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By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 20 hours!
And that's why the gods of chaos work best as unfeeling, unreasoning cosmic powers.
cultist attempts to relate to them as people are like a fish believing it knows what the currents of the ocean want.

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Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Makes a lot more sense to have them as manifestations of concepts and ideas that have been left to fester way too long to the point where they're basically more interested in playing out narratives than actually accomplishing anything.

Like stories in Discworld.

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

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






Neotech 2
Part 6: Probably the most painless part so far.



Some of the chapter header images make absolutely no sense.

So with 50 pages of character creation finally out of the way we’re moving onto the first half of the skills chapter. Namely how they all work. And oh boy, there’s a bunch of rules for that.

Funny enough the game tells GM’s not to go too crazy and have the players roll for exactly everything they do. Emphasising that it’s better for things to progress quickly and smoothly. I’m doubting that slightly. Either way you can also roll your attributes the same way as skills, or in lieu of some skills for that part.

The book repeats some things from the character generation section about some skills starting with a base value of 5 while anything else generally starts at 0. As well as the unit costs to increase ranks and buy specializations.

We talked about how to do dice resolutions way back in the second part but here’s a slight refresher.
First you need to determine the difficulty of the check, including any increases caused by drawbacks and so on. After that you check how many ranks you have in that particular skill. Your ultimate goal is to roll underneath or equal to what you have in your skill using the number of dice given to you by the difficulty level.
So for example. You’re at a shooting range for some basic target practice. You have 16 ranks in the Rifle skill and the GM deems that it’s a normal difficulty roll you have Ob3D6 dice to use for your check.
If you roll above your skill rank the action has failed.

But there’s another part to this. We might also want to know how good or bad we did at our roll. This is called Effect. The effect of your action is equal to the difference between the skill chance (ranks in that particular skill) and the result of the difficulty roll. The higher the effect the better the success of the action.
For example: So we’re at the firing range and about to shoot. So we doll Ob3D6 which gives us a result of 10. This gives us an effect of 6 as 16-10=6.
Oddly enough the book example goes on to mention a roll with an effect roll of -2 but doesn’t go into what that really means overall. Outside that negative effect exists but isn’t used all that often barring some opposing rolls.
On top of that you have perfectly executed actions and fumbles.

Perfectly executed action or critical success happens if two separate conditions are fulfilled:
  • All dice, except at least one, come up as 1 before any eventual Ob-rerolls. If only one dice is used then it has to come up as either 1, 2 or 3.
  • The difficulty roll ended up being lower or equal to the chance of success.
If only one of these happen then the roll is considered successful but not critically so.
A critical result will always trump a non critical one, even if the overall effect might ends up being lower.

The conditions for a fumble on the other hand are:
  • Two or more dice ends up as 6 at the first roll, before any eventual Ob-rerolls.
  • The difficulty roll ended up higher than the chance of success. Or simply put, the rolls fails.
Same rules as with the critical success counts here as well, if only one of the two requirements are fulfilled then the roll will only be considered a failure. While the book states that characters shouldn’t be killed from fumbling GM’s are at least encouraged to hurt them a little. With the damage system that this game seems to have that seems like a really bad idea.

Neotech posted:

The Game Master smiles maliciously as he finally gets to use the rules for fall damage…

Worryingly there is a mention that there are extensive rules about crits and fumbles in the combat section. I’m sure that’ll be a hoot to read later.

Modifications to the difficulty are always made to the number of dice you have to roll and never the result. So if you’re allowed to roll a skill at a difficulty level easier that means an Ob3D6 roll becomes an Ob2D6 roll.
But we also have cumulative modifications, where the difficulty is modified by a number of different factors. If the basic difficulty for a check is Ob3D6 and you get following modifications to the roll: +Ob2D6, -Ob1D6, +Ob1D6, -Ob1D6 and +Ob1D6 that means the final difficulty level will be Ob5D6.
There is a number of factors that can affect the difficulty level in a cumulative way. Such as lighting conditions, intoxication, wounds and so on.
I can see this being used to great effect by antagonizing GMs to really make PC’s suffer.
We also get our first quote here. Of Murphy’s law.

We get a table listing all the skills in the game. Not going to rattle them of now but I can say there are 2 language related skills, 12 combat skills, Combat Experience, 60 General skills and 31 knowledge skills. So 106 skills in total.

Opposing rolls is when you have to do something against someone else. Such as trying to sneak past a guard for instance. To see who succeeds both sides have to roll their own checks. The one with the highest effect result is the winner. If the effect is equal then neither side has won and you have to reroll. The rules for fumbles and critical success can be used for either side individually. But a crit always wins in the end. The relative effect of the roll for the one who succeeds is equal to the difference between their own effect and the effect of the opponent.
Another variant of this is when someone else has already rolled something that will later on be opposed by someone else. Such as a disguise checks. In this case the player notes down the effect result of their disguise check which is then compared to the check to scrutinize their disguise. But in this case the player can also make it harder for their opponent by adding a number of extra difficulty levels to their check. If they then succeed with that it forces the opponent to add the same number of levels to their check. Some skill descriptions will go into more detail on this later.

Now time for some optional rules!
The first one is about time how much time passes during skill checks. Which really boils down to a GM decision combined with looking at another table if you want things to go faster or slower. But it does say that the rule is restricted to certain skills, you can’t for instance run faster than you’re able to. Also that the difficulty can’t be lowered by more than two levels to a max of -Ob2D6.

Another rule is Related Skills. Some skills are generally connected with others so this means if you’re lacking a particular skill you can attempt to use a similar one. For instance if you want to shoot a rifle but lack the skill and only have points spent into the Pistol skill you can use the latter but at one difficulty harder. But ultimately it’s up to the GM to decide what and what doesn’t count. You are also forbidden to go more than one level of related skills. So you can’t use the related skills of another related skill. Nor can you use them for career success rolls.
I feel this rule wouldn’t even need to exist if the skill list has been massively trimmed and turned more generalized.

Our last optional rule is Specializations. Which seems weird because that has never really been mentioned at any point before. Not even the entries for how much they cost during character generation or at the beginning of this chapter made mention of that.
Anyway, all specializations do is give you one extra rank for a skill related to one specific subject. You can buy as many as you’d like but only two specializations can be used together at the same time.
It’s cheap but at the same time you don’t really get much out of it. One extra rank in a skill can be a dealbreaker sometimes but it still feels like they could’ve done a bit more than that.

Neotech posted:

Example: Sinclair MacNeal has the skill of Underworld (hackers, AMRO-plex, Club Exxxtreme) 14. He still gets only an effective skill chance of 16 if he is trying to locate hackers in AMRO plex at just Club Exxxtreme, because he can only combine the maximum two specializations.
Club. Exxxtreme.

Next time: From Administration to Persuasion.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

Exalted 3rd Edition: Wizards

Your first ritual option is Bargain with Mara. The deer-footed demon Mara, who chases after lovers with dark fates and feeds them souls, is a lovely, wicked creature who sometimes enters Creation, usually by being summoned, and sometimes enters dreams. Through whatever means, you have convinced her to make a pact with you, teaching you the power of the Shadow Lover to cast sorcery. There are three options for her ritual:
    1. You, like Mara, draw power from those that love you. Whenever you Shape Sorcery while within Medium range of someone who has an unrequited Tie of love or a similar emotion towards you, you get free sorcerous motes based on the Intimacy’s power. You can only tap a given Intimacy this way once per day, and you cannot tap an Intimacy if you love them back. You may only use one Intimacy per spell, except when casting your control spell. No matter what, you cannot tap Intimacies for more than 10 sorcerous motes per scene, total.
    2. When you seduce and have sex with a willing mortal, you may draw out their soul. This leaves their body to wither and die of deprivation, and the soul is tethered to you. As a miscellaneous action, you may offer up one of your bound souls to Mara for power, gaining a number of sorcerous motes, which you retain until the end of the scene or you use them, whichever comes first. They can be used towards any spell you cast. Further, you may reflexively expend a bound soul instead of paying 1 WP when casting your control spell. You can only have a certain number of souls at once, based on your Occult.
    3. You draw power from shadow and darkness. Whenever you begin a scene in darkness or shadow heavy enough to grant concealment for purposes of stealth, you gain 3 sorcerous motes that last until the end of the scene (or you use them), which can be spent towards any spell you cast. Further, whenever you Shape Sorcery while stealthed, you gain 1 additional sorcerous mote as long as your target is unaware of you. You also gain all of these benefits while under the night sky during the new moon or during Calibration, even if not concealed.
The available merits are: Infernal Nobility (1), which makes demons respect or like you. Dark Paramour (2), which means Mara comes to you in dreams to feed you souls, and you can have her show up in your dreams once per story. If she does, you don’t regain Willpower that night but get some special benefit chosen by the ST, such as a dice trick on your spellcasting the next day or the service of a First Circle demon, but also receive (or strengthen) a Minor Principle of “I take pleasure in death and suffering.” And Demonic Tattoos, which do not actually have a merit value, but let you learn Evocations that manipulate shadows or darkness, alter your control spell to incorporate themes of darkness or subversion, or manipulate and empower summoned demons using these themes.

