My reading was that the damage doesn't get an ace if you are striking do do damage to an object. I think any trait roll can ace, although it some cases, an ace may not make any difference to the result. Might need to reread that myself.
The trait roll can ace, which is to help beat the opponent's parry, especially if it is high and you can get extra damage if you specifically attack his hand (called shot -4). However, if you only target the gauntlet, then you are correct, no Ace bonus damage. I once had a Jedi Star Knight in another game and that was his favorite tactic.
Fortune - you said "...put some information PC's might know or things they might notice under a spoiler...". Thing is, I would have no idea what kinds of things a player might want their PC to know. I couldn't have predicted that you'd want that specific Notice roll and an Occult roll.
ALL - anytime you want to make a "passive" roll (scan the room, search your mind for knowledge, etc.), just go ahead and make the roll, don't ask permission first. Consider it a Free Action. I'll decide if it's relevant before evaluating the result.
Hellion - please see my OOC comments to you in Gameplay...
VeeSix - virtually any roll can Ace, the only exception I'm aware of are damage rolls for Breaking Things.
I wasn't suggesting you should have anticipated my questions. I mentioned the technique for situations where you know PCs may want/need information that a roll can facilitate. It can reduce the number of posts needed to accomplish the determination of who knows what.
I can't think of any situations where I could anticipate that the PCs would want specific information - can you suggest a few? Thanks!
Angel - by RAW, this is how it would work :
You're grappling two opponents, so two Athletics rolls at -2 each for the MAP.
They each get an opposed Athletics roll to avoid being grabbed.
The Entangled and Bound states don't really apply here, but Entangled says "the victim can't move" (which I assume means walk around), which sounds good enough for me, so you'd have to get a Success on both opposed rolls (4 or more higher on your rolls than they got on theirs).
So : 2 Athletics rolls at -2 would both have to be 4 higher than their opposed Athletics rolls. Not very good odds at all...
Then if you manage to grab them both, you could only make a single Strength roll (like for a punch) that would do the same damage to both (unless you've got the Brawler, Bruiser, or Martial Artist Edges). But the odds of a single die doing enough damage to Incapacitate them ("render them unconscious") are very small. The odds of making them both Shaken are better, but they could recover from that in just one round.
If you'd like to try it, roll it! If you'd like to do something different, you can change tactics.
I can't think of any situations where I could anticipate that the PCs would want specific information - can you suggest a few? Thanks!
Here's an example: The group enters a room looking for information about who lives there or enters a crime scene looking for clues about what happened.
Put something relevant under a spoiler for a notice success and something additional under a second spoiler for a raise.
Or, in the room is a contraption. A success on a science roll would reveal something about what it is supposed to do. A raise would reveal how it is able to do that, if that is relevant, or maybe just a secondary purpose.
If doing research about something could reveal some important information, then put that information under a pair of spoilers, one for a success and another for a raise perhaps allowing either a research roll or a common knowledge or academics skill if appropriate.
Similar things might apply for skills like academics, common knowledge, hacking, occult, or survival.
Basically, any situation where you might ask people to make a roll to see if anyone knows something or notices something or can figure something out. By putting the information to be discovered under spoilers, you allow each PC to roll and learn the information independent of each other and you don't have to make a second post to reveal what the PC rolls might provide. The first PC to get a success can share that information with others or keep it secret as desired.
An example from the Runelords game: You asked for a notice roll at a door. Assuming there is something in particular to notice, maybe some noise inside to indicate what might be inside, you could put the result of a success under a spoiler.
In the New West Rifts game, the GM asked for a notice roll as well, so depending on what is there to be noticed, that would be another place where a spoiler could speed things along.
WhtKnt - another thing that's limiting you is your bare-handed attacks. A single damage die isn't going to be able to take down a lot of the kinds of opponents you're going to be running into. If you want to do non-lethal damage, a metal baton would add d6 (RAW says d4) to your damage. If you don't mind doing lethal damage, gauntlets with the Energy Weapon and Power Weapon mods would do Str+2d6, or Str+d6+d10 on a Raise. Or you could add those mods to any ordinary medieval-type hand-held weapon, like swords or maces, and add in the weapon's damage die as well.
