S n S Rules suggestions

Eques · Post by **Eques** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 4:09 pm

IMO the main difference between fantasy FoG and historical would be in the aesthetics and the imagination. I would only make minor rule changes that have interesting marginal effects. For example:

BGs designated as magical can never suffer a from a "better armour" poa unless fighting against troops using enchanted or silver weapons.

BGs designated as Undead cannot be broken and only suffer from base loss. Lost bases are returned to the position they started the battle and can fight again after a set number of turns unless any damage was done to them by enchanted weapons. This could perhaps be balanced by giving undead BGs a generally "poor"designation or a small maxima.

Spells and the like I would just treat as another type of missile weapon.

Could be an idea to make the list book one big list rather than a series of different armies, perhaps with the qualification that some types cannot fight with, or against, each other.

zellak · Post by **zellak** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 5:05 pm

some good ideas.

i agree on the spells , in the main they could count as artillery of some type maybe ?

And i could see the list idea as working.
Perhaps as a list of special trooptypes or upgrades with playtested points values.

willb · Post by **willb** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 12:59 am

zellak wrote:some good ideas.

i agree on the spells , in the main they could count as artillery of some type maybe ?

And i could see the list idea as working.
Perhaps as a list of special trooptypes or upgrades with playtested points values.

That is close to how the magic rules in the Conan section of yahoo group work. At the scale of FOG it doesn't really matter what the spell is called just its effect.

zellak · Post by **zellak** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 3:30 pm

Could you tell me what kind of spells have been used and what game mechanics/ point values/ restrictions were used ?

willb · Post by **willb** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 3:27 am

In the Hyborean universe there are no named spells. At the level of FOG, it does not matter if the spell is a lightning bolt or poison gas (neither of which appear on the Hyborean battlfield) or something else. What does matter is how many hits are caused on the unit and the possible cohesion tests.

SirGarnet · Post by **SirGarnet** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:11 am

Which makes sense since the one essential effect of battle magic is direct damage.

When you boil things down and look at how FOG works, there are a number of other distinct spell types that could be accommodated and where the differences are more than flavor. For example, if one created a mod for zombies for a particular fantasy realm, an enchantment yielding a POA against zombies would be a logical complement.

ethan · Post by **ethan** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 7:53 pm

I would suggest starting with small changes and proposed army lists and going from there.

One thing to consider for some of the "fantasy" elements is simple things like and extra minus or plus on morale rolls or CMTs.

You could do something like:

Living troops losing impact/melee to undead test at -1

Undead make all CMTs with a base roll of 9 required.

So undead would be a bit nastier going forward, but considerably less maneuverable.

pylum2 · Post by **pylum2** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 2:07 pm

I thought that maybe one way to differentiate larger creature types(trolls,giants,etc) would be to allow them to roll something like a d8 during impact and or melee,but only give them 2 stands like elephants. This would make them larger caliber glass cannons,but give a little more flavor than simply playing them as elephants. However,I dont know what effects this would have on the math.

ethan · Post by **ethan** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 5:15 pm

pylum2 wrote:I thought that maybe one way to differentiate larger creature types(trolls,giants,etc) would be to allow them to roll something like a d8 during impact and or melee,but only give them 2 stands like elephants. This would make them larger caliber glass cannons,but give a little more flavor than simply playing them as elephants. However,I dont know what effects this would have on the math.

A d8 has an average roll of 4.5 instead of 3.5 is the easy answer. It would be a substantial change actually...

Redpossum · Post by **Redpossum** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:26 pm

All interesting suggestions, but I emphatically disagree with the assertion that all battle magic does direct damage. Allow me to offer some alternative viewpoints.

1) "Panic Magic" - a spell to cause an immediate Cohesion Test. The usual modifiers would apply. Lower levels of the spell would have an extra positive modifier, medium levels just the usual modifiers, and higher levels would have an extra negative modifier.

2) "Movement Magic" - a spell to either reduce or increase the movement of a battlegroup for a given number of turns.

3) "Hero Magic" - a spell to increase the rating of a leader by one notch for a given number of turns. A TC would become an FC, an FC would become an IC, and an IC would die of a heart attack

4) "National Guard magic" - a spell to reduce the troop quality of a battlegroup for a given number of turns.

