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quote:If you want to include Heroes that break with this narrative role, go ahead! The prevailing thought among Beasts is that Heroes are dangerous and violent, because that’s the type of Hero they tend to find. Again, thematically speaking, breaking narrative assumptions and recognizing that easy labels aren’t so useful is very much in keeping with Beast quote:If the Hero is a sympathetic character, driven to hunt monsters by the relentless attacks of the supernatural, then you might be better served checking out Hunter: The Vigil (and perhaps using Beasts as antagonists). If, however, the Hero has deliberately shunned other people, defining himself by what he is not, what he hates, or the wrongs done to him, that’s a perfect candidate. Beast is all about breaking assumptions and subverting expectations! Do not deviate from the following assumptions.
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Oct 21, 2016 07:14
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I'm not saying this is an absolute necessity for all World of Darkness games. I don't have any deep reading into if or how it serves a greater purpose. But... The character types of every WoD game thus far has been pegged as an analogue for some kind of marginalized group. Vampires are immigrant gangsters. Werewolves are gangs and cops. The Promethean are homeless. Mages I've often heard compared to detectives. Changelings are trauma victims and the chronically ill. Demons are spies. What are mummies and demons?
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Oct 21, 2016 14:27
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm not saying this is an absolute necessity for all World of Darkness games. I don't have any deep reading into if or how it serves a greater purpose. But... Mummies are the elderly. I'd peg demons more as schizophrenics than spies, honestly.
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Oct 21, 2016 14:55
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Beasts are the groups society marginalizes -for good reason-.
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Oct 21, 2016 14:58
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Kaza42 posted:Mummies are the elderly. I'd peg demons more as schizophrenics than spies, honestly. Hunters are vigilantes and protestors - Y'all Qaeda or BLM as you prefer on a case by case basis. Slashers are compulsive criminals.
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Oct 21, 2016 14:59
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Demons are la resistance or subversives, depending.
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Oct 21, 2016 15:00
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Kurieg posted:It doesn't help that the examples given aren't at all a representation of how a Rashoman story works, and it's not the best example of a Kishotenketsu. That's actually the opposite of what the movie Rashomon is about
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Oct 21, 2016 15:01
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The slavish attention to the script is, and background details and themes keep showing up. The things that do stay the same are important. You're supposed to be able to slowly solve the puzzle as the story goes along but Beast suggests the minute people start putting things together to throw a curve ball because they aren't supposed to do anything until act 4. It just feels like shoving a group of people into the middle of a Rashoman story because you've systematically destroyed any other meaningful plot structure that your game could follow is putting the emphasis in way the wrong place.
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Oct 21, 2016 15:19
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Mummies are overseers who are given authority over other slaves to distract them from protesting their own slave status.
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Oct 21, 2016 15:22
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Rand Brittain posted:Mummies are overseers who are given authority over other slaves to distract them from protesting their own slave status. (Are they terrorists?)
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Oct 21, 2016 15:28
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Halloween Jack posted:Well, Mummies are servants of an ancient culture, that they're still loyal to despite its decreasing relevance. They manipulate and command sympathetic, but essentially normal people to help their cause. They're capable of great mayhem when they first appear, which diminishes over time. No, they're the Tea Party.
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Oct 21, 2016 16:01
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Kavak posted:Beasts are the groups society marginalizes -for good reason-. Beasts are serial killers.
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Oct 21, 2016 16:03
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But we already have Slashers, which aren't even a metaphor, just serial killers. It's almost like Beast is wholly unnecessary.
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Oct 21, 2016 16:07
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Arivia posted:No, they're the Tea Party. I'd agree - especially the elderly, moneyed backers of such. They're largely people who do not see anything of worth in modern society except that which calls back to the world of their youth and even then they see it as a pale reflection. They only interact with the world through hammer-blows of overwhelming power (wealth) or filtered through many layers of subordinates. And their best outcome is to realise that the culture of their youth had a lot of messed up poo poo going on and reject the moral framework it handed them.
