Okay, so if you've been following my humble blog you've probably grokked that I'm interested in the Adventurer, Conqueror, King System by Autarch. One of the projects they're working on for it is the Auran Empire campaign setting. This setting is not the typical fantasy version of the European high middle ages but assumes an earlier era:
The Auran Imperial culture is based on Late Rome/Byzantine Empire. The
Sunset Kingdoms of the west are akin to Indo-Persian civilization. The
North is akin to German (Anglo Saxon) civilization. The Skysos riders of
the far west are based on the Asiatic mounted hordes (Huns) that
threatened the Late Roman Empire. Northern Elven culture is Celtic
British, assuming it had not been Romanized. The deceased classical
elven civilization is “Atlantean” (hypothetical Bronze Age with both
Greek and Egyptian motifs combined with early Christian burial
practices). The deceased Thrassian (Lizard-man) civilization is inspired
by Aztec civilization with an Assyrian aesthetic, while the deceased
Zaharan civilization is inspired by Babylonian, Egyptian, and
pre-Hellenistic Persian civilization.
But after reading these teaser bits on their web site I was feeling somewhat ambivalent about it. On the one hand I like that I can go ahead and use all the cool stuff from Lore of the Gods d20 (Egyptian, Norse, Greek, and Mesopotamian deities and religion) by Bastion Press which I bought a while back. Ever since I read the early D&D deity books I've wanted to toss these into my games. But on the other hand when you use these deities in a European high middle ages type game it just doesn't always feel right. (As an aside, the AD&D game run in college by my my friend George used the Greek pantheon and it worked okay.) Plus, as a DM I feel like I'm being a bit of a slacker using existing stuff instead of coming up with my own creations. But in the general time period of the ACKS setting these ancient pantheons are all good. So if I run an ACKS game I will likely swap in the ancient pantheons which I've been studying for a long time.
Showing posts with label ACKS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ACKS. Show all posts
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Friday, December 13, 2013
More Thoughts on ACKS Custom Classes
Okay, so I'm still poking about in the Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) Player's Companion following my triumphant(?) use of the riches contained therein to recreate the White Monk class from Final Fantasy.
The core concept in creating custom classes for ACKS is allocating your build points (BP). You get four BP and you have five class categories into which you may allocate them: Hit Dice, Fighting, Thievery, Divine, and Arcane. Obviously the four categories align with the basic four class types in D&D so essentially you're mixing and matching the four for your base. Each category actually starts with a value of 0 and you can leave a category at 0 if you wish while allocating BP elsewhere. Custom racial classes get 8 BP to start, but their maximum level will be affected depending on how many points you actually use.
But then I thought, what if you put all four of your BP into Hit Dice Value? That would be kind of a wierd class. Well, you'd look like this:
Hit Dice Value: d12 [XP Cost 2000]
Fighting Value: 0 (like a mage)
Attack Throws: +2 per 6 levels
Weapon Selection: Restricted (choose four of: club, dagger, bola, dart, sling, sap, staff, whip)
Armor Selection: Forbidden
Fighting Styles: 1
Damage Bonus: none
Cleaves: none
Thievery Value: none
Divine Value: none
Arcane Value: none
Saving Throw Progression: should be based on highest value of Arcane, Divine, Thievery, or Fighting, or if tied then whichever comes first as just listed. But our Hit Die Hero class (?) has 0 in all of those, so the default, based on the priority, is Arcane progression.
Prime Requisite: according to the rules this should be based on your saving throw progression, which would be mage here, making INT the Prime Requisite; we'll you'll be good at riddles anyway.
Strongholds and Followers: hmm, again this is based on your Fighting/Divine/Mage/Thievery value; but this class doesn't have any values in any of these. As per the rules this class doesn't actually meet the minimum requirements for a stronghold. I guess you'll have to go back to your little village and fend off sponging relatives when you retire.
XP per Level: starts with needing 2,000 XP for level 2 and progresses as per p.85 of the ACKSPC.
But what the heck sort of class is this? You're naturally resiliant, but can't wear armor, can't fight, can't cast spells, have pathetic weapons, and will never rule a stronghold...hmm, kind of sounds like Bilbo.
The core concept in creating custom classes for ACKS is allocating your build points (BP). You get four BP and you have five class categories into which you may allocate them: Hit Dice, Fighting, Thievery, Divine, and Arcane. Obviously the four categories align with the basic four class types in D&D so essentially you're mixing and matching the four for your base. Each category actually starts with a value of 0 and you can leave a category at 0 if you wish while allocating BP elsewhere. Custom racial classes get 8 BP to start, but their maximum level will be affected depending on how many points you actually use.
