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Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.
Whats the ETA on release?

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Falconier111
Jul 18, 2012

S T A R M E T A L C A S T E

The Lone Badger posted:

Why the gently caress do people live in the Madlands again?

Because they're born there. And their family and friends are there. And they think anyone from anywhere else is crazy (they aren't).

Falconier111
Jul 18, 2012

S T A R M E T A L C A S T E

Josef bugman posted:

Speaking of things set in Glorantha that are coming out soon(ish) check out the art work on Six Ages: http://sixages.com/blog/

I may well attempt a starter piece to introduce people to Glorantha.

:justpost:

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Covok posted:

Whats the ETA on release?

Late this year/early next. The artwork is done, mostly, and the writing, but they are still ironing out the bugs.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

The Lone Badger posted:

Why the gently caress do people live in the Madlands again?

Presumably because other, much luckier people have all the other land.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Oh man, I just finished reading through the Savage RIFTS and I'm super-impressed. From a cursory reading...

  • Crazies feel like dangerous, unstable people instead of Looney Toons characters. Like, the character concept feels like it should be more Mr. Blonde than the Joker or the Mask.
  • The Juicers and their Burn mechanic is also interesting but I still feel that there needs to be a way to reclaim Burn for long campaign, especially since only one of them is remotely impressive. I feel like, for non-recoverable points that lead to the character's demise, the other Burn For edges should not be single use but probably something that's duration of session. It's recommended that for short campaigns, Juicers have 6 Burn points, and one-shots, only 4, plus the recommendation they should use them because they're going to die before the end of the session. It also feels like they're now more Fury Road War Boy, like I can imagine them burning all their Burn, chroming up, and screaming at the players to witness them.
  • Techno-Wizards are now Magical MacGuyvers.
  • Mega Damage apparently is really just Heavy Armor tag, and only really applies to Combat Cyborgs, Glitter Boys, and various mecha. The classic armors are just armor, no Mega Damage tag, although many do add to Toughness. Infantry energy weapons do not Mega Damage save for heavy weapons but various Rifts-staple melee weapons do to make them viable option for close combat. We also finally get Chain Sword stats.
  • Apparently the player's guide does not include Coalition forces as playable characters. They're in the Game Master's book, and it straight-up says Coalition States are Nazis in another name and even references the Webb and Mitchell "baddies" sketch.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Young Freud posted:

Oh man, I just finished reading through the Savage RIFTS and I'm super-impressed. From a cursory reading...

  • Crazies feel like dangerous, unstable people instead of Looney Toons characters. Like, the character concept feels like it should be more Mr. Blonde than the Joker or the Mask.
  • The Juicers and their Burn mechanic is also interesting but I still feel that there needs to be a way to reclaim Burn for long campaign, especially since only one of them is remotely impressive. I feel like, for non-recoverable points that lead to the character's demise, the other Burn For edges should not be single use but probably something that's duration of session. It's recommended that for short campaigns, Juicers have 6 Burn points, and one-shots, only 4, plus the recommendation they should use them because they're going to die before the end of the session. It also feels like they're now more Fury Road War Boy, like I can imagine them burning all their Burn, chroming up, and screaming at the players to witness them.
  • Techno-Wizards are now Magical MacGuyvers.
  • Mega Damage apparently is really just Heavy Armor tag, and only really applies to Combat Cyborgs, Glitter Boys, and various mecha. The classic armors are just armor, no Mega Damage tag, although many do add to Toughness. Infantry energy weapons do not Mega Damage save for heavy weapons but various Rifts-staple melee weapons do to make them viable option for close combat. We also finally get Chain Sword stats.
  • Apparently the player's guide does not include Coalition forces as playable characters. They're in the Game Master's book, and it straight-up says Coalition States are Nazis in another name and even references the Webb and Mitchell "baddies" sketch.
Yeah, Juicers feel a lot more suicidal now. Which is of course kind of the point, they turned all this poo poo up to max. It seems like you could reasonably give someone re-roll options if they were in a place where they were under formal care or not doing anything particularly dramatic, or if you had an extended stretch that wasn't very far separate in time terms.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



wiegieman posted:

Why do these "everything is hosed time to die slowly" games always take place in London? Can we do it in Chicago?

Wait, that's too much like real life.

The UK is similar enough to the US that you don't have to explain everything, but different enough to be a little exotic. Plus like someone mentioned, they got banged up by Germany in a way the US never will.

LaSquida
Nov 1, 2012

Just keep on walkin'.

Young Freud posted:

Oh man, I just finished reading through the Savage RIFTS and I'm super-impressed. From a cursory reading...

  • Crazies feel like dangerous, unstable people instead of Looney Toons characters. Like, the character concept feels like it should be more Mr. Blonde than the Joker or the Mask.
  • The Juicers and their Burn mechanic is also interesting but I still feel that there needs to be a way to reclaim Burn for long campaign, especially since only one of them is remotely impressive. I feel like, for non-recoverable points that lead to the character's demise, the other Burn For edges should not be single use but probably something that's duration of session. It's recommended that for short campaigns, Juicers have 6 Burn points, and one-shots, only 4, plus the recommendation they should use them because they're going to die before the end of the session. It also feels like they're now more Fury Road War Boy, like I can imagine them burning all their Burn, chroming up, and screaming at the players to witness them.
  • Techno-Wizards are now Magical MacGuyvers.
  • Mega Damage apparently is really just Heavy Armor tag, and only really applies to Combat Cyborgs, Glitter Boys, and various mecha. The classic armors are just armor, no Mega Damage tag, although many do add to Toughness. Infantry energy weapons do not Mega Damage save for heavy weapons but various Rifts-staple melee weapons do to make them viable option for close combat. We also finally get Chain Sword stats.
  • Apparently the player's guide does not include Coalition forces as playable characters. They're in the Game Master's book, and it straight-up says Coalition States are Nazis in another name and even references the Webb and Mitchell "baddies" sketch.

Pinnacle's also been responsive to feedback about some issues people have found, and they've already released the second round of .pdfs, which is great. I backed it mostly for nostalgia reasons, but now I'm actually excited to run Rifts again.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



LeSquide posted:

Pinnacle's also been responsive to feedback about some issues people have found, and they've already released the second round of .pdfs, which is great. I backed it mostly for nostalgia reasons, but now I'm actually excited to run Rifts again.

Looking forward to Kevin making GBS threads on it in the foreword of the next Palladium book.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
Mmf. This crow's a bit gritty, but I'm eating it for sending up the Palladium veteran alarm when the Savage RIFTS kickstarter went up. I'm honestly impressed now.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

Midjack posted:

Looking forward to Kevin making GBS threads on it in the foreword of the next Palladium book.

Or he'll alternatively take credit for the whole conversion.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
LatwPIAT, I had some more Phoenix Command questions, as I'm trying to learn the more advanced rules:

1. In the roleplaying rules, there's a rudimentary skill and experience system. Is there an official list of skills, or is that something that the players are expected to make up themselves?

