Savage Marches

[nDervish]

I say that since we were four players each player can decide for himself which house he loots. If everyone is ok with that Enock loots house number 23.

The door to the cold storage is wide open and it's been pretty thoroughly ransacked. There are stems and husks left from various vegetables, but that's all that remains of the food that was kept here. You also find scattered bones of small animals and, in the corner, some larger bones - you'd guess two adult humans and a child. Piled up along with them are five fresh torches and five that have been burned; a brass shield and iron sword, both of which are bent nearly in half; a wooden canteen; some ripped clothing; and a blue cloth pouch containing 13sp.

I am almost done with my post-session stuff. One thing struck me when I purchased advancements. I got the Armour power for my Song and this will mean that Enock gets a Thoughness of 9 (11 on a raise) which is starting to feel a little over powered. Perhaps it will be fine since there is only so long that I can power the power before my power runs out but still....

Yes, exactly - it may give you a moment of nigh-invulnerability, but you'll have to either take an action to recast it every three rounds or else pay 1 PP per round to maintain it and those PP only return at a rate of 1 per hour, so it won't always be available. Also, if you're maintaining a power and you get shaken or wounded, you need to make a roll to keep it up, then unshake before you can recast.

For Enock I chose the Edge Command

Just so we're clear, I interpret "subordinates" to mean "Extras/henchmen" for the purpose of Leadership Edges. I know I've seen an Edge somewhere whose effect is to make the effect of Leadership Edges apply to wildcards, which is why I interpret it that way, but I can't seem to find that Edge at the moment.

Edit: Since Dave posted before I was done I'll comment some. Depending on you Dave I am going to assume that we (Spellbutcher) tried to catch the wild horse

That was my assumption also. When you get it back to town, you can trade it for a trained riding horse.

considering that we have all seen the power of a mounted warrior first hand now.

About that... Three things:

1) SW Deluxe p.73 says, "Animals specifically noted as being trained to fight (such as warhorses) may attack any threat to their front during their riders’ action. Untrained horses do not fight unless riderless, and even then usually only if cornered." Given how skittish horses are, that should also apply to the rider fighting, not just to the horse making attacks itself. If you're on a horse that isn't combat-trained while there's a fight going on around you, you'll need to spend an action to roll Riding each round to keep it under control. Failing this roll will result in the horse becoming shaken and fleeing in a random direction (and the rider needing to make a second Riding roll to avoid falling off and taking 2d6 damage).

2) The charge rule on p.74 states, "To be considered charging, the rider must have moved at least 6” or more in a relatively straight line towards his foe." This should probably be applied with respect to your entire move for the turn, so you have to start at least 6" away and all movement must be roughly in the direction from your starting point towards your target (although you can plow through him and keep going after the hit, so long as it continues in roughly the same direction).

3) Even without those changes, none of the rest of you could do that because, when fighting from horseback, you attack with the lower of your regular skill die or your Riding die and Spellbutcher is the only one with Riding skill. Everyone else would be rolling d4-2 to hit...

Those scrolls seems pretty powerful. Can anyone use them and how many of each was there?

One scroll of each type.

By RAW, Fantasy Companion says that scrolls are tied to either the Magic or Miracles Arcane Background and only someone with that AB can use them, but I don't like how that screws all the other ABs, so I figure they should be usable by anyone with an AB, which means all Devas.

I guess that the three meter statue of a cat doesn't contain any Song?

Correct.

So that means we've got a total of 656 sp and 53 cp? Divided by four (I assume the henchmen don't "want" loot?) that's 164 sp and 13 cp per Deva (throwing one copper to the winds).

The henchmen should each get the more-or-less-standard half-share each for combat duty, so divide by 7.5. (Shieldcatcher's share goes to his next-of-kin, funeral expenses, and/or donations to a surviving temple.)

By my math, it's a total of 737.3 sp-equivalent (20gp * 10 + 449sp + 753cp/10 + 13sp that you found in cold storage), divided by 7.5 is 98sp, 3cp per full share.

