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Waffleman_
Jan 20, 2011


I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna!!!

Yessod posted:

Basically casting is done by making a fort save when you cast, you can do lots of metamagic by varying the DC, you can stack and do team work, you can do ablative magic shields, what kinds of components you include change the DC (i.e. do you just cast it, do you shout the spell name, do you do a paragraph long invocation while the camera spins around you?), spells are different and have to be learned and you can learn different class's magic but that makes it a little different for you and you can't learn some (so Lina can cast Cure but not Rah Tilt), etc. Lots of feats are more powerful but give a disadvantage (There's one with +4 fortitude which means you have to eat your body weight in food at the inn or get really hangry). There's tons of rules for taunting people and giving them negative conditions like embarrassed or angry or scared.

And so on.

It seemed very cool, but incredibly fiddly for spellcasting, even compared to normal 3.5.

Yeah, at least you can say that a lot of care went into trying to replicate the feel and world of the show, but yeesh.

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Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

Yessod posted:

Slayers d20

At which point did d20 become more complicated than Hero System?

Halloween Jack posted:

"Feats" as they existed in D20 aren't a design concept unto themselves; having special Advantages and Disadvantages was a staple of games throughout the 90s and beyond. The primary questions are how well they're balanced, and if they spring from a "Everything not explicitly permitted (by having the right feat) is forbidden" philosophy. The latter is why old-schoolers despise feats, and rightly so.

Who doesn't love feats where you just go "Wait, I can't do that without the feat?!"

I think where I kinda drew the line was when I wanted to make your typical axe 'n' board dwarven fighter in Pathfinder, looked at "Ye olde list of feats you have to take in order to not suck with this build", and then I realized I didn't really have any place for other feats until endgame. No place for flavor, no place for a "secondary" fighting style like a repeating crossbow.
Seriously, is it really asking too much to grab a round piece of wood to block attacks and occasionally bash people in a system favoring two-handed weapons and cheesy high crit weapons?

Hyper Crab Tank posted:

Bonuses that get worse as you level up (because you obviously pick the best ones from the list first) are such a blatantly poor idea that it's kind of surprising no one noticed before adding them to everything. If you're going to do that, you should like... offer three meaningfully different ones and let you pick one, once. You want something that actually makes you feel different so you're actually customizing your dude.

Don't forget Two-Weapon Fighting (and in Pathfinder Vital Strike) where you have to continue to burn feats just to keep up with everyone else.

CommissarMega posted:


Now THIS is Chivalry :v: The word 'chivalry' comes from the French word for horse, 'cheval'.
Furry horse knights are flippin' hardcore

And HSD is starting to look more and more silly in comparison.

gradenko_2000 posted:

1. They turned goddamn CHARGE into a Feat.

So D&D Next heroes have been taught by their parent's not to run around with pointy objects? Or do they go "How do I run with my sword?!"

gradenko_2000 posted:

One every 4 levels is the slowest progression, but other classes get them oftener: The Fighter gets 7 ability score increases instead of 4 because of course.

I'd so put all of that into INT and/or CHA.

Thrash: Anime and Fighting Game Martial Arts RPG


Chapter 7: GM Section (and Combat Example)

Now we've reached the final proper chapter (which doesn't say much seeing how the appendices take up the last third of the book), but before that, a little interlude...

Combat that may or may not be mortal!

In her quest to find the nefarious barrel breakers, Sherry McTappington has just entered her first tournament and is now facing Tomiko Yamada - aka that Judo girl that served as the example character for the character creation chapter! Let me quote her background:

quote:

Now comes the fun part. ^_^ Okay, her name is Tomiko Yamada. She is an 18-year-old judo fighter, originally from Kyoto, where she learned judo from her grandfather, despite his total inability to keep different quantities straight. Tomiko began entering tournaments only this year, after she was attacked by and defeated the infamous Pigeon Eddie, a ruthless criminal mastermind and practitioner of the Saiiko style of Karate, whose evil she now wishes to put an end to. Tomiko is friendly and outgoing, but never puts up with any injustice, to the point of occasional megalomania… She is fairly short and rather cute, and has short green hair for no apparent reason. In combat she wears her judo gi, which is bright blue in color.
It's reassuring to see that my example character is totally in line with the creator's intent.

