Adventurer Conqueror King v16 Rules Discussion

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.

RETAINERS:

  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).
  2. 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."

  1. MONSTER REACTIONS: here again, a friendly result and no mention that such dungeon denizens may(?) become a retainer if properly propositioned.
  2. does a charmed person/monster count against your retainer limit? (it should imo).
    PROFICIENCIES:
  3. I like the NPC proficiency rules (5, 10 etc years).
  4. 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?
  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?
  2. 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.
  3. 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:
  4. 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.

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.

…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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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.

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.

“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!

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.

“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.

@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”.

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.

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.

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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?