Here is the discussion thread. This is to be used for general discussion, and OOC commentary not directly related to the current scene. Please do not roleplay here.
Woot! Let's ride!
Gameplay is up.
Hey - great to be here. A small disclaimer and apology, it's bedtime where I am, and I'll be travelling through much of tomorrow. I may not be able to properly post for about 24 hours, but the weekend should be normal, so I'll diving in fully as soon as the chance arises!
Yay! Thanks DM Jelani for this chance. Very excited.
Hey guys,
Tomorrow I begin a new job in a small town in rural Borneo. I'll be driving down tomorrow morning. I was (and still am) hoping that I could continue posting as normal using 3G and and a USB Dongle, but speaking today to other people who have worked in the area, they say connectivity is a real problem. I'm kind of sailing into the unknown, but there seems a real possibility that I might be unable to access the Internet for several days. There must be some kind of Internet access down there, but getting hold of it could be a real challenge.
I really hope to be part of this campaign, and as I settle into my new home getting online should start becoming easier (and there may not be any problem at all!), so if I do disappear please feel free to NPC me until I return.
Cheers!
Wow. Borneo? What brings you there?
Malaysian or Indonesian?
At least we're probably in the same time zone. GMT+8?
Like I said before, I'm not a Catholic so I'm trying my best with the religious stuff. Catholic liturgy is definitely not my area of expertise.
Everything seems fine so far. Mass may have been celebrated on Saturday evening. I'm not sure on that detail.
One thing I'm realizing is that I have no idea how big this army is supposed to be, and as far as I know there aren't any sources for that. Do you guys know of anything?
If nothing is forthcoming, I'm just going to pull a number from my bum and say ~6,000.
I'm thinking about introducing a mechanic to handle combat trauma and post traumatic stress. A lot of people get messed up by having to hack other people into pieces with sharp pieces of metal, and/or seeing a bunch of people get killed and having horrible stuff done to them.
It'd be something like a will save after a fight, if you fail get 1 insanity point. Then in the future whenever you enter combat roll another will save with a penalty equal to your insanity. Failure means you're sickened or something like that. If your insanity points ever exceed your wisdom score you have to make an insanity save in any stressful situation.
There should also be a mechanic for removing the insanity points over time, though I don't know what sort of mental help these folks could hope to find, except prayer or a lot of drinking.
Why should there be that mechanic? The vets I know haven't gotten any better over time. This is intended to be a relatively short and realistic campaign.
I'm sure from your character's point of view PTSD would be the devil or demons possessing them or afflicting them. It seems that 25-30% of people experience PTSD after combat, so that means I'll set the DC for the will save at 5 (assuming the average solider is a Warrior 1 with a +0 to his Will save).
Also, I've decided that while wounds and vigor is more realistic, I think its less fun. If you guys are cool with it I'd like to switch back to normal HP rules.
Jelani
Why do you think wounds and vigor are less fun?
They prolong combat and make mooks harder to kill, while making PCs potentially easier to kill (because of how they interact with criticals, and the amount of attacks a PC will face over their career vs a mook).
Also for a no magic game, it means you only have an easy way to heal part of your health pool (the vigor part) at any given time (through rest).
Thirdly, its easier to describe fights when using HP. What does losing vigor look like? A bruise basically? If you get it all back the next day it can't be any kind of serious injury. But how does getting hit with a sword or other weapon potentially several times leave you will nothing but bruises/minor cuts? It changes the descriptions from a bunch of bloody hacking to several rounds of armor hits and parries followed by a couple of deadly blows.
If you guys disagree in a 2/3rds majority I'll stick with Wounds and Vigor. It's just a personal preference thing now that I've played with Wounds/Vigor more from your Pendragon game, Jubal. The wounds system works, I just personally find it less fun than plain old HP.
I like the change of pace. Vigor for me is like feinting, bumps, and bruises. Wounds are cuts and broken bones. It's clearer for me when an NPC is not committed to a fight, they can surrender at being wounded. I like it when things can keep fighting past their Threshold while bleeding out, or just choose to stop and lay on the ground and groan.
