, or giving a few examples of their own. Likewise, all those interesting things slow down play, confuse new players (or if they're situational bonuses, like a bonus against poison, they're forgotten and wasted), and increase book-keeping. Plus, it's possible those guys playing fighters wanted to avoid the kind of resource management that casters have to do, and really don't want to deal with spells per day or charged swords. It's all fine and good for the DM to be handing out interesting items, but it's the players who have to deal with actually using them.
Which brings us to the crux of things - D&D is a game that we play for fun. "Are the Big Six items fun?" is, in a sense, a more important question than whether they're interesting or boring or balanced or anything else. Likewise, are 'interesting' magic items fun? Sure, it's nice to have an oddball magic item now and then, as Tim's use of the Stone of Alarm, Horn of the Tritons, and Forn of Hog showed in the sequel campaign. But I get the feeling that if every damn magic item operated like those, it would get kinda overwhelming... unless you had fewer magic items.
Which led me to the conclusion that the best way to handle the Big Six is to make them inherent / innate bonuses. I'm considering two schemes, but they both work very similarly. In the first, when you level, you get a budget of astral gold pieces that you can 'spend' on inherent bonuses. In the second, you spend literal gold pieces while carousing, and this boosts your inherent capabilities. If you're boosting your Constitution, it might be that you literally drank thousands and thousands of gold pieces worth of ale, and your liver has turned to steel, rendering you more resistant to attacks. Natural armor bonus from expensive ritual scarifications, Intelligence bonus from concocting expensive elixirs which boost your brainpower, Wisdom bonus from sacrificing gold to your deity in exchange for guidance, attack and damage bonus from getting into many many barfights and paying for damages, and so forth. Gold gets spent, you get permanent enhancement bonuses to things at the same rates it would have cost you normally. Pros and cons of these inherent bonuses:
A significant portion of Trailblazer's analysis of 'the spine' is motivated by the desire to prove that "The Big Six" items are not necessary for game balance. For those unfamiliar, the Big Six are magic weapons, magic armor and shields, rings of protection, cloaks of resistance, amulets of natural armor, and ability score boosters like the belt of giant strength and the headband of intellect. These items are all distinguished by 1) requiring no actions to activate and 2) applying bonuses to the core combat stats of a character (mental ability score boosters are an odd case, in that they increase the save DCs for spellcasters, but are significantly less useful for noncasters). As TB's analysis shows, these items contribute significantly to a character's power, especially in regards to defense; of the big six, three exist for the sole purpose of boosting AC, while only one exists solely for boosting attack and damage. Further, the cloak of resistance is critical in boosting poor saves to a reasonable rate of success, especially as character level increases. Poor saves grow at 1/3 of character level, while monster special ability save DCs grow at 1/2 of monster hit dice. As monsters of CR n often have greater than n hit dice, and sometimes as many as 2n hit dice or more, player character poor saves are rapidly outstripped without some kind of extra bonus (namely the cloak).
Trailblazer uses its analysis to suggest that there may be alternatives to using the Big Six, namely Combat Reactions, Action Points, and similar. Though I don't remember seeing an explicit motivation for this move, I have inferred several. First, getting rid of the Big Six combats the "Christmas Tree Effect", namely that player characters are so decked out in shiny magical items that they look like Christmas trees done up in tinsel and glowing ornaments. This is a problem both because it generates downright silly character portraits (see some of the art from the Epic Level Handbook, for example), and the concentration of wealth involved stresses the economics of the campaign world. Removing the Big Six also eliminates magic item turnover. We've all seen it; you find a +3 sword and all of a sudden your +2 sword, companion for many long adventures, a named and storied weapon, falls by the wayside. The final complaint that I see about the Big Six is that they're boring. They're uninteresting and don't feel magical.
