Adventurer Conqueror King or Diocletian Dungeons & Dragons

Autarch has launched a new kickstarter to fund the pubblication of an introductory adventure "The sinister stone of Sakkara".

This adventure is inspired to the old B2 module "The keep on the borderland" but with various twist (and obviously all new dungeons, wilderness and setting).

One of the most interesting things is that this adventure is the first publication by Autarch that begin to present the implied setting of the game, the Auran empire.

The Auran empire while only hinted in the game is a departure from your medieval fantasy of crusades and witches indeed the setting is firmly grounded in the late roman empire era and the years after the fall of the western empire, say from 250 to 750 CE (or if you prefer from 1000 to 1750 Ab Urbe condita).

The project is already funded but you can still jump in, what the kickstarter offer is also the possibility to take the full "Adventurer Conqueror King" package.

Why should you get in?

1) The adventure is really interesting and a good starting point for most campaing
2) The setting is very original and detailed, but in a "show and tell" way (statues, temples, banquets, snippets of philosophy and the like)
3) Autarch delivers top-notch quality games and products

What makes Adventurer Conqueror King different from other OSR tribute games and why Diocletian would have played ACKS instead of vanilla D&D?

One of the selling point of the ACK System is the coherence of the economic system, the system really helps you to model the economy of the setting so your character will have different things to do at high levels, indeed high level characters (notice that maximum level in this game is 14th level for humans and 8th to 13th level for non-humans) will have the possibility to run their realms be it a little barony or a sprawling empire.

The tables and rules for markets and price would have made Diocletian (one of the great emperors of the late roman empire a great militar and civil leader),  happy and simplified his Edict on Maximum Prices, this attention to detail is diffused in every aspect of the game to make it really robust and worthy.

Another product from Autarch tie this economic robustness into the art of war, in fact the Domains @ War will make possible to simulate skirmish or great battles but everything will tie seamlessy with the economic system of the standard game, and with the magical and special powers of characters.

So what I get in the two books that I don't have from other clones?

From the Adventurer Conqueror King System book
1) the mentioned economic and domain system
2) a different magical system
2.1) characters have a repertoire of spell from which can cast the usual number of daily spells
2.2) high level spells (7th, 8th and 9th for arcane, and 6th and 7th for divine) can be cast only as rituals
3) a proficiency system that helps to spice up characters without being overly cumbersome
4) a Death and Dismemberment table (here called Mortal Wounds Table), this means that when a character goes to 0 or lower hp is out of combat and as soon as someone help him with mundane or magical rule the exact fate of the character will be decided with a roll on this table (so the character can be saved but it will be wounded most of the time)
5) a Tampering with death table, if your character dies and than is brought back he can get traumathized
6) the usual character (but with interesting twists) like Fighter, Mage, Cleric and Thief (for example there is the reaper rule, if your character kill an enemy can immediately make another attack, and this can be done again and again for fighter up to their level add to this that fighter get +1 to damage each 3 level and against lesser foes they can be truly terrible)
7) campaign classes: Assasin, Bard, Bladedancer (a sort of unarmored cleric) and Explorer (non magical ranger)
8) demihuman classes: Dwarven Vaultguard (classical dwarf), Dwarven Craftpriest (dwarf priest), Elven Spellsword (classical elven fighter-mage), Elven Nightblade (assassin with magic spells)re
9) templates (this are ready to go adventurer with skills and gear)

no there is no halfling or hobbit or whatever

you also get information on how to run domains, monster and a lot of nice touch

From the Player's Companion book

1) A lot of new classes both for humans (Anti-Paladin, Barbarian, Mystic, Paladin, Priestess, Shaman, Venturer, Warlock, Witch) and non-humans (Dwarven Delver, Dwarven Fury, Dwarven machinist, Elven Courtier, Elven Enchanter, Elven Ranger, Gnomish Trickster, Nobiran Wonderworker, Thrassian Gladiator, Zaharan Ruinguard)
2) Character class templates
an expansion on the concept of templates with more template for the classes in the ACKS book
3) Custom class rules
a wonderful chapter that help to create classes in line with the ones presented
4) Spells
new spells but more interesting hyper detailed rules on spell research, labs and more
5) various rules and other miscellaneous tools for the Game Master

The Autarch web The Autarch home page and forums: www.autarch.co The Autarch on google+: ACK community The Autarch on facebook: www.facebook.com/AutarchCo The Autarch on twitter: twitter.com/_Autarch_

Conclusion
Get a great product, and if you don't know this game get a great game at discount from the various contributor levels, help Autarch to get in print something on the Auran setting!

