I don't understand the cost of weapons in the book.
I'd like throwing/melee daggers in a bandoleer. however many I can afford.
Can you tell me what I can get?
I can help there some. The short answer is that buying a row of throwing daggers is probably outside of your budget right now. But let's do the numbers.
Money is denominated in a couple of ways in the game world, but the book method is consistent if not very straightforward. The notation goes like this:
X GC = X gold coins, the biggest denomination
Y/Z = Y silver coins and Z brass coins
A full uneven cost could be something like 23 GC 14/11, or 23 gold coins, 14 silver coins and 11 brass coins.
Other names for the coins the book uses are:
gold coins = crowns
silver coins = shillings
brass coins = pennies
The conversion rate is:
1 GC = 20 silver (or 1 GC = 20/-)
1 silver = 12 brass (or 1/- = 0/12)
1 GC = 240 brass
The cost of a throwing knife is 18/-, which is 18 silver and zero brass, which is nearly a gold coin. That's hard for a lot of starting characters to afford, but not unrealistic if you landed a starting career in Silver 3 or above.
Weapons in general are pretty expensive. It's very common for people to want a bow early on, but if you don't start with one in your trappings it's generally out of reach for a while since they start at 3 GC or so. Haggling could maybe bring that down, but not by a ton.
This is all very common. You don't necessarily start decked out in full adventuring kit in this game. I think my Witch will have a dagger and feel lucky to own something that fancy with her Brass 1 career.
Name: Aristea Keyserling
Species: Reiklander (Human)
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Eye Color: Pale Blue
Hair Color: Black
Height: 5'2"
Class: Rogue
Career: Hexer (Witch)
XP Remaining: 20
For original rolls, see here.
+50 class
-50 for 2 advances in Weapon Skill
Wounds: 14
Fate: 3
Resilience: 3
Characteristics:
Weapon Skill: 35
Ballistic Skill: 24
Strength: 25
Toughness: 40
Initiative: 31
Agility: 34
Dexterity: 23
Intelligence: 45
Willpower: 40
Fellowship: 37
Weapon Skill: 33 base +2 advances
Ballistic Skill: 24 base
Strength: 25 base
Toughness: 32 base +5 Very Resilient +3 advances
Initiative: 31 base
Agility: 29 base +5 Lightning Reflexes
Dexterity: 23 base
Intelligence: 40 base +5 Savvy
Willpower: 38 base +2 advances
Fellowship: 37 base
Skills:
Charm: 42 (+5 reiklander advances)
Channelling: 43 (+3 career advances)
Cool: 55 (+10 career advances +5 reiklander advances)
Endurance: 50 (+10 career advances)
Evaluate: 48 (+3 reiklander advances)
Gossip: 42 (+2 career advances +3 reiklander advances)
Intimidate: 30 (+5 career advances)
Language (Magick): 55 (+10 career advances)
Lore (Reikland): 48 (+3 reiklander advances)
Melee (Basic): 40 (+5 reiklander advances)
+5 into Charm, Cool & Melee (Basic)
+3 into Evaluate, Gossip & Lore (Reikland)
Career Advances:
+10 into Cool, Endurance & Language (Magick)
+5 into Intimidate
+3 into Channelling
+2 into Gossip
Talents: Artistic, Doomed, Lightning Reflexes, Petty Magic, Savvy, Very Resilient
Petty Spells: Dart, Eavesdrop, Open Lock, Sounds
Rogue Trappings: Clothing, Dagger, Pouch, Sling Bag containing 2 Candles, Hood, 10 Matches
Witch Trappings: Candles, Chalk, Doll, Pins
Starting Funds: 13 brass pennies
Pending List:
Motivation, Ambitions & Background - I have ideas on these but it's still percolating
At the risk of overstepping, here are a few things I've picked up while playing & running this WFRP edition that are good to understand during character creation.
Success and Failure, Winning and Losing:
Success on a test (and conversely failure) has a specific meaning in this game. Success on a test simply means that you rolled a number equal to or less than your ability in that test. So on an Average (+20) Perception Test with a character skill of Perception of 34, rolling a 54 or lower succeeds and a 55 or higher fails.
Succeeding means you 'won' for Simple Tests with a yes or no answer. Dramatic Tests can succeed but not succeed enough to give you everything you want, but you have mostly 'won' if you succeed on one of those. The most obvious time when success/failure diverges meaningfully from win/loss is on Opposed Tests. If you fail on an Opposed Test, your opponent might fail even worse (by Success Level or SL) and you end up still 'winning' the Test. Success is a comparison of the dice vs a target value while winning & losing is determined by comparing Success Levels. They are related, but are determined in completely different ways.
