Roll20 Sheet updated

The new version of the Roll20 character sheet is up, I pushed the code to github and thought it might take a couple weeks but they pushed it right away and so I haven't had a lot of time to write up a good blog post on the subject.  My idea to publish something on the Beacon Blog weekly is not going to happen and although I am hoping to meet a monthly schedule, honestly I'm pretty happy with the pace of the playtesting and the recent changes to the sheet.  No reason to complain about that.

The new sheet has a bunch of changes.  It looks prettier with a less crowded layout and more colour.  I incorporated the Beacon logo colours into the page headers and the repeating list controls.  I cleaned up the fonts, added a new Notes tab and moved spellboox to the end of the sheet. I put in a minimum and maximum width for the sheet so it doesn't compress or expand and throw off the labeling. 

I added in a lot more fields for notes. I found personally that one or two large text boxes on a roll20 sheet does not work like a paper sheet where you can write little notes everywhere.  Having more smaller boxes lets you organize better and keep smaller bits of info easier to read.  I also put in some boxes for tracking conditions like a sickness or if your character is encumbered.

Aside from those cosmetic type changes I fixed an issue where chainmail was not the right AC and where wearing heavy armour would remove dexterity penalties and not just dexterity bonuses.  I also fixed some of the weapon damage calculations and separated out attack bonuses and damage bonuses so you could model a spear that gives damage bonus but actually have an attack penalty.  This makes customizing weapons much more flexible.  I moved a lot of the weapons and armour detail into expandable sections that players can hide away most of the time, and I added note fields.  I also fixed the maximum range calculations on ranged weapons so they display now.  I also added in a repeating section for companions and henchmen where players can note many common attributes for a hired hand or their apprentice or animal companion.  I also rebranded/recalculated the coin totals to be in silver as well as companion wages.  Beacon is a Silver standard game so that fits better with the theme and reminds everyone to scale down appropriately.

The biggest change was adding encumbrance/inventory system.  The encumbrance system was hard to sort out because it has to be both simple and flexible but also contain a good amount of automation or it will never get used.  The last version of the sheet had a simple spot for players to keep track of their carried load and did the strength calculation for them.  This NEVER got used.  Players just won't use a system that requires even this level of manual bookkeeping and I get that.  Either its just not their thing or they do like to do it but get caught up in something else and then the tally gets messed up over time anyway.  I decided what I would try was to do as much as possible in the sheet, but not sweat the small stuff which resulted in a hybrid system where I automated as much as I could but added in namable 'container' items with a load value that would store all the odds and ends.

What that resulted in was four interworking systems to track encumbrance: consumables, combat, coins and item/containers. Encumbrance for weapons and armour is calculated from equipped types, as are the most common consumables like rations and torches, tracking coin weights was already implemented, and finally these large items/containers would manage everything else.  My view of this is that the more opt-in you automate the more likely the system will get used so having players just focused on keeping track of large items and packs and sacks in a little widget was the perfect level of interaction.  You can always ignore the whole encumbrance system but I'm finding more and more that it powers that exploration vibe I like. 

The weapons and armour opt-in to the encumbrance system by default when you add the item row and you can uncheck them if you need to drop them.  Armour has different encumbrance if its work vs carried and the sheet can track that.  You can add as many items and containers as you like and they have both inventory and note text boxes as well as a checkbox if you decide to drop one somewhere.  The rows of small item trackers have a location field so you can list what container they are in etc.  All in all I think it adds a lot to the game having this in the sheet.

I'm pretty excited to see how this will work in game, it seems like the right handshake between automation and player participation in the system.  Its also a lot prettier than it was before.

November update

Still running twice weekly games and having a good time.  Roll20 is working well for this kind of campaign and the sheets are working as is keeping various maps in play for overland travel, dungeon exploration and managing handouts.

In the playtest some players are starting to hit level 4 as they explore and fight their way across the wilds.  I think that the rate of advancement is about perfect, combats are averaging about 3-4 encounters and around 250-300XP per six player session and they are spending a good amount of treasure to top up to next level when they return to town.  It will be interesting to see how this shapes up as they hit the mid levels 5-7 and see if it still seems to track.  

The overland map is expanding outward as they explore and looks like this now:

The northern wilds

Using the VTT features in roll20 is great although I wish I could use a tablet or something to do the live drawing part since using a mouse with their tools is very obtuse.  The players are able to add annotations to the maps and I am using copy/paste to lay out the terrain icons which works well.  In Roll20 the DM needs to manage the map I think although I would love if the players did take on more mapping and notetaking.

I'm currently working on the 7.4 rule update which is a bunch of minor tweaks and fixes more than any big changes.  Still slowly updating the spell descriptions to make them more skill facing and still working on more challenging monsters.  One player bought a bunch of war dogs and we quickly realized that adding 2HD for trained animals was too much, so that buff got scaled back to 1HD.

I'm tightening up the language around combat round actions a bit, each round you get an attack action and a maneuver or two maneuvers.  

Attack actions are: 

• weapon attacks;
• aiming;
• casting spells;
• defense.  

I specifically listed Aim as an attack action since PCs with multiple attacks could then use an attack to take aim if they wanted.  I also called out the Defense action here which makes it more clear how that works to provide AC bonus.   

Maneuver actions are: 

• movement of various kinds;
• manipulating items;
• swapping gear;
• assist;
• or other miscellaneous actions.  

The assist action is new here and I see this as a replacement for things like flanking or other ways to give another player advantage and still leverage the initiative system.  The way announcing actions and movement happens it is too hard for players to rely on combat positions for bonuses so having this action will mitigate that I hope.  It also lets other players set up surprise attacks for rogues which would let them act sooner in the round than if they had to set themselves up.  These are not really changes so much as clarifications to existing mechanics and hopefully its all a lot more clear for those reading the rules now.

I also formalized overland travel and rest around the 4 hour "watch" period, generally rolling for an encounter and giving a travel description for each 4 hour period.  I standardized the journey encounter rolls to a d6 where 1 is an encounter on the relevant table and 6 is a 'character moment' where a PC will give some information about themselves either in a story or in interaction.  I like that idea since it gives some sense of time and getting to know one another on overland treks.  Players were kind of hesitant at first but since they know its coming up they are starting to warm to the idea and prepare things for it.  I like it a lot, especially since its an exploration game and I am discouraging long backstories at character creation.  I also added a petite rest because I noticed when they are resting players fall into the idea of first and second watch pretty quickly but it was a bit hard on PCs who only had minor wounds as they usually got tapped to keep watch.  I decided to give PCs who only rest for 4 hours a small HP recovery equal to their level.  I also want to make sure that PCs who didn't get at least 4 hours rest in a day would have disadvantage until they did.

No firm date on when I push this latest update out, but it will be soon.

Changes to the Rogue and to Spells

Updated beacon rules posted.  This is version 7.3 and has a bunch of changes.

Quick summary of some changes:

• Add reactions,
• Static weapon damage,
• Dwarves get an initiative penalty, 
• Halflings can't use heavy weapons,
• Added some weapon and armour limits directly to the classes,

OK that last one needs some explanation.  Ten years ago I thought it was cool to allow all classes to use all kinds of armour and weapons and then build in complex feedback systems to balance the classes so you didn't have plate mail enchanters running around waving dual great axes.  So one hand gives and the other takes it away.  Now I think its way better to just limit the classes. Its a lite rules game, so there's no time for this kind of backroom shenanigans.  This stuff should be as clear and simple as possible.  So going forward you will see even more of a shift away from some of the old mechanics to use more streamlined stuff.  Keep this in mind when I redo movement and range in the future.  I'll probably do a whole post on how I think its time to relax some of the design that is there just for compatibility with 'standard' D20 material.  There's just so much out there now its not really needed anymore.  