Here a map of the Auran Empire, I love maps with a central sea like our Mediterranean sea

Morte & Mutilazione un nuovo significato ai Punti Ferita

E' dalla prima lettura di Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play nel lontano 1987 che ho voglia d'implementare l'idea che i Punti Ferita valgono fino a 0 e poi si tira su qualche tabella per stabilire le ferite vere e proprie. Purtroppo nelle tante sperimentazioni fatte in questi anni per un motivo o per l'altro ho sempre rimandato, se non usando le fin troppo complesse regole di ACKS (Adventurer Conqueror King System) un retroclone che riprende il sistema di regole basic/expert con alcune modifiche (sistema magico stregonesco tra le altre).

Di recente avevo cominciato a pensarci di nuovo e cercando in rete mi sono imbattuto nel blog Death & Dismemberement e mi sono rallegrato nel vedere che l'idea era stata già ampiamente trattata con tante considerazioni e varianti, in particolare per moltissime varianti un articolo dello stesso blog On Death & Dismemberment Tables. E non posso non citare la tabella elaborata dall'autore del blog The One Death & Dismemberment Table to Rule Them All (molto interessante e applicabile anche alla 5a edizione ma forse un po' troppo elaborata).

Questa ricchezza di contenuti mi ha aiutato a capire cosa volevo esattamente da una tabella di questo genere e che tipo di gioco, o filosofia di gioco, supporta questo tipo di tabella.

E sopratutto a confermare che è quello che voglio nel mio retro-clone (più di un eventuale punteggio di Ferite da affiancare ai Punti Ferita, per me Punti Danno).

Eliminare i Punti Ferita negativi e la morte automatica a 0PF o meno come in molti giochi OSR e invece tirare su una tabella di Morte e Mutilazione quando si arriva a 0 PF (e ogni volta che si subisce un colpo quando si è a 0 PF) serve a due scopi principali:
1) rendere meno binaria la condizione dei personaggi (in salute/morto), e quindi introducendo ferite permanenti e mutilazioni si dà maggior possibilità di sopravvivere ai personaggi senza per questo togliere pericolo ai combattimenti)
2) sottolineare la natura astratta dei Punti Ferita e anzi il loro essere sostanzialmente Punti Difesa (Adrenalina, resistenza, abilità mondana o magica, fortuna)

Questo comporta che i PD/PF si possono recuperare molto più velocemente rispetto allo standard delle prime edizioni. Può essere cioè accettabile un recupero completo dopo una notte di riposo, 1/8 del massimo dei PF dopo un riposo momentaneo (10' per recuperare il fiato), 1/4 del massimo degli PF dopo un riposo breve (1h di riposo), tutti i PF dopo un riposo lungo (1 notte di sonno, 8h). Questo se non si sono subite ferite, nel qual caso le cose si complicano.

Andiamo dunque a vedere la tabella di Morte e Mutilazione che intendiamo cominciare ad utilizzare, ci ispiriamo maggiormente alla tabella originale di Robert Fischer che modifichiamo nel dado usato (1d12 invece di 2d6) per ora restano gli effetti, inoltre si tira 1d12 per ogni 10 punti di danno o frazione subiti e si prende il risultato più basso:

