Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: Hobgoblin on December 31, 2017, 01:05:02 PM
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I bought the PDF of Sellswords and Spellslingers yesterday, and have been playing through the first scenario with the kids this morning (temporarily interrupted for FaceTime with grandparents).
So far, it's been a blast. It's a cooperative (or solo) game, so each player controls a few characters (two or three, typically). The characters are built on points, so we've got two dwarfs (one with a bow, the other heavily tooled up with armour and axe), three lizardmen (one with a bow) and two mouslings (a samurai and an assassin), respectively.
The monsters - orcs and a troll in the first scenario - are activated by cards drawn from a special deck. The system has a bit of Song of Blades and a bit of Rogue Stars; it uses D20s and difficulty levels, but has the familiar SoBH one to three activations. If you fail an activation, you draw a card, which makes something - usually negative - happen. For example, one monster might activate, or they all might, or new monsters might appear - either from the table edge or from "spawning points" (bushes, under rocks, caverns, whatever).
The first scenario involves having to get off the table; so far, only one PC has escaped, with the others being repeatedly ambushed by orcs and slowed down by their own greed. You can search bodies for treasure, which you use to buy equipment in campaigns, and you can acquire XP to improve your characters. So there's a lot of decision-making built in: use activations to gather loot or look to the main goals first.
What's particularly nice about the campaign aspect is that it requires no forethought: already, our characters have acquired a lot of loot from fallen orcs, which they'll be keen to spend before the next scenario. That means that there's a great RPGish element built in.
Combat is very fast-moving: you either wound or get wounded, so unless armour or shields save you, there's very little stasis. The AI system is neat and simple: monsters do the obvious thing (from their perspective): seizing higher ground, shooting at nearby targets or charging. And there's a nice "horde" feature, whereby low-level monsters form gangs that act as a single, more powerful foe in combat. I can see a lot of potential for using multi-based figures as hordes (to start with), for ease of movement.
The scenarios look interesting, and there's plenty of scope to use a vast amount of the average fantasy miniature collection in an afternoon, through playing successive scenarios. The book included ten scenarios, but designing more looks very easy - and you could use the monster cards included to create randomly generated opponents. A dungeon-crawling supplement would seem the logical next step ...
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Nice summary, thanks for that :)
Bought the rules yesterday myself but hadn't had the time to read them, but will do so soonish.
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I'm really looking forward to trying out this game in the new year. I bought it before christmas, but haven't been home since so I haven't been able to either test it or start painting characters.
From my read through and your words and pictures, it looks excellent though.
It's got me thinking of all sorts of characters I want to paint up, and has a lot of inspiration for hobby projects (terrain, baddies, scenarios).
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Well, we played our game to its climax and very much enjoyed it. The continuously spawning monsters makes for a tense game: we ended with both the canny mouslings escaping off the table, one lizardman survivor and two dead dwarfs. That made it two survivors out of seven starting PCs.
A particularly nice (nasty!) touch is that wounded characters are often able to move only slowly, leaving them vulnerable to fresh foes. We tried to operate a "leave no man (dwarf, reptile ...) behind" policy, but had to abandon it as the orcs came swarming after the walking wounded.
It's got me thinking of all sorts of characters I want to paint up, and has a lot of inspiration for hobby projects (terrain, baddies, scenarios).
Likewise! I've just dug out some old dwarfs that I started painting three years ago. This is the perfect cue to get them finished. And various 28mm adventurers that have been kicking around for a while will come to the front of the queue now.
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Ditto thanks for the summary, I've been curious about this for a while but I'm waiting until it's available in print to buy it. I don't get lots of gaming time (out of the house that is!) so a good solo game is much wanted
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That's the kind f review that makes me buy things. :)
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Thanks for that, Hobgoblin. As always, the miniatures look wonderful.
At the risk of being a bore, I have the same questions for you that I had for Anatoli:
1. Would the rules adapt to a Tolkien setting easily?
2. Would they suit a high fantasy setting with over-powered heroes?
3. Does it play well solo?
Additional questions:
4. Does it suit a campaign?
5. If so, can characters progress?
Cheers.
