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Kurieg posted:There was some spillover into the nWoD as well, Genius the Transgression is basically "We are really really mad that you didn't port over the sons of ether and the technocracy" The RPG. poo poo, did that actually get legit published? I thought it was just an nWoD fan game of the type that haunted BJ Zanzibar's website back in the 90s.
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Apr 6, 2015 21:27
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Didn't get published because it steps on white wolf's toes in so many ways. It's got a 488 page PDF though so that's got to be almost as good, right?
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Apr 6, 2015 21:29
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Kurieg posted:Didn't get published because it steps on white wolf's toes in so many ways. I think there's a general rule of thumb for RPGs that if the rulebook reaches 400+ pages the game is not going to be good.
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Apr 6, 2015 21:31
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Zereth posted:I think it's more that the Torg writers didn't realize how loving difficult actually pulling off required things in their adventures would be. Oh, that's nothing. At the very tail end of "The Forever City", the PCs need to figure out some weird ancient magic site and use the Herald group power to affect a cutscene that is presented to them. There's five paragraphs describing how the cutscene plays out (and by making the roll, the PCs end up creating hundreds of new Storm Knights). There is not a word about what happens if they flub the roll. Nothing. Despite the fact that, based on the success condition, making this roll is really loving important. If you succeed, you've bolstered the forces of good around the world! If you fail...meh. I guess you just pack up the book and go home. e: I'm really tempted to just post the whole page because it's so amazingly dumb.
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Apr 6, 2015 21:32
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IIRC Genius also has "Five dots in this gives you nuclear weapons." From what I remember reading through it, Genius has some genuinely interesting ideas and I'd like to see someone more familiar with nWoD do a thorough review of it. And Promethean, for that matter.
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Apr 6, 2015 21:33
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Kurieg posted:I have some good news and bad news for you.
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Apr 6, 2015 21:36
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Evil Mastermind posted:It should be pointed out that angels and demons can be P-rated. How does that work? They're entities of pure information, so can they only travel to cyberspace networks of different cosms or do they turn into a book or something if they travel into cosms with lower axioms?
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Apr 6, 2015 22:26
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No, it just means that sometimes they can spend points to improve their rolls and use the better combat tables.
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Apr 6, 2015 23:14
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Evil Mastermind posted:Oh, that's nothing. At the very tail end of "The Forever City", the PCs need to figure out some weird ancient magic site and use the Herald group power to affect a cutscene that is presented to them. There's five paragraphs describing how the cutscene plays out (and by making the roll, the PCs end up creating hundreds of new Storm Knights). TORG really is the poster child for best game with worst execution ever published. The concept and the world are so good, but the rules and published adventure design are complete rear end.
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Apr 6, 2015 23:21
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I checked the Genius pdf. Here's the discipline dedicated to making weapons, for an idea of this game line. This is just the overview of X dots in the discipline. Katastrofi ●: Agonizers, voltaic stunners, and energy-draining rays A student of Katastrofi is limited to Bashing damage with his weaponry. His attacks can overwhelm a target’s nervous system, produce microwave-induced agony across the target’s skin, or drop an enemy with envenomed darts, but cannot kill outright. Katastrofi ●●: Ultra-sharp swords, ray guns, heat rays, and other instruments of death The second dot of Katastrofi allows the genius to get on with the business of killing her fellow human beings. She can create a rich selection of death rays and Lethal-damage weapons that can kill her targets through ballistic force, massive concussion, cold, electricity, or simply raw "killing energy." She can also significantly enhance the destructive power of her stunning weaponry. When designing the weapon, the genius must specify the type of damage done. This is important because some wonders and many creatures in the World of Darkness are vulnerable or resistant to different types of damage. Common damage types include electricity, cold, ballistic (like a bullet), acid, neural, bladed, crushing, and miscellaneous "destructive energy." Bashing attacks from a scholar of Katastrofi benefit from the 9-again rule. Lethal attacks do not benefit from the 9-again rule. If the genius desires, she can select the "explosive weapon" variable with a blast area of up to five yards for free. See that variable, below. Katastrofi ●●●: Annihilating force and concussive devastation The third dot of Katastrofi allows the genius to hone her destructive power, mastering the energies of annihilation. She can rend apart space and time or hurl globs of plasma or disintegrating force. These first attempts