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I've also been reading Advanced 5e, and have Some Thoughts on it. Are you planning on doing a full review, or is this just a quick check-in on the fighter?
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Nov 15, 2022 19:47
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Kaza42 posted:I've also been reading Advanced 5e, and have Some Thoughts on it. Are you planning on doing a full review, or is this just a quick check-in on the fighter? I'm not gonna do a full review. I might post some more thoughts and excerpts, but my benchmark for a D&D-alike is "is the Fighter interesting?" and I'm going to give this a yes without necessarily reading the whole thing.
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Nov 15, 2022 23:15
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Cooked Auto posted:I think you mean another one since there was that Wendy's RPG. I'm holding out for the Build-A-Bear™ branded werebear build content.
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Nov 16, 2022 08:40
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 Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords session 3 The Hook Mountain Massacre  The third iconic, Merisiel, the first and only nonhuman of this initial group, she's the elf rogue. She likes knives. Here's also a first look at the Pathfinder ogres, which look more human than standard 3.x (I'm looking at Todd Lockwood's ogre which is much more bestial) but also more grotesque. My initial impulse, aren't ogres a little below the party at this point? The PCs are expected to come in at 7th level, ogres are CR 3. Yeah, you can use a lot of them, or give them class levels, but maybe try something more fantastical? Cutting your teeth on goblins is expected, ghouls and cultists are fine for early levels, but now ogres? Maybe you ship them off to a later, lower level adventure. You're getting short humans, dead humans, and now big humans. Reading James Jacobs' editor's note, I probably thought it was edgy and enticing 15 years ago. Now I read it and cringe. quote:I have no one to blame but myself. He also gets into movies as inspiration, listing Deliverance and Texas Chainsaw Massacre as other sources. He asks if it's less legit to use modern-setting stories as inspiration, unlike Gygax's Appendix N of classic fantasy stories. And no, I don't think it makes anything less legitimate, I think there's plenty of material that could get adopted and shoved into D&D. My problem here is this comes across as less horror and more just gross for grossness sake. Like trying to make people scream by shoving a bug or snake at them, or showing a dead animal with maggots. quote:When the hearth fires burn low in the dead of night, people whisper grim tales Horrific lusts. Gee, I wonder what that means :/ Back story is kept to just a page and a half. "The inbred ogres of the Kreeg clanhold have long menaced the unfortunate or foolhardy folk who struggle to survive in the shadow of Hook Mountain." Well, that's a promising start. The ogres would raid into the village of Turtleback Ferry, so maybe don't put your village there. They call out for help, Magnimar sets up Fort Rannick to protect the village (which will then pay taxes) and provides a group of rangers, the Order of the Black Arrows. First time the ogres come raiding back down, they get run off with lots of losses. There are skirmishes over the next 45 years, but no major battles. Then a stone giant necromancer, Barl Breakbones shows up. The ogres attack as is their nature, Barl kills several and raises them back up as his servants until the ogres surrender (the son of the slain chieftain looking over the broken bodies of "brother-sons"). Barl puts them to work forging massive weapons and shields from iron, because you know the most natural blacksmiths are inbred ogre raiders. The rangers do investigate all the plumes of smoke from the forges, but their spies get seen and killed (favored enemy doesn't add to hide/move silently). Barl sends the ogres to attack, as revenge and so his plans don't get found out. The ogres had help. Barl was working directly for Lucrecia, another lamia matriarch. She'd set up a gambling den in Turtleback Ferry, gave frequent gamblers a special tattoo that gave cheaper entrance to the den and other benefits. Of course this was the sihedron tattoo, as she was setting up greedy souls to feed to the runewells. She also charmed one of the rangers, so was able to use him to facilitate the attack on Fort Rannick. The massacre of the title apparently refers to this fight, where, "dozens" of rangers were slaughtered. We'll get to the ogre stats when we get to them, but even a man on the inside, I'm dubious. The order had been described as veteran rangers, if they kept up their numbers and training, and expecting them to have Favored Enemy Giants, they should have still been able to hold. Lucrecia sinks her gambling den (built out of an old ship) and moves into the fort. The survivors get captured by the "horrifically inbred" Grauls, a family of ogrekin (half-ogres). The PCs will have to head in, free the survivors, free the fort, stop a flood, and end the ogre menace. While adventure 2 followed tightly after adventure 1, this one counsels giving some downtime for creating magic items and such. So hope you read this before you had the mayor drop the plot hook after the Skinsaw Murders. The season has advanced to winter (Burnt Offerings kicked off on the first day of fall). There's been no communication from Fort Rannick for a while, the mayor of Magnimar is willing to pay some new heroes to check it out. And payment for travel time and services rendered 300 gp. Each! With a Diplomacy 30 check he can be talked up to 600 gp. At least the skill check isn't the only ridiculous thing here! (You could conceivably have a +15 to diplomacy, so only need to pull off a roll of 15+. Not great odds, but 30% is something. Not that any of the pregens are trained in diplomacy...) Under 3.5 rules, a 7th level character is expected to have a wealth of 19,000 gp. Reaching 8th level, they'll go up to 27,000. The 300 gp offered is so miniscule. Sure, it's a hook, there's undoubtably treasure at the other end, and I expect players to meet the DM halfway; the DM's been prepping this adventure, the PCs should try to get involved with it because that's what they signed up for. But sending them off on a journey with the only carrot essentially cab fare, that's putting a bit too much on the players to accommodate. If that's all it's worth, let the mayor hire some lower level adventurers while the crew stalks out something more lucrative closer by. Because I'm not kidding about a journey. From the intro, I'm expecting the fort to be fairly close, close enough that Magnimar heard their need and sent rangers. Well, if you wanted to give people a chance to level up some more, random encounters along the way might do it, because we're looking at a 450 mile trip! That about 100 miles longer than driving across South Dakota, and you don't have a car and the interstate. The adventure helpfully provides that it's a 19 day trip by foot at 30 feet movement (but Kyra and Valeros wear heavy armor, reducing speed to 20 feet. They could take off the armor, but that leaves them vulnerable to wandering monsters). Horseback at 60 feet movement, 9 days. Or pay 50 gp each to take a barge up river, which is a week of travel time. So again, a tiny price for adventurers. But for a commoner? A trained hireling's base pay is 3sp a day, so 166 days of labor would afford passage on the barge. Before they depart, Shalelu, the elf ranger who will soon suffer a severe abdominal wound, reappears.  In case you forgot, the adventure reminds you she might have joined against the goblins or started a romantic relationship with one of the PCs (a relationship born of mutual love of nature and slaughtering goblins- no, really!). I had to go back to Burnt Offerings to see, yeah, these are mentioned as possible in one sentence, after stating that she should be a recurring NPC to keep the players invested in the area, along with a few others. She'd like to join up with the PCs, whether as a girlfriend, as a cohort to someone who took the leadership feat, or just as some extra archery support. She has a personal reason for coming- one of the rangers, Jakardros, was her mother's lover, until a dragon attack killed her mother and the ranger left, leaving Shalelu with daddy issues. Bringing her along previously would have meant some extra work for the DM, as her stats were "Elf" and "Ranger/Fighter 2/1". She's leveled up to 3/2, which is either too long or too short a dip into ranger. She's a decent archer, though her favored enemy goblinoid is not going to do much for her this trip. We get some information on the area and possible other adventures, but again, I bought this to have a ready-made adventure, not to make my own. Turtleback Ferry, there's not much to find right now. Lucrecia took any evidence out of her gambling den before sinking it. Oh, there's a chance to spot the Sihedron rune tattooed on people with a ... 30 spot check. loving hell. Looking at the pregens, Merisiel has a decent Spot at +11 (she also has the highest skill with Jump at +16, and I'm reminded that D&D 3.5 was a ridiculous game with separate skills for Climb, Jump, and Swim. There are a few +14s among the crew). So of the pregens, Merisiel has a 10% chance to catch someone, bent over, their clothing riding up or slipping down to reveal the tattoo; a character focused on Spot might bring this up to a 25% chance. Checking the SRD for guidelines, a Skill Check of 30 is a Heroic difficulty, the example given is jumping 30 feet (which, real world, edges out any long jump world records). Well, this is a rare mark, right? You have to be good and lucky to find someone bearing the rune. Not exactly- there are 210 people tattooed, in a town of 430. But, if the PCs make this Heroic roll, they get from it... well, the knowledge that the owner of a gambling den was marking a lot of her customers, but as she's apparently dead and the den sunk, it's more a curiosity than a clue. The DM knows that's 200 souls headed to the Runewell, when the town floods, but I wonder if the players make the connection. A week ago, the people of the ferry sent a patrol up to the fort, but no one returned. "Eventually, the PCs should make their way north to Fort Rannick to see for themselves what’s happened there." Well, yeah, that's the hook that was used to pull them in. So once they're done playing Where's Waldo and searching for clues that don't exist, they head on to the fort. But before they get there, they make a listen check. The bear is the animal companion of Jakardros. After escaping the slaughter at the fort, Jakardros and his bros managed to get captured by the Graul, the inbred clan of half-ogres... sorry, ogrekin mentioned in the intro. Sucks to be them. I'll have more on the Graul soon. But this is our first taste of a clan gleefully described as "ogrish hillbilly horror."  