• Merged the Rogue and the Non-class class,

One of my players in the play-test said, "Rogues should have the most skills".  I thought about that and I decided that they were probably right.  Instead of having the unclassed character option, I should just give rogues more skills that they can spend on doing tricky stuff.  Climbing-  physical skill, sneaking - subterfuge, disarm traps - crafting etc.  This solves a long standing problem of what to do with the horrible "non - classed" class which was always needed but never used.  Merging these two classes means you can now be a sneaky merchant or a backstabbing assassin, or even a tricky sage type pretty easily in the game by choosing a rogue class.  In return I've also changed the equally terrible rogue surprise attack mechanic to be a simple "if you have advantage add your subterfuge to the damage", a blend of 5th edition and Microlight mechanics.  Hopefully this works as well as it looks on paper.   Its too bad really because I had finally resolved to rename the non-classed class to "Journeyman".  This does leave room for a third non magic class.  I was thinking of a ranger type but, Druids might become jealous and recently I had the idea some kind of Tinker might be more appropriate.

• Arcane casters get a new spell every level,
• Reworked a lot of the level 1-3 spells.

The other thing I've decided to do is to rework all the spells and bring skill points into a more prominent role for spell effect.  One of the big changes is that many of the spells with scaling effects are based on caster level and I am working on making these rather be skill based instead.  This means there is actually a reason for a cleric to pump points into Communication and for Enchanters to increase their Subterfuge or Knowledge skills.  I will try to base these changes on the nature of the spells themselves but obviously the classes will have more spells that use their 'primary' skills than others.  All arcane casters will benefit from having higher Knowledge, but Druids will benefit from having higher Survival as well.  I think the effect of this will be casters will be more diverse, even within the same class, and it will really add value to the skills.

There's a bunch of other stuff too.  Yes I am changing a lot more than I intended to change at the beginning of this year.  The old game was pretty crap actually... huzzah!

Initiative and Damage Changes

So the play testing has been going very well and the players seem to agree that the new initiative system is very good and makes for some interesting and dynamic combats.  Using the Mike Mearls "Greyhawk" system of declaring actions and using that to roll lowest on different dice creates interesting scenarios where players weigh their need to act faster or take more time to move into advantage.  Having initiative every round makes the combats more dynamic and players are reacting to the events rather than just waiting out their turns.  Monsters have fled battle and been caught fleeing or fled successfully based on their initiative rolls over a couple rounds.  Its all been pretty good.

There are a couple things I want to add to lean into this concept even more.  I want to add a rule that if you are holding your action you can REACT to an opponents attack if they are later in initiative order.  You roll a 3 to cast a spell and the opposing wizard rolls a 6, you can cast your spell and hope to stop them or you can hold your action and try to counter their spell.  This is a more interesting choice I think.  Same as blocking, if your quick enough you can move to intercept an opponents attack and block it, saving the poor halfling rogue from being impaled on the bad guys spear.

The block and counter-spell actions have been in the Beacon rules since the beginning but are rarely used.  I think because they required you state your intention at the start of the round and forgo your attack, players thought they were both less fun and harder to execute.  In any system where you have to choose to attack or try some mitigating action, you are usually going to attack since its the simpler option and it has a net effect of taking out your opponents and ending the combat.  However in a specific instance it may be better to react to mitigate damage and so when you see those situations and can react to them its pretty fun.  You are now PLAYING the game.  I think it much more likely you will choose a block or counter-spell to interrupt an opponents action than it would be to declare that as your action at start of a round.  It also means that blocking or countering a spell cannot happen unless you have initiative, which I think is a good limiter to those actions and so they can be a bit more powerful than they might otherwise be if they were just regular actions.  I might look for other reactions to add as well, things to make the combat flow more fun, it seems to be a natural fit for this initiative system to have these type of reactions.

However not all is sweet in our delicious candy-land.  The other side of this initiative system is that it means that you are rolling three times in combat for every attack and this is causing things to go slower.  Rolling lots of dice is fun but also slows down the game.  Picking out dice and adding up the results is slow and so usually games will try to get rid of as many rolls as possible.  They usually start with initiative and I get that, but I think that's the wrong approach since initiative is such a great tool for modeling combat.  Why get rid of the good and interesting rolls where luck really does play a huge part?  I would rather get rid of the other side of things and get rid of the damage rolls, and in fact that's what I'm going to do.  

Beacon already has simplified damage for weapons, based on if they are light or heavy, and I think its time to go even further and just set the damage for those weapon types.  My initial thought is you would take the middle number and say its 3 points for light weapon and 4 for a heavy weapon and critical hits will always do double that, so 6 and 8 respectively (and +1 for two handed heavy weapons).  This takes out a whole roll and makes things resolve faster, and you still add all the STR and fighter damage bonuses etc. so the numbers will work out the same as they do now.  I'm not sure what to do with monsters at this point, although the obvious thing is to take half their HD type as the base damage amount.  Monsters in combat need some other attention in any case.

I might in the future look at trying some kind of system where I'd lower the amount of set damage and use the value on the to-hit roll to determine how much damage is done.  For example you roll 3 points higher than the target AC so you would do 3 with a light weapon and 3+1 with a heavy weapon (plus all the other damage bonuses).  This might work but it would need some thought to model that out without breaking the game, since you can roll a LOT higher than the required to hit in some cases, and that number goes up the higher the character levels so it would have a real scaling effect.  It would also really impact low AC monsters (and PCs) disproportionately which would be bad.  Also it would be a lot of adding stuff up which is doable, but again takes time.  If you know your hit is going to do 3+2 damage unless you crit that's easy to keep track of.  If you need to ask the GM the specific AC and calculate it multiple times in a fight, or Hermes for-fend, make the poor GM do all the damage calculations for the combat, then obviously not so much joy.

So just the fixed damage for now.

Some bigger changes

Posting another update to the v7 rules.  You can get it on the Get Beacon page using the preview rules link (is stamped version 7.2).  I was trying to get this out to fix some issues with STR bonus for melee weapon damage but I also wound up making some pretty big changes, again based on the on going play-testing.  A bunch of stuff in this one but here is a summary of the changes:

• The 'biggest' change is also the smallest, Clerics will use their CHA bonus for casting divine spells.  I thought that was a really good idea since it makes sense that divine magic comes from personality and not smarts and also CHA was the odd one out with little mechanical effect hanging off it.
• Beastmen will be able to become clerics but they will also get a -2 CHA as a racial modifier.  I think this balances the extra HP but we will see.  I hated having Beastmen so limited to classes that I considered cutting them out, but I think this might work and give some more options while not inadvertently making them the go to race for clerics.  They still can't use arcane magics but everyone should be able to have a spiritual life.
• I added in the encumbrance rules but I dropped the numbers a bit and changed the 'stone' to 'weight' as a custom unit of bulk.  Average PC can carry 6 weight of stuff and not the 10stone/100lb situation I was talking about before.  I also put in a table of common weights which should make it simple to track.  This hopefully will remove any cultural/realism overhead but accomplish the same thing as the stone system.
• Made some additional balance changes to creature ACs, spell descriptions etc.
• Changes to costs of some items, notably hirelings, rations and ammo.
• I changed the way taking damage works.  Now you cannot choose to take STR damage instead of HP.  Casters can  however choose to spend STR instead of HP for spells.

So that last two obviously are obviously pretty big but I think that the system of choosing STR vs hp was not working at all and some players were burning out their STR and others were not and falling unconscious all based on how they saw the situation instead of arising from the situation.  I think this rule was totally destroying the feeling of immediate danger in combat and was forcing players to meta game at exactly the wrong moments.  It also was super confusing to those familiar with other d20 systems and it broke the whole low levels is deadly vibe I want the game to have.  Now you hit 0 and then the damage spills over to STR as you would expect.  