Now on to her character sheet. I've taken the liberties to write down the total soak roll, and I made a handy little table for her entire move list with all bonuses already factored in so i can just pick and roll:

Tomiko Yamada
Attributes: Intelligence 5, Focus 7, Charisma 5, Will 7, Strength 4, Agility 9, Stamina 7, Appearance 8
Base APs: 12
Chi: 32 Health: 28
Dizzy Threshold: 15 Rage Threshold: 21
Base Damage: Strength: +0 Focus: +3
Skills: Computer 3, Cooking 2, Language: English 4 (Japanese is native language), Taunt 5
Advantages & Disadvantages: Mentor 3
Disciplines: Blind Fighting 4
Styles: Judo 4
Soak Roll: 1d10 + 7

pre:
Maneuver		Acc	APs	Chi	Dmg	Move	Notes
Great Talon Shredder	+13	10	5	1d10+3	None	Projectile (Range 1)
Screaming Eagle Shot	*	24	*	*	*	Combo Maneuver (Body Flip, Screaming Eagle Shot, Soaring Hawk Crusher)
Soaring Hawk Crusher	+11	12	-	1d6+2	None	Grappling maneuver

Body Flip		+13	7	-	1d6	1	Grappling maneuver
Foot Sweep		+12	8	-	1d6	1	Crouching, Knockdown
Heavy Kick		+10	9	-	1d6+2	None
Heavy Punch		+13	7	-	1d6	None
Light Kick		+14	3	-	1d4+1	1
Light Punch		+15	2	-	1d4	1
Tackle			+10	10	-	1d6	4	Knockdown for both

Breakfall		-	-	-	-	2	Add Agility to Soak vs Knockdown
Dash			-	4	-	-	6	
Dodge			+13	5	-	-	3	Evasion
Grab			+13	3	-	-	2	Grab stuff for combos I guess
Jump			+16	3	-	-	9	Aerial, +2 Dmg while jumping, Evasion vs projectiles
Movement		-	1	-	-	1	Maneuver Modifier
Parry			+14	2	-	-	2	Block
A few things of note here: Every character starts with a skill level of 3 in his/her native language. Tomiko her is therefore more fluent in English than she is in Japanese. Must be some kind of reverse-Otaku...
Her "Great Talon Shredder" is your standard Chi Blast, with the "Short Blast" modifier. This is one of the worst modifiers you could possibly take, as it reduces the Blast's range from Focus + Will (which would be 14 in her case) to 1. All this because of 2 friggin' CP.
Her "Soaring Hawk Crusher" is just the vanilla maneuver "Leaping Slam" retitled, which is fine and all, if a bit bland.
Oh, and her Combo Maneuver is also not rules legal, as the base maneuver's combined AP are larger than the allowed limit (number of hits times 7). I think I will just treat this as a Super Combo (which has no limit). She doesn't have one, anyways, and it's not like she would use this very often (premade combos can't be aborted AFAIK, so she's kinda screwed if she misses).

I also just noticed that Breakfall is another of these maneuvers that doesn't actually work like a maneuver and is more like an Advantage. Whoops.

Anyways, this is looking fine and all. Now here's Sherry with her expanded sheet:

Sherry McTappington
Attributes: Intelligence 6, Focus 4, Charisma 4, Will 5, Strength 8 (10/6), Agility 10, Stamina 8, Appearance 6
Base APs: 12
Chi: 13 Health: 32
Dizzy Threshold: 16 Rage Threshold: 17
Base Damage: Strength: +4 (+6/+2) Focus: +0
Skills: First Aid 1, Intimidation 3, Language (Scottish) 3, Lore (Scotland) 3, Survival 3, Swimming 2, Taunt 4
Advantages & Disadvantages: Area Specialisation (Punch), Delusion (minor, "Scootlund is th' best!"), No Kick Training, Pacifism (no killing)
Disciplines: Body Hardening 4, Iron Fist 3
Styles: Fist of the Highlands (Generic Style) 4
Soak Roll: 1d10 + 20

pre:
Maneuver		Acc	APs	Chi	Dmg	Move	Notes
Gaelic Rage		-	2	8	-	-	Super; For 4 turns 2x APs, +2 Move & Acc to all maneuvers 
Lightning Step		+16	1	-	-	3	Evasion, can use Punch with AP <= 6 immediately afterwards with +3 Acc
Quickening Knuckle	+17	1	-	1d6+7	6

Head Butt		+15	6	-	1d6+7	1	
Heavy Punch		+15	6	-	1d6+7	None	
Iron Fist		+14	8	-	1d6+10	None	
Knuckle fist		+17	4	-	1d6+9	1	
Light Punch		+17	1	-	1d4+7	
Uppercut		+16	4	-	1d6+7	1	Knockdown, Counter vs Aerial

Circular Parry		+17	5	-	-	3	Block, 1 use lasts entire turn
Dash			-	4	-	-	6	
Dodge			+14	5	-	-	3	Evasion
Grab			+14	3	-	-	2	Grab stuff for combos I guess
Jump			+17	3	-	-	10	Aerial, +2 Dmg while jumping, Evasion vs projectiles
Kippup			+16	3	-	-	1	"Get out of Knockdown for free" card
Movement		-	1	-	-	1	Maneuver Modifier
Parry			+15	2	-	-	2	Block
Note that Sherry doesn't have Light and Heavy Kick because of her No Kick Training. She has a replacement maneuver for when she really, really needs to kick stuff, but that one's so crappy I'm not even going to bother.

