I’ve divided my notes up to make them a bit more readable (hopefully). There’s a typos section and a rules queries (and opinionated warblings) section. Also - given the structure changes, I’m hoping I’ve gotten the page references correct.
Also - It’s possible that Alex has already made some or all of these changes in v27. Apologies if I’m repeating stuff you’ve fixed already.
Part 1 - Typos, Layout and Grammar Queries
Page 5.
‘Descriptions of each proficiency’ sounds a little strange. Would ‘A description of each proficiency’ be more appropriate, given each proficiency does only have one description.
Page 12.
‘Some class may have other minimum ability requirements which must be met in addition’ – suggested rewrite: ‘Some classes may have other minimum ability scores which must be met in addition to the prime requisite.’ It fixes the singular ‘class’ typo and also makes the sentence less confusing.
Page 15.
Mage spell progression table (and other tables elsewhere) – Given the two tables (Spell and Level) are side by side, do you need to repeat the ‘Level’ column for the Spell Progression?
Page 16.
Cleric spell progression table – as with the Mage table, above.
Page 29.
Elven Spellsword Attack and Saving Throws – the last 3 rows on the table are not needed as the max level is 10.
Page 30.
Elven Nightblade Attack and Saving Throws - The last row on the table is not needed as the max level is 11. Also, the second to last row would need amending to 11 rather than 11-12.
Page 33?
‘For the purposes of encumbrance, 1,000 coins is considered 1 stone’ - 1,000 coins are considered 1 stone – as the coins are plural, though I see what the intent is. Maybe ‘For purposes of encumbrance, a volume of 1,000 coins is considered 1 stone’ is more grammatically correct, but probably doesn’t read as well.
Page 40.
Sack, Large – there’s an extra space in the first sentence.
Page 89.
Suggested rewrite – ‘If using a large map and tokens or miniatures,’- you refer to metal miniatures, but you could achieve the same results with tokens, pawns, or similar objects.
Page 42
Character movement and encumbrance table – You’ve changed the references to ‘stones’ in the text to ‘stone’. Do you need to do it for the table as well?
Page 45
Retainer Loyalty Table – under the adjusted dice roll column, change ‘2-‘ to ‘2 or less’. This #- notation appears elsewhere as well, but it’s not intuitive. # or less is much more readable.
Page 104
Saving Throw Categories – ‘When there is a doubt as to which categories to use’ – should be ‘category to use’
Page 118
Domain Worship Table – the last row of the table says ‘-4’ to gain 9 power. Given the previous row is ‘+4’ for 8 power, this appears to be wrong.
'While chaotic divine spellcasters may earn divine power from gaining congregants, a darker path is available to them’ – I’d add ‘also’ before ‘available’.
Page 119
Strongholds by Class Table
Bard – His stronghold name is ‘Hideout’ in the table. Should be Conservatory.
Dwarf Priest – should be Craftpriest
Dwarf Priest – The stronghold name is ‘Citadel’. Should be Vault to tie into the changes in the class section.
Dwarf Fighter – should be Vaultguard
Dwarf Fighter – The stronghold name is ‘Citadel’. Should be Vault.
‘For this reason most adventures will secure unclaimed borderland or wilderness domains’ – adventures should be adventurers.
Establishing a stronghold – ‘If the domain’s land revenue is very low, the adventure may decide not to proceed’ – adventure should be adventurer.
Page 121.
‘In addition to the building costs, the adventurer will need to hire at least one engineer’ – It would be valuable here to provide the cost of the engineer without making players flick back to the specialist hiring costs.
Page 127.
‘There is no population growth, and an extra 4d10 families are lost to illness, casualties and immigration each month’ – Immigration should be emigration.
Defiant – ‘An extra 3d10 families… are lost to … immigration’ – should be emigration.
Page 127.
‘Like domains, all settlements have a morale score which represent’ – should be represents
‘This translate to a 2gp increase to urban revenue’ – should be translates.
I’d also add, at the end of that paragraph ‘(1gp from Land, 1gp from Service, applied to urban income as a total of 2gp per family).’ Or something similar to show where the 2gp increase comes from.
Page 130.
‘The existence of a high level NPC lord is very helpful in preventing this’ – Suggested rewrite: ‘Paying Fealty to a high-level NPC lord is very helpful in preventing this’ - Them simply existing is not so useful.
Page 133.
‘Retribution by Crime Table’ – Cell for Lesser Punishment, Assault / Vandalism – it says ‘Whipped (as above)’ but none of the cells above have whipped as a punishment, it’s the cells in the column to the left that do. Better to repeat the actual effect of the whipping.
Page 135.
Change in management – what sort of dice is used for the Change in Management table? It’s not stated anywhere (though it looks like it should be 2d6)
Managing a Criminal Guild – It would be useful to provide a page reference for the ‘Retainer Loyalty table’ where the table is referenced in this section (2nd paragraph)
Page 136.
Sanctums and Dungeons – ‘Those who succeed become 1st level mages; those who fail leave the tower in discouragement’ – this reads awkwardly. Suggested rewrite: ‘those who fail become discouraged and leave the tower’.
‘Rather than squander their time hunting beasts for these components, many mages build dungeons’ – suggested rewrite: ‘many mages build or take over dungeons’.
Page 137.
‘See Generating Demand Modifiers, below’ – The information this refers to is in Chapter 10. That’s quite a long way ‘below’. Probably better to refer to the actual section (or page number).
‘If an adventure is operating a vessel or caravan’ – should be adventurer.
Page 138
‘Passengers will not accept transport from adventures they deem untrustworthy’ – should be adventurers.
‘The adventure must make a Reaction Roll for each passenger’ – Should be adventurer.
Like passengers, shippers will not accept transport from adventures they deem untrustworthy’ – should be adventurers.
‘Adventures will be expected to offer free passage for one merchant representative who takes care of the goods and tax payments’ – Should be Adventurer.
Page 141.
‘They are treated as if they had a Gp Threshold of 25gp.’ – should that be ‘gp’ threshold?
