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Angrymog posted:On the other hand, as they have no legs at all it should be really easy to trip an ooze or slime Spoken like someone who's never tried to flip custard with their bare hands.
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Apr 4, 2018 10:03
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Things with no legs are explicitly immune to being tripped.
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Apr 4, 2018 10:26
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I thought you could trip slimes and oozes in 4th? Just because you don't have feet, doesn't mean you can't be upside down.
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Apr 4, 2018 10:46
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Cassa posted:I thought you could trip slimes and oozes in 4th? Just because you don't have feet, doesn't mean you can't be upside down. To be clear, yes, you can cause oozes and slimes to fall prone in 4th Edition, but we were talking about the difference between 3rd and Pathfinder.
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Apr 4, 2018 10:50
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That'll teach me to skim the thread! TheGreatEvilKing are you doing this review from a 2008 point of view?
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Apr 4, 2018 10:58
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Kavak posted:Both kinda, just that the warrior classes had many more nice things in 2e. Yeah, that's certainly accurate. There are a number of things to like in old school D&D in general. TheGreatEvilKing posted:Don't do this, you're much better off playing a 3.X straight fighter with splats than anything you can do in Pathfinder. Pathfinder buffed wizards and nerfed fighters, it's actually kind of hilarious. My experience with Pathfinder has been the opposite overall - though when I played a 3.5 Fighter I only had the SRD available, which is why I was making a core only comparison. There are feats that let you follow a spellcaster when they try to do a five foot step to cast safely, force them to fail their check to cast defensively, and that let you ignore a certain amount of DR even with a mundane weapon. At higher levels, I can play a mobile fighter that uses wind stance and lightning stance for concealment and the Vital Strike feats to make sure that my damage doesn't suffer too much. At lower levels, Cleave gives me two attacks a round regardless of the damage my first attack does, and at higher levels allows me to still do two attacks even after moving (though admittedly both against different targets). Hell, Great Cleave might actually see more use, given that it doesn't require you to actually kill multiple enemies per round. Dodge is less of a trap feat too, since it just gives you a +1 to AC instead of +1 against a single target. In core 3.5, I get none of that poo poo. In core 3.5, I just have to accept the fact that if there's a Druid in the party, my character will likely cease contributing in a meaningful way to our party's success in combat around 10th level. In core 3.5, I pretty much have to accept that against anything other than humanoid foes, the only useful option I have at higher levels is to plant myself in place and do a full round attack. In core 3.5, I get a shitload of feats, and almost none of them give me new tactical options in most situations. Once you add Advanced Players Guide and Ultimate Combat into the mix, the Pathfinder Fighter gets much more fun to play. Ultimate Combat gives you the old style of Cleave if you really want it (though it admittedly requires the Pathfinder Cleave as a prerequisite, and Great Cleave for the old style of Great Cleave), as well as unarmed combat styles if that's the kind of Fighter that you're interested in playing, while Advanced Players Guide gives options like Reposition and Drag for when you want to move an enemy to somewhere the Rogue can flank them (or somewhere you can Bull Rush them off a cliff) or that allow you to deflect ray spells with your shield (though the shield suffers the effects, if appropriate). Now having said that, I've since had a look at some of the tactical feats and some of the alternative class features in other books, and they do add some stuff that might make the Fighter worth playing - I'd be willing to give it a go. That said, none of it has convinced me that a 3.5 Fighter would be anywhere near as much fun to play as a Pathfinder Fighter at higher levels. Power difference isn't my main issue with the the Fighter (though it is certaily a part of it); lack of interesting mechanical options and the fact that other classes can do their job better at higher levels are my main issues. I'm fine with only hitting things while the Wizard casts Wish, so long as I have interesting ways to hit things.
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Apr 4, 2018 11:24
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senrath posted:Things with no legs are explicitly immune to being tripped. what a dumb rule
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Apr 4, 2018 11:33
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The more of Lusus Naturae that gets posted, the more reasonable the Agathist's offer starts to sound. Really, the main issue is that it makes you wait before ending this lovely, misanthropic universe. "Can you just end everything so we can play some other game? Thanks, you're a pal."
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Apr 4, 2018 12:05
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Halloween Jack posted:4e has some stuff that sucks, but it's almost entirely stuff that also sucked in 3rd. Like feat bloat, for example. Yeah, I'm not saying I'd rather play 3rd ed than 4th ed, just that I'd rather play neither of those games. And also yes, I feel like part of what made 4E not blow me away was that it didn't go far enough in distancing itself from 3E. Kavak posted:The message I'm getting from these reviews is "Go back to AD&D 2nd Edition". No lie, AD&D 2nd Edition remains my favourite D&D edition. It's got great settings and tons of content, and it feels like it has some of the best class balance. But it still suffers a bit from the whole "what's a fighter gonna do aside from attacking?" I mean, whenever I ran it, Fighters were usually MVP murder machines that left the wizards in the dust, even in the latter levels, but being murder machines was probably about 90% of what they did, when it interacted with the system and wasn't just pure roleplaying, and the remaining 10% was leveraging the fact that they had the party's highest strength to brute force stuff in creative ways. On the balancing aspect, in 2nd ed AD&D I actually usually find that I have to up-balance mages for them to be able to follow along(by giving them the Cleric's bonus to spells/day from Wisdom, except tied to Intelligence instead. It means that any Wizard not dumb as dirt is a lot less of a one-trick-for-the-day character in the early game, but even so I don't think I've actually started a D&D game any earlier than 3rd level in over a decade. And I don't get the people who nonetheless insist on doing so.). gradenko_2000 posted:Disregarding your one Encounter and one Daily power at level 1, a Fighter is going to have Combat Challenge to inflict marks and make MBAs against people who violate the mark, and then Combat Superiority to halt the movement of anyone struck by their OA ... and then they still have their two (if non-human) At-Will powers on top of that, so you definitely must have had more than two things to do even after blowing your Encounter and Daily power. I'm going to be honest and say I played it years ago, so my memories aren't super clear. What I do remember was that I was playing, I think a PHB 2 class, some Ranger-esque thing, and I forget what race I was playing. Just to use your example, though, of those two non-daily, non-encounter Fighter powers, one of them only triggers if there's what I assume is an Opportunity Attack(I'm used to seeing it as AoO, is an OA something else or are we just using different terms?), and is thus a reactive action, not an active action. That still leaves me with only one single class ability to use as a Fighter on my actual turn, at level 1(I really don't remember having any abilities from my race, though. Maybe I played a human, or did not all non-human races get at-wills?). I really wish I could find my old character sheet just so I could look it up and see if I'm completely misremembering things, or if I managed to somehow cobble together one of the shittiest race/class combos imaginable in terms of fun quotient.
