OOC - Chapter Five - Onto The Ice

[Decrepit]

Sorta wish we could blame this one on the Great Old Ones:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23797247

Sorry for the RL intrusion, but the timing and connection were just too close.

[Raiko]

Sorry I’ve taken a while to post, I’ve been mulling over the climate rules in the adventure, it’s been a while since I read the Antarctic section of the campaign properly (I would never have expected to take a full year to play through the voyage).

The good news is that, as far as I know, no other play-by-post game has gotten this far, and the action speeds up now chapter-by-chapter.

Unfortunately now that I’ve come to the stage where I actually need to use these various rules I can see a few problems:

(1) Lots of rolls needed, particularly during the first few days on the continent. Easy for a tabletop game - too slow on a forum.

(2) Some effects (eg frostbite) happen automatically, with no rolls required, and/or can be entirely negated by a successful survival roll. I prefer a ‘staged’ system to an ‘on/off’ system.

As a result I’ve decided to handle the Antarctic conditions in a similar way to the Sea Sickness checks, which I liked.

Once you are acclimatised to a given set of conditions you don’t need to roll any more unless it gets worse.

During the first few days there are two things that you need to acclimatise yourselves to:

(1) The slippery ice.
(2) The cold weather.

Slippery Ice

The slippery ice must be ‘saved’ against daily until you are used to it. The save is Climb Skill + DEXx2 %

E.g. With a Climb Skill of 65% & a DEX of 12 you would have an 89% chance of avoiding mishaps each day. If you roll under half the required number, then no further rolls are required until you leave the Antarctic for more than two days.

Critical Failures result in broken bones. A successful Luck roll avoids this, a Critical Failure of the Luck roll will result in a fatal accident however (due to thin ice, crevasses, etc).


The Cold Weather

Current conditions on the coast during Spring are fairly benign, although the 20mph coastal breeze doesn’t help things at all.

In these conditions, everyone working outside must succeed on a Polar Survival + CONx3 roll each day to avoid exposure, hyperthermia, and/or frost-bite.

For example an explorer with 40% Polar Survival & 15 CON would need to roll 85% or less to avoid mild exposure.

The same multiple of CON will be used to ‘stage the effects,’ so in these conditions Failing a roll against Polar Survival + CONx6 would result in hyperthermia.

Each day of ‘exposure’ imposes a -10% (cumulative) to future rolls.

Anyone who fails the exposure roll, may also suffer frostbite. The degree of frostbite suffered is equal to the ‘staged’ levels of exposure. A successful Luck Roll reduces the degree of frostbite by one.

Anyone rolling less than half the required value has become acclimatised and will not need to roll again for these conditions, unless conditions worsen. Unfortunately if conditions improve then you become acclimatised to the new conditions after 5 days (you get soft).

Better conditions (Summer on the coast) will grant multipliers to Polar Survival, and bigger CON multipliers.

Worse conditions (it’s much colder inland) will reduce the CON multiplier, and in extreme cases could halve Polar Survival.

Other climate checks:

The following other conditions will require acclimatisation later in the campaign:

Altitude Sickness and possibly Hypoxia.

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I’ll post summaries of everyone’s relevant skills and attributes later today, sorry I’ve not reposted the character sheets yet.

I think that everyone has at least 30% Polar Survival, thanks to the courses. The default value for Climb is 40 or 50% and everyone has good attributes (as you should in such an expedition) so hopefully there won’t be any problems until you encounter harsher conditions inland.

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So for now please could everyone two 1d100 rolls on Invisible Castle, one for a ‘Slippery Ice Save’ and one for a ‘Cold Weather Save.’

I’ll wait 24 hours for everyone to roll, then I’ll make a post for your first day on the ice.

****************************

I go on Holiday for two weeks starting on the 17th April. I’m unlikely to be able to post while I’m away, but I hope to get onto ‘the exciting part’ before I go.

Hopefully I can leave things with a cliffhanger.

