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PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2016 8:59 pm 
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Seeing there is a reasonable level of activity here right now, I'd like to begin the process of trying to 'fix' whatever people think is broken in Cadaver Draconis.

Cadaver Draconis is largely based on material that was originally being written for the Players Book under James Wallis' leadership. When James ceased to be involved in Dragon Warriors the book was taken in a different direction. As one of those who was inside the process of writing the Players Book one problem I saw with the original approach was the fact that we would never be able to playtest it fully. We just did not have access to enough playtesters because of the relatively small number of Dragon Warriors players. We could not test everything for balance. When we got around to editing the left over material for Cadaver Draconis we did make some adjustments to some very obvious problems but we really didn't have time to crunch numbers and balance things perfectly.

Now, it's all out there, and everybody can see it, let's see if we can work with what was done in Cadaver Draconis to 'fix' what was done. Let's go through it one path at a time.

Speak up - say what you want to about the path. About how you think it can be improved, both individually and as part of a whole.

Let's work towards a second edition of Cadaver Draconis - we've already got some cover art for it :)

Let's start with the 'Saltwater Sailor'

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 17, 2016 11:15 am 
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I'll start. I have a few dimwitted and uninformed questions, as is my habit.

1: Why is this on the "Barbarous" type if its an Open path?
2: Typo: Vasslavi should be vassklavi at the bottom right of page 11.
3: Time to keep it real and admit I still don't fully understand how these paths work in practice. If I'm a sorcerer and choose the Saltwater Sailor path, do I get both my Sorcerer and my Sailor skills etc every rank, or do I need to pick and choose? If the latter, how do I keep track? If the former, what's the down side?

Cheers,

-Kyle


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:05 am 
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I'll have a go at answering your questions, Kyle:

1. Paths were originally aimed at specific archetypes within specific professions - i.e. there were no open professions whatsoever. Therefore, in the case of open paths the parent groupings can be thought of as "optimal" or "preferred" professions.
3. The latter case is correct - i.e. the player is supposed to select either the available profession or path skill(s), but not both.

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 10:43 am 
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Okey doke, so when you return to your normal profession after a year (or whatever) spent on a path, does that profession have the same rank as the path or a different rank? For instance, if I start out as a Sorcerer at rank 1, then switch to a Saltwater Sailor and gain five ranks on that path, then switch back to the Sorcerer, am I a rank 1 Sorcerer or a rank 5 Sorcerer? If I'm a rank 1 sorcerer, how do I record my different ranks, experience points etc? How do I respond to Fright Attacks and other things which oppose Rank? Also what rank progression scheme do I use (for Attack etc) while I'm a Saltwater Sailor?

Basic questions, I know, but I'm not sure the answers are crystal clear in the book. At least not to me... :oops:

Cheers,

-Kyle


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:29 pm 
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I didn't think you could go back...

DnD has a concept of character rank and class rank, so in the example of the 6th rank character with 1 rank in sorcerer and 5 in sailor, they have 6 character ranks (for the purposes of resisting fear, etc), but only 1 professional rank of sorcerer for the purposes of spells and special abilities, etc.

It seems quite clumsy, though.

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 9:24 pm 
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WodenKrait wrote:
Okey doke, so when you return to your normal profession after a year (or whatever) spent on a path, does that profession have the same rank as the path or a different rank? For instance, if I start out as a Sorcerer at rank 1, then switch to a Saltwater Sailor and gain five ranks on that path, then switch back to the Sorcerer, am I a rank 1 Sorcerer or a rank 5 Sorcerer? If I'm a rank 1 sorcerer, how do I record my different ranks, experience points etc? How do I respond to Fright Attacks and other things which oppose Rank? Also what rank progression scheme do I use (for Attack etc) while I'm a Saltwater Sailor?

