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Saturday, January 22, 2011

And Through The Woods To The Other Path Over Yonder...

Hello everyone and welcome to a slightly gear grinding installment of the Dispatch!

This week we are going to continue our look at Fear and Faith by Ganesha Games but with a slight twist. In the last installment, we set up the scenario with a little bit of flavor text and picked out the miniatures that were going to be used. Since then I crunched some numbers and put together some stats for Fear and Faith so I could give them a run-through to make sure that it was balanced in both numbers and game play. Unfortunately things didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped and some changes were in order. Just what am I talking about? Read on to find out!

All Alone In The Woods: Stating Up, Trying Out, And Then Completely Changing
A Slightly Modified Fear And Faith Battle Report

Originally I'd planned on digging a little deeper into the custom system used by the Song of Blades games to show just how I put together the various stat lines for this scenario. They came together quickly enough so I tried a few test runs with them to make sure that they would be balanced against each other in application as well as value. Turns out there were a few problems.

The biggest one is also one of the key flavor aspects of the scenario, none other than werewolf special rule and its nemesis, silver weapon. As it stands out of the book, werewolves are somewhat indestructible. Due to their supernatural origins, the only way to kill a werewolf is to use a silver weapon. Use anything else and you can pretty much just forget about it. The problem is that when you do use a silver weapon, you are almost guaranteed to kill it dead as silver is lethal to them. The real problem with this in my opinion is that there is no middle ground. Either they are bad ass and they rip you apart or look at them and they fall over dead. Doesn't make for a very exciting game now does it?

In an attempt to find a way around this problem, I went in a different direction and took a look at the ShadowSea ruleset. For those that aren't familiar with it, ShadowSea has been likened to a more advanced version of Song of Blades by the author of the original so I decided to pick it up and I was not disappointed.

Among the changes in ShadowSea are more detailed rules for interacting with the gaming environment, a more in depth magic system, and a full campaign setting for starters. After checking out some of the changes to the basic rules (such as charging into combat for a bonus), I flipped to the special abilities section to see what exactly they had in store. All and all, the list not only seemed more extensive but also more detailed in some ways. Skimming through the list I was able to pick out several different abilities that looked like they would be much more fitting for the scenario that I want to run so I grabbed a pen and got to work building my forces.

So how exactly did things turn out? Right now I'm still fine tuning things but things have been much closer in the test games that I've tried so I'm looking forward to doing more with the ShadowSea rules. As for the battle report, you'll have to come back for the next installment of the Dispatch as Brother Lucius and his band try to stop the vile wolfkin led by their bloodmage! Will they stop the evil plan of the bloodmage? Can the save the girl from a horrible fate? You'll just have to come back to find out!

The Parting Shot...

That wraps up another Dispatch but there is still some more to come as we wrap things up with a slightly modified Fear and Faith battle report! Will Brother Lucius and his followers be able to save the girl? Just what did the foul werewolves have in store for the child? All will become clear soon enough. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them right here on the blog or you can email me at SinCitySnowman@gmail.com plus you can like the blog on Facebook now too! Just click on the like button to the right. Go on. Do it. You know you want to. Until next time...

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