The Forge Archives

I thought that I'd post a few of the meaningful revisions for the August edition. Remember, again, that the changes for August reflect: (1) copy editing and (2) some modifications to existing specifics that were determined to not work all that well. Any and all mods will be available for free to those that have first printing.

Here's the new beat maneuver, the topic of some discussion here earlier.

QuoteBeat: The beat is an attack upon an opponent's weapon or shield in attempt to temporarily remove it from the equation. This is a sudden, brutal, and effective maneuver is executed by declaring "Beat" as your offensive maneuver, along with the dice allotted to the attack. The defender assigns defense dice to a defensive maneuver (parry, dodge, block, etc.) and the contest is rolled normally. If the attacker wins the beat, then the defenders weapon (or whatever else was being "beaten") is knocked aside and cannot be used in defense on the following exchange. Additionally, every success in the attacker's margin costs the defender 2 CP (this functions similarly to Shock, described under Damage in Book Four). If the defender wins then the round is resolved normally and initiative changes over.
      Using a Beat is an excellent way to handle opponents with longer weapons as well: all range penalties are cut in half (round down) when beating.
For example:

Mik, our short half-siehe friend, has been caught in a back-street brawl with a footpad (that's a "thug" for us Americans). Both parties are armed with short swords. Mik decides to poke the thug as fast as he can so that he can get out of there. When initiative is thrown, Mik's die is red; the thug's is white. Mik leaps forward, attempting to pull a beat with 5 dice. The footpad responds with a 3-die parry (he's been caught off guard a little). Mik rolls 4, 6, 7, 0...three successes (TN 6); the footpad rolls 5, 6, 0...one success (TN 7). The Footpad's sword is knocked to the side (he can't use it to defend on this exchange) and he loses 4 CP (2 CP each for Mik's two successes in the margin)! Mik decides to thrust in and finish the thug with his remaining 4 dice at the footpad's belly. He rolls 3, 6, 9, 0...three successes (TN 6, unmodified); the footpad goes for a full dodge with his remaining one die (he had five, but lost 4 from the beat), and rolls a 5...one success. Mik hits with two successes.

[/i]

Anyway, have fun. This one is a lot nastier, and I think it well represents a real-world beat.

Jake

And here's the Stop short revision. That's it for revised manevuers, if I'm not mistaken.

QuoteStop Short: This maneuver consists of leaping or stomping at an opponent and then halting suddenly to throw your opponent off guard.
      The maneuver's cost is variable. Roll a contest of the attacker's WP against the defender's Reflex. The attacker's TN is equal to his opponent's Per. The defender's TN is equal to 7 plus the number of dice that the attacker spent in executing the maneuver. This counts as an attack. If the defender wins, then he may take initiative normally. If the attacker wins, then his opponent loses a number of dice from his CP equal to the attacker's margin of success. This maneuver is really only effective once. Every additional attempt (whether the first was successful or not) cumulatively costs 1 extra CP die to the attacker
      This maneuver is available at proficiency level 3.

Awesome revisions, Jake. Those are indeed a lot nastier, and much more likely to find use in game combat.

As for others, I think you're right. We debated the effectiveness of the Feint, but a majority decided that it was fine as is.

One question, though (yeah, I know I say that alot)... will there be an "Errata" sheet available in .pdf or somesuch, or should we just copy it from here, and print it out?

Those are very cool. Now the beat is something dangerous. Are you planning on changing the feint for the rapier?

Brandon

Quote from: RattleheadThose are very cool. Now the beat is something dangerous. Are you planning on changing the feint for the rapier?

Brandon

I don't really see that the feint needs any changes for rapiers, except perhaps a mention that you can feint from a thrust rather than having to feint from a slash.

I would like to see Expulsion fixed though, the wording is confusing (as I already mentioned to Jake in an email).

QuoteThose are very cool. Now the beat is something dangerous. Are you planning on changing the feint for the rapier?

I'm wondering if it isn't too much. Whaddya think?

The rapeir mod, as suggested by Brian, is in. I'm not sure I can tweak Expulsion or not. Any seconds to Brian?

Jake

Quote from: Jake Norwood

QuoteNow the beat is something dangerous.

I'm wondering if it isn't too much. Whaddya think?

Jake

Well, as I said earlier, I guess I expected it to be more like Block Open & Strike, where as it's actually a lot better than that now. Is it too much? Hmm.. well, lets see.

Geralt Beats at Stefan with 8 dice. He's using a 2-handed longsword so his ATN will be 6. That means he expects to get 4 successes, meaning that Stefan (if he doesn't defend) will lose 8 dice and they're even. What if Stefan defends.. lets see.. say he parries with HIS 2-handed longsword. That's got a DTN of 6 as well. If he uses 4 dice he'll expect to get 2 successes, reducing Geralt to a 2 success margin, costing him a further 4 dice, so he's down 6 dice instead of 8, so it was worth parrying the beat. However, the dice could be for or against him depending on how they really roll, so it's something of a gamble. No, it's not overly powerful really. If you can use it with a rapier (ATN5), then it's pretty nice though. Maybe there should be some limits - a rapier beating a doppleganger is a bit silly (IMO).

All in all, I don't see it as being over powered, especially since you can only use it after a pause in the action.

