Sartosa

Ah... well, I must have put it in the new document without it sinking in... my group always played it, "you capture a swabbie, he gets the swabbie stats."

Well, if it was always on the books, then it's less of a big shock... though I should stress it, to make sure that I'm not the ONLY idiot who overlooked it.

StyrofoamKing wrote:

Ah... well, I must have put it in the new document without it sinking in... my group always played it, "you capture a swabbie, he gets the swabbie stats."

Well, if it was always on the books, then it's less of a big shock... though I should stress it, to make sure that I'm not the ONLY idiot who overlooked it.

Wow, that was quite a big miss we made there.

This has some rather severe ramifications, IIRC we had the option of them getting into the "bad" or the "good" group of henchies, but if they keep their stats whatever you do, there is no real penalty for not getting them into the good group.

I'm totally blown on what we should do. But I assume giving these rules to all of them will be OTT, we could give it to the sartosans, but they will definately be the best of the Pirates IMO then.

Master: Well, technically it was on the books BEFORE, I just never noticed it. In theory, since we based all of the Swabbies in each warband on the original Swabbies, with each approximately the same cost, if all warbands get the same access to "super-zombies", then they'll each get the same bonus. I'm beginning to see why Tim made it so swabbies were so hard to find!

I do expect a few changes, based on any given warband:

Dwarves - the slayers would get a screen of models that move FASTER than the dwarves. A Unique bonus most dwarves don't get.

Elves - the opposite of above, the elves get a slower moving screen. Not "undead" slow, but would make for an interested "horde" tactic seldom seen in elf bands.

Khorne - Considering the "skinner" approach was designed with weaklings in mind, this one might have to be changed. What is any henchmen grants +1 toughened leather, a skinned hero grants a t. leather and/or +1 experience?

ghost pirates - considering they gain fear, immune to psych, and "bob" (at the cost of "can't run"), these become the best swabbies around. Rather than a squishy zombie, each hero or henchmen captured is as good as a "spell of awakening". With that in mind, why not change "Hymn of Rebirth" to make it fit the "pressgang" theme?

Hymn of Rebirth Difficulty - Auto
This spell may be cast once each time an enemy Hero Dies (i.e. a roll of 11-15 on the serious injury table). The Sea Singer is able to pull the hero back to the brink, giving him one last choice: to join the crew as a Cursed, or join them as a Bloated? Both your captain and the hero Roll 2D6 and add their respective leadership, with a +1 bonus to either warband if that warband won the last game. If you total higher, you convince the hero to join your warband as a Cursed. He retains his stats and skills (not spells), but may only use items from the Cursed equipment list. He gains experience like a henchmen, and has a maximum experience level of 15. If he already has an experience of 15 or greater, he may not gain experience. If he rolls That Lad's got talent, he may become a hero as normal. If you do not roll a higher total, the hero joins you as a Bloated, using the normal rules for henchmen and heroes becoming bloated.

So, compared to "Spell of Awakening", it has the potential to be better- the hero gains experience like a living being! It also has a chance to be worse, in that instead of a normal super zombie, it's a zombie that will dissappear if you rout after he dies.

Option B: is to make the Hymn a simple, "Whenver an enemy hero dies, you may attempt to pressgang him just as if you captured him." Which means if he joins the cursed, he becomes a normal warrior with base stats.

EDIT
Khorne - maybe you have the option of turning a hero into a totem, but there's a small chance you can tap into his strength. Pick a single combat or strength skill the hero had, and roll 1D6: on a roll of 4+, the skill is endowed into the totem until next game, and any hero who wears it gains that skill. Roll 1D6 at the end of the game: on a roll of 1-5, the power fades, on a roll of 6, it is retained, and will forever grant that skill. You may only wear one totem at a time, and a totem that has been worn by one warrior may not be passed on to another. If the totem grants a skill that a warrior already has, the effect is not cumulative.

I think you are over-reacting.

I will clarify and say that we played heroes as written above, henchmen became the lower stat swabs if they refused to join the crew. So we only got it half right. We did play that different races could be pressed so we had orcs working as crew for the Dark Elfs and vice versa. A Sea Elf patrol would not work for the orcs as crew but could become an automatic swab. One Khorne pirate warband ended up with an Orc hero because of LGT, stuff like that.

