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Night10194 posted:Someday I want to see one of these 'tech doesn't work' settings being so literal that it's just a succession of massively swole folks fistfighting lions. The Living Land in Torg does this. Not only does your gun stop firing and your knife stop cutting, social technology like 'the chain of command' stops working too.
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Aug 3, 2017 01:36
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Fortunately you get miracles to fill in the gap so you have magical living spears you can pluck from the ground and then replant them once you're done fighting.
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Aug 3, 2017 01:43
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Nessus posted:It's Monster Hunter time. Palico Monster Hunter has bowguns.  Though I am always down for a catte party.
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Aug 3, 2017 02:00
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occamsnailfile posted:Monster Hunter has bowguns.
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Aug 3, 2017 02:14
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Hostile V posted:These newcomers (and Ice Queen) will be the stars of the next module because...I kinda made the core members of G-Unit way too good and the core thrust of the next module won't function properly because they can just murder their way through their problems. So come back and join me NEXT TIME for my absolute favorite module of this entire line, a module I love because it's so stupid and bad: LORDS OF THE DREAM CAGES, a module the creators straight-up say in the first few pages is based on the Marquis de Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom and the 1975 art horror film Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom and is marked as Mature on DTRPG as a result. G-Unit dares to enter their magical realm. Ah Christ, NOBODY can tastefully reference that stuff, much less this game. And to be fair regarding G-Unit being super tough, it probably helps that most of the big nasty stuff keeps dying because they forgot the internal organs (please keep that though, it's amazingly hilarious to read). And I'm going to guess "evil science experiment" for why they deliberately fired a prison ship into hell. Too bad evil scientists always fail to supply appropriate controls for their experiments, a game following a sister prison ship that was sent into Heaven would be rather amusing.
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Aug 3, 2017 02:18
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It's good to see G-Unit moving up to be proper prison warlords with Leadership feats, though.
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Aug 3, 2017 02:22
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JcDent posted:Oh, the women are free to be basically anyone else, just not Space Marines (because Emperor engineered it that way and No Female Space Marines (in 40K) is my weird hill to die on. I'm also willing to die on No Male SoB hill, which is adjacent, but much smaller), Commissars or Navis Nobilite (the officers), and I have issues with the last two. Aside for the Scions book being needlessly cruel and stupid about things (All Scions (human operators operating operationally) need a painful memory deleting drug for their transformation into Scions just cuz AND THE STOCKS ARE RUNNING OUT NOOOO), I'm really not against female Commissars (and countless horny nerds are already voting with their wallets at Wargame Exclusive et al) while a female space officer in a strapping uniform is such an entrenched trope that I would not want to go away from 40K. The Navis Nobilite aren't the officer corps of the Navy- they're the mutants that allow handle warp navigation.
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Aug 3, 2017 03:52
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Women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Malcador. But I do deny them my geneseed.
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Aug 3, 2017 04:05
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 I think that spessmarines would work best if they were not treated as human: Just men and women turned into post human death machines.
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Aug 3, 2017 04:15
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thatbastardken posted:The Navis Nobilite aren't the officer corps of the Navy- they're the mutants that allow handle warp navigation. Navigators are way, way too valuable to arbitrarily not use half of them.
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Aug 3, 2017 04:21
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Navigators even have genetors to make the best breeding choices and to lock up the navigators who have mutated to an unacceptable degree (Dune level).
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Aug 3, 2017 04:26
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Navigators even have genetors to make the best breeding choices and to lock up the navigators who have mutated to an unacceptable degree (Dune level). Note that they're just locked up to stop anyone seeing them and freaking out. They're still in active service navigating ships around, just from inside their sealed quarters.
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Aug 3, 2017 04:30
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The Lone Badger posted:Navigators are way, way too valuable to arbitrarily not use half of them. And women Navigators have shown up in lots of 40k (and 30k) novels. It's one of the few roles that's usually occupied by a woman in this sausage fest of a setting.
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Aug 3, 2017 04:33
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And there was a rumour about one complete abomination that was being kept alive with xenotech and served one outlaw Captain.
