Old Ways OOC III

[Roland St. Jude]

The party was wonderful. Now back to work (and regularly scheduled play!)

[Battlemage]

I looked through the rules about learning spells, but I couldn't find anything about how long the inscribing into the spellbook actually takes. Can I assume the trade between Neela and Duran was done in the one evening or does it take longer?

[Nevaera]

Nah, I don't have any pressing business for Ash at the moment.

[Roland St. Jude]

I looked through the rules about learning spells, but I couldn't find anything about how long the inscribing into the spellbook actually takes. Can I assume the trade between Neela and Duran was done in the one evening or does it take longer?

I believe the standard time is 1 week/spell level. I'll (generously) rule that you can do it while traveling, if someone else leads your horse while you're on it. And it'll take all your attention while riding and on breaks (when you'll do the necessary scribing). You and Neela will basically be unaware of your surroundings while traveling but can learn each others spells in two weeks.

[Nevaera]

If it's Ash's turn for watch, here's an alertness roll.
DC13: (1d20)[11]

[Battlemage]

Reading through the book I, once again, couldn't find anything about it, but does this edition allow memorizing lower level spells in higher slots? For travelling another Sleep or Magic Missile seems more useful at the moment than Invisibility.

Also I love how Disintegrate (my thematically absolute favorite spell in D&D) is just a complete Save-or-Die here, no ifs or buts.

[Koren n'Rhys]

To my knowledge, no, you can't swap out spells that way in the older editions. It was a "feature" of 3.5 and such. Up to Roland to make a call on allowing it though.

[Koren n'Rhys]

Hmm. Quiet as a mouse but not as hidden as he thinks he is, or wants to be. Hopefully the poor pre-dawn light mitigates that a bit.

[Roland St. Jude]

Reading through the book I, once again, couldn't find anything about it, but does this edition allow memorizing lower level spells in higher slots? For travelling another Sleep or Magic Missile seems more useful at the moment than Invisibility.

That is not a feature of this edition.

Also I love how Disintegrate (my thematically absolute favorite spell in D&D) is just a complete Save-or-Die here, no ifs or buts.

Hard core.

[Frivolous]

If I may ask, Roland: orcs or ogres?

[Battlemage]

Orcres!

[Roland St. Jude]

Orcs. I'll fix the IC.

[Battlemage]

Can you shoot into melee? I was doing Dural's action on the assumption that you couldn't in this edition (which is what googling the matter got me as result).

[Koren n'Rhys]

By the book it's risky. I'm taking the chance given 3 orcs and just two party members. I've done it in the past without Roland calling me on it, so maybe he just lets it go if it's reasonable? I haven't rolled a 1 while trying yet - as a DM that's the only time I'd make an issue of it in my campaign.

[Roland St. Jude]

Can you shoot into melee? I was doing Dural's action on the assumption that you couldn't in this edition (which is what googling the matter got me as result).

You can, but as Koren notes, it's risky. Before I get into that, the default for this edition is that you can try to do pretty much anything. If it isn't covered by some specific rule, the DM decides on a probability and resolves the action.

On shooting into melee, RC has two possible mechanics for resolving this: 1) cover and 2) partial targets. I use the cover rules (page 108) as the default. Depending on the circumstances, your ally provides some cover for the for. I take your roll, assess the penalty, and one of three things happens: 1) you roll well enough to hit even with the penalty - a hit; 2) you roll so poorly, you would have missed even without the penalty - a miss; 3) you roll in the range effected by the cover - you hit the cover. Basically, depending on your angle, relative sizes, etc., your ally becomes a -1 to -6 (5% to 30%) chance possibility of being struck. The partial targets rule might apply if an ally is running through the field of fire or the target is running through the gauntlet of allies, or something similar. That rule is also on page 108 of the RC.

Oh, but one thing you can try but will almost never work, per the rules on p. 108, is do a missile attack at a target within 5' of you. Unless the target is paralyzed or the like, they can easily avoid or misdirect your fire. The rule says such attacks will "not normally work," so they might in certain circumstances, though.

I feel like this was mentioned sometime previously, but search is down, so I can't dig it out. Maybe I'll just link to this post in the OP for future reference.

[Koren n'Rhys]

Thanks for clarifying just how you do it, Roland. I try to picture the scene from Mycah's POV and decide if he'd risk the shot or not. Sounds like that's what you're doing too to decide the penalty.

[Battlemage]

Thanks for the info, good to know for the future.

[Roland St. Jude]

Thanks for clarifying just how you do it, Roland. I try to picture the scene from Mycah's POV and decide if he'd risk the shot or not. Sounds like that's what you're doing too to decide the penalty.

