Spes Magna Games

Salve!

Well, Con-Jour has come and gone, and it was a bit of a bust for me. Friday evening, the staff and vendors probably outnumbered attendees. After goofing off for a couple of hours, sometimes chit-chatting with the reps from Steve Jackson Games, I packed it in and went home.

Bright and early Saturday, my son Christopher (a.k.a. Giant Boy) and I braved the icy wind and drove back to Clear Lake, Texas, for day two of the con. By lunch time, we had played a round each of Nanuk, Knightmare Chess, and Munchkin Cthulhu. Attendees during this time weren’t quite as scarce as hen’s teeth.

I stomped Christopher in Knightmare Chess. We both got stomped in Munchkin Cthulhu. While I sat down to write this, Christopher jumped into a Munchkin tournament. He did well and finished in the top tier of the first round. Christopher didn’t get to play in the second round, however, as almost all of the participants just sort of wandered off after round one and never came back.

But let’s revisit Nanuk for a bit. This is one of Steve Jackson Games’s newest products, and it’s a hoot. Nanuk is sort of like liar’s poker, but with caribou, seals, and polar bears. Players take turns bidding how many animals they can hunt within a certain amount of days. Eventually, someone thinks someone else is bluffing, and they pronounce “DOOM!” upon the hunter. The other players can either join the hunter or the doomsayer. Cards are played. If the hunters win, they get to divvy up the cards plus the doomsayers’ ante. If the hunters lose, the doomsayers divvy up the cards. Players score points based on the cards they accumulate during the game. Nanuk plays fast, is easy-to-learn, and handles up to 8 players. Unlike some games, Nanuk actually plays quickly while becoming funner in direct proportion to the number of players you have. Best of all (from my perspective), this is not a gamer’s game. It’s a great family or party game. I need to save up my loose change so I can buy a copy. You should too.

I also dropped some eaves on a game of New Gods of Mankind. This high-concept, indie RPG casts players in the roles of ancient civilization gods. It looked like an interesting game, and the main book was definitely well done with a clear layout, easy-to-read fonts, and lots of evocative black-and-white art. There’s a thoughtful review of New Gods of Mankind over at RPG.net. I kind of regret not jumping in on the game. I’ve often been accused of having way too high an opinion of myself, so I figure a game in which I get to be a god would be right up my alley. I’ll have to look for this one at OwlCon.

Speaking of OwlCon, if you’re in the Houston area and are attending, I hear good things about Eric Seagren’s Scavenger Hunt of…Dooooooom! adventure. Last time I checked, he’s got slots open for players. Unfortunately, the rounds aren’t at times I can participate. I’m either going to be at Mass or else running my own playtests of our first for-sale product, a one-shot convention-style adventure suitable for those inevitable times when your regular game gets derailed by life.

Salve!

Quid Novi? subscribers have already been introduced to this monster, and he’s made an appearance elsewhere on the Internet, but that’s no reason not to let him grace this site as well. So, without further ado, we present…

The Wendigo
Just the barest flicker of a shadow passed his peripheral vision. He jerked around, his sword and shield at the ready. Nothing! Nothing but trees and the night and the cold. An icy breeze slipped across the back of his neck. His flesh crawled, but a sudden realization chilled him more than the air ever could. The wind was out of the northwest, and he was facing north. Another puff of freezing air brushed his ear. It was close enough to breathe on him!

A wendigo appears much like a humanoid as tall as an ogre, but one who is the last stages of death from starvation. It is completely hairless, and its flesh is deathly pale except for its blackened fingers, ears, nose, and toes. Its fingers end with long talons made of ice, and needle-like fangs fill its mouth. A wendigo has ragged, bloody flesh around its maw because it constantly devours its own lips. Its tongue is long, pocked with sores, and the color of a fresh bruise. Its most horrible feature are its glowing, yellow eyes that float in large sockets full of blood.