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Aug 3, 2017 04:35
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 Rifts World Book 15: Spirit West, Part 15: "An intruder or enemy can pick it up, shake it, stab it and throw it to the floor without eliciting the slightest reaction." Greater Spirits The Great Kachinas & Lesser Kachina Spirits So, these are supposed to be "Greater Earth Elementals" who work for the gods "Standing-Mountain" and "Hard-Woman-Dancing". Apparently there are some independent ones, as well as even some evil ones, but only those who work for the gods are venerated by the secret society of Kachina Dancers. Supposedly members of the Kachina Dancers keep their identities secret by wearing masks, and they worship Kachinas directly since the gods forbid worship. (I can find no sign of this secrecy taboo being an actual thing, but somebody can enlighten me if I'm wrong. Also, the Earth elemental thing seems to be born from Kachina residing in an "underworld" and nothing else. Also the thing about gods forbidding worship also seems wrong? Pretty much presume this whole thing is inaccurate, just to be safe.) Therefore, Kachina Dancers are only revealed during rituals where they wear their masks, and nobody actually knows who they are in the community. Though within the size of Rifts communities, I can't imagine it would be hard to work out - if Cheveyo or Lapu never shows up to watch the dancers, that'd seem like a bit of a clue, wouldn't it? But apparently Kachina Dancers can only use their shamanistic powers with their mask and costume on, though they're apparently more likely to get direct spiritual aid at any time. Even if another Native American works out who a Kachina Dancer is, they're supposed to keep it secret. If a Native American reveals a Dancer's identity deliberately, apparently a number of Kachina spirits kidnap the offending person to the Spirit Realm where they remain forever. Only the Kachina Dancer who was revealed can make a request for a pardon. Non-Native Americans, on the other hand, can shout the identities of Kachina Dancers from the hills, spray paint them on walls, or broadcast them on 107.9 (your station for the hottest Kachina Dancer secret identities), all with zero spiritual consequences. Kachina Dancers Of course you can play one! But they don't get a whole class, this is more like a template of bonus powers you get for being one. Apparently most dancers are Earth Elemental Shamans, but anybody can be one. Then you get special powers when you put the costume, such as: summoning spirits, create some lesser fetishes, bonuses against fear and mind control, reduced fatigue, and bonus PPE. However, the costume gives minor penalties to speed and physical actions. Really, since you can put on or take off the costume, there's really no drawback or requirement to playing a Kachina Dancer, so you may as well play them as long as you're playing a  A CGI movie about the secret life of Kachina dolls is basically an eventuality. Kachina Spirit Dolls So, one of the summoning powers of the Kachina Dancer is to put a Kachina spirit into a small doll, which then asks as an assistant and defender. Which would seem to be a giveaway... "Uh, Lapu, why is a Kachina doll bringing you dinner?" "Oh, nothing to do with being a Kachina Dancer, I assure you." "You're a Kachina dancer!... gently caress..." "ALRIGHT, OFF TO THE SPIRIT REALM WITH YOU." Well, actually it goes Toy Story instead when it might threaten the identity of its master. It also has a special power to hide its magical nature from magic-detecting powers. Convenient! They also give away powerless Kachina dolls to help keep the mystery safe. So, the spirit dolls are minor mega-damage helpers, and they get some basic sensory and healing psionics, as well as a some Earth warlock spells. Outside of their spells, they're not much direct use in a fight, though they can beat up a normal unarmored human real good if they gotta. Lesser Kachina Spirit These are spirits that take the form of 5' Kachina dolls, and are all-around competent, get some physical psychic powers, get a broad variety of basic Earth warlock spells and that's that. They're bigger versions of the above. Great Kachina Spirit These are supposed to be "greater elemental spirits" who work directly for the gods. But not all of them do. World Book 15: Spirit West posted:One such spirit, Dark-Hand (aberrant evil, 8th level) sees the white-man and all other non-Indians as invaders and despoilers to be forced off the North American continent or destroyed. He is constantly instigating war, slaughter, treachery and conflict between the red-man and all other people. Dark-Hand is also a regular enemy of the Kachina worshipers and the Great Spirits and gods they follow. wince So, these can be of any of the four elements, not just Earth. They're essentially lesser gods with over a thousand MDC, elemental powers to talk with or sense other elementals, the ability to summon other Kachina spirits, a broad variety of powers copy-pasted from the Lesser Elemental Spirit section, psionics like Lesser Elemental Spirits (but a little more), knows all Warlock spells of their element, and that's that. They can take on the form of humans, 10' kachina dolls, or possess willing Kachina Dancers. We get some specific names and attribute lines for the four that directly serve the gods, and that's that. So, the Kachina here are a bizarrely simplified version of the original as far as I can tell. The real Kachina can be patron spirits of just about anything, and aren't just Earth spirits. There are literally at least dozens of named ones representing different aspects with their own myths, and even evil ones that act like ogres or oni. Moreover, the Hopi have a rich mythology about the world ending in a cyclical fashion that you'd think would be rich with ideas for a post-apocalypse games... but no, let's laser-focus on the part that's popular with tourists. Next: The snowflakes of the spirit world. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Aug 3, 2017 |
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Aug 3, 2017 05:28
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MadDogMike posted:Ah Christ, NOBODY can tastefully reference that stuff, much less this game. And to be fair regarding G-Unit being super tough, it probably helps that most of the big nasty stuff keeps dying because they forgot the internal organs (please keep that though, it's amazingly hilarious to read). And I'm going to guess "evil science experiment" for why they deliberately fired a prison ship into hell. Too bad evil scientists always fail to supply appropriate controls for their experiments, a game following a sister prison ship that was sent into Heaven would be rather amusing. "Check it out! You know how we only had one Foosball table?" "Yeah." "Count 'em." "...Holy poo poo."
