Tales from Irminar 2

ACKS Wilderness Encounters

If you missed part 1:

Tales from Irminar 1

With a region created, we have a foundation for the next step: identifying a starting area for new player characters (PCs) and mapping it out in detail. We will get to that, but there is a different topic that is important to cover first.

Almost all interactions in the world fiction center around encounters, past or future. When looking at TTRPG systems, understanding the nature of these encounters is essential. When do they happen? How do they happen? What kinds of threats or boons can they bring?

Normally, I would not recommend for referees to brainstorm how a party of characters could deal with threats. That’s their job and their fun. Planning out their routes to success is overthinking it and is condescending—and we are almost never capable of accurately foreseeing their future, regardless.

We will study encounters closely because:

1. They will happen frequently—mastering their systems will save time.

2. They are a crucial part of a larger whole—a whole we will come to understand as we gain experience with the game. Grasping the big picture is key to mastering any system.

3. The starting location for new PCs must give a feasible chance to survive and thrive—or everyone’s time will be wasted with unsatisfying repetition.

ACKS, Adventures (pg. 96)

Wilderness Encounters

Can fresh PCs navigate wildlands and unexplored regions? Are they stuck hiding behind walls? Can they hide at all?

the Judge should make an encounter throw once per day if [adventurers] are stationary or in settled terrain. Otherwise, the Judge should make an encounter throw each time the adventurers enter a new 6-mile hex. The chance of encountering a wandering monster in the wilderness varies depending on the type of terrain. To check for wandering monsters, throw 1d6 and consult the Encounter Frequency by Terrain table.

pg. 244

Encounter Frequency by Terrain

1. City, Grasslands, Scrub, or Settled: 6+

2. Aerial, Hills, Ocean, Woods, or River: 5+

3. Barren, Desert, Jungle, Mountains, or Swamp: 4+

A 6-mile hex is travel scale. This is the most important scale—the one used to conceptualize time and distance across all players.

We can see that city encounters are infrequent, only 1 in 6 chance if the players remain in the city that day. Woods and hills are 2 in 6 chance, and there is a 50% chance for an encounter in barrens, mountains, or swamp—and this is even if the PCs are stationary! If they are traveling, they will make this roll for every single hex they cross into.

Encounters are highly systematic, though different outcomes bring different implications for some of the steps. Wilderness wandering encounters have the following steps (detailed on pg. 244):

1. Roll d8 to determine monster type. Each terrain type has its own 8 outcomes.

2. Roll d12 to determine which particular monster. This roll is also terrain-specific.

3. Determine if it’s a lair encounter (d100 vs. % in Lair). Lairs have more treasure and danger. They represent finding a location rather than a mere run-in with monsters.

4. Roll for number encountered. The roll is specified in the monster’s listing.

5. If in a lair, roll for treasure using the monster’s Treasure Type.

6. Roll for encounter distance. This is determined by circumstance and terrain.

Additionally, we must also roll for surprise, initiative, and reaction.

If you’re not used to old-school play, this may seem like a lot. But this is a machine designed so that the encounter can be discovered rather than determined by someone’s hand-placed inventory of ideas. If you’re a referee and skeptical of this, trust me—having only a limited idea what the players will run into is thrilling and liberating.

Armed with this summary, let’s look at a few city encounters and a few grasslands and woods encounters.

ACKS, Monsters (pg. 183)

City Encounters

Let’s outline a few points in enough detail to gain a good understanding. For every terrain type, there is a distribution of 8 possible monster types. For the “City” terrain, this distribution is:

• Men (6 times)

• Undead

• Humanoid

We roll d8 and get 5, a “Men” type of encounter. There is a complementary table for the “Men” type that breaks down 12 possible encounters by terrain type. Looking at the Wilderness Encounters: Men table (pg. 245) with the “City” column we see:

• Cleric (2 times)

• NPC Party (2 times)

• Merchant (2 times)

• Noble

• Mage

• Fighter

• Veteran

• Trader

• Bandit

1. First Encounter

We roll d12 and get a 9—a “Mage” result.

The Mage result has a note advising to determine characteristics using the NPC Parties system (pg. 248). Since “NPC Party” is listed separately, we’re assuming this Mage is alone.

