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Wait, do all undead get spiderman powers now, or just Nihili?
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Nov 19, 2017 23:01
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I kind of like the idea of the Marooned Ones and the Nihili, but why evil? I mean, more often than not, they're probably going to fail in their plans once they get on a ship and end up in a space port or planetside. What happens then? Really, what they should be is chill space zombies in a groundside civilization, since they're not lost and not exposed to the insanity-driving and openly-hostile to life limitless bounds of space.
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Nov 19, 2017 23:12
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Mors Rattus posted:Wait, do all undead get spiderman powers now, or just Nihili? Just Nihili. I believe Paizo has a strict editorial rule of undead = evil, even though you can see the creators straining against that notion by trying to make Eox morally grey. But it doesn't really work so well when almost all the undead seek a diet of human misery, and can only be kept from such by mind control.
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Nov 19, 2017 23:15
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I like to think that the Nihili are in the thrall of a neurotic planet-smashing bomb. Or maybe just an alien that looks like a beachball.
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Nov 19, 2017 23:18
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The picture of the Novaspawn is like, I mean, I would have trouble believing that isn't a painted-over electron microscope photo of a microscopic organism of some kind with maybe some crystals added onto it. In the thumbnail the resemblance is really inescapable to me. I suppose that could be deliberate as everything big comes around to the small again or whatever and maybe Novaspawn are just the bacteria of another, higher, truly large ecosystem-- I got nothing. Huge, planet-devouring lifeforms are a sci-fi staple though and I'm not surprised one turned up in the AA. Otherwise though this is a very lame monster manual.
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Nov 20, 2017 00:06
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I believe Paizo has a strict editorial rule of undead = evil, even though you can see the creators straining against that notion by trying to make Eox morally grey. But it doesn't really work so well when almost all the undead seek a diet of human misery, and can only be kept from such by mind control.
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Nov 20, 2017 01:09
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm amazed that they have that much restraint, as D&D has a long history of weird justifications for Undead-But-Good, like the Deathless. But only for their Perfect And Wonderful Elves.
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Nov 20, 2017 01:14
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Late to the conversation about Pak, but wouldn't playing a game about inhumanly strong, lightning fast, nigh invulnerable living engines of murder dead set on protecting those they find valuable just be playing one of the Werewolf: the * editions? It even has the the whole 'We're really good at murdering things but our continued existence and integrity of the ecology is dependent on us not' angle threaded in there.
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Nov 20, 2017 02:16
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Tasoth posted:Late to the conversation about Pak, but wouldn't playing a game about inhumanly strong, lightning fast, nigh invulnerable living engines of murder dead set on protecting those they find valuable just be playing one of the Werewolf: the * editions? It even has the the whole 'We're really good at murdering things but our continued existence and integrity of the ecology is dependent on us not' angle threaded in there.
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Nov 20, 2017 03:18
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For reference - in one of the books, a human, Kzin and Puppeteer kill a human Protector in open combat, tho she wasn't fighting back as hard as she could've.
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Nov 20, 2017 03:23
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I do always appreciate a powerful and dangerous enemy who is defeated with resources the heroes believably put together, without needing the next level of Saiyan transformation or plot device.
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Nov 20, 2017 03:28
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occamsnailfile posted:I do always appreciate a powerful and dangerous enemy who is defeated with resources the heroes believably put together, without needing the next level of Saiyan transformation or plot device. One of the better things about Known Space stories (the good ones, remember the 80% rule) is the kind of heroes in them. They're usually not the toughest or fastest or even the smartest person in the room, but they are the wiliest.
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Nov 20, 2017 03:49
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JcDent posted:Well, that explains it. But how many bonuses can you expect to stack on an attack? I was running the DnD starter set for a couple of evenings and I was amazed at how many modifiers the players got. Are situations were the enemy reduces your to hit? D&D 5th Edition reduces the bonuses to just two numbers: your Proficiency Bonus (based on your character level) and your Ability Modifier (such as 12 Strength providing a +1 modifier on melee attacks) All other situational/circumstantial bonuses are supposed to be subsumed into the Advantage/Disadvantage system, although there are a few edge cases in newer materials that still add a flat number, violating the original principle of minimizing nickel-and-dime bonuses. Older editions of D&D had a lot more: 1. A base bonus. 4e used Half-Level Bonus for everything similar to 5e's Proficiency, while 3e separated Base-Attack-Bonus and Base-Saving-Throw-Bonus into different numbers 2. The ability modifier 3. A bonus from magical items, such as a +2 bonus to attack and damage from having a magical +2 sword 4. A bonus from feats, such as a +1 bonus to attack from Weapon Focus 5. Circumstantial bonuses from specific conditions, such as a +2 bonus to attack if you're flanking your target, or the target has a -4 penalty to their AC if they're prone and are being attacked in melee That said, you could usually take some shortcuts with this: everything but #5 could be taken as a single total number since they rarely change.
