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I'd check out Riddle of Steel. I can't promise that poo poo is in there, but if it's anywhere, it'd be there.
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Feb 25, 2015 02:39
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GUndam makes a lot more sense once you realize it's 70s Sci-Fi, complete with future psychics who might or might not be the future of humanity. Heck, Gundam 00 is halfway to being anime Foundation.
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Feb 25, 2015 02:46
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Mageblade from Arcana Evolved is pretty awesome. Duskblade is pretty good as well.
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Feb 25, 2015 02:51
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Bendigeidfran posted:Quick unrelated question: are there any good systems that have rules for grabbing a sword's blade and smacking people with the pommel? Or like combines grappling rules with dagger fighting? Asking because there's a lot of cool medieval combat stuff that gets overlooked these days. RuneQuest has some of that in the special moves you can pull off whenever you beat a roll by more than one step. It's an interesting system that has a lot of love put into the magic systems.
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Feb 25, 2015 04:32
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PurpleXVI posted:Has there ever been a good execution of the "arcane caster in melee"-concept? Because it always seems to be hosed in some way, usually because they incredibly lazily just copypaste other arcane casting, rather than acknowledging that a lot of it's useless in the middle of a scrum. In addition to what's already been posted, the Magus from Pathfinder is pretty well-designed in this regard. The Magus combines sword-fighting with magic by having a lot of abilities that allow it to cast spells while fighting or to channel spells through their melee attacks. The traditional problem with Fighter/Mage hybrids is that if you just stack the two together you end up with a character who spends alternating turns either fighting or casting spells instead of combining them somehow. The 4e Swordmage overcomes this by making most of its spells melee attacks with the weapon tag (meaning that a part of the casting of the spell is actually hitting someone with your sword), while the Pathfinder Magus does it by having spell combat, which works sort of like two-weapon fighting in that you get to make two attacks as part of a full-round action, but for the Magus the other attack is always a standard action spell, and by giving them the ability to cast touch spells through a melee attack (so that when you cast a touch spell you don't make a touch attack, you make a melee attack and if it connects you deal your melee damage on top of whatever effects the spell might have had).
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Feb 25, 2015 09:56
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Ratpick posted:In addition to what's already been posted, the Magus from Pathfinder is pretty well-designed in this regard. The Magus combines sword-fighting with magic by having a lot of abilities that allow it to cast spells while fighting or to channel spells through their melee attacks. My problem with doing it this way is that even if you manage to make it so that the class is effective and not hamstrung by design, it still suffers from the same problem a lot of 3.X/Pathfinder material does which is that everything simply boils down to a slightly different application of the same basic list of spells which are apparently fundamental building blocks of the universe. The Swordmage wasn't just hitting people and then tossing off a spell from the Wizard list, it actually had a bunch of unique abilities that gave it a specific niche as the teleporting, distance-protecting, Jedi-ish magic fighter blipping around the battlefield and shielding friends from harm with sneaky magic sword tricks instead of just "I hit and cast Shocking Grasp, woo." Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 10:05 on Feb 25, 2015 |
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Feb 25, 2015 10:01
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Bendigeidfran posted:Quick unrelated question: are there any good systems that have rules for grabbing a sword's blade and smacking people with the pommel? Or like combines grappling rules with dagger fighting? Asking because there's a lot of cool medieval combat stuff that gets overlooked these days. Burning Wheel has rules for half-swording, pommel striking and grappling someone's helmet off then shanking their unprotected flesh. It's a pretty in-depth and complex combat system but it can be surprisingly satisfying.
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Feb 25, 2015 10:03
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Kai Tave posted:My problem with doing it this way is that even if you manage to make it so that the class is effective and not hamstrung by design, it still suffers from the same problem a lot of 3.X/Pathfinder material does which is that everything simply boils down to a slightly different application of the same basic list of spells which are apparently fundamental building blocks of the universe. The Swordmage wasn't just hitting people and then tossing off a spell from the Wizard list, it actually had a bunch of unique abilities that gave it a specific niche as the teleporting, distance-protecting, Jedi-ish magic fighter blipping around the battlefield and shielding friends from harm with sneaky magic sword tricks instead of just "I hit and cast Shocking Grasp, woo." Oh yeah, I agree, the Swordmage is a much more interesting design, but for a class that works within 3.5's framework the Magus does a pretty good job of mixing fight guy and magic guy.