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Oct 21, 2016 16:23
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I want to read Mummy 2nd edition again, review it, and then write my own version with superior political implications. I can tell you, in classic WoD, the ones most likely to manipulate cultists to steal poo poo are the Setites and Bane Mummies you're fighting. "It belongs in a museum!" *thwack*
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Oct 21, 2016 16:36
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Terrible Opinions posted:Beasts are serial killers. Well, the problem with Beast is that they are serial killers, serial abusers, and pedophiles. Like, in Vampire you play a sex criminal caught up in organized crime, but the assault you commit against women in dark back alleys is on the metaphorical level, and the organized crime arises naturally from the vampires' need for seclusion and illegal activities. Changeling is in many ways a metaphor for surviving abuse, but the abuse itself takes the form of something completely unreal - the True Fae - and the permanent psychological damage manifests in the metaphor instead as physical changes to the body. The "support groups" and un-abuseds' lack of understanding also exists naturally on the fictional level; a Changeling cannot return to their former self and needs to seek safety from the True Fae elsewhere - you don't need to invoke the abuse metaphor to explain those details. Beasts... Beasts just kill, abuse, and violate. That's the fiction-layer. Why do they do this? Because they feel they have a natural right to, or because they're psychologically compelled to. Taken as a metaphor, this means Beasts represent narcissists, sociopaths, and people with the kind of mental disorder that compels the to hurt other people. Beast is a metaphor for Beasts, because Beasts are creatures who hurt, abuse, and violate, and are portrayed as the kind of real-world people who hurt, abuse, and violate. There's no divide between metaphor and fiction - which also means you can't leave the metaphor behind. If I play Vampire, I can leave aside the sex crime metaphor and indulgently surround myself with ghouls and blood vessels and use Dominate with abandon, safe in the knowledge that I'm not actually raping anyone. With Beast, you can leave aside the serial child abuse metaphor and go out to... abuse children to fulfil a need for power while justifying to yourself that they wanted it because of how they dressed. Yikes!
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Oct 21, 2016 16:40
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Kurieg posted:The slavish attention to the script is, and background details and themes keep showing up. The things that do stay the same are important. You're supposed to be able to slowly solve the puzzle as the story goes along but Beast suggests the minute people start putting things together to throw a curve ball because they aren't supposed to do anything until act 4. This is, again, the exact opposite of what that movie is about
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Oct 21, 2016 16:52
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Then what is the point of the movie and why would it make for an enjoyable roleplaying experience?
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Oct 21, 2016 16:55
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Kurieg posted:Then what is the point of the movie and why would it make for an enjoyable roleplaying experience? he can't/won't explain, he just wants to tell you you're wrong
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Oct 21, 2016 17:32
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm not saying this is an absolute necessity for all World of Darkness games. I don't have any deep reading into if or how it serves a greater purpose. But... Most of the games are multifaceted. So, mages are both detectives and the 1% hyper-rich; the game's about both hurting yourself and others through obsession with mystery, and being in a position of great privilege over ordinary humans. Vampire is both organized crime and messy relationships that are no good for you. Werewolf is gangs (and the sort of cops that act like gangs) and hunters. Demon is autistic people and spies. Mummy is the elderly and the kind of disenfranchised sweatshop worker who represents modern-day slavery. Promethean is homeless people and childhood.
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Oct 21, 2016 18:09
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Kurieg posted:Then what is the point of the movie and why would it make for an enjoyable roleplaying experience? I believe the movie is about how little the truth of the situation actually matters, only how it was perceived and filtered through the agendas and perspectives of its witnesses, and about how a completely different perspective or new information can drastically change the meaning of events. E: Thinking about it, I see why they'd reference it for what they THINK Beast is (since it's supposed to be seeing the events of a heroic story from the perspective of the hunted monster) but honestly, with how Beast comes off, it would work better as 'We've told you how amazing your Beast is and you've been playing from their perspective. Now see it from their victims' and see how it comes off.'
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Oct 21, 2016 18:38
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Kurieg posted:Then what is the point of the movie and why would it make for an enjoyable roleplaying experience? Oh I never said it was a good idea for a roleplaying experience in Beast. I've heard It Was a Mutual Decision is a fun game though
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Oct 21, 2016 18:52
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Night10194 posted:I believe the movie is about how little the truth of the situation actually matters, only how it was perceived and filtered through the agendas and perspectives of its witnesses, and about how a completely different perspective or new information can drastically change the meaning of events. They suggest doing that second bit, but an entire game consisting of vignettes to the lives of the people you've ruined just sounds depressing. As for the first, why would Beasts be involved in the situation in the first place? I guess maybe if it's a new chamber in the dream and you need to figure out how it was created, but there was a vampire and a werewolf and a mage there and you're not sure who caused the poor sap to turn into a zero integrity pile of goo? But that sounds like a Comedy more than anything.