HOWEVER I don't want to entirely give up on the concept of pushing limits that the rule was supposed to foster so I also changed the casting rules allowing casters to choose to use their STR points for spells.  I think this accomplishes the same thing I wanted to have with the old rule but without the other bad effects.  It does give casters more spell power but the price is pretty high.  The new rules for STR damage conditions are still in place so casters using these points pay a high price with long recovery times and conditions.  Also since a critical miss or other situation could zap your STR unexpectedly using it for spells can be pretty dangerous, so this presents an interesting decision mechanic.  I may at some point figure out a feat for fighters to tap into this STR pool somehow for the same reasons.  SO I think that in the original rules the idea was good, but the implementation and the costing was bad.  We will see how this works out.

 

July Update

Been a little while since the last post, but I'm unrepentant.  The play-tests have been going well and the players seem to be enjoying the game.  They also have flushed out some issues which is fantastic.  I have made corrections in the Roll20 character-sheet and made some additional adjustments to the version 7 draft which I updated and you can get here.

Most of the changes I have been makings are in purple text for now so the play-testers can find them easier, but here's a summary of the bigger things:

Melee weapon damage now includes the full STR bonus and two handed weapons get a +1 to damage.  I changed this from a practicality perspective because calculating half bonus is a pain in the ass and two-handed weapons were probably too powerful compared to one handed ones.  The +1 is good enough I believe.

I put in some conditions for taking various amounts of Stat damage, the system allows you to not use HP and instead take STR damage, and I like that idea since it allows for some decision making trade offs when a character wants to push themselves.  However now that Stat damage heals faster, a lot of players were using their STR as a HP heat sink in fights and then expecting to just heal up in downtime between sessions.  I didn't like this since it makes a HUGE difference for low level characters to soak up damage. So to balance things again I put in some conditions when you take various amounts of STR damage. 

Characters who have taken 2 or more STR damage cannot DASH and can only move once per round or half speed overland. A character taking 4 or more points of STR damage in one round are in Shock until they have had a Rest or proper attention. Characters in Shock are at disadvantage on all rolls. A character having 6 or more points of STR damage are in considerable and debilitating pain. They cannot take any actions unless they make a DC 12 Physical save to overcome the pain.

I have been toying with the idea of making these limits slightly different, perhaps use character level so that the available buffer grows along with HP, but I like this as a test and its a good way to include conditions which is something I wanted to do anyway.

I also formalized the time a little bit and fixed the definitions for turns vs rounds etc.  Some of this is to pave the way for fixing the spell descriptions and to add in a few exploration/resource rules.  Also I added in some rules for the weapon durability and adjusted the critical tables for that.  I like it and its pretty simple to track I believe, we'll see what the players think.

The bear and the maiden fair

The second play-test went well and there was much excitement to be had.  There were five players this time, two returning players and three new players.  The new players played an elf cleric and two dwarven brothers, a rogue and a fighter.  The new players arrived in the town (also known as The Town) and immediately met up with two of the veterans from the last session, a druid and a craftsman, who were looking for able bodies to venture back into the wilderness.  The new group set out and spend a lovely morning crossing the river ford and venturing up the old trail towards the hilltop lookout they had marked on their map.  A few miles up the path they spotted some carrion birds in the sky and discovered the bodies of a woodsman pierced with crude spears and the body of a small reptilian biped who appeared to have been the remains of a combat some days past.  After investigating, they continued along the trail and came to the base of the hills where they realized that they had come across the territory of a old One eye, a large grizzly bear.  The rogue slunk ahead to see what they were dealing with but botched his sneak and the bear came chasing after him.   I described the large and powerful bear charging towards them and the party chose to stand their their ground eager for a scrap.

The party landed a good number of blows on the bear and had it flanked so they were getting advantage on their attacks, however when the bear landed a hit it was almost always enough to take out a PC. In 4-5 rounds the bear was badly wounded but there were three characters on the ground. At this point the cleric rushed to aid them so they would not bleed out and die and the brave craftsman engaged with the bear chose to lead it away down the path with yells and taunts. He knew he was outmatched but nevertheless he succeeded in luring the bear away form the clearing and managed to last one more round before being mauled to death. While the enraged bear was chewing on the brave hero, the cleric dragged the three unconscious companions into the nearby bear-cave and pulled down the rocks, dirt and branches blocking off the entrance.  Then she ran as fast as she could back to town.

Artist rendition of the beast.

Once back in the town the cleric looked for someone to help her rescue her friends and found a halfling cleric who agreed to return with her to the bear cave in the morning.  She rested in the inn and regained her HP, and in the morning she led her new companion back and they quietly snuck into the clearing and made their way to the cave, avoiding the wounded bear they could still hear off in the woods.  They carefully made an opening and once inside they sealed it off again and then turned to healing their companions.  The reunited party was still quite hurt and decided to spend the rest of the day in the stinky bear cave. They ate and slept listening as the confused animal clawed at the branches and rocks outside.

The next day they quietly moved the rocks and debris blocking them in and went searching for the wounded bear.  While they had managed to recover most of their HP,  two of them were still badly hurt (-3 STR).  They managed to surprise the wounded bear, and after a short but tense battle they felled the beast.  They skinned the bear and then returned to the trail to find the body of their fallen comrade.  They found his remains and proceeded to bury him by the trail side.  Good words were said and then the party divided up his belongings as is the way of the wilds.  The party continued another mile down the path and finally saw the high bluffs of the lookout spot on their map, however they also saw it was crowned with a old stone fort and there were figures moving around it.  They decided they were not ready for another encounter so soon and so returned to town to prepare for a later return.

This was a good session and everyone seemed to have a good time, even with the beatings and the untimely death.  The consensus was that they realized they had bit off more then they could chew but the eventual victory and the heroics were entertaining anyway.  The initiative system seemed to be well received and again players seemed to get the idea right away.  Some of the players had played long ago using the phased combat and they said they remembered it as confusing, so this was a validation that its better now.  Also the skill system seems to be pretty understandable to new players as they quickly picked up which stat and skill combinations might apply to their actions.  I didn't have any incidents where a player didn't think they would be able to attempt an action e.g. investigate the combat scene, hide in the bushes, track a bear... but they did see quickly that they would be more effective at some actions than others so that is really good in my books.  I flushed out a few more places where the new rules are not documented consistently and will be putting up a 7.1 version of the PDF pretty soon to deal with that.

Good fun and can't wait to play again.

Four Against the North

So the first play-test went pretty well and we managed to get characters rolled up and a quick romp into the woods.  I'm choosing to run the game as a West-Marches style campaign where there is a safe town the adventurers sally froth from and there is the wild wilderness full of all manor of encounters to be met and dealt with.  I expect lots of death and seat of the pants escapes.

Rolling up the characters was fairly fast with more time spent getting the book downloaded then actually making the characters.  The rolling was quick and then some time was spent explaining the classes and races but it went pretty quickly. Then we rolled for staring money and players equipped their characters.  It all went off with little issue, although there was some initial confusion about the skills, especially how crafting would work.  I chalk that up to the word being used so much in video games, but it did bring up a good point related to if crafting could be used to make potions.  

I have highlighted Potions as something I wanted to look into in the next release since up till now they were just the Divine version of scrolls, a way to make temporary magic items from spells, and not too thought out.  I am leaning toward the idea of making potions recipe based instead

The town

of spell based which would be another thing crafting could be useful for.  In the past I've really only used a handful of potions, like healing, invisibility, resistance etc and those don't really map directly to any one spell so treating them like a magic item instead of like a liquid scroll seems like a good move.  I would put a few recipes in the rules, made up of monster and rare plant components as well as having spells cast on them and so forth.  I think that would be good fun.