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Apr 4, 2018 12:18
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gradenko_2000 posted:The long and short of it is that the d20/3.5 SRD simply stopped getting updated after a certain point, and most of what makes a 3.5 Fighter good in relative terms to the Pathfinder Fighter are in splats that were never ported to the SRD. There's at least some interesting options. None of them really address the essential fighter dilemma, but if you're playing a fighter in 3.5 and not playing a Dungeon Crasher, what are you even doing.
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Apr 4, 2018 12:24
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PurpleXVI posted:I'm going to be honest and say I played it years ago, so my memories aren't super clear. What I do remember was that I was playing, I think a PHB 2 class, some Ranger-esque thing, and I forget what race I was playing. You are mis-remembering. Besides the mark and the AoO/OA (they are the same thing) retaliate, you also had 2 more at-will fighterpowers (unless you were human, in which case you had 3)
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Apr 4, 2018 13:08
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 CONTENT WARNING: misogyny, dead children, torture When Wapole Languray started the grimdark bestiary Lusus Naturae, I thought "Oh, I've still got that pdf of The Teratic Tome lying around that I meant to F&F. Maybe I should look at that again by way of comparison." So I went and took a look, and lo and behold it's by the same guy! Which makes the comparison angle a lot more interesting, since as far as I can tell from WL's review of Lusus Naturae the author's design ability has gone backwards. The Teratic Tome was released in 2013, two years before LN, and as far as I can tell it's actually got less grimdark wankery and fewer outright 'gently caress yous' than LN has, and it's certainly got some actually good content in there. I mean, it's still grimdark and edgy, it's still full of things which torture their victims for no good reason, it's still got gently caress you monsters, and it's positively dripping with misogyny, but this is the OSR we're dealing with so that's pretty much what you signed up for. But only six of its 114 monsters explicitly involve the murder or mutilation of children! So that's... better than it could be? (Let's just ignore that 'teratic' means 'of or pertaining to "an organism (as a fetus) that is grossly abnormal in structure due to genetic or developmental causes."') OVERVIEW The Teratic Tome, Drivethru Blurb posted:This enchiridion of entities should only be used by DMs inclined towards malfeasance, sadism, and base wrongdoing. Well, someone's been brushing up on his Gygaxian English. Side Note: The monsters in this book aren't even all that sadistic. I mean, loads of them like to torture people, but mechanically even the ones that do ability score damage only do it temporarily. I think there's maybe two things in there which can permanently drain bits of your character? Which already puts it in a better design space than Lusus Naturae, which apparently just loves to permanently vacuum up your stats. The TT is written for OSRIC rather then LotFP, and rather than borrow LotFP's European setting it has its own implicit setting baked right into the monster descriptions. Since not every monster in this setting is capable of wiping out all life on the planet or universe -- in fact, I don't think any of them are -- it's already got a leg up on LotFP. In fact, one of the things I like best about the TT is that it provides a decent selection of low- and mid-level enemies, including a handful of unique NPC monsters in the 3-5 HD range. As a small disclaimer, I've never played OSRIC -- but I did cut my teeth on AD&D 2e back in the early 90s, so I have a pretty good idea of what I'm looking at mechanically. I'm going go through a lot of these monsters at a dead sprint, since there are slightly more than a hundred of them, but I'll spend more time on the interesting ones and the ones which strike a parallel with Lusus Naturae -- because there are already several, and at the time of writing WL is only 11 monsters into LN. I'm also not going to post any images, except maybe in a couple of the more egregious cases. Prepare for WALLS OF TEXT. Anyway. Shall we crack the cover on this thing? ACRONICAL The acronical is a giant, intelligent, pack-hunting insect thing which can scent adulterers -- can detect them "from miles away" -- murders everyone who was standing near the adulterers while the adultery happened, then kidnaps the two and sets them up in a duel to the death with a promise that they'll let the winner live. Then they kill the winner. The Teratic Tome posted:After one has killed the other, the monster will amputate the victor's arms and legs, then sing songs of love while the fornicator bleeds to death. Their alignment is neutral! (They also have a poison which drains random stats, but those points are returned when the acronical dies, which doesn't seem like a bad take.) I'm not that bothered that these things have a supernatural adultery sense -- we're in a universe where beholders exist, so whatever -- but they do run aground on the issue that adultery is socially defined. How do they react to poly relationships? Cultures with different concepts of marriage? Unmarried-but-boning-on-the-regular couples? Couples who bring in a 'guest star' for a threesome? Can you defeat them with the power of free love? Do they recognise emotional affairs or just physical? How physical? It's actually the old 'good and evil' D&D problem in a different form, really. If Good and Evil are objective facts that can be determined about someone -- from birth, even! -- and are backed by actual angels and devils, then are they really moral categories any more, or just names for sides in some celestial war? Likewise, if