Re: Mechanical discussion

[Baelon Drakeson]

Hmph. You try building a banner house and managing it. Glory is VERY useful.

Not worth a daily and a DP, though, when you know those may be needed for more important things (which also often carry Glory rewards).

[Aerion Storm]

Oof.  Okay.  If I used a "once per day" and a Destiny Point, I had a 50% chance of getting the +1 glory from the Prayer event.  

Don't think I can afford to lose both things, though, not when it has odds that crummy of working.

Glory is not all that useful anyway.  +1b to a roll that you have to declare beforehand or +1 Stat Point to a House (usually wealth).  Nathan gives them away as wedding presents.

More the principle of the thing; earnest young squire about to go to war, then doing well enough to get a reputation for piety, etc, etc.

[Nathaniel Mason]

Hmph. You try building a banner house and managing it. Glory is VERY useful.

Not worth a daily and a DP, though, when you know those may be needed for more important things (which also often carry Glory rewards).

I will rephrase Glory is not very useful to the 90% of players not building and managing a banner house.

Nathan is currently sitting on a very sizable amount of Glory. He collects Glory like nick-nacks. Nice to have but they basically just sit on a shelf and look pretty. I did donate one to House Bartheld to help them build a market, and one Wealth Point to House Redwain as a wedding present. The rest I expect I will donate to widows and orphans after the war.

[Theomore Tullison]

Glory is never worth spending DP on unless you know you'll be getting your DP's back up to max before the next time you might need one.

Dailies? Sometimes there's not much better than glory to get with it. Often times there will be.

Glory is nice to have lying around if you take a house fortunes hit and rather do not want to have that resource below the level it just dropped past. Alternatively, having 4+ glory when your roll 16 for defense on creating a banner house is very nice, since otherwise it'll take forever to upgrade a tower into a hall. Can also be used if you just need 1 or 2 resources to get this holding or whatever.

I think most PC's contribute glory points to the first and last alternatives and not much else. Theo also uses them to pay for influence hits that Tullisons otherwise might take because of his shenanigans (He's earned more points through his shenanigans than he had to sacrifice for fixing the broken stuff afterwards, so hey..incentive to do more shenanigans).

[Reader]

Glory - if you're not using it for anything else:

- throw it at official events to maximise your rolled dice, particularly for G/B events (then burn a DP to keep all the dice!).
- contribute it to house objectives.
- contribute to personal objectives.
- Improving your house (don't need to be a banner house, everyone can donate to their house).

[Theomore Tullison]

Usually though, glory costs for VP for Personal/House Objectives tends to be rather prohibitive.

[Loreia]

Nathan is currently sitting on a very sizable amount of Glory.  He collects Glory like nick-nacks.  Nice to have but they basically just sit on a shelf and look pretty.  I did donate one to House Bartheld to help them build a market, and one Wealth Point to House Redwain as a wedding present.  The rest I expect I will donate to widows and orphans after the war.

You become curiouser and curiouser with each new tidbit we learn about you...

[Lady Corrine Marsten]

I forgot about Glory! I need to go see what my stash is!

[Baelon Drakeson]

Hmm timely question for the Velaryon/docks fight. Do wounds, etc. apply to passive tests, and in this case, specifically passive attacks? It seems liek they should, but I don't think we have done so in the past (such as lowering joust Passive Ride for wounds or injuries - it might have made a significant difference when Loreia faced Jon Roxton).

Usually though, glory costs for VP for Personal/House Objectives tends to be rather prohibitive.

it's all about about the cost/benefit ratio. If you can easily earn the other VP you need, it's not worth it. If you are pressed for time on your house objective and a few points short? totally worth it.

[Reader]

Hmm timely question for the Velaryon/docks fight. Do wounds, etc. apply to passive tests, and in this case, specifically passive attacks? It seems liek they should, but I don't think we have done so in the past (such as lowering joust Passive Ride for wounds or injuries - it might have made a significant difference when Loreia faced Jon Roxton).

Usually though, glory costs for VP for Personal/House Objectives tends to be rather prohibitive.

it's all about about the cost/benefit ratio. If you can easily earn the other VP you need, it's not worth it. If you are pressed for time on your house objective and a few points short? totally worth it.

Wound/injury penalties don't seem to apply to passive tests, has often come up on the official boards.

[Baelon Drakeson]

That's what I thought. Alright, post coming soon.

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

I've been using my Glory almost as fast as I earn it...of course Story 2 was pretty light on that for me, so that might explain it.

But I did get a nice new quality out of it, plus offseason stuff, so I can't complain.

[Theomore Tullison]

Did we ever discuss what happens to mercenary units and experience gain/loss? General consensus iirc on GR boards are that you loose the power, but get the wealth back if they are destroyed, on account of dead sellswords not binding up resources to pay their salaries.

To balance it out (and make it fair) that conclusion would probably imply that you don't get to increase their wealth value if they gain in experience either. Those really good sellswords now demand better pay or they'll just find someone willing to offer what they are worth. But could have that effect come into play after a campaign, so if this mercenary unit signed on for the stepstones and partakes in multiple battles, training may fluctuate between battles, but unless the unit is detroyed, it will revert to original training when returning home.

Or wealth investment could be treated as if it was power for determining what happens.

[Baelon Drakeson]

Did we ever discuss what happens to mercenary units and experience gain/loss? General consensus iirc on GR boards are that you loose the power, but get the wealth back if they are destroyed, on account of dead sellswords not binding up resources to pay their salaries.

To balance it out (and make it fair) that conclusion would probably imply that you don't get to increase their wealth value if they gain in experience either. Those really good sellswords now demand better pay or they'll just find someone willing to offer what they are worth. But could have that effect come into play after a campaign, so if this mercenary unit signed on for the stepstones and partakes in multiple battles, training may fluctuate between battles, but unless the unit is detroyed, it will revert to original training when returning home.