The above spell seems like a break not a fix. By the current rules you can get uber-zombies, with the above you get uber-henchmen that can become an uber-hero.

Hmm. So Hymn of Rebirth basically allows you to capture any hero that is dead? I think that is a little too good. However, I can see that it is still basically Spell of Awakening with a chance of something better. If it is just better than spell of awakening we need a way to justify that. One way could be that the Seasinger has the worst equipment list ever and can only learn academic and speed skills, meaning she will never be viable in combat.

But IIRC the Seasinger already has all of her spells a little better than their counterparts for this, so it could be viable that he last spell is also a little better than its' counterpart.

Yes I think the Khorne Player should add one experience for each Hero-Swabbie they kill. The others get quite a nice warrior for a few games. Khorne should have one experience for their troubles, as well as the leathers.

Just saw your Totem idea, I like it very much! I think we could do that, your characters would be collecting the skulls of their foes! Very Khorny!

Totem: Here, I'll make it a little closer in duration to the Swabbies:

"Totem: When an enemy hero refuses to join your Plunderers, you have three options: to skin him for a Toughened Leather, skin him for a Leather Cape (if a hero has the Master Tanner skill), or, if he knows a Combat or Strength skill, turn him into a totem. You may choose any ONE Combat or Strength skill the enemy hero had: the hero is now killed, gutted, and turned into a Totem item. When worn by a hero, it grants the hero that skill each battle. However, during any game, if your warband routs and the model wearing the totem is still on the board, the totem loses all power- Khorne is displeased with your cowardice! The totem becomes worthless, and must be discarded. Totems may only be worn by Khorne heroes, and no hero may wear more than one totem at a time. You may not stockpile totems, nor keep an enemy hero alive to kill him later- the blood god demands his blood! Once a hero has worn a totem, he may not give it to another hero- he may discard a current totem in order to don another. Skills do not stack, so there is no bonus is wearing a totem if the hero already has the skill."

This way, instead of a meat-shield with a skills that you lose when you rout, you get a combat skill that disappears when you rout (and it does feel very "Khorne" like- you must either win, or be taken down.... no retreat!)

Von Kurst: Well, technically, you can't have an "Orc" hero in a Khorne warband, as Swabbies cannot gain exp, and "Plunderer" use human stats. So unless you house that they retain their original stats even as CREW members, it will not effect the progression of heroes any. (that's not to say you can't use an Orc model for your new Plunderer, to remind you of where he came from.)

What it basically means is that most swabbies will be equally as strong as their crew counterparts... the difference the crew stick around and can grow, while the swabbies will run off after a few games. (Of course, you might capture the odd hero, but not a HUGELY normal event.

Hymn: Why not make it like "Option B", then? You may not Pressgang Dead heroes. That way, you get two options: a new Cursed member (normal stats), or a super hero bloated (that might disappear if you rout.)

StyrofoamKing wrote:

Von Kurst: Well, technically, you can't have an "Orc" hero in a Khorne warband, as Swabbies cannot gain exp, and "Plunderer" use human stats. So unless you house that they retain their original stats even as CREW members, it will not effect the progression of heroes any. (that's not to say you can't use an Orc model for your new Plunderer, to remind you of where he came from.)

I know you can't 'technically'. When I said 'we did play', I should have said 'our house rule is' or something. Anyway our house rule is the pressed crew member maintains his or her racial makeup, but becomes the equivalent of whatever counts as 'crew' for that race. Thus orcs who press a Dark Elf gain a Shade as crew. Dark Elves gain an orc boy. Humans all become pirate crew if pressed by elves, dwarfs or orcs, regardless of what type of human they were. We found it fit the fantasy pirate world better than species segregation and thus we ended up with some odd LGTs along the way.

StyrofoamKing wrote:

Hymn: Why not make it like "Option B", then? You may not Pressgang Dead heroes. That way, you get two options: a new Cursed member (normal stats), or a super hero bloated (that might disappear if you rout.)

Still unsure why this change is needed. They can already grab him if he is Captured and are assured an uber-zombie, right? But they need more?

