G'day G'day, a few Q's

[Callan S.]

Heya all, I've run some of these through the search engine here already. Didn't find much so I thought I'd ask. Scuse me if I screw up some terms, just got the book recently.

Blood loss, once combat ends, how often should health checks be made (to determine if health continues to drop?). It occured to me when I saw a spell that seals such wounds, with a casting time of 70 seconds. By that time and at the normal check a round rate, your probably dead already. When combat ends, at what sort of interval should checks be made (since the heart probably beats a bit less and you can try and stem the bleeding a bit when not distracted). In relation to this, how long does it take to do first aid?

Weapon draw time. I did find something on this, just curious as to any further ideas. Something that came to my mind is to use the weapon length grading as a target number (thier essentialy just numbers) as a target number. Roll reflex against it, one pass and you take a round to get it out, get five passes and your a bloody ninja, its out instantly (quick, flip out and kill somebody!).

Reach weapons. Do I really have to do damage to get in close (and turn the tables on them, giving them the penalty). I mean, if I can get a hit in and just nick their armour (but no damage), surely that represents me getting in way close...it seems odd that if I do no damage, they auto repel me back to where I started. Obviously I can make my own call on this as GM (yeah, I can't spell the TROS version of GM, nyah!), but I thought I'd ask.

Thrusts and double aggression. Is this the only way to have double kills? With thrusts you can imagine it easily, but I could sort of imagine it with swings as well. Even if you take out the other guy instantly, with inertia behind his weapon, its likely to end up somewhere. Just curious, since the book describes double red dice/aggression as usually getting quite messy.

Weapon drop checks. Whats this made against? I looked around and couldn't find it.

Knock down penalty. This annoyed me somewhat, the only place the actual penalty is mentioned is in the appedix (sp?)...I really think it should be with the rule as well (I looked hard for it there, before finding it by chance in the appendix)

Whats a cool proficiency to use with axes? I spose sword and shield is okay...any other ideas?

What parts of the the body do bits of armour cover? This flipped me out for a second when I couldn't find it, as the quick start rules have this. Obviously I can just make a call (armour can be all sorts of shapes) and some of it is obvious, but some isn't to me. I could only find the shield in the end (it'd be nice if all sizes of shield had their covered areas listed).

There, thats enough for now. Thanks for reading. Any help is welcome, hope someone has a moment to post. :)

[Brian Leybourne]

Welcome to the Forum!

Blood loss, once combat ends, how often should health checks be made (to determine if health continues to drop?). It occured to me when I saw a spell that seals such wounds, with a casting time of 70 seconds. By that time and at the normal check a round rate, your probably dead already. When combat ends, at what sort of interval should checks be made (since the heart probably beats a bit less and you can try and stem the bleeding a bit when not distracted). In relation to this, how long does it take to do first aid?

Once a combat ends and you're not in combat rounds anymore, a first aid roll (TN is the level of bleeding, of course) is enough to bandage most wounds to at least stop the bleeding.

Weapon draw time. I did find something on this, just curious as to any further ideas. Something that came to my mind is to use the weapon length grading as a target number (thier essentialy just numbers) as a target number. Roll reflex against it, one pass and you take a round to get it out, get five passes and your a bloody ninja, its out instantly (quick, flip out and kill somebody!).

Sounds fine to me.

Reach weapons. Do I really have to do damage to get in close (and turn the tables on them, giving them the penalty). I mean, if I can get a hit in and just nick their armour (but no damage), surely that represents me getting in way close...it seems odd that if I do no damage, they auto repel me back to where I started. Obviously I can make my own call on this as GM (yeah, I can't spell the TROS version of GM, nyah!), but I thought I'd ask.

Any hit, even if it does no damage, is sufficient for changing range.

Thrusts and double aggression. Is this the only way to have double kills? With thrusts you can imagine it easily, but I could sort of imagine it with swings as well. Even if you take out the other guy instantly, with inertia behind his weapon, its likely to end up somewhere. Just curious, since the book describes double red dice/aggression as usually getting quite messy.

You can easily get double kills on swings as well as thrusts. It has happened to me more than once :-)

Weapon drop checks. Whats this made against? I looked around and couldn't find it.

