Rules Questions?

[Excior]

On 5/21/2023 at 12:19 AM, Neopopulas said:

Having made a few now i think the biggest hint to building characters and how they play is the Careers/Combat attributes split.

Careers: What you can do out of combat. If you are a barbarian you could argue you are good at hunting for food or surviving in the wilderness or tracking or even maybe resisting fear when fighting overwhelming odds. If you're an assassin or a thief you could argue you are good at sneaking or hiding or climbing or things like that.

Attributes: These are used in combat but also whenever you want to do something physically. If you want to be able to force open a gate to an ancient castle you want strength but if you want to be really sexy you want appeal.

Combat: You combine these with attributes but these are entirely combat related and pretty simple. Melee for hitting things, ranged for shooting things, initiative for going first, defense for dodging.

The key thing people sometimes mistake when first making characters is that careers don't do anything in combat and most attributes don't do anything out of combat.

And.. thats literally it. The steps to building a character are very short.

1) Pick Careers. Pick four careers, then divide 4 points between them (a career can be at 0). Careers are your out-of-combat skills, so pick things you want to be good at and you can build a backstory around.

2) Pick attributes. Divide 4 points between the 4 attributes. 0 is average. 3 is almost superhuman (3 is max). You can drop one to -1 but i don't suggest it. (I like to specialise in one heavily because it is very iconically S&S. Conan would have put a LOT into strength, which is why he's big and muscly)

3) Pick Combat abilities. Divide 4 points between the four (initiative, melee, ranged, defense).

4) Pick Boons and Flaws. Boons are what really make your character, i think. They basically all give you one bonus die (roll extra, drop lowest). Want to be huge and strong? Giant-Strength and Strength Feat. Want to be very a fast-talking, rich noble? Silver Tongue and Great Wealth. 1 boon free (from your starting city). +1 boon for every Flaw or Hero Point you give up (max 3 boons)

As a tip i would suggest not giving up hero points. They are insanely powerful and i can't think of a single boon i would want that would be worth it. Hero Points can make you capable of killing 8 rabble in a round, they can literally save your life, they can make you deal double damage, they can ensure critical hits.. They are worth too much to give up.

so for Careers I would do something like

Barbarian: 1

Gladiator:2

Mercenary:1

 

how does those numbers translate into game terms?

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by Excior (see edit history)

[Neopopulas]

Lets see. Firstly, you always have to have 4 careers. You don't actually have to put points in them, but you need to have them, so you could have something like Hunter 0, Barbarian 1, Gladiator 2, Mercenary 1. That still equals 4 points, but you still need that +0 career. It just explains some skills you might have, even if you don't have much of a bonus in them. The careers essentially tell you what skills you have access to, or that you can argue you have access to.

Say you need to fight in a flashy way, and you're goal isn't to actually win (we'll put a pin in that for a second) you'll get to roll 2d10+2 to get attention, rile up the crowd, make a scene or maybe make money on the fight.

So take this situation for example, you have been challenged to a fight by a local fighter in the back alleys and everyone is making bets, you want to make sure people are betting on you to get a bigger purse, so you roll 2d10+2(probably+appeal as well) and if you beat the target number then you will gain a bonus in coin or attention or something along those lines.

(then you will actually have to fight the guy which means you'll be rolling other things but thats not important right now.)

In another situation, say you want to scrounge up some food and make camp in the wilderness, you have the Barbarian career (you could also have Hunter 0, which doesn't help much but does sort of authorize you to use "hunter skills") so you can say that you're used to hunting in the wild and surviving in harsh conditions so you roll 2d10+1(probably+ an attribute depending on what you're exactly doing) and if you beat the target number, you succeed in your goal.

In a third example, you meet up with some soldiers that are trying to strong-arm you into not paying the bounty they promised you, you could argue that you have Barbarian, so you're not easily intimidated, AND you have Gladiator, so you know how to turn a crowd, AND you have Mercenary, so you know how to handle soldiers and you have some idea how their command structure works, so you use your VERY convincing argument on the DM and you roll 2d10+4 and try and get the soldiers to give you your bounty.

Edited May 22, 2023 by Neopopulas (see edit history)

[Excior]

@Neopopulas I have decided to take Barbarian, Gladiator, Mercenary and Pirate as my careers

it says I need to select my first Boone and Flaw from my region since he is from Valgard

 

 

4) Pick Boons and Flaws. Boons are what really make your character, i think. They basically all give you one bonus die (roll extra, drop lowest). Want to be huge and strong? Giant-Strength and Strength Feat. Want to be very a fast-talking, rich noble? Silver Tongue and Great Wealth. 1 boon free (from your starting city). +1 boon for every Flaw or Hero Point you give up (max 3 boons)

As a tip i would suggest not giving up hero points. They are insanely powerful and i can't think of a single boon i would want that would be worth it. Hero Points can make you capable of killing 8 rabble in a round, they can literally save your life, they can make you deal double damage, they can ensure critical hits.. They are worth too much to give up.

 

So I can get Trademark Weapon without taking a Flaw?

Region Boon

Trademark weapon (Valgardian Blade)

Region Flaw

Distrust of Sorcery.

 

 

[Neopopulas]

Valgaardians are my favourite.

