Zornhau Forums

Here are the character sheets: http://imgur.com/a/b4VXP

and a link to the thread: http://boards.4chan.org/tg/thread/46403 ... #p46421837

and a link to the form fillable character sheet: http://boards.4chan.org/tg/thread/46403 ... #p46428861

Thanks, the character sheet is particularly useful.

Oh, this is awesome! That was a good fight!

That's from a SoSwo board, right? What other TROS derivatives have you played, and what are your general comments on our take? And of course, how did you guys like not looking up the weapon TNs?

Brutal!

Are TRoS and its successors only present on 4chan's /tg/? Asking because I'm not hanging out on chans much by any stretch of the imagination, but when i do, it's mostly 8chan.


Also, i guess this means i can kiss any character goodbye that don't use prio A for proficiencies, by default. Friggin death spiral.
Overshock really seems a bit too much. Alas, 'tis not the place to discuss it.

There is definitely a death spiral, but remember that you're often not going to fight people who themselves have an A in proficiencies. An A means that you're a master warrior; most of your enemies won't be. In general, make sensible decisions and your character will be fine. Don't challenge a master swordsman to a duel unless you are also a master swordsman. Don't duel to the death unless you absolutely must (to first blood was very common). And finally, don't get into fights unless you're getting bonus dice from your SAs. If you're not getting bonus dice from at least one SA, it's probably not important enough for your character to risk dying over.

Edit: Also, remember that most people don't enjoy killing - more often than not, if you take a bad injury, then surrender is an option.

But hector, what about my Temper (major)?

(Serioustime: Everything you said is true.)

nemedeus wrote:Also, i guess this means i can kiss any character goodbye that don't use prio A for proficiencies, by default. Friggin death spiral.

I disagree.

Taking priority A proficiency gives a max CP of 21.

Priority A Attribute gives a max CP of 20, but you also get 2 more Attribute points to put into Strength or Speed.

Your Combat Pool is 1 lower, but you get 1 more dice in Agility which is factored into Knockdown Defense and Speed will factor into Preempting and Strength will increase your MoS.

So as long as you are a) defending from a knockdown b) making a successful hit or c) preempting on average at least once per PHRASE (not tempo), you end up using more dice by having higher attributes than proficiency.

Also, if you have proficiency A in Social Class you can just get your 50 men-at-arms to murder or imprison just about anyone you like, being a Baron and all. Not to mention you have the funds for full proofed plate.

And of course The Major Edges Frenzy, Large and Retainer (and others) are easily more combat effective than 2CP.

So on the whole, the only thing worse for combat effectiveness than putting priority A in Proficiency is Skills!

I love the insults they've thrown at each other

thirtythr33 wrote:I disagree. (...)

Yup. More than one way to skin a cat. I believe being clad in a full proffed plate armour and surrounded by 50 loyal guards is a good idea for winning a fight. Many fights, actually.

thirtythr33 wrote:So on the whole, the only thing worse for combat effectiveness than putting priority A in Proficiency is Skills!

Just get Stealth to magical/impossible/ninja levels, hide in plain sight as a positioning roll and the guy can't even attack you or defend against your attacks.
Ups, sorry, there are no shadowdancers, it's not D&D (fortunately)

thirtythr33 wrote:[...]
So on the whole, the only thing worse for combat effectiveness than putting priority A in Proficiency is Skills!

33 munchkin confirmed :D

But seriously, wow. I haven't thought about that. I'm not good with numbers. :c

But, what does this mean for a Proficiency-A Fencing Master (Assuming no soldiers)? Probably means he better be using the point method instead of tier method... can't pass up those extra stats.

Korbel wrote:I love the insults they've thrown at each other :D

chan culture's gonna do that. It's amazing.

Armor sure makes a difference. In the (unarmored) duel that I ran, one of the combatants disemboweled the other with a longsword on the third tempo.

nemedeus wrote:33 munchkin confirmed

Haha. Here's my crack at a fully optimized 1v1 dueling character.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l4v2l9z130r1q ... n.pdf?dl=0

Things to note:
Female (no crazy groin shots)
Gets Max equipment from Edges instead of Status
Frenzy flaw acts like an edge
Cheaper attributes from Tier 5 Attributes and Large Edge
Only arena relevant skills
Best weapons for beating someone else similarly equiped
Priorities listed in NPCs and Notes

Only weakness I can think of is that he starts with a Medium weapon.
Overall worth it though to get a shield and a weapon with either crushing or plate piercing.

higgins wrote:That's from a SoSwo board, right?

The Song of Swords thread on 4chan's /tg/, correct. Because of the site's transient nature, a thread is not always up and its URL changes frequently. If there's a thread up, it can be found by going to https://boards.4chan.org/tg/catalog and Searching for "Song". If there's not a thread up, one'll probably be up within a day.

What other TROS derivatives have you played, and what are your general comments on our take?

Counting those as Blade of the Iron Throne (a.k.a. Bovine), Band of Bastards (Builder), Song of Swords - and not counting Burning Wheel - we've done fechts in all of them. I haven't played an actual campaign in any except Song of Swords, but others over there have.

Blade of the Iron Throne has a bad layout, which was its worst point. The index was of limited usefulness for trying to find the specific rule you read one time and can't locate again. I had no desire to support them monetarily after their Kickstarter shenanigans involving sells, nor for the stolen artwork littering their book. Most others felt the same.

