[Black Company] I have the book...any questions?

[Yuan-Ti]

My thoughts exactly. I think D& combat is way too easy on the PC's.

Hey, I agree with you guys. My point was that if your players are like mine, by the time they figure that out, we'll have a TPK on our hands... that is the only reason I would be easy on them. They need to learn a new way of playing d20 games.

If I let them learn the hard way, they won't want to play long enough to learn.

Edit: I should mention that that is what happened with my Conan game. They played like it was D&D and paid the price twice in 4 game sessions. Suddenly, no one had time to play anymore... :\

 

[Teflon Billy]

Hey, I agree with you guys. My point was that if your players are like mine, by the time they figure that out, we'll have a TPK on our hands... that is the only reason I would be easy on them. They need to learn a new way of playing d20 games.

If I let them learn the hard way, they won't want to play long enough to learn.

Edit: I should mention that that is what happened with my Conan game. They played like it was D&D and paid the price twice in 4 game sessions. Suddenly, no one had time to play anymore... :\

Hmm. Point well taken.

 

[The Madhatter]

.....Soldiers Live, the last book in the series.......

Isn't Water Sleeps the last book in the series? When is Glen Cook going to unleash Lady and the Captain on Soulcatcher and Taglios?

 

[rjs]

Soldiers Live is the last book in the series, and was published in 2000, iirc. Uhm, a lot of crap happens in that book, so be careful of spoilers in the BCCS.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Hey, I agree with you guys. My point was that if your players are like mine, by the time they figure that out, we'll have a TPK on our hands... that is the only reason I would be easy on them. They need to learn a new way of playing d20 games.

If I let them learn the hard way, they won't want to play long enough to learn.

Edit: I should mention that that is what happened with my Conan game. They played like it was D&D and paid the price twice in 4 game sessions. Suddenly, no one had time to play anymore... :\

Bingo. Same problem I had with Dark Legacies.

"Here are all these fantastic masterwork components and equipment to tear your enemies apart."

Next game... "Well everyone, roll up new characters..." In other low-magic games, or at least low armor, there was some effort made to protect the characters. Wheel of Time for example, gives the characters a defense bonus. I'll have to think about how this is going to be used.

It's a great book. I love the magic system, love the way it semi-captures the feel of the novels, but there are gaps..

For example, character advancement. Many of the newer characters were much more powerful than the older ones because they were naturals or something along those lines. Some discussion of brining in powerful characters to a game in process would be great.

Characters die. In the novels, they die a lot. Having a character tree or something where the player has multiple characters would probably be a good idea.

Reference Sheets: We need downloads of the tables like Table 10-2 through 10-4, the insanity tables, critical tables... anything that is going to have to be referenced multiple times.

Epic Rules.. the chapter on character creation mentions that there are some details here but to go to the DMG for more info but in the character chapter, I didn't see any rules...

Lot of great stuff here though. I love the idea of Backgrounds. A lot of potential there. I might yank those for my standard D&D campaign. I love the fact that it has background, geography (more than the books), and character write ups of all the major characters.

I hope that Green Ronin follows Mongoose's path and makes a Pocket Book out of this will all of the 'gritty' options and perhaps like Grim Tales with various checks to give the GM a gauge on how dangerous certain options are. See, as much as I'm loving the book, I have players who probably won't buy it due to their financial situation, but they might be able to get the 'core' of it were that available at a lesser price.

 

[Yuan-Ti]

Reference Sheets: We need downloads of the tables like Table 10-2 through 10-4, the insanity tables, critical tables... anything that is going to have to be referenced multiple times.

Definitely! Given that there will be no follow-up books, I hope Green Ronin realizes that online support is key here.

I hope that Green Ronin follows Mongoose's path and makes a Pocket Book out of this will all of the 'gritty' options and perhaps like Grim Tales with various checks to give the GM a gauge on how dangerous certain options are. See, as much as I'm loving the book, I have players who probably won't buy it due to their financial situation, but they might be able to get the 'core' of it were that available at a lesser price.

Maybe the core in a PDF?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Heal Skill?/Notes...

Anyone have a page number for the Heal skill? The book notes that it's different than standard D&D but looking at the index, page 128, explains how healing works, and I see stuff under magic, and under backgrounds and feats, but I'm missing where the heal skill itself is.

Any help?

On page 213, the campaign spark from 212 continued onto 213 seems to just end?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Campaign Style Question...

Okay, maybe I'm missing it and that might be from having read the book a few times already.

1. In the Black Company novels, the company is underground often. Part of their charm is that they keep coming back. Now while they're out, they're training, gathering troops, improving their knowledge, etc... I don't really see anything for handling PC's on the lowtime. Do you just wave a hand and "Yeah, six years go buy..."

2. Discrepant Power Levels: It's something I've noted that Tobo and Goblin are around at about the same time and the former is a child prodigy and the lattern a survivor of many campaigns. How do you model something like that in the game? "Yeah, you're cool. Here's a bonus 25 levels." In other words, how do you have campaigns with characters of wildly different power levels and how do you justify it.

And has anyone found that heal skill yet?

 

[rjs]

D*** it

Originally, we had planned to have the Heal skill do what the Physician feat now does (described on page 99), however that changed. Where it says "see the Heal skill in Chapter Five: Skills" is mentioned replace with "see Heal in Chapter Four: Skills of the PHB"

Where the book mentions Healing Magic feat on page 128, replace with the Healing Talent Spell.

Under the Heal Skill and Healing Talent header (on page 129), replace with the following text...

Characters recover hit points lost to lethal damage through natural healing (possibly augmented through the Heal skill), special uses of the Heal skill (Physician background or Physician feat), or use of the Healing Talent spell. All of these methods convert lethal damage to nonlethal damage.

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

2. Discrepant Power Levels: It's something I've noted that Tobo and Goblin are around at about the same time and the former is a child prodigy and the lattern a survivor of many campaigns. How do you model something like that in the game?

Does this occur at game start or aafter game has started?

If its at game start, then you approve the 12th level "old man" and the 12th level "young pridigy" even though they have different "backgrounds" for how they are 12th level.

if its later, and one of them is coming in, you again use the "old man veteran" or "young prodigy" as acceptable justification for their levels. What tobo establishes is that its not necessary to have "a lot of experience" to justify "a lot of levels".

In other words, how do you have campaigns with characters of wildly different power levels and how do you justify it.

I don't get "justify" as the question at all. Are you saying its just not an acceptable "justification" or explanation in your games to be "a child prodigy" or even "a fast learner" to explain level advancement and power?

IMO this does not equate to having "wildly different power level" characters, just having characters with different justifications/backgrounds explaining their levels.

but if you do plan on having different level characters, the better questrion might be "what do we need to do different in GMing a game where there might be wildly different levels?" After all, the tricks and challenges of a game featuring a 15th level wizard and 10th level other guys might be different from ones with evenly levelled characters.

I can understand that not being in the books, but it might make for an interesting web thingy.