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Feb 25, 2015 11:03
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For the 3.5 framework you also have swordsages from the best book ever, and various flavors of warder, stalker, and warlord from the Path of War book.
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Feb 25, 2015 17:19
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Swordsages weren't any more castery than a crusader was, though, they just had flashier moves and a lower armor class, they also had the weakest recharge mechanic so once you were out of desert wind maneuvers you were back to tiger's claw and shadow hand. (Unless you abused Adaptive Style, which you probably did)
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Feb 25, 2015 17:25
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I think adaptive style was put in as a last minute patch between design changes when they realized how terrible the swordsage was without it. Anytime I ran a game pre-Path of War I just gave it to them for free. Though now I generally prefer the Path of War classes with their more dynamic recharge mechanics.
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Feb 25, 2015 17:39
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Has there ever been a meleemancer class that is all about turning on an offensive forcefield and becoming a sort of arcane pinball of death?Bendigeidfran posted:Quick unrelated question: are there any good systems that have rules for grabbing a sword's blade and smacking people with the pommel? Or like combines grappling rules with dagger fighting? Asking because there's a lot of cool medieval combat stuff that gets overlooked these days. Aside from the already mentioned Riddle of Steel, there's Blade of the Iron Throne. It's basically the same system, but with a few tweaks / house rules and generally tuned towards Sword & Sorcery (though there's little preventing it from being used in other archaic weapon genres). Both systems feature half-swording and the Mordhau, both of which being your primary combat option against opponents wearing plate armor (unless you play with an optional rule that can cause knockouts from head strikes even if the helmet prevents any damage. I call it the doinnnnng-rule) Doresh fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Feb 25, 2015 |
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Feb 25, 2015 19:19
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I think I gave every ToB character the Warblade's recharge mechanic, balance be damned, because I didn't want to deal with the more complicated stuff.
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Feb 25, 2015 19:27
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With the right build the crusader's mechanic was better, but that's something that should be more of an option for someone who is okay with the randomness, rather than the default.
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Feb 25, 2015 19:33
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I still love the class that, for the low low price of "fighting creatures who don't share your exact alignment" you're a better in-combat healer than a cleric.
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Feb 25, 2015 19:49
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Ratpick posted:The traditional problem with Fighter/Mage hybrids is that if you just stack the two together you end up with a character who spends alternating turns either fighting or casting spells instead of combining them somehow. The 4e Swordmage overcomes this by making most of its spells melee attacks with the weapon tag (meaning that a part of the casting of the spell is actually hitting someone with your sword), while the Pathfinder Magus does it by having spell combat, which works sort of like two-weapon fighting in that you get to make two attacks as part of a full-round action, but for the Magus the other attack is always a standard action spell, and by giving them the ability to cast touch spells through a melee attack (so that when you cast a touch spell you don't make a touch attack, you make a melee attack and if it connects you deal your melee damage on top of whatever effects the spell might have had). I can absolutely agree with this. Either give the characters some special rules for using spells differently(all your spells are touch-attack, yes, that includes the ones with an area of effect, and you cast them just by whanging someone real hard with your sword. FIREBALL BLADE, MOTHERFUCKER.), or give them their entire own spellbook/ability set. The Magus sounds kind of hard to balance, though, if they get to BOTH attack AND hurl a spell around every turn, and assuming they get the same spellbook as ordinary wizards/sorcs or whatever, aren't they objectively better than both fighters AND wizards?
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Feb 25, 2015 23:07
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PurpleXVI posted:I can absolutely agree with this. Either give the characters some special rules for using spells differently(all your spells are touch-attack, yes, that includes the ones with an area of effect, and you cast them just by whanging someone real hard with your sword. FIREBALL BLADE, MOTHERFUCKER.), or give them their entire own spellbook/ability set. If the spellbook was all evocations then certainly. Most players would probably just point out that casting damage spells through your katana like a good trenchcoat elf is a waste of a spellslot best spent on invis or polymorph or something that actually ends fights.
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Feb 25, 2015 23:18
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They get a very paired down wizard spell book, and only about bard level casting.
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Feb 25, 2015 23:19
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Yeah, my guess is that they're probably at the very least no worse than a straight Fighter and probably better than one, but "better than a Fighter" in 3.X/PF isn't exactly the high bar to hurdle. Meanwhile almost any not-a-pure-caster is going to be weaker than a pure caster because they get a pared down selection of spells, the only thing that really matter. If you're a wizard, being more like a fighter is a straight downgrade.