But then I thought, what if you put all four of your BP into Hit Dice Value? That would be kind of a wierd class. Well, you'd look like this:
Hit Dice Value: d12 [XP Cost 2000]
Fighting Value: 0 (like a mage)
Attack Throws: +2 per 6 levels
Weapon Selection: Restricted (choose four of: club, dagger, bola, dart, sling, sap, staff, whip)
Armor Selection: Forbidden
Fighting Styles: 1
Damage Bonus: none
Cleaves: none
Thievery Value: none
Divine Value: none
Arcane Value: none
Saving Throw Progression: should be based on highest value of Arcane, Divine, Thievery, or Fighting, or if tied then whichever comes first as just listed. But our Hit Die Hero class (?) has 0 in all of those, so the default, based on the priority, is Arcane progression.
Prime Requisite: according to the rules this should be based on your saving throw progression, which would be mage here, making INT the Prime Requisite; we'll you'll be good at riddles anyway.
Strongholds and Followers: hmm, again this is based on your Fighting/Divine/Mage/Thievery value; but this class doesn't have any values in any of these. As per the rules this class doesn't actually meet the minimum requirements for a stronghold. I guess you'll have to go back to your little village and fend off sponging relatives when you retire.
XP per Level: starts with needing 2,000 XP for level 2 and progresses as per p.85 of the ACKSPC.
But what the heck sort of class is this? You're naturally resiliant, but can't wear armor, can't fight, can't cast spells, have pathetic weapons, and will never rule a stronghold...hmm, kind of sounds like Bilbo.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Challenge Accepted (sort of): The White Monk Class for ACKS
Okay, so I did a post recently on some quick and easy alternatives for divine classes if you ditched the cleric class. This was based on some interesting musings on the cleric over at Rachel Bonuses. But in a response to that (which I totally can't find now to link for you) I was chided for my lack of real creativity in coming up with alternatives to the cleric. Point taken. One of the reasons I play Pathfinder is what I call "completeness". There's so much material already there that you can usually modify or mix-and-match existing stuff to get where you want to go--and then get on with play.
But then I thought that maybe I should take that up as a challenge to create something. Well unfortunately Pathfinder suffers from the same core problem which has plagued all editions of D&D since the beginning: there are no built-in in mechanics for building stuff. If you want to make a new class, or magic spell, or monster there are few guidelines. It's as much an art as a science. But not so with the retro-clone Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) which I have been perusing of late. The ACKS Player's Companion includes a great DIY toolkit for making new classes. So I decided to use this as an opportunity to try making an ACKS class.
But instead of making some sort of cleric substitute, I decided to do a version of a class which has fascinated me for some time: the White Monk from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. The White Monk is a blend of monk and paladin--not coincidentally one of the classes I proposed for my preferred entries in the upcoming Advanced Class Guide for Pathfinder.
So, the first thing with a new ACKS class is that you start with 4 Build Points (BP) which are allocated to the main class characteristics. I figured one should go into Hit Dice Value because they are a tough melee fighting class, two into Fighting, and finally one into Divine.
So 1 BP into Hit Dice Value buys a d6 for HD per level:
Hit Dice Value: d6 [1 BP; 500 XP]
HP per level after 9th Level: 2 HP
Then since the White Monk is primarily a melee fighter type, 2 BP into Fighting:
Fighting: 2 [2 BP; 750 XP]
And that led to some modifications of the characteristics for Fighting 2 because a monk is a specialized type of fighter:
Attack Throws Weapons Armor Styles DamBonus Cleaves XP Cost
+2/3 levels Restricted* Forbidden 2** +1/3 levels 1/level 1000
*Weapons: claw-weapons (see below); dart,bolas, net
**Basic Style: claw-weapons; dart, bolas, net
Reducing the Weapons by 3 buys 3 custom powers, reducing the armor by 3 buys 4 custom powers, and reducing the styles by 1 buys 1 custom power, for a total of 8 custom powers (which we'll get to in a moment)
Because the White Monk is a holy type, I put my final BP into Divine (I put no BP into into Thievery or Arcane).
