Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


I always liked the broad strokes metaplot for the AT line(s); despite the differing genre conventions, it all hung together pretty well. Of course, all anyone really remembers is the boring Divis Mal and Caestus Pax bullshit.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Plague of Hats posted:

I always liked the broad strokes metaplot for the AT line(s); despite the differing genre conventions, it all hung together pretty well. Of course, all anyone really remembers is the boring Divis Mal and Caestus Pax bullshit.

In fairness, it's because both of them were extremely memorably bad.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Back when Car Wars had its own magazine, Autoduel Quarterly, anybody who had a subscription had protective mailer covers stapled over the magazine (mainly to put the stamp and shipping on and all that). But each one had a little newspaper-style gag comic. Often these were torn off or lost, and are actually pretty hard to find. At a con, I recently ran into a rarity, which was a run of issues that had the covers intact. Though they're pretty dorky, I figured some people might dig seeing this little piece of lost gaming nostalgia.

I included some commentary for those less hip to a game that's been out of print hasn't seen new material for over two decades. Humor is not guaranteed.



Car Wars was often tongue-in-cheek regarding its level of violence, and this is only a slight exaggeration.. Are they having to defend their spot on a washer? Or do they just live in a bad neighborhood? Not sure here.



Remember drive-in theatres? Well, there are still a few around, at least.

The chassis controlled how much weight you could load on a vehicle. Many "brilliant" vehicle designs were undone by having a frame that couldn't take the weight of the car.



Firing anti-tank weapons caused knockback issues for cars, so a pedestrian firing one... oh yeah, that was the general term for people in Car Wars rules. "Pedestrians."

Car Wars' body armor usually consisted of a full-body plastic suit with helmet.



Later the game would actually include "jump jets" as a device, but they were one-shot.

Uncle Albert's Auto Shop and Gunnery Shop was the main source of new gadgets and equipment, and its "catalogs" were the most essential game expansions. A late supplement would introduce jet packs (after they'd covered just about every form of locomotion aside from trains and spacecraft), but it wasn't an Uncle Albert's catalog.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
We did more GURPS Autoduel than straight Car Wars, but those still conjured a smile. Thanks for sharing. :)

That scene from the drive-in could have come from one of our sessions, looking back.

AmiYumi
Oct 10, 2005

I FORGOT TO HAIL KING TORG
Am I the only one that *really* liked the side details in Aeon/Trinity? Like, the bits about the chambers that make Psions not quite functioning right, because they were made according to alien specifications and have been running p much non-stop for decades, or the Aberrants of that era following different rules because the background radiation is different, or (especially) the Qin bodysuits being rainbow monstrosities because they were going off of black-and-white TV signals? :haw:

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

Pussy Cartel posted:

In short, Aeon had a really, really detailed and convoluted metaplot, like most White Wolf games, and it got cut short when they killed off Trinity and the Ministry/Asia sourcebook got dropped before publishing.
It had a really detailed and convoluted metaplot, none of which was explained in the core book. If you actually wanted to run a game in the Trinity setting, you had to wait and buy a dozen $25 supplement books before you had enough of an idea of what was really going on to successfully run a game there.

Like so many late-90s era games, Trinity was just a bare skeleton to hang a series of not-really-all-that-optional sourcebooks onto.

AmiYumi
Oct 10, 2005

I FORGOT TO HAIL KING TORG

FMguru posted:

It had a really detailed and convoluted metaplot, none of which was explained in the core book. If you actually wanted to run a game in the Trinity setting, you had to wait and buy a dozen $25 supplement books before you had enough of an idea of what was really going on to successfully run a game there.

Like so many late-90s era games, Trinity was just a bare skeleton to hang a series of not-really-all-that-optional sourcebooks onto.
Not to white-knight a long-dead game, but the official WW site had a "The Story" section for STs that not only broke down and spoiled the whole metaplot, it actually went further than the actual published material (I just skimmed through it again and saw references to books that never got written and events that never got explained outside of that section). They put it in the back of the softcover/2nd printing of the core book, IIRC.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
Yeah, and even then the corebook gave a fairly open-ended setting full of plot hooks that you didn't the metaplot to run a cool game?

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
I played Trinity a fair bit, and we didn't ever have to get into the metaplot about how the aliens were (IIRC) manipulating humanity and each other. Faction rivalry and the FSA gave us plenty to work with. I'm not in favour of complicated metaplot as a rule, but I wouldn't tag Trinity as a game that leaves you adrift, or even unable to interact with the major issues in the setting, without buying the sourcebooks and exploring the metaplot.

Pussy Cartel
Jun 26, 2011



Lipstick Apathy

AmiYumi posted:

Am I the only one that *really* liked the side details in Aeon/Trinity? Like, the bits about the chambers that make Psions not quite functioning right, because they were made according to alien specifications and have been running p much non-stop for decades, or the Aberrants of that era following different rules because the background radiation is different, or (especially) the Qin bodysuits being rainbow monstrosities because they were going off of black-and-white TV signals? :haw:

I actually really liked all the side-details in Trinity, too, and I'm kinda looking forward to the Aeon Continuum re-release/reboot that Onyx Path is working on. I just hope we finally get some details on the quantakinetics and what exactly the paramorphs were supposed to be.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
I'm not sure how you overcome "Storyteller scales badly", but hopefully they'll be able to modernize it. The 3A setting was pretty cool when it didn't have its head completely up its own rear end. I realize that all sounds like the most backhanded compliment possible, but I can't think of any other way to put it.

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I'm not sure how you overcome "Storyteller scales badly", but hopefully they'll be able to modernize it. The 3A setting was pretty cool when it didn't have its head completely up its own rear end. I realize that all sounds like the most backhanded compliment possible, but I can't think of any other way to put it.