Happy New Year.
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Thanks for that, Hobgoblin. As always, the miniatures look wonderful.
At the risk of being a bore, I have the same questions for you that I had for Anatoli:
1. Would the rules adapt to a Tolkien setting easily?
2. Would they suit a high fantasy setting with over-powered heroes?
3. Does it play well solo?
1. Yes - it would certainly handle all Tolkien's baddies fine. And the tone is certainly heroic: we must have left around 50 dead orcs behind us today.
2. Yes - "minion" monsters are generally dispatched in a single blow, and heroes have several "lives" and the possibility of recovery if downed. A PC death is a significant event.
3 Yes, at least as far as I can tell. The AI is pretty tight and is the same whether there is one player or six.
Additional questions:
4. Does it suit a campaign?
5. If so, can characters progress?
4. Yes - indeed, the campaign approach is heavily baked in to the system. If you play the successive scenarios out of the book with the same party, you'll get a thoroughly satisfying campaign, I reckon
5. Yes - that's at the heart of the system. Your initial PCs are built with a number of XP and gain XP with each scenario they "win" and/or goal they achieve. So they can add abilities and equipment before each game. The increases in power can be quite significant. For example, a fighter with two levels of sword, bow and armour would cost around half the points of a typical player's starting hand, but could go up to five levels in each of those before adding lots of other skills - from pickpocketing to using a shield to magic.
Happy New Year.
And to you!
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Thanks Hobgoblin.
You are a true gentleman. Always quick with your replies. It is much appreciated, especially as I now see you answered all that in your initial post :?
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Nice review. :-*
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Thank you so much. I hadn’t heard of this set though I’m pretty much a Ganesha fanboy.
Now I’m pretty much hooked and will definitely go to buy it, but first I’d like to ask a couple of questions:
1. Is there the possibility to create your own monsters? I’d love to use it for Conan and Greek Mythology.
2. how well does it combine with the Song of ... series?
3. Does it feature a „point“-system or how do you create heroes?
A happy New Year to you all and thanks in advance for answering,
Florian
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1. Is there the possibility to create your own monsters? I’d love to use it for Conan and Greek Mythology.
It looks easy enough. The only explicitly Greek monster in the starting set of monster cards is the minotaur, but it would be simple to "re-skin" existing monsters or just design your own. Monsters are determined by the scenario, not points, and are largely represented by a single number ("danger level"), along with hit points, damage and other bolt-on attributes. So you could easily make a hydra, for example, with a high DL, lots of hit points, the plague trait from the ratmen profile (for poison) and the troll's regeneration ability for extra heads. Or, perhaps better still, you could have a reasonably low DL to start with, along with lots of hit points, and then increase the DL every time the monster takes damage.
The spawning mechanism would be great for warriors sown from the dragon's teeth. Centaurs could be adapted from the mounted Black Knight profile, and the bear profile gives you a good starting point for lions and bears. There's a giant profile already.
For Conan, there are a few different types of human adversary in the monster cards, along with a demon profile and a couple of sorcerer types. And of course orcs and hobgoblin profiles could be used for other human(oid) types.
2. how well does it combine with the Song of ... series?
It's quite different, apart from the activation system for PCs and some of the traits. There's more detail for the PCs, though. It would make a good alternative to Tales of Blades and Heroes, I think, as the character advancement is more nuanced or "granular".
3. Does it feature a „point“-system or how do you create heroes?
Yes, there's a point system - XP. Each player typically has 60XP to build one or more starting PCs. These are constrained in level, but can advance by acquiring more XP in each scenario. If they survive the opening scenario we played yesterday, most PCs will have 4 to 6 more XP to improve or add abilities. Because of the D20 system, you can add up to five levels in each skill. And there are lots of other traits you can amass.
A happy New Year to you all and thanks in advance for answering,
Florian
And to you!
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Thanks. Just checked Wargamesvault, and I haven’t found it there, yet. It’s on the Ganesha site, but I’m a bit hesitant to buy it there due to their 5 downloads per purchase-rule.
From the preview it looks like the game is very much suitable for (A)D&D and Warhammer - which is pretty good!