Divine: 1 [1 BP; XP 250]Divine 1 allows the class to cast spells as a cleric of half current level, with a spell list of 5 spells per level; I also eliminated the Turn Undead ability, which bought another custom power
Saving Throws: as Cleric (since it's a holy class concept)
Prime Requisite: CON (monks should be tough)
Now came the tricky part: the custom powers. From my not-necessarily-correct calculations above I came up with a total of 9 custom powers. Since some of the custom powers are actually essentially proficiencies used as class abilities I skipped ahead to throw together a set of 28 proficiencies (a standard amount) selected from the Cleric and Fighter lists and then put together a list of candidate custom powers which avoided duplicating anything in the proficiency list. So far, so good. However, there is a very non-intuitive chart which allows you to trade off taking skills at a certain level (this section confusingly uses "skill" and "power" interchangeably) in exchange for more skills at higher levels. For instance you can trade one initial skill to gain one skill at 5th and another at 9th, or one skill at 10th level for one each at 12th and 13th. I found this trade-off chart both helpful and confusing. But here's how my calculations and powers for the class's levels came out:
With 9 custom powers to start (from calculations above), then some trade-offs:
-1 initial skill to gain 1 skill at 2nd and 1 skill at 12th level
-1 initial skill to gain 1 skill at 3rd and 1 skill at 11th level
-1 initial skill to gain 1 skill at 4th and 1 skill at 10th level
-1 initial skill to gain 1 skill at 5th and 1 skill at 9th level
-1 initial skill to gain 1 skill at 6th and 1 skill at 8th level
Selecting powers appropriate to the class and allocating them to the levels results in:
1 Flesh-Runes (counts as 3 skills), Aura of Protection
2 Arcane Striking
3 Meditative Focus
4 Initiative
5 Lay on Hands
6 Spell Storing
7
8 Blade Dancing
9 Battlefield Prowess
10 Savage Resilience
11 Resistant to Illusion
12 Longevity
13
14
Proficiencies: (28, drawn from Fighter and Cleric)
Acrobatics, Alertness, Battle Magic, Berserkergang, Blind Fighting, Combat Reflexes, Combat Trickery (force back, overrun, sunder), Command, Contemplation, Divine Blessing, Divine Health, Dungeon Bashing, Endurance, Healing, Intimidation, Knowledge (philosophy), Laying on Hands, Leadership, Manual of Arms, Martial Training (darts/bolas/nets), Prophecy, Running, Sensing Evil, Skirmishing, Swashbuckling, Theology, Unflappable Casting, Weapon Focus
Then the spell lists. Putting 1 BP into Divine allows casting as if a cleric of half that level. By my inexpert reckonings that comes out to:
Spell Lists (from the Cleric lists)
1st Level Spells (gained at 4th level)
Cure Light Wounds
Detect Magic
Light
Protection from Evil
Resist Cold
2nd Level Spells (gained at 8th level)
Bless
Hold Person
Resist Fire
Silence
Spiritual Weapon
3rd Level Spells (gained at 12th level)
Cure Disease
Feign Death
Remove Curse
Speak with Dead
Striking
Each class gets a stronghold. The chart for this makes it clear that you go with the class in which you have the most build points. The White Monk, being a divine type really should have Fortified Church (monastery), but instead must do with a Castle instead. It's not a big deal, but doesn't feel right for the class. So I'll just rename the castle a "Fortified Monastery".
Stronghold Type: Fortified Monastery (Castle)
XP Per Level
So now we calculate XP per level for advancement using the base costs from Hit Dice Value (500 XP), Fighting (750 XP), and Divine (250 XP):
1 0
2 1,500
3 3,000
4 6,000
5 12,000
6 24,000
7 50,000 <-- rounded up to 50,000 from 48,000 according to the smoothing rule
8 100,000
9 120,000
10 120,000
11 120,000
12 120,000
13 120,000
14 120,000
White Monk Special Weapons
White Monks primarily use hand techniques (punches) and have developed a set of weapons worn like gloves with claws on them to use with these techniques. There are also magic versions of these unique weapons.
Hard Knuckles 1d4
Cat Claws 1d6 (requires extra training at Level 3)
Tiger Claws 1d8 (requires extra training at Level 7)
Dragon Claws 1d10 (requires extra training at Level 10)
Holy Claw Weapons
01-40 Cat Claws +1
41-45 Cat Claws +1, constant Resist Cold on wearer
46-50 Cat Claws +1, constant Resist Fire on wearer
51-55 Cat Claws +1, of Striking
55-60 Cat Claws +1, can cast Cure Light Wounds on wearer once per day
61-64 Cat or Tiger Claws +2
65-68 Cat or Tiger Claws +2, constant Resist Cold on wearer
69-72 Cat or Tiger Claws +2, constant Resist Fire on wearer
73-76 Cat or Tiger Claws +2, of Striking
77-80 Cat or Tiger Claws +2, can cast Spritual Weapon once per day
81-84 Cat or Tiger Claws +2, can cast Cure Light Wounds on wearer twice per day
85-88 Cat or Tiger or Dragon Claws +3
89-91 Tiger or Dragon Claws +3, of Striking
92-94 Tiger or Dragon Claws +3, constant Resist Cold and Fire on wearer
95-97 Tiger or Dragon Claws +3, can cast Spritual Weapon three times per day
98-100 Tiger or Dragon Claws +3, can cast Cure Light Wounds on wearer twice per day
But then I thought that maybe I should take that up as a challenge to create something. Well unfortunately Pathfinder suffers from the same core problem which has plagued all editions of D&D since the beginning: there are no built-in in mechanics for building stuff. If you want to make a new class, or magic spell, or monster there are few guidelines. It's as much an art as a science. But not so with the retro-clone Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) which I have been perusing of late. The ACKS Player's Companion includes a great DIY toolkit for making new classes. So I decided to use this as an opportunity to try making an ACKS class.