(Why does Kippup have Accuracy, anyways? It's a purely reactive maneuver that works every time according to the description o_O )

As you can see, Tomiko's low Strength and focus on high-AP maneuvers seem to put her at a severe disadvantage. Not to mention that high-AP maneuvers also tend to have low Accuracy. Oh well, it'll be fun anyways.

quote:

"The Wheel of Fate is turning... Rebel 1... Action!"
-- BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger
This one's not in the book. I just always wanted to quote this glorious display of Engrish

I'm not going to use a hexgrid for this 1-on-1 duel. I might do that for something like BattleTech or Heavy Gear, but in this case, I think that keeping track of the relative distance should do the trick just fine, and it's kinda closer to the source material.

Turn 1

Since both have a style level of 4, it come down to the 1d10 initiative roll... which ends up at 10 for both. Well, I guess another roll to determine who goes first... Sherry 3, Tomiko 5. So the judo girl goes first!

Sherry: AP 22, Health 32, Rage 0
Tomiko: AP 22, Health 28, Rage 0
Distance: 5

With APs so close and 5 hexes to cover, Tomiko doesn't really have much options here (sure was a good idea to make that Chi Blast short ranged...), so she goes for the noob tactic of "jump and kick combo" (in this case a light kick so save APs). Sherry could counter this with her Uppercut, but she has better things to do, namely her Lightning Step!

The combat rolls are 1d10+14 for Tomiko's jump kick (based on the kicks's Accuracy. Jump's Accuracy is only used for dodging projectiles) and 1d10+16 for Sherry's Lightning Step... 15 and 21! As Tomiko lands where Sherry stood mere moments ago, she suddenly spots the Scottish girl right besides here, with a very big grin on her face and a raised fist, performing an immediate Quickening Knuckle with a +3 Accuracy Bonus as per Displacement's description (*insert dramatic shounen anime freeze-frame stuff here*).

A bit tacken by surprise. Tomiko immediately blo... err. parries, seeing how it would be pretty hard to beat a 1d10 + 20. She instead reduces the incoming damage by 1d10 + 14. Seeing how the Quickening Fist deals 1d6 + 6 damage, this would turn out to be 1 damage anyways, but we need to roll to see how much Rage Tomiko gains... 9. And has Parry has a move of 2, she decides to dash back that may hexes.
(Neat. Blocking strong dudes a couple times raises your Rage like crazy. Let's see if that helps her in any ways.)

Sherry: AP 20, Health 32, Rage 0
Tomiko: AP 14, Health 27, Rage 9
Distance: 2

With initiative gonig over to Sherry, it's time for a spontaneous 10-hit Quickening Knuckle combo extravaganza!
As Sherry has to announce this beforehand, Tomiko has time to go "Oh crap!" and consider her options. All she can really do here is bloc... err, parrying like there's no tomorrow, as dodging would eat up her AP fast. Even then, chances are she'll run out of APs...

(I'll just roll the damage as her parries will reduce anything to 1, and even then I'll only be doing it till she becomes enraged.)

Hit 1: Damage 11
Hit 2: Damage 8 => TOMIKO SMASH (Rage Threshold reached, resulting in AP net gain of +1) !

Sherry: AP 18, Health 32, Rage 0
Tomiko: AP 13, Health 25, Rage 21
Distance: 0

Enraging doesn't help her much this turn apart from the AP boost. With all her remaining AP, she can parry 7 further maneuvers, pusing her AP into negative -1 territory, which will carry over to next turn.

Hit 3 - 9: Nothing to see here...

Sherry: AP 11, Health 32, Rage 0
Tomiko: AP -1, Health 18, Rage 21
Distance: 0

What's this? Sherry can still do 11 more Quickening Knuckles, without Tomiko being able to do anything? Let the fun commence!

Hit 1: Damage 11, Soak Roll 8 (aka -2 Damage) => Health 9
Hit 2: Damage 12, Soak Roll 8 (aka -2 Damage) => Health -1 KO!

(The other hits won't be rolled, but are still performed as some kind of finisher because why not)

Long story short: To win in Thrash, you have to be Kenshiro.

Unless your opponent also min-maxed a defensive maneuver down to 1 AP, he'll eventually run out, leaving him wide open. You can kinda discourage this attack spamming with a sped-up Power Block (which deals your Strength Bonus in damage back to the attacker), but you will still lose Health faster than your opponent with that, and you'll be building up his Rage which will just end up making his attacks stronger.

Oh well, now back to the chapter I'm supposed to cover here!

GM Section

quote:

"GAME OVER!
-- M. Bison, Street Fighter: The Movie
I personally would've gone for Bison quoting that bible verse. Quoteception

This chapter boils down to listing various fighting game genre convetions (aka tropes) and possible deviations.

