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Covok posted:It is when you have the maturity of a nerd, never had kids, and only know about children and raising a kid while managing your own life through bad dramas. Don't forget disdain and fear for modern technology while you're at it, too!
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Jun 7, 2016 20:59
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Halloween Jack posted:Meanwhile, another Beast is planning to punish all the parents for not noticing the other creepy single childless dude at the kids' soccer game. I wonder what it would be like to play the Beast who teaches the most valuable lesson of all, that Beasts are terrible and need to be wiped out. I feel like one of the shadier Hunter groups would put me on payroll.
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Jun 7, 2016 21:05
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The Beast equivalent of J. Walter Weatherman. "And that's why Santa's not real."
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Jun 7, 2016 21:28
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Beasts are basically Habbalah from IN. Who are literal demons. Good job, Beast.
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Jun 7, 2016 21:30
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Big Mad Drongo posted:I wonder what it would be like to play the Beast who teaches the most valuable lesson of all, that Beasts are terrible and need to be wiped out. How is this different from any other Beast? 
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Jun 7, 2016 21:52
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Not to mention, what did the guy plan to do with all the kids?
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Jun 7, 2016 22:46
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Robindaybird posted:Not to mention, what did the guy plan to do with all the kids? Break their legs and dump them in the river to teach them to be more lovable so that next time their parents will pay attention to them
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Jun 7, 2016 22:48
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I'm going to repeat that the modus operandi of that Makara in that actual play is so close to my experience with my former abuser it made me physically sick to sit and think about it the first time I saw it.quote:Michelle's character is Maia Wallis (Makara Ravager). Maia prefers to feed by getting into relationships with men and then slowing wrecking their lives. They're free to walk at any point, of course (she doesn't stalk them if they break up with her). She teaches the lesson that some relationships are toxic and it's better to end them. quote:Maia goes down to 4th Street, where crowds are already drinking and partaking of the hip new restaurants beginning to spring up (this trend continues, by the way; Cleveland has a fun food scene). A young man named Ryan approaches her - suit and jacket, tie tucked into a pocket, obviously a young capitalist type. She flirts and accepts his offers. She doesn't know yet if he's going to be her next boyfriend; it depends on what he needs to learn. quote:Maia goes on her date. She's lost a dot of Satiety (I made the offer to all of them at the beginning of the sesson; lose a dot, get a Beat), so she's hungry. She activates Heart of the Ocean and, wouldn't you know, I have a considerable well of patience with stupid poo poo in games born by excessive exposure to it, and am actually more weary of Beast-bashing than anything at this point because I've been party to the same arguments for months, but this? This is the developer of the line using the authorial voice to victim-blame while demoing how he thinks the game should be played, whether he intended to or not.
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Jun 7, 2016 23:06
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Ryan is indeed her type - drawn to bad relationships.
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Anybody got a physical copy of Forasken 2nd Edition they want to sell to me so I don't have to give Onyx Path another cent for the rest of my life?
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Jun 7, 2016 23:13
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Kavak posted:Anybody got a physical copy of Forasken 2nd Edition they want to sell to me so I don't have to give Onyx Path another cent for the rest of my life? I think we got the drift the fifteenth time you posted this sentiment (he says, in the discussion that will never end) Like, for real. It's not a hard concept. Give money to the lines headed by people you're cool with. Don't buy things with the names of people you don't. If you think anybody but the developers get a cent of royalties out of books you're looking at the wrong fuckin' industry.
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Jun 7, 2016 23:17
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Daeren posted:I think we got the drift the fifteenth time you posted this sentiment (he says, in the discussion that will never end) That last part makes me feel a bit better, honestly.
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Jun 7, 2016 23:19
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Kavak posted:That last part makes me feel a bit better, honestly. No, really, it's a thing a lot of people miss. If the tradgames industry was a wallet it'd be mostly full of cartoon moths. Pay rates are...well, they're okay for writing, but writing rates in general are a sticky fuckin' topic, especially with publishing models in a really weird state right now. Freelancers are ripped off left and right by a lot of fly-by-night outfits, and even the big name ones have had solvency issues - see Shadowrun's little problem with one of their staff embezzling six figures and running, for instance. From all accounts I hear, Onyx Path is actually pretty good to its freelancers, and have a pay system that is (for the industry) totally fine, maybe even above average. In general, don't expect anyone to get royalties in the business unless they themselves own the rights to what they're selling. Anybody else is working as a freelancer for contractor pay, and the details of that vary wildly between companies.
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Jun 7, 2016 23:27
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 Part 8: A List of Redundant Character Sheets – M to S  Mcdonald/Macdonald Hartman Meet Malcolm Harris Self-Insert #2. He is the head of Maximum Institute/Incorporated. He first discovered witches when he was 12, when his homemade miniature radio telescope caught sight of a girl flying around on a broom. Eight years, several homemade computers, and an ion-engine flight pack later, he finally caught up with her again. His bio doesn’t say what happened between them, but all of his homemade inventions made him a lot of money and turned him into the WGA World’s Tony Stark, complete with the power suits, but not the alcoholism, womanizing, morally questionable defense contracts, or stint as a terrorist group’s hostage. (He also created the setting’s most popular video game console because why not?) Two years ago, he discovered Trinity Valley, a pocket dimension in the Dallas area, with a miniature black hole. Somehow, that black hole didn’t destroy both dimensions. Instead, this and not the witch chick he met when he was 20, introduced him to the WWC and the rest of the magical world in general. He kept the discovery to himself and his inner circle of friends and uses his company’s immense wealth to go on magical time and space adventures. He’s allies with Arthur and Gary, Silas really loving wants one of his power suits, and the plot hooks section is borderline gibberish.  Macdonald is a Rank 5 NPC. He is a “Mortal-Adventurer”, something that is not in any of the books, with the “Brainiac” and “Jock” talents and a custom heritage called “Gadgeteer”. This halves the time it takes him to build and repair devices, let him instantly figure out how something works for one zap, and “spend a zap point to make a one use mundane device instantly from available supplies device". (I guess that means he can MacGuyver things.) His attributes are D10s in Body and Mind, D8s in Will and Social, and D6s in Senses and Magic. For skills, he has 118 mundane skill points and a 3 in Mysticism. (Fun Fact: He’s fluent in 8 languages.) Most of his skills are at a 6 or higher. For equipment, he has a smart phone with ultraviolet and infrared cameras, the Maximum Inc. compound as a sanctum, and the Gladius Armor Mark 2.  Someone with a high enough MTR in Alteration can get around all of that in one action. Then again, someone with a high enough MTR in Alteration can instantly win nearly every fight if no one’s immune to it.  Malleus Maleficarum Trooper Rank 2, D6s and D8s in attributes, 51 pre-determined mundane skills (not including points in Computer that aren’t listed), 9 pre-determined magical skills, +2 to resist things that induce fear, can add +1 to rolls for a zap, works the same way as Echidnists and Argus Society members. Their heritage gives them a +2 to resist mind control abilities, +1 to rolls if they’re working in a group, and +2 damage against witches. For specialties, we have
 Maximum Inc. Member Instead of going through the various types of Maximum Inc. employees, the specialties section just runs down the members of Macdonald’s special world-saving inner circle of friends. All of them, save for one, is a Rank 4 NPC with D6s and D8s in their attributes and 44 predetermined mundane skill points with a 4 in Cryptozoology and a 5 in Mysticism, and the same “clique bonuses” as MM troops.