Risultato d12	effetto
1	morte istantanea (decapitazione o altra ferita devastante ecc)
2	ferita fatale (sventrato, perforazione organo vitale ecc, morte in 1d12+3 rounds
3	amputazione di arto (gamba, braccio) morte in 2d12+4 rounds a meno di cura ferite serie o intervento chirurgico
4	costole rotte impossibile muoversi (1d12+10 settimane per guarire)
5	osso di arto frantumato (1d12+10 settimane per guarire) ma non guarirà mai del tutto salvo magia
6	amputazione mano/piede (morte in 3d12+6 rounds a meno di cura ferite gravi o intervento medico)
7	perdita di occhio/orecchio (sfigurato)
8	osso di arto rotto (1d12+8 settimane per guarire)
9	ferita moderata (cicatrice) 3d12 giorni per guarire
10	ferita leggere 2d12 giorni per guarire
11	svenuto
12	stordito

Si osservi che le magie curative accelerano la guarigione per ogni livello d'incantesimo al giorno si guarisce di quel numero di giorni (si considera livello più alto di magia curativa), Quando si sta in convalescenza per una ferita così grave non si possono recuperare hp oltre 1 e non si possono svolgere attività faticose. Quando si subiscono queste ferite così gravi si è in stato di shock e non si possono svolgere azioni se non con un tiro salvezza su costituzione (contro morte).

Invisible reflections and 2 new OSR spell

During the years I had lots of discussions on invisibility spells as presented in the AD&D 1st edition game (and also 2nd edition and by extension the OSRIC clone).

The first observation is that invisibility spells are of the Illusion/Phantasm type, where illusion magic create an image (usually with 3 dimensions) in the real world that can be seen by normal means (that is the image of a tree will be seen as a tree by all the onlookers) while Phantasm spell are hallucination in the mind of the spell victim.

My conclusion are that invisibility spells are to be considered of the Illusion type since they don't have area limits and the invisible creature will not be visible to everyone looking at him (less of "see the invisible", "true vision" and the like), even someone looking from far away with a crystal ball will not see the invisible character.

So it must be an illusion spell since it is just 2nd level and it cannot be so powerful to create a phantasm in the mind of everyone looking at the character location (this could be thousands of people if the character were walking on a tower in the middle of a siege). It must be a sort of hologram that give the character perfect blending with his surroundings.

There are many other ways to become invisible, like to be shifted out of reality maybe in some shadowy plane, like happened to Frodo when he donned the One Ring, or how it happens in Crypts and Things where invisibility shift the caster in The Shroud the plane of the "others" making invisibility a black magic spell and putting the sanity of the invisibility subject at risk (but I think this make the invisibility spell a little too much for a 2nd level spell).

But the usual 2nd level spell should just surround you in an illusion capable of cloaking yourself, by the way this means that throwing flour or chalk to the invisible character don't make him covered in flour (since what you pick up become invisible, as specified in many OSR games like the Basic Fantasy RPG) but help his enemy by making visible his footprints on the flour covered floor.

I'll end this article with two new "invisibility" spells:

Cloak of the chameleon

Arcane 
Illusion/Phantasm
Level: Mage 2nd, Illusionist 1st

Range: Touch

Duration: 10'/level
Area of effect: One Creature

Components: V, S, M (a bit of powdered chameleon skin)

Casting time: 3 segments

Saving Throw: None

This spell make the subject totally invisible if he stay still, if he move, attacks or cast spells he become visible again but the spell is not broken. If the subject of the spell becomes still again - and the spell is still in effect - it will turn invisible after 2 rounds.

Faerie Tapestry

Arcane 
Illusion/Phantasm
Level: Mage 4th, Illusionist 3rd

Range: Touch

Duration: 10'/level
Area of effect: A square area with sides of (100' + (10' * Caster Level))

Components: V, S, M (a small tapestry woven by faeries worth around 100gp)

Casting time: 10'

Saving Throw: None

This spell affects an area, when the spell is cast the caster will designate who will become invisible by the spell beyond himself (up to 1 humanoid * caster level, this number must include the caster). All the subject of this spell, until the end of the spell, when are in the spell area and take an invisible stance (don't make attacks, cast spells, speak to who cannot see them) are invisible except to the other subject of this spell. If they break the invisible stance they can become again invisible if the hide from view (going behind a wall or a tree). Notice that multiple casting of this spell from different casters or on different group of people makes for a very fun and confusing situation.

Note: this is the english version of a the Riflessi Invisibili blogpost