I’ve been trying to decide what to do with Mythweaver: Reckoning. While it includes a game system that I’m no longer working on, it also includes large chunks of my game world in a format I really like. I’ve been looking at going into the Mythweaver: Reckoning book and extracting the world/background things that I’d like to bring over to Resolute: The Splintered Realm, re-releasing these as a campaign guide. However, it seems that the better way to go is to simply bring the price down on Mythweaver and release a conversion document for the sections that are system specific – especially since some of you already own MW, it seems like a crass money grab to get you to purchase a book that has 90% of content you already have for the 10% that would be new or remodeled for Resolute.
Part one is done – Reckoning is now up for $1, and it’s a pretty solid game in its own right. I’ll be putting together a conversion document that I’ll package with it that you can use to port applicable content over to Resolute in the next few weeks. I’ve also put my entire back catalog to a $1 price point, since I had some books at $2.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Game Day Recap
I ran a Resolute: the Splintered Realm session for the middle school/high school group today. It was a blast! In short, 9 students (plus their teacher- shout out to Mrs. K for setting this up!) went on a dungeon crawl. Here are some things I learned:
- When you throw a puzzle based on a Fibonacci Sequence at a group, you’d better hope that one of them is not the class Valedictorian, or you have just wasted your time. He solved a puzzle in about 30 seconds that I expected to force them to at least struggle for a bit. This same student was able to bypass a major trap through his superior grasp of physics (compared to mine) and successfully argued (after diagramming it for me) that the fundamental design of my pendulum trap was flawed. He was a smart kid! Fortunately, another student had already walked into the trap, letting it grind him into so much raw meat, so it wasn’t a total waste…
- Trying to use a teleport spell to send a Skeletal Vanguard into the realm of elemental flame is a bad idea when you end up botching the action roll. The only thing left in Del Anon was the right hand of the magician that had been touching the vanguard… the rest of him was in elemental fire taking 30 wounds per second; he managed to use his last resolve point to get back before being totally immolated.
- Human shield (the resolve use) wasn’t intended to be used against your own team; of course, I never thought they’d talk about covering the team’s gnome fighter in peanut butter and lowering him into a cave to see if there’s anything down there, so what do I know? They were a quirky lot; which of course means that I liked hanging out with them quite a bit!
- The player of the disciple who pulsed the aura of healing liked that he could heal and also do something fun (like attack) on each of his turns. He was vital to the success of the team, but didn’t have to use every one of his turns to drop heals on the group.
- Defining resolve as an ability that ‘lets you try crazy things’ was an open invite to these kids to get as off the chain as they could. They got really into the cinematic mindset right away, trying to pull of all sorts of Legolas-inspired insanity involving backflips, drop kicks, and the like.
- The rules supported all sorts of wild things; one fighter decided to disarm a skull vanguard; he used a resolve point and pulled off the feat; then he used another to trump a turn and grab the vanguard’s blade… then he had to use a third to add his might an intuition resist roll to keep the berserker insanity that was part of the weapon’s curse from turning him against his team. In spite of the unorthodox approach to combat (and doing a lot of things I didn’t expect), I always felt like the rules gave me a firm idea on how to handle the situation. I never felt like I had to just wing it, even when things went way off the tracks. At one point, I turned to Mrs. K and said, ‘the craziest thing is that I actually have rules to cover this stuff!’
- Having each player develop a purpose for his hero was a great way to focus each character, and it created all sorts of genuine role-playing moments; each player really focused on making sure he’d get that +1 XP during the scene, making character-based rather than mechanical-based decisions… for example, the hero who wanted to collect a skull from every monster he fought kept pulling his punches, and encouraging others to do the same, whenever an attack could inadvertently crack the opponent’s noggin.
