ACK 2e - Thoughts on the system. Its still fairly fledgling but as a 2e DND clone, its not too bad. I think its at a fairly stable point but still needs some work.
>>93409422>still needs some work.Elaborate. Acks seems pretty complete. I have the first version and cannot be bothered buying new books. We have Acks at home etc
>>93409476Mainly some very minor changes like the spellcrafting system, the math is pretty simple and liner but its really easy to create fairly busted spells if you gimp it right
>>93409422I'm interested in this system. Should I pirate the old edition, or wait and pirate the new one? How significant are the changes? I can't imagine it's that much more shit.
>>93409507The spell calcs are leagues better then most alternatives but like most things that allow a lot of customization and freedom, a spells power is not always easily quantifiable. If you end up making something >Completely by accident I assumeThat is overpowered just tell the Dm and they'll raise the spell level or recalculate your spell math (more likely) to bring it in line with expected effects. >>93409891>old or newHad a lot of fun with the original edition. I would wait for the new one (because it's 9/10ths released anyway and has axiom content which I found very helpful even when using the old stuff). It's not huge changes but smoothing out the process for figuring out the populations/economy for holdings, rejigging the spell calcs and class builder calcs, making some of their decision / math choices more explicit is all good stuff in my book. >Ran the game for 2 years and I wish I could run it for 2 more, Have a great time.
>>93409422It's more of a B/X clone tbf>>934098912e has some quality of life stuff and simplifications, it's a bit more distinct than 1e is from OSE or B/X
>>93409422>as a 2e DND cloneWrong.
>>93409422It's a great system. It's not a clone of any D&D edition, let alone a clone of Holmes Basic or whatever the fuck "2e DND" is supposed to mean.
>>93411208Yeah isn't it a BECMI clone?
>>93409422I really like it, been a really stable base to work from for homebrewing. Just running one campaign of it for now in like a open table for flgs, keeping the more complex systems away from the table for now but the base works well enough.Was mostly just tired of jumping from system to system so feels like I can just stick to this and fix up a comfy dnd rule set for when thats needed.
>>93412030It's not a clone of anything, it's its own thing.
I tried playing it once, it was pretty- ACK!
I've been mostly using its subsystems in other games, but the system is great and this is coming from someone who hates old school shit with a passion. The flavor of the game is fairly narrow, but the GM book lays out the mechanics for relatively easy modding. The best thing about the system is the focus on balancing gameplay between character types despite clearly favoring clerics and warriors.
>>93412155thats blatantly not true. it began as alex' b/x homebrew and his wife told him to make money off it and he said fuck it and went all in.
>>93412446Sounds like you need to look up the meaning of the word "clone".
>>93413002>>93390338Not having this conversation with you again anon
>>93413052>Everyone who points out to me that I am misusing the word "clone" is the same person.>t. card collecting faggot
>Toothless garbageACKS isn't edgy, it's meaty, it's packed full of substance, it's just lean muscle instead of teeth.Not every game has to be Deathmetalchildviolator: The Mynameisnotimportantening to be worth playing.>There's no limit pushin-No, there is, it's just not edgelord shit, instead it pushes into 'Let's make a really fucking deep world, a real place with shit going on in it'.And to give an example, ACKS is perfect for one game I, and probably quite a lot of people, have always wanted to run but have never had a system for; that being something along the lines of (not entirely, not in the setting, but close enough that you could whistle along if someone played the tune) 'Chronicles of the Black Company'.You find me a fantasy geek who hasn't wanted to do a proper game of 'Experienced sellswords run a mercenary company in a living world that develops around them, where they can pick and choose their path because the DM doesn't have one mapped out for them' and I'll find you someone that'd fail a Voight-Kampff test outright.ACKS is the only system I've found that's perfect for that.You say it doesn't do anything new, maybe that's the case, but you know what ACKS does do? It does something old, it delivers on the promises D&D has made countless times over the years and not once, ever, delivered on. The ones that probably first got you and sure as fuck got me into tabletop.>Be a protagonist, carve your own destiny from the cloth of the worlds maps, tread jewelled thrones under your feet and become a legend by your own hand
>>93414655Because LotFP is garbage compared to ACKS.
