Castles and Crusades (NDA is lifted - ask questions, get answers)

[RFisher]

You'll find that most often players will make their highest stats prime anyway. And they will amost never make their lowest stats prime. So it's not very difficult to come up with a background for those attributes and the primes.

Although, I don't think that holds for your fellow party members, Aleric. (Sorry for the inside reference, but there's a public point to be made.) I think at least one of the players made a lowest attribute prime & a few of them made a kind-of low attributes prime. I know at least one of the PC's highest attribute is not prime.

A prime is generally thought of as your level of natural talent while each attribute is the level to which you have devloped yourself in that area over the years.

Interestingly, I've tended to think of it in the opposite fashion. Doesn't really matter much, though.

 

[RFisher]

It just strikes me that there should probably be a prerequisite minimum for an attribute before it can be a prime attribute. Perhaps 13 or 14--I'm not really sure (maybe even a 15). Obviously, given C&C's great element of mutability, I will be able to house rule it this way--sure. But what do others thinks of this?
Thanks for your feedback.

I think that I'd rather let the player make the choice of whether to stack his high attributes & primes or to spread them around rather than effectively make the choice for him.

I'd rather deal with the trying to rationalize the primes (which I'll admit I have a bit of trouble with myself) than to limit the choices.

If that brings my old skool credentials into question (not favoring a limit!?), then I should point out that there are some other ways in which I'd consider limiting which attributes could be prime.

Another point is that many people feel that a character doesn't need even one attribute of 15+ to be viable in C&C. If you limited primes to attributes of 15+, humans would have to have three 15s or better! (Though I suppose you could say "15 or better or highest" or something like that.)

 

[Jackal42]

Well, that's the beauty of C&C for me...different ways to do and see everything...and all of them work!

And my druid's not doing too bad chasing off bandits now is he?

 

[trollwad]

the short answer is 'no' -- to the question of do the explicit rules currently allow you to gain an extra prime as you level over time.

on the other hand, c&c is such a rules-lite template that it is no big deal to add or tweak a few things. by comparison, 3.5E is very rules heavy and the various rules interact a great deal, so any rules changes is like pulling a thread from a shirt where the interconnections threaten to unravel the entire garment. I was planning on making (at least three) house rules in my c&c game over some time period:

1) I was thinking about giving the players one less prime to start and letting them earn that prime when they hit say level 5.

2) I was thinking about creating a list of 20 or so permitted 3.5e feats and allowing the pcs to pick one at level three or so and one at level 10 or so (or use them in place of standard character class abilities if desired). This will address the issue of character heterogeneity while preventing the rules heaviness of having 8-10 feats per character and npc as you can have for a 3.5e fighter. For example, allow pcs who want to be a great grappler to pick improved grappling and give up weapon specialization or allow a thief to pick up evasion and give up something (say picking locks and moving silently) and become more of an elusive acrobat type. Say I want to make a duelist. Inform the dm that my fighter wants to be a duelist type. If he says yes, take primes in dex and either int, charisma, or strength. Ask for permission to swap out combat dominance for improved disarm per 3.5e (subject to say wearing light armor and not being heavily encumbered). Say I want to be an archer -- take a prime in dex, weapon specialization in bow, ask your dm to swap for combat focus (bow) and/or precise shot instead of combat dominance. Voila, you are robin hood.

3) I was going to convert a handful of the classes and prestige classes that I like from 3.5e (e.g. spellsword, master thrower, stonelord, earth dreamer, maybe specialist mages, sorcerors, swashbucklers). This would probably take 30 minutes per class conversion since c&c is pretty simple.

The point is C&C is a paradise for dm's who want a system that is simple and fast, but who enjoy tweaking the game with a few house rules. Even after these tweaks, you can run a far far faster and less preparation intensive set of adventures than 3.5e.

anyway, that is my take on C&C.

 

[trollwad]

step off the $ treadmill

Plus, if you are growing weary of buying 3.5e bound supplements that cost $35 (races of stone, complete arcane, masters of the wild, unearthed arcana) and come out every three months plus a complete new edition version costing $120+ (1e-2e-3e-3.5e-4.0) every four years, buy c&c once. I plan on playing the base c&c rules mildly ammended over time for at least the next decade. All I need now are an occasional $5-10 modules from goodman games or troll lords, old d&d modules from ebay, dungeon magazine or troll lords crusader magazine. Again, I can use any source for my c&c modules as for the most part', all editions port into c&c pretty well and could almost be done on the fly. If I want to borrow something from 3.0 or 3.5 via home rule, I have more feats and prestige classes than I could ever use.

For the 'most part above', means youd probably have to be careful about higher level 3.5e modules, as well as modules with dragons, high level wizards, giants, fiends, etc. as they might need to be toned down considerably to fit C&C. In other words, sunless citadel, forge of fury, and the S, L, G, and D series from 1e could all come over directly, but return to temple of elemental evil would probably need pc levels 1-2 levels above those in the 3e version as well as reducing/eliminating perhaps a quarter of the really powerful BBEGs.

