From Adventurer Conqueror King v12 Rules Discussion:
Alex: We’ve made available the most recent version of the rules to our contributors. Please share your initial thoughts here. We’ll branch out into new topics based on initial discussions here.
GragSmash: Two things – firstly, with the emphasis on the raising and management of large groups of soldiers, i would expect to see more mass combat rules, siege and defense, large group morale, stuff like that. Is that in the works?
Secondly, by way of nitpicking, the ship-to-ship siege equipment has something quite odd:
Ballista
Rate of fire: 1/5 rounds with 4 crew; 1/8 rounds with 3 crew; 1/10 rounds with 2 crew
Range: 0-200 yards
Attacks as: As a fighter with a level equal to the number of crew firing
Damage: 3d6 shp or 3d6 hp
Ballistae can be operated by a variable number of crew, and this will affect rate of fire and attack throws as indicated above. The standard 3d6 damage reflects firing a solid missile. If ballistae are used against characters or monsters, they do 3d6 hp damage to all creatures in a 5’ line.
Excuse me while I assign 25 dudes to this weapon emplacement to make it hit every single time. Wouldn’t this work better with a minimum and recommended weapon crew number, and then have the quality of that crew determine to-hit? the old spelljammer rules went into this in some detail IIRC.
the whole system of being tasked to do something by one’s overlord is interesting, could provide some good story hooks.
Alex: Hi GragSmash! No rules set survives first contact with the enemy…er…readers.
Ballista: My intent was that you could have a crew of 1 and 4 people manning the ballista, with a variable rate of fire and accuracy depending on crew size. But I didn’t state a maximum crew size. Oops! Thanks for noticing. The ballista rules were those that were used in B/X D&D, but I have the Spelljammer rules so I’ll take a look at how they handled it.
Mass Combat: There is an entire set of mass combat rules, already written. They don’t fit in the already-very-long core rule book so it will have to be a separate rule book. We are still discussing how we’re going to distribute those - it might be a free download, or it might be a free supplement for game purchasers, or a low-priced product.
The mass combat rules themselves are for use with tabletop miniatures, where one stand equals around 100 footmen, 25 horses, or 10 giants. They use the same mechanisms as ACKS (hp, attack throws, armor class), but scaled up, and every spell and magic item in ACKS will work in the tabletop battles, with an appropriately scaled effect. The rules include siege warfare as well.
Admin: Alex, will we get to demo those mass combat rules at Gen Con?
Ryan: oops, that last post was by me - the site must have kept me logged in as admin from yesterday…
Alex: The only thing holding us back from demo-ing the rules at GenCon is having sexy miniature figures. For the Auran Empire home campaign, I just used paper cut-outs, but I worry that might not be convention-worthy.
Slycne: I noticed two things while looking over these two classes.
The Assassin lists Hit Dice as 1d6, but their Level Progression chart says 1d4.
Also, the Elven Nightblade doesn’t mention if they loose access to their thief abilities in heavy armor.
Alex: Thanks, Justin – good catches. The assassin gets 1d6 for hit points. The Elven Nightblade does lose acccess to thief abilities in heavy armor. I’ll fix these in the next draft.
Kalt: in proficences theres one called Berserkergang, should that just be beserker?
In how to attack, the table says a lvl 10 char has an attack of 4+ but in the example it says 3+
I do like the idea that weapon damage works on size. Might be able to see more variety being used.
Sean Wills: Berserkergang was the Viking term
Alex: Kalt, great catch on the erroneous text next to the table. I’ve fixed it.
You have grasped our intent completely in standardizing weapon damage. All too often a player’s desire to use, e.g, a flail, morning star, axe, or spear is blocked by a game that rewards only using swords.
Sean is right on with “berserkergang”. Although if that turns out to be a point of confusion we could change the name.
Kalt: thanks for explaining berserkergang guys.
From Adventurer Conqueror King v13 Rules Discussion:
Alex: Later today we’ll be uploading v13 of the rules. You can use an MS Word “compare” to find the changes; they mostly consist in making the fixes that you have all brought to my attention. Two other notable changes are the addition of the “% In Lair” data for all monsters as well as the terms of our OGL and Brand licenses.
Alex: Version 13 is now available.
Kalt: I can’t find the mortal wounds table. Can someone tell me where I can find it please?
Alex: Oh, drat. The mortal wounds table is in a separate document! We’ll get that up
for download ASAP.
Ryan: I put it up as a separate download - you can find it alongside the main download.
Fabio Milito Pagliara: very nice
Fabio Milito Pagliara:a question on proficiencies (I like them I must say… I love that the game is Saving Throw based one of my pet peeves):
questions:
a) if you don’t have a proficiency can you attempt to use it (are there some that can be attempted and other that cannot be)?
b) if you have a similar profency can you attempt another one with a penalty?
c) does class profency have a bonus for character of that class?
proposal:
- I would like to have a clear table of profency save
- I would like to have a -4 penalty for unknow profency and a -2 for similar one
- better yet (one of my idea for my dnd retroclone) I would have done 5 class of profency (say: nature, athletic, knowledge, social, manuality/artisan) and have given table for each class like in saving throw associated each profency to one of this skill save and said that if you had one you would roll with no penaly for similar half penalty and for no profency full penalty (something similar to weapon profency of AD&D)
Alex: Fabio, I’m glad you like the “saving throw” mechanic we used as the core of the system.
To answer your questions:
a) If you don’t have a proficiency, you can’t attempt to use it. That said, anything and everything that a D&D character could normally do is covered under the “Adventuring” proficiency. You don’t need a proficiency to ride a horse, light a torch, sketch a crude map, rig up a tent, and so on. The proficiency system was built such that if you didn’t want to use it at all, you could ignore it, and the game just plays like old school D&D.
b) There’s no particular provision for that, but a GM could certainly permit.
c) Only classes can take a class proficiency at all, so there’s no bonus.
As far as your proposals, I’d love to hear what the other playtesters and patrons think. Do you like the proficiency system? Would you want it turned into a true “skill system”, or do you prefer it in its present light-weight form? Should there be rules added for using proficiencies you don’t have? etc.
Veketshian: I agree with Fabio that the proficiencies are quite pleasant. From my viewpoint having only learned 3.5, I like that there isn’t a difference between “skills” and “feats”, and it was becoming one of my hangups that skills were considered worth much less than feats.
Could it be possible to add rules for creating proficiencies be part of the Character Companion? That way, all the “so you want to deviate from the core stuff? Here’s how” will be rolled up in one book. It’s my understanding that taking a stab at creating other classes similar to the bard and assassin are detailed in the Character Companion rather than encouraged straight from the core rulebook itself.
