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Barudak
May 7, 2007

Halloween Jack posted:

Turns out Americans can't even colonize another solar system without slavery.

Based on the track record with Liberia, seems accurate.

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Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

I actually had a long post to rant about how dumb Warham crusades was, but ended up deleting it as it was unneeded, but given I went into a huge streak of researching the subject recently for a project, it's mindboggling the stupidest poo poo.

Loxbourne
Apr 6, 2011

Tomorrow, doom!
But now, tea.

Halloween Jack posted:

I find Ariadna is just too dumb and all over the place, and my bar for that is pretty high.

I recall an old marketing truism for both tabletop and computer games is supposedly that a large number of potential players simply will not touch anything but a recognizably modern-day human faction. Human factions (supposedly) outsell non-human ones across the board by a massive margin. If you don't put your Imperial Guard/GDI/Halo marines faction into the game, this large and well-funded chunk of the audience simply will not buy in.

It's always struck me as an incredibly cynical and depressing failure of imagination, but by heck games of both forms that neglect to have a Space America usually crater hard.

That, I think, is Ariadna. I remember there being a lot of buzz when they were in the works as a new faction, and Infinity certainly had a big local upswing in recognition and store space when they came out.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I mean, done well it adds grounding to a setting to have some 'normal' people in it. But Ariadna don't feel like 'grounded, normal' people with their werewolves and crazy cyber claymores.

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine
Yeah, with the first pitch I was really hoping for something more along the line of Harrison’s Deathworld but man is the actual fluff uninspiring.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

...I like the werewolves.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Mors Rattus posted:

...I like the werewolves.

The werewolves would be okay if they were like, one gimmick. But everything in Ariadna seems to go six gimmicks deep.

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

If you will not serve in combat, you will serve on the firing line!




Mors Rattus posted:

...I like the werewolves.

Yeah I admit I've always liked the Not-Scottish Werewolves as well. Even if then throwing in Not-American ones and some halfbreeds was perhaps a bit much.

Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.

Loxbourne posted:

I recall an old marketing truism for both tabletop and computer games is supposedly that a large number of potential players simply will not touch anything but a recognizably modern-day human faction. Human factions (supposedly) outsell non-human ones across the board by a massive margin. If you don't put your Imperial Guard/GDI/Halo marines faction into the game, this large and well-funded chunk of the audience simply will not buy in.

It's always struck me as an incredibly cynical and depressing failure of imagination, but by heck games of both forms that neglect to have a Space America usually crater hard.

That, I think, is Ariadna. I remember there being a lot of buzz when they were in the works as a new faction, and Infinity certainly had a big local upswing in recognition and store space when they came out.

I'll admit it, Ariadna weirdness is the only reason I'm interested in the setting, honestly. I usually like the "Guts, Guns, Grit" faction in most settings.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The problem is their core idea is really good; they're a colonial third world sitting on a gold mine being used as a proxy to determine what the hyperpowers can get away with, and they have to get by on, as you say, guns, grit and guts to not die or end up enslaved to another power (or insanely beholden to the allies they look to).

But you mix that in with the dozens of other gimmicks and every individual Ariadna colony having an army and its own special ops and its own heroes and its own thing and it's too much like an entire sub-setting to itself.

Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.
Yeah, but don't many/most game settings that keep adding stuff eventually get into that kind of overkill? For example, Aridana is still a lot more coherent than any description of Warhammer 40k that's more detailed than "Large potato men wearing refrigerators hit each other with chainsaws."

Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Oct 19, 2018

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Ronwayne posted:

I'll admit it, Ariadna weirdness is the only reason I'm interested in the setting, honestly. I usually like the "Guts, Guns, Grit" faction in most settings.
That's why I'm looking forward to the Nomads!

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Ronwayne posted:

Yeah, but don't many/most game settings that keep adding stuff eventually get into that kind of overkill? For example, Aridana is still a lot more coherent than any description of Warhammer 40k that's more detailed than "Large potato men wearing refrigerators hit each other with chainsaws."

Oh, no doubt, but 'better than 40k' is actually a really, really low bar.

Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.
As someone who has played in 40k rpgs for over a decade, I absolutely concur. Feed me from the garbage can of ideology elfgaming.

