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LuiCypher posted:Indeed. But to be fair D&D 1e (which Arduin is really just a variant of rather than its own ruleset) basically set that standard. This is the best thing. AD&D 1E Player's Handbook, p. 6:  AD&D 1E Player's Handbook, p.13: 
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Apr 6, 2017 15:41
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Ah. but see, it specified no baseless limits and clearly... - an rear end in a top hat
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Apr 6, 2017 15:42
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 I thought that the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets were impressive from a technical perspective from the same reason that they were basically a bunch of DMG-esque random generation tables, but had to have been laid out by hand. That being said, that table in the lower-right corner (and many other parts of this work) is very much a product of its time. MightyMatilda posted:And here I thought that "-4 STR" was just an urban legend. From Dragon Magazine #3, October 1976  (that's one 8-sided die + one 6-sided die)  
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Apr 6, 2017 15:47
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Warhammer Fantasy: Night's Dark Masters Necharchs: That crazy wizbiz This time we'll be covering the Necharchs, who get the vast majority of their magical advantages out of their blood gifts and have a fair number of unique ones. Also remember Necharchs do not get the gift of Pass for Human; if you're a Necharch, you're always going to look like a horrifying undead corpse-man and you're almost certainly (more) insane to boot. First comes the sort of 'signature' power of the Necharch line. By feeding on ambient dark magic, they can greatly reduce their bloodlust and become Blood Sated. Blood Sated simply doubles the interval a vampire can go without feeding. So a Necharch Thrall can make it up to 2xTB days, a Count 2xTB Weeks, and a Lord 2xTB Months; this suits their very hermetic lifestyle since they rarely have to seek out prey. Also, normally, a vamp that refuses to feed for longer than their interval has to make a WP test (which gets harder and harder) each interval to avoid going frenzied and going to kill and eat whatever they can find. One with Blood Sated only rolls a WP test every second interval. Necharchs can potentially go years between feeding. Fitting to Necromancers, their next power is Dark Majesty. Normally, a vampire can control undead minions equal to their Willpower score. A vampire with this ability can control an additional 30, letting them raise and directly order about larger armies without needing subordinates. Deathsight is another of the signature powers of the line, and one of the reasons they're often mad. A vampire with this ability can always see spirits, souls leaving the bodies of the dead, ghosts, and traces of death and violence. They cannot turn this power off. Ever. They also share Defy the Dawn with the Lahmians, though I kind of like it better on the Necharchs, given it doesn't grant total immunity unless you pick it twice and this seems like it would be necessary for when the Necharch eventually decides to challenge the sun to a wizard's duel or something crazy like that. They can also get Mastery Over Flesh, unique to them, a power that gives them a +4 to casting rolls whenever casting spells that create undead minions. I have no idea how Nehekaran Scrolls is a Blood Gift. Somehow your blood happens to grant you access to a bunch of ancient Egyptian manuscripts that grant you an additional spell from the Lore of Death or Necromancy (either vampiric or 'normal' necromancy), letting you learn spells outside your chosen Lore. Noble Blood means the Necharch's line dates back to old Nehekara, granting them mastery of the undead and letting them control them directly at up to 200 meters, much further than normal. Silvered Blood simply makes the vampire immune to Silver if they had a weakness to it. Summon Ancients makes all of the Necharch's spells call on more undead. An additional d10 if they use the basic mook-raising spells, and an additional wight (which are pretty goddamn dangerous) if they use the Spell of Awakening to try to raise Wights. And finally, the big one, Wellspring of Dhar. A Necharch can, over time, become such a powerful source of dark magic that they start to generate it themselves. ALL casters within 24 yards of the Necharch cast Dark Magic spells at a bonus equal to the Necharch's Magic stat. Anyone using non-Dark Magic still counts as using the Dark Magic talent, adding an extra die to their casting roll and dropping the lowest die they roll, but counting all of them for purposes of miscasts. This ability will explicitly stack if multiple Necharchs have it. It can be turned on and off at will. A coven of these guys are capable of actual world-threatening magic. Necharchs' Gifts feel like they reinforce their role as a weird boss-fight waiting in a distant tower. Of all the vampires, they are easily the best at necromancy and it is impossible to imagine fighting one that doesn't have hordes of minions. At the same time, they don't get anything to really make them tougher or turn them into murder-machines like the Dragons, and they have no way to influence others, hide themselves, or mind-whammy people like the Lahmians. If your players deal with a Necharch, they probably know what they're up against. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Aug 4, 2017 |
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Apr 6, 2017 15:51
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gradenko_2000 posted:
This table makes it possible for the party to get sexually propositioned by an invisible stalker, which sounds like one of the most interesting encounters in the history of D&D.
