There are only about 2-4 of the books in the series left that I really want to do, and this is one of them. To be honest, I got into this book rather late partly because I wasn't a fan of the cover art personally. But this book has one of the most unique setup and plot and the overall experience ended up exceeding my expectations.
The setting of the book is in Kallemehr, a place where some of us visited in the Riddling Reaver RPG adventure (written by the same authors) and which most of us also visited in the second half of the Magehunter playthrough. The timeline of the story takes place some time after the Riddling Reaver, but before the events of Magehunter. Here's the back cover blurb:
It doesn't actually reveal too much. From the back cover blurb alone, this almost seems like it might be something like a military-strategy style RPG as you play city defense against invaders...but that's not really the case. It's a quite different sort of adventure, and quite different from the norm too, as we would soon find out..."Kallamehr lies defenceless. The army is away, facing an invasion to the north, and now a new threat is at hand - another enemy from the east! Lady Carolina of Kallamehr summons YOU, a famous adventurer, to her aid. But can you help? Will you manage to preserve this stronghold of Good against the invading hordes? Or is this task beyond even your heroic abilities? You will need your wits as well as your sword of Fangthane steel to prevent the sands of time engulfing the city..."
Now, despite me saying that this is a pretty unique book, in terms of rules it's actually mostly standard stuff cover in your usual Standard FF Boilerplate Rules:
Skill, Stamina, & Luck
[spoiler]SKILL score: Roll one die. Add 6 to the result.
STAMINA score: Roll two dice. Add 12 points to the result.
LUCK score: Roll one die. Add 6 to the result.
SKILL score reflects your expertise in combat, your ability with weapons, and your dexterity. STAMINA is your general constitution and "Life points" . LUCK score shows how lucky you are. None of them may exceed their Initial score unless specifically stated.
Eating a meal restores up to 4 points of STAMINA; you may only eat one meal at a time.
Testing your Luck: When instructed by the book to Test your Luck, roll two dice. If the result is equal to or less than your current LUCK score, you are Lucky. If the result exceeds your current LUCK score, you are Unlucky. Whatever the outcome, you must deduct one point from your current LUCK score every time you Test your Luck. The more you use your LUCK, the less likely you are to be Lucky.[/spoiler]
For this book, I will rolling 4 dice and letting players assign/distribute them to whichever stat they prefer later.
Combat:
[spoiler]SKILL and STAMINA scores are given in the text for each adversary that you face.
The combat sequence is then:
1. Roll two dice for your opponent. Add the total rolled to its SKILL score. This is the Attack Strength of your enemy.
2. Roll two dice and add the total to your own current SKILL score. This is your Attack Strength.
3. If your Attack Strength is the higher, you have wounded your opponent: deduct 2 points from your opponent's STAMINA..
If your opponent's Attack Strength is higher, it has wounded you: deduct 2 points from your own STAMINA.
If both Attack Strengths are equal, you have avoided each other's blows.
4. Begin the next Combat Round, starting again at step 1. This procedure continues until either you or your opponent has a STAMINA score of zero. If your opponent's STAMINA score reaches zero, you have killed it and can continue with your adventure. If your own STAMINA score reaches zero, you are dead.
Using Luck in Combat
You can use your LUCK in combat to inflict a particularly serious wound, or to minimize a wound that has been inflicted on you.
Whenever you wound an opponent, you may Test your Luck. If you are Lucky, you have inflicted a severe wound: deduct an extra 2 points from your opponent's STAMINA. If you are Unlucky, you have merely grazed it, and you deduct 1 point less than normal from its STAMINA.
If you have been wounded, you can Test your Luck in exactly the same way. If you are Lucky, the wound upon you was only a glancing blow and you can deduct 1 less point of STAMINA than usual. If you are Unlucky, the wound is serious: deduct 1 extra point from your STAMINA.[/spoiler]
There are only 2 special rules in this book:
1) Instant Death in Combat:
Combat difficulty is less of an issue in this book because of this special rule. Our character is an established and renowned warrior (even if he happens to roll up a SKILL of 7) who is armed with a blade of finest Fangthane steel. In fact, if he does start with a SKILL of 7, I'm willing to bet he owes most of his fame to that sword. This sword can be a major combat equalizer against the toughest foe, because each time the PC rolls a double-6 in combat, he scores an insta-kill blow. So yes, he has the same power as the Creature of Havoc in FF24....but only if he's using his special sword in combat! (Needless to say, there will be situations when he can't fight with the sword for various reasons.)
2) Time
Racing against time is a thing in this book, and we are told to tick off time boxes as we progress through the adventure.
Here's what the time sheet looks like:
So, 20 time units to spend. And as you can see, 2 of them contain section numbers, which we're supposed to turn to when we tick off those boxes, each supposedly trigger a certain event or encounter. Now, I don't think it's hard to figure out that the second of those section numbers (which is in the very last box) is basically a "you fail because you're out of time" reference. As for what the other one contains...we'll find out if we get to it (or I'll reveal it after the playthrough).
Equipment includes, as mentioned, our awesome sword of Fangthane steel, but other than that it's mostly standard...well, rather less than that, because we only start with 5 meals. We also keep count of gold, and we also start with 5 of those.
House Rule against sudden deaths/failures:
Unlike the last few books I've run, there really isn't much redundant/underdeveloped mechanisms I can exploit...which is actually a positive point for the book. Still, this is one of the most difficult books in the series...not the absolute meatgrinders produced by Liviingstone, early Green and late Martin entries, but it's a book that requires you to find a well-hidden true path to win. I definitely want to be able to show as much of the plot as possible, so I'd certainly want to allow players more chances to try again, because we're highly unlikely to succeed on the very first attempt. So for this one I'm keeping the revival mechanism simple: when we fail, I will rewind to the first point we veered off the "true path", and we will continue from that restored point with the slight penalty of having expended an additional time box than we would have at that point.
Now, for the stats...this one is actually not as demanding on sky-high stats as the meatgrinder books, and thanks to the sudden death mechanism (which is actually in our favour for once) combat is less of a problem compared to some others. I will allow distribution of stats by dice and votes again.
We roll 4 dice and score: 4, 6, 1 and 4.
Now, please vote on stat distribution before we proceed!