OvermanXAN
Nov 14, 2014
I personally find the over the top layers of gimmicks charming, but I can totally see why you guys find it a bit too much. That said, if they'd spent the time they used coming up with gimmicks for Ariadna doing, well, anything to make Yu Jing less bad, that would have been preferable.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Ronwayne posted:

Aridana is still a lot more coherent than any description of Warhammer 40k that's more detailed than "Large potato men wearing refrigerators hit each other with chainsaws."

Night10194 posted:

The problem is their core idea is really good; they're a colonial third world sitting on a gold mine being used as a proxy to determine what the hyperpowers can get away with, and they have to get by on, as you say, guns, grit and guts to not die or end up enslaved to another power (or insanely beholden to the allies they look to).

But you mix that in with the dozens of other gimmicks and every individual Ariadna colony having an army and its own special ops and its own heroes and its own thing and it's too much like an entire sub-setting to itself.
Most of Infinity's factions have some basis in world history. But you know how in 40K, the Imperial Guard has a regiment based on pretty much every historical army of note? The Space Prussians, Space WWI Germans, Space WWII Germans, Space actual Huns, Space Napoleonic infantry, Space British imperialists, Space Picts, Space Cossacks, Space Red Army, Space poor dumb bastards sent to die in Vietnam, etc.

Ariadna is too many of those crammed into one faction. With werewolves.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Loxbourne posted:

That, I think, is Ariadna. I remember there being a lot of buzz when they were in the works as a new faction, and Infinity certainly had a big local upswing in recognition and store space when they came out.

USAriadna as its own sectorial seemed pretty well received. Relatively speaking. For wargamers. So... kinda.

WhitemageofDOOM
Sep 13, 2010

... It's magic. I ain't gotta explain shit.
FFRRPG 4e Part 16: Squire and Wizard Sage

Squire

Level 1- Basic skill: Steal the lvl1 ability from any other secondary job.
Throw Stone: You get the ability !Throw stone, do Wind vs (4+Wind) with the damage of a thrown weapon of your level. So beyond being better than jutsu in every possible way, this is pretty good utility allowing to "Have a second weapon equipped" useful for ranged, breaking through high YOUR STAT enemies if your wind is higher, lots of stuff.
Equip Axe: Equip medium Weapons & Shields, and Heavy Weapons. Meh.
Artful Dodger: Drops the difficulty of !dodge to 3 putting it on par with parry or block.
Draw Out: When you use a Spell Weave item the weapon doesn't break, but the power is still exhausted for the encounter.

Level 19 - Focus: You get the slow(4) action !accumulate that gives Strengthen(Power) until the end of the next round. Yeah, no, not for slow 4. Wind to Armor, Fire to M.Armor.
Specializations
Mana Well: Your !Accumulate also gives Strengthen(Magic).
Counter Tackle: The difficulty of enemies !Flee is 2 higher....I care why? I don't lose xp.
Spell Evasion: You can !dodge spells.
Weapon Caster: Your Spell Weave, Spell Critical and Spell Focus abilities can use the weapon's offensive stat for accuracy, but not damage.

Level 35- Overwhelm Defenses: Once per tick when you miss reroll with +2 difficulty.
Specializations
!Awareness: as an action all enemies lose vanish....lol.
Faith&Bravery: If you have weaken (mental or armor) you get strenghen (magical) or (physical) and vica versa, a really cool way to implement faith and brave up/down.
Mighty Dodge: When you !Dodge, you may also !Attack.

Level 50- Tailwind: Gives !yell, which gives an ally an initiative die at the current tick. So entrust, we know how cheese THAT is.
Specializations
Ordered Retreat: When you succeed with !Flee it becomes teleport ie everyone flees. This is....underwhelming for 50 considering how early the time mage did this.
Graduation: Pick any action from another secondary job and take it. Weirdly the squire has the most actions.

Criticisms: For the focus on the basics class, it doesn't do that. The only basic it focuses on is dodge, if there was an attack, item, and dodge way to build this class it'd be much more interesting. Especially with things like mighty dodge letting you weave the two. Hilariously this class is a better evade tank than the fencer because of how good it can make dodge.

Wizard Sage

Level 1- Arcane Adept- If your mp multiplier is 0 it becomes 1. This is the ONLY time i think this is approriete. Also gain one of spell group that can be taken at lvl1, because i'm not listing all of those.
Specializations
Armored Mage: Heavy Armor and Polearms, Pass.
Residual Energies: Whenever you cast a spell your next spell this round costs 25% less mp. Neat very tactical.
Vital Sacrafice: 1/round you can use hp instead of mp to cast a spell, healing spells do puncture damage. If you don't have enough mp left you can always cast from hp.