Well, for starters, it's not using Storyteller, exactly. it's got its own system that they've done a few previews for already.

Core mechanic: http://theonyxpath.com/codename-sardonyx-teaser-the-first/
Attributes and skills: http://theonyxpath.com/codename-sardonyx-teaser-the-second/
Schemas and scales: http://theonyxpath.com/codename-sardonyx-schemas-and-scales/

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN
If you're doing revisionist superheroes, just go to the source. Apparently there was a Watchmen RPG with input from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and backstory that wasn't in the comic: http://onceuponageek.com/wordpress/2009/03/16/watchmen-mayfair-rpg-stats-1987/

I'd love to read more about it.
I'd also love to play as Alan Moore in a modern occult game like oMage or UA:

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.
It wasn't actually a Watchmen RPG, just an adventure published for Mayfair's DC heroes RPG with Watchmen stats and the extra backstory as mentioned.

I do not recommend trying to play Mayfair's DC Heroes.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
I think Mayfair's DC Heroes is pretty groundbreaking in a lot of ways... but is hobbled by a base resolution mechanic that never, ever stops being a pain in the rear end. It requires you to crossreference stats on a chart to basically get the number you're aiming for... I have never, ever internalized that chart, despite having played in two campaigns of it.

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Oct 18, 2015

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Count Chocula posted:

If you're doing revisionist superheroes, just go to the source. Apparently there was a Watchmen RPG with input from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and backstory that wasn't in the comic: http://onceuponageek.com/wordpress/2009/03/16/watchmen-mayfair-rpg-stats-1987/

If you read my abandoned review on the game, those Watchmen books led to Ray Winninger's Underground because Winninger wrote two of those books with Moore's input and used it as a springboard at Mayfair to more mature material in Underground as well as made him kind of a name to non-RPG people because of the Watchmen-Moore connection.

Simian_Prime
Nov 6, 2011

When they passed out body parts in the comics today, I got Cathy's nose and Dick Tracy's private parts.

unseenlibrarian posted:

Well, for starters, it's not using Storyteller, exactly. it's got its own system that they've done a few previews for already.

Core mechanic: http://theonyxpath.com/codename-sardonyx-teaser-the-first/
Attributes and skills: http://theonyxpath.com/codename-sardonyx-teaser-the-second/
Schemas and scales: http://theonyxpath.com/codename-sardonyx-schemas-and-scales/

I kind of want to shake them and yell, "You know there' other dice beside d10s, right? And that you can devise a numerical result by just rolling one die?"

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Young Freud posted:

If you read my abandoned review on the game, those Watchmen books led to Ray Winninger's Underground because Winninger wrote two of those books with Moore's input and used it as a springboard at Mayfair to more mature material in Underground as well as made him kind of a name to non-RPG people because of the Watchmen-Moore connection.

Any chance it'll ever get picked up and finished again? I really liked that review and wanted more.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

PurpleXVI posted:

Any chance it'll ever get picked up and finished again? I really liked that review and wanted more.

Possibly. I was reading over the review again and I really want to continue it. I hadn't even gotten to the over-the-top gun stuff which is an icon of the game. Especially since one of the runner-ups to the character creation contest I ended up building and was going to bring in during a demo of combat: Bruce "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" Springsteen.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN
Bruce is pretty much the closest real-life equivalent to Captain America or Superman.

ZeeToo
Feb 20, 2008

I'm a kitty!
Last time, our PCs got themselves snappy dress, had a meal, and didn't uncover the other party guest that was a worm monster. Today, they'll check out a library.

Age of Worms, The Library of Last Resort


So, our team is already 16th level, and will advance to 17th and eventually 18th level in the course of this adventure. So, even if not quite out of the gate, our PCs will have access to Gate and a nice selection of other level 9 spell for most of it. There might be a significant amount of story left, but the PCs are hitting close to their peak of power. In fact, the Dragon magazine companion for this adventure is entirely dealing with how to handle high-level divinations and movement spells.

But that's another matter. For now, the team is ready to go meet Lashonna, the elven noblewoman who's their lead on Balakarde, who they're chasing after, on the say-so of an epic wizard. She invites them over at midnight. She greets them effusively, then just outright hands them Balakarde's journal.



So now we know the story. Dragotha was corrupted by the monolith he stole from Kyuss, then slain and raised as a dracolich. Then, a thousand and a half years ago, a team of druids known as the Order of the Storm stole his phylactery and hid it surprisingly effectively. So here's the challenge, as Lashonna explains it: Dragotha's phylactery exists. He can't make a new one while it exists, and if it's destroyed while he's dead, that's game over, so he's been very cowardly. But, well, just killing him isn't going to carry the day, either, because if nothing is poised to destroy his phylactery before he regenerates, he'll be back, have his phylactery, and then we've had a fifteen century setback in this "stop undead doom" thing.

After writing down the journal, Balakarde then ran off to try to deal with Dragotha... somehow. And no one's seen him since. Great, are we supposed to go look for him? No, no, Lashonna has a better idea, and we're definitely still collecting quests from NPCs. Go get the phylactery first. The information about where it's hidden has probably been hidden on an island called Tilagos. Lashonna has just uncovered this. Oh, and uh... it's not just her. She has enemies who can glean information from her sometimes. One of her agents, Heskin, has been wooed by a Vecnan priest, for example. Why don't we scry on that guy? Lashonna stole some of his hair to help with that, because that's not creepy at all.

Heskin is on a boat in a nasty storm. Two lithe tieflings slide into view, then an incredibly brawny efreet, a humanoid bird, and finally a hooded man. The hooded man examines Heskin, then realizes he's the subject of a scrying spell! Well, we know how to handle that. He touches Heskin with a rotten hand, and Heskin dies. End of scry. That was the Hand of Vecna. This is the antagonist we've previously seen in the Spire of Long Shadows.

