At no point did I ever say I was subtle.

Does anyone have any comments on the new abilities I came up with? Too powerful, not powerful enough, silly names?

Personally, I love the new abilities you've got here Poosticks. I think they look quite balanced, and the names aptly explain what they're doing.

Can't wait to use them

Yeah Poosticks, the abilities look well named and balanced so no glaring problems that I can see. The only thing I'd query is why did you go with 3 for the reduction to Parry in the Dirty Fighting ability. Is it based off of some other similar ability?

Bandits and Brigands pictures... Let's see... ...

Well the thinking behind dropping the parry rating by 3 is that is the difference between the three close combat stances 6,9,12. It seemed the most sensible number to use, to keep things simple for everyone.

Cool. That makes a lot of sense.

Working on the document update now - been quite tricky finding pictures which surprised me as I thought they'd be a breeze for these.

A new section created, "Ne'er Do Wells":

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/79541775/New%20Adversaries.pdf

Hope you like the pics as well.

Nice pics. Really capture the tone.

I just noticed though that some of the orcs have disappeared off the pdf. Orc Raider and Orc champion. What happened to those?

Orc Champion is in there, I'm not sure that Orc Raider ever was as it would've messed with the formatting of the orc pictures along the bottom of each page as it would have changed the number of orcs/goblins from 8 to 9.

EDIT 1: ... And just checking my house-rule document (which has a chapter for these adversaries) its not in there either.

EDIT 2: Added it in along with an additional picture to protect previous layout.

Glad you like them. I really struggled not to use this one:

You got to love Belkar.

Indeed, homicidal little **** that he is!

Hi Rich, just noticed an error on the bandit chief, his endurance and hate scores are wrong.

Also the bandit chief and the ruffian leader are supposed to have long swords (them being the bosses).

I didn't see any other errors, (though I only scan read it).

Just thought I'd let you know.

What do you want them to be? I've only used what you put in your post.

You have them as swords in your post?

Whoops, sorry about that (it was also 10 and 1 in my original document). Must have missed it.

Should be Endurance 20 Hate 5

The Ruffian Leader, the Bandit Chief and the Brigand (missed that one) should have long swords (only the Ruffian Leader can use it two handed though).

Oh and I spotted an error on the Olog-hai Chief, he has Hideous Toughness twice, instead of Horrible Strength.

Hopefully thats all of them.

Okay mate, those should be okay now. Recheck.

Yep, they're fine.

I just spotted another one though - bandit marksman bow skill should be favoured, no point having deadly archery if you can't hit the backside of a barn .

Hopefully that's it for errors and typos and I can turn my attension back to doing some more NPC's for your other thread and the 4 new Lake men backgrounds (yes Amazon finally got their arses in gear).

I've corrected these, Poosticks, but only to the Additional and House Rules document so as to avoid unnecessary duplication effort on my part:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/79541775/Additiona...use%20Rules.pdf

Hope that's okay.

Just spotted your Huorn in the adversaries section, nice work; I see what you based it off (never thought of that).

Rich, for some reason I can never seem to load your updated version of the pdf. Any idea why this might be?

I get a 404 warning too...

At least you get a warning. I just get a white screen :/

This one:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/79541775/Additiona...use%20Rules.pdf

?

Very strange. Don't know what the problem is, sorry.

Good spot! Yeah, thought it was a bit of a no-brainer myself for such a small amount of work.

I also get a white screen whe I click on the link, but if I click to another tab, leave it a few seconds and then click back, it loads up.

Try it, see if it works.

Edit: I meant Rich H's larger document, he isn't upkeeping the seperate Pdf's any more. Which reminds me I should change the link in the first post of this thread.

It's been working all right for me now.

Must have been a fluke, or else somewhere, someone's server was down. Sometimes the cloud is... partially cloudy for the afternoon.

Works for me too now! Had the Error 404 earlier. Thanks great stuff.


