Heroic Companion Draft Discussion

At 50' long and 5'8" diameter, the Giant Constricting Viper Snake seems to be either too short or too fat. Titanoboa was 50' long and 3' diameter, and it was a pretty fat snake. Frazetta snakes aren't fat.

As an aside, I keep looking for a length to diameter to weight formula for snakes, but there doesn't seem to be one.

Loremasters and occultists are very different classes, though :stuck_out_tongue:

Cult worshipers for an occultist makes perfect sense to me, while not so much for the loremaster.

Divine Power can be harvested through sacrifice.  I suspect that this, rather than congregations, is what's intended, no?

Looking at the mitigate damage ability of the Nobirian Champion (Armiger) it mentions that the cost to repair armor or shield to be 10gp per point of effectiveness. I wonder if that's also true of magical versions of armor and shields. In a lot of genre literature if a magical item is damaged it takes special means to repair it.

The Proficiency Progression table on page 40 of the sneak preview shows that the Nobirian Champion gaining bonus proficiencies. I think that might be a holdover from an earlier version of the document as the Nobirian Champion has class powers depending on which path was taken.

I couldn't find where it said how much armour a warmistress is allowed to wear. The example Avenging Angel has light arena armour, which is noted as being equivalent to leather armour on page 44, so presumably a warmistress can wear leather, at the least.

It's a minor point, but on page 44 Red Sonja's bikini armour described as being chainmail. I'm told it's actually 'coinmail,' whatever that might be. I assume it chafes less.

According to page 72, traditional implements have an encumberance of one stone, regardless of level. According to page 46, they have an encumerance of one stone per level. Given that the implements don't sound like the kind of things that would vary much in size, I'm guessing the first figure is the correct one, but it's hard to be sure.

The section on ceremonial magic seems to go back and forth on whether tricnkets and talismans are associated with specific ceremonies or just levels and traditions. For example, the line "A ceremonialist creating a black magic talisman gains 1 point of corruption per level of the ceremony affiliated with the talisman" only makes sense if talismans can be associated with specific ceremonies, but the description of talismans says that the only two characteristics of a talisman are its tradition and its ceremony level.

Traditional implements - one stone; inconsistency is due to holdovers from prior draft

Trinkets and Talismans - not affiliated with specific cermonies; incosistency is due to holdovers from prior draft

Warmistress - leather or less; will clarify

Nobiran Champion - doesn't get bonus proficiencies; incosistency is due to holdovers from prior draft

Loremasters/Occultists - can have congregants. students and cultists respectively; will clarify.

Minor things noticed. Mostly typos or an occasional old draft holdover.

Sorted: Things that are largely unimportant typos are at the top, things that might actually be considered a question are at the bottom. (So you can just scroll past the list of typos if you don’t care at this point.)

Page 28 - Revised Venturer header says d4 HD, table says d6.

Page 34/35: Zaharan Sorcerer subclass bonus class proficiencies do not mention when one of them is new or changed. (I noticed this with Apostasy in the Necromancer and Animal Husbandry/Beast Friendship in the Transmogrifier.)

Page 41 - Masterwork items: “the bonuses do no stack” instead of do not.

Page 68 - Tapping Power example says that spells cost SP equal to their level (4 SP is enough for 1 3rd and 1 1st level spell). The maximum 9 SP from a major place of power (or 5 SP from a minor) may or may not have been made with that version in mind.

Page 74 - Hasty Ceremony example says that Ra-Ramses applies his Cha modifier to his ceremony throw; text and other examples say Wis modifier.

Page 74 - “Ceremonies cannot be performed bot hastily and methodically” bot instead of both.

Page 75 - “only the lead ceremonialist can both and trigger a mishap” both instead of botch.

Page 75 - Unknown ceremony example: Ra-Ramses is referred to as Ramses-Ra. Last line: “is evil lust” instead of “his evil lust”.

Page 81 - Making Trinkets example: Ra-Ramses is Ramses-Ra again.

Page 83 - Ramses-Ra again. Also, he is described as an occultist with 55 spell points.

Page 97 - Call of the Galloping Herd refers to the “summoned roc”.

Page 100 - Cone of Frost refers to itself as Cone of Ice.