When NPCs are encountered in a settlement, their base level is 7, less the settlement’s market class.

If our PC starter city was a Small City or a Large Town, it would have market class IV. The Mage’s base level would be 7 - 4 = 3. We roll on the NPC level table to determine actual level (d6, getting 6): “Base level +2” → the Mage is level 5.

Aside: On Particular vs. General Entries

There isn’t a “Noble” entry in the monster list, but there are two other guidelines a reader could hit. An easy, obvious one is the “Men” entry in the monster list—it has a selection of possibilities of Berserker, Brigand, Merchant, Pirate, Nomad (each with entourage) and makes it easy to imagine and fill in other types based on their differences.

In ACKS the term “noble” can refer to an adventurer who was granted a title of nobility. Another interpretation is that it is a domain ruler (something we’ll see in more detail in upcoming articles).

This is an encounter table outcome that leaves a lot open to intervention, but I would personally create an adventurer of a random class on the spot—with an entourage created using the NPC Party method if I didn’t believe this character would travel alone. Their level would be determined by the importance of the city we’re in, and they would be a domain ruler such as a Mayor/Baron/Thane or a vassal of the domain ruler.

Lastly, these old-school systems are there to form a robust skeleton for an experienced referee to build upon, if desired. We could create a new meaning for “Noble,” create our own “Nobles” table that further specifies, lift examples of nobles from another system, or even replace the entry with something that feels more aligned to our world’s setting.

Treasure

As a level 5 NPC, our Mage has Treasure Type D × 1/2.

Use the table … to determine the treasure carried by each NPC based on his level. However, do not roll against the Treasure Type for magic items. Instead, for each category of item (potion, sword, etc.) the NPC can use, there is a 5% chance per level of the NPC that he possesses a useful item of that category.

We look at the treasure table:

Treasure Type (pg. 206)

We roll the following to get D × 1/2:

1. d100 of 34 vs. 80%: d6, yielding 6 → 6000 × 1/2 = 3000 silver

2. d100 of 29 vs. 20%: no electrum

3. d100 of 12 vs. 80%: d6, getting 1 → 1 × 1/2 = 0 ornamental gems

4. d100 of 31 vs. 30%: no trinket jewelry

5. 12% chance (Mage’s level × 5% × 1/2) of any 2 magic items

   1. Item Types: two d100, getting 92 and 72 → Miscellaneous Weapon and Swords

   2. Two d100 gets 8 and 95 → we get the Misc Weapon but do not find a Sword

   3. d100, getting 26 → Axe +1

Distance

Encounter distance is always determined by circumstances. If it is not clear at what distance an encounter must begin, there are multiple suggestions for rolling encounter distance.

Surprisingly, I could not find a distance for within-city encounters. I think the most appropriate is the Dungeon encounter distance (pg. 96) of 2d6 × 10 feet if we imagine a busy city. For remote hamlets, using wilderness terrain distances, measured in yards, is probably more appropriate. Ideally, we would want to use what the players are doing to set our expectation about encounter distance.

We roll 2d6, getting 7 → the Mage begins the encounter 70 feet from the party.

Surprise

Next we determine surprise. The referee rolls d6 for each party, the Mage and the implied PC group, getting 6 and 6. Since both results are more than 2, neither party is unaware of the other. This roll can be modified by circumstances or inherent characteristics of the parties.

Reaction

Probably the most important roll in this particular case, but we’ve shoved it at the end. A creature’s reaction will frequently be obvious. But in this case, it’s an encounter with a Mage. He may be friendly, neutral, or even have aggressive intent.

We roll 2d6 for reaction, getting a tallied result of 5 (2 and 3). From the Monster Reaction table (pg. 99), that translates to “Unfriendly, may attack.”

An Unfriendly result means that the monsters do not like the adventurers, and will attack if they may reasonably do so.

Well, our PC group better hope they’re within sight of the city guard!

Initiative

Each round, 1d6 is rolled for initiative for each adventurer, monster, and group of identical monsters, each called a combatant. This roll is adjusted by the combatant’s Dexterity bonus, if any. High numbers act first. Any combatants with equal numbers act simultaneously. Combatants wishing to move defensively or cast spells in the upcoming round must inform the Judge before the initiative dice are rolled.

