Class Questions

Torchbearer An Adventurer's Essentials
1

The barbarian Otto of Clan Northwood is dead…along with the rest of the party. (Can you say “Total Party Kill”?) So, we’re all starting from scratch with mostly classes we have never played: a human skinchanger, a death knight, a dwarf oathbreaker and potentially one unknown (if he ever comes back from coaching wrestling on TB nights).

So, I’m sure we’ll have several questions on these new abilities, but we’ll start with these two:

Nature-Singing: Support Nature descriptors are new to me personally. We’ve had a halfling in the past with Merrymaking and my bard’s Singing will possibly function much the same. I just want to make sure we’re doing it right. Basically, when we camp, the halfling would do a Nature: Merrymaking test to relieve Angry or Afraid conditions, whichever was more prevalent in the party. Whatever the Ob would be to normally relieve the condition, the GM would add one to that to relieve the entire group. (Angry would go from an Ob 2 Will test to an Ob 3 Merrymaking test, Afraid from 3 to 4). Success would relieve whoever had that particular condition. Failure would relieve none. Is that how the rule was intended? It’s kind of vague under the “Hidden Nature Rules” section.

Death Knight-Vow to the Lords of Famine: This benefit reads “Once per session, when made Hungry and Thirsty, the Death Knight may recharge an expended use of the Cadaverous trait. If the Death Knight has not used their trait yet this session, you may increase your trait by 1 until the end of the session.”

So, if his Cadaverous trait were L1, it’s pretty obvious how this works.

However, due to a Nature question during character building, his Cadaverous trait is already L2 and usable on all appropriate tests, so the recharge benefit is of no use. But, if he waits to use it until after he gains the H&T condition, it will upgrade to L3, correct?

And what about when the trait actually reaches L3 (+1s to all appropriate tests)? Is the benefit obsolete then or am I missing something.

I’m sure we’ll have more questions in the near future, but these two will do for now. Thanks in advance.

2

Merrymaking and Singing are not equivalent. Merrymaking means throwing a party, which implies a group. To factor the Ob for a group, which must be higher than the standard recovery Ob, I would take the context into account. If the Halfling is trying to party right after a comrade was devoured by ghouls I would make the test more difficult than if the party just found a bunch of loot or escaped from a dragon.

As I read it Singing can be used by the elf or half-elf remove conditions from themselves but not others. The Singing section doesn’t say anything about affecting a group.

For Cadaverous trait, if it is already lvl 2 it would go to lvl 3 with that Vow. If you have lvl 3 trait then the vow would recharge a used trait.

3

Singing Nature could help a halfling make merry. The elf could sing a dirge for the fallen. So sad.

Since releasing Torchbearer, Thor and Luke nerfed x2 traits because I broke the game. It’s now “Trait may be used up to twice per session.”

At x3 (traits can’t go higher than x3), I’d make the trait grant +1D once, in addition to its x3 benefit.

Also: your Death Knight must smeeellllllll…

4

So the elf can remove his own conditions by singing, but no one else’s? He makes a Nature test instead of Will? With same Ob’s? Seems kind of redundant.

And yeah. That thing stinks!

5

Singing can be used to overcome anger or fear, and to enchant the unwary with wonderment, befuddling their wits. (Secret Nature Rules p120)

6

Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

7

Cool. Let me know how long the Death Knight lasts!

8

We’ve already played one session and the dwarf and bard are wondering why the hell they’re running around with an undead creature that eats the corpses of his enemies (which he killed unnecessarily, btw). The DK is the raised corpse of the player’s fallen paladin, but most, if not all, of the other characters have no idea who he used to be. My bard is like “Why are we not killing this thing?”

9

That’s wicked! Very much in the spirit of the character class. Well done!

10

Yeah, that player is super good at playing in character. We’ll let you know how it goes (and how long before the characters kill each other.)