Out of Character and Rules Discussion

[ehiker133]

1. who needs a mission when you have wandering monsters like this?
2. use whatever works best for you!
3. Nope.
4. Would eventually want to do some carcosa, but happy where we are for now.

Excellent game, Mush.

[Mushgnome]

May 18, 2012 20:45:13 GMT -6 ehiker133 said:

1. who needs a mission when you have wandering monsters like this?
2. use whatever works best for you!
3. Nope.
4. Would eventually want to do some carcosa, but happy where we are for now.

Excellent game, Mush.

Thanks for the encouragement!

Is it accurate to say you are enjoying the sandbox/hex-crawl style of exploration? I do not want to saddle you with an overarching "you must destroy the ring in the volcano where it was forged!" storyline not of the players' own devising.

[ehiker133]

Personally, I don't mind sandbox. But I also don't mind having specific missions every now and then, too.

I like the ILLUSION of having choice.

[Mushgnome]

"Illusion of Choice" -- I like that!

Have you thought about a NAME for your sub?

[ehiker133]

I just realized... My life is just one long string of movie quotes.

[ehiker133]

May 19, 2012 11:19:08 GMT -6 Mushgnome said:

"Illusion of Choice" -- I like that!

Have you thought about a NAME for your sub?

Some ideas just off the top of my head...

The Salty Slug
The Barbarous Manta
Jenny (pronounced "Je-Nai")
Rosebud
Watery Deep

[kipper]

.
.
.
Nautilus

[kipper]

May 18, 2012 23:18:25 GMT -6 Mushgnome said:

Is it accurate to say you are enjoying the sandbox/hex-crawl style of exploration? I do not want to saddle you with an overarching "you must destroy the ring in the volcano where it was forged!" storyline not of the players' own devising.

I'm enjoying it a lot .

[Mushgnome]

I like "The Jenny" especially since a "jenny" is a female donkey...

[ehiker133]

May 20, 2012 10:14:27 GMT -6 Mushgnome said:

I like "The Jenny" especially since a "jenny" is a female donkey...

That was supposed to be from Forrest Gump...

[Mushgnome]

Momma always said life was like a wandering monster check.

[Mushgnome]

Congratulations on surviving a wild wandering monster encounter!

Drop by the XP thread; I think you'll like what you see.

Y'all will need a good night's sleep to level up. For those of you reaching 3rd level, a couple things to be aware of:

1. House rule: I'm granting PCs +1 skill point at levels 3, 6, 9, etc. which may be assigned to the skill of your choice: architecture, bushcraft, climb, languages, open doors, search, sleight of hand, stealth, tinker, OTHER (your choice).

Your current skills are: Breath languages 2 3, Fated stealth 2, Gunnery tinker 2, Minion search 2 3, Shade sense motive 2 3.

2. At 3rd level, PC's gain the ability to engage in fantasy combat at the rank of Hero - 1. I haven't figured out yet exactly how we'll play this, but basically, it means you can now attack creatures who are immune to normal weapons.

[Deleted]

Minion puts his new skill point into search, for search 3.
All 4 of The Lurking Skull's points go into Stealth.

[Mushgnome]

May 25, 2012 12:01:31 GMT -6 @migellito said:

Minion puts his new skill point into search, for search 3.
All 4 of The Lurking Skull's points go into Stealth.

Done!

Lurking Skull gets 5-in-6 Stealth skill (base 1-in-6 plus 4 points).
Please copy Minion's henchmen to your character sheet.

[kipper]

Breath will add another skill pt to Languages.

[kipper]

May 25, 2012 20:38:47 GMT -6 Mushgnome said:

I love the names you've chosen for your henchwomen! Only thing is, if you want them to be skill specialists, you need to choose the Specialist class. (NPCs don't necessarily get all the cool benefits of being a PC, like bonus skill points.) You could have 3 fighting-women and 1 specialist with 1 point in each of the 4 skills, or 2-and-2, etc.

OK, no problem. I think I'll need to do a bit of research on Specialists vs Fighters before deciding. However, would a Specialist get 5 skill points to allocate (based on The Lurking Skull above), or only 4?

[kipper]

((Edited my post above, decided I want to think about a little before deciding.))

[Mushgnome]

May 26, 2012 19:31:55 GMT -6 kipper said:

OK, no problem. I think I'll need to do a bit of research on Specialists vs Fighters before deciding. However, would a Specialist get 5 skill points to allocate (based on The Lurking Skull above), or only 4?

Becase "PCs are awesome" (house rule) they get 1 bonus skill point at 1st level +1 at levels 3, 6, 9, etc.

PC specialist: 5 skill points + 2 each new level + 1 per 3 levels
Henchman specialist: 4 skill points + 2 each new level
PC fighter/sorcerer: 1 skill point + 1 per 3 levels
Henchman fighter/sorcerer/normal man: 0 skill points

The specialist's tradeoff for all those skill points is their poor fighting progression:

level 1: 1 man
level 2: 1 man + 1
level 3: 2 men
level 4: 2 men + 1
etc.

