Disciples of Erfworld - The Contagion - rules and signup

[0beron]

Ah... I did misunderstand then. So how does that affect your development path ? have i limited myself to much by specifying Archer/Might/Skill ?

As I understand it, you're only as limited as everyone else is. There are some bonus specials available to all units, and then some that are available only to Might or Skill units like yourself. So by having the path you selected, you couldn't for example learn Vamprism because it's a Force-only ability. But you have to specify a path, so there's no way to avoid limiting yourself slightly.

[The Colonel]

I SHALL BE KNOWN AS HEAD CHEF!

[ETheBoyce]

Guess I'll go Wendygo, though our lack of a healer at higher levels could be....troubling

[0beron]

Hm, yes we shall see how that goes. With a buff-style support, and me building a Lichorice for good damage/enemy debuff, I think we'll compensate. Plus I'll be a vamp, so that's one less unit to worry about healing.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Updated list ...

Swodaems: Melee (/Might/Skill): Patty flipper

0beron: Archon (/Magic/Force): Harkin, All-a-paino

kriss1989: Support (/Might/Force): Jolly Bee

ETheBoyce: Melee (/Might/Force): Patty flipper

MarbitChow: Archer (/Might/Force): THAC0 Bell

WaterMonkey314: Melee/?/? (?): Patty flipper (?)

The Colonel: Melee/Magic/Skill: Bob Posgen, Patty flipper; wishes to be known as HEAD CHEF

Werebiscuit: Archer/Might/Skill: Bob Enweave, THAC0 Bell

So mostly specified, apart from a couple of lingering question marks.

All right! Next morning my time I'll upload your region map, that is the hexes you already see, and I'll have to think of a way to represent your other knowledge of neighbouring cities somehow.

[0beron]

oooooh, we're gettin fancy with our names I see :p Well I put this back in my Spoiler on page 1, but I should prolly copy it here so people actually see:

Harkin
A male Archon with flaming red hair, pale unblemished skin, and perfectly black eyes. Wears leather pants the color of cinnamon and a black vest with licorice trim.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Spoiler: show

You start with a small, L1 city, providing you 100Schmuckers per turn in income. Upgrade will cost 1000Schmuckers.

The region is mountainous, mostly deserted except for the occasional barbarian or wild unit; it's, for now, not considered interesting by any of your neighbours, but that doesn't mean they won't send occasional scouts. It sure would surprise them to see that an abandoned city site in the middle of nowhere has been made into a village. So far, they don't know you exist.

Your mission is to survive and expand. Good luck.

Barbarian/wild units will tend to attack stacks that end turn within one hex of them. Even 2 hexes away is tempting enough if the wild/barbarian units are feeling aggressive.

Terrain: mostly mountainous. Difficult to pass through for any unit, needs 2 move points to advance one hex. Yellow wavy hexes are hills, and since those cost only 1 move per hex, they may act as access ways to this region.

Terrain features:

Ruins: it's inhabitted by some kind of critters and will provide a treasure once you defeat them. You've got no idea what's in there nor what the treasure may be, but a good guess is to assume some of the local fauna found shelter there.

House: it's a house. Looks inhabited.

Mine: Once claimed, this will give you 100Schmuckers per turn. Presently inhabited by unknown critters.

"this way to ...": in that general direction, the named cities lie. Frankfurter belongs to the Burgers and is L2. Bwussews belongs to the Vegge Talians, sworn enemies of the Burgers, and is also L2.

There may be other neighboring sides, but you do not know of them yet.

Unit stacks:

Tetrapack of wolves: four wolves (Melee/Might/Skill): 15H, 0Def, 50Combat, 85%CtH, 5Dmg (Matter); wolves tend to be aggressive to stacks that camp near them; each wolf grants 40Xp to the croaking stack

Sixpack of wolves: six wolves (four in front, two in the back row)

Grizzled Bear: a Grizzled bear (Melee/Might/Force): 25H, 0Def, 60Combat, 85%CtH, 7Dmg (Matter), Heavy, Mount; grants 80Xp to the croaking stack

Bipolar Bear: a Bipolar bear (Melee/Might/Force): 30H, 0Def, 70Combat, 85%CtH, 7Dmg (Matter), Heavy, Mount; grants 100Xp to the croaking stack

Mad Cow: a Mad Cow (Melee/Magic/Force): 12H, 0Def, 50Combat, 85%CtH, 3Dmg (Matter), 85%CtH, Dementia (reduce combat by 20% of its value) (Mind), Heavy, Mount; grants 24Xp to the croaking stack

Band of Its: four Its (Melee/Magic/Force): 10H, 0Def, 50Combat, 85%CtH, 5Dmg (Matter), Erf Ward; each It grants 10Xp to the croaking stack

Barberians: four Barberians (Melee/Might/Skill): 13H, 0Def, 85%CtH, 2x 3Dmg (Matter); each Barberian grants 16Xp to the croaking stack.

