So, I know I've been pretty quiet on this project, but I've been continuing to noodle with it in the background. After I posted that table of contents last time, I did an analysis of what sections depended on other sections and realized that the main core that would affect how just about everything else played out was statting up the "adventure company" itself. I think that this, plus the colony rules, will be the main contributions of this project (assuming I do a half decent job, anyway). The colony rules are going to take a bit more doing, but in the meantime, here's the start on how to record, track, and make use of the company/expedition as a unit of its own.
The core of the company as a unit is the company record sheet. I have shamelessly stolen the basic concept from GW's skirmish games like Necromunda and Mordheim, and the idea is that it gives you everything you need to resolve situations treating the company as a single unit, or at a medium level of detail where "important" characters act individually, but hirelings/henchmen/grunts are handled as groups. If you want to go full individual detail, just use standard D&D stats. Here's the record sheet followed by a breakdown of what each stat means:
MV
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AC
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HP
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To-Hit
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Class
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Level
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Skills
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Tags
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Equipment
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Inventory
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Morale/Ldrshp
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Company
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1
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Officer 1
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2
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Officer 2
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3
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Henchman Group 1
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Movement
Company - Daily Hex Map Movement Rate
Officers - Individual Tactical Movement Rate
Henchmen - Individual Tactical Movement Rate
Armor Class
Company - Average of all members, rounded off
Officers - Individual Armor Class
Henchmen - Individual Armor Class
Hit Points
Company - Equal to total hit dice of members
Officers - Individual HP
Henchmen - 1 per HD per invidual
To-Hit Bonus
Company - Based on Company Class and Level
Officers - Based on individual class and level
Henchmen - Based on group class and level
Class
Company - Class of Leader
Officers - Individual Class
Henchmen - Class of group (all members are the same)
Level
Company - Average level of members, rounded off, minimum 1
Officers - Individual level
Henchmen - Group level
Skills
Company - All skills of all members, use highest in case of overlap
Officers - Individual skills
Henchmen - Group skills
Tags
Company - All tags for all members, ignore overlap
Officers - Individual tags
Henchmen - Group Tags
Equipment
Company - Traveling and company level equipment and cargo only
Officers - Special equipment and cargo only
Henchmen - Special equipment and cargo only
Inventory
Company - Total inventory slots
Officers - Individual inventory slots
Henchmen - Group inventory slots
Morale/Leadership
Company - Leader’s leadership
Officers - Individual leadership
Henchmen - Group morale
Types of Characters
Officers
Officers are tracked and act as individuals. In a game with player characters, it is assumed that all PCs are officers, along with some player-controlled, leveled retainers. Specialized retainers hired for their skills are also treated as officers.
Henchmen
Henchmen are tracked as groups at the company level. These groups are generally 3-5 people, with no more than 6. All members of a henchmen group are considered to have the same class and characteristics at the company level and advance as a group.
This section is based on the henchmen rules from Mordheim.
This section is based on the henchmen rules from Mordheim.
Classes
In addition to the standard D&D classes for officers, non-combatant specialists may be hired from the following classes
- Ship’s Captain - required for travel on the ocean if no officer is qualified
- Naval Navigator - required for travel out of sight of the coast if no officer is qualified
- Cartographer - improves travel rolls by decreasing chance of getting lost
- Physician - improves healing
- Guide - improves chances to find undiscovered sites of interest
- Engineer - Specialist in Architecture, building, demolition, and siege-work
- “Build Your Own” with the skills available - +1 to any one skill per level
Henchmen can be the following classes:
- Laborers - good for carrying things, clearing paths, establishing forts
- Teamsters - provide and care for beasts of burden
- Sailors - required for sailing or operating large boats
- Infantry - combatants with standard hand to hand gear
- Pikemen - combatants with pikes or other polearms
- Ranged - combatants with ranged weapons
- Cavalry - mounted combatants
Skills
As in LotFP (Generic Skill - 1 in 6), with the following exceptions/additions:
- If interacting with never before contacted cultures (e.g. "the natives"), test language skill once per month of exposure to determine understanding
- Rather than the standard chance of getting lost, a successful navigation roll must be made to stay on course
- Exploration related skills (navigation, cartography, bushcraft, languages, etc) can be improved by all characters
Tags
I may not keep these, but the idea is that here is where you can put some cues about anything special about the guy/group: stuff like "Elves", or "flying", or "vicious" or what have you. Most of the stuff I thought about putting in here is now covered pretty well by the other categories.