>>93415189just play gurps. i m sure it can do that much better
>>93415305That a low bar to pass.
>>93409507Good now explain how you got your GM to allow it lolOh you didn't?
>>93415714It's like Mutants & Masterminds.Sure you can make a character who can stab people in the brain the world over for 1 point of impossible to avoid, undetectable sourced damage 12 times per turn.But the DM is going to call you retarded if you bring it to the table.I will say, I wish the spellcrafting rules were broader and gave more options and possibilities, still, eyeballing it isn't too hard.
>>93415816Yeah. My players and I reworked the whole necromantic potence thing, where you can have a 2d10+CL one at 4th level and 3d10 would be a ritual.
>>93416125>hose only unique thingWhich other system has such detail on realm management? Are you actually gonna cite systems or are you just trolling by pretending to be retarded?
>>93416125>literally a bx cloneWrong.
Some anon mentioned gurpswhich gurps books go into detail about realm management?I actually like gurps so it'd be fun to read trough the book and see if it fits my group better.
>>93409422The Sailing system is not to my liking I think Birthright does it better.I haven't read 2e except for those magazine release things I pirated which claimed to be fairly accurate portrayals.Dwarven automata suck ass but mining rules are cool. Campaigns looks fun but I don't like the vagaries since they feel arbitrary (I know that's the nature but I would prefer them to be more reactive to what the players have done)Guns of war reload times are wack as hell
It’s not just a B/X cloneHe took the Companion domain rules, removed the Demihuman domain centrepiece stuff and pasted them into the B/X rules.
>>93416986>The Sailing system is not to my liking I think Birthright does it better.Honestly? The one thing I've got to agree with, Ships are rocket tag and underdeveloped. Max of 30 HP when Sea serpents can do 2d6 per turn with their constrict means that no ship is safe, especially when they come in packs of d8.How are the Birthright rules on sailing, how do they work?>Guns of War reload timesAre unironically pretty accurate, read the Sharpe books and being Proficient with a +1 bonus puts you into the exact range of shots per minute a pike & shot rifler could expect to throw down.The secret to effective use of early guns is either mass them, or go Yar Har and strap a brace of pistols.
>>93417055you know we can just read the rules and see that they're different right?Anyone can see you're lying out of your ass?
>>93417100They're limited to the Birthright map since it uses geographical divides and not hexes but with a little math you can convert to 6/24 mile.They sail faster perpendicular to the wind (Like they should) and there is a better variety or ships present. Not a fan of the naval combat card system they have but even just having different maneuverability classes for ships is good enough for me.As for guns of war I should clarify I meant the firing times for siege artillery. I might have screwed it up when I tried but a while back I did math and it looked like the siege guns were firing way slower than they should have. Maybe it was a concious choice to not immediately invalidate domain play stone fortifications or maybe there's some historical factoid I'm missing involving not shooting guns for part of the day because maintenance.I'd like to play ACKS someday but running it would be a nightmare. I have already stolen the basic domain rules for my own classless hellbrew though.Also I don't like population growth in any domain play system because it seems too modern (Read: 19th century) and fast with immigration growth but that's just a restriction of the genera I think. And timescale should be upped for domain play too it's too granular right now.