adultery is something that can be detected by scent and has world-rules dependent on it, is it still a moral category or is it now part of the physical fabric of the setting? This is also one of four monsters in this book with a focus on adultery, marriage, and fidelity. Four doesn't sound like too many -- it's only 3.5% of the entries -- but given that most bestiaries would have, at most, one monster for punishing adulterers, and far more likely zero monsters for punishing adulterers, it sticks out as weird to me. AGONIST "A demonic female" (  ) who hunts the proud and overconfident by tricking them into undertaking stupid activities which make them loathed by all. Not included in the demon section, for no reason I understand. The one in the art has her tits out.AKESTIC It's a giant tapeworm which astrally projects its consciousness until it finds someone terribly lonely, then psychically assaults them while pretending to be an emissary of the gods, all with the ultimate end of making them lash out violently at anyone they dislike (and bring them to the akestic to be eaten). Its intelligence is 'animal'! Here's the thing: the akestic can project its psychic assault miles away, so I'm not sure how the PCs are supposed to recognise its involvement in events. ALTAR BEAST It's a giant worm of tentacles and mouths which can possess people by turning to liquid and flowing into the victim's body. The Teratic Tome posted:The creature preys upon those who dissolve sacred bonds of marriage. This can include spouses, clerics, priests, nobles, and anyone who participates in the annulment of marriage. At least this one is specifically supernatural and follows a definition of matrimony set down by its divine creator, rather than 'adultery, whatever that means'. It's also the first of several monsters in this book which are (implicitly or explicitly) anti-theistic -- in this case, as an example of what fanatic priests unleash to reinforce the doctrines of their religion. We'll be seeing more of this. AMBULATOR A sorceress glued the eyes from audiences (a type of monster detailed below, not people at the theatre) onto some giant spiders and turned them into easily-charmable quasi-familiars which can make themselves invisible for 24 hours at a time and scout for you. These are pretty neat! AUDIENCE Several bunches of halfling wizards glued themselves together into many-eyed sacks of flesh which floated around being evil and accumulating forbidden knowledge. I'm not sure exactly why, but halflings in this setting are super-evil, so. Anyway, then this sorceress shows up, hunts down every single one of these things and steals their eyes to make her ambulators (see previous). Now the audiences are blind -- except they suffer none of the penalties of blindness because gently caress you. These are high-level not-beholders, and they come in three subtypes although two of them are basically the same thing. Discerner Ten halfling elementalists make this thing, with one mind controlling each of its two arms and eight tentacles. They have fire and cold attacks, are immune to same, and use magic items. They like precious gems (Why? They can't see them.) and boiling and flaying whatever victims they come across. (Again: Why?) Onlooker The onlooker is a beholder except it has mouths instead of eyes. It bites a lot, as you'd expect, and casts spells. Witness The witness is a beholder except it has mouths instead of eyes and looks like it's super-diseased. It casts really powerful summoning spells. The discerner's kind of interesting, and I like the link with the ambulators, but the other two are just 'what if a beholder but with teeth instead of eyes'. Compare and contrast with the Auricle from LN, which is 'what if a beholder but with ears instead of eyes?' Next Time: STATS SO FAR Monsters: 8 Female Monsters: 1 Female Monsters With Their Tits Out: 1 Anti-Theist Monsters: 1 Worm Monsters: 2 potatocubed fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Apr 4, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 13:16
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Akestic sounds like something from Alpha Centauri.
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Apr 4, 2018 13:19
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There's at least one more 'worm who preys on the vulnerable' in the E section. Spoilers: That one also has 'animal' intelligence yet flawlessly identifies those suffering from its particular flavour of pain.
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Apr 4, 2018 13:36
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Could be like the Despair Squid, it induces a particular emotion but leaves it up to the prey's brain to figure out how that emotion manifests. Of course, not nearly as well thought out.
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Apr 4, 2018 13:46
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It's good to know there are proper monsters out there to enforce solid Christian values. Whoops, did you take the lord's name in vain? Well, here comes the magic skullblob that burrows its way into your spleen through your ear canal. It's got that weird thing like a lot of edgelordy metal does when it goes off on the "Satan will punish you!" riff where it becomes functionally if not stylistically indistinguishable from a particularly vehement sermon. Yes, mythology has a fair number of creatures that reflect local values like "This is the giant wolf that eats you if you hunt alone.", but you probably want to make it stuff that's important to your game or setting. If you have monsters created that just go around punishing infidelity, that should say something about fidelity itself, but I imagine they're just cargo-culting it in because there's sehhhex involved.
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Apr 4, 2018 14:19
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The Agonist sounds hilarious.
