Expedition Alpha 2 Progress.

I decided for the moment, to go on developing the so-called “Chartspedition” (this isn’t the official name, it’s still Expedition). As a suitable introduction, let’s go over the Fighter’s class sheet. As usual, I have the same development rules for Archetypes that I did in Expedition and I wish to firmly adhere to them while developing:

1) Each Archetype is just one page. They refer to Perks and such which have their full texts in a different section, but the Archetype itself is just one page. You could print it out and have it with you at all times while playing, and very easily just look at it (and even print your Perks on the back of the same paper to have them there).

2) More than ever, I don’t really want power acquisition and miscellaneous numerical bonuses to be a necessary part of playing the game. With the charts and the way they’ll play, it should not be.

So let’s get re-introduced to my good friend, the Fighter:

The Chart-Full New Fighter

Fighter Talent

Defender: Whenever the Fighter gains Edge, he or she can Guard as an action on the same turn and give all the benefits to another character in the same zone. The Fighter does not benefit from the Guard this way. The Fighter must remain in the same zone as that ally to confer the benefit. The Fighter has -1 Soak while this benefit is active (usually for 1 round) but has a +1 to all Attack rolls.

Fighter Traits

Well Rounded: A Fighter can use any type of Boon. He or she must pay +1 point to use Magic Boons, however, or +2 points if that magic boon costs 7 or more points.

Cosmopolitan: A Fighter’s Interaction and Knowledge rolls never become more difficult as a result of cultural disassociation or language barriers.

Comrades: Once per Expedition, the Fighter can uncover a relation of some kind regardless of the location. The Fighter gains 2 Temporary Fortune at the start of any Interaction task with that character. The character can offer aid or accompany the characters as an Adventurer using the Hireling rules, at the GM’s discretion.

What’s All That Mean?

(The way the blog theme handles tables is sorta ugly for this purpose, so I used a screencap. Sorry.)

First of all, you will notice that like I said before, we’ve added Minor Perks. Now, why is Battlemaster there? Battlemaster used to be the Fighter’s default combat Perk. But Battlemaster is actually fairly boring and numerical, so I demoted it to Minor Perk status. Perks that overwhelmingly just add numbers will be demoted to Minor Perks, and have no advancement options. The Fighter’s new full perk is Sentinel, which is a revision of the old Stonewall perk. By the way, Stonewall used to be Fighter’s original default perk, but I changed it to Battlemaster later to make the Default Fighter just a bit easier to play.

The first of the two important charts is the Fighter’s Skill Chart. These are the basic results the Fighter gets out of the six skills in the game (I killed the Support skill – Support is now built into the task system as you’ll soon see). The skills represent the six important things that characters do in games of Expedition – perception, tests of physical endurance and strength, talking to NPCs, seeking out and deciphering lore and clues, moving around and exploring the world, and wielding tools, repairing objects and interacting with traps and mechanisms. Those actions are covered by the skills.

Of note is that the charts on your sheet are the only important charts in the game. They are the only charts you as a player will have to reference or keep on hand. NPCs have reduced versions of these charts. An NPC’s skill chart, for example, has only two different skills: Novice and Expert. And some only have Novice anyway.

The skill chart has four ranges.

1/2 Success: This is the low-extreme probability range. A 1/2 Success or “partial success” is a roll that does not give you a success, but also does not count against the task Limit – so it doesn’t put you closer to failure. Not only that, but when you score a Partial Success, you gain Fortune, or you can give an ally Fortune (Support).

+1 Fortune: Fortune Points are spent on task abilities like rigging successes. You gain them from the lower results on the 3d6. Whenever you gain Fortune, you can either give to an ally or keep it. You can spend Fortune Points 1 for 1 to change the result of a roll. This allows you to save Tasks that might otherwise fail. However, if you roll Fortune, the roll counts against the Limit of the task. So you’re not really closer to winning the task. Rolling for Fortune isn’t the only way to gain it though. You can gain Fortune in combat by converting Strikes into it, and you start with 1d6 each day.

Successes: Rather than the Success Pool of Expedition, in the new version tasks have a single digit Victory Value. Instead of tallying up your roll results to meet a double-digit value, you score single-digit successes and add them up to the Victory Value of a task in order to win. The high-extreme probability range will give you 2 Successes instead of one. Coupled with Fortune, this allows you to make some strategic decisions as to your resources.

For example, say you’re up against the limit. You need 2 successes to win, and you need to score them off of 1 roll. You score 2 successes on a 15 or higher, but your result is only 12. However, you have 3 Fortune. You can spend that 3 Fortune to increase your result of 12 to 15, and get 2 successes. You give up Fortune, but you succeed, sparing your Expedition Points. (Attrition is still in this version. Whenever you fail a task, you suffer Attrition and move on. Rather than the game stopping because you failed, you advance but with a loss to your resources, which can make things harder for you.)

Or you can save up your Fortune. There’s some goodies you can get with it. So you can say “who needs FOOD AND SUPPLIES anyway?” and take the hit in the backpack and keep the Fortune for later.

Combat was discussed in my last post. You roll against the correct attack chart to see whether you score Strikes or gain Edge. You need Edge to deal damage. Strikes can be converted into Fortune, or turned into Debuffs against your enemies that will keep them from gaining Edge and hurting you back, as well as serve other uses. You can also convert a bunch of Strikes into Edge, though it’s obviously not as efficient to do that as it is to just gain Edge.

Oh and the next Expedition is also introducing the Villager archetype alongside the original 4, for all the hapless peons who join alongside the whacky adventurers on their journeys. It will actually be playable and fun too, unlike other game’s commoners. You probably aren’t too excited about that though, but I thought I’d mention it.

All of this fixes some of the problems of the old system. Roll-high was somewhat frustrating and all the niggling little bonuses to this or that thing seemed easily forgotten. Strikes were kind of a novelty rather than a useful game tool, and having 3 types of attacks was confusing people. I like how Chartspedition changes things.