Groumy TheGm

Fatiguing Magic

2019-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

For those that aren’t interested in the why, you can juste Click here to skip to the actual house rule

I dislike when RPG system uses memory as an excuse to apply some balance on their magic system. It attacks my suspension of disbelief and affect negatively the experience I have while playing it.

The reason is quite simple :

My memory don’t usually start to forget things I just used … It tends to forget things I rarely use …
My memory cannot remember multiple time the same information

So when I saw that memory was used as a balancing mechanisim in The Black Hack I was a little bit disapointed. I gave the game a chance and decided that if my players didn’t mind I could get over it.

But they openly said that they think it didn’t make any sense, so now I have the right to fix it.

What would be better

So casting spells and forgetting about them as you do so don’t work with my group taste. What would now ?

The obvious alternative is to use Mana. It fit better naratively than memory and is used by numerous other RPGs. But mechanicaly it goes against the simplicity of resources management of The Black Hack. Something could be done with a Usage Dice to represent Mana, but that feels clunky.

Another way of balancing out magic spells is to use fatigue. True20 and the Iron Kingdoms RPG both uses fatigue as a moderation mechanism :

If you cast too much spells you become fatigued and can’t cast anymore.

I personally thing that Mana system are trying to emulate fatigue. Mana represents what you can do before getting fatigued. And when you don’t have any Mana left your are too much fatigued to cast any spells.

That’s why I think that fatiguing magic is even more interesting narratively speaking. It allow a bunch of great tropes. Like :

Let’s go with that

Some considerations

Before starting to write some house rule, let’s take time to think about what that house rule shoud do.

I’d like the house rule to stay compatible with both core and third party classes.
The house rule has to be simple, I can’t write a 30 pages house rule for a 20 pages rule book.

So I’ll try to reuse before creating something new.

What to keep from the actual rules

From the spell casting system

MEMORISING SPELLS

Most spellcasting classes have a way to memorise spells. If I don’t want to rewrite every classes that I’m gonna use, I have to keep this mechanism.

CASTING SPELLS

The rules make a distinction between casting spells from memory and from spell book. When casting spells from memory you have a increasing chance to forget it but you can cast spells from your spell book.

Both mechanism require an Ability Test. This ability test as the advantage to include both your caster ability and the level of the spell in the calculation. But it also requires some additional bookkeeping to remember which spells were previously cast.

Rolling on the Magical Side Effects table is fun, I want to keep that.

From the Fatigue system

Fatigue in The Black Hack is only refered once, in the random encounter table.

All Characters must consume food and water or lose HP equal to their Level through fatigue

So to emulate fatigue in The Black Hack, without introducing new rules and mechanism, character should lose HP when they start to get fatigued

The final house rule

So this is what I came up with. It repalce a single section of the rule books and stays broadly compatible with third party classes and everything.

I’m gonna test it out with my group over the next few sessions.

CASTING SPELLS

A Spellcaster can spend an Action on their Turn to attempt to cast a spell or prayer from memory or by reading it from a book or scroll, when Turns are being tracked using Minutes.

To do so they must make an Attribute Test - adding the spell’s or prayer’s level to the roll. If they succeed, the spell is cast.

If they fail, the Player as to chooses between :

letting the magical energy loose and rolling on the Magical Side Effects table (p.43 in the main rule book)
forcing the spell to work but lose HP equal to their Level through fatigue

A Spellcaster can only cast spells with level up to and equal to their Level.

Arcane spells use Intelligence and prayers use Wisdom for all Attribute Tests.

Going Black

2019-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

With my group, we recently switched from the Cypher System to The Black Hack Second Edition to handle our RPG cravings.

We did so for many reasons that I’m going to explain, because it might help others who are in the same situation.

Our group

Let’s start by describing our group, because it’s important to understand a decision to understand the context in which it was made.

To describe our group I’m gonna steel the Cypher System concept of character as a sentence and apply it to my players ;)

Our group is composed of :

6 Old timers Parents that Aren’t a RPG Geek
my daughter a Young Teenager that Aren’t a RPG Geek
myself a Old timer Parent that Definetly is a RPG Geek

And here some definition of those terms for me :

Old timers, most of my players have over 20 years of playing RPG under their belt
Parents, most of my players are parents and thus a busy schedule, including me
Aren’t RPG Geek, none of players invest any of their precious time to read about RPG (not even rules). The only time they dedicate to RPG is while they are sitting at my table. They love playing, but not reading about RPGs.

Because of all that, we play mostly once a month with a varying degree of participations. Some are present each time, other have played only two session in over 2 years for example.

My player needs

Based on discussion and observations of their reactions when we discussed changing campaign here’s the issues my players had with the Cypher System :

character options were a little bit to heavy for their tastes
character creation tooked too much time
they had a hard time to remember the rules

Let’s discuss each one in length.

Character options

The Cypher System is full of character options. At first, when we switched to this system, I thought that my players would love this. With the combinaisons of the Descriptors, Types and Foci you can create a great deal of characters concept.

With all the character options available through the differents Cyper System products, it appears that finding the proper combinaison of Descriptor, Type and Focus to actually create the character you wanted becomes quite difficult.

It seems easier to read the options and use them as an inspiration to create a unique character than to try to fit them to a concept.

And it appears that none of my player had time/interest in their personal life to sitdown and read through all thoses options to create a character. And as seasoned players they usually were able to came up with a concept base on know tropes in seconds.

We had some success when we played a Numenera campaign around the Jade Colossus. As our first game with the system and the setting we used pregenerated characters. So they took what was available.

But when we switched to playing a Shadowrun inspired campaign with the Cypher System. We didn’t had any pregenerated characters and my players all had concept for their characters.

So all that lead to decision paralysis at character creation and each tier advancement after that.

