Enemy in Shadows - Warhammer Fantasy (Inactive)

Game Master Aubster

Thought of one additional thing as I was out for a walk: this spell looks (and is) freakishly scary to us for good reason. If Teugen had rolled something like 43 though, the spell would have failed altogether.

It's like the guy slam dunks or misses completely when he uses Bolt.

That isn't much help on this round, but good to keep in mind.

If you look at the gameplay tab, you’ll see that Teugen basically blew up the party in one stroke. I’d like to get everyone’s opinion about some things.

1) Determinng SL for an Arcane Spell. An Arcane spell has a difficulty level that must be reached to make the spell a success. Bolt has a CN of 4, causes 4 damage and Teugen roll was a SL of 6 so since 6 is greater than 4 the spell worked. My first thought is what should be used for the SL for Damage calculations. Should it be 6 because that’s what he rolled of should it be 6-4=2 since that’s how much he beat the target by? Originally I was thinking that the SL for damage should be 2 in this case but decided that didn’t make any sense. It’d actually make the arcane spell bolt no better than the petty spell Dart. Dart has a CN=0 and causes 0 damage plus the SL. If Teugen cast Dart the damage would be 6-0=6 plus willpower bonus. The damage for the Bolt spell could be either 4 + 2 = 6 or 4 + 6 = 10 depending on how the SL is calculated. So the only way that the expensive and more difficult to cast Bolt spell does more damage is that the SL is 6 and is not decreased by the difficulty.

2)After 1 above, I’m confident that the SL for an arcane spell is not reduced by the CN. One of the things that made the Teugen spell so damaging was his use of Warpstone which doubles the SL of a spell. I’m thinking that it was a mistake on my part to give him Warpstone to use. If he doesn’t have Warpstone then Landolf would take 11 Wounds which is bad but not overwhelming...thoughts on that change?

3)My last discussion point is should we leave the spell as it was done originally and have it cause massive damage. Warhammer is supposed to be hard and you all have Fate points which would allow you to avoid the hit altogether. Considering this is the last battle of the first part of this campaign maybe it would be better to have you all use a Fate point...thoughts?

I think that your rule interpretation #2 is the way to go. So, no subtracting CN to determine SL for damage but yes to subtracting CN to check for overcasting.

I guess it might be good that you can channel Bolt but not dart but it doesn't seem like much of a benefit since if the caster got a +SL from channeling he likely would have gotten a SL that allowed him to go ahead and cast a Dart.

I will ditch the Warpstone from Teugen. I had not thought through how overpowered that made him. Thanks to Valghaz for doing the new damage calculations. Using rule interpretation #2 though the SL for overcasting is now only 2 so that's only 1 extra bolt. That bolt hits 1d2 ⇒ 2 Ruprecht so Adelaida takes no damage from Teugen.

That's a ton of pain and Valghaz made a persuasive argument about using Fate being better on the prior version of the attack. Since it doesn't actually take Landolf down this time though, I think I'll just let the attack go. No Fate use. (That might come up soon!)

In deciding whether to go for the wizard or the daemon, I decided to go for the wizard. I figure that he probably has a lower WS and doesn't have a ward save. Put together would mean that he will go down easier, so the daemon can then be focused on. Hopefully the wizard will flub his roll badly enough for Valgahz to 1 shot him. <fingers crossed>

The question then, is it better to take out the cultists before mobbing the daemon? I think in the current situation it might make the most sense for all 3 of you to mob the daemon. Get an outnumbering bonus going and stop the spell. The cultists just might flee if we take down their magister and the daemon.

Then again...some bad fear tests would leave us open to a cultist counter charge. So there is also something to be said for taking the cultists out when they aren't looking (kind of hard to defend oneself when your eyes are closed)

-----

edit: And luckily I remembered that Valghaz has an Impale Weapon. So 19 wounds done before TB and armor (I don't think the wizard has armor?) so likely about 15ish wounds there. And on top of that a broken arm and possibly stunned.

I'd say that was a pretty good charge. :)

It's fine for this round Ruprecht, but if you want to jump into the daemon fight, one option is to spend a Resolve to ignore Fear for a turn.