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Aug 3, 2017 08:21
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Last I checked, Space Marines and Sisters of Battle are pretty much the only organisations in the Imperium that are gender restricted, and at least on paper the Imperium's standard doctrine is pretty egalitarian, at least in the more 'standard' Imperial culture. It's just that the artists and modellers only make boy toys unless reminded otherwise, and it's gotten worse since GW decided the Space Marines are the protagonists of the setting and everyone else exists as background extras of no interest. Space Marines' main justification being, at least in recent fluff (as in from the 90s onward), that they're nabbed before/during puberty and given crude gene therapy designed to basically make them grow into imperfect clones of the Primarchs, who are in turn imperfect clones of the Emperor, and they're already super picky about who qualifies for that, and a lot of initiates die or flunk out in the process because their bodies (or minds) aren't ideal for it. I wouldn't be against it in theory; hell, have one or both of the Lost Primarchs turn out to be a girl so there's precedent; but I do recall an old discussion on the topic of how pretty much every actual 'female Space Marine' army tends to have some kind of really weird fetish at its core.
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Aug 3, 2017 08:35
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MadDogMike posted:Ah Christ, NOBODY can tastefully reference that stuff, much less this game. And to be fair regarding G-Unit being super tough, it probably helps that most of the big nasty stuff keeps dying because they forgot the internal organs (please keep that though, it's amazingly hilarious to read). And I'm going to guess "evil science experiment" for why they deliberately fired a prison ship into hell. Too bad evil scientists always fail to supply appropriate controls for their experiments, a game following a sister prison ship that was sent into Heaven would be rather amusing. The tale of ten million convicts who're now being nannied by omnipresent, coddling angels and slowly going insane as a result. "I tried to hurt myself the other day, I couldn't even stub my toe without a celestial choir and five seraphim saving me." "You think that's bad? You should see what happens if you try SWEARING. I can still taste the soap."
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Aug 3, 2017 08:39
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"Prisoner #9943710 smiles and pats you on the back. Make a FRIENDLINESS check!" "Oh poo poo -- that puts me at 10 Friendliness!" "The lights flicker and turn rainbow-colored as glitter pours from the ceiling, coalescing into the form of an enormous Helpful Buddy!"
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Aug 3, 2017 09:27
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:
That's how I treat them in my group. "Yes Anne, you can be a Space Marine. Just remember that Bernadetta will still be adressed as "Battle Brother" as a traditional honorific. Also to avoid confusion since she looks exactly like her squadmates who started as boys. Yes, that includes the five-inch, braided mustache." Or that's how I would treat them if anyone in my group was seriously interested in playing a fleshy killbot whose only non-war hobbies are pushups, prayer, and oiling their bolter. e: Inescapable Duck posted:the Imperium's standard doctrine is pretty egalitarian, at least in the more 'standard' Imperial culture Also that. Everybody's got the equal and irrevocable right to die for the Emperor. RedSnapper fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Aug 3, 2017 |
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Aug 3, 2017 09:27
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I mean, the whole reason the Sisters of Battle exist is exactly because they use antiquated, patriarchal language and symbology but it isn't actually reflected in the culture. Though said culture is also pretty heavily opposed to transhumanism, with the Space Marines and Adeptus Mechanicus' alterations being cultural loopholes that people quietly ignore because they're absolutely necessary and also powerful and scary. The Imperium is basically all about self-worship of the human form. (Reminded of how the Purity ideology in Civ Beyond Earth is basically a secular Imperium of Man) I love the Brettonnia writeups for actually being self-aware about how hypocritical and doublethinking the setting is, and the necessary facades and ignorance to keep up the idealised feudal aesthetic. Makes for a lot of interesting story hooks, and god knows it's not far off real life at all. quote:"Yes Anne, you can be a Space Marine. Just remember that Bernadetta will still be adressed as "Battle Brother" as a traditional honorific. Also to avoid confusion since she looks exactly like her squadmates who started as boys. Yes, that includes the five-inch, braided mustache." That's probably more or less what you're gonna get, best case scenario, taking a 9-12 year old girl and spending a couple decades messing with her development with super-testosterone, superhuman genetic modification, bionic implants etc etc.
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Aug 3, 2017 09:44
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Inescapable Duck posted:I wouldn't be against it in theory; hell, have one or both of the Lost Primarchs turn out to be a girl so there's precedent; but I do recall an old discussion on the topic of how pretty much every actual 'female Space Marine' army tends to have some kind of really weird fetish at its core. How? Theyre giant walking slabs of armour vaguely shaped like a person, whats there to fetishize (that wouldnt be already done with tradition space marines lol)? Unless they were chaos marines. 
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Aug 3, 2017 10:09
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I'm for female Space Marines and no male Sisters of Battle. I want to tell men that, for once in their lives, they can't have something. 
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Aug 3, 2017 10:20
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Communist Zombie posted:How? Theyre giant walking slabs of armour vaguely shaped like a person, whats there to fetishize (that wouldnt be already done with tradition space marines lol)? Unless they were chaos marines. SOMEHOW IT TURNS OUT THAT WHEN WOMEN GO THROUGH THE PROCESS INSTEAD OF TURNING INTO GIANT SLABS OF ARMOR THEY TURN INTO PERFECT WAIFUS WITH HOURGLASS FIGURES AND ANIME EYES Or something You would be surprised at terrible people can be. Or not.
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Aug 3, 2017 10:26
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MJ12 posted:SOMEHOW IT TURNS OUT THAT WHEN WOMEN GO THROUGH THE PROCESS INSTEAD OF TURNING INTO GIANT SLABS OF ARMOR THEY TURN INTO PERFECT WAIFUS WITH HOURGLASS FIGURES AND ANIME EYES "You see, they have more efficient muscles due to higher iron content in their blood (that's also how they get perpetually rose-red lips) and most of their muscles accumulate in the breasts. That's only rational."
