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Masiakasaurus
Oct 11, 2012

theironjef posted:

Oh man the book of humanoids is legitimately amazing. It's a huge book of neat PC races with something like 60% of the book given over to trying desperately to convince you not to use them. Play as an aaracokra if you want to fly badly, be weak, and suck at stuff! Play as a goblin if you want nothing but stat penalties! Half of the races are limited to something like two classes, and then you hit the Saurials, where the magic of intelligent humanoid dinosaurs shines right through the "why the hell can't you just be a dwarf like the rest of us, Brian?" syndrome with glorious cheesy goodness. The Saurials (all four subraces) all receive the insanely rare U for Unlimited in a class level progression! Outside of humans, I think the only race/class combo to ever get that poo poo was half-elf bards. I loved that book endlessly and would drag it to every D&D session hoping to convince DM after DM to let me play a lizard man or a bullywug. No one ever went for it.
In fairness the races in that book ranged from "complete and utter crap" like the Beastmen (no magic items or magical healing ever, how's that working out for you?) to "ridiculously broken" (Flinds get to take proficiency in a weapon that disarms the opponent on any successful hit).

Really it deserves a writeup over in FATAL & Friends because the book was equal parts amazingly awesome and incredibly stupid.

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Owlbear Camus
Jan 3, 2013

Maybe this guy that flies is just sort of passing through, you know?



I remember in my middle school AD&D campaign some dude played an alaghi fighter and just beat all the faces everywhere, till nary a face was unbeaten.

I tried in a half-assed way to "balance" that by playing up the cruel world of urban humans being bigoted against him for being a weird monster whenever they went into town.

IIRC one of the more amusing bits from their write up in the complete humanoids said that solitary alaghi hermits were pretty chill and okay, but once a community of them got together, they turned into evil assholes.

The Lord of Hats
Aug 22, 2010

Hello, yes! Is being very good day for posting, no?
I like the fluff for Scion a lot, it really is a shame that its rules are such a pile of poo poo. The system just scales so incredibly terribly, and you've got poo poo like Untouchable Opponent next to stuff like whatever the Atzlanti purview is, that caps out in you sacrificing family members--and I think it might have to be divine family members, which is even more limited--in exchange for a bonus that's pretty insignificant at that point. Hero is workable, Demigod is a mess, and with God you may as well toss the rules out the window, because there just isn't a system there anymore.

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

The Lord of Hats posted:

I like the fluff for Scion a lot, it really is a shame that its rules are such a pile of poo poo. The system just scales so incredibly terribly, and you've got poo poo like Untouchable Opponent next to stuff like whatever the Atzlanti purview is, that caps out in you sacrificing family members--and I think it might have to be divine family members, which is even more limited--in exchange for a bonus that's pretty insignificant at that point. Hero is workable, Demigod is a mess, and with God you may as well toss the rules out the window, because there just isn't a system there anymore.

So in the early days of my group I found Scion and was like 'This poo poo is for us'. Being God-beings who can kick so much rear end the world ends and romping around beating to Valhalla demons in NYC? Sign me the gently caress up.

Anyways so I'm running this first session and its horrible. Its Exalted but somehow worse in every way. A Storm Giant smashes the poo poo out of the statue of Liberty and one of my players lines up a shot with some magic gun poo poo he had. He took down the giant in one shot. I was like, ok, that's rad, but its not really inductive of an actual game. So I stop the game a moment and I'm like 'So these rules kinda suck, how about we just stop using them' and that was the first time I ever did a freeform RPG, which led eventually to me loving Dungeon World, FATE and so on. Scions ruleset is so bad, it made me a storygaming swine.

GimpInBlack
Sep 27, 2012

That's right, kids, take lots of drugs, leave the universe behind, and pilot Enlightenment Voltron out into the cosmos to meet Alien Jesus.
I've found that.Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is a pretty kickass system to run Scion in.

Let's also not forget that Hero didn't include rules for throwing things, even though it had powers that made you better at throwing things.

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


GimpInBlack posted:

I've found that.Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is a pretty kickass system to run Scion in.

Let's also not forget that Hero didn't include rules for throwing things, even though it had powers that made you better at throwing things.

Let us also not forget this!

Scion: Hero posted:

Characters who do not have a Legend score have a more difficult time lifting huge objects or breaking strong things. Their players must roll (Strength + Athletics) and compare the number of successes to the chart.
code:
(Str. + Ath.)   Lift    Sample
total           (lbs.)  Feat
1               40      Lift two microwaves, rip tough plastic
2               80      Lift a grown man, kick through a wooden plank
3               220     Punch through a wooden door
4               350     Lift a refrigerator, bend an iron bar
5               450     Lift a calf, lift a motorcycle or kick a wooden door to flinders
6               550     Punch through a reinforced wooden door
7               650     Snap an iron bar over one knee
8               800     Lift a light horse, rip a chain-link fence apart
...
13              1,800   Lift ten adults (or five sumos), punch through a metal door
...
15              2,200   Punch through a stone wall, kick a metal door to pieces 
This means that a non-magical person with entirely normal mundane Strength and no Athletics training to speak of will have about a 50% chance of hefting a bag of Quikrete from Home Depot. Unless you truly are surrounded by pathetic neckbeards, I dare you to assert that almost everyone you know will fail half the time they try to lug a bag of quick-dry cement to a cash register.

