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One rotation of one round of Rifts combat burnt me out, but I finally feel up to it again, so continuing on with a character from every Rifts worldbook... This book was also awesome back in the day. It had more CJ Carella bullshit, plus aircraft carriers and cool underwater robots and stuff. The art was pretty sweet too:  I was always crazy about the robots and hardware back in the day, and never really paid attention to the rest of the book, so I am going to fix that right now and make:  The Humpback Whale RCC. PLEASE NOTE: NOT ALL WHALES ARE PSYCHIC  Again, our John Doe: pre:IQ 14 PP 6 SDC 18 ME 9 PE 11 HP 12 MA 19 PB 5 PS 11 Spd 15 Whales don't get many skills, but oddly, we do get to pick a few from a narrow list. The Rogue list is mostly available, so we are a hustler whale. pre:Swim 98 Track and Hunt Sea Animals 30 Underwater Navigation 65 Undersea Survival 45 Language: English 58 Gambling 35 Pick Pockets 30 Seduction 23 Most importantly, Humpback Whales, like the dolphin and other whale RCCs, get access to innate Ley Line magic. When on a Ley Line, we can: charge up with energy and become a MDC creature; shoot blasts of energy (2d6 MD); go super fast; and double our natural healing rates. We get 4 spellsongs and some PPE (131) to use them, and we are a Minor (31) Psionic, with 32 ISP and a handful of crappy sensory powers. Unfortunately, we are just too big for WHALE POWER ARMOR  
Dagon fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 00:08
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So if you choose to be a whale, you become more intelligent than the man you were previously?
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Mar 14, 2014 00:29
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goatface posted:So if you choose to be a whale, you become more intelligent than the man you were previously? Normally if you were going to choose a RCC you would roll whatever it tells you to for stats. Instead, I'm using our original rolls and taking the difference, adding or subtracting dice where needed. Humpback Whales roll 2d6+6 for Int, though, so yes they are smarter than people on average.
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Mar 14, 2014 00:32
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Ars Magica: Worth Its Weight In Gold Well, I’ve only gotten one suggestion for a magic item so far - Oliver has a hollow wooden horse of some variety. Now, what we know about Oliver is that he’s a scoundrel and he needs to make quick getaways, and also that he works as a messenger for the Order. We also realize he kind of forgot to pick up any Ride. So, my first idea - an item to summon a horse - is perhaps not the best one for Oliver. On the other hand, he has the stats to at least be half-decent at horsemanship without any Ride. But I think this opens a new possibility: teleportation. The talent of the Trojan Horse is getting inside walls, after all - and Oliver is British, he doesn’t really need to travel super far. But fast travel over short distances? That’s useful for all his interests. So, we start out by figuring out what Arts we need to teleport. The answer is simple: Corpus, because we’re affecting a human body. Rego, because we are controlling its position. Simple enough. The Rego Corpus guidelines tell us that teleportation over a distance of five paces is base level 10, while 50 is base level 15. 500 would be base level 20. I think we’ll go with base 15 and 50 paces. 500 would be nice, but we have cost limits. If we were making this device for real, there’d be issues with how it’s shaped and what it’s made of because we’d want to maximize our bonuses to crafting the thing. But as a Redcap, we don’t have to care - the thing got made, we’re just designing what it does. Thus, we also don’t realy care if it’s a lesser enchantment or an invested item - the difference is that one is less costly to make and usually weaker, while the other takes longer and can have multiple powers put in it. But it doesn’t really matter to us either way. There is a third type of enchanted item, the charged item, but we know it’s not that. Those have limited uses - once you use ‘em up, the magic is dead. So it’s not one of those. In any case, base level 15. Now, here’s the thing - the device rules define ‘self’ as the device, not the user. So it can’t be range: Personal. We up the range to Touch, so that it can affect the person holding it. That’s +1 magnitude, so we’re up to level 20. Duration is Momentary, Target is Individual. Okay, that’s good. But we’re not done yet! We have a few other effect modifications to consider with magic items, see. First: how often we want to use it. By default, a magic item can only be used once per day. If we want to use it twice a day, that adds +1 level - note, level, not magnitude. Magic items can end up with levels not divisible by 5. Three uses a day is +2 levels. 6 uses is +3. 12 is +4. 24 is +5. 50 is +6. Unlimited uses per day is +10. Now, we have a level 20 device, and our max is level 30. We could drop unlimited uses on it and call it good, but let’s look at some other choices we could make. First: Penetration. Magic items have zero Penetration by default. For every level we add to the device towards Penetration, it gets +2 Penetration. Each effect, mind you, gets seperate Penetration scores. We don’t need any Penetration - this is striclty for use on Oliver, and Oliver has no Magic Resistance. (This is one of the major weaknesses of the Blood of Heroes compared to most other magus-slot characters.) Second: Concentration. Devices with concentration-duration magic must have the wielder concentrate for them. However, an effect can be designed to concentrate on itself for +5 levels. The wielder still has to concentrate to change how the effect is used - a levitation spell that concentrates on itself can hold someone up, but if you want to move them up or down, you still have to concentrate. Effects left to their own concentration start to end at the next sunrise or sunset. They have to be turned back on by concentrating then. Again: we don’t need this, because this effect is momentary duration. Third: Effect Use. We could restrict who can use the device down to a specific list by adding +3 levels. We could give a list of names, or we could restrict the device to an undefined group like ‘only men’ or ‘only Redcaps’. To do the second, however, we must add a linked trigger, more on which in a moment. Without usage restrictions, a device can be used by anyone who knows the trigger. Fourth: Effect Expiry. You can cause a device’s power to break. The main reason to do this is that it makes your work faster, and also because planned obsolescence is a good business decision. This is not relevant to Redcap items, however, and has no effect on the item’s level. Also, it only works, as a note, on full instilled items, not charged items or lesser enchantments. Fifth: You can declare an environmental trigger rather than a trigger action. Items are only sensitive to major magical features of the environment, mind you. However, they can tell when the sun sets or rises, ro what phase of the moon it is, as well as changes to the local aura. So your trigger would be an automatic trigger based on something like that. This adds +3 levels. We don’t need it or want it. Sixth: Linked Trigger. What this means is that the effect is triggered by the results of another power of the item. Most commonly, you’d use this to allow an item to activate via mental command or to limit who can use it, tying the trigger in to a power which allows the device to read surface thoughts or otherwise sense whatever it needs to sense. Note: if you resist the linked trigger’s sensory effect, you can’t use the item. Neat little security feature, there, though obviously you can always choose not to resist. A linked trigger gives +3 to the level of the triggered effect. The triggering effect - the mind-reading, say - is not effected. So! We might want to add a linked trigger to this, to allow the teleportation horse to work by mental command, making it much harder to steal. I think we’re paranoid enough to want that. So we assign Linked Trigger to the effect for +3 levels. Our item is now level 23 and can be used once a day. We can’t afford unlimited use, but 50 uses a day seems like plenty to me. We take that. Our item’s teleportation effect is now level 29. This sounds good to me! So that’s 71 levels of effect left. But we need to add a second effect to our wooden horse now. One that lets it read our mind. We want this to be constant. There is no spell duration for that - but there is a way to do it with enchanted items. This is by giving it a Sun duration, two uses per day and an envrionmental trigger on sunrise or sunset. This adds a total of +2 Magnitudes from duration and +4 levels - +1 for two uses per day, and +3 for an environmental trigger. Alternatively, an item with Concentration duration that maintains its own concentration - it’ll need you to reapply it every so often, but it’s nearly as good. Now, how do we get our mind-reading effect? Well, that’s an Intellego Mentem effect of base level 15. We need to add Touch range to that, making it level 20. This means we can’t go for the constant effect - that would raise this to level 34. We can’t go above 30. So, instead, we go for the concentration one. This adds +1 Magnitude for Concentration duration - level 25 now. We then add +5 levels to have the device maintain its own concentration. The trick here is that when sunset comes, we have to remember to concentrate for a few moments, to keep the effect from lapsing. Otherwise, we’ll be out the power for the rest of the day. (Sunrise turnoff is fine, since that’s the mark of a new day.) So, we have now got 41 levels of effect left and a magical wooden horse figurine that lets us teleport. This, the Pony of Ilion, is our first magic item. It’s quite a potent little thing, and easily mistaken for a toy. Oliver guards it closely and keeps it on a small chain around his neck. (It is a very small wooden horse.) We also decide that the pony will teleport us to the spot we are looking at within 50 paces. It can’t drop us where we can’t see, but we can make multiple hops. Now, let’s see...how about a magic ring? We don’t have Magic Resistance, but how about a ring that makes us practically impossible to hit in combat? See, there is a spell called Wizard’s Sidestep that makes you appear to be standing about a pace away from where you actually are, and makes your image teleport when it gets hit. It’s a level 10 spell, at base, but we can mess around with those values. We don’t need it to last Sun duration, after all...but we do need it to be Touch range rather than Personal. So, the base level of this effect is Rego Imaginem 2, +1 from changing image and +1 one for moved image matching changes. Basically, those magnitude increases are there to say that the image of our body next to us moves around when we do and is not static. Now, we add +1 Magnitude for Touch range. This effect is now level 5. But it lasts only a moment...so we’ll up that to Diameter. We don’t want this to last forever - two minutes is long enough for most things. So now our item is level 10. We’ll make it usable 24 times a day - I can’t imagine we’ll need it more than that. So that’s a level 15 item now. We might worry about a linked trigger, but I think we’re fine having this require an actual action to activate. A ring is much less likely to be noticed or stolen than a weird-looking pendant. We will name it Nowhere. We now have 26 levels of effect left. We have our defensive item and our travel item. Due to our Mythic Mimicry, our messages are already carried purely between our ears. We are masters of lies...but maybe we should get a magic item that makes our disguise skills even better. We head to Muto Imaginem and look at the level 15 effect Disguise of the Transformed Image. This makes someone look, sound, feel and smell entirely different, though passably human. This is a base level 4 effect, +1 magnitude for Touch range to 5. We want this one to last a while, so we go for the +2 magnitudes of Sun duration. And this is where our GM thinks for a moment and decides that he’d prefer our perfect liar have to work a bit, so he declares that this is fine...but the item only has one other appearance it can grant. After all, it is a device - it has no mind, with which to design another iamge. It has only what it was built with. This is a fair restriction on an item - a wizard can think, but an item can’t. Another fair restriction might be to say that it can only take the form of someone you’re looking at when you activate it. In fact, we’ll go with that one - Oliver has much more use for that. (Alternatively, as a third option, it might require a Finesse roll to make an image different than the ‘generic’ one programmed into it.) Now, this restriction is not required, but as a GM I’d probably institute it because items with restrictions are more flavorful and fun - they encourage thinking. Spells can have those same restrictions, but I find they need them less because wizards simply have fewer skills to leverage than Redcaps or other non-wizards do - sure, a wizard with the equivalent spell can become anyone, but they’re not going to be anywhere near as good at selling it or lying as Oliver here is - at least, most of the time. Anyway, we have a level 15 effect. It lasts a full day, so we only need to add 1 level to it, to give it two uses per day. It won’t go off automatically, though - we have to activate it. Taking the item off, though, will deactivate the effect...so, thinking on this, we decide to go for +3 levels and 6 uses per day, in case we need to do some quick changes. This gets us to level 18. We’ll say this one’s a hat named No One. We bank our final 8 levels of effect. There is pretty much nothing we can get that is worth taking at level 8 or below, but as play goes on we will earn more levels of effect - 4 more per year, in fact - which we can use to requisition new items. We can also turn in the ones we’ve got and request new ones...but in play, we’ll be limited by what the GM thinks the local Redcaps have in stock or what our buddies can make for us. pre:Oliver of Mercere, Blood of Odysseus Characteristics Intelligence +4 (Clever Plans) Strength +0 Perception -2 Dexterity +2 Presence +1 Stamina +1 Communication +2 (Peerless Liar) Quickness +1 Personaltiy Proud +4 Cunning +5 Brave +3 Virtues Blood of Heroes (0) Mythic Intelligence (0) Well-Traveled (0) Redcap (3) Mythic Mimicry (3) Improved Characteristics (1) Great Intelligence (1) Magic Items (1) Magic Items (1) Linguist (1) Clear Thinker (1) Invisible to Magic (3) Puissant Guile (1) Mythic Communication (1) Warrior (1) Flaws Heroic Personality (-2) Plagued by Supernatural Being (-6) Proud (-6) Lost Love (-2) Infamous (-2) Abilities General Area Lore: England (Politics) 2 (15 XP) Awareness (Searching) 2 (15 XP) Brawl (Wrestling) 2 (15 XP) Carouse (Games of Chance) 3 (30 XP) Charm (Being Witty) 3 (30 XP) Concentration (Invisibility to Magic) 2 (15 XP) Etiquette (Nobility) 3 (30 XP) Folk Ken (Nobles) 4 (50 XP) Guile (Brazen Lies) 5 (75 XP) Hunt (Tracking) 1 (5 XP) Intrigue (Plotting) 4 (50 XP) English (Speeches) 5 (60*1.25 XP) French (Criminal Cant) 3 (24*1.25 XP) German (Military Talk) 3 (24*1.25 XP) Gaelic (Scots Gaelic) 2 (12*1.25 XP) Legerdemain (Pickpocketing) 3 (30 XP) Stealth (Shadowing) 2 (15 XP) Survival (Coastlines) 1 (5 XP) Organization Lore: Order of Hermes (Politics) 2 (15 XP) Academic Artes Liberales (Logic) 2 (15 XP) Latin (Hermetic Usage) 5 (40*1.25 XP) Martial Single Weapon (Long Sword) 4 (50 XP) Arcane Code of Hermes (Redcaps) 1 (5 XP) Reputations Vicious Thief and Saboteur (Nobility) 4 Confidence: 2 Confidence Points: 5 Gear The Pony of Ilion (InMe 30, requires concentration at sunrise or sunset to maintain, activated by stroking the pony’s head, ReCo 29, activated via thinking the command ‘I wish to be where I see.’) Nowhere (ReIm 15, activated by rubbing a thumb on the ring) No One (MuIm 18, activated by tweaking the hat brim while looking at someone) Next time: House Tremere
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Mar 14, 2014 01:37
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Ars Magica: Strength Through Order Having made Oliver, we move on to the House Tremere section. A lot of this section, as with most of the book, is fluff stuff. Really good, but not what we’re looking for right now. It does, however, introduce a new trick: Certamen schools. See, every member of House Tremere has a Magical Focus in Certamen, which is wizard dueling. It’s kind of like normal combat if you attacked and defended with your Arts scores and, dealing damage and tanking with your mental stats. Let’s look at the schools. You get a bonus for using a school full on...or you can fight by mixing schools, but get a lesser bonus round to round depending on which school you are using this specific round. You can only learn one school to truly fight in, but can study others to fight in their style.
I generally allow any Tremere or Tytalus to select a dueling school at chargen, since they like dueling, and anyone else who has made dueling a focus of their character, too. Now, some new Virtues!
And so we come to the end of 2008. Interesting stuff, but House Tremere doesn’t really add much that’s new, mechanically, besides Certamen schools. They are super cool, if limited in application, but they don’t change how a character is going to look at the end. 2006 brought us five new books: City & Guild, Covenants, The Mysteries Revised Edition, Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults, and Realms of Power: The Infernal. Covenants is a great book but does not contain new chargen rules - it’s for covenant creation, not character creation. That’s a process we should go through at some point, I guess. But not now. So we’ll start with City & Guild next time! Next time: into 2006
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Mar 14, 2014 18:02
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Dagon posted:
My absolute favourite part of this is that a humpback whale can have the Pick Pockets skill. "Wait... my wallet's gone!" "I knew we shouldn't have trusted that shifty looking whale!" 
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Mar 14, 2014 18:16
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With the right Remote Unit in Blue Planet it is totally possible...Also there is an Orca crime boss in the setting.
