Thanks pumpkin.

Lex is on the right track that "Acts" are "single goal or action", but what can get confusing is that acts can have different scopes.

For example:

The group has an ultimate goal to kill a Troll that is plauging a town. This in itself is a "goal" and can make up an Act (especially if linked to travelling to the town and leaving the town, etc)

Now this is broken down into smaller chunks

- get information from townsfolk about the monster

- search the forest for the monster's lair

- kill the monster

Each of these is a single goal/action too, and thus can be defined as an Act.

To further compound matters, each of these might be able to be broken up into their own sub-acts. For the town, say...

- Local thieves (starving) attempt to rob PCs

- Local constabulary attempts to arrest PCs

- PCs are hired/coerced into seeking and destroying the local monster

And so, these are still single goals/actions and thus acts. And so on, based upon the GM's desire for structure and depth.

An adventure structure could (theoretically) look like:

Act I

Act i

Act a

Act b

Act c

Act ii

Act d

Act e

Act f

Act iii

Act II

Act III

or how about:

campaign > adventure > episode > act > encounter

and if at anypoint during adventure planning the act that you are working on turns out to be more complicated than you thought you just bump everything up the chain instead of creating sub-acts; i.e., what you thought was an act is actually an episode with mutiple acts of its own.

I like Bindlespin's take. I've been reading this thread and the books and now Gathering Storm to get a feel for the Acts system flow and here and there things don't seem to follow keep in step with the prescribed method.

I'd rather bump things up to more manageable levels than create sub-acts within acts, that's where my brain starts hurting.

campaign > adventure > episode > act (3/episode) > encounter (any #/act)

Added qualifiers to act and encounter (am I reading it right?)

I think that is a good way of looking at it, but you don't want to lose sight of the general concept of the 3 act structure, which is the main stay of all good story writing.

To take you idea and expand slightly...

So basically, a campaign abides by the three act structure, in that it has a build up, the main action, and then resolution.

Each of those 3 parts of the campaign are made up of one or more adventures.

Each adventure should have a beginning, a middle and an end.

Each of those 3 parts of an adventure are made up of one or more episodes.

Each episode should have a beginning a middle and an end.

Each of those 3 parts of an episode are broken into one or more scenes, or alternatively the all three parts of the episode could occur within the same scene.

Each scene could be played out in story mode or encounter more (or even switch from one to the other).

If story mode, then you could use each scene as an act with rally steps between each act, or you could break down a single scene into the 3 act structure with rally steps between each; that all depends on the scene and GM's requirements

If the scene is being played out in encounter mode, then that encounter could comprise a single act but again you could also break that encounter down into the 3 act structure with rally steps between each.

If the encounter is an important or main one then this could be preferable and a good example of this is the beastmen encounter in "A schilling...", which in fact occurs within a single scene (the road), which is also the entire episode!!

Not losing sight of the basic premise of splitting things into 3, as a good story technique is as important of working out where you actual acts are for mechanical purposes (i.e. rally steps)

i think we are pretty much saying the same thing.

Start passing out the hugs!

I've experienced healing problems as well, and I like what NezziR proposed.

I may add to that an quick idea for Divine Retribution rules that struck me today in the night, while I couldn't sleep.

The rule requires a roll of a challenge die (dice) and some color paperclips (lets say: white, yellow, red) to mark the cards.

It goes like this:

1. each time a priest rolls a Chaos Star while casting a blessing roll a challenge die (or one challenge die per Chaos Star during test)

2. check the results:

- blank - nothing happens

- challenge (challenges) - you irritate your god, suffer 1 stress (1 stress per challenge rolled), in addition you add 1 misfortune die (1 misfortune die per challenge rolled) to this card dice pool for a ingame day/act/till the end of session (depends how much ingame timespan your sessions take), mark the card with white paperclip (paperclips)

- bane (banes) - you anger your god, suffer 1 wound (1 wound per bane rolled), in addition you add 1 challenge die (1 challenge die per bane rolled) to this card dice pool for a ingame day/act/till the end of session (depends how much ingame timespan your sessions take), mark the card with yellow paperclip (paperclips)

- chaos star (stars) - you insult your god, suffer 1 stress and 1 wound (1 stress and 1 wound per chaos star rolled), in addition you may not cast this blessing for a ingame day/act/till the end of session (depends how much ingame timespan your sessions take), mark the card with red paperclip (paperclips)

You may allow PC's to make amends by making a donation, long prayer and such to remove the paperclips, and please their god.

Not sure if this will help (fresh idea), requires playtesting.

I really like the concept. The penalties proposed may be a bit harsh for my group (though they may be perfect for yours). I say that because my players haven't tried to abuse magical or divine healing in any way, but I really like the idea of a chaos star having specific effects on a divine check. I'd suggest thinking about ways the star could be translated into stress or misfortune dice (or perhaps +/- recharge depending on the action) in place of wounds or an additional die roll.

I was thinking of something similar to the miscast deck, with a similar trigger (just to keep things consistent). I know the Divine casters have less chance of causing an issue, so I like Sunatet's idea about a buffer dice.

Maybe like this:

Anytime a chaos symbol comes up, roll a challenge die (one for each chaos symbol).

If another chaos symbol comes up (and maybe 'or one or more banes'), then draw from the divine retribution deck.

Cards look like this:

Penance

You have angered the Gods and must atone.

Until you atone for your sins you gain to all Divine Spell difficulties.

Once per day at dawn you may self flagellate and then make a piety check to remove the curse. You must have a number of successes equal to the severity rating of the curse

Severity: 2

Atonement

You have drawn the wrath of the Gods and must atone.

