Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

Bummer, I should have left a note for the eagle to take back!

Spent a lot of time on this lately and also spent all day playing 3.5.

Will get back to you in a day or two re: your further orders.

The eagles follow you into the next hex SW of the lake, so if you want, you can go back to the spot they left you, and drop one and see what they do. Could be worth a try. Or you could go closer...

What would you say?

No, it's ok. In the moment -- at the lake -- would have been best. The party can come back next year with a thank you.

Back to movement and EU: can you post the impact that terrain has to move speed (if any)?

I think it's all based on forest / hills / gullies / streams at this point.

In plains, it'd be easier, but you won't be exploring in plains for a while so it doesn't matter yet.

In the big mountains I might charge you differently depending on what you are trying to do. Some might be impassable or only have only way through, so that'd actually be faster than forest. Others will be forested, and slower. I'll see when the time comes.

With big rivers, I am charging you 1EP to cross them using the rope bridge method and getting all your gear across. But, you are having a good scout around in that area while you are doing do, to make sure you do not get ambushed. So effectively it counts as part of exploring the hex anyway.

Incidentally I'm calling them EPoints from now on as EU keeps making me think of...the EU.

Incidentally, it's April now, Sunday the 26th (in the game), northern hemisphere.

You mounted your expedition as soon as the weather got decent. It will still be pretty rainy, though.

You'd expect a season to last til maybe October, so you have absolutely ages of time. Adventuring in the other half of the year would be very different and probably much harder.

Ok thanks. I was starting to plan the next journey (food, milestones) and was curious about those mountains

I've thought bout it a bit and I'd like 'woods-craft' to be mandatory choice for beginning rangers.

This represents knowledge of temperate and maritime climate woodland and hills. You can also pick:

urban / rural
marine
polar
high alpine
arid
tropical

but not underground.

You can't begin the game with UG knowledge. That is learned in play. Dwarves have some inherent UG knowledge, not about monsters and ecology, but about caves, construction and stonework, etc.

On that note: in terms of 'knowledge' or 'expertise' skills, they are more for flavor than game mechanics.

If you pick 'knowledge of history' or the like, you can't make rolls on those skills. If I decide to give you info based on your skill choices, I will do that. Otherwise, your character will only know what you see. Most of what you are dealing with is totally new or out of the realms of the sort of knowledge that you can study. That's pretty much why you want to go into Boldenwald - to find new / lost knowledge.

Ok, I changed Talin's bowyer to woodscraft and kept Freya's background as woodscraft (though I'm torn between that and bowyer; lets see if I can work in bowyer to her background). Both are rural.

I didn't see knowledge of history on the list. Is that the same skill as sage? Given that you said the closest alchemist was days (weeks?) away, seems wrong for me to drop that in so I'm thinking of a new skill. History sounds decent but again not quite sure. I can fit it into her background though.

'Knowledge of history' is an option. Geography, or botany, as well. 'Knowledge of religion' is the same as 'priest', in most cases.

'Knowledge of arcana' is not available (and I have always hated it in 3.5.)

The elf-mages will know their own magic, and no more. The dark art of arcane human magic is lost. You do not have prior knowledge of it, or even know if it really exists for sure.

And there is certainly no such thing as 'knowledge of monsters' or "knowledge of what the DM knows" type of skills.

As I said, knowledge skills are really for flavor, rather than for getting hints. I will give you information based on what I think you would reasonably know, but, you cannot 'roll' on such skills or rely too heavily on them. If you go into Boldenwald you are in new territory.