As far as Fabio’s suggestions are concerned, it’s been my impression that more is left up to the GM’s discretion in earlier editions than later editions, so I don’t feel the need to add a mandatory -4 to attempting a proficiency. I’m OK with the GM either going for that, bumping it up to a -8, or just saying “no” to the attempt. I am, however, very interested in anything that improves the readability and comprehension of the document. More tables! Tables seem to really keep the information at a glance without necessarily negating paragraphs of text.
Sean Wills: On Hit Points, Death and Unconsciousness -
There’s an inconsistency in the wording of what happens at O HP or lower -
In the char gen section:
‘When a character, or any other being, is reduced to 0 or fewer hit points, he has been slain.’
But then in the combat section:
‘When a creature’s hit points drop to 0 or fewer, the creature is unconscious and possibly dead.’ - calling for a roll on the Mortal Wounds table for characters.
Maybe the wording in the char gen section should be changed to say ‘he has been mortally wounded’ ?
Fabio Milito Pagliara: I am all for a light system, that’s the reason I suggest an indication on using other skills (otherwise people will not try something and just look at the skill list) I would also trim down the skill list.
another question: what about weapon profency?
a request: I don’t really understand what is the skill progression can we have a table?
about DEATH and wounds:
I love it
Alex: Veketshian - I (obviously) concur that there doesn’t need to be a skill/feat distinction. Rolling both up into proficiencies was my goal.
I could certainly include some notes on creating proficiencies in the Character Companion. That’s a good idea. The Character Companion does have complete rules for creating character classes - to which all of the existing classes are backwards compatible.
Regarding tables - It would be great to get suggestions on where in the text you think a table would be helpful. It sounds like Proficiencies is one area. Others?
Regarding HP - Great catch. The language under Characters is holdover from prior editions.
Fabio, regarding weapon proficiencies - There are currently not any. Characters can use the weapons that they learn to use from their class. However, there is a Cleric Class Proficiency that expands the range of permitted weapons. I could add a Thief and Mage Class Proficiency that does something similar, if there’s demand for it.
Fabio Milito Pagliara: I have to make some test and read more deeply in the test… but don’t create too many proficency or too good ones, with so little profencies if there are too good ones there will be must take and this is not good
e.g. how can a mage pass on the opportunity to control undead? how can a fighter pass the possibility to make much more damage? but if there are must take it’s a problem maybe they should have a different mechanic, just my two cent
Fabio Milito Pagliara: a few comments on things that I like a lot
High level spells: perfect hit
Formulas for items: I like it, why don’t have only formula for building magical object instead o requiring a spell? another thing is there any limit to the number of formulas that a mage can know? how much space take a formula in a grimoire?
Alex: Glad you like the “ritual spells” approach!
In the current rules, formula don’t have any limit in the grimoire. Do you think they ought to be limited?
Veketshian: Sorry it took a while to get back to the forums. I wanted to address the concerns about tables in ACKS to help with comprehension, but after reading the character classes a bit more in-depth, I realized that there was not really a need to expand the tables, because if I had paid more attention to the tables themselves, I would have seen that information already displayed. Hopefully, not many players will make the same mistake I did.
Blizack: Is the idea for us to comment strictly on the rules themselves, or should we also be on the lookout for grammar and spelling mistakes? I’m a few pages into v13 and have already found several.
Alex: If you catch grammar and spelling mistakes, please let us know! While we tried to put the document into a readable format prior to sharing it, it’s being continuously updated and mistakes do creep in.
You can list them on this forum, or send us a redlined word doc, whatever is more convenient for you!
Veketshian: Out of curiosity, do you have someone lined up as the editor for ACKS? I’ve only taken a graduate-level editing course, but I’ll try to take a crack at pointing out mistakes with Word and Track Changes.
Fabio Milito Pagliara: NO I don’t think that there should be a limit to formula, I would ask for formula even for item that duplicate known spells
Tavis: Veketshian, while we may have a dedicated editor at some later point in the process, right now your assistance would be invaluable! We are drawing near to the point where we’ll send the pre-release edition we’ll have at Gen Con to the printer, so your catching mistakes and infelicities will have an immediate effect on improving that version.
Blizack: I’m happy to send along a modified Word document with the errors I’ve found highlighted. I’ve got no formal editing training, but did some proofreading & errata compiling for the (sort of) recent re-release of the old-school British fantasy RPG Dragon Warriors.
Blizack: In the description of the thief class, there are references to doubling, tripling, and quadrupling “the normal damage” of a backstab. I have a few questions about this:
- Do you multiply the number of dice rolled, or do you multiply the number rolled on a single die (or whatever number of dice the weapon uses)? In other words, if a 5th level thief attacks with a weapon that does 1d6 damage, does the backstab inflict 1d6x3, or 3d6?
- Are Strength bonuses or magical item bonuses added before or after the multiplication?
- With which weapons may a thief backstab? Do they have to be in melee range? (In other words, could a thief “backstab” with a club? What about a bow? A thrown dagger?)
I know many of us will already have our own answers to these questions that we’ve brought with us from other games, but I’d like to know the authors’ intent.
Artus: Hope this answers the backstab question.
Adventure Conqueror King system version 16
page 96
“DOUBLE DAMAGE
Whenever damage is doubled (from backstabbing or charging, for instance), multiply the standard damage roll by two. Bonuses to the damage roll, such as from magic or strength adjustments, are not doubled.”
Whether that means roll 2d6 or (1d6)x2 I am unsure of, but I would favor 2d6.
I also assume from the existence of the sniping proficiency that a normal backstab will be with a melee weapon.
Jedo: (1d6)X2 would definitely be more ‘swingy’, makinng the backstab a bit more of a gamble for the thief. Making it 2d6 would make it a pretty dependable 6-8 points of damage most of the time, so the thief would have good motivation to always backstab if possible.
Alex: Artus beat me to the punch!
Backstab is a melee weapon. Bonuses to the damage roll are not doubled. You need Sniping proficiency to use a ranged weapon.
We personally played with 1d6 doubling to 2d6, rather than 1d6 doubling to 1d6x2. I can make this more clear in the rules.
Blizack: Ah, so this is partially an issue of me not getting to the part of the rules where it’s explained.
I agree that doubling the dice rolled, rather than the number rolled on the dice, probably works better. I do like swingy mechanics, but that would probably discourage the use of the backstab ability.
Tavis: blizak has my email already I reckon but anyone who wants to send a modified/edited Word file can mail it to tavis.allison@gmail.com!
From Adventurer Conqueror King v16 Rules Discussion:
Alex: Hello!
This week we are updating with v16 of the rules. (Don’t worry - you didn’t miss 3 versions. The numbers are simply the number of separate times I’ve updated the document).
