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Huh. So pure speculation, but I would guess as far as Aberrant inspiration goes Corbin is Pete Wisdom (Warren Ellis' addition to Marvel's Excalibur) and Slider was Shadowcat.
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Nov 9, 2018 03:30
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Volo's Guide to Monsters: Giants: World Shakers Part 2 Maat, Maug and Magic Previous Entry First lets talk about the ordening the strict hierarchy of the giants. It dictates which giants are superior to one another, as no giant is ever considered equal with another giant. However the ordening for a giant is variable, an individual giant can rise and fall in the ordening and many make it their life's purpose to rise as high as they can go, how one rises in the ordening depends on the giant type and what they value. However the ranks of the types of giants is fixed, storm giants are the highest, then cloud giants, fire giants, frost giants, stone giants, hill giants and lastly giant kin like ettin's and ogres. The greatest hill giant chief will always be inferior to even the lowest stone giant. It is not even considered an evil thing for a greater giant to betray an inferior type of giant, merely a rude thing. The Giant Tongue Giants all share the same language, but over the years it has broken into many dialects and accents, however they can still more or less all understand each other. Humanoids that know the giant language can also communicate with them. Though giants tend to have a hard time hearing their comparatively tiny voices. Maat and Maug These are two of the most important words in the giant language. Neither translate directly to other languages as they both cover a range of several related concepts. "Maat (pronounced mott) is the term giants use to describe ideas, behaviors, creatures, and objects that they consider good, holy, honorable, or desirable. Maug (pronounced mog) is the counterpart term, embodying what other languages call evil, unholy, dishonorable, or undesirable." Giants commit both acts and rise and fall in the ordening as a result. A giant is not judged by other giants if the act was good or evil, "but on whether its actions enhanced or diminished the qualities giants admire the giantness, if you will in themselves and their clans." The given example is that a Storm giant will normally find hill giant raiding distasteful, but it is not maug, because brutal raiding is a inborn trait of hill gaints that they consider maat. However if the same hill giants worshiped a demon lord like Yeenoghu and did the same thing, they would be considered maug and heretic's going against the ordening. Non-giants are considered maug by default and must prove themselves to giants to gain respect. Runes and Tale Carvings The giants use a script and alphabet which is a modified version of the letters the dwarves use as their own. It's a popular script also used by orcs and goblinoids. As the giants came first, them being the inventors of the script is something they present as fact. However the Dwarves dispute it. Despite possibly being the creators of the world's first alphabet, many giants are illiterate, particularly hill, frost and fire giants as they place little value in learning. These types tend to use pictograms and carvings instead. The giants that carve these tend to use stories and images of the giant pantheon. Examples given are that if the head of Memnor the giant god of trickery, is above the shoulders of a giant on a carving then that giant is a lair, and a depiction of the giant love goddess Iallanis being stabbed in the back means that love was betrayed. These allegories are easily understood by giants, but those unfamiliar with their lore have little chance of understanding them. As likewise a giant would not understand poetry written in elvish. REPRESENTATIVE GIANT PHRASES posted:
A Glossary of Giant Words posted:armor harbunad, fire giant ildjotun, meat kjott Giants and Magic  Giants have a strange relationship with magic. The ones with the most magical ability are cloud giants, then storm giants. Both of them have the power to manipulate the air, weather and gravity. However giants do not tend to study magic in the same ways humanoids do, as magic is not acknowledged by the ordening. It is not maat nor is it maug and so provides little way to rise or fall. Because magic tends to require quite a bit of devotion that would take time away from pursuits valued by the ordening many giants don't bother learning about magic. The exception is rune magic, something the giants created. Giants are drawn towards magic symbols and runes, and the permanence of their effects. Stone Giants are the primary practitioners due to the artistry and environment they live in. Most giant groups have at least a few rune cutters among them, even the stupid hill giants who stomp the symbols into the ground or gorge them into their flesh. Crafting this form is noted as being very slow. Comparing it to a wizard, who when trying to craft a scroll gave up paper and ink, and tried to use stone and chisel, glacier and axe, or iron and forge instead. Once a magic rune is carved into a item, it gains power, that can be used to activate many effects. What happens depends on the rune and the object it is on. The example given is Storm Rune. Carved into a stone it might give the stones owner the power to control the weather, the same rune carved into a door or chest might cause whoever opens it to get hit by a thunderous blast. Next time: Role playing Giants and laying them low. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Nov 9, 2018 |
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Nov 9, 2018 03:44
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MonsterEnvy posted:The exception is rune magic. Giants are drawn towards magic symbols and runes. Stone Giants are the primary practitioners due to the artistry and environment they live in. Most giant groups have at least a few rune cutter among them, even the stupid hill giants who stomp them into the ground or gorge them into their flesh. I'm always exasperated when an RPG presents this kind of interesting magical tradition which makes absolutely no sense in the larger context of how magic works in a game. What the gently caress is 'rune magic' in DnD?
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Nov 9, 2018 06:10
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RiotGearEpsilon posted:I'm always exasperated when an RPG presents this kind of interesting magical tradition which makes absolutely no sense in the larger context of how magic works in a game. What the gently caress is 'rune magic' in DnD? A prestige class or Craft Magic Item I assume.