I see we’re backsliding into the “NPCs have things PCs can’t get” thing again with the custom heritages… Oh, and here’s the stats for the Gladius Mark 1.   Olivia Maxis Way back in the original core, there was a mention of West Grove, the Grecian magic school run by Hestia Maxis that’s gone to poo poo because her sister’s been funneling money from it into her own projects. Say hello to that sister. Their mother was a famous Greek actress, and Olivia wanted nothing more than to follow in her mother’s footsteps. She would have been able to do it if the assholes at Coventry hadn’t dragged her to the school. (There are mentions of witches being homeschooled. Why couldn’t they have just done that with her? Child actors are homeschooled and have on-set tutors all the time.) She resented no longer being the special snowflake of her social circle and immediately used her powers to regain her fame when she finished school, along with starting her production company, Maxis Studios. (No relation to Will Wright’s game studio, of course.) The company is now the most successful film studio in the Mediterranean. She used her money to modernize West Grove and set her younger sister up as its headmistress. She frequently uses the school to mine for new talent. Not anyone that outshines her though, because she’ll crush you if you’re more popular than her. The WWC is worried that she’ll take over the AAN, Macdonald and her had “sparks” when they met, Denora was a schoolmate of hers and hates her, and Queen Gothel wants to be her ally. Olivia is a Rank 4 NPC. She’s a Prima-Donna with the Ambitious and Mary Sue talents and the Hypnotic heritage. She has D8+1s in Social and Magic, D8s in Mind and Will, and D6s in Body and Senses. She has 74 mundane skill points (and speaks 6 languages), 38 magical skill points, and 16 magic ranks. (Highest is Mentalism with 4.) Her signature spells are “Hideous” (Alteration 3; makes the target ugly and gives them -3 to Social rolls), “Mesmerize” (Mentalism 2; +3 to Social rolls), “Perfect Lighting” (Illusion 2; +3 to Social rolls under the light), and “Talentless” (Curse 3; -3 to all performance based and art rolls for a day). For equipment, she has her golden feather headpiece that gives her 5 points of armor and lets her ignore damage from falls, 60 points of minions, one of the 7 “great magic mirrors” that gives her bonuses to Divination spells and lets her view people for a zap, and her villa sanctum.  Pay-Back/Payback Remember the guy who had his family set on fire by Denora because he asked for her insurance info after a fender-bender?  This is him. Dan Glover is a sergeant and member of the U.S. Special Forces who had just come back from the Middle East when Denora murdered his wife and children. The event broke him mentally, causing him to start referring to himself in the third person and narrate his life. He spent a year in a mental hospital before being dumped onto the streets, homeless and penniless. (You know, like a cartoon and not real life.) Thankfully, he was found by one of the employees of a person named Mr. F. After some time, Mr. F revealed himself to him.  No, Denora didn’t do that to him. It was another interchangeable sexy wicked witch that he accidentally annoyed. He used Mr. F’s vast fortune to buy some witch-hunting equipment and went after Denora. The second he got to her house, Claudia turned him into a rabbit.  He obviously got better though, and he’s been spending his time hunting wicked witches in order to build himself up for another encounter with Denora. Highbinders and Echidnists want him dead, while Denora doesn’t seem to give a poo poo since it doesn’t mention her being one of his enemies. Him and Gary are friends, but Gary thinks he’s weird. Payback is a Rank 3 NPC with the Brave and Unshakable talents and a custom heritage called “Hunter”. (+2 to recognize witches, ignores 2 points of damage from witches, does +2 damage to witches, +1 to resist spells.) He has D6s and D8s in everything (with a D8+1 in Body) with 57 mundane skill points (with an unlisted amount of points in Computer again) and 9 magical skill points. For equipment, he has binoculars, body armor that lets him ignore 5 points of damage, a crossbow with cold iron arrow tips that does 10 damage, flash bang grenades that can deafen a target for D4 minutes, a katana that does 13 damage, a motorcycle, a smart phone, a pair of shades that give him immunity to bright light bursts, and a taser that makes the target unable to move for a minute, then staggered for D6 minutes.  Project Stormwall Agents Exactly what you’d expect. Rank 1 NPCs with set attributes (D6s and D8s), skills (41 mundane, 9 magical), and heritage (Detective).
 Puck I… Hmm… I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and don’t automatically assume that everyone that does something that could be even slightly perceived as problematic is a Secret Turbo Hitler, but this is… Also, they somehow managed to make Anderson Cooper look like absolute rear end. I didn’t think that was possible. Anyway, Puck. He’s an unseelie fae who is super old and no one really knows anything about him because he’s so hard to pin down. He might be one of Mab’s sons or grandsons. He’s played pranks on a lot of the characters in this chapter. (Silas Black kicked his rear end when he tried and now wants to kill him.) Young witches and fae think he’s hot and will sometimes summon him just to meet him. He’s friends with Alphonse and Loki, who is an Immortal and doesn’t have a sheet. Puck is a Rank 5 NPC with the Snarky and Trickster talents and a custom heritage called “Shifter” (+2 Reflex, can alter his shape to twice his size or half as small and has a -1 zap cost to do it). Because he’s fae, he can spend a zap to turn into a human; alter his shape, voice and clothing; and he’s vulnerable to both regular iron and cold iron. For attributes, he has D6s in Body and Senses, D8s in Social and Will, and D10s in Mind and Magic. For skills, he has 68 mundane, 10 magical, and 7 magic ranks. (Illusion 4 and Mentalism 3) He can fly up to 160 MPH, stretch his limbs, and has a pair of “7 League Boots” that let him teleport up to 100 feet away for a zap.  Queen Gothel The evil queen and fairy from every Brothers Grimm story ever and the headmistress of Reinhexxen, the Evil School. Gothel was born to mundane parents and lived as one until adulthood, until a local witch decided to point out that she was one and oopsie, because she didn’t know that until then, her magic was almost gone. Thankfully, she got so pissed off that she reawakened her powers through sheer force of will. She went on to turn her husband into a toad (but it’s okay because he was an abusive shithead) and took over the German town she lived in and the nearby Black Forest. After several centuries of terrorizing mundanes, she tried to stage a coup of the WWC, failed, and only got a slap on the wrist, it seems, since she still has all of her powers. She eventually reappeared and opened Reinhexxen. She’s using the school and its students to try to take over the world again. The WWC has her under surveillance, but they still accredited her school and let her run it, so they must not have that much of a problem with her. I refuse to believe they don’t have someone as powerful as her that they can throw at her. Gothel is a Rank 4 NPC. She’s a member of the Imp clique with the Cruel and Whimsical talents and the Nobility heritage. She’s got a D12 in Magic, D10s in Social and Will, a D8 in Mind, and D6s in Body and Senses. For skills, she has 76 mundane skill points (and speaks 6 languages fluently despite having only 4 points in Languages), 78 magical skill points (with an 8 in nearly everything she has points in, and a 7 in the ones she doesn’t), and 96 magic ranks (with an 8 in everything except Protection (9) and Time and Space (7)). Her signature spells was “Contract” (Curse 5; target gets +2 Social, but Gothel can leech their HP and zap forever), “Go Away” (Time and Space 5; sends the target to a random dimension), “New Life” (Mentalism 5; replaces a person’s entire identity, memories, and skills and makes them completely loyal to her; makes the plot hook where she tries everything in her power to make the PCs to join her kind of pointless), “Toad/Frog” (Alteration 3), and “Warped Witch” (Conjuration 6; creates an item the target wants that lets Gothel see through it). She also ignores 15 points of damage because of wards. For equipment, she has 50 points worth of magical artifacts, 60 points worth of minions, a menagerie of monsters of all ranks, another of the magic mirrors that Olivia has, and Castle Gothel, her sanctum that she can control the architecture of and can defend itself. If you need any more evidence that NPC rank is a pointless stat that means nothing, it’s the fact that Gothel, with her ridiculous amount of near GM fiat “I snap my fingers and win” abilities, is a rank lower than Macdonald.  