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Oct 21, 2016 19:02
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Halloween Jack posted:But we already have Slashers, which aren't even a metaphor, just serial killers. It's almost like Beast is wholly unnecessary. Beast is NAMBLA, a group that believes it deserves the respect a civilized society affords other marginalized groups despite its completely abhorrent practices. A Beast game is basically that episode of South Park where NAMBLA has a convention in town. They, of course, try to molest the boys; when they get caught and arrested, the members yell up and down that "We're being persecuted because of how we were born and society will never understand!!!", and the boys respond, "Society persecutes you because *you molest children.*"
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Oct 21, 2016 19:22
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Simian_Prime posted:Beast is NAMBLA, a group that believes it deserves the respect a civilized society affords other marginalized groups despite its completely abhorrent practices. This fits all too well with "What gives you the right to kill a monster like me?!", or however this smug bullshit retort went.
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Oct 21, 2016 19:32
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There are, mind, no good ideas for roleplaying experiences in Beast. There are in Ironclaw, though so here comes the last update about the Phelan! While the Phelan can be a fractious people, several common themes hold them together. The first, and most important: They don't especially like anyone else. Of all the Houses, the Phelan are the most attached in identity to their species. Their stories speak of fighting monsters and horrors when they arrived in Calabria, and to this day some of them will maintain they're the only real people and everyone else is descended from beasts. They also very much believe themselves to be the pinnacle of civilization, possessed of the most just laws and the best ways of looking at the world (and the only correct ones). To the Phelan, the wonders of other civilizations don't mean much, as they follow the wrong Gods and don't understand the truths of the universe, and their laws are all wrong. The second relates to this: The Law of Fenechas applies to every single Phelan, from King to Slave, equally. In theory. They do not have a concept of separate High and Low justice for Nobles and Commons. The Fenechas has never been written down, partly because the Phelan population is even more rarely literate than that of other Houses, and partly because the Law has never been translated from their native tongue into Calabrese, and Berla Feini has no written component. Laws are administered by a class of professional traveling judges and mediators, the Brehona, who learn it by oral tradition. Dalaiges are a lesser legal profession that serve as advocates, presenting the cases of clients to the Brehona for judgement if those involved in a dispute don't feel they can do it themselves. Phelan law is based around the right of revenge and the right of compensation; an offense can be met with revenge unless it is bought off with compensation. The Brehona attends to the case and eventually judges which party's claim is just, then takes a portion of the demanded fine for their own upkeep and their time. Naturally, this system gives tremendous power to the Brehona. There's no paper trail in the law, they're often the only one who knows it involved with the case, and they sit in sole judgement. I am not certain what happens in the case of a corrupt Brehona, as the book never mentions the possibility. Under the law, those refusing to pay their fines can have their property seized, be subject to harassment, or be outlawed, which is about as bad as you'd imagine. An offender who refuses to pay compensation for bodily harm to another and who faces outlaw is legally unprotected, meaning offended kin or any other party may injure or kill them without any retaliation or fines. Outlanders are also subject to the same laws, which the Phelan generally don't bother to explain, or to mention that they technically have right of counsel or to be heard by a Brehona. The third is religion: The average Phelan doesn't really concern themselves with faith, though they have plenty of mystical touches to their lives. Religion is left to specialists, the Aos Diaones, the Druids. The Druids are trained to serve as intermediaries between the spiritual and real worlds, which the Phelan believe exist directly in concert with one another. Phelan religion is very immediate; they believe in no afterlife and don't really concern themselves with happenings after death, instead believing there are secret plans and ways for the world that the wise Druids must read so they can keep everything on the proper track according to the signs and portents. Most of their festivals are about celebrating the life they have now, and worshiping the power of nature around them. Phelan gods are animistic representations of the natural forces around them. Druids keep to their own, performing their rites and propitiation in secret and preserving their own hidden tradition as they advise the clans. Among the Phelan, social status is determined by owned property. A Chieftain or King is someone who owns the property of the entire clan, and technically all others rent their property from the Chieftain or receive it as gifts and honors. Rich nobles will be called Flaith, translating to Prince or Princess, and are marked by possessing plenty of land and many, many lizard-cows. Aires are also considered nobles, but pay rent to the Flaith and Chieftain for their property and consist of those whose goods are primarily moveable. Skilled craftsmen, rich merchants, some Brehona, etc will make up the Aires of a clan. All nobles wear a torc to mark their status; any outside who happens to wear similar as decoration is bound to get themselves into trouble for impersonating a noble. Fianna are roughly translated as knights or thanes, and they serve as the professional warriors of a clan. Fianna are marked apart from the clan, living in their own community of warriors. Fianna can range from clansmen who distinguish themselves in raids and skirmishes and become admitted to the community of