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Aug 3, 2017 10:31
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Night10194 posted:Someday, somehow, I will actually get to Dark Heresy. I will never regret that I ran 40krp, if only for the Underhive/Techpriest game about an ex ganger doing archeology and trying to fix water filtration systems down in the gloomy tunnels of her old home, slowly making one world a little nicer. I'd love to play something like that. Combat encounters really slow the game the gently caress down in DH/RT/DW/any other two letter combo. Again, No Female Space Marines is my weird hill to die on. I love the Space Medieval Knights In Space feel, the warrior brotherhood thing, and hell, down to the stuff that have no doubts about what they're doing. Well, most of the time. They have a purity of purpose - get out there, kick rear end - and they don't have a sexual component to them either. It's like a band of brothers (or bros) stuck in eternal war, and loving it. I like this different sort of perspective and I'm glad there's no leevay for Sexy Space Marine adventures. I like Sisters for a similar reason, too: they have clarity of purpose, a level of devotion I'll never match in my life, and they don't have a romantic aspect to them. While I'm not saying that all adventures/persons of actions should be single - Hawk and Fisher by Simon R. Green is a good example (they're a married couple of fantasy cops) - I think there is place for heroes don't even engage with that. It's sci-fi, we can have that, and if you want more humane humans, write something about Guardsmen, Inquisitors or set an entire book series in the underdecks of a freight hauler. (Christ are sci-fi writers poo poo with scale. Just because you have an Imperium of a million worlds doesn't mean that every book has to be about the fate of the galaxy or a planet. Necromunda was an awesome game about gangs of a single Hive, why can't books be like that). A good writer could try and get into the head of a super human killing machine/scion of a god and see how they feel about chapter serfs, about the people of their recruitment world (especially when you have Chapters that are as social as Salamanders), what they think when they see Guardsmen doing character development, maybe have a single lost Space Marine lead an insurgency against a corrupt governor and get included in the feasts and worship and daily lives of the insurgents, musing about what it all reminds him and his humanity. Something like this: Uriel Ventris: "And you are wrong." Inquisitor: "About what?" Ventris: "About the life of a single individual being irrelevant. Every life is vital, no matter how seemingly insignificant. If we forget that, we are no better than the scum out there." ...but most writers are poo poo, and Black Library lets them write poo poo. They have no understanding of writing, of military tactics and, in C.S. Goto's case, 40K at al. The battle scenes suck, too, because even when Marines are fighting Marines (30K) or CSM (40K), only the hero matters and all other super human warriors fall like chaff. It's sad and boring, and there's no tension. Most of the fun in Inquisitorial or Guardsmen books come from the environments and new worlds, not from shooting everyone all the time. ...and then you get to Sigmarine books, of which I've listened to 2.5, where battles are super boring and you can hardly care about the life of your protagonist, because he's basically a Necron, and he will be back. They're bad at selling Sigmarines, too, because they're either 1. Crushing the enemy or 2. Dying like bitches. JcDent fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Aug 3, 2017 |
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Aug 3, 2017 10:37
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MJ12 posted:SOMEHOW IT TURNS OUT THAT WHEN WOMEN GO THROUGH THE PROCESS INSTEAD OF TURNING INTO GIANT SLABS OF ARMOR THEY TURN INTO PERFECT WAIFUS WITH HOURGLASS FIGURES AND ANIME EYES RedSnapper posted:"You see, they have more efficient muscles due to higher iron content in their blood (that's also how they get perpetually rose-red lips) and most of their muscles accumulate in the breasts. That's only rational." And that's if you're lucky and there isn't some kind of mind control/bondage implications or something otherwise completely out of left field. We already have the Sisters Repentia, and the entire faction of Dark Eldar, but some people just aren't happy unless they can put their genitals where they don't belong, metaphorically and otherwise.
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Aug 3, 2017 11:03
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When I was still running 40k I made Repentia into a Questing Knight. A sister who sets aside her power armor and bolter (as symbols of a full sister) and takes up the weapons and carapace armor of a Novitiate again, then goes out to take every request for aid she gets until one kills her or her order deems her redeemed and renews her vows with great ceremony. Slayer+Questing Knight IN SPACE worked better than bondage angel. Also, a penitent knight in ragged armor wandering into fights and crusades in hopes of the remission of her sins is, you know, an old archetype. Also the fact that women in my gaming group wanted to play as women when we tried Deathwatch was why I was fine with Ladymarines. Plus it let them go nuts with designing their own chapters. It was common on FFG's forums to see 'There's a woman in my group and she wants to play a female marine! What do I do?' As if that was a great and terrible dillemma and not something solved with a few strokes of a pen. I think after the Chaos book I'll take a detour to do Dark Heresy so that the 40k chat becomes more relevant. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Aug 3, 2017 |
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Aug 3, 2017 11:25
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"Only female space marine" would be an incredibly cliche One Unique Thing if we were playing 13th Age, and yet here we are.
