Monday, March 30, 2015

Tricking the Owl

Mayor Clovis is doing his best to keep the Horrors busy. He's got Newt the Herald of Yoesville showing the Clockwork Owl all sorts of sites for sale, but none of them on hills overlooking the Village Primal. He's doing a fair job of stalling, but he imagines that sooner or later the Horrors will get sick of his shennanigans and just decide to go wild on their own.

Amicus is privately soliciting ideas for trap ideas. Maybe we can animate the trees and foliage and have it grind the gears of the horrors? Maybe some sort of anti-magic zone could work? What about creating a ward vs. horrors? What does it take to create a ward?

30 comments:

  1. I think ward spells can be pretty cheap depending on the duration and target modifiers you use. I can run some numbers this evening. Even a low level spell could mean we need to stall another month or two to research it though

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  2. im also wondering if you used a water based spell would it screw up electronic components inside of the horrors like would it be stunned for 1d 4 rounds or something
    you could really create some powerful wards if the spell were to be used only for the purposes of the horrors
    eg:
    ward v certain monster (clockwork horrors) cost of 3
    target as an area effect 20 x 20 x 20 i think you can reorganise the shape so it would be say
    10 wide 10 high and 40 deep is x1.75
    1 turn per level x 1.33
    then only range and saving throws need to be calculated
    this sort of spell would stop the horrors from coming into melee range, but would they still be able to shoot us cos it seemed to be their lightning strike and arbalest shots were very devastating

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  3. and i made a mistake there i should have gone with 1 round per level instead of 1 turn per level so it should a modifier of x0.75

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  4. the bolts were so dangerous because of their numbers last time. In smaller groups or if we can overload them with targets it might not be so bad. The Lightning bolts are more dangerous I think. I'm not sure there is a cost effective way to protect against that.

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  5. I might need to get creative and start using wall spells more. Then just hope they can't hit what they can't see. I'm planning on making wall of stone one of my fifth level spells

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  6. Protection from normal missiles as area effect? I don't recall the missiles having any special abilities.

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  7. A mass of Ents and animated trees might make a good, though slow, screen.

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  8. I remember those books being pretty vanilla too. Let's load up on those spells.

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  10. Purple worms and Hydras with Protection form normal missiles might be nice too. I better get busy!

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  11. We should consult with the spirits, fleet and wise, and find the weakness of the horrors

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  12. Okay, so I have a very tedious job, and I spend a lot of time thinking about the game/campaign stuff. I thought about Tiberio’s idea of running a pile of goblins/bugbears at the clockwork horrors as part of an option of dealing with them. My biggest thought is who has the leadership abilities to gather them, let alone force them into a fight. That’s when it hit me: Murderface.

    Follow me on this: Okay, Murderface is a bad-ass fighter type, with the intimidation skill. You add into that the ring he has that gives him an 18 charisma to teenagers, the one he used to organize his fan club. The way I’ve been running it has been more or less in line with the conscription rules from the Domains at War book, which amounts to one conscript per ten families.

    Now, Murderface has sworn not to assist the goblins/bugbears in any way, but tricking a huge pile of their teenagers into forming a poorly armed mob (since they’ll have no training, they can only use spears, clubs, and dagger), promising them great fame and fortune once the battle is over, herding them towards Primal Village, and relying on intimidation and his ring’s charisma bonus into overcoming their morale penalty for being untrained conscripts (-2 for being conscripts, +2 for being bugbears, +2 for intimidation, and +3 for charisma). Once there, Murderface just points them over the dirt mound and into the forest, against the clockwork horrors. He’s got enough bonuses going there to keep them fighting to the very last. And, of course, Murderface will not lift a finger in the fighting himself, because that would be helping the goblins/bugbears. As a matter of fact, Murderface would be more than willing to make sure none of the beastmen survive, at all.

    I’m not sure about the size of Tiberio’s bugbear or goblin domain, but I figure 1 out of every 10 families there would have teenagers very likely bored enough to fight for fame and fortune, especially when they think they’re being led by a skull collector (when they’re actually being herded be one). So the 500 or so that he thought of as a number would be doable, and they’d most likely fight to the death, unless Murderface rolls like a double 1 on a morale check. And since training would be non-existent (who cares how the march or use tactics or anything else military wise, other than a body-wave), and equipping costs would be nonexistent (clubs…lots and lots of clubs), all we’d need to do is pay them a little money to do what Murderface tells them to (conscripts get 3gp per month) and maybe provide some cheap beer to make them violent drunken teenagers (which sounds like my high school prom theme).