It looks like you optimized your build for ranged attacks, but it'll be hard to avoid melee combats entirely since opponents can come to you.
Remember you can always choose nonlethal as well it just gives a -1. Not sure how that functions with ranged power attacks, but I almost bet there's a modifier or it could be flavored as more of a stunning effect than like. Shooting a beam of molten cosmic energy through someone.
WhtKnt - you could probably find (or have made) a baton with the Energy Weapon and Power Weapon modifiers, so you'd be doing d10+d8+d6 Fighting damage, 2d10+d8 on a Raise.
Hellion - his ranged attack isn't a Power, but an ordinary blaster, which has a "non-lethal" setting on it (but you're right that the Power can be used non-lethally too).
I'm not opposed to retconning it, but since Angel probably hasn't had much (if any) experience fighting people, it would make sense that she didn't know how little damage her bare fists could do.
Your call. If you want it now, I'll retcon it in.
ALL - new rule : feel free to describe your attacks as targeting arms, legs, head, groin, etc. But unless you use the phrase "Called Shot", I won't impose any penalty to hit (or bonus to damage).
Did a review of posts and we were both wrong about the number of bennies Fortune should now have left.
She starts with 6 (1 extra from Young Hindrance, Luck and Extra Luck edges)
There have been 3 jokers drawn by PCs in the past two melees (initial skirmish on porch and subsequent ambush.
Fortune has cast 5 spells and used 3 rerolls, so she is down to her last benny. She'll stick to combat.
Ok, this combat is taking too long. I picked Parries and Toughnesses that I thought would be challenging but not tough, but I obviously made them too high. So I'm lowering them by 2 starting with Round 6.
I also gave them damages that I thought would be challenging but not tough, but apart from two multiple-Acing rolls, they haven't hurt you too much. So I think I'm ok there.
I made them Wild Cards (well, they at least have a Wild die) in order to have any chance of hitting you. And while they may have hit occasionally, they're not doing much damage, so I'm not worried about that.
Just letting y'all know my thought processes...
It's all right with me. If you want a rationale, perhaps there is some residual effect of Fortune's spell to lower their fighting and shooting dice, making them less effective at defense.
Sorry for the delay been a bit consumed by Foxhole and Darktide as brain bleach for the last 2 weeks of crapfest at work.
Not really sure how to extrapolate on your thoughts Zen, but I've been trying stuff beyond just normal attacks to try and help get this done with, my dice just hate me apparently lol.
It's one of those things that shows that the system really isn't built to handle Pbp speeds.
I'm confused, Ganger 2 was shaken before I hit, you rolled to recover(because you forgot) it recovered, then I hit and shook it, then it acted without rolling for shaken again?
Yeah, sorry, I try my best, but I can't catch everything...
But, since he didn't even hit, we can just say he didn't act.
gonna try to get something on the board tonight, if not tomorrow when i'm off work for sure.
I'm wondering if there is a better system than the one Zenfox uses to start each new round, with a bunch of spoilers that I imagine take a long time to generate and/or update. I'm thinking better for Zenfox, easier to keep track and post.
I'm thinking create a spreadsheet on Google Drive. Put a row for each character, PC and NPC, and columns for all the details. Share that with a link that allows all the players to see the link and open the spreadsheet (view only would be fine as you may not want players changing data). Then just update the things that change and repost the link to the spreadsheet or keep the link the the profile header of the GM..
Such spreadsheets are relatively common in PBP in my experience, often used to keep track of treasure found and help with dividing it and figuring out shares.
Fortune - I appreciate the thought, and I'll think about that, but my document already has everything formatted with the "[spoiler=...]" and "[b]" stuff written in, so literally all I have to do is copy-and-paste from the document into the game. I can also quickly start the next round of information from the previous round by copy-and-pasting, because I'm updating the current round's info as combat progresses.
