Song of Swords: Vive le Roi!

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What is wrong with SoS skills and which tabletop systems do skills right?

Who knows? Is there non rules lite system where players are happy with existing skill system? I can't think of any.

The system is fine, but the removal of skill packets was a baffling decision.

Skills are boring as all hell, because there's none of the interesting mechanics of combat in them. Also many skills, namely Persuasion, grow too big due to attributes, boons, and banes. You can throw twenty dice in a skill check by barely trying. There has to be some way of making it less about huge fistfulls of dice. It might be neat to have some sort of mechanic for splitting your pool, like combat. Like you dedicate a number of dice to a particular desired outcome.

Requiring multiple successes over multiple "rounds" maybe? Like you have to split your persuasions pull between the key points of your argument or some such?

>It might be neat to have some sort of mechanic for splitting your pool, like combat.
Then autists will come screeching about it.

This is the major return I'm working on. Skill packets are coming back, along with some changes to how skills work at chargen, etc.

I'm not super interested in changing how skills themselves work right now--I'd rather that skills stay pretty simple, but I'm willing to listen to suggestions if anyone has any.

Also general Q&A, I'll be here for a few hours.

Say that to my face and not online fucker. We'll see who gets hit by a typhoon

What's up with King being some sort of celibate weirdo, it seemed much more like him to be a womanizing brute than a paranoid Veeky Forums type.

That was actually just me trolling Bones, it was supposed to come up in a Fecht that that reputation is actually false--the women in towns he visits use it as a cover when flocking to his camp, and it has spread because it seems like the one crack in his persona of invulnerability. He doesn't care enough to dispel the rumors because he doesn't listen to rumors in the first place.

You are going to steal mass combat rules from some other game like ASoIaF, aren't you?

Nay. We're working on it on the side, but there are questions as to whether it is core book material. This is just a test model, we have 2-3 such models in the works, to see what works and what doesn't. It's all very Hegelian, suffice to say we'll have something real at some point.

Having a dedicated social combat system is a bit much in my opinion, but it's very possible. Example of what I'm thinking of:

You're climbing a wall. You have fifteen dice. You put six dice into climbing up safely. You put another four into succesfully grabbing something from the wall along the way. You put three into climbing quickly. You put two into climbing stylishly because why not. Each task has its own RS, probably a very small one. You roll them all, and what you succeed on changes how the climb goes down. You can do the same thing with persuasion, with each subtest being different goals in the conversation.

It's okay to borrow from the Flower of Battle but at least admit it

We're trying to go a much more tactical route. Obviously D10 games will have a bit in common but I think you'll find this is totally different.

I kind of like it, but it needs a larger system for multiple players controlling multiple units. How fast do units move, what is the turn order, etc. As a core system this is pretty cool, and not super complicated. I do like the heroic actions, that part is very TROS.

Note by Jimmy: This short film is indicative of a Dwarf society that starts digging without restraint.

youtube.com/watch?v=mc4kemvDd4M

NINE DIGGING DWARVES JUST DIGGING UNDERROADS

WOULD CAUSE A HEAP OF TROUBLE FOR ALL INVOLVED

That's amazing

fucking skill at chargen my god
one entire PCP for three individual dice is a fucking travesty to mankind
when one PCP in attributes can create cascading bonuses to your entire character that outpace every other chargen category and fucking skills gives you the level of proficiency of a fucking nightschooled nigger there is a problem

nerf attribute
buff skills, giving it a base value higher than fucking zero, and make it scale better

possibly also buff weapon proficiency. I dont know how your new school calculations interact with being Human, but it was fucking impossible before to have a nonhuman character at Chargen who both knew how to use three weapons and wasnt a bumbling imbecile with them without investing everything into weapon prof

Which npc has the biggest dick in Vosca, and why is it the King?

Make attributes way more expensive in general. It should be a rarity to see people with more than six in a stat, not the norm.

>mass combat is coming along
Rewind to two threads ago
>hey fuck you saying we need mass combat
Jimmy logic

Didn't he just say that it wasn't a priority?

Look at the skills in VeloCITY, they're actually pretty fun.

Attributes are fine.

>there are questions as to whether it is core book material
I don't see how it could not be.

>Yoemen
Not sure if this is a typo or if y'all actually think that's how it's spelled, but it should be Yeomen.