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Feb 25, 2015 23:34
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Kai Tave posted:Yeah, my guess is that they're probably at the very least no worse than a straight Fighter and probably better than one, but "better than a Fighter" in 3.X/PF isn't exactly the high bar to hurdle. Meanwhile almost any not-a-pure-caster is going to be weaker than a pure caster because they get a pared down selection of spells, the only thing that really matter. If you're a wizard, being more like a fighter is a straight downgrade. My understanding is that the Magus is competitive with the purely martial classes in terms of potential damage output, but in most cases it comes out better simply due to the versatility granted by having access to spellcasting. On the flipside, compared to focused casters the Magus isn't quite as versatile due to their smaller amount of spells per day as well as a smaller spell list. So, yeah, as Kai Tave said: better than the Fighter, weaker than a pure caster, but at least competitive with the other mid-tier classes.
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Feb 25, 2015 23:45
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PurpleXVI posted:I can absolutely agree with this. Either give the characters some special rules for using spells differently(all your spells are touch-attack, yes, that includes the ones with an area of effect, and you cast them just by whanging someone real hard with your sword. FIREBALL BLADE, MOTHERFUCKER.), or give them their entire own spellbook/ability set. Judge for yourself They only get 3/4th's BAB and have a very abbreviated spell list that avoids most of the wizard's game changer stuff, though they get a bunch of class features that let them deal damage more effectively. From what I remember during my time playing one a lot of what I did involved the abuse of Intesified Spells, most often shocking grasps.
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Feb 25, 2015 23:47
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Given play experience they are about on par with bards in terms of story contribution and combat effectiveness. Non problematic to include in a Tome of Battle centric game.
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Feb 26, 2015 00:02
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Yeah I want to try the Path of War stuff. Speaking of Path of War, and of spellcasting fighters, there was a playtest for a Path of War expansion class, I believe to be released in a followup book. Away from the materials right now but it was definitely more magical than the normal Path of War and Tome of Battle stuff. Had a feature that added Int to either melee attack rolls, AC, or something else I can't remember off hand. It eventually got a choice of movement features like enhancement to speed, or flight, or teleporting as a move action. It got stances and maneuvers like the other PoW classes. Some were choices already available to the other classes, some we're new and more magical, including a stance that put up mirror images, stances or maneuvers where they used someone else's defenses, hitting touch AC but also being hit on touch AC, etc. The class had a curse mechanic where certain abilities would curse the target and other abilities, stances and maneuvers would either only work on a cursed target or would have additional effects on a cursed target. They also ended up with an extended reach or something.
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Feb 26, 2015 01:08
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Bendigeidfran posted:Quick unrelated question: are there any good systems that have rules for grabbing a sword's blade and smacking people with the pommel? Or like combines grappling rules with dagger fighting? Asking because there's a lot of cool medieval combat stuff that gets overlooked these days. The Riddle of Steel has already been mentioned, and I did a write-up of it ages back. Also, there's Blade of the Iron Throne by Iron Throne Publishing (I did a write-up at the start of this thread), which is based off of that system, and there is the currently in development Band of Bastards (really looking forward to the beta) by Grand Heresy, which is also based off of that system.