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Thanks for the review. Sounds perfect for the various Deep Cuts minis I've been picking up. Just bought it now; looking forward to the read through.
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Thanks. Just checked Wargamesvault, and I haven’t found it there, yet. It’s on the Ganesha site, but I’m a bit hesitant to buy it there due to their 5 downloads per purchase-rule.
I think you get more than that: I just checked, and my Ganesha account shows 14 remaining downloads for S&S.
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Bought the rules. They read reasonably well an the mechanics look good. Now for a test drive......
And, yes. You get 15 downloads.
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I think you get more than that: I just checked, and my Ganesha account shows 14 remaining downloads for S&S.
15 downloads? That must be something new.
I had originally bought my first couple of SOBH pdfs directly at Ganesha. They sold me 5 (five) downloads, which was reasonable back then, but not today, when I want to have the rules on my phone, my laptop, the old desktop I still own, and my pad etc. 5 is very...tight.
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Just played a couple of solo games of this. The first game was fun, but the PCs made no progress through making a number of rules mistakes. Replying the game with perhaps only getting one or two things wrong went much better.
I still don't quite get how single (not hoard/minion models) NPCs get activated.
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I still don't quite get how single (not hoard/minion models) NPCs get activated.
They activate through the Monster Frenzy and Monster Activates cards - so just as often as hordes (there are three Horde Activates and three Monster Activates cards in the deck).
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On Monster Activates it implies that the nearest monster can be part of a horde. Is this only the case if there isn't a single monster?
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No, it's the nearest monster (whether or not it's in a horde). So, if you have six goblins within 4" and a troll 7" away, one of the goblins will charge you (or shoot at you). if you draw Horde Activates, all the goblins charge you. Basically, hordes are temporary formations. But if it's the troll that's 4" away and the goblins 7", the troll charges.
In our games, the individual monsters are moving just as much as the hordes. I think, in part, that's because they tend to have more staying power. We certainly have had a lot of occasions when all the minions are dead, but the loners are still going.
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Thanks for the report and the discussion - this looks exactly like what I am looking for...
I'll wait for the print version though - do you know if it will include cards?
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I don't know - I did see that you can get printed cards from DriveThruCards (I think!) already. The PDF does include a very handy two-sided quick-reference sheet.
We played a four-player game yesterday (the same scenario again, because we were pushed for time); it was as tense as the first, with only three out of 10 PCs making it off the board - although that's partially because we forgot the armour saves for a couple of them.
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The print version went live on Lulu this evening. You can get it Freepost with the code
SHIPIT2018
If you order before tomorrow night
I ordered it earlier. Doesn't include the cards though, you have to download those from Ganesha
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That's the kind f review that makes me buy things. :)
Indeed, I bought and printed the game purely on the strength of this thread.
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Just ordered the print version - looking forward to having a game, I'll certainly post an AAR on my blog.
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Guys thank you for the kind words and the business.
Re:number of downloads is unlimited, lifetime if you buy from my site and lose the file I will send it to you. The “15 downloads” is mostly a server space/bandwidth cost thing. If you run out of downloads just contact me on Facebook (andrea Sfiligoi or Ganesha games or on the song of blades Facebook group) or by email at andreasfiligoiATgmailDOTcom and I ‘ll reinstate your downloads
Print version does not include the cards because that would send the print on demand cost through the roof but there is a free download of cards on ganeshames.net and I am trying to make them available asap on drivethrucards (the process is not as simple as it should).
Probably next week I will release a scenario pack with a new scenario and 20+ new cards
Including rules for vampires and chaos mutations
Thanks!
Andrea
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I have tried another game, this time getting more of the rules right and not forgetting as many of the PC traits.
I made my own scenario, which went OK, but the initial goal turned out to be to easy, and getting out again (I had no planned end of game other than getting off the board) was too hard.
Despite only being a solo player I ran two groups of PCs. Two heroes with a sidekick and one sorceress with a couple of guards.
The goal was to kill the enemy mage who was trying to make his esxcape down a valley.