>>93416565Gurps Realm management and gurps Boardroom and Curia. gurps mass combat for armies fighting, plus the relevant pyramid articles
>>93418730Thanks a lotI kept this thread open solely waiting for this answer lol
Would there be any call for a game that is like ACKS, but has in-depth system for alchemy, runecraft, random encounters with a ranger class that can avoid them, seasonal rules, rules for growing plant monsters, creating golems, etc like ACKS does, as well as the domain rules, but in the package of a game with heavily tactical combat where you take penalties to apply status effects or to give allies bonuses or free attacks, but you need to coordinate it well since there are a lot of out of turn attacks (imagine if 5e had bonus action and reaction blended into one, but with lots of feats that gave you different ways to use them). Almost like D&D 3.5 if it was actually good and balanced, with real tactical depth, no d20 mechanic, and comfy domain, morale, wilderness survival, crafting, and alchemy rules.I feel like everything else successful is either 5e or a 5e clone.
>>93418755Also check out gurps city states
It’s just sad when a thread becomes one poster vs the rest.And it’s always the mid tier stuff that’s their hill to die on.
>be me>running dolmenwood>hirelings moral breaks and their magician (magic user) runs off.>after the battle they go back to town without looking for her>given that I don't want to play this travel out manually I run it as abstract wilderness from the ACKS Judges Journal.>she got home safe and sound and is going to be shit talking the PCs something fierce. >hiring anyone else in this town is going to be tough.Idk man seems like ACKS is it's own thing written by someone who actually plays games.
>>93409507Oh sure, I am sure AcKs II is pretty good but desu>friend raves about Acks I>I buy it and get him a supplement for it>pumped to run it>I like it>he promptly forgets and is onto the next game>rinse repeatStop listening to anyone's game suggestions lol - they will change their mind in 18 months
>>93419032>What if ACKS was World of Warcraft?Probably not but feel free to crowbar the back end mechanics into 5e if you want.
>>93409422It's more like an adaptation of B/X. Anyone saying it's a copy of 2ed AD&D is a TODD leaving their containment thread.
>>93419032>heavily tactical combatACKS can already do this. Macris is a 3.5 fan and it shows. That being said, no.
>>93419032yes
I think the only thing keeping me on the fence is that I've never tried the side initiative thing. If that's even the correct term for it. And trying to get my friends to try it purely because of how that works could be a chore.
>>93419784???what about anon said seemed similar to wow? Feels like some anons have never actually played wow but just use it as a generic insult when they don't like something but don't know how else to criticize it.
>>93420861...You think 3.5 had tactical combat?
Okay so legit question for anyone who has played and/or ran this. Whether it's the first or second edition. How fast does combat tend to go? Especially if you've got 5-6 players. I'm also imagining it's common to be bringing hirelings and shit, though they might not be fighting.
>>93425409A minute or two. ACKS is pretty good at resolving combat fast, and I can easily throw 30-40 mooks at the PCs and we'll be done in half an hour or so. The longest combat took a session and there were literally 500 enemy goblins vs the PCs, some mercs, and some lizardmen. That ended up taking 3 hours and lasted about 8 rounds.
>>93425409Tends to be a bit faster, game is just default more lethal, capping HD at 9 reduces bloat, reaction rolls are designed to prevent 'hp sponge' type encounters, everyone has piles of cleaves, especially the fighters. Henchmen do slow things down a touch, but people tend to know their henchmen as well as their own character (and when your henchmen are literally the wall between you and pokey death, they tend to keep a tight leash on them). I would say faster then 3.x and way faster then 5th.
>>93409422Adding to the chorus calling you a sniveling retard for thinking it's a 2E clone. It's a rot fo Rules Cyclopediafication of B/X.
>>93415189>someone that'd fail a Voight-Kampff test outright.You know the empathy test works by testing for *too much* empathy, right? The replicants react emotionally with outrage to the unfair scenarios in the VK questionnaire and humans are supposed to react coldly and aloof. Being emotionally engaged in the world around you makes you a faux-human monstrosity in Blade Runner.
>>93426518>everyone has piles of cleavesMages, warlocks, priestesses, witches, and nobiran wonderworkers can never cleave. Meanwhile, crusaders (clerics) gained level 6 casting and continue to cleave. I'm thinking of houseruling in spell-cleaves for the other classes out of spite.