2. Can you dumb down how to read / compute the Penetration Summary Table 3B a little more? I can't quite follow how the Armor Protection Factor and the PEN rating of a gun will line up to output a Weapon Penetration line. For that matter, where does Weapon Summary Table 3C come into play? Is that supposed to be a simplified version of using the specific PEN values per gun+round?

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015
BattleTech - A Time of War


Critters & Guns

Man, I need to get my act together with this one...

Planetary Conditions

A boring but necessary list of how terrain, weather and other planetary conditions affect the player characters. They again work just like in the BattleTech wargame (with some adjustments made to accomodate the smaller scale of the combat participants), so know that fighting on magma crust is bad while getting as many trees between you and the guy firing at you is good.

Creatures

Sir not appearing in this little bestiary. Normal rhinos do though, so I guess you can just beef up that.

As mentioned way earlier, actual intelligent aliens aren't really a thing in BattleTech (aside form some tool-using primates and primitive bird people from that one novel everyone has erased out of their head canon). As such, alien life primarily takes form as more or less exotic animals and plants.

Creatures are build roughly like normal characters, except they don't have a Charisma score and only three Skills to pick from: Perception, Tracking, and the awesomely-named AniMelee. The latter is used for all natural attacks (including a special charge attack known as a Ram Attack that adds lots of extra damage depending on the distance covered) and kinda cheesy, with its base Target Number of 5 (in a 2d6 + modifiers game). Seeing how the TN for human combat skills is a 8, this not only gives them a juicy advantage right out of the gate, but seeing how hitting your TN gives you a bonus (most importantly a counter-attack) even if your opponent has the better margin. All in all, it is very difficult to engage with an animal in melee combat without getting hit.
If that wasn't bad enough, the example combat gives creatures a point-blank bonus, which isn't actually a thing for melee attacks.
Thankfully, all example creatures presented in the book have terrible natural armor against ranged attacks, and they are easier to knock out.

The list of example creatures includes a lot of mundane critters (also rats and orcas, in case you want to shoot those). Much more interesting is the list of alien critters (most of which sadly don't come with a picture):

  • Alcor Bush Ape: The tool-using primates mentioned above. They cause general mischief and are the bane of the settlers of Alcor.
  • Branth: A friggin' dragon, able to spew forth poison.
  • Coventry Kangaroo: A genetically modified version of a normal kangaroo, now used as a mount.
  • Godan: Sounds like a kaiju, but is just a dog-sized lizard who hunts in packs.
  • Hipposaur: A gigantic six-legged thing with a hippo-like head and weighing almost 36 tons. Very docile and easily domesticated, it occasionally sees use on the battlefield. It can carry infantry squads and the occasional support weapon, and it has enough mass to knock down 'Mechs. If they have enough space to charge, they will turn you into fine red mist if you stand in their way. A full charge even deals more damage than a friggin' AC/20.
  • Nolan: When not busy making critically-acclaimed movies, Nolans spend their time as poisonous, demon-looking predators terrorizing the planet of Engadine. The human population has an annual hunt going on to get rid of the Nolans, but their strength and intellect has kept them alive and well so far.
  • Odessan Raxx: Big, six-legged and horned lizards who a favored as a camel-alternative in desert-like environments thanks to their bigger stature and calmer temper.
  • Ovan Sylack: A monster frog that is extremely territorial. Tends to surprise humans with a sudden attack as it spends most of the day chilling out and living off the nutrients gained by the chlorophylic bacteria on its back.
  • Steel Viper: A Clan totem animal. Unsurprisingly a big snake, with nasty venom to boot.
  • Syramon Thunderbird: Doesn't have anything to do with thunder or lightning, and can't even fly. What it can do is be trained as a guard bird. I can only assume they look like very vicious ostriches. Or maybe monster kiwis.
  • Tabinranth: Essentially a big feline, except docile. Kinda like a house cat big enough to use as a mount.
  • Tariq: Lizard ostrich mount thingies, and another camel-alternative.
  • "T-Rex II": Officially known as the Megalosaurus Tyrranus, but everyone calls it "T-Rex II" because it just so happens to look like a friggin' T-Rex.


Hipposaur will end you.

Diseases

This section is thankfully pretty short, and gives you random disease tables instead of listing off some made-up stuff. The book is also helpful to inform us that you should only ever have a PC catch a disease if it's part of the adventure.

Equipment

Everyone's favorite section: lists and lists of all kinds of shiny toys for PCs to get their hands on.

BattleTech is a big fan of letter codes when it comes to equipment, mostly using the letters A through F. Each item has a Tech Level (A for primitive stuff, F for super advanced stuff only the Clans were able to produce initially), a Legality rating (from unrestricted to top secret) and Availability (very common to unique). The latter rating comes as a trio of letters for the general eras of BattleTech (Star League, Succession Wars, Clan Invasion), with equipment that didn't exist during an era getting a X.
Some pieces of equipment are closely tied to a specific faction, and they feature a lower Availability everywhere else as a result.

The currency of choice in the BattleTech universe is the C-bill, but there's a table with exchange rates for 14 different other currencies if you're into that kind of stuff.

Weapons

Melee and Archaic Weapons

I've mentioned earlier how BattleTech lets you equip your infantry squads with all kinds of archaic weapons. Naturally, the selection for PCs is a bit big for a futuristic setting.
Unfortunately for all D&D grogs, BattleTech doesn't care much about individual types of polearms. What it does care about is Japanese weapons (except the naginata because that's a polearm). Not only do you get all your favorite types of Japanese swords (even a friggin' Bokken aka a sword-shaped stick), but you get two different Japanese bows, which are essentially just a short- and a longbow who sacrifice some range for more damage.

And in case you're curious: yes, the Japanese swords are better than Western swords because everyone but the clumsy No-Dachi get an Attack Roll bonus. They are a lot more expensive as a result, though.
The book also really, really hates axes, which is why get an Attack Roll penalty. They don't even deal extra damage compared to swords.

Modern melee weapons include various kinds of stun weapons, monowire and your daily dose of vibro-weapons. The Vibrokatana rules supreme of course. They all require energy to work at full capacity, though.
An interesting little weapon is the Medusa Neural Whip. Doesn't have much in the way of armor penetration, but you can add extra power for improved damage.

Small Arms

The big divide here is between ballistic and energy weapons. Ballistic weapons are a lot cheaper, tend to have more burst-fire weapons, and offer a nice selection of alternative ammo types. Energy weapons on the other hand have a much larger range, better armor penetration (not to mention that more primitive types of armor are essentially useless against energy attacks), and they draw their energy from the universal Power Packs. They're very nice for extended field trips since you can just keep shooting as long as you can find some way to recharge those packs, be it some small solar module or the fusion reactor of your 'Mech.

The list of guns is a bit odd in that it features both generic weapons as well as specific models, with the latter often being faction-exclusive. Having such a wide variety of different variations of the same type of gun (the generic Auto-Pistol alone has 6 different named variants) of course means the weapon list as a slight case of "the best gun", with say the Lyrans and the Free Worlds League having their own kind of Auto-Pistol that is just straight up better than the generic one, and not even all that much more expensive.