The conclusion was that They needed less characters tweaking and more pregen concepts

Character creation

Since most of my players are adult with real life responsabilities to handle, the occasion to actually play the game are limited.

None of them like the fact that each time we changed campaign, it took a full night to just create the characters.

They needed a system were creating a new character could be done in minutes, not hours.

The rules

Even after playing over a year of Cypher System, none of my player could grasp the action resolution mechanisim.

They were always confused about the relation between the difficulty level and the number needed on the d20. And don’t get me started with the difficulty level negotiation or the stat pool management. They simply forgot about those rules between sessions.

They needed rules that can be learned in minutes and easily remembered.

My own needs

So as their GM and and the only RPG Geek at the table, I started to look at different systems. I soon realized that I had to consider my needs too.

There were reasons that made me choose the Cypher System some years ago. So I kept in mind those point :

Player facing rolls
One stat ennemies
Based on attribute tests

Player facing rolls

I love player facing rolls, because I found it more relaxing for me. So I can more easily focus on the narrative.

I also have the impression that it empowers the players. There’s a difference between getting hit by the BBEG because :

I (a player) rolled poorly on my dodge attempt; vs
the GM said so (rolling dice behind the screen doesn’t matter for the players and rolling in the open doesn’t either unless the players have access to the NPS stat blocks …)

With players making all the rolls, there is simply no bullshit, no fudging dice, no GM fiat.

One stat enemies

One thing I loved about the Cypher System (and other RPGs I have contemplated over the years) was to be able to simply express enemy, and any challenge really, as a single number in my notes.

Back when we played DND 4th I hated to have to spend so much time trying to balance out encounter, read monsters stat blocks, reference those blocks in game, etc.

Being able to express NPC and the like as a single number is so freeing. It also facilitate improvisation at the table.

Based on attribute tests

One thing I know I don’t love is when every action have it’s own set of rules. Yes, I’m looking at you AD&D. It’s simply not elegant and the I need to know them all.

I alway appreciated system that are basically driven simply by Attribute Tests and other subsystem simply modify the Attribute Test, like Cypher System.

Some system that uses skill as the base of their main resolution mechanism. but they always have some of these issues :

They a long list of skills that is hard to remember
They always have some skills missing, it’s virtually impossible to have a really complete list
They usually have some exceptionnal rule on what to do when there’s no skills that applies to an attempted action

The verdict

After some searching I stumbled on The Black Hack. Put simply it checked all the boxes for our group. But for those that do not know about that game system let’s look into it.

We have now 5 sessions under the belt running Barrowmaze Complete with it and we have only minor issues that can easily be fixed with house rules.

The first session, it tooked maybe 30 minutes to explains the rules and create characters, then started playing.

All the player stated how much simpler this system was, we no longer have questions about how to resolve actions or anything. The mood ligthened up a bit also and everybody is starting to have more fun.

When group member that weren’t there on the first session showed up we were able to explain the rules and create that character in under 15 minutes.

Since we made the switch we even welcomed two new recruits. My wife and the significant other of one of the player. Those two were able to play fast and grasp the system really well even if they are new to the hobby.

On my side of the screen, everything is quite simple. When a player whant to attempt an action I simply have to pick the proper ability from the same six we used for the past two decades and decide if there’s any reason they should have advantage or disadvantage.

For monsters, I use the HP and damage listed in the adventure I’m using. Theoricly the damage is a little bit higher than the recommended numbers, but it not a problem for now.

Actually I have a hard time to challenge the characters. It might be for many reasons (the experience of the players, that allow them to play safe, the fact that they know how to work together, they might have been lucky on their ability scores, or The Black Hack in conjunction to Barrowmaze is not that challenging at first) and I’ll keep a close eye on it.

For treasures, the number of gold listed in Barrowmaze doesn’t scale well with the prices in the book and the recommendation for treasure generation. (I’m working on some tweaks right now.)

We might still be in the honeymoon period, but its a great start !

New Site

2019-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

You may have noticed that I imported a couple on month ago the stuff of my old blog Goumy.net.

I was primarily because I stopped registering my custom domain (groumy.net) and wanted to be able to work on draft posts from my phone. As a father of five children, I realised that I had less and less time to sit down and write … go figure why ! ;)

I chose to use Jekyll hosted on github pages basically because I love to work in Markdown. And, as a Ruby developpemer, I know I’ll be able to tinker with the layout and everything.

It took time though to find a proper markdown editor that would work on my phone, my personnal compuler and my professional one (we have some heavy restriction on what we can run and access with it). For the curious, StackEdit is the app that’s working for me.

Now that I’ve found my Markdown editor, imported my previous blog posts, finished setting up Categories and Tags pages and adjusting the layout of this blog, I’m ready to start writing again. Don’t expect new posts every day, but I every few weeks is probable.

Speaking of categories, I’m planning to use a few :

[Blog-Meta](/categories/#Blog-Meta] : For all posts relating to the blog management in itself.
Tinkers : For all posts about house rules and tinkering with RPGs systems.
Play-Reports : For all posts about what’s actually going on at my table.

That’s it

Exhausting Encumbrance

2015-04-05T18:58:00+00:00

Ever since the D&D 3e, I always felt that the provided encumbrance system was somewhat off. The major problem I had was with the fact that your load would affect your moving speed.

But up until recently, I didn’t know how to fix it, so I mainly ignored that rule.

Before, delving into my though, a little disclaimer :

I’m not a professional game designer, just a dabbler. I don’t have any personal experience to back up anything I says here. Like hiking, military training or anything. Just so you know.

Inspiration in the new edition

When D&D 5e came out last summer, I was really please to see that the “default” rules are somewhat simpler :

Carrying Capacity. Your carrying capacity is your Strength score multiplied by 15. This is the weight (in pounds) that you can carry, which is high enough that most characters don’t usually have to worry about it.
Source : Dungeons and Dragons : Player’s Basic Rules Version 2.0

But, that rules are basically what I was already doing … ignoring carrying capacity all together. Reading further down the Basic Rules, I saw the Variant Encumbrance rules I was psyched, until I realized that they are basically what they always were and there main effect was to slow down your movement.