Silas Black The only thing that’s changed in Silas’s bio is a paragraph that adds that he took a break from witch-hunting to help the Allies’ magical community during World War II. To make up for the dreaded crime of not murdering witches on sight, he killed the ones he worked with when the war ended. Wicked Ways posted:In the 1940's he did take a break from hunting to deal help the allies fight the axis in the secret magic war, there he fought alongside witches until the war was won. For that "sin" he slaughtered over a dozen witches he was with at the end of the war. As subtle as a sledgehammer to the face. Silas Black still did nothing wrong. Silas is a Rank 7 NPC. He’s a Brawny Immortal, whatever that means, with the Cold and Relentless (“+1 to rolls at half Life o points and +2 to rolls at 1/4 life points”) talents and the Promethean heritage (gives him control of fire). He’s got D10s in everything except Mind (D8) and Magic (D12) with 90 mundane skill points and 31 magical skill points (he knows Leyology). Along with ranks in the various hyper movement abilities and 10 points of armor, he has 9 ranks in something called “Fire Control”, which lets him control, sling, and turn into fire. For 8 zap, he can throw a fireball that does 50 damage. For 3 zap, he can cover himself in fire and do 16 damage to anyone that touches him. For an additional 2 zap, he can add a caveat that the fire from any of his abilities can only be extinguished with magic. He also has a communicator, minions in the form of MM troops, and a sanctum in Ireland.  Shadow Kin Shadow kin are the descendants of humans and otherkin that ended up in the Shadow for whatever reason. They hate light and creatures of light, don’t have much in the way of technology, and can be hired for the right price. They’re mostly nomadic and evil. Shadow kin are Rank 2 NPCs. They have D6s in everything except Social (D8), 41 mundane skill points (with 3 points in language with no free point for their native language like other characters have had), 9 magical skill points, variable talents, and no heritage. They can see in the dark, get 2 free ranks of Shadow magic, are immune to said Shadow magic, take -4 damage from light attacks, -1 to all attributes when they’re in a well-lit area, and take a point of damage every minute when they’re in said areas. Shadow kin are divided up into clans, which determine their attribute and skill bonuses and special ability. All of the names of the clans are awful.
For equipment, which can be assigned and added to however the DM sees fit, include night metal arrows that do 10 damage that can only be healed with magic; night metal swords that do 13 damage that can only be healed by magic; and little squid-like creatures called Shadowsite that gives the person they’re attached to 5 points of armor, +5 HP, and +1 Body in return for -1 Magic. Up next: The appendix, with stuff about Saint Joan’s Reformatory and more character sheets. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Jun 8, 2016 |
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Jun 7, 2016 23:32
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Onyx path has a startlingly small number of actual employees, almost everyone who works for them is actually a contractor, and part time. Buy W:TF2, it's good. I would also suggest Demon, it's good even though Matt worked on it.
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Jun 7, 2016 23:33
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Werewolf: the Forsaken, 2nd Edition Third up: Lul'Aya, the False Father. Once, it was called Imadih Shedu, and it was dedicated to change and chaos. It tried to tear down the boundary of Flesh and Spirit, to create a storm of matter and ephemera. It was weak for an idigam, but very ambitious, and it loved to create strange amalgams of flesh and spirit that broke all rules. Eventually, Wolf came for it and easily hurled it to the moon. It raged for a brief period, but as more idigam joined it on the moon, it calmed. It began to realize that Wolf's strength and dedication were a pure thing, a thing it had never matched in anything it made. Wolf became something to envy, and Luna something to desire. When humans came and freed the idigam, Imadih Shedu saw a chance to take Wolf's place. It managed to escape by piggybacking on the communications stream of a satellite with some information and discovery spirits. Once it returned to Earth, it cast aside its name and tried many shapes as the deep envy of Urfarah consumed it. It learned that Wolf was dead, slain by the Uratha, and it even sought out the Wound where the bones of Wolf still lie. It claims it found Wolf's bones rotting in the First Wound, realizing that Wolf had failed - that something better had to take Wolf's place. (That is, it tells this to werewolves it captures and corrupts.) And so, the idigam decided on its form. It became what it called Ghal'urfarah Aya, the Great Wolf-Father. The Uratha call it Ninglul Aya, the False Father - shortened to Lul'Aya now by those that know of it. It claims it first Coalesced around Father Wolf's bones, copying them and covering them with flesh - and then improving on the form. Fur became fleshy tendrils coverd in stinging barbs, jaws became impossibly huge, muscles were left exposed to increase gait. Its true nature, however, is shown through as eyes, mouths and grasping arms manifest at times along its body. It has none of Wolf's noble features. It preaches, mostly to unwilling captives, of a new pack, a pack it will lead to hunt the greatest prey, which it creates itself to provide the best hunt. It even twists and warps its 'adopted children' into freakish wolf-slaves, Empty Wolves who cause righteous fury in any werewolf that sees them as the Heralds spread seeds of belief in the new Father. Rumors spread now about a great wolf-good of the spirit, which some fearful spirits name Father Wolf. You might hear about it anywhere - a giant wolf followed by gigantic, monstrous prey and savage battles. It destroys the land and enrages both Pure and Forsaken alike. It hunts out Ghost Wolves and offers them a place in its pack - and those that refuse, it turns into Empty Wolves, while those that accept become Heralds, which it names the Inim-Galag. They have had only minor success in recruiting Forsaken and Pure alike, but Lul'Aya does not mind. It creates prey worthy of hunting, as so many of Wolf's foes no longer exist. It tracks down apex predators - spirit or animal - and warps them into horrific creations, poisoning the local Essence and hunting its newly made prey. It doesn't care about the consequences or the balance of worlds - it just thinks that Wolf hunted, so it will hunt. Lul'Aya is a warped perversion of the Siskur-Dah and the balance Wolf maintained. It does not respect anything, and everything it does undermines all that the Uratha stand for. It doesn't understand what it wants - it just tries to dominate and enforce its will. It loves its Heralds, sure, but for their loyalty and their ability to warp minds. Those that believe its promises will soon find it impossible to disobey, and most of its 'pack' is Empty Wolves or corrupted spirits, which bear the scars of its 'improvements.' Mass die-off and withering of life occurs arround it, both in Flesh and in Shadow. The Lunes are enraged by its mere presence, its terrible lust for Luna, and it loves to taint Lunes, because it feels this improves them and gets it closer to Luna, whom it seeks to possess and 'love.' It does not understand why Luna dislikes this. The only thing