Next, Pact with an Ifrit Lord. You have stood before an elemental lord of fire, passing whatever test was set before you. The result? Now, you can draw strength from fire and shape it to your will as the source of your sorcerous might. The possible rituals:
    1. Whenever you take a Shape Sorcery action, you can draw additional sorcerous motes from any fire within Medium range, diminishing the flame to empower your spell. You can put out a hall of torches with one use, or reduce a bonfire to the size of a torch. In a burning building? Yeah, you have basically enough fire to last an entire scene. You can also tap fire elementals or other spirits of flame, draining motes from their pools, but only if you beat their Resolve with your Shape Sorcery roll, and it only works once per scene per spirit. If you are casting your control spell, you do not diminish the flames you draw on and any spirits you tap do not actually lose their motes when you gain them.
    2. Your patron will empower you in exchange for burnt offerings. You can make a Performance-based prayer roll with difficulty based on the value of your sacrifice to seek power, with success giving you sorcerous motes based on the value of your successes. These motes last for the rest of the story or until used, and can be spent towards any spell. You can only pray for power once per day, and getting new motes from prayer replaces any old ones.
    3. You may use the fiery passion in your heart to stoke your spells. Whenever you would gain Willpower from upholding an Intimacy representing a passionate emotion or fervent belief, you may instead gain 5 sorcerous motes. These last until the next sunrise or until used, and can be spent on any spell. Further, you may reduce such an Intimacy by one level to channel its passion into a spell, adding sorcerous motes based on its pre-reduction level. You may not tap an Intimacy this way more than once per day.
The available merits: Unburnt Majesty (2): Because of your contract with a lord of flame, you get double 8s to resist environmental hazards based on heat and fire and a bonus to soak and Hardness against purely fire-based attacks. The Burning Name (2): You may speak your patron’s name to summon flames from your eyes, fingertips or mouth, sufficient to light a campfire or burn binding ropes, or to attack with an Occult roll to target the flames, which have the stats of a mundane light weapon. Suzerain of Endless Flame (2): You are a master of fire magic, and whenever you cast a spell that creates or manipulates flame as its primary effect, or when you summon a fire elemental, you lower the cost by 3 sorcerous motes. If it’s your control spell, you also pay 1 less point of Willpower for it once per day.

Scarred by Nightmares represents a mark by the Wyld or madness. Maybe you were lost in the Wyld as a child, or you went there to fight. Maybe you were wracked by maddening dreams or discovered secrets no mind should understand. Whatever the case, you saw something numinous, powerful, beautiful and terrible. You saw only a glimpse, but it marked you and changed you. Part of the Wyld now dwells in your soul, empowering you with the nature of chaos. The rituals:
    1. When you sleep, you can describe the visions that haunt you. If you do, you regain no Willpower that night but instead get to make an Occult roll to gain sorcerous motes. These last until you next sleep or they’re used, and they can be spent towards any spell. If you spend them all on your control spell, each counts as two motes towards its cost. Once per story, you can make a stunt to describe how the situation was foreseen in your dreams symbolically, instantly receiving a decent number of sorcerous motes which last until the scene ends or they are used.
    2. You are victim to a delusion or taboo inspired by the Wyld, in the form of a Defining Derangement that you cannot remove or alter in any way. If you work this into the description of a stunt, you gain sorcerous motes based on the stunt’s rating, +2 if you’re stunting casting your control spell. These last until you next sleep or you use them, and they can be spent towards any spell. If your Derangement causes you hardship enough to gain Solar XP from the flaw, you gain 10 sorcerous motes that last until the story ends or you use them. After the first such award in a story, further awards this way are reduced to being based on your Essence. :sigh: Derangements!
    3. Like a Raksha, you may feed on emotions to empower your sorcery. Once per scene, when another character forms, strengthens, or weakens an Intimacy based on emotional feeling, you may feed from it, gaining sorcerous motes based on its strength. These last for the rest of the story or untilused, and you can use them towards any spell. Further, whenever anyone, including you, gains Limit, you can draw power from that based on the character’s total Limit, or 10 motes from someone in Limit Break once during the duration of the Break.
Merits: Child of Madness (4): You are immune to Wyld mutation, delusion and addiction, but iron weapons deal agg to you as if you were a Raksha. Miracles of Shadow and Chaos (4): You can draw power from the Wyld, getting double 8s to all Shape Sorcery rolls while in the Wyld, and can do sorcerous workings while in the Wyld at no XP cost. However, any such workings cease to exist outside the Wyld, returning only when you return to it. The ST may retroactively charge XP for anything that cheats or circumvents this limit in play.

Soul-Perfecting Elixir is a mystical alchemical draught that has transformed your body into a living cauldron. Your sorcerous power is rooted in the makeup of your body and the flow of Essence within and through its meridians. By using alchemical catalysts and ascetic practices, you keep your body as a perfect medium for sorcerous power. Rituals:
    1. You can brew a draught of power with a Craft roll over a few hours, though it’s harder if you don’t have access to proper materials or a workshop, or you want a large batch. Drinking the potion is a miscellaneous action, and lets you roll Occult to gain sorcerous motes, which last until the end of the scene or you use them, and which can be used towards any spell. You can only use one draught per scene, and only you can make use of them due to the balance of humors in your body. A draught retains its power for a week. You may create more potent draughts that never go bad, but their motes can only be used for your control spell.
    2. You may draw power from asceticism, forgoing rich foods, drugs and sex to maintain your bodily balance. As long as you maintain this lifestyle, you get sorcerous motes based on your Stamina each night you sleep, with bonus motes from deprivation penalties. These last until you next sleep or you use them, and can be spent on any spell. Once per story, you may spend a scene in meditation to gain additional sorcerous motes based on your Stamina that last for the rest of the story or until you use them, and can be spent on any spell. However, if you ever compromise your lifestyle, you lose all sorcerous motes you have stored from it and cannot gain any of the benefits for the rest of the story.
Merits: Deep Breath Cultivation (5): You can spend an hour of meditation to regain all motes in your pools, and you regain more motes per hour while active based on your Stamina, due to your powerful control over the humors of air in your lungs. Flowing Intention Cultivation (4): Your control of the humors of water in your kidneys means that as long as you maintain an ascetic lifestyle, you may get a bonus success on an action once per day as if you spent 1 WP without actually spending Willpower. Living Spirit Cultivation (3): You get bonus dice on rolls to resist poison and disease due to your mastery of the humors of wood in your liver. Pure Heart Cultivation (2): Once per day when your Resolve is overcome by influence that opposed an Intimacy based on temperance of abstinence, you may lower the WP cost to resist it by 1 due to your mastery of the humors of fire in the heart. Vital Force Cultivation (3): Due to your mastery of the humors of earth in your spleen, you do not apply deprivation or wound penalties to mental actions you take, including Shape Sorcery rolls.

The Talisman of Ten Thousand Eyes is an example of a sorcerous relic. It is a talisman of orichalcum carved with runs and set with a ten-faceted ruby, each of which reflects ten more facets within, which each reflect more. The talisman serves as a channel for sorcery, and its many ‘eyes’ watch out for evil forces and can be used as mystic lenses. Similar artifacts can be made as 4-dot Artifacts, but also require an Ambition 1 Celestial Circle sorcerous working before you can begin crafting them. Such an artifact automatically gives its owner one of its sorcerous rituals free. However, you don’t need the Artifact merit to start play with this if it’s your starting sorcerous ritual – taking it as your ritual works just fine for that. Rituals:
    1. You may focus your senses through the Talisman to open your inner eye, paying 1 WP whenever you make an Awareness roll to Join Battle or notice hidden threats while wearing it. You gain 1 sorcerous mote per two successes on such rolls, which last for the rest of the scene or until used and can be used towards any spell. If you are joining battle against enemy sorcerers, sorcerously bound demons, sorcerously created beings or other sorcerous forces, you also add your Occult in bonus dice to such rolls.
    2. When you take the first Shape Sorcery action for a spell and stunt with a description of how you’re casting the spell through the Talisman or drawing on its power, you get sorcerous motes based on the stunt rating towards that specific spell. You can do this only once per scene, but using it to cast your control spell doesn’t count towards this limit.
    3. You may spend a scene in meditation to commit 10 motes to the Talisman. While wearing the Talisman, you may then draw on the invested power while shaping a spell, getting a number of sorcerous motes each round towards it until you hit 10 sorcerous motes given this way or you finish the spell (or it gets countered). If used towards your control spell, each committed mote counts as two motes this way; for other spells, it’s one-for-one. You must have a full night’s sleep before you can charge the Talisman again this way.
Merits: Astral Meditation (1): Once per day while wearing the Talisman, you can waive the Willpower costs of any spell that lets you sense things remotely or project your presence at a distance. Eyes of Crimson Warning (2): The Talisman’s ruby pulses with a warning light when within 10 miles of dangerous sorcery, such as a sorcerer wreaking havoc with spells, a demon bound to an evil cause (or unbound and rampaging) or an ancient sorcerous curse. Any tracking rolls to pinpoint and find such a danger get double 9s. Evocations: Not a merit, you can just buy Evocations for the Talisman, which will usually enhance your senses (mundane or spiritual) or enhance or alter spells.