That’s when I had the thought that carrying an heavy load doesn’t affect your walking speed as much as it affect the time you could walk with that given load. So the size of your load should interact with your fatigue rather than your walking speed, and when you are fatigued enough that’s when you walking speed will be affected.

Keeping that in mind I continued my reading of the basic rules, and at the same reflection when reading about the effect of wearing an heavy armour.

Heavy Armor. Heavier armor interferes with the wearer’s ability to move quickly,stealthily, and freely. If the Armor table shows “Str 13” or “Str 15” in the Strength column for an armor type, the armor reduces the wearer’s speed by 10 feet unless the wearer has a Strength score equal to or higher than the listed score.
Source : Dungeons and Dragons : Player’s Basic Rules Version 2.0

So, wearing an heavy armor, confer the same penalty to it’s wearer as if he was carrying a medium load (reduces the wearer’s speed by 10 feet). Again, that’s not really what I think it should do, while you wear the armor, you should be able to keep on going at the same speed, but just fatigue quicker.

A look into exhaustion

It’s when I read about the conditions in the Appendix A, all added up together as I was reading about the Exhaustion mechanism.

Exhaustion
Some special abilities and environmental hazards, such as
starvation and the long-term effects of freezing or scorching
temperatures, can lead to a special condition called
exhaustion. Exhaustion is measured in six levels. An effect
can give a creature one or more levels of exhaustion, as
specified in the effect’s description.

Level Effect

1 Disadvantage on ability checks

2 Speed halved

3 Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws

4 Hit point maximum halved

5 Speed reduced to 0

6 Death

If an already exhausted creature suffers another effect that causes exhaustion, its current level of exhaustion increases by the amount specified in the effect’s description.
A creature suffers the effect of its current level of exhaustion as well as all lower levels. For example, a creature suffering level 2 exhaustion has its speed halved and has disadvantage on ability checks.

An effect that removes exhaustion reduces its level as specified in the effect’s description, with all exhaustion effects ending if a creature’s exhaustion level is reduced below 1.
Finishing a long rest reduces a creature’s exhaustion level by 1, provided that the creature has also ingested some food and drink.
Source : Dungeons and Dragons : Player’s Basic Rules Version 2.0

Level	Effect
1	Disadvantage on ability checks
2	Speed halved
3	Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws
4	Hit point maximum halved
5	Speed reduced to 0
6	Death

So, this exhaustion sub-system is exactly how fatigue is build into the game, and it’s a good damn way of doing hit. Now the only thing to do is to merge encumbrance with it.The way of doing it, is hinted by the forced march rules, in the adventuring chapter.

Forced March. The Travel Pace table assumes that characters travel for 8 hours in day. They can push on beyond that limit, at the risk of exhaustion.

For each additional hour of travel beyond 8 hours, the characters cover the distance shown in the Hour column for their pace, and each character must make a Constitution saving throw at the end of the hour. The DC is 10 + 1 for each hour past 8 hours. On a failed saving throw, a character suffers one level of exhaustion (see appendix A).
Source : Dungeons and Dragons : Player’s Basic Rules Version 2.0

So, after walking for 8 hours, what I call a strenuous activity, you make a constitution saving throw to prevent being exhausted. The only thing next to do is to extend the definition of that strenuous activity to include other things.

Looking into the strenuous activities

Searching for the term “strenuous” in the Basic rules returns two hits, both in the Resting section of the rules. The one in the definition of the long rest in really interesting.

[…] If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity— the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it. […]
Source : Dungeons and Dragons : Player’s Basic Rules Version 2.0

So, we have at least some idea of what is a strenuous activity now. So, 8 hours of walking could be counted as 8 strenuous activity in a day. And 8 strenuous activities without some kind of rest requires a Constitution Saving throw against exhaustion.

That 8 activities thought sounds a little bit of an arbitrary number. If we take into account that a fight, or casting a spell is considered a strenuous activity, it is likely that a character will perform some other strenuous activities in a day of walk.

So if we add a couple of activities to that 8, we end up with 10. The same number used as the base of the Constitution saving throw (10 + 1 per a hours past the first 8). So, the DC is actually 1 per strenuous activities done since the last long rest.

10 is also the average Constitution score for humans. Coincidence or not, I feel comfortable that the Constitution score of a character alter the number of strenuous activities he can perform in a day.

We now have the foundation for the basic rules governing strenuous activities :

A character can make a number of strenuous activities in a day equals to it’s constitution score.
Beyond that, he must start to make a Constitution saving throw against exhaustion.
The DC is equals to the number of strenuous activities done since the last long rest.

Strenuous Activities

1 hour of walk

a fight

casting a spell

Going back to encumbrance

Now that I have a rough definition of what is a strenuous activity and that I have a rough idea of how much a character could perform in a day without rest. I’m ready to look at how to incorporate encumbrance in this system.

Since my list of strenuous activities already includes walking, I’m tempted to say that performing strenuous activities while wearing an heavy armor, or carrying a medium to heavy load, make that activity more strenuous, and thous count as more than one against the “limit per day”.

The simplest way of doing so is the following :

Wearing an Heavy armor or carrying an heavy load, while performing a strenuous activity, make that activity count as three (3) for determining exhaustion.
Wearing an Heavy armor, but while meeting the armor’s strength prerequisite, or carrying an medium load, while performing a strenuous activity, make that activiy count as two (2) for determining exhaustion.

That way, a average human (10 in all stats) would be able to walk in a full plate for about 3 hours before starting to feel exhaustion kicking in. (3*3 (for not meeting the strength prerequisite) = 9 vs 10 (constitution score)).