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Nov 20, 2017 04:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:D&D 5th Edition reduces the bonuses to just two numbers: your Proficiency Bonus (based on your character level) and your Ability Modifier (such as 12 Strength providing a +1 modifier on melee attacks) This isn't really true and 5th edition still has most of these. All of these are in the PHB or DMG (the only 5E books I have read) so they are not only in newer materials. 1. This is the proficiency bonus, basically. 2. Still has this. 3. Still has this, completely unchanged except the bonus is part of the magic weapon type. For example, a sun sword gives 'a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls' - it's a +2 weapon even if that term isn't used. 4. Technically still exist but are rarer; the only one that is a flat bonus in the PHB is Dual Wielder, I think (+1 AC when you have a weapon in each hand). 5. Also exist but generally require a feat to activate. Some of them are even more annoying to keep track of than many 3E bonuses. An example is that Defensive Duelist lets you use your reaction to add your proficiency bonus with your weapon as an AC bonus (since it uses your reaction, only once per round), decided retroactively after the enemy rolls and 'hits' you. (Edit: But before damage is shown, so the DM can't just roll all the dice together unless they're hiding them.) The more things change, the more they stay the same, especially when 5E is involved. Prism fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Nov 20, 2017 |
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Nov 20, 2017 05:53
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 Starfinger Alien Archive Part 16: "Orocorans are parasites that prey on the living planet, seeking out the pulsing veins of black ichor that run beneath parts of Aucturn’s surface, drawing the liquid out with their mosquito-like proboscises." O no, we only have two creatures this update!
  Oma (CR 16) So, these are space whales that give off electromagnetic energy to shield themselves from vacuum, and they apparently feed from "particulate rings" and "atmospheres of gas giants" with "energy baleen". Sure, okay. They also have mysterious telepathic whalesongs that nobody can interpret because... well, the whale analog has to be complete, even in a setting where g'drat tongues exists. See, they "speak in riddles even they don't always appear to understand". Mmmhm. Anyway, they're generally benevolent. They're like whales, or a least the popular conception of whales. Ironically, they don't get a spaceship-scaled statblock, as the game seems to presume if you're going to be whalers on the moon, you're gonna do it on foot. Good plan, guys. They're 150' behemoths with darkvision, a tail slap, the ability to swallow people whole, and shoot lightning (including some electrical spells as well as a vanilla electical attack). Their song can give bonuses to the rolls of allies or a penalty (on a failed save) to enemies. We also get rules for using an oma body as a frame for a spaceship (captured after a natural death, we're told), though Barathus once used telepathy to   Orocoran (CR 6) and Orocoran Ichor Lord (CR 9) Native denizens of the living not-Pluto planet of Aucturn, Orocorans feed on its veins of blood, which also gives them hallucinations and allows them to apparently get visions directly from the planet itself - or they could be crazy. But probably the former. Most are pretty much just lazy world-blood addicts, but some have a rare trait where their diet makes them smarter and magicaler than their peers. They often form cults to a mysterious "Carsai the King", who apparently is some prophet of the sleeping world... though their leaders' visions seem to more often than not involve them becoming wealthy and powerful. Also they gently caress by penetrating each other's torsos violently with their proboscises, and then just leave eggs around anywhere to fend for themselves. How do they understand the language of Aklo, then? Shut up, they do! In any case, they're human-sized aberrations with darkvision that can't be flanked, have a bite that bleeds on a crit, can projectile vomit up a hallucinogenic poison, once per day can cast augury, and can see the invisible. The ichor lord gets a number of mind control and affliction spells in addition to having better numbers. Next: R is for David Icke's Delusions.
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Nov 20, 2017 06:11
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gradenko_2000 posted:2. The ability modifier As an aside, one of the reasons that 'ability drain' was so annoying is how coupled the ability modifier is to every resolution method in the game. You can say that 1+2+3+4 is fixed, but there's an unfortunate exception.
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Nov 20, 2017 07:06
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Prism posted:The more things change, the more they stay the same, especially when 5E is involved. These are all good points, and you're right: 5e kind of erodes at its own design principles to the point where you might end up with 3 to 5 different bonuses to add together anyway.