/Khamul

That's good to hear. Thanks.

Just as an FYI...

Any PDF file viewed in a browser window is downloaded first, then the file is interpreted by the PDF viewer software/driver and finally displayed. So when you open a PDF it can take a while for the PDF to display.

Larger sized files, or files with complicated page designs, can take longer to load for this reason.

Here are some new adversaries I've made. I've called them Easterlings but they are intended to be any well armed/armoured Men of Shadow.


Easterling Scout

Attribute Level 3
Endurance 16 Hate 3
Parry 5 Armour 3d

Skills
Personality, 1 Survival , 3
Movement, 3 Custom, 1
Perception , 3 Vocation, 2

Weapons
Spear 3
Bow 2

Special Abilities
Snake-like Speed

Easterling Raider

Attribute Level 3
Endurance 12 Hate 2
Parry 3+3 (Shield) Armour 3d+1

Skills
Personality, 2 Survival, 1
Movement, 2 Custom , 3
Perception, 2 Vocation, 2

Weapons
Sword 2
Spear 2

Special Abilites
No Quarter

Easterling Champion

Attribute Level 5
Endurance 18 Hate 4
Parry 4 Armour 3d

Skills
Personality, 2 Survival , 2
Movement , 3 Custom, 2
Perception, 3 Vocation, 1

Weapons
Long-hafted axe 4

Special Abilites
Horrible Strength, No Quarter

Easterling Chief

Attribute Level 6
Endurance 20 Hate 3
Parry 4+3 (Shield) Armour 3d+4

Skills
Personality , 4 Survival, 2
Movement, 3 Custom , 3
Perception, 2 Vocation, 2

Weapons
Spear 4
Sword 3

Special Abilites
Commanding Voice, No Quarter,
Snake-like Speed

Here are some more. The first is a Black Uruk Chief (I seemed to have missed him on my initial orc work). The others are variants on the monsters from the Lake Town Book.


Black Uruk Chief

Attribute Level 6
Endurance 38 Hate 6
Parry 5 Armour 3d+4

Skills
Personality , 3 Survival, 2
Movement, 2 Custom, 2
Perception , 2 Vocation, 2

Weapons
Heavy Scimitar (2H) 3
Orc-axe 3

Special Abilities
Commanding Voice, Hideous Toughness,
Horrible Strength, Mangle

Hobgoblin Chief

Attribute Level 6
Endurance 36 Hate 5
Parry 4 +3 (shield) Armour 2d

Skills
Personality, 2 Survival , 2
Movement, 2 Custom, 2
Perception , 3 Vocation, 1

Weapons
Orc-axe 3
Bite 4

Special Abilities
Commanding Voice, Denizen of the Dark,
Horrible Strength, Hate Sunlight, No Quarter

Hobgoblin Archer

Attribute Level 4
Endurance 32 Hate 5
Parry 4 Armour 2d

Skills
Personality, 1 Survival , 2
Movement , 2 Custom, 1
Perception , 3 Vocation, 1

Weapons
Bow of horn 3
Orc-axe 3
Bite 3

Special Abilites
Denizen of the Dark, Hate Sunlight,
No Quarter

Marsh Harridan

Attribute Level 6
Endurance 20 Hate 4
Parry 5 Armour 2d

Skills
Personality, 2 Survival , 2
Movement , 3 Custom, 2
Perception , 3 Vocation, 1

Weapons
Slash 3

Special Abilities
Bewilder, Seize Victim, Snake-like Speed

Marsh Ogre Chief

Attribute Level 7
Endurance 88 Hate 7
Parry 5 Armour 3d

Skills
Personality, 2 Survival , 2
Movement, 2 Custom, 0
Perception , 2 Vocation, 1

Weapons
Smash 4

Special Abilities
Great Size, Strike Fear, Mangle

Last but not least I thought I'd do a Lesser Drake. He's a stripped down version of you know who. I advise caution though if you want to use him against your players, he is a formidable adversary (no insta-death though).