Rukus is the hunter, ugly and stupid because he's evil, and deformed because he's inbred, the picture being accurate, he has just one big finger for the right hand, giving a -2 penalty on attack rolls with two handed weapons (it looks like he's wielding the spear two-handed). To balance that, he also is +4 on intimidate. The PCs should see the bear first, and a DC 15 handle animal, knowledge nature, or wild empathy check will identify it as a trained animal companion. Think the pregens have any of these skills? I was going to say I hope they recruited Shalelu, but she didn't put points in either. The bear is stuck in a bear trap, which can be opened with a 28 strength check (adding up modifiers for the party including Shalelu, I come up with +6, but I don't recall how rules for combined effort work) or a DC 20 disable device- Merisiel can do that 50% of the time. The players get a few rounds to prepare, then Rukus' dogs arrive, followed by Rukus. The dogs are so much trash, one fireball and... oh, they didn't give Seoni fireball, she gets Lightning Bolt instead. Well, maybe she can line up some dogs. Rukus is a bit tougher as a level 6 fighter. He announces "“I’s huntin’ bear! No concern o’ you’s less you’s wanna be hunted too!” (Rukus has Intelligence and Wisdom of 10, completely average). Rukus doesn't wear armor, and while he hits hard, action economy says he loses fast. If reduced to half HP, he tries running home. If he succeeds, he's easy to track back. If he dies here, the bear will attempt to guide the party back. If the bear also dies, a DC 10 search check reveals the path to the Graul homestead. But- what are the Graul even doing here? I get that trying to genocide the ogres of Hook Mountain is difficult, it's not great terrain to try to bring numbers in, probably dangerous, so yeah, set up a fort to keep them penned up that way. The Graul, on the other hand, live in the Kreegwood, the forest between Fort Rannick and Turtleback Ferry. They're about 20 miles away from the fort, not that far off the path from the road between fort and village. And these aren't just simple misunderstood brutes, the Graul are killers, thieves, sadists, and probably rapists. They're described as notorious by being one of the more disgusting bands of ogrekin, and one of the braver clans as they live so near to humans. They snatch lone trappers and hunters, and no one ever suspects. Really? They've been at this for decades, no one ever poked around? Not a group of rangers that have a hard-on for killing giants, which the ogrekin qualify as (fine, I'm assuming here, but it makes sense that the Order of the Black Arrow, described as rangers, each member has at least one level of ranger and takes Giant as Favored Enemy). In all this time, no one's gone a little off the path to search for a missing hunter and found this place? The matriarch of the clan is Mammy Graul, and right away that is a loaded word. Carries a lot of history that I only deploy it with sensitivity. So what does the adventure say of her?  But before getting into the house, there's another Graul brother who likes the outdoors, Crowfood.  He's evil and gross, that's great, right? Tactics as they are, he'll go full power attack, making him +8/+3 to hit but doing 1d12+22 if he succeeds. He'll do this until he misses both attacks, then switch to normal attacks. Crowfood is a higher CR than his brother, bring a Rogue 4/Fighter 3. Um. The rogue levels mean Crowfood has the same number of HP as Rukus. And again we have a rogue encountered alone. Maybe his evasion will come in handy, but not sneak attack. The house is described like a nightmarish hillbilly home, with big insects, a rocking chair, and windchimes made of humanoid bones. The place is filled with traps, which just seem like the Grauls would be catching themselves on. Other family members: Maulgro and Lucky, full grown but act like children. Maulgro has malformed legs and has to crawl around; he dreams of getting his mom to fix his legs so he can join the Kreeg ogres and dance the skull jig, but she likes watching him crawl. Lucky's limbs bend in strange ways, but he's otherwise human-looking. So Mom Graul doesn't like him, often leaving him in the same clothes for days so he smells of his own waste. The party may feel bad about killing these two, but their skull collection speaks to them not being nice children. Muck Graul was the most handsome of the clan, then he tortured a nymph who cursed him into becoming a plant monster when she died. Hucker is the eldest child, a Barbarian/Rogue 1/5, who has a vestigial twin growing out of his neck (granting a bonus on Will saves). He's responsible for all the traps, but doesn't come to check when he hears them sprung, assuming it's his brothers. He has two donkey rat companions, so at least he can manage sneak attack. I would have thought raging would prevent sneak attack, or maybe using a two-handed weapon, but I don't see any restrictions. Hograth, Sugar, and Jeppo are three more brothers, nothing really remarkable about them, each with a deformity giving a minor benefit and penalty. And finally, Mammy Graul  Her deformity is her "thick layers of blubber" providing +3 natural armor and -4 dexterity, so a slight benefit, except for tanking her touch AC (a 7, Seoni is going crazy with scorching ray here). She'll be upset that her boys let intruders in, and her screams of rage are enough to scare away any remaining Graul from joining the fight. She is a necromancer, and has three sons raised as zombies to assist her. Success against the Graul means freeing three of the Black Arrow Rangers, the last survivors of a long-range patrol that survived the initial assault by not being at the fort.  Jarkadros was second-in-command of the Black Arrows and the person Shalelu is seeking. He's also the return of the artist from Burnt Offerings who uses lots of lines. He's a man with regrets and a bit of deathwish, although reuniting with his lover's daughter brings out the protective father-figure in him. With him are Vale, a ranger/fighter, and Kaven, a ranger/rogue who was charmed by Lucrecia. Kaven gave up all the secrets to the fort, then made sure he was on the long-range patrol when the attack was happening, and caused delays so that they wouldn't be there in time to aid against the attack. The patrol did try to take the fort back, were repelled, and then captured by the Graul as they fled. We get some history on the order. It's similar to the Night's Watch in A Song of Ice and Fire; charged with protecting against a northern enemy, their reinforcements are often criminals given the choice of life here or in a jail. With the rangers freed and healed, they're looking for direction, and all are willing to aid in re-taking the fort (Kaven needs to roll a bluff check, but with +14 he can probably fool the party). I'm going to split this into two again, with the attack on Fort Rannick, and beyond, following later.
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Nov 16, 2022 10:17
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My only thought when reading that preface was:  And the rest isn't all that great either, but that's to be expected by now.
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Nov 16, 2022 13:39
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I liked the part where the guy in charge was like “and then I toned it down, but only so thst my writer would not be institutionalized, because that’s funny to me”
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Nov 16, 2022 14:28
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I uttered an audible profanity when I came to "All of them."
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Nov 16, 2022 15:59
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Please stop trying to recreate 'the Hills Have Eyes' , we've had enough of this sort of thing.
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Nov 16, 2022 16:09
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srhall79 posted:
Garth Marenghi's Pathfinder posted:He whisked off her shoes and panties in one movement, wild like an enraged wereshark (Bar1/Rog4). His bulky lion totem barbarian beating a seductive rhythm vs Will. Mary's body felt like it was burning, even though the room was properly air-conditioned and she had a high constitution modifier. They tried all the positions - on top, blink doggy, and normal.
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Nov 16, 2022 16:35
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Nov 16, 2022 16:37
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On initial readings, I think my brain saved me from noticing "the notorious female".
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Nov 16, 2022 20:01
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stuff that cites hills have eyes and texas chainsaw massacre as influences always miss the major themes of those movies. the cannibals aren't the way they are because they're innately evil, they're people who've become degraded by the actions of the world around them (nuclear testing and abandonment by the govt in hills have eyes, the decline of non-megascale farming & small rural towns in TCM). they're people whove been mistreated and abandoned by the wider world and have ended up depraved partially out of isolation and partially to survive. the major theme is the idea of the beneficiaries of a society (hippy teens in one case and a white picket fence suburbs family in the other) ironically falling prey to the rejects of that same society. its like the kid from Omelas breaking out and eating people. but the ogres here are just uhh evil i guess? because they're evil? and gross.
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Nov 17, 2022 07:48
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srhall79 posted:On initial readings, I think my brain saved me from noticing "the notorious female". Notorious A.F.A.B.
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Nov 17, 2022 10:58
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Most notorious female that comes to my mind is Margret Thatcher and I don't feel like including her in any game. Rot in piss.
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Nov 17, 2022 11:26
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I'm sure FATAL has all the rules you'd need to piss on Thatcher's grave
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Nov 17, 2022 12:33
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I mean someone did a pretty great Doom mod with her as the final boss though.
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Nov 17, 2022 12:35
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Cooked Auto posted:I mean someone did a pretty great Doom mod with her as the final boss though. https://mobile.twitter.com/dandouglas/status/1576849683015573508
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Nov 17, 2022 13:08
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juggalo baby coffin posted:stuff that cites hills have eyes and texas chainsaw massacre as influences always miss the major themes of those movies. the cannibals aren't the way they are because they're innately evil, they're people who've become degraded by the actions of the world around them (nuclear testing and abandonment by the govt in hills have eyes, the decline of non-megascale farming & small rural towns in TCM). they're people whove been mistreated and abandoned by the wider world and have ended up depraved partially out of isolation and partially to survive. the major theme is the idea of the beneficiaries of a society (hippy teens in one case and a white picket fence suburbs family in the other) ironically falling prey to the rejects of that same society. its like the kid from Omelas breaking out and eating people. I think the best quick summary of this I've seen is "These people are chewing you up and spitting you out, just like your society did to them."