(Side note: Lashonna will beep if you point Detect Evil at her even if she doesn't want to see Dragotha rise again. If the PCs decide that they're not going to trust Lashonna and try to steal in and ransack her place instead of talking, she drops some token undead resistance in the house, leaves town, and leaves the journal and such for the enterprising if murderous heroes to get as a 'reward'. This makes her the most genre-savvy person we've met yet, as she's apparently well aware of our propensity for reading letters left lying around after we've killed everything in sight.)

How to get to the island? Well, the writer suggests that the DM feel free to spice it up with sea monsters and sinking ships and there's a permanent hurricane that surrounds the island to protect it and maybe you can fly in by taking Leadership and having your cohort be some powerful flying mount... But Lashonna knows where it is, and we can get a rough idea of what's at the location, so either Teleportation or Wind Walk will zip the team there in no time flat and basically without danger.

On the island, the team finds an orc crew trying to rebuild their ship after a shipwreck. The PCs could fight them, sure, but it doesn't take much diplomacy to get them talking instead. We're not in a dungeon yet! The orc captain explains what happened: they were hired by Darl Quethos, the so-called Hand of the Lich Lord, to get his team here. Darl ran off to the ruins that are the only other feature on the island. The orcs tried to follow, but "loud, angry rocks with lots of rope" attacked them and they gave it up.

Well, good luck getting your ship patched up, guys. We'd help, but you're CE and this doesn't grant XP. Off we go to explore the island. There's an octopus tree guarding a pool of glowing red crystals. The party grabs that. Next they trip over some ropers with writing on them detailing things like the eating habits of sharks. Apparently the Order of the Storm had been... actually, no. Dom stops himself. The PCs can't know the details behind this. Why is it still included? Anyway, the ropers the orcs couldn't beat aren't as much of a challenge for our group, and they were guarding a different color of glowing crystal. I think I know where this is going! Yes, indeed, there is a place with glowing crystals in a third color. But, uh, they're broken. This one was guarded by golems, and the Vecnans smashed them and all the crystals. Darn. Luckily, Cleo just so happened to have a Make Whole spell prepared, so the smashed crystal works fine.

Eventually, Cleo leans against a very specific rock, and happens to fall through. It was a permanent image! Guess there must be a rear guard left by Darl. This one isn't actually unfair; a party with True Seeing or the like (and the party is close to if not actually 17th level) can get this hint with no trouble. A random roll tells us that the guard isn't actually in this camp, though, so they must be stalking the group instead, waiting for them to split up.

Now, onto the very far side of the island. There's a disc here with three carved, stylized eyes, that keeps chanting that it wants its eyes returned. It's chanting in Druidic, though, so all the party can understand is a creepy chanting stone. Still, three glowing crystals, three slots. I've played video games before. Once the party does that, it spits out multiple Antipathy effects, driving the party to step away from the portal before it activates. It also consumes the crystals to start up, one way or the other. Still, nothing a little Protection from Evil or Magic Circle Against Evil can't hard counter. Off we go!

We're now in the Demiplane of Last Resort, the ultimate secret of the Order of the Storm. Cleo suggests it might be wise to hang back near the portal for a bit. And, wouldn't you know it, it activates a few minutes after they come through. This is their stalker, chasing them. It turns out to be Krekie, a kenku and the humanoid bird they saw when Lashonna scryed for them. She's an assassin with a repeating crossbow and could be an interesting challenge for a party that couldn't beat her +8 Will save. :geno:

I doubt she's going to last long.

Once she's dealt with, the team can look around Last Resort and notice how it's been infused with a bit of positive energy. Bright colors, more intense sensations, no undead possible. As they take a look, four weird fey with banners behind them symbolizing the four elements step out of nearby plants and regard the PCs carefully. They try to be enigmatic in a fairly tiresome way, so let's jump to the conclusion: hidden library knowledge is in something called the Fountain of Dreams. If someone drinks it (think that pool in Dragon Age: Inquisition), secret knowledge will slip out and can be discovered by normal means again. And, because they're overachievers, the PCs will have to do four tasks to prove they're worthy to drink the fountain. And the only clues that they give to what the tasks are, are their titles. Claiming Krathanos's Golden Belt, Silence of the Doomshroud's Mournful Song, Death of the Thorn Vale Nightmare, and Harvest of the Living Feather of the Roc King. Well, that's clear as crystal. In that you can't see it at all. It takes a quick action from Roger to convince the fey to stay long enough to even ask about the evil team, and all the fey offer there is "yeah, sure, if they manage first, they get the prize". They won't offer anything else to help figure out the trials.

Still, a party with sufficient access to divination magic (and maybe a magazine sneak peek) can start to get things rolling. Krathanos. Locate him. South-east edge of the island (it's about 80 miles across at its largest). And maybe roll some Knowledge as we do so. Krathanos? That was a titan from antiquity that disappeared 1500 years ago. Hey, look, there's half a titan-sized compound on the horizon. It looks like someone occasionally smashes the walls with a titan's warhammer, and gargoyles rebuild it when he's done. Okay, maybe that's not all apparent at first glance, but as the party gets close it all becomes clear, especially when his six gargoyle minions come up to the PCs and demand they come meet "Krathanos the Conqueror, exiled by the gods for his designs to rule all of creation, and shackled by the treacherous druids of Tilagos until such time as brave stalwarts arrive to free him". Well, that explains everything very succinctly. Why couldn't the quest givers be so efficient?

