Bronn is ready to continue.

I've finally completed updating Takao (on p. 6 of this thread).

He's even more of a lawnmower now, if I understand the rules correctly: Charge Basics gives him one free attack during movement, and if he downs his opponent, he can keep going at that location until everyone is dead, then continue his movement to the final location and kill everybody there, too.

[Bronn]

Bronn scoffs. "How about you get yourself a good warm meal, then? Might be the last for a while. Starting tomorrow, it's rations."

[Bronn]

"Sod off", Bronn tells the guy with a dismissive wave.

He grinds his teeth for a moment and then admits defeat.

"I should give you a good spanking and send you back home", he says with a hoarse whisper.

He sighs. "The only reason I don't tie you up somewhere or have you held in a local cell is because I don't trust anyone in this dirt hole, apart from Bianca, but you'll give her the slip in no time. She's far too good-natured."

Bronn leans in a bit closer and hisses. "If you take any foolish risks out there or ignore my commands, however, I'll whisk you back here in a hurry and make sure you don't come back after us. Have we got a deal?"

[Action dice are for actions!]

I have been wanting to post a thread like this for a while, but just can't find the hour or so it'll take me to put all of my thoughts down in a coherent fashion.

The current combat system has multiple shortcomings that all relate to the value of crits, rather than the action dice themselves, and the problem carries through the whole game.

What an action die is supposed to do, IMO, is enable coolness. If you come up with the perfect outcome for this scene, or a really cool action that would be a shame not to pull off, the action dice should let you buy your way to the result (if you have enough). What action dice do de facto, in many cases, is pay for the coolness once you've rolled the crit. I think the crit is too powerful, and too limited. I'd rather see all critical results toned down a bit, but give players the ability to roll AD's and add them to the original result til the dice total reaches the crit threshold.

In combat, the current incarnation of crits does two things, IMO:
1) it can lead to an anticlimactic combat result by seeing the main villain one-shotted
2) it makes it really hard to reach the value of a lethal attack with any other action, making the fights less interesting. Every roll for a lethal attack gives you a chance for a crit which can end the fight, and even if you don't meet crit value, you still take off hit points, bringing the fight closer to an end. Almost all other actions have less direct effects: either you deal alternative damage, you buff yourself (but only by a relative small bit), or you debuff the opponent or take away actions (grapple, trip, disarm). To most players, all of these are less powerful than the chance of killing something outright, so most turns go: step up, hack, hack.

One of my simplest suggestions were:

Campaign qualities:

Action dice are for actions!
Action dice may only be used to increase skill checks, attack rolls, and saving throws, but cannot be used to boost damage rolls. Likely has to go with an overall decrease in vitality.

Reliable villains
An activated crit doubles the damage done by the attack. The doubling only applies to weapon damage and strength and magical bonuses, but not to sneak attack damage.

Buy your way to success
AD spent on an attack check or skill check are added to the d20 result when determining if a threat is scored.

I think vitality should always be matched to the desired combat length. It would now be a more reliable timer and gives a better control. I do like having both vitality and wounds: a set of hit points that regenerate quickly and one set that regenerates slowly. It allows heroes to get back into the action quicker, rather than having to sit around and heal, and I've never been a fan of the D&D "grind your characters down with warm-up encounters so they have fewer resources for the final fight" deal.

I think I'd like an SIFRP kind of wound even better: instead of taking the damage, you take a wound, which gives a penalty to your rolls. You can either, like SIFRP, say the character is out of the fight when his active score drops to 0 from the cumulative penalties, or you assign a capacity to each character based on class and CON. That way, you can start each fight with full hp (or vitality), but still have the lingering effects of a more serious injury.

I suppose there are a number of ways to play this:

1. Reasoning: Sidari has to convince Bronn that taking her along really is the safest path forward, but that will take some effort. Bronn is pretty sure that the delve they're on will not be easy, and should be quite dangerous. Bronn is no simpleton, but he's also not the strongest arguer, and a convincingly presented argument can move him (that would be using some social skill, I'd say).