Anyway once characters were made I dumped them into a wagon heading into town (hehe) and had the driver explain that only crazy people came here to make their fortunes.  He also said that there was a river to the north and everything over that river was the wild lands.  They talked to some local people to find out some basic information and then they headed out.  Pretty quickly they had an encounter with 3 wolves (2 HD d6 AC14) and we got to test the new initiative rules.  I thought they worked pretty well, in the first round the wolves attacked first (D6) and the party did not roll very well I was worried that the wolves might have been too powerful for them.  Next round the wolves went last and the Druid managed to get off an entanglement spell that dropped their AC from 14 to 8 and the others got in a few good licks.  Again the wolves rolled poorly for initiative and the party was able to finish them off.  The last round saw a critical hit and a very solid damage roll so the battle ended on a high note although the party was down quite a few HP.  It was getting late and so they returned to town to recover.

I know that a lot of people will get worried about rolling initiative every round and thnk it takes too long, but I really enjoy the dynamic nature of these combats as fortunes do change and players are reacting to that as opposed to knowing which order they will act in for the whole combat.   The extra benefit of using the Mike Mearles idea of action based initiative was people caught on right away instead of the old phased combat approach which was always a bit hard to explain to players.  I did come across an issue of omission that its not always clear if monsters are using heavy or light weapons in melee attacks and I think that I might just have monsters use their HD as their initiative roll, so the larger, more powerful they are the slower they are to react.  I like the idea of a wolf using a d6 but an Ogre using a d10 for their initiative roll.  I'll have to see how that works in practice.

So all in all a good session, looking forward to more to come.

Half a fence

I was going to make a post that talked about all the OSR blog goodies I have been reading lately, some pretty old stuff but also a lot of new ones.  I was going to do that because I was trying to illustrate what kinds of game play there was and so then illustrate what kinds of game play I wanted to focus on for Beacon.  I realized that there was a huge wall of these and there were so many great blog posts all discussing variations and slight degrees of separation in game play that I was never going to get my point across that way.  There is really a butt-load of good usable material out there if you want to tweak your game in just about any direction.  I really wanted to highlight some ideas on exploration style gaming and resource management and encumbrance.  I was going to point out arguments others had made both for and against how to model systems in play and I wanted to see if leveraging online tools changed some of those arguments.

The Fence

Also I have been building a fence and the thing about building a fence is that you need to finish it before its really useful.  I have three very impatient horses giving me reproachful looks every sunny day that fence isn't done.  The horses don't really care what research I've been doing or the day to day aspects of fence building, they just want to get out there.  I also cut the hell out of my hand last week which slowed me down for a few days and is probably an opportunity for a metaphor but screw that.  I'm pretty close to finishing it now and I think its probably better to just power though and let them play-test it.  If the horses wind up down the road then I'll know what to fix.

That's my polite way of saying I'm not sure about resource management design discussions right now but I do want to see how the new character-sheets work if I have the players keep track of items during play, something that is always hit and miss.  I also have read arguments against things like item durability which I need to try before I go any further with.  I have a group of willing play-testers raring to go and so we will play test and see if I need to come up with some clever rules for encumbrance and breaking weapons and for tracking stuff like food, water, and ammunition.  Also I still need to get that design statement hammered out so it has a bit more specificity than "I want the game to be fun and good".  There's a lot of fun good games out there.

Other than this, what have I actually changed recently?

I changed stat healing.  Beacon has a lot of focus on Stat healing because we have made HP a resource to prevent damage, so actual damage is borne in the bones as it were.  Consequently you need pretty formal rules how to deal with healing actual damage and it needs to be a lot more serious than HP recovery.  It used to be that the more damage you had the longer it took to recover each point.  If you were down -4 STR you needed to rest 4 days to get back to -3 then 3 days to -2 etc.  Years ago when I came up with that I thought this was a good way to make damage seem real and consequential, however in practice it just means more abstract non-play down time.  I changed it to a point per day, which is still pretty consequential, but it is much more in line with a week between adventures rather than multiple weeks or months and its also easier to deal with cases when you have to interrupt the healing halfway through.  The other change I made to offset to this is that you can't double up your healing on multiple stats at the same time.  So if you are down 3 STR and 2 MIND you would need to spend 5 days to recover instead of the previous 6 days it used to take, but its easier to interrupt this mid week.

I also updated spell casting costs.  I put in a rule that if you fail your spell casting roll you loose 1 HP in fatigue.  There was no original rule for this so the implication was you either lost all the points you spent or you lost none, and I would assume players would petition for the none option.  I like the idea of loosing some HP when casting even for a failure, as it reinforces the idea that magic is serious business.  I still really dislike the way magic in 4th and 5th edition D&D has become so mundane that you have wizards zapping away eldritch bolts like Tommy-guns and light spells being cheaper than bringing a lantern.  I thought of making it HP equal to the spell level so flubbing a 4th level spell would cost you 4 HP instead of 9, but that seems too high.  Losing one HP seems like a good starting point, and more if you fumble.  Critical misses still apply and I'll likely be making a pass over the critical tables to adjust for spell costs on failures and successes etc. I've been playing DCC which has some fun spell backfire stuff and I've recently been playing in a game using the 5th ed Hardcore rules and it has a pretty fun magical fumble table, both of these makes my spell fumbles seem a bit dull.   I've decided I want to spice that up a bit.

My dinner with Arnulf

The table was set so to speak with a dinner invitation from the young Lord of Red Towers, Erik Arnulf - youngest son of the Baron of the Westmarches.  It was delivered by a page who also instructed the party to please find some appropriate dress for the occasion.  Clothes were sought out, baths were had, and by the time of arrival the gang looked almost presentable enough for the table of a borderland military leader.  Kane was unable to attend as he had gone off in search of a hedge mage reputed to live in the nearby woods.

Other guests included the Captain of the Watch (the Lords right hand man apparently), the lord's personal abbot, and three dwarven merchants from the village of Baudoc Se (Bad Axe) which lies to the southeast.  The young Lord was a gracious host and although the table was not grandly set (he made mention that the silverware ordered in from Kingstown that spring had not arrived) the food was well prepared.  Dinner conversation revolved around the troubles of the plague to the north, the poor harvest and the exploits of the party in the recent weeks.  The Lord made mention that he was concerned that the exploits of a transient band of freebooters was a somewhat disrupting influence on his people and indicated that perhaps a more circumspect approach should be taken so not to incite farmers and common soldiers to leave their occupations and turn to adventuring.  Case in point that very afternoon had seen a hanging of three men whom had attempted to make their fortune through adventure - only to fall into petty banditry when they found themselves destitute.  The Lord also made mention of the need for reliable leaders to carve out holdings and manses in these dangerous south lands - for it was only through strength and order that the region could be maintained.  The dwarves agreed to this and conveyed their impressions on the state of the south road.  There was some implied friction between the young Lord and these merchants, the implication that outrageous prices were being charged for spirits and goods in these times of need sat heavy on the the table.  Also the abbot (a orthodox cleric with Ulgarite leanings) expressed his concern that Tim (a professed Ulgarite) had been seen in the company of the village priestess who in his opinion was uncomfortably lenient with church law and likely not an adherent to the teachings of Ulgar.

And so then Henril decided to channel Abbie Hoffman and spend the next morning trying to incite the townsfolk to revolt.  Much to the horror of his companions he began spending money like a boatload of sailors and actually handing out coins to people in the streets.  When the guards began to take notice he also attempted to hand them money and soon there were a great number of angry and confused soldiers fingering their crossbows and wondering exactly what they should be doing to keep the peace.  As the rest of the party returned with their supplies and gathered up Henril and headed out of the keep, a more devout gate-man leaned over to Brother Tim and suggested that they might not want to return to Red Towers any time soon.

