The Gold Standard - An Equipment Guide

On our blog http://hexesandhenchmen.blogspot.com/ I posted a link to the equipment booklet I cobbled together for my group. It came about because when I was prepping for my current ACKS campaign it was suggested we change over to the Silver Standard. To make it easier on everyone I whipped up a handy little booklet listing values in silver instead of gold. Well, some players were concerned about the shift and so we decided to shift back to gold; but at that point I was all but done with the little booklet. So I went ahead and finished it.

Now it doesn’t sync up perfectly with ACKS. I changed armor prices, damage of the heavy crossbow, and ranges for composite bows. We all have little things we like to do in games to make them our own.

http://conan.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/66287677/Gold-Standard.pdf

I’d love to hear what everyone’s thoughts are on it.


I hope to be sharing our custom classes very soon. On the blog I am also describing snip-its of the campaign setting, noting magic items for the setting, etc.

We will also be sharing our ideas and thoughts for our other love Mini Six (and by extension Open-d6).

Augh I don’t have time to read it just now but I wanted to say that “Hexes and Henchmen” is a fantastic blog name and I wish I had thought of it :stuck_out_tongue:

Why thank you. We had a lengthy brain storming session trying to come up with something that we both really liked and wasn’t already taken. Not always an easy combination t accomplish. :wink:

That’s really nice! Why did you ditched ACKS encumbrance rules? I never met a group of players who liked calculating encumbrance.

Warder

Thanks for the kind words. I love making things like this. Some might find it an odd hobby, but it is fun to me.

A large portion of my players had a hard time wrapping their heads around the abstract stone system because it was such a wide range of weight carried. They wanted something a little more concrete for their math. So I reverted it back to pounds.

Harmyn, it's a beautifully crafted document. It looks somewhat akin to a hybrid of AD&D 1e's equipment list and ACKS's equipment list. I appreciate the extra depth you've added in many of the categories.

The only "criticism" I would offer is that I think your prices for short bows and long bows are a-historical. Relative to the complexity of making composite bows and crossbows, simple bows were quick and cheap. It's a tough design problem, though, in that from a game mechanical point of view, the items are very close, and so the wide price differential is unjustified mechanically.

 

Yeah, I admit the bows are always a bit of an issue. It really is the difficult balancing act between game balance and reasonable pricing.

And many thanks for the kind words. I love cobbling these sorts of things together.