Eden Studios' Fields of Blood... is it good?

[Silveras]

I understand that units work by strength. Is there any indicator of numbers? like after a battle do I know (even if roughly) how many of my troops survived the battle? I guess I'll need to look at this book myself when it comes to my local gaming store

I don't think I get quite where you are coming from. You would obviously know the number of Wounded and Intact units, so I guess you are asking if you know how many members of "dead" units are still around ?

There is an action you can take as Regent to "Recover Troops", which lets you try to gather the survivors of a killed unit. The survivors can be melded into a new unit if there are enough, or assigned to a new unit that was wounded to "heal" it. Most likely, 1/3 of any "dead" unit is around, but there is a chance they will not be, so you don't really know until you attempt to Recover them.

Units don't have much variation of strength; most "soldier" type units have 2 Wound levels, meaning 3 states: Healthy, Wounded, Dead. Dead, in this case, means "too disrupted to function as a unit"; up to 1/3 of the unit may survive to be Recovered.

 

[Silveras]

Possible Errata:

It appears the usage of Civilized and Cultured for civilization levels has been reversed in the table of additions to fortifications (Table 2.7, p.21)

Notes (1) and (2) appear to indicate that the more advanced 'Civilized' realms are less able to build fortifications than are 'Cultured' realms. As it reads right now, for example, Civilized realms are able to build "Exterior Wall, Basic" but not "Exterior Wall, Advanced" as their less-sophisticated Cultured cousins can.

[Edit:
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Table 5.5 (p.81) has the 3.0 definitions and effects of cover. Also, the descriptions of the Battlefield Fortifications on pp. 78-79 use the 3.0 cover rules.

These values match the same errata as p.21]

 

[Olive]

I don't think I get quite where you are coming from. You would obviously know the number of Wounded and Intact units, so I guess you are asking if you know how many members of "dead" units are still around ?

Surely he means how many soldiers/troops from each unit are still around? So of each 100 unit, how many survived?

 

[Silveras]

Surely he means how many soldiers/troops from each unit are still around? So of each 100 unit, how many survived?

Probably. I might have just been feeling unusually obtuse that day, but I had the impression that survivors was just one aspect of what the question was about.

To elaborate on that aspect, no, there is no grading of units by current membership. "Soldier" type units essentially have 100 (Healthy), 67 (Wounded), or 33 (Recovered Fragment) members; the 33 either get added to 2 other groups of 33 to make a new 100, get added to a 67 to "heal" it, or go away.

Other than in that Recovery phase, the numbers of actual soldiers in the unit do not come into play. A Special Unit of 1 Balor or 3 Dragons is just as much a single Unit as a Martial Unit of 100 humans.

The attack bonus, the base damage, and so on are not proportional to the membership. A Unit that was Wounded remains Wounded until it gets magical healing or sufficient rest to heal naturally, at which point it is returned to "Healthy" status.

 

[Aaron2]

Errata item:
On p.21, the effects of the various fortifications list 1/2 Cover and 3/4 Cover. In 3.5, there is only Cover, or No Cover.

3.5 has Cover and Improved Cover which matches up pretty close to the old 1/2 and 3/4 cover.

From SRD: "Varying Degrees of Cover: In some cases, cover may provide a greater bonus to AC and Reflex saves. In such situations the normal cover bonuses to AC and Reflex saves can be doubled (to +8 and +4, respectively). A creature with this improved cover effectively gains improved evasion against any attack to which the Reflex save bonus applies. Furthermore, improved cover provides a +10 bonus on Hide checks."


Aaron

 

[Silveras]

3.5 has Cover and Improved Cover which matches up pretty close to the old 1/2 and 3/4 cover.

From SRD: "Varying Degrees of Cover: In some cases, cover may provide a greater bonus to AC and Reflex saves. In such situations the normal cover bonuses to AC and Reflex saves can be doubled (to +8 and +4, respectively). A creature with this improved cover effectively gains improved evasion against any attack to which the Reflex save bonus applies. Furthermore, improved cover provides a +10 bonus on Hide checks."


Aaron

True, but the examples of such in the Players' Handbook (firing through an arrow slit, or peeking around a corner) are closer to Total Cover.