    This is not intended as a main plan, but it would provide a decent distraction if the Skull Collectors were to time their own assault with Murderface's attack.

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    1. I made the assumption that bugbear conscripts get paid at the same ratio compared to light infantry that humans do, which means I'm actually handing out 17.5 gp per conscript each month right now. I have a little over 600 of them, and that is without calling up militia. I really don't want to call up militia though because that would start giving me morale penalties. My domain morale is already going to be going down.

      There simply aren't human settlements big enough for me to recruit the mercenaries I need to provide a garrison fast enough, and as I'm avoiding the easy solution of training the bugbears into heavy infantry...

      One possible solution for this, What is the church's policy on neutral giants? If I were to find a tribe of them and offer them employment is that something the gods, skull collectors, and citizens would accept?

      I also might be interested in hiring anyone with spare time to serve in the garrison. If all I do is continue trying to hire human mercs it wont be enough and the beastmen domains will slide into rebellion in 3 to 6 months.

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    2. >>One possible solution for this, What is the church's policy on neutral giants? If I were to find a tribe of them and offer them employment is that something the gods, skull collectors, and citizens would accept?

      Giants are generally considered to be troll-kin even though as you point out they could theoretically be employed as mercenaries.

      >>I also might be interested in hiring anyone with spare time to serve in the garrison

      The market of Seatun is open, and with appropriate tribute you may be allowed to recruit within the realm of the Catiruges.

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    3. How big is the catiruges in terms of population? I'm going to want to do that

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  13. You could research some decently effective protection spells at a pretty low level if you are willing to have a short duration. I'm going to be busy researching a different spell to boost initiative for a while still, so someone else will have to do it if we are trying for that.

    Alternatively, we could try to find a copy of protection from normal missiles spell to learn. Its not in any scrolls or spellbooks I ended up with.

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  14. the unfortunate thing about the ACKS books is that there is no specifics for targetting a construct
    theres undead, living, animals , giants , plants
    but if there was something there that specifically target mechanicals we could create a shutdown spell

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  15. we also have an option as clerics go out and charm a heap of animals

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  16. Here's an interesting clause in the "Protection from Evil" spell line. The emphasis is mine:

    In addition, the spell prevents bodily contact by enchanted
    (CONSTRUCTED, summoned, or undead) creatures, regardless of
    whether they are “evil” or not.

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  17. so we could use that in conjunction with protection from missiles, to protect the mages

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    1. I wouldn't rely on it. Attacking or casting a spell would negate the protection. However it would make having one or more roving healers would work.

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  18. so do constructs fall under the section of "enchanted creatures" then ?

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  19. also i dont know what those moveable wooden screens are called that archers use when they are a sieging a castle
    ive seen em in a few movies but i was planning to make a few of those that perhaps we can use to atleast give ourselves (moreso the casters) some much needed heavy cover from all the arbalest shots that these horrors can pump out

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    1. i think the word im looking for is mantlet

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    2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantlet#/media/File:Mantelet.defensif.3.png

      wanna get a few of those

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    3. ACKS does have a listing in one of the domains at war books for a 'movable mantlet'. It's pretty much the big wooden screen you're talking about. They cost 50gp, and provide shelter for two archers (or casters). There's no movement rules listed for them, so I would probably rule that they could move at the slowest regular walking speed for either of the people protected (maybe even half of that...it's a big heavy thing). I would also probably say that the people moving the mantlet would not get an action until the round after they set the mantlet down.

      They make you -4 to be hit (pretty much +4 AC), and +4 to saves vs blast from siege weapons, flaming oil, and similar effects (which I would have to argue would include blast type spells). Now the difficult part comes in that they're considered AC 1, and have 2 shp. SHP is structural hit points, and they basically don't go down unless a big creature, siege weapon, flaming oil, or I would say a blast-type spell hits them. Every 5 HP of regular damage inflicted is equal to 1 SHP. So it could not be taken down by any amount of archery damage, but a fireball or lightning bolt would take it down if they did more than 10pts of damage.

      Nifty things, and actually would be extremely useful at least for the first few rounds of an open field fight.

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  20. ok since the weather has been a little bit warmer
    i've quickly made up 4 of these miniature mantlets, the glue is drying as we speak
    they shouldnt have a problem standing up they tilt back at 22.5 degree's for balance
    3 inches high 3 inches wide and ive cut some murder holes in them
    i consider them to have wheels even though im to lazy to actually make them with wheels
    are we considering that it takes 2 people to move or one person ?

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  21. would 4 mantlets be enough
    is the size ok ?
    it took me 15 minutes to make these if you think we would need anymore i can easily make up some more

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