Major updates in this version:
- The addition of spell caster availability under specialists
- The addition of proficiency rules for normal men
- Updated the phantasmal force and stone to flesh spells
- Updated the land surveying proficiency
- Updated class descriptions to include attack and saving throws at level 1
- Many minor grammatical, spelling, and formatting changes
Alex: BUMP! Bumping this up because people missed v16.
Blizack: Alex, I’ve noticed references to 1st level “elf NPCs” and “dwarf NPCs”. Are these assumed to be elven spellswords and dwarven fighters, or would the elf and dwarf “monster” stats be more appropriate?
Was there ever a point where a more flavorful term for dwarven fighters was considered? I don’t have a problem with the class being called the dwarven fighter, but it looks a little out of place next to grandiose names like elven nightblade and dwarven craft-priest. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had dwarf “shieldbreakers” as the generic underground goblin-killing guys. Maybe dwarven tunnel-fighter? Dwarven slayer?
Also, halflings are mentioned repeatedly in the monster and gamemastering sections. Obviously halflings aren’t available as PCs, but are they present in the game world? (I’m pulling for “no”, personally, but that’s beside the point.)
Undercrypt: Some thoughts based on my first impression of the classes. I’m still reading through the rules, so some of this may be addressed later, but I wanted to jot down the initial ideas.
I quite like the Creating a Character 10 step summary. It might be nice to have a table in the vicinity showing the classes available and their prime requisites/minimums. Ideally, it would be great if everything you need to generate a character was conveniently located on two facing pages, so you could open the book to pages 12-13 and roll up a dozen characters without flipping about (once you’ve got a basic grasp of the classes and proficiencies). Even if some of that information is duplicated and those two pages aren’t part of the normal flow of the text, I could see that being the place where a well-used book naturally falls open.
Splitting the classes between Core, Campaign, and Demi-Human is interesting. The Campaign classes kinda-sorta feel like they don’t belong here and should be bundled with whatever other setting information gives them a context… but obviously putting all of the class information in one place makes sense. If other chapters have similar setting extensions (Auran-specific proficiencies, monsters, treasures beyond the “core”?), maybe setting those aside as end-of-chapter campaign examples would make sense. Or maybe not - implicit setting and all. Just seems odd.
When the demi-humans have more than one class, it seems hard to avoid thinking of characters in a race/class matrix - at which point it looks like humans have 8 classes to choose from while demi-humans each have two. I like the demi options; again, it feels like there’s a core/campaign bleed-through happening.
Structurally, the demi-human classes feel like a set of separate Campaign classes, which isn’t a bad thing at all - maybe it would make sense to bundle them that way. The four Core classes provide all of the mechanics (and beginning players might be encouraged to start there), then you’ve got three sets of Campaign classes - Imperial Humans, Dwarves, Elves. That would be a convenient framework for adding similar things later.
There’s an odd discrepancy in level caps. Humans all cap at 14, but dwarves cap at 12 or 10, while elves cap at 10 or 11. Why aren’t the demi-human level caps as consistent as the humans?
In the hope of more demi-human classes eventually, having every demi-human class be a “Demi _____” seems like it might not be necessary or desirable. If only elves can be Spellswords, we don’t really need to call them Elven Spellswords. Only the dwarf fighter would need a different name as it currently looks.
Dwarf perils: “Due to their short height, dwarven fighters cannot use human-sized two-handed weapons (such as two-handed swords or pole arms) or longbows, but they can use any other weapon or armor.” Implying a dwarf-sized pole arm would be fine? “Dwarven craft-priests may wear any dwarf-sized armor. They can wield any of the traditional weapons of their people, including the battle axe, hand axe, warhammer, flail, spear, and mace.” I notice the two-handed weapons included can all be used one-handed, but they’re not specifically called out as dwarf-sized… so it seems like the craft-priest can use a human warhammer while the fighter can’t, but the craft-priest requires dwarf-sized armor while the fighter doesn’t. Is it the intent for weapons and armor to come in sizes? (I hope not.) I’m guessing the intent is something like “dwarves cannot use long weapons that always requires two hands to use, but weapons listed as either one- or two-handed may be used by dwarves as two-handed weapons.” I’m hoping the “dwarf-sized armor” is just flavor so I don’t need to populate my treasure tables with “chain mail, only smaller.”
A human cleric can eventually craft golems and animated statues, but a dwarven craft-priest never can? Oh, cruel world. I imagine that’s a side effect of keeping them away from the 6th and 7th level spells.
The harsh spells known limitation on mages would seem to make all of them extremely specialized, which is interesting and keeps mages from being completely interchangeable. It also makes the INT bonus very, very important. Having to erase a spell from your spell books to add a new one seems like a very counterintuitive meta-rule - “I wrote it down so I wouldn’t have to remember!” I hope the Spells section addresses that somehow - maybe with the spell book being seen as some kind of vital extension of the mage’s power, or living grimoires that become self-willed abominations if inscribed with too much eldritch lore, or some other version of “bad things happen if you gather more power than you can handle.”
What is it with elves and ghouls, anyway? I never understood how that “nature connection” resulted in an extremely specific resistance to one particular undead’s special attack. Always seemed like a tacked-on afterthought after someone observed that rolling ghouls on the wandering monster table always resulted in a TPK. Nice to see it expand to a generally better paralysis bonus. Still odd, though.
Blizack: I second Undercrypt’s suggestion of a two-page character creation spread, and for possibly organizing the campaign-specific material in one place. (Incidentally, this would make the organization kind of like Chaosium/Avalon Hill’s RuneQuest III rulebook, where all the Glorantha-specific stuff was in the back of the book.)
“There’s an odd discrepancy in level caps. Humans all cap at 14, but dwarves cap at 12 or 10, while elves cap at 10 or 11. Why aren’t the demi-human level caps as consistent as the humans?”
I think the idea here is that demi-humans are more powerful than humans, so they need some sort of balancing mechanism. (This is the old “Why make a fighter if I could be a dwarven fighter with extra abilities?” nugget.) This seems a very clunky solution. I dislike this concept in any version of D&D and generally houserule it away. If demi-human characters are really that much more powerful, there have to be better ways to balance them other than making their players stop playing the game early.
In other words, I vote for balancing the demi-human classes in another way.
“A human cleric can eventually craft golems and animated statues, but a dwarven craft-priest never can? Oh, cruel world. I imagine that’s a side effect of keeping them away from the 6th and 7th level spells.”
I agree again. If anybody should be able to craft a golem, it’d be a dwarven craft-priest, I’d think.
“What is it with elves and ghouls, anyway? I never understood how that “nature connection” resulted in an extremely specific resistance to one particular undead’s special attack. Always seemed like a tacked-on afterthought after someone observed that rolling ghouls on the wandering monster table always resulted in a TPK. Nice to see it expand to a generally better paralysis bonus. Still odd, though.”