Being Creative: Aka "Stop using tournaments so you don't have to make dozens of NPCs, and come up with a setting that is not modern day Earth"

Elements: Fighting games tend to be very action-packed and offer more or less humor. There are also lots of subplots involving rivalries and stuff, and don't make the overall Power Level too ridiculous because we've all seen what happened with that DBZ Fuzion RPG.

Cliched Enemy Types: All your stereotypical villains, though they all basically amount to "super powerful jerk".

Roleplaying Anime: As Thrash is geared more towards Anime fighters, we get a paragraph what this can mean for your campaign. You basically invoke the "Rule of Cool" a lot and be extra careful about the story. Because if anything is known for riveting storytelling, it's fighting games.

Roleplaying Vs. Kicking rear end: Aka "Don't forget the roleplaying part, and make NPCs more than a bunch of numbers". Standard stuff, really.

Send In The Clones!: Mirror Fights in fighting games exist. Use them for Thrash, you can.

Other Genres: Thrash supposedly also works for Action Movies, Anime (didn't we already have that a couple times?), Fantasy and Mecha, with the Anime and Mecha genre having their own sourcebook by a guy called Rob Pool. The former happened, the latter not so much, though there was another mecha sourcebook based on Rob's ideas or something.

Monsters: You could have the PCs fight dragons and other monsters, but this seems unlikely seeing how this section just goes "Have the GM wing everything".

That was a bit short and bland, to be honest. Though I guess some of this could be useful if you're new to roleplaying and know little about fighting game or anime tropes (raising the question why you would download this pdf then). I would've liked something like a guide how to make boss characters challenging for the whole group. If they don't have Circular Parry, they kinda run out of AP fast, and we've just seen wha thappens then.

Next time: The first and biggest appendix: Weird Powers (aka "Stuff that should've been in the character creation chapter but isn't, because being psychic is apparently not as 'realistic' as being able to throw energy balls, even though most of these Weird Powers actually give you an excuse for being able to do that")!

Doresh fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Jan 26, 2015

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Doresh posted:

Don't forget Two-Weapon Fighting (and in Pathfinder Vital Strike) where you have to continue to burn feats just to keep up with everyone else.

Except Vital strike is somewhat of a trap if memory serves. You can only use it on an attack action, which means you can't use it on a charge, or during spring attack, or anything else other than 'standard action attack'

quote:

So D&D Next heroes have been taught by their parent's not to run around with pointy objects? Or do they go "How do I run with my sword?!"

You can move and attack, but you don't get any benefit from it without the feat. 5e is just similar enough to 4e and 3.5e that it's easy to screw up and take actions that can get you killed because the rules don't support you anymore. Like, you can flank an enemy but that doesn't actually grant you advantage, even though the entire concept of the advantage dice came from combat advantage. Also 5e has short rests during which you can spend your hit dice (which are suspiciously similar to healing surges but only replenish by half your total every day), but a short rest in 5e needs to be at least an hour during which you're doing nothing else. Unlike 4e's short rests which are basically "are you not in combat anymore? Fantastic."

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

Kurieg posted:

Except Vital strike is somewhat of a trap if memory serves. You can only use it on an attack action, which means you can't use it on a charge, or during spring attack, or anything else other than 'standard action attack'

Vital Strike is only really useful if you really need something in situations where you can't full attack, and even then there's usually no point in taking more than the first Vital Strike. It's a little more useful for classes that don't get full BAB, as their full attacks aren't as good anyways.

Though as everything, I've heard you can cheese the hell out of this feat chain if you're a druid who turns into a T-Rex, or someone with the Enlarge Person and Lead Blades spells, a combination that beefs up your weapon damage by two size categories.

quote:

You can move and attack, but you don't get any benefit from it without the feat. 5e is just similar enough to 4e and 3.5e that it's easy to screw up and take actions that can get you killed because the rules don't support you anymore. Like, you can flank an enemy but that doesn't actually grant you advantage, even though the entire concept of the advantage dice came from combat advantage. Also 5e has short rests during which you can spend your hit dice (which are suspiciously similar to healing surges but only replenish by half your total every day), but a short rest in 5e needs to be at least an hour during which you're doing nothing else. Unlike 4e's short rests which are basically "are you not in combat anymore? Fantastic."

So D&D is the roleplaying equivalent of being punished for you rmuscle memory?

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!
If I were DMing 5e, one of the first things I'd do would be houserule away that stupid "short rest equals one hour" thing. Five minutes after a fight and you've cleaned the gore off your sword, got your breath back and are good to go.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Doresh posted:

So D&D is the roleplaying equivalent of being punished for you rmuscle memory?

Yes, it also makes you much more reluctant to actually spend your 'encounter resources' because odds are you won't have enough time to wait until the next fight. Whereas a spell is just as good now as it is 10 minutes from now.

Note: Encounter resources are almost exclusive to martial classes.

