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Post by askhati on Feb 23, 2010 6:35:45 GMT
Ooh... I like the card idea! I might just steal that for my board game... *runs off to make notes*
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Post by johntfs on Feb 23, 2010 15:40:35 GMT
One thing as well. While the face cards can apply their influences during character creation and gold generation, the scores can't go below or above their minimums or maximums.
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Post by pi4t on Feb 23, 2010 17:42:19 GMT
What if the best outcome is, say, 4-6, and you get Kai or a 5? What about at the start of book 1, where you roll for equipment. What about weaponskill?
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Post by johntfs on Feb 24, 2010 2:30:27 GMT
Assuming you get Kai or Ishir, modify the roll as you wish. This includes not modifying it at all. Kai and Ishir are essentially "on your side" and will do what is best for you.
Another possibility is to simply ignore the face cards during character creation and deal them into the deck only when you begin play through the numbered sections.
One thing to consider before using this method is that your odds of getting certain cards will change over time as you use up cards. It's only when you get a Face card (or end the book) that you can reshuffle the deck.
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Post by executioneer on Feb 24, 2010 17:00:33 GMT
fantastic. I am definitely doing this next time I run a new Lone Wolf through the grinder.
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Post by johntfs on Feb 25, 2010 0:37:29 GMT
I just went through Flight from the Dark with the method and it worked pretty well
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Post by Honza on Mar 2, 2010 13:22:26 GMT
Maybe only a minor tweak, but it was always odd for me: In Book 11, section 100 you meet the God Kai, and the text depicts the meeting like some divine blessing. Surely it should restore all your EP lost so far (my EP score is usually very low at that time).
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Post by askhati on Mar 3, 2010 7:10:32 GMT
In the NO book 23, you and the prince find an old abandoned monastery (or something) that has a shrine to Kai in the one wall, with clumps of Laumspur growing from the base of the shrine. I always thought that was epic, the not-so-subtle hand of patronage helping you out there!
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Post by johntfs on Mar 3, 2010 8:24:36 GMT
Has anybody else tried the cards method? I've gone through the first 3 books with it and it's worked very well for me. One of the most interesting bits occurs in Book 2. My path ended up with LW getting robbed by the fishermen and left without much gold, which can be fatal in that book. So, I had to go to the weird gaming house and play bet on the number.
Normally, you have a straight 30% chance to win 5 or 8 to 1 per GC you bet. The Cards add a different dimension to this, depending on how recently you've re-shuffled. Essentially, the game involves more strategy because you want to place your bets on cards that haven't been pulled yet. At that point I hadn't had any 8s, 9s, or 10s to show up, so I bet several times on 9 and manged to raise my GC from 9 to 30 over three tries, giving me enough gold to survive the road trip.
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Post by Aarontu on Mar 8, 2010 21:01:59 GMT
Has anybody else tried the cards method? I've gone through the first 3 books with it and it's worked very well for me. One of the most interesting bits occurs in Book 2. My path ended up with LW getting robbed by the fishermen and left without much gold, which can be fatal in that book. So, I had to go to the weird gaming house and play bet on the number. Normally, you have a straight 30% chance to win 5 or 8 to 1 per GC you bet. The Cards add a different dimension to this, depending on how recently you've re-shuffled. Essentially, the game involves more strategy because you want to place your bets on cards that haven't been pulled yet. At that point I hadn't had any 8s, 9s, or 10s to show up, so I bet several times on 9 and manged to raise my GC from 9 to 30 over three tries, giving me enough gold to survive the road trip. Good thing it only took three tries; if you stayed there much longer they probably would have caught on and threw you out for card counting.
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Post by johntfs on Mar 9, 2010 4:29:53 GMT
Figure that was just practice. If you'll recall in Book 6 LW bilks enough money out of the Silver Sage gaming house in Casiorn to buy a new horse and extra supplies...
On the subject of cards, I also used them during the Grey Star series. This time, though, I simply used Red and Black Jokers, with Red adding +2 to your CS or Random Numbers and Black Jokers subtracting 2 from same.
It was a little weird during Book 3 because I only used the deck twice, once to repick my WP and once when steering the Ethertron to get the Threnogem.