There's nothing much too say about ballistic weapons, as they just feature different models of pistols and rifles. Laser are similar aside from the pulse lasers (the only ones with burst-fire) and blazers (binary lasers, aka double-barrelled lasers).

Personal-scale Gauss weapons hurt a lot, even come in burst-fire versions and can have a pretty high range. Aside from their high price, they also combine the worst of both ballistic and energy weapons in that they need both ammo and energy to function.

Flechette weapons get their own list, featuring needler guns and shotguns. For Zero-G operations, you can get yourself some gyrojet weapons. Other assorted weapons include a dart gun, a 40k-like flamer pistol, and the nasty Radium Sniper rifle which lets you poison people from over 1 kilometer away o_O
A lot less lethal is the Buccaneer Gel Gun, which shoots gel rounds to knock down opponents during boarding actions, and the Ceres Arms Crowdbuster aka the Sonic Boom Gun.

Support Weapons

The ballistic ones come in their usual variety of machine guns and launchers for various kinds of exploding goodness. The energ ones of course feature various oversized lasers and pulse lasers. They also offer flamers and the first man-portable particle cannons and plasma rifles, which can easily intagig you. Heavy gauss weapons are also a thing.

Explosives

Your various assortments of grenades, mines and demolition charges. Of particular interest are the Vibrabomb mines straight from the wargame, which can be set to respond to a certain tonnage range. Perfect for using your Light 'Mechs to lure in some heavier enemies.

Ordnance

For your launcher weapon. The list itself is a bit boring to read as each type of ordnance is just named "Class [A to E]". They come in quite a fun variety, allowing you to flashbang opponents, set them on fire, or just spread mines all over the place.

Specialty Ammuniton

Some nice goodies for ballistic weapons. Change your damage type with explosive rounds, change your effectiveness against armored or soft targets, set opponents on fire, get some subsonic rounds for sniper duty, or tinker with your weapon's ability to shoot through walls and such depending on whether or not that would be a good thing for you or not.
Gyrojet weapons can also get guided ammo, which offers a nifty attack bonus.
If you want to make sure that a fleeing enemy won't escape you, you can get some radioactive rounds. They're not radioactive enough to harm someone (beyond the normal harm a bullet does, of course), but they do allow you to track them.

Weapon Accessories

Customizing your guns is always fun in these modern or futuristic games, and AToW has a nice selection. Various sights and scopes, stabiliziers, silencers... heck, you can even modify your gun to shoot around corners.
Holsters are also featured here (a bit overkill to have to track those), and if you are for some reason really into bows, you can dek them out with scopes, too.

More specialized accessories include Guided Rifle Modules (necessary for air-burst and those rad guided gyrojet ammo), a Cloaking Device (which is actually a stealth suit you wear that shields your weapons from sensors), and the Radioactive Tracker Scanner to keep track of people you tagged with your radioactive ammo.

Personal Protective Equipment

The different armor types here come in different variations depending on what hit location you want to have covered. Jackets, suits and vests cover at least the torso and maybe also the arms and legs depending on the exact type. If you're legs aren't covered, you can opt for pants or "Shorts/Skirts/Kilt", which sounds pretty amusing. The latter option is only good if you want to safe on mass though, as your flak kilts and ablative skirts are both more expensive than pants, and they offer slightly reduced protection.

The armor types include Flak (good for ballistic, okay against explosives, crap at everything else), Ablativ€ (the same for energy and melee), and the Ablative/Flak combination which takes the best protection of either of its specialized versions and reduces it by one. Flak or Ablative can beat it in their respective fields, but it's probably better to stick with Ablative/Flak just so you are not totally screwed if say the enemy turns out to be carrying lasers instead of assault rifles.

More than twice as expensive and heavy is the Ballistic Plate Armor, using modern polymers. It doesn't make you immune against pistols, but it will noticably reduce incoming damage.

Neo-Chain Armor is just weird. Oldschool chainmail made out of modern ceramic-metal composites. It's pretty much a worse Ablative/Armor, and probably only exists because of the Draconis Combine's samurai honor guard (because yes, that's literally what they're wearing to go along with their vibrokatanas).

Myomers are similar to the Ballistic Plate, with a heavier focus on ballistic and explosive damage. They do require energy to function at full capacity, though.

Concealed Armor is a modifier for all armor types up to Ballistic Flak. More expensive and with less protection, but they are naturally harder to spot and lighter.

Combat Armor Accessories

This is oddly where you find helmets, offering (of course) protection against head shots and also against flashbangs. They come in Flak, Ablative and Ablative/Flak. The Standard Combat Helmet offers more protection, but is bulky enough to penalize your Perception. The Advanced Combat Helmet offers more protection, isn't nearly as bulky, and it makes you almost immune against flashbangs. Also includes comm equipment.

Also listed here are combat gloves to protect your hands, boots to protect your feet, and shields that essentially act as portable cover.

If you're the heavy weapon guy of the team (or are just too wimpy to carry enough guns), you might want to check out the Load-Bearing Equipment, which boosts your effective carrying capacity with the help of pouches and holsters.

Gripper Gear grants bonuses to climb rolls. They include modified boots and gloves that offer a better grip, and a Grapple Rod if you want to play Batman.

Standard Armor Kits

And it's armor time again. The previously mentioned armor types are just your generic types of armor for your average Inner Sphere citizen. Armor Kits are specific sets of armor used by the various militaries of the Clans and Houses. Each piece generally combines various types of generic armor, and all helmets offer at least comm gear.

There are sadly no pictures or descriptions on how these kits actually look like (which just makes me nostalgic for Heavy Gear), but they all seem to be making use of Ablative/Flak and Ballistic Plate, seeing how their protection is generally between those two types.
Clan armor is of course the best there is (beating Ballistic Plate anywhere but explosive damage), followed closely by the Magistracy of Canopus and the Marian Hegemony.

Also among these armor kits is your standard set for MechWarriors (with regular Inner Sphere armor sporting this fun vest + shorts combo, while elite and Clan MechWarrior get a more animeish suit). AeroSpace pilots always come with an animeish suit to improve their survival chances should they find themselves getting blown out of their cockpit.
For Zero-G combat, you can either get yourself a combat space suit or a heavier marine combat suit. There is also the Tanker's Smock for vehicle pilots, which replaces the soldier's normal torso armor for incorporated cooling systems.

Exotic Armor

Why not. If you watn to run around like a samurai or knight, go for it. You can even fight the Word of Blake in Kendo practice armor.

Hostile Environment Gear

Your various masks and suits to survive in all kinds of situations. The funniest thing is probably that the list includes sunglasses. You're not only wearing them to look cool, but also to give you a slight bonus against flashbangs.

Stealth Gear

Sneaky suits in various kinds of sophistication, from a simple camo gear to an energy-powered Sneak Suit. Each of them offers different protection against ECM, Infrared and visual sensors.

Non-Combat Attire

Your typical clothes. Goes a little bit overkill in that it includes swimear, underwear, socks and hats.