(https://image.ibb.co/k5J3Bb/20180107_154240_resized.jpg)
Fireballs destroyed most of the mage's guard.
(https://preview.ibb.co/gTn8cG/20180107_154401_resized.jpg) (https://ibb.co/bBRejw)
The slings and arrows (and magic missiles) of outrageous fortune bring the poor evil mage's flight to an end
(https://preview.ibb.co/ebUMxG/20180107_154442_resized.jpg) (https://ibb.co/d6cVrb)
But the evil empire strikes back. Revenge! Not even pneumatic breasts can save the sorcerer from a pointy stick.
(https://preview.ibb.co/jVMqrb/20180107_142843_resized.jpg) (https://ibb.co/c3pzjw)
And to make matters worse, the denizens of the forest have been roused!
A giant wolf fills in for the bear.
(https://image.ibb.co/hNQuHG/20180107_144402_resized.jpg)
And with difficulty is slain. But those pesky friends of the mage keep coming, and coming, and coming............
(https://image.ibb.co/eKYgxG/20180107_144656_resized.jpg)
Spiders have caught the elven archer in a web (reminder, make some webs). Spiders are my own "creation" toning down the monster in one of the supplied scenarios.
(https://image.ibb.co/mPT3Bb/20180107_140936_resized.jpg)
An orc brute (or small troll)....
(https://image.ibb.co/nvZocG/20180107_142855_resized.jpg)
Even a cold drake (ignore the flames) gets in on the act (another creature of my own).
(https://image.ibb.co/d2XKjw/20180107_154554_resized.jpg)
I found out several things.
1. Fireballs, although they only do 1 damage are extremely effective against a horde of 1 hit point monsters.
2. Shields are an absolute life saver.
3. Protect the wizard!
4. It is hard to move your wounded coleagues off the table while monsters keep spawning.
5. Make sure there is an actual end to the scenario.
Apologies for the photos taken on my phone.
Since the unpleasantness with Photobucket I haven't got around to getting a photoshop or similar product for my camera.
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Hi, thanks for drawing my attention to this. One question:does it fratture the classic Sfiligoi's approaches to character definition, i.e. few characteristics and a lot of traits? Thanks.
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Hi, thanks for drawing my attention to this. One question:does it fratture the classic Sfiligoi's approaches to character definition, i.e. few characteristics and a lot of traits? Thanks.
It's more like Rogue Stars than SoBH, in that there are no characteristics (apart from hit points), and traits are simply modifiers. So, a PC might be something like "HP: 3, Archery: +2, Sword: +1, Armour: +1, Charisma: +2".
In that way, it's closer to D&D than SoBH - though much simpler than the former.
Each character gets a character sheet; we found that we didn't need to refer to these for the modifiers during the game, but instead used them to record HP and - importantly! - loot.
We haven't been referring to the rulebook at all during games, other than to check scenario set-up. It's all pretty straightforward. There's a QRS that has the all charts and situational modifiers (higher ground, prone foe, etc.) and the recovery chart for out-of-action PCs.
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It's more like Rogue Stars than SoBH, in that there are no characteristics (apart from hit points), and traits are simply modifiers. So, a PC might be something like "HP: 3, Archery: +2, Sword: +1, Armour: +1, Charisma: +2".
Well, I wish Rogue Stars was like that. The PCs have just a lot of descriptive traits, which is making book keeping hard and barely manageable, as I experienced. What you describe makes much much much more sense! Thank you!
Alessandro
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Guys, we've been playing s&s lately, under your advice, and it was a total blast. Little to no book keeping, fast action, balanced missions: good old skool fantasy with a modern engine. Our party has got some new ability and gear, and is looking forward to step into future missions!
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Guys, we've been playing s&s lately, under your advice, and it was a total blast. Little to no book keeping, fast action, balanced missions: good old skool fantasy with a modern engine. Our party has got some new ability and gear, and is looking forward to step into future missions!
Glad to hear that it's going well! It really is one of those "learn the game and leave the rulebook behind" games (though surviving adventurers go back to the book to upgrade themselves).
