Age and Aging: There are several references to character age - spells and effect which can age you, ways to prolong lifespan, etc. - but I can’t seem to find any specified life spans for anyone other than the elf (under Monsters, “upwards of two centuries”). I can guess, obviously, though I wonder about the dwarves. I also don’t see any specific effects of old age; elves always appear in the prime of life, presumably humans and dwarves (and the various other humanoids) aren’t that lucky. With the scope of the game expanding to the level of empires and months-long or years-long construction efforts, the perils of old age seem particularly relevant.
ALEX: You’re right. I’ll add these in.
Crossbreeds: How many crossbreeds can you create at a time? I’m guessing one, since that’s how Necromancy seems to work, but it’s not specified. Once you’ve got a breeding pair (or if crossbreeds are dominant in crossbreed/progenitor offspring) you’re in business, yes? I’m seeing time as the primary obstacle to the crossbreed army (with taming/training a close second).
ALEX: 2 progenitors creates 1 crossbred creature. So you’d need to do it twice. I’ll add in some rules about how to make them reproduce.
Necromancy: Presumably, you can perform the ritual on yourself, killing yourself at the conclusion when you make the magical research throw. The appeal of the best-case 85% chance is probably dependent on the effects of aging as well. The existence of the lich type of undead is heavily implied (mention of phylacteries, the farmer paying taxes to the lich-king) but the details aren’t specified anywhere (presumably that’s one version of the successful self-necromancy rite).
ALEX: Absolutely you can perform the ritual on yourself. I was planning to include Lich in the Auran Empire Gazetteer.
The Perils of Burning Oil: Twenty level one mages stand around a wicker man. Each one lights a flask of oil and attempts to throw it at the wicker man. Chance of seeing at least one mage die of self-immolation: Slightly more than 62% due to fumbles.
ALEX: A fumble would only occur during the stress of a life-or-death combat. Were I GM, I wouldn’t even require a roll to hit a wicker man in normal circumstances. Do I need to make that explicit in the rules? I worry that in attempting to address every contigency I could transform ACKS into ACKS 3.5.
ALEX: Your economic analysis was fantastic! The sad answer is that I just hurriedly typed up something and didn’t consider it in the context of the larger rules. I appreciate your catching it and shame on me, as I am working hard to avoid doing exactly that sort of thing. I’ll make sure it gets fixed.
ALEX: Do keep in mind that monster parts are a precious commodity and therefore not always easy to sell, at least in large numbers. Having a willing buyer like a wizard, it might be worth taking a loss.
ALEX: Incidentally, the gp value of monster parts is NOT worth adventuring XP. Or, rather, they ARE worth adventuring XP, but you already got the XP - its called XP for killing monsters. I need to make this explicit.
question2: baby ogres. 60 young ogres make 1 load of monster parts. Are fractions of parts worth anything on the market? I put 5 ogre young at 25gp, is this right?
ALEX: Your calculation is correct, but not every monster has parts worth taking. Monsters that are worth something are generally worth their XP, but a monster might be hard to kill yet worthless for magic research. Or maybe its useable only in certain rare spells that people in the area don’t cast much. Etc.
I’ll add in some rules about how to make them reproduce.
Or mass produce - I’m thinking Saruman’s orc army and war on Rohan is very in keeping with ACKS rules. I’m wondering if crossbreeding (necromancy, construct-building) is something assistants can help with, like in item creation. Be nice to see those apprentices earning their keep.
I wouldn’t even require a roll to hit a wicker man in normal circumstances. Do I need to make that explicit in the rules?
Oh no, no. I was just amused by the math.
I haven’t decided to what extent I should focus my attention on extrapolating to the extremes, or if the sweet spot of play is going to be in the barony to kingdom range, and I can safely ignore the complexities that occur when the adventurer BECOMES the market/world.
There is a level of detail beyond which a self-balancing fluidity must be assumed. (Insert relevant section of Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid here.) The kingdom may have been lost for want of a nail, but no one wants to track all of the nails in the kingdom. Track the exciting stuff (The Demographics of Heroism is awesome, and I hope that breakdown is specifically included somewhere in the rules) and let the 0-levels flow.
Minor proofread:
P. 115
Collecting Revenue
“There are three sources of income: land revenue, service revenue, tax revenue, and scutage revenue. Each peasant family generates all three types of revenue.” Four sources are listed, not three. Also, “scutage revenue” is referred to afterward as “vassal revenue.”
Just finished reading the Mercantile Ventures section. The only thing that went through my mind was, “Wow. This is the FRPG version of Elite. I would play this on its own.”
Just one more quick note on Weapon Focus: The re-roll mechanic favors larger weapons. If my old math is right, an average rerolled d4 is 3.1 (+0.6), a d6 is ~4.5 (+1), a d8 is ~5.8 (+1.3), a d10 is ~7.2 (+1.7), a d12 is ~8.5 (+2).
Adding the possible double damage is trickier: I think that its the same value space, but you’ve added sum(1,N)… which is to say you’ve added (N+1)N/2N^2 to the average damage, which scales inversely with N, right? 0.5 + 1/2N?
So d4 average becomes 3.75 (+1.25), a d6 becomes~5 (+1.5), a d8 becomes ~6.4 (+1.9), a d10 becomes 7.7 (+2.2), a d12 becomes ~9 (+2.5).
So as of v17, 5% of the time you add ^that business^ to your damage with weapon focus.
Here is the new rule for Weapon Focus:
Weapon Focus: When using a favored type of weapon, the character is capable of devastating strikes. On an attack throw scoring a natural 20 when using his favored weapons, the character inflicts double normal damage. A character may take this proficiency multiple times, selecting an additional Weapon Focus each time. The available Weapon Focuses are: axes; maces, flails and hammers; swords and daggers; bows and crossbows; slings and thrown weapons; spears and polearms. Weapon Focus does not allow a character to use weapons not available to his class.