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Apr 6, 2017 15:58
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gradenko_2000 posted:From Dragon Magazine #3, October 1976 Where do I get an 18-sided die
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Apr 6, 2017 16:03
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Mors Rattus posted:Where do I get an 18-sided die Ask Lou Zocchi - if he hasn't already made it, then he will make it.
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Apr 6, 2017 16:33
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I did this short post in the OSR thread... I always found it amusing that that image there was basically the entire rules for the Techno class.
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Apr 6, 2017 16:37
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Mors Rattus posted:Where do I get an 18-sided die D20, reroll on numbers not covered
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Apr 6, 2017 17:00
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Mors Rattus posted:Where do I get an 18-sided die Been done.  https://www.shapeways.com/product/6RZ7GGKNS/18-sided-die-large
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Apr 6, 2017 17:02
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LuiCypher posted:Also, re: Palladium - apparently, Kevin Siembieda did not use desktop publishing until the mid-2000s because, and this is according to Designers and Dungeons so there's at least some source corroborating this, he could do typesetting and layout by hand faster than any computer. CroatianAlzheimers posted:As for R:tSC's [Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles] layout, I couldn't tell you. My job started and stopped at (If you haven't ever read the Palladium thread, the first page has a lot of commentary on what it was like to work there by CroatianAlzheimers that's pretty interesting for those... interested.) LuiCypher posted:Ask Lou Zocchi - if he hasn't already made it, then he will make it. He may have made some prototyped rubber 18-siders but I'm having a hard time finding a reliable source on them. Seemingly never saw regular production like the 14, 16, or 24-siders.
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Apr 6, 2017 17:03
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. Layout was all Kevin on that one. Speaking of that book, the manga size version was the very last book PB did that was laid out by hand without use of computers. The first book PB digitally laid out was the special edition hardback of Shadow Chronicles.
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gradenko_2000 posted:
Yeah, I should have made myself clear. I knew that some old RPGs limit females' Strength compared to males', but I didn't know there was an actual RPG where females' STR cap was specifically 4 points lower.
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Apr 6, 2017 17:20
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Zereth posted:I have a copy of this. I have all the books still.
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Apr 6, 2017 18:16
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wiegieman posted:"Superior German technology" is one of the enduring stupid memes of WW2, especially when it comes to armor. The Nazis were goddamn lucky that the western powers and the Czechoslovakian leadership were too spineless to fight a real war at the time, since they desperately needed the Czechoslovak armament industry to fuel their expansionism and there was a real military they would have had to fight. Can't be that superior if it took them two tries to realize that giant gently caress-off monster tanks are pretty useless if you have no infrastructure to transport them. Or engines strong enough to actually move them at more than a brisk walking pace. Or a way to not make them glorified target practices for enemy forces.
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Apr 6, 2017 21:05
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If you're talking about WWI they built like 20 tanks in the entire war and everyone's moved at jogging pace.
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Apr 6, 2017 21:13
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Kavak posted:If you're talking about WWI they built like 20 tanks in the entire war and everyone's moved at jogging pace. Don't you worry. They weren't slow because people were still figuring out tanks (and they definitely had in the 1940s). They were slow because they had a weight of 1,000 (the Ratte) and 1,500 (the Monster) tons, respectively.