Wasn’t this originally inspired by something from Tolkien? Elves not being affected by Nazgúl or something like that?
Beedo: Elves and ghouls came out of Chainmail - a metagame balancing thing - and got institutionalized into D&D.
Why no love for the halfing? ACKS is otherwise fairly tight to the BX / BECMI core.
Thanks for the bump on v16, I’ll grab it.
Alex: Hi guys! All sorts of great comments. I will try to address/respond/reciprocate.
When the demi-humans have more than one class, it seems hard to avoid thinking of characters in a race/class matrix - at which point it looks like humans have 8 classes to choose from while demi-humans each have two. I like the demi options; again, it feels like there’s a core/campaign bleed-through happening.
There’s an odd discrepancy in level caps. Humans all cap at 14, but dwarves cap at 12 or 10, while elves cap at 10 or 11. Why aren’t the demi-human level caps as consistent as the humans?
ALEX: To answer these two points, I need to explain how the ACKS classes were built. Building on work started at Pandius.org, we have a character creation engine that uses a point allocation to build each class. Points can be allocated into HD, Combat, Arcane, Divine, Skill, and Race. Humans can have up to 4 points of powers. Demi-humans can have up to 7 points of powers – of which no more than 4 can be spent on HD/Combat/Arcane/Divine/Skill. The Elf Race category gives increasing magical powers while the Dwarf Race category gives increasing proficiencies and proficiency bonuses. However, the more points you spend above 4, the lower your level cap. This represents the ‘specialist’ v. ‘jack of all trades’ trade-off. So the Elf and Dwarf class caps weren’t arbitrarily selected, they are based on the point allocations.
ALEX: One virtue of this system is that it’s easy to adapt to create new races (you just create a Racial category for them with powers at the different point totals). Another virtue is that different classes for the same race can have different level caps.
In the hope of more demi-human classes eventually, having every demi-human class be a “Demi _____” seems like it might not be necessary or desirable. If only elves can be Spellswords, we don’t really need to call them Elven Spellswords. Only the dwarf fighter would need a different name as it currently looks.
ALEX: Makes sense to me.
Dwarf perils: “Due to their short height, dwarven fighters cannot use human-sized two-handed weapons (such as two-handed swords or pole arms) or longbows, but they can use any other weapon or armor.” Implying a dwarf-sized pole arm would be fine? “Dwarven craft-priests may wear any dwarf-sized armor. They can wield any of the traditional weapons of their people, including the battle axe, hand axe, warhammer, flail, spear, and mace.” I notice the two-handed weapons included can all be used one-handed, but they’re not specifically called out as dwarf-sized… so it seems like the craft-priest can use a human warhammer while the fighter can’t, but the craft-priest requires dwarf-sized armor while the fighter doesn’t. Is it the intent for weapons and armor to come in sizes? (I hope not.) I’m guessing the intent is something like “dwarves cannot use long weapons that always requires two hands to use, but weapons listed as either one- or two-handed may be used by dwarves as two-handed weapons.” I’m hoping the “dwarf-sized armor” is just flavor so I don’t need to populate my treasure tables with “chain mail, only smaller.”
ALEX: I need to re-write this to make it clearer.
Alex: I’ve noticed references to 1st level “elf NPCs” and “dwarf NPCs”. Are these assumed to be elven spellswords and dwarven fighters, or would the elf and dwarf “monster” stats be more appropriate?
ALEX: Unless otherwise noted, 1st level dwarf and elf NPCs use the generic elf and dwarf monster statistics.
Was there ever a point where a more flavorful term for dwarven fighters was considered? I don’t have a problem with the class being called the dwarven fighter, but it looks a little out of place next to grandiose names like elven nightblade and dwarven craft-priest. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had dwarf “shieldbreakers” as the generic underground goblin-killing guys. Maybe dwarven tunnel-fighter? Dwarven slayer?
ALEX: It wasn’t something I considered, but let’s do it! I’ll open up a separate thread to re-name the Dwarf Fighter.
Also, halflings are mentioned repeatedly in the monster and gamemastering sections. Obviously halflings aren’t available as PCs, but are they present in the game world? (I’m pulling for “no”, personally, but that’s beside the point.)
ALEX: I personally would be happy to remove Halflings, as I hate their existence. The whole point of Hobbits (which, let’s not kid ourselves, are the origin of Halflings) was that they were the least likely adventurers imaginable. But because they showed up in the Fellowship of the Ring they became a standard adventuring class. By similar logic, if Tolkien had decided that making Frodo a blind paraplegic made him an unlikely adventurer, I fear that we’d have a race of blind paraplegics. Since having a race of unlikely adventurers as adventurers doesn’t make sense, D&D evolved Hobbits into the current incarnation which plagues fantasy gaming. Understood from a niche protection point of view: The short, tough niche is better filled by Dwarves and the short, cunning niche by Gnomes. What’s left is the short, irritating niche. Because I have a nasty sense of humor, I left Halflings in as a monstrous cross-breed of men and dwarves that has the worst characteristics of both, who tend to their body hair like dwarves tend to their beards, etc.
Alex: Splitting the classes between Core, Campaign, and Demi-Human is interesting. The Campaign classes kinda-sorta feel like they don’t belong here and should be bundled with whatever other setting information gives them a context… but obviously putting all of the class information in one place makes sense. If other chapters have similar setting extensions (Auran-specific proficiencies, monsters, treasures beyond the “core”?), maybe setting those aside as end-of-chapter campaign examples would make sense. Or maybe not - implicit setting and all. Just seems odd.
ALEX: The idea was to offer the core classes that everyone loves, plus a set of classes that were a little more niche, and wouldn’t exist in ever setting. Since we have an implicit setting, we went with ones that fit into that setting. Any set of niche classes will create an implied setting, I think – if you say Druid, it suggests something, etc.
A human cleric can eventually craft golems and animated statues, but a dwarven craft-priest never can? Oh, cruel world. I imagine that’s a side effect of keeping them away from the 6th and 7th level spells.
ALEX: Dwarven Craft-Priests of max level are supposed to be able to make Constructs. I must have lost this in translation from my notes to typing the rules.
The harsh spells known limitation on mages would seem to make all of them extremely specialized, which is interesting and keeps mages from being completely interchangeable. It also makes the INT bonus very, very important. Having to erase a spell from your spell books to add a new one seems like a very counterintuitive meta-rule - “I wrote it down so I wouldn’t have to remember!” I hope the Spells section addresses that somehow - maybe with the spell book being seen as some kind of vital extension of the mage’s power, or living grimoires that become self-willed abominations if inscribed with too much eldritch lore, or some other version of “bad things happen if you gather more power than you can handle.”
