Les Ombres d'Esteren - Forum officiel

Hullo, folks,

I've got a few questions about equipment and the like, and so...

First up, can anyone give me an idea on prices for the following items?

Climbing pitons 4 Ed

Blanket, fur 2 Ad
Blanket, cloth 15 Ed

Food rations (per day) 3-8 Ed

Satchel, leather 3 Ed
Satchel, hide 2 Ed

Smoking pipe (possibly variable quality) 3-5 Ed

Hatchet 4 Ed

Spoon, wood 1 Ed
Fork, wood 1 Ed
Fork, metal 3 Ed
Eating knife, wood 1 Ed
Eating knife, metal 2 Ed


Second, can anyone give me an idea on the damage done by the following items?

Hatchet Damage 1

Sickle Damage 1

Scythe Damage 2

Pickaxe Damage 2

Pitchfork Damage 2

Lumberjack axe Damage 2


Thanks, in advance.

Good questions. Similarly, I've been wondering what the damage of just a character's fists would be. If you go with the lowest Damage rating, 1, that's still as high as the damage of a dagger, so you might as well just use your fists in that case.

Some of the items you've listed have prices listed in Book 1:

Knife, fork, spoon:
p. 221: A kitchen knife is 4Ed, a big ladle is 2Ed, and wooden dishes are 1Ed.
I'd call a wooden spoon or fork 1Ed, or maybe 1Ed for a set. I'd go with the price above for a knife, assuming it's made of metal.

Leather satchel:
p. 221: A hide pouch is 1Ed, a large cloth bag is 1Ed. That's what I'd go with.

I'll get back to you on the other items.

As for damage for the weapons listed:

This is interesting because you don't want to make such mundane items too powerful, thus giving the player no reason to buy a more expensive weapon, but realistically a person could use these things as weapons.

What I would do is make a houserule for using mundane tools as weapons -- let's call them "peasant-grade weapons." Since these tools weren't designed for combat, make them usable, but fragile. Here are some ideas: 1) The weapon breaks on an Attack roll of 1, regardless of whether you get a critical failure or not. 2) The weapon has a chance of breaking every time you use it in combat (you could adapt the malfunction checks on Magientist Artifacts for this).

As for damage, I would give all of the tools you listed 2 Damage. They're about the same cost as a carath or javelin, which do 2 damage, and they're much bigger and deadlier than a dagger, knife, or club, which all do 1 damage and cost half as much or less.

I just realized that weapon prices are all over the place, with very little distinguishing them. A carath and javelin do 2 damage, but only cost 8 Ed, while everything else that does 2 damage costs between 1 and 5Ad... A javelin can also be thrown, making it even more useful. Why buy a Francisca or short spear when you can just buy a carath or javelin?

(One last note in this already far too wordy post: If other people post their suggestions for prices, could you update your original post to include those? That way people can use your original post as a reference to which people can refer later.)

Hullo, Dragonslav,

Dragoslav a écrit :Good questions.

I thought so.

Dragoslav a écrit : Similarly, I've been wondering what the damage of just a character's fists would be. If you go with the lowest Damage rating, 1, that's still as high as the damage of a dagger, so you might as well just use your fists in that case.

Good question. I've decided to take this to another thread.

Dragoslav a écrit : Some of the items you've listed have prices listed in Book 1:

Knife, fork, spoon:
p. 221: A kitchen knife is 4Ed, a big ladle is 2Ed, and wooden dishes are 1Ed.
I'd call a wooden spoon or fork 1Ed, or maybe 1Ed for a set. I'd go with the price above for a knife, assuming it's made of metal.

This might be a good guideline to use. I'd think an eating knife, which wouldn't be the same as a kitchen knife (and there should be a basic idea of damage on that, too, so we'll call that a Damage 1), would maybe run 1 Ed if wood, and 2 Ed if metal.

Dragoslav a écrit : Leather satchel:
p. 221: A hide pouch is 1Ed, a large cloth bag is 1Ed. That's what I'd go with.

