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Doresh posted:The 13th Age Fighter is the type of Fighter for those (hypothetical) players people often mention in arguments like "Well, but what if my player doesn't care about powers and just wants to hit people with his sword every turn without thinking?!". Just roll the die, have the die decide which maneuver is used, and go back to playing Angry Birds. Not really. Not only does 13A already have a bunch of those classes, but fighters require either a bunch of memorization or cross checking every turn to see which maneuver went off. It's supposed to be exciting and tricky and flashy in a way that mindless basic attacking isn't. It just fails, because maneuvers are weak effects jammed into a relatively small conceptual space.
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Apr 9, 2017 19:34
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13A fighters are cleverly designed in that their abilities are a mechanical extension of the cruder ones of the ranger and barbarian. A raging barbarian is looking for an 11+ on both dice. A ranger is looking for an even roll to trigger a second attack. The problem is that fighter maneuvers are not only individually less reliable than those, they're also significantly less impactful. A fighter will execute a maneuver more often than a ranger gets a second attack, but that reliability is more than offset by the low impact and generally boring concept of maneuvers. "I hit the orc a little harder" doesn't have the emotional impact of "I hit the orc a second time."
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Apr 9, 2017 20:17
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Cease to Hope posted:Not really. Not only does 13A already have a bunch of those classes, but fighters require either a bunch of memorization or cross checking every turn to see which maneuver went off. It's supposed to be exciting and tricky and flashy in a way that mindless basic attacking isn't. It just fails, because maneuvers are weak effects jammed into a relatively small conceptual space.
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Apr 9, 2017 20:29
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Doresh posted:I'm sure a friendly DM A what? 
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Apr 9, 2017 20:31
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Doresh posted:I'm sure a friendly DM or fellow player can help out here. it's not that it's difficult to manage, it's just fiddly
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Apr 9, 2017 20:44
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Fighter maneuvers are supposed to be representative of the Fighter's moves being in reaction to certain openings or opportunities within combat, as in "when the opponent leaves their left side open, I do this, but when they overextend their reach, I do that" And that concept in itself is a reaction to the grognard criticism of Fighter "martial exploits" in 4th edition, wherein people either didn't know or deliberately refused to understand why a Fighter couldn't just "do the same move over and over" as a limitation on their Encounter and Daily abilities. (the in-game explanation of course being that either such moves would only work once before the enemy would become aware of it and wouldn't fall for it anymore, and that such moves would require enough exertion that the Fighter couldn't do them more than once per day) Thematically, it works as far as providing a plausible explanation, but the actual effects are so limited and ineffective.
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Apr 10, 2017 00:44
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Dragonmech: Making a robot Before we get to construction rules, we learn that mech armor doesn't give AC, because that's based on mech size and you can't really miss most mechs. Rather, their armoring gives them Hardness, determined by what they're made of. Flesh is Hardness 1, clay is 3, wood is 5, bone is 6, stone is 8, iron is 10, steel is 12, mithral is 15 and adamantite is 20. HOWEVER, if you mix your armors, you have to figure out what percentage is what, because your Hardness is the weighted average of those types. So 25% mithral and 75% steel is (12*.75+15*.25), or Hardness 12.75, which I believe rounds up to 13. Anyway, mechs have a 'standard' profile for their size, which is the default stats for a mech that size, but you can customize it after this. However: you can never have an attribute that is more than a mech one size larger or less than a mech one size smaller. So, base Colossal Strength is 30. It can't have Strength less than 26, the base Gargantuan one, or greater than 34, which is Colossal II. Lower means it can't support its weight and higher would require enough machines to make it the next category up. However, beyond that limit, just about every stat can be modified by crafting. You can also add special traits, like extra armor plating (to get more Hardness but less move speed), combat spikes to boost unarmed combat, weapon mounts to have more combat options, faster legs, whatever. So, let's start making a mech. Ultimately, success or failure comes down to a Craft (Mechcraft) roll...but the GM rolls it and won't tell you the result until after you spend all the cash and time building the thing. Fail, and well, too bad, so sad, it's hosed and will never work, despite doing the roll before any construction begins. See, the first step is planning. You decide what power source and size you want. (The man-powered mechs are easiest to make, followed by animated and undead, then steam-powered, then clockwork.) We'll go with a Gargantuan steam-powered mech, DC 36. The design takes (DC*2-your Craft ranks) days to complete, and the GM makes the roll to see if your design is poo poo or not. But once you have a good design, you can keep using it for as many robots as you want to make, though you can only build one at a time because the designer has to be on-site to oversee the construction. That's when we begin factoring in labor requirements. We have 1920 man-hours of work to get done. Depending on how skilled our laborers are they give different amounts per day. Your average guy who can lift heavy objects can give 8 man-hours a day, while a basic (Profession (engineer) 5) skilled worker gives 10. 