fighters to fierce atavists who have studied their entire lives to tear enemies apart with their bare claws. Fianna do not collect taxes or administer land like other House knights; their duty is to patrol the clan's holding, train themselves for war, and deal with any incursions be they raids by other clans, outsiders, or Morrignai remnants. Fianna tend to rob outsiders, and like to make a show in battle to make sure tales of their prowess and reputation spread. Some will also make slaves of undefended wanderers and vagabonds by force of arms. Feine are the free tenants of a clan. They hold no land of their own, but are full members of the clan and work the land of the Aires, Chieftains, and Flatha. Unlike serfs in other lands, the only thing keeping a Feine from rising up to an Aire is lack of land; should they manage to attain a plot of their own and rent to others, they will become a Noble of their clan. Similarly, a Feine who fights well in the militia might be offered a place as a Fianna. Fudir are the lowest members of a Clan, those who are debtors or non-wolves. They are technically fully protected under law, but own nothing of their own and in many clans, are really little better off than slaves. Most Fudir are non-wolves; the Phelan don't really care for outsiders. Actual slaves are captives taken in war, given the worst jobs and forced to labor. They can also be criminals or debtors who were forced to sell their personage to survive. The children of slaves become Fudir, and slaves are not entitled to the full protection of the law, only 'freedom from cruelty'. An exceptionally bad master may end up before a Brehona and be forced to pay compensation to their slaves, which usually means freeing them. So that's the Phelan! Next up, we talk about their total opposite, the Rinaldi and their great city of Triskellian. Next time: Crazy Italian Intrigue Foxes!
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Oct 21, 2016 19:34
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... I mean, does every splat have to be a metaphor for some facet of the human condition? You can say 'Promethean is a metaphor about being homeless' but you can also say it's about being a cultural outsider, about being autistic, about childhood, or probably a couple other themes or ideas. It's also a game about being created beings who are trying to become human. I'm probably going to be called a philistine, but Vampire is still interesting as a game without having a grey panel on the back of the book with 'This is a metaphor about being a mugger or molester' written on it.
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Oct 21, 2016 22:08
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'Promethean is a game about examining the value of humanity by playing as people who struggle to attain it.'
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Oct 21, 2016 22:12
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I'm going to enter the second stage of Beast chat and speculate now if the game would be any better if the other WoD splats were firmly established as hating beasts instead of beasts being everyone's abusive bffs. Like the bit in that last post the kickstarter material talks about how even after a hero kills a beast they're still consumed by the hunt. They could've kept heroes as former victims of beasts but surviving a beast attack granted a hero special attunement to the supernatural and an understandable hatred that pushes them to hunt down any splat they encounter. I guess it would have turned the whole game into a reenactment of a particular beauty and the beast song but at least that could make heroes into slightly interesting cross-splat antagonists. They'd basically be super-hunters but whatever. Hunter is the best CoD line anyway, so add more stuff to it.
Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Oct 21, 2016 |
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Oct 21, 2016 22:51
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I hate to add to Beast Chat but the Mob Song also makes me think it would've been way better off if the HEROES were the ones everyone loved inexplicably. Like, that guy is the rear end in a top hat that can whip up a lynch-mob immediately and come after you. The HERO being the one who warps other peoples dreams and infects them with their obsession and can even turn other supernaturals on you would actually make them scary as gently caress.
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Oct 21, 2016 23:12
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm not saying this is an absolute necessity for all World of Darkness games. I don't have any deep reading into if or how it serves a greater purpose. But... Mages are SovCits. largely because they have their own reality that they try to impose on others without consequence while fighting the persistent reality.
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Oct 21, 2016 23:25
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Young Freud posted:Mages are SovCits. largely because they have their own reality that they try to impose on others without consequence while fighting the persistent reality. Also because they're smug assholes and it's really funny to watch reality punch them in the face.
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Oct 21, 2016 23:27
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Night10194 posted:I hate to add to Beast Chat but the Mob Song also makes me think it would've been way better off if the HEROES were the ones everyone loved inexplicably. Like, that guy is the rear end in a top hat that can whip up a lynch-mob immediately and come after you. The HERO being the one who warps other peoples dreams and infects them with their obsession and can even turn other supernaturals on you would actually make them scary as gently caress. I always figured it'd make the metaphor/framing work a lot better if it went: 1) Hero begins obsessing over someone. 2) Hero decides that person is secretly a terrible monster. 3) Hero makes that person a terrible monster in a way similar to Anathema. 4) That victim must then learn how to deal with their terrible life as a beast and work out if they want to embrace it or reject it. That way you're actually a victim instead of pretending to be one, and the hero conflict actually has some teeth.