So I thought to myself, "Hey, let's follow Trailblazer's lead, get rid of the Big Six, and make some magic items that are interesting." I've got a couple ideas along these lines. TB suggests items with spells per day; I'd actually done this before reading Trailblazer's suggestions in this regard, by giving a party a Cloak of the Cat, which allowed the wearer to use of Cat's Grace and Catfall each once per day. That was kind of interesting, though to be fair it was a bit underpowered at the level I gave it out. I'd probably make some such 'buff items' usable as swift actions, so that as with the Big Six, they don't have a huge impact on the action economy of a combat. I also considered various conditional save boosters, like an amulet that grants a bonus to saves against poison, or a bonus to will saves, or a bonus to just your poor saving throw(s). Again, less bland than normal, and not complex enough to bog down play. Magic weapons with spells per day that gain charges under certain conditions, like a bloodthirsty weapon that gains a charge when you slay a living foe with it, or one that gains a charge on a critical threat, might also work. A little more complex, but they're primarily a tool for melee classes, whose gameplay and choice sets tend to be simpler than those of casters. If we can trust a caster with a pile of wands, each of which has charges, it seems reasonable to trust the fighters similarly.
But this post isn't really about those interesting magic items.
Because I realized, as I went to write that post, that nearly every fantasy RPG blogger and their brother has a post like that, either lamenting the lack of interesting magic items, suggesting how to make magic items more interesting, or giving a few examples of their own. Likewise, all those interesting things slow down play, confuse new players (or if they're situational bonuses, like a bonus against poison, they're forgotten and wasted), and increase book-keeping. Plus, it's possible those guys playing fighters wanted to avoid the kind of resource management that casters have to do, and really don't want to deal with spells per day or charged swords. It's all fine and good for the DM to be handing out interesting items, but it's the players who have to deal with actually using them.
Which brings us to the crux of things - D&D is a game that we play for fun. "Are the Big Six items fun?" is, in a sense, a more important question than whether they're interesting or boring or balanced or anything else. Likewise, are 'interesting' magic items fun? Sure, it's nice to have an oddball magic item now and then, as Tim's use of the Stone of Alarm, Horn of the Tritons, and Forn of Hog showed in the sequel campaign. But I get the feeling that if every damn magic item operated like those, it would get kinda overwhelming... unless you had fewer magic items.
Which led me to the conclusion that the best way to handle the Big Six is to make them inherent / innate bonuses. I'm considering two schemes, but they both work very similarly. In the first, when you level, you get a budget of astral gold pieces that you can 'spend' on inherent bonuses. In the second, you spend literal gold pieces while carousing, and this boosts your inherent capabilities. If you're boosting your Constitution, it might be that you literally drank thousands and thousands of gold pieces worth of ale, and your liver has turned to steel, rendering you more resistant to attacks. Natural armor bonus from expensive ritual scarifications, Intelligence bonus from concocting expensive elixirs which boost your brainpower, Wisdom bonus from sacrificing gold to your deity in exchange for guidance, attack and damage bonus from getting into many many barfights and paying for damages, and so forth. Gold gets spent, you get permanent enhancement bonuses to things at the same rates it would have cost you normally. Pros and cons of these inherent bonuses:
- On the plus side, they can't be stolen from you. On the minus side, when you die, the other PCs can't take them off your corpse (which, in turn, doesn't screw with party wealth when people die. So it's really a plus, from my perspective, but players might be less happy about it).
- On the plus side, they apply regardless of what weapon you're using or armor you're wearing, increasing your versatility in that regard. On the minus side, they can't be changed once chosen - if you invest umpty thousand gold pieces in boosting your strength, but realize later that you should've gone with dexterity, you can't just swap your gauntlets of ogre power with the rogue's gloves of dexterity.
- On the plus side, they can't be dispelled - they're part of you. On the minus side, they don't stack with buffs or any Big Six magic items you might find; if you have +4 to strength by this scheme, it's a +4 enhancement bonus, and Bull's Strength does you no good at all. Likewise, if you have a +2 weapon bonus, a +1 sword is no help (should you happen to find one, which is unlikely).
