Ah - the light dawns!
From the book : "Healing requires some basic supplies such as bandages and reasonably clean water. If these aren’t available, the healer suffers a –2 penalty to his roll."
I think I said during the fight with the punks that it's reasonable to assume that "adventurers" would have these VERY basic materials on hand, especially someone like Marko who has healing as a skill. So I'm not going to track those - you're never at a penalty for that (unless you've been in the desert for 5 days and are out of water and you've been in 10 fights since you were in the last town and and and...).
But how about this : a "healer's kit" gives you a +2 to your Healing skill, useable for 10 times, for maybe 50 SP? The price is open to debate.
Not sure what you're suggesting, Arabella. I definitely don't want one roll of a die determining the total outcome of a fight.
Pathfinder has its own version of group combat and it's not really one roll, but more like each side is a character and rolls are made which then determine how the battle is going. It usually is not just one roll deciding the whole battle, but each roll represents the combined actions of all the combatants boiled down to a certain number of casualties and other effects like morale and so on.
Unless the moderator wants to roll each melee attack for all the opponents not directly fighting a PC, then something like this needs to be done if there is a large battle to be fought. The moderator could, of course, simply dictate the result, but I think the point of the rules are to bring strategic thinking to bear to give one's own side the best chances of winning the battle. For example, if we can manage to build up the palisade, that would be like increasing our side's AC. But if we do that, we might not have time to give the residents any weapons combat training, which might mean their bonus to hit would be lower. So we're making tradeoffs.
Some players (I'm not one of them) really get off on this kind of thing and there are whole systems devoted to battlefield strategy. I'll be happy to role play the development of the village's defenses and let the GM worry about how to determine how the battle goes.
I would like to role play the segment of the battle that affects the PCs directly to give us the excitement and risk of battle and let the rest go on with summaries given by the GM about who things are going for the others.
I am a little worried about the exploding dice, seeing how devastating a string of aces could be for a damage roll if it falls in the orcs favor. Could lead to a massacre and not the Alice's Restaurant type of massacre.
Some players (I'm not one of them) really get off on this kind of thing and there are whole systems devoted to battlefield strategy.
Yeah, I think that's more the people from the wargaming side of things. Or maybe people who play Risk.
Your concern over exploding dice is sort of the same angle as my not wanting "one roll" determining the whole result. Either way, a bit of good/bad luck could totally defeat either side. When it's a bunch of X versus a bunch of Y, things tend to even out a little.
I asked for us to have discussed each characters' role in combat. I know what my role is but I don't know the rest of you. I'll start.
K'Don is the "Tank", he stands in the front lines and protects those behind them. He has no missle weapons, but has a "HUGE" sword that can occupy a large area and make it hard for the enemy to get past him. He has no healing skills.
If the rest of you could give a similar summary it would help greatly in planning any combat we encounter. 0 _ )
0 )
Oh well I tried a smiley face.
But how about this : a "healer's kit" gives you a +2 to your Healing skill, useable for 10 times, for maybe 50 SP? The price is open to debate.
That is way too small a price for something like that. +2 to healing is equivalent to the Healer edge. If you got that from say a magic ring it would cost 2,000 SP - using the fantasy companion as a guideline. Even with the limited number of uses, I still think 50 bones is just not enough.
It will probably be simpler I think to just agree that we stock up on bandages and such.
That being said, a magic ring that gives you bonuses to Healing checks is an interesting idea. Nightingale's Ring of Hospice. :-)
-Posted with Wayfinder
I'm not sure I could function as a traditional battlefield controller. I just don't have access to those kinds of effects. The way we are implementing magic, drastically reduces that kind of a role for a "wizard".
So put me down as a ranged damage dealer for now.
That being said there are different ways to go implement magic in Savage Worlds. There is an optional rule in SW called "no power points" on page 95 of the SWD. Basically rather than use points, you take a penalty to your arcane skill equal to half the power point cost. For example the armor power would be Spellcasting -1. A blast power with the large template would be Spellcasting -3.
I think the savage setting Hellfrost does this.