‘In most cases, the only hijink available to 0th level characters is carousing (Hear Noises 18+)’ - This needs to be added earlier in this section, or changed, as a 0th level character is assumed to be caught on a 6 or less…
Page 242.
‘The Judge does not need to chart the entire planet’ – Perhaps ‘world’ is better, as it doesn’t imply celestial body. After all, the world could be a cube, a plane, or some other strange shape that isn’t a ‘planet’.
‘If desired, each of these vassal realm can also be created’ – should be realms.
‘Using the recommended two maps…encompass a huge empires’ – should be empire.
Page 243.
Revenue by Realm type table – Rulers Personal Domain column is repeated twice
Page 245.
‘His realm is divided up into 5 vassal reams’ – should be realms.
‘Column Shift’ - The first four or five times I read this table I managed to miss the fact that there are two different columns being shifted. To avoid confusing idiots like me, could this be split into two tables to make the differences more obvious?
Page 246.
‘Since Achea is a city state’ - ‘And therefore has a centralized settlement pattern’ – might be a useful addition here to provide context for the table above.
‘Rolling on the Common Merchandise table, he a 94, directing him to the Precious Merchandise table’ – should be ‘he rolls a 94’
Page 249.
‘The next step is to begin to populate the settings’ – should be setting.
‘The NPC Frequency and Domains table shows the frequency of leveled characters per person and the likely realm such a character might control’ – The frequency of characters per person bit reads clumsily. Perhaps ‘per proportion of population’ or something. I can’t think of an elegant way of putting it atm.
Page 251.
‘It will one or more churches for prominent religions’ – missing ‘have’ after ‘It will’.
Starting Cities table – all of the values on the first row, under the # of columns, have got a dash after them. I’m not sure they represent, and I don’t know if they are needed.
Page 252.
‘Where this is done, highest boss level, monthly syndicate revenue, and monthly guild revenue should based on the guild membership of each guild, rather than the market class of the settlement’ – missing ‘be’ after ‘guild revenue should’.
Rescue Missions – ‘The characters may hired’ – missing ‘be’ after may.
Page 254.
Spiked Pit Trap – Suggested rewrite - As a camouflaged pit trap, but adventurers also fall on 1d4 spikes, each dealing 1d6 damage, in addition to the standard falling damage.
Page 259.
‘When NPCs are encountered in a wilderness, their base level will be equal to the ½ the maximum levels of the nearest dungeon’ – Should ‘maximum levels’ be ‘maximum level’.
Rules Questions and other Comments (Excluding Some Domain Stuff)
Page 12.
‘Note that a penalty here will not reduce damage from a successful attack below one point in any case’. - Suggested rewrite:‘Note that a penalty here can not reduce damage from a successful attack below one point, unless the target is Invulnerable’.- to avoid rules lawyering and general douchery.
‘various beastman dialects’ – That the beastman tongues are dialects is interesting. If I speak Zaharan, can I communicate with all the beastmen types? Personally, I’d make them separate languages, but related – Like the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Portugese, etc…). They may have started from Zaharan (Latin) but each will have evolved over the centuries into distinct tongues.
Page 38 & Page 57.
Holy Water & Unholy Water – Alex said rules for holy water were going to be written, but they don’t seem to be in v26. Am I missing them or are they to come later? I’m assuming that unholy water will be a basic ‘reversal’ of holy water.
Page 43.
Animal/Vehicle movement and encumbrance table – Dogs were mentioned elsewhere as requiring stats. They may be useful here as well under movement (if not encumbrance!).
Page 45.
Mercenaries – ‘The cost of armorers to make and repair troop armour and weapons, stablehands to groom horses, and other miscellaneous expenses are not included’ – Perhaps a worked example that includes these costs would make using these rules more accessible? It would certainly be an improvement to say, for example, how many stablehands per how many horses, and what they cost, etc…
Page 105.
Invulnerable Monsters – Are you going to stick with what’s written in v26, or are you considering the tweak based on monster types that was mentioned?
Nonlethal Damage – ‘Marcus starts attacking with the flat of his blade (taking a -4 penalty on his attack throw)’ –This is the first time this mechanic is mentioned. I’d rewrite this as follows: ‘Marcus starts attacking with the flat of his blade to try to Incapacitate the Ogre (this is a special manoeuvre that takes a -4 penalty on a characters attack throw, see below)’
Page 106.
Knock Down – Can I safely assumed the rules for this will be in v27 or above?
Page 121.
Follower Equipment – The table on page 46 (Mercenary Troop Type) lists the equipment for each troop type which is a starting point, but given the nature of the followers acquired it’s not sufficient for all classes. I’m going to assume that rules for follower equipment will also be forthcoming.
Page 115.
Creating Constructs – ‘5,000gp for each special ability’ - It would be clearer to set a base cost that includes the immunity to poison, gas, etc… and not complicate the creation calculations by flagging that as ‘a special ability’. This section implies you can create a not very special construct for 2000gp, whereas actually it’s a minimum of 7000gp.
Page 117.
Congregations – ‘Every fifty congregants earns the caster’ – I know this is being looked at, it may also be worth noting that domain populations, particularly urban settlements, are often written about using individuals instead of families when discussing population.
‘earns the caster up to 10gp worth of divine power’ – How do you get 10gp? The table only goes up to 9gp, though I believe it really only goes up to 8gp…
Page 118.
- as discussed, probably rules best left for a supplement.
Page 119.
Dwarf Fighter/Priest – ‘must be underground (counts as wilderness)’ – the text following the table does not state that a dwarf stronghold must be underground (nor explain why).
Elf Spellsword – ‘all animals within 3 miles of a fastness become friendly’ – there’s no explanation of what this means or does in this section. I know there’s some mention of it in the class description, but it would be useful to describe something here as well (else why have a separate section for Bards?). What’s particularly important is whether it has any mechanical benefit within the context of the domain rules (or any other rules).
‘If the character simply wishes to buy civilized land’ – What is the chance that an NPC might seek to buy land from a PC?
Page 120.
