Song of Swords: Why don't you make new threads? Edition

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Well, in a way, but a broader blade helps too.

Own goaled hard.

Nice.

It might be harder to stab with a curved blade.

what did he mean by this

A wide blade can be very thin, and still have good stiffness in the edge to edge direction, and decent mass behind the swing to help the momentum. All of that helping with cutting. Of course, it's generally out by the cutting part that we really want these things for them to matter. (Though there may be some interesting effects on blade harmonics form it as well.)

A curved blade can also help with cutting, I think by helping ensure you get a slight slicing component to your cut even if you yourself forgot to add it. This is independent form the width thing, so you can pick either or both these ways to help things along.

The wide blade of the cinqueada is probably more about looking cool in itself, and to provide a large "canvas" for decorative fullering and, in some cases, etching and gilding. The impression I've gotten is that it's at least as much a fashion accessory as it was a weapon.

One thing to keep in mind regarding the cutting though is that the wide and thin geometry allows for a lot of contact between the sides of the blade and the sides of the wound, and thus a lot of friction. A wider, narrower design will have to do more work parting the wound, but in return reduces the friction. I suspect what works the best is one of those things that varies a lot with a lot of factors.

A slight curve shouldn't make it much harder. At the same time, it probably won't help with your cutting as much either. It's less of straight vs curved, and instead a scale going from zero to lots.

Thank you KM, I love you.
By the way, do you happen to know anything about medieval grenades/hand bombs?

Not a lot. I know somewhat later (say, 17th-18th century) ones would be clay, glass or cast iron pots filled with gunpowder and with a fuse inserted. By and large this is achievable with early 14th century tech in Europe (possibly quite a bit earlier elsewhere), but when and where exactly the various types would have been introduced and used I can't help you with. For what it's worth, the price and rarity of black powder fell off a cliff in the late 14th/early 15th century, wouldn't surprise me if that had an effect on grenade use as well.

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Have you any idea about how effective even those 18th century grenades would have been?

A possible very early one, depending on how reliable the sellers description was, and how heavy the quotations marks around grenade are supposed to be.

Also available as incendiary. This is just a ball of rope, filled with more rope, fabric, fibre, or whatever else could help carry an incendiary mixture (the known recipe is basically very badly saltpetre-starved wet mixed black powder). youtube.com/watch?v=uL4vnolCwLI

The round things seen on the surface are the business ends of "murder tubes". These are paper tubes filled with proper black powder, capped with lead balls. They'll go off more or less at random as the ball burns, and while they won't kill anyone at any real range, they'll make it a very exiting job to get the grenade away from anything flammable before it starts a fire.

As a tangent, the WW2 firebomb that the British loved so much was essentially a thermite candle. And since they didn't like firefighters either some of those would have an explosive charge somewhere within it, meaning any of them could detonate at any moment as it lay there burning.

Not really, no. I would imagine that they won't measure up to, say, a WW2 grenade, so that could probably be used as an upper limit quite safely.

They look pretty thick, so shrapnel was probably pretty beastly, but I don't know how good the powder quality was back then.

Damn, I've been trying to dig up info on old grenade power, but it's pretty much impossible to find anything about it.

I suspect the large shrapnel chunks would have been balanced by the relatively speaking very low density of the shrapnel, say around a third of iron/steel. So you need large chunks to get enough momentum in there to do much damage. It may also have been a way to contain the explosion for a bit longer with these relatively weak and brittle materials, allowing pressure ot build up for when it did pop.

Powder quality in the middle ages would have varied immensely. The early nitre bed based powders in particular would have an extremely short shelf life (I'm under the impression that a day or two from manufacture could mean a significant reduction in power). For most of the 15th century this would then be replaced by powder made in the shape of large loaves, which had a decent shelf life in that form, and was then crumbled or ground up before use, at which point the shelf life would drop drastically again. All of this being very weather-dependent, as the mechanism of spoiling is absorption of atmospheric moisture. Reasonably moisture-resistant powders (due to purer saltpetre) came about, hm, early 16th century IIRC, though ensuring even and optimal quality was an ongoing struggle that even modern day black powder makers has to deal with to some degree.