-Posted with Wayfinder
I guess Alex is part warrior (mostly melee, since guns aren't that useful yet), part Face? Not really sure if that fills a niche or not. Especially since Arabella is a much better Face. ;)
WindDancer's typical role in a fight is hiding. :op The only reason she's gotten involved is A) to protect Connor and B) because Connor told her to protect Alex.
As such, she might take the occasional close-in risk, but she's mostly going to do whatever she can from a safe distance. She's not really a battlefield controller and she doesn't have much damage-dealing potential, so I guess just consider her a distraction or an irritant. If she can briefly blind or disorient the enemy, then that gives you actual fighters a brief advantage.
I'm imagining Connor being somewhat utility - he's got the healing power, and an attack power. His size and ability to read minds (which hasn't come up yet) should make him a useful scout. The slingshot can make a great distraction, even if it doesn't do a lot of damage. But he'll be relatively useless when it comes to melee, and will avoid it as much as possible.
If the game goes long enough that we get him around 16, I might have him start using a firearm at that point (maybe even closer to 14), but he just feels too young for it now.
Plus once we hit seasoned, I have a couple of other powers for Connor to learn (Slumber, and maybe Quickness or Invisibility or Teleport.)
Don't let Marko and Connor sell themselves short - they can each do as much damage as a gun or bow, each and every round, for at least 8 rounds each (which is longer than most common battles).
And they recharge by the HOUR, not by sleeping overnight.
WindDancer's whirlwinds can keep opponents Shaken and unable to act, which is a big deal.
Arabella can make everyone (including Marko and Connor!) have a better chance of hitting, and make those holding non-ranged weapons do more damage.
That is way too small a price for something like that. +2 to healing is equivalent to the Healer edge. If you got that from say a magic ring it would cost 2,000 SP - using the fantasy companion as a guideline. Even with the limited number of uses, I still think 50 bones is just not enough.
Good point, I hadn't thought of it that way. Guess that's why the kit mentioned in passing in the Deluxe edition only had 4 uses (would have loved to have known its price!).
(What follows is just speculation for the fun of it) Still, a ring provides infinite uses, so it's hard to gauge what 10 uses would cost in comparison. 200 SP? Now that's getting pricey enough it's not a casual buy, and you'd probably only take a "use" when things were really bad....
But when you mentioned the second ring, that reminded me : Arabella can basically do the same thing by Boosting someone's Heal skill! Unfortunately going up a die value isn't nearly as good as a +2, but every little bit helps.
Don't let Marko and Connor sell themselves short - they can each do as much damage as a gun or bow, each and every round, for at least 8 rounds each (which is longer than most common battles).
And they recharge by the HOUR, not by sleeping overnight.
While that's true, it isn't an idea that should be relied upon because it's not how I'm planning to play Connor. Casting bolt at everything is not going to be his style.
Gotcha.
K'Don - various "smileys" (unfortunately the Paizo board doesn't convert plain-text smileys into graphics icons, so this is the best you can do)
Plain and simple
:)
<filler>
With a nose
:-)
Winking
;)
Mouth open wide
:o
WindDancer's player's favorite, sticking tongue out
:op
You just notice that one because it's usually directed at you. :op
I'm rather fond of :o) as well.
K'Don, you can have your emoticon look "off screen" a little by using ^ for a nose, for example :^)
Another you'll see around a fair bit is sort of a "Bill the Cat" shock/amazement/confusion/dismay emoticon. No need to tilt your head for this one: O_o
Cool, thanks for the smiley stuff.
Arabella's fighting skills are minimal, mostly there for self-defense. As you saw with the target practice episode, if she's shooting at something in close range, she can be effective, but at any other range, her ability to hit cannot be relied upon. She keeps the gun mostly for the intimidation factor and for emergency self-defense situations.
Likewise, she has a dagger and a fighting skill of d4, but her strength and dexterity are minimal, so even if she hits, she'll not do significant damage; so again, the knife is mostly for if someone grapples her she has something she can use to attack.
