Sword & Scoundrel v0.1.4

[Agamemnon]

It's that time again. This update focuses on character creation. Priority Tier values have been adjusted for balance, Trait Point costs have been completely audited and overhauled, and a number of small typos, clarifications, and errata have been fixed.

Character creation has been completed with the introduction of Book III: Iron & Gold covering everything one needs to round out their kit. It includes rules for our abstract currency system, as well as all the rules for armor, weapons, and their customization. The latter is a particular point of pride, as it includes our weapon codices, allowing you to create your own custom weapons to suit the vision you have for your character. Rounding this out, we have included support for weapon and armor ornamentation, giving you even further ability to stride the battlefield in style. 

Pick it up in our download section, and as always, feel free to leave us feedback on our forums. 

[thirtythr33]

*Incoherent squealing*

I've been waiting to see the weapon codex since I first found this website. Staying up all night smashing the refresh key has paid off!

[Agamemnon]

*Incoherent squealing*

I've been waiting to see the weapon codex since I first found this website. Staying up all night smashing the refresh key has paid off!

Ha! I'm glad.

Technically, Book IV should be Natural Law and include all of the advanced doing-stuff rules, but because I love you guys so much I'm actually skipping it to go straight to Book V so we can get all the combat stuff in, because that's what you're actually interested in. We'll go add in the necessary beta Book IV stuff afterward.

[Siggi]

Thank you, guys! We've been waiting indeed!

[nemedeus]

Oh boy...

so today i showed someone both The Dark Eye AND Band of Bastards in contrast. i think you can really make a sales pitch out of that, because he decided he would need to run 'Bastards sometime soon. I told him to wait for the updated combat rules though - so next update is that, yes? please?

Other than that, good job! can't wait to look it over!

[Agamemnon]

Oh boy...

so today i showed someone both The Dark Eye AND Band of Bastards in contrast. i think you can really make a sales pitch out of that, because he decided he would need to run 'Bastards sometime soon. I told him to wait for the updated combat rules though - so next update is that, yes? please?

Other than that, good job! can't wait to look it over!

If all goes according to plan, the next release should have at the least: Melee, Ranged, Skirmish, Wounds & Healing, Encumbrance, and the Wound Charts.

After that, we want to get in as many of the fiddly bits as we're going to bother with for the sake of beta -- Connections rolls, Social conflicts, etc. Then we get to go into PR mode.

[nemedeus]

If all goes according to plan, the next release should have at the least: Melee, Ranged, Skirmish, Wounds & Healing, Encumbrance, and the Wound Charts.

After that, we want to get in as many of the fiddly bits as we're going to bother with for the sake of beta -- Connections rolls, Social conflicts, etc. Then we get to go into PR mode.

You're making me very excited here, Agamemnon.

A we are talking about subsystems, said other guy asked about other systems such as naval combat which you all but confirmed already of course, but also a siege module. Could you give us a quick rundown of the modules you're planning to work on at some point?

Btw, i love the change to the Draw Cut property.

[myanbar]

I found these pages and pages of costs to be mind-numbingly boring. Do you really need 7 pages of lists? I'm talking about the costs of goods and things, pg 77 to 84. Surely it'd be better to pare it down to a page of guidelines instead.

Despite the way it is often portrayed, armor is very good at it’s job

You guys gotta ctrl+F every instance of "it's" and "its" so you catch all these typos. They keep happening.

[Agamemnon]

If all goes according to plan, the next release should have at the least: Melee, Ranged, Skirmish, Wounds & Healing, Encumbrance, and the Wound Charts.

After that, we want to get in as many of the fiddly bits as we're going to bother with for the sake of beta -- Connections rolls, Social conflicts, etc. Then we get to go into PR mode.

You're making me very excited here, Agamemnon.

A we are talking about subsystems, said other guy asked about other systems such as naval combat which you all but confirmed already of course, but also a siege module. Could you give us a quick rundown of the modules you're planning to work on at some point?

Btw, i love the change to the Draw Cut property.

Answered here, so as not to derail the topic.