Level 19- Counter Magic- After suffering a magic attack or spell use !Attack. Wind to armor, Fire to M.Armor.
Specializations
Arcane Warrior: Once per round after casting a spell use !Attack. Great for mages and fighter sages.
Dispel Barriers: Gain the Slow(2) action !shieldbreak which removes shell and reflect from everyone, just make it enemies and i might give it a second look.
Persistent Curses: When your negative status spell runs out for the first time you can repeat the attack at the start of the next round for free, and THIS is why you don't have durations besides one round or encounter.

Level 35- Silent Spell: Once per round you may cast a spell while muted. Remove the once per round.
Specializations
Shape Elements: Change a spells elemental type for 25% more mp.
Focused thoughts: Gain any spell group, obvious choice.

Level 50- Arcane Master: Gain any spell group. Also....the spec is the ult.
!W-Magic: Cast two spells as a slow(1) action the combined mp cost cannot exceed 150. This is an elegant way to limit dual casting from spamming huge spells and focus on it's utility. The obvious choice for casters.
Forbidden Arcana: Steal any black mage mage job's arcane mysteries. The obvious choice for non-casters.

criticisms: It isn't called the sage, it takes FAR too long to get it's second spell group (35). In general it's not good enough at giving magic to non-casters so much as buffing casters to more casteryness and the "Make non-casters able to cast" should be the primary focus imho. (since sages just need some more spell groups.), some more spell groups and 2 base mp if less would go a long way.

Secondary Job Criticisms: Nothing that really stands out that isn't said in the jobs(fencer needs a total rework, phalanx and squire need a devpass), in addition are Stats to arm supposed to all be the same or not? it seems it's Fire to M.Arm which is weird as Water is magic defense normally.

gourdcaptain
Nov 16, 2012

JcDent posted:

God hates True Neutral.

God is Kevin Siembieda? welp

MinistryofLard
Mar 22, 2013


Goblin babies did nothing wrong.


Warhams fantasy spends a lot of time talking about the Crusades which is weird given that in the actual game, neither Araby or Estalia are playable in any way.

It's also weird that the Holy Orders came from the time that a more or less secular evil sorcerer invaded a country and not the largely religious enemies that the Empire fights regularly.

I mean if you needed the middle eastern theme they could have had Estalia be invaded by chaos-worshipping Not Middle Easterners or something - it's not like it would be any more racist than what we got. But no, it's just one dick sorcerer with no real connection to a religion.

Why is it even a Crusade if nobody's symbol is a cross anyway?

Daeren
Aug 18, 2009

YER MUSTACHE IS CROOKED

MinistryofLard posted:

Warhams fantasy spends a lot of time talking about the Crusades which is weird given that in the actual game, neither Araby or Estalia are playable in any way.

It's also weird that the Holy Orders came from the time that a more or less secular evil sorcerer invaded a country and not the largely religious enemies that the Empire fights regularly.

I mean if you needed the middle eastern theme they could have had Estalia be invaded by chaos-worshipping Not Middle Easterners or something - it's not like it would be any more racist than what we got. But no, it's just one dick sorcerer with no real connection to a religion.

Why is it even a Crusade if nobody's symbol is a cross anyway?

Because it's an old, creaky relic from the 80s of some lazy bastard in Nottingham stretching exactly arm's length for an idea for something to pad out 2000+ years of backstory.

Remember, for how good it is on the whole, this is the setting that technically includes countries named Nippon, Cathay, and Ind. Each of them are exactly what you think they are, down to one of the only things we know about Ind being that their food gives you the shits, and that there was a 1e RPG supplemental adventure/book that involved a guy from Ind who ran a human trafficking/sex slavery racket.

Seriously, pretend anything east of the Chorfs doesn't exist, you'll be happier that way. Lord knows basically every setting writer past the mid 90s has done their absolute best to do the same thing.