That's certainly true, but leather would be more expensive than hide, I would think. Maybe, say 3 Ed.

By the way, most of the items that I mentioned here come from the equipment of the six default characters provided in the main rule book, and I haven't even got the stats for the six characters out of Book 0 - Prologue, so who knows what extra equipment and tools they might have.

Dragoslav a écrit : I'll get back to you on the other items.

Please do.

Dragoslav a écrit : As for damage for the weapons listed:

This is interesting because you don't want to make such mundane items too powerful, thus giving the player no reason to buy a more expensive weapon, but realistically a person could use these things as weapons.

This is definitely something that I agree with you about.

Dragoslav a écrit : What I would do is make a houserule for using mundane tools as weapons -- let's call them "peasant-grade weapons." Since these tools weren't designed for combat, make them usable, but fragile. Here are some ideas: 1) The weapon breaks on an Attack roll of 1, regardless of whether you get a critical failure or not. 2) The weapon has a chance of breaking every time you use it in combat (you could adapt the malfunction checks on Magientist Artifacts for this).

As for damage, I would give all of the tools you listed 2 Damage. They're about the same cost as a carath or javelin, which do 2 damage, and they're much bigger and deadlier than a dagger, knife, or club, which all do 1 damage and cost half as much or less.

I'm not sure how to handle the basic breakage roll, but I like option one. Makes it a bit more fragile tha the normal, actual weapons, which break as per the rules.

Damage-wise, I can certainly see this. I also want to add the hunting knife, since one of my players in the Friday night group wants one of these, and was thinking of giving it Damage 2.

Dragoslav a écrit : I just realized that weapon prices are all over the place, with very little distinguishing them. A carath and javelin do 2 damage, but only cost 8 Ed, while everything else that does 2 damage costs between 1 and 5Ad... A javelin can also be thrown, making it even more useful. Why buy a Francisca or short spear when you can just buy a carath or javelin?

Totally agree with you on what you've said here.

One of the weapons that I expected to see on the list is a broadsword, but all we get are the gladius/short sword and the longsword. If one makes the broadsword do Damage 2, that makes it equivalent to the gladius/short sword, so...

Dragoslav a écrit : (One last note in this already far too wordy post: If other people post their suggestions for prices, could you update your original post to include those? That way people can use your original post as a reference to which people can refer later.)

[/quote]

That's a good idea. Consider it done.

I use :

• litlle weapons : 0-1 => knifes, dagger, etc.
• medium weapons (1h) : 2 (short sword, axe).
• heavy weapons or 2h weapons : 3 (long sword and co.)

Weapons are specialized tools. Mundane tools give -1 on damage basing on the equivalent weapon.
example : Lumberjack axe 1h => damage +1, Lumberjack axe 2h => damage +2

Why buy a Francisca or short spear when you can just buy a carath or javelin?

If like me you try to be a little realistic, parry a sword or axe with a javelin broke it. The durability is not the same, and it exist an optionnal rules to play with (p.227 in the french book.) I do not consider this as a problem, if you're looking atmosphere more than optimization.

iz

Hullo, Iz,

iznurda a écrit :I use :

• litlle weapons : 0-1 => knifes, dagger, etc.
• medium weapons (1h) : 2 (short sword, axe).
• heavy weapons or 2h weapons : 3 (long sword and co.)

That's certainly a workable option, but to be honest, there's not a lot of gradation of weapons and damage in the game system.

iznurda a écrit : Weapons are specialized tools. Mundane tools give -1 on damage basing on the equivalent weapon.
example : Lumberjack axe 1h => damage +1, Lumberjack axe 2h => damage +2

Hmmm... I need to thinka bout this somewhat, je pense.

iznurda a écrit :

Why buy a Francisca or short spear when you can just buy a carath or javelin?

