Song of Swords: Trust the Authorities

So are we.

Dart Maneuvers are supposed to be Dart Out and Closing Void (a.k.a. Dart In) but Jimmy never wrote that line of the book.

I only ran one campaign so far and it was maybe 2 and a half months long, dunno if that's the kinda length you're going for.

One of my players loved the system so much he's GMing his first game now, which gives me the opportunity to be a young rich nobleman with cute slaves that also fight for him

What

Doing some chat searching I guess it was 2 months 4 days, or 10 sessions

I ran a 7-8 session campaign about a horde of zombies and various monsters slowly engulfing the entire continent, culminating in the party fighting satan. It was a pretty good time. The only problem I noticed the system has over time is that people tend to just pump all the arc you give them into proficiencies, so it gets harder to balance the combat.

So are you not buying me Battle Brothers so I can do an elaborate write up for the thread, user?

Torrent it you lamprey.

Give me $35 and I'll buy it for you.

I am a leech of high moral standing, I'll have you know.

Tempting, but no deal.

>you will NEVER get mass combat rules for SoS

Gay for S C Y T H I A N S!

>get shot in the unprotected face with an arrow
>all the fancy armor and horse ornaments are worthless

That beard's got the textile rule.

There's a lot of stuff to do dude, mass combat's pretty far off in the horizon. If we don't have regular combat working smoothly how can you expect us to have mass combat working smoothly? One thing at a time!

That's the question, isn't it? I'm sure an autist would be able to comb through the archives where you say mass combat was happening soon

I about to try and make my first character. Is there anything I should know so I dont end up making a worthless character?

Just go for it and learn from your inevitable death by Sepsis.

Or keep in mind Health is a very important stat and that the Khopesh is the greatest weapon forged by men.

The current character has a HLT of 6 and also has Hale and Hearty, not really sure that its enough

All characters are useful, you just need to play to your strengths.

If you're making a combat character though, bear this in mind: The important stats are Wit, Agi, Str, and Wip. Everything else is secondary, but still sort of important. Per is useful for avoiding initiative-stealing, and Het and End are good for increasing your weight load and Toughness and resistance to bleed-out.

You don't need to be super ultra good at anything, as long as you have a good ADR (6-7 range) and no stats totally shit, you'll be fine.

The best starting weapon by far is the Half-Pike. It's OP as fuck in every single regard, from attack to defense to throwing. Alternatively try a sword and a shield.

For Boons and Bales, Hale and Hearty, Natural Born Killer and Bloodthirsty are all good if you want to go into combat. Do not doubt the Good Ears/Eyes/Nose perks though, in actual gameplay having a huge score for detecting threats is a serious advantage.

Skills are cool. Stealth, Observation (whatever it's called now) and Surgery are super important. If there isn't a good surgeon in every party you will lose characters every single encounter, and that ain't good.

So that half-pike succeeds on a 6+ and gets a +2 P damage, it that an oversight because that looks to be better than damn near everything

It is explicitly intentional. A short, handy spear is pretty much the best single weapon possible for unarmored combat. Other weapons come in because they're good against armor, or good with shields, or easier to carry, etc.

Half-Pike is god-tier general purpose weapon.

I had no idea that a Spontoon was such a great weapon

They're really strong, but there are better weapons against armored enemies. The half-pike is just a very "safe" choice. It lacks Thin Blade, so it isn't super insanely good against guys in armor, but it's basically king against unarmored or lightly armored enemies.

That said, a shield changings things up a lot, and some sword+shield combos are crazy strong as well. Nothing in combat is "white room." meaning fighting one guy equally equipped in neutral circumstances. The ability to cut effectively for example is super important because of Cleaving Blow, which can allow you to attack multiple enemies at once.

Note also that it's a fairly late-era weapon, so if you're playing a historical campaign they may not be available.

Is the Estoc a sensible anti-amour choice or is it better to go for something with Crushing?

Depends on the armor type, and what your strategy is. Estoc relies on joint-thrust, crushing weapons rely on multiple hits.

I guess it is a rather nebulous question, bloody hell this system is dense.

So wait, part of the Krajina is literally vanishing into nothing, and the queen is just some violent bimbo who likes hitting people. How is this going to be resolved? I mean even if PCs show up, how is it resolved?

That's the secret, it doesn't get resolved. Life is exceptionally shitty for the common man.

I need an explaination about Cautious Orientation in combat. What are Dart Maneuvers ? I don't see anything like this in the Maneuvers list.

>Sexy Zell Queen tells known for being a massive slut tells you to solve impossible problem for her

You have two options.
A: Fail and die.
B: Succeed and spent a night nestled between glorious Zell-queen titties.

Figure it out faggot, you only have to kill the primordial spirit of darkness.

youtube.com/watch?v=P_K6k7dq_FQ

It's actually nerfed in the most recent rules. Make sure you use the weapon update.

It's almost like it's some kinda plot hook or something.

>The only queen who needs rescuing is ignorent violent slav-chav queen

I didn't know that I needed more of this in my life.

I don't think that's true, as a general rule I think most peasantry in Vosca has a decent quality of life; as long as you light your fires on the Eclipse, you'll have it pretty good.

Stuff like the underside of a town disappearing is notable because it's fucking rare.