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Mar 14, 2014 21:23
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Ars Magica: Money Adventures In The Middle Ages City and Guild is a very big fluff book that talks about life in cities, with everything from plague to law to daily problems. We get some new Virtues and Flaws in the early parts of the book, interspersed. We also get rules for legal cases - though not under Islamic law, which got detailed in The Divine.
Then we get to the section on being a crafter. Craftsmen and laborers get an entire new system for generating Labor Points from their work. Some of these go to maintaining your lifestyle, but you can also improve your workplace, try to become wealthy, create high quality goods and more. Merchants also use a Labor system, but their main goal is to get rich on it and invest Labor points into doing stuff. This also comes with Guild rules, which define what you need to be at each guild rank. Specifically: A craft guild apprentice is between the ages of 10 and 20 and has their Craft skill at least at 3. A Journeyman is 20-30 and has Craft 5 and probably Bargain 2. A Master will be 30-40 years old, will have Craft 5-6 and Bargain at probably 3. A Senior Master is usually 40-50, has Craft 7 and Leadership at least 3. A Dean of a guild is usually 50+ years old, Craft 7 and Leadership 5. We get rules for raising your own apprentices, and so on. We also get told how a woman can do craft guild membership and be openly female. It’s really quite simple: have a husband, father or son on the guild roster. Then you can sign their name with an asterisk next to it on the roster to represent you. Bam, we’re good. From there, you can do whatever you want that a man could, because legally you are considered male for the guild. Now, new Virtues and Flaws from this section! We also learn that the Craftsman Free Virtue is for crafters whose town has no guild of that particular craft and so who do not need to give a poo poo about guild laws.
We get specific crafting rules, and some new magic powers for craftsmen! These are all Supernatural Virtues.
Crafter’s Healing is one of the best healing powers in the entire game, as a note. Moving on, we get new Virtues for being various kinds of merchant.
We also get rules for spying, intrigue and running spy networks. Useful stuff! Next time: The Mysteries, Revised!
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Mar 15, 2014 23:01
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 Ok it's about time I got in on this action. For my first character I'm going to do a little shameless self promotion and make something for my game Spirit of 77. Spirit of 77 is a game about Red Hot Mammas and Bad Motherfuckers sticking it to the man in a crazy alternate history version of the 1970s. You can read more about it here. I would make a bird bard but I need this character for a playtest this weekend, and I already had a concept picked out. Birdbard the Glam Rocker will have to come later. Instead I will be making Vector-77 The Robot Detective The game is based on Apocalypse World but has a lore more involved character creation, mixing two archetypes together gives you a huge number of options. So to facilitate making this character we'll be using this reference sheet I created.  Step 1. Know your Role! Your role determines what you do, Good Old Boys Drive cars, Tough Guys hit things, Rockers... rock. My Role is going to be Sleuth. I solve problems with superior intellect. Vector-77 is programmed with the knowledge of the world greatest detectives, (Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, Batman) to solve crimes. Step 2. What's your Story? While your role describes you what you do, your Story describes how you do it. As a robot the obvious story is X-Tech, groovy seventies style super-science! Step 3. What's your Buzz? Now that I know what I do, and how I do it, my Buzz describes Why I do it. There's a lot of Buzz that would fit with this character, Justice and Truth are both pretty obvious. I'm going to switch it up a bit and take Adventure. Vector-77 is fresh out of the lab and looking to explore the world. Vector-77 is a X-Tech Sleuth looking for Adventure - Yeah I like the sound of that. Step 4. Choose your Moves As a X-Tech Sleuth Vector-77 starts with a couple of moves already. Not the Average Bear - The Sleuth gains +1 to Brains (maximum +3). Crime Scene Investigation - When Scoping out the Scene of a recent crime, you can additionally choose to ask these questions:
X-Tech Expert - When working with X-Tech, you suffer no penalty. Now I get to choose one Sleuth Move and one X-Tech Move. I really think it would be funny to take Master of Disguise, but the move I'm looking to test out is Encyclopedic Memory. Master of Disguise will have to wait until level 2. Encyclopedic Memory - When you delve into your vast storehouse of personal knowledge while analyzing something. roll+Brain. On a 10+ the DJ will tell you something interesting and potentially useful about the subject that’s relevant to the situation. Then tell the DJ how you know this. On a 7-9, the DJ will only tell you something interesting. Then tell the DJ how you know this. The obvious choice for my X-Tech move is Bionics, or in Vector-77's case, Robotics. Bionics - You have been rebuilt, better than you were before. Thanks to high-tensile steel in your body framework you automatically have an additional Health level, meaning it takes 2-harm to leave you Bruised. In addition, choose one augmentation -
Step 5. Assign your Stats Now that I know what my moves are I can assign my stats. I've decided that Vector is Smart (because of his robot brain) and tough (because of his robot body) but he's not very good at interacting with people or being creative. His stats break down like this: Might = +2 Hustle = +1 Smooth = -1 Brains = +2 (+3 because of Not the Average Bear) Soul = -1 Step 6. What's your Thang? Everyone gets a Thang, something integral to the character like a sidekick or a sweet ride. For Vector-77 I'm going to take Skilled Doc/Lawyer/Tech/Mechanic on call. Skilled Doc/Lawyer/Tech/Mechanic on call - You’ve got a companion who is always available to patch you or your gear up. Chose a Medical, Legal, Technological, or Automotive professional who is always available, works for free and never asks questions. Doctor Sarah Simmons assembled Vector-77 from spare parts in order to help her find her father's killers. Once the killers were brought to justice Sarah sent Vector-77 out into the world. But she's still around if he needs some repairs or advice on technology. Step 7. Grab Your Gear The default gear for a Sleuth includes:
Step 8. Set your Style I got this covered:  Step 9. Get your Hooks in Hooks will have to wait until the first game session so I can work them out with the other players. Step 10. GO OUT AND KICK SOME rear end. I'm on it.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:43
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 Holy poo poo
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Mar 19, 2014 00:28
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Bucnasti posted:Step 1. Know your Role! Just to clarify things, since this is taking place in an alternate 1970's before Frank Miller made the whole franchise dark and grim and broody as gently caress, would that mean the Batman in question here is the Adam West version Batman?
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Mar 19, 2014 03:07
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W.T. Fits posted:Just to clarify things, since this is taking place in an alternate 1970's before Frank Miller made the whole franchise dark and grim and broody as gently caress, would that mean the Batman in question here is the Adam West version Batman? I think more like the superfriends version of Batman. 
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Mar 19, 2014 03:17
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Bucnasti posted:I think more like the superfriends version of Batman. Also acceptable. 
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Mar 19, 2014 03:24
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Bucnasti posted:I think more like the superfriends version of Batman. So are you playtesting this with three other people? Because if you are, you have the best excuse to start the session by saying, "In the great hall of the Justice League, there are assembled the world's four greatest heroes!"
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Mar 19, 2014 07:45
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Bucnasti posted:
This is a good hack and you should feel good about having written it.
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Mar 19, 2014 11:09
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Bucnasti posted:I think more like the superfriends version of Batman. If it's the seventies, I vote "Denny O'Neil Hairy-chested Lovegod Batman" who is often forced to fight, not criminal masterminds, but bears. Sometimes they are talking bears, and then he sets them on fire and kicks them down mountains.
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Mar 19, 2014 13:52
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 I really wanted to make a cyber-samurai or something, so here is where I break with my established "use the same rolls every time" and instead start rolling a new character. Stats: pre:IQ 8 PP 8 SDC 17 ME 8 PE 12 HP 14 MA 14 PB 11 PS 12 Spd 13 pre:IQ 8 PP 8 SDC 17 ME 1  If he didn't want to let us play as this badass, we didn't want to play his game anyway... First off, our bionic reconstruction changes our stats and gives us MDC! We also get to pick four bionic features and five cybernetic enhancements from the core book, which we'll do later. pre:IQ 8 PP 18 MDC 180 ME 1 We get a decent selection of skills, too: pre:Basic Radio 55 WP: Sword Basic Math 55 WP: Archery and Targeting Language: Japanese 98 WP: Energy Pistol Literacy: Japanese 98 WP: Heavy MD Weapons Language: American 60 HTH: Zanji Shinjinken-Ryo Computer Programming 40 Horsemanship 60 Wilderness Survival 35 Piloting: Hovercycle 80 Piloting: Jet Pack 52 Boxing Forced March Basic Electronics 30 First Aid 45 Cybernetics: Basic 35 pre:IQ 8 PP 20 MDC 180 ME 12 PE 15 HP 16 MA 14 PB 11 PS 24 Spd 52 Of course, we take a vibro-katana (3d6 MD) and vibro-wakizashi (2d6 MD), because this is Rifts Japan. Those "high tech" arrowheads can be high explosive (3d6 MD). Our sidearm will be the AT-130 Particle Beam Pistol, which does 5d6+6 MD, but only has 10 shots.  Particles! We also have 4 bionic and 5 cybernetic systems. For bionics, I choose the Cyber-Nano-Robot Repair System which heals us a decent chunk twice, the Multi-Optic eye because why buy all the special eyes separately, a shoulder-mounted mini-missile launcher (1d4*10 MD), and aerial jet thrusters (120 mph). For cybernetics (why is there a difference? Is there a difference?), I choose a bunch of illegal poo poo. We are going full Shadowrun here. A Computer Virus Carrier, a computerized telephone jack, cyberware networking, a radio scrambler implant, and a cosmetic implant to make our face look like a sweet oni.  Hell Yeah
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Mar 19, 2014 18:51
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 Central Casting: Heroes of Legend isn't really a game book. Instead, it's 83 pages of random roll tables meant to give you ideas for Your Favorite Fantasy Roleplaying Game, with some... curious social views. There's the Sexual Disorders table, for instance.   Social shyness: just as likely as necrophilia. That's neither here nor there, though, because I'm going to use the book to roll up a character! The first stop is 101: Character Race, which has the D&D standards (human, elf, dwarf, halfling, half elf, orc, half orc), as well as reptilemen and a catch-all "beastman" type ("includes minotaurs, centaurs, satyrs, fauns, and goatmen", though with no sign if that's supposed to be an inclusive or exclusive "includes"). This is a straight 1d20 roll, heavily biased towards humans (who take up spaces 1-14). I get a 20 on the roll, though ("other races"), and then a 4, which lands on the aforementioned reptilemen.  Next is 102: Cultural Background. A 1d10 roll without modifiers gets me an 8, for Civilized, but because I'm a reptileman that automatically turns into the Civilized-Decadent row of the table (which is listed as "Decadent Civilized" in the text, but not "Decadently Civilized"). This kind of culture is hedonistic and jaded and meant to be like the Melniboneans or the end of the Roman Empire. But what do I get for being one of the dudes that Conan slaughters his way through?  But what do these skill ranks mean?  So, I'm "average" at survival in the city and "a raw beginner" at survival in the wilderness. The book never actually tells you if you should roll against that literacy chance for specific languages or what, but I'm going to do that anyway, with a 1d100 roll (trying to get a 20 or less). With a 48, no, I'm not literate in my native reptileman language. Being Decadent Civilized also gives a +7 Cultural Modifier, or CuMod, which will act as a modifier to future rolls. That's higher than any of the other culture types, but the others also get more actual useful bonuses instead of having a harder time going insane. The next table is 103: Social Status. For this the roll is 1d100 + CuMod. My 1d100+7 gets a 104, so not only am I a decadent reptileman, I'm a noble and probably distinctly wealthy decadent reptileman. It does drop my survival skills to 2 for Urban and 0 for Wilderness, though.  Now I have to jump over to 758: Nobles. This is another 1d100 without modifiers, and a 10 gets "Prince (royal)" (as labeled to be distinct from the ruler of a principality, the son of a grand duke, or whatever). That gives a +4d10 Title Modifier, or TiMod, which will be relevant in a minute when I reroll on the social status table to get actual wealth. (There's also a rule that notes that you have to roll a separate 1d100 when rerolling Social Status and don't add the TiMod if it's 95 or more, I guess just to make things more complicated.) Since the TiMod will be used like a static number later, I'll roll it and get a 22 (though the book doesn't actually explain if you're supposed to do that or not). Prince Royal (as it's referenced in the text, rather than "Prince (royal)") gives 1d4 Land Titles, which I'm pretty sure actually means Special Titles because there are no Land Titles in the text. For the Special Titles, I jump over to 871: Special Titles for Nobility, which is just a straight-up set of three 1d20 tables to mash cliche fantasy titles together. A 1d4 roll gives me 3 titles, and I roll on the three tables three times and get "Watchwarder of the Hills", "Keeper of the Upper Steppe", and "Warden of the Seaward Pale". Now, back to 758, the Prince Royal title comes with 70% personal ownership of estates that are 1d20x5 square miles. I roll and get a 9, so 45 square miles, with 31.5 square miles personally owned. What do I get out of all this on a character level?  That's right, all that stuff actually just belongs to my parents (though I still get the TiMod), unless they're dead (that might happen in a later table, even though this text claims "already determined"). I do get +1d4 Charisma, personal guards, and some hobbies. Now, even though it says that there, I can't actually roll for hobbies yet because I don't know how wealthy I am, so I'll do 427: Hobbies right after I figure that out. I do roll the 1d4 now and so I know I have 4 hobbies. There's one last thing before I can go back to Social Status: I have to roll a 1d2 for gender. For some reason the Nobles section specifically tells you to do that. I guess because it might be important for inheritance and stuff? Maybe somebody played too much Crusader Kings 2. Anyway, with a 2 I am a female noble, so I'm actually a reptilewoman instead of a reptileman, and the child of a decadent reptilewoman crown prince or something. Now I go back to 103: Social Status. But! Before I can actually reroll, I have to jump over to 872: Royal Relations to find out my princely father's relationship with the ruler of the land. This is a weird one.  A 1d100 gets a 48, so my father has no actual relation to the ruler of the land, despite being a prince and so in line for the throne. Maybe it's an elective monarchy or something? Now I go back to 103: Social Status, again. I roll a 1d100 and get 32, so I do use my TiMod on the Social Status reroll (but I wouldn't have if it was a 95 or above). Now I'm rolling 1d100 + 7 (culture) + 4d8 (title), rerolling any Nobility results. With a 96 (after one reroll), I land in the "Wealthy" zone, and if I can roll my TiMod-plus-one or less (23) on another 1d100 roll, I'm Extremely Wealthy. I get a 7, so I'm extremely wealthy and have a Social Level Modifier (SolMod) of 13 (8 extremely wealthy + 5 noble). But what do I get for being an extremely wealthy decadent reptilewoman noble who's the daughter of a royal prince?   