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Nov 20, 2017 07:30
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drivin' me crazy, i'm goin out of my mind We resume our examination of the Protectors. The childless protector Pssthpok (the Pak language isn't very much like ours) reasoned out how to fly to Earth in order to provide us with a bunch of thallium oxide and fresh supplies of Tree-of-life. (Pssthpok had also discovered the virus in Tree-of-life root, which had previously been unknown to the Pak.) Jack Brennan got changed by exposure to Tree-of-life, did not speak much to Pssthpok, and then brutally murdered him. (Pssthpok was previously male. Protectors seem to identify as their breeder-stage gender. Fun trivia.) Anyway, Brennan geared things up and helped Earth along. He went to the Home colony and exposed the descendant of his who had come along for the ride to an infectious version of the tree-of-life virus, which swept through Home and converted those in the right age bracket into protectors while killing everyone else. This new batch of human protectors went off to engage the outside scout waves of a Pak exodus fleet. Their long term fate is unknown but the Pak have not yet reached Earth. Home was resettled in the late 26th century. The remains of Pssthpok are on display at the Smithsonian. This was considered a trivial point of academic interest, based on both the facts of Pssthpok's body and Jack Brennan recording a summary of the facts as he understood them for the sake of humanity before he vanished forever. Whether due to popular sheepleness or suppression by the ARM, it was considered a curiosity until the discovery of the Ringworld. So why do you care? Well, the hominid species of the Ringworld are also descended from the Pak. There is a canon answer for all of this, which the RPG book ignores, saying in a carefully speculative way that the Ringworld might have been built by Pak protectors who came after Pssthpok and set out to make their own drat megastructure and conceal it from other Pak until they were in an unfuckable level of development. (The Ringworld has mighty defenses. We'll get to them later.) The Pak who built the Ringworld - if indeed they did - gathered a bunch of other entities. It is theorized that some of the disappearing varieties of hominid on Earth may have been because the Pak landed and collected them all to turn loose on the Ringworld. They also created "Maps" - artificial terrariums which were approximately the same size as various alien worlds, which were then populated by samples from those alien worlds, including most of the aliens of Known Space, though not the Puppeteers. The Outsiders were also spared... but they wouldn't have been suited for the Ringworld anyway. Anyway, the protectors died somehow. Reason unknown. Sometimes people on the Ringworld still get hold of some tree-of-life and protector up, but it's rare and occasional. The breeders, now left to themselves, diversified across three million or so Earths' worth of land mass, specifically made to be pretty comfortable for them. The population of the Ringworld is estimated at thirty trillion intelligent beings - almost all hominids, if with a planet's worth each of kzin, trinocs, kdatlyno, pierin, martians (now the only surviving ones, since Brennan killed the ones on Mars) and, potentially, others as well. Ringworld hominids have significantly less hypothetical memory of protectors, even if the folk image of these beings resemble eccentric wizards or gods. Many low-tech hominids pattern their armor after protectors. The details of a protector from a hominid species will vary wildly. We get more speculation - the hypotheticals here are because the GM section, in large part, suggests that you, the Gamemaster, determine certain core mysteries for yourself, which can explicitly include things like "the Pak found the Ringworld, they didn't build it." Now, what you've all been waiting for: THE PROTECTOR STAT BLOCK. To become a Protector, be a human at least thirty years old, find some Tree-of-life root, and mash it into your face hole. Make a luck roll. If you fail, you die! If you succeed, in 1D4+3 days, you awaken as a protector. (Oh, and protectors are not suitable for PCs, or so the rules say - turn over your character sheet.) Stat adjustments: STR is doubled, then add 6 more. CON is doubled. Add 5D6 to INT. POW unchanged. DEX is increased by fifty percent, rounding up any fractions. APP is lowered to 6 because you look like some kind of a bird monster and lost all your hair. EDU is unchanged. Open enrollment starts January, ya freak. MAS increases by 6. Protectors lose the human maximum for the Scent skill. Skills the protector knew as a hewmon increase by 1% per 10 days for 500 days, and at 2% per 100 days thereafter, until 5000 days have passed. This is meant to represent how you kind of chew over all your old memories and figure out what you hosed up. Research and training take a third of the time they would for a human. Protectors also gain a natural armor of 5. I think that it is appropriate to the fiction that protectors would not be available for play by PCs, partly because they can break the impulse system over their bony knees but also because even one of the ones who breaks himself or herself from the impulse to protect their descendants is still going to be a villainous superintelligence. However, they do make great antagonists, and are not so transhumanically intelligent that they cannot be reasonably played by a GM, given time to think. Next time on Ringworld, we'll be exploring the intelligent beings of Known Space. While I can't guarantee we'll get through all of them in one post, the Bandersnatchi, Dolphins, Grogs, Kdatlyno, Outsiders and Trinocs are all up next. After that we'll run through types of hominid presented in the fiction - which are really more broad ecological niches, plus a couple of very successful species, than a species-by-species guide. Get hype! Nessus fucked around with this message at 11:51 on Nov 20, 2017 |
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Nov 20, 2017 11:48
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So, tree-of-life either kills you or makes you a Space Marine. What are the odds for a regular Erf hooman to become one?
