OOC Chat — "The Public Baths"

[Starbeard]

[Starbeard]

Alright, I've got the basics of character creation up. A few die codes and tables have been house-ruled a bit from what's in the Warhammer 1e booklet, but not enough to make much of a difference.

I'll get a basic equipment list and hireling costs up next. Here's a sneak preview of how money will work:

We'll be keeping money values exactly as they are in Heroes/Warhammer (for ease, mostly), but change the names from copper, silver, and gold/crowns/pounds to shekels, mina and talents:

12 shekels = 1 mina
20 mina = 1 talent

Talents are long ingots of silver alloy, and all money weighs ~2kg per talent's-worth.

Cloth Money
It's much more practical to carry around cloth currency: a strip of embroidered 'money cloth' is worth 1 mina, and up to 100 such cloths can be sewn into your clothes without counting toward encumbrance. Any extra money cloths weigh the same as a normal mina.

[Rusty Tincanne]

I love your ideas for money - particularly the cloth strips. I will get my (first of many) character(s) created over the next few days - he will be available for competetive play.

My only comment on the rat men is that the average lifespan is quite a bit longer than GWs skaven - which isn't a problem at all. Just an observation. Can the rat men be wizards, etc?

[Starbeard]

I gave the ratmen a much longer lifespan for no particular reason, actually. I imagine it wouldn't actually effect the game at all, since I doubt we'd ever get that far, but it's easily changed to add character. Actually, I think I will. And yes, they can be wizards, I just haven't put the creating wizards post up yet.

The equipment and troops lists and are now up in the PC starting section. You can purchase your starting equipment and hire your starting forces with these.

I'll try to get the (quite short) Wizard rules up ASAP, plus the first couple of posts on the Campaign map/world, and we'll be off! Miscellaneous posts about combat rules, etc. will be added to the FAQ thread as we play, or as they're needed/discovered.

[Keehnelf]

Is the cost per week for hirelings based on their armament? It's unclear what the actual support costs for troops apart from year is, unless I've missed something!

[Starbeard]

Sorry! I neglected to post that table. It's up now.

Note that for your starting force, you can freely choose whatever weapon each of your starting soldiers has, and you can choose any armour as long as it isn't heavier than chainmail. If they can wield a shield, you can give them a shield. However: unless you are a Wizard, your soldiers' 'kits' cannot cost more than what you have equipped yourself!

[Starbeard]

Also, the thread has been updated to say that whatever personnel you hire are assumed to have been paid for the first 4 weeks of adventuring. After that you've got to come up with the cash yourself.

[Rusty Tincanne]

Starbeard, I am wondering if you are okay with me mentioning this campaign on another (skaven-specific) forum I frequent. It is mostly dedicated to tabletop gaming and modeling, but there are a few of us that prefer fluff and RPGs. I am sure a couple-few would love to get to play in your sandbox and help shape the ratmen.

Let me know if that is kosher or not.

[Starbeard]

Yeah, by all means! As long as they know that we're playing first edition, which means:

1. The GW world doesn't exist here, so while some of the races may look similar (ratmen, lizardmen), they have little to do with the 'GW races'.

2. We'll be using pretty much only the first edition rules, which can be pretty different in some places. Situations that aren't covered in the 1e rules will just be house-ruled rather than pulling from later editions.

Anyone who's happy with that is welcome to play!

Speaking of which, I'll do my best to post all of the basic need-to-know rules in the FAQ thread as we go, and I can probably find a way to let people get hold of the first edition booklets in one way or another. Expect a PM soon.

[Starbeard]

Wizard creation rules are now up, with a list of all Mastery level 1 spells.

[Starbeard]

Alignment rules are now up:
Humans can be of any alignment.
Elves and Dwarves can be of any alignment except Hunger.
Ratmen can be of any alignment except Good.

The experience & levelling system is up.

All known Mastery level 1 spells are up. Wizards may freely choose 1 of these as a starting spell.

The absolute basics of the campaign world are up. On the player campaign map, dark green = swamps, light green = dry chaparrals, grey = rocky desert, and brown = sandy desert.

I'm thinking it might be easier to have everyone start in one of the large cities, which will be El-Shahabi. It's medium in size, and geographically closest to the largest number of areas to explore.

Once everyone has equipped their characters and hired a starting force of soldiers (or not: you can try striking it out on your own if, for example, your main aim is to break into the politics of an established city), then I'll write up a starting thread and we can ease our way into the first few turns.

[Starbeard]

Welcome lordfalco and LordVyktor to the game!

See the City-States of Hikuptah post for basic info on the large cities.

When you've finished equipping and hiring out a warband, put all that somewhere in your character sheet.

If you have any questions about anything, either PM or just post here!