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Nov 17, 2022 13:21
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 Level Up: Advanced 5th edition Adventurer’s Guide Part 1 Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition (LU from here on) is an attempt by En World to create a semi-backwards compatible “new edition” for D&D 5e, filling the same role that Pathfinder did to 3.5e. I’m going to be reviewing it in that light, as a replacement for 5e. This means I will be grading it on somewhat of a heavy curve, given the many issues with 5e. I will try to focus on highlighting areas it does better or worse than 5e, rather than issues that bring it down relative to the field of RPGs. System To start with, I want to mention some system differences. I’m going to assume most people are familiar with D&D 5e at this point and focus on what it does differently. A few important concepts: Expertise Dice: When you gain Expertise on a roll, you add 1d4 to the total. If you already had Expertise, you instead upgrade the die size, from 1d4->1d6->1d8. Any additional expertise once you have a d8 is lost, unless you have an ability that says otherwise. Combat Maneuvers: Basically martial spells, special abilities you can use to Do Cool Things in combat. They are almost entirely combat focused, with only a few utility options, and are powered by Exertion, a pool that martial characters get. Combat Maneuvers are broken into 5 degrees (basically spell levels), and 11 Traditions. Classes will give access to a finite selection of Maneuvers across a limited number of Traditions. Each Tradition has 4 1st degree, 3 2nd-4th degree, and 2 5th degree options. Supply: A unified system for tracking if you have enough food/water. A typical person requires 1 supply per day. If you don’t have enough Supply, you start taking Fatigue until you get to eat or you die. Many class abilities and spells will interact with this system. Bloodied: Taken from 4e, this means you’re at or below half health. So without further ado, I will start us off in the Adventurer’s Guide Introduction What is an RPG, etc. etc. basics of how to roll etc. Two things stand out in this chapter. First, it claims that the game is built on three pillars, each of which have equal priority: Combat, Exploration, Social Interaction. This is a lie, since like every D&D game the rules for Combat are much more in depth than the others. But they do put in some work to making Exploration not trivial in another book (Trials & Treasures) Second, it has a section on Safety and Accessibility. While standard in most non-awful RPGs at this point, the game does have some built in elements to address this, which we’ll discuss later. Chapter 1: Character Creation & Chapter 2: Origins Chapter 1 is mostly just serving as an overview for how you will be making your character, presenting few of the options you’ll be selecting. Ability scores and proficiency bonus and level will all work as expected from 5e, but where it differs significantly is the Origins system. Rather than a Race and Background, you now have a Heritage (species), Culture (where and how you were raised), and Background (What you did before becoming a murderhobo). Most notably, Background is where you find all of the ability score modifiers. Heritage abilities and traits are mostly things that would genuinely be innate to a species (such as darkvision or size or dragonbreath), with Culture and Background providing most of your proficiencies. I’ll start us off with the Heritages today, and cover Cultures and Backgrounds in the next part. All Heritages give a set of innate traits, and then usually let you pick between 1-3 other traits (called Gifts). Then, at level 10 you get an upgraded Paragon Gift. You can represent mixed-blood characters by choosing a Gift from a species other than your base one, with Narrator approval. So a Half-Elf could either have Human traits and an Elf Gift, or Elf traits and a Human gift.  Dragonborn were created by ancient dragons as servants, soldiers and sometimes even as children. Their coloration and appearance is based on the type of dragon their creator/ancestor was. LU has four types of dragons, adding Essence and Gem dragons to the mix. Your basic traits are being Medium, movement 30ft, and a scaling breath attack. The options for Gifts are either draconic scales/claws that give bonus armor, elemental resistance and a basic unarmed attack; fins that give you swim speed and longer holding-breath, slightly worse armor than the scales, and darkvision that gets better underwater; or wings that let you fly while not wearing medium or heavy armor, at the cost of fatigue. At Paragon, you can get better claws and armor, better flying, or be able to breathe, swim faster, and see further underwater. You also gain resistance (or upgrade resistance to immunity) to the element your breath attack deals. While the Wings stand out as a powerful pick, the other two aren’t bad. Elemental resistance is great to have, and the underwater option at least comes with darkvision and decent natural armor. I think Dragonborn are one of the better designed Heritages.  Dwarves are Medium, 25 foot speed, darkvision, +1 hp per level. More interesting is that they count time spent crafting as rest. Not super important for an adventurer, but says fascinating things about the implied setting. Their choices are an expertise die against being knocked prone or shoved, or a bonus action for 1d10+level health and expertise and resistance against poison. At Paragon, you either get the ability to slam the ground to make difficult terrain, knock prone and break concentration in an aoe (hits friendlies), or the ability to spend a hit die to regain 1 health after passing a death saving throw. The poison option for dwarves feels like a clear winner, and the earthquake hitting allies (and yourself, RAW) means the death ability feels stronger. But the options aren’t exactly weak, even if there’s a winner. Dwarves also get approval.  While the art in this game isn’t always the best, I give them props for good representation. Elves are Medium, 30 foot speed, darkvision, expertise against charm and can’t be put to sleep, trance instead of sleep. But the elf Gifts are all wild. Either proficiency in arcana and 30 foot telepathy, proficiency in perception and +wisdom to initiative AND immunity to being surprised while conscious, or the ability to roll a d20 once per rest (short or long) and use your reaction to replace someone’s d20 with that result after they roll. At Paragon, they either ignore half cover, light obscure, and long range penalties, gain infinite range darkvision, or the ability to cast Detect Thoughts. ALL of these gifts are stronger than the other Heritages we’ve seen so far, and their Paragon bonuses are also great. The d20 manipulation is the strongest though, as anyone who has played with a Diviner will know. Overall, elves are definitely overpowered.  Gnomes are small, 25 foot speed, have darkvision, expertise on mental saves against magic, and know minor illusion as a cantrip. They can either gain +1AC against larger creatures or the ability to turn invisible once per rest for one turn (either as a bonus action or a reaction to taking damage). At Paragon, they gain expertise on one physical save against magic. Gnomes are pretty underwhelming, except for the invisibility. And I guess most things are bigger, so an untyped +1AC is nothing to sneeze at if you’re going melee.  Halflings are small, 25 foot speed, immune to fear, can move through the spaces of larger creatures, and get to reroll 1s on d20s. Their gifts let them either burrow (burrow speed 10, claw attack), get expertise against prone and immunity to damage and difficult terrain caused by sharp things (like caltrops or spikes), or gain darkvision and telepathy. At Paragon, their luck lets them reroll 1-3 instead of just 1. I like halflings overall. The Twilight-Touched darkvision and telepathy option is kinda weird, but they’re nice and flavorful and not overpowered.  Humans are not boring jack of all trades! While they are medium, 30 foot move, with a bonus skill proficiency, they also have actual traits beyond “pick 1 more thing”. They get to gain expertise on one roll per rest, and for their Gifts can choose between: Can go longer without Supply and only die after 4 failed death saves instead of 3, get to reroll Concentration checks up to Intelligence times per long rest and get two bonus tool proficiencies or a knowledge proficiency, which you can never roll less than a 10 on, or the ability to Dash (still taking an Action) that ignores opportunity attacks and gives you expertise on Acrobatics and Dexterity saves and the ability to ignore fatigue once per long rest (not counting fatigue from lack of supply) and expertise against fatigue from forced march. At Paragon, you either get the ability to auto roll a 20 on an attack once per rest while bloodied, +10 speed and ignore difficult terrain while dashing and creatures you hit can’t make opportunity attacks against you, or permanent expertise in three different skills/tools. I love these humans. They have flavor and a wide range of options. They don’t feel too powerful either, unlike 5e Variant Human and its free feat.  I am here for badass naval officer orcs, yes please. Orcs are medium, 30 foot speed, darkvision havers who count as Large for carrying/moving things and get a bonus die on critical hits. For Gifts, they can either choose a terrain type (arctic, desert, mountain, swamp) and gain expertise to navigate it and resistance to an element common to it, or gain resistance to radiant and the resistance cantrip and Shield spell once per long rest, or a wizard cantrip of their choice and at 3rd level the ability to learn one 1st or 2nd level wizard spell they can cast once per long rest as though from a 2nd level slot. At Paragon, they can choose to stay at 1hp when they would drop to 0 once per long rest. Orcs are pretty cool. Having two Gifts that both give a cantrip and a spell is a bit odd, lot of overlap there. But overall, I like them.  Aasimar and Tieflings are grouped together into Planetouched, with their Gifts determining their ancestry. They are Medium, move 30 feet, have Darkvision, and can choose to stay at 1hp when they would drop to 0 once per long rest (which is a Paragon level ability for Orcs). Aasimar know Guidance, can restore their level health with a touch once per long rest, resistance to radiant, and know Celestial. Tieflings have resistance to Fire and the Produce Flame cantrip. At 3rd level, they learn Arcane Riposte (fire damage only) and at 5th they learn Heat Metal. Both spells are once per long rest. At Paragon, they gain immunity in place of their Resistance, and can choose to have either fire or radiant damage they deal ignore resistance and deal half damage to immune targets. Planetouched are strong. I’m not sure about overpowered, but are at the upper end of the curve. Interestingly, their Paragon damage gift doesn’t care if they are a Tiefling or Aasimar, so you could get a Tiefling who is really good at radiant damage. Conclusion I really like the Heritages. I think this is one area that LU did very well. I’m leery of Elves, and think they’re too powerful, but the rest of them do a good job of capturing flavor. In most cases, Origin traits are all things that are actually innate to a given species, rather than "All elves are nimble and fragile. All dwarves know a lot about stone" or even worse, assigning Int penalties. Splitting Heritage and Culture was a good idea, and I’ll cover Cultures in more detail next time
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Nov 17, 2022 19:13
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This is sounding a lot like Fantasy Craft. This is not a bad thing.
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Nov 18, 2022 05:46
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Fivemarks posted:This is sounding a lot like Fantasy Craft. This is not a bad thing. The Origin/Background/Class is a good setup that Fantasy Craft does well, especially with how modular they can be with Species Feats etc. D&D 5e's backgrounds are too vague and barebones though. Strange to see another person who has heard of Fantasy Craft to begin with!
