Chaosium Digest Volume 11, Number 5 Date: Sunday, August 13, 1995 Number: 1 of 1 Contents: Armour and Shield Damage (Matthew Bassett) PENDRAGON New Skill: Contacts (Wayne Coburn) CALL OF CTHULHU Editor's Note: Welcome to another issue of the Chaosium Digest. This time, some new rules for Pendragon and Cthulhu. As ever, the contributions are appreciated; keep them coming this way. Don McKinney (rcs@csci.csc.com) had a question for other Pendragon gamemasters out there. He says: "We have a number of women playing Pendragon (which is great!), but they are having problems because if they have any 'relations' with spouses or amors, they become subjected to the Childbirth table, which has a 2/20 chance of arbitrarily killing them. I had a weekend confrontation with the sexist attitude of this table I want to change. Female knights, magicians and ladies are all thrown on this one. Has anyone changed these mechanics in their campaign?" Drop Don a line, if you have any ideas, or, if you'd like to write an article on Female PCs in Pendragon, send it this way. NEW RELEASES: * Nephilim - _Secret Societies_ (Chaosium, $16.95) is a sourcebook for the secret organizations of the Nephilim world. It contains tons of information to help flesh out hidden allies and villains alike. MAGAZINE SIGHTINGS: * Call of Cthulhu - "To Believe", a nine page scenerio for Kult, with conversion rules for Call of Cthulhu, suggested for use in a Cthulhu Now setting, Adventures Unlimited #3 [Fall, 1995]; "Modern Madness", eight pages of revised insanity rules for Call of Cthulh, Shadis Presents #19.5 [June, 1995]; "Is this Heaven?", two pages of ideas for near-death experiences in Call of Cthulhu, Shadis Presents #19.5 [June, 1995] Note that Shadis Presents #19.5, "All Things Dark and Dangerous" also contains a number of generic articles, useful to all horror games, including an explanation of forensic techniques, and several articles full of ideas for horror gamemasters. (FRENCH) MAGAZINE SIGHTINGS: * Call of Cthulhu - "Une Musique dans les Tenebres", a five page scenerio, Apsara #11 * Nephilim - "Convict of Sin", a seven page scenerio, Apsara #11 * Pendragon - "L'hongail Torgrab" (The Adventure of the Child who Doesn't Believe in Legends"), a five page scenerio allowing interaction with the faerie world, Aprsara #10 [Apr/May/Jun, 1995] NEW ELECTRONIC RESOURCES The Encylopedia Mystica http://www.bart.nl/~micha/mystica.html Although not directly related to any of Chaosium's games, this WWW site will probably be of interest to both Nephilim and Pendragon players. It's "an encyclopedia of mythology, magic, legends and folklores" and contains much that is interesting about both the legendary and the occult. The Strange Aeons Discussion List strange-aeons-l@lists.consensus.com After a long hiatus, the Strange Aeons discussion list, a place to talk about Call of Cthulhu and much more, has finally returned. Just drop a line to the above address to get added to the list. -------------------- From: Matthew Bassett Subject: Armour and Shield Damage System: Pendragon Here's some small house rules we have used for Pendragon: One of the things that the Pendragon rules mention is the effectiveness of Axes at splitting shields, but there is nothing mentioned to reflect this in the mechanics. Inspired by this we have recently adopted the following rules: PENDRAGON: SHIELD AND ARMOUR DAMAGE When the winner of a melee round is rolling for damage against a loser who successfully used his shield, each 'six' rolled does one point of damage to the shield. (optional complication: if an axe does any damage to a shield, then it does an extra point of damage; morning stars and flails do one less point of damage). Each point of damage done to a shield reduces it's protection by 1 point. Once a shield's protection has been reduced to 0 it is destroyed and may not be used. If a shield has not been successfully used then the loser's armour has been damaged by the sixes: every two whole sixes rolled do one point of damage to the armour (armour is tougher than shields). Note that excess damage points from destroying a shield do not soak through to damage armour. SHIELD AND ARMOUR REPAIR Shields can only have up to 2 points of their protection restored, and regardless of that can never be repaired to more than 1 less than their original value. This shield repair can be carried out by whoever the GM feels has the appropriate skills (most likely a knight's squire), providing the required materials are at hand. Armour repair is more complicated. The first 1-2 points of armour damage represents broken straps, bent plates, and only a few broken links of chain. At the GMs discretion, if only this amount of damage has been done to the armour (since the last repair), he may allow the repair of 1 point of this damage providing appropriate materials and craftsmen are available (i.e. a leather worker or a blacksmith). These "jury-rig" repairs can accumulate if a knight collects armour damages of only 1-2 points between repairs. A total of them should be kept since they are significant in calculating the cost of a "proper" repair to armour. If greater than 2 points damage has been done to the armour since it's last repair, then it requires a skilled armourer to put right. The following formula shows the cost of repairing each point of armour protection: (C * 4) / (P * 3) Where C=price of armour at current location, and P=points of total armour protection Also each point of "jury-rig" repair must be undone before any armour protection points are restored (the work of the "amateur" must be undone and replaced by the armourer to get a proper fit), adding to the cost of armour repair. Thus, it can be seen that once armour has lost 75% of it's protection (or even had too many "jury-rig" repairs), it is cheaper to buy a new suit than to have it repaired. The GM may optionally allow the character some "trade-in" on