Optional Rules for Companion

[Mataxes]

I can see the motivation for getting rid of this optional rule: (i) magicians get two free matrices to help offset the cost, and (ii) LP cost forces each magician to make hard decisions rather than "gotta catch 'em all" where every magician knows every spell. However, magicians still essentially have a Talent (Spellcasting) that does nothing on its own - there is absolutely no use for this Talent without Spells - with matrices falling into the same boat (although two of them are free) so it'd be fitting for magicians to at least get one new "use" for it with each Circle rather than having to buy a "use" for it at each Circle.

One thing to keep in mind with regard to the Legend cost for spells is that they're fixed. As a character gains power (and, as a result, higher Legend Awards), the relative cost of spells goes down. A First Circle spell always costs 100 Legend. Much like the way karma purchasing worked in earlier editions, there comes a point where the cost is negligible in relation to how much Legend the character has (or earns).

I mean when your next talent rank costs 3,400 Legend... a few hundred Legend to fill out your lower-Circle spell selection isn't much. There are (currently) 11 First Circle Elementalist spells. You're likely to have 7 of them for free at character creation. That's only 400 more Legend to 'catch them all' as you put it. Maybe a tough choice at lower Circles... but later on? Like picking up a second Discipline, there comes a point where the cost/benefit ratio really skews in favor of "might as well grab a couple."

[The Undying]

I agree, and I did consider that. But, for what it's worth, that's like saying "I have $100,000, guess I'll buy 7 Kia compacts rather than a BMW coupe." Yeah, the Kia is gonna get you there, and having multiples means you can pick the color and options you want for the day, but that BMW coupe is generally going to outperform any one of those Kias, and you can only drive one car at a time.

For a more practical example, let's look at Air Armor versus Iron Skin. Yes, Air Armor is zero threads while Iron Skin is one, meaning the latter isn't strictly better than the former, but it's pretty close. Yeah, you're pulling in some solid spending LP, and you can easily snag that first circle Air Armor as a poor man's Iron Skin, but it's a lot more fulfilling and powerful to cast things at your Circle.

I appreciate you weigh in, though. For me, personally, the idea that "old stuff is cheap" doesn't really justify adding a cost to something (I played with no LP for spells, if it wasn't obvious). It's the equivalent of "why do you care about warrant-less search and seizure - if you aren't doing anything illegal, you've got nothing to hide."

[The Undying]

Gang / Mob rules: After a few Circles, it seems that non-Adepts are hard pressed to be a challenge, but a mob of them might still be. Rules for treating a group of minions as a single unit would be great.

I hunted down the seed for my last response. Here ya go - bust open the actual book, or the ED4 Game Master's Guide, for more assistance:

The blood monkey (see above) is a Third Circle (Group) encounter so far. This makes little sense for a swarm enemy, so the gamemaster adjusts the number of creatures to one per one character by increasing the Legend Award by +2 to Fifth Circle. Looking at the Death Rating it seems low for the Circle, however, with Reinforcements, there will be two Blood Monkeys per character with an overall Death Rating of 42 x 2 = 84, average for Fifth Circle. A tough Fourth Circle group could probably also defeat them one to one, but it seems to be a good encounter for an average Fifth Circle group at one to one. The gamemaster thinks that keeping track of 10 creatures may be a bit too much though and decides to make a swarm version. This way at most he is keeping track of two swarms with a total of 6 attacks rather than 10 creatures and 30 attacks.

[Telarus]

I based my mook-swarms around that when I ran 3E.

I'm glad there are people talking about a need for these kind of rules (I agree). I think the advice on adapting my Mass Combat and Boarding Battle rules from the new Airships and Riverboats chapter will go a long way towards speeding up situations like these. There are a couple of rules that make Units (groups of 3-20 similarly trained characters in mass combat 1-minute turns), and Squads (3-5 "mook" types from the Unit in 6-second combat rounds) work really well with the ED system.

I have it working fairly smoothly on the 1-minute turn scale as that's is a _lot_ of action to roll into a few tests (see the Airships and Riverboats Peak thread for the Decisive Moments mechanics that players can use to influence 1-minute turn combat if playing abstractly), which grants some lee-way.

Squads in 6-second combat may need tweaking. Here is the base rule currently applied to both scales. The other option is to track damage points for Squads (just not for Units), and some-how re-work the Squad Wound mechanic- when you are not rolling individual tests, what do Wound penalties mean?

Up or Down
Units and squads of 3 or more similar characters do not track individual damage points. Instead, individuals are either considered “up” and in the action, or “down”—seriously wounded or dying. They can take multiple Wounds from a single Damage result, one for each full increment of the Wound Threshold achieved. If the unit takes any Wounds they must check for Casualties at the end of the current set of Maneuvers. Squads in 6-second combat round check for Casualties as soon as the Wounds are received. If a unit or squad’s size falls below 3, treat the remaining characters as individuals. If they succeed at a Regroup test, they may be recombined into a unit or squad alongside others with the same base statistics.
...
(When running 6-second combat rounds) Squads may take multiple Wounds from one hit, but they ignore the first Wound dealt to them in a combat round. This represents damage being spread out among the members. Each additional Wound immediately triggers a Casualty test.
...
A Casualty occurs when an individual is wounded so severely they cannot continue fighting. Units and squads do not track damage points. Instead, a unit that has suffered one or more Wounds must check for Casualties after the ship Maneuver and any response Officer Maneuvers have been resolved. Squads check for Casualties as soon as the triggering Wound is received. The unit or squad rolls a Casualty(6) test using the base member’s Toughness step for each Wound that it has suffered and consults the Casualties table.

