Song of Swords: Dzickie Souls

Hey all, curious about the game, don't know a lot about it. What ought I download if I want to be current, there are several updates/errata, yeah?

Also what's Ballad?

Figured out Ballad at least. I'm only somewhat slow.

There's a download link in the OP that has all current and working PDF's and stuff. The core rulebook is all you really need, but there's been a bunch of other stuff jimmy's posted that's kinda neat.

Basically, take 1.9.9 and Call of the Void. Use Song of Swords for medieval combat and Call of the Void for modern combat. There should be something like a combat update within the file, download that as well. Use that to replace the combat chapter in the main SoS book. Everything else can wait.

did you know that people tend to stop fighting once you chop their head off?

Did you know threads die when you stop bumping them with meaningful posts?

hol' up
combat update?

Oh yeah.

it's like you dont watch videos about swords.

Isn't the initiative system the only thing different from the original?

Not the only thing. Toughness is different (it's static at 4 instead of being compound) and a lot of the combat mechanics in general are different because the game focuses on shooting and cover.

Toughness? The pdf doesn't mention toughness. Also, shooting and cover? It's a medieval game.

Oh, sorry, I was confused. I thought you meant between Ballad and SoS. There were still some fundamental changes though. For one thing, the entire way that the system for movement, shooting, and basically everything that isn't literally exchanging blows has changed. It isn't just initiative, but the entire concept of the round itself.

OH YEAH!

Maybe I should shove the updates for SoS and Ballad into folder of the respective core pdf.
And maybe I should keep track of changes in the Trove and post them at the start of a new thread. Will see if I can do that.

You also may want to download PDF related. Not strictly necessary, but a lot more convenient than going through the book every time you need to look up damage.
But yeah, the most important stuff for SoS are the core book and the combat update. Everything else is nice, but not game changing, I think. For ballad you need the SoS core book and the Ballad book.

That appears to be missing some of the charts near the end there- is it unfinished or is that intentional?

ah shit. Have the unfixed version on my disk still. Gimme a sec. The one in the trove is ok though.
This one should be good now.

>PC wants to take dark past
> I get to add in any banes I want
>book encourages me to be mean
>Eunuch, Lasting Pain, One eye, old wound x5

Unfortunate gay 69 accident, make a character out for revenge with the same injuries

A group of professionals who know each other by reputation brought together for a job by a shadowy employer.

A tense sort of trust with a few people perhaps having their own set of objectives.

>Superior Hook Punch with Smash Punch does a TN6 STR+4+BS Shock 1 attack that automatically targets the Lower Head
>can do two of them in one attack
>can do three of them in one attack
>can do four of them in one attack
???????

oh wait, each of them is a Shock 3 attack

Actually hold on, if you have a School with Puglism and Dagger/Sword/Blunt proficiencies, you can pick up Flourishing Drills, and if you attack in Action 1 with a Swing, you can start using one-two punch with 2 additional dice in each attack in Action 2
Reduce the activation cost for One-Two Punch to 0 with Good Form and Rolling Hooks, and you've got yourself infinite smash punches
Of course, attacking one trillion times in one second still won't do fuck-all because you'll do at most 16 damage which won't get through the fucker's lower head armor, so infinite amounts of Stun won't really help you out too much REEE

Hm. There might be some Shadowrun material that would be good to consume. I'd have to look around, though.

You have to pay at least one die into an attack to trigger Flourishing Drills.

Also Hook Punch isn't a Swing

Is it supposed to be reasonable to spend 30 gp on Plate Barding for a horse when buying a Major Asset costs only 27 gp?

Well only the richest of the rich could historically afford that shit, so it it's not that unreasonable.

I always assumed it was an Elder Scrolls joke.

Bovine?

Blade of the Iron Throne. I don't know why some people call it Bovine.

Something something cow tits.

>Inflicts Unarmed damage equal to [STR-1+BS]
>If hand is armored in metal, or has brass knuckles/knuckledusters, add +2 to damage

Does this reset the -1 to 0, thus becoming +2 total, or is the +2 added to the -1, which would make it only +1 to damage?

Girl on every page isn't that busty

The second one.

>Superior Hook Punch with Smash Punch does a TN6 STR+4+BS Shock 1
So this is wrong, it'd only be STR+3+BS Shock 3

Hook Punch damage: STR-1
Superior: +1
Smash Punch: +2
Metal hands: +2
Mix and match however you want

>Smash Punch
Fuck me, I'm hung over, ignore this

Tell me more about Dzikie Soula and where it came from.
"gdyby nie było "w nogi" to bym go zajebał"

It seems unreasonable as hell, because only the richest of the rich could afford banks too

Because of the tits and because it's built upon a throne of sacred cows.

You know, I kind of wish SoS would have locked Toughness as well. I really don't like things like gigga niggas even without armor being almost impossible to hurt with things like daggers.

I've been thinking about ruling it as half TOU and STR translates into the formula, making the values not meaningless but less swingy.

Might need to play with the break durability values though.

Health system inherited from TRoS could use rework. It has deep flaws in it.