10+ ranks can give 12, and 15+ gives 14. Nonsentient undead give 12 man-hours per day, and nonsentient constructs give 30. However (ignoring the zombies and golems) the more skilled cost more - it's 1 sp/day to hire a rando, but 1 gp, 2 gp and 3 gp respectively for engineers. You also need one overseer per ten workers (or fraction thereof) if they're intelligent. Without that, each group of 10 with no overseer is working at 75% efficiency. However, the game assumes you can find an overseer in any random group of tend people, so really it's just the fact that they cost 3 sp extra per day each. The game also assumes that any population of laborers will have no more than 10% engineers and 1% experts. Anyway, we take our 1920 man-hours, divide by 8. We will need either one worker going at it for 240 days, 2 for 120 or up to 240 workers for one day. Let's say we have ten workers, all average, and one overseer. So that's 13 sp per day of work, for a total of 24 days of work. So 31 gp and 2 sp in labor costs alone. However, every mech also has a materials cost. We're going to add combat spikes (+10% base cost for +1d6 to unarmed damage) and Fast Legs (+5% base cost for +10 feet to combat speed). The cost and man-hours of a mech, incidentally, are again a function of size and power source. Man-powered and undead are cheapest in both (actually, undead just need corpses, not cash), steam-powered and animated are middle, and clockwork is the most. So, our frame cost is 1200 gp. Applying armor to the frame we've just made is done next - the man-hours are built in, but not the cost. Steel armor for a Gargantuan mech is 200 gp. Add those together to get base cost - 1400 gp. Now it goes up by 15% for our mods. So, 1610 gp. Then we add the cost of any weapons we want to give it, but gently caress it, this is a kung fu mech and doesn't have any. Then we can do incremental improvements. Incremental improvements let us increase or decrease the stats, and my god the formulas are insane. Okay, first, you take the labor cost and man-hours of the mech and divide both by 6. Then you take the difference between the new stat and the standard for that size, noting this as the nonstandard difference. Then you take the difference for the standard for your mech's size and the standard for the size above or below it depending on which way you're modding. That's the standard difference. Then you divide the nonstandard difference by the standard difference to get a percentage. You take that percentage and multiply it by the number we got the first step. That is the cost in GP and man-hours. Also, you better have planned this in the planning stage, because it alters the DC of construction to be the average of the standard mech and the one above it (for improvements). If you deliberately build in weaknesses, the DC remains the same. Anyway we take those numbers if we wanted to do those stat changes and add them to our number from before. And that's our final cost and time for construction. Then we add a fixed cost for robot type - in the case of steam-powered, 2000 gp. So our final cost is 3200 gp for our steambot. Jesus, that's complicated. But if you were making a magical mech you're not done! To do that, you need to cast geas/quest and polymorph any object on the thing, and either limited wish, or if it's a full citymech, wish. Then, you spend between one and fourteen days on the ritual to animate it. And unless you spend 30,000 gp extra on it, it's weak to dispel magic casting. (The 30,000 gp actually makes it immune to all direct magic.) Necromantic mechs are similar but require a different set of spells to animate them. Then we check our mechcraft roll. If it succeeds, the mech works. If it fails by 5 or less, it doesn't work but a new check can be made by spending a month working and 20% of the cost. Fail by 6 or more and you have a very expensive lump of materials and have to start over entirely. You can take 10 or take 20, but doing so makes construction take 10 or 20 times as long in all phases. Modding works basically the same as making a new mech, but is faster. If you want to remove a thing, it costs a third of the base price to install it. Mechcraft rolls are usually not involved for mods, at least. However: a mech cannot have its size increased, and the only power source change can be downgrading it to man-powered. Next time: Now make it fight. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Apr 10, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 00:59
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that is some gurps vehicles grade nonsense
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Apr 10, 2017 01:01
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Dragonmech sure has some sweet art.