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Nov 19, 2022 16:13
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Level Up: Advanced 5th edition Adventurer’s Guide Part 2 Chapter 2: Origins There are a lot of Cultures, coming in at 35 in the core book. Culture is where a lot of your bonus proficiencies and abilities come in. One important thing to note is that there is absolutely no mechanical link between Heritage and Culture. Even if a Culture mentions a specific Heritage (such as Mountain Dwarf), anyone is free to take it. Most commonly, this represents someone of another Heritage raised in that culture (Such as Carrot Ironfoundersson, a human raised in a dwarf mine) but it can also just be you re-flavoring the heritage to be something else (such as a human city in the mountains). Another important note is that everything that gives access to a language includes speaking, reading, writing, and signing that language. While signing will provide additional benefit to adventurers who may need to communicate in silence, having it be universal is a piece of positive representation, creating an assumed world where deaf and mute characters can communicate without stigma. Most cultures give proficiency in Common and one other language, I won’t be listing all of the language options.  Caravaneer is a unique culture, representing someone raised on the road in caravans or other mobile communities. They are proficient in Animal Handling, land vehicles and survival and gain advantage to avoid fatigue from forced marches. They can also, while mounted on a mount or vehicle, dash to move through enemies, knock them over, and deal a bit of damage. But their most unique feature is the ability to create a free ramshackle wagon or cart out of extra materials lying around. While less useful at high levels when you have plenty of gold and likely a bag of holding or similar, carts and wagons greatly extend how much Supply you can carry at low levels. The usefulness will depend on how invested your Narrator is into the exploration pillar, but it’s a cool and flavorful power. Caravaneer gives proficiency in two skills and a unique combat option for mounted characters, but its actual power level will depend on how much you need its unique niche. Circusfolk are folk raised in the circus. They can use Disengage as a bonus action, are proficient with improvised weapons which always deal at least 1d6 damage and can use the Dexterity ability, and can cast Disguise Self once per long rest. Any ranged or position-based character will benefit from Disengage as a bonus action, but improvised weapon proficiency has never been important. Overall it feels more like part of a build than a full package, but if you need the Disengage power it can be useful. Collegiates are nerds. Raised in a college town, they Know Things. They can override an enchantment on themselves for one round with pure Logic And Reason, are proficient in calligrapher’s supplies and two other tools, and can pick an area of study to focus on. Architecture gives you Engineering proficiency, and the ability to use a bonus action to find a wea point on a structure to double their damage or double their repairs. Engineering gives Engineering proficiency and an expertise die to fix or break machines and expertise against environmental damage from structural collapse. Fine Arts gives Performance proficiency and expertise in one artisan tool. Magic gives them Arcana proficiency and the ability to cast Detect Magic once per long rest at 3rd level. Mathematics gives you… Engineering proficiency, as well as the ability to spend a full minute observing an environment to perform the Ricochet maneuver without spending exertion. Medicine gives proficiency in Medicine and expertise die when identifying medicine or disease, or performing first aid. And Sciences gives you two knowledge skill proficiencies. A decent Culture for knowing things, but Mathematics having to spend a full minute setting up a ricochet feels bad. Ricochet lets you ignore cover for 2 exertion, and is a 3rd degree maneuver, and it even lets you attack someone who has full cover from you, so it’s a powerful effect. But there are few situations where you can spend a full minute studying something and still have the target have cover. Cosmopolitans grew up in a major multicultural city. They get an expertise die to conceal weapons or convince someone to let them keep their weapons, can study someone for 1 minute to learn whether they have a lower Charisma score, their national origin and culture, and their local social standing. They get proficiency in Culture and another skill of their choice, get an extra Connection from any background (which I’ll cover later), and can use Investigation to find someone in a city even if they’re hiding. This is a strong culture just for getting a “pick any” skill proficiency. It’s pretty social heavy as well, but comes at a low opportunity cost so is a good pick overall. Deep Dwarves live deep underground. The sunlight cannot reach that low, they’ve never seen the blue moonglow. They get 120 foot darkvision, or +60 feet to existing darkvision. They know Resistance as a cantrip, learn Jump at 3rd level and Enlarge/Reduce at 5th, once per long rest each. Can’t cast them in direct sunlight though. They have advantage against illusions, charms, and paralysis. They’re also proficient with hand crossbows, short swords, and war picks. This one’s a bit of a mixed bag. Darkvision is good, especially if you’re a human or other non-darkvision heritage. But the proficiencies are weak, they get no skills, and their spells are pretty meh. Not a fan overall. Deep Gnomes are exactly the same, but Gnomes. They get 120 foot darkvision, or +60 feet to existing darkvision. They can cast Disguise Self at level 1, blindness at level 3, nondetection at level 5 once per short rest each. They can cast in sunlight though. And they get an expertise die on Stealth checks in rocky terrain. Deep Gnomes are better than Deep Dwarves. Better spells, no sunlight limitation, and stealth is more common than being paralyzed. Neither is especially great though, unless you want the Darkvision.  Dragonbound are people who live under the direct rule of a dragon. They get expertise on Charisma checks when dealing with draconic creatures, a free cleric or wizard cantrip, and an extra boon based on the type of dragon their patron is. Chromatics can cast Fear once per long rest. Essence dragons give Druidcraft as a cantrip and expertise on Charisma checks against Beasts and Celestials. Gem dragons give Message as a cantrip, illusionary script at 3rd level and invisibility at 5th once per long rest. Metallics give proficiency and expertise at a single knowledge skill. This is a cool and good culture. Cantrips are very useful, even if the expertise with dragons won’t likely come up much. Dragoncults worship a dragon, and plot to increase their patron’s power. They are frequently a secret cult hidden in a larger society. They all gain two skills from Arcana, Deception, Persuasion, Religion, or Stealth, and the ability to spread an Umbra as a bonus action for 1 minute once per long rest. The Umbra’s effect is chosen when you take the culture. Damaging Umbras (common for metallic patrons) let you deal extra damage once per turn, Ethereal Umbras give disadvantage to opportunity attacks and you can walk through up to 5 feet of solid matter, Spiritual umbras give expertise on Stealth checks and at-will Disguise Self, and Protective Umbras gives you resistance to one element and expertise on wisdom and int checks. Two skill proficiencies and a cool magic power? Definitely a good culture. I think Damaging Umbra is my pick for best, but the others have definite use cases. Eladrin are elvish people who live in the Feywild/The Dreaming, and have fey-linked powers. They get proficiency with longswords and rapiers, are fey type in addition to humanoid, get a skill proficiency from Arcana, Culture, Deception, History, Insight, Persuasion or Survival, can use their movement to teleport 30 feet once per rest, and get a cantrip based on what flavor of Fey they represent that day. They can swap cantrips each long rest. A skill and a cantrip are a solid Culture. The Eladrin teleport is weaker than in 5e, where it was a bonus action, but still gets you out of tough spots. Weapon training is pretty middling, since most of the time melee weapons are only useful to people who already get decent weapon proficiency.  Forest Gnomes are Gnomes who live in the Forest. They get proficiency with one artisan tool, can cast Disguise Self at 1st level, Blur at 3rd, and Major Image at 5th, once per short rest each, and they can communicate with beasts of size Small or smaller. I think Cantrip access is better than the 1/3/5 spell access, and artisan tools are pretty niche. This would be a weak culture, except that the ability to talk with beasts is very unique. Going to depend on the nature of the campaign, and how permissive your Narrator is, but this could be good. White room, it’s not great. Forgotten Folx (yes, spelled Folx) are Forestier Forest Gnomes. They always know the location of allies within 60 feet, can use the Help action as a bonus action, and can Help at a range of 15 feet. Once per long rest, they can give Expertise in addition to Advantage when using Help. The ally radar is obviously garbage, but that Help buff is really good. If you’re a class that doesn’t have much use for your bonus action, that’s easy advantage every round for an ally. Turns on rogue sneak attack even without adjacent allies, lets martials get off big maneuvers easier, whatever you need. But bonus actions are also in high demand, so this isn’t a culture you would slap on any class without thought. Forsaken are post-apocalyptic survivors. Even if the setting isn’t post-apoc, given how many dragons and wizards are running around SOMEONE is bound to be struggling to survive after their farm was converted into shotguns. They need less Supply, get 5 feet speed bonus, can jury-rig an improvised tool kit, count as one size larger for carrying capacity, and once per rest after failing an ability check have advantage on their next ability check. I definitely want to see a Forsaken Orc, who would count as Huge for carrying capacity. The usefulness of this Culture is going to depend on how much the Narrator pushes exploration. Less supply and more carrying capacity is gold in an exploration-heavy campaign. In a standard dungeon crawl, 5 feet bonus speed is good but maybe not worth the 0 proficiencies or cantrips. -- I want to take an aside to talk about carrying capacity. The default weight limit is your Strength score (not modifier) time 15 pounds. So a normal strength 10 human can carry 150 pounds of gear before being encumbered. A strength 7 wizard could carry 105, and a strength 18 hero could carry 270. As an additional limit, you can carry a number of Bulky Items equal to your strength modifier + 1, to a minimum of 1. And regardless of weight, you can carry your strength score in Supplies. Each size category above Medium doubles your capacity in all of those areas. So a Strength 10 Forsaken Orc could carry 600 pounds, 4 bulky items, and 40 supplies. This goes up to 1080 pounds, 20 bulky items and 72 supplies at strength 18. A Wagon (the type a Caravaneer can build for free in 30 minutes) can carry 80 supplies, 20 bulky items, and 1300 pounds, but does need to be drawn by an animal or similar strong thing. -- Godbound are people who were raised in highly religious communities, where even lay people participate actively in religious ceremonies. They are proficient with either Performance, two musical instruments, or two artisans tools. They get an extra Connection from the Acolyte background, can study someone to learn a few religious facts about them, get expertise to resist fear and charm effects, an have advantage on social checks with other members of the faith. On top of that, they get proficiency in Religion and know one cleric, druid, or herald (read: Paladin) cantrip. They’re pretty similar to the Cosmopolitan in some respects. But getting two skill proficiencies and a cantrip means they’re never going to be a bad pick. High Elves are the fancy elves who live in marble towers and bright castles and think they’re better than everyone. They can always use Intelligence when making social rolls, are proficient with Culture and another skill of their choice, know a cantrip from any spell list, and are proficient with rapiers and longswords. Well, the elves continue to feel overpowered. A pick any skill, a cantrip not limited to a specific spell list, and the ability to argue with Reason and Intellect rather than base charisma. It’s not too bad, but they feel like a Better Version of Cosmopolitan or Godbound, or really most other options so far. Hill Dwarves live on the surface, and are much more friendly and sociable than other dwarves. They are proficient with either Deception or Persuasion, proficient with Animal Handling or land vehicles, and are proficient AND gain expertise in Survival. On top of that, they know the Friends cantrip, learn Charm person at 3rd level and Suggestion at 5th. And while I don’t usually call out languages, these guys know a total of 4. Most Cultures get 2. Proof that you don’t have to be an Elf to be overpowered. Three proficiencies, a cantrip, powerful spells, a broad expertise, and bonus languages. Other than the lack of unique abilities (which are usually pretty niche) this culture is just better than the others. Imperials are citizens in a large Empire of one flavor or another. They are proficient with light armor, spears, and light crossbows, as well as History and one other skill of their choice. And they have universal healthcare, so any effect that would reduce your HP Maximum or ability scores is decreased by 1, to a minimum of 1. Most classes are proficient with spears and light crossbows anyway, but light armor proficiency could be nice for wizards or sorcerers. Two skill proficiencies are nice, but I don’t think their healthcare power is going to come up very often. Definitely a step down from the last two overpowered cultures, but Imperial isn’t bad compared to the field. Itinerants are wanderers without a home, likely raised by rangers or something. They are proficient with the Disguise Kit and Culture, gain expertise in either Intelligence OR Wisdom (pick at chargen) checks to understand social customs, interact with, or recall knowledge about individuals, objects, or environments associated with a culture you have been surrounded by for at least a month. They gain expertise on their first Charisma check made with an unfamiliar group, and get a bonus ability based on their reason for not having a home. Homeland Seekers get proficiency in Arcana and History, Labor Migrants get proficiency in an artisan tool and skill of their choice, exiles or spies get proficiency in Deception and Stealth (as well as the ability to use Stealth for Perception or Deception for Insight once per rest), and Refugees get proficiency in Survival and can use Survival in place of Intimidation or Persuasion in urban environments. Big grab-bag here. You could end up with 3 skill proficiencies, plus a host of other penny bonuses, so this Culture definitely isn’t weak. It ALSO knows 4 languages, so is pushing into the Clearly Superior category. There are a LOT of these Cultures, so I’m ending this part here. I’ll finish the rest of the set in the next post, then move on to Backgrounds. I’m doing this section in greater detail than I’ll probably handle the rest of the book, since the Origin system is one of the biggest selling points of LU.