Von Kurst wrote:

StyrofoamKing wrote:

Von Kurst: Well, technically, you can't have an "Orc" hero in a Khorne warband, as Swabbies cannot gain exp, and "Plunderer" use human stats. So unless you house that they retain their original stats even as CREW members, it will not effect the progression of heroes any. (that's not to say you can't use an Orc model for your new Plunderer, to remind you of where he came from.)

I know you can't 'technically'. When I said 'we did play', I should have said 'our house rule is' or something. Anyway our house rule is the pressed crew member maintains his or her racial makeup, but becomes the equivalent of whatever counts as 'crew' for that race. Thus orcs who press a Dark Elf gain a Shade as crew. Dark Elves gain an orc boy. Humans all become pirate crew if pressed by elves, dwarfs or orcs, regardless of what type of human they were. We found it fit the fantasy pirate world better than species segregation and thus we ended up with some odd LGTs along the way.

I like this option.

Remember that there is a pirate skill that allows you to Pressgang dead heroes (master pressganger). This spell is better than that, but not by much, I think that is fair, since you have to roll it to get it.

Von Kurst wrote:

Anyway our house rule is the pressed crew member maintains his or her racial makeup, but becomes the equivalent of whatever counts as 'crew' for that race. Thus orcs who press a Dark Elf gain a Shade as crew. Dark Elves gain an orc boy. Humans all become pirate crew if pressed by elves, dwarfs or orcs, regardless of what type of human they were. We found it fit the fantasy pirate world better than species segregation and thus we ended up with some odd LGTs along the way.

Oooh! Another fun house rule to add to the "Add-On" pdf.

Von Kurst wrote:

Still unsure why this change is needed. They can already grab him if he is Captured and are assured an uber-zombie, right? But they need more?

Well, technically it's not "needed". As is, the Ghost Pirates recruit Swabbies as normal (into Cursed & Bloated), and a spell (Hymn of Rebirth, which is an uninspired knock off of Song of Awakening.) I thought, "wouldn't it be neat if, instead of yet another Song of Awakeing, you had something more befitting Sartosa?" Hence, the new "Hymn of Rebirth" lets you automatically recruit dead enemy heroes, into either Cursed or Bloated. It's taking the two concepts and mixing them together. (If we ignored the "super cursed" idea, the result is slightly WEAKER than "Spell of Awakening"... your Cursed has normal stats, and your zombie suffers stunned and can crumble if you rout).

I also like the idea that the "signing into service" described in the fluff is applied to more than fluff- they pull heroes back from the edge, and offer them a terrible bargain.

Signing--I like that tie in to the fluff.

Well, the Errata is up on the site:

https://sites.google.com/site/styroheim/sartosa


These will eventually be phased into the original documents, but knowing the rate at which I work, that might be a while. The document is plain and drab, but that's partially because I expect- nay, WANT feedback from people. No sense throwing in fancy graphics if I have to rewrite the thing in a month.

I had been HOPING to have the "add-on" page out this week, but it looks like the document formatting went beserk on me. I may have lost an entire month of work on it *sigh*.

When posting feedback, please open a new "Sartosa Edits" thread, to avoid confusion.

Just loaded the Sartosa "Add On" pdf as well. Enjoy!

Added the Orc Pirate and savage orc variants (thanks, Flame-On-ers!)

Ohhh, so many goodies! Now the only thing that's missing is the promised file with von Kurst's location rules

StyrofoamKing wrote:

Added the Orc Pirate and savage orc variants (thanks, Flame-On-ers!)

In the Savage Orc bit there is an errant snippet of conversation between Zelophahad and Frog that could do with being edited out!

Quote :

point indeed - thanks Tim. How about changing it to say the cave orcs can only be persuaded to dance once per game? That seems simplest.

Eliazar: well, now that I know you guys are paying attention, maybe I will

Kurgan: How picky can you get?! Next you're going to want me to, I don't know, actually run spell-check. Or something. [/sarcasm]

StyrofoamKing wrote:

Just loaded the Sartosa "Add On" pdf as well. Enjoy!

Wow! More stuff!