I’d like to see somewhere the minimum appropriate structure for a temple, church, etc… Or figures for ‘Basic Chapel’, ‘Small Church’, Medium Church’, ‘Cathedral’, etc… and similar for the other stronghold types.
Page 121.
‘In addition to the building costs, the adventurer will need to hire at least one engineer’ – It would be valuable here to provide the cost of the engineer without making players flick back to the specialist hiring costs.
‘Whilst the adventurer’s stronghold is under construction, the domain around his stronghold will slowly become settled by the workers and their families.’ – How slowly is slowly? What is the rate of settlement?
Domain Population table – If you did settle a 1 mi domain, what would the starting population be?
Growing the Domain – ‘If he is unlucky, fire, disease, and emigration will decrease it’ – What about monsters? I feel there’s a big chunk of ‘game making’ stuff missing here.
Page 126.
Grant of Title (from table) - Surely the title is dependent upon land held and character level, as per the Demographics of Heroism and Personal Power = Political Power principles?
Page 126.
Villages, Towns, and Cities – ‘When a domain reaches its limit of growth, its ruler will normally secure an additional area of land (an adjacent 6-mile hex)’ - What about 1Sq.Mi. domains?
Is there an implicit assumption that you can’t found an urban settlement in a 1sq.mi domain?
Page 129.
Hijinks - There are, in my view, 4 possible outcomes from engaging in Hijinks – 1.You succeed and get away, 2. you succeed but get caught, 3. you fail but get away, and 4. you fail and get caught. Now, the rules as written cover 1, 3 and 4 (1 = a successful proficiency throw, 3 = a failed proficiency throw, 4 = a natural 1). Sadly, that dramatic option of number 2 is missing. I do accept that it may be hard to model without introducing an additional proficiency throw, but it may be worth it. It also makes some of the charges make sense – see below.
‘If caught, determine the charges’ - The current charges all assume that the character is caught by the watch/law enforcement. I think that failing a roll while Carousing (or performing some other hijinks) is just as, or more likely, to get the perpetrator beaten up by someone who took exception. There may even be a chance that the perp is killed and dumped somewhere – ditto for getting caught failing an assassination. Drunkeness, gambling or vandalism could easily be replaced by ‘Beaten up (lose 50% hp), Beaten bloody (lose all bar 1d4 hp) or charged with drunkenness by the authorities’, or something. I think it makes it all a bit more realistic – and dramatic. A seedy guy hanging around in seedy places is much more likely to get punched or killed than arrested – think Mos Eisley 
I think it’s also true for some of the other hijinks.
Page 132.
Attorney – 100gp for a rank 3 attorney feels cheap considering how much money a high level thief running a hideout will have – it’s not an effective money sink on the same level as a Mages library, workshop or laboratory.
Page 133.
Retribution by Crime Table – Generally, there’s lots of permanent disfigurement going on here. This is great stuff except for one thing – magical healing. A thief with enough money could simply get a Cleric to ‘fix’ the perpetrator of crime and undo the scarring, or branding. It’s not enough of a punishment… though it will depend on the nature of the society. You even say that healing can be paid for on page 136.
Page 136…
Populating a Dungeon – ‘The Judge will make an encounter throw daily if the dungeon is in a wilderness domain… and monthly if in a civilised domain’ - The ‘Constructing a Dungeon’ section above says that a dungeon should be in a borderlands or wilderness domain in order to attract monsters – implying that ‘civilized dungeons’ don’t attract them.
Page 135.
‘Each domain … generally has its own separate market.’ - More accurately, is this not each Settlement within a Domain? Also, a domain of only hamlets has its market at the stronghold. This should be mentioned here too.
‘Small cities and large towns of 3,000 to 8,000 inhabitants make up Class IV. Small towns and large villages of 1,000 to 3,000 inhabitants are Class V. Any village smaller than 1,000 inhabitants is Class VI’ - According to the table earlier, this isn’t true. A settlement of 475-1250 people is Class VI and a settlement of 1255-3125 people is class V.
Page 137.
‘Once the nature of a load of merchandise has been determined, its market price must be calculated’ - Why do you need to determine the nature of a load of merchandise? If you’re selling you already know what it is you have, if you’re buying you know what you’re looking for. This doesn’t make sense to me.
Passenger and Cargo Transport - Essentially, the passenger rules are the difference between Chartering your caravan/ship and buying a ticket to travel to wherever it is going. That’s not very clear in the rules. I’d also say that a ‘ticket’ passenger may not just want to go to the closest market … along the way’, but perhaps they want to go all the way to their destination, or somewhere else en route. Obviously this all adds complexity but if you’re more interested in using passengers to generate story than gp then it may be more interesting.
Page 141.
‘In most cases, the only hijink available to 0th level characters is carousing (Hear Noises 18+)’ - This needs to be added earlier in this section, or changed, as a 0th level character is assumed to be caught on a 6 or less…
Page 245.
Villages, Towns and Cities placement – The Largest Settlement column has 2 entries for Village, 3 for ‘large city’ and none for ‘small city’. This does look deliberate because of the jumps in Monthly Revenue, but it jars slightly – particularly the absence of small city from the list.
‘The total urban population is 50,000’ - This is higher than the max end of the Urban Population band given in the table for a settlement of that size, by 25%.
‘around one-third of the realm’s urban population lives in its largest settlement.’ - In the previous example, 22% of the population lives in the largest city in Southern Argolle. Is this close enough to 33% to count? To me, it’s 11% out, that’s a third of the third – enough to be statistically relevant and make the example not work.
‘If the Judge increases the size of the Largest Settlement, it will generally mean that the other urban communities must be adjusted in size in the opposite direction, and will be smaller.’ - Could it also mean that there are less people living in urban settlements? Your ‘Dispersed Settlement pattern’ and ‘Agrarian, pastoral realm’ types could both indicate an overall lower urban population, rather than the same urban population with less of a pyramid of settlements.
Page 247.
Determine Trade Routes – EXAMPLE – in the example, presumably the castle is within the citys range of trade, even though the city isn’t within the castles.