the materials value of his old armour. Example: Sir Hugh has been in three combats in which his trusty 11 pt chainmail took damage (2 points in one, 1 point in the next, and 2 points again in the last). Each time he has had the blacksmith of his manor repair the damage, so his armour currently has a value of 9, 3 of which were restored by his blacksmith. However he visits his Lord's castle and decides to get the armourer to repair his damaged armour back to it's orginal value: from the formula given above the cost of repairing each armour point is (C*1)/(11*3) ~= 0.12*C (sorry, can't remember the cost of his armour), but he has 3 points of jury-rig repairs to be replaced before the 2 points of protection are restored, for a total cost of 5*0.12*C = 0.60*C (at least it's still cheaper than a brand new suit). Note that it would be very rare for a Knight to get his armour partially repaired by an armourer! NOTES: As part of their starting possessions, we now give each knight one or two extra spare shields (not only are they handy for protecting the knight, they also protect his armour!). GMs who feel the above armour damage rules are too severe can increase the number of whole sixes that must be rolled to damage armour to three, and reduce the cost of armour repairs by some fraction. I would welcome any commments and feedback: matthew@te.rl.ac.uk -------------------- From: wcoburn@mamacass.ucsd.edu (Wayne Coburn) Subject: New Skill: Contacts System: Call of Cthulhu Below is a new skill to add to the game Call of Cthulhu. I have used it in other games systems and I found that it works with CoC as well. Contacts(00%) This skill is a measure of who the player knows and how willing they are to help. The player must specify which groups she has contacts with and the GM is free to override anything that is unreasonable. Contacts might be with local police, federal police, at a local university, or something else along those lines. Starting characters should only have contacts within their profession, and then not more than around 20%. Giving this skill away free shouldn't disrupt the game too much, but keepers might have their players purchase the skill like any other during character generation. Contacts should not be used to bail players out of major messes. They are sources of information and possibly small favors. A successful use of the skill gives the player the help that she needs. Failure just means that the contact was either too busy or unable to help the player. Critical failures and successes should depend on the situation. As a guide, fumbles should mean that the contact is lost while a critical success results in an extra bit of help. For example, a contact at a university library might get the characters in to see a forbidden book. Or a contact in the local police department might help get the players out of jail a little faster. A contact at city hall might allow characters to see sealed city records concerning that old haunted house on the hill. Like the Cthulhu Mythos skill, Contacts receive no skill checks. If the players do some great service to an individual or a group then the GM can grant the skill at some nominal level. For example, if a group of characters help a scientist turn back some horror he accidentally unleashed then they might suddenly find they have a contact in the Miskatonic U's physics department. This would show up as contact(MU physics department) 15% on the players character sheet. Likewise, if the players overuse a contact the GM is free to lower or remove the skill (as the contact becomes annoyed at being bothered). Also, just because a character has a contact doesn't mean that the contact automatically believes everything she is told. If a character goes to a police contact asking for help against some blasphemy a local outstanding citizen has conjured up but doesn't bring any proof then the police will probably do nothing. In this case a fumbled roll might mean that the character has been institutionalized. The GM has final say in what the contact can, can't, and wont do. To limit overuse and abuse of the skill I would recommend that GMs keep the percentage chance down. There is no reason for any player to have a contact skill above 40%, and most should be much lower. Any higher and they might start relying on who they know and not what they know. NPCs, of course, can have contacts at any level desired by the GM. This skill is meant to supplement the fast talk, persuade, and credit rating skills by offering another means for players to get information. I thought of this skill while reading the 5th edition rules. There, it states that the biology skill gives the character knowledge of noted biologists as well as general biology. But what, if the character knew a number of biologists but no biology? Then she would have the skill contacts(local university biology department). Using this skill properly can add a new way for the characters to collect much needed information. It shouldn't, however, be used as a substitute for role playing. I almost hesitate to suggest adding the skill because it might make the game more dice rolls and less character interaction. Still, it is a nice way to quantify favors owed and who knows who. It could also be used for adventure threads, as a contact comes to the players because she knows they can be trusted. As long as the skill isn't abused the I think it could make a nice addition to the game. Please write me with any comments or suggestions. Wayne Coburn Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences E-Mail: wcoburn@ucsd.edu University of California, San Diego Phone: (619)534-6431 La Jolla, CA, 92093 -------------------- The Chaosium Digest is an unofficial electronic 'zine about Chaosium's Games. In no way should it be considered representative of the views or beliefs of Chaosium Inc. 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