Page 101 - Contact Other Sphere does not list what color of magic it is.

Page 102 - Contact Other Sphere sidebar: “asking for a first level spell counts as one questions” instead of one question

Page 104 - Cause Serious Wounds says that Cause Critical Wounds works the same as Cause Critical Wounds (instead of saying that Cause Serious works the same as Cause Crit)

Page 133 - surrounded instead of surround, site instead of sight, “báleygr terrifying presence” instead of báleygr’s, “strike with one” instead of “strike with one of”.

Page 143 - last paragraph, second sentence, ‘they’ is lowercase.

Page 149 - Class categories list, Ceremonial is listed twice.



Page 57 - Says that eldritch ceremonialists who perform blood sacrifice gain corruption equal to HD of the sacrificed target, p 79 gives a different mechanic for calculating the corruption of blood sacrifice and also says that sacrificing normal animals as humanely as possible does not give corruption.

Page 78 - Blood sacrifice refers to a chaotic divine spellcaster instead of a ceremonialist. (I’m not actually sure if non-Chaotic ceremonialists can perform blood sacrifice; only chaotic divine spellcasters can, but I can’t find anything requiring ceremonialists to be Chaotic to do it.)

Page 108 - In the Force of Impetus example, Baldur flings a catapult onto itself; a light catapult has 300’ range while Force of Impetus has only a 60’ range, that catapult is dangerously close! (This honestly is so unimportant I wasn’t sure if I should even mention it, but this is the ACKS community after all, I say a lot of incredibly unimportant things >.>)

I just want to mention this is looking so good. So much exciting stuff in there to pick and choose from

1) The revised beast friendship proficiency describes how the identify plants and fauna throw interacts with the friends of birds and beasts class power, but how does it interact with the naturalism proficiency?

2) Arena armor gives a +1 bonus to seduction rolls. What's a seduction roll? The seduction proficiency just gives a +2 bonus to reaction rolls.

3) A couple of issues with the Attacks and Armor Penetration of Large Monsters rules: For monster vs. monster attacks, how do we determine what portion of a monster's AC comes from agility vs. armor? How do these rules interact with Domains at War?

4) Heroic Treasure: Love it!!! When will we get to know how to determine if an item is common, uncommon, rare, very rare, or legendary?

[quote="James C. Bennett"]

1) The revised beast friendship proficiency describes how the identify plants and fauna throw interacts with the friends of birds and beasts class power, but how does it interact with the naturalism proficiency?

2) Arena armor gives a +1 bonus to seduction rolls. What's a seduction roll? The seduction proficiency just gives a +2 bonus to reaction rolls.

3) A couple of issues with the Attacks and Armor Penetration of Large Monsters rules: For monster vs. monster attacks, how do we determine what portion of a monster's AC comes from agility vs. armor? How do these rules interact with Domains at War?

4) Heroic Treasure: Love it!!! When will we get to know how to determine if an item is common, uncommon, rare, very rare, or legendary?

[/quote]

 

2) was this intended to stack with the seduction proficiency or be a half-seduction? if half, then presumably just redoubling the seduction text and noting that it doesn't stack with seduction should suffice.

4) I have already mentally replaced "very rare" with "epic" and the magic item names in my head already have white, green, blue, purple, and orange (respectively) text.  Thanks blizzard...

1) The revised beast friendship proficiency describes how the identify plants and fauna throw interacts with the friends of birds and beasts class power, but how does it interact with the naturalism proficiency?

APM: Rules-as-written, it doesn't. Do we think it ought?

2) Arena armor gives a +1 bonus to seduction rolls. What's a seduction roll? The seduction proficiency just gives a +2 bonus to reaction rolls.

APM: 

3) A couple of issues with the Attacks and Armor Penetration of Large Monsters rules: For monster vs. monster attacks, how do we determine what portion of a monster's AC comes from agility vs. armor? How do these rules interact with Domains at War?

APM: There is no explicit rule that will tell you which portion of a monster's AC comes from agility versus armor. It's up to the Judge to decide. It would be a big complex table to work that out, which there's not space for in the book. 