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Apr 10, 2017 02:40
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 Rifts Index & Adventures Volume 1, Part 7: “If the players open the barrels and complain, the GM can smile and explain that they were warned about the dangers.” It’s time to fill the gaping hole that is our lives with some adventure seeds provided by Jolly Blackburn and others that will help us destroy the fun and egos of whoever foolishly wanders into our gaming table. It’s time for Palladium to play dirty. This is mercifully the last of my fumbling voice. I think this is the best one to listen to if you listen to any of them, though - my exasperation with how bad these adventure hooks are is palpable. Here’s part 7 of the review! Maybe things will be okay- Wait, how many Rifts books are left? How many? Too many.  There isn’t any art left in the book, so there’s none here, either. However, I’ve also included a full (104 MB) .zip album of the whole review. And that's all!... until Rifts Index & Adventures Volume 2, anyway.  Next: Power. Respect. Juice. How far would you go to get it? Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Apr 10, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 02:42
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Alien Rope Burn posted:
I've been listening, these are good!
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Apr 10, 2017 02:55
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Wait, what happened to Sourcebook 2?
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Apr 10, 2017 02:57
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theironjef posted:I've been listening, these are good! Thanks! I think I have to learn mostly to figure out how to keep my vocal volume more steady and how get  Mors Rattus posted:Wait, what happened to Sourcebook 2? It's not in there, which is doubly odd because the mechanoids are in one adventure! But if you want to look them up - which would be handy because that adventure references mechanoid types that aren't reprinted in the adventure - the index isn't of any help. There's no explanation, and given it's finally indexed in Rifts Index & Adventures Volume 2, it's just a mystery as to why it didn't make the cut. Maybe the guy who put together the index (Craig Crawford) just didn't have a copy? I dunno. Oh, another thing to mention on the Hook, Line, Sinker adventures - they had a variety of writers I didn't even notice because they're credited only in 8-point font below the ToC, not on the actual credits page. I guess Siembieda missed them too and just pasted them into some available space. Blackburn is still the only one of real note that I'm aware of, though. I think a few may have been early Shadis writers and little else (as far as RPG writing goes, mind, I'm sure they have very accomplished personal lives). The next review will take a little longer than I hoped for to post. Despite Juicer Uprising being completely finished, the text was somehow lost and isn't in my online backups, somehow. I have backups of the next four books that follow it that are already done, so they'll come quicker after that. Well, at least all the images are ripped (and boy, are they ripped).
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Apr 10, 2017 03:39
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The Dragonmech authors must have been terrified of anyone actually using mechs in their setting.
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Apr 10, 2017 04:31
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The overlap between "person who wants to play a pilot of a robot mech that fights dragons" and "person who enjoys calculating man hours and weighted averages of metalurgical composition of specific conponents" is literally just the authors of Dragonmecg, isnt it.
