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My game group is giving Spellbound Kingdoms a shot. We have really enjoyed our play test and appreciate the work on the revised version of the rules. I was hoping to get an official ruling on a couple questions that came up. They are less questions in themselves and more to get a gauge of how much “common sense” we should apply to the rules. (As we’ve gotten older we’ve become much more rules focused and doubly so at the start of a new system. We want to have a good hold on both the letter and the spirit of the Law before we start to deviate.)
1. Free Sword requires Armor. No Armor no Free Sword right? (The character so trained is using his armor as an integral part of his tricks and moves. So NOTHING from the chart. No Feint. No Warriors Strike. That character can use the basic maneuvers (strike or defend.) if he wants to fight but wasn’t wearing armor. (That is what we assumed.)
2. Black Powder Musketeer requires a pistol. No Slashing or Thrust and Feinting without a pistol? (That seemed a bit more iffy.) A very literal interpretation of the rules would say you can’t Plume and Blade without a pistol, but you could without a hat. Presumably the spirit of the rules would allow cloak and blade or glass of wine and blade, but not require the pistol.
3. Can a Black Powder Musketeer Just Run, Dodge, Jape or Jeer without loading? That is Load and Jape without Loading? (I found one example in the book and one example in the forums that seemed to go each way on this question.)
4. For those folks using Five Seasons, what’s the quality of their hands? Our best guess was 1, and that’s your penalty for trying to punch people in armor, but was that the plan?
Like I said, we’re experienced role players, we could make the call. What we’re looking for is what call the designer would make. What’s the spirit and what’s the letter and where on that continuum would you draw the line. Plus the hand thing…we were just guessing there.
Thanks again for designing a cool, interesting, thought producing game with such a fun combat system.
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Now, I've never thought of BP Musketeer like that before. Seems logical to allow Slash and Thrust and Feint if you don't have a firearm, I'd be ok with it. Same for loading actions, I take almost every aspect of maneuvers as optional. After all, most of the time something is not optional, the gloss states it (usually required Movement). The system also relies a lot on good sense, which is ok by me, at least we haven't had any trouble with yet.
Since we're at it, I would like to ask a question of my own, about disarming. It's stated under Words have Power that usually there's a status effect under Maneuvers with words such as trip and others alike (like, you don't have to waste an action to stand up, you character does it on his own, you just rebalance). Problem is, disarming never gets a status effect. Instead, somewhere it's said that you need a trick to pick up downed weapons and items. Based on that, I believe disarming maneuvers seem to be quite powerful ones. Unless you have a spare weapon to be unsheathed immediately, you'll need a turn to pick it up, risking being disarmed AGAIN.
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Carlin is right for BP musketeer(imho). Spellbound relies a lot on good sense. Can be a flaw or can be a merit. I think that Quinn is right about Five seasons. Quality 1 is a good bet IMHO
Your question about disarming is interesting. Disarm is powerful but i think that a good fencer has a spare weapon. it's realistic and can give players a good reason to have a second weapon. I think that a group must use a grain of salt. A second weapon is good. 3 swords, 2 greatswords, an hammer and 5 muskets not :)
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Another option is to use a enviroment trick. You can use it to rebalance the enemy and next round grab the weapon( the enemy can't use to disarm because he must choice a balancing maneuver) or to give penalties and to reduce the attack die that enemy next round can use to disarm
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Any other thoughts on my balance question out there? I hope I didn't dissuade anyone from answering by asking for what the designer would have said. I didn't think Frank's answer would be the only word, I just wanted to go from the rules as written as much as possible. (Which isn't to say I'm not curious what Frank has to say...)
Thanks Carlin, and I think I'd agree. Where things got sticky was that the only answer I could find of things being optional was what it says about movement. If there was another two part action where the rules said it was okay to just do one of them, that would go a long way to solving that question.
vodacce, thanks as well. Common sense is where we got a little stuck. It seemed like common sense to one of the players that free sword would still give some access to the combat sheet even without armor. The group went with the rules as written. Then we had the various Black Powder arguments with lots of common sense ideas that didn't seem to match up, and some confusion when the rules as written were applied. One player saying, Feint is obviously something you do with a sword, another pointing out that the sheets say the Musketeer is a gunman using his pistols like swords...or something like that, in the flavor text, so the feint was obviously with the pistol...so you needed a pistol to do it.
Anyway. I'd love to get some more group feedback on how the rules as written and implied might come down on these three questions of degree.
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Rank: Newbie
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Rank: Newbie
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There I was worrying nobody could answer my question and Trung jumps in with an answer.
:)
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Quinn wrote:There I was worrying nobody could answer my question and Trung jumps in with an answer.
:)
I'm sure that trung give you a wonderful answer but i don't know vietnamite language :) Reading the rules as a written if you don't have the requisites you can't use the school. You don't have a pistol and a sword, you can't use crimson blade school for example. It's a bit harsh and can be a little illogical but if your group has arguments about maneuvres, i think that you must use a general rule and use it for ever. 1) you don't have requisites, you can't use a school or2) GM fiat for every maneuver using the spirit of the rules using the wiking Hat. Only Brunner can give a true answer about rules. I can give only my experience. In my group I have a player with black powder musketeer school but she has a pistol in every combat and we haven't arguments. I'm sorry i can't give more help to you.
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