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Apr 6, 2017 21:59
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Doresh posted:Don't you worry. They weren't slow because people were still figuring out tanks (and they definitely had in the 1940s). They were slow because they had a weight of 1,000 (the Ratte) and 1,500 (the Monster) tons, respectively. Those were designed at around the same time and never built, in part because they were a terrible idea. They were also the idea of Edward Grotte, a man who'd previously tried to sell the same idea to the Soviet Union: 
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Apr 6, 2017 22:09
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 Rifts Index & Adventures Volume 1, Part 4: “If they investigate other rumors or leads, they may discover some answers or more disturbing questions, or stumble into the Juicer Uprising, or get themselves killed. Have fun.” Fun. That word seems so far away now. Maybe it’s just because I’m reviewing Rifts Index & Adventures Volume 1 that all joy has vanished. I walk through my daily life, knowing I am a person who has not only completed this review, but have to live on with the knowledge that I did it. I did this thing. I don’t know if I can ever be forgiven. Also, enjoy the metaplot! I apologize for the “impersonations”. No identification with Coalition personnel (living or deceased) is intended or should be inferred. Here’s part 4 of the review! It exists. Also, here’s a visual guide to part 4:  The new Coalition armor previewed here… except it’s not the design that they’ll actually use! Ooops. Next: The Rifter®.
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Apr 6, 2017 22:26
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oh, I forgot one thing. Familiars - technically a wizard talent, but sorcerers and rangers can take them too - aren't full-fledged NPCs in 13th Age. They only contribute meaningfully to the story as separate characters if it's narratively convenient or if you buy an ability to let them do so reliably. In combat, they hide and can't be targeted. They have their own sublist of purchaseable abilities, ranging front crunchy combat buffs (eg +1 to saves, or it poisons enemies when you hit with a melee attack) to loose, narrative abilities (eg flight, speech). The specific, fiddly, mostly combat-focused list of sub-talents seems unnecessary - "you have a rapport with a magical animal that can operate separately from you when necessary" would be fine! It would be a better-designed choice than many of the other open-ended narrative talents.
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Apr 6, 2017 23:13
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Comrade Koba posted:This table makes it possible for the party to get sexually propositioned by an invisible stalker, which sounds like one of the most interesting encounters in the history of D&D. Heeey good looking! Wait, poo poo.
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Apr 7, 2017 02:22
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That Old Tree posted:
 (  this is even easier to do than I remembered!)Okay. So. You build spells with Components, which are just the little bits of a spell like Area, Duration, Range, Damage, whatever that make the spell what it is. There are a bunch of tables with Component costs for a bunch of things, pretty comprehensive. There're are improvised and rote spells, but that distinction really doesn't matter for our purposes. Once your spell is built, its Components value becomes the DC of the Spellcraft check you have to make to actually cast the thing. Mages get a hefty amount of Components they can "spend" per day. (It's super awesome that they named two related but different things the same name.) Now, the philosophy behind this is pretty transparent: You're shooting lightning bolts or peeking through solid concrete or whatever, tons of little-ish effects as you adventure through the McWoD. It won't carry you all day through constant non-stop fighting (which is dumb), but you can keep doing your thing most of the time. However, the amount of daily Components you get is fairly generous and you get 15 more per level At level 5 you have 120 Components. You also add (Int mod x level) Components to your daily allotment. (It's referred to as the maximum amount of Components you can spend "in a day", but you only recover "5% of your maximum Components per hour of rest." Just a little nagging detail that bugs me.) For what we're doing, Area and Range Components are cumulatively 1 (0 for self-Area, 1 for self-Range...for some reason). For Duration, if you want something Permanent, it costs a whopping 50 Components. Finally, one of the Component tables is Enhance:  "Wow!" you might say. "That would get expensive really fast, and then to have a long-lasting buff is also very expensive sir!" Hm, yes, that is true I suppose. Another thing a Mage can do with his Components is, instead of spending them to build spells, he can spend them 1-for-1 to add +1 to his Concentration checks and to Spellcraft checks to cast spells. There is absolutely no stated limit to this. I hope you already see where this is going. So as long as your spell only has Components equal to about half your daily Components, you can basically zero-out the difficulty of casting it. Now, that's still a lot of Components. At level 5, you only get 120 