Result Effect
1-5 Fatality
6-10 Casualty
11+ Recovered!

A failure indicates a Fatality, a fatal wound which will probably kill the injured unit member within a minute’s time. Success indicates a Casualty, the character has taken so serious a wound that they are doubled up in pain, cannot stand, or are otherwise incapacitated, but not in direct danger of death. One or more additional successes (11+) means that the character takes the hit and manages to shake off shock and keep fighting.

It's REALLY FUN, btw, to roll a bunch of Casualties checks at once if the Toughness step is a single die--and pick out Casualties and Fatalities.

[Dougansf]

I based my mook-swarms around that when I ran 3E.

I'm glad there are people talking about a need for these kind of rules (I agree).

Yeah, after playing and running games with minion rules, it's really hard to go back.

I hunted down the seed for my last response. Here ya go - bust open the actual book, or the ED4 Game Master's Guide, for more assistance:

Thanks, I'll take a look at my ED3 books. But I'm still not seeing anything like it in ED4.

[Kosmit]

Don't forget about rules on creating pre-Scourge magicians (before matrices )

[Slimcreeper]

This is the rule for sticky combat I'll be test driving in my new game:

Guard Duty: A character may decide to spend a round protecting an area of the battlefield. The character on guard duty cannot make any movement, but as a free action can prevent others from moving through any space within 2 yards (adjacent hexes). In order to move through, other characters must make a Dexterity test against the guard’s Physical Defense. If they fail, their movement ends next to the guard. In addition, the guarding character reserves his action to attack any enemy who comes within melee range with the standard -2 penalty. This option must be declared at initiative.

[RazanMG]

Slim all you need is:

Reserved Actions
Instead of acting on his Initiative, a character may choose to wait until later that
round for a more appropriate moment to act. This is referred to as reserving an action.
Reserving an action allows a character to react to other events, perhaps even preventing
them. When reserving an action, the character specifies an event and has the
right to act at any later point during the round when that event occurs, interrupting
the character whose turn it is.

[Dougansf]

Slim all you need is:

Reserved Actions
Instead of acting on his Initiative, a character may choose to wait until later that
round for a more appropriate moment to act. This is referred to as reserving an action.
Reserving an action allows a character to react to other events, perhaps even preventing
them. When reserving an action, the character specifies an event and has the
right to act at any later point during the round when that event occurs, interrupting
the character whose turn it is.

Except that doesn't actually impede their movement at all. It just gives them an attack to avoid/survive on the way to their desired destination.

Since the rules are very vague on the topic of facing and tactical movement, it's legitimate to have 2 people in a duel run around each other to always attack from the Blindside. Which is ridiculous, IMO.

This is the rule for sticky combat I'll be test driving in my new game:

Guard Duty: A character may decide to spend a round protecting an area of the battlefield. The character on guard duty cannot make any movement, but as a free action can prevent others from moving through any space within 2 yards (adjacent hexes). In order to move through, other characters must make a Dexterity test against the guard’s Physical Defense. If they fail, their movement ends next to the guard. In addition, the guarding character reserves his action to attack any enemy who comes within melee range with the standard -2 penalty. This option must be declared at initiative.

Not bad, but I don't like the sacrifice of your action to claim space (which can still be avoided by a roll), and MAYBE get an attack off.

So far, my group is using this:

Free Rotate - 1/round, out of turn Free Action: If an enemy moves from one of your adjacent hexes to another adjacent hex, you may change your facing.
Threatened Space - You cannot move through a hex containing an enemy. Hexes around an enemy are considered Threatened and cost double the Movement to leave those hexes.
* Exception: If the stationary character is Knocked Down.
* Exception: If the stationary character is unaware of the moving character.

[Telarus]

This is interesting, because RAW, most of that it _is_ already there. If you get a higher initiative than you opponents (various talents), you can take a Reserved Action, trigger it on some-one approaching your zone of movement, run up and take one of the various actions to attempt a Knockdown (Waterfall Slam, Combat Option, etc).

The three outcomes are:
- Enemy takes their action to get up (remember, you interrupted it, they can still use it), and continues the movement - No net effect besides delaying the enemy's attack on the target they are charging until next turn.
- Enemy Jumps Up and attacks you.
- Enemy continues movement at a crawl or attacks you from the ground.

I guess people are feeling this is missing something...

You could even take the Splitting Movement alongside the other options to hold a choke point, run out, knockdown an opponent, run back to block the choke point. I think the key thing missing, for people who want to it, is stopping movement without that Knockdown check. I do like the idea of forcing an Impaired Movement/Dex test against the defending character's Physical Defense (I like how this lets large shields feel cool). Failure should stop movement as described in in the Impaired Movement section. I'll think about this some more. Key questions are: what does it cost, how do you trigger it, how many times per round?