I was planning to spend one if I failed Landolf's Cool check.

We lucked out! But for my attack:

Damage is SL diff (1) + 4 (weapon damage) + 5 (strength bonus) + 1 (Mighty blow) +1 (Resolute) - 1 (Armor) - 4 (toughness bonus) = 7 wounds + 3 critical hit = 10 wounds total

Weapon Damage is 5, and with Damaging Weapon quality makes a difference of 2. So I think it should be 12 wounds total

Checking on a detail, Aubster. Landolf got 48 on his check to break Fear during Round 1. That's +0 SL. Does that count toward reducing his Fear? Are we doing the +0 SL with success counts as 1 SL but +0 SL with failure does not?

Checking on a detail, Aubster. Landolf got 48 on his check to break Fear during Round 1. That's +0 SL. Does that count toward reducing his Fear? Are we doing the +0 SL with success counts as 1 SL but +0 SL with failure does not?

I think that makes sense. Passing a test should have some positive impact. For those interested, hers the optional rule that we’ll be using.

Options: Extended Tests and 0 SL
Rolling 0 SL in an Extended Test does not benefit or hinder the running SL total, which can feel a little odd given you either passed or failed the Test, and that should perhaps come with some advantage or penalty. If this is an issue for you, use the following optional rule. A successful Test adds a minimum of +1 SL to the cumulative total, and a failed Test removes a minimum of –1 SL from the total.

We lucked out! But for my attack:

Damage is SL diff (1) + 4 (weapon damage) + 5 (strength bonus) + 1 (Mighty blow) +1 (Resolute) - 1 (Armor) - 4 (toughness bonus) = 7 wounds + 3 critical hit = 10 wounds total

Weapon Damage is 5, and with Damaging Weapon quality makes a difference of 2. So I think it should be 12 wounds total

12 Wounds it is. Teugen is hurt but not down.

Darkest Doomed wrote:

Checking on a detail, Aubster. Landolf got 48 on his check to break Fear during Round 1. That's +0 SL. Does that count toward reducing his Fear? Are we doing the +0 SL with success counts as 1 SL but +0 SL with failure does not?

I think that makes sense. Passing a test should have some positive impact. For those interested, hers the optional rule that we’ll be using.

Options: Extended Tests and 0 SL
Rolling 0 SL in an Extended Test does not benefit or hinder the running SL total, which can feel a little odd given you either passed or failed the Test, and that should perhaps come with some advantage or penalty. If this is an issue for you, use the following optional rule. A successful Test adds a minimum of +1 SL to the cumulative total, and a failed Test removes a minimum of –1 SL from the total.

I have no issue with it. 0 is not positive or negative, so I don't see why it should help or hurt you.

Aubster, I'm planning to have Landolf go right after Adelaida does at the top of Round 2. It looks likely that Adelaida will Resolve to be able to attack the Daemon.

If that happens, Landolf's plan will be to attack the daemon on his turn as well. I've been holding off on posting the action because I don't know whether Adelaida will be there for sure. In the interest of time, can I get spoilered defense rolls from the daemon vs Adelaida & Landolf so I can know whether I need to Fortune or not?

Adelaida: if everything goes super swimmingly, I'll probably attack the daemon & then bail on the engagement if I can because...two Wounds left. Any complaints if I do that?

Aubster, I'm planning to have Landolf go right after Adelaida does at the top of Round 2. It looks likely that Adelaida will Resolve to be able to attack the Daemon.

If that happens, Landolf's plan will be to attack the daemon on his turn as well. I've been holding off on posting the action because I don't know whether Adelaida will be there for sure. In the interest of time, can I get spoilered defense rolls from the daemon vs Adelaida & Landolf so I can know whether I need to Fortune or not?

Adelaida: if everything goes super swimmingly, I'll probably attack the daemon & then bail on the engagement if I can because...two Wounds left. Any complaints if I do that?

I didn’t do spoilers (because I forgot) but the defense rolls are done in the gameplay section.

Can't wait to see this update now. The group's first resilience roll used to make a crit!

After my run of bad luck I'm expecting it to play nasty daemon tricks and negate the blow, Valghaz. We'll see.