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Nov 20, 2017 14:43
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JcDent posted:What are the odds for a regular Erf hooman to become one? It's a percentile system so whatever your luck roll is.
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Nov 20, 2017 15:03
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As champions of Law and Good, flumphs are mortal enemies of The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 33: The Deck of Hippogriffs, Hook Horrors, Hydration, and Hydras 195: Preening There’s an open grassy meadow up in the mountains (the card gives more description than that). A hippogriff is chilling there, preening. It glares at the PCs if they start to enter the meadow, about 100 feet away. It attacks them if they come closer, fighting to the death. Why? Because there’s a baby hippogriff sleeping in the shadow of one of the boulders. I’m sure it’s adorable. Lots of babies in this deck, aren’t there? This one is a little too close to 185: First Flight, except it’s a hippogriff instead of a gryphon, and the setup makes less sense. Why is this baby sleeping in a place that’s accessible by non-fliers, anyway? Overall, I’ll pass. 196: Under the Claw Out in the woods where the peasants hunt for dinner, a hunter shot down a hippogriff, but didn’t quite kill it. When the man went to investigate, the wounded and delirious hippogriff pinned him, but for some reason isn’t killing him. The man is screaming, and the PCs hear him. There are several ways they could address this, but if the party gets too close or wounds the hippogriff further but doesn’t finish it off, the hunter is toast. Also, the rest of the hippogriff’s pack (seven in number) will eventually show up and chow down. The hunter will offer lodging If they save him. Keep. 197: Hook Family The PCs find a cave to rest in for the night. A family of hook horrors lives there. They’re sleeping in nooks near the ceiling. There are other holes in the walls (for the horrors to climb down), but not big enough for anything dangerous to apparently move through. When the horrors wake up, their first move is to try to scare the PCs out with rasping noises from rubbing their arms together. They’ll attack if necessary, though the “dominant female” will stay behind. There are seven combatants. It’s not particularly interesting to me. Either the PCs flee (which they should, because there’s little to be gained), or we get bogged down in a fight with a whole bunch of melee creatures. Either way, I personally don’t want to commit the game time to the encounter that it would require. I’m passing. 198: Truth There’s a spring in a town on the dusty plains with a spring that heals you of everything, but forces you to tell only the truth for one hour per HP healed, lest your wounds/diseases/curses reappear full force. Obviously, the town uses it for judicial proceedings, one of which the PCs stumble upon. (The accused gets stabbed in the stomach, healed, and is then questioned.) The card suggests that the PCs might get accused of a crime while in town and need to go through a Truth Stabbin’, but in reality the PCs are going to instantly drop everything they’re doing and start scheming how to best use/control this incredibly amazing resource. Honestly, I have no idea how there’s not some kind of keep, armed monastery, or city built up here already. Maybe it’s a relatively recent phenomenon, and word hasn't spread yet. Keep. 199: Waking Snakes In a jungle, the PCs find an old pit trap that a hydra is sleeping in to keep cool. It's not immediately obvious that it's a hydra, for some reason - do hydra heads really look just like large snakes? Only one head is awake, and has to manually wake up the others. Also it's hard for the hydra to get out of the pit. So really, it's rather heavily handicapped if the PCs choose to attack it. And it has a single emerald down in the pit. Well, it's not amazing, but it’s not a forced combat, and there's some opportunity for the PCs to seize the initiative and feel like badasses. I'll keep it. 200: Bathing Beauty There’s a rocky hill in snowy wastes, and a cryohyrda lives in it. The PCs round a bend on a “little-used trail,” they see the hydra start to emerge to bathe outside, and it attacks. Thaaaat’s it. Uh, it keeps two heads watching its flanks if it has any to spare. And there’s a skeleton in the cave with a long sword +2. A hydra attacks! I’m not inspired. Pass.
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Nov 20, 2017 15:04
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The party should use their baby catbird to lure the horsebird away so that they can capture it, train it, and then finally answer the question of which is more (It's the catbird)
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Nov 20, 2017 15:11
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Can't wait for Starfinger two come up with their own shitbird versions.
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Nov 20, 2017 16:08
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wiegieman posted:One of the better things about Known Space stories (the good ones, remember the 80% rule) is the kind of heroes in them. They're usually not the toughest or fastest or even the smartest person in the room, but they are the wiliest. This is all really making me want to go back to read all my old Niven paperbacks I've got tucked away in my bookshelves. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Nov 20, 2017 |
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Nov 20, 2017 17:23
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Alien Rope Burn posted:
I love these pictures of the monstrous or animalistic low CR monsters and the higher social class and CR versions. Orocoran: SKREEEEE! Ichor Lord: SKREEEE there's a FLY in my wine!