StyrofoamKing wrote:

Eliazar: well, now that I know you guys are paying attention, maybe I will

I'm always paying attention... watching from the shadows... ever-ready to stab someone in the back

Well, that's... comforting.

Working on Locations now. Might take me a another day or two... (you can blame Von Kurst, they're his rules )

Will send an e-mail about Locations in a couple of days--honest!

On another front we have been playing the Estalian Sun campaign for a few weeks now and I am running Smugglers and another player is running the Bretonnians. He pointed out to me that the rules for Swabbies have been changed.

Quote :

Becoming a Swabbie: When a hero or henchmen becomes a swabbie, he is stripped of his equipment and weapons; these are handed out as the player desires. He does retain any skills and keeps his original characteristics, but can only be re-armed with the weapons listed in the Swabbie equipment list. If the model had experience, he retains the experience level he had before- this is added to your warband rating as normal.

This is quite different from the original Pirate band and from the Sartosa supplement on your website. Henchmen swabs are a handier item now. We are not running with full Sartosa rules, just using some warbands, so we are not getting the benefit of play-testing the rules in their environment. But WOW!

Edit: Does this change the Bloated as well? I would assume so. Yike!

Yes, it's something I noticed around the time of the "Sartosa Errata." Technically, those were ALWAYS the rules for the Swabbies (see copy paste below)

He is stripped of his equipment and weapons; these are handed out as the player desires. He does retain any skills and keeps his original characteristics, but can only be re-armed with the weapons listed in the Swabbie equipment list.

-However, both you and I overlooked it. Thus, the Errata didn't really "change" them... they just pointed a big arrow to the rules saying, "YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN DOING THIS WRONG." Heaven knows I was.

This DOES make Swabbies a heck of a lot better. The Swabbie stats are used whenever you gain a Swabbie without a stat line (ex. finding the Cast Away Exploration event). Also, if you're running Smugglers, any slave you buy has slave base stats. If you find any "swabbies" and make them slaves, they gain the slave rules instead - they learn exp, but are killed on a roll of TLGT. If the slave already has 15 or more experience, he cannot learn any advances or gain any more exp (as he's now a lowly henchmen.) In that sense, Smugglers might have the most stable swabbies in the game!

And yes, this DOES make the Bloated much better... but considering there are only a few differences between a human swabbie and a bloated (aside from fear, immune to psych, and can't run), I doubt it will break the game. In theory, now EVERY pirate warband has a mild form of "Spell of Awakening", so all of the non-undead warbands just got a boost.

Its been that kind of week.

Quote :

He is stripped of his equipment and weapons; these are handed out as the player desires. He does retain any skills and keeps his original characteristics, but can only be re-armed with the weapons listed in the Swabbie equipment list.

Actually this paragraph is in the section on Capturing a Hero. The sentence that makes it a rule for Henchmen is buried down in the Henchmen rules.

Quote :

The pirate player can then test to see if they will join exactly as above,...

Mr. Huckleberry doesn't elaborate on what is 'exactly as above', so I guess everything is!

I do wonder if ANYONE has played a Pirate warband in the intended way. We really never had many pirates about until we discovered your Sartosa supplement, but the wrong way was the way Swabbies seemed to be played. Oh well. Things will be interesting next time in Sartosa.

You may be right, my friend. Although, it looks like my group is happy just playing in "the City of Mordheim" for the time being... thus, my pirate scenery rots in my basement, and my Wee War material goes untested. *pout*.

Speaking of pirates scenery, I just discovered the Gallery on your site... awesome buildings! I really want to build myself a Sartosa some day, and yours looks like it will give a hell of a lot of inspiration

Oh, thanks. If you need further inspiration, look up games like Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed. It is not a city of crawling THROUGH ruined buildings... it's for climbing up, over, and around. Flat roofs, ladders, and balconies, balconies, and balconies.

Oh, and the tiles are just polyureathane cut into 1x1 squares... I made the brick impressions using a Lego stamp, coated them in glue, and sprayed them. Some are 2" thick (by gluing two together), but most are 1". I love them, because they make a city that changes every game... one game it's a solid board, the next it's full of canals, the next it's tiered into different neighborhoods.

I bought a blue tablecloth to put underneath it for the water... forgetting that the tables we played on were blue