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Aug 3, 2017 11:37
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We just had it be a normal thing that no-one commented on in setting beyond acknowledging they descended from one of the Emperor's daughters. Otherwise it was the normal 'Our armor is blue and off white and our schtick is privateering'/'We wear red and like tanks and John Woo dual wielding action dives' Marine writing. The chap who said it's basically cartoon/basic war movie 'color, schtick, personal complication on schtick' stuff is spot on, but that's why Deathwatch's premise of 'You're a multicolored sentai team of pain' could be fun for awhile. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Aug 3, 2017 |
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Aug 3, 2017 11:42
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I figure just say "Yeah, your chapter's one of a few dozen that recruits women and makes it work. Yeah, it's considered extra-heretical. No, funny thing, nobody ever seems to raise the issue when standing within firing range of anyone in your chapter." Because, after all, one of the big jokes of the setting is that the Imperium's all about Purity and Unity yet it's a constantly squabbling array of tiny factions and everyone has to turn a blind eye to everyone else's little deviations from the orthodoxy just to stop the whole thing falling apart.
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Aug 3, 2017 11:52
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I mean, end of the day, with RPGs in general, your goal is to make players feel comfortable and welcome so everyone can have a good time, whether you're playing wizbiz, drama vampires, catholic space nazis, murderhobos, or cyberpunk anarchist mercenaries.
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Aug 3, 2017 12:00
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My preferred explanation for female Marines is "...you never asked is why." Most marines don't even realise that everyone outside the Astartes assume all marines are male.
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Aug 3, 2017 12:06
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Night10194 posted:When I was still running 40k I made Repentia into a Questing Knight. A sister who sets aside her power armor and bolter (as symbols of a full sister) and takes up the weapons and carapace armor of a Novitiate again, then goes out to take every request for aid she gets until one kills her or her order deems her redeemed and renews her vows with great ceremony. Found my next DH char... in the next campaign, anyways. Current one already has two blender sisters.
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Aug 3, 2017 12:11
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The reason for no male Sisters is way more entertaining than why no female Marines. See, the Sisters of Battle were formed due to the fact that the exact language used in the legal documents surrounding the Imperial Cult forbids them from maintaining, quote, "men under arms."
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Aug 3, 2017 12:36
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It just occured to me that you could probably run a good Perdition-style game using Red Markets -- you've got untrustworthy people, scarcity, a hostile environment to scavenge from populated by wandering dangers... everything you need, right?
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Aug 3, 2017 13:43
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RedSnapper posted:"You see, they have more efficient muscles due to higher iron content in their blood (that's also how they get perpetually rose-red lips) and most of their muscles accumulate in the breasts. That's only rational." Ugh, now I'm reminded of that guy who keeps pumping out lovely "How to Draw Anime" books that did 'anatomy references' that depicts breasts as solid muscle tissue.
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Aug 3, 2017 14:46
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 Aethera Campaign Setting Part Sixteen - Skills & Feats Chapter Four’s comic features SLUMS ACTION. Surestra has taken a wrong turn in a corrugated-metal shantytown, and drawn the attention of a trio of Mad Max piecemeal-armor thugs. The smart one, who happens to be wearing cool shades, spotted the glow of her aethertech prosthetic arms under her cloak, but as he takes a slash at her and catches only cloak, he recognizes her Hierarchy uniform. The stupidest thug tries to shake her down for “anything that glows”, but the smart one has started to fall back, realizing that Surestra is a Titan as the brawler grabs the stupid thug and hurls him into the other two thugs. Surestra begins glowing with aetheric power as the three struggle to their feet. Many skills have expanded options to deal with the sci-fi nature of the Aethera system. Acrobatics is used to maneuver in zero gravity. You can still use Acrobatics to move through threatened areas as you would on land, but you no longer take penalties for moving your full speed, you can do it in medium armor, you get a +4 if you’re going over or under the opponent, and a modifier of 5 is applied if one party has the Zero-G Training feat while the other doesn’t. You also use Acrobatics to line up jumps across distances, reorient yourself on surfaces, and stop your motion along surfaces. loving up the check to reorient yourself puts you in a spin, which forces a DC 14 Fort save to avoid being nauseated. The Zero-G Training feat additionally unlocks the Zero-G Acrobatics skill unlock, allowing you to get fancy with your flying. With a DC 15 Acrobatics check, you can attack during your movement, adding +10 to the DC per attack if you want to try full attacking. This is usable once a day, +1 per 6 HD. You no longer need to make checks to stop yourself on a surface, but once a day with a DC 15 check you can stop on a creature, and at a DC of 30 minus the damage dealt you can use an incoming attack to stop yourself. At will, you can make a DC 20 check to reorient yourself in midair, and once a day you can either reduce the time it takes to spontaneously cast a spell with a metamagic feat from a full-round action to standard or reorient yourself and change your momentum when casting a force spell. Appraise can be used on aethertech to determine its capacity, charge, and function. Craft (Firearms) is used to make guns and ammo instead of the Gunsmithing feat. Most guns are DC 20, except for makeshift scrap guns which are 15, and ammo is DC 10. Disable Device, as the generalized tech skill, is now applied to aethertech as well. You can fix aetherships with it, either long-term maintenance to actually repair it, or quick jury-rigged fixes in the middle of battle that add temporary HP to the ship. On the other side of the coin, if you have some time alone with a ship (From a minute for a speeder bike up to 2d100 minutes for a dreadnought), you can sabotage it, rendering the controls sluggish, causing a slow air leak, or just turning off parts of it. If you roll well, you can sabotage multiple things in the same go.  