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Apr 4, 2018 14:29
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Scion Central Casting I will note: I didn't mention it, but you should be recording your Deeds on a list, because they are the mythic actions that build your legend. These are the things people will tell stories about, and the things that, as you rise in power, will bind you. The Apprentice is a mortal Fatebound to learn something from the Scion - maybe a skill, maybe specific lessons, maybe just general philosophy. The Apprentice can be Invoked when you fail an action, to have your Apprentice learn by making a mistake you were too wise to. It...does something that actually isn't at all helpful on the face of it. It takes your Consolation away and turns it into a Complication instead, and if that Complication's rating is less than or equal to the Fatebinding's Strength, it affects the Apprentice instead. However, if this makes your roll succeed instead and then just throws the Complication at you (or your Apprentice), that's actually really good. It's not totally clear. When you Compel the Apprentice, they try to help at the worst time. You gain 1 Legend, but your next action must be a mixed action - whatever you were doing, plus stopping the Apprentice from doing something disastrous, using a dicepool chosen by the ST, with Difficulty of (Fatebinding Strength/2). The ST chooses what happens if you fail. If you Resolve the Apprentice, you gain wisdom from their study. One complex action automatically gains (Fatebinding Strength/2) Milestones, and then you choose:
The Balm is a mortal that always there to calm you and keep you centered. When you invoke the Balm, you move one space towards the center of the Virtue track. This counts as resolving the Virtuous Condition, and can't be used if you're already at the center. You can compel the Balm when you reinforce a Virtue to make the Balm's presence question your Virtues. You gain 1 Legend, but no Momentum, and do not change position on the track unless it moves you toward the center. You may Resolve the Balm to immediately set yourself to either Virtue extreme and gain Momentum as if you'd fulfilled the Virtue, but you also either end the relationship catastrophically or change it forever. You must choose:
The Boon Companion is a mortal Fatebound to be your friend and comrade. When you invoke the Boon Companion, your next action benefits from teamwork as if they had rolled (Fatebinding Strength) successes. You may compel the Boon Companion to have your friend need your help. You regain 1 Legend, but the Boon Companion becomes Imperiled in the form of needing a favor, and if you let it go unanswered, the Fatebinding Strength is reduced by 1. You may Resolve the Boon Companion after rolling an action to have them swoop in to help. You automatically succeed at the action with (Fatebinding Strength) Enhancement, then choose:
The Canary and Martyr are identical; the difference is that the Canary stumbles into problems that you might miss, while the Martyr is willing to die for you. When you invoke them, you may reroll an action you botched, and the Canary suffers any consequences or drawbacks of the botch in your place, such as wandering into an ambush or blurting out a faux pas. However, Canaries and Martyrs tend to get in trouble, too - when you compel them, they become Imperiled in the form of imminent threat of death or great harm. You may Resolve the Canary or Martyr to remove a single dramatic, life-threatening obstacle from the scene. When you do, the Canary or Martyr dies. You record a Deed, and a Failure Deed in the appropriate Calling. The Jinx is Fatebound to bring you bad luck - maybe inadvertantly, like a sidekick that screws up constantly, or maybe deliberate, like an angry ghost cursing you. When you invoke the Jinx, you suffer a narrative disadvantage, similar to compelling a Path, but gain (Fatebinding Strength) Momentum. The disadvantage is somehow related to the Fatebound. When you compel the Jinx, the bad luck spreads. You gain 1 Legend, but one of your other Fatebound becomes Imperiled; if you don't have any, the ST picks an NPC to become Imperiled. You may Resolve the Jinx before a roll; when you do, you automatically botch the roll and record a Deed. Then, choose:
The Nemesis is your sworn foe. You may invoke the Nemesis to define how they are involved in some element of the current opposition in the story - perhaps they hired the Onis that came to kill you, or they're the killer you're hunting. You get a reserve of (Fatebinding Strength) successes to spend on Stunts until the end of the session, because you know the Nemesis so well. You may Compel the Nemesis before making a roll to have them meddle with you. You automatically fail the roll and gain 1 Legend in addition to your Consolation. You may Resolve the Nemesis to force a dramatic confrontation. Add (Fatebinding Strength) to both the Momentum and Tension pools. Depending on how this plays out, one of the following happens:
The Paramour is someone drawn to you romantically, which you reciprocate. You may invoke the Paramour to gain a single use of a single Lover Knack (which must be a Heroic or Soul Knack, at Strength 1-3; no, we don't know what a Soul Knack is. At Strength 4+, it can be an Immortal Knack). If the Knack only works on someone you love, it must be the Paramour. When you compel the Paramour, they become Imperiled. The peril is usually in the form of relationship conflict, but can also be kidnapping. When you Resolve the Paramour, you and the Paramour may perform a teamwork action at Scale of (Fatebinding Strength), then choose:
The Rival competes with you somehow - maybe business, maybe romantically, whatever. When you invoke the Rival, you get (Fatebinding Strength) Enhancement on an action to best, outwit or otherwise show up the Rival, even if they are not personally present, as long as it's something they'll at least hear about and get super mad over. When you compel the Rival, they get that Enhancement on an appropriate roll against you, and you gain 1 Legend. When you Resolve the Rival, the two of you put aside your differences briefly to address a greater threat. Before rolling, you may spend Tension as if it was Momentum, up to (Fatebinding Strength) Tension, for one roll. Then, choose:
The Traitor is not what they appear to be. The player knows they're a Traitor; the character doesn't. The ST and player choose an appropriate apparent Fatebinding, which the Traitor acts as with a Strength of 2, and the Actual Fatebinding, which is what they really are. When invoked, they give the benefit of invoking that Role, and mark is made. When enough marks are made to equal the Traitor's Fatebinding Strength, resolve the Fatebinding. When compelled, they give the compel of the Actual role, rather than the Apparent one. When the Traitor is Resolved, the Tension pool fills to its maximum, the Actual Fatebinding is revealed to all, and the Traitor becomes the Actual Fatebinding role at equal Strength. You record a Deed, and a Failure Deed in the appropriate Calling. The Worshipper and Unrequited Paramour are mechanically identical; either they're in awe of you or are in love with you but you don't reciprocate. Either way, they're trying to help you. When you invoke them, you may use the resources or narrative advantages of one of their Paths as if it was yours. When you compel them, they become jealous of your other relationships. You gain 1 Legend, but one of your other Fatebound becomes Imperiled, with the peril relating to the Worshipper/Unrequited Paramour stalking them or harassing them. If you have no other Fatebound, the ST chooses an NPC to Imperil instead. When you Resolve them, they become what they think you want - use the resolution of any other Role of your choice, except then you must choose one of the following:
e: also worth remembering - if you get a Fatebinding Strength up to 5, death doesn't get rid of them, it just changes them into a ghost that is likely to cause you problems. Next time: Birthrights. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Apr 4, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 14:32
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Mors Rattus posted:The Apprentice can be Invoked when you fail an action, to have your Apprentice learn by making a mistake you were too wise to. It...does something that actually isn't at all helpful on the face of it. It takes your Consolation away and turns it into a Complication instead, and if that Complication's rating is less than or equal to the Fatebinding's Strength, it affects the Apprentice instead. However, if this makes your roll succeed instead and then just throws the Complication at you (or your Apprentice), that's actually really good. Yeah, it's meant to be the latter. Originally it was "the Apprentice cancels up to (Fatebinding Strength) Complications from an action;" I don't remember when or why it changed, but it's definitely supposed to be "your Apprentice fucks up and you avoid making a mistake because they blundered into it." GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Apr 4, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 15:25
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Kaza42 posted:As someone planning to run Mutants and Masterminds with little prior experience, what's wrong with feats (I assume you mean advantages?) in it? Adding to what Nessus said, M&M still uses 3e combat as a base, and 3e combat is built around making everything except "hit man with sword" suck--with a -4 penalty, provoking an AoO, or needing to win an additional check--unless you buy it off with feats. So building Batman (or Captain America, Hawkeye, Daredevil, whoever) involves buying a poo poo-ton of feats. I like the freeform quality of it that basically lets you buy all the combat abilities of the fighter and rogue, but it's a lot of busywork in character creation.
