Seeker's Deadlands: Blood Drive

Game Master seekerofshadowlight

50/50 he gets shot. And be lucky they don't dock him for the cost of the Horse LOL. Poor, poor horse, you are not supposed to break their minds.

I guess I could say all those misses were from being unsettled from the display of magic.

But I know it is just the Dice roller trying to get me killed. :(

Rufus - your PC seems to be using the old SWD rules, not SWADE. For example, these skills you have listed : Climbing, Throwing, Tracking have all been absorbed into other skills.

In your post, you named a Lariat skill, which doesn't exist. Since it's nearest equivalent (IMHO) is Throwing, which has been absorbed into Athletics, that's what I would have used. Altho this is all just FYI, since Seeker told us to just make Riding checks, the point is moot.

It's traditional to name the actual Skill in the die roll (so, "Riding" instead of "Rodeo Time") so the GM can tell exactly what you're doing.

I hope this doesn't sound harsh, I'm just trying to be informative.

No worries, and yes, I probably mixed up rule sets.

As for the rodeo time, I thought it was implied that I was attempting to ride the horse, but figured I would inject a bit of humour.

No I will never take offence to someone helping correct glaring errors or mistakes that I made.

I will update my character sheet as needed.

@Rufus, if it's any help, I usually end up putting in lots of extraneous detail in my dice rolls, but I try to also include the original name. Hence:

normal people:
Shooting: 1d8 ⇒ 3

Me:
MEGA HYPER GIGA SHOOTING TIME!!1!: 1d4 ⇒ 2

But, yeah, also, if we're in the 9th round of a combat where you've done a sword attack every single time, then, yeah, what you list your dice can get more leeway:

normal people (x9):

fighting: 1d8 ⇒ 5
damage: 1d4 + 2 ⇒ (3) + 2 = 5

weird people like me:
Fight with BLOOD, fight with STEEL: 1d8 ⇒ 7
Die with HONOR, never YIELD: 1d4 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3

Looks like I did convolute the rules. and I apologize.

If the GM wants, I will delete and redo the post using the proper rules.

@Rufus, I did think you had fixed your sheet. It seems okay now. Zenfox is correct would use athletics. I am unsure why you where rolling Agility, you should have been doing athletics and riding with a wild dice.I have no issue if you want to Jazz up the terms, just make sure I know what skill you are using as the others suggested.

No worries, I think I mixed up systems. As I stated, i am willing to do that whole thing over again with the proper dice.

Its all good man, I just rolled with what ya had. Mixing editions up happens, I still confuse versions of D&D LOL

I'm taking a poll.

How many people understand that quote? (It's a very dark quote, but only with its context.)

Sometimes I wonder if my RP is too...arcane.

If one must choose betwixt being feared or being loved, be feared.

I recognize the quote, but cannot place it right now.

Likewise.

Well, it's from Machiavelli, but I'm not sure if it's an exact quote.

I knew the quote but not from where.

@Kris. Do you wanna make your own Survival roll?

I already made one yeah? Or is this something else?

Oh crap. I missed that we could roll again. Sorry.

Survival: 1d4 ⇒ 4 Wild: 1d6 ⇒ 1
ACES: 1d4 ⇒ 2

You know lord Borak is sooo taking credit for that roll

9 Cows on the first day. I guess we will have to see about the morning. :)

Borak, why are you using a -4 on the untrailed roll? I believe the penalty is only -2 for using a skill untrained.

Seeker added a -2 to the Survival roll, so if you're untrained, this roll would be at -4.

It was a ways back:

You can break up in groups if you want, but each group needs to make a a Survival roll at –2 for the day’s search. This can be modified based off tactics and the like. Feel free to narrate your search.

Thanks for explaining it, FE and LBtD. Sorry for missing it.

Have we earned any experience?

Not at this time.

In SWADE, PC's don't get XP's anymore, the GM just hands out Advancements. The "average" rate of Advancement comes every other game session, but in PbP that's hard to determine.

I am giving them out based off milestones. When you guys hit set points/encounters, I am going to give them out. We have not reached that mark yet, but it is getting closer.

As a player, I kind of agree with flying eagle.

But as a character that his loyalty is to the guy that hired him, he will do what he can to save as many cows as he can.

I am thinking that we spook the cows into a full run, and gather them back up afterwards.

We will loose one or two, but we should be able to at least regather a few and report back and try to get dynamite.

The condition Entangle is complicated:

ENTANGLED: The victim can’t move and is Distracted as long as he remains Entangled.
„ BOUND: The victim may not move, is Distracted and Vulnerable as long as he remains
Bound, and cannot make physical actions other than trying to break free.

Also...

Breaking free is an action. With success,
an Entangled hero is free of one particular
entanglement or grappler. A Bound character
improves to Entangled with a success;

So you lose nothing by staying and attacking them, since, even if they make their check to break free, they only improve from Bound to Entangled.

handy thing to have in a tight spot.

I don't know the system well enough to do a character based on magic.

I'm not saying I do either.

I just know enough to be dangerous. ^_^

(Dangerous to whom? Well let's not bother ourselves with small details....)

That is always a good question lol

Seeker : according to SWADE, something the size of a fist has Size -4, which has a Scale of -6, so we're all at -6 to hit them. But because they're Bound, they're also Vulnerable (+2 to hit), so a total of -4.

But, they're also a Swarm, which SWADE says :

Parry: 4; Toughness: 7
They cover an area equal to a Large, Medium, or Small Blast Template.
When a swarm is Incapacitated it’s effectively dispersed.

First off, you said there were "hundreds of spiders", so...Large Blast Template?