Daeren fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Oct 19, 2018

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

There is the interesting bit about sane beastmen living as normal citizens in Ind, but I can't remember where I read that. There are also talks in the Kislev book about trade with the eastern lands, but not much else.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


I am genuinely convinced that Creative Assembly can give us a cool and thematic Cathay (or Celestial Empire, or whatever) army. They're doing cool stuff right now with the Vampire Coast.

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





Pathfinder 2: We're gonna need more booze

Since everyone liked my last review so much, I might as well do another one. This time with...poo poo, what is this?

What the hell did I bring home?



I might have to start drinking now.

So, Pathfinder. For the three people reading this who aren't familiar with Pathfinder, here's a very. very condensed history.

Pathfinder started as an attempt to fix 3.5 in the wake of the 4e launch - specifically, the people who made the fan magazines that just got shut down taking their ball and going home. They launched a massive public playtest, which turned out to be a publicity stunt as actual feedback about weak options and class balance was completely ignored. The end results were:

-Despite the core problem of 3.5 being that fighters were too weak/wizards were too strong, the Pathfinder devs buffed the wizard (by giving him more feats, class features, and hit points) and nerfed the fighters (by splitting up common fighter feats and nerfing useful feats like Power Attack). A half-assed attempt was made to nerf some of the problematic spells, but this just exacerbated the traditional D&D problem where 99% of the spell list is unusable crap and 1% crushes your enemies super hard.
-Characters were made a lot more fiddly for little gain. The Barbarian and Bard now had to track rounds per level for iconic class features, and this pattern continued with future classes and pointless tracking.
-Lots and lots of situational, pointless minor bonuses.
-Rogues, one of the few effective noncaster classes, got nerfed pointlessly by removing means of getting sneak attack.
-At least the art was good!

Now, I could go on, but Alien Rope Burn covers most of PF1's flaws fairly well. You should take away that the PF team managed to take a clunky game with known flaws and completely ignore - and in some cases enhance - the flaws to make a worse product.

Given that, I do not have high expectations of this product. Let's dive right into this horrorshow, shall we?

Chapter 1: Overview:
Standard "what is roleplaying" and terms definitions. We get a short blurb on how PF is a safe space for everyone and you need dice yadda yadda yadda. We're introduced to the action structure of Pathfinder 2.

Every turn you get 3 actions (they have their own little symbol I'm not going to try to replicate) per turn, 1 reaction, and an infinite number of free actions. We're also introduced to a new proficiency system, which determines what number you add to your level ranging from -2 to +3.

Everything in the game is given a "rarity" level as well which applies to ...spells...and feats...and...basically everything above common you need to argue with the GM to get. Uncommon elements can be taken via having specific backgrounds, but rare spells or feats can only be taken with explicit GM permission.

This is the part where I rapidly lose interest in playing the game. :dawkins101:

We then get a bit about character concepts - specifically, that the term "race" has been replaced by "ancestry" and that you build characters by applying a series of static ability boosts (2 of which come from your race, 2 from background, 1 from class, and 4 of players choice). This is actually...good. You can actually be any race and have stats that match up with any class, unlike D&D's vile lust for forcing elves into wizardry. Sure, it's kinda fiddly, but the fact that you could be a goblin wizard or a goblin fighter and have no stat penalties for either is amazing for a tabletop RPG.

Chapter 2: Ancestries and Backgrounds:
I take it all back, because everything not a human has an ancestry flaw which is a stat penalty. Now you do get 1 free racial boost you can use to cancel the flaw, so it's not crippling, but I'm not sure why these are in the game at all. You have enough racial distinctiveness provided in the information here.

Each race gets s few base traits off a list (such as darkvision) and then they have ancestry feats. Ancestry feats range from situational bullshit like bonuses to attack demons to free cantrips to free familiars for gnomes. We'll delve into the dwarf here. The dwarf has 8 level 1 feats and 2 level 5 feats. Stonecunning is its own feat. It competes with Dwarf Racis - er, Ancestral Hatred, which gives +1 damage against 2 creature types selected from derror, duergar, giant, or orc - but you can ALSO argue with your DM to get a bonus against other creatures. This competes with a +1 to a bunch of skills, AC, Fort, and Reflex against giants, a push manuever that pushes people a square away, bonuses to moving through difficult terrain if it's stone or earth, dwarven weapon proficiencies, and a +2 to saves against magic that makes you able to equip fewer magic items.