One thing I've been wondering - is it possible to "buy off" hindrances? For example by using one advancement to get rid of a minor and two advancements to get rid of a major?

Other than special cases like Young, RAW doesn't seem to say anything about being able to get rid of Hindrances. I'll do a little searching to see if I can find anyone else's house rules for it, but, if not, 1 Advance for a Minor or 2 Advances for a Major sounds reasonable to me, provided that it can be justified in-game. (I don't think Enock's eye is going to spontaneously reappear...)

[God45]

About that... Three things:

1) SW Deluxe p.73 says, "Animals specifically noted as being trained to fight (such as warhorses) may attack any threat to their front during their riders’ action. Untrained horses do not fight unless riderless, and even then usually only if cornered." Given how skittish horses are, that should also apply to the rider fighting, not just to the horse making attacks itself. If you're on a horse that isn't combat-trained while there's a fight going on around you, you'll need to spend an action to roll Riding each round to keep it under control. Failing this roll will result in the horse becoming shaken and fleeing in a random direction (and the rider needing to make a second Riding roll to avoid falling off and taking 2d6 damage).

2) The charge rule on p.74 states, "To be considered charging, the rider must have moved at least 6” or more in a relatively straight line towards his foe." This should probably be applied with respect to your entire move for the turn, so you have to start at least 6" away and all movement must be roughly in the direction from your starting point towards your target (although you can plow through him and keep going after the hit, so long as it continues in roughly the same direction).

3) Even without those changes, none of the rest of you could do that because, when fighting from horseback, you attack with the lower of your regular skill die or your Riding die and Spellbutcher is the only one with Riding skill. Everyone else would be rolling d4-2 to hit...

How much does an trained warhorse cost? Because If I have two horses now maybe I could exchange both of them for a trained warhorse? Otherwise I will just have to bomb my rep to get it. I am not giving up the ability to wreck this much havoc in combat.

Also, If I use a speed spell on the horse I am riding that should increase its speed earlier in the charge than 6 inches. That I need a bit off a start to do a charge attack should depend on me not being able to gain the speed needed on shorter distance. But If I use a seed spell I should be able to get that momentum from a shorter distance. What do you think?

[nDervish]

How much does an trained warhorse cost? Because If I have two horses now maybe I could exchange both of them for a trained warhorse? Otherwise I will just have to bomb my rep to get it. I am not giving up the ability to wreck this much havoc in combat.

A warhorse costs 750, vs. 250 for a riding horse.

Also, If I use a speed spell on the horse I am riding that should increase its speed earlier in the charge than 6 inches. That I need a bit off a start to do a charge attack should depend on me not being able to gain the speed needed on shorter distance. But If I use a seed spell I should be able to get that momentum from a shorter distance. What do you think?

This got me looking into it more closely, and I'm not sure you're going to like the result:

Horses fall under the Vehicle rules.

SWD 74, under "Collisions" says to use the Vehicle rules for damage if a rider runs into a solid object. The list of special cases for vehicle movement on SWD 98 concludes with "Animals and Conveyances: Animals don't have to worry about Acceleration or Top Speed...". The list of Maneuver examples on SWD 99 includes "riding a horse down a steep or slippery hill".

Under the vehicle rules, you need to perform a Bootlegger Reverse Maneuver (Riding roll at -4) to turn 180 degrees while moving. So you'd need to Bootlegger, pull back, Bootlegger again, charge, and attack. Also, SWD 74 says that the rider of a running animal takes the normal -2 running penalty on actions if his mount runs, so that would be two Riding rolls at -6 and a -2 on your attack roll if you do it all in one turn.

Alternately, you could back up without turning around, but movement in reverse is at half speed (SWD 98, under "Reverse") and real-world experience says that horses can't run backwards.