But instead of making some sort of cleric substitute, I decided to do a version of a class which has fascinated me for some time: the White Monk from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. The White Monk is a blend of monk and paladin--not coincidentally one of the classes I proposed for my preferred entries in the upcoming Advanced Class Guide for Pathfinder.
The White Monk for ACKS
.jpg) | |
| Bangaa___FFTA2___by_CrazyCowCo (crazycowco.deviantart.com) |
So, the first thing with a new ACKS class is that you start with 4 Build Points (BP) which are allocated to the main class characteristics. I figured one should go into Hit Dice Value because they are a tough melee fighting class, two into Fighting, and finally one into Divine.
So 1 BP into Hit Dice Value buys a d6 for HD per level:
Hit Dice Value: d6 [1 BP; 500 XP]
HP per level after 9th Level: 2 HP
Then since the White Monk is primarily a melee fighter type, 2 BP into Fighting:
Fighting: 2 [2 BP; 750 XP]
And that led to some modifications of the characteristics for Fighting 2 because a monk is a specialized type of fighter:
Attack Throws Weapons Armor Styles DamBonus Cleaves XP Cost
+2/3 levels Restricted* Forbidden 2** +1/3 levels 1/level 1000
*Weapons: claw-weapons (see below); dart,bolas, net
**Basic Style: claw-weapons; dart, bolas, net
Reducing the Weapons by 3 buys 3 custom powers, reducing the armor by 3 buys 4 custom powers, and reducing the styles by 1 buys 1 custom power, for a total of 8 custom powers (which we'll get to in a moment)
Because the White Monk is a holy type, I put my final BP into Divine (I put no BP into into Thievery or Arcane).
Divine: 1 [1 BP; XP 250]Divine 1 allows the class to cast spells as a cleric of half current level, with a spell list of 5 spells per level; I also eliminated the Turn Undead ability, which bought another custom power
Saving Throws: as Cleric (since it's a holy class concept)
Prime Requisite: CON (monks should be tough)
Now came the tricky part: the custom powers. From my not-necessarily-correct calculations above I came up with a total of 9 custom powers. Since some of the custom powers are actually essentially proficiencies used as class abilities I skipped ahead to throw together a set of 28 proficiencies (a standard amount) selected from the Cleric and Fighter lists and then put together a list of candidate custom powers which avoided duplicating anything in the proficiency list. So far, so good. However, there is a very non-intuitive chart which allows you to trade off taking skills at a certain level (this section confusingly uses "skill" and "power" interchangeably) in exchange for more skills at higher levels. For instance you can trade one initial skill to gain one skill at 5th and another at 9th, or one skill at 10th level for one each at 12th and 13th. I found this trade-off chart both helpful and confusing. But here's how my calculations and powers for the class's levels came out:
With 9 custom powers to start (from calculations above), then some trade-offs:
-1 initial skill to gain 1 skill at 2nd and 1 skill at 12th level
-1 initial skill to gain 1 skill at 3rd and 1 skill at 11th level
-1 initial skill to gain 1 skill at 4th and 1 skill at 10th level
-1 initial skill to gain 1 skill at 5th and 1 skill at 9th level
-1 initial skill to gain 1 skill at 6th and 1 skill at 8th level
Selecting powers appropriate to the class and allocating them to the levels results in:
1 Flesh-Runes (counts as 3 skills), Aura of Protection
2 Arcane Striking
3 Meditative Focus
4 Initiative
5 Lay on Hands
6 Spell Storing
7
8 Blade Dancing
9 Battlefield Prowess
10 Savage Resilience
11 Resistant to Illusion
12 Longevity
13
14
Proficiencies: (28, drawn from Fighter and Cleric)
Acrobatics, Alertness, Battle Magic, Berserkergang, Blind Fighting, Combat Reflexes, Combat Trickery (force back, overrun, sunder), Command, Contemplation, Divine Blessing, Divine Health, Dungeon Bashing, Endurance, Healing, Intimidation, Knowledge (philosophy), Laying on Hands, Leadership, Manual of Arms, Martial Training (darts/bolas/nets), Prophecy, Running, Sensing Evil, Skirmishing, Swashbuckling, Theology, Unflappable Casting, Weapon Focus
Then the spell lists. Putting 1 BP into Divine allows casting as if a cleric of half that level. By my inexpert reckonings that comes out to:
Spell Lists (from the Cleric lists)
1st Level Spells (gained at 4th level)
Cure Light Wounds
Detect Magic
Light
Protection from Evil
Resist Cold
2nd Level Spells (gained at 8th level)
Bless
Hold Person
Resist Fire
Silence
Spiritual Weapon
3rd Level Spells (gained at 12th level)
Cure Disease
Feign Death
Remove Curse
Speak with Dead
Striking
Each class gets a stronghold. The chart for this makes it clear that you go with the class in which you have the most build points. The White Monk, being a divine type really should have Fortified Church (monastery), but instead must do with a Castle instead. It's not a big deal, but doesn't feel right for the class. So I'll just rename the castle a "Fortified Monastery".