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Nov 9, 2018 06:25
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RiotGearEpsilon posted:I'm always exasperated when an RPG presents this kind of interesting magical tradition which makes absolutely no sense in the larger context of how magic works in a game. What the gently caress is 'rune magic' in DnD? In this case. It's a permanent, but slower way to create magical effects and Items. I could have maybe gone into more detail, it's mentioned that it is something the giants created as an alternate way of using magic. Here is an example of a Rune Magic Item quote:Opal of the Ild Rune Joe Slowboat posted:A prestige class or Craft Magic Item I assume. Prestige classes don't exist in this book's edition. And craft magic item is no longer a feat. Crafting a magic item in 5e just requires time, money and the right resources. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Nov 9, 2018 |
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Nov 9, 2018 06:37
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RiotGearEpsilon posted:I'm always exasperated when an RPG presents this kind of interesting magical tradition which makes absolutely no sense in the larger context of how magic works in a game. What the gently caress is 'rune magic' in DnD? if the game you're playing isn't a hodgepodge of unrelated rule systems with little or no thematic cohesion, then you're not playing D&D
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Nov 9, 2018 13:40
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Dawgstar posted:Huh. So pure speculation, but I would guess as far as Aberrant inspiration goes Corbin is Pete Wisdom (Warren Ellis' addition to Marvel's Excalibur) and Slider was Shadowcat. Seeing as Charlie Bates was the primary writer of Aeon(Trinity) and the rest, that would not surprise me. I knew him in college and he was a huge Excalibur fan.
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Nov 9, 2018 21:14
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Freaking Crumbum posted:yeah between the UN and the WTO and NAFTA and a bunch of other Clintonian neo-liberal fiscal policies, a lot of people thought we were headed towards a global planetary govt.
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Nov 9, 2018 21:40
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 CHARACTER BUILDS There's not really any synergy between goblin and casters so I can't really do much with it, but Meinberg posted:Id like to see what an ogre fighter type would look like. marshmallow creep posted:Add troll bard to that. have some interesting things we can do. We start with picking an archetype to work with, which in this case is already done. There's more outlined suggestions that tell you thematic abilities, and we take the Skald one for our Troll, and the Ogre's special trait Robust only works with light armor, so we take Tattooed Warrior, which synergises well and we can get started on some bullshit. As a Mystic Tradition, Troll Singing kind of writes itself. I give the Ogre Robust because it's what you do, and take Adept Berserker because it matches with the theme of an angry monster guy and Novice Iron Fist because nearly every Fighter will want that. As well as all those reasons, those abilities allow me to stack armor so I reduce 3d4 damage from every single attack, which is enough to no-sell most attacks for a while. Berserk also gives me +d6 damage in exchange for tanking my dodge, but who needs to dodge. I don't think anyone's really concerned about my exact stat spread but I invest in Strength, then cover my bases with a solid Resolute, Persuasive and Vigilant. Cunning's good but I'm hoping somebody else can cover it, and I dump Accuracy and Discreet. Ogres tend to pick up names from whoever adopts them, so I go with Beefy. I'll say he was found by clan Vajvod, who do the magic tattoo stuff, and was made into a warrior. I don't actually have the tattoo yet, but I plan on picking it up as soon as possible, maybe saying I have it but it hasn't kicked in so the GM can't put barriers in front of it. For an alternative take, get Wrestler from the Advanced Players Guide, which has explicit boosts from Robust so you can pull off sick wrestling moves on undead servitors of a dead empire. The Troll Singer takes Troll Singing as an Adept, the Heroic Hymn Trollsong and Dominate novice. Heroic Hymn is a song that gives a stat-boosting aura to either Resolute, Persuasive or Cunning while Dominate substitutes Persuasive for Accuracy in melee combat. This gives us a really solid basis for a Fighter-Mage: Most of the Trollsongs don't require an action so you can beat people while singing. I'd plan to get Leader Novice at some point, which lets you use Persuasive for your spellcasting. We get a good Persuasive, as well as a decent Strength and Resolute because even though we don't roll them, they're important derived stats. We also want Discreet to be pretty good, because people tend to freak out about Trolls. We no longer need accuracy outside of edge cases, so that goes out the window. We pick a name from the list, which divides between young and old trolls, of Riomata, and say that they're adventuring to learn new human songs and expand their reportoire, which other trolls may or may not like. We tie together our two big monster people with a group goal. Riomata has a stronger one than Beef, so I'd make Beef subordinate to that as a mercenary and have them begin their journey in Thistlehold like everyone else, as two giant dudes trying to find seats that'll fit them in the local theatre. OTHER FUN BUILDS Polearm Dodger Get a good Quick and Strength score, and take Polearm Master Adept and Acrobatics Novice. Polearms, instead of having a reach distance, give you a free attack if anyone moves to engage you. Polearm Mastery gives all attacks with polearms better damage, removes the 1 per turn free attack limit and gives free attacks when you engage enemies. Acrobatics gives you the ability to ignore attacks of opportunity when you disengage on a successful Quick roll, so you can disengage and re-engage with melee attackers easily. Very effective on large numbers of enemies, especially when you get higher damage from other sources and Master Polearm, which stops things from attacking you if you hit with the reaction. Doesn't work against other enemies with Reach though, so watch out. This is the one I went with for my character, and it's very effective in certain situations but you do need an edge for fighting larger monsters. I supplemented it