Paladin Q's

[Clinton R. Nixon]

After running my first game of Paladin yesterday, I have three questions:

1. I hit a situation where one character ran ahead of the group, got past the mooks and attacked the big bad, who's more powerful than him. That got him 7 Animus points. After a couple of exchanges other PCs joined in and helped him. At this point, the PCs now are more powerful than one big bad. I gave the newcomers only 1 Animus point, but does the first PC lose 6 points all at once?

I would rule that the first PC loses no Animus for this. If you're playing in a setting where teamwork is emphasized and pride is wrong, then the character wouldn't have gotten any Animus in the first place. If the above aren't that important, then the first PC should get all 7 Animus for his bravery and the other PC's only get 1 Animus when they show up.

2. You don't drop until you're at 0 in all Flesh attributes and have 0 Animus. What about PCs who have a couple of Dark Animus points? Obvioulsy they're not planning on spending their last few Animus points. Also, if someone has 0 in Attributes but still has Animus points left, and then loses a fight, what happens? Nothing, or does he lose Animus points as damage?

I'll be honest here and say that this situation didn't ever really occur to me. (It's becoming obvious that I need to make a second edition of Paladin.) That said, here's an easy way to arbitrate all this - whenever you go to 0 in all Flesh attributes and don't spend Animus, you're knocked out. Because of this, one of two things should happen: (1) players start spending Animus, or (b) cool plot twists happen when the enemies capture the player characters.

3. On group actions, do you create the group pool immediately after the individuals roll their dice or at the end (after each person has activated whatever Animae they are planning on activating for rerolls)?

I ran a game in the Boxer Rebellion setting. It worked well and everyone had a good time and would play it again. I may be starting up a Star Wars game this coming Saturday with a different group.

Create it immediately. Only one member of the group can activate Animus for rerolls when the group gets a chance to, and that activation re-rolls all the applicable dice the group has.

It's really good to hear that you're playing the game - I look forward to hearing more about it. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

[xiombarg]

Thanks for your questions, and I apologize if I was unclear the first time. I hope you enjoy playing Paladin!

It might not be you, it might of been me, it was pretty late when I was reading it. One of the disadvantages of being an indie RPG creator is you're considered more accessible than other creators. ;-) Thanks for the quick response!

I'm really looking forward to running this. Expect an Actual Play thread soon, on the whole Star Wars tip, since one of my players is a Star Wars fanatic.

[Michael Bowman]

Now that I'm back online.

After running my first game of Paladin yesterday, I have three questions:

2. You don't drop until you're at 0 in all Flesh attributes and have 0 Animus. What about PCs who have a couple of Dark Animus points? Obviously they're not planning on spending their last few Animus points. Also, if someone has 0 in Attributes but still has Animus points left, and then loses a fight, what happens? Nothing, or does he lose Animus points as damage?

I'll be honest here and say that this situation didn't ever really occur to me. (It's becoming obvious that I need to make a second edition of Paladin.) That said, here's an easy way to arbitrate all this - whenever you go to 0 in all Flesh attributes and don't spend Animus, you're knocked out. Because of this, one of two things should happen: (1) players start spending Animus, or (b) cool plot twists happen when the enemies capture the player characters.

But you can easily fall to 0 in Attributes and not be able to spend Animus. For example, Luke has been losing and has only 1 point left in Flesh Attributes. He rolls against Vader. Vader is winning by 2. So, Luke begins activating and re-activating Light Animus attributes. By the end of this process, Luke is still losing, still has 1 spendable Light Animus point, but has no dice low enough for him to reroll, even if he was able to spend a Dark Animus point. This happened multiple times during the session I ran. Would he fall down/get captured/etc. at that point?

I ran a game in the Boxer Rebellion setting. It worked well and everyone had a good time and would play it again. I may be starting up a Star Wars game this coming Saturday with a different group.

It's really good to hear that you're playing the game - I look forward to hearing more about it. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

Unfortunately, the Star Wars game won't be happening. Our vanished GM (we'd been playing d20 Star Wars) reappeared so we continued on with the existing d20 SW campaign.

The group I ran the Boxer Rebellion game for had a good time. We've played a few Feng Shui games in the past, so people were used to cutting loose. The main thing the players learned was to not spread their starting points out evenly among their Animus attributes. Those who did have many fewer re-activation chances.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

But you can easily fall to 0 in Attributes and not be able to spend Animus. For example, Luke has been losing and has only 1 point left in Flesh Attributes. He rolls against Vader. Vader is winning by 2. So, Luke begins activating and re-activating Light Animus attributes. By the end of this process, Luke is still losing, still has 1 spendable Light Animus point, but has no dice low enough for him to reroll, even if he was able to spend a Dark Animus point. This happened multiple times during the session I ran. Would he fall down/get captured/etc. at that point?

Michael,

I see exactly what you're saying. The answer would most definitely be yes. (Of course, the character's next action could be to challenge Vader. If he was just trying to escape, he'd probably fail, with only his 1 Light Animus point. If, however, he tried to kill Vader, he'd get 7 Animus points and have a chance. Alternatively, he could break a Law and get some Dark Animus to take on Vader.)