Equipment
At the company level, only significant equipment should be recorded, like food, loot, excavation equipment or whatever. Each piece of equipment in this category takes up one slot. (More detail on this to come as I work out the other sections).
Inventory & Encumbrance
This is the number of "slots" a character can carry if you aren't zooming in to full encumbrance rules. Regular gear doesn't use up slots, only large/unwieldy things, food, and loot. Normal humans have three regular slots and one encumbered slot. If the encumbered spot is filled, that unit moves slower tactically and on the map.
Standard pack animals (mules, unless your setting has something more exotic) can carry 6 slots unencumbered and 8 encumbered. Each teamster can handle two pack animals.
The idea is that a normal person, in addition to his regular gear, can carry enough food for a week's trip out and back, plus one other thing (a week's worth of food is one slot). This is slightly based on personal backpacking experience and partly based on trying to make a game-interesting resource management issue. I haven't worked out exactly how the movement works yet (and thus the encumbrance effect), and the number of slots and number of pack animals per teamster may need to be adjusted. The idea is to make for tough, hard choices when it comes to how many fighting types and how many carrying stuff types you bring on dangerous expeditions into the jungle/mountains/islands.
- If interacting with never before contacted cultures (e.g. "the natives"), test language skill once per month of exposure to determine understanding
- Rather than the standard chance of getting lost, a successful navigation roll must be made to stay on course
- Exploration related skills (navigation, cartography, bushcraft, languages, etc) can be improved by all characters
Tags
I may not keep these, but the idea is that here is where you can put some cues about anything special about the guy/group: stuff like "Elves", or "flying", or "vicious" or what have you. Most of the stuff I thought about putting in here is now covered pretty well by the other categories.
Equipment
At the company level, only significant equipment should be recorded, like food, loot, excavation equipment or whatever. Each piece of equipment in this category takes up one slot. (More detail on this to come as I work out the other sections).
Inventory & Encumbrance
This is the number of "slots" a character can carry if you aren't zooming in to full encumbrance rules. Regular gear doesn't use up slots, only large/unwieldy things, food, and loot. Normal humans have three regular slots and one encumbered slot. If the encumbered spot is filled, that unit moves slower tactically and on the map.
Standard pack animals (mules, unless your setting has something more exotic) can carry 6 slots unencumbered and 8 encumbered. Each teamster can handle two pack animals.
The idea is that a normal person, in addition to his regular gear, can carry enough food for a week's trip out and back, plus one other thing (a week's worth of food is one slot). This is slightly based on personal backpacking experience and partly based on trying to make a game-interesting resource management issue. I haven't worked out exactly how the movement works yet (and thus the encumbrance effect), and the number of slots and number of pack animals per teamster may need to be adjusted. The idea is to make for tough, hard choices when it comes to how many fighting types and how many carrying stuff types you bring on dangerous expeditions into the jungle/mountains/islands.
Morale/Leadership
This represents an officer's ability to command the loyalty of the henchmen or the henchman's ability to face dangerous, terrifying, or bizarre threats. Default assumption is that it works exactly like D&D/Warhammer morale/leadership checks, with underlings getting to use the leader's leadership (rather than their morale being modified by his charisma).
Running a Company as an Individual
In this case, the player's character is the leader, other officers are analogous to "henchmen" in AD&D, and henchmen are more typical hirelings/retainers.
Running a Company as a Group
Here, the default assumption is that each player has a PC officer, and there is some system for making group decisions (such as travel direction and speed, how to pay the henchmen, et cetera). Another method would be for there to be a stable of officer characters that players rotate through depending on who goes on what expeditions/missions.
This represents an officer's ability to command the loyalty of the henchmen or the henchman's ability to face dangerous, terrifying, or bizarre threats. Default assumption is that it works exactly like D&D/Warhammer morale/leadership checks, with underlings getting to use the leader's leadership (rather than their morale being modified by his charisma).
Running a Company as an Individual
In this case, the player's character is the leader, other officers are analogous to "henchmen" in AD&D, and henchmen are more typical hirelings/retainers.
Running a Company as a Group
Here, the default assumption is that each player has a PC officer, and there is some system for making group decisions (such as travel direction and speed, how to pay the henchmen, et cetera). Another method would be for there to be a stable of officer characters that players rotate through depending on who goes on what expeditions/missions.