We also learn from this chart that grown men weigh 80 lbs. and someone with above-average Strength and Athletics can just loving punch right through a (presumably) normal wooden door. An exceptionally strong and athletic character who rolls ridiculously but not impossibly well can punch through stone walls and kick metal doors apart.

But wait! There's more! Here's part of the "attacking objects using the combat mechanics" rules:

Scion: Hero posted:

Objects are less vital than humans (and titanspawn and the like) but often tougher. Inanimate targets of attacks have soak depending on their structure and composition, and all inanimate objects have an equal Hardness. This means that attacks that do not surpass the object’s soak/Hardness inflict no damage. Damage against objects, on the other hand, is not rolled. Each die of raw damage in excess of the object’s soak becomes an automatic level of damage.

Inanimate objects can take a set number of health levels of damage before they are destroyed. When they have lost half of those health levels, they are considered “damaged,” which inhibits their natural functions. If a tool, it functions at a penalty. If a wall, it no longer keeps things out. The object is not a complete failure until it is destroyed—a damaged wall keeps the flow of intruders to a trickle, for example—but sometimes characters need do no more than damage an object.
code:
Object             Soak (L/B)  Health Levels
Gun                4/5         4
Bulletproof Glass  3/5         8
House Door         1/3         10
Heavy Door         3/5         20
Chain Link Fence   2/4         6
Brick Wall         8/14        40
Stone Wall         12/18       60
Let's ignore for the moment that the soak/Hardness thing is already how regular soak works in Scion; it's only in there because they chopped up and pasted the rules from Exalted like one of those magazine clippings stalker letters.

No, what we're looking for here is how you attack and damage objects in combat which takes a few seconds, and how that compares to using a feat of strength which can take minutes to perform. Exceptional but still undeniably mundane people will have ratings of 4 in their traits. They will be able to get a +2 dice stunt bonus on many actions. Let's say you have a katana, which adds +1 die to attack rolls, +5 lethal dice to damage rolls (which are unrolled against objects!) and for good measure gives you +1 Defense because katanas are loving kewl.

You roll your attack, which is 4 + 4 + 1 + 2 dice. On average you'll get half that as successes, so 5 to hit the non-dodging, non-parrying object. Take that number and add your Strength and your weapon's Damage. With our katana that's 14 lethal damage before soak. You don't roll damage against objects, you just turn your damage dice into successes and subtract their soak normally. You take what's left over and subtract it from the object's Health Levels. When those Health Levels are halved the object is damaged and stops functioning properly; when they are gone the object is effectively destroyed.

Here is what we have learned:

• A strong-man can probably bend the poo poo out of your gun.
• A katana-man will cut your gun in half as long as he can hit it.

• A strong-man can probably punch a hole through your house's door dramatically.
• A katana-man can cut your loving door out of your house with a single swipe of his blade.

• A strong-man who rolls exceptionally well can rip apart a chain link fence over the course of many minutes.
• A katana-man who rolls like absolute poo poo can obliterate many chain link fences over the course of a single minute.

• A strong-man who rolls one-in-a-million odds can punch a hole in a stone wall.
• A katana-man who rolls average can knock down a brick wall over the course of about a minute. A stone wall will take a bit longer.

That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Feb 18, 2013

Zemyla
Aug 6, 2008

I'll take her off your hands. Pleasure doing business with you!

Otisburg posted:

I remember in my middle school AD&D campaign some dude played an alaghi fighter and just beat all the faces everywhere, till nary a face was unbeaten.
'Sup. I played an alaghi fighter, too, though I used the rules from Players Option: Skills and Powers, which was a whole different kettle of fish in terms of how broken things got. He not only beat face with his fists, he also double-specialized in throwing coins, which was like throwing darts except they dealt less damage. And you know how crazy dart throwing was.

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



As far as I remember, there was no actual rule in the 2e Complete Book Of Elves that stopped an Elf fighter/mage from eventually taking the Bladesinger kit and the Bladesong fighting style, and thus doubling up on most of the bonuses, just some mention in the fluff that "there are those that live the life of a bladesinger and those that learn it as a skill". There's something similar in the Dwarves book too. In the Ranger's handbook, the Ice Pick is a new weapon. It is the same as a dagger in every way, but costs and weighs half what a dagger does.

Those books are mostly full of stupid bullshit, but to a nerdy 14 year old, they look really cool lined up on a shelf. Which I guess is the point.

BlackIronHeart
Aug 2, 2004

The Oath Breaker's about to hit warphead nine Kaptain!

Ratoslov posted:

In Shadowrun 2e and 3e, Light Pistols and Holdout Pistols are useless.

Thanks for this write-up. I've been playing with a group that has used SR3E rules for the last 20 years and it's nice to know why my Not-Combat-Oriented Face character has to kill someone 1 box at a time. :(

Rulebook Heavily
Sep 18, 2010

by FactsAreUseless
Let's Craft things in D&D 3e

Craft is a skill that lets you make things. You can use it for a week to earn an income because that's a heroic fantasy thing to do, but!

quote:

The basic function of the Craft skill, however, is to allow you to make an item of the appropriate type. The DC depends on the complexity of the item to be created. The DC, your check results, and the price of the item determine how long it takes to make a particular item. The item’s finished price also determines the cost of raw materials.

