Friday 29 May 2020

Hab-cylinder Avril

Hab-cylinder Avril is named for the watchtower and village bearing the name of House Avril the scouting guild. The cylinder itself is six miles in diameter with a ceiling five miles up. Cloud layers form at around two to three miles and the cylinder's sunlamps are functional and possess a 24-hour time cycle similar to many inhabited planets.

The Hab-cylinder was originally a major Bog’an stronghold captured during the recent expansion efforts of the Gaumont Empire in forming the Batylle province. Like all Hab-cylinders the ground level disk seems to have been scooped off a planet whole and intact with its original terrain present.

Hab-cylinder Avril (six mile hex with 1.5 mile hexes marked)


The Outer Walls


The cylinder itself is wide and high, but it is not purely vertical on the cylinder's walls. The first mile or so consists of a steep slope of stair-like interlocking geometric structures similar to the Giant's Causeway on the Terran home worlds. These structures have passageways within them that connect to areas beyond the cylinder and to places within the walls themselves. 

To the north of the cylinder an old subway ramp has been repaired by the villagers using bricks fired in local kilns. This ramp connects to a major subway hub that has allowed the Gaumont Empire to maintain dominance in the region from the relative safety of the watchtower.

Watchtower Avril


The watchtower itself is made from local bricks glazed in a vibrant blue and is built on the highest hill in the village. Being situated near the middle of the cylinder, it has good visibility out to the wall of the cylinder where forests do not obscure the lands. It's leader, Yvon Figuier, is often absent on adventures with the town's Count, Chantal Suchet. In her absence, the watchtower is led by Lucien (level 2 scout) along with 5 other scouts (level 1) and 30 scouts in training (treat as level 0 light infantry) who patrol and maintain order around the cylinder. Such order is limited due to the region they need to cover and is often limited to the village and homesteads to the south.

Yvon Figuier; Scout 9: STR 13 (+1), INT 10, WIS 12, DEX 14 (+1), CON 13 (+1), CHA 11, MV 120', AC 9 (leather +2, masterwork shield), HD 9d6+9, HP 46, Melee Attack 4+/1d6+1 (spear +1), Ranged Attack 3+/2d6 (javelin of hurling, HFH p.187), Save T9, XP 700; Special: backstab ×4, thief skills (HS 8+, MS 6+, FT 2+, HN 2+), thief synergies (careful footing, shadowy senses); Proficiencies: endurance, fighting style (shield), healing x2, sniping, weapon focus (spears and polearms). Equipment: 2x potion of extra healing.

The Village of Avril


The village sits at the base of the tower along the road crossing through the cylinder. With a population of 180, it is one of the larger frontier settlements outside the core districts of the Gaumont Empire. While only providing a Class VI market it has craftsmen and stores which can provide services to adventuring parties exploring the region. 

The current Count rules in the name of the Emperor but is a close personal friend of House Avril as well as a close personal friend of the Scoutmaster. The garrison in the town keep runs at minimum guard with most troops patrolling the region, leaving the cylinder's defense mostly to the scouts of the watchtower.

Chantal Suchet, Fighter 7; Str 14 (+1), Int 11, Wis 11, Dex 15 (+1), Con 16 (+2), Cha 13 (+1), MV 90', AC 8 (light masterwork plate, ring of protection +1), HD 7d8+14, HP 58, Melee Attack 3+/1d10+7 (retractable two handed sword +2), Ranged Attack 4+/1d6+5 (3 masterwork javelins), Save F7, XP 440; Proficiencies: combat reflexes (+1 surprise, +1 initiative), fighting style (two handed), leadership, military strategy, weapon focus (swords and daggers); Leadership Ability 6, Strategic Ability +1, Morale Modifier +2; Equipment: potion of extra healing.

Adventure Idea: A party of third level adventures are approached by Yvon and Chantal with an offer. An ogre twin has been raiding settlements from its base near the Sea of Life. They want the party to take one entrance of the base while they take the other. While only being paid as hirelings, she offers a second pick of the magic items, do the players accept being second fiddle for a chance at something good?