I still think there could be a better way though - if a beat was declared AFTER the defender parries, like with Feint, and then you could assign extra dice to it at a 1-for-1 rate, and if success meant that the defender couldn't use it in the next exchange and lost 1 CP per margin success, I think that would work pretty well. Just IMO.

Quote from: Jake NorwoodI'm not sure I can tweak Expulsion or not. Any seconds to Brian?
Jake

Yup.. oh, damn. :-)

All I'm saying is that (and I don't have the book to refer to, so it's all on memory), it seemed to me to read that if Geralt attacks Stefan, and Stefan uses Expulsion successfully, Geralt gets a penalty on his next attack against Stefan as long as it's a thrust. According to Jake, that's wrong though, because it's *supposed* to be a bonus for Stefan on his next attack (next exchange, since he has initiative now) as long as it's a thrust. I didn't think it was very clear and I certainly read it the other (wrong) way. In fact, thats how it works in the combat sim I believe :-) All I'm asking is for a slight re-wording, or does everyone else think it's obvious and I'm just thick? (quite possible).

Brian.

Let's look at two extremes for beats as described:

- Take the case of two evenly matched naked celts w/longswords and 10 dice.  Both spend 6 dice, and the attacker wins by 1.  If the win was a beat, the defender now has only 2 dice left, and reasonably has to do a full evasion.  OTOH, if it was an attack, then we're talking a level 3 wound (+2 for longsword cuts, st & tough cancel).  I'll take the wound.

- Now our naked celt is attacking a head-to-toe chain guy w/axe & shield.  The celt has 10 dice, the axe guy has 6 dice after encumberance.  The celt beats the shield w/6 dice, and the axe guy blocks w/3 dice.  If our celt wins by 1, then the axe guy has 1 die left (vs 4 attacking) next round, and can't use his shield (not a big loss, he's evading next round anyway).  OTOH, if it was an attack there'd have been no damage, as all that armor (4ish) is going to stop a cutting margin of 3.  In fact, even a 2 margin of success doesn't work for attacking (in this case), but kicks-butt w/beats.

Basically, the mechanics of the beat seem to lend itself to gaining an advantage from a small margin of success versus a highly armored target (who would normally shrug off that margin).  When the defender is unarmored, I think it's still best to attack straight-up.

Hope this helps,

-Jeff

QuoteBasically, the mechanics of the beat seem to lend itself to gaining an advantage from a small margin of success versus a highly armored target (who would normally shrug off that margin). When the defender is unarmored, I think it's still best to attack straight-up

I think it would also very useful to smash away big, annoying shields.

PS: On the table on p. 116 it says 20 pounds, 200 kilograms, 2000 pounds. Is that a mistake? Otherwise I have done it the wrong way...[/quote]

QuotePS: On the table on p. 116 it says 20 pounds, 200 kilograms, 2000 pounds. Is that a mistake? Otherwise I have done it the wrong way...

The entire sorcery chapter has been cleaned up, reorganized, and slightly revamped. Originally the system was written in Metric, and I guess not all of the conversions to Imperial survived.

Jake

This is a very petty point, but I've been playing w/the damage tables a bit (learning XML/XSL) and noticed the following.

Both cutting damage zone II & zone III tables have a row for "Hip".  They are almost identical, except for two places:

- On lvl 3 wounds, zone II rolls for KD, zone III does not.
- On lvl 5 wounds, zone II has a BL of 12, zone III a BL of 10

Again, a very petty point, but it seemed to me that since the rows were almost identical (even with descriptions), these might have been errors.

-Jeff

To tell you the truth, they might not be mistakes...I don't really remember. I know that I envision lower hip wounds as being naster (less bone, more muscle and what-not). Either way I'm afraid I can't fix them...which means that the "free" extra zone V table under bludgeoning is here to stay. Oh well...

Jake

Something else I just noticed, in cutting zone 4, severity 3, lower head: "Roll 1d6 for feature loss: 1-2 eye; 3 nose; 5 whole ear; 6 partial ear."  Where'd 4 go?  I assume it's the nose (must be a Jewish shnoz<g>).

Btw, combing through those tables has made truly appreciate the work you guys put into them.  Good job.

-Jeff

Quote from: JaifSomething else I just noticed, in cutting zone 4, severity 3, lower head: "Roll 1d6 for feature loss: 1-2 eye; 3 nose; 5 whole ear; 6 partial ear."  Where'd 4 go?  I assume it's the nose (must be a Jewish shnoz<g>).

Btw, combing through those tables has made truly appreciate the work you guys put into them.  Good job.

Thanks. It was a TON of work...what's more is that the very first home-edition of the game had completely different values for Pain, BL, Shock, and some of the wound descriptions. We had to re-write almost anything.

We, too noticed the lack of ol #4 in that sub-sub-sub table...oh well. Lose a lip, maybe?

Jake

Heh.. If there's a second revision, I'd say leave it to the Seneschal, and add a variant on the following flavor text:

QuoteThe Seneschal should look up from the chart at this point, and allow a slow, cold and oh-so-cruel smile to fade into being on his face. He should look at the stricken character's player, and say "Hmm.. Which part of <character>'s face should be horribly maimed? His aristocratic nose? Perhaps his sensual lips? Oh dear.. What a difficult, delicious choice."