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Nov 20, 2022 18:24
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Cultures giving stuff like infravision seems a bit odd. Feels like it should be if you already have infravision it's extended, and non-infravision Havers get something else related to life in the dark
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Nov 20, 2022 19:04
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Angrymog posted:Cultures giving stuff like infravision seems a bit odd. Feels like it should be if you already have infravision it's extended, and non-infravision Havers get something else related to life in the dark Darkvision isn't specifically infrared vision anymore, so it could easily be trained night eyes or similar. It is a bit odd though
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Nov 20, 2022 20:22
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Angrymog posted:Cultures giving stuff like infravision seems a bit odd. Feels like it should be if you already have infravision it's extended, and non-infravision Havers get something else related to life in the dark Their culture more prominently features carrots in their diets
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Nov 20, 2022 20:28
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Angrymog posted:Cultures giving stuff like infravision seems a bit odd. Feels like it should be if you already have infravision it's extended, and non-infravision Havers get something else related to life in the dark
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Nov 20, 2022 20:36
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  Drive-Thru RPG Link. It's been a while since I wrote a 5e mini-game sourcebook, but I found a short and sweet one to cover. There’s quite a bit of weapons in 5th Edition, but in practical play most gamers stick to a few, with some being suboptimal choices clearly outclassed by others. The authors of Choose Your Weapon sought to remake how weapons work by tying them directly to a character’s martial skill. Dispensing with simple and martial weapon proficiencies, their damage is tied to a new mechanic known as an heroic damage die determined mainly by class. This damage die can be further altered by weapon properties, and unlike properties of the core rules the ones here are reflective more of a character’s particular fighting style rather than an innate quality of the weapon itself.  The Heroic Damage Die is determined by the class a PC selects at 1st level, ranging from 1d6 for primary spellcasters to 1d12 for the Fighter and Barbarian. Paladins and Rangers have a d10, and Bards and Rogues a d8. Monks are a special case, for they have an heroic damage die of d6 but they can use the die of their Martial Arts class feature for monk weapons if it’s a higher value. The heroic damage die can be further altered in a number of ways up or down the damage die ladder in a process known as steps. Generally speaking, qualities which can be advantageous to a weapon reduce its damage by 1 or 2 steps, but ones which impose some kind of hindrance can raise it by 1 or 2 steps. A PC’s innate heroic damage die increases by 1 step if they multiclass into a class with a higher value, and subclass features that can grant martial weapon proficiency can also improve it by 1 step (up to a maximum of d10 unless it’s already better). Races which grant martial weapon proficiencies don’t alter this, and Blade Pact Warlocks and Bladesinger Wizards use a d10 for their signature weapon but d6 for all others. In the Bladesinger’s case the final base damage should be d8 or less. There is a problem with the above graphic in that it is missing the d10 value, although the sample text more or less confirms that it’s nestled between the d8 and 1d12/2d6 steps: quote:As a Fighter, your weapon damage die with the hand crossbow is reduced from d12 to d10 (one-handed), then from d10 to d8 (light), and finally from d8 back up to d10 (loading). You deal d10 + your Dexterity bonus damage with your hand crossbow. Already we can find several interesting impacts on the base system: for one, this makes non-monk unarmed strikes a lot more potent, for even with negative ladder steps a Barbarian or Fighter can deal 1d8 or d10 damage with their bare fists, and even a quarterstaff can deal a mighty 1d12 or 2d6 damage in the hands of a Paladin or Ranger with the versatile property applied. As for the monk, they get the short end of the stick in that they won’t be dealing a lot of damage; I’ll get into it further, but with how Choose Your Weapon works they’ll be dealing 1d4 damage base at low levels unless they opt to go for two-handers, which don’t qualify as monk weapons. As for light and one-handed weapons? That’s going to be a measly 1 until their Martial Arts die grows to 1d8 and 1d10 at 11th and 17th levels. They aren’t going to be batting at the same level as even Rangers and Blade Pact Warlocks. It feels wrong for me that Fighters and Paladins can punch better than Monks, so I would apply a personal rule where Monk Weapons use a d10 for their Heroic Damage Die. As for multiclassing, Choose Your Weapon makes starting out as a martial class a better option, particularly for gish builds. As such things were heavily encouraged in basic D&D with armor proficiency, those Fighter/Wizard builds have all the more reason to take their 1st level in Fighter with Choose Your Weapon. An unarmed character or one who wishes to be a monk would do better in taking their first level in Barbarian, Fighter, or a martial subclass such as Valor Bard. When players or DMs make a new weapon under these rules, it is known as a Template. They are character-specific means of wielding a weapon: for example, a mighty-thewed barbarian may wield a greatsword with wild, powerful blows and even throw it a respectable distance. They may deal 1d16/2d8 damage to reflect their inaccurate yet deadly fighting style: a base damage of 1d12/2d6, modified by two-handed for 0 steps, heavy +2 steps, and thrown 30/120 feet -1 step. Meanwhile a Pact of the Blade Warlock may use their innate magical abilities to fight with more precise strikes and keep their opponents at a distance. They may technically have the same weapon but deal 1d8 damage: a base damage of 1d10, modified by two-handed 0 steps, and with the reach property -1 step. PCs create new personal templates as they wield or acquire different weapons in play, and for DMs which desire added verisimilitude can use an optional training rule. In this case, PCs are treated as untrained with new weapons and have disadvantage on attack rolls until they spend downtime becoming proficient with them as per rules in the Dungeon Master’s Guide or Xanathar’s.  Properties for weapons both new and existing are outlined, along with how they may alter steps on the die ladder. One-handed weapons reduce damage by 1 step, and two-handed weapons leave it unaltered. Ranged and thrown weapons don’t alter the damage die at the lowest levels (ammunition 30/120 feet, thrown 20/60 feet), although higher ranges can reduce the die by 1 or 2 steps and in the case of ammunition weapons they cannot be one-handed. Heavy weapons are altered in this system: instead of being wielded only by Medium and larger races, they impose disadvantage on attack rolls but increase the damage die by 2 steps and can only be applied to two-handed weapons. One-handed weapons with the Versatile property increase the damage die by 1 step when wielded in 2 hands, which given that one-handed imposes a 1 step penalty this more or less negates it. The lance property (which works like a lance but without reach by default) adds 2 steps, putting it up there with Heavy. As for the double property, it is -2 steps and both ends of the weapon are used to attack: it is a two-handed weapon by default, but for two-weapon fighting both ends are created as 2 one-handed light weapons. For those with the Dual Wielder feat, an attack made with an action or reaction deals -1 step and an attack made with a bonus action -2 steps. In regards to 2-weapon fighting, a reading of this sounds like the weapon could have a total of -4 steps (-2 by default, -2 for turning the two-handed weapon into one-handed light weapons), which can be really punishing. Even a d12/2d6 PC will be reduced to 1 on the damage die ladder this way. As for Reach (-1 step), it is the same as in the PHB save with the caveat that Small or Tiny PCs can’t apply it unless they also apply the Heavy property, which has the effect of making gnomes and halflings rather inaccurate with whips. For very big monsters, there are Oversized and Massive properties, wielded by creatures 1 or 2 size categories larger than the PC. Oversized is like the heavy property but none of the upsides, while massive cannot be wielded at all. Neither property can be chosen for weapons at character creation. We also get a new sub-system for Entangling weapons, which don’t damage but restrain a target and use their own properties instead. Generally speaking, the only real properties are range and have their own prerequisites: melee the weapon cannot have the finesse, lance, or versatile properties, ammunition 30/120 feet requires the weapon to have the loading property, thrown 5/15 feet must be a one-handed weapon without the finesse property, and thrown 10/30 feet is only for two-handed weapons. In each case a target is restrained on a successful hit, and can only be used on Large or smaller creatures that aren’t formless (Oversized and Massive can