Freebooters on the Frontier 2e Discussion

#543

Ha ha, great stuff. Nerd-rationalizations like those are the best, and the ones you came up with point to ways I can improve consistency across the adventure. I should address the Onofroi Problem (how and why is he still there?) more explicitly.

The confrontation with Sciedevang sounds delightful. The skeleton doorbell is exactly in line with how I imagine him behaving.

Duration is mentioned only in the tag lexicon on the first Marketplace page. Its an abstraction of time, mostly used when tracking light sources. There will be a better explanation in the finished rules.

Point taken about Invoke. The idea was that, since the Cleric can spend favor before making any roll related to their deity’s domains, that they would have a decent resource pool to work with without their ability modifier in the mix. And it’s a purposeful distinction from Cast A Spell (which uses +INT) because while the magic-user is manipulating reality directly, the cleric has to ask a higher power to do so, and needs to regularly pray to maintain that relationship. Maybe that’s too subtle a distinction?

In any case, I’ll fold that into the things I need to consider. Thanks for the report.

What kinds of things did the cleric in your game ask for, and what did they get? This is the first Cleric of Donnavieve I’ve heard about, so I’m curious!

1 Like
#544

Ran 2nd session of Leget Manor funnel with my sons (3 characters each). We are playing 2 hour sessions.

If you recall, they went in via the Mire and the Frog’s Maw. Last session, they got beat up by the giant beetles. This time I reminded them that this was a funnel, and that it would be likely that at least one character would die.

They went straight to Grenwe-Nar’s temple. I had successive waves of monsters come - first were some bloodbirds, then some red slugs, some milk-spiders, and then some ghouls. My sense is that unless there are 8-10 or even more characters, the 1d8 or 1d8+1 qty of bad guys will tpk your party asap. I rolled 1d4 instead, and even then had 3 out of 6 characters die. These are funnel characters, so when they get to 0 hp, they are gone. One of the characters who died, my son was disappointed, as he really wanted to advance that dung carter… Oh well!

Otherwise, that Grenwe-Nar temple went well. I ruled that spinkling the holy water on the statue did damage as if it was undead flesh, in other words 1d8 per sprinkle and reducing the armor of the statue by 1 each time. Even so, they had to use all 5 “charges” of holy water; and even then had to bash the statue with the mace itself for the final blow… I didn’t have them roll the combat move, since the statue was right there. AND I wanted them to destroy the statue.

We ended with a couple of ghouls still left, who failed the Morale move (which I keep forgetting). I may just hand wave the resolution of that fight, as it’s not very interesting any more…

Next session, we’re going to start with rolling up 2 more characters per person (maybe 3 for the player who lost 2 PCs). I’m already planning to have one be in Dungeon Room 10 if they continue to explore the manor. Others may either be hiding out in the servants quarters or trapped in the jail cells - members of former groups who have entered the manor.

If they decide instead to go back to the village, then they’ll just be further villagers stepping up. Probably folks who have something bad happen to them by Sciedvang.

1 Like
#545

I love all the playbacks from Leget Manor.

Jason I was fleshing out some NPC for the Funnel we are doing, using Settlements and Citizens and then shifted to Beasts and Booty for the combat stats. I was just going to make a note that it would be handy to have that stuff in Settlements. Maybe with a bit more detail for human/humanoid characters and suggestions for their moves and less geared towards monsters. Like a random equipment table perhaps based on general type of profession. It would be nice to be able to tell if they are armed at least so that when it comes into play it doesn’t need to be decided on the fly.

2 Likes
#546

@janmartijnburger, I recently fleshed out the NPC section further to include combat stats. See here.

I haven’t yet added instructions for booty in that section, but the basic idea is that a given NPC carries what they would reasonably carry, and on top of that gets to roll on the booty tables. Since rolling on the booty tables can take a little time, a “quick booty” table for NPCs by occupation is a good idea – I’ll either include one in Settlements & Citizens or in a “random table” supplement of some kind.

3 Likes
#547

So @chrisshorb, would you recommend making the idol less difficult to destroy?

I’ve reworded the holy water sprinkler’s text to make it usable against any evil or undead “target” instead of “creature.” And it sounds like I should consider reducing the number of idol defenders.

#548

Well, on average, with a d8 holy water damage, that would be 4.5 per splash. At 20HP, that’s going to take all 5 splashes. HOWEVER, there’s nothing preventing the players from just bashing it with their weapons. I think the Idol is exactly perfectly challenging.

In my mind I had it that the final blow had to be either holy water or a blow from the sprinkler.
I might have even done it so if the players didn’t use a holy implement to sanctify the area that the idol would have begun to reform.

Yes to reducing idol defenders if someone is running as a funnel. If 1st or higher level characters, then those ##s are probably fine. Also, if the PCs have come via the rest of the manor, maybe they are beefed up a bit. But if they are coming from the Frog’s Maw and are villagers? They probably don’t have much…

1 Like
#549

If you save it as an .idml file some other page layout programs, such as Affinity Designer can open the files – linked images and font substitutions will always be a prob, of course.