None of this is connected to your movement rate, so Speed wouldn't help. However, there is a separate power called Quickness (available at Seasoned rank) which gives you two full turns each round. That would certainly be applicable - cast Quickness on your horse and you could use the first turn to back up 4", then back up another 2" in the second turn, leaving you with 4" of movement plus half a running die to make your charge. (Warhorses are only Pace 8, vs. a riding horse's Pace 10.)

Given these limitations on maneuverability, I withdraw item 2 from my previous post.

[nDervish]

I am not giving up the ability to wreck this much havoc in combat.

Hey, just to be sure there's no misunderstanding:

My issue with the repeated charges isn't that they're too powerful or that I want to take away this cool thing you came up with. If you want to ride down the line of battle making a charge attack every round against whoever happens to be in the wrong place at the right time, then turn around at the end of the line and do it again in the other direction, then I am totally cool with that. You'll even have a better chance to hit, since your horse won't have to run!

The problem I have with it is that your "charge attack the same guy every round" maneuver requires your mount to spin around and instantly reverse direction while at a full gallop and, in The Real World(tm), horses don't work like that.

[God45]

Hey, just to be sure there's no misunderstanding:

My issue with the repeated charges isn't that they're too powerful or that I want to take away this cool thing you came up with. If you want to ride down the line of battle making a charge attack every round against whoever happens to be in the wrong place at the right time, then turn around at the end of the line and do it again in the other direction, then I am totally cool with that. You'll even have a better chance to hit, since your horse won't have to run!

The problem I have with it is that your "charge attack the same guy every round" maneuver requires your mount to spin around and instantly reverse direction while at a full gallop and, in The Real World(tm), horses don't work like that.

No problem Me trying to wring every last drop of advantage out of the system is mostly just a bad habit. Everything you have posted seems reasonable Now I will just have to get 250 silver somewhere to not bomb my rep but that should be easy enough to fix...

[bladerunner_35]

Enock's got a lot of "silver" left after he took a hit on his rep to get some better armour. If it's ok with Dave you can have 250 sp from his "stash".

[God45]

Enock's got a lot of "silver" left after he took a hit on his rep to get some better armour. If it's ok with Dave you can have 250 sp from his "stash".

Thank you

[nDervish]

Enock's got a lot of "silver" left after he took a hit on his rep to get some better armour. If it's ok with Dave you can have 250 sp from his "stash".

I know I told God45 last week that making purchases with Rep is use-it-or-lose-it and you don't get change back, but I don't think I've said anything more widely about that, so keep the cash this time. Or give it to him for a warhorse, if you prefer.

Still waiting on info about:

• which buildings Gych, Jonaleth, and Dree are looting aside from the core four
• what items (other than coins) you're taking
• what Advances Jonaleth, Dree, and their Songs are taking
• the correct name of Dree's Song, since it's not Weird Science

[God45]

I am looting:

1) The Savage Witch Stein (bar)

2) The New Lich Anvil (smith), burned to the ground (Yes, I am looking for another cellar )

3) The Wooden Harpy Inn

If I don`t have time to check them all out I will check them out in the order listed

[bladerunner_35]

I have created three new henchmen. They are three brothers and while optimized for combat I'd like to think that they have character and zest!

They would not go into battle individually but always side by side so perhaps you want to take that into account when you calculate if they are available Dave? Perhaps lower the probability for them to become available but when they do become available all of them join.

[nDervish]

I am looting:

1) The Savage Witch Stein (bar)

The Savage Witch Stein (#3)
Judging by the number of bones on the floor of the main room, this was a pretty popular place with the people of Elderone before the Silence. Judging by how clean the bones are and how empty the liquor bottles and ale barrels are, it was also pretty popular with the ghouls.

There are five tables, each with a brass candlestick semi-permanently attached to its center by accumulated white candle wax and a few wooden chairs around it. Two of the tables and most of the chairs are broken. To the right of the entrance is a wooden weapon rack holding a dented pot helmet and a warped bow. There are a copper music box and a rusty razor on a shelf behind the bar. On the bar itself are several broken clay mugs and a platinum candlestick sits on a purple towel, holding a half-burned black candle.