with Rune Tattoo for extra defense and Berserk for extreme Glass Cannon setups, which might not be so wise but I really shred mobs. Witcher Take Alchemist Adept, Two-Handed Force and Man At Arms. Alchemy gives you a lot of utility if you're willing to prepare stuff, as well as access to Grenades. If you're using grenades you'll probably not want to dump accuracy since the stat substitutions don't cover both melee and ranged attacks, but you could pick up Sixth Sense and Iron Fist at some point. Mainly you'll want to get max Two-Handed Force for the sweet sweet armor penetration. Eventually you should pick up Beast Lore for the theming. It's basically Favored Enemy from Rangers, but at least there's only 4 categories and all of them are about equally as important, and the extra damage goes to everyone in the party. There isn't really a good race for this, so probably go Ambrian for Priviledged and get 2 swords to start with. Heavy Cavalry a character with Iron Fist Adept, berserker and Equestrian deals 1d10+2d6+1d4 damage on a charge. Advanced Equestrian lets you do hit and run tactics so you can easily loop it. However it's dependent on having a horse for the real dramatic effects, so you'll want to pick up heavy armor and Man-at-arms at some point. Horses don't handle the depths of Davokar well anyway. Thought of elves and died The God of Arrows This build is built around having the most attacks possible. You take Rapid Fire Adept, Storm Arrow Novice and Marksman novice. Rapid Fire lets you trade a movement action away to shoot an extra arrow, and shoot two arrows at once with a combat action, for 3 arrows. Storm Arrow is a witchcraft spell that lets you have arrows floating around you that you shoot out, and novice gives lets you shoot out one as a free action, so at this point you can shoot 4 arrows a turn if you have that activated. Marksman increases bow damage to 1d8, although not the storm arrows. To expand on this you can go full Witchcraft for less corruption and entangling spells to stop people engaging you at melee. You can also invest in goofy trick arrows and be an insane green arrow guy. Run away from anything in armor though. Pokemon trainer, possibly the most busted build in Symbaroum Most mystical traditions each have a ritual that gives you a magical companion that works like an extra player character, even leveling up like one. Yeah it surprised me as well. Take Ritual Adept for Flaming Servant, Familiar and a Patron Saint. If you're using the Advanced players guide, swap out the familiar for the symbolist Rune Guardian because it's better. You are now in control of four player characters. This ramps up permanent Corruption and the best way to get rid of corruption is other Rituals, and it'd be a big investment to get Ritualist to Master, so take decent Resolute and maybe a bow or something. You've still got 2 novice abilities to take care of. Symbaroum's character creation lets you do some interesting stuff: It's flexible and easy to manage. There's also clearly superior options and they really needed a balance pass, although that's a discussion for another day.
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Nov 9, 2018 23:29
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More Aberrant! Lets get this lore done. We start back with the N! network and the media. Theyve got a show called Two Minutes Hate (similar in name only to the concept from 1984) where Novas send them stream of consciousness rants and they air it. Jackass celebrities going off on tears is big TV in the real world, so this is maybe the most believable thing so far. We get a letter to the editor discussing the political collapse suffered by the Republicans and Democrats in the US, remember that a Libertarian is currently briefly President and I think about now is when we elect Randel Portman. Normal professional sports have taken a huge hit from the existence of Novas, because why watch a bunch of guys strap on armor and nearly murder each other to get a ball up and down a field when you can watch two giant fuckers beat the everliving hell out of each other with magic fire and claws and poo poo? We get another comic showing an XWF match between Duke Core Baron from the last update and Rob Superbeast Steele, a grotesquely animalistic thingy. Hard swap, now were talking religion and its going to maybe get kinda lovely! A lot of smaller Christian denominations have been overtaken by the Church of the Immanent Escheaton, weird sort of Nova-worshippers. The actual Nova worshippers are the Kamisama Buddhists, where a crazy person has declared them reincarnated bodhisattvas and asuras and thus effectively gods on earth meant to lead us towards enlightenment. On the other side, you have the Church of Michael Archangel, who think Novas are the devil and try to kill them where possible (which is either rare or surprisingly easy, depending on who theyre trying to gently caress with). The religion part ends with a hilarious web site for a fake Satanic cult being run by some Novas as an obvious scam and its great. We get a man on the street type thing about Novas and masks, going over all the reasons why one might want to hide your identity basically. I might take some time another time and put up some of the answers theyre sometimes funny. We get a page on the Nova-only nightclub the Amp Room, which is going to come up again in a later book in that Team Tomorrow loving trashes the place. We then get our first Duke Rollo story, hes basically Hunter S. Thompson and its his opinions on some of the new trends in music. Theres also a hilarious Wired-esque technology magazine weak and chic thing thats purpose is to highlight the state of technology while also making you want to slap the people in-universe who wrote it because its intentionally cringe as gently caress. Our second Duke Rollo section is also our general summary of the state of the world by giving us some idea how its the same or different as reality. LAs in the poo poo because Bombays film industry and people being more entertained by Nova reality bullshit has really killed them. New York on the other hand has had enough Novas around all the time that its doing pretty well. Canadas doing okay, Rollo kinda doesnt like them because theyre too cleancut. Mexicos doing way better than they were and are, because Team Tomorrow Americas is headquartered in Mexico City. The cartels therefore never really got to reach the state they have (also there are rather different drug cartels active anyway, well hear about that later). Central America is horrifically