Page 59 Spells and Spellcasters:
‘Lower level characters can learn only lower level spells, while higher level characters access to more powerful higher level spells.‘
- higher level characters [have access to / may access] more powerful higher level spells.
Another chunk of stuff. This time it’s population and demographics. There’s more than this to come, but these points are useful (I hope)
Page 33
‘The vast mercantile hubs of empires, with urban populations…’ – The figures given in the sentences that follow this line don’t quite match the table figures in Chapter 7. The tables describe a ‘Small Town’ as having between 450 and 624 families (so, 2,250-3,120 people). According to the text on page 33, that’s only 250 people/50 families shy of a large town or a small city. A small town should have less than 500 families (according to the text), a large one, less than 2500 – there’s no mention of a medium town.
There’s also no entry on the tables for ‘small city’, which in the text is described as fitting the same demographic bracket as a large town. I don’t know how (or if) this should be fixed. The easy solution is to modify the text (specifically the sentence ‘Small cities and large towns of 2,500 to 12,500 inhabitants make up Class IV’ to bring it in line with the tables. The more labour intensive solution (as it will impact any table that uses settlement size) will be to change the tables, introduce small city, and clean up the population bandings.
Realm Size Discussions.
APM - However, there are two basic problems with this. (Snip the 4-6 discussion) So that explains, I think, a substantial amount of the confusion you pointed out. I’ve fixed it now in v27.
James – Yes it does, but not all of it. Whilst I hadn’t worked out where your figures were coming from, I had recalculated the break points for how many vassals & their domains based on the min 4, max 6 values.
APM - The other mistake that was causing confusion was a gross math error on my part. The vast imperium should have been covering 1,130 24-mile hexes. I don’t know where the 680 hexes came from. Here is the correct language:
On the Judge’s campaign map, he has drawn a vast imperium covering 1,130 24-mile hexes. This qualifies it as an “empire”. Using the baseline of 5,000 families per 24-mile hex, he assigns the empire a population of 5.6 million families. Following the Political Divisions of Realms table, he decides the empire is divided into 5 “exarchates” (kingdoms), each controlling 1.1 million families and spanning 226 24-mile hexes (113,000,000 square miles). Beneath the exarchates he chooses to have a total of 30 “prefectures” (principalities), each controlling 183,000 families and spanning 37 24-mile hexes (18,500 square miles). He decides that he will further develop one of these prefectures as the starting region for the adventurers. His regional map should therefore assign the prefecture about 600 6-mile hexes of settled land (approximately 18,500 miles).
James – Ok, I still think some of the figures are incorrect. Here are all my workings:
Let’s take 1,130 24-Mile hexes to be correct (which I believe it to be), and take 5,000 families per 24-Mile hex. The ‘real’ total population is 5,650,000. 50,000 families aren’t accounted for in the example, but let’s say that 5.6M is rounded for simplicity. The total square mile area of the Empire is 565,000sqmi (1130500SqMi) (A figure not given in the example, but relevant later in my workings).
Now to divide into the 5 Exarchates; the text states each Exarchate has 1.1M families, and 1.1M * 5 is 5.5M, so I’ve lost 100,000 families somewhere. The number of Hexes is bang on, as is the number of Square Miles (once I lose the extra zeros that have crept in – 226 24-Mile hexes are not 113 million square miles in area).
If, instead of dividing 5.6M by 5, I divide the number of Hexes by 5 and apply the 5000 families per Hex rule, I get: 1130/5 = 226 (as the text says), and 2265000 is 1,130,000. If I then multiply that by the 5 Exarchates I get back to 5.65M, so the rounding ‘error’ of 50k I did away with earlier comes back.
Next, I’m looking at the Prefectures. There are two ways to do this. Divide an Exarchate by 6 or the Empire by 30. I’m going to divide by 30 and compare to the top level figures. There should be 37 Prefectures in each Exarchate according to the example. Unfortunately there’s a remainder (of.67), so I’ve lost a total of 20 Prefectures across the whole Empire. Each Prefecture should be 18,500 square miles and have a population of 183,000 (per the example). When I divide by 30, each Prefecture is 18,833 square miles and has 186,667 people. If I take 37 Prefectures and apply the 5000 families per 24 mile hex rule, there are 185,000 families per Prefecture. If I ignore the initial rounding down of the total population, and use the ‘real’ figure of 5.65M families, the population per prefecture is 188,333.33 families per prefecture. There is quite a variation here.
Taking the numbers for the Prefectures from the example and multiplying by 30 I get 1110 24-Mile Hexes, 555,000 Square Miles, and 5,490,000 families. By going down two levels we’ve lost 20 Hexes, 10,000 square miles and 110,000 families. That’s a significant amount.
Now, I fully and completely accept that I’m picking holes in this, and a certain level of abstraction is desirable, even required, so if you say to me ‘leave it alone, we know it’s not perfect but it’s a reasonable illustrative example – it’s good enough’, then I’ll shut up. If, on the other hand, you want to make sure that the examples are accurate as well as illustrative, then I’ll keep checking stuff. That said - there are a few more things I need to look at before I shut up completely.
(1) Gelatinous Cube has treasure type listed as “VII”.
(2) This is not exactly copy editing, but it would be helpful to have average garrison sizes per realm type. So I would know that a principality has X number of soldiers and a County Y number of soldiers. Then if my players end up fighting a war, I can quickly generate a reasonable opposing army without having to detail the economy of their enemy to figure out how many soldiers they have based on garrison taxes.
I like the idea that Longshanks is asking for in point two. That would be helpful to me too.
I do want to point out that this can be calculated using the Domain income line from the Revenue by Realm Type chart. But it isn’t clear until you do the calculations that this is before garrison costs but after castle upkeep/festivals/etc. Having average strongholds and numbers of troops to go with this “net income” value would rock my face off.
Longshanks - An early update of the the information you’re seeking is in Domains at War, under “Campaign Considerations”. I need to re-calculate that data based on all the most recent updates to the game but it’s a start!