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Apr 10, 2017 04:42
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 13th Age part 12: One, two, three four five We are in the home stretch for these rambly-assed class descriptions, folks. Since I'm moving on to actual rules next, I'll need some sample characters to walk through character creation and play examples. In F&F tradition, does anyone want to suggest any character concepts? In particular, I need a class and One Unique Thing - I can handle the rest. Loot & Lutes Bards do everything and completely own. Bards are party-supporting, lore-spouting generalists. While most players are going to naturally tend towards some sort of specialty, bards' build options are intentionally broad to reinforce the somewhat illusory jack-of-all-trades feeling. For example, depending on how they're built, they can rely mainly on dexterity for physical attacks, strength for melee attacks (why), or any one of the three mental stats (CHA by default) for spellcasting. Bards reinforce this generalism by packing lots of different effects into single talents. For example, the talents that switch CHA-based effects to INT or WIS also grant extra background points (and let them exceed the normal cap by one if it's a bard-y background), and add extra icon relation points. The talents that do only do one thing tend to be open-ended interactions with icon relation rolls, or an additional slot that can be filled with a variety of options.  This table is great, even if the associated talent isn't. Bards have a lot of options to manage, too, with three main class features: spells, songs, and battle cries. Spells and songs share slots, while battle cries have their own separate slots. Spells are just spells, like any other class's - and bards can jack spells from any other spellcasting class with a talent to supplement them. (The talent is literally called Jack of Spells.) Both spells and songs are all daily or recharge X+ abilities, with one exception. Their spells aren't weaker or smaller as in some other D&D takes, but bards do get about half as many spell slots as most other spellcasting classes. Besides actual spells, bards can use songs, which work somewhat similarly to Sustain spells in D&D 4e or Concentration-duration spells in 5e. A song grants some sort of ongoing effect, usually a buff for the whole party, and can be maintained as long as the bard spends a quick action and succeeds on a sustain roll to maintain it. When they fail - or the bard stops maintaining the song for whatever reason, it triggers the song's Final Verse, a one-shot effect. For example, one song grants temporary HP to an ally each turn it's sustained, then grants an actual heal to one of the allies so buffed when it ends. Bards can fight, cast regular spells, or do anything else they like while sustaining a song, but can only maintain one song at a time. Bards also have battle cries, which are conditional at-will triggered effects, similar to fighter maneuvers. They are used exactly the same way: when the bard rolls a certain value on a melee attack under certain conditions, they can trigger a battle cry. Unlike fighter maneuvers, they grant a benefit to an ally - and only an ally, never the bard themself - but they are still limited to strictly mundane effects. The higher-level effects are allowed to be a bit flashier than maneuvers: the single 9th-level battle cry restores expended daily powers. Battle cries don't mix well with spells or archery, though. They can only be triggered by melee attacks or one single weak at-will ranged attack spell. This does lead to a bit of a 4e-V-class-style split: a bard needs STR or DEX to fight effectively in melee, but all of the spell attacks are instead based on a mental stat. Spells have a greater impact than a bard's unremarkable melee abilities, but bards get so few of them and the at-will spell is so anemic. I'm not fond of bards in general, but I like 13A's. The simplification of combat and class abilities is kind to them, making sampling many different disparate abilities more effective than in other D&D games that reward deep specialization. Drawing from several different pools of resources feels right, even if it is more paperwork than most classes. The only failing is the reliance on both DEX and CHA to use the full range of bard abilities well. This was a known problem with 4e, and one that was mostly solved in later-designed classes, and it's frustrating to see it reappear here. Next: First, roll 3d6 six times...
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Apr 10, 2017 06:11
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Barudak posted:The overlap between "person who wants to play a pilot of a robot mech that fights dragons" and "person who enjoys calculating man hours and weighted averages of metalurgical composition of specific conponents" is literally just the authors of Dragonmecg, isnt it. It also probably fits the people who use the advanced mech accountancy rules for Battletech. They exist and I've met some, although I don't get it.
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Apr 10, 2017 06:12
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Barudak posted:The overlap between "person who wants to play a pilot of a robot mech that fights dragons" and "person who enjoys calculating man hours and weighted averages of metalurgical composition of specific conponents" is literally just the authors of Dragonmecg, isnt it. I keep imagining this as a game Torbjorn from Overwatch designed.