[Raiko]

Further to my previous post, I think these are the current adjusted skill values

*******************************

Polar Survival Skill:
Jack 30%
James 33%
Olof 36%
McRaven 50%
Graves 54%
John 55%
Kitt 55%
Isugtag 72%
Callum 91%

CON:
Kitt 10
Olof 11
Graves 12
James 12
Jack 15
Callum 15
McRaven 17
Isugtag 18
John 18

Exposure Saves:
Olof 69%
James 69%
Jack 75%
Kitt 85%
Graves 90%
McRaven 99%
John 99%
Isugtag 99%
Callum 99%

*******************************

Climb Skill:
Jack 40%
James 40%
McRaven 40%
Graves 40%
Olof 46%
Isugtag 50%
Kitt 55%
John 87%
Callum 90%

DEX:
Callum 12
McRaven 12
Olof 13
Graves 13
Jack 14
Isugtag 14
James 17
John 18
Kitt 18

Ice Saves:
McRaven 64%
Graves 66%
Jack 68%
Olof 72%
James 76%
Isugtag 78%
Kitt 91%
Callum 99%
John 99%

*******************************

Anyone acclimatizing to the ice or the cold will be eligible to a skill check at the end of the chapter.

[amarriner]

Doh! Missed the Slippery Ice roll by one stinkin' percentage point! Isugtag was able to beat Exposure by more than half so that's good at least.

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1540958/

I should've listed those skills the opposite way! I think Isugtag will be a bit embarrased.

[Decrepit]

Rolling in order, I made both rolls, 71 for the exposure, 25 for the slippery ice.

[Ghost_1971]

Slippery Ice Save (1d100=83)

Cold Weather Save (1d100=38)

Looks like Callum is ok. Thank the Lord for good skills

[OrionUK]

Slippery Ice Save (1d100=67)

Cold Weather Save (1d100=58)

Here you go - Hope that's ok

[Dave Syrinx]

Slippery ´save´: secure footing.

The cold comes as a shock to John!

Frost bite save...

OOC:   I don´t know if I played this out correctly, but having a CON at 18 will grant some toughness, I hope.

[Raiko]

Syrinx, please could you start posting the actual dice rolls as well as the hyperlink (eg 1d100 = 46), as I can't view Invisible Castle from work. One of the links that you can pick off Invisible Castle includes the roll as part of the link.

Please could someone post John's dice rolls for me, I won't get home for hours.

I don´t know if I played this out correctly, but having a CON at 18 will grant some toughness, I hope.

Well John's high CON was included within his 99% save, and also limits the damage to first degree Frostbite in these conditions. Note that his high CON also means that the 'minor exposure' doesn't actually effect him, John's actual (uncapped) exposure save is 109%, so even with the 10% penalty on tomorrow's roll John still has a 99% save.

As for the Frostbite, if you passed the Luck save, then the Frostbite is reduced by one degree (to nothing in this case). First degree Frostbite will be easily diagnosed and treated by the expedition's excellent doctors (Greene in this case, as Prof Graves is checking out the Ice Shelf with Callum).

Although it'll be embarassing for an experienced Explorer like John to suffer on the first day, I expect everyone will experience at least minor frostbite before the end.

[Dave Syrinx]

123%, 67% required for getting good footing 48 hours... (1d100=83)


109%, 54% for acclimatising (1d100=100)

I´ll try to get the last roll correct too.

[Dave Syrinx]

6 x 18 = 109%
Frostbite check due to 100% roll on exposure... (1d100=44)


Won´t work...


1d100 → [44] = (44)

I hope this is OK!

[amarriner]

Syrinx, please could you start posting the actual dice rolls as well as the hyperlink (eg 1d100 = 46), as I can't view Invisible Castle from work. One of the links that you can pick off Invisible Castle includes the roll as part of the link.

My apologies, I haven't been including the actual rolls either, just the link. I'll try to remember to do so from now on.

1d100 → [16] = (16) (Exposure)
1d100 → [79] = (79) (Slip)

[Raiko]

To keep things simple, I'm dividing the climate conditions for the adventure into five:

Mild, Cold, Very Cold, Severe and Extreme.