at annihilating weaponry are crude, but devastating. At the same time, her blades are sharper, projectiles move faster, and energy weapons pump out more killing energy. Stunning weaponry reaches its technological peak at this level of Katastrofi. Bashing attacks benefit from the 8-again rule. Lethal attacks benefit from the 9-again rule. At this level, attacks that cause Aggravated damage are possible, but they do not benefit from the 8-again or 9-again rules. A doctor of Katastrofi can employ the "disintegration" variable (see below). If the genius desires, he can select the "explosive weapon" variable with a blast area of up to 20 yards for free. See that variable, below. Katastrofi ●●●●: Atomic fire, neurotoxins, and space-warping Armageddon At this level of power, the genius can channel destructive cosmic forces, ripping apart the laws of the universe to obliterate her enemies. Her weapons reach their peak of Lethal damage. Her Aggravated weaponry is terrifying, and it shows: cryonic weaponry freezes the atmosphere itself, while lightning-projectors vomit plasma that fluoresces in the far ultraviolet and turns everything before it to smoking atomic ruin. Even a simple sword at this level of technological mastery dissolves flesh and titanium with equal efficiency. Bashing and Lethal attacks benefit from the 8-again rule. Aggravated attacks benefit from the 9-again rule. If the genius desires, he can select the "explosive weapon" variable with a blast area of up to 100 yards for free. See that variable, below. Katastrofi ●●●●●: Long-range city-devastators and monster-busters Mastery of Katastrofi offers near-complete command of the powers of devastation. The genius’ weapons can scorch whole cities, and he turn mortals to ash and cinder. This level of power is not for the subtle: rank-five Katastrofic devices veritably burn with malevolent technological energy, and usually channel powers far beyond anything available to mortal science. To unleash his devastating designs, the genius harnesses miniature suns and black holes, rends space and time, and makes a mockery of laws like thermodynamics and the conservation of matter. All attacks benefit from the 8-again rule. If the genius desires, she can select the "explosive weapon" variable with a blast area of up to 1,000 yards (¼ mile) for free. See that variable, below.
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Apr 6, 2015 23:40
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Katastrofi, really?
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Apr 6, 2015 23:53
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Mors Rattus posted:Katastrofi, really? Yes. Really. It's super schlocky comic book SCIENCE! poo poo that you're supposed to think is super deep and meaningful because they say it is. I knew one guy who swore that Genius: The Transgression was the best nWoD game ever. We cut ties with him after he sent White Wolf developers death threats for not including the Sons of Ether in nMage, or basically for making an nMage AT ALL because it wasn't oMage with rules updated to function with nVampire and nWerewolf.
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Apr 6, 2015 23:57
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Kurieg posted:Yes. Really. It's super schlocky comic book SCIENCE! poo poo that you're supposed to think is super deep and meaningful because they say it is. Frankly you can pretty much just stop at "death threats" and call it a day for him as a human being. Even as a gesture with no intent to carry out behind them, sending death threats to another human being is ridiculously hosed up.
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Apr 7, 2015 00:14
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I'd be curious to see a longish game of Genius in actual play. I don't want to knock it too much, but it does seem like the kind of game that's built more for the people who theorycraft on forums about Stuff That Would Be Awesome than like, use it in play.
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Apr 7, 2015 00:14
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The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG Part 11k: The Cyberpapcy: End of File Well, here we are. It took a long time but finally we've reached the end of the Cyberpapacy books. So what happens from there? Eventually, Malraux tries to jump-start a space program to keep launching satellites to spread the GodNet signal. This eventually gets shut down by Storm Knights, but Malraux doesn't sit on his laurels very long. Malraux eventually looks up "subtlety" in the dictionary and manages to drop a bridge in Quebec without anyone noticing right away. He manages to spread the realm down over New England until he takes Boston. The Church also starts moving into South America, taking advantage of the faith of the inhabitants and using miracles to cure diseases that have been running through the populace. Of course, most of these diseases were introduced by the Church in the first place. Then there was Operation: Central Fire. The game goes into detail about how you have to take territory back from High Lords, and why you have to be really careful when you do it, because if you gently caress it up then every Ord in the stelae zone will die. The German government, knowing this, looked at the Cyberpapal map and asked "so what would happen if we pulled that central spoke of the 'wheel' there?"  