WOIN Meet the Grey Fellowship

One of the three pre-built adventuring parties in the upcoming What's OLD is NEW Starter Box is the the Grey Fellowship (illustrated here by Claudio Pozas). We met the sci-fi-themed crew of the Starship Murphy last week, and the modern-themed Alpha Squad are coming in the next few days. Be sure to click to be notified when the Kickstarter launches!

The WOIN Starter Box is a gorgeous boxed set for this flexible TTRPG with rulebook, adventures, characters, poster maps, tokens--and an open license!

 

[Suskeyhose]

Am I missing something, but some of the enemies in the OLD book, the defenses seem darned high.
A Bandit with a 20 ranged defense?
With a soak of 3, and if Gimnor attacks with a 1d6+3 for crossbow damage, it's going to be nickel and diming the bad guy.
Even with trading dice for damage, I'll likely not hit that defense score.

Also, I believe the Bandit ranged defense score is wrong. It should be 11. It's based on AGL (3d6), no dodge, acrobatics or foresight skills. There is a movement skill, but that's not listed as giving a defense bump, also that is listed a magic based skill.

So NPCs aren't always built the same way as PCs and allow for you to just override some part of the normal derived stats rules.

This is important for if the bandit is meant to be a ranged combatant that falls quickly once you close to melee range, because at the moment outside of stacking exploits there is no way for ranged defense of a player character to outstrip their melee defense.

What this defense score is for is to push your players into tactical play to make use of the low melee defense. If you're attacking a bandit at a range you're doing it wrong. This is why it's important for encounters in WOiN to have multiple enemy types and why most characters should have multiple attack types.

 

[Ghost2020]

Well, I'll have to just agree to disagree.
I believe the bandit is too high of grade for what their role is in the game.
Bandits tend to be a cannon fodder sort of NPC, and this one is way too tough for what it is.

If the range defense is made that high just to create a certain type of play I think that's a misfire. (No pun intended)

It's easily hacked though, I'd keep it at 11, just my preference.

 

[Morrus]

Am I missing something, but some of the enemies in the OLD book, the defenses seem darned high.
A Bandit with a 20 ranged defense?
With a soak of 3, and if Gimnor attacks with a 1d6+3 for crossbow damage, it's going to be nickel and diming the bad guy.
Even with trading dice for damage, I'll likely not hit that defense score.

Also, I believe the Bandit ranged defense score is wrong. It should be 11. It's based on AGL (3d6), no dodge, acrobatics or foresight skills. There is a movement skill, but that's not listed as giving a defense bump, also that is listed a magic based skill.

I love the completeness of these books, but I am struggling to make combat work. (I hope I'm missing something)

So every foe will have a weak defense. The bandit is hard to hit at range, but easy in melee. Gimnor should be rolling 5d6 with his shortsword.

That said, combat is built around tactics. Figure out the bet way to stack the target (in this case, melee). He should also be trying to get extra dice from position, etc. Throwing in LUC if needed. And, as you say, exchanging those for damage dice.

(Monsters don't use PC character creation, BTW--monster creation rules are later in the book).

 

[Morrus]

Well, I'll have to just agree to disagree.
I believe the bandit is too high of grade for what their role is in the game.
Bandits tend to be a cannon fodder sort of NPC, and this one is way too tough for what it is.

If the range defense is made that high just to create a certain type of play I think that's a misfire. (No pun intended)

It's easily hacked though, I'd keep it at 11, just my preference.

If you want a weaker bandit, just make a weaker bandit then! It's your game!

Or maybe use a thug instead?

Monster stats are whatever you want them to be.

 

[Suskeyhose]

Well, I'll have to just agree to disagree.
I believe the bandit is too high of grade for what their role is in the game.
Bandits tend to be a cannon fodder sort of NPC, and this one is way too tough for what it is.

If the range defense is made that high just to create a certain type of play I think that's a misfire. (No pun intended)

It's easily hacked though, I'd keep it at 11, just my preference.

Well sure, adjust enemies as needed to fit your group and playstyle, I was just trying to explain the rationale for it being so high.

Also keep in mind that the title 'bandit' can apply to a lot of different people with a lot of different skills and levels of competence. The bandits in the book are ranged skirmishers who sneak into places under cover of allied fire and steal things before running away.

If your bandits are something else, then you can either reflavor another stat block like thug, or you could make your own bandit, either by adjusting the stats as you are, or working from scratch.

 

[Lime2K]

'Cinematic Mode' adds the LUC dice pool too.

Ah, missed that. That sidebar should really be somewhere on the same page spread instead of the next one, TBH.