All of these conditions will be relevant at some stage or other in the adventure.
A summary is given below.

Code: Select all

Climate      |Exposure Save          |Examples
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Mild         |P.Survivalx2 + CONx3   |
Cold         |P.Survival   + CONx3   |Sea Camp, Base Camp(Good Weather)
Very Cold    |P.Survival   + CONx2   |Base Camp(Poor Weather), Lake Camp(Good Weather)
Severe       |P.Survival   + CON     |Lake Camp(Poor Weather)
Extreme      |P.Survival/2 + CON     |

The current conditions are 'cold.'

Note: It is not possible to become acclimatised to 'Extreme' conditions.

These conditions assume that some time is spent outdoors, and also assume that correct cold weather clothing is being worn.
Being inside a tent (or ice cave) all day improves the climate by one step.
Being inside a hut or the SS Gabrielle all day improves the climate by two steps.
Storms deteriorate the climate by one additional step, beyond poor weather.
Lack of proper clothing also makes the climate one step worse.

Hopefully those characters with low Polar Survival skill will see a couple of increases later in the adventure.

*********************************

I've got a spreadsheet with all of the climate saves on, and looking at it hopefully even those least suited to the conditions (James, Olof, Jack & some of the NPCs) should be ok, provided they don't venture out into a storm.

Callum, Isugtag, the Sorensen brothers and one or two others should be fine outdoors in all but the most extreme weather conditions.

I'll share the spreadsheet with anyone who's interested, unfortunately I can't attach a spreadsheet to a post / PM though. If you'd like a copy then PM your email address to me and I'll send it to you.

It's an Excel 2003 spreadsheet, I guess it should also open in Open Office / Google Docs / Lotus123 as well. It lists CON, P.Survival, and for each climate condition it lists the acclimatisation rolls, and saves against exposure, hyperthermia and 1st-4th degree frostbite.

I'll post individual parts of the table when they are needed.

*********************************

Here's a list of 'acclimatisation values' for 'cold' weather, based on uncapped exposure percentages (thanks for the reminder Syrinx).

James 34%
Olof 34%
Jack 37%
Kitt 42%
Graves 45%
McRaven 50%
John 54%
Isugtag 63%
Callum 68%

So far Callum & Isugtag have successfully acclimatised to ‘cold’ conditions.

*********************************

Charles Graves has let me know that he’ll be able to post the Professor’s rolls tonight, so I’ll make my next IC post after that.

[Charles Graves]

slipery ice test, exposure test (1d100=27, 1d100=37)

[Henrik]

Exposure save, Ice save (1d100=60, 1d100=21)

Pass both tests. Do I get acclimatised to the slippery ice?

[Raiko]

Sorry for not posting at weekend, I expected to have time on Saturday, but ended up having a long & busy three day weekend. Sunday was our baby’s first birthday.

I’ll put the next post up at lunchtime. If anyone has chance before then, please could you make some invisible castle rolls for McRaven (Exp Save 99%, Ice Save 64%), as Steerpike has posted recently.

If nobody has chance then I’ll make McRaven’s rolls at work together with the rolls for NPCs, but they’ll have to be made with my dice roller macro, as I can’t get on invisible castle.

Here’s a summary so far:

Acclimatised (Ice / Balance):
Graves
Jack
Olof

Acclimatised (Climate [cold]):
Callum
Graves
Isutag

Slipped (minor injury):
Isugtag

Slipped (serious injury):
n/a

Exposure save failed:
John (and first degree frostbite)

[Henrik]

Congrats to the baby. When are you going to read Lovecraft as bed time stories for he/she/it?

[Decrepit]

After my Masks rolls, I'm not sure I should be rolling for anyone at this point, at least not a PC.

But here goes ...

Exposure: 79
Ice: 78

I'm cursed, dammit. You have to give him the Decrepit Bonus.

[Steerpike]

Sorry for the delay in getting these done, totally forgot to do them

exposure save 99% (1d100=77)

ICE save 64% (1d100=90)

Ouch failed the ice save, may need a luck roll.

[Decrepit]

I swear IC is broken.