There are a bunch of rules for how spellcasters are the best crafters ever because magic rules all, and then we get to the meat of it.

quote:

To determine how much time and money it takes to make an item, follow these steps.

*Find the item’s price. Put the price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).
*Find the DC from the table below.
*Pay one-third of the item’s price for the cost of raw materials.
*Make an appropriate Craft check representing one week’s work. If the check succeeds, multiply your check result by the DC. If the result × the DC equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the item. (If the result × the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you’ve completed the task in one-half or one-third of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner.) If the result × the DC doesn’t equal the price, then it represents the progress you’ve made this week. Record the result and make a new Craft check for the next week. Each week, you make more progress until your total reaches the price of the item in silver pieces.

So, let's make a basic item. Like a club. Let's make a club.

A club costs 0gp, which multiplies into 0sp. The DC to make a simple melee weapon is 12 with Craft: Weaponsmithing. It will cost me 0gp. I can accelerate the week-long check into a daily check by multiplying the sp into copper pieces and making daily checks, which still leaves me at 0 time needed to make a club. If taken literally, I can craft an infinite amount of clubs (or quarterstaves) infinitely fast.

But let's go deeper. What about something particularly fun, like unarmed strikes? You see, while fists or feet or whatever are natural weapons, the attack you make with them -the weapon on the weapon table called unarmed strike- is not. So now I can craft an infinite amount of punches and kicks that weigh nothing, because for some drat reason they list it as an item and, thanks to how the design of the game works, they don't get an exception to the rules for buying, owning or crafting. You can't place enchantments on them as if they were manufactured weapons, but there's technically nothing stopping you from manufacturing them.

But what if we want magical punches? Well, we can't enchant the unarmed strikes we crafted- they're not Masterwork, after all, and making a masterwork punch would actually cost us money. And, oddly enough, we can't enchant any unarmed strikes we didn't craft ourselves, or at least not most of them. We have to be a monk to do that. Monks treat their unarmed strikes as both natural weapons and manufactured weapons for spells and effects that enhance or improve either. Effects includes stuff like the effects of magical crafting. Once the monk's fists are considered a magical weapon (+1 or better), they automatically become a masterwork item as well.

So, how about it? Let's make the monk a throwing returning unarmed strike +1. He can now rocket-punch or even rocket-kick people to death from across the room, and the weapon will always return to his, er, hand. Better stick to punching there, champ.

Orange Fluffy Sheep
Jul 26, 2008

Bad EXP received

Rulebook Heavily posted:

Let's Craft things in D&D 3e

So, how about it? Let's make the monk a throwing returning unarmed strike +1. He can now rocket-punch or even rocket-kick people to death from across the room, and the weapon will always return to his, er, hand. Better stick to punching there, champ.

Holy poo poo I can make Plok in D&D.

VVVVV Plok who is also a Battletoad. Goddamn.

Orange Fluffy Sheep fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Feb 21, 2013

Piell
Sep 3, 2006

Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer


Young Orc

Rulebook Heavily posted:

So, how about it? Let's make the monk a throwing returning unarmed strike +1. He can now rocket-punch or even rocket-kick people to death from across the room, and the weapon will always return to his, er, hand. Better stick to punching there, champ.

Pfft, that's chump change. See, you can make an unarmed attack with literally any part of your body. First, you take Versatile Unarmed Strike, so that your unarmed strikes can count as piercing or slashing damage, and then you make your unarmed strike Fleshgrinding. Then, you can headbutt someone, and detach your head where it will keep chewing on your enemy for 5 rounds or until they make a DC 20 strength check to pull it off.

Alternatively, get the Metalline and Morphing enchantments on your unarmed strike and become the T-1000. Metalline lets you change your unarmed strike (ie. every part of your body) into adamantine, cold iron, silver, or regular steel. Morphing allows you to turn the weapon you enchant it with into any other weapon of the same category.

d20SRD posted:

An unarmed strike is always considered a light weapon.
Now your hands are knives and your head is a sickle!

Also, the sizing enchantment lets you change the size category to anything you want. You know what they say about a man with Huge feet.

HitTheTargets
Mar 3, 2006

I came here to laugh at you.
Can I Morph enchant a knife and turn it into an unarmed strike?

Piell
Sep 3, 2006

Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer


Young Orc
Also if you are a Hulking Hurler you can get a Metalline Sizing on your unarmed Strike, and fight by hurling your own Colossal Adamantine Head at people.

Piell fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Feb 21, 2013

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Fantasy Craft has a similar issue where weapons can have upgrades crafted on to them, which increase the weight, cost, difficulty to craft, etc. But even clubs have a cost, so though those upgrades may be cheap, you're at least paying something for them. Well, there's still one loophole.

Behold the best large weapon you can get for free.

It's a superior armor-piercing cavalry finesse large-scale large rock with a grip handle, poison reservoir, and a retrieval cord and lure attached, bearing the fine craftsmanship of elves 1.

Cost: 0 silver pieces

1 An elf-made weapon conveys the deft majesty of the race, its subtle grace aiding with negotiations and other “soft” efforts. Like a rock.