Stronghold Type: Fortified Monastery (Castle)
XP Per Level
So now we calculate XP per level for advancement using the base costs from Hit Dice Value (500 XP), Fighting (750 XP), and Divine (250 XP):
1 0
2 1,500
3 3,000
4 6,000
5 12,000
6 24,000
7 50,000 <-- rounded up to 50,000 from 48,000 according to the smoothing rule
8 100,000
9 120,000
10 120,000
11 120,000
12 120,000
13 120,000
14 120,000
White Monk Special Weapons
White Monks primarily use hand techniques (punches) and have developed a set of weapons worn like gloves with claws on them to use with these techniques. There are also magic versions of these unique weapons.
Hard Knuckles 1d4
Cat Claws 1d6 (requires extra training at Level 3)
Tiger Claws 1d8 (requires extra training at Level 7)
Dragon Claws 1d10 (requires extra training at Level 10)
Holy Claw Weapons
01-40 Cat Claws +1
41-45 Cat Claws +1, constant Resist Cold on wearer
46-50 Cat Claws +1, constant Resist Fire on wearer
51-55 Cat Claws +1, of Striking
55-60 Cat Claws +1, can cast Cure Light Wounds on wearer once per day
61-64 Cat or Tiger Claws +2
65-68 Cat or Tiger Claws +2, constant Resist Cold on wearer
69-72 Cat or Tiger Claws +2, constant Resist Fire on wearer
73-76 Cat or Tiger Claws +2, of Striking
77-80 Cat or Tiger Claws +2, can cast Spritual Weapon once per day
81-84 Cat or Tiger Claws +2, can cast Cure Light Wounds on wearer twice per day
85-88 Cat or Tiger or Dragon Claws +3
89-91 Tiger or Dragon Claws +3, of Striking
92-94 Tiger or Dragon Claws +3, constant Resist Cold and Fire on wearer
95-97 Tiger or Dragon Claws +3, can cast Spritual Weapon three times per day
98-100 Tiger or Dragon Claws +3, can cast Cure Light Wounds on wearer twice per day
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Review: Adventurer Conqueror King System (Part 2)
Okay, so I'm finally getting around to continuing my review of the Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) rules. (You can check out Part 1 here.) For an OSR game, there is a lot of detailed content in ACKS. I'm fine with that, but it makes for more work when doing a decent review.
Chapter 6 is entitled Adventures. This starts by covering dungeon, wilderness, and ocean travel, survival, and encounters. You've got your solid bits on movement, mapping, time, traps, etc. There's a nice chart of stats for sea vessels. I was amused to see that the carrying capacity for ships is given in stones. It adds a nice bit of flavor, but I'm pretty sure it will throw non-UK type persons off a bit. Then you've got encounters, surprise, reactions, etc. This section is good basic stuff.
Combat initiative is done by each player rolling 1d6 and adding the character's Dexterity bonus. Mathematically that increases the relative value of the bonus over using a 1d20 roll: roughly, each +1 is now worth +15% rather than +5%. Why not just use a d20? I have no idea. In ACKS spell casters must announce their spell cast before initiative is rolled, which I rather like. Since it should take most of a round to cast and they would have to start at the beginning of the round to have time to cast that same round. Hmm, I might add this to my Pathfinder games.
But then comes How to Attack. This section has charts for monsters attacking and for characters attacking, with separate columns for fighters, clerics & thieves, and mages. Just looking at the charts put me off. Rather than going with increasing To Hit bonus with levels (as in 3rd or 4th edition), it uses a decreasing Attack Throw Value which must be equaled or exceeded on the roll to hit. The target's armor class is added to the Attack Throw Value and any bonuses or penalties for Strength, Dexterity, or magic are added to the die roll. Yes, it's really just another way of expressing the same thing in the end, but I didn't see any advantage to this system. If anything it complicates the math because you're routinely making adjustments to the Attack Throw Value and then also to the die roll rather than applying all modifiers to the d20 roll.
Two-weapon fighting, however, is more realistic in ACKS. The fighter gets only one attack but gets a bonus to hit for having the 2nd weapon (plus any magical bonus on the 2nd weapon). Two weapon fighting is very rare historically. Even then the off-hand weapon is usually for defense or opportunistic strikes, like a rapier and main gauche. Because of the body mechanics involved you don't get double the attacks with two weapons, except perhaps with very light weapons like knives. I prefer this treatment of the skill.