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Oct 21, 2016 23:29
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And because some SovCits actually walk around in wizard's robes because they think it grants them authority.
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Oct 21, 2016 23:29
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm not saying this is an absolute necessity for all World of Darkness games. I don't have any deep reading into if or how it serves a greater purpose. But... detectives are marginalized?
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Oct 21, 2016 23:36
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"I have not entered into joinder with that taser therefore it does not effect me."
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Oct 21, 2016 23:41
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Free Mages are at war with the forces of the Admiralty.
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Oct 21, 2016 23:49
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Nuns with Guns posted:I'm going to enter the second stage of Beast chat and speculate now if the game would be any better if the other WoD splats were firmly established as hating beasts instead of beasts being everyone's abusive bffs. Like the bit in that last post the kickstarter material talks about how even after a hero kills a beast they're still consumed by the hunt. They could've kept heroes as former victims of beasts but surviving a beast attack granted a hero special attunement to the supernatural and an understandable hatred that pushes them to hunt down any splat they encounter. I guess it would have turned the whole game into a reenactment of a particular beauty and the beast song but at least that could make heroes into slightly interesting cross-splat antagonists. They'd basically be super-hunters but whatever. Hunter is the best CoD line anyway, so add more stuff to it. Ultimately the main problem of Beast is that you're supposed to be playing as the irredeemable bad-end state / antagonist splat of a protagonist splat that was never actually written. You know, sort of like how the Nolan Batman trilogy only makes sense in terms of their overall progression if it was a quadrilogy with a hypothetical third film in-between The Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises. The Beast origin story involves them tiptoeing around the fact that your soul is willingly devoured by a astral hellbeast, and they all justify it by saying that it was their real soul the whole time– exactly what a monster driving around a meat puppet would say after abusing their victim into total ego destruction. Not to cross WoD lines, but that's some Black Spiral Dancer-level poo poo right there. What about the people who say no and live to deal with the aftermath? That's the kind of game I would actually want to play. Bieeardo posted:And because some SovCits actually walk around in wizard's robes because they think it grants them authority. "I, BIGBY-OF-THE-FAMILY-NAME-IGBY-AND-RIGBY'S-BROTHER, DO NOT CREATE JOINDER WITH THIS MAGIC MISSILE" fake edit: beaten to exact joke Spiderfist Island fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Oct 22, 2016 |
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Oct 21, 2016 23:52
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 Vastly Belated Addendum: The Wasteland Bestiary Welcome back to the land of Exodus! For those of you who don't recall what the hell this is and aren't in the mood to go read through all the original FATAL and Friends, let's have a quick rundown. Exodus: Post-Apocalyptic Roleplaying was a d20 Modern-based roleplaying game setting from Glutton Creeper Games based around a world where a nuclear war sent the world to the brink of destruction. Two decades after the Great War, the apocalypse has ushered in a strange new era of savage raiders, strange mutants, and struggling survivors. The Wasteland is filled with merciless foes such as the giant green-skinned Trans-Genetic Mutants and drug-running Khans of Las Vegas and potential allies such as the legendary longcoat-clad Desert Rangers or the mighty Steel Disciples and their arsenal of energy weapons and power armor. Sound familiar? It should, because Exodus: Post-Apocalyptic Roleplaying Game started out as an officially licensed Fallout roleplaying game. When the license changed hands between Interplay and Bethesda Studios, Glutton Creeper Games was out of the picture. Rather than let all they wrote go to waste, however, they went about scraping off as many specific Fallout labels as they could while leaving much of the underlying infrastructure intact. The result was a strange mixture of attempted original content for the sake of staying on the right side of the law stapled onto a mostly intact Fallout framework. Exodus follows the sacred trinity of many d20 system games – Player's Handbook, DM's/GM's Guide, and Monster Manual – of which I originally covered two in a row. This post finally covers the third of these, a monster manual named the Wasteland Bestiary. The index lists sixty-three creatures (though this is somewhat misleading, given that it splits some separate creature subtypes into their