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Apr 4, 2018 15:32
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So the Teratic Tome monsters are like inevitables, but shittier? I really love the abstract mortality plays.
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Apr 4, 2018 16:02
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Halloween Jack posted:Adding to what Nessus said, M&M still uses 3e combat as a base, and 3e combat is built around making everything except "hit man with sword" suck--with a -4 penalty, provoking an AoO, or needing to win an additional check--unless you buy it off with feats. So building Batman (or Captain America, Hawkeye, Daredevil, whoever) involves buying a poo poo-ton of feats. I like the freeform quality of it that basically lets you buy all the combat abilities of the fighter and rogue, but it's a lot of busywork in character creation. This is absolutely true. What amazes me is I've played M&M so long I don't even think about it - just pay my Feat tax and move on, so to speak.
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Apr 4, 2018 16:03
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Halloween Jack posted:Adding to what Nessus said, M&M still uses 3e combat as a base, and 3e combat is built around making everything except "hit man with sword" suck--with a -4 penalty, provoking an AoO, or needing to win an additional check--unless you buy it off with feats. So building Batman (or Captain America, Hawkeye, Daredevil, whoever) involves buying a poo poo-ton of feats. I like the freeform quality of it that basically lets you buy all the combat abilities of the fighter and rogue, but it's a lot of busywork in character creation. One of the key issues of M&M is that they piecemeal Attack Bonus between several categories. So you can buy melee attack bonus or ranged attack bonus, or alternately just buy feats to boost up your attack for one power only. And since the latter's the cheapest, the most effective thing to do is buy a single attack power and just focus on only ever attacking with that. This leads to system mastery nonsense where players who don't understand how this all works can easily blow 10-15% of their points on attack bonuses they never use. The other issue is that a melee / ranged split isn't really something you see often enough in comics for it to matter. It's not like Hawkeye or Cyclops are incompetents at punching when a baddie gets in close, and Hulk can easily toss poo poo when he needs to. So it's an artificial split that doesn't really reflect comics very much, punishes system newbies, and would probably be better as some drawback for the rare character like MODOK who's a bit hapless when somebody gets right up in his face. Then you get into feats like Improved Critical or Power Attack that are just too good not to take (presuming you're interested in SLAM EVIL!, anyway).
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Apr 4, 2018 16:24
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potatocubed posted:AGONIST The Phantom Tollbooth gets really weird in the last few chapters.
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Apr 4, 2018 17:04
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Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Deathwatch and Rites of Battle Finally done with the genocide porn Alright, so that last section about Erioch was mostly fascism porn, we're getting back to the better parts of the setting now. The Inquisitorial Enclaves are, of course, the fanciest part of the fortress. Inquisitors may make a big deal about how they are humble and righteous servants of the Emperor, but you'll never see them going lacking for wealth and the occasional luxury if they have the chance. The book reinforces the general theme that lots of Erioch is too big for the inhabitants, with the rich and palatial suites of the Enclave being barely 1/5 filled even with an active Inquisitorial presence. The butlers and serfs employed by Inquisitor Carmillus (the current resident Inquisitor, who must maintain peace among the Inquisitorial factions on station) try their best to keep up the entire Enclave, but it's too much of a task for them. Thus, the whole place seems like a giant, empty, haunted palace built for men larger than men. The opening of the Warp Gate and beginning of the Crusade have filled the place more than usual, and the actually inhabited areas can seem to bustle like an Imperial hive at times, but they're still surrounded by emptiness. We get a short aside on the sorts of people who work here, like the Family Longsorrow. The Longsorrows were brought here to be executed for some unknown and probably scurrilous charge by an Inquisitor Barnabas eight generations back. Barnabas happened to die before he could carry out the sentence and left them in limbo; they'd been stationed in an Inquisitorial holding well beyond a classified warp gate, there was no releasing them. But wonder of wonders, subsequent investigation found the Longsorrows to be innocent and the Inquisition to have no right to kill them, which confused the Inquisitors enormously. Since then, the Longsorrow Family has assumed a status as butlers and leaders among the various masterless serfs whose Inquisitors die in action on the station, organizing them into efficient teams that help their aristocratic masters remember to pack enough bolt shells and assist in picking out the right gilded masterwork chainsword to complete an Inquisitor's ensemble before missions. There is also a shrine to a St. Aret, a beautiful Ecclesiarchal facility that is millennia old. As no-one could remember who the generic gilded, heroic warrior the shrine was supposed to symbolize, they picked St. Aret as he is the patron saint of forgetting painful and terrible memories. Some of the longest serving Marines can point out that the shrine pre-dates St. Aret's beatification, but that doesn't stop adepts leaving offerings of broken data-slates and cracked memory cores as offeratory gifts. Finally, we get to the interesting part of Erioch: The people. Herein we get an assortment of eccentric Marines, Inquisitors, and others and their attendant plot hooks if you need ideas for commanding officers, colleagues, and annoying Inquisitors for your PCs to deal with. I already spoiled the best of them, but for purposes of the archives, we'll start with Goremann the Elder. Goremann is an ancient Crimson Fists Space Marine, from the chapter that accidentally blew up its own ammo dump when trying to blow up some orks, and it is said he was such a warrior against Orks that the beasts would chant his name whenever he strode out to challenge another of their champions, since they knew 'Goremann' meant some good fightin' was coming. He then suffered mortal wounds and had to be placed in a Dreadnought armature five centuries back. He has requested to remain with the Deathwatch, but as a venerable elder and respected tactical advisor, they fear risking him in battle. Thus, the bored old dreadnought's advice has trended towards 'THIS MISSION DEFINITELY REQUIRES A DREADNOUGHT.' in recent years, and his plot hooks center