The Clay Pits


The substrata of the earth for this Hab-cylinder consists of large amounts of clay with very little stone. The clay itself is of good quality for use in products such as pottery and bricks. The villager quarry to the north of the town forms one of the major economic centers for the region. Additionally, a nearby brickworks employs many of the townspeople potters.

Adventure Idea: A collapse at the pit reveals a damp cave network under the pit leading to the village. The adventurers are hired to explore these caves by the town watch to determine if Bog'ans or Giant cockroaches have dug them out.

Homesteads


The homesteads to the south of the village are homes by independent people living in fortified homes on the edge of the cylinder. Raids from monsters living in lairs in the 'stacks' on the cylinder rim are a constant threat, but the homesteaders either look after each other or petition the watchtower for aid.

Adventure Idea: A villager enters town pleading for help, people have been kidnapped by Revenants near the 'stacks'. With the Scoutmaster and Count out on adventures do the players help these farmers rescue their loved ones?

Adventure Idea: An abandoned foundry to the west of the cylinder was rumored to be the home of a Mechanist whose creation went rogue. Stories tell of treasure guarded by rogue automatons and a Bog'an nest buried beneath.

Saturday 23 May 2020

Radical hACKs: Alternate Inititave

I love the term coined by Omer on the ACKs forums a while ago "radical hACKs" and a few of my house rules fit inside that term. Significant changes to play, and this is one of them, reader beware!

Something I noticed in my games of ACKs is the players always went first (mostly, I'm generalising, rarely went last...). To the point that I may as well have just removed initiative rolls. The cause is that your average monsters roll 1d6 and players do too, but players get bonuses, lots of them, the main culprit is dexterity, the second is proficiencies. So the normal solution I am told is to not use 'standard monsters'. But that can take prep and can remove monster simplicity (I like random monster tables and their immediacy). I experimented with the monster surprise bonus equals an initiative bonus, but it felt wrong.

One of my players wanted to try the greyhawk initiative option a long time ago and I sort of rejected it. But I gave it another look… then tested it… then changed it a lot until I arrived at this.

Worldship initiative


Each combatant may roll up to two dice for initiative, one dice from movement options and action options. A player may roll only one dice if they choose. Movement always occurs before the action and cleave stepping is not effected by movement choices. The lowest initiative goes first with actions taken in increasing order, actions of the same number are simultaneous.

Note that under these rules dexterity no longer adjusts initiative.

Movement options (always first):

  • Called attack - d4 (targets AC -2, -4 with modern firearm)
  • Change weapons - d6 - can be done as an action
  • Defensive stance - d4 (+2 AC)
  • Disengage - d6 - cannot take action
  • Move - d6
  • Special maneuver - d8 (Disarm, Forceback, Knockdown and Sunder only)

Action options (always last):

  • Cast spell - d10 - cannot take move
  • Change weapons - d6 (free w/fighting style)
  • Melee attack - one handed - d6
  • Melee attack - two handed - d8
  • Multiattack - d10 - cannot take move
  • Ranged attack - d8
  • Special maneuver - d6 (all)
  • Use item (Eg wand/staff/potion) - d6
  • Other action - d6 

Proficiency adjustments


Proficiencies can reduce dice rolled to the next dice down, each reduction is referred to as a step. Eg reducing a d8 one step gives a d6, two steps a d4. A dice cannot be reduced below a d4. The following proficiencies adjust initiative.
  • Battle Magic: reduces cast spell action by one step.
  • Combat reflexes: Reduce any move or attack action dice by one step before rolling.
  • Fighting style: if changing to your style or re-equipping from holstered gear counts as a free action (in addition to other actions).
  • Skirmishing: May swap out move for disengage without declaring. Reduce all move actions by one step.
  • Unflappable Casting: roll a new move and action and add it to your current score to act at that point.

New actions (optional)


The following two new actions should be considered an option, I'm still testing them out.

Defensive stance: in place of a move action the character uses their excess mobility to make themselves harder to hit. That gain +2 AC for the round this was declared in, even prior to their action.

