Goodman Games

Session went very well. Everyone seemed to have a good time. Mass combat and traps were the order of the day. Questions/house rulings are in colors other than default.

One question before game play began was if elves sleep less or have a waking sleep type thing like some other games going on. Rules didn't state (that I could quickly find) so I ruled that they sleep as all other character races do.

Second question before game play came from the PC who is caring a great ax. Wanted to know what would happen if he tried to throw it. Ruled that his base melee att would be dropped and base ranged added and harm bonus would be negated. So instead of rolling melee attack>Axes he would roll Ranged attack>Axes with no harm bonus. Looking at this now, Maybe a better solution would be to have him roll base Ranged attack and keep the harm bonus.

Party finally entered the lair of the goblins they had been tracking. Since no thief characters are in the party, traps were overlooked(Failed scrutinize against difficulty of seeing traps). Basically traps were found by the tank method. " I move forward. Stomp! Stomp!". One character gotta a nice scar on their armor from a spear trap (Allowed evade which mitigated the damage quite a bit, armor took the rest). Next trap didn't even get past the ADP (Lucky roll on his part, very poor on my part).

Mass combat next. Party bull rushed a door and piled in (After casting all defense spells they had), Unfortunately 30 goblins were waiting for them. They attempted to bluff the whole mass of them which allowed them to back up to the door w/ only the lead PC taking attacks. Then 1 PC in the hall cast Armor on the lead PC blocking the door to the tune of a d6. With his chain mail armor, this gave him a roll of 1d8 and 1d6 to anything that got past his ADPs(Which were shredded after 2 or 3 rounds). The PC in the doorway had cast "Mantle" before rushing in which added 7 pts to his deflect pool.

This brought up the point that once the pool was exhausted could he drop the spell? I said of course and that you could recast it if you wanted to take a round to do it. He of course choose not to since his extra attack was decimating them and w/the extra magic armor he was not getting hurt yet.

This also prompted the question of "Can I just not use my ADPs and roll only armor against it?" I ruled that since it is an Active Defense Pool, you could choose to not use them and take it on your armor instead, but you would have to decide before you saw/heard the damage that attack. I also reminded them that the APDs were guaranteed mitigation while the armor was random.

***Extra Weapon Attack/Split Attack house rule here: In the rules it states that an extra attack only gets the harm bonus in the original attack while a Split attack gets it on both dice. This doesn't make sense to me and I reversed the two. So in an Extra Weapon Attack you get full harm bonuses on both attacks, while a split attack you only get the harm bonuses on one of the dice rolled (of the player's choice). This just seemed to make more sense to me especially because you pay for the Extra Weapons Attack w/CPs.***

He was taking 5 1d6 attacks a round so you can imagine how quickly the APDs went but the magic armor & regular armor kept him safe. After killing slightly less than half, they pushed into the room to allow the other fighters to bring melee weapons into it. This definitely increased the meat grinder effect (The magic armor was dropped at this point). The goblins hidden reserve came in at this point from behind, surprising the rear most PC (Scrutinize roll lower than the stealth roll) which allowed for 3 "Sneak attacks" on him. I ruled that No APDs could be used but the armor stood and he would not lose his actions against the foes in front of him. He armor managed to take all but 3 pts which was the first hit to toughness the party had taken in this battle. The lead PC then took 3 pts from the last goblin to face him as well, before he turned to help the rear PC. All in all, 38 goblins lay dead and the PC's took a cumulative loss of 6 toughness points. Two goblins escaped and the PCs fortified the room using a lot of handy corpses (and other stuff). They then rested for 2 hours (They needed some spell pts back). They moved to the next room and we stopped at that point.

It was def a good time.

Hello!!



That's what I'd say. Although, if you want the AD&D 2nd Edition Elves who never seem to sleep, then they'd make ideal guards at night!



You were nice. I might have just had him roll his Ranged ability, and if he wasn't specialized in thrown, he would have had one die to toss. Still, for thrown weapons that house-rule doesn't seem too "out of reach".



Good tactics.



Yes, an arcanist can drop a spell at will, as can any willing recipient.



You were right. That's why I made armor random, otherwise one's armor might be always higher than some of the ADPs, which would be silly.



The extra weapon attack get the harm bonus if the original attack used a different weapon. Also, at the fist level of Extra Weapon Attack, he cannot split the attacks. Only when Extra Weapon attack is brought to the level of Mastery can he split the dice (and in that the same rule applies, he extra weapon attack get the harm bonus if the original attack used a different weapon).



Armor is powerful in ERP, even when randomized, ain't it? And with magic, well, watch out!



Wow, tough party. What's your player character party CS? The goblins were D6 fodder, with 6 HPs each and no armor, correct?