unstable because its now easy as hell to overthrow a government in a small country. The Carribean is full of tiny private islands because Novas are often rich as hell, and remember Cubas become a weird free market hellscape since Castros death. The Medellin cartel largely runs Colombia, whereas Brazil is under Project Utopias aegis. England brexited from common sense even faster in that they completely turned down any aid from Project Utopia at all, leaving them just sort of vaguely run down. Belgium is apparently doing super well, why not. Italys a horrible quagmire, which is funny because Team Tomorrow Europe is headquartered in literal sinking quagmire Venice. The Balkans are still a nightmare, and remember Russias not-so-secretly run by a Nova. Africa is almost entirely a nightmare, as everyone with a few million dollars and a grudge can hire some Novas and settle said grudge. Well see in their book the Teragen think the situation in Africa is deliberately provoked by Utopia, but Im pretty sure its just humans being human sadly. Remember that we also solved peace between Israel and Palestine, go us. Bombays the new Hollywood, Kashmir is hell on earth. China is not a big fan of Utopia either but has enough of its own Novas for this not really to matter. This is going to turn out to have been largely the right call for them in the long run, as well learn in Trinity. Japan does not give a gently caress about Utopias technology controls and theyve got a LOT of illegal technology work going on. Australia is pretty much what youd expect, and in Oceania theres a base for Team Tomorrow Asia. Now we get to some juicy stuff, current events. It starts with a message from Jennifer Landers to Corbin, where shes found proof that Utopias been sterilizing them, the true purpose of their Bahrain facility, and that theyre intentionally funding the groups behind the war in the Kashmir region. We then get a comic section of her and Corbin talking, where she lays things out. She correctly thinks that theres people trying to keep the Nova population down and under control, and has sort of learned of the existence of Aeons secret dirty tricks squad Project Proteus. Proteus learns of whats going on and has her killed before she can release what she knows to more than a few friends, and they frame Corbin for it. The loving funny thing is that because none of these people really trust each other none of them know what the other is actually doing, Proteus director for example seems to legitimately think most of what she said was a smear in a memo to Utopias director. Theyre also trying really hard to hide the truth of whats going on from Max Mercer (not as successfully as they think they are) because they know hed be ripping pissed at them (he would and is). We then see the formation of the Aberrants, starting with a message where Sophia Rousseau contacts Corbin. Shes an enemy of Utopia but I honestly dont know much about her. Theres a eulogy for a deceased general, who we then get some hint was both up to some stuff that Utopia didnt approve of and had some dirt on them that he thought protected him. Presumably Proteus had him killed. Theres further indications of how Proteus works to support Utopia, doing dirty work behind the scenes to make things go more smoothly for their operations. Theres also a memo getting super pissed at the dude who killed Landers, Chiraben, because hes a loving psycho and almost compromised them with the brutality of the attack. We hear a bit about the Teragen now. It starts with some news coverage on Geryon, a rather unpleasant fellow, killing the anti-Nova mayor of Tampa Frederick Rupert. We get properly introduced to Raoul Orzaiz, who well get a blurb on later. Hes generally the public face of the Teragen though a lot of them believe him insufficiently committed to their ideals. His opinion on the whole thing was meh poo poo happens dude had it coming in the interview. We get some information on the structure of the Teragen (they dont have one) from a Directive operative named Jesse Turncoat Hooks (his name is apt because he switches sides, well find out why in the Teragen book). We get a bit of the Null Manifesto which is as boring as its name suggests. The last part of the Teragen section is a bit of an interrogation of a captured member, Sluice, which mostly exists to impress that while many of them are terrorists theyre not so much crazy (though this really makes them worse). We get some information on the Directive, its the fraud squad run by the major world powers because they correctly dont trust Utopia and want to know what theyre up to. We also hear a bit about the Triton Foundation, who are part of Aeon even if its a weird dotted line situation. Blurb on Count Raoul Orzaiz now. Hes Basque, hes a rich jetsetter rear end in a top hat, and he provides an unfailingly polite face to an extremely impolite movement. While he gets along with baselines quite well, hes entirely committed to advancing the goals of the Teragen and well learn how he goes about that in their book. Hes mostly about having lots of Mega-Attributes, well see his stat block in the storytellers screen adventure. We finish on the state of organized crime. Theres the Camparelli-Zukhov Megasyndicate (Im pretty sure the idea is that the last family of the Mafia and the last major Russian mob boss teamed up to pool their resources and evade destruction at the hands of Utopia), the Nakato Gumi (the Yakuza with tons of illegal technology and tacit support from the Japanese government), the Heaven Thunder Triad of China, and the Medellin Cartel. Thats the end of the lore, next time well hit the rules section.
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Nov 9, 2018 23:31
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The only Aberrant books I own are the core and the Duke Rollo in-universe fiction booklet, because wow, I was an incredibly stupid teen
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Nov 10, 2018 01:12
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:The only Aberrant books I own are the core and the Duke Rollo in-universe fiction booklet, because wow, I was an incredibly stupid teen We were all edgy teens once, anyone who would shame you for it should remember that.
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Nov 10, 2018 01:37
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:The only Aberrant books I own are the core and the Duke Rollo in-universe fiction booklet, because wow, I was an incredibly stupid teen Also known as Justin Achilli's Hunter S. Thompson cosplay.
