Frostgrave: Weitere Infos zur 2. Edition
Auf dem Blog des Autors Joseph A. McCullough finden sich neue Infos zur kommenden zweiten Edition von Frostgrave.
Frostgrave: Second Edition – Rumour Mill 1
While the virus has delayed Frostgrave: Second Edition, it hasn’t stopped it. I can confirm that the book is currently ready for print and on-track for its new release date on August 20th! As that is now less than three months away, I figured it is time I started opening up about what’s coming in the new edition. So, consider this post the first of several over the coming weeks.
The first news comes right at the beginning of the book. The new edition has a foreword written by none-other than Shane Lacy Hensley – the man responsible for the Deadlands and Savage Worlds role-playing games! Shane’s writing and game design have been a big influence to me over the years. His efforts to make role-playing much more miniature friendly were a big factor in my own attempts to include a lot more role-playing elements into miniature wargaming.
Long before I wrote Frostgrave, I submitted a proposal for a little Savage Worlds adventure. Shane replied to me, encouraged me, and ultimately helped me polish up, what became Rise, Alabama! One of my first gaming publications. While Shane and I mostly fell out of touch after that, I continued to buy and read a lot of his works, and, as it turned out, he did the same, picking up Frostgrave…
I am seriously proud that he agreed to write the foreword.
Now, one of the biggest changes to the new edition has already been revealed – the switch to aRu-Mor as the series artist, and I have shown off a new piece of her artwork above. Once again we have the Sigilist, who we’ve previously seen on the cover, in her more natural habitat – a library! Of course it is Frostgrave, so it is a frozen library, but there you go.
One of the things I really like about this piece is that it illustrates one of the new spells that the Sigilist school is getting in Second Edition. The spell is called ‘Bridge’ and it allows the spellcaster to create a bridge or staircase made out of a scroll (or in this case books). This utility spell should allow explorers easier access to high terrain and a way to potentially move from one high spot to another. Of course, the enemy may not want to set foot on a Sigilist’s bridge…
So, that’s all I’ve got for today, but I’ll be back soon to talk about creating Wizard and Warbands in Second Edition!
Frostgrave 2 – Wizards and Apprentices
June has come, which means we are just that little bit closer to the August release date of Frostgrave: Second Edition! (It’s also my birthday month – normally I would say to send all gifts care of the Osprey offices, but as those offices are closed at the moment, just send best-wishes!)
As with the first edition, the second leaps right in with creating a wizard, and, in truth, not a whole lot has changed. The system for creating wizards always seemed to be one of the strongest and most enjoyable parts of the game for a lot of people, so I didn’t want to mess with it much. You still choose from the same ten schools of magic, all of which have the same connections to the other schools. You still select 8 spells, following the same rules as in first edition. Now, some of those spells have changed, but we will get into that later.
In fact, the only changes I made to creating wizards are very minor, and all have to do with items. First, wizards no longer pay for their starting items. Charging a wizard 5gc for a sword, when the game is usually dealing with magic items worth hundreds of gold crowns just seemed fiddly, and tended to cause confusion in other parts of the system.
A few people might be horrified to learn that I have dropped the +1 Fight for wielding two weapons. The biggest problem with this is that it was just too good. Rules-wise, there was just no good reason not to do it (the hallmark of a bad rule). This in turn led to all these wizards running around like duelists with their swords and daggers, which didn’t feel right. Anyway, the rule is gone. On the other hand, the first dagger carried by a wizard (or apprentice) no longer takes up an item slot, so everyone gets a free back-up knife!
Following a similar thought process, two-handed weapons now take up two items slots, and wizards wanting to carry a bow will also have to carry a quiver. These rules are designed to offset the advantages conferred by these weapons, and make it less likely that wizards, especially higher level-ones who tend to have lots of magical gear, will carry them.
And that’s it for wizards; they are otherwise the same as in first edition.
Apprentices, on-the-other-hand, have gotten slightly better! (Do I hear applause? I did say slightly). Basically, I made a couple of changes to their Stats. First, their starting Shoot score is now equal to the wizard’s (+0). This is actually irrelevant to most people, but it eliminates the awkward -2 Shoot that all apprentices had. Much more importantly, Apprentices starting Health is now only 2 less than the wizard, meaning they start with Health 12 (instead of 10). While this isn’t a huge gain, it means that apprentices can take a little more damage, and, perhaps even more importantly, have a little more Health available to empower spells. As an interesting side-effect of these two changes, starting apprentices are only 6 levels below their wizard, so if your wizard dies, you only lose 6 levels when promoting your apprentice. This will hopefully lessen the psychic blow to players when their wizard dies, and help keep campaigns feeling more balanced.
Finally, Apprentices now only cost 100gc. This is part of a general restructuring of money, and has little effect on assembling your warband in the beginning, but does mean that it isn’t quite so costly to replace an apprentice down the line.
I’m sure everyone got an eye-full of that new piece of aRu-Mor artwork. I told you she should could paint, didn’t I! Some may recognize the piece as illustrating the very first scenario in the original rulebook – well the Mausoleum is back for a new edition!
Okay, that’s all I’ve got say about the spellcasters at the moment. I’ll be back soon with a look at the soldiers, and how they have changed for the Second Edition…
Quelle: The Renaissance Troll
Das klingt doch nach ganz sinnvollen Änderungen, die Kombi Schwert/Dolch war ja bei Ghostarchipelago schon raus. Ich finde es gut, dass die Lehrlinge aufgewertet werden. Bin gespannt was sich bei den Zaubersprüchen ändern wird.