Called attack: you focus your next attack at a weak point in the target's armor granting a bonus of -2 to the target AC on the next attack. If you are using an advanced firearm the bonus is doubled to -4. This bonus is limited to the armor bonus to the targets AC, and their armor cannot be reduced below zero.

Design Notes


ACKs already has a roll each round initiative so this criticism for this system is moot, the main hurdle is the additional detail and choices (it does amaze me how many people criticise roll each round as they prefer predictable combat). Not all groups will like the detail of this but I have found it makes combats a bit more dynamic. You can't reverse an attack here, so melee players without moves have found themselves without a target and ranged attackers have been engaged and lost their actions. In fact my players look for the ranged attackers calls to close and force an action loss.

The multiattack option is a bit of a 3ed throwback that limits monsters with more than one attach to being stationary, feel free to ignore it if it is not to taste. The monster charging with three attacks doesn't gel with my group.

The defensive stance is a bit of a take on the old +2AC -2 Hit full, but it penalises initiative instead. I have found it doesn't get much use in my group as I rule all throws succeed on an 18+, criticals occur on a 20 (an extremely radical hACK I have been testing that I might talk about another day). In games using the normal 20 auto-hit rule I feel it would still work, most of the time against monsters players with lots of AC already cap out their AC well above the amount required for a monster to be forced to roll 20 to hit. Its easy enough to remove this and the called shot, which is why I listed them as optional. The called attack evolved from the firearms armor penetration rule from guns at war and helps in my setting that has firearms.

As a GM I tend to just roll 2d6 for most melee monsters and d8 for ranged (which I call) and as such have not had any significant increase in tracking things behind the screen. 

So far, it has achieved my goal, monsters can go first with minimal hassle and there is a slight increase in the dynamic nature of combat on a subtle level. Players try to roll as little dice as possible to beat the monsters but that can backfire. Sometimes the 2d6 move and attack is the best defensive play, and rolling low has never been so good.

Saturday 16 May 2020

The Rogue Queens

The capstone of one of the larger factional threats on the Worldship is the Rogue Queens. These independent automatons command armies of other rogues in addition to being themselves a strong threat. While I am trying to avoid solitary monsters, these creatures are unique so I gave them an escort of guards for random encounters to better round out encounters with them.

Rogue Queens


The creation of the Rogue Queens was an unintended consequence of the worm technology deployed by the visitors to subvert their enemies' automatons. The worm device is designed to seek the clockwork brain of automatons. These brains are miniaturized relay clusters that are cube shaped. Normal automatons have only a single cube matrix, but the Gaumont Combaticon has many and, like a dinosaur, each limb contains its own cube matrix coordinated through a central controlling cube. When multiple worms infect such large automatons they develop a basic network forming a primitive instinct. These newly formed intellects then seek to add to their intellectual capability by adding more cubes to their grid. Limits in the design of the worm itself restrict these networks to several hundred cubes. As their intellect grows, they rise above their initial programming learning to modify and repair their own bodies.

The desire to grow their intellect became the primary driver for the queens. Piece by piece they replaced sections of their bodies to accommodate their ever increasing cube matrix. Where once they housed a cockpit in their torso they instead have an open cavity containing their core matrix. Limits to their connections makes them fussy about the quality of cores they connect, trading out older or smaller cores for more advanced ones on a constant basis. 

To allow them to traverse corridors, they replaced their legs with a millipede-like tail containing hundreds of smaller legs on which to slither and crawl. Along the belly of their tail is an open section containing cubes matrix connections like a spine and worms with which to infect nearby automatons. Their right arm is normally replaced with a glaive-like blade for combat, while their left arm is utilitarian containing repair sub-limbs with vats of visitor repair gel injectors to bolster their minions.

To this day, the Rogue Queens dominate the area known as The Hives, sitting in the battleground between the human and visitor factions of the Worldship. There they claim territory and scavenge parts to enhance their own bodies and create armies. As they themselves rise above their initial programming they are also able to subvert the more basic rogues to their ends. With these armies they defend their hives from competitor queens and humans alike while also raiding nearby settlements for resources to expand their influence.