Components, plus probably around 25 more from your Int mod; but even a """mere""" permanent +5 bonus to all rolls costs 81 Components. Which, granted, by spending all your other Components is only an effective DC 17 Spellcraft check for someone who probably has a base Spellcraft bonus of at least +15. Hey, let's Metaspell Component this up and make the spell take a whole day to cast (-7 Component cost). Now the Component cost is only 74, and spending our excess on Spellcraft bonuses means the effective DC is only 3! There are some feats and poo poo that will allow you to squeeze another +1 or +2 out of this, but it turns out I was wrong. You won't be giving yourself +20 to everything at level 5. You just easily grant yourself +5 to all rolls forever, increasing that a few times as you level and gain more Components and shenanigans. It's not unthinkable that you'll be rolling with a permanent +10 at level 10 and beyond. Remember, this is on top of any other bonuses you're grabbing from all the myriad nooks and crannies of your typical d20 game. Now, there are some weaknesses here. Anti-magic fields (which only temporarily disable Permanent spells), or dispelling. Even a Permanent spell takes up one of your "ongoing spell slots", but that limit is equal to at least your Int mod, so boo-hoo, at level 5 you probably only have 4 slots to play with after this. With just a level or two more of Components, you can jigger this around to a single ongoing spell slot giving you and your entire party +5 to everything forever at level 7, and you can keep this up as your capacity to increase the bonus rises. Expect your DM to scatter anti-magic fields and more powerful enemies hither and yon. There are four other character types in the game who don't get anything like this. Despite their wild differences, the game expects mixed-group play. gently caress d20 and Monte Cook's game design forever and ever. 
That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 08:02 on Apr 7, 2017 |
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Apr 7, 2017 08:00
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Comrade Koba posted:This table makes it possible for the party to get sexually propositioned by an invisible stalker, which sounds like one of the most interesting encounters in the history of D&D. I'm pretty sure I've seen that doujin.
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Apr 7, 2017 10:55
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Bad as that is, it's still better than the 3 health 3.5's toughness gets you.
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Apr 7, 2017 11:38
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One little note before I leave for work: American tanks were actually quite well regarded during the war, just for reasons that aren't sexy: American tanks were reliable, fuel-efficient, and comfortable to drive and fight in. They didn't have the best armor or hardest-hitting gun, but more than any other nation's armor you could count on American tanks to actually get where they needed to be, and they were easy to keep running. One of the biggest problems for Soviet and especially German tanks was their mechanical unreliability. Having the biggest gun and thickest armor doesn't do you much good if the tank can't be relied on to move for more than thirty minutes at a time before something breaks and needs to be replaced.
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Apr 7, 2017 12:46
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I remember watching this video of debunking myths about the Sherman where the speaker was talking about this "meme" that you needed four Shermans to destroy a Tiger. The smallest tactical unit is a tank platoon of four tanks, so if you wanted to get anything done, whether it was destroy a Tiger, or destroy a house, or destroy a Mark IV Panzer, or provide fire support for some infantry, the minimum would be four tanks, because platoons don't get smaller than that. But this somehow evolved into a belief that you sent four Shermans against a Tiger because the Shermans were just that badly outgunned by a Tiger.
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Apr 7, 2017 12:54
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Cythereal posted:One little note before I leave for work: American tanks were actually quite well regarded during the war, just for reasons that aren't sexy: American tanks were reliable, fuel-efficient, and comfortable to drive and fight in. They didn't have the best armor or hardest-hitting gun, but more than any other nation's armor you could count on American tanks to actually get where they needed to be, and they were easy to keep running. One of the biggest problems for Soviet and especially German tanks was their mechanical unreliability. Having the biggest gun and thickest armor doesn't do you much good if the tank can't be relied on to move for more than thirty minutes at a time before something breaks and needs to be replaced. They were also generally pretty cool medium tanks that were liked and respected both on the western and eastern front (lend-lease!). It's just that when armored warfare turned from zipping all over France until fuel runs out into fighting heavy armor designed for tank-on-tank combat entrenched in defensible terrain, everyone started bitching endlessly and quickly forgot how hype they were two months earlier.