But all said and done, when fresh the powder was probably very similar to modern day black powder (the crumbled leaves effectively being of a very, very fine grind due to the ripped up edges). It's essentially the same thing after all.

Could one run an MGS themed game in Ballad?

Yes.

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Sos/Ballad PC theme songs?
youtube.com/watch?v=LD165Xn2PXw

youtube.com/watch?v=FIcxqVRLEWI
The classic.

Very easily, though a big part of MGS is stealth and sneaking around, which doesn't translate well to tabletop.

Puzzles, too. You can't really do puzzles well on tabletop.

youtube.com/watch?v=QOyBPNqUdGM

youtube.com/watch?v=cvKRbi2ovDY

Anyone else got a concept of their backer art back yet?

Jimmy, Bones, when are you gonna get your Kickstarter updated? You promised a combat update like a week ago.

You sort of can, it just takes a bunch of props made ahead of time and it's tough to get the difficulty right.

i.4cdn.org/wsg/1493469489692.webm

Absolutely Chironic. The Japanese finally saw John Wick.

Is this a legit thing?

John Wick had to reload

Very carefully.

It's out now as of like an hour ago apparently

22 shots. With an double stack extended magazine, like the one he's shown with, that's very possible.

Well, yeah. They only update when one of us tells them to, but at least they do so promptly when reminded.

So am I blind or does the new School system not list the level of Talent you unlock at any given point. It's just "New Talent!". Or am I missing something.

You are correct. I'll bet the next big thing is going to be reworked Talents.

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It'll probably be something like Ballad, where there are small trees. I hope Talents get a lot of love. The regular SoS talents are kind of boring compared to the Ballad ones, and a lot of weapons have really no talents while Pugilism has a million for no reason. It's hard to differentiate fighters to any real extent.

I kind of have an instinctive dislike of talents because they smack of D&D feats and builds, but Ballad shows that they can really change how you play a character. I hope some of that goes into SoS.

>1488
>likes ballad
Shocker

wtf I love Nazis now

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So just to check we absolutely needed to take these people's money right?

Take their money, ignore their feedback

fucking hell

At first I was kinda sure that it's a troll, but I'm not that sure anymore.

He's got the right idea though. We could use more banes for different addictions, would be pretty sweet.

>buthurt fatty
agree with this though. more banes to the people!

[Desire for eugenics program intensifies]

Inb4 he gets like a dozen responses calling him a fatass

I don't think Jimmy would appreciate that.

The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.

Don't do it. We should address this tactfully so that we don't all look like assholes.

Where's this actually at?

What big cats there are in vosca?
Karthacks got tigers though, right?

sos reddit

Holy shit, whoever is "Captain Carthage," why would you fucking do this, you've just created a shitstorm that I can't ignore. I HAVE To answer this guy now you fuckwits, why the fuck would you do this? Seriously, stop this shit immediately. It is not your job to go and harass people for us on fucking REDDIT.

Sorry, I'll delete some.

It's fine, this time wasn't so bad, but Jesus.

At least I was able to resist saying that we already had a Religious Zealotry Boon called "Virtuous," Inshallah.

I really am sorry, my poor impulse control got the best of me and I forgot where I was. It's extra frustrating because I see now that it undermined the points I was trying to make.

Don't be me /SoS/, be mindful of your surroundings.

It's just important to make purely mental Banes actually matter mechanically too. Honorable, Virtuous and similar Banes are way too easy to game to get free Boons

It's alright buddy, you don't hang out with the four khans and then get upset when someone burns down a village. Just be mindful in the future--I can handle this sort of thing, it will be better if I handle it.

If your players are gaming them for extra boons and they never come up in the game, either your players, your games, or both, are shit.

Small quibble, inshallah means the equivalent of "God-willing", whereas you're likely intending "thank god", or "praise be". Accordingly, the proper phrase would be "Praise be to God", 'Al-hamd ul ilah" (praise be to God), or "chukran Allah" (literally, thank God)

Thank you Friendly Arabic Expert.

Outside of combat, how often shluld Blood Loss tests be made if a person is bleeding out? One per minute?

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There are Tigers in Karthack, as well as further East and South.

