Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

I think the RoF solution for Rapid Strikes and the like would help. It would halve some of the die rolls during the worst sequences. It's not enough on its own.

The other, better idea is to give the Imbuements a duration, say 5 seconds, and let the character mix and match freely amongst the things he has up. That would make Power Blow a little more powerful, but I'm willing to cope with it I think.

We'll have to play around with it a bit more.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

Suggestion: Duration is MoS seconds, which gives plenty of incentive (and reward) for spending FP on the imbues? It might not be a good solution for everyone, but I don't mind building myself a little tool that'll track the durations of individual imbues.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

I think that could work, but it incentives die-rolling.

How about "if you the monk spends at least 1 FP to power the Imbuement, the effect lasts for MoS seconds to a maximum of 5". Knowing that your Power Blow will be on for the next 3-5 seconds is probably worth 1 FP.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

The initiative tracking plugin we're using on OpenRPG will track turns of duration on effects, actually. So that's one option that can help with either fixed or variable durations.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

Also keeping Power Blow in check is the fact that I'm either using bare hands (thr), or claw strikes (sw, capped at ST 18). Throwing things is usually small, though it occasionally gets me 5d - like with the shield I threw last session. The big worry is powering up with Power Blow and then hurling a bunch of axes, but I don't actually CARRY axes, and even when I toss one with Power Blow, it's mostly just hitting Mrugnak levels of damage sometimes sorta.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

Session 47 or so
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/...uded_Valley/13

This was a relatively short session, as we introduced a new player who had some technical difficulties, and all the Canadians were short on sleep and distracted. We only got through a few turns of combat, but the fight is certainly very tense and see-sawing back and forth.

The goblin assassin went down to multiple arrows from the archery team, and the ogre failed a HT check to avoid unconsciousness. So that pretty much went the delver's way. Sadly for them, the orc champion managed to get through Ayake's defenses and then Richard hit him with a spell-arrow, leaving the martial artist dying and on fire. Mrugnak managed to clear away the ogres on the inside without taking much damage, but the orc wizard got him with a Loyalty spell. Mrugnak's Blessing spell averted certain doom for the party, but at the cost of making Mrugnak go Berserk. Should be interesting to see how that plays out.

As it turns out, Compartmentalized Mind is very powerful for wizards. The ability to take full Move actions while Concentrating really enhanced the orc wizard's power. He could start 15 yards away from Mrugnak and close the distance while preparing the Loyalty spell. Very, very nice.

The only real rules question we had was whether a non-penetrating armor hit breaks someone out of a Daze. I ruled that it gave another resistance roll (at a penalty, even!) but given that the Orcs all have a fair amount of Magic Resistance, it was enough to reawaken the Orc champion. The delvers would have been well served to leave the Champion in the daze and go finish the rest of the fight.

There was also a discussion of an Inspiring Shout ability, which I spun off into this thread:
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=61451

The orc warlord used it on his champion, and it may have given him just enough of an edge to defeat Ayake.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

Session 48
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/...uded_Valley/14

Cid died in this game, but it wasn't the GM's fault. Yay me?

Basically, since Ayake wasn't likely to be returning to play during the session and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed running 6 unique opponents + some stock thugs, I let Ayake's player take over 2 of the ogres. One of the ogres ran at Berkun, who proceeded to run behind him and murder him (Heroic Archer is a scary powerful advantage!) The other ran at Cid, and proceeded to cut at his neck until Cid stopped getting up. Mostly because of a critical neck hit that did double damage and ended up decapitating the poor paladin.

That prompted a weird discussion after the game, with Cid's player wondering why I hadn't intervened on the critical. At first, I didn't quite understand the question, and then I realized there was a difference in playstyle. In the style of game I'm running, the dice fall where they may. The PCs have several tools to prevent bad things from happening (Luck, buying success with CPs) but sometimes luck runs out.

The rest of the fight was a swirling, back and forth melee. Several monsters died to lucky die rolls from the delvers, and several delvers inexplicably survived when monster damage rolls were pathetically low: he was hit several times by a 3d+4 attack that averaged less than 12 damage.

Two rules questions came up:

1) What exactly is the arc of coverage of a left handed shield?
2) Can a wizard with Compartmentalized Mind cast a melee spell and immediately attack with it? By the letter of the rules, he can't, but that seems to be a legacy from Magic 1st edition. We'll probably house rule it.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

1) Shields cover the Front hexes and the Side hex on which they are worn, left side hex in this case.
2) When reading the contingencies for both CM and Melee spells, I'd say that no, the Melee spell can only be delivered on the next turn onward.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

If shields cover the front and side hexes, that doesn't really answer the question.

Specifically, look at the diagram on p 388 of Basic and compare to p 74 of Basic. Someone standing 2 hexes away from you on the line of hexes parallel to your hex - basically in the hex south of the rightmost "2" in the diagram on p 388 is definitely in your front arc. If you have a reach 2 melee weapon, you can't attack him except with a wild swing because he is out of arc. If he attacks you with a ranged attack, can you use your shield to block it?

The consensus was "no" but I think the official rules are unclear.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

1) B.374 "If you have a ready shield, add its Defense Bonus (DB) ... against an attack that came from in front of you or from your shield side." - I'd interpret that to be a 180 deg arc that includes the front hex arc, "white" side hex arc, and "grey" side hex arc (with the -2, unless Peripheral Vision) but that does not include the back facing "black" hex face.

However, if the shield is used to block a front hex attack, I may not let any or all of its DB help with a "grey" hex face attack, depending on the timing and shield size (e.g., I've allowed a close archer to declare a "wait until opponent moves his shield to block then fire" maneuver to bypass DB for the "grey" hex facing).

2) From reading B.43, I'd say no, because Compartmentalized Mind allows two mental actions or one physical and one mental action at the same time, not one mental action faster. For faster mental actions, I'd say you would need an Altered Time Rate (B.38) varient.
-Dan