So even tho they're tied down, are we attacking the Swarm, or the individual spiders? Also, there's cattle in the middle of them that we'd like to keep, so...???

If we're attacking the Swarm, does its Size matter? A small swarm is 3" across (map) or 18' (real), which is a Scale of +2. Do we get a +2 to attacking it (ignoring the Bound)? Does it get +1 Wound, for a total of 2 Wounds (as an Extra)? Or does Size not affect a Swarm?

If its an Extra, and gets no bonus Wounds from Size, does just 1 Wound Incapacitate the entire swarm?

I've posted these questions on the SW general chat board, there's many people there who are "experts" in SW, I'll post their replies here tomorrow.

Players : SWADE also says cutting and piercing weapons do no real damage (I would assume that includes bullets). Area effect attacks work normally (but we want to save the cattle), and a character can stomp to inflict his damage in Strength each round. That's why I'm attacking them with the flat back of my tomahawk.

So I guess that will mean that I will have to smack them around with the butt of the shotgun.

The spread of shot should also do a number on the swarm.

I guess I will also wait for your answer.

Got an answer already!

Swarms are, mechanically, a single creature.
Keep that in mind, it will answer most of your questions.

Swarms are generally Normal scale. No matter how large the template is.

Attackers have a +2 to all Trait rolls to affect Vulnerable targets (because in our case they're Bound).

Does the swarm have additional Wounds? Maybe. The GM can give any swarm additional Wounds by having the swarm split into two smaller templates when it would be Wounded. Note : for a Large Swarm, that effectively means it takes 7 Wounds (!) to destroy it. For a Medium Swarm, only 3 Wounds.

How easily can you fight a swarm? That depends upon your abilities and gear; cutting and piercing weapons, like swords or arrows or bullets, do no real damage to swarms. For a group reliant upon slashing and stabbing, swarms are basically invulnerable. For a group reliant upon fireball spells, Molotov cocktails, or mauls then swarms are pretty simple.

I don't know if any of us even have an area attack spell, but since we want to save the cattle, we couldn't use them anyway...

I think if any of our PC's know about swarms (Common Knowledge?), we'd know that this is pretty hopeless, even with the spiders Bound...

We should be able to pull the cows out, while everthing is bound, and hopefully get clear.

However, being a cowhand, means that I got to try to save them. However, that don't mean that I am going to be stupid about it.

Swarms are, mechanically, a single creature.

Then I'm taking back my 2 PP for medium burst.

Also:

"a character can stomp to inflict his damage in Strength each round."

Even if we know guns can't hurt it, we could still stomp it to death. ^_^

Also also, I can see a pretty strong argument for letting shotguns hurt it.

I inflicted 2 Wounds, and asked the "experts" on the SW Discussion boards what that does. Here's what I got :

The kindest way is that the "splitting" is entirely optional, but the second sentence is how the swarm becomes less combat effective as it takes Wounds. Assuming a Large swarm, the first Wound reduces it to Medium, the second reduces it to Small, and the third Wound destroys the swarm.

By this interpretation, if it was Large, it is now Small.

The harshest reading is that a Wounded swarm splits into two small swarms, and that is the only effect of Wounds until the swarms get too small to keep splitting. Additional Wounds from a single attack are wasted.

By this interpretation, my 2 Wounds just split the Large Swarm into 2 Medium swarms. The second Wound was wasted.

It's up to the GM to decide which approach to take.

Shotguns are just lots of small bullets, and piercing damage (of any kind) doesn't harm Swarms. If shotguns were an exception, the RAW would have stated so.

A lot got posted here. Sorry I should have made the size of the swarm clear. The swarm covers a medium sized area, but do take note this is not the swarm from the SWADE book. It is a type of swarm but its stats will not match.

This is how I am gonna rule this.

1: For me, unless a spell covers the same size an area they are, its not going to really work, unless its damage, in that case it would. Swarms tend to split in size when damaged. As Lord Borak had a spell the same size, I had it get them all, as it covered the whole area.

A spell smaller than the swarm size is just going to "split it", as in target just a small part of the swarm and not effect the swarm as a whole. So it was a well spent 2 pp

2: I am totally with Lord Borak that shotgun's should work, By the rules they do not. However buck shot is not like a single shell, it is really a mini AOE thing and it could inflict some damage IMO because the "swarm" is made up of fist sized targets. So I am gonna allow shotguns to deal damage.

3: On the splitting, here is how I do it. Wounds do not really hurt it, but give you more targets. Its Medium, the first attack that wounds "removes" that swarm and now you have two new targets. One wound will kill a small swarm, but you will waste raises.

Also keep in mind that Roden is not fighting a swarm, but the dog sized momma spider.

I think Kris may have a bit of a crush on Lord Borak

Apologies for my absence in the past week. Ongoing depression/anxiety isses. Please accept my apology ... again.

Its cool man, I hope you are doing better

Sorry guys, I have had a rough few days. Including a 7 hour drive ..fun. Thought I would have time to update but I was just killed.

As long as you're not posting from beyond the grave.

But that would be neat as well. :)

indeed, that would be creepy lol

Figured that I would ask, because you stated that you were just killed. :)

Totally killed, stood up and killed again.

So you feel like I used to after a month of playing on exercise.

Exhausted, and dirty, and sore from packing a lot of gear around. Not counting set up and tear down.

Worth it, but my system can no longer do it, due to an injury.

I feel ya, Age and Injury kinda gets me too. I could have done that all week 15 years ago, now. Ugh I needed two to recover lol

So you feel like I used to after a month of playing on exercise.

What does this mean? Is this an English term for working out?