Well, it's time to meet with Krathanos. He's 25 feet tall, wearing a porportionate-sized belt with gems in it, and playing with a spiked warhammer. Titans are hideously powerful, enough that our barely-17th-level trio might not win a fair fight, even without their Gate ability (this is why Krathanos is actually imprisoned here). But, well, maybe we can talk to him. Roger tries, explaining that there's an evil priest on the island, whose minions--Krathanos interrupts. Are we talking about this guy? He rummages through a sack and pulls out the head of a minotaur. Darl sent him to talk to Krathanos, but Krathanos hates people whose heads don't match their bodies, and... fixed that. Okay, so Krathanos is insane, violent and will sometimes take offense at imagined slights. Let's look for another angle. Roger clears his throat and mentions the Age of Worms they're trying to stop, where... Krathanos has to think about this one. Hm, oh, right, a worm priest was kicking up a fuss for a while, then got imprisioned.

Well, poo poo. Krathanos, what would it take to get you to give us that belt? Well, he'd willingly exchange it for one of you all. The party looks around at each other. Maybe they could offer money, instead? Cleo doesn't like that idea. They could also... maybe free the titan, Wally suggests. That's actually a harder method than it sounds, as he's more anxious to intimidate the PCs into freeing him than bargaining, and even if made helpful enough to accept the trade, absolutely will not give it up until he's off of Last Resort, so the PCs would have to plane shift with him, then make their own way back, and it's kind of a detour to do that. Why not give him Wally, instead? They aren't going to miss him too much, after all.

So, the spellcasters stuff the belt into a bag of holding and leave. Krathanos laughs uproariously, but sticks his new toy in a cage. Early the next morning, after the duo would have had a chance to prepare their spells and be ready, Roger picks his lock and flees back to his friends. An enraged Krathanos chases after, warhammer at the ready. He runs into a series of Energy Drains and Imprisonment. Imprisonment is the easiest way to deal with Krathanos, but you gain nothing if he's imprisoned with the belt.



Okay, silence the doomshroud. Might involve Doomshroud Forest, a forest just north-west of Krathanos's keep. Yeah, there's a weeping, twisting tree monster in the middle of it. Okay, Wally, cast Silence on a rock and toss it over there. What? It doesn't count unless it's a more permanent silence? Fiiiiine. This monster is not particularly scary if the party can make Will saves, so the lumberjacking detour is a quick one.

We're running low on landmarks. The only other thing on the island that isn't just empty grass is a little craggy area. Luckily, one way to solve the trial is just to examine every point of interest on the map. The third trial finds them as they try to navigate a crevasse filled with thorns.



It has a Will of +7. Who cares what the rest of the sheet says? If you believe the magazine, this is a cunning beastie who knows about the trials and has destroyed previous adventuring parties. I'm not sure how. It's not actually that imposing even without the one-shot potential.

Well, anyway. One more trial. Get a feather from the roc king while he's alive. Shouldn't be too tough. They climb the tallest peak, and find the Roc King. It's dead. That's going to be a bit of a setback. It looks like Darl's team wasn't just sitting idly. Of course, they only got as far as "kill it", so a Raise Dead is enough to get it back in action, and it is so grateful it attacks the party on sight. All these humanoids look alike and it thinks it's still the same fight. Huh. A good charm or dominate effect will get it to play nice, though. The party could also have talked to it if they had a druid or ranger, but no matter how charming Roger might be, the roc is still just an animal.



As they party makes their way down, Darl's team ambushes them. I appreciate Darl Quethos's portrayal here; the Vecnan priest has been a shadow the PCs have had to chase after the entire time they're on Tilagos, with a suitably ominous air to his methodology. He brings with him a mostly fiendish team as back-up. The tiefling monks we saw in the vision, a devil trying to earn the ability to obscure his true name so he won't keep getting conjured and an efreet with class levels riding an advanced nightmare. Darl, too, knows our PCs well after much divination spells, and is ready to whisper any sort of embarrassing secret or childhood trauma or any such thing to throw the party off as they fight. This is the climatic fight of the adventure, though it can actually come at any time. Darl's team is tough and varied, though not as instantly lethal as our PCs tend to be. It's possible Darl would flee if the fight goes badly, but this would run into some difficulties, since his saves aren't insurmountable and, well, D&D 3.5. So there we have it. After an actually really harrowing fight, our party has the Hand of Vecna, and Darl is dead.

So the party goes back to meet with their fey hosts. Three of them congratulate the PCs. The fourth explodes with anger. He challenges the PCs to a duel because it shouldn't count if the roc king dies and then comes back. Roger is swift to the point, though. Not only were they not the ones who killed the roc king, they brought him back. The fey is forced to concede this, and withdraws his challenge.

The PCs are granted access to the Fountain of Dreams. It takes them somewhere. A vision, perhaps? Hey, this is Rift Canyon, 150 miles north of Alhaster, where they were previously at. But something's wrong. The real Rift Canyon is far more barren. As they look far away, the PCs realize there are armies of humanoids fighting undead in the distance, including a couple of the Kyuss-derived types the PCs have handled before. And, uh, more and worse sorts, like wormy dragons and some sort of giant scorpion that turns the living on each other.

The PCs discover that, in fact, they're back at their peak: they get to reprepare spells, and all their wounds are healed. This isn't just a vision, it's thrown them back into the past. A millenium and a half in the past. Right when Kyuss was last ascendant, and when Dragotha was last seen. "You have arrived." Some somber druids consider the PCs. And, hey, those four in front look like the fey we were just dealing with! This is them in their living state.

The druids explain quickly. Thankfully, the trio are here in time, as the heroes of prophecy they've been expecting. The druids have Dragotha's phylactery. If they take it far enough away, Dragotha will realize it and quit the field, to save his own hide when his immortality is challenged. The PCs just need to hold off his ground forces, while another ally holds off his aerial threats.

