Frostgrave 2nd edition coming Aug 2020

[Darkson (Simon)]

Shame still no soldier progression though.

Personally I am glad there's not.

[Dave]

Shame still no soldier progression though.

Personally I am glad there's not.

Fair enough. Can you give a magic item to a soldier? That would be a good compromise.

[Darkson (Simon)]

Yep, all soldiers come with a item slot (that's in the original rules too) bar animals.
Of course, finding or affording a suitable magic item is another problem (I think I found one magic weapon [Xbow] in our last set of linked games - grimoires and scrolls all over the place, but weapons...).

[Dave]

Right, but can’t you just go the magic shop and buy weapons?

Will be interesting if the treasure earned and cost of items is rejigged, I didn’t play enough but if I recall wasn’t everyone flush with cash?

[Darkson (Simon)]

You could, but that's one of the things changed (can't remember the exact rules now, they're in the Maze of Malcor book, and will be used in 2nd ed).

I never had much cash, my treasures always seemed to be the cash poor results (I kept finding spell books, which you could only sell if you already knew the spell).

[Darkson (Simon)]

I'll try to dig my Maze book out, as the author made a few changes in that with (I believe) are all porting over to 2nd ed, iirc treasure set up, shops and XP (less emphasis on making your wizard a killing machine).

[Dave]

Oh ok, I didn’t get that supplement.

Going back to soldier items, wasn’t it a case that their item slot was taken by their mundane weapon? So the only thing you can do is give them a magic version of their mundane weapon and not, let’s say, give them some magic boots?

Cheers.

[Tom]

I'm fairly certain you could give soldiers any type of magic items, just if the item was a weapon it had to be the same type as their existing gear. I certainly remember an archer carrying a banner of some kind.

[Ray]

I'm interested if it has an actual balancing mechanism now other than just play more games to catch up

[Darkson (Simon)]

Tom's correct - if you find/purchase a pair of magic boots then any soldier can have it (and you can swap around post-game unless you gave it to a captain) but if you found a magic sword (hand weapon) you couldn't give it to an archer or a thief as they don't have access to hand weapons. Same with armour - you couldn't give magic leather armour to a thief or knight, as they don't have access to it, but you could an archer.


These were the optional rule changes bought in with Maze of Malcor, which I'm 99.9% are going to be in 2nd ed (though don't ask me to find the post where I think I remember the author saying as such!):
1. Treasure placement: (Unless a scenario specifies differently) 1 in the centre, then 2 placed per player (down from 3 placed each)
2. Holding treasure: At end of game, any treasure carried by a warband member is counted as secured. If any are left on the table, and only one warband has figures left, they get unclaimed ones on a 15+.
3. Simplified XP table:

+5XP For each spell that fails and damages the spellcaster (the "ouch, that hurt! I won't do that again!" rule)
+10XP for each spell cast successfully (but not for spells with casting number of 6 or less)
+40XP for each game the Wizard plays in
+50XP for each treasure the warband secures
+5XP for each wandering monster the warband kills (limited to 50XP)

Maximum of 300XP per game, so at most a wizard can gain 3 levels.
4. Uncontrolled creature actions clarified
5. Spells now take the casting roll (e.g. for opposed Will tests) as the dice roll or 14, whichever is higher.
6. Scroll use clarified
7. Based on level differences (6+), the lower wizard gains a wander monster that is classed as part of their warband for that game (cannot pick up treasure and some other restrictions).

Now, as I said, these are optional in Malcor, and I can't 100% remember if they were going to be added as core or optional in 2nd ed, but if not, we can use them (and if we did I'd do a proper 'cheat sheet').