The end result is that you dumpster dive through the ancestry feats to grab either bonuses effective to your particular campaign (the elf-demon fighting crap if you're fighting Asmodeus, for example) or you just voltron together as much generic stuff as possible. Most of these are the racial traits from Pathfinder 1 just pointlessly split up to make more content, and a lot of them are forgettable. Your elf can have a +1 to saves against emotion effects, whoopee. This will probably be forgotten, and you will feel like an idiot for taking it when the DM declares the next adventure is going to be in the Tomb of the Skeleton Archers. The exception is for stuff like the Goblin fire damage bonus (Goblins are core now, yay?) which means that Goblin is probably going to be the preferred race for alchemists and fire mages. Also your race gives you bonus HP at level one, to the tune of a full hit die. Yay.

Humans are a little weirder. You take a feat to be a half-elf or half-orc, you have no ability penalties, you can loot elf ancestry feats if you're a human...why aren't you one, again? You can trade out your ancestry feats for first level feats. I haven't gotten to the general feats chapter, but that sounds 100% better than ignoring demons' fire resistance maybe.

There is a list of backgrounds as well. They give you a skill feat, training in a skill, 1 fixed ability boost, and are leaps above 5e's "maybe the GM will let you do a thing that sounds vaguely like what <noun> could do."

Chapter 3: Classes:
The alchemist joins the bard, barbarian, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, and wizard. Good on Paizo for adding another class. The classes all have a key ability score that determines save DC of effects and then their own ability, skill, and feat increase progression. Let's go through all the classes, shall we?

Alchemist:
This was a splatbook class in PF1, based off the Witcher series apparently, which had 2 ways to play it:
-You focused on alchemical bombs. These sucked and did piddly damage, and you were a moron
-You were a cool dude who used mutagenic potions to buff themselves into a battle frenzy, and then you totally destroyed people in hand to hand combat. You were dope and awesome and impressed women.

Looking at the class, you get a feat to create alchemical items that apparently makes you less able to equip magic items (uh oh). You get alchemical item recipes which function like spells, and you can scale your bombs to do more damage as you level. You can also eat your resonance points to fuel more alchemical attacks. In a vacuum I'm not sure if this is good or not.

Each class has a feat progression, which upgrades various class features (such as your bombs) letting you throw them farther or add various status effects to them. The optimal play seems to be status bombs, but in the absence of actual monster stats I can't say for sure. Double mutagens might be worth it as well. It's very much like any Pathfinder D&D ability list, where most of the abilities are meaningless newbie traps but a few are probably going to turn out to be very good once you've grokked the game.

Barbarian:

Rage and smash things. You get the ability to fly into a battle rage as an action, which gives you a damage boost, a -1 AC penalty, and an inability to concentrate. You get save bonuses, damage resistance, weapon proficiency bonuses, a barbarian feat progression, and a totem. The totems deserve special mention because they all come with a code of conduct, and these are various flavors of game destroying bullshit. The animal totem bars you from using weapons (though it gives you shapeshifting claws at least). Dragon totem requires you to respond to any personal insult, giant totem forces you to accept strength challenges, spirit totem forces you to not disrespect corpses in a game where looting corpses is half of gameplay, and the superstition totem forces you to not accept spells cast on you to the point where you actually have to leave the party rather than travel with someone who casts buff spells on you. That is not a joke. The only totems worth dealing with seem to be animal (because you ignore its drawbacks while raging) and fury because it just gives you a bonus feat and no bullshit to deal with.

The barbarian feats are a weird grab bag of shapeshifting, fear effects, and melee brawling. At 20th level you can stomp and knock down buildings which is...actually something I'd imagine a level 20 barbarian should be doing. Carry on.

Bard:

You cast "occult" magic which is explicitly not arcane. You also get "Composition" spells which seem to have replaced bardic performance and are a subtype of occult EXCEPT for countersong which has its own spell point pool and Jesus loving Christ we are approaching max Paizo. Apparently you can use the spell points to cast other composition spells? You also pick a muse that lets you get an additional spell at first level and a feat. Bard feats seem to involve giving you more songs that interact only with the spell point system and..screw it, let's just move on to

Cleric:

Is the cleric going to be the "do anything" class again? You get a deity and a domain, along with a vague anathema about how you can't cast spells your deity dislikes (3.5 did this much better when they refused to have good gods hand out evil spells) and..the spell points system returns again. You can use them on domain spells - not your actual spells - so now we have 2 loving spell systems on one class, again. Seems to be the case with druid and wizard as well, why these things weren't folded into the spell system is beyond me. As far as I can tell these things are crap like school powers and domain abilities from PF1, except the sorcerer just gets additional spells. You do not need 2 different spellcasting systems on 1 character of the same class. This is nuts!

