Leveling Up

How are we handling Grit increases?

Like normal – half round up. D6 = 4, D8 = 5, D10 = 6.

Adventure Rewards

This is confusing. What is the timing of the rewards again?

Apply changes to your wealth and gear in this order. (Examples from our first adventure)

• Immediately add the reward you receive at the end of the story.

1. Add your $10 Eagle to your inventory
2. Increase your wealth by 3.
3. NOTES: This includes selling the bear pelt and Waite’s payment. Also, I have been asked to tell everyone that they have been treated fairly.

• Level up

1. Spend your skill points – which probably includes adding a rank in Profession skill
2. Make your Professional Gains roll against your current wealth (probably DC3). See pg 89, 128.

• Buy and sell stuff. You can take 20 on any common item in the book and any +1 mastercraft item. +2 and above are limited availability with GM approval.

• Off-camera awards (things that happen during downtime). I.e. Gambling roll with stakes of 6 and DC20. See pg 76-77, Kevin – take the $20 Double Eagle (DC15) and Windfall, John – take Windfall

• Buy and sell stuff. You can take 20 on any common item in the book and any +1 mastercraft item. +2 and above are limited availability with GM approval. NOTE: if you want to sell your gold coin(s) for wealth, this is probably where you do it.

• Final lifestyle adjustments. It is expected that PCs are somewhere from 4 to 7 wealth. This puts you either at the top end of struggling (1 to +4) to the lower-end of middle class (5 to +10). This means you have a dry place to sleep, regular meals, occasional baths, worn but clean clothes, and care for your horse. Quality varies from abysmal (4) to pretty decent (7).

So this is basically how we did starting characters. Right?

“It looks basically like we go through the same process as we did at start-up, except that we have the extra stuff from the adventure and we want to end and at a more “normal” final wealth value; sound right?” – Dave Silvera

Good way to look at it.  Our general philosophy is that the PCs should be “struggling” (otherwise why risk life and limb) but being “dead broke” should be a player RP choice.

Mastercraft Items (and Armor)

What about getting mastercraft items above +1?

We want you to have them, and we want you to want these items – but we want to limit their introduction to be more level-appropriate. I suspect we will also make them rare and difficult to obtain i.e. adventure rewards, quests or standard rolls without Take 20.

What about armor? Why is Ed talking about that?

Using armor properly requires the “Armor Proficiency” feat chain – I don’t think anyone bought that, because it is not very genre and folks are feat tight.

But soft leather (pg 154) has no armor check penalty and provides +1 defense non-proficient. So it has only minimal drawbacks.

Does that mean I can get +2 defense for DC13 and +3 defense for DC16?

No. D20 Modern Errata “The general rule is that you can increase one bonus. So, for example, if you apply a +1 bonus to armor for mastercrafting, you can use it to increase either the proficient bonus or the non-proficient bonus, but not both.”

So for DC13 you can get soft leather that is 2 proficient/1 non-proficient (this makes it a slightly more expensive and much lighter version of leather armor). But for DC16 you could get a 2 mastercraft bonus and have a +2/2 suit of armor with no armor penalty. NOTE: I am ruling that you can’t have armor with a higher non-proficient bonus than its proficient bonus – that would be stupid.

Story-Telling

What about story telling?

John and Ed want to take the improv approach of “yes, and …”whenever possible. We are particularly interested in things that would motivate your characters:

• Introduction of personal quests and goals,
• Introduction of NPCs from your backstory,
• Dramatization of historical events from “far away” – i.e. outside of a polygon that goes from the Columbia River valley to Klamath Falls to the Sierra Nevada and down to Yosemite then cutting west to Carmel & Monterrey.

Also some ideas for local news that would be fine to do – the special election for sheriff, rumors of mine strikes, natural disasters (esp floods), rumblings of Indian trouble, descriptions of the last few families that made it over the pass before winter – e.g. what about that poor family robbed of all their savings, whatever happened to them?

Can I work for the sheriff?

Yes, but the GMs advise against putting down too many roots at level 2 (except for the RP value). You are not going to spend your whole adventuring career in Nevada County.

It would also be better if you “got hired sometimes for an occasional posse” rather than worked as a deputy with a badge. That gets you access to rumors without the entanglements of being a sworn officer of the law.

I would like an example

How about two of them ….

Ex #1. Gilbert says : I was up all night gambling away and I wasn’t winning, rather I was losing quite a bit.  Well, the last hand of the night and the new stranger in town was down to nothing and I didn’t have much left either.  Dealer dealt me a straight flush right out of the deck.  I knew I had everyone!  He placed his brand new shiny pistol on the table, because he thought he had me.  I may have lost the dollars that night, but I won my new favorite pistol!

Ex #2. Garrett says : Since being declared Champion of Nevada City, Garrett has been occasionally having to tolerate drunken locals (who lost money and are pretty sure the fight was ‘rigged’) making derogatory comments and implying even they could have taken such a scrawny whelp. Some comments have included threats and one nasty individual, an associate of the foreman Garrett laid out, continued the debasing of the motherland.

 On two separate occasions, Garrett lost his cool, and a bar room brawl ensued. Now Sheriff Thompkins focused on cleaning up the town, has a zero-tolerance, no-fault policy to any ruckus in his town. This policy resulted in Garrett and his adversary spending a night in jail to sleep it off and cool down. The second time, Garrett got ‘bonus’ time in the jail. The second time, Garrett also discovered the sheriff’s deputies know how to work as a pack to ensure the sheriff’s will is enforced and they are very efficient and intolerant to resistance. Garrett actually ended up with more scrapes and bruises from trying to resist the deputies than he did from the fight.