The important thing to remember is that 'successful' Tests have this specific meaning throughout the books and it ends up mattering a lot.
Reading Talent entries:
The 'Tests:' entry is one place where the success/failure concept outlined below is important. The key is the sidebar on page 132. Some Talents are all about their text. Coolheaded for instance lacks a Tests entry and only does what the Talent says. Conversely we can look at Dealmaker. The text of that entry says that you can modify the price of a Haggle in your favor by 10%. That isn't bad by itself. But Haggle is an Opposed Test vs the other merchant. If a player has three ranks in the Dealmaker Talent and a Haggle skill of 42, their result on a roll of 48 is +0 SL (failure). If they rolled a 41 however, they succeeded and the Tests entry applies. Their result is +3 SL (success) and they are much more likely to win. Pay attention to the existence of Tests entries on Talents: they aren't just about what sort of Tests the Talent might be useful on.
Extra Points:
During character creation, all races get some amount of Extra Points, but it isn't quite as obvious what those are for. Extra Points can be assigned to one of two things, both of which are very powerful: Fate and Resilience. Be sure to spend them.
Fate & Resilience (with a note on Motivation):
All of this is explained on page 170, but our tables have tended to get a lot of questions about it anyway. So here we go:
Fate can be spent on some big things: not dying when you otherwise would is a big headliner. You can also spend a point of Fate to completely negate an attack or effect against you. While you can (rarely) obtain more Fate however, it never replenishes. So it should only be spent in dire straits.
Fortune conversely can be used frequently. A character's maximum Fortune is (usually) just their number of Fate points. Fortune allows a character to reroll a failed Test, to add +1 SL to a Test after it is rolled or to choose their place in Initiative. Fortune replenishes at the end of each session, which is a weird concept in a play-by-post game. Mostly whenever the GM says it replenishes. It gets spent fairly often because it comes back easily.
Resilience is similar to Fate in that it never replenishes and you will only rarely gain a new point of Resilience. It also has big effects. You can choose not to develop a rolled mutation when you otherwise would mutate (very bad) or you can simply just choose to succeed (and win) on a Test, even to the point of choosing to inflict a Critical Wound. Spend this wisely.
Resolve has a relationship to Resilience that is similar to the relationship between Fortune & Fate. Your maximum Resolve is your Resilience (usually). It does smaller things than Resilience and can be replenished rather than being spent forever when it is used. It replenishes much differently than Fortune though. When the GM determines that your character has acted according to their Motivation, you can regain a point of Resolve. Thus it is important to choose a Motivation that you can imagine coming up at least semi-regularly in play. A Motivation of 'Save my family' will be of no help in an adventure that does not feature family members and is better used as an Ambition (short or long term) than a Motivation. Spending Resolve allows you to remove a Condition (which is a list of specific things, not all bad things), to be immune to Psychology for 1 round or to ignore the effect of a Critical Hit for 1 round.
Taken together, these resources are extremely important to making the game be not as deadly as its reputation. It also helps some to balance out the insane characteristics that dwarves and elves get: they are better at (almost) everything you might do, but if they roll bad elves in particular are much more likely to just be stuck with it than humans.
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Two other things to bear in mind:
Advantage
You basically gain a point of advantage every time you win an opposed roll in combat, each point of advantage give you +10 on future rolls. Your advantage resets when you fail an opposed roll. This sounds all good except:
a) Advantage is tracker per individual, not too onerous on the PC's but for the DM, in fight against even a 1/2 dozen foes it can be hard to track (we put a dice by each one, and it was still a pain).
b) Advantage can rapidly get overwhelming with a good string of rolls, one hero in our game (the guy that managed to roll a decent combatant) would regularly manage to get a +40 bonus due to advantage, when your base skills are like 30-50 that's a lot.
We did try various solutions, limiting to Initiative bonus advantage, or just a flat 3, but the best solution seemed to be group initiative from the Up in Arms supplement which changes it to a group resource you can spend for bonuses, which both made it easier to track and less overwhelming.
Degrees of Success
By default you get a degree of success per number the 10s dice is under the target. so with a skill of 42 a 40 is just a pass with 0 degrees, a 38 is a pass with 1 degree.