Speaking of doubling, I wish they'd done something with doubled damage. The problem with specifying double damage, particularly for critical hits, is that if you roll low then the doubling effect is inconsequential. It's sort of a gyp. In my games, for critical damage the attacker gets full damage and then a normal damage roll on top of that. That makes all critical hits do seriously critical damage.
Then there's the Mortal Wounds table. It's a fun read, what with all the gruesome permanent injuries and colorful effects, but I'm not sure I would use it. The brutal permanent damage is certainly realistic, but I can see it resulting in the abrupt retirement of lower level characters merely on a bad roll. Many of the injuries require Restore Life and Limb to repair, which is a 5th level spell. Either the party must have a high-level cleric or there must be one in travel distance and the party have sufficient funds to pay. Okay, so these injury effects do make for interesting "remember when" stories, and the retired characters can even hang around as NPCs, but does it make for a better game? It still has that Old School "we're going to create rules just to f*ck with you for no good reason" vibe to it. I'd probably ditch it. The complementary Tampering With Mortality table is more to my taste. The results are more likely to provide interesting role-playing and plot ideas. The difference between the two tables is like the difference between someone jabbing you in the eye with a spoon or using that spoon to feed you a mix of very hot peppers and spices. The eye jab will leave you with partial or permanent blindness, disfigurement, and possible pains for life. Afterwards you'll want to hunt the a**hole down and gouge his eye out with a spoon. The peppers and spices will cause intense effects, but only temporarily. Afterwards you will have positive memories of the interesting mix of flavors and maybe want to invent some great mixes of your own to share.
Then we're on to the old school style saving throws, with tables by class for Poison & Death, Staffs & Wands, etc. I was never really comfortable with these, particularly when you needed a save against something which didn't exactly fit one of the save types. It's another area which feels like "reinventing the square wheel" of OD&D. The old style structured tables are retained in ACKS when there's probably a simpler, smoother way to get the same effect. As a DM I find the Ref, Will, and Fort saves of 3rd/Pathfinder simpler and easier to apply flexibly as situations arise during play.
After that are more specialized combat rules and then the very, very important section on earning experience. In the old school groove, ACKS awards XP for treasure items--but only if they are sold right away. Items retained and used do not bring XP if sold later. I really have no idea why characters should get XP for treasure--except maybe thieves. Well, okay, if you think of all classes as simply variations on a core Murder Hobo Robber class then they all should get XP for treasure. As noted earlier, characters with high scores in their class prime requisites get a 10% bonus to experience earned. I've never understood this rule. Why should a character get more XP just because the player got lucky with the dice? It's another "we're going to create rules just to f*ck with you for no good reason" situation, this time by giving lucky players a chance to repeatedly gloat over less lucky ones. The completely illogical bonus provides constant irritation and resentment for players who just were simply unlucky with the initial rolls. It's rules like this which led to the development of point-buy systems (and probably communism).
Anyway, that's some thoughts on Chapter 6 and all I have time for tonight. Next time we'll continue with Chapter 7: Campaigns.
Chapter 6 is entitled Adventures. This starts by covering dungeon, wilderness, and ocean travel, survival, and encounters. You've got your solid bits on movement, mapping, time, traps, etc. There's a nice chart of stats for sea vessels. I was amused to see that the carrying capacity for ships is given in stones. It adds a nice bit of flavor, but I'm pretty sure it will throw non-UK type persons off a bit. Then you've got encounters, surprise, reactions, etc. This section is good basic stuff.
Combat initiative is done by each player rolling 1d6 and adding the character's Dexterity bonus. Mathematically that increases the relative value of the bonus over using a 1d20 roll: roughly, each +1 is now worth +15% rather than +5%. Why not just use a d20? I have no idea. In ACKS spell casters must announce their spell cast before initiative is rolled, which I rather like. Since it should take most of a round to cast and they would have to start at the beginning of the round to have time to cast that same round. Hmm, I might add this to my Pathfinder games.
But then comes How to Attack. This section has charts for monsters attacking and for characters attacking, with separate columns for fighters, clerics & thieves, and mages. Just looking at the charts put me off. Rather than going with increasing To Hit bonus with levels (as in 3rd or 4th edition), it uses a decreasing Attack Throw Value which must be equaled or exceeded on the roll to hit. The target's armor class is added to the Attack Throw Value and any bonuses or penalties for Strength, Dexterity, or magic are added to the die roll. Yes, it's really just another way of expressing the same thing in the end, but I didn't see any advantage to this system. If anything it complicates the math because you're routinely making adjustments to the Attack Throw Value and then also to the die roll rather than applying all modifiers to the d20 roll.