[kipper]

OK, read/skimmed through the relevant rules now and I think I understand better. All characters start with "1" in all standard skills, and "specialists" get 4 extra skill points to distribute. For the specialists below, I've listed their total score in each skill, but I have not listed skills where the score is "1".

Devil Maw (female): Fighter
Blasphemous Blade (female): Fighter
Serpent's Scion (female): Specialist (Tinker:5)
Dream Stalker (female): Specialist (Herbalist/Chirurgery:4)

The Herbalist/Chirurgery skill is at "4" because it's not a standard skill and thus Dream Stalker starts with "0" instead of "1". I imagined her skill was mostly in psychotropic and other types of mind-influencing compounds, but she has also picked up some healing knowledge along the way. Sortof a "Witch Doctor" type of vibe.

[Mushgnome]

Yup, base untrained skill check is 1-in-6, plus however many skill points you spend. But the DM reserves the right to adjudicate the base chance up or down depending on the situation and common sense.

I think it is easiest on the character sheet to just notate the skill points spent such as "tinker 4" or "stealth 2/bushcraft 2" and then to calculate the chance-in-6 add +1 for typical average challenge; otherwise +2 for an easy task, +3 for barely a challenge at all, +0 for an almost impossible feat, etc. Clear?

I follow your logic to make herbalism/chirurgery base 0 because it is not a skill a commoner would reasonably possess.

[ehiker133]

Complete OOC thought:

I've always thought Aria had the most interesting story line in GoT. It's too bad there are episodes in the series that have her completely cut from that week.

Makes me wonder how they're going to handle actor aging in the later books, where Book 5 focuses one one group of people for the entire book and Book 6 focuses on different characters over the same time.

Maybe they'll film parts of Book 6 at the same time to accommodate the tween growth rate? She already looks so much older than she did last season...

[Mushgnome]

I've seen the TV show but not read the books (no *spoilers* please) and I agree Arya is a scene-stealer!

Same is true, whether in Westeros or Carcosa: Stick 'im with the pointy end!

[ehiker133]

Oh, you should definitely read the books.

Don't buy them. Use your local library.

Do it.

Now.



You'll find the show does a great job of capturing the essence of the books.

[kipper]

I'll be away from my computer from now until July 1st.

[kipper]

I’ll be away from my computer again for a couple of weeks, July 27 - Aug 7.

[Mushgnome]

Let's take a little break until then... enjoy the wedding festivities everyone.

[kipper]

I'm back! Glad I didn't miss much... like the giant slug-creature whose appearance Breath has been vigilantly dreading since the previous day... LOL ;D

[Mushgnome]

Welcome back kipper!

[Mushgnome]

A few rules changes on the horizon:

1. I'm strongly considering implementing some sort of "friendly fire" rule about shooting into melee.
2. I won't be rolling hit points any more for elite troops like "69 brown men." Rather they get "cumulative hits" equal to their hit dice. (An equivalent way to think about this is they get 1hp per HD and all weapons do 1hp damage.) Unique monsters, PCs, and important NPCs will continue to have individually-rolled hit points.
3. I'm dropping the "Carcosa crazy dice" for all normal/mundane attacks, which going forward will use d6 only. Crazy dice will only be used for Great Old Ones, mythos spawn, alien technology, boss fights, and of course, player characters (because PC's are the craziest thing in the game).

I welcome your feedback on these proposed changes. The idea is to pick up the pace a little by reducing the DM's bookkeeping for the "pawns" in the fight while maintaining the appropriate level of detail for the main characters.

And by the way, welcome to 4th level! (Assuming you can find a safe spot to camp for the night and level up.) Reaching this milestone grants the following benefits: an extra hit die (4 total), better saving throws, the ability to command a unit in 20:1 mass combat and grant a +1 leadership bonus to all its dice. (We will not, however, be using the Chainmail "simultaneous hits" rule, because improved hit points serve the similar purpose.)

Furthermore there is a certain intangible prestige to attaining the rank of Hero and developing a fearsome reputation throughout the land (it will be interesting to see how that plays out in the Carcosa setting).

[Mushgnome]

Here is the exact phrasing of the rule:

Heroes... add 1 to the die or dice of
their unit (or whatever unit they are with). They are the last figure in a unit that
will be killed by regular missile fire of [sic] melee, but they may be attacked individ-
ually by enemy troops of like type (such as other Hero-types) or creatures shown
on the Fantasy Combat Table. Heroes (and Anti-heroes) may act independent of
their command in order to combat some other fantastic character.

So basically you gain the ability to use your troops as meatshields vs. normal troops, and in exchange they gain a +1 bonus (to what exactly is unclear; attack rolls for sure but what else?) from your leadership. Heroes and fantastical creatures can single each other out for fantastic combat while their troops are locked in mass combat.

I like to think of Chainmail fantasy combat in video game terms, like Mortal Kombat fatalities, bullet time in the Matrix, or Kratos' button-mashing finishing moves in God of War. In LotR terms think Gandalf vs. Balrog or Eowyn vs. Wraith. A clash of titans amongst a larger raging battle.