Other rituals include:
    Tutoring at a Magic School: Once per story, you can do sorcerous research and make a Lore roll to gain sorcerous motes for the rest of the story or until used, with bonus dice if you access to a library or mentor. They can be used for any spell.
    Weather Sorcery: You gain 2 sorcerous motes for each turn while exposed to a thunderstorm, heavy wind or other harsh weather, or a few motes at the start of a scene with light gusts or rain showers. Taking damage from a weather-based environmental hazard gives 5 sorcerous motes per level of damage. All such motes last for the scene or until used, and can be used for any spell.
    Geomantic Sorcery: You can take a level of agg damage while standing in the heart of a manse to gain a bunch of sorcerous motes based on your Willpower, which last either a fortnight or until you next claim motes from that manse, whichever comes first. (Or until used, of course.) You can use these towards any spell. Further, while in the bounds of your manse, you gain 1 additional sorcerous mote each turn while casting spells.
    Song Magic: Once per scene, you gain sorcerous motes based on your Performance after using songs or music to inspire an audience with an emotion resonant with a spell you want to cast or a purpose you want to achieve.

Can mortals become sorcerers? Yes. They must have Occult 3, and then purchase a shaping ritual as a 5-dot merit. Most mortal sorcerers never get more than the one ritual, but optionally the ST may allow multiple rituals from one source or even different sources. They can only learn up to Terrestrial Sorcery.

Next time: Spells

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Lure of the Liche Lord

The Principle Character

Karitamen the Death Scarab is one of the absolute main characters of this adventure; most of it will revolve around him and the PCs' interaction with him through exploring his tomb. This is intentional; the PCs learn a lot about Karitamen through studying his tomb if they aren't just looting the place bare as they go. Fortunately, he's also one of the best written characters in the adventure, and he gets at why the Tomb King fluff is so compelling. There are many different ways the PCs' eventual meeting with him can go, but by the time they run into him, he'll know them and they'll know him. It's very possible for the final encounter with the King to start out (or even remain) non-violent, and one of the central questions the adventure wants to ask is 'why would you reflexively assume the undead thing in the tomb is evil given his actions?'

Now, he's no secret noble hero, either. To really get into his character, I'm going to go back a little and go into more detail on his history. Karitamen was born to parents who were just close enough to the King of Khemri to get him nobility but nothing else, a position that suited him fine in life. His whole life he's been a competitive man with a desire to demonstrate that he deserves whatever he has. As a boy, this manifested in a love of sports and games, and a disdain for his studies, until he discovered military history and tactics. When something keeps his interest, he's pretty intelligent; he was just bored with reading poetry and really enjoyed the nature of studying how to win. My guess is studying war and tactics felt closer to a game to him. He eagerly signed up for the military but refused the minor, safe officer's position his birth would give him and went to the front lines at the World's Edge Mountains as a common trooper.

During his path there, his training unit was ambushed by orcs and lost their officer. Like his fellow trainees, he panicked and reverted to instinct. Unlike them, he'd trained himself hard enough that his instinct was 'use khopesh on orc'. When other survivors saw the muscular Nehekaran boy standing amongst four dead orcs, calmed down and now shouting orders to the others as he cut through his enemies, they rallied to him and managed to survive. He led them the rest of the way to their intended post, where the local king awarded him an officer's position for having already effectively acted as an officer, and his fellow survivors eagerly agreed to fight under him. He was happy to accept; he'd earned it. He continued to rise through the ranks, becoming first a general, and then later being awarded rule of the region he'd conquered by his High King.

Rulership turned out to be just as enjoyable for the ambitious general as warfare; there were still things he could measure to see exactly how well he was doing. Were his people fed? Was crime low? Were the Gods honored in his realm? During all this, he also met a young priest of the Mortuary cult who was practicing necromancy, and discovered magic fascinated him as much as tactics. They became friends over his tutelage, and the great Death Scarab (his men called him that after a poisonous scarab whose bite doomed the bitten; someone facing him was already dead and didn't know it yet) added magic to his list of abilities and interests. He genuinely likes to observe different ways of using magic and if the PCs have a caster among their number, Karitamen will be watching them closely to see how and why they use it. If they have a friendly meeting with him, he'll probably ask any Wizards, Witches, or Priests an awful lot of questions, happy to 'talk shop' again like he did with his friend Tetrahon the Priest.

The problems came when he lost his family. This comes up later in the story, but I think this is a good place to put it. It was normal for Nehekaran kings to have concubines and to marry multiple times if their wife died; the more heirs they produced, the better. Karitamen did not follow this principle; he married once, and passionately loved his wife. They had four children together, but none of them survived to adulthood. Two of his sons died of natural causes, but his third son was killed at the age of 8, a victim of a missed attempt on the King's life that killed his eight year old son. His daughter fell into the Howling River and was swept away. There's a note later in the book that he's never accepted that she died, and if the PCs lie to him and say they know what happened to her and that she lived, it takes no checks to make him believe it. He so wants to believe she had a life that he does so immediately, almost no matter how preposterous their story is. His wife couldn't take the loss of her children, and died of grief. With no heirs and unwilling to remarry (and probably pissed as hell that someone had tried to kill him, failed, and killed his son) his rulership grew darker and he became more and more focused on his studies of magic. He didn't want to produce an heir to carry on his legacy, he wanted to do it. To do that he would have to live forever.

Increasingly, he bent everything he could to living forever, to the detriment of his realm. More and more discontent sprung up, like the assassins who had killed his son, and he became more and more brutal in cracking down on it as distractions from his studies. His once prosperous realm started to fall into tyranny as its master obsessed about how he could stick around and ensure it would remain safe and protected forever. Eventually, the assassination attempts reached a critical mass, and a coalition of nobles managed to break his magic defenses with a dark, Chaos-enchanted dagger. They then messed around with the wards on his intended tomb so that he would be entrapped forever, even if he raised himself like the Mortuary cult promised. More spitefully, when entombing his wife and childrens' mummified remains, they cremated them. In Nehekaran religion, that means they completely denied their souls the afterlife and ensured Karitamen would never see them again. Dick move, conspirator nobles. They also chopped his priest buddy into pieces and nailed Tetrahon all through the tomb.

This all probably would have been the end if not for Nagash. Nagash's great spell of awakening brought Karitamen back, only for Karitamen to find he was stuck in his tomb. He's able to reach beyond it in dreams and with magic, and he can send his servants and warriors forth, but he was bound there by the wards. Annoyed, he used his magic to ensure the usurpers themselves went mad and died of mummy curses (they probably would have gone down to the fall of the Nehekaran Empire anyway) and then went back to sleep.

He probably would have slept much longer if Slaanesh hadn't had plans for his region. Apparently, Slaanesh actually planned ahead to gently caress over the Tomb King; the Slaaneshi are terrified of him and see him as a big threat to their plans. So Slaanesh manipulated a dupe into carrying two powerful magical artifacts and finding a once-in-a-lifetime passage into the tomb, wearing a magic amulet and gauntlet that serve as some macguffins for the adventure. The dupe then put his amulet on Karitamen's door, providing an extra ward that keeps the Tomb King locked in his tomb, and dropped the magical hell gauntlet and walked into a blade trap. Karitamen was awakened again by the presence of so much dark magic and man, is he pissed. He hates Chaos, more than almost anything in the world, and being locked in even further (his undead could have gotten rid of the wards, eventually. He can't make them even touch the amulet) by Chaos has really made him mad. He is determined to keep the gauntlet guarded so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands (It's Strykssen's objective. Getting it will let him manifest the demon, which will kill him but he doesn't know that) and to get the drat amulet off his door.

So in trying to ensure the sleeping king stayed asleep, Slaanesh woke him up and now he's actively taking measures against her cult. Good job, Slaanesh.