- On the plus side, you get to choose whatever you want, rather than finding a +1 ring of protection when everyone in the party has +2s, and you can choose to specialize in unusual ways. If you have a melee mage, you can get the +3 weapons without stepping on the fighter's toes. On the minus side, you only get these things between adventures; you no longer have the possibility of going "Ooh, I grabbed a random wang from the dragon's hoard, and it's +n! I stab the dragon with it!"
- On the minus side, you can't take these things off of dead NPCs. On the plus side, this gives me an excellent excuse to hand out tons and tons of gold pieces. When was the last time the dragon's hoard was actually enough gold for the dragon to sleep on? Those days are back, baby.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Games I Want to Run, Part 2
So the votes are in among the options I posted here, from three players from last semester. One vote of "Fields of Blood would be cool if you can fix the caster issues, but Western Marches would also be badass", one vote of "Fields of Blood would be awesome if you added rules for fighters training units and such, but Wilderlands / episodic would be awesome too", and one that was primarily for Wilderlands. This input leaves my predicament ultimately unsolved... but that's OK, because the purpose of asking for feedback wasn't to resolve it, but to get some thoughts from third parties.
So... Fields of Blood got a good bit of support, but it was all predicated on shrinking the strategic advantage casters get as a result of FoB's increased scales. First, I'm not sure that's doable; non-casters have no equivalent to spells to be researched, nor an equivalent to items to be created, and they just can't do the strategic-level movement and reconnaissance that teleport and scrying permit. Craft Fortification, letting individuals boost unit training rates, Command as a class skill, and solo missions into enemy territory are all well and good, but I really don't think it's fixable.
There's also a kind of timing problem - I don't know how long Tim's current campaign is going to run into the semester. If it runs long, then FoB might end up starting up towards the end of the semester, and then I foresee it dying on Thanksgiving and Winterbreak. Since FoB would require a lot of work to prep, that would be kind of a shame and a waste. The episodic structure of Wilderlands would be more likely to survive this kind of thing - as long as I keep a one-adventure buffer prepped and ready to go, Wilderlands could almost be run on a spontaneous basis. Tim also mentioned today that alternating DMing / co-DMing would make everybody's life a lot easier; as it stands, we have more players than a single DM can run a game for. Having two DMs who kind of work in parallel, allowing players from the other game into their own game would allow each of them a little more slack. There is much potential here.
Finally, Western Marches. I had an epiphany last week, which was kind of disappointing to me... It was prompted by an observation Ben Robbins makes in the last post in his Western Marches series. To quote:
So, conclusions: Wilderlands it is for the parts of next semester when I'm not playing in Tim's game (I don't think I'll be able to commit to both running and playing regular games, and I really want to finish Fjolkir's grudge against the dragon). Now the task becomes tweaking Trailblazer for the episodic style of play, studying the setting, and coming up with good hooks and opposition.
So... Fields of Blood got a good bit of support, but it was all predicated on shrinking the strategic advantage casters get as a result of FoB's increased scales. First, I'm not sure that's doable; non-casters have no equivalent to spells to be researched, nor an equivalent to items to be created, and they just can't do the strategic-level movement and reconnaissance that teleport and scrying permit. Craft Fortification, letting individuals boost unit training rates, Command as a class skill, and solo missions into enemy territory are all well and good, but I really don't think it's fixable.
There's also a kind of timing problem - I don't know how long Tim's current campaign is going to run into the semester. If it runs long, then FoB might end up starting up towards the end of the semester, and then I foresee it dying on Thanksgiving and Winterbreak. Since FoB would require a lot of work to prep, that would be kind of a shame and a waste. The episodic structure of Wilderlands would be more likely to survive this kind of thing - as long as I keep a one-adventure buffer prepped and ready to go, Wilderlands could almost be run on a spontaneous basis. Tim also mentioned today that alternating DMing / co-DMing would make everybody's life a lot easier; as it stands, we have more players than a single DM can run a game for. Having two DMs who kind of work in parallel, allowing players from the other game into their own game would allow each of them a little more slack. There is much potential here.