On the other hand, a character with 15 in Strength and 14 in constitution (a regular level 1 fighter) would be able to wear it and walk with it for 7 hours before starting to make exhaustion saving throws. Or (7*2 (for meeting the strength prerequisite) vs 14 (constitution score)).

Sounds good to me.

The actual house rule

Strenuous Activites

A character can make a number of strenuous activities in a day equals to it’s Constitution score before facing exhaustion.

For each strenuous activities done beyond that, the character has to perform a Constitution saving throw vs the number of strenuous activity performed that day. If he failed, the character gain one level of exhaustion.
List of strenuous activities

1 hour of walk

fighting

casting spells

Strenuous activities modifiers

Some condition can make strenuous activities more exhausting.

carrying a medium load (x2)

carrying a heavy load (x3)

wearing an heavy armor (x2)

wearing an heavy armor, without meeting the strength prerequisite (x3)

Expending the strenuous activities

With that sub-system ready, we now have a simple way to handle other things that would be exhausting, like sleep deprivation for example.

Iron Kingdom Savage Conversion - The rest

2015-01-26T17:23:00+00:00

Since the last post, (over a year ago) my Savage Iron Campaign raised and fell and so did my conversion efforts.

As my players started to get actual experiences with Savage Worlds they started to dislike the free-form character advancements that it offers. They are all big time MMORPG players, so maybe I should have seen it coming.

So we switched back to D&D, after a short flirt with the Cortex Plus System, starting with the latest play-test package a couple of month before the actual release of D&D 5e, which is great actually.

Anyway, here is the rest of my notes on the conversion from Iron Kingdom RPG to Savage Worlds, in case it could be of any help to someone.

Races

In Iron Kingdoms RPG races as big starting value, and for that reason, races in this document are stronger than those suggested in Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition. Instead of having a total of +2 modifiers for racial abilities, they have +4. They were created using the Makin Races section of the book.

Human

They starts with an ability of their choice at d6 or an additional Edge, character choice
They starts with a free edge

Dwarf

They are shorter than most other races.
Their pace is 4 and run at d4.
Their load limit is Strength X 8 instead of Strength X 5.
They start with the free Connection (Clan) Edge.
They start with a d6 in Vigor.
They start with a d6 in the knowledge of their choice.

Gobber

Starts with a d6 in Agility.
They are small creature and suffer a -1 in toughness.
They receive the Acrobat edge for free.
They start with d6 in climbing and stealth.

Iosan

They start with a d6 in Smart.
They start with a free edge of their choice.

Nyss

They start with a d6 in Agility.
They have +4 to resists cold based effects.
They have -4 to resists heat based effects.
They receive the Alertness edge for free.

Ogrun

They start with d8 in Strength and they can raise it up to d12+2.
They start with d6 in vigor.
They have a pace of 5.
They are size 3, but don’t receive the toughness bonus for it.

Trollkin

They start with a d8 in Vigor and they can raise it up to d12+2
They start with d6 in Strength
They have a pace of 5
They receive the Hard to Kill edge.
They receive the Fast Healer edge.
They have -2 to charisma.
They are size 2, but don’t receive the toughness bonus for it.

Skills

Alchemy (Smarts)

Alchemy is the science that allows to create mundane items that have some arcane properties. It covers a large array of compound that are created with mixing arcane sensitive reagent. A player with this skill can create alchemical compound, identify an unknown alchemical compound, extract alchemical reagent from plants or animals and event distillate ingredients from existing alchemical compound to extract reagents.

Craft Alchemical item

To create an alchemical item, a character must have the formulae and the needed ingredients, than invest the required time to brew the compound and then make an alchemy trait roll. Depending on the complexity of the compound the roll will receive a modifier (EX : -2). See the Alchemy chapter for complete formula example.

Identify Alchemical compound

A character skilled in alchemy can identify existing alchemical items. To do so, he must make an Alchemy roll with a circumstantial modifier as prescribe by the following table.

Alchemical Substance being identified	Modifier
Substance is common and openly available	+2
Substance is uncommon and available in secret market	0
Substance is rare and difficult to purchase	-2
Substance is unique	-4
Substance was previously identify by the character.	+4

If the player doesn’t know the recipe to create that compound he can discover it. With each raise on the identify roll, the character can discover one ingredient used in the composition of the compound.

Distillate alchemical reagent from an alchemical compound

A character can extract reagents from existing alchemical compound. To do so, the character as to know what is the alchemical compound is, and what reagent are included in it’s composition. Than he can make an alchemical roll to extract reagent with a -2 modifier. If it’s a success, he can extract one unit of one alchemical ingredient used in the composition of the compound. Each raises allows to extract one more unit of the same ingredient, or one unit from a different ingredient. A character can’t extract more unit of ingredient then those used in the creation of the compound. After the process, successful or not, the compound is destroyed and cannot be used anymore.

Extract alchemical

The Alchemy chapter provide a list of basic alchemical items. For more exotic ingredient, see the monster entry of the appropriate monster in the bestiary. Most of them are extracted with a simple roll of the Alchemy or Medicine (for animals parts), but more exotic can impose modifiers.

Edges

General Edges

‘Jack Marshal

Rank : Novice Requirements : NoneThis edge allows a character to give complex orders to a steamjack. A ‘jack marshal with this edge can orders it’s ‘jack to perform multiple action in a single turn and perform combat maneuvers. A ‘jack marshal can control only one ‘jack at the time with this bonus.

Ace Commander

Rank : Seasoned Requirements : ‘Jack MarshalAn ace commander can give it’s bennies to his warjack.

Additional Bond

Rank : Novice Requirements : WarcasterThis edges allows a warcaster to bound with one more mechanikal item. This edge can be taken multiple times.