One thing I really like about it is how quickly the table can fill up with monsters. I'm planning a "megadungeon" as a setting for various games (RPGs and wargames), and I think this aspect will be great with S&S. So, rather than "kill the monsters and take their stuff", goals will be things like "pass through the Great Hall to reach the Sunken Chapel and retrieve the Sceptre of Absolution" - with avoiding monsters as much of a goal as killing them. I'm very much reminded of Moria, and how the Fellowship want to get through it without attracting the attention of its orcish inhabitants ...
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I was planning a dungeon setting too. Do you think major tweaks would be need ed to use s&s in that setting?
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I think you could get away with the rules as written if you just laid out the dungeon, marked "spawning points" and gave the players appropriate goals.
I am planning a few tweaks, though, the main one being some sort of system to allow for exploration without cards. I'll GM the game and only lay the room tiles down as the players enter the rooms. Starting monsters will be preplanned and will trigger the use of cards, but before that, I'd probably use a non-combat mode where there's only a certain chance (1 in 6?) of wandering monsters - which would then trigger the drawing of cards - so that when you get one wandering monster, you're likely to get more ...
I'd also do what we've often done for SoBH games and pre-determine groups of wandering monsters. So, one level might have a table like this:
1. goblin warriors (1D6)
2. goblin archers (1D6)
3. orc warriors (1D6)
4. orc archers (1D6)
5. orc brute
6. troll
I'd (secretly) lay out batches of miniatures for each number, in sixes where appropriate. So there might be 12 or 18 or 24 goblin warriors. I'd have 1D6 arrive, and then use any reinforcements/they're behind you/wandering monster cards from the same group of six until that six is used up. So, if a player's action causes four goblins to arrive, a subsequent wandering-monster card will lead to one or two of the remaining members of that patrol arriving (stragglers!). A wandering monster drawn after that would be re-rolled.
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I think you could get away with the rules as written if you just laid out the dungeon, marked "spawning points" and gave the players appropriate goals.
I am planning a few tweaks, though, the main one being some sort of system to allow for exploration without cards. I'll GM the game and only lay the room tiles down as the players enter the rooms. Starting monsters will be preplanned and will trigger the use of cards, but before that, I'd probably use a non-combat mode where there's only a certain chance (1 in 6?) of wandering monsters - which would then trigger the drawing of cards - so that when you get one wandering monster, you're likely to get more ...
I'd also do what we've often done for SoBH games and pre-determine groups of wandering monsters. So, one level might have a table like this:
1. goblin warriors (1D6)
2. goblin archers (1D6)
3. orc warriors (1D6)
4. orc archers (1D6)
5. orc brute
6. troll
I'd (secretly) lay out batches of miniatures for each number, in sixes where appropriate. So there might be 12 or 18 or 24 goblin warriors. I'd have 1D6 arrive, and then use any reinforcements/they're behind you/wandering monster cards from the same group of six until that six is used up. So, if a player's action causes four goblins to arrive, a subsequent wandering-monster card will lead to one or two of the remaining members of that patrol arriving (stragglers!). A wandering monster drawn after that would be re-rolled.
That’s a pretty good idea. I still haven’t managed to check S&S, but recently rediscovered my love for Ganesha games with the Simian X-Expansion for Mutants & Deathrayguns.
Have you been successful in integrating SoBH for combats, btw?
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That’s a pretty good idea. I still haven’t managed to check S&S, but recently rediscovered my love for Ganesha games with the Simian X-Expansion for Mutants & Deathrayguns.
I think there are two areas where Ganesha's games are pretty much unbeatable: "time to table" (decide to have game; grab miniatures and scenery; start playing); and "no need for the rulebook". Those are two huge strengths, I reckon.
Have you been successful in integrating SoBH for combats, btw?
I haven't bothered so far, as the speed and simplicity of the S&S games is great. But I can think of two ways in which it could be done.
First, you could give each activating monster one action, but also give them all the Dashing trait (ASOBH-style: so that they get a free attack if they move into combat). You could also allow shooters the equivalent (i.e move and shoot). Horde shooters would automatically do concentrated fire, while horde minions would make a single attack with outnumbering bonuses. You could extend this further so that loners get two actions (plus dashing) and leaders three, but that would make them more dangerous as they'd move a lot faster. All SoBH traits could be applied as normal.
Second, you could just roll for activations for each group or individual - always rolling three dice and carrying out actions as normal. In that case, I'd drop the automatic dashing, as you'd get a lot of double and triple activations. There would be a logical hierarchy of actions: monsters with three activations and proximity to charge would do power blows; archers in range would do aimed shots where possible. That would work fine, but it would obviously take a bit longer, what with all the dice rolling.
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Having played only three games of this, it is still too early to make any definitive statements. I haven't felt the need to tinker with any of the mechanics yet (which is unusual for me). As Hobgoblin has indicated, the rules make for quick, simple play. Monsters might only get one activation at a time, but may activate multiple times during a players turn; each character will potentially fail one or more activation rolls leading to a monster card being drawn - either a new monster appears, or one or more monsters are activated.
I think the feeling of a game could be altered by having more powerful monsters, fewer cards spawning new monsters but increasing monster activation cards.
What monsters do, once activated can also be modified by scenario specific rules.
Hobgoblin, I have been playing that the activated monsters get an attack if they move into contact with a PC - I will have to go and read the rules again to check this, but I think I will continue to play this way even if I have it wrong.
Edit:
I found this on page 22 under point 3 on monster activation:
"If the foe comes into base-tobase contact with a PC, it immediately attacks that PC and a melee is fought"
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Hobgoblin, I have been playing that the activated monsters get an attack if they move into contact with a PC - I will have to go and read the rules again to check this, but I think I will continue to play this way even if I have it wrong.
Edit:
I found this on page 22 under point 3 on monster activation:
"If the foe comes into base-tobase contact with a PC, it immediately attacks that PC and a melee is fought"
Yes, that's right - I was talking about replicating that with (A)SoBH mechanics - hence the thought about the Dashing trait.
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All of this sounds compelling, but what do we think about long-term potential for a developing campaign? Particularly if you did adjust it for a dungeon crawl?
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Pretty good, I'd say - first and foremost because there's huge potential for character development. It would take many, many games to get a starting character "tooled up" to the max - and I bet there'll be supplements with more options out before that happens. It helps that there are no character classes - so that you lizardman archer can dabble in sorcery if he sees fit, after mastering the less esoteric combat arts. And then he might want to work on his social skills ....
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Likewise, I think this is a perfect rule set for campaigns. It is relatively easy to add new traits if you need them and creating new monsters is also easy - I have done this to make more "Tolkienish" monsters. I have used some of the rules from the unique monsters in some of the scenarios to help build stats for some of my monsters - spiders, wargs, Cold drakes.
So far the scenarios are a little boring, but I would expect we will see more come out. I think scenarios from other rules sets would be easy to adapt.
As a perennial rules tinkerer I have found nothing in the main rules that I would alter. For a more Tolkien feel some of the traits need altering and I think some change to the Stealth trait needs modifying to allow for more sneaking around rather than a straight slash and hack game.
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Likewise, I think this is a perfect rule set for campaigns. It is relatively easy to add new traits if you need them and creating new monsters is also easy - I have done this to make more "Tolkienish" monsters. I have used some of the rules from the unique monsters in some of the scenarios to help build stats for some of my monsters - spiders, wargs, Cold drakes.
Would you mind sharing how you went about this please? I’ve only taken a cursory glance at the rules so far but I was hoping that tweaking the monster cards would be easy?
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Loop, it is all low technology, I'm afraid. For now I just hand write the monster card following the same format as the official cards. Once I am happy with how the new monsters play I will probably just use Excel with a picture inserted.
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I wasn’t expecting anything flashy, I just wondered what stats you’d used for which monsters?
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Mostly it is modifying existing creatures.
Wolves are mainly just down-sized bears:
DL 10, HP 1, DMG 1, Move 6"
Wargs
DL 12, HP 3, DMG 2, Move 6"
Werewolf (Silmarillion version) - this is to cover just the usual ones, not Draugluin and certainly not Carcharoth
I have lesser and greater wereolves:
DL 12/14, HP 5/6, DMG 2, Move 6"
Are Legacy creatures.
Venomous bite if hit make a constitution roll vs DL 8/9 or be at -1 to all activations/attacks until Healed.
Spiders (lesser/greater)
Lesser can be horde creatures, greater are loners:
DL 8/10, HP 2/3, DMG 1/2, Move 4
Greater spiders are large for missile purposes and are DL8
Poison : If bitten by spider to have constitution roll vs DL 10/12 or lose an extra hit point and move 1" slower until healed.
Spiders are as likely to attack NPCs/monsters as they are to attack PCs.
Webs: still working on how these will work. I am not happy with my current rules for this.
Cold Drake
Small dragons without fire. The only model I have has stumpy wings, so these do not fly.
DL 14, HP 6, DMG 2, Move 6".
Large so DL 14 vs missiles
Legacy creature
Buffet: The tail and stunted wings can be used as attacks. All activating PCs within 1" must roll (in their own turn) vs DL 10 or be knocked prone +1 damage.
Fire Drakes, as above but with a fire breath weapon - a cone of fire range 8" with a 4" base. DL12 vs dodge, no armour or shield saves. Are immune o fire attacks.
Clearly, more creatures are needed including Vampires, Balrogs and proper dragons.....
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Hi ladies, thank you for sharing your ramblings! I'm confuse about the PC/player party definition:
Is it 60 starting XP per player's party (60 XP for my 3 models, 60 XP for my friend Bob's three models) or per whole party (30 me and 30 Bob)?
The 4/5 XP reward is per player (i.e. If I have two PCs do they get 2 XP each or 4 each?)
Thank you!
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I am sure Hobgoblin will correct me, but I take it that each players party starts with 60XP and awarded XP are per character - if you have 3 characters that would be 3x4XP, 5 characters 5x4 XP. There are also individual XPs.
Some of the more impressive traits are 8 or more XPs, so there may be a lot of games where you choose not to spend the XPs while you wait to amass enough to get something special.
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Sounds ok to me. Yet on the mission's intro it is stated a number of XP "per player". I find it way better as you do.
Another question: in two points of the book (the skill danger sense and the mission with the Wine jars) the author talks about an "ambush bonus" to be denied. Can anyone point me to that ambush bonus?
Thanks!
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From https://www.facebook.com/groups/63935273102/ :
--Scenario rewards are per player, with individual rewards per character.
--Ambush bonus is on the Ambush card - frex: monster ambushing you gets +2 DL and you may not perform opportunity shots at him.
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Thank you Froggy! I've also joined there, to ask this kind of questions.
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I've now played two games of Sellswords and it's a fantastic game! Great fun & clever mechanics - just what I was looking for.
For a more detailed review, visit https://wargamingraft.wordpress.com/2018/02/02/sellswords-spellslinger/ (https://wargamingraft.wordpress.com/2018/02/02/sellswords-spellslinger/)
(https://wargamingraft.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/k3.jpg?w=636)
It has inspired my to delve into 28mm fantasy for the first time... :)
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Nice write up, thanks for sharing! Everybody seem to find the game a bit easy, now for my error I've been playing the first mission @60xp for the whole party of 5 instead of for each player. It was hell hard, but super extra fun!
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I think it seems a bit easy if you are used to games like Zombicide, which are, at the core, survival games. S&S is an adventure game, so it makes sense that it is not that deadly. Wrong expectations, but now I'm really happy with how S&S works - it feels more like D&D (at least the way we play it), which is exactly what I want!
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I reckon - and this is very D&D - that it's greed that makes the game deadly. We've typically lost most of the PCs in the games we've played, but that's because the players had half an eye on extra equipment, and so the PCs were looting bodies rather than helping their friends - especially those who were being run by other players.
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I reckon - and this is very D&D - that it's greed that makes the game deadly. We've typically lost most of the PCs in the games we've played, but that's because the players had half an eye on extra equipment, and so the PCs were looting bodies rather than helping their friends - especially those who were being run by other players.
