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For all it's weird faults, 3e's Medusa is the version is the one that actually looks monstrous, and they don't go weird 'seduction!' with it.
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Nov 24, 2017 05:05
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4e Medusas got kinda weirder, with male ones who are bald and have some kind of weird psychic powers instead of petrification. Probably one of those monster concepts where you're better off mixing and matching whatever traits suit the tone and use case you're going for and say anything else they've heard are inaccurate legends. Most classical monsters were originally one-offs usually created by the gods being dicks (and/or loving something weird) anyway. Or just Echidna and Typhon's offspring whose traits might as well have been determined via dice roll. Attempting to make everything into a subtype tends to result in dumb stuff and undermining what made a monster interesting in the first place.
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Nov 24, 2017 07:21
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Yeah, going through Alien Archive made me realize how much more personality you can put into something by making it a one-off. Obviously you don't want to do that with every monster, but making a creature unique gives you options you don't have when you're generalizing.JackMann posted:What was the monster book you enjoyed, out of curiosity? 13th Age Bestiary. I didn't want to put in the review itself because I wanted to avoid a game v game sort of argument because 13th Age still has a lot of flaws, but its Bestiary is so, so much better.
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Nov 24, 2017 07:47
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Inescapable Duck posted:4e Medusas got kinda weirder, with male ones who are bald and have some kind of weird psychic powers instead of petrification.
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Nov 24, 2017 07:48
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Night10194 posted:
One hell of a "morning after" pill, let me tell you that.
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Nov 24, 2017 07:57
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Inescapable Duck posted:4e Medusas got kinda weirder, with male ones who are bald and have some kind of weird psychic powers instead of petrification.
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Nov 24, 2017 08:02
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Zereth posted:Like Medusa, which is in fact a proper noun! Calling the creatures "medusas" is like calling vampires "draculas". Which is to say it's the correct way to refer to them that the cool people use 
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Nov 24, 2017 08:12
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Daeren posted:Which is to say it's the correct way to refer to them that the cool people use Only a dracula would say something that dumb.
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Nov 24, 2017 08:14
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Night10194 posted:Look, just keep some potions of mirrored eyes around and a stone to flesh scroll in case of accidents. I will hate to admit, but what would "Stone To Flesh" do to normal brick. Would It just make fleshy bricks?
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Nov 24, 2017 08:35
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Leraika posted:Only a dracula would say something that dumb. That's no excuse to be a Frankenstein's dad about it.
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Nov 24, 2017 08:43
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Young Freud posted:I will hate to admit, but what would "Stone To Flesh" do to normal brick. Would It just make fleshy bricks? At least in 3.5 that would turn the brick into a "fleshy substance."
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Nov 24, 2017 09:13
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Young Freud posted:I will hate to admit, but what would "Stone To Flesh" do to normal brick. Would It just make fleshy bricks?
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Nov 24, 2017 12:01
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senrath posted:At least in 3.5 that would turn the brick into a "fleshy substance." You can use this to help make holes in walls.
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Nov 24, 2017 12:05
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Zereth posted:Like Medusa, which is in fact a proper noun! Calling the creatures "medusas" is like calling vampires "draculas". Kind of had to, Gorgons in DnD were metal poisonous bulls.
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Nov 24, 2017 12:09
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I remember the inefficient but cruel move of, Flesh to Stone, Stone to Mud, Mud to stone, Stone to flesh.
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Nov 24, 2017 12:30
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The Lone Badger posted:You can use this to help make holes in walls. Bloody, screaming holes. They have no lungs but boy do they have mouths and pain receptors.
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Nov 24, 2017 12:33
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is there a specific literary reference for the Rock-to-Mud and Stone-to-Flesh spells? They've been in D&D since the very beginning, so I'm assuming Gygax took it from somewhere. I'm guessing Transmute Rock-to-Mud is a sort of anti-castle-defense move, and Stone-to-Flesh is to cure players/creatures that have been stoned by basilisks and medusa.
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Nov 24, 2017 12:42
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Ratoslov posted:Bloody, screaming holes. They have no lungs but boy do they have mouths and pain receptors. "I Am A Mouth And I Can't Scream"?