[Agamemnon]

I found these pages and pages of costs to be mind-numbingly boring. Do you really need 7 pages of lists? I'm talking about the costs of goods and things, pg 77 to 84. Surely it'd be better to pare it down to a page of guidelines instead.

A rough guideline is given on page 69, for people who don't want to be arsed. Like everything else, use what you find useful and ignore what you don't. Doing it this way, the people who like having the list can use it and the people who don't can ignore it. If we did it the other way, then the people who don't care still aren't affected and the people who liked it are SOL.

[dysjunct]

This looks fantastic and and you guys should be proud. Love the codices. On my phone so I'll let the others give detailed feedback, but I would recommend changing the typesetting on the base costs. It was hard to find the first time.

[Seanachai]

In an early playtest of my Burning Steel, players enjoyed the "make a check to buy something" approach but the dungeon delving in them still want to get stuff. I introduced the idea of "parcels", one-time dice bonuses to wealth checks. These could be bags of gold, diamonds, letters of credit, bank notes, or items that had specific traits (e.g., you found an old worthless knickknack but it counts as a +1 Parcel when negotiating with the NPC who collects that sort of thing).

[Agamemnon]

In an early playtest of my Burning Steel, players enjoyed the "make a check to buy something" approach but the dungeon delving in them still want to get stuff. I introduced the idea of "parcels", one-time dice bonuses to wealth checks. These could be bags of gold, diamonds, letters of credit, bank notes, or items that had specific traits (e.g., you found an old worthless knickknack but it counts as a +1 Parcel when negotiating with the NPC who collects that sort of thing).

That's about what Coin is for, in our current setup. Good to see you around, Sean.

[taelor]

Very cool. One small question about how the longbow stats in the example bow chart was generated. We start with the default stats of (2p, short/medium, RLD: -, 2h, ambush d6, draw 1). We then take the war and long modifiers, which up DR to 4p, draw to 2, range to short/long and gives us the foot attribute. Next, we take the stiff modifier, which limits us to one shot per round and ups our ambush to 2d6, but also increases our DR by one. We should then have 5p, rather than the 4p listed in the chart. Or am I missing something.

Edit: I also note that Rondel daggers have been nerfed compared to the BoB Dueling Kit stats.

[Siggi]

The Wealth chapter was much anticipated by me, for this system had been mentioned a lot, but never appeared in the drafts until today.

The first impression is quite positive: the system seems neat and ingenious. Speaking for me, I almost always played games with non-abstract money systems. And, naturally, they always seemed right. Now after reading this chapter I realized that I'm quite fed up with counting my gold pieces (and that's exactly what I'm doing all the time these days in a medieval-ocean's-11-style-heist adventure that we're currently playing). I expect that after trying this system it would be extremely hard to go back to that wretched penny-counting.

Here's my question, though. Say, the group of three characters has managed to get their hands on a small chest with money. They open it and the GM happily announces that inside they find 4 Coin. So... How do 3 people share 4 Coin?

I mean, in another system, they could've found 40 gold coins (and that also does not divide by 3). But then they can have 13 coins each and then use the last one to buy a bottle and drink it together. I'm typing this because I'm trying to answer this question myself, to figure out, how I would deal with such situations. Maybe the GM should round the number of coins gained up or down (and maybe he should do it before the characters discover the gold?)? Or maybe there may be a certain formula for dividing it. All and all, I'm quite sure that such situations would arise, and there should be a way to deal with it.

Another controversy is about getting Coin from Assets and vice versa. For example, I have 3 Assets and and 3 Coin. I want to increase my Assets, but I need two more Coin to do that. It appears from the rules that I can produce 2 Coin from my Assets (by making a test), and then use the resulting 5 Coin to raise my Assets. Is it designed this way intentionally, or is it, maybe, a backdoor or something?..

UPD

I found these pages and pages of costs to be mind-numbingly boring. Do you really need 7 pages of lists? I'm talking about the costs of goods and things, pg 77 to 84. Surely it'd be better to pare it down to a page of guidelines instead.

I disagree here. Tables are cool, we do need them. Shopping is the most fun in this games, or am I missing something?..