Just include it as an alternate rule.

It's still an absurd amount of punches. Take Flickering Jab and, if I'm interpreting the Special for Straight Punch right:
>Special: If hand is armored in metal, or has brass knuckles/knuckledusters, add +2 to damage, and suffer no damage back upon hand. If you have Superior Straight Punch, you inflict +1 additional damage, and 1 additional Shock as well.
>Superior: Your punches now inflict an additional +1 damage, and inflict 1 Shock.

These two stack, so you'd get TN5 +2u Shock 2 attacks that basically can't be defended against, and you'd get CP/4 (since it has to be Unarmed attacks resolve against AVB+4
oh
well then
never mind any of this then

Yeah unarmed is well and nerfed.

Word of God from Jimmu is that it was supposed to be "unarmed attacks resolve against AVB+4 for Hard armor."
Regardless, even with the ease of landing unarmed attacks, the unique unarmed damage tables are kind of shit.

Yeah, it's clearly not good for causing serious damage.

>It's still an absurd amount of punches.

Spoken like a cuck who has never practiced actual hand to hand combat.

Tell us all about it Clubber Lang.

>I've been thinking about ruling it as half TOU and STR translates into the formula
That's what Bovine does, but they go further and tie both together into a Brawn stat. Your STR and TOU as we'd call it are both equal to half of your Brawn. Stats range from 1 to 9, usually around 4 to 7, so STR and TOU end up around 2 to 4.

>With Strength 8
Lemme stop you there

Strength is overpowered and really should be nerfed

Strength is just a part of the problem. The problem is the whole damage model.

So with regards to Call of the Void, what's up with skills? There seem to be quite a few removed skills (Research, Orate etc.), but nothing to replace them. Research can't really be replaced by Gather Information as the former is poring over musty old tomes and the latter is cajoling others into revealing their deepest, darkest secrets, so what gives?

The skill system as a whole feels like it just doesn't fit properly in the game

So has Jimmy ever given any information on how he wants Retinue to work? What separates a Henchman from a Minion? How are these statted?
I'm making a nobleman with no combat ability but twelve war dogs, four destriers to trample people with and thinking of grabbing Retinue for more thrallherd funtimes

The description of research is
>Research
>Research is all about knowing how to find something out. Someone with low-level Research skill might
>know how to find an alphabetically filed document or how to use a table of contents. A talented
>Researcher can scan through a few dozen peer-reviewed journals in a few minutes to find that one
>obscure article someone wrote about a really rare bone condition.

and the one of gather information is
>GatherInformation(Cha):Whatitsaysonthetin.

so, imo, they are kinda interchangeable. What you do in Research is gathering information. Only thing that's a bit off is that Research is based on Int and Gather Information on Cha.
But if you want to research something in ballad just make a Gather Information roll with Int? Or something like that

One of the eternal problems.

ohboyherewegoagain.png

All I want for Christmas is a Kickstarter.

SEARING ENGIMA MONDAY
WAIT WHAT

In the parts of Iber which were once provinces of the Ruvian Empire, there was an interesting practice which took place--rich gold reserves located in mountains were mined using enormous gangs of slaves, who were worked--mostly to death--pounding away deep into the mountains and hills to extract as much ore in bulk as possible, even sifting through the dust produced to extract every trace of the precious metal possible.

This resulted in titanic networks of tunnels bored through many of the hills in the country, some going deep underground using water pressure to smash open chambers and later extracting it using simple pumps, also powered by slaves. It is said that when slaves were worked to death in the great processing facilities, their bodies were unceremoniously dumped into the emptied tunnels. Indeed, going down deep into these systems, one can still find chambers filled with nothing but bones, clay, and long-decayed mining tools.

These hills are called Las Colinas Malditas*, or "The Cursed Hills," and a great variety of dark legends surround them, including stories of necromancers venturing inside for raw materials, and of bandits, monsters or worse using them as hideouts.

*If you speak Spanish and this sounds anachronistic or wrong, tell me

Spanish speaker here, that sounds fine.

Jimmu! Your damage formula is under fire again would you consider cribbing from Bovine and thus the still cooling hands of it's creator's notes?

You don't even need to change the damage formula. Just lock toughness, and if that starts causing issues bump up AV by a small amount. The issue is mostly people being immune to weapons while unarmored and immune to everything while fully armored.

Now that Ballad's system has proven fairly successful there is room to discuss the damage formula of SoS, but now is not really the time. We're making the final push here to get this thing going and it was rough enough updating combat at this point.

That's not all. You also have people who literally cannot do less than a level 5 on 1BS because of high strength. Locking TOU just makes STR even more important.

Lock TOU, half STR to damage?

>8 STR to break even
Hmm.....