CR 6; XP 2,400
Always E Large fey ( cold )
Init +5; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision , scent; Perception +10

DEFENSE
AC 16, touch 10, flat-footed 15 (+1 Dex, +6 natural, -1 size)
hp 58 (9d6+27); regeneration 5 (silver)
Fort +6, Ref +9, Will +9
Defensive Abilities quicker than the eye; Immune cold, fatigue
Weaknesses vulnerabilty to fire

OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee 2 claws +9 (1d4+6 plus 1d4 cold) and bite +9 (1d8+6 plus wendigo fever)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks howl, unnerve prey, wendigo fever

STATISTICS
Str 23, Dex 12, Con 17, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 13
Base Atk +4; CMB +4; CMD 19
Feats Defensive Combat Training, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes
Skills Acrobatics +10 (+18 when jumping), Bluff +10, Climb +15, Perception +10, Stealth +10 (+15 when moving more than 10 ft.), Survival +10; Racial +8 Acrobatics when jumping, +5 Stealth when moving more than 10 ft.

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Howl (Su) As a free action, a wendigo can unleash a fearsome howl. All living creatures within 50 feet must make a DC 15 Will save or have their current fear condition worsened by one step for 2d4 rounds. Thus, no fear condition becomes shaken, shaken becomes frightened, and frightened becomes panicked. A creature that makes its saving throw against a wendigo’s howl cannot be affected by that wendigo’s howl for 24 hours. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Quicker Than the Eye (Su) When a wendigo moves more than 10 feet, it enjoys a +5 racial bonus on Stealth checks and has concealment until its next turn.

Unnerve Prey (Su) As long as it isn’t seen, a wendigo can target one living creature within 50 feet with this ability as a standard action. The target must make a DC 15 Will save or be shaken either until the wendigo is slain or is farther away than 50 feet for 1 minute. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Wendigo Fever (Su) Supernatural disease – bite, Fortitude DC 17, onset: 1 day; frequency: 1 day; effect: 1d3 Con and 1d3 Wis plus shaken. The save DC is Constitution-based. Cure: Unlike normal diseases, wendigo fever continues until the victim reaches Constitution 0 (and dies) or is cured. To eliminate wendigo fever, the victim must first receive a break enchantment or remove curse (requiring a DC 20 caster level check for either spell), and after which the wendigo fever can be magically cured as any normal disease.

An afflicted creature whose Wisdom reaches 0 becomes unreasoning and insane, desiring nothing else but running off into the wilderness.

Wild Empathy (Ex) This functions as the druid class feature. The wendigo has a +4 racial bonus to wild empathy checks.

ECOLOGY
Environment cold forests
Organization solitary or hunt (1 wendigo plus 2-4 winter wolves or 2-8 worgs)
Treasure incidental

A wendigo consumes only the flesh of sentient creatures, preferring halflings to all others. During winter months, starting shortly after the first snowfall, a wendigo wakes from hibernation and leaves its lair to hunt and devour until the beginning of spring. While awake, a wendigo is ceaselessly ravenous and without compassion and mercy. Only its love for terrorizing its prey gives a wendigo pause in its quest to kill and eat.

Despite its evil nature, a wendigo is part of the natural world. It has as special affinity for animals, especially predators.

Habitat: Wendigos inhabit cold forests. Each claims a large territory, typically at least a hundred square miles. Any sentient creature within a wendigo’s territory during the winter is fair game. It is not unknown for a wendigo to range outside its territory in order to hunt when prey is scarce.

A wendigo always has a lair of some sort. Most hide in caves or canyons when hibernating. During the hunting season, a wendigo may have several lairs, including one or more structures that it invaded in order to feed on those inside. Some times a wendigo will fill stolen pots with gory remains and hide these pots in trees.

The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood.

Work continues on our first for-sale product, a one-shot convention-style adventure featuring the heroic Anklebiter League. I’ll be running the first public playtests this weekend at Con-Jour in Clear Lake, Texas. I’m corresponding with a fantastic artist to do the cover (and maybe some of the interior).

Part of the adventure will feature a chase scene. I hunted around the Internet for d20-style chase rules and cobbled these together from what I found:

Chase Rules
A chase scene is a type of combat. All combatants are in motion, whether they be running, riding, flying, et cetera. A chase takes place round to round in initiative order, but the special conditions of the chase require a few special rules.