Rogue Queen (gigantic construct)
% In Lair:
Dungeon Enc:
Wilderness Enc:
Treasure Type / XP:
65%
Solitary (1) with guard
Solitary (1) with guard
O / 3,000
Hit Dice:
Armor Class:
Save:
Special Def.:
12**
8
F6
Immunities (automaton)
Movement:
Attacks:
Morale:
Special Off.: 
90’ (30’)
Glaive (1+/3d8) and 2x Crossbows (1+/1d6)
N/A
Infectious aura, bolster automaton (2d10 temporary hit points)

As constructs, the rogue queens are immune to the effects of disease and poison in addition to charm, sleep, and hold spells.

Rogue Queen: the initial form of most rogue queens was that of a Combaticon automaton, though the growth of its cube matrix has long since eaten away at that initial form. They resemble Nagas of legend with serpentine tails containing thousands of micro legs to aid them with mobility and a humanoid torso with two primary limbs and twin shoulder mounted crossbows.

Possessing hundreds of worms, the rogue queen is seething with these devices granting it an infectious aura. Additionally, it can override its primary instinct and does not prioritise infecting other automatons, mostly leaving that task to its minions. It possesses no effective limit to the number of automatons it can infect. Each round an uninfected automaton is within 5 foot of the Queen they must save vs death or become a Rogue in 1d4 rounds. During this time the automaton acts normally, though it is aware of and fights the subversion, it will convert even if shut down. 

Their primary attack is with a large glaive-like blade in place of their right hand. Instead of attacking with this limb they may instead use their left construction limb to bolster a nearby automaton granting it 2d10 temporary hit points. This ability draws on internal reserves of materials and chemicals, if the judge requires it may be limited to six uses per day to reflect these consumables and its ability to generate more. Like other sources of temporary hit points they are the first lost if any damage is suffered, and cannot be regained through rest or healing magic, they disappear after one hour. 

The two shoulder crossbows are in fact themselves autonomous to the central brain, they fire separately to the main unit and will typically prioritise attacks against ranged attackers and spellcasters, they possess the precise shooting proficiency for all ranged attacks. In addition they can also fire at enemies engaged in melee combat with the main body at no penalty.

When encountered as a wandering monster the Rogue Queen will also be accompanied by a group of guards. Roll 1d6, on a 1-2 they are accompanied by 2d6 Rogue Ironwrights, on a 3-4 they are accompanied by 2d4 Rogue Spider Ballistae and on a 5-6 they are accompanied by 2d3 Rogue Stevedores. Rogue Queens may also design, build and repair automatons as mechanisms of a level equal to their hit dice which explains many new designs such as the Spider Ballista.

Unlike other rogues, the queen chassis is so heavily modified that it can no longer be used as a sample to build an automaton. There is still an extensive amount of mechanical materials present, eighteen units of mechanical materials can be extracted for use in building other automatons (see the previous blog). Additionally the repair limb of the queen can be scavenged on its destruction to recover 1d6 units of repair nano-gel (BCK p.102).

Friday 8 May 2020

Worldship encounter tables, Levels 1-3


So, all this work for a few random encounter tables... Why are they so important?
For a theme specific setting like the world ship, I feel they are very important.
Random encounter tables set the mood, they set the flavour of a setting. This is because once every hour of gameplay the players tend to trigger an encounter (3 times an hour at 5-6 chance on a d6), as such they are a common interaction with your setting.

Here are the first three levels for the Worldship setting:

