Thought about posting this in the GM section, but, I think it actually fits here better due to it being a rule question.

Anyways, here is my question:

Using the scenario in the Tome of Adventure, the first encounter (vs. the Beastmen outside the gates), there are 2 "groups" of Beastmen. The Beastmen that attack the PCs, and then the Beastmen walking towards the fight. Now, my question is this....would the A/C/E budgets be for the group of Beastmen firghting the PCs (the Ungor and the Gor combined) and another group for the Beastmen making their way to the fight (again, a group of Ungor & a Gor)? Or....would the first Ungors have their own A/C/E and then the first Gor have his own A/C/E, and then the 2nd group of Ungors have their, and the 2nd Gor have his own?

Hopefully, this makes sense as to what I am asking....

Thanks,

Chris

The most common interpretation of the intent of the default rules is that there's one pool of A/C/E for use by all the Ungor, and one pool of A/C/E for use by the two Gors. It doesn't matter how many there are are, or where they a positioned at the start of the fight, they get the same pool and the distinction is only by NPC/Monster type. There's a little bit of room to argue/interpret that, as the rules aren't 100% crystal clear, but it seems to be the consensus of what the rules meant.

That said, I've seen a lot of GM's on this forum house-ruling the A/C/E pools, and I don't really think there's anyone going to stop you if you choose to tweak it a bit. It all just comes down to where you personally tunes the nobs of "realism" vs "elegance". The rules as written make it really easy for the GM to track everything, but are a little wonky in that 1 beastman has the same amount of A/C/E as a platoon of 20 beastmen would have.

Someone here recommended adding 1 to each pool for every NPC/monster past the first, and my playtests of the system suggest to me that that works pretty well.

I've always linked it to initiative. If the "group" warrants its own initiative slot, then it get's its own A/C/E pool.

Rorschach Six said:

That is in fact that exact thing I've been doing, it seems to me that if a group/creature warrents its own init token, then I'm already tracking it separatley, so why can't I track its ACE separatley.

I've been looking a way to modify ACE because of the reasons stated above, I think I'll try out the +1 Ace for extra creatures rule, adding a cap of no more than the base ACE spent at any given time (no loading a single single pool with 10+ dice).

In the last game I played I didn't use A/C/E at all. Instead I had real dice pools for all npc (characteristics + stance + fortune + expertise), defensive action cards (parry / improved parry etc.) There was no issue and the pools didn't take longer to create. I'm not sure I really like the A/C/E concept any longer. I may use it for some weak monsters, but all major encounters (most of ours are, because encounters that aren't important will not be played) will have fleshed out NPCs. In some instances I will use it though... for instance if the players are superiour and making them feel so is the goal of the encounter, then I'll use A/C/E, so I don't have to prepare the NPCs as much.