Exactly. There's definitely a judgment call on how much cover the foe is getting from the ally/allies. So far it's been pretty low because archers have moved to a good angle or fired at one of several meleers (where it's easy to justify that one picked the clearest one to aim for), so I don't think we've had any friendly fire damage yet.

[Nevaera]

Hey, I noticed that Ash's attack roll would have hit AC 4 and that Brandon's successfully hit AC 5. I was wondering if maybe the orc Ash had attacked may have had better armor or something?

I just remembered that I was charging too. In 3.5, that adds to a +2 attack bonus, but in this it may perhaps give a penalty.

[Roland St. Jude]

Hey, I noticed that Ash's attack roll would have hit AC 4 and that Brandon's successfully hit AC 5. I was wondering if maybe the orc Ash had attacked may have had better armor or something?

I just remembered that I was charging too. In 3.5, that adds to a +2 attack bonus, but in this it may perhaps give a penalty.

I just saw the roll was 9 and knew that was a miss. How did your THAC0 get to 13? I assume you're just subtracting bonuses from that side of the equation instead of adding them to your attack roll? If so, that's fine, and your attack there should have hit; it just wasn't what I expected, so I made a quick assumption about the 9. Just remind me how you got to 13 and I'll remember to look for it next time.

In this edition, charging is a special attack of some monsters and a thing fighters, dwarves, and elves can do from horseback with a lance. Either has the potential to do double damage, but may be painfully preempted by a set spear vs. charge move. It is also a purely descriptive thing that might net one a minor situational bonus (or effect enemy morale), but for unmounted meleers, it's not standard combat maneuver with fixed effects.

[Matthew]

Probably best to write THAC0 as unmodified and modified [e.g. THAC0 17(13)]; that way it is clear that there are bonuses in play not being applied to the die roll. As with D20 versions of the game modified THAC0 (or AB) is likely to change depending on the weapon wielded. I do the same for armour class (the actual class is modified by shield, dexterity, et cetera) and hit points (total and current).

[Nevaera]

Spoiler

Show

I just saw the roll was 9 and knew that was a miss. How did your THAC0 get to 13? I assume you're just subtracting bonuses from that side of the equation instead of adding them to your attack roll? If so, that's fine, and your attack there should have hit; it just wasn't what I expected, so I made a quick assumption about the 9. Just remind me how you got to 13 and I'll remember to look for it next time.

In this edition, charging is a special attack of some monsters and a thing fighters, dwarves, and elves can do from horseback with a lance. Either has the potential to do double damage, but may be painfully preempted by a set spear vs. charge move. It is also a purely descriptive thing that might net one a minor situational bonus (or effect enemy morale), but for unmounted meleers, it's not standard combat maneuver with fixed effects.

Oh, gotchya. ^_^

Okay, the way I got 13 Thac0 was:
my base thac0 as a fighter is now 17 cause I'm 4th level.
I've trained in sword two levels. Brings it down to 15.
Then it's a magical sword of +2 [w/ +3 vs. regenerating creatures]

Sound about right?
Would have only done 1 damage anyways. :P

[Roland St. Jude]

Oh, gotchya. ^_^

Okay, the way I got 13 Thac0 was:
my base thac0 as a fighter is now 17 cause I'm 4th level.
I've trained in sword two levels. Brings it down to 15.
Then it's a magical sword of +2 [w/ +3 vs. regenerating creatures]

Sound about right?
Would have only done 1 damage anyways. :P

Sounds exactly right.

[Nevaera]

:D

So, I should start posting my attacks more like this maybe:

Thac0: 17
Attack: 1d20+4

?

[Battlemage]

Oh right, weapon training gives to-hit bonuses. I totally forgot that so far.

[Matthew]

Man, the "level of skill" stuff always seemed whacked to me. If Nathros trains in the pole-axe he gets +2 extra to hit and a further +3 to damage, a −1 bonus to AC, plus the ability to deflect incoming attacks. Is that right?

[Nevaera]

Cause he's a Dwarf?

That's pretty kick-butt.

[Koren n'Rhys]

Nope, that's just the next level of mastery as you move up the ranks of Weapons Mastery from the RC. Crazy stuff sometimes.

Lot's more cool stuff to do than just get some plusses like you do with specialization in AD&D.

[Nevaera]

:O What? Seriously? Holey swiss cheese, batman!

Cause it's a poleaxe? Are those better than swords and bows or anything like that? Or have I missed something else?

[Koren n'Rhys]

There's a big 2-page table with every weapon listed. With WM, when you level up and get a new weapon slot, you can either train in a new weapon at the Basic level of proficiency, or increase your skill with an existing one. It runs from Basic -> Skilled -> Expert -> Master -> Grand Master with increasing benefits as you go. At each level it's harder to find a teacher, more expensive to train, and harder to successfully do so. IMO, it's a cool system but can get out of control if you go too far with it.