around him trying to convince the PCs to help him get back into action as a private favor, or him managing to wheedle his way into getting drop-podded or teleported into the middle of a mission where the PCs are trying to be subtle and now they have an irreplaceable, honored elder who is also a giant robot loudly trying to help them. Brother Richter is an oddity: A humble Space Marine. He is a warrior of the Black Templars, and despite being of the sort of prowess and bravery that ought to get him promoted to be a Sword Brethern, he seeks no honors and wears no distinctions. He merely does his duty quietly, and then spends a great deal of time talking in private with the Chaplains. It is clear to most that he is under some great spiritual distress. The adventure seeds are about possible answers to why he is a sad Marine. In one possibility, he has lost a whole chain of young squires and blames himself for their deaths, thinking he is an insufficient teacher and leader, and the Chaplains quietly ask the PCs for help in convincing the depressed Marine of his worth so he does not take the Black Shield and renounce his Chapter. In another, he is secretly searching for something in the Catacombs of the Deathwatch, and it is up to the GM if this is a sinister act of treason or if he is seeking to expunge some secret shame of his chapter. In either case, the PCs get involved to either stop the treason or discover his quest and decide if they want to help or not, possibly earning them a friend for life. One of the reasons I like these NPC write-ups is that they have just enough detail to have flavor, while as you can see from the adventure seeds, they remain open-ended in how you want to use them. Captain Brand Mac Lir is a Storm Warden who joined the Deathwatch after his Chapter fought shape-shifting, psychic men made out of enormous colonies of hive-minded worms. They had explosion rifles. The Slough are one of those things that really should've had Top Billing in Calixis and the fact that they first appear on the loving GM screen instead of being 'Hey, Acolytes are going to have to fight The Thing except it forms cults' is a travesty. Brand is unusual for being cautious and circumspect; his experience fighting The Thing has left him wary of traps and aware that many enemies aren't stupid. He is also known for his famed, enormous claymore Morwenna, which has been declared a chapter relic. In one plot hook, he has realized his command duties keep him from battle and is considering a PC to inherit his holy greatsword, which means he will put them (and their team) to the test through tough missions and tests of character to get his awesome magic sword, which is something most Marines would relish. He can also be brought in as a voice of caution, someone for the PCs to argue for or against when time is pressing in and they have to choose between the safe, by the book path or taking risks. Chaplain Strome is a Black Shield, one of the chapter-less warriors who joined the Deathwatch for life. It is unknown where or which chapter he came from, or why. He devoted himself to the Deathwatch with such vigor that it caused some to question his sanity, and after one mission where he took over 200 shell impacts and was expected to die, the Chaplain was sent to give him his final rites. Something about the Chaplain's presence kindled in him his true calling, and he overcame his injuries, becoming a Chaplain himself. He is one of the champions of Erioch, known for having killed a Tyranid Carnifex and an Ork Warboss in a duel, among many other deeds. His hooks include pressing to investigate the ambush that almost killed him and whether or not one of the Inquisitors on station may have had a hand in it, and a mission to deal with discovering that a seemingly-unique unkillable alien might not be unique, sending the PCs out to investigate. I'm a little disappointed none of his plot hooks are about 'why did this man come and devote everything he has to the Deathwatch' given the hook of being a Black Shield Chaplain. You could do a neat arc about whether or not it's possible for someone who has lived as 'perfectly' as he has since becoming a Deathwatch soldier to redeem themselves in the eyes of a group as rigid as Marines. Watch Captain Ramiel was a Dark Angel. A very stereotypical one. He has spent an enormous amount of time in the Deathwatch and risen to Watch Captain, but he has no loyalty to the organization, only his own chapter and his secret mission to investigate his suspicions that one or more Fallen Angels have been Deathwatch Black Shields. Here we get Strome's past coming into question; Ramiel suspected Strome. Ramiel also vanished 30 years ago, near the Hadox Anamoly. His mission seeds are either finding him (or one of his team) still alive and holding out on a Watch Station near Hadox, with the possibility that he is either a traitor, mad, or was betrayed because he was getting too close to some grand conspiracy, or that he left a gene-locked casket with damning evidence of a wide conspiracy to use the Fallen and others as Black Shields hidden deep in the Catacombs. Dark Angels PCs are likely to really like Ramiel's subplot, because if you didn't want to have a paranoid conspiracy wall why are you playing a Dark Angel? Apothecary Septimus further feeds into this subplot. He randomly showed up thirty years ago aboard a Rogue Trader vessel of all things. He is a Kill-Marine, one of the lone 'emissaries' the Deathwatch sends out to assist, advise, and spy on allied forces. He is from the Angels of Absolution, a Dark Angel Successor, and it seems he really expected to meet and talk with Captain Ramiel when he arrived. Unusual for a Dark Angel successor, he is not only capable of smiling, but generally upbeat and carefree, even known to make jokes (notable for any canon Marine who isn't a Space Wolf). He's also very eager to help any PC party that suggests they might head out to see what happened to Ramiel. All in the name of being friendly and helpful, of course. His subplots are either trying to find out what happened to the Captain and recruiting the PCs as allies he thinks he can trust in case of conspiracy, or a totally unrelated subplot about trying to manufacture bio-weapons to use against the Tau that doesn't really go anywhere. Captain Prascus is the guy who first built the Hunting Grounds, and has been dead for a long time, killed in the Tyrannic War. An Ultramarine, he was known for his exceptional skill in assembling PC parties. No, really, that was his especial genius as a commander; he was good at putting together groups of wildly divergent Marines who would somehow learn to work together and become teams of heroes. A 'Prascus Pair' is still slang on Erioch for unlikely friends. His subplots include discovering a record that suggests he may have been an undiscovered psyker, using divination to determine who would make good teams rather than any sort of natural ability, or discovering that he forced his teams to work together with blackmail, drugs, and threats. In either case, the PCs have the choice between hiding the truth and letting him be remembered as an