Free Style

Rank : Novice** Requirements : Alchemy d10This edge allows a character to improvise replacement ingredient for a alchemical compound.

Arcane Backgrounds

In Iron Kingdoms RPG, published by Privateer Press, there are two specific arcane traditions, Will Weaver, which uses inner force of will to cast spells and Focusers that uses ambient magical energies. To recreate that to different arcane background where created.

Arcane Background (Focusing)

Arcane Skill : Focusing (Smarts) Starting Powers : 2 No power points rules : In place If the characters must make a Focusing roll with a penalty equals to half the Power Point cost of the chosen spell. On a failure, the character loose all sustained spells and his shaken, this can cause a wound. Each sustained spell add a -1 penalty to Focusingrolls. Backlash : Burnout, on a 1 on the arcane check, regardless of the wild die, the character loose the ability to cast spell until the end of the encounter. He can spend a benny to resume this ability.Focusers use latent magic that surrounds everything in Caern. They are the only ones that can becomes warcasters because it requires their unique ability to control warjack and bound to other mechanikal items.When picking this arcane background the character must choose one Arcane Career edge.

Arcane Background (Will Weaver)

Arcane Skill : Will Weaving (Smarts) Starting Powers : 2 Starting Power Points : 10 Backlash : On a 1 on the arcane check, regardless of the wild die, the character is shaken and suffers a level of fatigue.Will weavers rely on their force of will to summon and harness arcane energy.When picking this arcane background the character must choose one Arcane Career edge.

Arcane Careers

Gun mage

Requirements : Arcane Background (Will Weaving) or Arcane Background (Focusing) and Shooting d6A gun mage mix arcane energies with fire arms. He can shoots spells using bullet as a delivery system. To do so, the gun mage must uses a magelock weapon, a specially crafted gun with magic sensitive alloys, in conjonction with rune shots, specially crafted bullets for this purpose. Casting a spell through a rune shot requires a arcane roll as usual and a shooting roll to hit the target. But those two actions count as a single one toward for multi-action resolutions. If both rolls are successful the target suffer the shot and the stored power. If a gun mage doesn’t have a rune shots or magelock he can still cast spell through a bullet but will suffer penalty to his shooting and arcane roll for trying so. The gun mage will suffer a -2 modifier if he doesn’t have a magelock and an other -2 (cumulative) if he doesn’t have rune shots.

Warcaster

Requirements : Arcane Background (Focusing)Warcasters can bound with mechanikal devices, including steamjack. Depending of the nature of the mechanikal device, the warcaster can use the device in special ways. The bouding process requires ten minutes once, and a warcaster can change it’s bounds at any time by bounding to an other device. A single device can’t be bound to more than one warcaster. The warcaster as a limit of one bound. That limit can be change with edges.While bounded with a mechanikal weapon a warcaster can uses bennies to reroll damages.While bounded with a mechanikal armor a warcaster can generate a protective field that add two to the toughness.While bounded with a steamjack, a warcaster receive the same benefits as the ‘Jack Marshal edge with the bounded ‘jack. But, the warcaster doesn’t need to talk to give out orders and doesn’t need to know the cortex language.

Iron Kingdom Savage Conversion - Abilities

2013-07-12T13:24:00+00:00

Welcome to my third installment on Iron Kingdoms RPG conversion to Savage Worlds. In that post, I’ll cover Iron Kingdom RPG Abilities.

The Iron Kingdoms RPG offer a lot of abilities to character. Abilities really are the IKRPG equivalent of Savage Worlds edges. The main differences, is that characters in IKRPG have limited availability of abilities based on their careers and archetype.

I’ll do the same process as I did for the skills last week. I’ll try to map IKRPG abilities to existing Savage Worlds edges. If I can’t find a fitting match, I’ll create a new Edge, but only if the ability his a setting signature, like ‘Jack Marshal that allows a character to handle steamjack.

So here is my mapping table of every abilities from IKRPG.

Iron Kingdoms Abilities	Savage Worlds Edge
'Jack Marshal	new Edge
Ace Commander	new Edge
Acrobatics	Acrobat
Advisor
Ambush
Anatomical Precision
Appraise
Arcane Assassin
Arcane Defenses	Arcane Resistance
Arcane Engineer
Arcane Precision
Arcane Scholar
Astute
Backsab
Battle Commander
Battle Plan: Call to Action
Battle Plan: Coordinated Strike
Battle Plan: Desperate Pace
Battle Plan: Go to Ground
Battle Plan: Reconnaissance
Battle Plan: Shadow
Bayonet Charge
Big Game Hunter
Binding
Blaster
Blood Spiller
Bodge
Bodyg u a rd
Bomber
Bond (bond slot)*	new Edge
Brew Master
Camouflage
Card Sharp
Cautious Advance
Cavalry Charge
Chain Attack: Bleed Out
Chain Attack: Pin Down
Choir
Cleave
Combat Rider
Conniver
Cover Identity (identity)*
Crackshot
Craft Rune Shot	new Edge
Crossbowman
Defender
Defensive Line
Dig In
Disease Resistance
Dispel
Dodger
Drive: Ancil lary Attack
Drive: Assault
Drive: Off Road
Drive: Pronto
Dual Shot
Elemental Mastery
Empower
Expert Rider
Fast Cook
Fast Draw	Quick Draw
Fast Rearm (weapon type)*
Fast Reload
Fell Call: Cacophony	new Power
Fell Call: Call of Defiance	new Power
Fell Call: Ground Shaker	new Power
Fell Call: Heroic Ballad	new Power
Fell Call: Reverberation	new Power
Fell Call: Signal Call	new Power
Fell Call: Sonic Blast	new Power
Field Alchemist
Field Marshal: Magical Attack
Field Marshal: Relentless Charge
Field Marshal: Shield Guard
Find Cover
Fire in the Hole!
Fleet Foot	Fleet-Footed
Free Style	new Edge
Gang
Get Away
Girded
Good Breeding
Great Power	Power Points
Grenadier
Gunfighter
Head-Butt
Hit the Deck!
Hyper Awareness
Immunity: Cold
Immunity: Corrosion
Immunity: Electricity
Immunity: Fire
Inscribe Formulae	new Edge
Iron Sentinel
Iron Will
Keen Eyed
Language (language)*
Legacy of Bragg
Light Cavalry
Load Bearing
Mage Killer
Marksman	Marksman
Natural Leader	Command Presence
Night Fighter
Parry
Pathfinder
Poison Resistance
Port of Call
Precision Strike
Press the Attack
Privilege	Noble
Prowl
Pursuit
Quick Work
Rallying Cry
Relentless Charge
Resourcefull
Retaliatory Strike	Counterattack
Return Fire
Ride-By Attack
Riposte
Rock Solid
RollWith It
Saddle Shot	Steady Hands
Scrounge
Sentry
Set Defense
Shadow Magic	new Edge
Shield Guard
Shield Slam
Signal Language
Sniper	Marksman
Specialization (weapon type)*	Trademark Weapon
Steady
Steamo
Sucker!
Swift Hunter
Swift Rider
Take Down
Targeteer
Team Leader
Traceless Path
Truth Reader
Tune Up
Two-Weapon Fighting	Two-Fisted
University Education
Waylay