And, my document has *every* round of action documented, so I can go back and double-check stuff when I get confused. Keeping a single "document" with only the current info wouldn't let me do that.
Let me think about this some more and get back to you on this...
Fortune - I'm confused. Martial Artist and Martial Warrior apply to bare-handed attacks, but you're linking them to a dagger?
<...time passses...>
Ok, I've read the SPC's Melee Attack Power's "Edges" and "Weapons" sections, and I can understand how it could sound like you could combine the "Martial" Edges with a weapon, but those two sections are talking about two different situations : bare-handed, and with a weapon. The limitation of the "Martial" Edges still applies, so instead of :
STR (1d8) + M. Artist & Martial Warrior (1d6) + [Melee Attack (1d6)] + dagger (1d4) + [Melee Attack/Special Weapon (1d6)] = d8+3d6+d4
You could just take the 2 SPP from the "Special Weapon" option and move it straight into the ordinary Melee Attack for 4 SPP of Melee Attack for your hands and keep the Martial Edges for :
STR (1d8) + M. Artist & Martial Warrior (1d6) + Melee Attack (2d6) = d8+3d6
Make sense?
I see now the bonus to the attack die from martial artist and warrior only applies when using unarmed attacks. I took away the bonuses for the dagger attack in my combat dicebot section. That would make the attack result a 7 instead of a 9, which might still hit.
As for the damage, the Melee Attack power says "A character can also enhance her melee damage by using this power, which applies to all armed and unarmed Fighting attacks." In the rest of the entry, it refers to melee attacks, which I assumed in each case uses the above definition of the effect of the power.
Table lists strength + d6 for the cost of 2 which is what I purchased.
Edges: A damage die from Brawler, Bruiser, Martial Artist, or Martial Warrior Edges is added on to a character’s melee attack. A hero with the Martial Arts Edge and 4 points in this power, for example, rolls Str+d4+2d6.
Fortune has both Martial Artist and Martial Warrior Edges, which I interpret to mean she gets the d6 bonus from the two edges to melee attack damage, which it says applies to both armed and unarmed fighting attacks.
Weapons: Add any weapon damage to the total. A hero with melee attack +2d6 and a short sword (+d6), for example, causes Str+3d6
damage.
Her dagger does d4, but it has the special weapon power.
So as I see it, the damage Str + d6 (from the combo of MA and MW) + d6 (from this edge) for unarmed damage.
The dagger has the special weapon power to add a d6 above normal dagger damage (d4).
So with a normal dagger, the damage would be Str + d6 (MA, MW) + d6 (Melee Attack) + d4 (dagger)
With the Special weapon dagger, she adds a d6 onto that.
If I'm misreading this, let me know how.
Fortune has both Martial Artist and Martial Warrior Edges, which I interpret to mean she gets the d6 bonus from the two edges to melee attack damage, which it says applies to both armed and unarmed fighting attacks."
While the *power* applies to both armed and unarmed fighting attacks, the *Edges* only apply to unarmed attacks. So if you attack bare-handed, with your Edges and 2 SPP of generic Melee Attack, you'd do +2d6 damage. But if you pick up an ordinary dagger, you'd only do +d6 damage (from Melee Attack) because now the Edges don't apply. Make sense?
I think that negates the rest of your argument, so :
You could just take the 2 SPP from the "Special Weapon" option and move it straight into the ordinary Melee Attack for 4 SPP of Melee Attack for your hands, keep the Martial Edges, and drop the dagger completely for :
STR (1d8) + M. Artist & Martial Warrior (1d6) + Melee Attack (2d6) = d8+3d6
Please let me know if this still doesn't make sense.
Except all those edges only apply to melee attacks, so wouldn't the text regarding the edges properly read "damage die from Brawler, Bruiser, Martial Artist, or Martial Warrior Edges is added on to a character’s unarmed attack."? Probably just poor editing, so I won't argue the point further.