(EDIT: upped the XP to croaking stack, so that you'll level more like Disciples. As in, not too slow, but still not too easy.)

[0beron]

I vote we move for the Mine or one of the bears. Income is going to be critical, and with the bears we stand better odds ganging up on a single unit at first.
Also, who has the lowest Move? If I read correctly, that's be the Melees with their 10 Move.

[Werebiscuit]

Barberians: four Barberians (Melee/Might/Skill): 13H, 0Def, 85%CtH, 2x 3Dmg (Matter); each Barberian grants 8Xp to the croaking stack

OOC Should that not be Barberian quartet ? /OOC

[Werebiscuit]

I vote we move for the Mine or one of the bears. Income is going to be critical, and with the bears we stand better odds ganging up on a single unit at first.
Also, who has the lowest Move? If I read correctly, that's be the Melees with their 10 Move.

I'll add my vote for the mine. At 100 schmuckers per turn the sooner we take it the more schmuckers we'll amass to upgrade the city. It'll be a few engagements before anyone levels so I wouldn't necessarily worry about trying to work out in which order we approach the local wildlife. Within striking distance of the mine is the mad cow and then the grizzled bear are each a turn's move away. So my vote would be for them , in that order mine>cow>bear.

[EDIT} ah wait...I assume the mine is the pick & shovel icon (and not the blue dot that says mine) in which case the mine is unreachable 1st turn whereas we can end up 1 away from the grizzled bear and hope it's ferocious enough to attack and still be close enough to the hills to use them as a route to the mine the following turn. We can then do mad cow, barberian and bipolar bear on succeeding turns if we have enough health. ...so that would now be my vote.

[0beron]

[EDIT} ah wait...I assume the mine is the pick & shovel icon (and not the blue dot that says mine) in which case the mine is unreachable 1st turn

No we can reach the mine with 10 move.

Out of Character though: Should we perhaps appoint a "leader" for these beginning turns when we're all stacked together? Just someone who decides where we will go? And then when we're actually in combat we'll control our own character.

[MarbitChow]

(From "Rules":) A specific ability of your side is that bodies can be delivered to a city and once there they can be used when popping new units.

Tetrapack of wolves: four wolves (Melee/Might/Skill): 15H, 0Def, 50Combat, 85%CtH, 5Dmg (Matter); wolves tend to be aggressive to stacks that camp near them; each wolf grants 20Xp to the croaking stack
Grizzled Bear: a Grizzled bear (Melee/Might/Force): 25H, 0Def, 60Combat, 85%CtH, 7Dmg (Matter), Heavy, Mount; grants 40Xp to the croaking stack
Bipolar Bear: a Bipolar bear (Melee/Might/Force): 30H, 0Def, 70Combat, 85%CtH, 7Dmg (Matter), Heavy, Mount; grants 50Xp to the croaking stack
Mad Cow: a Mad Cow (Melee/Magic/Force): 12H, 0Def, 50Combat, 85%CtH, 3Dmg (Matter), 85%CtH, Dementia (reduce combat by 20% of its value) (Mind), Heavy, Mount; grants 10Xp to the croaking stack

If we croak and drag these units back, would we then be able to pop versions of them from that point on?
If so, can we split the stack after the first kill so that one unit drags the body back home while the remaining 7 units move on to the next target, down it, and drag it back as well?
(Our mount selection is pretty weak presently, but if we were to, say, pop 8 Bipolar Bears, split the PCs into 2 stacks (with everyone mounted on bears), and start cleaning the rest of the area up, we might be a bit more efficient.)

If we can pop them after we kill them, what are the moves for the above creatures?