- The game balance issues I was concerned about came out just fine. It was about as smooth as you can get… the heroes won every encounter, although not without suffering at least some damage. The ultimate encounter (pitting 10 heroes each built on 30 CPs against an undead dragon built on 125 CPs), ended up with the each member of the team dropping below 10 wounds remaining at some point during the fight, and forced everyone at the table to burn all of their resolve. They beat the dragon in just about 2 full rounds, although this was only because the entire team trumped a turn simultaneously, just after a wizard’s turn in which she’d successfully put a hex on the dragon, forcing it to take a 2 on its next defensive roll; they argued (and I conceded) that if they all spent a resolve point and claimed simultaneously to be trumping a turn, that they could all take advantage of the momentary weakness. This was huge, and allowed them to lay out about 100 wounds in one time around the table. If they hadn’t come up with this solution, it may have been a longer day for them.
- Two things I didn’t particularly like, but didn’t see a way around, were that I had to modify some rules on the fly and I had to default to static 7 for all dice results on my part. As referee, I didn’t make a single roll all day. If I could do it over again, I’d replay the encounter with the dragon rolling all dice; this would have definitely increased the drama, and I suspect have caused some major changes in the way a few things played out. Similarly, I modified the sequence rules; the player who rolled the highest initial sequence result started the combat, and we went clockwise or counter-clockwise from that depending on the rolls of the people to the right and left of that player. It was a compromise that worked and made it easier to keep track of who was going when.
- That said, in four hours they were able to learn the basic rules and go through an adventure consisting of 5 different encounters. Remember here that this was 10 people involved in combat, many of whom got somewhat… distracted… during play, and had to be hyped up with cheese doodles and Dr. Pepper to get them on task. Maybe in retrospect those weren’t the best things to give them…
- When you throw a puzzle based on a Fibonacci Sequence at a group, you’d better hope that one of them is not the class Valedictorian, or you have just wasted your time. He solved a puzzle in about 30 seconds that I expected to force them to at least struggle for a bit. This same student was able to bypass a major trap through his superior grasp of physics (compared to mine) and successfully argued (after diagramming it for me) that the fundamental design of my pendulum trap was flawed. He was a smart kid! Fortunately, another student had already walked into the trap, letting it grind him into so much raw meat, so it wasn’t a total waste…
- Trying to use a teleport spell to send a Skeletal Vanguard into the realm of elemental flame is a bad idea when you end up botching the action roll. The only thing left in Del Anon was the right hand of the magician that had been touching the vanguard… the rest of him was in elemental fire taking 30 wounds per second; he managed to use his last resolve point to get back before being totally immolated.
- Human shield (the resolve use) wasn’t intended to be used against your own team; of course, I never thought they’d talk about covering the team’s gnome fighter in peanut butter and lowering him into a cave to see if there’s anything down there, so what do I know? They were a quirky lot; which of course means that I liked hanging out with them quite a bit!
- The player of the disciple who pulsed the aura of healing liked that he could heal and also do something fun (like attack) on each of his turns. He was vital to the success of the team, but didn’t have to use every one of his turns to drop heals on the group.
- Defining resolve as an ability that ‘lets you try crazy things’ was an open invite to these kids to get as off the chain as they could. They got really into the cinematic mindset right away, trying to pull of all sorts of Legolas-inspired insanity involving backflips, drop kicks, and the like.
- The rules supported all sorts of wild things; one fighter decided to disarm a skull vanguard; he used a resolve point and pulled off the feat; then he used another to trump a turn and grab the vanguard’s blade… then he had to use a third to add his might an intuition resist roll to keep the berserker insanity that was part of the weapon’s curse from turning him against his team. In spite of the unorthodox approach to combat (and doing a lot of things I didn’t expect), I always felt like the rules gave me a firm idea on how to handle the situation. I never felt like I had to just wing it, even when things went way off the tracks. At one point, I turned to Mrs. K and said, ‘the craziest thing is that I actually have rules to cover this stuff!’
- Having each player develop a purpose for his hero was a great way to focus each character, and it created all sorts of genuine role-playing moments; each player really focused on making sure he’d get that +1 XP during the scene, making character-based rather than mechanical-based decisions… for example, the hero who wanted to collect a skull from every monster he fought kept pulling his punches, and encouraging others to do the same, whenever an attack could inadvertently crack the opponent’s noggin.