Verdugo
Jan 5, 2009


Lipstick Apathy

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Fantasy Craft has a similar issue where weapons can have upgrades crafted on to them, which increase the weight, cost, difficulty to craft, etc. But even clubs have a cost, so though those upgrades may be cheap, you're at least paying something for them. Well, there's still one loophole.

Behold the best large weapon you can get for free.

It's a superior armor-piercing cavalry finesse large-scale large rock with a grip handle, poison reservoir, and a retrieval cord and lure attached, bearing the fine craftsmanship of elves 1.

Cost: 0 silver pieces

1 An elf-made weapon conveys the deft majesty of the race, its subtle grace aiding with negotiations and other “soft” efforts. Like a rock.

In what other system can you wield a weapon that sounds like an artifact from Dwarf Fortress? :v:

Zemyla
Aug 6, 2008

I'll take her off your hands. Pleasure doing business with you!

Rulebook Heavily posted:

A club costs 0gp, which multiplies into 0sp.
You can wish for 25,000 gp of clubs, thus dividing by 0 and creating an infinite club singularity.

EDIT:

LightWarden posted:

3.5e has the Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords, a book designed to give fighting characters more awesome abilities divided amongst nine different schools of battle. One of these schools is Iron Heart, focusing on determination and weaponskill to achieve almost supernatural things.

One of those maneuvers is Iron Heart Surge.


There are lots of things you can use this maneuver for. Iron Heart Surge your way out of a debilitating spell, or maybe shake off a disease or poison. But what is an effect? Can you use Iron Heart Surge to end hunger or thirst? What about the infirmity of old age? Or poverty?

And it says that "that effect ends" not "that effect ends for you", so if you use it to shake off a spell cast on your whole group, it ends the spell entirely for everyone, not just relieving them of the effect for a round.

Well, Drow and Orcs are blinded by bright light, and dazzled if they linger in it. So if a drow in daylight uses Iron Heart Surge... daylight ends immediately.
And the resulting darkness has an effect on someone without darkvision, so a human could end the darkness with Iron Heart Surge. Days and nights last one round, as dueling warblades mess with the time. Meanwhile, Pelor goes off and gets drunk.

Zemyla fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Feb 22, 2013

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

BlackIronHeart posted:

Thanks for this write-up. I've been playing with a group that has used SR3E rules for the last 20 years and it's nice to know why my Not-Combat-Oriented Face character has to kill someone 1 box at a time. :(

I'm glad to be of help! On review, I was wrong in some places- Light Pistols do 6L and Heavy Pistols do 9M. But it doesn't really change the analysis. Anyway, some advice: Pretty much everybody in 2e and 3e ended up using at least a Heavy Pistol. But I can understand not wanting to do that, because it ruins the lining of your coat.

Not to worry. Because Ratoslov has a solution for all ills: Cannon Companion's firearm creation/customization rules.

Cannon Companion has an incredibly poorly thought-out firearm creation rules kit. In addition to being completely unable to make many of the weapons in the game, it's also capable of making absolutely ridiculous firearms. This is how it works:

First, you pick out a frame. By 'frame' it means the general category of firearm, such as Light Pistol, Submachine Gun, Sniper Rifle, whatever. Frames have all the stats that firearms have, and a plain frame is a perfectly acceptable, if generic, firearm of it's type. They also have a cost (measured in DP which stands for Design Points) and a FCU capacity, which stands for 'Firearm Construction Units'. FCUs are an abstract measure of how customizable a gun is, and are intended to be a balancing measure when combined with cost.

The designers must have forgotten how much money a PC is willing to spend on a totally loving broken gun.

The next thing that happens is that you select a number of Design Options and Customizations for your gun. The entire difference between Design Options and Customizations is that you can only apply Design Options to a gun you're making, and not one you're customizing. Each Frame has limits on which Design Options you can put on it- for example, you can't make a break-action Machine Pistol or a fully-automatic Assault Cannon.

If you're going to make an absolutely broken gun, the first design option you want is Improved FCU. Yes, you can just buy more FCU and thereby more broken. It's wonderful.

The final step is figuring out the final cost of the weapon, which is very simple: Multiply the DP by five, and that's the cost in Nuyen. Why is this even here? Because after-market customizations are more expensive, and instead multply their DP cost by 8. Aftermarket customizations are also limited by the gun's FCU, but standard guns don't have a FCU stat. You're supposed to figure out what it's maximum FCU and current FCU are before you do any customizations, but I don't know what you're supposed to do with guns which have features that aren't on the list or exotic firearms like the gun-cane that don't have a listed frame. Whatever.

Anyway, let's make a terribly broken gun!

Let's start with a shotgun. A standard shotgun frame has a power rating of 8S, is semi-automatic, has a concealability of 3 (which is terrible), weighs 4.5 kilograms (because the weights of everything in SR are hosed up), holds 5 rounds in an internal magazine, has all the standard accessory mounts, and has 2.5 FCU and a cost of 130 DP. So we first buy up all the extra FCU possible, bringing totals to 3.5 FCU and 170 DP. Now, if we get Ceramic Components so it's invisible to metal detectors, and then make it a bullpup and shorten the barrel to increase concealability, you lose some range but increase it's concealability to 7. For comparison, the most concealable Light Pistol in the main book is the Fichetti Security 500, which also has a concealability of 7. All of this only costs us 1.75 BP, so we've still got more than half our budget to go!