ALEX: I actually didn’t go much into the “lore” of how magic works in the rules at all. In my own campaigns, having a spell in your spellbook means you are keeping track of the complex astrological movements and star signs that need to be constantly calculated, the various ghosts and spirits that need to be placated, taboos that need to be obeyed, etc., all of which vary with the season, weather, location, etc. It’s an ongoing effort. If you stop maintaining that formula and start maintaining a different formula, you very quickly can no longer cast the spell. When you come back to it later, you have to start from scratch recalculating everything.
What is it with elves and ghouls, anyway? I never understood how that “nature connection” resulted in an extremely specific resistance to one particular undead’s special attack. Always seemed like a tacked-on afterthought after someone observed that rolling ghouls on the wandering monster table always resulted in a TPK. Nice to see it expand to a generally better paralysis bonus. Still odd, though.
ALEX: No idea. But after taking away their infravision, I was afraid to touch the whole ghoul thing, lest I get beat up in the night by elf-lovers.
Bargle: RETAINERS:
- parahprase: “4th level or higher are generally not available in cities.” I like 3rd+ personally as in chainmail this was the first “hero” level as hero-1. I always considered “normal men” to be 0-2nd level (bandit through neanderthal).
- I’m sure you are aware that in 0d&d retainers (leveled npc’s) could not be “hired” but had to be found in dungeons/adventures. These were subdued dragons, friendly elfs, or sprites or a 3rd level fighter. Furthermore these “heroic retainers” are a nice way of deciding what kind of FFC/Arnesonian “special units” any army has. If you want a dragon for your army, go get one and it should count against your retainer maximum. This hiring of heroes in cities seems a bit banal. The short story that gygax wrote, “THE GAINT’S BAG” as a great example of the retainer rules from the LLB’s. It seems you’ve fallen into the bland ad&d hiringling section and have abandoned the 0d&d wimsical one where a subdued manticore could then become a henchmen that guards your castle. Just look at the henchmen available to lords/wizards/patriarchs in the wilderness and dungeon exploration section of the LLB’s. Here’s the relevant section (I’m sure you all have read the story as well as the short story of the wizard and the magic ring where gygax states in the epilogue that that it was a textbook example of henchmen morale rules).
“Are you come with peaceful intentions?” the mage shouted. “Duhhh…” the giant replied. Somewhat relaxed by this friendly greeting, the men invited him into their camp. As soon as the great oaf was sprawled at ease by the fire, Nestre inquired if the giant was on any important business. The big fellow said that he was simply out for a month’s stroll in the greenwood, so the mage immediately sought to enlist the services of their guest: “We are, good Giant, here with a purpose. We have with us a map leading to a fabulous store of wealth! Things in this forsaken land, however, seldom turn out as planned, o we are willing to share the treasure with you in return for your aid in gaining it! Do you consent?” “Duh, sure, duh,” the giant replied indecisively. And so the bargain was sealed."
- MONSTER REACTIONS: here again, a friendly result and no mention that such dungeon denizens may(?) become a retainer if properly propositioned.
- does a charmed person/monster count against your retainer limit? (it should imo).
PROFICIENCIES: - I like the NPC proficiency rules (5, 10 etc years).
- I don’t like the PC version. Why not make it a GP cost instead of a certain amount granted at certain levels? After all, this game is about finding gold, not leveling up. The same reason behind letting lower level PC’s build castles and strongholds and not setting an arbitrary level where a castle can be built is that if the PC’s are getting all of this loot, the game must provide means for them to spend the gold! You guys are doing such and awesome job integrating the gold the PC’s acquire and the domains around them, why not open it up a bit for non-canonical things like proficiences? Simply make new proficiences gained after 1st level cost a PC X amount of gold and time? This way if a PC wishes to emphatically not become a baron or lord, but instead wants to be an engineer/sage he can sink his fortune into training.
This way, taking proficiencies becomes like researching spells. i.e. money and time sinks for players to effect their character and the world around it. Much more logical to spend 3000gp and 2 months learning to ride with the nomadic horse riders in the east, rather than just grant the player horsemanship at 3rd level. YAWN! If you get the cost right, it might even end up exactly the same as what you have now. Furthermore, the starting proficiencies act as a “character background” upon which–through in game actions, the character can further learn new things. Gold is Player Empowerment (to paraphrase a very smart person…) the more choices players can make with their gold the better–especially things not tied to the character archetype.
MONEY: do we really need electrum and platinum?
Alex: 1) parahprase: “4th level or higher are generally not available in cities.” I like 3rd+ personally as in chainmail this was the first “hero” level as hero-1. I always considered “normal men” to be 0-2nd level (bandit through neanderthal).
ALEX: Duly noted. Others agree? Disagree? - This hiring of heroes in cities seems a bit banal… MONSTER REACTIONS: here again, a friendly result and no mention that such dungeon denizens may(?) become a retainer if properly propositioned.
ALEX: In the Auran Empire campaign we had plenty of monster henchmen, including an Ogre Shaman and a Juvenile Gold Dragon. I should be explicit that monsters who react at Friendly could become Retainers because that’s definitely the intent. - does a charmed person/monster count against your retainer limit? (it should imo).
ALEX: I’ve always said “no” but it raises a good question. How have others played it?
PROFICIENCIES: - I don’t like the PC version. Why not make it a GP cost instead of a certain amount granted at certain levels? After all, this game is about finding gold, not leveling up. The same reason behind letting lower level PC’s build castles and strongholds and not setting an arbitrary level where a castle can be built is that if the PC’s are getting all of this loot, the game must provide means for them to spend the gold! You guys are doing such and awesome job integrating the gold the PC’s acquire and the domains around them, why not open it up a bit for non-canonical things like proficiences? Simply make new proficiences gained after 1st level cost a PC X amount of gold and time? This way if a PC wishes to emphatically not become a baron or lord, but instead wants to be an engineer/sage he can sink his fortune into training. This way, taking proficiencies becomes like researching spells. i.e. money and time sinks for players to effect their character and the world around it. Much more logical to spend 3000gp and 2 months learning to ride with the nomadic horse riders in the east, rather than just grant the player x-amount of proficiencies at 3rd level. YAWN! If you get the cost right, it might even end up exactly the same as what you have now.
ALEX: That’s a cool idea. That said, it raises problems…
First off, the comparison to spells is only partly correct. There is a limit to the number you can know based on your level (in ACKS, at least).
Second, I don’t think a character really could learn that many proficiencies from investing time and energy. In real life, most people simply can’t do this, because each proficiency they learn has a certain amount of upkeep it demands to stay competent.
Third, why could’t NPCs do the same? If they can, why aren’t all rich people amazing at everything?