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Nov 10, 2018 02:11
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Last time we got our party together and they set off to rescue the priest of the town of Stallanford, arriving at the orc lair after a couple of hours of travel. This time... Having failed to surprise drunk and sleeping orcs, the party are forced to fight for their survival. The adventure notes that these orcs can't be parlayed with - they may be inattentive guards, but they also know that the villagers will be sending someone in to rescue the priest, and so to treat anyone entering the caves as enemies.  For reference, here's the combat order. Noticeably is that actions are decided before each side rolls for initiative, and then resolved. This is important for the purposes of spell casting, as if a character whos declared a spell is struck before the spell resolves, the spell is lost. The combat order is slightly different from the order in the Rules Cyclopedia - there you roll for initiative before declaring actions Magda, Actar, and Valeria (Fighter, Elf, and Cleric) are going to charge in and attack one Orc each, whilst Alex is going to try and get into position for a backstab, and Mikhail is just going to watch - he's only got one spell and doesn't want to use it so early unless necessary. The Orcs are going to each attack one of our adventurers too. They have the following attributes. Orcs (3); AC6; MV 120' (40'); HD 1; hp 7 (orc at table), 5, 3 (orec in bunks); #AT 1; THAC0 19; Dmg Id6 (short swords); Save Fl; ML 8; AL C; XP 10. One of the Orcs hits, dealing 1 damage to Actar. Magda and Actar slay their opponent, whilst Valeria just wings hers. Mikhail tries to hide, but fails. At the end of the round the remaining Orc's morale is tested; it just passes and will attack again, targeting Valeria. Or it would have if the PCs hadn't won initiative and Valeria beheads it. The GM advice for this fight is to go over the combat procedure step by step, and to only roll for morale when two of the three orcs are dead. If the morale roll had failed, the surviving Orc would have surrendered, but wouldn't have negotiated with the PCs (who also may not have been able to talk to the Orc. Fortunately the Elf can speak Orcish.) It also says that the correct thing to do with a surrendered Orc (especially for Lawful characters) is to tie them up and take them back to Stallanford. Moving through the room after a cursory search, in which they discover another 50' of rope, and a silver belt buckle being worn by one of the orcs, the party get to a four-way junction in the tunnels. Actar looks around and determines (passes an Intelligence check) that the main force of the orcs went to the left, but the party decide to check out the other two branches first because they don't want to leave enemies behind them.  The corridor to the right is only 10' long and ends in a door. Alex listens at it, hears nothing. They cautiously push the door open, revealing area 2, The Stores. quote:You have entered a small, dark room filled with sacking, barrels, lengths of rope, wood, and the like. There are a few earthenware flagons and glass bottles as well. It looks fairly clean and cared for. There might be some useful equipment here, if you want to search, but this will take time. Searching the stores will take a turn, but would allow the characters to pick up more rope, 2 flasks of oil, 12 torches, and a tinderbox. Our party choose to search, and eventually Valeria investigates the barrels (which contain awful beer) at which point quote:A small creature jumps out from behind the barrels and lashes at you with his dagger! He is about 4 feet tall, and looks like a dog-man hybrid. He is unarmored, and he looks frightened, but he is doing his best to hit you! If the kobold is hit but not killed it throws down its weapon and starts begging for its life - in kobold, but the gestures are obvious. The kobold is a slave of the orcs, but doesn't know anything about the dungeon - I guess it just looks after the orcs who're based in this area? Anyway, if allowed to do so it will flee the dungeon. Unfortunately, Valeria brained it in response to being attacked. Taking the supplies from the storeroom, the party return to the crossroads and heads up the north branch. The corridor heads north for another 50' before reaching a door in the north wall, and continuing to the right. Alex doesn't need to listen at the door - as the party approach they hear sounds of singing, shouting, and jeering from the orcs inside. Alex listens anyway, and making his roll, learns that there's around 6 orcs inside. The party decide that thats a lot of orcs even if they are drunk, so they're going to open the door a smidge to let Mikhail cast sleep through it, and then they'll charge in. Since the orcs are 4 sheets to the wind they get surprised on a 1-4, which means there's practically no chance of them noticing the door being pushed open just a little bit. Mikhail casts, and 5HD of orcs go to sleep. That leaves two orcs conscious who are still surprised when the party rushes in. Magda kills one, but Valeria, Actar, and Mikhail all miss the second one. Perhaps the unsteady weaving motions it makes are putting them off? The remaining active orc makes its morale check, and attacks Magda, yelling incoherently. He misses, then Valeria brains him with a mace. With regards to the remaining orcs, Magda proposes that they tie them up and take them back to Stallangrad. Team pragmatic wins the argument though, and the orcs are slain where they doze. Searching the orcs, the party find about 75gp worth of assorted coinage, a silver goblet worth 25gp, and a gold ring worth 50gp. Leaving the room they continue down the corridor to the east. It ends in a t-junction with a door directly ahead, and corridors leading north and south. They can just make out doors at the end of the north and south corridors. A quick discussion ensues and they go north to 10 - Orc Lieutenant and Pet. Listening at the door, Alex once more hears nothing. The party decide to kick the door in, and fortunately manage to surprise the inhabitants of the room - a large orc watching a dog sized spider stalk a halfing who's been chained to the floor and armed with a rusty knife. The party leap into action! Magda and Actar go for the orc, whilst Valeria and Alex used ranged weapons on the spider, worried that it might have a poisonous bite (it doesn't). Mikhail, having used his spell for the day, keeps an eye out for attack from the back. The only person who hits is Actar, who almost, but not quite drops the orc. Next round the orc and spider attack Actar; the orc misses, but the spider pounces and bites, dropping Actar to 0 hp (he'd already taken 1 damage in their first fight). In the second round, Magda drops the Orc, whilst Valeria and Alex both hit the spider doing a total of 6 damage. The spider attacks Magda, and deals 2 damage to her. It then fails its morale roll and scuttles off into a corner to try and hide. Magda watches it cautiously whilst the others free the halfling. The halfling is called Harribal Flatfeet, and is a worker at a local farm who was caught by the orcs whilst rabbitting. The adventures says that he won't join the PCs, but will bring them supplies from the farm (he'll pay for up to 5gp of stuff himself) to within a mile of the caves. In this case though as Actar has just died, let's give him a little bravery injection and have him offer to join the party at least until they retreat from the caves. Being a level 1 halfling, Harrible has the following abilities: a point bonus to AC vs large opponents, +1 bonus to missile attack rolls, and a +1 bonus to individual initiative. He also has a 90% chance to hide in the woods, and