OOC Discussion

This thread is for all out-of-character discussion, including questions for the Judge (me).

Just chatting …

About troupe-style play – in the recruitment thread, I commented:

The key point is you will manage one character “on screen” at a time. Any “entourage” characters also present will be managed as NPCs, albeit favorably disposed NPCs.

In the beginning of the campaign, there may be more structure spotlighting different elements of the entourage, but longer term you, the players, will allocate the resources of your troupe to the tasks you choose.

With the “Iron Path” your Company has chosen, your Adventurers and Henchmen will be front and center from the start. Prepare for adventure as you would any ACKS game.

Over time, I hope to bring out other elements of the entourage, and, assuming the keep is secured, we can settle into more typical troupe-style, resource management play.

About magic items …

The Playing with Advanced Characters rules provide exchanges for possible or definite starting magic items (ACKS core p. 253). ACKS does not assume characters of a given level will have a certain number of magic items, but I think it would be odd if a party of eight 5th level characters had no magic items. Therefore, I am clarifying the following points.

I will evaluate the given exchanges in a less “swingy” manner. For example, “Trade 1,000gp for a 15% chance of two magic items of a random type” will result in two d100 rolls for a 15% chance of one magic item.

The percentage chance rolls will be public, but actual magic item random determination will be “behind the screen”.

You may use your one-time Company household bonus toward the given exchanges, to a maximum for all individual or Company exchanges of eight (one per Adventurer) of each exchange.

All starting magic item properties will be known to their owners.

Random scrolls will include the possibility of spells from the Player’s Companion. Arcane casters may begin with any scroll spells in their Repertoire and/or spell book.

Is the Auran Empire primer available anywhere for someone who wasn't a backer of SSoS?

So - question on outfitting the company.

I'll be horsed, as should my henchmen and leveled specialist. I expect to take a cavalry merc. We may end up needing a wagon or two.

Rations for humans are a stone per week, but I don't believe that includes water. (and the descriptions of rations from equipment and the statement from the wilderness adventuring don't necessarily jive)

The ever-handy Sakkara tells me a horse eats about 2 stone (20 lb) of hay per day. What about water?

Googling around tells me horses are drinking between 5-10 gallons of water per day.  Multiple pages on A+B's Clydesdales, the very model of a heavy horse, are drinking 30 gallons of water a day (and 40 lbs of hay plus other feed!) The guideline on feed is evidently 2% of their weight per day, hence the heavy horses eating more.

So, at any rate, I could use some guidance. I feel I'm pretty firm on food but not so much water - and if for gaming purposes we're in a climate that will provide enough water via foraging so that perhaps just a few emergency barrells would be required.

 

FWIW, I answered part of my own question - from this thread - http://autarch.co/forums/ask-autarchs/questions-regarding-rations - the Create Water spell implies it's 4 gallons for a horse per day.

Which may or may not indicate it's a multiple of 4 per size category.

Good question.

Elsewhere on the forum, Alex said “Mounts use 4 stone per day in supplies in the desert.” (He was referring to normal mounts like horses.) So, that is a worst case scenario.

You are not in a desert, however. The vicinity of Rorn you are in has a humid continental climate with warm, dry summers (with cool nights) and cold, snowy winters. The campaign begins in late spring, with cool, refreshing snowmelt filling nearby streams and rivers. Having barrels for water between water sources might be prudent, but water should be plentiful until summer.

No, the primer is not currently available elsewhere. It was a Kickstarter “Preview” draft. It will likely see some updates based on feedback to date before further distribution, and I’d guess that won’t happen until Lairs & Encounters is further along.

If you Google “Auran Empire” you’ll find a lot on the site here, including a map, and I can answer any specific questions you may have.

I thought I should add that details of the setting will emerge during play.

You don’t have to know the setting now except to the extent you might want to add background to your characters.

Ok.  I was looking around for info specific to the elves of Argolle, but not finding anything much.  If my background gets too far away from the setting, let me know.

I think Northern Argolle is the direct eastern neighborhood of Rorn.

On a similar note, I’m pretty sure Skyostan is much further away. Does cutting thru the Jutting mountains or passing thru the northern coastal kingdoms of the Auren sea seem to make more sense?