Fourth, would we then need to separate class proficiencies, which would be unbalancing to learn in an unlimited degree?
ALEX: Bottomline: I certainly can see the argument for why proficiencies should cost time and money to learn, but I think that unhinging them from character class to allow for unlimited learning potential is too great. On the other hand, demanding that PCs spend time and gold for them, but not for e.g. training seems odd.
MONEY: do we really need electrum and platinum?
ALEX: I think they provide a useful value:weight ratio that’s between silver and gold and between gold and gems. Electrum has a similar value:weight ratio to fine wine, rare wood, linen, and glassware, while platinum has a similar value:weight ratio to rare books, rare spices, and fur clothes.
Bargle: Thanks for the response. I hadn’t thought of the problem of unlimited proficiencies, I guess as I figured they would be limited by gold of course! Just as we are limited in real life regardless of our wealth. The high level baron can’t just run off for months at a time to learn archetecture. For example a general proficiency is granted at 5th 9th and 12th, my thought was further proficiencies cost instead 5k, 10k, 20k gold instead. If a 5th level fighter can build a castle, why couldn’t another 5th level fighter learn 2 levels of engineering instead, both are spending gold and both actions may take a year to complete.
In either case, having 2 extra general proficiencies may only be feasable for a PC in the 9th level range, but tying it to gold and not level–even if the gold requirement almost requires a certain level, allows some latitude for the player and his goals.
I understand the points you made, however and I don’t really have a good answer for your point on not having to pay for training, other than I don’t see tying proficiencies to gold as a “demand” but more as a freedom. In your method a fighter must acquire 12,800gp (80% of xp coming from gold) before being able to “buy” a general proficiency at 5th level. I could see how this could be a slippery slope; why not “buy” better saving throws, or attack throws–all of which may work in a XP/GP game without levels, but that isn’t d&d, so point taken. Easy enough for me to house rule (I haven’t even tested it in my own campaigns so who knows how well it works anyway).
I’m only half way through this draft, I look forward to reading the rest. Needless to say, It looks stellar so far.
Undercrypt: …having a spell in your spellbook means you are keeping track of the complex astrological movements and star signs that need to be constantly calculated, the various ghosts and spirits that need to be placated, taboos that need to be obeyed, etc., all of which vary with the season, weather, location, etc. It’s an ongoing effort.
Yes, that. Brilliant. I hope that’s explicit somewhere (haven’t reached Spells yet), because then the limited spellbook and having max spells tied to INT bonus makes a lot of sense.
Undercrypt: Equipment lists… there’s some dry reading. I like the reminders (like in Rations) of how horrible and disgusting dungeons are.
It might be nice to group the descriptions similar to how the table is grouped, putting the armor together for comparison and so on.
I like the multicultural examples as reference points. An option to “the usual” lined-up artwork of weapons and armor might be to have set pieces of different characters from the same campaign region displaying what’s typical for their culture - like a Kushtu adventuring party showing off three or four armor/weapon sets.
Has all of that wonderful economic modeling trickled down into the equipment table yet? Some of the prices are surprising. (Chain mail armor seems like it would require a lot more in materials, craftsmanship and time than two suits of leather armor, a barrel probably made by a cooper seems more valuable than a 10’ pole, a big stick is 2cp if you light it on fire but 1gp if you hit someone in the face with it, etc.)
Tavis: I think equipment lists make for dry playing as well. I was thinking about putting together an Excel spreadsheet to make some sample packages - maybe six, formed by the interaction of unarmored/leather or heavy armor x low, medium, or high starting gold - which could then be automatically updated if the prices get tweaked.
Is that something someone else would enjoy doing? Normally I love doing this kind of thing, but my time is woefully overcommitted.
Jedo: I can take a stab at it this weekend. Are the prices already in excel, or only in the document?
Also, i was thinking over the idea of equipment kits. On the one hand it is very handy to speed up getting your stuff, but on the other hand it feels really ‘modern’ and not very fantasy to me. To the merchants in this town make up bundles of adventuring tools like a back-to-school sale at Target?
I was wondering if in the Equipment section there was room for side bars, where examples of equipment taken by different types of characters are given. Like Sandra the level 1 Magic-User took the following equipment and why, and how much it came to.
Part of the problem of the equipment list has been that there has never been any reasoning given for what you should get and why. should you spend all your money, or hang on to some? Is it better to blow all your cash on arms and armor, or should you be loading down with 10-foot poles and and 30 days of iron rations? and how about wolvesbane or that silver mirror? Do I need that? If it is on the list it must be important, right?
So showing players what is typical for different character types, and why they would want certain things before going adventuring would be useful- its still kits, but in a form that feels more natural.
Blizack: Didn’t 3rd edition list standard starting equipment for each class? I seem to remember an option to either go with the standard kit or to roll up your money and buy everything. Palladium RPGs usually have starting equipment kits for each class, too. It definitely helps new players.
Undercrypt: If all characters start with the Adventuring proficiency - “the character is well-equipped for a life of adventure” - having every character start out with a small sack containing the basic tools of the trade (flint & tinder, torches, rope, and a week of rations) seems reasonable. Then the initial shopping can focus on the class-specific tools, weapons, and armor, and beginning players won’t end up starving in the dark.
Experience can teach them why they need iron spikes, etc., and I think gaining that kind of knowledge is part of what makes the game fun.
I like the “shopping trip” sidebar. (RPG Haul Video!)
Alex: One of the things I’ve been writing for the Player Companion is “quick start” characters. Here’s an excerpt:
Selecting equipment and specializations can be time-consuming, especially for new players. As a faster alternative, we offer 8 pre-generated templates for each class, with weapons, armor, equipment, specializations, and spells ready for play. If you want to use these templates, you can skip step 8 (picking specializations and spells) and 9 (rolling for starting wealth and purchasing equipment) of character generation, and just roll 3d6 on the template table for your character’s class.
3d6 Roll Quick Start Character
3-4 Barbarian
Proficiencies: Berserkergang, Survival
Equipment: Double-bladed battleaxe, throwing axe, leather armor, thick wool cloak, wool shirt and trousers, boots
5-6 Thug
Proficiencies: Dungeon Bashing, Intimidation
Equipment: Huge flail, crossbow, case with 20 bolts, scarred leather armor, large sack, tunic, iron-toed boots
7-8 Corsair
Proficiencies: Swashbuckling, Seafaring
Equipment: Scimitar, shortbow, quiver with 20 arrows, 2 well-balanced daggers with boot-sheathes, leather armor, wineskin with good wine, 50’ rope, grappling hook, hammock, large sack, colorful silk girdle, high boots
I have completed the core classes. It would be very useful if anyone were so inclined as to imagine 8 different quick start templates for the assassin, explorer, bladedancer, bard, spellsword, nightblade, vaultguard, and craftpriest.