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Feb 26, 2015 01:22
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So, end of the month, which means time to spend money on potentially terrible RPG's to look at. As usual, I'm going in blind and really only ranging ahead if I encounter any really interesting terms like "Phallus Space," so you'll get to experience this as I do. This game first came to my attention when someone popped into an IRC server I frequent to ask if someone could hook him up with some HOT WAREZ of Kromore, which got me curious about what this HIP NEW RPG could possibly be. Turns out to be, as mentioned, basically a one-man effort to crank out 350+ pages of fluff and rules for the RPG that appears able to cover pretty much anything. At least according to the sales blurb. Kromore Roleplaying Game!  I crack open the book and it looks reasonably organized compared to a lot. Glancing at the index, for instance, the fluff is in the back, for once, rather than forcing us to read an ill-advised novel before letting us play the game. Basics, chargen, rules and then fluff. I suppose this means we'll be frontloading all the dry stuff and saving the real laughs until the end.  Or does it? DARK BLADE, that's a profession name right out of someone's lovely fanfic. The Adventure No, really, that's the title of the very first chapter. It gives us the basics of what a roleplaying game, as per usual, elaborating in detail on the role of the storyteller, how to tell a good story and... some... weird phrasings, and some suggestions that seem a bit on the line of encouraging railroading and DMPC's to keep the PC's on track and on mission. But seriously, weird phrasings, the next one is a particularly odd one that seems kind of strange given that the developer doesn't seem to have English as a second language. is this even English? posted:Sometimes if players choose not to get involved in a situation a great story element to develop a mistaken identity theme can occur. Use all story that occurs around players to drive back to the larger story. Every choice including inactive choice is part of a story. The third line is mostly just there because the phrasing, again, seems awkward as gently caress. But in general this entire chapter seems to heavily imply that you shouldn't actually let your players affect the story, or go off on their own adventures. Keep driving them back to the "larger story" and give them the "belief" that they can change the story, which may again just be lovely phrasing, but seems to imply that they should only BELIEVE they have the power, not actually have it. Then after that, the book dropkicks us into EXAMPLE COMBAT before we've even had a look at the rules basics. quote:“Kromore is on the verge of total civil-war between Steam Rebels and those who favor tech advancement. This real issue lingers at the back of your head as you ride the bumpy, uncomfortable, and yet highly familiar upper D train across the exposed open track over Mavens Sky District. The sound of steel reverberate a steady cha-chunking as the train car whistles against the steam filled airy exterior. An old Mavish woman clutches her purse next to a red skinned Gyxan who has been eyeballing a gold watch hanging from the lapel of a short and whiskery Laerish. The Laerish seems to check the watch impatiently every few seconds. He is finely dressed with a small bowler hat atop his head. Also in the car are three passengers. The first passenger of our players is Steve's character, Steve please describe your character." The example of play rolls on with, well, excessive rolling. EVERYTHING gets a roll, even for NPC's. quote:Player Jane: "Ut oh. I quickly yell for everyone to duck." "Ut oh?" Have I mentioned that this thing blatantly needs the loving care of an editor? Anyway, the players are on board a train, the train gets attacked by a driveby shooting from a hovercar, lots of dice are rolled that we don't really know a drat thing about because the example of play is well before the example of rules, a guy steals a watch and runs off, and then the example ends, continuing into some advice that's mostly praising itself about how awesome the example was and how great an example it was, specifically, of all the previous advice. quote:As the Story Teller you can always change the outside hovering vehicle to a civil police ship that is arresting the Laerish for stealing a top secret watch, A top secret watch. But really, there's some good advice here, like what to do when the players ignore your carefully crafted railroad to engage in something they find more interesting. quote:Some ways of getting stories back on the right path are by reminding the players of story goals through a third party, friendly messenger, newspaper article, television program, or deadly assassin. For instance, have the world and NPC's nag them about the main plot until you lose your temper and try to have them killed. And don't forget that Deus Ex Machina should only be used for quote:When dealing with Story Telling never take the power away from a player. Don’t tell a player how their character feels, instead present them with a scenario and ask them how their character feels. This motivates role playing and a bond between player and character. It’s also a lot more fun. Don't take away power from the players by telling them their character's emotions, allow them to properly roleplay the anguish of being trapped in an unfeeling, railroaded world where evil assassins and blizzards stop their every attempt to deviate. I mean, this isn't bad advice, it just seems kind of hilarious when it's right after all that other poo poo. Then the book harps on a bit about how there are rules for literally everything you could ever want to do in or outside of combat, which seems to me less of a promise, and more of a threat that no matter what we try to do, we're going to be loving rolling for it. quote:Sometimes the best stories start with the simplest of concepts. Here are a few of our favorite plot hook ideas: Rescue a missing person from some villains. Explore a cave or ancient tomb. Survive a natural disaster and travel back in time to stop it from occurring. Defeat a power hungry leader who is exploiting their citizens. Track down a stolen item and the one who stole it. Outside of Bill & Ted, I don't think I can recall many stories with time travel that I'd define as "simple." Time paradoxes and becoming your own grandpa aren't exactly GM's First Adventure. quote:Players will find the system easily adapts to any game setting world. Challenge loving accepted, this claim requires testing. Start considering what worlds you're convinced Kromore won't work for, and we'll see how it turns out. My guess is that it's going to be basically "all of them." But who knows? It sort of flows into the "basic rules" chapter which tells us literally everything except the basic loving resolution mechanic. We get told what the stats mean, how we calculate HP, how we calculate how much we can throw, what languages we know, and so on, all sorts of stupid minutiae. The closest we get to actually getting a basic mechanic before launching us headfirst into chargen is, as far as I can parse the bad phrasing, the mechanic for skill checks, where our skill level is a static modifier, and the associated stat is the number of D4's we roll... but no one tells us what the "average" DC should be, so there's no real way of judging whether it takes 1d4 or 10d4 to make us competent at something. I mean, it even tells us what the difficulty "categories" are("basic, easy, medium, hard, epic, legendary, unimaginable, uncanny, and in some cases ungodly."), but neglects to point out what a given "difficulty" translates to in DC. Off to a great loving start, here. I'm expecting some loving gems once we get into the actual chargen, and even more once we hit the fluff.