be used against Huge creatures). A weapon can have the Dual property where it can deal damage instead of entangling at -1 step with its own properties, but in such a case both versions are built with properties as close as possible. The barbed property deals damage to a restrained target equal to the heroic damage die -2 steps at the beginning of each of their turns. Characters going for pure damage have the ability to really crank up values. A weapon with the Heavy and Lance properties can go up a whopping 4 steps, but as the damage die ladder tops out at 1d20/2d10 it is redundant to have more than 2 or 3 steps for martially-inclined PCs. As for ranged weapons, the only property that can increase damage is Loading, and only by 1 step which is perhaps for the best given how useful ranged attacks are in comparison to melee. We also get a table of Standard Weapon Templates showing how virtually every PHB weapon (plus a few new ones) can be built in this system. The notable additions include various polearms sized for Medium and Small characters, while weapons that would ordinarily be Heavy in the PHB such as greatswords and mauls lack this property. Generally speaking, the d12 and d10 classes do overall more damage with non-two handed weapons which would be Simple, but more or less the same values for martial properties. The d6 classes do less across the board, and in cases where it’s -2 steps (mostly in the case of one-handed weapons with the light property) deal a measly 1 damage! To showcase how this system can be used to make entirely new weapons, we have stats for a yklwa, a one-handed weapon with the 20/60 thrown weapon for a total of -1 step. We also see the return of the two-bladed sword, listed as a Double Sword which is a two-handed melee weapon with the Double property. I did spot a few errors: the whip has the one-handed and reach properties which would reduce it by 2 steps, but in the table only reduces by 1 step. The shortbow, light crossbow, and heavy crossbow list ammunition at 90/350 when the latter category should be 340. As for the Double Sword it lists -2 steps, although given the problems I saw in that property above there isn’t an easy way to put it in a table. Special Cases cover clarifications to the rest of the rules in using this new system. For one, natural weapons from a race’s innate features that don’t have special effects use the Choose Your Weapon rules, with some general guidelines like determining whether it’s one-handed or two based on how many hands are free when the attack is made. For weapons acquired through class features or a racial ability with secondary effects (like secondary damage from forced movement), the damage die of the default ability is used. For monks, any weapon that doesn’t have the two-handed, heavy, and oversized properties counts as a monk weapon, and uses the higher value of either their Martial Arts or Heroic Damage Die when making attacks with monk weapons. Enemies explains that in most cases the Choose Your Weapon rules shouldn’t apply to NPCs and monsters. Not only does it heft a lot more work on the Dungeon Master, the damage output of enemies are often already balanced with their default features. But for DMs who wish to make their stat blocks from scratch, the book gives six sample roles and their appropriate damage die: for example, Controllers focus less on direct damage and so have a d6, while Brutes tend to be physical melee types at d10. The Skirmisher has the highest at d12, being glass cannons that strike fast and hard. Overall Thoughts: From a broad perspective, Choose Your Weapon applies a net increase to non-monk martial classes and frees up characters to reflavor weapons as they desire without being forced into suboptimal choices (“but I really like flails!”). On the other hand, it has several side effects as a result of implementation, like all but requiring spellcasters to make use of cantrips or heavier weapons to deal respectable damage. For example, Clerics are now on par with Sorcerers and Wizards when wielding longswords (1d4 damage), and two-weapon fighting Rogues need to rely even more on poison and Sneak Attack for damage (1d8 -2 steps for light and one-handed weapon properties is 1d4). Due to this, the book’s reception among gaming tables will differ depending on what classes are being used by players: martial characters, particularly pure martials like the Barbarian and Fighter will love it, as will some gish builds like the Valor Bard, Bladesinger Wizard, and Pact of the Blade Warlock. But Monks, Rogues, and War Domain Clerics may not be as fond of the damage die drops for their one-handed and non-loading ranged weapons.
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Nov 20, 2022 23:55
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Getting more options is always a nice thing. Did something similar in my home game for a while.
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Nov 21, 2022 19:56
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THE SWORD AND THE FLAME BONUS POST: THE HIVE AND THE FLAME I wrapped up my Sword and The Flame writeup a couple months ago, not intending to dig into any of the dozens of official and fanmade supplements for the game. That changed when I found this guy at Half Price Books.  As I mentioned in the original review, TSATF is a solid ruleset for historical gaming because of how it incorporates flavor details into the mechanics without getting lost in excessive simulation. People have been adding Victorian science fiction elements to the game since it came out, because it’s easy and fun to add special rules for dinosaurs, zeppelins, landships, etc. The battle reports page on the old Major General’s website was full of examples that inspired people for decades after the site went down. So a full on splatbook for VSF battles using TSATF should have been a slam dunk. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. I’m not going to do a full review of this book because I haven’t played it, and it actually depends on another sourcebook I don’t have: 800 Fighting Englishmen, the big battle variant of TSATF. Instead, I’m going to touch on what you get from Hive and the Flame, and why I think it misses the mark. THE BOOK The layout and presentation in The Hive and the Flame is, to put it bluntly, quite bad. I’m not going to go full James Wallis and scream and cry about every minute typographical mistake, I’m willing to put up with a lot from a small press book. But there’s a lot of poo poo that even a single round of proofreading would have caught.  Notice how the headers are misaligned? This is true on every page of the book. And it goes on like that forever. Huge voids in the text where a table has accidentally been pushed onto the next page. Improper spacing so that several paragraphs of text are jumbled together. Random font size changes in mid sentence. The art isn’t much better. It’s a combination of deep fried JPEGs, pen and ink drawings, and deep fried JPEGs of pen and ink drawings.  Some of the illustrations are admittedly pretty cool, like the Venusian terror bird cavalry.  There are lots of badly upscaled historical photographs and badly upscaled photographs of actual gameplay.   So the book looks like poo poo. Whatever, I can deal. I’ve been running and playing Unknown Armies 3e for the last year, and it’s never going to win an award for presentation. How about the actual content? SETTING The first thing to get out in the open is that The Hive and the Flame is not actually a general set of Victorian science fiction rules for The Sword and the Flame. I was mistaken about this when I originally said it in the prior review. THATF was written to simulate a specific campaign in the author’s personal alternate history setting. I can’t fault the author for this since the book was never advertised as a generic VSF ruleset, but it immediately reduces the book’s usefulness to anyone who isn’t intending to run the English campaign of the first Hive War. The text gives us a lengthy alternate history setting. Babbage and Lovelace made the difference engine, initiating the information age in 1830. The ensuing boom of super science led to the development of lighter than air flight, then spacecraft capable of reaching other planets by the 1890s when the game is set. With earth already carved up by the feuding empires of Europe (and, increasingly, Japan), the great powers set their sights on carving up other worlds. Humanity has colonized the Moon, Mars and Venus. We get a Deviantart style alt history map of earth, along with descriptions of where all the countries are at.  A lot of the countries are where they were at in 1890 in the real world. The Ottoman Empire, China and Austria Hungary are feudal states trying to modernize. Japan was opened at gunpoint in the 1850s and had the Meiji restoration same as in real life. Russia is less backward than its real life counterpart was, after putting the first man on the Moon. The United States has a tiny military and no official space colonization effort, but runs the world’s only private spaceport in Florida. Portugal, Spain and Brazil have consolidated into a single empire, which would make perfect sense from a wargame design perspective if you wanted to present them as a single playable faction. But they never appear in THATF. None of this stuff ever appears. All this alt history is irrelevant to what the rules actually support: the Hive War in England. Oh yeah, the Hive War. Let’s talk about the three worlds humanity has colonized.