keeping it under control at all is its desire to be Wolf, and so to have a purpose in its hunting. Lul'Aya is exceptionally dangerous - not as strong as Wolf, thank god, but definitely powerful and definitely warping the world around it, damaging the Gauntlet. It's easy to track, but catching it is harder - you definitely can't let its creations run rampant while you chase it, and by the time they're dealt with, it's moved on. Ideally, you want an alliance of packs or even a protectorate to deal with it, since it is a multifaceted problem. That said, alliance, clever plans and the pack bond are all major advantages it cannot reproduce. It has minions and monsters, but it lacks the family that the Uratha have and power of cooperation. It understands only dominance, and scorns humans and Wolf-Bloods as weak and inconsequential. It doesn't understand their value in the pack, or the power of teamwork. Even the Pure might be convinced to help fight the False Father and its monstrous creations - though that has its own dangers and problems. Alliances of that kind are always tense. Because Lul'Aya believes itself the apex of hunters and alpha of all werewolves, it believes it is strong...but it remembers that Wolf died too, and to the werewolves. If it is truly endangered, it will flee. If cornered, it will use everything it has to fight its way out. It is not as strong or brave as Wolf, but it is just as vicious, and in combat it could take on even multiple packs, especially with the help of its Empty Wolves and Heralds. It might even spawn spirits mid-battle to fight with it. There is good news, however. Its false pack of spirits cannot stand sunlight or the touch of weapons made from animal materials, while silver is even stronger against its Empty Wolves than most werewolves. Lul'Aya itself is Rank 4 and extremely dangerous in a fight. However, it does have weaknesses. Its ban is that it must hunt worthy prey every lunar cycle and cannot refuse a challenge to hunt worthy prey. It is also repelled by images of Father Wolf's death. Its bane is silver, which harms it much as it does werewolves. Further, it also suffers a second bane - werewolves with Purity 5, who are the true inheritors of Urfarah and so burn away its blasphemy. Next time: The Second Sun
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Jun 7, 2016 23:36
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They took Gargoyle's Puck's color scheme and sloppily pasted onto Anderson Cooper, amazing.
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Jun 8, 2016 00:01
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I don't think a villain write-up like with Payback should convince me the heroes are awful. This setting seems to work really hard to make you want to root for the villains because I can't think of another game line that would have a villain get not only such a bizarrely cruel backstory, be relatively normal person, and then also have him get defeated by a random person he wasn't even trying to fight in his quest for revenge and expect you to then go "yeah, I totally want to turn him into a cigarette".
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Jun 8, 2016 01:32
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Roland Jones posted:Every other game line is some form of, "you're a monster; how do you deal with your existence?" (Well, I hear Geist is pretty upbeat apparently; I don't know much about that one.) I'm going to re-inforce for the thread that I have trash taste, I actually really like the Sin Eaters. But, basically Geist: The Sin Eaters posted:Mood Here's the quick compare-and-contrast between Sin Eaters and Beasts.
Sin-Eaters may engage less with the 'I am a monster, how do I deal with it' dilemma than the other splats do, but at least they clear the low bar of 'Not a terrible rear end in a top hat' that all Beasts seem to set.
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Jun 8, 2016 01:55
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Oh, I wasn't ragging on Geist, since I don't know much about it and a somewhat optimistic game in the CofD isn't bad in theory. It's just that, from what I hear, the protagonists don't have their lives be awful by default as a result of being monsters, though I don't know the specifics, so it didn't quite fit into my point of most of the CofD stuff being about coping with being a monster or handling it in your own way, rather than reveling in it and being above reproach the way Beasts are presented.
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Jun 8, 2016 02:03
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Werewolf: the Forsaken, 2nd Edition Idigam #4 is Ansar-zalag, the Heavnly Fire. It is light and heat and fire, glowing from within like a star. Its core is vaguely humanoid but indistinct in the glow it spreads. All that is able to be seen is that it is muscular - everything else is radiation and fire. When it speaks, it has no mouth - its voice comes from all places and no place. It rarely speaks, and then only to boast. All other creatures are beneath it. Its presence is an uncomfortable heat, though not enough to burn - usually. It seems to fill any space it inhabits, and it is exceptionally unsubtle. It enjoys taking werewolf territory and raging against the werewolf descendants of its captor. It doesn't really care where or why - it just wants to destroy its foes. While on the moon, Ansar-zalag called out to the void. Eventually, something came - a star spirit, remnant of a supernova, traveled to the moon on a chunk of rock. It awoke in time to be enslaved by the idigam. When the Heavenly Fire came to Earth, it brough the star spirit, if only as a snack if required. When it Coalesced while trying to eat the spirit, it did so on the Moruroa atoll in the Pacific, reborn in fire and light. It charred the local plants and destroyed an entire forest, laying the groundwork for its own weakness behind. Now, it travels the globe, seeking nothing more than vengeance on the Uratha. It does not talk, except to praise itself as it kills. It might try to get you to surrender, but it will kill you anyway. That is all it wants. The thing about Ansar-zalag is that it is one of the few idigam that learned how to call out to the void and get a response. The star spirit that crashed into the moon was dying, but in its Resonance, Ansar-zalag tasted destruction, heat and fire - and it saw potential, in enslaving the remnant of one of the most potent events in the universe. It nurtured the spirit to health as best it could...and when Apollo 11 came, Ansar-zalag was one of the first idigam to make it aboard, one of the first to go back home. It and the spirit landed on the atoll, once used as a nuclear test site - perhaps drawn by a similar resonance to the weak star-spirit. Whatever happened, the star spirit was strengthened by it, enough to escape the idigam. Ansar-zalag gave in and Coalesced into its current form, and the star spirit probably escaped, hiding in the Shadow. Or perhaps it was consumed. No one can really say for sure, but Ansar-zalag sometimes seems to be searching something - perhaps that same spirit. The Heavenly Fire destroys and lays waste - that's it's nature now, a sort of spiritual equivalent of nuclear fusion, but not bound by scientific laws. If it were, the Earth would have been sterilized and destroyed already. However, its core is still heat and fire that can break down just about anything. It is an arrogant spirit, and so the idigam largely moves in straight lines towards whatever it wants, destroying anything in its way. It doesn't hide its path - but then, it doesn't need to, given the thing is both incredibly powerful and unlike any other spirit on Earth. It could briefly be mistaken for a fire elemental or a Helion, but it isn't really like them at all. Rarely, it will spawn lesser spirits from its own form to serve it. Sometimes, it runs into people that want to worship it. Usually, it destroys them, but if it needs someone to speak for it, it will make a herald. It rarely needs this. Occasionally, it will skip a territory entirely, for reasons no one can figure out. It appears to be entirely random, and finding out the reason might be very useful. One thing that