Overall I like the core system, but you haven't defined what constitutes a unit or a commander (or Leader or Champion) anywhere, and for some of the heroic actions it's not clear to what extent individuals are or aren't being abstracted.

The losses bit is kind of confusing.

It might be good to have some kind of movement rules, since most people like that in their tactics.

I'm assuming that the troop costs are per individual person? That means you need rules for mixed units, at least in that the average commander won't want every man in his brigade to carry their own standard.

The modifiers for additional unit equipment are unit-wide. The reasoning for Standards is that really big units will need a more visible standard, or perhaps multiple of them. More elite units will obviously need a more glorious standard--that's just common medieval sense--so the cost will go up either way.

I'll get to work on the rest of the stuff. Losses is a bit complicated right now but it's the best way I could think of to do it. We also need to get shooting in there. Thanks for the feedback m8.

The fucking left-click of my mouse is broken, so I had to switch it to the right click. This is going to be a really shitty week.

>The modifiers for additional unit equipment are unit-wide.
See, that's what I thought at first, but it makes no sense.
>The reasoning for Standards
Is bullshit. 25%? You're telling me that having one of these things in a group of - let's say - 80 troops will cost as much as fielding an additional twenty fucking cavalrymen?

Revise the concept, give them standards but make it more about training them to use the standards, and then it'll make a little bit of sense. It'll be redundant with some of the troop quality bits, probably, but it's better than a flag that costs as much as twenty knights.

>The fucking left-click of my mouse is broken, so I had to switch it to the right click
5 bucks will get you a new one a big lots or other discount retailer. Y'all have them over in commie land, don't you?

They are way, way too inflated. A world where 7 ADR is the standard for all starting characters is a world that's incredibly over inflated.

Could this be reflavored and be used in mass space combat?

If attributes are fine, then everything but Races and Banes are shit. Shiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Perhaps with a bit of modification, but you might need a different system. The upside of this would be that you can scale it up indefinitely--this could handle LOTGH scale battles.

How do cost modifiers apply? Just multiply everything together, or is it going to cost 12 silver to give my heavy cavalry pistols regardless of whether it's a paladin riding sleipnir or Don Quixote on Rocinante?

>troop quality
There should be some way to use skills (and time) to boost an existing troop to a higher level, so people can live out their fantasy of having their own squad of super elites.

>numbers and skill are both raw numerical bonuses
Not sure how much sense this makes. If you've got some naked peasants, how many of them does it take to defeat cavalry in plate with no losses?

>If you've got some naked peasants, how many of them does it take to defeat cavalry in plate with no losses?
Quite a lot.

How many Cavalry? 1? One man on his destrier?

>possibly also buff weapon proficiency. I dont know how your new school calculations interact with being Human, but it was fucking impossible before to have a nonhuman character at Chargen who both knew how to use three weapons and wasnt a bumbling imbecile with them without investing everything into weapon prof
Can't you just take a School that includes all the weapons, then raise that? By my reading (which may not be correct) you can pay 4 proficiency points to create a Soldier school that teaches sword/axe/dagger, then raise that as a single proficiency to become competent at all three weapon types.

That's the point, nigger, as it stands a nonhuman has to pay double to add weapons to a school, and with the already inflated founding costs for a school, that stacks up when the average Arc provided to play around with is 9.

Elaborating
4 PCP investment is the amount that (should) roughly translate to being Good in that category
4 PCP is a comfortable Freeman
4 PCP is not having to take any Banes

for 4 PCP we get 9 Arc to spend on weapon proficiency
as it stands, a Soldier school costs 1 base to found
a human has to pay 1 to add a weapon prof, nonhumans add another +1 to make it 2 per prof
Soldier schools demand a minimum of three additions
so a nonhuman is paying [1]+[2x3] = 7 minimum arc to found a Level 1 soldier school
actually impossible with anything less than 4 PCP, and at 4 PCP they can raise it as far as a whopping... level 3
The level of training of an irregular and irregularly active militia. Not even proficient enough to reach the Tier 1 Maneuvers of established competency
at a PCP level that should represent being Good

Even with higher investments, even for humans, I have almost never seen a character at chargen with a school at level 10, which is only halfway up the advancement chart. The *costs* of advancing a school feel fair, but the chargen attribution feels like some hot bullshit.

>a human has to pay 1 to add a weapon prof, nonhumans add another +1 to make it 2 per prof
They do? I though nonhumans paid the listed cost, and humans paid 1-less-than-listed

He's got his math right. paste2.org/089j7MYm

>I have almost never seen a character at chargen with a school at level 10
That's ok with me.