Walking around to look behind the bar, you find a pile of ghoul dung and the bar's strongbox. The box is locked, but sounds like there are a large number of coins inside.

Among the bodies, you find 2gp, 20sp, and 119cp, for a total of 22gp, 478sp, and 869cp looted thus far.

If we don't hear from the others by Friday, I'll take New Lich Anvil as the next place to search, and then let bladerunner_35 choose the final place to loot if we're not up to four yet.

They would not go into battle individually but always side by side so perhaps you want to take that into account when you calculate if they are available Dave? Perhaps lower the probability for them to become available but when they do become available all of them join.

Sure, you just have to make things difficult for me...

As luck would have it, you've got 4 available henchmen for the next expedition. Billie Wolfstrangler is feeling great after cleaning out the ghouls, so she immediately volunteered for your next trip out, which left three slots for new NPCs. So I suppose I'll drop all three of the Brothers Grim in there if you say they don't like to work alone.

[God45]

Yes! Treasure!

I will take the platinum candlestick and the purple towel. I will take the coins. And I will take the entire strongbox. We can open it when we are back in eastmere and have all the time in the world. So onto the wagon it goes

[nDervish]

I have created three new henchmen. They are three brothers and while optimized for combat I'd like to think that they have character and zest!

What's Bogdan's Vigor supposed to be? You missed it when copying his stats onto Obsidian Portal. I think it should be d8, but you either used Vigor d6 when you calculated his Toughness or you forgot the +1 Toughness for Brawny.

Also, are Bogdan and Borislav taking any melee weapons from the armory? If so, I'd like to get those onto their sheets as well. (Preferably as gifts to them, so that I don't have to take them back off later. )

Edit: Something else you might want to consider - replace their Brawny edges with this one from Interface Zero:

MERCENARY
Requirements: Novice, Vigor 6+, Fighting D6+, Shooting D6+
Yes sir, sir! You served in a regimented military outfit. It might
have been a corporate paramilitary unit, government con-
trolled army, imbedded guerilla force, or freelance mercenary
unit. The nature of your background probably colors your at-
titudes toward things like money, patriotism, and honor. You
gain a +1 bonus to your Toughness. You also add weapons,
armor and/or bio/cyber modifications totaling 5,000 credits in
value to your possessions.

Average starting cash in IZ1.0 is 10,000 credits, so switching from Brawny to Mercenary would essentially trade a bonus to carrying capacity for an extra 250sp worth of weapons or armor so that they can get both a melee weapon and a crossbow along with their mail, plus it suits the background you wrote up for them.

[bladerunner_35]

Sure, you just have to make things difficult for me...

As luck would have it, you've got 4 available henchmen for the next expedition. Billie Wolfstrangler is feeling great after cleaning out the ghouls, so she immediately volunteered for your next trip out, which left three slots for new NPCs. So I suppose I'll drop all three of the Brothers Grim in there if you say they don't like to work alone.

Noooo, they're going to get killed! I know it!

What's Bogdan's Vigor supposed to be? You missed it when copying his stats onto Obsidian Portal. I think it should be d8, but you either used Vigor d6 when you calculated his Toughness or you forgot the +1 Toughness for Brawny.

It's Vigor d6. I have added it now.

Also, are Bogdan and Borislav taking any melee weapons from the armory? If so, I'd like to get those onto their sheets as well. (Preferably as gifts to them, so that I don't have to take them back off later. )

I am going to update them later with weapons from the armoury or with Enock's own money. I've been playing around with the idea of the three brothers being approached by Enock. Perhaps they have run into eachother before during Enock's bounty hunting days. It would be cool if they eventually developed into Enock's personal guard, especially now when Enock is becoming a leader of men (which is why I don't want them to die in a headless charge commanded by Spellbutcher ).

What do you think?