The answer: nothing good. The German government coordinated with NATO forces to attack the Cyberpapacy while organizing bombing runs, all timed with the uprooting of the central stelae. What they didn't take into account was that Malraux is paranoid enough to keep back-up stelae at every site that he could empower on a moment's notice. They also didn't take into account that stelae zones have to be triangles, so the reality was in heavy flux until the new stelae was activated. Reality storms ravaged all of France, and when the dust settled and the Cyberpapal reality reasserted itself, the Core Earth forces lost over 10,000 troops. Civilian losses were surpisingly low, only about 4,500 people. But still, it was a severe loss for both sides. All these attacks only manage to make Malraux even more paranoid; by year 3 he's almost completely lost his poo poo and is utterly bi-polar. He goes from murderous rage to deep depression to a Messiah complex pretty much on a cycle. Despite the Church's efforts, word of Malraux's madness starts to leak to the people, leading to more rebellion as the divide between the faithful and the heretics becomes wider and wider. It doesn't help as the effects of the axiom shifts start taking hold back in Magna Verita, leading to a completely new and alien idea: Malraux might not actually be working in accordance to God's will. It's still a new enough idea that nobody knows how to act on this yet, but once they do Malraux's going to have to deal with rebellion on two fronts. ---- So. The Cyberpapacy. Despite the slog of it, I do really enjoy this realm. It's an interesting take on the whole idea of cyberpunk, where they replace the megacorps with a fanatical church, and it's odd that nobody else has ever seemed to explore the idea. But because this is a 90's RPG, there's no real sense of exploring the idea beyond a shoot-guys-and-hack-computers stance. Which is a shame, because there are ideas here (like Faith Chips) that would be really interesting to build on. That's some Anti-Life Equation poo poo right there. Instead, we get pages and pages of details nobody really needs. It's like they couldn't trust people to make up stuff on their own. And like other realms, the player options get undermined by the mechanics. Yeah, you can go cyberdelving, but you have to track program space and swap things around and the GM needs to make out these whole side-dungeons and who could possibly care? The Cyberpapacy ended up being the second most popular realm after the Nile Empire, which is unsurprising. It is a shame that the setting is presented so dryly and nothing super-interesting happens to it in the long run, though. But that's in the past! Now it's time to look to THE FUTURE! And that means a vote! Which realm would y'all like to hear about next?
I'll take votes for like a day or so. NEXT TIME: You tell me!
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Apr 7, 2015 00:17
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Kurieg posted:Yes. Really. It's super schlocky comic book SCIENCE! poo poo that you're supposed to think is super deep and meaningful because they say it is. If there's interest, I'd be happy to go through Genius for the thread. However, my experience with WoD is restricted to nHunter and reading Promethean, and passing knowledge of other lines, so someone else would have to offer commentary about the crunch and potentially the fluff as it relates to the rest of the setting.
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Apr 7, 2015 00:26
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Nippon Tech I want to see how hilariously racist this can get.
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Apr 7, 2015 00:28
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Cythereal posted:If there's interest, I'd be happy to go through Genius for the thread. However, my experience with WoD is restricted to nHunter and reading Promethean, and passing knowledge of other lines, so someone else would have to offer commentary about the crunch and potentially the fluff as it relates to the rest of the setting. The capsule summary is 'it was written by people who do not understand the nWoD at all'.
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Apr 7, 2015 00:31
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I'm up for commentary on Genius, review away.
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Apr 7, 2015 00:32
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Nippon Tech Mostly because I'm pretty sure it'll end up being like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km6bFBSVty4
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Apr 7, 2015 00:35
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Nippon Tech You're actually not that far off, except in Nippon Tech they expect you to kill yourself if caught. If you won't kill yourself, they'll take care of that for you.
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Apr 7, 2015 00:43
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Genius makes playing mad scientists in the World of Darkness boring. Also, charts.
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Apr 7, 2015 00:43
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Nile Empire
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Apr 7, 2015 00:47
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Evil Mastermind posted:You're actually not that far off, except in Nippon Tech they expect you to kill yourself if caught. If you won't kill yourself, they'll take care of that for you. So it is pretty racist.
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Apr 7, 2015 00:52
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FMguru posted:Kult's weapon rules were just so weird and out of place. Like, someone saw Jacob's Ladder and thought that the only way that movie could have been better was if there had been a five minute scene where someone set up claymore trip mines with overlapping fields of effect. The most out-of-place thing about Kult's combat was the whole "HEY, YOU WANNA MAKE KEN AND RYU WITH THESE RULES? YOU CAN!"-bit, where being a MARTIAL ARTIST capable of kicking people apart from across the room without actually touching them was roughly as effective as an assault rifle. Gritty, hyper-detailed combat would have been less strange than that.