Now that he's awake, he's looking at the situation in the region and realizing it's infested with Chaos. This pisses him off further. Even more annoying, three separate usurpers rule what is rightfully his and Nehekara seems to have vanished. He's slowly figured out it was probably that Nagash guy, and has sworn that once he gets out of Tomb Jail he's going to find out if Nagash is really dead, and if not, he's going to figure out how to waste that bastard for good. As far as overarching goals that's hardly the worst, Karitamen. He also intends to restore as much of the Nehekaran Empire as he can, and to rule his people again. He doesn't care that most of them have no Nehekaran ancestry; they live on his lands, they are his people, and his responsibility. In assessing the three Princes he intends to kill, he found Artilli a waste of time and a tainted little weasel (I kind of love how much everyone hates the preening would-be-Machiavellian schemer), Haflok a narrow minded but well-intentioned idiot, and Fatandira someone he kind of wishes he didn't have to kill. He likes that she's flexible and the most willing to flex to do what's right for her people, specifically. Still a usurper, though, still has to kill her. Just how it works.

With Haflok being an idiot, he seized on the Sigmar idea because it made him easy to manipulate. He originally hoped to use Haflok as a pawn to free himself, but he's had to be careful about giving him too many conflicting orders. He's slowly figured out Sigmar's doctrines from talking to his chosen knight, and is careful to mostly give him orders in keeping with them. He's tried to use his dream powers to influence the others, but has had to be more careful. They're smarter and don't have a central figure he can impersonate. Artilli has ignored him, already under Khornate influence, but he's hit on the idea of sending dreams to Fatandira's soldiers instead of her. That way, her trusted men (who might not be as suspicious as she is) can bring her the ideas he wants them to.

Karitamen is slowed down in taking over the region by several factors. One, he's something of a perfectionist and finding out he has infinite time has made him enjoy being able to move slowly for once. He was always in a hurry in life because he feared age and infirmity after the loss of his family. Now he can take as long as he wants and just observe with his magic. He also wants to do this because he realizes he's millennia out of date and is trying to figure out the languages, cultures, and technology of the age he's woken into. These 'gun' things, the heavy armor people wear, the way they use straight swords instead of proper khopeshes? He wants to know why and how it all works and observing them first will tell him. Considering how much he enjoyed studying tactics as a lad, I imagine he watches partly because he's genuinely curious and enjoying seeing new ways of fighting and commanding. He also wants to find a solution to his appearance first, if he can. He's afraid that if the living see him as a horrifying monster he'll never be able to properly become their king, because they will hate his hideous and rotted appearance. Also he was kind of vain and the Mortuary Cult had promised him that when the future unfroze him from cryogenics raised him from death he would have his perfect and youthful body. He's pretty disappointed that didn't happen.

Man, is he ever going to hate Vampires if he runs into one.

He's hit on a solution to his problem, but it's a weird one. He wants adventurers to free him. He wants people to come to his tomb, explore it, and get him the hell out of here. But as he intends to offer lordship and power to any who free him, he wants to make sure they're worthy of it like he was (that old personal philosophy coming back). So he's leaving the traps on and watching what would-be explorers do. So far, no-one has made it, but then again your PCs haven't been in here yet.

I like Karitamen because he's got a spotted record. He was a great king until his family died, and his obsession with living forever might have been common among Nehekaran nobility but it tainted his rule. At the same time, him going a bit off after his son was murdered in an attempt on his life is understandable. Plus, there's a lot of implication he's calmed down a lot since waking up a mummy. He's got eternity now, after all. The thing he wanted most is his, even if it isn't how he wanted it. His overall long term goals aren't evil at all, it's more whether or not you'd trust him to achieve them. He just wants to rule and do a good job doing it. And kill Nagash. And if you reach him without pissing him off during the tomb, he absolutely will have a sit down and talk with your PCs at length, making a case for himself and genuinely asking their help. He's human. He had friends, family, a life. He's done good and he's done bad. There are admirable things in his desires and his background, but also a lot of arrogance and ambition.

In short, he can be used a whole bunch of ways. He can become an ally of convenience, he can be an enemy, he can even be an actual friend or patron. He's also reasonable enough that you get the sense the PCs will have a chance to persuade him and talk back, too. Learning about him through the adventure actually matters to how your PCs will interact with him, and the whole tomb sequence is effectively a long interaction with the central NPC. Through the tomb, they'll see what he valued and what he believed, leading up to the climax of actually encountering him. This is why Tomb Kings are great! They can be people, and it's much more fun to interact with people than puppets.

Next Time: How the heck did we get here?

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

Y'know, pretty much anywhere else in the world Bone Daddy wanting to take over everything would be bad, but in the Borderlands he's practically a saint compared to every ruler there ever.

Kind of like Arab Lady Big Boss.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

One thing that sticks out to me, having done both Fantasy and 40k? Love actually comes up a lot in Fantasy. Lots of characters have loving relationships or friendships that drive their actions as much as hatred or lust for power. Lots of people have families they care about. Parents usually love their children. Sometimes evil uses these things to cause terrible events. It's a nice change from 40k's sterile, omnipresent hatred.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
In the grim darkness of the far future there are only skull pauldrons.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 20 hours!
*horrible massacre of noncombatants*
:commissar: I do it out of love for He-who-sits-on-Terra!
*more gunfire*
:commissar: LOVE

ChaseSP
Mar 25, 2013



I'm not sure how warham Fantasy originated but 40k started out as a giant parody of dark scifi including the goddamn term grimdark being dumb as hell and impossible to take seriously. As well as jabbing at British politicians a bunch to boot.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Lure of the Liche Lord

How did it come to this?

Another nice thing is a whole section on reasons your PCs might be here, and how each of the Princes might get them into the mess with the tomb. If you're just explorers and want to focus on the tomb as more of a dungeon crawl, the Princes want the tomb's money and are willing to finance expeditions to look into it. Fatandira holds the PCs horses in collateral but offers a reasonable payout (she doesn't want them finding the treasure and running off with all of it themselves). Haflok trusts them immediately but gets pissed off if they ask for a reward or accept one they offer, because he's kind of an idiot and expects other people to be as into being a storybook hero as he is. Artilli tries to take a PC hostage and force the group to go on his behalf while sending soldiers to shadow them. If he can't take a PC hostage, he tries to steal something they care about.

Artilli is not likely to survive the adventure if he does this. There is no quicker way to piss off a group of players than to pull that kind of move on them. You do that and you are now one the shitlist of an experienced and probably very angry adventuring party. He also tries to get out of paying them or even giving them credit for anything on threat of killing them if they try to claim anyone but him did anything this adventure. Artilli is probably going to die in most groups' games. Empty threats and bullying don't work great on PCs even when there's an actual power differential; Artilli is a 3rd tier character with a small army (his forces have trouble with an infested town of 40 cultists, none of these Princes command huge armies) trying to threaten a full team of similarly leveled characters. If the PCs bring back a bunch of treasure, Fatandira will pay as promised and offer the PCs a place in her court, Haflok will pay anything he promised while grumbling and potentially make the same offer of bringing them onboard, Artilli will try to backstab the PCs. Even if he didn't have Chaos Boy in his corner, it's hilarious that the guy who is supposed to be 'the cleverest' just pulls dimwitted power moves the whole time and probably gets murdered by pissed off PCs.

It's possible that with increasing skeletons wandering around, the Princes might hire the PCs to go in and kill whatever's raising them. None of the Princes really know much about the tomb; Fatandira knows the stories about old Nehekara and knows the name Karitamen the Death Scarab from her people, but none of them really know an old Nehekaran might be 'alive'. In this case, the Princes might even be talked into working together or helping the PCs. They all have reasons not to want to be overrun with the undead. The issue here is that fighting Karitamen is kind of a big ask. It's doable, especially for a good party (a well built party will probably best him if they make it through the tomb) but it kind of locks the players into a simple dungeon crawl. Artilli again tries to betray them and force them to claim he destroyed the Tomb King personally on pain of death and not pay them. Fatandira pays them and gives them credit, content to be the one who hired and ordered them into action. Haflok is overjoyed no matter who gave them the order and calls the party great heroes who have Sigmar's blessing, not realizing they killed his Sigmar. Then of course the PCs will have to deal with Chaos on their own, next.

Alternately, it's possible that you might write the Princes knowing more about Karitamen and one of them wanting to try to make common cause with him and release him. They hire the PCs to get down there and act as emissaries to the Tomb King. As per before, Karitamen doesn't turn off the traps, wanting to see how they make their way through his tomb to take their measure. It's entirely possible this can go well if the players impress him and are working for a Prince he doesn't hate. While he sees them as usurpers, if one of them is directly responsible for sending emissaries to free him he might forgive it and make common cause. Or he might take his freedom and attack the entire region. Or he might work with the Prince who freed him long enough to destroy Chaos and unite the region, then declare himself sole king. It depends on where you want to go next with the story.

If the players need to find out more about the tomb, they can start piecing together some of its secrets before they go in by figuring out how to manipulate the three Princes to learn more from them. Artilli is easy; flatter him and make him think he's being clever and he'll let a lot slip in showing off how careful he is not to let anything slip. He loves playing word games where he 'doesn't quite reveal' something without realizing he's revealing everything. He is very much the archetypal 'not nearly as smart as he thinks he is' prick. Fatandira is still looking for a husband and a PC who looks like a good candidate could learn a lot from her. Haflok will tell fellow Sigmarites everything, as soon as he's convinced they're actually Sigmarites. If you know the right holy passages and debate theology competently, he'll happily tell everything he knows.