Actions During the Chase
Here’s where the normal rules must give way to fun. During the chase, everyone is moving all-out all the time, which would normally mean you don’t get to do anything else that round. How dull. Actions during a chase work differently. In addition to moving all-out, you get to perform a single standard or move action each round.

Terrain Checks
At the beginning of your turn, you must make a Terrain Check. This is a straight 1d20 roll against the chase terrain’s DC. There are three categories of terrain: open (DC 3), close (DC 6), and tight (DC 9). If you fail your Terrain Check, you must draw a card from the Chase Deck*. This will probably dictate what you must do for your action during the round.

Close terrains impose a -2 penalty on Notice checks but a +2 bonus on anything to do with tricky maneuvering or hiding. Tight terrains impose a -4 penalty on Notice checks but provide a +4 bonus on anything to do with tricky maneuvering or hiding.

Actions
The basic action in a chase is to Chase. This is a Strength check against a Difficulty of 15. If you succeed, you gain on your opponent by one chase increment. You receive a +2 on this check if you have the Run feat. If your faster than your opponent, you get another +2 bonus. If you opponent has the Run feat, you receive a -2 penalty on the check. If he’s faster, you get a -2 penalty as well. In place of a Strength check, you can attempt a stunt using any of your skills that you can convince the DM is reasonable.

You can forgo your Chase action in order to take a standard or move action of another sort, to include attacking your opponent. These other actions automatically cause you to lose one chase increment (unless, of course, you manage to stop your opponent).

Chase Increments
It doesn’t make sense to try to count squares, draw on battlemats, et cetera, during a chase. Instead, each chaser has a distance from the pursued expressed as one of five chase increments: Point-Blank, Short, Medium, Long, and Extreme.

The DM determine the range for each pursuer when the chase begins. Characters at Point-Blank can use melee attacks against each other. Characters at Medium range suffer a -2 penalty on ranged attacks, and characters at Long range suffer a -4 penalty. For purposes of spells, if the chase increment exceeds the spell’s range category, then the opponent is too far away to target. Characters at Extreme range cannot target their opponent.

* The Chase Deck is a small deck of 20 or so cards, each one with a specific, exciting chase-related event to thrill and challenge the players.

This past Saturday, I was DMing a Pathfinder/Fencing & Firearms/Rewarding Roleplaying adventure, using Goodman Games’s Lost Vault of Tsathar Rho. A good time was mostly had by all. Our resident grouch bad-mouthed Pathfinder‘s consolidation of certain skills (such as combining Listen, Search, and Spot into Perception). I was suddenly reminded of something I read on EN World. I’m not sure if the poster was actually referencing a game system, but the post stuck in my mind, and I pointed out, “Hey, it could be worse. d20 skills could be reduced to just six.”

So, if you think that there are still too many skills, you can always use The Ultimate Skill Consolidation List:

Doing Stuff (Strength)
Doing Stuff (Dexterity)
Doing Stuff (Constitution)
Doing Stuff (Intelligence)
Doing Stuff (Wisdom)
Doing Stuff (Charisma)

Player: I jump over the table, and then knock it on its side to hide behind.

DM: Please give me Doing Stuff (Dexterity) and Doing Stuff (Strength) checks.

How’s that for consolidated?

Alzrius continues to provide some grade-A feedback on Spes Magna products. Here’re some clarifications about the “Expanded BAB” section of Fencing & Firearms. First, let’s sum up what “Expanded BAB” does for you:

Every character has a Base Attack Bonus, or BAB. F&F expands the uses for BAB two ways. First, BAB is added to your Armor Class as a dodge bonus. BAB reflects a character’s general skill in combat This includes not only the ability to land a blow, but also the ability parry and dodge attacks. Furthermore, a character’s BAB affords a certain amount of flexibility in combat from round-to-round as well.