own index entries but doesn't for others), many of which are unaltered real world animals, which is exactly why this is going to be just a single-post review before I head into what will most likely be the final Exodus book I'll go over for this thread. Creature Overview Just as the other two parts of the Exodus triumvirate act as if you have never seen a d20 system book in your life before, the Wasteland Bestiary starts out discussing how creature stat blocks work, creature types, and the like. The only thing that's really different is that the creature types have been changed somewhat. Elemental, Fey, Giant, Monstrous Humanoid, Outsider, and Undead aren't present and Magical Beast has been renamed Mutant Animal. There is also Radioactive Vermin, a slightly altered version of Magical Beast/Mutant Animal that adds the stereotypical Vermin traits on top of it.  Non-Mutant Animals Unlike Fallout, which seems to take the approach of "every piece of wildlife is mutated, even if it's just some gross tumors and scabs", the Wasteland Bestiary has a ton of just regular old animals]. The art sometimes suggests otherwise, but I'm going strictly by what the flavor text and stats are telling us. These all more or less come in one of two varieties: native North American wildlife or zoo animals, pets, and beasts of burden. In the former category we've got bats and vampire bats, grizzly bears and black bears, eagles, seagull flocks, owls, ravens, crocodiles ("the American crocodile is native to Mexico, so why not have them expand into California?"), cougars, desert lizards, octopi and giant octopi, porpoises, sharks, vipers, killer bees, mosquitos, spiders, and wolves, while in the latter there's boars, generic bovines, dromedary camels, dogs, donkeys, elephants, domestic cats, lions, tigers, hippopotami, horses, monitor lizards, ferrets, rats, gorillas and chimpanzees, monkeys, anacondas and pythons, and cobras.  Monsters from the SRDs If a creature in this bestiary isn't an animal or directly from Fallout, it's probably taken from either the Dungeons and Dragons SRD or the d20 Modern SRD. Not that the animals weren't mostly taken from there, but you get what I mean. Alien Probe (CR 6 Small Construct) Super fast and capable of creating nauseating doses of actinic light to scan interesting creatures, the alien probe was originally a reference to the "Foo Fighter" phenomenon of World War II when it appeared in the Alternity setting Dark*Matter and again in the d20 Modern Menace Manual. In the Exodus universe, though, they're weird data-collecting metal spheres that are probably some weird pre-War tech or something rather than alien devices, but nobody's sure. Infester, Grub (CR 1/6 Fine Vermin) and Adult (CR 1/4 Diminutive Vermin) Slightly shrunken from their d20 Modern incarnation and changed aesthetically from verminous lampreys to big angry ticks, infesters burrow into hosts that get a not too bad +2 to Strength and Constitution, but also -2 Wisdom and get a taste for raw flesh. Oh, and if the grubs gestate inside you, you get to make a save-or-die, and if you save you still take 6d6 damage and probably die anyway if you are still low level. Giant Man-o'-War (CR 5 Large Animal) A Portuguese man-o'-war, but bigger. The bell itself is cow-sized and represents the actual "this is the space you hit" part, but its tendrils expand outward in a 100 foot radius. The strands act as a ranged touch attack that forces a Fortitude save to avoid 3d6 rounds of paralysis, as well as a lasso for towing in the entangled target at 10 feet per round. 10 points of slashing damage severs a strand and releases the victim. Sea Serpent (CR 7 Huge Animal) Turns out sea serpents were real all along, they just never surfaced that often until the Great War disrupted the ocean's ecosystems. Now they go all-out and often appear on coastlines to attack ships or snatch beach-goers (because those apparently still exist). The d20 Modern sea serpent was originally of the Magical Beast creature type, which is why it has an ability that allows it to take a full round action to blur its outline for a number of rounds equal to its HD, gaining 20% miss chance of concealment and rendering all film and photographs of it blurry and useless. It makes less sense when they didn't even make it a Mutant Animal here. Monstrous Flytrap (CR 8 Huge Plant) Straight from the d20 Modern Core Rulebook's bestiary section is this strangely ambulatory giant Venus fly trap. Exodus has them crawling around the edges of nuclear waste dumps and fallout-heavy craters, eating up small animals and unfortunate humans. Any creature that is inside a monstrous flytrap's mouth suffers 1d6+13 damage a round, and for every 3 points it drains the flytrap heals a point of damage to itself.  