I should at least have stopped its Advantage train though.

Someone shoild snag Ruprecht's throwing knife if we can find it quickly. For those that aren't Broken.

So, what's the plan then? Skip town? Turn the cultist into the witch hunters?

Ignoring for the moment the fact that Landolf is currently forced to run away & do nothing else (it won't last very long)...

With the fires & lack of evidence, it feels like the scenario is trying to have us skip town. But we were trying to gain notoriety for the Black Thorns earlier, and claiming to have saved the city, even without evidence, would be a great way to do that if we're believed.

If we want to go that direction, it probably isn't wise to accuse the entire leadership of the town with heresy. Better to just say that we stopped heretics. If we start preaching that to the masses, I think we'd be believed since everything is back to normal instead of super-scary-ville now (assuming that is really the case). If we get the masses on our side and aren't accusing the town leadership of heresy, I bet we can get away with that.

If that seems too bold, either in general or after getting a feel of the streets, I'd want to try to find Witch Hunter Captain Gellor again. If nothing else, he owes us money plus hazard pay now.

I didn't catch whether any cultists were still around & alive. If we have at least one prisoner, our case could be stronger.

********

Aubster, are we due for a Fortune refresh yet?

We did catch a heretic. One ran into a wall a knocked himself out. Valghaz has him. We also have their ritual dagger, dropped when Valghaz destroyed their leader’s arm. I think that if we take both back (and without directly touching the dagger) then we can have a pretty decent case to make to the Witch Hunters.

Ignoring for the moment the fact that Landolf is currently forced to run away & do nothing else (it won't last very long)...

With the fires & lack of evidence, it feels like the scenario is trying to have us skip town. But we were trying to gain notoriety for the Black Thorns earlier, and claiming to have saved the city, even without evidence, would be a great way to do that if we're believed.

If we want to go that direction, it probably isn't wise to accuse the entire leadership of the town with heresy. Better to just say that we stopped heretics. If we start preaching that to the masses, I think we'd be believed since everything is back to normal instead of super-scary-ville now (assuming that is really the case). If we get the masses on our side and aren't accusing the town leadership of heresy, I bet we can get away with that.

If that seems too bold, either in general or after getting a feel of the streets, I'd want to try to find Witch Hunter Captain Gellor again. If nothing else, he owes us money plus hazard pay now.

I didn't catch whether any cultists were still around & alive. If we have at least one prisoner, our case could be stronger.

********

Aubster, are we due for a Fortune refresh yet?

Not quite time for a Fortune reset.

You all of course can play it as you want but don’t forget that you are wanted by the Watch for the murder of Councilor Magirius. Landolf was seen by a huge crowd starting the tenement fire. And a watch patrol that was chasing you was slaughtered by some sort of beast.

I had been forgetting about those other elements. Tge final battle chewed up a lot of attention.

Maybe it's time for a strategical retreat.
Run away!

Congratulations Black Thorns! You have successfully completed Enemy in Shadows, Part 1 of the Enemy Within Campaign and stopped a Chaos Gate from destroying Bogenhafen.

Fortune Points are now reset.

If you spent a Resolve points, explain how you were acting according to your motivation and you can get them back.

XP time
25 XP if you had fun
5 points for discovering the Hidden Temple beneath the Steinhäger Offices
5 points for each location where useful information is gained (you all figure out the locations you got the info from)
5 points for receiving a holy vision
30 points for going to the Golden Trout with Magirius.
200 points + 1 Fate Point for preventing the ritual

A few of the characters have talked about career changes.
Valghaz knows he needs to get to Altdorf to start his knightly career.
Adelaida needs to get to any major city to become a Warrior-Priest

There will be downtime coming up soon, just bear with me as we need to do a few things to kick of the Death on the Reik, Part 2 of the Enemy Within Campaign. Once those events are finished, there’s going to be downtime.

There will be some new boat handling rules introduced since this coming adventure is based on the rivers of the Empire.

More excitement and surprises coming your way!

And there’s even more to tell you but I can’t remember now :(
Don’t worry, there’s a small chance that I will remember...oh wait, I remember one of the things, I’m going to post a recruitment message for a new player or two.