APM: Domains at War uses the exact same attack throw system as ACKS and the exact same ACs and monster sizes, so it should interact exactly as in the rules listed. 

4) Heroic Treasure: Love it!!! When will we get to know how to determine if an item is common, uncommon, rare, very rare, or legendary?

APM: In the next draft or two. It's based on the GP value of the item. I have held off on making the treasure tables because we have so many new items coming from backers.

 

 

[quote="Alex"] 2) Arena armor gives a +1 bonus to seduction rolls. What's a seduction roll? The seduction proficiency just gives a +2 bonus to reaction rolls.

APM: [/quote]

I think you accidentally an answer. (To me, it seems genre-appropriate for any attractive and scantily-dressed character to be naturally seductive, so my current assumption is that the +1 is a bonus to all reaction rolls that functions in the same situations that seduction does, and stacks with the seduction proficiency.)

I've just noticed that the Warmistress' provoke the passions ability doesn't have the "who are potentially attracted to her" caveat on any of its effects, despite being based (according to the text) on her alluring beauty... Which means a warmistress could potentially cause any creature to become enamoured with or distracted by her beauty for the duration of the provocation, regardless of said creature's normal preferences.

I suspect that it's probably deliberate; I can think of a few potentially-relevant literary examples that it might be a reference to. Besides, the warmistress' alluring beauty ability does include the standard caveat, which means that provoke the passions is more likely to achieve high-end results on characters who do nomally find the character attractive in any case. But I figured I should double-check, just to be sure.

Oh, and while I'm on the topic of seduction rolls, arena armour grants its benefit by showing off the wearer's body; Is there non-armoured clothing that shows off the wearer's body with a similar benefit? For that matter, could a similar benefit be gained by wearing no clothing at all?

Ugh, I'm regretting asking that last question already...

[quote="GMJoe"]

Ugh, I'm regretting asking that last question already...

[/quote]

Nothing wrong with that. Dwarven Furies wearing nothing but their tatoos and frothing battle rage is a time honored tradition.

[quote="Alex"]

1) The revised beast friendship proficiency describes how the identify plants and fauna throw interacts with the friends of birds and beasts class power, but how does it interact with the naturalism proficiency?

APM: Rules-as-written, it doesn't. Do we think it ought?

[/quote]

Naturalism (G): The character is knowledgeable of common plant and animal life forms in terrain typical to his background. The character is familiar with edible and poison foods, healing herbs, and signs of unnatural danger (such as unusual quiet, atypical animal behavior, etc.) in his known terrain with a proficiency throw of 11+. This proficiency can be selected multiple times.

Looks like I was reading Naturalism wrong. I thought it let you ID plants and animals in your native terrain on an throw of 11+. It looks like it doesn't actually provide that benefit. Is that correct?

Should Naturalism be adjusted to add an ability to harvest (generic) alchemical/magical special components?

[quote="James C. Bennett"]

 

1) The revised beast friendship proficiency describes how the identify plants and fauna throw interacts with the friends of birds and beasts class power, but how does it interact with the naturalism proficiency?

APM: Rules-as-written, it doesn't. Do we think it ought?

Naturalism (G): The character is knowledgeable of common plant and animal life forms in terrain typical to his background. The character is familiar with edible and poison foods, healing herbs, and signs of unnatural danger (such as unusual quiet, atypical animal behavior, etc.) in his known terrain with a proficiency throw of 11+. This proficiency can be selected multiple times.

Looks like I was reading Naturalism wrong. I thought it let you ID plants and animals in your native terrain on an throw of 11+. It looks like it doesn't actually provide that benefit. Is that correct?

[/quote]

Naturalism, I believe, is a the gateway to some of the monster harvesting, at least the identification of the parts required or venoms available, starting in Lairs & Encounters pg 135 or so. 

[quote=L&E pg 135]

Characters with Naturalism proficiency can identify venomous monsters and distinguish their different poisons with a successful proficiency throw of 11+....Adventurers with Alchemy, Collegiate Wizardry, Magical Engineering, or Naturalism proficiency can identify which part(s) of a monster are typically special components. A proficiency throw of 14+ is required; the target value is reduced by 4 for each additional proficiency rank the character possesses in any of the appropriate proficiencies, to a minimum of 2+.