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Feb 26, 2015 21:55
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How about a world where there is no physical combat and all conflict is political and emotional in nature. Pretty playing high school or a royal court sniping each other with rumors, blackmail and outright lies.
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Feb 27, 2015 02:48
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PurpleXVI posted:Challenge loving accepted, this claim requires testing. Start considering what worlds you're convinced Kromore won't work for, and we'll see how it turns out. Flatland.
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Feb 27, 2015 06:06
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Why bother using Kromore for that? http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/produ...filters=0_0_0_0
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Feb 27, 2015 10:06
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Why bother using Kromore for that? 
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Feb 27, 2015 11:43
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PurpleXVI posted:Challenge loving accepted, this claim requires testing. Let's see it handle the Culture.
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Feb 27, 2015 12:39
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PurpleXVI posted:KROMOR€ The best thing about the DARK BLADE is that it looks like it's considered a civilian profession. As for settings, some setting that involves a lot of ship-to-ship combat, perhaps in space, and if possible in a situation where infantry can also be present. I want to see how it deals with statting up entire crews, dealing with large differences in scale (can a regular plasma rifle meaningfully damage a star destroyer?) and interstellar travel.
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Feb 27, 2015 13:46
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:The best thing about the DARK BLADE is that it looks like it's considered a civilian profession. The differences don't even need to be that pronounced. Run a normal boarding/sabotage action while also resolving naval combat in the Age of Sail. Vehicle rules in general tend to be a regular point where a system falls apart spectacularly.
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Feb 27, 2015 13:58
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PurpleXVI posted:Then after that, the book dropkicks us into EXAMPLE COMBAT before we've even had a look at the rules basics. This practice was already pretty weird in Pathfinder, though Pathfinder can at least assume that most people already know how to play D&D. quote:Challenge loving accepted, this claim requires testing. Macross 7. Let's defeat the evil space vampires with giant robots using weaponized J-Rock!.
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Feb 27, 2015 23:33
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Why bother using Kromore for that?  Because it's a bad idea.
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Feb 28, 2015 02:50
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The Nasuverse. Because there isn't enough anime bullshit in this thread.
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Feb 28, 2015 05:54
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Doresh posted:Macross 7. Let's defeat the evil space vampires with giant robots using weaponized J-Rock!. I second this. If Kromore won't let me play a spaced out rock star who flies around in a transforming jet robot and yells at people to listen to his songs then what use is it? And while I'm at it try Super Robot Wars in general. Kromore better let Basara's friends in the Alpha Numbers or Z-Blue come along for the ride  .
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Feb 28, 2015 07:22
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I almost drank myself into a coma because my friends put Kancolle into my watch history. Do schoolgirls who have the souls of WW2 battleships. Everyone must feel my pain!
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Feb 28, 2015 07:34
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Why is every single suggestion anime? Why has no-one found the best suggestion? Do up Siddhartha.
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Feb 28, 2015 07:38
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Baofu posted:I almost drank myself into a coma because my friends put Kancolle into my watch history. They have the souls of warships that committed heinous war crimes. Survivors of sunken merchant vessels being beaten to death for fun level stuff. The setting should be Atlas Shrugged. I want to see the captains of industry go Galt and vanquish the parasites.
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Feb 28, 2015 07:47
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I suggest After the Bomb. If it can replicate the insanity that is BIO-E, it can do anything.
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Feb 28, 2015 07:53
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