On their way back to the monastery, they came across the badly mauled corpses and ruined wagons of the turnip farmers they had met before.  A careful study of the scene and they concluded that a manticore, possibly the very one they had run from in the cave depths, had killed these farmers.  With some trepidation they continued to the caves and made their way to the stairs leading up to the monastery.  They noticed that the barred doors to the Crypt was burst open and when they started to investigate the fallen bodies of the goblins and ferrits that they had killed some little while ago reanimated and attacked.  After a short battle they dispatched these zombies and made their way up into the monastery proper - examining the ruined courtyard and the empty hallways until they came across the chapel and the abbots office in behind.  There they found a series of scrolls outlining a history of the monastery and also a suit of plate armour with a gauntlet missing (substituted by a gauntlet from another suit of plate in fact).  They gathered up this armour and read some of the scrolls but as they left they wandered into an area where a un-restful spirit began to take shape and wildly throw objects around the room at them.  Soon they were fleeing from a hurricane of stone and broken furniture as they fled back though the abbots office (which got trashed) until Brother Tim finally managed to cast Turn Undead and drive the spirit back.  They fled back across the courtyard and with the knowledge they had gained form the scrolls found the old scriptorium and located the vault hidden behind it.  In that vault they discovered many ruined scrolls and books but also a ancient copy of the Trials of St.Ulthur and a treatise on hobgoblins.

Then they left to head back to the woods and decide what to do next.

Return to Hellmount Monastery

It was a short session but a fairly vigorous one.  After a brief rest to repair some armour, the gang headed back out to the old monastery hoping to discover more loot.  Along the way they met a small caravan of  farmers who had braved the roads with their meagre harvest, hoping to sell it at Red Towers.   Klyte, for that was indeed the name of Kane's mendicant retainer, made a point of stopping and asking the farmers some innocent questions about their hats and what sort of produce they had, an activity performed in such a way that the nervous farmers became quite terrified.  Who better than Henril to step in and explain to these nervous and ill equipped 'merchants' that the party was not a cruel and sadistic gang of bandits toying with them, but actually friendly adventurers who happened to want to purchase a hat and perhaps a turnip.  The situation was eventually sorted out, and the terrified farmers rapidly made their escape, no doubt vowing if they survive this enterprise never to leave their farms again.

Pressing onward, the party reached the hidden cave.  They were very wary as they were concerned about the manticore that had chased them out of the dungeon might still be lurking around.  On entering the cave they noticed that the mule body Henril had left as a distraction had been dragged off to the south, and on investigating they were attacked by two giant ferrets who had made their lair in the cave.  After dispatching the beasts, they noticed that  indeed these ferrets had been living well on the carcasses of many giant rats and the mule remains left in the wake of the adventurers.

They decided that instead of returning to the staircase downward, they would explore some of the passages to the north east, and soon stumbled out of the caverns and into a carved hallway - very clearly the lower levels of the monastery on the hill.  They found a barred door with a crude skull drawn on it in soot and not being the type to heed casual and probably meaningless graffiti they decided to go in there and look around.  The room they found themselves in was dusty and unused but contained many candles along the walls and a large font in the middle.   Tim identified it as a holy water font used for church purifying rituals and not 'Helvitca' as was surmised by Ann.  Further into the room they found a sarcophagus, and with no hesitation they chose to desecrate it and slide the lid off.  Inside there was a corpse with a dagger transfixing it's chest and Klyte immediately snatched the dagger up.  The corpse rose into a sitting position just in time for Henril to smash it to bits with his two handed sword.

The party then found a small sealed door and opened it.  It was full of bones and Henril decided that they should burn the bones.  He threw his oil into the room and lit it as the bones started to form into animated skeletons.  The fire caught but the skeletons started coming through the door and attacking.  It was a vicious fight as the skeletons pushed out of the room replacing those that the party dispatched.  Ann was struck by a particularly terrible blow and probably would have died had I not made an erroneous and offhand remark in a previous game about damage not carrying over.  Soon however between the players attacks (Klyte laying to with effect using his new seemingly magical dagger) and the increasing fire, the skeletons were dispatched.  The party carried on and came into another crypt - this one with detailed mosaics on the walls depicting the life of the saint - obviously the very man interred in yet another sarcophagus.  Showing an appalling disregard for the sanctity of the Lords Of Order they looted the holy man's coffin and struck the head off his corpse in case he decided to wake up.  They were very hurt and tired but decided to check out one more room to the south - and found it was an ossuary filled with the holy bones of the monks interred over the centuries.  They decided against burning all the holy bones in case there were 'books and stuff in there' and instead poked around until they were satisfied that there was nothing of material value or any danger.  Then Kane used a last cantrip to levitate the beam on the outside of the door marked with a skull so as to bar it and conceal their presence so that they could rest in this tomb.

After recovering somewhat they made ready to continue their explorations.  They had been very underwhelmed by the lack of swag a holy man was afforded in his grave - beholding his saintly bones not being reward enough apparently.   I blame video games.  To his credit Brother Tim did try to 'straighten up the mess' a bit - probably due to his many years of devout religious training.  They left the tomb and came across a room with a staircase going down deeper into the hill where they fought some goblin rat-catchers and their half-trained ferrets.  They ran into some goblin lookouts and managed to stop them from running off and warning the others - one attempting to run up a stairwell and one attempting to run west down a hallway.  They then went west and found the goblin guards and dispatched them - but not before a very large goblin came barrelling into room to see what all the commotion was.  They killed this boss goblin and traced his steps back to the room where he kept all the goblin loot.  Then they finally made their way up the stairs into the monastery and after fighting some more large goblins, they came upon a large open courtyard arboretum now overgrown and wild.  Then they decided that they were pretty banged up and needed to replenish themselves and their supplies so they left the monastery (without incident) and returned to Red Towers.

It was a short but sweet session, and lots of player bickering and one one-upmanship which is always fun.  I think most players managed to level up as well since they realized that the rules say that it's 1000xp multiplied by your current level - not the target level to level up.  There was some grumbling over this since I probably told them wrong and they likely had levelled up a little while ago - however that's one good reason I like to print out the rules - I can't remember everything. Also, as GM I'm never wrong - just less right at times.  So Henril hit level 4 I think and Kane gets second level spells.  I let him roll twice to get two new spells from the crazy old magic tutor he 'found' at Red Towers since it's not explicitly covered how mages gain spells when they level and it's probably something the GM will want to manage anyway.

Welcome to Red Towers

After the last session which consisted mostly of preparation and travel, the gang was very happy arrive at Red Towers, a keep on the southern edge of the Westmarches.  Red Towers is the symbol and the vanity of the Arnulf family.  Arnulf is the assumed noble name and legacy of Otto the Fat, who was ceded the Westmarch territory by the King in 146 as reward for defeating the goblin army that was besieging the towns and territories to the south-west of the Soundlands.  Red Towers, named for it's striking red brick composition, has been in various phases of construction for the last 20 years and is a testament to the tenacity of the Arnulf family for it lies deep in the dangerous South and is surrounded by wild lands and swamp.