is true, though, is that it never really goes after the Pure unless they happen to be in its way to where it wants to go. No one seems to know why, but the Pure believe it's because their ancestors did not help jail the idigam. Obviously, the Fire is not subtle. It's big and angry and it kills werewolves. It is always out there, killing werewolves somewhere. At least one pack, an Irish group called the Family, is dedicated to taking it down. They've not come close to managing it yet - indeed, they don't even know the idigam's ban and have yet to get a chance to learn it. They're forming an alliance against the idigam, but it's tenuous at best. Werewolves might learn of the Heavenly Fire from the Family and their leader, Euan, or they might run across the scorched earth it leaves behind it in Shadow. Maybe they run into one of the cults that form up around visions of its coming, hoping to placate and serve it. Taking down Ansar-zalag is a real challenge. It is extremely capable of defending itself, and can ignore most lesser attacks. It is gigantic and more than able to withstand a concerted assault. Fortunately, it largely acts alone - it has few servants and never keeps them for very long. It isn't good at delegating and doesn't enjoy doing so. In the rare cases it does require servants, they are mostly its own spirit-spawn, which it trusts more than enslaved minions. Its offshoots are named the Lilia'izi, and they mostly work as scouts. Occasionally, it acquires cults that tie it to various local religions. Apparently its coming is always heralded by prophetic visions, though the idigam doesn't seem to realize that. Some believe it may be the star-spirit trying to communicate and warn people. However, it does cause cults to spring up that worship and try to supplicate the idigam, and occasionally the spirit will enslave them and use them as Mulan Namnigir - 'Star Heralds.' The idigam itself is rank 5 and extremely powerful. Like, Armor 12 powerful. It is very dangerous no matter who you are. Its ban, however, is that it cannot harm anyone who carries a piece of meteoric iron - its attacks do not touch them, it cannot grapple them, it can't hurt them with area attacks. It can still target their mind, though - this is just physical attacks that it can't do. Its bane is any natural material from Moruroa atoll. In fact, weapons made from the atoll's rocks, coral or wood also bypass its Armor. Next time: The Mouth of the Depths
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Jun 8, 2016 02:25
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quote:Jump forward to 1969. The first human lands on the moon, and the silence of the Hisil there is broken by it. Many idigam flee the initial rush of Essence and spirits, unable to handle it. The strongest stay and devour the new sustenance. Four of them manage to get into the lander and ride back to Earth with it, landing in the North Pacific. Several lunar missions have happened since, bringing other idigam to the world. Some escaped by reaching out to the information streaming between satellites. They flew to freedom on that infromation. Those few idigam that remain on the moon are nearly insane with how close freedom is - and terrified that the Lunes will notice and make a new prison for them. So Idigam are Rita Repulsa and the werewolves are the Power Rangers? Can you play as them in some kind of Nobilis thing? 'Formless creatures that take shape around obsessions but constantly change them' are the first Werewolf characters I can sympathize with. EDIT: Didn't realize they were just creepy end-bosses. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jun 8, 2016 |
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Jun 8, 2016 02:31
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Big Mad Drongo posted:I wonder what it would be like to play the Beast who teaches the most valuable lesson of all, that Beasts are terrible and need to be wiped out. I already started thinking about a Beast that feeds on other Beasts. A teratophage, if you will. My end goal is to transcend the mortal world and become Gamera, friend to all children.
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Jun 8, 2016 02:40
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Roland Jones posted:Oh, I wasn't ragging on Geist, since I don't know much about it and a somewhat optimistic game in the CofD isn't bad in theory. It's just that, from what I hear, the protagonists don't have their lives be awful by default as a result of being monsters, though I don't know the specifics, so it didn't quite fit into my point of most of the CofD stuff being about coping with being a monster or handling it in your own way, rather than reveling in it and being above reproach the way Beasts are presented. The big thing about Sin Eaters is that they don't necessarily have a coherent society. Krewes and old loose collections of Sin Eaters exist but they basically have to learn about their society and the Geists accompanying them by jumping through an Avernian Gate down to the Underworld. And here's the thing about the Underworld: on a good day, it's Wonderland. Beasts may be all about FAMILY and LESSONS and THE DARK MOTHER and KINSHIP. Most Sin Eaters don't get a straight loving answer about poo poo. The Underworld is run by entities who enforce laws that don't make sense to normal people but they (the Kerberoi) view breaking them as horrible offenses, so don't break the law. Fulfilling a Vice in the Underworld gets you double willpower but it's emotionally unfulfilling, so people and ghosts try and break more to feel better. There are things that have been down there longer than the Kerberoi and they were possibly never human or Geists (not to mention that Geists are more like archetypes or distorted pictures than people). Geist, ultimately, is about living life differently after a near death experience and the adventures of trying to find out more about this world you've unlocked.
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Jun 8, 2016 02:43
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Young Freud posted:I already started thinking about a Beast that feeds on other Beasts. A teratophage, if you will. My end goal is to transcend the mortal world and become Gamera, friend to all children. I neat you to it with my Godzilla, King of Monsters, character pitch a few pages back. That would be the entire team, actually. Godzilla, Gamera, Mothra, the whole gang. Fighting other Beasts.
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Jun 8, 2016 03:26
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MonsieurChoc posted:I neat you to it with my Godzilla, King of Monsters, character pitch a few pages back.
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Jun 8, 2016 03:33
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Nessus posted:How apt, since Beast is like the oxygen destroyer of threads! I am become Beast, destroyer of game lines.
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Jun 8, 2016 03:49
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Being a Sin-Eater is rad, it's like being a Mage. You get all this awesome power and mostly the only downside is that now you can see weird stuff and you feel like maybe you should do something about it. And also other supernaturals. The first couple weeks of being either are probably pretty irritating if you're trying to spend some time being vaguely normal though. Sin-Eaters always see ghosts so maybe they can't stay over at a friend's place any more because that goddamn ghost with no eyes is there and won't leave and won't say anything either it just keeps not-staring. Meanwhile as a Mage you have an inbuilt weirdness detector so even if you're trying to use no magic whatsoever maybe you go about your business and on your way to work DING and you walk past some people DING and then you talk to your boss DINGDINGDINGDING and now you either wanna use your powers and figure it out, or have to live with your boss being maybe a vampire or a wizard or a werewolf or a disguised member of a lost tribe of monkey men and just never knowing except that they're something weird. And then you find out his snowglobe on his desk just has gravity reversed inside it.