Two-weapon fighting, however, is more realistic in ACKS. The fighter gets only one attack but gets a bonus to hit for having the 2nd weapon (plus any magical bonus on the 2nd weapon). Two weapon fighting is very rare historically. Even then the off-hand weapon is usually for defense or opportunistic strikes, like a rapier and main gauche. Because of the body mechanics involved you don't get double the attacks with two weapons, except perhaps with very light weapons like knives. I prefer this treatment of the skill.
Speaking of doubling, I wish they'd done something with doubled damage. The problem with specifying double damage, particularly for critical hits, is that if you roll low then the doubling effect is inconsequential. It's sort of a gyp. In my games, for critical damage the attacker gets full damage and then a normal damage roll on top of that. That makes all critical hits do seriously critical damage.
Then there's the Mortal Wounds table. It's a fun read, what with all the gruesome permanent injuries and colorful effects, but I'm not sure I would use it. The brutal permanent damage is certainly realistic, but I can see it resulting in the abrupt retirement of lower level characters merely on a bad roll. Many of the injuries require Restore Life and Limb to repair, which is a 5th level spell. Either the party must have a high-level cleric or there must be one in travel distance and the party have sufficient funds to pay. Okay, so these injury effects do make for interesting "remember when" stories, and the retired characters can even hang around as NPCs, but does it make for a better game? It still has that Old School "we're going to create rules just to f*ck with you for no good reason" vibe to it. I'd probably ditch it. The complementary Tampering With Mortality table is more to my taste. The results are more likely to provide interesting role-playing and plot ideas. The difference between the two tables is like the difference between someone jabbing you in the eye with a spoon or using that spoon to feed you a mix of very hot peppers and spices. The eye jab will leave you with partial or permanent blindness, disfigurement, and possible pains for life. Afterwards you'll want to hunt the a**hole down and gouge his eye out with a spoon. The peppers and spices will cause intense effects, but only temporarily. Afterwards you will have positive memories of the interesting mix of flavors and maybe want to invent some great mixes of your own to share.
Then we're on to the old school style saving throws, with tables by class for Poison & Death, Staffs & Wands, etc. I was never really comfortable with these, particularly when you needed a save against something which didn't exactly fit one of the save types. It's another area which feels like "reinventing the square wheel" of OD&D. The old style structured tables are retained in ACKS when there's probably a simpler, smoother way to get the same effect. As a DM I find the Ref, Will, and Fort saves of 3rd/Pathfinder simpler and easier to apply flexibly as situations arise during play.
After that are more specialized combat rules and then the very, very important section on earning experience. In the old school groove, ACKS awards XP for treasure items--but only if they are sold right away. Items retained and used do not bring XP if sold later. I really have no idea why characters should get XP for treasure--except maybe thieves. Well, okay, if you think of all classes as simply variations on a core Murder Hobo Robber class then they all should get XP for treasure. As noted earlier, characters with high scores in their class prime requisites get a 10% bonus to experience earned. I've never understood this rule. Why should a character get more XP just because the player got lucky with the dice? It's another "we're going to create rules just to f*ck with you for no good reason" situation, this time by giving lucky players a chance to repeatedly gloat over less lucky ones. The completely illogical bonus provides constant irritation and resentment for players who just were simply unlucky with the initial rolls. It's rules like this which led to the development of point-buy systems (and probably communism).
Anyway, that's some thoughts on Chapter 6 and all I have time for tonight. Next time we'll continue with Chapter 7: Campaigns.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Review: Adventurer Conqueror King System (Part 1)
Okay, so I bought this system a couple months ago, read through it, started drafting a review, lost my hard drive, and now I'm starting it all over from scratch. Criminey. Anyway, so yes the Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) is one of those D&D old school renaissance (OSR) systems. However, that's not why I bought it. I bought it because reportedly featured a well-designed "end game" for high level characters, including economic and political elements. I was hoping that it might be adaptable for my Old School Hack/Fictive Hack game if any (surviving) players get to higher levels. Since ACKS is a mighty tome of gaming richness I'm breaking this review into two parts (or maybe three).
So like most RPGs, ACKS starts out with character generation. Since it is an OSR system it has a class-based system. For humans there are the classic fighter, mage, cleric, and thief, but also four campaign classes, the assassin, bard, bladedancer, and explorer. I particularly liked the bladedancer. Also typical for an OSR system, the demi-humans (elves and dwarves) have their own racial classes. However I was glad to see that they at least give each race two classes instead of a single stereotyped one, which is a definite improvement. The dwarves get the Vaultguard and the Craftpriest; the elves the Spellsword and the Nightblade.
So far so good, but note that none of these classes go to 20th level. The highest level in ACKS is 14th. This tames the usual D&D power curve and I'm on board with that. However, only the human classes go up to 14th. All the demi-human ones stop short of that: vaultguard just short of it at 13th, nightblade at 11th, but craftpriest and spellsword only at 10th. That certainly provides a strong incentive to avoid playing the latter three classes. Why are these classes arbitrarily penalized? I have no idea. People who like to play dwarf and elf characters certainly won't think it's a great idea.