- The game balance issues I was concerned about came out just fine. It was about as smooth as you can get… the heroes won every encounter, although not without suffering at least some damage. The ultimate encounter (pitting 10 heroes each built on 30 CPs against an undead dragon built on 125 CPs), ended up with the each member of the team dropping below 10 wounds remaining at some point during the fight, and forced everyone at the table to burn all of their resolve. They beat the dragon in just about 2 full rounds, although this was only because the entire team trumped a turn simultaneously, just after a wizard’s turn in which she’d successfully put a hex on the dragon, forcing it to take a 2 on its next defensive roll; they argued (and I conceded) that if they all spent a resolve point and claimed simultaneously to be trumping a turn, that they could all take advantage of the momentary weakness. This was huge, and allowed them to lay out about 100 wounds in one time around the table. If they hadn’t come up with this solution, it may have been a longer day for them.
- Two things I didn’t particularly like, but didn’t see a way around, were that I had to modify some rules on the fly and I had to default to static 7 for all dice results on my part. As referee, I didn’t make a single roll all day. If I could do it over again, I’d replay the encounter with the dragon rolling all dice; this would have definitely increased the drama, and I suspect have caused some major changes in the way a few things played out. Similarly, I modified the sequence rules; the player who rolled the highest initial sequence result started the combat, and we went clockwise or counter-clockwise from that depending on the rolls of the people to the right and left of that player. It was a compromise that worked and made it easier to keep track of who was going when.
- That said, in four hours they were able to learn the basic rules and go through an adventure consisting of 5 different encounters. Remember here that this was 10 people involved in combat, many of whom got somewhat… distracted… during play, and had to be hyped up with cheese doodles and Dr. Pepper to get them on task. Maybe in retrospect those weren’t the best things to give them…
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Quick Hits
Both Army Ants Resolute and Resolute: The Splintered Realm are in the top 100 games on RPGNow as of this moment (actually the top 50: 48 and 49 respectively). This is only the second time I’ve ever had two products in the top 100 at once; it helps that they were both released the same week!
*****
This weekend, I’ll be running a large R:TSR game at a local high school. I’m very excited about this, because this will be the first time I get to run the most recent rules for a) a large group of people I don’t know, and b) a LARGE group. We’re expecting upwards of 10 middle school/high school students to show up, and I plan on running an adventure wherein all will be level 3 heroes on a big old dungeon crawl. Resolute isn’t designed (nor did I playtest it) to handle a group of 10. By rule, a group of 10 heroes each built on 30 CPs is a the equivalent of a creature built on about 165 CPs. I’m thinking that this has to end with a dragon, and I might build him on 150 CPs or so and see how the group handles it. This will really push the math and see how well the game handles large-scale combat on levels that I never intended it to. I always conceived of it as groups of upwards of 6… so a fellowship twice that size will push it to its limits. It will be interesting to see… I could see it going two ways: since you have ten turns against it for every turn it takes, it would be very easy for the heroes to quickly chop the dragon down to nothing; and it’s also quite possible through treating the heroes like the comparative mooks they are, a few shots of its darkness energy breath weapon will result in a TPK… or it could be a wash with each side giving as good as it gets. We’ll see!
*****
I’ve got a whole lot of Army Ants supplements on deck. I already have written the Referee’s Guide, and I have solid drafts of the Ant Forces Player’s Guide and Into the Sandbox: A Campaign Setting. I'm not sure why, but after working on Army Ants for nigh on 20 years, I finally fully understand the world; the whole thing is clearly set out in my head. Not sure where this sudden epiphany came from, but it's right there. I'll keep jamming as much of it into little booklets as I can.