Space dogfights are cool. Art Deco spaceships are also cool. Fly is used to pilot aetherships, the process being a combination of actual aerodynamic knowledge and psychoreactive “feel”. Mostly, it’s the same as a creature flying, because aetherships are technically creatures, built on the same skeleton and using the same rules to make everything simpler. Handle Animal has a small note that most animals are unused to zero-g, and all DCs are 10 higher unless the creature has Zero-G training or is native to space. Otherwise, the Symbiont Handler feat unlocks the Symbiont Handling skill unlock, allowing one to handle and train plant symbionts with the skill, much the same way one would use it normally, although symbionts have a narrower selection of tricks available to them. Thanks to the lack of clerics and commensurate lower amount of healing magic available in the system, the Heal skill is expanded to compensate. The Treat Deadly Wounds option, which normally uses two charges from a kit and heals only 1 HP, instead takes only one charge and heals 1d8 HP and an additional 1 per HD of the target, more in line with Cure Light Wounds. Additionally, those who take the field surgeon feat gain use of the Advanced Medicine skill unlock, which allows them to fix physical ability damage, implant prosthetics, treat radiation damage better, reoxygenate brains that have recently suffocated, increase the Treat Deadly wounds function even more (To 1d8+1 per HD, but at the cost of making them harder to heal later, it’s literally field surgery and you can’t do the same things again), and with a DC 35 check you can even revive the dead (As long as they died in the last few minutes). Knowledge (Geography) is used for astrogation in the depths of space. Linguistics sees some changes in the languages available. For starters, each new race has their own language, and some languages either are not spoken with any regularity, or anyone who spoke them is dead. Languages are thus divided into four categories: Common (Hymnas, Erahthi, Okantan, the four elemental languages, plus Giant), Uncommon (Abyssal, Goblin, Aklo, Sylvan, and Zahaj-El, spoken by zahajin), Secret/Dead (Including Celestial, Draconic, Taur (all secret), and Progenitor (dead)), and Unavailable (Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Gnoll, Halfling, and Orc). Perform and the Elemental Tuning feat allows you to pull elemental energy from the Inner Planes with the Elemental Harmony skill unlock. The math on this is a little iffy. Using it requires a Perform check of 10 (To mimic Endure Elements) or 15 (to blast things) plus your effective caster level, which is equal to your ranks in Perform. This is not as bad as truenaming’s scaling, but it still means you need to scare up as many bonuses as you can. Just back-of-the-hand calculation says that with Skill Focus and a masterwork instrument, you’re still making it a coin flip to blast things with energy (and ten minutes later I realize I’m forgetting the class skill bonus and Charisma that most people taking Perform ranks would have, so you can easily knock the roll needed to blast to 5 or lower). Otherwise, it’s kind of okay. The blast scales more or less like damaging spells do as far as its save DC does, but its damage is lackluster. Endure Elements can be handy, and elemental Prestidigitation can have some uses. The blast and Endure Elements share the same daily use, but you can use the prestidigitation effect as often as desired, which was an issue I had with the unlock when it appeared in the Early Access Guide. And with Survival and some method of seeing magical auras you can track aetherships through space. It’s fairly easy unless you’re trying to track pirates away from the site of an aetherdrive explosion or they’re actively covering their tracks with a spell specifically for the purpose. Psychic magic and occult skill unlocks are very common in Aethera, available in all cultures and walks of life. Automatic writing commonly takes the form of short pieces of musical notation, transcriptions of the Score. These can commonly be sold for the automatic writing check result in au, and performances of these tend to draw large crowds in Hierarchy arcologies or other Scorist communities. Automatic writers are also often retained by corporations and small businesses for market prognostications, earning between 10 and 50 au per rank in Linguistics for each consultation. In Complex Four and the Amrita Belt, these consultations are often about new mining sites. Also, posh patisseries in Hierarchy arcologies sell fortune- I’m sorry, augury cookies. Dowsing is prevalent across the system, although it gained popularity in the Akasaati aetherite rush. Mostly employed when charting unexplored asteroid clusters, the chance of charming charlatans cheating chumps has lead to most miners withholding payment on divinations until they actually turn out well. Pay is usually 10 or more au per hour of work, paid on independent confirmation of results. Nearly every medical officer in the Century War served with or as a faith healer, who acted as triage experts, keeping soldiers alive long enough to reach medics and healers in the rear lines. That has nothing to do with what faith healing can do, but okay. Modern faith healers operate alongside other trained medical professionals like alchemists, but don’t have any real guideline for how much