Electronics

Man, there's a crapton of stuff here. If you want to find a specific way to sense, record, surveil or talk to someone, this section has got you covered.

The various Power Packs also come in a staggering variatey with different weights and capacities, and there are also different kinds of rechargers. The weakest, but probably funniest, is the Kinetic Recharger, aka a hand crank.

If you want to be a spy, hacker or thief, there's also various espionage gear, be it a simple lock pick set or forgery kits.

Miscellaneous Gear

Since this is one of those games where armor can get damaged over time, you probably also have to get some repair kits sooner or later. Characters can also be patched up, and there is of course your usual assortment of wilderness adventure gear.

Prosthetics

Prosthetics in thse kinds of games usually come as simple replacements for lost limbs that are at least as good as the old thing. AToW covers the lower end of the spectrum. Your peg legs, glass eyes or primitive hand replacements that are either purely cosmetic or merely reduce the penalty for missing a limb.

Prosthetics come in several ranked Types that counteract the respective Lost Limb Trait. Type 4 and 5 Prosthetics are generally enough to completely negate any penalty from a missing hand/foot and arm/leg, respectively. These even come with a little bonus (namely increased strength and armor penetration to unarmed attacks).
Type 6 prosthetics are Clan-exclusive cloned replacement parts, which completely remove the Lost Limb Trait. Though even Clan MechWarriors don't make use of them all that often as the whole procedure takes longer than a simpler proshetic.
If you just want to look pretty, you can also get yourself some cosmetic modifications.

A bit more far out there and expensive (up to 1.5 million c-bills) are Elective Myomer Implants that slightly boost your physical abilities. More Strength? Check. Better punches? Check. Better reflexes? Also check.
The most expensive of the all is the Enhanced Imaging Neural Implant. Required for ProtoMech pilots, and usable by just about anyone else with the right cockpit modification, this implant offers a deeper integration with your vehicle of choice, granting you bonuses to piloting, shooting and sensors at the cost of a higher possibility for feedback damage whenever your ride's internal structure takes damage.

Fore really crazy stuff like additional limbs or subdermal armor, you sadly have to go to the supplement.

Drugs and Poisons

A lot of these don't deal damage per se (some even offer a slight bonus), but can result in nasty addictions. You gotta lova any system that not only differentiates between different intensities of alcohol (Clanners apparently have the hardest booze), but also makes caffeine addiction a possibility.

Also here are rules to make up your own drugs on the fly.

Personal Vehicles

Various kinds of vehicles (in both the wheel and hover variety), planes and boats. Most of this is civilian-only stuff, or jeeps and other vehicles that could be used by mechanized infantry.

None of these vehicles make use of an expensive fusion reactor and make use of anything from alcohol over hydrogen to batteries. Also included is coal. There's not a single vehicle on the list that actually uses a friggin' steam engine, but BattleTech's vehicle creation rules insist on being able to make steam-powered vehicles for some reason.

The Fires of Hell

Oh boy. After almost getting TPK'd and only surviving thanks to the team's 'Mech otaku and his massive luck, the group spends what must be weeks in the wilderness, avoiding Word of lake patrols and almost getting eaten by space panthers.
They finally come across civilization again in a suspicious looking outpost. Storming the place was almost a bit too easy, but then they ran into what must be the entrance of a top secret WoB complex. which in turn resulst in another almost-TPK when a couple rad killer cyborgs show up. They even result in a few casulties, including the team's brick shithouse getting his arms ripped off. Ouch.
Barely surviving the encounter, the rest of the team finds out the complex is for the planetary defense system, which has just started to track the Lyran invasion force headed towards them. A bit random tension, but at least they manage to more or less save the day.


Looks like someone's having a blast.

Your BattleTech infodump of the Day: Combat Vehicles

Combat Vehicles include all your tanks, helicopters, hovercraft and other assorted rides to go along with your 'Mechs and infantry.

Combat Vehicles are handled in a more ismplified manner compared to 'Mechs and AeroSpace Fighters. They don't track heat (just slap on enough Heat Sinks during construction and you never have to worry about heat), and the exact location of your weapons and ammo is not all that important aside from turret weapons.
Combat Vehicles have the advantage of being not as tall as 'Mechs, and they have fewer hit locations, meaning each location is better armored. Their big disadvantage is their high chance of suffering motive system damage, rendering them immobile at best and pretty much destroyed at worst. A helicopter is pretty much toast if you hit its rotors, and BattleTech has strangely detailed rules to determine just how much damage you take from crashing (which is usually enough to destroy the vehicle anyways). They are essentially nerfed on purpose, what with this being a 'Mech game and all. Still, if you run into some 100-ton tank bristling with Gauss Rifles or AC/20's, you better watch out anyways.
Thankfully, there are optional rules in place to dial down the motive system hits, and you can even drift like a pro. Also those turrest with their 360° firing arc is nice, though they have a tendency to get damaged, fixing them in place.

Combat Vehicles are separated into various motive types, which sets their maximum tonnage and restricted terrain:

  • Hover vehicles can go anyways except woods, and only go up to 50 tons.
  • Naval vehicles are separated into Displacement Hull (aka boats), Hydrofoil and Submarine. All but Hydrofoil can go up to a whooping 300 tons, with Hydrofoils going up to 100.
  • Tracked vehicles aka tanks also go up to 100 tons like 'Mechs, and are only really stopped by deep waters and dense woods.
  • VTOL are the lightest at a maximum of 30 tons, but can go just about anywhere. Most VTOLs in this setting use rotors, and pretty much all of them look like normal helicopters.
  • Wheeled only go up to 80 tons and are stopped by pretty much anything that is not flat terrain, essentially restricting them to urban warfare or artillery.
  • WiGE aka Wing-in-Ground Effect go up to 80 tons and are airplanes that generate additional uplift by flying close to the surface. They're essentially faster VTOLs that can't just hover in place.

Now if you're wondering "300 tons sounds a bit light for a battleship", that's because naval Combat Vehicles are essentially patrol boats. Big dreadnoughts, aircraft carriers or submarines with ICBMs are too restrictive in the futuristic warfare of BattleTech, where invasion forces hop from planet to planet to duke it out with fighters and 'Mechs. They are only really seen on planets with lots of ocean, and even then they play more of a defensive role. But that's a topic for next time...

Next Time: Character Advancement. It's slow. Very, very slow. Like my release schedule.

LatwPIAT
Jun 6, 2011

gradenko_2000 posted:

1. In the roleplaying rules, there's a rudimentary skill and experience system. Is there an official list of skills, or is that something that the players are expected to make up themselves?

Living Steel and the other RPG setting supplements (like the Aliens Adventure Game) have skill list and even tasks with difficulties and stuff, though they're not nearly as detailed as gun/melee combat.

gradenko_2000 posted:

2. Can you dumb down how to read / compute the Penetration Summary Table 3B a little more? I can't quite follow how the Armor Protection Factor and the PEN rating of a gun will line up to output a Weapon Penetration line. For that matter, where does Weapon Summary Table 3C come into play? Is that supposed to be a simplified version of using the specific PEN values per gun+round?