Edit: Something else you might want to consider - replace their Brawny edges with this one from Interface Zero:

MERCENARY
Requirements: Novice, Vigor 6+, Fighting D6+, Shooting D6+
Yes sir, sir! You served in a regimented military outfit. It might
have been a corporate paramilitary unit, government con-
trolled army, imbedded guerilla force, or freelance mercenary
unit. The nature of your background probably colors your at-
titudes toward things like money, patriotism, and honor. You
gain a +1 bonus to your Toughness. You also add weapons,
armor and/or bio/cyber modifications totaling 5,000 credits in
value to your possessions.

Average starting cash in IZ1.0 is 10,000 credits, so switching from Brawny to Mercenary would essentially trade a bonus to carrying capacity for an extra 250sp worth of weapons or armor so that they can get both a melee weapon and a crossbow along with their mail, plus it suits the background you wrote up for them.

Well, considering that we're rapidly getting loot and that there is a ready(?) available supply of weapons, armour and equipment back in Eastmere I do not consider it a worthy tradeoff. Compared to the ability of carrying heavy armour and weapons. Hopefully Bogdan and Borislav will be able to carry both a ranged weapon (Crossbow) and some sort melee weapon, shield and their heavy armour.

Speaking of which, I haven't been able to find the rules for carrying significant items that you spoke of. In the Savage Armoury it details the carrying capacity as half of strength while I am sure you mentioned something about the lower of strength and agility?

Edit: Oh and also about ammunition (crossbow bolts) - I got the feeling that we weren't really counting the number of arrows that were used in the Battle of Elderone but at the same time I know we mentioned limited supplies being a part of the game so I wanted to check with you exactly how you want to play it. Do I need to purchase bolts for the brothers and keep track of how many they spend or do we handwave it?

[bladerunner_35]

I thought I already wrote something about it but I saw you created Session 4 with Enock and Spellbutcher as participants - I won't be able to make it on monday since I work.

[nDervish]

I am going to update them later with weapons from the armoury or with Enock's own money. I've been playing around with the idea of the three brothers being approached by Enock. Perhaps they have run into eachother before during Enock's bounty hunting days. It would be cool if they eventually developed into Enock's personal guard, especially now when Enock is becoming a leader of men (which is why I don't want them to die in a headless charge commanded by Spellbutcher ).

What do you think?

If he can keep them (and himself) alive long enough, sure...

Speaking of which, I haven't been able to find the rules for carrying significant items that you spoke of. In the Savage Armoury it details the carrying capacity as half of strength while I am sure you mentioned something about the lower of strength and agility?

It's adapted from this blog post, which is for a D&D-based system and limits ready items based on Strength/Dexterity and pack items by Strength/Constitution.

I really like the "lower of two stats and different stat pairs for ready and pack items" because it means that you have to buy up more than just Strength to max out carrying capacity, which I'm hoping will be sufficient to balance it going by the full die size instead of only half the die (like Savage Armory), but, honestly, Bogdan might be breaking that system a bit with d8 in both Agility and Strength, and then Brawny on top of that, to get 12 ready items. I'm thinking it would be good to amend it slightly so that Brawny only increases Strength and Vigor for carrying purposes, but it doesn't make you more Agile.

Edit: Oh and also about ammunition (crossbow bolts) - I got the feeling that we weren't really counting the number of arrows that were used in the Battle of Elderone but at the same time I know we mentioned limited supplies being a part of the game so I wanted to check with you exactly how you want to play it. Do I need to purchase bolts for the brothers and keep track of how many they spend or do we handwave it?

What I had come up with on that was that you buy your ammunition normally, but, instead of counting each shot individually and then dealing with arrow recovery and so forth, just mark off 5 shots whenever your skill die comes up 1 (even if the wild die makes it a hit with multiple raises). That's roughly the same with a skill of d6, while d4 will occasionally lose or break arrows before firing them and higher skill levels get better at recovering and reusing arrows.

Also, a quiver is 1 Significant Item and holds 20 arrows/bolts in your "ready" inventory. Bundled arrows in your pack are one Significant Item per 50 (rounded up).