[/quote]

Sounds like a blast

1. I was fine with elves being more normal in their sleep patterns. Thought about making it an advantage for 1 CP as well.

2. I really think I will change it to base ranged ability and let the harm modifier stand...It makes more sense to me now.

3. Yeah I think the battle would have had more PC damage if they had not retreated to the door....of course it would have been shorter as well since more goblins would have died per round.

4. It seemed to go with out saying but I think the rules do mention it? Not sure but why maintain a spell that is not doing anything?

5. Glad I am not the only one this made sense to.

6. I guess I really didn't get this one.

EX:
PC 1 has Melee d8>Swords d6 with extra weapon attack level 2 (4 cps), is wielding a short sword (+2 harm, + 2 init) and has reflexes of d6.
PC 2 has Melee d8>Swords d6, is wielding a short sword (+2 harm, +2 init) and has reflexes of d6.

PC 3 has melee d8>Swords d6 with extra weapon attack level 2 (4 CPs) and Ambidex (+1 harm bonus)(2 CPs), is wielding 2 short swords(+2 harm, + 2 init) and has reflexes of d6.

Example by rules as written:
PC 1 can attack in BP d8 w/damage ranging from 4 to 16(d8 +d6 +2 harm bonus). He then gets another attack at the end of the round w/damage ranging from 2 to 14(d8 + d6). This means he can potentially put out 6 to 30 pts of PO harm in a round.

PC 2 can attack twice in battle phase d8 with damages ranging from 3 to 11 (d8 +2 harm bonus)in the first strike and 3 to 8(d6 +2 harm bonus) in the second attack. This means she can put out 6 to 19 points of harm in a single phase.

PC 3 can attack in BP d8 w/damage ranging from 5 to 17(d8 +d6 +2 harm bonus-sword +1 harm bonus-Ambidexterity). He then gets another attack with his off hand short sword at the end of the round w/damage ranging from 5 to 17(d8 +d6 +2 harm bonus-sword +1 harm bonus-Ambidexterity). This means he can potentially put out 10 to 34 pts of PO harm in a round.

Example by house rule:
PC 1 can attack in BP d8 w/damage ranging from 4 to 16(d8 +d6 +2 harm bonus). He then gets another attack at the end of the round w/damage ranging from 4 to 16(d8 + d6 +2 harm bonus). This means he can potentially put out 8 to 32 pts of PO harm in a round.

PC 2 can attack twice in battle phase d8 with damages ranging from 3 to 11 (d8 +2 harm bonus)in the first strike and 1 to 6(d6) in the second attack. Or 1 to 8 (d8) in first strike and 3 to 9(d6 +2 harm bonus) in second strike. This means she can put out 4 to 17 points of harm in a single phase.

PC 3 can attack in BP d8 w/damage ranging from 5 to 17(d8 +d6 +2 harm bonus-sword +1 harm bonus-Ambidexterity). He then gets another attack at the end of the round w/damage ranging from 5 to 17(d8 +d6 +2 harm bonus-sword +1 harm bonus-Ambidexterity). This means he can potentially put out 10 to 34 pts of PO harm in a round.

The examples above put it more into perspective for me so I understand the extra weapon rules better in a numbers sense. It is just difficult to explain why a split attack that happens in a blink of an eye(Same battle phase) gets harm bonuses on each die while an extra weapon attack that occurs with more time and planning(Final battle phase) does not.

7. Totally saved the day along with the restricted doorway.

8. They have CSs of 47, 34 & 33 thus equaling a 114? I gave the Goblins a 1 HP boost by accident and kept it for continuities sake....so they had 7 HP but the rest was the same. They should have been over matched, by double. Since an equal fight using the usual CS of 7 for the goblins comes out to 16.285 (This should be higher since I raised the HP?). They fought 40 of them in total and only lost 6 points of toughness and almost all ADPs were expended. As I stated earlier, tactics and luck saved the day.

9. All in all, it was a blast for the players 'cause they wiped out a lot of the opposition in a mass battle. That still went smoothly and while we did get through a lot of rounds, they went so quick that it flew.

Hello!



I like that too, naturally.



As soon as an arcanist realizes his maintained spell is doing nothing, it can be (should be) ended.



All split attacks (from a single ADC) occur in a single phase. The extra attack comes at end of the round. Why do you list only PC 2 as capable of multiple attacks?



Yes, I think tactics won the day there. Use standard goblins, like ten of them (120 cs total), with and see what a difference that can make to the danger levels. Add a 3d shaman...

1.None of them have Extra Weapon Attack at the Mastery level?

The rules stated the following "Another advantage to increasing the Extra Weapon Attack to the level of Mastery is the ability to split dice to target multiple foes with the Extra Weapon Attack, up to the maximum number allowed by his weapon type (Max-Split)."