Payndz posted:

If I were DMing 5e, one of the first things I'd do would be houserule away that stupid "short rest equals one hour" thing. Five minutes after a fight and you've cleaned the gore off your sword, got your breath back and are good to go.

This kind of ruins the class features that give you partial refreshes of encounter resources at the beginning of a combat if you have zero. But the short rest rule is dumb anyway so screw it.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I've been lax because I was trying (unsuccessfully) to find pictures, but it's time for EVEN MORE Existentialist Furry Space NATO

The new gear chapter starts off with a neat bit on examples of how to use different skills to try to get things you aren't explicitly assigned, ranging from tricking the quartermaster to citing mind-numbing rules and regulations to trading the least-terrible versions of the standard issue MREs or neat heated gloves for what you need. It also notes higher rank can be useful here, but that doing unofficial bartering and borking it up with a Botch roll will do Social damage. There's also rules for keeping captured or issued gear as standard issue stuff or requesting your gear be modified. Next comes the various utility or flavor gear, like a next generation of MRE designed to make troops stop complaining about their combat rations (it is, at best, partly successful), a cool little utility walker-bot to serve as a pack-mule for your squad's supplies, a 'glue gun' that is actually a 40kg wheeled portable patching and welding unit for vehicle and structural reinforcement or fortification construction, drop pods for Rapid Reaction orbital drop troops, that sort of thing. There's also finally heavier armor: The Assault Armor add-on is a set of trauma plates for your combat armor that give it +5 wound threshold and +2 Deflect vs. the first hit you take in a combat. This is about it for EDF combat armor upgrades. One thing I missed on my first readthroughs is that if you have extra Body from Gifts, that doesn't count towards your size for the weight of your armor, so someone who is young, healthy, etc can carry the weight of their armor (and the rest of their gear) a lot better.

A lot of this stuff is, mechanically, mostly fluff. It is, though, the good kind of fluff; a lot of it has some sort of use, but more importantly, in a game that's about getting across some of the daily feel of military life, there's room to care about what the doohickey you've got to haul out to help dig in does and what it's like.

Next comes the actual new guns; one of the biggest additions is a ton of vehicle weapons instead of simply the 30mm GAU-8 ripoff that's in the main book. There's also some really neat add-ons for your guns, like a modification for your rifle's targeting system that will let you try to Overwatch grenades and mortar rounds out of the air instead of just hiding behind cover, or a 'recon grenade' with a small parachute system that you can fire out of the underbarrel grenade launcher to get a clear view of everything below it on your squad's optics (being able to see how many of the enemy are behind cover and where helps a ton for spotting indirect fire and knowing if you should advance). There's also less-than-lethal weaponry like tasers, tear gas, etc for police actions.

Then there's the actual new guns, which quickly show you if there is one thing the Bun is good at, it's grenades. Homing grenades, flechette canister grenades, automatic crew-served grenade launchers, EMP grenades...rabbits apparently loving love grenades and have learned to do terrible, terrible things with them. The bunnies also get the ability to leave behind spare machine pistols in a basic turret/motion tracker to provide covering fire while they retreat or maneuver, a tactic often used by their special forces squads to cover their escape via suppressive fire. There's also a bunch of bunny heavy weapons to give your squad fits; an LMG and HMG that, while not quite as good as their EDF equivalent (most bunny automatic weapons have more ammo but less range and damage) will still pulp an unlucky trooper and give you plenty of reason to get your head down. The bunny vehicle weapons tend towards very solid autocannons, which do a great deal of damage and have excellent range. Bunny autocannons are really nasty things, even if they're unremarkable. There's also an extreme range hypervelocity dart launcher used for AA and anti-armor operations, filling the role of a rabbit anti-tank rifle.

The EDF finally gets a couple decent anti-tank explosives (fitting, considering this is the book that introduces tanks), a light machine gun, and the greatest weapon in the game: The LRCKWC. I mentioned earlier, but bears are really big in Albedo. The average soldier is 7-8 Body. Bears are a base of 12 and with the right Gifts, can start with something like 16. A Bear with sufficient body and the right Gifts can require something like a 17+ to even wound with a standard LAKW assault rifle if he's wearing armor. So Bears are huge. A unit of heavy infantry Bears decided, at one point, to start modifying anti-tank rifles to use as semi-automatic battle rifles. They were originally not allowed to do this, until they reminded the supply officers that bears are huge, and were allowed to do as they wished. This lead to an official modification for particularly large species like Bears and Rhinos, used for shooting through cover and destroying light vehicles at close range. Also note, a properly specced Bear can deal 3 Awe Damage with a single melee attack and potentially rip a rabbit in half with his bear-hands.

I'm trying to get at the fact that Bears are basically supersoldiers.