[lordfalco]

thank you for welcoming me:)
see ur pm for many questions for char creation:)
didnt post here sicne big list of msotly rule questions:)


edit:
for the cavalry troops they start with a mount?

[Starbeard]

Yep, cavalry come with a free mount (horse or camel).

Here's a breakdown of how purchasing troops works (will add to the FAQ when I have time):

1. All troops are equipped for free with whatever it is they need. Thus, armoured soldiers get any kind of armour you want (up to chainmail; the fancy stuff you have to buy yourself), and unarmoured soldiers must wear none/cloth/leather only (cloth & leather armour gives them better chances of surviving a battle as 'wounded' instead of 'killed', but slows them down as well).

2. This goes for weapons, too. All fighting men are assumed to have a knife as a backup weapon. Crossbowmen also get a crossbow and a quiver of bolts. Other troops are given whatever other weapons you want them to have, and a shield if they can use it with their weapon.

3. Mounted troops come with their own mount, either a camel or horse. Camels are a little slower and less combat-worthy, but are much better at travelling through deserts. Most horses are also scared of camels, so riding your camels against enemy horse cavalry can be a good tactic.

[Starbeard]

lordfalco also asked about food and personal upkeep:

Eventually characters will have to keep a steady flow of cash for personal upkeep (the cost depends on your social class). I still have to finish converting those costs over from the Heroes of the Dark Age RPG, and will post them when the game starts.

However, since these are everyone's first PCs, and we're just starting the game, I'm giving everyone a 4-week freebie period. For the first 4 weeks of game time, your character lives for free, and your soldiers work for free.

[lordfalco]

i though i saw it somehwere before but cant find it. was there a specific starting area for us? so i cna look what mount for troops as example

[Starbeard]

Yep, everyone will start having freshly entered El-Shahabi. It is a small coastal city, with about 6,000 people.

The immediate area is surrounded by chaparrals and dry shrubland.

To the west are wetlands and coastal swampland, where some tribes of fishmen, ratmen and lizardmen are known to live.

To the east and south, for many many miles, are rocky desert and cactus hills. It's dry and hot, but there are some plants, and lots of caves and hills for shade and hiding, so nocturnal creatures and cold-weather creatures usually just travel at night and camp out during the day.

Below the mountain range (maybe 2 weeks' journey from the city) are sandy deserts, with a deadly sea of ergs at the bottom of the map. This area is very hot and dry, and movement is very slow (even if you only move at night), unless you have camels. You can easily die of heat and thirst if you get lost and can't find an oasis—but there are small villages and towns scattered about, and it is rumoured that ancient lost cities and palaces are buried out in the sand.

[lordfalco]

is there any eta of when we start?

[LordVyktor]

Two quick forum usage questions from a newb, probably anyone can answer... I didn't realize I was attaching a gigundous picture to my hero tablet, but the edit feature doesn't seem to have an option for deleting it...any ideas?

Second... I am still not allowed to send PMs. Do i need to just create a certain amount of posts? Does someone need to PM me first?

Thanks for any help. Can't wait to be dying in the desert with you all.

[Starbeard]

is there any eta of when we start?

Working on it. I've got a chapter of my thesis due in the next couple of weeks, so planning game stuff will take a little longer. All that's left to do before we start is:

1. Finish the PC living expenses and army movement rates. These are almost done.
2. Finish fleshing out the starting city: the market is done, the surrounding wilderness is done, the city's starting army and government (Heroes of the Dark Ages has some rules for electing/usurping/assassinating your way into government positions, so I need to come up with the basic government hierarchy).

The ETA for launch should be by the last week of August, if not sooner.

Two quick forum usage questions from a newb, probably anyone can answer... I didn't realize I was attaching a gigundous picture to my hero tablet, but the edit feature doesn't seem to have an option for deleting it...any ideas?

Second... I am still not allowed to send PMs. Do i need to just create a certain amount of posts? Does someone need to PM me first?

Thanks for any help. Can't wait to be dying in the desert with you all.

I have no clue about the PMs. Maybe after a couple of posts it'll go away?

I've never used attachments, so I don't know how to get rid of them. Maybe someone else does?

Once you figure out how to delete the attachment, you can embed the image directly into the post using the BBCode buttons at the top of the editor. Click "Img" and then paste the photo's url inside the code snippet:

[ img ] URL-OF-PICTURE-HERE.jpg [ / img ]

It'll still be huge though, I don't think there's a way to shrink the size of the picture. If I really need a picture in a post and it's too big, I've been uploading the file to photobucket and reducing the size to what I want, then using that. I've only ever bothered doing that when I'm DMing a game, though. Otherwise, you can also use the "[ Spoiler ]" tag button to hide the huge picture until someone clicks on it: