Article: Thoughts on the Frostgrave Campaign System

[Calmdown]

How about maxing levels gained per battle to 1?

It's nigh on impossible not to gain 1 level in a battle. You would level literally every battle at 1 level per battle, which would be very linear and boring.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with what I was describing above - the leveling is fine. It's supposed to be like that. As gamers are more used to levelling once in a while (thanks D&D and WoW!) so it feels weird when you read about levelling multiple times I guess. The only thing that is really out of control is the XP for kills when your Wizard is an Elementalist or Bone Dart slinger, but we fixed that with house rules and others can too, or some people might just be OK with it.

[PatrickWR]

Well this was a fascinating thread. Thank you to calmdown for his patient and thoughtful analysis. I picked up Frostgrave at Gen Con and am eagerly anticipating my first game.

My group is a bit more narrative focused, so we aren't quite as attracted to the "obvious best tactics" that calmdown identified in his article, but nevertheless it's nice to know the lay of the land as we look into this game. Cheers!

[gorillacrab]

I just can't leave this thread alone.

Two ideas/questions about the post-game sequence, which our group likes (thanks again, Calmdown)

1. The Wiz and Apprentice are both allowed one action between games (shopping, recruiting, etc). Now, we are thinking that as the 2 events happen at the same time in different locations, you can't use one to benefit the other. More precisely, if the Wiz goes off and sells 500g worth of gear, the Apprentice (who is recruiting, say) could NOT use that 500 gold to hire a new character on the same turn. Does that make sense?

2. And speaking of selling, if unloading equipment back to a merchant, do you get full price - or 50 percent as in many other games?
Again, thanks in advance.
Gorillacrab

[Major_Gilbear]

Maintenance costs for party members - We were going to do this then realised that even with a full Warband of 100g guys you're paying less than 100g per game in maintenance and so it's barely worth the hassle for what it adds. The system would need to be more complex (ie have more intricate rules and hence more admin overhead) or upkeep cost more to have any appreciable effect, and in any case this is only going to put ahead players further ahead and behind players will struggle more so it seemed like a lose/lose situation.

Other games (notably Necromunda and Mordheim) "wash" the income through a table.

Basically, it's gross income along the top (say, in 50gp increments) and warband size down the side (you could ignore summoned models/familiars I guess). The table is then populated to show how much nett income you earn after each game. Generally, the more money you earn past a point, and the bigger a warband is past a point, the less efficient the return on your earnings is.

This therefore still rewards players who make a lot of money after a game, but proportionally less than the player who only makes a little.

Likewise, there is some incentive to play with a smaller warband because if you earn a lot of gold after a game, you get to keep more of it. This again provides an interesting choice in how big or elite to make your warband, rather than aiming to make it the maximum size every time.

Also, there is no book-keeping with this method; you add up your gold at the end of a game as you would normally, you cross-reference the chart, and you write down the resulting number in your stash box.

[Helznicht]

I prefer the KISS method myself.    So I think to balance it I would go the other way and remove EXP all together.  If you win a match (most treasures off board) your wiz gets 2 levels, if you loose, you only get 1 level. Ties would be 1 level (got to have incentive to win, no shaking hands and calling it a day with half the treasure).

* Slows down run-away bands (gain 1 level vs 5+)
* Removes the Kill EXP issue with Elementalists
* Still plenty incentive to win (extra level and more cash)
* Less Bookkeeping during game (HP is enough)
* Even the looser still gets to advance his wiz, keeping him interested in case of a blowout. (Having to roll for that many wounded is going to be punishment enough)

After 5 matches, one who wins all is level 10, one who lost all is level 5.  A disadvantage sure, but likely could be overcome.

If I would change anything about the between game stuff is maybe a reduced treasure table to slow down run-away on that end also.  Which wouldn't add any complexity at all.  You could also just go to 2 treasures per team, reducing income, speeding match play, forcing a little more interaction.

[Miller]

Exactly how are warbands regularly getting 700+ xp per game, and how common was that? In a two player game with standard setup, if you managed to table your opponent, claim all six treasures, have your wizard personally kill the enemy wizard, apprentice, and all eight soldiers.. that equals 850 xp. That's not considering the 10xp per spell cast but that's probably around 100 on an average game if things go well.

I really cannot see a situation where one wizard personally walks through an entire enemy warband, killing them all with his own actions without being taken out himself as a likely outcome, much less something that is frequently happening.

[horridperson]

The wizards have so much potential to sponge experience based on the actions of hirelings.  I have been thinking opening levelling to the hirelings and allowing them to take credit for their actions would mitigate the runaway wizards.  I also like the idea of having a wizard agonize over the fate of a long serving henchman who may have suffered an injury too many.  Is is time to send him packing from the land of snow and ice?  I know there have been several initiatives to create a hireling levelling system and I'm considering my own house rules.  I just hate thinking of any members of my warband as plug ins.

[JohnDSD2]

I'm doing a bit of work on 'advancement' but rather than henchmen getting skills, I feel that a combination of experience (games played) and gold should enable the henchmen to progress to a new type. So using the henchmen costs provided by Calmdown, I have created some extra soldier types and an advancement tree, which will enable soldiers to advance and or cross to another branch of the tree (I have also tinkered with the base costs slightly, again in line with the excellent work of Calmdown).

For example a Crossbowman costs 50 but if he completes 2 games and his wizard pays 25 gold he can become a Marksmen (Marskmen now cost 100 in my calculation).

I was also contemplating allowing a sufficiently experience Apothecary (5 games and 50 gold cost) to become an Apprentice, which might make him a bit more useful. (The cost might need to be a factor of the Wizard level)

Having said all that I'm hanging back for now as I believe there will be more henchmen options in the 'Thaw of the Lich Lord' and I don't want to pre-empt that.

[horridperson]

@JohnDSD2

I'm pretty much in the same place as far as developing rules that could potentially supplant those on the horizon.  I think about it but haven't committed anything to paper.

I'm undecided about how promotions might work or if there might be skills.  I concede thugs and low tier hirelings could be improved by promotion to more advanced troop types I'd wonder what value the more advanced types would see under such a system?  I don't believe skills should be acquired every time a unit levels but I'd like to see some structure there that added character/flavor to the model's identity.

I think if I was having a go at a system I'd organize some appropriate skills around the archetypes (ie rogue, soldier, marksman) and allow a choice of skill from the appropriate skill set every 5 or 10 levels rather than a stat buff.

I'd like to see knights pick up a "Lordly" or "Leader of Men" skill that might allow them to act and activate other models in the apprentice turn.  Just spitballing.

[JohnDSD2]

@horridperson

Agreed. Don't want to jump the gun regarding what is coming but feel the henchmen are a bit one dimensional, its always nice to develop a story about your loyal crew and see them develop. Skills would be nice, if a thief could do something sneaky it would add to the game play, at present he's a weak Thug with a go faster stripe, that is why I was thinking with a few games under his belt and a bit of investment he should be able to elevate himself to Treasure Hunter.
I think the bottom line is I want to see what happens in 'Thaw' with the new soldiers.

[Aging Mammal]

Just a couple of suggestions to throw into the mix.
When a Wizard dies you get a choice of a reroll on the wounds table but the warband leaves you and take all your stuff. That way you can keep all your XP gained in the last game until you lost conscience and start again with nothing but your experience and a basic 500gp warband.  Or you can continue playing with the Warband (who have your old base and all the treasure) and they now select a new level 0 wizard.  Of course the new wizard is needed to identify any treasure looted in the last game so no changing your mind if they only picked up rubbish. This means that getting killed in a game is bad but not disastrous for the campaign, Also it can give a player a chance to change a character if he dies early on without starting from scratch.
The other idea was to restrict players choice when buy new spells to grimoires from their own school. If they want to buy a Grimoire from any other school they pay the money but have to roll to see what they get. If they already have it they can get a reroll (because they would recognise it). I like to think of this as renaissance thinkers who would buy books on anything that seemed interesting but only after getting it home would they see what it is really about.  So Buy Grimoire, roll for what it is, decide if you want to spend the level to learn it, keep it for later or sell it back at a loss.  This would slow down player’s progression a bit and make wizards more varied. It would also mean getting a good new spell more of an event rather than just buying it.  You could even do it at initial roll character generation but that would probably be a bit too random

[maxxon]

You know, I'm wondering what exactly people want out of these campaigns?

All of these "warband campaign" games have exactly the same problems and the same complaints, to one degree or another.

Are all players dissatisfied, or do some people actually like it the way things are? I can see some people liking being the runaway leader and pounding everyone else into the dust as just rewards of their superior gameplay skillz (i.e. blind luck in a couple of the early games).

If you're in a sports league and your team has nothing but losses halfway through the season, guess what? Odds are you won't be on the podium at the end of it. Motivating teams like this to continue playing at all is a real problem in low level amateur sports. And sports even don't usually have the carry-over benefits from previous wins. Theoretically it's "any given Sunday" but we all know it's really not.

The way these are built now the winners get stronger and the losers will just have to suck it. If that's what everyone wants, fine.

But if you really want everyone to get stronger, why not just play an escalation league?

Theoretically the current systems could do that, IF wins and losses were distributed evenly. But they're not, especially with the system providing a positive feedback loop from previous wins (and negative from losses). "Any given Sunday" just doesn't work.