We've been doing criticals wrong. The multiplication was replaced by taking the multiplier in wounds, so a bow would give 3 extra wounds not multiplied, which makes them less vicious than using hit points.
As for mooks, if you want them out quickly, just have them roll unconsciousness when they take any wounds.
I'll think more about your perspective.
cheers
I used Vigor and Wounds once in a game a long time ago. We did criticals that the normal damage was vigor, and the extra dice and modifiers were Wound (which made my scythe-wielding fighter really, really nasty, since 3d4+21 wound points at first level was pretty much auto-kill). We did healing magic that it healed either wound points, or double vigor (not applicable here, since no magic), and channeling did only vigor (and not double). Sneak attacks did 1 point per damage die wound, the rest vigor.
We didn't have thresholds, so once you lost your Con score in wound points, you were unconscious and dying, which made putting mooks down a bit faster.
It was a brutal Rise of the Runelords game, but not un-fun.
Well, one thing I was going to do for this game was the minion idea, where there are certain enemies that are fodder basically and only have 1 HP. They still pose a threat, as they might be just as or nearly as deadly as their higher HP counterparts, they just go down after 1 hit.
I guess I could still do that with wounds and vigor. Just give them 1 vigor and 1 wound or something.
W/v also changes game balance. The game is designed with CR 1 critters having anywhere from 4-12 HP. Wounds/vigor gives them often more than double that, which means PCs will be withstanding double the amount of attacks before they can put down that enemy. Making them much more deadly than normal. So it limits the amount of creatures I can throw at you guys severely before it gets overwhelming.
Like the fight we're in right now in Pendragon where one of us is down, and after a string of nearly miraculously lucky rolls on Bran's part he's managed to put down one bandit? If those guys had 5 or even 10 HP we would have just won the fight, instead most of them are probably going to get away, and they're leaving at least some of us badly wounded.
So that's two for sticking with wounds/vigor?
I'm fine with hp. This game is already experimental on many levels. The more controlled variables, the better.
Hey people, getting online has been a nightmare these last few days, but I should be able to post an update done later today or tomorrow. Thanks for DMPCing me, I'm fine with hit points or vigor.
Well that's one for W/V, one for HP, and one undecided. So we're going back to HP because it's easier for me, and I think it will make combats flow more quickly.
So go ahead and change your characters over to HP. Max HP from your hit dice for first level, and then 1/2 HD+1 for every level after first. Don't forget you have healing surges also.
If everyone could track their HP, Healing surges, any other use/day abilities, their ACs and saves under your name in the Gender or Class line of your alias, that would be great too. Thanks!
Jelani
Where did you describe those healing surges?
cheers
First post of recruitment.
A number of times per day equal to 1/2 a character's level plus their Constitution modifier a character can take a moment to rest, refocus and regain some vigor. With one use of this ability, a character can heal 1d6 hit points of damage for every two levels they possess. Using this ability is a swift action that requires no free hands. A character may only target themselves with this ability.
Also don't forget:
Treat Deadly Wounds:Modify the "treat deadly wounds" use of the heal skill as follows:
Treat Deadly Wounds
Note: You must expend two uses from a healer's kit to perform this task. You take a –2 penalty on your check for each use from a healer's kit that you lack.
When treating deadly wounds, you can restore hit points to a damaged creature. Treating deadly wounds restores 1 hit point per level of the creature. If you exceed the DC by 5 or more, add your heal skill rank to this amount. A creature can only benefit from its deadly wounds being treated within 24 hours of being injured and never more than once per day.
Time: 1 hour.
I also added them to the campaign info tab just now.
Concerning deadly wounds, I assume this trait is okay? It's a paraphrase, but the gist of what it does is there.
Battlefield Surgeon: Can use the Heal skill to treat deadly wounds an extra time per creature per day
Also, is your change to treat deadly wounds intentional? The CRB states that succeeding by 5+ adds your Wisdom modifier, not Heal ranks, to the amount healed.
Yes, it's intentional. I guess it should be heal ranks or wisdom modifier, whichever is higher. I forgot that sometimes someone's wis mod will be more than their heal skill ranks.