*****
This weekend, I’ll be running a large R:TSR game at a local high school. I’m very excited about this, because this will be the first time I get to run the most recent rules for a) a large group of people I don’t know, and b) a LARGE group. We’re expecting upwards of 10 middle school/high school students to show up, and I plan on running an adventure wherein all will be level 3 heroes on a big old dungeon crawl. Resolute isn’t designed (nor did I playtest it) to handle a group of 10. By rule, a group of 10 heroes each built on 30 CPs is a the equivalent of a creature built on about 165 CPs. I’m thinking that this has to end with a dragon, and I might build him on 150 CPs or so and see how the group handles it. This will really push the math and see how well the game handles large-scale combat on levels that I never intended it to. I always conceived of it as groups of upwards of 6… so a fellowship twice that size will push it to its limits. It will be interesting to see… I could see it going two ways: since you have ten turns against it for every turn it takes, it would be very easy for the heroes to quickly chop the dragon down to nothing; and it’s also quite possible through treating the heroes like the comparative mooks they are, a few shots of its darkness energy breath weapon will result in a TPK… or it could be a wash with each side giving as good as it gets. We’ll see!
*****
I’ve got a whole lot of Army Ants supplements on deck. I already have written the Referee’s Guide, and I have solid drafts of the Ant Forces Player’s Guide and Into the Sandbox: A Campaign Setting. I'm not sure why, but after working on Army Ants for nigh on 20 years, I finally fully understand the world; the whole thing is clearly set out in my head. Not sure where this sudden epiphany came from, but it's right there. I'll keep jamming as much of it into little booklets as I can.
Talk About Cutting it Close!
Resolute: the Splintered Realm is now posted to RPGNow! I uploaded it at 11:59 pm... so I made my deadline by exactly 1 minute. Whew.
I'm off to bed. Let me know what you think.
Mike
I'm off to bed. Let me know what you think.
Mike
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sandbox Inspiration
I forgot to mention one of the key sources of inspiration to get back into the saddle with Army Ants- sandbox gaming! I’ve been following a number of discussions/blogs on sandbox gaming, and it got me thinking about Army Ants- and how you could run a sandbox campaign in a literal sandbox!
I knocked out a few pages of notes a few weeks ago on how this would work, and ended up loving it. Sandbox style play lends itself quite well to the Resolute ruleset, seeing as the ability to wing a lot of stuff on the fly is one of the strengths of Resolute. A lay-over of Army Ants onto the Resolute rules was very simple. I decided to even further streamline the rules, so when you take a look at the final rules for Army Ants and the final rules for The Splintered Realm, you’ll see that the fantasy rules are more granular and crunchy, while the Army Ants rules are more sparse and direct. Seeing as the world of Army Ants has fewer opportunities to boost abilities (no potions, magical items, or classic casters), I was more comfortable working out a number of situations where you’d get a modifier using shifts (straight up bonuses to the ability) rather than boosts (wherein you increase the CP value, and re-calibrate the rating as a result).
I know that the rules for Army Ants are breezy, so I wanted to let you know a few things in case you had questions after looking the rules over:
1. Specialties are gone. Okay, they’re gone from the core rules- everyone is a grunt. They are NOT gone from the game. One of the first expansions will be an Ant Forces book that will give a starter group of specialties and rules for rank and promotion. These things are central to how I see the game, but they didn’t fit in the core rules as it played out. I had four specialties for inclusion in the core rules, but I cut these in favor of an introductory adventure. It’s okay if everyone is a grunt for the first few game sessions; it’s not okay if you have nothing to do, or the referee has no idea how to design a quick mission. That was a higher priority.
2. Moxy is the Army Ants version of Resolve. Resolve is a much more complex and multi-faceted ability; moxy is simpler and will ultimately be used in different ways. This really reflects the world better, too- in fantasy gaming, your ability to persevere and overcome adversity through willpower is what makes you a hero; in the world of the army ants, you just have to have a set of brass ones and go for it. The differences in the two abilities and how they ultimately play out over character growth are important differences in the two games themselves.