Roll
Monster Level 1
Monster Level 2
Monster Level 3
1
Bog’ans
(1d8+proxy; Blog)
Bugmen
(1d6; BCK p.66)
Doppelgänger
(1d6; ACK p.161)
2
Brigands
(2d4; ACK p.183
Barbarians
(1d6; ACK p.183)
Ogre
(1d6; ACK p.187)
3
Visitor
(2d4; BCK p.88)
Revenants
(1d6; Blog)
Visitor soldier
(2d4; BCK p.88)
4
Fire Beetle
(1d6; ACK p.156)
Bombardier Beetle
(1d8; ACK p.156)
Tiger beetle
(1d6; ACK p.156)
5
Giant Centipede
(2d4; ACK p.159)
Crab Spider
(1d4; ACK p.194)
Giant Black Widow
(1d3; ACK p.194)
6
Giant Cockroach
(1d8; BCK p.68)
Grick
(1d4; BCK p.77)
Ettercap
(1d2; BCK p.73)
7
Giant Killer Bee
(1d6; ACK p.156)
Giant Carnivorous Fly
(1d6; ACK p.169)
Giant Ant
(2d4; ACK p.154)
8
Thief Birds
(2d6; BCK p.73)
Claw Birds
(1d4+1; BCK p.71)
Grin Lizards
(1d2; BCK p.72)
9
Stirge, Lesser
(1d10; see below)
Archer Fungus
(1d4; BCK p.75)
Violet Fungus
(1d4; BCK p.75)
10
Scout Drone
(1d3; BCK p.81)
Darkmantle
(1d3; BCK p.68)
Security Bot
(1d3; Blog)
11
Rogue Clockworker
(1d6; Blog)
Rogue ironwright
(1d6; Blog)
Rogue Spider Ballista
(1d8; Blog)
12
NPC Party, Lvl 1
(1d4+2)
NPC Party, Lvl 2
(1d4+2)
NPC Party, Lvl 4
(1d4+2)

Why not levels 4-6? I'm still working on them, and in playing ACKs normal I noticed that the table as presented became easier as the players leveled. The prevalence of solitary random enemies at upper levels tended to see my groups wipe them out easily in a single round (noting that this is my experience, yours may differ). I observed that the average experience for a group actually flattens at later levels, while the characters continue to advance. As a result I'm trying to build in enemies that are not solitary to my upper tables, I have also adjusted the random encounter numbers lower in some cases to tune the difficulty.

What are my design goals? Unlike standard ACKs I have only placed humanoid, or intelligent, monsters in slots 1-3 on the 1d12 roll, slot 11 is for Rogues and slot 10 is for robots, slot 9 I reserved for fungus and 8 for dinosaurs. Thematically I'm going for lots of insects as a neutral form of enemy, they set the scene for the ship being in disrepair (plus they can be mercilessly slaughtered). I'm also trying to make sure a range of enemies can be at play at any level, but emphasis is that these "random" monsters be both of hostile intent and likely to wander.

Level 1 Notes

  • Visitors are one of the toughest encounters, but the items they drop are worth it. Plus if this is known then they can be avoided/negotiated with as they won’t want a direct fight.
  • Thief birds are Velociraptors, scientific names for animals are not generally in the common vernacular. These things steal livestock and are a general pest, thus the name.
  • Lesser Stirges are the same as normal stirges (ACKS p.196), just smaller and more pesky. They have a hit dice of 1d4* but are otherwise the same.

Level 2 Notes

  • Grick tend to have adapted to the environment having metallic tones of grey to slightly blue.
  • Claw Birds are Deinonychus dinosaurs from BCK, again this is the peasant term referring to their large claws and vicious nature. I dropped the number encountered in a dungeon a little.
  • Darkmantles are a very weak encounter. There is no reason you couldn’t encounter a few. Bumping to 1d3, so solitary is still possible.

Level 3 Notes

  • Grin lizards are Timurlengia dinosaurs named after those big mouths full of swords, their grin being the last thing you will see.
  • Visitor soldiers and all their tech are nominally a level 2 encounter, but they can be brutal with that high AC and damage so I bumped them to level 3. Plus that loot salvage is good.

Exploring the maths

So, obviously I have a spreadsheet, which means I can examine this data set more intensely. One of my goals was to get a smoother group encounter XP amount from these tables, outside the flavour within. Lets rank this by average group experience then chart this, both in linear terms and log terms.



Overall the transition between levels is much smoother, but this may not hold at upper levels so much and in log terms relatively linear. Given the "doubling" growth of player experience this should fit well in play, given that I am testing it I will tell you how I go. Overall I am happy with this progression.

As a curiosity, here are some other fun facts.