She's the rogue of the party without the sneak attack option in combat. If we ever have to deal with traps, secret compartments or doors, or anything else mechanical, she'll step up and be most useful. She's also the diplomat of the group, capable of being persuasive and charming.
Edit: She's also the group egghead. Most of her skills will be knowledge skills, particularly science.
Her weird science boosting device is useful as support, but mostly just improves your odds at whatever skill it's applied to. She will expand on the things her devices can do and will eventually get something useful in combat, but I think the next one will be an illusion generator, which will be useful in combat for creating distractions and perhaps intimidation.
In any combat, she'll likely try to avoid melee, use her gun if she has a clear target not too far away and not too close to any other PCs and look for ways to help the group.
The healing kit seems like what one would need to have to avoid taking the -2 penalty that the rules say you must take if you don't have bandages, clean water, etc. As such, I doubt it would need to cost very much.
Perhaps more expensive kits could have some kind of alchemical salves that give a +1 or +2 bonus or allow treating of wounds beyond the 1 hour limit. If there are no healing potions, this might be giving the party something that functions a bit like magical healing in a traditional fantasy campaign like Pathfinder or D&D.
Whenever I see WindDancer's :op emoticon, I always think of Homer Simpson going "Dohhh!", except it appears in my mind something like an exclamation that's a cross between Oh! and Oops.
ALL - also keep in mind that *anyone* can try a Tricks action (and since it can be Smarts based that would be great for Arabella), and anyone with the Intimidate or Taunt skills can use those, and as far as I know, they can be used *at a distance*! You just have to be able to justify/explain how you're using it.
Even if you can't do lots of outright damage, anything that can make a foe Shaken is a Good Thing.
Healing potions (1 Wound) exist, but they are hard to find because "spellcasters" are rare, and they'd have to have knowledge of Alchemy (an Edge and a Skill) as well. And they use 120 SP of materials per potion.
Hmmm, that might give me a way to gauge how much a "+2 to the roll" kit would cost...
Great, thanks, I assume that the current time frame of the game is just after dinner. Is it still daylight? What time is it (in our equivalents).
Unfortunately a +2 to *any* die roll (even d4!) virtually guarantees success, so for fairness a kit that provides "+2 to Healing" would have to cost as much as a potion of Healing, PER USE, or 150 SP. And a +2 even gives you a better chance of healing 2 Wounds, so it ought to cost a little bit more.
I think it's best to drop the idea of a "healer's kit" and just rely on Arabella's ability to boost your Heal skill.
K'Don, the sun has set just recently - basically it's dark, with maybe a hint of light still in the west.
How much could this be abused?
I'm thinking of giving anyone with an Arcane Background (over half the group!) a "free" cantrip/prestidigitation Power for 1 PP.
It can create a spark, slightly heat or cool a small object, move very light items around, create a small puff of air, etc. etc. It has no duration and cannot re-create any existing Power's effects, nor can it make anyone Shaken.
Go ahead, tell me how you'd abuse it! :)
Cantrips are free. 1 PP is not free. :op
That said, a few (mostly Wolfscarred) cantrips I've found usable/abusable:
Ectoplasmic Trinket
You shape raw ectoplasm into a non-magical, unattended object of nonliving matter. The item created cannot exceed 1 cubic foot in volume or 1 gp in value. ... arrows, bolts, bullets, darts, and shuriken (manifesting this power will create up to three of such at once).
Trick Shot
By altering the levels of probability surrounding a small object in motion, you can ‘trick' it into performing seemingly impossible maneuvers. While this ability has no direct influence on an attack roll, it can nevertheless make a certain outcome possible in the first place... Having a crossbow bolt “loop the loop” before impacting normally - Getting a javelin to slalom around trees between you and your target - Allowing a dagger, despite being pointy, to bounce off of the ground between a creature's legs and continue unhindered to its actual target behind him... From a combat perspective, the most powerful use of this power would be to shoot around corners...