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Nov 20, 2017 19:07
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A Protector makes a wonderful patron for a PC party, hidden or otherwise. Just nuts enough to make the PCs question their judgement, crazy and intelligent enough to have very big long-term plans, and weirdly benevolent. Either trying to ensure the PCs level up enough that they'll make good protectors themselves one day, or just straight-up keeping them alive because hey, family. Protector Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandma constantly trying to set a PC up with people using massive laser weapons and dirty cobalt bombs because their instincts command the continuation of their bloodline could be hilarious if handled carefully. One question I'd like to see raised is the author, er Ringworld's love of interspecies sex interacting with Protector instincts. Are they the worst kind of racist grandparent because GENETIC PURITY, or can a human(oid)-base protector rationalise that their great great grand-nephew seems to be happy in their relationship? A baseline Pak one clearly couldn't, but the whole point of non-baseline Protectors is that they're flexible enough that you can use them in interesting stories.
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Nov 20, 2017 19:21
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If you bone an alium and you pop out a lightly green space baby, that baby is now part of the bloodline.
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Nov 20, 2017 20:13
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Warhammer Fantasy: Realm of the Ice Queen We are neutral on the subject of wolves The pre-made adventure begins, like so many stories in the Warhammer world, with an Ulrican being a pompous rear end in a top hat and causing enormous trouble. An Ulrican friar named Jurgen goes to a remote Stanitsa in his travels around Kislev and sees the locals worshipping Dazh on one of his holy days. Being a stupid rear end in a top hat, he decides that worshiping fire is actually Chaos worship, denounces his hosts as Chaos-spawn, and demands they worship winter and wolves and Ulric instead. Walking into someone's major religious festival and telling them they worship the Devil who their entire culture is devoted to battling and destroying is not a good idea, and a scuffle breaks out. During the scuffle, Jurgen is accidentally knocked into the fire pit and catches alight. The locals just sort of assume this is Dazh's justice, but Jurgen's little apprentice scribe manages to get to the Imperial embassy and spin a tale back south of how the savage Ungol murdered his master. Now the Empire is demanding revenge on the 'savages' and the ice Queen is permitting a trial to prevent a major diplomatic incident. Meanwhile, a Boyar has heard of this mess and decided to discredit the Tsarina as looking weak. He has thus sent his own messenger ahead to warn the town of Vitkal that the Tsarina has, for Gospodar profit, decided to hand them over to be massacred to the last to placate the Imperials. Vitkal's Wise Woman, Baba Pododya, has decided she will defend her people from the obvious Gospodar treason that is coming and has gone off into the woods to set a trap for the incoming trial party. Your PCs, obviously, get hired to escort the people who will conduct the trial, which is intended to be a normal trial that will hopefully end in some minor, face-saving recompense and prevent a diplomatic incident. They're walking directly into a pissed off Hag Witch who knows the area and has had two weeks or so to prepare. The spirits have riled up the Kyazak, they've riled up the Greenskins, and the Hag probably has strapping young warriors waiting in the forest and around the streams. What looked like a simple job to gain the favor of some powerful people and a very good purse is going to get ugly. I'm not kidding about the pay, though; the pay is quite good. PCs would be promised 10 GC a day for their services, plus 15 additional in advance to buy supplies, for what seems like an easy job. They'll have to escort Father Ludwig, an agreed-upon Ulrican priest chosen for his even-handedness and steadiness, to serve as judge under Ungol law. Everything is supposed to be set up for this to be a simple face-saving mission. The adventure is written so that PCs who are primarily Imperial will have Kislevite guides while they serve as Ludwig's escorts, and parties that are mostly Kislevite would be the guides and Katarin's representatives while Ludwig has his own escorts. If you're Kislevites, you'll get a chance to talk to the hired Imperial guards (and with enough successes on a Speak Language test or at Gamble or another game or bonding activity, learn that Ludwig is Jurgen's brother and that he was a really bad pick for this job) and if you're Imperial, you can learn that there's a pretty good chance Vitkal is not going to be happy about any of this and asking an Imperial priest to be a Judge is going to be a huge imposition that will require diplomacy and care for anyone involved to accept. That's when the random encounters start. Either Kyazak or hired mercenaries, either of them using the normal human mook statline, should begin to accost the PC party. If you prefer, the book suggests duped Orcs as enemies, instead. Then, another night, adorable golden-feathered birds come down from the sky to peck at the remains of the night's fire. If the people on watch don't make a Common Lore (Kislev) at +10 or Academic Lore (Religion) to recognize those are firebirds, they don't catch them before the little bastards (who are sacred to Dazh) start tossing glowing coals about and