Basic questions, I know, but I'm not sure the answers are crystal clear in the book. At least not to me... :oops:

Cheers,

-Kyle


Well, theres no real 'returning' as you never leave your Profession ( a couple of the Exceptional Paths aside), You continue progressing as a Sorcerer as normal, you just have a wider variety of skills to choose from.

Each path does have a number of restrictions that those on it must adhere to and originally, and still in my own games, being on a Path meant that you needed 2x the normal amount of xp to go up in Rank to represent the split focus but it was, perhaps rightly, seen as too 'mean'.

So in answer to all your questions: Same as normal, your still a Sorcerer 1st through to 5th Rank.

The majority of Paths are/can be transient: A character might follow many different Paths in their life time.*


*There are a couple of Paths that are different to this but they're clearly marked as such.

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co-author Cadaver Draconis
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 9:36 pm 
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The Paths concept was never intended to provide a means of changing Profession.

The rank value is always a single value tied to XP. Rank is matched to the Profession assigned during character creation. Rank is unaffected by any changes to Path status and should use the original chargen Profession for all subsequent rank progression.

Open Paths never override the starting Profession, and on gaining rank within a Path a character may freely gain either A) normal chargen Profession skills/spells, or alternatively B) Path skills/spells.

Therefore, in your example the charcter is a 6th rank Sorcerer following the Saltwater Sailor Path.

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 9:37 pm 
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... and Damian beat me to the post!

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 10:03 pm 
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WodenKrait wrote:
Okey doke, so when you return to your normal profession after a year (or whatever) spent on a path, does that profession have the same rank as the path or a different rank? For instance, if I start out as a Sorcerer at rank 1, then switch to a Saltwater Sailor and gain five ranks on that path, then switch back to the Sorcerer, am I a rank 1 Sorcerer or a rank 5 Sorcerer? If I'm a rank 1 sorcerer, how do I record my different ranks, experience points etc? How do I respond to Fright Attacks and other things which oppose Rank? Also what rank progression scheme do I use (for Attack etc) while I'm a Saltwater Sailor?


Good questions :)

As has been mentioned, the Saltwater Sailor was originally designed as a Barbarian path. At some point in the process - I have no idea when because I'm not the one who did it - it was decided that some paths should be more open than others - open to more than one profession. I assume the logic for something like the Saltwater Sailor was "This Mercanian raiding party might have their Shaman along for the ride, surely she could pick up the sailor skills as well - so why have we just restricted it to Barbarians." (Of course, that Shaman might also want to look at the Sea-Witch path!)

But the rules for these open paths are still specific to the core profession.

Now - this is my opinion as to both intent and how I would handle the situation you describe.

"Saltwater Sailor" is not a new profession. So if your Sorcerer embraces the Saltwater Sailor path, they are still a Sorcerer.

So in the situation you describe "I start out as a Sorcerer at rank 1, then switch to a Saltwater Sailor and gain five ranks on that path, then switch back to the Sorcerer, am I a rank 1 Sorcerer or a rank 5 Sorcerer?"

Your character is at that point a 7th rank sorcerer (Sorcerer 1, Sorcerer(Saltwater Sailor) from 2-6, Sorcerer 7) - although personally in my games, a player would probably have a hard time justifying 'changing back' like that.


Now, what would this mean in terms of differences for the character? Well, the basic thing about paths is the different 'special abilities' that differ from those of the core professions. Note, that 'Spellcasting' is not a 'special ability' for a sorcerer.

The 'Skills' that a particular path gives a character replace 'special abilities'. They don't replace core skills - at least not in general. I won't swear we didn't do that anywhere. Maybe it would be better if we used the term 'Special abilities' in Cadaver Draconis rather than Skills.

Anyway - so here's how things would differ as an example. We'll take Anarchos the pure sorcerer, and Sieghelma, the sorcerer who takes the Saltwater sailor path and talk about how they differ.