I use Reflex, but I think Jake said he uses Knockdown. YMMV.

Whats a cool proficiency to use with axes? I spose sword and shield is okay...any other ideas?

Mass Weapon and Shield (although you use the cut table). Axes and the link do their damage mostly because of their weight (i.e. Mass). If you check the Mass Weapon and Shield entry it tells you this.

What parts of the the body do bits of armour cover? This flipped me out for a second when I couldn't find it, as the quick start rules have this. Obviously I can just make a call (armour can be all sorts of shapes) and some of it is obvious, but some isn't to me. I could only find the shield in the end (it'd be nice if all sizes of shield had their covered areas listed).

That's pretty much left to Seneschal discretion, although The Flower of Battle (upcoming suppliment) should have more on that.

There, thats enough for now. Thanks for reading. Any help is welcome, hope someone has a moment to post. :)

No problem.

Brian.

[Jake Norwood]

I support Brian. He's basically Staff.

Jake

[Callan S.]

That is a fast responce time. Thanks! And you got the quotes thing done right...I always have trouble there.

As to some of the answers.

Bleeding: Well sometimes (perhaps a lot of times) the situation of 'I killed my foe, but I've been pinked & its time to do a runner' and similar would come up. The runner might be handled at the same rate as combat rounds, but it still may be important to know how often checks are made outside of combat, and how quickly your first aid guy can get around to you all. Maybe its just that movie thing of the hurt hero limping off, bleedinng, and wondering how long he'll last, that keeps flashing in my mind. I'm curious how long he'll last, too.

I suppose you could say that bleeding checks are sort of stopped after combat (after all, you can't heal till you stop bleeding). But why would a failed or botched first aid roll matter then? Both raise your bleeding level, but to what end? I suppose you could require a health check on fails or botches, when they happen, then they matter more. Are there other ideas?

Reach weapons: However the wording is 'This penalty holds until the shorter weapon makes a damaging strike...'. A 'connecting strike' would be better, IMO. I don't want to sound like one of those guys who has to play by the rules exactly as written. Its more that I've played a lot of palladium games and I just don't want to have to think & clean up rules as I read them, anymore (less rolework). I'm just touchy though, don't think I'm taking it out on TROS or anything.

Weapon drop checks: Thought it might be knockdown (its derived from reflex, partially, isn't it? Don't want to check right now).

"Mass Weapon and Shield (although you use the cut table). Axes and the link do their damage mostly because of their weight (i.e. Mass). If you check the Mass Weapon and Shield entry it tells you this."

Well, I don't want to check that bit, so nyah! ;) Seriously though, I've been trying to stick to the basics of the book so as not to get overwhelmed, thus I didn't read through all the proficiencies.


Thanks for your time and responces. I've seen your name around this forum a bit, and your in the special thanks section of the book. Whats the background on that, if you don't mind me asking (feel no rush to type it either, its okay :) )? Edit: Ah, I see Jakes post just after I posted this...

[Brian Leybourne]

Bloodloss
I guess the answer in regards to bleeding is that if you're bleeding so badly that you're in danger of losing HT until you die, then running around after combat just isn;t something you want to be able to do. Spend the extra twenty seconds to slap a bandage around it, and if that makes things even more suspenseful, then that's just good for the game, right? :-)

Basically, any BL of 10 or more I would make a player stop to bandage it before running off as it's clearly very serious.

Weapon Range
Yeah, that passage is a tiny bit confusing. I think it was after printing that Jake ruled non damaging (but successful) strikes changed the range, otherwise a pike user in plate armor is very very hard to get near :-) Maybe if there's ever a third printing...

Me
Actually, I was a bit surprised when I was told my name made it into the new printing (I have not actually got the revised rules yet). I assume it was either because I looked over the revised sorcery rules for Jake prior to the reprint or because I wrote the Combat Simulator. I also wrote most of the upcoming Of Beasts and Men, so I'm deeply TROSsed really :-)

(edit: I'm staff now? Cool, man *grin*)

Brian.

[Callan S.]

