Adventurer Conqueror King v16 Rules Discussion

Hello!
This week we are updating with v16 of the rules. (Don’t worry - you didn’t miss 3 versions. The numbers are simply the number of separate times I’ve updated the document).
Major updates in this version:

  • The addition of spell caster availability under specialists
  • The addition of proficiency rules for normal men
  • Updated the phantasmal force and stone to flesh spells
  • Updated the land surveying proficiency
  • Updated class descriptions to include attack and saving throws at level 1
  • Many minor grammatical, spelling, and formatting changes

BUMP! Bumping this up because people missed v16.

Alex, I’ve noticed references to 1st level “elf NPCs” and “dwarf NPCs”. Are these assumed to be elven spellswords and dwarven fighters, or would the elf and dwarf “monster” stats be more appropriate?
Was there ever a point where a more flavorful term for dwarven fighters was considered? I don’t have a problem with the class being called the dwarven fighter, but it looks a little out of place next to grandiose names like elven nightblade and dwarven craft-priest. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had dwarf “shieldbreakers” as the generic underground goblin-killing guys. Maybe dwarven tunnel-fighter? Dwarven slayer?
Also, halflings are mentioned repeatedly in the monster and gamemastering sections. Obviously halflings aren’t available as PCs, but are they present in the game world? (I’m pulling for “no”, personally, but that’s beside the point.)

Some thoughts based on my first impression of the classes. I’m still reading through the rules, so some of this may be addressed later, but I wanted to jot down the initial ideas.
I quite like the Creating a Character 10 step summary. It might be nice to have a table in the vicinity showing the classes available and their prime requisites/minimums. Ideally, it would be great if everything you need to generate a character was conveniently located on two facing pages, so you could open the book to pages 12-13 and roll up a dozen characters without flipping about (once you’ve got a basic grasp of the classes and proficiencies). Even if some of that information is duplicated and those two pages aren’t part of the normal flow of the text, I could see that being the place where a well-used book naturally falls open.
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.
When the demi-humans have more than one class, it seems hard to avoid thinking of characters in a race/class matrix - at which point it looks like humans have 8 classes to choose from while demi-humans each have two. I like the demi options; again, it feels like there’s a core/campaign bleed-through happening.
Structurally, the demi-human classes feel like a set of separate Campaign classes, which isn’t a bad thing at all - maybe it would make sense to bundle them that way. The four Core classes provide all of the mechanics (and beginning players might be encouraged to start there), then you’ve got three sets of Campaign classes - Imperial Humans, Dwarves, Elves. That would be a convenient framework for adding similar things later.
There’s an odd discrepancy in level caps. Humans all cap at 14, but dwarves cap at 12 or 10, while elves cap at 10 or 11. Why aren’t the demi-human level caps as consistent as the humans?
In the hope of more demi-human classes eventually, having every demi-human class be a “Demi _____” seems like it might not be necessary or desirable. If only elves can be Spellswords, we don’t really need to call them Elven Spellswords. Only the dwarf fighter would need a different name as it currently looks.
Dwarf perils: “Due to their short height, dwarven fighters cannot use human-sized two-handed weapons (such as two-handed swords or pole arms) or longbows, but they can use any other weapon or armor.” Implying a dwarf-sized pole arm would be fine? “Dwarven craft-priests may wear any dwarf-sized armor. They can wield any of the traditional weapons of their people, including the battle axe, hand axe, warhammer, flail, spear, and mace.” I notice the two-handed weapons included can all be used one-handed, but they’re not specifically called out as dwarf-sized… so it seems like the craft-priest can use a human warhammer while the fighter can’t, but the craft-priest requires dwarf-sized armor while the fighter doesn’t. Is it the intent for weapons and armor to come in sizes? (I hope not.) I’m guessing the intent is something like “dwarves cannot use long weapons that always requires two hands to use, but weapons listed as either one- or two-handed may be used by dwarves as two-handed weapons.” I’m hoping the “dwarf-sized armor” is just flavor so I don’t need to populate my treasure tables with “chain mail, only smaller.”
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.
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.”
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.

I second Undercrypt’s suggestion of a two-page character creation spread, and for possibly organizing the campaign-specific material in one place. (Incidentally, this would make the organization kind of like Chaosium/Avalon Hill’s RuneQuest III rulebook, where all the Glorantha-specific stuff was in the back of the book.)
“There’s an odd discrepancy in level caps. Humans all cap at 14, but dwarves cap at 12 or 10, while elves cap at 10 or 11. Why aren’t the demi-human level caps as consistent as the humans?”
I think the idea here is that demi-humans are more powerful than humans, so they need some sort of balancing mechanism. (This is the old “Why make a fighter if I could be a dwarven fighter with extra abilities?” nugget.) This seems a very clunky solution. I dislike this concept in any version of D&D and generally houserule it away. If demi-human characters are really that much more powerful, there have to be better ways to balance them other than making their players stop playing the game early.
In other words, I vote for balancing the demi-human classes in another way.
“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.”
I agree again. If anybody should be able to craft a golem, it’d be a dwarven craft-priest, I’d think.
“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.”
Wasn’t this originally inspired by something from Tolkien? Elves not being affected by Nazgúl or something like that?

