Hello All,

I've been running a RoS campaign for about a month now. It's a converted older Gurps campaign that I’ve run over the last two years. The campaign takes place on an island similar to 12th century England, but land was never completely conquered and three different distinct cultures, a Norman like culture, a Saxon/Viking type culture, and a Celtic/Welsh culture all exist. The campaign takes place on the border between the Normans/Saxon types with one of the Chivlarics being the younger son of a local lord. The main antagonists are the raiding Saxon types onto the knight’s father's land, but every so often the party has a bout with the supernatural (a Troll, a Barrow Wight, perhaps an unseelie or two :-)

I love TRoS as a game system, but I’ve found some break downs in the rules in certain situations and was wondering if I could use the group as a sounding board for some of the problems I've been having.

Terrain and Multiple Opponents

I love the terrain rules. I think they are a wonderful idea, and my players love them as well, particularly when outnumbered against a raiding party of "Velm" as I call the Nordic/Saxon archetypes found within the saga. The problem my group has with them is when the major NPC uses the rules against them.

I recently ran the party against a Barrow Wight. The creatures combat pool was about three higher than the best swordsman in the party (a significant margin in this game, see my last comments) so teamwork was going to be needed on taking the creature out. When the creature was attacked three to one, I had it make a terrain check which was successful, which led to a lot of questions that I'm curious to the answers to:

1. When successfully using terrain, which side gets to choose who attacks the person who used terrain?

For example: a knight successfully uses terrain against three enemy men at arms. Does the Knight or men at arms side choose which man at arms the knight faces? It could become important if say one of the men at arms was well armored and the other two were not. In my campaign not all PCs were chivalrics so if a creature is attacked three on one and it can whittle down the lesser party members first, the creature has a significant advantage.


2. Can you try to contest a terrain roll by expending dice from your own combat pool?
Something not covered in the rules but I thought I’d ask.


Combat Maneuvers and Game Mechanics

The combat maneuvers add a great element of strategy to the game. But some of the maneuvers I feel were designed for one on one combat against a normal human combatant. Also some of the creatures and monsters might not be affected by some rules as a normal human would. There has been some confusion with my players (Can you beat a giant, do undead or animate constructs take shock damage, can a wolf do anything to a knight in chain and plate?) I realize that much of this is probably intended for Flower of Battle or the Bestiary, but guidelines until then would help.

I personally have ruled that undead and constructs take no shock from damage or combat maneuvers, can suffer the equivalent of pain, but to a lesser degree to represent their combat ability being reduced because of damage being inflicted which are breaking off limbs or cracking bones/surface. For wolves and other like creatures attacking heavily armored adversaries I’ve used the optional exploding die rule I’ve seen elsewhere on the site as a way of simulating the chance of a creatures teeth tearing at or getting behind a plate to inflict a wound. I however cap the total amount of damage being done.


Higher Combat pool=Winner

A small combat die pool advantage is enormous in this game, which I personally kind of like. In many other games (Gurps, DnD, RulesMaster, etc.) a lesser foe has a good chance of getting a lucking shot and taking out a superior foe. TroS is very predicable, if you are more skilled, 9 out of 10 chances, your going to win, provided you don’t do something stupid (then you’re dead!) which isn’t a bad thing. But problems can arise when trying to simulate that one-shot dragon kill that many other systems attempt. Yes I know PCs have their spiritual attributes to their advantage, but not every situation can these attributes can be justified (or in the case of luck, be used time and time again), and there is also a cap of five as the max amount of extra dice that can be rolled.. I’ve read somewhere on this site about allowing the option of exploding all 10’s, but I’m not sure if that’s the answer. It will useful every once in a while when the party goes up against that ubber monster the GM has designed, however in the short term every thug and footpad is going to get much more of an advantage out of it. Do other people find this a problem in their campaign? Anyone have any suggestions? I’ve been toying the idea of allowing the exploding optional d10 rule with the exception that for most npcs (the major ones get to play by the same rules the PC’s do) when re-rolling the d10 the TN is raised by 2, making it harder for them to gut the PC’s but allowing the party the chance for exceptional rolls on occasion.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I love the game. There are some rough edges that need to be worked on, but I only wish that supplemental material would come out faster! Thanks all for your attention to this matter.


