The OFFICIAL FtA! Q&A

[RPGPundit]

I didn't use any hard-and-fast formula for the damage values of the monsters in FtA!.
Instead, I simply tried to consider a variety of things: the ferocity of the creature's possible attacks, the nature of the weapon/attack used, whether the creature is larger than human-sized, whether the creature is magical or intentionally designed for combat, and yes overall hit dice are A consideration. But it will matter also whether the creature is natural or designed, whether it is an animal or an abomination, etc.

You should use the wide variety of provided monsters to act as a general guideline, think of a creature of similar size and type (or types of attacks) and reference the kind of damage they do.

I hope this helps a bit, at least.

RPGPundit

[Skyrock]

As I've always assumed that the extra damage has been added to account for the magical weapons the PCs are going to acquire, you could just use the magic bonus spread as a guideline.
Just take the magic weapon bonus spread of +1-10 (or +1-20 if you account for dual-wielding) and spread it evenly from HD1 to HD20 as the end of the flagpole for usual monsters. (Only the Great Old Ones with their 40HD in FTA!GN! go beyond that, but their stats alone are anyway so grossly out of line to assume that any sane PC who hasn't been played for decades should tackle them in melee.)

You should use the wide variety of provided monsters to act as a general guideline, think of a creature of similar size and type (or types of attacks) and reference the kind of damage they do.

That's how I create my custom and converted monsters if I can't be bothered to put too much work into it.

For my Wights two sessions ago I just took the Ghoul als closest thing to a wight, added the immunities and replaced the paralyzing claw with level drain with the same PAS check.

Likewise, the Hell Knights|Imps I stole liberally from Doom to serve as demonic aides for chaos cultists are just Trolls|Orcs without regeneration, but with a natural fireball spell.

[Mischa]

I didn't use any hard-and-fast formula for the damage values of the monsters in FtA!.
[...]
You should use the wide variety of provided monsters to act as a general guideline, think of a creature of similar size and type (or types of attacks) and reference the kind of damage they do.
[...]
RPGPundit

For some reason I don't really get a guideline to find some enemies for my group of SC's. It always works out as long as I use NPC's (like the ones from the FtA!GN). But I get a lot of problems if I use Monsters.

For example I had a Level 3 Roque, a Level 3 Roque-Wizard and a Level 3 Warrior-Wizard that encountered a group of 5 HD1 kobolds.
After the first round in which the RW killed one of the kobolds with one shot. They totally lost control of the battle and had the Roque running away from the melee-kobolds and the WW shot to 0HP by the other two kobolds while the RW reloaded her Crossbow.

Seems to me that the whole thing is a lot of trial and error.


And I have some other questions:

Since there are rules to disarm someone, how do I pick up a weapon?
I just ignored drawing weapons but it seems to me that ignoring picking up lost weapons would make disarming and the first entries in the combat-fumble-lists useless.
I actually handled it as a -6 penalty to other actions (like it was a secondary action) but when in the combat round do I get control of the Weapon/Item.

So you don't get damage when your Qick-Casting-check fails?
Since the rules say that your Casting Check automatically fails I thought you would. A few lines later it is said (about fumbling) "...the spell simply fails and you get take the usual damage..."
Which implied to me that you take usually damage when failing a casting check even if it fails automatically.

Do you really get two missile attack ROLLs with the spell haste or is it just like the rule for firing two arrows or misslies at the same time?

[RPGPundit]

For some reason I don't really get a guideline to find some enemies for my group of SC's. It always works out as long as I use NPC's (like the ones from the FtA!GN). But I get a lot of problems if I use Monsters.

For example I had a Level 3 Roque, a Level 3 Roque-Wizard and a Level 3 Warrior-Wizard that encountered a group of 5 HD1 kobolds.
After the first round in which the RW killed one of the kobolds with one shot. They totally lost control of the battle and had the Roque running away from the melee-kobolds and the WW shot to 0HP by the other two kobolds while the RW reloaded her Crossbow.

5 Kobolds shouldn't be too much for a group of 3 level 3 characters. It sounds like they had some very bad luck. Why did the Rogue run away?
In the game positioning and teamwork matter quite a lot, as does timing.  If one level 3 character puts himself right out in the open, alone, so that four level 1 kobolds can wail on him, he'll probably be screwed. If he knew that his only backup was a rogue (apparently a cowardly one), and a guy firing ranged attacks, he should try to move into some kind of position where he can avoid fighting all 4 kobolds at once.

Since there are rules to disarm someone, how do I pick up a weapon?
I just ignored drawing weapons but it seems to me that ignoring picking up lost weapons would make disarming and the first entries in the combat-fumble-lists useless.
I actually handled it as a -6 penalty to other actions (like it was a secondary action) but when in the combat round do I get control of the Weapon/Item.

Yes, that sounds right.

So you don't get damage when your Qick-Casting-check fails?
Since the rules say that your Casting Check automatically fails I thought you would. A few lines later it is said (about fumbling) "...the spell simply fails and you get take the usual damage..."
Which implied to me that you take usually damage when failing a casting check even if it fails automatically.

In the case of Quick Casting, if you fail the roll, it means you screwed up before drawing up any magical energies, which means that you don't take any damage; the only consequence of the failure is that the spell didn't happen.

Do you really get two missile attack ROLLs with the spell haste or is it just like the rule for firing two arrows or misslies at the same time?

You get two separate rolls, which means that in theory you could try to fire up to four arrows at the same time (two with the first attack, and two with the second).