It is also said that in Dace, there is a terrible sort of beast called the Ostockroznock, which is a large cat of some variety which is invisible to the naked eye. Its fur cloaks it, and it cannot be seen, but its eyes grow visible at times, glowing bright green.

It is commonly believed to be some sort of tiger, mutated by the Magestone content in its primary prey--Dacians. It is also suspected that its eyes glow more green and bright the more people it eats for precisely that reason.

In Galli there are "Tomb Lions," which at one time dwelt in caves, but which now occupy ruins, catacombs and tombs, which Genosian Law forbids be destroyed, and which are often simply built over and over each other, creating a great network of convenient tunnels and caverns.

Maned lions can be found in Karthack as well as Berkukha and all about the Horn of Tujank. A few were brought over to Iber as pets by the Karthacks, but escaped. A small population of these beasts grows in the wartorn country, often becoming maneaters and preying on villagers, hunters, or even wounded soldiers.

Aren't a lot of those covered by the flaw arc?

Yes

The Grit Insanity as well

Sour guy. On one of my games one of the players brought his girlfriend along, and as I was explaining the rules of Boons and Banes I used Short and Tall as examples, forgetting that she was like 5 feet tall. She took it about as normally as any proper human being though, and we joked pretty hard about it.

Blood tests are utterly fucked right now. You bleed to death in minutes from tiny wounds. It's almost better to ignore bleed for now.

You can account for them, but they're still fairly hard to keep track of and easy to game. It's better to mechanize them like pretty much every other game, so that they're actual banes. And adding more banes, like Ballad's addiction bane.

>wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Fuck off nigger.

I mean, I like it

Does anyone have that link where the guy interviewed doctors about bleeding out?

Am I just too stoned or in the 1.3 update does it take 96 starting attribute points to have straight 4s at character creation? And the most you can get is 48?

I had this same question and I think what it's meant to be is a return to earlier versions where each level costs 1 at character generation. So those 38 or so points you get for a 5 pcp investment actually nets you a nice stat line.

>no one has posted it yet
New rules update everyone

bucklers are incredible, holy shit
>Block TN 6
>Bash TN 6
>Plate-tier AV
>requires 6+ BS to Hew
>no longer protects just your hands and forearms, but now your Upper Head, Lower Head, Face, Neck, entire shield arm from hand to Shoulder, and your other Shoulder as well
>for 0 wt 4 sp and one hand
The game should be renamed Song of Bucklers
Think of the weight and gold you save by using a buckler instead of wearing helmets and bevors and arm armor. And you get TNs of 6 on top of that!

Yeah that...seems a little much.

It sounds like it's describing a rodela rather than a dueling buckler.

everyone was already using bucklers but wow holy shit

I'll give it to 'em they definitely didn't hold back on this. We'll have to see how good of an idea the changes actually were but at least things are actually moving again.

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>tfw no pet Kesh

Some people keep a sort of Bonsai Kesh around as decorations or quasi-pets, but they tend to smell really bad unless you're an expert in chemistry, and can change the water supply constantly with something rich enough to suppress their poison-gas hunting technique that also doesn't smell like dead shit.

There are a few botanists who maintain that Kesh possess the ability to "learn" over the course of time, and suggest that a Kesh plant could be trained through behavioral reinforcement to act in a certain ways so as to make them more aggressive in dragging living things into their pits, or even so as to make them harmless. These academics are normally shunned by others in their field, who cite the total lack of any sort of brain or anything resembling one in the creatures.

Even so a few aristocrats have been caught clandestinely attempting to train "guard kesh' to defend their treasuries or even the moats of their castles. They are usually chastized and the experiments halted. It has never been confirmed whether or not any of the experiments were actually successful.

Also: What are peoples' experiences with Joint Thrust, and does it adequately serve in combat as it is now? Is it too strong? Too weak? Please let us know so that we can fix eet. This isn't exactly feedback to changes per-se, so it can happen here with no worries.

Make polearms able to benefit from the same bonuses as a half sworded blade. It's fucking crazy you can't maneuver the point of a poleaxe into a guy's eyes but you can maneuver a sword when you're holding them the exact same way.

Hey Jimmy how much would, say, a 12 pounder cannon cost in Vosca? How much would other cannons usually run people?