The gang arrived at the keep near dusk and were very surprised to meet up with an old friend, Brother Tim of Fox Hollow, upon their arrival.  They lodged at the Bell and Weasel inn just outside the walls and caught up with each other over the bad local beer.  Brother Tim had been treating the sick in Milham and had been asked by the Prior in Milham to come south with a contingent to ask the young Lord Erik (the current Baron's youngest son - now overseeing Red Towers) for an easement of the food levy for the fall.  Brother Tim in turn learned of the gang's adventures from the previous session, and once they all caught up they agreed it was time to retire and prepare to go treasure seeking in the morning.  Henril had to have his armour repaired due to a critical hit he took in the previous session (estimated the cost at 10% of original price per AC point damaged) and it was good to see that this mechanic working to drive the narrative along.  Armour that need to be maintained serves two functions - it uses up player resources and it adds to the verisimilitude and drama of the story to have these little concerns to take care of.  I wouldn't want to have to track weapon and armour status to make this work, so having weapon and armour damage as a by-product of the critical hit system seems like a good solution.  Henril decided to also get some 'ornamental' epaulette spikes added to his chain mail and took much pride in this enhancement throughout the session.

The party then left town and travelled to the cave under the old monastery.  They explored the cave and slew a number of giant rats before finding a staircase leading downward.  They went down and found another cave with rats, some dead rats and evidence of something that was preying on the rats.  During their investigation of the rat cave, brother Tim was attacked from behind by a gaunt humanoid in old rotted finery and was paralysed by its touch.  At the same time the cornered rats attacked, however the party managed to fight them off and kill the strange man-thing.  Kane the mage took a page from the adventurers guidebook and made sure to loot the corpse, finding some rare jewellery and a gold key on the body.  The party continued on and came upon another descending stairway carved into the rock.  At the bottom of the stairs they were injured by rocks falling from the weakened roof and then further injured by a handful of skeletons in the room beyond.  They managed to defeat the skeletons but Brother Tim severely damaged his hand and so the party decided to return to the keep and recover.

After a 5 day hiatus in which time the party had their loot apprised and XP awarded for their previous exploits, and the helpful local priestess had tended to Brother Tim's hand, they were eager to return to the 'dungeon'.  They journeyed back and managed to avoid any encounters as they made their way back to the place where they had fought the skeletons.  Deciding that deeper was better they went down another staircase and came upon a series of thick wooden doors all scratched on on one side - obvious indications of some fell beast.  They entered one room that turned out to be a trapped chamber and were almost overcome with a noxious gas before Ann the rogue managed to bypass the door mechanism.  Further along the same hallway, Kane's hired man Klypt* was busy chopping open a locked door, when they caught sight of a terrible black beast.  They quickly readied themselves and charged it as it launched terrible spikes at them from it's tail.  The fight was short but satisfying and they managed to dispatched the beast - Henril chopping off it's head to take back to the keep.

Klypt the hired man finished chopping out the door lock of the room and inside spied a number of goblins all barricaded in and shouting in terror - so he charged them - taking a chest full of crossbow bolts.  The goblins were dispatched but the party was in bad shape and decided to return to the keep.  On their way back they heard the sound of a second black beast coming behind them and they decided to run for it.  The beast took chase and launched it's tail spikes.  Ann was hit, falling unconscious in the passage.  Quickly Klypt grabbed her up and they ran as fast as they could back to the stairs and upwards.  They fled through the passages, chased by the beast, however they were lucky not to encounter any resistance. When they reached the entrance Henril slew their waiting mule and tossed it's body into the stairwell to throw the creature off their trail.  They fled back to the keep, manually pulling their unconscious companion behind in the wagon.

On their arrival in the mid afternoon, the local children spied them returning and saw the monster head and the signs of combat on their clothing.  By the time they reached the keep there was a full gathering of guards and farmers awaiting and even the young Lord himself had come to meet them.  Everyone was amazed by their story and the Lord complimented them on their bravery and paid them a bounty for killing a Manticore, a dangerous and fell beast.  The Lord's personal priest was asked to revive their fallen companion so she could give her account of the tale.  And so they were encouraged to tell and retell their tale of heroism that evening to the locals as they were feted and plied with beer - and on the whole seemed very pleased with themselves.




*I'm going to say Klypt is his name but the rest of the party was always calling him derogatory names like 'yon lackwit'  based on his low MIND score, so I'm not sure what it really was.  I'll revise it when I get another look at his character sheet.

I like playing Beacon

The Beacon of Progress

The title isn't a plug or ironic.  I'm really starting to think these rules are working for me as a GM.  You might be thinking 'well duh' - but to me this satisfaction was not a forgone conclusion.  I have messed up games in the past - either the rules couldn't support the system and things started to fall apart or I found things going in a direction that worked - but I didn't enjoy anymore.  Or they just got put down and never picked up again.  Happily none of that has happened this time.

The last game session was probably the best we've had with Beacon, or if not the best game session, at least the best in terms of my satisfaction with the rules.  I didn't have to house rule anything (that I can recall in any case) and the rules seem to be working out.  I am very happy with the HP numbers now as opposed to last year and combats seem to be much more level appropriate now.  Or at least more in accordance with the various Old School adventure source material that I'm using in my games - I can't speak for newer Pathfinder or D&D level expectations.  Before the revision, a party of 5 second level characters would pretty much wade through gangs of 5-6 goblins and have no problem with something like a pair of giant scorpions.  Now that same party will go toe to toe with 5 goblins and still expect to prevail, but not without a decent chance of having a player knocked out.  They also still have enough firepower to take down a larger monster, but since they no longer carry around 4d6 HP at first level, will more likely to actually notice if they take a couple hits from something doing d8 or d10 damage.  This last session 5-6 giant rats were a legitimate threat and there were a couple characters knocked into 0 HP after facing down 4 goblins and manticore (not in the same encounter).

Physical damage and the critical hit table are all working well.  Tim the Cleric rolled an exciting '3' on the combat fumble table and wound up with -4 DEX and a smashed hand that took 10 days to heal (well 5 once he ponied up for clerical health care).  This ability for players to recover after a short rest from fatigue but still incorporate more serious injury into the game works for me.  The two phase combat seems to be working and combat is still nice and fast, but there are interesting things happening with spell interruption and movement.  I haven't seen a lot of player use of this for tatics yet, but I had goblins use missile phase to deal some decent damage on charging players where before they would have just been slaughtered if they lost initiative.

I am also pretty happy with the spell reworking, especially to Cure Light Wounds and Magic Missile.  Since those spells cost  3 HP to cast in Beacon, I had to change the point value for their damage so casters didn't get screwed with a bad roll, and I think I have got it right now.  Kane the mage has had a fantastic run of finishing off monsters with a well placed Magic Missile, much to the annoyance of the two fighters in the party.  Again the overall drop in HP probably impacts the magic using classes the most but they seem to be within the expected power level for a d20 caster (at least based on the OSR adventures I'm referencing and Beacon monster stats).  As I said before spell interruption during combat seems good, at least three occasions in the last two games had spell casters get hit and have their DC for casting bumped from 11 to a 16 and it was a simple and interesting interaction.

The change to the Rogue surprise attack was well received and certainly worked much more smoothly than before.  Rolling 2d20 at once is certainly faster and even if the subterfuge skill doesn't factor into the chance to hit, it does factor into melee damage so I can live with it.  I'll have to watch that one over the long term to see how it holds up.  TSo far the amount of XP seems good for the speed I like to see players gain levels, and now that they are getting a little buffer of cash they seem more eager to spend it on advancement as well.  I want to see how that scales as we get into the middle levels game.

In fact it it's waaaay to early to announce that I'm satisfied with Beacon.  The special combat rules like polearms, duel weilding, and unarmed combat rules we don't use nearly enough yet to be considered tested. No one has actually chosen to take stat damage over HP damage yet. There's still a lot of higher level spells that we haven't used in game - probably some of those need tweaking.  And seeing how the XP system holds up over the long haul- still have to monitor that.  Class skills balance out ok at level 10?  Do the bigger monsters still hold their own with the HD for damage system?  So many things still untested.  I haven't even had a chance to try it from the players seat. 

But so far it's a hoot.