Or wealth investment could be treated as if it was power for determining what happens.

You don't get wealth back for siege or holdings that get destroyed... you don't get power back for destroyed units... I don't see why you would get wealth back for destroyed mercenaries. You paid them. Just because they died doesn't mean you get a refund. I would note that the language used in the books is that they "reduce" your wealth, you are not investing it. They are already super cheap compared to infantry(5 wealth equiv. for green mercs, 10 for green infantry), and even have better armor too. All that for a discipline modifier that is easy to circumvent (order them to fight once, let Standing Orders do the rest). Add in a wealth refund, and it makes little sense to ever get infantry instead.

I don't keep up with the GR boards, though, so I haven't read the arguments.

On a verisimilitude front, I've always found it odd that mercenaries don't have an ongoing cost or limited service period. For that matter, why can you only get foot soldiers as mercenaries? Oh, you can have cross-trained mercenary/cavalry, but then the mercenary part is simply an added cost with at best little gain. Better just to get a unit of cavalry. If I were to ever run a game, I'd house rule "mercenary" to be a modifier to any troop type, you can substitute wealth instead of power at a 1:2 rate for the hiring cost, but get the +3 discipline modifier and they only serve for one campaign. It makes them much cheaper than regular troops, but you don't get to keep them long.

[Benedict Marsten]

(Ooc: I am just gonna leave this right here.)
Awarness Red: 3d6 12

Corrine goes to her husband's side and slips her arm through his.

"What an unpleasant evening. Let's get out of here," she sighed, wearily.

[Do I need to roll anything?]

Passive or contested? Any of you wise persons care to help us out?

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

My sense is that, in general, a roll is called for is a character is actively using the skill. So if Ben is looking for Corrine, or is keeping an eye on her intentionally, he gets a roll. If he's not, then he'd use his passive awareness.

Similarly, if Corrine is trying to be skulky, or is aware she's being watched and is intentionally trying to avoid notice, then she'd get a roll. Otherwise it'd be her passive value.

But I don't know if there's a specific rule at work here that would override that general idea.

[Benedict Marsten]

From what you say and was my first thought, since Ben would be watching(large crowd, mushroom and tempers) he would roll. Corrines intention skulk or play casual would decide whether it was contested or against her passive(? deception or stealth) looking at this now, if she has 2 in either ability she would fail both rolled and passive.

[Baelon Drakeson]

EDIT for timing: Ben has the gist of it.

It depends on a few factors:

A) Does Corrine care about whether or not Ben sees her go talk to Aerion?
B) If so, is she actively trying to disappear into the crowd?
C) Is Ben actively looking for Corrine?

If (A) is 'yes', then it is a conflict test. If it is 'no', it would be a basic test, with a difficulty set by Reader based on environment conditions - namely, how thick the crowd is.

If (B) is 'yes', Corrine would be actively rolling Stealth(Blend In). If 'no' it would be against her passive Stealth(Blend In).

If (C) is 'yes', then Ben would be actively rolling Awareness(Notice). If 'no' it would Ben's passive Awareness(Notice).

Of course, there are a few follow up things, as well.
1) Does Ben see Aerion (this could happen whether or not he sees Corrine), and if so, does he recognize the red scarf as matching Corrine's costume?
2) If he sees them together, does he have some idea what they are talking about - Awareness(Empathy)
3) Does he keep his calm or haul off and deck Aerion, accuse Corrine of infidelity, or both?

We may have more to repair here than Ser Eoric and Lord Forrest... or this could be the Westerosi equivalent to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. We're all ready for the civil war to start now, right?

[Aerion Storm]

We may have more to repair here than Ser Eoric and Lord Forrest... or this could be the Westerosi equivalent to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. We're all ready for the civil war to start now, right?

Not without a horse under me, no.

[Baelon Drakeson]

Oh, I didn't mean because you would kill Ben. Ben's jealousy already almost started one war... but luckily both sides were fairly amiable otherwise, and the situation was fairly well restricted to just two houses.

In this situation where tempers are already running quite hot, and representatives of most of the kingdom are there? Yeah, death is not required to ignite this cache of wildfire.

[Theomore Tullison]

What exactly awareness 12 gets you is a big question, what is there to be seen? Anyone cares to hide it? Anything Ben was actually looking for? Did you just roll to figure out if maybe Ben noticed something?

Rules are there to help resolve such questions, they don't necessarily give you the question.

[Benedict Marsten]

Of course, there are a few follow up things, as well.
1) Does Ben see Aerion (this could happen whether or not he sees Corrine), and if so, does he recognize the red scarf as matching Corrine's costume?
2) If he sees them together, does he have some idea what they are talking about - Awareness(Empathy)
3) Does he keep his calm or haul off and deck Aerion, accuse Corrine of infidelity, or both?

We may have more to repair here than Ser Eoric and Lord Forrest... or this could be the Westerosi equivalent to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. We're all ready for the civil war to start now, right?

Look at this guy trying to shake a bottle of wildfire.

[Baelon Drakeson]

Who me? No, I'm just watching people dance the finger dance with a bottle of wildfire... on a ship in the deep ocean that's already got a leak.

[Theomore Tullison]

Well, he's only a drake. I hear drinking wildfire can turn you into a proper dragon

[Benedict Marsten]

What exactly awareness 12 gets you is a big question, what is there to be seen? Anyone cares to hide it? Anything Ben was actually looking for? Did you just roll to figure out if maybe Ben noticed something?

Rules are there to help resolve such questions, they don't necessarily give you the question.

I understand what you saying, the thought was atively searching for Corrine, but looking back I would probably first need to notice her departure. Which brings in about all the factors Baelon described.

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