Congrats everyone! It feels so good to hear that a book has been completed. :D

Also, it's 25XP if we had fun. But that isn't the case. I had a blast. So do I get more XP for that? (Joking, please don't say yes)

This actually leaves me with 320 xp. Spending 30xp to get +2 Endurance (making it 60) and saving the rest for the career change. Also spending 150xp for +5 WS.

So 140xp left. Enough for the career change when it comes up and some new skills. :D

I completely feel your pain on having a long post eaten.

On spending XP for career changes Valghaz: there is a downtime Endeavour that can reduce xp expenditure for that. It may not be relevant if Aubster is giving you a special deal, but see: Changing Career on page 196.

My motivation is loyalty to the Empire, not sure if that would help regaining resolve

My long term ambition is "defend a town from a major threat (internal or external" ,would that apply?

So 270 XP and 1 fate point so far, not too shabby

Right! Thanks for pointing that out. Well, I hope that I can make use of that then.

@Adelaida: Loyalty to the Empire was VERY exercised during our recent foray. I can't see how that wouldn't apply.

Everyone: one other Downtime option you may want to consider is Training. If there is some skill or Attribute that your class simply refuses to cough up, this is one way to get it at normal XP rate ( plus some money).

I'm not sure Landolf will make use of it this time, but Willpower & Ranged are two things Landolf isn't otherwise getting that might be good buys.

Also since we are looking at Downtime again, we should figure out what to do with our money (assuming Downtime events don't scum us somehow). I'm personally in favor of burning it all up. We've been saving a larger reserve than is probably needed. This way we don't have to attempt a Banking Endeavour. We will need some Income Endeavours to get us off the ground post-Downtime, but those are likely to happen anyhow.

Any firm Downtime plans should probably wait until after we see what Events we get, but those are some things I'm thinking about.

****************

Aubster: I'm also interested in doing something during Downtime, if possible, to clear our names back in Bogenhafen. We're being framed again and I'm sure the Black Thorns would find thatsituation yo be intolerable. It may be a major plot point in the story and if so we should probably handle it that way. If it isn't though, Pandolf would certainly be willing to put some time into it. Probably explaining our side of the story to someone of influence & such.

****************

Also Aubster: we talked before about having our Short-Term Party Ambition be "end the dark cult threat in Bogenhafen". Should we consider that completed?

I didn't catch it at first, but above Aubster said we got +5 xp for each clue and we needed to come up with a list of clues rather than just +5 xp for one of the entries. So I went over the events of Bogenhafen & came up with this list. I'm not sure whether I should go back further than that to the beginning of the scenario or not:

Clue Candidates:
* Adolphus's ranting at the Lock, Stock & Barrel. Named his target as Magister Imedementae of the Cult of the Purple Hand
* Chaos Temple ritual circle had Ordo Septenarius written on it
* Found handkerchief with initials FS in Chaos Temple (Franz Steinhager)
* Anton the warehouseman was worried about the Steinhagers & got himself killed trying to tell us more
* Set of four rumors about connections between the Steinhagers & the sewers as well as mutilated bodies
* Magistrate deathbed prophecy
* Located signs of removed Chaos Temple when visiting with the Witch Hunters
* Ruprecht made a Lore check that told us good information about Teugen & the Steinhagers
* Heinrich Steinhager told us that Friedrich Magirius was recruiting for Ordo Septenarius
* Friedrich gave us lots of organizational information about Ordo Septenarius while having dinner
* Friedrich came back to tell us about the impending ritual
* Etelka Herzen's letter to Teugen
* Divine Tea Vision from Morr – might have been the divine vision we already got xp for
* Friedrich Magirius gave us directions to Warehouse 13 despite being murdered
* Vision of the Eye of Chaos & its interactions with its servants
* Cultist prisoner we haven't interrogated yet