they usually charge, mostly being based on how much need there is for their services. While hypnotism is often used to soothe traumas and ease amnesiacs, it’s not looked on very favorably thanks to the unscrupulous hypnotists who take advantage of those they hypnotize. In the Century War it was used by both sides to implant suggestions and create lurking saboteurs, first by humans and later by erahthi. Today some infused seek out hypnotists to help recover their memory. Such hypnotherapists can usually command 100 to 300 au per hour. Phrenologists are used on both Akasaat and Kir-Sharaat to determine the placement and development of citizens, although in the case of erahthi it’s used to examine the newborn body and determine which soul to channel into it. Professional phrenologists earn 50-100 au per assessment. Prognosticators find work as private investigators, intelligence officers, and talent screeners across the system, most notably in the Slotting system on Akasaat. Independent prognosticators earn 50-100 au per consultation. Beyond the obvious uses in helping law enforcement solve crimes, psychometry is also used in corporate espionage to help divine exclusive manufacturing techniques. This has become so prevalent some manufacturing concerns are calling for legislation to protect against it. 25-50 au per reading. And finally, aura reading is used across all manner of professions. Physicians use it diagnostically, law enforcement uses alignment auras to assess threats, merchants read magical auras to aid appraisals, and the Vanguard tracks rogue magicians with it. Large variance in pay, anywhere from 20 to 100 au. Feats In the interest of not throwing a huge long list at your faces, I’ll break these feats up into distinct families. To start with, let’s cover aetherships. Ace Mechanic leads us off here, allowing the use of repair kits and Disable Device to heal damage to any creature with the construct type (Including aetherships). It also allows use of the Advanced Medicine unlock on phalanx as if you had Field Surgeon, using Disable Device instead of Heal. Ace Mechanics can further become a ship’s Chief Engineer, coming about the middle of one’s adventuring career with a prereq of 10 ranks of Disable Device. This feat lets you divert power from anywhere in the ship (Normally you need to be standing next to an aetherdrive or in an engineering bay to divert power) and faster from an engineering bay, and you can add your Int bonus to certain values of the systems you divert power to. And since you’re using your Int bonus for that, may as well take Cunning Mechanic, too, which swaps Dex for Int when determining your Disable Device bonus. That covers fixing them, but what about flying them? Aethership Mastery unlocks several new ace pilot moves, such as turning 180, flying straight up (Normally you’re limited to an ascent angle of 45 degrees), and reducing incoming damage strictly by fancy flying. It’s a mid-level feat, requiring six ranks of Fly and Skill Focus (Fly). Daring Pilot is for people with panache. Literally, the panache class feature. It lets them spend panache to add their Cha bonus to Fly and combat maneuver checks for a few rounds. Intership Rally lets you apply things like hunter’s bond, teamwork feats, and other instructional or inspirational features between aetherships by use of a communication system, expanding the range to line of sight. Pilot’s Intuition lets you use Wisdom instead of Dexterity to calculate your Fly bonus and CMB when piloting an aethership. And Ship Synch allows aether kineticists or characters with the aether subtype to attune themselves to the ship’s systems, adding +1 to Fly and CMB checks while piloting, as well as attack rolls with ship weapons. Moving on, Cantors have their own sets of feats. Okanta cantors (say that five times fast) get some interesting options. Ancestral Epics lets them use Perform in place of Knowledge (History) or (Local) while Spirit Talker lets them use Perform instead of Diplomacy and communicate with fey, outsiders, and undead without sharing a language. I know this is about being taught the proper forms and mnemonics to recall all this as part of your performance training, but I keep giggling at the idea of a giant horned weasel dancing so well that people like her more or telling jokes about the Thirty-Nine Trials of Daraak the Wanderer. Erahthi who focus on the dream or wood hymns can take Song of the Tritarchs, boosting their effective level for the effects of those hymns and increasing the HD limit of what they can affect with mind-affecting spells that care about those things. Cantors with the aether subtype (Phalanx and infused) can take Innate Harmony, letting them use their reroll ability more often. They have an hourly limit, and this lets them ignore that once a day. Phalanx themselves have access to Intuitive Riff and a Greater version, which lets them use verses from hymns they haven’t rehearsed. Infused don’t have their own special feat. We also have the Healing Song tree. The basic feat allows you to heal someone as a swift action while maintaining a performance. The healing isn’t great, half your cantor level, but swift healing can save someone’s rear end sometimes. Aria of the Soul upgrades it to healing all allies within 30 feet. And Cleansing Bridge lets you remove one of a few debilitating conditions from the target of your healing. General cantor feats. Aetherite Resonance lets you use a 100-au shard of refined aetherite as an additional focus when preparing spells and add one use of any cantor spell to your spells known for the day. Blind Cantor increases your effective Wisdom by 2 for the purposes of cantor abilities while you’re blinded. Destined Choices lets you affect creatures with mind-affecting effects that would normally be immune. They instead get a +4 bonus on their saves, and I think you need to be performing to do it, but that’s kind of a thing for cantors anyway. Esoteric Arts adds one spell of each spell level (1 through 6) from the bard, cleric, or inquisitor lists to your cantor spell list, though you still need to select them as spells known to cast them. Extra Verse adds another verse to your capabilities. And Spell Verse, available around 8th level, lets you turn a 1st-level spell into a