The EDF's new guns are primarily vehicle weapons and primarily anti-vehicle. The EDF already had a more detailed weapons list in the prior book, being PCs. The new vehicle mounted autocannons and heavy machine guns are nasty, though, and very capable of Devastating normal infantry or ripping up heavy units like APCs. The game really wasn't kidding when it said the key to vehicle combat is to see the enemy first, fire first, and get hull down as fast as possible!

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
Hold up, the furry-slayers-knockoff RPG got Stephen loving Silver to do their interior illos? Are Sanguine just the only guys catering to this market, or are there a shitload of furry roleplayers who also want dice involved?

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
I'm not sure if it's changed much in the last handful of years, but art used to be a borderline fetish for a lot of furries. It doesn't surprise me that these folks would blow a huge budget on getting big names to draw Slayers knockoffs at all.

Waffleman_
Jan 20, 2011


I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna!!!

This is my fursona Linya Inverrrrrrse.

Naga the Serpent is just a snake.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

grassy gnoll posted:

Hold up, the furry-slayers-knockoff RPG got Stephen loving Silver to do their interior illos? Are Sanguine just the only guys catering to this market, or are there a shitload of furry roleplayers who also want dice involved?

Most of the furry rpgs that I've seen are low budget trash that make it obvious they were written one handed, and barely last one book, if that. Ironclaw apparently has a lot of world building behind it and seems high effort. There's apparently just one guy who loving loves Slayfurs, and that legacy somehow made it into the "actually start paying for art" edition.

hectorgrey
Oct 14, 2011
To be fair to fifth edition, the DMG does come with optional rules to change rest times to change the flavour of the game - reducing a short rest to five minutes and a long rest to an hour, with the advice that you limit the spells regained on a long rest to avoid having wizards burninate everything with their highest level magic in every fight, or increasing the length of a short rest to eight hours and a long rest to a full week, for a slightly more old school approach to natural healing and a reduced availability of magic (I'm looking at experimenting with this in a campaign reasonably soon).

Also, the thing with most of the feats is that their usefulness depends on the campaign you're playing in and the character you want to play - one of the benefits of fifth edition is that it's better at accommodating games with a different set of basic assumptions than the standard heroic fantasy that D&D was designed for. Not to mention that one of the non-financial rewards recommended in the DMG is that of training - things like gaining an extra feat, extra skills and proficiencies or any other ability that the DM sees fit to offer the player characters without requiring that it be tied to level. I'm sure some DM's do that kind of thing anyway, but it's nice to see it written down. I suspect some of the less useful feats in the players handbook (skilled, for instance) would be improved greatly by being given as free training as a reward. Having said that, in a game that tends to involve less combat and more skill use, skilled might be a more useful feat than any one of the combat oriented ones.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

Which is wasted when they got the Lackadaisy Artist, who is probably one of the most talented artists around who does funny animal stuff.

CommissarMega
Nov 18, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Night10194 posted:

I mentioned earlier, but bears are really big in Albedo. The average soldier is 7-8 Body. Bears are a base of 12 and with the right Gifts, can start with something like 16. A Bear with sufficient body and the right Gifts can require something like a 17+ to even wound with a standard LAKW assault rifle if he's wearing armor. So Bears are huge. A unit of heavy infantry Bears decided, at one point, to start modifying anti-tank rifles to use as semi-automatic battle rifles. They were originally not allowed to do this, until they reminded the supply officers that bears are huge, and were allowed to do as they wished. This lead to an official modification for particularly large species like Bears and Rhinos, used for shooting through cover and destroying light vehicles at close range. Also note, a properly specced Bear can deal 3 Awe Damage with a single melee attack and potentially rip a rabbit in half with his bear-hands.

I'm trying to get at the fact that Bears are basically supersoldiers.

So bears are Albedo Space Marines? Good to know :unsmigghh:

Robindaybird posted:

Which is wasted when they got the Lackadaisy Artist, who is probably one of the most talented artists around who does funny animal stuff.

Honestly, they should've got her back for the new edition- it actually shows some production values, and some obvious care went into it. The section on the No-French horse kingdom, for example, has woodcut-styled art.

Kurieg posted:

There's apparently just one guy who loving loves Slayfurs, and that legacy somehow made it into the "actually start paying for art" edition.

I actually think Lina Infurse is kind of the game's in-joke, these days. If they release a third edition, she'll still be in it, I'm willing to bet.

CommissarMega fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Jan 27, 2015

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

CommissarMega posted:

So bears are Albedo Space Marines? Good to know :unsmigghh:


The main problem with building the Tankbear is that he'll have a 4 Base Drive and no Awe Resistance. He'll be goddamn near invincible to small arms and able to rip a guy to shreds, but he'll bawl his eyes out after and he'll panic after a couple rounds of suppressive fire or minor glances.

8one6
May 20, 2012

When in doubt, err on the side of Awesome!