Tavis: jedo, your idea for samples as a way to present kits is great - especially if they also appear on a table that shows how each is the permutation of whatever factors you think are important (spending a lot, spending a little, armor level, preparedness vs traveling light, etc.) The values are only in the document.
Alex, I also really like the templates. Do we imagine there is room for each approach - one in the core, one in the companion?
Autarch may have an intern who’d work for college-application recommendations (qualifications include getting a 5/5 on his history AP test and playing Chrystos in the White Box campaign) who could help with some of the data-entry kind of stuff - I’d also love to see a spreadsheet of monsters, for example.
Alex: Undercrypt, you asked “Has all of that wonderful economic modeling trickled down into the equipment table yet? Some of the prices are surprising. (Chain mail armor seems like it would require a lot more in materials, craftsmanship and time than two suits of leather armor, a barrel probably made by a cooper seems more valuable than a 10’ pole, a big stick is 2cp if you light it on fire but 1gp if you hit someone in the face with it, etc.)”
The answer is “yes and no”. Some of the prices have been adjusted, but others have not. Items for which we have commonly recorded prices from the classical and medieval ages are usually more accurate than esoteric D&D items. Items where the price has been noticeably reduced are usually more accurate. D&D notoriously inflates the prices of equipment. For example, a shortbow or longbow was a peasant’s weapon, but D&D has traditionally made them more expensive than swords. In ACKS, bows are much cheaper than in other versions of the game.
In order to keep ACKS’s prices somewhere similar to traditional D&D prices, I made the decision to assume that the equipment on the lists was good quality. The treasure section has information on low-quality weapons. For example, a knight’s sword is 10gp. A peasant’s sword is probably rusty, off-balance, and shoddily constructed, and therefore 4gp. Leather armor is 20gp, but a peasant’s makeshift rattling leather armor is only 12gp.
That said, we could certainly use another pass through if anyone sees any prices that seem seriously off-key.
Bargle: “In order to keep ACKS’s prices somewhere similar to traditional D&D prices”
can you explain that a bit more to me. What would a “peasants” plate armor cost? What in game effect does a 4gp sword have against a 10gp one and why wouldn’t a 1st level PC opt just to buy the 4 gp one? Is 12gp leather armor actually, “leather armor -1?”. Isn’t a high quality weapon or armor exemplified by a +1 weapon? When I think of Arya’s sword “Needle” in Game of Thrones, I think, "ok…+1 sword, high quality delineated from a “common” weapon.
The only rational I can see for making 1st level PC’s (nay, 1st level fighters specifically) buy a 10gp sword, is that ACKs wants to put an understandable limit on what 1st level PC’s can start with; with that said, isn’t the best approach to adjust starting gold, rather than “break” a defining feature of ACKs, which is to provide a workable system for the costs of items in-game?
In CHAINMAIL’s man to man section (pg. 26), describes the “leader” as having a +1 on all dice and, “the best weapons and armor available for their origin and period.” This “leader” became the “veteran” 1st level fighter in d&d (getting +1 hp, saves, and damage over 0-level men). So, I don’t see the rational for trying to “price out” plate armor and a good sword and shield from a 1st level fighter; after all, the 1st level fighter is head and shoulders above 0-level men in prowress and has already proven himself in battle.
Inflated costs to weapons and armor only effect 1st level fighter PCs, not NPC’s and not really any other classes. What am I missing? It doesn’t even seem to effect all 1st level PC’s, just the “first” 1st level PC’s as second generation PC’s (those taken from the list of hirelings, henchmen, nephews of retired PC’s, presumably would have had their equipment bought from the blacksmith hireling of the original PC, who’s equipment costs are different from those on the equipment table!
Undercrypt: Ahh, right then. “Show us the good stuff, lives are on the line.” (And, of course… http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html )
Given that, the only things that jump out are a few odd supplies.
Barding ranges from twice as expensive as comparable armor (leather) to ten times as expensive as comparable armor (plate). The 10x side of the spectrum seems to make sense, making a rough guess on the surface area of a horse - are the low ends too cheap?
Super-expensive herbs. 5g for a pound of garlic makes baby Romans cry. 5c puts it in the same class as cheese. Saffron, super-expensive import, sure… and maybe Belladonna and Wolfsbane are rare and take skill to identify (and hopefully aren’t showing up on toast).
Grappling Hook (25g) seems like three or four Crowbars (1g) worth of material/effort.
If I think of the 10’ pole as a particularly strong and well-balanced piece of wood used for moving your barge and that could serve as a Lance in a pinch, then, sure, 1g. It really looks like a peasant’s get-rich-quick scheme, though - “For your cow, I give you not 10, but 11 long sticks! You get a deal!”
If I’ve got the right impression of the time period, the Spellbook looks super cheap at 2s/page. I suppose a realistic price might put it out of the hands of the 1st level casters, though. Maybe wealthy mages are subsidizing the book industry.
Blizack: “What in game effect does a 4gp sword have against a 10gp one and why wouldn’t a 1st level PC opt just to buy the 4 gp one? Is 12gp leather armor actually, “leather armor -1?”. Isn’t a high quality weapon or armor exemplified by a +1 weapon?”
I think high quality weapons are represented on the standard equipment list. Low quality arms and armor actually have mechanical drawbacks, as described on page 237 of the v16 ACKS document. Maybe the equipment section needs an explanation that characters can opt for lower quality arms, but that they will have penalties like scavenged weapons.
Slycne: @Bargle: I can think of two other possible solutions to this.
“Peasant” arms and armor simply have a chance to break and need repairs. Weapons break on attack throws of 1 and armor will break if struck with a natural attack throw of 20. The item then needs to be repaired to return to working order. Weapons and armor of quality are obviously not immune to wear and tear, but it’s assumed they are being mended and cared for between combat. Items of lower quality are on top of that prone to more catastrophic failure (blade shatters, pommel cracks, straps break, etc).
I also think that some of this can also be handled by the DM at the table. For example, clothes offer no mechanical benefit, but you’d be hard pressed to find a player willing to save his coin by wearing a 5cp loincloth when all his fellow companions are splurging on “resplendent red silk with golden threads”.
Alex: BARGLE: Can you explain that a bit more to me. What would a “peasants” plate armor cost? What in game effect does a 4gp sword have against a 10gp one and why wouldn’t a 1st level PC opt just to buy the 4 gp one? Is 12gp leather armor actually, “leather armor -1?”. Isn’t a high quality weapon or armor exemplified by a +1 weapon? When I think of Arya’s sword “Needle” in Game of Thrones, I think, "ok…+1 sword, high quality delineated from a “common” weapon.