I'm not sure I can dumb it down more than "Enter the left column with the target's Armor PF, go right and find the biggest number smaller than or equal to your weapon's PEN; it's column header is the Penetration Line you use." The Weapon Summary Table is just a quick reference for stats of the most common guns, so you can run simple games without referencing the weapon data sheets in the back of the book.

Personally I feel that the Advanced rules are actually more intuitive; refer to table 6D and you'll get a table where you cross-reference the Armor PF with a 1d10 roll, giving the effective PF (EPF) caused by things like glancing angles. Then calculate EPEN = PEN-EPF. If EPEN is a positive number, the bullet can cause damage. If EPEN > EPF, the bullet has more than twice the energy needed to penetrate the armour and is not significantly slowed. If EPEN =< EPF, the bullet is slowed and DC is reduced to 1. Then enter table 6A with the DC, EPEN, and the hit location to find the damage dealt. In the Basic rules, Low Velocity Damage is equivalent to when EPEN =< EPF, while Over Penetrating Damage is what happens when EPEN > EPF.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Midjack posted:

Looking forward to Kevin making GBS threads on it in the foreword of the next Palladium book.
When I read the foreword the dude wrote, he seemed to take some pains to say that this was an adaptation of the Real Palladium Rules Experience, but that he was positive about it and thought it was awesome. I imagine he's hoping that if there's a Savage RIFTS community they'll start buying the old copies of Dinosaur Swamp. Hell, wouldn't that be a trip, if he started redoing those books with Palladium-formatted Savage Worlds rules information?

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund
Glorantha



In the beginning was nothing. The world was not, and all around was one. The one was both nothing and everything, all at once.

However eventually a thing defined itself as seperate to everything. This something was called "Darkness". From Darkness came water. From water, earth. From Earth, Sky. Later there came the middle air, but we'll come to that. Then came the eight great runes. Harmony, disorder, conflict, life, stasis, movement, illusion and truth. These things ruled in the endless "just formed" world. They were the building blocks, and they were in partnership and opposition. They (or specifically Truth and Stasis) built a mountain, the biggest mountain that would ever exist. They chose to live their and began to try and understand more of the world that they saw and was building around them.

(Much of this is conjecture, no-one not even Arkat himself managed to breech the Gods War back to the very beginning.)

It was decided that more division was needed, as the concepts were too large to do certain things. Hence the "new" runes were created, and applied to all manner of things. The dragonnewts became the first sentient beings, Earth and Skys Plant children set themselves up on the foot of the mountain. The Darkness folk lived under the world, the human peoples lived in happiness, the stranger creatures began to proliferate. This is a time of building and proliferation in peace and (relative) harmony. As this happened though the old Gods became concerned. They were happy to be used by all who took joy in it, but were worried that they would not be the Gods that were needed for the people. So they decided to stand aside, and to let another rule.

That Other was Yelm. Yelm was a son of the the heavens. He was the perfect ruler, but he did not wish to see the world change at all from it's current state of perfection, and so he demanded that all things in the universe were catalogued. It worked, and all things in the Universe were brought to do obedience and to be "recognised" by Yelm.


This is the world at the beginning/middle portion of the Golden age.

However then Sky lay with Earth and bore a second son. His name was Umath. The middle air. His first act was to tear apart his mother and father and create the middle air between them. He moved throughout the world, changing and refusing to accept the emperors authority. Yelm thought that Umath was hurt, and so sent a healer to him. Umath said he was fine and continued to dance and fornicate across the heavens. Yelm thought he was ignorant and sent a messenger to tell him to come to the centre and be acknowledged by him. The messenger was told that he wasn't going to. Yelm sent a third messenger who demanded that Umath listen to him. Umath said something very simple "Make me".

And so Yelm made him, by hitting him in the face with a planet. Specifically the War God planet, Shargash.

Umath died, but as he exploded he had already made change a part of the Universe again, more was coming undone in the court of Yelm. His Perfect Justice was Unjust, his endless powers were no longer as good as they should have been. The doom of the Gods was already being written.

Or at least that is what the priests tell you. Shaman would tell you that the powerful spirits that made the world fell to arguing over differences, some of them became greater spirits and demanded worship, when they should have been content with understanding. Wizards would tell you that all of this was caused by the splintering of the Prime mover, who created the universe, and that the divisions were caused by simple inventions of that mover (water, fire, magic etc) becoming increasingly unable to listen to their instructions. The mystic would tell you to focus on what these stories would tell you about how the world appears, and to meditate on the runes themselves. For instance, why do all of the runes in the council of pairs look like they could fit inside each other?


And now you are enlightened!

The World

The world of Glorantha is one of Bronze and bravery. It is inspired by any number of ancient societies and cultures, but is built for gaming in. This is just the first part of what is hopefully going to be one of the largest scale tellings of what Glorantha Is in the hope that people can become more interested in this fascinating world.

Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Aug 7, 2016

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Oh man, buckle the gently caress up it's Glorantha.

(Praise Hrestol)

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Doresh posted:

I've mentioned earlier how BattleTech lets you equip your infantry squads with all kinds of archaic weapons. Naturally, the selection for PCs is a bit big for a futuristic setting.
Unfortunately for all D&D grogs, BattleTech doesn't care much about individual types of polearms. What it does care about is Japanese weapons (except the naginata because that's a polearm). Not only do you get all your favorite types of Japanese swords (even a friggin' Bokken aka a sword-shaped stick), but you get two different Japanese bows, which are essentially just a short- and a longbow who sacrifice some range for more damage.

And in case you're curious: yes, the Japanese swords are better than Western swords because everyone but the clumsy No-Dachi get an Attack Roll bonus. They are a lot more expensive as a result, though.
The book also really, really hates axes, which is why get an Attack Roll penalty. They don't even deal extra damage compared to swords.

Modern melee weapons include various kinds of stun weapons, monowire and your daily dose of vibro-weapons. The Vibrokatana rules supreme of course. They all require energy to work at full capacity, though.
An interesting little weapon is the Medusa Neural Whip. Doesn't have much in the way of armor penetration, but you can add extra power for improved damage.

Can I get a vibro-bow?
Can my mech get a vibro-bow?

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
loving Yelm...

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Midjack posted:

The UK is similar enough to the US that you don't have to explain everything, but different enough to be a little exotic. Plus like someone mentioned, they got banged up by Germany in a way the US never will.

The company that made Cold City and Hot War is British, so not very exotic for them.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

It's probably the post-Blitz psyche.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

It honestly fits for me. The BERB is established as loving with Twisted Technology in Cold City and they come back again in Hot War. Plus enough of the populace would remember the Blitz and living and surviving during it (of course, this isn't the Blitz, it's nothing they've ever seen).

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Hostile V posted:

It honestly fits for me. The BERB is established as loving with Twisted Technology in Cold City and they come back again in Hot War. Plus enough of the populace would remember the Blitz and living and surviving during it (of course, this isn't the Blitz, it's nothing they've ever seen).