Yeah, okay, that's pretty nice. I reroll native literacy as a 50% chance, and I get a 47, so I'm literate in my native language (and presumably have a 40% chance to be literate in other languages). I've got plate mail and a full set of weapons. I hop over to 649: Exotic Personality Features to roll up an exotic trait. With a 12 on 1d20, I have a "behavior tag". An 11 on 1d20 on the behavior tag subtable says that I'm a Pet Lover (which is noted as a "Lightside" trait, which may have an effect on other tables). Since I'm an ultra-wealthy decadent lizardwoman, I'm going to assume that I'm a loving collector of incredibly venomous snakes. Now I'll finally go over to 427: Hobbies to roll up the 4 hobbies I have. For each one, I'm rolling for type of hobby (a straightforward d20 table), hobby proficiency (1d4, +1 rank for Decadent, +2 ranks for Noble), and degree of interest (a 1d10 table that goes from "Casual" to "Consuming Passion"). My first hobby is animal husbandry, with 6 ranks. This means I'm "Very Good", so I suppose I must be breeding my own strains of even more ultra-venomous snakes from the wild versions. It's only a Casual Interest, though. My second hobby is hairdressing and cosmetics, with 4 ranks ("Fairly Competent"). Do lizardwomen even have hair? And why is hairdressing and cosmetics on the hobby table for ersatz-D&D characters anyway? It is my Consuming Passion, though, and with a 1d6 roll I find out I spend 50% of my total income on this hobby. Given the whole not-D&D thing, that honestly just sounds like normal PC behavior to have enough jewelry on one's person to buy a small country. My third hobby is singing, with 6 ranks ("Very Good" again). It's a Sporadic and Variable interest, and I spend about 1% of my total income on it. My fourth hobby gets an 11, sports and athletics, and a d8 sub-roll (sloppy editing strikes again because there are 8 items but it says to use a d6) lands on wrestling. This gives me a +1 to my Strength (whenever it eventually shows up), and 7 ranks in wrestling ("Master"). I am Devoted to my wrestling hobby, and spend about 10% to 15% of my income on it. Now I'm finally done with everything from 103, and I go to 104: Birth Legitimacy. With a 1d20 + CuMod, I get a 10, so I'm a legitimate birth (19 or above is an illegitimate child). Since I'm not illegitimate, I go right to 106: The Family. With a 1d20 + CuMod, I get a 14, and then a 2 on 1d2, so my entire family is a single maternal grandparent.  I have no idea how this is supposed to interact with the noble thing. Are my parents dead so I get all that sweet, sweet stuff? I'm going to assume for the moment that I don't, and so I guess I was raised directly by the Queen while my princely father faffed about uselessly somewhere else. For 107: Siblings, I get a 5 on the number-of-siblings table for 1d3 siblings, and then roll that to get 3 siblings. On 108: Birth Order, I get a 2 and am the first born, which gives +20% additional starting money (I guess that means 24x the normal starting wealth instead of 20x). I have no idea if that makes me more likely to inherit noble title stuff, because it doesn't say. 109: Time of Birth is a very  section. I'm going to roll a 1d12 for month—7, August—and 1d31 for day—11—and just leave it at that. I have no idea about year. Anybody have the Conan calendar on hand? 110: Place of Birth is another straightforward 1d20 table (modified by the Legitimacy Modifier, LegitMod, but I don't have one since I'm a legitimate child). A roll of 18 means I was born in an exotic location. For that I roll on 111: Exotic Birth Locations, and with a 14 I get a special result: GM ONLY - refer to entry #111 on Table 978: GM Specials.  I must be some kind of terrifying reptilewoman simulacrum, but I'm going to ignore the "fabricated memories" part because it's way more entertaining to be the result of some bizarre magical attempt to create a worthy ruler for the decadent and slowly collapsing reptileman empire. One that loves makeup and hairstyling! This result gives me a Birth Modifier (BiMod) of 25, which will affect the next table. For 112: Unusual Births, I roll 1d100 + 25 (the BiMod), and get an 86: when I was born (or, I guess, magically created), there were two unusual occurences, one of which is hidden. For these I roll on 113: Unusual Birth Circumstances. The first 1d100 is a 13, "Mother died in childbirth". I know about this one, and probably think the mother died in, you know, actual childbirth, but in this case it's that instead her soul got sucked out to power whatever process created me, like some kind of decadent reptileman EvangelionFrankenstein. The second result is a 100.  This was the "hidden" result, so I'm going to say that I have no idea about the effects of either of the rerolls. The third result, with a 1d100+20, is a 40, "Character was born at exactly midnight". For this I roll 1d3 times on a subtable (my 1d3 roll for this gives 3 times). The first sub-result is 3 on 1d10 for Night Vision ("see in dark as if day"), which I guess is perfect night vision, since it doesn't clarify. The second sub-result is 9 on 1d10 for "+2 to Magical Ability attribute after sun sets (or when in darkness or shadow)". The third sub-result is 7 on 1d10 for "+1 Rank natural skill bonus for any stealth related skills (sneaking around, hiding, etc)". The fourth result on 113, with the 1d100+20 again, is 114. This is an entertaining one.  So, uh. I guess that the Reptilemen Queen sacrificed her daughter-in-law's life as part of a ritual to capture some of the essence of the Reptilegod (possibly using my father as a forced avatar of some kind) and create me with it, and my father has never been around because it freaked him out and he noped the gently caress out of there. First I go to 874: Physical Afflictions. This is a 1d20 roll without modifers, and despite the name of the table, it's a mix of good, bad, and weird things (weird skin colors, psychic powers, hunchbacked, webbed fingers, etc). I get a 20 on this table.  Yeah, like half the tables in this book have a "reroll a couple more times" result if you get a maximum. My 1d2+1 comes up as a 2. The first reroll is a 20 again.  This time, my 1d2+1 comes up as a 3. I have four rolls remaining on this table.My second reroll is a 14, which adds 1d6 to Strength. I roll it and get +3 (so my Strength is now +4 total after that wrestling bonus). My third reroll is a 19, which gives me snake fangs.  My fourth reroll is a 16, which gives me ~psychic power~. Now I have to jump over to 873: Psychic Abilities to see what. This one is another 1d20 table. Psychic abilities count like a skill, complete with starting at rank 1. The not-quite-a-system in the book labels psychic powers as basically doing temporary Strength damage when used, with Strength returning with sleep or bed rest. With a 5 on a 1d20, I get the Clairvoyance III power.    So basically I can make like Doctor Strange and scry on people which being all spooky and astral and stuff. Also, it's a good thing I'm getting these Strength bonuses, given that cost. Now I go back to 874. My fifth and last reroll is a 4, which gives me glowing eyes that let me see in the dark without a light source (which I guess is kind of pointless because I already have perfect night vision). I have a 60% chance for the glow to be a special color, and a 36 on 1d100 says that it is, so I jump over to 865: Colors and get a 15 for Black. My eyes glow... black? Back on 874, I also get to roll 1d4 on a subtable, and with a 1 I find out that my special eyes give me another psychic power! Back on 873: Psychic Abilities I roll a 7 on the 1d20 table and get Hypnosis.     With all those rolls finally done, I go to 863: Gifts and Legacies. This is another 1d20 table with a bunch of little subtables. The main roll is 16, "a piece of clothing", and a 7 on the 1d8 subtable tells me that my godly parent has given me "a pair of stockings or hose". (Yes, seriously, that's one of the items.) As these items "may be magic items (even if not rolled as such)", and given the divine parent, I note down my magic thighhighs and go to the next table. On 869: Blessings, another 1d20 table with no modifiers, I get a 9, which gives me a roll on the only subtable, "Unique Talents". That 1d10 roll gets me a 1, Blind Trust. "Other beings want to trust the character as if he were their best friend." Finally I go to 864: Deities. On this table I'm rolling 1d20 + 7 (CuMod) to find out the deific parent. A result of 17 results in the Love Goddess, who "in Decadent cultures [...] is lust embodied". With all of that done, I can go to 114: Parents & NPCs. Now, back over in the social status section, nobles are noted as having 1d4 hobbies on 427: Hobbies instead of an occupation, so even though it doesn't mention that again in 114, I'm going to skip the first part of 114 (rolling an occupation for parents), and instead roll 1d4 hobbies each for my absent father and for the grandmother who raised me. Dear old dad has 2 hobbies. The first, with an 18 on 1d20, is animal husbandry again (he must have given me some of his snakes), with 6 ranks ("very good"), and it's a Devoted hobby that he spends 10% to 15% of total income on. The second hobby, with a 10 on 1d20, is studying, and a 4 on 1d8 for the subtable tells me he studies astronomy. He has 4 ranks in it ("above average"), and it's a Sporadic and Variable hobby that takes up 1% of his income. Gramma has 3 hobbies. The first, with another 18, is animal husbandry again (breeding snakes must really run in this family), with 5 ranks ("good"), and it's a Sporadic and Variable hobby for her. The second hobby, with a 20, is Heraldry, at rank 7 ("master"), and it's Casual. (Shouldn't a Queen know that stuff already, though?) The third hobby, with a 13, is "develop appreciation of the arts-- learn to appreciate and critique art, music, drama, poetry, etc.", at rank 5, and it's a Sporadic and Variable interest. Now I'm back to 114B, to roll up Noteworthy Items about the both of them. A 1 on a d3 tells me there's only one noteworthy item to roll, and a 2 on a d6 tells me it applies to Queen Grandma. The actual table is another 1d20 table without modifiers and with a few subtables, and the 2 that I roll tells me that she had 1d3 unusual birth circumstances. So, over to 113: Unusual Birth Circumstances! Again! I roll a 3 on the 1d3. The first 1d100 roll is a 46, which tells me that Grandma was afflicted by ancient family curse once found completely gone. I have to jump over to 868: Curses and roll another 1d20 to find out what curse, and the 6 tells me that she is a lycanthrope! It says "generally a werewolf", but doesn't actually dictate a specific type. Some kind of hypno-lizard werewolf Queen, I guess.  The second 1d100 roll is a 99. A mysterious stranger gave Grandma some kind of gift at birth. I go back to 863: Gifts and Legacies, roll a 4 on 1d20 to tell me it's a piece of jewelry, and then roll a 9 on the subtable to tell me it's a pin or brooch. The third 1d100 roll is an 86, which tells me that Grandma is one of a set of identical triplets. I just... uh... well... okay.  Now I finally get to go to 216: Significant Events of Childhood and Adolescence. Here I finally start actually rolling for my imitation reptilewoman psychic mind-twisting abomination's life history. First I get a 2 on 1d3 to find the number of significant events throughout childhood, then 1 on another 1d3 for adolescence. Now I roll 1d12 twice to get the ages the first two events happened—7 and 11. For the events, I roll 1d20 + SolMod, so I'm rolling 1d20+13. The first roll (for the event at age 7) is an 18, "something good happens to the character", and a 3 tells me that Something Wonderful Occurs. This counts as a Lightside event for future tables that use that. Now I go over to 529: Something Wonderful.... On this table I'm rolling 1d20+13 again, and I get a 22, "reroll, but so not add in the character's SolMod", and then a 2.  Okay, back to 863, again, and this time it's something explicitly magic. My 1d20 is a 14, "a deed to a property", and on the subtable I get a 2, "an ancient castle". So at age 7, while helping (or trying to help) with renovations, I find the deed to a magic castle behind the couch and hypnotize anyone who tries to take it away from me into jumping off the top of the family mansion. Sweet. The second roll (the one for the event at age 11) is 19, "a special age-specific event occurs". Now I go to 216: Special Events of Childhood & Adolescence and roll an unmodified 1d20 on 216A. I get a 19, "an event that would normally affect an adolescent occurs now", and so roll another unmodified 1d20 on 216B. This roll is a 13.  For 542: Ah Love! (there's only one exclamation point), first I roll a 3 on 1d3 for the number of romantic events, and a 5 on 1d20 for the number of months the romantic involvement lasts. The first event (which is just another 1d20 table with no modifiers) is a 4, "character marries his or her beloved". For the second event I get a 15.  Well, I go over to 545: Death Situations and roll a 1d20 on the table for the cause of death.  Now over on 868: Curses, I roll for the curse and get a 14. "1d4 Tragedies occur to the afflicted character in rapid succession." The 1d4 roll is a 3, and I go over to 528: Tragedies, where I roll 1d20+13 (SolMod) 3 times.  I roll a 2 for the 1d3 and a 6 for the 1d6, which I'm going to say drops me from Extremely Wealthy equivalent to Well-to-Do equivalent for the 6 years, then back up to Wealthy. (The book doesn't actually explain how to use the pseudo-status of nobility and how it should interact with the rest of the scale.)  I get a 3 on the 1d6, so there's no further Social Status drop.  At... age 11? Well, I go over to 875: Crimes. The first thing it tells me to do is to go to 750: Others and see who the crime was committed against. On 750, my 7 on 1d20 tells me it was a Noble. I go over to 758: Nobles, get a 4 on 1d100, and find out it was against the King. Now I actually roll a 1d20 on 875 for the crime, and get a 4, indicating Murder. Murdering the King.  This comes with a sentence of 1d20+25 years, minus 1d4 for being Wealthy by the end of it. A lucky roll gets me a 26-year sentence, so I'll be 37 by the time I get out of prison. Now I go to 540: Imprisoned. A 1d3 roll of 3 tells me there are 3 significant events during that time. The first roll of 1d10 on table 540 is a 5, "character learns thieving skills at 1d3+1 skill Ranks", and I get a 2 for that roll. The second roll is a 3 on 1d10.  The third roll is a 9 on 1d10, "character partifipates in a prison uprising". A 6 on a 1d6 tells me that I led the uprising, and then a 4 on a 1d6 tells me that it succeded. A third 1d6 is a 1 and says that no guards died. Because the uprising succeeded, I roll 26 on a 1d100 to tell me she served 26% of the prison term (or, 6.76 years, escaping at age 17 and three-fourths), and a 5 on the subtable tells me that a guard aided the prisoners in their escape (not surprising, with that Hypnosis power and already being hero-worshipped). When I finally go back and reroll on 545: Death Situations...  I'm not going to do the guilt roll it asks for, since the romantic affairs table already said I was responsible. So I guess at age 11 I fall in love with someone, marry them, then get bored with them five months later and dump then on the streets or something so they end up sold off into slavery so horrible that when they die they curse me so badly that it wrecks the entire country's economy, makes my house catch on fire, and gets me caught carrying a bunch of ultra-poisonous snakes and looming ominously over the King who just had a fatal heart attack. How's that for karma? Now I go back to 215: Significant Events of Childhood and Adolescence for my one event in adolescence. For this event, a roll of 1d6+12 tells me it happened at age 17 (so, while still in prison), and I roll 1d20+9 (the newly adjusted SolMod for Wealthy equivalent) and get an Exotic Event. This counts as a wildcard trait (could be Lightside, Darkside, or Neutral for later tables). On 544: Exotic Events, I roll 1d20 and get a 1.  Well, I guess that explains the jailbreak. On 759: Unusual Pets, I roll a 1d20 for Pet Types and get 15, "fish", and a 5 on 1d6 tells me it can stay out of water indefinitely. A 3 on 1d3 gives it 3 special abilities, and on the Special Pet Abilities table 3 1d20 rolls are 6 for a Physical Affliction, 1 for wings, and 9 to regenerate damage done to it. I go over to 874: Physical Afflictions and get a 4. Glowing eyes for everyone! The fish succeds on a 60% chance to have a special glow color and a special power; on 865: Colors, an 8 on 1d20 tells me it's a blue-green glow, and back on 874, a 4 on 1d4 tells me the fish can "see through walls like X-ray vision". On 864: Deities, a 1d20+7 (CuMod) results in a 9, the "ruling deity" who is "master of the other gods, and gives his blessing to the leaders of the people and teaches them to be better rulers". Now I flip back and go to 217: Significant Events of Adulthood. I'll say that I'm just beginning my adventuring career, so I make one roll on this table. For that I roll 2d20+9 (the new SolMod). The roll is a 34: "Character develops jaded tastes for exotic and possibly expensive pleasures." I'll bet. This counts as a Darkside trait for future tables. Now I go to 318: Alignment & Attitude. This is where those Lightside/Darkside/Neutral/wildcard traits kick in. Basically, there's three separate tables where you just roll however many times and it spits out adjectives at you. I have two Lightside traits, so I roll twice on 647: Lightside Traits. The first 2d20 is 26, making me Generous. The second is 33, making me Friendly. I have one random trait, so I roll on a 1d100 on 318A: Personality Trait Check and get an 84, which tells me it's a Darkside trait. With that I have one Darkside trait, so I roll on 648: Darkside Traits. A 22 on 2d20 makes me Disrespectful, which I could kind of expect with being an ultra-rich psychic abomination child of one god who got personally selected by a different god and then led an uprising that broke out of presumably the most secure prison in the nation. Because I don't have two more Lightside than Darkside traits, or two more Darkside than Lightside traits, I'm of Neutral alignment. Done! Except for, you know, actually having a usable character sheet. Join us next time when I try to stat this all up in GURPS. Roadie fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Mar 20, 2014 |
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Mar 20, 2014 02:04
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Ars Magica: Don’t Leave Me Blind, Give Me One Sign A lot of The Mysteries, Revised is about stuff you’ll be learning after chargen - most mystery cult powers have to be learned in play as part of quests. It does, however, provides rules for that. We get some revised rules for how Organization Lore works for Mystery Cults - not really any changes, just clarification and a new use for it in initiating others. Also, a new Story Flaw!