And I need to get around to writing a wiki page about encumbrance...

I thought I already wrote something about it but I saw you created Session 4 with Enock and Spellbutcher as participants - I won't be able to make it on monday since I work.

I'm sure you said that on Monday and I just forgot. I'll make up new NPCs for Monday, then, and save the Grims for the next time you can make it.

[bladerunner_35]

It's not like the Grim brothers belong to Enock but if it's all the same to you I'd rather make a new bunch of henchmen. It is pretty fun anyways.

And yes, an encumberance page would be great though I think I got it now. The weights from the Armoury still stands as they are, right?

[Arcturus]

As for which house Jonaleth loots... Does any of the regular houses look more well of than the other, a second floor for instance or actual glass windows or any other signs of affluence? If so i he chooses the one that looks richest. If there is no such house he probably loots house number 4 the herbary to see if there's anything interesting one can mix up or use for curatives. It goes without saying that he ransacks the inventors shop from cellar to roof.

[bladerunner_35]

I really like the "lower of two stats and different stat pairs for ready and pack items" because it means that you have to buy up more than just Strength to max out carrying capacity, which I'm hoping will be sufficient to balance it going by the full die size instead of only half the die (like Savage Armory), but, honestly, Bogdan might be breaking that system a bit with d8 in both Agility and Strength, and then Brawny on top of that, to get 12 ready items. I'm thinking it would be good to amend it slightly so that Brawny only increases Strength and Vigor for carrying purposes, but it doesn't make you more Agile.

It's all good but then I might switch Edge from Brawny to Mercenary since Brawny do not really add to carrying capacity without extra investement in Agility. Just let me know which side you come down on.

What I had come up with on that was that you buy your ammunition normally, but, instead of counting each shot individually and then dealing with arrow recovery and so forth, just mark off 5 shots whenever your skill die comes up 1 (even if the wild die makes it a hit with multiple raises). That's roughly the same with a skill of d6, while d4 will occasionally lose or break arrows before firing them and higher skill levels get better at recovering and reusing arrows.

Also, a quiver is 1 Significant Item and holds 20 arrows/bolts in your "ready" inventory. Bundled arrows in your pack are one Significant Item per 50 (rounded up).

Right, now I remember. It's a good house rule. Might want to add that one to the wiki as well.

[nDervish]

It's not like the Grim brothers belong to Enock but if it's all the same to you I'd rather make a new bunch of henchmen. It is pretty fun anyways.

I don't particularly care, but my original statement about player-made henchmen was that they would join the party in the first session(s) including the player who made them. If you want them to go out on Monday without Enock, they can/will.

The weights from the Armoury still stands as they are, right?

For the moment. "Significant Item"-based encumbrance systems are all the rage right now (I get the impression that Lamentations of the Flame Princess popularized them), so I'm seeing new ones fairly often and getting ideas from them.

One thing I keep thinking about, but not deciding to use, is that it's fairly common to say that a 1-handed weapon is a minimum of 1 SI and a 2-handed weapon is a minimum of 2 SI. I don't think that would be a good fit with Savage Armory, though, since Armory has several options for adjusting weapon weights.

A possibility that just occurred to me: Change two-handed weapons to default to 2 SI instead of 1, then modify that normally. (Effectively, this just adds 1 to the "weight" of two-handed weapons.) Thoughts?

As for which house Jonaleth loots... Does any of the regular houses look more well of than the other, a second floor for instance or actual glass windows or any other signs of affluence?

Let's see... #5 had the wine cellar, #11 (the scorched house next to the burned smithy) has some large paintings visible through the windows, #12 has probably the most plants/herbs in the village, #13 (the inn) is two stories, and #22 has more brightly-colored cloth than the other houses.

It goes without saying that he ransacks the inventors shop from cellar to roof.

Of course. Aside from the electric leech and the scrolls, what else do you want to take? (I assume the rusty iron bar isn't that interesting to you...)