It’s all about where one puts the baseline. My assumption is that the baseline should be a well-made weapon or armor for a man-at-arms. Masterfully made weapons would be above that and shoddily made weapons below it. Peasants would use shoddy weapons.
Historically, a peasant’s sword might cost 50 pence (2 shillings) while a knight’s sword might cost 500 pence (2L). Since 1 pence = 1sp (approximately) in ACKs, that’s a range of 5gp to 50gp for a sword. ACKS puts a baseline sword at about 10gp with no modifiers. Using the rules for Scavenging Treasure in the Treasure Section, a 4gp sword (off-balance, loose hilt, shoddy construction) would be -1 to attack, -1 to initiative, and break on a roll of 1d20. Obviously an adventurer would prefer to use the 10gp sword, but if you’re outfitting 10,000 peasants, 40,000gp might be more affordable than 100,000gp.
So while one might find historical evidence that “10gp is too much for a sword - that’s 3 times the monthly wage of a peasant, and we know peasants could and did own swords.” But the sword they owned was a 4gp (shoddy) sword, not a 10gp (well-made) sword.
This is one major problem with assessing historical prices - one can’t always tell quality and quality makes a huge difference. Horse prices, for instance, varied as much as car prices do in our own day. Nowadays you can buy a used clunker capable of driving yourself around for $5,000, or you can buy a Ferrari for $500,000. Likewise, in the Middle Ages you might see a horse go for 500 pence and another horse go for 500,000 pence. We’ve provided a reasonable range at 30gp to 250gp, which in modern terms is something like a Honda Civic to a Lexus. But that obviously leaves off nags and brokedown gimps on the one side and Bucephalus King of Horses on the other…
I hope that explains it.
Alex: Good notes on those prices, Undercrypt.
Blizack, thanks for pointing out the mechanics in the rules! I don’t think most folks have gotten that far yet.
Bargle: Edit: I apologize if I’m missing some information from the v16 rules, like the stuff blizak mentioned in the above post, until I get my desktop’s Internet working, I’m stuck reading the rules on my old Mac laptop that doesn’t read .doc files well so I haven’t been able to get into the weeds as well as I’d liked–don’t worry, I won’t let that stop me from mouthing off about the direction of your game.
- Regarding 4gp-250gp swords: That’s a little too much detail for what I would use I think, but as long as I can hire a blacksmith and can make 100 “generic” 10 gp sword for my high level PC without the math coming out wrong (i.e. It costs more to hire a blacksmith than it does to just go around to random shops, I’m cool with it.
As I mentioned, my preference is for a single number (long sword = 10gp) and have the math work out rather than get bogged down in the difference between a 4gp sword and a 10gp sword. I just don’t want to be playing ‘papers and paychecks’–cause it’s not just swords, I would rather not have an inventory of 23 ogre toes, 13 spleens, 3 bags of grain for my peasants on the north side of the slope, etc, etc. I just want to outfit my army with my adventuring loot saved up over 10 levels and not be counting pennies and individual body parts. I’ve read some writing by you or tavis toward not getting too bogged down in the minutae, so I trust your direction. - Honestly, when it comes to equipment, I’d be happy if nothing cost less than 1gp (and if that means garlic is sold by the bushel, so be it, or if the equipment list for 10’ poles are 1gp for a faggot of 10. Anything to make the math easier to do in my head. Too me, that’s one of the beautiful things in the FFC. Everything is in GP, makes for easy army construction on the fly–more 0d&d less ad&d (I shudder at the thought of trying to build a castle from the DMG). It means I can just hand a player a 9th level baron with 100,000gp and have him build a barony for a war-game in 15 minutes.
- unrelatedly. I notice that 1st level fighters are called, “men at arms”. You aren’t worried about people confusing 0-level hirelings with “men at arms” by using that level title? Are all, “men at arms” suppose to be 1st level fighters in ACKs?
Jedo: It is almost like there are two equipment lists- one for shopping (appearing in the Player Character section) that is geared toward ‘baseline’ items. And then another one that is more in the DM section that covers the full range of objects the PCs might encounter. Like if they decide to attack a peasant village and loot them for all their peasant swords.
Differing quality items only come up as finds, and a Referee could choose to ignore that rule entirely. But as far as streamlining the gearing-up phase for a new character, only presenting them with relevant information makes sense.
Personally I am a huge fan of in depth equipment lists, and also the silver standard for FRPGs. I like the idea that in a desperate brawl my character might be able to grab that 5 copper cast iron frying pan from his pack and clock a kobold with it. But that can just be an alternate equipment list where the prices still match the overarching price model.
Ahstrongmorse: I think the list prices for standard items with price modifiers for scavenged or otherwise shoddy items works fine. I do wonder if there should be masterwork/superior quality items for weapons and armor. There’s a huge gap between a normal sword at 10 gp and a sword +1, with an indeterminate value but a minimum fair value of well more than 10,000 gp (5000 gp for the enchantment cost, 5000 gp for the monster parts, plus 1 month (or half a month with a formula) of time by either a spellcaster of 9th level or a spellcaster working under the supervision of a 9th level caster). The 2L (=50 gp) knight’s sword might be worth including; certainly, real world swords made by master smiths or using unusually high quality metals were greatly prized and treated as worth more than an average, non-shoddy sword, and that’s without the power that an actually magical weapon would add.
On a related note, according to the scavenged equipment rules, shoddy armor can break when a character rolls a 1 on an appropriate check… but I’m not sure what that means for armor. (I understand a shoddy sword breaking on a 1 on an attack roll). Is that about saving throws? Roll a 1 on an appropriate saving throw and your shoddy armor breaks makes sense, although it’s likely relatively rare. Maybe shoddy armor should break when an opponent rolls a 20 on an attack roll?
Bargle: Personally, I don’t like fiddly bits between magical and non magical swords. An wonderfully crafted sword (250gp) with a gold dragon Mahogony hilt with sapphire eyes (2000gp gems) works for me. Giving one of those to a trusted retainer for services rendered might increase his loyalty/morale by +1, but doesn’t go as far as a magic sword would (perhaps loyalty increase and +1 hit/dmg)
What’s the GP sale value of a +1 sword? You mentioned the creation cost, they aren’t the same right?
Ahstrongmorse: don’t think a sale value is listed for magic items. I presume that the creation costs set a floor for a magic item–presumably, it’s worth the time and energy to make magic items despite their costs, and that implies that PCs are expected to value magic items at more than their creation costs. But it doesn’t directly tell us what they end up being worth, just that it is presumably at least equal to the creation costs. (Applying the rule of 33 suggests that a sword +1 with 10K in creation costs might be worth 10,300 gp… but I’m skeptical. I bet it’s worth more than that.)