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Apr 7, 2015 00:54
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:So it is pretty racist. Like, it's not as bad as it could be (especially compared to the kind of poo poo we've seen in F&F history) but it's still got the whole deal of condensing a real-world culture down to a few commonly-known stereotypes. And yes, there are Torg-ian rules for martial arts styles.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:01
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I'm down for Nippon Tech or Living Land because I wanna see how terrible the latter is. Also I'm pretty interested in nWoD fangames in general because some of them run the gauntlet from "terrible" to "well this is weird" to "interesting to me but I don't know if I would ever want to bother playing it so I'll just look at the lore and ideas behind it". It's a grab bag of weird executions. I actually submitted some powers and classes to the author/project revision group for Pathogen: The Infected and I have a deep fascination with the Leviathan: The Tempest as an idea that could make an actually interesting White Wolf game if the people behind it worked at White Wolf and weren't independent bored designers/could format for poo poo. I never felt like I had the patience for Genius, though. It's interesting but let me play that game in FATE or something. I do think that the ultimate "why would you make this/terrible" nWoD fangame I've seen is called Hunchback: The Lurching. Which is basically you're playing as Hunchbacks with humps that are sapient, malignant passengers that breed misery and despair and give you powers mixed with My Life With Master. Imagine if there was no clear goal for Promethean. That's what Hunchback is like. You suffer and you breed suffering and you find a brief purpose and glimpse and then you lose it all.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:07
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Nippon Tech. I guess the katana-trenchcoat content will be highest in that one.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:07
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Genius: The Transgression Introduction Have you ever wanted to play a mad scientist in the World of Darkness? Someone brilliant but fundamentally unstable, dreaming impossible dreams that seem to defy the laws of physics? Genius is not the game for you. Genius: The Transgression is a fan-made game line for the New World of Darkness, probably the largest and best-known of its kind. Genius proudly presents itself as a game about playing mad scientists, ranging from Leonardo da Vinci to Dr. Frankenstein to Bruce Banner. However, when you get right down to it Genius is a game about playing unappreciated sperglords who struggle with unemployment while building nuclear weapons in their garage. Let's get down to it. Genius posted:He looked like a bad bitmap, sort of fuzzy and indistinct, with little blue eyes like smears on a round gray face. He said he was out of the game. As traditional for the World of Darkness, Genius opens with some introductory fiction. Our unnamed protagonist here is a psychologist, talking with a disillusioned scientist. He used to be a brilliant aeronautical engineering type working on the space program, but he grew disillusioned and cynical when the popular imagination turned away from that vision of the 50s and 60s. Despite coming across as just a crotchety old jerk who hates that his field has moved past his youthful dreams, we're assured that he's somehow incredibly smart and that the psychologist's notes on the guy are self-contradictory and nonsensical. Genius posted:I backtracked, suddenly lost. I looked down at my notes. They didn't make any sense. I had added to Mike's chicken-scratches, but what I had written was all nonsense, like a psychology primer run through a German-English translator a dozen times, or some other world's definitions for id and ego...I found myself pondering how other worlds would conceive of the mind, what coincidences would occur there, or not occur there that occurred here, from which they would try to build up a model of the mind. How much would they have missed, just by accident? What had we missed? Despite there being no evidence whatsoever of anything weird going on beyond the author's say-so, what's happening here is that the psychologist is beginning to awaken as a Genius. Genius posted:I remembered being seventeen, and imagining what other minds must be like. I remembered models leaping into my mind, unbidden, like someone had been sending mail to my brain in the middle of the night. It had been horrible, those half-glimpses of a greater truth, that sickly light bubbling up from my own mind, and I shuddered at the memory. I had pushed it away, disgusted. It had been outside me. It had wanted something. Thought without mind, idea without intellect. Genius, pure and beautiful. The fiction goes on for fifteen more pages where nothing really happens beyond a massive infodump about the setting and important terms. However, it does get across a decent idea of the fundamental premise behind the Geniuses, which the game interchangeably calls the Inspired: there is a force of intellect and creativity somewhere outside us that can press its way into the mind, making you dream and think impossible things, and make them all somehow make sense to you despite the obvious illogic and insanity of it. This alien light, called Inspiration, can make the impossible happen when someone afflicted by it puts that energy to work, provided the Genius has a proper mental framework for it. Yes, Inspiration is basically