Just manipulating STR and TOU won't result in a satisfying solution. The problem is the damage formula. That there are 5 wound levels, that a higher level would is better than a lower level wound regardless of the damage type, ans that all damage adds up equally and linearly. BoB tries to fight it with level 1 wounds being ignorable and certain armor capping wound levels. BotLW does the same with ignorable level 1s and has fixed TOU. BotIT has 6 wound levels and STR & TOU tied to the same stat. But in all of these, damage is the same. It's always STR+weapon+BS. Although BoB and SoS both have conversion to blunt damage (orichalcum armor in SoS), only BoB has wound capping. To fix the damage formula you'd have to significantly change it, or apply a lot of bandaid fixes like what's listed above.

Alternatively roll STR or tie damage from STR to maneuvers

user interested in the system, how many d10 would you say is a comfortable amount to have on hand?

Just use digital dice roller, comrade

Twenty for one player. Typical CPs range from 10 to 20 and d10s are usually sold either individually or in packs of 10, so grab 20.

No more than nine or ten, though you can buy smaller d10s if you've got tiny mitts.

Low level players need maybe ten to fifteen. If everyone is going God Mode, you may need up to 30

I thought Genosus hated slavery.

Genosus hates war too, but that doesn't stop anyone.

Old Ruvia was not Genosian. Slavery is also only expressly forbidden regarding Genosians. You could enslave all the Karthacks or Ohanedin you want.

This does result in a sort of sub-industry of people being kidnapped or sold into slavery despite being Genosian, but the Paladins put a LOT of pressure on the priesthood and the ruling class not to tolerate it (even being -aware- of illegitimate slavery and not trying to stop it qualifies someone for a Smite) and thus it gets stamped out wherever possible.

Why serfdom isn't considered slavery is a question that has puzzled some theologians for a while, the general consensus being that Get Back to Work.

>the general consensus being that Get Back to Work
Nice.

So what did the Ruvian Empire worship?

>Dzickie Souls
How good would this system be for Dark Souls inspired stuff?

How's this system work and how, uh... "easy" is it? I think I took a quick glance at it once, but it was confusing. But lately I've been in the mood for something that lets me get a Soulsborne feeling.

It's doable but you'll struggle with fantasy stuff like spider people, dragons, and magic. Any humanoid combat can be done without much trouble.
The combat system is simple but it isn't packaged as such. If you try to learn it from the book alone you'll be confused and uninterested. If you learn it from a player you'll enjoy it and grok it much more quickly.
The non-combat parts of the system are mediocre.

Why would it struggle with non-humanoids? And what can you tell me about the game mechanically, if it's hard to grok?

What makes the combat simple, but seem complicated? And what makes the non-combat mediocre?

The combat in principle is very easy to understand, but there's such a huge set of options within that combat that it can be overwhelming.

Here's the basics.

Combat is done in Rounds. A round has two actions, think of them like Tick-Tock. You attack, other guy attacks back, that sort of thing.

Well for each round you have a Combat Pool. This is the number of dice you can use in those two rounds. So in Tick, you declare a strike with 12 dice. Your enemy declares a parry with 14. You both roll, he gets more, so he parries successfully, but you spent fewer dice. So you have more in the Tock to do something now. At the start of each new round you get your Combat Pool back, but things like Pain from wounds can reduce it.

So basically you do this until someone is dead. The complexity comes in that you can do like 80 different things in each Tick, and they're all mechanically different. So you could hit someone with your sword, or trip them, or attack a joint in their armor, or throw a fistful of sand into their face, or drop your sword and sack them like a quarterback, or pull out a pistol and blow their head off, or any of a hundred other things.

Add to this that Combat Pools are rarely ever symmetrical, and they're secret. Your enemy might have 10 dice in his CP or he might have 30. You won't know until you see how he devotes them the first few rounds. The combat system is frankly good enough to be its own game, and it has been for years now. People play SoS in a Roll20 room like people play Super Smash Bros.

So if you can make it over the hurdle it's a great game, but it does require a bit of legwork.

Lodes

Don't forget to mention how the maneuvers correspond fairly well in terms of function to the real-world equivalents, so if you think in terms of "this is what I'd do as a HEMAutist" you can often simplify the whole thing massively except for how damage is really silly sometimes

...

Wow that's a fair amount of dice in your pool. Pretty sure I've only got about fifteen d10 myself, and that's by far the most out of my friends. I was looking for stocking stuffer gifts any way, this works out well. Gonna use a die roller until then-if the grand even gets off the ground.

Would you say you had average sized hands? I just attempted it and was able to fit about fifteen myself.

>30 dice in a pool.
Cue the laughter and tears when someone drops them. That's awesome.

Wait you need metallic dice? What possible purpose does that serve?

I thought there had just been a big change in combat? I haven't read the combat file yet, just what's in the book. Also wanna ask their second question again:
What makes SoS bad outside combat? It simply hasn't had much done in the areas of not murdering?

>I thought there had just been a big change in combat?
Compared to Riddle of Steel? Many particulars are different but the same basic structure is retained.

>What makes SoS bad outside combat?
It's boring and bland and not engaging. It's just kinda there.

Should have been more specific, I thought SoS combat rules j just had an update.

So what's the practice if one wants to play SoS as something more than a combat simulator? Only use SoS when it's time to hack n slash?