The ally comes forward. It's... Lashonna?


How is she here, this far into the past? The elf doesn't recognize them, of course, since it's the first time they meet, by her reckoning, but she does explain that she's here to fight Dragotha in the sky. Then she transforms into a rather heavyweight silver dragon and takes to the skies. Oh, so that's how she's still alive. Once she's out of earshot, the druids turn back to the PCs, telling them the phylactery will be hidden in Kongen-Thulnir. Just... it's going to take a bit to travel. Protect the druids; fight the undead.



Ten swords of kyuss appear. Then ten more. Then, finally, an advanced boneyard, an undead amalgamation in the shape and approaching the size of the classic sandworm. The PCs might lose here. Cleo can turn the swords, but not destroy them, and Roger is almost useless save as a meatshield. They win, but the result is a mess, and Roger dies in the process.

Finally, just as the battle concludes, they see the end result of Lashonna's battle with Dragotha: Dragotha delivers a killing blow to Lashonna, whose body collapses to the earth below. Well... poo poo. That's a second undead dragon we're going to have to deal with, isn't it?

The fight concludes. The party wakes from their vision, restored again, even Roger no worse for wear. The party finds themselves not in the world beyond the portal, but back on the original beach where they met the orc team. The Order of the Storm's secret knowledge has slipped back into the world, and over the coming days old tomes and forgotten books will rewrite themselves and begin to again include the secrets they had hidden... which includes Dragotha's phylactery's location. The PCs have only a slim lead on that.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
The whole idea of "freeing a secret" so it can leak back into the world is kind of interesting, but outside of that this still feels pretty badly written.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Catching up on System Mastery and I just wanted to thank you for the words "time-loop pooper". However, you missed the perfect time to use the words "grassy gnoll".

ZeeToo
Feb 20, 2008

I'm a kitty!

PurpleXVI posted:

The whole idea of "freeing a secret" so it can leak back into the world is kind of interesting, but outside of that this still feels pretty badly written.

I wonder if that's me. Apart from the "you are the chosen of prophecy!" element, I actually mostly like this adventure. And even that is pretty forgivable when the alternative to playing the scene is just getting an info dump.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Catching up on System Mastery and I just wanted to thank you for the words "time-loop pooper". However, you missed the perfect time to use the words "grassy gnoll".

I think Munchkin beat us to that one. What's he do in that horrible game, like strip levels unless you discard potions?

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Hey, sorry for the double post, but we're putting up another episode right this very now.



It's our second interview! This time with a game designer(David Schirduan) that's done a few things but notably is currently running a kickstarter for his new game Mythic Mortals. He was a nice guy.

Editing these interview things together is a real pain in the butt. I think from this point we'll save them for like... industry goons and special occasions. And I guess maybe name people, as if that was realistic. Not like I'd say "No, Wil Wheaton, I hate editing more than I love leeching off your stupid huge fanbase."

theironjef fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Oct 20, 2015

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
Spheres of Power



When you learn the Creation sphere, you learn the following abilities:

Repair

You repair a damaged object, restoring 1d4 + half caster level of the item's HP, and removing the Broken condition if you get the item back to at least half of its max HP.

Destroy

You deal 1d4 + half caster level damage to an item, bypassing all hardness and inflicting Broken on it if it gets below half its max HP.

Create

Spend a spell point to create a non-magical object out of vegetable matter (wood, hemp, cotton, etc), either in your hand or in an adjacent square. At first you can only create Small objects, but as your caster level increases you can create larger objects.

Object Size Table



You can't create items that need mixing/alchemy, have special properties or items that you don't know about.

The items require Concentration to maintain, and will last 1 minute per caster level without Concentration.

An Appraise check will reveal the item as magically manufactured, as will Detect Magic, although the items themselves are mundane.

An item composed of complex parts, such as crossbows or anything mechanical, will need a Craft check. If you fail, the item you create will materialize already broken and unusable.

You cannot create an object directly onto a target, such as creating manacles that are already on a target's wrists.

There's another table that provides the Hardness stats of various substances, and how to calculate an item's HP based on its substance + its thickness.

The falling damage column of the table is included because you can attack a target by dropping an object on it: it's a ranged touch attack with a 20-foot range increment. If the object is made of stone or harder, the damage is doubled. If the object is made of cloth or water or other 'soft' substance, it deals half damage.

Creation Talents

Change Material - spend a spell point to change an object's substance from one to another. This effect will last for 1 round per caster level.

Distant Creation - your created objects can now materialize anywhere within Close range of you. You can take this talent multiple time to further increase the range to Medium, and then again to Long.

It’s worth noting that the book also states that objects that fall more than 150 feet will deal double damage, so you could take this talent twice to increase your creation range to Medium, then by caster level 5 you can materialize objects 150 feet up in the air. By that time you can make large-sized objects which would deal 2d6 damage. You’d double the damage from the object being made from a hard material like stone, then also double the damage from having it fall 150 feet.

Divided Creation - you can create multiple objects at once. They must be of the same general type, and the total size cannot exceed your normal maximum creation size.

Expanded Materials - instead of just working with vegetable matter, you can now work with any material with a hardness of 5 or less, plus stone. At caster level 5, you can now also work with basic metals. At caster level 10, you can now work with precious metals. At caster level 15, you can now work with gems and specialty metals like cold iron and mithril.

Exquisite Detail - your created items can be more intricate, and you can add your caster level to the Craft checks made when making complex items, as well as to the DC of Appraise checks when trying to detect your created items as fakes. Detecting the lingering magic aura from your created items will now also require a skill check, instead of just being latent after using Detect Magic.