Initiative in ACKS is a little different from some other methods. Rather than declaring all actions beforehand, only a few must be handled this way. Otherwise, combatants take actions in descending initiative order.

2. Second Encounter

We roll d8 on the “City” column, yielding 2 → Undead type. A d12 on the Undead column yields a 12 → a Zombie. The “Zombie” has a 35% In Lair chance. A d100 yields 47—not in a lair. The number encountered in a Wilderness roll (as opposed to a Dungeon roll) is “Horde (4d6)”; we roll 4d6 yielding 10. Unfortunately, zombies have no treasure.

We’re going to use a wilderness distance (instead of the Dungeon distance as above) of “Fields, Wild” which is 3d6 × 5 yards, yielding 40 yards. It seems unlikely that a horde of zombies happens upon players in an alleyway or bustling marketplace or so on. Different referees will rule differently.

In some settings, we might give the zombies a surprise disadvantage of -2 relative to a PC group. Rolling two d6, we get 4 (zombies) and 3 (PCs). The PCs actually manage to spot the zombies first (due to the penalty) and get a free round.

Reaction is obvious in this case—zombies will attack! And after the surprise round, initiatives would be rolled each round as normal.

This is a deadly encounter for a level 1 PC group!

Primeval lessons await (adapted from David S. LaForce)

Grasslands Encounters

Now that we’ve got an idea how it works, let’s whip up a couple of quick encounters.

1. First Encounter

A d8 on the “Clear, Grass, Scrub” column yields 6 → Unusual. A d12 on the “Unusual” column yields 10 → Skittering Maw. A d100 yields 46, no lair (10%). There are d4 = 2 monsters in the group.

Treasure Type is M, but no lair means no treasure for most monsters!

Distance is as Plains: 5d20 × 10 yielding 560 yards (the PCs might survive!). Surprise and initiative are determined as usual.

This is an absolutely brutal encounter because these creatures have 8 Hit Dice and 5 Armor Class and horrifying poison-infused attacks dealing massive damage.

2. Second Encounter

A d8 on the “Clear, Grass, Scrub” column yields 2 → Flying. A d12 on the “Flying” column yields 10 → Roc, Small. A d100 yields 56, no lair (10%). There are d12 = 6 monsters in the group.

No lair, no treasure.

Distance is as Plains: 5d20 × 10 yielding 610 yards. Surprise determined as usual.

Reaction is important here. Chaotic beings suffer -2 reaction penalty (and neutral -1) with the roc, specifically. There’s a reasonable chance they won’t attack on sight.

Woods Encounters

1. First Encounter

A 2 on the “Woods” column → Flyer. A 12 on the “Flyer” column → Stirge. No lair (76 vs. 40%). There are 3d12 = 21 monsters in the group.

No lair, no treasure.

Distance is as Forest, Light: 5d8 yielding 19 yards. Surprise and initiative are determined as usual.

Hope for a peaceful reaction roll!

2. Second Encounter

An 8 gives a “Dragon” result! A 1 on the “Dragon” column → Basilisk. A 21 vs. 40% means we stumbled into a basilisk lair! At this point, we would either create or draw from a dynamic lair specific to basilisks (this will be addressed in an upcoming article).

There is a Nest (1d6 → 1) of monsters, but only 1 is there at present.

In the basilisk’s lair, we have Treasure Type K:

1. 2000 electrum pieces

2. 1500 gold pieces

3. (1500 + 1500)gp worth in 2 brilliant gems

4. (600 + 700 + 1000)gp worth of 3 pieces of jewelry

5. Potion of Super-Heroism

Distance is as Forest, Light: 5d8 yielding 23 yards. Surprise and initiative are determined as usual. Reaction is probably a non-factor since this is an invasion into the lair!

Alternatively, we could rule the lair as simply being discovered rather than encountered, and we could also split the location into multiple parts and more encounters. This assists in giving the players an important sense of exploration and helps drive the fiction.

Wilderness Encounters are Dangerous

As we’ve seen here, most starting PC groups would struggle to even live through many of these encounters—much less profit from them. At least city/settled encounters can be mitigated by the presence of guards.

But really, the thing starting PC groups need is something altogether different—dungeons and static lairs. We’ll examine how to generate and place these in the next installment.