Also, can we use bodies we kill as rations? (And if so, are there any compulsions against eating humanoid bodies, from the Star Child's children's perspective?)

If we can ultimately pop versions of whatever we kill, going for the mine first is still probably the best idea, but we may want to clean the mine out, split into 2 stacks, drag all the bodies back, then continue on with cleanup.

[0beron]

All excellent ideas Marbit!
I'm not sure we'll be able to pop such units after dragging them back, but we definitely can feed them to the Starchild so it gains XP and learns new spells. So in either event, yes, splitting up to deliver corpses back to the city will be an important part of our strategy.

[BLANDCorporatio]

So in either event, yes, splitting up to deliver corpses back to the city will be an important part of our strategy.

This is very true. I'd add a hint, that some of your units are fairly fast and while it's odd to see a little Jolly Bee drag a wolf carcass around, it will do so quicker than a Melee unit. (And I should add, corpses can ride Mounts; then you don't get the move penalty associated with carrying corpses).

If we croak and drag these units back, would we then be able to pop versions of them from that point on?

Alas, no. You'll only directly pop units from the side of the first unit you killed, which was a Burger unit. There will be ways to expand your roster of units, either by hiring or conquering other cities, though.

Also, can we use bodies we kill as rations? (And if so, are there any compulsions against eating humanoid bodies, from the Star Child's children's perspective?)

As you noticed, there are few to no taboos about what is ok to do to dead bodies. Including humanoid ones, because you are just that kind of side. Now, I didn't think to add a corpse-to-rations rule (you've got corpse-to-XP for newly-pops, and corpse-to-Research for the Star Child), but given the context it makes sense. Let's say, each hitpoint that the unit had in life is converted to one Schmucker if you choose to harvest it.

EDIT: adjusted research costs to make things a bit more demanding in that area ...

[ETheBoyce]

I agree with the taking the mine plan first, though I imagine we'll take some damage

[0beron]

I'd add a hint, that some of your units are fairly fast and while it's odd to see a little Jolly Bee drag a wolf carcass around, it will do so quicker than a Melee unit.

yeah this is also a given, i figure myself and the jolly bee will be doing a lot of corpse duty. (with the archer units taking over that duty once they become mounts...I'm on my phone now do I can't look what the lvl 1archer unit's move is compared to my...12?

Seems most people are in favor of the mine plan, so let's move there as a single stack. I think that as far as the back row goes, myself and the jolly bee should be on the outside so that the fewest enemy units can reach us, since I believe we are the squishiest.

[Werebiscuit]

Seems most people are in favor of the mine plan, so let's move there as a single stack. I think that as far as the back row goes, myself and the jolly bee should be on the outside so that the fewest enemy units can reach us, since I believe we are the squishiest.

You were right about the 12 move for the archers but at 4HP also, the THAC0 Bell is squishier than the Jolly Bee. Let's hope our front row of melee'ers can cope or we're going to fold quickly.

[The Colonel]

MINE PLAN IS A GO!

[BLANDCorporatio]

Mine plan is go then.

You arrange yourselves as:

Patty flipper (Swodaems), Patty flipper (Watermonkey314), Patty flipper (ETheBoyce), Patty flipper (Bob Posgen: The Colonel)
Jolly Bee (kriss1989), THAC0 Bell (MarbitChow), THAC0 Bell (Bob Enweave: Werebiscuit), All-a-paino (Harkin: 0beron)

Note that I've taken some liberties with placing the melee row, despite not being instructed on which player wants to take which position. Since you all started identical, and had same health stats, it didn't matter for the first engagement. It will be the case that whoever's in the middle of the front row will end up badly bruised, so in the future make sure to assign punching bag duty.

You enter the mine, and discover that a pair of wolves has made it its lair:

Wolf, <blank>, <blank>, Wolf

Stats are as above, but the mine adds 10% to the wolves' defense score. (Meaning, the wolves will negate 10% of the damage that would be dealt by landing blows. I'm allowing non-integer Current Hits in combat; these will be rounded up at the end, assuming the unit survives).

Since your THAC0 Bells have higher combat, they act first. It's not really important right now who does the first action, so the first player who plays an Archer to post a target gets that action. The second Archer, if they post before I resolve the first Archery action, can leave an order that depends on whether the first archer shot was successful.

[MarbitChow]

Shoot the wolf on the far left (closer to me).