I noticed that the text says 1000 coins are stone, but the table lists 100 as a stone.
Backstab - the charts for the Thief and Assassin lists x3 starting at 4th level, the description states 5th level. Which is correct?
Duskreign - The description, not the chart, is correct. It’s x3 at 5th level.
Valis - the text, not the table is correct. 1 stone is 1,000 coins
Charlatan - thanks, Combat Trickery has been fixed. The maneuver is called “Knock Down”
Undercrypt - There are no monsters in the ACKS core rules that use magic resistance, but several that appear in the Auran Empire campaign do use magic resistance, as do many monsters that GMs may wish to use from other campaigns.
The reason that we made 7th caster level the base level for magic resistance is that it’s half-way to 14th level. AD&D used 11th level, which was half-way to 20th level.
I’ll change the wording in Harpies to make it clear that they don’t have Magic Resistance per se.
Duskreign - We’ll add blackjack/sap. Good idea.
Charlatan - the ability to fight using a two-handed weapon would refer specifically to a spear, yes. Explorers can’t use swords, only shortswords, and shortswords can’t be used with two hands.
Tavis - 1d00 is just a typo for 1d100
Sean - Encounter Frequency for Woods is 5+
Charlatan - thanks for catching the error on the ships
The Hijinks have been fixed. The correct amounts are:
Assassinating: 300gp minimum
Carousing: 85gp minimum
Spying: 300gp
Stealing: 1/4 market value
Treasure Hunting: 200gp
The calculations are based on the fact that the average thief steals 2 loads worth 300gp each, or 600gp. From this he earns 150gp (1/4 the market value). The thief has a 20% chance of succeeding, making his estimated payout 30gp.
The same thief has a 10% chance of spying or assassinating, so the payment has to be 300gp to give him the same estimated payout. He has a 35% chance of carousing, so the payout only needs to be 85gp on that one.
There are a few lingering references to Read Magic - mostly the Helm of Comprehend Languages and Read Magic, the bit on Treasure Maps, and in Intelligent Swords.
The Restore Life and Limb spell refers to the Tampering with Mortality table. It says it can be found in section 6 and section 6 does not contain the table.
Under ‘Establishing a Stronghold’ it says ‘A stronghold of insufficient value will limit the population of the domain when attracting peasants and growing the domain’. There’s no follow up to that to explain how.
Under ‘Collecting Revenue’ it says ‘There are three sources of income: land revenue, service revenue, tax revenue, and scutage revenue. Each peasant family generates all three types of revenue’.
Could I suggest that’s changed to ‘There are four sources of income: land revenue, service revenue, tax revenue, and scutage revenue. Each peasant family generates the first three types of revenue while the last is only generated if the adventurer has a vassal domain.’ or something similar.
Under ‘Securing the Domain’, Elves and Dwarves must build exclusively in wilderness. Why is that? Can Elves and Dwarves not acquire domains within the borders of their own peoples?
Under ‘Establishing a Stronghold’ it says ‘the adventurer will need to hire at least one engineer per 100,000gp cost of the stronghold’. There’s no information in this section about how much an engineer costs, it’s 2 sections previously under the hireling rules. For ease of use and to stop flicking back and forth (something that many RPGs get lambasted for)it would make sense to include relevant information here, or at least a clear reference back to the hireling section.
Under ‘Attracting Peasants and Followers’ it says that the domain will ‘slowly become settled by the workers and their families’ and describes how they and other families become permanent residents. It does not explain the rate at which the peasants settle. Is it assumed to be the same as for Followers?
I’d like to add something of a suggestion from the “comprehensive edit” side of things.
For the “Creating a Character” steps, it lists the order in which a player should create a character. The steps that a player should take are not the order in which the book is laid out. Step 7 suggests going to the Encounters and Combat section (Section 6), although the new player may find the attack throws and saving throws listed in the preferred class to be sufficient. I point this one out, but it does not concern me as much. Steps 8 and 9 go out of order in the book, having the player go to the Proficiencies section (Section 3) before buying equipment (end of Section 2). If the player is an arcane spellcaster, then he has to jump over to the Spells section (Section 4) before attending equipment. This need to go through the book may confuse and intimidate new players. It would be easiest for new players to attend to character creation in the order of sections that the book is laid out in. [For what it’s worth, I checked Pathfinder’s character creation guide just to make sure I wasn’t barking up the wrong tree.]