RPGPundit

[Mischa]

And when in the Combat round do you pick up dropped weapons?
Is it a stunt without a roll or where should I put it?

And another question: Do stunning effects of stunts and stunning effects of magic spells end at the same time?
Since stunning effects of magic can be considered ongoing spell effects they should end in the appropriate spell completion phase (or don't those end in that phase at all?)
But the stunt states: For one round. So does it last from that very moment till the next stunt phase, or for the next round. The latter would include the moral/intimidation check phase of that round, too. I mean then that NPC/PC wont participate in two moral checks.

Why exactly did you give the crossbow a loading time?
I thought it had to do with the extraordinary range but the longbow is pretty good for the range too and it has no loading time.

[flyingmice]

Why exactly did you give the crossbow a loading time?
I thought it had to do with the extraordinary range but the longbow is pretty good for the range too and it has no loading time.

That one I can answer, I think. It's for non-game reasons. In real life, crossbows have to be cranked or set on the ground and pulled up with a stirrup. This takes a lot of time. Other bows just need to be pulled back.

-clash

[Mischa]

Should there really be some Realism in FTA!?
That just leads to everyone wanting longbows insteads of crossbows and it is not so much realistic in the end.
Did you ever try shooting with a crosbow and with a longbow?
It is incredibly hard to "just pull it back" and some stirrup-mechanisms can be really fast.
As I said I thought it was because of the range which is more than doubled as the range of the shortbow but the range of the longbow is also twice the range of the shortbow.

[RPGPundit]

And when in the Combat round do you pick up dropped weapons?
Is it a stunt without a roll or where should I put it?

I would consider that a movement; its not a stunt, there's no such thing as a mundane stunt or a stunt that doesn't involve a roll. Picking something up is movement.

And another question: Do stunning effects of stunts and stunning effects of magic spells end at the same time?
Since stunning effects of magic can be considered ongoing spell effects they should end in the appropriate spell completion phase (or don't those end in that phase at all?)
But the stunt states: For one round. So does it last from that very moment till the next stunt phase, or for the next round. The latter would include the moral/intimidation check phase of that round, too. I mean then that NPC/PC wont participate in two moral checks.

One round means one round from the moment an effect takes place; so it would be one full round from the phase where the stun took effect until the same phase next round.

Why exactly did you give the crossbow a loading time?
I thought it had to do with the extraordinary range but the longbow is pretty good for the range too and it has no loading time.

It was mainly a question of Range, if I recall correctly, plus Emulation.
Its true that an untrained person would take longer to use a Bow; if this really bothers you, you could say that if someone doesn't have Ranged Weapon Training a shortbow also takes two rounds to fire and a longbow takes 3.

RPGPundit

[Mischa]

I would consider that a movement; its not a stunt, there's no such thing as a mundane stunt or a stunt that doesn't involve a roll. Picking something up is movement.
RPGPundit

But that means that disarming is a really poor thing:
If you got disarmed in the stuntphase of one round (and don't flee in the moral check) you can pick up your weapon again in the next movement phase.

So it only hindered me from moving but I always thought disarming was supposed to hinder someone from fighting.
Only if one PC/NPC uses a disarming stunt on a shield and another one completes a damage doing spell the same round it has a secondary effect.

But is that what you want to have built in your rules?

[RPGPundit]

But that means that disarming is a really poor thing:
If you got disarmed in the stuntphase of one round (and don't flee in the moral check) you can pick up your weapon again in the next movement phase.

So it only hindered me from moving but I always thought disarming was supposed to hinder someone from fighting.
Only if one PC/NPC uses a disarming stunt on a shield and another one completes a damage doing spell the same round it has a secondary effect.

But is that what you want to have built in your rules?

You can do a stunt to knock someone's weapon away a certain distance, requiring them to move away toward it (in most movies, when someone gets a weapon knocked out of their hand, it doesn't just drop to the floor beside them).
You could also a complicated stunt to disarm the person and end up with their weapon.

Also, I'd be likely to rule as GM that picking up a weapon when you're in a melee space is a pretty complex action, so if you did that while trying to fight you'd incur the penalty of doing multiple actions in one round.

RPGPundit

[Mischa]

Since my group is still in some kind of vacation I started to play as a player.
My new GM just told me that changing from missile weapons to melee has to be some kind of action -> a move action...
which makes it impossible to use a bow and take part in melee combat.
The strange thing is that he thinks it is possible to fire a crossbow with one hand.

[RPGPundit]

Since my group is still in some kind of vacation I started to play as a player.
My new GM just told me that changing from missile weapons to melee has to be some kind of action -> a move action...
which makes it impossible to use a bow and take part in melee combat.
The strange thing is that he thinks it is possible to fire a crossbow with one hand.

Changing weapons is definitely a move action.  However, that doesn't mean you can't "use a bow AND take part in melee combat".  You can do both things, only in the melee combat you would be fighting without any weapon (like you were unarmed).  You would also incur the -6 penalty for taking a second action (firing your bow) besides melee. But you can definitely do both, its disadvantageous, but possible.

Also, tell your GM that crossbows cannot be fired with only one hand, unless its some kind of special one-handed crossbow.

RPGPundit

[tracyk859]

http://hofrat.blogspot.com/2006/06/prussian-gamer-special-delivery.html

http://hofrat.blogspot.com/2007/07/forwardto-adventure-beta-playtest.html

Such a very amazing link!
Thanks for the post.

[jiujiu258]

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[Dan Davenport]

So, do I have it correct that armor reduces damage rather than the chance to hit?

Which is used to hit in melee combat: Dex or Str?