Forge - you may spend a spell point to reshape an object’s material with a touch. You can only affect materials that you can create, so you need the Expanded Materials talent to be able to work with stone, metal, etc. You can only make crude, broad changes, so forging armor is not possible, and reshaping an object with/to have moving parts will have a 30% chance of producing a broken item. The advantage though is that there is no duration to the change, it does not require concentration to maintain, and the change cannot be dispelled.

Greater Destroy - you increase the amount of damage dealt by your Destroy ability to 1d6+caster level.

Greater Repair - you increase the amount of damage healed by your Repair ability to 1d6+caster level.

Larger Creation - you may spend an additional spell point when creating an item to double the maximum size that you’re allowed to create.

Lengthened Creation - you may spend an additional spell point when creating an item to make it last for 1 hour per caster level without concentration.

Potent Alteration - you can use your Repair and Destroy abilities against magical objects, items currently being used/worn, or animated objects such as golems. If used against a worn object, this is treated as a Sunder attack. If used against an unwilling animated object, this is treated as a touch attack, with a Fort save allowed to either negate the Repair or halve the damage from the Destroy.

TBQH I don’t really get this school. It seems like a replacement for the standard item creation rules, but it’s so limited and so niche.

Up Next:

Alteration
Creation - 1
Conjuration
Dark - 1
Death
Destruction
Divination - 1
Enhancement
Fate
Illusion
Life
Light - 1
Mind
Nature
Protection
Telekinesis
Time
War
Warp
Weather

occamsnailfile
Nov 4, 2007



zamtrios so lonely
Grimey Drawer
Rifts Dimension Book 3: Phase World Sourcebook Part 12: Friggin’ Frigates




We’re getting towards the end of the book and I must finish nnngh! The starship writeups get kinda repetitive, in a lot of ways they’re just an ascending series of numbers as each class gets a little bigger. I appreciate parts of this book for trying to shake things up somewhat with weird guns but the ships are all really similar. They have some MDC, a forcefield, a main gun/laser/etc, some missiles, another gun, maybe mini-missiles or bombs or something to shake it up.

So now we’re at frigates, which was where the last book left off. First off is the Hunter-Class Destroyer which--isn’t ‘destroyer’ a different class than a frigate? Ugh, who cares. The ship is an older Wolfen Empire model that still serves the CCW. It’s described as being “flat, with the bridge seeming to form the body of a flat butterfly.” The picture accompanying this text is completely not that. Look:


unless this is its ‘pupa’ mode

The main body has 4,500 MDC which as we have noted before is as much as some of the smaller gods. Of course, the bridge is exposed and vulnerable at 1,200 MDC, though that won’t disable the ship. It might kill crew though. The CCW has about 8,000 of these in service. Its market cost in a decommissioned ‘surplus’ form is 90 to 150 million credits, and that’s without all its armor, weapons, and ‘stealth system’ (there is no stealth system). I mention this because the prices on all these ships, even the cargo vessels mentioned, are absurd when weighed against the money PCs expect to have. I think the Bounty Hunter class from Phase World main was listed as ‘possibly’ having their own ship, which would automatically make them wealthier on paper than any other class in any book. I realize that buying shipping vessels has never been cheap and expecting sense from the Rifts economy is hopeless but basically the books are pushing the PCs to go space pirate ASAP if they want to fly.

Anyway, for weapons, the Hunter has 3 particle beam cannons which are in the nose and both sides. Firing all three into the same target (somehow) would inflict 6d4x100 MDC. It also has some railguns and lasers for fending off fighters and power armor and a pretty big pile of missiles--50 of the ‘cruise’ category even if it can only fire them one at a time, plus 320 medium-range missiles. It is listed as carrying a fighter wing--4 fighters. If they’re Black Eagles, those are 45 ft long and 32 feet wide. The Hunter is 300 ft long and 80 ft wide. That’s a pretty big chunk of space devoted to the fighters--good thing they don’t need runway I guess.
The Warlocks get a frigate next. It’s techno-wizard enhanced. Its special “death cloud” cannon rifts in a bunch of water in front of ships moving at high speeds, which is kind of destructive to the moving object. We’ll see how the stats for that play out but as a weapon that seeks to alter the topography of the battlefield I find it interesting. It’s also useful to stop fleeing pirates and such.

The main body has 3,500 MDC plus a 2,000 MDC field that can be activated three times per day but isn’t variable like other ships. It comes out to about the same total. The special death cloud cannon only has 400 MDC and again the bridge is vulnerable at 800.

The death cloud itself has a range of 10 miles, creating a 500ft cloud. A ‘ship’ will take 4d6 times its Mach number (:airquote:) which is kinda sad, though some fighters get up to Mach 14 or so in Rifts’ crazy version of space physics. The damage increases by 10 for ships weighing 10,000 tons or more so firing at a max-speed hunter would do 4d6x9.5x10 or 1140, which is respectable. We haven’t gotten to the expanded ship combat rules in this book yet but previously (and in general) Palladium doesn’t have much in the way of movement-based rules so there isn’t much reason to go full speed in combat. You get no bonuses for it. You do get a -6 to dodge the death cloud at any speed, but we don’t know how fast these ships accelerate or decelerate so maybe just plunk down and fire if you’re fighting one of these guys. Also, it can only fire 10 times a day versus the hunter class’s unlimited times per day. Because gently caress magicians. Palladium hates them so much. The cannon is an interesting idea but with the lovely ruleset I am not sure it works outside of heavily narrative situations I guess.


i can’t even think what to caption this with, it feels like Breaux just sort of scrounged this from his sketchpad with a shrug

It also has some fighter-swatting lasers and short range missiles and dumb lightning rods that do bad damage--basically it has no other anti-ship weapons besides the death cloud which is a...huge design oversight. To fight these, just park your frigate and ignore their point defense weaponry. It does carry 48 Warlock marines but those can’t fly by default, and 4 Shadow Bolt fighters which can (again the size data doesn’t really work with that) but it is still heavily under-armed for its stated role.