James - the rules you asked about for Knockdown were included in v26:
SPECIAL MANEUVERS BETWEEN OPPONENTS OF VASTLY DIFFERENT SIZE OR UNUSUAL SHAPE
Sometimes, combatants may attempt to perform Special Maneuvers against opponents that are much larger than them (such as wrestling a hill giant), or that benefit from an unusual shape (such as knocking down a giant snake or a centaur). In these cases, the Judge can give the opponent a +4 or more bonus on its saving throw, or simply rule that the attempt automatically fails. Conversely, when exceptionally large combatants perform Special Maneuvers against opponents much smaller than them, the Judge may rule that the saving throw penalty is -6, -8, or greater.
‘various beastman dialects’ – That the beastman tongues are dialects is interesting. If I speak Zaharan, can I communicate with all the beastmen types? Personally, I’d make them separate languages, but related – Like the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Portugese, etc…). They may have started from Zaharan (Latin) but each will have evolved over the centuries into distinct tongues.
APM: My intent in calling them “dialects” is not to suggest that a Zaharan speaker can speak to all of them. Rather, language varieties are often called dialects rather than languages when they have no standard form, are spoken by speakers without a nation/state, lack prestige, and aren’t used in writing. All of these characterize the beastmen tongues.
Holy Water & Unholy Water – Alex said rules for holy water were going to be written, but they don’t seem to be in v26. Am I missing them or are they to come later? I’m assuming that unholy water will be a basic ‘reversal’ of holy water.
APM: I haven’t written them yet.
Animal/Vehicle movement and encumbrance table – Dogs were mentioned elsewhere as requiring stats. They may be useful here as well under movement (if not encumbrance!).
APM: I don’t know if dogs for transport will be supported in the core rules. If dogs, why not llamas? Or yaks? Or reindeer? At a certain point I have to draw the line. Dogs were not commonly used as pack animals in the Greco-Roman world which inspires ACKS.
Mercenaries – ‘The cost of armorers to make and repair troop armour and weapons, stablehands to groom horses, and other miscellaneous expenses are not included’ – Perhaps a worked example that includes these costs would make using these rules more accessible? It would certainly be an improvement to say, for example, how many stablehands per how many horses, and what they cost, etc…
APM: That sort of thing will be covered in detail in Domains At War.
Invulnerable Monsters – Are you going to stick with what’s written in v26, or are you considering the tweak based on monster types that was mentioned?
APM: I think I’m just going to stick with it as written. If a GM finds something particular obnoxious in play he can easily house rule it, while a more complex rule is probably not worth the complexity. How often do dinosaur-on-wraith battles occur?
Nonlethal Damage – ‘Marcus starts attacking with the flat of his blade (taking a -4 penalty on his attack throw)’ –This is the first time this mechanic is mentioned. I’d rewrite this as follows: ‘Marcus starts attacking with the flat of his blade to try to Incapacitate the Ogre (this is a special manoeuvre that takes a -4 penalty on a characters attack throw, see below)’
APM: Good suggestion
Knock Down – Can I safely assumed the rules for this will be in v27 or above?
APM: Already in, see my post earlier
Follower Equipment – The table on page 46 (Mercenary Troop Type) lists the equipment for each troop type which is a starting point, but given the nature of the followers acquired it’s not sufficient for all classes. I’m going to assume that rules for follower equipment will also be forthcoming.
APM: I probably need to write some follower equipment rules, yes.
Creating Constructs – ‘5,000gp for each special ability’ - It would be clearer to set a base cost that includes the immunity to poison, gas, etc… and not complicate the creation calculations by flagging that as ‘a special ability’. This section implies you can create a not very special construct for 2000gp, whereas actually it’s a minimum of 7000gp.
APM: Hmmm…. I don’t think I agree. This way it’s clear why the 5,000gp cost is what it is, whereas the other way one has to deduce why it’s a 5,000gp cost.
Congregations – ‘Every fifty congregants earns the caster’ – I know this is being looked at, it may also be worth noting that domain populations, particularly urban settlements, are often written about using individuals instead of families when discussing population.
APM: At this point in the rules, we haven’t introduced the concept of Families, and it’s directly referencing the cleric’s friends, adventuring companions, and so on, so I don’t think Families is appropriate.
‘earns the caster up to 10gp worth of divine power’ – How do you get 10gp? The table only goes up to 9gp, though I believe it really only goes up to 8gp…
APM: I believe this has been cleared up in the revised rules. The base rule is that “Lawful divine spellcasters earn divine power drawn by building congregations of faithful worshippers. Every fifty congregants earns the caster 10gp worth of divine power per week of faithful worship.” You acquire these congregants through casting spells, deploying hirelings, and erecting religious structures.
In addition to that, “A ruler can simply command his subjects to worship his god, creating vast congregations within his domain. Of course, not every subject in a domain will faithfully worship on command – the domain’s morale will make a large difference. The Domain Worship table lists the value of spiritual essence a ruler can extract from the peasant families in his domain. This amount is always less than the full 10gp per fifty congregants, as no domain will be 100% faithful to the character’s god.”
So basically you have congregations built the hard way (from the ground up) which earn 10gp per fifty congregants, or you have congregations built the easy way (by ordering your domain to worship), which earn to 8gp per fifty congregants.
Dwarf Fighter/Priest – ‘must be underground (counts as wilderness)’ – the text following the table does not state that a dwarf stronghold must be underground (nor explain why).
Elf Spellsword – ‘all animals within 3 miles of a fastness become friendly’ – there’s no explanation of what this means or does in this section. I know there’s some mention of it in the class description, but it would be useful to describe something here as well (else why have a separate section for Bards?). What’s particularly important is whether it has any mechanical benefit within the context of the domain rules (or any other rules).
APM: OK. It seems like this is another area where folks want more detail.
‘If the character simply wishes to buy civilized land’ – What is the chance that an NPC might seek to buy land from a PC?
APM: It’s left to the Judge.
I’d like to see somewhere the minimum appropriate structure for a temple, church, etc… Or figures for ‘Basic Chapel’, ‘Small Church’, Medium Church’, ‘Cathedral’, etc… and similar for the other stronghold types.