There's also a channel energy effect that lets you cast the heal spell or the harm spell, but why have all these callbacks? Just add the drat spells to the cleric's spell list and let them cast them as normal, give them a few casts more to make sure they can cast all the drat things, and then balance them. There is no need to go through all these pointless hoops! Yes, I suppose people will be trading casts of bless for more harms or maybe vice versa, but you've already overhauled the game with the 3 action system and rarity. Why do you care?

The cleric feats are basically opting into stuff like 3.5 divine feats or commanding undead. You can turn your harm into a life draining spell that knocks people down.

Come back next time, when we go through more overly complicated classes and I wish for death!

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

Of course the one cool improvement they had (Modular racial abilities and stats) they turned around and immediately poo poo on with a weirdass push to making it all humans all the time.

Vox Valentine
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Every turn you get 3 actions (they have their own little symbol I'm not going to try to replicate) per turn, 1 reaction, and an infinite number of free actions.
welp. If they do that thing where you can trade down actions to smaller versions to do rad things I see a problem here immediately.

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





Hostile V posted:

welp. If they do that thing where you can trade down actions to smaller versions to do rad things I see a problem here immediately.

You trade up, so casting a spell is multiple actions for example.

Vox Valentine
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

You trade up, so casting a spell is multiple actions for example.
...huh.

Malfeas
Dec 11, 2017
Not to get to Pathfingery, but bomb alchemists actually can do tons of damage if you go hard with bombs. Once you have void bombs and fast bombs, you’ve turned yourself into a nova that stun locks anything that survives its onslaught.
It’s not as good as a beastmorph Vivisectionist by any stretch of the imagination, but few things are.

OvermanXAN
Nov 14, 2014
Oh hell, what even IS that superstition totem? Why the hell would you add that to a class? Why the hell do you need to stick a code of conduct onto Barbarians?! What kind of bonus would even make not being able to accept having spells cast on you by friendlies, to the point of essentially killing your character off for all intents and purposes if someone does it, remotely worthwhile?

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


OvermanXAN posted:

Oh hell, what even IS that superstition totem? Why the hell would you add that to a class? Why the hell do you need to stick a code of conduct onto Barbarians?! What kind of bonus would even make not being able to accept having spells cast on you by friendlies, to the point of essentially killing your character off for all intents and purposes if someone does it, remotely worthwhile?

Did D&D5 do away with the grog-standard Paladin code? Maybe this is Corporatized Edition War Part 2: Die-roll Harder?

Punting
Sep 9, 2007
I am very witty: nit-witty, dim-witty, and half-witty.

That Old Tree posted:

Did D&D5 do away with the grog-standard Paladin code? Maybe this is Corporatized Edition War Part 2: Die-roll Harder?

5e D&D actually expanded the Paladin code of conduct, to give players multiple different Oaths that they can follow, to customize your character and give them a focus that fits your play style

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


^^^ Hm!

I feel compelled to point out that PF2 Playtest's tagline is, apparently, "Join the Evolution!"

Vox Valentine
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

OvermanXAN posted:

Oh hell, what even IS that superstition totem? Why the hell would you add that to a class? Why the hell do you need to stick a code of conduct onto Barbarians?! What kind of bonus would even make not being able to accept having spells cast on you by friendlies, to the point of essentially killing your character off for all intents and purposes if someone does it, remotely worthwhile?
This was actually from Pathfinder 1e.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/barbarian/archetypes/paizo-barbarian-archetypes/superstitious/

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/barbarian/rage-powers/paizo-rage-powers/superstition-ex

The intent was to Barbarian Harder against the magic-using enemies with the cost of being hard to inflict friendly magic on while flipping the gently caress out, this poo poo only applies to being in a rage. While this sounds like outrageous rear end, consider the following:

1: any friendly magic-slinger playing Pathfinder is likely to be in it to win it so even though the theoretical level 8 Barbarian has a +4 to resist Cure Light Wounds, that penalty doesn't actually mean that the Barbarian is likely to beat the loving DC of a dedicated healing cleric who has been forged in the rivers of Phlegethon who has decided "today you're getting healed".