Next, we make it clip-fed, which for some reason costs no FCP and sets the clip size to 4. That's okay, though, because the Extended Clip modification also has no FCP cost and can extend it to up to 50 rounds with no loss of concealabilty. To compare, the Increased Ammo Capacity design feature for revolvers and internal magazine guns costs FCP and reduces the gun's concealability by 1 for every 4 rounds. So you'll never have to reload this sucker, either. Which is good, because we're going to make it burst fire. Final cost: 2265 nuyen. That's not even all the FCU, but I'm getting tired of this exercise.

There you go. A fully-automatic shotgun that won't crease your suit if you stick it in your coat pocket.

Ratoslov fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Feb 22, 2013

TombsGrave
Feb 15, 2008

Reacquainting myself with 6th edition Call of Cthulhu for a game I'm running at a convention next month has reminded me why people get excited for tremulus, NEMESIS, and 7th edition.

This started as a hilarious comparison of how much damage kicks do in comparison to firearms, but it rapidly turned into me gawking at the weapon list and seeing a lot of wacky poo poo emerge. The thing about Call of Cthulhu is that at its core it's still a poorly-balanced, not-entirely-correctly-implemented RPG from 1981. I'm suddenly and powerfully tempted to do a FATAL and Friends writeup. Until then, though, here's a section on how karate kicks are the best melee weapon, and how only shotguns and goofy-rear end automatic weapons rules trump 'em.

At no point in the core rulebook do they flat-out tell you how much damage fighting unarmed does. There's one oblique reference under the Martial Arts skill: they mention rolling under both Fists and Martial Arts doubles your damage to 2d3. How much damage does a kick do? A headbutt? Not mentioned. You have to check the full character sheet at the back (1d6 and 1d4, so you know).

Speaking of. With Martial Arts, a kick does 2d6 damage. That's flatly better than most melee weapons, including pokers, torches, and swords. Hell, a headbutt doing 2d4 is a flat improvement over most improvised weapons. On the other hand, a chainsaw does 2d8 damage! That's pretty good, and you get an untouchably good 4d8+random severed limb on a critical hit! Unless you have a damage bonus, which does apply to kicks and doesn't apply to chainsaws, at which point you kick for 2d6+1d4, higher average damage and same maximum as a chainsaw, or (if you're really swole) 3d6. You don't randomly remove limbs on a crit, but you're also striking silently and saving loads of $$$$ at the pump.

(Impales, which sharp objects get and kicks don't, do allow non-kicks to do more damage. However, impales are only when you roll under 1/5th of your skill rating. 50% Kick and 50% Martial Arts will let you do 2d6 damage every time you hit, whereas 50% Saber will only let you do 2d8+2 10% of the time.)

But, you're asking, how does a kick compare to firearms? A kick with no DB deals damage on par with .45 automatics and .45 revolvers (both 1d10+2), and those can only attack once per turn like a kick. Rifles generally do 2d6+1 damage and can only attack once per round--or once every few rounds for the older rifles. If you have a +1d4 damage bonus, or lucked into a +1d6, you can do more damage on average by kicking that ghoul than by shooting it, unless you thought to brought along a Desert Eagle, which deals 3d6+3 damage, the only (occasionally) civilian-legal non-shotgun weapon on the list which does more damage consistently than a martial arts kick!

Alas, here is where the kick fun ends, because 12-gague shotguns will hit at double accuracy and for a whopping 4d6 damage at close range. (You're still better off kicking than using 20- or 16-gague rounds, though.) If you have access to military firearms, or are in the 1920s and can buy yo'self a Thompson, you can finally hang up those kicking boots, since you can just squeeze out 10 shots a round to get 1d10 hits of 1d10+1 damage and up to double your hit percentage. Also, there's technically no rule against firing all (say) 50 shots out of your huge-rear end rattling drum magazine for, oh, 5d10 or 1d100/2 attacks in one round. See, when you fire in bursts, you roll to hit once, then roll "an appropriate die" to determine how many bullets land. There are no rules RAW for maximum shots per round, merely an observation that GMs may only allow no. of shots per round equal to something you can roll with regular dice. Or if your GM will smack you with the rulebook for that, just get your Pistol skill to 60% or higher, then attach laser sights to your dual Desert Eagles and dual wield to your heart's content, because laser sights+60% skill+practice is the only limit to doing this. A trench coat is suggested, but you can pass up on the katana in favor of steel-toed boots.

What I'm saying is sweet Christ may 7th edition come soon.

TombsGrave fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Feb 24, 2013

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Back to card games, here's an old favourite of mine from Doomtown, the Deadlands CCG.

As you may or may not know, the Deadlands setting is California with zombies and magic. One of these zombies, the Harrowed, is the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. He appears as a Dude card in Doomtown. Doomtown also has a number of cards representing mounts. Some of these are real horses, others are steampunk devices called Gadgets. There's also the Penny Farthing, which is not a gadget. For the purposes of the rules, all mount cards have the Horse keyword. So, how are these two things connected? The answer is a third card, an Action card called Tastes Like Chicken. This card allows you to boot (tap, Magic fans) a Harrowed Dude to remove a non-Gadget Horse from the game.