inspirational hero, or revealing it in the name of avoiding lionizing a rascal. I'm not sure I like his subplot given that his schtick is the kind of thing the entire game is built on. Champion Attalus Fellhand is an amazing swordsman and an abrasive, insecure dick from the Space Wolves. He was sent to the Deathwatch because he's a fantastic hand to hand fighter who has won great honor for himself in battle, and is thus going to be expected to become an officer some day; his masters want him to learn to fight aliens. He is totally unsuited to it, and he is a terrible student. Worse, he knows this. He hides his insecurity behind bravado and his tremendous skills in battle, but deep down he knows he is failing at his real duty and he is growing increasingly desperate. His subplots revolve around either slowly learning the brash Space Wolf really, really needs help and winning a friend for life by figuring out how to help him shape up, or him desperately trying to get assigned to go fight familiar, 'easy' enemies like Orks alongside the PCs to shore up his flagging ego. Ah, Inquisitor Barnabas. The original captor of the Longsorrows, and many other families within the Tower of Brass at the Enclaves. He was known for his habit of sweeping gestures, fancy cloaks, big hammers, evidence-less pogroms, and for how none of this impressed the Eldar when they shot him with a tank cannon and he exploded. He was, in fact, so stupidly loud that many of his colleagues suspected he had a secret, subtle agenda hidden under the obvious distractions. His subplots are either evidence that he was actually being mind-controlled by aliens, and now the PCs have to search the Catacombs to ensure his contributions didn't leave behind traps and tricks, or the possibility he was just an immensely stupid man and that an unsecured package he left somewhere on the station is only now threatening to explode or teleport an Eldar strike team aboard or something and the PCs have to race to stop his idiocy from dooming them across centuries. Ah, that the Imperium is blessed with such keen-eyed eagles standing watch at her gates. Forge Master Mac Zi is another Storm Warden, and a very odd Techmarine. He is an immensely curious man who actually likes xeno-tech, and secretly, heretically, views it as another manifestation of the Omnissiah to be understood and turned to the glory of Man. He hates the overall Forge Master, a Space Wolf Iron Priest named Harl Greyweaver, and plots to remove or kill him. He will, to this end, try to bribe the PCs with amazing master-crafted equipment (that may incorporate xeno-tech) to get them to help him in his conspiracy, because he knows giving PCs hyper-weapons is one of the surest ways to get them on his side. Alternately, he is found dead after an accident with trying to replicate an Eldar Chainsword that sawed his face off, and his death is used by Radical Inquisitors to try to accuse Harl of his murder with circumstantial evidence, wanting to get the Xenotech hating Iron Priest out. PCs must solve a Space Marine Murder Mystery where a man accidentally chainsawed himself to death. And they say 40k isn't funny anymore. Inquisitor Andarion is a bookish, nerdy Inquisitor who has come following the footsteps of another Inquisitor, Vincent, who vanished while looking into rumors that the City Beneath the Sea on Karlack might be linked to the race that built the warp gate. He is deeply worried about the local legends of death-creatures and powerful xenotech, and is steadily working to uncover the Necrons/whatever more interesting cosmic horror you decided built the Warp Gate. His two possibilities are either the PCs simply helping him with the muscle side of his investigations, or a more curious plot where the ship that brought him to Erioch exploded hours after he disembarked. Did he destroy it? If so, why? Some taint, or covering his tracks about something? Never know with Inquisitors. Inquisitor Ghraile brings us our first official woman of all of Deathwatch. Yay. She has come to try, desperately, to convince both the Crusade and the Deathwatch that the giant surprise swarm of alien locusts that is killing an entire salient MAY BE a more important threat than the 'moral decay' of the Tau or whatever other idiocy is making them take a loving Hive Fleet with a surprising lack of urgency. This is not at all unreasonable of her. What is unreasonable is one of her potential plot points, where she intentionally releases Vanguard organisms from the Xeno Holding Cells to show the Deathwatch how dangerous the drat things are. In a saner plot, she pleads with the Marine PCs to escort her to Orpheus Salient, so she can gather first hand evidence of exactly how bad it is and convince Commander Mordigael and others to take the threat seriously. Next Time: Invisible Alien.
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Apr 4, 2018 17:06
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A book of monsters in the original Greek sense, with advice on how to incorporate their moral message of divine punishment into your particular game would be pretty cool.
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Apr 4, 2018 17:19
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Wait, I forgot, there's one other woman. Inquisitor Carmillus, the Inquisitor of the Chamber and chief envoy of the Inquisition to the Marines and the person in charge of herding the other Inquisitors. So that's 2 women in Deathwatch's fluff. Total.
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Apr 4, 2018 17:28
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I'd have figured there'd at least be a Sister of Battle or two, given that Deathwatch's official answer to what to do if someone absolutely must play a When I ran a Deathwatch campaign, I invented a fleet-based convent that escorted pilgrim convoys throughout the sector and accordingly got really, really good at fighting Tyranids and Chaos.
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Apr 4, 2018 17:57
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Alternatively, you can just write some female Primarchs. Two unknown ones anyway. That's what I did.
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Apr 4, 2018 18:01
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theironjef posted:The Phantom Tollbooth gets really weird in the last few chapters. The Terrible Trivium is like the perfect 'morality play' monster to be an RPG villain. O brave warriors, collect ten bear asses!
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Apr 4, 2018 18:02
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Night10194 posted:Alternatively, you can just write some female Primarchs. Two unknown ones anyway. That's what I did. Samus Aran still has a grudge towards Leman Russ.
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Apr 4, 2018 18:03
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Night10194 posted:Alternatively, you can just write some female Primarchs. Two unknown ones anyway. That's what I did. We were having way too much fun with the immense homoeroticism of the Space Marines. Our kill team was really, really gay.