Elves and ghouls came out of Chainmail - a metagame balancing thing - and got institutionalized into D&D.
Why no love for the halfing? ACKS is otherwise fairly tight to the BX / BECMI core.
Thanks for the bump on v16, I’ll grab it.

Hi guys! All sorts of great comments. I will try to address/respond/reciprocate.
When the demi-humans have more than one class, it seems hard to avoid thinking of characters in a race/class matrix - at which point it looks like humans have 8 classes to choose from while demi-humans each have two. I like the demi options; again, it feels like there’s a core/campaign bleed-through happening.
There’s an odd discrepancy in level caps. Humans all cap at 14, but dwarves cap at 12 or 10, while elves cap at 10 or 11. Why aren’t the demi-human level caps as consistent as the humans?
ALEX: To answer these two points, I need to explain how the ACKS classes were built. Building on work started at Pandius.org, we have a character creation engine that uses a point allocation to build each class. Points can be allocated into HD, Combat, Arcane, Divine, Skill, and Race. Humans can have up to 4 points of powers. Demi-humans can have up to 7 points of powers – of which no more than 4 can be spent on HD/Combat/Arcane/Divine/Skill. The Elf Race category gives increasing magical powers while the Dwarf Race category gives increasing proficiencies and proficiency bonuses. However, the more points you spend above 4, the lower your level cap. This represents the ‘specialist’ v. ‘jack of all trades’ trade-off. So the Elf and Dwarf class caps weren’t arbitrarily selected, they are based on the point allocations.
ALEX: One virtue of this system is that it’s easy to adapt to create new races (you just create a Racial category for them with powers at the different point totals). Another virtue is that different classes for the same race can have different level caps.
In the hope of more demi-human classes eventually, having every demi-human class be a “Demi _____” seems like it might not be necessary or desirable. If only elves can be Spellswords, we don’t really need to call them Elven Spellswords. Only the dwarf fighter would need a different name as it currently looks.
ALEX: Makes sense to me.
Dwarf perils: “Due to their short height, dwarven fighters cannot use human-sized two-handed weapons (such as two-handed swords or pole arms) or longbows, but they can use any other weapon or armor.” Implying a dwarf-sized pole arm would be fine? “Dwarven craft-priests may wear any dwarf-sized armor. They can wield any of the traditional weapons of their people, including the battle axe, hand axe, warhammer, flail, spear, and mace.” I notice the two-handed weapons included can all be used one-handed, but they’re not specifically called out as dwarf-sized… so it seems like the craft-priest can use a human warhammer while the fighter can’t, but the craft-priest requires dwarf-sized armor while the fighter doesn’t. Is it the intent for weapons and armor to come in sizes? (I hope not.) I’m guessing the intent is something like “dwarves cannot use long weapons that always requires two hands to use, but weapons listed as either one- or two-handed may be used by dwarves as two-handed weapons.” I’m hoping the “dwarf-sized armor” is just flavor so I don’t need to populate my treasure tables with “chain mail, only smaller.”
ALEX: I need to re-write this to make it clearer.

I’ve noticed references to 1st level “elf NPCs” and “dwarf NPCs”. Are these assumed to be elven spellswords and dwarven fighters, or would the elf and dwarf “monster” stats be more appropriate?
ALEX: Unless otherwise noted, 1st level dwarf and elf NPCs use the generic elf and dwarf monster statistics.
Was there ever a point where a more flavorful term for dwarven fighters was considered? I don’t have a problem with the class being called the dwarven fighter, but it looks a little out of place next to grandiose names like elven nightblade and dwarven craft-priest. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had dwarf “shieldbreakers” as the generic underground goblin-killing guys. Maybe dwarven tunnel-fighter? Dwarven slayer?
ALEX: It wasn’t something I considered, but let’s do it! I’ll open up a separate thread to re-name the Dwarf Fighter.
Also, halflings are mentioned repeatedly in the monster and gamemastering sections. Obviously halflings aren’t available as PCs, but are they present in the game world? (I’m pulling for “no”, personally, but that’s beside the point.)
ALEX: I personally would be happy to remove Halflings, as I hate their existence. The whole point of Hobbits (which, let’s not kid ourselves, are the origin of Halflings) was that they were the least likely adventurers imaginable. But because they showed up in the Fellowship of the Ring they became a standard adventuring class. By similar logic, if Tolkien had decided that making Frodo a blind paraplegic made him an unlikely adventurer, I fear that we’d have a race of blind paraplegics. Since having a race of unlikely adventurers as adventurers doesn’t make sense, D&D evolved Hobbits into the current incarnation which plagues fantasy gaming. Understood from a niche protection point of view: The short, tough niche is better filled by Dwarves and the short, cunning niche by Gnomes. What’s left is the short, irritating niche. Because I have a nasty sense of humor, I left Halflings in as a monstrous cross-breed of men and dwarves that has the worst characteristics of both, who tend to their body hair like dwarves tend to their beards, etc.

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.