PCs might be originally hired to find the tomb and keep anyone else from waking up what's in it. Of course, in the process, they might get curious.

PCs might be hired to destroy the tomb, but the question is, how? It's a solid construction in a big mountain, and it's survived millennia. Getting in there with explosives and blowing it to pieces might be possible, but you don't exactly have C-4 and sophisticated timers in the Fantasy 17th Century Balkans. Planning how to blow up the tomb (especially while a pissed off mummy is trying to kill you in the process) might be trickier than actually exploring it.

PCs might not be interested in the Tomb at all, and it might be totally secondary to their real goal: Overthrowing and taking land from one or more of the Princes. In this case, the tomb serves as a wildcard that offers a source of wealth and possibly an ally in making the PCs Border Princes themselves, rather than the actual objective of the adventure.

Finally, depending on what kinds of PCs you are, you might be here mostly to fight Chaos. There's two significant Chaos threats festering here, and the Princes all want Vitrolle dealt with. Exposing Strykssen is also a good objective for a party. In doing this, they might be able to get Karitamen's help; he hates Chaos more than almost anything in the world. There's a weird implication that players can't win a direct combat with Strykssen in all this, which is...he's an unarmored man with a minor hidden power to turn into a bear. I often get the sense the writer for this book is not especially familiar with the game's mechanics. This was his first book for the line, after all. Strykssen is reasonably dangerous but his threat is more 'there's an rear end in a top hat prince with a mercenary company who will protect me because I tell him things he likes hearing', not his personal combat abilities. A party will just kill him, they don't need an ancient Tomb King to do it for them if they can get into a position where he's exposed and they're fighting him. Same for most of the Vitrolle threat. The mechanics in a lot of this adventure will be a bit dodgy.

If they kill Strykssen after exposing him, Artilli is very embarrassed to have been fooled but quietly very grateful to them, and for once doesn't try to betray them. Maybe the dumb bastard can learn better after that.

Still, there's a lot of different ways to use the characters and concepts given here to get your PCs into the tomb and on their way to see the King, and I appreciate that. The hooks are mostly good, aside from the fact that Artilli's moves are just not going to work on players. For a supposed political mastermind in the making he sure ain't good at reading the room and certainly falls for a lot of flattery.

Next Time: The Tomb of the Liche Lord

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



I'm pretty sure Hams Fantasy started from people wanting to go *pew pew* with little army men, but like, a lot more hardcore, a heavy metal album for the art style and someone reading that Landsknechte were a thing who then ran into the room and showed everyone a picture. Which, to be totally fair, my inner 12 year old has absolutely no problem with.

Source : my tummy feels and knowledge that floppy hats and pikes own.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Hams Fantasy was originally a way to do fantasy rpgs without being sued by the Tolkein estate.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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Exalted 3rd Edition: How Am Magic

So what can you do with spells? Terrestrial Circle spells can do a lot of stuff. Cirrus Skiff can summon a cloud boat that flies around based on your telepathic orders until you leave it alone for a scene (or indefinitely, if it’s your control spell). Distorting it makes the cloud turn heavy and foggy so it controls shittily and can’t go very high. Corrupted Words lets you mindfuck someone so that there’s a single subject they literally can’t talk about, period, and they vomit maggots if they try, lasting until you release them and pull the evil maggot words out or you die. Distorting it lets the victim talk about the subject for a few minutes, but they have to do so cryptically or with lots of metaphor and can’t do so in specific details, and they have to vomit maggots after. As a control spell, you can cast it secretly. Death of Obsidian Butterflies lets you shoot a blast of razor-sharp obsidian butterflies at people that does a bunch of damage and breaks scenery and leaves awful ground shards. As a control spell, it gets more accurate and also when you get mad butterflies appear in your shadow and your nails turn into obsidian, able to cut stuff. Demon of the First Circle summons demons that either must obey you for a year and a day or that you can set to a specific task and they stick around until that’s done. (Assuming you bind it properly. If you gently caress that up and fail to banish it, it’s probably super mad at you.) There is no special control spell bonus, because this is already one of the best spells in the game. Demons are extremely versatile servants, are extremely loyal if you’re literally any good at all at summoning, and will, at First Circle, not even be a notable risk as long as you keep their quirks in mind. Demons are a giant toolbox of spirits you can call up for nearly any purpose.

Flight of the Brilliant Raptor is like Death of Obsidian Butterflies – it’s a giant fire attack instead of glass butterflies, yes, but it’s still a big artillery blast. As a control spell, it has better range. Infallible Messenger summons up a magic six-winged cherub to go deliver a message to someone, no matter where they are, within hours. Only its recipient can see it, even. As a control spell, you can piggyback on its senses, letting you use certain Charms while it delivers your message, and also means the cherub shows up in images and reflections around you all the time. Invulnerable Skin of Bronze coats you in living bronze armor, which is pretty heavy but very tough, and gives you the power to bounce weapons off your skin, reduce damage, or make your skin explode to absorb a really nasty attack. As a control spell it’s even better armor but makes your skin bronzey all the time. Distorted, it becomes extremely heavy and hard to move in, plus gets rid of the spell’s bonus powers. Mists of Eventide calls up a magic fog that poisons people and makes them sleep. As a control spell, you can control the dreams of anyone it sends to sleep and make them sleepwalk to your commands, but you sleep with your eyes wide open when not in the fog. Distorting it weakens the poison and can wake people up.

Silent Words of Dreams and Nightmares lets you watch and control someone’s dream in a reflective surface and use it to make social influence, as long as you have some symbolic link to them. As a control spell, you don’t need the link. Distorted, the spell increases the victim’s Resolve against the dream’s influence. Stormwind Rider summons a tornado for you to ride through the air. It’s faster than the cloud boat but flies lower. As a control spell, winds move based on your emotions and you can jump farther because the wind likes you, plus you can extend its duration or boost its speed. Distorted, the tornado tries to throw people off. Summon Elemental is like Demon of the First Circle, but instead it calls up an elemental, and rather than pulling it from somewhere it just straight up makes it out of Essence. It’s safer (elementals can’t break free, they just dissolve) but you elementals are usually weaker and dumber than demons. Wood Dragon’s Claw turns your hands into huge claws of oak, which you can use with claw-based martial arts and which work like Artifact claws, but can’t use for fine manipulation. They can become spiky to do more damage while grappling or can be given weapon tags. As a control spell, you can learn Evocations for the claw that can be used while the spell is active. Distorted, the claws grow wildly and entangle the caster’s arms, forcing them to break free of the entangling vines before they can do much.

Celestial Circle spells are more powerful. Cantata of Empty Voices makes a choir of wraiths that sing a killing song that hurts any foes nearby and terrifies them. As a control spell, you can maintain it even during Crash, so long as you avoid getting hit by a Decisive attack. Distorted, the choir’s song only does Bashing damage and can’t roll over to Lethal. Demon of the Second Circle is like Demon of the First Circle, but it calls on Second Circle Demons. They are more powerful and more dangerous, and each one is an individual, special being, the soul of a Third Circle Demon and with its own agenda. Some of them are sorcerers! They’re real useful as allies, though, and can be very potent. Impenetrable Veil of Night makes a column of pure darkness around you that is very hard to pierce and fucks with the senses, plus terrifies armies. As a control spell, your voice is always distorted, but you get a bonus to stealth in darkness and shadow and a penalty to stealth in open, daylit areas. You also get a bonus to movement actions at night but a penalty during the day. Distorting the spell makes the darkness part in the caster’s immediate vicinity for an hour or so. Incomparable Body Arsenal turns you into a black iron robot that can pop weapons out of wherever you want and makes you count as heavy Artifact armor, lets you not breathe and ignore temperature, and hit really hard. As a control spell, you can learn Evocations for your robot form that can be used while it’s active, and your weapons can be charged up to be Artifact-level, your feats of strength can be boosted and you can charge yourself to gain extra health levels. Distorted, the caster suffers a temporary crippling amputation as the weapons turn inward on part of their body.