Produce Flame
Flames as bright as a torch appear in your open hand... the flames can be hurled or used to touch enemies. You can strike an opponent with a melee touch attack, dealing fire damage equal to 1d6 + 1 point per caster level (maximum +5). Alternatively, you can hurl the flames up to 120 feet as a thrown weapon... No sooner do you hurl the flames than a new set appears in your hand. Each attack you make reduces the remaining duration by 1 minute.
Yeah, that's why this Cantrip (that's the Power's official name now, just to annoy you :op ) can't produce any *material* objects (unlike PF's Prestidigitation spell, which can so easily be abused), nor does it have any duration (basically 1 round). Can't do damage, can't create light, can't create sounds, change color or flavor (also problems in PF), etc. etc.
Current definition (lasts 1 round) : it can create a spark or small flame, slightly heat or cool a small object, move very light items around, create a small puff of air or smoke, etc. It cannot produce any material, create sounds or light, change colors or flavors, or make anyone Shaken or Wounded.
Perhaps another question could be, would you ever use this for "flavor" (yes, WD, I know it can't create flavors...) in a scene?
Man, you guys were busy this weekend.
Does Prestidigitation get abused? I mostly just use it for flavor.
I think I'm okay with the low-ish magical setting so far. Here magic isn't casual. It's a nice change of pace actually. More of a Gandalf feel than an Elminster. Although, I've heard that the Savage Setting Shaintar does a good job of recreating high fantasy.
Yes, it does. So does HellFrost, and it uses a strictly point-less magic system.
(Try Googling
"pathfinder" "prestidigitation"
[with the double quotes, they help] and you'll find many many pages devoted to its uses, silly uses, and abuses.)
Shaking his head at himself for giving instructions to a lizard...
I take it as a sign I'm playing my quirkier PCs properly that this sort of thing keeps happening in their games.
I can't believe I've offended the sensibilities of a kobold and a goblin.
:o)
(Gaming Tip: Play a goblinoid. So. Much. Fun.)
A combat reminder for those steeped in PF : in SW, you can move *around* an opponent as much as you like (literally run circles around them), but moving AWAY from them provokes an “AoO” from them and any other foes adjacent to you.
The foes have to be non-Shaken.
That's the only AoO in the system.
I can live with that.
P.S. - there's Edges you can take to avoid the withdraw AoO's.
Arabella would be happy with a cantrip that can create enough of a spark to light a candle or lamp. Since she's doing weird science, it could be two rings that when brought together, create the effect. That might come in handy in the battle to come if we're going to light lanterns or torches to create enough light to fight with.
There's a scene in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban where Professor Lupin goes around his office lighting candles with a gesture of his fingers.
How about a flint ring and a steel ring? :o)
Re: Arabella's excellent question: how many orcs DID Alex see?
Sorry Arabella, I decided this a couple of days ago but didn't post it because no one expressed an interest - right now I'm *not* going to go with the Cantrip idea, even a small flame for 1 round or moving light objects around could be potentially abused...
Reach weapons
I was looking into reach weapons yesterday (because Adelmar has one), and I know Arabella in particular likes them in PF, so :
A person with a Reach weapon can move within their reach of a foe*, attack, and move away without suffering that "withdraw AoO".
(* = with a non-Reach weapon)
If you're using a Reach weapon, you CAN strike targets that are *closer* than the reach of the weapon.
If you're using a Reach weapon, and you step a square back from an adjacent opponent*, they do not get a free attack on you for withdrawing from combat because you are still within striking range with your weapon.
The two most common reach weapons (staff, spear) also give you +1 Parry, which is nice. The biggest drawback is that they take 2 hands to use.
And if you have even just a d6 Strength, a spear does as much damage as a sword or bow.
"He's got a dagger!"
I urged everyone to get at least a d4 in Fighting even if you're not a "melee fighter" because that boosts your Parry (how easy it is for you to BE hit).
But to take advantage of it, you must have some kind of weapon in-hand, otherwise your effective Parry drops by 2!
So if you're not a melee fighter, you should always have a dagger in your hand during a fight, in case a bad guy should run up to you and take a swing.