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Apr 4, 2018 18:07
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Cooked Auto posted:Samus Aran still has a grudge towards Leman Russ. Way better to be raised by gentle Space Birbs than the Emperor.
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Apr 4, 2018 18:07
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Night10194 posted:Way better to be raised by gentle Space Birbs than the Emperor. They're the same thing. Why do you think the Imperium sticks eagles on everything?
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Apr 4, 2018 18:36
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gradenko_2000 posted:The long and short of it is that the d20/3.5 SRD simply stopped getting updated after a certain point, and most of what makes a 3.5 Fighter good in relative terms to the Pathfinder Fighter are in splats that were never ported to the SRD. If only I'd known about D&D Tools back then. The tactical feats in particular do look pretty interesting, as do the Combat Form and Superior Unarmed Strike feats. As I mentioned before, I'd be willing to give playing a Fighter another go in 3.5 now that I'm aware of that stuff. Maybe doing so will change my mind; maybe it won't. Either way, it'll certainly be more fun than it was first time around; I think we can both agree on that. Also, if I were running it, I might also want to port over a few feats from Pathfinder (like Deadly Aim - a version of Power Attack for ranged weapons seems perfectly reasonable to me), and if I wanted to use Armour as DR, I'd probably use the version in Ultimate Combat over the version in the Unearthed Arcana, but having read some of the splats, I can actually see why someone might prefer 3.5 over Pathfinder, even if they usually play martial characters.
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Apr 4, 2018 18:37
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 Cecaelia  It's a naked lady with a squid-head. Like, full frontal, with tits and even a fully drawn vagina.This is a unique monster who roams around the sea murdering peoples. Just... if you sail or eat fish, she wants to murder you. She can summon sea-creatures to fight with her, has a poison bite that just does damage but nothing else, grapple with her creepy leg tentacles, and blind people with ink-sprays. Her main attack against ships is a giant blast of water that she uses to blow ships in half, but can't hit smaller targets with it. Appearently she will also hire adventurers to do a Sea-Shepard and sink ships that hunt sea-creatures. Okay so... I don't hate this. An Eco-Terrorist water monster is a perfectly good basis for a monster. The fact she can be either an enemy or an ally if your players are OK with murdering whalers is a neat duality. Her attacks and abilities are thematic but nothing bullshit or overpowered, just some minor status effects and pretty managable damage. So, mechanically, B+ good monster, would put in game. As a DESIGN she's loving awful. Why the gently caress does this vengeful eco-terrorist sea-creature have to look like a pornstar? Why a fish got a titty? WHY A FISH GOT A VAGINA SHE SHOWS TO EVERYONE. Ugh. Cerulean Tangler  I actually really like this monster. Like, legit, this is the first monster I can't say anything bad about! First off, weird spider-squid is a cool design, it looks properly weird and intimidating but isn't grimdark or stupid. The Cerulean Tanglers are intelligent, and act as guardians of forests and woodlands. They attack anybody entering their forest who is carrying metal weapons, wooden objects, or fire. It specifically doesn't try to kill its targets, just frighten and drive them off by throttling them with its tentacles from the trees. It can also cast a Geas, save vs Magic to avoid. This forces the PC to obey the Tangler and fight for it, or else they will lose 1d6 HP every day they fight the Geas. The tangler will give the target arms of stone and bone and animal hide to go forth and fight trespassers in the woods. If you go with the Tangler and help it, it rewards the Players with treasure it's collected from previous trespassers. Also, the scent-glands of the Tangler are valued as perfume ingredients for the wealthy, and can be turned into a powerful aphrodisiac. If you befriend the Tangler it can tell you what is going to happen to you in the next day, as it has minor prophetic abilities. So, yeah pretty cool monster, decent design, fun gimmick. A+ good job Lusus Naturae! Keep it up! Chapel Wight  gently caress's Sake! I told you to keep it up not immediately backpedal! gently caress! OKay this thing is dogshit. gently caress it so hard. Okay so at first it's not so bad. These are weird rear end inter-dimensional tourists that pretend to be normal people. They're very polite and act super gentlemanly and like small fancy trinkets. It acts very genteel and loves polite conversation. If you talk to it and are rude at all, it tries to murder you with a bonesaw. Yay. On the third round it opens its jacket and shows you it's nasty gut-mouth-hole thing that attacks with ice-breath, it's just a dragons ice-breath attack so meh. Okay, so, that's what it does in a fight, boring, not very fun, maybe a silly random encounter? But god gently caress the killing blow.  What the hell is this? What's the point of this? Why does something called a Chapel Wight (Who is neither a Wight or involved in Chapels at all) make you compelled to manscape a dwarf? Also, carte-blanche for the GM to just KEEP SENDING WIGHTS until one of you fuckers assaults and shaves the nearest elf damnit! Is this an Enchanted Piss Forest thing? Does this guy have a shaving fetish?? I think I'm done for the moment.
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Apr 4, 2018 18:38
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What kind of idiot puts tons of 'Haha you won the fight now die for it' mechanics in their game anyway. Does every monster have this Killing Blow thing?
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Apr 4, 2018 18:44
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My guess is the Chapel Wight name is a nod to Whitechapel and therefore Jack the Ripper, though that's also weird unless he had a shaving thing.
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Apr 4, 2018 18:49
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Night10194 posted:a more curious plot where the ship that brought him to Erioch exploded hours after he disembarked. Did he destroy it? If so, why? Some taint, or covering his tracks about something? Never know with Inquisitors. Everything just explodes behind him. When he gets out of bed in the morning and goes to brush his teeth? Bed explodes. When he comes back? Sink and toothbrush explode. He's terrified of leaving the Watch Fortress for fear it might explode behind him, too. It could be a terrible curse, an always-too-late assassination plot, or maybe he's just really clumsy about forgetting where he leaves his grenades.
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Apr 4, 2018 19:09
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