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Apr 7, 2017 12:56
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Shermans also initially had the issue where they kept the ammo on the top of the tank, which led to them being called the "Ronson" (lights first every time). A lot of people blamed the fuel, but it wasn't really any different from most tanks. Once they started using wet storage on the bottom of the tank, they became much safer.
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Apr 7, 2017 13:05
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There's no evidence of 'Ronson' being used for Shermans in WW2. The whole 'Lights first every time' wasn't even coined till WW2 is over. Also I don't want to derail the thread with a point by point rebuttal but I can't let this... Halloween Jack posted:
..... stand. German tanks were inferior in both numbers and capabilities at the begining of the war. Especially when compared to French Armour. 2/3rds of the Panzers that composed the Blitzkreig were still Panzer I/II's or converted Czech Pz 38's. Small, lightly armoured and with unimpressive firepower. The Panzer 1 literally only has Machine Guns. One other thing I wanted to point out. The T34. When you're talking about that remember there's a huge difference between the original T34 and the T34/85, which is different enought that a lot of armies would have renamed it.
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Apr 7, 2017 13:27
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Cythereal posted:One little note before I leave for work: American tanks were actually quite well regarded during the war, just for reasons that aren't sexy: American tanks were reliable, fuel-efficient, and comfortable to drive and fight in. They didn't have the best armor or hardest-hitting gun, but more than any other nation's armor you could count on American tanks to actually get where they needed to be, and they were easy to keep running. One of the biggest problems for Soviet and especially German tanks was their mechanical unreliability. Having the biggest gun and thickest armor doesn't do you much good if the tank can't be relied on to move for more than thirty minutes at a time before something breaks and needs to be replaced. GIS a Sherman tank. Anyone will do. See those hooks on the hull.They're lifting hooks for 40's era dockyard cranes. Remember this is pre-containerisation. The only way to get your shiny new tank to the battlefield across thousands of miles of ocean is on a ship and that means the tank has to be liftable by Cranes on both ends. 30-40 tons was pretty much the standard for Crane lifting capacity at that time. The Sherman was designed with these considerations in mind.
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Apr 7, 2017 13:44
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I've also read that British tanks were limited in size because they needed to be shipped through the rail tunnels that connected the industrial midlands to London and the shipping ports. Designs were rushed into place to produce better, heavier tanks, but they also had production considerations. Retooling a bunch of factories to produce heavier tanks would have meant a disruption in the flow of Shermans to the battlefield. You know what's worse than having a thousand Sherman tanks? Having no Sherman tanks. So they kept making Sherman tanks. The Sherman's designers did a very good job of learning the lessons of WWII - unfortunately, the period they had to study was the 1939-41 blitzkrieg period, where zippy mobile tanks without huge guns dominated. You won campaigns by breaking through and encircling the enemy's rear, and the Sherman was an excellent design for doing just that. Alas for the US, the war in Russia had further evolved tanks into heavy lumbering beasts with thick armor and giant cannons by the time the Sherman really got into the fight. The US also had the bad luck of mostly fighting in terrain that wasn't suited to the sort of mobile tactics the Sherman was designed for. Normandy bocage, Ardennes forest, flooded Ruhr valley - not exactly mobile encirclement territory. The handful of times the terrain cooperated (Normandy COBRA breakout, race across Sicily) the Sherman performed superbly. Bad doctrine was also a problem. The Sherman was never meant to engage enemy tanks directly - if you found yourself fighting Panthers or Tigers, you were supposed to call in the Tank Destroyers (slow units with heavy armor and heavy guns) to deal with them. Care to guess how often there was a perfectly-positioned Tank Destroyer platoon nearby to deal with German tanks when Shermans encountered them? Yes, exactly.