Probably Nothing, or Possibly a Clue but very weak
* Gottri tried to get us to buy his digging machine information or something
* Street doomsayer outside of the Magistrate's home
* Father Klugmann murderered
* Creepy Servant frames us for murder
* Volker being insane trigger-happy Witch Hunter
* Gellor & Oliver were out of the city according to Volker
* Killed a mutant sergeant
* Landolf was framed for the fires by a fake Landolf – how good of a likeness was this? If it was a really good likeness, I might bump up the importance of the clue – we had something similar with Talther already

Reminders:
* Defensive Hand Weapon on Adolphus – who has that now?
* 100 crown bounty on Andreas
* Potential deal with the Haagens – probably need to clear Landolf's name first

My motivation is loyalty to the Empire, not sure if that would help regaining resolve

My long term ambition is "defend a town from a major threat (internal or external" ,would that apply?

So 270 XP and 1 fate point so far, not too shabby

I think that what you did in the warehouse definitely meets the definition of being loyal to the Empire so you get your Resolve Points back.

Let me think a bit about the long term ambition.

@Adelaida: Loyalty to the Empire was VERY exercised during our recent foray. I can't see how that wouldn't apply.

Everyone: one other Downtime option you may want to consider is Training. If there is some skill or Attribute that your class simply refuses to cough up, this is one way to get it at normal XP rate ( plus some money).

I'm not sure Landolf will make use of it this time, but Willpower & Ranged are two things Landolf isn't otherwise getting that might be good buys.

Also since we are looking at Downtime again, we should figure out what to do with our money (assuming Downtime events don't scum us somehow). I'm personally in favor of burning it all up. We've been saving a larger reserve than is probably needed. This way we don't have to attempt a Banking Endeavour. We will need some Income Endeavours to get us off the ground post-Downtime, but those are likely to happen anyhow.

Any firm Downtime plans should probably wait until after we see what Events we get, but those are some things I'm thinking about.

****************

Aubster: I'm also interested in doing something during Downtime, if possible, to clear our names back in Bogenhafen. We're being framed again and I'm sure the Black Thorns would find thatsituation yo be intolerable. It may be a major plot point in the story and if so we should probably handle it that way. If it isn't though, Pandolf would certainly be willing to put some time into it. Probably explaining our side of the story to someone of influence & such.

****************

Also Aubster: we talked before about having our Short-Term Party Ambition be "end the dark cult threat in Bogenhafen". Should we consider that completed?

The next portion of your journey will be much more free form so to a large extent you can decide what you want to do. If you do want to work on the Bogenhafen angle, Heinrich Steinhager might be a useful contact since he’s now the head of the Steinhager business after the mysterious death of his brother and his nephew.

I think that you all for sure completed your short term party ambition. So, each of you gets an extra 50 XP for doing so. Hold off a bit on picking another short term ambition as your situation will be changing soon.

I didn't catch it at first, but above Aubster said we got +5 xp for each clue and we needed to come up with a list of clues rather than just +5 xp for one of the entries. So I went over the events of Bogenhafen & came up with this list. I'm not sure whether I should go back further than that to the beginning of the scenario or not:

Clue Candidates:
* Adolphus's ranting at the Lock, Stock & Barrel. Named his target as Magister Imedementae of the Cult of the Purple Hand
* Chaos Temple ritual circle had Ordo Septenarius written on it
* Found handkerchief with initials FS in Chaos Temple (Franz Steinhager)
* Anton the warehouseman was worried about the Steinhagers & got himself killed trying to tell us more
* Set of four rumors about connections between the Steinhagers & the sewers as well as mutilated bodies
* Magistrate deathbed prophecy
* Located signs of removed Chaos Temple when visiting with the Witch Hunters
* Ruprecht made a Lore check that told us good information about Teugen & the Steinhagers
* Heinrich Steinhager told us that Friedrich Magirius was recruiting for Ordo Septenarius
* Friedrich gave us lots of organizational information about Ordo Septenarius while having dinner
* Friedrich came back to tell us about the impending ritual
* Etelka Herzen's letter to Teugen
* Divine Tea Vision from Morr – might have been the divine vision we already got xp for
* Friedrich Magirius gave us directions to Warehouse 13 despite being murdered
* Vision of the Eye of Chaos & its interactions with its servants
* Cultist prisoner we haven't interrogated yet

Probably Nothing, or Possibly a Clue but very weak
* Gottri tried to get us to buy his digging machine information or something
* Street doomsayer outside of the Magistrate's home
* Father Klugmann murderered
* Creepy Servant frames us for murder
* Volker being insane trigger-happy Witch Hunter
* Gellor & Oliver were out of the city according to Volker
* Killed a mutant sergeant
* Landolf was framed for the fires by a fake Landolf –...

