Adventurer Conqueror King System: Imperial Imprint Review: Spells n’ Stuff

​   Next in our series, let's look at the ACKS II equipment...
   One oft-repeated canard of the OSR is that “the answer is not on your character sheet”. Like most such statements, there was originally a good point to it…when overcoming a challenge, some of the best game sessions are when solutions spring forth from the febrile imaginations of the players rather than mechanical point-and-click puzzles where we look for McGuffin-shaped pegs to ram into McGuffin-sized holes. That being said, the most creative thinking I ever see often does start with a player looking down at his sheet, considering how to put a rope, a mirror, or an illusion spell to use in an unexpected manner. D&D is not an escape room [citation needed], it is a game. The way players interact with a game is with its rules, using…equipment and spells. Typically written on some sort of character sheet. So a proper full game does, in fact, need a full range of gear and spells.
   And great news, ACKS II has both of those in droves.
 The Right Stuff
   Equipment in ACKS can be purchased at markets, which are usually associated with settlements but not always, classed by type from poor rural Class VI’s to the Imperial City’s Class I, where nearly everything can be found. Hirelings, mundane adventuring gear, weapons, armor, vehicles, everything...it’s all variably available based on the market class. The Venturer core class interacts with this bit of mechanical cleverness, too. This is something I remember from Pathfinder too but it’s explained better and implemented with more rigor than in the 3.P paradigm. 

It's so beautiful.

​   As with previous game reviews, I won’t go into the long lists of equipment in detail, I’ll just note a few notable oddities, omissions (yeah right), or additions:
-Arena armor has the “revealing” tag, aiding seduction rolls if the character is 11+ in STR, DEX, CON, and CHA. That’s funny. No this doesn’t apply to being naked. Yes that silliness is lampshaded.
-Plate armor is CHEAP at 60gp compared to normal, it’s also scarce meaning only 50% as likely to be available in a given market outside of dwarf towns.
-NEED MORE POLEARMS, GARY GYGAX SNEERS AT YOUR PALTRY HANDFUL.
-Structures are completely priced out, including traps. Yes, you can rigorously value a dungeon.
-War machines are a whole page, be still my beating heart.
-There’s a set of tables for stuff gone wrong with scavenged equipment if your little loot-goblins are taking too much mundane crap.
-Hireling morale has a LOT of potential bonuses and maluses. Great.
-Spellcraft services, yes, indeed do interact with markets too. Your Venturer is a huge quality-of-life boost in ACKS.
   Since ACKS is “that domain game”, there’s also a great section on construction projects with costs, schedules, and benefits for all kinds of projects. All classes make a special building for 15,000gp at level 9, and you can bet your sweet bippy that this game isn’t going to handwave Dave’s castle construction as a simple “he cuts a check”. This is excellent for generating quests and more gameplay at those higher levels of play.
Check Your Spelling
   Of course, as we all know, the real main characters in any RPG are the spellcasters, and those spellcasters rely on spells. Casting in ACKS is universally Vancian off of limited repertoires, with divine casters (besides the witch and craftpriest) rocking the whole lists of their given deity, while arcane casters have the usual spellbook setup. Spells have type tags (e.g. healing, protection, transmogrification, etc) that interact with other rules and tags. This is of course rank heresy to the AD&D fan, trained as he is in the Gygaxian Hermeneutic of his preference, but it’s good for comprehensive design and really, really helps when you’re expanding the system, via homebrew, module, or splatbook. All terms, defined. Structure and levels, rationalized. Thus are the spells of ACKS.
   As an aside, keen-eyed observers might have noticed that all the human classes cap out at level 14. Since we’re following the regular progression of “new tier of spells every odd level” one would expect that limits our spells to level 7. In fact, it’s only level 6 that gets normally accessed; there are level 7, 8, and 9 spells in ACKS but those are done through ritual; over time and with more effort than the usual “memorize and cast” repertoire spells.
   Again, there are a ton of spells, so let me just note some standouts:
-The “Call of the [animal]” spells are fun, ten-minute-long summoning spells that let you go all Elisha on them kids, or call in horses if you’re going to reenact Krull. Fun.
-Counterspell is early, level 1 for arcane and divine casters both, and it’s what we usually call “dispel magic”, just on a single target. Interesting implications for buffs and debuffs, while it does not do what “counterspell” does in more modern systems (directly stopping an active cast).
-A lot of names are modified to hide from WotC legal after the OGL imbroglio. “Cure Light Wounds” is thus “Cure Light Injury”, etc.
-Light is gone in favor of Illumination, which is not something that can get cast on eyeballs. Sad, but makes sense.
-Level Water is a big deal for a lot of the adventures I read, it’s a Moses Spell that also enables interesting dungeon shenanigans.
-Sleep is now Slumber and 1HD targets can’t make saves against it, good. Still useless after 5HD.
-Spider Climb is only level 1, that’s impressive.
-Wall of Smoke is a nice and shapable version of Obscuring Mist, that’s a very good level 1 battlefield control spell.
-Command is now Word of Command with a pretty long set of exemplary words, very strong version of the spell here that makes clerics pretty nasty single-target save-or-suck casters.
   Plenty of other very solid spells here, including all your classics. BECMI spellcasting was famously kind of overpowered, and ACKS puts the breaks on a lot of the most broken spells, but don’t get it wrong…spellcasters are still the kings of battle. Less utility stuff than some lists, but plenty of heals/removes/dispels/divination for the out-of-combat side too.
   Going ahead a little to spellcasting in combat, casters must declare what spells they plan to cast before initiative gets rolled, giving a simple chance for interruption to whichever side wins the initiative. That’s about it for concentration and interruption, we’re not making this particularly complex.
   So, Dave and Dave’s Friends are all built after the first couple hundred pages. What do they do next? Well, that’s for next time when we finally get to Adventures and Campaigns…