magic and Geniuses are wizards who simply need to channel their magic through a focus. To use their magic, Geniuses need a pseudo-scientific world view to use as a framework for their abilities - need a paradigm, you might say. Then we get a table of contents and another page of fiction where a random guy busts into a Genius's lab where he's plugged a few people into an ugly machine, so his bracelet turns into a shotgun and kills everyone, then he torches the place. Now on to the introduction proper! Genius posted:Ever since we bent our minds to technology - not with the computer or the automobile, but with fire and So yes, the Geniuses are wizards with a fresh coat of paint as mad scientists. Genius posted:A Game of Forbidden Science: And also disaffected sperglords. Genius posted:Theme: Transgression Still wizards, just less hippy and more steampunk. Genius posted:Mood: Bitter Disappointment Who wants to bet "bitter disappointment" accurately describes the mood of the author when it comes to his real life dreams? Next up is the standard list of suggested inspiration (hur hur), which I will present without commentary. Genius posted:Books: Next time, The Cosmos! (Yes, that's what the introduction to the world of the gameline is called). Next in the pdf after the introduction is a glossary filled with terms that haven't been explained yet. I'll note the important ones here, but I'll explain the rest as I reach the appropriate sections. Axiom: Genuises do everything through constructs called wonders, and building wonders goes through a variety of disciplines called axioms. The axioms are Apokalypsi, Automata, Epikrato, Exelixi, Katastrophi, Metaptropi, Prostasia, and Skafoi. Wonders: The Catalyst: A race/subtype style division, all Geniuses belong to one of five Catalysts that has a substantial impact on their motivations and what kind of mad scientist they are: Grimm (rage), Hoffnung (hope), Klagen (sorrow), Neid (rejection), or Staunen (curiosity). From a fluff perspective, your Catalyst is the emotion driving your descent into madness. The Peerage: The good guy mad scientists, and the PCs are probably members. Divided into Foundations that grant benefits while focusing on a particular type of mad science. Each PC probably belongs to one. Lemuria: The evil mad scientists, basically the Illuminati. The Peerage know they're all insane. Lemurians think they're right. Divided into Baramins based on how they approach the world through the lens of their [mad] science. Inspiration: In crunch, it's the power stat. In fluff, it's the alien force of creativity that makes Geniuses what they are. Mania: The energy of Inspiration. It's your blood points, mana, what-have-you. Havoc: Yeah, it's Paradox. Backlash from mortals interacting with Genius stuff or Genius stuff going wrong. Obligation: Morality stat. Illuminated: What happens when Obligation reaches 0. Complete monsters and whatnot. Beholden: Ghouls, now in lab assistant flavor. Collaborative: Group of Geniuses that work together (the PCs are probably this). Bardos/Manes: Supernatural entities, basically, spawned from ideas that have been scientifically proven not to exist. You can play as one. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 01:15
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Cythereal posted:The fiction goes on for fifteen more pages where nothing really happens beyond a massive infodump about the setting and important terms. Sounds like a normal World of Darkness game to me! 
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Apr 7, 2015 01:20
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Hey everybody, I know it's been a while, but I'm back! I decided today to write up a review of a very short, yet very good third party Pathfinder product which has helped me immensely cut down on stat block preparation and tracking hp and conditions in combat. Without further ado, I present to you... Click the image to be taken to the Drive-Thru RPG page! 3rd Edition D&D and Pathfinder are rules-heavy games, there's no doubt about that. That's not a problem when one knows the rules, but it is a lot more stressful prep work for weekly games; designing proper stat blocks for parties can take over an hour easily, especially at high levels, and the use of minions and over a half-dozen characters on the battlefield can end up a book-keeping nightmare. It's especially punishing for martial characters who don't have save-or-dies, as even CR 5-6 monsters can have excess of 50 hp don't serve well the role of "mooks who can be downed in one hit" unless everyone at the table's building ubercharger Barbarians. As a lot of high-CR monsters end up turning into walking bags of hit points with Natural Armor, and even low-level Wizards gaining access to a bunch of spells, minimalist minions who can pack a punch but go down easy are very rare in Pathfinder. Rule Zero: Underlings is the remedy to these problems, and it's served me very well for the months of gaming I've used for it. Fortunately the game mechanics of this product are all OGL, so I'll be showcasing how the rules variants work. The Humble Underling An underling is a new type of creature with more simplified rules in combat. They attack, deal damage, take turns, and otherwise act similar to normal characters. However, an underling's stats are primarily determined by their Challenge Rating, which informs their core abilities such as Armor Class, saving throws, damage, etc. Beyond this core CR framework, underlings have a race/monster type to determine their primary roles in combat, while an optional underling template might grant them new abilities or modify one or two traits.  