Each round on his turn, a character can “shift” his up to his BAB to provide a bonus to a specific facet of combat. The same value is applied as a penalty to another facet. This bonus/penalty combinations lasts until the beginning of the character’s next turn. A character can apply up to his BAB as a bonus to attack rolls, to damage rolls (for attacks that require an attack roll), or to AC (as a dodge bonus). He must apply the same value as a penalty to one of the two other facets.

Now for Alzrius’s questions:

Alzrius: “Does that rule (regarding BAB as dodge bonus, and “shiftable BAB”) apply only to PCs, or to NPCs and monsters also?”
Me: “Only if the DM wants it to. I wouldn’t bother with it except in the case of a solo BBEG or in the case where a monster has a stock tactic. For example, I regularly run monsters that have Power Attack as if they go All Power Attack All the Time.”

Alzrius: “To be clear, the shiftable BAB can only be used for one thing at a time, right?”
Me: “Yes. The intention is to provide a character with a bonus/penalty trade-off that is both flexible and easy to track. So, a 5th-level fighter could go +5 attack rolls and -5 AC, but not +3 attack rolls, +2 damage, and -5 AC.”

Alzrius: ” While martial characters will always be applying the offsetting penalty somewhere that’s of concern to them, this doesn’t seem to be true for spellcasters. A wizard, for example, can max out his shiftable BAB to his AC, putting the penalty towards attack rolls…and then just cast a fireball, which has no attack roll….”
Me: “Excellent catch! This was certainly not my intention, and my lack of clarity could easily cause confusion. The idea behind “Expanded BAB” is that you only get the bonus if the penalty applies. So, that fireball-lobbing wizard can’t flex his BAB to get an AC bonus by reducing his AC.”

Alzrius’s last question there got me thinking. I clearly envisioned a wizard flexing his BAB with, say, shocking grasp. The idea is that a character has to be making an attack roll at some point during his turn in order to get the “Expanded BAB” benefit. Alzrius also theorized that the spellcaster “problem could be solved by applying it to his magic check instead, using the F&F rules.” IOW, the caster could make his spell harder or easier to resist in exchange for a bonus or penalty to either the spell’s attack roll or its damage.

This is an idea worth exploring, especially since Magic, Mind & Muscle will be using the Base Magic Bonus concept found in Trailblazer by Bad Axe Games. I definitely have to expand on Alzrius’s magic check idea to see how it looks once it’s all worked out on paper. My initial instinct is that it could indeed prove a fruitful exercise.

On another front, I’m still dithering about whether “Expanded BAB” should have a cap. IOW, should there be an upper limit to how much BAB a character can flex? The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to say, “Yes.” I’m thinking about capping the flex to +5/-5 at most. The question I have is this: Should this be an actual rule, or just a friendly suggestion?

Among the many other Spes Magna Games projects in the works, it’s about time to start another round of editing on Rewarding Roleplaying. I have the feeling that I need to (a) change the number of Action Points characters get and (b) streamline the uses of Action Points. At the same time I’m reviewing Rewarding Roleplaying, I’m thinking about completely removing the use of Action Points for d20 re-rolls. Instead, I’m considering adding this to F&F:

Extra d20s
A character gets a pool of extra d20s equal to one-half his character level (maximum 4d20 at 8th level). Whenever a character rolls 1d20 to determine success, he has the option of rolling one or more extra d20s from his pool and choosing the best result out of the dice rolled. Since F&F has the players roll their own fate, this gives a character a powerful tool to determine the results of a wide variety of situations.

For example, Jeremiah Dawes is doing battle with a fierce gnoll. The gnoll’s attack score is high, and Jeremiah has failed most of his defense checks. As a result, Jeremiah has suffered serious damage. He won’t be able to fight much longer at this rate. The next time Jeremiah makes a defense check, he rolls 2d20, using a die from his pool. He takes the better of the two results, improving the odds that he’ll avoid more harm at the gnoll’s hands.

Extra d20s Issues: A couple of questions pop up in my mind when looking at this possible addition to F&F.

1. Is it a good idea?
2. What is the mechanic for replenishing a depleted dice pool?