set the tents and supplies on fire. If the players don't stop them, or don't know, Ulrican NPCs will attack the birds without realizing they're sacred nuisances, thinking they're under attack. PCs are best suited to calming things down, putting out the fires, and saving as much of their stuff as they can. If a firebird is harmed, Dazh will curse the entire expedition; no fires will start for them for the rest of the mission. Worse, while all this is happening to distract them, the Leshii, summoned by Baba Pogoyda, starts stealing any of the expeditions' weapons that aren't currently on their person or currently in an on-fire yurt. PCs who make an Academic Lore (Spirits)-10 test notice that this is the work of the Leshii, and if they make it by 2 DoS, they also carried a little distracting knife to keep the Leshii away from their real weapon. Someone should suggest searching for their weapons to figure out where the mischievious spirit put them, at which point the party is attacked by wolves out in the woods while likely armed only with their backups like daggers. Given there's no warning or way to avoid any of this besides a very uncommon skill, this seems like a dick move, and is in fact specifically designed to kill some of the random NPCs from the other party. The PCs find their weapons after a short search after driving off the wolves, who will flee if half their number (one wolf per PC and NPC in the search party) are reduced to 1/2 wounds or killed. Next there's a really complicated and dickish setpiece where the PCs try to cross a frozen river while a water spirit tries to crack the ice and murder them, full of a bunch of save-or-dies, big penalties for wearing armor, and the thing trying to use tricks and illusions to get the PCs near the water if they don't manage to fall into the ice. It's very long, complicated, and I already gave you the relevant details. Worse, if you get wet, you lose -1 Toughness (from the stat) per round until you get your wet clothes off and get next to a fire (oh poo poo, did someone hurt the birds? You're going to die), which recovers a single point of toughness per minute. If you run out of toughness, you die. You're now cold, have had a bunch of your gear damaged, a bunch of NPCs are probably dead, wizardry is pretty obviously out to get you, animals are attacking you, and the horses are probably dead, too. It's time for a blizzard to roll in. I feel like a lot of the problems so far can also be summed up by a quote from the book: "Let the players discuss options while they shelter, but their choices will not matter to the climax of this adventure." Now trapped by blizzard and other problems, if the party has any Ungol in it, the Baba will appear to them while they seek shelter and warn them: If they continue to fight for Gospodar and outlanders, they will share their fate. But she must be merciful to her kin and people. Meanwhile, while the old woman seeks shelter in the cave with them and warns the Ungol, she starts stealing little personal items because you know what a Hag is doing when she does that. There is, of course, no test to notice a strange old woman the party encounters in a cave doing this, and tracking her after she leaves requires a -20 Follow Trail. The Baba then tries to curse people for a bit while unleashing the final boss: An angry cave bear (or Troll, if the PCs are higher level). Now, if the players divert the bear and catch the Baba, an Ungol PC can recognize (without her Glamor) that she offered her eye and hand to get the spirits so drat riled up and that explains why she's half-mad with pain and anger. They can talk her down with a -30 test, at which point she'll dismiss the spirits and let the players (and Ulricans, if any are alive) go. Otherwise, killing her will do it. Similarly, killing the bear/troll will make her give it up. If the party reaches the town with Ludwig alive, the Ataman blames everything on the dead (or dying) Baba, and Ludwig agrees to accept that his brother was killed by the witch, that the witch has died for it, and that justice was done without further harm to the village. If Ludwig is dead/fled or the party abandoned him, the locals mention that they are glad the mad priest who was supposed to have them all killed for the Gospodar is gone, and the party can discover someone tried to subvert the Ice Queen's justice. That's it. They don't even get a bonus for any of this, there's no trial or political intrigue, just a gauntlet of rear end in a top hat ambushes and then a minor boss fight/very hard social roll, then everything just works out when they arrive, instantly. The conclusion is awful, and as per usual, pre-mades aren't very good in this line. Next Time: Loose Ends and Conclusion.
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Nov 20, 2017 20:22
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At least going from the second book, the Ringworld's hominid species aren't interfertile, so it doesn't seem like it would come up.
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Nov 20, 2017 20:42
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Loxbourne posted:One question I'd like to see raised is the author, er Ringworld's love of interspecies sex interacting with Protector instincts. Are they the worst kind of racist grandparent because GENETIC PURITY, or can a human(oid)-base protector rationalise that their great great grand-nephew seems to be happy in their relationship? A baseline Pak one clearly couldn't, but the whole point of non-baseline Protectors is that they're flexible enough that you can use them in interesting stories. e: Yeah, the hominid species are not presented as generally interfertile.