ACKS has a system of proficiencies, which are like a blend of the feats and skills you find in D&D 3.x and Pathfinder. Proficiencies are gained at certain levels, which varies from class to class, and most can only taken once. I rather like that the feats and skill are essentially blended into one system. It's simpler, easier to keep track of on the character sheet, and avoids a lot of the fiddly math of allocating new skill points each level.
But then we get to the first of the material for which I bought ACKS: hirelings (henchmen, mercenaries, and specialists). The early editions of D&D envisioned characters eventually becoming powers in the land, with fighters building a castle, wizards a tower, etc. And along the way they would hire or recruit NPCs to help them. At any given time and place the number of hirelings will be limited and they may prove difficult to recruit, based on the local hiring market and the PC's charisma (so you may be sorry you used it as your "dump stat"). Hiring people is something PCs will have to do in an ACKS campaign and the rules here provide enough detail without getting bogged down. So far so good.
Next, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that for spellcasting ACKS ditched the miserable spell-slot system which has plagued D&D and its derivatives for lo these many years. (Actually, I almost just skipped this section on the assumption that it would be spell slots.) In ACKS there is no tedious spell preparation time on the part of the players. Spellcasters know certain spells and they can cast anything they know, limited by the total number of spells of a given level castable per day. Nice. I also like that they have exactly 10 (divine) or 12 (arcane) spells per spell level so you can easily determine a random spell with a quick die roll. They also discuss limiting the cleric's spell lists based on deity, which is something I feel D&D desperately needs, but unfortunately only provide one example of a limited list. I think most GMs could take that example and work out their own deity-specific lists, but I wish they'd done more examples to help people out. (Perhaps that will be covered in future ACKS books, or on a blog somewhere...)
So that's part one. Still to come: adventures, campaigns, monsters, treasures, and secrets.
So like most RPGs, ACKS starts out with character generation. Since it is an OSR system it has a class-based system. For humans there are the classic fighter, mage, cleric, and thief, but also four campaign classes, the assassin, bard, bladedancer, and explorer. I particularly liked the bladedancer. Also typical for an OSR system, the demi-humans (elves and dwarves) have their own racial classes. However I was glad to see that they at least give each race two classes instead of a single stereotyped one, which is a definite improvement. The dwarves get the Vaultguard and the Craftpriest; the elves the Spellsword and the Nightblade.
So far so good, but note that none of these classes go to 20th level. The highest level in ACKS is 14th. This tames the usual D&D power curve and I'm on board with that. However, only the human classes go up to 14th. All the demi-human ones stop short of that: vaultguard just short of it at 13th, nightblade at 11th, but craftpriest and spellsword only at 10th. That certainly provides a strong incentive to avoid playing the latter three classes. Why are these classes arbitrarily penalized? I have no idea. People who like to play dwarf and elf characters certainly won't think it's a great idea.
ACKS has a system of proficiencies, which are like a blend of the feats and skills you find in D&D 3.x and Pathfinder. Proficiencies are gained at certain levels, which varies from class to class, and most can only taken once. I rather like that the feats and skill are essentially blended into one system. It's simpler, easier to keep track of on the character sheet, and avoids a lot of the fiddly math of allocating new skill points each level.
But then we get to the first of the material for which I bought ACKS: hirelings (henchmen, mercenaries, and specialists). The early editions of D&D envisioned characters eventually becoming powers in the land, with fighters building a castle, wizards a tower, etc. And along the way they would hire or recruit NPCs to help them. At any given time and place the number of hirelings will be limited and they may prove difficult to recruit, based on the local hiring market and the PC's charisma (so you may be sorry you used it as your "dump stat"). Hiring people is something PCs will have to do in an ACKS campaign and the rules here provide enough detail without getting bogged down. So far so good.
Next, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that for spellcasting ACKS ditched the miserable spell-slot system which has plagued D&D and its derivatives for lo these many years. (Actually, I almost just skipped this section on the assumption that it would be spell slots.) In ACKS there is no tedious spell preparation time on the part of the players. Spellcasters know certain spells and they can cast anything they know, limited by the total number of spells of a given level castable per day. Nice. I also like that they have exactly 10 (divine) or 12 (arcane) spells per spell level so you can easily determine a random spell with a quick die roll. They also discuss limiting the cleric's spell lists based on deity, which is something I feel D&D desperately needs, but unfortunately only provide one example of a limited list. I think most GMs could take that example and work out their own deity-specific lists, but I wish they'd done more examples to help people out. (Perhaps that will be covered in future ACKS books, or on a blog somewhere...)
So that's part one. Still to come: adventures, campaigns, monsters, treasures, and secrets.
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