Claymore

Hey Claymore. Wow, big post...lemme see if I can help/

Claymore wrote:

I love TRoS as a game system, but I’ve found some break downs in the rules in certain situations and was wondering if I could use the group as a sounding board for some of the problems I've been having.

Terrain and Multiple Opponents

I love the terrain rules. I think they are a wonderful idea, and my players love them as well, particularly when outnumbered against a raiding party of "Velm" as I call the Nordic/Saxon archetypes found within the saga. The problem my group has with them is when the major NPC uses the rules against them.

I recently ran the party against a Barrow Wight. The creatures combat pool was about three higher than the best swordsman in the party (a significant margin in this game, see my last comments) so teamwork was going to be needed on taking the creature out. When the creature was attacked three to one, I had it make a terrain check which was successful, which led to a lot of questions that I'm curious to the answers to:

1. When successfully using terrain, which side gets to choose who attacks the person who used terrain?

For example: a knight successfully uses terrain against three enemy men at arms. Does the Knight or men at arms side choose which man at arms the knight faces? It could become important if say one of the men at arms was well armored and the other two were not. In my campaign not all PCs were chivalrics so if a creature is attacked three on one and it can whittle down the lesser party members first, the creature has a significant advantage.

2. Can you try to contest a terrain roll by expending dice from your own combat pool?
Something not covered in the rules but I thought I’d ask.

Combat Maneuvers and Game Mechanics

The combat maneuvers add a great element of strategy to the game. But some of the maneuvers I feel were designed for one on one combat against a normal human combatant. Also some of the creatures and monsters might not be affected by some rules as a normal human would. There has been some confusion with my players (Can you beat a giant, do undead or animate constructs take shock damage, can a wolf do anything to a knight in chain and plate?) I realize that much of this is probably intended for Flower of Battle or the Bestiary, but guidelines until then would help.

I personally have ruled that undead and constructs take no shock from damage or combat maneuvers, can suffer the equivalent of pain, but to a lesser degree to represent their combat ability being reduced because of damage being inflicted which are breaking off limbs or cracking bones/surface. For wolves and other like creatures attacking heavily armored adversaries I’ve used the optional exploding die rule I’ve seen elsewhere on the site as a way of simulating the chance of a creatures teeth tearing at or getting behind a plate to inflict a wound. I however cap the total amount of damage being done.

Higher Combat pool=Winner

A small combat die pool advantage is enormous in this game, which I personally kind of like. In many other games (Gurps, DnD, RulesMaster, etc.) a lesser foe has a good chance of getting a lucking shot and taking out a superior foe. TroS is very predicable, if you are more skilled, 9 out of 10 chances, your going to win, provided you don’t do something stupid (then you’re dead!) which isn’t a bad thing. But problems can arise when trying to simulate that one-shot dragon kill that many other systems attempt. Yes I know PCs have their spiritual attributes to their advantage, but not every situation can these attributes can be justified (or in the case of luck, be used time and time again), and there is also a cap of five as the max amount of extra dice that can be rolled.. I’ve read somewhere on this site about allowing the option of exploding all 10’s, but I’m not sure if that’s the answer. It will useful every once in a while when the party goes up against that ubber monster the GM has designed, however in the short term every thug and footpad is going to get much more of an advantage out of it. Do other people find this a problem in their campaign? Anyone have any suggestions? I’ve been toying the idea of allowing the exploding optional d10 rule with the exception that for most npcs (the major ones get to play by the same rules the PC’s do) when re-rolling the d10 the TN is raised by 2, making it harder for them to gut the PC’s but allowing the party the chance for exceptional rolls on occasion.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I love the game. There are some rough edges that need to be worked on, but I only wish that supplemental material would come out faster! Thanks all for your attention to this matter.

Jake Norwood wrote:

Claymore wrote:
1. When successfully using terrain, which side gets to choose who attacks the person who used terrain?

My take on it is the fastest guy (by Move score) gets to attack first.
Jake

Thank you so much for your timely reply! I really appreciate it!