Given how cool some of the Mystery Virtues are, this is actually a great deal. But before we get to those, we get some other new stuff! First, a new Ability that anyone can learn.
Now, some new Virtues that anyone can take!
We also get some minor updates - you can take a Magical Focus in various astrological signs/planets or Houses (Major and Minor, respectively) to cover spells associated with those astrological things. You can take an astrological cycle for Cyclic Magic - for example, male signs vs female signs, which cover half the year and provide the normal benefits. You can take a cycle tied to the fixed, cardinal or mutable signs - all of which occupy the sky only for a third of the year and so provide a +5 or -5 modifier rather than the normal +3/-3. You can take a cycle tied to signs of a single element, which occupy the sky only a quarter of the year, to get +6/-6. Note, however, that bonuses or penalties apply to lab totals only if they’d apply for the entire season. You can also modify Flaws or Virtues by taking them as Mutable. This causes the Virtue or Flaw to apply only during the times of year governed by the four mutable astrological signs. This causes Major Virtues or Flaws to become Minor instead. If this is not possible or sensible, they can’t be Mutable. For Minor Virtues or Flaws, they remain Minor, but during the times they apply, the effect of the Virtue or Flaw is doubled in intensity. If that isn’t possible or sensible, they can’t be Mutable. Let’s see...a new Flaw!
And lastly, a new Mastery Ability.
Next time: We make a Hermetic Alchemist.
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Mar 20, 2014 13:57
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Ars Magica: Grant Me Just One Look Into The Mystery Behind Okay! Alchemy! This is going to be our mystery initiate character - I’m only doing the one. I’ll just summarize the other chapters’ stuff after. But, let’s see, this is going to be a magus, so let’s randomly determine House. 12 is...a Verditius. Sure, okay. This won’t show off what Verditius can get specially, that’s later, but we’ll do it. And it’s a lady. Okay. We are making a Verditius lady alchemist. I will name her Chloe and declare her to be Greek. Chloe now must pick Virtues and Flaws. Our Story Flaw is going to have to be Cabal Legacy. Specifically, Chloe was raised as a member of the Order of the Green Cockerel, a Hermetic mystery cult that studies the Great Mystery of Alchemy. They’re quite fashionable and not much of a secret. For Personality Flaws, we will take Major Optimistic and Minor Pious. Chloe is a true believer in God and believes that all things ultimately are for the best. She is seeking truth via alchemy in order to understand God’s creation. That’s 5 of our 10 Flaws. For our Hermetic, we’ll grab the new Vulnerable Casting. She also is into alchemy because she is particularly easy to tire in normal spellcasting. We’ll also grab Weird Magic - her mystery initiation as an apprentice has made her magic strange. So that’s 7 points, and four minor flaws. For our final Flaw, I am going to grab Missing Hand to get us to 8 points. Chloe lost a hand as part of a botched initiation ritual. She still managed to survive and pass the trial, but at the cost of her hand. pre:Chloe of the Green Cockerel House: Verditius Virtues The Gift (0) Hermetic Magus (0) Verditius Magic (0) Flaws Cabal Legacy (-1) Optimistic (-3) Pious (-1) Vulnerable Casting (-1) Weird Magic (-1) Missing Hand (-1)
So. We then turn to the part of the book that tells us about the Order of the Green Cockerel. We learn that the first degree of initiation, the Toads, learn Planetary Magic. So there’s one Virtue we’re taking. We also grab Vulgar Alchemy, the Virtue taught to the second degree, the White Swans. For the third degree, the Green Kings, we grab Unaging. That’s three of our 8 Virtue points. For the fourth degree, the Peacocks, we take Hermetic Alchemy. We still haven’t learned any Mystery Virtues, though, so we will at last take the Virtue of the Fifth Degree, the Unicorns: Lesser Elixir. That’s five points out of 8! For our final 3, we’ll grab Inventive Genius - it’s a must for lab specialists - and...oh, let’s see. Affinity for Craft is a good one for Verditius. And...Puissant Corpus, for healing and longevity. pre:Chloe of the Green Cockerel House: Verditius Virtues The Gift (0) Hermetic Magus (0) Verditius Magic (0) Planetary Magic (1) Vulgar Alchemy (1) Unaging (1) Hermetic Alchemy (1) The Lesser Elixir (1) Flaws Cabal Legacy (-1) Optimistic (-3) Pious (-1) Vulnerable Casting (-1) Weird Magic (-1) Missing Hand (-1)
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Mar 21, 2014 20:33
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 Uncharted territory! I knew of this book, but Book 8 is about where I started growing out of Rifts. Just a glance at the table of contents seems to say it has Incan stuff, gods, some giants, aliens, the "megaversal legion," a bunch of RCCs, and gauchos. Shining Path gets a shoutout, but no classes of its own or anything. Lets see what this Megaversal Legion thing is. quote:A band of transdimensional mercenaries, known as the Megaversal Legion, have set up their headquarters in the mountains of Bolivia. The Legion is one of the largest armies for hire ever built, and also one of the most successful. It is made up of soldiers and warriors from hundreds of races, but the core of the legion is made up of two species. The first one is the Ojahee (pronouced Oh-jaw-hee), giant warriors of great strength, courage and discipline. The other is humans who where[sic] former U.S. soldiers kidnapped by aliens. So, the US 7th Cavalry got scooped up by some aliens, and now they are back with (different) alien friends and they have MDC Abrams Tanks and some pretty sweet looking borgs. Forget all of that, though, I want to play as this guy:  A "Men-Rall "Tech Master"" RCC. RCCs usually aren't as fun, but look at that guy. Men-Ralls are a nearly extinct species that can manipulate matter at the molecular level and talk through electromagnetic emissions (or special translators). Stats: pre:IQ 23 PP 9 MDC 30 ME 15 PE 11 PPE 7 MA 12 PB 5 HF 7 PS 7 Spd 7 We have Mecha-Kinesis, which lets us understand any machine and repair or deal damage (3d6 MDC/1d6*10 SDC per 10 minutes). We can also zap electricity for 1d6 to 1d6*10 SD or 2d6 MD. We get 6 psychic powers from sensitive, physical, and healing categories, which all suck. We get to pick a lot of extra techy skills, and get some decent bonuses on them. pre:Language: English 70 WP: Energy Pistol Language: Spanish 70 HTH: Basic Language: Euro 70 Basic Math 65 Advanced Math 65 Artificial Intelligence 45 Chemistry 45 Basic Electronics 45 Robot Electronics 45 Basic Mechanics 45 Mechanical Engineer 40 Robot Mechanics 35 Vehicle Armorer 45 Pilot: Military: Tanks and APC 51 Weapon Systems 50 Computer Operation 50 Computer Programming 40 Cybernetics: Basic 35 Salvage 45 Radio: Basic 45 Sensory Equipment 30
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Mar 21, 2014 21:39
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I haven't posted one of these in a while. Time to make a character in... FantasyCraft is Crafty Games' take on d20, and although I've never had a chance to play it I hear it's pretty good. Anyway, I only have the core book (pdf) and the core book is lacking both bird people and bards, so I'm going to take a liberty and make a treant troubador. Except there doesn't seem to be a troubador class either, so we'll go with the similar sounding treant luchador instead.  Imagine this in a jazzy mask coming at you off the top rope. Step 0: Concept Before you start putting numbers to your PC, you need a rough idea of who they are: the subcategories are description, methods, motivation, and a section which asks how you stand out from the crowd. I name our treant - which FantasyCraft calls 'rootwalkers' - Supafly Sycamore: he's a brawler and showboater, who fights with his bare hands and loves to be the centre of attention. He also likes to leap about the place far more than you'd expect a mobile tree to do. He's pretty slender for a rootwalker, with a whip-like birch-y sort of appearance. He wears a mask to hide his identity. It is black with silver trim. Step 1: Attributes It's the standard D&D stat array that we all know, bought using a scaling point-buy system that I'm sure most of us are familiar with as well. As a fighter Supafly is going to need good physical stats all round, and Charisma in order to grandstand properly. This is pretty demanding, so I'm going to dump Int and Wis as low as they can go. The final array is:
Keep an eye on that Charisma score, it'll be important later. Step 2: Origin In FantasyCraft a character's origin is composed of their species and their specialty. Species is what you'd expect - in this case, rootwalker - and specialty is a description of what you did before you became an adventurer. You also gain two 'origin skills' as well. These always count as class skills for you when working out whether you can buy ranks in them while levelling up. I choose Acrobatics and Athletics for Supafly. Anyway, being a rootwalker means:
I have a look at the list of specialties. Acrobat catches my eye, as do Bard (there it is! I didn't see it in the class list so I was a bit curious), Fencer (too sword-focused), Fighter (armour-focused) and Fist (unarmed warrior). But the one that really seems to suit is Gladiator. That gives us...
Step 3: Career Level Supafly starts at level 1, which gets him 3(d4) action dice (which function a lot like fate points), a maximum skill rank of 4, and a feat. Step 4: Class At level 1 Supafly qualifies for a base class (level 5 unlocks expert classes for multiclassing, and level 10 unlocks master classes). Of the various classes on offer, only Soldier seems to offer the fightan' man attributes we're looking for. Soldier gives us:
For proficiencies I choose Unarmed, Blunt, and Hurled. I'll take a forte in Unarmed and the tricks Whirling Strike (increase the chance of a critical fail in order to do Dex mod as minimum damage, even on a miss), Parry (make a Reflex save to set incoming melee damage to 0 - I intend to save this for use against things which are on fire) and Mix-Up: Threaten (+3 to Intimidate people in combat provided he doesn't do it too often). I would have loved to take Mix-Up: Taunt, but that's based on Sense Motive and Supafly has a terrible score in that. Also, I mostly picked up Whirling Strike because it allows damage on a miss. gently caress the haters. Step 5: Skills Oop, already done those. Step 6: Feats We've got two feats: one general one and one from the 'soldier subsection'. The first one I jump on is Martial Arts, an unarmed combat feat. This adds +2 to unarmed damage and +1 to the chances of scoring a critical threat, and lets us substitute any one attribute for Dex when calculating defence and Str when making unarmed attack checks. I choose Charisma: Supafly's stylish wrestling skills drive all before him. I'm tempted to back this up with Wrestling Basics, but I have a better idea: the Many-Armed species feat gives us four extra arms, bonuses on grappling and handling items, and you can gain an additional Level 1 species feat by dropping one of your stats by -2. I dump Wisdom even further to 6 (-2) and pick up the only other rootwalker species feat, New Leaf. This lets me choose a breed and get bonuses: I pick the whitebark breed which makes Supafly super-hot - a +1 bonus on Appearance - and later in his career he can purchase noble titles at a discount (using Reputation points, which we'll get to in a couple more steps). Supafly's going to be top of the card in no time. As a side note, Appearance is a variable bonus that applies to social skills: the better-looking person gets a bonus equal to the difference in Appearance scores. Step 7: Interests Interests are kind of little details that might see some use: alignments (which are more varied than your basic nine-grid), languages, and studies. Studies are good for +1 on related skill checks, knowledge checks, and talking-to-NPCs-who-like-the-same-stuff checks. Supafly gets his native language for free (let's call it Treetalk), a study in his native culture or homeland (Lucha Libre - which might be a culture or a place, so I'll leave it undefined), and two other interests of his choice. I'm going to leave one open for a language so I can speak to the other party members, and the other is going to be an alignment. None of your pissy 'Chaotic Good' poo poo here, mind you - one of the options for an alignment in FC is "kinship with a powerful force", so I'm going to pick up "embodiment of the lucha spirit". I have no idea what that means, but it's got potential. Step 8: Character Sheet Now you've got all the numbers you need to fill in your character sheet. This covers basically everything we already have, but also Reputation. This starts at Level x 10 (so, 10) and goes up as you complete adventures. You can trade it in for favours (including stuff like 'break the law and get away with it'), holdings (castles), contacts, and magic items other than the ones you seize from the corpses of your enemies. Step 9: Gear There are a load of money-handling rules in FantasyCraft to govern how much of their treasure your character saves, and how much they blow on awesome parties between adventures. I'm going to skip all that, though, because this is the chargen thread rather than F&F. Supafly has a Lifestyle score of 3 to start with (from his Cha bonus), so he splits 3 points between Panache (I spend my cash on looking flash and grabbing your attention) and Prudence (tendency to save for a rainy day). Obviously, it's Panache 3, Prudence 0. This gives him a +1 Appearance bonus and a small income from owning businesses, public appearances, hand-carved action figures, etc. that he gets at the start of every adventure (or every month, if it's a long adventure). However, he is only able to hold on to 15% of what he finds in the dungeon. Anyway, he also starts with some savings to spend on cool odds and ends: 100 silver pieces (which are FC's primary unit of commerce) x Level. So, 100 silver pieces. Since he's an unarmed fighter Supafly doesn't need any weapons - I'll pick up some javelins for throwing at people too far away to suplex, though - so I get to blow his coins on cool poo poo instead. I'm going to score him a flag (+2 to Impress allies or Intimidate opponents), 20 candles (for Christmas tree impersonations), 5 common meals (which he only needs one of per day), some tequila ('spirits', which negate the frightened condition), and some basic adventuring gear (a large sack, some rope, a bit of chalk). Also, because I can, I purchase the 'hollow' upgrade for his flag, which lets him hide a smaller item inside. There's not much useful that would fit inside and that I can still afford so I choose a 'pouch' which will hold up to 50 coins. It's a secret money flag! And after all that we have one silver piece remaining, which goes right into the flag. The Finished Article pre:SUPAFLY SYCAMORE Male Rootwalker Gladiator, Soldier 1 ATTRIBUTES Str 14 (+2) Dex 14 (+2) Con 14 (+2) Int 8 (-1) Wis 6 (-2) Cha 16 (+3) SKILLS Acrobatics +6 Athletics +6 Impress +7 (+2 with flag) Intimidate +2 (+2 with flag) INTERESTS Languages: Tree Talk, one other Studies: Lucha Libre (culture) Alignments: "Embodiment of the lucha spirit" FEATS New Leaf (Whitebark) Many-Armed Martial Arts (Charisma) Combat Instincts ABILITIES Accurate (core ability) Achilles Heel (Fire) Bleeding Immunity Large Lean Season Lumbering Natural Camouflage Thick Hide 2 Crunch! Harsh Beating Paired Skills (Athletics -> Impress) DOSH, GET IT HERE Coin in Hand: 0 silver Stake: 1 silver (hidden in his flag) Panache 3 Prudence 0 Appearance +2 Income 30s Money Saved 15% FIGHTIN' STATS Initiative +3 Defence 12 Vitality 14/14 Wounds 21/21 Proficiencies: Unarmed (forte), Blunt, Hurled Tricks: Mix-Up (Threaten), Parry, Whirling Strike Unarmed Attack: +5 to hit, threat 20, 1d4+4 lethal damage Javelins (3): +3 to hit, threat 19-20, 1d8+3 lethal damage DR 2 from Thick Hide. Fortitude +3 Reflex +2 Will +0 OTHER JUNK A flag with concealed money storage A small sack, containing... 5 common meals 50 feet of rope 20 candles a bit of chalk a bottle of Jose Cuervo REPUTATION AND RENOWN Legend: 1 (added to the reputation gain after each adventure) Reputation: 10 potatocubed fucked around with this message at 10:01 on Mar 22, 2014 |