As Underlings are meant to be mooks fought in groups, the Group CR measures fighting a group of 4 of them instead of a single creature. Their Inidividual CRs are for when the GM feels like adding in reinforcements, but it is not recommended for using them as individual opponents because they're not meant to be challenging encounters. So for example, an encounter with three ogres (CR 3 each), the GM might decide to replace one of the ogres with a group of 4 cultists with a Group CR of 3. Underling stats are extremely streamlined in comparison to base monster rules and class creation for NPCs. Regardless of their natural weapons, equipment, etc, their AC/CMD, Saving Throws, skill bonuses, etc, are determined by their Group CR. Be they vampires, giants, or drow, Underlings with a Group CR of 4 have 14 AC, +6 attack and 1d10 damage with their weapons of choice, and have a Wound and Kill Threshold of 4 and 9 hp respectively. There is some variety, for an Underling's race determines which saving throws are "good" and which are "bad," as well as which skills their "class bonus" entry applies to. Most of the entries on the table are self-explanatory, but I'll explain a few of them. AC/CMD: The AC is the normal value; the book does not mention anything about touch or flat-footed values, so I assume the AC is the same for all three. CMD, or Combat Maneuver Defense, is part of the Combat Maneuver mechanics introduced in Pathfinder which consolidate bull rush/disarm/trip/etc into a single roll (Combat Maneuver Bonus) vs. ones' Combat Maneuver Defense. Wound/Kill Threshold: The Wound Threshold represents the minimum amount of damage necessary to wound an Underling of that CR. Wounded underlings function normally, but if they suffer another attack of equal or greater value to their Wound Threshold, they are killed or knocked unconscious (depending on whether non-lethal damage is used). The Kill Threshold represents the minimum damage necessary to kill an Underling; they do not do into the 'dying' condition or can be saved via stabilization, they instantly die once their Kill Threshold is crossed or they're wounded twice. Damge which deals a value less than an Underling's Wound Threshold is ignored. Conversely, spells and effects which heal can remove the wounded condition from an underling if the damage healed exceeds their Wound Threshold Value. Attack: This is the value used for melee and ranged attacks, but it is also the valued used for an Underlings' Combat Maneuver Bonus. Regardless of whether they're swinging a sword, shooting a crossbow, or desiring to disarm an opponent, an Underling uses the same bonus for them all. However, Underlings are incapable of performing critical hits, and they always provoke an attack of opportunity when they perform a combat maneuver within reach of an enemy. A natural 20 is still an automatic hit, though. Damage: Underlings can perform an attack as either a standard or full-round action. Full-round attacks deal the listed damage, but standard attacks deal half damage (rounded down), for both base and Average Damage. Attacks made due to the result of an attack of opportunity deal half damage as well. Average Damage: In lieu of rolling damage dice, the GM can instead opt to apply the average damage on the result of a successful attack. Attacks made as part of a standard action or attack of opportunity deal half this value, rounded down. Ability DC: Underlings which have special abilities which allow for a saving throw have this as their listed DC. Skill Bonus: Basically the Underlings' race determines which skills these bonuses apply to. They have a +0 modifier to skills not listed in their race or template. Miscellaneous Stuff: Underlings have an Initiative modifier of +0. They do not have ability scores or class features, and almost none of them gain feats. They use half their Group CR (rounded down) when they must make an ability check, and they are unaffected by ability score damage and drain except for Constitution (which lowers their Wound and Kill Thresholds by a like amount). They cannot die due to bleed damage, only be wounded by it, and any spell or ability which would grant an extra attack or action instead allows them to deal full damage as a standard attack instead. There's an Optional Rule for Underling Morale, hearkening back to the days of Old-School D&D. Basically, Underlings who are wounded when the last non-Underling ally is slain or knocked out in combat attempt to flee the battle as quickly as possible. Initial Impressions: I like this universal consolidation of streamlined abilities. Although underlings are overall rather weak, they do have the action economy on their side and if equipped with various debilitating attacks (tanglefoot bags and the like), they can wear down the PCs and soften them up for the main villains. The Wound/Kill Threshold strongly reminds me of Savage Worlds' system for Extras, who would drop immediately when a damaging attack exceeded their Toughness rating. I do think that it's a shame that ability damage/drain is nerfed when used against Underlings, but it's much better than the alternative of book-keeping penalties and the like. The next post will cover Underling Races and Templates, the latter of which includes things like sneak attack, a limited selection of spell-like abilities, and the like.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:29
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Cythereal posted:Next up is the standard list of suggested inspiration (hur hur), which I will present without commentary. Doc Savage but no Tom Swift? Of course, neither of those have anything to do with "bitter disappointment."