3. The format of the core rules (something I see primarily as an 8-page micro book assembled from one sheet of paper) will be the standard for the system. This gives me a very distinct design limitation; my hard cap is right around 2000 words. This is enough to fully explore one aspect of the world of the ants, and that’s perfect. I have had ideas for YEARS for expansions that didn’t really justify a longer book (over 5000 words) and which didn’t fit nicely together with other, comparable ideas. This format meets all of the needs for the game at once. Right off the bat, I know I want to do a lifepath character generator built around boot camp, a book on the wasp empire, one on the sandbox, one on mysticism and the underground city of potato bugs, and one on the Army Ant version of the Vietnam War. Ultimately, I’ll be working out a vehicles book and a technology book. Somewhere along the way I’ll put out a referee’s guide. Each of these has a different flavor and will allow me to build the game slowly over time; and the foundation I have in place right now is exactly what it needs to be to make that happen.
Needless to say, I don’t see me getting bored!
I knocked out a few pages of notes a few weeks ago on how this would work, and ended up loving it. Sandbox style play lends itself quite well to the Resolute ruleset, seeing as the ability to wing a lot of stuff on the fly is one of the strengths of Resolute. A lay-over of Army Ants onto the Resolute rules was very simple. I decided to even further streamline the rules, so when you take a look at the final rules for Army Ants and the final rules for The Splintered Realm, you’ll see that the fantasy rules are more granular and crunchy, while the Army Ants rules are more sparse and direct. Seeing as the world of Army Ants has fewer opportunities to boost abilities (no potions, magical items, or classic casters), I was more comfortable working out a number of situations where you’d get a modifier using shifts (straight up bonuses to the ability) rather than boosts (wherein you increase the CP value, and re-calibrate the rating as a result).
I know that the rules for Army Ants are breezy, so I wanted to let you know a few things in case you had questions after looking the rules over:
1. Specialties are gone. Okay, they’re gone from the core rules- everyone is a grunt. They are NOT gone from the game. One of the first expansions will be an Ant Forces book that will give a starter group of specialties and rules for rank and promotion. These things are central to how I see the game, but they didn’t fit in the core rules as it played out. I had four specialties for inclusion in the core rules, but I cut these in favor of an introductory adventure. It’s okay if everyone is a grunt for the first few game sessions; it’s not okay if you have nothing to do, or the referee has no idea how to design a quick mission. That was a higher priority.
2. Moxy is the Army Ants version of Resolve. Resolve is a much more complex and multi-faceted ability; moxy is simpler and will ultimately be used in different ways. This really reflects the world better, too- in fantasy gaming, your ability to persevere and overcome adversity through willpower is what makes you a hero; in the world of the army ants, you just have to have a set of brass ones and go for it. The differences in the two abilities and how they ultimately play out over character growth are important differences in the two games themselves.
3. The format of the core rules (something I see primarily as an 8-page micro book assembled from one sheet of paper) will be the standard for the system. This gives me a very distinct design limitation; my hard cap is right around 2000 words. This is enough to fully explore one aspect of the world of the ants, and that’s perfect. I have had ideas for YEARS for expansions that didn’t really justify a longer book (over 5000 words) and which didn’t fit nicely together with other, comparable ideas. This format meets all of the needs for the game at once. Right off the bat, I know I want to do a lifepath character generator built around boot camp, a book on the wasp empire, one on the sandbox, one on mysticism and the underground city of potato bugs, and one on the Army Ant version of the Vietnam War. Ultimately, I’ll be working out a vehicles book and a technology book. Somewhere along the way I’ll put out a referee’s guide. Each of these has a different flavor and will allow me to build the game slowly over time; and the foundation I have in place right now is exactly what it needs to be to make that happen.
Needless to say, I don’t see me getting bored!
The Army Ants March Again!
In doing the final edits for Resolute, and in keeping up with what's going on in pdf publishing, I hit the perfect storm of a few things:
1. I wanted to keep an 'introductory' rules-lite version of Resolute out there. I wanted something that worked like a microlite version, but slightly more well defined.