Monster table stats

Monster Level 1
Monster Level 2
Monster Level 3
Hit Dice
⅕ to 1+2
1 to 2+1
2+1 to 5
AC Avg. (max)
2.9 (5)
3.2 (7)
4.5 (7)

Saturday 2 May 2020

Rogue Spider Ballista

Earlier on I introduced Rogues and hinted at something else. Rogues whose designs do not originate from mechanist foundries.

These new designs borrow elements of already existing automatons but combine them into new forms. They originate from within the hives, with the lack of creativity in them hinting at the Rogue Queens as the creators. The thought of machines creating machines makes the elimination of the rogue hives a priority for both human empires on the worldship.

Rogue spider ballista 


Rogue spider ballista incorporate ballista of similar design to the Clockwork Auto-stabilizing Light Ballista. They are then mounted upon three to six legs for mobility. The legs themselves are simplistic legs similar to the bugman scavenger Praetor automaton. 

Spider Balista exhibit scavenger behaviours. They swarm en-mass upon settlements and expeditions. Laying down heavy fire they work together to carry away as much construction material or automaton parts as possible.

Rogue Spider Ballista (medium construct)
% In Lair:
Dungeon Enc:
Wilderness Enc:
Treasure Type / XP:
None
Parade (1d8)
Parade (1d8)
None / 65
Hit Dice:
Armor Class:
Save:
Special Def.:
3*
2
F2
Immunities (automaton)
Movement:
Attacks:
Morale:
Special Off.: 
90’ (30’)
Light Ballista (6+/1d10, range 120', one round reload) or Kick (8+/1d3)
N/A
None

As constructs spider ballista are immune to the effects of disease and poison in addition to charm, sleep, and hold spells. 

There is a chance that a rogue can infect another automaton. For any rogue, there is a 1 in 6 chance it has the ability to infect when first encountered, though this can be adjusted by the judge. If this is the case it will initiate a non-damaging melee attack on the target automaton as its highest priority. If it succeeds the target must save vs death or become a rogue in 1d4 rounds. During this time the automaton acts normally, thought is aware of and fights the subversion, and will convert even if shut down. Once this attempt is made the rogue cannot infect another automaton for several days as it builds a new worm (3+1d6 days).

Rogue Spider Ballista: Unlike most rogue automatons the spider ballista is not of human origin. While drawing on common leg components and the upper ballista mount common to many designs the actual combination of these elements seems to originate from deep within the rogue hives. In combat they favour staying at range and shooting volleys of ballista bolts at their foes. With ample carrying capacity they are well suited to resource gathering and collection. When encountered they may not have their full capacity of bolts, the judge may roll 3d10 to determine their payload, using less dice if they are far from resupply.

When destroyed the chassis itself can be used as a sample to build a spider ballista automaton as presented below. Alternatively there are five units of mechanical materials that can be extracted for use in building other automatons (see the previous blog).

New automaton - Spider Ballista 


The spider ballista is a ranged support automaton capable of laying down heavy ballista fire. It’s design is simplistic in nature with four articulated legs and a swivel mount ballista launcher on top. They are best supported with a fire director who can guide them to attacking the desired target due to their simplistic clockwork brains. While they can perform a basic kick attack in melee combat it does minimal damage, equivalent to a punch attack. Its large carrying capacity of 45 stone gives it ample room for its ammunition.

It can be built by a 2nd level machinist at a +2 build penalty taking 18 day with a base construction cost of 11,000gp.

Spider Ballista
Hit dice: 3 (12 HP, save F2)
Armor class: 2
Move: 90’ (30’)
Weight: 90 st.
Carry: 45st. (no passengers, 30 ballista bolts taking up 5 stone)
Attacks: 1 light ballista bolt (1d10 damage, +2 to hit, ROF 1/2, range 120’, effective damage 6); Kick 1d3 damage.
Positive abilities (total): Automaton immunities *, Increased move (+30’) ##, Ranged attack (10’ multiplier) ##, (* ####) 
Negative abilities (total): Requires ammunition (light ballista bolts, 1lb/1gp count as an item) ####. (####) 
Cost (net abilities): 11,000 (*)