In other words, you can make Abraham Lincoln eat a bicycle.

Also, in Advanced Civilization there are no prerequisites for the Monotheism tech, so it is possible to start worshipping the one true God without ever having developed a belief in the supernatural. Militant atheism, anyone?

Admiral Joeslop
Jul 8, 2010




D&D 3.5 was a lot of things.

And a lot of THOSE things were horribly broken.

Which eventually culminated in Pun-pun; the absolutely broken character to end all broken characters.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun_%283.5e_Optimized_Character_Build%29

Basically, as a Kobold and by a liberal reading of the RAW, Pun-pun could be granted the following ability:

quote:

Manipulate Form

At will, a sarrukh can modify the form of any Scaled One native to Toril, except for aquatic and undead creatures. With a successful touch attack, it can cause one alteration of its choice in the target creature's body. The target falls unconscious for 2d4 rounds due to the shock of changing form. A successful DC 22 Fortitude save negates both the change and the unconsciousness. Sarrukh are immune to this effect.

A sarrukh may use this ability to change a minor aspect of the target creature, such as the shape of its head or the color of its scales. It may also choose to make a much more significant alteration, such as converting limbs into tentacles, changing the overall body shape (snake to humanoid, for example), or adding or removing an appendage. Any ability score may be decreased to a minimum of 1 or increased to a maximum equal to the sarrukh's corresponding score. A sarrukh may also grant the target an extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability or remove one from it.

The change bestowed takes effect immediately and is permanent. Furthermore, the alterations are automatically passed on to all the creature's offspring when it breeds with another of its unmodified kind.

Eventually, through many many uses of this ability, Pun-pun gets an infinite amount of all six ability scores, as well as every single ability, action, and attack that exists in the universe. He has infinite clones. He can kill the entire universe with but a thought. He has gone back in time to kill everyone else who has gone back in time to stop him before he ascends, and he did it before they did. He did this at level 5.

And now, he's done it at level 1.

quote:

Behold Pun-Pun, the mighty kobold.

*** UPDATE ***

Ascension is now achievable (and has been for years... sorry) at level 1. All you need is the will and the know-how. Here's how:

1. Make sure that your alignment is not CE. LG would work best. You want to benefit the multiverse and there is no better way to do that than for it to be like puddy in your hands.
2. You need a Knowledge check of 25 to know that you can summon Pazazu like Beetlejuice. As a Psion with a Sage Psicrystal, an 18 Intelligence, the Skill Focus feat, four ranks in Knowledge (The Planes) and a masterwork item of relevance (say a book), you can take 10 to get 25. It's ok that you got bullied as a child for your narrow focus and strange fascination in all things relating to the planes. It will pay off in the end.
3. Summon Pazuzu by calling out his name three times. He'll appear and be like "Yo! What the hell?!?! What do you want Mor-tal? Power? I can give it!" You'll look all calm and not impressed and be like "I'd prefer a Lawful Evil aligned Candle of Invocation". "There is a price!" the demon lord will scream. "You must go closer to EV-ILL!!!" "Ok" you will say. "I shall be Neutral Good from now on." Pazuzu shouts "If you're going to stick with the one shift limit I would greatly prefer that you shifted to Lawful Neutral over Neutral Good!!!" You will look as if this is a deal breaker and you are ready to leave, then say "You're a real ballbuster but we have a deal."

Now you have your candle.
4. Use the Candle to Gate in an Efreeti. He is under your control so you will command him to grant you three wishes. The first is to Plane Shift to the Astral Plane. The second is for another Candle of Invocation. The third is to stop George Lucas from moving forward on Indiana Jones 5.
5. Use the Candle to Gate in a Sarruhk. Command him to grant you Manipulate Form through the use of Manipulate Form.

Ascend.

People have been arguing about the legality of this build forever, from both a RAW and a RAI perspective. I don't imagine the arguments will ever end.

But if they do, it will be because Pun-pun willed it.

Paper Kaiju
Dec 5, 2010

atomic breadth

quote:

The third is to stop George Lucas from moving forward on Indiana Jones 5.

Why would anyone do this; I thought we were working to benefit the multiverse? Why wouldn't we instead go back and have him killed before Indiana Jones 4, and the Star Wars prequels?

Content: My favorite broken combo from 3.5 was the Locate City Nuke, or 'How a 7th-level wizard can level entire cities with a Level 1 Divination spell'.

quote:

1: Take Locate City, a spell with an area of ten miles per level
2: Apply Snowcasting to it, making it a Cold spell
3: Apply Flash Frost to it, making it deal 2 Cold damage to everything in the area
4: Apply Energy Substitution to it, making it an Electric spell
5: Apply Born of the Three Thunders to it, allowing a reflex save to avoid the damage and changing the damage type
6: Apply Explosive Spell to it, forcing a second Reflex save to avoid being blasted to the edge of the area and 1d6 per 10 feet traveled

At level 7, the radius of Locate City is 369,600 ft. So anything at the center is taking 36,900d6(+2) damage.