>>93426854Yeah? Well, you know, that's just like uh... your opinion, man.
>>93426903
>>93426854>You know the empathy test works by testing for *too much* empathy, right? The replicants react emotionally with outrage to the unfair scenarios in the VK questionnaire and humans are supposed to react coldly and aloof. Being emotionally engaged in the world around you makes you a faux-human monstrosity in Blade Runner.Man, you just made that shit up whole cloth.
>>93426994>Man, you just made that shit up whole cloth.Watch the movie, retard. Leon explodes with outrage at the suggestion he wouldn't help a turtle, Rachel who is much better designed and more human-like requires over 100 questions to find out because she's cool and self-controlled throughout the test.The whole fucking theme of the film is the replicants are more human than the people trying to kill them ffs. This is like the thing with Deckard being a replicant and Gaff being his human Blade Runner handler, it's obvious unless you deliberately refuse to take in anything you're seeing.
>>93427042>I-it's implicit in the text, just like the central theme of dehumanization, which is why the replicants are the only ones who act human [...] which is as central to the plot as the fact Deckard, the most emotionally castrated character is clearly a replicantGod you people are stupid, to the point where you don't even realize Deckard being a replicant would undermine one of the central pillars of the movie.The movie only works if Deckard is human. As for 'VK is a test of excess empathy', I'm glad you at least had the sense of self to admit that your source was you made it the fuck up.Why don't you just use the new movie as proof while you're at it and how them yelling Cumzone at the toaster is backing for your thesis.
>>93426867>SpellcleaveHa, I don't hate that. I would maybe limit it to one or two with some pretty strong restrictions (the idea of ahh casting so hard your single target spell goes thru one guy and hits another is metal). Then again the idea of 'fire for effect spell cleaves' on AOE is nice.One thing I liked from Crimson tide is getting 'fray dice' which is basically free damage each round. Melee classes get a bonus 1d8 damage (maybe more in a more regular b/x base, their damage was a little strange and often just went 1hp per hd especially for mooks). Imagine the wizard getting 1d4 magical fray damage per two levels (with no restrictions or maybe a Roll 3+ per die for a secondary effect) while fighters get 1d8 (per two levels?) but are much more keyed into their weapon, 3+ on the dice allows secondary effects in line with weapon, free parries or some shit for sword, bleeds for axes, Ignores armor for Hammers, entangles for whips/nets). You can only use fray dice on mooks or once per battle on whoever.
>>93427172>he doesn't know Deckard is a replicant canonically as well as by word of GodI really hope this is trolling at this point, it would be too pathetic if you were serious.
>>93427221>Word of g-Word of Harrison tells you to felch a load. Death of the Author motherfucker. I don't care how enchanted Scott was with 'The entire movie is about two waffle irons hard banging', that doesn't make it function with what you already admitted was the central theme of the entire movie.You're relying on the man who came up with Prometheus to not fuck up his own stories, and if you're doing that I sincerely feel sorry for your addiction to sacred texts.
>>93427256NAYRT but this level of asshurt puts you dangerously close to failing your VK test, Anon.
>>93427172>As for 'VK is a test of excess empathy', I'm glad you at least had the sense of self to admit that your source was you made it the fuck up.what he described is exactly what happened in the film though, scratching my head that you'd need an essay to tell you what plainly happens right in front of you
>>93426960My favourite DM.
>>93409422god, why does the greek version look like that?
>>93425519>>93426518Thanks for the answers. Maybe it wouldn't be so hard to get my friends to at least try it. I was right about it being "side initiative" right? So every round you do new initiative rolls (either individual or Friendly vs Enemy), then casters decide they're casting, ranged attacks happen, movement and melee happens, spells go off if not interrupted?
>>93431532Individual initiative. Rerolled every round.