Yeah, with blood loss and dramatic time taken up with bandaging is a good one. And in the end if PC's die from from blood loss after battle, it's pretty crappy.

Just one more question, how do I caluculate my hit points? I can't find it anywhere? At any time there could be a cliff, right, and I'd need to...

Seriously, thanks for the help...no wonder your in the thanks section!

[Brian Leybourne]

Just one more question, how do I caluculate my hit points? I can't find it anywhere? At any time there could be a cliff, right, and I'd need to...

It's easy enough. Double your Toughness, add 1.5 times your Strength, multiply by your Health, minus your Willpower, divide by two and then subtract the number you first thought of.

Seriously, thanks for the help

No problem, that's what I'm here for.

Actually, it's not what I'm here for really, but if I can answer a question, then why wouldn't I? Takes the pressure off Jake.

Brian.

[Callan S.]

Just one more question, how do I caluculate my hit points? I can't find it anywhere? At any time there could be a cliff, right, and I'd need to...

It's easy enough. Double your Toughness, add 1.5 times your Strength, multiply by your Health, minus your Willpower, divide by two and then subtract the number you first thought of.

No, no, no, your thinking of THACO! And its 1.36 times your strength! Damn, how are you ever going to convert to D20 at this rate?!

:) Damn the quotes on your site are funny. I love the 'critical hit table' one! Dwarf seems to cop a lot of flack, too!

Well, it seems all my Q's are answered, for now...BWA HA HA ha...Ah, I don't really need to end on an evil laugh here, do I....?

[Ashren Va'Hale]

get five passes and your a bloody ninja, its out instantly (quick, flip out and kill somebody!).

ninjas flipping out, the real ultimate power. I have a destiny for one of my insane characters to die by frisbee seppuku.
If you dont understand what I am saying, check this link: http://www.realultimatepower.net

[Callan S.]

Ninja's are cool; and by cool I mean totally sweet.

That site is so good. For a while I was thinking of making a quickie GM'less little board game for it, where your ninja's pull off all sorts of cool moves but never take damage. All the baby baby pirates can do is keep pissing off the ninjas until they take out a frisbee and kill themselves (ie, replace hit points with pissed off points). But not before the ninjas have killed thousands of pirates, without even thinking twice about it!

I still have a strange urge to make that and submit it. Time for more ridlin!

[Callan S.]

I've got another question now, after running a few test duels.

A player asked about a particular move, ie holding one sword high, pointing up, while keeping a shorter one ready to defend. I think he saw it somewhere. The idea is that the baddies get close and get a wollop from the high sword as they try to approach.

Now that I've thought about it, it just sounds like an aggressive stance. Anyone else nodding to this?

[Ashren Va'Hale]

it basically is an aggressive stance so go witth it.

[Jake Norwood]

Yeah, aggressive sounds good. I've always felt that while some actual positons are more aggressive or defensive, what the mechanics really reflect is the attitude of the attacker and what he's preparing for in all ways--not just in his pure "stance."

Jake

[Callan S.]

Thanks guys!

Actually, thats an interesting point Jake...though tricky, it'd be interesting to try and adopt one stance while preparing oneself in another way.

It was funny when we ran some test duels. My players kept going asking questions about various things they could do and asking if certain tactics were valid (like doing mass defense so as to gain initiative and learn about foes capability, or holding back CP to trick them, etc). The cool thing was, they were valid and we weren't even using anything more complicated than cut and thrust at the time.

It's going to get pretty rich when we start using more moves. I think I'll introduce a couple of new ones each game, so it all sinks in. I'll have to wait a couple of weeks for it though, but I think my players are intrigued. Unfortunately since we were doing duels I didn't properly explain how some spiritual attributes need to be assigned to something. I'm getting the feelinng that the character with drive (with nothing noted) is about him being a tireless bounty hunter...not sure what his passion was supposed to be about. Anyway, even as things are I think SA are going to help me write the first game, which is good!

Ah hell, I've gushed about TROS without meaning too...oh well! :)

[Callan S.]

Actually, I have another question, outside the rules.

Whats this reference in the book about developing a collectable card game? Is that serious? P.217