At Rank 1

Anarchos is a 1st rank Sorcerer. He has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 1 spells and 4MP), and no special abilities.
Sieghelma is a 1st rank Sorcerer. She has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 2 spells and 8MP), and no special abilities.

At Rank 2
Anarchos is a 2nd rank Sorcerer. He has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 2 spells and 8MP), and no special abilities.
Sieghelm is a 2nd rank Sorcerer who has just decided to embrace a life on the open wave. He has the core ability of Spellcasting She has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 2 spells and 8MP). She may acquire one of the Saltwater sailor skills - I'll choose Climb.


At Rank 2
Anarchos is a 2nd rank Sorcerer. He has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 2 spells and 8MP), and no special abilities.
Sieghelma is a 2nd rank Sorcerer who has just decided to embrace a life on the open wave. Se has the core ability of Spellcasting She has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 2 spells and 8MP). She may acquire one of the Saltwater sailor skills - I'll choose Climb.

At Rank 3
Anarchos is a 3rd rank Sorcerer. He has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 3 spells and 12MP), and no special abilities.
Sieghelma is a 3rd rank Sorcerer who is continuing to live on the open sea. She has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 3 spells and 12MP). She has the Climb skill.

At Rank 4
Anarchos is a 4th rank Sorcerer. He has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 4 spells and 15MP), and acquires the Calligraphy skill which is the skill of a standard Sorcerer.
Sieghelma is a 4rd rank Sorcerer who is continuing to live on the open sea. She has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 4 spells and 15MP). She has the Climb skill. And now she can acquire a second Saltwater Sailor skill (one acquired every 2nd rank) - I'll choose Sea legs.

At Rank 5
Anarchos is a 5th rank Sorcerer. He has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 5 spells and 19MP), and the Calligraphy skill.
Sieghelma is a 5th rank Sorcerer who is continuing to live on the open sea. She has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 5 spells and 19MP). She has the Climb skill and the Sea Legs skill.

At Rank 6
Anarchos is a 6th rank Sorcerer. He has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 6 spells and 23MP), and the Calligraphy skill. He now acquires the Alchemy skill - the standard special ability of a standard Sorcerer.
Sieghelma is a 6th rank Sorcerer who is continuing to live on the open sea. She has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 6 spells and 23MP). She has the Climb skill and the Sea Legs skill. And can now acquire a new Saltwater Sailor skill - Read Weather.

At Rank 7
Anarchos is a 7th rank Sorcerer. He has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 7 spells and 25MP), and the Calligraphy skill and the Alchemy Skill.
Sieghelma is a 7th rank Sorcerer who after almost drowning has decided she never wants to go to sea again. She has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 7 spells and 25MP). She has the Climb skill, the Sea Legs skill, and the Read Weather skill.

At Rank 8
Anarchos is a 8th rank Sorcerer. He has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 8 spells and 28MP), and the Calligraphy skill and the Alchemy Skill. He acquires the ability to artifice Talismans (as is standard for a 8th rank standard Sorcerer.
Sieghelma is a 8th rank Sorcerer who is adapting to life as a landlubber. She has the core ability of Spellcasting (with Rank 8 spells and 28MP). She has the Climb skill, the Sea Legs skill, and the Read Weather skill. This is the point where decisions have to be made and we could write rules for this but I'm not sure it's not best left up to the GM and player to discuss based on this character's history.

But personally, I think if I was going to write a rule, it would be that at this point, Sieghelma can acquire 'Calligraphy' - she's back on the standard Sorcerer path, and that's the first skill in that path, which is acquired (standard) at 4th and every 2 ranks thereafter (3 ranks for the insanely powerful 'Archmage' normally attained at 15th rank.) (Note, in my own game, I'd also probably allow Sieghelma to substitute the Knot Magic skill of the Sea-Witch path for Calligraphy, as they are similar and it might be a better suit for the character).

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Shaun Hately
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co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 10:04 pm 
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Jiminy wrote:
... and Damian beat me to the post!


And they both beat me!

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