It was actually 5 XP for each location that provided a clue. Looking at Landolf’s list that’d be:

The Morr temple was covered by the by the divine vision XP.

So +50xp for short term party ambition and +40 xp for clues?

So +50xp for short term party ambition and +40 xp for clues?

Yes

Just for a full review then, I'm seeing:

25 XP if you had fun

5 points for discovering the Hidden Temple beneath the Steinhäger Offices
**40 xp for clue locations**
5 points for receiving a holy vision
30 points for going to the Golden Trout with Magirius.
200 points + 1 Fate Point for preventing the ritual

**50 xp for completing Party Short Term Ambition**

I'm getting a total of 355 xp & 1 Fate point.

If the rest of the Black Thorns are on the 'being framed again sucks' train, I have two more ideas for people we could contact in Bogenhafen that might listen to us (three with Aubster's idea in there):

1. Freidrich Steinhager (Aubster's idea): we had a pseudo-deal with him to get rid of his brother discreetly and...well discreet didn't happen, but it shouldn't be easily traceable back to him. A fun but probably unworkable idea might be to let him publicly rail against us for causing the disappearance of his beloved brother while smoothing things over in the background. In shorter terms, he owes us.

2. Captain Gellor, assuming he made it through all that: My first idea for approaching him would be to tell our story to the Cult of Sigmar elsewhere, perhaps getting their backing for delivering the same message to Gellor safely. He also might believe us straight off. He seemed almost eager to believe there was a Chaos cult in the city, and that single fact would be hard to deny in the face of what happened that night. The situation is complicated because we've offed a relative of the High Priest. Once again, Gellor owes us. Specifically money.

3. Jochen Haagen: His prior connection to us is cordial but tenuous and he may just be eager to sever all ties. He doesn't owe us anything. On the other hand, we didn't kill one of his relatives.

What about the recruitment? Shouldn't we try to find out one or two more players to join us between two sessions?

OK, time to spend some of this xp:
Previous xp total: 5 xp
New xp: 355 xp

Purchases:
Luck III: 300 xp
Lore (Heraldry) advances 1-5: 50 xp
Remaining xp: 10

*

Still just finishing up Landolf's Scion career. The Luck talent has kept him hanging out there far longer than he usually would have. I'll probably continue to advance in Noble after that for more Fellowship/Charm and related talents, although it's possible I could be persuaded otherwise depending on how the story progresses.

Continued advancement in Seaman and the lower tiers of Duelist to get a bit more of an edge in a fight are also in my set of longer-term plans.

Yvonne xp:
Previous xp total: 135 xp
New xp: 177.5 xp (half of Landolf's new 355 xp)

Purchases:
Initiative advances 1-10: 275 xp
Remaining xp: 37.5

Just churning through Servant still.

Luck 3? That's alot of shots to the head that Landolf can now survive.

Also, a question. Could Resilience be used to pick the result of a mutation? Because if so, then I think that by RAW getting a mutation could be guaranteed to be beneficial. You'd still be a mutant, but it would end up being a power spike.

One possible clarification Valghaz. The Luck talent gives Fortune, but not Fate. It does mean that even if I spend all of Landolf's Fate, he'll still have sone rerolls left.

While I'm chatting about Luck, I'll point out thst having access to the talent has been really interesting. Few talents draw you in to the degree that you want to hit the attribute bonus cap. It matters that Landolf's Fellowship bonus is 3 rather than 4 or 2. The third iteration of Luck was crazy expensive to buy. I just knew that I'd regret not maxing out Luck later if I didn't.

I'm not sure I would actually buy Luck IV if I could. Soooo spendy.