Finally, Western Marches. I had an epiphany last week, which was kind of disappointing to me... It was prompted by an observation Ben Robbins makes in the last post in his Western Marches series. To quote:
You could have a “solo” West Marches game with just one group doing all the exploring, and it would probably be a fun and pleasant affair, but it’s nothing compared to the frenzy you’ll see when players know other players are out there finding secrets and taking treasure that they could be getting, if only they got their butts out of the tavern.So: to capture the awesome that was WM, I'd need to have a big playerpool with multiple groups. This means that I can't run WM during the summer; there just aren't enough people around. Likewise, to run it as well as possible, I'd also need to have multiple, competing groups meeting regularly at different times. This implies that I'd need to have a couple nights free a week to run games for different groups... and I don't see that happening during the semester. So there is basically no time when I can run it. After college, I imagine I may have trouble finding a playerpool of sufficient size... so I think that's a dream which may never come to fruition. Saddening, but I'm going to keep it in the back of my brain nonetheless in case an opportunity presents itself (say, spring of senior year maybe).
So, conclusions: Wilderlands it is for the parts of next semester when I'm not playing in Tim's game (I don't think I'll be able to commit to both running and playing regular games, and I really want to finish Fjolkir's grudge against the dragon). Now the task becomes tweaking Trailblazer for the episodic style of play, studying the setting, and coming up with good hooks and opposition.
Stargrunt Playtest, Part 2: Stuff We Did Wrong
I was thinking about the SGII playtest last night (instead of sleeping...), and I realized that we did a couple of things very wrong.
First, foremost, and entirely my fault was small-arms fire resolution. We had been adding up the total firepower and dividing by the armor die type. We were actually supposed to use the range die type. Next time you guys call me on something like that, be more vehement about it (or at the very least, make me look it up again). To be fair, this is in part due to the poor example in the book; their sample target has both a d6 range and a d6 armor, which got me thinking it was armor rather than range. This change has the important implication that even if your d12 range die is rolling like it was a d6, it still protects you by halving your casualties compared to being at a d6 range. This also means that at long range, you're likely to score one, maybe two casualties if you're lucky, rather than the squad-wiping three casualties we kept seeing.
So that was The Big Mistake, which probably made the game significantly more swingy and less fun than it should've been. We also accidentally downgraded our chest-high walls to hedgerows by making them soft cover, our handling of woods was most incorrect (from page 13 - "Units at the edge of woods are in soft cover. Units WITHIN woods may only be engaged by others in the same wood, and then only by close assault, or by artillery."), and our handling of cover in general was quite wrong; cover apparently applies the one or two die shift to both range and armor dice of the target, according to page 14. I had confused this armor die shift with the armor die shift for being In Position, which only applies against attacks from artillery; thus, the effective / casualty-inducing attacks against units in cover (and who wasn't in cover that game?) should have been significantly less deadly.
This last relates to an observation I made last night as well, while reflecting on the complaint that medics were useless. I did some math, and with d6 Armor against weapons with d10 Impact, each casualty has about a .23 probability of being wounded, a .42 probability of being killed outright, and a .35 probability of surviving unharmed. Thus, our choice of gear, namely d6 armored troops armed with d10 impact advanced assault rifles, contributed to the distribution of casualties. We got pretty close to this ratio; there were a total of six kills (two from Glisson's Dwarf Squad and two each from Tim's Orc and Zombie squads), and four wounds (one in Orc Squad, and all three survivors of Zombie Squad (Yes, we were using D&D tokens instead of minis. It was what we had)). Armor d8 being hit with Impact d10 weapons has a .24 probability of wounding, but only a .31 probability of being killed outright, while Armor d10 against Imp d10 weapons has a .2 probability of wounding and a .25 probability of death. Therefore, if we had been applying the cover modifiers to armor, or if we had had better-armored troops to start with, small arms fire would have been significantly less lethal. While armor is still really swingy (it doesn't matter if you have a d12 armor die if you roll a 1), the expected ratio of wounds to kills would have shifted up significantly, making medics much more useful, and the expected ratio of casualties to uninjured effectives would have dropped. So that would've also addressed the complaints of gun combat being either really lethal or totally ineffective by shifting it towards ineffective in the general case...