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Mar 22, 2014 09:56
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Okay, so, to continue with my Twilight F&F on my *new computer*, let's make a character or two. To start with, you pick your background; home country and gender. John Smith, Red-Blooded American Male! You start with a 10 skill level in your native language, check for bilingual ability on the inconveniently placed "Army/Nationality/Native Language Table" table twenty pages later. You go down the list of secondary languages, and if you roll the number or lower on a D10, you get that language. For example, Americans start with English, and have a 2 in 10 chance of speaking Spanish, and a 1 in ten chance of speaking German, Italian, Polish, or Yiddish. Soviet Languages are slightly different. Russians Byelorussians, and Ukranians just get Russian. Other groups get their native language and 1d10 (if you're an officer) and 1d10+2 (if you're enlisted) in Russian. Enlisted people need better language skills I guess? Language Roll: 5#1d10 9 2 10 7 10 John Smith speaks English, and that's it. Lets hope he does better with his attributes. We're going to roll randomly, none of that wimpy point buy. Attributes: 6#2d6-2 7 3 5 1 6 4 Welp. That's a total of 26, which at least means I add four extra points. There's a surpising amount of mercy in this game. John Smith American 17 4 STR 9 AGL 5 CON 3 INT 1 EDU 8 CHR Charming, fit, but not particularly smart, and with a horrifying lack of education. Next, background skills. Pick four skills from a list and get them at level 2. Language (German) 2 Unarmed Martial Arts 2 Survival 2 Farming 2 Out of character, German or Polish would be vitally useful in the setting. In character...uh, I guess he's a peasant from the German part of Pennsylvania? Who, uh, punches the ground until it's plowed? Next, it's time to start picking careers. Each career term is four years, each with their own requirements and rewards. You generally have time to grab some additional skills with secondary activities each term, and at the end of each term you must roll for war. Higher education is more or less straight out. We don't meet the requirements for anything but technical school, which has no requirements. But that's boring. We do have the Charisma to qualify for "Idle Rich" or "Politian", or the Agility to be a criminal, but that's boring. Let's be an Entertainer! Disguise 3 Observation 1 Persuasion 1 Unarmed Martial Arts 1 Secondary Activity Let's go to night school, because 1 EDU is embarrassing us. (+1 EDU) Promotion, Contacts, War: 1d10t6 0 2#1d10t8 0 0 Well, I didn't get promoted, so no extra skills for that, but war didn't break out and I get another American Entertainment contact. John hasn't hit it big yet, but he's surviving. John Smith American 21 4 STR 9 AGL 5 CON 3 INT 2 EDU 8 CHR Language (English) 10 Language (German) 2 Unarmed Martial Arts 3 Survival 2 Farming 2 Disguise 3 Observation 1 Persuasion 1 1 Entertainment Contact Let's stick with it a while, see if he can hit it big before moving on to something else. Promotion, Contacts, War: 1d10t6 1 2#1d10t8 0 1 1d10u2 0 Excellent, he's making it big, got the civilian equivalent of a promotion, and he's got a foreign entertainment contact, and war still hasn't broken out. At this age, he gets to pick five levels of subsequent term skill from entertainer, plus one more for the promotion, and a secondary activity. Let's say...kung fu cowboy movies with German dubbing, and more night school. EDU+1 Horsemanship 2 Persuasion 1 Language (German) 1 Unarmed Martial Arts 2 John Smith American 25 4 STR 9 AGL 5 CON 3 INT 3 EDU 8 CHR Language (English) 10 Language (German) 3 Unarmed Martial Arts 5 Survival 2 Farming 2 Disguise 3 Observation 1 Persuasion 2 Horsemanship 2 1 Entertainment Contact 1 Foreign Entertainment Contact Let's keep going! Promotion, Contacts, War: 1d10t6 1 2#1d10t8 0 1 1d10u3 0 About the same as last time. German Kung Fu Westerns are really popular, apparently. John Smith American 29 4 STR 9 AGL 5 CON 3 INT 4 EDU 8 CHR Language (English) 10 Language (German) 4 Unarmed Martial Arts 7 Survival 2 Farming 2 Disguise 3 Observation 1 Persuasion 3 Horsemanship 3 1 Entertainment Contact 2 Foreign Entertainment Contact One more time, we almost qualify for College. Promotion, Contacts, War: 1d10t6 0 2#1d10t8 0 1 1d10u4 1 Or we would, if war hadn't been declared. The entertainment industry has taken a dive, too. Stupid war. Aging: 1d10u8 1 Also, we're starting to slow down with age. Which, to be silly, is why I'm going weightlifting instead of night school. John Smith American 33 5 STR 8 AGL 5 CON 3 INT 7 EDU 8 CHR Language (English) 10 Language (German) 4 Unarmed Martial Arts 7 Survival 2 Farming 2 Disguise 3 Observation 1 Persuasion 4 Horsemanship 4 1 Entertainment Contact 3 Foreign Entertainment Contact So, geting drafted, we get the basic training suite, but we aren't smart or educated enough to go to OCS. Armed Martial Arts: 0 Autogun: 0 Grenade Launcher: 0 Ground Vehicle (Wheeled): 1 Small Arms (Rifle): 2 Swimming: 1 Tac Missile: 0 Thrown Weapon: 1 Unarmed Martial Arts 1 You know what we do qualify for? Special Forces. STR+AGI+CON=18+, Language 2+. So we get a further Autogun 1 Parachute 2 Small Arms 2 Survival 1 Unarmed Martial Arts 2 Aging, Promotion, Contacts: 1d10u7 1 1d10t6 0 2#1d10t6 1 0 We slow down even more, and make up for it with some PT, we don't get promoted (I guess nobody appreciates "No, but I played one in the movies"), and we get a pair of contacts, one foreign. Initiative: 1d6/2+1 2 Our initiative is...terrible. We have terrible reflexes. On the plus side, that means we didn't get assigned to jump into to many nuclear craters, so our starting Rads are... RADS!: 4d6 13 Thirteen. So, we end up with John Smith American 37 76 kg 6 STR 7 AGL 5 CON 3 INT 7 EDU 8 CHR Initiative 2 Rads 13 HP Head 12 Chest 33 Limbs 22 Normal Load 33kg Throw Range 24m Unarmed Combat Damage 6 Language (English) 10 Language (German) 4 Unarmed Martial Arts 10 Armed Martial Arts 0 Autogun 1 Grenade Launcher: 0 Small Arms (Rifle) 4 Small Arms (Pistol) 2 Tac Missile 0 Thrown Weapon 1 Disguise 3 Farming 2 Ground Vehicle (Wheeled) 1 Horsemanship 4 Observation 1 Parachute 2 Persuasion 4 Survival 3 Swimming 1 1 Entertainment Contact 3 Foreign Entertainment Contact 1 Military or Intelligence Contact 1 Foreign Military or Intelligence Contact After that, you'd add gear and roll for vehicles. This character would start with basic gear and $5000 worth of additional stuff. And a green beret, because he's Special Forces. Overall, this character doesn't seem that great, except for the fact that he can punch twice as hard as an M16. And that he was a movie star. Not too bad for a farmboy, I guess.
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Mar 23, 2014 20:54
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Supafly Sycamore is amazing. Absolutely, positively amazing.  My one suggestion is that he needs to be described as having a massive head of leaves, sculpted like an afro. Maybe even stick a small hand-rake in it like an afro pick.
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Mar 24, 2014 10:15
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How about something a bit different? Post a picture and see if anyone can make up a backstory/character in whatever system they prefer using it as a reference? For example, something relatively simple to start with:  Who can make a character from this dude? Once someone does it they can then post a picture of their own for someone else to do. (I obviously don't have to do it since I came up with the idea  )
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Mar 27, 2014 16:02
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 This is a rad book because Juicers are rad. Juicers were introduced back in the core book as dudes who get a crazy chemical system implanted that shoots them all full of super drugs constantly so they are as strong as a cyborg and poo poo, but they die after 5 years and 4d6 months! For comparison's sake, a normal Juicer gets +1d4*100 SDC, +1d4*10 HP, +2d6 PE and PS (minimum 22 PS), +2d4*10 Spd, 2 extra attacks per round, +4 initiative, and a few other save and combat bonuses. The Juicer Uprising introduces a bunch more different types of Juicers: Hyperion (fast), Titan (strong), Phaeton (pilots), Mega (psychic), Delphi (psychic), Coalition (likes skulls), Psycho-Stalker (psychic vampire), and a few techno-wizard types and others. One of those Techno-Wizard types is the Dragon Juicer, who instead of having a bunch of chemicals running through their veins, is powered by (and addicted to) Dragon blood.  We will jump back to using John Doe's rolls here, since any pitiful nerd can become a Juicer: pre:IQ 14 PP 6 SDC 18 ME 9 PE 11 HP 12 MA 19 PB 5 PS 11 Spd 15 pre:IQ 14 PP 18 MDC 75 ME 9 PE 15 HP 12 MA 19 PB 5 PPE 60 PS 20 Spd 45 Like normal Juicers, we die after 5 years and 4d6 months, but can get some extra time (6d6 months) with a dragon blood infusion. We have to chug dragon blood every 6 months too, or we go through withdrawls. We probably have nightmares about dragons too. Skill selection is pretty normal here, nothing stands out but we can take physical skills to boost our stats even higher. We get some pretty normal equipment too, including 3 weapons of choice and 100 MDC dragon-skin armor.
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Mar 28, 2014 23:14
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You know what I always liked? Destiny Spreads. Another early John (& Jennifer) Wick game, 7th Sea takes place in the world of Théah, which is Not Europe in the same way that the country Leon ends up stranded in during Resident Evil 4 is Not Spain, each major player on the European stage in the 17th century represented by a more dramatized counterpart, each dealing with its own special struggles ranging from war-torn desolation and anarchy to religious strife and revolution. From the book, under the heading "What is 7th Sea?" ... AEG posted:It is a world of swashbuckling and sorcery, piracy and adventure, diplomacy and intrigue, archaeology and exploration. It's a world of musketeers, buccaneers and privateers, ancient sorcery and lost civilizations, secrets that hide in the shadows and monsters that hide in plain sight. Well, doesn't that sound dandy! Character creation is pretty simple, every character being given exactly 100 Hero Points (or more if the GM desires) to build their Hero with. And you will play a Hero. There are Villains and Henchmen, but this is a setting with good guys and bad guys, and players are definitely the good guys. The closest you can get to being a Villain as a player is taking the role of a Scoundrel, which gives you a little wiggle room w/r/t dastardly deeds. Creation is also freeform for the most part, but an optional method of having a little fun with your Hero was to lay out a Destiny Spread. In Théah, fate is a big deal, and there's an entire line of sorcery devoted to manipulating and controlling destiny, called Sorte. With Sorte, a practitioner -- a Fate Witch -- can turn lovers into strangers, friends into enemies, and rich men into paupers. They use a sorte deck, which is more or less identical to our tarot, and each suit has a meaning, while each of the Greater Cards, the Arcana, reveal strengths and weaknesses in the hearts of other people. So, the Destiny Spread emulates or at least imitates sorte magic: you lay down the cards, turn them over, and see what destiny dealt you. It's a neat mechanic mostly because of the imagery and the satisfaction of shuffling, dealing, flipping, all that goodness, but it doesn't make a character from top to bottom, it's just a starting point. The Destiny Spread is different for every nation, detailed in their respective supplements, and especially different for one nation in particular, so we'll just decide randomly which one our hero hails from. There's seven -- Avalon (United Kingdom), Castille (Spain), Eisen (Germany), Montaigne (France), Ussura (Russia), Vendel/Vestenmanavnjar (Netherlands/Scandanavia), and Vodacce (Italy). There's also a sourcebook (and a Destiny Spread) for the seafaring Pirate Nations, so we'll make that a choice too for a nice round eight. 7th Sea: Nation: 1d8 2 puts our Hero in Castille!  (As an aside, the two-page splashes in the core book for each nation are absolutely gorgeous.) 7th Sea Player's Guide posted:Of all of Theah's nations, Castille is the most eclectic. Founded by one of the oldest of the Old Empire's families, it has also shared an alliance with the Crescent Empire, is one of the only two nations not ruled by sorcerous blood, and is the current home of the Vaticine Church. However, despite hundreds of years of invasions -- military and otherwise -- the heart of Castille has never changed. It was, is and always will be a nation devoted to its people. Nations of Theah - Castille posted:From her vaulted universities to her spired churches, Castille is a land of contradictions. Scientific advancement proceeds despite the efforts of an Inquisition dedicated to stamping it out. Celebrations take place mere miles from blood-soaked battlefields. The citizens love their neighbors as family, while treating foreigners with clinical distrust. Here, two thousand years of invasion and occupation has left her people wounded, proud, and fiercely independent; a boy king totters on an unstable throne while enemies surround him without and within; and sinister conspiracies lurk behind wide smiles and passionate speeches. Welcome to Castille, the crucible of faith. Being from Castille gives us an additional Finesse, one of our five main Traits. The Destiny Spread is taken after Nationality are decided, so we'll have to think about Traits first. There's Brawn, a combination of strength and stamina. Simply put, it's how big and tough you are. Finesse, which covers speed, agility, grace and even accuracy in swordplay. Resolve is a measure of the Hero's willpower and determination, and determines how many Dramatic Wounds our Castillian can endure. Wits governs their intelligence and charm in one, and helps our Hero stay sharp and wary. Finally, Panache is that "certain something" that sets our Hero apart from everybody else, a style that's hard to define, and it determines how many Actions they can take in a Round. But. I neglected a step. Before deciding Traits, there's a bigger decision to make. Every Trait is fairly expensive; 8 of our 100 Hero points for one Rank (ranging from 0-5) after starting with 1 Rank in every Trait (2 for Finesse for being from Castille), but there's something far more expensive to debate. Is our Castillian a Swordsman for 25 points, belonging to a prestigious academy and an international fellowship of blades for hire? Or do they know Sorcery for 40 points (20 for being 'half-blooded'), which is certainly preposterous because the vile practice of Sorcery does not taint the nobility of Castille and never will, because the Vaticine Church says so?
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Mar 29, 2014 00:03
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A. Will you showing off the Runecasting as well? B. Our Castillian has meta-knowledge of 7th Sea and therefore knows that sword schools are pretty trappy. They also know that magic owns so Make a Sorcerer!