Speaking of the games you were waaaay nicer to aspects of Cold City than I would've been. I mean, I love the way the game incentivizes building dice pools by playing to your hidden agendas and how trust can be super useful in a roll but even more useful if you betray it. It all feeds into a really nice cycle of escalating and conflicting interests that reinforces the whole Cold War espionage angle very well. But the writing in the book does it no favors.

The book is riddled with typos (yes I have version 1.1, there's a bunch that they still didn't catch.) They're never as bad as, say, AMP: Year One or anything by the WGA people, but it's stuff like failing to capitalize a word, missing a letter, etc. all over the book. Basically, the book needed one more pass under a fresh editor (or one pass at all). The editor could've cleaned up some spots where the important rules info is vaguely-worded or just awkwardly-written enough to make comprehension hard, too. This is probably a pet peeve, but I also didn't like how often the writers use "obviously". Like, if it was so obvious, why did you feel the need to say "obviously"? There's a few real-world references I could've done without in the game, too, mostly involving which alphabet soup agency is torturing what people at that very moment, plus the completely unnecessary mention of Unit 731.

Something about how they address contentious issues bothers me too. I mean, I do appreciate that they bothered to cover how to deal with Nazism and Stalinism in the game. And it's nice that they emphasize that if anyone is uncomfortable with those subjects on any level, those feelings should be respected and the topics should be not brought up in the game. At the same time though, it felt like the writers were giving too much ground to the ~story potential~ of playing a guard of a concentration camp. Meaning giving them any ground.

The section on that being here:

Traditional Games: I would discourage players from creating character histories that include war crimes, atrocities, genocide, and other crimes against humanity

It's still a good game that I enjoy a lot and would run/play in, but it needs one good, final cleanup to be excellent.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Yeah probably my biggest problem with Cold City is the typeface and the need for one last go-through of editing and revising the sentences and words. The big issue with the typeface is that it inadvertently creates weird fragments because commas are indistinguishable from periods (abundantly clear if you look at the snippets above).

You do make some fair points though; they do kind of cloak the "hey don't play Nazis" as "personally the creator of the game, you shouldn't play Nazis, but you bought this game and I can't tell you what to do, hopefully you're mature enough". Personally I just...gloss over stuff like that unless I feel it's egregious or just plain awful if I'm enjoying what I'm reading enough. I like to confer the spirit and fun stuff of a game that's won me over more than the faults because sometimes it's kinda hard to review a fun/good/notable game! But yeah. It could use one last pass and a little altering to really shine.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Josef bugman posted:

For instance, why do all of the runes in the council of pairs look like they could fit inside each other?


And now you are enlightened!
I only see it for truth/illusion. :confused:

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Nuns with Guns posted:

At the same time though, it felt like the writers were giving too much ground to the ~story potential~ of playing a guard of a concentration camp. Meaning giving them any ground.
I think this was unusually prolix, but given the time and specific locale of the setting they would have to address it somehow, and it is not as if "was involved in/a witness of atrocities during the war" is a rare trope in characters in similar settings. If anything it seems to be taking pains to also discourage Russian characters, which is understandable if also kind of dismissive.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Hostile V posted:

Yeah probably my biggest problem with Cold City is the typeface and the need for one last go-through of editing and revising the sentences and words. The big issue with the typeface is that it inadvertently creates weird fragments because commas are indistinguishable from periods (abundantly clear if you look at the snippets above).

You do make some fair points though; they do kind of cloak the "hey don't play Nazis" as "personally the creator of the game, you shouldn't play Nazis, but you bought this game and I can't tell you what to do, hopefully you're mature enough". Personally I just...gloss over stuff like that unless I feel it's egregious or just plain awful if I'm enjoying what I'm reading enough. I like to confer the spirit and fun stuff of a game that's won me over more than the faults because sometimes it's kinda hard to review a fun/good/notable game! But yeah. It could use one last pass and a little altering to really shine.

Yeah, I can get why you wouldn't want to get hung up on it. Speaking of, are you going to do coverage for A|State after Hot War? It was published before the other two books but a lot of people speculate that it might be a sister game/what-if of Hot War.


Nessus posted:

I think this was unusually prolix, but given the time and specific locale of the setting they would have to address it somehow, and it is not as if "was involved in/a witness of atrocities during the war" is a rare trope in characters in similar settings. If anything it seems to be taking pains to also discourage Russian characters, which is understandable if also kind of dismissive.

It still feels mealy-mouthed to waffle like that to me. Especially since one of the covert agencies players can be part of in Cold City is explicitly stated to be composed largely of ex-SS and Gestapo members.

Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Aug 7, 2016

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Doesn't really help that Gehlen Org was a real thing and it was in fact notorious for the fact that a lot of ex-SS and Nazis joined the group to escape the public eye. Also to answer your question, no, I didn't really have anything planned for a/state. I thought someone tried to cover it in the past but I may just be getting old memories mixed up, there's some inkling in my head about a semi-dystopian city where the PCs are enlightened and trying to make their way but for the life of me I can't recall. I don't have much planned beyond finishing BNW and Hot War and maybe starting Corporation but I'll consider it, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Funny story: I found out about Hot War because of Unhallowed Metropolis, Tasoth mentioned it and I actually have owned both that and Cold City for years and didn't really look into it until recently. So thanks, Tasoth. Hot War was way better than Unhallowed Metropolis ever could be.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Hostile V posted:

It honestly fits for me. The BERB is established as loving with Twisted Technology in Cold City and they come back again in Hot War. Plus enough of the populace would remember the Blitz and living and surviving during it (of course, this isn't the Blitz, it's nothing they've ever seen).

Yeah, some of this is reminding me of Quartermass And The Pit, namely the burned out house next door to the subway (or above the Martian rocket), except all of the world is probably in that last ten minutes of the movie.

Also, "Soviet Mobile Biological Weapons" has got to be the most British term I've read for a game. No slang, no mythical allusions, just straight and to the point.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



They're probably not actually soviet, though I bet they're mobile.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

LatwPIAT posted:

Living Steel and the other RPG setting supplements (like the Aliens Adventure Game) have skill list and even tasks with difficulties and stuff, though they're not nearly as detailed as gun/melee combat.


I'm not sure I can dumb it down more than "Enter the left column with the target's Armor PF, go right and find the biggest number smaller than or equal to your weapon's PEN; it's column header is the Penetration Line you use." The Weapon Summary Table is just a quick reference for stats of the most common guns, so you can run simple games without referencing the weapon data sheets in the back of the book.

Thank you! That actually makes a lot of sense and I got that immediately the way you said it.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

The Lone Badger posted:

Can I get a vibro-bow?
Can my mech get a vibro-bow?

Sadly not. There is no "modern" bow, only explosive and incendiary arrows. There's also no 'Mech-sized bow of any kind (not sure of a 'Mech even has enough dexterity to pull a bow string), but you can always get a gun or misisle launcher that looks like a bow.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008



Part Four: Equipment

Let's be honest here; regardless of what it's about, a sci-fi game can live or die on its gear. And the problem with that is that it's very easy to wind up with the classic list of hundreds of weapons and armor and such, each of which only differs from the others by a point or two. It can also lead to the "best gun" problem that was discussed upthread, where there's always one or two guns that are objectively better than all the others, so everyone uses them, leaving most of the equipment list untouched.