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Apr 10, 2017 06:44
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Dragonmech: Let's You And Him Fight So, mech fights. It's pretty similar to normal combat, but not entirely. Destroying the enemy mech is definitely possible, but they have huge piles of HP and plus, a broken mech can't fight lunar monsters, so it's rarely the goal. Capture or disabling is just as viable - tripping mechs, tangling them up, boarding and killing the crew, those are all viable tactics. If you have to destroy the enemy, though, you're in for a slugfest until you get their crit threshold down enough that you can break something important. Mech derived stats are also different. Initiative is the mech's Dex mod (usually negative) plus the pilot's Dex mod, plus any relevant feats. AC is 10 plus the mech's size mod (always negative), and only adds the pilot's Dex in if they have the Mech Dancer feat. The mech's Dex is never involved. Mech melee bonus is the Mech's strength mod plus the mech's size mod plus the gunner's Dex mod plus the gunner's mech BAB. Mech ranged is the mech's Dex mod plus the gunner's Dex mod plus the gunner's mech BAB. As you can see, it's way easier to land a hit than to miss. Also, remember - without a feat, you can either move or use a mech weapon in a turn as a pilot. Mechs also require fuel. A Huge steam mech requires one ton of coal per 24 hours of continuous use, and each size higher doubles that. So, for 8 hours of operation per day, a Huge mech will use one ton every 3 days. Wood can also be burned, but you need three times as much. Mechs can hold nine days worth of coal by default, but you can add space at a rate of half a ton per PU spent on it. Run out of fuel and your steam mech will not go. Period. Also, hope that your mech doesn't have to fight in a forest, on hills or on a beach - that counts as difficult terrain and requires Mech Pilot rolls to not fal over, to say nothing of fighting on uneven ground or mud, which is even worse. (However, larger mechs can ignore difficult terrain that isn't big enough to pose a problem to them - a citymech is fine on a hill, but castles or mountains will give it trouble.) A mech can be made to run to go at double speed, but while doing so it gets a penalty to ranged attacks and worse maneuverability - and even then, steam and clockwork mechs can only run for one out of every three hours, and man-powered mechs for only half an hour out of every six. Longer and they start to overheat or damage the laborers, respectively. Only mechs with manueverability of good or perfect and also arms can climb, and...as far as I can tell, any mech can jump but more maneuverable mechs are less likely to fall over when they do. You can also try to bull rush, but if you do, both you and the target have to make a Mech Pilot check. If you roll lower than the other guy's bull rush check, you fall over. But what, you say, about the punching? Okay, so the mech pilot is the first person involved in a mech's turn. They can, again, either move or attack unless they get a feat. This is why most mechs also have a gunner, to man the weapons while the pilot moves the mech. All crew act on the same Initiative...but if hte mech is being boarded and fight inside, you also roll a sub-initiative count to determine actions inside the mech, which in the context of the battle outside are all assumed to happen on the mech's initiative count. Now, attacking. If a weapon requires a crew, it uses the highest Dex mod among the crew, and otherwise is as we've discussed. You get -4 to using a mech weapon you aren't proficient with. The ability for gunners, rather than pilots, to use the weapons gives muitiple PCs a chance to do stuff, I guess. Mechs can take attacks of opportunity, which work normally, except for a few things. First, a mech firing a ranged weapon into melee doesn't provoke one. Second, it can't take any against creatures boarding or attacking it, as it lacks the flexibility, control and restraint to avoid damaging itself or even moving quickly enough. Third, mech 'unarmed' attacks do not provoke them. Mechs flat can't grapple and that's probably for the best. You can try to make called shots on specific parts of a mech - the wepaons, limbs or cockpit, say. You could even try to go after specific crew, but you need a Spot check to pick out a human-sized critter on a mech. Anything about twice as big as a human doesn't need one, however. Any called shot is automatically a full action, provokes an attack of opportunity due to the pause for aiming and gets a -4 penalty. If it hits, the GM decides what special effects, if any, it has - usually damaging the arm or weapon, say. Unless you target the cockpit or gunner port, that is. For this, you need a piercing weapon or a slashing weapon designed for it, but you can hit the crew. If you do land that hit, the crew inside must roll Reflex against your attack. Half of your damage is divided equally among all viable crew targets that fail your save. The rest is dealt to the mech. While mechs are constructs, non-magical ones are still vulnerable to critical hits, as they have 'anatomy' in the same sense that a car does. Animated and undead mechs don't, so