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Jun 8, 2016 04:45
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Hostile V posted:The big thing about Sin Eaters is that they don't necessarily have a coherent society. Krewes and old loose collections of Sin Eaters exist but they basically have to learn about their society and the Geists accompanying them by jumping through an Avernian Gate down to the Underworld. And here's the thing about the Underworld: on a good day, it's Wonderland. Also, "Queen Gothel" gave me a chuckle.
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Jun 8, 2016 04:51
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm not saying that the worthiness of a WoD game is down to how it serves as a metaphor for being some marginalized person. But it's funny to me to point out, if vampires are criminals, werewolves are gangs, demons are spies, mages are detectives, Prometheans are homeless people, etc., the Sin Eater loose society, coupled with them not really having much of a problem, makes it seem like they're singing dancing romanticized hobos. "Oh, that means 'don't go in, ghosts inside will make you try to mutilate yourself'." "Uh huh. And that one?" "'Dog that sings in the tongue of the dead'." "And that symbol?" "'Sleep here and you'll dream about drowning in blood'." "Aren't hobo signs supposed to be general, not specific?" "These are the general ones."
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Jun 8, 2016 04:56
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"What does that one say?" (thirteen minute long ululative scream that causes skin to split and weep bees)
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Jun 8, 2016 05:00
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Ah yes, the rare "Centimani" hobo sign. Not to be mistaken for the Pandoran sign, which is actually a sleeping Pandoran, do not touch it, do not bring your cool new dead friend to look at it, my god what have you done, why are there toothed eyes there.
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Jun 8, 2016 05:08
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Hostile V posted:There's an example in a premade scenario called Dem Bones where a Sin Eater was bound to a Geist so old and dead and alien it barely acts human anymore. All it does, 24/7, is chant a snippet from the song Dem Bones. She can't sleep unless she's dead and she's taken to trying to kill herself to shut it up. Which is what it wants: after enough deaths, the Sin Eater's mind is gone and the Geist gets absolute control. I love Dem Bones unironically. It's tragic and a legit catalyst for an encounter but at the same time it's so silly. The geist in question doesn't seem to intentionally drive its bound host mad, but wherever it came from as a geist has taken it far, far beyond the human ghost it started out as, and now it's an especially thin spectre of a geist, really just an idea that has shed its context. So what does it do when it's left alone in its host's former body? It looks for graveyards, it digs, and it raises corpses back to life. No mind, no ghost, no aim. Just walking bodies. Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk all over. It's a wild animal loose in the city: probably too dangerous to leave alone, but it doesn't understand what it's doing well enough to be at fault. More the pity that Geist never had any mechanical backup or focus on the interaction between geist and bound. A good second edition treatment could make something really legit out of it.
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Jun 8, 2016 05:51
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I agree, I really love the tone Geist takes - and throwing in as suggested Geist signs is a really neat idea.
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Jun 8, 2016 05:55
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Geist does sound like it could be neat. Though, weren't pilgrim marks already a Promethean thing? Though I guess crossover between those two could work; one finding the other's marks could lead to some plot or other.
Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Jun 8, 2016 |
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Jun 8, 2016 06:32
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Yeah Pilgrim Marks are a direct Promethean thing. They're a spread-out people out of necessity so they'll use marks to direct people to important places, milestone sites or places that can help/tolerate them for a while. They can even inscribe them in Pyros so people can't view them.      
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Jun 8, 2016 07:04
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Kurieg posted:"What does that one say?" This legitimately made me laugh. I'm glad to hear people say nice things about Geist, to be honest. I've heard a lot of people denounce it as 'Undead superheroes that don't belong in the world of darkness', 'They have nothing to drive them to go on adventure', 'completely mechanically broken' and I get that negative response so often I've just kind of gotten used to it being 'that one splat nobody likes'.
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Jun 8, 2016 07:19
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Geist is by far the easiest and most rewarding splat to GM for if you aren't already heavily invested in WoD lore. Well Geist and Hunter, but I generally mixed those two for player groups.
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Jun 8, 2016 07:28
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 Chapter Three: Strains and Powers The good poo poo! Or possibly just the poo poo. This is the longest chapter in the book, and it's pretty much the definition of 'hit and miss'. (I've tried to break up the wall of text with pictures, some of which are pictures of text.) Powers are divided up by strain, and then each power has its augments listed after it. Augments come in two types: enhancements, which change the effect of the core power, and tricks, which give you a whole new power with the same theme. Augments also tend to have other augments as prerequisites, so you get these little tree illustrations to spell things out. I'm not going to reproduce everything, just give an overview and look at the stuff that catches my eye. Blasters
Blasters have to pick from a list of energy types when they choose their powers, each one of which comes with its own special effect on a natural 18+ (or 1-3 on a reaction roll). The types are cold, fire, force, electricity, gravity, light, and sound. A notable oddity is that Gravity Battery charges when the AMP is falling, not when they're just standing around, you know, being subject to gravity. Based on my (quite possibly flawed) understanding of gravity this is balls, and it kind of annoys me that it's here. Vampire is a bit of an odd fit for this set, since it mostly isn't energy-type-dependent the way the others are. The various powers also have a decent amount of overlap, which is handy since you're only ever going to get three. Battery especially offers a variety of powers through augments which function like knock-off bolts or fluxes. Bulks
 
Haven't got much to say about bulk powers. Biomorph is one of my favourite 'power sets' in games that have that kind of thing, although the ability to be immune to disease is just one of those things that's quite handy for NPCs and plot hooks (Typhoid Mary, anyone?), but entirely worthless for player characters. I'd be inclined to just hand out disease immunity for free to anyone with Biomorph, Regenerate or Accelerate. If anything, I'd be inclined to say that the bulk powers are too narrowly defined -- like Evasion could easily be a sub-set of Acceleration, or the two could offer separate entry points to the same augment tree. Likewise Biomorph and Regeneration, and Behemoth and Invulnerability. Unlike the blaster powers they don't really overlap, they just kind of... sit next to each other, a bit awkwardly.   Elementals