I took this to mean that they couldn't split their primary att either. Now that I read it again it doesn't say that. I will rework them later and see what comes up numerically...

2. Maybe but numerically it makes it a bit closer for non-extra weapon attack users.

3. I used 40 enhanced goblins and the PCs won with slight wounds. How would only ten with a point less HP stand a chance? Maybe if the ten had a 3d shaman as you suggested next but I don't see how the flat ten would do better than 40 enhanced.

Right, you can't split the Extra Weapon attack until you add that third die to the advantage. However, you can still split the primary attack in the round, as per normal rules.



I'm thinking it may be an unnecessary detail to keep track of. Sometimes we right rules because they seem to have some sort of internal logic, but if there's little effect, sometimes a good argument can be made to eliminate it.



Well, let's do this. Put your character party here, in this thread. Write them up for me here, and let's do a round by round battle simulation right here. I'll provide the "bad guys". Let's see what happens.

We use the "simple iniative" rules, and all attacks that a PC/creature has take place at the same time (in thier init order). Works fine.

Maybe but would another effect for ambidexterity be needed? Other than the +1 harm and same size weapon. Also I did have a questions about ambidexterity...Does the +1 add to all attacks? Meaning say the character is only wielding a dagger, Does he get the +1? Or when wielding 2 weapons (Lets say 2 daggers) does he get a +1 for each of them?

Will do this as soon as I find time to type them up. Maybe I should start a new thread for that when I get them typed up?

Sure!

It was very fun! The rounds went so quickly and flowed so well. The fact that we were killing 2-5 gobs a round probably helped

After this session, I and I sucpect the other paldin are going to be looking for armoring spells. This raises the GM in me, stacking armor spells is going to be very powerful. I suggest limit to one per type of magic, (Supernatural, psycic in our case)

Hyfaidd

Just keep in mind the rule on page 51 for the Protect Effect: "The arcanist pays for the level of protection by Die-Rank, but cannot exceed one die of additional armor per recipient".

Total or each caster? Sorry don't own copy of the core rules yet. Planning to get them but might take some time.

I read it to mean that "A" caster can cast one die rank of Armor on each recipient. But that doesn't take out multiple casters (A,B,C) all casting one die of Armor on the same man. I would say instead that a recipient can have only one die of magical physical armor at a time. This doesn't include things like Mantle that effect a completely different pool. What are the thoughts on this?

To avoid the power armor that could occur, one magic armor die per receipent sound good to the DM me. The player now OhNO! I say go with the one per person or ecpect 3d6 + normal armor in mose sessions.

Oh as a player, I had visions of the tank in front of 5 casters putting d10 armor to equal 5 d10 plus the plate.....Ouch. You would need a mountain to kill him.

As a DM, I saw the same thing but cringed...How would you hurt him w/out dropping a mountain on him.

I would agree--it seems pretty clear that allowing armor spells to stack would be broken. But what about other spells? For example, if a caster was maintaining a Twisting Forms spell on a foe, and that foe was suffering a -3 to his Agility, could the same caster (or a different one, I suppose) cast a second Twisting Forms on the foe, to reduce his Agility even further? I don't see why not...

I would say no to stacking other spells as well for the same reason as the armor discussion given above. If you do allow multiple spells of the same type to stack, then why can't Armor stack?

The safe thing to do is write "no stacking! Unless the GM says so."

Another thing to avoid is stacking effects working for NPCs and not PCs. Players would know something strange was going on.

I agree on no stacking.

I woulds never have something that an NPC can do that a PC couldn't or the opposite for that matter.

Not me Rules are for players. Seriously, I don't worry if one of my creatures has a magic spell that the PCs don't have, or that it has some strange armor or magic resistance. It's a mysterious world out there, and the PC (not the players) have no rules to expect certain types of foes. Now, obviously, this cannot be too outrageous. For example, if the PCs encounter flying orcs, then there will definitely be an in-game explanation! So while most of the creatures will have recognizable traits & defenses, not all will...

A note on stacking. (Mantle): We are not allowing any stacking, right? What if a group has a couple of casters in support. They both cast Mantle on tank. I say only the highest effect sticks. They both pay the costs ( and need to plan better). Though, this does mean that another caster can cast Mantle on that tank and refill deflect if he rolls higher than the (current or original?) values.

Yes, I have played the supporting caster.

Good call.

another caster can cast Mantle on that tank and refill deflect if he rolls higher than the (current or original?) values. Which is it? The current value when the spell lands, or the value of first caster's roll?

Another caster can cast Mantle on that tank and refill deflect if he rolls higher than the current value of the seperate, temporary Fortify DP (which augments Deflect but is recorded separately to make this easy to track).