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Nov 24, 2017 13:18
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gradenko_2000 posted:is there a specific literary reference for the Rock-to-Mud and Stone-to-Flesh spells? They've been in D&D since the very beginning, so I'm assuming Gygax took it from somewhere. As with most of these things it's from Tolkien. It's in the fourth book of the Trilogy. The bit where Gandalf II has the boss fight with Smaug in his sexy goth chick form on that lava planet.
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Nov 24, 2017 13:44
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Stone-to-mud probably always existed because it's a great utility spell for castle storming, and stone-to-flesh because " failed one save character dead forever" was greeted with "gently caress you Gary, that's bulldog!!" Even in the 60s.
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Nov 24, 2017 15:39
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PurpleXVI posted:I think from the entire Starfinder review, literally the only interesting PC race option I saw was "lazy crystal slug." At least lazy crystal slug was pretty neat.
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Nov 24, 2017 15:48
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That one medusa is just an elf chich and she tied her snakes into a ponytail
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Nov 24, 2017 16:17
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Making Medusoids their own seperate evil race seems to crowd things a bit given then they're competing for space with Yuan-Ti, who are already all over the place. Isn't it practically canon that Yuan-Ti are inbred genetic car crashes where the human hybrids are weaker but way more stable while the bigger ones roll the dice on what limbs are what and their ancient kings all went insane and turned into living piles of snakes?
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Nov 24, 2017 16:26
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Inescapable Duck posted:Making Medusoids their own seperate evil race seems to crowd things a bit given then they're competing for space with Yuan-Ti, who are already all over the place.  I mean, technically that's a ritual so they do it to themselves on purpose. Also sometimes they just have six heads and don't have snakes for... uh, everything, but what's the fun in that?
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Nov 24, 2017 16:41
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I don't remember the King Hiss action figure being quite so hardcore.
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Nov 24, 2017 16:50
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Sages can only speculate about the origins of The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 37: The Deck of Maedar, Murlynd, Mermen, Mimics, Mind Flayers, and Modern Literature Prism's infodump on the leucrotta has reminded me that I should probably link the AD&D 2E monster manual entries to each relevant post. So I'll try to do that from now on. 222: Snake's Revenge This could happen anywhere, but requires that the PCs have slain a medusa at some point. A maedar is out for revenge for its mate. He murders to get money for weapons and armor, then tries to sign on as a henchman or hireling to the PCs. If that works, he’ll turn on them at a key point, killing women first as revenge for his wife. If joining them is impossible, he’ll just ambush them at some point. Good luck with that, dude - your offensive capabilities are pretty meager. Well, it’s not incredibly interesting, but I like it when actions have consequences. Keep. 223: The Gunslinger Murlynd salutes you, oh nameless gunslinger, apparently murdered by the different physics of this fantasy realm. Keep. 224: Rights of Fishermen Mermen have blockaded a coastal town for excessive fishing in the adjoining bay. (They swim up from the deeps to fish the same area.) The PCs want to charter a ship out. The mermen will give the ship a warning not to proceed. The card says it’s probably easier to talk your way out - for example, by pointing out that what’s going to put pressure on the town is stopping ships from coming in, not stopping them from going out. I like that this is a medium-sized event that the PCs are in no way responsible for, or probably interested in, solving. They just need to get by themselves. Keep. 225: Sticky Seat A rowdy tavern is completely packed, except for one seat. It’s actually Herbie, a mimic that works for the tavern as a bouncer. Somehow I never knew that mimics are intelligent and can learn to talk, but they can. Live and learn! All the locals know the mimic, of course. It’ll glue a PC's butt to it if anyone sits on it, which gives everyone a laugh. The glue comes off with alcohol. Everyone will defend it if some crazy murderhobo attacks it. Is this stupid, or cool? Both. Keep. 226: Home for Dinner There’s a treasure chest (actually a mimic) in a dungeon. Around it are humanoid clothes scraps and armor, the remains of a hobgoblin it ate. In fact, it just ate, is stuffed, and will not move or attack for about a week. It can't be opened, of course. If the PCs bring it out of the dungeon to try to “open” later, they might notice that it quivers when it enters sunlight the first time. OK, this could become a fun anecdote. Keep. 227: Cornered Flayer A mind flayer is lost in the dungeon. It’s out of the range of its elder-brain and has to rely on its own senses and knowledge, which is kind of panicking it and freaking it out. That’s cool, but the way that plays out is that it’s drawn to the PCs by their thoughts, gets paranoid when it sees they’re from the surface, and decides to hide in a nook and ambush them with a mind blast. So, in summary: a mind flayer attacks! None of the background matters, because do you think the PCs are going to ask for this thing’s life story? No. They are going to kill it and take its stuff (a couple useful potions, and a wizard scroll with two random 5th-level spells. Can mind flayers use scrolls?) Try harder to make your scenarios gameable, Deck of Encounters! Pass. 228: The Lottery ...by Shirley Jackson.  Pass, for the blatant ripoff. P.S. Almost half of the card is devoted to the game mechanics involved in a crowd stoning you to death, to be used here and never again. Oh, AD&D 2E. 