3: It only applies while raging so wait until you calm down to ask for heals.

3: Barbarians are bad and not fun to play in Pathfinder 1e so a lot of folks didn't exactly want to play them so this wasn't a problem due to nobody queuing up to be Smack Absharder the Wild Man of Not Russia.

Wales Grey
Jun 20, 2012

grassy gnoll posted:


L - Ratnik; R - Blackjack, and Grunt for scale

These are not TAGs. They may be hackable, powered armor units carrying heavy weapons, possessing multiple wounds, and they’re probably a bad investment of your points, and they might not be able to fit through person-sized doors like a TAG, but they’re not TAGs, okay? TAGs let you take remotes, these guys don’t, QED.

I like the Blackjack and Ratnik! They're cool models with decent profiles and the Blackjack has a spectacularly silly background:

warcrow posted:

The Tenth battalion was not created to take prisoners, and this is something that their members always bear in mind. After the battle, the Blackjacks walk among their fallen enemies and deliver a final, fatal shot to ensure that there are no survivors, dropping an ace of spades on each body as a business card. This sinister custom has turned that card into a symbol of death known throughout the planet Dawn.

Edgy writing aside, the Blackjack's sniper profile is pretty much a turret with BS 13, ARM 5, and 2 wounds for the low, low price of 36 points and 1 SWC. Getting cover for ARM 8 is also pretty easy despite being S5: it's not a TAG—just have the unit go prone! (TAGs and Remotes can't go prone, but heavy infantry can!) The Ratnik does the same thing for TAK that the Taskmaster does for Bakunin: a bulky attacker who can get upfield quickly without wasting too many orders and isn't overly threatened by rifles. Actually, I think the Ratnik might be a more effective unit than the Taskmaster in a straight gunfight. It doesn't waste points on frivolous stuff like CC19 or martial arts prowess, brings AP weapons to shoot other lads, and can be dogged to force your opponent to kill it again. On the other hand, the Taskmasters have slightly better range bands on their weapons, and vastly superior hacking support/defense options in their list while being 1 SWC less for the red fury plus heavy rocket launcher team. Plus, all Taskmaster profiles have koalas.

LatwPIAT
Jun 6, 2011

Mors Rattus posted:

...I like the werewolves.

My engagement with Infinity is 90% "this setting lets me vicariously be a redheaded woman in British Army smock commanding an assault squad of werewolves". It's something I didn't know I wanted in my life, but it turns out, I want it in my life.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Yeah you chose an oath which determines you Subclass and with the exception of the Oathbreaker none of them are alignment locked.

Though it makes sense for an Oath of Devotion Paladin to be Good.

The game gives some examples of an oaths tenents here are the Oath of Devotions which are pretty much the standard Paladin one.

TENETS OF DEVOTION posted:


Though the exact words and strictures of the Oath of Devotion vary, paladins of this oath share these tenets.

Honesty. Don’t lie or cheat. Let your word be your promise.

Courage. Never fear to act, though caution is wise.

Compassion. Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom.

Honor. Treat others with fairness, and let your honorable deeds be an example to them. Do as much good as possible while causing the least amount of harm.

Duty. Be responsible for your actions and their consequences, protect those entrusted to your care, and obey those who have just authority over you.

And it's stated that a Paladin will likely slip up and break some of thees tenets. But there is no actual penalty for doing so, unless the DM feels like the Paladin is just straight no longer respecting their oath.

MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Oct 19, 2018

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

I know Infinity is squishy sci-fi / space opera, but the werewolves still bug me. Biology does not work like that. Plus the fact that the werewolves are quite a lot bigger than a human... physics does not work like that.

JcDent posted:

something, something, Fire in the Deep something, werewolves.

Got no problem with the Antipodes. It's the Dogfaces I find jarring.

The Lone Badger fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Oct 19, 2018

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you
Wonder what the Pathfinder 2 Monk is going to be like.

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JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

The Lone Badger posted:

I know Infinity is squishy sci-fi / space opera, but the werewolves still bug me. Biology does not work like that. Plus the fact that the werewolves are quite a lot bigger than a human... physics does not work like that.

something, something, Fire in the Deep something, werewolves.

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