Apologies for this deluge of questions I’m about to spill. I’m working my way through the character burner and have got myself very confused mostly over gear. Everything so far has been pretty easy to understand but I’m getting a little muddled with terminology and there’s also a few things that I’m either getting completely wrong or the book is a bit…incorrect. Of course seeing as I’m new to this I feel bad immediately blaming the book!!
First of all I’m a little bit confused with the general description of weapons used in the example characters in the character burner. In the 12 steps section the Elf that is created takes a Run of the Mill bow. Okay so looking at the gear section that says I use the bow from the lifepaths of man section. Yet when I finally flick to the back of the book there are a few bows to chose from. Do I just assume that Run of the mill bow refers to a hunting bow?
In other examples a few characters are getting run of the mill swords. Yet once again there are multiple swords to chose from. The short sword, the arming sword and the long sword. Do they all cost the same price because they’re all run of the mill weapons?
The final thing is at the very end of the resources section during character creation. The final resource point is used buy a gambeson for 2D worth of protection. Yet…gambeson doesn’t appear at all in the elf’s resource list. There’s a random mention of using the mannish resources for run of the mill armour but the prices seem off. Reinforced leather, light mail, heavy mail etc all seems cheaper on the elven list than on the list for men. Also buying just one piece of chest armour costs half the rp cost so…half of 3 rounded up is 2 not 1 right? And then finally looking at the armour section of the book the gambeson only provides 1D of protection not 2.
So what’s going on here especially with this armour section. So far the book has been really clear and well written but this whole section is a bit of a mess. Have I completely misread something?
In the lifepaths of man section there are separate prices for hunting bows and great bows. Choose which you want, pay the appropriate price and use those stats.
Arms work a little differently, you choose the quality and can have a full set (whatever is appropriate for your character) of arms of that quality. So you could have any or all of the different swords, whatever makes sense given your skills and background.
For the armor, first decide if you are getting run of the mill armor or elven armor. Run of the Mill armor uses the prices in the lifepaths of man section. You are correct that the prices for elven armor are not the same as the price of superior mannish armor. As for a run of the mill gambeson chest costing 1 vs 2, that sounds like an error in the book to me. Maybe it got changed from an older edition?
Actually I may be confused over rounding. Do you generally round up or round down? If it is down (even on armour costs) then it would cost 1. I think there is an error on the number of dice awarded but if it was reinforced leather rather than a gambeson then it would be 2D. And also if you round down then a chest piece is reinforced leather would only cost 1rp.
EDIT - actually no it says you do round up not down with fractional costs!
Could you collaborate on why it’s a special case? The example states it only costs the 1rp but I can’t see where in the RAW this makes sense. Sorry for being a rules pedant. I hate being a rules pedant but that seems to be what I am!.
The example on p96 says that this is by armor costs, but it’s not. It does work for a shoddy gambeson, which might be the intent, but I’ve always just run it by the implication on that page that it’s a special 1 RP discount to buy a gambeson breastplate.