2. Pleading: different social skill. Likely won't work, because it will make Sidari look even more vulnerable in Bronn's eyes.

3. Something happens right now that convinces Bronn of Sidari's competence: a bar fight breaks out in which Sidari handles herself well, or some other encounter really highlights Sidari's value, as well as her ability to handle danger.

Other ideas?

[Bronn]

Bronn scowls as Sidari walks across the room towards the small group.

"Yes, fancy that. Did you find another group to take you along, or have you been following us on your own?"

Sorry, been busy with work.
I'm also not quite sure how to respond to the situation yet. I think Bronn would decide that it is too dangerous to take Sidari along, and safer to send her back (eg with the group of Pech). Then again, I don't want to make life too hard for spinningdice's character. So I'm only going to send her back if he has something else up his sleeve for how to link up with the party afterward.

[Bronn]

Bronn nods his thanks and gives her a generous tip, then moves closer to the group in question.

Question on the legacy items:

I thought the original intent was to have a race heritage and legacy feat here that represent the gradual unlocking of power. I didn't take the heritage feat earlier, but instead took Mr. A's Gempukku Ceremony feat to represent the item.

I see now that Mr. A took both the Gempukku Ceremony and the Heritage and Legacy feats. Do those all represent your item, Mr. A?

Gatac, what do you suggest for the Legacy level feat? Should I just pick a Legacy, or should I pay for the corresponding Heritage feat in addition? Or are we paying for both of those feats, and only the initial Heritage feat (for which I chose Gempukku) is free?

[Bronn]

Bronn flashes a smile back at Lief, but it likewise doesn't reach his eyes.

"Until this delve is over, you've picked up a second mother. We all go into the ruins, and we all come out. I want to know I can depend on each one of you when shit gets real." He shrugs. "When we come back here, you can do whatever you please."

"Have fun at the Bear, and, aye, the Maid."

With that, Bronn withdraws to a quiet corner of the Demon and enjoys a hearty warm meal and a quiet brew. He'd fancy a lady himself, but his... ah... features see to it that he spends most of his time alone. It wouldn't do for someone to find out that the spikes aren't actually a part of his vambraces.

He will listen to the latest news from the ruins, such as is available.

Well, Blankbeard hinted that he wants to introduce weapon skills as well somewhere along the line. Depending on how many categories you subdivide into, that adds a whole lot of skills, and just being a regular Soldier will require you to sink 3 points into 2-3 skills at 1st level.

You may actually find that there are too few skill points, as proposed, unless the combat classes get bonus points that can be sunk only into weapon skills.

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread. I've been toying with the idea of scalable conflicts (with three detail categories: single check, "dramatic conflict" (medium detail), and "combat" (high detail). The idea is to give you options on how much importance you want to give to a particular combat, social interaction, chase, etc, which means adding some means to cut short combat, but also expand other conflicts (like social conflicts). One of the things I was missing is a skill system to replace BAB, to increase variety a bit.

[Bronn]

Before everybody splits up, Bronn takes everybody to his choice of the inn for the night, the Roaring Demon. It is not the savoriest of locales, but it is a delver location, and usually everybody in the inn is serious and well-armed enough that fights rarely break out and theft is almost unheard of. Bronn has stayed here several times before, always without incident.

He will then encourage everybody to have some fun tonight, but stick to your limits, since we will leave early in the morning, and from here on out it's the wilderness, where everybody will need to keep their wits, and there is no time for hangovers. He will also talk at length about prophylactics, eyeing Lief during his monologue, and ending his talk with a sentence on the inconvenience of rashes or worse in certain areas while on the trek.

"Watch your purses and your surroundings. There are many here who would steal from or rob a hapless visitor. Seems like Ronan has been here before and can take care of himself. I'm going to stay at the Demon this evening, and any of the small folk who wants should feel free to join me."

Gatac, I'm going to bow out of this one for now. I've had the character mostly ready for a couple of weeks now, but can't find the time to put down finishing touches and put him on the forum due to workload and other obligations, which of course doesn't bode well for my participation here.

Fine with me.