As you can see, there is really few Edges that are equivalent to the IKRPG Abilities. There’s a lot of abilities that allows character to reroll failed skill checked and since Savage Worlds include bennies that allows that I don’t see the need to create them. There’s also some abilities that could be created as is in Savage Worlds, for example Truth Reader that allows a character to always know if someone is lying.

Since I’m not converting an existing IKRPG campaing, I don’t intend to create mapping for every one of the abilities. My principal goals for this conversion is to take out what create the flavor of the Iron Kingdoms and to allows me to convert ennemy stat block easily. So if I decide to use an ennemy with an ability that doesn’t have an edge equivalent, I’ll convert it then.

Some Iron Kingdoms Abilities are mapped as new Edges, these new Edges will be the subject of an other post.

Iron Kingdoms Savage Conversion - Skills

2013-07-05T07:30:00+00:00

In my previous post, I talked about converting Iron Kingdoms RPG to Savage Worlds, my go to system. I started with the Character Statistics, as Iron Kingdimg calls them and convet them to Savage Worlds Traits. Now it’s time to handle the skills, since it’s the next big step.

Just to recap, for those who didn’t red the first post or just forgot, my goal is to be able to easily convert Iron Kingdom RPG content to Savage World and keep the flavor and merge the mechanics of both system in a uniform mix. I starts with the stats, skills and abilities before attacking the races, careers and gear, simply because the later are build on top of the stats, skills and abilities and starting with the foundation will help me convert the rest.

I want to be able to convert every monster in the bestiary and thing like that to have scaled ennemy to throw at my players. I also want to be able to convert a full fledged Iron Kingdoms character to Savage World to ensure that I’m able to keep most of the flavor of that system.

As I said, my Iron Kingdoms campaign is already started with a first crude conversion and now I want to refine it.

So enough small talk let’s get started.

In Iron Kingdoms, they are many skills. Most of them are pretty precise skill that differt with the Savage Worlds broad skill approach. I’ll try to keep new skills and things like that to a minimum. I like the simple approach of Savage Worlds and I don’t intent breaking it. So I’ll look more at mapping Iron Kingdoms skills to existing Savage Worlds skills thant creating a perfect replica.

Let’s starts with Iron Kingdoms Military Skills.

Iron Kingdoms Skill	Savage Worlds Skill
Archery	Shooting
Crossbow	Shooting
Great Weapon	Fighting
Hand Weapon	Fighting
Lance	Fighting
Light Artillery	Shooting
Pistol	Shooting
Rifle	Shooting
Shield	Fighting
Thrown Weapon	Thowing
Unarmed Combat	Fighting

As you can see more than one skill from Iron Kingdom RPG are map to the same Savage Worlds RPG. That’s because of the broader approach of Savage Worlds. To keep things simple when making the conversion, I’ll pick the best skill from Iron Kingdom for the convertion and just forget about the others. But surely, if you want to keep the granularity of Iron Kingdom you could do that with the Skill Spciality setting rule describe in the Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition core rule book.

Now let’s look a the Occupational skills and Generic Skills of Iron Kingdoms.

Iron Kingdoms Skill	Savage Worlds Skill
Alchemy	new skill
Animal Handling	Persuation
Bribery	Persuation
Climbing	Climbing
Command	Persuation
Craft	Repair
Cryptography	Knowledge (Cryptography)
Deception	Persuation
Detection	Notice
Disguise	Persuation
Driving	Driving
Escape Artist	n/a
Etiquette	Knowledge (Etiquette)
Fell Calling	new skill
Forgery	Persuation
Gambling	Gambling
Interrogation	Persuation
Intimidation	Intimidation
Jumping	n/a
Law	Knowledge (Law)
Lock Picking	Lockpicking
Lore	Knowledge
Mechanikal Engeneering	new skill / Repair *
Medecine	Healing
Navigation	Survival
Negotiation	Persuation
Oratory	Persuation
Pickpocket	Pickpocket
Research	Investigation
Riding	Riding
Rope Use	n/a
Sailing	Boating
Seduction	Persuation
Streetwise	Streetwise
Sneak	Stealth
Survival	Survival
Swimming	Swimming
Tracking	Tracking

As you can see there’s a lot of skill from IKRPG that are mapped to the same skills of SW. For an example, Persuation as ten IKRPG skills mapped to it. I’ve done that because every one of them as the same goal, persuade a person, animal or group to act like the character wants and that’s specefically what the SW persuation skill does.

