Fields of Blood Question

[Zephalon]

Hi,

I recently bought FOB and have a few questions which came up recently.

1. Population Centers
I assume the population center sizes correspond to the DMG population centers. But how many inhabitants/members do small/medium/large camps have?

2. Units < 100 members
How do I handle smaller unit sizes of standard martial units? For example a player just has a band of 50 mercenary heavy infantry under command. How do I convert them? Half Power/Toughness?

Another thing which came up to my mind are the prestige classes. First I think they are generally useful for FOB campaigns but have no value in normal "dungeoneering" adventures. The class features should have some sort of corresponding smaller scale effect. On the other hand known class features of WOTC base/prestige classes should have some sort of example for a translation to FOB scale (Bard, Purple Dragon Knight come to my mind) as their class features are very "in theme" with FOB.

I like FOB very much by the way. A beautiful book with good rules! And the first non-WOTC D20 book I bought.

 

[Silveras]

Hi,

I recently bought FOB and have a few questions which came up recently.

1. Population Centers
I assume the population center sizes correspond to the DMG population centers. But how many inhabitants/members do small/medium/large camps have?

2. Units < 100 members
How do I handle smaller unit sizes of standard martial units? For example a player just has a band of 50 mercenary heavy infantry under command. How do I convert them? Half Power/Toughness?

Another thing which came up to my mind are the prestige classes. First I think they are generally useful for FOB campaigns but have no value in normal "dungeoneering" adventures. The class features should have some sort of corresponding smaller scale effect. On the other hand known class features of WOTC base/prestige classes should have some sort of example for a translation to FOB scale (Bard, Purple Dragon Knight come to my mind) as their class features are very "in theme" with FOB.

I like FOB very much by the way. A beautiful book with good rules! And the first non-WOTC D20 book I bought.

1. I would base it on the Production Modifiers. Small Camps have the same Production value as a Village (1), so I would use the Village population figures as a guide. Large Camps have the same Production as a Small Town (2), so I would match those up. Medium Camps are in between those two, so I would assign a population number for a large Village or a small Small Town.

2. I don't FoB is flexible in that way. Realistically, I would not use such as a battlefield unit unless there was a way for the player to build their numbers up to the standard 100 members. A force of 50 heavy infantry is effectively a Wounded unit of 100 heavy infantry. One battlefield hit, and enough of them are gone that the unit is too dispersed to be effective. A 50-member unit makes more sense as a squad of guards around the manor house than as a battlefield unit (at least under FoB; AEG's Empire had rules to vary the number of creatures in a unit).

As for other WotC classes, remember that only the classes in the SRD (which are the ones in the PH and DMG) are available for 3rd party publishers to make reference to. Everything else is "Closed" content, and only WotC products can make direct reference to it.

I disagree that the class abilities should always be applicable in to dungeons and battlefields. Part of the point of Prestige Classes is specialization, and the abilities will NOT always be usable in every environment. A battlefield-oriented fighter has different skills from one designed for skirmish combats, and the different prestige class abilities reflect this.