I have read parts of but haven't played Burning Wheel.

We have had several fechts using Ballad of the Laser Whales, another game by one of the Song of Swords developers. It's about airships and hunting space whales. The name "Laser Whales" comes from a discussion Ian Plumb once had with the developer. However, aside from that system resolving melee combats by literally playing Song of Swords, it is not a Riddle of Steel successor game. Completely different mechanics.

And of course, how did you guys like not looking up the weapon TNs?

At this point for us it's no problem to look up TNs. Using Base TN for everything is different for us, but simple. We still have to look up all the effects of each maneuver, but because your maneuvers are much more compact than Song of Sword's, it was easy to do. Your system is simple and slightly faster to resolve, with different tactical considerations than either SoS or Bovine. The Restraining effect being on so many maneuvers really makes it safer for the attacker, but being able to inject dice into your Preempt at a 1:1 ratio heavily discourages investment over about 80% of your pool at once. Personally I find your grappling system to be very quick and brutal. As conventional wisdom goes, no RPG has ever had a good grappling system, but yours plays well with what I've used it for so far.

The main thing to keep in mind when comparing the games is that Band of Bastards is designed to always have the players' SAs at the forefront. There should always be SAs going off, always be pushing towards some obstacle or conflict. That impetus is existent but weaker in the other Riddle successor games.

I really should've considered the limitations of this ancient relic of a Forum before posting such large images.

thirtythr33 wrote:Thanks, the character sheet is particularly useful.

You're welcome. Let me know if there's anything you feel that needs to be changed.

higgins wrote:That's from a SoSwo board, right? What other TROS derivatives have you played

This was done in the Song of Swords general thread on 4chan's /tg/.
As for what Riddle games & clones that I've played; two TROS campaigns which I enjoyed greatly. It was the first time I really had a sense of a living world in an RPG. I've only done a few fights in Blade of the Iron Throne, I really haven't explored it to the length that I have Riddle or SoS.
Song of Swords I have played an incredible amount of, I believe I have over 3,000 hours in the Roll20 room along with 200+ people that have attended fights or I have taught how to play, saying nothing of the time spent arguing balance or just outright yelling at Opaque to fix their shit.

higgins wrote:what are your general comments on our take? And of course, how did you guys like not looking up the weapon TNs?

Looking up Weapon TNs was never really a weakness of SoS or TROS, but 'balancing' a weapon with Weapon TN's was certainly a cancer. You really didn't get your money's worth out of a weapon that decided to trade a lower TN for more damage simply because you would get more damage by having a lower TN, so a lot of +3 damage TN8 weapons never saw any real gameplay. Granted one of my favorite characters weaponized a Military Fork + Arming Hook to trip opponents before stabbing their knees/elbows/eyes out.

So far your take on the combat is pretty simple, I feel like it's a cleaned up version of TROS.
The weapons are done in a more narrative style, so that it doesn't matter so much the official historic weapon as the concept is. Which is something I like.
Restraining is neat, prone isn't such a game ender.
Your Death Spiral is probably just as severe, though in a different way, high TNs instead of low dice, both are hard to recover from.

nemedeus wrote:Are TRoS and its successors only present on 4chan's /tg/?

Only present? Riddle was quite popular on /tg/ for a time. If you haven't: go check out the tg archive and look up 'John Galt' to see his old fechts. Otherwise only Song of Swords seems to be the only Riddle thread ever on /tg/.
I really don't know where most of the community has disappeared to.

nemedeus wrote:Also, i guess this means i can kiss any character goodbye that don't use prio A for proficiencies, by default. Friggin death spiral.

Depends on the circumstance you're making the character for, you're not always going to be making a one-shot tourney character to win duels with.
A lot of play testing we did were with characters who had max Proficiency and then enough attributes to get by.
Though we usually rounded out actual campaign characters.

thirtythr33 wrote:Haha. Here's my crack at a fully optimized 1v1 dueling character.

20 CP is nothing to laugh at, that alone makes a character quite a capable combatant.
Though making her female for no groin shots is just cowardly, give that poor girl a dick.

thirtythr33 wrote: Haha. Here's my crack at a fully optimized 1v1 dueling character.
[...]

For some reason, the file wasn't displayed correctly on my phone...

Fight King wrote: Only present? Riddle was quite popular on /tg/ for a time. If you haven't: go check out the tg archive and look up 'John Galt' to see his old fechts. Otherwise only Song of Swords seems to be the only Riddle thread ever on /tg/.
I really don't know where most of the community has disappeared to.

Allow me to rephrase: Does 8chan's /tg/ also do Riddle and/or Riddle clones?
Although maybe that's inappropriate to ask a hard-boiled 4channer... ?

Fight King wrote: Depends on the circumstance you're making the character for, you're not always going to be making a one-shot tourney character to win duels with.
A lot of play testing we did were with characters who had max Proficiency and then enough attributes to get by.
Though we usually rounded out actual campaign characters.

That makes sense. I guess a lot of the above result was due to the Limey's decision to not wear a helmet, anyway.

Fight King wrote: Though making her female for no groin shots is just cowardly, give that poor girl a dick.

Whaddaya mean, girls don't have dicks?