Storm Weavers is live (Weave stories and battles)
Update: Storm Weavers is live on Kickstarter and the campaign will run for 29 days. You may pledge for the game either in PDF format, or printed with a hardcover book (it comes in English or French). You also have the option of getting glass minis instead of carboard ones. Finally, the Storm Weaver pledge has an additional scratch world map and dwarven coin.
Our preview post below was published on April 13.
Storm Weavers is a solo adventure book in which you play as Thymin, a dwarf on a quest to save a friend of his. This adventure book, however, fits into the game category as it also has grid-based Combat maps for tactical fights to be played on the side of the story. The game comes with a variety of standees to represent the different enemies (cardboard, or acrylic as an add-on), and six dual-sided boards for the Combat maps. It will launch on Kickstarter on April 14.
Your character has specific ability stats: Speed (to move on the Combat maps), which is 2 by default, Dexterity, Wisdom, Weapon Bonus, Armor Class, and HP (starting at 20, which is a hard max throughout the game). Dexterity and Wisdom are the two main attributes: they start with a default value of 5 but you are given 4 additional points you can then freely distribute between them. Weapon Bonus and Armor Class depend on your gear. You also start with 50 gold and an axe, but no armor.
Across the story, you’ll have to make skill tests of either Wisdom or Dexterity. These are resolved by rolling 2d6: to pass the test, their sum must be equal to or below your attribute value. If you are low on Health, you may add a bonus to your attribute values: 2 when you are below 10, 2 more when you are below 4. If you don’t have a pair of dice, you can open the book on a random page, and look at the dice values shown at the bottom. You’ll also perform coin tests (by flipping a coin): if you correctly predict the result, you pass the test.
The fights that may occur during the adventure are played on the Combat map, which may be within the book (when fighting a single foe) or on a separate board (when battling more than one foe). Combats are enacted through a succession of rounds, in which you alternate movement and attack phases for your character, and movement and attack phases for all of your enemies. Enemies move towards you as fast as they can. To resolve an attack (regardless of who engaged it), you roll two dice, one for yourself, one for your enemy, and add your respective Dexterity stat to the roll. The winner of the comparison between the two final results adds their Weapon Bonus to their roll, and the loser adds their Armor Class. The difference in the two totals is equal to how many hits are dealt to the loser of the dice rolls results.
On top of that, you can perform a special attack, the Cunning Strike, by performing a Wisdom skill check: if you succeed, you immediately deal three hits, if not, you take three hits, regardless of your Armor Class. You can also charge (a bonus to the roll of the attack follows a move), push out (an attack that deals more than 3 hits pushes the target two squares away, taking damage if encountering an obstacle along the way). If you get flanked (i.e. if more than one enemy is adjacent to you), you’ll have to lower your Dexterity (that usually gets added to your dice rolls) by as many enemies as you are being flanked by.
The game also features some exploration as you progressively reveal the world map by scratching (with a coin) the region indicated by a symbol. That way, you may reveal new locations and discover treasures as you go on your quest.