verse, casting it 3 times a day as a spell-like ability. The innovations of war have resulted in two significant advances: Power armor and firearms. As a new class of armor, power armor has its own Proficiency feat, which sprouts off its own feat tree. Power armor increases the wearer’s Strength and movement speed while consuming charges from an aetheric capacitor. Overdrive lets you supercharge the reactor, draining the entire capacitor and gaining additional boosts to Strength and movement speed. Standby Mode lets you power down unnecessary systems, consuming only half the power, but not granting any bonuses and not letting you use any of the accessories you have attached. Running on Fumes lets you use your power armor after it runs out of charge. It lasts for a minute, prevents you from making Strength or Dexterity-based skill checks, gives you a -5 penalty on attack rolls, and treats you as flat-footed. After this minute, the power armor shuts down. And Shock Trooper increases your ability to intimidate foes while wearing power armor. Firearm feats: Body Muffle lets you use the body of your target to suppress the noise of your shot. It provokes an attack of opportunity even if you don’t normally provoke while firing in melee and requires a combat maneuver check, and in return makes it a DC 10 Perception check for others to hear the shot. It’s normally -10. Automatic fire opens new tactical possibilities. Suppressing Fire lets you inflict a -2 penalty on ranged attack rolls on enemies in the line of fire of your autofire attack (only -1 if they’re in cover) while the Improved version treats the targets as flat-footed against the next ranged attack that round. Squad Tactics is a teamwork feat, increasing attack and damage with firearms by 1 if someone nearby also has the feat. And Overwatch stems off it, letting you set up a 45-foot cone and make attacks of opportunity if an enemy moves within it (Unless they’re moving in cover or other people are blocking your shot).  Humanity wasn’t the only civilization innovating in the war, and the erahthi developed a number of plant-based symbionts and the training to utilize them effectively. This starts with the Symbiont Handler feat, which does nothing but allow use of the Symbiont Handling skill unlock. Symbiont Handling Expert gives a +2 bonus on Handle animal checks with symbionts, upgrading to +4 at 10th, and lets you train them faster if you roll well. Symbiont Bearer lets you wield another symbiont beyond and above the number allowed by your Constitution bonus. Symbiont Damage Redistribution lets you split damage your symbionts take between them and heal themselves faster after a rest. Symbiont Healer lets you transfer hit points you would have gained from rest to your damaged symbionts, Symbiotic Hit Points lets you transfer HP 2-for-1 between yourself and your symbionts, and Symbiont Resilience lets you draw on the damage reduction that symbionts have for a few rounds a day, and has an Improved version that boosts the duration to several minutes. And of course we get the appropriate crafting feats. Create Plant Symbiont does exactly what it says on the tin, but also allows you to revive a dead plant symbiont for half the cost. Create Advanced Plant Symbiont lets you add the advanced template to a symbiont you make for no additional cost, and Augment Plant Symbiont lets you add natural weapons.to a symbiont or increase the effectiveness of ones they have. Spellcheck did not like that paragraph. And now we’re into the grab bag of less easily-categorizable feats. Craft Aethertech lets you craft aethertech, the blending of magic and ancient technology requiring specialized techniques. Likewise, Craft Automata lets you build aethertech prosthetics. Efficient Recharger shortens the time needed to recharge an aethertech item from a capacitor from a standard action to a move. Elemental Tuning lets you use the Elemental Harmony skill unlock, but it needs to be done with an audible Perform skill. Elemental Cadence lets you use it with a non-auditory Perform skill, and additionally in places like the vacuum of space or magical silence. Field Surgeon unlocks Advanced Medicine. Okanta can take Greater and Improved Adaptive Mimicry which lets them emulate feats and two skills instead of one, respectively. If they have both feats, they can emulate a feat and a skill. Infused can harness their Inner Light, making their veins glow as if with a Light spell, upgrading to Daylight at 10th level. Phalanx can harness their internal reactor to recharge aethertech with Reactor Siphon, and any 1st-level character can take Rebuilt Veteran, gaining a limb-replacement automata prosthetic. It’s a little janky and a power hog, but you can pay money to have that fixed. Warping Spell is a +2-level metamagic feat that lets you actually use teleportation spells, routing them through Folded Space. Using a warping spell requires everyone involved to make Fort saves (DC 25+spell level) or be nauseated for one round per spell level, and any spell with a percentile miss chance must roll twice and use the worse result. And finally, Zero-G Training unlocks Zero-G Acrobatics as well as removing the attack roll penalties for zero- or low-gravity environments, and Zero-G Adaptation lets you use Zero-G Acrobatics skill unlocks an additional time per day, and removes the ability damage for moving from zero-g to normal gravity. Next up: Gear and magic, and a surprisingly short list of guns.
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Aug 3, 2017 15:02
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I always thought the "No female Astartes" thing could be explained by some part of the Super Marining process requiring a Y chromosome to attach to. Then after I win the lottery and buy out Games Workshop, the Adeptus Mechanicus will find the template that lets it attach to an X chromosome.
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Aug 3, 2017 17:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:"Only female space marine" would be an incredibly cliche One Unique Thing if we were playing 13th Age, and yet here we are. Like Reign's "only female cavalry".
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Aug 3, 2017 18:06
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