A lot of indications are that the game was written with Fast SL's in mind, where as long as you pass the number on the 10s dice is the degrees of success, so with a skill of 42 a 38 is 3 degrees.
Either method degrees of failure are determined the same (10s dice counting up from target i.e. 42 skill roll a 61 and it's 2 degrees).
Smarter minds than I say the math supports the Fast SL's being less 'swingy', but as people who got used to the first way, it felt kinda wrong when you rolled an 01 and it the worst possible success, not the best.
Can someone point to the page where SL is discussed? I can't seem to find it in the rulebook.
EDIT: nevermind. SL stands for Success Level, and I managed to find it on page 152.
I'd like more than five people to apply, giving me a choice. :) So, up it goes.
I'd like more than five people to apply, giving me a choice. :) So, up it goes.Sounds like the GM wants to reject people but can't. :P
Something like that. :)
Looks like you made it. I'll be ready to start within the week.
Looks like you made it. I'll be ready to start within the week.
Yeah, I'll be ready to start within the week. But you can post your characters in the gameplay thread.
That should work.
How long will recruitment be lasting? I was expecting a separate recruitment thread and didn't notice this was progressing.
Apparently, we lost some players. They never did post in the gameplay thread, so recruitment has been extended.
Helaman, if we end up desperate for someone with Heal advances, my Witch is probably the better candidate since she has a much better Intelligence. Also, Priest gets Heal access at their second Career tier.
Helaman, if we end up desperate for someone with Heal advances, my Witch is probably the better candidate since she has a much better Intelligence. Also, Priest gets Heal access at their second Career tier.
She's right. Helaman, think about Medicine.
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Helaman's character here.
With my 34 score in heal and heal blessing I can pitch hit as a healer IF needed.
Priest of Rhya
Seat of Power: None officially
Head of the Cult: None
Primary Orders: None
Major Festivals: Summer Solstice, with equinoxes also celebrated
Popular Holy Books: None, though many oral traditions exist
Holy Symbols: Sheaf of wheat, fruit, spirals
Bountiful Rhya is the Goddess of Fertility and Summer, widely known as the Earth Mother and She Who Sustains Life. Though typically depicted as the wife of Taal, myths connect her to many gods, and she has children from many of those relationships. Most commonly portrayed as a tall, beautiful women wreathed in leaves and bedecked in fruit, Rhya’s statues are normally nude, pregnant, and surrounded by her children. Many theologians tie Rhya to the Old Faith, a prehistoric cult comprised of ancient farmers and hunters who wrested a living from the land before the Empire was born, and one still found in secluded communities to this day.
Rural folk across the Old World venerate Rhya, relying on her to provide the crops upon which their lives depends. Womanfolk comprise the main body of the cult, and most midwives pay at least lip-service to Rhya’s Wisdom, a set of oral traditions surrounding childbirth. Although she is not openly worshipped in the towns and cities — townsfolk often turning to Shallya in her stead — her name is frequently tied with Taal’s, so she is still well known amongst such people. Because the cult has no great temples and protects no holy books or relics of significance, many scholars believe her worship to be declining, and possibly already dead. Her many cultists do nothing to contradict such talk.
Rhya’s cultists have no fixed vestment or preferred garb, though greens are very common, as is using plants, flowers, or herbs to accessorise any clothing. They often dress in a fashion considered far too revealing by Sigmarite doctrine, which can cause friction as the Rhyans believe giving in to such prudishness is tantamount to encouraging the Prince of Excess into your lives, as it builds forbidden desires. Devotees of Sigmar invariably disagree, believing abstinence and restricting temptation is a better response to such dangers than indulgence. holy siTes Rhya has no large temples, though many ancient sites constructed from oghams (standing stones) are centres of worship for her cult, and some still echo each equinox with the cries of fevered celebrants. Shrines to Rhya are usually simple statues of the goddess, often piled high with offerings of food and drink. Older shrines are often made of small standing stones marked with worn, spiralled patterns.
Penances: penances may involve replanting devastated areas, helping broken households, and maintaining sacred groves. It is also common to find Rhyans tasked to protect helpless families, which can often put them at odds with local bailiffs and law enforcement.
-Strictures-
• defend families, children, and crops from all harm.
• never feel shame for the flesh Rhya gave you.
• life is sacred, do no harm lest another life is in danger.
• never judge whom another loves.
• Interrupt the work of the prince of excess wherever it may thirst.
Nice. Turac Lhaest is approved, Helaman. Welcome to the group!