a 33% to hide in dungeons as long as there's some shadow. Unlike the thief ability, he can't move whilst hiding. His stats give him a +1 bonus from Dex and Intelligence, meaning his AC is 8. We also up his HP by 1 to four, bringing him up to the minimum recommended HP. The party give him Valeria's sling as there's no armor that will fit him, and Mikhail picks up Actar's spellbook. Wanting to search the rest of the room, the party decide to take on the spider. After three rounds they manage to down it without taking any more damage. Searching the room they find 5 platinum and a key on the orc (the key opens the chest in area 9), a silver collar on the spider, and that the bearskin on his bunk is valuable (80gp) but heavy. Leaving Actar's body for later retrieval, they go back down the corridor and take the door in the western wall, which leads to another corridor that soon turns south and ends in a door. Alex makes his listen check and detects the sounds of sober orcs conversing, perhaps playing cards? It doesn't actually say what the orcs are doing, just that there are four of them. This is the first fight where the PCs don't have an increased chance of surprise vs. the room occupants. Deciding that the orcs will just attack them from the back if they leave them, the party once more decides to attack. Before they do, Mikhail has the bright idea of checking the south door in the previous corridor, and they decide that both doors probably lead to the same room. Magda and Mikhail go to door 1, whilst Valeria and Harrible stay at door #2. They kick the door to the Barracks in, and the orcs are surprised! Magda wounds an orc, whilst Harrible kills another. The orcs do minor damage to Valeria, whilst the 3rd's attacks just scrape off Magda's armor. A lucky stab takes out Valeria, Alex kills the one that Magda had injured earlier, but no-one else hits. The party decide to exit stage left, pursued by Orcs, fortunately winning initiative in the third round. For now, the party flee the caves to return to town and see if anyone else is up for rescuing the town priest. Next episode We introduce Cleric #2 and the Dwarf as player characters. My thoughts so far are that whilst we've had two deaths, they weren't due to unfair bullshit. The adventure is quite generous in these rooms, often giving the party a bonus to suprise the enemy, which is a powerful advantage. On the downside, 1st level characters are very fragile, and the magic user, once he's used his spell, is out of options for the day. As written an MU can only use a dagger, and he's certainly not going to get into melee with anything if he can help it. There's an optional rule in the Rules Cyclopedia to allow MUs a slightly wider variety of weapons, which we'll be using next time and arming Mikhail with a sling so he can do more than cower helplessly once the spell is cast. We'll also read ahead and adjust the dungeon a bit to account for the first venture into it.
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Nov 10, 2018 11:54
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Lets get to the actual rules portion of Aberrant now. We start with an Introduction, the standard what is roleplaying information and a bit of an overview of whats going on in the setting as of the official starting point for a game, which is that Slider just got killed and things are getting funny for Utopia. It mentions Trinity (this game came out after) and that if you go by the official timelines the next 40 years will feature a gradual worsening of relations between Novas and baselines until eventually the Aberrant War breaks out, which amusingly ends with the Aberrants kicked the gently caress off Earth in spite of their phenomenal cosmic power (well learn how in Trinity but its pretty funny). It also notes you can do as much or as little of the official story as you like which is good because while the Aberrant War itself is honestly probably fine (it does lead to the far superior Trinity after all) but theres some dumb as gently caress characters and things in the official line. We get a sidebar on how to create Trinity-era Aberrants. You can use all the rules later, the only differences are that they default a little bit more powerful and their bad-stat, Taint, doesnt take them out of play anymore (since nobody will think any better or worse of them for being inhuman nightmare monsters, thats what basically all humans in 2121 think of all Aberrants). Chapter 1: Systems Much of this chapter is the same information we got in Adventure, the base systems are pretty much identical. Roll a bunch of ten siders, everything above 7 is a success, if you get enough youre all good. Novas dont have Inspiration (they are technically Inspired as far as Adventure is concerned, but theyre a million miles beyond that). The power stat of a Nova is Quantum, which determines a lot about how strong your powers can be. Unlike the Inspired, though, there is a downside to this power. Novas get a bad stats, Taint. Taint represents the inability of the human body to safely channel Quantum power, and its efforts to remedy that. As your permanent Taint rises (either through taking some extra at character creation to get cheap powers, from loving up too much using your powers, or by raising your Quantum or Node Background too high), you develop Aberrations. These either mark you as inhuman or represent inhuman thought processes. One small systems thing, there is a type of power called a Mega-Attribute. Mega-Attributes let you do crazy poo poo and among other things give you special dice for rolls using that Attribute. If you split actions, you never lose Mega dice, only regular ones (and you still have to not take the action if youre out of regular dice). Last thing, unlike Inspired Knacks Quantum Powers have their own ratings instead of using some other Ability to determine their success. Were no longer building off of regular action, were launching bolts of almighty power at fuckers. Chapter 2: Character Lets get character creation into this since we could just kinda glide though the first bits. Its got the same general idea, we do a phase 1 then spend a whole bunch of points. Start with a concept, theyre a bit cringey honestly by wanting you to try and nail it down to a word but whatever. Instead of having separate Nature Virtues and Vices as in Adventure, we just pick one. This will both determine how we regenerate Willpower and also sometimes cause us some bullshit if were out of Willpower. Allegiance is less important, since we dont get a free Background. Just pick whatever works for your character. To model how relatively badass Novas innately are, starting Novas get 7/5/3 points to split between Primary/Secondary/Tertiary Attributes. We get the same 23 points of Abilities, and as in Adventure none of them can be above 3 dots at this phase. Before you even start spending, though, Novas get Endurance 3 and Resistance 3 just for being Novas. Take seven points of Backgrounds and well be done assigning automatic stuff. Permanent Willpower starts at 3, and we get Quantum 1 now (which is important once we get to Bonus Points). Initiative still starts at Dexterity+Wits but we can potentially crazily exceed that. Our Quantum Point pool is going to be 20+(Quantumx2). Now we get the Bonus Points for phase one, which have some new options. First of all, were allowed to raise Abilities past three if we want (we still had to abide by the cap in Adventure until Transformation Points). Second, we can buy Quantum for a whopping 7 Bonus Points out of our 15. Remember that we couldnt buy Inspiration without spending Transformation Points. Speaking of, its time to Erupt. Start by generally describing how your Nova powers revealed themselves. This will help guide