My unofficial view on the Argollëan elves is that among popular depictions of elves, they are most like Tolkien’s elves. Except where the elves of Middle-Earth were blessed with fantastic leadership in the likes of Galadriel and Elrond, the Argollëan elves have not been so fortunate. Another important difference is that Argollëan elves are not undying (http://www.autarch.co/blog/trouble-elves).

Argollëan elves have Gaelic names like Maon or Sorcha.

I’d say a Skysostan in Rorn most likely arrived via ship. Both overland journeys you mention are fraught with peril.

What are we doing regarding languages?  Is "common" just assumed to be whichever of the human languages is closest to your current location, here Rornish?  Are we using Alex's houserule that the lingustics proficiency can grab 4 geographically linked languages or the core rulebook's 1?  I had originally planned on a child-captured Jutland born interpretor but that can be changed to Rornish depending on what assumptions the campaign is using.  

OK.

For each horse we have with us, a week's feed costs 4 GP, and weighs 14 stone - horses eat 20 pounds a day by ACKS.  The weight is obviously more a problem than the cost. A wagon moving at 6m/day can carry 640 stone of hay - subtracting the feed needs of the horses pulling the wagon, a wagon of hay can support about 43 horses.

Horses can graze 1.5 lbs per hour, meaning an ACKS horse needs 14 hours of actual graze time per day. Every ~7 hours of graze time per week reduces the carry-weight of hay by 1 stone per horse, but that's unreliable.

Company-wise, we'll have to figure out how many horses there are in total and how long we're going for.

Charles, you'd given us some starting options - 

[quote="CharlesDM"] The game begins in Rorn. More specifically, you can begin:
1. In Caergwyncarreg valley
2. In the last settlement nearest Caergwyncarreg
3. In the last city nearest Caergwyncarreg
4. In the capital of Rorn [/quote]

 Would we perhaps be able to know what the distance to the keep from those starting positions would be without in-character rolls?

I'd have more questions about what is known or can be found out about the keep itself or it's environs, but I'd wager that starts intruding on real character interaction.

 

 

 

 

Has anyone looked at the overland movement rate of horses and how that might relate to the ability to graze? I understand the need for supplying an army or even a caravan of horses, but a small group? Surely a significant amount of that feed can be from grazing in favourable terrain, no? Maybe I only say this because I handwaved it for small groups in my own game...

In the aforementioned post by Alex, he also said “Note that historically, infantry and cavalry move at about the same rate across long distances in cases where the cavalry can’t forage from the land, because the weight of supplies for the cavalry ends up being so heavy.”

Which led me to think mixed horse and foot might need to separate, if the horses are to ride ahead and graze while the foot catch up.

It’s not clear to me yet how big your Company’s travel party may be. If smaller and mounted, yes, forage and water are likely easily obtained. As you approach military detachment size, supply becomes more important. And, at the moment you have a tiger and group of wolves to feed fresh meat to, which may suggest driving cattle (or pillaging your way across Rorn).

I’ll update your starting location options with travel distances. It may be this evening before I can do that.

“Common” is Auran Common in the Auran Empire campaign setting. Merchants and people in positions of authority in Rorn likely speak Auran Common. Peasants may know common words in Auran Common, but speak Rornish among themselves. Some folk of Rorn may know Elven, which derived from the same ancient language as Rornish.

My past campaigns used a 4 language rule, but I missed that Alex had such a rule. I’ll look into this, and update the first post in the character generation thread with a link to this campaign’s language rule.

Good thought.

Men (Brigand) move at 120' - 24 miles,,  horses at normal load move at 120/180/240 - 24/36/48.

Travel is assumed to be 8 hours per day, whatever the distance. Horses apparently only 'sleep' 3 hours per 24 hour period - so they've theoretically got 13 hours in which to graze.

That's be 19.5 pounds, and would basically equal their required intake for the day.

If the horses travelled ahead to get to the 24 mile mark first:

  Hours Travel Graze Hours Lbs Grazed
Light 4 17 25.5
Medium 5.3 15.7 23.55
Heavy 8 13 19.5

So...yeah. No biggie.

 

I'm planning on having all my people mounted on light or medium horses.  So I'll be adding 5.  We would theoretically have 40 horses/tigers if we all did this.  I'm not sure whether that takes us into division size or not.

60 is standard size for a cavalry unit, so it sounds like we're actually close, but I would think some of this is going to be wagons, not all individual horses.