they're fine. Any critical hit causes a minimum of 1 damage to the mech even after hardness, and then also any damage from the crit table - which ignores hardness entirely, as it's all internal. Further, as the mech loses HP and enters its lower crit thresholds, crits get easier. For every step below green, attackers have the critical threat range of all attacks increased by 1. For the most part, the crew of a mech are safe from attack. They have 90% cover against all outside attacks due to only having tiny slats and reinforced portholes for windows. (However, this also means that it's easy to sneak around while climbing an outside of a mech if you're quiet.) However, a mech with less than its full allotment of crew is in trouble. The mech always needs at least one person to be the pilot, and for steam, clockwork and man-powered mechs, at least half the total crew allotment must be constantly working to keep the engine going. Less than that and the mech breaks down. While broken down, a mech's crew can fire independent weapons such as catapults or ballistas, but can't move the limbs or use any mechanically powered weapons. Also, any crew members that are fighting inside the mech obviously don't count towards crew allotment. To board a mech, you have to either enter through an opening, ripe a hole in the surface somehow or do enough damage to crack open the armor wide enough. To do that, you have to deal at least 20 damage in a single attack to open a hole big enough for a Medium creature, or get the mech past its orange threshold, which automatically opens 1d4 suitable holes. Alternatively, you can climb to a porthole and pry it open - base DC 28 to break it open and 40 HP if you just want to beat it open, but it shares the mech's Hardness. You can have up to four people cooperating to open one, though. Your other option? Climb through a firing port. Most of the time those are closed, like portholes, but if open or in use, you can make an Escape Artist or Dex check of DC 20, with bonuses for being smaller than Medium and penalties for larger. However, you may also need to make a Strength check to shove someone shooting through the port out of the way. Alternatively, use a bore launcher - a mech weapon that fires a hollow projectile with people inside it. You can also be outside the mech and shoot at crew visible through openings. If you are within 100 feet, you can target anyone you can see. Past that, you need Spot checks. The number of boarders on a mech can't ever exceed its PU for crew and storage - there just isn't space - but they can use the same PU as the crew. If they must do that, though, all combat on board must be grappling until more space opens up. Flanking is impossible aboard a mech, and it is impossible for multiple people to attack a target - there's not enough space for more than one on one combat, even with ranged weapons. Ranged weapons cannot be used to shoot into combats in a mech - there's no room for shots of more than ten feet. AoE attacks or spells hit randomly determined fighters. If a mech has secured crew cabins, the boarding party's going to have to break into those to fight the crew. Vertical movement inside a mech costs 30 feet per 10 feet moved vertically, due to stairs and ladders. Citymechs, obviously, do not count - they have floor plans and should be treated as a dungeon. Next time: Help, I fell over
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Apr 10, 2017 13:49
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Man, I wish they'd made rules for mech grappling. Not to, like, use them, or anything, but just to see how crazy they'd somehow make it.
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Apr 10, 2017 14:24
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Dragonmech: Robot Punching The tripping rules are pretty standard, except that you can use Mech Pilot in place of your mech's Str or Dex mod to avoid falling over. (Also, infantry attackers can work together to get grappleso n a mech and pull it to the ground.) The thing is, whatever way a mech falls down, it's pretty disabling, They aren't good at standing up - it takes a Mech Pilot roll. Also, when you fall, you have to roll a d6 to see how you fall. On a 1-2, face up. On a 3, left side up, on a 4, right side and on 5-6, face down. You can make a Mech Pilot check after to add or subtract 2 from your roll. Even if you stand up, it takes 1d6 full actions. While a mech is prone, there's a +4 bonus to attack it in melee but no penalty to shoot it - mechs are big. A face down mech can only use weapons mounted on the rear, or any shoulder or head-mount weapons that can swivel a full 360 degrees, but has no penalty to get up. A face up mech can use any forward-mounted weapons, but can't use melee on any attackers outside its reach, which is usually less than its height. Also, the DC to stand is at +4. A mech on its left side can use any weapons on its right side but none on its left. Also, flip a coin to see which way it faces - all forward-mount weapons are aimed that way. The DC to get up is at +2, and you can choose to roll face up or face down without a roll. On the right side is the same but with directions reversed. Now, special attacks! Mech