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Nov 20, 2017 20:45
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It would bother Pak protectors, but not because of the sex. Pak protectors can barely tolerate having other Pak lineages around; another intelligent species in the same physical space as their breeders would absolutely prompt an attempted genocide. It's too much risk, and the only way Pak protectors can respond to risk is the try and murder it in the face.
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Nov 20, 2017 20:50
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I thought that the lack of interfertility is the reason that sex on Ringworld is both totally casual and a means of sealing a deal.
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Nov 20, 2017 20:53
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That is the reason, yes. And the non-Pak Protectors absolutely do not give even half a poo poo about rishathra. It's a useful custom. A Pak would be irritated, but most Pak would be genocidally irritated by the Ringworld's genetic diversity anyway. e: That said, the sex vampires are a problem for the non-vampire Protectors, because the vampires are nonsapient hominid predators, and that's a problem, even if it means the vampire Protectors keep other species of hominid around (as food for vampires).
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Nov 20, 2017 20:57
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Warhammer Fantasy: Realm of the Ice Queen Obligatory statblocks, and an ending First, we get some stats and fluff on some additional and more dangerous bear-types, for either taming or use as enemies. They're nothing too exciting except to point out that I'm pretty sure a normal 1st tier party would gang up on and butcher the big boss Cave Bear that's supposed to terrify them so by this statblock (DR 4 means its 24 Wounds won't last long under an entire party attacking it, WS 36 means that even if it does good damage it isn't likely to land too many blows. Action economy should do the rest). None of the monsters in the monster section are all that interesting or worth covering in a lot of detail, they just felt they had to include it, I guess. Realm of the Ice Queen is the last book published by Black Industry before their shuttering in early 2008. It's also a very odd book in a few ways; damage numbers, for instance, are all given in d10+X instead of just the understood Damage 3 or Damage 4. Lots of the formatting on classes is done differently. The Trappings sections on classes are indistinct and full of extra fluff, suggesting it's likely a lot of other groups weren't using the direct 'you must have these items to promote into this class' rule anyway. A fair amount of the text in the early part of the book is also, on closer look, copied from other publications on Kislev from White Dwarf and for use as allies for the Empire in Warhammer Fantasy Battle. It's a solid book that doesn't break many of the 'rules' of the system, everything in it is playable, and Kislev has a lot of fun and colorful flavor, but it certainly *feels* sort of rushed and thrown together. Black Industry had been in crunch on trying to finish Dark Heresy for quite some time, not to mention the fears that their whole company would be shut down soon enough due to not bringing in enough sales and money for GW's taste. They'd just decided that RPGs were too niche an industry, and the RPGs could be subcontracted out to someone who wasn't in-house. A few final WHFRP2e supplements and a second big campaign would be published by Fantasy Flight while they were sending out Dark Heresy after taking over publishing duties, but the game would soon be shuttered and move to 3rd edition. Moreover, the fluff was moved back to pre-Storm of Chaos to accompany the wargame, so FFG's 3rd edition couldn't really use a lot of the fluff produced for WHFRP2e, which had focused on people trying to deal with the fallout of Archaon's failed invasion rather than everyone acting really scared that he was coming. Thus, I feel like this is a good place to look at what we didn't get in WHFRP2e before the changeover. We got the three biggest human nations and plenty of good material on their magic, history, culture, and religion. We got rules and fluff for playing as the Undead, the Skaven, and Chaos, as well as making all kinds of custom enemies for those groups. We got a lot of solid fluff about a much more interesting version of the world, where a bunch of messy, complicated countries who are neither all good nor all bad get together to curbstomp the devil on the regular. We never got anything much on the dwarfs or elfs, though (the dwarfs get covered a bit through the Empire, but there's very little material on the dwarfs back home in the mountainhomes). You can't play a Lothern Sea Guard or learn much about Ulthuan or Naggarond without a lot of fan material or the army-book fluff. We never got a book exploring the Southlands, or Lustria. There was a lot more that could've been covered, and I would have loved to see how Black Industries' people would've covered it. Kislev's struggle between the Ungol and Gospodar heritage, the forces of absolutism and how they accidentally promote the rights of the common folk by seeking the guilds and burghers as allies against the power of the landed gentry, its witches and their separate vigils against the forces of evil, and its relation to the other lands south and east of it reflect why I like this game line so much. You can have adventures about custom, politics, ambition, and the changing of society just as much as you can curbstomp a howling pack of Khornates. Look at how much fun the crazy wedding party drinking contests sounded for a comedy adventure. Or the insane urban chaos of Erengard's determined reconstruction. Or how Katarin manages to be intelligent and ruthless without just being pointlessly brutal. Much like Bretonnia's unexpected and extremely great examination of the performative nature of class and gender in a highly rigid society, Kislev has a bunch of fun and interesting stuff to get up to and a sympathetic core of determination. They're the only people in the setting who get to say Chaos isn't that big a deal, because they fight it all the goddamn time and it hasn't killed them yet. Hams feels like a world where (had the whole End Times nuttery not happened) you could zoom in a century or two later and find all these countries changed. As rushed as the Kislevite book can feel at times, it still gets at the core of the game line; a colorful world of thinly veiled but well done historical analogues trying to get through their messy, energetic history while fighting the Devil. And it's worth it for that. Next Time: The Ashes of Middenheim and a look at the big, three-book published campaign.