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Post by askhati on Mar 11, 2010 10:59:29 GMT
A thought on Healing/Curing/Deliverance: since these skills all rely on a combination of the willpower and vitality of the Kai employing them, would it not make sense that a Kai with the Mind Over Matter/Nexus/Grand Nexus skills - which involves great willpower - have enhanced healing skills? Like a synergy of sorts:
Healing only: +1 EP per section Healing + Mind Over Matter: +1 EP from Healing, plus a random number from the 1d10 chart - even numbers give +1 EP, odd numbers give +2 EP Mind Over Matter only: whenever told to lose health unless Healing skill possessed, pick random number and ignore damage on 8 or higher
...or something like that...
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Post by Aarontu on Mar 11, 2010 16:37:55 GMT
I'd like healing to be simplified and generally less effective. As it is, it's just too good not to take, but it's annoying adjusting your EP in every book section.
Not sure how I would change it, but maybe healing [random number] EP after each combat would work.
OR replacing gradual healing with one or two healing surges, like the ability of the "Deliverance" discipline. Maybe instead of healing gradually, you can restore 20 EP during the story.
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Post by johntfs on Mar 11, 2010 16:41:16 GMT
Consider that your Healing ability improves over time each time you fully advance (Kai to Magnakai, Magnakai to Grandmaster). So you'd have to improve his facility with this at the same time. Pretty soon you'd be playing Lone Wolverine instead of Lone Wolf.
The reason I like the random d10 is that it fits the way LW uses his Healing/Curing on others. He doesn't hold their hands for hours on end (which would be kind of gay since he mostly heals men). Instead he touches them and focuses intently on an injury, which then gets better quickly, though sometimes not enough to truly save the person's life.
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Post by Zipp on Mar 11, 2010 16:59:26 GMT
A couple of people have pointed out problems with healing/curing. In the Dark One amateur series it uses the rule that after each combat you restore 1-10 Endurance (though it can't go above the Endurance you had before the start of the combat) instead of +1 per section. I quite like that rule. I think I'll keep it for my next play-through. Another thing I'm going to do is use a deck of cards instead of dice or the books' tables. I remove all but three of the face cards and Jokers, leaving Aces through Tens in the deck, along with the Jack of Diamonds, Queen of Hearts and King of Spades. I designate Jack of Diamonds as Kai, the Queen of Hearts as Ishir and the King of Spades as Naar. The Aces count as 1 and the Tens as 10 or zero according to the situation. Once a card is drawn, it is placed in a discard pile. The three Face cards are special, representing the interest of the various gods they represent in the happenings in Aon. Drawn as part of a non-combat (including bowfire) random number check they directly modify the check for good or ill (if an instant death situation would result on a 9, Kai would give you a -2 instead of a +2). Kai grants a +2 (or -2) bonus. Ishir grants +3/-3 and Naar curses you with -4/+4. After a face card is drawn, another card is also drawn and this continues until a non-face card is drawn. If more than one face card is drawn, their bonuses/penalties are totaled and then applied. In combat, the face cards have different effects. The card is drawn and left face up as the God influences the combat. Kai adds +2 to LWs Combat Score throughout the battle. Ishir adds a "phantom" +3 EP to LW and losses are taken from these EP first. Naar adds +4 CS to LW's enemies for the duration of the battle. Once one or more Face cards have been drawn and their influence on a "Die check" or combat has been resolved, the deck, including the cards in the discard pile are reshuffled into the deck. The deck is also reshuffled at the beginning of any new book. This is a very interesting house rule that I may incorporate into the new multi-player gamebook. It's a nice little meta-game. I think cards should be used more often in RPGs, even if only to describe setting information. For instance, it can be really fun (and helpful) to assign a different weather pattern to each suit and then raise the intensity of that weather based on how high you draw. IE. Spades are rainy, Diamonds are sunny, Clubs are windy, Hearts are cloudy. Then, if you draw a 2 of spades, you say it's drizzling and leave the card out so people remember the weather. during the scene. If you drew the king of diamonds, then maybe its a swelteringly hot day or maybe even there is a shift in the seasonal heat and you end up in a drought for the next month. Cards can also be great for deciding random enemy encounters. Again, assign a type to each suit and then draw to see how powerful (or large) the group of enemies is. In this case, maybe face cards mean no encounter.
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