Until you atone for your sins you gain to all Divine Spell difficulties.

Once per day at dawn you may self flagellate and then make a piety check to remove the curse. You must have a number of successes equal to the severity rating of the curse

Severity: 4

Retribution

You have sinned in the eyes of your God and suffer immediate retribution.

You take a number of wounds equal to the severity of this card. These wounds may not be mitigated by toughness, armor, or other means.

Severity: 3

Banishment

Your God has turned his face from you and you are ashamed.

You may not use spells of a rank equal to or greater than the severity of this card.

Once per day at dawn you may self flagellate and then make a piety check to remove the curse. You must have a number of successes equal to the severity rating of the curse

Severity: 2 (Note: Sev 2 is the worst card, with maybe a Sev 3 in the deck as well. This would not affect low level casters)

Marked

Your god feels your fervor and it is good. He places a mark or your forehead that all may see his divine servants devotion.

Until the end of the act you may add [w] to all casting rolls

Severity:0

Avatar

You feel the power of your God coursing through you as he fills you with power. Your skin has a slight glow and your eyes smolder with zealous fury.

Until the end of the act you recover 2 favor instead of 1 at the end of each round.

Severity: 0

Broken Conduit

Your link to your God has been severed. You can no longer feel him in your heart or in your mind.

Until the end of the act you no longer generate favor at the end of the round. You must Curry Favor in order to receive favor. You generate 1 less favor with the Curry Favor action.

Severity: 2

[insert rules for self flagellation and/or atonement here]

I could go on and on. Modifiers that just affect casting rolls, ones that affect channeling rolls, good and bad mirrors of both (probably about 2/3 bad, 1/3 good). This adds an element of risk to repeat casting and levies a punishment for over-using divine power.

Let me know what you think...

Nez

Edit: Self Flagellation roll successes would be cumulative. So, if you had a severity of 4 and rolled 2 successes, you would just need 2 more the following day to eliminate the curse.

Looks like NezziR has won

I thought of rolling dice only because I was too lazy to think of another type of cards, and it seemed a quick and easy temporal solution.

But since NezziR made all the hard work already, I'm sold

I would skip next die roll in this case just for simplicity sake.

To keep less chance with Divine Casters causing an issue, you may draw cards until you get one with severity equal to the number of chaos stars rolled, add different effects for given number of stars to every card (graduation like 1 star add , 2 stars add 2 etc.), or draw card only if casting blessing fails.

Looking at the rules, I think the best solution would be this:

"If you fail an Invocation check and roll a Chaos Star, draw a 'Divine Retribution' card from the deck."

Note: Not all Blessings have a <p>, so only some Blessings would be dangerous to cast.

Here are a few more cards:

Conduit of Faith

You have the attention of your God. His presence is strong here.

Until the end of the act you gain [w] to all Curry Favor checks.

Severity: 0

Upon Deaf Ears

Your God begins to doubt your devotion.

Until the end of the act you suffer to all Curry Favor checks.

Severity: 1

Divine Light

The favor of your God bursts from you in a blinding light.

All remaining favor is consumed. For each favor consumed, you may heal one normal wound on yourself or any ally you are engaged with.

Severity: 0

Divine Inspiration

You and all allies you are engaged with gain the 'Inspired' condition for 2 rounds.

Severity: 0

Rebuked

Your God is displeased with you. His displeasure can be felt by those around you.

You and all allies your are engaged with gain the 'Demoralized' condition for 2 rounds

Severity: 1

Cards could be made for other conditions, like: Frightened, Exposed, Blinded, and/Weakened.

Great, I will try to add those to my SE plugin when I find some time (unless You want to add it to Hurlanc's plugin, but then You have to ask him).

It may take me some time however (working on a trap cards now, and lock cards are next in a row).

Any background proposals for Divine Retribution cards would be very welcome (the smaller size right?).

Cheers!

Sorry for necroing a thread.

Just wanted to say, that Retribution Cards can now be made using this: www.gmtools.excelocms.com/download/wfrp3_adds.seext

And I put cards designed by NezziR (from posts above) to pdf file here: www.gmtools.excelocms.com/houserules/divine_retribution_cards.pdf

Enjoy!

I've been thinking of either adding chits to the spammed-spell, for each chit = +1 difficulty. Though these days I've been leaning more towards using those chits to add to the power/favour necessary to invoke.

Wherever possible, I like my house rules to be simple and tie directly to an already existing mechanic. Though I do like the concept of the retribution cards. I need to noodle this whole thing a bit more, but I am fortunate in that it hasn't reared its head in my games (yet).

NezziR said:

In another thread i suggested the idea that the recharge of healing spells and other actions in story mode code be dictated by a recharge of the fortune pool (so still somewhat in the GMs hands), rather than a straight per act/per day/per whatever fixed recharge.

I mention it here, as a suggestion, in case you hadn't noticed the other thread!

pumpkin said:

Thanks Pumpkin. I actually found my answer in the rulebook (pointed there from the other thread). It's on page 16 of the ToA, in the sidebar. It talks about timing in Story Mode. This was where we were having problems. Fortunately, we were handling it correctly and don't need to change things.

Just to have a benchmark, we handle some timing issues in fixed ways. For example, sleeping is usually a natural break point and we do a full recharge there. We also do a partial (and sometimes full) recharge between acts and episodes. This allows for casting, but limits it (and talents as well) to make it a bit more reasonable. Under some circumstances I'll do a complete recharge in the middle of things. Essentially, it's up to the GM and I try and fit it in where it makes sense. I have no problems remembering. My players remind me constantly