Certain weapons also give you a +1 to Parry, like staffs and rapiers. So they're a pretty good deal.
-Posted with Wayfinder
"He's got a dagger!"
"We've all got daggers! We're barbarians!" :)
So if you're not a melee fighter, you should always have a dagger in your hand during a fight, in case a bad guy should run up to you and take a swing.
Unless you've come to a gun fight, hence the expression, "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight." :)
I think this build is gonna ROCK! I so want to play her as a character somewhere.
I think PATRIOT is hiring... :o)
Arabella, intent on lighting a lantern, finally gets it lit and the whole area gets lighter. She looks around to see the roof of the house glowing and Adelmar nearby. Giving a grunt of wonderment, she tosses the candle...
Hehe... in my head I saw the light-versus-sound equivalent of X Marks The Spot.
Paizo tried really hard to set things up so it's tough to cheat. For example, the real die rolls are in green. There's no way for us as users to make green text, so we can't pretend to be the DiceBot.
If rolls were discarded when you disconnected, then you could cheat by previewing your rolls and, if you didn't like what you got, just disconnecting and trying again. Lather, rinse, repeat until you get the numbers you want.
So, you can't do that! :o)
It doesn't remember your rolls "forever," but long enough that it's impractical to try beating the system.
DiceBot remembers whole sequences of rolls for each die type. So if you roll five d20s in a row, don't post with those rolls, then come back later in the day, you'll get exactly the same sequence of rolls.
There are still a few ways you can jerk the system around. If you're rolling a bunch of skills for example, you can game things a little by arranging the order of your skills so the most important ones get the high numbers. That's why I always do my rolls in the same order as what's in the profile. You don't want people thinking you juggled things around to get that 20 to show up on Perception (or whatever).
But generally they did a great job of "keeping honest people honest." :o)
The pleasant side effect is that if your post gets lost somehow (as it did with you), if you can get back to it in a reasonable amount of time you get to use the same rolls you had before (for better or for worse).
Damn I lost connection lost the great rolls. Since battle goes SO fast, K'Don will spend a benny attack Orc "C"
Fighting: 1d8 ⇒ 8
Wild: 1d6 ⇒ 2Somehow I got the same numbers curious
I did some testing of the dice-bot program once and determined that something somewhere keeps track of the rolls you've made and makes sure the same numbers get used each time. So you may not have lost the rolls, especially if your new attempt got the same numbers.
I think it's meant to discourage cheating by previewing the result and trying to delete it and re-roll it hoping for something better.
So I'd think you would not need to spend the bennie, particularly since the first attempt never registered and got into the official gameplay. GM's call, ultimately, but that's what I'd do.
Actuallly, I made an honest attack earlier, then used a Benny because I got a 1 and a 2. couldn't afford to let the first round pass without doing some kind of damage.
I thought I did the draw weapons thing correctly. Here is the text I referenced.
Drawing two weapons at once, drawing a weapon from a difficult location (such as an ankle holster or inside a coat), or drawing a large or unwieldy weapon (a rifle, a shotgun, etc.), still inflicts a single –2 penalty, but requires an Agility roll. If the roll is failed, the weapons are drawn but the character may not attack that round.
(Emphasis added.)
Arabella made the agility roll with the penalty for being wounded. Are you saying because she intended to make an attack, the agility roll should have been at -2 as well? Seems the text would have indicated that, since the roll would be unnecessary if you did not intend to attack as well.
Since it did not say that the agility roll was made with a -2 penalty for multiple actions, I thought that was just to see if you could draw two weapons and still have the option to attack. This would make it the same as drawing one weapon, in the sense that a normal single weapon draw has no roll required. The -2 penalty only applies to the action that requires a roll.
It sounds like you're saying if you draw a weapon (that's an action) and you make an attack (that's an action) then the actions that require a roll are at -4 (-2 for each action). I thought the first extra action made everything take a -2 penalty.
Am I misreading something or missing something stated elsewhere?
Each additional action attempted in a round subtracts 2 from all the hero’s rolls. If an adventurer wants to fire a gun with one hand and slice at an adjacent foe with a sword in the other, for instance, he subtracts 2 from both rolls.