 

[Akrasia]

....
I think most of us will agree that natural talent is often better than those who just work hard at a skill. Now, of course, the best of the best are those who have both. So C&C requires you to look at stats slightly different than in the past but it's not a big leap and it's a good one in my eyes.
...

Not to be nit-picky (but what the heck...), I would say that skill typically *does* trump natural talent. Or at the very least, it is impossible to make generalizations.

My interpretation of the primes were that *they* were the PC's skilled abilities (whereas the ability scores reflected "natural talent"). So my mage, with 10 DEX, is not naturally talented in dextrous activities, and is not automatically assumed to focus on DEX skills (unlike INT skills, which he IS assumed to develop, and hence is automatically one of his Primes). However, he plays Medieval basketball, hockey, etc. a lot, and acquires some skill dextrous activities. So while not naturally dextrous, and while DEX skills were not part of his apprenticeship, he still is somewhat skilled with DEX-related activites (DEX becomes his second prime).

In short, I interpreted the "extra" prime that characters get to reflect "additional training" in areas outside of their class -- a rough proxy for the skills that they would get in 3.x.

More generally, treating Primes as "natural ability" and Ability Scores as "developed skill" seems counter-intuitive.

But whatever -- this is a nit-picky point. I am psyched about this game, and eagerly awaiting my boxed set.

 

[ecliptic]

If so, then I guess I still feel like there's a glitch (a roleplaying glitch, mind you) in trying to conceive of a Str 10 character with a Strength prime attribute. I guess I respectfully don't buy Jackal42's example of the 10 Str farm boy with underdeveloped muscles who can still somehow perform great feats of strength (outside of a "rage" or "magical" explanation--which I assume would be covered by other rules). As a narrative, this just doesn't make sense to me.

People can be naturall stronger, smarter, dexterous, wiser, and such then other people. I knew someone when I was kid that was as strong or stonger then most adults. I've seen a kid go to high school that was many years younger.

In his example he's not saying the kid is scrawny. He's saying even though the kid doesn't work out he is still strong.

1) I was thinking about giving the players one less prime to start and letting them earn that prime when they hit say level 5.

Just depends on your view of it. Jackals view wouldn't fit with that, because people can't all of sudden become more naturally dexterous.

 

[Jackal42]

I don't know, in my life experience I've noted natural talent to be far more valuable than learned skill. Those who learn skills to augment their natural talents are the ones who do best in life. But, anyway, that's getting WAY off gaming in general and C&C specifically...just my thoughts on the natural vs learned debate.

As for gaining primes, no that doesn't fit in with the way I see primes vs attributes but it doesn't have to. As I've said before, C&C is going to be different for everybody. That, combined with the fact that it's a brilliant system even played "by the book" makes it the best rpg I've ever experienced.

Anyway, so much for trying to keep my opinions to myself. lol I'm really jazzed about this game so what can I say? But no matter what game people pick I wish them happy gaming!

 

[Akrasia]

I don't know, in my life experience I've noted natural talent to be far more valuable than learned skill. Those who learn skills to augment their natural talents are the ones who do best in life. ...

Your second claim is certainly true, but the first one depends on the task in question. E.g. no matter how smart you are, if you don't have some background in, say, deductive logic, you likely will make all kinds of fallacies in argument that someone less innately intelligent, but educated in deductive logic, will make. On the other hand, no matter how much training you have, if you are a weak person, you will probably not lift rocks as well as a strong one.

Okay, returning from tangent back to the topic of the thread ...

As you said, the virtue of C&C is that it leaves these "interpretive" questions up the CK and his players.

One technical question about multi-classing. If I decide to play an elf mage/fighter, I will have NO choice regarding my primes, right? (I.e. I will automatically get STR and INT).

Okay, that seems sensible. But what about dual-classing? If I am a fighter (with STR and DEX as my primes), and I switch to mage later, what happens? Does my "extra prime" switch to INT? Or am I constrained to choose a class for which I already have an appropriate prime? (In this example, I would have to dual to a thief or assassin.)

 

[RFisher]

One technical question about multi-classing. If I decide to play an elf mage/fighter, I will have NO choice regarding my primes, right? (I.e. I will automatically get STR and INT).

Okay, that seems sensible. But what about dual-classing? If I am a fighter (with STR and DEX as my primes), and I switch to mage later, what happens? Does my "extra prime" switch to INT? Or am I constrained to choose a class for which I already have an appropriate prime? (In this example, I would have to dual to a thief or assassin.)

Ah! Very interesting question. As I recall, the last draft was silent on the issues of primes & multi/dual-classing. (And, it doesn't really matter what the final rules might say about it since this is C&C & we'll change it anyway. )

I think your interpretation of how it would be handle for multiclassing is how most people would handle it absence any guidance in the final rules.

For dual-classing, I've seen at least a couple of ways people have considered handling it. Some feel that you should only be allowed to switch into a class with a prime that matches your existing prime. (Which is kind of in the spirit of the ability score requirements for dual classing in AD&D.)

Others say you can switch to any class, but your primes remain what they originally were. So you could end up with, e.g., a Fighter-Rogue that didn't have Dex as a prime, which would be...interesting.