your thoughts on how they manifest, so its actually kind of important. Now we get 30 Nova Points to spend on stuff. Lets go over what we can do. Mega Attribute: 3 NPs per dot. Well cover what these do in detail in a later update, but these are FAR beyond just a sixth dot in an attribute. If youve got a Mega version of an Attribute, expect to be able to pull off some serious bullshit on any roll involving it. Note that using a Mega-Attribute generally does not spend any Quantum unless youre using the special Enhancement bonuses so these are great for giving you some passive power if your other powers are spendy. Enhancement: 3 NPs per. I mentioned these above, they are special bonuses tied to Mega-Attributes. Some of them will feel very familiar, because they were Dynamic Knacks in Adventure. Quantum: 5 NPs per dot. Quantum can be raised to as high as 5. If you do so, take into account that at Quantum 5 you get an a automatic permanent point of Taint (and thus potentially an Aberration). Quantum Power: 1 per dot Level 1, 3 per dot Level 2, 5 per dot Level 3. Quantum powers are tiered into Levels, higher level powers are more expensive to buy, more expensive to use, and require us to have more Quantum. Theyre drat brutal at times, though. Quantum Pool: 1 NP per 2 points. You can raise your maximum Quantum Point pool if youd like. Attributes: 1 NP for 3 dots. We get a bit more efficiency out of buying up normal Attributes with Nova Points than we did with Transformation Points. Being a perfect paragon motherfucker is not super expensive but more exciting options ARE, so maybe dont go overboard here. Abilities: 1 NP for 6 dots. One more than we got out of Transformation Points but unless its important for your concept youre maybe kinda wasting the NPs here. You get a lot more NPs but there are very expensive things to buy as noted. Backgrounds: 1 NP for 5 dots. Again one more dot than for Transformation Points. If a Background is valuable to you, you can buy it at 5 if you want gently caress it. Otherwise, its potentially a waste. Willpower: 1 NP for 1 dot. We only get 1 per 1 Willpower, though do keep in mind we get more than twice as many of these as we do Transformation Points. Theres no longer such a thing as a Background Enhancement or Ability Mastery, and we cant buy them. We can choose to buy any Mega-Attribute, Quantum Power, or Quantum Points as Tainted. This halves the cost (round up) but makes us take a point of Taint for each dot. We can also add an Extra to Level 1 or 2 powers (well learn about Extras when we talk about powers). This will raise the effective Level of them by 1 for cost purposes. Extras are busted as gently caress so consider them. Once youve spent your NPs, check your Taint. If its at least 4, you need an Aberration for each point above 3. Novas get to soak Lethal damage with half their Stamina unlike normal humans. They ask us to think about how it is that the party is together, which is important of course, and give us some questions to theoretically answer. Its pretty straightforward and is half as much so the Storyteller knows what the gently caress the players want to get out of all this. They suggest running a short prologue one-on-one with everyone. The idea they present is that you should go through the motions of what your character wants to be good at and make sure things work the way you want them to, and switch up your development points afterwards if you missed something important or just dont like it. We get our experience rules, raising existing traits scales up in cost as they increase in rating while new ones have a flat cost. Youre allowed to buy Tainted stuff with experience as well, halving the cost but again giving you a point of Taint. They also note that when youre trying to deal with the concept of training as the explanation for raised/new powers, in practice you will rarely have someone else who can help with that. Youre mostly going to be on your own, and they suggest that the first session after you develop an entirely new power its use should potentially be at enhanced difficulty as a result of it being poo poo you slapdashed together and havent quite got the hang of unless you had some help. And trust me, anyone who could help you is going to want something in return. Next time well start on Traits, and probably do Mega-Attributes as well because most of the Traits will be repeats from Adventure.
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Nov 10, 2018 18:38
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One of the weird things is because of how insanely powerful Novas are, a 'standard' RPG party of 3-6 is enough to invade France or something if they aren't met by other Nova resistance.
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Nov 10, 2018 18:44
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I could never figured out why all those whiny highborn Teragen didn't just take some followers and settled outside somewhere outside the solar system instead of bitching about being not getting respect for being superior.
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Nov 10, 2018 18:53
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By popular demand posted:I could never figured out why all those whiny highborn Teragen didn't just take some followers and settled outside somewhere outside the solar system instead of bitching about being not getting respect for being superior. Psychic space aliens, mostly.
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Nov 10, 2018 19:27
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Alternately, what about them says they would be happy without people to lord over?
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Nov 10, 2018 19:30
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Feinne posted:Once youve spent your NPs, check your Taint. I know you don't mean it in that way, but I definitely chuckled.
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Nov 10, 2018 19:48
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By popular demand posted:I could never figured out why all those whiny highborn Teragen didn't just take some followers and settled outside somewhere outside the solar system instead of bitching about being not getting respect for being superior. Some of the Novas do exactly that in the end.
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Nov 10, 2018 19:55
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that's forty years down the road though. Bitchboy prime is lonely and hoping to be vindicated, what excuse do the rest of them have to not start scouring the galaxy for possible planets and recruiting baseline humans to the cause? there's never a shortage of willing lackeys to a man who can fly.
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Nov 10, 2018 20:01
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I assume its the psychic alien manipulators.
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Nov 10, 2018 20:17
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drat, Supers going on a galactic expedition and starting a war that forces them to grudgingly combine forces with earth would be a way cooler campaign promise than YOURE ALL DOOMED TO GO NUTS AND KILL THE EARTH (or die trying)
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Nov 10, 2018 20:22
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Then wait for Trinity!
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Nov 10, 2018 20:28
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It kind of feels like Trinity gets its status as the 'best' of the Aeon settings entirely because it doesn't have to deal with the inevitable failure via metaplot of all of your endeavors in order to lead to Trinity.