1 Like
#550

@jasonlutes Hmm, maybe I just need to prompt the player to pray more often. We have a weekly game, but only play for about 2 hours, so we are often rushed. We just don’t think of it that often, unless the PCs are bedding down for a night or beginning a new day of adventure. Also, since we started at zero level, the “cleric” only had WIS mod of +1, so praying was somewhat risky! She failed at prayer once or twice…

You caught me. The cleric isn’t actually a devotee of “Donnavieve” but rather a nearly forgotten goddess of law (Folclinda), that fits well enough that I substituted it in the game. (Thought that was off-topic to go into last time.) She has asked to do things like: detect lies, produce light, bless the actions of her companions, determine the most judicious path while navigating a maze, reveal the presence of evil, etc.

1 Like
#551

RE: Leget Manor

Another suggestion: put the scale on all three maps for the manor.

If I’ve not said it before, I really like the bolded text in the room descriptions!

2 Likes
#552

Thanks, @Motive_Zine, I’ve been meaning to add the scale but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. And I’m glad you liked the approach to bolding. The idea is to highlight the most important descriptive stuff and actionable elements, but I still need to make a pass for consistency.

1 Like
#553

FotF2eAlmanacs
FotF2eAlmanacs2732×1620 2.3 MB

I am working on almanacs for my playtest campaign. Here is my first pass at coming up with the different borders I plan to use. I am working on a hex crawl environment: 1 hex = 6 miles.

This is my first pass at breaking down the map into almanacs. I was trying to draw lines based on similar ecology/natural boundaries and distance from “civilization” (the bottom right section, #1). FYI @jasonlutes you can see where I stuck Leget Manor in the corner of #1).

IF you see ANY issues or possible complications for this breakdown, I would love to hear them.

2 Likes
#554

You are on the right track with your notations. I have been thinking about how do to this better with my own writing. Ben Milton codifies a lot of this in his review of The Hole in the Oak, in case you have not seen this:

#555

Do you have a link to a description of each of your numbered areas? Even a list of them? Actually, I’ll take a stab at the end of this post.

For NW corner of section 3, you have one little corner of that forest. Why? I would expect that forest corner would be part of 6.

At the corner of 4 and 8, where the river joins/splits - why does it turn NE at that point? Are there mountains to the south, or perhaps hills?

Only other question - what differentiates 4, 5, 8 and 10??

1 - “Civilized” Lands
2 - Cliff’s Edge/World’s Edge
3 - Dead Foothills
4 - Land of the Ancients
5 - The Northern Reach
6 - The Forest Impassable
7 - The Forest not as Impassable and the Mountainous Source of the Unnamed River
8 - Grasslands of the Horse Clans
9 - Southern Desert
10 - Western Grasslands
11- Serious Mountains with some really cool stuff

I love this map though, thank you for sharing it with us. I am inspired…

1 Like
#556

@chrisshorb I love your feedback. The names are great. I will repost ASAP!

#557
  1. Ultima Terram “Final Land” - This is the utmost province of the empire, held by an imperial leget in Sembriem. This is the gateway to the great frontier of Terminos Magna.
  2. Umbra Petrae “Shadows of the Cliffs”
  3. Montibus Dolor “Hills of Sorrow”
  4. Antiqua Pratum “Plain of the Ancients" (THANKS @chrisshorb, stole yours)
  5. Plane Septemtrionis “ Northern Plain
  6. Silva Invia “The Forest Impassable”
  7. Magnam Silvam “Great Forest
  8. Centralis Campis “Central Plain”
  9. Solis Pratum “Prairie of the Sun”
  10. Usque Campis “The Far Plain"
  11. Alba Montes “White Mountains"
2 Likes
#558

I fixed the section of forest where 5&6 met that was “misappropriated.” Thanks!

I cannot figure out what the “it” refers to in what you said about 4&8 - I did clean that up a bit. The two tributaries join together and flow southward - it is a vagary of Hex Kit that no river section flows south except through the center of a hex, so I had to make it meander westward.

I guess I did not have to break up the plains as much as I did. I thought it would be more interesting to do so along geographic lines and try to imbue flavor as I go. I have considered carving off the forest area between 8 & 10 as a separate area…

IMG_0033
IMG_00331366×807 2.02 MB

#559

So, the river flows downhill from 7 along the eastern edge of 8, joins a north-flowing river from the south at a War-suit, and then heads west through 4, 3, 2 and finally falls via Finis Cataracta into 1.

I think it’s my northern hemisphere/american perspective that rivers always have to flow north to south. Dumb, as the neither the Amazon nor the Nile flow that way.

For me to square it in my head, all I have to say is off the map, to the south just a bit are some hills from which that north-flowing tributary comes. But honestly, in play, it won’t matter I don’t think…

#560

Ahh… So the the river flows from 1 to 2, not the other way around. It joins another flowing from the mountains in 7.

#561

Ahh, now that makes sense. because of the way the cliffs were shown, I though the civilized lands were lower than the Terminos Magna lands. But it’s the other way around. Got it.

#562

Looks cool to me, @Motive_Zine!

In my experience, breaking up really big areas into multiple almanacs helps to give each more character, but of course is more work. The main advantage to collecting all of those plains in one almanac would be to minimize prep. You could start that way, with one overarching plains almanac, and then write new ones as needed for each of the subsections.

How did you generate the terrain? Was the geography determined with player input, drawn up by you, or generated randomly somehow? Always curious about personal approaches to world generation.

1 Like