The Hive are every space bug you’ve ever seen in a piece of media. Starship Troopers (both the novel and the film), War Against the Chtorr, Tyranids. A bunch of psychic bugs that want to eat everything. These things hatch in England and start eating everything, so the British government deploys super science weapons against them to even the odds. That’s the game.  I believe that, if a game is set in an extremely specific setting and not generically useful for similar settings, that specific setting needs to be very interesting in order to make playing in the author’s world worth the hassle. Think about a game like Eclipse Phase. The challenge isn’t even really the rules, it’s the mountain of setting information everyone at the table needs to master in order to get anywhere in the game. But people keep trying, because Eclipse Phase is an interesting and unique setting that sucks them in, even with all the pieces that are obviously stolen from other media properties. The Hive and the Flame is not interesting. It’s worse in every way than any of the “bugs vs imperialism” settings I compared it to. The monsters aren’t fun. The background world isn’t fun and is totally irrelevant to the scope of the game. Oh yeah, the game. THE RULES This is a supplement for 800 Fighting Englishman and The Sword and the Flame, and assumes you have copies of both on hand as it lays out new mechanics specific to the setting. There are a bunch of different kinds of bug, and we get organizational details for them that basically parallel the organization from TSATF. Bug platoons and companies and battalions, but given different bug names.  The bugs have melee bugs that eat things, ranged bugs that spit things, flying bugs, suicide bomber bugs, every unit type you’d expect from a dull as toast 1990s RTS. They do get some unique mechanics for command and control. Bug officers are called “drones” and without a drone to command it, a bug unit might carry on in whatever direction it moved last turn, do nothing, or even attack another squad of bugs. There are lots of other special rules to simulate bug behavior, like how they die instead of retreating when they lose a hand to hand fight. Bigger bugs take more hits to kill, unless you’re using a special weapon like a flamethrower or rocket launcher or something. There are a ton of subsystems piled onto the base rules, like worker bugs coming out to grind human casualties into meatballs that they roll around the battlefield. There are rules for tracking the transfer of nutritious fluids between different castes of bug. For every tiny scrap of imagination, The Hive and The Flame ladles on a scoop of drudgery. Oh, speaking of drudgery, let’s talk about vehicles. A vehicle in The Hive and the Flame has a whopping 18 different stats. No, really. Take a look.   This is only the first two pages of tables. Each line on the table is its own mechanical subsystem. The subsystems colliding with each other during play sends you to additional tables. How many crew were killed by a glancing hit? What did the projectile do to the vehicle’s transmission? I recognize and respect the author’s desire to model component damage, it was my favorite part of playing Brikwars back in middle school. Many perfectly good wargames include vehicle damage tables that give different possibilities like crew injuries, mobility kills, etc. The Hive and the Flame is not a perfectly good wargame. And it doesn’t stop there. All your future weapon systems like flamethrowers and lightning cannons get pages and pages of mechanics. It’s excessive and I can’t view it as anything but a chore. This section takes almost half the book by pagecount. It’s a shame the vehicle rules are so bad, because they’re the most generally useful section of this book. You don’t need to set a game in the First Hive War to use them, you can drop them right into a normal The Sword and the Flame game.  AUTHOR’S NOTES Rules author Terry Sofian gives an explanation for why he wrote The Hive and The Flame. He wanted to put science fiction monsters in the game, and he wanted to give the British forces more of a challenge than regular TSATF. Which is… a completely reasonable design goal, really. Base TSATF can get lopsided even if you design a scenario that puts the British on the back foot. As the Native player, you usually have a firepower disadvantage and you basically lose the game if you leave your troops in the redcoats’ line of fire for more than a couple turns. It’s a shame his solution was a ruleset I would never want to play, mated to a setting that isn’t interesting. Terry then offers some advice to the players. The British should try to avoid hand to hand combat, and use their superior firepower to shoot the bugs with firearms. The bugs should do the opposite. 200 IQ, this guy. The hobby section gives you some advice on where to find bugs. You’re looking at a mix of science fiction miniatures and plastic toys. The inspirational material section is the same as the one from TSATF. Kipling, Zulu, all the usual suspects, plus a suggestion that you read HG Wells and Jules Verne. I’ll let the painting advice section speak for itself.  Exquisite. Then there are a bunch of full page ads for defunct websites. Then the end. WHAT DID WE LEARN? I doubt anyone here was planning on buying The Hive and the Flame. But if you were, don’t. It’s a book of excessively detailed houserules for an uninspiring campaign setting. Would I play it at a convention, if I had a couple hours to kill? Sure. That’s as far as I’d take it. What would I do if I wanted to use airships, landships, monsters, etc in my TSATF game? Probably make some poo poo up. I think you, the person reading this, could come up with better houserules than the ones offered in The Hive and the Flame. That’s going to do it for The Sword and the Flame. Up next, I might look at books 4 and 5 of Unknown Armies 3e.
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Nov 21, 2022 19:58
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The 90s Starship Troopers film collided with the first phase of the steampunk boom in the UK, and triggered a wave of "redcoats versus bugs" wargames. I hadn't seen The Hive and the Flame but I had encountered Hive, Queen, and Country which I think is a standalone "sequel" by the same author with more rules for aircraft and wacky Victorian flying machines. A lot of British wargamers would have Colonial-era armies on hand and there were still official Starship Troopers minis on the market from Mongoose, so there was a ready-made audience. Some of that art looks suspiciously similar to stuff in GURPS Steampunk or Space 1889 though, especially the guy on the Terror Bird.
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Nov 22, 2022 00:09
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Loxbourne posted:The 90s Starship Troopers film collided with the first phase of the steampunk boom in the UK, and triggered a wave of "redcoats versus bugs" wargames. I hadn't seen The Hive and the Flame but I had encountered Hive, Queen, and Country which I think is a standalone "sequel" by the same author with more rules for aircraft and wacky Victorian flying machines. The only GURPS books I've read cover to cover are Tactical Shooting, New Sun and Chtorr. There are definitely some visual similarities between those illustrations and the handful of drawings in Hive and the Flame. It could be stolen art, or they just look similar because they're both black and white ink drawings with heavy chiaroscuro shading. I posted some commissioned artwork of mercenaries from my Dune 2d20 game in the character art thread, and a couple people said they looked like Space 1889 illustrations - probably for the same reason.   
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Nov 22, 2022 01:02
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Loxbourne posted:The 90s Starship Troopers film collided with the first phase of the steampunk boom in the UK, and triggered a wave of "redcoats versus bugs" wargames. I hadn't seen The Hive and the Flame but I had encountered Hive, Queen, and Country which I think is a standalone "sequel" by the same author with more rules for aircraft and wacky Victorian flying machines. I also feel like this was before there were any reprints (let alone new versions) of Space 1889 so that left a vacuum for Victorian sci fi settings.
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Nov 22, 2022 23:51
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Maxwell Lord posted:I also feel like this was before there were any reprints (let alone new versions) of Space 1889 so that left a vacuum for Victorian sci fi settings. While the Kickstarter is long over, there might still be a way to get access to Trinity Continuum: Aether which covers a lot of that same ground, even if it's a little more Earth focused.
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Nov 23, 2022 02:56
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Level Up: Advanced 5th edition Adventurer’s Guide Part 3 Chapter 2: Origins  Kithbain halflings are hobbits who live in the Twilight, an eternally dim section of faerieland where everything is dark and brooding. They get Superior Darkvision, or +60 feet to existing darkvision, disadvantage on attack and perception rolls in direct sunlight, the ability to cast Telepathic Bond once per long rest, and proficiency+expertise in Insight. Kithbain are weird. They’re obviously tied to the Twilight-Touched halfling gift option, but are a bad pick for that mechanically, since the two give very similar bonuses. Overall, I think they’re rating Darkvision too highly, since all three of the Superior Darkvision cultures so far have been weak. Lone Wanderers are solitary edgelords who don’t need culture or friends. They get 4 skill or tool proficiencies of their choice and a masterwork weapon. A supremely boring culture, but also really drat strong. FOUR pick-any skills is a huge deal. There are 20 skills total, backgrounds tend to give 2 and classes give 2-4. Combine with one of the Heritages that give a proficiency and you can start the game with over half the skill list trained.  Mountain Dwarves are what you think of when you hear “Dwarf”. Clannish, loyal, lives in mountains, good at some sort of metal or stone working. They have proficiency with battleaxes, handaxes, light hammers, warhammers, light armor, and medium armor. They are also proficient in Engineering and proficient+expertise in History. They’re resistant to Fire damage (the most common damage type), and naturally acclimated to high and low elevations and cold climates. Hoo boy, Mountain Dwarves. Medium armor proficiency is great, the weapon options are nice but not amazing, two skill proficiencies, a skill-wide expertise die, and an elemental resistance. Definitely one of the strongest options.  Mustbairn Halflings have given up civilization and agriculture to become moss people who dig in the dirt and stay there. They ignore difficult terrain caused by earth, soil, or mountains. They know the Druidcraft cantrip, and can read the earth’s wisdom (i.e. cast Augury, because everything in D&D is a spell) once per long rest, have the Chaotic alignment tag, and gain two skill proficiencies from Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Nature, Religion, or Survival. Definitely strong. Two skills and a cantrip, plus a 2nd level spell that they don’t have to wait until 5th level to cast like many other cultures. Either the top end of the “normal” cultures or the bottom end of the “overpowered” ones. ASIDE: So I forgot to explain Alignment in LU. Characters don’t normally have Alignment, it is reserved for supernatural beings that embody that alignment. People are just people, some of them are assholes others are nice but there isn’t some divine Nine Categories they fit into. But an angel could be Good, or a Modron could be Lawful. This allows certain spells to interact with supernatural beings (such as a magic circle trapping an Evil outsider) without letting you cast Detect Evil on the goatee-d vizier. Incidentally, dragons are no longer alignment locked. Chromatic dragons tend to be more violent and aggressive, with metallics being more reserved and sociable, but all dragons have a range of personalities focused around being arrogant, greedy, and fickle. This culture is one of the few ways for PCs to gain an Alignment, as “the whisper” fills their soul and forces them to be a moss person. MOVING ON! Nomads are what they sound like. They get proficiency in Animal Handling and Survival, plus either Medicine, Nature, or Perception, as well as land vehicles and tinker’s tools. They can repair land vehicles they’ve traveled in for at least a month (gaining Expertise to do so), and gain Expertise to navigate land vehicles. Finally, they can predict the non-magical weather 24 hours in advance. A nice and fun culture. 3 skills is above what I consider baseline, but they’re mostly focused around exploration rather than being The Big Combat Skills. Good if your Narrator likes exploration, otherwise a bit lacking.  Settlers are Ethical issues aside, I like the Settler. 