Ivory Orchid Pavilion summons for one day a giant marble flower that is also a mansion full of rich food and wine and makes people happy and content while they’re in it and makes the area around grow orchids for a few years even once the spell ends. As a control spell, the spell can be made to last indefinitely. Distorted, it makes everyone inside suspicious of each other until there’s a dramatic confrontation. Magma Kraken summons a monster made of ten tentacles made of lava to fight for you. It hits really hard and is pretty tough, and it breaks poo poo really well. As a control spell, fire forms tentacles near you and will do things to help you out in small ways, and heat and smoke rise when you get angry, which you can use for various stunts. Distorted, it is unable to see or attack the distorting sorcerer or their nearby allies. Shadows of the Ancient Past summons up illusions of past events for you to watch and examine, with mental speed controls, though anything past 500 years ago tends to be indistinct and anything less than a year old is too faint to get much from. As a control spell, you can record anything you see via this spell and can replay it at will later. Distorted, the spell can be made to show false images or contradictions to its caster. Travel Without Distance teleports you to anywhere nearby that you’ve seen in a giant vortex of light, but it’s kind of disorienting for several hours after. As a control spell, you can bring friends with you.

Solar Circle spells are extremely potent. Benediction of Archgenesis calls down a rain that brings life, revitalizing an area of hundreds of square miles and making it lush and fertile, or turning fertile land into an area of hypergrowth that can deplete the soil terribly, once per story, in an area you haven’t used it already within a thousand miles. As a control spell, that’s a hundred miles, and life springs up wherever you stay. Distorting the spell creates a barren zone in the fertile area that corrupts even the local spirits. Death Ray summons a giant destructive Kamehameha beam that destroys anything it touches, including terrain, and does massive damage to anyone it hits. As a control spell, you can gain sorcerous motes when it takes people out or hurts armies, using them to pay for more Death Rays only. Distorted, it protects the distorting sorcerer (and only them) by making the beam bend around them for one round. Demon of the Third Circle summons one of the immensely powerful Third Circle demons, the souls of the Yozis themselves, but it can only be cast during Calibration. It works per normal demon summoning, but binding is much harder and these things are uniformly extremely dangerous and have their own goals. Rain of Doom can only be used at sunset and it summons a massive storm that destroys an area the size of a small city with acid rain that hurts anyone caught in it, deals massive damage to scenery and burns anyone that touches the water until sunrise denatures it – and even then, the land will not grow for years or decades. As a control spell, you can move the storm while it’s in progress, but are always followed by dark clouds and darken natural light around you, freaking people out when you’re outdoors. Distorted, a small area – the size of a single structure – is protected from the storm’s rain and lightning.

Next time: Sorcerous Workings.

Ithle01
May 28, 2013

ChaseSP posted:

I'm not sure how warham Fantasy originated but 40k started out as a giant parody of dark scifi including the goddamn term grimdark being dumb as hell and impossible to take seriously. As well as jabbing at British politicians a bunch to boot.

And yet somehow a shitload of people missed that and do take it seriously. The last time I ran a game my group wanted to play Dark Heresy so I told them I'd run it only on the condition that they understand satire. The British guy got into it just fine, but I'm not so sure on the rest.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Some of these spells sound like they are much better candidates for being Control spells than others.

My main issue with Exalted Sorcery has always been that it does some things well, but only those very few and very limited things. It has no general tools. So unless you're in a situation where that very specific spell would be handy, you may as well forget that you're a Sorcerer at all.

Does 3E Exalted Sorcery also come with the weird super-punishing sacrifices for ranking up from Terrestrial to Celestial to Solar Sorcery?

Kaza42
Oct 3, 2013

Blood and Souls and all that

PurpleXVI posted:

Some of these spells sound like they are much better candidates for being Control spells than others.

My main issue with Exalted Sorcery has always been that it does some things well, but only those very few and very limited things. It has no general tools. So unless you're in a situation where that very specific spell would be handy, you may as well forget that you're a Sorcerer at all.

Does 3E Exalted Sorcery also come with the weird super-punishing sacrifices for ranking up from Terrestrial to Celestial to Solar Sorcery?

Sorcerous Workings cover the more general-purpose magic, although you never get D&D style cantrips or small scale effects. Exalted is deliberately making Sorcery large scale, so that's not too surprising.

As for the sacrifices, those were removed for 3rd edition. The trials and sacrifices are still one way to initiate into sorcery, but are only one among many.



Edit: also, yes. Some spells are way better control spells. Flight of the Brilliant Raptor's control effect is very seldom useful, and some of the others are purely fluff. My personal favorite control spell is Infallible Messenger, because it lets you spy on people super easily. Just send a message of you screaming annoying sounds to someone you hate, and you even get to spy on their surroundings while you're at it!

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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It does not, just the new rituals. And you're probably going to like Sorcerous Workings, if you want sorcery to do A General Thing besides the specific spells you know. (Well, that and summoning, summoning has always been super good and generally useful.)

e: and they explicitly chose not to make any general summon like Demons or Elementals a viable control spell because they're already one of your best picks and don't need to get better.

NutritiousSnack
Jul 12, 2011

wiegieman posted:

Hams Fantasy was originally a way to do fantasy rpgs without being sued by the Tolkein estate.

Or d&d for that matter. They were made models and wanted to make money off them without having to be under anyone.

Battle Mad Ronin
Aug 26, 2017

Xiahou Dun posted:

I'm pretty sure Hams Fantasy started from people wanting to go *pew pew* with little army men, but like, a lot more hardcore, a heavy metal album for the art style and someone reading that Landsknechte were a thing who then ran into the room and showed everyone a picture. Which, to be totally fair, my inner 12 year old has absolutely no problem with.

Source : my tummy feels and knowledge that floppy hats and pikes own.

There is an excellent blog, “ Awesome Lies” which chronicles early Warhammer and Games Workshop, the development of the setting, wargame and RPG. It is occasionally frequented by some of the early Warhammer writers who will drop bits of (half-) remembered knowledge of various subjects.

One of the interesting things I remeber from it is that GW developed the Warhammer setting as a way to use the variety of historical and fantasy minis they produced together. That’s why you have feudal knights, renaissance mercenaries, orcs and elves all together in a coherent setting.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Kaza42 posted:

Sorcerous Workings cover the more general-purpose magic, although you never get D&D style cantrips or small scale effects. Exalted is deliberately making Sorcery large scale, so that's not too surprising.

I find it hard to articulate what it is that rubs me wrong about Exalted magic, I think it's mostly that it doesn't seem to have any theme or underlying structure, it's just "we thought of these fifteen or so cool spells and that's what you're getting." None of them are evolutions from one to the other, a Celestial version of a Terrestrial spell, just... it feels like someone ripped pages out of a D&D magic section at random, gave them flamboyant names and chose that. Like, where's the red thread through this?

Which also makes it hard to find spells that fit your character's thematic or whatever, like there's a very narrow interpretation of what a Sorcerer is, while you can do more varied interpretations of Punchguy, Sneakguy, Talkguy, etc.. I feel like I would have liked it more if maybe instead of pre-made sorceries it was a toolbox for making your own, to really make a given Sorcerer feel individual. As it is almost every Sorcerer is going to be very similar in what they can do, set apart mostly by their Control spell and what dice pools they can bring to the party.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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Theming is getting easier because of the decisions in what spells get included in each new book. DBs includes a lot of elementally-themed sorceries, and Lunars has a number of transformation-themed ones.

gourdcaptain
Nov 16, 2012

Mors Rattus posted:

I'm not seeing it, and indeed it'd be a huge departure to do that, given places like the Heptagram have existed since all the way back in 1e.

...having gotten home from work, and examining my copy of the PDF, I got this confused with the Thaumaturgy section. That is peak "win arguments on the internet by writing the book" though.

Desiden
Mar 13, 2016

Mindless self indulgence is SRS BIZNS
Khorne is one of the few places I feel like Age of Sigmar may have actually surpassed its predecessor, in terms of lore. Khorne followers are still murderous assholes who fly into frenzies, and the early books they're about as dysfunctional as you'd expect. But they've gradually been fleshing them (and the followers of a lot of the gods, for that matter out) out into people with actual motivations, albeit weird ones. The biggest part of that being simply that while they're berzerkers on the battlefield still, they're not permanently locked into a mindless explosion of bloodlust even outside of combat.

Like, one of the short story collections has a whole thing about a khorne warband figuring out a new leader once the old one bites it, and there's actual politicking and conversation. It does end up getting settled through brutal combat, but there's factions in the warband and maneuvering to get warriors to back one candidate over another. It also features a khorne warrior whose open and expressed goal is to get powerful enough to become a daemon, so he can go to khorne's throne and kill the fucker for wiping out his nation. Khorne finds this amusing.

Some of the Nurgle expanded stuff is pretty good too. Plague Garden gets into bizarre class conflict between different groups of Nurglites in Grandfather's realm. There's also Warcry coming out soon, which is a warband scale skirmish game that's explicitly about highlighting how different cultural groups across the realms approach worshipping chaos. Its not high art, but its got more nuance than the older depictions of chaos followers often did.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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I literally cannot imagine caring enough about thaumaturgy to argue about thaumaturgy.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



PurpleXVI posted:

I find it hard to articulate what it is that rubs me wrong about Exalted magic, I think it's mostly that it doesn't seem to have any theme or underlying structure, it's just "we thought of these fifteen or so cool spells and that's what you're getting." None of them are evolutions from one to the other, a Celestial version of a Terrestrial spell, just... it feels like someone ripped pages out of a D&D magic section at random, gave them flamboyant names and chose that. Like, where's the red thread through this?