Edit: wrong thread.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Night10194 posted:

The main problem with building the Tankbear is that he'll have a 4 Base Drive and no Awe Resistance. He'll be goddamn near invincible to small arms and able to rip a guy to shreds, but he'll bawl his eyes out after and he'll panic after a couple rounds of suppressive fire or minor glances.

I know you mean glancing wounds, but I love the mental image of a bear built like a refrigerator cowering in terror from the fox barmaid that batted her eyes at him.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003




Note that this is extremely close to the cover of the Slayers movie:

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Kurieg posted:

I know you mean glancing wounds, but I love the mental image of a bear built like a refrigerator cowering in terror from the fox barmaid that batted her eyes at him.

BJ Bearskowitz would be a character I would absolutely love playing, but then I love Wolfenstein: The New Order a lot.

Waffleman_
Jan 20, 2011


I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna!!!

Zereth posted:

Note that this is extremely close to the cover of the Slayers movie:


Why wouldn't it be?

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Lina the Inverse

original character do not steal

Waffleman_
Jan 20, 2011


I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna!!!

That's not Lina. It's my original character, Blina.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Waffleman_ posted:

Why wouldn't it be?
I just wanted to make it very clear to people not familiar with Slayers.

After actually comparing them I'm honestly shocked they're as different as they are.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
What I don't get is that so many furry RPGs are so... drat... serious. I mean, Furry Pirates, Ironclaw, Albedo, and Hc Svnt Dracones are certainly of wildly varying quality, but there's not much room to play Disney's Robin Hood or anything that's even slightly "funny animal". I have to wonder if this is just a general tendency of nerd-dom to try and drag anything they loved from their youth into "maturity" or something specific to furs I'm just not aware of. :raise:

darthbob88
Oct 13, 2011

YOSPOS

Waffleman_ posted:

That's not Lina. It's my original character, Blina.

Not Felina? Or Lina the Inv-ursus? I'm disappointed.

Waffleman_
Jan 20, 2011


I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna!!!

darthbob88 posted:

Not Felina? Or Lina the Inv-ursus? I'm disappointed.


Waffleman_ posted:

This is my fursona Linya Inverrrrrrse.

Naga the Serpent is just a snake.

You need to pay more attention.

CommissarMega
Nov 18, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Alien Rope Burn posted:

What I don't get is that so many furry RPGs are so... drat... serious. I mean, Furry Pirates, Ironclaw, Albedo, and Hc Svnt Dracones are certainly of wildly varying quality, but there's not much room to play Disney's Robin Hood or anything that's even slightly "funny animal". I have to wonder if this is just a general tendency of nerd-dom to try and drag anything they loved from their youth into "maturity" or something specific to furs I'm just not aware of. :raise:

Maybe it's because stuff like Toon already exists? I don't know, I'm just happy Ironclaw has turned out well. Seriously, outside the furry trappings, it's a good fantasy-Renaissance game.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

What I don't get is that so many furry RPGs are so... drat... serious. I mean, Furry Pirates, Ironclaw, Albedo, and Hc Svnt Dracones are certainly of wildly varying quality, but there's not much room to play Disney's Robin Hood or anything that's even slightly "funny animal". I have to wonder if this is just a general tendency of nerd-dom to try and drag anything they loved from their youth into "maturity" or something specific to furs I'm just not aware of. :raise:

I'm pretty sure, having done more reading, that Albedo did it specifically because the author had a serious story to tell but wanted to draw in that style, basically. I know Lackadaisy's author has said she draws it as cats specifically because cats are super expressive.

Also, this is in no way unique to furry stuff. Just look at the thousands and thousands of 'dark fantasy' stories that try really hard to add enough blood to get around the fact that it's about a knight getting a magic sword to stab a dragon in the dick.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

Alien Rope Burn posted:

What I don't get is that so many furry RPGs are so... drat... serious. I mean, Furry Pirates, Ironclaw, Albedo, and Hc Svnt Dracones are certainly of wildly varying quality, but there's not much room to play Disney's Robin Hood or anything that's even slightly "funny animal". I have to wonder if this is just a general tendency of nerd-dom to try and drag anything they loved from their youth into "maturity" or something specific to furs I'm just not aware of. :raise:

There was a supplement for BESM (the Tri-Stat one, not the d20 version) that was basically Rescue Rangers: the RPG if I recall correctly.

I'm going to guess that part of it is, broadly, "nerds want everything to be serious so it'll be seen as mature" (which isn't really unique to nerds, let's be fair) and part of it is the market for a Disney style funny animal RPG is probably really, really, really slim because most RPG players are dudes in their 30s and 40s (and getting on into their 50s) stuck on trying to recreate Conan and Lord of the Rings and maybe Star Wars, and the demographic that might be more receptive to something like a Disney RPG has no real interest in tabletop gaming because they have video games and the internet. And there's also "ew furries" to consider...I mean, any time something like Ironclaw or Usagi Yojimbo is brought up practically the first thing anyone has to do is go "okay now I know what this looks like but no seriously guys, trust me, this is actually good and not terrible wankbait."