With boons and flaws it sort of goes like this

1) First boon is free. Everyone gets one boon from their Home region (so for Valgard, you could choose Trademark weapon, yes)

2) Second boon should come from your region (so any listed under valgard) OR listed under your suggested boons in one of your careers. AND you need to choose a flaw. You can look at any of your careers or your region but i don't think they HAVE to come from there, i might be wrong though.

3) Third Boon can come from the master list, and i believe the flaw can as well.

You don't HAVE to take boons (and the associated flaw) if you don't want, but its usually worth it and flaws help build character. All characters get the one free boon anyway.

[Excior]

I took thick skinned as a boon that gives me 1 point of armor even if I do not have armor on

 

if I wanted to have a scale male shirt with no sleeves would that be considered medium armor or light armor?

[Excior]

@Malkavian Grin I took thick skinned asa oon that gives me 1 point of armor even if I do not have armor on.

I wanted him to have either just a breast plate or a sleeveless mail shirt for armor would that be counted as light or medium? also how do I

write that down on my sheet? does the thick skinned also protect when I have armor on? how does the defend stat work in this equation or does it?

 

after this part is resolved I think my pc will be finished. sorry it has taken so long.

[Malkavian Grin]

Sorry, I have no clue. I'm very new to this system. That's a @Jedaii question.

[Jedaii]

5 hours ago, Excior said:

@Malkavian Grin I took thick skinned asa oon that gives me 1 point of armor even if I do not have armor on.

I wanted him to have either just a breast plate or a sleeveless mail shirt for armor would that be counted as light or medium? also how do I

write that down on my sheet? does the thick skinned also protect when I have armor on? how does the defend stat work in this equation or does it?

 

after this part is resolved I think my pc will be finished. sorry it has taken so long.

A breastplate or mail shirt qualifies as Light armor and you should put that on your sheet at "Armor/Protection". The +1 from "Thick-Skinned" is added to your Armor bonus giving you a total modifier of -2 (deducted from any damage he takes, unless a foe targets a specific unarmored region of his body). The boon works when you don't have armor on because it's his skin, and the boon does not modify his Defense trait. Because it's light armor, I'm ruling no social penalty.

[Jedaii]

PCs should have a horse for travel. Please add one to your sheet with the other possessions.

[Malkavian Grin]

4 hours ago, Jedaii said:

PCs should have a horse for travel. Please add one to your sheet with the other possessions.

Adding now!

[Malkavian Grin]

Moving this to the regular OOC so we stop cluttering up a character thread with rules questions.

25 minutes ago, Excior said:

What if I picked up a rock and used it to smash in sombody face how would that -1 affect dice rolls

See below (previously answered)

4 hours ago, Neopopulas said:

You subtract 1 (so -1).

[Neopopulas]

11 hours ago, Excior said:

What if I picked up a rock and used it to smash in sombody face how would that -1 affect dice rolls

 

-1 on attack and damage rolls with melee attacks (and your rock)

As a rule of thumb, -1 is 'below average'.

• If its appeal your gruff, gross looking or just kind of have an offensive or off-putting personality. Maybe you are exceptionally ugly, maybe you have a face full of scars, maybe you haven't bathed in 15 years.. (-1 to rolls when trying to talk to people or convince them of things or get them to do something for you or just make friends)
• If its strength, your old, weak or sickly. Maybe you are exceptionally young or old, you have muscle rot, or lingering wounds, maybe you're cursed (-1 to all melee attacks and damage with melee weapons of all kinds, or lifting, pushing or carrying)
• If its Agility maybe you are clumsy, or slow, or maybe you have a club foot or you're missing fingers (-1 on all ranged attacks and any checks needed to move swiftly or carefully)
• If its Mind, you're mentally slow, or extremely uneducated or have some sort of particular mental quirk (-1 on all rolls to discover or plan or out-think enemies).

As a general rule lowering Attributes can be a good idea if you want some sort of very specific sort of character - an old, sickly sorcerer might have -1 strength and put that point into Mind.

An exceptionally large, strong barbarian might have -1 agility for +1 strength. HOWEVER, you do have to remember that these attributes are probably used more than any other stat in the game.

If you want to fight you use Defense, Initiative, Melee and Ranged plus your attributes. If you want to use skills you use your Careers plus your attributes. Lowering attributes can be good, but you have to be aware that the limitations will come up and the difference between success and failure can be 1 point.

All that said, lowering an attribute point (or more than one if you really want to commit) can really add to a character. 3 in strength means you are the 'best in the region' you would be stronger than pretty much anyone else you meet, and you would look it (strength is also lifeblood so arguably you're also very healthy and big). Its a risk, and it really, really narrows your options, but it can be fun.

As a side note, 3 is your max, so reducing a stat by 1 can get a stat to three, but not 4. You could, i suppose, lower two stats by one and have two stats at 3 but i don't know if you would want to.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Neopopulas (see edit history)

[Malkavian Grin]

This is my first time rolling a bonus die because Adhra is Sneaky.

@Jedaii Since you know the system well: when rolling a bonus die do I a) add all three dice or b) take the two best dice?

[roryb]

Always take the two best (or worst) as the case requires.

[Malkavian Grin]

12 minutes ago, roryb said:

Always take the two best (or worst) as the case requires.

Thank you! I should've remembered that. *facepalm*