Dallbun fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Nov 24, 2017 |
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Nov 24, 2017 17:01
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You know, COBRA would absolutely make sense as a D&D organisation. Even keep the backstory where they're run by an exile from a crazy ancient biopunk empire waiting for the opportune time to strike.
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Nov 24, 2017 17:19
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Herbie the mimic bouncer hits that right level of "goofy mundane fantasy life" that D&D too often skimps out on.
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Nov 24, 2017 17:21
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Fossilized Rappy posted:Herbie the mimic bouncer hits that right level of "goofy mundane fantasy life" that D&D too often skimps out on. I was just yesterday asked if I'd be interested in DMing a game of DnD for some real life friends and family who have never played before - I've DMed online play by post games, but never in real life. I am so stealing that one to mess with everyone.
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Nov 24, 2017 17:39
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Mimic barstool local buddy rules.
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Nov 24, 2017 17:40
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Prism posted:I mean, technically that's a ritual so they do it to themselves on purpose. Also sometimes they just have six heads and don't have snakes for... uh, everything, but what's the fun in that? The Yuan Ti kind of have a Hierarchy of forms from highest to lowest. (In the Yuan Ti's case lowest is better then highest because they are snakes and snakes are close to the ground. So they have a Low Priest rather then a High Priest.) Yuan ti Purebloods. Which look like humans other then a few snaky features which can be random depending on the pureblood. (Stuff like scale patches, Slited eyes, forked tounge, Fangs, etc) Their general use is spies. Yuan ti Malisons/Halfbloods. They are dominated by a snake trait. Type 1 has Snake head, Type 2 has snakes for arms, type 3 has a tail instead of legs and a few other lesser variations. Yuan ti Abomination. The greatest of the standard Yuan ti. They are entirely like Giant Snakes other then having arms and a torso shape under their head. Yuan ti Anethama. Pretty much Immortal Demigod Yuan ti that are created by special rituals. There is the standard Which is pretty much an even more massive Abomination with 6 heads. And the greater which is the monster pictured on this page. The Yuan Ti in the Greater Anethama's case are kind of crazy. As the greater Anethama's do not even rule their Yuan Ti communities. The Greater Anethama's like to eat and kill everything including other Yuan Ti, so the others had to keep them locked inside pits. Despite the Anethama being a danger to them, the other Yuan ti sacrifice intelligent creatures to it to eat, including members of their community if there is none on hand. It got really bad in a novel featuring the Yuan Ti were the Anethama had escaped it's pit once and slaughtered most of the Yuan ti in the community it was in before they got it back in the pit. And the weakened Yuan Ti community still made sacrifices to it of their own kind. (One of them remarking how stupid it was to feed their dwindling population to the thing that decimated them and gave them nothing in return before dismissing his thoughts as blasphemous.)
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Nov 24, 2017 18:30
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I once did an RP with a friend that involved a mimic cash register/cashier. There was a strong implication that it ate shoplifters.