unarmed attacks are pretty good - they get dice based on size, ranging from 1d6 at Large to 6d12 at City-mech F, and that's before the sizable Strength mod gets added. Mechs can also choose to use their movement to make a trample attack rather than actually moving by trying to stomp on a creature. Any creature in the trampled area can choose to either make an AoO or to try and dodge it with a Reflex or Mech Pilot check. A mech can only trample certain things based on its size, and if they're too big, the mech risks falling over, but mech trampling does fireball levels of damage. You can also hang onto the outside of a mech - a tactic mostly used by the rust riders, bandits that usually have poorly maintained mechs. You ride on the outside, making Balance checks to not fall off, and can either use that to climb and attack the mech...or to attack people while hanging from the mech. Also, you can use climbing a mech to cover up mech viewports or to throw genades in through the firing slits. If you block a viewport, any crew behind it are blind for mech movement and attacks, after all. So yeah, you can theoretically disable a mech by wrestling the cockpit so the pilot can't see anything. A few new attack types are also introduced for everyone. First, the ranging shot - a way to shoot to gain accuracy. You make an attack roll, but cause no damage on a hit. Rather, if you hit, you get a +2 circumstance bonus to further attacks. If you miss, you get a +1 bonus instead, and can still go for a second ranging shot. It doesn't matter if the second hits or misses - your bonus rises to +2. It can never be higher than that from ranging, and is lost if you move or get attacked in melee. Further, as long as you have a ranging bonus, you are flat-footed - any attempt to duck or dodge clears your bonus. Second, indirect attacks - for projectiles you can lob, like steam cannons, bows, catapults or grenades. You can only do indirect fire on a target you know exists, either via a spotter or past knowledge. You get -4 if you have a spotter with line of sight on the target or -8 if not. If you have no spotter, you're also aiming at the last spot you saw the target at, which may not be where they are. Even if you miss, though, the attack's going to land somewhere, so you use grenadelike weapon rules for AoE and explosive attacks, except the deviation is 2d6 feet per range increment. Also, note that you need high enough ceilings to actually arc your shot. And now we enter the list of standard mech models and pretty pictures. These are fun.  The Barbagula is an Irontooth Clans mech, a Huge steam mech that's 15 feet tall and coated in stone armor. It only needs the pilot, and it's a nasty little thing. It's fast, light and equipped with a right-arm-mounted changler whip and a left-arm-mounted giant lance. It's designed for ambushes, see, or pack tactics against larger mechs. It's fast for a steam mech, charging in with the lance and then using the changler to trip foes and knock them over for either boarding or stabbing to death with the lance. The mech's design is actually wildly variable - the basic concept is stable, but the Irontooths have several aesthetic variations. Other forces have copied the design at times, usually replacing the armor with iron or steel.  The Bastion is an old dwarven design, now obsolete. It was a Colossal machine that ran on steam and stood 35 feet tall. It was one of the first dwarven mechs ever made, and the design shows it. It's basically a tall, narrow walking castle tower with squat limbs. It's got no real head and merely stone armor on an iron frame. In fact, it was actually able to disguise itself as part of a castle by setting to a rest next to a castle wall. It is armed with a right-arm-mounted giant axe blade and a left-arm-mounted ballista. Next time: A robot that headbutts people with a chainsaw. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Apr 10, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 15:17
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I love that goofy castlebot.
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Apr 10, 2017 15:58
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It's like a medieval Mackie.
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Apr 10, 2017 16:41
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I want an UrbanMech with Beholder eyestalks.gradenko_2000 posted:Fighter maneuvers are supposed to be representative of the Fighter's moves being in reaction to certain openings or opportunities within combat, as in "when the opponent leaves their left side open, I do this, but when they overextend their reach, I do that" gourdcaptain posted:It also probably fits the people who use the advanced mech accountancy rules for Battletech. They exist and I've met some, although I don't get it. *Makes notes about TechManual F&F review*
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Apr 10, 2017 17:56
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Absurdly Giant bipedal walkers fit a lot better in a fantastic setting, as no one has a concept of tanks or kilometre range artillery. I definitely know what I'm playing the next time I feel like Tolkien fantasy, but with an abstract system.