Finally, there was a caveat in the firing rules that fully effective fire (ie, casualty-inducing fire) also applies a level of suppression to the target. This was bugging me last night too, because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for fire that causes casualties to be less suppressing than fire that doesn't, so I was glad to find a rule for it in a summary sidebar on page 37. It is annoying that the full-text rules on 36 do not suggest or imply this, though.
I'm sure there's some other stuff we screwed up with morale, but I'll be damned if I know what it was. That might be something to look at after breakfast. Also, with all this stuff in mind, who's up for a rematch?
First, foremost, and entirely my fault was small-arms fire resolution. We had been adding up the total firepower and dividing by the armor die type. We were actually supposed to use the range die type. Next time you guys call me on something like that, be more vehement about it (or at the very least, make me look it up again). To be fair, this is in part due to the poor example in the book; their sample target has both a d6 range and a d6 armor, which got me thinking it was armor rather than range. This change has the important implication that even if your d12 range die is rolling like it was a d6, it still protects you by halving your casualties compared to being at a d6 range. This also means that at long range, you're likely to score one, maybe two casualties if you're lucky, rather than the squad-wiping three casualties we kept seeing.
So that was The Big Mistake, which probably made the game significantly more swingy and less fun than it should've been. We also accidentally downgraded our chest-high walls to hedgerows by making them soft cover, our handling of woods was most incorrect (from page 13 - "Units at the edge of woods are in soft cover. Units WITHIN woods may only be engaged by others in the same wood, and then only by close assault, or by artillery."), and our handling of cover in general was quite wrong; cover apparently applies the one or two die shift to both range and armor dice of the target, according to page 14. I had confused this armor die shift with the armor die shift for being In Position, which only applies against attacks from artillery; thus, the effective / casualty-inducing attacks against units in cover (and who wasn't in cover that game?) should have been significantly less deadly.
This last relates to an observation I made last night as well, while reflecting on the complaint that medics were useless. I did some math, and with d6 Armor against weapons with d10 Impact, each casualty has about a .23 probability of being wounded, a .42 probability of being killed outright, and a .35 probability of surviving unharmed. Thus, our choice of gear, namely d6 armored troops armed with d10 impact advanced assault rifles, contributed to the distribution of casualties. We got pretty close to this ratio; there were a total of six kills (two from Glisson's Dwarf Squad and two each from Tim's Orc and Zombie squads), and four wounds (one in Orc Squad, and all three survivors of Zombie Squad (Yes, we were using D&D tokens instead of minis. It was what we had)). Armor d8 being hit with Impact d10 weapons has a .24 probability of wounding, but only a .31 probability of being killed outright, while Armor d10 against Imp d10 weapons has a .2 probability of wounding and a .25 probability of death. Therefore, if we had been applying the cover modifiers to armor, or if we had had better-armored troops to start with, small arms fire would have been significantly less lethal. While armor is still really swingy (it doesn't matter if you have a d12 armor die if you roll a 1), the expected ratio of wounds to kills would have shifted up significantly, making medics much more useful, and the expected ratio of casualties to uninjured effectives would have dropped. So that would've also addressed the complaints of gun combat being either really lethal or totally ineffective by shifting it towards ineffective in the general case...
Finally, there was a caveat in the firing rules that fully effective fire (ie, casualty-inducing fire) also applies a level of suppression to the target. This was bugging me last night too, because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for fire that causes casualties to be less suppressing than fire that doesn't, so I was glad to find a rule for it in a summary sidebar on page 37. It is annoying that the full-text rules on 36 do not suggest or imply this, though.
I'm sure there's some other stuff we screwed up with morale, but I'll be damned if I know what it was. That might be something to look at after breakfast. Also, with all this stuff in mind, who's up for a rematch?
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