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Apr 7, 2015 01:34
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Also, I am not joking when I describe Geniuses as sperglords. They have a mechanical penalty to interacting socially with non-Geniuses that increases in severity as their power stat goes up.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:36
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Selachian posted:Doc Savage but no Tom Swift? Of course, neither of those have anything to do with "bitter disappointment." That's the thing - all of their source material except for, like, Venture Brothers is about how these insane mad geniuses are totally right and correct and amazing.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:50
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Cythereal posted:Also, I am not joking when I describe Geniuses as sperglords. They have a mechanical penalty to interacting socially with non-Geniuses that increases in severity as their power stat goes up. Most Geniuses are the guy who networks from home in his garage because he's figured out a way to automate most of the processes short of physically installing parts or moving wires, so he uses his Ubuntu rig to continue monitoring the old Usenet groups he keeps running, sci.python or alt.conspiracy. He'll still show up for mandatory meetings or corporate events but he's wearing a very old, stretched T-shirt with a loose neck and beat Walmart flip-flops with half of the soles patched up with electrical tape. And socks. His car has a bumper sticker that says "CAN YOU GROK IT?" and he has intense opinions on Unix. He is near-broke because his every working hour is spent developing a remote rig system to do that physical work from home under his control and he keeps burning through prototypes. But he will eventually be able to get free money for even less work because the key, man, the key is to create the most efficient program you can without making yourself obsolete. So they gotta keep you around until you can retire, man.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:51
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Part Two Underling Universal Monster Rules There are 4 new special qualities certain Underlings can gain based on their Race or Template. They include Easily Dispatched (treat Wound/Kill Threshold as 1 CR lower), Improved Damage (treat Damage and Average Damage as 1 CR higher), Wound Regeneration (cannot be Wounded, but exceeding Kill Threshold still dispatches it), and Final Strike (may make one final melee attack as immediate action before death, deals half damage). The first three are rather uninspired, but Final Strike is a pretty cool idea. It does punish melee PCs though, so I might refine it into allowing for ranged attacks (and AoE attacks as well under proper circumstances). Underling Races Applying to monster types as well as traditional humans, dwarves, and elves, an Underling's Race handles the rest of the things not covered by the Group CR, such as defensive abilities, weapons and attacks, which skills they apply their Class Bonus to, etc. There are 47 different types of Underling races, so I'm not going to cover them all. They are very broad, and cover diverse creature types such as demons and popular monsters such as goblins, vampires, and most humanoids. All racial choices have a recommended Group CR range (goblins are CR 1/2 to 1, Minotaurs CR 2-5, and a lot of them are Any), but these are guidelines the GM can ignore rather than restrictions. Underling speed is highly simplified and tends towards the "default" for certain unlisted traits: Space/Reach is assumed to be 5 feet unless otherwise noted, stat blocks with no Feats section means that the Underling has no feats, Speed is considered 30 feet on land with no special movement unless otherwise noted. Experience points gained are calculated for every 4 of the same type of the same Group CR. So for example, 4 elves with a 3 Group CR give out 800 experience points between the lot of them. Also, Underlings with ranged weapons always attack with a range increment of 20 feet, and their attacks can never penetrate Damage Reduction. This pretty much makes the specifies of weapon usage purely aesthetic, but it is a great way of further streamlining things. Additionally, some special monster abilities have been converted into spell-like abilities for simplification, and do not gain the benefits of feats unless otherwise noted. Oddly some racial stat blocks have a static DC for special attacks (DC 11 for Harpy's hypnotism, DC 14 for Vampire's Dominate Person), which contradicts the earlier Ability DC being based on CR. For examples of how the stat blocks can be read, I'm going to show off three sample race blocks:    So basically we have a general outline which we can use for building templates for either Azatas or Mummies. Extraneous details go unlisted: the mummy has not feats or ranged entry, therefore it can only attack via melee. but it does have an aura and says which save it's keyed to. Only the Hill Giant is large, so it gets a Space/Reach entry, but it has not defensive abilities or immunities so they go unlisted. Other important details, such as damage, the mummy's Will Save DC, attack and damage bonus, etc are to be determined by the CR. So let's say we had an Ancient Egypt-themed adventure, and wants to use a bunch of mummies but the PCs are too low-level (5th) to fend off multiple CR 5 mummies at once. So instead he decides to have the adventure's climax be in the burial chamber, where the "mummy lord" (CR 5 mummy) is flanked by 4 loyal guardians (Mummy Underlings with a Group CR of 5), a CR 7 final boss encounter. Let's stat them up! Mummy Underling CR 5 XP 1,600 LE Medium undead AC 15 Wound 5 hp Kill 11 hp Senses darkvision 60 ft. Aura despair (30 ft., paralyzed 1 round, Will DC 13 negates) Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +5 Immune undead traits Speed 20 ft. Melee slam +7 (2d6 or avg. damage 7) Skills Perception +9, Stealth +9 So okay, these mummies are