Lesser Cold Drake

Attribute Level 8
Endurance 100 Hate 10
Parry 10 Armour 5d /1d*

Skills
Personality , 4 Survival, 3
Movement , 4 Custom , 4
Perception, 3 Vocation , 3

Weapons
Bite 4
Rend 3

Special Abilities
Great Size, Thick Hide, Savage Assault,
Foul Reek, Horrible Strength, Dreadful Spells,**
Thing of Terror, Weak Spot*, Tainted Blast

Weak Spot: Whenever the creature attempts a Called shot or spends a point of Hate to use a special ability (Horrible Strength, Tainted Blast, Savage Assault or Dreadful Spells) he exposes his weak spot for enough time for the companions to hit it with their next attack. When hit for a Piercing Blow on his weak spot, the creature rolls only one dice for his Protection test. If wounded as a consequence of an attack on his weak spot, it breaks off the fight and flees.

Dreadful Spells: During combat, reduce the creature’s Hate point score by one to force one companion who is within his baleful gaze to make a Corruption check against TN 16. If failed, the companion gains one Shadow point and cannot attack the drake for a number of rounds equal to 10 minus his Wisdom rating. The drake can spend several Hate points to affect an equal number of companions at the same time. If used during an encounter, companions put under the dragon-spell feel compared to answer truthfully to questions for the duration of the encounter.

Tainted Blast: By spending a point of Hate, the drake spits forth a jet of poisonous fumes. Anyone attacking the drake in close combat is caught in the blast and must immediately make a Protection test against TN 16. Those who fail suffer 4 Success dice of Endurance damage; a simple success means the character suffers 1 Success dice of Endurance damage, while a great or extraordinary success means the character comes through the fumes without harm.

I am liking the look of the cold drake Poosticks. He sounds like a lot of fun (and a real pain in the ass for players)

I haven't had the chance to read through all of these yet, but it is always nice to see the community giving us more options as taskmasters . . . er, gamemasters

I think I shall use a few of these as well!

Question: Warg riders. Other then just putting orcs on wargs what is a good profile?

Their left side. Always use their left side. Never the right! They hate having pictures taken of their right profile due to traces of old allegiance markings - the dye used for those White Hands just doesn't fade!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

@ Garn: Heh made me smile.

As to Warg Riders, what's wrong with putting an orc on a warg? I suppose you could give the orc an extra ability maybe.

Something like:

Bite and Blade

If the creature is riding a mount, i.e a warg, and hits with a Great or better success, the creature can spend a point of Hate to allow the mount to make an immediate attack as part of the rider's turn.

I would add this to my Orc Raiders, as they were they guys who would likely be riding wargs.

hmmm, that is a good idea. (Not the left side bit )

But with just putting orcs onto wargs, if my group has been fighting orcs a bit previously (tales of wilderland) the chances are they wont feel different. I'll try the bite and blade idea!

Actually you could do it the other way as well.

Bite and Blade

If the creature is being riden as a mount, and hits with a Great or better success, the creature can spend a point of Hate to allow the rider to make an immediate attack as part of the mount's turn.


I'm not sure which way would be better.

Good people on the forum! I think its great that you have made this compendium, and that you are honoring those who have written things in it. But what of the illustrators? Shouldnt they be honored aswell? You are using them without their consent, so show some love for them and put their names in the compendium aswell!

The pic of the armored girl omn pg 9 is made by Peter Edgar (Kickfoot on DeviantArt ). He would love to se his name conected to that illustation.

/Edgar - who happens to be the older brother to said artist.

I've used warg riders before actually. What I did was keep them both as separate enemies and my players didn't seem to have any issue with it. Usually I made the orcs attack, but occassionally a warg would bite. Granted, the archers managed to take out some of the wargs in the opening volley, substantially reducing their impact, but I felt it still worked quite well, rather than essentially combining the two enemies into one