If like me you try to be a little realistic, parry a sword or axe with a javelin broke it. The durability is not the same, and it exist an optionnal rules to play with (p.227 in the french book.) I do not consider this as a problem, if you're looking atmosphere more than optimization.

iz

And don't forget that there's also the prestige! After all, using a weapon is not only about how efficient it is; the tradition and the meaning behind it also matter. Maybe an Osag will fight with a francisca instead of a short spear, because he's no mere hunter, he's a warrior! Or maye a mercenary of Continental blood will stick to a gladius, to remember his origins.

That's also what makes it interesting to pick your Character's equipment: no two Characters look the same because they don't have the same physical aspect, but also because they dress differently.

John, as promised, here are my estimations for the prices of the other items. My degree is in English, not economics, so these estimates really only amount to reasonable guesses.

Climbing pitons
4Ed, the same as a crowbar. A set of pitons probably uses less metal than a crowbar but is harder to craft, so it evens out.

Blanket, wool
I was going to call this 5Ed until I actually found "wool blanket" in the furniture section for 1Ad, so, there you go. Seems high.
Blanket, fur
To make this reasonably more expensive than a wool blanket, I'd call it 2Ad, although a fur coat is 1Ad, so 2Ad for just a blanket seems too high in comparison. Under other circumstances, I'd call it 7Ed.
Blanket, cloth
15Ed, correspondingly more expensive than a wool blanket as a unit of linen is to a unit of wool. Under other circumstances, I'd call it 6Ed.

Food rations (per day)
3-8Ed, depending on how luxurious you want to be. A peasant probably spends 3-4Ed per day on food for himself, possibly as little as 2 (especially if there are multiple young children in the household).

Smoking pipe (possibly variable quality)
3-5Ed depending on quality

Hatchet
4Ed, half as much as a lumberjack axe, and as much as a crowbar.

Hullo, Dragoslav,

Dragoslav a écrit :John, as promised, here are my estimations for the prices of the other items. My degree is in English, not economics, so these estimates really only amount to reasonable guesses.

LOL! Yeah, well, my degree is in Psychology, so that's about as reasonable as any other degree out there!

Dragoslav a écrit : Climbing pitons
4Ed, the same as a crowbar. A set of pitons probably uses less metal than a crowbar but is harder to craft, so it evens out.

Certainly true. I can go with this value. It sounds right.

Dragoslav a écrit : Blanket, wool
I was going to call this 5Ed until I actually found "wool blanket" in the furniture section for 1Ad, so, there you go. Seems high.
Blanket, fur
To make this reasonably more expensive than a wool blanket, I'd call it 2Ad, although a fur coat is 1Ad, so 2Ad for just a blanket seems too high in comparison. Under other circumstances, I'd call it 7Ed.
Blanket, cloth
15Ed, correspondingly more expensive than a wool blanket as a unit of linen is to a unit of wool. Under other circumstances, I'd call it 6Ed.

Goddess, but you're right... there's the wool blanket under Furniture! Price-wise on the blankets, I think you've got these right, so these are the prices I'll use for them.

Dragoslav a écrit : Food rations (per day)
3-8Ed, depending on how luxurious you want to be. A peasant probably spends 3-4Ed per day on food for himself, possibly as little as 2 (especially if there are multiple young children in the household).

Sounds reasonable.

Dragoslav a écrit : Smoking pipe (possibly variable quality)
3-5Ed depending on quality

Again, sounds relatively reasonable, but the high-quality pipe could be around 10 Ed, I think.

Dragoslav a écrit : Hatchet
4Ed, half as much as a lumberjack axe, and as much as a crowbar.

Again, sounds about right. Thanks, mate.

JohnK a écrit :That's certainly a workable option, but to be honest, there's not a lot of gradation of weapons and damage in the game system.

Well I don't see a problem here. It seems you want to let the system do things wich are for me depending of the roleplay. And in a realistic ways, you can kill with lots of stupid tools like a pen or a brick. Weapons are just tools ; specialised, yes, but just tools. They can't kill by themself and the user made the main. It the same in SoE's system.

The point is : you can up the granularity of weapon's damages but the fights will be fatal so you need to up the granularity of protections too. It's lot's of effort about something I find not usefull.

Finally, this is just my opinion. Forget the system, just play !

iz