So like for the Military Skills, I’ll just pick the best skill matching persuation and use that one for the conversion.

Three of the Iron Kingdoms are not mapped to any skills in Savage Worlds, Escape Artist, Jumping and Rope Use. For Escape Artist and Jumping, there’s already specific rules for that in Savage Worlds. For Rope Use I guess that a simple Agility check should suffice.
There are three new skills to create, Alchemy and Fell Calling and the Mechanikal Engeneering.

Alchemy, in IKRPG is the skill that allows a character to create alchemical compound. I really don’t see any skill that could fill out that role except Repair, but I found that Alchemy is really different from what repair should covers. And since alchemy is a big part of the flavor of Iron Kingdoms, I’ll create a skill for it. that will do excatly the same, allows character to create alchemical compounds.

Fell Calling, it’s the ability of some trollkin to use a special kind of magic withing them … so it’s not complicated, Fell Calling is a new skill and will be associated with a new Arcane Background.

Now Mechanikal Engeneering, as Alchemy it deserves it’s own skill when we are talkin about crafting mechanikal machine. But, chracters with repair can repair mechanikal creation like any other ones. A character with both skills, pick his best for repairs.

So that’s it for the skill mapping, now we have to convert their level to Savage Worlds Trait dices. In IKRPG, the skills goes from 1 to 4 and that values is added to the revelant characteristic. And skill levels are capped based on the tier of play (2 at Heroic, 3 at Veteran and 4 at Epic).

In Savage Worlds skills range from d4 to d12 and at Legendary they goes to d12 + 2 with appropriate edges. So to keep it simple here is a litle table that shows are the mapping is done.

|Iron Kingdoms tier|Iron Kingdoms Skill value|Savage Worlds Skill trait dice| |—|—|—| |Heroic|1|d6| ||2|d8| |Veteran|3|d12| |Epic|4|d12 + 2| That’s it for the skills, next up abilities / edges.

Iron Kingdoms Savage Conversion - Stats

2013-06-28T08:00:00+00:00

As I said in the my previous post. I have already started my Iron Campaign with the Savage Worlds system. I made a basic conversion of the Iron Kingdoms RPG to Savage Worlds so that my players can start playing. But now, I realize that there are some things that does not feel as they do in the Iron Kingdoms RPG. So I have to step up my conversion so the flavor of the Iron Kingdoms will be preserved.

In my conversion I have three goals. I have to be able to play soon, I have to be able to convert Iron Kingdoms Stat Blocks from the bestiary easily and if possible I have to be able to convert a full fledged character to Savage Worlds. All of that has to stick to the Savage Worlds creed, Fun, Fast and Furious.

So in my initial approach, I look at the Iron Kingdoms Career system, like a class in d20 RPGs and the like, and found appropriated edges in the Savage Worlds books or create one if it doesn’t exit. At that point I didn’t red all the core rule book of Iron Kingdoms and some things weren’t as good. For example, I created an Arcane Background (Warcaster) that’s totally useless compare to other Arcane Backgrounds. But when I created my first draft, I just wanted to be able to play soon, so my conversion was hasty.

Now that my group is actually playing in the Iron Kingdoms, I see as a game master that if I took a more system to system approach, my live would have been easier, because I could just pick up the bestiary and convert the stat block and use these monsters in the game and the flavor would have been preserved.

But, I think it’s now to late, so that’s why I revisit my conversion. If I change an edge my players are using, I will let them the choice to keep the one they have or to use the new one. I think it’s only fair for them to let them play what they intended at first.

So, to take a system to system approach, I think it’s wise to start with character traits, in Savage Worlds terms or stats in Iron Kingdoms one. So here I table representing Iron Kingdoms stats and their Savage Worlds counter-parts based on the description in both book. I will not copy past those description, because it’s copyrighted materials and I don’t want to be sewed.

IK Stat	SW Trait
Physique (PHY)	Vigor
Speed (SPD)	Pace
Strength (STR)	Strength
Agility (AGI)	Agility
Poise (POI)	Shooting / Throwing
Prowess (PRW)	Fighting
Intellect (INT)	Smart
Arcane (ARC)	Arcane Background Skill
Perception (PER)	Notice
Willpower (WIL)	Spirit
Defense (DEF)	Parry
Initiative	n/a
Armor (ARM)	Toughness

In Iron Kingdoms, character statistic can range from 2 to 8, and in Savage Worlds it’s from d4 to d12+2. In both case, the last step is only available at Epic/Legendary tier of play. So it’s as simple as one to one mapping.

On more interesting point, is that really strong race, like the Ogrun, can go up to 10 in their STR stat. And in Savage Worlds Deluxe edition, in the race creation section, you can give a race a d8 as a starting value and that can go as high as d12+4 so even with our exception it will work.

IK Stat Value	SW Trait Dice
2	d4
3	d6
4	d8
5	d10
6	d12
7	d12 + 1
8	d12 + 2
9	d12 + 3
10	d12 + 4

So, to convert that table in a simple mathematical expression. SW Trait Dice = d(2xIK Stat Value). That way I don’t have to remember the whole table by heart and can really quickly convert an enemy stat card.

For Willpower to Spirit I’ll have to use a different approach. Since Willpower is the addition of two different statistics I have to evaluate based on the bestary compared to equivalent monsters in Savage Worlds and there is no simple mathematical formula.

IK Willpower Value	SW trait dice
1 - 5	d4
6 - 7	d6
8 - 9	d8
10 - 11	d10
12 +	d12

And for Defence and Armor, I’ll use that simple formula for quick convertion (because normally I calculate the parry and toughness based on Abilities, traits, edges and equipements).

IK trait	SW trait formula
Defense(DEF)	Parry = ( DEF + 1 ) / 2
Armor (ARM)	Toughness = ( ARM + 1 ) / 2

In my next post, I’ll talk about skills from Iron Kingdoms to Savage Worlds.