2. I had been getting a hankering to work on Army Ants again.
3. Weird West came out, and the concept for the printable book blew my mind.
I put all three together, and ended up with Michael T. Desing's Army Ants, the Resolute Edition Core Rules... here's my press release info:
The little game of big military insect adventure is ready to rock your world! This streamlined game uses the popular Resolute game engine (based on 2D6 + ability) to resolve all situations. This core rulebook includes rules for making an ant grunt, rules for how to resolve common situations, and an introductory adventure to get you started right away.
Your download includes both an e-book reader version, and a mini-print edition. With the mini-print edition, you can print out the entire game on a single sheet of paper (double sided), cut it in half and fold it together for a pocket-sized edition to share with your friends! The mini-print edition is 4.25”x5.5”.
Let me know what you think. I adore it, and I hope you do too!
1. I wanted to keep an 'introductory' rules-lite version of Resolute out there. I wanted something that worked like a microlite version, but slightly more well defined.
2. I had been getting a hankering to work on Army Ants again.
3. Weird West came out, and the concept for the printable book blew my mind.
I put all three together, and ended up with Michael T. Desing's Army Ants, the Resolute Edition Core Rules... here's my press release info:
The little game of big military insect adventure is ready to rock your world! This streamlined game uses the popular Resolute game engine (based on 2D6 + ability) to resolve all situations. This core rulebook includes rules for making an ant grunt, rules for how to resolve common situations, and an introductory adventure to get you started right away.
Your download includes both an e-book reader version, and a mini-print edition. With the mini-print edition, you can print out the entire game on a single sheet of paper (double sided), cut it in half and fold it together for a pocket-sized edition to share with your friends! The mini-print edition is 4.25”x5.5”.
Let me know what you think. I adore it, and I hope you do too!
Friday, May 20, 2011
Build Strategy: Scouts
Scouts use stealth; this is their prime purpose. Although nothing in the rules says that scouts have to approach the archetype as a ranged attacker, the way stealth works creates a situation that benefits the ranged scout over the melee scout. Since stealth automatically drops when you enter melee with a foe, you will only see the benefit on the first turn you take; as a ranged attacker, you can continue to take bonuses from your stealth over time. I’m going to assume that you are building a missile-using scout.
• Arms. You’ll want to put some points here, and tailor this to maximize your missile weapons rating, letting both armor and melee slide. Look carefully at the break points for tailoring abilities; for example, the bump from arms +2 to arms +3 is only 1 point, but this allows you to tailor arms +1, meaning that as far as your missile weapon goes, you effectively see a +2 swing… the same is true at the break point between +4 and +5, and between +6 and +7; at +6, you can have up to +8 in your missile rating, but at +7 you can have +10. This is a relatively minor investment (16 CPs) to get what is, in effect, an ability worth 30 CPs.
• Evade is helpful, and a few points will go a long way when synergized with stealth. You can make a modest investment here and see big rewards, as long as you don’t get into melee combat with a foe.
• Intuition. Your stealth is going to often mean that you end up, well, scouting for your team. As such, you will need intuition to pick up the details and make sure you get things right. Additionally, being able to go first allows you to make better decisions about using your stealth and getting into tactical positions.
• Between might and precision, there’s no choice; it’s precision all the way. You could conceivably build a scout who uses thrown weapons in place of missile weapons, but the return just isn’t worth it to have the better utility of might; let’s do the math. You invest 16 CPs to get arms +7 (tailored to +10 in either melee or missile), and you invest 16 CPs to get either might or precision +7. With a thrown weapon, you have a range of 7 units (based on your might); with a missile weapon like a bow, you have a range of 17 units (precision + weapon rating)! You can hit someone up to 170’ away without taking a penalty to your attack roll. That’s crazy good. Against a foe with normal movement, this guarantees you 3 attacks before the target can even get in melee range, and then the target takes a penalty on its attack in the fourth round; if you’ve had your stealth up and you’ve done a good job hiding, you’ve just dished out a LOT of damage to that charging foe.