A stranger comes to town

As mentioned before, things are not good in Milham, so when Kane the mage came to town he quickly decided that the rumours of prosperity and enterprise in the Westmarches were just that - rumours. It was plainly obvious that this was the backwater of civilization and he wanted nothing more than to return to Kingstown and be done with it. However he had come to find his brother Hollaway and so he started asking around. He quickly fell in with jaded mercenaries Henril and Anastanja (Ann), and found out from Ann that she and Hollaway had gone treasure hunting in the hills to the south and that in one of the old dwarven ruins Hollaway and their other companion Pik had been overwhelmed by goblins. She had barely escaped and was not eager to return, however when pressed she agreed to show them where the ruin was. Eventually their discussion caused the strange old man in the corner to interrupt them. This unkempt fellow introduced himself as the Abbot of a monastery near the town of Whitewater and said that he was interested in a certain book which might be found in a monastery of his order to the south. Naturally this monastery had been overrun some time ago and no one had heard from the monks for many decades.   He gave them rough directions to the southern monastery and said  he was willing to offer 20 gold crowns if the adventurers found and supplied him with this tome in their travels.

He looked a little like this, but much dirtier

This is where things went a bit sideways. Although Kane was willing to take this transaction at face value, he did recall that the order the monk mentioned was one noted for being a fringe sect with a spotted reputation. Henril and Ann were not satisfied they were getting the full story and so followed the old man back to the Seven Stones inn and bribed the innkeeper to tell them which room he was staying in and to look the other way. Then they marched up the stairs, knocked and then kicked in the door. The old man was attempting to climb out the window so they captured him and much to Kane's growing horror, roughly interrogated him. They found that he wasn't actually the abbot, more likely a monk who had lifted some materials from the abbot and who was looking top acquire more relics and items in an effort to buy off his pursuers. He insisted that he had the means to pay for the book, however he was not going to tell them where that money was.  They warned him that if he tried to leave town they would hunt him down and kill him which might be the equivalent to a handshake for this gang.  Then they bought a donkey and cart, some overpriced food and hit the south road.

Naturally they met a woodcutter right out the gate.  He was the nice man who had let them stay in his cabin to heal some while ago.  The woodcutter informed them that he had taken the money they paid him and had bought him a fine wife to chop the wood while he brought it to the market.  He thanked them for allowing him to double his business.  They continued south for a day and a half, passing said wife, before their next encounter - a young ogre!  The ogre surprised the party and caused their donkey to dump the cart and flee, but they managed to dispatch it pretty easily.  They retrieved their ass, and continued on into the hills where they encountered a stag and managed to take it down.  The dim witted hired man managed a terrible field dress of the stag and they got a meagre amount of meat from it.  The next day had them travelling the hills uneventfully and they passed the ruins where Hollaway met his demise.  They decided to give it a pass for the moment and continue on to find the monastery.  They were waylaid by goblins that night and managed to dispatch them - but not without a decent fight.  They travelled through some forested hills and there was a bit where Henril fought a pair of wolves.  They eventually managed to find the high hill that the monastery was on, and after searching the area they found a promising cave entrance.  However it was getting late and since they were near Red Towers castle they decided to press on to rest there before entering the caves.

Analysis:

I like that the random encounters shape the story.  I would have never planned for the woodcutter to be such a campaign fixture but he has become one because I keep rolling woodcutters.  I would have never thrown an ogre along the road by design, but it came up on the encounter table and provided some needed colour.  I am also pleased at how the revised hit points are working out.  I think that the battles are a little more reasonable now, especially the fight with the goblins. It was much more balanced where four goblins managed to incapacitate two party members before they were dispatched.  This didn't cause any permanent damage to the party and there was little doubt that the party would win, especially with Henril being a 3rd level fighter, but it made the fight a lot less one sided than it would have been in the past.  Also Kane was still a very effective force in the combats - firing magic missiles often and dealing enough damage even with the reduction in HP.

I also found that there was a still lot of D&D hangover happening even with players a bit familiar with Beacon.  It was obvious that the players were basing their play on other similar game rules and not the Beacon rules.  There was still a tendency for the players to try to 'use their skills' rather than describe their actions.  I had to actually stop players from saying things like 'I use my Subterfuge to...'.  I found that playing with the novices during my camping trip was a lot different in this respect, as they had no problem with the narrative aspect of the game and therefore were much less skill orientated and much more creative in their actions.  Skill based games have poisoned the whole hobby in this respect I think.  I also noticed that the players didn't really leverage the combat phases and so would do stuff like ready a bow in the missile phase - and then have to sit out the melee phase and wait till next combat round to attack - a basic misunderstanding but one causing a lot of dissatisfaction.   I was told that they thought that missile phase was the 'ready weapon' phase - but it clearly isn't.  Some of this stuff requires the player to have knowledge that they can ready a weapon or move in either (or both) phases and then leveraging their actions accordingly.  But some of that is stuff I can fix - mostly by renaming the phases to 'Ranged' and 'Close' as was suggested by the players.  I also think I need to make some types of weapons available instantly (like throwing daggers) because of the way the phases work they will otherwise get nerfed.  I think I better take this phased combat discussion off to another post however.  I like how it works - I feel it's almost there - but there are still a few tiny tweaks needed I think.

Another Suprise Attack

So not exactly a rousing success so far for the rogue special surprise attack rules.  I thought that it was a good rule because it allowed the rogue to sneak up or otherwise prepare themselves and then get an attack benefit for being tricky.  In practice it has not proved to be as good as the idea however.  I think the rule basically works as intended, but it does have some problems which are becoming apparent.

I think the main reason it has proved to be problematic in play is because a player has to make two separate rolls in order to pull the manoeuvre off, which is OK if they succeed but very not OK if they fail.  At the table the rogue player may be happy to make the stealth check and then miss the attack roll which not only is a bummer, but also may place the character in a bad position. Some of the suggestions from around the table were to just automatically add in the extra damage on a 'first strike' or to add the subterfuge bonus to the attack roll but I think both those approaches don't scale very well, especially at the low end.

Since last session where it was very obvious there was some kind of issue, I've been trying to think of a solution.  My initial thought is to simply have the rogue player announce their sneak attack or ranged double strike and then roll two d20 and if they get one success then it succeeds as a normal attack, however if both rolls are successful then the rogue has accomplished the special attack as they stated.  I like this because it's simple but I realize that it doesn't reward stealth except as a damage bonus.  It does however factor in AC which is supposed to fold in all those kind of abstractions that would be relevant such as target reflexes, situational awareness and toughness.  It doesn't mean an automatic success (although it does give a big bonus to the basic attack success) but it scales up well as the character's attack bonuses increase and when opponents are tougher as well.  It also kind of fits nicely with the missile double strike portion of the ability.  I haven't thought of anything else that I like better yet either.  Perhaps the there is a better way to organize the stealth roll and to hit roll in the existing rule so that the problem doesn't arise, but that doesn't mess with the statistics as much as this double roll mechanic will.  But I'll take elegant over minor probability changes in most cases.

Also, back to problems with the original rule, what I meant by 'combat engagement' in the original text is not obvious.  The intent was that once per opponent per combat the rogue would have one chance to pull off a surprising move that would confuse their foe.  It was a way to bake in the tricky but make sure that in the long run it wasn't going to usurp the fighter role of going toe to toe.  A rogue in combat with a number of foes could only surprise each particular opponent once.  It should also encourage rogues to change targets.

This then might be a better rule for the section on surprise attack in the rogue description.

In combat a Rogue may attempt to perform a 'surprise attack' by rolling two d20 for their initial attack on an unsuspecting foe.  If one die roll is successful then they succeed in their attack as normal, but if the second is also successful, they may either add their Subterfuge skill to the damage of their melee attack or perform an additional strike with a ranged weapon (provided they have an additional one available).