Iron Kingdoms

2013-06-21T17:22:00+00:00

On of my player brought to my attention a new RPG that came out last year and that was looking very interesting. The RPG was Iron Kingdom from Privateer Press. This RPG is a new system derived from Privateer Press’ Warmachine and Hordes miniature games that lives in the same settig. Privateer Press published some years ago a d20 compatible version of their Iron Kingdoms campaign setting.

Personally, when my player shows me the core rule book cover I was
hooked even if I never heard of that game world before. Here’s the cover

Embark upon a journey of adventure and intrigue in a steam-powered world fueled by magic and contested with gunfire and steel. Armed with mechanika and accompanied by mighty steamjacks, explore the soot-covered cities of the Iron Kingdoms and the fell ruins of ancient powers.

That kind of world really appeals to me, as a game master I see so much potential. From classic fantasy adventure to full fledged politic game or urban criminal campaign or may be “shadowrunner” like game, working for big manufacturing company.

So I grabbed a coy of the book and start to read about the Iron Kingdoms. The book is really well made, the first chapters are all about the basic lore of the world and are really well written. Then it’s about character creation and the rules to play the game.When I came to the rules I start reading than realized that I didn’t want to learn a knew RPG system, I just started to game master Savage Worlds and I was loving it.

At that time, I had only ran four sessions of Savage Worlds, but already felt confident enough to think that I could convert the whole system of Iron Kingdoms to Savage World with out much efforts.

Since I’m a lazy guy, I did look around a bit to see if others done it before me. The answer was yes, but it was from the old d20 version and there were differences in the flavor with the new version from Privateer Press. So, I decided that I’ll base my conversion from these resources and create my own.

Since nobody published their conversions of the new system, I will do that here. Principally to keep that somewhere out “there” ans secondly to may be help some one who want that conversion like I did, even if it’s just to get inspired from.

By the time I wrote this article, we already played three session and my basic conversion is almost done. But now I start to see flaws in my conversion, so what I’ll post will be my revisededition.

Going Savage - Part 1

2013-06-21T16:54:00+00:00

After being a DnD 4th enthusiast for a long time, as in the day it was released, I got bored of it and my players too at some times in 2011. Some of them was nostalgic of good old DnD 3.5. Some of them was not combat players, so wasn’t very interested in Dnd 4th character options. Some of them, who recently joined the campaign, was overwhelmed by all the powers they had and never knew witch one does what.

Just to be clear, it’s not a Dnd 4th hater article, it’s just recollection of the events that brought me and my group to where we are and I do that to help other that may feel the same way as we did to find an alternative.

So by the end 2011 summer I start looking for alternative. I tried in the past Mutants and Masterminds and felled in love with Green Ronin’s product. So I figured that I could give a go with their’s True20 product line.

True20, as is name implies, use only a d20. You don’t need any other dice to play the game and you’ll need only a single d20 per player. It’s based on the d20 system, with skills, feats and tree classes (Warrior, Expert, Adept) that servers more as a template than actual classes. Every class abilities you are used to see in a d20 system are feats in True20, as racial abilities. So in fact your thief can, as he go up levels take a feat that grant him dark vision. One other major difference with True20 is that it does not uses HP, but Damage vs Toughness rolls that determines if you were barely hit or mortally wounded. And it comes with a Hero Point, something like Action Points of DnD 4th, but with more options to it.

Since it’s based on d20 I knew it will be much more interesting for my players that where nostalgic of Dnd 3.5 and the fact that there was no predefined classes just generic ones appealed to me and some of my players because it give them the power to create the character they want and where not limited to predefined stuff.

I know you can do that with any RPG system (even DnD 4th), but a system that is classless will force the player to approach the character creation process with the concept first and the rules set after. How many times did we saw a players about to create a new character look at the core rule book and pick a class from it as the first step and not ask them self what the character will do than look at the rule book to see how to make it happens ? If the answer is always like me you’ll understand my point.

One more point that got me interested in True20 was the setting free approach. In place of giving you rule sets that fit a specific setting and becomes hard to steer away from it (imagine playing DnD 4th edition in a home brew campaign world that as low magic in it, it will require massive rethinking and tinkering from the DM’s part). True20 offers basic rule set, and gives out optional rules that you can include in your world to flesh it out. A whole chapter is there to help you put together your own world and help you think about all the rules and thing you should use. I also loved the prices of the products and the fact that they offered a pocket format book aimed for the players that is sold for less than 10$ and is only missing the Game mastering chapter.

The campaign went well, but the player got confuse with the toughness saves of the True20 system, One almost died at the first encounter because he didn’t understand well enough how the game worked and put not enough toughness for his fighter. Also they never get over the idea that they didn’t need any other dice than a d20. In retrospective I should have run a test run with pre-generated characters so the player cold understand how the system worked and it would have helped them with making there actual characters.

We put that campaign on hold, seeing that the players weren’t very enthusiast with the system when the DnD Next play test started. We switch to the play test with the options of changing the campaign to that system if the players loved it. They do loved it, but I moved out of town, going to the suburbs and some player founded that to far and so we stopped both campaign (DnD Next play test and the True20 one).

DnD Next was promising, but had very limited options back then and I’m not the kind of GM that like to create a whole lot of home brew rules. So I continued to look out for alternative RPG system. I was searching something that was setting free like True20, if possible with wounds systems like True20 since I really enjoyed using it. And if possible, isn’t based on d20. After playing with only d20 in True20, I realized are “swingy” they can be, and you end up most of the time having great success or great failure and not very much of medium rolls.

That’s how I came to discover Savage Worlds, by Pinnacle Entertainment Group(PEG). Since this post is long enough, Savage Worlds will be explain in the next part.