ACKS Progress?

I realize that I’m probably getting way ahead of myself, but out of curiosity, is there a sense of when ACKS will be released? I am not getting impatient; I’m well aware that the game is still in some ways taking shape. I’m just curious, since I can’t remember seeing any tentative release date being announced.

Version 23 will be up soon, and they will be publishing the new version as soon as edits and last touches have been made. Hope this helps.

We expect a release date in December, and should have done a better job saying so! Kickstarter now requires you to say when the project will ship, which I think is a good idea.

That is great to hear! On the flip side I hope ACKS doesn’t go to print until it’s ready. There are numerous things still popping up. I think it would be worse to release it too soon. It’s definitely taking shape though and the artwork is fantastic! The dragon caravan pic and the skittering maw in particular are awesome!

Agreed. ACKS is shaping up to be awesome, and I’d prefer a longer wait and a better game over a shorter one and errata.

Has the style of the layout been agreed upon, will it differ much from the pre-release versions ?

The hold-up on v23 has been mathematical. In order to make sure that all the components of the game integrate correctly I’ve been doing through all of the existing math and double-checking it. While no major changes got made, lots of tiny errors had crept in. Meanwhile Tavis has been doing the same for encounters and treasure. I don’t know of any D&D-style project since the 3rd edition revamp that has taken this close a review of the underlying math of the game…it takes a long time!
Right now I’m hung up on Hijinks. The math to determine what the Hijinks should be worth is simple at 1st level but as soon as you start to consider characters of 2nd level and above, it gets very complex very fast.

Good insight Alex. The mathematical formula’s you use for verifying the game is something of great interest to me. Is that something you would be willing to share? If not, no biggie, but I find information of this level gives me a better understanding of the designers “take” on the game. For me, some of the math is not as obvious, and is in fact, something that is often shared in 3e/4e. Thanks!

The first step for me is recalculating the monster’s XP based on uniform assumptions about their special abilities. I’ve done my pass on this, but would be glad to get other’s takes on it - I will post it as a Google spreadsheet shortly.
I’ll then do some blog posts about the logic & math of the encounters based on these XP figures, and how it relates to treasure types.

Cool!

OK, the spreadsheet of my monster XP values is up as a Google doc. It’s taken from an Excel sheet that uses a lookup function to figure actual XP numbers; what’s here is the number of special abilities I assigned each monster, which is the key variable we’re trying to get right.
I’ve also presented the # of abilities B/X gives each monster, for comparison. What would be useful is if others presented their own takes by starting a new column, e.g. “Duskreign’s # special abilities”, and put the number of abilities you think each monster has (as described in the ACKS rules). I included a column showing the attack routine of each monster - I wound up not giving XP bonus awards for high damage output, because it varies by level and B/X isn’t consistent about doing so, but if you think this should be taken into account, that column will help.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An7IQrnAKr7rdF9DX244bm5sMVpnNnUzcTdTNUFYYlE&hl=en_US