So how does Fragged Empire deal with these potential problems?

Equipment falls into three categories: weapons, outfits (armor), and miscellaneous items. Miscellaneous items are just that; the stuff you buy via Resources or Spare Time rolls and you're set. There's a page-long list of stuff to buy, like communication headsets or tablet computers or backpacks and whatnot.

Weapons and outfits, however, are handled in a more general fashion. Instead of providing a long list of twenty slightly different pistols, then a list of two dozen slightly different rifles, and so on, FE provides generic weapon and outfit types, then allows the player to customize them in a few different ways.

Weapons fall into four broad categories that line up with the weapon skills: Small Arms, Heavy Arms, Tactical, and Exotic. Each weapon has a short list of generic weapon types; for instance there are only five types of small arms: pistols, SMGs, rifles, assault rifles, and shotguns.

Here's the stat line for a base rifle:


And here's the stats for a chemical thrower:


We've talked about a few of these numbers already, but to summarize:
  • Hit is the bonus to your attack roll.
  • End Dmg is how much Endurance damage the weapon does on a normal hit.
  • Crit is how much Attribute damage the weapon does on a critical hit.
  • Rng is the range increment; for every Rng squares between you and the target, you get -2 to hit.
  • Clips is how many reloads you get with the gun. You can buy more, of course, but this is the "default" number of extra clips you get.
  • Ammo is how many shots you have per clip. Ammo is generally based off a gun's RoF, so if you increase a gun's RoF then the gun's ammo is automatically increased to take that into account.
  • Load is how many item slots the weapon takes up once we get to the inventory system.
  • RoF is the maximum number of shots you can make per action; each shot after the base first gives +1d6 to your attack roll. Each shot you use up to a weapon's RoF costs one ammo.
  • Wgt is the weight of the weapon.
  • Weapon Type lists keywords that tie into the weapon modification system.
  • Cost is how many Resource Points the item requires, or what the Spare Time roll is to aquire it. Some items do require both: the Spare Time roll to get the weapon, and the Resource cost to maintain it.
Below the stat line are the special rules for that particular weapon. For instance, a rifle has "Strong Hit (5-6) with all RoF 1 Attack Rolls", which means that when you make a single-shot attack with the weapon you score Strong Hits on a 5 or 6 instead of just a 6.

The chemical thrower is Slow (does nothing on its own, but is a keyword that can trigger other stuff), Jam 1-5 (the weapon will jam on rolled triple values of 1-5), targets get -1 Cover step against attacks with this weapon, and if you make a Spread Fire attack then you get +1d6 to each attack roll.

Once you have your base weapon, you can adjust its numbers and/or add on new capabilities through the use of Variations and Modifications.

Variations are changes that affect the fundamental style of the weapon, such as turning a normal pistol into a gauss pistol or installing a chem injector into a sword. Variations also come in different categories ("gun variations", "chemical variations", "melee shape variations", etc.) that determine what variations can be put on which weapons, but a weapon can only have one variation per category. So you can turn a generic pistol into a gauss pistol (+1 RoF, but can jam) or a bio-tech spine launcher (lower ammo and Crit, but higher End Dmg and RoF), but you can't have both traits on the weapon.

Modifications, on the other hand, are only limited by your ability to pay for them. These are things like targeting scopes, tripods, extra clips, and so on.

By way of example, let's trick out a rifle. I start with the standard rifle above, and I have the option of adding one Gun Variation and one Gun Size Variation. For the Gun Variation, I'll take "Self-Propelled"; this increases the Range stat by 1, and adds the "Low Tech" and "Works in Liquid" traits. There's only three Gun Size Variations (Body Mounted, Mounted Weapon, and Tiny) so I won't take any of those.

For mods, I'm going to add a Laser Sight (+1 hit), a Targeting Matrix (adds +2 to hit if the target is Locked On, loses Low Tech), a Tripod (+1 Weight, halves range penalties while deployed and shooter is prone), and a spare clip (obvious).

Now I look at the costs of all this. The Gun Variation has a cost of +0, so that doesn't affect the cost of the rifle. The modifications all have separate Spare Time costs, generally 12t or 14t.

And just for fun, let's add a grenade launcher onto the rifle. Grenades are "Shell, Thrown", which means it can be either fired from a launcher or thrown by hand. Grenades have the following stat line:


Again, I can add one Shell Variation and one Gun Size Variation. For the Shell Variation, I'll make them shrapnel grenades; +2 End Dmg, -1 Crit Dmg, +1 Splash radius, and Low-Tech. For the Gun Size, I'll take "Mounted Weapon". That gives -1 to End Dmg, Crit, Rng, and Clips, but turns the grenade into an item that's attached to another weapon, granting me the Strong Hit option Combo Strike: if my rifle attack hits, I can make a free attack with the grenade launcher at the same target with -2 to hit.

The final stats of my custom rifle are:

quote:

Rifle With Underslung Grenade Launcher
Hit -1 End Dmg 3, Crit 4, Rng 6, Clips 3, Ammo RoF x4, Load 2, RoF 1*, Wgt 4, Weapon Type Gun, Cost 3
*Strong Hit (5-6) with all RoF 1 Attack Rolls, Works in Liquid Laser Sight, Targeting Matrix (+2 when Locked On), Tripod (Set Up 2, Pull Down 1, Arc of Fire 45, *Half Range Penalties while Prone with Sighted Shot Action)

Shrapnel Grenade Launcher
Hit -2, End Dmg 7, Crit 3, Rng 1, Clips 1, Ammo RoF x1, Load 1, RoF 1, Wgt 0, Weapon Type Launcher, Cost 1
Splash 3, Small, Slow, Low-Tech, Strong Hit: Combo Strike (Hit) Make a free Attack with Main Weapon at the same Target with Hit -2
Obviously, you don't have to get that nuts with weapon customization since that's not a super-practical weapon, but man it's really fun to do so.

(It's interesting to point out that one of the listed melee weapons is a metal chair, which means it can be modified as per normal rules. So your character could have a pair of retractable, biotech, fightin' chairs balanced for dual wielding and covered in nano-bone spurs. Whether you think that's a bug or a feature is, of course, entirely up to you.)

Two interesting weapons on the Exotic weapons list are actually pets: the Legion Hound and the Nephilim Beast. They're stand-alone NPCs, but it's worth noting that while the Hound can't be modded, the Nephilim Beast can, so you can give it all kinds of fun biocyber add-ons. Yikes.

If you really want to go nuts with weapon modifications, you can make a Prototype Weapon. Prototype weapons require some sort of Secret Knowledge to aquire (so start researching), not to mention a good outlay of Resources. But the upside is that you can now pick options off special "Prototype weapon variation" lists.