pretty easy push-overs. Their main strength will be their potential paralysis ability, which can let their companions or leader get the jump on PCs frozen in fear. Meanwhile, big-daddy Mummy's sitting nice and comfortable with DR 5, 60 hit points, and a +14 melee attack dealing 1d8+10 damage and mummy rot. It will be a tough battle, especially in close quarters, but a nice AoE spell such as fireball can dust the mummies, and most melee characters at this level should be able to push past their Kill Threshold with Power Attack and a two-hander. Underling Templates These are not true templates but rather simple additions which grant a neat trick and/or some bonus skills. Individual templates add +1 CR to an underling's base stats, so they seem to be meant to be applied only once rather than stacked. But it mentions that templates calculate XP equal to the Group CR +1. So does that mean a base Group CR 6 giant with the berserk template hands out CR 8 XP, or is it part of the package? I don't know, most likely an editing error. Archer: Underling gains a longbow or crossbow ranged attack, but they gain the poor melee disadvantage (half damage on full action, one-quarter on standard action for melee). Berserk: XP gained and damage dealt is +1 CR higher than normal, gains Final Strike and Intimidate skill but -2 AC. Mage/Priest: XP gained is +1 CR higher than normal. Draws a number of spell-like abilities from the cleric or sorcerer/wizard spell list, with a Caster Level equal to Group CR. The spells must have a combined spell level total equal to or less than half the Underling's Group CR. For example, a CR 4 Dwarf Underling with the Mage Template may know how to cast just Scorching Ray, or Magic Missile and Shield, or other such combinations (0 level spells count as 1 level). Spell-like abilities can be cast once per day each, with the exception of cantrips and orisons which can be cast at will. DC equals 10 + spell level. Mounted: XP gained is +1 CR higher than normal. Speed is 50 feet, charge attack deals full damage even when not full-round action (even though charge is a full-round action in PF). Gains Ride skill and mount which does not participate in combat and flees when its rider is slain. Thief: XP gained is +1 CR higher than normal. Gain Acrobatics and Stealth skills, 1d6 sneak attack plus an additional 1d6 at Group CR 5 and every 4 CR above that (to a maximum of 5d6 at CR 17). As can be expected, said templates can mimic the features of iconic classes without getting bogged down in details and spell record-keeping. Let's try to use this sample human template:  and turn them into the veritable assassins of a secret evil order with the Mage and Thief templates! Evil Sorcerer-Killer Minions! CR 7 (base 6 +2 Mage and Thief) XP 4,800? LE Medium humanoid (human) AC 17 Wound 8 hp Kill 17 hp Fort +7, Ref +3, Will +3 Speed 30 ft. Melee longsword +10 (3d6, 10 avg) Ranged light crossbow +10 (3d6, 10 avg) Special Attacks Sneak Attack 2d6 Spell-like Abilities (CL 7th): at will-detect magic; 1/day-invisibility Feats Improved Initiative Skills Acrobatics +11, Heal +11, Knowledge (Arcana) +11, Ride +11, Spellcraft +11, Stealth +11 So these Underlings are squishy, but very sneaky, quick (+4 initiative), and can deal a ton of damage under the right circumstances. Their saves aren't very good, and despite their mobility and arcane knowledge their Perception's lovely. Overall pretty good glass cannons which the major enemies can set up for some nice Sneak Attacks. And this marks the end of Rule Zero: Underlings. In conclusion, this is a very useful GMing tool which I use all the time in my games. Creating Underlings is so much faster than typical NPCs, and much easier to keep track of in combat. Their overall weakness is a non-issue, as they are meant to be used in conjunction with normal NPCs and monsters and allow the players to feel bad-rear end when their Level 12 Fighter manages to Cleave through four CR 7 Hill Giant Underlings and kill them all in the same round. As the base book is $2.99, and its bonus companion is free, I highly recommend adding it to your collection, whether you play 3.5 or Pathfinder! Actually, no wait, that's not it. I'm going to review the bonus book, but since this post is getting long enough I figure I'll save it for a Part 3.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:59
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So this is a game where everyone thinks they're playing Dexter's Lab but they're really just playing David Hahn? What forum did this spawn out of? i've only ever seen it referenced on RPGnet but I thought it came from somewhere else.
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Apr 7, 2015 02:08
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PantsOptional posted:So this is a game where everyone thinks they're playing Dexter's Lab but they're really just playing David Hahn? What forum did this spawn out of? i've only ever seen it referenced on RPGnet but I thought it came from somewhere else. It's an RPGnet creation. Here's the credits: Genius posted:Credits: I'll probably get The Cosmos up tomorrow.
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Apr 7, 2015 02:12
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Evil Mastermind posted:Which realm would y'all like to hear about next? And since it's apparently so tiny you'll probably be done pretty quickly and won't have to worry about getting bogged down in ninety pages of IngenNet pablum
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Apr 7, 2015 03:04
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Drakyn posted:And since it's apparently so tiny you'll probably be done pretty quickly and won't have to worry about getting bogged down in ninety pages of IngenNet pablum Technically it's the same size as the other realm books, it's just that the Living Land stuff is only about half the book; the rest is about the rest of the United States.
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Apr 7, 2015 03:21
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