My take on it is the fastest guy (by Move score) gets to attack first.

The thing I bolded is absolutely true, and is representative of the reality of "manevuers" that TROS represents. Mass and skirmish combat simply was messier than a duel, and there wasn't much time or space for more elaborate manevuers. Regardless, many do still work in other situations, but not all. Additionally, remember that TROS's maneuvers are based on real ones, and mankind never actually faced trolls, wights, or giants--there was no need for special techniques against them. In Weyrth these things are rare enough that there still wouldn't be special techniques for for it. Your world may be different, and that'll require new techniques.

Finally, what do you mean by "one-shot dragon kill," so that I don't answer off-base?

It's predictable, because combat really is like that, and the freak accidents that make these things change are just that--freak accidents that happen as often as rolling lots of 1's and 2's.

Claymore wrote: Thank you so much for your timely reply! I really appreciate it!

My take on it is the fastest guy (by Move score) gets to attack first.

Therefore in my example of the knight, if he had the highest move he would he would pick the man at arms, if one of the men at arms had the highest Move he could choose to be the attacker to move in and engage. Correct?

Claymore wrote:
I would say my world has about supernatural activity as yours, maybe even less. 80% of all adventures tend to deal with mundanes, the other 20% have to deal with the supernatural. The main issue I feel is one of scaling. A larger creature has such a high strength won’t hurt a PC, it will either miss or kill! There is no middle ground. There attributes are so high. If a giant hits you, you’re dead! (Strength 20+10 for weapon) Even a Gorem is going to crush PCs to pulp if it hits. I know the game has the power to simulate various types of fantasy. I'm just trying to tweak the system to get it to my comfort level.

Claymore wrote: The problem with that you need to be able to hurt it in the first place, even if the creature rolls all 1’s on defense if you cant crack the armor you can’t damage it. The Dragon’s toughness is 20+ armor, if you have a dice pool 10 which you pump to 20 with spiritual attributes working for you and you get 20 successes, it’s still going to bounce. There is an absolute upper cap to what can be done.

First off, Dragons don't WEAR armor. Their thick, scaly hides are armor enough (or so they think.) Dragons may be smart, but they're not primates. They don't think like tool-users. So while a Dragon might be able to fashion a spear or crude armor, it simply wouldn't.

I think we need SAs.

Hm. Well, it turns out he has 19 points of SAs that happen to align toward this Dragon-slaying (Loves the people he's protecting. Loyal to them. Destiny to kill Smaug. Faith in the Black Arrow.)

Which, as it turns out, average 11 successes.

One of a kind shot? Sure. But perfectly reproducible.
:)

(Looking at your example, it appears you forgot to factor in the Longbow.)

I guess it all depends how you define toughness... If you define toughness as 5 wound levels less than a killing blow... then it makes perfect sence. I'm going to car for my tros book, see if it lists dragons... i don't recall.

I guess it all depends how you define toughness... If you define toughness as 5 wound levels less than a killing blow... then it makes perfect sence. I'm going to car for my tros book, see if it lists dragons... i don't recall.

What's this HARD CAP I keep hearing about? I didn't write one.

Jake

What's this HARD CAP I keep hearing about? I didn't write one

Regarding the whole Smaug one-shot-kill thing...

Lets not forget that the only reason Bard was able to kill the dragon with his arrow at all is because he shot Smaug in the soft spot. In TROS terms, Smaug has a TO of 15 (say) but only 5 in his soft spot. Bard took a couple of die penalty for aiming specifically at that spot (same penalty as targeting a head or arm perhaps) and then only had 5 toughness to content with instead of 15.

Yes, there's an extended Dragon entry in OBAM but it's not anything like as detailed as (say) D&D3e's Dragons. From memory I think they have a TO of 12 but it's certainly reasonable that there could be softer spots.. if not an unplated bit like Smaug then you could always still aim for the eye, or into the mouth etc, and as Seneschal I would rule a lower TO at those spots. No, OBAM doesn't cover all of those possibilities because Wyrms are extremely rare in Weyrth and I didn't see the need to spend pages and pages covering creatures that you might use once ever. Remember that Weyrth (and TRoS in general) is more about human interaction than huge fantastical creatures.