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Nov 20, 2017 21:09
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It really can't be understated how strong Protector instincts are regarding mutation. The reason why Protectors lose their human cap on the Scent skill is an adaptation to their high-radiation home world: their noses are sensitive enough to detect mutations by smell alone, so they can remove their mutated descendents from the gene pool. One of the (admittedly stupider) Man-Kzin Wars stories suggested that this is why children are scared of the elderly; Pak Protectors are big on avoiding waste, and they have absolutely no tolerance for mutation in their descendants, so a Pak child being inspected by a Protector stands a decent chance of being eaten. e: On the other hand, human protectors, at least, seem to think of the Ringworld hominids as part of their species, even if they show favouritism to their fellow humans; it probably helps that the people of the Ringworld aren't descended from humans, and aren't in any position to threaten Earth or its colonies. Jo Joestar fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Nov 20, 2017 |
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Nov 20, 2017 21:28
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Jo Joestar posted:It really can't be understated how strong Protector instincts are regarding mutation. The reason why Protectors lose their human cap on the Scent skill is an adaptation to their high-radiation home world: their noses are sensitive enough to detect mutations by smell alone, so they can remove their mutated descendents from the gene pool. One of the (admittedly stupider) Man-Kzin Wars stories suggested that this is why children are scared of the elderly; Pak Protectors are big on avoiding waste, and they have absolutely no tolerance for mutation in their descendants, so a Pak child being inspected by a Protector stands a decent chance of being eaten.
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Nov 20, 2017 21:59
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The important thing about protectors - and especially Pak protectors - is that they shouldn't be read as "the next stage in human evolution." It's easy to take them that way, since they have a ton of physical advantages and are smarter, but this isn't a case like Khan Noonien Singh. Protectors are the next stage in the human life cycle. Yes, they can be ruthlessly pragmatic in how they interact with breeders of their family line or species, and they're typically vicious in dealing with any sentients outside of that group. However, protectors have no separate existence from their baseline species - they exist to ensure their line, however they define it, continues. So Pak are assholes because their baseline breeders are a lot like chimpanzees with stone axes. Chimpanzees are playful and intelligent, but they also tend to be very insular and prone to violent interactions. And the violence often doesn't have the same checks it does in other mammals that fight as part of social displays - chimpanzees are bad at backing down. That heritage carries over to protectors. Human protectors keep a lot of the downsides of human nature as well, but they also get to leverage humans greater social and conflict resolution abilities, so they're a lot better at working together than Pak. EDIT: Bonobo protectors would probably be pretty chill, is what I'm saying.
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Nov 20, 2017 22:26
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Comrade Gorbash posted:The important thing about protectors - and especially Pak protectors - is that they shouldn't be read as "the next stage in human evolution." It's easy to take them that way, since they have a ton of physical advantages and are smarter, but this isn't a case like Khan Noonien Singh. Protectors are the next stage in the human life cycle. Yes, they can be ruthlessly pragmatic in how they interact with breeders of their family line or species, and they're typically vicious in dealing with any sentients outside of that group. However, protectors have no separate existence from their baseline species - they exist to ensure their line, however they define it, continues. However, I don't think a bonobo protector would be chiller. Empathy cuts both ways: Jack Brennan was able to be tremendously manipulative due to his empathic experiences, in a way that probably no Pak could be. Is that better? Depends on who you ask.
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Nov 20, 2017 22:34
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It should be noted: the ultimate goal of one of two human Protectors in the Ringworld books (Louis Wu) is to cease being a Protector, a trick he manages due to some extremely good medical technology and nearly being killed. He believed that being a Protector was terrible.
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Nov 20, 2017 22:38
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Mors Rattus posted:It should be noted: the ultimate goal of one of two human Protectors in the Ringworld books (Louis Wu) is to cease being a Protector, a trick he manages due to some extremely good medical technology and nearly being killed. He believed that being a Protector was terrible.
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Nov 20, 2017 22:44
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