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Apr 7, 2017 14:10
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Most tanks didn't actually fight tanks.
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Apr 7, 2017 14:12
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FMguru posted:you were supposed to call in the Tank Destroyers (slow units with heavy armor and heavy guns) to deal with them. Care to guess how often there was a perfectly-positioned Tank Destroyer platoon nearby to deal with German tanks when Shermans encountered them? Yes, exactly. While the rest of your statement is correct, American Tank Destroyers were not "heavily armored". They were very lightly armored and were supposed to rely on speed and mobility to carry them through anti-tank engagements. It was German "tank destroyers" that were heavily armored, but only because the original German concept was an "assault gun" to give infantry some direct-fire capability that was mobile enough to keep up during an offensive, and then we just sort of lumped the TD and assault gun classifications together.
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Apr 7, 2017 14:17
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Deptfordx posted:Also I don't want to derail the thread with a point by point rebuttal but I can't let this... In retrospect, it's weird that it says "Axis equipment was superior at the start of the war" without adding "Except the Japanese, and definitely not the Italians whose poo poo we're not even listing, actually only the Germans." Also, Baba Yaga doesn't care how many T34s you have.  
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Apr 7, 2017 |
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Apr 7, 2017 14:24
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Halloween Jack posted:I didn't get into the T34 at all, despite its importance. That's another one of those forest-for-the-trees thing that the book misses by just putting lists of equipment. And the Germans only achieved that by taking basically this http://www.awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=010509 approach to weapon building.
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Apr 7, 2017 14:28
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That Old Tree posted:
You forgot a few things. One: You have a limit on how many components you can spend on a spell without taking non-lethal damage for every point you go over. Two: Any effect that isn't "deal damage" gets hideously expensive quickly, to the point that a level 5 mage can probably cast the equivilent of a disintigrate spell without much difficulty, but a level 20 mage will still get knocked the gently caress out by control weather and it's massive 160 component cost.
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Apr 7, 2017 14:33
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Hunt11 posted:And the Germans only achieved that by taking basically this http://www.awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=010509 approach to weapon building. 10,000 man hours to build a Sherman. 30,000 man hours to build a T34 300,000 man hours to build a Tiger.
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Apr 7, 2017 14:41
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LatwPIAT posted:Those were designed at around the same time and never built, in part because they were a terrible idea. They were also the idea of Edward Grotte, a man who'd previously tried to sell the same idea to the Soviet Union: Still boggles my mind this was considered a good idea at some point. Also not enough turrets. Cythereal posted:One little note before I leave for work: American tanks were actually quite well regarded during the war, just for reasons that aren't sexy: American tanks were reliable, fuel-efficient, and comfortable to drive and fight in. They didn't have the best armor or hardest-hitting gun, but more than any other nation's armor you could count on American tanks to actually get where they needed to be, and they were easy to keep running. One of the biggest problems for Soviet and especially German tanks was their mechanical unreliability. Having the biggest gun and thickest armor doesn't do you much good if the tank can't be relied on to move for more than thirty minutes at a time before something breaks and needs to be replaced. I seem to recall that another issue with German tanks was them being special snowflakes who shared little to no parts between different models, making repairs and maintenance tricky when supplies run short. And they had a lot of different models. Soviets and Americans had a much easier time patching their stuff up.
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Apr 7, 2017 17:12
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Doresh posted:Still boggles my mind this was considered a good idea at some point.
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Apr 7, 2017 17:13
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LatwPIAT posted:Those were designed at around the same time and never built, in part because they were a terrible idea. They were also the idea of Edward Grotte, a man who'd previously tried to sell the same idea to the Soviet Union: That one looks silly, but this one actually saw combat.
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Apr 7, 2017 17:16
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Davin Valkri posted:That one looks silly, but this one actually saw combat. Wikipedia posted:Some of the turrets obscured the entrance hatches. 
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Apr 7, 2017 17:20
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