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Mar 29, 2014 00:09
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Mr. Maltose posted:A. Will you showing off the Runecasting as well? In the core rulebook, five of the seven nations have an available Sorcery players can choose from, and a Hero can even have two Sorceries by paying 20 apiece to have each at the 'half-blooded' level. The two nations without a Sorcery are Castille and Eisen. Eisen because they have a very capable replacement in the supernatural metal of Dracheneisen, the only real reason to wear armor -- and in fact the only consideration for armor at all -- in 7th Sea. In a game of swashbuckling and fencing and musketeer-ing, everybody of note eschews bulky platemail, but Dracheneisen happens to be stronger than steel and as light as CORK, so it tends not to be a burden. Castille doesn't have a replacement, but it could be argued that certain character creation choices like having a higher education make a super-capable "normal" Hero their domain. However, the Castille supplement tells a different story, and our fortunate(?) Castillian is a 'full-blooded' Sorcerer for 40 points, giving them more potential for power at the expense of almost half their entire budget. Full-blooded in El Fuego Adentro. Nations of Theah - Castille posted:Before they were driven away, the royal family of Castille commanded the power of El Fuego Adentro, one of the most destructive sorceries known. Flames leapt and swelled at their command, they bathed in the fires of the mightest volcanoes, and the greatest could even create creatures of flame. The sorcerers could be identified when using their magic by tiny flames burning within their eyes whenever they were controlling a fire. Ho boy. That complicates things, but hey, we get to hand out free fire! Pretty pricey though, that's 40 of our 100 points gone, and we haven't even bought Traits yet. In my experience it's a good idea to have everything at Rank 2, even if you're not much for one of the Traits, because we get Drama Dice to spend every session for a bit of an edge and the number of Drama Dice we receive is equal to the Hero's lowest Trait. Getting them all up to Rank 2 will cost us 32 points (with our free Rank in Finesse), and while other characters might spend more, it's a good idea for our Hero to stop there. El Fuego Adentro doesn't require very powerful Traits to use effectively, and we only have about a quarter of our budget left at 28. We could have a Rank 3 and a Rank 1, but there's really no Trait our Sorceror can afford to be bad at; El Fuego Adentro's Knacks (to be explained later) are physically demanding in a way that rules out the possibility of a 'glass cannon' approach. Next, the Destiny Spread itself! But first, I'm pretty hungry. code:It's Destiny Spread time. It's not very complex, especially compared to other character creation systems seen above, but I've always liked drawing cards during creation ever since Deadlands. First, you need a tarot deck. Mine's kind of a glossy Barnes & Noble plastic-feeling deck, which probably messes with the magic involved, but at least it's a Rider-Waite. Then, you separate the standard suits from the Major Arcana, as the latter'll be put aside for when we draw to see what our strength and weakness might be, while the former determines the querent's Past, Present and Future. Only two suits are used in the Destiny Spread, depending on the Nationality of the Hero. Nations of Theah - Castille posted:Castille have a strong affinity for the suits of Cups and Swords: Cups because of their emotional and spiritual nature, and Swords because of their boldness. So we take the Major Arcana and shuffle, thinking carefully about what kind of person this character is. Who are they? Why are they here?   Temperance for our Strength and The Fool for our Weakness, fleshing out our Sorceror's personality a bit. Now just a quick jaunt to the back of the book to see what those represent in the game, because each of the Arcana corresponds to both a Hubris and a Virtue, which are another way for us to define our character. Temperance, as a Virtue, is Self-controlled. 7th Sea Player's Guide posted:The verbal slings and arrows hurled by others roll off your back. You see through seduction attempts and laugh them away. And of course, nobody ever intimidates you. You may activate your Virtue to cause any use of the Repartee system against you to automatically fail. The Fool, as a Hubris, is Rash. 7th Sea Player's Guide posted:You have the urge to go and look when you hear a strange noise downstairs in the middle of the night. It's not that you're stupid, it's just that sometimes that little voice that says, "What would happen if I..." gets too loud to ignore. Your GM may activate your Hubris to force you to go investigate something unusual, even if it looks like it might be dangerous. Drama dice have a few uses. One of them is activating Hubrises and Virtues. Virtues let your Hero be larger than life, effectively giving the player fiat over the GM at the cost of a drama die. With Self-controlled, we could hand the GM a die and literally just ignore the snarls and glares of even the most horrific villains or the affections of angelic beauties. On the other hand, with Rash, the GM can hand us a drama die to go find out what all that screaming is about in the dead of night near the haunted forest. This isn't really revolutionary nowadays, with your tagging and your aspects and whatnot, but this was new to me when I first started playing 7th Sea. Now, there's a bit of catch to Arcana as well; You can't have both. You can only pick one. Choose the Virtue, and it costs you 10 Hero Points to have. Choose the Hubris, and you get 10 more to spend. Now, in my experience very rarely do players go for a Virtue. Sure, it sounds neat, but every use of it is literally handing the GM an experience point, since drama dice turn into experience at the end of a game. On the other hand, Hubrises generate experience, and generally just seem to keep things interesting. Since we've got a tight budget that's already wearing thin -- and because it's more fun -- we'll pick up the Hubris. code: Wow, okay, those don't look very assuring. Let's take a look at our Past card, the eight of swords. Nations of Theah - Castille posted:A few years ago, you were falsely arrested for stealing the ring of a nobleman. You escaped from prison after only a week, but have not been forgotten by the authorities. You start play with a 2-point Wanted Background. Yikes! Wanted by the Inquisition and wanted by la policía? Life's just not getting any easier, but Backgrounds aren't something to worry about. Sure, they might make life difficult from time to time, but they make it interesting. Whenever one of your Backgrounds shows up as the main focus of a story -- say, our sorceror's crimes force the party to flee capture during adventure -- you get twice its value in experience points at the end of that story. The value of a Background indicates is severity, on a scale of (generally) 1-3; while Wanted 1 might be petty theft, Wanted 2 may introduce serious consequences and Wanted 3 is probably just short of a manhunt. Now for the Present card, the two of swords. Nations of Theah - Castille posted:You have just been promoted. You begin the game with 4 extra points of the Commission Advantage for free. Some good news! Commission is an Advantage (Think of Merits or Edges) where the Hero belongs to the Army or Navy of his nation, giving them the benefit of respect, allies, and wages. In the description, this implies that the Hero has taken this up as part of the family tradition. Perhaps when the Castille royal family were driven out, one of them found safety hiding among a loyal military family, living among them as a visitor and eventually marrying into it, leaving their son or daughter the gift of Sorcery. This conflicts a little with the 'falsely imprisoned' background, but in a prison I imagine it'd be easy to go a week without anyone bothering to learn exactly who you were, and it might explain the case of mistaken identity -- one dirty sailor looks the same as another, and in the Navy our Hero'd be able keep moving to avoid both the law and the church. With 4 points in Commission, they'd be a Mate, a specialized soldier on some Castillian vessel. Finally, there's the Future card to worry about, the five of cups. Nations of Theah - Castille posted:Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. (Lost Love 2) The Future card in the Destiny Spread leaves things open-ended, events in the Hero's future. They may have been caused by choices they made in the past, or choices they have yet to make. Each is paired with a Background, ready to rear its head in the future after some deliberation by the GM as to what the specifics will be. Lost Love is self-explanatory, and I doubt our sorceror's dangerous life of evading torture and death at the hands of the Inquisition will be easy, and their loved ones, new and old, might come to harm. El Fuego Adentro even suggests that Heroes with the Sorcery should take a 3-point Wanted Background, but since it's not free and it would keep us from having these (you're only allowed 4 points of Backgrounds) I decided not to, though it could still come up. Our Sorceror is fleshing out now. A proud officer with a dark family secret, laying low as they evade attention by blending into the safety and security of the Navy, heartbreak looming on the horizon. One of the things I like most about the Destiny Spread is how much the tarot can help you find a character and explore their personality. Look through the wiki pages for the cards above -- they have a lot of relevant characterization to offer. Next time, with the Destiny Spread out of the way, we move on to Advantages. code:ellbent fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Mar 29, 2014 |
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Mar 29, 2014 00:48
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Qin: The Warring States by Cubicle 7 Entertainment. Qin is an RPG set prior to the unification of China, during the Warring States period. I'm tentatively scheduled for a game in July, and though it's going to use the GURPS system, I want to at least try out the default system and get a feel for my character idea. I want to make an adherent of Mohism; the philosophical school of pacifism, universal brotherhood, and siege engineering. Yes, the school is weird like that, one of the reasons I have a real soft spot for it. Beyond that, I think I want to make them a wandering physician and alchemist, as well as a courier and spy for the Mohist order; the book's description of Mohists basically makes them sound like an order of communist ninjas   So, the first thing to do is to pick the character's assets, which are your characters basic stats and based off of the Chinese elements. Metal, the beefy punchy physical stat Water, the slippy nimble physical stat Fire, the charmy inspiry mental stat Wood, the brainy wisey mental stat and Earth, the myffic stat By your powers combined, I am Captain Tao! Now, this being a game set in China, it is important for you character to be in harmony; the more in balance your physical and mental stats are, the better it is for your Chi energy (magic) and life force (hit points). Normal person's rating is 2. I get fourteen points to divvy up. Metal 2 Water 3 Fire 2 Wood 3 Earth 4 My horoscope for those stats says that I'm a bit on the fragile side, and prone to anxiety, but with a lot going on in my head. Next, is Gifts and Weaknesses. You get one good thing and one bad thing about your character. The Gifts are easy, and a bit boring, as they're mostly "Pick a skill you want to be able to reroll each session.". Weaknesses are similar, but with the GM forcing rerolls, though there's a few more that aren't, that mostly involve your character being a jackass or slightly bonkers. I pick...Placidity of the Turtle and Disgrace of Fu Xing. I've got a knack for Meditation, which will help me recover Chi, but I'm super unlucky, bad at gambling and "When a tile falls from a roof, and the players want to know who was underneath it at the time, this character saves them the effort of drawing lots.". I figure the ill-luck can represent how historically the Mohists were doomed. Confucians and Taoists are still around, as are Legalists, arguably, but the Mohists are gone.  Next, I get 15 points to spend on skills, with higher ranks costing more points and rank 3 being the limit at character creation. I kind of have to specialize; it's not enough to be really good at everything, plus there's your highest rated skill is tied into Chi calculations. Additionally, the Taoist arts have some prerequisites, usually things like Taoism or Calligraphy or Herbalism. Medicine 3 Meditation 1 Taoism 1 Internal Alchemy 1 Throwing 1 I am recognized as one of the leading practitioners of Medicine in this region. It synchs up surprisingly well with Internal Alchemy, the art of mastering the energy flows within the body to promote health; Internal Alchemy requires Taoism, Medicine, and Meditation. Normally, you're supposed to be a Taoist to be a practitioner, but I figure the Mohists know at least enough tricks to get him started. I was kind of hoping for some more social or more sneaky skills, but I ran out of points. Oh yeah, I'm kind of almost helpless in a fight, which is going to be problematic. Next is Secondary Aspects Chi is your stock of internal energy, used to power your fantastic feats. Reading through the book, it is very much like the motes of Essence from Exalted. It's based on the difference between your body and mind aspect, your Earth aspect, and your highest skill. I have 48 points of Chi. That is kind of insane, and I think it's about the maximum with which you can start. I'm going to be flinging specials at every opportunity. Passive defence is your character's subconscious ability to defend themselves, based on Water and Wood. I get an 8, pretty decent. Next, Resistance, which how good I am at fighting off illness or poison. I have a 6, which is okay, but hey, I'm a DOCTOR! Then, the Breath of Life, which is the game's name for hit points, and calculated with all the assets and a table. I got a 21, very solid. The highest result on the table is 25, and...it's not actually possible to start with the combination of stats that nets you that result, so the actual highest result is 23. My Breath of Life is divided into levels of Normal 7, Bruised 5, Slightly Injured 4, Seriously Injured 3, and Fatally Injured 2, with increasing penalties as I take more damage. Finally, based on my highest skill, I have 3 renown. A king of one of the seven states usually has a renown of around two hundred, so I have a ways to go. And the last step of character creation is to purchase They're all special abilities powered by Chi, with the primary difference being their area of focus and their prerequisites; anyone can learn Taos, and they're the most generic, but Combat Techniques require ranks in a combat skill, and Magic has it's own set of requirements. I can skip Combat techniques, and...the level 1 Internal Alchemy abilities are rather lacking. I'll take Sleep of the Woken, Chi is the Breath of Life, the Elixir of Healing. At this level, they let me ignore a night of sleep (something I take in every game where it's available), regenerate from injuries, diagnose and cure my own diseases. Kind of wimpy, but at Master level an Internal Alchemist can fly, spray magic everywhere, and oh yeah is loving LITERALLY IMMORTAL. Speaking of loving immortal, I skipped on the level one ability Union of Yin and Yang. Yeah...if you're making rain with someone, you can regain some Chi points with a good roll on your Internal Alchemy. But if you accidentally, er, release the vital forces, you can lose Chi points. Taoists can be loving weird. About loving. This is also a power that's written from the male perspective; I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to flip around for a female practitioner, Yin instead of Yang and all that. It's also written as heterosexual. I generally find Taoist position on homosexuality to be hilarious; "Normally I wouldn't care, but as your doctor I have to strongly recommend against it, seeing as you could literally explode from too much Yang, or implode from too much Yin." Now, onto Taos. I will take three levels of Tao of the Clear mind, which basically assists in mental tasks, and important for this character, gives your a photographic memory at rank 3. I figure this character is going to be like Johnny Mnemonic. I'm going to take a level in Tao of the Serene Repose, the social Tao, so I can be marginally better at reading people, and...a level in the Tao of the Thousand BEES! which is the improvised throwing Tao; it's a bit useless at rank one, but at max it basically lets me pick up everything in the room and throw it at everyone. It's still a bit of a waste of Chi, compared to say the Tao of Ten Thousand Hands which is the multiattack Tao, but it's not like I'm hurting for Chi. So, at the end of creation, I have Renown 3 Metal 2 Water 3 Fire 2 Wood 3 Earth 4 Chi 48 Breath of Life 21 Passive Defence 8 Resistance 6 Medicine 3 Meditation 1 Taoism 1 Internal Alchemy 1 Throwing 1 Sleep of the Woken Chi is the Breath of Life The Elixir of Healing Tao of the Clear Mind 3 Tao of the Serene Repose 1 Tao of the Thousand BEES! 1
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Mar 29, 2014 03:15
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Hulk Smash! posted:How about something a bit different? This is a great idea and I want in on it, but I got nothing for this image, he looks like a Dark Sun Bard, but all my DnD books are on loan to somebody. Somebody make a character for this image and start the chain rolling.
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Mar 29, 2014 04:13
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Hulk Smash! posted:How about something a bit different? Conveniently, I may have a book that will work for this picture right at hand. Let's take a look at Spellbound Kingdoms. Sort of like 7th Sea, Spellbound Kingdoms is a weird magic+swashbuckler-y sort of game, though it gets farther away from not-Europe. The Spellbound Kingdoms are ruled by immortal wizard-Kings, who took the place over some 1500 years ago to limit the power of magic. See, magic tends to run wild if there are multiple spellbound- people with magical talent in close proximity, and around the time the kings took over, they consolidated as much power as they could to avoid magic running wild. They also outlawed strong emotions, especially love, because people inspired to strong emotions can do things that almost seem magical, even if it's never -known- to have caused a wild magic incident. People in the kingdoms go to schools that beat feelings out of them through inventive methods. But recently, a newly crowned king tried to overthrow the social order by lifting the ban on emotions. He was overthrown and killed by his nobles, of course, but became a martyr, and has a whole sort of bohemian revolutionary group running around and being passionate and rebellious in his name. So to make a character in Spellbound kingdoms, you need to pick a species and a race There are two species (Humans and Trolls) and there are four human races and two troll races. From the picture, he's probably human- trolls have horns or antlers, and funny colored skin (Blue, green, etc.) So we've got to decide, and I leave it to you all: Is he a nineblood? (Basically the 'default' human, a native of one of the main big-name Kingdoms. A lot of them have been influenced by the Axemen, the aforementioned bohemian resistance, and are able to draw on their inspirations more often.) Is he an Islander? (Guys who have seen some poo poo: There's a lot of islands in the borders of the kingdoms that are just the right size for a would-be wizard king to take one over and call his own, and the natives usually have a nervous twitch because seriously, poo poo gets weird out there. To survive growing up in the Islands, you have to be lucky, and they can lower the doom (the default difficulty you roll against) once a scene. Is he a wight? (Humans who have been altered to live longer and to feed on fear- if someone else in a scene has a fear inspiration, they can feed on it, and roll it as though it were there own by embodying that fear. A lot of them are jerks, but some aren't.) Is he a Prince of Wolves. (Magical Tarzan or Mowgli. Some mothers can't bear the thought of their children having the love beaten out of them, and abandon them in the wilderness, because an old legend says that sometimes, the wolves will adopt a human child, and become intelligent enough to raise him well. The thing is? The legend's true. Sometimes it actually works. As they're pack animals, they're sort of the reverse of wights- they can loan one of -their- inspirations to a friend, and explains how it's relevant.) Then pick a class: There's an obvious one here: The Fixer is sort of an alchemical rogue, a member of a secret fraternity of folks with the ability to cure any ailment through the right alchemical mixtures. At level one, they get their signature ability: Fix. You can neutralize any disease, stop any magical or alchemical effect, or treat any poison. in the case of alchemy, poison, and disease, if your level is higher than its rating, this is an automatic success. In the case of magic, you roll your reason vs. their magic and hope to beat it. You need supplies, and you can only try once a week, with an hour per attempt, but still, that's pretty cool.