Before I act, let me know the logistics (rule-wise) for handing the pistol to Alexander.
First, is handing the weapon to Alex an action for Arabella and for Alexander?
If it is, is there a roll required for it to succeed?
Second, does Arabella have to delay her actions until just before Alexander's point in the combat in order to do it?
Alternatively, could she make the hand off at her point in the action and then, say move away from Alex?
One more thing ....
If Arabella moves one square NE so she has Katana and Alexander between herself and Orcs G and F, will that provoke an AOO from either/both?
Just checking in to confirm I'm here and watching. Since WD is farther down in the initiative list and she's in a support roll, I'll wait with declaring her move until more of the action has unfolded.
GM, the ooc tags not spanning paragraphs is a pain. Here's a trick I use to cope with it.
Type up your whole "ooc" post as if you're writing normally, except go ahead and ooc-tag the first paragraph as you write it.
Once you're finished, go back to the first paragraph and click-drag select the opening ooc tag. Hit <Ctrl>-c to copy it.
Then click before the start of each paragraph and <Ctrl>-v to paste ("insert") the tag.
For the close-ooc tags you can do the same thing (put the closing tag on the clipboard and then deposit it after each paragraph). Or, deposit all the open-ooc tags you already have on the clipboard, then go back and drop a "/" inside each one to turn them into close-ooc tags.
It sounds more involved than it is. Once you've done it a few times you'll find you can fly through it.
(It's bad formatting but I think you can just open-ooc each paragraph and ONLY close-ooc the final one. The few times I've done something like that accidentally, I haven't noticed it breaking anything.)
Another trick I use is to type the open and close tag without anything in between. Then I copy the tag set first and then type between. For each new instance of ooc paragraph, I paste the tags again and type in between. Also works with bolded quotes for when I'm interspersing dialogue with narration text.
Not so good if you're copy-and-pasting things in between, but I also sometimes keep a text file open so I can keep the tags pre-typed and then just a quick c and p to set it up.
For dice rolls, I have a text file with all my various rolls like notice, weird science, etc. already formatted, so I just copy and paste when I need to roll for something.
My format is as follows (using parentheses marks instead of square brackets so the program won't attempt to process it as a roll):
(dice=notice)1d6(/dice)
(dice=wild)1d6(/dice)
Result =
I start pasting that and then preview it see what the initial rolls are. Then if I get an ace, I add the exploding dice below until all the dice rolls are complete, then I type the result, including any modifiers. Makes it relatively easy to review and double check.
Arebella
Let's also look at the line *before* the one we've been quoting, which is specifically referring to drawing AND attacking : "and so inflicts the standard multi-action penalty (MAP) of –2 to the character’s attack roll."
I'm almost positive that in the quote "Drawing two weapons at once...still inflicts a single –2 penalty, but requires an Agility roll" the -2 *is* the MAP from the previous sentence. However, I do agree that the "single" seems to be implying to treat drawing TWO weapons as a *single* action.
The Agility roll is added because if you try to do multiple actions with things that don't normally require rolls, then you add an Agility roll for them. And also apply the -2 (or whatever) to it for multiple actions. That's something SW does a lot.
I'm less sure now about adding an attack action. In my first reply, I interpreted the actions to be
Draw / Draw (so -2 and Agility roll) / Attack (-2) = -4 to all actions
but I can now also see it could be
Draw two items (Agility roll) / Attack (-2) = -2 to all actions
I will have to ask someone in authority about that, may not get an answer until Monday...
So let's say that if ALL you want to do is hand Alex the gun, that's your "action". But if you want to do that AND take another Action, then that's an Agility roll for the hand-off, at -2 because it's a MAP. Same for Alex on his end.
I suppose technically you'd have to Hold until Alex's action comes up, but unless that affects anything tactically (the Orcs don't act in-between you two) I don't care.
Ms. Columbo ;) - if you move 1 square NE, you remove *your* threat to both Orcs, so they would both get the "AoO".