Veketshian, while we may have a dedicated editor at some later point in the process, right now your assistance would be invaluable! We are drawing near to the point where we’ll send the pre-release edition we’ll have at Gen Con to the printer, so your catching mistakes and infelicities will have an immediate effect on improving that version.
I’m happy to send along a modified Word document with the errors I’ve found highlighted. I’ve got no formal editing training, but did some proofreading & errata compiling for the (sort of) recent re-release of the old-school British fantasy RPG Dragon Warriors.
In the description of the thief class, there are references to doubling, tripling, and quadrupling “the normal damage” of a backstab. I have a few questions about this:
- Do you multiply the number of dice rolled, or do you multiply the number rolled on a single die (or whatever number of dice the weapon uses)? In other words, if a 5th level thief attacks with a weapon that does 1d6 damage, does the backstab inflict 1d6x3, or 3d6?
- Are Strength bonuses or magical item bonuses added before or after the multiplication?
- With which weapons may a thief backstab? Do they have to be in melee range? (In other words, could a thief “backstab” with a club? What about a bow? A thrown dagger?)
I know many of us will already have our own answers to these questions that we’ve brought with us from other games, but I’d like to know the authors’ intent.
Hope this answers the backstab question.
Adventure Conqueror King system version 16
page 96
“DOUBLE DAMAGE
Whenever damage is doubled (from backstabbing or charging, for instance), multiply the standard damage roll by two. Bonuses to the damage roll, such as from magic or strength adjustments, are not doubled.”
Whether that means roll 2d6 or (1d6)x2 I am unsure of, but I would favor 2d6.
I also assume from the existence of the sniping proficiency that a normal backstab will be with a melee weapon.
(1d6)X2 would definitely be more ‘swingy’, makinng the backstab a bit more of a gamble for the thief. Making it 2d6 would make it a pretty dependable 6-8 points of damage most of the time, so the thief would have good motivation to always backstab if possible.
Artus beat me to the punch!
Backstab is a melee weapon. Bonuses to the damage roll are not doubled. You need Sniping proficiency to use a ranged weapon.
We personally played with 1d6 doubling to 2d6, rather than 1d6 doubling to 1d6x2. I can make this more clear in the rules.
Ah, so this is partially an issue of me not getting to the part of the rules where it’s explained.
I agree that doubling the dice rolled, rather than the number rolled on the dice, probably works better. I do like swingy mechanics, but that would probably discourage the use of the backstab ability.
blizak has my email already I reckon but anyone who wants to send a modified/edited Word file can mail it to tavis.allison@gmail.com!