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Character Sheets & Play Aids

The Towns, Jarls, and Kings of the Sea of Raiders

House Rules

Helmet CP Penalties The notation “-0.5 CP for Pot Helm and Aventail or Doubled Mail Coif” is assumed to mean that 1) a coif made out of doubled mail holds the penalty, and 2) a pot helm over a mail coif holds the penalty, regardless of the weight of the mail. (Helm + Aventail + coif is dumb, since it doesn’t really gain you anything – but if one truly wants to do it, it would count as a full helm).

Closing the Range: Under the straight rules, one must either score a successful hit or do a Duck-and-weave to close the range; there are, however, too many ways that this can be done defensively for me to be happy with it. Therefore:

• A normal parry, block or partial evade may, by paying a 2-die activation cost, close the range if successful.
• A Counter, Rota, or similar manoeuvre may do so by paying an activation cost of 3 or the manoeuvre’s normal cost +1, whichever is more.

Counters and rangeIf the counter roll should call for a strike that changes the range, (such as pommel strike or slash at lower legs) the range is assumed to have changed as part of the set-up for the counter. Any dice spent to close the range (as above) are added to the strike.

Defensive Grapples, if successful, close the range to hand at no further cost.

Two-Weapon Counters: People with two weapons roll an extra d2 when rolling for the counter table, to see which weapon the attack is made with. This attack has the same range penalty as the primary weapon would have (I.E., if the die says you perform your counter with your dagger, the range penalty is that which your sword would have suffered, as the counter has again set up the attack with the knife. You then end the exchange at that range.)

Accuracy: Use the version of this Gift from the Companion.

Ride-by Attack: The attacker must win a contested roll of AG/Ride vs. the Infantry’s WP/Battle; the effectiveness of Cavalry is not its ability to do damage, but to break troops, and when they are determined and well trained, infantry will stand its ground and usually win.

Mounted Proficiencies All weapons have a mounted equivalent (Lances is Pole-arms) that defaults from the ground version at -2. These are used when mounted.

Blocking with limbs can be done; on a thrust this is actually not that hard. Against a cut it is trickier. If the block fails, the defender takes damage as normal. If it botches, he takes that plus half the damage (before Armour but after TO) to the blocking limb. If it succeeds he takes damage equal to (ST-TO)+DM+(Att. Succ/2)-Def. MoS-Armour.

Hit Location Penalty Changes These are expressed as modifiers to Reach, and apply to any situation the reach modifier would also apply to.

• Head: is 1 further on thrusts, no change on cuts
• Face: is 1 further on Thrusts and Cuts
• Arms: are 1 better (either closer or further as suits the moment) on cuts. (Arms have no change on thrusts, as their improved accessibility is off-set by their small target area)
• Lower Leg: is 2 further on cuts and thrusts.
• Protecting the Lower Leg: The lower leg costs 2 CP to parry or block with a Hand or Short weapon, 1 CP with a Medium weapon and 0 with a Long or longer weapon. Small shields and bucklers are considered Hand, medium shields Short and large shields Medium.

Pulling Punches Any attack may be a “pulled punch,” i.e. limited damage. Before rolling declare how many wounds you’re pulling back; these are subtracted from your final damage total, and also from x shock bonuses.

Breaking Weapons: Each weapon is rated with a Fail Threshold. For items like swords or knives this is a 7; solid weapons like maces this might be a 6; for complex or fragile weapons this is an 8. After each battle scene, the player rolls 2 dice (for a normal weapon, 1 for a poor and 3 for a fine or exceptional) against the threshold.

If the roll has 1 or more successes, the weapon has survived the battle just fine. If the roll has no successes, the weapon is damaged. The hilt is coming loose, the edge is chipped, the haft is cracked, etc. If may still be used, but every time the weapon collides with something (hits a target, is blocked, is parried) the Fail roll must be made, with another failure indicating that the weapon is now broken.

If the roll botches, the weapon is broken and cannot be used. A weapon that has been damaged can be repaired, generally with 2 successes on an appropriate skill check, with no further effects; a weapon that has been broken will need at least 4 successes to repair (though an extended roll would be possible) and will almost certainly degrade in quality. One of the three TN’s should be lowered, and it will roll one less die to test for Failure hereinafter.

Distance Marching: When traveling for long distances, the Move Score and the Overland Travel Table determine a character’s speed. How long he can go is a function of his Endurance, Armour and Encumbrance. Roll EN/8 for each character, applying any CP penalties from Armour and Encumbrance. MoS + EN is how many hours the character can march before getting tired. At that point, if they press on, roll WP/8. MoS + EN is how many more hours the character can march, gaining a die of fatigue for each hour on the road. (This is long-term fatigue that will fade at the rate of 1 per half-hour’s rest.) At the end of this time, the character will collapse. Resting up: If the character stops to rest without pressing on into his WP, he may make a HT/8 roll every half-hour. Track total successes. 1 success means he may travel for ½ MoS on an EN/8 roll. 2 successes is the full MoS. 3 is the MoS + ½ his En, and 4 successes has him good to go again.

If the character has been pushing on and gaining Fatigue, resting takes longer. If his total Fatigue is now greater than his EN, resting for an hour removes 1 Fatigue die. Once Fatigue is equal to or less than his EN, they fade at ½ hour per. Once he has recovered all his Fatigue, he may begin making HT rolls for each additional ½ hour of rest.

These rules do assume the traveler gets a proper night’s rest at the end of each day of marching; if this is not so, the GM should assign Fatigue dice that will not rest away, and impact all of the above rolls.

Plus x Shock. Jake has described the purpose of this stat to be reflecting how some weapons will stagger you and knock you off balance, without actually hurting you. Therefore, this modifier must apply when a target has been hit but no Wound Level inflicted; and as the wounds themselves quite readily reflect the effects of injury, the following shall apply: x is defined as Margin of Success, and the bonus shock is only applied when the target was hit, but not injured.

Falling Damage is increased by 50%, and TO is then subtracted from the total, before distributing it.