A part of TR which I like but never gets played up is that Genosism literally holds construction to be a sacred act, and forbids the demolition of monuments.

That means the Genosian world must be full of farcically huge buildings and ancient ruins.

Look at this guy's strikes, do you think he does kendo?

What's a Dart Maneuver ?

Also remember to use the equipment updates. Half-pikes are not super godly weapons anymore

The Khopesh has retaken its rightful place.

Looks a bit like Langschwert desu, he's got decent form but he moves his feet wrong.

I think the krajina take it really far and have giant towers everywhere.

The one in the capital is farcically tall considering the actual history of British architecture, they never really built towers that big. Some church spires, but generally not habitable towers.

(from previous thread)
SEARING ENIGMA TUESDAY

Kralchester, capital of the Krajina in Albion, is a city that has grown steadily upwards over time. The city is regularly flooded, and most buildings were supported by large pilings to elevate them over the water. However, these pilings are public property, and extend far above most of the original layer of buildings, and thus could be built upon without permission from those living below by anyone with money to purchase ground. Over time the pilings have been raised, and at this point, Kralchester extends nearly a hundred feet above the ground. Most of the upper levels are crudely built shanties, connected by rope bridges or planks, and only recently has a new "top" level been reserved for the building of respectable establishments by the local government.

The lower levels have become increasingly difficult to navigate and sanitize, a patchwork of ever-shifting ropes, lean-tos and shanty-buildings, populated by uncountable masses of criminals, vagrants, and worse--Zells.

This territory, below the gleaming surface, is called "Old Kralchester." The Kralguard rarely venture into the miserable underground, preferring to hire local criminal gangs to patrol it for them and keep some semblance of order. Recently, however, word has come that parks of Old Kralchester have "gone dark." They have simply ceased to exist, replaced by emptiness. A black pit with no bottom. Parts of the lowest levels vanished first, but it has slowly grown. People light torches on the outskirts of the pit, and watch them for whatever dark forces is excavating the heart of the city, but every so often an outpost vanishes, and the darkness spreads.

Over it all, Kralchester Tower looms, hundreds of feet above the town. Queen Dahaka has taken a personal interest in the corruption of her city, and has put calls out for investigators skilled in the study of the paranormal...

No, if he does, he's not good at it. You don't do a cross strike towards your own leg. Ever.

Why is the Khopesh so great?

This is why I come to SoS. People actually know shit.

This one premise could be an entire campaign setting.

I really love how much of SoS' setting that's true about.

halfpikes are not short spears
they are spontoons

more to the point, theyre only all 6s in an older rule set

Rules for having your helmet knocked off and other fumbles when?

If I feint to a swing, can I power attack? It says only during declaration.

I would say no, that would be a weakness of feinting.

Low attack Tn coupled with +1 damage and the forward swept rule to help with armor, and the ability to use both Sword and Blunt proficiencies, allowing all kinds of neat maneuvers including HOOK!

Wasn't coffee supposed to come back and finish the damn comic?

Can't blame the guy for adhering to our thread culture of Soon ™

Hot damn, who knew superior Egyptian engineering could be so good

Hey, sometimes getting stabbed in the head just comes up. That's life.

While the pyramids still stand, khopesh will rule the land

Can I quick defend using a parry while I'm already attacking with the same weapon? If so, then what is the point of Simul Parry/Attack being an advanced maneuver?

Yes you can.
Because Quick Defend has changed frequently and is currently in perhaps its strongest state. It used to give you a +1 TN penalty. Then, for whatever reason, that was removed but nothing else was changed accordingly.

...

So historically we have a lot of instances of people getting shot a ton of times and walking out unscathed--how well represented is this in SoS/CotV so far? Right now it looks like getting shot with a rifle will insta-5 anyone with even one success.

>Right now it looks like getting shot with a rifle will insta-5 anyone

Well that's not strictly true let go through them.

7.62x33mm & 7.92x33mm: 7 Damage, thats only a level 4 wound (-4 from TOU, +1 because you need BS to do more than a level 0).
The rest however yes that is the case unless you're a Big Guy.

Luck can turn a wound two levels lower so there's that.

Honesty I think modelling damage to the human body in a game that makes a claim to be realistic may be one of the hardest aspects simply due to the variance of people having 5.56 pass though them or turn their insides to mush. I guess you could have an equation where you derive a wound level reduction or shock/pain/bloodloss reduction based off how much unused AP the round has but that then has its own issues of coming into effect likely far more often than it should. It's a very challenging question to address.

You're not supposed to use rifles in CotV anyway, you're supposed to be on a ship using pistols or SMGs

Yes, but lots of people want to play in other scenarios.

Luck rules.

I think the addition of a non-lethal body zone and level 0 wounds are meant to represent that, but I agree that death should be less immediate even from high level wounds.

So what kind of armour is this or is it bullplate that never existed? I mean, I know it's plate but I also no that different kinds of plate have different names.

I know the black and gold fluted look was a big thing among ze Germans for a while.

Its not even armor really. Its just a leather sash holding up quivers.

Kek

Isn't Level 0 supposed to represent suppression, in that you take a bit of stun even if the guy misses completely?

The description for level 0 wounds is that you get grazed, so no.