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Apr 10, 2017 18:01
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Absurdly Giant bipedal walkers fit a lot better in a fantastic setting, as no one has a concept of tanks or kilometre range artillery.
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Apr 10, 2017 18:04
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Really, any time you write a mecha game, it's best not to strain too much to justify why anyone uses the stupid things (and I say this as someone who, for reasons I don't quite understand, genuinely likes mecha). Just pick your basic 'Easier to pilot'/'good in rough terrain'/'Our galaxy is psuedo-feudal and noble idiots love a weapon that only takes one pilot' handwave and then move on to what really matters, the ridiculous melodrama and robots punching each other or firing large cannons at one another.
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Apr 10, 2017 18:04
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Night10194 posted:Really, any time you write a mecha game, it's best not to strain too much to justify why anyone uses the stupid things (and I say this as someone who, for reasons I don't quite understand, genuinely likes mecha). Just pick your basic 'Easier to pilot'/'good in rough terrain'/'Our galaxy is psuedo-feudal and noble idiots love a weapon that only takes one pilot' handwave and then move on to what really matters, the ridiculous melodrama and robots punching each other or firing large cannons at one another. Mecha don't work despite being mecha, they work because they're mecha. Doresh fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Apr 10, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 18:07
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"Everyone - from the lowliest kobolds to the mightiest dragon - accepts that giant mecha are kickin rad" -Elminster
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Apr 10, 2017 18:22
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Also all this stuff where the giant dragon-punching mech takes huge crews and has boarders and poo poo misses the entire point of giant punching mechs, in that they're a way to scale individual actions up to a massive impact on an epic conflict.
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Apr 10, 2017 18:24
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Wrong, the purpose of mechs is to force people who dont want to fight to pilot them.
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Apr 10, 2017 18:31
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Barudak posted:Wrong, the purpose of mechs is to force people who dont want to fight to pilot them. The real purpose of mechs is to do the impossible and break the unbreakable. Preferably while fighting the power.
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Apr 10, 2017 18:32
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"This is no Warforged, boy! No Warforged!" -Regdar Ral
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Apr 10, 2017 18:48
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LeSquide posted:What supplement for Demon Lord has the zone based combat in it? Forbidden Rules, which also has a bunch of other alternate rules (most of which aren't worth bothering with). As far as zones go, you're still going to have to do some rejiggering because it doesn't cover all the rule technicalities.
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Apr 10, 2017 18:55
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I'm now on a huge Demon Lord kick and I think I want to run a game soon; what supplements besides the Companion are good? Is the Hell/Devil boom decent? I'm aware of the shocking setting twist.
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Apr 10, 2017 19:09
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LeSquide posted:I'm now on a huge Demon Lord kick and I think I want to run a game soon; what supplements besides the Companion are good? Is the Hell/Devil boom decent? I'm aware of the shocking setting twist. I would recommend Terrible Beauty. Not because it has elves and nifty fairy monsters, but because of a certain faerie realm... Dance magic, dance...
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Apr 10, 2017 19:25
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EDIT: Dammit, accidental double post. Err... "Who the hell do you think I am?!" - Drizzt Do'Urden.
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Apr 10, 2017 19:28
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Green Intern posted:"This is no Warforged, boy! No Warforged!" Black Tri Starblades.
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Apr 10, 2017 19:29
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LeSquide posted:I'm now on a huge Demon Lord kick and I think I want to run a game soon; what supplements besides the Companion are good? Is the Hell/Devil boom decent? I'm aware of the shocking setting twist. Forbidden Rules is very good, as it has a lot of alternate rules that I really like. Tales is also great because it has a lot of interesting adventures that can be dropped into a campaign and also used as examples and frameworks for your own adventures. I would also recommend taking a look at the Poison Pages and finding any that look like stuff you'd want to use. I've picked up most of them since they're cheap and interesting, and so far they've all had cool things in them.
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Apr 10, 2017 19:29
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so I guess that's a no on some 13A sample characters, heh
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Apr 10, 2017 19:31
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