Now we have the UFO Attack Ship from the Intruders. It’s a big angry trapezoid. It has three ‘sections’ with 1,000 MDC that can be overwhelmed to shut down, exposing the bridge which is powering all the hard light forcefield. Its main gun does 1d6x100 and its secondary blasters do 1d6x10 and that’s all it has. Honestly pretty weak for a super-advanced space menace.



That’s it for frigates. Now we do cruisers. These are classed as 20,000 to 200,000 tons. They’re supposed to lead small battlegroups and form the main elements of larger fleets. They have five to ten times the MDC of frigates plus more guns and missiles and fighters and etc.

The first is the Warshield-Class Cruiser for the CAF. They’re a common sight in CCW spaceports and sort of the symbol of the fleet in general. They have 45,000 main body MDC, plus 10,000 in the bridge amd 12,000 main engines.


this is actually by kevin long and it’s a decent piece though i feel like it’s from something

The main laser battery does 2d4x1,000 for a double blast. This is both in scale with the ship numbers and such we have been seeing and completely off any meaningful chart for damage we have seen anywhere else. Gods, demons, monsters--none of them can match this for output. The Coalition has nothing that can even come close (as of this book). We don’t actually know how much MDC buildings are supposed to have (if any) but with a 100 mile range it’s not a bad weapon for ‘shore’ bombardment. This is intended for ship-to-ship fighting using the scale they’ve been working from, but unless you just narratively refuse to use it elsewhere, the starship stuff just breaks the Palladium system even further.

The Warshield has some other guns and missiles--pretty formidable armament really, multiple x100 guns and lasers and 640 cruise missiles which can be fired at a rate of 64 per round. Yeesh. Mini-missiles, 12 fighters, 10 Silverhawks, and 2 Battlerams. Basically, yes, a fearsome weapon.

That’s was the good guy cruiser, let’s see the bad guy. The Smasher-Class? Really? That was the best name they could come up with? I mean the picture looks like something you would delicately place on your mantle and glare at your cat not to brush against.


like just look at those delicate little frills

Oh well, it’s the Smasher. These usually travel in groups of three with six Berserkers (see Phase World) as escort. These are less ship-of-the-line than the Warshield and so only have 18,000 main body MDC. Their cannons do 1d6x1000 though, which comes out to a lot with three of them firing together at a single target. Also, that’s damage to a 40ft area (same with the Warshield) plus 1d6x10 to 100ft around the impact as heat damage. They have secondary lasers that do a pretty respectable damage and 20 cruise missiles per round with 100 in the magazine. They also supposedly have a complement of 36 Flying Fang fighters each which is nuts. There’s just no way, that simply would not fit. It’s also vastly overpowered on the fighter front since each of those Fangs is comparable to an enemy fighter and not just a disposable mob you can shoot down in one round. Riiiiiifts! :argh:

The UWW gets an entry with the Dwarven Iron Ship.


this looks like the cover of ‘das spaceboot’

It even acknowledges in the text that it looks like a sub. For no reason at all. Literally none, it just does. I suppose that’s sort of better than yet another ‘were inspired by Earth somehow’. Apparently this was the result of early magicians trying to figure out space travel from first principles with magic. The ship itself is heavily enchanted to protect it from harm, making it cruiser-tough. Since they defeated the Splugorth in the battle that created the UWW, they haven’t built any more--because of course it’s built with magic and costs as much as a dozen technological ships. :sigh: Apparently each of them is as complex to enchant as a greatest rune weapon. Come on, I know you hate magicians so much but can we lay off a minute? Despite these immense hurdles they managed to make 4,000 of these, of which 3,137 remain. Supposedly they are a match for any other kind of cruiser out there. Let’s see if that’s backed up by the numbers.

30,000 main body, magical force field, 10,000 bridge. They have a rift projector cannon from Phase World main, which is a fierce weapon but has a limited number of shots per day because again gently caress mages. It also has two flame cannons that do 1d4x1,000 each, so it can match the Warshield’s main guns for damage. It just needs 1,000 PPE per day to keep them running. :eyeroll:

It also has some lasers and turrets based on technology so they work perfectly and forever, and some of the Bottled Demon missiles which are nice but not at all comparable to technological cruise missiles. Lastly they have 36 (again, this will not fit) Shadow Bolt fighters which are fun but underpowered and then for kicks, 12 Broadsword or Fire-Eater fighters. I might be willing to excuse this ship being overfull of support craft because ~magic~ but that isn’t explained and they really just didn’t even look at how big they said these ships are when saying one was inside another.

So, the Iron Ships are decent but a little underpowered. They don’t have the MDC of the Warshield but their damage output is close at the capital level. Their missiles are weak however, and this is a serious disadvantage in given how volleys work. Assuming one sticks with their fighter complement, they have a lot of backup firepower and I cringe at how many dice would have to be rolled to run all that, but ultimately a trio of Smashers would eat one of these in three rounds. Since they aren’t making any more, that might be a problem.

After this we have battleships and carriers, and then the expanded space combat rules.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



occamsnailfile posted:



this is actually by kevin long and it’s a decent piece though i feel like it’s from something


Looks suspiciously like Space Battleship Yamato. Phone posting so no pic, but Google provides.

occamsnailfile
Nov 4, 2007



zamtrios so lonely
Grimey Drawer

Midjack posted:

Looks suspiciously like Space Battleship Yamato. Phone posting so no pic, but Google provides.