==================================
I also just came across these rules, which we could use in place of HP/Healing surges if you guys want.
Wow. Borneo? What brings you there?
A rather belated answer I'll grant you, but I work for a development programme helping rural English teachers in Malaysian Sabah (GMT +8). At the moment I'm looking out the window at banana and coconut trees, with a soundtrack of buzzing cicadas and jungle insects. It makes imagining Lo's existence in cold medieval Europe a bit of a challenge.
My wife and I have just found a house to rent, but the jury's still out on whether we'll be able to get it connected to the Internet. The landlord said "yes, definitely" when we visited it, but now we're installed he's suddenly not so sure!
I can get online to post regularly enough during the weekdays at the office, but weekends may prove more of a challenge.
I'm also an English teacher, but in not so rural China!
A number of times per day equal to 1/2 a character's level plus their Constitution modifier a character can take a moment to rest, refocus and regain some vigor. With one use of this ability, a character can heal 1d6 hit points of damage for every two levels they possess. Using this ability is a swift action that requires no free hands. A character may only target themselves with this ability.
Are these 1/2 level stuff, minimum 1?
I lost track of the Recruitment thread.
cheers
Yes, minimum 1.
The recruitment thread never got attached to the gameplay thread.
I just connected it.
More Internet woes! Please keep DMPCing me for now guys, should be able to make a post on Monday if not before.
Do any of you watch Vikings? Just watched episode 2 of season 2 and it was like perfect flavor for this game.
It's not exactly historically accurate in the characters/storyline, but the weapons, armor, clothes, houses etc, pretty much are. The vikings are very similar in culture to the Saxons. The Saxons just lack most of the naval aspect of it. They raided over land. Anyway, if you can get ahold of it, check it out.
I'm enjoying watching this quite a bit. I'm personally interested in the time frame, so this is a great time!
Thanks!
-Ben.
Good to know :)
Tied face first to the pillar by the wrists with thick ropes is a naked teenage boy (about the same age as Gunthar) with tonsured hair. His back has been cut open along the spine, and his ribs detached there. His ibs are broken and spread out towards his upraised arms like a pair of bloody wings. Cruel fishhooks rammed through the boy's triceps hold the "wings" in place. His lungs have been ripped out of his back, and hang over his lower back and rear like two bloody, deflated, meaty, wineskins. The boy's legs are mostly gone, chewed and eaten down to the bones, which are shattered on both sides just below the knees. Neither one of his feet is immediately apparent.
Why DM, you certainly do have a bucolic turn of phrase.
What can I say, I like a little grit in my porridge. That, and I've been watching too much violent television probably.
It's a "real" thing people used to do though. Look up blood eagle.
Been doing some long overdue housekeeping to my character sheet, including adding the stats for my horse (Balder) and mule (Fitzroy) and sorting out the weight encumbrance. Worth noting my horse is probably lightly encumbered when mounted.
I should deduct some of my trail rations and animal feed. How many days have we been travelling?
This is the evening of day 2.
Fully updated character sheet!
Ahh! Misunderstood that post.
cheers
Slammed at work these past few days, should get a post up tonight. Apologies!
Happy Easter to you too Reolus, and everyone else.
How are we doing hit points for level 2 and beyond (apologies if this has already been mentioned somewhere)?
I went with the co-ordinate scholar secret. It basically works like a watered-down bless spell, granting +1 morale bonuses to attacks and skill checks to all allies within 30 feet, though it takes him a full-round to get it online. It's the precursor to inspiration, which grants +2 bonuses to attack, damage, and saves.
Since these scholar secrets basically work under the same mechanic as rage powers and rogue talents, would it be okay to have a feat Extra Secret, if I wanted to pick up more than one every even level?
Leveled in Scout. Only choices were skills.
Used HD/2+1 for HP
Half hit die+1+con mod. d10=6+con mod.
I'll think about the custom feat for a while before I say yes. I'd need to look over all the secrets in more detail.
Lo's updated. He gains the Deflective Shield which is unlikely to be much use :-)
1 skill point each in Survival, Perception and Knowledge (engineering).