A few examples

One tactical weapon I haven't really gotten into are drones. Drones are basically autonomous weapons you can control during a combat. I touched on these briefly in the Combat chapter, but the short version is that they're mini-NPCs that can follow basic instructions, but are generally used to provide fire support. They're considered Tactical weapons, and have their own stat blocks. They can also be tweaked out in various ways as per the normal weapon rules.

The book also provides a bunch of pre-made "common" weapons, so you can get something effective without having to dig into the customization system.




Outfits and their related modifications work like weapons; you pick a base piece, add one variation and as many modifications as you want. Outfits also have a few stats:
  • Armor is the flat reduction of Attribute damage.
  • Defense is is added to your Defense value.
  • Endurance adds to your Endurance value.
  • +Cover provides free steps of Cover when you're actually in cover. This is mainly for your Stealth suits.
  • Front Cover grants you a bonus to attacks made from a 90 degree arc in front of you. This is one of the few times facing matters in the game.
  • Slots is how much inventory space the outfit gives you.
  • Weight is the minimum Str needed to use the armor effectively. If your Str is below the outfit's weight, you're overburndened and suffer a Defense penalty.
  • Cost is the maximum number of shots you can make per action; each shot after the first gives +1d6 to your attack roll. Each shot you use up to a weapon's RoF costs one ammo.

One of your base outfit options is "Clothing", which provides no armor but gives a +1 to Conservation rolls. However, you can take normal clothing and add things like Shield Nodes (provides an energy shield), an Auto-Med system (can use a stimpack as a free action), a Tactical System (built-in comms), and make it Personalized (takes up less inventory space just for me, takes up more and weighs more for anyone else). Now you've got a nice three-piece suit with some defensive capabilities.

It's important to note that there's no real way to increase an Outfit's inherent armor bonus. If you want decent armor, you need to pick an outfit with decent armor out of the gate. Which makes sense; that way you don't have to worry about people taking a suit of clothing and slapping armor mods onto it until their coveralls are as good as a full suit of tactical armor.

And once again, there's a bunch of sample outfits to work with.


Next, there's Utility Items. Utility Items are your special pieces of gear that serve a specific purpose. You can only have one Utility Item equipped at a time, but that's because they're involved pieces of hardware. These are things like drone control modules, stealth nets, a high-end targeting system, and so on. These items are straightforward off-the-rack stuff that can't be modded.



Last up are Miscellaneous Items. This is pretty much the "everything else" category; flashlights, headsets, medical supplies, etc. One important item to point out here is the alcoholic energy drink Draz. Draz is a Corp-made superdrink that costs 14t and removes your need to sleep for one night, granting you a Spare Time Point. It can also be cooked up into an addictive meth-like drug that will grant temporary Armor for a few rounds, after which it deals unavoidable damage to one of your physical attributes that can't be healed without substantial medical work. Oh, and it's addictive as hell, too.

All this now begs the question "how much of this crap can I drag around?". The way inventory works in FE is that you have a number of Equipment slots based on your Outfit, Utility Items, and Traits. Each non-Outfit item takes up an number of slots equal to its Weight. Your Outfit (and possibly Utility Item) will determine how many slots you have. Weight 1 items can be used one-handed, Weight 2+ items require two hands to use.

And that's really it. It's an interesting take on the whole "gear porn" concept because instead of giving you two dozen pages of items, of which only maybe ten items will see real use, players can tweak their gear to their personal needs. It's not complicated outside of there being a bunch of options to choose from, but at least it's a front-loaded difficulty. Once the item's built, you're set. The one thing I wish they had was a spreadsheet you could just pick options from to do the math for you, just for ease of use. I'm sure it'd be relatively easy to do for people who speak Excel.

We're going to cover starships next, and unsurprisingly we're going to see some interesting similarities to the equipment section.

NEXT TIME: To infinity and beyond.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.
so who's gonna call dibs on this:

quote:

Announcing the Invisible Sun RPG

Posted on August 6, 2016 by Sean Reynolds

Do you dream of escape, but don’t know from what, or to where? Looking for a chance to escape the insanity of the world, and immerse yourself into something rich, deep, and fantastical? Something that challenges the limits of your creativity as well as your intellect?

If so, then join us. Escape the Shadow of the real world and find the Invisible Sun. Enter a new Actuality of surreal fantasy where mystical characters wield fabulous powers and struggle to discover the secrets of true existence

Invisible Sun is the new roleplaying game by Monte Cook. Its focus is in deep immersion storytelling. Its mechanics and gameplay are tailored around overcoming the barriers to that immersion. Magic is not mechanical, but truly magical. Character creation and development is based around story arcs. And we’ve gone further than that. Because we know the challenges gamers face in the modern world, with conflicting schedules and sometimes distant players, Invisible Sun does something different. It embraces traditional tabletop play, but enhances it with away-from-the-table activities, rules to deal with absent players, solo play, online play, and more. All the barriers are down. All doors are open.

Invisible Sun is adult. It’s imaginative. It’s intricate. It’s a challenging game, not because it’s difficult to play (it isn’t) but because it’s deep. It’s not for everyone, but for those of you who want something deep, lush, and intelligent, it’s what you’ve always been waiting for.

It’s a sophisticated approach to roleplaying for people with busy lives but who still thrill at the idea of really immersing themselves into another world whenever they get a free moment. It’s not for everyone, but for those of you who do want something deep, lush, and intelligent, it’s what you’ve always been waiting for. The Kickstarter, which launches August 15th, even offers a backer level with something called the Directed Campaign, where Monte himself feeds you ideas, handouts, art, maps, and direction on a monthly basis once your campaign starts.

Invisible Sun is a roleplaying game that extends play beyond the table to accommodate the busy schedule of your life. Play at home with your friends, play online, play one-on-one with the GM at the coffee shop. Become engrossed in compelling stories, with characters as complex and interesting as any in fiction.

Escape.



Invisible Sun is deep. It’s smart. Just like you.

Invisible Sun will change the way you play roleplaying games.

Kickstarter August 15th

invisiblesunrpg.com

pathofsuns.com will update each day between now and August 15 with in-character audio quotes

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
Didn't SKR have another different RPG project where it soon became embarrassingly obvious that he was still very much in the 3.5e/PF mindset, replete with long long paragraphs of limitations on a Monk's unarmed strikes?

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Yeah, Five Moons, which is apparently still in playtesting. I remember it because he was so proud of stuff like getting rid of Vancian casting and giving fighters access to fun things to do.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer

quote:

Invisible Sun is deep. It’s smart. Just like you.

That whole thing reads like a Shadowrun parody ad, but this is just beyond absurd.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

First of all, a The Police RPG? Neat! I was getting tired of playing the Genesis RPG (even if Land of Confusion was my favorite source book). Second I hate the name and I hate that the invisible sun is apparently a real thing. Third oh my god you are writing checks you can't hope to properly cash by claiming your game is to be so adaptive to exist in such a fluid way. It's just so impressively loaded with buzzwords it just immediately rings false the moment you look at it. Finally, surreal fantasy sure sounds like a spin on "it doesn't have to make sense, gently caress you" plus it's hard to do surreal anything well.

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Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

Especially as no one can agree on what 'Surreal' means.

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