I could see this happening, particularly when paired with the Drunk hindrance. In my last game though, most people just ignored the treasure because of the wolves and kobolds and wolves and orks and the troll and more wolves and the barbarians are DEAD and we're nowhere near the exit....
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Interesting write up, I've never really considered Fantasy Gaming, the whole D&D thing passed me by, but the mechanisms sound interesting.
Do you think they would work for WW2 'patrol' type games, I'm thinking recon missions and escaping POW scenarios and the like?
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Erratum: we played tonight like it's written, scenario 2: total party kill, definitely not an easy game. We must have let on the floor over 30 goblins and half a dozen orc brutes, but haven't proved to be enough! More shields and armors next time!
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Interesting write up, I've never really considered Fantasy Gaming, the whole D&D thing passed me by, but the mechanisms sound interesting.
Do you think they would work for WW2 'patrol' type games, I'm thinking recon missions and escaping POW scenarios and the like?
I'm kind of in the opposite camp, as I only play fantasy games (sf included). I haven't plumbed the S&S rules sufficiently deeply to be of much help on this, but I'll have a go anyway. I think you could certainly do games in any genre with the S&S 'engine' - cooperative play, failed activations triggering enemy movements and basic AI.
I don't know whether the magic rules would cover some advanced weaponry as we haven't used them yet, but you could easily "power up" the rules for crossbows and the like to create rifles and submachine guns. You even randomise damage (say 1D6 for a gun - most foes have a single hit point, with tougher types having 2, 3 or more) rather than having it fixed (bow 1, crossbow 2, etc).
Alternatively, you could mash it up with the same author's Rogue Stars, a sci-fi game from Osprey that uses a similar activation system and has lots of rules for advanced weapons. It's much more fiddly, and designed for opposed games, but is a superb firefight simulator.
The two main problems I can see are these:
1) In a modern setting, close combat is going to be much less of a factor, as the swelling hordes of monsters are likely to be replaced with soldiers with guns. That might take out some of the fun, as there's a big difference between 30 goblins swarming towards our heroes and 30 riflemen blazing away at them! Of course, you could offset this by having lots of cover on the table.
2) The game relies a fair bit on having "big nasties" among the monsters - tougher in combat and harder to kill. That would be need some rationalisation in a modern game, though you could abstract it by having officers with more hit points but randomised damage so that their ability to survive a hit would be far from certain.
So something like Pulp Alley would probably be a better fit. But I'm sure if you just "reskinned" S&S, you'd have plenty of fun.
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I'm kind of in the opposite camp, as I only play fantasy games (sf included). I haven't plumbed the S&S rules sufficiently deeply to be of much help on this, but I'll have a go anyway. I think you could certainly do games in any genre with the S&S 'engine' - cooperative play, failed activations triggering enemy movements and basic AI.
I don't know whether the magic rules would cover some advanced weaponry as we haven't used them yet, but you could easily "power up" the rules for crossbows and the like to create rifles and submachine guns. You even randomise damage (say 1D6 for a gun - most foes have a single hit point, with tougher types having 2, 3 or more) rather than having it fixed (bow 1, crossbow 2, etc).
Alternatively, you could mash it up with the same author's Rogue Stars, a sci-fi game from Osprey that uses a similar activation system and has lots of rules for advanced weapons. It's much more fiddly, and designed for opposed games, but is a superb firefight simulator.
The two main problems I can see are these:
1) In a modern setting, close combat is going to be much less of a factor, as the swelling hordes of monsters are likely to be replaced with soldiers with guns. That might take out some of the fun, as there's a big difference between 30 goblins swarming towards our heroes and 30 riflemen blazing away at them! Of course, you could offset this by having lots of cover on the table.
2) The game relies a fair bit on having "big nasties" among the monsters - tougher in combat and harder to kill. That would be need some rationalisation in a modern game, though you could abstract it by having officers with more hit points but randomised damage so that their ability to survive a hit would be far from certain.
So something like Pulp Alley would probably be a better fit. But I'm sure if you just "reskinned" S&S, you'd have plenty of fun.
Thanks for the reply. I could see how 30 riflemen blazing away could be a problem :D Maybe I'll take a look at Pulp Alley.