>Fucking hand grenades

Man I wish I could find data on the effectiveness and usage of pre-civil war grenades of different eras, shit's inmpossible to find.

It's pretty hard to find information on that, it's not like they can test the artifacts.

Even at High Fantasy power levels?

nigga have you tried to break a 1 1/2" diameter rod while the nigga holding it is trying to stab you?

Is is pretty good, but so far it only covers homogenous units. There's not much room for mixed groups with diverse weapons.

So if you've amassed quite a lot, you can count on these troops to rout the knights every time? Because right now, it's a fringe case but that's how it works.

10:1 gives +16 dice, wow that's scary but wait!

Naked Peasants will be at -2 troop quality and I'm guessing nakedness is inferior equipment so that's another -2.

The knights will be at +4 troop quality, they're heavy cavalry so that's +8 on the charge.

So that's actually 12 vs 12 with the knights outnumbered 10:1.

And that's not even considering the inevitable Heroic Combat that the knight's unit champion will inflict on the mob and the likely miss-match in Tactics scores. The actual danger only comes in if the knights fail to disengage.

That's if combat is engaged by the Cav charging the peasants. If the naked peasants charge the Cav how do the number go?

Well ideally you wouldn't let that happen.

Ideals break upon meeting reality. Tell me what would happen

Well then you have the mob at 12 dice to 4 so the knights are looking to make it up in tactics values and Heroic actions.

The the overwhelming majority of scenarios however there's not reason they shouldn't be charge, even in the document we have an example of the opposing units both charging. In practical terms there should be a mechanic for cavalry to refuse engagements with foot troops that have no business catching them.

They could be wheeling and have a mob jump them from terrain like a forest or possibly even concealed trenches.

There definitely needs to be some terrain rules. How else can we kill frenchmen at agincourt?

You shouldn't be able to break most spears or polearms with weapons, let alone your hands. Well, it should be possible, but way way harder than it is now.

Breaking should be something that just happens, not a specific style of attack you try to do.

Seems like a glaring omission desu.

Mud is more important than swords.

The Audatia mod now has 1000 subscribers. Thanks to everyone who downloaded it so far. Tell your friends about it, spread the word!

>have to wait 1-2 more years for monster hunting rules

Only 10 months.

Good

I can never tell if the Shinsengumi were totally aesthetic or goofy looking.

>Veeky Forums as fuck

That's pretty hot

This shit was hard enough to figure out when I understood the terms and knew what the moves looked like.

No idea where I'm gonna find a normie who will learn the game

Just screech about swords to your friends until they agree to prevent you shooting the place up. It's how I got people into SoS.

Much better with the solid pants than the stripes.

How viable is a dedicated skrimisher? Are thrown weapons worth the weight and cost comparable to bows?

You get to add strength to damage, which in some cases makes them almost unrealistically good.

>light javelins
>no weight
>Bear and Boar Piercer applies to them
>STR to damage
The answer is yes.
Take a couple Lead javelins for fucking shields and you're golden.

youtube.com/watch?v=7-cS_ptYF9I

Totally appropriate and related, because Brian Blessed is always appropriate.

Fuck it, throw in some heavy darts too. Not as powerful as the lead javelins, but very long range and 0 weight as well.

I think it's a really intuitive game. I may be able to help you learn how to teach it to your normie friends.

It's stronger than a light javelin but unfortunately is MTN 8. You'll have a very hard time hitting an unresisting target. If they're moving they'll be missile defense 6, so you'll need 7 successes to hit them, much less hurt them. The only way you'll get that is if you can run backwards while Aiming, while they are not Sprinting towards you, and take fully aimed shots from long range.

A Question for CotV:

Is there any advantage for having 35 rof over 15 rof on my submachinegun? Doesn't auto fire give The same +8 bonus as kong as you put at least 4 bullets downrange? And since you Are very unlikely to hit With more then 15 bullets anyway it just seems like a waste. Is there something i am missing?

Suppressing fire.

Even if it's the extras of the rather underwhelming Time Commanders reboot (and the worst bit at that) it is hard not to grin at the sheer joy Brian is having with all the hardware.

He really should have been made a knight instead of just an OBE last year.

youtube.com/watch?v=r-X4K0D38zQ

He's the best.