And, quite frankly, although in D&D I would probably take on a dragon or a giant (depending on my level, perhaps), in TROS (just as in real life) I would run away with squishy trousers and trailing urine, and so would you. If you have to beat something like that, you come back with lots of men, or you get intelligent and don't just whale away in hand to hand assuming the Seneschal wouldn't put you against an opponent with a TO greater than your SR+DR. TRoS is the thinking mans game.

Oh yeah, err.. wolves versus platemail? Well, they only have ST5 and DR +0 (thus damage is just ST+successes) so no, they're not terribly likely to be able to get through platemail, but if they roll high really high (CP is ~13), then maybe they found a gap, or a claw slipped in somewhere and severed a strap, etc. Anything is possible. The answer is that one wolf versus an armored man is very very likely to result in a dead wolf and an unhurt man (just like in real life). Several wolves against the man, and it's a different story - they start using the pack tactics outlined in Of Beasts and Men, and the man is probably screwed. Again, just like in real life. They still have a problem getting their claws through his defenses, but with the various special animal-only tactics and maneuvers, they'll wear him down soom enough and eventually he'll probably succumb.

Brian.

they start using the pack tactics outlined in Of Beasts and Men, and the man is probably screwed. Again, just like in real life. They still have a problem getting their claws through his defenses, but with the various special animal-only tactics and maneuvers, they'll wear him down soom enough and eventually he'll probably succumb.

Claymore wrote: There were attacking in a pack, and I made the ruling because I don't have access to a playtest copy of the supplement.

Claymore wrote: I had one question concerning spiritual attributes though. The total amount of points a character can have in a single spiritual attribute is 5, correct? The rest go into a "bank" for character growth, I assume?

Thanks,


Claymore

Jake Norwood wrote:

Claymore wrote: I had one question concerning spiritual attributes though. The total amount of points a character can have in a single spiritual attribute is 5, correct? The rest go into a "bank" for character growth, I assume?

Thanks,


Claymore

Not exactly. There is no bank. You keep them in your SA's or spend them (*then* they go into insight...after they're spent).

Now I get the hard cap.

Jake

The answer is... don't leave your SA's sitting at 5... :-)

On the other hand, I would probably allow players to spend SA's even during a game, as long as they still keep within the limit that you can only increase something once per game session, so if a player had 5 points in an SA and I awarded another, I would allow him to spend some immediately so as not to lose the extra point. If he didn't want to spend any, or had nothing to spend it on, then I would not give him the extra SA point, but I would still apply it to his insight tally.

Brian.

Actually i think a different issue was hinted at if not directly hit.

If a charachter has 5 SA bonus and roleplays such that he earns another point.... Do we have the charachter lose that point? Is this the incentive to FORCE the charachter to spend his SA's ... or do we allow them to accumulate in a Bank of generic SA's for character advancement. for the gladiator supplement we are looking at restricting the arena slaves to just Luck attribute (they aren't really there for roleplaying), and an advancement pool.

What the "Official Word" will most likely be, knowing Jake: It's your game. Whatever you're doing is fine. If you hear an idea you like more, and want to change to it, that's fine, too.

What I say: When you begin the session, your SAs must all have five or less points unless otherwise noted in the rules (such as Luck for Kozaks, Faith for Fahalanim, anything else that makes similar sense).

Lyrax wrote: What the "Official Word" will most likely be, knowing Jake: It's your game. Whatever you're doing is fine. If you hear an idea you like more, and want to change to it, that's fine, too.

What I say: When you begin the session, your SAs must all have five or less points unless otherwise noted in the rules (such as Luck for Kozaks, Faith for Fahalanim, anything else that makes similar sense).

How about this then.

SA's can go above 5 during a game, with two provisions:

1) more than 5 doesn't mean anything when it comes to using the SA (even if you have 6 or 7 you can only get 5 extra dice on a roll from that SA), unless the SA itself is allowed to go above 5 because of your nationality.

2) at the start of every game, any SA above 5 is truncated to 5 and any extra points are lost, so if you're above 5, make sure you spend them by the end of the session.

Brian.