Which also makes it hard to find spells that fit your character's thematic or whatever, like there's a very narrow interpretation of what a Sorcerer is, while you can do more varied interpretations of Punchguy, Sneakguy, Talkguy, etc.. I feel like I would have liked it more if maybe instead of pre-made sorceries it was a toolbox for making your own, to really make a given Sorcerer feel individual. As it is almost every Sorcerer is going to be very similar in what they can do, set apart mostly by their Control spell and what dice pools they can bring to the party.

Sorcery in Exalted is pretty much an attempt to do 'the kind of sorcery Elric of Melnibone does, or Dying Earth wizards' - which means it is in fact drawing from the same well D&D drew from, which is the weird fantasy of the ... I want to say 70s?

As such, there is no underlying structure other than a broadly alien aesthetic of what a Sorcerer is like: a strange person who consorts with demons and draws on hidden powers. The spells themselves get pretty varied in books like the Sorcery Compilation from 2e, whatever that was called. Sure, plenty of them are kinda uninteresting, but when you have enough, and each spell can be a significant chunk of power and magic, they do the work they're meant to do.

Not that being a sorcerer wasn't miserable in 2e, and it seems to have improved a lot for 3e, but the aesthetic disjunct you're seeing is part of how sorcery is supposed to work, and I personally find it effective. Plus, like, a lot of Elric-style sorcerers don't know many spells: They might know two or three potent spells, and then have a bunch of miscellaneous wizard business, which in Exalted I guess would be workings or summoned demons. Of course, that grates slightly against the 'invest in Circle Sorcery to unlock these spells, which you will then purchase afterwards' model, because then you want to get the most magical bang for your initiation buck.

gourdcaptain
Nov 16, 2012

Mors Rattus posted:

I literally cannot imagine caring enough about thaumaturgy to argue about thaumaturgy.

I mean, same, but it's part of their general effort to beat down anything that could be mass produced supernatural effects to change the tone of the setting. That said, god, I look forward to the inevitable riffing on Second Bread.

Kaza42
Oct 3, 2013

Blood and Souls and all that

Joe Slowboat posted:

Of course, that grates slightly against the 'invest in Circle Sorcery to unlock these spells, which you will then purchase afterwards' model, because then you want to get the most magical bang for your initiation buck.

For Solars, investing in sorcery is literally a single charm purchase, with a requirement of Essence 1 and Occult 3. It gives you access to Workings, the benefits of a Shaping Ritual, and a single control spell as part of the package. Solars have extremely efficient Sorcery, and the last two Solar campaigns I ran had everyone pick it up at some point or another because it's just so incredibly useful. Even if you don't favor Occult and are starting at Occult 0, it's 19 xp (9 of which can be solar xp) to get access to a lot of stuff.

For Lunars and Terrestrials, it's less clear-cut because they have actual pre-requisites for sorcery so it's much harder to casually pick up but that fits their themes.

Ithle01
May 28, 2013

Kaza42 posted:

For Solars, investing in sorcery is literally a single charm purchase, with a requirement of Essence 1 and Occult 3. It gives you access to Workings, the benefits of a Shaping Ritual, and a single control spell as part of the package. Solars have extremely efficient Sorcery, and the last two Solar campaigns I ran had everyone pick it up at some point or another because it's just so incredibly useful. Even if you don't favor Occult and are starting at Occult 0, it's 19 xp (9 of which can be solar xp) to get access to a lot of stuff.

For Lunars and Terrestrials, it's less clear-cut because they have actual pre-requisites for sorcery so it's much harder to casually pick up but that fits their themes.

Yeah in Ex3 they went in the other direction and now it's dumb to not invest in sorcery because of how effective the single purchase is. Just giving access to sorcerous workings alone is worth the price of admission and two of the control spells are amazing for combat characters. Although to be honest I was always fine with sorcery being a buy in because summon demon/elemental were basically worth two charms to begin with.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Makes sense to me, glad it's calibrated well in that regard.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



gourdcaptain posted:

I mean, same, but it's part of their general effort to beat down anything that could be mass produced supernatural effects to change the tone of the setting. That said, god, I look forward to the inevitable riffing on Second Bread.
Over in the Exalted thread Ferrinus (credit where due) had a good idea, which is that the real penny-ante poo poo like how to ward your windowsills against ghosts is just an Occult roll, or possibly just free if you're from the area and have like Occult 4.

EthanSteele
Nov 18, 2007

I can hear you
Summoning Demons/Elementals is the general purpose spell because there are demons and elementals for literally everything. It's insane how strong they are.

Summon First Circle demon gets you: Puppeteers for building anything, Blood Apes for fighting things, Neomah for courtesans and social stuff (and lineage building, making babies for gay couples), the Agathea for weird demon wasp mounts, one for making tools, a weird one that kills things as it hops from body to body, stomach bottle bugs for healing and warding off sickness, weird living armours that you wear, eels that eat memories and then vomit them up for you to view them, ones that are excellent hunters/trackers and the list goes on.

That's the first circle. The basic demon summoning spell. You get all of those and more.

Summon Elementals gets you stuff from a guy that's on fire, flame ducks, a cloud man who likes to sing, a weird cloud that flies around and will alert you of anything that goes on, a bear made out of trees, the embodiment of the undertow of the sea that know all of the secrets of anything on the sea, guys that make the wind not be there so sailors hate them. In theory there are as many elementals as demons, they just haven't had someone who was super jazzed write a bunch of them up.

Found this quote under the training times bit: "Martial Arts Charms always require rigorous training, and learning spells requires a mentor or a text copy of the spell in question and many hours of intense study." so being a book nerd is a thing.

Nessus posted:

Over in the Exalted thread Ferrinus (credit where due) had a good idea, which is that the real penny-ante poo poo like how to ward your windowsills against ghosts is just an Occult roll, or possibly just free if you're from the area and have like Occult 4.

That's exactly the sort of stuff that would be great as sample difficulties for certain skills in an advice chapter or something instead of loving snake gem bullshit.

EthanSteele fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Apr 4, 2019

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

EthanSteele posted:

Summon Elementals gets you stuff from a guy that's on fire, flame ducks, a cloud man who likes to sing, a weird cloud that flies around and will alert you of anything that goes on, a bear made out of trees, the embodiment of the undertow of the sea that know all of the secrets of anything on the sea, guys that make the wind not be there so sailors hate them. In theory there are as many elementals as demons, they just haven't had someone who was super jazzed write a bunch of them up.

In 2E I always felt like elementals got tremendously undersold, they're the civil servants of Creation who more or less do all the drudge work that keeps reality working as expected. That's a ton of potential content and, hell, playable character concepts.

EthanSteele
Nov 18, 2007

I can hear you

PurpleXVI posted:

In 2E I always felt like elementals got tremendously undersold, they're the civil servants of Creation who more or less do all the drudge work that keeps reality working as expected. That's a ton of potential content and, hell, playable character concepts.

Yeah! That's been the stance of every dev afaik, that they should be really cool, just that no one has done a book on them. I'd love a cool thing that's just a compendium of elementals.

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."

EthanSteele posted:

Yeah! That's been the stance of every dev afaik, that they should be really cool, just that no one has done a book on them. I'd love a cool thing that's just a compendium of elementals.

Congratulations on triggering my trap card! Here's my elementals bestiary; please give me any comments you have before I finalize the text and get it laid out for the Vault.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Somebody say Thaumaturgy?




Vampire: The Masquerade (2nd Edition)

Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Setting
Interlude: A History of Face Grabbing
Chapter 3: Storytelling
Chapter 4: Rules

quote:

Character is what you are in the dark.

James O’Barr, Human, All Too Human

Chapter Five: Character

The character creation chapter is strangely unsatisfying. It coaches you to come up with an interesting character concept, gently leads you through the process of spending your points on traits, and explains those traits briefly in terse sidebars, leaving the detailed explanations for a following chapter. That’s standard.

What’s not standard is sandwiching another chapter, on crafting a campaign, in between the two! So Chapter 5 is character creation, Chapter 6 is Chronicle creation, and Chapter 7 explains all the Traits, including the ones you care about most: the Kindred Clans and their supernatural powers. It’s good that Vampire devotes a lot of pagecount to “How do I run this?” since it’s an innovative, dungeon-unfriendly game. But the layout is a spasmodic fever-dream.

This is probably why I’ve never read Vampire cover-to-cover before. After the introduction, I skipped to the middle of the book and read about the Clans and their cool vampire powers. Didn’t everyone? I carried this habit forward to most games I’ve owned.