*

As for the Resilience on mutation roll question, I haven't looked at it closely, but my assumption is that it is a GM roll rather than a player roll. It also isn't a Test of any sort. In which case I'd probably guess that neither Fortune nor Resilience should be available.

I think for recruitment it should be by invitation, rather than by a recruitment thread. I've seen, over the years, so many campaigns die and so many players fall off the face of the earth. There are some names which I just trust as being players who are reliable and a joy to game with. I'd much rather, for a long running campaign like this, to invite such a person in. Even if they'd need to be brought up to speed on the rules.

And really...the rules aren't that hard. Character creation is, sure. But the rules tend to make alot of sense once you get the hang of it.

I'm sure that between us we could rope in someone we know.

I’ve mentioned the new boat handling rules so I wanted to post them. These would apply if you’re not just part of the crew but actually in charge.

Depending on the type of vessel, the Row or Sail Skill is required to keep control of it in adverse circumstances.

On a sailing boat (like a river barge), the Boat Handling Test is made by the Character who is manning the tiller; on a rowing boat, it is made by the oarsman with the highest Skill score. Characters with the Lore (Riverways) Skill may take a bonus of +1 SL for Boat Handling Tests. This bonus applies only while on rivers or canals.

Skilled Characters can keep the vessel under control under most circumstances and should only make Boat Handling Tests where a specific event or encounter calls for them.

Row is a basic Skill, and so any character may attempt a Boat Handling Test which uses the Row Skill. Sail is not, however. Characters without the Sail Skill are unlikely to make good progress attempting to pilot a sailing ship. At the start of each day's travel, have the Character make a Challenging (+0) Agility Test. If the Test is successful, the boat's movement allowance is unchanged for that day. If the Test is failed, the boat's movement allowance is reduced by 25% for that day. However, if the result is an Astounding Failure (–6 SL) the boat's movement allowance is halved for that day.

I’m completely fine with you all trolling amongst your acquaintances for new players. I trust your judgment.

I can poke my longest-running group about it. Waiting for Valghaz to go first though. It sounds like he may have someone in mind more than I do.

I might have someone. Reached out and said contact is mulling it over. Please, feel free to poke your contacts as well.

You know...I was thinking. And feel free to slap some sense into my head. But what does everyone think about an alternative to the 500xp from a long term objective? You see, 500xp is *alot*. It's like completing half a book by itself. A long term objective thus means a big power spike, and it doesn't really make sense to me to suddenly learn 5 talents just because you achieved something.

So my proposal? A boon. Tied to whatever the objective was. For example. Say a character had a long term objective of finding a lost heirloom. A sword, wielded by Mr. MacGuffin himself. PC gets it and finds that it is just a mundane high quality sword. But due to his personal connection with it, he can reroll a failed fear/terror test once per encounter. That, in my mind, would feel more rewarding than getting better at your job.

Or it would mean getting a talent or a few that fit the character but are not within the career list, or a stat increase which the career list doesn't offer. Landolf, for example, has talked about switching careers a few times because the noble path doesn't offer everything he needs. So getting a long term objective would fill those gaps. Just as an example. Nobles (as I'm thinking about them) don't have Ballistic Skill, Strength, Toughness or Agility upgrades. Getting a talent and an increase in one of those would seem to me to be something more special than just 500xp within the career. Especially if the boon is tied to how the objective is done.

-----

Anyways. I know that we all just got a boon from our GM, and to be honest that's where I got the idea from. If anything, I would say that this would count as the player's "long term objective" in that we got something not strictly within the rules that fit our character. Doing that really rekindled my thought process on where I wanted to take Valghaz. I don't have any plans in mind on what he would do...but I think that it would be more interesting than all involved than just a 500xp power spike.

Thoughts? <Hides behind a shield>

Sadly my contact won't be joining us. Any luck on your end, Darkest?

405 XP to spend

Change Career 200 Xp (from Soldier to Warrior Priest) uncomplete career

Talents:
Buy Strong Minded I (100 xp) +1 Resolve

Talents:
+5 Melee-Two handed weapon (75 xp, from 6 to 10)

30 XP left, probably spend on some skills

Valghaz: just asked this morning, so not yet.