Longbow versus Swordsman: Sword Chronicle

 Sword Chronicle is the generic, and arguably fixed version of the Song of Ice and Fire RPG by Green Ronin.

It is a d6 roll and keep pool system, where different skills will be noted as having a value that represents the number of dice kept, and specialties that add dice to the number rolled, but do not change the number kept.

Example: 

Bob the Bowman has a Marksmanship skill of 5 and a Bow specialty of 2. When he rolls, he would roll a pool of 7 dice, and he would keep 5.

There are Traits that act as system exceptions in the same manner as Feats do in other systems.

Metacurrency is limited to Destiny Points that can be used or permanently burned to achieve varying results.

Damage is typically fixed, but escalates based off of your degree of success (for every 5 over the target number, and additional degree of success i s achieved.)

The system is NOT 'swingy', and it can be expected that a more skillful combatant will best a less skilled combatant most every time.

The relevant combat stats for Steve and Bob are as follows:

Bob the Bowman

Marksmanship 5 (Bows 3)  Movement 5, Combat Defense 11, Heath 9

• Weapon Mastery (Bow): Base Damage is +1

• Double Shot: (Greater Action) shoot twice with a -1D on each.

• Expertise (Bows) Adds a +1d whenever a skill using this specialty is used.

Longbow: Damage Agility + 2, Training 1B(lose 1B when you use this weapon), Long Range, Pierce 1 (ignore 1 armor)

Soft Leather Armor

Steve the Swordsman

Fighting 5(Longblades 3b, Shields 2b) Movement 4, COmbat Defense (16 due to shield and shield talent), Health 12, Armor 5

• Longblade FIghter I & II

• Shield Master: Adds Defense for every Specialization die in Shield

Longsword
Shield, Large

Chain Armor

Round 1. Steve screams incoherently at Bob from 100 yards away. Perhaps today will finally be his day?

Bob wins the initiative and uses a Greater Action to fire his bow twice. This would normally be at -1D, but his Expertise cancels this penalty. Steve is also not running yet, so no penalty yet.

Since he is firing a longbow, he has no penalty at 100 yards.

Both shots have him rolling 8 dice and keeping 5. (1 specialization dice is lost due to the longbow being tricky to use)

His first shot is a 24 versus Steve’s Combat Defense of 16 (It would be 10 if he didn’t have his shield and shield talents…) 

Given this is 5 over the target number, this adds another degree of success.

The Longbow does a base of Agility + 2, 6 points in Bob’s case. Bob also has a weapon mastery that adds +1 to this for 7. The Longbow also has pierce 1. We multiply the damage times the degrees of success (two in this case) and get 14 points. Subtract Steve’s armor of 4 (as the arrow ignores one point) and he is looking at 10 points right off the bat.

Steve is not a minor character, so can choose to take Wounds or Injuries to offset this. 

Wounds will remove a number equal to his Endurance, but he will have an ongoing -1 to all tests. He can take a number of Wounds equal to his Endurance.

Injuries are much worse and take weeks to heal. He would take -1D for each Injury, and taking a number of Injuries equal to his endurance will kill him.

He chooses to take an injury as the arrow finds its mark.

The second arrow hits his shield and he runs forward 13 yards towards Bob.

Round 2 Steve is now 87 yards away

Bob sighs, takes Aim (lesser action that adds +1 Bonus die, a die that is rolled but not kept), and let’s fly with an arrow.

Steve is now running, so Bob will be at -1D for all of his shots, his Expertise negates that unless he is using his doubles shot technique. 

He is rolling 8 dice and keeping 5 and gets a 21. 21 is 5 higher than Steve’s combat defense, so again he is going to take 10 points after armor. Steve takes another Injury and keeps running.

Steve close to 74 yards.

Round 3 Steve is now 74 yards away.

Bob decides to double fire. He will be rolling 7 dice and keeping 5 as his Expertise only offsets one of the two -1D penalties he faces. (one for target sprinting, the other for the multi attack.)

First shot is a 24… Steve is in trouble. He chooses to take a Wound which means he takes 6 Health , and is now at 6 Health remaining, 1 Injury and 2 Wounds.

Second shot… 26. This is an additional degree of success, so he is looking at 3 X 7 = 21 points of damage versus his armor rating of 4….  He has to take an Injury or be taken out (How is narrated by the person who took you out of the scene.) One more Injury and he is dead.

Steve being Steve runs forward.

Round 4 Steve is now 61 yards away.

Bob double shoots again: 

First shot is an 18, which will do 3 Health damage, which he will take, leaving him 3 Health left.

Second shot is a 21… He has to take an Injury, but this will kill him, or he takes the health loss which leaves it up to the attacker what happens… Either way Steve is done.

Thoughts: Major narrator characters in this system have options, and Steve could probably burn a Destiny point to decide how he is taken out of the scene. Regardless, this was a character built as a close in fighter, with fantastic shield skills and he was cutdown by the Bowman.

If he did NOT have his shield and shield talent, every single one of the shots that was 20 or over would have also been a critical hit. He probably would not have made it to the 3rd round.

‘Regular’ NPCs would have been murdered en masse by the bowman as they closed.

It seems that the system has been tidied up since I tried running SIFRPG when it first came out. 

Competent characters are very competent at their specialties. The bowman would have been cut to pieces had Steve closed, and both of them would have been easily dominated in social conflict.

The shield did make quite a difference here, even if it only delayed the inevitable.

Next: Zweihander