>>93431532Yeah, there's room to change things. Initiative I tend to do just based on what makes sense in the story although>>93431563Is correct. It only uses a d6 so you can just basically count down from 10. There's a morale roll at the end of each round (if triggered)I guess to bring this back to Acks a little. In Imperial Imprint or ACKS II, Cleric has become Crusader and explicitly a priest-militant or literal crusader in the same vein as our own templars or crusades. The game has 'Campaign classes' for Paladin (which are supposed to be a bit more heroic in a sense, while there are orders of Paladins it seems much more likely for there to be a 'Paladin in the wild' rather then a crusder. The 'lay priest' in this case appears to go under Shaman, brining in both more pagan and just in general castery option rather then Crusader. I'm interested in if this actually changes anything, it makes a certain amount of sense that more or less any worldly order becomes militant in the kind of fantasy world they inhabit, but I have to admit the space between Crusader and Paladin seems thin to me.
>>93419642>Idk man seems like ACKS is it's own thing written by someone who actually plays games.It is, everyone who says its a B/X or BECMI clone hasn't read or even skimmed the book.
>>93431532Yes that's the RAW way to do it. I advise against it IMO, d10s for everyone is better, but you do you. I got a list of house rules that made the game more enjoyable for my gaming group.
Also you should absolutely playtest my dark elf "book" that is a fansplat.
>>93409422>still needs some workA game still in development needs work? Weird.
>>93435200skill issue.
>>93419784Why 5e? That doesn't have the healing structure or combat structure or anything I want at all.>>93420861I've looked through the rules though and it basically is like 3.5. The problem is that 3.5 combat isn't very tactical because there's a lot of stupid shit that is either underpowered or overpowered (like disarming, or power attacking, rsepectively).
>>93409422think retaining these as the saving throws is kinda stupid in a more sandboxy game.
>>93439389>think retaining these as the saving throws is kinda stupid in a more sandboxy game.Why
>>93439535cause there are a lot of things you’d save agains outside of those very specific things in a broader world.
>>93439699Its just paralysis death breath implements and spells in 2e. But you seem to miss understand, they are already general. its pretty much movement restrictions save, Con save, reflex AOE save, item save, and wisdom magical effect save.
>>93440519then Id think calling it those things would be more representitive. Its not the categorizes themselves, its the naming convention.
>>93441660it's a sacred cow, just like the 6 attributes
I guess the real question is the character sheet? Is this too much? I kinda feel like it's too much.
>>93442555Isn't it just the same as any D&D sheet?>personal info, attributes and modifiers, level and xp, HP, AC, move, weapons, skills (called proficiency), encumbrance, saving throwsthe problem is that the boxes are BIG, and there's some stuff no one bothers to track in modern D&D: AC with no shield and unarmored AC; surprise rollsand the weird part is having an attack throw table with each individual AC value and also having attack throws for your individual weapons.Badly designed I'd say, looks complex but has the same info as every other D&D sheet.
>>93409422What's change compared to 1e?
>>93443090>and the weird part is having an attack throw table with each individual AC value and also having attack throws for your individual weapons.>Badly designed I'd say, looks complex but has the same info as every other D&D sheet.Yeah I'm more or less here for the asthetics arguement. The AC thing is sort of a midwit assistance as the Acks Throws/Ac is a bit weird.
>>934418416 attributes i get, they cover core transferable stats pretty well and the terms are broad enough to be fine.
>>93443176Not OP, but off the top of my head:- damage cancels ready- magic missile is now mage missile, slings one missile per round, and lasts as long as the caster concentrates- cleric is now crusader with access to level 6 spells and other unnecessary bonuses- major changes to spells due to moving away from D&D mainstays (i.e. no more unseen servant)- various improvements to witches, thieves, and venturers- warlocks were altered and now suffer random punitive (flavorful, I'm sure) effects as they level- still no decent druid class or any inherited magic class- consolidated and improved layout for economic and magic subsystems with a few exploits eliminated