Sasquatch (CR 2 Large Humanoid) The sasquatch is probably the most altered of the d20 Modern pulls as far as mechanics go. Its type has been changed from Giant to Humanoid, a few of its ability scores have been slightly raised or lowered (most notably Intelligence from 6 up to 8), the ability to advance by class levels has been removed, and it's been given a new special attack called Dismemberment that lets it perform special grapple check at a -12 penalty to rip off the limb of a foe after doing damage equal to that character's Massive Damage Threshold. Fluff-wise, it's stated that sasquatch are the results of failed experiments in the creation of Monstrous Spider (CR 1/2 Tiny Radioactive Vermin) You know, it's always struck me as odd that there's never been a radspider in the Fallout series. You'd think that with all the giant scorpions, cockroaches, and ants running around, a big tarantula creeping about would fit right in. Oh well, no matter, we have one here. One that's only cat-sized, but it's here. Yeti (CR 3 Large Humanoid) Another creation of the secret government project that created the Trans-Genetic Mutants, yeti were meant to be arctic warfare specialists. Instead, they ended up colonizing the post-apocalyptic Rocky Mountains after escaping from the secret labs that created them. They live in mated pairs and aren't particularly picky about their food, eating pretty much anything from plants and insects up to deer and humans. As they're based on the Yeti from the d20 Menace Manual, they've got the Cold subtype and a Constrict attack that deals claw damage and 2d6 points of cold damage. Oddly enough, while Exodus buffed the sasquatch's Intelligence score from 6 to 8, they've dropped the yeti's from 8 to 6.  Fallout Foes Fellows that seem likely to be based on a creature from Fallout or Project Van Buren, the original version of Fallout 3 that was planned out by Black Isle Studios before the transfer of the property to Bethesda. Giant Ant, Worker (CR 1 Small Radioactive Vermin) and Soldier (CR 3 Medium-size Radioactive Vermin) Your classic big mutant ants. Their jaws impart a number of RADs equal to how much bite damage they delivered. Giant Cockroach (CR 0 Tiny Radioactive Vermin) The giant cockroach was part of Fallout Tactics and intended to be in Van Buren, and has since persisted in the series under the alternate name of "radroach". As in the games, they're more or less early level fodder here, crawling around ruins and underground in large numbers. Exodus also gives us a larger and somewhat more dangerous version in the spitting cockroach (CR 2 Medium-size Vermin). Spitting cockroaches are aggressive enough to actively predate on other small animals and can spit globs of 2d6 damage acid. Redwood Puma (CR 5 Large Animal) Presumably based around the tiger-like cougars of Van Buren, redwood pumas are giant, thick-furred mutant mountain lions that are named after the redwood forests they inhabit. Los Cruces Lizard (CR 3 Medium-size Mutant Animal) A Fallout fire gecko by any other name would still be as recognizable, because seriously that art isn't even trying to disguise it. Named after the ruins of the Los Cruces, Arizona, where they breed in particularly large numbers, these large bipedal lizards feed on radioactive vermin, smaller reptiles, and even humans and livestock if they get a chance. They are capable of producing a "flaming belch", which is more or less a nonmagical 1/day casting of the Fireball spell, but they're worth killing as their tasty flesh can make about 50 steel coins worth of jerky. Meatclaw (CR 13 Small Mutant Animal) A mutant Jackson's three-horned chameleon that is called a meatclaw and referred to as "the deadliest terror of the radioactive wastes". Yeah, somehow I doubt shrinking its size will make it hard to guess what this thing comes from. It also has advancement up to size Large, so Glutton Creeper Games got to have its cake and eat it too. The meatclaw can open up with a free Intimidation check to force all foes that have never seen one before to be shaken for the rest of the encounter, go into a Barbarian rage, has an 18-20 critical threat range on their claws and deal triple rather than double damage on a critical hit from a claw attack, and keeps fighting unimpeded until you finally kill it rather than the normal effects of dropping into negative HP. It also has Strength 24 even at size Small, so good luck when you find a proper deathclaw-sized one. Giant Rat (CR 1 Small Mutant Animal) Wasteland Bestiary posted:It was once thought that rodents of unusual size (ROUS) were just a legend used to frighten small children in stories. After the Exodus, evolution took place, with the help of radioactivity and toxic waste, the ROUS or commonly called "giant rats" appeared in the wasteland. Giant Scorpion (CR 3 Medium Radioactive Vermin) Your good old radscorpion. Amusingly enough, if you go to the entry on radscorpions on the Fallout Wiki, you can still see this book's art for them at the bottom of the page, still credited to "Fallout d20". Giant scorpions mostly eat other mutant vermin, but will defensively charge and sting at anything wandering too close. Like real scorpions, giant scorpion mothers carry their hatchlings on their backs. Hydra (CR 2 Small Mutant Animal A pit viper with two or more heads, possibly based on the two-headed rattlesnakes kept by the Vipers in Project Van Buren (no reason to give this game the benefit of the doubt on that matter). Not much to say about them, though, really. They are a viper with more than one bite attack. That's about it. Monstrous Toad (CR 3 Medium Mutant Animal) Big, grumpy toads that sometimes attack things that are probably