[/quote]

ACKS page 250 also indicates a Naturalism Throw score for finding various plant toxins (rules on pg 249 for how to adjucate the throw) I'm not honestly sure I'd ever enforce the "typical to his background" in that sort of situation.

If you take the bold part (unusual quiet, atypical animal behavior) and compare it to Beast Friendship saying:

...he can identify plants and fauna with a proficiency throw of 11+...and understands the subtle body language and moods of birds and beasts...

as compared to Naturalism above, it feels like much the same concept, to me at least.

TLDR; Naturalism seems like a better proficiency as a analogue to Alchemy, in utilizing natural resources from plants or creatures for some benefit; with the knowledge bits as a secondary addon.

 

 

 

 

 

  • Page 41

“A masterwork ship or structure costing 4 times normal gains both +1 to AC and +10% to structural hit points.”

Should be
“A masterwork  structure costing 4 times normal gains both +1 to AC and +10% to structural hit points.” (ships are already described lower)

  • Page 71

“Likewise, it takes a spellcaster one week of study to translate a ceremony into the equivalent spell, and then a second week of study to add the ceremony to the character’s codex.”

Should be:

“Likewise, it takes a spellcaster one week of study to translate a ceremony into the equivalent spell, and then a second week of study to add the spell to the character’s  spellbook.

  • Also, do helmets weight 1stone for light and 2 stones for heavy, in case I use the 'clang of helmets memorial rule'  and according to general armor weight rules? What if I don't? How much does heavy helmet weight?

RULES UPDATES - will appear in the next playtest draft.

Mortal Wounds Section

Heroic Survival: In heroic fantasy campaigns, heroes are considerably more likely to survive mortal wounds than ordinary men. Adventurers with d6 HD add +2 to their 1d20 roll on the Mortal Wounds table. Adventurers with d8 HD add +4, adventurers with d10 HD add +6, and adventurers with d12 HD add +8.

Equipment Section

Special Components, Miscellaneous:   When living thing dies, a residue of its soul will linger in some its component parts, such as organs and cellular fluids. These parts are known as special components and can be tapped by ceremonialists to power their ceremonies. While the best results are gained from rare components that are unique to each ceremony, an equal value of miscellaneous special components such as spider webs, plant roots, crushed bones, and so on can be used instead if desired. The ceremonialist suffers a -1 penalty per level of the ceremony on his Ceremony Throw when using miscellaneous special components. See Chapter 5, Costs of Ceremonies, on p. XX for more details.

Spending Fate Points section:

  • A character may spend a Fate Point to temporarily gain one rank in any proficiency available to his class or to temporarily gain a thief ability (excluding backstab) at one-half his class level. The effect lasts 1 turn (10 minutes). 

Special Components section

Substitute Special Components: Finding the right special components for a ceremony can be a challenging and time-consuming endeavor. Eldritch power is, however, fungible on a metaphysical level. This fungibility allows a ceremonialist to substitute alternative special components of the same total gp value for the unique special components required for any given ceremony. Since it is more challenging to tap the energies for the ceremony in this case, the ceremonialist suffers a -1 penalty per level of the ceremony on his Ceremony Throw when using substitute special components. Merchants such as curios dealers, herbalists, and antiquarians will sell nonspecific special components (such as spider webs, plant roots, crushed ivory, and so on) for 1gp each, in various markets, subject to the usual limits of equipment availability and commission.

Congregants section

In order to tap divine power during a ceremony, a ceremonialist must perform the ceremony in a temple or other place of worship. In lieu of a temple, a pinnacle of good can be substituted for white magic, a sinkhole of evil for black magic, and an elemental area for elemental magic of its type. If a temple is not available, the ceremonialist can create a temporary one by having his congregants participate in the performance of the ceremony. Congregants count as participants if they are within 30’ of the ceremonialist and take no other action throughout the ceremony. The number of congregants required is equal to (ceremony level -1)2. If at any point the ceremonialist is driven out of the temple, or if the required number of congregants are lost, then the ceremony cost cannot be paid by divine power from the congregants. Otherwise, the divine power is consumed when the ceremony cost is paid.