12. Goods & Materials
Goods and Materials
Note that some arms and armour is not available in ancient times, partly because bronze wasn’t a strong enough metal to make them viable, and also because the technology just didn’t exist yet. In some cases technology is replaced by magic, or pseudo-magic (eg iron and steel are mystical materials).
I have also altered some of the stats to reflect more closely the period and how the weapons were used.
Finding Stuff And Shopping.
To buy out of the ordinary things takes time (a week) and effort, mainly a Streetwise skill roll vs 4, but you can also use a Craft skill to locate materials relevant to your craft. You can use Common Knowledge for Common materials.
All items will be rated as follows:
A magical version of an item will require an extra success.
Each extra success over what you need can be used to reduce the time period (week to several days to a day etc), or it might be used to increase the number of items found by +1, but only where there is a variable roll.
So each week anyone with Streetwise may search for one type of item (common, uncommon etc). They should have a list of items ahead of time to match the possible number that can be generated. Multiples of the same item are possible.
Multiple people can co-operate to achieve a result.
Some places may be better than others when it comes to finding stuff. Eg: The city of Tyre is a major merchantile hub for the entire region and GMs may allow +2 to the above finding roll in such a city. On the contrary, some cities are remote or poor and may suffer a negative, such as Thebes due to the political situation there.
Ancient Armour
Armour will have the following values:
Location: areas of the body that are covered based around the 1-6 areas plus groin and neck. Head, Torso, Arms and Legs. Neck and groin are considered to be protected by the best of either H or T, or T or L, respectively.
Resistance: reduction of damage suffered, so if they inflicted 4 points of damage this would be reduced by the resist value of the armour (after the roll is made). Countered by penetration.
Deflection: reduction of the damage pool, so a damage pool of 8d would be reduced by the deflection value (before the roll is made).
Move penalty: reduction of move pool, this value accumulates for each location and is then divided by 6, round down, to give a number of dice that your Move Pool is reduced.
AGIL penalty: reduction to your AGIL dice, this value accumulates for each location and is then divided by 6, round down, to give a number of dice that your AGL bonus is reduced. This can result in negative AGL bonus. All rolls that would gain an AGL modifier are impacted by this effect.
Speed penalty: penalty applied to the use of weapons while wearing this armour, this value accumulates for each location and is then divided by 6 for one handed weapons and 9 for two handed weapons, round down, to give a number of dice that your weapons Speed is increased by.
Class: rigid (R), flexible (F), hard (H) , soft (S), composite (C).
Material: metal, leather, cloth, wood and bone. Possibly other materials may be encountered.
Hands: this value accumulates for each location and is then divided by 6, round down, to yield a number of Handles that are consumed from your Encumberance. By default these are lost from Rank 3 slots, but Rank 2 slots can be used at a 1 for 2 ratio.
Defence: effect on these dice pools, generally your Dodge pool. Add up all the values and divide by 6 for Dodge, 9 for Parry and 12 for Block. This value, round down, is the number of dice the defence is reduced by.
Eg: Boris equips himself with the following:
Head - Plate armour helmet 4,4,3,5,3
Torso - Studded Leather tunic 1,1,1,3,2
Right Leg - Leather Plate Greaves 2,2,1,3,2
Left Leg - Hard Leather Greaves 1,1,1,2,1
Right Arm - Chainmail sleeve 3,2,2,4,3
Left Arm - Hard Leather Vambrace 1,1,1,2,1
This gives totals as follows:
Move: 12, his movement pool would be reduced by 2d.
AGL: 11, his AGL level would be reduced one level.
Speed: 9, his speed for all weapons would be increased by 1.
Hands: 19, three of his available Handles would be used up by the armour. but it is very likely that some of the armour would come with extra Handles to make up some of these.
Def: 12, his Dodge is reduced by 2d, and his Parry and Block are reduced by 1d.
Iron: metal armour made from iron will gain +1 Deflect.
Steel: metal armour made from steel will gain +1 resist and +1 deflect, and -1 Hands.
Shields
* Def penalty does not apply to Block.
The split Defect values are used for missiles/melee.
A shield will add its Resist value to the Deflect value of the armour of the arm it is worn on. So a Medium Shield would add 1 to the Deflect value of the Left Arm.
Iron: no extra benefits. Steel: shields made of steel gain an extra +1 Deflect vs missiles and -1 to Hands.
Ancient Weapons
Attack: bonus or penalty dice to make successful attacks.
PENEtration: cancels out Resistance, penetrates armour
Damage: base number of damage dice, by default this will be 4d.
Speed: cost to make an attack with this weapon, by default this will be 4.
Strength: required STR to use the weapon
Hands: how many hands needed to use, and also Handles for encumberance.
Defence: any modifiers to defences, generally to Parry
Reach: if the weapon has any.
Iron weapons do +1 damage and are 75% of the weight, assuming metal is a major portion of the weapon.
Steel weapons are +1 to hit, +1 damage and 50% of the weight
* Pene bonus only applies against Rigid and Flexible armours.
** Pene bonus only applies against Soft and Flexible armours.
*** A Long Spear can be used one handed if the user has STR +1 or better.
Ancient Ranged
Attack: bonus or penalty dice to make successful attacks.
PENEtration: cancels out Resistance, penetrates armour
Damage: base number of damage dice, by default this will be 4d.
Speed: cost to make an attack with this weapon, by default this will be 4.
Strength: required STR to use the weapon
Hands: how many hands needed to use, and also Handles for encumberance.
Defence: any modifiers to defences, generally to Parry
Range: various ranges in zones.
RANGE in Zones
Chariots & Horses
Type Pace Cost Toughness Notes
Light Chariot 9 1500 --- Provides light cover except from rear
2 crew.
Heavy Chariot 7 2000 --- Provides light cover except from rear
3 crew.
Ornate addons - 1000 --- +1 CHA
Scyth blades - 5000 --- Iron or steel only. ST+d12 damage.
Requires Ride-by-Attack to use.
Horse 10 600 8 Load 250/400/600lbs.
Cavalry horse 10 1200 9 Load 300/500/700lbs
Mule 8 400 7 Load 500/750/1000lbs
Camel 8 400 8 Load 400/600/800lbs
2 Horse Team 2 horses +1 Use WC wounds
4 Horse Team +2 for Heavy 4 horses +3 Use WC wounds
Light wagon 8 400 - Load 800lbs
Heavy Wagon 6 800 - Load 1600lbs
Trade Goods
Type Avg Wt Avg Cost Mod Notes
Poor 600 300 0 Common
Average 400 500 0 Common
Good 300 1000 +1 Uncommon
Fine 200 1500 +2 Uncommon
Superb 200 2000 +3 Rare
Rare 200 1500 +2 Rare
Small 100 1000 +1 Rare
Precious 50 2500 +4 Very rare
Exotic 200 1500 +2 Rare