Terrain type

From Sagataflwiki

Latest revision as of 02:40, 9 October 2010

Sagatafl makes extensive use of Terrain type distinctions, and has 11-14 different ones that are relevant for surface-dwellers (such as Humans).

The basics

These are the 11 regular Terrain types

And these three, "irregular" ones, are only used in some game mechanics

Urban is used in a variety of places, whereas Road is mostly relevant when it comes to Battle Items. Ocean is somewhere in between.

Wilderness and Terrain skills

The core of Sagataf's Wilderness skills are the Terrain skills, defining the character's degree of familiarity with any of the 11 regular Terrain types, plus Ocean and Urban Terrain. (A character cannot be familiar with Road as a Terrain type, but can learn a Lore to reflect extensive knowledge of how to Hike or Ride on Roads. There really is no need for more.)

All the Wilderness skills, such as Tracking, Camping, Hunting, Hiking, Survival, Climbingm, and so on, and also some non-Wilderness skills such as Stealth, are then capped by the Terrain skill of the Terrain type that the character currently is in. Usually, the capping multiplier is x1.5 for Survival, x2.5 for Camping, and x2 for most other skills.

Please note that this means that Sagatafl only has a single Survival skill, instead of one Survival skill for each Terrain type. A character has a certain knowledge about Survival techniques, and he can then apply those techniques in the Terrain types that he is familiar with, but cannot use them at all in unfamiliar Terrain. (The first priority of any clever Wilderness-skilled character, when he encounters a new Terrain type, would then be to acquire familiarity with it.)

There is no Terrain skill for Road, since Road Terrain is an oddball case, presently only used for travel-enhancing Battle Items.

In the elaborations below, sub-categories of Terrain are often alluded to. This has no game mechanical significance, at present (and will probably stay that way), but is simply there to help in understanding the classification system.

The Terrain types

Arctic

Arctic is any Ice or Tundra Terrain, but a setting with minimum precipitation (rain or sow) that isn't Ice counts as Desert.

Desert

Desert is any dry (rain/snow-less) Terrain, whether warm or cold. (Note that a tropical climate belt Desert is warm during the day and cold during the night, because there are no clouds to trap the thermal energy.)

Farmland

Farmland is any land worked by farmers at high or medium intensity, thus grain fields, vegetable plots and orchards, but not grassland used for grazing cattle, horses, sheep or other such animals, except if a relatively large amount of man-hours is put into modifying the land to increase the grass production (i.e. "medium intensity worked land").

Medieval villages typically cound as Farmland Terrain, or some other Terrain type, only rarely as Urban.

Hills

Jungle

Marsh

Marsh Terrain covers any type of Bog, Marsh or Swamp (what about Mangrove?), where land and water is mixed up.

Mountains

Ocean

Ocean is for the open sea far from shore, whether salt water (true Ocean) or fresh water (Lake or Inland Sea). See Shore further down.

Plains

Road

Road is any hard-surface paved road. Basically Roman quality road or better. (Note that many Roman roads were still used well into the medieval era, although without maintenance they eventually degraded to a standard where they no longer qualified as Road Terrain.)

Shore

Shore is any place where land meets water in a clearly distinguished fashion, whether it is fresh or salt water meeting land to create a beach or some other shoreline, or the banks of a river, or even an island so small that all of it counts as Shore terrain. An example of land meeting water in an indistinct fashion would be the Marsh Terrain type, where everything is mixed up in a muddy fashion.

Most medieval villages are Farmland Terrain, but coastal villages are Shore Terrain instead.

Underground

Underground Terrain is any cave, cavern or underground labyrinth, whether man-made or natural.

Urban

Urban is any large human settlement (i.e. a town or larger, but not a village), as well as smaller settlements where primary production (agriculture, fishery, mining, et cetera) does not take place, e.g. a monastery, or the non-permanent buildings of a Scandinavian thing or a medieval market fair area.

Urban Terrain is characterized either by being very much about humans to the exclusion of the surrounding Terrain type, or having at least 7-8 different building types (medieval villages fail this criterion), or usually both.

Note that for the purpose of Climbing, the Urban skill is always used for climbing man-made buildings, even if the Terrain setting is technically that of a village, i.e. Farmland, Shore or similar. For the purpose of Survival and other skills, the actual Terrain type is used, though.

Villages are most often Farmland, but a coastal village is Shore Terrain, and a mining village is Hill or Mountain Terrain. Marsh, Wood and Underground villages are some other possibilities, but basically a village can be any Terrain type, although a Human village placed in a jungle will almost always be set in an area cleared enough to count as Wood instead.

Woods