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Mar 29, 2014 05:07
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unseenlibrarian posted:Conveniently, I may have a book that will work for this picture right at hand. Let's take a look at Spellbound Kingdoms.
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Mar 30, 2014 21:17
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Bucnasti posted:This is a great idea and I want in on it, but I got nothing for this image, he looks like a Dark Sun Bard, but all my DnD books are on loan to somebody. Somebody make a character for this image and start the chain rolling.
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Mar 31, 2014 19:56
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 CJ is off the case! Surely with more editorial control, this book will be balanced. The Coalition, for those without the pleasure of having read Rifts, are one of the dominant human factions in post-apocalyptic Rifts Earth. They love skulls, Chicago, and being Nazis. Seriously, their whole thing is that they are human supremacists based out of "Chi-Town" and have an almost 40k-ian skull fetish. Our stats suck and John Doe has already been all sorts of non-human things, so lets roll up a new set of stats: Stats: pre:IQ 11 PP 15 SDC 15 ME 12 PE 8 HP 11 MA 6 PB 5 PS 12 Spd 13 We are eligble for the RPA "Fly Boy" Ace OCC. The Core book has an RPA (Robot Power Armor) Elite OCC, which is for the guys that fly the SAMAS power armor, but the Fly Boy is even cooler because he specializes in skycycles.  No Nazis here This being a fairly run of the mill military OCC, there isn't a whole lot to see. We get the skills to Pilot Skycycles and the Death's Head Transport at a decent level (60 and 67% base respectively) and a bonus to initiative and our SDC. Other than that it is just skills, a whole lot of them, including a pile of Pilot skills at a good bonus. If it flies or is power armor, we can drive it. Our equipment is pretty normal, and generally is an issued sort of thing. We probably aren't the adventuring type unless your group is really down for hunting some filthy subhumans which I now realize that at least some Rifts groups must have been into. Of course, it is all skull themed:  Body Armor   Just two things we might get to drive
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Mar 31, 2014 20:27
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Okay! Let's finish us up a flaming Spaniard. When we left off, we had just taken a hatchet to our budget of 100 Hero Points, chopping off 40 for being a full-blooded sorceror and then 32 on our Traits at 8 apiece. Taking the Arcana of Rash, we scored 10 more, so we've got some pocket change as we go into the next section; Advantages! Now, there's really no reason to be so strict about the order you spend a character's points in, but them's the way the steps are written. More experienced players, as expected, will sort of hop all over the place. As a referesher; pre:Brawn 2, Finesse 2, Wits 2, Resolve 2, Panache 2 Arcana: Rash Backgrounds: Wanted (2), Lost Love (2) Advantages: Commission (4) El Fuego Adentro (Full-Blooded) As a regular ol' Hero you make 1d10 Guilders a month. Total. As a Noble Hero, you rake in five hundred Guilders a month guaranteed. Now, besides never having to worry about money, this is an easy buy for Sorcerers because being a Sorceror discounts it by half, cutting it from 10 to 5 Hero Points; Sorcery is only carried through the blood of each Nation's nobility and royalty, so it's far more likely for a Sorceror to be of Noble birth than not, even those in hiding who practice the heretical El Fuego Adentro. Of course, if you want your Hero to be more downtrodden as a Sorceror, or perhaps they're an illegitimate birth without the benefits of title, by all means, keep the five points -- it's your story. But our Sorceror wants that pedigree, so down to 33 Hero Points. A big chunk of any Hero is Languages. It's a game that can take place anywhere in the world, and there's no easy "Common" to take in order to guarantee you'll be able to understand the people around you. In practice, most games are 7th Sea are giving at least a starting point where all the players can take the local tongue so they'll at least know they can talk to each other; many a swashbuckling tale have been complicated by having to play 'linguistic telephone' during moments of critical dramatic importance. Of course, everyone starts with the ability to read and write their home language, but speaking others cost a number of points based on this chart here, mostly a reflection of close relations (or long rivalries). Being able to read and write the language adds another point. There are other tables in the supplements, representing accents you can purchase to change the costs, but we'll stick with the basic chart, like so.  Since Montaigne is actually at war with Castille, and our Sorcerer happens to be Mate in the Navy, it wouldn't be entirely unusual for him to know to read and write the language of the enemy. Montaigne's cheap cost as a language for Castille Heroes reflects that, so it's 1 point to speak it and 1 point to be literate. While we're at it, picking up Eisen would make sense -- Montaigne and Castille both invaded war-torn Eisen (Heretical Objectionist pigs!) only a few years ago, so maybe our Sorcerer has some conversational language. And if he's a religious or scholarly man, Thean (a stand-in for Latin) is another good choice. We'll pick that up with reading and writing too, leaving us able to speak with maybe half the world and all of our immediate national enemies, as well as being able to quote short, important-sounded maxims from a dead republic. All in all, 7 points on languages. But wait! If we buy the Linguist Advantage, all Languages cost 1 less to a minimum of 1. Since this applies to that extra point we spent on Montaigne, buying Linguist actually saves us a point. It's a bit nitpicky, but every little bit helps, and we're back down to 27. If we're not satisfied with being a Mate on a ship -- who would be? -- 4 more Hero Points can raise our Commission Advantage up two ranks to Lieutenant, leaving our Sorcerer in a well-respected role on his Naval vessel and in charge of a team of men during war, and leaving our budget at 23. Another great option for Castille heroes -- returning again to the idea of what they get "instead of" Sorcery -- is University, which while 4 points for all other nations is only 2 for the well-educated and scientifically pioneering Castille, which leaves us at 21. Buying University makes Civil Skills cheaper. And speaking of Skills ... pre:Brawn 2, Finesse 2, Wits 2, Resolve 2, Panache 2 Arcana: Rash Backgrounds: Wanted (2), Lost Love (2) Advantages: Commission (8), University (2), Noble (5), Linguist (2), Thean(R/W) (2), Castille(R/W) (0), Montaigne(R/W) (1), Eisen (1) El Fuego Adentro (Full-Blooded) pre:Brawn 2, Finesse 2, Wits 2, Resolve 2, Panache 2 Arcana: Rash Backgrounds: Wanted (2), Lost Love (2) Advantages: Commission (8), University (2), Noble (5), Linguist (2), Thean(R/W) (2), Castille(R/W) (0), Montaigne(R/W) (1), Eisen (1) El Fuego Adentro (Full-Blooded): Courtier: Dancing 1, Etiquette 1, Fashion 1, Oratory 2 Priest: Oratory 2, Philosophy 2, Writing 1 Sailor: Balance 1, Climbing 2, Knotwork 1, Rigging 1 Scholar: History 1, Mathematics 1, Philosophy 2, Research 1 Athlete: Climbing 2, Footwork 1, Sprinting 1, Throwing 1 Fencing: Attack (Fencing) 1, Parry (Fencing) 1 Firearms: Attack (Firearms) 1 The last thing to do before we polish off all our leftover 11 Hero Points in Knacks is to go back to our Sorcery. The difference between Full-Blooded and Half-Blooded is a big one; Sorceries are Skills themselves, granting Knacks, and the Sorceror's degree of skill is determined by how high those Knacks are. At the beginning, they're an Apprentice, and given the power of the Apprentice Degree. When four sorcerous Knacks have been raised to Rank 4, they reach the Adept Degree. Finally, when five Knacks are at Rank 5, they are a Master of their Sorcery, which is usually extremely powerful and in most cases a landmark event in Theah itself. Masters of the runemagic of Laerdom "become" a Rune, embodying the very concept of its essence, literally making themselves Rage or Fear or Thunder made manifest. Masters of El Fuego Adentro can form living creatures out of flame, giant serpents and sweeping phoenixes. Mastery is not a small thing, and only Full-Blooded Sorcerors can ever achieve it; Half-Blooded or Twice-Blooded Sorcerors can never advance any of their magical Knacks past Rank 3, and thus can never be anything more than an Apprentice. They start with 3 Ranks to distribute among their Sorcery's Knacks at creation; Full-Blooded Sorcerors get 7. We have a lot of neat tricks to choose from, and I don't want to list them all, so we can stick to the essentials and divvy it up evenly; Extinguish, which allows us to suppress fire, Feed, which does the opposite at the expense of damage to the Sorcerer (which is why El Fuego Adentro practitioners can't be too feeble), Range, which increases the distance at which fire can be controlled, and Concentrate, which increases the number of fires the Sorceror can control. El Fuego Adentro is about controlling and shaping fire, not shooting it from your fingers. Those last 11 points go fast. We pick up Swimming for 3 HP so as not to drown, Reload (Firearms) for 3 HP so we can have some fun with a brace of pistols, put a few more into Knacks among our Martial Skills so as not to die horribly, and a couple into Civils, and ... Oh, that's all of it. Oops! We're almost done, so now all we need is a name, a nice proud Castille name that embraces our nobility, our majesty and fury! Hm. pre:Don Rodrigo Maradona de Alcazar del Castillo Brawn 2, Finesse 2, Wits 2, Resolve 2, Panache 2 Arcana: Rash Backgrounds: Wanted (2), Lost Love (2) Advantages: Commission (8), University (2), Noble (5), Linguist (2), Thean(R/W) (2), Castille(R/W) (0), Montaigne(R/W) (1), Eisen (1) El Fuego Adentro (Full-Blooded): Concentrate 2, Extinguish 2, Feed 2, Range 2 Courtier: Dancing 1, Etiquette 2, Fashion 1, Oratory 2 Priest: Oratory 2, Philosophy 2, Writing 1 Sailor: Balance 1, Climbing 2, Knotwork 1, Rigging 1, Swimming 1 Scholar: History 1, Mathematics 1, Philosophy 2, Research 1 Athlete: Climbing 2, Footwork 3, Sprinting 1, Throwing 1 Fencing: Attack (Fencing) 3, Parry (Fencing) 1 Firearms: Attack (Firearms) 1, Reload (Firearms) 1
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Apr 1, 2014 04:12
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Since a new "1.5 edition" was just announced, let's make an Icons character! Icons is a superhero RPG by Steve Kenson of Green Ronin fame, designed for one-shot pick-up-and-play games. It was originally published by Adamant Entertainment and the infamous Gareth-Michael Skarka, but recent events have seen Kenson aquiring the core rights to the game and publishing it under a new imprint, "Ad Infinitum Games", which GMS is not involved with. The system is best described as Fate-derived; there are aspects and a "Fate point economy", but the rest of the game uses more traditional numberical stats and rolling (such as resolution using 1d6-1d6 instead of 4dF). And oh man, is there rolling. See, Icons is inteded for one-shot games like I said. But for a one-shot, you don't want to spend a ton of time making a character. To facititate quick chargen, you roll on a bunch of tables to determine your stats, origin, and powers. You can choose what you want, of course, but for the purposes of this we're going to roll everything. Step one of character creation is detrminging your origin. This, like most of the rolls on these tables, is 2d6. There are six origins, and each gives a unique benefit such as extra powers or skill points. I roll a 5, which means my origin is Transformed quote:The hero was a normal human but became superhuman through some outside agency, often an accident or experiment. One of the character’s abilities or powers (your choice) is increased by +2. The next step is rolling my abilities, which are my stats. There are five stats: Prowess (fighting ability), Coordination, Strength, Intellect, Awareness, and Willpower. For each of these, I roll 2d6 on the Level Determination Table.  Rolling down the line, I get: Prowess: 5 Coordination: 4 Strength: 6 Intellect: 5 Awareness: 6 Willpower: 6 Average human in anything is a 3, so out of the gate I'm pretty powerful. If your stats total less than 20, you can reroll them all, but I'm in good shape here. I can also swap any two stats I want but I'm going to leave them for now. I've still got that +2 floating around so I'll wait to see what powers I get. Fortunately rolling my powers is the next step. First I roll to see how many powers I get; I roll a 9 on the Number of Powers table so I have 4 powers to begin with. This is the point where things start getting really table-heavy. For each of the powers I have available, first I roll 2d6 to determine the power type (Alteration, Control, Defensive, Mental, Movement, Offensive, or Sensory). Each power type has a d66 subtable where I roll to see what power I get.  [sub]Two of the power tables. The dot means that the power costs two slots.[/b] My first power type is 5, so it's a Control power. Now I roll a d66 on the Control Powers table to see what I get. A 4 and a 1 gets me Telekinesis. I also roll on the level table to see what level I have it at, and get a level of 6. quote:You have the ability to move objects in visual range without touching them. The power’s level is treated as its Strength for lifting and moving things. Use your Willpower as your telekinetic “Coordination”. You can also acquire the following bonus powers: Next power: type roll of 4 is another Control power, and for the power itself I get a 3 and a 1, which is Telekinesis again. When you roll the same power twice, you have two options: you can either keep the roll and increase the power's level by 2, or roll again to get a different power. I'm going for maximum chaos here so let's roll again. The second time around I get an Offensive power, and a roll of 3 and 3 means that power is Blast. quote:You can project a damaging blast at a distance. Choose the effect of your Blast – from pure force to an element or energy – and whether or not it is a blasting or shooting attack when you get this power. Your Blast inflicts damage equal to its level. My third power's type is Mental, and a 5 and a 6 nets me Possession. quote:You can take over someone else’s body, much like Mind Control, except your mind is “inside” the victim and controls their body, rather than issuing orders. Your own body is unconscious and immobile while you possess someone else. Otherwise, this power works just like Mind Control. That's all my powers taken, so I'm going to plug that +2 I got from my origin into the Blast so it's more powerful, and swapping my Coordination and Strength so I can acutally use the power worth a drat. So here's what I've got so far: pre:Prowess: 5 Coordination: 6 Strength: 4 Intellect: 5 Awareness: 6 Willpower: 6 Origin: Transformed Telekinesis 6, Blast (stun) 4, Possession 3 The next step is figuring out my specialities, which are just my skills. If you have a speciality in something, you get a +1 to your roll. You can also buy the same specialty up to three times total, getting +1 each time. So it's time to roll again, but all I'm rolling this time is to see the number of specialities I have. A roll of 8 gives me three specialities, so I'll take Mental Resistance twice and Stealth once. Lastly, I figure my hero's stamina, Determination, and aspects. Stamina is just my hit points, and is equal to my Strength plus my Willpower, so that's 10. Determination are just Fate Points, and I start with 6-the number of powers I have, so I start with 3. I can take up to five positive aspects (qualities) and up to five negative ones (challenges). I'm going to keep this simple and take the qualities "The Mind That Stalks The Shadows" and "I Know What Evil Lurks In Your Heart", and the challenges "No Memory Of My Past" and "Pursued By A Shadowy Government Agency". And that's pretty much it. Here's my hero's final sheet: quote:Mindshadow
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Apr 15, 2014 19:42