I really like these. They're kind of rubbish as secondary or tertiary powers because so much of their utility is in augments, but the top-tier augments are boss. Metal/Magnetism is kind of underwhelming, but I think that's mainly because it's in such excellent company. I'm not 100% convinced by the ability of fire elementalists to raise the dead. And for only 4 Juice a go! It doesn't sit well among their other more overtly 'burny' powers. The writing and editing haven't improved. Get a load of this power that turns into a different power halfway through:  aaaaargh In a related note, a lot of the top-tier 'natural disaster' powers have the problem of really strong fictional positioning but little to no mechanical support. For example, Chasm: quote:Creates a serious chasm that splits the ground apart or sinkhole that swallows up there area. Anyone in the area takes 5 damage and risks being swallowed themselves. A success on an initial Dodge check halves damage. None of this poo poo is defined. It's all just handwaved by the GM. Also, the spelling and grammar mistakes set my teeth on edge. The tornado and flood powers have more structure, but the effects are largely left to the GM. (Oh, and the tornado and flood effects specifically exclude the AMP who created them. Chasm explicitly puts the AMP in danger from their own earthquake.) Feral
Chimera has the augment Beast Form, which does exactly what you'd expect: lets you turn into your chosen 'attuned animal', but only +/- 50% of your own mass. It doesn't mention if you can turn into a giant version of a normally-small animal or a small version of a normally-giant animal, like a pygmy elephant or a 100 lb chaffinch. On the one hand games normally say 'no' to this sort of thing, but on the other hand you only get the one animal so it seems a little harsh to rule it out. But there's more! The Any Size augment expands Beast Form to... well. quote:Any Size (E3): Must have Beast Form. They can transform into their attuned animal as big or small as needed. I suspect it's meant to be an expansion for Beast Form to accommodate people whose attuned animals are whales or spiders or something, but the writing's so bad it seems like you can adopt your attuned form at any size you choose, from subatomic to skyscraper. And 'Claws' does not need to be its own thing, no matter how iconic Wolverine is. Mindbenders
Brainiac is fantastic, in an understated sort of way. Its core power includes the ability to commit information to memory at the cost of 1 Juice -- and as I've discovered, a perfect memory is an absurdly powerful gift in most RPGs. They can also pick up speed-reading as an augment, and commit the contents of whatever they read to memory as well, and two augments into their tree they can pick up a limited extra action power called Outthink; it only lasts for a few rounds, but extra action powers are always top tier. Oh, and the prerequisite for Outthink? Recalculate, which lets you reroll a failed check for 1 Juice. And reroll powers are also neat. I am a little disappointed at the absence of a metagame retcon power, though. No 'just as planned!' here. Mnemonics has an even better perfect recall ability, and the ability to screw with what other people remember and know about themselves is crazy powerful. You also get Taskmaster's power as a sort of free extra thrown in there. In this strain's 'bad rules watch' I'd like to draw your attention to Heartstrings. All of Heartstrings. Several of its augments list resistance rolls (Mental Trauma Resistance, which is Discipline + Empathy) but completely fail to specify the resistance DC. I think it's the roll mentioned in the core power (Heartstrings + Empathy) but I don't really know. But that's only the tip of the bollocks iceberg. One of the low-tier Heartstrings augments is Enflame. Enflame specifically doesn't permit a resistance roll as it's affecting an emotion already present. But what does it do? quote:Any already ongoing emotion may grow, effectively doubling any garnered bonuses or penalties from having said emotion. May grow? I dropped Juice on activating this power, so it had better bloody grow. Never mind that the only things that bestow numerical modifiers based on emotional state are four of the nine Heartstrings augments. See, this could have been saved by a simple sidebar like the blasters get for energy types: just a list of 'amped up emotional states' with their own mechanical effects, and an augment that lets you apply them. Then Enflame would have a definite effect! Instead we get all kinds of handwavy bullshit. Opposite Reaction, another low-tier Heartstrings augment, has the same problem: manipulating emotion-related mechanical effects, when such effects are vanishingly rare. Oh! Oh! And the top tier Heartstrings augment is Paragon, an ability which hits everyone within Persuasion + Heartstrings x 10 feet. Make a test to resist Fear! (That's Discipline + Empathy again.) Hope you stacked resistance, because the DC is 20 + Heartstrings and quote:Those who fail become the AMP’s willing servants and follow almost any order given (as long as it does not go against their nature or survival instinct). The duration is (Heartstrings) days, although in a tiny nod to reason the augment description does note that "targets are seldom happy to learn someone was pulling their strings, so dealing with a lapsed servant can be dangerous". Of course you can just blast them again, so who cares! You could also blast them with Opposite Reaction -- one of the prerequisite powers -- and they'd immediately stop hating you and think you were p. cool instead. That one doesn't have a duration, by the way, so it wouldn't wear off until someone reminded them what an rear end in a top hat you are. Let me further note that a starting character can take Heartstrings as their primary power and bump it to 8 with plenty of BP left over. Heartstrings 8 is enough to pick up the three prerequisite augments plus Paragon, so even characters who started with Discipline 10 and Empathy 10 have a 35% chance of becoming your willing servant every time you fire up your power. A typical NPC will have a D + E of +2, by the way, making Paragon all but auto-hit against them. If all you want is a legion of loyal followers you can fire it off at a football game, in a mall, an airport... anywhere there's a big crowd. But if you want to make the GM cry, use it in a police station. Or an army base. Or in your nation's chambers of government. Paragon is loving ridiculous. Psych Powers a.k.a. The Weird poo poo With No Other Category
*sound of mental brakes screeching* Hold up a second. The existence of Mediumship means something for the setting: specifically, that souls are real, that ghosts and hauntings exist, and that there is an afterlife such spirits can be sent to by augments like Put To Rest. This is important information! gently caress the science serum superheroes, the paranormal is real!
Mediumship has setting implications. Man. Even if you peel away as much of the 'soul' stuff as you can and ascribe it to 'what some AMPs believe', it still requires that ghosts and hauntings are real. The effect this sort of power would have on organised religion (including atheism) would be huge!  says this is never raised as a plot point in future supplements.Oneiromancy's got some sweet tricks (including the ability to travel to a real-world location that somebody's dreaming of) but its base range is touch and it only works on people who are sleeping. You can bypass both these restrictions with augments, but that just makes them speed bumps for some of the other augments which are obviously written with the intent that you bust them out in super-fights. I'd be inclined to just allow ranged and waking use by charging extra Juice. Overall I rather like the psych powers strain. Quirky, interesting, useful, and not colossally unbalanced. Even Visions, a power that normally risks being screwed up by a bad GM, has a mechanism which allows you to 'force' a vision and decode it with a dice roll rather than try to second-guess what your GM think dream symbolism should be about. Shaper
The existence of Blight makes my earlier derision about 'immunity to disease' being a power a little less confident. I still don't think disease has a place in superhero narratives except as a plot point, but Blight kind of sidesteps this by having handy poison/pollution powers as well. The Miracle augment in Luck is literally 'spend 4 Juice and the situation will end well for you'. Which is really kind of dull, given how cool a lot of the other Luck powers are. I'd like to point out that 'light' is an element that blasters can use, but 'darkness' is a thing that shapers play with. This inconsistency bugs me a little. Also, the Technopathy augment Tech Speak gives us the following gem of written English: quote:The AMP no longer requires keyboards or mouses to interface. "Mouses." FFS. Shifter
These are wholly straightforward. Moving on... Travellers The last strain!