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Nov 24, 2017 18:41
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Dallbun posted:
Almost exactly this happened in a game I ran years ago with an enchanted rug. Created to murder non-dwarves who stepped on it, it ignored the dwarf PC who searched the room -- but he noticed the fancy rug, rolled it up, and left the dungeon with it over his shoulder. He sold it to a man in town, it killed the man, and the party had to run for it because everyone saw the shifty dwarf selling the fancy rug to the guy in the bar. It does make a fun anecdote! (It is also the only interesting thing in the entire Forge of Fury module.)
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Nov 24, 2017 20:21
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Prism posted:
<System Mastery Jeff Voice>: "...I even got a snake for my DDDIIICK!" <System Mastery Jon Voice> "Also, my Anaconda don't want none unless you got buns, hun."
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Nov 24, 2017 21:47
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Young Freud posted:I will hate to admit, but what would "Stone To Flesh" do to normal brick. Would It just make fleshy bricks? That was actually a normal thing to do in 1e. Tomb of Horrors even has information on what happens when you use it like that in certain rooms.
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Nov 24, 2017 22:43
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:That was actually a normal thing to do in 1e. Tomb of Horrors even has information on what happens when you use it like that in certain rooms. fwiw this kind of lateral thinking was way more encouraged/expected when the game was younger and fewer of the rules and systems were codified beyond "what my DM at my table will/will not allow". another classic was petrifying a difficult foe, then also casting stone to mud and basically ensuring that nobody would every be able to find them to raise them again. because if you just left them petrified, the rear end in a top hat GM would have some henchman come along and dispell it and if you busted their petrified statue into chunks then the henchmen would just recover all the chunks, then dispell the petrification. but if you turn your foe all the way to mud and then let that get washed away by rain/water or just combine with regular dirt, there's no realistic way some henchmen is going to be able to separate out each individual grain of silt that used to comprise their master in order to restore them to life.
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Nov 25, 2017 00:20
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Daeren posted:Which is to say it's the correct way to refer to them that the cool people use 
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Nov 25, 2017 01:30
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Dark Matter: The Killing Jar Act One, Scene Three: Last time an old man and a janitor tried to murder the PCs and they got sent to Point Pleasant. Now it’s time for the motherfucking mothman. So it happens that there’s a regatta going on in Point Pleasant to coincide with the heroes being there, as some local flavor. The adventure suggests using it to provide some relief when things get hosed up, there’s even a schedule provided. Anyway the clues from last time sent you to find a Dr. Shabbir in Point Pleasant, who turns out to be an expert of sorts on the local natives. Shabbir gets all antsy if they bring up anything related to the missing woman or the mothman, and they’ll need to convince him that they’re not up to no good before he’ll let them in on what he knows. So here’s what he knows: The car thief contacted him, though he didn’t know why. It turns out she was interested in his theory that the mothman sightings from ’67 were tied to a local shaman (Chief Cornstalk) who called it up with some kind of talisman with his dying breath after being murdered by soldiers, and to this day it protects his burial mound. He claims he’s seen mothmen, plural, himself. The burial mound is by the TNT area (which checks out with respect to the prior mothman sightings) and only Shabbir knows where it is and how to get in. He doesn’t know anything about C. cnidirae or the cnidocytes and of course never met the deceased woman in person. He does know she’d said the chief’s talisman was her ‘one hope’. If they express interest in going to the mound, he offers to guide them. There’s a hilarious encounter table for the TNT area where you can run into some dumb teenagers, college kids necking, birds, and rent-a-cops. More threatening is the fact that, if the PCs are bugged, Andrew Balance is literally pursuing them in a whisper quiet black helicopter straight out of the best 90s paranoid fantasies. Two of his goons will be waiting at the mound to ambush them when they leave in this case, they’re pretty much the same as the guy who aided the ambush in the lab. There’s a bunch of general information on the old plant at the TNT area to give some nice detail as the party travels through. So once at the mound, Shabbir produces his clue as to how to enter, which he received in a dream: a shaded circle, surrounded by seven concentric circles, with stars above. Can you figure out how to enter from this? The solution is that someone has to circle the mount seven times at night. Doing this right causes an opening to CGI itself out of the side of the mound, because remember straight up magic is totally a thing in the setting. It’ll close if you reverse the procedure above or wait until dawn, and naturally that means you don’t want to still be in there when the sun comes up unless you love being buried alive. The entry chamber has some sweet native art and a strong hint to investigate a large stone, which will provoke a guardian spirit in the form of a venomous snake.  