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Alright so my friend got some Hackmaster 5e PDFs and told me he wants me to run it. I've decided we should all learn how to make characters first! On that note if you ever get a chance to 'find' or get the Hacklopedia of Beasts, it is a sexy as poo poo. Well cracking open the PHB First we get a list of what makes Hackmaster different: - No waiting for turns, everything is done in 'seconds' - Armour reduces chance to dodge but gives DR - Active defense is possible - No longer Init battles. - More tactical, e.g. being surrounded sucks - Ranged weapons are more realistic (less damage then melee) - Emphasis on team building - Party Roles - Rolls 3d6, but does NOT mean you get an unplayable character - 'HackMaster drags the average 3d6 character ability back to 10-11 from 15-16' - Int gives melee bonuses (e.g. Smarter warrior is able to fight better) - Combat should always be a gamble (sounds AD&D like) - Retreat is viable option. - Die penetration. Notated as dXp. This simply means roll an additonal dYp - 1 on a maximum roll. The -1 is not cumulative for each additional roll and there is no stopping point, simply stops when you stop rolling maximum. (At worst this adds no extra damage) Alright with some rudimentary knowledge of this system's highlights let's get down to business.  They included a handy flowchart for CharGen! Step 1: Receive Building Points Everyone gets 40 BPs, this may be modified based on Int/Cha/Wis scores. You also gain new BPs from leveling. BPs are used to buy skills/talents or modify ability scores. You can also use them to re-roll quirks and flaws. Certain effects may affect the cost in BPs in which case their is a clear order of operations First Static/Set effects e.g. "Costs only X BP", then Multiplied or Divided, finally additive or subtractive. Step 2: Roll Ability Scores Standard 6 abilities plus the addition of one called "Looks". Each has a very AD&D style chart which tells you what it does. Roll 3d6 + d% in each stat. Strength: 10/27 Str determines Damage Mod, Str Checks, Lift/Carry weights. Interesting to note is +2DR when heavily encumbered. while penalities for Def/Init/Speed/Fatigue. Intelligence: 7/2 Int + Dex = Base Attack bonus. As well as a BP bonus. These BPs can only be used on skills that Int governs. Wisdom: 11/41 Wisdom combines with Dex to govern both Init and Def mods. Also gives bonus BP which can only be used on Wisdom skills. Lastly wisdom governs your Mental saving throw. Dexterity: 13/4 Dexterity seems really important due to the fact that it governs Attack mod with Int. Def, Init with Wisdom and Dodge saving throw. Also used for Feats of Agility (dex checks) It is also worth noting that after this roll I no longer qualify for their reroll rule (1 stat >= 13 || 2 stats <= 5) Constituion: 3/82 Constituion significantly impacts HP. HP is Con score + Size Bonus + class die. Con also governs Physical saving throws. Con is retroactive in case you gain Con at some point Looks: 12/28 Looks is the separating of physical beauty from charisma. As such it has a charisma mod and affects your Honour and Fame starting totals. Charisma: 18/33 Charisma is defined as "Personal Magnetism". It's got a BP bonus once again tied to Cha skills It also governs Starting Honour, Turning Mod (as in Turn Undead), Morale mod and Maximum proteges. Step 3: Arrange Ability Scores With rolls now noted you have options. A) Stick with what you rolled; +50 BP B) Swap 2; +25 BP C) Swap more than 2; +0 BP I decided to switch my Int and Wisdom as Wisdom seems less important for a charismatic man. STR: 10/27 INT: 11/41 WIS: 7/2 DEX: 13/4 CON: 3/82 LKS: 12/28 CHA: 18/33 Step 4: Choose Race There are 11 different races in HackMaster; Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Gnome Titan, Grel, Half-Elf (Elf raised), Half-Elf (Human raised), Half-Hobgoblin, Half-orc, Halfling There is another option that starts off out of bounds, that being a Pixie-Fairie. Kinda cheating there with the half-elf being 2 but whatever. The mechanical difference there is different predispositions to classes (more on that in Step 5) Gnome Titans are apparently the Spartans of Gnomes, Bred for war. Grel, or Sarlangans are basically Grunge Elves. Pure Anarchists Each race affects abilities scores differently. Humans of course are the baseline with Half-Orcs affecting 6 of the 7 scores.  HackMasters Racial Score chart Well I kinda want to double down on my Charismatic nature, however Elf is out due to my abysmal Con Score. Halfing seems like a fun choice as well as Half-Elf. I decided for a Half-Elf (Elven Reared) which gives me several bonuses Ability Scores: -1 STR, +1 DEX, -2 CON, +1 LKS, +1 CHA Skill Bonuses: d4p bonus Arcane Lore skill d8p bonus Listening skill d4p bonus Observation skill d4p bonus Sneaking skill +1 mastery die bonus in artistic skills Bilingual Prof (High Elven and Low Elven) Bonus hiding in natural surroundings Cons: Lower Starting HP: 7 + CON + Class Only know Elven (must purchase others) So now my stats are: STR: 9/27 INT: 11/41 WIS: 7/2 DEX: 14/4 CON: 1/82 LKS: 13/28 CHA: 19/33 Step 5: Choosing a Character Class Classes are: Fighter, Knight, Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, Thief, Rogue, Assassin, Mage, Fighter/Mage, Fighter/Thief, Mage/Thief, Cleric. Alright so how this works is each Race has a buy in cost to achieve a certain class. Human is baseline at 20 BP for each class It can also go as high as 75(!) BP for certain combos like Dwarven Ranger, Dwarven Mage, Gnome Titan Mage, Half-Orc Rogue. I was going to say every race has a specific race disposition but Gnomes and Half-Elfs (Elven) require 25 BP, and Hlf-Elfs(Human) require 30. Also Knight/Paladin which are evolutions paths of Fighters (6th Level for Knight, 11th for Paladin) cannot be anything other than Human. They also have high stat requirements Knight is 13 STR, 11/51 DEX, 12 CON, 11/76 CHA, and 8/51 WIS) Paladins require those as well as (17/01 CHA, 13/01 WIS) Half-Orcs apparently suck at Rogues but accel at Assassins, having a 25 BP buy-in. I decided on Rogues because I've already decided combat is not my forte so I might as well be the pretty face of the group. It will cost me 30 of my 65 BP. Class Features: Basics & Proficiency: Hit Dice: d6 As a rogue I gain an improved Init die. I can backstab and strike fleeing opponents as if I were backstabbing them I pay 8 BP for my initial Att/Spd/Def/Dam ticks and then it goes 2x,3x,4x costs.  Combat Profile example, one exists like this for Melee as well. I must purchase any Weapon Prof I want, but I do have Light armour prof for free, not medium/heavy armour nor shield use unless I buy them. Luck Points: I have 24 + 1/lvl luck points. I can expend luck points to change rolls in my favour. 1:1 ratio for Saving Throws, 1:5 for Skills, 1:1 for lowering Opponent's Att/Dam rolls. I can't interrupt penetrating die with luck. I only regain luck when I level up. Also usage of luck requires a RP'd situation otherwise you can't do it. Skills: Rogues work differently with skills than other classes. You get 1 free rank in Acting, Appraisal(once in each subcategory), Diplomacy, Disguise, Fast Talking, Forgery, Glen Informtion, Language, Listening, Literacy, Salesmanship, Seduction (Art of). Each level I receive one roll of the mastery die in 5 core rogue skills plus Appraisal(one subcategory). Rogues also have noncore skills: Climbing/Rappelling, Current Affairs, Gambling, Hiding, History (ancient), Lock Picking, Musician, Observation, Oration, Persuasion, Pick Pocket, Reading Lips, Recruiting, Riddling, Scrutiny, Skilled Liar, Sneaking and Survival (urban). For all the above skills rogues roll mastery + 3 or relevant ability score, whichever is higher. Rogues also receive the No Accent talent for free. Spells: At 3rd Level Rogues pick up arcane spells. To do so you need to purchase Arcane Lore skills (1 discount at 3rd level). Also requires Int of 13. Rogues can only learn 1 spell of each level, but doesn't require a spellbook. Influence: The rogue is able to make use of several tricks to influence the rooms attitude towards making their either hostile or friendlier. Trivial Knowledge: Rogues get a 3/level% chance to know random facts. Step 6: Alignment, Honour and Fame Alignment is standard 3x3 Chart. Restrictions being tied to Class. Rogues must be neutral in some regard so I decided to be Neutral Good. Honour is the count of how people see you in the world. It will rise and fall based on your actions, with particularly high honour garnering you some mechanical bonuses. (+1 bonus to one die/session, 1 mulligan etc.). If one's honour becomes 0 or less, you immediately change alignment to however you've been acting as well as lose all EXP for this level and take a 20% EXP penalty until you reach low honour again. Honour can also be used as a resource for rerolling, increasing or decreasing rolls. Only rerolls (with increased costs) can be used on critical fumbles, hits or perfect defenses. Honour is also... Here I'll let the book speak for itself.  Oaths are promises based on Honour and when broken the player loses a percentage of their Honour. Making/Keeping Oaths provides little benefit only 1 Honour, a person is expected to keep their Oaths. Fame is merely how well known you are and is a mechanical number with roleplaying benefits/detriments. It also has a few mechanical benefits in that in fighting your fame preceeds you. Attacks get -1 att and +1 second penalty to Initative for every rank of fame above them you are. I start with + 7 Honour and +1 Fame Step 7: Priors and Particulars Age: There is a chart for each race/class combo concerning age rolls. Half-Elf Rogues roll 33+d10p. I rolled 10+10+1 Which equates to +20 Age. I am therefore 53 years old. Height: Roll a d% and check a chart for your Race + Sex. Half-Elf males are between 63 and 73 unless super lucky in which case you can go as low as 59 or as high as 76. (all in inches). I rolled a 50 so I am 68 inches tall. I seem to recall this weird as measurement as being 12 inches to one foot. So I'm 5'8". Weight: Weight is based on rolling a BMI then finding it out based on that. I rolled a 2 giving me a BMI of 17. This gives me a weight of 112lbs. drat I am a stick. Also Elves, Gnome Titans, Grels can't be fat, Dwarves are 25% likely to be fat, Gnomes have a 5% chance, Humans around 20% Halfhobgobs 10%, HalfOrcs 30%. Handedness: 9% chance of being LeftHanded, 1% chance of being Ambidextrous. I say gently caress the police I'm going to be LeftHanded! Heritage: Birth Circumstances: Roll based on Race to determine if you are illegitimate. I rolled well enough to not be illegitimate. If I was I roll on a separate table to determine how. Was I a rape child? or only a child from an affair. Maybe mother turned tricks to make a living! I could also have been abandoned. Parental Status: roll d% for each parent. Roll <= 10, You're an orphan!, 91+ indicates that parent is dead. If both are dead you're an orphan. If only one parent is dead roll another d% to see if you have a stepparent (50% chance). My first roll is 70% so my Elven mom is alive. Surprisingly my Human father is also alive. Quality of Upbringing: Were my parents good or bad? Roll d% to find out. My mother was loving (+2 BP), my father was abusive. The abusiveness means I get to roll an additional Quirk or Flaw with no BP bonus. Siblings: Roll a d20 to determine sibling status. I rolled a 5 and have 2 siblings! Now I need to determine what gender my siblings are by rolling a d6. I have determined I have a brother (2) and a Sister (4). Now let's see if they are still alive by rolling an additonal d6 (33% chance of dead). Apparently both my siblings are already dead, sorry Mom, I blame our abusive Dad. If they were still alive I would next roll a d% to determine if either is a twin (2%), and then a d8 if we are twins to see if we are identical (12.5%). Next roll order of birth by rolling d(number of siblings + you). Firstborn male gets father's estate/possessions. Finally determine your relationship with those siblings. Do this by rolling 2d12, results being Bitter Enemy, Argumentative, Natural, Very Close, Devoted. This roll is modified by your Morale value determined by Charisma. If my siblings has survived it was likelier they would love me. Everything Else: Up to you! (Includes colour of Hair, eyes, voice type extended family etc.) Step 8: Quirks and Flaws There are two ways to pick Q&Fs, 1. Roll, 2. Choose. Like most things in this game choosing carries a penalty (or in this case less of a benefit). Quirks are the mental things, while Flaws are the physical. Also in order to gain the BPs you must create backstory to back up your Q or F. Going with the flow I decide to roll. For this you roll a d1000. My first roll is 205 making me a Coward. Basically with this quirk I may run away regardless of what I want based on morale checks. I need to roll a d12 to determine how cowardly I am. With a result of 5 I am fearful, meaning my Moral is only Brave. I also loss Honour quicker and gain it slower. But I gain an additonal 25 BP. I figure I'll roll once more before rolling one last time for Father issues. I rerolled twice because Messy sucks and I got it twice in a row (this costs me 2 bp). This time I get Fanatic. I support d3-1 causes and everytime I learn of a new cause that doesn't oppose my previous ones I add them to my list if I fail a Wis check. If it's related I roll half wis check. However I get 33 BP from it (40 - 5 penalty for second flaw and 2 for rerolling). Lastly it's Daddy issues time. Apparently with one of his beatings he cause me to have a permanent limp, slight. People get +15 to Observation checks against me but I can make it look attractive gained 0/10 Charisma. +58 BP out of my Quirks and Flaws. Step 9: Spending BP Alright so with my pool of 35 + 58 BP I can buy many things, this is not including the BP I have for specialized skills. First I'll tally all that up. ALL BP: 93 (35 of this can be spend on Stats, as those must be 'finalized' before Q&Fs) Int BP: 1 Wis BP: 0 Cha BP: 45 (with my increased Cha from Looks) I can use these to buy Talents, Skills, Proficiencies as well as Stats. Talents are basically feats which cost usually a non-insignificant amount of stats. Some include Blind-Fight (30bp), or small mechanical bonuses like +1 to Attack with specified weapon (10bp). Or otherwise roleplaying ones like Graceful Aging. Skills range from Speaking a Language, Reading a Language, to Law and The Art of Seduction or Torture. It uses a much nicer system of roll under a % which is nice. You train skills in by buying a point in it. The first point adds your ability modifier plus the mastery die, and each subsequent purchase is only the mastery die. The mastery die starts out as a d12 then slowly lowers as you get better to a d4 between skill of 88+. Well now that I know Int is somewhat important and BP isn't as limited as I though I want to bump my Int a bit as well as my Con. Since Con is less than 9/00 it only costs 1:10 BP:Stat, while Int is going to cost 1:5. So 2 points to Con to bump that up to 2. I need 161 stat points to raise Int to 13. I do gain some stats upon leveling (assign d20p, d12p, d10p, d8p, d6p, d4p to stats, Not Looks) and assuming I roll decently for me to have 13 Int by 3rd level I need to get it to 12/80 or so. That requires 28 of my stat points. It also increased my Int BP to 2. ALL BP: 62 Int BP: 2 Cha BP: 45 I'm going to use that 2 Int BP to learn a 3rd language (my first two being High and Low Elven). My first purchase of the skill gets me the relevant Ability + the mastery die (which lowers as you get more proficient). So I get 12 + d12p. I got a 24 for the first purchase and the second I rolled an additional 10 getting me as Average in one of the Human languages. I've also decided to pick up the Long Bow. This requires 6 BP as it is a High Skill weapon. I'll then train it a bit which requires 8x3 to max out the 1st level proficiencies. General BP: 32 Cha BP: 45 I'm going to skip over the rest of this part and take a Gander at the equipment section instead. Step 9: Outfitting your Character You start with 35 + 2d12p silver. First d12 got me 16 and the second got me 7. I start with 58 silver to kit myself with. Alright so each Item has a Cost a Weight and lastly 3 availabilities. Hi is metropolitan area, medium is good city, low is hamlet/village. You roll a d% and if you roll under you can aquire that item in that area otherwise you need to go somewhere else or put out word you want it and are willing to pay. You must roll for each item you purchase. You can choose what kind of Belt you want, either rope or leather. Example costs are 18cp for a backpack. Copper is 10:1 for silver. Gold is 1:10 for silver. 1 Week of standard rations if 5cp while 1 week of trail rations is 5sp. Inn lodging is about 5cp for common per day. With that I figure enough is known about my character that it can be considered finished. I figure this post must be long and messy enough without me digging through pages of weapon/armour/equipment descriptions. I will also note that all throughout this creation the book uses an annoying tone of "HurrDurr OldSchool!" and I realize at some point it's supposed to be sarcastic/funny. I like the system for what it's worth but the tone makes it annoying to read. I'd rather just an SRD of it because it still sounds like a fun, if extremely crunchy rule system to try for a bit. If you guys want I'll write up a bit about the combat system later. This post took way too long to write in the first place because the system is quite dense. Now any questions about this system? Do you feel I didn't cover anything in enough detail? Would you try or run this system? I realize I kinda glossed over spellcasting due to my character choice and I may return to make a Mage or Cleric. Also they have a basic free version if you want to read into it Cerepol fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Apr 24, 2014 |
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Apr 24, 2014 03:51
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Cerepol posted:
That looks familiar, along with the build points...  Kenzer and Co. love them some flowchart character creation, I guess.
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Apr 24, 2014 05:54
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Dagon posted:That looks familiar, along with the build points...
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Apr 25, 2014 20:57
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