Gau
Nov 18, 2003

I don't think you understand, Gau.
Also, make certain you cast fly or at least feather fall on yourself before you cast it, because in some interpretations Locate City works in all three dimensions (it will locate cities in the Underdark, for example). The Locate City bomb instantaneously creates a seventy-mile wide/deep, nearly perfectly spherical crater. (The bottom would be flattened by a few inches, to account for stone's 8 Hardness.)

None of that really matters, though. For reference, the Earth's crust is 20-40 miles thick - after that, you get into the upper mantle. You know, the lava part. The Locate City bomb isn't a nuke, it's a loving Earth-shattering doomsday device.

Gau fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Feb 24, 2013

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!
In room 14 of the original Tomb Of Horrors, characters who go through a particular archway have their sex and alignment reversed by a curse. If you don't go back through the archway, the only way to restore your alignment is by Alter Reality or Wish.

The description also states:

E Gary Gygax posted:

Prior to alignment restoration, no spells other than those stated will affect the cursed character.

quote:

no spells other than those stated will affect the cursed character

So for an alignment swap (which you can probably live with unless you're a paladin) and a sex change (which you might even come to enjoy), you get immunity to all spells except Alter Reality and Wish. Might be worth just leaving the tomb for good at that point.

Paper Kaiju
Dec 5, 2010

atomic breadth

Gau posted:

None of that really matters, though. For reference, the Earth's crust is 20-40 miles thick - after that, you get into the upper mantle. You know, the lava part. The Locate City bomb isn't a nuke, it's a loving Earth-shattering doomsday device.

...even better. :getin:

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
In its attempt to simulate every human frailty ever (so you could be better with swords), GURPS 3rd Edition had rules for back pain, aka the "Bad Back" disadvantage.

If you have a bad back, attempting to exert Strength in any way gives a 50% chance of throwing your back out, for the average person. If you have a severe condition, that increases to roughly 75%.

Also if you're using the Bad Back rules, any character making any type of Strength check has roughly a 0.002% chance of throwing out their back, regardless of their Strength or Health, whenever they make any Strength check.

Thankfully, I believe this is a ruling 0.000% of players actually used.

Zemyla
Aug 6, 2008

I'll take her off your hands. Pleasure doing business with you!
D&D 3.5 and Magic both have infinite combos by the dozens. Pun-Pun's just one of the D&D ones, and even as recently as Scars block, combo decks like Exarch Twin have brought the pain in Standard.

However, in both D&D and Magic, people have decided to come up with the largest amount of damage you can deal without it being infinite. The difference being with an infinite combo, you can deal any amount of damage you want, whereas with these, you can only deal up to a certain non-infinite amount.

These are both exceedingly hard to describe, but are fortunately described on separate webpages.

The D&D combo uses multiple fate link loops, cloning using the Wu Jen spell body outside body, symbiotes from Magic of Eberron by the hundreds and thousands (all cloned by body outside body as well), and just using the Mental Resistance feat to make sure it doesn't go infinite. Its damage winds up being (2.5*10^36530)^^73600, where x^^y is x^(x^(x^...^x)), where there are y xs. The base number is much larger than the number of particles in the universe, and with the number of tetrations it undergoes, it quickly becomes unimaginably large.

The Magic combo, on the other hand, uses many token copies of Doubling Season, Mirari, Rings of Brighthearth, and many other cards coming together to form a series of loops that can't be infinite, since each loop element can reset only smaller loop elements, not larger ones.

Each loop layer adds one or more ^s to the final expression, giving the final result of 2^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^30 damage, a number that dwarfs the first one the way the first one dwarfs the money in your pocket.

Idran
Jan 13, 2005
Grimey Drawer
Well, if we're going to get fancy here, let's get really fancy. Magic the Gathering is Turing complete. That is, it's possible to implement a two-state Turing machine in Magic that uses nothing but in-game mechanics, without modifying the rules of Magic. (Though it would probably be fairly difficult to set up in-play. :v: )

Caros
May 14, 2008

My absolute favorite is the D&D Psionic power Fusion.

If you've watched Dragonball Z you have a pretty good idea of what this power does. You add the HP together, pool spells, class features, take the best of every stat and so forth. So you fuse a psion and a warrior and you have someone who is exceptional in both areas of expertise for example. Its actually kinda useful for duels and things like that.

As with Dragonball the big limitation is that the creature must be your size, type and willing. Well... all except that last one. You see, in D&D unconscious creatures are considered willing. This means that if you can knock it unconscious you can add it to your power. To carry the previous comparison you are now Majin Buu.

There are some flaws with it of course, most notably the short timer on fusion and the XP cost. The timer is less of an issue if you abuse one of the many ways to pump your caster level, and the XP issue can be avoided either by making the ability supernatural by some means, or if you make the assumption that the fused character can spend the victim's XP.

It actually makes for a pretty fun overarching threat that can't be directly combated, a creature that goes from town to town absorbing everyone it comes in contact with. The PC's can't even dispel the fusion because if they do they will kill most of the people involved as they are pushed through the astral plane until finding an empty square, at 1d6 damage per 5 feet.

Pidmon
Mar 18, 2009

NO ONE risks painful injury on your GREEN SLIME GHOST POGO RIDE.

No one but YOU.
Is there no psionic version of Permamancy?