APM: OK
‘In addition to the building costs, the adventurer will need to hire at least one engineer’ – It would be valuable here to provide the cost of the engineer without making players flick back to the specialist hiring costs.
APM: Done
‘Whilst the adventurer’s stronghold is under construction, the domain around his stronghold will slowly become settled by the workers and their families.’ – How slowly is slowly? What is the rate of settlement?
APM: For game purposes, they are there when the stronghold is done. Why is more than that required?
Domain Population table – If you did settle a 1 mi domain, what would the starting population be?
APM: 1/32nd of a 6-mile hex.
Growing the Domain – ‘If he is unlucky, fire, disease, and emigration will decrease it’ – What about monsters? I feel there’s a big chunk of ‘game making’ stuff missing here.
APM: Monsters would be handled with wandering monster checks.
Grant of Title (from table) - Surely the title is dependent upon land held and character level, as per the Demographics of Heroism and Personal Power = Political Power principles?
APM: That was assumed to be the source of the character’s current title, but I’ve fixed this to make it clearer.
Villages, Towns, and Cities – ‘When a domain reaches its limit of growth, its ruler will normally secure an additional area of land (an adjacent 6-mile hex)’ - What about 1Sq.Mi. domains?
Is there an implicit assumption that you can’t found an urban settlement in a 1sq.mi domain?
APM: Yes.
Hijinks - There are, in my view, 4 possible outcomes from engaging in Hijinks – 1.You succeed and get away, 2. you succeed but get caught, 3. you fail but get away, and 4. you fail and get caught. Now, the rules as written cover 1, 3 and 4 (1 = a successful proficiency throw, 3 = a failed proficiency throw, 4 = a natural 1). Sadly, that dramatic option of number 2 is missing. I do accept that it may be hard to model without introducing an additional proficiency throw, but it may be worth it. It also makes some of the charges make sense – see below.
‘If caught, determine the charges’ - The current charges all assume that the character is caught by the watch/law enforcement. I think that failing a roll while Carousing (or performing some other hijinks) is just as, or more likely, to get the perpetrator beaten up by someone who took exception. There may even be a chance that the perp is killed and dumped somewhere – ditto for getting caught failing an assassination. Drunkeness, gambling or vandalism could easily be replaced by ‘Beaten up (lose 50% hp), Beaten bloody (lose all bar 1d4 hp) or charged with drunkenness by the authorities’, or something. I think it makes it all a bit more realistic – and dramatic. A seedy guy hanging around in seedy places is much more likely to get punched or killed than arrested – think Mos Eisley I think it’s also true for some of the other hijinks.
APM: Yes, but it gets pretty hard to adjudicate swiftly at that point. Hijinks can already take some time to resolve.
Attorney – 100gp for a rank 3 attorney feels cheap considering how much money a high level thief running a hideout will have – it’s not an effective money sink on the same level as a Mages library, workshop or laboratory.
APM: It may feel cheap but it’s the accurate amount of money based on the wage & price rates in the game. ACKS doesn’t make things money sinks for the sake of making them money sinks!
Retribution by Crime Table – Generally, there’s lots of permanent disfigurement going on here. This is great stuff except for one thing – magical healing. A thief with enough money could simply get a Cleric to ‘fix’ the perpetrator of crime and undo the scarring, or branding. It’s not enough of a punishment… though it will depend on the nature of the society. You even say that healing can be paid for on page 136.
APM: So, a few thoughts here. First, by the numbers, the vast majority of hijinks will be performed by 0th to 2nd level characters. These are characters with wages between 3gp and 50gp per month. Assuming that the Thief is operating in an average city (Class III), there are probably only 1-2 clerics that can cast Restore Life & Limb, and they work for the main church of the city, meaning they probably don’t willy-nilly heal known thieves and thugs. Even if they do, they’d charge 500gp for a 5th level Restore Life & Limb spell. 500gp is a huge sum of money. Remember that by paying 3x the fine, you can avoid the other punishments entirely. So for 150gp I can never have my tongue cut off at all – that’s a lot better than having it cut off and paying 500gp to have it restored. Likewise, for 150gp I can avoid being whipped for Assault.
APM: In general, though, the rules do maintain an assumption that if you are wealthy enough, you can avoid getting too much punishment and/or get out of what punishment you do suffer. This is fairly plausible in most historical circles, especially those with concepts such as the “weregild”. It also makes for a better system of gaming than one with honest and upright courts that always do justice.
Populating a Dungeon – ‘The Judge will make an encounter throw daily if the dungeon is in a wilderness domain… and monthly if in a civilised domain’ - The ‘Constructing a Dungeon’ section above says that a dungeon should be in a borderlands or wilderness domain in order to attract monsters – implying that ‘civilized dungeons’ don’t attract them.
APM: I fixed this
‘Each domain … generally has its own separate market.’ - More accurately, is this not each Settlement within a Domain? Also, a domain of only hamlets has its market at the stronghold. This should be mentioned here too.
‘Small cities and large towns of 3,000 to 8,000 inhabitants make up Class IV. Small towns and large villages of 1,000 to 3,000 inhabitants are Class V. Any village smaller than 1,000 inhabitants is Class VI’ - According to the table earlier, this isn’t true. A settlement of 475-1250 people is Class VI and a settlement of 1255-3125 people is class V.
APM: These tables are being revised a bit.
‘Once the nature of a load of merchandise has been determined, its market price must be calculated’ - Why do you need to determine the nature of a load of merchandise? If you’re selling you already know what it is you have, if you’re buying you know what you’re looking for. This doesn’t make sense to me.
APM: I’m not sure what the confusion is here
Passenger and Cargo Transport - Essentially, the passenger rules are the difference between Chartering your caravan/ship and buying a ticket to travel to wherever it is going. That’s not very clear in the rules. I’d also say that a ‘ticket’ passenger may not just want to go to the closest market … along the way’, but perhaps they want to go all the way to their destination, or somewhere else en route. Obviously this all adds complexity but if you’re more interested in using passengers to generate story than gp then it may be more interesting.