I realize that it is desirable to keep the equipment at the back of section 2 rather than give it its own section, but I also understand that it’s better to pick out equipment after proficiencies because there are proficiencies that alter what equipment should be picked up (Martial Training, Swashbuckling, and such).
I have two humble suggestions. The first and smaller one is to list the requirement for checking spells as its separate step, probably between the current steps 9 and 10. The second suggestion is probably more tedious. I would suggest keeping the order of steps for choosing proficiencies between equipment. This makes sense. I think equipment could use its own section, but it’s a very small section on its own. I suggest moving or copying other rules that are related to equipment to this new equipment section. Encumbrance is one set of rules that comes to mind quickly since all this equipment is going to weigh the character down, and the player may want to know how fast he’s moving.
If this second suggestion sounds pleasing, I would be willing to try to create this new equipment section just to show how it might be all moved around and such, since I guess that’s something editors are supposed to do. Please let me know what you think. Thanks.
Duskreign’s Minion here.
I wholeheartedly agree with Veketshian. All equipment related items must be in the equipment section (or equivalent). This includes encumbrance, weapon ranges, special rules (oil as a weapon), and movement rates of mounts.
+1 on changing the order of character generation. As a test of efficacy, I would suggest asking a non-gamer to generate a character and note what questions they ask, how long it takes them, and the general level of comprehension at the end of the process.
As a general rule all of the information required to do a thing should be included in the thing’s section. In the section dealing with mercantile ventures including a summary chart listing travel rates on foot and mount, ration requirements, encumbrance limits for mounts and all applicable sea travel stuff would make the task less daunting, and ensure that nothing was missed. The acid test for “how much is enough?” is this: do the players feel the need to use or create an aid for this task? If so, is it for convenience or because they feel it is required for accuracy? If it is needed just to complete the task accurately then more information is needed.
I must stress that the majority of this can be accomplished simply by adding a summary chart with the relevant information. I am happy to do this, if requested.
Normal Men: This being the only type of retainer a level 1 character can hire, it might be nice to have a block somewhere of just what a “normal man” gets. I think it’s 3d6 for each stat, four general proficiencies modified by INT, 1d3 hp, attack and save as a 1st level fighter, but there was a lot of page-turning involved.
Encumbrance: As above. It would be handy to have either the encumbrance value of items on the equipment list (with most being at 1/6, heavy at 1, etc.) or a quick summary of the encumbrance rules from Section 5 somewhere nearer the character creation information.
Sunder: Normally a -6 penalty. Combat Trickery proficiency says “he suffers only a -2 penalty to his attack throw instead of the base -4 penalty.” So is Sunder reduced by Combat Trickery to a -2 penalty, even though it’s not the normal -4 penalty of the other special maneuvers? Or should Combat Trickery lessen the penalty of a special maneuver by 2? If it’s the former, changing the wording from “instead of the base -4 penalty” to “instead of the normal penalty” might remove the potential confusion.
Proficiency Lists: It would be handy if the class lists indicated which proficiencies were also on the general list. Maybe they could be italicized or something (I think the (G) marker used in the descriptions would be too much).
Charge states that you suffer a -2 to ac until the end of the round. This is actually beneficial if you go after all the bad guys. One could even delay to get the bonus of charging without the penalty. It seems to me that a more balanced rule would be to suffer the -2 penalty until your turn in initiative the following round.
Thanks for the great feedback. I fixed the “establishing stronghold,” “collecting revenue,” “sunder,” and “charge” text.
Still pondering changes to organizational structure. Loathe to create a separate equipment section.
I’ve been going through Section 7 (and still am, but I’m nearly there) and using track changes on the word document. There are far too many comments and questions for me to post them individually here. Can I send the annotated chapter to someone?