2 skills and a situational Expertise is well balanced, and the Claim power is a cool bonus ability. Shadow Elves are this setting’s version of Drow. They aren’t necessarily dark skinned, and not all are bad. They have Superior Darkvision (or +60 feet to existing darkvision), proficiency with rapiers and hand crossbows, know either Dancing Lights or Minor Illusion as a cantrip, and can cast Faerie Fire at 3rd level and Darkness at 5th once per long rest. Again, no Sunlight limitation, so I guess just gently caress Deep Dwarves. Once again a Superior Darkvision culture feels underpowered. Nothing much to say here.  Steamforged put their faith in technology instead of magic. On the one hand, D&D technology tends to be unreliable and not as useful as other options. On the other hand, vaguely gestures at everything wizards do ever so I can’t really blame them. They get Proficiency+Expertise in History, Investigation, or Nature, as well as proficiency in Engineering, Tinker’s tools, and one other artisan tool. Additionally, they can choose to either get an expertise die on Disarm, Grapple, Overrun, Shove and Tumble maneuvers or choose a 1st degree combat maneuver they can use without exertion once per rest. Combat maneuvers are a really under-used benefit in cultures. There are a shitton of cultures that give cantrips or 1/day spells, but so far this is the only one that does a maneuver. It’s a shame. Other than that, this one seems fair. 2 skills plus a maneuver, and some miscellaneous other bennies. Stoic Orcs are the only explicitly Orcish culture in this book. They are orcs that have their strong emotions chemically/magically cut out in order to have the patience to perform special rituals for sacred sites. This culture feels weird, since you aren’t really raised as a Stoic Orc and if you go through the ritual to become one you’re assumably too busy tending to a sacred place to go around murderhoboing. Stoic Orcs eventually regain their emotions, but the cultural bonuses clearly represent someone before that happens. They get advantage against Charm and Frightened conditions, proficiency in one skill from Arcana, History, Insight, Medicine, Nature, or Religion, and two first level ritual spells they can (only) cast as Rituals, plus the ability to cast any other spell they learn as a ritual even if they aren’t normally a ritual caster. Overall, I am underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, two ritual spells is a very useful bonus, but when I imagine “person with emotions ripped out by magic and medicine to shepherd a sacred place” I don’t translate that to “slight magical powers and advantage against a narrow amount of magic”. Cool idea, poor implementation. Stoneworthy are people who work stone. They get three sentences of description (most other cultures get multiple paragraphs). They get expertise on Intimidation and Persuasion checks when haggling, bartering or negotiating and can use any mental ability score instead of Charisma. They are proficient in Survival and whenever they gain a level they can lose proficiency in a tool or skill and gain a proficiency in another tool or skill (same type as the one they lost). Additionally they can spend time between long rests to craft a non-metal tool or simple weapon if they have the materials needed and the cost isn’t more than 5gp. I… kinda assumed anyone could do that with basic crafting rules, but sure. Finally, once between long rests they can gain an expertise die on concentration save or reattempt a failed ability check. Stoneworthy are a mess. They’re good traders for some reason? And they can spend 4 hours making a lovely cheap item. None of their abilities naturally follow from “Good with stone” or seem to have anything to do with each other. Stout Halflings are Vanilla Hobbits. Living in a burrow with a large extended family and a garden. For what it’s worth, they get four paragraphs of explanation. They gain proficiency in Animal Handling or Nature, plus Calligrapher’s supplies. They gain expertise to recall details about stuff in their journals, which… if it’s in your journal why do you need to roll? They can also cook a big meal during a short rest, letting themselves and allies consume 1 Supply each to get 1d6 temporary hit points. Stout Halflings at least make sense (mostly, journal thing is a bit weird). Their temp hp is going to become irrelevant really fast though, and other than that they don’t get much. Underpowered but at least good flavor.  Tinker gnomes blend magic and technology to tinker with stuff. They get proficiency in Tinker’s Tools, Engineering, and either Arcana or History. They gain expertise when making a check related to alchemical, magical or technological items. But their big thing is they can spend an hour and 10 gold to make a Device that lasts 24 hours, and they can have up to 3 at once. Their options are: Audiophone (plays a pre-recorded sound, up to 1 minute of recorded audio), a Tiny clockwork figure that can move slowly and make noise or cast tiny amounts of light, a fire starter that is just a lighter, or a telepathic motion sensor that relays surprisingly detailed information. One of these things is not like the others. Clockwork gnomes have cool flavor, but for the most part only the Audiophone and Sensor are really useful. But they still get 2 skill proficiencies, so not bad. Tunnel Halflings are hobbit Le Resistance, tunneling under intolerant empires to provide a place for halflings to live in peace (or not peace). Their walking speed increases to 35 feet (so better for base speed 25 species), gain proficiency in Acrobatics Deception Nature or Stealth, can automatically escape a grapple once per long rest, and proficiency in Sleight of Hand plus expertise when using it to take items (which is like 99% of sleight of hand). Good set of bonuses, and great flavor. I really like this culture, Freedom Fighter Hobbits literally undermining authority is my kind of jam. Tyrannized people live under the reign of a Tyrant of some sort or another. Some vaguely evilish overlord, who is probably beset by tunneling hobbits. They gain proficiency in either Deception or Intimidation, expertise against a wide range of special conditions, the ability to add up to +3 (scaling with nearby allies) to a failed roll once per rest (which can turn failure into success), and either energy resistance or bonus damage with a bonus action. It feels a bit like a random assortment of gifts, but they make an effort to justify it all working together. The ability to turn failures into successes is strong, and elemental resistance is nice. Varied and interesting, not too powerful. Villagers are normal people from a village. They’re probably the Chosen One or something. They get proficiency in Animal Handling and improvised weapons, can use Wisdom for History Nature or Religion checks (but it gives the Narrator explicit permission to make their answers wrong, because gently caress rural people I guess), and expertise on Perception when keeping watch during a long rest. This culture is pretty bad. One skill proficiency in a niche ability, and their most unique ability (wisdom for some knowledge rolls) comes with a totally unnecessary clause about their answers being unreliable.  Warhordlings are raised in a military camp. This could be because it’s a nomadic warband (like Orcs are frequently portrayed as having) or because your parents are soldiers/camp followers in a normal army. They are proficient in Intimidation, can use a bonus action to move their speed towards an enemy, can spend 4 hours to scrounge 2 Supply from an urban or warzone environment, and get proficiency in light armor and 2 martial weapons of their choice. Additionally, they can spend 10 minutes to make free versions of simple weapons other than crossbows. This one works for me. Bonus action movement is very powerful, armor proficiency is nice for casters, and 2 martial weapons can give a caster a finesse or ranged attack other than spells. It’s really best for casters rather than martial characters, which feels like a bit of a weird flavor miss. Wildlings live in wild isolated communities. They get Expertise on Investigation and Perception in either moonlight/starlight or daylight (pick at chargen), can spend 4 hours finding 2 Supply (no environment limit like Warhordling), always know the time of day and time of year, have proficiency in Nature and can use Wisdom for Nature (no rider about being a dumb rube), and gain one extra bonus based on their lifestyle. Agriculturalists gain expertise on Persuasion against farmers and others who cultivate for a living, or when using a land vehicle. Beastwardens gain expertise when tracking if they have an animal sidekick, and expertise on all animal handling. Land Hunters gain expertise on Intimidation and Stealth and can march longer without tiring. And Water Drifters gain expertise on water vehicles and athletics and can hold their breath for 15 minutes. Two skills, some flavorful abilities and small bonuses, and no stupid “you are dumb and wrong” rider. Just a better Villager. You know what Wood Elves are. They get +5 feet of Speed, can cast Animal Friendship once per long rest, climb speed equal to their Speed, proficiency with longbows and shortswords, and proficiency in either Animal Handling and land vehicles or Nature and herbalism kits. These guys are good, without being as OP as the High Elves. The speed bonus is great for melee types, longbow proficiency is great for casters and rogues, and they have a decent proficiency. Definitely the best balanced elf Culture. There you have it, 35 cultures in the core book. It really feels like there were two designers for Cultures, who were working off of different balance frames. On the one hand, you have most of the cultures providing about 2 skill proficiencies plus some flavorful but narrow abilities, with a cantrip being worth about a skill proficiency. On the other hand, you have a small but significant number of cultures that give about twice as much bonus, being overpowered compared to the field but fine next to each other. I like the culture system, it ties in well with the Heritages and Backgrounds to give you a more modular character creation experience. Most of them work well, but I really wish they had done one more balance pass to even out the rough spots. Next time (after Thanksgiving) I’ll cover the Backgrounds and Destinies to finish Origin. There are 21 Backgrounds and 10 Destinies, but they are much simpler than either Heritages or Cultures.
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Nov 24, 2022 07:56
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So the thing is that I really like the deaf representation, they did it by reinforcing the gently caress out of a not so great stereotype that signed languages aren't real languages and are just a signed version of another language. They're whole other languages, not a word-to-sign 1-to-1 cipher. And what signed language someone uses isn't causally related to the spoken language around them (how would they hear it? lots of people speak it but the people who only use it can't hear). Like, American Sign Language isn't mutually intelligible with British Sign Language but it's pretty-hard-but-not-learning-French-hard to understand French Sign Language. Signed languages are sufficiently important that there are entire PhD programs in Linguistics that exclusively study them, and enough of them that I can trivially make a ranked list of their quality : there are enough people who study that and nothing else that I can rank the brands and they're associated with. One of those situations where you love the hell out of the sentiment but the execution makes you yikes.
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Nov 24, 2022 08:49
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That dwarf art looks like they pasted a new face onto it
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Nov 24, 2022 18:03
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yeah, the art in this batch is such a step down from the previous bunch.
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Nov 24, 2022 23:16
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mellonbread posted:It's good that the guy just wrote his own game. When your "supplement" requires two different base games and is longer than both of them put together, that's usually a sign you're better off just doing your own thing. Sure you might just end up with a heartbreaker, but your players will appreciate not having to flip through three different rules tomes. Oh poo poo you commissioned Rifle Infantry to do that stuff? His stuff is, in my own words, "Sick as poo poo, Rad as gently caress".
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Nov 25, 2022 07:02
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It so is.
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Nov 25, 2022 10:22
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Fivemarks posted:Oh poo poo you commissioned Rifle Infantry to do that stuff? His stuff is, in my own words, "Sick as poo poo, Rad as gently caress". JcDent posted:It so is.     
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Nov 26, 2022 23:37
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