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Nov 10, 2018 20:35
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Almost like metaplot is the dumbest loving cancer to ever infect rpgs.
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Nov 10, 2018 20:49
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Still, Dragging your special all powerful GMPC through 3 different systems and 120+ yrs of history while not actually doing much gotta hold some special place at the halls of gaming.
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Nov 10, 2018 20:58
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Mors Rattus posted:I assume its the psychic alien manipulators. It's always the psychic alien manipulators, who are major villains in Trinity.
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Nov 10, 2018 21:55
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So, what is it that makes Novas so uniquely prone to being hosed up and inhuman as opposed to the relatively tame other protagonist groups in Trinity and Adventure? Divis really hosed up in making them, didn't he?
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Nov 10, 2018 22:07
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Night10194 posted:So, what is it that makes Novas so uniquely prone to being hosed up and inhuman as opposed to the relatively tame other protagonist groups in Trinity and Adventure? If I remember right, the source of superhuman powers is a new organ that grows in the base of your brain. The Mazarin-Rashoud node starts crushing your brain as it grows larger, which happens as you grow stronger. Also the game's base assumption is people are assholes, and people with superpowers are going to be even bigger assholes.
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Nov 10, 2018 22:12
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So Mal is literally brain damaged from too much EXP grinding? Explains a lot about the Null Manifesto. I remembered the MR Node, I forgot it was large enough to cause insanity by its own physical presence.
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Nov 10, 2018 22:23
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Tasoth posted:If I remember right, the source of superhuman powers is a new organ that grows in the base of your brain. The Mazarin-Rashoud node starts crushing your brain as it grows larger, which happens as you grow stronger. Also the game's base assumption is people are assholes, and people with superpowers are going to be even bigger assholes.
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Nov 10, 2018 22:27
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Nessus posted:Nu, so you can trephanate. If necessary you could get skull reconfiguration surgery. Do you have a guy with instant heal power? Dr. Giorno can fix you up and you won't even have a scar, just an expanded dome. Can I get a modular skull swapped in so I can keep expanding it as the node grows?
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Nov 10, 2018 22:31
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Tasoth posted:If I remember right, the source of superhuman powers is a new organ that grows in the base of your brain. The Mazarin-Rashoud node starts crushing your brain as it grows larger, which happens as you grow stronger. Also the game's base assumption is people are assholes, and people with superpowers are going to be even bigger assholes. It's not just that, human bodies are just not able to handle channeling the sort of power that Novas channel. How it's supposed to work is that your body changes as a result of actually doing it into a form that can handle it, thus leaving you a weird gross physically transhuman monster thing. The problem is that humans aren't actually generally willing or able to accept becoming weird gross transhuman monster things so you go crazy even if you don't go crazy from having a grapefruit sized new organ in your head. The Teragen are actually the least crazy overall Nova group because they are all about becoming weird transhuman poo poo and also have techniques for guiding your body to turn into such and not leave you a broken insane monster but they're as unwilling to share this information as Divis Mal is unwilling to share everything else he knows about Novas with them. Like the problem with being an Aberrant is that at some level you yourself are literally a distinct and not entirely compatible evolutionary option for the human race. You are not like any other Aberrant, you're a gross unique mutant and while you're biologically compatible with other humans by the time you've turned into a gross unique mutant you are probably also at beholder levels of "I AM THE CORRECT AND PERFECT BEING PURGE THE IMPURE" levels of insanity. Psions from Trinity on the other hand are channeling much less direct power through themselves to do what they do, and are working within the bounds of how the universe is 'supposed' to work to a much greater extent, so it's a lot safer. And even then there's a bunch of people super uncomfortable with them just on the very idea things might turn out the same way as with the Aberrants (there's no reason it should, and in the long term Psions will probably just be the 'normal' humanity because they're a way more stable evolutionary branch than Aberrants). Feinne fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Nov 10, 2018 |
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Nov 10, 2018 22:52
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Feinne posted:Psions from Trinity on the other hand are channeling much less direct power through themselves to do what they do, and are working within the bounds of how the universe is 'supposed' to work to a much greater extent, so it's a lot safer. And even then there's a bunch of people super uncomfortable with them just on the very idea things might turn out the same way as with the Aberrants (there's no reason it should, and in the long term Psions will probably just be the 'normal' humanity because they're a way more stable evolutionary branch than Aberrants). You'll get to it, I'm sure, but I'm guessing there's a reason the Order founders can all fling around their discipline's modes with gay abandon.
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Nov 10, 2018 23:03
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Dawgstar posted:You'll get to it, I'm sure, but I'm guessing there's a reason the Order founders can all fling around their discipline's modes with gay abandon. I will get to it but at some level the answer is that Psions are focused enough that it's just not nearly as much EXP to max out. They've sacrificed versatility for power, so they've got three Modes to get to 5 dots and 10 levels of Psi to level, at which point you're in the undiscovered country of 'is there a level 6 of this poo poo?'. And if you're ever at the point of asking that, the answer probably is 'yes, and boy is it unpleasant to be hit by it'.
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Nov 10, 2018 23:31
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Also, the space aliens. I really want to emphasize that the space aliens are at fault for a lot of things and aren't (just) a joke.
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Nov 10, 2018 23:32
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Mors Rattus posted:Also, the space aliens. Oh yeah for sure, we are not joking about psychic space aliens being a large source of everything awful. There are some cool space aliens in Trinity but these are not those.
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Nov 10, 2018 23:34
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By popular demand posted:Still, Dragging your special all powerful GMPC through 3 different systems and 120+ yrs of history while not actually doing much gotta hold some special place at the halls of gaming. Right next to the one from Deadlands...
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Nov 11, 2018 00:04
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