The Romance of the River Kingdoms

First post is up!

Dr Simon said:

We also haven't heard from Hafrogman for a while - for the moment I'm going to assume that Dirt is around, but hanging back (probably keeping a wary eye on the wolves) and not getting involved in things.

Click to expand...

I'll ask froggy what's up . Hope he comes back.

Yeah, me too.

You might need another melee-based character soon...

He's around. Been so busy he had forgotten to check the game. He promised to check in soon.

Oh good. I'll assume that Dirt is hanging about at the back. Luckily he was playing him as a man of few words, so any reticence works entirely in character!

Folks,

I'll be away from 3rd to 10th May on holiday, so I probably won't be picking up responses until I'm back (likely the 12th will be the first day I'll be back online).

Feel free to send in actions before then for the first round of comabt with the Thing in the Water, otherwise I shall see you (in a virtual sense) when I get back.

Spell Slots

As all the casters are spontaneous, I'm thinking of including a ruling from Arcana Evolved.

You can 'weave together' three spell slots of a given level to create one of a higher level. Thus you can give up 3 0th level slots to cast another 1st level spell.

Conversely, you can 'unweave' a higher level spell slot to give two slots of the next level down. Thus you can give up one 2nd level slot to create two 1st level slots.

Weaving up can be done indefinitely. You can weave three 0th level spell slots, add that new 1st level spell slots to 2 existing 1st level spell slots, weave those three to give a new 2nd level, and so forth.

Weaving down can only be done for one level. The spell energy 'released' is weaker and less stable. Spell slots created by unweaving a higher level spell cannot be unwoven further.

0th level spells cannot be unwoven. 9th level spells cannot be woven. (Neither has anywhere to go!).

This gives greater flexibility to casters and makes them more useful for longer. It also adds a very fun element of resource management where a caster can 'throw his last bit on magical power' into one hopefully crucial spell, rather than being stuck with a bunch of 0th level resistance spells.

Death and Dying

'Nother houserule.

Again, adopted from Arcana Evolved/Book of Experimental Might.

If you have a Con score that gives you a bonus, your 'disabled' range spans 0 and minus that bonus. Your 'dying' range then goes to minus your Con.

So, if you have Con 14 (+2 bonus), you are disabled from 0 to -2 hit points, and dying from -3 to -14 hit points. If you have a Con 9 (-1), you are disabled as normal on 0 hit points and dying from -1 to -9 hit points.

I don't really like this "take a breather mechanic":

If Ape would do a two round sparring with him, Xielt would be allowed to take a breather?

Can he use the breather in his surprise round?

Can you take a breather the enemy falls down, but is not dead , yet?

Perhaps it should be more like the "every 5 minutes" rule of 4e.

Walking Dad said:

I don't really like this "take a breather mechanic":

Click to expand...

Well, it's an option. We can ditch it if it doesn't work.

Walking Dad said:

If Ape would do a two round sparring with him, Xielt would be allowed to take a breather?

Click to expand...

No, because you can only do so once per encounter. Sparring with your friend is not an encounter.

Walking Dad said:

Can he use the breather in his surprise round?

Click to expand...

If he's not surprised, then yes (as it's a standard action you can only do so when you could normally perform a standard action). Think of it as gearing yourself up for the confrontation. Remember that 'taking a breather' can give you othr effects as well, but you only get one go at it per encounter.

Walking Dad said:

Can you take a breather the enemy falls down, but is not dead , yet?

Click to expand...

Hmm... trickier one. I would say that if you had reduced the last opponent to a a state where they were no longer a threat (dying, paralysed or whatever) then the encounter would effectively be over since there is no credible threat to you. Hence, no. On the other hand, if other opponents exist but are not immediately threatening you (but are fighting your friends), then the encounter is still ongoing and thus you *could* take a breather.

To give a game specific example, during the interval between the water spirit running away and where it returns to attack Xielt, this would not count as part of an encounter as you weren't in game rounds.

Walking Dad said:

Perhaps it should be more like the "every 5 minutes" rule of 4e.

Click to expand...

I think this aspect is probably mirrored by the 1 point of grace per minute of rest mechanic.

Like I say, the 'breather' mechanic may require too much ad hoc adjudication to be worthwhile (as it's only worth 1 hit point at the moment any way).