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
That's why nWOD Changing breeds is so bizarre to me. They go so far off the other side of the scale trying to portray it as super atavistic "THE BEAST IS MAN" stuff, combined with the art style, that rather than the sense that being a beast is violent bloody and freeing you have a sneaking suspicion that you should call the ASPCA.

VVV I'm not sure if you know this or not, but that's sort of what actually happened.

Kurieg fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Jan 27, 2015

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
Changing Breeds is basically what happens when you invite that weird uncle or aunt you haven't seen in 10 years over for Thanksgiving dinner, the one who got super hardcore into reincarnation and pyramid healing and who changed their name to Moonbeam Stagsblood and has a weird sort-of-relationship with someone on the internet who thinks they're a faerie cat-dragon, and you suddenly remember why you don't invite them over for Thanksgiving ever.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Kurieg posted:

VVV I'm not sure if you know this or not, but that's sort of what actually happened.

You absolutely need to go into detail on this.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
White Wolf had a fairly prolific author throughout the oWoD period named Phil Brucato. He bounced around the lines a lot but most of his work was done on Mage: The Ascension and it's Renaissance era equivalent, Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade. Amongst his non-Mage credits are Black Furies-pre revised which is basically "ALL HAIL THE EARTH MOTHER! MAN EXISTS TO SERVICE WOMAN!" made manifest, and Freak Legion, which is up there with CoG: Revised as one of the worst Werewolf books ever and contains "Savage Genitalia" and suggests combining it with the "Human Inferno" power to create a truly memorable sex scene. And then in the transition to the nWoD they abruptly cut all ties with him. Notations you see in some of the later oWoD books imply that Phil was somewhat off his rocker and believed that magic was actually real. And the fact that he currently maintains multiple Wiccan websites can attest to that. He also appears to have attempted to legally change his name to "Satyros" and goes by Satyrblade or Satyros in all his online communication.

And then in 2007 out of nowhere they bring him back on as a freelancer to make an otherkin splatbook.

The timing of the book leads me to believe it involved some executive meddling from CCP to try and recapture some of the old Fera players which itself isn't a bad thing, it's just that they really don't fit in the new World of Darkness at all. Somehow Phil got attached to the project and ensured that absolutely nothing like it will ever be made again.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
Kurieg sums it up better than I could.

The thing you have to understand is that nWoD's version of Werewolf (and Changing Breeds wasn't explicitly a Werewolf sourcebook, it was done up in general nWoD tradedress, but it's a book about werecreatures so come on) isn't about embracing your inner ecoterrorist viking and fighting monsters with Savage Genitalia, for a game about playing werewolves policing the spirit realm it's a lot more "grounded" in that nWoD sort of way and it's definitely not your typical furry fare with super-special were-whatsits all over the place and thinly disguised wank-fodder.

Changing Breeds is exactly all of that and it is complete dogshit. It's some of the dumbest bits of old Werewolf mashed up with dumb furry stuff and some truly awful writing, garnished with bad rules. The nWoD generally didn't have very many outright clunkers, but Changing Breeds is absolutely one of them and it's a stand-out example of why trying to recapture that "old World of Darkness feeling" is in all likelihood a terrible loving idea.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 12 hours!
Then there was that cute little bit in Subsidiaries: A Guide to Pentex.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
If you're curious Daeren has a (listed as abandoned) writeup of Changing Breeds in the D&D archives so you can get a taste of exactly how bad it is, spoiler alert it's pretty bad.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Kai Tave posted:

If you're curious Daeren has a (listed as abandoned) writeup of Changing Breeds in the D&D archives so you can get a taste of exactly how bad it is, spoiler alert it's pretty bad.

I remember this now. Didn't you get power points back for making GBS threads all over everything when upset because you're 'doing like an animal do'? Am I thinking of the right crazy otherkin bullshit?

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
Yes, Changing Breeds devotes a not inconsiderable amount of attention to actual literal poo poo. Remember, this was written by a guy that White Wolf cut ties with during the nWoD transition then invited back to write this knowing in all likelihood exactly what they were going to get, and then published it anyway.

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Kai Tave posted:

Yes, Changing Breeds devotes a not inconsiderable amount of attention to actual literal poo poo. Remember, this was written by a guy that White Wolf cut ties with during the nWoD transition then invited back to write this knowing in all likelihood exactly what they were going to get, and then published it anyway.

I'm willing to guess that they knew exactly what they were doing and it sold decently. There was a portion of their old fanbase they were no longer serving, why not toss out a book to get some money from them?
It's a crap book, but if it's crap that sells is it still crap?

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Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

The Lone Badger posted:

It's a crap book, but if it's crap that sells is it still crap?



I'm gonna go with "yes."

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