I want to be able to do extra damage with the dagger, which the Melee Attack provides and also gain the damage when making unarmed attacks.
So I'll leave the points the same and use the following rolls.
Unarmed
{dice=Fighting]1d8[/dice}
{dice=Wild]1d6[/dice}
Modifier: +2 (Martial Warrior)
Dagger
{dice=Fighting]1d8[/dice}
{dice=Wild]1d6[/dice}
Unarmed Damage
{dice=Strength]1d8[/dice} + [dice=Martial Artists, Martial Warrior, Melee Attack]2d6[/dice}
{dice=Raise]1d6[/dice}
Dagger Damage
{dice=Strength]1d8[/dice} + {dice=Dagger]1d4[/dice} + {dice=Melee Attack, special weapon]2d6[/dice}
{dice=Raise]1d6[/dice}
So both attacks get an extra d6 damage.
I ran into the same problem with Six. The Martial Artist Edge specifically calls out fists and feet becoming natural weapons, thus it can only be used for unarmed attacked even though you are considered armed. Martial Warrior is an extrapolation of Martial Artist, so I would presume the same rule applies. That's why I added Power Attack so he could do more damage with his stick.
Fortune - ok, I agree with your latest assessment of the armed and unarmed damages.
Another late afternoon thunderstorm; another night without power. Still waiting for power to be restored. I will post after that. Sorry for the delay.
Just noticed someone with an ongoing SW Deadlands campaign is recruiting for some new players. Recruitment link as of July 23. Seems it might still be open.
I'm in that game. Sorry, it just didn't even occur to me to post here when the GM re-opened Recruitment. I've been wrapped up in a personal project.
For those of you who don't know, Deadlands combines the old-west/wild-west genre with horror and steampunk elements. It's an alternate history where magic and monstrous creatures exist, stemming from a supernatural event called "The Reckoning".
We now have 4 players, don't know if the GM has a maximum limit, but everyone's welcome to post and find out.
We have a shaman, a gunslinger, a territorial ranger (works for the government), and a harrowed (undead) chi master. We don't have a huckster, witch, blessed, grifter, or a mad scientist. Don't know the setting well enough to know if there's other archetypes.
You'd need to get the current, "basic" (there are many sub-settings) Deadlands setting book if you don't already have it.
I think I'll pass, although it would be an interesting setting. There was a halfway decent movie based on a comic book called Jonah Hex a while back that was of that genre. I think there is a TV show called Winona Earp that fits as well. Of course, for the old timers, there was Wild, Wild West (series was much better than the movie).
For those who don't know, Paizo has just published the 2nd edition version of Starfinder Core players rulebook. It uses the same rule set as the Pathfinder 2nd edition. If you are not familiar with the 2nd edition of Pathfinder, it's a solid improvement on the original d20 rules. Character creation still has many options but they've streamlined the process to remove all point based rules like spending points on your attributes or your skills.
Passing myself, partially because I'm not sure SW really hits right on PBP and the other part because I don't wanna get the deadlands books lol.
I'm hoping that SF2 is like a major improvement cause man SF1 has some really neat ideas but most of them flop because none of the 'cool stuff' unlocks till you're level 7 which on most paizo boards is a good 15 years of effort lmao
Playing character in the Starfinder Society games or Pathfinder Society games is a good way to get experience without being in a long term campaign. If you can play at local gaming stores, you can level up pretty quickly through those games. PBP online games take longer, but each scenario only takes a few months. Three scenarios and you go up a level.
Notice: I will be away from home for the weekend, so 'bot me if needed. I have access to hotel WiFi but I've tended to have trouble logging into the Paizo site to try to post with a tablet or phone.
I like the Idea of a weird west sort of vibe(if i'm understanding what Deadlands is supposed to be), but again SW just.. doesn't work well in pbp
Hellion - just curious - in what ways does it not work well in PbP?
Hellion - just curious - in what ways does it not work well in PbP?