A note on Portals: with three augments you can make your portals permanent. This costs 5 Juice a go (1 for the portal, 4 for the permanence) but if you can find a way to bump your 'resting' Juice from 3 to 5 -- relatively easy with the right merits and a good supply of cocaine -- you can very rapidly turn a regular house into a nightmare dimension. You can also grab an augment which lets you pull something of Size 4 (not defined yet, but basically human-size) out of any old pocket. Fun! Let's talk about Chronos for a second (or maybe longer, ho ho).  You know he has time powers because there's a clock on his t-shirt. For starters, Chronos is a heinous offender in the category of 'augment lists a check but doesn't tell you what the DC is and resistance makes no sense anyway'. I mean, about half the powers in this entire chapter end up in that category, but Chronos stands out to me. Possibly because I've been looking at it in more detail? But forget that. Two augments into Chronos you can get Blink (the check is Chronos + Discipline, the DC is not listed or obvious) which lets you freeze time for ten seconds (1 round). You can't attack people in this time but you could do stuff like pull the pin out of a grenade and leave it by someone's feet. Steal their sword moments before a critical parry. Deflect bullets in flight. Steal their motorbike and drive away. Snatch an important document and stuff it into your pocket. It's ten seconds of god mode and it's fantastic, especially if you've got the Juice to use it for multiple rounds. A typical character will start a fight with Juice 4, which is enough to use Blink twice. And then one augment more gets you Freeze Time, which is the same but costs twice as much and now you can just straight up murder dudes in your 10 second window. ZA WARUDO! ---- Thoughts: Aaaaaaaargh. There's a lot to like in the powers section -- blaster seems like a competently-designed power set, and I like a lot of the elemental powers. Some of the psych powers are pretty sweet too, in a 'weird and esoteric but surprisingly useful' kind of way. And reading through the power sections got me thinking about ways you could use them to set up antagonists and get some interesting super-adventures going. It got me thinking about potential PCs if I was to play this game, and I mean in more than just a 'look how easy it is to break this system over my knee' kind of way. But the writing is bad. Unclear in a lot of places. Several strains -- behemoth and feral in particular -- feel like they've been sliced into six powers arbitrarily, just in order to have six. There are some really odd choices about where powers are slotted, too, such as cramming Telekinesis into the traveller strain or Darkness control under shaper. I've mentioned before how wacky this makes the strain-specific drawbacks. Over and over we get powers listed with checks but no resistances. No passive DC, no indication of what any opponent needs to roll, nothing. There's a section at the start of the chapter explaining how powers work, how you use one in game mechanical terms, but if the powers line up with that it's largely by accident. And when we get to the mental powers in Mindbender the rules disintegrate into a mess of handwavy bullshit. Heartstrings is the most awful offender, but not alone. If you're going to make 'screwing around with emotions' one sixth of one of your power strains, you need more robust mechanics for emotional states than 'these other powers' plus 'eh, whatever the GM thinks'. Likewise for Mnemonics and Illusion, where the key ability is 'messing with what people believe' -- if you're going to do that, you need a more concrete system for noting what people believe and how that affects their behaviour. Masks can handle this. MHR can kind of handle this with complications and emotional stress. You can do it in Fate. But it doesn't work here. The handwaving continues in other places. Transmutation has a lot of powers which boil down to 'ask the GM'. Weirdly enough, although Visions' core power is pretty much nothing but 'ask the GM', it has some mechanical support that you can use to make it useful in the event that your GM isn't doing their part. Telekinesis' Fling augment "can deal additional damage" if you throw people into walls and wotnot, but no guidelines are given regarding how much. Just... this system is incomplete. It relies far too heavily on GM fiat to adjudicate the results of several powers, and that's a bad fit for a system not specifically designed around that conceit. Fortunately, next time: we cover the game system itself! Spoiler: It's got problems. ---- Oh yeah, hey, want a broken power combo? At chargen grab Heartstrings 3, Battery (fire) 2, and Fire Elemental 1. Use 11 BP to buy Heartstrings up to 6 and buy an extra augment, which lets you take Paragon and all its prerequisites. Take whatever augment for Battery you like. Stack Persuasion and Empathy because they're your Heartstrings skills. A fire elemental can "with a snap of their fingers" (and no Juice expenditure) create a spark that'll ignite combustibles or deal 1 damage, so you spend all day strolling about snapping your fingers like an extra from West Side Story and scorching yourself to the tune of 1 damage each time. Battery (fire) will automatically absorb this damage and turn it into Juice, ensuring you always have a full charge. Whenever anyone looks at you funny you blast them with Paragon and they (and anyone else within 110 feet) become your willing slave unless they can beat a DC 26 Discipline + Empathy check. gently caress it, you might as well take Power Addict for the extra 4 BP because God knows you'll be solving all your problems this way anyway. ---- Also, we can build Sonic the Hedgehog. At chargen take Athletics 10 and Speed 10, the Kid drawback, and the Sprinter merit. Spend 6 more BP to get Acceleration 6 and Chimera (Hedgehog focus) 2. Take any augments you like. Your base speed is now 35. If you choose Speed as the Chimera focus skill, it's now 37. With Acceleration, it's 43. Then burn two Juice to get the pumped-up versions of both powers and your Movement is now 270, which is about 18 mph. Feel a little slow? Well, that's because that's your walking speed. If you sprint that gets multiplied by 15: your Movement becomes 4050, almost a mile every 10 seconds, which works out to about 275 mph. Which is fast... but we can go faster. Ditch the Chimera. Where we're going, we won't need hedgehogs. Instead take Flight -- because like Acceleration, Flight multiplies your Movement (although only while you're flying). Go Unaffiliated, grab another five points of drawbacks, and spend all the extra BPs with some min-maxing shenanigans to get Acceleration 7 and Flight 6. Make sure to grab the Faster Flight augment for Flight, and whatever others you like the look of. This will cost you three Juice to power, but give you a Movement of 1974. You can take a casual stroll (well, float, since you have to be flying) at 60 metres per second. When you go all out this accelerates to 902 m/s, about two and a half times the speed of sound (~340 m/s) and more than fast enough to outrun bullets. Kiss goodbye to your windows, suckers! Oh, by the way: the Magnetism powers in Metal Elemental let you move metal objects around at a speed based on your Movement. Have fun! 
potatocubed fucked around with this message at 09:56 on Jun 8, 2016 |
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Jun 8, 2016 09:47
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) but the other options are things like possession and manifesting multiple astral bodies, which are neat and flavourful. (Also horribly broken when combined with 'intangible stab-woman' powers, but hey ho.)
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I guess we can say the only good thing Beast gave us is that it made Geist look better by comparison. (I agree that Geist has the potential to be a good game if you tighten the focus and give characters clear objectives)
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Jun 8, 2016 09:48
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Hostile V posted:Yeah Pilgrim Marks are a direct Promethean thing. They're a spread-out people out of necessity so they'll use marks to direct people to important places, milestone sites or places that can help/tolerate them for a while. They can even inscribe them in Pyros so people can't view them. Mors, please do Promethean next. It's a really neat line that people deserve to know more about.
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Jun 8, 2016 13:59
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