5) "Marine Magic" - a spell to increase the troop quality of a battlegroup for a given number of turns.

willb · Post by **willb** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 3:16 am

Interesting ideas. You can also group magic in other ways.
Offensive Magic - does damage to the opponent in some form
Defensive Magic - attempt to counter enemy offensive magic
Healing - repair damage to own units
Summoning - bring some form of creature/unit onto the table. This one would probably be time consuming and take several turns depending on how many points the unit/creatures cost.

Probert · Post by **Probert** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 8:40 pm

It might be possible to determine the magic potency of the fighting armies prior to the battle beginning. Many modern rulesets have a mechanism for determining air superiority prior to the battle being fought on the table-top. Depending on the ruleset the force that obtains full, partial or marginal air superiority (or in this case magic superiority) gains an advantage in the battle.

This may mean setting up after your opponent, or the non-superior side not being able to rally broken troops, employ artillery, etc....

A table and comparitive dice rolls could be worked out.

ethan · Post by **ethan** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:11 pm

Rules that fundamentally alter the balance of the game based on a set of die rolls at the beginning, with no meaningful player input are IMO bad.

You could have a rule like "each player throws six dice, if anyone gets all sixes they win," completely fiar but not very interesting or much fun.

In FoG for instance winning or losing the opening die roll for initiative has both benefits and penalties whichever way it goes. Players can design armies with this in mind (hoping to win or lose the roll) but it is not a pure "good thing" either way.

Probert · Post by **Probert** » Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:34 pm

Another method for employing magic may allow an army to purchase magic stands similar to to command stands. These stands could provide a re-roll for battlegroups they were in direct contact with.

willb · Post by **willb** » Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:24 pm

part of the rules for magic users at the yahoo group has them count as one of the commanders allowed for the army.

zellak · Post by **zellak** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 8:40 pm

willb wrote:part of the rules for magic users at the yahoo group has them count as one of the commanders allowed for the army.

Could you elaborate on the magic system used by the Yahoo group ?

Have they playtested any of the ideas ?

SirGarnet · Post by **SirGarnet** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 6:44 am

The fantasy group is unofficial so lists, rules mods etc. are all suggestions. There are quite a few lists, and a fair number of ideas, but only recently written up in any formal way.

You will find a few written up specific mods at

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/FoG ... sy%20Mods/

Two of these are based on creative use of FoG rerolls: one to represent hero effects and the other to represent spell effects in a clean and streamlined way that is modular so different mods can fit together easily as people may choose different combinations.

Magic is the most potentially complex area, and one where it's easier to make people unhappy than happy as it gets more complicated since different people and different fantasy realms demand different things. I hope with consensus on design principles and a framework for plugging in individual rules it will create something playable.

Mike

eugenemrodriguez · Post by **eugenemrodriguez** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 3:13 am

On the idea of undead I think we can adapt the moral rules so that the undead lose a stand for every level of moral they loose.

Eugene

Zephyr40k · Post by **Zephyr40k** » Tue Nov 29, 2011 12:58 am

Right, most fantasy wargames I have played have magic spells broken up into a few distinct categories, most of which would be relevant to the scale FoG operates at. To wit:

Direct-damage. The basic "glass cannon." The spellcaster is essentially an artillery piece with the mobility of a command stand. Nasty but rather vulnerable to skirmishers and horse archers.
Example: Fireball, lightning bolt, etc.

Enhance / Buff. Give a benefit to a nearby friendly battlegroup. Upgrades can be anything from armor type, to weapon type, to training level, to whatever, based on the spell type.
Examples: Ice Armor (upgrades armor), Bless Weapon (upgrades weapon), Give Courage (upgrades troop quality), Frenzy (gives "Impact Foot" ability), etc.

Curse / Debuff. Just the opposite as enhance, applied to enemy units
Examples: Curse of Ages (Downgrades troop quality), Rust (downgrades armor)

Movement Either enhance friendly unit's movement or retard enemy unit's movement.
Examples: Lighten the Load (increases movement), Untie shoelaces (retards movement)

Crowd Control Used on enemy units to stun / freeze / confuse / panic / control them.
Examples: Stun, shock, dazzling lights, mind control, illusory enemy, et cetera.

Terraforming
Examples: Wild Growth (place a vegetation terrain piece), Desolation (remove a vegetation terrain piece), earthquake (place or remove or rotate or move a hill terrain piece), flash flood (place a river terrain piece).

And then of course you need to have a reasonable counter-magic system so this doesn't become too overpowered.