APM: I think that sort of thing is easily handled by the Judge, but hard to handle with an algorithm.
Villages, Towns and Cities placement – The Largest Settlement column has 2 entries for Village, 3 for ‘large city’ and none for ‘small city’. This does look deliberate because of the jumps in Monthly Revenue, but it jars slightly – particularly the absence of small city from the list.
APM: These tables are being revised a bit.
‘The total urban population is 50,000’ - This is higher than the max end of the Urban Population band given in the table for a settlement of that size, by 25%.
APM: These tables are being revised a bit.
‘around one-third of the realm’s urban population lives in its largest settlement.’ - In the previous example, 22% of the population lives in the largest city in Southern Argolle. Is this close enough to 33% to count? To me, it’s 11% out, that’s a third of the third – enough to be statistically relevant and make the example not work.
APM: These tables are being revised a bit.
‘If the Judge increases the size of the Largest Settlement, it will generally mean that the other urban communities must be adjusted in size in the opposite direction, and will be smaller.’ - Could it also mean that there are less people living in urban settlements? Your ‘Dispersed Settlement pattern’ and ‘Agrarian, pastoral realm’ types could both indicate an overall lower urban population, rather than the same urban population with less of a pyramid of settlements.
APM: Sure.
Now, I fully and completely accept that I’m picking holes in this, and a certain level of abstraction is desirable, even required, so if you say to me ‘leave it alone, we know it’s not perfect but it’s a reasonable illustrative example – it’s good enough’, then I’ll shut up. If, on the other hand, you want to make sure that the examples are accurate as well as illustrative, then I’ll keep checking stuff. That said - there are a few more things I need to look at before I shut up completely.
APM: Sure, the math is being purposefully simplified and rounded off. I think it’s good enough. We’ll be offering web tools for people who really want to get their hands bloody with the details.
My opinion is that you should simulate at the level of detail required at each level of play. An individual player’s domain needs to be carefully detailed but only the broad framework of the region needs to be, especially when initially worldbuilding.
APM: My intent in calling them “dialects” is not to suggest that a Zaharan speaker can speak to all of them. Rather, language varieties are often called dialects rather than languages when they have no standard form, are spoken by speakers without a nation/state, lack prestige, and aren’t used in writing. All of these characterize the beastmen tongues.
James – Is that a ‘real world’ definition? I never knew that, very interesting.
APM: I don’t know if dogs for transport will be supported in the core rules. If dogs, why not llamas? Or yaks? Or reindeer? At a certain point I have to draw the line. Dogs were not commonly used as pack animals in the Greco-Roman world which inspires ACKS.
James – I was more thinking movement rates as pertained to exploration and wilderness movement, but it’s easy enough to just extrapolate from the monster entry isn’t it.
Invulnerable Monsters – How often do dinosaur-on-wraith battles occur?
James – Well now you mention it! : ) Seriously though – you make a fair point.
(Congregations) APM: At this point in the rules, we haven’t introduced the concept of Families, and it’s directly referencing the cleric’s friends, adventuring companions, and so on, so I don’t think Families is appropriate.
James – Yep, ok that makes sense.
(Divine Power earnings) APM: So basically you have congregations built the hard way (from the ground up) which earn 10gp per fifty congregants, or you have congregations built the easy way (by ordering your domain to worship), which earn to 8gp per fifty congregants.
James – That’s very clear. Thanks for the explanation.
(Demi-human/Class specific strongholds) APM: OK. It seems like this is another area where folks want more detail.
James – Perhaps. I think that there may be a ‘flavour’ difference between the old B/X era stuff, where a lot of ‘rules’ were open to interpretation and more modern times where there’s a rule for everything. I suspect I am more a child of the latter age than the former, so my ‘nail things down’ enthusiasm probably needs tempering against the old school feel. To be fair, I think you’re doing an amazing job of capturing the feel of the B/X era and merging it with more modern contrivances.
(Rate of settlement) APM: For game purposes, they are there when the stronghold is done. Why is more than that required?
James – the reason I ask is because you’ve provided information for the rate at which a characters followers turn up – so it provides parity - and because the time to construct a stronghold could be measured in months. Now, I think I’m making an assumption that you can start to ‘rule’ a domain before the stronghold is complete, and that the families in the domain can begin to contribute to income quite quickly (i.e. in the first month) – and also assuming that you’ll need to have a garrison (and hence expenses) to protect them. So, if you’re building a 30,000gp castle to control a 6 mile hex domain it will take 2 months. However many families have arrived in month 1 will need protection, and may bring in some income from their initial pioneering activities.
On the other hand, if you do not gain any income or benefit from peasant families until the stronghold is complete – and I think this is the way you intended it to be - then it doesn’t matter at all – but a note in the rules to state as much (e.g. ‘Once the stronghold is of sufficient value to control the domain in which it is located, the peasant families will begin generating income for the character, and begin to incur costs (see collecting revenue and paying expenses below). Until then, the domain will not generate money, nor grow.’). Does that make sense?
(Hijinks) APM: Yes, but it gets pretty hard to adjudicate swiftly at that point. Hijinks can already take some time to resolve.
James – Agreed. It is a shame there’s no mechanic for ‘success but gets caught’ though, as hollow a success as that may be.
(Attorney) APM: It may feel cheap but it’s the accurate amount of money based on the wage & price rates in the game. ACKS doesn’t make things money sinks for the sake of making them money sinks!
James – Ok, that’s a fair point.
(Crime and Punishment) APM: In general, though, the rules do maintain an assumption that if you are wealthy enough, you can avoid getting too much punishment and/or get out of what punishment you do suffer. This is fairly plausible in most historical circles, especially those with concepts such as the “weregild”. It also makes for a better system of gaming than one with honest and upright courts that always do justice.