Caros
May 14, 2008

Pidmon posted:

Is there no psionic version of Permamancy?

There is but you'd need DM permission as Permanency is a real bitch on what can and cannot be made permanent.

Glagha
Oct 13, 2008

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAaaAAAaaAAaAA
AAAAAAAaAAAAAaaAAA
AAAA
AaAAaaA
AAaaAAAAaaaAAAAAAA
AaaAaaAAAaaaaaAA

Well, this one is old and well known and not all that amazing but it's one of those goofy rules things that bears mentioning in this thread.



You see this guy? You see the abilities he has? For one, note that this bird for some reason has the ability to prevent healing, and guarantee that a dead creature will never return to life. That's not the important part though. Notice what it can't do?

Fly.

Magic has a few keyworded abilities, one of which is Flying, which for non-magic players out there means the creature can't be defended against by non-flying creatures. This bird, which is known to fly, can't. Not only that, but it's seen flying in the card art! So yeah, turns out whippoorwills can't fly.

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

Glagha posted:


You see this guy? You see the abilities he has? For one, note that this bird for some reason has the ability to prevent healing, and guarantee that a dead creature will never return to life. That's not the important part though. Notice what it can't do?
Weren't whipporwills considered an ominous sign in The Dunwich Horror? Like superstitions related to death?

I may be mixing up my Lovecraft...

Chamale
Jul 11, 2010

I'm helping!



Glagha posted:

Well, this one is old and well known and not all that amazing but it's one of those goofy rules things that bears mentioning in this thread.



You see this guy? You see the abilities he has? For one, note that this bird for some reason has the ability to prevent healing, and guarantee that a dead creature will never return to life. That's not the important part though. Notice what it can't do?

Fly.

Magic has a few keyworded abilities, one of which is Flying, which for non-magic players out there means the creature can't be defended against by non-flying creatures. This bird, which is known to fly, can't. Not only that, but it's seen flying in the card art! So yeah, turns out whippoorwills can't fly.

I've tried to avoid the bizarre things that can happen through elaborate schemes in Magic (even other Magic players just stare blankly when I explain some of the tricks), but there are some great little errors in communicating between the card designers and their artists. The most famous of which is this:



A lemure is a vengeful spirit of the dead. A lemur is a cute primate that lives in Madagascar. The artist drew a lemur, and with the print deadline approaching the editors had no choice but to add claws and wings to his illustration.



Alchor was a powerful wizard living in the world of the Legends expansion. Unfortunately, the artist misread "Alchor's Tome" as "Alchor's Tomb" and drew a grave. Wizards of the Coast didn't have time to commission new art before the print deadline, so they killed Alchor off in order to keep his tomb in the set.

Note that these mistakes happened a long time ago. Nowadays the designers are much more careful to communicate clearly with the artists, although we occasionally get homages to old mistakes.

Bugsy
Jul 15, 2004

I'm thumpin'. That's
why they call me
'Thumper'.


Slippery Tilde

dwarf74 posted:

Weren't whipporwills considered an ominous sign in The Dunwich Horror? Like superstitions related to death?

I may be mixing up my Lovecraft...

I dont know specifically about Lovecraft, but Whip-poor-wills were considered Psychopomps which kind of relates to the awkwardly templated magic card.

TheGreySpectre
Sep 18, 2012

You let the wolves in. Why would you do that?
Has anyone tried running a one off rules lawyering dungeon crawl (only applicable to tabletop for obvious reasons)? I would hate it if it happened all the time but it seems like with a decent amount of beer a dungeon crawl based off of the premise "rule lawyer the most ridiculous character possible" could be kind of fun.

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
Well, I'd imagine one guy picks Punpun and everyone else has to stare at each other for three hours.

Countblanc
Apr 20, 2005

Help a hero out!
Yeah the problem is that a lot of the broken things are really broken, to the point where they invalidate anything that you could possibly do for fun. When you're able to do literally anything as often as you want then even "slay the gods" loses its luster. It's fun to theorycraft and joke about, but not really play.

Of course some games have done a good job making "broken" mean "does twice as much damage" rather than "wills all the universe's evil out of existence and then back again in a 12 second time span," but even those systems aren't always immune (see the warlock who could teleport the sun in 4e).

e: like consider cheat codes in video games; The fun ones are poo poo that lets you have the super cool weapons at the start of the game, makes enemies behave in weird ways, or things like that. Beyond the novelty of seeing the credits, a "warp to the end boss and be invincible" code wouldn't really be fun to use, and even that isn't really an accurate portrayal of some of these characters since you still have to actually aim your gun.

Countblanc fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Feb 25, 2013

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

TheGreySpectre posted:

Has anyone tried running a one off rules lawyering dungeon crawl (only applicable to tabletop for obvious reasons)? I would hate it if it happened all the time but it seems like with a decent amount of beer a dungeon crawl based off of the premise "rule lawyer the most ridiculous character possible" could be kind of fun.

Look up Hackmaster.

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Opinion Haver
Apr 9, 2007

Chamale posted:

I've tried to avoid the bizarre things that can happen through elaborate schemes in Magic (even other Magic players just stare blankly when I explain some of the tricks)

if there's any place these things belong, it's here.

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