It’s fortunately super fragile, though getting bit could be quite unpleasant. The hollow beneath the rock has some native artifacts in it, which may or may not be interesting to the players. The next room has some skeletons in cavities in the wall, then provides a bit of a jump scare because the party starts to fall under the area of an effect that disrupts electronic equipment, plunging them into darkness. After improvising some more functional light, the room turns out to be a record of the murder of Chief Cornstalk. The four bodies are those of the soldiers who slew him, as their clothing and equipment suggests and more art confirms. The next room is the important one, the chief’s burial chamber. He and his son are in a pit, with a loving sweet mask in one of their hands. There’s also a big pile of straw with some ominous relics of the Point Pleasant mothman’s previous known sightings, because this is where the motherfucking mothman lives. It’s the source of the electronic disturbances (it has a mutation that causes it). The mothman will attack if they cause any significant disturbance (such as trying to retrieve the loving sweet mask that screams phat loot) and the curse binding it here makes negotiating with it sadly impossible.  That said, the PCs actually do have a couple of ways to get out of this without killing the mothman. For one, it’ll flee if one of them puts on the sweet mask. It’s also possible though difficult to dispel the binding if you know the right FX. One interesting wrinkle is that the mothman will always focus its attacks on any PCs infected with C. cnidirae if available, and equally will attack living cnidocytes if they are somehow present instead of the PCs. After the mothman is dealt with, they find the next breadcrumbs in the chain. The car thief turns out to have been one Jane Scarborough, late of the American Home Devices corporation. She actually made it as far as the mound, but in her deteriorating mental state she lost track of her plan when the mothman attacked. Why not just read her notes yourself?  At this point the PCs need to get the hint that the mask is important, because it’s going to be necessary when they need to communicate with mothmen later in the adventure. Above and beyond that simply possessing it makes the mothmen later on more inclined to believe the PCs are legit. This is about where the players get jumped if they’re bugged, again two agents similar to the one from scene two. It’s not a real threat most likely, since unlike the mothman there’s no reason for them to feel the need to go easy on these assholes and they even have a convenient magical burial mound to dump their corpses in. Agent Balance doesn’t stick around to fight regardless, and if things go south he abandons these losers. This concludes the West Virginia segment of the adventure, next time the party sets out to try and figure out what the poo poo is going on.
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Nov 25, 2017 02:05
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Children of the Horned Rat Chapter 5, Skaven Warfare, is the first chapter that really dives into the mechanics of the unique aspects of the Skaven. And this is a huge chapter. Included here are Skaven tactics and strategems, a list of typical Skaven troop types, Skaven weaponry rules, Skaven magic rules, warpstone rules, and rules for the warlock engineering for Clan Skryre. The magick and engineering rules in particular have a huge amount of mechanical crunch to sift through and any GM or player will probably spend a lot of their time sifting through this chapter. Let’s start with the less mechanically rigorous part of the chapter. The chapter starts out with the usual reminder of the Skaven mindset. They’re ravenous, cowardly, and possessed of their own superiority over all other peoples and most of their own. They have to fight, their own numbers pushing them to desperately seek resources and advantage over one another. Of course, they seek to do so in a way that endangers themselves as little as possible, often using the following tactics.
The next section is a listing of Skaven warrior types. This is mostly stuff that would be very familiar to players of the tabletop game or Total War: Warhammer. But I’ll include it here for those who are unfamiliar with the wide array of rats that can come at your Adventurers. In addition, each entry contains a description written by both an Imperial scholar and a Grey Seer to give a more in character perspective. The list is given in alphabetical order, but I’ll arrange the Great Clan contributions in their own sections.
Next: Weapons! Spells! Explosions! Sometimes the explosions don’t happen to rats! kommy5 fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 02:42
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Also note Rat Ogres have no armor, only TB 4, and poor WS. They're kind of the ultimate in 'CLAN MOULDER INSISTS THIS IS THE ULTIMATE WEAPON, BUY TODAY!' chicanery. E: Also Broodmothers are creepy as hell and feel unnecessary. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 02:45
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