James – Ok, let me offer a counterpoint here. I agree with everything you say about the income of low level characters, and the politics of clerics. However, I’m concerned that 500gp actually isn’t a huge sum of money in the context of PCs and how they become disruptive in terms of the economics of a gameworld. If you are generating and running an NPC criminal gang then yes, it’s a lot of money and there may be plenty of disfigured thieves out there. However, for a PC criminal gang – that PC is an adventurer. They go off into dungeons and (hope to) come out dripping in loot. It costs 30,000gp to build a stronghold to control a 6 mile wilderness hex. That is a huge sum of money, and it pales against the costs to control larger domains – and the income they can generate – and that’s just what a Fighter type can spend his adventuring dosh on. Magic items cost hundreds of gold to hundreds of thousands of gold. To a high level Thief or Assassin, once they’ve built their hideout, can it not be assumed that they are still very wealthy? 500gp is not peanuts to them, but I reckon they could easily afford to heal ‘loyal’ gang members. However, I need to weigh this against the fact that you’ve actually played and playtested the game – how does it work in practice?
(Mercantilism) ‘Once the nature of a load of merchandise has been determined, its market price must be calculated’ - Why do you need to determine the nature of a load of merchandise? If you’re selling you already know what it is you have, if you’re buying you know what you’re looking for. This doesn’t make sense to me.
APM: I’m not sure what the confusion is here
James – Ok. I’ll expand on my query. The process for Mercantile Ventures is roughly as follows:
- Obtain something to trade (this isn’t in the rulebook per se, but we all know it needs to happen)
- Determine the market characteristics – go to market, work out the demand modifiers if you haven’t already, and pay a toll.
- Determine number of merchants and how much they will buy.
- Determine what each of those merchants will buy.
- Determine the market price of the goods.
- Sell or buy the goods
- Transport them
The first sentence of step 5, as in my original query, suggests that you do not initially know the ‘nature’ of a load of merchandise. I’m defining ‘nature’ as ‘what the merchandise is’. My assumption would be that you, as a PC, know what it is that you have to trade – so you know what its nature is in step 1 – there’s no need to ‘determine the nature’ in step 5. If you want to buy goods, then I was assuming that you know what you’re looking for when you set out to market – ‘We need wood for the stronghold and grain to feed the garrison’ – again, no need to determine its nature. However, it’s reasonable to say that you might also do some opportunistic trading as well – ‘let’s see what else is here’, and in that case you’d want to know what was out there.
Perhaps my confusion evaporates if that first sentence can be read as ‘Once you know what each merchant has to trade, the market price of those goods must be calculated’.
Does that help at all?
(Tables and figures)APM: Sure, the math is being purposefully simplified and rounded off. I think it’s good enough. We’ll be offering web tools for people who really want to get their hands bloody with the details.
My opinion is that you should simulate at the level of detail required at each level of play. An individual player’s domain needs to be carefully detailed but only the broad framework of the region needs to be, especially when initially worldbuilding.
James – Cool. Good enough is good enough. You are right, of course, that you need to simulate in broad strokes and hone in where it’s needed. I think I got carried away trying to make everything ‘fit’. Sorry about that!
On the other hand, if you do not gain any income or benefit from peasant families until the stronghold is complete – and I think this is the way you intended it to be - then it doesn’t matter at all – but a note in the rules to state as much (e.g. ‘Once the stronghold is of sufficient value to control the domain in which it is located, the peasant families will begin generating income for the character, and begin to incur costs (see collecting revenue and paying expenses below). Until then, the domain will not generate money, nor grow.’). Does that make sense?
APM: Good idea, and good writing. CTRL+C, CTRL+V, done!
Some v27 Updates:
BLESS spell (re: holy water)
Divine spellcasters of 7th level or higher may also use bless to create holy water. One casting of bless will transform 1 pint of ordinary water into holy water. Casting bless in this manner demands a sacrifice to the caster’s deity worth at least 10gp. Once created, holy water will retain its potency indefinitely so long as it is kept in the vial it was blessed in. See the Equipment Descriptions in Chapter 3 for information on holy water.
Bane may also be used by chaotic divine casters of 7th level or higher, in conjunction with a sacrifice of at least 10gp, to create a vial of unholy water. Unholy water has beneficial effects when used in the animation of the dead. See Animate Dead, above.
PROFICIENCY UPDATES:
Battle Magic: The character gains a +1 initiative bonus when casting spells. He is considered 2 class levels higher than his actual level of experience for purposes of dispelling magic or penetrating a target’s magic resistance.
Black Lore of Zahar: The character has studied the terrible necromancies of ancient Zahar. He can control undead as a Chaotic cleric of one half his class level. If the character casts spells that require a saving throw versus Death, his targets suffer a -2 penalty on the save. Finally, the character can cast necromantic spells and conduct necromantic research (see Necromancy in Chapter 7) as if he were two class levels higher than his actual level of experience.
Divine spellcasters of 7th level or higher may also use bless to create holy water.
Woo, holy water! Why 7th level when they’re creating potions at 5th? Tying it to Animate Dead?
He is considered 2 class levels higher than his actual level of experience for purposes of dispelling magic
This also makes Permanency more vulnerable, and eliminates the 14th level mage’s advantage of a Permanency which can’t be dispelled. Interesting.
Holy Water at 7th level
APM: My thinking is that 7th level is when clerics become able to cast 5th level spells, suggesting they’ve reached a certain plateau in terms of relationship with their deity. It also avoids a situation where you can use lower level casters to create your unholy water for your animate dead, yes.
Permanency
APM: That wasn’t something on the forefront of my mind. Integrated design is a bitch! The ability to have some way to get through permanent magic does make sense. I’ll have to think about that.
Is it too much of a kick in the face to people that take those proficiencies to change it to say ‘he is considered 2 class levels higher than his actual level of experience (to a maximum of 14th level) for purpose of dispelling magic’? That way a 14th level mage is still the absolute pinnacle of magic.
I’m not sure. I think some people would be fairly pissed when they got to 13th and found their proficiency was devalued.
The ability to have some way to get through permanent magic does make sense.
Absolutely, and 13th level mages aren’t at all common. I actually like the idea that a very powerful mage focused on Battle Magic can rip down the archmage’s spells when no one else can (hopefully right after the archmage shouts, “I’m invincible!”). Classic stuff.