Nonetheless, I can’t think of a better, nonsequential way to cover it. Guess I’ll just give short shrift to campaign-building on my way to those cool vampire powers, like I did when I was 13.


I’m the best character in Hackers. Admit it.

Vampire emphasizes coming up with a strong character concept before you even think about how their abilities are measured in stats. It features a sidebar with a list of one-word concepts that you can build on, and uses a cooking metaphor to describe how you have to let some ideas sit and stew for awhile before they form a nuanced personality that’s more than a one-note stock character. Since no one is born a vampire, you’re encouraged to develop your character with their mortal life in mind. The only hard limit is that you’re a 13th Generation Kindred with no more than 50 years of experience as a vampire. You can play a character born in the distant past, but that means something happened to put you in hibernation for a long, long time. Vampire suggests that you spend the first session creating characters together, and insists you create characters that can get along. Kindred may be vicious, selfish creatures, but by the same token, a coterie doesn’t survive without mutual trust.

There are seven Clans from which players can choose, which get full write-ups later. From a mechanics point of view, each Clan has a unique weakness, and three Disciplines where you spend your starting points and get an experience point discount later on.

Brujah: Rebels.
Gangrel: Nomads.
Malkavian: Crazy.
Nosferatu: Ugly.
Toreador: Artists.
Tremere: Wizards.
Ventrue: Rich.
Caitiff: Clanless.

Nature and Demeanor is an optional rule, but in my experience, everyone uses it. There’s a list of personality traits, like “Survivor” and “Visionary” and “Caregiver,” and you can choose one to be your Nature (true self) and Demeanor (public self). Your Nature gives you a situation in which you recover a point of Willpower, which is why people like using this rule. It doesn’t have much impact on the game, but it’s a tool for character-building with a mechanical benefit.

Now we get to the meat and potatoes. Vampire has nine basic ability scores, called Attributes and divided evenly into 3 categories: Physical, Social, and Mental. You don’t just get a big pool of points to spend, you have to prioritize. You start with 1 dot in--

Oh, I forgot to mention. Since everything runs on a 1-5 or 1-10 scale, the character sheet has you stat out your PC by filling in dots, and points in a Trait are literally called “dots.” Vampire was my first RPG, and it seemed intuitive enough to me.



The game devoted a lot of effort to easing potential players into the concept and the rules.


You start with 1 dot in every Attribute, and get 7 more in your primary category, 5 in the secondary, 3 in the tertiary. Since the human average is 2 and anything over 5 is superhuman, you’re playing very capable characters even before you get into the spooky vampire tricks.

Vampire’s skills are called Abilities, and these are also divided into categories: Talents, Skills, and Knowledges. You get 13 points to spend in your primary, 9 in your secondary, 5 in your tertiary. I'm not going to list them all out.

You get 3 dots to spend on your Clan’s Disciplines--supernatural powers beyond the ones that every vampire has.

Animalism: Controlling animals.
Auspex: ESP.
Celerity: Breaking the combat system.
Dominate: Mind control.
Fortitude: Super-tough.
Obfuscate: Super-stealth.
Potence: Super-strength.
Presence: Super-charisma.
Protean: Shapeshifting.
Thaumaturgy: Creepy blood magick.

Backgrounds are neat. Vampire has an ahead-of-its-time set of Traits for measuring advantages that go beyond Attributes and Abilities like wealth, contacts, and social status. Unfortunately, some of these have a clear mechanical advantage while others are rather vague.

Allies: Humans you can call on for aid.
Contacts: Sources of information.
Fame: What you get when things are hollow!
Generation: You come from a lower Generation, meaning a bigger Blood Pool. You’re going to buy as much of this as the Storyteller will let you get away with.
Herd: Mortals you can feed on without hassle.
Influence: Political power.
Mentor: An elder Kindred who supports you.
Resources: Money, baby.
Retainers: Renfields.
Status: You have respect and standing among Kindred.





Here’s where it gets weird. The internal struggle of being a bloodsucking monster is part of the rules of the game. Characters have three Virtues, as well as a Humanity and Willpower stat. You start with 1 dot in each Virtue and have 7 more to spend.

Conscience: When you do bad things, you feel bad about it, and thus do not lose Humanity.
Self-Control: You can resist going into frenzy. Frenzy is dangerous and stupid and very very funny.
Courage: You can resist fleeing from fire and sunlight.

Your base Willpower is equal to Courage, and you should raise it higher. You can spend Willpower points to boost rolls, and you roll it for stuff like resisting mind control.

Your base Humanity is equal to Conscience+Self-Control. Your Humanity limits how well you interact with mortals, and if it drops to zero, you lose your mind and become an unplayable beast that only exists to feed and sleep.

(One of the oddities of the World of Darkness is that werewolves, mages, and most other PC types don’t have a Humanity stat to worry about. They’re free to be serial-killing, puppy-kicking, landlord cops, and even the “good guy” factions often tolerated some mass-murdering lunatics among their ranks. But Kindred angst out and they go crazy when they do that poo poo.)

Your Blood Pool is your fuel. You consume a Blood point every night you wake up, you can spend it to boost your Physical Attributes, and Disciplines often cost Blood. You roll a d10 to determine your starting Blood Pool.

Finally, you get a pool of 15 Freebie Points to spend wherever you didn’t have enough dots--with varying costs. (Was Vampire the first game to do this? Maybe.) Disciplines are the most expensive, while Backgrounds are cheap, so you can buy up Generation while no one is looking.


All cops are bastards :pigoff:

Just because Vampire exhorts you to create a complex, well-rounded character doesn’t mean that said character can’t be a gritty action movie protagonist. The example of character creation introduces us to Malcolm, a bitter ex-cop in the Dirty Harry mold who is clearly set up to become a vigilante. Malcolm can’t be a cop anymore*, but he was a narcotics detective and still has scores to settle with drug dealers. So Malcolm is a violent, amoral bloodsucker...and now he’s a vampire too!

*Vampire often ignored the fact that living a more-or-less normal life as Kindred is virtually impossible. How do you hold down a day job when daylight burns you up like an oily rag in a fireplace?

Malcolm’s Nature is Loner, and his Demeanor is Fanatic. He’s a workaholic undercover cop so he can be alone. The details of how all his points are spent is not that interesting, but I’ll point out some highlights: all 3 Discipline dots are spent on Protean, because Malcolm’s player wants to eventually get that cool power that lets you transform into a wolf. Some Freebie Points are spent on a dot of Celerity, because super-speed is good. Malcolm’s Conscience of 2 and Self-Control of 5 give him a total Humanity of 7, which is the human norm, and surprising given that he is explicitly an rear end in a top hat with a dismal view of human nature. Speaking of which, the player decides that Malcolm prefers to feed only on drug dealers and addicts, and is consequently becoming an addict himself, though this has no mechanical effect (at least not yet). He also has a Contact named “Sgt. Grabowski” and another named “Softshoe.” Man, you corny.


Every woman I have ever dated shows up in this game’s art somewhere. Creeps me the gently caress out.


That's it as far as mechanics are concerned. Next is some duh-no-poo poo stuff: describe your character’s appearance, list your Contacts and retainers, and describe your lifestyle. Equipment is basically just a matter of listing whatever notable gear you could reasonably afford based on your Resources or a grant from the Storyteller.

The Prelude is a brief, one-player scenario designed to get a feel for the character and how they react in different situations. (I’ve never played in a group that used the Prelude, but I think it’s a good idea, and something you could do at the same session where you’re creating characters.) It’s meant to have personal stakes or none at all, with no combat. Things like “You come home from work, but your key doesn’t work…what do you do?” Another suggestion is “Your father is dying in the hospital, but visiting hours end before sundown.” It’s also an opportunity to explore and justify the characters Backgrounds (e.g. where they get their Resources or who their Contacts are).

Character creation ends with a Questions and Answers section to help fit your character into the game world. In addition to stuff about your childhood and your job are things like “Who was your sire and how did they treat you? How did the Embrace change you? Where do you make your haven and where do you hunt? Has the Prince accepted you?”


Next time on Kindred the Embraced: Chronic Chronicle Chreation

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Apr 4, 2019

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
It looks like sorcery hasn't changed much. Is the Third Circle Summoning Spell still just an elaborate way to commit suicide?

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

I certainly can’t imagine many situations where it helps compared to the first two, anyway.

EthanSteele
Nov 18, 2007

I can hear you
Sometimes you really want a moment you can point at and go "this is where it all went wrong"

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Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Mr. Prokosch posted:

It looks like sorcery hasn't changed much. Is the Third Circle Summoning Spell still just an elaborate way to commit suicide?
There were a couple of Third Circle demons who didn't have particularly malicious goals. There was the the one that just loved building Manses and was some First Age Solar's big-bap demon wife, and then there was the guy who just loves to shout high quality durable roads into existence.

And... those are the only two I can think of. All the rest were pretty much calling up Azathoth

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