Goodness, it does rather.

darthbob88
Oct 13, 2011

YOSPOS

occamsnailfile posted:

So now we’re at frigates, which was where the last book left off. First off is the Hunter-Class Destroyer which--isn’t ‘destroyer’ a different class than a frigate? Ugh, who cares.
Indeed, and generally much larger than frigates, which I also do not expect the Hunter class to match. To be unnecessarily fair, though, extrapolating from modern blue-water navies to magical space fleets is always fraught with peril, and the frigate category is a much closer match for size than cruiser. Still should have called it the Hunter-class frigate, though.

Crasical
Apr 22, 2014

GG!*
*GET GOOD

gradenko_2000 posted:

Spheres of Power




TBQH I don’t really get this school. It seems like a replacement for the standard item creation rules, but it’s so limited and so niche.

It's basically expanding out the Creation/Minor Creation spell to a whole school, with some useful quirks stapled on, like sundering equipment/walls/locks, changing enemy equipment to paper or sand, FINALLY being able to hurt people by dropping summoned objects on them, which has always been an obvious thing that the rules disallowed.

I have fond memories of playing a psion in the old 'Red Hand of Doom' module, and being able to perform some pretty finky tricks with Psionic Minor Creation, so I'd err on the side that it's worth being a sphere. You can still make water balloons full of deadly contact poison, at the very least.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

theironjef posted:

I think Munchkin beat us to that one. What's he do in that horrible game, like strip levels unless you discard potions?

I just figured you could use them for Orck: the Green. In any case, I dunno. I sold my copy of Munchkin d20 at GenCon, but there's a suggestion for the podcast. Munchkin d20. It was a thing.

occamsnailfile posted:

Rifts Dimension Book 3: Phase World Sourcebook Part 12: Friggin’ Frigates

I love how Rifts just boldly and continuously ignores their system doesn't scale at all. And I don't mean just MDC vs. damage values; I mean, who would ever want to track 36 fighters and a frigate? Palladium combat is already horrifically clunky on account of the attacks per round thing and tracking that poo poo is an utter pain when you're dealing with ten combatants, much less four times that plus location-based combat and a system where things don't die unless they get flung through the sun, twice.

Fallorn
Apr 14, 2005

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I just figured you could use them for Orck: the Green. In any case, I dunno. I sold my copy of Munchkin d20 at GenCon, but there's a suggestion for the podcast. Munchkin d20. It was a thing.


I love how Rifts just boldly and continuously ignores their system doesn't scale at all. And I don't mean just MDC vs. damage values; I mean, who would ever want to track 36 fighters and a frigate? Palladium combat is already horrifically clunky on account of the attacks per round thing and tracking that poo poo is an utter pain when you're dealing with ten combatants, much less four times that plus location-based combat and a system where things don't die unless they get flung through the sun, twice.

The funny thing about munchkin d20 was they just game the fighter a bonus feat ever other level, and I think made regular feets on odd levels so the fighter got a feat every level. They did more for the poor fighter than like everything but book of nine swords.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Fallorn posted:

The funny thing about munchkin d20 was they just game the fighter a bonus feat ever other level, and I think made regular feets on odd levels so the fighter got a feat every level. They did more for the poor fighter than like everything but book of nine swords.

Well, except for the fact wizards also get those feats, so... the really odd thing is that you'd think they'd make a bunch of jokey classes, but nope, it's like 80-90% just cut-and-pasted from 3.0.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Crasical posted:

It's basically expanding out the Creation/Minor Creation spell to a whole school, with some useful quirks stapled on, like sundering equipment/walls/locks, changing enemy equipment to paper or sand, FINALLY being able to hurt people by dropping summoned objects on them, which has always been an obvious thing that the rules disallowed.

I have fond memories of playing a psion in the old 'Red Hand of Doom' module, and being able to perform some pretty finky tricks with Psionic Minor Creation, so I'd err on the side that it's worth being a sphere. You can still make water balloons full of deadly contact poison, at the very least.

Thank you! I knew that this was probably just a lack of deep knowledge of 3.x on my part.

Fallorn
Apr 14, 2005
Ok I have the book Warriors get bonus feat at lvl 1 and 2 and every one gets a feat on odd levels warriors get one on even also. They also moved them to a d12 for hp and they know how to use all weapons and armor and shields. If you pick up a snake you can use it as a weapon. BAB for them starts at +2 and so they get an additional attack a level earlier. It is better than the 3.5 fighter in every way. It still is not a caster but way better than any other version. Never having to take an exotic weapon feat so still better than a pathfinder fighter. All the other classes are garbage in that book but hey 21 feats and never having to take weapon or armor feats and a d12 for hp lets you be less garbage than you could have been. You are still better off playing a cleric though.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Playing a cleric is the universal solution in every edition of D&D, mind. Can't think of a time they're ever crap.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
I didn't care much for clerics in 2E. They were decently tanky, but being required to memorize their curative spells instead of spontaneously casting them, and the very slow non-specialist attack rate progression left them doing the same kind of not-really-much that a thief who couldn't jockey for a backstab did. But then, I played with people for whom a capital ship and few dozen fighters on the enemy side was par for our late-era RIFTS shenanigans.

Is there a support group for survivors of dysfunctional gaming?

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
I dug 2E Clerics as long as you used the SPECIFIC Cleric rules rather than the UNIVERSAL Cleric rules. Universal Clerics were incredibly goofy. Making Clerics of specific faiths also helped give them a bit more of a role than "the guy who heals and then tries to fight but is actually worse at it than the fighter." It gave them some flavour.

  • Locked thread