• Stealth. This is your signature ability, and you have to make the investment in it. You see all manner of benefits from stealth; your foes can’t see you, you get bonuses to attack rolls, you get bonuses to evade rolls; it’s a very powerful ability. You’ll never regret a high investment in stealth. Putting over 1/3 of your total CPs into stealth is not beyond reason, and is probably a good guide. At 30 CPs, you should have at least stealth +5 (9 CPs), and you can justify stealth +6 (12 CPs). In fact, you could be very aggressive, investing at level (so 15 CPs in stealth when you are built on 30 CPs), knowing that when you get to 32 CPs overall, you will put a 16th CP in stealth to get it to +7.
• Resolve may be useful in a pinch, but generally speaking, you don’t have as many options as magicians (for example), nor are you expected to save the team (like disciples), so you can afford to skimp some here.
• Other abilities and applications: Since scouts don’t need as many abilities as other heroes, they have some points available to pick up some other needs in the team. It’s always nice to have someone with burglary (and since you are going to be the point man anyway, it could be nice to detect that trap before you walk into it)… these give you a chance to further define your scout. A scout who takes burglary is far different in approach from one who takes nature (linked to intuition).
• Arms. You’ll want to put some points here, and tailor this to maximize your missile weapons rating, letting both armor and melee slide. Look carefully at the break points for tailoring abilities; for example, the bump from arms +2 to arms +3 is only 1 point, but this allows you to tailor arms +1, meaning that as far as your missile weapon goes, you effectively see a +2 swing… the same is true at the break point between +4 and +5, and between +6 and +7; at +6, you can have up to +8 in your missile rating, but at +7 you can have +10. This is a relatively minor investment (16 CPs) to get what is, in effect, an ability worth 30 CPs.
• Evade is helpful, and a few points will go a long way when synergized with stealth. You can make a modest investment here and see big rewards, as long as you don’t get into melee combat with a foe.
• Intuition. Your stealth is going to often mean that you end up, well, scouting for your team. As such, you will need intuition to pick up the details and make sure you get things right. Additionally, being able to go first allows you to make better decisions about using your stealth and getting into tactical positions.
• Between might and precision, there’s no choice; it’s precision all the way. You could conceivably build a scout who uses thrown weapons in place of missile weapons, but the return just isn’t worth it to have the better utility of might; let’s do the math. You invest 16 CPs to get arms +7 (tailored to +10 in either melee or missile), and you invest 16 CPs to get either might or precision +7. With a thrown weapon, you have a range of 7 units (based on your might); with a missile weapon like a bow, you have a range of 17 units (precision + weapon rating)! You can hit someone up to 170’ away without taking a penalty to your attack roll. That’s crazy good. Against a foe with normal movement, this guarantees you 3 attacks before the target can even get in melee range, and then the target takes a penalty on its attack in the fourth round; if you’ve had your stealth up and you’ve done a good job hiding, you’ve just dished out a LOT of damage to that charging foe.
• Stealth. This is your signature ability, and you have to make the investment in it. You see all manner of benefits from stealth; your foes can’t see you, you get bonuses to attack rolls, you get bonuses to evade rolls; it’s a very powerful ability. You’ll never regret a high investment in stealth. Putting over 1/3 of your total CPs into stealth is not beyond reason, and is probably a good guide. At 30 CPs, you should have at least stealth +5 (9 CPs), and you can justify stealth +6 (12 CPs). In fact, you could be very aggressive, investing at level (so 15 CPs in stealth when you are built on 30 CPs), knowing that when you get to 32 CPs overall, you will put a 16th CP in stealth to get it to +7.
• Resolve may be useful in a pinch, but generally speaking, you don’t have as many options as magicians (for example), nor are you expected to save the team (like disciples), so you can afford to skimp some here.
• Other abilities and applications: Since scouts don’t need as many abilities as other heroes, they have some points available to pick up some other needs in the team. It’s always nice to have someone with burglary (and since you are going to be the point man anyway, it could be nice to detect that trap before you walk into it)… these give you a chance to further define your scout. A scout who takes burglary is far different in approach from one who takes nature (linked to intuition).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)