It's supposed to be a fast-paced action game and well we just spent 3 months on a combat because the dice said so. Which would have been handled in like maybe 2 hours(if i'm going on the high end of generosity given how quick the system is typically). Like dice issues can still be a thing irl, but the back and forth can be resolved much quicker.
Not to mention the Month that it took before that to handle 2 grunts.
There's also a lot more dynamism that you can do irl with planning and such that just can't be performed well without more active conversations which again doesn't work well here on the forums.
Ok, but doesn't PbP slow down *every* game system? It's been years since I played PF on-line, but it seems to me that those combats took a long time IRL too.
One thing that SW has that PF does not is the ability to soak wounds. So when a PC is receives a wound/wounds, the GM posts that and then has to wait for the player to respond with a soak roll before moving on or to assert that she will not take the option to save a benny. Since soaking requires spending a benny, the GM cannot make that decision for the player and make the soak rolls for the player.
In PF, some damage gives the player a chance to roll a saving throw to potentially reduce the damage, but if the GM wants, she/he can use the known stats of the PC to roll the save. The save must be rolled and the roll details are known by the GM.
Our game has also been slow because players often take more than 24 hours to post.
Fortune is right, there are other things with the system that slow it down that I hinted at with the Dynamism comment. I can't belt out all the things that make SW particularly bad on PbP.
Like Fortune stated there are just things that can't be assumed and simplified, such as soaking among other things. Which works only to further bog things down. Terrible luck with dice combined with having to redraw initiative every round can be handled much faster irl because something that would take 30-40 seconds to resolve there takes an entire post which depending on free tine for the gm could take a couple minutes or better than an hour/day etc.
I mentioned that SW is supposed to be fast-paced action combat oriented, and that's naturally going to struggle in pbp. Pf and such has that issue too, but like fast paced combat isn't the pull of the PF system for example. So despite both suffering slow-down on pbp one's vibes suffer far worse than the other.
Since PF's init doesn't reroll every round you can essentially condense things into baddies/party. Which for the most part you've done here as well, but since the order of things shifts every round it's not quote so clean cut.
I could likely write an essay on ither issues with SW as a whole but that's off in the weeds with thibgs that are mostly just personal gripes among other things.
FWIW, I prefer SW's new-initiative-every-round method. I ran a simulation, and discovered that in a 1-on-1 fight with identical combatants, the one who always went first had a 60% chance of winning, as opposed to 50% if it was random who went first.
Devil's advocate here. With SW it is possible to go early in one round, then go late in the next round, giving the enemies two attacks on you before you can respond. Of course, the reverse is possible so that the PC might get an extra attack on an enemy due to the luck of the draw in consecutive rounds.
Perhaps that makes taking one or more of the initiative related edges desirable. But then that is another potential slowing factor. If the GM has to wait after posting the initiative cards for someone with an edge that allows her to choose where to go in the initiative, that can add time before the action starts.
It might be worthwhile for someone with time and knowledge of the system to suggest a set of SW house rules to use when playing by post, with an eye toward removing situations that require interrupting the action to await a player who has an option to decide on before anyone else can go.
If only there was someone who is retired with lots of time and an intense interest in Savage Worlds and lots of PBP experience. Hmmm. Who do I know like that? :)
If someone takes an initiative Edge, I take care of it before I make the "new Round" post. I have a real deck at home, and if the card is 5 or less, I'll redraw and take the better one (Quick Edge). If the PC gets two cards, I'll draw two and take the better one (Level Headed Edge). Yes, that removes the player's choice, but I'd bet that most of the time people are going to want to act sooner than later.
I really don't see what the big deal about Soaking is. In this very game, I generally don't wait for people to Soak before moving forward. They can make a Soak roll right away, or later on in the same Round, or Soak before they make their Action in the next Round.
If the players here want to point out the "situations that require interrupting the action to await a player who has an option to decide on before anyone else can go", I'd be glad to think about how to speed that up...