too big for them to properly eat, which is honestly pretty accurate for more than a few species of frogs and toads. The big danger of fighting a monstrous toad is that it coats itself in poison when stressed, forcing a save against it on any melee attack. Failure means you suffer 1d3 Wisdom damage and wildly hallucinate. Original Creations Yes, there are in fact a few creatures in here that don't seem to be from any SRD or related to a Fallout monster. Bloodfly Swarm (CR 2 Fine Radioactive Vermin Swarm) Mutant houseflies, bloodflies swarm together in massive groups that gather around stagnant water. They can be seen around anything from lakes to abandoned swimming pools as long as the weather is warm; cold temperatures send them into hibernation. As the name implies, bloodflies suck blood, which in this case just means an extra point of damage on their swarm attack rather than the more typical "suck blood, heal HP" mechanic. Giant Lizard (CR 1 Small Animal) A dog-sized Gila monster that doesn't get the Mutant Animal creature type even though it's explicitly created by radiation exposure. It can get up to size Gargantuan, presumably so that you can homage the classic 50s B movie The Giant Gila Monster. Fungal Mass (CR 4 Huge Plant) A gross blob of white fungal polyps and tendrils found hanging on walls in damp, moist air conditions. While the fungal mass is unable to go anywhere, it can deal 2d6 damage by slapping its tendrils around and any damage done to the fungal mass causes it to poo poo out spores in a 15 foot radius. If you're in that radius, you've got to make a DC 12 Will save or take 1d4 Wisdom damage. The combination of no move speed, the likelihood of it hiding from sight being fairly slim, and a spray of spores in a small radius any time you damage it at all, it seems like the obvious thing to do about a fungal mass is pick it off at range. Snapper Plant (CR ¼ Small Plant) Sort of like an angry rose bush, the snapper plant is another carnivorous plant. Its thorny tentacle-vines are used to deal a point of Constitution damage each full round it stays attached to a foe. It also has poisonous spores that can be expeled in a 20 foot radius, focing a Fortitude save to avoid 1d3 rounds of paralysis, 1d4 damage, and a point of Constitution damage. While snapper plants have no move speed, they're presumably more capable of actually hiding and surprising a foe than the fungal mass. Spore Plant (CR ½ Medium Plant) A larger version of the snapper plant that has stubbier vines that act as clubs and can't drain blood, as well as a weird thorn-mouth it can use to bite foes. Its version of poisonous spores doesn't deal direct HP damage or paralysis, instead dealing 1d4 Strength and Constitution damage, and can only use its spores a number of times per day equal to three times its HD.  Generic Robots, Medium (CR 2) and Small (CR 0) Similar to how animated objects were treated in Pathfinder, robots of Exodus are given two basic stat blocks with optional features you can add on. All of them have null stats in everything except Strength and Dexterity, a hardness of 5 like an object, a specific move speed based on whether they have treads, two legs, four legs, or wheels, and the ability to be programmed with a few skill points and a feat by someone with the Techie advanced class. Two robots with this framework are presented, both of Medium size and focused on the home: domestobots (the R2 unit-looking fellow above) are household and industrial cleaning robots, while handibots are humanoid robots that act as repair and maintenance units. Combat Drones Buffer robots with more HP, better stats, and weaponry, though they also have hardness (5 for the two assault drones and 10 for the military battle drone) and programmable skills and feats of the generic robots. Three varieties exist.
Nanomachine Swarm (CR 4 Fine Construct Swarm) Swarms of recycler nanites that were let loose by the apocalypse, nanomachine swarms consume buildings and machinery to repair the factories that created them in order to create more nanomachine swarms. This wouldn't be a bad thing if they didn't also mulch organic matter that isn't smart enough to get out of the way, dealing 2d6 untyped damage a round to anything in their cloud. Most nanomachine swarms end up "dying" thanks to their power cells running dry, so there's no worry of a Gray Goo scenario or anything, but enough manage to collect material and return to their factories to keep making more. Wastemoth Swarm (CR 0 Fine Vermin Swarm) Tiny little moths. Not too scary, right? Well, these tiny little moths scatter radioactive dust with their wingbeats, dealing 3d6 RADs to anyone sharing their square.
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Oct 22, 2016 00:03
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So, okay, Beast setting is suck and muddled to all hell. Are the rules useful for anything? Like, if you wanted to do that game where you were dragons in a past life, only with better mechanics, would Beast have any use? Or are the powers and stuff useless outside of being misunderstood pedophiles?
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Oct 22, 2016 00:08
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