I would like to put in something more concrete about the attack being novel or unseen or otherwise unexpected but I don't know how to do that without getting back to the problematic skill check.  Also, how this interacts with the rules for critical hits and fumbles I leave up to your imagination for the moment.

A Return to Milham

Some months have passed in the town of Milham and the character of the place has changed somewhat since the plague.  Perhaps one third of the population has died or left, and although the disease has abated for the most part, it will be a long time until industry and trade return.  The surrounding manses that provided food and jobs have turned inward either to deal with their own losses or to protect themselves.  The price of food is five times what it was in the spring and with no harvest coming, it will continue to rise.   Those now residing in the city are the unemployed field workers or poor craftspeople without means.  Many of the remaining townsfolk are sick and hungry   There are few homeless however, most of the town houses stand empty and squatters have taken up residence in the homes of those dead or otherwise moved on.  Those still living in their homes no longer recognize their neighbours and the handful of city watchmen who remain no longer patrol the streets at night.  Milham is a meaner and colder place than it was.

And so it was that when Kane the mage came to Milham by the north gate he was greeted by a lone guard who told him to return to the north.  Kane was seeking word of his brother the mage Halloway who had come to the southlands some many months ago in pursuit of adventure and riches.  His search of the town led him to the Scarlet Archer inn and to a pair of capable mercenaries, Henril of Butterbridge and Anistanja the Traveller.  Also along the way he couldn't manage to avoid hiring a very insistent porter/guide who, despite having a very low intellect, knew a meal ticket when he saw one.

I'm not sure how much the players were excited to get back to playing Beacon or returning to the town of Milham after almost a year, but I was pretty excited to be back running a game in this environment.  I did dabble a little in the setting when I was camping, but I was interested to see what my regular group would do with the rules changes.  I was also interested to see who would take the option to create new characters and who would make the changes in HP and Skill selection to translate their old characters from the previous version we'd been using.   So we got a chance to roll some dice and try out the new combat system and I got a lot of good feedback.  And that's great because it was fun, and it gives me stuff to write about here.

Back from the wilderlands

Fire up the Coleman it's game time!

Beacon in a screen tent via Coleman lantern and clip on reading light went very well.  I had five players, which is the best number of players I think, two fighters, a cleric, a druid and a rogue.  We played three short sessions and after a bit of a slow start I think it went really well. We had two players entirely new to RPGs playing and we dived right into play which I think was the best way to handle the situation.  I had rolled up two characters, a cleric and a fighter and the newbies picked which of these they wanted based on a very brief description.  I have to say they filled out their characters very well, the Fighter was Fitomashika a tough lady 'not from these parts' and Hamiltaniousopholis a holy man with a big heart and a very small head.

The kids were super eager to get things rolling, having played their characters before (now slightly updated but essentially the same) but I started things out a little slower as the old hands met up with the new folks via a traditional meeting in the Scarlet Archer, the 'just right' tavern in Milham.  Introductions were made and stories of past adventures were told.  Finally, a strange old man in the corner couldn't help but introduce himself and make mention of possible adventure to be found in an old abandoned monastery to the south.  At first he mentioned an interest in providing quick cash in exchange for holy relics, however once  Hamiltaniousopholis revealed himself to be a holy 'persuader', the gentleman became quite pious and expressed his concern that any relics be safely rescued for the church.  Evening passed as simple plans were laid and the next morning and a quick trip to the market later, the gang was tramping south along the road lured on by vague rumours of valuable relics and treasures.

There were no woodcutters, goblins or giant scorpions on the south road through the hills.  They journey was pretty uneventful.  My sister-in-law wanted to know how I figured out what happens and I showed them the encounter charts on the Beacon GM Screen which probably didn't explain much but it does look nice and official.  I think one of the hardest parts of the RPG experience to explain to new people is the role of the GM.  Some people like to know the rules of the game and having a 'rules arbitrator' is a little foreign to them.  Again it was more show and not tell and I tried to keep away from suggesting options or examples of play.  It really helped that the kids chimed in with advice and suggestions on how the game worked.  My youngest was especially helpful and kept saying that 'you do what you want to do and he tells you what to do' as the mantra for the first evening.  They barely made it to the monastery the first night, their time mostly spent searching for the monastery hill and an entrance to it while I failed to roll up an encounter. We had to play in short chunks as we only had about an hour and a half to play each evening after we had finished all the night jobs around the camp and before we crawled off to sleep.  I was a bit worried that we'd not pick the game up again the next day, but the kids were pretty eager to play and the adults did not seem to mind trying it again.

The second evening was pretty fun.  The gang got to chat with some giant ferrets, beat up some goblin guards and scare off an attacking gang of swamp dudes before finally finding the entrance to the monastery.  The combats went well and the non combats went very well as both kids and adults instinctively tried to work encounters to their advantage and use violence as a second resort.  I think the two phase combat round worked pretty well but it was a little hard to explain why they could throw a dagger in the missile phase but had to wait to melee phase to stab someone.  I think it's just one of those things where the game rules are going to serve the game and are not going to be realistic.  Realism is not the goal anyway.  I did like how casting had to be declared during missile combat, and the phased combat really prevented the problem of intitative being so decisive, especially with a five character group.  They pretty easily dispatched these small mobs, but they also took a suitable amount of damage doing it, and everyone got in a shot or two.  Also a lot of the damage that they did take could have been avoided had they played the terrain more or tried for surprise.

I was eager from the beginning that they get to the monastery because up to this point the kids had only ever encountered goblins or large animals in game before.  I had wanted to up the ante a little and so the first time they encountered undead it was going to be especially exciting!  I ratcheted up the room descriptions and the scenes of charred tapestries and long dead monks were obviously creeping everyone out a little. When my older daughter went over to check out a old corpse for some lootz she nearly jumped out of her seat when it reached out and grabbed at her (and I grabbed her hand at the same time!)  Everyone was excited and dice flew as they sliced up the zombie.  I was worried the gore might be too much for the kids, but in fact they loved it.  It was a great place to end the second night and everyone was talking about the monastery and all the 'dead' monks they might yet encounter all the next day.

The third night it was all business as the party came together to figure out the history and to stomp some monster butts.  So far they had not found any treasure (I don't generally give wandering monsters treasure - the ferrets had offered them a dead rat and the goblin guards had nothing more interesting than some string and a hunk of sparkly quartz) and although they had only just started exploring the monastery they knew that it would soon be getting dark and goblins and other things might arrive to cause even more trouble. They started to explore and piece together some history of the place, however they did not make a map.  I didn't draw out any rooms for them either, all they had to go on was descriptions by lantern light.  They were pretty good keeping spatial relations however and a couple times I was surprised with astute observations they made about how the rooms were related or where a corridor should continue past a ruined wall. I'm not going to go into the specifics of the encounters because I would like to use them again*.  Suffice to say that there were traps and monsters and everyone seemed to have a very fun time playing. We didn't finish the adventure before the camping trip was over and my in-laws had to head back home, but I think the prevailing opinion was that we would be continuing this game at a later time.

All in all I think it was an unqualified success.  I have to thank my fine wife, my persistent children and my sister-in-law and her husband for the great game.

*Spoilers for my players but of interest for other readers: for this adventure I basically bolted a 2012 One Page Dungeon called Hellmarsh's Monastary by Andrés Cuesta onto the roof of Dyson's Delve with a little narrative glue and a name change from marsh to mount.  (I'll leave the links off to take away the temptation to peek - you can google it folks).  I'm being pretty liberal with the history of the monks, cherry picking from both adventure sources, but figure that they were an old order that was wiped out some 50-60 years ago.  Pretty much all my Milham Beacon games are using short adventures or location materials found on the web.  Thanks to all them folks that publish them.