A few rules questions on O.L.D.

Having started a new O.L.D. Fantasy campaign, a few questions have came up which I hope some of you may Answer.

1-Does natural armor stack with other armor ? For example if an exploit grant +4 natural armor and someone also wear hide armor do they have soak of 7 or only 4 ?

2-Does plate mail also allow an helmet or is one already included in the armor ? And do high quality helmet also add +2 to the soak ? One of my player is a smith and chose to create high quality plate and helmet which would give him 10+ 2 for the armor and 4+2 for the helmet for a whopping 18 soak for a starting character !! And since he took a wall shield as well his defenses are not that bad (he is strong enough to wear all that)

3- What defense must an airborne disease attack ? The rules seem to suggest melee defense but it does not make much sense (why would a shield for exemple help against that ?) is there an endurance based Defense ?

4- similarly the rules to create poisons indicate that you must use as a target number the defense of the target. But again what defense ? It seems strange to use melee or mental defense for a poison which affect the body and not the mind (especially if it is ingested). What am I missing ?

5-Am i correct that without healing it is impossible to recover from a disease ? It seems that it should be possible to heal naturally sometimes.

6- is there a rule for characters helping each other ? I know there are rules to remove a condition on someone else and for group checks but I am thinking more about character pushing a door together for example. So far instead of adding the dice of everyone i added the strength score and check how much dice that is equivalent too, which seems intuitively better than a simple addition of the dices, but is there an official rule on this ?

That's all for now.

Thanks in advance !

In order!

1. That one's in the rules FAQ on the website. "If you have different sources for SOAK, you use the highest. If you have SOAK bonuses, these stack. So, if you have armor which gives SOAK 4 and you also have natural SOAK 3, your SOAK is 4. But if you have armor which gives SOAK 4 and a natural exploit which gives SOAK +3, your SOAK is 7. The difference is the “+” symbol."

2. Doesn't include a helmet; you buy helms and gauntlets separately. The quality SOAK bonus applies to the suit of armour, not to the accessories.

3. I'd disallow the shield for that. But, sure, you can attack any attribute -- the precalculated DEFENSES are there for convienience, as they're most commonly used.

4. See above.

5. You need some kind of treatment, yes. It's not like a common cold (which would just be a persistent condition), these are serious diseases.

6. Most cooperative efforts aren't purely additive. There's leadership (for verbal help/advice) or extended skill tasks, plus, as you say, group skill checks. Most cooperative tasks are extended tasks which require more than one check, and characters help by performing different parts of the task.

You're right that pure strength-based tasks, unlike most, are purely additive, and would be the exception to that; you'll need to adjudicate it, but I would suggest to push a door only two characters can probably effectively help. Your solution seems elegant.

Thanks for the quick reply. I have a little follow-up in the same order :

1- I had read the FAQ but what confused me is that an exploit like iron Skin says it grants a +4 to you natural Soak bonus. So according to the "+" rule it seems it stacks but on the other hand different source of soaks do not stack. So in this specific instances am I correct to think that while the +4 stack with any other natural source, it does not stack with an actual source of amor so that if I have iron Skin and a Hide Armor only has 4 soak (the higher of the two) ?

2- Understood. That's still a very impressive 16 Soak for a starting character but with the "6" rules and certain exploits you can always by-pass soak anyway so its less problematic. Nice little touches in the system by the way to avoid the "Armored dwarf" syndrome of warhammer.

3-That's what I tough. So you can attack other attributes. So for example an ingested poison could be an opposed roll (or I guess pre-calculate the defence if we want but probably not for these rarer cases) poison vs. Endurance (with any appropriate skill if they exist such as poison resistance).

4-Understood

5- Ok. Just wanted to make sure I read it correctly.

6- Indeed. Cooperative tasks may be the more common way to deal with that but for situation similar to pure strength I will keep using my house rule then, adding the score rather than the dices.

As an additional question, I have been experimenting with the travel rules and after a few initial glitches they seem to work well (although they could use more roles as some seem quickly redundant especially if you have rations with you). One element that stroke me is that while the detailed rules limit your max hit points they do not impose conditions, the quick ones do the reverse (impose conditions but no hit point cap). Is there a way to impose conditions with the detailed rules ?

Finally, I am thinking of buying a print version of the books (always more convenient at the table) but am hesitating given that the complete hard back version is on the way. Should I wait or is it many months away still ?

Taralan said:

Thanks for the quick reply. I have a little follow-up in the same order :

1- I had read the FAQ but what confused me is that an exploit like iron Skin says it grants a +4 to you natural Soak bonus. So according to the "+" rule it seems it stacks but on the other hand different source of soaks do not stack. So in this specific instances am I correct to think that while the +4 stack with any other natural source, it does not stack with an actual source of amor so that if I have iron Skin and a Hide Armor only has 4 soak (the higher of the two) ?

Click to expand...

Yeah, that one specifically states it applies to the natural SOAK score only. A specific rule will always override a general one.

2- Understood. That's still a very impressive 16 Soak for a starting character but with the "6" rules and certain exploits you can always by-pass soak anyway so its less problematic. Nice little touches in the system by the way to avoid the "Armored dwarf" syndrome of warhammer.

Click to expand...

That probably about as optimised as I've personally ever seen a character. But sure, if he wants a tank, he can build a tank. 16 is freaky high!

3-That's what I tough. So you can attack other attributes. So for example an ingested poison could be an opposed roll (or I guess pre-calculate the defence if we want but probably not for these rarer cases) poison vs. Endurance (with any appropriate skill if they exist such as poison resistance).

Click to expand...

All defenses are just averaged opposed attribute checks. The three on the character sheet are the most commonly used ones. But yeah, you nailed it - you can make an End (skill) defence. Or any others you can think of (not that I can think of many).

4-Understood

As an additional question, I have been experimenting with the travel rules and after a few initial glitches they seem to work well (although they could use more roles as some seem quickly redundant especially if you have rations with you). One element that stroke me is that while the detailed rules limit your max hit points they do not impose conditions, the quick ones do the reverse (impose conditions but no hit point cap). Is there a way to impose conditions with the detailed rules ?

Click to expand...

Some tweaks to the travel rules are coming shortly as part of he pre-hardcover errata pass.

Finally, I am thinking of buying a print version of the books (always more convenient at the table) but am hesitating given that the complete hard back version is on the way. Should I wait or is it many months away still ?

Click to expand...

At this stage, I'd wait.

Thanks. I will wait then

One more question. I had a combat with the pc on horses and realized that this can be quite powerful (+1d6 dam, +1d6 to hit, +4 def) and was wondering whether you need some Riding skill level to combat on horseback ? The rules do not seem to require any skills at all.

Not to fight, but you'd use that for jumps and races and chases and stuff. Any check where your mount was the primary piece of "equipment". Mounts are basically treated as equipment.


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I have reviewed the modified journey rules and I have a few questions.

I understand that the health cap based on negative fortune has been removed and replaced with a possible exhaustion result. However, it's unclear to me how this work compared to the quick journey rules.

It seems that all negative fortune are removed when one rests in an inn and exhaustion is a permanent condition removed one step per night of Rest. However the quick rules tell us that the exhaustion last until fortune is back to zero and that fortune is regained one point per night of rest. Why have these two different systems of recovery ?

Also with some text removed, it's unclear what fully negative and fully positive mean for the quick journeys.

Thanks !

You're right. I don't know how that footnote got there! It should read the same as the detailed journey - remove one stage of fatigue per day of rest. Thanks for spotting it!